wildsingapore news: Apr 8, 2008

Sino-S'pore committee approves Tianjin eco-city draft master plan

By Chio Su-Mei, Channel NewsAsia, 8 Apr 08

SINGAPORE: The Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Joint Working Committee has approved the draft master plan for the Tianjin eco-city submitted by the combined team from Singapore and China.

The committee is co-chaired by National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan and China's Vice-Minister for Housing and Rural-Urban Construction, Qiu Baoxing.

The team's proposal, which will be released by the Tianjin government for public consultation in mid-April, has been given the go-ahead by the committee.

The plan incorporates natural existing conditions of the site, such as wetlands and rivers. It will also include a mix of commercial, residential and business park developments.

The proposed city will also have a comprehensive public transport network that features an LRT line, buses and extensive cycling and foot paths.

Buildings will be erected using environmentally-safe standards and the use of renewable energy will also be promoted. - CNA/vm

Green groups oppose World Bank's India coal plant

Lesley Wroughton, Reuters 7 Apr 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Environmental groups called on the World Bank to delay a decision on Tuesday on funding for a $4.2 billion coal-fired power plant in India until more analyses of costs and environmental impact are done.

In a letter to the United States representative at the World Bank, Whitney Debevoise, six environmental groups said the bank could not effectively fight climate change while also funding high carbon-emitting projects, such as the 4,000 megawatt Tata Mundra coal project in Gujarat state.

The International Finance Corp (IFC), the bank's private-sector lender, said its $450 million proposed funding for the project was responding to India's enormous need for more and affordable electricity.

It said the coal plant, being developed by Tata Power Co Ltd, India's largest private-sector power firm, would use new "super-critical" technology, which cut carbon emissions by 40 percent compared to other plants in the country.

The project is likely to provide electricity to 16 million users in five states in western and northern India.

"The key is access to power and there are many poor people who still don't have access to power in India and it is getting them power as inexpensively as possible by using responsible technology," Rashad Kaldany, IFC head for global infrastructure, said in an interview.

The environmental groups argue that the Mundra region where the plant will be located has huge solar potential, while coal for the project would need to be imported from Indonesia and other countries at rapidly rising costs.

They added that coal's previous cost advantages have largely vanished with rising prices, while fuel and construction costs for "super-critical" coal-fired power plants have escalated.

The groups include the Environmental Defense Fund, Friends of the Earth US, National Wildlife Federation, Bretton Woods Project and the International Accountability Project.

Kaldany said IFC had conducted a thorough evaluation of the project and concluded that a coal plant was by far the least expensive option at this stage to meet India's 160,000 MW power needs over the next decade.

ALTERNATIVE SOLUTIONS

He said IFC analysis also looked at alternatives to coal including wind technology, which would have meant an investment of about $24 billion.

"This is by far the least expensive and to try to do something like either wind or solar would cost huge amounts in terms of subsidies. The question is where would these subsidies come from?" Kaldany said.

"If we're going to provide a consistent base load power, which is what the country needs. Our analysis shows that unless you have huge subsidies -- several billions of dollars -- you cannot do alternative technology," he added.

Kaldany said where it could, IFC would support renewable energy sources where it was commercially viable.

"There are opportunities for alternative types of technologies -- wind and solar -- but at the scale it is required, it is just not available to deploy it," he said.

Kaldany acknowledged carbon emissions from the Tata Mundra coal plant would be large at 23 million tons per year of Co2 but less than 27 million tons emitted by current plants.

Carbon capture and storage technology, which absorbs plant heating carbon dioxide and stores it safely underground, is not yet available for power plants, he said.

"No such technology is proven for us to require it, so it's a Catch 22," he said, adding that carbon capture was only used on a commercial basis by the oil and gas industry. "It is not ready yet to be deployed for power."

"Emerging markets and developed markets are facing this conundrum -- the technology is not ready or is hugely expensive, which begs the question: who is going to pay?

"It is fine for developed country to impose additional costs on itself but for the poor country it is not obvious to impose that additional cost on them," Kaldany added.

(Editing by Ramthan Hussain)

What is the meaning of 'green'?

Clare Davidson, BBC News 8 Apr 08;

Since Kermit the Frog sang about the hardship of being a green in the 1970s, the term has become universal.

Some of the most polluting industries are among the loudest to vaunt their "green" credentials. Energy firm Edf, for example, is running a nostalgia-laden advertisement that starts with the song: It's not easy being green originally trilled by Kermit

Retailers from Carphone Warehouse with its "green" mobile phone charger, to political parties such as the Conservative party, with its motto "Vote Blue to go Green", all claim to be green. High Street firms, especially supermarkets, have jumped on the bandwagon.

And an entire industry of smaller green firms has developed with names such as Little Green Radicals for baby goods to Eco-Centric.

'Death Star'

But has business really changed?

According to a survey by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP), less than half, or 38%, of the FTSE 350 firms have projects to cut greenhouse gas emissions and targets.

"Airlines talk about being more efficient and offsetting but their main effort is still getting as many people into the air as possible," says Dax Lovegrove, head of business and industry relations at environmental pressure group WWF.

Green goods are often tacked onto the main business as a sideline, he says.

Even Rory Sutherland, vice president at advertising firm Ogilvy, which developed BP's Beyond Petroleum campaign, highlights the tokenism.

He uses a Star Wars analogy to explain what he calls the "tick box" mentality of some organisations.

"Some firms think: 'We might be the Death Star, but we have a flowerbed in the fourth quadrant. Some people are recycling'".

Yet amidst this sea of claims some firms can be singled out. Notable among them is Marks & Spencer.

WWF's Mr Lovegrove points to the comprehensiveness of Marks & Spencer's Plan A, "which sets it head and shoulders apart from its competitors".

This is not just about packaging but about infrastructure and energy usage, he says.

The five year plan, announced in 2007, includes aims to send no waste to landfill by 2012, to increase "sustainable sourcing" and cut energy related CO2 emissions and help farmers who are investing in small-scale renewable energy production.

'Robust evidence'

But if this is the exception, what does it say about other green claims.

The lack of consistency in green statements is something Britain's Advertising Standards Agency (ASA) and the government is trying to tackle.

Green does not systematically refer to how much energy is used to make a product or provide a service; whether an item can be recycled, how sustainable the material or resources are, or anything specific at all.

Edf's advert says the firm "aims to reduce the intensity of its emissions by 60% by 2020".

Arguably most people would not know what this means.

Increasingly firms are making green claims before the science has been proven, said the ASA.

This seems to echo a study from environmental marketing company TerraChoice called "The Six Sins of Greenwashing," arguing that of 1,018 common consumer products 99% were guilty of greenwashing in some way.

While the Department of the Enivornment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) has a green claims code, it is not enforceable.

Paradox

Mike Childs, head of campaigns at Friends of the Earth, says being green is hard for any company "because mass retailing is based on consumption".

But he underlines an inherent challenge: "We haven't a hope in hell in tackling climate change unless business is part of solution".

Outside the UK there are signs of a shift, which recognises the inherent challenge facing firms.

Norway, for example, has forbidden terms including green, environmentally friendly, clean, and natural in car adverts on the grounds that no vehicle is actively beneficial for the environment.

Ogilvy's Mr Sutherland argues that we are quick to blame firms but they rely on consumers spending.

"Consumers will buy Ecover washing up liquid or recycled loo roll then fly to Latin America for a holiday - clearly the former doesn't begin to justify the latter as far as the environment is concerned."

In short, the greener option is glaringly obvious.

Claiming to be green might be easy. But - as Edf energy admits - being green is not.

Alligator Blood May Lead to Powerful New Antibiotics

Amitabh Avasthi, National Geographic News 7 Apr 08;

Alligators often engage in violent fights over territories and mates, and scientists have puzzled over why their wounds rarely get infected.

Now researchers think the secret lies in the reptiles' blood.

Chemists in Louisiana found that blood from the American alligator can successfully destroy 23 strains of bacteria, including strains known to be resistant to antibiotics.

In addition, the blood was able to deplete and destroy a significant amount of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

Study co-author Lancia Darville at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge believes that peptides—fragments of proteins—within alligator blood help the animals stave off fatal infections.

Such peptides are also found in the skin of frogs and toads, as well as in Komodo dragons and crocodiles. The scientists think that these peptides could one day lead to medicines that would provide humans with the same antibiotic protection.

"We are in the process of separating and identifying the specific peptides in alligator blood," said Darville, who presented the findings on Sunday at the 235th national meeting of the American Chemical Society in New Orleans.

"Once we sequence these peptides, we can obtain their chemical structure to potentially [create new] drugs."

Alligator Cream

Study co-author Mark Merchant, a biochemist at McNeese State University in Lake Charles, Louisiana, was among the first to notice alligators' unusual resistance.

He was intrigued that, despite living in swampy environments where bacteria thrive, alligators that suffered frequent scratches and bruises rarely developed fatal infections.

Merchant therefore created human and alligator serum—protein-rich blood plasma that has had clotting agents removed—and exposed each of them to 23 strains of bacteria.

Navy sonar blamed for death of beaked whales found washed up in the Hebrides

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 7 Apr 08;

Anti-submarine sonar may have killed a group of whales found dead in the Hebrides in one of Britain's most unusual strandings, scientists believe.

Five Cuvier's beaked whales, a species rarely seen in British waters, were discovered on beaches in the Western Isles on succeeding days in February. Another animal from a related species was discovered at the same time.

Experts consider such a multiple stranding to be highly abnormal. They calculate, from the state of the carcasses inspected that the whales died in the same incident out in the Atlantic to the south and west of Britain, and then drifted towards the Scottish coast over two or three weeks.

