Semakau reef survey results
on the blue water volunteers blog
Labrador video clips
by young seagrassers on the labrador blog
Whispering on the shores
on the wildfilms blog
White-bellied Sea-eagle seized frog from pond
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 19 Jul 08;
THE Government has formed a new committee to ensure Singapore's food supply stays stable, even if international markets continue to be rocked by inadequate supplies and sky-high prices.
The committee will study trends in global food supply and devise long-term strategies to keep food flowing in, said Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan yesterday.
'This year has been a particularly challenging period for the food industry,' he said at an awards ceremony to recognise manufacturers for food safety practices. 'This has seriously affected our people.'
The committee was created to help Singapore, which is heavily reliant on food imports, adjust to drastic permanent changes in global markets.
These include rising demand from developing countries and intense competition for farm land from biofuels.
Officials on the new committee will likely look to increase the number of countries and foreign suppliers that export food to Singapore, an Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) spokesman said.
Plans could also include investing in farms overseas and possibly expanding farming here.
The committee will also look at helping local food importers draw up contingency plans for temporary shortages.
Set up in May this year, the Inter-agency Committee on Food Supply Resilience is headed by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of Trade and Industry.
Sitting on the committee as well are representatives from the Ministry of Finance, the AVA, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, International Enterprise Singapore and the Department of Statistics.
Mr Mah said that the AVA was encouraging imports from as many countries as possible to ensure Singapore is not too reliant on one source.
For example, since January, it has allowed 158 companies in 19 countries, such as the Philippines, Chile and Spain, to export meat to Singapore.
New committee set up to ensure stability in long term food supply
Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia 18 Jul 08;
SINGAPORE: As global supply shocks continue to hit food-importing countries, the government has taken another step to help ease the impact of escalating prices.
It has set up a committee to study how the country can ensure stability in long-term food supply. The committee will be led by the Ministries for National Development, and Trade and Industry.
When the avian flu struck the region in 2004, Singapore companies which had buffer stocks of frozen poultry in their cold stores were able to do business as usual.
Speaking at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority's (AVA) Food Safety Awards Night 2008 on Friday, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said food companies here need to develop similar business continuity plans in case of a break in supply.
Singapore is already importing food from more countries and has turned to frozen meat as a cheaper alternative.
Among its plans, the new inter-agency committee will examine Singapore's farming policy while investing in food production overseas.
Mr Mah said: "We need to recognise that many of the factors that are affecting the food supply situation today are not temporary ones. In fact, there are also medium-term and long-term issues and structural ones that are taking place."
However, he said the top priority is to ensure that the food we eat is safe. The AVA closely regulates the food that we consume, but Mr Mah said businesses too need to take the initiative.
As consumers' tastebuds become more discerning, it makes business sense for food establishments to maintain high standards. - CNA/vm
How to keep food supplies flowing
Search for solutions include investing in high-yieldoverseas sources and a review of local farming policy
Teo Xuanwei, Today Online 19 Jul 08;
AS MORE food price hikes loom over the horizon — going by a recent United Nations prediction that prices are set to climb “at least until 2010” :— the search for solutions to securing a steady supply for Singapore is cranking up another gear.
Describing the recent price hikes on key items such as rice, vegetables and meat as a “particularly challenging period”, Minister for National Development (MND) MahBow Tan said on Friday that the Government has set up an inter-agency committee to come up with mid- to long-term strategies to combat potential food supply crunches or price shocks.
Set up in May, the committee :— jointly led by the Ministry for Trade and Industry and MND :— will study the changes and trends in global food supply, as well as examine policies to deal with the scenario where the Republic’s food stocks are threatened.
“We need to recognise that many of the factors affecting the food supply situation today are not temporary ones, but structural changes,” said Mr Mah at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority’s (AVA) annual Food Safety Excellence Awards ceremony. “Given our heavy dependence on food imports, we are unfortunately affected by such global food price increases.”
Amongst other things, the committee will explore the feasibility of investing in high-yield food sources overseas, as well as ways to develop robust business continuity plans (BCPs) with the industry. The local farming policy will also be reviewed.
