Best of our wild blogs: 13 Jul 08

Sentosa: Coral Relocation - Lies Beneath It
on joseph lai's eart-h.com

Sharing Cyrene at Reel Revolution
on the wildfilms blog

What do bee-eaters do after a meal?
find out on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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$5m to help conserve monuments

But sum is to be used only for urgent repairs of religious and non-profit national monuments
Esther Teo, Straits Times 13 Jul 08;

Religious and non-profit national monuments might soon get a helping hand in their upkeep.

The Government is setting aside $5 million over the next five years - or $1 million each year - to help owners of such buildings patch up possible structural defects, though not to assist in routine maintenance work.

The bottom line: They have to be urgent and necessary repairs.

The new assistance scheme - the National Monuments Fund - will be launched by the Preservation of Monuments Board (PMB) this year, said Senior Minister of State for Education and Information, Communications and the Arts Lui Tuck Yew yesterday.

Designed to provide financial help in conserving the 55 gazetted national monuments, the fund could benefit iconic buildings like the Armenian Church in Hill Street and the Jamae Mosque in South Bridge Road.

Monuments are gazetted based on their architectural, social and historical significance.

Rear-Admiral (NS) Lui said he hopes to see more people and private-sector firms support preservation efforts.

'It is important for society to demonstrate that we recognise it is partly our collective responsibility to help preserve and cherish those monuments, not just for the present, but for the future as well,' he said at the launch of the fifth Singapore HeritageFest at Causeway Point Shopping Centre yesterday.

The money will be given based on needs, with 30 religious and non-profit monuments already singled out as possible recipients.

The PMB will meet once a year to decide on the allocation of funds, distributed on a co-funding basis, although it is prepared to be flexible when it comes to exceptional cases.

It will release more details later this month.

Dr Yeo Kang Shua, who works as an architectural consultant at the PMB, said restoration of monuments is not just the state's responsibility but also the owner's.

'However, since they are part of our heritage, the state is willing to assist them,' he said.

Heritage buffs also applaud the move, although they say that much more can be done.

Mr Dinesh Naidu, an architectural writer, said: 'This is definitely a historical and important step. The owners of such monuments are providing a public good and it is good that the Government is finally assisting them.'

However, he suggested extending such a scheme so that owners of such monuments will not have to worry about their upkeep after the five years have passed.

Govt to set aside S$5m over 5 years to help monument preservation
Chio Su Mei, Channel NewsAsia 12 Jul 08;

SINGAPORE: The Singapore government has said it will set aside S$5 million over the next five years to help owners of religious and non-profit national monuments undertake repairs.

Called the National Monuments Fund, it will be launched by the Preservation of Monuments Board later this year, and will help repair over 30 monuments.

This was announced by the Senior Minister of State for Information, Communications and the Arts, Lui Tuck Yew, at the opening ceremony of the annual Singapore HeritageFest.

The annual festival opened at the Causeway Point shopping centre with traditional cultural performances and a display of traditional works of art.

This year's theme celebrates local heroes, paying tribute to ordinary people with extraordinary spirit.

Singaporeans can expect to enjoy cultural exhibitions and concerts around the island till July 27.

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Cutting food waste: Bin there, done that

Mark Rice-Oxley for the Straits Times 13 Jul 08;

Kingston, England - Prime Minister Gordon Brown would be proud of me. It was the end of another messy mealtime with my three young children. As usual, large quantities of perfectly edible food were left on the plates.

There was a time when this would have gone straight in the bin. But not any more.

Here's how we divided it up: The eldest didn't like his potatoes, but the middle child did, so he got the spuds. His leftover beans went in the opposite direction. And the two-year-old's chicken pieces, well, I was a bit peckish so I ate them.

Leftover vegetables went in the composter. We didn't even need to open the bin.

So when Mr Brown says that Britons are throwing away more than 4 million tonnes of perfectly good food every year, I like to think we are not guilty.

And yet... A quick nose around my kitchen and a review of our shopping habits reveal that we could learn a thing or two from Mr Brown's 'waste-not-want- not' exhortation.

For a start there are several ancient jars and tubs in the fridge which I just know are going to end in the dustbin.

There's too much bread in the breadbin as well, and some of it has a distinctly furry look about it.

The fruit bowl has some small apples of indeterminate vintage that appear to have taken on a life of their own.

And in the back of one cupboard is something that used to be carrots, but now is just an unpleasant suppurating mess.

