Best of our wild blogs: 21 Mar 08

Biodiversity and Conservation in Singapore - past, present, future? by Leo W H Tan; an inspiring talk on the Singaporean Attitudes to Biological Conservation blog

Ubin ferry price increase
on the pulau ubin stories blog

Mandai Mangrove Night Adventure
spooky spiders on Dr Stan's singapore blog and more crabs that climb trees and mating horseshoe crabs!

Battle for the Coral Reefs
A classic shooter game set underwater. Choose from three unique ship designs and battle an ocean of waste. Link on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog.

Brief on talk by TRAFFIC on regional wildlife trade
missed the talk? No worries, find out what happened on the ashira blog

Drift net kills around the world
a gruesome round up of needless deaths on the wildfilms blog

Javan Mynah chick
a sad end on the bird ecology blog

White bellied fish eagle at Marina Bay
with live fish in talon on the manta blog

Fish in a pickle
from Journal Watch Online

Love of Nature from Parents
thoughts from Jane Goodall's growing up story Hell Hath No Fury Like Nature Scorned blog

Social networking bigger than porn
on the Social Media and Environmental Education blog

Read more!

Car sales in Singapore expected to dip as buyers look at alternatives

Channel NewsAsia 20 Mar 08;

SINGAPORE: The price of petrol has increased eight times since last July, and car dealers said buyers will look at alternatives to avoid paying for the high fuel prices.

While the price of petrol has gone up, the US dollar is down to a record low.

Associate Professor Tilak Abeysinghe from the National University of Singapore's Department of Economics said: "Demand for cars is likely to go down because... the overall cost has gone up. Now the increase in oil prices is simply adding to that overall cost, so it (the demand) is likely to go down."

Car dealers also predicted that buyers' habits will change.

Ron Ng, a salesman at BenchMark Motoring, said: "People may switch to... CNG cars, hybrid cars, smaller CC cars or even cheaper cars, or they will switch to buying used cars."

Dealers added that Japanese cars are now more expensive as well.

When the US dollar fell, the yen gained strength, so Japanese cars are now about three per cent more expensive.

In the latest COE (Certificate of Entitlement) bidding exercise, prices for all vehicle categories are up, except for motorcycles.

COE price for big cars saw an increase of S$1,001 to S$19,001 while price for small cars went up S$1,038 to S$15,389.

In the open category, COE price rose S$184 to S$18,854. Commercial vehicles' COE price also climbed S$1,300 to S$17,610.

COE price for motorcycles went down S$58 to S$901. - CNA/ac

Read more!

Money buys happiness -- if you spend on someone else

Yahoo News 20 Mar 08;

Money can buy happiness, but only if you spend it on someone else, researchers reported on Thursday.

Spending as little as $5 a day on someone else could significantly boost happiness, the team at the University of British Columbia and Harvard Business School found.

Their experiments on more than 630 Americans showed they were measurably happier when they spent money on others -- even if they thought spending the money on themselves would make them happier.

"We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn," said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.

They asked their 600 volunteers first to rate their general happiness, report their annual income and detail their monthly spending including bills, gifts for themselves, gifts for others and donations to charity.

"Regardless of how much income each person made, those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not," Dunn said in a statement.

Dunn's team also surveyed 16 employees at a company in Boston before and after they received an annual profit-sharing bonus of between $3,000 and $8,000.

"Employees who devoted more of their bonus to pro-social spending experienced greater happiness after receiving the bonus, and the manner in which they spent that bonus was a more important predictor of their happiness than the size of the bonus itself," they wrote in their report, published in the journal Science.

"Finally, participants who were randomly assigned to spend money on others experienced greater happiness than those assigned to spend money on themselves," they said.

They gave their volunteers $5 or $20 and half got clear instructions on how to spend it. Those who spent the money on someone or something else reported feeling happier about it.

"These findings suggest that very minor alterations in spending allocations -- as little as $5 -- may be enough to produce real gains in happiness on a given day," Dunn said.

This could also explain why people are no happier even though U.S. society is richer.

"Indeed, although real incomes have surged dramatically in recent decades, happiness levels have remained largely flat within developed countries across time," they wrote.

Key to Happiness: Give Away Money
Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Yahoo News 20 Mar 08;

Those incoming federal tax-rebate checks could do more than boost the economy. They might also boost your mood, with one caveat: You must spend the cash on others, not yourself.

New research reveals that when individuals dole out money for gifts for friends or charitable donations, they get a boost in happiness while those who spend on themselves get no such cheery lift.

Scientists have found evidence that income is linked with a person's satisfaction with their life and other measures of happiness, but less is known about the link between how a person spends their money and happiness.

"We wanted to test our theory that how people spend their money is at least as important as how much money they earn," said Elizabeth Dunn, a psychologist at the University of British Columbia.

The findings, to be detailed in the March 21 issue of the journal Science, come as no surprise to some marketing scientists.

"It doesn't surprise me at all that people find giving money away very rewarding," said Aaron Ahuvia, associate professor of marketing at the University of Michigan-Dearborn, who was not involved in the current study.

The research was funded by a Hampton Research Grant.

Spending habits

Dunn and her colleagues surveyed a nationally representative sample of more than 630 Americans, about evenly split between males and females. Participants indicated their general happiness, annual income and a breakdown of monthly spending, including bills, purchases for themselves and for others, and donations to charity.

Despite the benefits of "prosocial spending" on others, participants spent more than 10 times as much on personal items as they did on charitable options. The researchers note personal purchases included paying bills.

Statistical analyses revealed personal spending had no link with a person's happiness, while spending on others and charity was significantly related to a boost in happiness.

"Regardless of how much income each person made," Dunn said, "those who spent money on others reported greater happiness, while those who spent more on themselves did not."

In a separate study of 13 employees at a Boston-based firm, the researchers found that employees who devoted more of their profit-sharing bonus (which ranged from $3,000 to $8,000) to others reported greater overall happiness than those who spent the windfall on their own needs.

Purchase power

A person apparently doesn't need to drop thousands of dollars on others to reap a gleeful reward.

In another experiment, the researchers gave college students a $5 or $20 bill, asking them to spend the money by that evening. Half the participants were instructed to spend the money on themselves, and the remaining students to spend on others.

Participants who spent the windfall on others - which included toys for siblings and meals eaten with friends - reported feeling happier at the end of the day than those who spent the money on themselves.

If as little as $5 spent on others could produce a surge in happiness on a given day, why don't people make these changes? In another study of more than 100 college students, the researchers found that most thought personal spending would make them happier than prosocial spending.

"Often people, at some implicit level, have this idea that 'buying these things is going to make me happier,'" Ahuvia said. "It does make them momentarily happy," he added, but the warm feelings are short-lived.

Buying buzz

Dunn's team puts forth several possible reasons to explain the charity-happiness link.

"I think it's a lot of factors of prosocial spending that are responsible for these happiness boosts," study researcher of UBC Lara Aknin told LiveScience. "I think it could be that people feel good about themselves when they do it; it could be the fact that it strengthens their social relationships; it could just be the act of spending time with other people."

Perhaps the fuzzy feelings associated with giving last longer than selfish buys. "The happiness 'hit' from giving may last a bit longer if the 'warm glow' from donation lasts longer than the hit from own consumption," said Paul Dolan, an economics professor at the Imperial College London in England. Dolan was not involved in Dunn's study.

Another idea is that charitable spending helps a person express a certain identity.

"People spend a lot of money to make their lives feel meaningful, significant and important," Ahuvia said during a telephone interview. "When you give away money you are making that same kind of purchase, only you are doing it in a more effective way."

He added, "What you're really trying to buy is meaning to life - Giving away money to a cause you believe in is a more effective purchase than buying a T-shirt that says "Save a Whale.'"

Read more!

Agonising over the icecap or frantic about floods? You may be suffering from 'eco-anxiety'

Michael Hewitt, The Independent 20 Mar 08;

Many of us worry about the future of the planet. It's both fashionable and cathartic. We can assuage our guilt over the fact that, say, the "carbon footprint" from our holiday to the Maldives has upped the official Dead Polar Bear Index by an additional 2.4, or that, thanks to our purchase of a mahogany nut bowl, the Amazonian Nukak tribe has just been wiped out, by recycling bean cans and paying £10 to adopt a stag beetle.

