Best of our wild blogs: 2 Jul 08

Semakau survey
glorious underwater photos on the blue water volunteers blog

Nature walks at Seletar
before the area is developed on the postcards from seletar blog

Holey coconut
what the holes mean on the urban forest blog

Tampines Expressway Pink Bloom
on the Seen This Scene That blog

Macro mania in the forest
on the manta blog

More about EnviroFest
reflections on the toddycat blog and links to more posts and photos on the habitatnews blog

Creeping with “Christ” bird
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Talent drought in quest for young businessmen

Calling all social entrepreneurs ...
Talent drought prompts SYA to cast net wider in quest for young businessmen
Nazry Bahrawi, Today Online 2 Jul 08;

IT HAS been an area of focus in recent years, but entrepreneurial achievement among the youth still seems elusive, if the annual Singapore Youth Awards (SYA) is anything to go by.

There were no winners in the category this year, although businessman Douglas Foo of Sakae Sushi will receive a commendation medal — an award that recognises past honorees.

So, to widen the pool, the SYA now wants to open its doors to social entrepreneurs as well, for the Entrepreneurship award.

“We are looking for someone below 35 who runs not just a profitable business, but who also contributes to society in some way,” said Mr Kenny Yap, the chairman of SYA’s Entrepreneurship Advisory Committee. “But this is like finding God.”

Since the SYA Entrepreneurship category was introduced some 15 years ago, there have only been 12 winners. One reason could be that businessmen below 35 years of age are still in the process of building up their businesses and thus spend less time doing community service, he explained.

“So, including social entrepreneurs would be like killing two birds with one stone, since that person would already be doing community service through his business,” he said.

For Mr Tan Yam Pin, chairman of SYA’s panel of judges, this also means including those who organise business activities around religious purposes, so long as these are for good causes.

How would the inclusion of social entrepreneurs in the business category differ from the award for Community and Youth Services?

Explained Mr Yap: “Entrepreneurship is about starting a business. (Fund-raising), like the Citibank-YMCA Youth for Causes, which won in the Community and Youth Services category, is different.”

Meanwhile, Sakae Sushi’s Mr Fooadvises SYA aspirants to consider initiatives that have continuity. That “multiplier effect” can be found in the Citibank-YMCA Youth for Causes, according to its spokesperson Steven Chia.

The programme — a competition where teams are given a seed fund to raise more for charities — has given birth to a volunteer service management programme jointly run by the NUS Business School and the YMCA — one that is not only open to its participants, but also the public.

Other SYA winners included theatre group The Finger Players and waterresearcher Ng How Yong from NUS.

The awards will be conferred at the Istana on Sunday by Professor S Jayakumar, the Deputy Prime Minister.

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Reckless cyclists in Tampines face penalties

Punishments include fines and jail terms as bikes-on-footpaths trial is extended by six months
Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times 1 Jul 08;

CYCLISTS in Tampines who ride recklessly on the estate's footpaths may be penalised in the next phase of a trial to let cyclists share the space with pedestrians.

The year-long trial ended in May, but will be extended by six months, during which enforcement action will be stepped up to make the sharing of footpaths more feasible.

Reckless riders were not fined during the trial but, over the next six months, those who are caught riding in a manner that can maim or kill someone could be looking at up to a year in jail, a fine of up to $5,000, or both.

The town's posse of cycling wardens will also be teaching safe-riding tips to residents during this period.

Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan, who is also an MP for Tampines GRC, noted yesterday that the trial had the support of residents, but more needed to be done to get residents to accept cyclists on footpaths.

The experiment was sparked off by a 2005 parliamentary debate in which Tampines GRC MP Irene Ng called for cyclists to be allowed to ride on footpaths, in the light of an increasing number of them being killed on busy roads.

The trial was confined to Tampines, but Sembawang and Woodlands have announced plans to build their own bicycle tracks.

Meanwhile, the Land Transport Authority will look into improving cycling infrastructure in Tampines, perhaps by widening the footpaths and building more bike paths.

The Tampines Town Council has said that it will build 2.3km of such paths in the neighbourhood and is planning another 7km of paths which will link up with park connectors to other towns in the east.

Cycling on footpaths: Tampines extends trial
Efforts to be stepped up to educate foreign workers, students on safe cycling
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 2 Jul 08;

THEY ride their bicycles at high speeds on footpaths, endangering and annoying the pedestrians in Tampines.

For this and other unsavoury cycling habits, foreign workers and schoolchildren are two groups that the town’s cycling wardens will be focusing on in their safety education programme over the coming months.

Tampines’ Cycling on Footways year-long trial, which ended on May 31, will be restarted for another six months — from Aug 1 to Jan 31 next year, Mr Mah Bow Tan, adviser to Tampines GrassrootsOrganisations (TGO), said yesterday.

While education efforts for the general public will be stepped up during the extension of the trial, the committee received “more feedback, more complaints about the two groups”, said Mr Mah, who is also Minister for National Development.

Road safety videos will be produced in English, Bengali, Thai and Mandarin for the foreign workers to be distributed to their dormitories. The videos will be screened during the workers’ rest and meal times, said Superintendent Lee Chee Chiew, deputy commander of the Traffic Police.

