Best of our wild blogs: 18 May 08

18-23 May: Free traditional wayang at Pulau Ubin
more details on the pulau ubin stories blog

Knobbly survivors of the 2007 flood at Chek Jawa!
on the star trackers blog with details of a study of knobblies at Palau they mass spawn in May!

Reef survey at Pulau Hantu
on hbing's site and camera suicide on the colourful clouds blog

The Plain Nawab
butterfly of the month on the butterflies of singapore blog

White-bellied Sea-eagle foraging in monsoon drain
on the bird ecology blog

Jogging through a termite hatch
on the bird ecology blog

Big spider among leaf litter
on the urban forest blog

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Biodiversity loss costs six percent of world income: report

Yahoo News 18 May 08;

The destruction of flora and fauna is costing the world two trillion euros (3.1 trillion dollars) a year, or six percent of its overall gross national product, according to a report trailed by German news weekly Der Spiegel.

The European Union and German environment ministry-led research, entitled "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity," will be presented on Monday at the ninth conference of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity in Bonn.

In its edition out Monday, Der Spiegel will present extracts from the paper, with the study's lead author, Pavan Sukhdev, a senior figure with Deutsche Bank in India, writing that "the world's poor bear the brunt of the cost."

Der Spiegel also says that German Chancellor Angela Merkel will announce a sharp increase in German funding to combat deforestation in line with Norway, which ploughs 500 million dollars annually into forest retention.

Deforestation -- a huge factor in species loss and global carbon emissions contributing to climate change -- is a central theme of this year's conference in Bonn, formerly the capital of West German.

One in four mammal species, one in eight among birds, a third of amphibian creatures and 70 percent of all plant life made the most recent endangered list issued by another UN agency, the World Conservation Union (WCU).

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Development plans taking shape in Punggol

Channel NewsAsia 17 May 08;

SINGAPORE : Punggol residents can expect a new shopping mall as large as Junction 8, in their town centre, when the Housing and Development Board (HDB) launches the first sale site at Punggol in the next two to three years.

The site will be used for a mixed commercial and private residential development.

Earmarked as Singapore's waterfront town, much of the activities in Punggol will centre around a new waterway.

The HDB has completed technical studies for the waterway.

It will now explore ways to integrate eco-friendly features and how to make it safe and vibrant for different recreational options.

Work on the waterway is expected to start next year.

Mah Bow Tan, National Development Minister, said, "We are actually going to dig a major waterway, over four kilometres long and four metres deep; the width will varying depending on where it is. In three to four years' time, we should have the new waterway completed."

HDB has also launched a new design competition to get the private sector involved in the design of the waterway landscape.

A Waterfront Housing Design Competition will also be held to develop more concrete plans for a new generation of public housing.

Mr Mah said, "HDB is going to launch and build another 4,000 new homes in Punggol later this year for sale under the BTO (Build-to-Order) programme. So if you add it all up, we are going to have more than 20,000 new flats in Punggol."

Going forward, HDB plans to launch the first public housing site along the waterfront in the next two to three years, after major works of the waterway are completed.

Some land will also be set aside for private residential projects.

HDB said fun and adventure await residents along the coastline.

Work on the coastal promenade will begin soon, while the development of a Rustic Park at Coney Island will start next year. - CNA/ms

Punggol to have new shopping mall, more flats
Sujin Thomas, Straits Times 19 May 08;

RESIDENTS in Punggol will have a new shopping mall and more fellow residents within the next three years.

The new town, which already has 16,700 flats, has another 2,100 being built now.

The Housing Board also recently launched 1,700 flats and will launch another 4,000 by year's end, said National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan last Saturday at the launch of a two-day exhibition on the progress in Punggol.

He added that, with more residents calling Punggol home, it would become feasible to build more commercial and public facilities.

One being planned is a shopping mall about the size of Junction 8 in Bishan.

The first sale site for a mixed commercial and private residential development will be launched in the town centre in the next two to three years.

Punggol's 4.2km waterway through the town will be used to bring water closer to the community. The Housing Board recently completed technical studies on it and works will begin next year.

A landscape masterplan design competition is being held to tap the expertise of urban planners, architects and landscape architects, who will be expected to contribute designs and concepts for the waterway, two tributaries and 10m-wide promenades along the waterway and town park.

