US pledges $40M for 'Amazon of the Seas'

Veronica Uy, The Philippines Inquirer 23 Oct 08;

MANILA, Philippines—The United States government on Thursday pledged $40 million to help save the marine and coastal ecosystems in East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands that comprise the Coral Triangle, which is also known as the Amazon of the Seas for its biodiversity.

A statement from the US embassy here said US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney made the pledge to support international effort at stopping the degradation of the area believed to be the world's greatest expanse of mangrove, coral reef, and fish
biodiversity.

"The Coral Triangle is under threat from pollution, unsustainable fishing practices, and climate change," it said.

The embassy said the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of State will provide the fund over five years to the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), a consortium formed to promote sustainable fisheries and coastal resource management programs in the six countries that comprise the Coral Triangle.

The CTI seeks to protect the Coral Triangle, an area of six million square kilometers of ocean and coasts where the Indian and Pacific oceans meet and is home to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs and represents 75 percent of the known coral species.

"The Coral Triangle Initiative builds on three decades of assistance that the US government has provided for coastal resources management in the Asia-Pacific," Kenney said.

Part of the USAID fund goes to a consortium of NGOs, including the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International to protect the Coral Triangle by working with government and private-sector partners. It also supports scientific research in the Coral Triangle.

"The degradation of the Coral Triangle is so great that we must hurry to preserve the best of it," said Dr. J.E.N. "Charlie" Veron, the marine scientist who maintains that the Coral Triangle is the global epicenter for marine life.

"The CTI will encourage responsible fishing practices while raising the profile of the CT6 and their marine ecosystems [and] that will attract tourist dollars, generate local income, and encourage changes in laws to support conservation," he said.

According to the US embassy, the Coral Triangle's marine and coastal resources -- and the goods and services they provide -- are threatened by over-fishing, blast and cyanide fishing, sedimentation and other forms of pollution from coastal development, poor agricultural practices and deforestation, and ocean acidification due to global
warming.

These factors are adversely affecting the region's fish, coral, and mangroves, as well as the 120 million people dependent on them for their livelihood.

In the Philippines, the fishing industry employs more than a million people, or five percent of the national labor force. The country is the world's 11th largest fish producer.

"However, its resources are declining and its biodiversity is under threat due to human activities," the embassy said.

To enhance regional security and prosperity, the CTI will address the challenges of food security, sustainable livelihoods, responsible trade, good governance, biodiversity preservation, and climate change. "These are issues that cross geographical and political boundaries," it said.

"The CTI will be a great benefit the people of the Philippines and, in particular, to the children of the Philippines and their children's children," said Kenney.

Other partners to the project are the Asian Development Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Development Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the Australian government, the Walton Family Foundation, and the NGO consortium, all under the leadership of the CT6 governments.

"A cross-border effort like the CTI is vital to restore the Coral Triangle's ecosystems," said Olivier Carduner, director of USAID's Regional Development Mission for Asia, noting that tuna might breed in one country's waters, mature in another's, and then migrate and be caught anywhere in the Pacific region.

"By coordinating our efforts, leveraging our funds, uniting our political will, and reaching out to key stakeholders, we can save these extraordinary marine ecosystems," he said.

US govt pledges 40 million dollars to preserve Asia reefs
AFP 23 Oct 08;

MANILA (AFP) — The United States has pledged nearly 40 million dollars to save the world's greatest expanse of coral reef, mangrove and fish ecosystems, the US embassy in Manila said Thursday.

Ambassador Kristie Kenney announced the fresh aid during a regional conference on the so-called "Coral Triangle".

The six million square-kilometre (2.3 million square-mile) expanse of water and coastline where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet contains the greatest concentration of marine organisms anywhere in the world, scientists say.

The area, which is home to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs and three-quarters of known coral species, is under threat from pollution, unsustainable fishing practices and climate change, Kenney told the conference.

The assistance -- worth 39.45 million dollars -- will go to the Coral Triangle Initiative, a consortium formed to promote sustainable fisheries and coastal resource management programmes in East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands.

"The Coral Triangle Initiative builds on three decades of assistance that the US government has provided for coastal resources management in the Asia-Pacific," Kenney said.

The conference was also told that an agreement binding all six nations to protect the coral triangle will be signed by national leaders in Indonesia next year.

"While coral reefs and mangroves may be static, migratory species, pollution, climate change and illegal fishing do not respect national boundaries," Philippine Environment Secretary Lito Atienza told the conference.

Atienza said the agreement was a "grand experiment" to show that neighbours could work together to conserve their common natural resources.

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Honolulu Declaration Offers Ways to Curb Ocean Acidification

NBC Chicago 23 Oct 08;

"Difficult to detect, irreversible and the largest and most significant threat that oceans face today."

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii, August 27, 2008 (ENS) - As the oceans absorb increasing amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, they are becoming increasingly acid, weakening the world's coral reefs. Top marine scientists and The Nature Conservancy offered a plan to combat ocean acidification that includes limits on fossil fuel emissions, reduction of stress on reefs, and creation of marine protected areas to build resilience of tropical marine ecosystems.

