More cleanup updates
Punggol beach and Pandan mangroves on the News from International Coastal Cleanup blog
New record of sea fan snails at East Coast Park!
from a new article in Nature in Singapore on the wild shores of singapore blog
Common Tailorbird’s food menu
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Nature art on Buloh trash bins
open to nature volunteers only on the art in the wetlands blog
Water Quality Monitoring at Mandai Training Area
on the Water Quality blog
mongabay.com 15 Sep 08;
Conversion of primary rainforest to an oil palm plantation results in a loss of more than 80 percent of species, reports a new comprehensive review of the impacts of growing palm oil production. The research is published in the journal Trends in Ecology and Evolution.
"By compiling scientific studies of birds, bats, ants and other species, we were able to show that on average, fewer than one-sixth of the species recorded in primary forest were found in oil palm," said led author Emily Fitzherbert from the Zoological Society of London and University of East Anglia. "Degraded forest, and even alternative crops such as rubber and cocoa, supported higher numbers of species than oil palm plantations."
The results confirm that oil palm plantations are a poor substitute for natural forests when it comes to conservation of biological diversity.
The study warns that burgeoning demand for palm oil for use in foods, household products, and biodiesel will continue to fuel expansion in the tropics. Because planters can subsidize operations by the initial logging for forest plots, it seems likely that forests will continue to fall for new plantations despite the availability of large tracts of degraded and abandoned land.
"There is enough non-forested land suitable for plantation development to allow large increases in production without large impacts on tropical forests, but as a result of political inertia, competing priorities and lack of capacity and understanding, not to mention high levels of demand for timber and palm oil from wealthy consumers, it is still often cheaper and easier to clear forests. Unless these conditions change quickly, the impacts of oil palm expansion on biodiversity will be substantial," the authors conclude.
CITATION: Emily B. Fitzherbert, Matthew J. Struebig, Alexandra More, Finn Danielsen, Carsten A. Brühl, Paul F. Donald, Ben Phalan. How will oil palm expansion affect biodiversity? Trends in Ecology & Evolution, Volume 23, Issue 10, October 2008, Pages 538-545
mongabay.com 15 Sep 08;
Commercial killing of rainforest wildlife is putting biodiversity at risk and reducing sources of protein for rural populations, warns a new report from the Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR) and the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CDB).
The report — which assessed the sustainability of bushmeat hunting — estimates that more than a million tons of bushmeat are harvested from Central Africa each year, an amount equivalent of almost four million head of cattle. It notes that while bushmeat provides up to 80 percent of the protein and fat needed in rural diets in Central Africa, policy makers pay little heed to managing the resource. As such, wildlife is being rapidly depleted in parts of the region both by local consumers who rely on game meat for protein and commercial hunters who sell to urban markets domestically and abroad.
"If current levels of hunting persist in Central Africa, bush meat protein supplies will fall dramatically, and a significant number of forest mammals will become extinct in less than 50 years," said Robert Nasi of CIFOR, an author of the report.
The report says that while bushmeat hunting is decimating wildlife, the practice should be regulated rather than banned outright. A ban on bushmeat would only serve to impoverish rural populations dependent on game for protein and drive the practice further underground, the report argues.
"If local people are guaranteed the benefits of sustainable land use and hunting practices, they will be willing to invest in sound management and negotiate selective hunting regimes," said Frances Seymour, Director General of CIFOR. "Sustainable management of bushmeat resources requires bringing the sector out into the open, removing the stigma of illegality, and including wild meat consumption in national statistics and planning."
The report, "Conservation and Use of Wildlife-Based Resources: The Bushmeat Crisis," argues that since the industrial extractive sector — logging, mining, and drilling — facilitates the bushmeat trade through the construction of roads and even the direct hiring of hunters to provision workers, it should play an important role in improving the sustainability of game harvesting. It recommends that these industries to work with stakeholders to "develop forest policies and management plans that incorporate wildlife concerns, rather than focusing just on timber and other forms of natural resource extraction," according to a statement released by CIFOR.
"Such plans should include conservation education, an agreed system of law enforcement, development of alternative protein supplies and an intensive monitoring program," the statement continues. "If designed and applied appropriately, this will not only serve to enhance wildlife conservation, but will ultimately benefit the private sector and local communities as well."
The report suggests that Western consumers could play a hand in the effort since it is their demand for wood products that helps drive logging.
The report also recommends establishing clear title to land in forest areas.
"Only if the local hunter is bestowed with some right to decide what, where and how he may hunt — as well as the knowledge to understand the consequences of his decisions — will he embrace his responsibility to hunt sustainably," Nasi said.
Some notes from the report
* In Gabon, the annual bushmeat trade has been valued at US$25 million (€18.5 million), while in West and Central Africa, estimates range from $42 to $205 per year. The current annual harvest in Central Africa alone may be in excess of 2 million metric tons, the equivalent of over 1.3 billion chickens or 2.5 million cows.
* The value of wild meat harvested in the Amazon basin exceeds $175 million per year.
* In at least 62 countries world-wide, wildlife and fish constitute a minimum of 20% of the animal protein in rural diets. Hunting provides between 30% and 80% of the overall protein intake of rural households in Central Africa.
* The overall international trade in animal products is estimated at approximately US$3.9 billion.
CITATION: Nasi, R.; Brown, D.; Wilkie, D.; Bennett, E.; Tutin, C.; van Tol, G.; Christophersen, T. 2007. Conservation and Use of Wildlife-Based Resources: The Bushmeat Crisis [PDF]. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Montreal, and Center for International Forestry Research (CIFOR), Bogor. Technical Series no. 33, 50 pages.
New reclamation projects in Singapore have been built at least 125cm above the highest recorded tide level. The sea level is projected to rise by a maximum of a little more than 50cm over the next 100 years.
Straits Times 16 Sep 08;
THE preliminary findings of a government study on climate change show Singapore in a good position to deal with the threat of rising sea levels.
