Singapore's marine protected areas: where?
on the wild shores blog
Short Attention Span Science Theater
marine conservation issues explained quickly on wild shores of singapore blog
Chestnut-bellied Malkoha feeding chick a lizard
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog
As numbers keep changing, presence of foreigners raises questions about us as a community
Constance Singam, The New Paper 4 Oct 08;
IMMIGRATION has become a source of concern for Singaporeans and may even become a politically-contentious issue.
For most of its history, Singapore was a land of migrants, most of whom arrived here to earn a living with the intention of returning to their countries of origin. I remember the time my parents, who had thought they would return to India once my father retired, made the decision to make Singapore their permanent home. They did this in the mid-50s and became citizens of independent Singapore.
Since the early 1800s, immigration has been a central factor of Singapore’s growth and attraction.
In 1922, a visitor, Mr Hermann Norden, described our city as “perennially fascinating Singapore” with its hundred tongues, its port alive with steamers, big and small, on their way to every part of the globe; and with its hustling, bustling life ashore. All the races of the world, representatives of every stage of civilisation jostle each other in the streets, he noted.
Yet another visitor described it as “seething with life”. Compared to Singapore, he observed that “London, Paris, New York and other great cities are a haven of peace”.
In 1837, the population stood at 30,000. A hundred years later in 1937, it had grown to 651,000. By the 1960s, the population had crossed the one million mark to 1,646,000. In July 1989, Singapore had a population of 2,674,362; in 1990, 2.7 million and in 2006, the population almost doubled to 4.5 million. In two years since, this figure has shot up to an astonishing 4.84 million.
The 1980 census reported that9 per cent of the population were not citizens and they were referred to in a report I read as “aliens”. Today, that figure has shot up to 35 per cent of the population. From being referred to as “aliens”, they have become “foreign workers” and “foreign talents”.
The one period when the Singapore Government imposed strict controls on immigration was from 1965 to the 1980s. Singapore began then to earn the reputation of being boring, sterile and oppressive.
We are now reclaiming our past historical reputation as a city of migrants with many races jostling with each other in the streets. This is what makes Singapore such a fascinating place to live in and the reason why I am a happy and proud Singaporean.
So why the concern about immigrants now? Firstly, I suspect that Singaporeans have settled in and transformed this island into their home. It is a predictable and dependable space. A sense of Singapore identity was evolving — when the few foreigners amongst us were here only to do the menial jobs Singaporeans didn’t want. The overwhelming presence of foreigners raises questions about who we are as a community, challenging us, yet again during a very short history of identity formation.
This more than anything else, I think, explains the reaction of the residents of Serangoon Garden against the1,000 foreign workers’ unexpected entry into their safe space. If there is one place in Singapore, relatively unchanged, with a settled population for over40 years, it is Serangoon Gardens.
Secondly, Singaporeans have become accustomed to a sense of social and economic security, assured of opportunities for education and jobs almost unchallenged by foreigners. In these uncertain times, economically, the threshold for tolerance drops dramatically and fear replaces it. There is no indication that things will get better any time soon. Indeed, as the spectre of recession looms, there is every reason to believe that things will get worse.
Assurances by demographers and policy-makers have not eased these fears. I, for one, am confused. Back in 1991, the population target was4 million and this figure was estimated to reach sometime after 2010. There was some concern then but National Development planners assured us that it was not a target but a figure to help the planners.
In 2000, the figure of 5.5-million was used in the then-Concept Plan review as an estimate for the total population over the next 40 to 50 years.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said worries that foreigners will swamp Singapore are baseless, because the 5.5-million population figure is not a target, but an estimate for long-term planning purposes.
The concern, he said, sprang from the idea that the Government wanted to have a 5.5-million population by a certain date. Last week, we were told that a figure of 6.5 million is being used by Government planners as a guide. It will take 20 to30 years to get there, said National Population Secretariat director Roy Quek.
Is there a difference between an estimated figure used for long-term planning and a target for population?
Whatever the final figure we are moving towards, the question to ask is this: Do we have the resources to sustain the numbers?
The writer is a social activist,currently a confused activist.
Foreign Bodies
One in three people living here today was born outside Singapore. These foreign-born folk include new citizens, permanent residents, foreign workers and students. With their numbers rising fast, Insight addresses some of your burning questions on the population shifts.
Li Xueying, Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
1. Who are they?
THERE are now a total of 4.84 million people living in Singapore.
Of these, 35 per cent are foreign-born.
They fall into three groups: new citizens, permanent residents (PRs) and non-residents.
In the first six months of this year, Singapore granted citizenship to 9,619 foreigners. The total number of new citizens since 2001 is 81,553.
There are 478,200 PRs here.
So, what are these new citizens and PRs like?
Figures just released by the National Population Secretariat (NPS) indicate that they tend to be better-educated than born-and-bred Singaporeans.
Take those granted PR and citizenship this year, for example: 77per cent of the new PRs and 62per cent of the new citizens aged 20 and above have post-secondary education. The corresponding figure for existing Singapore citizens is 36per cent.
While declining to give a breakdown of where these new residents hail from, the NPS says most are from South-east, South and East Asia. A smaller number are from the Americas, Oceania and Europe.
Public data shows that the number of new immigrants from South Asia is so significant that it has caused a shift in the ethnic make-up of the population.
Ethnic Indians now comprise 8.9per cent of the resident population, which is made up of both citizens and PRs, up from 7.1per cent in 1990.
The bulk of foreigners here are non-residents. Their numbers have risen to 1.2million - an all-time high.
Within this pool, there are two groups.
The first is here on a transient basis. This group is made up of work permit holders here to work as construction workers and maids. As of December last year, there were 757,000 work permit holders.
The second group of people are regarded as potential PRs and new citizens. There are 143,000 such foreigners here on employment passes and another 85,000 foreign students.
2. Has it become easier to obtain citizenship or permanent residency?
WITH the number of PRs and new citizens on the rise, the NPS says it is understandable that some people believe it has become easier to secure a red passport. But it stresses that the criteria are 'no less stringent' than before.
New residents are admitted on the basis of educational qualifications, their immediate and potential economic contributions and how well they and their family are likely to integrate into Singapore society.
The last factor is assessed on the basis of the applicant's length of stay here, the language he speaks, the culture he is from, whether or not he has family members here, and his contributions to society here. That would include his participation in grassroots and community work.
As Singaporeans become better educated, the NPS said, via e-mail, 'more will be expected of potential immigrants who wish to apply for PR and citizenship'.
It declined to give details on the number of applications and the success rate.
Ms Ragini Dhanvantray, managing director of Rikvin Consultancy, which helps facilitate immigration here, observes that the time it takes to obtain permanent residency has fallen.
'In the past, employment pass holders would apply for permanent residency only after working here for two years.
'Now, they can apply after just six months - and about 60 to 70per cent will get it,' she says.
3. Do we really need immigrants? What if we close the door on them?
IF SINGAPORE stopped accepting immigrants right now, deaths among citizens and PRs would overtake births in 12 years, says veteran demographer Saw Swee Hock.
That is based on a projection of a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.31. Demographers use TFR to project the average number of babies that will be born to a woman in a population.
Singapore's TFR is now 1.29.
That means Singapore's population will start to shrink in 2020.
Even if the TFR goes up to 1.51, the population will still shrink - albeit later, in 2025.
Prof Saw, the author of a book entitled Population Of Singapore and a professorial fellow at the Institute of the South-east Asian Studies, thus states emphatically: 'We need foreigners, forever and ever.'
The need to grow Singapore's population is a function of the need to grow the economy, he notes.
Singapore Management University economist Hoon Hian Teck says that with the growing prominence of the services sector, the shortfall in skilled labour has become more acute.
'In addition, the economy has undergone an important shift from being a technology follower to one that also creates new technologies,' he adds.
That means placing a high value on skilled researchers, both local and foreign.
In an interview last year, National Population Committee chairman Wong Kan Seng calculated that for the economy to grow at 6per cent annually, Singapore needs an extra 87,300 workers each year.
The NPS notes that as a country without natural resources, Singapore needs to depend on human capital for growth. And the global competition for talent is intense, it adds.
'If Singapore does not welcome them, they will simply look elsewhere and compete against us.'
4. Are there other ways to keep the economy growing?
YES, say some experts.
