Could Arctic ice melt spawn new kind of cold war?

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 9 Mar 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With oil above $100 a barrel and Arctic ice melting faster than ever, some of the world's most powerful countries -- including the United States and Russia -- are looking north to a possible energy bonanza.

This prospective scramble for buried Arctic mineral wealth made more accessible by freshly melted seas could bring on a completely different kind of cold war, a scholar and former Coast Guard officer says.

While a U.S. government official questioned the risk of polar conflict, Washington still would like to join a 25-year-old international treaty meant to figure out who owns the rights to the oceans, including the Arctic Ocean. So far, the Senate has not approved it.

Unlike the first Cold War, dominated by tensions between the two late-20th century superpowers, this century's model could pit countries that border the Arctic Ocean against each other to claim mineral rights. The Arctic powers include the United States, Russia, Canada, Denmark and Norway.

The irony is that the burning of fossil fuels is at least in part responsible for the Arctic melt -- due to climate change -- and the Arctic melt could pave the way for a 21st century rush to exploit even more fossil fuels.

The stakes are enormous, according to Scott Borgerson of the Council on Foreign Relations, a former U.S. Coast Guard lieutenant commander.

The Arctic could hold as much as one-quarter of the world's remaining undiscovered oil and gas deposits, Borgerson wrote in the current issue of the journal Foreign Affairs.

Russia has claimed 460,000 square miles (1.191 million sq km) of Arctic waters, with an eye-catching effort that included planting its flag on the ocean floor at the North Pole last summer. Days later, Moscow sent strategic bomber flights over the Arctic for the first time since the Cold War.

"I think you can say planting a flag on the sea bottom and renewing strategic bomber flights is provocative," Borgerson said in a telephone interview.

SCRAMBLING AND SLEEPWALKING

By contrast, he said of the U.S. position, "I don't think we're scrambling. We're sleepwalking ... I think the Russians are scrambling and I think the Norwegians and Canadians and Danes are keenly aware."

Borgerson said that now would be an appropriate time for the United States to ratify the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea, which codifies which countries have rights to what parts of the world's oceans.

The Bush administration agrees. So do many environmental groups, the U.S. military and energy companies looking to explore the Arctic, now that enough ice is seasonally gone to open up sea lanes as soon as the next decade.

"There's no ice cold war," said one U.S. government official familiar with the Arctic Ocean rights issue. However, the official noted that joining the Law of the Sea pact would give greater legal certainty to U.S. claims in the area.

That is becoming more crucial, as measurements of the U.S. continental shelf get more precise.

Coastal nations like those that border the Arctic have sovereign rights over natural resources of their continental shelves, generally recognized to reach 200 nautical miles out from their coasts.

But in February, researchers from the University of New Hampshire and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration released data suggesting that the continental shelf north of Alaska extends more than 100 nautical miles farther than previously presumed.

A commission set up by the Law of the Sea lets countries expand their sea floor resource rights if they meet certain conditions and back them up with scientific data.

The treaty also governs navigation rights, suddenly more important as scientists last year reported the opening of the normally ice-choked waters of the Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

"Of course we need to be at the table as ocean law develops," the U.S. official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. "It's not like ocean law is going to stop developing if we're not in there. It's just going to develop without us."

(Editing by Philip Barbara)

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Vietnam troops clean oil stained beaches: officials

Yahoo News 9 Mar 08;

Thousands of Vietnamese troops Sunday helped clean oil off southern beaches as rescue workers sought to contain a spill from a capsized tanker and recover the bodies of nine more sailors, officials said.

One survivor and the bodies of five crew have been recovered since the Duc Tri, carrying 1,700 tonnes of crude oil, overturned in rough seas a week earlier, drifting off the coast near the resorts of Mui Ne and Vung Tau.

While authorities said the ship's 10 oil tanks were believed intact, oil had seeped from the vessel's engine system and blackened beaches along the southern coast, with rough seas hampering recovery and salvage operations.

"We have mobilized around 2,000 soldiers to cooperate with local people to collect clumps of congealed oil along the coast," said Colonel Le Minh Quang, head of the military command in Ba Ria Vung Tau province.

Quang said the troops had helped clean oil from the Bai Sau beach of Vung Tau, a popular South China Sea resort southeast of Ho Chi Minh City, and a base for Vietnam's offshore oil industry.

The colonel said that one more body had been found floating at sea -- taking the total discovered to five -- and told AFP that as of early Sunday "nine bodies remain inside the shipwreck."

The Vietnamese government's oil spill response agency meanwhile reported that large quantities of oil had stopped leaking from the tanker, which rescue ships last week encircled with a floating oil barrier.

"Oil stopped leaking out this morning," said Nguyen Quang Hung, who heads the agency's operations at the site.

"We have more than 10 divers down there at the moment. From their observations, all the oil tanks remain intact, and all the oil that has spilled out came from the engine.

"We are on standby, ready to cope with any oil leaks that may happen during the body recovery operation."

He added: "This morning divers were dispatched again, but the waves got higher around noon and they came back without finding anything."