The plan is contained in the Honolulu Declaration on Ocean Acidification and Reef Management, which the scientists presented Wednesday to the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force gathered in Kailua-Kona for their last meeting during the International Year of the Reef.

The Honolulu Declaration contains the findings and recommendations of a workshop convened by The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii earlier this month. Participants included climate and marine scientists and coral reef managers from the United States and Australia - two of the countries with the world's largest stretches of coral reefs.

"The reefs of the world are at risk, and Hawaii's isolated reefs are especially vulnerable to stresses of any kind, particularly to the rapidly emerging stress brought on by climate change," said Rod Salm, director of tropical marine conservation for the Conservancy's Asia-Pacific program.

"Ocean acidification is creeping, progressive, and insidious - likened by one workshop participant to osteoporosis of the reef - a weakening of the reef structure that makes corals more vulnerable to breakage from waves and human use," Salm told the task force.

He was speaking to members of the outgoing Bush administration, as the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force is co-chaired by the departments of Commerce and of the Interior, and includes leaders of 12 federal agencies, seven U.S. states and territories, and three associated states. Their stated mission is to lead, coordinate, and strengthen U.S. government actions to better preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems.

"Because it is difficult to detect, unlike mass coral bleaching, we don't know whether we have reached or surpassed the critical thresholds for any coral species, such as we have for temperature thresholds," Salm said.

Not only is ocean acidification hard to detect, he warned, ocean acidification is potentially irreversible.

In July, scientists at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Florida declared acidification as the largest and most significant threat that oceans face today. Current estimates show that all coral reefs could be gone by the end of the century or, in the worst case scenario, possibly decades sooner, Salm pointed out.

"Coral reefs are the lifeblood of our oceans and we depend on them for survival," said Suzanne Case, executive director of The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii. "Without urgent action to limit carbon dioxide emissions and improve management of marine protected areas, even vast treasured reefs like the Great Barrier Reef and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands will become wastelands of dead coral."

"The Honolulu Declaration offers tangible and practical steps we can take now to prevent further ocean acidification and ensure the survival of our vitally important and irreplaceable rainforests of the sea," she said.

The ocean absorbs about one-third of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which dissolves in seawater and causes an increase in acidification and a decrease in the amount of carbonate available for calcifying organisms like corals to build their skeletons.

"If current emission trends continue," Salm told the task force, "we could see a doubling of atmospheric CO2 in a little as 50 years; and ocean acidification will continue to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years."

Some scientists believe that Hawaii reefs will succumb faster to the impacts of ocean acidification because they exist in isolation and at a higher latitude in cooler waters. Research shows that CO2 is absorbed more readily in cooler than warmer ocean waters.

Hawaii's reefs are far removed from other coral reef systems, at the very edge of the region where reefs can grow, which means that any change in water temperature or chemistry results in greater stress and consequence, workshop participants said.

"It is clear that seawater chemistry will change in coming decades and centuries in ways that will dramatically alter marine life," said Joan Kleypas, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a workshop participant and signer of the Honolulu Declaration.

"We are only beginning to understand the complex interactions between large-scale chemistry changes and marine ecology. It is vital to develop research strategies to better understand the long-term vulnerabilities of sensitive marine organisms to these changes," Kleypas said in 2006, upon publication of her report on the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on marine life.

Workshop participant Richard Feely, who also signed the Honolulu Declaration, is an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. He said ocean acidification "is leading to the most dramatic changes in marine chemistry in at least the past 650,000 years."

Salm called workshop a landmark meeting of minds that created a solid foundation for a new era of coral reef conservation, and said that action steps proposed by the group, if enacted, will help to save coral reefs from escalating destruction.

"While the consequences of inaction are too depressing to contemplate, there is good news," said Salm. "Our workshop showed that there are some practical steps we can take to buy time for coral reefs while CO2 levels are stabilized; that there is hope for coral reefs if we act now."

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Best of our wild blogs: 23 Oct 08

Crane barge to work off Sentosa's natural shore
on the wild shores of singapore blog

The origin of the name “Lazarus” Island?
on the compressed air junkie blog

Plain-pouched Hornbill’s eyelashes
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Join the upcoming Chek Jawa boardwalk tour
on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs blog

Read more!

Perak constructing more artificial reefs to boost fish production

More fish with fake reefs
Clara Chooi, The Star 23 Oct 08;

THE Fisheries Department in Perak is constructing more artificial reefs to boost the production of fish to meet demands by the public who opted for marine-based food supply for health reasons.


Department deputy director-general Datuk Ahamad Sabki Mahmood said people were becoming more health conscious and looking for an alternative source of protein.

“People are becoming more health conscious these days and eating fish is a good, staple diet.

“We do not want this trend to deplete our fish supply and as such the construction of artificial reefs would boost marine production,” he said after witnessing the launch of the first recreational artificial reef in Sitiawan, some 90km from Ipoh on Tuesday.

Ahamad Sabki added that the department was working hard towards meeting the country’s target to produce at least two million metric tonnes of fish annually.