So far, Singapore has dealt with the price escalation :— brought on by a confluence of factors, such as higher demand for food from increasingly affluent developing countries, bad weather and soaring fuel prices :— by hunting for as many diverse sources as possible.
The hunt for non-traditional sources has seen new suppliers for fish from faraway Namibia, eggs from the United States, rice from Vietnam and greens from Vietnam and Indonesia.
The AVA approved 158 sources in19 countries in the first six months of this year alone, noted Mr Mah, bringing the number of accredited meat import sources to over 10,000 in 29 countries.
But more could still be done, he said, adding that the industry has a “crucial role to play in ensuring a stable supply of food at competitive prices”.
Importers could consider setting up their own food supply zones in regional countries by lending them our knowledge in research, technology and logistics in food production or investing in aquaculture and vegetable farms overseas.
There is also a need to develop “robust” BCPs in the food industry, the minister said. These include buffer stocks to “tide over any supply disruptions” or having a ready list of alternative suppliers Singapore can go to in case regular supply lines are hit.
To that end, the chairman of the Meat Traders Association, Mr Jack Koh, said importers are “constantly exploring new sources so as to ensure supplies will not be disrupted at any time”.
Mr Mah also said that the theme of this year’s food safety public education programme will be “Select Food Carefully”. A series of activities that share tips onfood safety will be rolled out for the coming month.
Ultra-low sulphur gasoline upgrading projected to cost US$200-300m
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 19 Jul 08;
SINGAPORE Petroleum Company (SPC), together with its US oil giant partner Chevron, are going ahead to build their 'green' gasoline plant - expected to cost US$200-300 million - at their joint-venture Singapore Refining Company (SRC), BT understands.
Sources said that the go-ahead for the ultra-low sulphur gasoline (ULSG) upgrading project on Jurong Island has been given, and that SRC will be working towards finalising building contracts in the next few months.
SRC's latest ULSG project follows its award of a US$81 million contract in May to JGC Corporation to revamp its hydro-sulphuriser to enable it to produce ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD) of Euro-IV specification.
That earlier project represents just the first phase of a planned SRC upgrading plan - including producing green gasoline - which Chevron's head of global refining, Jeet Bindra, earlier said could cost as much as US$400 million in total.
The latest ULSG project will enable the 290,000 barrels per day (bpd) SRC refinery, which currently produces 30,000-40,000 bpd of gasoline, to convert and value-add about 20,000-30,000 bpd of this to 'green' gasoline.
Sources said that the premium for ULSG over ordinary gasoline varies, but can amount to 'several dollars per barrel'.
When SRC's ULSG upgrading is completed in 2010-2011, it expects to export the 'green' gasoline to environmentally conscious markets such as the US, Europe and Australia.
Meanwhile, SRC's ULSD upgrading is scheduled to be completed around the second half of next year.
In Singapore, the use of ULSD became mandatory since December 2005, although there is no legislated deadline yet for ULSG use here. Some neighbouring markets, such as Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam, are also studying the use of such clean fuels.
SRC - which had recently raised its refinery capacity by 5,000 bpd - wants to upgrade the 290,000 bpd refinery to further add value to its operations.
SPC CEO Koh Ban Heng, in an interview with BT in April, said that further down the road, the joint venture is also considering a coker plant, potentially costing US$300-400 million, to upgrade heavy fuel oil into more valuable products, including petrol and diesel.
Business Times 19 Jul 08;
(SINGAPORE) Indonesia's PT Timah , the world's largest tin miner, is driving an ambitious environmental scheme to turn thousands of acres of exhausted mines into productive green areas, a company official said yesterday.
Timah has a sprawling network of disused mines on Indonesia's main tin-producing island of Bangka, off Sumatra, where Indonesian law requires miners to return the excavations to their original state once exploration is complete.
'This is one of the responsibilities of mining companies, so the land can be used for other purposes outside mining,' the firm's corporate secretary, Abrun Abubakar, told Reuters from Jakarta. 'It can be for farming, housing and tourism.' Uncontrolled mining has caused environmental damage on Bangka, where small, unregulated miners have reopened acres of disused mines that had already been planted with trees.