According to the study commissioned last year, the level of the seas around Singapore is projected to rise by not much more than 50cm, at most, over the next 100 years.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim told Parliament yesterday that existing measures are enough to deal with the threat of rising sea levels.
All new reclamation projects since 1991 have been built at least 125cm above the highest recorded tide level, he said.
In addition, Singapore's flood-prone areas will be reduced from 98ha today to less than 48ha by 2011, through the widening and deepening of drains and canals.
Jeremy Au Yong, Straits Times 16 Sep 08;
THE water conservation tax is here to stay as it sends an important message to Singaporeans, said Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim yesterday.
Asked by MP Low Thia Khiang (Hougang) if Singapore's eventual water self-sufficiency would see the tax being done away with, Dr Yaacob responded: Not under my watch.
He explained: 'It is put in place to send an important message to Singaporeans that water is a strategic resource. Use, by all means, but use it judiciously.
'It is important for us to send that message and I don't think, at least during my time as minister, that we would remove the water conservation tax... We help people at the bottom who may have difficulties.'
The tax on usage is set at either 30 per cent or 45 per cent, with heavy users paying more.
Dr Yaacob had earlier given an update on Singapore's efforts to become self-sufficient in terms of water supply.
The country's long-term strategy is known as the Four National Taps, which are water from local catchments, imported water, Newater and desalinated water.
He said Marina Barrage, a dam built across Marina Bay to create a new reservoir, had recently been completed and two other reservoirs, in Punggol and Serangoon, were on schedule to be finished by next year.
Combined, the three will increase the catchment area from half to two-thirds of Singapore's land area.
As for Newater, Dr Yaacob said the construction of the fifth and largest Newater plant in Changi would increase production, to meet up to 30 per cent of Singapore's water needs by 2011.
Newater now meets 15 per cent of the country's needs.
A desalination plant in Tuas, meanwhile, produces up to 10 per cent of Singapore's water needs.
Diary of a Village Girl
Last week, the first farmstay resort at Lim Chu Kang opened its doors. Consisting of a spa and 19 villas, the D'Kranji Farm Resort is part of the Government's drive to turn Lim Chu Kang into an agri-tainment hub. Are the changes coming too quickly to the countryside? ENG YEE PENG, 31, whose films about old Lim Chu Kang are showing this weekend at The Arts House, talks about what it was like to grow up there in the '80s - as told to our reporter
Ng Tze Yong, The New Paper 16 Sep 08;
THE jungle is thick and it is everywhere. I can't find my way home.
In the half-light, I see some bricks, old pots and rusty tins. Is that Ah Pa's old workshop? I stumble over some broken boards. Is this Coppy's old kennel?
18 Mile, Lim Chu Kang. It's a military training area now, with skull and bones on red metal boards.
This was my home.
Was, because it no longer is, although I never really did leave this place, deep in my heart.
In 1986, my family was one of the many Singaporeans evicted from Lim Chu Kang as part of the Government's development plans. Farmers left their farms, moving into new homes and new livelihoods.
It was a traumatic change for us.
Our former MP, Dr Tan Cheng Bock, said many old folks committed suicide from their new high-rise flats.
When we moved, I was only 9. But I remember.
I remember the sound of rubber-tree seeds hitting the ground, making cracking sounds on quiet afternoons.
My cousins and I are running now - racing - from our houses to look for the seeds, so we can rub them real hot and place them on someone else's skin.
And oh, the fighting games!
Picking sticks from the ground to use as swords... rehearsing pugilistic movies, before we did it for real...
I stumble through the jungle. What else do I remember?
The bicycles, the candle-lit lanterns during the Mid-Autumn Festivals, and the titbits uncle who used to come at 2pm in his big red van.
Yes, I still remember.
Even now, I reminisce - like how an old woman twice my age would. In Singapore, time seems to travel twice as fast.
The day I left Lim Chu Kang for good... that was surreal.
I was standing there, embracing everything in my home - house, trees, flowers, animals, plants, wind, rain, sunshine...
I could not imagine that the next day, all these would be gone. My carefree life was crumbling all around me and I did not understand why.
We were required to find contractors to bulldoze our own house.
I wasn't there when it happened. But I went back afterwards, once, to look.
I remember sitting in the back of Ah Pa's lorry. The moment I saw our demolished house, my tears flowed faster than the thoughts running through my head and the emotions rushing through me.
The displacement changed me. I retreated into myself.
At my new school in an HDB new town, classmates asked me why I was so quiet.
I joked about it. But deep down, I was sad.
Did they know that the old me used to beat up the boys in Lim Chu Kang?
In my 20s, I left to study in Australia to become a film-maker.
During my honours year, I asked myself: If I could only make one film in my entire life, what would it be about?
There was only one answer: I wanted to go home.
One day, Lim Chu Kang will be filled with farmstays, spas and restaurants.
I was disappointed when I heard of the Government's plans at first. I didn't think it will fit into the soul of the place.
I am not against development.
The new resort is nice. Each air-conditioned villa is modelled after those of a five-star hotel's. They offer room service, housekeeping and wireless Internet connection.
But I wonder too: How will they keep the soul of this place?
Lim Chu Kang was originally a farming village. The community was uprooted and dispersed. Now, more than 20 years later, they want to 'make use' of its 'rustic charm' to develop it like a tourist attraction?
It was heartbreaking for me to hear it.
Do they know that there are old men today who still dream of the rambutan trees in their backyard?
But I have also come to realise, slowly, that the old Lim Chu Kang was well and truly buried long ago.
And I ought to let it go.
Holding on to it will only break my heart.
The kampung girl who beat the odds
This weekend, Yee Peng's critically-acclaimed films on the changing face of Lim Chu Kang will be screened at The Arts House
I ALMOST couldn't recognise Yee Peng when I met her at a coffee joint at City Hall. She looks skinnier now than how she appeared in her films.
Ng Tze Yong, The New Paper 16 Sep 08;
I ALMOST couldn't recognise Yee Peng when I met her at a coffee joint at City Hall. She looks skinnier now than how she appeared in her films.