One way is to increase labour productivity.
A country's economic growth is the sum of two factors - the size of the labour force and its productivity. So higher productivity can compensate for a smaller labour force.
Labour economist Hui Weng Tat, of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, who has served as a consultant to the Manpower Ministry, believes that this is the most 'desirable' strategy.
The share that labour productivity growth has contributed to Singapore's total economic growth has declined steadily over the past two decades.
Prof Hui charted the decline in a paper he co-wrote with economist Aamir Rafique Hashmi.
From 1995 to 2000, for instance, productivity growth averaged 2.5per cent, and accounted for 39.7per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) growth. That was down from 51.6per cent in the preceding five years.
The figure was also low compared with those in other developed economies.
For the same period from 1995 to 2000, productivity growth accounted for 60.1per cent of the United States' GDP growth, and 102.2per cent of Japan's.
Prof Hui projects that if Singapore's productivity growth can be boosted to account for 60per cent of GDP growth, the demand for foreign labour will steadily go down.
According to his projections, at current productivity growth rates, Singapore will need 2.78million foreign workers by 2034.
But if productivity were one percentage point higher, then Singapore would need only 1.48million foreign workers by 2034 - a difference of 1.3million workers.
But such a productivity boost could prove 'elusive', he says, as it depends on many factors, from infrastructure to workforce quality and fiscal incentives.
The NPS says that productivity improvement remains a key focus of the Government.
The second way to grow the economy without increasing the reliance on foreign labour is by encouraging older Singaporeans to work longer, and more women to return to the workforce, says Prof Saw.
The participation rates of both groups remain low compared with those of other countries.
The government has been trying to do both, and has made some progress.
But some, such as MP for Ang Mo Kio GRC Inderjit Singh, question if it is necessary to push so hard for growth year after year.
Mr Singh, a businessman, says: 'I personally feel that we have adopted a 'grow at all costs' economic policy.
'I would have preferred a more moderate growth and, therefore, a more moderate population growth.'
He believes that the decision to build two integrated resorts in one go and a new sports hub, and expand the transport infrastructure in a massive way, is a case of 'trying to do too much too quickly'.
Prof Hui says that in an island-state with a very high population density of 6,000persq km, 'it might be argued that the lower growth target path could in fact provide a higher standard of living in Singapore'.
But lawyer and Hong Kah GRC MP Alvin Yeo is not so sure.
'There is the concern that with a small, open economy like ours, which is so susceptible to external influences which are hard to predict, planning for very modest growth could result in substantial under-shooting of our targets.
'But this is perhaps an issue which we need to review from time to time, as our economy, and society, matures.'
5. What can be done about the stresses caused by a rising number of foreigners?
AS FAR as the hardware goes, the NPS says the Government is 'confident that with creative planning and technology, Singapore can accommodate a larger population without compromising the quality of our living environment'.
Already, steps have been taken to relieve the stresses due to a larger population.
The frequency of MRT trains at peak hours went up earlier this year, though commuters are still feeling the squeeze.
A new hospital in Yishun will open in 2010 and international schools have been expanding their intakes.
Housing for the large number of foreign workers here has become an issue. Space for another 65,000 beds has been set aside at 11 sites around the island but the dormitories will take some time to build.
But the NPS is clear on one point - the answer lies in integration, not segregation.
'We must help encourage integration everywhere - in schools, at the workplace, in the neighbourhood and the larger community,' it says.
But Singaporeans such as Mr Mike Tay, 53, an entrepreneur, remain unhappy about competition from foreigners for jobs.
'Personally, I see that most do not add value to the economy, but are just a pool of cheaper labour,' he says.
Technical officer Lee Joo Meng, 55, also has doubts about the quality of immigrants allowed in.
'The next batches of immigrants need to be of a more competitive quality,' he says. 'No more foreign project engineers who declare 'I am learning through repeating mistakes'!'
Another area of concern is that the large numbers of foreigners here will affect the 'Singaporean Singapore' social fabric woven over the past 40 years, says Mr Tay.
'They will never have the same sense of belonging as those born here and who served national service,' he adds.
Mr Singh, the MP, says that if the number of foreigners were smaller, they would have felt a need to mix with the locals, and the locals would have felt a sense of responsibility in making the foreigners feel at home.
But that is not the case now because the influx of foreigners has grown so large so fast.
He adds: 'Instead, Singaporeans see them as a group trying to impose different social practices within their neighbourhoods.'
Government leaders have sought to remind Singaporeans that Singapore has always been an immigrant society.
Prof Saw, however, draws a distinction between the first-generation immigrants and today's.
'When our grandparents came here, they were pushed by poverty. Though some went back, many stayed on to make a living, and their children were brought up as locals,' he said.
'Today, we don't know how many of those who come in will continue to stay,' he says, noting that many are highly mobile.
A crucial factor is how these immigrants raise their children.
With PRs making up an increasing share of the population, the government will need to relook various policies, he says.
For instance, PRs now do not need to send their children to local schools.
But encouraging them to do so will help the integration process.
'If 100per cent are sent to local schools, there is nothing to worry about, he says.
'But if a high proportion of those who settle down here go to the international schools, they don't grow up as true citizens.
'Then, will the second generation stay?'
Yet, there must be a balance between measures to aid integration and the need to ensure Singapore's rules are not so onerous as to turn off would-be PRs.
Prof Saw acknowledges that the matter is 'a real headache'.
Ms Dhanvantray presents a different perspective.
She thinks more can be done to help new immigrants settle in and feel at home.
'Once the immigrants are inside Singapore, they are left to themselves to face the challenges of adapting to the local culture and society,' she said.
'Immigrants with families have to tackle the emotional and cultural shocks of relocation and also the process of familiarisation with the educational system. This is one of the biggest challenges.'
She suggests support groups to help immigrants cope with the changes, and the provision of basics such as a guidebook on the law, local neighbourhoods, schools and important addresses.
6. What will Singapore look like in the future?
WHAT is certain is that Singapore's population will continue to grow in the near future.
The resident population - citizens and PRs - now stands at 3.64million.
That is projected to go up to 4.8million by 2030.
The NPS says that is based on a TFR of 1.28, and an average nett migration of 50,000 for the next 10 years, and 26,200 a year thereafter.
What is less clear is how many of the 4.8million are likely to be born here, and how many born overseas.
In July, Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew revealed his own comfort level.
He said: 'You need 65per cent of the population to be born-and-bred Singaporeans, steeped in the culture, with instincts of what a Singaporean is.
'They will slowly influence the migrants who join us to become like us.'
Back-of-the-envelope calculations suggest that over 80per cent of the current resident population of 3.63million comprise born-and-bred Singaporeans.
The NPS's assurance is that the Government fully intends for Singaporeans to 'remain as the core of our population'.
'We do not want to be like some Middle Eastern countries, where non-resident foreigners far outnumber the indigenous population,' it says.
'For Singaporeans to remain as the core, we must have more babies and encourage more suitable immigrants to become Singapore citizens.'
EMA explains spike
EMA response to the Straits Times Forum 4 Oct 08;
I REFER to Wednesday's letters ('Tariff hike goes against common sense' and 'Power Points') on the revision in the electricity tariff, and would like to clarify how the Energy Market Authority regulates the tariff proposed by SP Services. Singapore imports all the fuel we need for power generation and the electricity tariff must reflect this cost. Indeed, the cost of fuel accounts for about 60 per cent of the electricity tariff.
While 80 per cent of our electricity is generated using natural gas, the price of this gas is tied by long-term contracts to the fuel oil price. This is the market practice in Asia where fuel oil is the substitute fuel source to gas, and sets a natural benchmark for gas pricing.
The electricity tariff in Singapore is therefore pegged to the fuel oil price. If the fuel oil price goes up, the electricity tariff will be increased. Likewise, if there is a reduction in the fuel oil price, the electricity tariff will be reduced accordingly, as happened in two consecutive quarters last year.
To provide certainty in pricing, the electricity tariff is set in advance for a three-month period based on the three-month forward fuel oil price. For example, the forward fuel oil price quoted last July for delivery between this month and December will determine the tariff for this period.
As the fuel oil price increased sharply in July this year, there was a corresponding spike in the July forward fuel oil price for this month until December. This is why we are experiencing a sharp increase in the electricity tariff now. Recently, the fuel oil price has started to come down. If the downward trend continues this month, we can expect a reduction in the electricity tariff for the first quarter of next year.
