Sea water inundates parts of Indonesia's capital

Channel NewsAsia 4 Jun 08;

JAKARTA: Sea water inundated parts of Indonesia's capital overnight, flooding homes in the north of the city with up to 70 centimetres (2.3 feet) of water, officials said Wednesday.

However, the waters, which poured into homes despite reinforced defences, were less severe than authorities expected, a North Jakarta public works official who identified himself as Eko told AFP.

The World Bank last week warned that the peak of an 18-year astronomical tide cycle would combine with storm surges to flood swathes of the capital, as well as shutting off the toll road to the city's international airport.

The airport road was untouched by the surging water and the early warning allowed the public works authority and residents to reinforce defences with makeshift sandbag and stone barriers, Eko said.

"We had been anticipating the high tides and warned people in flood-prone areas in North Jakarta to prepare for the floods caused by the high tides," Eko said.

The peak of the flooding hit between 9.00 pm (1400 GMT) and 11.00 pm Tuesday and was 2.06 metres higher than the standard sea level at Jakarta's Fish Market measuring station, public works official Fakhrurrazi said.

Despite gloomy warnings last week, the World Bank revised its forecast on Monday, saying that a reduced storm surge would mean defences in most of the city could contain the flooding.

Jakarta, a coastal city of over 12 million which is sinking under its own weight, frequently experiences flooding from higher than average tides. Sea water floods in May closed off the road to the airport. - AFP/ac

2m-high tidal wave floods parts of Jakarta
Straits Times 5 Jun 08;

JAKARTA - A TIDAL wave of more than 2m swamped parts of Jakarta overnight as the city government and citizens raced to hold the water back with emergency embankments, a government official said yesterday.

The height of the water was far greater than earlier predicted. The World Bank, which has been monitoring flooding and tidal waves in Jakarta, warned last week of a 1.2m tidal surge in parts of the city.

The authorities in the capital, which is home to more than 10 million people, had been preparing for the high tides with sand bags and wire netting filled with stones.

The tidal wave surged through areas near the coast for a few hours, leaving hundreds of people stranded in their homes, but the main highway leading to the airport was not affected. The water has receded, but officials said another tidal wave was expected last night.

'The flood waters entered my house (on Tuesday) night. In the house, it reached my calf, and outside, it is even worse, up to an adult's thigh,' said Ms Nursanti, 28, who lives in the Muara Baru area near the coast in northern Jakarta.

The tidal wave was a result of an astronomical cycle that occurs around every 18 years, the World Bank's infrastructure unit said.

Jakarta's public works agency is raising the height of seven embankments to help reduce the flooding, while toll road company PT Jasa Marga is building barriers to prevent further flooding.

Mr Budi Widiantoro, deputy head of the Jakarta public works agency, said the waves had risen to 2.2m on Tuesday night.

'We are still using emergency (embankments), using river rocks and sand bags, because the permanent embankments will only be finished in July or August,' he said.

Jakarta is often flooded in the rainy season, and can also be inundated by high tides in areas near the coast and in low-lying districts.

Some experts say flooding in Jakarta, which killed 50 people during the wet season last year and triggered more chaos in February this year, is caused by the reclamation of swamp areas.

Environmentalists say Jakarta is sinking because of excessive mining of ground water and the added threat from rising sea levels because of climate change.

REUTERS

Jakarta floods not as bad as expected
Today Online 5 Jun 08;

JAKARTA — Sea water inundated parts of Indonesia’s capital overnight, flooding homes in the north of the city with up to 70cm of water, officials said yesterday.

However, the waters, which poured into homes despite reinforced defences, were less severe than the authorities expected, a North Jakarta public works official who identified himself as Eko said.

The World Bank last week warned that the peak of an 18-year astronomical tide cycle would combine with storm surges to flood swathes of the capital, as well as shutting off the toll road to the city’s international airport.

The airport road was untouched by the surging water and the early warning allowed the public works authority and residents to reinforce defences with makeshift sandbag and stone barriers, Mr Eko said. “We had been anticipating high tides and warned people in flood-prone areas to prepare for floods caused by high tides,” he added.

Despite gloomy warnings last week, the World Bank revised its forecast on Monday, saying that a reduced storm surge would mean defences in most of the city could contain the flooding. :— AFP

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Asean's all-out war against wildlife traffickers

Stephen Then, The Star 4 Jun 08;

MIRI: The Asean Wildlife Enforcement Network (Asean-Wen) is to launch an all-out region-wide offensive against traffickers and dealers of wildlife and wildife products in an effort to stop this illegal trade.

Member countries will liaise with Interpol, the United States and international bodies.

Enforcement agencies from the 10 Asean members -- Malaysia, Brunei, Indonesia, Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Laos -- gathered in the Laotian capital of Vientiane for two days last week and mapped out an action plan that includes hunting major syndicates involved in this illicit trade.

Enforcement agencies involved in Asean-Wen's "anti wildlife-crimes task force" include police, customs and environmental protection bodies.

"The Asean-Wen anti wildlife-crimes task force has mapped out the next phase of our battle against wildlife crimes in the region," Asean-Wen Coordination Unit senior liaison officer Klairoong PoonPon told The Star on Wednesday.

The meeting in Vientiane discussed strategies to improve investigations, share intelligence, coordinate cross-border enforcement measures, develop databases and establish an Asean-Wen training library, he said from the Asean-Wen headquarters in Bangkok.

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Great White Lies About Great White Sharks

Christopher Wanjek, LiveScience's Bad Medicine Columnist, Yahoo News 3 Jun 08;

Another swimmer was killed by a shark off the Pacific coast of Mexico on May 24, the second tragic shark encounter in two months in that area, thus officially launching another summer of shark hysteria.

The Mexican Navy immediately took to seas to search for the sharks, perhaps with the intent to punish them or at least send a stern warning to the shark community. Shark reports are now a regular feature of the news as far away as the New England coast; the sharks are tracked as if they are as deadly as a tornado or summer storm.

What would be the reaction to the death of a kid in Iowa killed by a bee sting? Imagine the drama unfold as angry and nervous denizens take to the fields with insect repellent. Never mind pollination: The bees must die. And why not? Worldwide bees are nearly a hundred times deadlier than sharks, killing about 500 people annually, including about 50 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Yes, sharks are deadly. It has something to do with their gazillion or so razor-sharp teeth. But while it is prudent to avoid waters populated with sharks, shark encounters are rare and fatalities from attacks are even rarer.

The number of shark attacks averages about 65 worldwide annually, according to the International Shark Attack File at the University of Florida. Expect about 30 attacks in U.S. waters, mostly near Florida. In 2007 there was only one death, way over in New Caledonia in the South Pacific. Two deaths near Mexico is a bad start to the summer season, when folks are most likely to be in the water, but this might not challenge the annual average of five to ten deaths.

Deadlier than sharks, with wings or collars

So which animals should you really avoid? Many consider the mosquito to be the deadliest animal on earth, because it is responsible for malaria, yellow fever, dengue fever and many other diseases, killing millions of people each year. Technically, though, it is not the mosquito but the parasite or virus it is carrying in its gut - protozoan parasites, for malaria - that causes the disease.

Snakes are the most dangerous land animals, killing tens of thousands people a year worldwide. Deadly snake bites are rare in the United States, but snakes still edge out sharks, responsible for five or ten deaths a year, largely in the Southwest. Tens of thousands more people are killed by scorpions and venomous spiders - but again, no spider-citing report, no film at 11.

Along with those treacherous bees, dogs top the list of killers in the United States. Through the 1980s and until 1995 - the last year of official statistics - the CDC was recording nearly 20 deaths per year, almost entirely from pit bulls and rottweilers.

