Extinct plant found in Australia: minister

Yahoo News 6 Jul 08;

A plant thought to have been extinct for more than 100 years has been discovered in eastern Australia, an official said Sunday.

New South Wales Primary Industries Minister Ian Macdonald said the plant, a member of the foxglove family known as the Euphrasia Arguta, was found by a forest worker in Nundle State Forest, in the state's north-west.

The plant's last recorded sighting was in June 1904.

"In botanical terms, this really is a blast from the past," he said.

"This discovery is central to our aim of ensuring that we look after the flora and fauna in our forests."

Officials are developing a conservation plan for the plant, which was discovered last summer.

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Mexico plants 8 million trees in latest green project

Reuters 5 Jul 08;

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - Mexicans went out and planted more than 8 million trees across the country on Saturday as part of a government push to shed its reputation for environmental mismanagement and rampant illegal logging.

Packs of volunteers, including oil workers and schoolchildren, trekked into fields and forests up and down Mexico wielding shovels and wheelbarrows full of government-supplied saplings. They planted a 8.3 million trees, the environment ministry said.

"We are repairing just a little of the enormous damage that we are doing" to the environment, President Felipe Calderon said at a tree planting event just north of the capital.

Illegal logging destroys some 64,000 acres (26,000 hectares) of Mexican forest each year, the government says, putting Mexico near the top of a U.N. list of nations losing primary forest fastest.

Environmental activists say the figure is much higher.

"Everybody needs to help out a little to keep the world green," said volunteer Marcela Lopez as she patted down soil around a sapling on the west side of Mexico City.

Environmental group Greenpeace called the government-led effort a publicity stunt, saying a better way to keep forests healthy would be to cut back on logging, which is often controlled by the country's powerful organized crime gangs.

"This program is a fraud. Only 10 percent of what is planted survives, which means they are throwing the federal budget for reforestation straight into the garbage," the group said in a statement.

Calderon regularly speaks out against global warming, and the leftwing Mexico City mayor has launched a number of green initiatives to curb rampant pollution in the city, where government fuel subsidies and a lack of public transport mean the roads are permanently choked with cars.

Mexican Environment Minister Juan Rafael Elvira said the point of the tree planting was to raise environmental consciousness in Mexico, which ecologists also criticize for allowing the oil industry to contaminate many rural states.

"We don't just want a green country. We want to plant trees to nurture environmental conscience," he said.

(Reporting by Mariano Castillo, Rodolfo Pena and Jason Lange, editing by Todd Eastham)

Mexico plants nine million trees in one day: minister
Yahoo News 7 Jul 08;

More than nine million trees were planted in Mexico as part of a day-long campaign against deforestation, the environment minister said Monday.

The day of tree-planting took place on Saturday and aimed to compensate for the 316,000 hectares (780,000 acres) of forest that are lost annually to illegal exploitation, Environment Minister Juan Elvira said.

Mexicans were able to "plant 9,345,000 trees of various types," said Elvira, adding that 507,000 citizens had participated across the country.

Mexico is the fifth leading country in the world in terms of deforestation.

The government launched an ambitious reforestation project in 2007, when 250 million trees were planted, with a goal of 280 million for 2008.

The environmental group Greenpeace has criticized the government, saying it has done little to prevent illegal logging and that deforestation was likely to continue.

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Climate change may cut South Africa corn crop sharply

Lucy Hornby, Reuters 6 Jul 08;

SAPPORO, Japan (Reuters) - Climate change could cut South Africa's maize crop by 20 percent within 15 to 20 years as the west of the country dries out while the east is afflicted with increasingly severe storms, its environment minister said on Sunday.

"For a developing country that's major, and major bad news," Marthinus van Schalkwyk told reporters after arriving in northern Japan, where the Group of Eight rich nations' leaders are gathering for a summit this week.

"For us it's not something far in the future, it's already happening."

Climate change and rising global food prices are at the top of the G8's agenda this year. Van Schalkwyk called on developed countries to slash emissions by 80 to 95 percent by 2050 compared with 1990, to achieve meaningful progress in fighting climate change.

Developing countries like South Africa, which holds most of the continent's coal reserves and is expanding output, will need technology transfers to slow their growth in emissions, he said.

Otherwise, increasing dryness in the west would be matched by cyclones and heavy rain in the east, fanning the spread of malaria and destroying infrastructure that wasn't built to withstand strong winds and heavy rains.

As its western regions dry out, South Africa would have to turn to more drought-resistant strains of maize, or corn, giving a greater role to genetically modified strains, he said. GMO corn is already legal in South Africa.

