Best of our wild blogs: 14 Oct 08

Smooth Otter at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Work on Sentosa bridge continues
on the wild shores of singapore blog

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Singapore to announce development plans for Semakau Landfill in November

May Wong, Channel NewsAsia 13 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE: Singapore is expected to announce development plans for its offshore landfill during a global congress that will be held here from November 3 to 6.

The masterplan for the Semakau Landfill includes test-bedding environmental technologies and increasing its use for educational purposes.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) said Minister of Environment and Water Resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, will reveal the plans at the congress.

The International Solid Waste Association Congress, themed "East Meets Waste", will focus on challenges Asian cities face in dealing with waste management as they urbanise and grow their economy.

It will be held at Suntec City and is expected to attract over 800 delegates from more than 60 countries.

The inaugural 3R (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle) Packaging Awards will also be presented at the congress to deserving signatories who have succeeded in reducing packaging waste.

Piles of rubbish are thrown out every day in Singapore, amounting to 15,280 tonnes of waste last year, enough to fill about 600 football fields.

The solid waste industry is big business in Singapore and around the world. The sector is worth about S$1 billion and this is expected to grow as Singaporeans produce more waste every day.

The present global financial crisis, however, could cause a temporary setback.

Lee Yuen Hee, CEO of NEA, said: "Waste is a more long-term issue. Once the crisis is over and countries resume their economic growth, governments will have to continue to invest in waste management infrastructure."

At a news conference on Monday, organisers said the congress will be the first in Southeast Asia.

Harald Kloeden, chairman, Organising Committee, International Solid Waste Association Congress, said: "The biggest reason is that Asian markets here and environmental issues are strong growing.

"Singapore is a very good example for all the countries around... Singapore and this congress can showcase what are the newest technologies, what are the newest solutions to tackle our environmental problems."

Participants will visit sites like the Tuas Incineration Plant and the Marina Barrage to learn from Singapore's practices and to network.

Turning dumps into eco parks
Esther Ng, Today Online 14 Oct 08;

THE world may be staring at a recession, but the daily task of managing and reducing waste will continue regardless of how the markets are doing.

So stakeholders will get a chance to share their experiences, learn about new technologies and explore business opportunities in sustainable waste management at the International Solid Waste Association (ISWA) Congress from Nov 3 to 6 at Suntec City.

More than 800 delegates from some70 countries are expected to attend the conference, co-hosted by the National Environment Agency (NEA), ISWA and the Waste Management and Recycling Association of Singapore (WMRAS).

As this is the first time the conference is being held in Asia, the focus will be on the challenges Asian cities face in dealing with waste management.

These include the viability of landfills as a waste management solution, new technologies to convert waste into renewable energy source, emerging disease and antibiotic resistance related to livestock waste in Asia, and the reduction and recycling of packaging waste.

Said NEA’s chief executive officer Lee Yuen Hee: “Singapore was chosen because we have managed to balance waste management in tandem with economic progress.

“One example would be our Semakau landfill which has won many international awards.”

More than just a landfill, Semakau doubles as a bio-diversity hotspot, attracting rare species of plants and animals. And the NEA plans to open it up to more recreational activities, in addition to guided eco-tours of the island.

- CNA/so

Related article

Plans for eco-park on Semakau landfill
Ang Yiying, Straits Times 10 Sep 08;

Read more!

Will new Jurong Lake be eco-friendly?

Charlotte Leong (Ms), Straits Times Forum 14 Oct 08;

SINCE the unveiling of plans for Jurong Lake District during the launch of the Draft Masterplan 2008 in May, some ground works have started near Chinese Garden MRT station.

A nature lover and frequent visitor to Jurong Lake, I enjoyed seeing aquatic animals in their natural habitat in the past. However, the water is now brown and murky, possibly due to an increase in sedimentation from the ground works.

This is not confined to the area near the ground works, but extends to the lake in and around Chinese Garden and Japanese Garden. The change in the environment would negatively affect the ecosystem of these aquatic animals and I am concerned about their ability to adapt and survive.

While I am impressed by the plans for Jurong Lake District, I wonder if such transformations come at a cost to the ecosystem and current environment of aquatic animals. I would like to know what measures the authorities have taken to ensure that the transformation of the Jurong Lake area is not at a cost to the environment and aquatic ecosystem. While economic and social goals are important, one should take care that the environment is not negatively affected.

Related article

Hundreds of fish dead at Jurong Lake
Zaihan Mohamed Yusof, The New Paper 13 Oct 08;

Read more!

Former MP Ho Kah Leong holds solo exhibition featuring Pulau Ubin

Ca-Mie De Souza, Channel NewAsia 13 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE: Pulau Ubin, a small rustic island north east of Singapore, is the subject of a solo exhibition by former Member of Parliament and Senior Parliamentary Secretary Ho Kah Leong.

The exhibition features paintings of passenger boats docked at the jetty, the tranquil quarry lake and bygone village life.
These are some of Dr Ho's favourite scenes of Pulau Ubin since he started painting the island 15 years ago.

Each of the 20 pieces is priced at S$12,000 and many pieces have already been sold.

This is Dr Ho's eighth solo exhibition.

Some of the 71-year-old artist's paintings have been compiled into a calendar to raise funds for a senior citizens charity.

The exhibition is at the Black Earth Art Museum, 352 Joo Chiat Road, till October 19. It is open from noon to 9pm daily, except Mondays.

- CNA/yt

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Rahs: A better early warning system

Upgraded system will alert policymakers to impending global crises
Chua Hian Hou, Straits Times 14 Oct 08;

THE Government is planning a multimillion-dollar upgrade of a high-tech early warning system designed to help spot crises such as the current global financial meltdown.

Known as a risk assessment and horizon scanning (Rahs) system, it is designed to ferret out information about impending wars, epidemics, financial meltdowns and other geo-political issues from information sources including newspapers, online forums and blogs.

Sophisticated artificial intelligence programs then distil the data to see if it is important and if the issue is gaining momentum.

If it is, these Rahs systems will alert policymakers, so they can 'anticipate and manage potential changes', said Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security, Professor S. Jayakumar, the guest-of-honour at the second International Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (Rahs) symposium yesterday.

For instance, Rahs systems may detect a rise in online forum discussions about easy home loans accompanied by mortgage defaults - the genesis of the current financial turmoil; or reports about a rise in melamine sales to the milk industry, in tandem with complaints of kidney stones by parents of infants - and end up uncovering the China milk scandal.

In his opening address to the 300 participants of the two-day, closed-door event at Marina Mandarin hotel, Prof Jayakumar warned that the ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis and food and energy shortages offered 'only a glimpse of the complexity and uncertainty the future has in store'.

Thus the need for such systems, so policymakers can collect and analyse the oft-missed 'weak signals and wild cards' that herald an impending crisis, and take steps to deal with them, he said.

Singapore's Rahs project, launched in 2005, is managed by the National Security Coordination Centre.

According to its website, the Government-wide network comprises '20 agencies covering strategic and operational counter-terrorism intelligence, environmental scanning and scenario planning, bio-medical surveillance, cyber surveillance, maritime security, chemical-biological-radiological-explosives surveillance, energy security and education'.

The American and British governments, too, have embarked on similar initiatives.

The Singapore Government is looking to upgrade its current Rahs system, said civil service head Peter Ho at a gala dinner last night.

This will, he said, allow the authorities to do 'deep Web harvesting, tracking blogs and forums, and sentiment analysis...along with other new capabilities'.

