Georgia Aquarium flips for a new exhibit — dolphins

Mark Davis, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 6 May 08;

The Georgia Aquarium, never a small place, is about to get bigger.

Starting this summer, and for the next two years, crews will be at the downtown fishtank, adding a salt-water wing where its newest residents will splash and roll.

Those residents? Dolphins. Aquarium officials say they will build a $110 million dolphin exhibit where people can watch the creatures — swim with them, too.

The addition should open in November 2010, five years after the world's largest aquarium debuted to standing-room-only crowds.

"This has always been in our plans," said aquarium founder Bernie Marcus, who announced the expansion Tuesday amid a shower of silver confetti. "Keeping the aquarium fresh is very, very important to us."

The aquarium also announced a $1.5 million gift to help build a marine animal rescue, care and research facility near Marineland, outside St. Augustine. Marcus held up a surfboard-sized check to underscore the donation.

The dolphin exhibit will add two football fields' worth of space to the aquarium, which already encompasses more than a half-million square feet. The unnamed exhibit will comprise 84,000 square feet — a 30-home subdivision, more or less.

The wing will contain 1.3 million gallons of water. Artist depictions show a multi-storied building dotted with skylights, following Luckie Street's curve near the western edge of Centennial Olympic Park. Coca-Cola donated the land, officials said.

That should be enough space for a dozen or more Tursiops truncatus, the bottlenose dolphin. The exhibit will open with four, coming from the Dolphin Conservation Center at Marineland. The Florida facility will be a partner in dolphin research and breeding, according to officials from both facilities.

"The dolphins are all excited, especially the lucky ones going to Atlanta," said Marineland owner Jim Jacoby, who spoke from the Florida park in a simulcast appearance. In a holding pen behind him, a dorsal fin rose in a long, leisurely arc. It looked like a gray knife slicing blue paper.

The dolphins' arrival signals the departure of another warm-blooded species. A handful of sea lions, whose yelps echo outside the aquarium, will be sent to other facilities, officials said. The dolphin exhibit will be built on the site where the sea lions now bask and dive.

The dolphins also will be joining other cetaceans at the aquarium. The fishtank is home to Cold Water Quest, where three beluga whales twist in chilled waters.

Adding dolphins to the aquarium's mix of creatures — they range from whale sharks the size of speedboats to sea urchins that could ride in toy boats— is part of a long-range "wow" plan, Marcus said.

"This is the largest ... and best aquarium in the world," he said. "We think this will be a great addition to the aquarium."

Courtney Vail, a U.S. campaign officer for the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, disagreed.

"I'm very disappointed with the Georgia Aquarium, but I can't say I'm surprised, said Vail, a biologist. "Dolphins are money-makers."

'Wonderful show'

Dolphins, according to a 2005 poll, are a hit. Four in 10 adult aquarium-goers named them their favorite swimming display, said Marilee Menard, executive director of the Alliance of Marine Mammal Parks and Aquariums. The association's members, whose ranks include the Georgia Aquarium, account for nearly all the dolphins in captivity in America — almost 400, from Florida to California. More than 25 U.S. facilities have them on display.

"They are very charismatic animals,:" said Menard. "People love them."

They're also protected by federal law. The Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972 statute forbids their capture from national waters without a permit.

Worldwide, some species of dolphin are in trouble. The Red List, an international inventory of how well some creatures are faring, considers the Ganges River dolphin endangered, for example. The list does not address bottlenose dolphins' status in the wild.

Bottlenose dolphins should not be put on display, nor should people be allowed to swim with them, said former dolphin trainer Russ Rector. A resident of Fort Lauderdale, he is a fierce, frequent critic of marine mammal displays.

"If God had wanted dolphins in Atlanta, they'd be there, dude," said Rector. "They'll [aquarium] kill an animal quickly."

The aquarium has cetacean experts, and will add more to tend to the dolphin display, said Jeff Swanagan, the aquarium's president and executive director.

The display also will add to the appeal of downtown, said Spurgeon Richardson, president of the Atlanta Convention and Visitors Bureau.

"It will give people a major, huge reason to come back to the Georgia Aquarium," said Richardson, on hand for the announcement. "This is not a small thing."

Nothing about the aquarium is small, said Marcus, a cofounder of Home Depot. He bankrolled a quarter-billion dollars on the aquarium, transforming an under-used tract near Marietta Street into a display that has hosted more than 7 million visitors. The dolphins, he said, should continue bolstering attendance figures.

The aquarium will let people swim with the cetaceans, just as it does with Swim With the Gentle Giants, a program in which people can paddle alongside whale sharks. That initiative debuted earlier this year.

"I think it will be exciting," said Marcus. "I think it will be a wonderful show."

==

By the numbers:

Square footage: 84,000

Cost: $110 million

Volume:1.3 million gallons. This raise the aquarium total to 9.5 million gallons.

Location: Luckie Street

Estimated opening: November 2010

Cost: General admission ($xx, currently) allows you to see the dolphins. A dolphin show, for which the price has not been set, would be extra through an all-aquarium pass.

Dolphin encounters: The aquarium also will offer a swim-with-the-dolphins program; the price has not been set.

Number of visitors to date: 7.25 million

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Cod fall may speed 'toxic tide'

Richard Black, BBC News 7 May 08;

Declining fish stocks could be partly responsible for algal blooms in the oceans, researchers have found.

Scientists found that the fall in cod stocks in the Baltic Sea in recent decades increased numbers of the tiny marine plants that produce the blooms.

Algal blooms - sometimes known as "toxic tides" - can be poisonous to people, fish and other wildlife, and may be on the increase worldwide.

The research is reported in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B.

"In recent years, the frequency of intense blooms (in the Baltic Sea) seems to have increased, and the level in summer has also been increasing," said Michele Casini from the Swedish Board of Fisheries in Lysekil, lead scientist on the new research.

Low on oxygen

The main cause of the blooms has been thought to be increasing levels of nutrients in the sea, with a second factor being sea temperatures driven higher by climate change.

Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus wash into the seas from agricultural land, and are also produced by some types of industry - a particular problem in largely enclosed waters such as the Baltic.

These nutrients stimulate the growth of types of phytoplankton - varieties of algae - that can form blooms.

As well as the toxins they produce, the process takes oxygen out of the water.

The scientific team - which also involved researchers from Germany and Latvia - assessed three decades of data on the Baltic Sea food web.

Basically, zooplankton (tiny marine animals) eat phytoplankton, and sprat (small fish) eat zooplankton. Finally, cod eat the sprat.

"Right now, in the last 30 years, cod have been the top predators in the Baltic, after populations of seals and other marine mammals declined because of hunting," explained Dr Casini.

The data showed a simple correlation. As the cod population declined sharply from the early 1980s, the sprat population rose; zooplankton declined, and phytoplankton increased.

Wider horizons

Many other factors could have been involved; cod do not exclusively eat sprat, and sprat are also fished.

But these do not appear to have had an impact - a statistical analysis ruled out, for example, the possibility that changing herring stocks (which are also eaten by cod) were playing a role.

Instead, the influence of the cod population (which decreased by about three-quarters in a decade) emerged as the dominant factor.

The relative importance of over-fishing to algal blooms outside the Baltic is another issue. Food webs in other parts of the oceans are more complex, and data less available; so even doing the research would prove problematic.

Nevertheless, the idea that changes in top predators percolate down through the food web is well accepted.

It is simply that here, the percolation appears to have an impact at the very lowest level that is significant, visible and potentially problematic.

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Palm oil wiping out key orangutan habitat: activists

Yahoo News 7 May 08;

One of the biggest populations of wild orangutans on Borneo will be extinct in three years without drastic measures to stop the expansion of palm oil plantations, conservationists said Wednesday.

"For Central Kalimantan, the species will be gone as soon as three years from now," Centre for Orangutan Protection director Hardi Bhaktiantoro told a press conference.

More than 30,000 wild orangutans live in the forests of Indonesia's Central Kalimantan province, or more than half the entire orangutan population of Borneo island which is shared between Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei.

Experts believe the overall extinction rate of Borneo orangutans is nine percent per year, but in Central Kalimantan they are disappearing even faster due to unchecked expansion of palm oil plantations.

"The expansion of palm oil plantations is wiping out entire habitats and unless the government takes drastic measures to protect these orangutan sanctuaries there is no way to reverse the trend," Bhaktiantoro said.

He showed pictures taken in November of dead orangutans being carried out of new plantations in Central Kalimantan, where they are hunted as pests to prevent them eating palm seedlings.

Orangutans are found only on Borneo and Sumatra and are listed as endangered by the Swiss-based World Conservation Union, the paramount scientific authority on imperilled species.

It says numbers of the ape have fallen by well over 50 percent in the past 60 years as a result of habitat loss, poaching and the pet trade.

Indonesia has already lost 72 percent of its 123 million hectares (304 million acres) of ancient rain forest due to frenzied logging and burning of peatland for agriculture, according to Greenpeace figures.

But the recent growth in demand for palm oil from food, cosmetic and biofuel companies is putting more pressure on orangutan habitats, swathes of which lie outside conversation areas.

"The deforestation rate in the area (Central Kalimantan), especially for conversion to palm oil plantation is extremely high," Bhaktiantoro said.