As Indonesia battles to rein in the illegal miners, worries about the environment and the possible launch of crackdowns promise to help keep tin prices up, dealers say.
Worries about environmental damage from mining prompted Jakarta to launch a crackdown in 2006 that led to the closure of dozens of illegal smelters. The move sparked supply fears and helped push up tin prices in London to a record high.
Mr Abubakar said Timah could spend up to 30 billion rupiah, or S$4.4 million, this year to convert 2,000 hectares of exhausted mines on Bangka, which is also home to PT Koba Tin, Indonesia's second-largest tin miner, and 30 small smelters.
The target compares with the figure of 1,700 hectares the company reclaimed in 2007, he added.
'We've allocated between 12 and 15 million rupiah for each hectare of land,' Mr Abubakar said.
Reclamation involves shovelling earth into craters, some as big as football fields, to turn them into farms and green belts or adapt them to other uses, such as schools, he said.
'Our activity was disrupted from 2001 to 2005 when reclaimed areas were damaged by small-scale mining forays by the locals. Many trees which had been grown then fell.' After the 2006 crackdown, Indonesia introduced new regulations for tin export, and of the 30 small smelters, only 19 are licensed to export.
But the rehab effort often hits snags, as illegal miners return to mining sites, undeterred by the prospect of raids by local police, official news agency Antara reported this week.
'We reclaimed disused mines years ago and the areas had turned into forests,' Suwanto, reclamation head of PT Koba Tin, told the agency. 'But then people cut the trees and the land is mined again and damaged.' Koba aims to rehabilitate 4,000 hectares of disused mines in 2008, up from 600 hectares in 2007, Antara said. -- Reuters
Yahoo News 18 Jul 08;
A farmer has been detained by southern Philippines police after he confessed to shooting and eating one of the world's largest and rarest eagles, wildlife officials told AFP on Friday.
The July 10 attack on the two-year-old, four-kilogram (8.8-pound) male eagle on the slopes of Mount Kitanglad on Mindanao island was deemed a major setback in attempts to save the critically endangered species from extinction.
The bird, nicknamed "Kagsabua", had only been released back into the wild four months earlier after it was shot and wounded with a lead pellet by game hunters in the Kitanglad range.
A radio tracking device attached to the eagle and later buried by the 20-year-old suspect led to the arrest on Wednesday, officials said.
Killing endangered species is punishable by a 12-year prison term and stiff fines.
Fewer than 250 adult Pithecophaga jefferyi, with a two-metre (6.6-foot) wingspan and magnificent mantle of feathers on its nape, are estimated to be left in the Philippines, and are found nowhere else, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
"He was worth more than a brother to me," said a devastated Philippine Eagle Foundation biologist Giovanni Tampus, part of a four-member team who had tracked the bird daily after its release back into the wild.
Kagsabua was the second Philippine eagle to be killed after being released by the foundation.
"The suspect told police he thought it was an ordinary bird," Daniel Somera, the deputy park superintendent of Kitanglad, told AFP.
"The bird fell off the tree dead. The shooter got rattled when it found the radio transmitter on its back and so he buried it. But he and two friends later dressed the carcass and cooked two kilograms of meat," Somera added.
Matthew Brown, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Jul 08;
A federal judge has restored endangered species protections for gray wolves in the Northern Rockies, derailing plans by three states to hold public wolf hunts this fall.
U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy in Missoula granted a preliminary injunction late Friday restoring the protections for the wolves in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho. Molloy will eventually decide whether the injunction should be permanent.
The region has an estimated 2,000 gray wolves. They were removed from the endangered species list in March, following a decade-long restoration effort.
Environmentalists sued to overturn the decision, arguing wolf numbers would plummet if hunting were allowed. They sought the injunction in the hopes of stopping the hunts and allowing the wolf population to continue expanding.