“Our current consumption stands at 1.2 million metric tonnes. We believe that with the construction of more artificial reefs like this one, we can boost the production and multiply the creation of more fish colonies,” he said.

He added that under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a total of RM9.4mil had been allocated for the purpose of creating artificial reefs - recreational reefs for local fishermen and the larger “seabed” reefs to help create new colonies of fish.

“These reefs can also deter fishing trawlers from encroaching into prohibited zones and hence destroying the environment,” he said.

The prohibited zones, he said, included waters that were less than five nautical miles from the shore or marine parks.

Ahamad Sabki said that to date, the department had spent some 70% of the 9MP allocation with artificial reefs placed in Terengganu, Pahang, Labuan and now Perak.

The reefs, he said, were made of concrete tetrapods (a four-legged concrete structure) stacked upon one another that would serve as ‘homes’ to the demersal or deep-water fishes.

“They like to play around the blocks and will treat the place as their new ‘apartment’. The concrete material, though expensive, lasts very long underwater and allows encrustation of corals and minerals over time,” he said.

During the launch, the department lowered 60 units of artificial reefs into the waters of Pulau Sembilan, off Kampung Acheh in Sitiawan.

“We will also be placing 14 units of the ‘seabed’ reefs in Teluk Intan,” he said, adding that the cost for both reefs amounted to RM300,000.

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Floating island to house foreign workers

House them on self-contained island
Letter from Timmy Tng, Today Online 23 Oct 08;

IF JAPAN could build a floating airport in the middle of the sea, we can also build a self-contained floating island to house foreign workers. It can be linked with a bridge to the mainland. The benefits are: Free up land on the mainland; reduce social tension; better control of mainland security; and reduce the strain on our public transport system.

The authorities should give this idea of a floating city some serious thought.

A step forward into the past?
Idea of floating dormitories smacks of segregation
John Kwok, Today Online 23 Oct 08;

I REFER to the report, “Floating Dormitories?” (Oct 20).

The news report could well have been published in late 18th-century London. After the American war of independence in 1775, Britain could no longer transport convicts to penal colonies in America, and with the city’s prisons overcrowded, a plan was conceived to convert a number of large decommissioned naval vessels into places of confinement — floating prisons.

It took a lot less time and money to construct these floating prisons than to build new prisons on land.

Moored securely on the River Thames in what was meant to be a two-year temporary measure, these floating prisons, or Hulks, remained afloat and in operation for 80 years long.

Those familiar with the classic Great Expectations by Charles Dickens would have read about London’s Hulks in the opening chapter. Convicts sentenced to be transported (in other words exiled), would be put on these Hulks until asuitable time, means and location could be found to transport them.

And who were those convictsdestined for the Hulks?

These floating prison ships were a product of a society that wanted nothing to do with the city’s “undesirables”, the underclass and poor.

Hulks belonged to a time and society that was more conscious about its image and status. And in the years that these floating “temporary” measures were in place, the Hulks were crammed and overcrowded with petty convicts.

The English, back in the 18th century, had found that floating communities were a good place to house groups of people that were not socially accepted by mainstream society until an alternate solution could be found. And when the alternative solution was found, it was called Australia, that is, the convicts were transferred to other ships and sent to the new continent.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to the 21st century, utilising floating structures could be a good solution in land-scarce Singapore.

But we are also revisiting an old and tested method of segregation — a floating community that is kept at a distance determined by the length of a mooring rope.

While this may start off as a good plan by optimising space and technology to house a transient population of foreign workers, there is this inherent danger that the floating dormitories of this age may be interpreted as a step back to the age-old policy of segregation.

As such, Singaporeans need to be prudent of proposals that, in spite of their good intentions, may be interpreted otherwise.

The writer is a Singaporean postgraduate researcher with the University ofWollongong, Australia.

Structures should not be penalised?
Letter from Brydon Timothy Wang, Perth, Australia
Today Online 25 Oct 08;

I REFER to the commentary, “A stepforward into the past” (Oct 23) by Mr John Kwok.

Floating dormitories have the additional benefit of being used as emergency housing. This is particularly important given the natural disasters that have affected the surrounding regions.

While floating structures retain, by their flexible location and “blue field” site (that is, no surrounding neighbourhoods), the ability to incorporate sensitive programmes, such as nuclear reactors, sewage treatment plants, et cetera, away from the mainland — the structures should not be penalised for this outstanding advantage, neither should the decision-makers who site these structures be perceived as attempting to demarcate social boundaries.

The reality is that discrimination and perceptions of superiority can only be tackled with proper community engagement and education. Raising such issues in a debate about the effectiveness and strength of a proposed technology only serves to muddy the issue.

Other questions and points the author could have easily raised include the possible reduction in travelling time exacted on workers by having these structures located closer to their work sites or how proper standards applied to these facilities can ensure a higher quality of life for these workers.

In fact, the author would certainly have realised the great potential these floating dormitories have in relieving pressures on residential land holdings in coastal Australia where they are facing accommodation strain. I appreciate the writer’s comments, but environmentally, socially and economically, the technology offers an urban design solution that is as akinto prison boats as an apple to an orange.