South Africa consumes about 8 million tonnes a year of corn. It produced 7.125 million tonnes in the 2007 harvest, but this year's harvest topped 11 million tonnes following better rains.

In December, the country specifically excluded maize from the materials that could be used to make biofuels, despite protests from a grain-growing lobby that fears drops in prices when output is high.

Van Schalkwyk called for an international framework to set policy on biofuels, which by diverting excess grain supply helped push corn futures in Chicago to an all-time high last month.

"We believe that is the responsible approach. We were criticized then, but now we are proven right," he said.

(Editing by Hugh Lawson)

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Australian climate report like 'disaster novel': minister

Yahoo News 6 Jul 08;

Heatwaves, less rain and increased drought are the likely prospect for Australia, according to a new report on climate change which the agriculture minister said read like a "disaster novel".

The report, by the Bureau of Meteorology and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, found that the world's driest inhabited continent is likely to suffer more extreme temperatures due to climate change.

It said that exceptionally hot years, which once occurred every 20 to 25 years, were more likely to hit every one or two years. And the hotter weather could begin as soon as 2010.

Agriculture Minister Tony Burke said the assessment indicated that the risk of drought would double, as would the area of Australia declared to be in drought.

"Parts of these high level projections read more like a disaster novel than a scientific report," he told reporters.

"What's clear is that the cycle of drought is going to be more regular and deeper than ever."

The report is part of a government review of drought policy.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said the report, which found that the area of Australia having an exceptionally hot year could increase from just under five percent to as much as 95 percent, was "very disturbing".

"The analysis shows that the extent and frequency of exceptionally hot years have been increasing rapidly over recent decades and this trend is expected to continue," the report concluded.

Rainfall, which has been falling since the 1950s -- partly due to climate change -- is also likely to decline with southern Australia and the southern island of Tasmania among the worst affected, it said.

Australia faces worse, more frequent droughts-study
Reuters 6 Jul 08;

PERTH (Reuters) - Australia could experience more severe droughts and they could become more frequent in the future because of climate change, a government-commissioned report said on Sunday.

Droughts could hit the country twice as often as now, cover an area twice as big and be more severe in key agricultural production areas, the Bureau of Meteorology and Australia's top science organization, the CSIRO, said in a joint report.

The study also found that temperatures currently defined as "exceptional" were likely to occur, on average, once in every two years in many key agricultural production areas within the next 20 to 30 years, while spells of low rainfall would almost double in frequency from current figures.

Australia, suffering its worst drought in 100 years, has seen its wheat exports tumble in the past two years.

The Pacific nation is normally the second-largest wheat exporter in the world, but the harvest has been decimated to just 13 million tonnes last year because of drought.

The report, commissioned by the left-leaning Labor Party government as part of a review of national drought policy, said about 50 percent of the rainfall decrease in south-western Australia since the 1950s was likely due to emissions of greenhouse gases.

It added current policies defining areas eligible for government drought assistance were out-of-date and more areas needed to be included for drought support.

"We've already seen farmers walking off the land and rural communities struggling to stay afloat in the face of widespread stress and depression," Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry Tony Burke said in a statement.

"Yet this report suggests this rare event could occur much more often due to climate change. We need to act now to ensure we are better prepared for climate change in the future."

(Reporting by Fayen Wong; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)

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Best of our wild blogs: 6 Jul 08

How to derive Google Maps links from NParks' new website
on the habitatnews blog

Encounter with juvenile bee-eater in an earth cavity from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

The Life History of the Hieroglyphic Flat
on the butterflies of singapore blog

Stars at Changi
on the discovery blog

Knobbly at Changi
on the tidechaser blog

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Mango tree goes but bears fruit -friendship

The New Paper 6 Jul 08;

A SMALL stump was all that was left of the 17-year-old mango tree outside

Mr Gabriel Tan's shop last evening.

That, and a few mangoes that Mr Tan took as a last offering from the tree he tried to save.

It marked the end of a long-running fight between the Simpang Bedok shopkeeper and the management committee (MC) of Bedok Shopping Complex, which run the estate.

Mr Tan, 52, wanted to save the tree but the MC wanted to cut it after a complaint from a nearby private house owner that the tree's leaves were falling into his backyard.

For about six weeks, there was tension between the parties, and the police had to be called in more than once to try to mediate.

Mr Tan's stand was that the MC - made up of owners elected at the annual general meeting - had not given a good reason to cut the tree.

