Best of our wild blogs: 27 Oct 08

Butterfly Photography at Butterfly Hill, Pulau Ubin
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog

The other side of St John's Island
on the wonderful creations blog

A handicapped Blue-winged Leafbird
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Jurong Lake will be developed sensitively

Straits Times Forum 27 Oct 08;

WE REFER to the letter, 'Will new Jurong Lake be eco-friendly?' (Oct 14).

We would like to assure Ms Charlotte Leong that, in realising our vision for Jurong Lake District as a unique lakeside destination for business and leisure, we are working to ensure that any new developments around Jurong Lake will not seriously affect the natural ecosystem and water quality.

As part of the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) project for Jurong Lake, PUB is carrying out dredging works to deepen the lake. The dredging works have stirred up sediment and caused the water to turn muddy. This is temporary and we will remain sensitive to the environmental impact of such works. A silt curtain has also been installed around the area being dredged, to minimise the amount of silt polluting the surrounding water.

Under the ABC Waters programme, a waterfront promenade, water feature deck and boardwalks will allow people to get closer to water. A geyser in the main water body of Jurong Lake will help to aerate and circulate the water. This will not disturb or affect the natural habitats in the area. Wetlands will be introduced along certain stretches of the banks to soften the shoreline, as well as create a conducive habitat for birds and other aquatic life to thrive. There will also be storyboards to showcase the development of Jurong Lake.

When completed, the ABC Waters project will not only enhance the aesthetics of Jurong lake, but also allow water-based activities such as kayaking to be conducted in the main water body.

As the Jurong Lake plan is still conceptual, we will continue to work closely with other government agencies such as the National Parks Board and the private sector to ensure that Jurong Lake will be developed in a sensitive and sustainable manner. We will also consider the necessary mitigating measures to minimise any potential impact to the ecosystem when the final plan is implemented.

Tan Nguan Sen
Director, Catchment and Waterways
PUB

Lim Eng Hwee
Assistant Chief Planner & Director (Physical Planning)
Urban Redevelopment Authority

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Australia's wetlands are drying up

ScienceAlert 27 Oct 08;
Charles Sturt University

Australia has failed to deliver on its obligation under the international Ramsar Convention to protect its wetlands, according to a senior wetland ecologist and environmental scientist at Charles Sturt University (CSU).

Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity and Director of CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, Max Finlayson, declared that since the Australian Government signed the convention in 1975, the condition of the nation’s wetlands have continued to decline while some have vanished.

“Australia played a big role in developing Ramsar. By signing the Convention it agreed to look after all its wetlands, not just those listed as internationally important under the Convention. Australia’s governments have failed dismally,” Professor Finlayson said.

The Wetlands for Our Future report, published on 22 October by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Inland Rivers Network, highlights the pallous state of wetlands around Australia, particularly in the Murray Darling Basin.

“According to the report, nearly 90 per cent of wetlands in the Basin have disappeared since Australia signed up to Ramsar, while the remainder are in poor or critical condition, including some Ramsar sites,” he said.

“We need to look again at how we manage our wetlands, including the ecosystem services that wetlands provide to people, those surrounding the wetland and further afield.

“Wetland managers have tried and at times succeeded in maintaining the biodiversity of some wetlands, but to maintain the ecological character of a wetland, we must also maintain the ecosystem services, whether it is providing food or timber for local people, regulating storm water and floods or recharging groundwater.”

Professor Finlayson has called for more consultation and involvement of wetland users and those who benefit from them.

“We will still need to make major trade-offs – make some real decisions about wetland use, benefits and values. For example, many river regulation and flood plain levees have been built without conscious and open consultation with those that are negatively affected. Just ask graziers downstream of the Queensland water harvesters of the need for consultation and the need to consider their needs and livelihoods!”

The call by the ‘Wetlands for our Future’ report for a National Wetland Initiative echoes demands by scientists to establish a national authority that cuts across state boundaries, that can rapidly improve wetland management, support private wetland managers, advise on policy and legislative changes to support these actions and to make effective use of the best available knowledge and expertise.

“And we should also add the need to identify ecosystem services and its wider values to Australian society to the initiative, which means better information to enable us to make the hard decisions about the values and trade-offs needed in working with landholders and community groups,” the professor said.

“To do this, I believe we need to move out of our environment or agricultural or water resource ‘boxes’. We need to consider land, people and biodiversity together – we need to consider conservation issues in agricultural management and agricultural issues in conservation management.

“We must not only halt the loss of our wetlands, but we need to support our land, our agriculture and our people in the process,” he concluded.

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Longlines kill endangered loggerhead sea turtles, report confirms

Terry Tomalin, St Petersburg Times 26 Oct 08;

ST. PETERSBURG — Commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico are catching endangered loggerhead sea turtles at an alarming rate, according to a new federal report.

Protected by federal law, the turtles are drowning when they get hooked on longlines, sometimes extending a mile or more along the ocean floor.