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More willing to recycle with trial chute

Today Online 23 Oct 08;

A trial at Choa Chu Kang showed that people are motivated to recycle more waste if it is made more convenient.

After a block of HDB flats in the estate had been retrofitted to convert an unused refuse chute into a chute for recyclables, the recycling participation rate of its households increased from 67 per cent inDec 2006 to 93 per cent in July last year.

The amount of recyclables collected through the separate chute was 850kg per month, more than eight times higher than the typical amount of recyclables collected from a block of HDB flats.

In a written reply to a Parliamentary question about the project, Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said that separate chutes for recyclables will also be provided in four new HDB blocks at Fernvale Vista in Sengkang, at the new eco-precinct Treelodge@Punggol and at the first two HDB projects for the renewal of Dawson estate in Queenstown.

“These projects would allow HDB to ascertain the additional costs that come with providing the separate recycling chutes, as well as further assess residents’ receptiveness and monitor the performance of the system, before considering the large-scale implementation of separate recycling chutes,” Dr Yaacob replied to the query by Dr Lim Wee Kiak (Sembawang GRC).

For condominiums and private apartments, the Environmental and Public Health Act was amended recently to mandate the provision of recycling receptacles. The law will come into effect on Nov 1 and will be fully implemented next year.

Convenient chutes promote recycling
Household participation in HDB pilot scheme hit 93% in July last year
Judith Tan & Seow Kai Lun, Straits Times 24 Oct 08;

HOUSEWIFE H. K. Chua, 38, used to drive 10 minutes to a nearby primary school to throw her recyclables into a bin provided.

But since a chute just for such refuse was installed on every level of her block of flats in Choa Chu Kang Avenue 2, her green trip is now a mere five steps away.The separate chutes for recyclable refuse such as bottles, cans and papers are part of a pilot project to make it convenient for households in the heartland to be environmentally-friendly. Block 297C Choa Chu Kang Ave 2 where Madam Chua lives was the testbed.

Called the Recyclable Intermediate Chute Holding (Rich) system, it was developed by SembEnviro and installed next to the existing rubbish chute on every floor of the HDB block in December 2006.

Unlike the current centralised refuse chutes, which collect rubbish at ground level, Rich allows recyclable materials to be stored on intermediate floors.

A spokesman for SembEnviro told The Straits Times that these are collected every week.

Within the first seven months, the participation rate of households in recycling increased to 93 per cent in July last year, from 67 per cent at the start of the programme. The scheme also resulted in an average of 850kg of recyclables collected a month - eight times that collected from any other HDB block.

The impressive increase in recyclable waste collected at the Choa Chu Kang block was brought up by Environment Minister Yaacob Ibrahim in Parliament during a question-and-answer session on Wednesday.

A Straits Times check with 16 households in the green block, comprising mainly young and three-tier families, found that most were motivated by the convenience to recycle more.

Mrs Zahiriah Ibrahim, 39, a teacher, said her maid separated the daily rubbish into two piles, recyclable and non-recyclable, before disposing of the materials.

'Since it is mixed recyclables, I hope SembCorp follows through by separating the different recyclables. I try to do my part by putting the different types of recyclables into different bags,' she said.

Student Stelle Tan, 16, said she would not 'go in search of a bin on purpose just to dump my recyclables'.

'But if the chute is just a hop away, I have no reason not to,' she said.

And should the adults forget, their children and grandchildren serve as their green conscience. Madam Lim Tong Hoi, 69, says her grandchildren would constantly tell her to 'separate the plastics and cans from other rubbish and put them in the right bin'.

Primary school pupil Cadance Chew, seven, said: 'My teacher taught me at school that we must separate what can be recycled. So I try to remind my parents that we need to be green and to throw the newspapers down the recycling chute.'

Madam Sheila Narendran, 31, said the chute outside her flat acts as an extension of what the children are being taught in school. 'At home, with the chute being conveniently located, we just continue the practice of recycling,' she said.

But Madam Chua lamented that the hoppers should be bigger. 'Currently if recyclable stuff does not fit into the hopper, I will carry it downstairs. How many others can be bothered to do the same?' she asked.

Despite that, with the encouraging results from this testbed block, a spokesman for the National Environment Agency said HDB would be providing separate chutes for recyclables in the Eco-Precinct of Treelodge@Punggol and Fernvale Vista in Sengkang.

Separate chutes for recyclables will also be installed at the first two projects under the new generation public housing in the regenerated Dawson estate.

Dr Yaacob said these smaller projects would allow the different agencies to check additional costs, make sure residents are receptive and to monitor the performance of the system 'before considering the large-scale implementation of separate recycling chutes'.

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Businesswoman wins innovation prize for use of technology and green materials

Keeping it lean and green?
Kelvin Chow Today Online 23 Oct 08;

Spotting wastage in the bulk packaging business, Ms Susan Chong set up a companies that offers environmentally-friendly solutions for firms.

The managing director of Greenpac (S) looked around for suppliers who could provide packaging employing reusable or environmentally friendly materials. At the same time, she aimed to help customers maximise the space in their containers, so that they could save on transport costs.

