Michael Perry, Reuters 2 Jun 08;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rising acidity in the ocean caused by seas absorbing greenhouse carbon dioxide could make low-lying island nations like Kiribati and the Maldives more vulnerable to storms as their coral reefs struggle to survive, say scientists.
Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is at its highest level in the past 650,000 years, possible 23 million years, and half has now been dissolved into the oceans making them more acidic.
Ocean acidification, which is projected to spread extensively north from the Antarctic by 2100, makes it difficult or impossible for some animals, like coral and starfish, to produce their shells and skeletons.
"If ocean acidification weakens the structure of reef-forming corals and algae, tropical systems (islands) will be more vulnerable to physical impacts from storms and cyclones," said a new report by some of the world's leading marine scientists.
"By 2100, it is expected that some reefs will become marginal and reef calcification will decline," said the report, by the Antarctic Climate & Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre, released on Monday.
The report cited Kiribati in the South Pacific and the Maldives in the Indian Ocean as being more vulnerable to tropical storms if ocean acidification continues to rise.
"These impacts will also directly affect important commercial, recreational or subsistence reef fisheries where the target species depend on reef habitats," said the report, released at an ocean acidification conference in Hobart.
Ocean acidification is when carbon dioxide dissolves in the sea forming a weak acid, carbonic acid. Human-induced carbon dioxide has largely been produced by burning fossil fuels, agricultural practices and concrete production.
"The ocean is a major sink for CO2 emissions and has absorbed about 48 percent of the CO2 emitted by human activities since preindustrial times," said the report.
FOOD CHAIN THREATENED
Ocean acidification is already affecting the cold water marine life of the Southern Ocean where most carbon dioxide has dissolved and U.S. researchers said it was now appearing on the Pacific North American continental shelf.
"The Southern Ocean is a biogeochemical 'harbinger' for the impacts of acidification that will spread throughout the global ocean," said the report.
By 2060, Antarctic polar waters would experience carbonate ion concentrations so low that one form of calcium carbonate, aragonite, will not be available for organisms to build shells.
Ocean acidification may also interfere with the respiration of fish, the larval development of marine organisms and the ability of oceans to absorb nutrients and toxins.
"Ocean acidification is likely to have an ecological cascade effect right up to parts of the food web that are important to human beings, such as fish and shell fish," said research scientist Will Howard from the Antarctic research centre.
The report said ice cores showed that the current rate of increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is 100 times greater than the most rapid increases experienced in the last 650,000 years. Sedimentary records suggest carbon dioxide levels were higher than at anytime in the last 23 million years.
It said atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are expected to reach about double pre-industrial levels within this century, resulting in an acidification of oceans three times the level experienced during the last major rise in carbon dioxide during the last glacial period 15,000 years ago.
"Many (marine) species have taken millennia to evolve and it is unknown whether they can (or will) be able to adapt to the relatively rapid rate of ocean acidification, in the order of decades not millennia," said the report.
(Editing by Valerie Lee)
Australia completes controversial kangaroo cull
Yahoo News 3 Jun 08;
Australian officials have completed a cull of more than 500 kangaroos which animal activists had protested was an unjustified slaughter, the defence department said Tuesday.
Some 514 eastern grey kangaroos were killed at a former naval communications base in the national capital Canberra by lethal injection, a defence spokeswoman told AFP.
"The cull proceeded according to plan and the process was completed in 10 days," she told AFP.
The Australian Capital Territory government had backed the decision to kill the animals, saying the site was overcrowded with the hopping marsupials, which were threatening the area's flora and fauna.
The RSPCA had also supported the cull, saying it was the only option for the site and was conducted humanely.
But the decision attracted outcry from animal rights activists, who had asked former Beatle Paul McCartney for his help in saving the animals. Protesters wanted the kangaroos relocated to another area rather than killed, a process that the government had ruled out as too expensive.
Despite featuring on the nation's coat of arms, kangaroos are killed by the millions each year by private landowners to control their numbers.
Australian officials have completed a cull of more than 500 kangaroos which animal activists had protested was an unjustified slaughter, the defence department said Tuesday.
Some 514 eastern grey kangaroos were killed at a former naval communications base in the national capital Canberra by lethal injection, a defence spokeswoman told AFP.
"The cull proceeded according to plan and the process was completed in 10 days," she told AFP.
The Australian Capital Territory government had backed the decision to kill the animals, saying the site was overcrowded with the hopping marsupials, which were threatening the area's flora and fauna.
The RSPCA had also supported the cull, saying it was the only option for the site and was conducted humanely.
But the decision attracted outcry from animal rights activists, who had asked former Beatle Paul McCartney for his help in saving the animals. Protesters wanted the kangaroos relocated to another area rather than killed, a process that the government had ruled out as too expensive.
Despite featuring on the nation's coat of arms, kangaroos are killed by the millions each year by private landowners to control their numbers.
Iceland and Norway resume whale meat exports to Japan
Yahoo News 2 Jun 08;
Iceland and Norway resumed whale meat exports to Japan this year after an 18-year interruption, industry representatives from both Scandinavian countries said.
"Iceland and Norway resumed exporting whale meat to Japan," Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, president of the Icelandic association representing Minke whale hunters, told AFP.
"We (Iceland) have exported to Japan 80 tonnes of fine whale's meat about two weeks ago. The meat is now in Japan. We got the authorization from the government in 2006. And the last exports (before those) were in 1990," said Jonsson.
Despite Japan being the largest market for whale meat, Norwegian whalers prior to now met with no uptake from Japanese buyers who worried mercury and dioxin levels were abnormally high in the Scandinavian product.
"Norway announced in 2001 that it would resume its exports. Up to now, our sales were limited to Iceland and the Faroe Islands but, this year, meat has also been exported to Japan," Halvard Johansen, an official with Norway's fishing ministry, told AFP.
"Ask the Japanese," replied Johansen when questioned why Japan had re-opened its doors to Norweigan products.
Norway once again began whale hunting in 1993 despite an international moratorium imposed since 1986 to protect the species. Iceland followed suit in 2006 and is now the only other country that allows commercial hunting of whales.
Jonsson said no future quotas on Icelandic whale meat exports to Japan have been set.
"But we hope to get more this season," he said.
Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only countries that continue to hunt whales, despite international condemnation.
Whalemeat traders 'defying ban'
Richard Black, BBC News 2 Jun 08;
Icelandic and Norwegian companies have begun exporting whalemeat to Japan.
About 60 tonnes of meat from fin whales caught in the 2006 Icelandic hunt was reportedly sent with a much smaller amount of minke meat from Norway.
Industry sources told the BBC that the meat had already arrived in Japan, although a Japanese official said no request to import it had been received.
Conservation groups say the trade will damage attempts to bridge the gap between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
The fin whale is listed as Endangered on the internationally recognised Red List of Threatened Species.
But Iceland maintains populations are high enough in the North Atlantic that a small annual kill, such as the seven caught in 2006, is sustainable.
This is Iceland's first whalemeat export to Japan in nearly 20 years.
Mutual benefit
Commercial whaling has been banned globally under the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986, but Iceland and Norway lodged formal objections to the ban and their governments issue commercial quotas unilaterally.
The global trade in whalemeat is also prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but again the three countries have exempted themselves by lodging formal "reservations".
"This trade will be mutually beneficial for the three main whaling countries," said Kristjan Loftsson, CEO of the Icelandic company Hvalur hf which catches fin whales.
"This trade is perfectly legal under the domestic legislation of the three countries as well as all relevant international law."
Iceland's Fisheries Ministry said it was not an issue that concerned the government.
"It's been clear since 2006 that our position was that those who were engaged in [the hunt] could export the products," said Stefan Asmundsson, a senior official in the ministry and Iceland's commissioner to the IWC.
"Then it's up to them to do that; and as far as I know they have shipped some product to Japan," he told BBC News.
An official in Norway's Directorate of Nature Management confirmed that his government had issued export permits for minke meat totalling 5.3 tonnes to two companies.
A spokesman for one of the companies, Myklebust Trading, said the consignment - sent by air - had reached Japan.
However, an official in Japan's Fisheries Agency told BBC News that no request for permission to import the meat had been lodged with the government - and such a request was needed, he said.
Domestic issue?
Sue Lieberman, director of the global species programme at the conservation charity WWF, agreed that the trade was legal, but said it went against the principles of these international treaties.
"It undermines the effectiveness of CITES if countries are trading under their reservations, and it also undermines the IWC," she said.
"There's supposed to be a ban on commercial whaling; and Iceland and Norway keep saying they need to hunt because there's a demand in their own countries, but the trade shows it's not true.
"[The Icelandic hunters] killed the fins just because they could get more money for fin than minke meat in Japan."
The fin whale meat has been in cold storage since the 2006 season, and Mr Loftsson acknowlededges there is no domestic market.
For the last year, IWC chairman William Hogarth has been trying to set in train a mechanism that could heal the damaging breach betwen pro- and anti-whaling countries within the commission.
Japan and some anti-whaling countries such as The Netherlands and New Zealand are actively engaged with the initiative, though there is still deep suspicion between opposing camps.
"What this decision means is that Iceland, or at least Loftsson, is trying to strangle the effort to find a compromise," said Arni Finnsson from the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (Inca).
Mr Finnsson argues, as do other environmentalists, that the continuation of whaling and the decision not to interfere in the whalemeat exports may damage Iceland's economy - already reeling from the international banking crisis - and its candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council.
Following last month's decision to issue a minke quota for 2008, foreign minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir said Iceland was sacrificing its long-term interests for short-term gain, while the UK was one of the nations criticising the decision.
Iceland and Norway resumed whale meat exports to Japan this year after an 18-year interruption, industry representatives from both Scandinavian countries said.
"Iceland and Norway resumed exporting whale meat to Japan," Gunnar Bergmann Jonsson, president of the Icelandic association representing Minke whale hunters, told AFP.
"We (Iceland) have exported to Japan 80 tonnes of fine whale's meat about two weeks ago. The meat is now in Japan. We got the authorization from the government in 2006. And the last exports (before those) were in 1990," said Jonsson.
Despite Japan being the largest market for whale meat, Norwegian whalers prior to now met with no uptake from Japanese buyers who worried mercury and dioxin levels were abnormally high in the Scandinavian product.
"Norway announced in 2001 that it would resume its exports. Up to now, our sales were limited to Iceland and the Faroe Islands but, this year, meat has also been exported to Japan," Halvard Johansen, an official with Norway's fishing ministry, told AFP.
"Ask the Japanese," replied Johansen when questioned why Japan had re-opened its doors to Norweigan products.
Norway once again began whale hunting in 1993 despite an international moratorium imposed since 1986 to protect the species. Iceland followed suit in 2006 and is now the only other country that allows commercial hunting of whales.
Jonsson said no future quotas on Icelandic whale meat exports to Japan have been set.
"But we hope to get more this season," he said.
Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only countries that continue to hunt whales, despite international condemnation.
Whalemeat traders 'defying ban'
Richard Black, BBC News 2 Jun 08;
Icelandic and Norwegian companies have begun exporting whalemeat to Japan.
About 60 tonnes of meat from fin whales caught in the 2006 Icelandic hunt was reportedly sent with a much smaller amount of minke meat from Norway.
Industry sources told the BBC that the meat had already arrived in Japan, although a Japanese official said no request to import it had been received.
Conservation groups say the trade will damage attempts to bridge the gap between pro- and anti-whaling nations.
The fin whale is listed as Endangered on the internationally recognised Red List of Threatened Species.
But Iceland maintains populations are high enough in the North Atlantic that a small annual kill, such as the seven caught in 2006, is sustainable.
This is Iceland's first whalemeat export to Japan in nearly 20 years.
Mutual benefit
Commercial whaling has been banned globally under the International Whaling Commission (IWC) since 1986, but Iceland and Norway lodged formal objections to the ban and their governments issue commercial quotas unilaterally.
The global trade in whalemeat is also prohibited under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but again the three countries have exempted themselves by lodging formal "reservations".
"This trade will be mutually beneficial for the three main whaling countries," said Kristjan Loftsson, CEO of the Icelandic company Hvalur hf which catches fin whales.
"This trade is perfectly legal under the domestic legislation of the three countries as well as all relevant international law."
Iceland's Fisheries Ministry said it was not an issue that concerned the government.
"It's been clear since 2006 that our position was that those who were engaged in [the hunt] could export the products," said Stefan Asmundsson, a senior official in the ministry and Iceland's commissioner to the IWC.
"Then it's up to them to do that; and as far as I know they have shipped some product to Japan," he told BBC News.
An official in Norway's Directorate of Nature Management confirmed that his government had issued export permits for minke meat totalling 5.3 tonnes to two companies.
A spokesman for one of the companies, Myklebust Trading, said the consignment - sent by air - had reached Japan.
However, an official in Japan's Fisheries Agency told BBC News that no request for permission to import the meat had been lodged with the government - and such a request was needed, he said.
Domestic issue?
Sue Lieberman, director of the global species programme at the conservation charity WWF, agreed that the trade was legal, but said it went against the principles of these international treaties.
"It undermines the effectiveness of CITES if countries are trading under their reservations, and it also undermines the IWC," she said.
"There's supposed to be a ban on commercial whaling; and Iceland and Norway keep saying they need to hunt because there's a demand in their own countries, but the trade shows it's not true.
"[The Icelandic hunters] killed the fins just because they could get more money for fin than minke meat in Japan."
The fin whale meat has been in cold storage since the 2006 season, and Mr Loftsson acknowlededges there is no domestic market.
For the last year, IWC chairman William Hogarth has been trying to set in train a mechanism that could heal the damaging breach betwen pro- and anti-whaling countries within the commission.
Japan and some anti-whaling countries such as The Netherlands and New Zealand are actively engaged with the initiative, though there is still deep suspicion between opposing camps.
"What this decision means is that Iceland, or at least Loftsson, is trying to strangle the effort to find a compromise," said Arni Finnsson from the Iceland Nature Conservation Association (Inca).
Mr Finnsson argues, as do other environmentalists, that the continuation of whaling and the decision not to interfere in the whalemeat exports may damage Iceland's economy - already reeling from the international banking crisis - and its candidacy for a seat on the UN Security Council.
Following last month's decision to issue a minke quota for 2008, foreign minister Ingibjorg Solrun Gisladottir said Iceland was sacrificing its long-term interests for short-term gain, while the UK was one of the nations criticising the decision.
Last flight of the honeybee?
A bee-less world wouldn't just mean the end of honey - Einstein said that if the honeybee became extinct, then so would mankind. Alison Benjamin reports on a very real threat
Alison Benjamin, The Guardian 31 May 08;
Dave Hackenberg's bees have been on the road for four days. To reach the almond orchards of California's Central Valley, they pass through the fertile plains of the Mississippi, huge cattle ranches and oilfields in Texas, and the dusty towns of New Mexico on their 2,600-mile journey from Florida.
The bees will have seen little of the dramatic landscape, being cooped up in hives stacked four high on the back of trucks. Each truck carries close to 500 hives, tethered with strong harnesses and covered with black netting to prevent the millions of passengers from escaping.
When the drivers pull over to sleep, the bees have a break from the constant movement and wind speed, but there's no opportunity to look around and stretch their wings.
Their final destination is some two hours north of Los Angeles. As the sun begins to fade over the vast, flat terrain, the convoy slowly snakes through orchards filled with row upon row of almond trees stretching as far as the eye can see. Every February, the valley plays host to billions of honeybees as trees burst into blossom, blanketing the landscape in a soft, pinkish hue which extends to the horizon.
The sandy loam and Mediterranean climate are perfect for the cultivation of almonds, but that's where any comparisons to picturesque orchards of Spain or Italy end. Here, there are no verdant weeds, wild flowers or grass verges to please the eye, just never-ending trees that form what looks like an outdoor production line.
In the cool hours after sunset and before sunrise, more than one million hives are unloaded at regular intervals between the trees by commercial beekeepers such as Dave Hackenberg, who have travelled from the far corners of the US to take part in the world's largest managed pollination event. The mammoth orchards of Central Valley stretch the distance from London to Aberdeen, and the 60 million almond trees planted with monotonous uniformity along the 400-mile route require half of all the honeybees in the US to pollinate them - a staggering 40 billion.
By February 16, National Almond Day in the US, the trees are usually covered in flowers and humming with the sound of busy bees. Attracted by the sweet nectar that each flower offers, the bees crawl around on the petals to find the perfect sucking position. As they do so, their furry bodies are dusted with beads of pollen. As they fly from blossom to blossom in search of more of the sweet energy drink, they transfer pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part, and so fertilise it. Not long afterwards, the plant's ovaries swell into fruit, which by late August turn into precious, oval-shaped nuts.
Without this army of migrant pollinators paying a visit for three weeks every year, the trees would fail to bear the almonds that are California's most valuable horticultural export. Last year, they earned the state more than $1.9bn, double the revenue from its Napa Valley vineyards. Moreover, 80% of the world's almonds now come from this pocket of the planet. But the supply of almonds in confectionery, cakes and packets of nuts is now threatened by a mysterious malady that is causing honeybees to disappear.
Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report that his bees had vanished. On a November day 18 months ago, he checked the hives in his Florida bee yard to find they were empty. "They weren't dead, they were just gone," he recalls.
Since then, close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.
In Britain, John Chapple was the first to raise the alarm. In January 2007, he lost all of the 14 colonies in his garden in west London. "It's too cold at that time of year to open the hives," he says, "so I always check on the bees by giving the hive a thump and waiting for what sounds like a roaring sound to come back. But there was nothing, just silence." When he opened the hives to see what had happened, he found them practically empty. Examination of a further 26 hives scattered across the capital revealed that two-thirds had perished.
"I was completely shocked," says Chapple, who chairs the London Beekeepers' Association. "I could attribute some losses to a failing queen bee or wax moths, but there were a few I could find no reason for. There was a healthy queen and a few bees, but nothing else." Chapple's inquiries as to whether the parks where he kept some of his hives had sprayed new pesticides also drew a blank.
