Elephants killed by spear attacks in Kenya

Mike Pflanz, The Telegraph 17 Mar 08;

Four elephants including two infants have been killed and 10 others wounded during a series of spear attacks close to a Kenyan game park.

Among the dead was a four-month-old female calf who had been speared 14 times.

Conservationists were today still searching for two other older males spotted with head wounds including one who had a spear still embedded in his skull. The pair have disappeared into the bush since the attacks.

The raids are understood to be part of a long-running dispute over land and water between Masai villagers and a conservation area set up for tourist safaris close to Amboseli National Reserve, 130 miles south of Nairobi in the shadow of Mount Kilimanjaro.

"It is very painful for us to see this kind of thing happening and not really knowing why," said Soila Sayialel, project manager of the Amboseli Elephant Research Project.

"It seems to be an effort by the villagers to show their anger because they are being stopped from bringing their cows into the conservation area where there is a lot of good pasture at the moment."

Kenya's recent post-election violence has played a part because young Masai men who would usually be hawking gifts to tourists on the coast have returned to their villages as visitors have dried up.

"There is the underlying issue here of competition for land use, but we never see anything like these kinds of spear attacks when there is a tourism boom," said Mrs Sayialel. The raids took place on February 22 and 25, she said.

Kenya had one of the worst reputations for its wildlife management in the 1980s when poachers killed tens of thousands of elephants for their ivory.

Since then, the Kenya Wildlife Service has made great progress fighting against the poachers and the country is at the forefront of the campaign to keep an international ban on trading ivory.

But conservationists have warned that ivory poaching is soaring in conflict areas including Chad and the Democratic Republic of Congo, where rebel armies are using money from tusks to buy weapons.

"We have evidence that janjaweed fighters killed 100 elephants in a single day in a national park in Chad," said Michael Wamithi, head of the elephant programme at the International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw).

"People are not dealing in one or two tusks anymore, it is not efficient and they are likely to be found by the authorities.

"But instead what we are seeing is something much more planned and organised, being carried out to bring money for these people to buy weapons."

Meanwhile three lions were killed in just four days in the Amboseli bringing the total to 10 in less than eight months.

The last two lions were speared on Sunday March 9 on a Masai group ranch adjacent to world famous Amboseli National Park.

One died immediately, while the other died the following day.

"Rangers were immediately deployed to the area given that the skin and teeth of one of the lions was missing," says Patrick Omondi, Head of Species, Conservation and Management for the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS).

Since 2001, at least 162 lions have been killed in the Amboseli region, although it is believed that many have not been reported.

Ironically the lions were killed just days after predator specialists met to address Kenya's dwindling population of lions.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) has raised the alarm following a drastic drop from 10,000 in the 1970s to 2,010 lions today. Specialists believe that this is directly due to killings by humans.

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Ocean Wave Heights Rising Along US East Coast

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 17 Mar 08;

Ocean wave heights along the U.S. East Coast have progressively increased during the summer months-when hurricanes are most important to wave generation, a new study shows.

The study, detailed in a recent issue of the Journal of Coastal Research, analyzed measurements taken from three ocean buoys National Data Buoy Center located along the central U.S. Atlantic shore and one buoy in the Gulf of Mexico since the 1970s.

Initially, they had intended to study whether there had been increasing wave heights generated by nor'easters but found no significant change. Summer data, however, showed a different picture.

Significant wave heights measured during the hurricane season (which runs from June 1 to November 30) show that the most extreme occurrences during the 1996 to 2005 decade were both higher and more common than those of 30 years ago, having increased from about 23 feet (7 meters) to higher than 33 feet (10 meters). Hurricane season peaks in late August to early September.

The waves recorded by the buoys depended on the annual numbers of hurricanes that followed tracks northward into the central Atlantic, how close their tracks approached the buoys, and the intensities of those hurricanes.

Examinations of the storms that have occurred since 1980 indicate that the primary explanation for the progressive increase in wave heights has been an intensification of the hurricanes, factoring in an increased numbers of storms.

Several studies have linked the recent intensification of hurricanes to global warming.

Whatever the cause of the increased wave heights is, the researchers say that still-greater hazards to communities along the coasts in the study will continue.

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Unknown Population of Blue Whales Discovered in Waters of Southern Chile

World's Biggest Mammals Threatened First by Commercial Whaling, Now By Industry
Jeffrey Kofman, ABC News 17 Mar 08;

Three scientists stand on a hillside on the remote island of Melinka in Southern Chile. In the distance, across the shimmering waters of the Gulf of Corcovado, are the majestic snow-capped peaks of the Andes mountains.

All three are peering through high-powered binoculars, scanning the horizon methodically. Suddenly, biologist Yacquiline Montecinos spots a spray of water piercing the horizon, six miles or so off shore.

"There … whale. Blue whale," she says excitedly. Montecinos has seen hundreds of these spouts, but she still gets excited when she finds one.

And why not? She is part of a team researching a previously unknown population of blue whales, the biggest mammal on the planet, bigger than the biggest dinosaur. They can be up to 100 feet long and 100 tons. It is thrilling to see, but it is also serious science.

CLICK HERE to see pictures from a whale excursion.

'We Have Whales'

Over the hill on the water's edge sits the tiny fishing village of Melinka. One of the buildings houses the modest research station of Centro Ballena Azul: The Blue Whale Center, home to 11 scientists who share a passion for the sea. Several have been waiting all morning for a sighting from the team on the hill.

The job is tedious at times, until the radio call comes in that two blue whales have been spotted.

"We have whales," crackles the voice on the radio. Researcher Juan Pablo Torres writes down the details.

In a well-rehearsed routine, Torres and two other scientists head for the fishing docks to retrieve their research boat, load up their gear and steer to the waters of the Gulf.