The HDB plans to launch the first public housing site along a waterfront after major works of the waterway are completed in the next two to three years.

Several plots of land will also be set aside for private residential projects.

Work on the coastal promenade will begin soon, while the development of a rustic park on Coney Island will start next year. Other facilities being worked on include a horse-riding centre and a golf range.

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NParks launches Ketam Bike Park at Pulau Ubin

Channel NewsAsia 17 May 08;

SINGAPORE : Singapore's first world-class mountain biking park was launched by the National Parks Board on Saturday.

Designed to standards set by the International Mountain Bicycling Association, the park at Pulau Ubin is guaranteed to give bikers a thrilling ride.

It was no mean feat waking up at the crack of dawn to get to Pulau Ubin, but it was all worth it for a group of bikers.

They are the first to race at Ketam Bike Park, Singapore's world-class biking trail.

But there is more to do at the park than just biking.

The park has attracted many species of wildlife, all thanks to the more than 1,000 shrubs and trees planted by the National Parks Board. - CNA/ms

More bite for bikers
Mountain bikers who crave the thrills and spills of going off-road have a new playground on Pulau Ubin

Sandra Leong, Straits Times 18 May 08;

Heavy rain beats down on mountain biker Tan Hong Chun, 29, as he steadies his bicycle at the top of a slope as high as a four-storey building.

He may be a commando officer, used to rough and tough army demands, but the slope - called the GraveDrop - gives even him cause to pause before he plunges. He grips his handlebars and then pushes off, skidding and jolting over slippery rocks.

The action man is taking his chunky-tyred, rugged bike for a spin at the newly-opened, 45ha Ketam Mountain Bike Park on the north-eastern island of Pulau Ubin.

If the GraveDrop sounds too scary, there are routes to suit all levels, from regular dirt-road riders such as Mr Tan to beginners, within the park's 10km off-road trails that twist around the fringe of the disused Ketam Quarry site.

The National Parks Board (NParks) built the bike delight at a cost of $1 million, including planting over 1,000 trees at the site, and says it is Singapore's only bike park to meet international standards for mountain biking contests.

It's also the largest area in Singapore dedicated to the sport. There are four other areas: off Chestnut Avenue at Upper Bukit Timah, along the periphery of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, Kent Ridge Park, and a parcel of land starting at the intersection of Tampines Avenues 7 and 9.

A handful of unmarked trails also exist, but NParks director of conservation Wong Tuan Wah says riders are discouraged from going on non-designated trails in nature reserves and forested areas, for their own safety and also to avoid disturbing wildlife and vegetation.

If you're more familiar with a leisurely spin along East Coast Park, mountain biking caters to your inner adrenaline junkie.

You negotiate off-road obstacles such as uphill climbs, downhill descents, narrow tracks, sharp corners and drop-offs, where the rider has to 'jump' or 'drop' from one height to another.

The Ketam park roll-out comes ahead of the 2010 Youth Olympic Games to be held here, where mountain biking will be one of the 26 events. Races will be held at the Tampines trail.

Singapore, in fact, has a national team of mountain bikers representing the Republic in events such as the South-east Asian Games. But the members LifeStyle spoke to say they are left largely to train on their own and fund their own pursuits.

Mr Lee Zi Shin, 32, who runs an online portal for cyclists named Togoparts which has 13,500 registered members, says: 'The driving factor behind people taking up mountain biking has got to be the availability of terrain in Singapore. So the Ketam trail is a big plus for them.'

LifeStyle went with three seasoned cyclists, including Mr Tan, for an early look at the trail on a wet Wednesday last week.

Colours for skill levels

Despite boasting some menacingly named obstacles - besides GraveDrop, you'll also come across features called Black Cobra and Strangler - Ketam is also built for leisure riders.

So if you don't own a mountain bike, which can cost anything from a few hundred to many thousands of dollars, you can get a bumboat as usual from Changi to the jetty area and simply hire a suitable two-wheeler from one of the numerous rental places in the area.

However, mountain bikers warn that it can be a hazardous sport and advise wearing a safety helmet and sticking to beginner-level trails until you have more experience under your saddle. Some parts may also not be suitable for children.