He was not alone. Beekeepers in north-west London also reported strange losses. Chapple calls the disappearance the "Mary Celeste syndrome". A year later, a survey of hives by government bee inspectors across Britain has found that one in five colonies has perished this winter.
There are some 270,000 honeybee hives in Britain run by 44,000 keepers, more than 90% of them amateurs. According to estimates by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through their pollination of fruit trees, field beans and other crops. In addition, the 5,000 tonnes of British honey sold in UK stores generates a further £12m.
UK farming minister Lord Rooker, however, warned last year that honeybees are in acute danger: "If nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years," he said. Last month, he launched a consultation on a national strategy to improve and protect honeybee health.
People's initial response to the idea of a bee-less world is often either, "That's a shame, I'll have no honey to spread on my toast" or, "Good - one less insect that can sting me." In fact, honeybees are vital for the pollination of around 90 crops worldwide. In addition to almonds, most fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are dependent on honeybees. Crops that are used as cattle and pig feed also rely on honeybee pollination, as does the cotton plant. So if all the honeybees disappeared, we would have to switch our diet to cereals and grain, and give our wardrobes a drastic makeover.
According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
Bees are a barometer of what man is doing to the environment, say beekeepers; the canary in the coalmine. Just as animals behave weirdly before an earthquake or a hurricane, cowering in a corner or howling in the wind, so the silent, empty hives are a harbinger of a looming ecological crisis. But what is causing them to vanish - pesticides, parasites, pests, viruses? No one knows for sure. The more fanciful theories when CCD was first detected included an al-Qaida plot to wreck US agriculture, radiation from mobile phones and even celestial intervention in the form of honeybee rapture.
Scientists around the world are trying to pinpoint the culprit, but it is proving elusive. They have even set up an international network to monitor honeybee losses - a sort of Interpol for bees - which is operating out of Switzerland. Its coordinator, bee pathologist Dr Peter Neumann, blames a bloodsucking mite called varroa. Little bigger than a pinhead, it has preyed on honeybees in Europe and the US since its arrival 30 years ago. Under a microscope, the reddish-brown mite looks like a cross between a jellyfish and a Frisbee. It activates lethal viruses in honeybees and carries them from bee to bee when it feeds on their blood, like a dirty syringe spreading HIV/Aids. "It has to be the backbone of the problem," Neumann says. "But it is probably not acting alone."
In the US, where the genetic code of the honeybee was unravelled by scientists two years ago, they have been employing advanced technology to discover if a new virus is responsible for killing the bees. Genome sequencing techniques uncovered the DNA of a virus called Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) that was found in almost all of the hives suffering from CCD. The discovery, published in Science, was hailed as a major breakthrough in the investigation. But honeybees are riddled with latent viruses. They become a problem and cause disease only when the bee's immune system is shot. Like humans, they are prone to illness when they are stressed and run-down. So the real question is, what is making the bees too weak to fight a virus?
The answer is probably overwork, coupled with various environmental factors that are the flipside of pollination on an industrial scale and intensified food production. After Hackenberg's bees have pollinated the almonds in California, they head north to the apple orchards of Washington State, then east for the cranberries and pumpkins, before reaching Maine in May to pollinate blueberries. In a year, they can cover 11,000 miles. It's a well-worn route that's travelled by many of the 1,000 commercial beekeepers in America who between them own 90% of the country's 2.4 million honeybee colonies. It is pollination, rather than honey production, that keeps US beekeepers in business. In 2007, honey production was worth $160m to the US economy, compared with pollination services that have been estimated at $15bn.
Joe Traynor is a California bee broker. From a small office in a quiet side street in downtown Bakersfield, on the southern tip of Central Valley, he runs a lucrative business matching almond growers with beekeepers. I put to him that surely all this moving around of bees, confined to their hives for long periods, must be stressful for them. He admits that too much travel is not good for their health: "When you're trucking bees, they need sleep, just as humans do, and the bumping around in the truck for two to three days keeps them awake, and this lowers their resistance to pests and disease."
Hackenberg, however, disagrees: "I've been doing this 40-odd years. We've done all the same things, but the rules have changed. Something's messing up."
Hackenberg, 59, wears cowboy boots, a checked shirt and blue jeans. He even has a hard hat in the shape of a Stetson, with netting attached that he wears when unloading beehives. He began his own investigations into what killed 2,000 of his honeybees at the end of 2006, by talking to growers and reading up on pesticide use and research into their effects on bees. "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home."
Honeybees have a sophisticated dance language they use to communicate with each other in the hive. Until Karl von Frisch unlocked the mysteries of this dance - his discovery won him a Nobel prize in 1973 - we didn't fully appreciate that bees returning to the hive laden with nectar and pollen will tell their sisters (all worker bees are female) where they got their supplies by doing a dance that points to the location of the flowers in relation to the sun's position.
Tests have shown that the pesticides Hackenberg refers to can interfere with the bees' communication and orientation skills, and also impair memory.
With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion. Because it is systemic, the chemical moves throughout a plant, so if it is applied as a seed dressing, it will travel to the shoots, stem, leaves and flowers where bees can come into contact with small doses. Many of these widely used pesticides are classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as "highly toxic to bees" and come with a warning label intended to help prevent their exposure to the pollinators.
"It's in such small print that the growers don't see it," Hackenberg says. He accuses farmers of "stacking" - or mixing - pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. "No one has ever tested what happens to the toxicity if they do mix, simply because the chemical companies are not required to by law, but this combination could be a thousand times more lethal than if the chemicals are applied separately."
In Britain, beekeeping is very small-scale compared with the US. There are a few hundred professional beekeepers, who run an average of 100 hives each; only around 50 of them transport bees to orchards, usually over distances of 25 or so miles, rather than across a continent. Many orchards provide a year-round home for hives kept by amateur beekeepers, so there is no need for migratory beekeepers. But in this country, as in the rest of Europe, it is hard to escape pesticides and the varroa mite.
In France, beekeepers have for more than a decade waged a war against the chemical giant Bayer CropScience. They hold responsible the company's bestselling pesticide, imidacloprid, trade name Gaucho, for killing a third of the country's 1.5 million colonies. In 1999, the French government banned the use of Gaucho on sunflower crops after thousands took to the streets in protest. Two further pesticides were banned because of their potential link to bee deaths. It appeared to stem the massive bee die-offs for a time, even though the manufacturers' own tests demonstrated there is no correlation, and a long-term study by the French food safety agency revealed no significant differences in death rates before and after pesticides were banned. This winter, bee deaths across France are reported to have shot up again to 60%.
Bayer is also being blamed by German beekeepers for the eerie silence along the Rhine valley, where the buzzing of bees is a common sound at this time of year. They say two-thirds of honeybees have been killed this month by the pesticide clothianidin, sold under the trade name Poncho, which has been widely applied on sweet corn. As a result of the bee deaths, eight pesticides, including clothianidin, have been temporarily suspended in Germany. Anecdotal evidence of pesticide-related bee deaths in Italy and Holland is also piling up.
European beekeepers accuse scientists and government agencies of being in the pocket of the chemical companies. It's a similar story in the US, where scientists maintain that there is no correlation between the bees' disappearance and pesticide use. According to Hackenberg: "Big Ag has control of the USDA [the US Department of Agriculture] from the secretary right down to the lowest guy on the totem pole."
Jeff Pettis is not sure where he comes on the pole. The senior manager at the federal bee laboratory in Maryland, he's the man responsible for coordinating the US government's response to CCD. Pettis advises some beekeepers may do well to forgo the almond pollination and rest their bees. "You are getting them ready for February when the sunlight hours and the temperature are telling them it's too early in the year to be foraging at full strength," he says.
Deceiving bees is an essential part of the business. Beekeepers dupe them into thinking it's already summer by moving them to warm locations in winter and feeding them an array of protein and energy supplements. The more food that comes into the hive, the more eggs the queen lays, to create more of the worker bees to go out and pollinate.
The bee broker Joe Traynor says the deception goes much further than trucking bees south. "We're interfering with their natural cycle because we want strong colonies for almond pollination. We're stimulating hives in August, September and October, and making the queens do a lot more laying. As a result the queens are suffering burnout. It used to be that a beekeeper could pretty much leave his bees alone during winter. That's no longer the case."
Moreover, scientists funded by the Almond Board of California are now experimenting with artificial pheromones that trick bees into thinking there are more larvae in the hive that need feeding, so they forage more, and in the process pollinate more almond blossom.
This is the Almond Board's profit-driven response to a potential shortfall of honeybees: to work even harder those that remain. Bees are being treated as a machine with no consideration for their life cycle and downtimes. And any machine pushed to its limits and not well maintained will break.
Environmentalists argue for conservation measures on land planted with single crops that will both improve honeybee nutrition and attract wild pollinators that could shoulder some of the honeybees' workload. Monoculture, the hallmark of modern agriculture, covers much of the world's 1.5bn hectares of arable land. Single-crop plantations and orchards can stretch for hundreds of kilometres. The advantages for the farmer are manifold: the crop blooms at the same time, can be treated with the same pesticides and can be harvested together for maximum efficiency. But for honeybees, pollen collected from one crop does not provide a balanced, nutritious diet. Scientists agree that malnourished bees are more susceptible to disease and pesticide poisoning, while the best-fed are the hardiest.
Planting hedgerows of wild flowers would give honeybees a more varied menu. While this has happened in Europe, US almond growers have proved resistant to the idea, concerned that the bees would make fewer visits to the almond blossom if they had a choice. But hedgerows would also provide food and habitat for other pollinators such as butterflies, bumblebees and solitary bees. There are 4,500 wild bee species in North America that are capable of pollinating myriad fruits and vegetables - some more efficiently than honeybees.
Could they prevent a pollination crisis if honeybees become extinct? Only if they have somewhere to make a home in the orchards and fields, and something to eat after the single crop has bloomed. Monoculture deprives them on both counts.
The Xerces Society runs a pollinator conservation project in northern California. Farms in Yolo County receive a mixture of plants that flower throughout the year and nest blocks for wild bees, and they keep large areas of soil untilled for native bees to live on. They say they have seen the return of native bees and benefited from their pollination services. But final details being hammered out in a farm bill on Capitol Hill look like trimming conservation budgets and reducing financial incentives for farmers to manage their land in a more pollinator-friendly way.
So growers will continue to be increasingly reliant on honeybees to do a job once performed by a host of different insects. Their profits now hinge as much on honeybees' availability to pollinate fields as they do on the sun and rain. This is why there is such urgency in solving the mystery of disappearing and dying bees.
This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, as now, the main suspects were deficiencies in the bees' diet, pollution in the environment, pests and parasites and mismanagement by beekeepers, but the killer was never identified.
When bees die, beekeepers can restock their hives quickly by buying a new queen who lays 2,000 eggs a day at her peak. Across the world, most have chosen to fill their apiaries with a type of honeybee renowned for its gentle nature and prodigious honey production skills. This race of bee, originally from Italy, now dominates beekeeping. The downside is that the honeybee gene pool has been diminished and with it traits that may have helped bees fend off mites and other parasites, such as a new fungal bacteria, Nosema ceranae, that attacks its gut.
There are fears that mites are becoming increasingly resistant to chemicals administered by beekeepers to kill them. Pettis says we are controlling too many bee ailments with drugs and a more organic approach is needed that includes stocking apiaries with locally reared bees better adapted to local climate and environmental conditions.
Meanwhile scientists are hoping to use the mapping of the honeybee genome to engineer in the laboratory a super bee that has the resilience to withstand varroa but retains all the qualities of the Italian bee. Biologists will tell you, however, that it will be only a matter of time before a super bee breeds a super parasite. Geneticists also discovered that honeybees have fewer genes providing resistance to disease than other insects. In particular, the number of genes responsible for detoxification appear to be smaller, making it unusually sensitive to pesticides and poisons. Its large-scale disappearance across the US and high death rates in Europe are signalling that industrialised farming makes demands on honeybees that are not sustainable.
Central Valley has been described as a big brothel where billions of honeybees from all over the US can pick up a contagious illness and take it home. It's spread by mites from infected to healthy colonies. And there are plans to expand Central Valley's almond orchards to the point where, by 2011, they will require 1.6 million honeybee colonies for pollination.
Despite around a third of all US honeybees being wiped out last year, and again this year after beekeepers had restocked their hives, the almond pollination has yet to suffer. Why?
There are two answers. The shortage of honeybees has pushed up the price of hive rentals for almond pollination to an all-time high of $140 per hive, so more and more beekeepers are making the trip west, and the Almond Board's requirement of two hives each containing 20,000-30,000 bees per acre to pollinate the almonds is excessive, but provides a buffer should some of the hives be empty.
As the sun rises over the almond orchards after another nocturnal delivery of east coast hives, Hackenberg says it's only the money that brings him and his waning bees to California each year. "I'd rather be back in Florida with my bees. They'd be feeding on the maple and willow. It's paradise down there. Why would anyone come to this godforsaken place? But something's got to pay the bills. I'm here for a $150,000 cheque."
· A World Without Bees, by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, is published by Guardian Books at £8.99 plus p&p. To order a copy with free UK mainland p&p, call 0845 606 4232, or go to guardianbooks.co.uk
Alison Benjamin, The Guardian 31 May 08;
Dave Hackenberg's bees have been on the road for four days. To reach the almond orchards of California's Central Valley, they pass through the fertile plains of the Mississippi, huge cattle ranches and oilfields in Texas, and the dusty towns of New Mexico on their 2,600-mile journey from Florida.
The bees will have seen little of the dramatic landscape, being cooped up in hives stacked four high on the back of trucks. Each truck carries close to 500 hives, tethered with strong harnesses and covered with black netting to prevent the millions of passengers from escaping.
When the drivers pull over to sleep, the bees have a break from the constant movement and wind speed, but there's no opportunity to look around and stretch their wings.
Their final destination is some two hours north of Los Angeles. As the sun begins to fade over the vast, flat terrain, the convoy slowly snakes through orchards filled with row upon row of almond trees stretching as far as the eye can see. Every February, the valley plays host to billions of honeybees as trees burst into blossom, blanketing the landscape in a soft, pinkish hue which extends to the horizon.
The sandy loam and Mediterranean climate are perfect for the cultivation of almonds, but that's where any comparisons to picturesque orchards of Spain or Italy end. Here, there are no verdant weeds, wild flowers or grass verges to please the eye, just never-ending trees that form what looks like an outdoor production line.
In the cool hours after sunset and before sunrise, more than one million hives are unloaded at regular intervals between the trees by commercial beekeepers such as Dave Hackenberg, who have travelled from the far corners of the US to take part in the world's largest managed pollination event. The mammoth orchards of Central Valley stretch the distance from London to Aberdeen, and the 60 million almond trees planted with monotonous uniformity along the 400-mile route require half of all the honeybees in the US to pollinate them - a staggering 40 billion.
By February 16, National Almond Day in the US, the trees are usually covered in flowers and humming with the sound of busy bees. Attracted by the sweet nectar that each flower offers, the bees crawl around on the petals to find the perfect sucking position. As they do so, their furry bodies are dusted with beads of pollen. As they fly from blossom to blossom in search of more of the sweet energy drink, they transfer pollen from the male part of the flower to the female part, and so fertilise it. Not long afterwards, the plant's ovaries swell into fruit, which by late August turn into precious, oval-shaped nuts.
Without this army of migrant pollinators paying a visit for three weeks every year, the trees would fail to bear the almonds that are California's most valuable horticultural export. Last year, they earned the state more than $1.9bn, double the revenue from its Napa Valley vineyards. Moreover, 80% of the world's almonds now come from this pocket of the planet. But the supply of almonds in confectionery, cakes and packets of nuts is now threatened by a mysterious malady that is causing honeybees to disappear.
Hackenberg was the first beekeeper to report that his bees had vanished. On a November day 18 months ago, he checked the hives in his Florida bee yard to find they were empty. "They weren't dead, they were just gone," he recalls.
Since then, close on two million colonies of honeybees across the US have been wiped out. The strange phenomenon, dubbed colony collapse disorder (CCD), is also thought to have claimed the lives of billions of honeybees around the world. In Taiwan, 10 million honeybees were reported to have disappeared in just two weeks, and throughout Europe honeybees are in peril.
In Britain, John Chapple was the first to raise the alarm. In January 2007, he lost all of the 14 colonies in his garden in west London. "It's too cold at that time of year to open the hives," he says, "so I always check on the bees by giving the hive a thump and waiting for what sounds like a roaring sound to come back. But there was nothing, just silence." When he opened the hives to see what had happened, he found them practically empty. Examination of a further 26 hives scattered across the capital revealed that two-thirds had perished.
"I was completely shocked," says Chapple, who chairs the London Beekeepers' Association. "I could attribute some losses to a failing queen bee or wax moths, but there were a few I could find no reason for. There was a healthy queen and a few bees, but nothing else." Chapple's inquiries as to whether the parks where he kept some of his hives had sprayed new pesticides also drew a blank.
He was not alone. Beekeepers in north-west London also reported strange losses. Chapple calls the disappearance the "Mary Celeste syndrome". A year later, a survey of hives by government bee inspectors across Britain has found that one in five colonies has perished this winter.
There are some 270,000 honeybee hives in Britain run by 44,000 keepers, more than 90% of them amateurs. According to estimates by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), bees contribute £165m a year to the economy through their pollination of fruit trees, field beans and other crops. In addition, the 5,000 tonnes of British honey sold in UK stores generates a further £12m.
UK farming minister Lord Rooker, however, warned last year that honeybees are in acute danger: "If nothing is done about it, the honeybee population could be wiped out in 10 years," he said. Last month, he launched a consultation on a national strategy to improve and protect honeybee health.