How did we get to this pass, a situation where time pressure, affluence and complacency have combined to warp our ability to shop properly?

Britons spend less than one-tenth of their household income on food - down from around 30 per cent a couple of generations ago.

This new-found affordability has tended to mean that people are inclined to shop now and think later, filling their cupboards with supermarket fare not all of which will be eaten.

Mr Brown wants this to change. He called it 'unnecessary demand' last week when he urged Britons to 'do more to cut our food waste which is costing the average household in Britain about £8 (S$22) a week'.

Newspapers have responded by publishing self-help guides to remind people how to plan, shop, cook, and use up leftovers.

Essentially these can be boiled down to five main themes:

1. Avoid supermarkets. Easier said than done.

Supermarkets are ubiquitous, accounting for around 80 per cent of UK grocery spend.

The biggest store, Tesco, now takes £1 in £7 spent in all British shops.

Yet the way they package goods invites waste, according to Liberal Democrat MP Steve Webb.

'Supermarkets make it harder for householders to avoid food waste,' he said. 'They refuse to stock small portions, which are essential for the growing number of one-person households, and offer too many 'buy-one, get one free' deals on perishable goods.'

We are listening: Now we get all our meat in a once-a-month delivery from an organic farm.

2. Avoid BOGOF deals. They're everywhere, the 'buy one, get one free' offers that often result in that extra pack of cakes going to waste. I'm rarely tempted, to be honest.

3. Shop daily for perishables. We're better at this, thanks to a fruit and vegetable stall nearby.

More and more Britons are signing up to vegetable box deliveries too, which bring in-season fare to the front door - fresh, low food miles and interesting.

4. Meal-plan for the week. We used to do this, but it's a little regimented. Life's too short.

Now the tactic is to check what's in the cupboards and invent something that uses as many leftovers as possible. Yum!

5. Grow your own. Well, we started on this, but have only a small urban back garden, good for a few tomatoes and carrots but not much else.

Evidence is mounting however that Britons are taking to GYO in large numbers. There are long waiting lists for allotments that once stood fallow. Sales of potato and vegetable seeds are shooting up.

'Grow your own is great,' says amateur gardener Vincent Brannelly. 'I eat my tomatoes straight off the plant. They're delicious. When you buy them from the supermarket, they sit in the fridge for three or four days and they're gone over.'

And as if to prove that money really does grow on trees, he points out the purple sprouting broccoli on his allotment plot. 'Sainsbury sells it for £1 a bunch. I can grow 50 bunches on one plant and I've got 12 plants.'

It's the kind of resourcefulness that Mr Brown would do well to ape.

For after advising the country on how to shop and eat, he then went on to a lavish eight-course banquet at the Group of Eight summit in Japan. Whether he finished everything on his plate remains unknown.

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Brazil and Indonesia pledge biofuel cooperation

Zulhefi, Yahoo News 12 Jul 08;

Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and his Indonesian counterpart pledged cooperation on biofuels during talks here Saturday in a bid to take advantage of surging oil prices.

Lula and President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed off on an agreement to share knowledge on biofuel technology after meeting at Jakarta's presidential palace.

The Brazilian leader called spiralling global commodity prices a "great opportunity" for developing countries such as Indonesia and Brazil, both of which are major producers of biofuel.

"The developing countries that have the characteristics that Indonesia and Brazil have should not analyse this crisis as only a problem. We have to see this moment as a great opportunity," Lula said.

"We have land, we have sunlight, we have water resources, we have technology and, thanks to God, the poor of the world have started to eat more, three meals a day, so they will demand more food production."

The two leaders signed memoranda of understanding that would see the countries exchange experts and students to share knowledge on biofuels. Yudhoyono will also make an official visit to Brazil in November.

"In the energy sector, both countries are cooperating in the field of alternative energy. Brazil has succeeded in developing bio-ethanol and Indonesia can learn from Brazil to develop bio-ethanol," Yudhoyono said.

Yudhoyono also called for a broadening of countries represented on the United Nations Security Council, throwing his backing behind permanent membership for the South American power.

"Brazil is included in those countries that have been mentioned as having the potential to be a permanent member of the UN Security Council. Some also say Indonesia should be a permanent member of the UN Security Council because it has the highest Muslim population," he said.

The biofuel cooperation agreement comes amid criticism of the role of biofuels -- which are mostly made from food crops -- in pushing up global food prices and promoting deforestation in both countries.