President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono was keen to trumpet his government's efforts to save the orange apes as Indonesia hosted the UN-sponsored world climate conference in December.

He used the occasion to unveil a scheme called the Orangutan Action Plan designed to stabilise orangutan populations and habitat by 2017 and promote sustainable forest management.

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Australia's koalas threatened by global warming: study

Yahoo News 7 May 08;

Australia's koalas are threatened by global warming because higher temperatures and increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could cripple their food supply, new research showed Wednesday.

Koalas, furry marsupials which spend most of their time sleeping in tree branches, are notoriously fussy eaters and live only on eucalyptus leaves.

Already being pushed out of their habitat by drought and development, the big-eyed animal unique to Australia now faces the prospect of falling nutrient levels in eucalyptus leaves, new research led by Professor Ian Hume shows.

Laboratory tests done by Hume and students at Sydney University show that increased carbon dioxide in the air increases the level of anti-nutrients, toxins and other unhelpful ingredients in eucalyptus leaves.

Hume said any significant further rise in carbon dioxide concentrations would strip enough of the nutrients from the leaves to force the animal out of its habitat and towards an uncertain future.

"What currently may be good koala habitat may well become, over a period of not so many years at the rate that carbon dioxide concentrations are rising, very marginal habitat...," he said.

"I'm sure we'll see koalas disappearing from their current range even though we don't see any change in tree species or structure of the forests."

He said it was unlikely there would be enough time for koalas to adapt their diet to the changed nutrient level of the leaves.

"I don't think they've got enough time to do that, nowhere near enough time to do that," he said.

Higher levels of carbon dioxide in the air, caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, create the so-called "greenhouse effect" by trapping heat in the atmosphere and are the main cause of global warming.

Hume, who presented his findings at an Academy of Science conference in Canberra on Wednesday, said higher temperatures could also affect the trees.

Australia's Koalas at risk from climate change
Rod McGuirk, Associated Press Yahoo News 7 May 08;

Koalas are threatened by the rising level of carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere because it saps nutrients from the eucalyptus leaves they feed on, a researcher said Wednesday.

Ian Hume, emeritus professor of biology at Sydney University, said he and his researchers also found that the amount of toxicity in the leaves of eucalyptus saplings rose when the level of carbon dioxide within a greenhouse was increased.

Hume presented his research on the effects of carbon dioxide on eucalyptus leaves to the Australian Academy of Science in Canberra on Wednesday.

The researchers found that carbon dioxide in eucalyptus leaves affects the balance of nutrients and "anti-nutrients" — substances that are either toxic or interfere with the digestion of nutrients.

An increase in carbon dioxide favors the trees' production of carbon-based anti-nutrients over nutrients, so leaves can become toxic to koalas, Hume said.

Some eucalyptus species may have high protein content, but anti-nutrients such as tannins bind the protein so it cannot be digested by koalas.

Hume estimated that current levels of global carbon dioxide emissions would result in a noticeable reduction in Australia's koala population in 50 years due to a lack of palatable leaves.

Out of more than 600 eucalyptus species in Australia, koalas will only eat the leaves of about 25, Hume said. Changing the toxicity levels in the trees could further reduce the varieties that koalas find palatable, he said.

"Koalas produce one young each year under optimal conditions, but if you drop the nutritional value of the leaves, it might become one young every three or four years," Hume said.

Hugh Tyndale-Biscoe, a marsupial physiologist, described Hume's predictions of declining koala numbers as speculative but credible.

Eucalyptus leaves already have little nutritional value, he said, and koalas have adapted to their poor diet by sleeping to conserve energy.

"It's a very precarious existence," Tyndale-Biscoe said. "They basically sleep for 20 hours a day and then they've got four hours to do everything else — occasionally eat a leaf and maybe once a year go after another koala" to mate.

Tyndale-Biscoe said koalas had already disappeared from parts of Australia but remained plentiful in others and were unlikely to be wiped out by climate change. They already have been displaced from the most nutritious trees on the most fertile land by the spread of farms and suburbs, he said.

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India tightens security to fight rhino poachers

Biswajyoti Das, Reuters 7 May 08;

KAZIRANGA NATIONAL PARK, India (Reuters) - Authorities in India's remote northeast said they were increasing security in the world's biggest reserve for the endangered great one-horned rhinoceros to save them from poachers.

Poachers have killed at least 10 rhinos in two national parks in Assam state since January, eight of them at the Kaziranga National Park.

"We are increasing the number of guards in Kaziranga because of a recent increase in poaching, and a probe has also been ordered," Rockybul Hussain, Assam's forest minister told Reuters on Wednesday.

Last year, two dozen animals lost their horns to poachers in Assam, for their medicinal value in the international black market.

Horns fetch up to $10,000 (400,000 rupees) and demand is soaring in China and Southeast Asian countries, wildlife experts say.

After failing to check poachers for years, officials at Kaziranga have asked the national police's Central Bureau of Investigation to investigate.

But conservationists now say the new steps will be meaningless unless the government improves the working conditions of the existing guards.

"The guards do not have proper training, face harassment from senior forest officials and are blamed when things go wrong," said Soumyadeep Datta, director of Nature's Beckon, a conservation group working for protection of rhinos in the region.

BAREFOOT PATROL

The thick-skinned, one-horned Indian rhinoceros is one of the five surviving rhino species in the world.

The global conservation group WWF estimates there are less than 3,000 animals left in the world. They are found mostly in northeastern India, with a few hundred in neighboring Nepal.

Inside Kaziranga, 1,800 of them live in swamps, forests and tall thickets of elephant grass, where poachers hide before trapping them with poison or just shooting them dead.

Morale among forest guards, often engaged in a lonely battle against poachers, is low.

"There is no coordination between the foresters and police," Hare Krishna Deka, a former police chief in Assam said.

Forest guards are poorly paid and often forced to patrol barefoot without raincoats.

They have old rifles and asked to counter poachers who have modern automatic weapons, some officials and conservationists said.

As a result, it has become easier for poachers to sneak into the park without worrying much about the guards.

(Editing by Bappa Majumdar and Sanjeev Miglani)

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Survey shows US honey bee deaths increased over last year

Juliana Barbassa, Associated Press 7 May 08;

A survey of bee health released Tuesday revealed a grim picture, with 36.1 percent of the nation's commercially managed hives lost since last year.

Last year's survey commissioned by the Apiary Inspectors of America found losses of about 32 percent.

As beekeepers travel with their hives this spring to pollinate crops around the country, it's clear the insects are buckling under the weight of new diseases, pesticide drift and old enemies like the parasitic varroa mite, said Dennis vanEngelsdorp, president of the group.

This is the second year the association has measured colony deaths across the country. This means there aren't enough numbers to show a trend, but clearly bees are dying at unsustainable levels and the situation is not improving, said vanEngelsdorp, also a bee expert with the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

"For two years in a row, we've sustained a substantial loss," he said. "That's an astonishing number. Imagine if one out of every three cows, or one out of every three chickens, were dying. That would raise a lot of alarm."

The survey included 327 operators who account for 19 percent of the country's approximately 2.44 million commercially managed bee hives. The data is being prepared for submission to a journal.

About 29 percent of the deaths were due to Colony Collapse Disorder, a mysterious disease that causes adult bees to abandon their hives. Beekeepers who saw CCD in their hives were much more likely to have major losses than those who didn't.

"What's frightening about CCD is that it's not predictable or understood," vanEngelsdorp said.

On Tuesday, Pennsylvania's Agriculture Secretary Dennis Wolff announced that the state would pour an additional $20,400 into research at Pennsylvania State University looking for the causes of CCD. This raises emergency funds dedicated to investigating the disease to $86,000.

The issue also has attracted federal grants and funding from companies that depend on honey bees, including ice-cream maker Haagen-Dazs.

Because the berries, fruits and nuts that give about 28 of Haagen-Daazs' varieties flavor depend on honey bees for pollination, the company is donating up to $250,000 to CCD and sustainable pollination research at Penn State and the University of California, Davis.

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Carbon-free diet attracts support

Kevin Keane, BBC News 6 May 08;

A project based on a "carbon-neutral" diet has attracted hundreds of supporters, the man behind it has said.

It is six months since the start of the Fife Diet, which aims to reduce the food coming into the country by air. It is low in meat, to reduce the amount of harmful gases produced by cattle, and involves eating only locally grown fruit and vegetables.

Mike Small said the 200 people who were following the plan were contributing to reducing climate change.

He told the BBC Scotland news website: "The problem's not been finding food in Fife all year round, that's relatively easy, but the time you spend preparing a meal from scratch every day.

"It gives us a bit of an insight into why we eat convenience food because we're all running around like dafties working too hard and don't have any time to cook a decent meal."

Changing habits

The project has relied heavily on people going back to eating food only when it is in season.

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Mike Small on the pros and cons of the 'Fife diet'

That has also meant many foods, like bananas and oranges, are completely off the menu to cut down on the carbon emissions produced by the aeroplanes which transport them to the UK.

People instead are directed towards farm shops and farmers markets.

Jacqui Alexander, of Bellfield Organics in Newburgh, said: "To go back to having their root vegetables in the winter and to make their soups and stews, people tend to come away from those areas.