People's initial response to the idea of a bee-less world is often either, "That's a shame, I'll have no honey to spread on my toast" or, "Good - one less insect that can sting me." In fact, honeybees are vital for the pollination of around 90 crops worldwide. In addition to almonds, most fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds are dependent on honeybees. Crops that are used as cattle and pig feed also rely on honeybee pollination, as does the cotton plant. So if all the honeybees disappeared, we would have to switch our diet to cereals and grain, and give our wardrobes a drastic makeover.
According to Albert Einstein, our very existence is inextricably linked to bees - he is reputed to have said: "If the bee disappears off the surface of the globe, then man would only have four years of life left."
Bees are a barometer of what man is doing to the environment, say beekeepers; the canary in the coalmine. Just as animals behave weirdly before an earthquake or a hurricane, cowering in a corner or howling in the wind, so the silent, empty hives are a harbinger of a looming ecological crisis. But what is causing them to vanish - pesticides, parasites, pests, viruses? No one knows for sure. The more fanciful theories when CCD was first detected included an al-Qaida plot to wreck US agriculture, radiation from mobile phones and even celestial intervention in the form of honeybee rapture.
Scientists around the world are trying to pinpoint the culprit, but it is proving elusive. They have even set up an international network to monitor honeybee losses - a sort of Interpol for bees - which is operating out of Switzerland. Its coordinator, bee pathologist Dr Peter Neumann, blames a bloodsucking mite called varroa. Little bigger than a pinhead, it has preyed on honeybees in Europe and the US since its arrival 30 years ago. Under a microscope, the reddish-brown mite looks like a cross between a jellyfish and a Frisbee. It activates lethal viruses in honeybees and carries them from bee to bee when it feeds on their blood, like a dirty syringe spreading HIV/Aids. "It has to be the backbone of the problem," Neumann says. "But it is probably not acting alone."
In the US, where the genetic code of the honeybee was unravelled by scientists two years ago, they have been employing advanced technology to discover if a new virus is responsible for killing the bees. Genome sequencing techniques uncovered the DNA of a virus called Israeli acute paralysis virus (IAPV) that was found in almost all of the hives suffering from CCD. The discovery, published in Science, was hailed as a major breakthrough in the investigation. But honeybees are riddled with latent viruses. They become a problem and cause disease only when the bee's immune system is shot. Like humans, they are prone to illness when they are stressed and run-down. So the real question is, what is making the bees too weak to fight a virus?
The answer is probably overwork, coupled with various environmental factors that are the flipside of pollination on an industrial scale and intensified food production. After Hackenberg's bees have pollinated the almonds in California, they head north to the apple orchards of Washington State, then east for the cranberries and pumpkins, before reaching Maine in May to pollinate blueberries. In a year, they can cover 11,000 miles. It's a well-worn route that's travelled by many of the 1,000 commercial beekeepers in America who between them own 90% of the country's 2.4 million honeybee colonies. It is pollination, rather than honey production, that keeps US beekeepers in business. In 2007, honey production was worth $160m to the US economy, compared with pollination services that have been estimated at $15bn.
Joe Traynor is a California bee broker. From a small office in a quiet side street in downtown Bakersfield, on the southern tip of Central Valley, he runs a lucrative business matching almond growers with beekeepers. I put to him that surely all this moving around of bees, confined to their hives for long periods, must be stressful for them. He admits that too much travel is not good for their health: "When you're trucking bees, they need sleep, just as humans do, and the bumping around in the truck for two to three days keeps them awake, and this lowers their resistance to pests and disease."
Hackenberg, however, disagrees: "I've been doing this 40-odd years. We've done all the same things, but the rules have changed. Something's messing up."
Hackenberg, 59, wears cowboy boots, a checked shirt and blue jeans. He even has a hard hat in the shape of a Stetson, with netting attached that he wears when unloading beehives. He began his own investigations into what killed 2,000 of his honeybees at the end of 2006, by talking to growers and reading up on pesticide use and research into their effects on bees. "It's those new neonicotinoid pesticides that growers are using," he says. "That's what's messing up the bees' navigation system so they can't find their way home."
Honeybees have a sophisticated dance language they use to communicate with each other in the hive. Until Karl von Frisch unlocked the mysteries of this dance - his discovery won him a Nobel prize in 1973 - we didn't fully appreciate that bees returning to the hive laden with nectar and pollen will tell their sisters (all worker bees are female) where they got their supplies by doing a dance that points to the location of the flowers in relation to the sun's position.
Tests have shown that the pesticides Hackenberg refers to can interfere with the bees' communication and orientation skills, and also impair memory.
With innocuous brand names such as Gaucho, Assail and Merit, these pesticides are used worldwide, from sunflower fields to apple orchards, lawns to golf courses. The chemicals they contain are an artificial type of nicotine that acts as a neurotoxin that attacks insects' nervous systems on contact or ingestion. Because it is systemic, the chemical moves throughout a plant, so if it is applied as a seed dressing, it will travel to the shoots, stem, leaves and flowers where bees can come into contact with small doses. Many of these widely used pesticides are classified by the US Environmental Protection Agency as "highly toxic to bees" and come with a warning label intended to help prevent their exposure to the pollinators.
"It's in such small print that the growers don't see it," Hackenberg says. He accuses farmers of "stacking" - or mixing - pesticides, herbicides and fungicides. "No one has ever tested what happens to the toxicity if they do mix, simply because the chemical companies are not required to by law, but this combination could be a thousand times more lethal than if the chemicals are applied separately."
In Britain, beekeeping is very small-scale compared with the US. There are a few hundred professional beekeepers, who run an average of 100 hives each; only around 50 of them transport bees to orchards, usually over distances of 25 or so miles, rather than across a continent. Many orchards provide a year-round home for hives kept by amateur beekeepers, so there is no need for migratory beekeepers. But in this country, as in the rest of Europe, it is hard to escape pesticides and the varroa mite.
In France, beekeepers have for more than a decade waged a war against the chemical giant Bayer CropScience. They hold responsible the company's bestselling pesticide, imidacloprid, trade name Gaucho, for killing a third of the country's 1.5 million colonies. In 1999, the French government banned the use of Gaucho on sunflower crops after thousands took to the streets in protest. Two further pesticides were banned because of their potential link to bee deaths. It appeared to stem the massive bee die-offs for a time, even though the manufacturers' own tests demonstrated there is no correlation, and a long-term study by the French food safety agency revealed no significant differences in death rates before and after pesticides were banned. This winter, bee deaths across France are reported to have shot up again to 60%.
Bayer is also being blamed by German beekeepers for the eerie silence along the Rhine valley, where the buzzing of bees is a common sound at this time of year. They say two-thirds of honeybees have been killed this month by the pesticide clothianidin, sold under the trade name Poncho, which has been widely applied on sweet corn. As a result of the bee deaths, eight pesticides, including clothianidin, have been temporarily suspended in Germany. Anecdotal evidence of pesticide-related bee deaths in Italy and Holland is also piling up.
European beekeepers accuse scientists and government agencies of being in the pocket of the chemical companies. It's a similar story in the US, where scientists maintain that there is no correlation between the bees' disappearance and pesticide use. According to Hackenberg: "Big Ag has control of the USDA [the US Department of Agriculture] from the secretary right down to the lowest guy on the totem pole."
Jeff Pettis is not sure where he comes on the pole. The senior manager at the federal bee laboratory in Maryland, he's the man responsible for coordinating the US government's response to CCD. Pettis advises some beekeepers may do well to forgo the almond pollination and rest their bees. "You are getting them ready for February when the sunlight hours and the temperature are telling them it's too early in the year to be foraging at full strength," he says.
Deceiving bees is an essential part of the business. Beekeepers dupe them into thinking it's already summer by moving them to warm locations in winter and feeding them an array of protein and energy supplements. The more food that comes into the hive, the more eggs the queen lays, to create more of the worker bees to go out and pollinate.
The bee broker Joe Traynor says the deception goes much further than trucking bees south. "We're interfering with their natural cycle because we want strong colonies for almond pollination. We're stimulating hives in August, September and October, and making the queens do a lot more laying. As a result the queens are suffering burnout. It used to be that a beekeeper could pretty much leave his bees alone during winter. That's no longer the case."
Moreover, scientists funded by the Almond Board of California are now experimenting with artificial pheromones that trick bees into thinking there are more larvae in the hive that need feeding, so they forage more, and in the process pollinate more almond blossom.
This is the Almond Board's profit-driven response to a potential shortfall of honeybees: to work even harder those that remain. Bees are being treated as a machine with no consideration for their life cycle and downtimes. And any machine pushed to its limits and not well maintained will break.
Environmentalists argue for conservation measures on land planted with single crops that will both improve honeybee nutrition and attract wild pollinators that could shoulder some of the honeybees' workload. Monoculture, the hallmark of modern agriculture, covers much of the world's 1.5bn hectares of arable land. Single-crop plantations and orchards can stretch for hundreds of kilometres. The advantages for the farmer are manifold: the crop blooms at the same time, can be treated with the same pesticides and can be harvested together for maximum efficiency. But for honeybees, pollen collected from one crop does not provide a balanced, nutritious diet. Scientists agree that malnourished bees are more susceptible to disease and pesticide poisoning, while the best-fed are the hardiest.
Planting hedgerows of wild flowers would give honeybees a more varied menu. While this has happened in Europe, US almond growers have proved resistant to the idea, concerned that the bees would make fewer visits to the almond blossom if they had a choice. But hedgerows would also provide food and habitat for other pollinators such as butterflies, bumblebees and solitary bees. There are 4,500 wild bee species in North America that are capable of pollinating myriad fruits and vegetables - some more efficiently than honeybees.
Could they prevent a pollination crisis if honeybees become extinct? Only if they have somewhere to make a home in the orchards and fields, and something to eat after the single crop has bloomed. Monoculture deprives them on both counts.
The Xerces Society runs a pollinator conservation project in northern California. Farms in Yolo County receive a mixture of plants that flower throughout the year and nest blocks for wild bees, and they keep large areas of soil untilled for native bees to live on. They say they have seen the return of native bees and benefited from their pollination services. But final details being hammered out in a farm bill on Capitol Hill look like trimming conservation budgets and reducing financial incentives for farmers to manage their land in a more pollinator-friendly way.
So growers will continue to be increasingly reliant on honeybees to do a job once performed by a host of different insects. Their profits now hinge as much on honeybees' availability to pollinate fields as they do on the sun and rain. This is why there is such urgency in solving the mystery of disappearing and dying bees.
This is not the first time that honeybees have disappeared. The first recorded unexplained loss was in the US 150 years ago and ever since large numbers have vanished at intervals throughout North America, Europe and Australia. An epidemic first reported on the Isle of Wight wiped out 90% of honeybee colonies in the UK at the beginning of the 20th century. Then, as now, the main suspects were deficiencies in the bees' diet, pollution in the environment, pests and parasites and mismanagement by beekeepers, but the killer was never identified.
When bees die, beekeepers can restock their hives quickly by buying a new queen who lays 2,000 eggs a day at her peak. Across the world, most have chosen to fill their apiaries with a type of honeybee renowned for its gentle nature and prodigious honey production skills. This race of bee, originally from Italy, now dominates beekeeping. The downside is that the honeybee gene pool has been diminished and with it traits that may have helped bees fend off mites and other parasites, such as a new fungal bacteria, Nosema ceranae, that attacks its gut.
There are fears that mites are becoming increasingly resistant to chemicals administered by beekeepers to kill them. Pettis says we are controlling too many bee ailments with drugs and a more organic approach is needed that includes stocking apiaries with locally reared bees better adapted to local climate and environmental conditions.
Meanwhile scientists are hoping to use the mapping of the honeybee genome to engineer in the laboratory a super bee that has the resilience to withstand varroa but retains all the qualities of the Italian bee. Biologists will tell you, however, that it will be only a matter of time before a super bee breeds a super parasite. Geneticists also discovered that honeybees have fewer genes providing resistance to disease than other insects. In particular, the number of genes responsible for detoxification appear to be smaller, making it unusually sensitive to pesticides and poisons. Its large-scale disappearance across the US and high death rates in Europe are signalling that industrialised farming makes demands on honeybees that are not sustainable.
Central Valley has been described as a big brothel where billions of honeybees from all over the US can pick up a contagious illness and take it home. It's spread by mites from infected to healthy colonies. And there are plans to expand Central Valley's almond orchards to the point where, by 2011, they will require 1.6 million honeybee colonies for pollination.
Despite around a third of all US honeybees being wiped out last year, and again this year after beekeepers had restocked their hives, the almond pollination has yet to suffer. Why?
There are two answers. The shortage of honeybees has pushed up the price of hive rentals for almond pollination to an all-time high of $140 per hive, so more and more beekeepers are making the trip west, and the Almond Board's requirement of two hives each containing 20,000-30,000 bees per acre to pollinate the almonds is excessive, but provides a buffer should some of the hives be empty.
As the sun rises over the almond orchards after another nocturnal delivery of east coast hives, Hackenberg says it's only the money that brings him and his waning bees to California each year. "I'd rather be back in Florida with my bees. They'd be feeding on the maple and willow. It's paradise down there. Why would anyone come to this godforsaken place? But something's got to pay the bills. I'm here for a $150,000 cheque."
· A World Without Bees, by Alison Benjamin and Brian McCallum, is published by Guardian Books at £8.99 plus p&p. To order a copy with free UK mainland p&p, call 0845 606 4232, or go to guardianbooks.co.uk
Eat more insects, scientists say
Graham Tibbetts, The Telegraph 2 Jun 08;
Eating insects such as wasps and grasshoppers has health benefits and should be encouraged in the Western diet, scientists have said.
The bugs are rich in protein and some minerals and are lower in cholesterol than beef or pork.
Research carried out at the National Autonomous University of Mexico found that 1,700 species are eaten in at least 113 countries across the world, usually as a substitute for meat.
In Mexico, grasshoppers are sold by the pound in markets and fried before being eaten while the larvae of giant butterfly sell for the equivalent of £12.50-a-plate in some restaurants.
Colombians eat ants, which they grind and spread on bread, and termites while Filipinos are partial to grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.
In Papua New Guinea, moths, dragonflies and beetles are popular when boiled or roasted over an open fire and the late Emperor Hirohito of Japan's favourite dish was wasps with rice.
Grasshoppers have 20 grams of protein and just 6 g of fat per 100g while fire ants have 13.9g of protein and 3.5g of fat. Crickets are sources of iron, zinc and calcium.
Eating insects also keep puts less strain on the environment because cultivating insects requires forest to be preserved rather than felled.
David George Gordon, a Seattle-based naturalist and author, says: "Insects are the most valuable, underused and delicious animals in the world.
"Maybe we in the West are the weirdos."
In February, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation staged a special conference on the benefits of eating insects - known as entomophagy.
Patrick Durst of the FAO admitted that Westerners will take some persuading before tucking in to insects.
"We're not going to convince Europeans and Americans to go out in big numbers and start eating insects."
But he held out hope that insects would catch on with the more adventurous, especially if they "don't have to look the bug in the eye as they're eating it."
Eating insects: save the planet and munch a moth
The Telegraph 4 Jun 08;
Eating insects could help the world's problems. Don't knock it till you've tried it, says Adam Edwards
A new wheeze from left field has been proposed this week to help solve the big issues of climate change and mass starvation - eating insects.
Scientists from Mexico, where grasshoppers are sold by the pound, have reported that the human consumption of creepy-crawlies could "contribute to sustainable development" because cultivating the small invertebrate would require forests to be preserved rather than felled and, furthermore, would also reduce the world consumption of meat.
While we must applaud these singular findings by the researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico - which also unearthed the fact that 1,700 species of bug are eaten in at least 113 countries across the globe - it should be noted that a solitary Englishman came to a remarkably similar conclusion some 120 years earlier.
In 1885 the entomologist Vincent M Holt published his only known work, entitled 'Why Not Eat Insects?' His skinny book, which included a comprehensive history of those who had feasted on the winged and multi-legged creatures, made the then radical proposal that insects should supplement the diet of the English peasant.
"How can the farmer most successfully battle with the insect devourers of his crops?" wrote Holt. "I suggest they be collected by the poor as food, thus pleasantly and wholesomely varying their present diet while, at the same time, conferring a great benefit on the agricultural world."
According to Holt, the Victorian yokel was already using woodlice pills, snails and slugs as cures for various ills and, he added: "I myself knew a labourer in the west of England who was in the habit of picking up and eating small white slugs as titbits, just as he would have picked wild strawberries."
This enthusiasm extolling the epicurean delights of insects was not new. The book claimed that Moses encouraged the people of Israel to eat locusts, beetles and grasshoppers (Leviticus, Chapter XI, Verse 22); Aristotle wrote that the "most polished of Greeks enjoyed cicadas"; while "Aelian tells us that in his time an Indian king served up as dessert a dish of roasted grubs".
The Romans fattened the larvae of the stag beetle for the table; the French astronomer Jerome Lalande spread spiders on bread, while the author of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, declared the larvae of the sphinx moth "delicious".
Since the publication of Holt's book, 20th-century scientists subsequently discovered that insects are the equal of shellfish in providing high-quality protein and are an excellent source of nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin B.
Their nutritious worth is proven by the Australian Aborigines, who still feast on bogong moths, witchetty grubs and the honeybag bee. Meanwhile, Japanese restaurants serve boiled wasp larvae, Nigerians eat roast termites (and even have termite stock cubes), and dragonflies are chucked on the barbie in Bali.
Closer to home, chef Lars Scheuble at the Soda restaurant in Berlin offers his customers cockroach pasta and sautéed maggots with green leaves.
Our own celebrity chef, Heston Blumenthal, serves snail porridge, while in Bristol the exotic food supplier Osgrow sells crickets (smoky bacon and Thai green curry flavours), locusts (in packs of 10), chocolate ants and BBQ-flavoured worm crisps.
I have to admit I am not an enthusiast of such delicacies. I once ate a fried locust, which tasted like whitebait stuffed with buttered toast, and got the legs stuck in my teeth.
