Singapore's future is underground

Seah Cheang Nee, The Star 1 Mar 08;

Reclamation is, of course continuing. A S$7bil (RM16bil) project has just joined up seven outlying islands to be a chemical hub. By 2010, Singapore will grow to 730 sq km, 25% larger than before independence.

With land above ground exploited almost to the point of extinction, the only way for Singapore to grow is downwards.

PRESSED by circumstances, the 21st Century Singaporean is spending more and more time underground – working, driving, eating and shopping – and the trend is for more of it.

For years the government had been burrowing deep into the bowels of Singapore to squeeze out more use of its limited land area.

From a simple car-parking idea long ago, the subterranean concept has rapidly expanded in scope to reach almost every aspect of life.

The convenience has become an urgent solution to over-crowdedness that is expected to worsen by the proposed future population of 5.5 million people.

Today, almost every building in Singapore – from department stores to hospitals, and from military installations to churches – has one or two basement levels.

(The Gothic-style chapel of Singapore’s 141-year-old Convent has been preserved but modernised with a new underground courtyard.)

Singapore has just built South-East Asia’s longest underground tunnel to alleviate traffic jams. The 18km road – with the tunnel forming half of it – links two other expressways expanding Singapore’s network of underground transport systems.

The next will be the construction of a multi-billion-dollar MRT line (one of two new ones) that will run a circular 33.3km underneath central Singapore.

When it opens after 2010, the new Central Circle Line will have 29 stations and connect with all the radial lines leading in and out of the city.

Spotlighting on the Central Line, a Discovery Channel programme reported: “If you take all the best bits from undergrounds around the world, discard everything that does not work and then throw millions of dollars into further design and construction, then you have the project that has every Singaporean drooling over their dim sum.

“The Singapore Circle Line ... one of the biggest and certainly best underground railways in the world. In this film we witness the realisation of this utopian vision under construction. The spectacle is addictively fascinating.”

Dhoby Ghaut also stands out as an underground engineering feat. The five-level subterranean station links three MRT lines and a shopping complex and the Istana Park and will cater to 20,000 people an hour at its peak.

Two other lines are already partially below ground – as well as some roads and highways in the city.

The problems faced by affluent Singapore, especially in public transport, are best described in the Discovery Channel report:

“With a permanent population of 4.5 million, and a further 10 million visitors a year, the streets daily swarm with people, the roads are choked with cars, buses and bicycles, and the trains are packed. Gridlock beckons.”

For more than 40 years, this fourth densest city in the world, has implemented a long-term creative effort to maximise land use. Planners regard land as a non-finite commodity.

With the acute shortage, land use is strictly apportioned. Just over 50% is used to build homes, schools and hospitals, almost 38% for industrial use, and 12% for parks.

The strategy began after independence by reclaiming land from the sea and building upward, packing millions of people into high-rise homes and offices.

Reclamation is, of course continuing. A S$7bil (RM16bil) project has just joined up seven outlying islands to be a chemical hub. By 2010, Singapore will grow to 730 sq km, 25% larger than before independence.

Cemeteries were cleared after 1965, when citizens, except Muslims, were asked to reclaim family members for cremation.

The five-year cemetery exhumation plan immediately freed land to build 12,000 centrally located, high-rise apartments.

Over the past two decades, the government has exhumed more than 36 cemeteries of different races and religions.

Today there are no burial grounds in Singapore for non-Muslims; the dead had long made way for the living.

And now, with increasing tempo, it has indulged in a much more expensive programme of building below ground.

Underground caverns have been created as bomb shelters and storage for ammunition.

Singapore is also building subterranean ring roads, a science lab, shopping complexes and a S$9bil (RM20.6bil) underground sewage system that will take 20 years to finish.

Creating a city underground is, of course, slow and very costly, but less intrusive; something that goes on almost without interruption through the years.

Several years ago Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew returned from Paris impressed with its central underground ring roads and called for an eventual adaptation in Singapore.

The result is a S$4.8bil (RM11bil) plan to build a network of ring roads below the central business district.

Other mega subterranean projects include:

> A large sewage system that comprises two highway-size tunnels criss-crossing the island 12 storeys below ground; stretching for 80km with a series of smaller link sewers running another 170km, the project will take 20 years to finish;

> Singapore’s first underground ammunition storage depots, leading to land savings equivalent to half a fair-sized New Town;

> An underground science complex, being planned near the National University of Singapore; and,

> Shifting the big oil-storage business, which takes up much land, to underground caverns.

“Underground space is an alternative for the future space development in Singapore,” an official said.

This could be created in the form of caverns, tunnels and deep basements, for commercial, transportation, industrial and institutional purposes, he added.

The Economist recently wrote of Singapore's future underground ambitions. “Then perhaps concert halls, sports stadiums – who knows? Such schemes are hugely costly, but Singapore has massive financial reserves for its size,” it commented.

“In creating enough space to continue its breakneck expansion, money will be no object.”

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More protected Indonesian forests up for grabs

Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post 1 Mar 08;

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro told hundreds of mining investors on Friday they would soon be able to apply to operate in productive as well as protected forests.

Purnomo cited a newly issued forestry regulation and said, "Under the new government regulation, we will allow you to mine in productive and protected forests, subject to you giving us compensation".

At present, there are 13 mining companies operating in protected forests.

The companies were granted an exception by the government in 2004 via a presidential decree, despite the fact their operations would violate a forestry regulation completely banning all mining activities in protected forest areas.

The exemption was allowed despite intense public opposition that said the mining operations jeopardized the nation's already depleted forests.

Those 13 companies include PT Aneka Tambang (Antam), PT Inco, PT Freeport McMoran Indonesia, PT Nusa Halmahera, PT Nataran Mining and PT Indominco Mandiri.

Beyond the 13, Purnomo said there would soon be another presidential decree indicating other mining firms could join the group.

Mining companies allowed to operate would be required to pay at most Rp 3 million per hectare per year for operating in a protected forest.

"We need a presidential decree to include all mining firms (not just the 13)," Purnomo said.

"They should pay compensation if they want to mine in protected and productive forestry."

Simon Sembiring, the ministry's director general for coal, mineral and geothermal, confirmed the presidential decree would soon be introduced.

But he said before the issuance of the decree, the government would coordinate with the Forestry Ministry and various research agencies to ensure a level of sustainability in the firms' mining operations.

"We will be very selective, however, all mining companies can submit their request for permits and we will decide which ones are selected," Simon said.

He said the 13 firms currently operating in protected forests had been selected from 150 submitted proposals.

He said the selection process applied only for applications to mine in protected forests and not in productive forests.

The Indonesian Mining Association (IMA) said the plan was a good arrangement and would improve the country's investments in the mining sector.

"What we need is certainty," IMA chairman Arif S. Siregar said.

"He hope that with this, things will be clearer and the energy and mineral resources ministry can finally resolve its endless dispute with the forestry ministry," he said.

Read more!

Spate of Dolphin Deaths hits Cornwall

wildlife extra.com

February 2008. In the past two weeks Cornwall Wildlife Trusts Marine Strandings Network volunteers have attended ten strandings, nine of which were common dolphins and one of which was a harbour porpoise.

Volunteers along the south coast were called out to strandings spread between Downderry in the east to Penzance in the west. The Roseland peninsular was identified as a hotspot with three of the strandings recorded in the area.

Very Worrying Trend

Tom Hardy, Marine Conservation Officer for CWT says ‘Ten strandings in a ten day period is a cause for concern but when taking into account five of these were recorded over one weekend alone, it becomes a much more worrying trend.’ So why are these dolphins being found on our beach? Tom Hardy explains : ‘The majority of the strandings showed signs of bycatch in fishing gear. This evidence of bycatch ranged from the very obvious marks such as amputation of the tail or the stomach being slit open, to help the animal sink and hide the evidence, to monofilament net marks across the body and the beak of the animal.’

Cornwall Wildlife Trust does not rely solely on visual evidence but also conducts post mortems at the Veterinary Laboratory Agency in Truro. Only one of the recently stranded animals was in good enough condition to undergo a post mortem which concluded that the injuries sustained were consistent with bycatch in fishing nets.

Tom continues: ‘By recording stranded cetaceans over the last 12 years, we have worked tirelessly to show the link between certain fishing methods and dead stranded cetaceans. In 2006 175 dead cetaceans were recorded and although this figure was lower in 2007 (81), this recent spate of strandings suggests the problem has not gone away.’

Acoustic deterrent device

Cornwall Wildlife Trust has been campaigning for protection of our dolphin populations and is currently working on appropriating funding for a project to introduce a pinger (an acoustic deterrent device) trial in inshore waters. Pingers have been shown to alert porpoises to the presence of a net and significantly reduce bycatch in certain fisheries. Cornwall Sea Fisheries officers are very supportive of this trial of pingers on smaller vessels operating in coastal waters.