For some people, however, the terrifying prospects of rising CO2 levels, ice cap shrinkage, and yet another Live Earth concert are beyond any such gesture environmentalism. Indeed, a few become so neurotic as to be unable to function.

Others experience symptoms such as bulimia, depression and alcoholism. Not only is there a new term for this new condition – "eco-anxiety" – there's a new kind of practitioner to save us from it, the "ecopsychologist".

So how does this modern malaise manifest itself? The effects can be extreme. There have been a number of cases, for example, of people who have chosen to be sterilised, such is their anxiety about the effect of bringing another rubbish-producing, fossil-fuel depleting, CO2-emitting human being on to the planet.

Thirty-three-year old Jen Cohen (not her real name) isn't so much bothered by the genetic line as the product lines. Specifically, those in supermarket chiller cabinets. A few months ago, she suddenly found herself physically unable to enter her local supermarket. It had nothing to do with a wonky shopping trolley. "I simply found I couldn't go in," she explains. "I haven't been able to go near one of those places since. I was frozen and felt physically sick about the idea of all the pesticides used to produce the food, the massive waste involved in the production and packaging and the suffering of the animals, the cruel way they'd been reared. And all so that we can save a few pence."

Aside from Tescophobia, other recorded cases include that of a 53-year-old landscape gardener who could longer wield his hoe because of worries over the weeds' welfare, a travelling salesman suddenly afraid to travel, lest his car exhaust cause somewhere low-lying, like Bexhill-on-Sea, to turn into Sea-on-Bexhill, and a recent spate of environmentally-conscious 4x4 burnings. (Here, before torching the vehicles and spray-painting "For the environment" on their sides, the activists removed, and, hopefully, thereafter recycled in a sustainable manner, the in-car stereo systems.)

Ten years ago, the orthodox approach to treating such people might have been a course of benzodiazepines. But today's emerging solution to eco-anxiety is ecotherapy. The science originated among the New Agers of the USA, like Santa Fe-based therapist Melissa Pickett, who describes herself as "a student of evolutionary inquiry, a visionary and a change agent". Eco-anxiety, she says, is caused by our disconnection from nature. Her recommended treatment is to reconnect with nature and acknowledge that any harm done to the Earth diminishes us all and provokes adverse psychological reactions.

"People tell me how an article about the polar bears losing their habitat was making them ill," she says. "So I place a photograph of a polar bear into the patients' hands and encourage them to have an imaginary conversation with him as a way to ease their despair." She also advises we carry rocks in our pockets to remind us of our connection with the Earth and buy one of her "sacred matrices" (yours for $10 each).

Many, of course, would argue that people suffer anxiety and stress regardless of the stability of the Arctic ice shelf, and thus was it ever so. So why necessarily look for an eco cause now? Most British ecopsychologists agree there's more to it than mere despondency over clubbed baby seals (and, perhaps significantly, none recommends carrying around rocks). Jungian psychotherapist and ecotherapist Mary-Jayne Rust initially takes a conventional approach.

"I don't like the simplistic term 'eco-anxiety'. Take the 'Tescophobic' woman. If she cited that as her first symptom, I would be listening hard. On the one hand I might say, 'Yes, we find ourselves living in very worrying times and it's a healthy response to be anxious about what we're putting into our bodies and being aware of what we buy into when we shop'. But when the anxiety has become so crippling that you become unable to enter a supermarket, I would want to enquire whether something else is going on."

So how do you determine that the anxiety really is caused by external environmental factors and these people aren't just plain nuts?

"I'm interested, as a therapist, in helping my clients understand the roots of their anxieties," Rust says, "and if part of their anxiety is coming from the bigger picture – from the impact that the wider ecological environment has on our internal world – then I want to explore that. But, initially, at least, I probably wouldn't appear to be working much differently from any other therapist. I would listen to the patient's current anxieties, inquire about their life, and ask what they feel about the world.

"Some people don't want to talk about it at all, and that's fine. We proceed conventionally. Others are thankful for the invitation to share their concerns about the world and how it's impacting their inner psyche. That's how eco-therapy begins."

And dead polar bears and all the rest cause alcoholism and other ailments how exactly?

"I had a client, an alcoholic, who was so depressed by state of the world that she said, 'We're screwed, anyway, so why not binge drink?' Her peer group felt the same, but they never really talked in depth about it. Imagine a whole generation growing up with such fears about the future. We must provide safe spaces for people to start talking about this together in a meaningful way.

"There was another who was a compulsive over-eater. She told me she had a dream of standing in the middle of lush rainforest as the trees were destroyed. It's often through such dreams that the unconscious can remind us of what Jung would describe as the '2-million-year-old self' who's still present in all of us. And if we listen to this ancient part of ourselves, it will remind of us of a gentler age which, inwardly, we still hunger for."

Rust also runs eco-therapy courses to help reconnect people with nature. Some of these consist of trips to the Scottish Highlands, others are simple country walks. "I don't regard them as a cure per se. A walk in the woods won't in itself cure, say, an eating disorder, but it's certainly an aid to therapy. It's rather like the defragging of a computer. People who have suffered great trauma can find solace in making a safe connection with the natural world."

The main problem, apparently, is that our "Gross National Happiness" is in decline. "Living more simply, in a world based on inner wealth rather than material wealth, is not only possible, it would also make us healthier and happier," Rust continues. "The challenge is to inspire people's imaginations to this end. For this we need government legislation, grass-roots movements, and also a re-thinking on every level of society. Above all, there should be a move into sustainability. It's a creative adventure that challenges us to leave behind consumerism in search of inner satisfaction and an inquiry into the purpose and meaning of existence. Since I have faith in humans as a species, I also have faith that we may just find our way through this global challenge."

Which certainly sounds better than simply sponsoring a stag beetle, regardless of how endangered he might feel.

How eco-anxious are you?

You go to the supermarket. What is on your mind?

A. Your shopping list: veal steak, Australian wine and Kenyan beans

B. You're wondering if your budget will run to organic carrots and if there's really any difference

C. You're racked with guilt: are you endorsing the hair-raising ethical policies of this commercial monolith, just because you're hooked on their own-brand garlic pitta bread?

Your next-door neighbour is stealing the contents of your recycling bin and passing them off as his own. Do you:

A. Put your old fridge out front in the hope that he'll nick that, too

B. Paint his black wheelie bin green

C. Offer to sort through the contents of his bin in case he's missed anything

You encounter a "the end is nigh" sandwich-board man. Do you:

A. Laugh and walk on

B. Ask him to specify when, exactly

C. Harangue him for being overly optimistic

Your fuel bill is a little higher than usual. Do you:

A. Think, oh, that must be because of my lovely new 63-inch flat-screen TV

B. Think you really must overcome your prejudices and get low-energy light bulbs

C. Feel delighted. It's fitting punishment for the damage you're doing to the planet

Your think Quorn is:

A. An internet service provider

B. Spongy stuff, mainly for beardies

C. A delicious alternative to meat

Answers

Mostly As: You couldn't give a monkey's about the environment. If it were still legal to import ivory, you'd go on an elephant shoot.

Mostly Bs: While you no doubt separate your plastics from your metals, you nevertheless still drive a 4x4 and regard Al Gore as a plonker.

Mostly Cs: You probably worry your low-energy light bulbs are too bright, and exhale into a paper bag to stop CO2 getting into the atmosphere.

Read more!

WWF demands North Sea no-fishing zones ‘would let stocks recover’

Lewis Smith, Times Online 20 Mar 08;

Conservationists are urging the Government to create five protection zones in the North Sea and to ban fishing in them to give fish stocks a chance to recover.

Commercial stocks including cod, haddock, turbot and monkfish would be among the species that would most benefit, but a fishing ban would aid the entire ecosystem, according to a report published today by the WWF.

Other wildlife expected to flourish would be seals, dolphins and the rare angel shark. The common skate, once abundant but now all but gone from the North Sea, might even reestablish itself as a commercial species.

The protection areas, which would cover a total of 5.08 per cent of the North Sea, should be trailblazers for a network that conservationists hope will eventually cover 30 per cent of the region, say the researchers.