'8kg,' she said.
That's how much weight she has lost since starting work last March on Diminishing Memories II, a film about the rapid changes in Lim Chu Kang.
It is the sequel to the award-winning 2005 documentary Diminishing Memories I, a poignant tale about her childhood in a Lim Chu Kang kampung. Both films will be screened from 19 Sep to 4 Oct at The Arts House.
It will mark the end of one journey for her, and the beginning of another.
Saddled by guilt, Yee Peng, one of Singapore's most promising young film-makers, has decided she now has to look for a 'real' job.
Diminishing Memories II cost $90,000, from sponsors and her savings. But during the one year it took to make, she had to depend on her parents to support her.
'I don't think that was right,' said the 31-year-old.
Her parents never once complained. 'But that made me feel even more guilty,' she said.
She hopes now to look for a full-time job in video-editing and pursue film-making on the side.
'It's not that I lost my passion. But I do not want to pursue it at the expense of my family,' she said.
Her pursuit of her dream was a journey of ups and downs, and one that has taken her 15 years.
When she was 16, Yee Peng applied unsuccessfully to pursue film studies at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. She had discovered her passion late and didn't have the necessary qualifications, so Yee Peng enrolled in business studies instead.
'But every time I saw the film students walking around campus with their video cameras, I couldn't take my eyes off them,' she said.
Determined to equip herself with the right skills, she immersed herself in television production courses during her school holidays. After graduation, she joined MediaCorp to learn the ropes, eventually rising to become a studio director and assistant producer.
After five years of working, Yee Peng applied to take communication studies at Nanyang Technological University, thinking that she had accumulated the relevant experience.
'But I didn't get a reply, so after a while, I called them and they told me I wasn't even qualified to apply,' she said. She found out her application was not even processed.
'I was angry and disappointed,' she said. 'I had the passion, but why was there no opportunity?'
Still, Yee Peng did not give up. Using almost all her savings of $40,000, she went to pursue film studies at Griffith University in Australia.
Three years later, in 2005, she topped her faculty and returned with first-class honours.
Diminishing Memories I was her honours-year thesis project, which won her several film festival awards. Its sequel brought her a different sort of reward - closure. For 10 days after its completion, Yee Peng found herself breaking into tears uncontrollably at various times.
'I was crying as if I was at a funeral,' she said. 'I gave myself a fright.'
She hopes her films will show future generations that there is 'a price for Singapore's prosperity'.
'There were people who paid the price,' said Yee Peng, 'and I want them to appreciate it.'
Her mother, 61-year-old housewife Poh Ah Hua, is relieved about her daughter's decision to get a full-time job. 'The audience sees her work. But I am her mother, and I see her hardship,' said Madam Poh.
Yee Peng's publicist, Miss Dorothy Ng, thinks it would be a pity.
'There are not many independent film-makers in Singapore who can make heritage films in Mandarin and reach out to the people who actually lived through the experiences,' she said.
Yee Peng herself is sad and frustrated. She talks fondly of Australia, where there is greater interest in the arts. Why not emigrate?
'I feel for this land,' she said. Then, she paused.
'You know, it's hard to know what I mean if you have never lived in a kampung,' she continues.
'Growing up in a kampung, my bare feet walked, jumped and ran on the soil beneath me. I played in the rain. I heard it on the zinc roof, I smelled it and touched it. I felt at one with the environment.
'In a flat, I think you cannot feel the same kind of attachment to the soil and to the land.
'I wonder if that's why people leave.'
FYI
Tickets are available at The Arts House Box Office or from www.theartshouse.com.sg.
For information on the films, visit diminishingmemories.spaces.live.com
Lian Cheong, Channel NewsAsia 15 Sep 08;
SINGAPORE: Foldable bicycles are now allowed onboard buses even on weekdays, but not during rush hours.
The test move by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will assess if bus operations will be affected.
Before this, commuters could only bring foldable bicycles onto buses on weekends and public holidays.
But from Monday, commuters can do so during off-peak hours on weekdays as well - Monday to Friday from 9.30am to 4.30pm, and from 7.30pm to end of bus services.
Cyclists welcome the move, but said it takes understanding from both cyclists and non-cyclists for it to work.
Cyclist Francis Chu said: "If the government allows foldable (bicycles) to be accessed by the public transport during the peak period, it may create some tension between the normal passenger and people who are carrying a foldable bike. Of course, it takes both sides, understanding from both sides to make it possible."
Steven Lim, a bicycle shop owner, said: "(Vehicles on the roads) are giving more ways, more space to the cyclists, even when they are passing... us.
"They would horn before they overtake us, or they would slow their speed. But there are much improvement needed, especially with the private cars and coaches. We need to educate and co-exist and give more space to the cyclist."
Lim said his bicycle shop, which was set up in 2006, has seen sales of foldable bikes double since LTA introduced the bike trial in May. He now sells an average of 50 foldable bicycles per month, mostly to retirees and young families.
He said most of the customers use the bicycles for leisure, as the hours permitted for use on buses are confined to off-peak hours.
- CNA/yb
Richard Black, BBC News website 15 Sep 08;
Levels of noise in the world's oceans are causing serious problems for whales, dolphins and other marine mammals, a report warns.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare (Ifaw) says undersea noise blocks animals' communication and disrupts feeding.
Naval sonar has been implicated in the mass deaths of some cetaceans.
In some regions, the level of ocean noise is doubling each decade, and Ifaw says protective measures are failing.
"Humanity is literally drowning out marine mammals," said Robbie Marsland, UK director of Ifaw.
"While nobody knows the precise consequences for specific animals, unless the international community takes preventive measures we are likely to discover only too late the terrible damage we're causing."
In its global assessment of cetacean species, released last month, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) concluded that ocean noise posed a significant threat.
Across the spectrum
Whales and dolphins use sound in ways that are clearly important to their survival, though not completely understood.
Baleen whales, such as blue and humpback whales, produce low frequency calls that can travel thousands of kilometres through water.