The main suspect in the case is sonar, as it is known that beaked whales are highly sensitive to the powerful sound waves used by all the world's navies to locate underwater objects such as submarines.

Groups of beaked whales have been killed, with sonar suspected as the direct cause, several times in recent years; well-documented incidents include anti-submarine exercises in Greece in 1996, the Bahamas in 2000 and the Canary Islands in 2002. In 2003, an American judge banned the US Navy from testing a new sonar after a court case brought by environmentalists to protect marine life.

Britain's Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society has now submitted a Freedom of Information request to the Ministry of Defence over the Hebridean strandings, with the aim of finding out if any Royal Navy activity coincided with the possible location and timing of the whales' deaths. So far, the MoD has provided no answers, but it is possible that other navies might have been involved.

The 21 species of beaked whale include some of the world's most rarely seen mammals; they are also the deepest-diving air-breathing animals. A Cuvier's beaked whale set the record for a deep dive two years ago: 1,899 metres, or 6,230ft, beneath the surface, holding its breath for an astonishing 85 minutes.

The animals use these deep dives to forage, but when sonar gets involved, their remarkable habit may be their undoing. One theory is that the whales are so distressed by the intensely loud sound waves that they return too quickly to the surface, and in doing so, fatally suffer "the bends" – the formation of nitrogen bubbles in the blood which can kill human divers.

The Hebridean strandings began when a Cuvier's beaked whale was found dead on the beach at Saligo Bay, Islay, on 2 February; three days later another washed up on nearby Machair beach. On 7 February a third was found further north, on the island of Tiree, and the following day a fourth carcass, probably a beaked whale but washed away before it was identified, was found on neighbouring Mull. On 12 February a fifth animal was found further north at Gobhaig on Lewis. A Sowerby's beaked whale was also found, at Benbecula, to the south of Lewis, the day before.

One man deeply concerned at the deaths is Professor Ian Boyd, the director of Britain's Sea Mammal Research Unit, based at the University of St Andrews. Professor Boyd is the chief scientist on an American project investigating beaked whales' sensitivity to underwater sound.

"The beaked whales have a problem with military sonar, and these strandings on the west coast of Scotland are very suspicious," he said. "The chances of them happening through natural causes are really quite small. It's likely that the animals died together in a single event, and also, it's quite likely that ... they were not the only ones which died." He added: "We don't yet have the evidence to make a direct connection with anti-submarine exercises, but there are enough examples of events like this to make it likely."

Professor Boyd asked the Proudman Oeceanographic Laboratory in Liverpool to model the whales' possible drift to find the location of the initial incident.

Secretive creatures

*The beaked whales, so-called because of their "snout", are the second-largest family of the cetaceans (whales and dolphins) but less is known about them than almost any other group of large mammals; some are known only from carcasses and have hardly ever been seen alive. They broke into the headlines in January 2006 when one of the 21 beaked whale species, a northern bottlenose whale, swam up the Thames into London. It died on the barge that was transporting it to possible freedom. The beaked whales are capable of deep vertical dives to 6,000ft and more to hunt for prey by echo-location.

Amazon alliance to help forest communities

The Telegraph 8 Apr 08;

New forest people's alliance formed as Amazon deforestation continues to rage, Tim Hirsch reports from São Paulo, Brazil

A new global alliance of indigenous and traditional forest communities has been set up, aimed at ensuring they are included in financial incentives to slow deforestation and fight climate change.

The initiative was announced at a conference in Manaus in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, as new satellite data showed no apparent respite in rainforest destruction in February, despite a major government crackdown.

The meeting of forest peoples from 13 countries, mostly in South and Central America, was a response to discussions under the UN Climate Change Convention to set up a system rewarding countries that succeed in reducing their rate of deforestation.

Scientists estimate that the loss of the carbon stored in forests accounts for at least 20 per cent of the greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

The indigenous and traditional groups such as fishing communities and rubber-tappers fear they will be left out of this process, even though they often play a key role in protecting forests, and feel the worst impacts of climate change.

"Indigenous people must understand exactly what is happening in their forests," said Yolanda Hernández, representing the Maya Kakchiquel people of Guatemala.

"They have always been left out when decisions are made, and the time has come for them to be taken into consideration - because their ancestral knowledge about nature enables them to make an important contribution in the debate about the climate."

The new alliance launched in Manaus aims to give forest communities a collective voice in the current debate over the mechanism that will channel cash into forest protection from international markets to reduce carbon emissions.

According to the Brazilian Socio-environmental Institute, it is an opportunity to change the economic balance of power that will help indigenous communities get recognition for their territorial rights.

As the meeting debated the issue of deforestation, news emerged from the Brazilian Space Research Agency (INPE) suggesting that Amazon destruction shows no sign of slowing, despite a major government enforcement effort announced in January.

Satellite images for February this year revealed the loss of 725 square kilometres of rainforest, at a time of heavy rains, which is usually associated with a let-up in deforestation.

The agency believes this figure is in fact a considerable under-estimate, as cloud cover prevented the satellite from photographing large parts of the Amazon.

Also, this quick-response system of detecting deforestation takes low-resolution images that ignore smaller losses.

Normally, INPE estimates that the initial survey must be at least doubled to get the true picture - if that is the case, then it would confirm the suggestion in January that the deforestation rate is accelerating after three years of decline.

This is a particular disappointment to the Brazilian government, as it suggests there is not yet any significant pay-off from the major package of anti-deforestation measures announced in January.

They included a crackdown on illegal logging companies, a requirement of landowners to re-register their property to avoid fraudulent land claims, and the cutting off of credit to rural businesses flouting environmental laws.

According to Brazil's environment minister Marina Silva, it will take time for the government efforts to show up in the deforestation statistics.

"It's clear that the response to these measures is not happening at the same pace as the dynamic of deforestation that is under way," said Mrs Silva. "They will definitely produce an effect, but not in just one or two months."

She said she was still hopeful that the annual deforestation figure, measured in August, would show a drop from the 11,000 square kilometres lost last year.

But according to Mario Menezes of Friends of the Earth, the figures confirmed the impact of high agricultural prices and upcoming municipal elections in driving deforestation, and suggested the targeting of specific areas by the government was simply shifting the problem elsewhere.

"You put pressure in one place, in one municipality or one State, and deforestation just leaks to another area," he said.

UK E-Day: A good use of energy?

Matt Prescott, BBC Green Room 7 Apr 08;

Recently the UK saw its first Energy Saving Day, or E-Day - an attempt to involve people in reducing the nation's energy use and carbon emissions. In the end, no savings resulted; and in the Green Room this week, its architect Matt Prescott looks back and asks "was it worth the effort?"

E-Day was designed to raise awareness that saving energy offers a quick, simple way of tackling the massive and urgent threat posed by climate change, and makes sense as a way of saving money and improving peoples' comfort in summer and winter.

I hoped to focus attention on how almost everyone can painlessly take greater personal responsibility for reducing their own demand for energy, and so cutting carbon emissions.

I had calculated that if every one of the 22 million households in the UK turned off just one 100 watt light bulb, on the same day, four 500 megawatt coal-fired power stations could be turned off.

I therefore wanted to see whether this information could be brought to life in a way that involved and interested everyone, and whether asking everyone to switch off at least one electrical item for a day could produce a noticeable impact on the country's energy use and carbon emissions.

No-one likes being repeatedly beaten over the head with messages asking them to "make sacrifices for the planet".

So I decided E-Day should be fun - and was able to set it up initially as a comedy-led BBC television programme likely to feature the talents of people like Graham Norton.

After 18 months of work, BBC TV cancelled Planet Relief just as we were getting ready to go into production.

This was apparently because a couple of other environmental projects had delivered poor ratings and there had been a public debate about whether it was the BBC's job to "save the planet".

The cancellation had immediate implications for E-Day - the first being that it was likely to slide into oblivion - but also raised wider questions about the public's appetite for the climate issue.

Opinion polls show widespread concern about climate change, and a significant majority in favour of taking action - so why weren't people watching? Or were broadcasters being too timid?

Anyway - I decided to see whether I could make E-Day work as an independent venture. The environment charities, religious groups, energy companies and scientists I had been working with decided to remain involved, and the National Grid agreed it would still monitor national electricity use - so it seemed viable.

However, I had very little money to make things happen. A couple of charities came through with no strings attached funding, and the damage to my bank account - while still the equivalent of a deposit on a house - looked manageable.

Still-bjorn?

Come the big day, thanks largely to some fantastically talented people giving their time for free, we had a superb website, a fresh and fun launch event at St Paul's Cathedral featuring the premiere of a bicycle-powered cinema, some lovely short films on YouTube and the agreement of some of the large energy companies to use E-Day to promote home insulation.

But the big disadvantage of working outside one of the big media or campaign groups is that you are dependent on others for publicity.

Without publicity, no-one would know that E-Day was happening, and so almost by definition it was bound to fail on both objectives - lowering energy use and spreading awareness.

In the end, this proved the project's Achilles heel.

The Sun covered our "Bjorn The Bear" video, the BBC News website carried a live data feed of electricity use, BBC News 24 filmed the launch, and 15 local radio stations interviewed me.

A Russian TV news channel, with an audience of 100 million, decided that E-Day was important enough to merit 10 minutes of prime time coverage, even during the Russian elections.

MTV phoned up and asked if they could be part of E-Day in the last few hours!

But it was not enough. As Kevin Costner might have said in Field of Dreams: "We built it; but they did not come".

I was deluged with emails saying, in a nutshell: "Great idea - wish I'd known about it".

It didn't help that the National Grid's prediction for "business as usual" electricity demand immediately ran into trouble.