My father, who found Holt's tome in a second-hand bookshop, insisted after reading it that the family tried caterpillar. My mother refused point blank, my sister was sick and I spat mine out before it had touched the sides of my mouth.
But perhaps I was too hasty. I notice at the end of 'Why Not Eat Insects?' that there are some interesting seasonal menus. They not only feature boiled neck of mutton with wire-worm sauce, stag beetle larvae on toast and slug soup but also braised beef with caterpillar.
Perhaps if my crawling larvae had been presented to me in such grand gastronomic fashion I would have gobbled it down with much more gusto - particularly if I had known that I was saving the planet.
Eating insects such as wasps and grasshoppers has health benefits and should be encouraged in the Western diet, scientists have said.
The bugs are rich in protein and some minerals and are lower in cholesterol than beef or pork.
Research carried out at the National Autonomous University of Mexico found that 1,700 species are eaten in at least 113 countries across the world, usually as a substitute for meat.
In Mexico, grasshoppers are sold by the pound in markets and fried before being eaten while the larvae of giant butterfly sell for the equivalent of £12.50-a-plate in some restaurants.
Colombians eat ants, which they grind and spread on bread, and termites while Filipinos are partial to grasshoppers, crickets and locusts.
In Papua New Guinea, moths, dragonflies and beetles are popular when boiled or roasted over an open fire and the late Emperor Hirohito of Japan's favourite dish was wasps with rice.
Grasshoppers have 20 grams of protein and just 6 g of fat per 100g while fire ants have 13.9g of protein and 3.5g of fat. Crickets are sources of iron, zinc and calcium.
Eating insects also keep puts less strain on the environment because cultivating insects requires forest to be preserved rather than felled.
David George Gordon, a Seattle-based naturalist and author, says: "Insects are the most valuable, underused and delicious animals in the world.
"Maybe we in the West are the weirdos."
In February, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation staged a special conference on the benefits of eating insects - known as entomophagy.
Patrick Durst of the FAO admitted that Westerners will take some persuading before tucking in to insects.
"We're not going to convince Europeans and Americans to go out in big numbers and start eating insects."
But he held out hope that insects would catch on with the more adventurous, especially if they "don't have to look the bug in the eye as they're eating it."
Eating insects: save the planet and munch a moth
The Telegraph 4 Jun 08;
Eating insects could help the world's problems. Don't knock it till you've tried it, says Adam Edwards
A new wheeze from left field has been proposed this week to help solve the big issues of climate change and mass starvation - eating insects.
Scientists from Mexico, where grasshoppers are sold by the pound, have reported that the human consumption of creepy-crawlies could "contribute to sustainable development" because cultivating the small invertebrate would require forests to be preserved rather than felled and, furthermore, would also reduce the world consumption of meat.
While we must applaud these singular findings by the researchers from the National Autonomous University of Mexico - which also unearthed the fact that 1,700 species of bug are eaten in at least 113 countries across the globe - it should be noted that a solitary Englishman came to a remarkably similar conclusion some 120 years earlier.
In 1885 the entomologist Vincent M Holt published his only known work, entitled 'Why Not Eat Insects?' His skinny book, which included a comprehensive history of those who had feasted on the winged and multi-legged creatures, made the then radical proposal that insects should supplement the diet of the English peasant.
"How can the farmer most successfully battle with the insect devourers of his crops?" wrote Holt. "I suggest they be collected by the poor as food, thus pleasantly and wholesomely varying their present diet while, at the same time, conferring a great benefit on the agricultural world."
According to Holt, the Victorian yokel was already using woodlice pills, snails and slugs as cures for various ills and, he added: "I myself knew a labourer in the west of England who was in the habit of picking up and eating small white slugs as titbits, just as he would have picked wild strawberries."
This enthusiasm extolling the epicurean delights of insects was not new. The book claimed that Moses encouraged the people of Israel to eat locusts, beetles and grasshoppers (Leviticus, Chapter XI, Verse 22); Aristotle wrote that the "most polished of Greeks enjoyed cicadas"; while "Aelian tells us that in his time an Indian king served up as dessert a dish of roasted grubs".
The Romans fattened the larvae of the stag beetle for the table; the French astronomer Jerome Lalande spread spiders on bread, while the author of The Origin of Species, Charles Darwin, declared the larvae of the sphinx moth "delicious".
Since the publication of Holt's book, 20th-century scientists subsequently discovered that insects are the equal of shellfish in providing high-quality protein and are an excellent source of nutrients such as iron, calcium and vitamin B.
Their nutritious worth is proven by the Australian Aborigines, who still feast on bogong moths, witchetty grubs and the honeybag bee. Meanwhile, Japanese restaurants serve boiled wasp larvae, Nigerians eat roast termites (and even have termite stock cubes), and dragonflies are chucked on the barbie in Bali.
Closer to home, chef Lars Scheuble at the Soda restaurant in Berlin offers his customers cockroach pasta and sautéed maggots with green leaves.
Our own celebrity chef, Heston Blumenthal, serves snail porridge, while in Bristol the exotic food supplier Osgrow sells crickets (smoky bacon and Thai green curry flavours), locusts (in packs of 10), chocolate ants and BBQ-flavoured worm crisps.
I have to admit I am not an enthusiast of such delicacies. I once ate a fried locust, which tasted like whitebait stuffed with buttered toast, and got the legs stuck in my teeth.
My father, who found Holt's tome in a second-hand bookshop, insisted after reading it that the family tried caterpillar. My mother refused point blank, my sister was sick and I spat mine out before it had touched the sides of my mouth.
But perhaps I was too hasty. I notice at the end of 'Why Not Eat Insects?' that there are some interesting seasonal menus. They not only feature boiled neck of mutton with wire-worm sauce, stag beetle larvae on toast and slug soup but also braised beef with caterpillar.
Perhaps if my crawling larvae had been presented to me in such grand gastronomic fashion I would have gobbled it down with much more gusto - particularly if I had known that I was saving the planet.
Mangrove forest areas in North Sumatra degrading
Antara 3 Jun 08;
Medan, North Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Around 60 percent of the total 85,393 hectares of mangrove forest areas in North Sumatra, were damaged seriously.
"Most of the mangrove areas have been damaged due to the opening of shrimp ponds and human encroachment," Director of Sumatra Rain forest Institute (SRI) Rasyid As`saf Dongoran said here on Tuesday.
The worst damaged areas were in the districts of Langkat, Serdang Bedagai, Asahan, Deli Serdang and Labuhan Batu, he said.
People living in coastal areas must be involved in the rehabilitation programs of mangrove because they had direct interests in the mangrove forest ecosystem, he said.
The quantity of fauna such as crabs, shrimp, and fish would significantly decrease when their habitat, namely mangrove forest, was damaged. And it would affect the economy of people living in coastal areas, he said.
"Therefore, the people living in coastal areas must be involved in the mangrove tree replanting program," he said.
Of 64,439 villages existing in Indonesia currently, around 4,735 villages are located in coastal lines. And about 60 percent of the country`s population are living in coastal areas.
"The number is quite potential to support the mangrove rehabilitation activities," he said. (*)
Medan, North Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Around 60 percent of the total 85,393 hectares of mangrove forest areas in North Sumatra, were damaged seriously.
"Most of the mangrove areas have been damaged due to the opening of shrimp ponds and human encroachment," Director of Sumatra Rain forest Institute (SRI) Rasyid As`saf Dongoran said here on Tuesday.
The worst damaged areas were in the districts of Langkat, Serdang Bedagai, Asahan, Deli Serdang and Labuhan Batu, he said.
People living in coastal areas must be involved in the rehabilitation programs of mangrove because they had direct interests in the mangrove forest ecosystem, he said.
The quantity of fauna such as crabs, shrimp, and fish would significantly decrease when their habitat, namely mangrove forest, was damaged. And it would affect the economy of people living in coastal areas, he said.
"Therefore, the people living in coastal areas must be involved in the mangrove tree replanting program," he said.
Of 64,439 villages existing in Indonesia currently, around 4,735 villages are located in coastal lines. And about 60 percent of the country`s population are living in coastal areas.
"The number is quite potential to support the mangrove rehabilitation activities," he said. (*)
Satellite images reveal Papua forest destruction
Michael Perry, Reuters 2 Jun 08;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Thirty years of satellite imagery of Papua New Guinea's rainforests has revealed destruction on such a rapid scale that by 2021 most accessible forest will be destroyed or degraded, a study released on Monday said.
Papua New Guinea has the world's third largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo, and its government is seeking compensation for conserving its forests as carbon-traps to help reduce global greenhouse gases.
Papua New Guinea has allowed widespread logging of its forests and the new report, by the University of Papua New Guinea and the Australian National University, questions its commitment to saving rainforests in the mountainous South Pacific nation.
"Forests in Papua New Guinea are being logged repeatedly and wastefully with little regard for the environmental consequences and with at least the passive complicity of government authorities," said Phil Shearman, director of the University of Papua New Guinea's Remote Sensing Centre.
"Government officials may claim that they wish rich countries to pay them for conserving their forests, but if they are allowing multinational timber companies to take everything that's accessible, all that will be left will be lands that are physically inaccessible to exploitation and would never have been logged anyway," said Shearman.
Destruction of forests produces about 20 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, so their conservation is vital to limiting rises in global temperatures.
The report, which measured PNG's forests from 1972 to 2002, found that accessible forests were being cleared at a rate of 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) a year in 2001, or about 1.41 percent of the country's forests annually.
In 1972, PNG had 38 million hectares (94 million acres), of rainforest covering 82 percent of the country. Between 1972 and 2002, around 15 percent of its rainforests had been cleared.
In 2002, PNG's forests covered 33 million hectares (81.5 million acres), or 71 percent of the country's land mass, and supported 6 to 7 percent of the world's animal and plant species.
By 2021 an estimated 83 percent of accessible forest and 53 percent of PNG's total forests would be destroyed or severely damaged, said the report.
FORESTS NOT LIMITLESS
"Papua New Guinea is still one of the most heavily forested countries in the world," Shearman said in a statement.
"For the first time, we have evidence of what's happening in the PNG forests. The government could make a significant contribution to global efforts to combat climate change. It is in its own interest to do so, as this nation is particularly susceptible to negative effects due to loss of the forest cover."
The report said deforestation was occurring at the same rate in protected and unprotected areas and justified a significant reduction in logging in PNG.
Any new forestry programmes should involve small and medium-scale, locally-owned and managed operations where commercial activities are more likely to be environmentally sustainable, it said.
Minister for Forests Belden Namah said economic development had taken precedence over conservation in PNG, a developing nation that has struggled to prosper from its vast mineral wealth. Most of its 6 million population live subsistence lives in villages.
"Over the past decades we have imagined that our forests are limitless. If this report is the bitter pill that we need to swallow to ensure that we maintain our forests into the foreseeable future, so be it," Namah said in the report.
"If in 50 years, PNG is left only with scraps of forest inside national parks then we have all failed."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
Half of Papua New Guinea's forests gone by 2021: study
Yahoo News 2 Jun 08;
Half of Papua New Guinea's forests will be lost or damaged in just over a decade, speeding up local climate change, unless logging is dramatically reduced, a study released Monday found.
The University of Papua New Guinea report, which used satellite images to show the loss in forest cover between 1972 and 2002, found that at current rates, 53 percent of forest was at risk of being destroyed by 2021.
The study, conducted in conjunction with the Australian National University, found that even in so-called conservation areas, trees were being logged or cut down by local subsistence farmers unabated.
"The unfortunate reality is that forests in Papua New Guinea are being logged repeatedly and wastefully with little regard for the environmental consequences and with at least the passive complicity of government authorities," the report's lead author Phil Shearman said in a statement.
Papua New Guinea has the world's third largest tropical forest but it was being cleared or degraded at a rate of 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) a year in 2001, the report said.
Shearman said it was internationally recognised that tropical forests were "sink holes of jaw-droppingly large amounts of carbon".
"So the destruction of forest... releases that carbon into the atmosphere," he told AFP, adding raising carbon levels in the atmosphere had an impact on global warming.
"Papua New Guinea's forests are... of national and regional significance because of their carbon storage factors, they are critically important for the regional stability of our climate," he said.
"And they also hold probably somewhere between six and 10 percent of the world's biodiversity."
The report calls for a dramatic drop in logging -- or the consequences could be significant, Shearman said.
"If these trends are allowed to continue for the next 10 or 15 years it will result in significant major proportions of Papua New Guinea's forest being cleared or logged," he said.
Forests Minister Belden Namah said the government was already taking steps to review its policies towards the country's greatest natural resource.
"There's a need for rapid action to replace trees that have been cut," he said.
"And I believe for every tree that has been cut, we should plant three more new trees. That is one major policy I am looking at."
Namah acknowledged that commercial logging contributed 176 million US dollars to the national purse each year.
"But at the same time we understand that there needs to be control as to the logging activities in the country, there's a call for sustainable forest management," he told reporters via a telephone link.
The report said Papua New Guinea was still one of the most heavily forested countries in the world and it was not too late to act.
"For the first time, we have evidence of what's happening in the PNG forests," Shearman said.
"The government could make a significant contribution to global efforts to combat climate change. It is in its own interest to do so, as this nation is particularly susceptible to negative effects due to loss of the forest cover."
Papua New Guinea rainforest destruction
Nick Squires, The Telegraph 2 Jun 08;
The chopping down of Papua New Guinea's rainforests is happening much more quickly than previously thought, driven by Asia's insatiable demand for timber and one of the world's fastest growing populations.
Satellite imagery has revealed destruction on such a large scale that within 12 years most of the accessible forest in the south-east Asian nation will be destroyed or degraded, a study said.
Logging companies have been operating in the country for years but the exact extent of their encroachment on virgin forests was unknown.
Satellite monitoring now shows that the rate of deforestation is comparable to that in the Amazon and in the Congo Basin, said scientists from the University of Papua New Guinea and the Australian National University.
"The bad news is that it was previously thought that PNG had a very low or non-existent rate of deforestation and degradation," said Phil Shearman, director of the University of Papua New Guinea's Remote Sensing Centre.
"Our study is making it reasonably clear that's not the case - indeed PNG is losing its rainforest at rates comparable to that of the Congo and to that of the Amazon.
"Government officials may claim that they wish rich countries to pay them for conserving their forests, but if they are allowing multinational timber companies to take everything that's accessible, all that will be left will be lands that are physically inaccessible to exploitation and would never have been logged anyway."
Papua New Guinea's tropical rainforest - the world's third largest - is not only being logged by timber firms but also cleared for subsistence farming, in a country of 6m people with one of the highest population growth rates in the world.
In 1972, the former British colony's rainforests covered 94m acres, or 82 per cent of the country, satellite monitoring showed.
By 2002, that had fallen to 81m acres, or 71 per cent of the country's land mass.
At the current rate of deforestation, 83 per cent of accessible forest and 53 per cent of the country's total forests will be destroyed or severely damaged by 2021.
"So there's a much shorter time frame than anyone has previously realised," said Julian Ash, from the Australian National University, a co-author of the report.
The country's minister for forests, Belden Namah, said economic development had taken precedence over conservation and the report was a wake-up call.
"Over the past decades we have imagined that our forests are limitless.
"If this report is the bitter pill that we need to swallow to ensure that we maintain our forests into the forseeable future, so be it.
"If in 50 years, PNG is left only with scraps of forest inside national parks, then we have all failed."
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Thirty years of satellite imagery of Papua New Guinea's rainforests has revealed destruction on such a rapid scale that by 2021 most accessible forest will be destroyed or degraded, a study released on Monday said.
Papua New Guinea has the world's third largest tropical rainforest, after the Amazon and the Congo, and its government is seeking compensation for conserving its forests as carbon-traps to help reduce global greenhouse gases.
Papua New Guinea has allowed widespread logging of its forests and the new report, by the University of Papua New Guinea and the Australian National University, questions its commitment to saving rainforests in the mountainous South Pacific nation.
"Forests in Papua New Guinea are being logged repeatedly and wastefully with little regard for the environmental consequences and with at least the passive complicity of government authorities," said Phil Shearman, director of the University of Papua New Guinea's Remote Sensing Centre.
"Government officials may claim that they wish rich countries to pay them for conserving their forests, but if they are allowing multinational timber companies to take everything that's accessible, all that will be left will be lands that are physically inaccessible to exploitation and would never have been logged anyway," said Shearman.
Destruction of forests produces about 20 percent of man-made carbon dioxide emissions, so their conservation is vital to limiting rises in global temperatures.
The report, which measured PNG's forests from 1972 to 2002, found that accessible forests were being cleared at a rate of 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) a year in 2001, or about 1.41 percent of the country's forests annually.
In 1972, PNG had 38 million hectares (94 million acres), of rainforest covering 82 percent of the country. Between 1972 and 2002, around 15 percent of its rainforests had been cleared.
In 2002, PNG's forests covered 33 million hectares (81.5 million acres), or 71 percent of the country's land mass, and supported 6 to 7 percent of the world's animal and plant species.
By 2021 an estimated 83 percent of accessible forest and 53 percent of PNG's total forests would be destroyed or severely damaged, said the report.
FORESTS NOT LIMITLESS
"Papua New Guinea is still one of the most heavily forested countries in the world," Shearman said in a statement.
"For the first time, we have evidence of what's happening in the PNG forests. The government could make a significant contribution to global efforts to combat climate change. It is in its own interest to do so, as this nation is particularly susceptible to negative effects due to loss of the forest cover."
The report said deforestation was occurring at the same rate in protected and unprotected areas and justified a significant reduction in logging in PNG.
Any new forestry programmes should involve small and medium-scale, locally-owned and managed operations where commercial activities are more likely to be environmentally sustainable, it said.
Minister for Forests Belden Namah said economic development had taken precedence over conservation in PNG, a developing nation that has struggled to prosper from its vast mineral wealth. Most of its 6 million population live subsistence lives in villages.
"Over the past decades we have imagined that our forests are limitless. If this report is the bitter pill that we need to swallow to ensure that we maintain our forests into the foreseeable future, so be it," Namah said in the report.