Dolphins and toothed whales generate higher frequency clicks used to locate prey.
Noise generated by ships' engines and propellers, and by seismic airguns used in oil and gas exploration, produce a range of frequencies that can interfere with both these groups of species, Ifaw concludes.
Its report - Ocean Noise: Turn it down - cites research showing that the effective range of blue whales' calls is only about one-tenth of what it was before the era of engine-driven commercial shipping.
It also notes that high-energy military sonar systems have driven the mass strandings and deaths of beaked whales.
The sonar is thought to disrupt the animals' diving behaviour so much that they suffer a condition rather like "the bends" which human divers can contract if they surface too quickly.
Pressure from conservation groups has led to restrictions on the use of sonar by the US Navy.
In some places, companies involved in oil and gas exploration limit their use of seismic airguns.
But Ifaw argues these restrictions are not enough.
The use of high-energy sonar and seismic airguns should be completely prohibited in sensitive areas, it says. National legislation, such as the UK's Marine Bill, should comprehensively restrict the exposure of cetaceans to noise.
The UK branch of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) has sounded alarm bells recently over oil and gas exploration in the Moray Firth, home to a small population of bottlenose dolphins.
The Ifaw report is not the first to raise the threat posed by ocean noise, and it will not be the last.
The problem is that most of the activities causing the problem - commercial shipping, mineral extraction - are part and parcel of the modern, interconnected economy.
A further obstacle to legislation is that much of the noise is generated on the high seas, which are largely unregulated.
Ted Danson, BBC Green Room 15 Sep 08;
The Atlantic bluefin tuna is a magnificent creature in a desperate plight, says Ted Danson. It may be possible to save it - but what about the wider issue of our overfished oceans?
I'm an actor, but ocean issues have been important to me for a big part of my life.
I became involved in the mid-1980s when I took my daughters to the beach, only to find it had been closed for swimming as a result of pollution.
Since then, I've spent the last 20-plus years as an ocean advocate, working with Oceana (and its predecessor organisation) to help in its efforts to restore the oceans to vitality and health.
I am on Oceana's board of directors.
One thing I learned early on is that pollution isn't the biggest problem facing the oceans, though it is certainly important.
It's overfishing. We're just taking too many fish out of the sea.
Since 1950, 90% of the big predator fish - your swordfish, your shark - have disappeared.
This summer, Oceana launched a new campaign and a new research boat, the MarViva Med, dedicated to saving the northern bluefin tuna, or Thunnus thynnus.
This is your elite fish, the kind that sells for $100 per pound (£125 per kg) or more in Japanese fish markets.
Unfortunately for the bluefin, it's not only one of the world's most coveted seafood species - it's also one of the most threatened.
Since the mid-1990s, tuna populations have spiralled downward, and scientists warn that an immediate moratorium on fishing is the only way to avoid an irreversible collapse.
In June, the European Union closed the bluefin tuna season for most ships two weeks early, but that's only a stop-gap measure.
Time is running out to save these sleek and powerful fish.
Tiger tamed
Conservationists often refer to the bluefin tuna as the "tiger of the sea", but in truth a mature bluefin outweighs, outgrows and outpaces even the heftiest wild cat.
Bluefin can weigh up to 1,400lbs (635kg) and measure 15ft (5m) long, and can sustain bursts of speed up to 60 mph (100 km/h) in pursuit of prey.
Warm-blooded, they migrate across oceans, and females produce up to 30 million eggs each spawning season.
Bluefin tuna have fascinated and fed humans for ages. The first evidence of bluefin fishing in the Mediterranean dates to the 7th Millennium BCE when the Phoenicians established fisheries using hand-lines and primitive seine nets.
Aristotle studied tuna in his History of Animals, written in 350 BCE, and contended that the enormous fish gorged for two years before bursting from overeating.
Four hundred years later, Pliny the Elder recommended eating tuna to treat ulcers, suggesting the neck, belly and throat as the finest pieces that must be eaten fresh even though "they cause severe fits of flatulence".
But it wasn't until the late 20th Century that that tuna became a global business.
In recent years, sushi and sashimi have exploded in popularity in Japan and around the world, and consumers tout the fatty flesh of the bluefin as the most prized meat.
Purse seine ships, which close drawstring nets around schooling fish, became larger and more sophisticated, and fattening cages dotted the seas starting in 1996.
These cages, which can measure 50m (165ft) across, may represent the biggest threat to bluefin survival.
Tuna, often juvenile, are captured and dumped in the cages - or "ranches" - for months to fatten up, with all the associated problems of aquaculture: disease, waste and overfishing of the smaller fish used to feed the bluefin.
Fishing for giant bluefin has become hugely profitable.
In the 1960s, its meat sold in the US for seven cents a pound. This season, the first bluefin sold in Taiwan netted $105 a pound.
Quota of ignorance
Despite this booming business, we barely understand how tuna populations work.
Several bluefin fisheries have cropped up in the Atlantic, only to collapse within a few years. The North Sea fishery collapsed in 1963, and a Brazilian fishery appeared in the early '60s only to vanish by 1967.
No-one knows why.
Current catch quotas set by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (Iccat) are nearly impossible to enforce, as fewer than 5% of catches have been sampled independently in the last decade.
Some conservationists estimate that the fishing industry took 50,000 tonnes of bluefin from the Mediterranean by mid-June of this year - and the quota was set at 28,500 tonnes.
Iccat has set a declining quota for Atlantic bluefin over the next few years as part of a 15-year recovery plan, reducing the total allowable catch to 25,500 tonnes in 2010.
But it isn't enough. Bluefin need a generational breather to prevent total collapse.
In the meantime, the data gathered by researchers aboard Oceana's MarViva Med tells us that the quotas that are in place are not effectively enforced and are ignored by the tuna fleet.
Even as a lay person, not a scientist, it's abundantly clear to me that overfishing is pushing our oceans towards an irreversible collapse.
