Alarm Bells After Death of Tens of Sea Turtles in a Month

Patrick Mayoyo, The Nation (Nairobi) allafrica.com 12 Feb 08;

The killing of 28 sea turtles in less than a month on the Kenyan coast has raised the alarm among conservationists.

Initial investigations portray a catastrophe of international proportions.

The deaths were not only the highest number recorded on the Kenyan coast in less than a month but the biggest set-back to conservation efforts.

According to data compiled by both the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) and the Kenya Sea Turtle Conservation Committee (Kescom), 22 marine turtles have been killed at Vipingo and two at Kuruwitu both in Kilifi, three at Diani in Kwale and one in Mombasa last month.

The sea turtles are endangered species protected under the Convention on International Trade of Endangered Species (Cites) that prohibits commercial trade in the animal and its parts.

The programme coordinator of Kescom, Mr Andrew Wamukota, said initial investigations into the matter had disclosed that all the dead turtles had been caught in fishing nets.

This has raised queries on the monitoring of fishing activities in the country as fishermen are supposed to comply not only with local fishing regulations but also international ones.

Mr Wamukota said although the gill nets in which the turtles are caught are not prohibited, fishermen were using them unprofessionally.

"Some of the nets stretch up to long distances and are turned into beach seines thereby resulting in them catching even turtles," he said.

He said following the alarming rate at which turtles had died at the Kenyan coast there's need to review the licensing of gill nets to prevent fishermen from using them unprofessionally.

Possible link

Mr Wamukota said they were investigating the possible link of fishermen from a neighbouring country in the scandal after two of them were arrested fishing in Kenya's territorial waters using a local fisherman's licence.

"The Fisheries Department is set to revoke the licence of the local fisherman as a deterrent to those who are encouraging such underhand fishing practices," he said.

Researches conducted by both the Fisheries Department and the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research Institute (Kemfri) show that apart from the threats posed to turtles by artisanal fishermen, trawling remains a big threat to the marine creatures.

Both studies reported a 70 per cent by-catch rate that includes turtles by trawlers and it established that Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) currently in use are not effective in the protection of the animals from trawling activities.

The research shows that there were a total of 18 cases of incidental capture of turtles in the trawl nets during the survey period.

The Current Status of Trawler Fishery of Malindi-Ungwana Bay survey recommends the development of appropriate bycatch reducer devices to curb incidental capture of young fish and turtles.

According to World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) the biggest threats to turtle conservation come from dynamite fishing, indiscriminate harvesting of eggs, conversion of the sandy areas where turtles nest to resorts and other commercial activities.

Coastal resources

Trade in turtle eggs has been a source of income for many fishing communities not only on the Kenyan coast but throughout the entire Indian Ocean region where most of them depend on coastal resources for livelihood.

The turtle egg is popular as a delicacy-with some believing it is an aphrodisiac while its shell is considered a choice material for decorative items among some coastal communities.

According to WWF, Southeast Asia is considered the world's biggest consumer of turtle eggs with Hong Kong, Singapore and Brunei being cited out as some of the leading markets.

Research has shown that although sea turtles have managed to survive natural hazards over the years they are now under severe threat from human activity.

It is because of these developments that the United Nations has put in place concerted efforts to save the endangered species.

Conservationists in the country have consequently put in place a number of initiatives aimed at creating awareness as part of the global effort to protect the endangered sea creatures.

According to Mr Wamukota, there are more than 18 community-based groups involved in different turtle conservation initiatives on the Kenyan coast through the Kescom project.

Mr Wamukota said 25 countries under the Indian Ocean Southeast Asian (IOSEA) region, which include Kenya, have signed a memorandum of understanding for the protection of the sea turtles.

"Through this initiative we are expected to develop an integrated sea turtles conservation framework for the Western Indian Ocean region under the Nairobi convention," he said.

The Kescom official said human impacts contributed to more than 85 per cent of turtle deaths in the country.

"Of the seven known species of marine turtles in the world, five are found in Kenya. They are loggerhead, leatherback, olive ridley, hawksbill and green turtle. Three of them, the green, the hawksbill and the olive ridley nest in Kenya while the others only come to forage," he said.

Mr Wamukota said since 1997 more than 2,000 turtle nests have been reported in Kenya resulting in more than 150,000 hatchings. However, research has shown that out of 1,000 hatchings only one turtle reaches maturity.

Sold by fishermen

He says although studies had shown more than 150,000 turtle eggs have hatched along the Kenyan coast in the past 10 years many of these ended up being sold by fishermen.

"And a belief among some Kenyan communities that if you take turtle oil you will get cured of asthma has also greatly contributed to the high turtle mortality in the country," he said.

Mr Wamukota said it is estimated that about 30,000 hatchings were reported on the Kenyan coast last year although the exact number will be established after all the data has been compiled.

The campaign to enhance sea turtle conservation activities in the country have been intensified through an integrated project sponsored by the United States Agency for International Development (USAid).

Thee project brings together different stakeholders who include WWF, Kescom and the KWS.

"This project aims to involve more Government institutions and local communities in sea turtles conservation activities," he said.

He said the project would help build the capacity of the community monitoring system, introduce satellite sea turtles monitoring and spearhead awareness and education campaigns.

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Best of our wild blogs: 12 Feb 08

My bird garden
for and by the birds on the bird ecology blog

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Energy outlook for Asia: The future is fraught

Richard Halloran, Straits Times 12 Feb 08;

A FRESH assessment of Asia's energy future asserts that the region, along with the United States, is being confronted with a 'daunting challenge' as oil consumption is rising much faster than production and the end of the world's oil supply is in sight.

'Today,' says a book published by the East-West Centre, the research and educational institute in Honolulu, 'the challenge of energy security is greater than ever. The days of cheap and plentiful oil are over. World oil production is likely to reach a peak some time in the next 10 to 15 years.' It will level off and decline after that.

The book's principal authors, researchers Fereidun Fesharaki and Kang Wu, warn: 'Coupled with emerging supply limitations, the Asia-Pacific region's increasing demand for oil raises fears of tensions among Asian nations and between Asia and the West.'

Mr Frederick W. Smith, the chief executive officer of FedEx, the world's largest express transport company with 700 airplanes and 80,000 trucks that drink prodigious litres of jet fuel and petrol, is more pointed. Writing in Newsweek, Mr Smith says: 'It shouldn't be forgotten that the proximate cause of World War II was the US oil embargo against Japan.'

He adds: 'The first Gulf War was caused totally by oil - it was Saddam Hussein's insistence that he owned certain oil fields that led to his invasion of Kuwait and (the US) ouster of his forces there.'

What he calls 'the subsequent presence' of the US in the Middle East, evidently meaning Iraq, has been driven by oil. Mr Smith says some analysts think 40 per cent of US military spending 'can be attributed to protecting the oil trade'.

Indeed, the competition for energy in Asia, even more than the confrontations between North and South Korea, China and Taiwan, and India and Pakistan, could be the cause of hostilities across the entire region, with unpredictable consequences.

The East-West Centre's book - Asia's Energy Future - points to the obvious cause of the increased consumption of oil, which is economic growth. 'Since 1900,' author Fesharaki says in an overview, 'well over one-half of the annual growth in global oil consumption has originated from Asia and the Pacific.'

In one year, 2004, 'China alone accounted for nearly one-third of the growth in oil consumption in the entire world'. India was not far behind, the book says, 'and this pattern is projected to continue'.

The demand is 'driven primarily by the growing number of motor vehicles'. Heavy industry is partly responsible in China, slightly less so in India, which emphasises information technology.