Injuries are not uncommon. Experienced rider Lee Chuen Ling, 37, an in-house legal counsel, says: 'If you want to take up mountain biking, you better be prepared to fall. But it serves to remind you that you are human and that you need to improve your skills.'

To help you tell if you are on the right path, the park has colour-coded sections for each skill level, in accordance with standards set by the International Mountain Bicycling Association.

There's the Blue Square, for beginner riders; Black Diamond for those who are moderately skilled; and Double Black Diamond, which is not for the faint-hearted.

If you want even more thrills, there is a Dirt Skills Park and a Freeride Skills Park, which are manmade circuits featuring various obstacles to test riders' skills.

Ketam was launched officially yesterday morning by Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education Grace Fu.

The idea to build a mountain bike park on Ubin was first discussed by NParks in consultation with the Singapore Amateur Cycling Association (Saca) in late 2001, says Mr Robert Teo, the assistant director overseeing Pulau Ubin at NParks.

'The natural undulating terrain and expanse available at the site offered an ideal setting. Moreover, mountain biking is a very popular activity for visitors to Pulau Ubin,' he adds.

Construction took place from November 2006 to September last year. Also included as consultants in the process was a local company named DirTraction, which specialises in building mountain biking trails, organising cycling events and holding training clinics for both mountain bikers and road cyclists.

One of DirTraction's founders, Mr Max Mager, 45, notes that some areas of the park were inaccessible to machinery or heavy vehicles, so members of the mountain biking community did volunteer manual labour over 'countless weekends'.

He says: 'I sent out an e-mail asking for help and about 10 volunteers came to carry the rocks with their bare hands or with wheelbarrows. Two even came all the way from Malaysia.'

The opening of the Ketam park, which is free of charge, comes with increased interest in mountain biking.

At yesterday's Hentam Ketam, a duathlon race organised by Togoparts to mark the opening of the Ubin bike park, about 100 mostly Singaporean competitors signed up to run and bike around the trails.

Another 100 signed up for a leisure ride.

A DirTraction race last month, the Bike Asia 100 Mountain Bike Rice, also saw close to 300 competitors signing up, of which 80 per cent were Singaporean. Come July 20, it is organising another race at Kent Ridge, called Krankin' At Kent Ridge.

Groups such as the Zheng Hua CSC Cycling Club at Bukit Panjang are promoting mountain biking at a grassroots level, says its president Jefferson Ng, 46. The club has 25 members aged 18 to 47, including coaches who teach beginners basic skills.

He says: 'It's part of our development programme. We are also doing talent-spotting at the primary school level.'

Mr Mager says it is planning to organise races at the schools level to popularise the sport.

He's also on the lookout for new trail locations like Ketam, but says this is hard as there is no established 'tender or lobby system' through which to make proposals.

For now, there's the new playground on Ubin to explore. GraveDrop anyone?

Related links
More about Pulau Ubin on the wildsingapore website and pulau ubin stories blog

Read more!

Dumping food that's still good enough to eat? Situation in Singapore

Food wastage here hit 558,900 tonnes last year, even as people complain of steadily climbing prices and people elsewhere suffer food shortages

Shuli Sudderuddin, Stacey Chia, Becky Lo, Straits Times 18 May 08;

Undergraduate Low Qiong Xia, 21, reckons that her family of four tosses out about half a kilogram of food each day, wasting about $56 of their $210 weekly food budget.

For instance, their weekly disposal of leftover oranges has become a routine.

'Nobody in my family likes oranges, which we buy for religious offerings. We tend to keep them in the fridge till they get bad, then start throwing them away,' she said.

The Low family's food practices are not uncommon. Across the island, food wastage added up to 558,900 tonnes last year, said the National Environment Agency. Such wastage has grown by 6.2 per cent since 2002, perhaps the result of a more affluent and expanding population.

But at a time of rising food prices and shortages elsewhere, throwing out good food is a waste of money, said Mr Seah Seng Choon, executive director of the Consumers Association of Singapore.

'Such wastage can be reduced or even prevented. Simple measures will help consumers save in this time of high inflation,' he added.

Agreeing, Dr Teo Ho Pin, Mayor of North West District and MP for Bukit Panjang, felt that people should buy only what they need.