Bluefin tuna is just one species that's already at the brink of extinction. We can bring the tuna back, but only if we act now.
Ted Danson is an Emmy- and Golden Globe-winning actor who has appeared in more than 25 films. He is a founder and board member of Oceana, which researches and campaigns on marine issues
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental issues running weekly on the BBC News website
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 15 Sep 08;
A leading Hollywood actor has attacked the traditional British dish of fish and chips for causing the near extinction of an endangered species of shark.
Ted Danson said the "fish" enjoyed by millions of Britons in their fish and chips could be "spiny dogfish", a rare species of shark that is on the World Conservation Union Criticially Endangered List.
The Cheers actor, who founded Oceana, the largest international group focused soley on ocean conservation, said the dogfish was once the most abundant shark species in the world but has been brought to the edge of extinction by over fishing.
The main fishing grounds for the spiny dogfish are in the North Sea, west of Scotland and the Celtic Sea.
The UK is the fourth biggest shark fishing nation in Europe, hauling in almost 8,000 metric tonnes of sharks and rays, the bulk of which comes from the Northeast Atlantic.
Mr Danson, said much of this catch, including the endangered shark species, is marketed as "rock salmon" and is ending up in our fish and chips.
He said: "In general we are over fishing all of our fisheries around the world. Cod, which used to be in your fish and chips, has become so over-fished that we cannot find enough so we are turning to something that is called 'rock salmon' but that is really the endangered shark species spiny dog fish.
"So, a lot of your fish and chips come from this species of shark. It used to be the most abundant shark in the ocean but now it is down to five per cent of what it used to be."
The European nations are the second biggest "fishing nation" for sharks and rays after Indonesia, taking almost 94,000 or 12 per cent of the global shark and ray catch in 2006. More than 10,000 tonnes of those catches were for sharks that are threatened according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature Red List.
Mr Danson said current controls on shark fishing in Europe are "grossly inadequate".
However the actor did not urge British people to give up on the dish altogether, just to check that rock salmon is not in the ingredients and to join the campaign to try to increase controls on shark fishing around Europe.
He added: "I love fish and I love fish and chips. I am not going to stop eating fish and chips. Not eating fish and chips is not going to have an impact necessarily. What is needed is to become an activist to try to get the policy changed on shark fishing."
Mr Danson, who founded Oceana 20 years ago when he couldn't answer his daughter's question on why his local beach was closed for fishing, said 90 per cent of shark species in the world have already been wiped out.
He pointed out that sharks are a crucial part of the ocean eco-system but take much longer than fish to recover from over-fishing.
He said: "We could avert this disaster now. The alternative is we could could fish-out the oceans in our lifetime. How do we want to answer the question of our kids? This is something we could deal with now. Shame on us if we do not."
According to Oceana more than one hundred million sharks are killed by commercial fisheries every year. Approximately 50 million are caught unintentionally as "by-catch" and up to 73 million are caught for their fins used in "luxury" products like shark fin soup or for their liver, oil and cartilage which are used in cosmetic and dietary supplements.
Andrea Thompson, LiveScience.com 15 Sep 08;
A newly discovered species of a blind, subterranean predator - dubbed the "Ant from Mars" - is likely a descendant of one of the very first ants to evolve on Earth, a new study finds.
Christian Rabeling, an evolutionary biology graduate student at the University of Texas at Austin, found the only known specimen of the new ant species in dead plant material on the ground in the Amazon rainforest at the Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuaria in Manaus, Brazil, in 2003.
Rabeling and his colleagues named the ant Martialis heureka ("ant from Mars") because they'd never seen an ant like it before.
The ant is well-adapted for its underground home, with a long, pale body and no eyes. It also has long, slender forceps-like mandibles that researchers suspect the ant uses to capture prey.
M. heureka not only constitutes a new species, but a new genus and subfamily of ants as well. The new subfamily, one of 21 ant subfamilies, is the first new one to be named by scientists since 1967.
Rabeling says the discovery, detailed in the Sept. 15 issue of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will help biologists better understand the biodiversity and evolution of ants.
Ants evolved more than 120 million years ago from wasp ancestors. Scientists think that ants evolved quickly into many different lineages, specializing to live in the soil, leaf-litter or trees, or in multiple habitats.
DNA taken from the M. heureka specimen's leg indicates that it belongs at the base of the ant evolutionary tree.
"This discovery lends support to the idea that blind, subterranean predator ants arose at the dawn of ant evolution," Rabeling said.
This doesn't mean that the ancestor to all ants was blind and lived underground, but that these features evolved early in ant history and persisted in the environmentally stable soils of the tropics.
The finding of M. heureka "hints at a wealth of species, possibly of great evolutionary importance, still hidden in the soils of the remaining rainforests," the authors of the study wrote.
'Ant from Mars' emerges from its 120 million-year anonymity
Mark Henderson, The Times 15 Sep 08;
A new species of insect, nicknamed “the ant from Mars” because of its strange and unique physical characteristics, has been discovered in the Amazon rainforest.
The Martialis heureka ant, a blind predator that lives in soil and grows to between 2mm and 3mm long, was identified as belonging to an entirely new branch that is extremely close in nature to the first ants to evolve.
The ant is so unlike any other that its Latin name means “eureka ant from Mars”. The name derives from a comment by the renowned biologist E.O.Wilson, who jokingly told the discovery team that the ant looked so strange it must come from Mars. The “heureka” species epithet, meaning
“I've found it”, comes from the way that a single specimen was discovered five years after the first examples had been lost.
The ant is well adapted to living in the soil, beneath the leaf litter of the floor of the Amazon rainforest. It has no eyes, is pale in colour, and has very large mandibles, with which, scientists believe, it captures its prey.
M. heureka does not belong to any of the 20 previously known sub-families of ant, and is the first new, living species of ant to have been discovered since 1923.
Christian Rabeling, of the University of Texas, who led the discovery team, said: “This discovery hints at a wealth of species, possibly of great evolutionary importance, still hidden in the soils of the remaining rainforests.”