Protection zones around Britain’s coastline are likely to form a central part of proposals contained in the Government’s draft marine Bill, which is expected to be published within weeks. Parts of Dogger Bank and the Moray Firth are among the areas suggested as the best places for experimental protection zones in the report, A Return to Abundance: A Case for Marine Reserves in the North Sea.

Giles Bartlett, Fisheries Policy Officer of WWF, said: “Under present fisheries management policies, species and habitats will continue to decline. It is vital that we rebuild resilience in North Sea ecosystems. With fishing bans in place, species of fish that have declined can reestablish themselves. WWF urges the Government immediately to implement a network of experimental marine reserves that can be used to strengthen fisheries management in the North Sea and deliver lasting protection to the full spectrum of marine wildlife.”

Main fish species in the North Sea are estimated to have declined by at least 50 per cent and up to 98 per cent over the past century. Trawling the seabed has destroyed much of the natural habitat.

However, the Scottish Fishermen’s Federation described the report as “fundamentally flawed” and said that the “unique nature of the mixed fisheries” in the North Sea meant that it was wrong to assume that research showing positive effects from protection zones in other parts of the world would apply off the East Coast of Britain. The SSF added: “We believe that introducing marine protected areas on the scale proposed by WFF would have a devastating impact on the livelihoods of Scottish fishermen and would also affect the fish supply chain to the consumer.”

Third of North Sea should be marine reserve
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 20 Mar 08;

Almost a third of the North Sea should be set aside for a network of marine reserves needed to preserve fish stocks, a new report says.

WWF - formerly the World Wildlife Fund - says the experimental reserves would also help protect the habitat on which many fish species depend.

Fisheries management schemes had failed to protect commercially important fish such as cod, haddock and plaice and there was now an urgent need for protected areas.

WWF claims that some fish had declined by as much as 90 per cent since 1990 and the skate, once common in the North Sea, had now almost disappeared.

In the report, A Return to Abundance: A Case for Marine Reserves in the North Sea, WWF calls for a network of five experimental marine reserves that will improve the sustainability of fisheries, protect biodiversity, and help establish a healthy ecosystem.

Fisheries Policy Officer Giles Bartlett, said: "Under present fisheries management policies, species and habitats will continue to decline. It is vital that we rebuild resilience in North Sea ecosystems.

"WWF urges the Government to immediately implement a network of experimental marine reserves that can be used to strengthen fisheries management in the North Sea, and deliver lasting protection to the full spectrum of marine wildlife."

WWF is one of several conservation groups calling on the Government to include protection zones as part of the UK Marine Bill.

It claims a network of protected areas would give vulnerable species and habitats time to recover from damage and disturbance caused by human activitity and adapt to the pressures of climate change without hitting the fishing industry.

The report says the trial reserves will displace less than three per cent of UK demersal trawling and less than 11 per cent of UK beam trawling.

The proposed network includes sites close to the Dogger Bank, the North Norfolk Sandbanks and north of the Shetlands has been selected as nursery and spawning areas.

The most intensively fished areas would be excluded from the network in order to reduce the impact on the fishing industry. Once they had proved their worth they could extended to cover almost one-third of the North Sea.

The report recommends the reserves should exclude all types of fishing to avoid bycatch, and be closed off all year to prevent a surge in fishing before or after the period of closure.

The reserves would enable the Government to manage the entire ecosystem rather than individual species and would create an opportunity to reduce fishing to more sustainable levels.

Giles Bartlett said: "The location of marine reserves need to take into account several factors, and should not simply result from an emergency response to the latest crisis for a particular species. We are proposing a network that will represent and protect North Sea biodiversity and will displace as little fishing effort as possible.

"The establishment of marine reserves and a reduction in fishing effort should make it possible to recover some of the lost productivity of the North Sea, producing sustainability and long-term security for the fishing industry."

Read more!

Vietnam 'hub for illegal timber'

BBC News 20 Mar 08;

Vietnam has become a major South-East Asian hub for processing illegally logged timber, according to a report from two environmental charities.

The trade threatens some of the last intact forests in the region, say the UK-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Indonesia's Telapak.

Because Vietnam has increased measures to protect its own forest, producers are getting timber from other nations. The authors add that some of the timber is reaching the UK as garden furniture.

"Over the last decade, governments around the world have made a raft of pronouncements regarding the seriousness of illegal logging and their determination to tackle it," the authors of the Borderlines report say.



"Yet the stark reality is 'business as usual' for the organised syndicates looting the remaining precious tropical forests for a quick profit."

The report says that an increase in the price of raw timber has prompted some wood producing countries, such as Indonesia, to take steps to combat illegal logging.

But, they explain, as tougher measures were enforced by one country, the problem shifts to another.

Uncertain future

EIA and Telapak say they have gathered evidence that "Vietnam is now exploiting the forests of neighbouring Laos to obtain valuable hardwoods for its outdoor furniture industry", which contravenes Laotian laws banning the export of logs and sawn timber.

They add that they also obtained evidence that timber traders from Thailand and Singapore were also securing raw materials from Laos.

The researchers who compiled the report said they met a Thai businessman who openly admitted paying bribes to secure a consignment of timber with a potential value of half a billion dollars.

"The cost of such unfettered greed is borne by rural communities in Laos who are dependent on the forests for their traditional livelihoods," said EIA's head of forest campaigns, Julian Newman.

"They gain virtually nothing from this trade; instead, the money goes to corrupt officials in Laos and businesses in Vietnam and Thailand."

The authors estimate there are about 1,500 wood processing enterprises in Vietnam with a total processing capacity of more than 2.5m cubic metres of logs a year. They believe outdoor furniture accounts for about 90% of the country's total wood exports.

Although the Vietnamese government has been tightening controls on logging since the early 1990s, it is also encouraging the wooden furniture industry to expand.

EIA said the nation had relaxed regulations concerning ownership in order to facilitate foreign investment, and it was also actively promoting the sector in overseas markets.

Mixed message

The groups said that ultimate responsibility had to rest with western markets that imported products made from the uncertified timber.

"To some extent, the dynamic growth of Vietnam's furniture industry is driven by the demand of end markets such as the European Union and US," the report concludes.

"Until these states clean up their act and shut their markets to wood products made from illegal timber, the loss of precious tropical forests will continue unabated."

The team found that many leading brands and retailers had "taken the necessary steps" to ensure that certified and legal timber was used in products they sourced from Vietnamese producers.

But researchers, posing as furniture buyers, found that a number of companies operating in the UK had failed to take the appropriate measures to ensure illegal timber was not entering the country.

Stemming the flow

In an effort to prevent illegal timber entering its borders, the EU developed an initiative called Forest Law Enforcement, Governance and Trade (Flegt) in 2003, aimed at forming partnerships with timber producing countries.

The scheme is underpinned by Voluntary Partnership Agreements (VPAs), which involve establishing a certification system to ensure only legally sourced timber enters EU markets.

Malaysia began negotiations in 2006 to establish a VPA, and Indonesia embarked on a similar process in 2007.

EIA says the system focuses on direct shipments from the country, and does not take into account the fact that raw timber can pass through several countries, eg from Laos into Vietnam.

"Another problem with VPAs is that end products such as furniture are currently not included on the list of timber categories to be controlled," the report says.

Gareth Thomas, the UK's International Trade and Development Minister, said the report raised a number of concerns.

"Through the EU, we will be raising this with the Vietnamese government. I personally will be raising this with my Vietnamese counterpart," he told BBC News.

"We will explore with G8 colleagues whether there is G8 action we can take in this area."

Illegal logs from Laos fuel Mekong region's furniture industry
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 22 Mar 08;

Huge volumes of hardwood trees being felled in a graft-riddled trade

BANGKOK - A NEW report and undercover film by the Britain-based Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA) and Jakarta-based Telapak have revealed how Laos' forests are being felled illegally to supply the thriving furniture industry in Vietnam and Thailand - and in turn the West.

Officially, Laos bans the export of logs.

But footage filmed late last year and released this week in Bangkok shows dozens of big trucks laden with timber churning up dusty border roads to deliver logs from Laos to Vietnam.

