Best of our wild blogs: 13 Jun 08

Sentosa goes Naked
another fabulous family outing on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs blog

Double A RE-live event at Atrium@ Orchard
reaching out for our shores and Cyrene on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs blog

TeamSeagrass at Tuas
with Schering Plough on the teamseagrass blog

Caring hands at Labrador
a teacher sets a positive example on the sgbeachbum blog

Changi Cockatoos and Hornbills
on the wonderful creations blog

Grey Heron swallowing fish
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Rediscovering Pulau Pisang, a floating orchard

Satiman Jamin, New Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

PULAU Pisang is the only island in a cluster of islands some 15km off Pontian that is not named after parts of a ship.

The island, whose lighthouse is managed by Singapore, is named after wild bananas there while the other islands are Pulau Tunda or ship's bow on the westernmost side; Pulau Kemudi (stern) and Pulau Sauh (anchor) on the easternmost side.

Pulau Pisang is the largest of the four. The islands were part of the Johor-Riau Empire.

The islands are floating orchards, with hundreds of fruit trees such as mango and durians.
But legend has it that the islands were actually parts of a large ship that was cursed into stone by the mother of the ship's captain, Tanggang, because he refused to acknowledge her when she brought his favourite banana to the ship.
A fisherman from Kampung Nelayan in Benut, Abdul Razak Masdek, 70, said the early settlers had found wild banana growing on the island.

They used the banana leaves to treat emphysema (a disease of the lung), which was prevalent at the time, by covering the chest of the patient with a paste of black glutinous rice flour and egg white before wrapping the abdomen with the wild banana leaves.

Apart from the common mango (Mangifera indica), the sweet smelling Saipan mango or kuini (Mangifera odorata) trees are also found in abundance on the island.

The kuini mango here are excellent due to the absence of fruit wasps that normally plague mainland kuini trees, inject the young fruits with its eggs and render the ripe fruits unmarketable.

The mango trees are easily a century old, some acquiring such enormous girths that three grown men with outstretched arms can hardly encircle their base.

Durian trees are also planted on the island, some so laden with fruits that their branches can hardly be seen, reflecting the fertility of the soil here.

Pineapple, of a type predating the Masmirah clone that boosted the pineapple industry in Johor in 1974, and yam plants could be found under the mango and durian trees, most probably remnants of a plantation in the past.

From the sea, one can still see clusters of wild bananas on the island, especially around Batu Mandi on the western tip of Pulau Pisang.

In the 1800s, the agricultural drive by the then Johor ruler, the late Sultan Abu Bakar, had boosted the agricultural activities in the islands as the fertile land gave excellent yield on whatever the islanders chose to plant.

Most of the islanders, who were of Bugis descent, then moved to the mainland. They were the pioneers of many Bugis villages in Benut and Pontian.

All the beaches on the islands are lined with large, craggy boulders that resemble cuts of layered cake or kek lapis.

Large boats do not berth at the jetty on the island for fear of hitting the shallow and rocky seabed. The private jetty, built by Singapore and meant for lighthouse crew, is situated in a cove on the southern side of Pulau Pisang. The jetty walls are constructed from the rocks found on the island



Spotted sun skinks or bengkarung, frolic on the path leading to the lighthouse as it was one of the few places where sunshine could reach the ground unhindered, providing warmth to the cold-blooded creatures.

The skinks are much larger than their mainland counterparts, which can also be said for the millipedes and insects found on the island.

The path to the lighthouse is tortuous, the steep incline makes it dangerous to climb on rainy days, and each step needs to be thought out carefully as the slippery path does not provide much foothold.

The lighthouse stands majestically on the highest point of Pulau Pisang, and the tiring 800-metre climb up the cliffs was made worthwhile by the magnificent view from the hilltop, with the shrill chittering of cicadas in the background.

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Plastic bags: Ban or not to ban?

While environmentalists want a ban, some feel minimising use would do
Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

THE humble plastic bag has found itself back in the limelight once more, with environment enthusiasts pushing for a complete ban on the bags while others say otherwise.

Those rubbishing a ban argue that such carriers can be reused to bag junk. Also, they ultimately wind up in the incinerator, so concerns about them being non-biodegradable can be dismissed.

Mr Daniel Wang Nan Chee, former director-general of public health at the National Environment Agency (NEA), even wrote in to The Straits Times Forum page on Monday to urge Singaporeans to say no to any proposition of a ban.

Writing in his personal capacity, he said that without plastic bags, apartment-dwelling Singaporeans would be forced to chuck out wet refuse that would decay on the walls of chutes. The nightmare would not be just for cleaners. As vermin like cockroaches multiply, the health of residents would also be affected.

'We can easily reuse these plastic bags from supermarkets. The unwieldy small ones, such as those from pharmacies, and the thick ones when we buy clothing - which we can't reuse - are what we should be targeting in our campaigns,' Mr Wang told The Straits Times.

Plus, Mr Wang pointed out that plastic bags are safely incinerated with the rest of household refuse - contrary to the misperception that they release toxic fumes.

Associate Professor Ting Yen Peng, a chemical and biomolecular engineer at the National University of Singapore, agreed.

He said that unlike the lower temperatures of dumpsite bonfires, where cancer-causing chemicals are released from burning plastics, flaming plastic in incineration plants is safe.

'Under those high temperatures of 800 to 1,000 deg C, pollutants like dioxins and furans are not produced, and even if they were, NEA should have measures in place to trap them, before they are released into the air,' he said.

An NEA spokesman said Singapore's incinerators run at 1,000 deg C, filter out ash and neutralise any acidic gases produced.

Forum letter writer Faye Chiam argued that incineration may reduce the volume of waste, but plastic bag ash residues still have to be stuffed into Singapore's manmade landfill on Pulau Semakau.

Environmentalists say that besides disposal, the manufacture of plastic bags is also cause for concern. They point out that these bags are made from fossil fuel, the same source as that of petrol, which is expected to skyrocket to US$200 (S$274) a barrel this year.

Singapore's 4.5 million people use about 2.5 billion plastic bags a year.

When asked, those against banning the plastic bag offered some consolation.

Mr Wang said oil from trash such as plastics helps keep incinerators burning without an external source of fuel. NEA added that the four incineration plants supplied 2 to 3 per cent of Singapore's electricity supply.

But bags have to be binned in the first place, NEA conceded. Only refuse that makes it into chutes and rubbish bins can wind up in incinerators.

One reason for the NEA campaign, which began in 2006 to minimise the use of plastic bags, has been the high amount of plastic litter. Much of it chokes drains and forms a breeding ground for mosquitoes, its website said.

Unlike rotting food, plastic bags can stay in the ground or seas for hundreds of years, added environmentalists.

Ms Chiam pointed out how they entangle wildlife or can be mistaken for food, choking animals to death.

Mr N. Sivasothi, coordinator of the annual International Coastal Cleanup Singapore, can attest to this. Last year, its volunteers collected 2,600kg of trash along East Coast Park alone.

Current campaigns pitched by NEA and the Singapore Environment Council (SEC) do not aim for an eventual ban of plastic bag usage, the agencies said.

Instead, they are to minimise the number of plastic bags shoppers pick up while making their rounds. They have the support of stores such as NTUC FairPrice, Cold Storage and Ikea.

In supermarkets, Bring Your Own Bag Day on Wednesdays has gone from a monthly to weekly affair this month, where those without their own carriers have to purchase reusable cloth bags from stores.

Cashiers have had a range of responses from customers - from greenies with their own bags to those who dump all their groceries and walk out if asked to buy a bag.

Teacher Eleanor Barnabas, 28, brought up the largest complaint of shoppers thus far: They cannot remember what rule individual stores go by.

On a given day, will they be surprised by a free bag at checkout? Or will they have to buy a plastic one for 10 cents? Or pay $1.50 for a cloth carrier?

SEC chief executive Howard Shaw said he hopes shoppers will come up with their own strategy. On Wednesday, he began discussions with large retail stores like Metro, to discourage the use of plastic bags among shoppers.

'The mechanics have yet to be worked out, but cloth bags would be preferable, since people are much more likely to stash them in their home, office or car to use again,' he said.

Catching up with others
Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE'S move to minimise the use of plastic bags is far from radical.

In 2002, Bangladesh was the first country to ban them as the millions of plastic bags contributed to blocked drains, worsening floods.

Indian states, starting with Maharashtra, followed suit in 2005, citing similar reasons. Some added that livestock were choking on bags, mistaking them for feed.

Taiwan, too, banned free distribution of plastic bags in 2003 and has since seen a 69 per cent drop in the use of plastic products. The government will be saying no to disposable wooden chopsticks next.

And just this month, China - where up to three billion plastic shopping bags are used each day - banned the giving of free polythene bags at shops and supermarkets, forcing consumers to pay for them. It also outlawed the manufacture of ultra-thin bags because, at under 0.025mm, this massive source of pollution cannot be re-used by consumers.

Australia's Environment Minister Peter Garrett plans to do away with free plastic carriers by year-end.

Farther afield, several parts of the United States are rethinking their bag use. San Francisco is considering replacing its tax, introduced in 2005 on every plastic bag in large supermarkets and pharmacies, with a complete ban.