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Small Vietnamese Tanker Spills Oil, 14 Crew Missing
PlanetArk 7 Mar 08;

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Water Quality Restores Seagrasses in Tampa, USA

Frank Sargeant, The Tampa Tribune 9 Mar 08;

When I first came to the Bay area in 1984, Tampa Bay was a mess.

There was so much algae in the water that seeing bottom in more than a foot of water was impossible along nearly all of the shoreline inside the Skyway. The floating detritus was so thick that millions of shad, which thrive only where there's polluted water, were the primary species of fish found here. The only grass along most of the South Shore area was rolling moss, a type of mesh-like algae, and sea lettuce, another unproductive plant that thrives in dirty water.

In the years since, the bay has become a national example of what can be done to clean and improve our coastal waters. Sewage treatment plants, storm water control, an end to dredge-and-fill operations and vast restoration efforts along shorelines produced dramatic improvements in water quality.

A recent study released by the Tampa Bay Estuary Program found only three isolated areas where water quality targets were not being met. The rest of the bay is now rated to have good water quality, even Hillsborough Bay, which for years was little more than a cesspool for the city of Tampa.

The three marginal areas are in Old Tampa Bay, the portion of the bay spanned by the Gandy and Howard Frankland bridges - and even those areas seem to be a temporary blip. They had good water quality in the 2006 survey but sagged a bit in 2007.

The turnaround in water quality has resulted in an amazing recovery of the habitat. Nanette O'Hara of TBEP said seagrasses have grown back on more than 6,000 acres of the shallows and total some 28,299 acres, more than at any time since 1950. The productive grasses grow only in areas where sunlight penetrates to bottom, and in much of the bay that depth is now six feet or more.

The restoration of the habitat has had a dramatic impact on fish populations. The shad are all but gone, replaced by sardines and threadfins (the food) and snook, trout, redfish, tarpon, mackerel, bluefish and more (the predators). There are even shrimp so abundant that netters scoop them up by the buckets after dark around some of the bridges - because of the better water quality, and because conservation leaders helped push the shrimp boats out of Tampa Bay.

Last summer, the annual Tampa Bay Watch scallop survey turned up dozens of bay scallops in waters that for years had near zero. Scallops are the canary in the mine when it comes to water quality; they live only where water is clear and seagrass healthy, and they seem to be returning to Tampa Bay.

To be sure, there are still lots of concerns when it comes to Tampa Bay's future: more development and runoff, tapping the freshwater that feeds the estuaries; phosphate mining in the headwaters of some rivers, prop damage to seagrass beds; and more. But in general, the bay is in surprisingly good shape, and seems destined to get better as long as we hold the course. It's a testament to what can be done when a community is determined to save its greatest natural asset.

TBEP is now offering a Bay-Friendly Boater Kit to boaters and anglers new to Tampa Bay. It includes a nautical chart of the bay with seagrass beds marked so boaters can avoid running through them. The chart also acts as a fishing guide, showing the grass where the fish are most likely to be. (Motors up, and entry by push-pole, of course.) The kit also includes rules of the road, indicating the meaning of marine markers, and info on manatee avoidance and manatee protection zones.

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Job vacancy: General Manager, Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)

General Manager, Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore)

The newly established Jane Goodall Institute (Singapore) is seeking a general manager to run its programs and activities. Key responsibilities for the position include supporting Roots & Shoots groups in schools, developing the JGIS communications program, fund-raising, and running the office.

Candidates should have strong writing and presentation skills, the ability to work with a broad range of constituencies, PC skills, at least 5 years management or leadership experience and experience in conservation or environmental organizations.

More information about the Jane Goodall Institute is available at www.janegoodall.org. For more information or to apply for the position please contact Richard Hartung at hartung@starhub.net.sg or 9695 8210.

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Passion for preservation: Traditional coastal homes in Terengganu

Andrew Sia, The Star 9 Mar 08;

House by house, one man is trying to save the rich architectural and cultural heritage of Terengganu.

A GUY has been buying old wooden Malay houses from all over Terengganu for about RM10,000 each. He dismantles them, and then reassembles them into a boutique beach resort.

And then he will charge tourists a few hundred ringgit for one night’s accommodation. Who says heritage does not make ringgit and sense?

This is Terrapuri, a project by Alex Lee, the boss of Ping Anchorage (go to www. pinganchorage.com.my), one of Terengganu’s largest tourism operators.

“Conserving heritage buildings is like buying antiques. It may look like junk now, but its value will soar later,” he says.

And in Penarik, about 90 minutes north of Kuala Terengganu, he is assembling his dream project, plank by plank. When completed later this year, it will feature 28 antique (between 100 to 200 years old) Malay houses in refurbished splendour and reassigned luxurious roles as a spa, an art gallery, a beach club, residential suites, and a Malay fine dining restaurant.

Even by Terengganu’s high standards, the project sits on a breathtakingly beautiful site: a narrow spit of land flanked by the South China Sea on one side and an inland sea with mangroves and nipah palms on the other.

By day, coconut trees sway amidst sea breezes and three of the state’s top island attractions – Redang, Perhentian and Lang Tengah – shimmer invitingly just offshore in emerald iridescence. By night, fireflies flash about while, in different seasons, ocean-going green turtles and fresh water river terrapins lay their eggs on their respective sandy shores.

