wildsingapore news: Jun 18, 2008

Best of our wild blogs: 18 Jun 08

Compassionate Day at Acres' Wildlife Rescue Centre, 20 and 21 Jun Have a fun day outdoors AND make a difference! on Friday and Saturday.
on the wildsingapore happenings blog

Singapore Asceles
a locally endemic subspecies of stick insect from Upper Peirce, on the Tiomanese's blog

Hantu Reef Survey
great vis and lots of welcoming critters on the blue water volunteers blog

Sustainable Consumption vs Unsustainable Consumerism
on the Champions of the Environment blog

Anatomy of a nest: Common Tailorbird?
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Brown Hawk Owl in Bukit Timah
on the Mountain and Sea blog

Mushroom bloom at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
and thoughts about taking nothing out of our nature reserve on the wonderful creations blog

Tree shrews at MacRitchie
on the tidechaser blog

Top 10 New Species Named

Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 17 Jun 08;

Thousands of new plant and animal species were discovered in 2007, though only 10 were bizarre enough, lethal enough or just plain cool enough to garner spots on a new Top-10 list.

Each year, the International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE) at Arizona State University issues the Top 10 New Species list, which spotlights flora and fauna described during the previous year, so in this case 2007.

The new list includes lethal animals like a box jellyfish (Malo kingi) - named after Robert King, who apparently died after he was stung by this species - and the Central Ranges Taipan (Oxyuranus temporalis), now thought to be one of the most venomous snakes in the world.

And a dragon millipede, whose shocking-pink exterior would put a 1980s fashionista to shame, gets a spot on the list. Rather than setting trends, the arthropod uses its gaudy coloration to alert predators of its toxicity.

Some species made it onto the list due to their modern monikers, including the Michelin Man, a succulent plant from Western Australia that resembles the rotund tire guy. Also on the list: an ornate sleeper ray from the east coast of South Africa that was named after the Electrolux vacuum cleaner brand due to the animal's ability to suck up prey in the water.

While scientists discover thousands of species each year, with an estimated 16,969 species considered new to science in 2006, plenty of plants and animals are waiting to be found. Scientists estimate 10 million or so species exist on Earth, with 1.8 million species described since Carl Linnaeus developed the modern system for naming plants and animals in the 18th century.

"Most people do not realize just how incomplete our knowledge of Earth's species is or the steady rate at which taxonomists are exploring that diversity," said Quentin Wheeler, an entomologist and director of IISE.

The international committee was chaired by Janine Caira of the University of Connecticut, and included scientists from across the globe, including the United States, United Kingdom, South Africa, Spain and New Zealand.

US group seeks emergency protection for 32 species

Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press Yahoo News 16 Jun 08;

Environmentalists are seeking emergency protection for nearly three dozens rare plants, animals and insects under the Endangered Species Act, saying all are at risk due to habitat destruction and other threats.

WildEarth Guardians is asking Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service director Dale Hall to list 32 species from across the West — ranging from flowering plants to snails — to ensure they do not disappear.

In an emergency petition sent to officials on Thursday, the group contends the habitat for some of the species has been reduced to just one location.

"The species we have chosen are all at the knife's edge of extinction," the petition states. "Given the location of these species on either no or only one known site on earth, a single event — whether from drought, flood, habitat destruction, pollution, exotic species, or other factors — could literally erase them from the world."

Valerie Fellows, a spokeswoman for the Fish and Wildlife Service in Washington, D.C., said Monday she was not sure whether the agency's endangered species division had received the petition. She said the agency typically has 90 days to review petitions.

WildEarth Guardians said the species in the petition were selected from a list of 674 the group had sought standard endangered species listing for in a pair of petitions filed last summer. The group followed up with a lawsuit in March, charging that Fish and Wildlife failed to act on the initial petitions.

The emergency petition is an attempt to turn up the pressure on the agency, said John Horning, executive director of WildEarth Guardians.

Horning says the endangered species listing program has nearly ground to a halt. He pointed out that the polar bear was the first U.S. species to be listed in over two years and that all of the listings under the Bush administration have been prompted by either citizen petitions or legal action.

As a result of the lack of action over the past eight years, there's more of a need to invoke the emergency provisions of the Endangered Species Act, Horning said.

He said WildEarth Guardians is looking to the species listed in the emergency petition to help make that case.

"These species deserve immediate, emergency protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Fish and Wildlife Service has the authority to save them from vanishing forever, and we're urging them to use that authority," Horning said.

EU Cites Flagrant Abuse of Bluefin Tuna Fisheries

PlanetArk 18 Jun 08;

BRUSSELS - EU fisheries regulators on Tuesday accused France and Italy of quota-busting and misreporting catches of bluefin tuna.

They said there were widespread abuses by fishermen from several nations trawling for bluefin tuna in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean.

Last week, the European Union banned trawling for bluefin tuna, prized by sushi lovers but chronically overfished for years, for vessels flying the flags of Cyprus, France, Greece, Italy and Malta in these waters. The ban came into force on Monday. A similar ban enters into force for Spain on June 23.

In a statement, EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg rejected calls by some of the countries to suspend the ban, citing numerous "failures of implementation and control" that made it impossible for national tuna catches to be accurately monitored.

At least eight spotter planes were working with EU vessels to help them identify bluefin tuna shoals, regulators said. Using spotter planes is illegal.

But the incentive to catch bluefin tuna remains strong, particularly in June, when around 85 percent of the fish are caught. Since last year, market prices for the delicacy have tripled: in Japan a single fish can cost up to US$100,000.

Bluefin tuna are known for their huge size, power and speed, with maximum weights recorded in excess of 600 kg. But the species' stock numbers are so depleted that scientists say bluefin tuna may die out if fishing is not restricted.

"This year again, the fishery has been marred by countless failures to properly implement the rules which have been agreed at international level to manage the bluefin tuna stock sustainably," the Commission said in its statement.

The EU bans apply to vessels that use a "purse seine", a type of net that floats the top of a long wall of netting on the surface while its bottom is held weighted under the water.

"We know of eight French purse seine vessels which have spent up to 21 days fishing since the start of the season, but have so far declared no catches," the statement said.

According to official figures, half the French fleet had caught nothing, while the other half declared they had caught over 90 percent of their individual quotas, although all the vessels showed similar activity rates, it added.

Some Italian purse seine vessels had, according to official figures, overshot their quota by between 100 and 240 percent.

Commission experts say the EU's fishing capacity is so large and bluefin tuna trawling activity so concentrated in June that the EU quota can be exhausted in just two days of fishing. (Reporting by Jeremy Smith; Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Greenland whale hunt 'commercial'

Richard Black, BBC News 17 Jun 08;

Animal welfare campaigners say Greenland's whaling, held under rules permitting subsistence hunting, has become too commercial in character.

The World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA) found that a quarter of last year's catch was traded for profit through a private food company.

International Whaling Commission (IWC) rules allow hunting where there is a nutritional and cultural need.

The IWC annual meeting gets underway next week in Santiago, Chile.