"There were fall hunts scheduled that would call for perhaps as many as 500 wolves to be killed. We're delighted those wolves will be saved," said attorney Doug Honnold with Earthjustice, who had argued the case before Molloy on behalf of 12 environmental groups.
In his ruling, Molloy said the federal government had not met its standard for wolf recovery, including interbreeding of wolves between the three states to ensure healthy genetics.
"Genetic exchange has not taken place," Molloy wrote in the 40-page decision.
Molloy said hunting and state laws allowing the killing of wolves for livestock attacks would likely "eliminate any chance for genetic exchange to occur."
The federal biologist who led the wolf restoration program, Ed Bangs, defended the decision to delist wolves as "a very biologically sound package."
"The kind of hunting proposed by the states wouldn't threaten the wolf population," Bangs said Friday. "We felt the science was rock solid and that the delisting was warranted."
Bangs said government attorneys were reviewing Molloy's court order and would decide next week whether to appeal to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
Federal and state officials had argued killing some wolves would not endanger the overall population — as long as numbers did not dip below 300 wolves. With increasing conflicts between wolves and livestock, they said public hunts were crucial to keeping the predators' population in check.
Michael Astor, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Jul 08;
Hundreds of baby penguins swept from the icy shores of Antarctica and Patagonia are washing up dead on Rio de Janeiro's tropical beaches, rescuers and penguin experts said Friday.
More than 400 penguins, most of them young, have been found dead on the beaches of Rio de Janeiro state over the past two months, according to Eduardo Pimenta, superintendent for the state coastal protection and environment agency in the resort city of Cabo Frio.
While it is common here to find some penguins — both dead and alive — swept by strong ocean currents from the Strait of Magellan, Pimenta said there have been more this year than at any time in recent memory.
Rescuers and those who treat penguins are divided over the possible causes.
Thiago Muniz, a veterinarian at the Niteroi Zoo, said he believed overfishing has forced the penguins to swim further from shore to find fish to eat "and that leaves them more vulnerable to getting caught up in the strong ocean currents."
Niteroi, the state's biggest zoo, already has already received about 100 penguins for treatment this year and many are drenched in petroleum, Muniz said. The Campos oil field that supplies most of Brazil's oil lies offshore.
Muniz said he hadn't seen penguins suffering from the effects of other pollutants, but he pointed out that already dead penguins aren't brought in for treatment.
Pimenta suggested pollution is to blame.
"Aside from the oil in the Campos basin, the pollution is lowering the animals' immunity, leaving them vulnerable to funguses and bacteria that attack their lungs," Pimenta said, quoting biologists who work with him.
But biologist Erli Costa of Rio de Janeiro's Federal University suggested weather patterns could be involved.
"I don't think the levels of pollution are high enough to affect the birds so quickly. I think instead we're seeing more young and sick penguins because of global warming, which affects ocean currents and creates more cyclones, making the seas rougher," Costa said.
Costa said the vast majority of penguins turning up are baby birds that have just left the nest and are unable to out-swim the strong ocean currents they encounter while searching for food.
Every year, Brazil airlifts dozens of penguins back to Antarctica or Patagonia.
Jasmin Malik Chua, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 18 Jul 08;
A polar bear clinging to a melting iceberg may the poster child for global warming, but rising temperatures, pollution and other human activity are also affecting the animal kingdom in far subtler ways. Like the proverbial canary in the coal mine, the natural world could be giving us other signs that human intervention has knocked it way off kilter.
Some recent examples:
1. Earlier Migration: Several bird species are making their annual northward jaunt slightly ahead of schedule in recent springs, as the East Coast of the United States heats up, according to a study detailed in the June issue of the journal Global Change Biology. The report confirms similar studies dating back to 2006. Early birds may not sound like a huge deal, but scientists warn that long-distance migrators who start out in South America, and therefore lack cues about the timing of spring in Northern Hemisphere destinations, will be less able to keep pace with the changing climate. "Trees and shrubs are further along in their development, and different groups of insects are out," said lead author Abraham Miller-Rushing of Boston University. "Spring is coming earlier for most other plants and animals, but not for the long-distance migratory birds. Thus, these long-distance migrant birds may need to learn to eat different sources of food or face other challenges because of the changes in timing."
