Hantu's Splendours
on the wonderful creations blog and wildfilms blog and discovery blog (with the legend of Hantu) and manta blog and urban forest blog and nature scouters blog and tidechaser blog
“Prevalence of microplastics in Singapore’s coastal marine environment” from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore blog
The Brown Boobook
more about this amazing owl on the bird ecology blog
BBC News 8 Feb 08;
Some coral reefs could be protected from the impacts of climate change by an "ocean thermostat", a study says.
Researchers suggest that natural processes appear to be regulating sea surface temperatures in a region of the western Pacific Ocean.
Reefs in the area had only suffered relatively few episodes of bleaching because the naturally warm waters had remained stable, they observed.
The findings appear in the Geophysical Research Letters online journal.
The study, carried out by scientists from the US National Center for Atmospheric Research (Ncar) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (Aims), appears to support a theory that natural processes prevent ocean sea surface temperatures exceeding 31C (88F).
A limit on the amount that water can warm, the team argues, will help protect reefs that have evolved in warm waters.
Whereas reefs found in cooler waters will experience a larger degree of warming.
"Global warming is damaging many corals," lead author Joan Kleypas explains, "but it appears to be bypassing certain reefs that support some of the greatest diversity of life on the planet.
"In essence, reefs that are already in hot water may be more protected from warming than reefs that are not; this is rare hopeful news for these important ecosystems."
Feeling the heat
Although reefs are exposed to a number of threats, such as overfishing, pollution and acidification, climate change is of particular concern to marine ecologists.
Unusually warm temperatures can cause "bleaching", which is when coral turns white after expelling colourful microscopic organisms that provides the community with its nutrients.
If the water temperature does not return to normal within a few days or weeks, the bleached coral collapses and dies.
The researchers say that a region, called the Western Pacific Warm Pool, to the north-east of Australia has only experience four episodes of bleaching between 1980 and 2005.
Sea surface temperatures in the area average 29C (84F), which is near the limit of the so-called thermostat.
It is suggested that as surface waters warm, more water evapourates, and this can lead to an increase in cooling cloud cover and winds.
"This year is the International Year of the Reef, and we need to go beyond the dire predictions for coral reefs and find ways to conserve them," says Dr Kleypas.
But her Ncar colleague, Gokham Danabasoglu, warns that projections do not paint an optimistic picture.
"Computer models of Earth's climate show that sea surface temperatures will rise substantially this century," he says.
"Unfortunately, these future simulations show the Western Pacific Warm Pool warming at a similar rate as the surrounding areas, instead of being constrained by a thermostat.
"We don't know if the models are simply not capturing the processes that cause the thermostat, or if global warming is happening so rapidly that it will overwhelm the thermostat."
Ocean "Thermostat" May Be Secret Weapon Against Warming
Brian Handwerk
for National Geographic News 8 Feb 08;
A natural but mysterious "ocean thermostat" may be limiting seawater warming in at least one Pacific Ocean locale.
The phenomenon may help protect some of the world's largest and most ecologically diverse coral reefs from the effects of climate change, a new study says.
"There appear to be natural negative feedbacks that keep water temperatures in check—at least in this part of the planet," said study co-author Joan Kleypas from the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado.
Kleypas and colleagues focused on the Western Pacific Warm Pool, a region in the open ocean northeast of Australia.
Water temperatures at the pool, which on average has been about the size of Australia, have risen little in recent decades, even as the rest of Earth's oceans have heated up.
"In the 20th century, warming has been less in that region, and coral bleaching has been less in that region," Kleypas said.
Coral bleaching occurs when warming waters cause corals to expel the colorful algae that sustain them. The corals turn a ghostly white and die in a few days unless temperatures cool down and the algae return.
"The model shows that there is a reason that the water is warming less—it's not just a fluke," Kleypas continued.
"The models and observations are showing the same thing, [which] points to some sort of mechanism or feedback process that is keeping temperatures in check."
Mysterious Process
Scientists have proposed several ways that the world's oceans might be able to regulate sea-surface temperatures.
One theory suggests that warming waters cause more evaporation, which in turn creates cooling cloud cover and prevalent winds.
Warmer waters could also alter the flow of ocean currents and initiate an influx of cooler water in certain areas.
The controversial thermostat theory holds that an undefined process will naturally prevent sea-surface temperatures from rising above 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31 degrees Celsius) in the open oceans.
This is good news for corals in warm waters, such as those that live in the Western Pacific Warm Pool, where the average temperature is about 85 degrees Fahrenheit (29 degrees Celsius).
That's because stable water temperatures—rather than any specific temperature—are what reefs need to survive, said coral expert Nancy Knowlton of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History.
"In general, if the temperature gets above a degree Centigrade [two degrees Fahrenheit] over the normal seasonal maximum, coral reefs are often in trouble," she said.
(Knowlton, who was unaffiliated with the new study, is a National Geographic Committee for Research and Exploration grantee. National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)
Warm-water corals will experience less drastic changes than their cold-water counterparts if an ocean thermostat is in effect.
(Related news: "Corals May Have Defense Against Global Warming" [October 4, 2007].)
The new research, which will appear tomorrow in the online edition of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, lends support to the thermostat theory.
The team's analysis of historical data combined with computer simulations show that the pool has warmed up only half as much as colder ocean regions.
With little idea of how the effect operates, it is unknown if such a thermostat is unique to the Western Pacific Warm Pool.
Such a process may be more widespread and either remain undetected or be overwhelmed by a larger and more complex mix of other climate drivers in waters nearer continental landmasses.
The effect's apparent beneficial impact is likely to draw much more attention to the Western Pacific Warm Pool and its reefs.
"It means that these kinds of places might be high-priority places to protect," the Smithsonian's Knowlton said.
Ancient Regulator
Study author Kleypas and colleagues also say that the pool's thermostat process may have been at work for a long time.
Evidence from the paleontological record suggests that the pool's water temperatures were not much warmer in the past—even during the Cretaceous period, which had higher-than-present levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).
But those ancient climates were more stable, and the team's computer models suggest that the projected rates of carbon entering the atmosphere—and subsequent warming—could overwhelm the regulating effect.
"The bad news is that we did look at some existing runs where [our modeled increase in atmospheric CO2] was pretty strong, and we did not see an effective thermostat," Kleypas said.
While the research raises more questions than it answers, Kleypas said, it provides a hopeful path to pursue.
"It's about solutions to deal with global warming," she said.
"It gives us some hope that these feedbacks exist, and we should be paying attention."
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 8 Feb 08;
It could easily have been the role model for the terrifying creature in the film 'Alien'.
A perfect toxin-loaded killing machine, there is no creature on earth that can dispatch a human being so easily or so quickly.
The box jellyfish is so packed with venom that the briefest of touches can bring agonising death within 180 seconds.
And if comes under sustained attack it responds by sending its compatriots into a super-breeding frenzy in which millions of replacements are created.
The really bad news is that the box jellyfish and another equally poisonous species, Irukandji, are on the move. Scientists are warning that their populations are exploding and will pose a monumental problem unless they are stopped.
The warning comes in a film Invasion of the Jellyfish to be screened by Channel 5 on Tues February 12.
It focuses on the change in behaviour patterns of jellyfish in the Pacific Ocean off Japan and Australia due to depleted food resources as humans fish the world seas.
But a similar incident happened much closer to home in November 27 off the Northern Ireland coast when a 10 mile wide, 13 metre deep swarm of jellyfish swam attacked the country's only salmon farm, wiping out over £1million worth of stock.
Billions of small jellyfish, known as Mauve Stingers, flooded into the cages about a mile into the Irish Sea, off Glenarm Bay and Cushendun.
On the other side of the world scientists who managed to place tracking devices on the jellyfish in the Pacific proved that they were not drifting on the ocean currents but heading determinedly - and at the speed of an Olympic swimmer - towards the coast.
In the film perplexed Japanese salmon fishermen are seen hauling in tonnes of box jellyfish in their nets. The few fish they do haul in are writhing in their death agonies after being stung.
An attempt by the Japanese government to protect their fish stocks by wiping out the swarms using a fleet of commandeered fishing boats to drag razor-sharp wire through them backfired spectacularly.
Scientists discovered captured big female box jellyfish were swollen with millions of eggs - far more than they would normally carry. Similarly males were carrying billions of sperm. Trying to kill them had unleashed a breeding explosion because they are genetically programmed to ensure their survival by producing more offspring than normal when under attack.
The jellyfish have a formidable array of genetic equipment to help them survive:
# Four brains that operate competitively in the search for food.
# A highly complex sensory capacity and the ability to distinguish colour.
# The ability to live in inhospitable waters at a depth of up to 10,900 metres.
# A total of 24 eyes with moveable pupils giving them 360-degree visibility.
# Box jellyfish have 6-8ft long tentacles. Just 5-6ft across the body is enough to kill a human in 180 seconds.
# Venom is released on contact - even after it is dead - and each creature has 4000,000,000 venomous fibres.
# Humans who have been stung and survived have needed 30-40 milligrams of morphine. A broken leg requires between 5-10 milligrams.
