Reclamation at Pulau Tekong extended to May 09
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Grey Heron and Blue-tailed Bee-eater cooling off
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Arrivals of the Black Bazas
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Monitoring Ngee Ann Stream
on Water Quality in Singapore blog
25 Nov (Tue): Broadcast of "City Footprints"
featuring volunteers for our shores on the wild shores of singapore blog
Cheah Yean Ti, Channel NewsAsia 18 Nov 08;
SINGAPORE: First it was the Formula One. Now, another sport looks set to capitalise on Singapore's cityscape.
On February 22 next year, Singapore's first mass cycling event on public roads aims to attract 5,000 participants.
Called OCBC Cycle Singapore, participants will have full use of closed roads stretching from the bayside Formula One pit building to as far away as Changi in the east.
It will also be the first time an event will include both amateur and elite cyclists.
For recreational cyclists, routes will range from five to 40 kilometres, while serious cyclists can sign up for a 50-kilometre challenge, subject to qualification.
Organisers also plan to bring in 50 professional cyclists from around the world to compete in a special category with a prize purse of S$100,000.
Mr Teo Ser Luck, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of Community Development, Youth and Sports, said: "I can almost imagine everybody, young and old, cycling together. Then you have the elite cyclists on another circuit. I think this has the potential to grow into a regional event."
Organisers are looking to bring in professional cyclists who will be in the region for the Tour de Langkawi, which will be held a week before OCBC Cycle Singapore.
Visit www.ocbc.cyclesingapore.com.sg for more information or to sign up. - CNA/de
Bernama 18 Nov 08;
KUALA LUMPUR, Nov 18 (Bernama) -- The Fisheries Department has launched an awareness campaign to save turtles and other endangered species in Malaysian waters.
In collaboration with the Museum Department, an exhibition is being held at the National Museum here until Nov 30 entitled "Aquatic World - Turtles and Endangered Species in Malaysia.
To ensure the public understand the importance of managing and conserving marine species and rescuing them from extinction, it also organised an awareness seminar at the same venue today.
Fisheries Department Director-General Datuk Junaidi Che Ayub said Malaysians in general lacked awareness on the extinction of certain species of turtle, dugong, whale, shark and dolphin, caused by man's greed.
One of the department's main targets in the campaign was fishermen and today, it gave out guide materials to representatives of fishermen associations from all states hoping that they would play an effective role in saving the endangered species.
"The documents contain ways to save endangered species such as ways to save turtles trapped in nets, treat injured turtles and so on. All guides are in the form of illustrations," said Junaidi.
-- BERNAMA
Romen Bose Yahoo News 18 Nov 08;
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – An oceanarium resort planned near the world-famous Sipadan diving spot off Malaysian Borneo could spell disaster for the region's delicate coral reefs, environmentalists said Tuesday.
The plan for the huge resort, complete with an artificial reef and research facilities, has also come under attack from indigenous Bajau or "sea gypsies" who say it infringes on their native rights.
The oceanarium resort is slated to be built on a 33-hectare (82-acre) site on Mabul island, located just next to Sipadan, which is famous for its coral reefs, teeming sea life and crystal clear waters.
Reports said plans for the resort, touted as "a marine habitat wonder," include fake sea grass and other devices to attract fish, as well as the construction of swimming pools and more than 200 bungalows and villas.
Environmentalists have criticised the plan, which will require tonnes of construction materials to be brought in by barges, saying it could destroy the island's marine life and degrade the corals off nearby Sipadan.
Sabah Environmental Protection Association president Wong Teck said there were fears of a repeat of a 2006 accident on Sipadan when a construction barge ran aground, destroying a coral reef patch the size of three tennis courts.
"Mabul has an extremely sensitive marine ecology and the plan for a new oceanarium is certain to affect the environment there badly," he told AFP.
"An increase in the number of people staying on the island as a result of the resort and the amount of waste created, in addition to the construction work right on the coral and shallows, are almost certain to destroy much of it."
"It is definitely not environmentally sustainable and the whole idea of an oceanarium seems quite strange given that people can already see all the fish and sealife in the pristine clear waters without the need for such a facility."
Bajau villager Fung Haji Sappari also opposed the project, telling the Star newspaper that his people have had customary rights over the land as they have been using the area for fishing, transport and passage for hundreds of years.
"How can they do it? Several years ago I also applied for 15 acres around the same spot. It was not approved," he told the daily.