EIA and Telapak - both independent non-government environmental organisations - estimated that at least 500,000 cubic m of freshly cut Laotian timber moves into Vietnam every year.

Vietnam's furniture industry has boomed tenfold since 2000, accounting for exports worth US$2.4 billion (S$3.3 billion) last year, mostly to Europe and the USA.

Since Vietnam began protecting its own forests in the late 1990s, more timber has been sourced, mostly illegally, from overseas including Indonesia and Cambodia - and now Laos.

The hardwoods yellow balau and keruin, are very much in demand.

At one importer and furniture-maker's factory in Vietnam, a staff explained: 'In Laos every year, the government allows cutting of 20,000 cubic m, but actually they cut two million cubic m.'

Sellers and buyers both routinely overlook discrepancies between the real volumes and the paperwork accompanying consignments.

China and Thailand also import logs illegally from Laos, according to the report by Telapak and EIA.

They secretly filmed a Thai importer who said he had paid a bribe of 'more than 10 million baht' (S$440,000) to a 'highranking' Lao government official for a 10-year logging concession in Laos, worth around half a billion US dollars.

'I pay government people...I pay at every step,' he said, his words caught on the hidden camera.

He added that he could clear the entire area in two years if necessary, though it would take longer to sell all the timber.

Between 1990 and 1995, the Mekong countries - Vietnam, Laos, Thailand and Cambodia - showed the highest rate of deforestation in the Asia-Pacific region, severely affecting the river itself.

In their report, Telapak and EIA noted that while the overall rate of deforestation had slowed since, figures for the Mekong countries showed continuing forest loss at a rate among the worst in the world.

'Between 2000 and 2005, Vietnam lost 51 per cent of its remaining primary forests...while Cambodia lost 29 per cent. It is evident that logging and land clearance continue to strip the last forests of the Mekong,' read the report.

The report, which also lists offending companies as well as importers in the West in detail, notes: 'In terms of timber trade, the Mekong countries are characterised by complex patronage relationships and corruption, a willingness to exploit neighbours' forest resources while protecting domestic forests, and a system of confusing and poorly enforced laws.'

The illegal logging continues despite a welter of regional agreements on protection and sustainable management of forests.

Much of the responsibility also rests on the demand side - retailers in countries like the United States, Japan, Britain, France and Germany, who often mislead the few consumers who care to ask about the origin of their furniture.

Read more!

Thirsty Jordan scrambles to find new water resources

Randa Habib, Yahoo News 20 Mar 08;

The desert kingdom of Jordan, one of the 10 most water-impoverished countries in the world, is scrambling to find new resources to meet a chronic shortage of its diminishing "blue gold".

Beset by years of drought, the authorities are focusing their energies on two mega projects to develop water resources in a country where 92 percent of the land is desert.

They plan to draw water from the 300,000-year-old Disi aquifer in southern Jordan and build a massive canal to bring water from the Red Sea to the slowly evaporating Dead Sea -- the lowest point on the face of the earth.

"The two projects are vital," Munir Oweis, the water ministry secretary general, told AFP ahead of World Water Day on Saturday.

The government wants to dig 65 wells to extract water from the Disi aquifer, 325 kilometres (200 miles) south of Amman, in order to pump 100 million cubic metres (3.5 billion cubic feet) of water a year to Amman.

Daily water consumption per capita in Amman stands at 160 litres (36 US gallons).

But nationwide demand is constantly increasing with Jordan's population of nearly six million growing by nearly 3.5 percent a year and an influx of more than 750,000 Iraqi refugees since the US-led invasion in 2003.

Over the past two years, Jordan has also faced an annual water deficit of more than 500 million cubic metres (17.5 billion cubic feet), almost half of what it needs annually to sustain the population, the water ministry says.

Jordan has invited private firms to tender for the Disi project -- estimated to cost 944 million dollars -- on a build, operate and transfer basis under a 25-year-concession agreement.

"The treasury will handle around 220 million dollars of the project, which is expected to be ready in 2011 or 2012 to help tackle a growing water deficit," said Oweis.

Water drawn from Disi would meet Amman's demands for 50 years, experts say.

High hopes are also pinned on the much-touted project to build a canal from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

The idea for the multi-million-dollar project has been around for years, but stalled amid tensions between Israel and the Palestinians.

If it sees the day, Oweis said, "it will solve the water problem in Jordan and the region" as well as help stop the saline Dead Sea, which lies at 400 metres (1,312 feet) below sea level, from vanishing.

"If it's not done, the Dead Sea is in danger and might disappear."

In December 2006, officials from Jordan, Israel and the Palestinian Authority launched a feasibility study for the canal aimed at providing up to 850 million cubic metres of fresh water to be shared by the three neighbours.

The first phase of the proposed project consists in building a 180-kilometre (110-mile) pipeline to pump 1.9 billion cubic metres of water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea at a cost of one billion dollars.

The second phase estimated to cost 2.5 billion dollars will involve the construction of a desalination plant in Jordan and a power plant to generate electricity.

The level of the Dead Sea has dropped by a third since the 1960s and restoring it to its natural water level would take 25-30 years, experts have said.

Oweis said the government has launched other projects to preserve water, nicknamed "blue gold," including a 250-million-dollar plan to rehabilitate old water networks in Amman.

The government is also mulling ways of building a desalination plant in the Red Sea port of Aqaba.

With Jordan plagued by dry spells, and only 50 percent of reservoirs filled by rain water this year, the Jordanians, including King Abdullah II, have turned to God.

As in neighbouring Saudi Arabia, prayers for rain (Salat al-Istesqaa) have become a common practice in Jordan, where water shortages are "a matter of life or death", an expert said.

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A poisoned paradise in Cambodia: water water everywhere

The Independent 20 Mar 08;

The floating villages of Chong Khneas are one of the great spectacles of Cambodia. But pollution and climate change pose a deadly threat to their lifestyle, as Rob Sharp reports

In the middle of South-east Asia's largest freshwater lake – Cambodia's Tonle Sap – lives "Hot Sam". The 55-year-old fisherman crouches in his self-built home, a shack, buoyed on a bed of bamboo and anchored to the lake bed two metres beneath him.

As he bobs above the murky water, rickety motorboats full of tourists chug past taking pictures. Gazing across his ramshackle fiefdom, Hot Sam opens his mouth and flashes a brown smile of rotten teeth.

The grinning gaze takes in the remarkable scene of the floating villages of Chong Khneas, one of the highlights of the country's burgeoning tourist industry and a natural, watery spectacle of abundance. On the surface, Tonle Sap and its natural resources ought to be a rich provider for its residents. And unsurprisingly for a fisherman living in a floating village, water is at the centre of everything in life for Hot Sam and his sizeable family. Their drinking water comes straight from the lake and the fisherman describes their little precautionary ritual before they drink it. The family collects the water, they then let it settle and drink it.

This is the same water in which they freely defecate, the same water in which they wash and the same shrinking body of water upon which they depend for livelihood. The population pressure which he has helped to create – with 11 family members – is making the pollution problem worse and helping to drive down the fish stocks on which they all rely. The spectre of climate change is starting to make itself felt in the low water levels and the precariousness of life is starkly apparent – even the houses' anchor lines are shaken as they get snagged in the propellers of passing boats.

"The weather now changes every year and we have no idea what to expect," bemoans Sam. "The rainy season is much more irregular than it was 15 years ago. Our catch of fish is worse than ever. We have less to sell on once we have fed ourselves, and we have to go further to get the same amount. Everything is getting harder and harder."

The floating villages which were originally set up as a place of refuge from the genocidal madness of the Khmer Rouge find that their fate has come to reflect the less gruesome but nonetheless deadly challenges facing Cambodia now.

Hot Sam is living in the wrong half of the developing world. He is one of the 2.6 billion people on the planet who live without access to basic sanitation. Today is World Water Day, a UN-backed initiative which aims to highlight this. But sometimes the impact of such campaigns can be diluted through their over-use of meaningless jargon. The truth on the ground, or rather on the water, is that in Cambodia – one of the poorest countries in the world – its population of 14 million cannot get access to the basics: latrines, clean water for drinking and washing. If this continues, its high mortality rates, which mean some 83 children out of 1,000 perish before they are five, are destined to persist.