# Despite decades of study scientists have been unable to unravel the mysteries of its complex venom but it is known to contain 20 different proteins.
The swarms of jellyfish are multiplying in the Western extent of the Pacific ocean and threatening 20,000 miles of coastline off Japan, Irian Jaya, Papua New Guinea and Australia.
In the film scientists conclude that they swim towards land because it is easier to kill their main prey - fish - in shallow water off the coast which puts them on a dangerous and potentially fatal collision course with unwary swimmers.
In an experiment off the north Australia coast small netted pools were created and kept the large box jellyfish out but people were still being stung. They eventually discovered the tiny transparent Irukandji - almost invisible in daylight - was slipping through the holes in the nets.
The only deterrent so far found is a colour - red. The jellyfish simply ploughed through white-coloured poles in the water and swam round black poles but they stayed as far away as they could from red poles.
Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
With the world in the grip of urbanisation, United Nations biodiversity chief Ahmed Djoghlaf, who visited Singapore last month, tells ARTI MULCHAND that the threat to biodiversity is tremendous. This makes the need to embrace the notion of sustainable development more urgent
There seems to be a heightened sense of urgency in the conservation movement now. Why?
The world is becoming more urbanised, and a third of humanity will live in cities in the coming years.
This growth of urbanisation is taking place in developing countries like China, India, Brazil and Africa, and that is where we have biodiversity that needs to be protected.
If development there is done wrongly, the expansion of cities will contribute dramatically to the loss of biodiversity.
How much of the world's biodiversity is under threat, and what will the impact be?
We have so far recorded two million species but, according to experts, we could have 10 or 100 million species...which we are already losing at a tremendous rate.
Eighty-five per cent of all the biodiversity is in the tropical forests and, every year, 13 million hectares of tropical forests are disappearing.
According to some experts, in one square metre of tropical forest, you can find up to 500 species, and that does not even count micro-organisms.
So we don't know how much we are losing, and how that will affect the global web of life, because there is a domino effect. It is all interconnected.
We have a moral responsibility and an inter-generational responsibility, to give our children a planet that is as healthy as the one we inherited from our ancestors.
Unfortunately, the current generation has done a fantastic job of destroying nature.
The Asean Centre for Biodiversity recently signed an MOU with the Convention on Biological Diversity. What is its significance?
Biodiversity knows no boundaries. Malaysia is right next door and the birds will go where they want. They do not need passports to cross the border.
Similarly, plants and other animals move as well. So you need some regional collaboration to approach conservation.
The MOU means that the centre can act as an implementation arm at the regional level for decisions taken at the international level.
As we go forward, what would your advice to Singapore be in terms of its conservation efforts?
I am extremely impressed by Singapore and never imagined that you would have such greenness and nature in the heart of one of the most populated cities in the world.
Singapore is already going in the right direction. But my plea is that the experience that you have accumulated...you share with the world and your neighbours.
What has happened in Singapore mirrors what will happen in other Asean countries as they grow and become more urban.
You have made some mistakes and you have repaired them, so you have a moral responsibility to help your neighbours avoid the same mistakes.
Clarissa Oon, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
IN NEW Delhi, the city's entire fleet of 10,000 buses runs on compressed natural gas (CNG), which is less polluting than diesel or petrol.
The sight impressed MP Charles Chong, who was visiting the Indian capital to find out how other cities juggle economic growth with protecting the environment.
'I thought, if India can do it, why can't we?' said Mr Chong, who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and the Environment.
The problem here, he found, is the cost of setting up a network of CNG refuelling stations.
Ten refuelling stations would cost around $40 million.
Singapore has only one, on Jurong Island, supporting more than 300 buses and taxis that have switched to CNG. Three more are due to open this year.
Hence the dilemma: save money or save the environment?
As countries across the globe relook their economic policies against the backdrop of climate change and shrinking natural resources, Singapore is no exception.
Last month, it set up an inter-ministerial committee on sustainable development that will find ways to keep the economy growing in an environmentally-sound way.
The move could result in pro-environment changes cutting across sectors such as housing, transport and trade and industry.
Mr Chong and other pro-environment MPs and environmentalists argue that the costs of green technology and infrastructure will translate to long-term gains in clean energy and air.
Insight explores the 'sustainable development' debate and the hard choices ahead for Singapore.
Going green - and staying that way
Clarissa Oon, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
A new inter-ministerial committee on sustainable development is set to rethink Singapore's wasteful, fossil-fuel-reliant culture across sectors such as housing, transport and industry. CLARISSA OON examines the task ahead.
IN DENMARK, drinking to the health of Mother Earth is, literally, a way of life.
Customers do not trash beer and soft-drink bottles but voluntarily return them to retailers to be cleaned and reused.
In return, Danes are refunded the deposit they must pay for each bottle, an amount ranging from 30 to 85 Singapore cents, depending on the bottle size.
If that is not mind-boggling in Singapore's use-and-throw consumer culture, what more the way energy-saving Danes blithely hop on public transport and even ride bicycles to get around in their cities.
Private cars are heavily taxed and taxis are expensive. Cabbies save fuel by not cruising around - they wait atdesignated taxi stands or await calls from passengers.
Environmentalists consider Denmark - along with other green-conscious Scandinavian countries - one of the success stories of sustainable development for the way it has increased its gross domestic product by 70 per cent over the last 25 years without increasing its energy consumption.
Now Singapore too wants a piece of 'sustainable development' - a concept economists and environmentalists have been debating for years.
In recent years, the debate has acquired greater urgency against the backdrop of an unprecedented onslaught on the world's shrinking natural resources by fuel-guzzling cars, polluting factories and mountains of waste.
On the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, last month, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong announced the setting up of a new inter-ministerial committee on sustainable development.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim will co-chair the committee, which will also include Minister for Finance Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Minister for Transport Raymond Lim, and Minister of State for Trade and Industry S. Iswaran.
Sustainable development essentially means keeping the economy humming in an environmentally sound way. The question is how, and that is the difficult part.
Members of Parliament and environmentalists interviewed say the committee will have to make hard, long-term choices to get the mix right.
In particular, it needs to cut waste, push more Singaporeans to recycle, and bring down energy consumption in Singapore's over-air-conditioned buildings and transport systems.
Not just business as usual
SUSTAINABLE development is not simply about playing catch-up with other countries but 'starting and sustaining the effort in a manner that makes sense for us', says MP Jessica Tan (East Coast GRC).
The committee's work will affect how towns and transport are planned and designed, using 'cleaner sources of energy and more environmentally friendly products', adds Ms Tan.
'It could also change our way of life in terms of consumption habits and recycling.'
However, some environment observers think the committee should go further and prescribe out-of-the-box solutions to reduce Singapore's dependence in the long run on imported fossil fuels, like oil.
Apart from the problem of soaring fuel prices, the burning of oil, coal and natural gas releases harmful greenhouse gas emissions. These have been blamed for an overheating planet, rising sea levels and climate change.
Clean and renewable energy, such as solar or wind energy, is now several times more expensive than conventional power, but environmentalists argue that the costs are decreasing as global demand rises and technology improves.
Sustainable development does not mean thinking in the 'same old business-as-usual model', says Nature Society president and former Nominated MP Geh Min.
'I wouldn't like a scenario where the committee says, okay, the economy comes first, so we can't make any drastic changes, we still look at Formula One, tourism, industries, petrochemicals, more of the same.'
For sustainable development to fly, policymakers and ordinary Singaporeans have to develop an environmental consciousness, 'the way cost-effectiveness or social responsibility is built into our thinking', says Dr Geh.
Too small to matter?
ASIDE from the sheer cost of green technologies, another argument in favour of doing nothing is that Singapore is simply too small a country to have any impact on climate change, despite being vulnerable to its effects.
Last November, the Ministry of Trade and Industry released a National Energy Policy Report that made improving energy efficiency and reducing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions a priority.
The report said climate change could result in increased flooding and the spread of diseases in Singapore, as well as a loss of coastal land and water resources.
However, it added pointedly that as a small country, Singapore's 'domestic energy demand is small, and we account for only about 0.15 per cent of the world's carbon dioxide emissions'.
'If the Singapore economy were to shut down completely for one whole year, the CO2 savings would be offset by incremental emissions elsewhere in less than two weeks, based on the current rate of global emissions growth.'
In response, environment observers say Singapore should still do its part as a responsible player in the global economy.
Going green makes good business sense when more consumers go green, they argue.
In addition, Singapore can offer solutions to other cities.
Turning Singapore into a model environmental city gives it a competitive edge at a time when a growing number of economies are looking for ways to minimise the fallout on the environment, said Nominated MP and waste recycling company boss Edwin Khew Teck Fook.
'Right now we are helping (the northern Chinese port city of) Tianjin to develop an 'eco-city'.
'But, looking at ourselves, are we a perfect model to be able to teach others?' he asked.
Spotty track record
WHILE it has done well in water recycling and introducing many 'green lungs' in the form of parks and trees, Singapore is still far from the eco-city it can be.