2: Jellyfish Rule: An outbreak of jellyfish in oceans across the planet has resulted from the stinging creatures hitching rides on ships that circumnavigate the globe. In fact, studies suggest that almost a quarter of all marine species in international harbors are alien transplants, thanks to human-assisted dispersal.
3: Food Web Contaminated. Scientists said last month that they found toxic pollutants in nine deep-sea species of cephalopods, a class of mollusks that includes octopuses, squid, cuttlefish and nautiluses. Among the contaminants were at least two banned in the United States in the 1970s: dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) and polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). Scientists say it's further evidence that contaminants make their way deep into the marine food web.
4. Heading for the Hills: Thirty species of reptiles and amphibians have fled uphill to cooler climes as global warming has caused the mercury to rise. We could see a rash of extinctions occurring between 2050 and 2100, scientists say, because higher ground will eventually run out.
5. Penguins in Peril: A rapid population decline among penguins because, in addition to a warming planet, they face the triple whammy of oil pollution, depletion of fisheries and aggressive coastline development. "Penguins are among those species that show us that we are making fundamental changes to our world," said Dee Boersma, a University of Washington biology professor who has studied the flightless birds for more than 25 years. "The fate of all species is to go extinct, but there are some species that go extinct before their time and we are facing that possibility with some penguins.
6. Sea-Life Shift: Scientists see a notable shift in the composition of coastal marine animal communities, caused in part by changing ocean temperatures, from vertebrates (fish) to invertebrates (lobsters, squid, and crabs), as well as from bottom-feeders to species that feed higher in the water column. Meanwhile, warm-water species have superseded larger, cool-water species in population size.
7. Migrating Parasite: The parasite Angiostronglyus vasorum, commonly known as "French heartworm," is migrating northward because of rising temperatures. Normally found in southwestern England, the parasite has been detected in dogs admitted to animal hospitals in Scotland. Climbing temperatures in the country have also resulted in a sudden proliferation of slugs and snails.
8. Food Shortages: Plant-loving animals in extremely seasonal environments such as the Arctic struggle to feed themselves because global warming causes their food supply to peak in availability before they can reach breeding grounds. "Think of it like this," said Eric Post, a biologist at Penn State. "You've been out on the town with friends, and on the way home you want to stop off for a bite to eat, but the restaurant you've always gone to has closed early. So you try for one around the corner that's always open a little longer. But when you get to that one, it too is closed. For herbivores, the fact that there are several 'restaurants' - their food patches - dispersed across the landscape isn't useful if they all begin closing at the same time in addition to closing earlier in the season."
Philip Pullella, PlanetArk 18 Jul 08;
SYDNEY - Pope Benedict on Thursday told a huge gathering of young people that they were inheriting a planet whose resources had been scarred and squandered to fuel insatiable consumption.
His latest appeal to save the planet for future generations came in a address to some 150,000 youths in Sydney after he rode through the city's harbour standing on the outdoor deck of a white ferry as dozens of boats blew their horns.
"Reluctantly we come to acknowledge that there are also scars which mark the surface of our earth, erosion, deforestation, the squandering of the world's mineral and ocean resources in order to fuel an insatiable consumption," he told the cheering crowd.
The 81-year-old pope appeared in good form as he started the official part of his trip after three days of rest. He chatted with young people on the ferry and stepped off sprightly to receive a bear hug welcome by an Aboriginal on the dock.
He told the young people, some of whom had come from island nations threatened by rising sea levels or drought-hit nations such as Australia, that protecting the environment was "of vital importance to humanity".
The pope recalled how his long flight from Rome last weekend, he marvelled at the sparkle of the Mediterranean, the grandeur of the north Africa desert, the lushness of Asia's forests and the vastness of the Pacific Ocean.
"It is as though one catches glimpses of the Genesis creation story -- light and darkness, the sun and the moon, the waters, the earth and living creatures," he said.
In a welcoming speech to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd on Thursday morning, the pope said: "It is appropriate to reflect upon the kind of world we are handing on to future generations".