Call of the wild

In the jungle, the mighty jungle, the lion sleeps while crocodiles kill about 2,000 humans each year. Elephants and hippos each kill hundreds more, largely by trampling the unsuspecting victim surprised by these animals' speed.

In the ocean, fear jellyfish more than sharks. In particularly, that's the box jellyfish family of about 20 species, which live in tropical waters. Their venom is the deadliest among animals, and they are responsible for about 100 human deaths per year. The sting from a Portuguese Man o' War - confused for a jellyfish, technically a colony of sea polyps - also can be deadly but mostly just hurts a lot.

Jaws, the reality

There's a simple reason why sharks don't attack humans repetitively, unlike what you saw in the movie "Jaws:" Humans don't taste good. Sharks prefer blubber. Shark teeth are lined with nerve endings that can sense the calorie-rich blubber of a seal as opposed to the bone and muscle filling most humans.

The only problem is that sharks sample by biting. Most people will survive a shark bite, but it can be debilitating nonetheless. Serious surfers are at greatest risk, comprising the majority of shark-attack cases. Most of us in the water, with blubber or not, are safe.

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Scientists probe dead turtle mystery

Anna-Marie Lever, BBC News 3 Jun 08;

"There have been an unprecedented number of loggerhead turtle strandings this year; 18 have been recorded so far on the UK coast," Rod Penrose explains.

Marine Environmental Monitoring has received several calls from coastguards and walkers along the South Coast reporting turtles being washed up.

Mr Penrose, the UK and the Irish Republic's turtle strandings coordinator, says: "Strandings have been reported from Cornwall to Wales and islands off Scotland."

Loggerheads (Caretta caretta) are categorised as endangered on the internationally recognised Red List of Threatened Species. They breed on the northwest Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean coasts.

Unravelling the mystery

Determining why these rare turtles are arriving on UK shores can be very difficult unless a post-mortem is undertaken.

"We carry out a standard series of observations and tests," says Mr Rob Deaville, a cetacean expert at the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

He adds: "An external examination will reveal if the animal has suffered any trauma or damage in the past.

"A depleted fat layer and the wasting away of muscle can suggest starvation as a result of cold-shock.

"Bacteriology tests can help to determine if the turtle is suffering from disease."

The Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme (CSIP), coordinated by ZSL and funded by Defra, has conducted 22 marine turtle post-mortems since 2001.

Struggle to survive

Mr Deaville says: "Causes of death have predominantly been a result of 'cold shock'.

"Hard-shell species of marine turtle, like loggerheads, are normally found in warmer waters south of the UK and are unable to raise their body temperature in order to survive in cold UK waters.

"The turtle can experience cold shock because of the colder water, become lethargic and unable to feed and eventually starve to death.

With some scientists forecasting a greater number of storms in the future, due to climate change, Mr Deaville warns: "Extreme weather conditions could lead to an increase in turtle strandings on the coast of the UK."

Plastic bag and balloon ingestion have also been found as the cause of death in a small number of cases. Turtles swallow plastics after mistaking them for jellyfish, one of their staple foods.

As well as a series of tests, a number of measurements and photos are taken at post-mortem, which are archived.

Mr Deaville adds: "Stranding events can help us increase our knowledge of marine animals which are usually so hard to study in the wild.

"Any opportunity where you can study them further allows us to gain a much better picture of the animal's biology.

"It can help us to understand the species as a whole and contributes to their conservation in the long term."

Lucky loggerheads

Of the 18 stranded loggerheads recorded this year, five were found alive, but only two have survived.

"James", named after his scientific code number 2008/007 - being the seventh loggerhead found this year - and "Dink", are currently at home at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium. They were stranded one week apart in January.

"When James first arrived he was at death's door. He was lethargic, dehydrated, covered in oil and very cold. Dink, being smaller, was more vulnerable but amazingly in better health than James," says Mr David Waines, manager at Newquay's Blue Reef Aquarium.

He continues: "We warmed them up steadily but slowly, increasing the water temperature of their tanks from 10C, the temperature of UK sea in January, to their preferred temperature of 25C.

"We scrubbed their shells daily and applied antiseptic gel to infected lesions. James was put on a course of antibiotics and anti-fungals to cure infection.

"We were overjoyed when several weeks later they started eating for themselves and putting on weight - we knew they were on the road to recovery."

Homecoming

Dink and James have made such good progress they are being prepared to return to the wild. They fly to the Canary Islands in late June.

Mr Waines says: "It can be quite a long journey, especially as marine turtles are not used to air-travel, but they will have reached peak condition and we are making sure the operation will run as smoothly as possible.

"Once they reach the turtle rehabilitation centre in Gran Canaria they will be checked over and hopefully released within 24 hours.

"We will also microchip them, so if they are ever found by scientists again, their history will be known."

He adds: "It will be sad to see them go; they will be greatly missed, but it is great to know they are returning to the wild."

Dink's and James' success story started when their stranding was reported to Marine Environmental Monitoring.

They ask people to be on the lookout: "If you come across a stranded animal, please report it to the strandings network as soon as possible. Marine turtles are a protected species in Britain and shells must not be kept.

"A turtle may appear dead as its metabolism has slowed down due to the cold water and may not move at all, but it may still be alive."

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Warmer seas blamed for rapid decline of Scottish puffin colony

Emily Dugan, The Indepdendent 4 Jun 08;

Atlantic puffins, until recently one of the North Sea's rare wildlife success stories, are joining the ranks of dwindling birdlife after new data revealed their numbers on a crucial island colony are in sharp decline.

Researchers on the Isle of May, home to the largest puffin colony in the North Sea, have found that after 40 years of steady increase the resident population has plummeted by almost a third in the past five years.

The Scottish island has been at the centre of the UK's research into puffins for more than three decades, and findings are often seen as an indication of the state of the birds nationally.

Mike Harris, emeritus professor for the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, who conducted the research, said the news was alarming. "This is a warning", he said. "We've been working on puffins on the island since 1972, and this is the first time I've been concerned that something has gone wrong in their environment".

"We thought the rate of increase would continue, and that this year we'd end up with 100,000 pairs, but instead we found that not only had it not gone up, but it had gone down."

Puffin numbers on the island have fallen from 69,300 pairs of the birds in 2003 to 41,000 pairs today. When the centre last surveyed the birds in 2003, their population was still increasing at a rate of about 10 per cent a year, making this downturn all the more unexpected.

The exact cause of the dramatic fall in numbers remains a mystery, but Professor Harris believes the decline could be the result of climate change. He says that as the seas warm up, it is affecting the numbers of fish available for the puffins to eat.

"We think there's been some change in their native environment in the last couple of years. One possibility is that there's been a big change in the sea, from intense fishing and marine climate change. This has affected the development of plankton, which in turn has an impact on the numbers of fish for the puffins to eat."

The number of sand eels – which are a staple food for the birds – has been falling in recent years as a result of overfishing and sea temperature changes. Puffins are excellent bio-indicators for the health of the environment, as they sit near the top of the ocean's food chain, which makes news of their decline all the more worrying.

Scientists have discounted the idea that such a sudden dip in numbers could be because of inefficient breeding or the loss of chicks, as puffins usually live for up to 30 years. "Because puffins are so long-lived, even if they didn't have chicks, that wouldn't affect the population drastically for a long time", said Professor Harris.

Previous reasons for reductions in puffin populations have been major incidents in their ecosystem, such as oil spills, but researchers say they are unaware of any large spills in the recent years.

Matt Parsons, a seabird expert at the Joint Nature Conservation Committee, said that the downturn in puffin numbers on the island could be a "warning sign" that the birds are dwindling nationally.