Deep Web harvesting refers to obtaining information from private websites that cannot be located via public search engines like Google. Sentiment analysis is used to detect bias in the author - for example, whether the writer is a closet-environmentalist or big-business lobbyist.

When completed, said Mr Ho, 'Rahs version 2.0' will be 'an important addition to the (Government's) larger strategic planning toolkit'.

The Straits Times understands that details of the project, which is expected to cost a few million dollars and be completed within a year of being awarded, should be unveiled next month on the Government tender website Gebiz.

Software company Radar Networks' chief executive officer Nova Spivack, one of the speakers at the event, said that such systems have, in the past, been sorely neglected in the 'geo-political area' despite their obvious value as an intelligence-gathering tool.

It will take five to 10 years, he said, before Rahs is mature enough to spot nasty surprises like the ongoing financial turmoil.

Local universities to help govt assess risks
Younger generation to learn strategic anticipation
Lee U-Wen, Today Online 14 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE'S three local universities have been roped in to help the country strengthen its ability to assess risks and anticipate events.

The outreach effort has already resulted in valuable feedback from students and academics on how the government can improve Risk Assessment and Horizon Scanning (RAHS), Deputy Prime Minister and Coordinating Minister for National Security S Jayakumar said yesterday.

Speaking at the start of a two-day international symposium, he said that the government wants to 'expose the younger generation to the importance of strategic anticipation and planning'.

Since last year, students at the Singapore Management University (SMU) have used the programme to analyse the supply chain for agricultural commodities. The National University of Singapore (NUS) has used it to study the Asian financial crisis. And Nanyang Technological University (NTU) is looking at possible scenarios relating to China, global food and multilateral security issues.

The government has learnt much in the past three years since it established RAHS, Prof Jayakumar said. '(It) is a natural part of a networked government, offering a whole-of-government approach to detecting and identifying early indicators of strategic issues, both threats as well as opportunities.'

He cited examples such as the Asian financial crisis, severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) and the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the US that 'surprised' the world when they occurred. More recently, uncertainty has seeped in, thanks to fear of global warming, food shortages and the collapse of financial institutions.

'These issues offer us only a glimpse of the complexity and uncertainty the future has in store,' Prof Jayakumar said. 'It is important to have a coherent and systematic framework to anticipate and manage potential changes. However, it is not possible for us to have a crystal ball through which we can see the future, nor can we predict what strategic surprises lie ahead.'

What the government can do, he said, is to 'encourage a coordinated analysis of trends, weak signals and wild cards'.

At a dinner last night for the symposium participants, Head of Civil Service Peter Ho said that while uncertainty and unpredictability 'produce enormous challenges for governments, societies and nations', opportunities also abound.

'The key is how to identify black swans and wild cards, and then how to deal with their consequences, the wicked problems,' he said. 'We will use RAHS to help manage complexity and disruptive change.'

Diversity is vital in these efforts to reach out to as wide a community as possible, Mr Ho said.

'We should look at the potential value of establishing links to domain experts in academia, private sector and industry, and with our friends from abroad.'

This year's RAHS symposium, the second, is being attended by 300 security experts, academics, technologists and futurists from 25 countries.

Read more!

Singapore's BCA Green Mark debuts in Malaysia, set to go beyond

Developers adopting green yardstick for projects in China, Thailand, Indonesia
Ong Boon Kiat, Business Times 14 Oct 08;

AS Singapore continues to shape an eco-friendly habitat by getting developers to embrace the Green Mark, this green building yardstick is starting to find its mark beyond these shores.

The Green Mark scheme - a four-tier green building benchmark developed by the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) - made its debut in Malaysia last month, and looks set to move into regional countries such as Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam and China.

Before last month, there were two Green Mark certified buildings outside Singapore, both in Beijing. Upcoming projects could substantially add to this tally and lift Singapore's green credentials in the region.

BCA told BT that it recently received Green Mark applications from 'major' Singapore developers for their projects in Thailand, Vietnam, China and Malaysia. It has also received requests from developers from Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.

The Singapore construction industry regulator declined to elaborate on these projects at this early stage.

Replying to BT's queries, a BCA spokesman said: 'Our priority is to shape a sustainable (building environment) in Singapore using the Green Mark. Some of our Singapore developers and consultants are keen to get their overseas projects certified under the BCA Green Mark; hence, we will provide the assessment for them.

'Arising from this, some of their overseas counterparts become aware of the Green Mark and decide to adopt it in their projects as well.'

Singapore energy consultant G-Energy Global has also been receiving similar requests from abroad.

The firm last month helped Malaysian developer Goldis Berhad secure a provisional Green Mark rating for its upcoming 30-storey office tower, named GTower, in Kuala Lumpur.

G-Energy director Vincent Low told BT that his firm is now talking with two Singapore developers in China and three from Indonesia on getting the building certified.

BCA said that it was 'heartened' by the Green Mark's rising regional prominence and hopes this yardstick would eventually become the de facto green building rating system for the tropical region. 'The Green Mark provides a meaningful differentiation of buildings in the real estate market,' BCA said.

Mr Low said that overseas developers he has spoken to have been impressed with this benchmark's premium image, which they say helps increase tenant appeal. Overseas developers also like the fact that their energy savings can be expressed in concrete terms under this yardstick, he said.

The Green Mark rates a facility's eco-friendliness based on criteria such as energy and water efficiency, building management, indoor environmental quality and innovation. There are four tiers in the Green Mark - Certified, Gold, Gold Plus and Platinum - with the last tier the most rigorous.

Around 130 buildings and parks in Singapore have so far been certified. In April, this benchmark was made a mandatory requirement here for new buildings and retrofitting works with floor area exceeding 2,000 square metres. To encourage take-up in Singapore, the Green Mark offers cash incentives for developers, building owners, project architects and engineers.

Overseas adopters do not qualify for such incentives. But none was needed to entice Malaysia's Goldis.

'Achieving the Gold standard will mean GTower has an approximately 20 per cent energy savings compared to a similar sized development without energy saving features,' said Colin Ng, Goldis head of corporate investments.

He said that GTower's green investment will come up to RM30 million (S$12.6 million), which would be spent on achieving more stringent building specifications, as well as on energy-efficient gear like air-con chillers.

GTower 'will save an equivalent of 9,125 trees per year', Mr Ng said.

According to BCA, meeting the Green Mark's basic tier will require an extra outlay equivalent of less than one per cent of the overall construction cost of a building.

The additional cost of achieving the Gold rating is between 0.7 and 1.2 per cent of construction cost.

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From water-scarce island to hydrohub

Business Times 14 Oct 08;

The PUB story of sterling achievements and grand ambitions could be a case study in the education of water managers, reports EMILYN YAP

'IS water the new oil?' That was the question splashed across the cover of BusinessWeek in June. For a prominent business magazine to feature this on its front page, the world has clearly sat up to the importance of water as a resource.

But for more than 40 years, Singapore has already been working fervently on securing its water supply. With the national water agency PUB managing the resource, the country has evolved from a water-scarce nation into one which others now look to for water solutions.

In fact, PUB aims to make Singapore a global hydrohub - a centre of ideas, solutions and technologies for the water industry. 'Perhaps one day, when the world thinks of 'sustainable water solutions for cities', they will think of 'Singapore',' said PUB's CEO Khoo Teng Chye.