New York has also called on large retailers to recycle bags.

London will rule out the use of ultra-thin plastic bags next year.

SHOBANA KESAVA


Are plastic bags really that bad?
The New Paper 13 Jun 08;

# NO - S'pore rubbish burnt, so landfill issue not relevant, says newspaper letter writer
# YES - Unnecessarily large number of bags burnt each year, says environment council


WE burn our rubbish and don't dump them in landfills.

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), this is what land-scarce Singapore does.

So do we really need to worry about plastic bags affecting our environment or even have a Bring Your Own Bag Day campaign?

The campaign, which kicked off in April last year, encourages customers to shop with reusable bags every first Wednesday of the month.

Mr Daniel Wang brought up the issue of plastic bags in a letter to The Straits Times Forum page on 9 Jun.

He said: 'When environmentalists first objected to their use years ago, the issue with them was that they were non-biodegradable.'

Plastic bags take 1,000 years to degrade in a landfill and they break into fragments that contaminate soil and water, according to environment experts.

'Later, the issue became waste minimisation, but both these issues are not applicable in Singapore's context,' Mr Wang wrote.

He said that all rubbish in Singapore is incinerated, so the question of non-biodegradability does not arise.

The issue of waste minimisation, he argued, is also unnecessary.

Mr Wang said: 'Many of us re-use the plastic bags that we get from supermarkets. We use them to line our kitchen bins and the wastepaper bins in our rooms.'

He said that many, including the Singapore Environment Council (SEC), have misunderstood the whole issue of plastic bags.

But experts say that the liberal use of plastic bags is still harmful to the environment.

The bags are made from petroleum or natural gas.

America's high plastic bag consumption rate (100 billion plastic bags annually) means using 12million barrels of oil to produce them.

HIGH PER-PERSON USAGE

Singapore consumes 2.5 billion plastic bags a year, which is equivalent to 625 bags per person or an average of 2,500 bags per family annually.

This is high compared to a bigger country like Australia, which consumes 6.9 billion plastic bags annually or 326 bags per person.

Said NEA: 'Plastic bags are made from oil, a finite resource. By using reusable bags during our shopping trips, we will use fewer plastic bags and help to conserve earth's resources.'

SEC's general manager Mr Yatin Premchand explained that the council is targeting Singaporeans' liberal and unnecessary usage of plastic bags.

These bags make up 19,000 tonnes of or about 0.8 per cent of the total waste Singapore disposes of in a year.

That weight is equivalent to about 95 blue whales or 2,000 double-decker buses.

Mr Premchand said: 'Singapore does incinerate its waste, but the very fact that we are generating so much of it from plastic bags alone is still a problem.'

Explaining that the council understands the need for people to use plastic bags for their trash, Mr Premchand said: 'We're not saying do not use plastic. We're just saying use them responsibly.'

Singapore's decision to discourage the use of plastic bags follows countries like Ireland, China, South Africa, Italy and Thailand.

In the US, cities like San Francisco and Oakland have already outlawed the use of plastic bags in large grocery stores and pharmacies.

Bangladesh banned plastic bags in March 2002 after discarded bags were found to have choked its drainage system in the 1998 and 1999 floods, according to a BBC report.

By Melody Zaccheus, newsroom intern

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Woodlands factory on fire again; public advised to avoid beach, canal

Channel NewsAsia 13 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: The public has been advised to avoid the beach and canal near Admiralty Road West, following a second fire at the same factory at Woodlands Terrace on Thursday.

The factory first caught fire on June 6.

The National Environment Agency says some of the contaminated fire-fighting water was discharged into the canal leading to the beach near Admiralty Road West.

The NEA is monitoring the situation closely.

As a precautionary measure, the public is advised to avoid coming into contact with the water in the canal and the beach near the end of the canal. - CNA/de

Woodlands factory up in flames again
Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

LUCK ran out a second time for an essential oils factory in Woodlands Terrace when two workers, carrying out salvage work after a fire struck last Friday, somehow set off a second blaze yesterday evening.

The pair were believed to have been using a gas torch to cut through two metal drums which contained essential oils when the flame of the torch ignited some oil vapour.

The Singapore Civil Defence Force received a call at about 5pm and dispatched two fire engines, two red rhinos and five support vehicles to the scene.

It took firefighters five minutes to put out the small blaze, which devastated an area of about 5m by 5m. No one was hurt.

The company that owns the factory, K.L. Koh Enterprise, manufactures essential oils used to make perfumes and food products.

At about 2.45am last Friday, a massive fire had engulfed the factory, causing loud explosions and fireballs that shot up as high as 10m.

It took 60 SCDF officers about 40 minutes to bring that blaze under control.

The SCDF is investigating the cause of the first fire.

Yesterday, the charred remains of mangled oil drums remained strewn across the blackened floor and the smell of oil still hung in the air.

Stench after factory fire: Is the air fit to breathe?
Letter from Sim Kim Kok, Straits Times Forum 16 Jun 08;

I WOULD like to draw the authorities' attention to the unmistakable stench that shrouds the stretch of Sungei Sembawang canal near the cluster of residential blocks 467 and 469 Admiralty Drive.

What started as a sweet stench - from the morning of the recent essential-oils factory fire in Woodlands - developed into a disgusting odour that now envelops the area.

A stinging and burning sensation hits the nose and throat at every breath, and it has become increasingly unbearable.

Several of my elderly neighbours have complained of light-headedness too.

Can the authorities do the needful to get rid of the pollutants in the area?

More importantly, is the air in the surrounding areas fit for people to breathe? Will there be any short-term or long-term effects on the health of the residents in the locality?

Factory fire scent was not toxic
Reply in the Straits Times Forum 21 Jun 08;

WE REFER to Mr Sim Kim Hock and Ms Angie Teo's letters on Monday, 'Stench after factory fire: Is the air fit to breathe?'.

Our investigation has shown that no toxic substance was released into the atmosphere when the factory caught fire.

The factory uses aroma oil for fragrances and food production. During the fire, some of the drums containing the aroma oil were damaged, causing the scent to be diffused into the air. There were no toxic chemicals involved in the incident, and thus no cause for alarm. We thank the writers for their feedback.

Tan Quee Hong
Director, Pollution Control Department,
National Environment Agency

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Malaysia targets nature lessons at urban kids

Channel NewsAsia 12 Jun 08;

KUALA LUMPUR : Environmentalists said rapid urbanisation has robbed many children of the opportunities to be close to nature.

The Malaysia Nature Society is helping to address this by launching a new educational programme - a two-hour long treasure hunt that will take participants through some of oldest trails at the Forest Research Institute Malaysia.

It was an instant hit among the kids.

"I like to walk in jungle because when I am there, I feel free and I like it," said one child who took part in the programme.

Another said: "I feel happy, seeing a lot of plants and learning about them."

Environmentalist Dr Loh Chi Leong, who is the executive director of the Malaysia Nature Society, explained the objective behind the programme.

"A lot of people are now living in urban areas and their children do not have the opportunity to climb trees or get close to nature. I (felt) sad when I saw children, asked to draw chickens at art competitions, drew them in a box from a fastfood chain," said Dr Loh.

"So (this programme is aimed at) getting them to reconnect, to realise that fresh air comes from the trees, that water comes from streams and not from taps, that there are animals around them."

While the children learned about different species of trees and their role in the ecosystem, they were also taught about climate change and the dangers posed by global warming. - CNA /ls

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Singapore water companies making a splash overseas

Republic's share of bustling industry up by 50% in just three years, survey shows
Michelle Tay, Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE is making waves in the lucrative global environment and water industry covering water recycling and pollution control.

Although the Republic's global market share is still relatively modest, it is growing rapidly, a new survey by Deloitte Singapore has found.

Singapore's share shot up 50 per cent in just three years from 0.24 per cent in 2004 to 0.36 per cent in 2006.

That represented a compounded annual growth rate of 24 per cent - almost five times faster than the global figure of 5 per cent.

The industry's impressive strides have been strongly driven by a willingness among local firms to expand abroad.

Out of 155 Singapore-based firms polled in the survey, 42 per cent cited 'expansion to overseas markets' as their key growth strategy over the next three years.

The survey also found that in 2006, 67 per cent of the overall revenue of firms operating in the sector came from their overseas operations.

Mr Sam Ong, the group deputy chief executive of Singapore-

listed Hyflux, said his firm's overseas revenue saw a 44.9 per cent jump from 2004 to 2006.

Hyflux has projects involving water recycling and desalination plants at various sites around the globe, including China and the Middle East.

Just two months ago, Hyflux won a $632 million contract to build the world's largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in Algeria.

Mr Ong said in expanding abroad, Hyflux increased its local workforce by about 48 per cent, and its overseas workforce fourfold, from 2004 to 2006.

Said Mr Tham Poh Cheong, the director for environmental services at International Enterprise Singapore: 'It is clear that overseas expansion is a key strategy companies are adopting to grow their business, given the limited room for growth locally.'

Singapore-based companies operating in the sector have established operations all over the world, from China to Saudi Arabia to Mexico.

They are also making a splash in the Middle East and North Africa, as a result of the growing demand for water and environmental services in those regions.