"It could be the sign of a national change, but we'll only know for certain when we get data back from other colonies," he said. "It's certainly interesting, as it's previously been a site where puffin numbers have gone up and up."

The first concrete sign of whether there is a national puffin crisis will come when the Farne Islands, another stronghold for the birds, conduct a census later this year.

Other North Sea birdlife in decline

Northern fulmars

In recent years, sightings of northern fulmars inland during winter has suggested a crisis in the North Sea: the birds normally spend the colder months far out at sea.

Razorbills

Thousands of dead razorbills, which had flown from the UK, were washed up on the Scandinavian coast last year. Their deaths, which appeared to be from starvation, raised concern about North Sea fish stocks.

Northern guillemots

In the Shetland islands, numbers of breeding northern guillemots are at their lowest since 1997. Scientists believe many have been starving to death.

Decline at biggest UK puffin site
Richard Black, BBC News 4 Jun 08;

Fewer puffins are going to breed at the UK's largest colony of the species, on the Isle of May, scientists report.

Numbers are down to about 41,000 breeding pairs this year from almost 70,000 pairs in 2003 - a 30% decline.

Researchers believe the decline is linked to changes in the North Sea food web, perhaps related to climate change.

Birds are also arriving underweight, which the RSPB describes as "worrying", because puffins are generally able to feed on a range of creatures in winter.

Losing count

The Isle of May, in the Firth of Forth, is home to the UK's largest single puffin colony, although more birds overall nest in the St Kilda archipelago.

Mike Harris, from the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, has been monitoring and studying the Isle of May population since the 1970s, labelling individual birds with rings to follow their progress.

After decades of spectacular growth, he now believes the colony is in decline.

The five-yearly count of nesting pairs, which Professor Harris's team completed in April, revealed the 30% decline.

"Also, we found some birds were coming back later than expected and others were coming in underweight," he told BBC News.

"And a lot that we knew were alive last year have not turned up at all, so we assume they're dead - although it's possible they knew it was a bad year for food and decided not to come back at all."

Tangled web

Puffins spend the winters at sea, floating, swimming and diving for food, coming to land only during the nesting season.

In the winters they catch fish, squid, worms and other much smaller marine organisms, which means they are more flexible feeders than other seabirds.

"So whatever the problem is, it's got to be a widespread one," said Professor Harris.

The suspicion is that climate change is altering the distribution of plankton across the North Sea.

This disrupts the entire food web, including predators such as puffin.

"This fits in with other evidence that North Sea birds have been desperately short of food over several seasons," said the RSPB's Grahame Madge.

"But these have been birds such as the Arctic tern and kittiwake which only feed in the top part of the sea.

"This is probably the best adapted seabird that the UK has; they're deep divers, they're specialists in going down deep into the water column to find fish, so it's troubling to find that they're encountering a shortage of food."

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US Urges Norway, Iceland To End Whale Meat Exports

PlanetArk 4 Jun 08;

WASHINGTON - The United States on Tuesday urged Iceland and Norway to cease exporting whale meat to Japan, which they have resumed for the first time since the early 1990s despite a United Nations ban.

"The United States is deeply disappointed in the reports of recent shipments of whale meat to Japanese commercial markets from Iceland and Norway," State Department spokesman Kurtis Cooper said.

The Icelandic whaling company Hvalur said this week Iceland had sent 80 tonnes of fin whale meat caught in the 2006 season while Norway had exported five tonnes of minke whale meat to Japan.

The two Nordic nations do not recognize a ban on the trade by the UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.

Many countries and environmental groups oppose the sale of whale meat, saying animal numbers are low. However, Norway and Iceland argue that whales are plentiful in the North Atlantic and do not need protection.

While the International Whaling Commission did not directly control international trade in whale products, Cooper said the unilateral actions of these three countries undermined the goodwill of the body.

All three nations belong to the IWC, which issued a moratorium on commercial whaling two decades ago.

"We call on the parties involved to reconsider this decision (to export whale meat) and focus on the overarching principles of the commission (IWC) in the long term, rather than the short term," said Cooper.

The IWC, whose goal is to provide for the proper conservation of whale stocks, is set to meet in China this month for its annual conference to discuss the future of conservation and management of the marine mammal.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was in Iceland last week and a US official said the issue of whaling was on the agenda.

(Reporting by Sue Pleming; Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Endangered condors turning up with lead poisoning

Noaki Schwartz, Associated Press Yahoo News 3 May 08;

Seven endangered California condors — about 20 percent of Southern California's population — have been found with lead poisoning.

The birds started turning up sick about a month ago during random trappings at Bitter Creek National Wildlife Refuge in the San Joaquin Valley.

One of the birds died during treatment at the Los Angeles Zoo and four others are still being treated there. A chick and its mother were sent to the zoo to undergo treatment.

Officials don't yet know the source of the contamination, but a U.S. Fish and Wildlife official said the birds were likely poisoned by eating the carcasses of animals that had been shot by hunters.

Lead poisoning is a known threat to the majestic birds and the main reason the state is about to ban hunting with lead bullets.

Jesse Grantham, a U.S. Fish and Wildlife condor coordinator, called the poisonings alarming and said the agency was in "crisis mode."

The California condor nearly went extinct in the 1980s, but a trapping and breeding program has helped restore the species. There are only about three dozen of the endangered birds in Southern California, and about 200 in the wild overall.

Experts believe lead poisoning is a major factor in preventing the species' recovery.

Under a ban that takes effect July 1, it will be illegal for California hunters to possess or fire lead ammunition when they are in the birds' habitat.

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Worsening Amazon deforestation embarrasses Brazil's govt

Yann Walter, Yahoo News 3 Jun 08;

Alarming new figures showing worsening deforestation in the Amazon have embarrassed Brazil's government, which is accused of making concessions to the powerful food producer lobby.

Brazil's National Space Research Institute, which uses satellites to calculate how much of the vast rainforest has been destroyed, this week announced that another 1,132 square kilometers (437 square miles) had been cut or burned down, based on April imagery.

That was a big increase over the deforestation recorded in March, when the institute noted 146 square kilometers had gone -- although heavy cloud cover that month prevented satellites from getting pictures of three quarters of the Amazon.

In April, half the forest was cloaked from the lenses in orbit.

A Greenpeace representative in Brazil, Sergio Leitao, told AFP that the April data were "extremely worrying."

WWF, another environmental protection group, said in a statement it was "very concerned" about the latest figures and urged Brazil to reinforce control mechanisms for the forest.

Brazil's new environment minister, Carlos Minc, acknowledged that "the deforestation this year will be greater than that of last year."

He blamed high world prices for soya and beef -- two major Brazilian exports -- for the increased clearing of the Amazon by farmers.

WWF agreed, saying "the restart of deforestation shows that market needs are taking over from environmental issues and that environmental regulations are insufficient."

But Greenpeace and other environmental protection groups also accuse the government of having simply caved in to big and powerful agricultural concerns, such as those owned by a soya baron, Blairo Maggi.

Maggi is also governor of Mato Grosso state, which contains a large chunk of devastated Amazon forest.

Minc's respected predecessor, Marina Silva, resigned unexpectedly last month after losing a string of battles within the government against ministers wanting to develop the Amazon, egged on by the powerful agro-business lobby.

According to the space research institute, 794 square kilometers of forest in Mato Grasso disappeared last month, meaning more than two-thirds of the confirmed deforestation occurred in that territory.

The institute's figures show 11,200 square kilometers of Amazon forest were destroyed last year -- an area nearly equivalent to nearly half the size of Sicily.

Experts estimate 2008's total will be close to 20,000 square kilometers.

In the past two decades, 700,000 square kilometers of the four million square kilometers that make up the forest have been razed, which corresponds to an area the size of a football field disappearing every 10 seconds.