Cornwall Wildlife Trust’s Marine Conservation Officer, Joana Doyle and cetacean expert, Nick Tregenza recently met with Jonathan Shaw, Minister for Marine, Landscape and Rural Affairs and Andrew George MP of West Cornwall and Isles of Scilly to discuss the ongoing problem of dolphin bycatch in fisheries around the Southwest. During this meeting the pinger trial proposal was presented to Jonathan Shaw and CWT have since officially approached DEFRA for funding to undertake this trial.

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Climate Change Hitting the Sea's Little Guys Too

Graeme Stemp-Morlock, National Geographic News 29 Feb 08;

When it comes to climate change, polar bears and sharks may grab the bulk of the headlines—but it's the threat to the sea's tiniest creatures that has some marine scientists most concerned.

Malformed seashells show that climate change is affecting even the most basic rungs of the marine food chain—a hint of looming disaster for all ocean creatures—experts say.

Climate change could drastically reduce sea urchin populations in particular, according to Gretchen Hofmann, a marine biologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara.

The purple sea urchin is commonly found off the coast of Australia and Antarctica. It is an essential food source for many marine animals such as cod or lobster, as well as a common ingredient in sushi.

Hofmann is concerned because increasing amounts of atmospheric carbon dioxide are also raising the amount of the gas dissolved in ocean water. This makes the seas more acidic, decreasing the available amount of shell-forming calcium carbonate.

Future Ocean in a Box

To test the theory, Hofmann tested sea urchins in highly acidic water similar to what is predicted for the oceans.

"We checked if they can make the skeleton that forms their bodies, and yes it is formed," Hofmann said. "But it was shorter and stumpier—not the same shape—so they swim and move differently. Plus it comes at a cost, which is they are more sensitive to temperature."

Hofmann refers to this malformed skeleton and sensitivity to heat as "double jeopardy."

She went further than any previous research by analyzing the recently sequenced sea urchin genome to find out what genes were turning off and on under this new environmental stress.

"We wanted to ask them how they were doing and get a sense of their health and physiology," Hofmann said. "We found it caused their shell-forming genes to go up threefold, so their developing system was having to put more energy into making the skeleton and less into other things."

Hofmann presented her findings at the recent meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts.

"Sea Butterflies" Next?

Scott Doney, a chemical oceanographer at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute, said that Hofmann may have done "the same type of experiments [as previous researchers], but went beyond looking at the physiological impact of acidification on organisms.

"[Hofmann] used molecular biological tools to see what proteins are turned on or off as they experienced stress if the waters become really acidic," Doney said. "It is a validation in many ways of the physiological experiments others had done."

Doney compared sea urchins to homeowners who use all their cash to build the dwellings but don't leave any money for furniture.

"From the short-term experiments that have been running, the best indication is that likely the population as a whole will suffer dramatically," Doney said. "But, in addition to being a food source for things we eat, [sea urchins] are a harbinger of the damage we do to ecosystems."

Hofmann also pointed out that she just returned from Antarctica, where she was collecting samples of another first-rung-in-the-food-chain creature, the pteropod.

These miniscule creatures—which resemble snails flying through water—are sometimes referred to as sea butterflies.

They are an essential food source for many fish such as salmon, which feed penguins, seals, and other animals.

Hofmann plans to get a quick scan of the pteropod DNA sequence and then use that information to predict the impact climate change will have on these organisms.

"Pteropods are one of our lead organisms for understanding and predicting the effects of climate change. But they are a very unknown organism," she said.

"Pteropods are cold-adapted, so while we haven't tested it yet, we suspect their ability to tolerate temperature increases could be very narrow," Hofmann added.

"And they can't migrate anywhere to find colder water, so the pteropod situation could be even more dire than with sea urchins."

Read more!

The Real Question: Where Did the Chicken Come From?

The Jungle fowl and significance of yellow feet
LiveScience Yahoo News 29 Feb 08;

Why the chicken crossed the road is a question that'll never be answered. But the circumstances of the domesticated chicken's ancestry should be discoverable.

And a new study suggests Charles Darwin had it wrong. Darwin maintained that the domesticated chicken derives from the red jungle fowl. That seems at least partly true, but new research from Uppsala University now shows that the wild origins of the chicken are more complicated.

The researchers mapped the genes that give most domesticated chickens yellow legs and found the genetic heredity derives from a closely related species, the gray jungle fowl. The study is being published today in the Web edition of PLoS Genetics.

"Our studies show that even though most of the genes in domesticated fowls come from the red jungle fowl, at least one other species must have contributed, specifically the gray jungle fowl," said Jonas Eriksson, a doctoral student at Uppsala University.

The gray jungle fowl was probably crossed with an early form of the domesticated chicken, Eriksson's team figures.

The genes for yellow skin are spread among billions of domesticated chickens around the world. Darwin's studies of domesticated animals were of key importance to his theory of evolution, and he also explained the wild origins of domesticated animals.

"What's ironic is that Darwin thought that more than one wild species had contributed to the development of the dog, but that the chicken came from only one wild species, the red jungle fowl. Now it turns out that it's just the opposite way around," says Greger Larson, a researcher at Uppsala University and Durham University in England.

When it comes to chicken legs, you are what you eat. The more yellow carotenoids there are in the feed, the yellower the legs. The gene that these researchers have now identified codes for an enzyme that breaks down carotenoids and releases vitamin A. This gene is shut down in skin but fully active in other tissues in chickens with yellow legs. The consequence is that yellow carotenoids are stored in the skin in these chickens. This is called a regulatory mutation since the coding sequence of the gene is intact, but its regulation is modified.

"Our study is a clear example of the importance of regulatory mutations in the course of evolution, said Professor Leif Andersson, who directed the project. "What we don't know is why humans bred this characteristic. Maybe chickens with bright yellow legs were seen as being healthier or more fertile than other chickens, or were we simply charmed by their distinct appearance."

The scientists believe that the same gene may well be of significance in explaining the pink color of the flamingo, the yellow leg color of many birds of prey, and the reddish meat of the salmon. These characteristics are all caused by carotenoids. The gene may also influence the skin color of humans to some extent.

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China Cracks Down on Illegal Online Wildlife Trade

Eliza Barclay, National Geographic News 29 Feb 08;

Authorities in China recently launched a crackdown on Web sites that openly trade in animal products made from threatened species, experts say.

The move follows pressure from two international wildlife advocacy groups, which found thousands of items made from protected species for sale on major Chinese Internet auction sites in 2007.

As a result of the investigation, Chinese officials have already shut down several online auctions selling banned goods, said Grace Gabriel, Asia regional director for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), who is based in Beijing.

"There has been progress in identifying auctions selling illegal products," she said.

"But Chinese authorities still need a lot of help with enforcement."

(Related news: "Wildlife Trade Booming in Burmese Casino Town" [February 28, 2008].)

Thousands of Ads

IFAW and TRAFFIC, the international wildlife-trade monitoring network, conducted two recent studies of China's Internet auctions that led to this year's crackdown.

Between February and December 2007, IFAW found sites selling 1,973 items from 30 species protected by Chinese environmental law and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

China has been a member of CITES, an international treaty that regulates trade in protected species, since 1981.

TRAFFIC published a similar study in July 2007 that found 4,291 advertisements for illegal wildlife products on auction sites serving mainland China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan over an eight-month period.

Porter Erisman is a spokesperson for Alibaba, an e-commerce company and Yahoo partner that owns the Chinese auction site Taobao, which saw some of its bids shuttered by the Chinese government.

"Any postings of products banned by CITES are prohibited on our sites, and we will take them down as soon as we become aware [if our own filtering systems happened to miss them]," Erisman told National Geographic News in an email.

But Joyce Wu, in TRAFFIC's East Asia office in Taipei, said the companies need to do more.

"The major Web site companies should be more proactive and take the responsibility for the products sold on their Web site," Wu said.

Mother, or Elephant?

IFAW's Gabriel noted that the two most popular wildlife products traded online in China are elephant ivory and items made from tiger bone.

Ivory products include decorative and religious-themed carved figurines, chopsticks, and jewelry. They are sold among collectors, who are mostly white-collar and well educated, Gabriel said.

Tiger bone, which has been banned in China for the past 15 years, has been used in traditional Chinese medicine to treat rheumatism.

Some manufacturers still produce tiger-bone wine and claim that it has magical powers and benefits for the skin.

The market for tiger-bone products generally consists of lower-income people in rural areas who shop at local vendors, though a small market for tiger-bone products exists online, Gabriel noted.

Rhino horn, tortoise shell, and antelope horn are also banned from being traded online.

One of the key challenges to policing online trade in illegal products, the conservationists note, is Chinese vendors' ability to tweak the language to manipulate descriptions of their products.