Marine Biologist Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete, director of the Blue Whale Center, oversees the research at the center. When you see him standing in the prow of the center's 20-foot research boat he looks like a modern-day Captain Ahab, but he is not out to kill the whales, he's out to catalogue them.

"I think there are two whales," says Rodrigo Hucke-Gaete as the boat bounces through the waves, "but we'll confirm everything when we're closer."

Spotting those spouts at sea level takes a trained eye.

"There are two there!" says Hucke-Gaete.

It is a spectacular sight: animals so big, moving with such grace. It is almost as if they are swimming in slow motion.

"I find it beautiful," said Hucke-Gaete, who has seen hundreds of blue whales in Corcovado, but still gets excited. "It's one of the most beautiful spectacles I could have ever dreamt of. They're amazing."

Especially because a century of commercial whaling almost pushed the blue whale to extinction. The slaughter peaked in 1931, when 29,000 were killed in one season. By the time hunting blue whales was outlawed in 1966 it is estimated that the population had been reduced by 99 percent, from perhaps half a million to just a few thousand in all the world's oceans.

"The numbers that were left after the commercial whaling was so low that everybody thought that it was over for the blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete.

Unexpected Discovery

Almost as amazing as these whales themselves is the story of how this population was discovered. In 1997, a group of scientists boarded two ships to comb the 2,500 miles of Chile's pacific coastline and do a count of blue whales. In that entire time, they found just 40 whales — "it was bad news," says Hucke-Gaete. But then a small group of those scientists decided to soak up the stunning scenery. They hopped on a cruise ship to enjoy the trip home. That ship passed through the Gulf of Corcovado.

"When they were entering the gulf, they started seeing blue whales," says Hucke-Gaete, his voice filled with excitement as he recounts the unexpected discovery. "And they saw another one, and then they finally saw 60 in less than four hours."

It seemed the scientists had stumbled on a large and unknown population of blue whales, but it wasn't easy to confirm their findings. It took Hucke-Gaete six years to raise the money to come back the Gulf to confirm that what they saw in 1997 wasn't just a one-time occurrence. Each year since 2003 the scientists have been in Corcovado from January to April — the Southern Summer — and so have the whales. They have learned that the whales come to this vast Gulf to feed and nurse their young. Corcovado is a previously unknown refuge that may help save the species.

"The significance of the place is that this is a place they feed; this is a place that is important to them and not only for the adults, it's for calves," explains Hucke-Gaete. "If we find calves, that means the population is recovering and that carries on a big responsibility for us: we need to take care of this place."

Normally whales have to be studied at deep sea and great expense. Corcovado offers a unique opportunity to track the whales close to land for an extended time.

Hucke-Gaete says it's difficult to study whales in part "because they spend 90-98 percent below the surface. So it's really, really difficult. It takes lots of time and lots of patience." With meager budgets that are mostly consumed by gas that costs $9 a gallon, the scientists spend their days studying the habits and habitat of the whales, photographing and indexing each whale — no two dorsal fins are the same — and collecting tiny samples of their skin. The samples, he says, are "enough to tell us what population this whale belongs to, to know the sex of the animal, to identify it genetically like a forensics lab, that we identify these animals."

Large and Loud

They hope to travel to the Museum of Natural History in New York this summer to conduct genetic tests on the samples to see how the Corcovado whales are related to others in the oceans.

Blue whales are not just the largest animals on the planet, they are also the loudest. Researcher Susannah Buchan has come all the way from the University of St. Andrews in Scotland to study the sounds these whales make. Like all the science here it takes extraordinary patience, but what she is recoding and hearing is itself extraordinary.

"They vocalize," Buchan explains. "They do talk to each other. Why exactly, we're not entirely sure."

She's also not entirely sure that the sounds she's recorded really are from the blue whale, because they are unlike anything anyone has heard before. Buchan describes it as "sort of like a whistle, like a high whistle."

Buchan played some of the sounds for us. At first we heard a very low repetitive sound usually associated with whale, like a jackhammer. Then an extraordinary high sound.

"We're very cautious about saying that this is a blue whale vocalization. This is what I have been recording near the whales. But I really can't say if this is blue whale vocalization just because the sound is so high."

If the sounds can be confirmed they may help match this population with others — like an acoustic DNA.

"It is really exciting," says Buchan. "It's fascinating because so little is known about this animal. It astounds me how little is known, how little we know about this area about these animals here but also blue whales all over the world. "

If the species is to survive and rebuild its stocks, the Gulf of Corcovado could be critical. But this pristine habitat here that survived almost unscathed through the 20th century is being invaded by industry, in particular salmon farms. Salmon are not native to the Southern Hemisphere, but about 25 years ago Norwegians discovered the cold waters of the South Pacific are ideal for farming salmon from the North Atlantic. Now Chile is about to overtake Norway as the biggest producer of salmon in the world — providing 60 percent of the salmon Americans eat. But at huge environmental costs: contaminating the waters with feed and harmful chemicals and spreading disease.

Keeping People, and Whales, Happy

It is not just the whales who are threatened by the salmon invasion. There is concern that the entire fragile eco-system is being destroyed. Which is why the Blue Whale Center, the World Wildlife Fund and others are lobbying the government of Chile to declare the Gulf of Corcovado — all 10 million acres of it — a Marine Protected Area. CLICK HERE to view a map of the proposed Marine Protected Area. That would allow traditional fishermen and salmon farming to continue, but would restrict growth and strictly monitoring environmental impact.

"It's absolutely extraordinary," says Cathy Plume of the World Wildlife Fund as she describes the incredible diversity of the ecosystem here, "we don't even know what's under these waters."

The World Wildlife Fund is looking at ways to balance the proposed protected area with the much-needed jobs in this remote region.