For the students, exhibitions and talks will be held at all primary, secondary and tertiary institutions in Tampines.

The videos and talks will emphasise safe cycling habits.

Mr Mah stressed the need to have proper facilities, public education aswell as enforcement in order for cyclingon footpaths to be feasible.

To cater to the growing number of cyclists, tenders have been issued for the construction of 2.3km of bicycle tracks and $1 million has been set aside for this pilot phase of the project, said Tampines Member of Parliament Ong Kian Min. Some footpaths will also be widened so that they can accommodate both pedestrians and cyclists.

Tampines’ chief cycling warden and grassroots leader Steven Yeo said he hoped to recruit 90 more volunteers to add to the current group of 190 wardens to help spread the message of safe cycling.

On the enforcement front, Supt Lee said cyclists who ride in a disorderly manner can be fined $20 under Rule 10 of the Road Traffic (Bicycles) Rule, while those who ride in a rash or negligent manner endangering human life or causing injury can be jailed up to a year and/or fined$5,000 under the Penal Code.

The Cycling on Footways trial is a tripartite effort by the TGO, Singapore Police Force and the Land Transport Authority to study whether it is feasible for cyclists to share footpaths with pedestrians.

In a survey of 565 residents conducted by TSM consultancy from May to November last year, 57 per cent of non-cyclists and 73 per cent of cyclists supported the continuation of the scheme.

With fuel prices soaring, many Tampines residents welcomed the trial extension, saying that cycling would be a cheap mode of transport.

“Of course, it would be better if we could have more cycling tracks. They could even be used by people with baby prams,” said Tampines Street 22 resident Mr Rahim, 44, who cycles to the market and hawker centre twice a week.

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Why it will always be cool at the Sentosa Integrated Resort

Singapore-designed energy-efficient device cools air to 25 degrees Celcius
Esther Fung, Today Online 2 Jul 08;

WHEN the Sentosa integrated resort opens in a few years’ time, visitors may enjoy aircon temperatures even as they queue outdoors.

This is thanks to a new Singapore-designed device that chills air to about 25 degrees Celsius and consumes 20 per cent of the energy required by traditional air-conditioners using fans and solar panels.

Resorts World, which is developing the Sentosa IR, believes this will bring annual savings of $1.3 million.

The pioneering companies behind it are Ethos Engineering, Prima Research and Technology, and Resorts World itself.

The outdoor cooling system was tested at the Environmental and Water Technology Centre of Innovation in Clementi which was jointly launched by Spring Singapore and Ngee Ann Polytechnic in November 2006, and officially opened by Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Mr S Iswaran yesterday.

“The centre is like a “missing jigsaw puzzle piece” to our overall R&D effort,” saidMr Benjamin Kwek, sales director of Ethos Engineering.

“Instead of building a water lab for this project, we utilised the centre’s existing water lab and their expertise. We engaged the centre to do water tests and lots of other lab tests which accelerated our R&D tremendously,” saidMr Kwek.

If not for this testbed, the “eco-cooler” might have taken twice as long to develop.

The centre can be used any SMEs needing to develop environmental products.

Spring Singapore has also launched an EnviroTech Capability Development Programme to provide grants for SMEsinvolved in areas such as wastewater treatment, clean energy and air pollution treatment.

Individual companies typically receive about $50,000 to $100,000 in grants.

Spring has invested $12 million in its two initiatives.

With mounting concerns over climate change and rising energy prices, Mr Iswaran said that these initiatives come at an opportune time.

“The global focus on environmental issues and the industry is at unprecedented levels,” he said.

Currently, there are 3,000 companies in the environmental industry here, generating an annual output of $7 billion and employs 35,000 people.

Mr Png Cheong Boon, acting chief executive of Spring Singapore said: “We want to make sure that our SMEs are not left behind. Particularly because in many new areas, innovation comes from the small companies.”

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Singapore, China sign agreements to spell out details on eco-city

Channel NewsAsia 1 Jul 08;

TIANJIN: Singaporean and Chinese officials have met for the third time to work on the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-city project. The officials signed agreements on Tuesday, spelling out more details for the iconic eco-city.

The land for the project has been reclaimed and the administrative building is under construction. Now, both countries are ready to get down to the details – from the layout of buildings to the dimensions of roads, and even the number of trees.

Singapore's Senior Minister of State for National Development, Grace Fu, stressed on the importance of planning before execution.

"We are looking at schools, childcare centres, a hospital and community centres. These are some of the amenities that we will put in," she said.

Speaking to reporters following a site visit on Tuesday, Ms Fu said the next phase would focus on policy-related issues.

"If we were to introduce and encourage alternative energy, we have to look at some of the incentives we have to implement to support the development," she said.

Ms Fu and Mr Qiu Baoxing, vice-minister of China's Ministry of Housing and Rural-Urban Development, signed agreements on Tuesday, spelling out the roles and responsibilities of the Eco-City Administrative Committee.

Singapore's Tianjin Eco-city Investment Holdings – owned by Keppel Corporation – and the Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Company also signed a deal to kickstart the development of the eco-city.

The joint venture, called the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Company, will have an initial capital of US$570 million.

Singapore will contribute half of the capital in cash, while its Tianjin partner will provide the land.