"In other languages it might be difficult, but Chinese is tonal, and if you change the tone it could be a different word," Gabriel said.

For example, the word "ma" has four different meanings in Chinese depending on the tone and the character used. In one tone, it means "elephant" and in another tone it means "mother."

This allows vendors to advertise in a kind of code, using different characters to imply a different pronunciation of "ma" and disguise an ivory product.

IFAW therefore supplies Chinese law enforcement with identification manuals so they will recognize illegal products when they see them in markets or online.

Burden of Proof

Awareness of the illegal nature of the products and their impact on threatened wildlife populations is on the rise in China, according to Gabriel.

But recent IFAW polls, still unpublished, show that most people in China, for example, do not know that elephants must be killed to obtain ivory. (See related photos of elephants massacred in Chad for their tusks. Warning: graphic images.)

And even if authorities find a suspect product, they have to prove to the courts that it was obtained illegally, which "makes it ineffective and holds up the process," Gabriel said.

In the United States the Endangered Species Act makes it illegal just to advertise sales of protected species, much less be in possession of a banned product, said Sandra Cleva, spokesperson for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Gabriel said she would like to see a similar policy enacted in China. Until then, she noted, authorities can tell sites like Taobao to remove postings, but will still have trouble prosecuting the individuals who sell illegal items.

Meanwhile, other wildlife advocacy organizations say that China's online trade in animal products is relatively rare and that most illegal transactions still take place in physical markets.

"Multiple issues affect this, from the credibility of and trust in online trading through to the fact that much [animal product] trade is still conducted by people with no day-to-day access to the Internet or knowledge of it," said Steve Trent, president of the international animal welfare group WildAid.

Currently the United States is the top destination for illegal wildlife products bought on U.S. and international auction sites, the USFWS's Cleva noted.

But China had 210 million Internet users in 2007, according to the China Internet Networks Information Center, and will surpass the United States' 215 million users in 2008.

Read more!

Austria's brown bears face extinction: WWF

Yahoo News 29 Feb 08;

Austria's brown bear population is facing extinction as only two of the animals -- both males -- are still alive out of a population that had numbered at least 35, the World Wildlife Fund said Friday.

Only 19-year-old Djuro and his seven-year-old son Moritz are definitely still living in the Limestone Alps in central Austria, said the WWF, which had taken DNA traces taken from the hair and excrement from

A complete study of the Austrian brown bear population, carried out by the WWF in collaboration with the Research Institute of Wildlife Ecology (FIWI), is set to be published in the next few days.

The study shows that out of the total population of 35, nine bears have died and the fate of another 24 is not known.

The last tracks of Elsa, Moritz's eight-year-old half-sister, were seen in a riverbed in northern Styria at the beginning of 2007, said the FIWI's bear expert Georg Rauer.

"We hope very much that she'll have given birth to cubs again this year and that they'll soon turn up somewhere," Rauer said.

But since mother bears with cubs are particularly shy, the experts estimate they will not know her fate until May at the earliest.

"It appears that with Elsa we may have lost the last female bear able to reproduce," said WWF project leader, Christoph Walder.

Given the recent mild weather, Moritz is expected to come out of hibernation fairly soon, but he has been searching for a mate for more than two years without any success, WWF said.

His mother, Rosemarie, has not been seen since 2002.

Djuro is the only surviving bear of three brown bears imported from Slovenia in 1993. He has fathered 22 cubs with a number of different females, including his daughters, Elsa and Rosemarie.

"But he, too, has been looking for a mate for three years without any luck," WWF said.

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Maya May Have Caused Civilization-Ending Climate Change

Anne Minard, National Geographic News 29 Feb 08;

Self-induced drought and climate change may have caused the destruction of the Maya civilization, say scientists working with new satellite technology that monitors Central America's environment.

Researchers from the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, launched the satellite program, known as SERVIR, in early 2005 to help combat wildfires, improve land use, and assist with natural disaster responses.

The researchers occasionally refer to the project as environmental diplomacy.

But the program also found traces of the Maya's hidden, possibly disastrous agricultural past—and is now using those lessons to help ensure that today's civilizations fare better in the face of modern-day climate change.

SERVIR stands to warn leaders in Central and South America where climate change might deliver the hardest hits to their ecosystems and biodiversity, say developers Tom Sever and Daniel Irwin.

If the governments heed the warnings, the data may truly save lives, the experts add.

Secret Farms

More than a hundred reasons have been proposed for the downfall of the Maya, among them hurricanes, overpopulation, disease, warfare, and peasant revolt. (Read "Maya Rise and Fall" in National Geographic magazine (August 2007).

But Sever, NASA's only archaeologist, adds to evidence for another explanation.

"Our recent research shows that another factor may have been climate change," he said during a meeting of the American Association of the Advancement of Science in Boston, Massachusetts, earlier this month.

One conventional theory has it that the Maya relied on slash-and-burn agriculture. But Sever and his colleagues say such methods couldn't have sustained a population that reached 60,000 at its peak.

The researchers think the Maya also exploited seasonal wetlands called bajos, which make up more than 40 percent of the Petén landscape that the ancient empire called home.

In most cases, Maya cities encircled the bajos, so archaeologists thought the culture made no use of them. But groundbreaking satellite images show that the bajos harbor ancient drainage canals and long-overgrown fields.

That ingenious method of agriculture may have backfired.

The data suggest that the combination of slash-and-burn agriculture and conversion of the wetlands induced local drought and turned up the thermostat.

And that could have fueled many of the suspected factors that led to the Maya decline—even seemingly unrelated issues like disease and war.

Proven Success

The SERVIR researchers are now taking their theories to the people, showing tabletop-size satellite images to villagers and national leaders that reveal deforestation in some cases and still-lush landscapes in others.

In one instance the Guatemalan congress was inspired to create the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Central America's largest protected area, after viewing satellite imagery and seeing striking differences between their forests and those that had been clear-cut to the north.

SERVIR, which is being supported in part by USAID and the World Bank, has also proved its worth in other ways since the program's headquarters was opened in Panama at the Water Center for the Humid Tropics of Latin America and the Caribbean (CATHALAC).

In 2006 Panamanian President Martin Torrijos used the SERVIR office as his command post during widespread flooding—and when SERVIR technology forewarned of landslides, he paid attention.

CATHALAC senior scientist Emil Cherrington has never deleted the text message the government sent out that day—a red alert about the landslides SERVIR said were imminent. Cherrington called the cooperation "inspiring."

"It was a pretty neat example of the decision makers acting on information when it was provided," he said.

Last year Central American governments also consulted SERVIR for predictions about Hurricanes Dean and Felix and Tropical Storm Noel.

Heavy Burden

Despite these local efforts in environmental stewardship, however, Latin American countries are facing a heavy burden from worldwide climate change.

Already, rains don't come as predictably to the Petén region, NASA archaeologist Sever said.

Local residents say their chicle trees are yielding fewer harvests, and clouds are forming higher and later in the day, sometimes not sending down rain at all, he pointed out.

Through SERVIR, Sever and his team are monitoring soil and plant responses to the changing conditions. They're also making maps for the ministries of environment and agriculture in several countries.

And CATHALAC's Cherrington, who is from Belize, is using the information to predict how climate change will alter his home country into the future.

"Belize is really a country where biodiversity conservation is possible," he said, speaking at the AAAS meeting.

Cherrington said precipitation will be disrupted most in the mountains, and temperatures will increase the most on the coasts. SERVIR data is predicting that some bird and mammal species will be lost, but amphibians will be the hardest hit.

If satellite precipitation forecasts can be passed to farmers, they'll be able to make decisions about crops based on how much water they'll require, he added.

The SERVIR scientists also hope to expand the space-based technology into other realms. They're looking to develop the kind of air quality index for Central America that is standard on United States weather reports.

And industry has already suggested applications that the SERVIR scientists didn't originally have in mind. A Panamanian company seeking to build solar panels asked recently if SERVIR could show them where to find the best sun exposure.

"It's kind of astounding," Cherrington said, "how space-based information can lead to making better decisions."

Read more!

'Replace UK VAT with 'green' goods tax'

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 28 Feb 08;

VAT should be replaced with a goods tax which makes environmentally-damaging products more expensive, according to a new report.

Items like batteries and packaging should be penalised because of the energy and materials needed for their manufacture and the environmental impact they have when thrown away.

While tax concessions for best-in-class products would give both manufacturers and shoppers a financial incentive to do the right thing.

The report Good product, bad product? from the environmental think-tank Green Alliance says that taxes are a vital weapon in the Government's armoury in the fight against climate change and environmental degradation.

It calls for better taxes not more taxes, and urges the Government to follow the example of other EU countries and send a clear price signal that goods which cause damage will cost more.