The day was colder than expected, and this meant that more heating and lighting were being used than the Grid's experts had predicted; for a while, the graphs allowed you to conclude that E-Day had raised energy use - and maybe this dissuaded people from taking part.

Towards the end of E-Day, the Grid used actual weather data to update its predictions, and its final figures revealed that electricity use over the 24 hours of E-Day was 0.1% higher than would have been expected.

At first, I was hugely disappointed by this result.

But as the next morning dawned, and hundreds of encouraging emails started to pour in from children, businesses, councils and people overseas, I started to realise just how much had been achieved.

Insular, insulate

Now, a month or so on, I am able to step back a bit and ask: was it worth it?

First, the positives. Many energy companies, charities, academics and retailers set aside their day-to-day differences and found common cause; that has to bode well for the future.

Through E-Day, five major energy companies simplified the hoops that people have to jump through when they apply for help with home insulation; perhaps this is a model they can take forward now.

They are required to offer these services by law, so they might as well make it as easy as possible.

The together.com coalition of big companies pledged to reduce the carbon dioxide emissions of their customers by 1 million tonnes in time for the next E-Day.

Divide and fall

Will there be another E-Day, though?

Right now, I don't know. If there is, I hope that the next one will be bigger and better, and able to build on the ideas, lessons, support and interest generated this time around.

The novelty and ambition of E-Day appeared to create a rare set of conditions under which competitors felt they were missing out if they refused to join efforts to save energy and to come up with solutions to climate change.

However, the fact that E-Day couldn't guarantee high-profile coverage meant that many big and wealthy organisations decided they could say "yes" to contributing a low-cost idea and their logo, but "no" to spending any money on publicity.

There are of course other initiatives with similar aims, such as the recent Earth Hour.

All of them are worthwhile; what we must not do in the environmental community is create any sense of competition between them.

If different groups concentrate on promoting just their "own" ventures, none will achieve what they want. We must keep our common goal of reducing carbon emissions in mind.

Hopefully, next time around it will be possible for all the E-Day partners to promote it more whole-heartedly so that all of their customers and members know exactly when it is, what they are being asked to do and what solutions are on offer.

I also hope that a major media organisation or two will turn out to have a serious enough interest in saving energy that we can do something exciting and unique together in time for the next E-Day.

The Daily Mail's campaign to banish plastic bags appears to have borne fruit; the recent Budget gives supermarkets a year to put their houses in order, otherwise legislation will force them to.

To me, this shows that simple, focused campaigns with significant media coverage, designed to help the environment, can be effective and popular.

Comic Relief and Children in Need successfully campaign against poverty and child abuse; so I hope that backing sensible measures to save energy and urgently tackle climate change, to the level the science indicates to be necessary, will not frighten anyone in the British media for much longer.

Meanwhile, our leaders need to lead and our governments to govern, while customers and voters need to demand and support efforts to save energy and tackle climate change without delay.

In the end, bringing carbon emissions down as far as we need to will require not an E-Day but an E-lifetime; and we should grasp every chance we have to spread the word and start on the small steps that will make the big challenges we all face less daunting.

Dr Matt Prescott is an environmental consultant and director of banthebulb.org, an online campaign encouraging greater energy efficiency, and founding co-ordinator of E-Day

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

Wasted fruit and vegetables add to Britain's CO2 emissions

Valerie Elliott and Jonathan Weir, The Times 8 Apr 08;

Apples are the latest symbol of the throwaway society, with 4.4 million dumped in household bins every day, or 179,000 tonnes a year - almost a third of the 600,000 tonnes bought.

The figures were released yesterday by the Government’s waste advisory body, the Waste Resources Action Programme (Wrap) as part of the campaign to tackle food waste and help to reduce the nation’s CO2 emissions from food in landfill sites.

An analysis of bin contents from 2,000 homes in 11 local authority areas has shown that a mountain of wasted fruit and vegetables is being created across Britain.

Full results of the survey are to be published next month, but its initial findings show that food waste accounts for 40 per cent of all household rubbish.

Besides apples, households are also dumping 5.1 million potatoes a day, 2.8 million tomatoes, 1.6 million bananas, and 1.2 million oranges. These were not scraps or peelings but whole items in good condition.

Wrap revealed before Christmas that about 6.7 million tonnes of food a year is dumped in bins. This represents a third of all food bought for consumption at home and is worth a total of £8 billion, or an average £400 for every household.

However, by preventing this scale of food waste about 15 million tonnes of CO2 emissions a year would be saved, the equivalent of taking one in five cars off the roads.

The organisation has also been investigating why households are wasting so much fresh food. It has found that the main reason is that people do not eat fruit and vegetables before they start to go off. The problem is being exacerbated by failure to store fresh produce properly. Consumers are being urged to buy less food and to keep most fresh fruit and vegetables in the fridge.

Liz Goodwin, Wrap chief executive, said: “These dramatic figures show that although we are all keen to do the right thing, buying plenty of fruit and vegetables, the benefit is clearly being lost when food gets thrown out untouched.”

Fruit industry experts were alarmed to hear of the scale of fresh fruit being dumped. Adrian Barlow, spokesman for English Apples and Pears, said: “I am surprised by the numbers because apples are not that sensitive. They will last up to ten days in room temperature, though admittedly their shelf life extends to two weeks if apples are kept chilled. Most bags are already labelled with information for consumers to store apples in the fridge. This retains their eating quality over a longer period and ensure the fruit does not go soft.

“I also suggest that people should buy apples in smaller quantities. You don’t need to buy a bag because you can buy apples loose everywhere. People should also take care how they handle apples because they will bruise if they are banged or dropped.”

A mixed fruit bowl as a standard adornment in a kitchen or sitting room may also be a casualty of the Wrap offensive, Mr Barlow said. “Many people don’t realise that you should never store apples next to bananas. Bananas give off a lot of ethylene gas. This causes skins to blacken and induces further maturing in other fruit. If people are going to mix fruit in a bowl, make sure it is eaten that day.”

Peter Ainsworth, Conservative spokesman for environment, food and rural affairs, said: “It is environmentally and morally offensive that as a society we have become so casual about the raw materials of life.”

Solar balloons to power remote areas?

Ari Rabinovitch, Reuters 8 Apr 08;

HAIFA, Israel (Reuters) - Giant solar energy balloons floating high in the air may be a cheap way to provide electricity to areas lacking the land and infrastructure needed for traditional power systems, researchers in Israel say.

The world is racing to find renewable energy sources to replace fossil fuels, and entrepreneurs are scrambling for a slice of a clean energy market that analysts estimate was worth nearly $150 billion last year.

Edison International's Southern California Edison utility has announced plans to build the largest photovoltaic solar system in the United States at 250 megawatts, enough for 162,000 homes.

With many of the earth's sunniest spots falling in the middle of the ocean or desert, the balloons, designed by a team from the Technion Institute of Technology, could be used to harness the sun's energy in those remote areas.

However, the application may turn out to have strictly niche appeal given the vast area available in remote locations to park solar panels on rooftops in cities, and on cheap scrub land.

"The idea is to take advantage of the height dimension. When you do that, you save a lot of land resources and can get to places otherwise hard to reach," said Pini Gurfil, the concept's developer.

The helium-filled balloons, covered with thin solar panels, hover as high as a few hundred meters in the air, and are connected via a wire cable to an inverter, which converts the electricity into a form households can use.

It will be about a year before the system is ready, Gurfil said. But initial research, both computerized and using a crude prototype, showed a balloon with a three meter (10 ft) diameter could provide about one kilowatt of energy, the same as 25 square meters (269 square feet) of traditional solar panels.

That's about enough energy for an average person to operate a washing machine and drier. While 25 square meters of traditional solar panels may cost about $10,000, the target cost of the balloon is less than $4,000, with most of the savings coming from the minimal structural support needed, Gurfil said.

"The balloons have no carbon footprint or negative impact on the environment," Gurfil said. "Helium is a naturally occurring gas and environment-friendly. The system saves land from being occupied as well as resources like glass and metal used in ground-based solar energy systems."

However, solar power installers believe the idea may have limited application, given available space on roofs and scrub land, and that the biggest single cost is not land but the solar panel, where much research is focused.

"There's 'free land' on the roofs of buildings, there's space enough for gigawatts of electricity even in cloudy Britain," said Jeremy Leggett, chairman of UK-based solar installation company Solar Century.

"There's plenty of low-value land that can be used for solar farms in the (Mediterranean) sun belt."

LEAVES OF A FLOWER

John Loughhead, executive director at the UK Energy Research Centre, said there was no reason the solar balloon system could not work, but it would be practical only in a few specific circumstances.

"I can see that there could be advantages if the ground is already being used for another purpose ... or if there were no land and the balloon was tethered to a ship at sea," Loughhead said.

The balloons, made from durable material used in meteorological balloons, are filled with helium and insulated on the inside by silicon to reduce leaks. They can stay afloat for up to a year before needing to be reinflated, Gurfil said.

They are lined with solar panels, about 0.2 mm (0.008 inches) thick, and a three-meter balloon weighs about 2.5 kg (5.5 lb).

While land-based solar panels, usually pointing only in one direction, are affected by the sun's position in the sky and can be obscured by taller structures, the balloons' circular shape ensures they always receive direct sunlight, Gurfil said.

"Mostly it's meant to be an auxiliary system, not a main power system," Gurfil said.

Since the balloons are easy to transport, require little infrastructure and can be inflated on site, the system could be used for emergency power in regions blacked out by natural disasters, he added.

Joseph Cory, the research team's architect, said the final balloons will have an aerodynamic design to cancel out the wind effect and maximize sunlight. The largest balloons could be the size of zeppelins, he said.