The increase in the electricity tariff has nothing to do with the recent Formula One event. The F1 organisers brought in their own generators and equipment for the race. The electricity tariff was not used to pay for the costs of lighting the F1 circuit.
The increase in tariff is also not linked to the privatisation of the electricity industry. On the contrary, the privatisation process has helped to promote greater competition and drive efficiency gains in the power generation companies. This has brought real benefits to all consumers. Despite the substantial rise in fuel oil price over the years, the increase in electricity tariff has been much smaller in comparison. Our electricity price would have been much higher had it not been for competition.
Jenny Teo (Ms)
Director, Corporate Communications
Energy Market Authority (EMA)
Queries on your power bill answered
Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
Readers have flooded The Straits Times Forum mailbox with letters about the recent 21 per cent hike in electricity charges. LIAW WY-CIN put some of their questions to the Energy Market Authority and got the following responses.
# Crude oil prices are coming down and petrol stations are slashing pump prices. So why are electricity prices still going up?
Crude oil and fuel oil are two different products with two different prices.
Crude oil, the raw material pumped up from deep underground, is not used to produce electricity.
Instead, companies use fuel oil, which is made from refining crude oil. Electricity prices are therefore pegged to fuel oil prices.
The oil prices usually mentioned in the news refer to crude oil prices. The pump prices at petrol stations are pegged to crude oil, which is why the recent fall in crude oil prices led to cuts in petrol and diesel prices.
# But 80 per cent of our electricity is powered by natural gas, so why are electricity prices pegged to oil prices rather than gas prices?
Asia does not have a benchmark for gas prices. Until its gas trading industry comes up with a gas index, electricity prices will be pegged to oil prices.
# Fuel oil prices are also coming down, so why are electricity prices still going up?
Since 2004, electricity tariffs here have been pegged to forward fuel prices instead of spot fuel prices.
Spot fuel oil prices are those that apply to oil for immediate delivery to customers.
The forward fuel price is the price for a contract to deliver fuel oil during a future period. These contracts are traded in the commodities market.
Forward fuel oil prices are set in advance to lock in the price of fuel oil so power generation firms have some certainty in pricing electricity. Uncertainty tends to lead to higher prices and volatility in the commodities market.
Changes in the spot fuel oil price will influence the forward fuel oil price. But because our electricity tariff is based on the forward price quoted three months earlier, there is a lag time of about three months before we experience the impact of the change.
For example, between October 2006 and June last year, electricity tariffs fell by 13 per cent, from 21.64 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) to 18.88 cents per kwh, after fuel oil prices fell.
Spot fuel oil prices are falling now, so this should translate into lower forward fuel prices three months later, if the decline continues.
# Did the recently concluded Formula One race contribute to the electricity price hikes?
No, the F1 organisers brought in their own generators and equipment for the race. The electricity tariff has not been raised to cover the costs of lighting up the F1 circuit.
# Why can't electricity be more heavily subsidised?
The Singapore Government has a policy of subjecting essentials like electricity, water and oil to market forces as it believes blanket government subsidies are generally unsustainable.
The Malaysian and Indonesian governments, for example, recently found it hard to revoke their heavy fuel subsidies when oil prices rose. Demonstrations and riots broke out.
Here, the prices of essentials are allowed to rise and fall according to market forces. Subsidies are made available to those in financial need.
# In about three years, the Government is planning to further liberalise the electricity sector, opening up household power services to other providers. How will that benefit residents?
The liberalising of the market for electricity for industrial use has resulted in a 3 per cent to 8 per cent drop in electricity prices.
Electricity for household use is now provided only by Singapore Power. Opening up the household electricity sector in about three years could bring in more competing energy providers, driving electricity prices down. The effect could be the same as that of the liberalisation of the mobile phone industry, which lowered the cost of using a mobile phone.
Power generation companies might even throw in freebies to entice consumers to sign up with them.
Let it fly
Lediati Tan, The New Paper 4 Oct 08;
THE latest power rate hike has Miss Chua Kim Choo scratching her head.
On the one hand, the bank administrator read in the newspapers that electricity bills are up by 21 per cent from Wednesday. On the other hand, there are news reports saying that oil prices have fallen.
Miss Chua, who is in her 50s, pointed out that My Paper carried an report that quoted the Energy Market Authority (EMA) as saying that the projected fuel-oil price for the next three months will jump by 38 per cent, justifying the 21 per cent increase.
She said that in the same day's paper, there was another report saying that Taiwan Airlines will cut fuel surcharges on international routes to reflect oil prices.
The latest round of power hikes - the fourth this year - has left MissChua fuming.
'The 21 per cent increase is ridiculous. It's too high.
'How can it be justified when there are reports saying fuel prices have fallen?' she asked.
It is the highest one-time increase in about seven years, EMA said.
EMA chief executive Khoo Chin Hean explained that petrol and diesel pump prices, which have fallen in recent weeks, are not indicative of how much power generation companies have to pay.
Since 2004, electricity tariffs have been pegged to the price of fuel oil delivered to power generation firms for the next three months, otherwise known as 'forward fuel oil' prices.
Mr Khoo was hopeful that if oil prices continued to drop, electricity tariffs could fall in the next quarterly revision, due in January.
When this reporter asked Miss Chua if she understands what forward fuel oil prices means, she replied: 'I don't know what it means. I don't think the majority of us do.'
This only adds to her confusion.
Miss Chua lives in a five-room HDB flat with her younger sister and her 20-year-old niece.
They pay power bills of more than $300 a month. With the latest increase, they can expect to pay another $63.
Miss Chua said: 'I've grown tired of analysing it, so I just pay.'
She said she and her family have tried out ways to cut down on their power usage. They no longer leave their electrical appliances on standby and they have used energy-saving lightbulbs for the last three years.
But, she lamented, 'no matter how much we save on usage, the electricity bills are always high'.
Despite the Government's rebates, she feels that the lower-income will be the worst-hit, although she thinks middle-income earners are also increasingly being squeezed.
This home-owner is happy because he can track hourly rate of usage, detect appliances left running
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 4 Oct 08;
HE has saved an average of more than $220 a month on his electricity bill, thanks to a device that tracks his energy usage.
Mr Tommy Ng, 50, a financial services consultant, had the ETrack installed in early July as part of an energy savings competition on TV that was sponsored by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
On its own, the device does not save electricity, but it helps users manage their power usage and cost.
Based on his September power bill, which shows consumption for the past six months, Mr Ng was paying an average of $480 a month for his power use from April to June.
From July to September, this fell to about $260, despite the electricity tariff going up by 5 per cent. The tariff has now gone up by another 21 per cent.
Air-conditioners in each of Mr Ng's nine bedrooms were responsible for the biggest proportion of his bills.
Mr Ng lives in a condominium penthouse unit with 11 others - his mother, his wife, their four children aged 12 to 22, a maid and four children of overseas friends who are studying in Singapore.
He has a budget for his monthly electricity bill and he monitors his weekly usage to see where he needs to cut down.
'Say my monthly budget is about $200 - I expect to chalk up about $50 each week. If it exceeds $50, I will take action such as cutting down air-con usage,' he said.
For example, he'll implement a 'no air-con before 10pm' rule or set the timer for the air-con to switch off about one hour before his children wake up.
'After seven or eight hours of air-con, the room temperature will be low enough. Anyway, if they start to feel hot, it would serve as an alarm clock,' said Mr Ng.
He added that it was important to educate his family members, and the ideas to save energy came from his children.
For example, a note reminds the family not to open the fridge door for too long as this will make the fridge use more energy.
Mr Ng said: 'With the rising prices, we will continue to find out other ways to save electricity. Maybe we will try to reduce the number of rooms using air-con at night.'
Since ETrack was jointly launched by NEA and local electrical equipment developer Bridex Harwal in August, about 100 units have been sold.
There are similar devices available overseas but Bridex Harwal president Lawrence Lee said his company is the first to introduce one in this region.
Besides providing the monthly electricity usage in dollar value for overall usage, ETrack can also individually monitor three other distribution lines or channels, namely for air-con, lighting and power supply via thesockets.
The four-channel model retails at Home-Fix stores for $200. The retail price includes cost of installation by a qualified technician.