The ground-breaking ceremony of the landmark project was initially scheduled to be held in July, but it has been postponed to September after the Beijing Olympics as the Chinese government has been busy with reconstruction work following the Sichuan earthquake.

Officials said the project is progressing on schedule and the joint venture is expected to be up and running in two months.

Both countries plan to showcase their pet project and hold the ground-breaking ceremony during the World Economic Forum, which will be held in Tianjin in September.
- CNA/so

Tianjin eco-city to break ground in September
It will coincide with the World Economic Forum, to be held in the port city that month
Tracy Quek, Straits Times 2 Jul 08;

TIANJIN - SINGAPORE and China will unveil their new flagship Tianjin eco-city project before an international audience in September, when the 50-billion yuan (S$10 billion) venture will also hold its ground-breaking, officials said yesterday.

Tianjin hosts the World Economic Forum (WEF) that month, and there are plans to hold an exhibition during the event to showcase the eco-city, said Mr Cui Guangzhi, vice-chairman of the eco-city administrative committee which plans and oversees the project.

Singapore and Chinese officials are also exploring the possibility of a forum during the WEF, he added, where Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Tianjin Mayor Huang Xingguo will speak on the project - the biggest collaboration between the two countries since the Suzhou Industrial Park was launched in 1994.

Ms Grace Fu, Singapore's Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education, said the WEF is a good chance to 'showcase our contribution to building a township that is environmentally and ecologically-friendly'.

The eco-city's ground-breaking will also be timed to coincide with the WEF which runs from Sept 25 to 27, she said.

Originally scheduled for this month, Singapore agreed to push back the ground-breaking because the Chinese authorities have their hands full after the May 12 Sichuan earthquake and the Beijing Olympics next month.

However, despite the delay, 'the project is on schedule', said Ms Fu, who attended the project's third joint working committee meeting yesterday. Also present were Mr Qiu Baoxing, China's Housing and Rural-Urban Development vice-minister, and Tianjin officials.

The committee reviewed preliminary detailed plans for the first 3-sq-km start-up area. Built from scratch, the first phase will be ready in under five years, house up to 85,000 people, and include facilities like schools and a hospital.

Eventually, over the next 15 years, the eco-city will expand to 30 sq km and be home to 350,000 residents. It will boast a light rail system that will likely run above an 'eco-valley'.

Running from north to south through the heart of the city, the 'eco-valley' will be a lush green belt expected to be up to 100m wide, and stretch for up to 20km, said Mr Cui.

Yesterday, both sides also signed three agreements, including one between the project builders - a Singapore consortium led by Keppel Corporation, and a Chinese consortium led by Tianjin TEDA Investment Holdings - on the formation of a joint venture (JV) company to develop the project mooted by SM Goh in April last year.

The JV company, called the Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Company, will have an initial registered capital of four billion yuan, to be equally contributed by the Singapore and Chinese consortiums.

The Singapore group will contribute cash, while the Chinese side will transfer land for the development to the JV company as its contribution in kind, according to a statement issued by Keppel yesterday.

Tianjin Eco-City project kicks off with 4b yuan JV
Lynette Khoo, Business Times 2 Jul 08;

THE Tianjin Eco-City pro-ject kicked off yesterday with the inking of agreements for the formation of a joint venture to develop it and the formalising of commercial terms for the project.

Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Investment Holdings (STEC) - fully owned by Keppel Corp - signed an agreement with Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Co (TEC) to incorporate the joint-venture company in China.

To be known as Sino-Singapore Tianjin Eco-City Investment and Development Co Ltd, this joint venture - which will act as the master-developer of the eco-city - will have an initial registered capital of four billion yuan (S$794 million) to be equally contributed by STEC and TEC.

TEC will transfer land for the development as its contribution in-kind while STEC will contribute in cash.

Keppel is in the process of seeking international investors to co-invest in STEC. So far, the Qatar Investment Authority has entered into a memorandum of understanding to accept Keppel's invitation to take a 10 per cent stake in STEC. Keppel intends to maintain an initial equity interest of around 50 per cent in STEC.

The eco-city - to be developed in Tianjin on a land area of about 30 sq km - is the biggest collaboration between Singapore and China since the Suzhou Industrial Park project in 1994.

It aims to promote green-living - 'a socially harmonious, environmentally friendly and resource-efficient area that can serve as a practical model of sustainable development'.

The joint venture will also sell land plots to third parties for development to accelerate the progress of the project and achieve design variety.

An initial start-up area of about 3 sq km will be transferred by TEC to the joint-venture company to kick-start the development and the remaining land area will be transferred, in phases, by end-2018.

STEC and TEC will jointly manage the joint-venture company, with rights for an equal number of directors on the board. The CEO will be appointed by STEC and the chairman by TEC.

Yesterday, a commercial agreement between the joint-venture company and the Tianjin's Eco-City Administrative Committee (ECAC) was also inked, setting out the basis of cooperation. ECAC will, among other things, undertake the construction of the infrastructure in the eco-city and will consider granting incentives to the joint venture.

The Eco-City Joint Working Committee met yesterday in Tianjin to discuss proposed changes to the master plan following a public consultation in China and preliminary plans of the start-up area.