"If we don't control this area, the salmon industry will continue to grow here. Fishing will continue to grow here and you won't have the whales coming in here anymore, they won't have their food stocks, they won't be bringing their young in. We've got to keep that happening and the way to do that is just to create a marine protected area that's multiple use — keep people happy, and keep the whales happy."

Not just blue whales but also a population of Humpback Whales. Not nearly as big, but just as breathtaking. These waters are so rich with life and so unexplored the scientists continue to uncover new secrets of the sea here. Protecting the blue whale would protect all the other creatures here too.

"I love animals," says Hucke-Gaete, "I love the sea. Particularly I love whales. I usually work with species that have been very close to extinction and now they are recovering somehow. I like to think that they will recover fully someday and if I can help, if we can help, that's the best thing I can do in my life, just to right the wrongs. "

To give a species on the verge of extinction a second chance.

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First arrests in South Korea whale poaching case

Yahoo News 18 Mar 08;

Marine police said Tuesday they have arrested a boat skipper and two others in connection with South Korea's largest-ever whale poaching case.

They were the first arrests since police broke a whale poaching racket in January this year, confiscating more than 50 tonnes of minke meat in the largest seizure of its kind in the country.

News reports said that since a crackdown on whaling began last year, the price of whale meat had soared in the southeastern city of Ulsan, where dozens of restaurants cater to consumers of the meat.

The 47-year-old skipper and the two sailors were charged with poaching whales at least three times between May and August last year.

In January, police raided two warehouses in Ulsan, where the refrigerated meat from about 60 minke whales was found in boxes. Around 70 people including fishermen, distributors and operators of 46 whale meat restaurants have since been questioned.

Whale meat can be legally sold in South Korea if the mammals are caught by accident in fishing nets in what is known here as a "bycatch."

Each bycatch must be reported to the government, with marine police inspecting the whales to determine whether they were caught accidentally or deliberately.

Intentional catches are punishable with a jail term of up to three years or a fine of 20 million won (21,000 dollars).

Fishermen report accidentally snaring 200 whales every year. But with minke whales fetching 35 million won each (37,000 dollars), environmentalists say fishermen have a powerful incentive to hunt the mammals.

They suspect about 400 whales are caught annually and consumed in South Korea, with only half reported to authorities.

South Korea makes arrests in illegal whale trade ring
Reuters 18 Mar 08;

SEOUL (Reuters) - South Korean police have arrested three fishermen who are suspected of running a ring that traded in illegal whale meat, a coast guard official said on Tuesday.

South Korea prohibits commercial whaling and can send poachers to jail for up to three years. It allows the trade in whales caught accidentally by fishing crews or in whales that have washed up dead near its shores.

The arrest last week of the captain of a fishing vessel and two crew members followed the seizure of 50 tons of whale meat worth an estimated 800 million won ($788,600), said the coast guard official in the eastern city of Ulsan, which is home to scores of restaurants that serve whale meat.

The price of whale meat has as much as doubled due to the crackdown, South Korea's largest daily newspaper, the Chosun Ilbo, said based on a survey it did of the market.

"The investigation is affecting prices," said one local whale-meat restaurant owner who added she is paying roughly 50 percent more.

Conservation groups said despite the crackdown, illegal whaling still thrives because the accidental catch loophole offers a convenient excuse that is hard for authorities to verify and eateries are willing to pay large sums for the creatures.

Neighbor Japan, which considers whaling a cultural tradition, has drawn international criticism for what it calls a scientific whaling program that typically kills hundreds of whales. Japan agreed to an international moratorium on whaling that was set in place in 1986.

($1=1014.4 Won)

(Reporting by Lee Jiyeon, writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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France forced to stop illegal drift net fishing

Charles Clover, The Telegraph 18 Mar 08

France has been told by the European Court that it may not allow fishing with "wall of death" nets in the Mediterranean this year.

The court has refused to grant the French Government a temporary exemption to allow fishermen attempting to catch endangered bluefin tuna and swordfish to go on using drift nets that were prohibited in the EU in 2002.

The fleet of 92 vessels was discovered by the environmental group Oceana operating in the Mediterranean last year, using "wall of death" nets between three and six miles long.

Drift nets more than 1.5 miles long were banned by the UN in international waters in the early 1990s and drift nets of any length in 2002 because of global concerns about the bycatch of dolphins, turtles and sharks.

The French government, however, granted a legal exemption to its fishermen in the Mediterranean arguing that their nets did not fit the definition of drift net because they were anchored - though environmentalists reported that this was seldom the case.

In 2007, however, these legal loopholes were eliminated when the EU approved a legal definition of a drift net.

Oceana complained to the European Commission that both Italy and France were continuing to use illegal fishing gear to capture bluefin tuna and swordfish, years after the EU ban entered into force.

The bluefin tuna population in the Mediterranean is thought by scientists to be on the verge of collapse and the swordfish is considered significantly overfished.

The French government has been enforcing the ban while trying to agree the temporary extension. France could now be penalised for allowing the use of drift nets since 2002.

Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana in Europe, said: "This decision is a very important step to eliminate driftnets from the Mediterranean. The ruling also mentions the fact that these nets have been banned for the capture of threatened species since 2002, and not only since the 2007 EU agreement on a driftnet definition, as the French government has always claimed.

"This corroborates Oceana's long-held stance: French driftnets have been illegal since the ban entered into force, although the French government has protected them with decrees and special fishing permits".

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Indonesia plays down mining threat to forests

Reuters 18 Mar 08;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian decree allowing mining companies to operate in tropical forests is unlikely to lead to massive deforestation, a forestry expert and government officials said on Tuesday arguing that mining had a limited impact.