As if this symbiosis of architectural and ecological heritage is not rich enough, there will be artistic pedigree thrown in too: Chang Fee Ming, renowned for his luminous watercolours of traditional Terengganu villages and a personal friend of Lee, may have found the perfect setting for several of his artworks here – which will adorn the antique wooden walls of Terrapuri.

(Chang’s latest KL exhibition, Mekong: Exploring the Source, was featured in StarMag’s Arts pages last week in An epic journey, captured.)

Losing charm

Lee’s amazing journey began over 20 years ago when he used plywood partitions in his grandparents’ wooden shop at Marang, Terengganu, to create a backpackers guesthouse.

“I learnt about the importance of heritage from my guests,” he recalls.

Over the years, he has been buying up not only old houses but also everything inside them – from highly ornate quail traps and boat prows to coconut scrapers and cookie moulds.

“Often people in the kampungs would just throw these old wooden things underneath their houses where they slowly rot away,” he says.

But what is not valued by locals is prized by Mat Sallehs: Lee reveals that antique brokers have been coming to buy up these artefacts on the cheap before shipping them off to Singapore and Europe.

“After all, one of the world’s best collection of antique keris is not in Malaysia or Indonesia but in Holland,” he notes. “When I buy up the old houses, I tell the owners that the houses will still be in Terengganu, and they can still see them if they want.”

A big obstacle to heritage conservation is the local mindset that looks up to all things foreign while scoffing at what’s ours. Old wooden houses, for instance, are seen as a symbol of backwardness and poverty, not as possible antiques.

“Some wooden houses have been chopped up and modified with concrete renovations. Often people will say, ‘susah (difficult) to maintain’, yet in Sweden, they can maintain not only 600-year-old timber houses but also whole wooden towns. Our houses are only 200 years old! So why can’t we?” says Lee.

One hard lesson was the tearing down of Marang old town (20km south of Kuala Terengganu) comprising wooden shops, including Marang Inn, Lee’s original backpackers’ lodge.

“In the early 1990s, a kind of backpackers haven developed there. Eric Tho (the batik fashion exponent) started here, too, and he had roaring sales. And there was good business for food hawkers and souvenir stalls,” Lee says.

However, when the then State Government saw the prospect for tourism, they decided to “clean up” the town by revoking the shops’ Temporary Occupation License land titles, demolishing the “old, ugly” wooden shops, and building “nice, modern” concrete ones.

“Overnight, tourism in Marang was killed. When the heritage charm there was gone, the backpackers stopped going there,” recalls Lee.

Examples of this mindset can be seen even in urban landscaping where Municipal Councils plant expensive, non-native date palms, or worse, plastic palm “trees”!

“That’s not our culture. We should plant and admire our local trees,” Lee stresses. “To promote heritage, the mindset has to change.”

Cultural richness

While Lee and his staff were handling tour groups across the whole of Terengganu, they were also scouting out antique houses.

“I bought the first unit in 1990,” he says.

Some of the houses were in excellent condition. Others were partially decayed, and he had to restore them with, as far as possible, old cengal wood.

“I also bought houses which were half-decayed for use as spare parts. Old cengal wood is very lasting and superior to new cengal wood which comes from less mature trees,” he says.

It’s not just endurance that’s embedded in the wood, it’s a whole cultural history. The book Spirit of Wood: The Art of Malay Woodcarving by Dr Farish A. Noor and Eddin Khoo (ISBN: 978-0794601034), has postulated that Terengganu is heir to the rich cultural legacy of the ancient Langkasuka kingdom (2nd to the 16th century CE, which may have been located on the east coast of Peninsular Malaysia) and thereafter the Sultanate of Pattani.

Lee adds that the Terengganu Malays have also long had links with (and possibly originated from) the ancient civilisations of Champa in central Vietnam and Cambodia, and that many renowned traditional Malay art forms, including wayang kulit and dances like Mak Yong and Menora, hail from this area.

And, of course, this fertile cultural milieu shows up in the houses. According to Lee’s research, the Terengganu traditional house known as rumah bujang berserambi, (stand-alone house with veranda) has features strikingly similar to Cambodian and Thai houses, such as a raised platform on stilts, a generally triangular shape, steep gabled roofs, gently curved gable ends, rhomboid-shaped terracotta roof tiles, and timber panel walls slotted into grooved frames.

Amazingly, not a single nail is used. Instead, the whole structure is fitted together using wooden joints held in place by pasak (wooden pegs).

“That’s why the whole house can be dismantled and put back together,” says Lee. “In our (Terengganu Malay) dialect, we call it masang, meaning ‘assemble’. Imagine, Terengganu was already making prefabricated homes hundreds of years ago!”

When parts rot away, Lee commissions woodcarvers to do up fresh carvings.

Most Terengganu woodcarvings fall into two categories: simpler kerawang, or geometric, designs or finer sobek with flamboyant filigree resembling local foliage.

Lee takes some of his most precious antique carved panels out from a storeroom and goes to meet two woodcarving brothers near Kuala Terengganu, Amran and Abdul Rahim Ismail. One panel has swirling vegetation in timba balik or mirror image patterns. What does it all mean?