For instance, in October 2006, Keppel Integrated Engineering won an integrated solid waste management deal in Doha, Qatar, worth $1.7 billion.

And just yesterday, Keppel Corp announced it had formed a joint-venture company called Tianjin Eco-City Environmental Protection Co that would focus on the investment, construction and operation of infrastructure for environmental restoration and improvement in the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City.

Keppel is leading the Singapore consortium for the project, which aims to promote sustainable development and green living on a variety of land sites for residential, commercial, institutional and business park uses.

According to the survey, the global environment and water industry was worth about US$629 billion (S$863.24 billion) in 2004, with Singapore's share totalling S$1.4 billion.

By 2006, however, Singapore's industry revenue had soared 69 per cent to $2.3 billion.

Said Mr Tham: 'There is great potential for further growth in the overseas markets. With the growing worldwide emphasis on sustainable development, Singapore players can offer a suite of urban solutions that encompasses urban planning, green buildings, management of water, used water and waste - and more.'

Growth of environment and water industry lies abroad
Two-thirds of 2006 revenue, or $1.5b, come from outside Singapore
Chuang Peck Ming, Business Times 13 Jun 08;

THE huge presence of multinational corporations in Singapore has helped to spawn a fast-growing multi-billion dollar environment and water (E&W) industry here that has been spreading its wings overseas.

Homegrown E&W companies such as Hyflux, SembCorp Industries and Keppel Integrated Engineering have left their footprints in many parts of Asia and are moving rapidly into markets in the Middle East.

A survey of the local E&W industry - the first of its kind - released yesterday by the government shows the industry expanding into a $2.3 billion business at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 24 per cent in 2004-06.

'The E&W industry has supported the key economic engines for Singapore - the electronics, petrochemicals, chemicals and pharmaceuticals industries,' said Michelle Tan, head of the environmental services division at IE Singapore.

'Singapore has attracted many MNCs in these industries,' she noted. 'Some of these industries, such as semi-conductor and petrochem, require huge volumes of water for their operations and some local E&W companies have taken this opportunity to serve these MNCs in the treatment of industrial wastewater.'

It is still tiny relative to the US$629 billion global E&W market but International Enterprise Singapore noted that the industry - which covers water, waste management, alternative clean energy and pollution control and multi-sector - has expanded faster than the global CAGR of 5 per cent in 2004-06.

IE Singapore, the government's trade promotion arm, along with the E&W Industry Development Council and the Economic Development Board, commissioned the survey which was done by consultancy firm Deloitte Singapore.

The fortunes of the E&W industry lie increasingly abroad - two-thirds of its revenues, or $1.5 billion, came from outside Singapore in 2006, up from 59 per cent in 2004, according to the survey covering about 55 companies.

'The (local) industry is growing rapidly, with Singapore steadily gaining a foothold in the global market,' IE Singapore said in a press release highlighting the main findings of the survey.

The survey shows that Singapore's share in the global E&W market edged up from 0.24 per cent in 2004 to 0.36 per cent in 2006.

'Albeit a small growth, this shows that global players are appreciating the expertise and the value-added of Singapore companies,' IE Singapore said.

The key strengths of Singapore E&W players lie in their designs, research & development, and systems integration expertise, as well as a knack for customising solutions to meet clients' needs.

'There is great potential for further growth in the overseas markets, given our local industry players' expertise and experience in environment and water management,' IE Singapore said. 'With growing worldwide emphasis on sustainable development, Singapore players can offer a suite of urban solutions that encompasses urban planning, green buildings, management of water, used water and waste, and more.'

Added Sam Ong, Hyflux's group deputy chief executive: 'The world will always need good clean water at affordable prices, whether for drinking, industrial or agricultural purposes.'

Internationalisation is already the top business strategy for the local E&W companies, with 42 per cent of those surveyed citing 'expansion to overseas markets' as their key thrust in growing the company in the next three years.

China is currently the biggest market abroad for Singapore's E&W industry, accounting for 67 per cent of overseas revenues in 2006. South-east Asia contributed 20 per cent of the overseas sales.

Future hot spots for the industry are in India and the Middle East, according to the survey.

In April, Hyflux won a $632 million deal to build the largest reverse osmosis desalination plant in Algeria. Last October, Keppel secured a $1.5 billion contract in Qatar to construct the largest wastewater treatment plant in the Middle East. The year before, SembCorp acquired a 40 per cent stake in Fujairah Independent Water and Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates.

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Chikungunya fever case in Farrer Road; housewife infected

Channel NewsAsia 13 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Another chikungunya fever case has been detected in Singapore.

The latest is a 37-year-old expatriate housewife who lives in Farrer Road.

The Ministry of Health says she developed symptoms on June 6 and sought outpatient treatment on June 8.

She is currently warded in hospital.

Investigations revealed this was likely a case of local transmission of chikungunya fever as she and her family did not have any recent travel history.

To date, there have been a total of 24 cases of chikungunya fever this year.

Sixteen of them, including the latest, are local cases - of which 13 were from the Little India cluster in the early part of this year and two from the recent Teachers Housing Estate cluster.

Arising from the latest case, MOH conducted blood screening among members of her household and close friends. So far, none tested positive for chikungunya virus.

MOH has assessed that there is no need for mass screening at this moment as there is no evidence of further transmission.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) is carrying out vector control and surveillance in all areas the case has visited recently, and MOH will continue to monitor the situation closely.

Chikungunya fever, like dengue fever, is a mosquito-borne disease and the best way to prevent it is to prevent mosquito breeding.

Those infected with chikungunya fever should be isolated from further mosquitoes bites by sleeping under a mosquito net and/or use mosquito repellent during the first few days of illness to reduce the risk of further transmission of the virus. - CNA/de

Viral fever hits new victim
Sujin Thomas, Straits Times 13 Jun 08;

AN EXPATRIATE housewife living in Farrer Road has become the latest victim of chikungunya fever here, the Ministry of Health said last night.

The 37-year-old developed symptoms of the mosquito-borne disease last Friday, sought out-patient treatment two days later and is currently warded in hospital.

Investigations show she probably contracted the virus in Singapore, as she and her family did not travel overseas recently.

A statement issued by MOH last night said blood screening had been conducted among the members of her household and her close friends.

All tested negative for the virus.

MOH also said there is no need for mass screening in the area, as there is no evidence of further transmission.

The latest incident brings the number of chikungunya fever cases reported this year - the first time the virus has surfaced in Singapore - to 24.

Of these, 16 people, including the latest victim, contracted the virus here.

The biggest cluster of victims, with 13 falling ill, was found in the Little India area. The other two who contracted the disease here lived in Teachers' Housing Estate. They were taken ill just last week.

The rest contracted the virus overseas.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) was notified of the latest case on Wednesday and conducted intensive mosquito search-and-destroy operations in the Farrer Road area.

They sprayed insecticide in all the affected premises in the area.

Of the 140 premises inspected by the NEA, only one breeding area was found: a flowerpot plate that was later destroyed.

Chikungunya case at Farrer Road
Today Online 13 Jun 08;

THE chikungunya virus has cropped up in a new location.

A case of the mosquito-borne disease has been reported at Farrer Road, coming about a week after two people in Teachers’ Estate off Upper Thomson Road were found to carry the virus, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said in an update yesterday. The Teachers’ Estate cases were the first time that locally-contracted cases of chikungunya had been reported outside the Little India area this year.

In the latest case, a 37-year-old expatriate housewife developed a fever and related symptoms on June 6 and sought treatment two days later. She was later warded and remains in hospital. Investigations showed that it was likely a case of local transmission, as she and her family had not travelled out of the country recently.

The MOH conducted blood screening among members of her household and close friends; none tested positive for the virus. It added that there was hence no need for mass screening for now, given no evidence of further transmission.

The National Environment Agency is carrying out inspection and fogging operations in the areas that the Farrer Road housewife has visited recently, while the MOH will continue to monitor the situation.

A total of 24 cases of chikungunya fever have been reported so far this year. Including the Farrer Road infection, 16 of these were local cases, of which 13 were from the Little India cluster early this year.

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Mosquito-Eating Fish Thrive in Foreclosed US Pools

Tim Gaynor, PlanetArk 13 Jun 08;

PHOENIX - Authorities in Arizona are stepping up a program to put mosquito-gobbling minnows into the stagnant pools of foreclosed or abandoned homes to prevent an outbreak of West Nile virus.

Public health workers in Maricopa County, which includes the cities of the Phoenix valley, are breeding thousands of so-called mosquitofish to gobble up larvae that thrive in the green pools of abandoned homes across the county.

The tiny, silvery fish are being offered to residents and municipal authorities across the parched desert county, which has tens of thousands of swimming pools, and one of the highest foreclosure rates in the United States.

"The abandoned pools become a stagnant little swamp that breeds mosquitoes in the middle of a neighborhood," said John Townsend, Maricopa County Vector Control manager.

"It is an important public health issue to keep the mosquito population down ... and the fish are very effective at that," he added.

West Nile virus, which came to the United States from Africa in the late 1990s, is now endemic in the county. Severe cases can produce high fever, stupor, tremors and paralysis, and can prove fatal.