WSPA campaigners are presenting their report this week to a preliminary meeting of the organisation's committee on aboriginal (or subsistence) whaling.

"Greenland has been on the slippery slope towards commercial whaling for years, and now, demonstrably, they've crossed the line," said WSPA's marine mammals manager Claire Bass.

"The IWC has heard anecdotally about these processing operations, but this is the first time it's been quantified, so we're expecting it to be explosive," she told BBC News

Vows renewed

Quotas for the five communities claiming a need for subsistence hunting were renewed at last year's IWC meeting in Anchorage, Alaska.

At the time, some delegates queried Greenland's plans to expand its hunt to include bowhead and humpback whales - two species it had not previously targeted - and noted allegations that whalemeat regularly changed hands for money.

IWC rules do not explicitly prohibit commercial trade, but they specify that permits are granted only "to satisfy aboriginal subsistence need".

Delegates eventually voted to allow the bowhead quota, but rejected the request for humpbacks. Denmark, which speaks for Greenland in the IWC, is bidding for humpbacks again this year.

Over the last 12 months, WSPA visited markets and harbours around Greenland. Investigators posed as a documentary film crew reporting on local traditions and culture.

They concluded that at least a quarter of the whalemeat landed around the coasts was traded through a single company, Arctic Green Food, with supermarkets the principal destination.

The company advertises packets of whalemeat for sale within Greenland on its website. Products include steak, mince, salted blubber, and cuts from the fins and tails of minke whales, as well as unspecified meat from fin whales.

Tonnes Berthelsen, managing director of Arctic Green Food, told BBC News his company traded meat from about 40 whales each year.

"We're selling it frozen; and if we didn't sell it like that, if people weren't able to buy it frozen, then the waste would be very high."

But whereas the IWC says that "the meat and products are to be used exclusively for local consumption", WSPA points out that because the meat is sold in supermarkets, anyone can buy and consume it, even foreign nationals, raising the question of whether there is a genuine nutritional and cultural need.

Broken record

WSPA is one of the few groups to campaign against subsistence whaling.

The majority of conservation organisations support it as providing a sustainable resource to communities that need the meat.

There was a tacit agreement among anti-whaling NGOs not to oppose the renewal of subsistence quotas at last year's IWC meeting, an agreement that WSPA did not support on animal welfare grounds.

"The record of these hunts is really bad," said Ms Bass.

"Only one in five whales dies within a minute. These are the worst whale hunts in the world on welfare grounds."

Records submitted to the IWC show that in 2006, fin whales took on average 35 minutes to die, with one taking nearly six hours. Norway's overtly commercial hunters, by contrast, kill the majority of their prey within one minute.

The IWC's various committees are coming to the end of their series of meetings in Santiago before the full organisation convenes on Monday.

Its week-long meeting is likely to be dominated by South American proposals for a whale sanctuary in the South Atlantic, and by discussions on whether pro- and anti-whaling blocs can find a path towards eventual compromise.

$6m fund to fight infectious diseases

Today Online 18 Jun 08;

A $6-million fund has been set up to support research on infectious diseases.

The fund – the result of a joint collaboration between Singapore’s Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and the British Medical Research Council – will be used to develop vital armoury in the fight against infectious diseases. They include :biological indicators of disease, development of diagnostic tests and detection devices and vaccine development.

But A*Star chairman, Mr Lim Chuan Poh (picture), said there won’t be a rush to use this grant yet.

There will first be a roundtable discussion to better understand the capabilities that are available in Singapore and the region, and also the strength that Britain can bring to the project.

“It builds and set the stage for the grant calls,” Mr Lim said.

“Once we’ve gone through this stage of allowing people enough time to follow up, we’ll proceed with the grant call, by which time the scientists from both sides will know how they can work well together.”

Last year, Singapore’s National Environment Agency signed a memorandum of understanding with Cuba’s Institute of Pedro Kouri to collaborate on dengue research. — 938LIVE

Singapore, UK set up S$6m joint research fund
Channel NewsAsia 17 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Singapore and the United Kingdom are putting in S$6 million for research into fighting infectious diseases.

Singapore's Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) and the UK's Medical Research Council will contribute an equal share of S$3 million each.

In a statement, A*STAR said the fund will be used to develop "vital armoury" to keep one step ahead of infectious diseases, which account for about 20 percent of total deaths in the world.

This will include diagnostic tests and vaccine development in the fight against diseases like malaria, dengue, SARS and the avian flu.

The fund was agreed on after a high-level roundtable that was co-hosted by A*STAR's Chairman Lim Chuan Poh and UK's Minister of State for Science and Innovation, Ian Pearson.- CNA/so

Pandemic Potential and Singapore

Clear and present danger
Straits Times 18 Jun 08;

There has been a rising number of deadly infectious diseases - Chikungunya, dengue, Sars, bird flu, HFMD - in recent times. Scientists fear an impending pandemic
Some are exotic and many are deadly - that sums up infectious diseases making the headlines today, as cases soar worldwide.

Severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and chikungunya fever were unknown to most Singaporeans until recently.

Singapore is fortunate to have been spared the ravages of avian influenza - or bird flu - but elsewhere, it has killed humans and led to mass livestock cullings.

But more than 14,500 people in Singapore have caught hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) since January this year.

And just last week, blood samples were taken from 311 people living in Teachers' Estate after an 86-year-old retiree and her maid were diagnosed the week before as victims of the mosquito-borne virus, chikungunya.

Luckily, the samples tested negative for the disease. The estate is still being monitored by the National Environment Agency.

However, it was reported three days later that an expatriate housewife living in Farrer Road has become the latest victim of chikungunya fever.

Meanwhile, with bird flu outbreaks still occurring elsewhere, experts fear an impending pandemic. The World Health Organisation says a flu pandemic now may cause two million to eight million deaths worldwide. Developing countries will be the hardest hit.

Going back to the last century, the then biggest pandemic - commonly referred to as the Spanish flu - occurred in 1918 and 1919: it caused an estimated 40 million to 50 million deaths worldwide.

Dr Leong Hoe Nam, consultant infectious disease physician at Singapore General Hospital, has this sobering twist to a common saying: 'There are now four things certain in life - birth, death, taxes and another epidemic.'

How do infectious diseases that strike humans pop up? Most major ones have animal origins, researchers Nathan D. Wolfe, Claire Panosian Dunavan and Jared Diamond say in a review published in May last year in international science weekly Nature.

The study by the three researchers - from the epidemiology department in the School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles - also highlighted the role of agriculture in the evolution of animal pathogens into human pathogens. Farming, they noted, enables a large human and animal population to be in close proximity and constant contact.

A pathogen is an agent that causes infection or disease and is usually a micro-organism or a virus.

Cross-species infection may arise again when humans colonise new environments previously untouched and come into contact with wild animals or untested surroundings. A large population concentrated in a small space, like that found in most urban areas today, then exacerbates the problem of human to human transmission.

The Nipah virus is cited as one such example in a 2004 paper by researchers Robin A Weiss and Anthony J McMichael in science journal Nature Medicine.