"If in 50 years, PNG is left only with scraps of forest inside national parks then we have all failed."
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
Half of Papua New Guinea's forests gone by 2021: study
Yahoo News 2 Jun 08;
Half of Papua New Guinea's forests will be lost or damaged in just over a decade, speeding up local climate change, unless logging is dramatically reduced, a study released Monday found.
The University of Papua New Guinea report, which used satellite images to show the loss in forest cover between 1972 and 2002, found that at current rates, 53 percent of forest was at risk of being destroyed by 2021.
The study, conducted in conjunction with the Australian National University, found that even in so-called conservation areas, trees were being logged or cut down by local subsistence farmers unabated.
"The unfortunate reality is that forests in Papua New Guinea are being logged repeatedly and wastefully with little regard for the environmental consequences and with at least the passive complicity of government authorities," the report's lead author Phil Shearman said in a statement.
Papua New Guinea has the world's third largest tropical forest but it was being cleared or degraded at a rate of 362,000 hectares (895,000 acres) a year in 2001, the report said.
Shearman said it was internationally recognised that tropical forests were "sink holes of jaw-droppingly large amounts of carbon".
"So the destruction of forest... releases that carbon into the atmosphere," he told AFP, adding raising carbon levels in the atmosphere had an impact on global warming.
"Papua New Guinea's forests are... of national and regional significance because of their carbon storage factors, they are critically important for the regional stability of our climate," he said.
"And they also hold probably somewhere between six and 10 percent of the world's biodiversity."
The report calls for a dramatic drop in logging -- or the consequences could be significant, Shearman said.
"If these trends are allowed to continue for the next 10 or 15 years it will result in significant major proportions of Papua New Guinea's forest being cleared or logged," he said.
Forests Minister Belden Namah said the government was already taking steps to review its policies towards the country's greatest natural resource.
"There's a need for rapid action to replace trees that have been cut," he said.
"And I believe for every tree that has been cut, we should plant three more new trees. That is one major policy I am looking at."
Namah acknowledged that commercial logging contributed 176 million US dollars to the national purse each year.
"But at the same time we understand that there needs to be control as to the logging activities in the country, there's a call for sustainable forest management," he told reporters via a telephone link.
The report said Papua New Guinea was still one of the most heavily forested countries in the world and it was not too late to act.
"For the first time, we have evidence of what's happening in the PNG forests," Shearman said.
"The government could make a significant contribution to global efforts to combat climate change. It is in its own interest to do so, as this nation is particularly susceptible to negative effects due to loss of the forest cover."
Papua New Guinea rainforest destruction
Nick Squires, The Telegraph 2 Jun 08;
The chopping down of Papua New Guinea's rainforests is happening much more quickly than previously thought, driven by Asia's insatiable demand for timber and one of the world's fastest growing populations.
Satellite imagery has revealed destruction on such a large scale that within 12 years most of the accessible forest in the south-east Asian nation will be destroyed or degraded, a study said.
Logging companies have been operating in the country for years but the exact extent of their encroachment on virgin forests was unknown.
Satellite monitoring now shows that the rate of deforestation is comparable to that in the Amazon and in the Congo Basin, said scientists from the University of Papua New Guinea and the Australian National University.
"The bad news is that it was previously thought that PNG had a very low or non-existent rate of deforestation and degradation," said Phil Shearman, director of the University of Papua New Guinea's Remote Sensing Centre.
"Our study is making it reasonably clear that's not the case - indeed PNG is losing its rainforest at rates comparable to that of the Congo and to that of the Amazon.
"Government officials may claim that they wish rich countries to pay them for conserving their forests, but if they are allowing multinational timber companies to take everything that's accessible, all that will be left will be lands that are physically inaccessible to exploitation and would never have been logged anyway."
Papua New Guinea's tropical rainforest - the world's third largest - is not only being logged by timber firms but also cleared for subsistence farming, in a country of 6m people with one of the highest population growth rates in the world.
In 1972, the former British colony's rainforests covered 94m acres, or 82 per cent of the country, satellite monitoring showed.
By 2002, that had fallen to 81m acres, or 71 per cent of the country's land mass.
At the current rate of deforestation, 83 per cent of accessible forest and 53 per cent of the country's total forests will be destroyed or severely damaged by 2021.
"So there's a much shorter time frame than anyone has previously realised," said Julian Ash, from the Australian National University, a co-author of the report.
The country's minister for forests, Belden Namah, said economic development had taken precedence over conservation and the report was a wake-up call.
"Over the past decades we have imagined that our forests are limitless.
"If this report is the bitter pill that we need to swallow to ensure that we maintain our forests into the forseeable future, so be it.
"If in 50 years, PNG is left only with scraps of forest inside national parks, then we have all failed."
Indonesian military chief urges nature conservation authority to overcome man-elephant conflict
Antara 3 Jun 08;
Tapaktuan, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (ANTARA News) - A continuing conflict between rural farmers and wild elephants in two regions in South Aceh district has prompted the regional military commander to address an urgent request to the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) to send a team to the two places to overcome the problem.
"I have contacted the chief of the NAD provincial BKSDA and asked him to assign a team to deal with the wild elephant problem in Truman and East Trumon sub districts as soon as possible," Lt Col Erwin Septiansyah, commander of Military District 0107, said here on Monday.
He said the conflict between man and the protected animals could not be allowed to drag on as the elephants had already damaged or destroyed crops on tens of hectares of local farmers` cultivation fields and plantations, and even threatened local residents` safety.
"If the elephants` destructive activity is not stopped, the local communities will continue to suffer losses," he said.
The same request was made to NAD`s BKSDA by South Aceh District Chief Tgk Husen Yusuf who specifically asked the agency also to set up command posts in the two regions to monitor the wild animals` activity and even a wild life reserve in Trumon district.
"The behavior of a herd of elephants estimated to number 12 is causing great anxiety among the local people. The conflict between man and wild elephants in the region has existed for decades but it was never resolved conclusively," he said.
Meanwhile, according to a report from Alue Lhok village in East Trumon sub district, a few wild elephants on Sunday night almost harmed a 14-year-old elementary school student who was tending to his familiy`s durian plantation.
"The boy, Muyan, `was about to be attacked by the animals but fortunately he was able to escape by outrunning them," an East Trumon community leader, Jamadi, said.
Wild elephants recently also destroyed oil-palm trees and secondary crops in Naca, Ie Jeurneh, Pinto Rimba and Ladang Rimba villages in East Trumon sub district.
"What puzzles me is that the elephants have been living in areas where people reside for more than a month now but nobody among the local authorities seems to care," Jumadi said. (*)
Tapaktuan, Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (ANTARA News) - A continuing conflict between rural farmers and wild elephants in two regions in South Aceh district has prompted the regional military commander to address an urgent request to the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) to send a team to the two places to overcome the problem.
"I have contacted the chief of the NAD provincial BKSDA and asked him to assign a team to deal with the wild elephant problem in Truman and East Trumon sub districts as soon as possible," Lt Col Erwin Septiansyah, commander of Military District 0107, said here on Monday.
He said the conflict between man and the protected animals could not be allowed to drag on as the elephants had already damaged or destroyed crops on tens of hectares of local farmers` cultivation fields and plantations, and even threatened local residents` safety.
"If the elephants` destructive activity is not stopped, the local communities will continue to suffer losses," he said.
The same request was made to NAD`s BKSDA by South Aceh District Chief Tgk Husen Yusuf who specifically asked the agency also to set up command posts in the two regions to monitor the wild animals` activity and even a wild life reserve in Trumon district.
"The behavior of a herd of elephants estimated to number 12 is causing great anxiety among the local people. The conflict between man and wild elephants in the region has existed for decades but it was never resolved conclusively," he said.
Meanwhile, according to a report from Alue Lhok village in East Trumon sub district, a few wild elephants on Sunday night almost harmed a 14-year-old elementary school student who was tending to his familiy`s durian plantation.
"The boy, Muyan, `was about to be attacked by the animals but fortunately he was able to escape by outrunning them," an East Trumon community leader, Jamadi, said.
Wild elephants recently also destroyed oil-palm trees and secondary crops in Naca, Ie Jeurneh, Pinto Rimba and Ladang Rimba villages in East Trumon sub district.
"What puzzles me is that the elephants have been living in areas where people reside for more than a month now but nobody among the local authorities seems to care," Jumadi said. (*)
World Bank approves U$4 million grant to Indonesia for geothermal project in Indonesia
Antara 3 Jun 08;
Washington (ANTARA News) - The World Bank`s board of executive directors has approved a US$4-million GEF (Global Environment Facility) Trust Fund Grant for a geothermal power generation development project in Indonesia.
The geothermal power generation development project aims to promote the expansion of economic and environmentally friendly geothermal power generation in Indonesia, and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the power system, according to information on the bank`s official website.
There are four components to the project which was approved on May 29, 2008.
The first component is the policy framework for scaling-up the development of geothermal power.
This component will assist the Indonesian government in developing and implementing an integrated set of policies that will provide sufficient regulatory certainty, risk mitigation, and economic incentives for increased public and private investments toward developing geothermal power in Indonesia.
The second component is transactions management for mobilizing investments in geothermal power generation. This component will assist the Indonesian government , especially the energy and mineral resources ministry, to develop its capacity in planning and transacting geothermal power development in an efficient and transparent manner.
The third component is geothermal sector technical capacity building. This component will help address the limited domestic technical capacity for handling most geothermal related activities, and support the long-term development prospects of the sector.
Finally, the fourth component is project management assistance.
This component will provide the necessary technical consultant support to the directorate of geothermal enterprise supervision and ground water management, the executive implementation unit, for the management and supervision of the project.
Apart from the grant, the Indonesian government also expected to get a program loan from the World Bank amounting to US$1.2 billion to cover the country`s budget deficit of around RP82.3 trillion.
Washington (ANTARA News) - The World Bank`s board of executive directors has approved a US$4-million GEF (Global Environment Facility) Trust Fund Grant for a geothermal power generation development project in Indonesia.
The geothermal power generation development project aims to promote the expansion of economic and environmentally friendly geothermal power generation in Indonesia, and reduce carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from the power system, according to information on the bank`s official website.
There are four components to the project which was approved on May 29, 2008.
The first component is the policy framework for scaling-up the development of geothermal power.
This component will assist the Indonesian government in developing and implementing an integrated set of policies that will provide sufficient regulatory certainty, risk mitigation, and economic incentives for increased public and private investments toward developing geothermal power in Indonesia.
The second component is transactions management for mobilizing investments in geothermal power generation. This component will assist the Indonesian government , especially the energy and mineral resources ministry, to develop its capacity in planning and transacting geothermal power development in an efficient and transparent manner.
The third component is geothermal sector technical capacity building. This component will help address the limited domestic technical capacity for handling most geothermal related activities, and support the long-term development prospects of the sector.
Finally, the fourth component is project management assistance.
This component will provide the necessary technical consultant support to the directorate of geothermal enterprise supervision and ground water management, the executive implementation unit, for the management and supervision of the project.
Apart from the grant, the Indonesian government also expected to get a program loan from the World Bank amounting to US$1.2 billion to cover the country`s budget deficit of around RP82.3 trillion.
Challenges for the food summit
Roger Harrabin, BBC News 3 Jun 08;
Politicians struggling to solve the current world food crisis need to find long-term solutions that feed the poorest without reproducing the ills of the recent "cheap food era".
In the late 1990s, the wheat price was at a record low - driven down by inexpensive fuel and taxpayers' farm subsidies in the EU and America.
Cheap food encouraged an epidemic of obesity in which the number of people overweight (one billion) globally exceeded the number of malnourished (0.8 billion).
It sparked an orgy of food waste, with people in some countries throwing away a third of what they buy.
It benefited consumers throughout rich nations, and in cities of the developing world.
But farm surpluses dumped on developing countries drove poor farmers out of business and helped persuade politicians in Africa that supporting domestic agriculture was a low priority.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that food prices will not return to their previous low level for the foreseeable future. But many analysts doubt that they will ever sink that low again - and regard this as a benefit rather than a curse.
"Food has been too cheap for too long," says Professor Tim Lang at City University, UK.
Already the market is responding to higher prices. Argentina is forecast to profit from a boost in agriculture, and Ukraine will cash in by bringing derelict land back into service.
It is reported that farmers in Afghanistan are turning from opium to wheat because it pays more at current rates.
But as well as providing a short-term safety-net for the hungry poor, the politicians at the UN want to stimulate agriculture worldwide - particularly in Africa where all nations are net losers from high food prices.
Their farmers will benefit from the price rise if they can improve outputs.
Meanwhile, they will try to persuade India which is stock-piling rice to release it on to world markets. But they may struggle.
Economists promote free markets as a solution to high prices but for countries such as India, food security is a key political issue - and food politics may grow more rather than less acute as the century progresses.
This will undoubtedly be so in Europe as we move towards the next great reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2012.
The UK has been pushing for freer markets and a complete end to direct payments for farm production - but the French farmers have seized the current crisis as the ideal opportunity to push their ideal of a Europe less dependent on food imports.
British policy on the issue is evolving, too. All this friction is likely to cause further jams to the lurching world trade talks.
The open question is whether the planet will be able to feed a population of nine billion by the end of the century. Some food experts are sceptical about whether this can be achieved.
But Prof David Harvey, from Newcastle University, UK, forecasts: "It's hard to be certain but I think it's far more likely that the world will run out of tolerance before it runs out of food. The problem as always is how the food is distributed."
That means potentially increased conflict between people rich enough to waste food and people so poor that they can't afford to buy it.
A paper from the "think-tank" Chatham House outlines four possible scenarios:
* Just a Blip - the present high price of food proves to be a brief spike with a return to cheap food at some point soon
* Food Inflation - food prices remain high for a decade with oil at $100 a barrel
* New Era - politicians accept that current food production is unsustainable and shift to eco-technological farming
* Food in Crisis - a major world food crisis develops with oil at $200 a barrel; the world in recession and food stocks exhausted
Underlying these scenarios are questions of how the environment will cope with all the increased agricultural demand.
Every farm expansion affects wildlife. Water is already scarce in many areas and will have to be used more frugally.
Computer models of climate change cannot offer good guidance on whether key agricultural areas will become drier or wetter in future. But every hectare of virgin land ploughed for agriculture releases more carbon from the soil.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that agricultural productivity will increase for the first few decades of the century, but will then begin to fall as temperatures rise further.
There are many uncertainties - except this: one way or another, food is likely to remain a key issue.
The FAO has convened a meeting in Rome, Italy, over the next three days which will discuss world food security, climate change and bioenergy.
Politicians struggling to solve the current world food crisis need to find long-term solutions that feed the poorest without reproducing the ills of the recent "cheap food era".
In the late 1990s, the wheat price was at a record low - driven down by inexpensive fuel and taxpayers' farm subsidies in the EU and America.
Cheap food encouraged an epidemic of obesity in which the number of people overweight (one billion) globally exceeded the number of malnourished (0.8 billion).
It sparked an orgy of food waste, with people in some countries throwing away a third of what they buy.
It benefited consumers throughout rich nations, and in cities of the developing world.
But farm surpluses dumped on developing countries drove poor farmers out of business and helped persuade politicians in Africa that supporting domestic agriculture was a low priority.
The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) warns that food prices will not return to their previous low level for the foreseeable future. But many analysts doubt that they will ever sink that low again - and regard this as a benefit rather than a curse.
"Food has been too cheap for too long," says Professor Tim Lang at City University, UK.
Already the market is responding to higher prices. Argentina is forecast to profit from a boost in agriculture, and Ukraine will cash in by bringing derelict land back into service.
It is reported that farmers in Afghanistan are turning from opium to wheat because it pays more at current rates.
But as well as providing a short-term safety-net for the hungry poor, the politicians at the UN want to stimulate agriculture worldwide - particularly in Africa where all nations are net losers from high food prices.
Their farmers will benefit from the price rise if they can improve outputs.
Meanwhile, they will try to persuade India which is stock-piling rice to release it on to world markets. But they may struggle.
Economists promote free markets as a solution to high prices but for countries such as India, food security is a key political issue - and food politics may grow more rather than less acute as the century progresses.
This will undoubtedly be so in Europe as we move towards the next great reform of the Common Agricultural Policy in 2012.
The UK has been pushing for freer markets and a complete end to direct payments for farm production - but the French farmers have seized the current crisis as the ideal opportunity to push their ideal of a Europe less dependent on food imports.
British policy on the issue is evolving, too. All this friction is likely to cause further jams to the lurching world trade talks.
The open question is whether the planet will be able to feed a population of nine billion by the end of the century. Some food experts are sceptical about whether this can be achieved.
But Prof David Harvey, from Newcastle University, UK, forecasts: "It's hard to be certain but I think it's far more likely that the world will run out of tolerance before it runs out of food. The problem as always is how the food is distributed."
That means potentially increased conflict between people rich enough to waste food and people so poor that they can't afford to buy it.
A paper from the "think-tank" Chatham House outlines four possible scenarios:
* Just a Blip - the present high price of food proves to be a brief spike with a return to cheap food at some point soon
* Food Inflation - food prices remain high for a decade with oil at $100 a barrel
* New Era - politicians accept that current food production is unsustainable and shift to eco-technological farming
* Food in Crisis - a major world food crisis develops with oil at $200 a barrel; the world in recession and food stocks exhausted
Underlying these scenarios are questions of how the environment will cope with all the increased agricultural demand.
Every farm expansion affects wildlife. Water is already scarce in many areas and will have to be used more frugally.
Computer models of climate change cannot offer good guidance on whether key agricultural areas will become drier or wetter in future. But every hectare of virgin land ploughed for agriculture releases more carbon from the soil.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that agricultural productivity will increase for the first few decades of the century, but will then begin to fall as temperatures rise further.
There are many uncertainties - except this: one way or another, food is likely to remain a key issue.