Brazil has been stung by international criticism of its flagging green credentials and by suggestions that the preservation of the Amazon should be taken away from it.

President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva has stressed that "the Amazon belongs to the Brazilian people" -- but also announced a new series of conservation laws will be unveiled in coming days.

Minc, whose past active record as environmental secretary for the state of Rio de Janeiro earned Greenpeace approval, has declared he would do all he could to battle against those encroaching on the forest.

"Cattle-raising is responsible for more than 80 percent of the deforestation," he stated in a media conference late Monday.

Illegal ranches will be seized, he warned, and a green belt would be created to delimit the zone up to which pastures could be cleared.

There is much skepticism over what progress the measures will bring.

"The government has to learn to balance economic development and environmental protection, otherwise the Amazon will disappear," Leitao warned.

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EU court upholds law criminalising ship pollution

Business Times 4 Jun 08;

(LUXEMBOURG) The European Union's (EU) highest court has upheld an EU law that makes maritime pollution a crime, increasing pressure on shipping companies to control waste and avoid spills and other accidents.

The European Court of Justice in Luxembourg yesterday rejected arguments by the shipping groups that the EU legislation is invalid in light of international law covering use of the sea.

The EU law on 'ship-source pollution which provides for penalties in the event, in particular, of accidental discharges remains valid', a 13-judge panel of the court ruled. Shipping companies face a greater risk of being held criminally liable for polluting under the EU rule, even for accidents caused by foul weather, according to industry groups.

The EU law was introduced partly in response to oil spills caused by the sinking of tankers off Spain's northwest coast in 2002 and France's Atlantic coast in 1999. Groups such as Intertanko, representing about 80 per cent of the world's tanker fleet, and Lloyd's Register Group had asked the court to review the 2005 legislation. They told the court at a hearing in September that the law would be a 'recipe for chaos' because it creates a lower liability threshold.

The law requires the EU to implement 'effective, proportionate and dissuasive penalties' for ship pollution. The policy is needed because international maritime standards are regularly ignored, the European Commission, the EU's executive agency, told the court last year.

The shipping groups argued that the law was trumped by the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, known as Marpol, and by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea. The 27-nation EU isn't part of Marpol and the UN convention doesn't directly apply to individuals, so neither of the international laws can be used to supersede the EU rule, the court said\. \-- Bloomberg

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Singapore Poly students submit ideas to remake Punggol Town

Channel NewsAsia 3 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: The Housing Development Board (HDB) is tapping on the minds of Singapore Polytechnic (SP) students, to remake Punggol Town. The call for ideas is also extended to the general public.

Gabriel Seah, a landscape and architecture student from SP, said: "The first thing that came to my mind will be wetlands. As we all know, the discharge of storm water into the river, or even into the sea is unfiltered. So before all these things get into the sea, I hope we can create a wetland, and filter off all these substrates and nutrients."

Lin Xiong, an architecture student from SP said: "I like the idea of a multi-storey car park, where they turn its roof into a 'green' roof – (creating) a recreational space for the neighbourhood to bond together."

The students' suggestions fall under HDB's 'Call for Ideas' competition which aims to incorporate the wishes of Punggol residents.

As Punggol is dubbed the 'Waterfront Town of the 21st century', expectations for the developments are high. And so far, the HDB has been encouraged by what it has heard.

Chong Fook Loong, Deputy Director, HDB, said: "I think they're good. The students don't have a group-think mentality. They think quite differently from each other. Based on the patterns that are emerging, I think the ideas are refreshing. I think there are good ideas there that we can make use of later."

The public can also submit their ideas by sending them to the HDB website at www.hdb.gov.sg.

The competition closes on June 30. Those whose ideas are in the top 10 will each win S$1,000. - CNA/vm

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Best of our wild blogs: 4 Jun 08

Pasir Ris Bliss
the shores are full of stars and other critters on the wildfilms blog

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Shark's fins menu: Why the double standards?

Ace Kindred Cheong, Straits Times Forum 4 Jun 08;

WHAT Resort World Sentosa has done to promote goodwill and highlight its commitment to the environment is very heartening, 'No shark's fin served here' (May 30).

I am a nature lover. I have attended seminars on the environment and learnt how sharks have been thrown back into the sea after having their fins cut. Why must there be such cruelty to sharks?

However, I was disappointed to read that shark's fins will be served to high-end rollers at the resort. Why the contradiction?


Some comments on the online version of this letter

#7 OrdinaryPeople- "Just imagine if the sharks are spared and the seas are full of sharks eating up all the fishes where could we get our fishes? Let's be practical. Stike a balance. Follow the laws of mother nature."

Top predators are essential in all ecosystems - so it is more likely that the opposite of what you have stated is true. Removing top predators from an ecosystem can have severe consequences that affects lower trophic levels. Just as an example, in the northwest Atlantic Ocean, catch rates of Rhinoptera cownose rays have increased at 9% per year as large sharks have declined due to overfishing of sharks. Exploding ray populations (now estimated to exceed 40 million individuals) are quickly eliminating bay Argopecten scallop populations.

Sharks also help to 'remove' harmful mercury and other heavy metals (ocean contaminants contributed by humans, of course) from lower trophic levels by being top predators.
Pregnant women should not be eating shark. For anyone interested in health warnings (issued by US and Aussie govt agencies) on the consumption of shark, check out the following links: (especially if you are planning on a Chinese wedding banquet with shark's fin on the menu, AND planning to get pregnant soon).

US Environment Protection Agency
http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/fish/advice/

Australian State of Victoria government website
http://www.betterhealth.vic.gov.au/b...h?OpenDocument


Another interesting point that many consumers are not aware of, is that shark fins are usually BLEACHED to give them a desirable whitish colour. The methods include smoking with SULPHUR (!!) overnight or treatment with 3 % HYDROGEN PEROXIDE (!!) for about 30 minutes (you can read all about it at the official Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the United Nations website - http://www.fao.org/docrep/005/X3690E/x3690e1g.htm. )

So if rich people want to feast on poisonous, tetratogenic and carcinogenic shark fins, I say, let them.
Posted by: ChaoCheeWai at Wed Jun 04 12:24:38 SGT 2008
I'm a chinese S'porean. I am sick of S'poreans accusing others (particularly foreigners or those who have gone overseas) of practicing imperialism by telling S'poreans not to eat sharkfins. Sharks don't observe national borders, killing one means the oceans have one less shark. i scuba dive, there are places named "Bull Run", "Shark Bay" that you don't see sharks anymore. Killing sharks has a global impact just like global warming and pollution, when the effects start to affect you, I'm afraid there's no where to run to, it affects every corner of the Earth.
Posted by: wahlau123 at Wed Jun 04 11:48:39 SGT 2008
We can eat whale meat. Not to worry. If the japs and norwegians can get away it, am sure we can too. There is hardly any fuss over killing of whales if the actions come from any nation that belongs to the west or one that they want to ally with.
Posted by: OrdinaryPeople at Wed Jun 04 11:41:18 SGT 2008
High rollers or low rollers apart shark's fins manue should be served. Just imagine if the sharks are spared and the seas are full of sharks eating up all the fishes where could we get our fishes?

Let's be practical. Stike a balance. Follow the laws of mother nature.
Posted by: steamroller at Wed Jun 04 10:52:24 SGT 2008
RWS is a business and cannot afford to offend its high rollers. It's important to remember that it didn't have to take shark fins off its menus - after all, it's not illegal to serve it. Rather than criticise companies for not going all the way, let's cheer them for at least making the effort - even if it's not perfect.
Posted by: chrispstan at Wed Jun 04 09:14:26 SGT 2008

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Next food crisis: Fish shortage

Michael Richardson, for the Straits Times 4 Jun 08;

THE United Nations is holding a summit in Rome this week to find solutions to the global food crisis. The focus is on the grain shortages and high prices that have recently caused mass protests and political instability in Asia, Africa and Latin America.