Mr Rabeling collected a specimen of “the ant from Mars” in 2003 at Manaus, Brazil, on land owned by a state-run agricultural research institute. His colleague Manfred Verhaagh, of the German State Museum for Natural History in Karlsruhe, had previously found two other suspected specimens, but these had been lost.
Analysis of the insect's morphology and DNA have confirmed that it is not only a new species and genus, but a new sub-family of ants. It is also among the most primitive sub-families known: its genetic code suggests it was among the first sub-families to split off from the main lineage, soon after ants evolved from wasps more than 120 million years ago.
“This discovery lends support to the idea that blind subterranean predator ants arose at the dawn of ant evolution,” Mr Rabeling, a post-graduate student, said.
“Based on our data and the fossil record, we assume that the ancestor of this ant was somewhat wasp-like, perhaps similar to the Cretaceous amber fossil Sphecomyrma, which is widely known as the evolutionary missing link between wasps and ants.”
He said it was likely that the new ant species evolved adaptations to its subterranean habitat over time, such as its lack of eyes and paleness, while retaining other physical characteristics of its ancestors. “The new ant species is hidden in environmentally stable tropical soils with potentially less competition from other ants and in a relatively stable microclimate,” he said. “It could represent a ‘relic' species that retained some ancestral morphological characteristics.”
Details of the discovery are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Navin Singh Khadka, BBC News 15 Sep 08;
Conservationists in Nepal say efforts to save the nation's dwindling tiger populations are facing a twin attack.
They have recorded a significant decrease in the number of the endangered species in some of the protected areas of the country.
The bad news comes just as concern is growing over the immigration of traditional hunting and poaching communities from neighbouring India.
During the 10-year Maoist conflict, which ended two years ago, poachers were already active in some conserved areas, cashing in on the absence of army personnel who were otherwise engaged in the conflict with the then rebels. Some of these poachers had been identified as Nepalese nationals.
The recent decline in tiger population, however, has coincided with the arrival of the Indian hunting tribes.
New threat
A recent count in the western Nepalese Shuklaphanta wildlife reserve, which shares an open border with India, has shown a decrease of about 50% in tiger numbers from just three years ago.
Initial results of a tiger count in another nearby protected area, the Bardiya National Park, are not good either.
"It is very disturbing news," says Diwakar Chapagain of conservation group WWF, which supported the government in the tiger count.
"More so when there are indications that the tigers did not die natural deaths," he added.
Following the tiger count in Shuklaphanta wildlife reserve, the report submitted by the tiger task force concluded that there had not been a noticeable decline in the tigers' key prey species.
"(Therefore) tiger mortality due to natural deaths and through poaching is worth exploring," it recommended.
But conservationists closely monitoring poaching and illegal trading of wildlife believe they have some explanation for the observed decreases.
They say members of Indian traditional hunting communities - Bawariyas and Beheliyas - have been increasingly moving in after being hounded out by authorities in India.
"From our informers on the ground, we have information that more than 50 Bawariyas and Beheliyas families have entered Nepal and they are now in Nepalese-protected areas and jungles," says Prasanna Yonjan of Wildlife Conservation Nepal, which has helped officials catch illegal wildlife traders and traffickers.
Hem Aryal, the forest officer in Banke district (where the Bardiya National park is located), says he has been tipped off about the arrival of the hunting communities by Indian authorities.
"In one of our recent bilateral meetings, Indian officials with the border security force told us that they had noticed some movement of these hunting tribes in border areas," he said. "We are therefore on high alert."
After arresting an illegal wildlife trafficker recently, Aryal's team is even more convinced that the hunters and poachers are already active in the Nepalese side.
"This trafficker revealed to us that the leopard skin he was carrying was given to him by Indian hunters; their description perfectly matched with what the Indian officials have told us," he said.
Crossing borders
Some conservationists in India share the same opinion as their Nepalese counterparts about the recent tiger poaching and the arrival of traditional Indian hunters.
"I believe there is a definite connection between the arrival of gangs of Bawariyas and Beheliyas in Nepal and the decline in tiger numbers there," says Belinda Wright, executive director of Wildlife Protection Society of India (WPSI), a non-governmental organisation.
Although none of the members of these communities have been arrested in Nepal so far, some of them were detained in India last December.
According to WPSI, which took part in the police operation, 12 of the 16 people arrested with three tiger skins and skeletons in Allahabad of Uttar Pradesh, were from the Beheliyas community.
After years of being chased by Indian authorities, members of the Bawariyas and Beheliyas communities have now come across into the Nepali territory in search of safe haven, conservationists believe.
"At least five of them are on the wanted list of the CBI (one of the Indian intelligence agencies)," says Ms Wright.
"Members of these nomadic communities travel in small groups often with women and children. They usually set up camp 5-10km from a protected area with good wildlife populations.
"Men do the poaching, often assisted by local contacts, while women act as couriers carrying the skins and bones to their home base or to a known buyer."
The tiger population in India has halved within a matter of a few years - from 3,000 just a couple of years ago to 1,500 today.
In Nepal, previous estimations showed the number of tigers to be about 350.
But conservationists say the recent count in some of the protected areas suggests that the number must have dwindled drastically.
Skins and bones of tigers and leopards are among the most frequently seized illegal wildlife goods in Nepal.
Wildlife officials say at least three such contrabands are seized across the country every month.
The biggest seizure to date took place in 2005, in Langtang National Park, north of Kathmandu.
An army patrol had then found more than 240 tiger and leopard skins in a truck heading towards Tibet.
Security officials and conservationists said most of the tiger products either originated in Nepal or were smuggled in from other countries like India, Bangladesh and Bhutan, and were often destined for China.
While the illegal trade continues to be a serious threat to Nepal's conservation efforts, the arrival of the Indian traditional hunters and poachers canis sure to add up to its challenge.
Yahoo News 16 Sep 08;
PARIS - France will tax non-recyclable throwaway plates and cutlery to encourage consumers to buy more eco-friendly products, ahead of a wider move that could include consumer electronics, the environment minister said on Monday.