Such a bleak situation may surprise the tourists who pay a handful of dollars to take a tour around the floating villages. The 800-odd households, which accommodate some 6,000 people, can look bewitching to a newcomer. The truth is bleaker still. The eight floating villages were set up in the 1970s by farmers seeking refuge from the Khmer Rouge, who had confiscated their land. Added to the mix are a plethora of illegal Vietnamese immigrants (who make up a third of the population); they live separately and are often blamed for the overfishing problem (throwing dynamite into the lake is a common accusation).

Floating past houses, villagers can be seen listless, dozing in hammocks or on straw mats. Their homes, often used to accommodate as many as a dozen people, are no bigger than your average European kitchen. The walls are cobbled together using anything that lies, or floats to hand – and need to be replaced regularly once the rot sets in. Once spent, they can be stripped off and used for fuel.

When fish stocks dwindle, some opt to sell batteries as a source of income, which their neighbours can use to power their televisions or music equipment. Or they can sell kerosene lamps, still used by the majority of people in the country for night light. Fish are held in place in specially-crafted pens, which are hammered to the shallow bed by men stripped to the waist, seemingly oblivious to the film of murk through which they break every time they dive.

But, despite the villagers' apparent success in adverse conditions, fresh obstacles are never far away. For one, Hot Sam's attitude towards drinking and allowing his children to play in the lake-water seems to be common among many of those living here. The area is woefully under-resourced – there is apparently only one school and one health centre – and there is little evidence of the educational work and resource provisions which organisations such as the British Red Cross are carrying out in more remote parts of the country.

Lach Mean, a 72-year-old who lives in a shack in which some of her grandchildren sell batteries to the surrounding villagers, shouts over the roar of a motorboat which has become entangled in the anchoring rope of a nearby house. She says that three generations of her family have lived here, but admits to defecating directly into the water because there is no access to a latrine. That is the way it's always been done, she says. But this takes its toll. She adds: "Our life is very difficult. Often our skin is itchy and this can become infected for days."

Indeed, while hygiene is being taught by the local school through the simple message of "don't swim in the lake", it is doubtful how much is sinking in.

Anchored to the banks of the Tonle Sap, is the Chong Khneas primary school, which teaches 528 students in a country where almost half the population is under 15. Many of the pupils here know they should not play in the water but do so anyway.

One of their teachers, Ean Sophon, 30, says: "Many of the children suffer from fever and sometimes diarrhoea from playing in the water either during school hours or when they are at home. We see kids with scabies and itching, and they are often off school for up to five days at a time with such problems. We try to teach them the difference between dirty and clean bath water, and the basics of personal hygiene. But it is hard."

The repercussions of swimming in or drinking dirty water is the entrance of disease-causing bacteria into the food; one of the most common afflictions caused is diarrhoea, and if this is not properly treated it can lead to dehydration, and even death. Those working in a health centre on nearby dry land say that of the 200 people they treat every month, around a quarter are suffering from diarrhoea or skin disease; the next most common problems are colds and tonsillitis.

The lack of fishing is also becoming a distinct problem; both Hot Sam and Lach Mean complain that catches are poorer than ever. One of the reasons for this is that the system of traditional flooding of the Tonle Sap by the Mekong river has been upset.

In times past, the melting peaks of the Himalayas and wet season monsoons (which normally end in October) forced the level of the river to rise so quickly that the flow of the river reversed at Phnom Penh, filling up the Tonle Sap by five times its original 2,500sq km size every wet season. After this, its level drops gradually until the wet season begins again the following May. At the end of this wet period in November, the floodwaters have panned out to the forest surrounding the Tonle Sap, carrying fertile sediment and fish larvae with them, and populating a natural nursery ground. As the forests drained, the fish migrated back to the Mekong, via the lake, and this was when the floating villagers got their catch. But a spate of dam building on the Mekong in China is blamed for diminished flows downriver; and the reduced dispersal of fish. The effects are everywhere.

And then there is climate change. Villagers such as Hot Sam normally move their residences up to a dozen times annually to avoid damage from changing water levels. But in a year when he says the water is lower than it has been at any point in the past 20 years, such regular disturbances are beginning to reach crisis point.

The slow-moving process of migrating from one spot on the lake to another is estimated to consume up to a fifth of residents' income. Grim, considering that three million Cambodians live on under a dollar a day.

Elsewhere in the country – for example in the remote northern province of Oddar Meanchey – the effects of global warming are more profound. Farmers are complaining of their worst rice harvests in decades.

Hot Sam lights up a cigarette and smiles at the world. Even while the future looks muddy, he greets future vagaries with typical Cambodian diffidence. It is common to see such optimism in a country that has seen great hardship in a variety of forms for many, many years.

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Grumbling over ethanol mounts among food execs

Ben Klayman, Reuters 20 Mar 08;

CHICAGO (Reuters) - Prices for commodities are steadily rising and top food industry executives are grumbling that costs will not fall as long as the U.S. government continues to subsidize corn growers for making ethanol.

The ethanol industry has been blamed for everything from rising food prices to environmental damage, and its heavy use of corn has even divided the farm community. Grain farmers celebrate record prices while livestock producers and bakers complain about rising costs.

The subject should be revisited by lawmakers, according to top executives at the Reuters Food Summit in Chicago this week. Some said production of renewable fuels should be capped or other benefits stripped away, or consumers' wallets will continue to feel the pinch.

"We would love to have that acreage focused on wheat and products that are going into food, but it is what it is at this point," Sara Lee Corp North American Chief Operating Officer CJ Fraleigh said of the corn being used for ethanol.

"The pure economics of ethanol do not support that as being a good economic decision," he added. "In the short term, the use of corn for ethanol is not a good decision for the American consumer."

Ethanol has been touted as a way to reduce America's dependence on foreign oil. Corn use for ethanol tripled from 2001 to 2006, and the government estimates that one of every four bushels of corn produced this year will be used for ethanol.

Policy makers are pushing that surge. An energy bill signed into law in December calls for production of 9 billion gallons of renewable fuel this year, up from 5 billion in 2005, and rising to 36 billion gallons in 14 years.

The government also provides fuel makers a tax credit for blending ethanol into auto fuel and has a tariff on imported ethanol.

GOOD IDEA. BUT...

While the executives at the summit lauded the goals of such a push, they said consumers may not like the consequences. Executives have been lobbying lawmakers, either directly or through trade groups, to take a second look.

"We certainly as a society want to decrease our dependence on foreign oil," said Rick Searer, president of Kraft Foods Inc's North American operations. "Unfortunately, the biofuels mandate is having unintended consequences in terms of its impact on the price of food."

He pointed to more farm land used for corn and less for soybeans and wheat, resulting in higher prices on the latter two commodities even as corn prices continue to spike on the heavier demand.

Suggested options vary.

ConAgra Foods Inc CEO Gary Rodkin wants the government to offer incentives for biofuel producers to use more nonfood alternatives and cap the amount of renewable fuels produced. He also would like to see regulators shift more land from conservation programs to use for food crops.

General Mills Inc CEO Kendall Powell agreed nonfood options for biofuel would be a good step.

"It would be good if we could develop a really efficient and economic biofuels industry based on switchgrass or cellulose waste products," he said.

Other executives at the summit suggested changes in the tax credit or import tariff should be discussed.

However, P.F. Chang's China Bistro Inc CEO Richard Federico is less worried about commodity prices than his ever-rising labor costs.

"This spike will run its course and commodities will go back to some level of normality," the head of the Asian-themed restaurant chain said.

Joe Sanderson, CEO of No. 4 U.S. chicken producer Sanderson Farms Inc, has a more pragmatic view, saying things are unlikely to change.

"I wouldn't waste a lot of energy on it," he said of lobbying efforts. "There are 40 to ... 50 chicken processors. Do you know how many corn growers there are? There are more ethanol plants than there are chicken processors.

"The infrastructure for ethanol is built," he added. "The ethanol plants are there and done. I don't think the price of chicken is as sensitive to consumers as the price of gas, and that is the calculation that the congressmen made."