For one, its buildings and vehicles are spewing emissions at a rate that is among the highest in the world, according to a World Bank Environment Department report last October.
The report ranked 70 countries, according to percentage increase, for their emissions from 1994 to 2004. Singapore was 10th.
Its carbon dioxide emissions jumped 60 per cent over the period, just 8 percentage points lower than high-profile polluter China and higher than India (53 per cent) and Indonesia (48 per cent).
Over the same period, Singapore's population also surged from 3.4 million to 4.2 million.
Littering offences have gone up about three times since 2006.
Just over half of all waste is recycled, according to National Environmental Agency figures.
This lags far behind Scandinavian countries where the recycling rate is 70 to 80 per cent or higher, says MP Charles Chong (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC), who chairs the Government Parliamentary Committee for National Development and Environment.
While recognising the need to clean up its own backyard, Singapore is also stepping up cooperation with the region.
On April 12, 2006, it ratified the Kyoto Protocol, an international treaty binding members to cut their emissions by specified rates within a specified time frame.
Last November, it pushed successfully for an Asean declaration in which member countries work together on climate change.
MP Penny Low (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) believes that finding the right sustainable development solutions requires careful cross-cultural studies.
'We should scan the world for innovation and take it further here,' she says.
Yet there is no one perfect country when it comes to sustainable development, says Dr Geh.
'Japan, for example, is very clean, but look at the Japanese whaling and over-fishing practices, and the way they have depleted forests in South-east Asia.
'They're not so conservation-minded outside their national borders,' she quips.
In a way, she says, the old environmentalists' adage of 'think global but act local' no longer holds.
'You also have to act to influence global action. I think the PM realises this, that's why he's making environmental pronouncements at Davos.
'But we have to set our own house in order first.'
Clarissa Oon, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
SAVINGS of up to $1,000 a year on air-conditioning bills await home owners at The Oceanfront @ Sentosa Cove condominium.
Developer City Developments, known for its green condominiums, has installed energy-efficient air-conditioners at the 250-plus multimillion-dollar flats.
Although green features such as these air-conditioners and solar-powered lighting take up 3 to 5 per cent of a building's construction cost, City Developments says it brings long-term savings in property maintenance and emissions reduction.
It has calculated that energy savings at its Sentosa Cove condominium will total $290,000 a year or up to $1,000 per apartment.
Pursuing sustainable development - in terms of infrastructure, public education and incentives - is not cheap, but green companies and environmentalists say there are long-term gains.
Apart from green buildings, another example is solar energy. It is costly to introduce, although it is the best clean-energy option for Singapore given its year- round tropical weather.
Using today's electricity rates, the executive director of the Singapore Environment Council, Mr Howard Shaw, calculates that it will take 10 to 15 years for such an investment to turn in a profit.
But Mr Shaw argues it makes sense given the way oil prices have moved: 'We've all seen how quickly oil prices escalated in recent months.
'Placing in renewable energy infrastructure may be a way to ensure a more secure energy supply, one that will cost us less should oil prices rise to $200 to $300 a barrel,' says Mr Shaw.
That head start can be seen in the Scandinavian countries such as Iceland, Norway and Denmark.
These countries began developing renewable energy sources like geothermal, hydroelectric and wind power after the oil price shocks of the 1970s.
Singapore took its first steps only last March when it announced a $170 million fund to research and develop clean energy projects.
MP Charles Chong (Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC) cites transport as one area where Singapore can do more.
He wants compressed natural gas (CNG), which is cleaner than diesel or petrol, to power more buses and taxis here.
But his wish runs smack into one major obstacle. There are too few points where these vehicles can re-fuel. There is only one at Jurong Island, and three more will open this year at Mandai, Jalan Buroh and Serangoon North.
It is not viable to set up more because the current number of CNG vehicles is not enough to support a wider network.
Official figures show Singapore has 334 natural gas vehicles and 381 hybrid vehicles on the road.
Hybrid cars run on both batteries and petrol. They consume 15 to 40 per cent less fuel and emit fewer pollutants than conventional vehicles of the same size running on petrol.
However, hybrids cost 10 to 20 per cent more, even with the Government's 40 per cent rebate on their open market value, which excludes the certificate of entitlement premium and road tax that a car owner has to pay.
So, what is standing in the way of Singapore going green boils down to two main factors: high prices of green products and the absence of scale to make it viable for companies to invest.
These have, in turn, impeded consumer buy-in, says City Developments managing director Kwek Leng Joo.
Public education on protecting the environment is therefore needed to make such efforts viable, he adds.
Tips on how to be more eco-friendly
Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
SUGGESTIONS from MPs and environmentalists on how Singapore can be more environmentally friendly:
# Have more collection areas for used plastic, bottles and paper in HDB estates. Make them more prominent.
# In new HDB estates, install twin refuse chutes in flats: one for food waste, the other for recycling (below).
# Educate the public on recycling, like not to throw food in bins marked for glass and plastic.
# Give incentives or tax rebates to retailers who stop offering free plastic bags to customers. In many European countries, shoppers bring their own cloth bags.
# Give incentives to individuals to install solar panels in their homes to generate electricity. When no one is home, the energy can be fed into the neighbourhood's power grid.
Letter from Charissa He Qing Fang (Ms), Straits Times Forum 9 Feb 08;
WHILE on the bus the other day, I was watching TVMobile when a television commercial came on with teenagers talking about saving the Earth.
I applaud the National Environment Agency (NEA) for taking such an active approach to combating global warming and a host of other environmental problems in one commercial, managing to kill two birds with one stone.
However, a television commercial such as this one is very focused. Perhaps a little too focused? I do not see how adults will be able to relate to those youth. Yes, the target group is obviously youth, and the strategy is plainly to inculcate the values of being eco-friendly while the youth are still young. But maybe targeting the people who are wasting the most would be a more sound approach?
Youth do not have much spending power, limited mostly by their allowances and, for some, a part-time job to supplement that allowance. Although increasingly the young are having more and more influence on the consumer market, the people who are spending real money are the yuppies and PMEBs.
There are many segments of the population which the NEA could target, vehicles are a real menace to the Earth. The people who drive are people in the workforce. Why are the advertisements not targeting them?
It is comforting to see that when the NEA conducted a survey, '95% of respondents recognised that they have a responsibility to care for the environment'.
The message the NEA is sending out is right, but the people who should be receiving it are not getting it.
Perhaps the NEA should adopt a more all-rounded approach to target the segment of the market who cause the most damage to the environment.
Shock and scare tactics seemed to have worked for drink driving and smoking, so why not try it out on anti-environmentalists?
Save the birds, spy on their courtship
Tracy Sua, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
Study of nesting hornbills earned BirdPark and partners international conservation prize
SEVEN nesting pairs of hornbills lost their privacy as new parents in the name of an effort to save the species.
These Oriental Pied Hornbills were housed in man-made nesting boxes, each wired up with four spy cameras which tracked the birds' activities from courtship through to egg-laying and feeding the nestlings.
This two-year pioneering study bagged the Jurong BirdPark and its partners, the National Parks Board and the Nanyang Technological University, a rare international award.
Rare, because the prize given out at the International Symposium on Breeding Birds in Captivity for achievements in avian research and conservation was last awarded 10 years ago.
The symposium gathered agriculturalists and zoologists from 14 countries. Nearly 30 entries were in the running for the award.
Jurong BirdPark's executive director Wong Hon Mun, who is reported to have resigned from his post this week, said that the research team was proud that its work in conservation had won international recognition.
The Oriental Pied Hornbill once disappeared completely from Singapore. It has been staging a shaky comeback over the past 14 years on Pulau Ubin and in Changi Village.
The team that studied this notoriously secretive bird managed to capture footage of mother birds eating their own chicks, something that had never been seen before.
These birds, which do not breed well in captivity and even in the wild, are known to be fussy about where their nests are sited.
Their nests must be high above the ground and in old or diseased trees, which provide crannies in which the birds lay their eggs.
Dr Wong explained that the female hornbill seals herself and her chicks up in these cubbyholes and leaves it to the male to forage for food.
Although hornbills normally eat fruit, they start feeding on small animals such as lizards and bats when they are nesting.
Since diseased trees are often the first to be given the chop, hornbills have been losing their nesting sites.
The study team's first order of business was to design nesting boxes that the birds would deign to use.
The boxes, fitted with cameras and placed in Jurong BirdPark and on Pulau Ubin, must have passed muster, because breeding pairs took up residence in them. Over two years, these pairs, along with others in the wild, produced 28 chicks.
Six in 10 of the youngsters in the study survived. The chicks that did not either fell out of the nest or were eaten by predators, but most were eaten by their mothers.
The researchers hope to find out whether this culling is innate or if it is the result of insufficient food.
Part Two of the study will give the birds smaller nests, such as those found in the wild. Higher-resolution cameras will be used and DNA mapping will be performed to find out how the hornbills in the BirdPark, on Pulau Ubin and in the wild are related.
Reuters 8 Feb 08;
PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - Madagascar's turtles and tortoises are crawling towards extinction, threatened by the illegal pet trade and a local taste for tortoise, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) said.