The device, which consumes less than 1watt per day (this comes up to about 22cents per month), is installed at or near the electrical box.
Appliance alert
As this is usually near the entrance of most HDB homes, there is an added benefit of ETrack helping to alert you if an appliance has been left on when you head out the door.
Suppose the hourly rate of usage is 10cents per hour when everything is switched off.
If you notice that the hourly rate is significantly higher than that, this means something has not been switched off.
A quick look around will show you what it is, for example, the bedroom light.
Industrial companies have been buying ETrack for their own energy projects, too.
Mr Eric Tan, executive director of Energy Partnership, which does energy management for corporate clients, said the industrial meters he had come across were not user-friendly as ETrack is.
'With ETrack, the clients themselves can monitor their energy consumption.
'Even before the Singapore Power bill comes, they know how much savings have been achieved.'
Inventor wanted to know his own energy usage
MR Lawrence Lee, 36, came up with the idea of ETrack because he wanted to know what his family's energy usage patterns were.
He said: 'I was spending a lot on electricity.
'Since installing ETrack, I've saved 20per cent on my bills simply by minimising usage of air-con and switching to fans.'
Mr Lee thought of making a domestic energy consumption tracking device about three years ago.
He made a prototype late last year and, within two months, had something that he could show to the National Environment Agency.
A spokesman for NEA said ETrack empowers households to manage their electricity usage and practise energy saving.
He said: 'NEA worked with Bridex Harwal as we saw the potential for the device to motivate households to be more efficient in their electricity usage.
'Reducing electricity wastage is a direct way for households to mitigate Singapore's greenhouse gas emissions and help slow down climate change.'
He added: 'Together with the energy saving tips on our website (www.e2singapore.gov.sg/
energy-saving-tips.html), the ETrack can help households save on their electricity bills.'
Mr Lee said most people don't calculate energy usage because it can be technical andtedious.
'ETrack is an educational tool to change behaviour of people.
'You can buy an air-con with four ticks for energy efficiency, but if it is on 24 hours a day, it defeats the purpose.
'Reducing usage is the most productive way to save energy,' he said.
Depending on what changes are made based on usage patterns shown by ETrack, users can offset the cost of the device through savings on their power bill within a year, said Mr Lee.
A six-month ETrack pilot project was started in North West and South West community development council in August.
It involves installing ETrack in 200 residents' homes for free and monitoring their usage patterns.
Readings will be taken every month and compared to readings for residents without ETrack.
Bridex Harwal sales manager Frederick Goh said: 'There are no concrete comparisons yet as it has only been two months. The project aims to increase awareness of usage so that people can be less wasteful.'
Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
IN ABOUT three years, buying electricity could become similar to choosing one's cellphone price plan - several plans to choose from, pre-paid cards, accounts to top up and even freebies thrown in.
By then, several rival companies could be in the picture, each vying for a slice of the household electricity pie and striving to come up with competitive pricing and strategies that will benefit the consumer.
The Energy Market Authority (EMA) will create such a scenario in a six-month pilot involving 1,000 households in Marine Parade and West Coast starting next month.
If this dry run works well, the system will be implemented in the 1.2 million households here in about three years.
Liberalising the market for household electricity will bring in companies to rival Singapore Power, which is now the only player.
Competition among the players could shrink electricity bills for households.
Electricity prices have already come down by 3 to 8 per cent among industrial users of electricity, following the opening up of that sector to competition.
Power companies may even throw in freebies such as air-conditioners to entice users to sign up with them, said EMA chief executive Khoo Chin Hean.
Electricity tariffs have been going up since July last year on the back of rising fuel oil prices. The latest jump of 21 per cent, the largest in seven years, took effect on Wednesday; tariffs went from 25.07 cents per kilowatt-hour (kwh) to 30.45 cents per kwh.
The households taking part in the EMA's pilot will each get a free wireless gadget which measures the amount of energy they use, including hourly consumption, so they know when to cut back.
The gadget will also display what they have to pay, down to the last cent, as well as the amount left on the family's pre-paid electricity account.
EMA's deputy chief executive, Mr Lawrence Wong, said each 'vendor' created for the trial will offer its own peak and off-peak tariffs and users can choose the one they want.
Participating households will not end up paying more than households outside the pilot, said Mr Wong.
Take, for example, a household which picks a peak-hour tariff of 32 cents per kwh and an off-peak one of 28 cents per kwh: If its bill is smaller than what the family would have paid under actual tariffs, it will pocket the savings. If the bill ends up higher, the family will be refunded the difference.
Mr Eugene Toh, a senior analyst working on the system, said: 'This way, there would be no loss to the participants.'
LIAW WY-CIN
Same old brand new landmarks
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 4 Oct 08;
Mr Mah said: “The identity of a city evolves from its history, culture, and collective memories of its inhabitants ... These heritage buildings give our city a distinctive character and lend soul to our urban environment.”
MANY Singaporeans may remember taking their wedding photos at the Look-out Tower at the Toa Payoh Town Park in the past.
Today, the memories will live on not only in picture albums but through the efforts of the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA).
The statutory board is expanding its conservation programme for buildings and monuments to include heritage structures.
“What makes a place distinctive and elegant are not just the buildings. It could be an elegant tower, a historic bridge, or a beautiful pavilion ... places where we spent quality time with our friends and family,” National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said on Friday.
Six other pavilions and towers will also be kept. They include the Swan Lake gazebo and Band Stand at Botanic Gardens, the observatory tower at Seletar Reservoir Park and the floating pavilion at MacRitchie Reservoir.
Six historic bridges will also be conserved. They include the Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, the first vehicular bridge to be built across the Singapore River, Cavenagh Bridge outside Fullerton Hotel and the Crawford, Ord and Read bridges. Anderson Bridge, now part of the history-making Singapore Formula One Grand Prix, is also on the list.
“Most of these bridges are over 100 years old and are engineering feats of their time. They act as important landmarks of our rivers,” said Mr Mah at the 2008 URA Architectural Heritage Award presentation ceremony.
Singapore Heritage Society president Dr Kevin Tan applauded the “long-overdue” move. Historical artefacts that lie outside a conservation area tend to be neglected, he told Today, and URA’s initiative will help to “preserve these important iconic structures for our future generations”.
The URA will also conserve four “Black and White” houses at Bukit Chermin, bringing the number of these conserved colonial houses to 29.
Seven restoration projects were recognised at this year’s heritage awards, which are given for work done by owners, architects, engineers and contractors to conserve buildings while catering to modern needs.
The awards went to Sri Temasek at the Istana, film and foodie haven The Screening Room at Ann Siang Hill and five residential projects, which include The Sea View Clubhouse, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion, a black and white bungalow at No 14 Cable Road and a restored double-storey shophouse at No 120 Cairnhill Road.
The fifth residential project is Citylights at No 82 Jellicoe Road. Once a row of 16 motor workshops, the reconfigured 10 units of double and triple-storey pre-war shophouses now anchor a high-rise residential development.
Mr Mah said: “The identity of a city evolves from its history, culture, and collective memories of its inhabitants ... These heritage buildings give our city a distinctive character and lend soul to our urban environment.”
A total of 84 restoration projects have received the annual URA Architectural Heritage Awards since it started in 1995.
Twelve iconic structures
The URA has extended its conservation efforts to cover towers, bridges and structures other than buildings for the first time.
Tay Suan Chiang, Straits Times 4 Oct 08;
LONG-TIME Toa Payoh resident Kenny Leck has seen many changes in the housing estate where he has been living for 28 years.
Neighbours have moved away and old blocks of flats have been demolished to make way for skyscraper blocks.
Yesterday, the 30-year-old bookseller was glad to hear that one landmark in his neighbourhood will be conserved: the 25m-tall Lookout Tower in Toa Payoh Town Park.
Built in 1972, it was at one time a very popular spot for photo taking. Mr Leck said that on public holidays, his family often went to the park to take photographs, posing with the tower looming in the background.
'The tower holds fond memories for residents and it is a good move to keep it,' he said.
He was responding to the announcement that the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is extending its conservation programme beyond buildings, to include structures such as towers, pavilions and bridges.