In the first three months of the year, 17,214 homes in Maricopa County were offered for foreclosure sales, a more than three-fold rise on the previous year, according to RealtyStore.com.

In addition, an unknown number of local homes were simply abandoned as the owners skipped out on their spiraling debts, many leaving untreated backyard pools to stagnate, local authorities say.

To meet a sharp increase in reports of green pools, Townsend said the county has begun a program to breed 40,000 mosquitofish this year using tanks at Phoenix Zoo, and is making the voracious minnows available countywide.

The fish are proving an attractive alternative to chemicals or pesticides for some local authorities, facing a sharp rise in reports of abandoned neighborhood pools they have to treat as the mortgage crisis deepens.

"Chlorine is not effective as it is burned off by the sun in a couple of days, and we would have to go back and treat it again," said Daniel Anderson, a city official in Chandler as he released a glittering shoal of the fish into one murky backyard pool of one abandoned home.

"Once these fish are in the pool, we are not concerned about mosquitoes until someone either buys the house or the pool dries up."

(Reporting by Tim Gaynor; Editing by Sandra Maler)

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Japan, Australia agree to disagree over whale hunt

Reuters 12 Jun 08;

TOKYO (Reuters) - The leaders of Japan and Australia agreed on Thursday not to let a dispute over Japan's annual whale hunts hurt bilateral ties, and pledged to strengthen their security and economic partnership.

The two countries will also work to find a solution to the whaling controversy, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd told reporters after meeting Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda.

"On whaling, Prime Minister Fukuda and I have agreed that you can have disagreements between friends -- one of the good products of us being strong democracies," Rudd said on the last day of a five-day visit.

"We've also agreed that this disagreement should not undermine in any way the strength and positive nature of our viable relationship."

Australia has been at the forefront of a global effort to force Japan to end its annual whale hunt in the Antarctic.

Earlier this year, Australia sent a fisheries and customs patrol ship to the Southern Ocean to gather photo and video evidence of Japan's whaling program for a possible legal challenge.

Canberra said the evidence could be used before tribunals including the International Court of Justice in The Hague and the International Tribunal for the Law of the Sea to stop the hunt.

Despite a global moratorium on commercial whaling, Japan, which argues that whaling is a cherished tradition, is allowed an annual "scientific" hunt. This year, the whaling fleet returned home in April after catching only 551 minke whales.

STRATEGIC TIES

In a joint statement, the two leaders "confirmed their commitment to strengthen further the comprehensive strategic, security and economic partnership between Japan and Australia".

They also stressed the importance of a stable supply of food, energy and minerals from Australia to Japan.

Japan is Australia's biggest export market. Japan's imports from Australia stood at 325 billion yen ($3.03 billion) in the year ending March 31, 2007, while Japan's exports to Australia amounted to 146 billion yen, according to Japanese data.

Fukuda supported Rudd's plan for an Asia-Pacific Community, similar to the European Union, by 2020. The plan is Rudd's first major Asian initiative since he came to power last November.

The Australian former diplomat believes creating such a community is necessary in order to jointly tackle problems such as terrorism, climate change and energy and food security.

Fukuda last month unveiled his own proposal for building closer relations within the Asia-Pacific region, and Rudd said they would cooperate to promote their ideas.

Rudd, a Mandarin-speaker who is seen as pro-Asian, told a news conference on Wednesday that he had intended no diplomatic snub last April when he visited China but not Japan on his world tour.

(Reporting by Teruaki Ueno; editing by Sophie Hardach)

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Vietnam seafood export target seen unattainable

VietnamNet 12 Jun 08;

VietNamNet Bridge – The Vietnam Association of Seafood Exporters and Producers (Vasep) has forecast the country will find it hard to achieve the year's seafood export target of US$4.25 billion.

Truong Dinh Hoe, general secretary of Vasep, told the Daily that seafood exporters and producers nationwide were facing many difficulties over the shortage of capital and raw materials.

The country obtained some US$1.5 billion in seafood export revenue in the first five months of the year, with earnings from shrimp decreasing considerably, he said. "Seafood exports this year are seen amounting to a maximum of US$4 billion."

In recent months, many shrimp farms around the country have been reduced because of diseases, especially in the central provinces and the Mekong Delta, leading to an undersupply of shrimp.

For instance, Hoe said, Soc Trang Province in the Mekong Delta has 60,000 hectares under shrimp cultivation, but in the first five months, the province used only 32,000 hectares for shrimp farming. However, some 10,000 shrimps were infected with diseases.

Meanwhile, many areas under the central provinces have been infected with diseases. That has made the shrimp export target of some US$1.5billion unattainable this year.

Last year, the country exported some 950,000 tons of seafood worth some US$3.7 billion. The growth target for this year is 13.3%.

Over the past few months, fish farmers in the Mekong Delta have fallen into an impasse, with their tra and basa catfish finding no buyers and their demand for bank loans to keep the fish alive unmet.

Tran Thien Hai, chairman of the association, said that at the moment there was some 300,000 tons of nature fish remaining unsold in the delta.

Governor of the State Bank of Viet Nam Nguyen Van Giau late last week agreed to let the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development in eight provinces in the delta lend more funds to fish processors at a monthly interest rate of 1.5% to buy mature fish.

These provinces are An Giang, Dong Thap, Can Tho, Vinh Long, Tien Giang, Hau Giang, Ben Tre and Soc Trang.

The price of fish in some provinces in the delta was some VND14,000 or VND15,000 per kg late last week, up VND1,000 from a few weeks back. The processed fish for export was also increasing from US$2.8 per kg to US$3, said Hai.

In a related development, a three-day Vietnam Fisheries International Fair 2008 (Vietfish 2008) will be opened this Thursday at HCMC International Exhibition and Convention Center, 446 Hoang Van Thu Street, HCMC's Tan Binh District.

The three-day annual event organized by Vasep will attract some 128 international and domestic enterprises to participate.

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Lions in danger in Kenya's Amboseli park

Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

Conservationists raised the alarm Thursday that lions in Kenya's Amboseli National Park face extinction within a few years unless action is taken to help them.

"The situation has reached a critical level," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president at National Geographic Society. "Unless something is done immediately, there will be no more lions in this part of Kenya, which would be a tragedy."

Fewer than 100 lions are estimated to remain in the 2,200-square-mile region at the base of Mount Kilimanjaro on the Kenya-Tanzania border, the society said. Lions are a major attraction at Amboseli, a popular visiting spot for tourists.

A major reason for the decline of the lions, researchers say, is spearing and poisoning by local Maasai, whose society depends on raising cattle.

National Geographic announced it is making an emergency grant of $150,000 to the Maasailand Preservation Trust to support a compensation fund for herdsmen whose livestock are killed by lions in and around Amboseli.

Such compensation plans have succeeded in other areas, according to the conservation group Living with Lions.

Between 2003 and 2007, a total of 63 lions were killed in properties owned by the Maasai, Kuku Group Ranch and Olgulului Group Ranch, said Laurence Frank, director of Living with Lions. "On Mbirikani Ranch, where compensation began in 2003, only four lions were killed due to predator-livestock conflict during the same period."

Frank said that in 2006 there was a sharp spike in killings in Maasailand. "Two years later, rates are not as high, but the killings continue to be bad enough that if something is not done immediately, we will see these lions go extinct locally in just a few years."

Kenya Lion Killings Spur Extinction Alarm, Innovations
Nick Wadhams, National Geographic News 12 Jun 08;

Conservationists issued an appeal today to protect lions surrounding Kenya's Amboseli National Park, saying the big cats are declining at an alarming pace and may even be extinct in the region within a few years.

At least one group estimates that fewer than a hundred lions remain in the Amboseli area, down drastically from the 1980s.

The lions are often victims of Maasai tribespeople who kill the big cats out of fear for their cattle. Land subdivisions and a population boom in the region have also harmed the lions' habitat. (Watch video.)

"When I first came here in '85, you would see lion tracks every time you went on a road … ," said Richard Bonham, who owns a tourist lodge near Amboseli and runs the Maasailand Preservation Trust conservation group.

"Then we went two years without seeing a lion. We started actively looking for them and we still couldn't find them."

The National Geographic Society—which owns National Geographic News—announced today it will provide a U.S. $150,000 emergency grant to Bonham's preservation trust to fund a program that compensates Maasai for livestock lost to lion attacks.

"The situation has reached a critical level," Terry Garcia, executive vice president of Mission Programs at National Geographic, said in a statement.

"Unless something is done immediately, there will be no more lions in this part of Kenya, which would be a tragedy."

Deep Bitterness

The Amboseli experience has been echoed across Africa, where lions are being killed at an unsustainable rate, experts say.

Lions once numbered 500,000, which at the time made them one of the most populous mammals on the planet. Now they're barely hanging on, with estimates ranging between 16,000 and 100,000 in the wild.

The compensation programs are aimed at changing the attitudes of the traditionally nomadic, cattle-herding Maasai toward lions.

In most of Kenya the Maasai make little money from the tourists who come to see lions. In some cases, the tourist trade has instilled deep bitterness.