Fung said more than 2,000 villagers on the island feared being moved out once the project was complete as the local land office considered them to be squatters.
The Star quoted officials as saying the state cabinet had approved the resort on condition that the project managers would conserve and repair the coral reefs.
However, it said the developers would have to get approval for the project's environmental impact assessment before they can begin work.
Concerns over environmental damage on Sipadan prompted the closure of five dive resorts on the island in 2005, and most visitors now stay on Mabul and travel to the Sipadan reefs by boat.
Controversial oceanarium still needs EIA evaluation
P. K. Katharason, Muguntan Vanar and Ruben Sario, The Star 18 Nov 08;
KOTA KINABALU: A controversial oceanarium resort at Pulau Mabul along Sabah’s east coast still has to get the approval of various authorities here although the state cabinet has endorsed the land office’s green light for project.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the oceanarium proponents would need to get approval for the project’s environmental impact assessment (EIA) and development before it can get off the ground.
He said his ministry would evaluate the proposal when they received the development plan of the proposed oceanarium.
“As such, the issue of the project’s approval does not arise at this point in time,” he told The Star yesterday.
He said the EIA was a crucial component in the entire evaluation process of the project.
Masidi said the state cabinet had endorsed the state Land and Survey Department’s decision to approve the resort’s location on a 33ha site on the basis the project proponents carry out rehabilitation and conservation works of the coral reefs in the area concerned.
He said the state needed more high-end tourism products such as resorts “to value add what nature has endowed us.”
He added that despite this, protecting and conserving the environment would be the overriding consideration as Sabah had one of the best track records of conservation efforts in the country.
“We in the state government would like to maintain, if not impro-ve on that,” he added.
Voicing worries over the oceanarium resort plan, environmentalists, villagers and dive operators said the proposed project would spell disaster to Mabul marine life and might also degrade the eco-sensitive coral reefs of Pulau Sipadan, a 20-minute boat ride away.
Application for a 99-year lease for the parcel facing south of Sipadan was first put in by a local company based in Kota Kinabalu in September last year. It was reported the oceanarium would be surrounded by five villages of more than 200 sea-view bungalows and semi-detached villas, with side pools and spa villas as well as staff and scientist quarters.
Sabah Environment Protection Association president Wong Tack questioned the necessity of the oceanarium being built.
He added that tonnes of construction material would have to be brought in by barge and sand pumped in from the shores of the island. Wong said the authority that approved the resort project should remember what happened at Sipadan in 2006 when a construction barge ran aground, destroying a coral reef patch the size of three tennis courts.
He said the existing four resorts for higher-bracket tourists and five to 10 homestay places for backpackers with a total of more than 250 rooms, provided enough accommodation for the 120 divers given permits to dive in Sipadan waters daily.
Mabul natives cry foul
P. K. Katharason and Muguntan Vanar, The Star 17 Nov 08;
MABUL ISLAND: Native Bajau villager Fung Haji Sappari feels that outsiders are robbing his family’s right to customary land as scenic Mabul Island grows in popularity with tourists and divers.
“Not right. How can they do it? Several years ago I also applied for 15 acres around the same spot. It was not approved,” said Fung, 50, pointing to the 33ha parcel of shallows approved for the proposed oceanarium resort by a local company.
He said the area belonged to the Bajau Laut families who have the customary right over it as they have been using the area for fishing, transport and passage for hundreds of years.
Fung is the operator of the 15-room Arung Hayat longhouse homestay and his family was one of the first four Bajau families to stay put on Mabul Island since the 1970s.
“My ancestral burial ground is here,” said Fung, explaining that as Bajaus or sea gypsies, they lived in boats in the past and only set foot on land to bury their dead.
He said the villagers feared being moved out of Mabul once the oceanarium resort venture was completed. At present they could live side by side with the existing resort operators, who provided the villagers with jobs.
Most of the 2,000 Bajau and Suluks staying on the island are considered squatters by the Semporna land office as they moved in only in the last decade.
Fung and several older villagers said Mabul Island was unknown to the outside world, except to a few Tawau and Semporna people who came over for weekend fishing trips.
Sometime in the mid-1990s, they said a Swiss TV crew came over to Mabul to film the Survival series, which led to the opening of the Sipadan-Mabul Resort (SMART) on the island shores beside the village, before it later extended to the sea.