The leftist Lula used the announcement with Yudhoyono to criticise rich nations for unfairly laying the blame on developing countries for high commodity prices and environmental destruction.

"First of all, it's not ethanol or biofuel production that is responsible for the rise in the food prices. Secondly, it's not only due to China that the oil prices are rising," Lula said.

"Thirdly, people will soon discover that reaching a good agreement at the Doha round of the WTO could solve the food issue, giving more incentives to the poor countries to improve their food production (by opening up market access)," he said.

"The only thing that is unacceptable is to ask to the poor people of the world not to eat more. Ask us to produce more and we'll do it because we have the competence to do so."

Brazil is the world's largest sugarcane ethanol producer with a long-established programme mandating biofuel content in automotive fuel. The country argues its massive production does not divert land from food crops.

Indonesia recently overtook Malaysia as the world's top producer of palm oil, which is a key feedstock for biodiesel.

The government is reportedly considering a regulation forcing manufacturers to use 2.5 percent biodiesel, but faces criticism over massive deforestation in equatorial forests to make way for plantations.

Lula's Indonesian visit is the final leg on an Asian tour that took him to Vietnam and East Timor after going to Japan for the Group of Eight industrialised nations summit.

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Second oldest US wildlife refuge in jeopardy

Cain Burdeau, Associated Press Yahoo News 11 Jul 08;

The nation's second oldest national wildlife refuge, a chain of barrier islands southeast of New Orleans, is in danger of being lost unless the islands are restored, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said Friday.

The Chandeleur and Breton islands have been battered by hurricanes in the past four years and they took a pounding from Hurricane Katrina, which "reduced the islands by one-half of their pre-storm size," the agency said in a new report.

The nation should pour money into restoring the refuge, the report said.

"Current management has not been able to keep up with the rate of land loss," the report said. "Circumstances are now at a turning point. We can either let things continue to deteriorate or we can expand restoration efforts."

The islands form an arc in the Gulf of Mexico southeast of the swamps and marshes that surround New Orleans. Remote and accessible only by boat and aircraft, the islands are important nesting grounds for a variety of birds, chief among them brown pelicans, terns and black skimmers.

But the beauty of the islands — captured by Gulf Coast wilderness painter Walter Anderson — may be lost forever unless expensive restoration takes place.

Katrina was quite possibly a "tipping point," said Abby Sallenger, an oceanographer with the U.S. Geological Survey who has studied the islands' shorelines.

Two years after the storm, the shoreline continued to get washed away and there was little evidence that sand was piling up in dunes, he said. A more recent survey indicated some dunes might be forming, which would be a positive sign, he said.

"There's no guarantee that they're going to last," said Jack Bohannan, the refuge manager.

The islands have changed dramatically since President Theodore Roosevelt designated them a national wildlife refuge on Oct. 4, 1904 to stop destructive bird hunting.

In 1915, people lived on the islands in a settlement that included a school and there were reports of trees growing. Not anymore.

What was once a continuous strip of land, where beaches were backed up by high dunes and shrubbery made up of black mangrove and groundsel bush, is now a patchwork of low-lying sand bars rising just above the sea.

Because the islands are so far from shore, restoration would be expensive and would cost tens of millions of dollars, Bohannan said. Scientists are studying what sections could feasibly be restored, he said.

Mark Schexnayder, a coastal adviser for Louisiana State University's Sea Grant Extension, said the nation and state need to find the money to save the islands regardless of the cost.

"It's got historical significance and it's the largest rookery for our state bird, the brown pelican," Schexnayder said. "I'm not willing to fold the tent and go home."

But the fate of the islands may be beyond whatever humans can do, the report suggested.

"After the devastating 2005 storm season, serious concerns now exist regarding the amount of recovery possible," the Fish and Wildlife Service report said, noting that the rise in sea level is a threat.

Friday's report was part of the agency's nationwide effort to draw up 15-year conservation plans for every wildlife refuge by 2012.

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Lead Shot From Hunting and Fishing Kills Wildlife

LiveScience.com, Yahoo News 12 Jul 08;

Millions of pounds of lead used in hunting, fishing and shooting sports wind up in the environment each year and can threaten or kill wildlife, according to a new report from the U.S. Geological Survey.