"It is difficult but then a lot of people are interested in it, you can see that at farmers markets that people are interested in the different things we grow at different times of year."

After six months, the Fife Diet is moving into a new phase with land having been secured for a community garden in Falkland.

Mike Small is hoping volunteers will help maintain the patch as a vegetable garden which, he hopes, will encourage more people to exchange foods.

The eating project has attracted the support of Friends of the Earth Scotland.

Chief executive Duncan McLaren said: "Food accounts for about a quarter of household gas emissions. Most of that comes from the methane of animal production. So, a diet like this which is quite low in meat is definitely good for the environment."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 7 May 08

Leapfrogging the U.S. - Is Singapore Emerging as the World's Leading Green City? on the Daily Galaxy blog

Next time you eat sharks' fins think of Sherman
on the leafmonkey blog and on the ashira blog

Changi: a many splendoured shore
on the wildfilms blog and career breaker's blog and the budak blog and more sea bunnies and food on the flat on the budak blog

Eastern Coastal Park Connector Network with Jungle Fowls
on the Toddycats blog

Singapore maps, 1819 - 1954
on the habitatnews blog

Test of urchin
a bit about urchin id on the wildfilms blog

Iora and caterpillar
on the bird ecology blog

Excitement around a Collared Owlet
on the bird ecology blog

Read more!

Singapore water makes global waves

Jorn Madslien, BBC News 6 May 08;

Water shortages are making waves all over the world, with supplies increasingly seen as an issue of national security. In Singapore, they have boiled it down to economics.

Singapore's water shortages have always posed a major challenge.

"Although we're on the equator and we've got lots of rain, we have nowhere to naturally store water," explains Khoo Teng Chye, chief executive of the city-state's Public Utilities Board, or PUB. "We have no groundwater."

For years, water has been imported through three pipelines from neighbouring Malaysia - an expensive and geopolitically troublesome solution that has long irked the Singaporean government.

The issue is becoming increasingly acute ahead of the expiry of two long-term supply deals that guarantee deliveries of Malaysian water for less than one cent per 1,000 gallons - some until 2011, some until 2061.

"The main Malaysian demand has been for a much higher price of water, which has varied from 15 to 20 times the current price," observes Cecilia Tortajada in her report Water Management in Singapore*.

Technological breakthrough

So Singapore has set out to find alternative ways to provide its 4.4 million people with 1.36 billion litres of clean water a day.



As a first step, a string of massive reservoirs are being constructed to "harvest as much rain as possible", so that eventually, some two-thirds of the island's land surface will be under water, up from about half today, Mr Khoo explains.

In addition, desalination plants that turn salt water into drinking water provide 10% of Singapore's current needs.

But the real breakthrough has come from what Mr Khoo describes as NEWater, produced in water reclamation plants from so-called "used" water.

"We use the terminology 'used water' rather than sewage to create the understanding that water is a resource," says Mr Khoo with a grin.

The plants use advanced microfiltration or ultrafiltration, reverse osmosis membranes and ultraviolet technology to produce water that is almost as clean as the distilled variety, according to Mr Khoo.

Water for industrial use is transported in a separate pipe from Singapore's drinking water. The rest is mixed in with rainwater in the reservoirs.

"Singapore has successfully managed to find the right balances between water quantity and water quality considerations; water supply and water demand management... [and] strategic national interest and economic efficiency," according to Ms Tortajada.

Cheaper water

Five years ago, it cost up to three Singapore dollars ($2.20; £1.10) to produce a cubic metre of water in the existing desalination systems, Mr Khoo says.

Three years ago, the introduction of new technology on a vast scale reduced the cost to under a dollar. NEWater technology pushes costs much lower, so that now the cost of one cubic metre of water has been pushed down to 30 cents, which makes it all much more cost-effective.

Singapore's NEWater is produced in four plants that currently provide 15% of Singapore's needs.

A fifth plant is under construction. In three or four years, when they are all scaled up, they should provide 30% of the water needed in Singapore, Mr Khoo predicts.

Currently, each drop of water is used twice, which Mr Khoo refers to as "50% efficiency", though the target is 70%.

To achieve this, Singapore is using universally available technology, along with a rather big bundle of money.

Some $3.5bn (£1.75bn) has been invested in the last five years, and a further $3.5bn will be invested in the next five years.

"As we've built bigger and bigger plants, the cost per unit has come down dramatically," Mr Khoo says - partly thanks to economies of scale, but also because more clever ways of employing technology have been discovered.

"Our investment in water has created an industry in Singapore," Mr Khoo says. "It's a knowledge industry. We hire people from all over the world."

Global solutions

Last month, Singapore won the Environmental Contribution of the Year prize at the Global Water Awards 2008.

"Singapore has led the world in water re-use," according to Christopher Gasson, publisher of the journal Global Water Intelligence.

"Other countries will surely follow its footprints."

"Water re-use and desalination are two key solutions for cities looking to manage their water supply in a sustainable way," observes Nobel Peace Prize winner Muhammad Yunus, praising Singapore's efforts.

Next month, Singapore International Water Week aims to bring together water industry officials and policymakers to make the search for solutions a global effort.

"We have solved our problems," insists Mr Khoo.

"Now we want to create a platform where people from all over the world can share the solutions."

* Water Management in Singapore, International Journal of Water Resources Development, June 2006.

Read more!

Green movement forgets its politics in climate change effort

Viewpoint, Ann Pettifor BBC Green Room 6 May 08;

Organisations campaigning on climate change need to learn the lessons of the anti-slavery and anti-apartheid movements, says Ann Pettifor. By focusing on individuals rather than governments, initiatives such as the recent Energy Saving Day are bound to fail in their bid to reduce emissions, she argues.

Climate change is the issue of the day.

Scientists finally agree on the threat to the planet posed by rising temperatures. Books on the subject proliferate.

Campaigners, like those at Plane Stupid, do amazing things to bring it to public attention.

Big business frets too. The world's giant investment funds join green groups in demanding drastic action.

Paul Hawken, author of Blessed Unrest - How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being, writes that "there are over one - maybe even two - million organisations (worldwide) working toward ecological sustainability and social justice".

And yet... and yet... there is no real climate change movement.

There is no organised effort leading society towards a legislative framework that would urgently drive down greenhouse gas emissions across the board, and begin to sequester carbon dioxide.

Not in the UK, or in the US, or internationally. The "movement" that Hawken refers to is, he notes, "atomised" and "largely ignored".



Yet in September 2007, a public opinion survey from Yale University (in conjunction with Gallup) found that "nearly half of Americans now believe that global warming is either already having dangerous impacts on people around the world or will in the next 10 years".

The authors noted that this was "a 20-percentage-point increase since 2004", representing "a sea change in public opinion... and a growing sense of urgency".

If there is a "growing sense of urgency", why isn't there a climate change movement in the US?

Low level lighting

The reason is that green organisations focus on individual ("change your lightbulbs") or community ("recycle, reuse, reduce, localise") action.

They fail to highlight the need for the kind of structural change that can only be brought about by governmental action.

Governments helpfully collude in this atomisation and fragmentation of action and reaction.

Throughout history, social movements have focused on the need for government action.

The anti-slavery movement sought to change laws that permitted slavery.

The suffragette movement only ensured votes for women once discriminatory laws had been displaced; the anti-apartheid movement was only successful once apartheid laws had been removed.

In the US, the black civil rights movement campaigned from 1947 until the introduction of the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act to end discrimination in certain spheres.

Today, as the UK government's hesitancy in dealing with Northern Rock reveals, governmental action is unpopular and out of fashion.

Not just with big business and neo-liberal economists, but also with anarchists and many green campaigners. Minimal government is now ideologically dominant.

The failure of anti-war demonstrations to halt the Iraq war is often cited as evidence of the failure of governments to respond to such popular pressure.

However, as the civil rights movement demonstrated, a successful campaign does not stop at one defeat. It moves forward inexorably over time, in pursuit of its legislative goal.

Fair shares

The population at large instinctively understands that they alone, or even in community, cannot deal with the threat of climate change.

They are acutely aware that while individuals may take action, others may become "freeriders".

They know a fair legislative framework is required to share the burden of adjusting to climate change equitably between rich and poor.

Burden-sharing has several dimensions; between those who live in Bangladesh and those who live in Zurich, those who drive 4x4s and those who cycle, those who take foreign holidays and those who do not.

In the UK, Ipsos Mori polled public attitudes to climate change in July 2007.

Seventy percent "strongly agreed" or "tended to agree" that "the government should take the lead in combating climate change, even if it means using the law to change people's behaviour".

Green organisations in the UK support the government's very cautious climate change bill by lobbying for a stronger legal framework - but not much stronger.

The call by UK NGOs for 80% cuts in greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 - now accepted by government - lacks ambition, and underestimates the urgency.

Furthermore, the call for action by 2050 is so distant that the government feels under no pressure.

Switching off

Growing scientific evidence of accelerating greenhouse gas emissions, melting icecaps and the shrinking capacity of "sinks" to absorb emissions means we need bold, urgent action by government to drive down emissions to zero.

Britain's only Christian campaign dedicated exclusively to climate change, Operation Noah, pressures government to take much more radical action - to cut emissions by 90% by 2030, not 2050.