Under a presidential decree issued on February 4, mining firms, including open-pit miners, will be able to pay between 1.8 million and 2.4 million rupiah ($200-$265) per hectare (2.5 acres) for forest land used for activities such as housing, roads, mine sites and waste dumps.

The decree has alarmed environmental groups concerned about Indonesia's rapid deforestation.

The country had the fastest pace of deforestation in the world between 2000-2005, according to Greenpeace, with an area of forest equivalent to 300 soccer pitches destroyed every hour.

Krystof Obidzinski, a researcher with the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), said historically mining had never been a significant contributor to deforestation.

"Definitely there's a danger and it's regrettable but on the overall schemes of things, as far as deforestation per se, we think it's not a major concern," he told a panel discussion on deforestation with foreign correspondents.

The decree applies to 13 mining firms that four years ago were allowed to resume operations in forest areas -- including Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold which operates the massive Grasberg mine in Indonesia's remote Papua province.

Obidzinski said the new regulation was driven by a need to reinvigorate mining sector investment, a key tax contributor, as well as the need of the forestry ministry to recoup income lost due to a decline in other forest activities.

Bowo Satmoko, a senior official of the forestry ministry, said so far only three mining companies had been given the go ahead to exploit forest areas.

"The others are still proposing exploration," he said.

He said that mining permits were confined only to the 13 firms, although an official at the energy and mines ministry told Reuters last week that companies which had mining permits before a forestry law was issued in 1999 could also be eligible.

Another forestry ministry official, Syaiful Anwar, said the bar would be set high for companies operating in forests.

"For companies to be able to operate there's a procedure and it is a tough procedure," he told reporters.

A leading domestic environmental group, Walhi, has collected donations from hundreds of people to buy up more than 3 million square meters (32 million sq ft) of protected forest to prevent mining companies being allowed to operate there.

Indonesia's forestry law issued in 1999 prohibited open-pit mining in protected forest areas. But in 2004, the country's fourth president, Megawati Sukarnoputri, issued a decree to allow the companies to resume operations in protected areas.

(Reporting by Ahmad Pathoni, Editing by Ed Davies and Sanjeev Miglani)

Related articles

Indonesia may allow more mining in forest areas
Reuters 14 Mar 08;

Outcry over cheap rents for forests in Indonesia
Govt is offering mining companies land to collect rent for state coffers
Salim Osman, Straits Times 7 Mar 08;

More protected Indonesian forests up for grabs
Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post 1 Mar 08;

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Evaluating Dubai's island-reclamation project

How green is The World?
Economist.com 17 Mar 08;

ITS DEVELOPERS call the three hundred islands laid out in the shape of the world map just off Dubai’s coast the “most innovative real-estate development on Earth”. These new artificial islands, known as “The World”, are just part of a plan to create hundreds of kilometres of new waterfront for Dubai, attracting visitors and wealthy home-owners from around the (real) world.

The World’s developer, Nakheel, built its first artificial-island chain in Dubai in 2001 in the shape of a palm. By 2007, Palm Jumeirah, as it was called, claimed to be the world’s largest man-made island. Construction of two more giant islands, as well as other projects along the coast, are well underway. In January of this year, the last rock was put into The World's breakwater, which stretches for 27km and uses 34m tonnes of rock. Buyers have already started to move in.

All of Nakheel’s artificial islands are built the same way. Masses of sand are gathered from the seafloor of the Arabian Gulf. The sand is then brought to Dubai and sprayed in a giant arc onto the shallow (10.5 meter) seabed off the coast. The sand piles up until it breaks through the surface of the water and forms an island about 4.5m high. Then a massive breakwater is built around the islands to protect them from the stiff local sea currents. It is expensive work: each development typically costs billions of dollars.

The short-term environmental consequences of this reclamation are clear: the intensive construction of Palm Jumeirah created vast plumes of sediment that turned blue seawater milky and temporarily damaged marine life. It also destroyed turtle nesting sites and the only known coral reef along Dubai’s coast.

But Nakheel contends that the new rocky breakwaters of all these projects are creating vast artificial reefs, habitats for reef fish and meadows of sea grass in between the “fronds” of the Palm Jumeirah. They promise to build new turtle nesting sites. Furthermore, they say that the sandy, seafloor habitat held little marine life—and this habitat is common in the region. On balance, they contend that the environmental impact of the project is positive.

Already, the older reef around the Palm Jumeirah is starting to thrive, it says. Nakheel's website says of Palm Jumeirah's breakwater: “As the island was reclaimed, the fine sediments that were created by the reclamation eventually paved the way for a biologically and organically fertile soil on the sea bed, on which turtles and a variety of fish are living. This will lead to a highly oxygenated water, with excellent visibility for divers and snorkelers.”

But Milton Love, an expert on artificial reefs at the Marine Science Institute at the University of California, poses an interesting question: “Clearly, if you were a worm living in the soft sediment and someone dug your home up and replaced it with rock to form an island, you would be out of luck. On the other hand, if you were a butterfly fish and only lived around reefs, and someone changed the sand bottom to a reef, you might like that. But which view is the ‘right’ one? Strictly speaking, neither one is; it just depends on what a person’s philosophy is”.

If one's philosophy, for example is that the ocean should be largely left alone, then whether reclamation provides homes for more fish will not matter. Others, though, may take a more pragmatic view, thinking that the development has essentially created something from nothing. Indeed, many artificial reefs—scuttled ships and aircraft, sunken tyres and shopping trolleys—house marine life in otherwise empty waters.

That conclusion, however, risks oversimplification. While there may be more substrate for coral to grow, the question of whether there is actually more marine life is complicated. Do artificial structures in the ocean actually promote more life, or do they simply attract it? Dr Love reckons some reefs do one, some do the other and some do both. So while the artificial reefs have certainly created new habitats, it isn’t clear whether this is as a net benefit for the region.