With such sterling achievements and grand ambitions, PUB certainly surprises no one for winning the Singapore Quality Award (SQA) this year. The SQA is the top accolade for business excellence, given to organisations with outstanding management capabilities and superior results.

'All of us at PUB are very honoured and delighted to win the SQA on our first application,' said Mr Khoo. 'Winning the SQA this year is indeed a strong testimony of the dedication and commitment of the many PUB staff who have in the past 40 years strived relentlessly to ensure that Singapore has an efficient, adequate and sustainable water supply for now and in the future.'

Underlying Singapore's long-term water sustainability is the Four National Taps strategy. Water from local catchment areas, imported water, reclaimed water and desalinated water form the main sources.

'We have developed new sources of water from the 17 reservoirs in our local catchments like the new Marina Reservoir, our five NEWater factories and our desalination plant,' said Mr Khoo.

According to PUB, Singapore is probably the only country in the world that takes an integrated approach in managing water - from collection, treatment, distribution to reclamation, the entire water cycle is managed as a system.

The SQA will add to the string of awards which PUB has been winning for its work. It clinched the Singapore Innovation Award two years ago and was named Water Agency of the Year by an industry journal Global Water Intelligence in the same year. Last year, it also won the Stockholm Industry Water Award.

'PUB has succeeded in combining all the complex components of a well functioning water management system that has been accepted by the general public, business and industry,' said the award committee chairman, Lars Gunnarsson.

'The PUB story would fit well as a study example in the education of water managers. This is an exemplary model of integrated water management in a framework of good policy and innovative engineering solutions.'

This year has been fruitful for PUB and the SQA win will make it even more memorable. PUB organised the inaugural Singapore International Water Week (SIWW) in June, a week-long event which acted as a platform for the discussion of challenges, solutions and new technologies in the water industry. Deemed a huge success, the event drew over 8,500 participants from 79 countries and facilitated the conclusion of $367 million worth of deals.

In fact, PUB was preparing for both SIWW and the SQA application process at the same time. While the timing was a challenge, 'with support from all PUB staff, both SIWW and the SQA assessment were successfully held', said Mr Khoo.

The first Lee Kuan Yew Water Prize was also given out at the SIWW to Andrew Benedek, chairman and CEO of Zenon Environmental, a GE unit. The award recognised Dr Benedek for his pioneering work in low-pressure membranes for water treatment.

One project PUB is particularly proud of is the Marina Barrage, a dam that forms Singapore's first reservoir in the city. 'It is the best example of our integrated approach to water management,' said Mr Khoo.

As a 'three-in-one' project, the barrage will act as a tidal barrier to prevent flooding, create a reservoir for water supply, and become a water 'piazza' for Singapore's new downtown at Marina Bay. The Marina Barrage won the Asean Outstanding Engineering Achievement Award last year.

'Winning the SQA is recognition that these achievements can be sustained as each organisation has institutionalised the values, structures, systems, and processes to ensure that it keeps improving and innovating to meet the changing needs and challenges of Singapore,' said Mr Khoo.

And through the SQA framework's emphasis on evaluation and improvement, PUB has built systems to constantly review processes to progress and avoid complacency. In addition, 'winning the SQA has boosted staff's morale and encouraged them to remain focused on the goal to achieve the organisation's mission and vision', said Mr Khoo.

The SQA will not spell the end of breakthroughs at PUB. Building on the success of the first SIWW, PUB has already started preparing for the event next year.

Under the theme 'Sustainable Cities - Infrastructure and Technologies for Water', it will feature top-tier delegates and speakers from leading international water companies, utility operators and water agencies. Participants will come from emerging or key markets such as Australia, South Korea, Turkey and the US.

At a time when water scarcity could be a major challenge confronting the world, Singapore has already got a headstart towards achieving self-sufficiency and winning the SQA is one evidence of this for PUB.

Read more!

From days of muddy trails to years of factory building

JTC celebrates 40th year of housing manufacturing here
Business Times 14 Oct 08;

TREKKING along muddy trails, clearing land and even escaping from knife-wielding locals - these adventures sound like scenes from an Indiana Jones movie, but they were all part of a day's work for JTC Corporation staff in the early days of developing Jurong.

Driving their endeavours was a bold attitude and a determination to succeed - characteristics that remain today.

'The early generations of people at JTC had a can-do spirit and dared to take risks, similar to pioneers riding into the wild wild west,' said JTC assistant CEO Ong Geok Soo. 'They helped seed the culture which has permeated JTC over the years.'

Having been with JTC for 37 years, Mr Ong is well-placed to make this observation. The agency celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.

JTC was set up in 1968 to oversee Singapore's industrialisation. Its key task then was to create a modern Jurong Industrial Estate (JIE) out of the marshy jungle.

'There were a lot of parallel activities going on in the creation of JIE,' Mr Ong said. 'Besides preparing the land, factories and infrastructure for industries, the government was also developing a township for workers, with housing in Taman Jurong and the Chinese and Japanese Gardens.'

The venture, initiated by Goh Keng Swee, acquired the moniker 'Goh's folly' at one point because of the high risks and costs involved. Difficulties lay not just in attracting investors but in convincing workers to move to relative wilderness.

Work on the ground presented its own challenges. Mr Ong recalled the sensitivities of clearing land for development.

'When we encountered shrines, for instance, workers usually did not dare to clear them for fear of offending the gods,' he said. 'We had to get shrine-keepers to agree to a shift and conduct rituals before we could proceed.'

And when it came to re-settling farmers, even the safety of JTC's employees was occasionally at risk. 'Farmers or their children would sometimes come at us with parangs,' Mr Ong shared with a smile.

Conditions were also tougher back when technology was less advanced. Financial officers had to trudge along muddy trails in Jurong to distribute cash wages because there were no automated banking services then, he said.

Despite the challenges, JIE took off in a big way and propelled Singapore's industrialisation. But that was certainly not the end of the agency's role. It has been undertaking projects of growing scale and complexity to maintain Singapore's competitive edge in manufacturing.

'In the early days, projects proceeded at almost breakneck speed because Singapore's survival was on the line. Over the years, we have adopted a more systematic process,' said Mr Ong.

'But JTC is still able to respond quickly to industries' needs, by working closely with other agencies in a whole-of-government approach,' he pointed out.

Read more!

Sales of organic foods increase as prices fall

Retailers are sourcing closer to home and cutting out middlemen
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 14 Oct 08;

WITH a greater variety of organic produce now coming from closer to home, the prices of these foods have fallen.

Fruit and vegetables from Malaysia and Thailand, grown without pesticides and artificial fertilisers, are now in supermarkets and stores here, alongside pricier goods from Australia and the United States.

At NTUC FairPrice, 500g of organic carrots from Thailand cost $3.50, compared to $5.15 for those from Australia.

Some of the more than 30 varieties of vegetables in its 'Pasar Organic' range cost up to 40 per cent less than organic produce from countries further afield, noted the supermarket chain's director of integrated purchasing Tng Ah Yiam.

The range has logged a 30 per cent jump in sales since its launch in July.

A spokesman for the Dairy Farm group, which owns the Cold Storage supermarket chain, said prices of organic produce had also fallen at its outlets by up to 27 per cent over the past year.

Organic snow peas, for example, which cost $9.50 for 100g last year, are now going at $6.50.

This is good news for consumers in a year of rising prices.

Administrative manager Pauline Tan, 54, who has gone organic with 10 of her friends in the past year, said: 'Age is catching up with us and we realise we have to eat more healthily.'