The FAO has convened a meeting in Rome, Italy, over the next three days which will discuss world food security, climate change and bioenergy.
Plant waste biofuels benefit from food debate
Julie Gordon, Yahoo News 2 Jun 08;
In the search for renewable energy, turning low-value materials like switchgrass and corn husks into ethanol to fuel cars is something of a Holy Grail.
In theory, these materials would replace corn as the main feedstock for ethanol in North America, reducing the pressure on farmland that has played a role in rising food prices and put drivers into competition with hungry people.
But scientists on the front lines of this search are finding that making the process commercially and environmentally viable is proving much harder than some of the hype would suggest.
In a greenhouse on the top floor of the science complex at the University of Guelph in southwestern Ontario, microbiologist Anthony Clarke stands next to rows of corn plants sprouting out of black plastic pots.
In them, he sees the future of renewable fuel -- but he's not looking at the corn kernel.
"We have all that other green matter: the leaves, the stalk, the husks even," he said. "So the idea would be to use that material for the biofuel and the grain itself as a food."
But turning plant waste into fuel is not easy. Plant cellulose is woven into a tight grid, making it difficult -- and costly -- to extract the glucose needed to make ethanol.
"There is a technology out there for biofuels from cellulosic material, but it does involve acid and steam," said Clarke. "Both require energy to produce. So more energy is going in, currently, and expense, then is being recovered."
With the current technology, cellulose delivers less energy than corn. But if the scientists can make their dream technology work, cellulosic ethanol could be three to eight times more energy efficient than corn ethanol.
Clarke and his colleagues are using micro-organisms that produce cellulose-munching enzymes -- much like ones that let a cow digest grass -- to try to make the dream a reality.
(Video on cellulosic research http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=83422&videoChannel=74)
The goal is to create an inexpensive and natural way to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale.
The research is supported by Ottawa-based Iogen, a leader in second-generation biofuels.
Iogen, backed by Royal Dutch Shell and Goldman Sachs Group, has run a demonstration plant in Ottawa for four years, and hopes to soon be pumping out cellulosic ethanol from a C$500 million ($504 million) commercial-scale plant in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan. The company is planning a similar plant in Idaho.
While Canada is on the forefront of cellulosic innovation, its actual ethanol industry is small, producing less than 1 billion liters in 2006, compared with 18.5 billion in the United States and 13 billion in Brazil.
Other companies in the race for next-generation biofuels include DuPont Co and General Motors of the United States. GM has even rolled out 12 models of flex-fuel vehicles, designed to run on an 85 percent ethanol blend.
STILL FIVE YEARS AWAY
"The reality is that next-generation biofuels are the future," said Canadian Renewable Fuels Association president Gordon Quaiattini. "It's taking a waste product and creating value from it."
But economist Al Mussell of Guelph's George Morris Centre think tank said the technology is not yet viable.
"The cellulosic-based ethanol is one of those technologies that about ten years ago they said, 'we're about five years away from having this' and five years ago they said, 'well, we're five years away from having this,"' he said.
"So if you ask someone today it won't surprise me if they say, 'you know, we're just five years away."'
Until the technology for cellulosic ethanol catches up with the demand, grain-based ethanol will continue to be the biofuel standard in North America.
This poses a problem for environmentalists, who believe in the rush to appear "green," governments have pushed forward an environmentally and socially flawed product.
"In theory, biofuels are a good thing," said Greenpeace Canada energy coordinator David Martin, who points out that plants are a cleaner fuel source than petroleum as they do not add new carbon dioxide to the air.
"In reality, though, biofuels are turning out to be a disaster."
Martin blames biofuels in part for the increase in corn prices, which have tripled in the past three years to record levels above $6 per bushel.
But grain-based ethanol producers say they are being made a scapegoat in the global issue of food inflation.
"The high cost of food has everything to do with the cost of energy, and little to do with the actual cost of grain," said Robert Gallant, chief executive of Canadian producer and distributor Greenfield Ethanol.
"The cost of oil has gone up 100 percent. Do the math."
(Audio slideshow on corn ethanol http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/2008/05/publish_to_web/in dex.html)
(Graphic on corn ethanol http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters/editorial/images/20080507/c mb-ethanolgraphic--450.jpg)
Gallant sees corn ethanol as a stepping stone in the quest for cellulosic ethanol, which he hopes will someday replace corn and wheat ethanol as the primary biofuel source in North America.
"When cellulose comes along it will be able to displace much more of the petroleum-based energy source, so it will have a positive environmental impact," said Gallant. "It truly is part of the wave of the future."
And, despite the research difficulties, countries around the world are betting heavily on biofuels to meet their commitments to reduce emissions.
In Canada the plan is to raise use of second-generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol to 5 percent by 2010 from 1 percent now.
And European Union leaders have committed to raise the share of biofuels in transport to 10 percent by 2020 from 2 percent, and said that target was based on the assumption that second-generation biofuels would become commercial.
(Reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Eddie Evans)
In the search for renewable energy, turning low-value materials like switchgrass and corn husks into ethanol to fuel cars is something of a Holy Grail.
In theory, these materials would replace corn as the main feedstock for ethanol in North America, reducing the pressure on farmland that has played a role in rising food prices and put drivers into competition with hungry people.
But scientists on the front lines of this search are finding that making the process commercially and environmentally viable is proving much harder than some of the hype would suggest.
In a greenhouse on the top floor of the science complex at the University of Guelph in southwestern Ontario, microbiologist Anthony Clarke stands next to rows of corn plants sprouting out of black plastic pots.
In them, he sees the future of renewable fuel -- but he's not looking at the corn kernel.
"We have all that other green matter: the leaves, the stalk, the husks even," he said. "So the idea would be to use that material for the biofuel and the grain itself as a food."
But turning plant waste into fuel is not easy. Plant cellulose is woven into a tight grid, making it difficult -- and costly -- to extract the glucose needed to make ethanol.
"There is a technology out there for biofuels from cellulosic material, but it does involve acid and steam," said Clarke. "Both require energy to produce. So more energy is going in, currently, and expense, then is being recovered."
With the current technology, cellulose delivers less energy than corn. But if the scientists can make their dream technology work, cellulosic ethanol could be three to eight times more energy efficient than corn ethanol.
Clarke and his colleagues are using micro-organisms that produce cellulose-munching enzymes -- much like ones that let a cow digest grass -- to try to make the dream a reality.
(Video on cellulosic research http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=83422&videoChannel=74)
The goal is to create an inexpensive and natural way to produce cellulosic ethanol on a commercial scale.
The research is supported by Ottawa-based Iogen, a leader in second-generation biofuels.
Iogen, backed by Royal Dutch Shell and Goldman Sachs Group, has run a demonstration plant in Ottawa for four years, and hopes to soon be pumping out cellulosic ethanol from a C$500 million ($504 million) commercial-scale plant in the Canadian prairie province of Saskatchewan. The company is planning a similar plant in Idaho.
While Canada is on the forefront of cellulosic innovation, its actual ethanol industry is small, producing less than 1 billion liters in 2006, compared with 18.5 billion in the United States and 13 billion in Brazil.
Other companies in the race for next-generation biofuels include DuPont Co and General Motors of the United States. GM has even rolled out 12 models of flex-fuel vehicles, designed to run on an 85 percent ethanol blend.
STILL FIVE YEARS AWAY
"The reality is that next-generation biofuels are the future," said Canadian Renewable Fuels Association president Gordon Quaiattini. "It's taking a waste product and creating value from it."
But economist Al Mussell of Guelph's George Morris Centre think tank said the technology is not yet viable.
"The cellulosic-based ethanol is one of those technologies that about ten years ago they said, 'we're about five years away from having this' and five years ago they said, 'well, we're five years away from having this,"' he said.
"So if you ask someone today it won't surprise me if they say, 'you know, we're just five years away."'
Until the technology for cellulosic ethanol catches up with the demand, grain-based ethanol will continue to be the biofuel standard in North America.
This poses a problem for environmentalists, who believe in the rush to appear "green," governments have pushed forward an environmentally and socially flawed product.
"In theory, biofuels are a good thing," said Greenpeace Canada energy coordinator David Martin, who points out that plants are a cleaner fuel source than petroleum as they do not add new carbon dioxide to the air.
"In reality, though, biofuels are turning out to be a disaster."
Martin blames biofuels in part for the increase in corn prices, which have tripled in the past three years to record levels above $6 per bushel.
But grain-based ethanol producers say they are being made a scapegoat in the global issue of food inflation.
"The high cost of food has everything to do with the cost of energy, and little to do with the actual cost of grain," said Robert Gallant, chief executive of Canadian producer and distributor Greenfield Ethanol.
"The cost of oil has gone up 100 percent. Do the math."
(Audio slideshow on corn ethanol http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters42/2008/05/publish_to_web/in dex.html)
(Graphic on corn ethanol http://int1.fp.sandpiper.net/reuters/editorial/images/20080507/c mb-ethanolgraphic--450.jpg)
Gallant sees corn ethanol as a stepping stone in the quest for cellulosic ethanol, which he hopes will someday replace corn and wheat ethanol as the primary biofuel source in North America.
"When cellulose comes along it will be able to displace much more of the petroleum-based energy source, so it will have a positive environmental impact," said Gallant. "It truly is part of the wave of the future."
And, despite the research difficulties, countries around the world are betting heavily on biofuels to meet their commitments to reduce emissions.
In Canada the plan is to raise use of second-generation biofuels like cellulosic ethanol to 5 percent by 2010 from 1 percent now.
And European Union leaders have committed to raise the share of biofuels in transport to 10 percent by 2020 from 2 percent, and said that target was based on the assumption that second-generation biofuels would become commercial.
(Reporting by Julie Gordon; Editing by Eddie Evans)
Brazil says biofuel production not to blame for food crisis
Uncas Fernandez, Yahoo News 1 Jun 08;
With its prodigious farm exports and its major industry making ethanol from sugarcane, Brazil is seeking to show that in the food versus biofuel debate at least in its case the two can co-exist.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has challenged critics who claim biofuel production is contributing to high food prices and demand, arguing the problem lies instead in poor agricultural and distribution models.
"It is not ethanol that is causing food prices to rise, because Brazil, which produces more biofuel also produces more food," he has said.
That view has support among government analysts.
The food crisis "is a problem of wealth distribution, a political problem," said Giselle Ferreira de Araujo, who works for the state National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.
Renato Maluf, the head of the government's food safety agency, said the demand driving up food prices is largely coming from China, India and other emerging economies.
But the high price of gas, which has raised transportation costs, as well as poor harvests in some parts of the world, and "speculation on food products" were also to blame, he said.
The United States had helped trigger the fears of biofuel production affecting food output by "confusing public opinion to suggest there is no difference between ethanol from sugarcane and from corn," argued Rubens Ricupero, a former head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Brazil's use of sugarcane for biofuel does not replace food crops, its supporters argue, whereas the US use of corn to make its ethanol does.
Biofuel has also won backing from some environmental groups, including the WWF, which sees the carburant as a renewable energy source that can address growing worldwide demand for power.
The WWF estimates that demand for ethanol will reach 100 billion liters by 2012, and that the United States, the biggest producer, will provide 42 percent of that. Gasoline consumption, by way of comparison, was 1.24 trillion liters in 2005.
Currently, the United States produces 28 billion liters of ethanol, followed by Brazil with 22 billion liters.
The WWF did note, however, that sugarcane fields tended to occupy areas once given over to cattle-raising, and even though it rated that factor as insignificant, it did warn that some ancillary effect of displaced ranchers moving into the Amazon, contributing to deforestation, could occur.
Eduardo Leao, the executive director of the Unica federation covering the sugarcane industry, said ethanol production uses just 1.0 percent of Brazil's total arable land. Meanwhile, the country's food production had doubled in the past decade.
The country has 355 million hectares of farmable land, of which sugarcane used to make ethanol fills 3.4 million hectares. Another 105.8 million hectares remained available, which "allows us to increase ethanol production without affecting the environment or food," said Unica president Marcos Jank.
Investment in Brazilian sugarcane processing factories is expected to top 23 billion dollars over the next four years. There are already 22 plants controlled by foreign capital, out of a total 412, and their number is expected to rise to 31 within five years.
The ethanol boom has had repercussions for land prices. A hectare of arable land is now fetching an average 4,135 reals, 16 percent more than a year ago.
Amnesty International has also criticized the sugarcane industry for using "forced labor," though Unica has dismissed that as "wrong and out of context."
With its prodigious farm exports and its major industry making ethanol from sugarcane, Brazil is seeking to show that in the food versus biofuel debate at least in its case the two can co-exist.
President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has challenged critics who claim biofuel production is contributing to high food prices and demand, arguing the problem lies instead in poor agricultural and distribution models.
"It is not ethanol that is causing food prices to rise, because Brazil, which produces more biofuel also produces more food," he has said.
That view has support among government analysts.
The food crisis "is a problem of wealth distribution, a political problem," said Giselle Ferreira de Araujo, who works for the state National Council for Scientific and Technological Development.
Renato Maluf, the head of the government's food safety agency, said the demand driving up food prices is largely coming from China, India and other emerging economies.
But the high price of gas, which has raised transportation costs, as well as poor harvests in some parts of the world, and "speculation on food products" were also to blame, he said.
The United States had helped trigger the fears of biofuel production affecting food output by "confusing public opinion to suggest there is no difference between ethanol from sugarcane and from corn," argued Rubens Ricupero, a former head of the UN Conference on Trade and Development.
Brazil's use of sugarcane for biofuel does not replace food crops, its supporters argue, whereas the US use of corn to make its ethanol does.
Biofuel has also won backing from some environmental groups, including the WWF, which sees the carburant as a renewable energy source that can address growing worldwide demand for power.
The WWF estimates that demand for ethanol will reach 100 billion liters by 2012, and that the United States, the biggest producer, will provide 42 percent of that. Gasoline consumption, by way of comparison, was 1.24 trillion liters in 2005.
Currently, the United States produces 28 billion liters of ethanol, followed by Brazil with 22 billion liters.
The WWF did note, however, that sugarcane fields tended to occupy areas once given over to cattle-raising, and even though it rated that factor as insignificant, it did warn that some ancillary effect of displaced ranchers moving into the Amazon, contributing to deforestation, could occur.
Eduardo Leao, the executive director of the Unica federation covering the sugarcane industry, said ethanol production uses just 1.0 percent of Brazil's total arable land. Meanwhile, the country's food production had doubled in the past decade.
The country has 355 million hectares of farmable land, of which sugarcane used to make ethanol fills 3.4 million hectares. Another 105.8 million hectares remained available, which "allows us to increase ethanol production without affecting the environment or food," said Unica president Marcos Jank.
Investment in Brazilian sugarcane processing factories is expected to top 23 billion dollars over the next four years. There are already 22 plants controlled by foreign capital, out of a total 412, and their number is expected to rise to 31 within five years.
The ethanol boom has had repercussions for land prices. A hectare of arable land is now fetching an average 4,135 reals, 16 percent more than a year ago.
Amnesty International has also criticized the sugarcane industry for using "forced labor," though Unica has dismissed that as "wrong and out of context."
Smuggler alert at Pulau Pisang
Today Online 3 Jun 08;
KUANTAN — The Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) has stationed an intelligence unit at Pulau Pisang in Johor to curb smuggling activities including foreigners and goods from neighbouring countries, reported The Star newspaper.
Its director-general Admiral Amdan Kurish was quoted as saying by The Star: “To date, smuggling activities detected on Pulau Pisang are not as serious as portrayed in the media recently.
“This is because the agency conducts patrols in the area at all times and as far as I know, Pulau Pisang is not used as a transit point for illegal foreigners nor for smuggling goods.”
Admiral Amdan was asked to comment on a news report which appeared in a Malay newspaper claiming that the smuggling of illegal foreigners and goods from neighbouring countries in Pulau Pisang had been going on for the past 10 years.
The activities were said to have occurred as there were no patrol boats from any enforcement agency making their rounds in the area, especially at night, reported The Star.
Separately, Admiral Amdan said the MMEA was waiting for the outcome of a discussion between Malaysia and Singapore on the borders of Pedra Branca and Middle Rocks following a decision made by the International Court of Justice on May 23.
Related article
KL govt told: Make sure two other islands don't fall to Singapore
Straits Times 27 May 08;
KUANTAN — The Malaysia Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) has stationed an intelligence unit at Pulau Pisang in Johor to curb smuggling activities including foreigners and goods from neighbouring countries, reported The Star newspaper.
Its director-general Admiral Amdan Kurish was quoted as saying by The Star: “To date, smuggling activities detected on Pulau Pisang are not as serious as portrayed in the media recently.
“This is because the agency conducts patrols in the area at all times and as far as I know, Pulau Pisang is not used as a transit point for illegal foreigners nor for smuggling goods.”
Admiral Amdan was asked to comment on a news report which appeared in a Malay newspaper claiming that the smuggling of illegal foreigners and goods from neighbouring countries in Pulau Pisang had been going on for the past 10 years.
The activities were said to have occurred as there were no patrol boats from any enforcement agency making their rounds in the area, especially at night, reported The Star.
Separately, Admiral Amdan said the MMEA was waiting for the outcome of a discussion between Malaysia and Singapore on the borders of Pedra Branca and Middle Rocks following a decision made by the International Court of Justice on May 23.
Related article
KL govt told: Make sure two other islands don't fall to Singapore
Straits Times 27 May 08;
Best of our wild blogs: 3 Jun 08
Naked with the Bukit Batok Community Centre
on the Chek Jawa boardwalk on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs
Naked in the Living Room
sharing about our shores on the lazy lizard tales blog
Star search on Tanah Merah
on the wonderful creations blog
Reef survey at Kusu Island
amazing underwater world on the colourful clouds blog and on the blue water volunteers blog
Stars and spikes at Changi
on the tidechaser blog
Colourful butterflies and moths: Distasteful to birds?
on the bird ecology blog
Upcoming oil series for Sungei Buloh
on the art in the wetlands blog
MediaCorp launches competition to find Singapore's most eco-friendly person
Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 08;
SINGAPORE: MediaCorp is looking for Singapore's most eco-friendly person. It has launched a competition that is part of its environmental conservation campaign, called 'Saving Gaia'.