(Reporting by Ben Klayman; editing by John Wallace)

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City lights turn peregrines into night hawks

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 19 Mar 08;

They carry out targeted killings on vulnerable victims and go on nocturnal rampages of violence and aggression. A new group of deadly predators has descended on Britain's towns and cities – but fear not, these urban clashes are taking place not on the streets but high in the air.

Peregrine falcons, the world's fastest birds, have moved into urban areas nationwide in the past 20 years, and have now learned to hunt other birds in cities at night – by street light.

The predators, which in the countryside and on the coast generally use cliffs as nesting sites, are using tall buildings including blocks of flats, power stations and medieval cathedrals to breed on and roost.

It is thought that more than 60 towns and cities, from Truro to Manchester, now hold a pair of peregrines, or single birds. London holds several pairs.

Increasingly, besides targeting feral pigeons, their principal prey, and other birds commonly found in urban areas in daylight, such as gulls and blackbirds, these super-efficient killers are chasing birds that migrate at night, using the glow from street lighting. They even catch bats. Their nocturnal hunting expeditions, largely invisible to human observers, are revealed by the remains of discarded prey under their nests and roosts, according to a new study in the April issue of BBC Wildlife magazine.

Ed Drewitt, a peregrine enthusiast, has spent 10 years collecting more than 5,000 food items from urban peregrine sites in Bristol, Bath, Exeter and Derby. Most of his finds are the remains of urban birds, with feral pigeons making up between 40 to 60 per cent of the total.

However, Mr Drewitt has also found the remains of non-urban birds such as water rails, moorhens, corncrakes, jack snipe, quails, and little and black-necked grebes. He writes: "Some of these are very shy species, usually staying close to vegetation and diving for cover at the first sign of danger.

"It is highly unlikely that peregrines could catch such elusive birds in their habitual lakes, ditches and pools. They must be taking them at night, when the smaller birds' journeys to and from suitable habitats take them over our towns and cities, where they are vulnerable to aerial attack."

Explaining how the falcons probably do it, Mr Drewitt writes: "Imagine a typical overcast and cold October evening. An urban peregrine takes up its hunting position on a high perch and waits, usually until a few hours after sunset.

"Once darkness falls, thousands of birds – grebes, gallinules (moorhens and coots) waders and passerines – will fly overhead on migration. The lights attract them closer to the city.

"Staying in the shadows, the peregrine watches as its targets pass overhead. Dashing out at high speed, the hunter flies up until it draws level with its prey. If the target fails to react quickly, the peregrine will swiftly overtake and seize it in its talons.

"After a successful hunt, the peregrine takes its prey to a favourite ledge to pluck and eat."

A zoologist who is a museum learning officer at Bristol's Museum & Art Gallery, Mr Drewitt, 28, says the peregrine's owl-like behaviour is not just a British phenomenon. Night-hunting peregrines have been recorded in other European cities from Berlin to Brussels, and cities further afield, such as New York and Hong Kong.

In the 1960s, peregrine populations fell in Britain because of the use of organochlorine pesticides, which built up inside the bodies of the birds they hunted, and made their eggs infertile. The pesticides were subsequently banned and the falcon's population has come back strongly. There are thought to be about 1,400 breeding pairs in Britain.

The speed of the peregrine's dive was measured by Swiss scientists 10 years ago and was shown to reach 115mph. This is much lower than the figure of 250mph given in many wildlife books. This, and the speeds estimated for other fast-flying birds, are now regarded as wildly exaggerated. But it still puts the peregrine ahead of its competitors.

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Easter egg makers fail to cut packaging

Martin Hickman and Emily Dugan, The Independent 20 Mar 08;

There has been almost no change in the amount of packaging on Easter eggs despite manufacturers' pledges to reduce the amount of card, plastic and foil they use, a survey has revealed.

Some of the eggs on offer are so over-packaged that the chocolate makes up less than 10 per cent of the volume of their wrapping, with names such as Nestlé, Cadbury and Green & Black's among the chief offenders.

The findings, which came despite last year's Courtauld Commitment in which almost all UK brands pledged a 5 per cent reduction in the amount of packaging that reached people's homes by 2010, sparked outrage from campaigners.

"Despite packaging being much more in the spotlight, Easter egg manufacturers are not taking the steps needed," said the Liberal Democrat MP Jo Swinson, who conducted the research by comparing this year's packaging with that of 2007. "Producers have talked in earnest terms about the need to cut packaging, but have so far failed to translate words into action. There have been very few discernible steps taken to reduce the size of Easter egg boxes and cut down on the different materials used."

Nestlé, signatories to the 2007 agreement, increased its packaging this year, with one egg taking up just 9 per cent of the packaging volume. Most brands, such as Cadbury, Green & Black's and Thorntons, have made no changes to their excessive wrapping, despite a vocal commitment to waste reduction. Ms Swinson said: "One year on from my original study into excess packaging on Easter eggs, little has changed."

Easter eggs generate about 3,000 tons of waste each year. Failure to act on excess packaging contrasts with the rhetoric of chocolate brands, many of whom are stressing their green credentials. Nestlé, who along with Lindt was this year's worst offender, has been boasting that its eggs were greener than ever, because some had recycled cardboard boxes.

The only retailer that reduced its packaging this year was Marks & Spencer, which reduced its egg wrapping by 57 per cent using a triangular card box instead of a cube. Sainsbury's was praised in the report for its efficiency of packaging, but it still increased the overall amount of plastic wrapping used compared to last year. Cadbury's "eco-egg", which is sold wrapped only in foil, also got a mention. The new egg reduces the amount of plastic packaging by more than 75 per cent but the report pointed out that it was still not as widely available as its leading eggs.

Ms Swinson said: "On plastic bags, Gordon Brown has already stated the need to go beyond the timid measures in Labour's lukewarm Waste Strategy. He should also use a stronger hand to deal with excess packaging, by introducing binding targets instead of the current voluntary ones."

The eight days around Easter are estimated to bring in £8bn to retailers, nearly £280m of which will be spent on chocolate eggs. A spokeswoman for the Food and Drink Federation said: "Easter eggs are usually fragile constructions with a thin shell of chocolate which needs to be protected throughout the distribution chain to ensure that the egg arrives in a state which meets consumers' expectations."

A spokesperson for the Waste & Resources Action Programme (Wrap) said: "Easter egg packaging is clearly a work in progress still for brands and retailers. However, the work that Recycle Now is undertaking with [Easter egg manufacturers] does indicate that there is positive progress being made, from the incorporation of recycled material in the packaging, to providing ideas of how to use the packaging to make new fun items."

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How the blurring of the seasons is a harbinger of climate calamity

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 20 Mar 08;

Spring, which officially starts today, is starting to dissolve as a distinct season as climate change takes hold.

According to documented observations throughout 2007 and 2008, events in the natural world that used to be key spring indicators, from the blooming of flowers to the appearance of insects, are now increasingly happening in what used to be thought of as mid-winter, as Britain's temperatures steadily rise.

Although many people may see the changes as quaint or charming – butterflies certainly brighten up a January day – they are actually among the first concrete signs that the world is indeed set on a global warming course which is likely to prove disastrous if not checked.

In fact, the blurring of the seasons in Britain is now as serious a piece of evidence of climate change as the rapidly increasing melting of ice across the globe, in glaciers and in the land-based and marine ice sheets of the Arctic and the Antarctic.

The phenomenon shows that a whole range of organisms is already responding actively to the greatest environmental change in human history, in a way that people – and especially politicians – are not.

Last month, that shift produced its most remarkable image yet – a photograph, taken in Dorset, of a red admiral, an archetypal British summer butterfly, feeding on a snowdrop, an archetypal British winter flower.

Although that is not an event likely to cause alarm among the public, it was quite inconceivable until very recently. It is undeniable confirmation that a profound alteration in the environment, the consequences of which are likely to prove catastrophic, is already under way.

It is happening so quickly, and without people realising its true significance, because, in Britain, the major effects of climate change are initially being felt as less cold winters, rather than as hotter summers.

That has produced a startling rise in winter temperatures in recent years, clearly visible when current monthly means are compared to the average for 1961 to 1990.