Like her, more people believe that naturally grown foods are healthier, though research has yet to bear it out.

The rise of organic farms in the region is one factor behind the falling prices. The other is the practice of some suppliers who bypass distributors and sell directly to shops and supermarkets.

Zenxin Agri-Organic Food, for example, supplies vegetables from its farms in Malaysia to its stall, Zenxin Organic, in the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, as well as to supermarkets and stores here.

Mr Tai Seng Yee, 25, and his father began organic farming in Kelantan six years ago. Last year, their four farms were certified organic by the National Association for Sustainable Agriculture Australia.

The young Malaysian said being near his markets saves him transport and storage costs. The vegetables reach consumers in a fresher state too.

Burgeoning harvests from regional farms like his help bring prices down.

Zenxin's stall now charges $1.70 for 100g of green capsicums from Thailand; a year ago, it was charging $3.20 for Australian capsicums.

The falling prices have triggered a demand for organic produce. A Straits Times check with 10 retail outlets from supermarket chains to HDB shops here found that demand has doubled in just one year.

Mr Tan Chin Hian, managing director of major supplier Ban Choon Marketing, estimates that there are now 75 organic shops in Singapore, up from 40 two years ago.

Organic products sold here range from food to skin-care items and shampoo, but regional suppliers are currently sticking mainly to leafy greens.

This may soon change, predicted Euromonitor International research manager Yvonne Kok. She suggested that organic skin-care products and cosmetics for both men and women could be big next.

Organic Garden in Woodlands has seen customers becoming more savvy.

Storekeeper Jenny Chua said: 'When we first set up shop, people asked basic questions about sea salt. Now, they are asking sophisticated questions about nutritional content.'

Retiree Maria Tsai, 67, believes going organic is about taking charge of one's health: 'Large companies take care of only its profits. It is up to us to take care of our health ourselves.'

Read more!

Time to invest in nature's capital

Andrew Mitchell, BBC Green Room 13 Oct 08;

Amid the global financial crisis, it is time to recognise the wealth we enjoy from nature's capital, says Andrew Mitchell, director of the Global Canopy Programme. In this week's Green Room, he argues that there will be no government bailout if we fail to protect the vital services provided by the world's forests.

The world's largest gathering of conservation scientists and NGOs have been meeting in Barcelona to ask: "What price do we put on nature?"

In these extraordinary times of credit crunch and climate change, the world feels hitched to an uncertain roller coaster ride where we don't know what to value any more.

What investors thought was safe as houses has turned out to be nothing more than the property of the poor disguised in a silver wrapper, enabling bankers to pocket billions.

In a curious way, all this chaos may turn out to be a good thing because it will force the world to ask: "Are we creating wealth that's worth having?"

A wine broker said to me recently: "The thing about investing in a first growth is, the more the world drinks a good vintage, the more valuable it gets."

So could disappearing forests one day be a safer investment than houses.

Balancing the books

A major new theme of this Congress of the World Conservation Union (IUCN) is about how we value natural capital, which up to now has not appeared on company balance sheets.



I believe the current financial crisis may force the global community to right that wrong, along with many others, because we all want a more stable economy.

However, in global markets today, rainforests are worth more dead than alive. Poor and often opaque governments, with little to sell, offer their rainforests to raise revenue, attracting largely risk capital with strings attached.

The only way to do this is to convert rainforests into something else, usually timber, beef, soy or palm oil that Westerners, and now prosperous Asians, have a burgeoning appetite for.

Most deforestation today is enterprise driven and funded by hedgefunds, pension funds, and other sources of liquidity from capitals often far from, and blind to, the forests they are destroying.

Billions in green dollars end up on investors' balance sheets, but there is a catch: billions of tonnes of carbon dioxide goes up in smoke from the trees burned in the process - and the risk to everyone is building up to a climate credit crisis.

The timetable on this issue is tight. In December 2006, at the UN in New York, Papua New Guinea invited rich countries to pay poor ones to stop deforestation.

In May 2007, London's Independent newspaper blew the whistle on "the hidden cause of global warming", the destruction of the world's rainforests.

And in September, political leaders, scientists, and NGOs rallied around the Global Canopy Programme's (GCP) Forests Now Declaration.

'Carbon crunch'

The global deal on climate change, due to be signed by the UN in 2012, will be inadequate if it does not include a means to curb emissions from forests.

Just one day of emissions from deforestation equates to 68 million people flying from London to New York.

Seven billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) annually places rainforests just second to energy as a source of global emissions and is more than the entire world's transport sector put together.

And it is not just about carbon. The world's rainforests are a giant "utility", providing services we all use but do not pay for.

The Amazon releases 20 billion tonnes of water into the atmosphere each day. This air-conditions the atmosphere, waters agri-business and underpins energy security from hydro to biofuels across Latin America on a gigantic scale.

Were it possible to build a machine to do this, every day it would consume the energy equivalent to the world's largest hydro dam running on full power for 135 years; and the Amazon does all this for free. Now that's natural capital and we are eroding it fast.

Pavan Sukhdevs' landmark report, The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, published by the EU earlier this year, estimated the annual losses of natural capital to be, at the low end, equivalent to the value of the Indian stock market and, at the high end, the entire London stock market.

If what biodiversity does for us is so valuable, why is this happening? The answer is in part ignorance and, in part, that the global economy may no longer be fit for purpose.



The problem is that nature is priceless. What nature does for us is not valued economically. Whilst only financial and human capital drive human endeavour, and inputs from natural capital remain unrecognised, business proceeds on a false sense of security.

The economy, I believe, is at a truly historic tipping point where the global economy will rapidly need to incorporate the risks from the collision course that energy security, food security and environmental security are all on.

By 2050, to keep global temperatures from rising more that 2C and at the same time feed nine billion people, we cannot go on as we are.

Investing in natural capital may in time indeed turn out to be as safe as any other public utility but for that to happen we need the equivalent of an ecosystem services market with an environmental regulatory body that forces us to value the common goods that we continue to plunder at our peril.

The carbon market is such an invention by governments, valuing a commodity we cannot see, smell or touch but which is poisoning our world.

The Kyoto Protocol has jump-started the global market which could soon exceed $100bn per year.

Markets are by no means perfect but they are inventive. Who would believe 30 years ago that a bottle of fashionable mineral water would sell for more than petrol. But left to itself, the global market puts a value on bottled water of 70bn euros per year but nothing on vital rain from rainforests.

A scheme to value forest ecosystem services in global markets could deliver financial flows at scale, in addition to those provided by carbon markets.

Some understandably fear turning natural capital into bonds or equities because the market can be a beast, but government funds sourced from taxation are unlikely to meet the $30-50bn annual bill for halting deforestation.

Banking on change

Some industrialised nations have called for future investments in nuclear and carbon capture power stations to reduce their own emissions entering our atmosphere at a cost of between $250-150 a tonne of CO2 saved.

Yet they are failing to invest now, to maintain the existing sequestration service ancient forests provide, which might be preserved for perhaps a tenth of the cost per tonne.

To reduce emissions by 80% of 1990 levels will require us to use every means available. Arguing about emissions from factories or forests will not get us there.

Who should be paid and how raises other awkward questions. Who owns the tropical forest "utility" is often far from clear. Governments claim some 70%, but indigenous and other communities contest their view and landowners often argue over the rest.