We may not have got it right, but we are trying to pressure government to act urgently, and to mobilise society in the way that Jubilee 2000 mobilised millions of people to cancel third world debt.

In other words, we are pressing for governmental action by a deadline.

To succeed, climate change campaigns first need first to unite - at both national and international levels.

Secondly, they must unite behind a radical goal that requires structural change, regulation and enforcement that will urgently drive down emissions and sequester carbon dioxide.

Thirdly, they need to exercise leadership by mobilising society in a concerted way behind this goal. This will intensify pressure on politicians and governments.

It ain't easy, but it has been done before; witness the Jubilee 2000 global campaign.

As things stand, the movement remains disparate, atomised and marginalised.

This frees politicians to expand airports and increase road capacity.

Parliaments fiddle while the planet burns, and individuals are pressured to take responsibility for global climate change by "switching off at the wall".

And so, inevitably, the Titanic's deck chairs are rearranged - and energy use goes up, rather than down, on Energy Saving Day.

Ann Pettifor is executive director of Advocacy International and campaigns adviser to Operation Noah

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

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Risk $3k fine for feeding monkeys

Selina Lum, Straits Times 7 May 08;

FEED a monkey and you stand to be fined $3,000. A High Court judge yesterday said this amount would be the new benchmark punishment for such offences.

Judge of Appeal V.K. Rajah made it clear that the figure was just a starting point - the fines could go higher or lower, depending on the circumstances of each case.

For example, the judge said, someone who purposely drives to a nature reserve to feed monkeys will have the book thrown at him.

But someone who does it 'casually' may get a lower fine. He did not elaborate.

This benchmark applies to offences after last December, when the problems caused by monkey feeding were highlighted in the media.

Justice Rajah laid down the sentencing guidelines after he slashed the fine handed down to a 45-year-old cook for feeding monkeys at a Mandai sanctuary near Old Upper Thomson Road.

In January, Mr Panneerselvam Arunasalam was ordered to pay a $4,000 fine after he admitted feeding bread to the animals in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve on Aug 5 last year. It was the steepest fine ever imposed for the offence.

Mr Panneerselvam paid $2,000 before he appealed to the High Court to reduce the fine on account of his financial situation.

He claimed he had not intended to feed the animals but was surrounded by monkeys which snatched his lunch. However, a park ranger saw him throwing bread to the primates out of his lorry.

Yesterday, Justice Rajah said there was a need to send a clear message that feeding monkeys increases the risk of them behaving aggressively. But this was not the appropriate case to do so.

One reason was that Mr Panneerselvam's offence was committed before heightened coverage in the newspapers last December about the ills of feeding monkeys.

Justice Rajah noted that the district judge who fined Mr Panneerselvam had also relied on the wrong precedent. Then, prosecutors cited a case that attracted a $2,000 fine. But it emerged at the appeal that the past case involved someone who fed monkeys to trap them. That was altogether a more serious offence.

Justice Rajah reduced the fine to $1,000.

Mr Panneerselvam, who did not have a lawyer, told reporters he was happy with the verdict. He had to borrow from relatives to pay the fine.

Following reports of monkeys attacking people, the authorities have warned that feeding them makes the primates bolder in approaching people. When food is plentiful, the monkeys multiply. And instead of foraging for their own food, they tend to stray into residential areas.

Last year, 157 people were caught feeding monkeys, up from 142 in 2006. Eighteen people were convicted over this period while the rest paid $250 composition fines. In February, the National Parks Board doubled the composition fine to $500.

Monkey feeder's fine slashed to $1,000
Ansley Ng, Straits Times 7 May 08;

THE man who was fined $4,000 for feeding monkeys in a nature reserve — the steepest penalty ever imposed for the offence — got a reprieve after the High Court reduced it to $1,000.

In slashing the fine, Justice V K Rajah, however, added that the benchmark penalty for such an offence would now be $3,000. He said the actual fine imposed could differ depending on the circumstances of the offence or the culpability of the offender.

Panneerselvam Arunasalam, a cook, had pleaded guilty in January to feeding monkeys in the Central Catchment Nature Reserve in August last year. A park ranger had spotted Panneerselvam, 46, giving out bread to monkeys in the reserve near Old Upper Thomson Road, despite signs in the area warning against doing so.

The National Parks Board (NParks) says feeding monkeys adversely alters their behaviour as they stop foraging for food and rely on humans instead. They may also behave more aggressively against humans.

Such feeding also results in the unhealthy growth of the wild monkey population, and monkeys straying outside of nature reserves into residential areas. They often have to be culled for this reason, NParks said.

Panneerselvam was fined $4,000 by a district court for flouting the Parks and Trees Act. He paid $2,000 and arranged to pay the balance in monthly installments of $500, which he subsequently defaulted on.

Yesterday, Justice Rajah reduced the fine, saying Panneerselvam's case was not the "appropriate" one to send a message to the public since he committed the offence before the media highlighted the problem of monkey feeding last December.

Following his case, there was heightened media coverage about wild monkeys and the threat they pose when they become too dependent on humans for food.

Panneerselvam could have been fined up to $50,000 and jailed for up to six months. Panneerselvam said he managed to pay half of the initial fine by borrowing from relatives.

Saying that the initial penalty of $4,000 was "ridiculous", he told Today: "I am thankful to the court for reducing the fine."

Read more!

Senior citizens in Singapore go green, and it's not just to win prizes

No prizes, no problem
Senior citizens go green, and it's not just to win prizes in recycling exchange initiative
Genevieve Jiang, The New Paper 7 May 08;

AGE is no barrier to being environmentally-conscious, as this group of four elderly residents at Simei proves.

Aged between 55 and 77, they gather at the void deck of Block 133, Simei Street 1, every month to collect old newspapers and unwanted electronic goods from their neighbours.

They are members of the senior citizens' club at their Residents' Committee (RC).

The oldest among them is Mr Lee Huay Min, 77.

The retiree is one of the group's most active members, turning up every month without fail since the programme started last year.

Despite his age, he helps carry and weigh heavy bundles of newspapers and boxes of old electronic equipment from 9am to noon.

Said Mr Tan, who previously owned a provision shop: 'In the past, I would carry heavy packets of milk powder, or rice, and deliver it to my customers.

'So carrying heavy things isn't a problem for me. I'm used to it.'

The group is part of the Changi-Simei Zone 2 recycling exchange initiative (REIT).

REIT is a recycling exchange programme that RCs started early last year with waste collector Altvater Jakob, where residents can exchange recyclables for consumable items, such as cooking oil, once every two months.

This initiative was set up to encourage residents to participate in recycling on a regular basis.

GOOD RESPONSE

Under the scheme, the RC can get a microwave oven in exchange for collecting 3,000kg of recyclable materials such as paper, metals, glass, plastics and even used clothing.

If a total of 12,000kg of recycled materials is collected, the RC can exchange it for a digital camera.

Because of good response from the residents, the programme became a monthly affair last year in July.

So far, the residents have managed to collect about 1,000kg in recyclable materials every month.

Although this amount is not enough for the RC to exchange it for a microwave oven, residents' committee chairman Douglas Ng, 47, said that it's not their objective.

'Our purpose is to get the residents, especially the elderly, actively involved in going green.

'It keeps them active and meaningfully engaged in the community,' he said.

Mr Lee first got started on the recycling programme when he was approached by Mr Ng last year.

Since then, he has been spreading the recycling message to his neighbours and other members of the senior citizens' club.

Said Mr Lee: 'Whenever I see my friends, I'll remind them to keep their old newspapers, clothes and electronics, instead of throwing them away.

'With the environment in turmoil, we all have to do our little bit to save the earth.'

The project has also helped residents to bond.

Said Mr Ng Choon Lim, 67, who works in financial services: 'Recycling becomes a family affair when you see residents, both old and young, coming down to give us their recyclables.

'It's a fun way to get together with neighbours and friends to do something useful.'

Besides recycling, both Mr Ng and Mr Lee are also helping to spread the anti-dengue message, by going door-to-door regularly with RC members to educate residents about how to make their homes mosquito-free.

Both men occasionally get their wives, both housewives, involved.

Said Mr Ng, who has three grown-up children, all in their 30s: 'My children have their own lives, so my wife and I are now free to engage in activities that we enjoy.'

Read more!

Need help with cutting emissions? Call carbon man

Mr Vinod Kesava's nickname sums up his dedication to his job. His firm CRX, which helps companies create carbon credits to trade, has already secured contracts worth $6.8m
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 7 May 08;

MR VINOD Kesava has a nickname that says it all.

'My friends call me 'carbon man', he says with a smile. 'My life is all about carbon now.'

The epithet sums up the way the fledgling industry of carbon trading - a major weapon in the fight against climate change - has come to dominate Mr Vinod's life.

His friends might only be joking, but this is a serious business. It takes guts to set up a firm in uncharted territory where success is uncertain.

And the philosophy of Mr Vinod, 33, and his business partner and father Kesava Shotam, 67, is bold: It is better to try and fail than never to have tried at all.

Still, they relish the process and are determined to have fun along the way.