Last year Gordon Brown announced, with French president Nicholas Sarkozy a plan to lobby the European Commission for reduced rates of VAT on green products. But the reduction or harmonisation of VAT rates across the EU requires the unanimous backing of all 27 EU member states, and the European Parliament has only a consultative role on taxation.

The report claims the way in which products are designed determines a large part of how we use energy, water and resources, and how much is wasted. And products that have delivered so much wealth in the post-war era had also created a 'throwaway' society.

" We look to the Prime Minister to seek support in Europe from like-minded premiers to agree the necessary changes. If a company like Tesco believes that it can label every product with an indication of its carbon footprint then it must be possible to consider environmental impacts as part of the tax system," the report says.

"We can and must start concentrating on products and materials with the biggest environmental impact: from materials that cannot presently be recycled, to the worst-performing products for energy and water use, and construct a price signal that will stimulate innovation.

" A levy could be used to prompt the development of smarter materials that perform well across the board - on energy and water efficiency, resource efficiency and recyclability.

"Packaging is the obvious place to start since to many people it epitomises our disposable culture. It is not coincidence that most international examples of levies seem to focus on packaging, or our other iconic bête noire, the disposable plastic bag."

Julie Hill, Green Alliance's waste policy expert, said: "We have a choice: do we want to continue living with stuff which conflicts with living a low-carbon, low-waste lifestyle or do we want to consume in ways that are smart, pleasurable and sustainable?

"The market still brings forward products that conflict with the Government's own environmental goals, from appliances that can't be taken off stand-by to packaging that can't be recycled. And without the right price signals this pattern is set to continue.

"Other European countries do it so let's tax bads - not goods."

Read more!

One billion fewer plastic bags given away by shops

Martin Hickman, The Independent 29 Feb 08;

Shops gave away one billion fewer plastic bags last year as they responded to a government call to improve their record on the environmental damage they cause.

The Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) announced the cut in the annual number of bags, from 13.4 billion to 12.4 billion, after a meeting with retailers who have promised to reduce their impact by a quarter by the end of this year. The 21 major retailers signed up to the 25 per cent target in February last year.

Campaigners have been worried about the amount of natural and finite resources such as oil that go into plastic bags, along with problems arising from their disposal. Plastic bags are expected to remain intact for 1,000 years and collect in the countryside and in the sea, where they are ingested by, and sometimes choke, marine animals such as gulls and turtles.

Asda, Tesco, Primark, Debenhams, Boots, John Lewis and 15 other high street retailers have been trying different initiatives to reduce the harmful effect of the bags. Their techniques have included reducing bag size, increasing their recycled content, rewarding their reuse, introducing in-store bag recycling facilities (up by 43 per cent), and putting cashiers rather than customers in charge of dispensing them.

One of the signatories, Marks & Spencer, confirmed its intention yesterday to charge customers 5p for each bag following a successful trial in Northern Ireland, as reported in The Independent on 16 November.

London councils have also tabled a parliamentary Bill banning free bags, following a successful bag-free experiment in Modbury, Devon. Hebden Bridge in West Yorkshire and Hay-on-Wye in Herefordshire have done likewise and many other communities are considering the move.

In a statement yesterday, Wrap said that the use of virgin material such as oil in the bags had been reduced by 14 per cent. It went on: "Performance has been very variable, with retailers reporting activity ranging from a 70 per cent reduction in virgin plastic use to an increase of 22 per cent.

We are disappointed there has not been more progress on the actual number of bags reduced.

"While the 14 per cent reduction achieved is broadly on track to reach the overall target, there's no room for complacency."

Wrap declined to specify which retailers had done well because it had signed confidentiality agreements.

Richard Swannell, director of retail, said: "Recent developments show there is clear momentum from retailers, although clearly more needs to be done."

Sir Stuart Rose, chief executive of Marks & Spencer, said the introduction of a 5p charge from 6 May was part of the company's 100-point eco plan. "We want to make it easy for our customers to do their bit to help the environment," he said. Michael Grimes, head of the waste practice at Eversheds law firm, praised the development but asked: "Will people really notice the 5p? And what about legislation? There are suggestions the London councils' Bill to ban throwaway bags in the capital may, if enacted, one day extend nationally."

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It takes a millennium for them to degrade . . . Should we introduce a ban on plastic bags?

Lewis Smith, The Times 1 Mar 08;

What is the scale of the problem?

An estimated 12.4 billion plastic bags were handed out at checkouts last year in the stores of 21 retail groups in Britain, including supermarkets. Each bag was used, on average, for only 20 minutes before being discarded. Many billions more were given away by thousands of other stores and businesses.

Plastic bags are estimated to take 1,000 years or more to degrade, meaning that unless they are disposed of properly they form long-lasting litter.

What’s wrong with plastic?

Simple unsightliness is one of the main complaints against plastic bags. Because they take so long to break down they remain in the environment for much longer than most other materials and blow around making a mess of the landscape.

Plastic litter can be lethal to wildlife, either because animals swallow it or because they get irretrievably tangled up in it. Rare turtles mistake bags for jellyfish and many more types of animal are put at risk. In 2005 WWF calculated that almost 200 species of marine creatures were affected, including whales, seals and dolphins.

More than a million seabirds and 100,000 marine mammals are estimated by the United Nations Environmental Programme (Unep) to be killed annually by plastic in the seas. It has calculated that 46,000 pieces of plastic, many of them bags, are swirling about each square mile of the oceans. A vortex of plastic has been found covering huge swaths of the Pacific Ocean from about 500 miles (800km) west of California almost as far as Japan.

Are they all bad?

They wouldn’t have become everyday items if they didn’t have their uses. Plastic has proved to be a strong, lightweight and convenient material that has permeated the whole of society. They’re not just available at the tills. Smaller plastic bags are found in the fruit and veg sections of supermarkets and bakery areas. Companies use them to bag up promotional giveaways, and in the home they are used to line bins and to wrap up dirty nappies.

What are other countries doing?

China, for once winning the approval of environmental groups such as Greenpeace, has announced that from June 1 all shops are to stop providing free bags, while production of ultra-thin bags was banned.

Several other countries have taken action. In Germany shoppers have long expected to pay for any plastic bags they use and they tend to bring their own when out shopping. Similarly, charging for bags has taken place in Sweden for a decade. Charging was made compulsory in supermarkets in the Irish Republic in 2002 and the number of plastic bags taken at the tills plummeted by 90 per cent. However, plastic bin liner sales promptly soared by an estimated 400 per cent. A plan by France to ban shops from giving out any plastic bag that is not made of biodegradable materials is due to come into force in 2010, but could be blocked by European law for violating free-trade principles.

What is the UK Government doing?

Gordon Brown said this week that he was considering using legislation to force the hand of supermarket chains and other retailers. The threat of compulsion is the latest move by the Government on the issue of single-use bags. It went public with its concerns last May.

Mr Brown’s announcement tied in with a campaign by the Daily Mail to ban free plastic carrier bags, but it remained unclear yesterday how much of a role No 10 may have had behind the scenes in prompting the newspaper, edited by Paul Dacre, who has notably friendly relations with the Prime Minister, to run the campaign.

Even after making the threat of compulsion, the Government maintained its position of wanting to encourage the reduction in plastic bag use rather than take legislative action.

What does the UK Government want?

On the face of it the aim is to rid Britain of single-use bags, whether plastic or paper. They are seen as a waste of resources.

In the long term, the Government hopes to have an impact on the throwaway culture. Reducing packaging is another aspect of society’s wastefulness that ministers would like to curb. More distant goals would be to make equipment such as fridges and music centres last much longer. A change in mindset to make single-use products socially unacceptable is the eventual hope.

What are the alternatives to plastic?

Long-life bags are already on offer. They are plastic but last much longer than the free bags so can be used repeatedly — as long as shoppers remember to take them with them.

Biodegradable bags are another form of plastic. Some are derived largely from fossil fuel waste products and their lifespan can be pre-programmed.

Others are derived from plants. In the open air they will degrade into microscopic fragments but when trapped in oxygen-less conditions, such as when buried deep in landfill sites, decomposition will stop.

Paper bags would be frowned upon by environmentalists because they take up more energy to make and transport than plastic. Fabric bags, whether jute, hemp or cotton, would all be expected to last years but there are doubts over the energy required to make them and fears that increased production of plants for their manufacture would reduce the quantity of agricultural land for food.

What is the best solution?

In short, no one knows for sure. Each interest group will argue its corner but too little is known about the total environmental impact of each type of bag. How do you balance, for instance, the damage to wildlife by plastic bags with the loss of food crops to the human population by growing hemp? What is the impact that each has on climate change?

One of the main reasons why the Government hasn’t introduced legislation already is that it is not sure what the practical alternatives are to plastic bags. Each has obvious pros and cons, but a comprehensive understanding remains elusive.

Wouldn’t charging for bags simply be a new tax in disguise?