Improvements in food production, particularly in poor countries, are urgently needed. Research and development in agriculture has long been neglected.

But there is another looming food crisis - this one at sea, as too many fishing boats chase too few fish. It has not yet attracted much attention from Asian governments and policymakers. But it will in future, as the shortage of fish intensifies and prices rise.

Asia has the world's largest fishing fleet, with 42 per cent of registered tonnage. Major Asian fishing powers include China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan and Thailand.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) says that these vessels, often subsidised by governments, have twice the capacity needed to extract what the oceans can sustainably produce. The result is 'a vicious circle: as catches per vessel fall, profits plummet, and fishers overfish to maintain supplies, causing depletion of stocks and endangering long-term availability'.

This is a global crisis but its implications for Asia are particularly serious. Fish is a staple food in the region and a major source of protein. The ADB predicts that demand for fish in Asia will reach about 69 million tonnes by 2010 and account for 60 per cent of global fish demand, compared to 53 per cent in 1990.

Although Japan will remain the biggest fish consumer on a per capita basis, China will take by far the largest amount of fish by 2010 - an estimated 28 million tonnes. Can wild fisheries and aqua-

culture meet the demand from Asia and the rest of the globe?

The UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has issued a grim snapshot of the state of world fisheries. It warned of pressures on stocks, adding that this was unsustainable. It said 52 per cent of world fish stocks were fully exploited, compared with 47 per cent in 2002, while nearly 25 per cent were over-exploited. Seven of the top 10 marine fish species were already stretched to their limits or in decline.

The UN agency forecast that world consumption of fish may rise by more than 25 per cent to 179 million tonnes by 2015, underscoring the urgent need to rebuild depleted wild fish stocks while raising coastal farm fish production. Yet the latter, now widely practised in Asia, is problematic because it can cause environmental damage.

Over the past few decades, coastal aquaculture in Asia, especially shrimp farming, has led to the destruction of mangrove forests, which are vital for filtering nutrients, cleansing water and protecting coastlines from floods and storms.

In the Philippines, for example, it has been estimated that as much as 65 per cent of its original 450,000ha of mangroves have been converted to other uses, chiefly brackish water fish ponds.

Effluent from aquaculture ponds and pens is frequently released, polluting surrounding waterways. The effluent includes fertiliser, undigested feed and biological waste from the fish. Farmed fish that escape into the wild can threaten native species by acting as predators, competing for food, or inter-breeding and changing the genetic pools of wild organisms.

Increasing demand for animal feed with high fish-protein content is also contributing to pressure on wild stocks. Meanwhile, imposing quotas so that over-fished areas can recover is unpopular and difficult to enforce.

Can Asia meet future fish demand? The ADB says that depends on strong action being taken to improve wild fisheries resource management, develop aquaculture in a responsible way and better protect the environment. Otherwise, the region could face a serious shortage of fish.

One promising avenue would be to reduce waste. Wild-fishing operations capture, kill and discard a massive quantity of by-catch - fish that are the wrong size, commercially unattractive or otherwise undesirable. The boats concentrate on filling their freezers with only the most profitable fish.

The International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC has calculated that more than 20 million tonnes of fish and other marine organisms are discarded each year. This is the equivalent of nearly 20 per cent of the annual amount of fish eaten in the world. Asia can no longer afford waste on this scale.

The writer is a security and energy specialist at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Singapore named 'Best Seaport in Asean'

Business Times 4 Jun 08;

THE Port of Singapore has received yet another accolade - this time the inaugural 'Best Seaport in Asean' award at the Frost & Sullivan Asean Transportation and Logistics Awards last night. 'We are very thankful to the maritime community for reaffirming Singapore as its preferred port of call.

This award is an endorsement of our efforts to continuously enhance our port services. We will continue to work closely with our maritime partners to ensure that Singapore remains a leading global transhipment hub port offering quality infrastructure, excellent services and a pro-business environment,' said MPA director of corporate services Richard Tan, who received the award on behalf of the Maritime Port Authority.

Global growth consulting company Frost & Sullivan's Asean Transportation and Logistics Awards is an annual event held to recognise outstanding performance by companies in the transportation and logistics industry in South- east Asia and is now into its third year. All recipients are evaluated based on their customers' satisfaction level. The selection process involves in-depth analysis and interviews with customers of the shortlisted companies. The Port of Singapore continues to record good performance and strong growth this year. Shipping tonnage of vessel arrivals in April went up by 18.8 per cent compared with the same period last year to reach 140.2 million gross tons.

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Secondary schools harness solar power to drive mini race cars

Channel NewsAsia 3 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Secondary school students battled it out on the race track on Tuesday. But it was a small track because it was for their mini cars, which had been designed to run on solar power.

The 10th National Junior Solar Sprint Competition was organised by Singapore Polytechnic's School of Electrical and Electronic Engineering.

The aim was to promote the importance of renewable energy, and the sun was the shining star at the event.

While some cars zipped off from the starting line, others took their time to make their way down the 40-metre track or simply refused to budge.

However, being fast was not enough to win the race. The cars also had to navigate ramps and corners to get to the finish line.

177 students from 59 secondary schools took part in the event.

Saint Andrew's Secondary School took the fastest car title with a time of 10.6 seconds. - CNA/vm

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NTUC FairPrice spends over S$10,000 a month on green campaign

Channel NewsAsia 3 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: NTUC FairPrice spends more than S$10,000 a month in rebates for shoppers who bring their own bags.

Its ‘Bring Your Own Bag’ campaign gives out 10 cents for every S$10 spent.

Employees at FairPrice are also given cloth bags to reduce the use of plastic bags. And to cut down on the use of electricity, air-conditioning is turned off before 6pm.

Around the office, they take the initiative by using less paper and printing on both sides. Bins are also strategically placed to make it more convenient for employees to recycle.

Gerry Lee, General Manager, NTUC FairPrice, said: "They are showing an example, they are walking the talk. We have to show it to our consumers and also to our employees at large, that we are as a manager and as a secretary leading by example." - CNA/vm

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CNG-powered cars hitting sales high

Rising pump prices, Malaysian ban on petrol sales to foreign cars fuel increase
Samuel Ee, Business Times 4 Jun 08;

SALES of cars that can run on compressed natural gas (CNG) are powering ahead on the back of soaring petrol prices, with talk of a Malaysian ban on petrol sales to drivers of foreign-registered cars fuelling even more interest in them.

In the first four months of this year, 290 CNG cars - so-called because they can run on petrol or gas - were registered, according to the Land Transport Authority. In contrast, only 34 CNG cars were registered in the whole of 2007.

There are only two OEM (original equipment manufacturer) models on the market here - the Mercedes-Benz E200 NGT (Natural Gas Technology) and the 1.6-litre Chevrolet Optra CNG variant. The majority of CNG vehicles on the road here are petrol engine cars retrofitted with kits so they can also run on gas.

A CNG conversion can cost from $3,400 to as much as $4,500, depending on the size of the gas tank to be installed. Despite the conversion cost, however, a CNG car can have a lower list price because of the green vehicle rebate for such cars, which is currently set at 40 per cent of OMV (open market value).

For example, a conventional Honda Stream MPV at parallel importer VinCar costs about $72,000, including COE. After a CNG conversion, a Stream costs about $69,000, or $3,000 less. This is after a conversion fee of $4,000 but with a green rebate of $7,000 (40 per cent of an average OMV of $17,500).