The virus jumped from fruit bats to pigs before infecting pig farmers and abbatoir workers when pig farms were set up near virgin tropical forests in northern Malaysia in 1998.

SGH's Dr Leong says that four factors are required to create an infectious disease epidemic - a suitable virus, a suitable host, the virus' ability to mutate in such a way as to 'jump' species, and suitable hosts around the index case.

He said: 'You need the right time and the right person to spark an epidemic.'

Most viruses are ribonucleic acid (RNA) viruses, which occur singly and do not have double strands of genetic material, unlike DNA.

This trait allows them to mutate very quickly and easily as there is no parallel strand to keep evolution in check.

Dr Chong Chia Yin, head and senior consultant at the department of paediatric medicine at KK Women's and Children's Hospital, said: 'The flu virus has a huge animal reservoir including chickens, pigs, ducks and migratory wild birds. This allows the virus to circulate and then mutate into a more virulent form.'

Globalisation, industrialisation and mass air travel have also helped spread viral diseases beyond the geographic borders of their origin.

Dr Leong said: 'The problem with these outbreaks is globalisation and the mass movement of people. You can be in the Sahara desert one day and back at work in Singapore the next.'

But it's not all doom and gloom as cross-species infection usually requires a protracted and extreme series of mutations before occurring.

Finally, preparedness is critical.

Singapore's Ministry of Health has stepped up disease surveillance programmes in hospitals, stockpiled essential supplies and drugs and drawn up a national flu pandemic preparedness plan.

Doctors and other experts are urging the public to also take individual responsibility for their health and disease prevention. Those who are ill should stay away from work, school or public areas like shopping centres.

Dr Chan Poh Chong, consultant paediatrician and head of ambulatory and adolescent paediatrics in the University Children's Medical Institute at National University Hospital, said: 'Parents, for instance, can teach hygiene practices to their children. This has proven to be the best preventive measure against not only HFMD but all other infectious diseases.'

The risks you face
Straits Times 18 Jun 08;

Chikungunya and dengue fever

Spread by: Chikungunya fever is transmitted through the bite of infected Aedes aegypti and aedes albopictus mosquitoes while dengue fever is caused by the bite of infected Aedes mosquitoes. The mozzies become infected when they feed on the blood of patients already suffering from the disease.

Peak season: Cases increase in the warmer months when mosquitoes breed more prolifically.

Symptoms: Sudden onset of fever, severe headaches, chills, nausea and joint pain although prolonged joint pain and fatigue are more commonly found in chikungunya fever.

Treatment: There is no specific drug treatment against chikungunya and dengue fever. Aspirin should, however, be avoided in cases of chikungunya fever as this may increase the risk of bleeding.

Influenza

Spread by: The three main types of this viral infection are spread through direct contact with droplets of saliva or nasal secretions or by touching contaminated objects.

Peak season: Although the disease occurs year-round here, there are two seasonal peaks, namely one from May to July and the other from November to January.

Symptoms: Headaches, chills and a cough followed rapidly by a fever, appetite loss, muscle ache and tiredness.

Treatment: Antiviral medication and influenza vaccines.

Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome)

Spread by: The viral infection is spread by close contact with infected people and the droplets which they exhale.

Peak season: Dr Leong Hoe Nam, Singapore General Hospital's consultant infectious diseases physician, said: 'As it's a respiratory tract infection, it follows cold weather.'

Symptoms: Fever and cough but not all patients will have a runny nose and sore throat.

Treatment: Anti-bacterial and anti-viral drugs are available and vaccines are currently being developed.

Avian influenza or bird flu

Spread by: This flu viral disease is spread by contact with infected birds, which shed the H5N1 virus in their saliva, nasal secretions and faeces. Person to person transmission may occur but rarely.

Peak season: No known peak season. Dr Chong Chia Yin, head and senior consultant in KK Women's and Children's Hospital's department of paediatric medicine, said: 'Despite the destruction of an estimated 150 million birds, the H5N1 virus is considered endemic in many parts of Indonesia, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, China and possibly Laos.'

Symptoms: Humans with bird flu typically report flu-like symptoms like fever, cough, sore throat, headaches and muscle aches. Symptoms can also include eye infections, pneumonia and other complications.

Treatment: Anti-viral flu medicines like Tamiflu appear to be effective in treating bird flu although Dr Chong added that some resistance is developing.

Last month, drug company GlaxoSmithKline gained approval to sell a pre-pandemic bird flu vaccine in the European Union.

HFMD (hand, foot and mouth disease)

Spread by: This childhood ailment is spread by direct contact with saliva, nasal and throat secretions, blister fluid and faeces of an infected person as well as by sharing of toothbrushes, eating utensils, food and toys.

Peak season: Dr Anita Menon from KK Women's and Children's Hospital's department of paediatric medicine, said: 'HFMD is more common in tropical climates. In temperate countries, it tends to have a seasonal variation with cases mainly occurring in summer or autumn.'

Symptoms: It usually starts with a mild fever, poor appetite, lethargy and sometimes a sore throat. One or two days after the fever starts, sores develop in the mouth and rashes, red spots or blisters may occur on palms and soles.

Treatment: Patients can only be treated for symptoms and should take adequate amounts of fluids and water.

Dr Chan Poh Chong, consultant paediatrician and head of ambulatory and adolescent paediatrics at National University Hospital's University Children's Medical Institute, said: 'Even after recovering from a strain of HFMD, a child can succumb to another episode caused by a different strain. There is no known vaccine available.'

Indonesia to begin forest carbon projects

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 17 Jun 08;

Indonesia is expected to be the first nation to carry out forest carbon projects to help combat climate change thanks to a newly launched forest carbon partnership with Australia.

Under the partnership agreement, signed by the two country's leaders in Jakarta on Friday, Australia will help Indonesia develop mechanisms needed to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

"With this partnership, we are upbeat and ready to carry out the first REDD demonstration activity, hopefully in August. Australia will help us implement a REDD project in Central Kalimantan forests," Soenaryo, a senior official at the Forestry Ministry, told The Jakarta Post on Saturday.

"This project is vital because the world is watching to see whether or not the REDD concept can be used as a legal mechanism to slash greenhouse gas emissions."

Germany, Britain, Japan, Spain and Norway have also submitted forest partnership proposals to conduct REDD projects with Indonesia, Soenaryo said.

"We will sign a forest partnership with the German government in the near future," he said.

The REDD concept was adopted during the UN-sponsored climate change conference in Bali last year where negotiators from 190 countries held intensive talks on cutting carbon emissions, recognized as the main contributor to global warming.

The Bali meeting required forestry countries first to perform demonstration projects and build REDD mechanisms to be examined in a Copenhagen meeting next year.

One aim of the Copenhagen conference on climate change is to determine whether the REDD concept can be adopted as one of the legal mechanisms to reduce greenhouse gas emissions when the Kyoto Protocol commitment ends in 2012.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, rich nations, except the United States, are bound to cut emissions by about 5 percent. The protocol allows only the clean development mechanism and forestation/reforestation projects as legal mechanisms for developing nations to take part in emissions cuts.