Part of the reason for the Government having refused to take action to force customers to buy plastic bags rather than take them gratis is the fear charging will simply be seen as a green tax. Such charges are unlikely to be direct taxes and retailers are expected to put the money towards environmental causes rather than pocket it. However, any compulsory measures that force up the cost of the shop will inevitably be seen by many voters as a tax.

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Best of our wild blogs: 1 Mar 08

Leap Year Entry!
and focused on International Year of the Reef and Frog with lots of photos on the ashira blog

The Real Dirt on Chek Jawa
figuring out sediments on the cj project blog

Swiftly building a nest
on the bird ecology blog

Read more!

Singapore launches National Climate Change Strategy

Channel NewsAsia 29 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE : While it is encouraging that the public is increasingly aware of environmental issues, there are different aspects to climate change.

Things to consider include lowering of greenhouse gas emissions, as well as understanding Singapore's vulnerabilities to climate change.

Thus, the National Climate Change Strategy has been launched to promote better understanding of these aspects.

It was launched at the Seminar of Energy Efficiency for Process Industry on Friday.

The strategy is sponsored by the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore and the National Environment Agency (NEA).

It will also identify and assess adaptation measures required for climate change.

Lowering levels of greenhouse gases has been identified as a key strategy to improve energy efficiency. And being more energy-efficient will also reduce the cost of living.

The NEA has also commissioned a study - expected to be completed in 2009 - on Singapore's vulnerability to climate change.

This is to better help Singapore's adaptation efforts.

Regulations are in place to provide consumer information while appropriate technologies have been deployed to encourage more individuals and businesses to be more energy conscious. - CNA/ms

Singapore's climate change strategy to focus on clean energy industries
Straits Times 29 Feb 08;

Singapore's national climate strategy, which was unveiled on Friday morning, will focus on improving energy efficiency, reducing greenhouse gas emissions and creating energy conscious industries.

As part of the strategy developed by the newly launched National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS), research and development into clean energy will feature high on the agenda.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) has also commissioned a study on Singapore's vulnerability to climate change, which is expected to be completed in 2009.

These plans were announced by Dr Amy Khor Lean Suan, senior parliamentary secretary for environment and water resources, at a eminar on energy efficiency for process industry.

Dr Khor said the strategy, which followed two years of extensive consultation with various sectors, will serve as a roadmap for Singapore's response to climate change, which has taken on increased urgency in recent years.

'The NCCS outlines our ongoing efforst to understand the implications of climate change on Singapore, so that we can better identify and assess measures to adapt to potential climate change impacts,' she said, noting that good progress has been made domestic efforts to mitigate greenhouse gases and address climate change.

She said Singapore has surpassed the national target of improving its carbon intensity levels by 25 per cent from 1990 levels by 2012. As of 2006, the levels have improved by 30 per cent 1990.

The NCCS will further set out how Singapore will address the various aspects on climate change.

The emphasis on energy efficiency is two pronged and will benefit Singapore both environmentally and economically.

The government plans to actively support energy users in the industry and encourage buildings , households and transport sectors to be more energy efficient, to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and also cut the cost of living and doing business.

Dr Khor also acknowledged that there were barriers to energy efficiency. In such cases, the government will step in to support companies' investments and provide information to the market.

Research and development will also be fundamental to achieving progress environmentally. The National Research Foundation will set aside $170 million for research into clean energy to boost the development of the local Clean Energy industry over the next five years.

Links

National Climate Change Strategy
on the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources website

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$50m to get industries, people in Singapore to go green

Tracy Sua, Straits Times 1 Mar 08;

SINGAPORE will pump in $50 million over five years to encourage corporations and people here to go green with their energy use.

This was announced by the Environment and Water Resources minister Dr Yaacob Ibrahim in Parliament on Friday.

Called the Sustainable Energy Fund, it will be used to support programmes by the Energy Efficiency Programme Office which is an inter-agency set up by the National Environment Agency (NEA) last year.

Making Singapore more energy efficient is one of the key areas recommended by the National Climate Change Committee in a strategy they launched on Friday.

The strategy sets out areas that Singapore will address to tackle various aspects of climate change.

Greening Factories
Manufacturing industries are the largest users of energy in the country and so will be a main target of the green plan.

The environment agency recognises that manufacturing facilities should be designed to be power efficient from the start therefore the design phase is key.

NEA will introduce a pilot scheme to co-fund design workshops for new industrial developments.

The agency has already made some headway in getting companies to go green with its Energy Efficiency Improvement Assistance Scheme which co-funds energy audits for corporations.

Up till the end of January this year, 87 factories and buildings have spotted measures to be more power efficient hence contributing to an annual energy savings of $23 million.

The environment ministry reports that power generation efficiency has gone up from 37 per cent to 44 per cent in the last 7 years with more companies using more efficient power generation technology called combined-cycle generation.

Electricity produced by natural gas has also surged in the same period from 19 per cent to 79 per cent.

These improvements have significantly reduced carbon intensity levels or CO2 per dollar of the 2006 Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to about 30 per cent below 1990 levels.

It is not just factories that will be encouraged to go green.

Power Efficient Buildings
Come April this year, the Building and Construction Authority plans to introduce mandatory green standards for new buildings which are equivalent to its Green Mark programme that rates buildings for their environmental performance.

The authority is also developing a grant to encourage existing buildings to upgrade their facilities to be more power efficient.

Green Vehicles
The transport sector had contributed about 19 per cent of Singapore's carbon dioxide emissions in 2005.

The government hopes to improve this by encouraging more people to use public transport during the morning rush hour and to get drivers to buy fuel efficient vehicles instead.

An additional measure is that it will be mandatory by April 2009 for car retailers to display fuel economy labels on cars in their showrooms.

$50 million to get 'energy efficient'
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 1 Mar 08;

COMPANIES can now tap on a slew of perks and schemes to become more energy efficient, soon after some in the business world were wondering why the Government's Budget lacked "green" incentives for them.

They found out when the Ministry of Environment, Water and Resources (MEWR) unveiled yesterday its National Climate Change Strategy (NCCS), a roadmap for economic development at an environmentally sustainable pace.

"Energy efficiency" was the key catchphrase of the plan, directed particularly at the industrial, building and transport sectors, which account for almost 90 per cent of Singapore's carbon dioxide emissions.

The NCCS identifies Singapore's vulnerabilities to climate change — also the subject of a separate study to be completed next year — and ways the country could adapt and mitigate greenhouse gases emissions.

The plan, which can be seen online at www.climatechange.gov.sg, was launched on Friday by Senior Parliamentary Secretary Amy Khor at an industry seminar.

"Improved energy efficiency not only reduces the amount of greenhouse gases produced, it also increases companies' competitiveness by lowering their energy bills," said Dr Khor, calling energy savings "low-hanging fruit" easily enjoyed by companies.

Elaborated on in Parliament later that day, many of the new schemes and grant will draw on a $50-million Sustainable Energy Fund, which will support Singapore's Energy Efficiency Plan for the next five years.

Some, like the Grant for Energy Efficient Technologies, build on the $10-million Efficiency Improvement Assistance Scheme (EASe) introduced in 2005, which co-funded energy audits of private-sector buildings. The new grant will help companies implement measures recommended in the audits.

So far, 87 companies in the power, industry and building sectors have used EASe subsidies for energy audits. The recommendations, if taken up, would result in annual energy savings of $23.4 million. All large government office buildings, polytechnics and ITEs will conduct audits by March 2010.

In many of the audits, chiller systems, which account for 40 to 50 per cent of buildings' energy usage, were singled out. The MEWR took the lead, consolidating the two chiller systems of its Environment Building into one — the savings amounted to $78,874 last year.

"We also adjusted the building chillers to start at the right times to cater optimally to the building's load," said Mr Raymond Chan, head of MEWR's Facilities and Operations Management. The investment in the chiller systems would take about eight years to recoup, he added.

Keppel Bay Tower (picture) did an audit in 2006 and, since completing improvement works last August, is on track to achieve $135,000 in annual energy savings, said Mr Lim Tow Fok, Keppel Land's general manager for property management. The property giant's Ocean Financial Centre, now in its design stages, is well-placed to enjoy some of the new grants, which cater to buildings at various stages of completion.

Mr Lim hoped the grants would extend to companies that took on green measures recently.

"Our ball has started rolling with Keppel Bay Tower, so I don't think we're going to hold back with our other buildings and wait for the grants to kick in. But I hope companies won't be penalised because of the dates (they implemented the measures)," he said.

Read more!

Devotees mar landscape on Kusu Island

Prayers or vandalism?
Tay Shi'an, The New Paper 1 Mar 08;

4-D punters scrawl lucky numbers near shrine, costing island $5,000 to clean each month

FORTUNE hunters are turning a part of Kusu Island into a mess.