In a nutshell, carbon trading involves getting polluting firms - which are increasingly required to offset their greenhouse gas emissions - to buy and trade 'carbon credits' on a carbon market.

These credits can be generated by a firm cutting emissions below its quota or planting trees, for instance.

The pair set up Climate Resources Exchange (CRX) in July last year, but began operations just four months ago as the latest start-up to offer carbon industry-related services.

The firm could help Singapore in its push to become Asia's environmental and carbon trading hub.

In its short life, CRX has already created a service that is the first of its kind in Asia, and which promises to revolutionise the way firms approach carbon emissions.

The climate compensation accounting system, as it is called, helps firms calculate their total carbon footprint based on rigorous statistics collected from various sectors in different countries.

CRX acts almost like a problem checker and solver - the problem being carbon emissions. It identifies where and how a firm can cut emissions or create carbon credits for itself, using CRX's market knowledge.

'In a future carbon-constrained economy, we are talking about turning a company's liabilities into assets,' said Mr Vinod, CRX's managing director.

The firm is in talks with several multinational corporations, and has already secured US$5 million (S$6.8 million) worth of contracts from the United States and the region, he said.

That is fairly quick success, considering it started operations only in January after raising $2 million in capital.

But these visionaries behind CRX are no strangers to the carbon game.

In 2003, when carbon emissions and trading was still a new concept, especially in Asia, the father-and-son team fought against all odds to raise about $2 million from investors to start Asia Carbon Group with two other co-founders.

They had to set up its headquarters in the Netherlands for technical reasons, as Singapore ratified the Kyoto Protocol only later in 2006, said Mr Kesava.

The team was a pioneer in the trading of carbon credits from Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects through the Asia Carbon Exchange, the world's first CDM-focused exchange and auction platform, in 2005.

The CDM is a United Nations-regulated scheme that allows carbon credits to be generated from validated projects and traded.

Asia Carbon went on to develop about 100 projects in Asia that will create about 23 million carbon credits until 2012, which could be worth about $585 million.

Unfortunately, a difference of opinion in the direction of the firm led the father-and-son team to sell their stake and leave - to set up shop all over again. On this, both admitted it was a 'difficult time' since the company was partly their brainchild.

'We had different visions for the business, new innovative ideas that we felt needed to be expanded, but not everyone agreed. It was difficult, but we are all still friends,' said Mr Vinod.

As Mr Kesava puts it, there is no looking back.

Today, carbon trading is a US$60 billion global market that is still growing.

'This is where we can innovate to get ahead of the game. The possibilities are endless,' said Mr Vinod.

One example of how CRX innovates to set itself apart is by taking knowledge of the carbon market to the development and humanitarian aid industry.

CRX's chief policy officer, Mr Federico Graciano, 35, has 10 years' experience in the non-governmental organisation (NGO) sector.

'So much of the development work in Asia involves infrastructure and energy-related projects that could reap carbon credits. The NGOs just don't have that knowledge and experience to tap that. Here's where we come in,' he said.

This role has taken CRX to Aceh and Nias island, which were hit by the tsunami on Dec 26, 2004. The company is assessing the environmental impact of the work done by NGOs' in these places.

'The main thing is to provide the NGOs with an understanding of where they can improve in their projects' sustainable development and, where possible, harvest carbon credits as extra revenue. This can be channelled back into humanitarian aid efforts. It's a win-win situation,' said Mr Graciano.

CRX has a staff strength of four that is growing. It has almost firmed up a tie-up with a US-based global NGO - a milestone - though details can be disclosed only later, said Mr Vinod.

The company also offers a whole host of other services such as carbon finance and asset management, including developing CDM projects, trading carbon credits and management consulting.

'There's some uncertainty in the market about the post-Kyoto agreement, but we are confident that the carbon economy is here to stay,' Mr Vinod added.

Read more!

Singapore: Light pollution vs development

Let the stars out tonight
Tan Hui Yee, Straits Times 7 May 08;

TEN years ago, I met a few amateur astronomers who loved stars as much as they hated light at night.

Since the glow of city lights is never far from even the thickest patch of jungle here, they fled to cemeteries in search of the dark.

These stargazers came to mind again last month when I stumbled upon the International Dark-Sky Association, a US-based group dedicated to fighting light pollution.

Somewhat incongruously, it had chosen to set up shop at Light + Building, the world's biggest lighting fair held once every two years in Frankfurt. Amid the gaggle of groomed salesmen hawking state-of- the-art lamps, the association's staff hand out literature extolling the beauty of the night sky and calling for tighter lighting rules.

We are familiar with the halo of light that hangs over cities called the 'urban skyglow'. This glow results mostly from fixtures that do not direct their light to the ground but 'wastes' some of it skyward. These energy-sapping fixtures are the chief reason why stars are not visible in cities.

There are other victims of ill-conceived lighting besides amateur astronomers denied their view of the Milky Way. For example, stray beams of light confuse migratory birds. Hatchling sea turtles, which orientate themselves using light from the night sky reflected off the ocean's surface, may never make it out to sea when lured inland by artificial lights from beachfront buildings.

Then there is health. A recent study by scientists at the University of Haifa in Israel adds to the growing evidence that exposure to artificial light raises the risk of breast cancer. By overlaying satellite images of Earth at night with breast cancer registries, they found a link between the two conditions. Scientists suspect this is because artificial light at night suppresses the body's production of the hormone melatonin.

Also, overly bright light can hinder vision and compromise road safety when it creates steep transitions from light to dark.

The association's literature says: 'The idea that more light always results in better safety and security is a myth. One needs only the right amount of light, in the right place, at the right time. More light often means wasted light and energy.'

That message may be well received now when skyrocketing oil prices are driving building owners to consider energy-efficient lamps. But there are other things at stake for Singapore, beyond the dollars and cents.

The Republic is on the brink of remaking its city centre. It is building two integrated resorts, three waterfront gardens, new shopping complexes along Orchard Road as well as glitzy hotels and condominiums. Add to this an ambitious plan to jazz up the Central Business District, Marina Bay, Orchard Road, Bugis Street and the Singapore River with white light, animated lights, underwater lights and even lights in trees to bring out the allure of the Garden City after sundown.

The authorities, keen to rope in private buildings, have dangled incentives before their owners to add to the glow. The city is set to get a whole lot brighter.

Doomsayers may write Singapore off as a lost cause as far as sensitive lighting is concerned, but the Dark-Sky group will have none of that. After all, it is not fighting lighting per se, but rather bad lighting. The association's public affairs officer Kim Patten says it works closely with companies to promote downlighting - which come with special fixtures to direct light downwards - and gives its stamp of approval to products which pass muster.

Handsome architecture need not stay shrouded in the dark when sensitive lighting can lend it a whole new perspective. Ms Patten says: 'We respect architecture. Feel free to use light, but we prefer downlight. We also ask that you turn it off sometime at night, for example, at 11pm or 12am. We are the dark sky, not dark ground association.'

The debate between light pollution and development need not be polarised. Simple solutions - like choosing motion-activated lights - can go a long way to create a middle ground.

Perhaps with some compromise, we may still find space for the stargazers on this crowded island.

Read more!

Singapore: Expect little respite from the heat

Temperatures set to climb as May and June are traditionally the hottest months here
Diana Othman, Straits Times 7 May 08;

IF THE weather has been sweltering lately, it is because May is on record as the second-hottest month of the year here.

The fortnightly weather forecast by the National Environment Agency (NEA) indicates that up till the middle of this month, higher-than-average daily temperatures can be expected.

There will be little relief from rain, and winds will be too light to cool things down.

To top it off, a slight haze is also expected on some days between now and May 15.

In the first five days of this month, the mercury hit 34.1 deg C at its highest.

The average daily temperature for those five days was 29.3 deg C, slightly higher than the average daily temperature of 28.3 deg C in May in past years.

Expect temperatures to climb still higher - perhaps to 38 deg C - heading into June, traditionally the hottest month here.

Associate Professor Matthias Roth from the Department of Geography at the National University of Singapore listed factors such as lower-than-usual humidity, dryness of the air and clearer skies for pushing temperatures up.

He explained: 'Humidity actually absorbs heat from the sun's radiation. It has been less humid lately and, together with clearer skies, more intense sunlight is shining down on us.'

The NEA also noted that April and May were 'inter-monsoonal months' - the period between the end of the December-to-March north-east monsoon and the start of the south-west monsoon, which prevails from June to September.

April and May are marked by relatively strong solar heating and light, variable winds, it added.

Although widespread thundery showers will fall between now and mid-May, they will be brief squalls that bring little respite.

Several people The Straits Times spoke to have been taking measures to keep cool in the last week or two.

Insurance agent Jessie Tan, 49, had the air-conditioners in the three bedrooms of her Jurong home cleaned to optimise the cooling effect.

'All along I felt that the air-conditioners made the rooms cool enough but, lately, I don't feel the cool air as strongly,' she said.

Although her 14th-floor condominium unit is usually windy, the breezes seem to have died down.

'My daughter wants me to switch on the aircon every day now,' she said.

Over in Bedok Reservoir, 67-year-old retiree Larry Chong usually throws open the windows and turns on the fan.

But that has not seemed enough lately, so the air-conditioners have come on more often.

'If I don't, my house will feel like an oven,' he said.