That doesn’t give The World and the other islands a clean green bill of health. And focusing on what goes on under the water risks ignores a bigger question: where is all the fresh water for this paradise coming from? Dubai is famous for a number of things; not among them is a plentiful supply of water. So where do they get water for the swimming pools, spas, gardens, dishwashers and hotel laundries? Most of it comes from desalination plants, which expend a lot of energy and release plenty of carbon dioxide.

Anyone in the market for one of the Dubai islands might want to consider the contradictions inherent in their investment. As our climate continues to change, thanks at least in part to the addition of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, sea levels will probably keep rising, turning low-lying islands into something less than a paradise.

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 Mar 08

Support Earth Hour Singapore
join the facebook group visit the earth hour singapore blog

Toddycats' first Labrador walk
on the labrador park blog with more details on how to join the Toddycats, and also on the justin dive adventures blog

First Chek Jawa morning shore walk of the year
and some stunning encounters including OTTERS! on the ubin volunteers blog

Raptor in the heartlands!
more on the bird ecology blog

Once Upon a Tree
tonight to feature seagrasses on the wildfilms blog

Energy Efficiency Conference
on 27 Mar at ISEAS, more detail on the AsiaIsGreen blog

Marine Rubbish..the problem is getting bigger
..and bigger on the reddotbeachbum blog

Caterpillar chow down
on the budak blog and three levels of spiders!

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Time running out for pact on biodiversity

Harish Mehta Business Times 18 Mar 08;

TIME may be running out for the proposed United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). 2010 was set as the deadline for writing a global Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement that would govern how the world's resources should be shared.

A stumbling block to the agreement is the huge gap that exists between rich industrialised nations that want easy access to the resources of poor countries and the poor countries' desire to prevent those resources being appropriated without proper and fair compensation.

Before an agreement can be reached, the members of the CBD must reach consensus on the actual draft of an access and benefit sharing agreement, and have a final draft ready before 2010.

But many rich countries insist that the access and benefit sharing agreement should not include the extracts and compounds that are derived from genetic resources. On the other hand, the developing countries argue that these derivatives must be included because Western manufacturers make huge profits using these resources that their people have discovered and used for many generations.

The Convention on Biological Diversity, adopted in 1992, has three laudable objectives: to conserve resources, use them in a sustainable manner and, above all, share the financial benefits accruing from the resources fairly. The contentious issue of how the resources should be shared has defied resolution so far. Even after 14 years since the CBD came into existence, there is no agreement on the core issue of access and benefit sharing.

The lack of an access and benefit sharing agreement is not the only lapse in global trading rules. Yet another anomaly is that while the Convention on Biological Diversity at least recognises the sovereignty of states and communities over their genetic resources, the Trade Related Intellectual Property Rights agreement (TRIPS) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) does not.

The WTO requires its member countries to comply with TRIPS. The existing intellectual property rights regime neglects the traditional knowledge of non-western states and communities.

But Asian and African countries have taken heart from the knowledge that indigenous communities and farmers hold most of the world's biological resources.

In the past, Europeans and Americans and Japanese simply took their resources without compensation, and used them to produce pharmaceuticals, cosmetics, and agricultural products.

As a result, the developing countries have had to tackle biopiracy, which occurs when foreign companies patent indigenous resources.

Developed countries such as the US (which has signed the CBD, but has not ratified it), Australia, Canada, New Zealand and Japan, do not even accept the concept of biopiracy, or acknowledge that biopiracy poses any threat to the economic well being of poor countries.

These countries dismiss or downplay recent acts of biopiracy in which firms were granted patents for Indian basmati rice, and the neem tree and Thai jasmine rice.

Now biopiracy has become rampant in Africa. Multinational companies profit from biological resources taken from Africa, yet do not share benefits with Africans who have discovered and maintained these resources. Tewolde Berhan Egziabher from the Institute for Sustainable Development in Ethiopia argues that the multinationals are 'stealing the loaf and sharing the crumbs'.

Multinational companies have obtained thousands of patents on African plants. These are patents on thaumatin, a sweetener from a plant in West Africa; brazzeine, a protein taken from a plant in Gabon that is much sweeter than sugar; teff, a grain used in Ethiopian flat bread; the African soap berry, and the Kunde Zulu cowpea; and on genetic material from the west African cocoa plant.

In every instance, these plants were bred, cultivated or gathered locally for their properties by the indigenous people. The developing countries are correct in arguing that legal safeguards must be provided in the CBD's proposed access and benefits sharing agreement in order to prevent biopiracy.

They argue that national laws are incapable of apprehending biopiracy because the acts of biopiracy have historically taken place in the US and Europe, where patents have been granted under American and European laws.

There is an urgent need to not only reach an agreement on the access and benefit sharing agreement, but to also reform the TRIPS agreement. Both these agreements need to take into account the intellectual property rights of the developing countries, and set out clear rules on how the indigenous people will be compensated.

Unfortunately, the convention is now in danger of being turned into an instrument of neocolonialism. Biopiracy is not a local problem. It is a trans-national problem requiring a trans-national solution.

Toronto-based Harish Mehta was formerly BT's Indo-China correspondent

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DBS rolls out deal for Singapore social enterprises

It tailors package to provide financing options and business mentoring for SEs
Lynette Khoo, Business Times 18 Mar 08;

IN a first move among banks to reach out to some 150 social enterprises (SEs) in Singapore, DBS Bank yesterday launched a banking package tailored to provide the financing that is often lacking for these organisations.

DBS Bank is also setting up business mentoring clinics, where experienced bankers at DBS would provide social enterprises with the financial and business know-how.