For years, those hoping to strike it rich have gone to a shrine that sits atop a hill on Kusu Island, and scrawled 4-D numbers all over the rocks, tree branches, roots and signs around the shrine.

Others even write the numbers on plastic bags, then tie them onto the trees, hoping fortune would favour them.

Visitors need to climb 152 steps to the top of the hill to reach the shrine.

The island is about 15 minutes by ferry from Marina South.

Most of the visitors go to the shrine after stopping at the popular Da Bo Gong temple.

But they also add work and cost to those who look after the island.

Said the shrine's caretaker, Mr Ishak S, 46: 'When there's no more space, we paint over all the numbers, but then they keep on writing.'

He added that once a week, workers hired by Sentosa Leisure Group, which manages the island, check the trees for the plastic bags and throw them away.

He said: 'We don't want water to get stuck inside and cause mosquito breeding.'

A Sentosa Leisure Group spokesman said the estimated cost for clean-up of Kusu Island is $5,470 per month.

She said: 'We understand that Kusu Island appeals to many as a place of worship and some devotees would leave ‘markings' behind for added assurance and peace of mind.

'As Kusu Island is also a place of interest for locals and tourists, we hope visitors and devotees will help to keep the island clean so that the others can also enjoy the island.'

Devotee Neo Teck San, 54, confessed he is one of the many who have written four-digit numbers near the shrine over the years.

Said Mr Neo, who is in the car tyre business: 'There's one tree there that's like a wishing tree. In the past, people who wanted to have babies would make a wish, tie a rock to a plastic bag and throw it onto the tree.

'I don't know how it started, but people who wanted to strike 4-D later also started to write on rocks and throw their plastic bags onto the tree.'

He recalled that when he last went to the shrine about two years ago, there were some youths collecting donations there.

After he gave them $2, they chanted over him for additional 'luck'.

But not everyone believes in vandalising the rocks and trees.

One such couple is Mr Sam Tan, 45, a businessman, and his wife Madam Lena Chao, a housewife in her 30s.

Earlier this month, the couple visited Kusu Island to pray at the Chinese temple, then made a brief stop at the shrine.

Madam Chao prayed for lucky numbers and didn't strike 4-D – but her husband did.

He won about $500 after the number he bought – their unit number – was one of the starter prizes.

The couple said they didn't write their numbers on the rocks and trees.

Madam Chao said in Mandarin: 'I think praying is sufficient, no need to write like this.'

But she didn't disapprove of the other devotees' actions.

'It's up to each person's belief, no harm trying – you won't lose anything,' she said.

Others are against it.

Said Taoist priest Master Chung Kwang Tong (Wei Yi), 23: 'This is a folk belief, that if you throw the stone high up on the tree, the deities will be able to see it more clearly.

'But from a religious point of view, we do not encourage devotees to do this. In Taoism, we talk about caring for nature and preserving the environment, so any act of vandalism is prohibited.'

Last year, some 76,200 visitors went to Kusu Island for their annual pilgrimage during the ninth lunar month.

Read more!

South-east Asia's threatened ecosystems

Business Times 1 Mar 08;

SO you thought the Borneo rainforest was the only part of South-east Asia to qualify as a threatened biodiversity hotspot? Not so. The region actually has not one but three such areas, which contain a disproportionate variety of the world's species and are critical to keeping the world's ecosystem in balance.

The richest collection of marine biodiversity, for example, is found in the Coral Triangle - a stretch of 5.7 million square kilometres of ocean, or about half the land area of the US, which spans Sulu and Sulawesi Seas surrounding Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines.

The seas contain more than 600 reef-building coral species, some three-quarters of those known to man, versus just 60 in the Caribbean.

They support not only the world's largest variety of reef fish, but also commercial and community fisheries - over 150 million people live in the area, and 2.25 million of them are fishers, according to the Nature Conservancy. The reefs and beaches, where sea turtles come to make their nests, also attract tourists.

However, overfishing and destructive fishing methods, such as the use of cyanide or dynamite, have unnecessarily depleted fish populations and destroyed large sections of coral. The widespread coral bleaching means young fish lose their habitats and this will severely impact fishing stocks in the long term. It could also lead to heavy growth of algae, starving the waters of light and oxygen.

Back on the Asian continent, the Mekong River winds through deep gorges and mighty flood plains on its nearly 4,500 km journey from the Jifu mountains in Tibet down through Yunnan, Guangxi, Myanmar, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Laos.

The Mekong's waters host over 1,300 species of fish, including several of the world's largest freshwater species, and a wide variety of water plants.

Its catchment area and river delta are home to over 300 million people, with a gross product of over US$400 million per annum, according to WWF.

Wars of the past mean the region is relatively untouched by environmentally destructive forces, but large-scale economic development, extreme poverty and population pressure are now stressing the resources.

If no action is taken, the region could lose over 50 per cent of its land and water habitats over the next century, the World Bank says. This would severely impact growth, as forests help to reduce floods and erosion while the rivers enrich padi fields and provide fish and drinking water.

Meanwhile, Borneo, the world's third largest island, hosts an incredible 15,000 plant species and thousands of animal species, from the nearly extinct Sumatran tiger, to walking catfish, orang utans, rhinos, elephants, and even an unidentified cat-like mammal species dubbed the 'Bornean Red Carnivore'.

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Interview with WWF chief James Leape

Champion of the environment
Business Times 1 Mar 08;

WWF chief James Leape once brought lawsuits against the Reagan administration, but now fights for nature in a different way, MATTHEW PHAN finds out

JAMES LEAPE, director-general of WWF International, tells the tale of how he was on a boat in the Eastern Pacific two months ago with the vice-chairman of Wal-mart, the giant American retailer that accounts for a third of grocery sales in the region. They were looking at a fisherman who was changing the hooks on his lines, so as not to catch too many turtles.

'The guy from Wal-mart turns to me and says, we should be buying his fish,' relates Mr Leape, who is narrating with obvious relish the anecdote late into our one-hour interview. 'Yes, absolutely. If Wal-mart says to these fishermen, 'If you do it right, we will favour your products', then they're all yours, they're ready for that kind of a deal.'

'That kind of a deal' - his terminology reflects Mr Leape's background as an environmental lawyer. In the 1980s he brought a suit against the Reagan administration, preventing the construction of a large oil port in the Bering Sea wilderness. Shrewd deal-making, today, is very much what the WWF is about, notwithstanding its image as a lobby group. This is not really zero-sum game deal-making in the conventional corporate sense, but rather finding solutions in which all stakeholders - from the fishermen, to the local governments, retailers, consumers, and, the voiceless victim in so many cases, the oceans - will benefit.

Take for example another incident in 2006, when the WWF lobbied successfully against the location of a large palm oil plantation in the heart of Borneo, some 220,000 square kilometres worth of virgin tropical rainforest on an island divided among three countries: Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei. One of the largest virgin tracts of forest left in the world, it hosts up to 6 per cent of the world's biodiversity and is a watershed for 14 of the islands' 20 major rivers, according to the WWF.

Chinese investors planned a 1.8 million hectare plantation along the mountainous inland border of Kalimantan, or Indonesian Borneo. Mr Leape met Indonesian president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and his Ministry of Forests, pushing his organisation's case that the palms should be planted on already deforested land elsewhere.

In context, the WWF had been working for a long time with local governments in Borneo around forest conservation, he says. 'Along comes the proposal for a plantation. Our role was to help highlight - to decision-makers, governments, financiers, communities - the impact such a project would have on forest and communities, and on development objectives.'

In this case, he says, there was the option of putting the plantation on land already cleared. It was financially better for investors, and also from both an economic development and a conservation perspectives. 'Our role is to marshal those facts and marshal players around those alternative options,' Mr Leape says.

Natural path

James Leape is now 49 years old, and has worked for environmental causes pretty much his entire career. 'When I was in school, the vanguard of environmental protection in the US was manned by lawyers. They were in the courts, in the Congress, on the forefront of advancing environmental protection. So it was a natural path for me,' he says.

Tall, lanky, intense in argument, and somewhat stern, here he breaks into an impish smile: 'Aside from the fact that I thought law would be fun...'

He is the sort that when you ask about soy in Brazil, involuntarily rolls his eyes, then launches into a diplomatic, carefully worded discourse about 'engaging with the soy industry and government in the management of the soy and beef sectors'. Clearly, the lawyer's caution is very much in place, but there is the occasional crack, delightful for this reporter.

Mr Leape worked in litigation for several years, advancing environmental causes through the courts, he says. But in the 1980s, he spent some time in Kenya working for the UNEP, the United Nations Environmental Programme. 'That work really shifted my focus to global conservation,' he says. 'I recognised that the problems we deal with are really global, and that law in itself is limited as a tool for advancing conservation.'