The contest calls for participants to spend 24 hours in a see-through box and the winner could walk away with S$10,000.
Hoping that even more people will become environmentally-conscious, MediaCorp's 'Saving Gaia' campaign this year aims to emphasise the role of the individual.
Shaun Seow, Deputy CEO (News, Radio, Print), said: "It is not just big, big campaigns and worldwide superstars talking about saving the environment, but we have to register the fact that each one of us has a part to play."
On it's newly-launched website, some have gone online to pledge how they will do their part for Mother Earth, including re-using water discharged from the washing machine to flush the toilet.
The first 3,000 participants will get Envirosax bags for free.
If you've got even better ideas, and don't mind showing how you'll put them into practice in full view of everyone, you could take part in the Gaia Life Challenge.
Three people will be selected to spend 24 hours in a see-through box. They will be quizzed on their green knowledge and challenged to complete specific tasks. The challenge will take place on June 21 and 22.
Those who are interested can sign up by logging on to the 'Saving Gaia' website at www.savinggaia.sg and submit three of their best green habits. The deadline for submissions is June 14. - CNA/vm
SINGAPORE: MediaCorp is looking for Singapore's most eco-friendly person. It has launched a competition that is part of its environmental conservation campaign, called 'Saving Gaia'.
The contest calls for participants to spend 24 hours in a see-through box and the winner could walk away with S$10,000.
Hoping that even more people will become environmentally-conscious, MediaCorp's 'Saving Gaia' campaign this year aims to emphasise the role of the individual.
Shaun Seow, Deputy CEO (News, Radio, Print), said: "It is not just big, big campaigns and worldwide superstars talking about saving the environment, but we have to register the fact that each one of us has a part to play."
On it's newly-launched website, some have gone online to pledge how they will do their part for Mother Earth, including re-using water discharged from the washing machine to flush the toilet.
The first 3,000 participants will get Envirosax bags for free.
If you've got even better ideas, and don't mind showing how you'll put them into practice in full view of everyone, you could take part in the Gaia Life Challenge.
Three people will be selected to spend 24 hours in a see-through box. They will be quizzed on their green knowledge and challenged to complete specific tasks. The challenge will take place on June 21 and 22.
Those who are interested can sign up by logging on to the 'Saving Gaia' website at www.savinggaia.sg and submit three of their best green habits. The deadline for submissions is June 14. - CNA/vm
Bring Your Own Bag Day' to be weekly affair from June 4
Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 08;
SINGAPORE: Come June 4, the popular 'Bring Your Own Bag Day' (BYOBD) will become a weekly affair. Every Wednesday will be designated 'Bring Your Own Bag Day' at participating retailers, which include major supermarket chains.
In consumer surveys by the National Environment Agency (NEA), 60 per cent of the 1,000 respondents said they support the campaign.
However, only up to 20 per cent brought their own bags. This was because the majority were confused as to which Wednesday of the month was 'Bring Your Own Bag Day'.
So the Singapore Environment Council and NEA have now decided that the BYOBD movement will be put in place on all Wednesdays.
Retailers said they have sold 510,000 reusable bags since the campaign started last April and saved up to 20 per cent in plastic bags.
Home-Fix is the latest retailer to join the BYOBD movement. Other participating retailers include Carrefour, Cold Storage, Giant, NTUC Fairprice, Prime Supermarket, Sheng Siong, Shop N Save, Autobacs, Rehab Mart and Stamford Tyres. - CNA/vm
New target in drive to cut plastic bag usage: Neighbourhood shops
Tessa Wong, Straits Times 3 Jun 08;
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are pushing into a new frontier - neighbourhood shops - in their uphill battle to persuade Singaporeans to use fewer plastic bags.
By the end of this year, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) will be rolling out a poster campaign in the heartland starring local celebrities.
The advocacy group aims to encourage housing estate residents to cut down their usage of plastic bags. About 2.5 billion plastic bags are used here every year.
Yesterday, SEC executive director Howard Shaw said television spots could also be in the offing.
The campaign is the next stage in the SEC's two-year-old Bring Your Own Bag Day (BYOBD) programme, which it conducts with 11 retailers, including supermarket chains such as NTUC FairPrice and Carrefour.
Every first Wednesday of the month, shoppers are encouraged to use their own bags, buy a reusable one, or donate 10 cents to charity for every plastic bag taken from retailers.
Getting this message through in the wet markets and provision shops of the heartland will be no piece of cake, according to a Straits Time poll.
Yesterday, a survey of 10 shoppers in Bishan and Toa Payoh found that only two use their own bags when shopping.
'Competition in the heartland is fierce,' said Mr Ng Poh Seng, a medicine hall owner.
'If you refuse to give plastic bags or charge for them, the news will spread among the aunties very quickly. The reputation of the shop will be ruined.'
But it may be only a matter of time before the public comes round.
Figures released by the SEC show that more people are embracing BYOBD. About 20 per cent of customers used their own bags this year, a 10-fold increase over 2006 when the programme began.
To raise awareness even further, BYOBD will become a weekly affair, starting tomorrow.
'We hope, ultimately, that every day will be a Bring Your Own Bag Day,' said Mr Shaw.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DARYL TAN AND JASON HAU
Bag-pooling, anyone?
Bring Your Own Bag Day now a weekly affair
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 3 Jun 08;
GET ready to give your reusable shopping bag a more rigorous workout: From tomorrow, every Wednesday will be Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) Day.
But even as the push to cut wastage of plastic bags intensifies four-fold, the Singapore Environment Council’s (SEC) executive director Howard Shaw doesn’t see the number of plastic bags saved increasing by the same proportion.
“People need to be reminded as they’re all so busy; even I forget. Perhaps, the fourth ‘R’ (after Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) should be Remember,” he said.
Said Mr Ong Seng Eng, director of the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) resource conservation department: “We want to make BYOB Day more regular. I think the awareness is there already.”
Through surveys, the NEA found that only one-fifth of shoppers take their own bags along on BYOB Day, although thrice as many are supportive of the campaign. By increasing its frequency, Mr Shaw hopes to “mobilise the converted but inactive”.
The SEC hopes to launch a campaign in the heartlands by the end of the year and appoint ambassadors to front the “anti-wastage campaign”.
It is brainstorming for solutions to tackle the use of plastic bags at wet markets. For example, plastic bags used to contain meats tend to be thrown away aftera single use and this is an issueMr Shaw hopes to address.
The SEC will also study the idea of bag-pooling, where consumers pay a deposit to borrow a bag and redeem the amount upon return.
Part of the heartlands campaign will be funded with collections from the BYOB campaign so far: About $80,000 has been pooled through shoppers’ voluntary donations of 10 cents for every plastic bag taken at participating retailers.
With the funds, the SEC has also produced a five-minute training video for frontline staff at participating outlets. The video, which cost about $10,000 to make, will explain the BYOB campaign to staff and get them to ask customers if they need bags for small items and double bags for fragile items, instead of providing the bags as a standard practice.
Noting the “high turnover rate” for frontline staff like cashiers,Mr Shaw said training “can’t take too much time and has to be turnkey and multilingual”. The video will come in two languages and be distributed to participating outlets next week.
NTUC FairPrice, one of the participating retailers, said the extra time taken by its cashiers to explain the BYOB campaign to customers would be worth it. Since launching BYOB Day last July, it has cut the number of bags used by 12 per cent.
Newcomer to the scheme Home-Fix said BYOB was a first step in the company’s efforts to go green. It hopes to promote its range of eco-friendly products such as energy-efficient light bulbs and water-efficient shower heads, said its advertising and promotions manager Lyne Ong.
It’s all in the bags
Could reusable bags turn out to be non-biodegradable?
Letter from Daniel Lim, Today Online 4 Jun 08;
I REFER to the article, “Bag-pooling, anyone?” (June 3). I applaud this move by the supermarkets and many agencies to embrace a more eco-friendly mentality.
However, I’m now a dilemma. I do most of my grocery shopping at supermarkets and carry my groceries home in plastic bags. I try to be eco-friendly, so all these plastic bags are kept aside for future use — I use them for bagging everyday garbage before throwing them into the rubbbish chute. Being civic-minded, I bag my refuse in consideration of the cleaners, as well as to minimise filth and pests infesting our public rubbish bins and chutes.
For this reason, I will continue to ask for plastic bags when I shop for groceries. But in using plastic bags, does that mean that I am an eco-enemy? Perhaps, should :the approach be to focus more on educating consumers on the use of plastic bags?
On another note, we must also be very careful in the production of reusable bags. Like many other consumers, I have so many reusable bags packed away in my storeroom that I do not know what to do with them. Will they one day become non-biodegradable refuse themselves?
SINGAPORE: Come June 4, the popular 'Bring Your Own Bag Day' (BYOBD) will become a weekly affair. Every Wednesday will be designated 'Bring Your Own Bag Day' at participating retailers, which include major supermarket chains.
In consumer surveys by the National Environment Agency (NEA), 60 per cent of the 1,000 respondents said they support the campaign.
However, only up to 20 per cent brought their own bags. This was because the majority were confused as to which Wednesday of the month was 'Bring Your Own Bag Day'.
So the Singapore Environment Council and NEA have now decided that the BYOBD movement will be put in place on all Wednesdays.
Retailers said they have sold 510,000 reusable bags since the campaign started last April and saved up to 20 per cent in plastic bags.
Home-Fix is the latest retailer to join the BYOBD movement. Other participating retailers include Carrefour, Cold Storage, Giant, NTUC Fairprice, Prime Supermarket, Sheng Siong, Shop N Save, Autobacs, Rehab Mart and Stamford Tyres. - CNA/vm
New target in drive to cut plastic bag usage: Neighbourhood shops
Tessa Wong, Straits Times 3 Jun 08;
ENVIRONMENTALISTS are pushing into a new frontier - neighbourhood shops - in their uphill battle to persuade Singaporeans to use fewer plastic bags.
By the end of this year, the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) will be rolling out a poster campaign in the heartland starring local celebrities.
The advocacy group aims to encourage housing estate residents to cut down their usage of plastic bags. About 2.5 billion plastic bags are used here every year.
Yesterday, SEC executive director Howard Shaw said television spots could also be in the offing.
The campaign is the next stage in the SEC's two-year-old Bring Your Own Bag Day (BYOBD) programme, which it conducts with 11 retailers, including supermarket chains such as NTUC FairPrice and Carrefour.
Every first Wednesday of the month, shoppers are encouraged to use their own bags, buy a reusable one, or donate 10 cents to charity for every plastic bag taken from retailers.
Getting this message through in the wet markets and provision shops of the heartland will be no piece of cake, according to a Straits Time poll.
Yesterday, a survey of 10 shoppers in Bishan and Toa Payoh found that only two use their own bags when shopping.
'Competition in the heartland is fierce,' said Mr Ng Poh Seng, a medicine hall owner.
'If you refuse to give plastic bags or charge for them, the news will spread among the aunties very quickly. The reputation of the shop will be ruined.'
But it may be only a matter of time before the public comes round.
Figures released by the SEC show that more people are embracing BYOBD. About 20 per cent of customers used their own bags this year, a 10-fold increase over 2006 when the programme began.
To raise awareness even further, BYOBD will become a weekly affair, starting tomorrow.
'We hope, ultimately, that every day will be a Bring Your Own Bag Day,' said Mr Shaw.
ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY DARYL TAN AND JASON HAU
Bag-pooling, anyone?
Bring Your Own Bag Day now a weekly affair
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 3 Jun 08;
GET ready to give your reusable shopping bag a more rigorous workout: From tomorrow, every Wednesday will be Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) Day.
But even as the push to cut wastage of plastic bags intensifies four-fold, the Singapore Environment Council’s (SEC) executive director Howard Shaw doesn’t see the number of plastic bags saved increasing by the same proportion.
“People need to be reminded as they’re all so busy; even I forget. Perhaps, the fourth ‘R’ (after Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) should be Remember,” he said.
Said Mr Ong Seng Eng, director of the National Environment Agency’s (NEA) resource conservation department: “We want to make BYOB Day more regular. I think the awareness is there already.”
Through surveys, the NEA found that only one-fifth of shoppers take their own bags along on BYOB Day, although thrice as many are supportive of the campaign. By increasing its frequency, Mr Shaw hopes to “mobilise the converted but inactive”.
The SEC hopes to launch a campaign in the heartlands by the end of the year and appoint ambassadors to front the “anti-wastage campaign”.
It is brainstorming for solutions to tackle the use of plastic bags at wet markets. For example, plastic bags used to contain meats tend to be thrown away aftera single use and this is an issueMr Shaw hopes to address.
The SEC will also study the idea of bag-pooling, where consumers pay a deposit to borrow a bag and redeem the amount upon return.
Part of the heartlands campaign will be funded with collections from the BYOB campaign so far: About $80,000 has been pooled through shoppers’ voluntary donations of 10 cents for every plastic bag taken at participating retailers.
With the funds, the SEC has also produced a five-minute training video for frontline staff at participating outlets. The video, which cost about $10,000 to make, will explain the BYOB campaign to staff and get them to ask customers if they need bags for small items and double bags for fragile items, instead of providing the bags as a standard practice.
Noting the “high turnover rate” for frontline staff like cashiers,Mr Shaw said training “can’t take too much time and has to be turnkey and multilingual”. The video will come in two languages and be distributed to participating outlets next week.
NTUC FairPrice, one of the participating retailers, said the extra time taken by its cashiers to explain the BYOB campaign to customers would be worth it. Since launching BYOB Day last July, it has cut the number of bags used by 12 per cent.
Newcomer to the scheme Home-Fix said BYOB was a first step in the company’s efforts to go green. It hopes to promote its range of eco-friendly products such as energy-efficient light bulbs and water-efficient shower heads, said its advertising and promotions manager Lyne Ong.
It’s all in the bags
Could reusable bags turn out to be non-biodegradable?
Letter from Daniel Lim, Today Online 4 Jun 08;
I REFER to the article, “Bag-pooling, anyone?” (June 3). I applaud this move by the supermarkets and many agencies to embrace a more eco-friendly mentality.
However, I’m now a dilemma. I do most of my grocery shopping at supermarkets and carry my groceries home in plastic bags. I try to be eco-friendly, so all these plastic bags are kept aside for future use — I use them for bagging everyday garbage before throwing them into the rubbbish chute. Being civic-minded, I bag my refuse in consideration of the cleaners, as well as to minimise filth and pests infesting our public rubbish bins and chutes.
For this reason, I will continue to ask for plastic bags when I shop for groceries. But in using plastic bags, does that mean that I am an eco-enemy? Perhaps, should :the approach be to focus more on educating consumers on the use of plastic bags?
On another note, we must also be very careful in the production of reusable bags. Like many other consumers, I have so many reusable bags packed away in my storeroom that I do not know what to do with them. Will they one day become non-biodegradable refuse themselves?
Changing motoring habits can help save fuel costs
Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 08;
SINGAPORE: Petrol prices have risen sharply over the last two years. But the Automobile Association of Singapore says there are ways to cut down on fuel costs by changing one's motoring habits.
For instance, one's petrol bill can be reduced by 15 to 20 per cent by refraining from sudden acceleration or deceleration.
Regular servicing will also make one's vehicle run more effectively and economically. Lightening the load of the vehicle will also help.
And if the weather is cool enough, wind down the windows. This could save as much as 10 to 15 per cent in fuel costs for a 1,600cc vehicle.
Tay Chay Sim, Manager, Automobile Association of Singapore, said: "Singaporeans like to put a lot of things inside the boot - things like golf equipment, bicycles and other things you don't need to use daily.
"As you know, any additional load added onto the vehicle will require you to need more petrol to give the same speed. So try to remove these things. Definitely you will save money on fuel." - CNA/vm
SINGAPORE: Petrol prices have risen sharply over the last two years. But the Automobile Association of Singapore says there are ways to cut down on fuel costs by changing one's motoring habits.
For instance, one's petrol bill can be reduced by 15 to 20 per cent by refraining from sudden acceleration or deceleration.
Regular servicing will also make one's vehicle run more effectively and economically. Lightening the load of the vehicle will also help.
And if the weather is cool enough, wind down the windows. This could save as much as 10 to 15 per cent in fuel costs for a 1,600cc vehicle.
Tay Chay Sim, Manager, Automobile Association of Singapore, said: "Singaporeans like to put a lot of things inside the boot - things like golf equipment, bicycles and other things you don't need to use daily.
"As you know, any additional load added onto the vehicle will require you to need more petrol to give the same speed. So try to remove these things. Definitely you will save money on fuel." - CNA/vm
Indonesian capital braces for another round of flood
Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 08;
JAKARTA: Jakarta is bracing for another round of flooding in the next few days, as exceptionally high tides are expected.
Weathermen predicted seasonal high tides reaching two meters or above will hit Jakarta between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Many residents living in the coastal areas north of Jakarta, however, greeted news of an impending flood with a shrug of the shoulders.
"This is a recent phenomenon. If I'm not wrong, major floods have hit us three times this year. It has never happened before," said Madam Cartem, a Muara Baru resident.
Experts said the expected high tides are part of an 18-year cycle. But coupled with land subsidence and higher sea levels, the threat of Jakarta's coastal areas sinking is beginning to look very real.
Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said: "We are reviewing our master plan and we hope we will find the proper way... to protect the coastal areas of Jakarta from any possible threat in the future."
But for now, authorities are raising embankments in the hope of keeping the high tides at bay. Similar preparations are also underway along the toll road that links the capital to the airport.
Besides building embankments, the authorities have brought in mobile pumps to channel floodwater back into a nearby river. Trucks are also being prepared to ferry passengers to the airport in case the roads become impassable for small vehicles.