All this while keeping her staffing low — she started with just two employees in 2002 and now employs about 20.

Ms Chong instead relied on machinery and information technology such as Radio Frequency Identification tags that track the goods.

Yesterday, her company’s green ways and innovative use of technology won her the Entrepreneur of the Year Award for Innovation, for “her high level of engagement in adopting information and process technologies in her business strategy,” said the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises (ASME).

Ms Chong said: “It is an honour to win this award and this is a good report card for my business.” She added that she intends to move into markets such as the United States and Japan in the future.

Her award was one of four sub-categories at the annual Entrepreneur of the Year award ceremony, Singapore’s oldest award for entrepreneurship. The award is co-organised by ASME and Rotary Club Singapore.

Mr Charles Wong, managing director of Charles & Keith International, was overall winner, coming out ahead of 16 other finalists.

Other awards went to:

• Mr Charles Wong of Charles & Keith International, Mr Ivan Lee of ThaiExpress Concepts, andMr David Loke of Tru-Marine were named Entrepreneurs of the Year for Enterprise.

• Mr Mohamed Ismail of P & N Holdings was named Entrepreneur of the Year for eCommerce.

• Mr Patrick Liew of HSR International Realtors for Entrepreneur of the Year for Social Contribution.

Speaking at the awards ceremony last night, Minister of Defence Teo Chee Hean said that Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore so far appear to be coping with the economic challenges, thanks to strong growth in recent years.

Mr Teo also advised small businesses to venture abroad and seek new opportunities in untapped markets. “While traditional markets such as US and Europe are heavily affected by the economic down-turn, there remain opportunities elsewhere for our SMEs to tap on,” he said.

Ms Valerie Tan from Pinnacle International, who was one of the finalists, has already done just that, by setting up business development units around Central Asia for her car trading company.

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'The AVA should start culling the monkey population'

Brazen monkeys
Straits Times Forum 23 Oct 08;

MADAM TAN GEK KIM: 'Recently, wild monkeys have started to appear in my garden in Clementi Park. When I tried to shoo them off, they bared their teeth and advanced towards me. I ran into the house and closed the windows and doors. Subsequently, my two big dogs barked at two monkeys which tried to find a way into my kitchen. Again they bared their teeth at me when I tried to shoo them off, unafraid of humans or dogs.

When I called the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) to solve the problem, the AVA offered me the loan of monkey traps for two weeks and said they would retrieve any trapped monkey if I caught it.

The AVA said the reason monkeys ventured into residences in the first place was that people feed them. Such monkeys expected to be fed. The AVA should start culling monkeys, rather than wait for the population to swell uncontrollably.'

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Amur Leopards benefit from Russian conservation concession

WWF website 22 Oct 08;

Vladivostok, Russia – For the first time ever, a partnership between WWF and a for-profit timber company has been awarded a “conservation concession” to restore approximately 10% of the critically endangered Amur leopard’s habitat.

The Forest Department of Primorskii Province in the Russian Far East has leased out a forest area of 45,000ha in the south-west of Primorye, which straddles Vladivostok and the Chinese boarder, to the Nerpinskoye Cooperative Society (also known as Nerpinskii rybcoop) for the next 25 years.

The last remaining viable wild population of Amur leopard, estimated at less than 40 individuals, is found in this area and WWF and Nerpinskii rybkoop plan to implement a project that will increase biodiversity by selectively removing oak trees, which will open the forest canopy and make way for the more valuable and native spruce, Korean pine and Manchurian fir trees.

“Deer and wild boar do much better in a diverse forest with a smattering of nut crops that come into season at different times throughout the year – that’s a good thing for the Amur leopard,” said Dr. Darron Collins, the managing director for the WWF US Amur program. “By recreating the biodiversity of the area, WWF and Nerpinskkii are making it more valuable for humans and species alike.”

Funds generated from the small scale extraction of timber will be reinvested in the fire prevention and careful tending of forest stands required to improve the ecological integrity of these forests. The project hopes to increase the coverage of mixed coniferous and broadleaved forests by 33% over the next 40 years.

“Only lease holders with long term rights to forest resources on forest use would be prepared to invest the time and energy to restore the forest. We’ve been looking for a reliable partner for this project for many years,“ said Denis Smirnov, head of Forest Program of WWF Russia’s Amur Programme. “Nerpinskii rybcoop, a well-known enterprise in Khasanskii district of Primorye, has become such a partner.”

The restoration project will also provide income to local communities in the area through employment in forestry and the sale of Korean pine nuts and charcoal. In such a case, restoration takes on a much larger meaning as forests and communities are restored.

“One of the most important conditions of project success is its economic advantages for the holder,” said Georgii Dmitriev, the chairman of board of directors of Nerpinskii rybcoop. “The project idea is to make forest restoration activity profitable by means of complex processing of low quality wood, coming from tending cutting in Korean pine stands.”

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US cracks down on illegal logging

WWF website 22 Oct 08;

US trade in products containing illegally logged wood, which costs developing countries an estimated $15 billion a year in lost revenue, may soon be a thing of the past.