Evolving in splendid isolation since it broke away from the rest of Africa around 160 million years ago and became the world's fourth largest island, Madagascar has a unique but sometimes threatened biodiversity.
"Five of the nine assessed species (of turtles and tortoise) have been downgraded to critically endangered, with one variety -- the ploughshare tortoise -- now numbering only a few hundred individuals," a WCS statement issued on Thursday said.
The illegal trade in tortoises and turtles is still the largest single threat for several of the species, the statement said.
"Ploughshare, spider and flat-tailed tortoises, along with juvenile radiated tortoises, are particularly coveted by collectors," it said. "Meanwhile adult radiated tortoises are sold for food in regional markets," it added.
Some 85 percent of the large Indian Ocean island's 20 million population were living on less than $2 per day in 2005, according to official data.
(Reporting by Ed Harris; Editing by Tim Pearce)
Channel NewsAsia 8 Feb 08;
SINGAPORE: Ah Meng, the Sumatran orang utan that was considered an icon at the Singapore Zoo, died on Friday. She was about 48 years old and had died of old age.
In 1971, Ah Meng was confiscated from a family which had illegally kept her as a pet. She then found her home at the Singapore Zoo.
Ah Meng was the first to host the Zoo's famous 'Breakfast With An Orang Utan' programme. She soon became a celebrity, both locally and internationally.
She had been featured in over 30 travel films and 'interviewed' by more than 300 writers.
In 1992, Ah Meng received a special award from the Singapore Tourism Board in recognition of her contribution towards tourism in Singapore.
As an icon of the Singapore Zoo, Ah Meng has met numerous foreign dignitaries and world-renowned celebrities such as Prince Philip, David Copperfield, Michael Jackson and Elizabeth Taylor.
Ah Meng also contributed to the Singapore Zoo's captive breeding programme. She had five children and became a grandmother in 1990.
As a tribute to her, the next orang utan to be born at the Singapore Zoo shall be named Ah Meng Junior.
And to commemorate Ah Meng's efforts towards generating a greater awareness on the plight of orang utans in the wild, the Singapore Zoo will intensify its conservation work for orang utans.
The public can see their beloved orang utan for the last time at the Zoo on Sunday, 11am. She will be buried on the same day.
Fanny Lai, Group CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore, said: "We mourn the passing of Ah Meng. She has touched the hearts of everyone who has met her and contributed immensely in helping to promote awareness of how each and every one of us can play a role in anti-poaching, anti-deforestation and conservation matters. We will miss her dearly."
Alagappasamy s/o Chellaiyah, who is also known as Sam, said: "I have taken care of Ah Meng since she first came to the Zoo. Her departure makes me extremely sad and it will take a long while for me to adjust to not having her around. On the other hand, I am very happy that I have had the opportunity to take care of Ah Meng and her family all these years."
Ah Meng will certainly be missed by many, including President S R Nathan, who spoke to reporters at the Istana Open House on Friday afternoon.
He said: "Ah Meng has been so much of a symbol of the Zoo. A lot of people – locals and foreigners – have enjoyed her company. I'm sure the patrons of the Zoo will miss her a great deal. But that's life."- CNA/so
Goodbye, Ah Meng
Radha Basu, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
TO MOST Singaporeans, Ah Meng was the friendly, lovable orang utan who became a tourism icon and the face of the Singapore Zoo the world over.
But to the man who tended to her, played with her and looked after her every need for nearly four decades, she had grown to be as precious as family.
Yesterday, hours after her surprise death, trainer Alagappasamy Chellaiyah was still walking slowly with his head bowed, lost in thought.
Inside the zoo office, he sat down with The Straits Times, quickly rubbed his tired, red eyes and said: 'I knew her for more than 36 years.
'That's longer than I've known my wife.'
Now a curator of the zoo, the 57-year-old father of three grown-up children has known Ah Meng since the day she arrived at the Singapore Zoo as an 11-year-old, having been rescued from a Chinese family who had illegally kept her as a pet.
Though she had been growing old - she was estimated to have been around 48 years old, the human equivalent of nearly 95 - Ah Meng was in relatively good health.
A detailed medical examination - including blood and urine tests - a couple of months ago had given her the all-clear, though she moved slowly and suffered from occasional bouts of constipation.
So, despite her age, the end was somewhat unexpected.
'She went for her customary walk yesterday. This morning, she had her usual breakfast of grapes, watermelons and oranges,' said Mr Alagappasamy, who prefers to be known as Mr Samy.
But a mere half-hour later, she threw up, prompting Mr Samy to call for the vet.
While waiting for the vet, Ah Meng was on her feet, holding on to a wire mesh. Suddenly, Mr Samy noticed that although her eyes were open, she was motionless.
'I knew this was not normal, I knew this was bad,' said Mr Samy. It was 11.20am. The vet arrived soon after to confirm the worst.
Together with his colleagues, Mr Samy said he will miss Ah Meng's 'friendliness' the most - that and the loving way in which she tended to her young.
'She was so human, such a loving mother.
'Even when she grew old, she was always playing with the young ones.'
It was some of these qualities, together with the numerous publicity campaigns she fronted, that made her special, said deputy head keeper Jackson Raj. The 34-year-old has also been tending to Ah Meng in recent years.
'She liked eating grapes and dragonfruit,' said Mr Raj. 'But durians were her favourite.'
While the staff at the orang utan exhibit were subdued, news of Ah Meng's death had yet to reach the hordes of holidaymakers thronging the zoo yesterday afternoon and staff elsewhere on the sprawling grounds.
Most greeted the news with surprise and sadness.
'Are you sure the news is true?' asked engineer Eric Tay, 34, who had visited the orang utan exhibit with his daughters earlier in the day.
'There were several orang utan there, and I saw an elderly one lying down whom I thought was Ah Meng,' he said.
Like Mr Tay, accountant Seaway Theng, 32, had also visited the orang utan exhibit yesterday afternoon and not noticed anything amiss.
Now a Singapore permanent resident, Mr Theng grew up in Johor, where he had heard of Ah Meng's friendly antics and seen television footage of her.
When he first visited Singapore as a schoolboy in 1989, he made sure he went to the zoo and had a photograph taken with her.
'She was so famous that we just had to get the picture,' said Mr Theng, who was visiting the zoo yesterday with his wife and seven-month-old son.
Her death - like her life - will leave a mark on many who grew up in the 80s and 90s.
Said Mr Theng: 'It's sad, but she was old, so I can't say I am surprised.'
Ah Meng dies: She was the Singapore Zoo's brightest star, loved by all
K. C. Vijayan, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
SHE was a great-looking Singapore girl who rubbed shoulders with royalty, movie stars and statesmen.
People paid to sip tea with her, and countless others liked nothing better than to be photographed next to her.
So when Ah Meng the orang utan died yesterday, aged 48, it marked the end of an era at the Singapore Zoo.
Saddened by the news, former zoo chief Bernard Harrison remembered: 'She had the character to be a mega-star, the personality to pull that off and became a legend.'
Ah Meng was a household name and remained the zoo's star attraction, even as age slowed her down. In human terms, she was nearly 95, and is believed to have died of old age.
Born in Sumatra, Indonesia, she arrived at the zoo in 1971 after being removed from a family who kept her as an illegal pet.
Stardom came in 1982 with the zoo's 'Breakfast with An Orang Utan' programme, which featured Ah Meng at centre stage.
Within four years, she featured in almost 30 travel films and more than 270 write-ups worldwide.
Among those who dropped in on her were Britain's Prince Philip, pop superstar Michael Jackson and actress Elizabeth Taylor.
Such was her pulling power that the then Singapore Tourism Promotion Board made her a Special Tourism Ambassador in 1992, the first non-human recipient of the award.
The zoo's former head of public relations, Mr Robin Goh, said part of Ah Meng's charm was how she took to people.
'She came from a domesticated background as a pet and behaved differently from wild orang utans. She could drink tea from a teacup and looked good for an ape,' he said.
Ah Meng is survived by four children and six grandchildren.
A memorial will be held at 11am on Sunday at the zoo, and the public will be able to view Ah Meng's body from 9am.
Reacting to the news, President SR Nathan said at yesterday's Istana open house that Ah Meng had long been a symbol of the Singapore Zoo.
'A lot of people, both local and foreigners, have enjoyed her company,' he said. 'I'm sure the patrons of the zoo will miss her. But that's life.'
The life and times of the zoo's most famous resident
Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
Since 1971, Ah Meng had charmed visitors to the zoo, hobnobbed with celebrities and even received a special tourism ambassador award
# 1971: The zoo's most famous resident, Ah Meng the orang utan, is taken from a couple who were keeping her as a pet in their kampung house.
# April 1975: Ah Meng gives birth to a male named Hsing Hsing, her first offspring.
# August 1978: Zoo visitor throws a sharp metal or wooden object at Ah Meng, leaving a gash on her cheek.
# July 1980: She gives birth to Medan, a female offspring.
# March 1982: During the shooting of a promotional video, Ah Meng spends two nights up a tree (left) at MacRitchie Reservoir. She refuses to come down after the shoot is over and instead climbs higher. On her way down, she slips and falls seven storeys, breaking her right arm.