The April 2000 Abu Sayyaf attack on the Sipadan Island chalets and the kidnapping of 21 tourists, including Malaysians, saw more tourists opting to stay on Mabul.
In December 2004, the Govern–ment ordered the closure of all chalets operating on Sipadan Island to prevent environmental degradation of the reefs and later restricted the number of divers to Sipadan to 120 per day.
This led to other dive operators, including Borneo Divers, Water Village and Sea Adventure, moving their resort operations to Mabul, with SMART and local homestay operators increasing the number of chalets and rooms to some 300.
Fung and other homestay operators said the local people feel cheated because the Semporna land office kept rejecting their applications for TOL to build new chalets but has now approved a sea area bigger than the size of the 25ha Mabul Island to an outside company.
They also want to know how the land office could approve the tenure of the area to the company for 60 or 99 years when all other existing resorts on Mabul waters were granted TOL for only three to five years.
The bigger resort operators are also opposing the approval but are reluctant to voice their criticisms to the media, for fear that their respective TOLs, due for renewal soon, might be rejected.
Related articles
Richard Black, BBC news 18 Nov 08;
Japan appears likely to approve the importation of a consignment of whalemeat from Iceland and Norway.
A senior official from Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry told BBC News that an import licence has been granted.
The consignment, of about 65 tonnes, was sent to Japan in June but has been held in customs since its arrival.
The whalemeat trade is banned under UN rules but the three countries involved hold opt-outs, making it legal.
As well as establishing the legality of the consignment, Japanese authorities have also been assessing the meat on health and safety grounds, and it is believed that this process has not quite finished.
The Icelandic company which hunted and exported most of the meat, Hvalur hf, anticipates receiving final clearance within weeks.
Norwegian and Icelandic whalers see access to the Japanese market as key to expanding and maintaining their businesses.
Open market
The international whalemeat trade is banned under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES), but Norway, Iceland and Japan have all registered reservations to exempt themselves, as the treaty permits.
"It's a legal import and a legal export, and in future might give access to a market that's really big for both Norwegian and Icelandic whalers," said Laila Jusnes from the High North Alliance, which represents whalers, sealers and fishermen around the Arctic.
In response to the contention that the Japanese market is shrinking, as environment groups maintain, she said: "We don't know just how big the market is before we start, but I'm sure it can be re-developed."
The potential importance of the export trade is precisely the reason why anti-whaling organisations are keen that it does not resume.
"Japan is sticking two fingers up at the International Whaling Commission (IWC) and at CITES," said Claire Bass, marine mammal programme manager with the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA).
IWC members are currently engaged in discussions aiming to find a "compromise package" of reforms before the organisation's next annual meeting in June 2009.
"It really shows that none of the whaling nations have any commitment to the process on the IWC's future, nor any intention to honour obligations under CITES, (where) reservations to trade banned species are fairly frowned upon," said Ms Bass.
"Clearly Iceland has no market for this meat, but neither has Japan - they currently have about 2,000 tonnes in cold storage, so it's hard to imagine why they're importing any more."
The consignment consists of about 60 tonnes of fin whale meat from Hvalur hf, and about five tonnes of minke meat exported by the Norwegian company Myklebust Trading.
The fin whale hunt is especially controversial as it is listed internationally as an endangered species, although the north Atlantic population is believed to number about 30,000 and may be increasing, according to the latest Red List of Threatened Species.
Still hooked: time runs out for Japan's dangerous obsession with the bluefin
Traditional fishing methods may be last hope for prized tuna in local waters
Justin McCurry, guardian.co.uk 18 Nov 08;
Sunrise is at least an hour away when Atsushi Sasaki steers his fishing boat out of Oma and into the notorious straits separating Japan's mainland from its northernmost island, Hokkaido.
By the time he reaches the open water of the Tsugaru Strait, the wind has turned into a gale and the waves grow higher with every assault on the bow of his boat.
But Sasaki, a wiry 61-year old with a crewcut and the teak complexion of an inveterate fisherman, is unfazed: even the discovery that the coolbox containing his lunch is now flooded with seawater is accepted with a shrug. For now, his concern is directed solely at his prey: the bluefin tuna.
Global stocks of the highly prized fish have plummeted by 90% in the last 30 years, and much of the blame rests with Japan, by far the world's biggest consumer. Every year the Japanese get through about three-quarters of the world's bluefin catch; 80% of tuna caught in the Mediterranean ends up on the Japanese market.