Australia, one of the world's highest per capita greenhouse emitters due to coal-fired power stations, is in the grip of the worst drought in 100 years and is struggling to save its major river system that feeds the nation's food belt.
APOLOGY TO ABORIGINES PRAISED
The pope also praised Australia for apologising for past injustices to Aborigines, saying it was a courageous move to repair race relations and offered hope to the rest of the world.
Rudd officially apologised to Aborigines in February.
Australia's 460,000 Aborigines make up about 2 percent of the country's 21 million population and have consistently higher rates of unemployment, substance abuse and domestic violence, as well as a life expectancy 17 years less than other Australians.
The pope thanked Aborigines for a traditional welcoming ceremony and acknowledged Aborigines are the first people of Australia.
"I am deeply moved to stand on your land, knowing the suffering and injustices it has borne, but aware too of the healing and hope that are now at work...," he said.
The Catholic Church hopes World Youth Day, the brainchild of the late Pope John Paul II, will revitalise the world's young Catholics at a time when the cult of the individual and consumerism has become big distractions in their lives.
The pope said the "social world" also had scars, highlighting alcohol and drug abuse, violence and sexual degradation. He questioned how the media's portrayal of violence and sexual exploitation can be considered "entertainment".
He warned young pilgrims "do not be fooled by those who see you as just another consumer". (Additional reporting by Michael Perry; Editing by Alex Richardson)
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 17 Jul 08;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, under fire for apparently discounting the impact of climate change, on Thursday said global warming poses real risk to human health and the American way of life.
Risks include more heat-related deaths, more heart and lung diseases due to increased ozone and health problems related to hurricanes, extreme precipitation and wildfires, the agency said in a new report.
"Climate change poses real risk to human health and the human systems that support our way of life in the United States," the agency's Joel Scheraga said in a telephone briefing.
The report does not specify how many people in the United States could die due to climate change, because that number can be changed by taking action, Scheraga said.
"We are not saying in this report that more people will die in the future due to climate change," he said. "What we are saying is that there's an increased risk of deaths due to heat waves in the future as the climate changes.
"We have an opportunity to anticipate these increased risks ... and to due to prepare for the future in order to mitigate these risks."
Limited to climate change impacts in the United States, the report found a likely increase in food and water-borne germs as the world warms and habitat ranges expand for some disease-causing organisms.
Also, the inequities now found in the U.S. health care system are likely to be exacerbated by global warming: "Many of the expected health effects are likely to fall disproportionately on the poor, the elderly, the disabled and the uninsured."
Global warming is expected to affect water supplies across the country, with reduced water flow in rivers, lower groundwater levels and more salt creeping into coastal rivers and groundwater, the report said.
People who live along the coasts will face the consequences of rising sea levels and severe weather events while city dwellers can expect higher energy demand to cool buildings -- though the demand for heat will probably decline.
The report covers much of the same substance as an EPA document released on Monday that found global warming endangers human health. This document was part of the agency's response to a 2007 Supreme Court ruling that found the EPA had the power to regulate climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions if it was found that they hurt human health.
However, the agency has indicated no action is likely before the Bush administration leaves office next January.
Stephen Johnson, head of the environmental agency, has been called to testify on July 30 before the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on alleged White House interference with the agency. Researchers have repeatedly complained of White House censorship of environmental science.
(Editing by Eric Walsh)
Frank Nyakairu, PlanetArk 18 Jul 08;
KAMPALA - Changing weather patterns in Uganda may lead to the extinction of the east African country's key export, coffee, in coming decades, a report by British charity Oxfam said on Thursday.
Uganda is Africa's second biggest coffee producer after Ethiopia and has become a major player in robusta coffee production after political unrest in former top grower Ivory Coast slashed output.
"The outlook is bleak. If the average global temperatures rise by two degrees or more, then most of Uganda is likely to cease to be suitable for coffee..this may happen in 40 years or perhaps as little as 30," the report said.