Developing nations, which are the most vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, will be able to trade their carbon with rich nations to receive financial incentives based on tons of carbon reductions.

Indonesia is the third-largest forestry country in the world, with 120 million hectares of tropical forests.

The forest carbon partnership signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd focuses partly on policy development and capacity building to support participation in international negotiations and future carbon markets.

Australia will help Indonesia develop a forest carbon accounting mechanism and set up a monitoring system.

"Australian experts will help Indonesians with calculating carbon emissions stocked in forests. This skill is important because it will enable us to compute the potential financial incentives through REDD projects," Soenaryo said.

He said carbon emissions from projects that avoid deforestation would be traded on a voluntary basis because there was no international legal treaty on REDD projects.

Australia will also set up monitoring stations to check forest conditions after the implementation of REDD projects, he said.

Many have expressed concerns about possible leaks in the implementation of REDD projects.

Australian former prime minister John Howard pledged a total of A$240 million last year to curb deforestation in Southeast Asia.

The fund included a promised A$30 million to plant 100 million trees in Borneo.

But Greenpeace Indonesia activist Arif Wicaksana expressed doubt the partnership could stop rapid deforestation in Indonesia.

"We want the government to take real actions to stop deforestation including imposing a forest moratorium and avoiding overlapping permits for forest use.

"The partnership gives no clear targets on how to stop deforestation," he said.

Arif urged the Australian government to also help improve the condition of Papua New Guinea's forests, which he said had been destroyed to meet high Australian demand for forest products.

He said he doubted Australia's capacity to calculate forest carbon.

"So far, there is no valid mechanism in the world on how to calculate carbon in the forests," he said.

Inaccessible forest in the Chaco gets £10m protection

Lewis Smith, The Times 17 Jun 08;

Drunken trees and furry armadillos in one of the most inaccessible areas of the world are to be protected under a £10 million plan.

In an agreement to be officially sealed tonight, the World Land Trust (WLT), a British conservation charity, will take over joint management of a million hectares of forest in the Chaco, northern Paraguay, which had faced being ploughed up to make room for soya and biofuel crops. The WLT will share responsibility with Guyra Paraguay, a non-governmental conservation organisation.

Three national parks and huge tracts of private and government-owned land are included in the deal under which the WLT intends to raise £10 million for a trust fund to pay for the long-term management of the area, including paying for wardens recruited from indigenous populations.

The Chaco, which extends into Argentina and Bolivia and is twice the size of Wales, is home to a wide variety of animals, including the Chaco giant peccary, which resembles a hog and is the size of a pony but was known only from fossils until 1975.

The other wildlife includes Columbina doves, which are found in such quantities that they have been compared to the huge flocks of passenger pigeons that were found in North America until they were driven into extinction.

At five inches long and unusual in being covered in fur, the fairy armadillo is one of the oddest creatures of the Chaco. Other animals at home there include the giant armadillo, giant anteater, giant otter and jaguar.

The Chaco forest is perhaps best known for its palo borracho trees, forming the so-called drunken forest because they store so much water in their trunks that when they lean over they are said to resemble beer-bellied drunks. “Axe-breaker” quebracho trees were once common but now survive in the Chaco as a rare species. They were cut down in their thousands to provide sleepers for South America’s rail network.

John Burton, chief executive of the WLT, said: “This is certainly the biggest challenge that the WLT has faced in its 20-year history. It is vital that we rise to the challenge, to do as much as we can for the future of the world’s wild places. We must save this wonderful habitat, and we must work with the people who live there.”

Carlos López Dose, the Paraguayan Environment Minister, said: “We sincerely appreciate the support and the effort that is being carried out by our foreign friends in terms of the conservation of our Chaco. We welcome the international cooperation to join our conservation efforts on behalf of what remains of these, among the last great natural landscapes of the world. What we are doing today, signing this agreement, is of historical value for Paraguay.”

Britain, Norway launch fund to preserve Congo Basin rainforest

Yahoo News 17 Jun 08;

The prime ministers of Britain and Norway on Tuesday launched a multi-million-pound initiative to preserve the rainforest in the Congo Basin, which has been described as "the world's second lung."

Gordon Brown and Jens Stoltenberg announced the 100-million-pound (125.8 million euro, 195 million dollar) fund in cooperation with the Commission for the Forests of Central Africa (COMIFAC) and the African Development Bank.

Each country will contribute 50 million pounds, while Britain pledged an additional eight million pounds.

Britain's Department for International Development said the money would help create a satellite monitoring system to give the first detailed view of the rate of deforestation in the Congo, with the pictures beamed direct to Central Africa.

Stoltenberg said as much as one fifth of current greenhouse gas emissions were caused by deforestation, but experts believed the emissions could be substantially lowered in a relatively short period.

"To reduce total emissions the global community will have to take urgent action," he said at the launch of the initiative in London.

"A reduction of the emissions from deforestation and forest degradation is essential to address climate change.

"We believe that the Congo Basin Forest Fund is a good example of a mechanism by which developed countries can help shoulder the financial burden of developing countries making significant emissions reductions."

Covering an area twice the size of France, the Congo Basin rainforest straddles six countries and is home to more than 50 million people, 10,000 species of plants, 1,000 species of birds and 400 species of mammals.

A UN study found that if action is not taken immediately to tackle deforestation then more than 66 percent of the rainforest will be lost by 2040.

Fund to save Congo Basin rainforest launched
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 17 Jun 08;

A multi-million pound fund to save one of the world's biggest rainforests from destruction has been launched in London.

Scientists say the preservation of the Congo Basin rainforest - the second largest in the world - is vital in fighting global climate change.

Deforestation contributes as much as 35 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions and every week an area the size of 25,000 football pitches is cut down in the Congo Basin.

The UN estimates that 66 per cent of the rainforest will be gone by 2040 if the destruction isn't halted.

The Congo Basin Forest Fund is designed to protect the rainforest by paying African governments and its indigenous people to look after it and manage its vast resources sustainably and to guarantee its future survival.

The UK government announced it was adding £8m to the £50m it has already pledged - to help with start-up costs - and the Norwegian government announced it would contribute £50m. It is hoped that the Fund will attract donations from around the world.

One of the first steps will be the use of state-of-the-art satellite technology to map precisely for the first time the extent of the damage caused by deforestation.

Helping launch the Fund Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "It is a great honour to mark the launch of the Congo Basin Forest Fund.

"Together we are pledging to work together to secure the future of one of the world's last remaining ancient forests. Preserving our forests is vital if we are going to reduce global emissions and tackle climate change.

"I look forward to working with leaders and groups, in the Congo region and from around the world, to preserve these forests and sustain people's livelihoods."

More than 50m people from 10 countries live within the rainforest which covers an area twice the size of France.

Wangari Maathai, a Nobel laureate and one of the fund's co-chairs, said: " Scientists tell us we have not contributed much to global warming but the biggest effects will be felt in Africa.