Faced with the imminent collapse of bluefin stocks, fisheries officials from 45 countries are meeting in Morocco this week to discuss bluefin quotas for the Atlantic and Mediterranean next year. Conservationists want a moratorium, but Japan is reportedly about to support a scientific panel's recommendation that the quota be set at 15,000 tonnes, about half the current level.
But while attempts are being made to rescue bluefin tuna populations in seas thousands of miles away, nothing is being done to prevent Japan's appetite for tuna sushi and sashimi from ripping through stocks along its own coastline.
But Sasaki is not part of Japan's overfishing problem. Rather, he could be the solution. There are no trawler nets or lines coiled in heaps on his boat (named, with incidental irony, Man'yu, or Ten Thousand Tuna). He is one of barely 200 ippon-zuri fishermen around Japan, who catch tuna sustainably using a combination of a rod and line, a basic sonar and occasional luck.
The former salaryman, who quit his office job 20 years ago to lead the life of an itinerant fisherman, is a regular visitor to Oma, one of just three places in Japan where the method survives.
In an attempt to prevent the tradition from dying out and to protect local stocks from being fished into oblivion, the local authorities have assigned the Tsugaru Strait for the exclusive use of Oma's 60 rod-and-line fishermen.
The move has met with mixed results. The ippon-zuri have become embroiled in a row with longline fishermen who violate the exclusion zone by using baited lines often several miles long. Elsewhere, trawlers, equipped with sophisticated sonar, plunder coastal waters, aided by the absence of official quotas and collusion between politicians and the powerful fishing lobby.
High fuel prices, lower profit margins and stricter quotas in other parts of the world have created an irresistible urge for Japanese boats to take more bluefin from their own waters. And all the time demand is growing, not only in Japan, the US and Europe, but increasingly in China and Russia.
"Japan's fisheries have no idea how many tuna they are catching or what size they are," says Sasaki, in the smoke-filled cabin of the Man'yu. "The smaller tuna have all been caught, along with the fish they feed on, and unregulated fishing with trawlers is to blame."
Faced with official diffidence and scant popular enthusiasm for conservationism, Sasaki is spurred on by relatively low operating costs and the knowledge that he is playing a small part in a nascent interest among the Japanese in sustainable sushi.
"We need proper stock management," he says. "Collapse is just around the corner."
The bluefin tuna caught off Oma, a town of 6,000 people on the northern coast of Aomori prefecture, are seen as the tastiest in Japan and typically fetch twice as much as imported fish at auction. In 2001, a 202kg (445lbs) Oma bluefin sold for a record ¥20.2m (£141,400).
The yearly average catch for Oma is 2,500 tuna, worth about ¥1.6bn (£11m) to the local economy. This is tiny compared with a few decades ago, says Hirofumi Hamabata, head of the town's fishing cooperative. "After the war, each boat returned with about half a dozen tuna every day," he says. "They were so cheap you'd have to sell 4kg of fish just to be able to afford a pack of cigarettes."
Akihiro Furukawa, a longline fisherman for 13 years, admits he fears for the future: "My son wants to follow in my footsteps, but by the time he's old enough to go to sea, there won't be any fish left to catch."
In the Tsugaru Strait it is usual to see 150 boats fishing for tuna. Today, though, the weather has put most fishermen off. And after several hours at sea on an empty stomach, Sasaki is ready to call it a day. As darkness descends on Oma, another ippon-zuri fisherman who has had better luck returns. Watched by groups of children, six tuna weighing up to 100kg are unloaded and packed into wooden vats of crushed ice, ready be driven to the Tsukiji market in Tokyo before dawn. The fish may well fall under the gaze of Toichiro Iida, a wholesale trader who seeks out Oma tuna at auction. His family firm, Hicho, has been in business for almost 150 years.
He says many of his fellow traders know nothing about the provenance of their tuna."They're just happy to buy the cheaper fish and make easy profits, but to do that they have to buy tuna that has come off a trawler," says Iida, who counts Tokyo's best sushi chefs among his clients. "Even some sushi restaurateurs don't know if their tuna is caught using nets or by more sustainable methods," Iida says. "It is about time they learned."