Defining such landrights is a central prerequisite to equitable benefit sharing. Poor Governments are not always transparent. Responsibility needs proper incentives.

We need also to ask if GDP is the right way to measure human welfare and create such incentives. Pavan Sughdev has called for a GDP of the poor. They will suffer most from climate change, yet are least responsible for it. Incentivising them to use natural capital sustainably may not show up in current GDP figures, but could significantly improve their lives.

Rich nations, which have caused climate change, may have the financial muscle to help solve it and should find a way to recognise "real capitalism" inclusive not only of financial and human capital, but also natural capital.

If the global economy can, almost overnight, find two trillion dollars to cut the risk of Freddie Mae and Bertie Mac and the global banking community from going down the pan, surely it can find a fraction of that to cut the risk of forests going up in smoke.

If one day forests could be safer than houses, now that would be wealth worth having.

Andrew Mitchell is the founder and director of the Global Canopy Programme

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Huge Gap Between World Demand For Fish And What Can Be Sustainably Harvested

ScienceDaily 13 Oct 08;

The President of SINTEF Fisheries and Aquaculture, Karl Andreas Almås, crouches over his laptop, opens one of his presentations and finds an illustration. It shows one red curve and one blue one. He then indicates the point where they meet each other, then frowns and says the message he cannot repeat often enough: There is a huge gap between world demand for fish and what we can harvest from the world’s natural stocks. The figures are clear: If we don’t do something about the over fishing, the stocks of wild fish will be dealt a death blow.

At the same time, the world’s population continues to grow – and with it the global demand for food.

“On a global basis today, we have an average annual consumption of 15-16 kilos of fish per person,” says Almås. “If we are going to continue consuming at this rate, we need to double the production of farmed fish within the next 20 years. Doing this in a sustainable manner will be a major challenge.”

Balancing act

As well as expressing his concern, the president is also optimistic. As the head of Europe’s largest research institution for fisheries and aquaculture technology, he knows more than most about the conditions in the sea and how this can be achieved.

According to Almås, there are two main parts to the work towards sustainable aquaculture, but they are closely connected:

One is to develop technology for more selective and gentle capture of species in the sea to enable natural growth in the stocks and only capture the quality we actually want. This must also occur without the fishing fleet using large energy consumption.

The other is to increase the efficiency of the aquaculture sector. The president’s figures show that the difference between fish production in 1980 and that which we will require in 2030 is a full 60 – 70 million tonnes of farmed fish. This means among other things we must stop using fish as feed for farmed fish. Fish caught at sea must be human food. Therefore, we need to find feed alternatives that can be captured lower in the food chain. Plant oils and proteins may be utilised as ingredients for feed in the aquaculture industry, and this is an area some research scientists are working on. Another alternative is to convert natural gas to bio proteins, so-called single-cell proteins.

Last, but by no means least, we need to succeed in finding some new species of farmed fish and develop technology that enables a smarter and more cost-effective production of the fish species we are already farming.

If Almås achieves his visions of technological development and knowledge transfer, there will be few quiet days for he and his colleagues at SINTEF SeaLab at Brattørkaia in Trondheim Harbour. However, they are already well on the way to finding solutions for the challenges.

Trawling down in the food chain

One of the research scientists eager to put fresh aquaculture knowledge into practice is Research Director Håvard Røsvik. Together with product designer and colleague Mads Heide, he is working on the final polish of a new animation. It demonstrates one of the research scientist’s pet projects: a bubble trawler, which until now the world has not seen equal to. Soundtracks featuring the cries of sea gulls, the splashing of waves and the sound of boat motors turn the film clip into a living description of the trawler that utilises air bubbles instead of a net to surface its prey: the 3 mm long, protein-rich Calanus finmarchicus.

“This tiny creature, which has its natural place long down in the food chain, contains large amounts of proteins as well as marine fats,” says Røsvik.

The film shows the boat chugging off on the smooth sea, while releasing air bubbles down into the sea. As Calanus finmarchicus contains many hairs on its tiny body, it attaches itself to the air bubbles in the same manner as a nail attaches itself to a magnet, and floats up to the surface. The tiny creatures are then collected in a fine-mesh cloth and enter the catch chamber with the assistance of a pump system. Seemingly, it is just as simple as it is genial. (Se egen sak. S... red. anm.)

The challenge previously has been to capture a sufficient volume of the little chap. With this trawler, it is likely that large enough volumes can be captured to make it profitable. There is certainly enough to capture: Calculations show there are 300-400 million tonnes in Norwegian waters alone.

“Capturing just one percent of this biomass would cover the requirements for the Norwegian aquaculture industry,” says Røsvik.

The 90 degree effect

Another challenge Røsvik and his colleagues are working on is selective capture: Developing trawler systems that make it possible to catch fish of the correct size without damaging the small fish.

“Trawling accounts for 40 percent of the world’s total fisheries production,” says Røsvik. “As such, improvements to this method of fishing will produce major consequences for the different fish stocks and the areas in which they live.”

A simple, but extremely effective solution to make trawling gentler and more selective has been to turn the trawl net 90 degrees.

“This is one idea that we tested in our flume tank in Hirtshals in Denmark,” says Røsvik. “Scientists knew that fish were often damaged in the codend because turbulence occurs around traditional codends, causing them to swing from side to side.”

However, by turning the meshes in the codend, the SINTEF research scientists utilised a recipe that did not cause turbulence: namely that the meshes in an outstretched position remain as wide open as possible. It yielded results. The cross-section was 12 times greater and the swinging movements were dramatically reduced compared to traditional codends. Further, the meshes remain open when the trawl is stretched. This means that the small fish escape and the fish that are large enough are damaged to a much lesser extent. Energy consumption was also reduced. A large proportion of the trawling fleets fishing whitefish off the coasts of Iceland, Scotland and New Zealand have now adopted this idea.

Cod farming

In the basement at SINTEF SeaLab, Trina Galloway stands bent over a tank of young cod. Galloway is working on areas including the development of new farmed species. She is now studying the result of one of the department’s latest trials: 15 cm long “teenagers” swimming around in the tanks in the name of research. In two years, these will be large cod that fetch a high price at seafood restaurants. But whether they grow up and become saleable, healthy and good fish is not something we can take for granted. It is the result of many years’ research, trial and error and then yet more research.

One of the challenges associated with farming cod has been to find suitable feed for the recently hatched fish larvae. While salmon larvae hatch with a large built-in packed lunch and develop a functional digestive system relatively quickly, cod require specially developed, live plankton, which is 100 percent research-based!

“On the cod’s part, hatching the eggs is not enough,” says the biologist. “We need to have control of the entire life cycle, including the factors that contribute to the fish that hatch growing up. The conditions need to be optimal.”

Ecosystem in the “cod kindergarten”

What appear to the uninitiated like ordinary plastic tanks with small creepy-crawlies swimming around are actually small, but exactly balanced ecosystems. In each tank, phytoplankton, zooplankton and fish larvae are living in perfect harmony, and physical factors such as water flow, temperature and light are precisely matched. At the end of the hall, there is a two metre high white plastic container filled with a gurgling yellowy-green soup. This is the heart of the facility: a bio filter or “live storeroom” containing the optimal bacterial flora for cod babies, and which supplies the facility’s tanks with mature, re-circulated water.

For small, sensitive, young fish, it is particularly important to have stable growing conditions early in their childhood.

“This is the marine fish hatchery of the future,” says Galloway.