Not surprisingly, VinCar is selling about 20 CNG cars a month. 'Some of the more popular models are the Toyota Estima, RAV4, Vanguard, Axio and Wish, as well as the Honda Stream,' says VinCar's Vincent Tan. 'Our customers say they are attracted by the green rebate and lower fuel consumption.'

Besides a litre of gas costing less than half as much as the lowest grade of petrol, CNG has a higher octane rating than petrol, meaning CNG vehicles are more efficient.

Nik Ang of 8th Gear agrees. The service agent for conversion specialist C Melchers says demand for retrofits picked up this year when two CNG refuelling stations at Mandai and Jalan Buroh opened. Before that, there was only one CNG refuelling station - and it was on Jurong Island.

C Melchers is one of four companies here offering CNG conversions. And Mr Ang says: 'After Malaysia announced a fuel ban on Singapore-registered cars, we got even more enquiries.'

According to him, there is more to CNG than just cost savings. 'CNG is eco-friendly because it reduces exhaust emissions, and that is more important than the price,' he says.

CNG-powered vehicles emit 70 per cent less carbon monoxide than an equivalent petrol-powered vehicle, while carbon dioxide emissions are up to 20 per cent lower.

The high price of petrol has also seen an increase in sales of petrol-electric hybrid cars, though the jump in registrations is not as sharp as that of CNG cars.

In the first four months of 2008, registrations of the Toyota Prius and Honda Civic Hybrid totalled 289 units, compared with 678 units for the whole of 2007.

But overall, the number of alternative fuel vehicles is still small compared with conventional passenger cars. From January to April this year, a total of 33,428 cars were registered in Singapore.

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Out of the frying pan, into the diesel engines

As fuel prices soar, more firms save money by using bio-diesel made from waste cooking oil
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 4 Jun 08;

TO COPE with rising fuel prices, some companies are turning to waste cooking oil from restaurants to power their diesel vehicles and machinery.

About 500,000 litres of this bio-diesel courses through engines and industrial equipment here every month, enough to fill half an Olympic-size swimming pool.

Retailers said that demand had skyrocketed in the past year largely because the vegetable-based fuel is up to 20 per cent cheaper than petroleum-based diesel.

Diesel is now going for about $1.80 a litre.

Alpha Synovate, which produces about 20,000 litres of bio-diesel each month, collects the used, dark yellow cooking oil from restaurants across Singapore.

The oil then goes into stainless steel reactors and, with a little chemistry, about 80 per cent of it is converted into bio-diesel seven hours later.

Only vehicles powered by diesel engines, such as most vans, trucks, buses and a few diesel-powered cars here, can run on this fuel.

Vegetable oil is not flammable enough to work in petrol engines, which are spark-ignited. In diesel engines, however, air is compressed to the point where the fuel self-ignites.

Although the fuel cannot be used by all vehicles here, Alpha Synovate's chief executive Allan Lim has no shortage of customers, among whom are transport companies and private owners of diesel vehicles. He said that demand for bio-diesel had gone up with the joint rise in petrol and diesel prices.

Crude oil prices hit a record US$135 (S$183) a barrel two weeks ago, pushing pump prices up for the fifth time since March. The price of diesel shot up even more sharply than that of petrol, hitting $1.83 per litre at the pumps.

Bio-diesel, once popular with only a handful of committed environmentalists, has therefore won new fans among those looking to cushion themselves against rising transport costs.

Mr Lim said that owners of petrol-engine vehicles who want to use this biofuel have to convert their vehicles to diesel-engine ones, which is an expensive exercise.

The other snag is the relatively high taxes on diesel cars, which is why there are few such cars here.

Alpha Synovate plans to increase production to 200,000 litres by the end of the year to meet the increasing demand. The business is not profitable yet, but Mr Lim has high hopes for the future.

Already, the number of customers filling up at Alpha Synovate's mobile station in Simei has tripled in the last two years.

The other cooking oil recycler here, Biofuel Research, saw demand for its product go from nothing to 500,000 litres in the same amount of time.

Said its owner Kom Mam Sun: 'Industrial and transport companies can use lots of diesel. They can save up to $25,000 a month. When prices of oil went up, so did our business.'

Industry watchers think demand may soon outstrip supply. Singapore Environment Council chief Howard Shaw agreed, saying that it was unlikely that waste oil conversion would happen on a massive scale because 'there is a limited supply of waste cooking oil'.

Already, Biofuel Research is turning away at least two transport companies a week because it cannot collect enough waste oil.

The veggie-power movement is global. In Britain, several thousand people are thought to be running their cars on such fuel, made in their own backyards. In the United States, waste oil has become popular with thieves, who are trading it in for cash.

Meanwhile, those using this recycled fuel here are only too happy to count their savings. Bedok Transport, which operates a fleet of 70 buses and runs half of them on bio-diesel, saves about $700 monthly.

Its owner, Mr Lionel Lim, 28, said: 'It works the same as regular diesel and there is less soot when the buses start up. The only drawback is that it smells strange, like fried chicken.'

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Money - and patience - needed for second-generation biofuels

Anne Chaon, Yahoo News 4 Jun 08;

Next-generation biofuels that are greener than present crop-based fuels are in the works, but it will take many years, and massive financial support, before they reach the pump, experts say.

Such caveats amount to unfortunate news for the biofuel industry as it seeks to battle its way out of a storm.

The surging price of petrol and diesel from fossil fuels has prompted farmers, notably in the United States and Brazil, to grow crops such as corn, soy, colza and sugar cane which are then distilled into the petrol substitute ethanol.

Partly in response to this agricultural switch from food to fuel, the price of dietary staples has blasted skyward this year, worsening hunger among the very poor and in half a dozen vulnerable countries stoking political instability.

Scientists are working hard to develop second-generation biofuels that would mainly use non-food cellulose materials, such as straw, wood and timber chips, which would be supplemented by easy-to-grow fibrous plants.

Two techniques -- one biological, the other a combination of heat and chemicals -- are being used to render this feedstock into biofuels, respectively ethanol or a diesel and kerosene substitute called BTL (Biomass to Liquids).

But the public will have to wait until 2015 for ethanol and 202O for BTL, said Xavier Montagne, deputy scientifique director at the French Institute for Oil (IFP).

Claude Roy, an interministerial official who is coordinating France's efforts in biofuels, said "the real outcome lies in the battle of the yields," a reference to the amount of fuel that is harvested compared to the energy used to produce it.

"At present, the two techniques have low energy yields. We have to double present yields to make them viable. Tripling them would be ideal," said Roy.

Such improvements can only come through research and development and economies of scale in manufacturing -- and those in turn can only come through massive investment.

For instance, the German firm Choren Industries is to build a biofuel refinery with a 200,000-tonne capacity. The cost is a billion euros (1.55 billion dollars), compared with just 40 million euros (62 million dollars) for a similar facility handling rapeseed, also called colza.

Such investments are fine -- just so long as oil prices hold up.

In many minds are memories of a false dawn 30 years ago. Investment in renewable energies surged in the late 1970s but was wrecked when, a few years later, the price of crude plummeted and oil climbed back into the saddle.

Even if next-generation biofuels will have big advantages over the present generation in terms of energy yield and non-food sources, question marks will remain.

"We will still have to use land to grow the feedstock for the biofuels, and this means there could be competition with farmland," said Roy.

Using virgin land to grow biofuels can raise big environmental concerns, and not just in the impact on biodiversity, said Bal.

One argument made for biofuels is that they contribute less carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere than oil, gas and coal, which have been dug out of the ground.

But this equation changes if the soil being used to grow crops is virgin.

"Using prairie land, or worse, destroying a forest, releases considerable quantities of CO2 that have been stored in the soil and the trees, and the outcome could be catastrophic," said Bal.