"We have been calling for carbon justice by working with the countries who have contributed to assist the countries that are going to suffer the effects. We have to meet each other half way to deal with a difficult crisis that we all face."

Prof Maathai said the forests were also very important for maintaining rainfall and water supplies in the region and spoke of her own childhood experience in Kenya when a stream that people relied on for fresh water dried up because of intensive agriculture.

She warned against clear cutting forest for growing biofuels or other crops, saying it would be "counterproductive".

"Africa has to make very tough choices and she has to feed herself. But it's very important we do not sacrifice indigenous forests for biofuels or any other alternatives," she said.

"Africa is also a water-scarce continent and agriculture is still very dependent on rainfall. Encroachment on these forests would be counterproductive."

Former Prime Minister of Canada, Paul Martin, also a co-chair of the Fund, said they would be working closely with all the African governments involved.

"Nobody disputes the negative costs of cutting down the forest and that they are hurting themselves by doing it. We have to demonstrate that there are better alternatives, such as sustainable agriculture and reforestation, even in the short term, for their people."

The Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), which works to protect the Congo Basin rainforest and the people that live in it, welcomed the fund as an opportunity to encourage new ways of looking at forest management.

Simon Counsell, RFUK director, said: "While all eyes are on the Amazon, the Congo Basin, the world's second-largest rainforest, is coming under increasing threat.

"If the Congo Basin follows the same pattern as West Africa, where complete forest destruction followed timber exploitation, then the result would be a catastrophe for millions of forest-dependent people and would drive countless plants and animals to extinction.

"The destruction of the Congo Basin forests would also have global consequences, releasing the equivalent of six years worth of global carbon emissions into the atmosphere."

Brazil throws weight behind Amazon soy ban

Ana Nicolaci da Costa, Reuters 17 Jun 08;

BRASILIA (Reuters) - Brazil's new environment minister reached an agreement with the grain processing industry to ban purchases of soy from deforested Amazon until July 2009, winning praise from environmentalists.

"This same initiative will be extended to two other sectors -- the timber sector and the beef sector," Environment Minister Carlos Minc said while praising the grain industry and non-governmental organizations for a "pioneering" initiative.

Environmentalists called Minc's initiative essential to the protection of the world's largest rainforest. Deforestation in the region quickened in the past months as world grain prices continue to set record highs.

The moratorium is a commitment by the local Vegetable Oils Industry Association (Abiove), which includes big crushers such as Cargill Inc, Bunge Ltd, ADM Co and Louis Dreyfus, and the Grain Exporters Association (Anec) to extend the expiring, one-year ban that began in July 2006.

Rising prices are reviving the local soy sector out of its worst crisis in decades. In 2004 through 2006, the rise in the real against the dollar and production costs like fuel and fertilizers pushed many producers to the brink of insolvency.

Brazil is the world's second largest soy producer after the United States. Abiove and Anec control about 94 percent of Brazil's soy trade.

"The decision today is very important as it shows a leading sector in Brazilian agribusiness can guarantee food production without the need to cut down one more hectare of Amazon," Paulo Adario, Greenpeace Amazon campaign director, said in a note.

Deforestation of the Amazon is on course to rise after three years of declines, with figures for April released earlier this month showing a startling 434 square miles of trees lost in the month.

Minc replaced Amazon defender Marina Silva as environment minister last month, raising concern among environmentalists that the government is siding with farming and industrial interests that want to develop the forest.

In a show of commitment to Amazon protection, the government unveiled initiatives in past weeks including the creation of three protected reserves and an operation to impound cattle grazing on illegally cleared pastures.

But Greenpeace said a one year extension may not be long enough to build the tools necessary to ensure that soy production does not result in further deforestation.

(Additional Reporting by Inae Riveras in Sao Paulo; Editing by Reese Ewing and Bill Trott)

Australia urged to protect its honey worker bees

James Grubel, Yahoo News 17 Jun 08;

Australia's honey bees, crucial to worldwide food production, need more protection from foreign invaders that could potentially wipe out their population, a parliamentary report said on Tuesday.

Australia is a major supplier of queen and hive bees to North America, Japan and the Middle East, cashing in on its standing as the only country not to suffer from a deadly bee mite known as the varroa destructor.

But the varroa mite has been found in bees in neighboring Papua New Guinea and New Zealand, raising new fears it could soon breach Australian borders.

"Scientists who have studied the progress of this pest believe that it is only a matter of time before it arrives in Australia and devastates the honey bee population," the report said, urging the government to tighten border and quarantine controls.

"It might be an exaggeration to state 'no bees, no food', but the food security and economic welfare of the entire community depend to a considerable degree on the humble honey bee."

The mite has hit hives around the world with devastating effects on pollination industries, and has been linked to the mystery Colony Collapse Disorder across North America.

Australian Parliament's primary industries committee found bees add up to A$6 billion ($5.7 billion) a year to the value of agriculture and horticulture, and were crucial for 35 key crops as well as stock feeds such as clover.

"Once you've got varroa, it would lead to the collapse of the bee industry. It would simply wipe out bee colonies," bee keeper Lindsay Bourke told Reuters.

"A third of everything we eat has to be pollinated or relies on pollination. You won't eat a decent steak without bees."

Australia currently exports disease-free bees, particularly to the United States where they are used to help pollinate the California almond industry.

Exporter Paula Dewar, who sends about 8,000 queen bees a year to Canada, the United States and Japan for up to $22 a bee, said Australian apiarists were worried about imported bee disease.

"We are known for our good breeding stock, varieties and healthy bees," Dewar said.

Australia currently has a "sentinel" bee program where hives are set up at key ports so authorities can spot any new disease.

The report urged the government to also set up new bait hives around the ports to attract bees arriving by ship and to stop them from joining domestic hives.

($1=A$1.06)

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

Cultivation in the drylands undermined by international policies

A way of life is feeling the heat
Masego Madzwamuse, BBC Green Room 17 Jun 08;

International development policies are undermining the long term survival of some of the globe's poorest communities, argues Masego Madzwamuse. In this week's Green Room, she says the skills and knowledge needed to survive in the world's harsh drylands are being sacrificed in the name of progress.

The world's poorest of the poor live in the toughest areas of the planet - the drylands.

These areas all have key factors in common: water is scarce, and rainfall is unpredictable - or it rains only during a very short period every year.

Drylands cover more than 40% of the Earth's surface and are home to more than two billion people.

These areas are also home to a disproportionate number of people without secure access to food.

Why are 43% of the world's cultivated lands found in dry areas? And why have decades of development not led to significant improvements?

Rather than improving, it would appear that the situation is getting worse, with more frequent droughts, such as those in Ethiopia and Northern Kenya.

Another important issue that strikes me about drylands is that these areas have been completely neglected despite being the world's home of the poor.

While one international agreement - the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) - has been dedicated solely to the drylands of this world, little attention has been paid by the media, development or conservation organisations, or the international donor community.

The only time attention is paid is when droughts (a regular climatic phenomenon in such lands) are allowed to proceed to famine, which in this day and age can only be the result of political failure.