From mono to poly

But the future of the aquaculture industry will offer challenges other than good water for the hatcheries and new feed alternatives. Better utilisation of both the fish farming area and the energy in the feed will be important.

“On average, the salmon utilise only 20-25 percent of the energy in the feed for growth,” says Galloway. “The remainder is separated as waste or disappears out of the cages.”

With this in mind, the research scientists have designed a system for three farmed species. The idea is to cultivate species that live in different stages of the food chain in the same place.

“If we succeed with keeping salmon, mussels and kelp in the same system, the feed will be fully utilised because the mussels and kelp eat the feed not consumed by the fish,” explains Galloway.

Operating aquaculture in this way is relatively new in Norway, but not totally uncommon in fish farming counties in the east. SINTEF research scientists will pursue the idea and develop it for the open sea - and it is precisely far out at sea that the fish farms of the future will be located.

Aquaculture off-shore

“If the aquaculture industry is going to grow globally, this must happen at sea,” says Arne Fredheim. “Fish farming in rough and open sea is something we can do well in Norway, and this knowledge is in demand from clients worldwide.”

There are many reasons why the aquaculture sector is aiming for the open sea. The water quality here is better than the limited areas near land and the temperature is more stable – a factor that improves the quality of the fish meat. Moreover, the flow rate increases, and with it the supply of oxygen to the cages.

He is now working to develop fish farms for the open sea. Fredheim is Director of CREATE, a centre for research-based innovation in aquaculture technology and one of the areas of strategic focus for the Research Council of Norway within innovation. He and his research colleagues at NTNU and SINTEF have received NOK 80 million. One of the research scientists’ visions is an advanced fish farm that can “think for itself”. Such fish farms will be able to float to more optimal locations when required and submerge in the sea when exposed to rough weather.

Even though this vision is unlikely to be a reality for at least 10 or 15 years, the technology for fish farms in the open sea is already in place.

“Our part is to view the total, integrated process, from the technological and operational sides through to the biological challenges,” says Fredheim.

Today the research scientists are working on developing such fish farms through different projects. One of the challenges is to find out how long a submergible cage should use on its ascent back to the surface.

“Some fish species can actually get a sort of decompression sickness,” says Fredheim. “Ascending too quickly will, for example, burst a cod’s air bladder. Maybe it is ideal that a cage uses several days to complete the ascent up to the surface.”

Utilising the whole fish

One floor above the laboratory’s “fish kindergarten”, Marit Aursand is sitting at her desk thumbing through a report. The report is about “functional food”, one of the hottest concepts within food technology. Functional food is food that in addition to providing nutrition contains properties beneficial to your health. One such example is food to reduce cholesterol, which is already available on shop shelves. This is a growing market. As Research Director at the Department of Processing Technology, this is an area in which Aursand is particularly interested.

“One of our main challenges is more of what we catch needs to be used as human food, and the parts that cannot be used for food can be used for marine oils, animal feed or health products,” says Aursand.

“Products like this can be added to other food to provide health benefits. Healthy fish oil can, for example, be added to yoghurt. Fish have the potential for 100 percent utilisation. If we manage to develop automation processes to achieve this objective, this can become an important industry for Norway.”

And with Marit Aursand’s vision, along with new solutions for fishing equipment, fishing methods and fish farming on both land and at sea, maybe we can see hope for the new face of the sea?

Read more!

British seas face ecological disaster due to over fishing and pollution

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 13 Oct 08;

The seas around Britain face an ecological disaster because of over fishing and pollution, a new report warns.

Many fish species that were once common are either vastly reduced in number or locally extinct, the Marine Conservation Society (MSC) says.

Its report Silent Seas warns that without urgent action to protect marine life and to limit the damage already inflicted marine ecosystems will fail.

The MSC launched its latest report in support of its call for a Marine Bill to be introduced in the Queen's Speech which would designate protections zones where all fishing would be outlawed.

MCS head of conservation, Dr Simon Brockington who compiled the report, said: "Echoing Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring", Silent Seas forsees a world where extinctions of marine creatures begins to rise and the ecosystem starts to fail.

"Too many fish are taken from the sea, too much rubbish is thrown into the sea, and too little is being done to protect precious marine life and habitats. We have to act now!"

The report warns that the state of our seas has changed over the past 25 years and the loss of wildlife could result in fundamental ecological 'regime shifts' which was already happening in some parts of the world. In Namibia's seas over-fishing has led to a dramatic increase in jellyfish which now dominate the ecosystem.

In shallow UK waters numbers of many predatory fish such as sharks, skates and rays have fallen largely through fishing, and several once common species are now locally extinct.

A century ago large fish such as common skate, angel sharks, Atlantic halibut and cod in excess of a metre long were common in the North Sea but many of these species are classed as critically endangered.

The report also highlights the problems caused by pollution and particularly plastic which poses a significant hazard to marine wildlife.

MCS claims plastic litter washing up on UK beaches has grown by 126 per cent in the last 14 years. Sea birds, turtles, whales and seals are all killed by marine plastic either through entanglement, or ingestion causing death through starvation.

Dr Brockington said the threats posed by pollution, over-fishing and a lack of habitat protection would be made worse by climate change.

Continued pressure on the marine ecosystem would bring it to the point where it could support only creatures at the bottom of the food chain, such as jellyfish and plankton.

He said: "In the next few years we're going to start seeing the effects of climate change; the first effects are already there, such as migration of fish and plankton types.

"Unless we build a healthy ecosystem, the impacts of climate change will be far worse."

As well as marine protection zones the MCS wants a government strategy to combat pollution, more sustainable fishing and better water treatment plants.

In a foreword to the report Prince Charles says it is a "wake up call" that our seas need help.

"I pray that the society's message will be heeded by everyone who can support them in their mission to ensure that our seas do not fall silent forever as a result of pollution, over-exploitation and neglect," he said.

"Highly protected marine reserves, selective fishing practices and action to reduce plastic litter are just some of the steps needed to initiate recovery."

The latest IUCN Red List of Endangered Species revealed that one in three marine mammal species is threatened by extinction including almost a quarter of the world's whales and dolphins.

The Silent Seas report says that there are seven times more vertebrate species at risk of extinction in British waters than there are on land.

Some of the species include:

Native oyster (Ostrea edulis): Southern North Sea used to support an oyster bed the size of Wales. Now found only in a few isolated locations.

Common sturgeon (Acipencer sturio): Much sought after for food and eggs that make caviar. Fished almost out of existence.

Angel shark (Squatina squatina): Once found throughout north east Atlantic. Extinct in the North Sea and now only rarely found.

Common skate (Dipturus batis): Once common all around the UK shore it has now vanished completely from many areas.

Blue whale (Balaenoptera musculus): Largest animal in the world. Once common hunted to near extinction in the 1800s. Locally extinct.

Crawfish (Palinurus elephas): Commonly seen by divers until the 1970s but now rarely encountered.

Atlantic cod (Gadus morhua): Once abundant in north east Atlantic, hunted beyond biological limits and now endangered.

Leatherback turtle (Dermochelys coriacea): In substantial decline and last stronghold is Atlantic where it is seen hunting jellyfish in summer.

Atlantic halibut (Hippoglossus hippoglossus): Largest flatfish in the world. Has suffered massively from over fishing.

Porbeagle (Lamna nasus): British shark seriously depleted by longline fishing.

Read more!

Whale deal falls at last minute

Richard Black, BBC News 13 Oct 08

A unique consensus between environment groups and whaling nations at the World Conservation Congress was derailed by a last-minute Australian intervention.