“You see here two trees tied together and a flower coming out of their union. It’s like a synergy,” explains Amran.

Another carving has an eight-sided floral pattern.

“Even we carvers don’t really know the origins. It’s too ancient. It’s just that owners of old houses tell me it’s called pecah lapan (break into eight),” says Rahim.

Lee thinks it’s a possible clue to cross-cultural fertilisation: “It could have originated from the bagua (an octagonal mirror) of Chinese feng shui. Or maybe it’s the Buddhist eight-fold path.”

Apart from ancient architectural heritage, Lee also wants to emphasise the “Terengganu garden” concept with local trees such as jambu laut, bunga tanjung, and melinjau.

“When I was growing up as a boy in Marang, I remember people used to have puja pantai (sea worship) ceremonies for up to three days. Hawkers would fry melinjau nuts in hot sand as snacks then. All that has disappeared in the last 30 years.”

While some traditions have disappeared because they are perceived to be un-Islamic holdovers from Terengganu’s animist-Hindu past, Lee at least hopes that his guests can sample those fried melinjau nuts again.

With such a bountiful heritage, Lee chose the name Terrapuri for his project – from terra, Latin for land, and puri, Sanskrit for palace. The Land of Palaces.

Being the savvy marketing guy that he is, Lee smiles and adds, “It also refers to the river terrapins of the area”.

Before he bought each home, he or his staff interviewed not only the owners but also the neighbours to ascertain its history.

One of the homes was built by one Haji Mohd Ali some 150 years ago, and has the rags to riches story of a Terengganu-style Loh Boon Siew (aka Mr Honda, the Penang tycoon). Ali was a 19th century millionaire who made his fortune from trading in pelara (Terengganu fish sauce).

Lee tells the story: “He would send out his boats to the big ships moored at Kuala Terengganu to buy salt from Siamese traders. Using that, he would ferment fish until it turned into pelara. Then he would go up the Terengganu River as far as Kuala Berang to barter for rice, fruits, and other jungle produce. From that, he made a fortune and built two big houses.”

Ali’s grand old house will be converted – and will emit a more fragrant smell than fish sauce! – into a Malay-style spa, overlooking the inland sea of mangroves.

“There are many Balinese and Thai spas but not many Malay spas being marketed. I have a pakcik from a kampung nearby training my staff in traditional Malay healing arts such as mandi bunga (flower bath) and urut (massage).

Sound economics

Lee, who speaks the Terengganu dialect of Malay fluently, says that heritage is not just about cultural pride for his home state. It’s also solid economics.

“Traditional builders and craftsmen have been losing their jobs, as all the kampung folk now want concrete houses. Old skills are being lost. But conservation can become a whole industry in its own right, like in Europe. For instance, I have been employing several tukang kayu (carpenters) to reassemble and renovate the old houses.”

And, of course, it will give Malaysia a crucial edge in the tourism industry.

Under the Government’s East Coast Economic Region plan, Terengganu is supposed to become the “tourism hub” for the East Coast.

“The airport will be upgraded but tourism is not just about infrastructure or about providing a beach hotel any more. You can find the same type of modern hotels the whole world over,” explains Lee.

“Tourism is about content, and heritage is crucial. We face stiff competition from Thailand and Bali where the cultural tourism is stronger. As it is, unlike in Bali, it’s difficult to even catch a traditional Terengganu dance here unless it’s a specially organised event.

“People will want to visit a place because of its unique heritage and culture, they want to see traditional houses.”

He says there has been “not much” Government financial support for conservation, and he has had to self-finance his project.

“It’s not cheap, and commercial loans have higher interest rates. Conservation is a long-term investment. But once we have saved it, the money is bound to come in later.”

Despite lack of Government backing, Lee has been more than willing to pour his time, energy and money into his Terrapuri heritage project.

“If I just wanted to make fast money, I could have built an eco-themed resort very quickly. This has been like my hobby.”

It is indeed a testament to ethnic harmony when Lee, who is Chinese-educated, is taking a leading role in promoting and preserving Terengganu’s Malay heritage.

“My grandmother is a Terengganu Peranakan Chinese. She used to wear a sarong and eat dishes like laksa with budu (Malay fish sauce).”

And Terrapuri, Lee’s labour of love, is perhaps a much more eloquent testimony of Bangsa Malaysia pride than any seminar or slogan could ever be.

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Best of our wild blogs: 9 Mar 08

Labrador Nature Reserve: after the construction
how is the shore doing? on the wildfilms blog

Tuas and Jurong reclamation continues
MPA notice on the wildfilms blog

Semakau exploration
on the urban forest blog and tidechaser blog and discovery blog.

More about the coastal tree with blue fruits
apparently a rare find on the wildfilms blog

Spiders by the sea
it's real busy under a walkway by the shore on the wildfilms blog

Spiderhunter nests
amazing constructions on the bird ecology blog

Read more!

New butterflies in Singapore: These six-legged immigrants simply flew in

Three new butterfly varieties have been spotted here; experts say they pose no threat to native species
Shuli Sudderuddin, Straits Times 9 Mar 08;

NEW 'immigrants' are adding to Singapore's diversity - biodiversity, that is.