The SEs that qualify for the DBS Social Enterprise Special Package would have to fall under the SE definition by the MCYS and achieve double bottom lines - social dividends and profits, said DBS Bank's managing director for enterprise banking Lim Chu Chong.

This, he noted, is an extension of DBS' enterprise banking, which currently serves commercial enterprises.

The special package offers social enterprises preferential rates on business loans and unsecured overdrafts as well as fee waivers for a slew of services, among other benefits.

The interest rate payable by social enterprises on secured overdrafts and business loans is 10.5 per cent a year, at least two percentage points lower than comparable rates charged to commercial borrowers.

DBS Bank would also waive fees for the use of its cash management services for the first year for SEs under this package. Employees of social enterprises can enjoy special privileges for a whole range of personal banking services, including mortgage loans, renovation loans, auto loans, credit cards and general insurance.

DBS Bank head of business solutions group, enterprise banking, Davy Goh, said this standard package is appropriate for most social enterprises but looking ahead, the bank will seek to provide customised packages .

In a study conducted by the Social Enterprise Committee chaired by by Spring Singapore chairman Philip Yeo, social enterprises would benefit from more financing options, business mentoring and training. A key recommendation of the SE Committee in December last year was to encourage diversified sources of funding beyond grants, from private companies, venture capitalists and banks.

Mr Lim said that while the banking services are available to all SEs, the eligibility of SEs for DBS corporate loans will be assessed in the same way as commercial small and medium enterprises.

For instance, DBS Bank will assess an SE's years of operation and profitability, account integrity and credit history.

The package is expected to be profitable for DBS Bank, he added, though the basic banking services portion may not be profitable on a standalone basis.

DBS Bank is also seeking to engage like-minded customers to provide business mentoring to social entrepreneurs and supporting social enterprises in the bank's procurement of goods and services where appropriate, said Mr Lim.

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5,000 animal lovers gather for giant pet party at East Coast

WOW, TAKE A BOW
Kenneth Koh, The New Paper 18 Mar 08;

PETS galore, pets in the spotlight. And people took a backseat for a change.

My, look how we've become an all-inclusive society.

All eyes were glued to our furry little citizens and applause accompanied their every little trick.

Like when Whisky the miniature schnauzer padded across the stage with a ring borne in her mouth. When she obediently put the ring on a stand, the crowd roared.

What a clever little doggy!

The big crowd was there on a Sunday afternoon to enjoy Singapore's largest pet party organised by Cats Classified of Singapore Press Holdings.

It was held on a grass patch next to the hawker centre at East Coast Lagoon.

Back to Whisky, no one was more delighted by her performance than her owner, Dr Annette Kho.

'She was not nervous while on stage and she learns very fast,' said the doctor with more than a hint of pride.

'I don't have to reward her with food while training her.'

Top dog, indeed.

Earlier, in order to impress the three judges, 6-year-old-year Whisky had walked on three legs.

Then she had a quick nap on a bedsheet laid by Annette before doing her final act of putting the coloured ring on a stand.

For her performance, she won $150 cash, a medal and prize.

Mummy will keep the prizes for you, dear.

Equally impressive on stage was Mr S Elamparithi's shetland sheepdog, Rocky.

He was a veritable gymnast, zipping through a hoola hoop without any difficulty.

FAST LEARNER

His 40-year-old owner, who works in the airforce, said: 'I took one week to train him.'

What a natural! How did he learn?

'The first lesson is to put the hoop on the ground and get him to go through it while on leash. Then I will praise him by saying 'very good boy'.'

Mr Elamparithi said that he raised the hoop higher as the lesson progressed.

Rocky got the picture. Good boy.

The crowd also roared with approval when Rocky pretended to drop dead when his owner pointed his hand in the shape of a gun at him.

For this entertaining display, Mr Elamparithi (and Rocky) walked away with $300cash and a medal.

Ah, what a rare Sunday it was. The dogs got to mingle with their four-legged friends.

LUCKY POOCH

But for a silky terrier called Tessa, she looked more like a marsupial as she was carried everywhere in the haversack of her owner, Trevor Seet, a teacher.

He said: 'It is like a mother kangaroo carrying its young. I am keeping her free from ground ticks.'

You can't be too careful about such things.

The afternoon rain did not dampen the mood of the 5,000 pet lovers.

So nice to get the temperature down a bit, right? Mind that puddle.

But the soggy ground did nothing to hamper the dogs' movement.

And to treat the little tykes, there were stalls selling dog-related services and products.

Some dog owners took the chance to give their canines' fur a trim, while others settled for nail trimmings.

A little preening always helps to keep pet and owner looking good, doesn't it?

When's the next pet party, dear?

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AVA's stand reduces dogs to 'mere property'

Letter from Satveer Kaur, Today Online 18 Mar 08;

I write in response to "Abandoning a pet is an offence" (March 11) from the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).

While I applaud AVA's initiatives such as campaigns promoting responsible pet ownership and the new dog licensing rules, I am disappointed with its reponse that "it would not be appropriate to ban import of dogs" citing that "Singapore operates on a free-market system".

Does this not reduce dogs to being merely property? They are living, sentient beings and should not be treated as goods subject to market forces.

In Singapore, we are not slaves to the market. Cigarettes are highly taxed and the number of cars sold is regulated. All this is done to protect the interests of the people. The same should be done in the interests of animals.

AVA's statement reduces animals to the same category as say, furniture and clothes.

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Singapore train passenger density compared to global situation

Denser population but more room
SMRT on train design and how S'pore compares to the rest of the world
Today Online 18 Mar 08;
Letter from Kuek Chor Ling, Manager, Corporate Marketing and Communications, SMRT Corporation

I refer to Mr Peter Wadeley's letter on space in train cars and Mr Richart Stegink's letter on train capacity.