"The vision is that we can make as many balloons as we want in a special way, like the leaves of a flower that do not shade each other," Cory said.

(Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn; Editing by Sara Ledwith)

Shell Chief Seeks Carbon Capture Subsidies

Paul Taylor, PlanetArk 8 Apr 08;

BRUSSELS - The European Union must create rapid incentives to promote underground storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) to achieve its ambitious climate change goals, the head of oil major Royal Dutch Shell said on Monday.

"Because CO2 capture and storage adds costs and yields no revenues, government action is needed to support and stimulate investment quickly on a scale large enough to affect global emissions," Shell CEO Jeroen van der Veer said in a speech prepared for delivery in Brussels.

The quickest way to give utilities an incentive to invest in developing the technology would be to give them credits in the EU's Emissions Trading System for CO2 they capture and store, he said, according to extracts released by Shell.

The European Commission has proposed legislation to encourage carbon capture and storage (CCS), notably by helping fund the construction of a dozen demonstration plants.

But van der Veer said that could come too late to achieve the EU's goal of cutting CO2 emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 from 1990 levels.

"At the very least, companies should earn carbon credits for the CO2 they capture and store," he said.

Carbon capture and storage, designed to reduce CO2 emissions from large industrial sites such as power plants, has yet to be proven to work on an industrial scale.

The Commission's draft legislation will provide a legal and regulatory framework to make geological storage of CO2 possible.

"Yet in the absence of an accompanying transitional EU funding mechanism to incentivise private sector investment, large-scale CCS projects in Europe are likely to be delayed," van der Veer said.

Some EU lawmakers argue that energy companies should be reinvesting part of the windfall profits they have made from higher energy prices and from receiving CO2 permits free under the current ETS system to fund investment in carbon storage.

(reporting by Paul Taylor, editing by Margaret Orgill)

Spain is suffering worst drought in four decades

Spain's worst drought for a generation leaves water and comradeship in short supply
Thomas Cat'n, The Times 8 Apr 08;

Spain is suffering its worst drought in more than four decades, pitting the country's regions against each other in a fierce battle over water resources.

There has been 40 per cent less rain than usual since October 1 across the nation as a whole, according to the Meteorology Institute, although in some regions the impact has been far worse. Mediterranean regions such as Catalonia and Valencia have been the worst affected — they have had less rain than at any time since 1912.

Farmers in Catalonia fear they could lose their crops altogether if it does not rain in coming weeks, and Britons with homes on the coast could soon face restrictions on water.

The situation in Barcelona — Catalonia's capital and top tourist draw — could soon become critical. Water reserves there are at 19 per cent of capacity — they must be shut down when they reach 15 per cent because there is too much sediment near the bottom. José Montilla, president of Catalonia, said: “We must prepare for the worst.”

Meanwhile, other regions along the “green” northern edge of Spain, such as the Basque Country, have recently had to release water from their reservoirs as rivers threatened to burst their banks.

Most of the other regions along Spain's northern coast have had ample rain this year and have full reservoirs going into the summer.

Catalonia has tried to salvage matters by proposing to divert water from the River Segre to Barcelona. But Aragón, with which it shares the tributary, has steadfastly resisted the plan. Catalonia accuses its neighbour of hoarding water for unsustainable developments, such as a “European Las Vegas” with 70 hotels, five theme parks and several golf courses planned for a desert region.

Spain's central government has reminded the regions that, under the constitution, only it can authorise any changes in the course of rivers. It turned down the Segre plan, causing frictions with Catalonia's government. Joan Saura i Laporta, Catalonian home affairs minister, criticised the central government's stance as “frivolous, irresponsible and disloyal”.

Soon after taking power in 2004, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, the Prime Minister, scrapped a grand plan by José María Aznar López, his predecessor, to take water from the River Ebro to parched regions such as Valencia, Alicante, Murcia and Almería. There again, the plan was marked by ugly battles. Those in need of water accused those in the north of lacking in solidarity, while they in turn accused their coastal counterparts of wanting to water endless desert golf courses.

The Government's scrapping of the Ebro plan made it difficult for it to agree to Catalonia's plan for the Segre, albeit that was on a much smaller scale. Catalonia is now considering other options, including importing fresh water by boat from Marseille and bringing it in by train from other regions. The region is also building a seawater desalination plant that will produce the equivalent of two months' consumption each year.

Climate scientists give warning that Spain will be one of the countries worst affected by global warming. The strain on water resources is all the greater because most development is taking place along its parched, sun-baked coasts. Environmentalists also claim that at least 20 per cent of water in Spain is lost through leaking pipes.

Best of our wild blogs: 8 Apr 08

Is the Ethical Fisherman Extinct?
a distress call on the flying fish friends blog

Changi: first predawn trip in 2008
and encounters with police (lots of them) on the wildfilms blog

The lungless(!) Bornean flat-headed frog
Barbourula kalimantanensis on the The Biodiversity crew @ NUS blog

Eating Lobsters: an urban legend
Siva details the facts on the nature-singapore mailing list

Malayan Whistling Thrush: The chicks have fledged
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Spidery home visits
on the wonderful creations blog

Guest lectures at NUS
on the leafmonkey blog

World Health Day and climate change
on the habitatnews blog

Singapore's Garden City concept may be extended further to encompass ecosystems that encourage biodiversity

Attracting the birds and the bees
Business Times 8 Apr 08;

Another major area for conservation lies off Singapore's shores, in its rivers and canals. The country has lost much of its coastal mangroves, important breeding grounds for fish, and 60 per cent of its coral reefs, according to marine biologist Peter Ng of NUS.

A primary task is to bring silt levels down. Stirred up by erosion and ship movement, silt cuts the amount of light entering the water, stifling corals and seagrass.

Singapore's Garden City concept may be extended further to encompass ecosystems that encourage biodiversity, reports MATTHEW PHAN

BIODIVERSITY seldom comes to mind when one thinks of the living environment. Yet biodiversity - which refers to the number and variety of organisms in an area - merely extends Singapore's Garden City concept.

Originally conceived in 1968, the Garden City vision aimed to soften the harsh concrete landscape of the city, and create a lush, aesthetic environment to make residents and foreign investors alike feel comfortable.

Over time, it has evolved into a broad model for managing urban plant and animal life: 9 per cent of Singapore's area is dedicated to park and natural land, with four gazetted nature reserves, thanks in part to the public's calls.

But environmentalists say there is a need to push the concept further.

'The Garden City had a different set of objectives, it wasn't about biodiversity per se,' said Shawn Lum, a biologist at the National Institute of Education and volunteer with the Nature Society.

But the two are not mutually exclusive. The Garden City can be a perfect platform for creating urban ecosystems - whether animals are attracted to live in a green space depends on the landscaping and the plants used, said Dr Lum.

Parts of Singapore, such as the Botanic Gardens or the patches of mature trees around Tanglin, draw many birds, for example. But other areas, such as Bishan Park, while pretty, are 'relatively sterile in animal life', he said.

But put in fruit trees and flowering plants, and you could attract birds and butterflies. At Alexandra Hospital, for example, the gardens now host over 500 plant species, with 101 butterfly and over 60 bird species sighted.

Even though 95 per cent of Singapore's natural forest is gone, there is huge potential for biodiversity in Singapore, said Dr Lum.

This is thanks in part to its extensive park connector systems, which act as stepping stones from one patch of green to another, and help animals cross urban areas.

Singapore has some 70 km of park connectors, including a 42 km network that connects the East Coast to Changi Beach, Pasir Ris Park, and others such as Bedok Reservoir Park.

The Urban Redevelopment Authority aims to expand this to 200 km of connectors by 2012, and over 400 km in the longer term, as 'green corridors' that link the parks to homes and even the town centres, it told BT.

Gardens in the sky

Another huge potential area is in skyrise greenery, such as 'green roofs' and 'vertical greening', or planting gardens on the rooftop or down the walls, respectively.

Despite assumptions that rooftop gardens are elaborate and require special roofs to bear the weight, many modern green roof designs are lightweight and require minimal maintenance.

They do not compromise the roof's waterproofing and instead, help with drainage and temperature control, architects say.

Instead, green roofs, for which select cities such as Chicago have become well known, improve the quality of living and allow optimal land use, said the URA, which is helping to integrate balconies and sky terraces into building designs. For example, NParks promotes skyrise greenery and advises building owners on how to manage them.

It is also collaborating with the Building Construction Authority (BCA) and the National University of Singapore (NUS) to test different wall-greening systems. The project, Living Walls in HortPark, features eight walls that fit an industry-standard reinforced concrete wall measuring 6m by 4m - the equivalent of two storeys of a building.

A variety of local and overseas systems are tested to measure their environmental impacts, such as thermal and sound insulation, or impact on rainwater quality.

As for biodiversity, imagine you are a bird, looking down on a city, says Dr Lum. Any area with substantial open patches of green space - whether in a park or on top of HDB blocks, schools, factories or even along the street - could be a habitat.

Another major area for conservation lies off Singapore's shores, in its rivers and canals. The country has lost much of its coastal mangroves, important breeding grounds for fish, and 60 per cent of its coral reefs, according to marine biologist Peter Ng of NUS.

What with one of the world's busiest ports, and other coastal developments like marinas and land reclamation, 'let's not fool ourselves and say they don't impact the system, because they do', said Dr Ng.

What has changed, though, is that Singapore is far more concerned now, compared to 40 years ago, with mitigating impact.

A primary task is to bring silt levels down. Stirred up by erosion and ship movement, silt cuts the amount of light entering the water, stifling corals and seagrass.