The structures are: the Botanic Gardens' bandstand and the Swan Lake Gazebo; MacRitchie Reservoir's water intake tower and bridge and its pavilion and bridge; the water intake tower, bridge and weir at Lower Peirce Reservoir and the lookout towers in Toa Payoh Town Park and Seletar Reservoir Park.
The six historic bridges to be conserved are Anderson, Cavenagh, Elgin, Read, Ord and Crawford.
In announcing the extension of the URA conservation programme, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said that what makes a place distinctive and memorable are not just buildings.
'It could be an elegant tower, a historic bridge or a beautiful pavilion. There are many places and landmarks that we can identify with and feel for in Singapore - places where we spent quality time with our family and friends.'
He cited the Lookout Tower in Toa Payoh Town Park, which he called a landmark that many people identify with the estate.
He was speaking at the annual URA Architectural Heritage Award ceremony held at The Sea View Clubhouse at Amber Road. The clubhouse, built in the early 1900s, is a former seaside bungalow that has been restored and is a heritage award winner this year.
More than 6,800 buildings have been conserved under the URA programme since the programme started almost 30 years ago.
The National Parks Board also has its own conservation programme, under which some of the more scenic and significant tree-lined roads in Singapore are protected.
These include Arcadia Road, Mount Pleasant Road and Mandai Road. Mature trees along these roads cannot be cut down.
In June, the Land Transport Authority announced that it is saving the oldest bus stop in Singapore - a bus stop along Old Choa Chu Kang Road that was built in the 1970s.
Yesterday, Mr Mah also announced that four black-and-white houses at Bukit Chermin in Telok Blangah will also be conserved. These were built in the early 1900s by the then Singapore Harbour Board for its senior staff members.
The four houses, together with 25 pre-war colonial buildings that are already conserved at the Southern Ridges, can be developed for future use as hotels, restaurants, art galleries and the like.
Dr Kevin Tan, president of the Singapore Heritage Society, is pleased that the URA is now looking at individual structures for conservation. 'It is a welcome and long overdue move as these structures are important to our historical and cultural landscape,' he said.
Six historic bridges in Singapore gazetted for conservation
Ryan Huang and Greta Georges, Channel NewsAsia 3 Oct 08;
SINGAPORE: The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is expanding its conservation programme beyond buildings.
For the first time, structures such as bridges, towers and pavilions will be conserved as part of Singapore's architectural heritage, and Anderson Bridge is one of six bridges named for conservation in 2008.
The others are the Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, the Cavenagh Bridge just outside Fullerton Hotel, the Ord, Read and Crawford Bridges.
Also gazetted for conservation are the iconic observatory tower at Seletar Reservoir Park and the floating pavilion at the MacRitchie Reservoir.
The grand Band Stand and Swan Lake gazebo at Botanic Gardens will also be conserved.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said, "Our city is not just a collection of buildings. Iconic new buildings alone do not give a city its unique character. The soul of a city requires more careful nurturing. By preserving the collective memories of our past, we make our physical environment more meaningful."
One major challenge in conservation projects is the loss in redevelopment potential, but seven conservation projects managed to overcome this.
They won the 2008 URA Architectural Heritage Award for restoring heritage buildings to their former glory and giving them a new lease of life.
One of the winning projects is a century-old seaside bungalow, which is currently the clubhouse for the Sea View condominium.
Another winner is the Screening Room, previously the historical two-star Damenlou Hotel within the Chinatown District. It has been transformed into an eclectic film and food haven complete with a screening theatre and a rekindled rooftop under the stars.
The other winning projects are Sri Temasek at the Istana, a row of high-end townhouses transformed from pre-war shophouses at Jellicoe Road, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion, No 14 Cable Road and a shophouse at Cairnhill Road.
Nearly 7,000 buildings and structures have been conserved so far.
Conservation to include structures
Teh Shi Ning, Business Times 4 Oct 08;
CONSERVATION efforts will now extend beyond historic buildings to include heritage structures such as bridges, pavilions and towers, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said yesterday.
Familiar structures slated to join more than 6,800 buildings conserved so far include the Botanic Gardens bandstand and swan lake gazebo, the look-out towers at Toa Payoh Town Park and Seletar Reservoir Park, and the water intake towers and bridges at MacRitchie Reservoir and Lower Peirce Reservoir.
Six historic bridges will also be conserved - Elgin Bridge at Boat Quay, Cavenagh Bridge outside the Fullerton Hotel, and the Anderson, Ord, Read and Crawford Bridges. 'What makes a place distinctive and memorable is not just buildings,' said Mr Mah. 'There are many places and landmarks we can identify with and feel for in Singapore.'
He also announced the conservation of four black-and-white bungalows at Bukit Chermin.
Conservation status prevents the alteration of a building beyond URA's guidelines and, by guaranteeing its future, raises the value of the conserved building.
Mr Mah was speaking at yesterday's presentation ceremony for the URA Architectural Heritage Awards (AHA) 2008.
The awards are presented yearly to owners, architects, engineers and contractors to promote quality restoration of buildings in Singapore with preservation or conservation status. The seven winning restoration projects this year are: Sri Temasek in the Istana grounds, The Screening Room in Ann Siang Road, The Sea View Clubhouse in Amber Road, 14 Cable Road, Tan Chin Tuan Mansion in Cairnhill Road, 120 Cairnhill Road, and Citylights in Jellicoe Road.
Including this year's crop, 84 buildings have received awards since the inception of the AHA in 1995.
- CNA/yt
Jessica Yeo, Today Online 4 Oct 08;
INSPIRED by the Baby Bonus for mums, an animal welfare group which rescues and rehomes dogs is offering a bonus for dog adopters.
As part of World Animal Day, Action for Singapore Dogs (ASD) and Pet Lovers Centre have come up with the Pet Adoption Initiative to encourage Singaporeans to adopt a pet instead of buying one.
They will be given a hamper of food vouchers, canned food, vitamins and toys,as well as advice on caring for their new pet.
Potential adopters, however, muststill go through ASD’s standard screening process. ASD president Ricky Yeo said: “We want to make sure they don’t abuse these new incentives. We will be looking out for impulse buyers.”
Mr Yeo said some people hold to the misconception that “a rescued dog is a problematic dog. But this is 90 per cent of the time not true, as most people abandon their dogs for no reason.”
All dogs are assessed on their temperament and behaviour before adoption, and all information passed on to the would-be adopter.
Pet Lovers Centre will also provide advice to adopters, educating them on their pet’s diet, medical and other needs.
Said Mr Yeo: “Sometimes a little help from experienced people can help these adopters feel more assured.”
Mr Ng Whye Hoe, Pet Lovers’ managing director, said: “In the US, we see a growing trend of people adopting dogs. We hopeto see it here. Most Singaporeans tend to buy rather than to adopt, as most petsup for adoption are usually over a year old.”
The growing stray population and number of abandoned dogs has been cause for concern for animal groups.
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) gets an average of 250 lost or unwanted dogs each month, and ASD takes in five to 15 dogs each month.
Animal welfare group like Noah Ark Cares are turning to sterilising stray dogs to curb the population.
Oil giant can now produce over 500,000 tpa of solvents following its Jurong Island plant expansion
Ronnie Lim Business Times 4 Oct 08;
TO help it meet fast-growing regional demand, ExxonMobil Chemical has just completed a 130,000 tonnes per annum solvents expansion on Jurong Island, boosting its total Singapore solvents production capacity to over 500,000 tpa.
The expansion project - which sources earlier said costs as much as US$100 million - reinforces the Singapore plant's status as a world-class solvents facility. The company has two other world-class solvent plants in Texas and Belgium, and also smaller solvent plants in Thailand and Japan.
The solvents, or hydrocarbon fluids, are used for a wide range of applications including for drilling mud oil used in oil exploration, adhesives, metal working, polymer processing, industrial cleaning, coatings, household products and mining.
Work on the Jurong Island solvents expansion project started last June. Announcing its completion, Elissa Sterry, vice-president of Intermediates Global Business, this week said: 'This expansion reinforces ExxonMobil Chemical's commitment to meeting the hydrocarbon fluid needs of its global customers and those in Asia-Pacific, where growth is particularly strong.'
The new capacity will help it cater to Asia-Pacific demand for the solvents, which is growing at 6 per cent annually.
The company said that the strong regional demand for its products is spurred by both strong industrial growth as well as greater awareness of health, safety and environmental issues.