A complicating factor: Half of China's oil imports come from the Middle East while India is even more dependent on Middle Eastern sources. That is not likely to change, which gives Beijing and New Delhi reason to dip into the power politics of that already volatile region.

Both nations, the book says, are experiencing 'a renewed emphasis on hydropower and nuclear energy'. Hydropower in China accounted for 3 per cent of the nation's energy in 1980 and is expected to rise to 8 per cent by 2015.

The famed - and controversial - Three Gorges hydroelectric plant is scheduled to be completed next year at an enormous cost in funds, displaced people and submerged cultural treasures.

China appears to have lagged in nuclear energy, which produced only 1 per cent of the nation's needs in 1993. But Beijing plans to build enough nuclear plants to meet 4 per cent of demand by 2020.

In India, hydroelectric capacity provided 26 per cent of installed power capacity in 2005 but has been growing at a rate slower than demand. Nuclear power then accounted for only 3 per cent of electrical generation but that is expected to double this year.

To counter these trends in oil production and consumption, the East-West Centre researchers, who are experts in the energy field, assert: 'Business as usual is not an option.'

They recommend policies to reduce price volatility, such as building strategic oil reserves. They also advocate policies to bring a better balance between supply and demand, such as reducing bottlenecks in transport.

The authors call on political leaders in the US, the world's largest consumer of energy, and the Asia-Pacific region, the fastest growing consumer of energy, 'to make bold and profound changes'. They insist: 'Half-measures are not enough, and they may even make the situation worse.'

They suggest that 'high oil prices, although painful for consumers, may provide a needed incentive'.

But they close, with academic understatement, on a less than confident note: 'Heightened competition in international oil markets may work against cooperative efforts.'

The writer, formerly with The New York Times in Asia and Washington, writes about Asia from Honolulu.

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Singapore fiscal incentives for eco-friendly business suggested: PwC

PwC favours carrots for Singapore's green push
Matthew Phan and Chen Huifen, Business Times 12 Feb 08;

It suggests slew of fiscal incentives for eco-friendly business measures

(SINGAPORE) High on the Budget 2008 wish list from PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) this year is an item that wasn't there just a few years ago, but which should not be unexpected today.

'Tax and the Environment', it reads.

The first wish is for the creation of a National Fund to promote and finance 'green' initiatives, with donors rewarded by tax deductions. The other 15 bullet points suggest how Singapore could encourage environment-friendly behaviour.

Some are obvious and generic, like encouraging business and individuals to adopt energy-efficient practices, or subsidies or clean energy research.

Others are technical and more targeted.

For example, the government might want to consider 'on an immediate basis,' having zero rating of GST for the procurement of energy-saving devices, said Abhijit Ghosh, tax partner at PwC Singapore.

Or it might give enhanced capital allowances, say 125 per cent of cost, on energy-efficient equipment used by business.

A capital allowance refers to a deduction granted to firms that purchase fixed assets for use in their business. Only certain assets qualify, such as machinery, furniture or electrical equipment.

PwC also suggested giving tax deductions for approved programmes for carbon offsetting - for example, where a firm buys carbon credits to offset the greenhouse gases emitted when its executives fly overseas.

Generally, the 'carrot' approach, or giving companies incentives to change their behaviour, are more effective than the 'stick', said Mr Ghosh.

New Zealand wanted to adopt the 'stick' approach last year with a carbon tax, but is now reconsidering and thinking of fiscal measures that would be fair to everyone, he said.

Further, a group of British Columbian economists has argued that poor people will disproportionately bear the burden of a carbon tax, because it is essentially a flat tax on an essential resource, he said.

'The well-off will be able to buy their way out of any responsibility and continue to buy Hummers and 5,000 sq ft homes,' the economists said, according to Mr Ghosh.

A 'carrot' approach would thus be more equitable, if the Singapore government is considering any fiscal measures, he said.

While the government has recently introduced non-fiscal initiatives, 'we believe that fiscal measures should also be considered as early as possible, provided the government is prepared to use tax policy to address this issue', he said.

Some businesses here appear to be echoing the same tone. According to Phillip Overmyer, chief executive of the Singapore International Chamber of Commerce, one of the top items on his association's Budget wish list is a package of incentives that 'will encourage corporate participation in eco-friendly initiatives'.

'For example, the provision of investment allowances in certain kinds of energy equipment,' he said. 'So you might allow someone to take a tax deduction for some portion of a new (energy-efficient) equipment that they put in place. Or, we could provide deduction against tax for architectural and engineering fees that are directly related to building a building that meets global standards for energy savings.'

The Budget wish list of the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SICCI) includes a further cut in the corporate tax rate to bring it closer to 15-16 per cent, reduction in personal income taxes, as well as the abolition of estate duty.

Although the latter two will not have a direct impact on companies, SICCI executive director Pradeep Menon said they will help alleviate cost pressures indirectly.

'Companies are hoping that there will be a significant cut in personal taxes to help employees manage rising costs,' explained Mr Menon. 'If they can make some savings on that front, it will then indirectly lead to less pressure on wage push.'

As for estate duty, he reckons eliminating it will have a long-term impact on Singapore's business environment, as it continues to draw more people to start and retain their businesses and families here.

'It's also a part of wealth management as we try to attract more people to bring in their wealth and manage it out of Singapore,' he added. 'As they build up their wealth, there's always this concern about the fact that they have to pay estate duty, when they pass it on.'

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Genting $4.9billion loan for Sentosa Integrated Resort

Genting Int'l gets $4.2b loan for Sentosa resort
Fiona Chan, Straits Times 12 Feb 08;

GENTING International has secured a massive $4.19 billion in syndicated funding that will pay for about two-thirds of the integrated resort it is building in Sentosa.

The funding is a record for Genting and one of the largest syndicated credit deals in Singapore banking history. It comprises $4 billion in loans and a $192.5 million banker's guarantee facility, Genting said yesterday.

The company is the sponsor for the funding for Resorts World at Sentosa. Five banks are involved as arrangers and underwriters: DBS Bank, OCBC Bank, HSBC, Royal Bank of Scotland and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation.

The credit facilities were obtained on the eve of Chinese New Year at around 6pm, but much of the work on getting the loan started around November last year, Genting said.

The Singapore-listed company, a unit of Malaysian casino operator Genting Bhd, added that the process was 'relatively smooth', given the group's long-standing relationships with the banks.

This is despite the global credit crunch and volatile stock markets that have resulted from the United States subprime mortgage meltdown.

But 'notwithstanding the current market conditions', DBS said it expects the financing to be completed 'very successfully and in good time'.

This is due to Genting's 'impeccable standing', coupled with the 'iconic nature of this project', said DBS managing director and head of syndicated finance Peter Chan.

Genting was reported in October to be seeking a loan of $3.2 billion. But higher building expenses have pushed up its original budget for the casino by about $800 million to nearly $6 billion now.

Its $4.19 billion funding is slightly less than the $5 billion that Las Vegas Sands borrowed to build Singapore's other casino in the Marina Bay area.

That loan, arranged by eight banks including Goldman Sachs and Singapore's three banks, is said to be the largest private Singapore dollar-denominated financing ever completed.

Banks bet on IR developer with $4b loan
Arthur Sim, Business Times 12 Feb 08;

THE credit markets may have become more risk averse lately, but banks still appear bullish on the Resorts World at Sentosa, home to one of Singapore's two planned integrated resorts (IRs).