Read more!

Jamu, turtle eggs seized from ship in Singapore

Today Online 7 May 08;

A GROUP of suspected smugglers got egg on their faces over the weekend when officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority and Singapore Customs found undeclared sea turtle eggs (picture) and other contraband goods on board their ship.

The officers, who had boarded the cargo vessel MV Penguin Indoraya II at the Marina Wharf last Friday, unearthed suspected prohibited Indonesian traditional medicine (jamu), boxes of turtle eggs and 23,250 sticks of cigarettes, for which duty had not been paid, among declared goods.

They seized 11 cartons of undeclared assorted jamu and about 12,140 turtle eggs, which have been sent to the Health Sciences Authority and Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore respectively for further investigation.

Under the Endangered Species Act, any person who smuggles sea turtle eggs is liable, on conviction, to a maximum fine of up to $50,000 per scheduled species and/or a jail term of up to two years.

If the jamu is found to be adulterated with undeclared substances or drugs, this would constitute an offence under the medicines and/or poisons acts and anyone found guilty of such offences can be jailed up to two years and/or fined.

The total Customs duty and Goods and Services Tax on the cigarettes amounted to $10,340. If convicted, a first-time offender can be fined up to a maximum of 20 times the amount of duty evaded.

Read more!

Top US-based firm to design new Marina South cruise terminal

Lim Wei Chean, Straits Times 7 May 08;

THE new cruise terminal in Marina South will be designed by the same architects who are behind a port that can accommodate the world's biggest cruise ships.

The deal to build Singapore's second cruise terminal was won by Bermello, Ajamil & Partners. It is also designing a US$37.4 million (S$51 million) expansion of a terminal in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

The terminal in the United States will be the home port of Royal Caribbean's Genesis class of ships, the world's largest. It is designed to process over 12,000 people in eight hours, making it the biggest and most efficient terminal when completed.

The contract to build the Marina South terminal, estimated to cost between $250 million and $300 million, was awarded on Monday by JTC Corporation.

Bermello, Ajamil & Partners will be joined by local firm RSP Architects Planners & Engineers, known for such projects as the 274m bridge over Henderson Road.

Maunsell Consultants (Singapore), which did work for the Circle Line including the Nicoll Highway portion, has been appointed engineering consultant.

The Marina South facility, dubbed the International Cruise Terminal, will be Singapore's second terminal. It will address the squeeze at HarbourFront's Singapore Cruise Centre (SCC).

It will have two berths which can accommodate ships of all sizes. This is impossible at the SCC because of a height restriction due to the cable-car lines running nearby.

The Singapore Tourism Board's (STB) director for leisure planning and cruise Chew Tiong Heng said the consortium was chosen for its track record and a concept that best fitted the requirements for the new terminal.

Although architectural design was a key criterion in the contract, the STB declined to reveal more details.

Bermello, Ajamil & Partners has been involved in cruise projects worldwide, including terminals in Manhattan and Brooklyn in New York and the Dubai Maritime Centre.

Engineering and Architectural Design Projects Awarded for Singapore’s International Cruise Terminal
JTC press release 6 May 08;

Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, Inc. and RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd appointed for architectural design

Maunsell Consultants (Singapore) Pte Ltd appointed as engineering consultant

Singapore, 5 May 2008 – The Singapore Government has appointed Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, Inc. and RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd for the architectural design of the International Cruise Terminal at Marina South, and Maunsell Consultants (Singapore) Pte Ltd as the engineering consultant for the same project.

Architectural Design

Singapore’s new International Cruise Terminal is intended to boost the existing cruise facilities and infrastructure to accommodate the new generation of larger cruise ships. The architectural design will incorporate a terminal building alongside two berths, designed for operational efficiency and a seamless visitor experience. It will also have all other facilities necessary to accommodate the largest ships currently in service, as well as those currently under construction.

With these considerations, three firms with the requisite experience were invited to participate in a limited tender. Besides having had prior experience in cruise terminal planning, each firm was required to choose a Singapore partner and participate as a consortium:

· BEA International and CPG Consultants Pte Ltd
· Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, Inc. and RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd
· DMJM Design and DP Architects Pte Ltd

At the close of the tender on 7 March 2008, three proposals were submitted from all invited consortia. An evaluation panel of key executives from the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) and JTC Corporation (JTC) selected the consortium comprising internationally renowned firm Bermello, Ajamil & Partners, Inc. and their Singapore partner RSP Architects Planners & Engineers (Pte) Ltd, to design the new cruise terminal.

Mr Chew Tiong Heng, STB’s Director for Leisure Planning & Cruise, said, “All three invited bidders submitted strong proposals, reflecting a keen interest in the project. The evaluation panel eventually chose a winning consortium which stood out not only for its track record and experience in cruise terminal planning and design, but also a concept that best met the needs and functional requirements of the International Cruise Terminal.”

Engineering

Four engineering consulting firms with the specialist knowledge and experience in marine engineering were invited to submit proposals for the engineering of the terminal. At the close of the tender on 22 February 2008, all four firms submitted proposals. The four engineering consultants were:

· Jurong Consultants Pte Ltd
· Maunsell Consultants (Singapore) Pte Ltd
· Parsons Brinckerhoff
· Surbana Corporation Pte Ltd

Following the evaluation of the proposals, Maunsell Consultants (Singapore) Pte Ltd was selected based on a combination of factors, including its technical experience and strong track record in handling similar projects in the past. Maunsell will oversee all the engineering aspects of the project, including the engineering designs of the berths and buildings, till completion.

On schedule for 2010

The architectural design and engineering projects were awarded by JTC, the government agency overseeing the engineering and technical aspects, and overall development of the International Cruise Terminal. Mr Koh Chwee, JTC’s Director of Engineering Planning Group said, “JTC will leverage on our expertise in major ports and marine infrastructure construction and embark on this challenging International Cruise Terminal project. We endeavour to provide innovative and leading-edge solutions to fast track the implementation of the project and complete it on time. JTC will work with STB to make this cruise terminal the next iconic feature in Singapore.”

With the appointments, the International Cruise Terminal is on schedule to be completed in 2010. Piling and construction works for the berth deck are expected to commence in the second half of the year, and an operator for the terminal is targeted to be appointed by STB in the third quarter of this year. The final design for the cruise terminal and other details will be shared at a later date.

Read more!

$9.7b price tag for landmark Tianjin eco-city

Officials give assurance that project will cater to all sectors of society to promote harmony
Chua Chin Hon, Straits Times 7 May 08;

TIANJIN - THE ambitious eco-city being jointly built by Singapore and China in this northern port city will cost about 50 billion yuan (S$9.7 billion), officials here said yesterday, while giving the assurance that the project will not benefit only the rich.

This is the first time an official price tag has been disclosed for the landmark project, the biggest bilateral venture between Singapore and China since the Suzhou Industrial Park in the early 1990s.

Unconfirmed reports in the Chinese media had previously estimated the cost of the eco-city at 30 billion yuan.

Mr Lin Xuefeng, vice-chairman of the Sino- Singapore Tianjin Eco-city Administrative Committee, told a press conference here the project would cost about 50 billion yuan to build.

He added, however, that this preliminary estimate could vary, depending on the projected cost tabled by the Sino-Singapore joint venture company building it.

Environmental awareness is growing in China, especially among the property-owning middle class. But the poor and those living in less developed regions continue to struggle with the fallout from all-out economic growth, such as polluted air and poisoned rivers.

Asked if this flagship project will benefit only those who can afford to live there, Mr Lin said planners will draw on the experience of Singapore's Housing Board to ensure that residents from a wide spectrum of society are housed in the eco-city.

'Social harmony is first and foremost a housing issue,' he added. 'We hope to create a harmonious city that is suitable for different sectors of society.''

According to a draft master plan released yesterday, at least 20 per cent of homes in the eco- city will be public and subsidised. The 2,000 villagers who have to relocate for the project will also be guaranteed jobs and housing in the new city.

The overall population of the city will be kept at around 350,000, though there are no plans to restrict the number of cars, said Dr Dong Ke, a senior urban planner with the China Academy of Urban Planning and Design.

Instead, planners hope to reduce residents' reliance on cars by setting up an efficient public transport network and by designing walkways linking homes, shops and public spaces.

Another highlight of the plan is the proposed building of a new university focused on environmental technology.

Mr Lin said the university would be vital in providing the technical expertise and manpower required for the eco-city, though it has yet to get the official green light from Beijing.

Read more!

Mangrove destruction partly to blame for Myanmar toll: ASEAN chief

Yahoo News 6 May 08;

The destruction of mangrove forests that served as a buffer from the sea is partly to blame for the massive death toll from a cyclone in Myanmar, the head of the ASEAN regional bloc said Tuesday.

More than 15,000 people have died after the cyclone swept through the Irrawaddy river delta over the weekend and pounded Myanmar's main city of Yangon, the country's state media reported.

"Why the impact is so severe is because of the increase of the population," said Surin Pitsuwan, secretary general of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, to which military-ruled Myanmar belongs.

This has led to an "encroachment into the mangrove forests which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area," he said in a speech in Singapore.

"All those lands have been destroyed. Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces."