# 1982: The zoo introduces the Breakfast With An Orang Utan programme, with Ah Meng as its star.
# February 1983: Hong Bao, another female offspring, is born.
# October 1985: Ah Meng is mobbed by a crowd of 400 during her 21st birthday party.
# August 1989: During her second month of pregnancy, zoo keepers notice her bleeding. She is given an ultrasound by specialists from Thomson Medical Centre and National University Hospital, but has a miscarriage.
# April 1989: Pusung, an 11-year-old Sumatran orang utan from Perth, arrives as a mate for Ah Meng.
# November 1989: Ah Meng dines with Tanya Evans from Melbourne, Australia. The dying 11-year-old had been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis.
# July 1990: She gives birth to a fourth offspring, Sayang, a female.
# September 1991: Ah Meng becomes a grandmother when her second-born, 10-year-old Medan, gives birth to son Kamal.
# September 1992: Ah Meng, jealous that her keeper is paying attention to a research student, attacks the visitor. The student, a Frenchwoman, is at the zoo to study orang utan behaviour.
# March 1992: Ah Meng receives a Special Tourism Ambassador award from the then-Singapore Tourist Promotion Board at the Westin Stamford. It was a one-time award specially created for her. She receives a certificate and a stack of bananas.
# September 1993: Ah Meng is among six orang utan having a romp with Michael Jackson at the Raffles Hotel pool.
# December 1996: Satria, her fifth offspring is born
# July 2005: Ah Meng is mated with 28-year-old Charlie
Zakir Hussain, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
He says incomes must rise more than inflation, and growth means more income
PRIME Minister Lee Hsien Loong reiterated that while measures can be taken to deal with rising living costs, the way to deal with the issue was by growing the economy so that real incomes rise more than inflation.
He said on Thursday that when the economy grew by 7.5 per cent last year, incomes did not just rise at the top end, but across the board.
'Even (at) the bottom, the middle, everybody's real income went up. I think that is the right way to overcome these problems,' he said, when asked by reporters about rising costs.
Manpower Minister Ng Eng Hen said last Sunday that strong economic growth last year saw a general rise in wages by some 8 per cent. This was also on the back of a record 237,000 jobs created and unemployment at a 10-year low.
Still, Mr Lee on Thursday suggested another way for Singaporeans to adjust to rising food prices.
They could buy frozen food instead of more expensive fresh food, he noted, just days after he also suggested that people could opt for house brand goods, which cost less than others.
The Government is expected to announce measures to help ease the burden of rising costs, especially for those most in need, when the Budget is presented on Friday.
Mr Lee declined to hint at what help might come their way, saying 'we have to wait and see what the Finance Minister comes up with'.
He was speaking to reporters after visiting those working on the first day of the Chinese New Year, something he has done regularly.
This year, he was at Changi Airport's Terminal 3 and handed out mandarin oranges and hongbao.
Accompanied by labour chief Lim Swee Say, Transport Minister Raymond Lim and union leaders, the Prime Minister spent two hours offering new year wishes to some 160 workers - from toilet cleaners to baggage handlers. He thanked them for working when most people had the day off to celebrate with family and friends.
'We all owe them something, because while the rest of us are celebrating Chinese New Year, they are keeping Singapore ticking and running, whether it's the airport or the port, or the trains or the hospitals, or the incinerator plants, or the police and security people who are keeping us safe,' he said.
'I think it's something important that Singapore is always on the alert...switched on and going.'
Among the workers greeted by Mr Lee was Mr Ong Ang Jee, 67, who retrieves baggage trolleys. He told the Prime Minister that he was glad for the chance to exercise by working.
Terminal 3 opened last month and Mr Lee was happy to see that it was operating smoothly.
On rising food prices, he noted that the trend was global and said the Government had helped Singaporeans in a number of ways, including the Goods and Services Tax offset package and Workfare Income Supplement for low-wage workers.
'These are very substantial amounts, and substantial measures. At the same time, of course people have to make adjustments. Because if food becomes expensive it's a worldwide thing, there's no way we can make it cheaper in Singapore.'
'But what you can do is to adjust, go for house brands, maybe go for frozen food instead of fresh food.'
The Trade and Industry Ministry has pointed out that a recent survey showed that compared to many other countries, Singapore has one of the lowest rates of inflation when it comes to food.
Business Times 9 Feb 08
(CHONGQING, China) China is supposed to be getting richer, but for Liu Gaohua, rising prices on everything from cabbages to houses mean life is only getting tougher.
'It's hard to get by day-to-day,' said the resident of Chongqing, a western Chinese industrial city on the upper reaches of the Yangtze river.
'We eat less pork than before. Before, we would eat it every day. Now it's just too expensive. We eat it about every third or fourth day,' he said.
Mr Liu, who works in the railway industry and is married with a 14-year-old son, is typical of those being squeezed hardest by soaring prices - the lower middle-class urban residents far from China's wealthier coastal cities.
With consumer prices rising at their fastest rate in 11 years, China's inflation is not only a sign of economic woes, it has become a political challenge for a leadership worried that any slowdown will erode its support and trigger instability.
President Hu Jintao, Premier Wen Jiabao and their team of economic policy-makers find themselves caught between the goals of their reform programme and their need to step in to moderate prices and ward off the spectre of social unrest that has haunted every generation of China's Communist rulers.
Inflation figures have been disproportionately affected by rising food costs, especially staples like pork and cooking oil, leading some economists to predict the rises would not last.
But others say that Mr Hu and Mr Wen might be victims of the very success of their programme to build a 'harmonious society'.
The term has become a catch-phrase referring to a model of more moderate growth that seeks to account for costs previously overlooked, from worker safety to environmental protection. An emphasis on work safety means smaller coal mines are being shut down, a campaign on food and product safety has taken some of the cheaper - and more harmful - pesticides and fertilisers off the shelves and a crackdown on polluters is forcing factories to install better equipment. Wages are also rising as the reservoir of surplus labour begins to be mopped up.
But all of that reflects a broader adjustment in the economy that could mean higher prices will not quickly abate.
'There's obviously mounting costs all along the way,' said Matthew Crabbe, managing director of consumer research group Access Asia.
For some residents, the benefit of those policies that aim to save lives, curb environmental degradation and create a more equitable society, are being obscured by the only immediate consequence they see: the effect on their wallets. Mrs Li, a 52-year-old housewife, complains that she pays about 15 yuan (S$2.96) per half kilo of pork, compared with six yuan a year ago.
It was in a supermarket here in Chongqing that three people were killed in a November supermarket stampede as they scrambled for cut-price cooking oil.
Housing prices in the gritty port city are also soaring.
Mrs Li, who only gave her surname, said that houses in Chongqing were going for around 7,000 yuan per square metre, compared to about 1,200 per square metre a few years ago. 'We have no means to get by,' she said.
Her friend, joining her in a game of cards at a chilly temple courtyard tucked away from the city's bustle, chimed in. 'Wages are rising but the price of food is going up much faster,' said the woman, surnamed Tan. 'Our demands, our wishes, are that the government controls this. They shouldn't let prices rise too high.'
The government stepped in earlier this month, announcing that it would 'temporarily intervene' in the market to prevent excessive price rises, harkening back to China's planned economy days.
'Essentially, the government is saying, where possible, and especially if you are a state utility, don't raise prices and contribute to these worries,' said Yang Dali, director of Singapore's East Asian Institute.
In the past few weeks, the Education Ministry has also weighed in with temporary subsidies for student canteens, and Vice-Premier Hui Liangyu called for stricter implementation of farming subsidies and preferential policies for rural workers.
The policy moves play to the image Mr Wen has cultivated for himself as a man of the people. But the strategy, while appeasing the masses, is not without risks.
'The worry is, if you impose those price controls you may distort the price situation and let deformities increase over time,' said Singapore's East Asian Institute's Yang Dali.
But without controls, the spectre of social unrest looms. Inflation is often cited as a reason the Nationalist government lost the civil war to Communists in 1948-49. Market relaxations in 1988 caused sharp price rises that were seen as contributing to discontent that culminated in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations a year later. -- Reuters
New York Times, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
Consumers feel the squeeze with low wage growth and rising prices of staples
LONDON - THE price of bread has risen 12 per cent in Germany in a year. Butter has increased by 45 per cent, and milk 25 per cent.
'And that is just your breakfast,' said Mr Holger Schmieding, an economist at the Bank of America in London. 'Don't get me started on lunch.'
Across Europe, surging food and energy costs and subdued wage growth are combining to create angst about a loss of purchasing power for the euro, pound, kronor and other currencies in the pockets of shoppers.
A measure of consumer confidence compiled by the European Commission last month fell to the lowest level since early 2006. Retail sales have been falling too.
With staples such as food and energy taking up more of their pay cheques, Europeans appear to be cutting back on discretionary purchases such as computers, clothing and package tours to sunny locales, economists said. They are not happy about it and are demanding action.