But after three unsuccessful attempts to fell the tree, the MC was back to get the job done the fourth time.

Around 2.30pm yesterday, a contractor arrived with four workers. Immediately, Mr Tan and his faithful supporter Mr Kwek Khan Che, 53, who owns a drink stall in the area, stepped past the barricades, which had reportedly been erected on Wednesday night, and stood beneath the tree side by side.

They held determined looks on their faces that indicated that they were not budging.

But the work began, despite their presence.

A worker climbed up the tree and began sawing the higher branches, which tumbled in all directions around Mr Tan and Mr Kwek.

Almost immediately, the home owner who had complained about the falling leaves - retiree Peter Syddall, 73 - came out to stand under the tree as well.

Mr Syddall, a resident there for four years, did not want the tree cut, and said he was worried about how the cutting was being done.

He said: 'The branches are near the power line. What happens if the branches fall on my roof or the power lines?' he asked.

Seeing the three men under the tree, the estate's managing agent known only as Mr Samy, who had appeared shortly after the workers started work, was visibly upset.

Mr Samy, who declined to speak to The New Paper, repeatedly demanded that the men step outside the barricades.

He warned them that he would not be liable for anything that may happen to them while they were below the tree.

Even as the worker was sawing away, Mr Tan was still trying to defend the tree by asking for the minutes of the MC meeting during which the cutting of the tree was decided.

He called the police when his request was ignored.

At 2.45pm, three police officers arrived and the cutting stopped for a while. They managed to coax the men to leave the foot of the tree.

Mr Syddall went home, but was looking out from his second-floor window.

Acting as mediators, the policemen listened to what Mr Samy and Mr Tan had to say.

Mr Samy showed Mr Tan some documents and told him not to challenge the management on technicalities. Shortly after, he walked away and Mr Tan turned to a policeman and said: 'He has not given me the proper answers'.

To that, Mr Samy said: 'His (Mr Tan's) intention is not to cooperate with us.'

Then, as parts of the tree came down in loud heavy thuds, tenants, customers and domestic helpers from the neighbouring homes started searching through the fallen leaves and branches for fruit. There were enough mangoes on the ground to fill a supermarket basket.

A few people were spotted leaving with an armful of mangoes. The workers kept some for themselves, and Mr Tan was given a few.

'These are the last fruits of the tree,' Mr Tan said. 'I feel like I have lost something. I was expecting the tree to come down, but I was hoping for a miracle'.

By 5.30pm, the trunk crashed to the ground.

Although the dispute over the tree was a bitter one, one good thing came out of it.

Mr Tan said: 'Before this, I didn't know Mr Kwek; I just recognised him by face. Because of this incident, I got to make new friends who shared a common cause.'

Mr Syddall agreed: 'Before this incident, I didn't know anyone here.'

- By Shila Naidu, newsroom intern

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Plastic turtles will do no one any good

Letter from Avin Tan, Today Online 5 Jul 08;

I REFER to “Greenback turtle power toSt Pat’s aid” (July 4).

When I read the first line, I thought “Wow, I did not know that Katong was named after a turtle”. So, naturally, I thought this was an article aboutSt Patrick’s School and the environment.

It was indeed about St Pat’s and the environment, but it was about exploiting it, not helping it.

This Saturday, 5,700 plastic toys will be dumped into a canal. What if some of these toys sink and float into open waters, or, get stuck in the canal, causing pollution?

According to the report, “the choice of the turtle — an endangered species — helps to generate awareness of its plight and at the same time raise awareness of the environment”.

How does wasting 5,700 plastic toys help to raise awareness about the environment? Plastic is a non-biodegradable by-product of petroleum, which when burned or buried, causes harm to our volatile environment.

To make matters worse, the money raised is not going back to the environment, but to further destroy it by increasing energy consumption with an air conditioned hall and refurbishing the school field with synthetic turf.

The latter is yet more plastic that also does not contribute to the environment.

Greenback turtle power to St Pat’s aid
Ooi Boon Keong, Today Online 4 Jul 08;

DID you know that Katong is named after an exotic species of sea turtle?

The species may now be extinct but, tomorrow, the canal next toSt Patrick’s school will be brimming with green “turtles”, to celebrate the history of the area and the school.

The event will see some 5,700 plastic greenback turtles racing to cross the finish line of the 150-m-long stretch of water in a contest that is part of a day-long carnival held in conjunction with the school’s 75th anniversary.

The choice of the turtle — an endangered species — helps to generate awareness of its plight and at the same time raise awareness of the environment.