To take the figures for last winter from the Central England Temperature Record, the world's oldest, which dates back to 1659: January 2007 was 3.2C warmer than the 1961-90 average, February was 2.0C warmer, March was 1.5C warmer, and April was 3.3C warmer. So far this year, January has been 2.8C above the 1961-90 average for the month, and February, 1.6C

Those are substantial rises. Although there is always natural variation in temperatures, recent winters taken together show a remarkable warming trend.

It has meant that many of what used to be thought of as the traditional signs of spring are happening very much earlier, causing primroses, for example, spring flowers par excellence, to bloom in some parts of the country as early as November. Other traditional spring plants, such as dog's mercury and the lesser celandine (a favourite of Wordsworth's) can be seen in January rather than March.

And in what is perhaps an even more vivid change, dandelions and daisies, which used to come into flower in spring on lawns (where they were permitted), now flower in many places all winter long.

Insects are responding similarly. A number of butterflies that overwinter as hibernating adults can now be seen in January rather than March or April, including the peacock and the comma, and especially the red admiral.

This last species used to be a spring migrant from the Continent but, in the recent warmer winters, it has begun to overwinter here.

Bumblebees have similarly become visible in mid-winter, and frogspawn, usually laid about March, can be seen in December in the South-west and south Wales.

The changes and many others have been monitored in detail because in Britain there has been a renewal of the old discipline of phenology, or the study of the timings of natural events, which was favoured by the Victorians but largely abandoned by the 1950s.

It has been revived by an environmental statistician, Dr Tim Sparks from the Monks Wood wildlife research centre near Huntingdon, part of the Government's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH).

Dr Sparks set up the UK Phenology Network, which has been taken over by the Woodland Trust, a charity which runs it in partnership with CEH as Nature's Calendar, with 40,000 people from all over Britain contributing records.

"We do have problems now recording some of what used to be signs of spring," Dr Sparks said last night. "For example, we used to record the first grass cutting of the year. But in many places now grass grows all year round and so it has to be cut all year round."

Until 1947, said Dr Sparks, the Royal Meteorological Society used to produce an annual Phenological Report, the front-page logo of which was a song thrush singing against a background of hazel catkins.

"A major sign of spring used to be the first time a song thrush was heard singing," he said. "But now song thrushes can be heard all through the winter, and hazel catkins can be found in December to January, rather than in January to February."

The shift was largely a phenomenon of southern Britain, he said, and traditional spring signs were still likely to be seen in Scotland. In southern England, oak leaves are sprouting 26 days before they did in 1950, while swallows, house sparrows, great tits and robins are laying their eggs a week earlier on average.

Poppies are a fortnight ahead of where they used to be, and stinging nettles 10 days ahead. Last April, the earliest-ever emergence dates were recorded for 11 species of butterfly: the speckled wood, for instance, was seen in January, seven weeks earlier than ever before.

The irony of course, is that the first days of spring 2008 are likely to be startlingly cold. But not withstanding the predicted Easter snap, there can be no doubt that spring has already sprung.

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Global warming rushes timing of spring

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Mar 08;

The capital's famous cherry trees are primed to burst out in a perfect pink peak about the end of this month. Thirty years ago, the trees usually waited to bloom till around April 5.

In central California, the first of the field skipper sachem, a drab little butterfly, was fluttering about on March 12. Just 25 years ago, that creature predictably emerged there anywhere from mid-April to mid-May.

And sneezes are coming earlier in Philadelphia. On March 9, when allergist Dr. Donald Dvorin set up his monitor, maple pollen was already heavy in the air. Less than two decades ago, that pollen couldn't be measured until late April.

Pollen is bursting. Critters are stirring. Buds are swelling. Biologists are worrying.

"The alarm clock that all the plants and animals are listening to is running too fast," Stanford University biologist Terry Root said.

Blame global warming.

The fingerprints of man-made climate change are evident in seasonal timing changes for thousands of species on Earth, according to dozens of studies and last year's authoritative report by the Nobel Prize-winning international climate scientists. More than 30 scientists told The Associated Press how global warming is affecting plants and animals at springtime across the country, in nearly every state.

What's happening is so noticeable that scientists can track it from space. Satellites measuring when land turns green found that spring "green-up" is arriving eight hours earlier every year on average since 1982 north of the Mason-Dixon line. In much of Florida and southern Texas and Louisiana, the satellites show spring coming a tad later, and bizarrely, in a complicated way, global warming can explain that too, the scientists said.

Biological timing is called phenology. Biological spring, which this year begins at 1:48 a.m. EDT Thursday, is based on the tilt of the Earth as it circles the sun. The federal government and some university scientists are so alarmed by the changes that last fall they created a National Phenology Network at the U.S. Geological Survey to monitor these changes.

The idea, said biologist and network director Jake Weltzin, is "to better understand the changes, and more important what do they mean? How does it affect humankind?"

There are winners, losers and lots of unknowns when global warming messes with natural timing. People may appreciate the smaller heating bills from shorter winters, the longer growing season and maybe even better tasting wines from some early grape harvests. But biologists also foresee big problems.

The changes could push some species to extinction. That's because certain plants and animals are dependent on each other for food and shelter. If the plants bloom or bear fruit before animals return or surface from hibernation, the critters could starve. Also, plants that bud too early can still be whacked by a late freeze.

The young of tree swallows — which in upstate New York are laying eggs nine days earlier than in the 1960s — often starve in those last gasp cold snaps because insects stop flying in the cold, ornithologists said. University of Maryland biology professor David Inouye noticed an unusually early February robin in his neighborhood this year and noted, "Sometimes the early bird is the one that's killed by the winter storm."

The checkerspot butterfly disappeared from Stanford's Jasper Ridge preserve because shifts in rainfall patterns changed the timing of plants on which it develops. When the plant dries out too early, the caterpillars die, said Notre Dame biology professor Jessica Hellmann.

"It's an early warning sign in that it's an additional onslaught that a lot of our threatened species can't handle," Hellmann said.

It's not easy on some people either. A controlled federal field study shows that warmer temperatures and increased carbon dioxide cause earlier, longer and stronger allergy seasons.

"For wind-pollinated plants, it's probably the strongest signal we have yet of climate change," said University of Massachusetts professor of aerobiology Christine Rogers. "It's a huge health impact. Seventeen percent of the American population is allergic to pollen."

While some plants and animals use the amount of sunlight to figure out when it is spring, others base it on heat building in their tissues, much like a roasting turkey with a pop-up thermometer. Around the world, those internal thermometers are going to "pop" earlier than they once did.

This past winter's weather could send a mixed message. Globally, it was the coolest December through February since 2001 and a year of heavy snowfall. Despite that, it was still warmer than average for the 20th century.

Phenology data go back to the 14th century for harvest of wine grapes in France. There is a change in the timing of fall, but the change is biggest in spring. In the 1980s there was a sudden, big leap forward in spring blooming, scientists noticed. And spring keeps coming earlier at an accelerating rate.

Unlike sea ice in the Arctic, the way climate change is tinkering with the natural timing of day-to-day life is concrete and local. People can experience it with all five senses:

• You can see the trees and bushes blooming earlier. A photo of Lowell Cemetery, in Lowell, Mass., taken May 30, 1868, shows bare limbs. But the same scene photographed May 30, 2005, by Boston University biology professor Richard Primack shows them in full spring greenery.

• You can smell the lilacs and honeysuckle. In the West they are coming out two to four days earlier each decade over more than half a century, according to a 2001 study.

• You can hear it in the birds. Scientists in Gothic, Colo., have watched the first robin of spring arrive earlier each year in that mountain ghost town, marching forward from April 9 in 1981 to March 14 last year. This year, heavy snows may keep the birds away until April.

• You can feel it in your nose from increased allergies. Spring airborne pollen is being released about 20 hours earlier every year, according to a Swiss study that looked at common allergies since 1979.

• You can even taste it in the honey. Bees, which sample many plants, are producing their peak amount of honey weeks earlier. The nectar is coming from different plants now, which means noticeably different honey — at least in Highland, Md., where Wayne Esaias has been monitoring honey production since 1992. Instead of the rich, red, earthy tulip poplar honey that used to be prevalent, bees are producing lighter, fruitier black locust honey. Esaias, a NASA oceanographer as well as beekeeper, says global warming is a factor.