At least three species of butterfly new to Singapore have been discovered here in the past few years. Welcoming the winged newcomers are naturalists and butterfly spotters, who dismiss worries that their presence will upset the ecological balance here.

The new species spotted here - the Two-spotted Line-blue, the Tawny Coster and the Leopard Lacewing - pose no such threat, experts say.

Butterfly watching and photography group ButterflyCircle found a small colony of Two-spotted Line-blues in Telok Blangah early this year.

This tiny blue, brown and lilac butterfly originated in Australia.

The other two new species, the Tawny Coster and the Leopard Lacewing, are believed to have gradually migrated here from South Asia over the past few years.

Architect Khew Sin Khoon, 49, a veteran ButterflyCircle member, has been butterfly watching since he was 10.

He is especially intrigued by how the Two-Spotted Line-blue, which has tiny wings no longer than 1cm, got here: 'It seems too small to have flown here, so we suspect that it came with imported plants rather than naturally migrating here.'

Dr David Lohman, research fellow with the National University of Singapore's Department of Biological Sciences, specialises in butterflies. While he does not dismiss worries that, in general, new plant and animal species could threaten a country's existing biodiversity, the Singapore context is different as far as butterflies are concerned.

He said: 'Since there is virtually no agriculture in Singapore, such impact would probably be minimal. I know of no introduced butterfly species that have an ecological impact on natural ecosystems.'

Mr Khew agreed that new types of butterfly would help add to Singapore's biodiversity: 'Such critters coming in to Singapore could provide the local life sciences community with the opportunity to observe and learn new things.'

Said ButterflyCircle member Sunny Chir, 57, a retired fighter pilot: 'So far, the new non-native species discovered are feeding on common host plants which are not known host plants of local species, so they are not likely to compete with local species for food.'

The Tawny Coster migrated here from South Asia.

THE TWO-SPOTTED LINE-BLUE could have slipped in with imported plants.

THE LEOPARD LACEWING is native to South Asia and is believed to have migrated here over the past few years. Its larvae feed on passion flower plants.

(PHOTOS: KHEW SIN KHOON & SUNNY CHIR)

More about these butterflies and more on the Butterflies of Singapore blog
The Voyage of the Tawny Coster
A new Lycaenidae species for Singapore!

Know your butterflies - with help of 20-page guide
Ho Ai Li, Straits Times 9 Mar 08;

HAVE you heard of the Chocolate Pansy, the Lemon Emigrant or the Painted Jezebel?

You may not know their names, but they are among the butterflies found here.

Now you can put names to the butterflies you spot with the help of a guide launched recently by the Butterfly Interest Group of the Nature Society. The 20-page brochure features 140 common species out of the 280-odd varieties found here.

IT manager Gan Cheong Weei, 45, one of the guide's two writers, said it arose out of an 'overwhelming need'. Most of the existing guides are too big and cumbersome to carry around on butterfly walks.

Over 11/2 years, he and fellow writer Simon Chan, 45, spent weekends traipsing through forests and parks to take snapshots of the often elusive winged creatures.

The guide, which costs $5, can be bought from the Nature Society or at the Nature Niche Bookshop in the Botanic Gardens.

Read more!

Singapore and Sumatra earthquakes

The elephant and the tectonic plate
Evidence suggests the Sumatra region may be hit by a big quake within the next 20-30 years
Kerry Sieh Kusnowidjaja Megawati & Pan Tso-Chien, Straits Times 9 Mar 08;

WHY does Sumatra keep sending earthquakes our way? And what might be coming next?

These are questions that many Singaporeans are asking again these days, as the shaking that began in 2000 resumed two weeks ago.

The world's biggest earthquakes occur in places where giant tectonic plates beneath the oceans are diving down under neighbouring land masses.

Singapore is fortunate to lie several hundred kilometres from the nearest such 'subduction' zone, in the middle of a tectonic plate that includes all of its South-east Asian neighbours.

Still, the western edge of that plate, on the other side of Sumatra, generates such big earthquakes that gentle swaying is commonly felt in Singapore.

All of the earthquakes felt here in the past seven years happened because the upper surface of the downward moving oceanic plate, called the Sunda megathrust, is sticky.

As the oceanic plate descends northward at about 60mm a year beneath Sumatra, it clings to Sumatra's underside along the megathrust until it reaches depths of 50km or so, where it finally becomes hot and gooey enough to slip steadily into the deep earth.

The great earthquakes of 2004, 2005 and 2007 occurred because very large patches of the megathrust suddenly became unstuck.

Imagine a rope tied to an elephant on one end and held by a team of men - some large, some small, some strong, some weak - on the other.

The elephant is the dense oceanic plate sinking inexorably into the deep earth. The men are individual patches of the megathrust. The more the elephant pulls on its end of the rope, the more each man has to resist at the other end. Eventually, the weakest man lets go (the first earthquake, in 2000).

He is relieved, but his teammates now have to carry his burden, to keep the elephant from winning the tug-of-war. Sometime later, another man lets go (the 2002 earthquake). He feels relieved, but those remaining have to resist the elephant with even more force. Finally, half of the team gives up in rapid succession (the giant Aceh earthquake of 2004). And then a neighbouring contingent yields (in 2005).