After returning from Nairobi, he retreated to teach in law school in Colorado and Utah for about three years, writing a textbook on environmental law (here he again gives the offhand smile that accompanies the slight digressions). Then, in 1989, he joined WWF in the US because 'if you care about global conservation, then WWF is the best place to be'.

He served as executive vice-president of its international conservation programmes for about a decade, following which he left for a few years to join another foundation, 'a chance to get a different perspective on all this'. But, Mr Leape says, 'I have a panda branded on my heart' (smile), and when the WWF asked him to return as its director-general in 2005, 'it was a no brainer'.

Mr Leape is just the fourth director-general of the WWF, which was founded in 1962. He is the only lawyer so far - his three predecessors have been a journalist, an economist and a wildlife biologist.

Today, the WWF - which stands not for World Wildlife Fund, the original name, but rather World Wide Fund for Nature, a name adopted in 1986 to reflect the broader nature of its work - is heavily involved in what Mr Leape calls 'lightening humanity's footprint on the planet'.

Conservation of biodiversity is one extremely important aspect of this, as is fighting climate change by tackling greenhouse gas emissions. 'Many of the things we care about will be lost if we do not focus on climate change, so it is right to make that the central priority,' says Mr Leape. 'At the same time, the growing recognition of climate change brings in its wake an awareness that the way we are living has implications for our long-term survival. It's not just about the climate, but the way we use water and fish and forests. People are beginning to respond in terms of broader awareness.'

It's not just wildlife that benefits. You might get a short-term gain out of overfishing, but that would disappear if you wipe out the stocks of the eco-system on which other stocks depend. According to Mr Leape, 'one of the things you see in the last several years is a growing recognition of the real convergence between these interests'.

The WWF's strategy, he says, is to focus on leverage points where it can really bring large-scale change. Thus, it targets key regions of biodiversity, which are home to a large proportion of the world's species and critical to the smooth functioning of eco-systems that span the globe. It analyses the social and economic forces threatening nature, and tries to find ways to align the interests of all parties concerned.

For example, as head of international conservation, Mr Leape worked on two initiatives that he is still immensely proud of.

The first is helping to set up the Marine Stewardship Council in 1997 as a joint effort between the WWF and Unilever, the world's largest buyer of seafood. The MSC, an independent non-profit organisation, accredits fisheries that use sustainable principles and techniques, and persuade consumers to buy MSC-certified products.

'It is really changing the market for fish and driving changes in the way fish are caught, and the way we relate to the oceans. Fisheries are the largest single proximate threat to the oceans - climate change is a broader threat - so if you can begin to harness the market as a force for good in fishing, that's powerful,' says Mr Leape.

The second initiative is his work in the Amazon. The WWF organised a global campaign asking governments to commit to protect 10 per cent of their forests. As part of the campaign, it approached then-president of Brazil, Fernando Henrique Cardoso, to ask if he was willing to do so, which he was. The WWF at the time had an alliance with the World Bank, and the pair arranged financing in support of Brazil's commitment. The country put together a programme that when finished will result in the protection of some 50 million hectares of the Amazon, making it one of the biggest protected areas in the world.

'We worked hand-in-glove with the government and donors to make that programme a success. We are more than half-way there, protected areas are really happening on the ground,' Mr Leape says.

At the same time, the WWF is growing a trust fund, 'so that if the protection of areas is in doubt in the future, we will have staff on the ground managing those parks', he says. 'That's the kind of scale you need to get to if you're serious about the long-term conservation of places like the Amazon. It's not all it takes to save the Amazon but it's a really important piece of the puzzle.'

Scientific approach

In all cases, the WWF's approach is science-based and focused on solutions. It works with communities and local partners, complemented by engagement with larger actors like governments or regional institutions. It brings technical experience from similar projects elsewhere, combining this with local knowledge and networks. 'In the end, we try to be catalytic. We work with partners like communities and governments. In the long-term, action has to be in their hands,' says Mr Leape.

Sure, there are sceptics out there concerned only about the next quarter's results, but 'in every sector, there are leaders who see the importance of the issue', says Mr Leape. 'We look to work with those people.'

The problem is that there are not enough of them. 'The greatest single challenge of this moment is that while we recognise broadly that climate change is important, we have not yet internalised how truly urgent it is, and how boldly we have to act over the next several years if we are to be successful,' he says.

This reporter cannot help but ask, given the lawyer's battle scars in the US courts, whether there are cycles to the country's environmental conscience. The US, after all, helped to negotiate the Kyoto Protocol in the mid-1990s, yet failed to ratify it, and at a UN conference in Bali last December nearly scuppered agreement on a two-year roadmap that will help establish a system of tackling carbon emissions after Kyoto expires in 2012.

There is hope. While President George Bush's 'stubborn resistance' has so far hobbled federal efforts at tackling the issue, 'there is no question the next administration will be much, much stronger on climate change', says Mr Leape. The most important message from Bali is to look forward to the next delegation that will be in Copenhagen in 2009, he says. 'That will be a very different delegation, and the negotiations need to be conducted with that delegation in mind.'

Read more!

Last chance to see: Climate Sightseeing

Today Online 1 Mar 08;

Tourists are heading to formerly ignored destinations before warming weather takes its toll

That dream vacation — diving along the Great Barrier Reef, skiing in the Swiss Alps — could remain a dream forever if you don't get a move on it.

The brilliant coral off the coast of Australia could be largely gone by 2050, says a climate change report published last year. And the lack of snow in the Alps is already forcing operators to invest in more snowmaking equipment.

The attention focused on these changes lately, and the overall issue of global warming, has already prompted predictions that people will travel differently in 2008 and beyond.

Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth and the time-lapse photography were not lost on a number of people. And increasingly, people are wanting to see these sights of the world before they change shape or change form. As global warming is rising up the world's agenda, ecotourists are flocking to previously ignored places.

It's been called climate sightseeing, a kind of farewell tour of Earth's greatest hits. Hard data is not available — determining exactly why people go where they do is next to impossible. But a clear interest in ecotourism, coupled with greater accessibility to places like the Earth's poles, means more people are visiting faraway and endangered sites, whatever their motives.

The subject is full of paradoxes: The more you travel, for example, the more you're contributing to the problem that made you go to an endangered site in the first place. And some places — Canada, perhaps Russia and other cold climes — are likely to attract more tourists as they warm.

Meteorologist and author of The Rough Guide to Climate Change, Robert Henson says: "Stay longer. Go ahead and travel, but do it smartly. Get direct flights; use a train to get around."

Here is a short list of places that are feeling the effects of global warming today — places to consider as you put together your travel plans. — MCT

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Polar regions: There's no doubt change is afoot at opposite ends of the earth. To the north, the Greenland ice cap is melting faster than expected. Temperatures, too, have increased in Antarctica. Both spell problems for polar bears and penguins, not to mention — if the ice melts entirely — probably the rest of us. Between Gore's movie, which highlighted the plight of polar bears, and a spate of penguin films in the last few years, trips to Greenland, Norway and Antarctica have become all the rage.

Low-lying islands

The Maldives, a group of low-lying atolls in the Indian Ocean that are popular with scuba divers, are mentioned often in the context of global warming. They were named a prime example of a top tourist destination at risk in "Places to Visit by 2020", a 2006 report by the British Centre for Future Studies.

A tiny Polynesian island nation called Tuvalu, too, will disappear if the sea continues to rise. The attraction, beyond seeing possibly the world's most endangered island, is snorkelling and scuba diving.

The Great Barrier Reef,

coral reefs in general

Warmer oceans mean stressed coral, which results in bleaching and death. This isn't news to anyone who dives or snorkels regularly. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is the world's largest, and many reports a few years ago warned of its death within a few decades. The 2007 report suggests the reef could be dominated by "non-coral organisms" by 2050.

The Alps

The lack of snow in the Alps is forcing smaller operators who can't afford large investments in snowmaking equipment out of business. Glaciers there are melting as well, so both the ski scene and the scenery will be changing in the next several decades.

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EnvironmentSnippets for Singapore: recycling, water-saving, littering, haze

Today Online 1 Mar 08;

Recycling for condos a must

It will soon be compulsory for all condominiums and private apartments to have recycling facilities. The Environment Ministry will start implementing this in phases this year, starting with the larger condos and private apartments. Although the overall recycling rate went up to 54 per cent last year – a 14-percentage-point jump from 2000 – the ministry's target is 60 per cent by 2012.

We're using less water today

Singaporeans are using less water, according to the latest figures. The daily per capita domestic water consumption has dropped from 165 litres in 2003 to 157 litres today.

This is set to go further down. From July 2009, the voluntary labelling scheme for water-efficient products will become mandatory. For a start, taps, flushing cisterns and urinals must come with water efficiency labels. The scheme will be extended to include showerheads and washing machines in future.