Prohibition on trade in illegally logged wood products was passed in May this year, and now US government officials have presented proposals which outline how the new law is to be implemented.

They focused on a phased-in approach for the requirement to declare the origin and species of the plant material contained in a wide variety of products.

Representatives from the Department of Agriculture, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Interior and the Department of Justice were involved.

“By banning the import of illegally harvested wood products, this measure will help level the playing field for companies, such as those participants of WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network, that are committed to ensuring that their purchases of forest products support legal and responsible logging practices,” said Bruce Cabarle, Director of WWF-US Forest Programme.

The Agencies announced that the enforcement of the declaration requirement will begin on April 1st, 2009 for plants, timber and solid wood products, to coincide with the availability of a web-based declaration system.

Other products of concern, such as furniture and paper, will be phased in subsequently over a two-year time frame.

At the meeting, the Department of Justice emphasized its intention to enforce these prohibitions, suggesting that it was no longer acceptable for wood purchasers to remain ignorant of the source of their material.

"We are very encouraged that importers, retailers and manufacturers have joined us in supporting practical steps to stop the importation of stolen wood," said Alexander von Bismarck, Executive Director of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA).

“This commitment by the U.S. government represents a historic breakthrough for international efforts to control deforestation and protect the global environment.”

Illegally logged wood also contributes to the 20 per cent of annual total greenhouse gas emissions caused by deforestation and has been shown to support organized crime around the world.

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How Oil Drilling Could Power the Future in the US

Michael Schirber, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 22 Oct 08;

Editor's Note: Each Wednesday LiveScience examines the viability of emerging energy technologies - the power of the future.

"Drill, baby, drill," is the mantra of those who think America must free up its domestic oil supplies, but drilling offshore is not the only option.

The United States is the third largest oil producer in the world (about 8 million barrels per day), but it is also the number one consumer of oil (20 million barrels per day).

Polls have shown that a majority of Americans want an increase in offshore drilling. In response, Congress let a 27-year-old moratorium on offshore oil drilling expire at the end of last month. This put into play about 16 billion barrels of oil (or about 21 percent of U.S. offshore resources), according to the Department of Energy (DOE).

However, this is just a drop in the bucket.

"We have significant oil and natural gas resources here in the United States," said Richard Ranger, a senior policy advisor for the American Petroleum Institute. He quoted government estimates that say federal lands have 116.4 billion barrels of undiscovered technically recoverable oil, which could power 65 million cars for 60 years.

Even more oil is out there beyond what is "technically recoverable."

For example, new technologies called enhanced oil recovery (EOR) can pump out some of the oil left stranded by standard extraction techniques (which can only reach about a third of the oil in a reservoir). The United States could get 240 billion barrels from EOR, according to a 2006 DOE report.

And then there is oil locked up in sand and rock. Colorado and other western states have the world's largest deposits of oil shale: a sedimentary rock containing a solid oily substance. If better extraction methods can be devised, American oil shale could supply roughly 2 trillion barrels-worth of oil, which is more than double all the traditional crude oil that humans have has so far used.

Unknown potential

With all this oil presumably there for the taking, why then the political drive to open up drilling offshore, or in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR)?

"Industry is already aggressively pursuing the oil and natural gas potential of lands that are not off limits," Ranger told LiveScience. "But in order to maximize the ability to develop energy resource potential within our own borders, we need to be able to have access to those areas where the energy potential exists, but may not be well understood."

There may be much more oil offshore than people have thought. A recent example of how oil resources are sometimes underestimated is the Gulf of Mexico, where oil companies have so far produced more than double the oil that was predicted in 1984 to be available at the site, Ranger said.

Advocates for more drilling say that we can't know what's there without looking.

"When Americans are allowed to drill, even on the small 4 percent of government lands that we are permitted to even look, our oil and gas reserves go up," reads a statement from the Institute of Energy Research.

Diversify

Ranger thinks the right strategy is to pursue several options, including "removal of barriers to domestic production, encouragement of energy efficiency and conservation to reduce demand, and encouragement of investment in long-term energy initiatives and advanced technologies, including renewables."

Among these options is EOR, which can obtain an extra 20 percent of oil from mature oil fields and so-called "marginal oil wells." One way to do this is by pumping carbon dioxide underground to help force more oil out of the ground. As such, this would double as a carbon sequestration scheme.

Ranger quoted a recent report from the National Petroleum Council, which says that streamlining regulation and increasing research and development in EOR could result in an additional 90 billion to 200 billion barrels of oil in the United States.

"The opportunity for nearer term production is probably greater with EOR, but the opportunity for discovery of new reserves in significant amounts is probably greater [with offshore and ANWR]," Ranger said.

Other possibilities, such as oil shale, are further out. Some countries, including Estonia and China, use shale oil for heating and electricity generation, but making gasoline is still a challenge.

"The technology to extract energy fuels from oil shale at scale remains in the developmental stage," Ranger said.