Lead has long been known to be damaging to biology. It's previous use in gasoline, paint, pesticides, and solder in food cans has nearly been eliminated. Lead shot was banned for waterfowl hunting in 1991, but its use in ammunition for upland hunting, shooting sports, and in fishing tackle remains common.

Numerous previous studies have documented adverse effects to wildlife, especially waterbirds and scavenging species, like hawks and eagles, the researchers say. Lead exposure from ingested lead shot, bullets, and fishing sinkers also has been reported in reptiles, and studies near shooting ranges have shown evidence of lead poisoning in small mammals.

The USGS released images of a young eagle with lead shot inside it and the stomach of a pelican loaded with fishing gear.

Outdoor shooting ranges overall are thought to use more than 80,000 tons of lead shot and bullets each year, according to the report. Precise estimates are not available for lead fishing tackle in the environment, but about 4,382 tons of lead fishing sinkers are sold each year in the United States. Frequently used upland hunting fields were found to have as much as 400,000 shot per acre.

The most significant hazard to wildlife is through direct ingestion of spent lead shot and bullets, lost fishing sinkers and tackle, and related fragments, or through consumption of wounded or dead prey containing lead shot, bullets or fragments, said U.S. Geological Survey contaminants experts Barnett Rattner and Chris Franson. The two scientists are lead authors of a new Wildlife Society technical report and co-authors with five other experts of a recent Fisheries department article on the same subject.

"Science is replete with evidence that ingestion of spent ammunition and fishing tackle can kill birds," Rattner said. "The magnitude of poisoning in some species such as waterfowl, eagles, California condors, swans and loons, is daunting. For this reason, on July 1, 2008, the state of California put restrictions on the use of lead ammunition in parts of the range of the endangered California condor because the element poses such a threat to this endangered species."

Lead poisoning causes behavioral, physiological, and biochemical effects, and often death. The rate of mortality is high enough to affect the populations of some wildlife species, the scientists conclude. Although fish ingest sinkers, jigs, and hooks, mortality in fish seems to be related to injury, blood loss, exposure to air and exhaustion rather than the lead toxicity that affects warm-blooded species.

Lead can also slowly dissolve and enter groundwater, making it potentially hazardous for plants, animals, and perhaps even people if it enters water bodies or is taken up in plant roots, the study points out. For example, said Rattner, dissolved lead can result in lead contamination in groundwater near some shooting ranges and at heavily hunted sites, particularly those hunted year after year.

Some states have limited the use of lead shot in upland areas to minimize such effects, and others are considering such restrictions, according to a USGS statement. Environmentally safe alternatives to lead shot and sinkers exist and are available in North America and elsewhere, but use of these alternatives is not widespread, according to the report.

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Algae spreading along China's Yellow Sea coast

Yahoo News 12 Jul 08;

The algae plaguing China's Olympic sailing venue is spreading to other ports and beaches along the coast, state media has reported, despite official claims that the battle is being won.

Officials in Jiangsu province activated an emergency plan on Friday, assigning experts on marine patrol ships and two helicopters to stop the spread of algae that has appeared in the state's Yellow sea waters, Xinhua reported.

At the end of June officials said the weeds had affected a total sea area of 13,000 square kilometres (8,080 square miles), but it has continued to grow offshore even as cleanup efforts closer to shore have been stepped up.

An updated estimate of the total affected area was not immediately available.

Chinese officials are also facing trouble on another front as swarms of locusts that left thousands of acres (hectares) barren in Inner Mongolia, threaten to descend on Beijing, the Beifang Xin Bao reported this week.

Jiangsu borders Shandong province where the algae bloom first appeared in late May. Qingdao, Shandong's major resort city, is hosting the Olympic sailing competition next month.

Officials in Jiangsu' Lian Yungang and Shandong's Ri Zhao have jointly set an algae task force and China's State Ocean Administration has also stepped up monitoring of waters neighboring Shandong, Xinhua reported on Friday.

Environmentalists say the algae is caused by sewage and agricultural waste. But government officials have played down links to pollution, saying this year's unusually large bloom is due to heavy rain and hot weather.

China has invested heavily in cleaning up the water around Qingdao, including moving sewage discharge pipelines away from the shore and out to sea.

Qingdao officials have set a Tuesday deadline to clean up all the algae from the city's waters and have drafted more than 10,000 soldiers and volunteers and hundreds for fishing boats to help.