In Washington, seven of the last 20 Cherry Blossom Festivals have started after peak bloom. This year will be close, the National Park Service predicts. Last year, Knoxville's dogwood blooms came and went before the city's dogwood festival started. Boston's Arnold Arboretum permanently rescheduled Lilac Sunday to a May date eight days earlier than it once was.

Even western wildfires have a timing connection to global warming and are coming earlier. An early spring generally means the plants that fuel fires are drier, producing nastier fire seasons, said University of Arizona geology professor Steve Yool. It's such a good correlation that Weltzin, the phenology network director, is talking about using real-time lilac data to predict upcoming fire seasons. Lilacs, which are found in most parts of the country, offer some of the broadest climate overview data going back to the 1950s.

This year, though, it's the early red maple that's creating buzz, as well as sniffles. A New Jersey conservationist posted an urgent message on a biology listserv on Feb. 1 about the early blooming. A 2001 study found that since 1970, that tree is blossoming on average at least 19 days earlier in Washington, D.C.

Such changes have "implications for the animals that are dependent on this plant," Weltzin said, as he stood beneath a blooming red maple in late February. By the time the animals arrive, "the flowers may already be done for the year." The animals may have to find a new food source.

"It's all a part of life," Weltzin said. "Timing is everything."

Read more!

Icy Start, But 2008 May Be In Top 10 Warmest Years

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 21 Mar 08

OSLO - After the coldest start to a year in more than a decade, spring will bring relief to the northern hemisphere from Thursday.

Bucking the trend of global warming, the start of 2008 saw icy weather around the world from China to Greece. But despite its chilly start, 2008 is expected to end up among the top 10 warmest years since records began in the 1860s.

This winter, ski resorts from the United States to Scandinavia have deep snow. Last year, after a string of mild winters, some feared climate change might put them out of business.

In many countries crops and plants are back on a more "normal" schedule. Cherry trees in Washington are on target to blossom during a March 29-April 13 festival that has sometimes mistimed the peak blooms.

"So far 2008, for the globe, has been quite cold, only just above the 1961-90 average," said Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia which supplies global temperature data to the United Nations.

"This is just January and February, so two coolish months comparable to what happened in 1994 and 1996," he told Reuters.

The northern spring formally begins on March 20 this year.

And an underlying warming trend, blamed by the UN Climate Panel on human use of fossil fuels, is likely to reassert itself after the end of a La Nina cooling of the Pacific in the coming months. There were similar conditions in 1998 and 2005, the hottest so far, Jones said.


SNOW AND SANDSTORMS

China suffered its worst snowstorms in a century in January and February. At least 80 people died and the government estimated costs at more than 150 billion yuan ($21 billion), including animal deaths and crop losses.

Sandstorms hit Beijing on Tuesday and residents rushed to hide from the dust mixed with petals from the city's magnolia trees.

During the northern winter, snows also fell in unusual places such as Greece, Iraq and Florida. Experts say climate change will bring more swings as part of a warming that will bring more droughts, floods, heatwaves and rising seas.

US ski resorts reported above average snowfall.

"We're 90 percent sure we will extend the season for at least a couple of weeks toward the end of April," said Jeff Hanle, a spokesman for the Aspen Skiing Co. in Colorado. The mountain town has had 400 inches (10 metres) of snow, the normal amount for the whole season, which still has a month to go.

Skiers "have got big smiles on their faces," he said.

"It's been a good season all around," said Tom Horrocks, spokesman of the Killington Ski Resort in Vermont. He said meteorologists said more consistent snows were typical for a La Nina season in the northeast.

But not all places have been chilly -- Jones said western and northern Europe were the warmest parts of the northern hemisphere in the first two months of 2008.

NASA satellite data this week showed the thickest and oldest ice around the North Pole has been disappearing.

Finland had its warmest winter on record. High-speed ferries between Helsinki and Tallinn in Estonia, normally halted for months by winter ice on the Baltic Sea, started earlier than ever in mid-March.

In Norway, many ski resorts have deep snow even though the winter has been the third warmest on record -- scientists say a spinoff of climate change may be more precipitation.

"Turnover is 16 percent over the best season of 2004," said Andreas Roedven, head of Norway's Alpine Ski Area Association.

Electricity prices in the Nordic region halved this month to 27.5 euros ($43.48) per megawatt hour from late 2007 highs because hydropower reservoirs were full and warm temperatures curbed heating demand.

Senior officials from about 190 nations will meet in Bankok from March 31-April 4 to start work on a new long-term treaty to combat climate change to succeed the UN's Kyoto Protocol.

(Additional reporting by Deborah Zabarenko in Washington, Emily Chasan in New York, Jim Bai in Beijing, Tarmo Virki in Helsinki, Jeremy Lovell in London, Wojciech Moskwa in Oslo; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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Fish key to reef climate survival

Richard Black, BBC News 20 Mar 08;

A healthy fish population could be the key to ensuring coral reefs survive the impacts of climate change, pollution, overfishing and other threats.

Australian scientists found that some fish act as "lawnmowers", keeping coral free of kelp and unwanted algae.

At a briefing to parliamentarians in Canberra, they said protected areas were rebuilding fish populations in some parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

Warming seas are likely to affect the reef severely within a few decades.

Pollution is also a growing problem, particularly fertilisers that wash from agricultural land into water around the reef, stimulating the growth of plants that stifle the coral.

Protect and survive

The assembled experts told parliamentarians that fish able to graze on invading plants played a vital role in the health of reef ecosystems.

"The Great Barrier Reef is still a resilient system... and herbivorous fish play a critical role in that regenerative capacity, by keeping the dead coral space free of algae, so that new juvenile coral can re-establish themselves," said Professor Terry Hughes from James Cook University in Townsville.

His research group has conducted experiments which involved building cages to keep fish away from sections of reef.

They found that three times as much new coral developed in areas where the fish were present as in the caged portions.

Parrotfish in particular use their serrated jaws to scrape off incipient algae and plants.

More recently, his team has also identified the rabbit fish - a brown, bland-looking species - as a potentially important harvester of seaweed.

"So managing fisheries can help to maintain the reef's resilience to future climate change," he said.

In recent years, Marine Protected Areas have been set up along the Great Barrier Reef in order to provide sanctuaries where fish and other marine creatures can grow and develop.

Dr Peter Doherty from the Australian Institute of Marine Science presented data showing that just two years of protection brought significant increases in populations of important species such as coral trout and tropical snapper.

"More importantly, more eggs are being produced... nearly three times the number of eggs per unit area being produced in the surrounding territory," he said.

The eggs, he showed, travelled well outside the boundaries of the protected zones, potentially increasing fish populations in non-protected areas too.

Burning issue

The scientists emphasised that a comprehensive approach to reef protection would include measures to lower greenhouse gas emissions and to reduce run-off from agricultural land and human settlements along the coast.

"You have got a three- to nine-fold increase in sediment loss," said Professor Iain Gordon from the governmental research organisation CSIRO.

"[There are] increases in nutrients that feed into the system, nitrates and phosphates and also new kinds of chemicals in the water that is around the reef; pesticides and herbicides, they haven't been there before."

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland noted that unusually warm water in 1998 and 2002 had bleached and damaged coral in southern parts of the Barrier Reef.

"The reef literally goes from being brown and healthy to being a stark white, and this happens with very small changes in temperature," he said.

In the past, he said, bleaching events happened only at the warm extremes of natural cycles such as El Nino; but now the overall water temperature is higher, which makes the peaks of the cycles more harmful to coral.

"Because sea temperatures are now a lot higher, they are now reaching the thresholds at which coral get into distress, and of course it is really large scale impacts."

At high temperatures, coral polyps expel the algae which normally live with them in a symbiotic relationship, turning the reef white. The algae typically provide most of the polyp's nutrition; without them, the polyps eventually die.

Even if a bleached zone contains live polyps and carries the potential to recover when waters cool, a quick invasion of kelp, or types of algae that do not live symbiotically with coral, can make the die-off permanent - hence the protective role of plant-munchng fish.

The Great Barrier Reef is worth about six billion Australian dollars (US$5.5bn; £2.8bn) to the national economy, primarily through tourism and fishing.

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Scientists: Sea Rabbits May Save The Great Barrier Reef
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