"The numbers are pretty alarming," said Tom Wheatley of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. "This is definitely an issue that will require action."

Most of the grouper landed in Florida are caught by boats that lay miles of monofilament fishing line, baited with thousands of hooks, across the sea bottom. This fishing method is effective but controversial.

Recreational anglers and conservationists charge that bottom longlines kill indiscriminately, catching everything from undersized grouper to protected species such as loggerhead sea turtles.

Until now, there was little data to support those charges, typically disputed by longliners.

But beginning in 2006, the National Marine Fisheries Service began placing official observers aboard longline vessels used in fishing for sharks and grouper.

During the study, which lasted a year and a half, federal observers went along on 34 fishing trips and documented 18 hooked sea turtles. Some of the turtles were dead, some comatose and some alive but injured.

Based on these numbers, federal officials estimate that each year, about 974 sea turtles are caught on longlines. Of those, 433 were released alive, 325 were released dead or unresponsive, and the remaining 216, were listed as unknown.

The results of this report, compiled by the fisheries service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, will be presented to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council when it meets this week in Mobile, Ala.

"This is a serious issue," said Dr. Roy Crabtree, administrator for the service's Southeast Region. "We will have to determine if this is going to have an impact on the continued existence of the loggerhead sea turtle."

David L. Allison, as senior campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, has asked Thomas McIlwain, the gulf council's chairman, to take immediate action.

"The newly available observer data from the fleet reveals that virtually one out of every two longline sets has at least one loggerhead sea turtle take, and furthermore, the mortality level of these takes may be equal to or greater than 50 percent," Allison wrote in a letter dated Oct. 13. "The estimated longline takes are nearly 8 times the level authorized."

The federal report comes at a particularly sensitive time for loggerhead sea turtle populations. The species suffered greatly in the 1980s, when more than 10,000 sea turtles were killed each year in shrimp trawls. The federal government eventually required the shrimp industry to begin using "turtle excluder devices" that eventually cut down on mortality.

About 90 percent of the world's loggerhead sea turtles nest on Florida's beaches. But in recent years, the number of documented sea turtle nests has steadily declined.

The final numbers for the 2008 nesting season will not be ready until December, said Blair Witherington, a biologist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But preliminary data shows the number of nests may have increased from 2007, one of the worst years in more than a decade.

Witherington bases this on reports from 33 beach sites, which account for 72 percent of the state's nesting sea turtles.

Last year, those sites reported 28,073 nests, compared with 38,643 this year.

"The numbers zig and zag a little, but in general, they have been going down" since 1998's peak of 59,918, Witherington said.

Conservationists blame many factors, including development and Red Tide, for the downward trend. But now, many believe longlines may be contributing to this decline.

"Longlines are adding to the problem," Witherington added. "The number of loggerhead sea turtles killed in fisheries is significant enough to affect population trends, and lo and behold, we are seeing declining numbers of sea turtle nests. It is a smoking gun, and we have a dead body."

Bob Spaeth, a commercial fishing boat owner who often represents his industry in dealings with the federal government, said he was surprised by the extent of the problem.

"We don't know why all of a sudden we are seeing all of these sea turtles on our lines," he said. "But we need to find a solution. Nobody wants to be out there killing sea turtles."

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Funding Becoming Harder To Get For Green Startups

Nichola Groom PlanetArk 27 Oct 08;

LOS ANGELES - Saving the planet is looking a lot less profitable than it was a few months ago, and investors once enamoured with finding the next high-flying alternative energy startup are retrenching.

Venture capitalists poured a record number of dollars into alternative energy companies as oil prices peaked at $147 in the third quarter, but some say that investment has trailed off substantially as crude prices declined and the global economy has slipped toward recession.

Not only are venture firms demanding lower valuations for what they call "cleantech" companies, they are also shying away from those with riskier technologies and startups whose business plans will require large amounts of capital.

"Our standard of investment has always been high, but it's even higher now," said Bryant Tong, managing director with San Francisco-based Nth Power, a venture capital firm that invests in energy technology startups. "Investors are hesitant to make investments... so it is harder across the board to raise capital for these companies."

Alternative energy in the last few years has become a major focus for venture capitalists, who saw there was money to be made from investing in technology to create cheaper solar panels, clean transportation fuels and green building products at a time of increased concerns about global warming and soaring fossil fuel prices.

Venture investments in alternative energy companies reached a record $2.6 billion in North America, Europe, China and India in the third quarter, according to industry research firm The Cleantech Group, which expects a much different picture in the current economic climate.

"We expect fourth-quarter venture investment numbers to be down significantly from the third quarter," said Brian Fan, senior director of research with The Cleantech Group, who estimated that fourth-quarter venture investment in the sector would be somewhere between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

"And we expect that to continue into next year as well," Fan added.


THE VAULT IS CLOSED

The most visible recent sign of venture capitalists' new found caution toward cleantech was Tesla Motors announcement last week that it would delay the launch of its battery-powered sedan and cut jobs because of a lack of funds.