Rather than using granite breakwaters, like in the past, Singapore aims to achieve this by redesigning the coastal landscape and reintroducing plants and corals, said Dr Ng. 'We used to think of mangroves as mosquito swamplands', he said. 'But they are useful as breakwaters, and for water containment and filtration'.

And if corals, seagrass and spunges come back, the marine facade, 'now very sterile and boring', will liven up, he said.

Fortunately, Singapore sits at the edge of the Coral Triangle, one of the richest areas in terms of marine life on the planet. 'The current brings things from A to Z here from all over the place,' said Dr Ng. 'If we have the right structures and clean water, animals will come back'.

One ongoing initiative is Singapore's first coral nursery, located off Pulau Semakau, which seeks to grow coral fragments and transplant them to strengthen existing reefs.

Similar efforts are taking place with Singapore's reservoirs and canals under the ABC Waters programme, which seeks to turn them into lush locations for water sports.

Here, too, biodiversity plays a dual purpose. Underwater plants, for example, can not only beautify a canal but also regulate water flow, improving the drainage system, according to Dr Ng.

The Sea Turtle Story of Orissa

Tehelka 8 Apr 08;

Despite an inflow of funds and much media attention, turtle mortality in Orissa has reached unprecedented proportions. More needs to be done, says BIBHUTI PATI

Turtle mortalities have skyrocketed in Orissa, making it the worst season for the turtles, in the last eight years. In the Paradip to Chilika stretch, the mortality stands at 4,495 until February 2008, a shocking 80% increase when compared to the previous seven seasons.

A crisis has emerged, even as the Government of Orissa received over Rs. 3 crores from the centre for the maintenance of its parks and sanctuaries to protect wildlife. Further, there is no sign of the patrolling necessary to curb illegal fishing, the main cause of turtle mortality.

Every year, between November and May, the coast of Orissa is home to the Olive Ridley Turtles, which arrive in thousands, congregating, feeding and breeding in the near shore waters. Thousands of these turtles then head to one of the mass-nesting beaches, at Gahirmatha, Rushikulya or Devi to lay their eggs. The cycle is complete when 40-50 days later, hatchlings emerge from these eggs and head to sea, keeping intact and alive, the story of an ecological marvel.

Orissa should be ashamed that its beaches have metamorphosed into turtle grave yards. The mortality toll has crossed 120,000 in the last 12 years, according to independent estimates. These turtles face the gravest threat is from the fishing trawlers, largely operating illegally in ‘no-fishing’ zones. Looming large are also the existing and proposed development projects and industrial activities along Orissa’s coast, that could prove to be a death knell for this species, the coastal ecosystem and the communities that depend on fisheries for their sustenance.

The issue is complex. Along with the turtles, thousands of traditional fisherfolk, who are dependent on the marine resources, find themselves in peril. Restricting fishing in certain areas has obviously affected the livelihood of thousands from the traditional fishing community, many of whom are already poverty-stricken. Fishermen from the traditional sector are already experiencing declining catches, primarily a result of over-fishing. Along with the turtles, these fishermen suffer as the near-shore waters, their traditional fishing grounds, are encroached upon by the mechanised trawling industry. If not for the protection of the turtles, patrolling the near shore waters is critical to safeguard the livelihoods of these impoverished communities.

While this decade-old conflict seems hard to resolve, there are solutions in sight. The forest and fisheries departments have always faced the problem of a lack of resources, while the absence of any compensation for the restrictions imposed on their fishing has always been a sore point with traditional fishing communities. In an attempt to look at the issue holistically, NGOs such as Greenpeace have come up with their own estimates of the budgetary resources required to resolve this issue. The estimate was for an allocation of about Rs. 2 crores to the Department of Forests (Wildlife) to ensure improved marine patrolling and turtle protection. An estimated 9 crores is also required annually for the compensation of traditional fishermen affected by fishing restrictions.
In August 2007, following a meeting between Orissa Chief secretary Ajit Kumar Tripathy and Union Environment secretary Meena Gupta, an amount of Rs. 2 crores was to be disbursed to Orissa by the Centre, specifically towards the purchase of fast patrol boats to protect the turtles.

In November 2007, the forest and environment department of the Government of Orissa received Rs. 9.17 Crores from the Centre, of which Rs. 3.18 crores was earmarked for the development of national parks and sanctuaries. Ironically, even as the critical financial roadblock to effective patrolling was overcome, turtle mortality in the current season (2007-2008) has dramatically increased. As per Greenpeace estimates, mortality has shot up by over 80% in the Paradip–Chilika region, when compared to the previous four seasons.

What has happened to the resources acquired by the state government from the Centre for turtle conservation? What are the mechanisms to ensure that these resources are utilised appropriately and optimally?

Speaking to TEHELKA, Sanjiv Gopal, Oceans Campaigner for Greenpeace India said “It is shocking that the turtle toll until February 2008 is over 4000 in the Paradip–Chilika stretch, an 80 percent increase from the average for the previous four turtle seasons. While reducing mortality to zero might not be practical, the Government of Orissa must demonstrate its commitment to protecting its turtles, by setting itself annual turtle mortality reduction targets. It must start with what is left of this turtle season. This benchmark would enable the government’s turtle protection efforts to be evaluated in an objective manner”.

On the issue of compensation for traditional fishermen, the Government of India has assured its support for alternative livelihood income generation schemes drawn up by the State Government. However, such a scheme has yet to be forwarded from the state to the Centre, an indictment of the degree of concern the state has for its fishing community. Commenting on the situation, Tapan Parida, Secretary of the Peer Jahania Traditional Fishermen’s Union from the Devi region said “It is important that the near shore waters are patrolled effectively, to protect both the turtles and our fishing grounds from the larger mechanised sector and trawlers. We are tired of waiting for the issue of our livelihoods to be addressed, either through compensation of lost income or by through alternative income generation schemes.

None of these solutions are new. As per the Orissa Marine Fisheries Regulation Act (OMFRA), near-shore waters up to 5 km from the shoreline are exclusively reserved for traditional fishers. Similarly the Central Empowered Committee, appointed by the Supreme Court, has placed no restrictions on non-motorised, non-mechanised fishing vessels at the Devi and Rushikulya nesting sites, as such fishing rarely harms turtles. Motorised boats are required to stay more than 5 kms from the shore near the Devi and Rushikulya nesting sites, while trawlers are to stay 20 km from the shore. If implemented, the 5 km near-shore waters would be exclusively preserved for the smallest, poorest fishermen, while the waters between 5 and 20 km. would be available for non-trawl motorised vessels.
Biswajit Mohanty, Secretary of Wildlife Society of Orissa and Coordinator of Operation Kachhapa, who has been following the issue for over a decade, said, “The legislative frameworks exists and resources are available. The Government of Orissa is running out of excuses and they continue to fail abjectly in their responsibility to protect Orissa’s turtles. The question is simple – does the state government value Orissa’s turtles enough?”

If the answer is yes, it has no excuse not to act. Against this grim background, a sliver of hope remains with the recent arribada at Rushikulya in the beginning of March this year, a hope that these turtles will continue to congregate in these waters.

Reef fish face extinction as many end up on dinner tables

Tan Cheng Li, The Star 8 Apr 08;

The Asian craving for a particular reef fish is emptying our seas.

HUNDREDS of fish cages bob up and down in the waters of Marudu Bay, off Kudat in Sabah. In these cages are sought-after marine delicacies such as groupers, lobsters and crabs, as well as a staggering number of humphead wrasses.

From the massive number of humpheads holed up in the floating pens, it is impossible to tell that this is a fish species classed as “endangered” by the IUCN-World Conservation Union and whose trade is governed by the Convention on Trade in Endangered Species (Cites).

In Kudat, like in the Sabahan coastal towns of Tawau, Sandakan and Lahad Datu, fishermen continue to haul in humpheads (Cheilinus undulatus). Several times a week, these fish and the popular groupers, are bundled alive into air-filled plastic bags which are then packed into polystyrene boxes, transported to Kota Kinabalu, and sent on the evening flight to Hong Kong or Singapore. It is a time-perfected technique which gets seafood, alive and swimming, into restaurants.

Sabah exported 27,000 tails of humphead last year – an alarming figure since scientists believe wild humphead stocks in Sabah waters are almost exhausted and aggressive fishing can only doom the species.

Once a normal table fish, humpheads (or su mei) somehow acquired a luxury tag in the early 1990s. Those who want to flaunt their wealth and success would indulge in this pricey fish in restaurants in Hong Kong, Singapore, China and Malaysia. What used to sell for RM30 a kg in 1980 now goes for RM250 to RM300 a kg. Soon a scramble for the fish ensued.

Before long, fears of over-fishing pushed humpheads onto Appendix II of Cites in October 2004 – the first coral reef fish to be listed. Everyone thought all would be well since trade would now be controlled through import and export permits.

On the contrary, the Cites listing has done little for humpheads in Sabah as trade quotas remain high. Many are stumped by the export ration set by Sabah Fisheries Department last February – a monthly 200 tails for each of the 19 exporters. This works out to 45,600 tails annually, a figure deemed excessive by many, considering that it is five times Indonesia’s annual quota of 8,900 tails.

“There is concern over how the export quota was set as the amount of humphead wrasse exported last year is even higher than that before the Cites listing,” says Maritime Institute of Malaysia (MIMA) senior researcher Tan Kim Hooi, who has written a policy document on humphead wrasse fisheries.

Doubts also arose over the scientific rationale behind the quota. A Cites Appendix II listing requires a non-detrimental finding (NDF) study to determine that trade will not threaten survival of the species. This study is only now being done.

Sabah Fisheries, World Wide Fund for Nature and wildlife trade monitoring body, Traffic, are assessing wild humphead populations in Pulau Lankayan, Kudat and Semporna. They are expected to recommend a new export quota when the present one expires in June.