Cautioned Roy: "Even if we find the Holy Grail, biofuels will not replace oil. At best, they will be part of the range of options to diversify energy supplies."

Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO)

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ADB to invest 1 billion dollars a year for 'clean energy' in Asia

Yahoo News 3 Jun 08;

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is to invest one billion dollars annually in "clean energy" projects as part of an effort to encourage their use, the Manila-based bank said Tuesday.

ADB vice-president for sustainable development Ursula Schafer-Preuss made the announcement at a special forum sponsored by the ADB and the US Agency for International Development (USAID) on finding cleaner energy sources for Asia.

"We launched our energy efficiency initiative about three years ago and set targets for increasing our investments in clean energy to one billion dollars per year starting 2008," she said at the ADB headquarters in Manila.

The ADB is also working to increase "access to energy for all," while promoting reforms such as transparent tariff rates, appropriate regulations and forming long-term policies, she said.

Among the projects to be financed by the new ADB investment is the installation and operation of energy efficient heating systems in China, Schafer-Preuss said.

ADB sources said an energy efficiency project in Guandong was also being considered by the board of the multilateral agency.

ADB senior energy specialist Sohail Hasnie said in the short-term, the investments would likely go to projects that boost energy efficiency. However, viable long-term projects such solar, wind or ocean wave power plants, are also being looked at.

Hasnie said the viability of "clean energy" projects largely depended on locations and power charges.

As an example, he said "the Philippines has high (power) tariffs so a lot of (renewable energy) projects would be viable here which would not be viable in Indonesia," which has low power tariffs.

Speaking at the same forum, various industry leaders said energy efficiency could be increased simply by adopting existing technologies instead of using new techniques.

Enrique Penalosa, former mayor of Bogota, Colombia cited the success his city enjoyed by opening it up to pedestrians, bicycles and buses rather than building new highways or parking spaces for cars.

"A citizen on a 30-dollar bicycle is equally important as a citizen in a 30,000-dollar car," he said to wide applause.

Marten Williamsen, director for China of industry leader Philips Lighting, remarked that two-thirds of all lighting in the world is still using "older, less efficient technology developed before the 1970s," like incandescent bulbs even though more efficient bulbs were available.

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Food Crisis May Open Door To Genetically Modified Rice

Carmel Crimmins, PlanetArk 4 Jun 08;

LOS BANOS, Philippines - Some rice-producing nations may drop their reluctance to use genetically modified (GM) seeds in the next few years to help offset a crisis that has forced millions to go hungry, a top expert said.

"If we consider the challenges that face us, I think we would be very foolish and actually irresponsible to not invest in the development of GM crops," said Robert Zeigler, director general of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI).

"I think that governments will take a hard look and say why again are we dragging our feet in adopting GM technology,?" he told Reuters in an interview on Tuesday.

World leaders may discuss GM organisms at this week's food crisis summit in Rome but they are unlikely to be presented as part of the solution to soaring food prices amid opposition by some environmental groups to what they see as "Frankenfoods".

GM crops, which use genes from other plants and other organisms to effect special traits, are widely grown in North America and parts of South America, including cotton, a source of vegetable cooking oil, as well as corn and soybeans.

But European and Asian states have largely held off embracing GM technology for food amid scepticism about its safety.

As yet, no GM rice is grown commercially but Zeigler said that could change, at the earliest two years from now, with the world's top two producers, China and India, likely leading the charge.

"I will be very interested in seeing how China reacts over the next year. They have a transgenic insect-resistant rice that's ready for release. They have been delaying that because of pressures from the anti-GM lobby. I will be interested to see how they respond," he said.

"There are also a number of transgenic crops coming up in India. The furthest along is the eggplant. Rice is also coming along."

China and India have already adopted biotech cotton, which is engineered to resist certain insects and earlier this year, South Korea started purchasing GM corn for food.

Zeigler dismissed anti-GM groups' arguments about safety.

"We have seen no adverse effects on human health or the environment anywhere that have been demonstrated with any scientific credibility."


NO SILVER BULLET

The Philippines-based IRRI hopes to make its own GM Golden Rice, enriched with Vitamin A, available to farmers by 2011.

IRRI kick-started the so-called Green Revolution in the late 1960s with the development of high-yielding rice seeds which multiplied harvests of Asia's food staple and enabled countries such as Thailand and China to industrialise.

With international rice prices nearly tripling this year due to rising demand and export curbs by producer nations, Zeigler believes a second Green Revolution is necessary.

Nearly half the world's population depend on rice to survive and demand for the grain, which is eaten for breakfast, lunch and dinner in parts of Asia, is expected to jump 50 percent by 2030.

In addition to improving crop management, post-harvest technologies and irrigation, Zeigler also believes that GM technology is part of the solution.

He admits, however, that like others in the scientific community, he has been reluctant to sing GM's praises too loudly for fear of a backlash from anti-GM groups.

"We are all very wary of being misquoted as saying that GM is a single bullet magic solution for all the world's food ills. None of us believe that."

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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Biotechnology seen as a key to solving food crisis

Alister Doyle, Reuters 3 Jun 08;

ROME (Reuters) - Biotechnology can help solve the world's food crisis with benefits such as flood-resistant rice in Bangladesh or higher cotton yields in Burkina Faso, a senior U.S. official said at a U.N. food summit on Tuesday.

"Biotechnology is one of the most promising tools for improving the productivity of agriculture and increasing the incomes of the rural poor," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer said.

"We are convinced of the benefits it offers to developing countries and small farmers," he told a U.S.-led briefing on the sidelines of the June 3-5 summit seeking ways to combat high food prices when climate change may aggravate shortages.

Some green groups say genetically-engineered crops threaten biodiversity while many European consumers are wary of eating products dubbed by critics as "Frankenfoods".

Schafer said biotechnology, including genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), could help produce more food by raising yields and producing crops in developing nations that are resistant to disease and pests.

"Genetic engineering offers long-term solutions to some of our major crop production problems," said Philippine Agriculture Minister Arthur Yap. But he said that it was not a panacea for all of his country's agricultural problems.

Progress being made in the Philippines included research into rice and coconuts resistant to disease, he said.

"We're also working on virus-resistant papaya, papaya hybrids with a longer shelf life that should be ready for market in 2009," he said.

Climate change could aggravate production around the world with more droughts, floods, disruptions to monsoons and rising sea levels, says the U.N. Climate Panel. In Africa alone, 250 million people could face extra stress on water supplies by 2020.

COTTON

Burkina Faso Agriculture Minister Laurent Sedogo said the African country had worked with U.S. agriculture group Monsanto to battle pests that blighted the cotton crop.

"We are about to plant 15,000 hectares" of a new crop that was resistant to pests, he said. That would also cut down on the use of pesticides that could damage the health of farmers.

The World Bank and aid agencies estimate that soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already hungry.

Bangladesh said that it was going ahead with efforts to make crops able to survive floods and more salinity in the soil.

A cyclone last year "is a wake-up call for all of us", said C.S. Karim, an adviser to Bangladesh's agriculture ministry. "It shows the vulnerability of Bangladesh. "

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UN Food Summit Blames Trade Barriers, Queries Biofuel

Stephen Brown and Robin Pomeroy, PlanetArk 4 Jun 08;

ROME - A United Nations summit on the global food crisis called on Tuesday for trade barriers to be reduced and food export bans scrapped to help stop the spread of hunger that threatens nearly one billion people.

"Nothing is more degrading than hunger, especially when man-made," UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon told the Rome summit, where the United States and Brazil defended biofuel production from charges that it pushes up world food prices.

The head of the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), hosting the summit, said wealthy nations spent billions of dollars on farm subsidies, excess food consumption and arms.