Humanitarian and food relief follow the TV headlines, creating more dependencies rather than developing viable and sustainable economies.

Dry heat

It is expected that these areas will be hardest hit by climate change in the future.

The influential Stern Review noted that a 3C (5.4F) increase in global temperature was likely to result in an extra 150-550m people becoming exposed to the risk of hunger.

The review also said that climate change was likely to result in up to four billion people suffering water shortages.

The world's drylands are likely to bear the brunt of this gloomy prognosis.

In my opinion, the world will only successfully fight poverty and achieve the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) if we pay more attention to these unique ecosystems and learn from the mistakes of the past.

This means moving away from a colonially biased view of drylands.

It is unfortunately still common to equate drylands with deserts and wastelands, as these areas might not look at first sight very productive, especially during a period of drought.

So, what are the ingredients for success in developing the poorest regions of this world?

First of all, development interventions need to be adapted to the realities of drylands.

Crop production, whether rain-fed or irrigated, will always be a limited opportunity. Yet the major effort in "development" is a green revolution for the desert.

Has half a century of development not taught us the reality for cultivation in the drylands?

Livestock is much more suitable to arid environments and more likely to support rural livelihoods in arid regions.

For instance, Turkana pastoralists of Kenya know that livestock is their mainstay, even though they have some of the fastest maturing varieties of sorghum in the world.

Secondly, we should work with the knowledge and institutional systems of the people who have lived there for centuries.

We need to understand why they have complex common property systems for land and resource management that may span and cover very large territories, and guarantee that a variety of stakeholders can use these scarce resources and survive.

It is important to also understand why they place more emphasis on livestock than crops. Livestock is a better converter of biomass in such harsh lands.

We must not sweep aside this knowledge and experience. Instead, we should build on those systems and support them with so-called "modern and scientific knowledge" to improve productivity and create market opportunities.

Yet we ignore their complex risk management and resilience enhancement strategies.

One classical example has been the numerous efforts to use inappropriate policies to settle nomadic people and restrict their movements.

Nomadic livestock herding has been a key sustainable survival strategy in the more arid areas. Once grass and water become scarce, these communities move with their animals to the next area.

Thus, they are able to use resources sustainably without leaving themselves exposed to the effects of droughts.

While livestock farming in drylands contributes significantly to national economies, most subsidies go to unsustainable ranching projects rather than the small livestock holders.

National treasures

Pastoralism is one of the few land use systems that can be compatible with wildlife conservation.

Yet where are many of the world's national parks? More than 70% of Kenya's are in drylands, which includes a number of important dry season grazing areas for pastoralists.

Dryland peoples depend on the surrounding environment, and they should be able to benefit from conservation through community conserved areas and tourism, rather than having their best lands taken away from them in the name of conservation.

Thirdly, nature's contribution to the survival of the poor needs to be recognised as an important asset.

It is nature that provides food, fodder for livestock, construction material for shelter, medicinal plants, emergency food and climate regulation (shade is highly valued in 40C).

Opportunities for sustainable development exist.

Sudan is the world's largest producer of gum arabic, a principal ingredient of colas and chewing gum, which stems from a 2,000-year agroforestry tradition.

And the arid lands of the Horn of Africa produce the highest quality frankincense and myrrh in the world.

In one district in Botswana that has an average annual rainfall of just 200mm, dryland ecosystem services contributed $190,000 (£95,000) to the national income. Almost 50% of this came from wild plants such as the medicinal devil's claw.

Instead of building on this natural capital, development and government interventions tend to replace and disregard them.

Even worse, they are not reflected in the national GDP figures. As a consequence, most policy frameworks provide incentives for their exploitation rather than their sustainable use.

We cannot continue to let the world's poor dryland dwellers down.

Panaceas, history tells us, don't work. Instead, we need to invest in the innovative and sustainable use of natural assets.

Masego Madzwamuse is the IUCN's regional programme development officer and focal person for southern African drylands

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

Australia food bowl areas "beyond repair in months"

Reuters 17 Jun 08;

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Parts of Australia's key Murray-Darling river food bowl may be beyond recovery unless a prolonged dry spell and political wrangling over water use ends by October, a leaked scientific report warned on Wednesday.

"There has been 10 years at least that people have said you have got to restore the environmental flows to the system if you wish to keep the natural assets. We have failed to do that," University of Adelaide ecologist David Paton told local radio.

The Murray-Darling river basin, an area the size of France and Germany, produces 41 percent of Australia's agriculture and provides $21 billion worth of agricultural exports to Asia and the Middle East, including rice, corn, grapes and dairy.

But the government wants to secure water supplies and repair ailing rivers with an A$13 billion ($12.2 billion), 10-year water plan topped by a A$3 billion deal to buy river water back from irrigators.

The centre-left Labor government of Prime Minister Kevin Rudd deferred consideration of a scientific report into the crisis facing the basin's lower reaches until a ministerial meeting with state counterparts in November.

But Paton and other ecologists warned much of the river system could be virtually dead by then, with vegetation on the lower Murray lost and fish species driven to extinction.

The lower Murray, where vast wetlands and lakes meet the sea, is an important region for horticulture, vegetable and pasture cropping, as well as dairy farming.

"You don't often hear a scientist using language of this strength," Australian Conservation Foundation spokeswoman Arlene Buchan said. "They're being crystal clear about the need for water, the short period of time, the urgency of the problem."

Australia, the driest inhabited continent on Earth, has been suffering more than seven years of drought, with water inflows into the nation's rivers at record lows and farmers facing tough restrictions on irrigation.

Climate scientists have warned the continent is suffering accelerated climate change, with temperatures expected to rise by about 1 degree Celsius by 2030 and rainfall forecast to decrease by up to 20 percent by 2070 in the most populous southeast.

Australia this week cut its wheat output forecast by nearly 9 percent after the return of dry weather during a crucial planting period dashed hopes for a record crop from the world's second-biggest exporter.

($1=A$1.06)

(Reporting by Rob Taylor; Editing by Alex Richardson)

Corn price hits new high as US rain continues

Peter Stiff and agencies, Times Online 17 Jun 08;

Corn prices rose to an all-time high today as flooding in the US, the world’s biggest exporter of the grain, hit crops, fuelling concerns over the rising cost of food.

The surge in corn prices, which broke the $8-a-bushel barrier for the first time, came as heavy rains in the Midwest damaged crops and delayed planting, heightening fears that there will be insufficient corn to meet global demand for food, feed and biofuels.

The July 2009 delivery price of a bushel of corn surged to $8.07, the highest price for a corn contract and a new record for the eighth trading day in a row. The July 2008 corn contract rose to a record $7.57, with the price of soybeans also going higher.

Analysts said that, if rain in the region continues, further problems for corn crops would be impossible to avoid and that traders would continue to buy, pushing up the price.

Short supply and strong demand has caused prices to jump by a quarter since the start of the month, increasing financial pressure on livestock breeders, exporters and ethanol and biodiesel makers. In the past year, the price of corn has risen 85 per cent, on record demand for biofuels and livestock feed as people in a more affluent Asia eat more meat.