Now the elephant's tug is being resisted by far fewer men.

As of a year ago, only one major part of the megathrust between Myanmar and Java remains unbroken - that 600km-long section nearest to Singapore.

Global Positioning System (GPS) instruments in western Sumatra show that the megathrust of this 'Mentawai' section continues to resist failure.

Ominously, the corals of the Mentawai island reefs show that this section breaks in sequences of great earthquakes about every two centuries and that the last such sequence occurred about two centuries ago, between 1797 and 1833.

And so it appears that even the strong men still holding the rope are, in fact, nearing the end of their rope.

For several years now, we have been saying that the elephant will win, and probably sometime within the next two or three decades.

The large earthquakes of last September were, in fact, our first indication that the Mentawai section has finally begun to fail.

On Feb 20 this year, a tiny patch between the great 2004 and 2005 ruptures failed in a magnitude 7.4 quake. Curiously, that rupture may have been on the same patch that caused the 2002 foreshock.

The more recent small quakes between Feb 22 and March 3 indicate that the Mentawai section continues to lose its grip.

The parts that remain unbroken are large enough to generate a magnitude 9 earthquake, if they all go at once.

One might hope that the remaining men will let go one by one (a flurry of smaller earthquakes, like the previous week's), so that the elephant doesn't win in one dramatic flash.

But we consider this piecemeal scenario quite unlikely since it would entail thousands of such earthquakes. The historical and geological records suggest that within the next couple of decades one or two additional great earthquakes will end the contest.

The fallout

THE implications of this are serious for coastal communities of western Sumatra. If the great earthquake were to happen today, strong seismic shaking would likely damage many buildings and other infrastructure.

Moreover, scientific estimates of tsunami inundations at Padang and Bengkulu, the two largest cities along the Sumatra coast, illustrate the urgent need for strong emergency planning and management. Fortunately, some efforts towards these ends are being made by local government and NGOs, including new projects by Singaporean researchers.

However, it is too early to tell whether these efforts will lessen losses to levels below those that occurred in Aceh in 2004.

What about the effect of this coming great earthquake on Singapore? It is inevitable that more high-rise buildings will be built in Singapore as its economy grows. High-rise buildings respond to earthquakes, especially shaking from distant earthquakes. The low-frequency seismic waves can travel longer distances than high-frequency waves, just as the bass frequencies of a musical instrument are heard farther than the treble. The low frequency of the earthquake shaking experienced in Singapore from Sumatran earthquakes can be amplified at sites with soft soils.

The amplified low frequency shaking may be close to the natural frequencies of high-rise buildings in the city, creating a socalled resonance effect.

High-rise buildings sway back and forth during the earthquake. It is therefore more likely for people living or working on upper floors of high-rise buildings to sense these earthquakes than those living in low-rise houses.

However, this greater sensitivity to Sumatran earthquakes does not mean that high-rise buildings are more likely to be damaged.

The potential of a structure to be damaged is not related to the amplitude of shaking at the top of the building, but rather to the so-called inter-storey drift - the amount of deformation between one storey and the next.

While the inter-storey drift generated by distant earthquakes may be within the limits of a well-designed building, the response of buildings to ground shaking depends on the details of structural configurations, and further research work will be required to better quantify dynamic building responses.

It would therefore be prudent to consider the dynamic effects of distant earthquakes in the design of future buildings.

For scientists, engineers, emergency responders and urban planners, the ongoing series of Sumatran earthquakes and tsunamis is a rare and fascinating opportunity to observe how earth's tectonic plates work and to improve the resilience of our engineered structures and our communities to these dynamic natural events.

We in Singapore are very wellpositioned to learn from the Sumatran activity. As the tectonic motions continue, we and our Indonesian colleagues will also continue to monitor and interpret it with our GPS and seismic networks.

Professor Kerry Sieh (sieh@gps.caltech.edu), from the Tectonics Observatory, California Institute of Technology, is Visiting Professor, Nanyang Technological University. Assistant Professor Kusnowidjaja Megawati (kusno@ntu.edu.sg) teaches at the School of Civil & Environmental Engineering, NTU. Professor Pan Tso-Chien (cpan@ntu.edu.sg) is the Dean of the College of Engineering, NTU. They have ongoing research programmes on the earthquake geology of Sumatra and on seismic hazard and risk for Singapore and the region.

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Mass nesting of endangered Olive Ridley turtles starts in Orissa

Thaindian News 8 Mar 08;

Ganjam (Orissa), Mar 8 (ANI): Conservationists, residents and wildlife officials in Orissa kept vigil on Friday as thousands of endangered Olive Ridley turtles arrived at a beach for the annual mass nesting.

The benign creatures swimming up to shore swarmed the sandy nesting grounds near the Rushikulya River in Ganjam district with the commencement of the nesting season.

“Last year, there was no mass nesting. The exact reason is not known why mass nesting did not take place last year. We are happy that mass nesting has again started this year and quite a large number of turtles have come and nested during the current breeding season,” said Basudev Triparthy, a scientist with the Wildlife Institute of India.

The Olive Ridley turtle, which can grow up to 75 cm (2.5 feet) in length, is found in tropical regions of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans.