Dwindling stocks

There are already signs that Asians’ taste for steamed su mei is depleting wild stocks.

“Sabah’s export of the high-value fish last year, although high, was just over half of the allowable quota. This can mean two things – either humphead populations are not really that big or the species has been over-fished,” says Tan.

Also, Sabahan fishermen and traders all tell the same tale about the fish they call mameng: the catch has dropped as have fish sizes, when compared to the 90s.

“Ten years ago, I can get several fish of 10kg to 15kg in a week. Now, not even one in a month,” says Kudat fish trader Wong Sin Hin. Today, the harvest is mostly juvenile fish which have to be fattened up in pens over three months or more, to reach the preferred plate size of 500g to 1kg (about 30-40cm in length) before shipment.

Marine scientist Dr Steve Oakley warns that netting young fish before they have had a chance to breed will curtail future stocks of the species. Insisting on size restrictions for humphead harvests, he says breeding adult fish should be left in the sea. Better yet, he adds, humphead fisheries should be closed until it can be proven sustainable.

Oakley, whose group the Tropical Research And Conservation Centre (Tracc) has surveyed reefs in Sabah and Sarawak, believes humpheads are locally extinct over most of the South China Sea. Viable breeding populations exist in two islands protected by dive tourism: Sipadan and Layang-Layang. Another healthy group exists off Brunei – but only because it is within the Champion oil field, a protected “no fishing” zone. Tracc surveys of Layang-Layang between 1996 and 2002 found a big humphead population of 300 females, 21 males and 100 sub-adults. However, the fish were not seen last year. The reason, Oakley fears, could be because a Chinese vessel was allowed to fish there.

For now, Sabah’s humphead catch figures remain impressive only because stocks are coming from the Philippines, which does not trade in the fish. Traders and fishermen in Kudat attest to this and the fact that Filipino fishers use cyanide to stun the fish, a destructive fishing method that can kill them as well as harm other marine life and the fragile coral reef habitat.

Lax enforcement, together with difficulties in patrolling Sabah’s 1,600km of coastline and extensive fishing area of 51,360 sq km, share the blame for the prevalent fish smuggling.

As humpheads from foreign waters are traded as Sabah’s, Tan of Mima says a generous export quota will deplete humphead stocks not only in Malaysian waters, but also in Indonesia and the Philippines. Already, high demand and lucrative prices have fuelled poaching.

In December 2006, a Chinese vessel was detained at Tubbataha Marine Park in Palawan, the Philippines, with 800 live fish onboard, including 300 humpheads. In the same year, the Bunaken Marine Park in northern Sulawesi saw three cases of poaching involving 207, 450 and 36 humpheads.

Indonesia had set an annual export of 8,000 tails in 2005 but revised it to 8,900 tails last year, and only allows harvest from specified areas, namely Papua, Maluku and Nusa Tenggara.

Over-dining

But high exports of humpheads is not the only concern. Equally worrying is their being eaten in large numbers in local restaurants. Chinese and Hong Kong tourists to Sabah routinely feast on su mei as it is cheaper than back home.

Cites, however, only regulates international trade of wildlife. At the airport in Kota Kinabalu, frozen humpheads are going for RM75 a kg. The sales personnel look puzzled when asked about the need for Cites permits.

To curb local consumption, Oakley wants national and state rules tightened to bar humphead fishing and give it the protected status that it needs.

“Humpheads are even more endangered than orang utans because there are more orang utans in Sabah forests than humpheads in its waters. But you can still eat the fish in a KK (Kota Kinabalu) restaurant. We are decimating this species for a poor reason ... merely to put a fish on the table.”

He adds that humpheads, being a major draw of the dive industry in Seychelles and Maldives, are totally protected there. “Malaysia needs to realise that tourists bring in more money than selling the last few humpheads would.”

Apart from harvest restrains, marine sanctuaries can further raise hope for humpheads. “With these protected areas, you will guard the habitat not only for humpheads but for other marine species too,” says WWF marine scientist Dr Annadel Salvio Cabanban.

She says the recent survey of Pulau Lankayan off Sandakan, a popular dive destination, uncovered 23 juvenile humpheads, with the largest one measuring 25cm. “With long-term protection of Lankayan, we might get a breeding population there in 20 years’ time.” And because humphead larvae travel with ocean currents, Cabanban says those produced in other protected areas might reach our waters. So she is hopeful for the species if more such sites are found.

Protection efforts should also not ignore seagrass beds and mangroves as both are important habitats for humpheads, serving as nursery ground for many reef fish. It is also crucial to safeguard the humphead’s breeding grounds. Humpheads display aggregate spawning behaviour by gathering at specific sites to breed. Fishermen can target such sites, so Mima researcher Siti Nazatul Izura Mohd Ishak recommends that they be documented and managed, such as by having a closed season during spawning period.

To safeguard humphead trade, Sabah Fisheries has held several workshops to inform traders about the risks of over-fishing and Cites requirements. Come July, a new – and most likely lower – export quota is expected. But are there enough humpheads left in the wild to repopulate our reefs? In the end, the fate of this fish hangs on just one simple gesture from people – don’t order su mei for dinner.

Balam Road residents get their footpath back, with new eco-friendly features

Green again
Nazry Bahrawi, Today Online 8 Apr 08;

THEIR scenic footpath along Pelton Canal was removed because of the construction of the Circle Line, but residents at Balam Road can now look forward to something more — Singapore's first eco-garden.

Construction on this pilot project will begin later this year, Dr Fatimah Lateef, MP for Marine Parade GRC, said yesterday.

"It will have mechanisms that trap rainwater which will later be redirected to nourish plants in that area during hot periods," Dr Fatimah told reporters, adding that the scenic path would be reinstated, along with a new cycling track.

Another feature: "Resilient" plants that will trap debris during rain, thereby releasing dirt-free water into the canal, said a spokesperson from the Marine Parade Town Council.

The Pelton Canal reconstruction is a multi-agency effort involving not just the Marine Parade Town Council, but also the Housing Development Board, the Public Utilities Board, the National Parks Board, and the Geylang Serai grassroots division.

The idea for an eco-garden was based on feedback that grassroots leaders had gathered from residents during MP meet-the-people sessions, house-to-house visits and community events.

According to Ms Jessie Foo, Balam Road's Residents Committee chairman in charge of gathering feedback, more than 80 per cent of the residents she approached in January told her they wanted a cleaner canal.

The transformation of Geylang Serai is not just physical, but also people-centric.

According to Dr Fatimah, there are plans to launch a Local Elderly Network by next year with programmes such as massage and music therapies. The elderly forms about a fifth of the nearly 39,000 residents in Geylang Serai, said Dr Fatimah.

Other unique community outreach programmes in the constituency include the Grassroots Resource Network, which connects grassroots leaders to their retired predecessors and other professionals, as well as the Psychology Outreach Programme, which helps mentally-ill residents.

Mini pavement gardening brings Seletar Hills West residents together

FRIENDSHIP in this estate is BLOOMING
Genevieve Jiang, New Paper 8 Apr 08;

SHE did not know any of her neighbours, but that did not stop Mrs Chew Swee Liang from going door to door trying to convince them to transform the drab, grey pavements outside their homes into blooming gardens.

The 72-year-old retired physiotherapist gathered more than 170 signatures of support from residents living along Mimosa Crescent, where she lives, and the nearby Nim Road and Neram Crescent in the Seletar Hills West estate.

That was three years ago.

Today, the estate - made up mostly of bungalows - boasts colourful roadside gardens.

And the residents have not just beautified the neighbourhood, they have found friends.

Mrs Chew said: 'I have lived here for close to 11 years, and only said 'Hi' and 'Bye' to my next-door neighbour.

'It wasn't until three years ago, when this project was started, that residents along the entire road started to interact.

'And today, we're a community of best friends.'

The project started in June 2005 after Mrs Chew was inspired by reports about the Mayfair Park estate, where residents had been growing vegetables on a small plot of land.

The cracked pavements outside her home also spurred her into action.

Mrs Chew said: 'I found the cracked pavements a bit of an eyesore and thought, when the authorities start repairing them, why not create some space for mini pavement gardens at the same time?'

AUTHORITIES LEND A HAND

So she met with her Member of Parliament, Dr Balaji Sadasivan, and sought the approval of the Seletar Hills West Neighbourhood Committee.

She called The National Parks Board (NParks), and it advised her to seek the approval of her neighbours.

She distributed fliers. But at the start, only three residents responded.

So she went door to door and managed to convince more than 30 households along Mimosa Crescent to agree.

Mrs Chew also liaised with the Land Transport Authority to allow sunken plots called 'planters', measuring 1m-by-4m, on the pavements.

NParks then spread topsoil over the plots.

The residents went to work, and five months later, slabs of grey concrete were replaced by lush greenery and bright flowers.

That same year, Mrs Chew and her neighbours took part in the NParks' inaugural Community In Bloom (CIB) Awards, where prizes were given to estates and schools with the best gardens.

They were awarded a certificate of accomplishment.

After that, Mrs Chew and her neighbours roped in more residents at Nim Road and Neram Crescent.

The project has since snowballed.

Today, four roads - more than 170 households - are involved in the project.

In 2006, the group came in second in the CIB awards. Last year, they clinched two golds and a bronze at the NParks' Gardener's Pride contest.

They have even extended their gardening efforts to the nearby Mimosa Park. And now, Mrs Chew hopes to spread the gardening bug to all 35 roads throughout Seletar Hills West.

Over the past three years, the residents' shared passion for gardening has also allowed their 'kampung spirit' to blossom.