In a statement released yesterday, Resorts World at Sentosa Pte Ltd (RWS), a subsidiary of Genting International, announced that it had secured $4 billion credit facilities for its IR development.

Five local and international banks - DBS Bank, Oversea-Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC), Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC), Royal Bank of Scotland and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation - will underwrite, bookrun and arrange the syndication of the loan, which has a tenure that extends to end-2015.

The credit facilities will fund two-thirds of the $6 billion IR at Sentosa, with the remaining to be funded through the equity raised from Genting International's rights issue last year.

RWS chief executive Tan Hee Teck said: 'Amid the turmoil in the global credit markets, they have given us a resounding vote of confidence.'

That RWS's gaming component could be a key factor in instilling this sense of confidence among the banks is perhaps not so surprising if one considers the latest gaming revenue figures coming out of Macau.

Citigroup analyst Anil Daswani believes that January 2008 could prove to be a record month for Macau with gross gaming revenue projected to be around 11 billion Macau patacas (S$1.94 billion).

Gross gaming revenue averaged only 6.77 billion patacas per month last year and according to Citi's estimates, the highest monthly revenue so far was 8.6 billion patacas set in October 2007.

In a Citi report, Mr Daswani said: 'The continuing strong growth in Macau gaming revenues should be immune to the possible recession in the United States, in our view. History also suggests that the gaming industry in fact outperformed the market during recessionary periods in the last decade.'

RWS's own estimates have put the number of expected visitors by 2010 at 15 million. These people could, of course, also be visiting RWS's other attractions, including the Universal Studios theme park.

Peter Chan, managing director and head of syndicated finance at DBS, added: 'Notwithstanding the current market conditions, we believe that based on the impeccable standing of the sponsor, coupled with the iconic nature of this project, as well the strong team of arrangers put in place, we should see this financing being completed very successfully and in good time.'

Genting's gamble
Casino developer borrows $4.2 b to fund building of IR
Today Online 12 Feb 08;

Genting International, a unit of Asia's biggest gaming operator by market value, borrowed as much as $4.2 billion to fund the building of its casino resort in Singapore, more than double its outstanding debt.

The unit of Kuala Lumpur-based Genting Bhd hired DBS Group Holdings, Oversea- Chinese Banking Corporation, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, HSBC Holdings and the Royal Bank of Scotland to arrange the borrowing, it said in a statement.

"It is a big gamble," said Mr Lim Kok Boon, chief investment officer at Fortis Private Banking, which manages US$9.5 billion ($13.5 billion) in assets. "It is hard to tell how it is going to pan out for them, but clearly the casino project cannot fail as Genting International and the Singapore banks will be badly implicated."

The company's funding will help it to compete with the Las Vegas Sands as both race to open the first casino resort here in about two years. The two gaming developments will have Singapore's casino market for at least 10 years before the government opens up the industry to further competition.

Genting International's funding will add to the $2.17 billion raised in an August rights offer and $450 million of convertible bonds sold in April to fund its project on Sentosa. The development will include South-east Asia's first Universal Studios theme park.

The company's borrowing consists of a $4 billion loan and $192.5 million in a bank guarantee facility, the statement said. The company has US$1.4 billion of outstanding debt. Genting International declined to comment on the terms of the loan except that it is "very happy" with them.

"The credit facilities were raised as scheduled and planned for the development," said Mr Tan Hee Teck, chief executive officer of Resorts World at Sentosa. "Despite the challenging environment in the global credit markets, the banks have been very supportive."

The mall and gaming resorts are part of Singapore's efforts to triple tourism revenue to $30 billion by 2015. The Republic ended a four-decade casino ban in 2005.

The Singapore resorts aim to capture a slice of the regulated gambling market in the Asia-Pacific region, expected to expand 16 per cent a year to US$30.3 billion in 2011.

Genting Bhd runs casino resorts in Malaysia. Genting International, which holds the parent company's overseas assets, also owns the UK's biggest casino operator, Stanley Leisure. — Bloomberg

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World Cities Summit to be held in Singapore

Business Times 12 Feb 08

SINGAPORE will host the first World Cities Summit, a premier international conference on public governance and sustainable development of cities, from June 23-25 this year.

The summit, which has as its theme 'Liveable and Vibrant Cities', will discuss the challenges of urbanisation and examine best practices for the sustainable development of cities.

Discussion topics include issues related to effective governance, urban planning, infrastructure development, environmental sustainability, quality of life, and economic competitiveness.

The event will feature several prominent and internationally renowned speakers, including Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew, Haruhiko Kuroda, president of the Asian Development Bank; Noeleen Heyzer, executive secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific; and Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman Al-Hussayen, minister for water and electricity in Saudi Arabia.

The World Cities Summit is jointly organised by Singapore's Civil Service College, the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, and the ministry of national development.

A joint press statement from the organisers said the summit will bring together ministers, city mayors, senior government officials, experts and business leaders from around the world, including a good number from Asia-Pacific and the Middle East.

The inaugural World Cities Summit will be held at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre.

During that same week, Singapore will launch the inaugural Singapore International Water Week 2008, which has as its theme 'Sustainable Water Solutions for Cities'.

A third event, the East Asia Summit Conference on Liveable Cities, is also being held in conjunction with the World Cities Summit. Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong will officiate at the joint opening ceremony for all three events and will deliver the keynote address.

Apart from the plenary sessions and breakout tracks, the World Cities Summit will offer site visits for delegates to engage practitioners and get a better understanding of policy implementation.

Singapore to host first World Cities Summit
Fiona Chan, Straits Times 12 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE will host the world's first-ever international conference on the public governance and sustainable development of cities in June.

The World Cities Summit will focus on the challenges of urbanisation and discuss how to develop 'liveable and vibrant' cities, the theme of the conference.

About 300 ministers, mayors, senior officials and business leaders from around the world are expected to attend the three-day event, which is organised by the Ministry of National Development, the Singapore Civil Service College and the National University of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

The summit's strategic partners include the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and several United Nations programmes.

Speakers will include ADB president Haruhiko Kuroda, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew and Saudi Arabia's Minister for Water and Electricity Abdullah bin Abdul Rahman Al-Hussayen. They will discuss important issues facing cities such as urban planning and conservation, solid waste management, land transportation and environmental sustainability.

The conference will be at the Suntec Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre from June 23 to 25. It will be held at the same time as the inaugural Singapore International Water Week, and in conjunction with the East Asia Summit Conference on Liveable Cities.

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'Stop live animals exports for slaughter'

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 12 Feb 08;

A worldwide campaign aimed at banning the long-distance transport of live animals for slaughter has been launched in London.

Animal charity workers shot secret film footage during a two-year long investigation of the global trade in live animals which they say is cruel and unnecessary.

The Handle With Care coalition is using shock pictures of animals being shipped around the world in overcrowded and filthy conditions before they are finally slaughtered.

They hope consumers will be so horrified by the images of sheep, cattle, horses, pigs and chickens moved in horrendous conditions in journeys that can take weeks they will embarrass governments into finally banning the trade.

Rules on minimum standards of care for live animals in transit - including regular feed, water and rest - are frequently flouted. To save on costs animals are also illegally crammed into lorries, containers and ships where they do not have enough room to lie down.

And animals are shipped from one side of the world to the other for slaughter so that producers can charge higher prices by fraudulently claiming the meat was locally sourced.

The Handle With Care coalition, made up of leading UK-based animal welfare charities the World Society for the Protection of Animals, Compassion in World Farming, the RSPCA and the International League for the Protection of Horses claims thousands of animals die in transit every day from disease, hunger and stress in overcrowded and filthy conditions.