With each turtle laying an estimated 120 eggs, large stretches of nesting grounds are now packed with them.

Ashok Kumar, a visitor said the laying of eggs by the turtles was an amazing phenomenon to witness.

“It is very interesting to watch how they lay eggs and again fill it up, and thumping it then going back. I think the government should spread more awareness among people especially those living around this place so they are more conscious,” he added.

For the protection of the turtles and their eggs, forest officials and protection groups have divided the entire stretch of beach into 35 segments, each to be manned by 2 persons to keep away any harm either from animals or humans.

Rabindranath Sahu, Secretary of the Rushikulya Sea Turtle Protection Committee, said all efforts are being made to protect the turtles.

“These turtles lay eggs which are left here for at least one and a half months. These eggs need to be protected from jackals, dogs and hyenas. Our entire team of volunteers and people from the forest department work with the scientists through the entire season,” he added.

Besides protecting the creatures, members of the group also involved in the counting of eggs and marking of the Olive Ridley turtles to keep track of them.

Around 60 forest department staff and 40 residents are participating in the drive to protect the turtles. According to officials, at least 18,000 turtles had so far arrived for nesting.

In 2004, over one million turtles came to the Orissa shores to dig, pits and lay eggs, the largest concentration being at Gohirmatha beach.

Such large concentrations only occur at a few sites in the world.

In 2000, only 700,000 turtles arrived but in 1997 and 1998, the turtles skipped the annual ritual and there was no mass nesting at all.

Experts say turtles are particularly vulnerable because of high mortality rates. According to studies, only one out of every 1,000 hatchlings normally reaches adulthood.

The Orissa Government has declared the whole nesting area a marine sanctuary and has banned mechanised trawlers in the state. Besides, it is also urging fishermen to include Turtle Excluding Devices (TED) in their fishing equipment. (ANI)

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Pakistan waterfront project occupies more land than New York, says expert

Amar Guriro, Daily Times 9 Mar 08;

KARACHI: The area of the proposed mega project of the ‘Waterfront Sugar Land City’ initiated by the Federal Government of Pakistan with a Dubai-based construction company occupies more area than most of the cosmopolitan cities of the world, including New York, San Francisco, Washington DC and Rome, said architect Arif Belgaumi.

Shehri-CBE and Dharti organized a seminar ‘Our Coast is Under Threat’ in collaboration with the Friedrich Naumann Stiftung at a local hotel Saturday to discuss the new project.

“The proposed plan of the Waterfront Sugar Land City is not feasible as there is no harbor at the site and it is distant from the major highways and roads that connect other cities with Karachi and the unavailability of potable water indicates difficulties in the future,” said Belgaumi.

He used computer sketches and maps to show that the actual land area of the project is twice the area allocated by the government. “With the help of computer sketches, I found that the area is not 44,000 acres but over 80,000 acres,” he said. He also stated that the project holds negative consequences for Sindh.

WWF Deputy Director General, Dr. Ejaz Ahmad said that construction of the ‘Waterfront Sugar Land City’ endangers the species of green turtle. “The green turtle of the Arabian Sea is found along a 5.5-kilometer-long shore on Sandspit and the project would completely destroy its nesting site,” he said.

He also pointed out that the Government of Pakistan was a signatory to various international conventions, including Ramsar, a convention for the conservation and wise use of wetlands and their resources. It is thus bound to protect these natural sites.

Roland deSouza of Shehri-CBE said that after completion of the ‘Waterfront Sugar Land City’ the beaches would become private, something that constitutes a violation of the law.

Muhammad Husain of Maheegir Tehrik said that it would cause the resettlement of thousands of fishermen from their ancestral fishing grounds. “Controversial mega projects such as this are not for development but for the destruction of the local fishing community and that they would not accept such projects,” he said.

Dharti is a coalition of 17 civil society organizations working against the construction of Waterfront project.

During the seminar, Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum (PFF), a civil society organization working for rights of the Sindh fishermen community and a member organization of Dharti objected to the resolutions passed by Shehri-CBE.

“Shehri-CBE has just demanded its concerns on certain aspects of the proposed plan of Waterfront Sugar Land City’,” said PFF president Syed Muhammad Ali Shah. PFF became a part of the Dharti coalition to stop the project immediately.

During the seminar when a member of Shehri-CBE started reading the resolutions, Shah objected and insisted on including as a main point that the seminar completely rejected the project.

“See the other projects the government promised different plans about them but later it was proved that the promises were nothing than just false claims, therefore the project must be stopped immediately,” he demanded.

A majority of the participants agreed with Ali and insisted on including the point, which was added: “If our demands are not fulfilled, we will reject the project.”

Shah alleged that Arif Belgaumi was an official architect on the project. “He is speaking against the project but he is actually part of it and in such conditions we cannot work with them, therefore have decided to part with the coalition,” he said.

Belgaumi rejected the allegations, saying that he was not the architect. “I have only six staff at my office and with such a small staff I can not design such a huge project,” he explained.

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What happens when we feed fish like a cow?

Joe Scharcz, The Gazette 8 Mar 08;

It's a strange world. Health food stores promote dietary supplements of astaxanthin, claiming more powerful antioxidant benefits than with either vitamin E or beta-carotene. It helps protect against the damaging effects of pollution, ultraviolet light and immune stress, they say.