"They are only interested in seeing wildlife roam around," said Yusuf Ole Petenya, secretary of the Shompole Community Trust outside the Masai Mara National Reserve west of Amboseli.

"They don't care whether some poor guy in the village is killed or his cow is eaten by a lion."

Following an age-old tradition, some young Maasai warriors still kill the lions as part of a manhood rite, experts say, though poisoning appears to be more common today.

Conservationists such as Bonham believe that the Maasai will only stop killing lions when they feel they can profit from the animals.

In Kenya, as in much of Africa, lions are owned by the government, and the government rarely compensates people for attacks by lions.

Kenyan law requires that pastoralists be paid for losses inflicted by lions, but it is rare for the government to deliver on this promise.

Instead, conservationists, many of whom operate tourist lodges, have taken up the responsibility for compensation themselves, setting up a series of trusts.

Craig Packer is a University of Minnesota ecology professor who specializes in lions.

"The Maasai are more self-conscious of poverty than they used to be. So there's a sense that, Well these lions belong to the government; the government is ripping us off," he said.

"The government never protects people adequately against dangerous animals, but [the people are being] told not to harm the animals. … They feel the government thinks the animal is more important."

No Effect?

Compensation programs, however, have their critics.

Laurence Frank directs the group Living With Lions, which does research around Amboseli. Frank has also received funding from the National Geographic Society.

For one, there's no guarantee that the funds will be there forever, Frank said.

And in some cases, compensation has only further bred resentment—and resulted in the killings of more lions—because it is offered in some places and not others, he said.

Some scientists say that compensation also encourages bad animal husbandry, he added.

For instance, rather than building sturdy fences to keep their animals safe at night, pastoralists know if they leave an old cow out, they'll get compensation if it is killed by a predator.

"The guys who run compensation are convinced it's the only answer," Frank said.

"Unless we can extend it to a very wide scale and really slow people down in their lion killing, it's not going to have much effect," he said.

"If someone wants to draw attention to their grievance, they're going to kill wildlife. If someone wants compensation where there isn't compensation, they will kill wildlife."

Early Success

So far lion compensation in general has fared poorly in part because it may be offered around one area—usually a small region where there is an upscale tourist lodge that brings in revenue, University of Minnesota's Packer said.

That does little good for the lions, whose range extends over hundreds of miles, he said.

But at Amboseli, Frank and Maasailand Preservation Trust's Bonham agree that early signs suggest compensation is working.

Bonham and colleagues have now managed to install compensation programs on more than 600,000 acres (243,000 hectares) of the region.

In the past two years, of 40 lions killed in the region, only 3 were on Mbirikani and Kuku ranches, which are covered by the programs.

(Related: "Lions Making a Comeback on Kenya Ranches" [April 10, 2007].)

To Luca Belpietro, who runs a lodge on Kuku ranch, the drop in killings is proof of compensation's success.

He says lion populations have grown on Kuku, from 15 about a year and a half ago to 29.

"Does the compensation scheme work? Absolutely yes, I have no doubts about it," Belpietro said.

Empowering Maasai

Any effort to protect the lions also has to take into account the Maasai's desire to modernize.

Many of the indigenous people want their children to be educated. They also want good schools and hospitals, television sets, DVD players, mobile phones, and cars.

Under Bonham, the ranch at Mbirkani has begun a program called Lion Guardians, in which young Maasai men who would have killed lions are paid to track the predators by radio collar.

These lion guardians can warn cattle herders away from areas where lions are roaming.

Most of all, the guardians know that if a lion dies, there will be nothing for them to track—and hence no job.

Most encouraging, Bonham said, is a nearby ranch called Ogulului, which has recently launched a compensation scheme similar to Bonham's.

The program there was established by the Maasai themselves.

"I don't see how anybody can begin to argue against [compensation], because if you stop the killing the lions are going to come back. I think we have proven that we can stop the killing," Bonham said.

"Lions are just a small part of it. What I care about is keeping the ecosystem intact and keeping wildlife on the land."

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Madagascar to sell carbon credits to protect forest

Ed Harris, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

PORT LOUIS (Reuters) - Madagascar will sell nine million tons of carbon offsets in a voluntary scheme to help protect one of its biggest and most pristine forests, a conservation group said on Thursday.

Environmental campaigners are placing huge hope in offset schemes that let polluters pay for cuts elsewhere in emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for climate change.

Experts say safeguarding forests like Madagascar's will be key to tackling warming, since deforestation in the tropics produces about 20 percent of all carbon dioxide emissions.

A U.N. report this week warned that Africa is suffering deforestation at twice the world's average rate.

Ray Victurine, finance program director for the non-profit Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), told Reuters by telephone that the offsets were expected to sell over 30 years, with prices now at an average of between $4 and $10 per ton.

"It is linked to the voluntary carbon market," he said.

Madagascar's forests may be small in comparison with those in Indonesia or Brazil. But they contain rich biodiversity, from chameleons to lemurs and enormous baobab trees.

WCS said proceeds from the sale would be used to protect the 400,000-hectare Makira Forest, which is home to 22 species of lemur, hundreds of varieties of birds and thousands of plants.

About half of Madagascar's unique biodiversity was found in Makira, the group said.

Half the expected revenue from the sales would go directly to communities living in the forest, WCS said, while a quarter would go to forest conservation and 15 percent to the government's conservation and climate change projects.

The remainder would go on monitoring and overheads.

Conservationists say deforestation in Madagascar has slowed after the authorities there decided to set aside some 6 million hectares as nature reserves.

But farming and charcoal use still lead to the loss of 100,000 hectares of forest a year on the huge island, where more than three quarters of the almost 20 million population live on less than $2 per day.

(Editing by Daniel Wallis and Mariam Karouny)

Madagascar signs conservation deal with France: WWF
Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

Madagascar and France on Wednesday signed an agreement allocating 20 million dollars (13 million euros) to preserve Madagascar's rich biodiversity, the World Wildlife Fund said.

The cash will be managed by a WWF fund called Foundation for Protected Areas and Biodiversity (FPAB), Conservation International and the Madagascan government to support the country's distinct ecosystems and wildlife.

"This initiative is an excellent example of innovative financing for sustainable development," Nanie Ratsifandrihamanana, the WWF's acting regional representative in Madagascar, said in a statement.

The 20 million dollars were owed by Madagascar to France as foreign debt, but France agreed to let the island channel this money to its own conservation instead of paying it back.

"Increasing funding to the endowment of the (FPAB) means support for the protected areas' recurrent costs will be available long term. Stable and predictable revenues are critical to win the battle against deforestation and biodiversity loss in Madagascar."

The cash has helped FPAB's endowment reach its 50-million-dollar target.

Nearly 98 percent of Madagascar's land mammals, 92 percent of its reptiles, and 80 percent of its plants are found nowhere else on earth, the WWF statement added.

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Head for the Hills! Creatures Run from Global Warming

LiveScience.com, Yahoo News 12 Jun 08;

Global warming is forcing 30 species of reptiles and amphibians to move uphill as habitats shift upward, but they may soon run out of room to run.

The shift could cause at least two toad species and one species of gecko in Madagascar to go extinct by the end of this century, a biologist says.

Uphill movement is a predicted response to increased temperatures, researcher Christopher Raxworthy of the American Museum of Natural History says. Earlier studies in Costa Rica have provided evidence of how tropical animals respond to climate change.

The new research - based on surveys of Madagascar's amphibians and reptiles conducted in 1993 and 2003 and announced this week - extends that work, expanding the number and diversity of species that the trend affects, making a stronger link with meteorological changes, dealing with relatively large shifts in elevation, and assessing the extinction vulnerability for tropical communities in the mountains.

Nowhere to run

The animals that could go extinct are two species of narrow-mouth toads (Plethodontohyla tsarartananensis and Plethodontohyla sp. Z) and one species of gecko (Phelsuma l. punctulata) found in Madagascar's mountainous north, Raxworthy said.

Two of these species were not found again during the most recent 2003 survey. (And for the 30 species that were re-sampled between 1993 and 2003, the majority are already moving upslope to compensate for habitat loss at lower and warmer altitudes.) Extinction is expected to occur between 2050 and 2100 if current trends persist, because there will eventually be no higher ground, predict Raxworthy and his colleagues from the Universite d'Antananarivo in Madagascar, National Chung-Hsing University in Taiwan, University of Michigan and University of Oxford.

The prediction is based on a conservative scenario in which warming remains below 2 degrees C (3 degrees F). Warming above 2 degrees C is considered to be dangerous in terms of impacts on biodiversity.

"Obviously, more warming will put more species at risk," Raxworthy told LiveScience.

The results are detailed in a recent online issue of the journal Global Change Biology.

"Two things together - highly localized distribution close to the very highest summits, and the magnitude of these upslope shifts in response to ongoing warming - make a poisonous cocktail for extinction," Raxworthy said.

Almost-by-chance discovery

Raxworthy discovered the uphill migration almost by chance while in the field. On repeated surveys of northern Madagascar's mountains, the Tsaratanana Massif, he noticed that some species were missing from camps where they'd been previously observed.

Moreover, some of these "missing" species popped up at the next higher elevation surveyed.