Japan and Norway had agreed to back a motion saying there was not enough data to support the claim that culling whales could raise fisheries yields.

But Australia's late bid for stronger wording broke the consensus and left other anti-whaling countries fuming.

The "whales eat fish" argument is often cited as a reason to maintain hunting.

The conservation groups behind the consensus, the Pew Environment Group and WWF, believed it could help build bridges between Norway, Japan and Iceland and their opponents which could, in the end, lead to a diminution of the whaling industry.

"We had an excellent spirit of co-operation and consensus," said Sue Lieberman, head of WWF's global species programme.

"We felt that we had a resolution, but these are the ins and outs of negotiations."

Japanese officials who had participated in an intensive series of consensus-building discussions during the week - at which Australia was also represented - were furious at the last-ditch attempt to introduce stronger wording than had been agreed.

"Australian bad behaviour has put the spirit of co-operation in jeopardy," said Hideki Moronuki, a senior official with Japan's fisheries agency.

"Australia had participated in the [consensus-building] process, they were in the room all the time - this is back-handed."

Officials from other anti-whaling nations agreed, one calling the last-minute intervention "despicable".

The Australian delegation here declined to comment.

Management issue

Japanese scientists have regularly argued that whales may be competing with humans for fish, and countries that usually vote with Japan within the International Whaling Commission (IWC) have cited it as a reason for their support.

The St Kitts Declaration, a resolution passed at the 2006 IWC meeting which numbered Japan and Norway among its sponsors, said: "Scientific research has shown that whales consume huge quantities of fish, making the issue a matter of food security for coastal nations and requiring that the issue of management of whale stocks must be considered in a broader context of ecosystem management."

This was greatly contentious. Three years earlier, the IWC's scientific committee had concluded there was no way of providing reliable advice on the impacts of cetaceans on fisheries, though acknowledging that "consideration of ecosystem interactions between fish stocks and cetaceans is a potentially important research topic".

The wording of the consensus resolution agreed here asked delegations, which include most of the world's governments, to acknowledge that "there is inadequate scientific information to support an assertion that controlling great whale populations can increase fisheries yields".

Pew and WWF argued that having Japan and Norway put their names to this would make it impossible for them to use the "whales eat fish" argument in future.

The amendment tabled by Australia asked delegations instead to acknowledge "that the great whales play no significant role in the current crisis affecting global fisheries".

Twenty-nine nations, Japan among them, could not accept the wording or the manner of its introduction. Although it passed with a majority of about three governments in favour to every one against, the anti-whaling bloc will not be able to say that Japan accepted it.

The motion also urged members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which runs the World Conservation Congress, to prioritise the conservation of fish, whales and the wider marine environment by addressing issues such as illegal fishing and excessively large fleets, and establishing marine protected areas.

It also encouraged the use of non-lethal research methods on the biology and behaviour of whales.

Engagement off?

The Pew group has been supporting moves over the last year and a half to seek ways of breaking the deadlock within the IWC, and appears to have established enough of a relationship with Japanese whaling officials to engender constructive dialogue.

"I hope that the constructive and unprecedented discussions that have taken place this week in Barcelona, with all sides working together to seek consensus, is a precursor of the signal that we have urged the government of Japan to give regarding its intentions," said Remi Parmentier, a senior policy advisor with Pew.

The latest stage in the IWC "peace process" was a week-long meeting in Florida held in September.

Sources indicate there was amicable dialogue, but little progress on the substantive issues such as Japan's desire to secure small whaling quotas for four coastal communities, and opposition to the scale of its current Antarctic hunt, conducted under regulations allowing whaling for scientific research.

Following the breaking of the consensus here, there must be doubts now about whether Japan and Norway will want to stay engaged, although officials from other anti-whaling nations and environment groups were at pains to emphasise the amendment had been a uniquely Australian affair.

Read more!

Chimpanzees' last stronghold in danger as numbers fall by 90%

Richard Alleyne, The Telegraph 13 Oct 08;

Time appears to be running out for chimpanzees living in the wild after a survey of its last "stronghold" found numbers had plummeted by 90 per cent.

The effect of man had already led to a reduction from an estimated 100,000 fifty years ago to between 12,000 and 8,000 in 1990 in the Ivory Coast, the west African country that harboured more than half the world's population of chimps.

But a new survey has found that it has dropped a further 90 per cent to little more than 1,000 individual chimps.

Now scientists believe there is only one viable population left in the Tai National Park and that the ape should be classified as "critically endangered".

Christophe Boesch, of the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, told the journal Current Biology, that the rise in the human population was to blame.

"The human population in Cote d'Ivoire has increased nearly 50 per cent over the last 18 years," he said.

"Since most threats to chimpanzee populations are derived from human activities such as hunting and deforestation, this has contributed to the dramatic decline in chimpanzee populations.

"The situation has deteriorated even more with the start of the civil war in 2002, since all surveillance ceased in the protected areas."

The few remaining chimpanzees are now highly fragmented, with only one viable population living in Taï National Park, according to a report.

Chimpanzees are notoriously difficult to spot so researchers count the number of nests to estimate populations.

In the new study, the number of nests recorded by Boesch and his colleague Geneviève Campbell had dropped by 90 per cent since the last count.

They found the catastrophic decline in chimpanzees is especially strong in forest areas with low protection status, where the researchers saw no sign of the chimps.

Even in protected areas like Marahoué National Park, chimpanzees have clearly suffered since surveillance and external funding support were disrupted by civil unrest in 2002.

Campbell said. "It was saddening that I only found one nest in this park, as during the previous survey they found 234 nests. The one nest I did find was also in an area that had just been cleared for agriculture."

Even the last remaining refuge for the dwindling West African chimpanzees the Taï National Park is extremely threatened by poachers, Boesch said.

"We must appeal to the international conservation community to invest in sustainable funding of conservation activities in national parks with known importance for chimpanzee populations.

"External financial support in that park is scheduled to end in 2010, a move that will probably have disastrous consequences for the last vestiges of chimpanzees in Côte d'Ivoire."

Chimps 90 Percent Gone in a "Final Stronghold"
Rebecca Carroll, National Geographic News 13 Oct 08;

West African chimpanzees have declined by 90 percent in the last 18 years in an African country that is one of the subspecies' "final strongholds," a new study stays.

Scientists counting the rare chimps in Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) found only about 800 to 1,200 of the apes—down from about 8,000 to 12,000 in 1989-90. Before the new survey, the country had been thought to harbor about half of all West African chimps.

"We were not expecting such a drastic decrease," said lead author Geneviève Campbell, a doctoral candidate at the Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Germany.

The 1989-90 survey had itself represented a significant decline from 1960s estimates of about a hundred thousand West African Chimps in Côte d'Ivoire.

Nowhere to Run

Since 1990 Côte d'Ivoire's human population has grown by about 50 percent. This growth is the most likely cause of the decline in the chimp numbers, according to the report.

More people has led to more hunting and deforestation—key chimp threats—particularly since 2002, when a coup attempt sparked civil unrest that continues today, the study says.

One of the country's sanctuaries, Marahoué National Park, has lost 93 percent of its forest cover in the last six years, the new survey found.

Campbell said that at many of the sites her team visited, "the habitat is gone, and all the protected areas have been invaded by people."

The human "invasion" has left wide swaths inhospitable to other forms of life, she suggests.