But California's Supreme Court has ruled private citizens can sue stores if they sell fish without declaring that astaxanthin has been added to their feed. What's going on?

Astaxanthin is a naturally occurring pigment found in a variety of algae that serve as food for krill, shrimp and crayfish, imparting an orange-yellow colour to these creatures.

Algae produce astaxanthin for the same reason that many plant and animal species produce such antioxidants. They mop up the potentially harmful free radicals that are the byproducts of metabolism and also offer protection from the damage that can be caused by ultraviolet light.

This protection is transferred to the algae's predators, and then to the predators of those predators. Which explains why wild salmon develop their classic orange colour.

These days, however, most salmon are raised on fish farms. No, they're not genetically modified mutants that graze on the prairies, they are fish raised in penned-off areas of the ocean, where instead of having to search for fresh krill, they can just lounge around waiting to be served a commercially concocted feast.

But these pellets, made from fish too small and bony to be used for human consumption, lack the astaxanthin that gives wild salmon its classic colour. Without astaxanthin, the flesh of farmed salmon turns out to be an unappetizing grey.

And more grey means less green in the cash register. So the answer is to add astaxanthin to the feed.

The commercial production of astaxanthin is a huge industry, relying on three distinct processes. Fermentation of sugar by certain yeasts can produce the compound, as can extraction from specially grown algae.

But the most economical, and therefore the most common process, relies on a 14-step chemical synthesis from raw materials sourced from petroleum. Actually, the name astaxanthin refers to any one of three very closely related compounds with very subtle differences in molecular structure.

The ratio of the three produced by any of the commercial processes is the same, but differs from the ratio found in wild salmon. A technique known as high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) can be used to separate and quantify the three "stereoisomers" of astaxanthin, and hence determine whether the sample came from wild or farmed salmon.

Why should anyone care about this?

Because wild salmon is prized more by consumers than farmed salmon! Some claim that they prefer the taste, but most who care about the origin of their salmon are concerned about their health.

They've heard of studies showing that farmed salmon are higher in toxins such as PCBs than the wild variety. This may well be the case, since the meal fed to farmed salmon is made from fish often caught in more polluted areas of the ocean than where wild salmon feed.

Whether these trace amounts of PCBs are of any health significance is debatable. My guess is that they are not.

But what is beyond debate, is that wild salmon fetch a higher price. So selling farmed salmon as wild is a lucrative, but obviously unethical proposition.

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Exfoliating scrubs join list of plastics harming whales

Particles are found in stomachs of dead marine life
By Jasper Hamill, Sunday Herald 9 Mar 08;

WHALES AND dolphins may be under threat from the tiny pieces of plastic found in exfoliating facial scrubs.

Researchers associated with the University of Aberdeen have been investigating the effect of plastic on marine life, and have found not only that plastic bags are implicated in the deaths of many beached whales but also that small grains may be as dangerous.

Many undersea creatures are affected, from turtles to sharks, who ingest plastic which then either chokes them or affects their ability to digest food, both of which can lead to death.

Adrian Shephard, a campaigner at conservation charity Marine Life, said: "The supermarkets are the primary culprits. They're giving away these plastic bags which wash out to sea. There isn't a piece of ocean that's not contaminated.

"These micro pieces of plastic they have in things like facial scrubs, which are used as the hard parts to do the exfoliation on people's skin, are also dangerous. They get rinsed off, flow down the sinks and into the ocean, where they end up in the food chain."

Dr Colin MacLeod, research fellow at Aberdeen University, who is an expert in beached whales, said that in 50% of animals washed up, plastic is implicated.

He said: "There was a new species of whale discovered in 1991, called the Peruvian beaked whale. The original scientific paper that wrote about the species mentioned it had a plastic bag wedged in its throat. So even before we knew the species existed, we were affecting it with plastic bags.

"We assume that humans don't have an effect on parts of the ocean far away from shore. But we've started realising that plastic is everywhere in the ocean."

He is supervising a PhD student working on the effect of plastic on Cuvier's beaked whales, one of which washed up on the shores of Mull in January. Only two have been spotted off the coast of Scotland in the past 25 years.

Plastic is particularly dangerous to them, because they feed on squid and mistake bags for prey, sucking them up. The bags then become lodged and suffocate them. The plastic can accumulate in the whale's stomach and stop them being able to absorb nutrients from food.

Jackie Smith, who is working from Southampton University under the guidance of Dr MacLeod, has taken a ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao, Spain, more than 40 times, to see how widespread the plastic pollution is.

She said: "We are seeing plastic bags all the time, particularly in the ports. Stomach analysis of whales has revealed there has been a lot of plastic ingested."

Supermarkets have been anxious to prove their green credentials, after a vigorous public campaign to ban plastic carrier bags. Boots has pledged to consider any new research.

Kevin Marriot, Boots's quality and customer service relations manager, said: "We are constantly looking for ways to minimise our impact on the environment. We would welcome the opportunity to review any evidence that plastic material from exfoliating scrubs is damaging wildlife and we would of course consider alternative materials if this is the case."

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