"I noted this in the field as strange, but when I later sat down and looked at the data, the trend persisted," Raxworthy said. He culled elevation records and was able to compare surveys of animals over a 10-year period.

The results were dramatic. Among 30 species of geckos, skinks, chameleons and frogs, an average shift uphill of 62 to 167 feet (19 to 51 meters) was observed over the decade. When these results were compared with meteorological records and climate change simulations, the movement of animals could be linked to temperature increases of 0.18°F to 0.67°F (0.1°C to 0.37°C) over the same decade, which corresponds to an expected upslope movement of 59 to 243 feet (17 to 74 meters).

The results are strong because of the diversity of species included in the analyses, Raxworthy said.

The surveyed animals come from five different families of amphibians and reptiles - narrow-mouthed toads, mantelline frogs, chameleons, geckos and skinks (a large, diverse group of lizards).

"When you see a general trend across all these groups of organisms, it is likely to be related to a broad explanation like general temperature warming, not something more subtle such as seasonal variation," Raxworthy said.

Planning ahead

The direct link between observed movement up mountains, possible extinction and climate change has consequences for Madagascar's network of national parks.

The government of Madagascar currently plans to set aside 10 percent of its landmass for conservation purposes, and earlier research this year by Raxworthy and colleagues used the distribution of 2,300 species of animals to map the areas of this island nation that provide adequate habitat for all species.

"The Malagasy government is creating important new reserves and protecting forests. Sadly, however, with a phenomenon like global warming, species will move upslope, and so eventually may still lose all their habitat and go extinct," Raxworthy said. "This conservation problem thus requires a global solution."

The research was supported by the National Science Foundation.

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The ebb and flow of tidal power

Mark Kinver, BBC News 12 Jun 08;

In January, the UK government and Welsh Assembly launched a two-year feasibility study into the possibility of harnessing tidal energy in the Severn estuary in order to generate electricity.

It has the second largest tidal range in the world, which could be used to meet up to 5% of the UK's electricity needs.

Two forms of technology are being assessed by the study: tidal barrages and tidal lagoons.

The concepts are not new and there have been plans to tap into the river's resource since the middle of the 19th Century.

The big tidal range also makes the area an internationally important habitat for migrating birds.

Environmentalists say that a 16km (10 mile) barrage stretching from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare would destroy vital feeding sites.

The feasibility study, which is expected to conclude early in 2010, is tasked with identifying a "single preferred tidal range project" from a number of options proposed.

TIDAL ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES

There are two different types of systems that use tidal energy to generate electricity: tidal stream and tidal range.

Tidal stream systems utilise the energy in fast-flowing current to turn the blades of free-standing turbines, in a similar way that the wind turns turbines on land.

This technology is gaining favour because it has lower capital costs and is deemed to have a lower environmental impact than tidal range systems.

Tidal range technology, such as barrages and lagoons, exploits the potential energy in the height difference between high and low tides (known as the tidal range).

It works by impounding a large volume of water at high tide, which is then released at low tide through a bank of turbines.Because the tidal range of up to 14m (46ft) in the Severn estuary is the second largest in the world, technologies that can exploit the energy of the twice-daily tide, such as barrages and lagoons, are seen as the preferred option.

Also, engineers say that the relatively shallow waters within the estuary make it unsuitable for tidal stream devices, which need to be placed within depths of about 30m (100ft) or more in order to operate most effectively.

SEVERN BARRAGE PROPOSALS

Although there are a number of proposals for tidal barrages stretching across the Bristol Channel, the feasibility study is likely to concentrate on two options.

The first is the widely reported scheme that plans to build a 16.1km (10 mile) barrage from just south of Cardiff across to the Somerset coast, near Weston-Super-Mare.
The other is the "Shoots" proposal, a much smaller project that would see a 4.1km (2.5 mile) barrage stretch across the Severn at roughly the same point at the current two road crossings.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), the government's independent advisers, published a report in October 2007 that examined the potential of tidal power around the UK's coastline.

In it, The SDC compared the two proposals:
(Source: Sustainable Development Commission)

The Commission's report estimated that the large Cardiff-Weston plan would cost in the region of £15bn to construct, while the smaller Shoots scheme would require £1.5bn.

If given the green light, the barrage is expected to take about 12 years to build.

Although the construction of a barrage would be a complex undertaking, engineers say the basic concept is well understood and the technology is also commercially available.

The La Rance barrage in northern France, which has been generating electricity since the 1960s, is often used as an example of how tidal power can be successfully utilised.

SEVERN LAGOON PROPOSALS

Tidal lagoons operate in a similar way to barrages in that they exploit the difference in tidal height to generate electricity.

However, the structures do not fully obstruct the estuary; they are either free standing offshore or use the shoreline to form part of the lagoon's edge.
The schemes are generally considered to be technically feasible from an engineering point of view, but there are currently no examples of an operating lagoon in the world.

Although the feasibility study will consider possible locations for the lagoons, the most well-known proposal in the past was the "Russell lagoon" concept, which was a series of three enclosures built against the banks of the Severn.

The SDC estimated that the Russell scheme would have been capable of generating about 6.5 gigawatt hours of electricity each year.

Because there are no operational lagoons, there is a degree of uncertainty over how much electricity they can produce.

For the same reason, experts say that it is also difficult to estimate how much it would cost to construct a tidal energy lagoon.

ENVIRONMENTAL CONCERNS

The Severn estuary is subject to a series of national and international designations that are aimed at protecting the area's unique habitat.

In its 2003 Energy White Paper, the UK government even decided that the construction of a tidal barrage was not a good idea because the project raised "strong environmental concerns".

However, it did add that officials would continue to explore opportunities.

The key concern relates to the loss of inter-tidal feeding areas for water birds.

Groups such as the RSPB and WWF say that if the Cardiff-Weston project went ahead, much of this vital feeding area that currently supports tens of thousands of migrating and wintering birds would be permanently submerged.

Recognising this concern, the SDC recommended that any project given the green light would have to be in "full compliance" with EU habitat and wildlife directives.

The Commission also stated that it was vital compensatory habitat was provided "on an unprecedented scale" in order to replace the lost feeding sites.

The SDC added that it was essential for the scheme to be publicly funded and publicly owned in order to ensure compliance to the environmental legislation.

A report commissioned by a number of organisations, including the RSPB and WWF, said that it would be a waste of public money because other renewable energy sources, such as wind, would be more efficient and effective.

Friends of the Earth Wales compiled a report backing the use of tidal lagoons in the area.

Although a scheme such as the Russell lagoons would cover about 60% of area affected by the Cardiff-Weston proposal, the environmental group argued that it would leave much of the inter-tidal mudflats and salt marshes unaffected.

However, the SDC report concluded that it did not "consider that a large-scale tidal lagoon development in the Severn estuary would offer any environmental or economic advantage over a tidal barrage".

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UK Severn barrage will be costly ecological disaster, say environment groups

John Vidal, The Guardian 12 Jun 08;

Britain's largest environment groups have strongly rejected plans for a massive £15bn tidal barrage across the Severn that would provide about 5% of the UK's annual electricity demand and help the government meet climate-change targets.

In the first shots of what is expected to become one of the fiercest environmental battles in years, the groups, which include the National Trust, the RSPB and WWF, but not Greenpeace, have challenged the government to find cheaper and less destructive ways of generating renewable electricity from the estuary.

Britain will need to generate nearly 40% of its electricity from renewable resources by 2020 to meet its EU targets, and a 10-mile long tidal barrage with 200 turbines between Cardiff and Weston-super-Mare is widely seen in government as one of the most attractive options. Plans for a barrage have been proposed for more than 100 years.

But the coalition of 10 groups, with a membership of more than 5 million people, says a barrage would be economically dubious and ecologically disastrous. It would, the coalition says, destroy nearly 86,486 acres (35,000 ha) of highly protected wetlands across the estuary. More power could be generated more cheaply by using other green technologies, the group says.

Their report, commissioned from the economics consultancy Frontier Economics, follows a study last year by the government's environmental advisers, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).

The commission found in favour of a barrage on condition that it be state funded and that the lost wetlands be compensated for elsewhere. The government is now doing its own feasibility studies.

The report challenges the idea that tidal energy from the Severn would be best for Britain. "The cycle of the tides in the Severn means that a barrage would not necessarily provide electricity at peak times."

It also suggests 5m tonnes of CO2 will be emitted during construction and another 5m tonnes emitted during transport of the materials - undermining claims that the barrage would help reduce emissions.

The group says that the real cost could be much higher than the widely quoted £15bn. "This does not take into account costs of land acquisition in Cardiff and Weston or the creation of new wildlife habitats to compensate for the lost land."

The coalition also rejects the SDC condition that the barrage be built and run by the state as it would be of such national importance. This, says the report's author, Matthew Bell, would not be permitted under Treasury rules, and would not, anyway, warrant special government subsidies or other forms of public investment. Bell said: "It is hard to think of reasons for the public sector to build or operate a barrage which would not be equally applicable to many other projects and assets that sit in the private sector. Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy generation there is."