Surin was giving a keynote address at the launch of a new centre at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies to focus on non-traditional security threats. These include climate change, degradation of the environment, and diseases such as bird flu.

The official New Light of Myanmar newspaper said the devastated town of Bogalay, in the heart of the Irrawaddy river delta where the storm swept ashore, had suffered most of the losses.

The Irrawaddy is one of the most heavily silted rivers in the world because of deforestation and intensive agriculture activities along its banks, the ASEAN Regional Centre for Biodiversity Conservation said on its website.

It said land outside the reserved forests has been converted for agricultural use and mangrove forests within the reserve "are now disappearing at a rapid rate."

The centre cited a study which said that if the rate of destruction between 1977 and 1986 was maintained, all mangrove forest would disappear in 50 years.

Mangrove loss 'left Burma exposed'
Mark Kinver, BBC News 6 May 08;

Destruction of mangrove forests in Burma left coastal areas exposed to the devastating force of the weekend's cyclone, a top politician suggests.

ASEAN secretary-general Surin Pitsuwan said coastal developments had resulted in mangroves, which act as a natural defence against storms, being lost.

At least 22,000 people have died in the disaster, say state officials.

A study of the 2004 Asian tsunami found that areas near healthy mangroves suffered less damage and fewer deaths.

Mr Surin, speaking at a high-level meeting of the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Singapore, said the combination of more people living in coastal areas and the loss of mangroves had exacerbated the tragedy.

"Encroachment into mangrove forests, which used to serve as a buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and residential areas; all those lands have been destroyed," the AFP news agency reported him as saying.

"Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces."

His comments follow a news conference by Burma's minister for relief and resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, who said more deaths were caused by the cyclone's storm surge rather than the winds which reached 190km/h (120mph).

"The wave was up to 12ft (3.5m) high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages," the minister said. "They did not have anywhere to flee."

Storm shelter

Mangroves have been long considered as "bio-guards" for coastal settlements.

A study published in December 2005 said healthy mangrove forests helped save Sri Lankan villagers during the Asian tsunami disaster, which claimed the lives of more than 200,000 people.

Researchers from IUCN, formerly known as the World Conservation Union, compared the death toll from two villages in Sri Lanka that were hit by the devastating giant waves.

While two people died in the settlement with dense mangrove and scrub forest, up to 6,000 people lost their lives in a nearby village without similar vegetation.

"Mangroves are a very dense vegetation type that grows along the shore," explained Jeffrey McNeely, chief scientist for IUCN.

"Where the saltwater and freshwater meet, that is where the mangroves grow; they often extend from several hundred metres to a few kilometers inland.

"Especially in river deltas, mangroves prevent waves from damaging the more productive land that are further inland from the sea."

Lowering defences

A recent global assessment found that 3.6 million hectares of mangrove forests had disappeared since 1980.

The study carried out by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) said that Asia had suffered the greatest loss, with 1.9 million hectares being destroyed, primarily as a result of land use change.

It found that large-scale conversion of mangroves into shrimp and fish farms were among the main destructive drivers.

Other pressures included new development to accommodate the growth in the tourism sector and rising populations.

Mette Wilkie, a senior forestry officer for the FAO, said most of the mangroves in Burma had suffered as a result of being overexploited.

"There are very limited areas that you would describe as pristine or densely covered mangrove in the Irrawaddy area," she said, referring to the region of Burma where Cyclone Nagris first made landfall.

"There are some efforts in place to try to rehabilitate and replant mangroves, but we do know that the loss rate is quite substantial still.

"During the 1990s, they lost something like 2,000 hectares each year, which is about 0.3% being lost annually.

"But that does not give you the whole picture because the majority of these tidal habitats are being degraded, even if they are not being completely destroyed."

Growing awareness

However, the global picture is not entirely bleak. The FAO assessment showed that the annual rate of destruction had slowed from 187,000 hectares during the 1980s to 102,000 hectares during the early 2000s.

Some nations, such as Bangladesh, had actually increased mangrove cover, the FAO reported.

The role mangroves can play in reducing the devastation caused by extreme weather events was among the reasons behind Bangladesh's decision to protect one of the world's largest examples of the coastal habitat.

The Sundarbans, located in the delta of the Ganges and Brahmaputra rivers, contain about 100,000 hectares of mangrove forest habitat.

"This has been allowed to grow, or in part at least, because Bangladesh was really hammered by a typhoon that killed something like 300,000 people a couple of decades ago," Dr McNeely said.

"They realised that if they did not have that mangrove buffer, another typhoon heading up the Bay of Bengal would cause even worse damage because the population is even more dense than it was then."

Delta of death
Straits Times 7 May 08;

Witnesses describe rice fields littered with corpses, while charitable organisations expect death toll to rise as tens of thousands remain missing in wake of Cyclone Nargis
YANGON - THE area worst affected by the cyclone that struck Myanmar is a vast and populous delta criss-crossed by canals and inlets, factors that made the damage extensive and delivering aid extraordinarily difficult.

Several other reasons have also been cited for the scale of the disaster, including the destruction of mangrove forests that acted as a buffer against the sea, the lack of an early- warning system and a tidal wave that came in the wake of the killer storm.

Based on a satellite map made available by the United Nations, the storm's damage was concentrated over an estimated 30,000-sq-km area along the Andaman Sea and Gulf of Martaban coastlines - less than 5per cent of the country.

But the affected region is home to nearly a quarter of Myanmar's 57million people.

Aid workers say delivering food, clean water and other supplies to far-flung villages will require an intensive response.

'Our fear is that many in the rural population have been cut off,' said Mr Paul Risley, spokesman in Asia for the World Food Programme, a UN agency. 'In some villages, 90per cent of shelter was destroyed or damaged.'

Witnesses yesterday described rice fields littered with corpses, and there are fears the official death toll of more than 22,000 will rise further as tens of thousands remain missing.

Christian relief organisation World Vision, one of the few international agencies allowed to work inside Myanmar, said its teams had flown over the most affected regions and witnessed horrific scenes on the ground.

'They saw the dead bodies from the helicopters, so it's quite overwhelming,' Mr Kyi Minn, an adviser to World Vision's office in Myanmar's main city of Yangon, told AFP in Thailand by telephone.

'The impact of the disaster could be worse than the (2004 Asian) tsunami because it is compounded by the limited availability of resources on top of the transport constraints,' he said.

Save The Children, another relief agency allowed to operate in the country, said it expected the toll to climb as high as 50,000.

'If at this stage, only four days in, the government is telling us the numbers are already reaching over 20,000 and there are 40,000 people missing, I think it could well go higher,' spokesman Dan Collinson told AFP.

'I wouldn't be surprised if it went as high as 50,000.'

Aid agencies reported their assessment teams had reached some devastated areas but getting in supplies and large numbers of aid workers would be difficult.

Mr Richard Horsey, the Bangkok-based spokesman for the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Aid, said the delta was riddled with waterways, but these were not easily accessible, even during normal times.

'The big concern is waterborne diseases. So that's why it's crucial to get safe water in. Then mosquito nets, cooking kits and clothing in the next few days,' he said. 'Food is not an emergency priority. Water and shelter are.'

Asean Secretary-General Surin Pitsuwan said the destruction of mangrove forests that served as a buffer against the sea was partly to blame for the huge death toll.

'Why the impact is so severe is because of the increase of the population,' he said.

This has led to an 'encroachment into the mangrove forests which used to serve as buffer between the rising tide, between big waves and storms and the residential area,' he said in Singapore.

'All those lands have been destroyed. Human beings are now direct victims of such natural forces.'

Questions were also being raised yesterday about inadequate warnings on the approaching storm, although Indian meteorologists insisted they had given Myanmar a 48-hour warning before the cyclone struck land.

'Forty-eight hours before Nargis struck, we indicated its point of crossing (landfall), its severity and all related issues to Myanmarese agencies,' Indian Meteorological Department spokesman B.P. Yadav said.

The department is mandated by the United Nations' World Meteorological Organisation to track cyclones in the region.

Myanmar Minister for Relief and Resettlement, Maung Maung Swe, told reporters yesterday that the high death toll was caused by a massive wave that gave people nowhere to run.

'More deaths were caused by the tidal wave than the storm itself,' he told a news conference.

'The wave was up to 3.5m high and it swept away and inundated half the houses in low-lying villages,' he said, giving the first detailed description of the disaster. 'They did not have anywhere to flee.'

In Yangon, power remained cut for a fourth day for almost all its 6.5million residents, while water supplies were restored in only a few areas.

Buddhist monks and Catholic nuns wielding knives and axes joined residents in clearing roads of fallen ancient trees that were once the city's pride.

Of the dead, only 671 were in Yangon and its outlying districts, according to state radio. The rest were all in the vast swamplands of the delta.

NEW YORK TIMES, ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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Climate link with killer cyclones spurs fierce scientific debate

Richard Ingham and Anne Chaon, Yahoo News 6 May 08;

Climate scientists have begun to debate whether global warming is producing more powerful storms, after Nargis smashed into Myanmar -- brutally changing gear from a Category One to a Category Four cyclone just before it made landfall.

Nagris wasn't an isolated incident: Hurricane Katrina laid waste to parts of the US Gulf Coast in 2005.