The report, "Turning up the heat, Climate Change and Poverty in Uganda," said effects of global warming like increasing temperatures, more intense rains and storms, had led to erratic rainfall patterns in Uganda.
Coffee output in 2007/08 (Oct-Sept) is seen at 2.85 million bags, up from 2.7 million the year before.
"According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, only patches of land on the periphery will still be able to grow coffee...In the meantime, coffee farmers are going to have to adapt to rising temperatures," the report said.
Across much of Uganda, the climate is bimodal, meaning that there are two rainy seasons -- the first from March to June and the second from October/November to December/January.
Rainfall during the rainy seasons has become unreliable, it said, adding that reduced rain during the March to June season was causing drought, reductions in crop yields and plant varieties.
The late season rainfall was coming in more intense and destructive downpours, bringing floods, landslides and soil erosion, it said.
"But, farmers have continued to invest in Uganda's Robusta coffee and export earnings have continued to increase. This has helped protect losses from climatic problems," said Philip Gitao, head of the East African Fine Coffees Association.
Farmers have also adopted good husbandry practices such as using more hardy coffee plants, added Gitao, who was quoted in the Oxfam report. (Writing by Wangui Kanina)
Reuters 18 Jul 08;
ROME (Reuters) - Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said on Friday that the streets of Naples had been cleared of rotting garbage that had piled up for months, but warned it would take three years to provide a lasting solution.
"The complete industrial treatment of rubbish will be ready in about three years which is the time needed to build the four incinerators required," Berlusconi said in a speech in Rome.
The first of the plants -- which generate electricity using waste as fuel -- will be ready by year-end, he said.
Meanwhile, Berlusconi has mobilized the army to prevent emergency landfill sites in the area being picketed by angry local residents. The city has temporary arrangements to send its rubbish to other parts of Italy and Europe.
Berlusconi was due in Naples later on Friday to hold his regular cabinet meeting in the city, fulfilling a promise made in the campaign for May's election to gather his cabinet there until the Naples rubbish crisis was over.
He says that point has now been reached, since the streets of Naples and outlying districts are no longer choked by piles of stinking rubbish bags, which local residents often burned at night and which caused illnesses in the area.
"This crisis has harmed the people of Naples and the Campania region and the Italian people, as well as our tourism industry and exports," said Berlusconi. He blames the last centre-left government, but the problem stretches back about 14 years to include at least one of his previous two terms as prime minister.
"We held our first cabinet meeting in Naples 58 days ago and will hold another one there today, when I will proudly announce and show everyone that in Naples and Campania there is no more rubbish in the streets," he said.
A Reuters reporter in Naples ahead of the cabinet meeting said the city centre, at least, had been cleared of the piles of waste which have done such damage to Italy's image abroad.
Waste disposal has long been a chronic problem for Italy's third largest city, further complicated by the local "Camorra" mafia's interest in the lucrative business.
Official dumps were declared full late last year, meaning refuse was left in the streets. Attempts to open new landfill sites met stiff resistance from locals, who erected barricades to stop garbage trucks and clashed with police.
The European Union took Italy to the European Court of Justice this year for failing to resolve the garbage crisis, raising the possibility of heavy fines.
(Writing by Stephen Brown; Editing by Caroline Drees)
PlanetArk 18 Jul 08;
LONDON - The world's first commercial-scale tidal power turbine has supplied the British grid with its first surge of tidal electricity, Marine Current Turbines (MCT) said on Thursday.
The tidal current turbine, known as SeaGen, briefly generated 150 kilowatts of power off the coast of Northern Ireland as part of testing ahead of full commercial operations in a few weeks, the company behind the project said.
SeaGen works like an underwater windmill, with the rotors driven by the power of the tidal currents rather than wind.
Strangford Lough, where the turbine has been rooted, has among the strongest tidal currents in UK and Irish waters.
"This is an important milestone for the company and indeed the development of the marine renewable energy sector as a whole," MCT's Managing Director Martin Wright.
Once fully operational, SeaGen will be able to generate up to 1.2 megawatts, which is enough carbon-free electricity to supply about 1,000 homes. Tides are created by the moon and sun's gravitational pulls on the oceans, combined with the centrifugal force of the earth's rotation.