The U.S. government's recent $700 billion bailout could help. It includes a 50 percent tax break for the building of refineries that process oil shale, as well as tar sands.

Environmental concerns

None of these options appeal to environmentalists. It is not yet clear that burying carbon dioxide underground is safe or effective, while the mining of oil shale could affect large strands of wilderness and require great quantities of water.

Perhaps the most immediate concern, though, is offshore drilling.

"Offshore is dangerous because of increased spillage caused by increasingly violent storms, fueled by climate change," said Greenpeace spokesperson Daniel Kessler.

It was the threat of oil spills and their impact on beaches and marine environments that originally led to the U.S. moratorium on offshore drilling.

Ranger says that drilling no longer poses the same dangers. New technologies, such as blowout preventers and high-pressure safety valves that close automatically, have greatly reduced the chances of accidental spills.

Other advances are also lessening the impact of drilling. Remote sensing, for example, has improved the success rate for finding oil reservoirs by as much as 50 percent, Ranger said.

"The result: fewer wells need to be drilled to find a given target and production per well is increased," Ranger said.

Environmentalists like Kessler aren't convinced that any new wells need to be drilled.

"The most salient point is that we don't need these resources," he said. "We have the technology available right now to reduce our demand and to transfer over to an economy fueled by renewable energy."

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Seoul turns to bicycles to combat global warming

Yahoo News 22 Oct 08;

SEOUL (AFP) – The Seoul city government has announced plans to build 207 kilometres (129 miles) of cycle paths over the next four years extending to all corners of the South Korean capital, according to officials.

The 120-billion-won (88-million-dollar) plan is based on a "road diet" programme, under which the number of lanes for passenger vehicles in major roads will be cut to create new cycle paths.

It calls for the construction of 17 main cycle paths totaling 200 kilometres that criss-cross the sprawling city and one downtown seven-kilometre beltway.

"Any urban areas where commuters only rely on vehicles burning fuel cannot avoid blame for global warming and traffic congestion," Seoul City Mayor Oh Se-Hoon said on Wednesday, on the city government's website.

"We will make sure that bicycles will compete with vehicles for commuting in Seoul," said Oh, who rides his bicycle to work every day.

Only 1.6 percent of all commuters use bicycles in Seoul, partly due to a lack of dedicated paths. The city government wants to increase this to 4.4 percent in 2012, 7.6 percent in 2016, and 10 percent in 2020.

The city will also construct bicycle parks at 16 subway stations -- complete with shower rooms and lockers for cyclists before they transit to the subway.

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"New Deal" Approach Needed For Climate Change – UN

PlanetArk 23 Oct 08;

LONDON - The world should take a leaf from US President Franklin Roosevelt's playbook for tackling the Great Depression and fund a "Green New Deal" to fight climate change, a UN agency proposed.

A two-year United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) initiative launched on Wednesday would promote research into marketing tools, such as Europe's carbon emissions trading scheme initiated in 2005, to aid the environment.

This is because political efforts to curb pollution, protect forests and avert climate change have proven "totally inadequate", UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said.

He noted that a huge banking bailout had been mobilised in just four weeks, while the response to climate change was slow.

From 1981 to 2005 the global economy more than doubled, but 60 percent of the world's ecosystems -- for example fisheries and forests -- were either degraded or over-used.

"That's the balance sheet of our planet right now," he said.

A successor to the Kyoto Protocol, the pioneering global pact to fight climate change, set to be agreed in Copenhagen by the end of next year appears more remote than a year ago, Steiner said.

"We're further from a deal in Copenhagen than we were at the end of the Bali conference," he said, referring to the launch of talks on the successor pact last December in Indonesia.

"But does that mean we will not have one? No.

"The difficulty is that there is no deal based on national interest alone. Quite frankly the levels of financing being discussed right now are totally inadequate to allow such a deal to emerge."

British Environment Minister Hilary Benn, hosting the launch, said the UNEP proposal was right in tune with the thinking of Roosevelt, from whom he quoted approvingly:

"'The nation that destroys its soil destroys itself.'"

(Reporting by Gerard Wynn, editing by Michael Roddy)

UN announces green 'New Deal' plan to rescue world economies
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 22 Oct 08;

A global green 'New Deal' is needed to transform the world's economies, according to a new UN report.

It would be similar to Franklin D Roosevelt's New Deal which helped the US recover from the Great Depression of the 1930s.

But it would be aimed at a fundamental restructuring of economies weaning away dependence on oil and towards cleaner and more sustainable sources of energy.

The Green Economy Initiative from the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) calls for global economies which invest in better care and management of the Earth's natural resources such as rainforests and oceans.

Rather than more boom and bust cycles and the continued asset stripping of dwindling resources, the new green system would nurture and re-invest in them.

It would refocus the global economy, create growth, trigger a 21st century employment boom and at the same time combat climate change, it is claimed.

Launching the report in London Achim Steiner, UNEP executive director, said the worldwide financial crisis had created an historic opportunity to replace a system which had seen the world's GDP double between 1981-2005 but which had resulted in 60 per cent of the Earth's ecosystem being degraded while 2.6bn people were still living on less than $2 per day.