"The excess consumption by the world's obese costs $20 billion annually, to which must be added indirect costs of $100 billion resulting from premature death and related diseases," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf, who is from Senegal.

Humanitarian agencies estimate soaring food prices could push as many as 100 million more people into hunger. About 850 million are already going hungry.

Ban estimated the "global price tag" to overcome the food crisis would be $15-20 billion a year and that food supply had to rise 50 percent by the year 2030 to meet climbing demand.

"Some countries have taken action by limiting exports or by imposing draft controls," he said, referring to controls slapped on foods in emergency to guarantee domestic supply.

This "distorts markets and forces prices even higher. I call on nations to resist such measures and to immediately release exports designated for humanitarian purposes".

Aid agencies blame some Asian nations' export restrictions on rice, for example, for driving up prices, which led to riots as far abroad as Haiti in April, toppling the government.

ARRESTED DEVELOPMENT

The Rome summit will set the tone on food aid and subsidies for the Group of Eight summit in Japan in July and what is hoped to be the concluding stages of the stalled Doha talks under the World Trade Organisation aimed at reducing trade distortions.

WTO chief Pascal Lamy said a Doha deal "would reduce the trade-distorting subsidies that have stymied the developing world's production capacity". Of the 22 countries most affected by the food crisis, "some are amongst the world's least trade integrated economies in agriculture", he said in a speech.

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva said rich nations' "intolerable protectionism" was the main cause of food inflation while US Agriculture Secretary Ed Schafer focused on export restrictions, blamed for restricting food supplies.

"We ask all countries to allow the free flow of food and the technologies that produce food," said Schafer.

Britain urged the European Union to cool prices by reforming farm policies that cost consumers over 40 billion euros ($62.4 billion) a year and said trade talks were at a "critical" stage.

"It is unacceptable that rich countries still subsidise farming by $1 billion a day, costing poor farmers in developing countries an estimated $100 billion a year in lost income," said British International Development Secretary Douglas Alexander.

The cost of major food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, with rice, corn and wheat at record highs. This has provoked protests and riots in some developing countries where people may spend more than half their income on food.

The OECD sees prices retreating from their current peaks but still up to 50 percent higher in the coming decade.

DIRTY FINGERS

Rising fuel prices, as well as making agricultural supplies like seeds and fertilisers more costly, have raised interest in biofuels, blamed by many for competing with food output for grains and oilseed.

The United States and Brazil, the world's biggest producer of ethanol from sugar cane, defended their biofuels industries from such accusations in Rome. "It offends me to see fingers pointed against clean energy from biofuels, fingers soiled with oil and coal," da Silva told the summit.

The United States plans to channel a quarter of its maize crop into ethanol production by 2022 and the European Union plans to get 10 percent of auto fuel from bio-energy by 2020.

Washington says biofuels account for only three percent of the total food price rise while Oxfam puts it at 30 percent.

"The use of sustainable biofuels can increase energy security, foster economic development especially in rural areas and reduce greenhouse gas emissions without weighing heavily on food prices," said Schafer.

The summit was attended by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, both accused by their critics of contributing to food shortages at home.

Washington said Mugabe's presence could only serve as an example of "what not to do" on food security. A State Department spokesman said his "ruinous policies" had turned Zimbabwe from a food exporter into a net importer with many starving people.

Italian Jews protested against the Iranian leader's comments that Israel would disappear, chanting "Israel, Israel, Israel" on a hill by the ancient Roman Circus Maximus, near the summit.

UN sets out food crisis measures
BBC News 3 Jun 08;

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has urged nations to seize an "historic opportunity to revitalise agriculture" as a way of tackling the food crisis.

Mr Ban told a UN-sponsored summit in Rome that food production would have to rise by 50% by 2030 to meet demand.

Mr Ban said export restrictions and import tariffs ought to be minimised to alleviate the crisis.

The summit comes as food costs have reached a 30-year high in real terms, causing riots in several countries.

The host of the conference - the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) - has warned the industrialised countries that unless they increase yields, eliminate barriers and move food to where it is needed most, a global catastrophe could result.

The FAO is calling for $1.7bn of emergency funding to tackle the shortage in production.

The recent crisis is believed to have pushed 100 million people into hunger worldwide.

Poorer countries are faced with a 40% increase in their food imports bill this year, and experts say some countries' food bills have doubled in the past year.

In other developments at the summit:

* Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said the two key issues were "global warming and the use of agricultural commodities for the reproduction of biofuels"
* Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a leading US critic, cited "certain powers" and "invisible hands" as trying "to control prices to achieve their political and economic aims"
* Brazilian President Luis Inacio Lula da Silva defended his country's production of biofuels, saying that blaming ethanol production for food price rises was an "affront"

Access problem

In his speech Mr Ban said the instability caused by the price rises threatened progress made in countries like Afghanistan, Liberia and Haiti. He talked of people in Liberia who used to buy rice by the bag and now bought it by the cup.

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Mr Mugabe said that climate change has contributed to a global food crisis

The taskforce Mr Ban created to target the food crisis is expected to present a 38-page report with measures that could cost up to $15bn (£7.5bn) to implement.

Announcing some of its findings, Mr Ban said high food prices offered a chance to finally address the ongoing problem of access to food for the world's poor.

"The threats are obvious to us all. Yet this crisis also presents us with an opportunity," he said.

"While we must respond immediately to high food prices, it is important that our longer term focus is on improving world food security," he said.

Measures to improve access to food for vulnerable people include expanding aid, boosting smallholder production and minimising export restriction and import tariffs, he added.

Global catastrophe if food riots spread
Straits Times 4 Jun 08;

As rights activists sound warning, UN chief calls for rise in production
ROME - AS WORLD leaders discuss the food crisis, human rights activists and the World Bank are warning of a looming global catastrophe which could plunge much of the planet into violence.

The United Nations food security summit yesterday heard UN chief Ban Ki Moon call for a 50per cent increase in food production to help deal with soaring food prices which have already provoked riots around the world.

But ahead of the meeting, human rights activists and the World Bank stressed that words would not be enough to help the world's poor, and warned of dire consequences if action was not taken.

Johannesburg-based poverty campaign group ActionAid said: 'The current food crisis amounts to a gross violation of human rights and could fuel a global catastrophe, as many of the world's poorest countries, particularly those forced into import dependency, struggle to feed their people.'

Poor harvests, low stocks and rising demand, especially from India and China, have caused huge food price spikes over the last two years, stoking protests, strikes and violence in Africa, Latin America and Asia.

The International Committee of the Red Cross is warning that increased hunger will exacerbate conflict in war zones, while experts say food riots could worsen if nothing is done.

'Our estimate is that higher food prices are pushing 30million Africans into poverty,' World Bank chief Robert Zoellick said, adding that the message he received from Africans is that they are tired of talk and want action.

'We have a lot of world leaders here; let's try to focus on what we can do in

real time to make a difference,' said Mr Zoellick, who last week announced US$1.2billion (S$1.6billion) in loans and grants to help poor countries cope with food and fuel costs.

He said immediate action was needed to deliver aid to the countries most at risk, to send seeds and fertilisers to poor farmers, and to lift export bans which are driving up prices.

Meanwhile, The Times of London reported yesterday that the world leaders attending the summit would be enjoying a 'modest' lunch, with the lobster, goose and foie gras served at the last summit replaced by pasta, mozzarella, spinach and sweetcorn.

It quoted a Food and Agriculture Organisation official as saying: 'It does not look good if leaders discussing global starvation are seen to be dining lavishly.

'At the last summit in 2002, we did not give enough thought to the menu and were open - unfairly, in our view - to the charge of hypocrisy.'

REUTERS

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