The solvents plant is just a minor part of on-going investments here by the world's largest oil company. ExxonMobil is also building a second mega petrochemical complex here, the estimated US$5 billion Singapore Parallel Train (SPT), which is expected to start up around 2011.
SPT will take ExxonMobil's total investment in Singapore to around US$11 billion, as the oil giant has already invested US$6.5 billion so far in its first petrochemical complex and its 605,000-barrel refinery here.
WWF 3 Oct 08;
With just over a year to go for countries to meet internationally agreed biodiversity protection targets, the world’s nations are showing themselves much more adept at protecting land areas than territorial seas.
The United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) is the world’s most widely endorsed environmental treaty, ratified by all nations but the USA, Somalia, Iraq, the Holy See (Vatican) and Andorra. In 2004, the 191 governments that are parties to the treaty committed themselves to ensuring that a least 10% of each of the world’s ecological regions are effectively conserved by 2010.
The Annual Report on Protected Areas: A review of Global Conservation Progress in 2007, to be officially released on Monday 6 October by the United Nations Environmental Programme’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC), based on the World Database of Protected Areas (www.wdpa.org), finds .many of the world’s nations are a long way behind their agreed targets.
“While progress towards achieving the 10% protected area target has been better on land, marine areas remain especially poorly protected”, says Charles Besancon, the Head of the Protected Areas Programme at UNEP-WCMC.
“While 12.2% of the planet’s land area is under legal protection only 5.9% of the world’s territorial seas and less than 1% of the high seas are protected.”
Just under half (45%) of the world’s nations have met the 10% protected area target, but only 14% of counties have managed to meet the CBD protected area target for their territorial seas.
“When we take a closer look at the level of protection in individual countries and ecological regions it is clear that many of the worlds government still have a lot of work to do if they are to contribute to the achievement of the 10% targets by the agreed dates,” said WWF’s Senior Conservation Scientist Dr. Neil Burgess
“Countries in North Africa and the Middle East, South Asia, and Oceania have less than 10% of their terrestrial area protected. And many Asian, African and Pacific countries have less than 2% of their territorial seas protected.”
Protected areas have proved to be an effective tool for reducing deforestation, responsible for up to 20% of global CO2 emissions, protecting water supplies for huge human populations and maintaining the productivity of fisheries.
The UNEP-WCMC report estimates that 15% of global carbon stocks are found in protected areas, giving them a vital role in mitigating climate change.
“By not living up to their commitments on protected areas, governments are putting at risk ecosystem goods and services such as climate regulation, nutrient and waste management, flood control, coastal protection, and the provision of food, freshwater, fuel, medicines, building materials, fertile soils, and breathable air,” said Gordon Shepherd, Director Global and Regional Policy at WWF International
The full report report details the extent to which each country is meeting the 10% target as well as the amount of protected areas which have had their management effectiveness evaluated. It is available at http://www.unep-wcmc.org/protected_areas/pubs.htm
For more information on the goods and services provided by protected areas see: http://www.panda.org/about_wwf/where_we_work/ecoregions/protected_areas/arguments_for_protection/index.cfm
Rebecca Carroll, National Geographic News 3 Oct 08;
Some bald eagles in Alaska have switched to eating mainly other bird species, a new study says.
The new diet is a surprising ripple effect of a changing food chain that includes sea otters, sea urchins, and underwater kelp forests and the fish that depend on them, researchers say.
When sea otters all but disappeared from the Aleutian Islands, it was a boon for spiky sea urchins, which otters eat.
The expanding urchin population, in turn, began gobbling up the area's underwater kelp forests. The forests declined dramatically, making coastal waters inhospitable to the kelp-dependent fish that were the primary food sources of local bald eagles.
The bald eagles adapted by switching to a diet of mostly seabirds, according to the study, published today in the journal Ecology.
"Sea otters have quite an effect on near-shore marine communities," said lead author Robert Anthony. "It ripples through the system and has indirect effects on a number of species, including bald eagles—another predator that feeds at the top of the food chain."
Even the researchers were surprised that the otter decline had effects that rippled through five species all the way to bald eagles, said Anthony, an ecologist with the U.S. Geological Survey and Oregon State University.
From Fish to Fowl
Anthony and colleagues had gathered detailed information on the Aleutian Islands' bald eagles in the early 1990s, when sea otter numbers were relatively high.
Researchers returned in the early 2000s, when there were about 90 percent fewer sea otters.
The researchers counted the number of breeding pairs of bald eagles and studied what the birds had been eating.
"Dinner" remains found in nests revealed a general switch from fish and mammals—including otter pups—to seabirds. The eagles were still eating some fish, mostly non-kelp-dependent species.
The eagles had more young during the second visit, possibly because of the higher calorie counts of birds versus fish. The total eagle population, though, remained about the same size, Anthony said.
"The changes that were caused by the decline in sea otters appeared to be neutral—or maybe even positive—for bald eagles," he said. "They are a very adaptable species and are opportunistic predators.
As for what caused the otters to disappear in the first place, Anthony said: "We don't know for sure, but there is at least one plausible theory."
Whale of the Tale
Increased otter hunting by killer whales is the main direct cause of the 1990s Aleutian sea otter collapse, study co-author Jim Estes believes. He points out, though, that the current study is about the effects of the otter collapse, not its causes.
The whale issue is touchy for various reasons, including the national and international political intrigue that surrounds the great whales.
But "the story is way bigger than [otters, urchins, kelp, fish, and eagles] in my mind," said Estes, of the University of California, Santa Cruz.
Most killer whales, or orcas, mainly hunt fish. But some groups hunt other marine mammals, and whale experts can easily identify these mammal-eaters by their markings.
Mammal-eating killer whales traditionally fed on large whales such as sperm whales, humpbacks, and fin whales, Estes believes. But in the mid-20th century, industrial whaling nearly eradicated these food sources.
The decline of large whales led the mammal-hunting killer whales to smaller and smaller prey—first harbor seals, then sea lions, and now otters—Estes said.
"Amazing" Numbers of Links
Bernie Tershy, also of the University of California, Santa Cruz, described the report as "interesting and plenty accurate."
It's "well accepted" from previous research that killer whales are the direct cause of the decline in Alaskan otters, Tershy, who was not involved in the study, said via email.
"The number of links impacted by the shift in killer whale diet is amazing," said Tershy, a former grantee of the National Geographic Conservation Trust. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
Holly Jones, a doctoral candidate at Yale University, published research earlier this year about the threat that invasive island rats pose to seabirds.
Jones expanded on the possible effects of the eagles' new hunting behavior.
"If eagles impact seabird populations dramatically … these effects could continue on to intertidal ecosystems and entire island communities," Jones, who also was not involved in the new study, said via email.
The otter-eagle study "demonstrates how important ecosystem linkages are and how fragile the links can be."
Sydney Morning Herald Post 4 Oct 08;
"Six years ago you could paddle out at Nusa Dua and see beautiful tropical fish darting back and forth. Now you see plastic bags … This is the third bomb coming to Bali, an environmental bomb."
FROM the crowded bar of the Bounty Club, where bare-chested Australian youngsters mount the stage and drunkenly bellow karaoke, to the luxury Luna 2 villa where the glitterati sip French champagne on the Legian foreshore, Bali is booming again.
The fall in tourist numbers that followed two sets of Bali bombings are a distant memory. Tourist numbers rose to a new high this year, with a record 33,000 Australians arriving in July alone. Visitors walking the 10-kilometre beachfront strip from Kuta to Seminyak any day in the past three months would not have been able to find a single vacant room.
Across the island, a multitude of new hotels and villas are being built. Bagus Sudibya, of Bali's Tourism Board, says the island now hosts 60,000 tourist rooms, compared with 40,000 three years ago. He predicts that this year there will be more than 2 million visitors for the first time.
In Bali's bars, beaches and shops, locals welcome the revitalisation of the tourism trade that provides the island with 80 per cent of its income. But the newly-elected Governor, the softly spoken former police chief known to Australians for capturing the Bali bombers, I Made Mangku Pastika, is watching the influx with alarm.
He sees another time bomb ticking, an environmental catastrophe set to overwhelm the holiday paradise. Development is denuding Bali's forests and literally sucking the island dry, Governor Pastika warns.