A second supplementary agreement on the eco-city formalising the roles, powers and responsibilities of the ECAC was signed by Grace Fu, Singapore's Senior Minister of State for National Development and Education, and Qiu Baoxing, Chinese Vice-Minister of the Ministry of Housing and Rural-Urban Development.

In May, this project was given an official estimated preliminary price tag of 50 billion yuan.

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Farming: vertically challenged?

Vertical farms may be the hot story, but a network of good old-fashioned kitchen-gardens would produce better food

Graham Harvey, The Guardian 30 Jun 08;

With all the background noise about rising food prices and food security it's no surprise that the idea of the vertical farm is getting another airing.

It was first proposed five years ago by a team at Columbia University. As they pointed out, the practice of hauling vast amounts of food from the countryside to cities – then shifting similar amounts of organic waste back the other way – seems pretty half baked. With oil at $140 a barrel it looks doubly so.

On the vertical farm the two operations are brought together in a single, fully-integrated process right in the heart of the city. Crops would be grown hydroponically – in nutrient solution – while the farming of fish like tilapia, the grass carp, would supply animal proteins.

Crop residues would be composted and the nutrients recycled back into the growing medium, while food wastes would be fed through an anaerobic digester to produce methane for power generation and heat to speed up crop growth. For maximum efficiency human wastes – from "black-water" sewage treatment systems – would also be exploited for their nutrient supply.

The whole idea has a very futuristic appeal. Artists' impressions often show a steel-and-glass tower with crops being grown at different levels in a sort of high-rise, multi-level greenhouse. It's part of the urban landscape – a modern solution to the problems of feeding a fast-growing and increasingly urban population.

But while the principles of recycling nutrients and producing food close to consumers have real advantages at a time of rocketing energy prices, there's seems little chance of the idea actually catching on.

For a start I've yet to find a hydroponically-grown item that compares in quality to the equivalent food grown in good, old fashioned soil. Take the supermarket tomato, a prime example of an everyday staple grown in nutrient solution. In flavour and succulence it can't hold a candle to the ones I produce from grow-bags in my greenhouse.

Perhaps a more significant drawback is that – despite recent inflation – food prices are still nowhere near the levels they'd need to reach to justify shifting agriculture away from relatively cheap rural land to the high-priced real estate of the city.

The fact is, for all the hype about population explosions, there's no real shortage of food producing land on the planet. According to UN figures, the world's entire production of cereals and vegetables occupies an area of land smaller than Russia. More than twice this area is currently occupied by extensive grazing. If global commodity prices stay high it's likely that additional land will be brought under cultivation, certainly enough to make up the present food shortfall.

That said, a world supply based on a few industrially-grown, globally-traded grain crops is wasteful of scarce fossil fuels and inherently risky. There are sound strategic and economic reasons for bringing food production closer to the people who are going to eat it.

Perhaps the answer lies in greening the cities – not in a vertical direction – but on the horizontal? This is pretty much what Cuba did when the flow of Soviet oil dried up and large-scale mechanised agriculture became impossible. Under the US trade embargo the people faced starvation. The result was a proliferation of small-scale organic farms that basically kept the nation fed.

There's no reason why conurbations like London and New York shouldn't be filled with city farms in the same way as Havana. There are thousands of small areas from rooftops to urban parks that could be converted to food production. In fact it's already started to happen. Last year Harrods announced that it would be growing a range of crops – including lettuces, broad beans and tomatoes – right there on its roof.

Alternatively there's a good case for converting "green belt" land around our cities for the production of vegetables and fruit for local people. Back in the 19th century London and other cities were ringed with market gardens supplying fresh foods for the local urban population. They maintained the fertility of their soils by collecting manure from the millions of horses that were then stabled in cities.

Renewed interest in the vertical farm is a useful reminder that shorter food supply lines would bring many benefits. There's also much to be said for recycling organic nutrients including those we waste through the sewage system. But it's probably a little early to start talking up the high-rise farm.

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Tiger reintroduced at Indian reserve after poachers kill off population

Maseeh Rahman, The Guardian 30 Jun 08;

Wildlife conservationists are hoping to introduce a tiger to a part of Rajastan where poachers had killed off an entire population in a forest reserve.

Sariska, a reserve 120 miles south of Delhi, made news three years ago when it was discovered that its population of 26 tigers had disappeared having fallen prey to poachers and human encroachment into the forest.

The uproar forced the government to order a nationwide tiger census. A report earlier this year showed the numbers are down to around 1,400 less than half the big cat population five years ago.

The return of the tiger to Sariska last weekend is part of an effort to ensure that India's national symbol does not become extinct.

"This is the first time anywhere in the world that a tiger has been relocated from one natural habitat to another," said PR Sinha, director of the Wildlife Institute of India. "Nobody knows how this tiger will behave away from home."

An Indian air force helicopter touched down in the Sariska tiger reserve in Rajasthan on Saturday to release a five-year-old male flown in from another sanctuary.

The Sariska tiger has been flown in from Ranthambore sanctuary, which has around 40 tigers. Tigers usually live between eight to ten years in the wild and the five-year-old migrant is approaching the age when a tiger begins to mark out its own territory.

Conservationists are hoping that it will stake its territorial claim using scratch marks, urine and faecal droppings, in Sariska.