They say human health is also being put at risk because animals being transported can help spread potentially deadly diseases such as bird flu across the world.

The coalition says that animals should be reared and then slaughtered at the nearest possible abattoir and the meat frozen before being shipped.

World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) Campaigns Director Leah Garcés said: "British people are growing increasingly concerned with the way animals are treated and I am sure they will be horrified by the cruelty and suffering that can clearly be seen in this new undercover film.

"We were determined to show people the truth of this hidden and brutal traffic in animals - if you see it for yourself - you just know it must be stopped."

The campaign will focus on four of the worst routes involving animals:

#Sheep from Australia to the Middle East.

Australia is the world's biggest exporter of live animals and every year sends millions of sheep to the Middle East in vast ships. More than 30,000 die annually on the journey which can take three weeks.

#Cattle from Brazil to Lebanon.

Cattle can spend 3-4 days without food and water on road transporters before arriving at the port for shipment. They are herded into overcrowded holds where 10 per cent will die during the 18-day sea journey.

#Horses from Spain to Italy.

100,000 horses are transported across Europe for sale every year mainly from Spain to Italy where they are slaughtered for food. Lorries are supposed to transport about 16-18 horses at a time in individual stalls but often 25-30 are packed in together for distressing journeys that take two days.

#Pigs from Canada to Hawaii.

Pigs reared in extremely low temperatures in Alberta are moved on overcrowded trucks to California before being shipped to Hawaii. Forced to endure extreme temperatures lying in their own waste many die from stress during the seven day journey. Those that survive are then slaughtered and their meat sold as "Island Produced Pork".

The coalition claims that the technology to freeze meat before it is shipped abroad has been available for more than a century and there is no reason to continue the export of live animals.

Compassion in World Farming Chief Executive Philip Lymbery said: " The cruelty these animals endure is completely unacceptable in the 21st century. This trade is one in which millions of animals suffer cruel and unnecessary journeys each year. It must stop."

Campaigns and demonstrations in the 1990s led to a huge fall in the number of live animals sent for export from the UK. In 1995 2m sheep and lambs and 500,000 calves were exported. By 2007 the numbers had tumbled to 80,000 sheep and lambs and 70,000 calves.

The coalition is demanding a stricter enforcement of EU laws governing the live transport of animals and hopes that existing laws will be strengthened when they come up for review in 2009.

Jo White, Director of Campaigns for the international League for the Protection of Horses, said: " You cannot put a price on cruelty. This trade is cruel and unnecessary and must be brought to an end.

"Our message is that logic and compassion must be applied to farm animals and they should be sent to the nearest slaughter house. If you have passed the slaughter house you have already gone too far."

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Consumers must stop forest destruction

John Nelson, BBC's The Green Room 11 Feb 08;

Some people may not sit so comfortably on their patio furniture if they knew where the wood came from, argues John Nelson. In this week's Green Room, he says the demand for wood products is threatening the long-term survival of communities around the globe.

Most DIY enthusiasts would be shocked to find that their new garden decking helped to increase the poverty of hunter-gatherer communities in the Congo Basin of Central Africa.

What about the recently purchased hardwood table and chairs? Did these come from a 300-year-old tree that, until cut down for export to Europe, supplied a hundred poor people in Cameroon with oil, protein and medicine?

Armed with this knowledge, would the customers' new furniture be quite so comfortable?

Ngola Baka typifies Pygmy hunter-gatherer communities in Cameroon; it is small, remote, cash-poor and surrounded by small fields of manioc and plantain to supplement a varied and healthy forest diet based upon meat, fish, fruits, nuts, honey, leaves and mushrooms.

Since there is no dispensary, and little money, medicines are found in the forest, in the barks, roots and leaves gathered during hunting and gathering excursions up to 20km (12 miles) away.

Diminishing returns

Forest biodiversity is at the heart of Baka community subsistence, and Congo Basin forests are widely recognised as a global asset. The UK government has committed more than £50m ($25m) towards protecting them.

The wealth of the basin's rainforests is also targeted by big business. Logging and mining companies are legally entitled to exploit millions of hectares.

Only two kilometres from Ngola Baka, for example, the community forest gives way to an industrial logging concession. The Moabi tree found there is particularly favoured by loggers for its hard, dark wood and high market price.



The Moabi's fruit is also a key component of Baka subsistence, especially for the rich oil pressed from the nut. People rely upon it for their survival.

Last year, it was harvested by Baka women in a forest grove 12km from the village, in the middle of the logging concession, as has been done seasonally for years.

But those trees are now gone, cut down during 2007 and exported to Europe to make garden furniture and coffee tables. Ngola Baka is a poorer, hungrier place as a result of European tastes for luxury.

Last week I saw once again - like a scratched record repeating a verse - how the systematic exploitation of such areas by industrial loggers progressively undermines the welfare of indigenous forest communities.

New forest-use maps, created by local Baka communities with the support of the UK Forest Peoples Programme (FPP) and the Centre for Environment and Development in Cameroon (CED), illustrated the huge overlap between Baka traditional lands and the legal boundaries of neighbouring logging concessions.

We discovered that up to 40,000 hectares of forest used by Ngola Baka are now being logged. Moabi are targeted along with a host of other tree species used by Baka. The future of the community is at stake as its forest is stripped of trees. This should be stopped, but who on Earth is going to do that?

Cameroon law stipulates that commercial loggers must consult with local communities over their logging plans.

They must help local communities to document their traditional use areas, negotiate with them where overlaps are identified, and establish mechanisms to avoid conflicts with communities in areas targeted for logging.

However, there is little evidence that this occurs anywhere in Central Africa. The results are systematic, long-term degradation of forest wealth, reduced forest community welfare and increasing poverty of an indigenous population experiencing jaw-dropping rates of mortality for children aged under five.

Logging on

Up to now, indigenous communities such as Baka have been powerless to stop logging from occurring on their lands. However, with the support of a few progressive European donors, some have started to document their traditional lands.

They are entering into dialogues with government, conservation agencies and logging companies to negotiate protection for their forest rights.



New GPS mapping technologies developed for use by non-literate communities such as Baka are helping forest communities to take over documentation of their traditional forest use.

They are putting themselves on the map and being given a stronger negotiating position with loggers, as well as with conservation and development agencies targeting their regions.

But these fire-fighting efforts by communities and their local supporters alone are not enough. Without significant additional support from European timber dealers - the buyers who drive the industrial wood trade - indigenous communities will remain powerless to stop their forests being destroyed by unscrupulous producers.

Their children are doomed to increasing poverty because there is too much money being made in Europe.

Most European consumers do not understand the impact on poor African communities of their timber purchases, due to the lack of information about where it comes from and how it is produced, and the impacts of its harvest on forest community welfare.

I believe that if most knew the reality, they would be far more discerning about what they bought.

The cruelty of battery poultry farming in the UK, which has received so much attention recently, pales into insignificance when compared with the logging injustices and increasing poverty of indigenous forest communities who simply want their children to survive childhood, to gain greater access to health services, and to learn to read even a little bit.

Europeans, and consumers across the globe, have the power to stop the disaster that is overwhelming forest peoples, but will they take up the challenge?

John Nelson is Africa policy adviser for the Forest Peoples Programme, a UK Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) working to support forest communities around the world to secure their lands and destinies

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

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Indonesians being tricked out of rainforest land

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 11 Feb 08;

Native peoples who depend on the rainforest for survival are being tricked out of their land by corrupt officials so they can grow lucrative biofuel crops, according to environmental groups.