A barrier more than 22 kilometres (13 miles) long of constructed out of inflatable oil booms and was completed on Saturday sealing off sailing courses from invading algae, Qu Chun, the Olympic sailing competitions manager said.

"From what we see today after finishing an inspection tour, there is very little algae on the courses, which shows our previous efforts worked," Qu told AFP on Saturday.

The algae has spread as far as the county of Rongcheng, about 200 kilometres (125 miles) up the coast from Qingdao, near the northern tip of China's Yellow Sea Coast.

Authorities in the coastal counties of Rushan, Wendang and Wengcheng were also forced to mount cleanup efforts in the midst the summer tourist period, state press reported.

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Green Olympics yield mixed record on green building

Lindsay Beck, Reuters 12 Jul 08;

BEIJING (Reuters) - It's been billed as the "Green Olympics", but do the showpiece venues that will host the Games' key events live up to the theme?

The record is mixed, experts say, with the best venues for the Beijing Games setting a standard for energy-efficient building while others betray the promise of environmental sustainability.

In the end, much was left to the developers, with few mandatory guidelines set by Olympic organizers, meaning they had little leverage to impose consistent standards.

"The intention is always positive, but if you don't give people some mandatory parameters on which they have to work, then you allow them to make shortcuts," said Theodore Oben, head of the sport and environment programme at the United Nations Environment Programme.

"A lot of the building and facilities are developed by contractors ... If the parameters are not mandatory, then the contractors will have either to do as much as you want or more, or they may make shortcuts if they want to save money," he said.

The National Stadium, known as the "Bird's Nest" for its latticework of interwoven steel, and the National Aquatics Centre, or "Water Cube", the rectangular swimming venue that sits by its side, are considered among the world's most architecturally adventurous new buildings.

But are they the most green?

NEST OF STEEL

"It's an iconic structure, but a green building it ain't," Robert Watson, CEO of green building consultancy EcoTech International, said of the Bird's Nest.

The stadium features non-flush toilets equipped with sewage treatment systems, a rooftop photovoltaic system with a capacity to generate 130 kilowatts of power, and facilities to collect 58,000 cubic meters of rainwater annually.

But to Watson the structure itself, which used some 42,000 tonnes of steel, is the problem.

"The fact that it uses 10 times the materials of a normal stadium, any green virtue is inundated by that," he said.

"Ninety percent of the structure does nothing but hold itself up," said Watson, who founded the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) rating system for green buildings.

Experts say the Water Cube fared better.

The $143 million venue's playful facade, which evokes giant soap bubbles, is made of ETFE, a durable plastic that allows natural light into the building and is a better insulator than glass.

"It's super lightweight, so it allows us to cut a lot of the structural load out of the building as a result," said Haico Schepers, leader of the sustainable buildings group at Arup, the engineering firm that was a partner in the Cube's design.

The daylight that the material conducts into the building is also harnessed to heat the swimming pool, reducing the pool enclosure's energy consumption by 30 percent.

Part of the building's success, said Schepers, was that its green aspects were not afterthoughts, but integrated into the design.

"What we tend to find with sustainability is if you make it an add-on item, there's a large risk it gets costed out through the process," he said.

NO OSTENTATION

Premier Wen Jiabao himself has urged energy efficiency in the Olympics venues as environmental sustainability becomes a theme of China's leadership, keen to ward off civil discontent sparked by widespread degradation.

"There will be no talk of extravagance or ostentation in organizing the Olypmic Games. We should save every drop of water and every unit of electricity in the construction of the Olympic venues," local media quoted Wen as saying last year.

For its part, Beijing's organizing committee has stressed the environmental aspects of the Olympic village, which include solar heating to supply hot water to its more than 16,000 residents, a rainwater collection system and a heating and cooling system that will cut electricity by 40 percent by using recycled water.

But experts say there have also been near-misses and lost opportunities.

One of the buildings where Chinese athletes are training was built with timber from an uncertified source -- meaning it could have come from protected forests -- because Beijing's organizing committee had little control over the contractor, Oben said.

The design for the basketball venue initially included giant LED screens on each side, a plan Watson said would have used as much energy in one project as several thousand Chinese families.

Still, despite some missed opportunities, environmentalists hope where things went well they will provide a template for what rapidly growing China could do in future.

"I think the ability to point at some of the innovations in these facilities, or the mistakes, will have some impact down the road," said Watson.

"Certainly the best buildings in China are equivalent to the best buildings anywhere."

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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