"We are very concerned about the environmental problems in Bali because our forests now are only 22 per cent of the whole area in Bali - according to our laws there should be at least 30 per cent - and of this 22 per cent, only 59 per cent is in good condition and can function as a real forest."
Demand for wood was three-times what legal logging could supply, eating into the remaining forest, Pastika says. "The next problem this creates is water. Now from 400 rivers there are 260 dry. We have 140 left, but they are in the process of drying."
Bali's environmental balance is under threat, he says.
"Water levels are decreasing, people are exploiting water, taking deep water, there is a massive exploitation of our underground water by hotels and big companies like Coca Cola. The process of drying is destroying our environment."
The level of vehicles, waste and sanitation is also critical, Pastika says, and it is exacerbated by the rampant pace of tourism development.
"People want to come to Bali to enjoy the paradise. Paradise means good weather, good environment, good food, good beaches, good rivers. But, frankly speaking, I am worried if we cannot slow down this rapid and massive destruction."
For years Bali aficionados have warned that tourism could overwhelm both the island and its culture, but Pastika believes the tipping point is at hand, and he is not alone.
In his sprawling villa complex cascading down a luscious green gorge on Ubud's outskirts - its tranquil beauty has housed Mick Jagger and Kylie Minogue - sits the renowned local designer Amir Rabik.
"Everybody sees the danger but no one is doing anything about it," Rabik says.
Bali needs clean water, better infrastructure, waste management and an enforceable building code, he says, and "the great danger is developers, now many international developers are here".
Bali's philosophical environment also needs protection, he says.
"It's not Hindu, Buddhist or animist, but combined beliefs respecting God, harmony and nature. If respect for God, nature and harmony disappear, then Bali is gone, it's worse than a bomb."
Walhi is Indonesia's foremost environmental watchdog, and Agung Wardana heads its Bali chapter. He is dismayed at the climbing number of resorts, with even "ecological" villas eating into what is left of the island's forests. Hotels are spreading to less developed areas, siphoning off water, Wardana says.
"Local people now have to suffer more because the huge water consumption for each hotel room is 30 times the water consumption of one individual. The Government should prioritise their community first."
In central Bali's Karangasem, water is now so scarce villagers have to travel four kilometres along dusty roads to buy containers of the vital liquid.
Across the island entrepreneurs are placing profit ahead of the environment, typified by the beach once known as Dreamland, a near-mythical surf break nestled at the base of the Bukit Peninsula.
Dreamland was just a few kilometres from Kuta's bustle, but protected by relative inaccessibility. After trekking across fields and down a cliff, you could watch the rolling waves, snacking on fried rice and fish from rickety warungs, or beachside shacks. A few years ago the son of the former president Soeharto, Tommy, used gangsters to help push locals aside and buy up the area. After he was jailed for ordering the murder of a Supreme Court judge, the land was sold off to other developers, who have carved a road down through the cliffs. They are building a huge hotel on the beachfront, have bulldozed the warungs and built a massive concrete walkway lined by box-like concrete shops, renaming the area the "new Kuta".
Watching the waves as construction continues, several young locals who hire out surfboards try to attract custom, shaking their heads at the vista behind them. "The wave is the same," says Miki, who has welcomed surfers here for eight years. "The beach might be different, but the wave stay the same, so no problem, just come."
His optimism is skin deep. "The rich get richer, the poor get poorer," Miki continues.
"My income dropped almost 30-40 per cent compared to before the building started. We were never told that this is what they were going to do."
He gestures to the construction. "I don't think it's allowed, but I guess they use some trick to get the permit. The Government should have never issued the permit. It doesn't look pretty. It's damaging the beach."
All around the Bukit Peninsula developers are carving into hills and cliffs, eager to market luxury villas with ocean views to international, often Australian, investors. Exclusive five-star resorts, such as Bulgari Hotel, charging $1500 a night for a cliff-top villa, are spreading.
On this deeply spiritual island the one area sacrosanct from development was land surrounding significant Hindu temples, usually on hilltops. But on the Bukit Peninsula the hunger for prime real estate has seen these regulations violated.
Locals are protesting over the construction of villas around the Uluwatu Temple. Pastika concedes the developments are illegal, demonstrating the need for new, enforceable land use laws.
"The bylaw declares it a no development zone; however, the reality in the field is quite different. There have been many buildings developed inside those perimeters. We should take this reality into consideration since locals also need jobs."
The old-time Australian surfer Mike O'Leary found business success as a jewellery designer, setting up a Bali factory employing 150 local staff. Relocated to Bali, he is advising a top-end architectural and construction firm. "I know of about 5000 villas going into the Bukit over the next two years," O'Leary says, "Five hundred at Dreamland alone.
"It's all self-regulated; no one is going to tell you where to put your sewerage. You want to build, you just pay your money and you can build anything you want."
O'Leary, still an avid surfer, is dismayed by the state of the once-pristine ocean. Hotel sewage often flows out into the tourist beaches of Kuta and Legian.
"Six years ago you could paddle out at Nusa Dua and see beautiful tropical fish darting back and forth. Now you see plastic bags … This is the third bomb coming to Bali, an environmental bomb."
O'Leary decided to play his part in rescuing paradise, establishing the ROLE foundation, an ecologically oriented charity aimed at maritime conservation and providing business skills to help locals establish environmentally friendly businesses.
He has built an abalone farm, using the shells for jewellery to halt them being robbed from the sea bed. A protected marine area is being set up off Nusa Dua, and evening classes teaching business and computer skills are packed with struggling local women.
Pastika proposes radical solutions. "First is to regulate the exploitation of our underground water," he says. "Especially from big investors who take a lot of water … Second is to take responsibility to rebuild the forests, and give people who are living around the forests good livelihoods, so they can live properly."
Pastika plans a moratorium on new developments in already-crowded areas. Bali's culture must also be protected, he adds.
"The philosophy of our island is 'Tri Hita Karana', the balance and harmony between man, the environment, and between man and our God. These three things cause happiness.
"If we damage the environment everything is damaged, because this environment came from God. It belongs to the people."
Yahoo News 3 Oct 08;
A new family of mountain gorillas, one of the world's most endangered species, is ready for interaction with tourists, the Uganda Wildlife Authority (UWA) told AFP Friday.
"There is a new group of 13 members that has been habituated," UWA spokeswoman Lillian Nsubuga said.
Wildlife experts began habituating the family, headed by a silverback named Nduhura, in October 2006 when one of the already habituated families in Uganda showed signs of moving into the bordering Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
Nduhura's family completed its two-year habituation process, designed to gradually allow them to become used to a limited human presence, the day the other group crossed the border. "The timing was really perfect," Nsubuga said.
The endangered primates draw foreign visitors to Uganda's Impenetrable Forest at a cost of 500 US dollars per visit and are a cornerstone of Uganda's renascent tourism industry.
There are around 350 mountain gorillas currently living in Uganda, half of the world's population. The remaining half is found in the Virunga park which straddles the DRC and Rwanda.
"The population in Uganda is stable and can even increase," Nsubuga added. "As for the population in DR Congo, I can't be so optimistic."
Instability and violence in eastern Congo as well as a culture of eating primate meat and poaching threaten gorilla families living across the border. Several mountain gorillas were shot dead there recently.
The drive to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest, where Uganda's entire gorilla population lives, takes approximately 13 hours from the capital Kampala.
Once in the forest, tourists can track through the rough terrain for hours searching for a family, and spend no more than one hour interacting with the primates.
"Too much communication with humans is not good for these populations," Nsubuga said.
There are now four families of mountain gorillas in Uganda that are habituated to human contact.
Mike Pflanz, Archer's Post The Telegraph 3 Oct 08;
Chinese workers rebuilding roads in northern Kenya are feared to be driving a sharp rise in elephant poaching which has seen dozens of animals slaughtered this year.
In the first eight months of 2008, 57 carcases have been found across Kenya with their tusks hacked out, 15 per cent more than the total for all of 2007 and the third annual increase in a row.
More than half of the elephants were killed in an area where Chinese construction crews have recently arrived to tarmac hundreds of miles of gravel tracks.
The Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) believes there may be a link between the workers' arrival and the increase in poaching.
"More than 50 per cent of the dead elephants we have found have been in that area in the north where the Chinese are working on the road," said Moses Litoroh, elephant programme coordinator for the KWS.