Forests that have supported generations of native peoples are being snatched and levelled for palm oil plantations, says Friends of the Earth.

Unscrupulous companies are using force or conning families in the Indonesian rainforests into giving up their rights to the land by promising jobs and new developments.

In its report Losing Ground FoE claims people end up in poorly paid work and locked into debt while the companies profit from palm oil plantations which destroy the forest and pollute village water supplies.

It blames the rush to biofuels for fuelling demand for the huge amount of land needed to grow oil palm and calls on the EU to scrap its 10 per cent target for road transport biofuels by 2010.

The report claims that although the EU wants to use biofuels sustainably it has not addressed the problems caused by its production and this will lead to more of the types of problems seen in Indonesia.

More than 85 per cent of the worlds palm oil is produced in plantations in Indonesia and Malaysia. Indonesia alone plans a further 20m hectares of plantations by 2020 - an area the size of England, Holland and Switzerland combined.

The palm oil industry says that plantation expansion is vital for economic development and methods used are both environmentally sustainable and benefit the local people. In reality little else survives in the plantations and half the habitat of the orang-utan lost in the last decade has been linked to palm oil plantation expansion.

The deforestation and drainage of peat swamps for palm oil production has made Indonesia the third highest emitter of green house gases after the USA and China.

FoE, which worked with environment groups Sawit Watch and LifeMosaic on the report, says there is mounting evidence that biofuels cannot deliver on the reduction needed in CO2 emissions to combat climate change.

Hannah Griffiths, Friends of the Earth biofuels campaigner, said: "This report shows that as well as being bad for the environment, biofuels from palm oil are a disaster for people. MEPs should listen to the evidence and use the forthcoming debate on this in the European Parliament to reject the 10 per cent target.

"Instead of introducing targets for more biofuels the EU should insist that all new cars are designed to be super efficient. The UK Government must also take a strong position against the 10 per cent target in Europe and do its bit to reduce transport emissions by improving public transport and making it easier for people to walk and cycle.".

The environment groups have been helping communities affected by palm oil plantations in Indonesia since 2005 to give an insight into the social, economic and cultural impacts of oil palm plantations.

Serge Marti from LifeMosaic said: "Indonesia is a uniquely diverse country whose communities and environment are being sacrificed for the benefit of a handful of companies and wealthy individuals.

"This report should help the Indonesian government to recognise that there is a problem, and to step up efforts to protect the rights of communities. In Europe we must realise that encouraging large fuel companies to grab community land across the developing world is no solution to climate change. The EU must play its part by abandoning its 10 per cent target for biofuels."

Abetnego Tarigan, deputy director of Sawit Watch, said: "Oil palm companies have already taken over 7.3 million hectares of land for plantations, resulting in 513 ongoing conflicts between companies and communities.

"Given the negative social and environmental impacts of oil palm, Sawit Watch demands reform of the Indonesian oil palm plantation system and a re-think of plantation expansion plans."

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KL embarks on $142b boost for Sarawak

Today Online 12 Feb 08;

KUALA LUMPUR — Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yesterday launched a develop- ment project worth nearly US$100 billion ($141.8 billion) to fuel growth in resource-rich Sarawak state on Borneo island.

Mr Abdullah said the government will spend an initial RM5 billion ($2.2 billion) to kickstart the Sarawak Corridor of Renewable Energy, with private investment targeted at RM300 billion. The Sarawak plan focuses on developing energy resources of hydropower, coal, natural gas and petroleum.

The government is gearing up for elections expected in March and has launched another four big-budget masterplans worth billions of dollars to attract foreign investment and develop rural states over the next two decades.

The Premier said the project aims to bring economic growth and eradicate poverty in Sarawak by 2030, by creating 800,000 jobs and luring billions in private investment. The area earmarked for development is a 320km stretch along the Borneo coast facing the South China Sea, and covers 57 per cent of the state.

Officials say the main engine of growth for the project is the use of hydroelectricity supplied by the controversial Bakun Dam to power heavy industries.

Sarawak also signed 13 agreements yesterday with several firms, including a deal with global miner Rio Tinto Alcan for an aluminium smelter. — Agencies

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Philippines Strives to Control Boom on Paradise Isle

Raju Gopalakrishnan, PlanetArk 11 Feb 08;

BORACAY, Philippines - It's getting crowded in paradise.

About 600,000 tourists came last year to Boracay in the central Philippines, regarded as one of the world's best holiday destinations, and swam, ate and slept on an island that has only about 18,000 full-time residents.

Arrivals should rise to about 670,000 this year, and pressure is mounting on the island's infrastructure as more and more hotels and resorts are built to cater for the boom.

The single narrow road that runs the length of Boracay is jam-packed, drain pipes bring floodwater to the beach and hotel taps can suddenly run dry. About 10 tonnes of garbage need to be treated and disposed of each day.

"It's really taken off (in terms of) congestion, overgrowth," said David Light, a retired American actor who has been visiting Boracay for its windsurfing since 1991.

"It was a pristine natural environment and I hated to see it change, but it did."

Three decades ago, Boracay was the legendary secret destination for a generation of backpackers, pretty much deserted, with stunning beaches, a few huts and only basic facilities.

Now, over 150 hotels and restaurants are crowded along the 5-km (3-mile) White Beach, renowned for its soft, powdery sand and the clear blue water that it gently descends into. Other parts of the island are less crowded but may be getting there.

The government, concerned that the crown jewel of its tourism brochures is getting shopworn, is trying to step in but with limited success.

Environment Secretary Lito Atienza announced a ban on construction on Boracay in August, but it was not implemented until January, and then only for new projects. The moratorium will stay in place at least until July. A master plan for developing the island will be in place by then.


FRAGILE

"I feel that the island is very fragile," said Loubelle Cann, president of the Boracay Foundation, a local business association.

"I don't really know how much the island can carry in terms of physical capacity so we are pushing that we should at least study these things because you cannot just build and build and build."

Despite the moratorium, about 100 unfinished shops, hotels and restaurants have been allowed to be completed and the noise of jackhammers, excavators and power saws can be heard across the island.

These include a huge 183-room deluxe resort being built by Shangri-La north of White Beach. The hotel will cost $100 million and will offer rooms starting at $500 per night. It is expected to open by November this year.

Nearby, a hillside is being excavated to build the Alta Vista resort while the Shangri-La's staff quarters are being constructed across the street.

But still, there's no let up on the boatloads of tourists who cross from the main Panay island through the day.

White Beach, despite the crowds, is clean, and all buildings are a maximum two storeys high, lower than the coconut palms that fringe the sands. Unlike beaches elsewhere in the world, it remains safe at night and there are no overt signs of sleaze or drugs.

"It's nice," said Roger Mestric, a Frenchman from Nantes who was on the island with his wife after visits to China and Cambodia.

"It's not particularly crowded. From an ecologist's point of view, Martinique (in the Caribbean) is better, but you can live here easily."

The government and the resort-owners, residents say, have to find the balance between controlling expansion, providing infrastructure, offering facilities and retaining some mystique.

It's not the big resorts like the Shangri-La or the Alta Vista that are the problem, they say, it's the smaller buildings which sometimes block natural waterways or do not have proper sewage or waste disposal.

And there is never an easy answer for those who hanker for the good old days.

"Some people moan that it was much better 20 years ago," said Victor Ocskai, a German who owns a resort on the beach. "And then they want cold beer, running hot water and air-conditioning.