Opinion polls showed that purchasing power is a top concern of consumers in France, presenting President Nicolas Sarkozy with one of his biggest economic challenges since he was elected last year.
In Britain, a committee in Parliament announced this week that it planned to investigate the energy market after several utility companies announced double-digit increases in energy prices for local customers.
At a time when the euro is trading near all-time highs against the dollar, complaints about its value might seem misplaced. But analysts said that there were grounds for the complaints about fading spending power.
Across the euro zone, inflation was running at an annual rate of 3.2 per cent last month, the highest level in nearly 15 years, and considerably above the European Central Bank's goal of less than 2 per cent.
The rate is also above the 2.5 per cent increase in labour costs that the bank recorded in the third quarter, showing that price increases were outpacing the growth in wages and eating into the purchasing power of Europeans.
But economists said that consumers' perceptions of a loss in spending power might be running ahead of reality, as the costs of essential items such as food and petrol, which consumers buy frequently, have been rising far faster than the prices of occasional purchases such as electronics.
'What you might call fun spending has been falling as a result,' said Mr Jonathan Loynes, an economist at Capital Economics in London.
In Britain, the problems of higher food and energy costs have, in some cases, been compounded by higher mortgage payments as banks tightened lending standards after the Northern Rock bank incident.
The consumer price index rose only 2.1 per cent last December, but the retail price index, which adds mortgage interest payments to the mix, was up 4 per cent, showing the squeeze on British consumers from higher housing costs.
Meanwhile, food prices raced ahead at a rate of 5.4 per cent.
While the headlines have been full of dire economic predictions linked to the sub-prime lending crisis in the United States, economists said that higher costs for food and energy have been a bigger factor in angering European consumers.
'Forget about sub-prime,' said Mr Schmieding. 'It is the European reaction to food and energy costs that has shaped the data more.'
Some of the consumer gloom pre-dated the increases in food and energy prices and the sub-prime crisis.
The French were grumbling about purchasing power during the presidential campaign last year. Part of it may have more to do with approaching labour negotiations, analysts said.
Train operators at Deutsche Bahn, the German state railroad, recently won an 11 per cent wage increase after a drawn-out strike.
That settlement appeared to have emboldened labour unions elsewhere to set the bar high. Workers in the German public sector, for instance, are demanding a raise of 8 per cent.
Higher wages might make workers feel better in the short term. But without corresponding increases in productivity, analysts said, higher wages simply cause higher inflation.
Meanwhile, European policymakers have little room to manoeuvre. A US-style stimulus package would be difficult to initiate in Europe, analysts said, given the euro zone's strict limits on public-sector borrowing.
NEW YORK TIMES
Shreekant Gupta, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
THIS year marks a watershed in human history: For the first time, more than half of humanity, about 3.3 billion people, will be living in towns and cities.
This fact is particularly salient for South Asia, home to more than 1.6 billion people or a quarter of humanity, of which a third live in urban areas.
South Asia will account for five of the world's 10 biggest cities within seven years - Delhi, Dhaka, Karachi, Kolkata and Mumbai. By 2015, a total of about 700 million South Asians will be living in towns and cities.
South Asia is also witnessing rapid economic growth and transformation, and its towns and cities are at the heart of this process. Growth is taking place in dynamic sectors such as manufacturing, information technology, services, retail, banking, insurance and finance - all of which are urban-centric.
By 2011, the urban share of India's national income is expected to rise to 65 per cent, though only slightly more than 30 per cent of the population will be urban dwellers.
In Pakistan and Bangladesh, the mega-cities of Karachi and Dhaka, respectively, dominate the economy. The city of Karachi, for instance, not only accounts for about a tenth of Pakistan's population of 165 million people, it also generates up to 70 per cent of its national revenue and more than 40 per cent of the value-add of its manufacturing.
But towns and cities, though 'engines of growth', can pose a serious threat to economic growth. They can generate social tensions if urbanisation is unplanned and unmanaged.
All urban areas in the region, big and small, face similar challenges in providing good governance, livelihood opportunities, adequate housing, water, sanitation, transport and other amenities to their residents. Unless it can make its towns and cities liveable, South Asia will not be able to sustain and accelerate its growth plans.
Any visitor to South Asian cities comes away with an impression of stark contrast - incredible wealth and consumerism juxtaposed with abject poverty and squalor. While average incomes are relatively high in urban centres, these averages conceal wide disparities in income.
In India, the urban poor account for at least a third of the urban population, if not more. Given a total urban population of more than 300 million, this translates into a staggering 100 million or more destitute people, living in slums and shanties and sleeping on the streets.
A key challenge in urban South Asia is to make local governments truly representative and accountable to the people. Here the experience of countries in the region has been varied.
Ironically, local democracy has gone furthest in Pakistan and that too during the rule of President Pervez Musharraf. Following local government elections in 2001, a lot of administrative and expenditure responsibilities were devolved to district governments headed by elected nazims (mayors).
Sri Lanka too has had some success in devolution. India, however, has lagged behind and its towns and cities are still effectively run by municipal commissioners (career civil servants) who are accountable only to their superiors (if at all) but certainly not to the people.
It is again an irony that in a country which (rightfully) takes pride in its democracy, urban residents have no say on issues that impinge on their daily life.
While all major cities of the world - New York, Paris, Tokyo and Karachi - are run by elected mayors who represent (and are answerable to) their citizens, this is not the case in India. While democracy may not be sufficient, it is certainly necessary for better governance and to put people in charge of their own affairs.
The second key challenge is to improve urban governance. This in effect means making public servants accountable. All across South Asia, lowly-paid but employed-for-life functionaries give rise to sloth, inefficiency and corruption. The last is partly due to the large degree of discretion these functionaries enjoy, given the extensive state control over economic activity that still prevails in India. Dozens of permits and clearances are needed to set up even a small shop or trade and this encourages rent-seeking.
In addition, periodic pay hikes for unionised government employees result in asymmetric incentives - carrots but no sticks. City bureaucracies, instead of downsizing and becoming better paid, end up becoming fatter and more slothful.
Indeed, the precarious state of municipal finances all across South Asia is a third key challenge. Bloated payrolls and inadequate revenue make cash-starved city governments dependent on, and hence subservient to, handouts from provincial and central governments.
The main sources of wealth in a city - namely land and property - are inadequately taxed. Instead, many cities rely on antediluvian sources of revenue such as octroi - an entry tax on goods coming into the city - as well as regressive indirect taxes such as sales tax.
Even in a city like Mumbai, which has Manhattan-like real estate prices, property tax is not the primary source of revenue. It is octroi.
In sum, for South Asia to manage its urban transition and to ensure sustained economic growth, governments will have to get serious about making their cities habitable. And for that to happen, they must look into the three Fs - functions, functionaries and funds.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at NUS' Institute of South Asian Studies and is a former director of the National Institute of Urban Affairs in New Delhi. The views expressed here are personal.
Scores of such projects in the works, some with foreign partners
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
BEIJING - HOME to polluted rivers, smog-filled cities and factories belching out Earth-warming carbon emissions, China often grabs headlines for its notorious environmental problems.
But what is less known is that the country is also at the forefront of bold experiments to build ecological cities that could show the way forward in sustainable urban living for the rest of the world.
Architects and urban planners told The Straits Times that scores of such projects are in the works here locally, as well as with foreign partners including those from Britain, Germany, Finland and Singapore.
They are looking to build small 'eco-cities' in China where vibrant economic activity and growth will not exact the toll that energy-guzzling, car-filled modern cities inflict on the environment. In other words, urban design, buildings, road layouts, modes of transportation and clean technology will all meet strict green requirements.
Nowhere else in the world was there more activity in developing eco-cities than in China, said Mr Paul Downton, principal architect and urban ecologist of Adelaide-based Ecopolis Architects.
'China is the absolute visionary leader in this field. Lots of people elsewhere are talking about eco-cities but China is actually doing it,' he told The Straits Times.
Beyond China, experts say the only other project making waves is the 'zero-carbon' city known as the 'Masdar' project in the United Arab Emirates, designed by renowned British architect Norman Foster, in the desert outside Abu Dhabi for 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses. The city will run on renewable, mostly solar, energy and have no cars.
The feasibility of eco-cities has been debated since the 1970s, said Mr Richard Register, founder and president of California-based non-profit educational group Ecocity Builders.
But actual projects have largely not taken off because of 'business approaches that have given us the wild idea that we can have human economic growth forever on a finite planet', said Mr Register, 64, the author of books on ecological city design and planning.
'In the 1970s, there was the beginning of a wake-up about the environment. But people preferred to have more cars and prosperity of the strictly human, not ecologically inclusive sort,' he said.
Now, growing environmental awareness, climate change and road congestion are reviving those ideas.
In China, an environmental change of heart among top leaders, and the resulting political will to tackle the problems, is also helping eco-city projects take off faster than elsewhere, said experts.
Among the many green issues facing Beijing is the breakneck rate of urbanisation, which is putting immense strain on cities.
China's urban population surged from less than 18 per cent of the total population in 1978, the year sweeping economic reforms launched blistering growth, to 44 per cent (577 million out of 1.3 billion people) in 2006.