In "Too close for comfort" (March 7), Mr Wadeley asked the reason for the new design of handrails around the train doors.

The vertical handrail around the train doors provides support for passengers near the doors. In addition, on our newly refurbished trains, the interiors provide more support for passengers.

Inside each train car, two rows of overhead horizontal handrails with hand straps placed along each row replace the single-row handrail.

Apart from these, there are seven three-way grab poles in each car for passengers to hold on to.

Regarding Mr Stegink's comment on comparing our MRT system with less crowded ones, we would like to clarify that our train system is benchmarked against the world's top operators in about 30 countries.

In terms of train loads, 70 per cent of these operators have higher planned train load than Singapore's MRT system.

In our comparison, we also considered the population density of these cities. For example, Hong Kong and Madrid have population densities of 6,352 and 5,198 persons per sq km respectively, compared to Singapore's population density of 6,369 persons per sq km.

However, the two cities have higher train loads compared to the Singapore MRT system which carries three to four passengers standing per sq m.

We thank the writers for sharing their thoughts with us.

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South Africa's elephant cull: concerns 'miss bigger picture'

Richard Leakey, BBC The Green Room 17 Mar 08;

It is too soon for conservationists to ring the alarm bells over South Africa's elephant management plan that includes culling, argues Dr Richard Leakey. In this week's Green Room, he says the measures are necessary and based in animal welfare concerns.

Last month's report on elephant management in South Africa has sent alarm bells ringing throughout the conservation and animal welfare circles, and headlines have been screaming that culling is about to be re-introduced.

This is a highly emotive issue and I have studied the government's report before making any judgment. Indeed, the report goes far beyond culling, and the headlines I have seen have been rather misleading.

Let me explain my position. By 1990, long-term research in Kenya and elsewhere had revealed that elephants have highly organised societies and a surprisingly well developed ability to communicate.

We consider them sentient creatures like whales and apes that deserve special consideration when it comes to their management.

I was part of the community of concerned professionals who objected to the culling of elephants in southern Africa during the 1990s and before because, at that time, the body of knowledge about elephants was ignored.

Culling appeared to be largely commercially motivated (for ivory and trade in baby elephants); it was not managed in a scientific manner and was unacceptably inhumane.

Unable to ignore the global concerns for the ethical and inhumane treatment of elephants, the South African government then banned the culling of elephants in the 1994.

The statement made by Marthinus van Schalkwyk, South Africa's Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism, on the publication of the final Norms and Standards for Elephant Management, reveals that the nation has come a long way since its position in the 1980s.

The country has clearly looked seriously at the issues raised by experts from around the world by consulting widely within and beyond South Africa, and has prepared a carefully considered position on the management of elephants that aims to serve the interests of elephants as a species, their welfare, their impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem integrity, and their effects on the people - both locally and nationally.

Pleasant surprise

I was pleasantly surprised to find that the guiding principles behind this piece of legislation begin with an acknowledgement that "elephants are intelligent, have strong family bonds and operate within highly socialised groups, and unnecessary disruption of these groups by human intervention should be minimised".



The welfare of elephants is further emphasised in the statement: "Management interventions must, wherever practicable, be based on scientific knowledge or management experience regarding elephant populations and must take into account the social structure of elephants.

"(It must) be based on measures to avoid stress and disturbance to elephants, and, where lethal measures are necessary to manage an elephant or group of elephants or to manage the size of elephant populations, these should be undertaken with caution and after all other alternatives have been considered."

While I will never "like" the idea of elephant culling, I do accept that given the impacts of human induced climate change, and habitat destruction, elephants in and outside of protected areas will become an increasingly serious problem unless some key populations are reduced and maintained at appropriate levels.

Human pressures

A part of the problem is caused by increasing demand for resources by humans, and I believe that we have a responsibility to check habitat impacts in order to reduce conflicts between elephants and humans by controlling human activities as well.

Reducing elephant populations may therefore be a necessary part of population management, and this will be done in a humane and considered manner.

South Africa intends to reserve culling as a last resort after all other options such as translocations and fertility control have been exhausted.

Though I find elephant culling repugnant, I can see the sense in it in these scenarios, as I imagine many others do also.

If culling is deemed necessary, then I would personally like to see the management authority ensure that entire families or bond groups are removed intact to eliminate or minimise the emotional trauma to remaining individuals, and secondly, to maintain smaller populations using tested and approved fertility control.

It means that the authorities have much work to do in terms of studying the family and bond groups and maintaining good records. If done well, culling entire bond groups would reduce cases of rogue elephants and would eliminate or reduce the frequency of further culling in the future.

Finally, it is with great relief that I note that the minister has prohibited any further capture of wild elephants for captivity.

He acknowledges the unacceptably cruel practices that are common in captive elephant care and training in South Africa where baby elephants are beaten and tortured to "break their will" in order to train them for tourism, circuses and even zoos.

I look forward to seeing new legislation that completely eliminates cruelty in the captive care and training of these highly intelligent and feeling animals.

Dr Richard Leakey is the founding chairman of WildlifeDirect, a former head of the Kenyan Wildlife Service and a leading palaeontologist

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

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In Laos, prized elephants are in decline

Denis D. Gray, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Mar 08;

Connie Speight has swayed on elephant-back through unforgiving jungle and has adopted nine of the high-maintenance beasts. At 83, the retired American teacher is back in this Southeast Asian country to help save what remains of the once mighty herds.

Once so famous for its herds that it was called Prathet Lane Xane, or Land of a Million Elephants, Laos is thought to have only 700 left in the wild.

"Lots of people in Asia tell you how elephants are their proud national heritage," Speight says. "But I tell them, 'It was your heritage, and what are you doing to bring it back?' Often precious little."