Graham Wynne, chief executive of the RSPB, said: "There are good reasons for trying to harness the energy potential of the Severn estuary. But the estuary is truly exceptional for its ecological value. The [SDC] has already confirmed that a barrage would fundamentally change the nature of the estuary. Frontier's report shows that this exorbitantly expensive and massively damaging proposal cannot be justified on economic grounds - there are simply too many cheaper options for clean energy generation."

Tony Burton, strategy director at the National Trust, said: "The Severn estuary is a unique and valuable asset, rich in wildlife and striking landscapes. While we support strong action to tackle climate change, we need to do this in a cost-effective way and respect the importance of our natural environment. This study demonstrates that the government should consider other ways of meeting our renewable targets which make better use of public money and are at less cost to the environment."

The land that would be submerged hosts about 68,000 birds in winter, including huge flocks of dunlins and shelducks, together with Bewick's swans, curlews, pintails, wigeons and redshanks. Breeding birds feeding on the estuary in summer include curlews, shelducks and oystercatchers. At least 30,000 salmon and tens of thousands of shads, lampreys and sea trout use the estuary to reach spawning grounds in the Usk and Wye rivers. Eels swim back down these rivers to reach spawning grounds at sea and millions of elvers return in the spring.

Severn barrage cost 'cannot be justified'
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 12 Jun 08;

The huge cost of building a controversial barrage across the Severn Estuary to produce electricity cannot be justified, a new economic study concludes.

It would be wrong to use £15bn of taxpayers' money to build the barrier when as much power could be produced more cheaply from other renewable sources.

Conservation groups have warned construction of the proposed 10-mile barrage from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare would cause an environmental disaster at an internationally important wetlands site which supports a wide variety of wildlife.

But supporters, including the government's advisory group, the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), say it could supply almost five per cent of the UK's total energy needs and would be a big step in meeting the target of 20 per cent of all energy from renewable sources by 2020.

Ten UK environment groups commissioned Frontier Economics, Europe's leading economic consultancy, to look at the economics of building the barrage and whether it would deliver value for money.

Their study concluded that it would be wrong to use public funds to build the barrage and that under current Treasury rules it would not qualify for special Government subsidies or any other form of public investment.

And a barrage harnessing the tidal power of the Severn estuary would be a much more expensive way of generating power than developing other renewable technologies such as wind and biomass.

There were enough resources in wind alone to meet the Government's target of obtaining 20 per cent of electricity from renewables by 2020 and big offshore wind farms could generate the same amount of energy at around half the annual cost of a barrage.

While wind alone could not deliver on the overall target of 20 per cent of all energy from renewables it could be met from using a range of sustainable sources.

The Frontier analysis will now feed into the Government's multi-million pound study on the feasibility of building a barrage.

The report's author, Matthew Bell, said: "It is hard to think of reasons for the public sector to build or operate a barrage which would not be equally applicable to many other projects and assets that sit in the private sector.

"Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy generation there is."

A smaller alternative scheme is for a "shoots" barrage further upriver which would cost around £1.5 billion but it would have a capacity of 1.05GW compared to 8.6GW from the larger scheme equivalent to 4.4 per cent of the UK's total electricity needs.

The SDC study released last year said any such barrage should be publicly built and owned to ensure it was sustainable and was of public benefit.

Graham Wynne, Chief Executive of the RSPB, one of the groups which commissioned the study, said: "There are good reasons for trying to harness the energy potential of the Severn estuary. But the estuary is truly exceptional for its ecological value.

The SDC has already confirmed that a barrage would fundamentally change the nature of the Severn Estuary. Frontier's report shows that this exorbitantly expensive and massively damaging proposal cannot be justified on economic grounds - there are simply too many cheaper options for clean energy generation."

Dr Stephen Marsh-Smith, Chief Executive of the Wye and Usk Foundation, said: "Construction of this barrage would wipe out all the migratory fish including salmon and shad using the Severn estuary.

"It will be a disaster if this barrage is chosen to generate electricity when we know it isn't the best way of doing so. There are so many other options that would spare what is a unique pair of rivers and the huge rural economies attached to them."

Concern over tidal barrage cost
BBC News 12 Jun 08;

The power generated by the proposed Severn Barrage could be produced more cheaply using other green technologies, a report says.

The £15bn dam across the Severn estuary from Cardiff to Weston-Super-Mare in Somerset could supply 5% of the UK's electricity within 14 years.

But an independent report commissioned by 10 environmental groups said it was not a good use of taxpayers' money.

Campaigners have also spelt out the damage to wildlife it could cause.

A feasibility study by the Welsh Assembly Government and the UK Government into the barrage, which could stretch from Lavernock Point, near Cardiff, to Brean Down, near Weston-Super-Mare, was announced in January.

It would harness the tidal power of the estuary using a hydro-electric dam, but filled by the incoming tide rather than by water flowing downstream.

The government previously said the scale of the 10-mile barrage and the impact it could have on securing energy supplies and tackling climate change was "breathtaking".

But a report published by Frontier Economics, an economic consultancy, said the barrage would be an expensive option compared to other renewable energy and the government's renewable energy target could probably be met using cheaper green technologies.

It said: "Considerable new evidence would be needed to make a large barrage in the Severn estuary an attractive option."

The research comes after a report in October by the Sustainable Development Commission which said if the barrage was built, it should be state-funded and state-run.

But Frontier said under existing Treasury rules this would mean it would not be eligible for special government subsidies or public investment.

Matthew Bell, author of the report, said: "Not only is the private sector more than able to finance a scheme of this scale but, even using the most conservative estimates of costs, the barrage is one of the most expensive options for clean energy there is."

It is not just the economic cost that environmentalists are concerned about.

They have also warned of the "ecological destruction" a barrage could bring.

Campaigners say some 14,000 hectares of saltmarsh and mudflats would be lost through the building of a large barrage, resulting in the loss of migratory birds that nest there.

It would also hit the fish populations of the Severn, Wye and Usk rivers, which all flow into the estuary above the point where the dam would be built.

Mark Lloyd, director of the Anglers' Conservation Association, said salmon in particular would be lost.

"The salmon population of the Wye and Usk is very important in maintaining a species but also economically, the Wye and Usk rely really heavily on salmon fishing for income," he said.

He added migratory fish would be playing "Russian roulette" with the barrage's turbines at every tide.

The Frontier Economics report was commissioned by the Anglers' Conservation Association, RSPB, Salmon & Trout Association, The National Trust, The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust, The Wildlife Trusts, United Usk Fisherman's Association, WWF-UK, Wye Salmon Fishery Owners Group, Wye and Usk Foundation.

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Water squabbles irrigate tensions in Central Asia

Maria Golovnina, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

VAKHDAT, Tajikistan (Reuters) - Under a scorching sun, an exhausted Tajik woman looks at a drying trickle of irrigation water running across her cotton field.

"Water is all we have," said Gulbakhor, a 55-year-old mother of nine, pointing at swathes of parched land stretching towards the austere mountains of central Tajikistan. She did not want to give her last name.

"But all the ponds and rivers are dry. We need to water our crop but we don't have enough even for ourselves."

Gulbakhor's despair, shared by millions of Tajiks in this tiny ex-Soviet nation north of Afghanistan, reflects a growing sense of alarm throughout Central Asia where stability depends on the region's scarcest and most precious commodity: water.

From tiny irrigation canals such as Gulbakhor's to the powerful Soviet-era hydroelectric plants, water is the source of misery and celebration in a poor region already overflowing with political and ethnic tension.

Central Asia is one of the world's driest places where, thanks to 70 years of Soviet planning, thirsty crops such as cotton and grain remain the main livelihood for most of the 58 million people.

Disputes over cross-border water use have simmered for years in this sprawling mass of land wedged between Iran, Russia and China. Afghanistan, linked to Central Asia by the Amu Daria river, is adding to the tension by claiming its own share of the water.

Water shortages are causing concern the world over, because of rising demand, climate change and swelling populations.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon has said water scarcity is a "potent fuel for wars and conflict".

Analysts say this year's severe weather fluctuations in Central Asia -- from a record cold winter to devastating spring floods and now drought -- are causing extra friction.

"Water is very political. It's very sensitive. It can be a pretext for disputes or conflicts," said Christophe Bosch, a Central Asia water expert at the World Bank. "It is one of the major irritants between countries in Central Asia."

WASTE

In the Tajik village of Sangtuda, a scattering of huts in a dusty, sun-puckered valley near the border with Afghanistan, villagers showed their only source of water: a rusty pipe pumping muddy water from a Soviet-era reservoir.

"We are lucky. There are villages around with no water at all," said Khikoyat Shamsiddinova, an elderly farmer who said she had started planting drought-tolerant peas and watermelons -- a small boost to her household income.

Water scarcity is particularly painful for Tajikistan since its glaciers and rivers contain some of the world's biggest untapped water resources. A Soviet-era legacy of waste and decaying pipe networks are hampering sustainable distribution.

The World Bank, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development and a host of European non-governmental organizations are helping Tajikistan build new canals and wells and repair the old ones.

Efficient water management requires advanced engineering expertise in water saving and resource planning in a region where most water simply vanishes into the ground if the irrigation timing is incorrect, experts say.

"If you look at quantity, yes, you have a lot of it, but it is not a question of quantity but quality and timing," said the World Bank's Bosch. "That's the problem in Central Asia."