"Twenty years ago, it was quiet, but there was no cold beer."

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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King penguins could be wiped out by climate change: study

Yahoo News 11 Feb 08;

One of the emblems of the Antarctic, the king penguin, could be driven to extinction by climate change, a French study published on Monday warned.

In a long-term investigation on the penguins' main breeding grounds, investigators found that a tiny warming of the Southern Ocean by the El Nino effect caused a massive fall in the birds' ability to survive.

If predictions by UN scientists of ever-higher temperatures in coming decades prove true, the species faces a major risk of being wiped out, they say.

Second in size only to the emperor penguin, king penguins (Aptenodytes patagonicus) live on islands on the fringes of Antarctica in the southern Indian Ocean, with an estimated population of two million breeding pairs.

The species is unusual in that it takes a whole year for all the birds to complete their breeding cycle -- the ritual of courtship, egg laying, incubating and chick rearing.

This extreme length, spanning the Antarctic winter and summer, means the birds are vulnerable to downturns in seasonal food resources for incubating their eggs and nurturing their chicks.

Their main diet, small fish and squid, depends on krill. These minute crustaceans are in turn extremely sensitive to temperature rise.

The team, led by Yvon Le Maho of France's National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), marked 456 penguins with subcutaneous electronic tags at a big breeding ground on Possession Island on the Crozet archipelago in the southern.

They buried radio antennas on pathways used by the penguins on the island and connected them to a computer that automatically recorded when the birds came and went.

The surveillance programme ran from November 1997 to April 2006, a period that included an El Nino, the cyclical warming event that is not linked to climate change.

During the El Nino, penguins that were early breeders did well, but those that bred later were badly hit, as the progressively warmer seas made food rarer.

But the overall impact on population only became visible two years later, because of the penguins' long reproductive cycle.

An increase of just 0.25 degrees Celsius (0.45 degrees Fahrenheit) in surface sea temperature translated into a nine-percent decline in an adult bird's chance of survival, Le Maho calculates.

According to the UN's Nobel-winning panel of climate scientists, the mean global temperature is already set to rise by around 0.2 C (0.35 F) per decade over the next two decades as part of a longer warming trend this century.

"Our findings suggest the king penguin populations are at heavy extinction risk under the current global warming predictions," the scientists say.

Their paper is published on Monday by the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

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Insect Invasion Possible as Climate Warms

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Yahoo News 12 Feb 08;

Global warming could bring about a veritable insect explosion, if past performance is an indication of future gains.

Just such a buggy invasion swarmed parts of the northern United States during an abrupt global warming event more than 50 million years ago, a new study of leaf fossils shows.

The study's findings, detailed in the Feb. 11 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, indicate that the same thing could happen during our current period of warming.

Holes, mines and galls

The most diverse range of insects today can be found in the tropics, along with the most insect damage to leaves. These observations indicate a correlation between warmer temperatures and insect diversity.

Insect diversity in an area can be inferred from the amount and types of damage found on the leaves of local plant life. The scars left on leaves from munching insects can even be seen in fossils.

Different types of insects leave different types of marks from their meal. Some, such as beetles, simply chew holes in the leaves. Some butterflies leave marks called "mines" that result when the insect's egg hatches and the larva eats a "feeding channel" through the leaf, says study leader Ellen Currano, a graduate student at Penn State.

Another mark left by insect larvae that hatch in the leaf, called "galls," are like "balls of thickened tissue" that the larva eats, as Currano describes it.

The researchers looked for evidence of these scars in more than 5,000 leaf fossils from the Bighorn Basin in Wyoming. The leaf fossils date from before, during and after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), an abrupt global warming event comparable to our current state of climate change that occurred about 56 million years ago. The changes in the amount and types of marks left by leaf-munching insects, as well as the percentage of devoured leaves, indicated how many of the creepy crawlies were in the area under different climatic conditions.

Hungry, hungry insects

Currano and her colleagues found that during the comparatively cooler end of the Paleocene epoch, 15 to 38 percent of leaves showed insect damage. Similarly, later on at the beginning of the Eocene, when temperatures had dropped after the thermal maximum, 33 percent of leaves were damaged. But during the warmth of the PETM, insect damage was found on 57 percent of leaves.

"We … see this big jump in the percentage of leaves that have any kind of damage," Currano said.

Currano and her colleagues think these more voracious insect appetites were a result of a concurrent rise in carbon dioxide levels during the PETM that would have made plant leaves less nutritious.

"With more carbon dioxide available to plants, photosynthesis is easier and plants can make the same amount of food for themselves without having to put so much protein in their leaves," so insects have to eat more of a leaf to get the same amount of nutrition they did before, Currano explained.

The same feeding frenzy could occur as carbon dioxide levels continue to rise today, as several studies have shown that some plants produce fewer nutrients in elevated carbon dioxide levels.

Along with hungrier insects could come a change in the type of plants and bugs in northerly regions.

The plants in the three different time periods the team studied were all different and showed an increase in biodiversity in the PETM that suggests to the researchers that plant species slowly migrated from the Gulf Coast area as temperatures warmed. Currano says that insects could have followed the same route.

"They're also following the plants that they ate on further south," she told LiveScience.

Because the PETM is comparable in the size and rate of warming to the current climate change regime, Currano and her team think it likely that such an invasion of hungry insects could eventually occur in modern times.

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Experts challenge ice shelf claim

BBC News 7 Feb 08;

Two scientists have claimed that climate change was not the only cause of the collapse of a 500bn tonne ice shelf in Antarctica six years ago.

The 656ft (200m) thick, 1,255 sq mile (3,250 sq km) Larsen B shelf broke apart in March 2002.

But Neil Glasser of Aberystwyth University and Ted Scambos of Colorado University claim in a new study that it had been on the brink for decades.

They argue that glaciological and atmospheric factors were also invoved.

In a paper published in the Journal of Glaciology, the pair say that when Larsen B collapsed it appeared to be the latest in a long line of victims of Antarctic summer heatwaves linked to global warming.

Researchers from the British Antarctic Survey predicted in 1998 that several ice shelves around the peninsula were doomed because of rising temperatures in the region, but the speed with which Larsen B went shocked them in 2002.



But Prof Glasser said the dramatic event was "not as simple as we first thought".

He acknowledged that global warming had a major part to play in the collapse, but emphasised that it was only one of a number of contributory factors.

"Because large amounts of meltwater appeared on the ice shelf just before it collapsed, we had always assumed that air temperature increases were to blame," he added.

"But our new study shows that ice-shelf break up is not controlled simply by climate.

"A number of other atmospheric, oceanic and glaciological factors are involved.

"For example, the location and spacing of fractures on the ice shelf such as crevasses and rifts are very important too because they determine how strong or weak the ice shelf is."

Dr Scambos, of the University of Colorado's national snow and ice data centre, said the ice shelf had probably been in distress for decades before its demise.

"It's likely that melting from higher ocean temperatures, or even a gradual decline in the ice mass of the peninsula over the centuries, was pushing the Larsen to the brink," he added.

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Greek shoppers told to kick plastic bag habit

Yahoo News 11 Feb 08;

Greece's top supermarket chains and the city of Athens launched Monday a campaign to turn shoppers off plastic bags, some 2.5 billion of which are used nationwide each year.

"We need to persuade people to stop using plastic bags," Christophoros Giokas, general sales manager at Greek chain My Market, told reporters. "We frequently see shoppers taking five spare bags home."