Backstory
The Japanese eat 600,000 tonnes of tuna a year - about a third of the total fished worldwide, and about three-quarters of the total bluefin fished worldwide. In 2006, Japan mported 44,000 tonnes of bluefin, just over half of it from the east Atlantic and Mediterranean. According to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna, which meets in Marrakech this week, about 61,000 tonnes of bluefin tuna were caught in these seas last year - more than double the permitted catch of 29,500 tonnes. The commission has set a target of 25,500 tonnes by 2010, but many experts believe this should be nearer 15,000 tonnes. The Blue Ocean Institute's guide says bluefin tuna should be avoided altogether. Some restaurants, such as the Moshi Moshi chain in the UK, have removed bluefin from their menus.
Justin McCurry
Toxic cane toads are poisoning alarming numbers of Australia's freshwater crocodiles.
The Telegraph 18 Nov 08;
The amphibians, which have poisonous sacs on their heads, have cut the number of crocodiles in some Northern Territory rivers by more than half, said Professor Keith Christian of Charles Darwin University.
"A recent survey on the Victoria River showed that in a one-year period as many as 77 percent of the crocodiles have died as a result of eating cane toads," he said.
The toads, Bufo Marinus, were introduced to Australia in 1935 from their native Central and South America in an attempt to control beetles ravaging sugar cane fields in the tropical northeast.
But like many animals imported into Australia they turned into pests themselves, breeding explosively and spreading westwards across the country, wielding a venom so powerful it can kill large predators in minutes.
The mortality rate among crocodiles has serious implications for the future of the species, Mr Christian said.
"Populations can't really withstand that year-after-year high mortality. Particularly in these really long-lived species that take a long time to mature before they are reproductive," he said.
The toads have spread into the wetlands of the world heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, and all attempts to fight their relentless march westward have failed.
One local council earned the ire of animal welfare groups last year for promoting "cane toad golf."
Rather than whacking the toads with golf clubs, the RSPCA said the best way of killing the pests was to place them in the fridge, where they go into a comatose state, then euthanise them in the freezer.
Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News 18 Nov 08;
More than 7,000 live monitor lizards, almost 900 owls—plucked and plastic wrapped for easy cooking—and other wild animals were seized in two raids in a single week by Malaysian officials earlier this month.
Experts on illegal wildlife trade expressed astonishment at the huge number of rare owls seized.
"It's the first time we've ever seen a big shipment like this of owls," said Chris Shepherd, a senior program officer for the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.
The scale of both hauls indicates that Asian wildlife smuggling is growing more sophisticated, Shepherd said.
"Shipments this size show that the trade is becoming more and more organized by syndicates, rather than just opportunistic individuals trying to make a buck off a few animals," said Shepherd, based in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
Oven-Ready Owls
The first of the two raids—carried out by the country's Department of Wildlife and National Parks—took place on November 4 in the town of Muar on the southern tip of Malaysia.
In a freezer and storage room, agents found 796 barn owls, 95 spotted wood-owls, 14 buffy fish-owls, 8 barred eagle-owls, and 4 brown wood-owls.
The owls, smaller than chickens, had been frozen. Their feathers had been removed, but their heads and feet were intact—a sign that the owls were to be sold as food.
"I've heard of owls being used for superstition and in traditional medicine, but I've never heard of anybody eating them," said Colin Poole, director of the Asia program for the Wildlife Conservation Society.
"There must be some market specifically for owls."
The haul also included live monitor lizards and live juvenile wild pigs. Only parts were found from other animals: wild pig, Malayan porcupine, reticulated python, Malayan pangolin, greater mouse deer, and sun bear.
A local man was arrested at the raid. But after pleading "not guilty" and posting bail of 19,000 ringgits (U.S. $5,300), he was released three days later.
Since Muar is a port town, experts believe the shipment was probably headed China, where the demand for game meat and for wildlife used in traditional medicine is driving the Asian trade.
All of the species seized in Muar are protected to some degree under Malaysian law. Sun bears, in particular, are banned from international trade under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) and are listed as vulnerable by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
Some Chinese covet the bear's bile as medicinal, and its paws are considered delicacies.
Poaching fueled by such demand "could easily wipe out the species," said Siew Te Wong, a University of Montana biology Ph.D. student who has been studying the small bears in the Malaysian part of Borneo island for ten years.
Three days after the Muar raid, agents acting on a tip obtained during the seizure raided a storage facility in the town of Segamat, where they found more than 7,000 live clouded monitor lizards.
The lizards were also likely destined for dining tables in China, according to the international conservation organization WWF.
CITES prohibits international trade of the roughly one-and-a-half-yard-long (one-and-a-half-meter-long) reptiles, which range throughout Southeast Asia.