Last week, the US Department of Agriculture warned that corn stockpiles may fall 53 per cent to a 13-year low before next year’s harvest, largely because of bad weather hitting crops.

Flooding in the Midwest has been described as the worst since 1993, with the US National Weather Service predicting millions of dollars worth of damage.

More thunderstorms are expected this week, adding to farmers’ woes, whose fields were soaked by 12 inches of rain last week; some have suffered five times the normal amount of moisture since the end of May.

Floods damage fishery, threaten poultry production

Business Times 18 Jun 08;

(BEIJING) Rains and floods in China's southern provinces have damaged the region's fishery and may threaten its poultry production, Shanghai JC Intelligence Co said.

Rain swamped some fish farms in provinces including Guangdong and may cause the spread of diseases among poultry, Helen Huang and Daisy Rang, analysts at the Shanghai-based research firm, said in interviews yesterday.

About 15 southern provinces have been inundated by the fourth major rainstorm in three weeks, the National Meteorological Centre said yesterday. The adverse weather across roughly half of China's 31 provinces may stoke food prices, cut fish and poultry stocks and reduce demand for corn and soyabean meal, which are used in animal feed.

'The storms have significantly impacted fish farming, and effects on coastal Guangdong and Guangxi provinces have been disastrous,' Ms Huang said. 'The effects on fish supplies may not be felt initially, but will reverberate in the long run.' The analysts declined to provide estimates of the damages citing lack of data.

Water levels in southern China's rivers and lakes are rising rapidly, increasing the risks of major floods, the weather office said. 'If there isn't adequate prevention, this will increase the risk of poultry disease,' Ms Rang said. The storms have also disrupted shipping and supplies, she said.

By last Saturday, rains and floods have caused 10.6 billion yuan (S$2.1 billion) in damages and affected 860,500 hectares of crops, the China National Grain and Oils Information Centre said in a report yesterday\. \-- Bloomberg

ecoWise set to join renewable energy wave in Singapore

Jamie Lee, Business Times 18 Jun 08;

ECOWISE Holdings said it expects to acquire or set up joint ventures with regional crop producers and owners over the next one year to generate biomass fuel, as the waste recycler diversifies into the renewable energy business.

EcoWise, which specialises in recycling copper slug collected from homegrown shipyards such as Keppel Corp and Sembcorp Marine, hopes to ramp up its renewable energy production, which makes up 10 per cent of its current business, executive director Teoh Teik Kee said during a corporate briefing yesterday.

It already operates a co-generation (cogen) plant, which is fuelled by biomass such as wood and horticultural waste. Landscape contractors in Singapore pay ecoWise to collect the waste produced.

The cogen plant, started in 2005, generates 15,000 kg of steam and one megawatt of electricity per hour from five tonnes of biomass. The steam and waste heat has also been used to sell ISO tank heating services. ISO tanks are containers that store chemicals requiring slow heating. Future tie-ups with crop producers and owners will extend to building a biomass plant near the plantations at a later time, said Mr Teoh.

Working with crop producers such as rice millers in Thailand, would help to 'lock in the supply', he said, adding that the projects must also guarantee off-take by the buyers and provide an annual internal rate of return of 8 to 10 per cent at the start.

The company gave no investment figure, but Mr Teoh estimated that it could cost at least $20 million to produce 10 megawatt of electricity using processed food waste at a biomass plant. The investment will be funded by internal resources and bank loans, he added. The company has a healthy cash flow of about $10.3 million, according to its half-year financial statement.

'We've been scouting around,' he said. 'The competition will not come from building a power plant but more from whether we are able to secure the supply of raw material to burn.' He added that smaller local players could pose a threat in pushing up prices of the biomass. The firm hopes that the renewable energy business will contribute to half of its revenue in about three years' time.

Analysts whom BT spoke to said the management's strong track record is likely to push ecoWise's diversification plans through, but noted that such plans are unlikely to contribute significantly to earnings in the short-term.

The firm, which has a market value of $71 million, saw its net profit more than double to $6.6 million for its half-year ended April, thanks to an exceptional gain of about $5.1 million from its sale of a 50 per cent stake in its newly-formed unit to Holcim Singapore. Shares of ecoWise fell half a cent to end at 19.5 cents yesterday.

EU Lawmakers Agree Recycling Goals to Cut Landfill

Pete Harrison, PlanetArk 18 Jun 08;

STRASBOURG, France - European Union lawmakers approved new targets for recycling rubbish on Tuesday, aiming to curb greenhouse emissions from landfill sites, but green groups said the deal would not cut growing trash piles.

The agreement, which will have to be approved by member states before becoming law, is part of an EU effort to get on top of a growing problem typified by mountains of waste in Naples, Italy.

Rubbish is growing faster than the 27-nation bloc's GDP.

The European Parliament voted for the goal of recycling or re-using half of the main types of EU household waste by 2020 and 70 percent of all waste from building and demolition.

"Calorific waste is a valuable and energy-rich resource that must not be landfilled," said Jan-Erik Johansson of PlasticsEurope, which welcomed the agreement.

"Every item that is recycled or recovered saves harmful methane emissions from landfills."

Over 1.8 billion tonnes of waste are generated each year in Europe, equating to 3.5 tonnes per person, of which less than a third is recycled.

"There will be big pressure on the UK and Ireland, let alone in eastern Europe, to move towards these levels of recycling," said British MEP Caroline Jackson, who led the legislation through parliament. "I don't think it will be popular."

She said only about 2 percent of household waste was now recycled in Hungary, and only about 13 percent in parts of London, while in Holland and Denmark landfilling had been almost eliminated.

GARBAGE MAFIA

But environmentalists criticised the agreement for promoting incineration, for being unenforceable and for failing to set limits on the amount of waste produced.

"This promotes incineration, a waste-hungry technology which is counterproductive to any effort to tackle the waste mountains at their source," said Welsh MEP Jill Evans.

PlasticsEurope countered that even burning rubbish was better than letting it rot. "Given the scarcity of energy resources, we need to make use of every viable complement to fossil fuels," said Jan-Erik Johansson.

Caroline Jackson said parliament had failed to agree waste prevention targets as current volumes were largely kept secret by a murky industry.

"We are operating in the dark," she said. "Waste is a secret area, as demonstrated in Naples."

Crime experts say the Camorra, the Naples mafia, has been involved in the lucrative waste dumping business for decades -- one of the reasons the city's refuse system ground to a halt at the end of last year when all official dumps were declared full.

Political inadequacy and local opposition to new waste disposal sites has hampered years of attempts to clean up what has become a chronic problem in Italy's third-largest city.

"We all know what has been going on in Naples," said Jackson. "But I don't want to end up as a concrete block, so I won't go any further."

The agreement also laid down the order that member states should use for dealing with waste.