And in 2007, super-cyclone Gonu the Arabian peninsula was hit by a super-cyclone, Gonu.

Are these events -- massively costly in lives and treasure -- all linked?

Could they be part of an alarming trend of weird, more powerful storms stoked by global warming?

That's a question that causes fierce jousting among climate scientists.

Experts agree that a single weather event cannot be pinned to climate change, which is part of a long-term pattern spanning decades or centuries.

"It's impossible to say," Adam Lea of the Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre at University College London told AFP.

"It's only in the long term that you get the perspective that lets you say whether an extreme event is part of a wider trend," said French researcher Herve Le Treut, who contributed to last year's landmark report by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

But that's where the scientific consensus ends.

Some experts argue the evidence is already hard enough to identify a probable trend: storms are becoming more powerful as global warming heats up the oceans.

One of the most respected voices in the field is that of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) meteorology professor Kerry Emanuel, who calculates that the power of tropical cyclones has roughly doubled since the 1950s.

The massive increase has especially occurred over the last three decades, mirroring a rise in man-made global warming, he notes. And the trend stepped up a couple of gears from the mid-1990s, when global mean temperatures began to scale ever-higher annual peaks.

Others, though, say these judgements are premature.

They argue that we still need long-term historical data -- in which big weather oscillations and cycles in hurricane activity are filtered out -- in order to get a clear picture.

Far more is known about storm activity in the Atlantic, for instance, than in the Indian Ocean, and the Atlantic records themselves go back only 30 years or so, to the advent of satellite monitoring, Le Treut noted.

A study published last year by Johan Nyberg of Sweden's Geological Survey used Caribbean corals, whose growth is affected by temperature and nutrients stirred up by storms, to get a view spanning two and a half centuries.

Nyberg concluded that 1971-94 was abnormally calm for hurricane activity and that the big increase in storm numbers since 1995 was "not unusual" when compared to the longer record.

Tropical storms are called hurricanes when they occur in the Atlantic, typhoons when they happen in the Pacific and cyclones when they brew in the Indian Ocean.

The basic cause is the same -- heat and moisture provided by seas warmed to at least 26 or 27 degrees Celsius (78.8-80.6 degrees Fahrenheit).

But another factor is vertical wind shear, or the angle of prevailing winds.

This determine whether the nascent storm develops into the notorious wheeling "eye" of a cyclone or is torn into harmless shreds.

It's still unclear what impact global warming will have on vertical wind shear, say some experts. A theoretical combination of lower wind shear and warmer seas could result in storms that last longer, are more vicious and more frequent, too.

The IPCC's 2007 report said tropical cyclones were "likely" to become more intense, packing higher winds and rain, by 2100. But it also highlighted the fact that human settlement in vulnerable areas increased the toll from when the storms strike.

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Cubs a ray of hope in India's fight to save tigers

Bappa Majumdar, Reuters 6 May 08;

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Fourteen tiger cubs have been spotted in a leading Indian sanctuary, a rare piece of good news in the country's fight to protect its dwindling population of big cats from poachers and habitat destruction.

The cubs have been sighted regularly over the past few weeks in Ranthambore National Park in western Rajasthan, R.N. Mehrotra, the state's chief wildlife warden, told Reuters on Tuesday.

"The cubs belong to six or seven different mothers and they are all around three-and-a-half months old," Mehrotra said.

"Two more tigresses are pregnant and we are constantly monitoring them to ensure they stay safe," he said by telephone.

Wildlife experts welcomed the news and said they also have information about sightings of tiger cubs in four other reserves.

"Ranthambore is back to its heyday of the 1980s, and the secret of success is in better management and a lot of protection, which was not there earlier," said Belinda Wright of the Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI).

India is believed to have half the world's surviving tigers, but their numbers are thought to have dived to around 1,500, half of the previous estimate announced in 2002, wildlife officials said in February this year.

"It is fantastic news and new cubs means the habitat is good and conditions ideal in Ranthambore for breeding," said Sujoy Banerjee from WWF-India's Species Conservation Program.

But experts cautioned that the threat of being poached had not gone away, and tigers remained vulnerable both inside and outside parks.

Ranthambore reported just 32 tigers in the latest census made public earlier this year, down from 46 in 2004.

The losses were largely blamed on poachers feeding a thriving market for tiger body parts among followers of Chinese medicine.

Trade in dead tigers is illegal, but a single one can fetch up to $50,000 on the international black market. Bones are worth about $400 a kilogram, a penis almost $850, a tooth $120 and a claw $10, tiger experts say.

The clearing of large areas of forest land for homes and cultivation has added to the decline.

It was the revelation in 2005 that all 22 tigers thought to live in the Sariska Tiger Reserve, also in Rajasthan, had disappeared that prompted the setting up of a new tiger taskforce, which includes wildlife experts and community leaders.

Since then, park authorities have stepped up security and monitoring of the cats, and have curbed the movement of villagers in key reserves.

"We at least know that tigers don't breed when they are disturbed," Wright of the WPSI said. "A lot of hard work has gone into Ranthambore and the results are just starting to show now."

(Editing by Mark Williams)

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Possible new case of chikungunya in Singapore

Straits Times 7 May 08;

SINGAPORE may not have seen the last of chikungunya, the mosquito-borne disease characterised by fever and joint aches.

The Ministry of Health was alerted to a possible new case last Friday and is now awaiting confirmation from a second blood test on retiree E.C. Sng, who is in his 60s.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) is not taking any chances.

On Monday, a team of 16 descended on the Bukit Timah area, where Mr Sng lives.

A spokesman said the team will continue its search-and-destroy efforts in the area to remove mosquito breeding spots. It has found three in homes there so far.

Mr Sng said he may have caught the virus on a golf course in Jakarta on April 8.

He started feeling ill three days later while on a flight to Sydney. Doctors in Australia diagnosed his fever, extremely painful joint aches and headache as dengue.

Mr Sng decided to return to Singapore for treatment. Preliminary blood tests indicated that he may have chikungunya.

The disease hit the headlines in January when Singapore had its first case of local transmission. In all, 13 people in Little India were infected.

A massive effort by the NEA, including testing the blood of more than 2,600 people in the vicinity and checking more than 5,500 premises, succeeded in stopping the transmission of the disease.

In all previous cases, the patients were infected overseas instead of locally by Aedes mosquitoes carrying the virus.

SALMA KHALIK

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Virulent strain of HFMD affects 1 in 4 sick children in Singapore

Straits Times 7 May 08;

Rise is worrying, but Health Ministry says not necessary for all pre-schools to close
By Salma Khalik

ONE in four children who came down with hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) this year was infected with the virulent strain EV-71, said the Health Ministry (MOH) yesterday.

This is a jump from the 16 per cent reported in mid-April, and a potential cause for worry.

Batch tests conducted by the ministry showed that 26 per cent of the 10,490 children infected so far this year contracted the EV-71 virus, which was responsible for more than half of the seven deaths here in October 2000, when Singapore had its first major outbreak of the disease.

No fatalities have been reported in the current outbreak here, but the EV-71 virus has already killed 26 children in China this year.

Just two weeks ago, Health Minister Khaw Boon Wan said the re-emergence of EV-71 was worrying.

Noting that the strain does not surface every year, Mr Khaw said its appearance was the reason his ministry had been enforcing stricter measures, such as mandating school closures, to stem the spread.

However, the ministry told The Straits Times yesterday that it is not considering repeating the drastic step it took in 2000, when it ordered all the 1,000 or so pre-schools and childcare centres to close temporarily.

But it said the number of such centres which have been told to close or were urged to do so voluntarily is escalating.

As of Monday, 17 centres have been told to shut down.

Forced closure of 10 days is ordered when a centre has 13 sick children and transmission of the virus has not been broken after 15 days.

The ministry also wants 48 pre-schools and childcare centres where transmissions have been occurring for more than 15 days to close voluntarily.

Meanwhile, the number of infections shows little sign of abating. Last week's figure of 1,465 new cases was just one shy of the record set the week before.

The 285 new cases on Monday was higher than the one-day peak of 258 cases in 2000.

By 3pm yesterday, there were already 125 new cases.

So far this year, 130 children have been hospitalised because of the disease.

Said an MOH spokesman yesterday: 'We expect cases to remain high for a few more weeks till the mid-year school holidays.'

Regionally, infections also continue to climb.

In China, state media reported yesterday that the number of EV71 cases had risen to more than 12,000, with 26 children killed so far.

Taiwan has also seen a spike in the number of EV71 infections this year, while doctors in Vietnam say they are treating far more children this year for symptoms of HFMD.

Despite the rising numbers here, Madam Halimah Yacob, head of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Health, cautioned against rushing to close affected childcare centres and kindergartens.

Saying such a decision has to be ' very carefully considered', she added: 'This would cause tremendous disruption to the children and working parents, and may unwittingly also cause panic and alarm among the public.'

Fellow GPC member Lam Pin Min agreed, but said that if the situation worsens, Singapore might need to take tougher action, such as closing a centre the moment it has a confirmed case, he said.

The closure of pre-schools and centres in October 2000 resulted in a dramatic drop in cases, but also caused an uproar among parents, who were forced to scramble for alternative childcare arrangements and later criticised the Government for acting too hastily.

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