The electric car startup had been on the cusp of securing another round of venture funding when that was scuttled by the financial market turmoil, Tesla Senior Director John Thomas said on Wednesday.

"The vault was closed to us," Thomas said.

Tesla is now waiting until it can secure low-cost taxpayer backed loans before re-starting work on the "Model S."

For many investors in early-stage companies, the 50 percent drop in oil prices in three months has been a big deterrent to making new investments in alternative energy.

"The biggest question on people's minds has to do with the price of crude oil, which is now hovering at $70 a barrel," said Glen Schwaber, general partner at Israeli venture capital firm Israel Cleantech Ventures. "From that perspective it can be a concerning time to be a clean tech investor."

Cleantech investment in early stage companies should fall off at the end of the current quarter, Schwaber added.

In the near term, companies seeking their first round of venture funding will have the toughest time because a frozen market for initial public offerings has made it virtually impossible for venture capital firms to take public their later-stage companies, according to US trade group the National Venture Capital Association.

"If you can't get companies out through the IPO market, you have less time and less money to devote to new investments," said NVCA Vice President of Strategic Affairs Emily Mendell, who added that she expected cleantech to keep rising as a percentage of overall venture capital investment.

"I would be surprised if investment fell sharply in this area," she said.

The good news, according to many venture capitalists, is that with fewer dollars chasing the next big solar company or energy efficiency technology, there are good deals to be had.

"With the dollars that you put in now, you will own a greater percentage of the company," said Nth Power's Tong. "It's really a buying opportunity right now."

Once the downturn is over, many noted, the fundamental reasons for investing in clean energy will not have changed.

"There is an increase in urbanization, a population explosion, and a reliance on fossil fuels which are warming the planet," Schwaber said. "None of these have changed because of the subprime meltdown."

Indeed, The Cleantech Group's Fan said venture firms that committed to the sector before it was hot, such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Khosla Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners, were unlikely to pull back now, though they may focus on less capital-intensive businesses.

"It's the second-tier VC firms, the fringe players, the newcomers that are getting scared off," Fan said.

(Additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv and Kevin Krolicki in Detroit; Editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Future of green is not so black, say some

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 26 Oct 08;

PARIS (AFP) – The deepening economic crisis may appear to be the perfect storm for environmentalism, but many in and around the green movement contend the opposite, seeing in it a time of opportunity.

The conventional view is this: willingness to protect the environment is wedded to prosperity.

When times get tough, people tighten their belts -- so their eagerness to switch to renewable energy, buy a more fuel-efficient car or promote forest conservation melts faster than organic ice cream in the Sahara.

Environmentalists and observers of green issues are not deaf to this argument. Indeed, many fear backtracking on a colossal scale at the upcoming UN talks on global warming, unfolding in Poznan, Poland, in December.

But these voices also say that conventional wisdom is flawed in many ways, sometimes unexpectedly so.

For instance, a worsening economy causes less greenhouse-gas emissions in the short term, as it lowers consumption of dirty coal, oil and gas by factories, homes, planes and cars.

"In one month, the crisis has done more for the environment than all the environmental summits in the world," is the ironic conclusion of Marc Fiorentino, president of EuroLand Finance, a French finance company that specialises in investment for small companies.

Others argue that tighter budgets and a lower oil price will not wipe out solar, wind and other clean sources that have enjoyed a surge in investment in recent years.

In the 1980s, a fall in the price of crude ended the first dawn of green energy, as the big economies, led by the United States, returned to their dependence on oil.

Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Geneva, said corporations today believed that oil prices, while volatile, "will jump up and down at a high level," with demand sustained by a burgeoning world population and limited supplies of crude.

This leads to a happy conjunction of interests, he said. High prices encourage less use of energy and thus lead to less greenhouse-gas emissions.

"The measures that you need to tackle energy efficiency are the same that you will need to tackle climate change," said Stigson. "About 40 percent of the action needed to reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide] levels in the world will come from energy efficiency."

Another long-term factor to buoy the green cause is geopolitics, he said.

The United States was branded by memories of a dollar price for oil that zoomed into the triple figures. This trauma would be an enduring boost to locally-produced energy, including renewables and "clean" coal technology, said Stigson.

"The same issues that you have to address if you want to reduce dependence on imported oil, and create a higher degree of energy security, are the same issues that you must address from a climate perspective," he argued.

Other voices suggest that September-October 2008 may be remembered as a watershed in economic doctrine.

The frenzied worship of the lightly-regulated market place could be replaced by a humbler, wiser approach, of linking economic growth to natural resources, social needs and smarter technology, they hope.

Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at Britain's University of Surrey, said the obsession with short-term profits and consumer-driven growth was now proven to be unstable as well as environmentally destructive.

"The old way of thinking about economy is up for negotiation, and the opportunities to build economies that incorporate both financial and environmental prudence are there to be taken," he said.

"What's needed is political leadership that understands this link and is prepared to act on it."

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