To prevent the tiger from attempting to return to its orginal habitat wildlife workers have released the animal in a fenced, one hectare enclosure within the sanctuary. A goat was released into the enclosure on Sunday, and the tiger killed and ate the animal, suggesting it was settling in.

"We'll allow the tiger to move out of the enclosure on Wednesday and then monitor its movements night and day to see what it does," said Sinha. "The tiger's collar has both satellite and VHF transmitters to help us keep track. And there's enough natural prey inside the sanctuary for it to survive on its own."

A team of experts, including two vets with tranquiliser guns, are keeping watch. If the tiger appears to be heading back to Ranthambore, it will be brought back into the enclosure.

"It will be a slow process," said Sinha. "The idea is to get the tiger used to its new home. If this succeeds, then over the next three years we plan to bring in four more tigers – three females and another male. They will breed and multiply."

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Seal hunt protesters urge EU ban

Yahoo News 1 Jul 08;

Hundreds of anti-seal hunt demonstrators held a protest outside European Union headquarters in Brussels on Tuesday, demanding that the 27-nation bloc impose a total ban on seal products from Canada and elsewhere.

The protest outside the European Commission and European Council buildings in central Brussels, was held on the day France assumed the EU's rotating presidency, and French protesters were to the fore.

Christophe Marie, a member of ex-screen icon Brigitte Bardot's foundation for the welfare of animals, said the protesters had come to "demonstrate the concerns of the people".

The French former film star, who has been involved in the campaign against the killing of baby seals for 30 years, was unable to attend for health reasons.

"Fur = Torture" read one banner held by two young protesters near a huge inflatable of a baby seal.

But no EU commissioner was in Brussels on Tuesday to witness the scene, all having travelled to Paris for the launch of France's six-month EU presidency.

The animal rights activists urged EU Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas to swiftly present promised proposals on banning seal products obtained in an inhumane way.

However they argued that it would be impossible to police all seal culls to check whether they are carried out in a humane manner or not, making the scheme unworkable and ineffective.

They instead want a total ban on seal products.

"We want a total ban which applies to all countries involved in commercial hunting" of young seals for their pelts, the International Fund for Animal Welfare said, citing Canada but also Russia, Finland and Denmark with Greenland.

Canada has increased its quota of seals to be hunted to 275,000 this year from 270,000.

The annual commercial seal hunt is often marked by confrontations between animal rights protesters and the hunters and Canadian authorities.

Belgium and the Netherlands have already banned the import of seal skins and products while several other EU nations, including Germany, have taken measures to close their own markets.

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Map reveals extent of deforestation in tropical countries

Ian Sample, The Guardian 1 Jul 08;

A map of the world's tropical forests has revealed that millions of hectares of trees were cut back to make way for crops in recent years.

Created from high-resolution satellite images, the map shows the extent of deforestation in the tropics with unprecedented accuracy.

Between 2000 and 2005, at least 27.2m hectares (68m acres) of tropical forests were cleared to make way for farming. Almost half of the deforested land was in Brazil, nearly four times more than the next most deforested country, Indonesia, which accounted for 12.8% of cleared land.

Scientists led by Matthew Hansen at South Dakota State University created the map to help inform conservationists and politicians about the state of the world's forests. While figures on deforestation are already compiled by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, they are based on unverified estimates submitted by individual countries, and rarely describe where in a country forests are being cleared.

Recent estimates by the UN suggest that around 13m hectares of the world's forests are lost to deforestation each year, with South America alone losing more than 4m hectares a year.

"We wanted to be able to pinpoint exactly where deforestation was happening, because that gives you much more information for policy makers to act upon," said Fred Stolle at Conservation International in Washington DC.

The scientists collected images taken between 2000 and 2005 by Nasa's Modis satellite network, which photographs the surface of the Earth every one to two days in 500m-wide snapshots.

The researchers used the images to identify deforestation "hotspots" in the tropics, and then created a detailed map using a second satellite network called Landsat, which is accurate to within 30m.

According to the map, over the five-year period, Brazil lost 3.6% of its forest cover, Indonesia 3.4%, Latin America 1.2%, the rest of Asia 2.7% and Africa 0.8%. The study appears in the US journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The map showed that deforestation in Indonesia was largely concentrated in just two regions, and that much of it was peatland. "The peatlands are essentially all carbon, so if you clear it and fire it, an enormous amount of carbon will be emitted into the atmosphere," said Stolle. "Without a precise map, we would not know that level of detail."

The researchers hope to produce annual updates of the map to show trends in deforestation.

The map is a conservative estimate of deforestation because it only shows where forests have been cut down and not replaced. It does not take into account selective logging, areas where forests have been replanted, or general degradation of forests.

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Kenya greenlights sugar power project

Yahoo News 1 Jul 08;

Kenya has given the green light to a project where sugar will be grown to generate power in coastal wetlands, despite objections by environmentalists, its government said Tuesday.

The 24-billion-shilling (369.3-million-dollar or 235-million-euro) Tana Integrated Sugar Project will mill 8,000 tonnes of sugar cane daily, generate 34 megawatts of electricity and produce 23 million litres of ethanol a year.

Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds and Nature Kenya has opposed the project, which is to cover more than 20,000 hectares (50,000 acres) of the Tana River Delta, saying it would damage the fragile ecosystem.

"This is an important project that is being implemented with full government support for the benefit of the local people," Regional Development Minister Fred Gumo told reporters.

"We have a lot of people who import sugar in this country and they are the ones who don't want this project to take off."

Mumias Sugar Company owns 51 percent of the project, to be sited about 120 kilometres (75 miles) north of the port city of Mombasa, while the rest is owned by state-run Tana and Athi River Development Authorities and local residents.

Conservationists have warned that loss of grazing and crops caused by the project would incur serious land damage in the protected aera.

Aside from inflation and steep oil prices, demand for biofuels has also been blamed as a contributory factor towards the global food crisis that has sparked riots in many poor nations, including Kenya.

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Carbon capture: pipe dream or climate change weapon?

Adam Plowright Yahoo News 1 Jul 08;

Carbon capture and storage (CSS) is fast becoming the oil industry's favourite solution to the climate crisis but the seductive simplicity of the idea masks a series of doubts about its viability.

In its simplest form, CSS consists of capturing carbon dioxide (CO2) as it is released into the atmosphere, compressing it and then pumping it back into depleted oil and gas fields or other safe underground chambers.

Its attraction for the industry resides in its ability to reduce the harmful consequence of burning fossil fuels -- greenhouse gases -- with energy bosses at this week's World Petroleum Congress (WPC) keen to promote it as a solution.

"Capturing and storing CO2 is the only realistic way of reducing emissions while delivering the energy that the world needs to prosper," the chief executive of British-Dutch oil group Shell, Jeroen van der Veer, said.

But ask an expert when the technique could be deployed on a large enough commercial scale to make a significant reduction in global CO2 emissions and the response is often less than confident.

"That's a very difficult question," said Olav Kaarstad, a leading expert and special advisor to front-running Norwegian energy group StatoilHydro.

He told AFP that the technology exists, with the capture part being the most expensive and underdeveloped. Statoil buries about a million tonnes of CO2 a year at a site in the North Sea that has been operating for 11 years.

"It's the mother of all CCS projects," he said, referring to the Sleipner project where CO2 extracted during the processing of natural gas is pumped back underground.

Its status as a world leader has little competition, however, with only three other CSS projects elsewhere on the planet. Statoil is involved in three -- two in Norway and a third in Algeria -- with a fourth underway in Canada.

For such an underdeveloped technique, there is a lot riding on the success of CSS: it is routinely factored into projections of future world CO2 emissions and is considered an essential part of reducing them.

"CCS is probably one of the most important key technologies to cope with CO2 emission reduction," the head of the International Energy Agency, Nobuo Tanaka, told AFP at the WPC, which runs until Thursday.

"Without this technology we cannot reduce CO2 emissions substantially," he added.

But the hurdles and barriers that must be overcome are daunting, requiring international cooperation, innovation, vast investment programmes and public acceptance -- and all this in a race against global warming.

Firstly, the cost of capturing the CO2 during the production of fossil fuels or energy, at a power station, for example, is extremely expensive and requires the use of solvents that are themselves an environmental danger.

Secondly, sufficient burial spots must be identified from where the CO2 cannot leak and infrastructure including tankers or pipelines must be built to transport the CO2 to these locations.

Thirdly, there is no incentive yet for polluting companies to invest in CCS technology because of the cost. A study by US university MIT last year put this at about 30 dollars (19 euros) per tonne of CSS-treated CO2.

This requires either carbon taxes, a pollution permit trading system like the one operating in Europe that raises the cost of emissions, or massive state subsidies.

In a globalised world, an international agreement to put a price on CO2 emissions is likely to be needed to prevent unfairly penalising industries in areas where emissions have a cost, experts say.

Fourthly, there is likely to be public opposition to on-land rather than at-sea storage while earthquakes or other geological events risk releasing back into the atmosphere a potentially giant dose of greenhouse gases.

Kaarstad says the best place to start is to take the easiest opportunities to demonstrate CCS first.

Natural gas refineries and ammonia and hydrogen plants already separate out CO2 as part of their industrial processes, so the capturing is already being done. The next step is to bury it.

"What I try to say to people is 'let's get on with the more affordable, the more easily set up projects so we can learn a lot'," Kaastad said.

"Today we are seeing too much focus on hugely costly coal-fired power station projects. We should look at lower cost, 'low hanging fruit' which would make it possible for more countries to have their own projects."

The coal-fired power station ideal is that CO2 could be scrubbed out of emissions at the plant rather than being released into the atmosphere.

"There are still technical and economic constraints," says Neil Wildgust from the IEA Greenhouse Gas R&D Programme, a public and private-funded research centre that investigates technological solutions to climate change.

"Storage of CO2 has been done and while there are issues to be understood, effectively it is a proven technology.

"The capture side is the barrier. The cost of capturing is high. For power companies to capture there has to be come sort of incentive."

As to when CCS be scaled up to become a series response to the climate change challenge? 2015 to 2020, experts say. Maybe.

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Renewable Energy is "Green Gold Rush" - UN Report

Michael Szabo, PlanetArk 2 Jul 08;

LONDON - In what is being called a "green gold rush," global investment in renewable energy surged some 60 percent to US$148 billion in 2007, a UN agency said on Tuesday.