Prior to the race, students and staff were each issued five “turtle adoption” certificates to sell at $10 a piece.

Many of them ended up selling more than what they were given because of overwhelming response from families, friends and old boys of the school. Souvenir turtles — priced at $10 each — were also sold, but these will not be floating down the canal.

The owner of the winning turtle will pocket $3,000 in cash, while second and third place finishers will walk away with $2,000 in cash and a 32” Samsung LCD TV respectively.

Despite the hard work involved, many of the students found the sales exercise fulfilling as it allowed them to do something for their alma mater. So far, a total of $116,000 has been raised.

The money will go towards the maintenance and upgrading of the school’s facilities, in particular, the installation of air-conditioning in the hall and refurbishing the school field with synthetic turf.

But for old boys like Mr Derek Scully, who attended St Patrick’s in the mid-70s, the dollars and cents do not matter as much as having the opportunity to meet up again with fellow schoolmates of yesteryear.

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Saving planet earth, one species at a time

Today Online 5 Jul 08;

I HAD an experience recently that, to quote the motto of this newspaper, really set me thinking.

My son, Tejas, and I went on an eight-day bird-watching trip to Bolivia, and what we experienced there gave me an insight into how the world is changing, and showed me something we can do to save our planet — one species at a time.

We had been to South America five times before and we wanted to try somewhere new.

We thought: “What about Bolivia?” I typed “Bolivia + bird watching” into Google, and, among other sites, I found Bird Bolivia. I knew nothing about the species, but we had arranged bird-watching trips via the Internet before, so I sent them an email.

Very quickly, I got a reply from Bennett Hennessy, a Canadian who set up Bird Bolivia with his Bolivian wife, Ruth Alipaz. You might be thinking, so what? People do this all the time. How is this changing the world? But wait; there’s more to come.

Ruth was born in a village in the Amazon (yes, the Amazon drainage basin is so huge that part of the Amazon extends into northern Bolivia). She was born in a village that, up to this day, has no roads to the outside world, no electricity and no telephones.

She is an example of a new kind of entrepreneur, someone from a remote, almost subsistence communitywho has become a modern businessperson through the power and reach of the Internet.

Ruth and Bennett arranged for us to spend three nights at the Red-Fronted Macaw Lodge on the bank of a river north of Santa Cruz, in Eastern Bolivia. There we could see, among many other species ranging from condors to hummingbirds, the (no extra points for guessing this right) Red-Fronted Macaw. Macaws are the largest parrots on earth, and they are spectacular birds.

For some reason that nobody knows, the Red-Fronted Macaw breeds only in the cliffs along the banks of this one river in Bolivia, so it is what scientists call an “endemic species”.

Because the range of this bird is so small, it is extremely vulnerable to extinction. Macaws are also very sociable and conspicuous, which makes them vulnerable to trapping.

The Red-Fronted Macaw was also something of a pest to the local people, invading their farms and eating their crops, so farmers would kill the macaws when they could.

So, what are Ruth and Bennett doing to save our planet — one species at a time? They bought a section of the river where the macaws breed and set up the Red-Fronted Macaw Lodge. They recruited local people from the village that is pestered by the birds, and trained them to run the lodge. Ruth organised cooking classes for some of the teenage girls, and the food they prepared for Tejas and me was as good as the food we have eaten in five-star lodges elsewhere.

So, now the local people are making money from the steady stream of birdwatchers who come to stay at the lodge. You see, bird-watchers (me included) are a weird group. We like to keep something called our “life list”. It is a list of all the species of birds we have seen in our life, all over the world.

However, if I want to add a “new tick” to my list, and I want it to be the Red-Fronted Macaw, then I have to go to the Red-Fronted Macaw Lodge to see it. And there are enough people like me to guarantee the success of the lodge.

Now, how is this relevant to us here in Singapore?

It seems to me that if Ruth and Bennett, in a poor country like Bolivia, can find the money to buy the land and build the infrastructure to save a rare endemic species, then here in a very rich country like Singapore we should be able to find the money to save some of the rare endemic species in our region.

I would like to see us working, through already existing organisations like the Singapore International Foundation, to identify places where we could help to buy land that would preserve the ecosystem for a species of animal — or plant — that is endemic to South-east Asia, and help to set up nature lodges that can employ local people from subsistence communities and give them a reason to protect animals and plants and preserve the ecosystem.

If you think this is a good idea, too, then ask yourself who you can work with to help save our planet — one species at a time.

The writer runs a training company.

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