By 2035, some 70 per cent of Chinese will live in urban areas. The rise stems not only from a rural-urban migration due to better employment opportunities and living standards in cities but also the re-designation of large counties and towns.
Although China's urbanisation rate is below the world average of about 50 per cent, the speed at which rural populations are moving into cities here is unprecedented.
This had pushed China's environment to breaking point, said the World Wildlife Fund's Beijing-based climate expert Chen Dongmei.
Expanding cities are devouring arable land and forests. Growing enough food to feed a growing and increasingly wealthy population is straining land resources.
A surging car population is polluting the air. Soaring consumption of natural resources such as oil is putting pressure on domestic as well as global supplies.
To carry on this way spells doom, said Ms Chen: 'It's a matter of survival that we rethink the way we live and build cities so that there is a more balanced interaction with the environment.'
A joint Singapore-China project to build an eco-city for 300,000 people on 30 sq km of salt pans and marsh in the northern port city of Tianjin will attempt to do just that.
It intends to stand out from other projects by putting an emphasis on building a strong sense of community among residents, leveraging on 40 years of experience in fostering bonds between people from disparate backgrounds.
'It's not just the hardware, but changing the mindsets of people and inculcating in them a whole new way of thinking where they give the environment priority,' said a source close to the project.
The People's Association, which oversees grassroots organisations in Singapore, will set up community centres and other grassroots mechanisms that will draw the community closer.
But eco-cities are not the solution to all green problems, cautioned Mr Christopher Choa, of the London office of Edaw, an architecture and environmental consulting firm.
'Eco-cities make the news as test beds for new planning strategies and green technologies, but risk being new-age potemkin villages,' said Mr Choa, who was formerly based in Shanghai. 'They might distract attention from other issues that need fixing and aren't quite as trendy.'
To reduce its carbon emissions and resource consumption, Shanghai, for example, might be better off improving mass transit than ploughing billions of yuan into an 'idealistic' eco-city, said Mr Choa.
Others, however, say there are no alternatives.
'Eco-cities are the only way we've got to fix the impact we've made on the planet,' said Mr Downton. 'There really isn't anything else out there.'
Antara 8 Feb 08;
Beijing (ANTARA News) - China`s standardization office has issued draft regulations covering plastic shopping bags, soliciting public opinions on the subject.
Plastic bags will cost shoppers money as of June 1, and the bags will be subject to stricter production standards as well, the Standardization Administration of China (SAC) said in a release.
Under the draft standards, published on the central government`s web site (www.gov.cn) recently, the thickness of plastic bags for shoppers should be at least 0.025 mm, without bubbles or perforation.
Also, plastic bags for food should be marked "for food only" and bags must carry warnings such as "keep away from infants and children to avoid suffocation."
Also, bags should have tips to remind consumers to re-use them for the sake of environmental protection and energy conservation.
Manufacturers must also clearly mark the producer`s name and the bag`s accurate strength in terms of kilograms.
Supermarkets giving free bags will face a maximum penalty of 30,000 yuan (4,000 U.S. dollars), under a related regulation from the Ministry of Commerce.
Citizens who want to comment on the standards can visit the SAC`s site (www.sac.gov.cn), download feedback forms and submit them before the deadline, which is March 4, Xinhua reported.(*)
Ivan Png, Straits Times 9 Feb 08;
FOR more than two weeks, central and southern China have been gripped by severe snow storms. Heavy snow is common in north China in winter. But this year, the confluence of Arctic and south Asian air currents met further south, resulting in unprecedented snowfalls.
The result: China's worst snow disaster in decades, with snow as far south as Guangdong province. The snow and ensuing sleet caused serious breakdowns in transportation and energy supply.
The Beijing-Zhuhai expressway and north-south train service were interrupted at a most critical time - just before the start of Chinese New Year on Thursday. Factories and construction sites shut down just once a year for this period for millions of migrant workers to return to their home towns to be with their families. The breakdown in train services left hundreds of thousands of workers stranded at Guangzhou's railway station.
The weight of the accumulated snow caused power transmission towers to fall and lines to snap. The 4.6 million people of Chenzhou in Hunan province were without electricity for 12 days.
The crisis brought China's top leaders, President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao, to the frontlines to lend their support to the suffering people. At Changsha's railway station in Hunan province, Premier Wen promised people they would be home in time for the New Year. He also visited stranded people at Guangzhou's railway stations.
President Hu visited the Datong coal field, a major coal-producing area in Shanxi province, where he went 400m below ground to encourage miners working overtime in freezing conditions and stressed to management and workers: 'Disaster-hit areas need coal and the power plants need coal.'
President Hu then visited the port of Qinhuangdao in Hebei province, through which much of Shanxi's coal is shipped. He urged government officials to give priority to people's needs and interests, and especially to restore transport and electricity services.
President Hu is certainly correct about the importance of electricity to the people and economy. Fuelled by economic growth exceeding 10 per cent per year, China's demand for electricity has boomed. But the construction of electric power facilities has not kept pace with demand. Between 2001 and 2007, consumption rose 20.2 per cent annually, while generating capacity grew by only 18.5 per cent.
China generates over three-quarters of its electricity from coal. Earlier this week, a spokesman for the State Electricity Regulatory Commission, Mr Tan Rongyao, commented on the weatherrelated power blackouts: 'The shortage of power-generating coal has become enormously acute.'
President Hu and the State Electricity Regulatory Commission are rightly concerned about the supply of coal to electric power plants. However, the essential problem is not indifference among managers and workers in coal mines.
Instead of venturing out to the Datong coal fields, President Hu should have picked up the phone to the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC). The difficulties the recent snow storms have caused simply highlight a fundamental economic contradiction: China has freed the price of coal but it still regulates the price of electricity.
The trade association of the electric power industry, the China Electricity Council, reported that, between 2006 and 2007, the price of coal for power generation rose by 25 yuan (S$5) to 304 yuan a tonne. And coal producers have issued a notice of an increase of 30 yuan for this year.
Meanwhile, the NDRC regulates electricity prices to help control price inflation, which is burgeoning. Caught between fixed prices and rising costs, electric power producers are understandably reluctant to expand generating capacity. The figures for capacity growth show the problem is one of long-term investment as well as short-term production.
The NDRC's current policy is a major change from its previous one, when it fixed the price of power-generating coal at below-market levels. Then, producers preferred to export coal and diverted sales away from the domestic electricity sector, resulting in power shortages.
Ironically, having freed the price of coal, China is still faced with power shortages. The locus of the contradiction has simply shifted to the electric power generating industry.
The China Electricity Council has asked the NDRC to peg the price of electricity to the cost of coal. But the NDRC has yet to respond.
Meanwhile, it is reported that electricity supply has been restored throughout southern China, except for Hunan, Jiangxi and Guizhou provinces.
But for how long?
The writer is professor of information systems, business policy and economics at the National University of Singapore. The opinions expressed here are personal.
Reuters 8 Feb 08;
LONDON (Reuters) - Poor countries will soon receive billions of dollars from a new World Bank fund to help them cut pollution, save energy and fight global warming, the international organization said.
Developing countries such as India and China are already trying to reduce their carbon emissions, mainly to save on energy, but have baulked at doing more without technological help from Europe, Japan and the United States.
Most carbon dioxide heating the planet now is a result of western industrialization, and developing countries want financial help to cut their own growing emissions.
"The fund will support publicly and privately financed projects that deploy technologies that can cut emissions, increase efficiency and save energy...(in) developing countries," the U.S., British and Japanese finance ministers said in the Financial Times on Friday.
The World Bank clean technology fund would receive some of the $2 billion in climate funds U.S. President George W. Bush announced last month, and part of the 800 million pounds ($1.56 billion) Britain pledged to "environmental transformation" last year, Henry Paulson, Alistair Darling and Fukushiro Nukaga said.
Japan last month announced a $10 billion package to support developing countries' fight against climate change but the finance ministers' letter did not detail how much of this would be channeled through the World Bank.
In a written response to questions from Reuters, the World Bank said, "It is expected that the formal announcement of the creation of the facility will be made soon."
"In addition to discussions with donor countries, talks have been or will shortly be undertaken with other interested parties, including other agencies in the U.N. system and the private sector."
The World Bank statement referred to "a strategic climate investment facility that would accelerate and scale up low carbon and climate-resilient investments in developing countries."
The three finance ministers said the fund would not be an alternative to U.N.-led talks to agree new emissions curbs to succeed measures now under the Kyoto Protocol from 2013, a concern in Europe.
"While the idea of a clean tech fund is welcome it should not be used to distract from or undermine the main event which is global negotiations on reducing carbon emissions," an EU source told Reuters, who said agreeing on binding emissions cuts was the top priority.
(Additional reporting by Paul Taylor in Brussels; Editing by Caroline Drees)
Reuters 9 Feb 08;
Mexico will soon allow only energy-smart homes to be built in the country, and plans to have 30,000 such units up and running by 2011, Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira said Friday.
"In two or three years all traditional home construction will come to an end, and all new homes will be built with new materials and energy-sustainable standards," Elvira told a foreign press conference.