Mrs Louisa Ng, a retiree in her 60s, who has been living along Saraca Road for 17 years, said: 'In the past three years, we've grown so close that we have meals together and exercise together almost every other day.'

And it is common for neighbours to visit each other whenever one of them falls ill.

When Mrs Ng's granddaughter sprained her ankle last year, Mrs Chew helped massage the girl and gave her tips on how to get better.

Another resident, Mrs Rena Li, 62, who runs her own business, said: 'A few days ago, my mother-in-law fell and had a bump on her head.

'I immediately called Mrs Chew for advice on how to bring down the swelling.

'It is true that in times of emergency, your neighbours are more important than your relatives. I have no doubt that my neighbours will stand by me when I need help.'

Alexandra Hospital's winged beauties

Matthew Phan, Business Times 8 Apr 08;

IT'S a magical place where photographers gather at weekends to snap some of Singapore's rarest and most beautiful creatures.

The butterfly trail at Alexandra Hospital is Singapore's biggest open-concept butterfly garden, with more than 100 different species sighted. They include the Common Birdwing, a bright yellow and black butterfly with a wingspan of over 15 cm, which the hospital has contributed to the Istana and the Botanic Gardens.

Unlike at Sentosa there are no nets at Alexandra Hospital to keep the butterflies in - they are free to come and go as they wish.

The trick to keeping them around, says caretaker Rosalind Tan, who was chief occupational therapist at the hospital before she retired two years ago, is to grow the right plants.

The Common Birdwing, for example, may have arrived from Malaysia, flitting from green space to green space until it found the gardens from their scent, she says.

Alexandra Hospital's gardens, which collectively stretch over the size of two football fields, have at least 500 species of trees and shrubs, including some 200 butterfly shrubs. The latter are fruit trees or flowering plants that mature butterflies obtain nectar from and hosts where they lay eggs.

Each species of butterfly may feed from several plants, but its caterpillar will eat only one particular host plant, says Ms Tan. Many of these are common fruit trees such as mango, guava or banana, but there are also several weeds, such as the common snakeweed, tyler flora and stinking passion flower.

'You couldn't buy them from a nursery if you wanted to,' says Ms Tan, who obtained plant samples from the forest or from friends and cultivated them in her own garden before transplanting them in the hospital grounds.

Other plants are brought by birds, such as the mistletoe, which grows on trees but not on the ground. It hosts the Painted Jezebel, a pretty white-yellow-and-red winged butterfly that 'just appeared', she says.

Alexandra Hospital started the garden in 2002 when it decided to plant shrubs along a big drain at the edge of the hospital grounds, a 'no man's land' at the time.

Today, caterpillar host plants are grown near the drain so patients do not see them, while the flowering plants are kept nearer the hospital so butterflies flit to the peopled areas.

Ms Tan is also working with conservation biologist Ho Hua Chew to design wetlands and grasslands at the back of the hospital, to attract birds. Some 60-plus bird species have already been sighted and she is aiming for more than 100.

But her consultants on the butterfly garden were simply amateur enthusiasts, such as the Butterfly Circle, and books, she says.

Jurong 'Lake District' should be eco-friendly

Letter from Poh Wei Leong, Straits Times Forum 8 Apr 08;

I REFER to last Saturday's article, 'Jurong's massive make-over', in which Jurong is slated to be developed into a regional business hub, to be dubbed 'Jurong Lake District'.

I applaud the Government for yet another effort to decentralise business centres so commuting time will be reduced. At the same time, I appeal to the planning authorities to use this opportunity to infuse sustainable concepts into this project.

We hear of Singapore co-operating with China to build eco-cities. And we know many landscape and architectural planners no longer have the criterion of aesthetics as their key focus. Designing a city that is liveable, lively and 'alive', so it can exist sustainably by adopting environment-friendly eco-principles, is now a calling for these planners.

We have seen the price of oil rocket. And we have read how consumers' tastes in public projects have changed to allow projects that are socially and environmentally responsible. Many would thus agree that cost savings will be higher if the Jurong Lake District is intelligently designed from the beginning to be sustainable, rather than introducing corrective measures when pressure to do so, for what-ever reason, is applied.

Let's walk the talk about building eco-cities here. No doubt it is a huge challenge, but if planners cannot do it now, then they won't know how to do it in the near future - when sustainability becomes an absolute necessity.

Meat the culprit in food shortage

Letter from George Jacobs, President, Vegetarian Society (Singapore)
Straits Times Forum 8 Apr 08;

I REFER to Saturday's special report, 'Food shortage causes world eating disorder'. The current food shortage results from a complex combination of causes, and meat production is one of them.

Currently, we 6.6 billion humans eat more than 50 billion of our fellow land animals annually. These other animals consume more food than the entire human population, not to mention the inputs of water, pesticides and energy involved in meat production or the huge quantity of waste products, including greenhouse gases that these creatures produce during their unnatural and short lives.

Meat eating is indeed grossly wasteful of the crops we grow and of the resources required to grow those crops. For instance, more than 10kg of plant food is required to produce just 1kg of beef. Thus, a readily available way to address our current food shortage is to reduce our meat consumption or stop eating meat entirely. Of course, this would not address the chronic food shortage in poor countries that about 800 million of our fellow humans face due to poverty.

The bright side to inflation

Letter from Chen Weiling, Straits Times 8 Apr 08;

INSPIRED by the Saturday Special Report on inflation and food consumption, I would like to propose an alternative angle we could view the situation from. While I empathise with the low-income group struggling to make a decent meal out of what they earn, inflation could well be good for most middle-income Singaporeans.

Most families are first cutting down on luxury food items such as potato chips and pizza. Some are substituting more expensive meat dishes with tofu and vegetables, while eating out less often. Coincidentally, these moves are helping to promote healthier diets of less oil, salt, preservatives and red meat, as well as leading people to healthier options such as vegetables.

Some are cutting down on luxury activities like watching movies and travelling; some terminate their cable television subscriptions. Many have started buying more local brand goods instead of imported products/services.

Instead of unwillingly sacrificing our chips and cable TV programmes, perhaps Singaporeans can be a happier lot by seeing the silver lining behind inflation: healthier diets, more quality time with our families, supporting local enterprises and developing a greater appreciation of the simpler things in life.

Study shows person-to-person bird flu transmission in China

Channel NewsAsia 8 Apr 08;

PARIS: A 24-year-old man in China probably infected his father with the H5N1 strain of bird flu before dying, renewing concerns that the disease could one day spread easily among humans, according to a study released on Tuesday.

The case is one of a handful over the last four years in which the H5N1 virus is suspected to have spread from one person to another, according to lead researcher Yu Wang of the Chinese Centre for Disease Control.

To date, however, all such cases have been what scientists call "limited, non-sustained, person-to-person transmission," meaning that contagion only occurs under very specific circumstances.

The vast majority of the known 378 human cases of H5N1 bird flu since 2003 were spread by domestic or wild fowl, according to the World Health Organisation. More than 60 percent proved fatal.

"It is not normal social contact that has led to the human transmission," epidemiologist Jeremy Farrar, a researcher at the national Institute of Hygiene and Epidemiology, told AFP in an interview.

"In this case it took extensive exposure to secretions of somebody who was very sick in hospital," he explained.

Another limiting factor may be genetic, the study found. The suspected cases of human-to-human transmission have all been "within the family, among blood relatives", said Farrar.

None of the 91 persons besides the father who came into contact with his son before he died showed any sign of infection, said the study, published in the British medical weekly The Lancet.

Nor was there any significant genetic variation between the viral strain in the father or the son.

Experts fear that the H5N1 virus could mutate after infecting one human into a more contagious form, as occurred during at least three flu pandemics in the 20th century.

An estimated 20 to 40 million people perished in the so-called "Spanish flu" of 1918.

Any new clusters of the virus "require urgent investigation because of the possibility that a change in the epidemiology of H5N1 cases could indicate that H5N1 viruses have acquired the ability to spread more easily among people", said Wang.

The two cases examined in the study were identified in December in the city of Nanjing, in China's Jiangsu Province.

Since 2003, there have been 107 H5N1 bird flu fatalities in Indonesia, 52 in Vietnam, 20 in China, 17 in Thailand, and between one and seven in seven other nations. AFP/so

Father 'caught bird flu from son'
BBC News 8 Apr 08;

Tests on a father diagnosed with bird flu in China show he probably caught the disease from his dying son.

Scientists are concerned that if the virus evolves to pass easily from human to human millions could be at risk.

A genetic analysis of the Chinese case published in The Lancet found no evidence to suggest the virus had gained that ability.

But an expert has warned that failure to control outbreaks of disease in poultry is fuelling the risk to humans.

Writing in The Lancet, Dr Jeremy Farrar, of Vietnam's Hospital for Tropical Diseases, said: "Whatever the underlying determinants, if we continue to experience widespread, uncontrolled outbreaks of H5N1 in poultry, the appearance of strains well adapted to human beings might just be matter of time."

However, he said a pandemic was by no means a "biological inevitability".

So far 376 cases of human infection with the H5N1 form of bird flu have been recorded in 14 countries since November 2003, mostly in South East Asia.

There have been 238 recorded deaths from the virus, of which a quarter have come in clusters of two or more linked people.

At present H5N1 remains overwhelmingly a disease which affects birds, and the only humans at risk appear to be those with regular close contact with infected animals.

But the researchers, from the Chinese Centre for Disease Control and Prevention, warn that clusters of H5N1 human infections require close scrutiny to determine whether the virus is starting to evolve into a more potent threat.

Father survived

The Lancet study highlights the case of a 24-year-old man, from Nanjing, in Jiangsu Province, who died from bird flu.