From July next year, taps, urinals and dual-flush cisterns in new developments and those undergoing renovation must have at least a "one tick" water efficiency rating. The Public Utilities Board is working with the Housing Board to adopt water-efficient products in its developments.

Business sector asked to take '10% water challenge'

The ministry is urging non-domestic users to take up the Government's "10-per-cent Challenge", where they work towards reducing water consumption by that amount through, for instance, the installation of water saving devices.

Over the next three to five years, the ministry will engage various sectors to lower their water consumption, starting with Government and commercial buildings, hotels and schools. And to help promote the challenge, a website will be set up to help users assess the state of water usage management on their premises and identifying opportunities for improvement. The PUB will also work with institutions such as the polytechnics to develop a water efficiency manager course.

next target: lift lobby litter

Littering hotspots such as lift lobbies, letterbox areas and void decks in HDB estates will be the National Environment Agency's (NEA) next target in its enforcement action.

The NEA has been increasing the number of enforcement man-hours over the past few years but there is still a small group of litterbugs who remain resistant to its educational efforts.

In a survey commissioned last year, 70 per cent of respondents were satisfied with the state of public cleanliness.

No need for 'Green' COEs

There will not be a separate category of Certificates of Entitlement for green vehicles here. Putting a quota on these vehicles would mean capping their growth, said the Environment Ministry yesterday. Rather, the demand for such vehicles should be left to market forces.

The number of green vehicles on our roads has risen to 1,500 in the last two years, and the Government will introduce necessary incentives to encourage consumers and fleet operators to opt for more of these environment-friendly vehicles.

Hazy days are here again

Singaporeans can expect slightly hazy days in the next few weeks because of the current dry spell and the incidents of forest fires in Sumatra and the Riau provinces. Relief should come in the next month, forecasts the NEA, with the arrival of the monsoon.

Singapore has also been working with its Indonesian counterparts in Jambi province to prevent land and forest fires. NEA officers, who were in Jambi last week, observed only four to five hotspots.

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Energy-saving in Singapore: cars, air-cons and more

Cars for sale must display fuel economy labels
Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times 1 Mar 08;

SINGAPOREANS shopping for a car from April next year will be able to compare instantly the energy efficiency of various models.

The Government will make it mandatory for retailers to display fuel economy labels on cars in showrooms, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim announced in Parliament yesterday.

Currently, there are fewer than 80 car models registered under the labelling scheme, which was launched in 2003.

But from April 1, 2009, all cars in showrooms must display the label, which states the distance each model can travel over a litre of fuel.

It will also provide the energy efficiency range of cars with comparable engine capacities.

Retailers yesterday welcomed the new rule.

'Consumers can now have a better idea of what's energy efficient and what's not,' said Mr Vincent Ng, product manager of Kah Motor, distributor of Honda cars.

However, some also cautioned that car buyers should not take the figures on the labels as absolute.

Different driving conditions can affect the fuel efficiency of a car, noted Mr Michael Wong, president of the Motor Traders Association.

'What you see on the label is not necessarily what you'll get,' he said.

Apart from cars, manufacturers of clothes dryers will be required by April next year - or earlier - to tag on energy efficiency labels. Currently, these are seen on air-conditioners and refrigerators.

The labelling moves are part of a greater push for better energy use in Singapore.

Besides helping consumers make greener choices, the Government is pumping in money to boost energy efficiency efforts.

A $50 million sustainable energy fund over five years will expand energy management capabilities and support energy efficiency programmes, Dr Yaacob said.

The National Environment Agency will set up grants to help fund companies that buy energy-efficient equipment and train staff to manage energy services in the workplace.

Dr Yaacob revealed that eight government office buildings have finished energy audits as of last year and put in place energy-saving measures, saving $2.6 million a year.

The remaining 40 government buildings will complete their audits in the next two years.

Also in the pipeline is a national campaign to teach Singaporeans energy-saving habits.

A number of MPs asked Dr Yaacob yesterday how the Government plans to help Singaporeans learn more about saving energy.

Singapore's freezing office temperatures also came under the spotlight yesterday, with many asking if workplaces can be warmer.

Mr Seah Kian Peng (Marine Parade GRC) joked: 'Over the years, our office temperatures have become so low, we can wear the autumn and winter collections of many fashion houses here.'

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Honda car-sharing scheme in Singapore to end

Christopher Tan, Straits Times 1 Mer 08;

JAPANESE carmaker Honda is putting the brakes on its car-sharing scheme here, making it the second such programme to fold in eight months.

The company said the plan, which saw 2,500 members share 100 cars, had become a 'nightmare' to manage.

'As membership grew... we couldn't maintain the service quality which we set initially,'' said Mr Toshio Iwamoto, managing director of Honda ICVS Singapore.

ICVS stands for Intelligent Community Vehicle System.

The company was struggling to keep tabs on the 21 'ports' where members picked up and dropped off the cars. Even a second-generation operating system introduced in October 2006 did not help.

'Everybody expected cars to be available,'' Mr Iwamoto said. 'But in reality, we could not guarantee.

'There would sometimes be hiccups, and dissatisfaction and complaints from members would arise.''

Honda ICVS started in 2002 with 50 members sharing 15 Honda Civic Hybrid cars parked in three locations.

Today, it has 2,500 members sharing 100 cars parked in 21 ports.

Mr Iwamoto said Honda could have expanded the fleet, but the availability of parking spaces was also a problem. Parking charges in the Central Business District rose by up to 40 per cent last year, he said.

Last July, transport giant ComfortDelGro Corp pulled the plug on its CitySpeed car-sharing company. It said falling car prices had made the business proposition less viable.

Honda ICVS has written to its members to inform them that the scheme would fold by the end of the month. Pro-rated membership fees would be refunded. Mr Iwamoto said the company is giving each member a $20 shopping voucher 'as a token of appreciation''.

'We are very sorry,'' he said.

Mr Iwamoto said Honda ICVS' 20 employees will be redeployed to various companies 'with some relation to Honda'', such as Honda car distributor Kah Motor and Honda motorcycle agent Boon Siew.

Kah Motor also said it is in talks to buy some of Honda ICVS' newer cars. 'We may use them to start a car-sharing scheme of our own,'' Kah's product manager Vincent Ng said.

Honda ICVS' programme in Singapore had been profitable. According to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, it made $109,146 after tax last year, versus $278,826 in 2006 and $125,911 in 2005.

There are two more car-sharing programmes in Singapore. One is run by pioneer NTUC Income and the other by Popular Rent-A-Car.

Neither could be reached for comment.

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SPCA sheltered almost 500 mice, other rodents last year

Letter from Deirdre Moss (Ms), Executive Officer SPCA, Straits Times Forum 1 Mar 08;

WE REFER to the letter, 'Hamster fad a worrying trend' (Feb 22), by Mr Retnam Thillainathan and thank him for his concern.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) also read with concern the article, 'Rodents are favoured pets in Year of the Rat' (Feb 20).

Getting a hamster or any rodent because it's 'their' year may translate into many being discarded later on.

They may not take up much space at home and probably are much cheaper to maintain than a cat or dog, but keeping a pet requires commitment that most impulse buyers do not realise or are willing to provide.

Statistics last year showed that more than one rodent was surrendered to our shelter every single day.

To prevent hamsters and mice from breeding, the SPCA advises that males and females be kept separately.

While the rest of the rodents enjoy the company of their fellow furry friends, the Syrian hamster does not. Any attempt to put more than one in a cage may result in fights which can lead to them killing.

If all necessary research has been done before getting a rodent as a pet and preparation has been under way to bring one or two home, please remember to adopt rather than buy.

Our shelter is a temporary home to many abandoned rodents like the ones mentioned above. You can be the one to give our furry friends that loving home they need.

Visit our adoption gallery at http://www.spca.org.sg/adoption/adoption.asp to check them out.

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NEW Publication: Marine Debris 101

NOAA Marine Debris Program Web Education Site - "Marine Debris 101"
Ocean Conservancy e-newsletter 29 Feb 08;

Marine Debris 101 Program LogoNOAA has a new educational section of its website created to inform the public on general information about marine debris, including its sources, impacts and solutions.

The National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration has worked with its partners to create an Internet-based educational campaign for marine debris awareness and prevention located on the homepage of the NOAA Marine Debris Program website.

Products, tailored to specific audiences such as beachgoers, fishermen, boaters, and students, include an expanded photo database for use by the general public as well as a fun Children's Activity Book. There is also a section designed especially for educators, with a curriculum designed for students K-12.

Visit the NOAA Marine Debris Program website to experience Marine Debris 101 and learn more about the Program: http://www.marinedebris.noaa.gov/

Read more about marine debris facts and what you CAN do to make a difference!

The International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (ICCS) supports the Ocean Conservancy's work on marine debris in Singapore. Visit their blog and website to find out more about what you can do in Singapore.

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