The problems are having an effect far beyond farming. Lacking oil and gas reserves like some of its neighbors, Tajikistan depends on its sole Soviet-era hydroelectric plant, Nurek, to generate power.

Its crumbling power grid -- ruined by civil war in the 1990s -- finally gave out last winter, throwing hospitals, schools and millions of people into the dark and cold for weeks.

Makhmadnabi, a villager with a tired, weather-beaten faced, said people were becoming impatient. "The government must do something about it. People are gloomy," he said.

With a foreign debt worth 40 percent of the economy and state coffers empty, Tajikistan is unable to finance urgent sector reform, adding to discontent and potential unrest in an otherwise tightly run country where dissent is not tolerated.

"There is definitely a build-up of dissatisfaction," said one Western diplomat who asked not be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue. "People will have to go through another winter of dark and cold and then they will realize that something's wrong."

WORRYING TREND

There have been no outward signs of anger, but the trend is a worry for Western powers watching the strategically placed country for signs of trouble.

In April, parliament urged Tajiks to give up half their wages in May and June to help finish construction of the $3 billion Rogun hydroelectric plant -- a project seen as key to solving energy shortages but which has been frozen since the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991.

"I urge all the patriots and sons of our land to take active part in constructing the first phase of the plant and add your contribution to the country's energy independence," Tajik President Imomali Rakhmon was quoted as saying in local media on May 31.

In Soviet days, water management was unified under Moscow's control, which linked Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, whose rivers and glaciers contain more than 90 percent of Central Asian water, with the arid plains of Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan.

The system fell apart when Soviet rule collapsed. With national rivalries on the rise, the new states have been unable to agree on how to share their water effectively.

Uzbekistan, Central Asia's most populous nation and a big gas producer, is angry that poor Tajikistan has the leverage to influence water levels in its cotton plains -- a powerful political tool.

Farmers in Kazakhstan, for their part, accuse Uzbekistan of dumping fertiliser in its rivers. Tajik officials complain that foreign investment in its hydroelectric sector has stalled because of fears of conflict with Uzbekistan.

A Chinese company pulled out of a project to build a power station on a Tajik river last year because of what Tajik industry sources said was China's reluctance to get involved in Central Asian bickering.

Observers agree that only cooperation between the five "stans" of Central Asia can provide sustainable water use.

"Countries should be able to do this as independent entities," said another Western diplomat, who also preferred not to be identified. "They're not children. They are grown-up members of the international community."

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U.S. cities promote bicycling as gas prices soar

Jon Hurdle, Reuters 12 Jun 08;

PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - U.S. cities that have long promoted bicycle use by commuters are now seeing a steady rise in the popularity of pedal power as gasoline prices soar.

Campaigns originally designed to cut down on traffic and pollution are now paying off for people looking for an option to driving with national gas prices averaging a record $4 per gallon.

People in cities such as Chicago, Washington and Portland, Oregon, can take advantage of bicycle lanes, bike-friendly transit systems and bike-parking locations built in recent years.

"Twelve years ago, I would bike down to City Hall and often it was a lonely ride," said Ben Gomberg, Chicago's bicycle program coordinator. "Today, there are often 17 or 18 riders stopped at the intersections."

Unlike Europeans, Americans use bikes for transport sparingly, even though 40 percent of personal trips in the United States are two miles or less, according to bicycle advocates.

In a country famous for its love of cars and driving, less than 1 percent of personal trips are by bike compared with up to 30 percent in some parts of Europe, campaigners say.

But rates of bike use in some U.S. cities are significantly higher thanks to recognition by urban planners of the environmental, economic and health benefits.

In Portland, widely regarded as America's most bike-friendly city, 5.4 percent of people said in a 2006 survey that the bicycle was their primary means of getting to work.

"In the last three years, we reached another acceleration point," said Scott Bricker, executive director of the Bicycle Transportation Alliance, an advocacy group. "Ridership is increasing exponentially."

GETTING INTO GEAR

The relative popularity of bicycling in Portland may be linked to bike lanes, locking facilities and programs that encourage public bicycling and safety education for children.

The city has 171 miles of bike lanes along its 2,568 miles of roadways and plans to increase that to 434 miles. Portland has 71 miles of bike trails and a third of its arterial roads have bike lanes or paved shoulders.

Portland's network includes 114 miles of "bicycle boulevards" -- quiet streets where bikes have priority over cars and where traffic speed is restricted.

Those boulevards may be a better way of encouraging riding than traditional bike lanes where riders are still close to speeding cars, Bricker said.

In Chicago, pro-bike policies have resulted in 115 miles

of bike lanes, more than 11,000 bike racks and 50 miles of dedicated bike paths along Lake Michigan, Gomberg said.

Around 1.5 percent of personal trips in Chicago are made by bike and the city aims to boost that to 5 percent by 2015.

In Washington, the proportion of people biking to work rose from 1.2 percent in 2000 to an estimated 2 percent in 2006, said Jim Sebastian, who heads the U.S. capital's bicycle and pedestrian program.

Bike lanes in Washington now stretch to 33 miles -- 11 times longer than in 2001 -- and more than half of the city's subway stops now have bike racks.

Later this summer, Washington plans to launch the first U.S. bike-sharing program in which users will pay $40 a year for a swipe card enabling them to pick up a bike from racks around the city and then return them to any other rack.

(Editing by Daniel Trotta and John O'Callaghan)

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High oil price a good way to reduce global warming

Anthony Rowley, Business Times 13 Jun 08;

COMING from a former diplomat, the call last weekend by Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd to G-8 energy ministers meeting in Japan to 'hold a blow-torch' to Opec and force the cartel to increase production could not have been less diplomatic, if not to say less egregious. A return to cheaper oil might boost economic growth in the short term but it would also set our already sick planet on a course towards destruction.

A high oil price is the most effective form of 'carbon tax' and the only one likely to bring about what Japanese Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda described this week as a needed 'carbon revolution'. It is the ultimate market solution and, as advocates of economic liberalism are so fond of telling us, markets operate more efficiently than governments in allocating resources.

Consider what is happening already as a result of the de-facto tax imposed on energy consumption by the sharp rise in oil prices. Airlines are being forced to cut flight schedules, gas-guzzling SUVs are being abandoned in favour of smaller vehicles and, most importantly, the search for non-carbon or minimum carbon forms of power generation and transport has moved into high gear.

Painful and costly though such a transition may be in the short to medium term, it is surely better that it be enforced through the price mechanism than through more complex forms of bureaucratically administered carbon taxes, through carbon trading mechanisms by which industrial firms can 'buy' the right to emit carbon in return for offsetting actions elsewhere, or through 'cap and trade systems' etc.

Thanks to the efforts of environmental champions from Al Gore downwards, a great many people now take the problem of global warming very seriously. Many, indeed, are already suffering from its effects. But they are confused about how to respond to it, and many fail to understand the complexities of proposed official solutions.

Take, for example, the fat (640-page) report issued last week by the International Energy Agency (IEA) in Paris. Bursting though this was with data on global warming, energy conservation, alternative energy sources and so on, it was hardly the kind of document that will have popular appeal. It is based largely on the premise that a high 'price' must be put on carbon, so that the cost of emitting carbon dioxide or CO2 becomes prohibitive.

But pricing carbon via specially created markets is a complex exercise and one which, if the recent past is any guide, could take a long time - too long - to be accepted, let alone implemented.

For the moment, the market is pricing carbon through the cost of oil, and Mr Rudd's simplistic suggestions could only damage this process, if indeed they had any affect at all. As the G-8 energy ministers acknowledged, a host of factors including the lack of investment in new refinery capacity is limiting the supply of oil.

Other factors such as commodity speculation and the weak American dollar are contributing to the high cost of oil but none of these could have caused the dramatic surge in prices that we have seen over the past year had not the demand side been conducive to this rise. It is not so much extraordinary that the price of oil should have catapulted to current levels as that this was not foreseen, in the light of industrial revolutions in the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) countries and in other parts of the developing world.

The market is intermediating between the new balance of supply and demand via the price mechanism and it is no more possible to mask this effect for any length of time than it was possible for governments in Asia and elsewhere to try to shield their populations from market reality by subsidising the cost of energy in various ways. The high oil prices focus our minds on the need to conserve energy and to find alternative sources in a way that no end of official reports and contrived carbon pricing mechanisms can.

Yes, the oil price represents a 'regressive' tax in the sense that high energy costs weigh most heavily on the poor in terms of cooking and heating costs. But the impact on petrol prices strikes also at the more wealthy, especially those whose consumption is profligate by virtue of using gas-guzzling vehicles, or jet-setting around the world leaving a trail of pollution in their wake.

Some may argue that the world can better afford the cost of energy conservation (US$45 trillion if CO2 emissions are to be reduced to half their current levels by the year 2050, according to the IEA) if the global economy is growing strongly, and that high oil prices prevent this. But against this, one can argue that nothing focuses the mind like the threat of execution (effective destruction of the planet) and that the greatest innovations come in time of war (against global warming).

If we seek to 'kill the messenger' (high oil prices), we will fail to see the enemy at our gates until it is too late.

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