It is thought he passed the disease on to his 52-year-old father, who survived after receiving prompt medical attention, including anti-viral treatment, and plasma cells from somebody who had been vaccinated against the disease.

It is believed the son caught the disease during a visit to a poultry market six days before he became ill.

Medics also tested 91 people who had come into contact with the infected men, but none of those had contracted H5N1.

The researchers say the possibility that the father caught the disease independently cannot be completely ruled out, but think it unlikely.

Other cases of suspected human-to-human transmission have also been between blood relations.

This may be because related individuals share a genetic susceptibility to infection.

Professor Ian Jones, an expert in virology at the University of Reading, said the fact that the father was the only person to be infected was encouraging.

"The virus isolated had no changes to indicate adaptation to human infection," he said.

"There is no indication from this data that we are any nearer a pandemic."

Professor Wendy Barclay, of Imperial College London, agreed there was no evidence to support the idea that H5N1 had acquired mutations that make it more dangerous to humans.

"The experience here reinforces the idea that there are still several barriers the virus must overcome before it acquires human transmissibility."

Cheaper, faster dengue test kits on the way in Singapore

Labs to get NS1 kits, in hope that it will give dengue busters more time to act
Salma Khalik, Straits Times 7 Apr 08;

SINGAPORE is stepping up its fight against dengue with cheaper, faster test kits to be used on those suspected to be down with the fever.

Faster diagnoses mean faster information, so mosquito-busting teams can act earlier.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) hopes that the 15,000 NS1 kits it will issue to six laboratories by June for general practitioners' use will turn the tide against the disease.

An NS1 test kit can process blood samples from patients who have just fallen sick, while the cheaper of the two existing test kits is effective only five days after the onset of a fever, too late for teams to act on mosquito breeding sites.

There is another test on the market which is good, but costs $175 and is not used as often.

To popularise the use of NS1, the NEA will subsidise 60 per cent of the roughly $30 cost of each test.

A fast-acting test kit is crucial as it takes a mosquito about a week after biting an infected person to have enough of the virus to pass on to others.

This gives the NEA a one-week window to destroy the mosquitoes in an area where people have fallen ill. The earlier it knows where infections have occurred, the more time it has to act.

Singapore's war on dengue will be watched. An article in the World Health Organisation (WHO) Bulletin in February, praising the efforts made here to contain the scourge, said: 'Singapore has been a world leader in Aedes control for decades. Yet, if Singapore is unable to interrupt dengue transmission, it will likely be difficult for other endemic communities to do so.'

Dengue infections have been on the up worldwide, with about 50 million people stricken with it each year. The illness is now endemic in over 100 countries.

The WHO said that urbanisation, which concentrates people in cities, and widespread travel have helped to spread the four dengue viral strains.

Singapore is the only country with 'real-time' tracking of every person infected with dengue, every breeding spot, the dominant mosquito type and the virus in play in different areas.

A national task force - with members from over 20 agencies, including town councils - meets monthly to coordinate the fight against dengue.

The moves taken include islandwide sweeps of all housing estates, monthly checks of all construction sites and working with estate agents to ensure that buildings left empty by collective sales do not become breeding sites for mosquitoes.

Despite the publicity on the dangers of allowing mosquitoes to breed, more than 5,000 homes were fined for the offence last year.

To send a stronger message, the fine was doubled from $100 to $200 last Tuesday. Construction sites found breeding mosquitoes are fined $2,000 the first time, with higher subsequent fines.

Penalties are even higher if people living near these sites come down with dengue. When that happens, the sites are given stop-work orders, which stay in force until the place is cleaned up and given the nod by the NEA's Environmental Health Institute (EHI).

Last year, 44 worksites were told to stop work. This year, three have been given the order so far.

World rice stockpiles are at their lowest levels since the 1980s

Rising prices threaten supplies
Business Times 8 Apr 08;

(LONDON) From Cairo to New Delhi to Shanghai, the run on rice is threatening to disrupt worldwide food supplies as much as the scarcity of confidence on Wall Street earlier this year roiled credit markets.

China, Egypt, Vietnam and India, representing more than a third of global rice exports, curbed sales this year, and Indonesia says it may do the same.

Investigators in the Philippines, the world's biggest importer, raided warehouses last month to crack down on hoarding. The World Bank in Washington says 33 nations from Mexico to Yemen may face 'social unrest' after food and energy costs increased for six straight years.

Rice, the staple food for half the world, rose 2 per cent to a record US$20.910 per 100 pounds in Chicago yesterday, double the price a year ago and a five-fold increase from 2001. It may reach US$22 by November, said Dennis DeLaughter, owner of Progressive Farm Marketing in Edna, Texas.

'Rice will gain substantially over the next two years,' said Roland Jansen, chief executive officer of Pfaffikon, Switzerland- based Mother Earth Investments AG, which holds 4 per cent of its US$100 million funds in the grain.

Governments will likely maintain curbs on exports 'because those countries want to be able to continue to feed their own populations', he said.

The upheaval parallels turmoil in global capital markets that seized up nine months ago when sub- prime mortgages collapsed.

The difference between what it costs the US government to borrow and the rate banks charge each other for three month loans ended last week at 1.36 percentage points. A year ago the gap was 0.33 percentage point.

Rice-growing nations are driving up prices for producers that want to sell abroad. The Vietnam Food Association said on April 2 it asked members to stop signing export contracts through June, following China, which imposed a 5 per cent tax on exports as of Jan 1. Egypt banned rice shipments through October.

Prices 'are not coming back to the levels we came from', said Mamadou Ciss, head of Singapore-based rice broker Hermes Investments Pte Ltd. Vietnam's 5 per cent broken-grain rice may be 40 per cent higher within three months, he said.

Record grain prices are stoking inflation. Wholesale costs in India rose 7 per cent in the week ended March 22, the fastest pace in more than three years, underscoring the threat from rising food costs, the Ministry of Commerce and Industry in New Delhi said on April 4.

The increase may boost profits for suppliers. Padiberas Nasional Bhd rose the most in seven years in Kuala Lumpur stock exchange trading last week. The company is Malaysia's only licensed rice supplier.

Goldman Sachs Group Inc forecasts that all agricultural commodities it covers will rise during the next six months, except for sugar. Global cereal demand will expand 2.6 per cent this year, 1.6 percentage points above the 10-year average, according to the Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome.

The UBS Bloomberg Constant Maturity Commodity Index of 26 raw materials gained for six consecutive years and advanced 15 per cent this year.

'We have some very serious problems developing globally for food and energy,' said Greg Smith, executive director of Global Commodities Ltd in Adelaide, Australia, which manages US$350 million. World rice stockpiles are at their lowest levels since the 1980s, and the United Nations forecasts that exports will drop 3.5 per cent this year. -- Bloomberg

Rising food prices a clear and present danger for Asia

Straits Times 8 Apr 08;

Economist warns: If left unchecked, inflation could lead to series of problems
TOKYO - FORGET Bear Stearns. Ignore what Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and United States Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson are up to. Take your attention away from which hedge fund is about to blow up. Think about rice.

The price increase of rice - the staple food for about three billion people - to a record last week is the real crisis in the fastest-growing region.

That's not all. 'Food is just the tip of the iceberg,' says Mr Ifzal Ali, chief economist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila. 'We see signs of overheating emerging everywhere in Asia.'

There are two other forces behind Asia's inflation surge, both of which have been building for years. One is asset-price gains that have their roots in low-interest-rate policies from Washington to Tokyo. The other is wages as Asians command higher pay and companies encounter skilled-labour shortages.

It's a kind of horror scenario. Yet what is most noteworthy about it is how surprised many investors and economists are.

Given how the Bank of Japan and the US Federal Reserve have trimmed interest rates over a number of years, these price trends were predictable.

Ditto for Asia's build-up of currency reserves, which are seeping into the money supply.

Also, given Asia's rapid growth, it stands to reason that wages would be rising. The ADB says Asian inflation may reach the highest in a decade this year.

What may surprise many is how rising food prices are less of a cyclical phenomenon than a secular one. For economists like Mr Ali, who have been warning about this for years, it is disheartening to see so little focus on increasing investments in agriculture techniques and technologies.

'The party with high growth and low inflation, the age of innocence, is over,' Mr Ali says. 'Governments now need to buckle down if they are to be able to fly higher again in the future. If this trend isn't arrested and reversed, it could well lead to the end of poverty reduction in Asia.'

Strong words, indeed. And yet, today's bout with inflation could markedly set back a region that has spent 10 years recovering from the Asian crisis. Central banks will have little choice but to raise interest rates, a dynamic that would slow growth and hurt equity markets.

Governments are in for a rougher time. The rise in commodities since the start of the decade has been largely masked by subsidies and export controls. That is becoming too expensive now as prices soar and leaders have a grim choice to make: vastly increase debt levels or let the public bear the brunt.

Food costs alone are a clear and present danger. In many Asian countries, Mr Ali says, food and edible oils account for 60 per cent of the consumer price index (CPI). Even before recent increases, Asian families on average shelled out 50 per cent of income on food. That portion is rising now.

Economists in the US and Europe often focus on 'core' inflation, which excludes food and energy. That's impossible in developing Asian economies. Looking at core CPI only masks what Mr Ali calls a 'pauperising effect' knocking back hard-won gains in living standards.

And then there are what he calls 'speed bumps to growth' that are fuelling inflation. Big increases in prices of everything from cement to steel will complicate Asia's need to improve roads, bridges, ports and telecommunications. It is an odd twist of fate that in improving infrastructure to restrain inflation, all that building activity could further fuel it.

'This inflation issue has a direct impact on basic well-being,' Mr Ali says. 'That's why it is so politically and socially explosive.'

BLOOMBERG NEWS

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