Lying in the North Atlantic, the British Isles have some of the strongest tidal currents in the world, together with some of the strongest and most reliable winds to drive offshore wind turbines.
The British government is hoping to exploit these natural advantages to help it reach tough European Union renewable energy targets but planning and grid connection problems have frustrated the rapid growth of wind power so far.
MCT has plans for a 10.5 MW project off the coast of Anglesey, north Wales, which it expects to commission by 2012. (Reporting by Daniel Fineren, editing by Anthony Barker)
Kevin Krolicki, Reuters 17 Jul 08;
DETROIT (Reuters) - Hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles are still 15 years away from becoming a viable business for automakers even if they overcome remaining technical hurdles and the U.S. government provides massive subsidies, a government-funded report said on Thursday.
Under a best-case scenario, automakers will only be able to sell about 2 million electric vehicles powered by fuel cells by 2020, according to the study by the National Research Council. That would mean that less than 1 percent of the vehicles on U.S. roads by that date would be powered by fuel cells.
In 2003, President George W. Bush had proposed spending $1.2 billion to develop fuel cells and infrastructure. At that time, Bush said the first cars driven by American children born in that year and reaching driving age by 2020 could be fuel cell vehicles.
In 2005, Congress asked the National Research Council to study how much federal spending and other support would be needed to shift a "significant percentage" of new cars to fuel-cell technology by 2020.
General Motors Corp, Honda Motor Co and other automakers are in the process of testing limited fleets of hydrogen-powered fuel-cell cars.
Advocates see the still-emerging technology as a way to cut oil use and carbon dioxide emissions since fuel cells combine stored hydrogen with oxygen to produce electricity. As a result, fuel-cell vehicles emit only water vapor.
But many environmental advocates argue that hybrids and fully battery-powered electric vehicles, such as the upcoming Chevrolet Volt from GM, are the most reliable and cheapest ways to reduce oil consumption in the short term.
Success for fuel-cell technology hinges on building facilities to generate, transport and store hydrogen at filling stations. It will also require automakers to build cheap and durable hydrogen vehicles that consumers want to buy.
Another challenge is that the key ingredient in fuel cell stacks is platinum, an expensive metal that represents almost 60 percent of the cost of producing a fuel cell.
The study found that future platinum supply was a critical issue in forward projections of fuel cell costs.
ELECTRIC CAR OPTION IGNORED
The study concluded that the best way to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions over the next 20 years would be a range of alternatives, including hybrids and improvements in the efficiency of gas-powered combustion engines.
"We shouldn't be picking winners and losers in these technologies because they will probably all be important in the future," said Michael Ramage, a retired Exxon Mobil researcher who chaired the fuel-cell study committee.
To jump-start the fuel-cell market, the U.S. government needs to provide $55 billion in subsidies to the technology over the next decade and a half, according to the study.
That could be accomplished if the government opts for fuel-cell technology in half of the vehicles it uses in its fleets, effectively buying thousands of cars as a subsidy to the industry, Ramage said.
"There needs to be substantial and sustainable government help to just to make this happen, just as there is for ethanol," he said.
Paul Scott, a co-founder of Plug In America, a California-based nonprofit organization that advocates rechargeable cars, said the study showed federal policy needed to shift toward support for electric vehicles.
"It's obviously ridiculous to put all the emphasis on a technology that's decades away when our needs are imminent," Scott said.
GM now has a test group of about 100 fuel-cell-powered Chevy Equinox SUVs on the road that the automaker calls the largest experimental fleet of its kind. The company is now on the fourth generation of this technology.
Honda has begun leasing up to 200 of its FCX Clarity fuel-cell vehicles in Southern California. The automaker is charging $600 monthly for the car, which represents a fraction of its cost for the company.
Cars and light trucks, including SUVs, account for about 44 percent of the oil used in the U.S. economy and more than 20 percent of the carbon dioxide emitted.
(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki; Editing by Lisa Von Ahn, Toni Reinhold)
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