Referring to the Green Movement's 'Three Rs' - reduce, recycle and re-use - he said the first applies to food. 'We should make an effort to reduce consumption. Not only does this help the environment, but it also helps people to stretch their dollar when prices are rising,' he said.

A Sunday Times check of 60 businesses here, from hawker and market stalls to restaurants and hotels, found much evidence of wastage. Eight of the 12 hawkers interviewed said they frequently ended up with unused food portions at the end of the day.

'Up to 1kg of meat and vegetables are left over and thrown away every day,' said Mr Lok Kok Heng, 32, supervisor of a mixed rice stall at the High Inn Coffeeshop in Clementi.

A drinks and snacks stall owner in Bedok, who wanted to be known only as Mr Murthy, 53, said that he often throws away 10 to 20 pieces of unconsumed vadai, which are Indian savoury fritters.

'Sometimes, at closing time, I will give them out for free, but people don't even want them,' he said.

In the restaurants, up to 5 per cent of the food ends up as waste because it is no longer fresh enough to be sold.

Food celebrity Devagi Sanmugam, owner of Devagi's Restaurant in Upper Thomson Road, said 2 or 3kg of cooked food go into the bins on some days.

'Good restaurants serve only fresh food. We don't keep cooked food in the fridge for the next day,' she explained.

Over at Vietnamese restaurant Pho Hoa, which has outlets in Suntec City and Holland Village, up to 36kg of unwanted beef parts and 91/2 kg of vegetables are tossed out every week.

'Even if they are still edible, we cannot serve them if they are not fresh,' a spokesman said.

Wholesale centres also have a wastage problem.

Mr Ong Shuh Chuang, a vegetable wholesaler at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market, typically finds himself left with about 20 baskets of vegetables at the end of each weekday. Each basket, if sold, can fetch about $20 to $40. 'Turnips and sweet potatoes can be sold the next day, but perishable ones have to be thrown away,' he said.

While most food waste ends up incinerated, a growing amount is recycled now at IUT Singapore, which turns food waste into bio-gas and soil compost. For example, since October last year, about 2 tonnes of food waste collected daily from five canteens at the National University of Singapore are being recycled.

Meanwhile, items like unsold bread are still good for consumption. Food from the Heart, which runs a voluntary food distribution programme, collects about 20,000kg of unsold bread monthly, worth about $150,000, from various hotels and bakeries.

Said its event executive, Ms Nurul Ain Hamzah: 'It will otherwise go to waste.'

Rising food prices have led to a change in behaviour in some businesses. Since the middle of last year, McDonald's has been reducing wastage by assembling food only when an order is placed, and installing condiment dispensers instead of giving out packets of sauce.

Its restaurant managers now do projections of customer flow to avoid excess food preparation. The changes will be made to all McDonald's outlets by year end.

Families, too, now monitor food use.

Ms Low's family has started making a shopping list to avoid overbuying.

Housewife Lynn Puyo, 30, has also started cutting down on waste. 'I used to throw away rice that we did not finish. Now, we eat every last bit,' she said.

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Plastic bag policy 'a diversion'

Joe Lynam, BBC News 17 May 08;

Plans to ban or charge for single-use plastic bags are a diversion from the real environmental issues, one of the government's own advisers has said.

Waste and recycling expert Professor Chris Coggins said such a government policy allowed the supermarkets to pass on responsibility to customers.

He said supermarkets could be helping to influence packaging rather than shifting the problem on to consumers.

The government said the public wanted to see action to curb use of the bags.

Visible litter

"Supermarkets have a much bigger role to play in influencing the packaging they use," said Professor Chris Coggins, who was appointed research managing agent for the Department of Food and Rural Affairs' (Defra) waste research programme in 2005.

"They [supermarkets] have power in terms of what they buy and how it's packed. The problem is, by focusing on the consumer end, they are to some extent diverting attention from what they should be doing."



In a BBC interview, Prof Coggins, who also works on the sustainable urban environment (waste) programme, said: "Plastic bags are a very visible form of litter but in reality they are a very small proportion of waste and oil use.

"So in overall resource terms, it's a visual rather than mainstream issue."

Environment minister Joan Ruddock admitted single use bags were only a small part of the waste stream.

But she added: "We know that the public is on our side. They want action. It's very symbolic of our throw-away society and so we do need to do something quite dramatically to curb their use."