France has already introduced the so-called "bonus-malus" system for cars, under which an extra tax is imposed on the most heavily polluting vehicles while the greenest get a tax break.
Newspaper Le Figaro said the government had agreed on a list of new items that could be included, such as fridges, washing machines, televisions, batteries and wooden furniture, but Environment Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said no final decision had been reached.
"We are not completely ready. It has not been decided on definitively," Borloo told RTL radio, adding that decisions would be taken "gradually".
His office later said that the tax would apply to non-recyclable cardboard, but not plastic tableware, and would be levied on distributors and importers.
Borloo said the "picnic tax" would amount to 0.9 euros (US$1.26). He did not, however, say what amount of cutlery that tax would apply to, and Environment Ministry officials declined to elaborate on the measure.
The CSEMP, which represents the plastics packaging industry criticised the move and said it would be costly, inefficient and difficult to implement and that it did not target the kind of products that created the largest amount of waste.
Le Figaro said the tentative list of 19 categories of products agreed on Thursday was subject to final technical analyses and consultations.
The scheme, which will also give tax breaks to environmentally friendly products, should be cost-neutral. (Reporting by Thierry Leveque; writing by Francois Murphy; editing by Myra MacDonald)
A return to pre-industrial levels of carbon dioxide urged as the only way to prevent the worst impacts of global warming
David Adam, guardian.co.uk 15 Sep 08;
Scientists may have to turn back time and clean the atmosphere of all man-made carbon dioxide to prevent the worst impacts of global warming, one of Europe's most senior climate scientists has warned.
Professor John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany, told the Guardian that only a return to pre-industrial levels of CO2 would be enough to guarantee a safe future for the planet. He said that current political targets to slow the growth in emissions and stabilise carbon levels were insufficient, and that ways may have to be found to actively remove CO2 from the air.
Schellnhuber said: "We have to start pondering that it might not be enough to stabilise carbon levels. We should not rule out that it might be necessary to bring them down again."
Carbon levels have fluctuated over the last few hundred thousand years, but have rarely gone much beyond 280 parts per million (ppm), which is commonly referred to as the pre-industrial concentration. Over the last few centuries, human emissions of greenhouse gases have forced that concentration up as high as 387ppm, and it is rising at more than 2ppm each year.
World governments are currently trying to agree a deal that would restrict emissions and stabilise carbon levels at 450ppm, in an effort to limit global temperatures to 2C warmer than pre-industrial times.
Schellnhuber, who has advised the German government and European Commission on climate, said: "It is a compromise between ambition and feasibility. A rise of 2C could avoid some of the big environmental disasters, but it is still only a compromise."
He said even a small increase in temperature could trigger one of several climatic tipping points, such as methane released from melting permafrost, and bring much more severe global warming.
"It is a very sweeping argument, but nobody can say for sure that 330ppm is safe," he said. "Perhaps it will not matter whether we have 270ppm or 320ppm, but operating well outside the [historic] realm of carbon dioxide concentrations is risky as long as we have not fully understood the relevant feedback mechanisms."
He calls the plan to remove man-made emissions "atmospheric restitution" and has discussed it at recent seminars, but not written it up for a scientific journal. "It's such a bold idea and sounds very desperate," he said.
Schellnhuber said the most severe long-term impact could be sea-level rise. Over several centuries or more, a 1C global rise would correspond to a 15-20m rise in sea level. "Since we have built all our coastal zones for the current sea level we should not change [it] by tens of metres."
If CO2 levels are stabilised over the next decades, he said, then "science fiction" technology could be developed to bring the level down again by 2200. He suggested the large-scale burning of plant material for energy, with the resulting carbon dioxide captured and stored, could reduce CO2 levels by about 50ppm. Other techniques would be needed as well, he said.
Scientists in the US, led by Klaus Lackner at Columbia University, are developing a device that could scrub carbon dioxide from the air using absorbent plastic strips. Richard Branson has promised $25m (£14m) to the inventor of a machine that could take CO2 from the air on a large scale.
Schellnhuber's warning comes as climate experts say current emissions trends show the world is unlikely to stabilise carbon dioxide levels below 650ppm, which could see a 4C rise. Alice Bows and Kevin Anderson, of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of Manchester, say carbon pollution is rising faster than officially admitted. They say emissions would need to peak by 2015 and then decrease by up to 6.5% each year for atmospheric CO2 levels to stabilise at 450ppm.
Even a goal of 650ppm – way above most government projections – would need world emissions to peak in 2020 and then reduce 3% each year. They say this year's G8 pledge to cut global emissions 50% by 2050, in an effort to limit global warming to 2C, has no scientific basis and could lead to "dangerously misguided" policies.
Solving climate change will be the most expensive public policy decision ever. Half-baked thinking won't fix it now
Björn Lomborg, guardian.co.uk 15 Sep 08;
One commonly repeated argument for doing something about climate change sounds compelling, but turns out to be almost fraudulent. It is based on comparing the cost of action with the cost of inaction, and almost every major politician in the world uses it.
The president of the European commission, José Manuel Barroso, for example, used this argument when he presented the European Union's proposal to tackle climate change earlier this year. The EU promised to cut its carbon emissions by 20% by 2020, at a cost that the commission's own estimates put at about 0.5% of GDP, or roughly €60bn per year. This is obviously a hefty price tag – at least a 50% increase in the total cost of the EU – and it will likely be much higher (the commission has previously estimated the cost to be double its current estimate).
But Barroso's punchline was that "the cost is low compared to the high price of inaction". In fact, he forecasted that the price of doing nothing "could even approach 20% of GDP". (Never mind that this cost estimate is probably wildly overestimated – most models show about 3% damages.)
So there you have it. Of course, politicians should be willing to spend 0.5% of GDP to avoid a 20% cost of GDP. This sounds eminently sensible – until you realise that Barroso is comparing two entirely different issues.