Buoyed by soaring fossil-fuel prices and concerns over the carbon dioxide emissions that fuel global warming, investment in clean energy from sources like wind, solar and biofuels last year rose three times faster then predicted by the UN Environmental Programme (UNEP).

"Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern day prospectors in all parts of the globe," said Achim Steiner, head of UNEP.

"Clean energy in one of the strongest sectors in the world in terms of investment activity," said New Energy Finance CEO Michael Liebreich, one of the authors of the report.

Wind power attracted the most capital last year at US$50.2 billion, or a third of all clean energy investment, UNEP's Global Trends in Sustainable Energy Investment 2008 report said.

In March 2008, global installed wind capacity exceeded 100 gigawatts, or enough to power around 75 million homes.

Investment in solar energy soared by 254 percent to US$28.6 billion last year, while the biofuel sector foundered with funds falling nearly one third to US$2.1 billion, the report said.

Overall, clean energy accounted for 23 percent of all new installed capacity in 2007.

Public investment in renewable energy via the markets more than doubled to USU$23.4 billion, up from US$10.6 billion in 2006, the report said.

The S&P Custom/ABN AMRO Renewable Energy Index gained 70 percent in 2007, but has since fallen 14 percent on weakness in the global economy.

Most new money flowed into renewable energy leaders the European Union and the US, though China, India and Brazil attracted a sizable US$26 billion last year, up 14 times from US$1.8 billion in 2004.

The three developing countries now account for 22 percent of all new renewables investment, UNEP said.

Investment in Africa's clean energy sector grew fivefold to US1.3 billion in 2007, reversing a gradual decline that started in 2004.

"Sub-Saharan Africa, arguably the region that has the most to gain from renewable energy, remains largely unexploited," the report said.


A NEW DEAL

The renewable energy sector is expected to grow to US$450 billion in 2012, and up to US$600 billion by 2020, UNEP said.

"We have a significant economic signal here, that goes well beyond what, 10 years ago, energy thinktanks or international financial institutions thought would happen," Steiner said on a call.

Developing nations like China, which recently surpassed the US as the world's top emitter, are being encouraged by rich countries to embrace renewable energy and adopt binding emissions targets under a new international climate pact.

The Kyoto Protocol's first commitment period expires in 2012, and governments are now racing to negotiate a new agreement that they hope to have in place by the UN's climate talks next year.

"The (report's) findings should empower governments - both North and South - to reach a deep and meaningful new agreement by the crucial climate convention meeting in Copenhagen in late 2009," Steiner said.

In the US, as public acceptance shifts to cleaner energy, the government is being called on to lead a "carbon revolution" by passing domestic climate legislation and agreeing to at least halve emissions by 2050 at next week's Group of Eight rich nations summit in Japan.

Both candidates in the US presidential election in November have said they support deep cuts and experts are confident either one will make progress on a US climate bill in the first six months of their presidency.

"A new administration in 2009 is expected to make renewable energy a priority while recent uncertainly (over possible emissions regulations) has put a number of coal-fired generation plants on hold," the report said.

On Monday, a Georgia state court invalidated a permit to build a 1,200-megawatt coal power plant, citing the developers' failure to limit emissions of carbon dioxide.

For additional analysis on the renewable energy market, go to http://www.reutersinteractive.com

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; Editing by James Jukwey)


UN agency hails green energy 'gold rush'
Bogonko Bosire Yahoo News 1 Jul 08;

The world is enjoying a "green energy gold rush", the UN's environmental agency said Tuesday as it published a report outlining a 60 percent hike in investment in renewable energy in 2007.

The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) study, published in Nairobi, said more than 148 billion dollars (93 billion euros) of new funds were ploughed into the quest for cleaner energy last year.

The massive demand for solar, wind and biofuel energy was being powered by prevailing climate change worries, growing support from world governments and rising crude oil prices, the UN agency said.

"Just as thousands were drawn to California and the Klondike in the late 1800s, the green energy gold rush is attracting legions of modern-day prospectors in all parts of the globe," UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner said in a statement.

"What is unfolding is nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the world's energy infrastructure."

The UNEP report said wind energy had attracted the highest investment, raking in 50.2 billion dollars in 2007. As of March 2008 its production capacity was more than 100 gigabytes, it added.

Solar power grew most rapidly, attracting some 28.6 billion dollars in new capital and growing at an average annual rate of 254 percent since 2004.

Biofuel investment declined by one-third to 2.1 billion in 2007 with new investment shifting from the US to the growth economies of Brazil, India and China.

Much of the new cash flowed into Europe and the US, but China, India and Brazil were drawing increasing interest with investment in the three nations up from 12 percent in 2004 to 22 percent last year -- an increase from 1.8 billion dollars to 26 billion.

Effectively, China, India and Brazil accounted for nearly a quarter of the new investment in clean energy.

Sustainable energy accounted for 23 percent of new power capacity added globally in 2007, about 10 times that of nuclear, the report added.

"Investment in the sustainable energy sectors must continue to grow strongly if targets for greenhouse gas reductions and renewables and efficiency increases are to be met," according to the report.