As a first priority, states will not create waste in the first place, secondly they will re-use things such as beer crates, thirdly they will recycle what they can, fourthly they will recover at least the energy contained in rubbish, and as a last resort, they can dump rubbish. (Reporting by Pete Harrison; editing by James Jukwey)

Energy situation near tipping point, says Shell analyst

Warning comes even as oil prices ease slightly from near US$140 record high
Yang Huiwen, Straits Times 18 Jun 08;

SOARING oil prices have driven the world to an energy tipping point where cheap, plentiful supplies of crude and gas can no longer be taken for granted.

The warning came from Dr Khong Cho Oon, chief political analyst in the global business environment team of Shell International, a unit of the Anglo-Dutch oil giant.

Dr Khong, who was in Singapore for a seminar, said yesterday that the old system of affordable energy is no longer tenable.

'We're looking at very high oil prices right now precisely because we're at a transition point in the energy world,' he said.

'We're moving away from a structure that has been in place for many decades, and we're moving into something new. What we're moving into, that is yet to be clear.'

Dr Khong's comments come at a time of rocketing oil prices. They hit a record high of almost US$140 a barrel earlier this week, before retreating a little amid uncertainty over a pledge by Saudi Arabia to boost output.

Prices have risen more than fourfold since 2004 and have shot up over 120 per cent this year alone, partly on increased fears that production will struggle to keep up with demand over the next decade.

Dr Khong, who is based in The Hague, Netherlands, said the key question is whether the transition to a new world energy order is going to be smooth or rough.

The Shell executive is a member of a team that developed two scenarios describing how the world's energy landscape may pan out over the next 50 years.

In a 'scramble' world, concerns over the security of oil supplies dominate decision making, spurring reactive government policies that are based purely on national interests.

In contrast, a 'blueprint' world begins with the mindset of anticipating change, with decisions based on common interest and sustainability. Examples of this approach are the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali climate talks.

While elements of both scenarios are now present, one will eventually dominate the world, much like the wave of globalisation in the 1990s, said Dr Khong.

It is difficult to tell which way the world is heading, but he favours a scenario with more proactive engagement.

This will require 'a critical mass of countries to move along a particular direction', with the key nations being the United States and China, as well as other major players such as the European Union, Japan, India, Brazil and Indonesia.

This can be driven by people's concerns at the grassroots level, which will eventually lead to action at the state and government level.

World Crude Production Has Peaked - Pickens

Jasmin Melvin and Missy Ryan, PlanetArk 18 Jun 08;

WASHINGTON - World crude oil production has topped out at 85 million barrels per day even as demand keeps climbing, helping to drive a stunning surge in prices, billionaire oil investor T. Boone Pickens said on Tuesday.

"I do believe you have peaked out at 85 million barrels a day globally," Pickens, who heads BP Capital hedge fund with more than US$4 billion under management, said during testimony to the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee.

The United States alone has been using "21 million barrels of the 85 million and producing about 7 of the 21, so if I could take just a minute on this point, the demand is about 86.4 million barrels a day, and when the demand is greater than the supply, the price has to go up until it kills demand," Pickens told lawmakers.

US crude futures CLc1> have risen by a third since the start of the year and more than six-fold since 2002 as surging demand from China and other developing nations outpaces new production.

Oil slipped on Tuesday, a day after touching a record high near US$140 a barrel, but remained above US$133 a barrel.

Pickens, who announced a US$2 billion investment in wind energy earlier this year, told lawmakers during a hearing on renewable electricity that he expected "the price of oil will go up further." Without alternatives, the cost of foreign oil will drain the United States of more resources, he said.

"In 10 years, we will have exported close to US$10 trillion out of the country if we continue on the same basis we're going now. It is the greatest transfer of wealth in the history of mankind," he said.

Pickens downplayed the role that speculative trading and institutional investors -- forces some see behind the high oil prices -- have had in the price trend.

Asked about the role of institutional investors, Pickens told reporters he does not "agree that that has anything to do with oil prices ... It's a global market. It doesn't have anything to do with traders on Wall Street or any place else."

He said increased oversight of oil markets by the US Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) represents "a waste of time."

On Monday, the chairman of the Senate Energy Committee, Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico, released new CFTC information he said made the case for greater federal regulation in crude oil markets.

Bingaman and others have introduced a spate of proposals to boost CFTC authority over trading of certain oil contracts.

(Reporting by Jasmin Melvin and Missy Ryan; Editing by David Gregorio)

Japanese scientists create diesel-producing algae

Leo Lewis, Times Online 14 Jun 08;

Under the gleam of blinding lamps, engulfed by banks of angrily frothing flasks, Makoto Watanabe is plotting a slimy, lurid-green revolution. He has spent his life in search of a species of algae that efficiently “sweats” crude oil, and has finally found it.

Now, exploiting the previously unrecognised power of pondlife, Professor Watanabe dreams of transforming Japan from a voracious energy importer into an oil-exporting nation to rival any member of Opec.

The professor has given himself a decade to effect this seemingly implausible conversion: Japan’s export-led economics have always been shaped by their near 100 per cent dependence on foreign energy. In the present world economic climate, those economics are looking especially fragile.

“I believe I can change Japan within five years,” the Professor told The Times from his laboratory in Tsukuba University. “A couple of years after that, we start changing the world.”

The algae, he believes, will spearhead enormous changes to the way that energy is produced and to the explosive geopolitics that have developed around the global thirst for fossil fuels. They could also overturn the current debate on corn and sugar-based biofuels. It is madness, he says, for humanity to pursue sources of energy that compete with its own stomachs when there is a far purer source that does not sitting in a test tube in his laboratory.

Professor Watanabe’s vision arises from the extraordinary properties of the Botryococcus braunii algae: give the microscopic green strands enough light – and plenty of carbon dioxide – and they excrete oil. The tiny globules of oil that form on the surface of the algae can be easily harvested and then refined using the same “cracking” technologies with which the oil industry now converts crude into everything from jet fuel to plastics.

The Japanese Government has supplied him with hefty grants to work on ways of industrialising the algae cultures. The professor admits that there is much work to be done to bring the financial and environmental costs of creating algae oilfields down to reasonable levels: to meet Japan’s current oil needs would require an algae-filled paddyfield the size of Yorkshire.

But – in laboratory conditions at least – the powers of Botryococcus braunii are astonishing. A field of corn, when converted into biofuel ethanol, may produce about 0.2 tonnes of oil equivalent per hectare. Rapeseed may generate around 1.2 tonnes. Micro algae can theoretically produce between 50 and 140 tonnes using the same plot of land.

The discovery of Botryococcus braunii and its precious excretions has taken years. The oil-producing properties of Botryococcus algae have been known for decades, but the volume and quality varies between species.

There remain, however, substantial obstacles before cars and aircraft are all running on algae. Although field tests have proved that there is little technical difficulty in breeding or harvesting the algae, the sums do not add up. A prospective algae-breeding oil concern would either have to invest billions of dollars in expensive breeder tanks – at a cost of around three times what the oil would sell for on the international market over the lifetime of the tanks – or find an enormous expanse of well-irrigated land in a country where labour can be bought very cheaply. It is for this reason that Professor Watanabe believes the world’s first algae farms will be constructed in countries such as Indonesia or Vietnam.

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