Elephants in Laos are better off than in most of the 12 other nations that are home to the animals. The country has extensive forest cover and a sparse population. But like elsewhere, it's a race against time. Poachers, dam builders, loggers and farmers are taking a deadly toll on the endangered species.

"The situation will become very dramatic in about 10 years if nothing changes," says Sebastien Duffillot, co-founder of France-based ElefantAsia. At their current rate of decline, Laos' wild elephants could be extinct within 50 years, he warns.

Domesticated elephants number about 570, a 20 percent drop over the last decade. In all, the World Wide Fund for Nature estimates, as few as 25,000 wild and 15,000 captive Asian elephants may be left. A century ago, Thailand alone harbored some 100,000.

Speight attended a recent elephant festival organized by Duffillot's conservation group "to pay tribute to the emblematic animal of Laos."

One of several elephant conservation efforts under way, the three-day fair featured some 60 elephants. They demonstrated skills in logging, took part in Buddhist ceremonies and walked in stirring processions.

In their heyday, elephants served as the country's trucks, taxis and battle tanks. Laos is communist-ruled today, but it used to be a kingdom that kept its independence by sending elephants as tribute to neighboring China and Vietnam.

Organizers said they hoped the annual festival, first held in 2007, might persuade elephant keepers to use their beasts in the fast-growing tourism business rather than logging.

For many youngsters in the dusty, Mekong River town of Paklay, the morning offering of fruit and snacks to the pachyderms was the first time they had touched an elephant's trunk.

Speight hopes that others in Laos will get the chance as Mae Dok, one of nine jumbos she supports in Southeast Asia, travels the countryside as an "ambassador elephant" delivering books to schoolchildren.

A female with a sunny disposition whose name translates as "Mrs. Flower," Mae Dok was rescued from a lifetime of logging labor and may be pregnant — something which sends Speight into rapture, given the dramatically declining numbers of breeding age females. ElefantAsia estimates that in 15 years there will only be 46 domesticated breeding cows under 20.

Speight, who taught natural history in Santa Barbara, Calif., has bought land for an elephant sanctuary in northern Thailand and radio collars to monitor calves released into the wild in Sri Lanka.

"If Laos could become a model for what a very poor country can do, that would wave a flag in surrounding countries, some of which are useless," she says.

WWF and the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society are both active in Laos, which has welcomed numerous foreign aid groups since opening up its economy in the late 1980s.

WCS co-director Arlyne Johnson says WCS is working with the government on plans to avoid human-elephant conflict, which occurs when dams, mines and other industrial development cut into the elephants' countryside and they roam into populated areas.

Related article

Small skirmishes mark Asia battle to save elephants
Gillian Murdoch, Reuters 15 Mar 08;

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Indian State Faces Famine After Plague Of Rats

PlanetArk 18 Mar 08;

SATEEK, India - About a million people in India's north-eastern state of Mizoram are facing famine after a plague of rats ate the region's entire paddy crop, officials and aid agencies said on Monday.

Hordes of rats have swept through the forests of Mizoram, home to just under a million tribespeople, feasting on the fruits of wild bamboo, which flowers every 48 years.

Experts say that the rich protein content of the bamboo fruits increases the rats' reproductive power, and, when they finished off the fruits, the rats turned their attention to farmers' crops.

The last time the bamboo flowered was in 1959 -- and the armies of rats that came in its wake decimated paddy fields across the region, leading to severe food shortages.

In 2007, the government hoped to be better prepared. But the rats could not be stopped because of bad planning and alternative rice supply plans went wrong, aid agencies said.

They said a majority of villagers were now surviving on wild roots, yam and sweet potatoes with either no supply or no money to buy to their staple food -- rice.

"Conditions of widespread food shortage and hunger prevail in all eight districts of Mizoram," said a report by international aid agency Actionaid.

"The government is reluctant to accept that the situation is rapidly slipping out of its control."

Local people call the famine which follows bamboo flowering "mautum", which means "bamboo death" in the local language. In 1959, New Delhi brushed off local warnings of a famine as tribal superstition.


REBEL MOVEMENT

The last bamboo flowering gave birth to the Mizo National Famine Front, an organisation set up to meet food shortages but which ended up fighting the Indian government for independence.

That rebel movement, renamed the Mizo National Front (MNF), after 20 years of war and close to 3,000 deaths, won for Mizoram recognition as a separate state but not independence from India.

To fight the next bamboo flowering, the state in 2004 formed the Bamboo Flowering and Famine Combat Scheme (BAFFACOS).

But Mizos say, despite all preparations, the government has failed to tackle the foreseeable problem.

"Frankly the farmers got nothing out of BAFFACOS," said Michael Mansuala, a former top civil servant. "Now the people are in a desperate situation."

Mizoram needs around 15,000 metric tonnes of rice a month, but only about one-fifth of that was available now at subsidised rates.

"Sufficient rice is not available with the food supply department. There is a huge shortfall of rice," Dominic Lalhmangaiha, a consultant with the state-run Disaster Risk Management programme, told Reuters.

"Villagers are going to jungles to dig out roots to supplement their regular food."

Their harvest lost to rats, some villagers are now working as daily wage labourers on a World Bank-funded road project.

Farmers complained that they found work for only one day a month and earned just a little over $2.

The last three months they were asked to flatten a hill-top and turn it into a football field.

Majority Mizos are Presbyterian Christians and more than 70 per cent of them are farmers.

"People would not have suffered had the government preparation been good enough," said J.H. Zoremthanga, president of the powerful Young Mizo Association (YMA), a social organisation.

"It seems the government woke up from slumber at the last minute."

(Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Alex Richardson)


Story by Biswajyoti Das

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