"Investment between now and 2030 is expected to reach 450 billion dollars a year by 2012, rising to more than 600 billion dollars a year from 2020."

The report added that energy from biomass and geothermal power were being lined up as the next growth industries as the world strives to end its dependency on fossil fuels blamed for contributing to global warming.

Developing nations like China, which has already surpassed the US as the world's largest carbon polluter, are under pressure to take quick measures aimed at curbing its greenhouse gas emissions.

UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon urged the world most populous nation on Tuesday to accept its global responsibilities on climate change.

"China is a global power with a global responsibility and global interests," he said in an address at Beijing's Foreign Affairs University.

"Major emitters from the developing world must also increase their contributions to reduce carbon emissions."

Steiner said transition to cleaner energy sources had become inevitable in the modern world.

"With world temperatures and fossil fuel prices climbing higher, it is increasingly obvious to the public and investors alike that the transition to a low-carbon society is both a global imperative and an inevitability.

"This is attracting an enormous inflow of capital, talent and technology. But it is only inevitable if creative market mechanisms and public policy continue to evolve to liberate rather than frustrate this clean energy dawn."

Although Africa continues to lag other regions in terms of sustainable energy investment, financing in the clean energy sector climbed to 1.3 billion dollars in 2007.

This was five times the level of the previous year and reversed a gradual decline since 2004, the report added.

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Bird flu 'still a major threat'

Fergus Walsh, BBC News 28 Jun 08;

The world is still at risk from a new pandemic strain of flu according to leading scientists.

The H5N1 strain of the bird flu virus has been out of the headlines for some time but experts say it still poses a potential threat.

I have been taking part in a vaccine trial against the virus and have just received my latest jab. It is two years since I volunteered for a clinical trial in Oxford for a vaccine against H5N1.

In 2006 bird flu was a major news story in the UK following the discovery of a dead swan with H5N1 in Scotland. In January that year there had been the first human deaths in Turkey and the threat to Western Europe seemed palpable.

Since then, although there have been further outbreaks among poultry in the UK, there have been no human fatalities in Western Europe.

The level of media interest in bird flu has subsided - but has the threat disappeared? Not really.

Still killing people

It is very hard for humans to be infected by H5N1 - it requires very close contact with the virus.



The virus is endemic in poultry and bird stocks in south-east Asia - and 241 people have died after being infected, 24 so far this year.

However, bird flu, as the name suggests, still poses its biggest threat to poultry.

Earlier this month there was an outbreak of H7N7 bird flu at a farm 30 miles north of Oxford, forcing the slaughter of 25,000 chickens.

Pandemic inevitable

Robert Newbery, poultry adviser at the National Farmers' Union, said avian flu was still a serious economic and animal welfare concern - but the level of risk was quite different compared to that in countries like Indonesia and Vietnam.

"The systems in which poultry are kept in south-east Asia are completely unrecognisable compared to the UK," he said.



But he went on: "Having said that, while the theoretical risk to human health exists, we as a farming community and the government will continue to take the disease very seriously."

The threat may be theoretical at present - but all of the infectious disease experts I have spoken to over recent years agree that it is not a matter of if but of when the next flu pandemic will occur.

H5N1 might not eventually be the virus responsible but the pandemic will almost certainly start in animals and then mutate into an infectious human disease.

We simply don't know when that will happen - which makes it hard for the media to maintain interest.

Millions at risk

Nick White is a leading expert on infectious disease and professor of tropical medicine at Mahidol University in Bangkok and Oxford University.

He spends most of the year in Thailand where there have been 17 deaths from H5N1 but was in Oxford the day I had my third jab.

"We did not overreact to the threat from bird flu and we should still be worried," he said.

"It is fortunate that nothing has happened so far but a flu pandemic could be cataclysmic for the human race.

"If it became as infectious as Spanish flu in 1918-9 it could kill hundreds of millions of people."

Dr Alan Hay, director of the World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre at the National Centre for Medical Research in the UK, says no-one is writing off the threat from H5N1.

"We are in a state of stasis. There are plenty of infections in birds and there have been isolated human cases in Africa which is worrying.

"Thankfully, H5N1 does not readily infect people but when it does it can have disastrous consequences."

Currently, for every 10 people who get infected, six will die.

No regrets

I have no regrets about volunteering for the vaccine trial.

Just because bird flu is not on the front pages any more doesn't mean that the potential threat has gone.

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BBC correspondent takes part in a vaccine trial

As for the injection itself, some people expressed surprise that I volunteered for the trial and concern for my well-being.

In fact the technology used to create the prototype vaccine is very well-established and any threat to my health was vanishingly small.

I have had no ill-effects from any of the three doses I received.

The first two contained a vaccine against the Vietnam strain of bird flu and the most recent was against the Indonesian strain.

So if and when the next pandemic happens, will I and the other trial volunteers be better off than everyone else? That is a difficult question to answer.

It is possible that H5N1 pre-pandemic vaccines may offer some protection but no one can be sure until it happens.

The real point of the trial is to help scientists understand the best way of creating a vaccine when a pandemic occurs.

Only when scientists know the exact pandemic strain will they be able to tailor-make a vaccine against it and know what the right dose should be.

Let's hope that day is a long way off.

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