At many of the survey sites, "it's not just the chimps—[there's] no animal at all," said Campbell, speaking by phone from Côte d'Ivoire.

In Decline Elsewhere?

A similar decline may have taken place in other countries within the West African chimpanzee range, says the new report, which was published today in the journal Conservation Biology.

The largest remaining population of the subspecies is believed to be in Guinea. But that belief is based on counts that are more than a decade old, according to the study.

In the falling West African chimp numbers, scientists see a door closing on their ability to understand and protect the subspecies.

"We know very little, really, about West African chimps compared to our knowledge of the East African chimp species," said Jill Pruetz of Iowa State University via email.

"Populations in Ivory Coast seemed to me the one place (and, perhaps Guinea) where we could still look," added Pruetz. The biological anthropologist, who was not involved in the study, is a National Geographic Society emerging explorer. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)

Ape expert Frans de Waal of Emory University in Georgia described the report as "depressing."

"This study focuses on one rare subspecies of chimpanzee, but the same poor prospects hold for apes in general," said de Waal, who was not involved in the new research.

De Waal fears the report is "one of many to come."

Conservation Works

During the recent study, in all but 3 of the 11 survey sites, researchers found significantly fewer chimp nests—platforms built of branches high in the trees—than had been found in 1989-90.

In Marahoué National Park, study co-author Campbell found only one nest, versus 234 in 1989-90.

Two of the sites where West African chimps have not declined had only a few to begin with.

The third site is Taï National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage site that has benefited from intensive research and conservation efforts, according to the report.

The Taï numbers suggest that the apes' numbers respond to stable conservation efforts, according to scientists involved with the research.

"We urgently need to locate the viable population of western chimpanzees" in order to protect them, Campbell said.

Emory University's de Waal said preventing illegal hunting would be key.

"Unless we can put a stop to poaching—not just forbidding it but actually monitoring and stopping it—these trends may continue," he said.

Read more!

Weak flood defences in Asia 'risking lives'

Navin Singh Khadka BBC News 13 Oct 08;

Recent flood events in Nepal, India and Bangladesh that displaced millions have stoked fears that defences along rivers in the region may not withstand climate change-induced floods, and could result in bigger catastrophes.

Experts say many infrastructures are becoming weaker while the rivers' flows are getting stronger - a classic setting for projected climate change calamities.

Most floods this year were monsoon-related and many would argue they had nothing to do with changes in the climate.

However, the Kosi disaster in eastern Nepal that left millions of Nepalese and Indians homeless was a different story altogether. The devastation was the result of human mistakes.

The embankment along the Kosi was not properly maintained, resulting in it being overrun by the meandering river even when there was no flood.

The event has forced experts to imagine what could happen if rivers like the Kosi swell as the projected impacts of climate change take hold.

"It is entirely possible that some of the existing structures could prove inadequate and possibly dangerous," said Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

"They might not be able to withstand higher frequency and intensity of floods in the region," he told the BBC.

Weakest link

It isn't just Kosi that has exposed the structures' vulnerability.

The recent monsoon season, which ended last month, also washed away some weaker spots of the defences along other rivers in the region.

Indian media reported that water from the Bramhaputra breached embankments at many key sites in Assam state.

In neighbouring Bangladesh, the Jamuna River also burst through embankments.

"In Jamuna, the disaster was Kosi-like," said Ainun Nishat, a water resources engineering professor in the IUCN Bangladesh office.

"Just like in Kosi, the embankment of Jamuna has become weak as many of its sections are still built using sand, so it failed to withstand the pressure and there was flooding."

In western Nepal, smaller rivers - tributaries to Ganga - wreaked havoc, displacing tens of thousands as well as damaging embankments, culverts, and even highways.

By the time these swollen rivers merged into big rivers such as India's Ganga, the scale of the disaster had multiplied.

In Uttar Pradesh state, for instance, nearly three million people in 5,000 districts had been affected.

Relief officials said 7,000 houses in the state had collapsed and 350,000 had been partially damaged.

Gathering storm

All of these events happened at a time when "flash floods" and the accompanying deluge were expected, as they are when every monsoon arrives.

But they give a glimpse of the future impacts projected by climate scientists.

Hydrologists say they have recorded extreme and erratic rainfall patterns that can cause unexpected rises in river flows.

"In Nepal, there has been an increase in the events of rainfall of more than 100mm at a time," says Suresh Sharma, deputy director-general at Nepal's Department of Hydrology and Meteorology.

"Their frequency has gone up by 0.6 days a year in the last three decades."

The same has been observed in other parts of the region as well.

"Earlier events of big floods used to happen [once every] 20-30 years, but in the past decade the frequency is really up; and now it seems it has begun to happen every year," said Nishat.

Warming has triggered rapid glacial melt in the Himalayas; yet another reason identified for the observed recent rise in river levels.

However, the levels are expected to decrease drastically in the long term when the glaciers have withered.

Some time ago, a joint study by the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) and the Nepal-based International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD) had warned that 24 glacial lakes in Bhutan and 20 in Nepal were filling up rapidly due to glacier melt and could burst at anytime.

Experts say this is compounded by another problem brewing on the mountains.

They point at the receding snowline that has exposed vulnerable soil to erosion.

"That has triggered more landslides, which means there will be even more flash floods," said Sharma.

More floods would mean more risks to infrastructures such as dams, barrages and embankments downstream.

"Appropriate measures for adapting to the impacts of climate change would certainly involve the establishment or modification of infrastructure to take care of the revised conditions," says Rajendra Pachauri.

"This may be particularly important in the mountain regions of South Asia," he explained.

"Melting glaciers and changes in precipitation patterns would require some engineering structures being constructed, or existing ones modified, to take care of flood conditions that are clearly on the increase in parts of South Asia."

Neglected structures

The Kosi embankment in Nepal that breached last August is an example of such structures. It is more than 50 years old.

Nepalese officials also point at the aging defences along the Gandak River, a tributary of the Ganga, that could result in a similar disaster.

Both embankments, sections of which are in Nepal, were built by India; and under a bilateral agreement, it is supposed to maintain and repair them.

"We are serious about these works," Indian water resources minister Saif-U-Din Soz told the BBC.

"We have flood control as our top priority when it comes to managing water resources together with our neighbours," he said recently, just before Nepal and India signed an agreement on safeguarding measures for both embankments.

But there are many such structures in the region - some of them already in urgent need of repair.

Experts say the safeguards have not developed at the required pace, and this is causing concern.

"The present technology only takes care of water," says Indian flood expert Dinesh Mishra.

"Yet, most problems are caused by the silt the rivers bring along and the [current] technology does not take care of it."

The Kosi is one of the world's highest silt-yielding rivers. While the challenge silt-yielding rivers pose to dams and defences is yet to be properly dealt with, huge new river-taming infrastructures are in the pipeline.

For instance, the Indian government has been working on a massive project that aims to link major river systems.

The basic idea is that water can be transferred from flood prone areas to drought-hit regions. That would again involve a huge infrastructure network.

"Given the state of such infrastructures in the region and given the increasing flood events, the threat is certainly on the rise," says Nishat.

"You therefore need regional planning from mountains to the sea."

In the climate change action plan it launched earlier this year, India hinted it would initiate regional efforts to deal with many of these problems.

Without addressing the issue of weakening infrastructures across and along trans-boundary rivers, such regional efforts could lead to valuable resources needed to strengthen existing defences being invested elsewhere.

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