Crackdown
Large-scale commercial traders buy wildlife "dirt cheap" from local people working in plantations or in the forests, according to Shepherd, of TRAFFIC.
"They have massive networks spread all over the countries in Southeast Asia," he said.
"You can go to any village and everyone knows that if you catch, for example, a pangolin [scaly anteater], you can sell it."
In 2005 countries in the region formed the Association of Southeast Asian Nations Wildlife Enforcement Network, or ASEAN-WEN, to combat illegal wildlife trade.
The crackdown sparked by the new collaboration seems to be bearing fruit.
In July officials in Indonesia seized a China-bound shipment of 14 tons of scaly anteaters. And during a raid in Vietnam, officials found 24 tons of the anteaters, which had been shipped from Indonesia.
"Historically, governments [in the region] have reacted with skepticism about the scope of the problem," said Michael Zwirn, director of U.S. operations for the Wildlife Alliance, based in Washington, D.C.
"These kinds of large shipments indicate the severity of the issue," he said.
"We hope that governments will look at this and realize that their natural heritage is being siphoned off."
But ASEAN-WEN is not yet functioning properly, due to a lack of resources, experts warn.
TRAFFIC's Shepherd says the chances of any given trader getting caught are still "fairly slim."
"If they do get caught, the penalties are very small and definitely not a deterrent," he said.
The local man arrested in the Muar raid, for example, had been arrested on the same kinds of charges a few years earlier.
Poole, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, said: "It's important to do these busts. But following through and making sure that these people are prosecuted to the extent of the appropriate laws, I think, is critically important."
Related article
Raid nets RM3mil in exotic wildlife in Johor last week
Zani Salleh, The Star 13 Nov 08;
BBC News 18 Nov 08;
The number of birds of prey killed illegally in Scotland is "deeply troubling", a conservation group has said.
Crimes against the birds remain at "worryingly high" levels, according to the latest report from RSPB Scotland.
It comes days after it emerged that a white-tailed eagle was found poisoned near the Glenogil estate in Angus in May. The charity said such crimes were damaging Scotland's raptor populations.
The Birds of Prey Persecution 2007 study showed that crimes against the birds had dropped since the previous year but remained high.
There were 69 allegations or reports of poisoning in 2007, compared with 98 in 2006.
Of these, 37 were confirmed as pesticide or poison abuse killing or threatening raptors, down on 42 the year before.
It was the worst year on record for red kite poisoning, with 12 birds dying.
Carbofuran, an agricultural pesticide which has been banned since December 2001, was used in 30 out of the 37 confirmed cases.
There were also 78 reports of other types of persecution, such as nest destruction, traps and shooting incidents, down on 85 in 2006.
Of these, 17 were confirmed incidents, while 30 were classed as probable cases of persecution.
In the remaining 31 cases there was either insufficient evidence to prove or disprove the claim.
The RSPB said that because raptors are long lived, breed slowly and produce few young, the effects of illegal killing can have a damaging effect on their population levels.
Stuart Housden, director of RSPB Scotland, said: "These figures are deeply troubling, especially when we know that wildlife crime takes place in remote areas, where it is relatively easy to conceal evidence of wrong-doing.
"These confirmed cases must represent a tip of an iceberg.
"Whilst we know that many land managers behave responsibly, it is important that they stand up and provide information to the police on criminal activity against wildlife that comes to their attention.
"Sweeping these issues under the carpet is not acceptable. Only in this way will this problem be stamped out once and for all."
'International reputation'
Many of the raptors are killed by people trying to protect grouse populations on country estates, who perceive the birds as a threat.
The RSPB stressed that it happens only on a small minority of estates.
The charity welcomed steps taken by the Scottish Government to improve standards of investigation and prosecution, together with responsible landowners.
It called for adequate public resources to investigate and prosecute incidents to be put in place in line with recommendations of recent official public reports.
Mr Housden said: "We welcome the action taken by the Scottish Government to secure improvements in the way cases of wildlife crime are investigated and prosecuted.
"This recognises the seriousness of the issue and the damage that is being done to our international reputation, as well as important Scottish industries, such as wildlife tourism.
"It is important however that ministers continue to lead from the front on this issue."
Maryann Mott, National Geographic News 18 Nov 08;
Thousands of wild horses in U.S. care will not be put down, and the government will have another year to explore possible solutions, U.S. officials said Monday.