He said the government project will begin with a federally-funded pilot program to build 30,000 energy-smart homes in the next three years that will help establish the criteria for energy efficiency construction.
The initiative is part of a global project to build by 2012 one million energy-smart homes that will save the planet one million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, he added.
He said the new housing will be equipped with energy-smart devices such as solar water heating, low-energy fluorescent lights, high-efficiency appliances and low-flow plumbing fixtures.
The 30,000-home pilot program will be aimed at people "who make daily wages of 200 pesos (18 dollars), while the federal government will provide support of 22,000 pesos (some 1,900 dollars) to the interested parties," Elvira said.
He said the cost of each energy-smart home will range from 120,000-240,000 pesos (up to around 21,000 dollars).
The secretary said a separate energy-smart-home building program is planned for the southern state of Chiapas to help relocate thousands of people made homeless by the massive floods of October and November.
Staples cuts ties with APP on environment worry
Reuters 8 Feb 08;
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Staples Inc, the largest U.S. office supplies retailer, said on Friday it ceased doing business with Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) late last month because of environmental concerns.
Paper from APP -- one of the world's largest paper companies -- made up about 5 percent of Staples' paper products, a company spokesman said.
Staples said it severed ties with APP because there was no indication that it was making strides to protect the environment.
Environmental groups have said that forest-clearing by the APP group was endangering tigers and other animals.
In 2004, international environmental group Greenpeace accused APP of illegal logging in remote Chinese forests. APP had also been previously accused of illegal logging in Indonesia, its main production center, but the company denied any wrong doing.
Representatives of APP could not immediately be reached for comment.
Alexis Okeowo, Reuters 8 Feb 08;
The temperature is rising a little too quickly in Uganda -- and coffee farmers are getting worried. Growers say that global warming is damaging production of coffee, Uganda's biggest export.
Ask coffee farmer Emmanuel Kawesi, who has a "feeling" about the impending danger. "It's hotter now -- this is not usual," he says standing under a wide mango tree to escape the intense sun.
"Global warming will be very dangerous for my coffee," says the 33-year-old, explaining that more sunshine and less rain means coffee beans will shrivel and yields will decrease.
Today, coffee brings in over half of Uganda's revenue. A report released by Uganda's Department of Meteorology late last year, however, warned that just a slight increase in temperature could wipe out most of the country's coffee crop.
"Everyone is talking about global warming; coffee is our business," says Mariam Sekisanda, 27, as she pauses from picking ripe coffee beans on her expansive farm to sit under the shade of a thicket of lush banana trees.
Gesturing to nearby farms along an orange-dusted road flanked by dense greenery and steep hills, Sekisanda says her neighbours are flummoxed by the fluctuating weather.
"Climate change has affected coffee production already," says Philip Gitao, director of the Eastern Africa Fine Coffees Association.
Rains have been falling at unusual times, preventing the coffee crop from having enough time to mature.
Although Uganda may receive more rainfall from surface evaporation off east Africa's Great Lakes in coming years, the increased precipitation will likely be erratic.
Combined with the fact that there have been more droughts in the past two to three years than ever before, the level of coffee quality has dropped, Gitao says.
Global interest in fine Arabica coffee varieties found in Ugandan and other east African highlands has recently surged.
American coffee chain Starbucks has already started buying green coffee beans from Ugandan farms.
But the company may have to compete with a heating up climate.
A United Nations panel on climate change predicted in January that the world's temperatures will rise by between 1.4 and 5.8 degrees C on average by the end of the century, mainly as a result of human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels.
"A rise in two degrees would make most of Uganda unsuitable for coffee," says Philip Gwage, Ugandan deputy commissioner of meteorology. "There is no real doubt that global temperatures will rise."
Gwage says that certain conditions are required for coffee growth, including cool temperatures and enough water.
The average temperature in Uganda's coffee-growing area now is about 25 degrees C (77 degrees F). Robusta is the main variety of coffee grown, but it would "essentially disappear", according to the report.
Coffee-growing areas would be reduced to less than a tenth of their current size, and neighbouring coffee producers Kenya and Tanzania would also be affected.
To protect their coffee from global warming, Ugandan farmers are banking on a three-tiered strategy: growing more trees to create a cool shade for the coffee; mulching or covering soil with grass to hold on to water, and digging long terraces in the ground to retain rainfall.
But Sylvester Bukenya, who has spent 50 of his 69 years working as a farmer, is skeptical that he will able to mitigate the effects of climate change on his crops without extra help.
"The only assistance we get from the government is advice to plant more trees, but people are cutting them down for firewood and charcoal," Bukenya says, his backyard overgrown with thick, green plants and multi-colored fruits.
The Department of Meteorology's change specialist James Magezi-Akiiki says that the government is working hand-in-hand with farmers to give them information on what will likely happen to the climate in the next 30 to 50 years.
Coffee is seasonal in Uganda and thrives during the rainy, cool period, which usually lasts between November and February.
But Magezi-Akiiki warns that the coffee-growing season is set to fluctuate.
"What we are experiencing now is the effects of global warming increasing in both frequency and intensity."
Reuters 8 Feb 08;
Scientists poring over a mass of studies into the response of pests to genetically-modified cotton say they have found the first confirmation that insects have developed resistance to transgenic crops.
University of Arizona entomologists looked at data from six experiments to monitor pests in fields sown with transgenic cotton and corn in Australia, China, Spain and the United States.
They found evidence of genetic mutation among bollworms (Helicoverpa zea) in a dozen cotton fields sown in Mississippi and Arkansas between 2003 and 2006.
But no such evidence was found among five other major pests monitored elsewhere.
The mutation entails a slight change in the bollworm's DNA to help it resist a toxin that the cotton plant exudes thanks to a gene inserted by biotechnologists.
These GM toxins are produced in nature by a widespread bacterium called Bacillus thuringiensis, which goes by the abbreviation Bt. The type of Bt toxin to which these bollworms have become resistant is called Cry1Ac.
"What we're seeing is evolution in action," said lead researcher Bruce Tabashnik.
"This is the first documented case of field-evolved resistance to a Bt crop."
Tabashnik said a new variety of Bt cotton was successfully combatting the resistant bollworms as it combined a second toxin, Cry2Ab, with Cry1Ac.
Green groups, who are fierce opponents of GM technology in agriculture, have long predicted that pests would become resistant to transgenic toxins, as happens frequently in the case of chemical insecticides.
To overcome the resistance, scientists would have to use higher levels of toxins or different kinds, they say.
On the other hand, the paper, published on Thursday in the British journal Nature Biotechnology, found no evidence of resistance among the other insect pests being monitored. They remained susceptible to Bt toxin.
Worst-case scenarios sketched by critics of GM crops have predicted that pests would become resistant to Bt crops in as little as three years, said Tabashnik.
"The resistance occurred in one particular pest in one part of the US," Tabashnik said.
"The other major pests attacking Bt crops have not evolved resistance. And even most bollworm populations have not evolved resistance."
Bt cotton and Bt corn, introduced by the US agri-giant Monsanto in 1996, have been grown on more than 162 million hectares (400 million acres) worldwide, "generating one of the largest selections for insect resistance ever known," notes the paper.
Resistance among the bollworms developed faster in places where there was little or no "refuges," the term for areas where there are non-BT crops, the review found.
The idea behind refuges is to provide a haven for pests that do not have the genetic mutations.
This boosts the probability that a resistant pest will mate with a non-resistant pest, creating a hybrid that would still be susceptible to the toxin. In most pests, offspring are resistant to the novel toxins only if both parents are resistant.
Reuters 8 Feb 08;
WINNIPEG, Manitoba (Reuters) - The western Canadian province of Manitoba named the polar bear a threatened species on Thursday, enabling it to restrict new development on its Arctic shoreline, where hundreds of the big white bears spend several weeks each year.
"We must continue to take action to protect one of our province's most unique species, which is clearly being affected by climate change," Stan Struthers, the province's conservation minister, said in a release.
Polar bears hunt seals on Hudson Bay, but move onto land around the northern Manitoba town of Churchill when the ice melts in the summer.
Late autumn can see nearly 1,000 of the animals in the region, waiting for the freeze-up, and tourists flock to the remote town, which calls itself the polar bear capital of the world.
Commercial and sport hunting of the bears has long been banned in Manitoba.
Climate change has melted the ice earlier and for a longer period, affecting bears' health and survival rates, the provincial government said.
The U.S. Geological Survey has estimated melting sea ice could eliminate two-thirds of the world's polar bears by 2050.
Scientists estimate that the world's polar bear population is around 25,000. Two-thirds of the animals live in Canada, almost all of them in the Arctic territory of Nunavut.
The United States government is weighing whether to declare the polar bear a threatened species, but Canadian Inuit leaders have said that could hurt their livelihood, which is supported by guiding U.S. sport hunters in the Arctic region.
The Canadian government has classified the polar bear as a "species of concern" but has not named it an endangered or threatened species.
(Reporting by Roberta Rampton; Editing by Rob Wilson)
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