This year alone Jakarta suffered major flight disruptions on two occasions when flooding cut off access to the airport.
Authorities are hoping weather in Jakarta remains sunny in the next couple of days. Rain would worsen the flood situation because the current flood canals in the capital can no longer accommodate rainwater. - CNA/ac
JAKARTA: Jakarta is bracing for another round of flooding in the next few days, as exceptionally high tides are expected.
Weathermen predicted seasonal high tides reaching two meters or above will hit Jakarta between Tuesday and Wednesday.
Many residents living in the coastal areas north of Jakarta, however, greeted news of an impending flood with a shrug of the shoulders.
"This is a recent phenomenon. If I'm not wrong, major floods have hit us three times this year. It has never happened before," said Madam Cartem, a Muara Baru resident.
Experts said the expected high tides are part of an 18-year cycle. But coupled with land subsidence and higher sea levels, the threat of Jakarta's coastal areas sinking is beginning to look very real.
Jakarta Governor Fauzi Bowo said: "We are reviewing our master plan and we hope we will find the proper way... to protect the coastal areas of Jakarta from any possible threat in the future."
But for now, authorities are raising embankments in the hope of keeping the high tides at bay. Similar preparations are also underway along the toll road that links the capital to the airport.
Besides building embankments, the authorities have brought in mobile pumps to channel floodwater back into a nearby river. Trucks are also being prepared to ferry passengers to the airport in case the roads become impassable for small vehicles.
This year alone Jakarta suffered major flight disruptions on two occasions when flooding cut off access to the airport.
Authorities are hoping weather in Jakarta remains sunny in the next couple of days. Rain would worsen the flood situation because the current flood canals in the capital can no longer accommodate rainwater. - CNA/ac
It takes a bubble to make us change
Matthew Lynn, Business Times 3 Jun 08;
ANYONE filling up the tank of their car right now will be cursing oil speculators. Likewise, anyone loading up a shopping cart with food for a family may feel angry with hedge fund managers pushing the cost of wheat, rice and other basics through the roof.
Prices of oil, commodities and food have exploded in recent months. Although there are some solid foundations to that, the boom has now turned into a bubble. Prices are starting to race far ahead of anything that can be justified by the fundamentals of supply and demand. Predictably, that is creating a backlash against the financial markets that are pushing prices up.
We should all leave the speculators alone. The world needs a massive change in the way it uses raw materials. Politicians are too timid to bring that about. The markets are doing the job for them, and if it takes a bubble to change people's energy consumption, then so be it.
Oil now costs more than US$130 a barrel. Nobody expects the price to come down fast anytime soon. Instead, it may go higher. Goldman Sachs Group Inc analyst Arjun Murti has said that the price may reach US$200. So has Svein Rennemo, the chairman of Norway's StatoilHydro ASA, according to the Finansavisen newspaper. After the increase over the last three years, it would be a brave investor who bets against US$200 oil.
What is true of oil is true of many other basic commodities. Copper and iron have soared in the past few years. Wheat, corn, rice and soya beans all peaked this year: At one point, rice was a record US$25.07 for 100 pounds. That has sparked riots from Haiti to Egypt. Some people may go hungry.
Not surprisingly, that has triggered action against speculators. This month, India expanded its ban on trading of food futures, including soya bean oil, potatoes and chick peas, in an attempt to curb price increases. In the US, Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, has said that legislation may have to be passed to limit big investors taking positions in commodities.
Plenty of Germans would like to do something similar. 'The biggest cause of the soaring food prices is the financial speculators, and in this case they truly are locusts,' Gerd Sonnleitner, the president of the German farmers association, said last month. 'The locusts don't care about rice or milk or people. They only care about the fluctuations in the market.' In one sense they are right. The 'locusts' - shorthand for hedge funds - have been at work. As Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) Secretary-General Abdalla el-Badri pointed out last month, speculators are playing an 'important role' in surging oil prices. The same is true of commodities and food.
Yet, they are wrong in thinking it's a bad thing. Here's why. First, oil production needs to expand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global oil consumption will rise to 98.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from 84.6 million in 2006. By 2030, it will be up to 116.3 million. To get that out of the ground and into the pumps is going to involve more exploration, production, refining and distribution. There is only one way that scale of investment will be mobilised: by causing a price increase that starts a buying frenzy in oil assets.
Next, the developed world has to start making itself more fuel efficient. If China and India begin using as much oil as Europe and the US, we won't just need more supply - we'll need lower consumption in rich countries. And if we are to combat climate change, we'll need to cut down on pollution as well.
To make that happen, behaviour must change. That means that petrol-guzzling sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) will have to be replaced with hybrids. High-speed trains should take over from planes as the standard way of covering distances of as much as 1,500 km. Our houses have to be redesigned to use less energy, and more of it should come from solar and wind power.
All of that is expensive and hard work. Politicians are too nervous to impose the taxes to bring that about. With oil at US$50 or US$100 a barrel, it wouldn't happen. At US$200 a barrel, the only place we'll be driving an SUV is to the scrap-metal merchant.
Lastly, agricultural policies need to change. Again, if India and China are to become as wealthy as Europe and the US, the world will need a lot more food. That means modifying the way we run agriculture, which, in Europe at least, has been more about preserving farming jobs, and caring for the landscape, than maximising output. Countries such as Germany with lots of fertile land and falling populations should be turning themselves into major food exporters. But, again, it's not going to happen unless a massive price increase forces it.
It always takes a big shock to the system to change behaviour. That is just what the speculative bubble in commodity prices is delivering. It may not be pretty, or comfortable, but it is the market doing the job - which is why we should celebrate the bubble, and not condemn it. -- Bloomberg
Matthew Lynn is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own
ANYONE filling up the tank of their car right now will be cursing oil speculators. Likewise, anyone loading up a shopping cart with food for a family may feel angry with hedge fund managers pushing the cost of wheat, rice and other basics through the roof.
Prices of oil, commodities and food have exploded in recent months. Although there are some solid foundations to that, the boom has now turned into a bubble. Prices are starting to race far ahead of anything that can be justified by the fundamentals of supply and demand. Predictably, that is creating a backlash against the financial markets that are pushing prices up.
We should all leave the speculators alone. The world needs a massive change in the way it uses raw materials. Politicians are too timid to bring that about. The markets are doing the job for them, and if it takes a bubble to change people's energy consumption, then so be it.
Oil now costs more than US$130 a barrel. Nobody expects the price to come down fast anytime soon. Instead, it may go higher. Goldman Sachs Group Inc analyst Arjun Murti has said that the price may reach US$200. So has Svein Rennemo, the chairman of Norway's StatoilHydro ASA, according to the Finansavisen newspaper. After the increase over the last three years, it would be a brave investor who bets against US$200 oil.
What is true of oil is true of many other basic commodities. Copper and iron have soared in the past few years. Wheat, corn, rice and soya beans all peaked this year: At one point, rice was a record US$25.07 for 100 pounds. That has sparked riots from Haiti to Egypt. Some people may go hungry.
Not surprisingly, that has triggered action against speculators. This month, India expanded its ban on trading of food futures, including soya bean oil, potatoes and chick peas, in an attempt to curb price increases. In the US, Joseph Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, has said that legislation may have to be passed to limit big investors taking positions in commodities.
Plenty of Germans would like to do something similar. 'The biggest cause of the soaring food prices is the financial speculators, and in this case they truly are locusts,' Gerd Sonnleitner, the president of the German farmers association, said last month. 'The locusts don't care about rice or milk or people. They only care about the fluctuations in the market.' In one sense they are right. The 'locusts' - shorthand for hedge funds - have been at work. As Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) Secretary-General Abdalla el-Badri pointed out last month, speculators are playing an 'important role' in surging oil prices. The same is true of commodities and food.
Yet, they are wrong in thinking it's a bad thing. Here's why. First, oil production needs to expand. The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that global oil consumption will rise to 98.5 million barrels a day by 2015 from 84.6 million in 2006. By 2030, it will be up to 116.3 million. To get that out of the ground and into the pumps is going to involve more exploration, production, refining and distribution. There is only one way that scale of investment will be mobilised: by causing a price increase that starts a buying frenzy in oil assets.
Next, the developed world has to start making itself more fuel efficient. If China and India begin using as much oil as Europe and the US, we won't just need more supply - we'll need lower consumption in rich countries. And if we are to combat climate change, we'll need to cut down on pollution as well.
To make that happen, behaviour must change. That means that petrol-guzzling sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) will have to be replaced with hybrids. High-speed trains should take over from planes as the standard way of covering distances of as much as 1,500 km. Our houses have to be redesigned to use less energy, and more of it should come from solar and wind power.
All of that is expensive and hard work. Politicians are too nervous to impose the taxes to bring that about. With oil at US$50 or US$100 a barrel, it wouldn't happen. At US$200 a barrel, the only place we'll be driving an SUV is to the scrap-metal merchant.
Lastly, agricultural policies need to change. Again, if India and China are to become as wealthy as Europe and the US, the world will need a lot more food. That means modifying the way we run agriculture, which, in Europe at least, has been more about preserving farming jobs, and caring for the landscape, than maximising output. Countries such as Germany with lots of fertile land and falling populations should be turning themselves into major food exporters. But, again, it's not going to happen unless a massive price increase forces it.
It always takes a big shock to the system to change behaviour. That is just what the speculative bubble in commodity prices is delivering. It may not be pretty, or comfortable, but it is the market doing the job - which is why we should celebrate the bubble, and not condemn it. -- Bloomberg
Matthew Lynn is a Bloomberg News columnist. The opinions expressed are his own
A 10-point plan for the food crisis
The nexus between high energy and food prices is unlikely to be broken and will be exacerbated by climate change
Robert B Zoellick, Business Times 3 Jun 08;
AS LEADERS gather in Rome to discuss the global food crisis, our task is clear, but not simple: to help those in danger today and ensure that the poor do not suffer this tragedy again.
What has been described as a silent tsunami is not a natural catastrophe, but is man-made. The nexus between high energy and food prices is unlikely to be broken, and will be exacerbated by global climate change. The results have been rising production and transport costs for agriculture, falling food stocks and land shifted out of food production to produce energy substitutes. This is a 21st century food-for-oil crisis.
In April, ministers from 150 countries, meeting at the World Bank, endorsed a new deal for global food policy. The United Nations summit this week in Rome, the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations' finance ministers meeting in June and the G-8 summit in July offer opportunities for action. We need coordinated steps on policy, backed by resources. Let me suggest a 10-point plan.
Fund emergency needs fully
First, we should agree in Rome to fund fully the World Food Programme's emergency needs, support its drive to purchase food aid locally and ensure the unhampered movement of humanitarian assistance.
Second, we need support for safety nets, such as distributing food in schools or offering food in return for work, so that we can quickly help those in severe distress. The World Bank, working with the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has already made rapid needs assessments for more than 25 countries. In Rome, we should agree on coordinated action.
Third, we need seeds and fertiliser for the planting season, especially for smallholders in poor countries. Together, the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, regional development banks and the World Bank can expand this effort by working with civil society groups and bilateral donors. The key is not just financing, but fast delivery systems.
Fourth, we need to boost agricultural supply and increase research spending, reversing years of agricultural underinvestment. We must be neither Luddite nor advocates of a single scientific fix. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has been receiving about US$450m a year. We should double this investment in research and development over the next five years.
Fifth, there needs to be more investment in agribusiness so that we can tap the private sector's ability to work across the value chain: developing sustainable lands and water; supply chains; cutting wastage; infrastructure and logistics; helping developing country producers meet food safety standards; connecting retailers with farmers in developing countries; and supporting agricultural trade finance.
Sixth, we need to develop innovative instruments for risk management and crop insurance for small farmers. This week, the World Bank's board will consider weather derivatives for developing countries, with Malawi being identified as a likely first client. Should Malawi suffer a drought, it would receive a payout to offset the price of imported maize.
Seventh, we need action in the US and Europe to ease subsidies, mandates and tariffs on biofuels that are derived from corn and oilseeds. The US's use of corn for ethanol has consumed more than 75 per cent of the increase in global corn production over the past three years. Policymakers should consider 'safety valves' that ease these policies when prices are high. The choice does not have to be food or fuel. Cutting tariffs on ethanol imported into the US and EU markets would encourage the output of more efficient sugarcane biofuels that do not compete directly with food production and expand opportunities for poorer countries, including in Africa. We need to find ways to advance to second-generation cellulosic products.
Eighth, we should remove export bans that have led to even higher world prices. India has recently relaxed its restrictions. But 28 countries have imposed such controls. Removing these could have a dramatic effect. With only 7 per cent of global rice production traded on markets, if Japan released some of its stocks for humanitarian purposes and China sold one million tons of its rice, we could damp the price immediately.
Ninth, we should conclude a Doha World Trade Organisation deal in order to remove the distortions of agricultural subsidies and tariffs and create a more adaptable, efficient and fair global food trade. The need for rules that are agreed multilaterally has never been stronger.
Tenth, there should be greater collective action to counter global risks. The interconnected challenges of energy, food and water will be drivers of the world economy and security. We might explore an agreement among the G-8 and key developing countries to hold 'global goods' stocks, modelled on the International Energy Agency (IEA), governed by transparent and clear rules. This would act as insurance for the poorest people, offering affordable food.
To support this agenda, the World Bank is launching a global food crisis response facility. We will fast-track US$1.2 billion to address immediate needs arising from the crisis, including US$200 million of grants for especially vulnerable countries such as Haiti, Djibouti and Liberia for seeds, fertiliser, safety net programmes and budget support. Overall, the World Bank Group will expand assistance for agriculture and food-related activities from US$4 billion to US$6 billion over the coming year.
The danger is now clear to everyone. The Rome and G-8 meetings need a clear plan to overcome it.
The writer is president of the World Bank Group
Robert B Zoellick, Business Times 3 Jun 08;
AS LEADERS gather in Rome to discuss the global food crisis, our task is clear, but not simple: to help those in danger today and ensure that the poor do not suffer this tragedy again.
What has been described as a silent tsunami is not a natural catastrophe, but is man-made. The nexus between high energy and food prices is unlikely to be broken, and will be exacerbated by global climate change. The results have been rising production and transport costs for agriculture, falling food stocks and land shifted out of food production to produce energy substitutes. This is a 21st century food-for-oil crisis.
In April, ministers from 150 countries, meeting at the World Bank, endorsed a new deal for global food policy. The United Nations summit this week in Rome, the Group of Eight leading industrialised nations' finance ministers meeting in June and the G-8 summit in July offer opportunities for action. We need coordinated steps on policy, backed by resources. Let me suggest a 10-point plan.
Fund emergency needs fully
First, we should agree in Rome to fund fully the World Food Programme's emergency needs, support its drive to purchase food aid locally and ensure the unhampered movement of humanitarian assistance.
Second, we need support for safety nets, such as distributing food in schools or offering food in return for work, so that we can quickly help those in severe distress. The World Bank, working with the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), has already made rapid needs assessments for more than 25 countries. In Rome, we should agree on coordinated action.
Third, we need seeds and fertiliser for the planting season, especially for smallholders in poor countries. Together, the FAO, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, regional development banks and the World Bank can expand this effort by working with civil society groups and bilateral donors. The key is not just financing, but fast delivery systems.
Fourth, we need to boost agricultural supply and increase research spending, reversing years of agricultural underinvestment. We must be neither Luddite nor advocates of a single scientific fix. The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research has been receiving about US$450m a year. We should double this investment in research and development over the next five years.
Fifth, there needs to be more investment in agribusiness so that we can tap the private sector's ability to work across the value chain: developing sustainable lands and water; supply chains; cutting wastage; infrastructure and logistics; helping developing country producers meet food safety standards; connecting retailers with farmers in developing countries; and supporting agricultural trade finance.
Sixth, we need to develop innovative instruments for risk management and crop insurance for small farmers. This week, the World Bank's board will consider weather derivatives for developing countries, with Malawi being identified as a likely first client. Should Malawi suffer a drought, it would receive a payout to offset the price of imported maize.
Seventh, we need action in the US and Europe to ease subsidies, mandates and tariffs on biofuels that are derived from corn and oilseeds. The US's use of corn for ethanol has consumed more than 75 per cent of the increase in global corn production over the past three years. Policymakers should consider 'safety valves' that ease these policies when prices are high. The choice does not have to be food or fuel. Cutting tariffs on ethanol imported into the US and EU markets would encourage the output of more efficient sugarcane biofuels that do not compete directly with food production and expand opportunities for poorer countries, including in Africa. We need to find ways to advance to second-generation cellulosic products.
Eighth, we should remove export bans that have led to even higher world prices. India has recently relaxed its restrictions. But 28 countries have imposed such controls. Removing these could have a dramatic effect. With only 7 per cent of global rice production traded on markets, if Japan released some of its stocks for humanitarian purposes and China sold one million tons of its rice, we could damp the price immediately.
Ninth, we should conclude a Doha World Trade Organisation deal in order to remove the distortions of agricultural subsidies and tariffs and create a more adaptable, efficient and fair global food trade. The need for rules that are agreed multilaterally has never been stronger.
Tenth, there should be greater collective action to counter global risks. The interconnected challenges of energy, food and water will be drivers of the world economy and security. We might explore an agreement among the G-8 and key developing countries to hold 'global goods' stocks, modelled on the International Energy Agency (IEA), governed by transparent and clear rules. This would act as insurance for the poorest people, offering affordable food.
To support this agenda, the World Bank is launching a global food crisis response facility. We will fast-track US$1.2 billion to address immediate needs arising from the crisis, including US$200 million of grants for especially vulnerable countries such as Haiti, Djibouti and Liberia for seeds, fertiliser, safety net programmes and budget support. Overall, the World Bank Group will expand assistance for agriculture and food-related activities from US$4 billion to US$6 billion over the coming year.
The danger is now clear to everyone. The Rome and G-8 meetings need a clear plan to overcome it.
The writer is president of the World Bank Group