Nine chains -- AB Vassilopoulos, Atlantic, Veropoulos, Bazaar, Galaxias, Carrefour Marinopoulos, Dia Hellas, My Market Metro, and Sklavenitis -- signed a memorandum with Athens Mayor Nikitas Kaklamanis to provide reusable and environment-friendly bags on a two-month trial ran starting April 14.

The measure will begin in earnest on June 1 along with efforts to expand it to the rest of the country, Kaklamanis told a news conference.

Around 40 percent of Greece's 11 million people live in Athens, where increasing levels of domestic waste are being generated, the memorandum said.

Plastic bags end up in hundreds of unofficial or substandard landfills around the country that are a major headache for Greek authorities, but also pose a threat to river and marine wildlife.

Ninety-eight percent of European sea birds have pieces of plastic in their stomachs, the memorandum said.

The European Union has repeatedly expressed alarm over the disposal of environmentally-hazardous waste at these sites, and Greece is often singled out by both the EU and environmental groups such as Greenpeace and WWF for failing to enforce even its own environmental legislation.

Only around 20 percent of waste generated in the country is recycled, the Greek environment ministry said in July.

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U.N. climate fund seen fed by more sources

Reuters 11 Feb 08;

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A fund to help poor countries adapt to consequences of climate change such as rising seas and searing temperatures could soon be enriched by more sources, the U.N.'s top climate change official said on Monday.

Recognizing that climate change may be hard to reverse, experts are now examining "adaptation," or protection against potential catastrophes, in addition to reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

The United Nations agreed to start an adaptation fund for poor countries late last year at climate talks in Bali, Indonesia. Currently, the fund receives money from a levy on deals under the Clean Development Mechanism, or investments from rich countries in green technology projects in developing countries under the Kyoto Protocol.

"One of the things under discussion is whether the levy ought to be extended to other mechanisms as well which would significantly increase revenues," Yvo de Boer, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, told reporters on the sidelines of a General Assembly climate debate.

The levy could be extended to Kyoto Protocol climate deals between rich countries, known as Joint Implementation, or to carbon credit trade, he said.

The fund now comprises about $36 million, but might rise to as much as $5 billion a year by 2030 if investments in green technology rise.

De Boer said it was hard to tell how much the fund would grow this year because the U.N. has a backlog of about 2,000 of the CDM projects and it is uncertain how many tons of emissions reductions they would generate or where emissions prices will go.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Matthew Lewis)

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Age of 'Green Economics' is Upon Us: UN Secretary General

PlanetArk 11 Feb 08;

CHICAGO - UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said on Thursday the world is on the cusp of "the age of green economics" and called on nations to cooperate to fight global warming and promote the transformation.

"With the right financial incentives and a global framework, we can steer economic growth in a low-carbon direction," Ban said in remarks prepared for delivery to a Chicago business group.

Ban, who has made the environment a centerpiece of his year-long leadership of the UN, urged the United States and other countries to partner with the "world's only truly global institution" to combat such scourges as climate change, terrorism and infectious diseases.

"No nation, alone, can deal with such problems," Ban said. "Operating effectively in today's world requires partnership. It requires co-operation, engagement and dialogue -- as well as global rules."

Three-quarters of Americans in surveys believe the United Nations should play a larger role in the world, he said, and a similar proportion say US foreign policy should be coordinated with the international body.

The United States is the biggest single funder of the United Nations though the body has been an object of frequent criticism, particularly from Republicans, for how it is run and for the perception it impedes US goals.

Ban said global investment in green energy is projected to hit $1.9 trillion by 2020, an indication of an economic shift that will rival the industrial revolution and the technology revolution of the past two centuries.

"We're now on the threshold of another (transformation) -- the age of green economics," Ban said.

"Businesspeople in so many parts of the world are demanding clear and consistent policies on climate change -- global policies for a global problem," he said.

(Reporting by Andrew Stern; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

UN chief calls for climate change action
Edith M. Lederer, Associated Press Yahoo News 12 Feb 08;

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Monday urged all nations to join private companies, civic groups and individuals this year in sustaining "the unprecedented momentum" to fight global warming.

"If 2007 was the year when climate change rose to the top of the global agenda, 2008 is the time we must take concerted action," Ban said at the start of a two-day U.N. General Assembly debate to generate support for a new treaty by 2009 to fight global warming.

General Assembly President Srgjan Kerim invited U.N. member states, government officials and business and civic leaders to the United Nations to follow up December's international climate conference on the Indonesian resort island of Bali. There, delegates from nearly 190 nations agreed to adopt a blueprint to control global warming gases before the end of next year.

"The conference delivered what it set out to do," Ban said. "Now the real work begins. The challenge is huge. We have less than two years to craft an agreement on action that measures up to what the science tells us."

In key reports last year, a U.N. network of climate and other scientists warned of severe consequences — from rising seas, droughts, severe weather, species extinction and other effects — without sharp cutbacks in emissions of the industrial, transportation and agricultural gases blamed for global warming.

To avoid the worst, the Nobel Prize-winning U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said greenhouse gas emissions should be reduced by 25 percent to 40 percent below 1990 levels by 2020 — and by at least half by 2050.

"This is just as important as stopping nuclear proliferation. This is just as important as stopping terrorism," New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg said Monday in the keynote address.

The new agreement would replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol, which requires 36 industrial nations to radically reduce emissions by 2012, when it expires. The United States is the only major industrial country that did not ratify the Kyoto Protocol.

A new agreement needs to be adopted by the end of 2009 to ensure a smooth transition to a new post-Kyoto regime. Before then, Ban said, the international community must map emission limitation commitments; mobilize the financing needed and technological innovation; and agree on "essential action to adapt to the impacts of climate change."

He called on governments, organizations, and individuals around the world to "help sustain the unprecedented momentum that propelled the climate change agenda forward so dramatically last year."

"Developed countries need to take a clear lead, but success is possible only if all countries act," Ban said. "The more ambitious the commitments by developed countries, the more actions we can expect from developing countries."

Kerim said new technologies, renewable energies and more research are essential to solve the problem.

"What is needed is ... a global alliance for action, shared by individuals, the media, lawmakers, business leaders, governments, regional organizations and ultimately the global community embodied in the U.N," Kerim said. "Only then will we have a chance to tackle this enormous challenge to our way of life."

Bloomberg said the world's cities can help lead the way toward reducing the greenhouse gases blamed for warming the planet. He also called on the United States to set "real and binding" targets to reduce emissions, instead of the current U.S. strategy that largely relies on voluntary approaches and spending for research and technology.

"I believe that the American people are prepared for our responsibility to lead by example," he said.

Special guests at the climate debate include British billionaire Richard Branson, who has decided to invest heavily in "biofuels," and actress Daryl Hannah. Nearly 100 countries have signed up to speak and 20 are sending ministers, assembly spokesman Janos Tisovszky said Friday.

The debate follows a recent report by the secretary-general which said global warming could cost the world up to $20 trillion over two decades for cleaner energy sources and do the most harm to people who can least afford to adapt.

UN chief, NY mayor urge world action on climate change
Gerard Aziakou Yahoo News 11 Feb 08;

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg joined UN chief Ban Ki-moon here Monday in galvanizing world action to roll back climate change, an issue he described as "just as important" as nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

"We are damaging our planet. Nobody knows at what rate but at any rate it is not good," Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a UN General Assembly debate on the impact of global warming.

"We have to do something about it and we have to do it now," he added.

Calling climate change "perhaps one of the most important issues facing us," Bloomberg said: "This is just as important as stopping nuclear proliferation. This is just as important as stopping terrorism."

"Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people. Global warming long-term has the potential to kill everybody," the New York mayor said.

At the opening of a two-day meeting, Ban underscored the need to "encourage new kinds of cleaner technologies, industries and jobs and integrate climate change risks into national policies and practices."

He reminded participants of the achievements made at last December's Bali conference in Indonesia, where agreement was reached on setting a 2009 deadline for a landmark new treaty to cut global-warming greenhouse gases once the current Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

"Developed countries need to take a clear lead, but success is possible only if all countries act," the UN chief said.

"The more ambitious the commitments by developed countries, the more actions we can expect from developing countries," he said. "The more developing countries engage, the more ambitiously the developed countries will commit."

British tycoon Richard Branson, president of the Virgin Atlantic airline called for "a powerful partnership that helps to scale up the best innovation by bringing together business leaders, economists, environmental groups and other expert organizations to tackle the war against global warming."

He insisted that this was indeed "a war ... the first war that truly threatens almost all human life -- a war that to win we must all fight together."

And he said that Virgin was doing its part by putting up a 25 million-dollar (17.25 million-euro) prize to "encourage scientists and inventors to put their mind to it.

"Today, we would like to urge the 20 wealthiest governments to match us in this endeavor so we can make the largest scientific price ever: a half a billion-dollar prize," Branson told the meeting.

Bloomberg said that in the United States, "cities and states have stepped up to the plate where the government has been unwilling to do so."

In New York City, he cited a campaign to "reduce our carbon footprint," for instance by converting taxis to fuel-saving hybrids over the next five years, a move which he said would reduce the city's entire carbon footprint by half of one percent.

He also cited a drive to plant one million trees throughout the city over the next 10 years, a move which "will not only capture carbon dioxide, but also clean the air, cool our streets, reduce street flooding and raise property values."

Bloomberg also highlighted efforts to make the city's buildings environmentally friendly -- "not just to cut carbon emissions, but also because it will allow us to redirect billions of dollars a year it now takes to heat and cool these buildings, often inefficiently, to better purposes."

And he unveiled a long-term initiative to reduce consumption of tropical hardwoods by city agencies.

In the short-term, the plan aims to cut tropical hardwood use by 20 percent by eliminating these woods from construction and maintenance of park benches, and piloting alternative materials for existing boardwalks.

"Setting serious carbon targets will not hamper growth," Bloomberg said.

"If the US and the developing nations make such commitments, then the prospects for a new international global warming accord improve greatly."

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New York Mayor slams U.S. energy law over corn ethanol

Bloomberg slams U.S. energy law over corn ethanol
Louis Charbonneau and Timothy Gardner, Reuters 11 Feb 08;

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A new U.S. energy law will cause an increase in global food prices and lead to starvation deaths worldwide because it continues to promote corn ethanol, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg said on Monday.

"People literally will starve to death in parts of the world, it always happens when food prices go up," Bloomberg told reporters after addressing a U.N. General Assembly debate on climate change.

The new U.S. law, which came into force late last year, increased fivefold the required amount of blending of biofuels like corn ethanol -- creating higher demand for the grain that will push up corn prices.

By 2022 some 15 billion gallons of the required 36 billion could come from corn ethanol, with the rest mandated to come from lower-carbon sources such as crop waste and switchgrass.

The new law favored corn ethanol by continuing to subsidize it while taxing sugar ethanol, Bloomberg said. This is because corn ethanol is mainly domestically produced while sugar ethanol is imported from Brazil and subject to import tariffs.

Bloomberg joined other critics of corn ethanol production in saying it was not a net producer of energy, unlike sugar ethanol. That is, corn ethanol does not yield more energy than it takes to produce, transport and use it.

Biofuels are seen by some people as a means of reducing greenhouse gas emissions and boosting energy security by providing an alternative to fossil fuels.

Richard Branson, the billionaire British entrepreneur and head of Virgin Group, agreed that sugar ethanol was preferable to corn-based biofuel. It would make more sense, he said, for the United States to grow food and let countries like Brazil use their land to produce sugar for biofuels.

"I think if America got rid of the importation duty on sugar-based ethanol, that's what would happen and I think the world would benefit from that," Branson told reporters.

Cuban leader Fidel Castro blasted the Bush administration's biofuels policy as "genocidal" in a series of articles last year, saying they threatened to worsen global hunger by pushing up prices for food crops used to make ethanol.

GLOBAL WARMING IS AS BAD AS TERRORISM

The international Sugar Cane Industry Union (Unica) has said that sugar cane-based fuel yields more energy than corn fuel, providing seven liters of ethanol per hectare compared with three liters with corn. The group also claimed that sugar ethanol production costs are lower.

The European Commission said last month that the European Union would set tougher environmental criteria for biofuels after admitting that the drive for these fuels has done unforeseen damage, like endangering rain forests in Asia and causing a rise in food prices.

Bloomberg also told reporters that global warming is just as much a threat to the human race as terrorism and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

"Terrorists kill people, weapons of mass destruction have the potential to kill enormous numbers of people, global warming has the potential to kill everybody," said the head of the city where nearly 3,000 people died in the September 11 attacks.

"This is really just as lethal, it's just that the results are something we will face long term," he said.

The mayor has set a goal of reducing New York's greenhouse gas emissions by 30 percent by 2030 through measures like converting the taxi cab fleet to hybrid cars by 2012 and trying to reduce city driving through "congestion pricing" or charging vehicles a user fee to the heart of the city's business district.

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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No amnesty for Amazon deforestation: Brazil

Yahoo News 11 Feb 08;

Brazil's government on Monday dismissed reports suggesting an amnesty was being considered for landowners who were contributing to the deforestation of the Amazon.

Brasilia "is not working on any amnesty proposal for those behind illegal deforestation or on any weakening of legislation" protecting the woodland, Environment Minister Marina Silva told reporters.

She and Agriculture Minister Reinhold Stephanes criticized a congessional committee bill that aims at revising current environmental protection laws for the Amazon by giving landowners more leeway to clear vegetation.

That text, if passed, "would not result in lesser deforestation but rather the legalization of passive environmental protection, and would cause more deforestation," Silva said.

Brazil is currently redoubling efforts to conserve the Amazon -- sometimes called the "lungs" of the planet for its role in absorbing carbon dioxide and producing oxygen -- after seeing increased deforestation in the last half of 2007.

It is stepping up monitoring by police and rangers, and reinforcing penalties against cattle ranchers and loggers who violate the protection laws.

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Ecuadoran warned about oil fields in nature preserve

Yahoo News 10 Feb 08;

Attorney General Xavier Garaicoa urged oil companies from China, Brazil, Spain and Ecuador to pull up their stakes from an Amazonian natural preserve to prevent "environmental and social problems."

The oil fields "are inside the Yasuni national park," which has been declared a world nature preserve and is home to the Tagaeri and Taromenane indigenous communities, Garaicoa said in a statement addressed to the government of President Rafael Correa.

He said the presence of the four oil companies -- Spain's Repsol YPF, Brazil's Petrobras, China's Andes Petroleum and Ecuador's Petroecuador -- in the region "could create environmental and social problems in the future."

He reminded the government of its international commitments in defense of the environment and human rights, especially the protective measures the Interamerican Commission has requested to keep the Tagaeri and Taromenane people in their voluntary isolation in the preserve.

"There's a pressing need for the oil fields to be removed from the protected area, even though their locations were set out before the Yasuni area was established," Garaicoa said.

With a daily production of 508,000 barrels of oil, Ecuador is the smallest member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

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