He said the financial, food and fuel crises of 2008 had been caused by speculation and a failure by governments to regulate markets but they were also part of a wider market failure which was eating away the world's natural resources.

The system was also over-reliant on a finite amount of fossil fuels - coal, oil and gas - which were often subsidised.

"The flip side of the coin is the enormous economic, social and environmental benefits likely to arise from combating climate change and reinvesting in natural infrastructure - benefits ranging from new green jobs in clean teach and clean energy businesses up to ones in sustainable agriculture and conservation-based enterprises," he said.

Mr Steiner said that even though the world's focus was on the financial crisis, the pressing problems of food, fuel, energy and especially climate change had not altered and the world had no alternative but to reach a deal at the climate conference in Copenhagen next year.

"We need to accelerate towards a green economy. We are talking about nothing less than the transformation of our economies in effect a global green New Deal," he said.

"There will be challenges in bringing about this transformation but there are enormous opportunities and potential and it pays us to do so but governments need to change the signals about how the markets work."

The report has identified six keys areas which would underpin the New Deal:

*Clean energy, cleaner technologies including recycling

* Rural energy including renewables and sustainable biomass

*Sustainable agriculture

*Ecosystem infrastructure

*Reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation.

*Sustainable cities including planning, transport and buildings.

Pavan Sukdhev, a banker seconded to UNEP, who is leading an attempt to draw up an 'inventory' of the Earth's resources and what they are worth, said current economic models were now at the limit of what they could deliver.

"Investments will soon be pouring back into the global economy - the question is whether they go into the old, extractive short-term economy of yesterday or a new green economy that will deal with multiple challenges while generating multiple economic opportunities for the poor and the well-off alike."

The UNEP is developing a tool-kit for transforming economies which it will deliver to governments within the next two years.

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The heat is on – climate change gathers pace faster than scientists expected

WWF website 21 Oct 08;

Brussels, Belgium – Global warming is accelerating at a faster rate than climate change experts had previously predicted, according to a new compendium of scientific research released today by WWF.

In 2007, the Nobel Prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released their Fourth Assessment Report – a study of global warming that involved nearly 4,000 scientists from more than 150 countries.

However, the science of climate change has moved on in the year since this respected report was published. WWF’s new report, “Climate change: faster, stronger, sooner”, amalgamates this new scientific data and reveals that global warming is accelerating beyond the IPCC’s forecasts.

The report has received the support of climate change experts including Professor Jean-Pascal van Ypersele, Professor of Climatology and Environmental Sciences at the Université catholique de Louvain, Belgium, and newly elected Vice Chair of the IPCC, who said: “It is clear that climate change is already having a greater impact than most scientists had anticipated, so it’s vital that international mitigation and adaptation responses become swifter and more ambitious. The last IPCC report has shown that the reasons for concern are now stronger, and this should lead the EU to plead for a lower temperature target than the 2°C they adopted in 1996. But even with a 2°C target, the IPCC says that emission reductions between 25 and 40% compared to 1990 are needed by 2020 from developed countries. Reductions by 20% are therefore insufficient."

The latest science shows that the Arctic Ocean is losing sea ice up to 30 years ahead of IPCC predictions. It is now predicted that the summer sea ice could completely disappear between 2013 and 2040 – something that hasn’t occurred in more than a million years.

Based on recent scientific studies, the number and intensity of extreme cyclones over the British Isles and the North Sea are projected to increase, leading to increased wind speeds and storm-related losses over Western and Central Europe. The level of ozone, an air pollutant, is projected to be similar to that in the 2003 heat-wave, with major increases over England, Belgium, Germany and France. Annual maximum rainfall is also projected to increase in most parts of Europe, with associated flood risks and economic damages.

Marine ecosystems in the North and Baltic Sea are being exposed to the warmest temperatures measured since records began, while the Mediterranean is expected to experience increases in the frequency of long-term droughts. Glaciers in the Swiss Alps will continue to decrease, with reduction of hydropower production.

At a global level, sea level rise is expected to reach more than double the IPCC’s maximum estimate of 0.59m by the end of the century, putting vast coastal areas at risk. Rising temperatures have already led to a reduction in global yields of wheat, maize and barley.

“If the European Union wants to be seen as leader at UN talks in Copenhagen next year, and to help secure a strong global deal to tackle climate change after 2012, then it must stop shirking its responsibilities and commit to real emissions cuts within Europe,” says Dr. Tina Tin, Climate Scientist and author of the report.

WWF calls on the EU to adopt an emission reduction target of at least 30% below 1990 levels by 2020, to be delivered within the boundaries of the EU rather than relying heavily on offsetting overseas. The global conservation organisation also asks the EU to commit to providing substantial support and funding for developing countries, in order to help them tackle future climate change and adapt to those impacts that are already unavoidable.

“Climate change is a major challenge to the future of mankind and the environment, and this sobering overview highlights just how critical it is that EU Environment Ministers discussing the EU legislations against climate change today commit to a strong climate and energy package, in order to ensure a low carbon future,” said Dr. Tina Tin.

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