"We can perhaps assume that they have had a hand in it, maybe not all of them, but the coincidence is causing us great concern."
At the same time, wildlife service officials said that the majority of ivory smugglers arrested at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport in Nairobi are now Chinese nationals, some of them carrying up to 110kg of raw or carved tusks.
Poaching in Kenya, especially in its empty northern reaches, has long been a problem.
The elephant migration routes running through here, linking water holes and fresh foliage, have long been targeted by poachers, often armed by Somali gun runners. After years of patrols, ivory trade bans and improved policing, conservationists had hoped to have largely eliminated the slaughter.
But Chinese newcomers may be stimulating the local market for poached ivory. Close to Archer's Post, a desolate settlement of tin-roof shacks 190 miles north of Nairobi, dust rose from a shallow mine where a Chinese engineer in a wide-brimmed straw hat had just detonated high explosives.
From across the scorched floor of the valley came the distant clank of heavy machinery at the Chinese work camp, where rocks released by the explosions are broken down to gravel to build a new road running to the border with Ethiopia.
But less than 30 miles to the east, across the Shaba National Reserve, lie the decomposing bodies of 18 elephants slaughtered in July by poachers.
"This is the worst year that I have seen for the poaching of elephants," said one senior wildlife ranger who has worked in and around Archer's Post for 21 years but who refused to be named for fear of reprisals from poaching gangs.
"There is so much corruption still here, anyone, the Chinese, the Somalis, Kenyans themselves, they can find people who will bring them tusks to sell."
Some tusks are passed to smugglers who fly them out of Nairobi. But the majority are hidden on trucks heading to Ethiopia, where controls are more lax but where there are regular passenger and cargo flights to the Far East.
Kenyan officials place much of the blame for the surge in poaching on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), which in July allowed Botswana, South Africa, Namibia and South Africa to sell a total of 108 tonnes of ivory to China and Japan.
This has revived a market which until then had been starved of supply after a 19 year blanket ban on the sale of ivory, broken only in 1999 for an earlier one-off sale of 50 tonnes to Japan.
"The poachers in the bush, they got the wrong message from the decision," said Robert Muasya, assistant director of security for KWS who leads the airport arrest teams. At least eight Chinese nationals have been arrested and charged with smuggling ivory in the last 12 months.
"They think there is now a legitimate market and they start setting more and more traps. China itself does not have the mechanisms to keep the legally bought ivory separate from illegal ivory, so the market is there and the poachers take advantage of that."
Yahoo News 3 Oct 08;
Russian environmental groups launched Friday legal action against an oil and gas project led by US energy giant Exxon for threatening critically endangered whales in Russia's far east.
The Russian government last month gave the consortium the green light to construct a pipeline across a Sakhalin island lagoon that produces organisms on which the world's last 120 to 130 Western Gray Whales survive.
"We have decided to challenge in court the positive findings of the state experts," Ekaterina Gretchuchkina, the chief lawyer for the Russian environmental group Rodnik, told a Moscow press conference.
Rodnik filed the lawsuit at a Moscow district court together with the non-governmental Sakhalin Environment Watch and an association of indigenous people.
Separately, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) has sent a letter to Russia's Natural Resources Minister Yuri Trutnev, asking him to stop the project.
Earlier this year, the WWF, Greenpeace and the International Fund for Animal Welfare presented Trutnev's ministry with a scientific report arguing for the pipeline route to be changed.
The report said there were only around 130 Western Gray Whales left worldwide, including some 20 females able to reproduce. They gather in the area for four months to feed and build up the fat to survive the rest of the year.
The international consortium in the Sakhalin-1 project -- which also includes Russian, Japanese and Indian oil companies -- rejected an offer to negotiate a new route.
Exhausted birds are washing up on Brazil's tropical beaches, thrown off course by changing currents. Claire Soares reports
The Independent 4 Oct 08;
In between the bronzed bodies in skimpy thongs soaking up the rays on Copacabana beach, a tiny black and white bundle of feathers struggles to emerge from the surf. Exhausted and emaciated, its bones poking through the blubber, the young penguin finally collapses on the sand. It has strayed thousands of miles from home, one of more than 1,000 penguins to have washed up on the Brazilian coast this year.
They have come ashore not just in the shadow of Christ the Redeemer in Rio but further north than ever before, with some making landfall just 400 miles from the Equator. Brazilian coastguards have abandoned their Baywatch-style posing and found themselves acting as penguin first-aiders, protecting them from an over-enthusiastic public whose first instinct is often to stick the birds in an ice bucket.
The Magellanic penguins hail from southern Argentina, with the biggest colony just off the Valdes Peninsula. During winter, the birds usually head north in search of more fish-rich waters. Rarely, however, do they stray as far north as Rio, and to reach the waters around Natal is pretty much unheard of. "It's an extremely unusual event," said Valeria Ruoppolo, a vet with the International Fund for Animal Welfare, who has being helping rescue the stranded birds. "We have never seen anything on this scale before. It's normal for them to migrate north but this year they just kept going and going."
No one is really sure what has caused the Brazilian exodus – at the moment, the focus is on saving the penguins rather than explaining how they have ended up in this predicament – but the prevailing theory is that changes in water temperatures have caused confusion on the migratory routes. Fish like cold water and so South American penguins in search of food usually ride the cold Malvinas Current north, gobbling as they go. When they hit the warmer Brazil Current, they know it's time to stop and head back. Only this year, the Malvinas Current has been warmer than usual, meaning the penguins couldn't appreciate the difference.
"The penguins didn't realise when they hit the meeting point so they forged on, and, of course in warmer waters there's not as much fish, and then suddenly the birds were like 'Uh-oh! We don't have any more food'," explained Ms Ruoppolo. "If they don't have enough to eat, they lose blubber, then they start to feel cold in the water and that's when they come ashore to get warm."
Backing up this theory is the fact that most of the penguins that have got lost are juveniles, embarking on their first migration without a wealth of life experience to fall back on when faced with uncharted waters. However more analysis is needed before making a definitive conclusion. "This is extreme, but we don't have statistics on the number of penguins and the ocean temperatures," Jose Marengo, a Brazilian climatologist and a member of the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the Washington Post. "Some of the most important uncertainties we have are on the oceanic currents."
Other experts have suggested that melting ice in Antarctica has strengthened the Malvinas Current, which has then spirited away the younger, weaker and more vulnerable penguins. Another theory is that oil spills and over-fishing have combined to deplete the penguins' fish stocks, forcing them to movefurther afield to feed.
Of the 1,000-plus penguins that have been recovered on land, about a fifth have died of starvation, exhaustion and other illnesses, and experts reckon they are just a fraction of the number of penguins that have perished out at sea.
Brazilian zoos have been inundated with the surviving birds, some of whom who have lost three-quarters of their body weight; are wracked with parasites and diarrhoea; sporting broken flippers, and severely malnourished. By 21 September, Niteroi zoo had received 556 penguins, compared with just seven in the whole of 2007. "We find lots of penguins here with catfish bones in them, which they normally don't eat," explained Thiago Muniz, one of the zoo's vets. "That suggests they're not finding their normal fish."
Rescued penguins have been nursed back to health up and down the coast, first with rehydration fluids, before graduating to fishy milkshakes and then finally whole sardines. Now moves are afoot to return them back to the wild.
The first batch of 400 survivors flew yesterday from Salvador to Rio Grande – with the help of the Brazilian air force – and were then loaded onto trucks and taken to a rehabilitation centre on the coast for final check-ups. Today, the young penguins will be released back into the Atlantic waters along with four adults, who should act as guides for the long swim home to Argentina.
"We are giving these guys a second chance," said Ms Ruoppolo. "Hopefully they'll learn their lesson and not make the same mistakes next time around."
Some of their fellow wanderers have decided to stay put in Brazil, however. Fernandinha, Claudinha, Queridinho, Pity, Predileto, Tutuca, Colhidora and Smarty have been taken under the wing of a retired photographer, Cecilia Breves. "I was very happy when I had one or two, because they are so cute. They'd follow me around everywhere," the 57-year-old told the Washington Post. "It's much harder when there are eight of them."
But the birds seem happy, roaming about her Rio penthouse, chilling out among the palm trees on the veranda or taking a dip in the roof-top hot tub. The red plastic igloo their adoptive mother has bought for them remains untouched.
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