The 0.5%-of-GDP expense will reduce emissions ever so slightly (if everyone in the EU actually fulfills their requirements for the rest of the century, global emissions will fall by about 4%). This would reduce the temperature increase expected by the end of the century by just five-hundredths of a degree Celsius. Thus, the EU's immensely ambitious programme will not stop or even significantly impact global warming.
In other words, if Barroso fears costs of 20% of GDP in the year 2100, the 0.5% payment every year of this century will do virtually nothing to change that cost. We would still have to pay by the end of the century, only now we would also have made ourselves poorer in the 90 years preceding it.
The sleight of hand works because we assume that the action will cancel all the effects of inaction, whereas of course, nothing like that is true. This becomes much clearer if we substitute much smaller action than Barroso envisions.
For example, say that the EU decides to put up a diamond-studded wind turbine at the Berlaymont headquarters, which will save one tonne of CO2 each year. The cost will be $1bn, but the EU says that this is incredibly cheap when compared to the cost of inaction on climate change, which will run into the trillions. It should be obvious that the $1bn windmill doesn't negate the trillions of dollars of damage from climate change that we still have to pay by the end of the century.
The EU's argument is similar to advising a man with a gangrenous leg that paying $50,000 for an aspirin is a good deal because the cost compares favorably to the cost of inaction, which is losing the leg. Of course, the aspirin doesn't prevent that outcome. The inaction argument is really terribly negligent, because it causes us to recommend aspirin and lose sight of smarter actions that might actually save the leg.
Likewise, it is negligent to focus on inefficiently cutting CO2 now because of costs in the distant future that in reality will not be avoided. It stops us from focusing on long-term strategies like investment in energy research and development that would actually solve climate change, and at a much lower cost.
If Barroso were alone, perhaps we could let his statement go, but the same argument is used again and again by influential politicians. Germany's Angela Merkel says it "makes economic sense" to cut CO2, because the "the economic consequences of inaction will be dramatic for us all." Australia's Kevin Rudd agrees that "the cost of inaction will be far greater than the cost of action." United Nations secretary general Ban Ki-Moon has gone on record with the exact same words. In the United States, both John McCain and Barack Obama use the cost of inaction as a pivotal reason to support carbon cuts.
California senator Diane Feinstein argues that we should curb carbon emissions because the Sierra snowpack, which accounts for much of California's drinking water, will be reduced by 40% by 2050 due to global warming. What she fails to tell us is that even a substantial reduction in emissions – at a high cost – will have an immeasurable effect on snowmelt by 2050. Instead, we should perhaps invest in water storage facilities.
Likewise, when politicians fret that we will lose a significant proportion of polar bears by 2050, they use it as an argument for cutting carbon, but forget to tell us that doing so will have no measurable effect on polar bear populations. Instead, we should perhaps stop shooting the 300 polar bears we hunt each year.
The inaction argument makes us spend vast resources on policies that will do virtually nothing to deal with climate change, thereby diverting those resources from policies that could actually make an impact.
We would never accept medical practitioners advising ultra-expensive and ineffective aspirins for gangrene because the cost of aspirin outweighs the cost of losing the leg. Why, then, should we tolerate such fallacious arguments when debating the costliest public policy decision in the history of mankind?
Jeremy Hance, mongabay.com 15 Sep 08;
Air pollution masking full impact of global warming
As of 2005 the Earth was already committed to rise of global mean temperatures by 2.4°C (4.3°F), concludes a new study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
The conclusion is significant because the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has warned that a rise in global temperature by 1 to 3°C will lead to catastrophic consequences, including “widespread loss of biodiversity, widespread deglaciation of the Greenland Ice Sheet, and a major reduction of area and volume of Hindu-Kush-Himalaya-Tibetan glaciers, which provide the head-waters for most major river systems of Asia.” These glaciers, predicted to shrink considerably in the next few decades, provide food and water to over two billion people.
V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California at San Diego argue that due to unique conditions in the Arctic, mean global temperature must be doubled to accurately reflect changes there. With a committed raise of nearly 5°C (9°F), the already diminishing sea-ice will continue to abate at alarming rates and the Greenland Ice Sheet may begin to crumble under climatic pressures. The researchers estimate the long-term exposure (thousands of years) of the Greenland Ice Sheet to a minimum warming between 1.9–4.6°C will lead to a complete melt of Greenland. Such a melt would raise sea levels by seven meters (23 feet).
Given the dire projections, Ramanathan and Feng warn that time is running out. Unless tough mitigation policies on greenhouse gases are put in place, the authors say the Earth will be locked into a rise of 3°C by 2030. They write that “CO2 mitigation polices are extremely critical if we want to limit further increases in the committed warming.”
Air pollution masking climate change
Ramanathan and Feng also explore a question often raised by skeptics: "Why hasn't the planet yet felt the full force of climate change?" So far, the planet has experienced a mean warming of 0.76°C since the late 1800s.
The scientists conclude that a variety of factors are masking the full effect of climate change; one of the most significant of which is air pollution. Some types of air pollution send aerosols that reflect light like a mirror, brightening the planet and thereby cooling it. The pollutants ability to mask rising temperatures has been estimated at 47 percent. However, as nations clean up their skies, the masking effects of such pollutants disappear causing the Earth to undergo sudden warming. The researchers state that this relationship between dwindling air pollutants and higher temperatures can already be seen in Europe.
Considering the many negative aspects for health and environment of air pollution, the researchers do not recommend that nations should forgo policies that clean-up air pollution. But they say countries and international organizations should be aware of the potential rise in temperature due to such actions.
The authors suggest better models are needed to provide nations with more accurate predications of the relationship between air pollutants and greenhouse gases. “This is not easy and the costs may be substantial for developing such models and the associated observing systems, but,” the scientists conclude, “we do not have much choice.”
V. Ramanathan and Y. Feng (2008). On avoiding dangerous anthropogenic interference withthe climate system: Formidable challenges ahead. PNAS Online Early Edition for the week of September 15-19, 2008.
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