Trivial issue

British retailers hand out an estimated 13 billion free plastic bags every year, which take about 1,000 years to decay.

The government has set a voluntary target of cutting plastic bag usage by a quarter every year.

It has also proposed stricter measures on retailers as part of the proposed climate change bill, should that target not be met.

The retail sector comprises about 7% of the total UK building energy consumption, emitting over 5 million tonnes of carbon dioxide per year, according to the Carbon Trust.

But the proposed new legislation has not been welcomed by retailers.

Jane Milne, from the British Retail Consortium, which represents Britain's supermarkets, said: "There are a lot of important provisions in the climate change bill which we do support but we think this is a rather trivial issue to add onto it.

"It's not just a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it's a steamroller to crack a walnut. It really is not the best use of our resources in terms of all the issues that we need to be addressing."

Lack of uniformity

Since 6 May, one of Britain's largest retailers, Marks & Spencer, has been charging its customers 5p for each disposable plastic bag as part of its corporate environmental policy.

The move follows a trial at 50 stores in Northern Ireland and the south-west of England, which saw demand for polythene bags fall by more than 70%.

If that trend is copied throughout the UK, M&S said it could reduce the number of bags used by 280 million each year.



Other supermarkets such as Tesco and Sainsbury's have their own policies for cutting plastic bag use among customers.

Discount retailers such as Aldi and Lidl have been charging for bags for a number of years.

This array of strategies to combat single-use plastic bags by supermarkets has also been criticised by Prof Coggins as confusing for shoppers looking for uniformity nationwide.

In 2002, the Republic of Ireland became the first country in the world to charge for plastic bags - a policy which cut usage by 90% almost overnight.

Although the scheme has been beneficial for the environment, the measure was initially introduced to reduce litter.

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Australian defence force to cull kangaroos: official

Yahoo News 16 May 08;

Hundreds of kangaroos will be culled at a former naval site near the Australian capital after the defence department said plans to relocate the animals fell through.

The department called off the cull of about 400 eastern grey kangaroos earlier this year after a public outcry, but said it now had no option but to call in contractors to kill the animals.

The federal government had withdrawn support for a plan to relocate the kangaroos because it would cost millions of dollars and was not considered an effective use of taxpayers' money, the department said.

"The anticipated cost of the translocation project was estimated to be 3.5 million dollars (3.29 million US)," the department said in a statement released late Friday. "Defence has no option but to undertake a cull."

The cull is expected to begin immediately and take a few weeks but animal rights protesters said they will do all they can to save the kangaroos.

Animal Liberation spokesman Bernard Brennan said the planned slaughter had sparked anger and his group was determined to stop it going ahead.

"We'll do whatever it takes, I've made a promise to these kangaroos," he told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

The cull is considered necessary because an overpopulation of kangaroos is damaging the environment at the Belconnen Naval Transmission Site near Canberra.

The animals will be shot with tranquilising darts and then euthanased with a lethal drug.

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Biofuels must not deprive poor of food: EU official

Yahoo News 17 May 08;

Biofuels must not deprive the world's poor of food, a senior European official said, as he proposed a greater focus on second-generation biofuels that would be more environmentally friendly.

Guenter Verheugen, a vice president of the European Commission, was speaking against a background of growing doubts about whether the European Union should continue a policy of elevating biofuels to an environmental priority.

"It makes no sense to make car fuel from plants that ought to provide human and animal food," said Verheugen in the Bild am Sonntag newspaper, extracts of which were made available Saturday.

The accent should be instead on research into second-generation biofuels,"for example technology using hydrogen," added Verheugen, who is the EU commissioner responsible for enterprise and industry.

The biofuel industry fears the controversy could inhibit research into second-generation biofuels which are environmentally more friendly since they would be made from non-edible agricultural waste such as straw.

"What matters to the commission is sustainable development," Verheugen said. "It will not work if production of basic foodstaffs is hindered or tropical forest is cut down" for biofuels.

The 27-nation European Union wants biofuels to make up 10 percent of all EU vehicle fuel by 2020, but the target has come under fire in the face of soaring global food prices that have hit poor countries particularly hard.

Biofuel development is part of a wider package to reduced EU greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and to reduce dependence on fossil fuels.

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