The U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) will round up fewer wild horses and try to shuffle funds within the agency to prevent killing the animals.
About 30,000 horses removed from western rangelands are currently being cared for by BLM's Wild Horse and Burro Program.
A federal report released last week by the Government Accountability Office—the watchdog agency for the U.S. Congress—suggested that thousands of horses kept in government holding facilities may have to be killed as upkeep costs escalate and adoptions dwindle.
(Related: "Horses Suffer, Owners Struggle With Soaring Feed Prices" [September 8, 2008].)
BLM Deputy Director Henri Bisson said maintaining the wild horse and burro program for another year will give the agency, Congress, ranchers, and animal advocates time to come up with alternatives and let "cooler heads prevail.
"Let's focus on doing something positive before we have to look at last resort tools," Bisson said at the BLM's National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting in Reno, Nevada.
"We're not making any decisions today. We're not making any decisions next week."
Bisson said the agency needs to find U.S. $15 million to $20 million elsewhere in its budget to sustain the wild horse program throughout 2009.
Government roundups will also now be limited to about 5,000 horses annually, mostly of animals facing severe hardship because of conditions such as drought.
Back to the Drawing Board
Dozens of wild horse advocates attended Monday night's meeting in hopes of persuading the BLM not to euthanize the horses.
Willis Lamm of Least Resistance Training Concepts, a nonprofit that provides free mentoring assistance for wild horse adopters, attended the meeting.
"The theory [advocated in] the room was these guys need to get their act together and go back to the drawing board and figure out how to market the horses that they do have," he said.
The government may not have to act at all, though, if the agency takes up Madeleine Pickens—wife of billionaire T-Bone Pickens—on her reported offer to adopt all the horses being cared for by the government.
If her bid is successful, the horses would be transferred to private refuges.
"We welcome the offer and the interest," said BLM spokesperson Tom Gorey.
Slaughterhouse Fear
About 33,000 mustangs, often called wild horses, roam the dusty open plains of ten western states, with about half of the population in Nevada.
With few predators, wild horse herds nearly double every five years. To make room for livestock and farming operations on public lands, government-hired cowboys round up about 10,000 mustangs annually.
Horses are then put into holding facilities to be adopted or sold, or to live out the remainder of their lives. Some animals can live for 15 years in pens.
The 1971 Wild Free Roaming Horses and Burros Act calls wild horses "living symbols of the historic and pioneer spirit of the West."
The legislation ensures that "wild free-roaming horses and burros shall be protected from capture, branding, harassment, or death."
Though the law does allow for euthanasia to achieve "appropriate management levels," public and congressional reaction to the large-scale slaughter of thousands of healthy horses has led the BLM to avoid using these options—despite its recent budget troubles, the GAO report said.
To quell such concerns, Congress gave BLM an alternative to euthanasia in 2004 by allowing the agency to sell horses "without limitation," for example at auctions or livestock sales if the animals have been unsuccessfully offered for adoption three times or are at least ten years of age.
The agency, however, continued to impose sale limitations on buyers, in part, because it feared horses sold for low prices might be resold to slaughterhouses, the report said.
The report also cited job loss as a reason.
"Various BLM officials at different levels of responsibility also told us that the agency has not complied with these provisions," the report said.
Doing so would cause draw negative reaction from the public and Congress and cause an "immediate threat" to the careers of BLM officials involved, it added.
Alternatives
Other alternatives to selling horses exist, the report pointed out.
One would be providing private individuals or organizations with financial incentives, such as tax breaks, to care for unwanted wild horses. (Learn how you can support wild animals through adoptions in Green Guide.)
Another possibility is releasing mustangs on public and private lands outside of areas where they were originally caught, although this would require a legislative change to the horse and burro act.
BLM spokesperson Gorey agreed with the report's findings.
"The GAO report correctly depicts the difficult situation that the BLM finds itself in with regard to maintaining unadopted or unsold animals in holding facilities," he said.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
Related articles
U.S. to Kill Wild Horses as Upkeep Costs Rise?
Maryann Mott, National Geographic News 14 Nov 08;
Kevin Krolicki and Nichola Groom, Reuters 18 Nov 08;
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Call it an economic and environmental murder mystery in the making: Will a cash-strapped Detroit kill the electric car -- again?
Stung by an association with gas-guzzling SUVs and pushed to the brink of failure by plunging sales, U.S. automakers have been touting efforts to roll out more fuel-efficient small cars, gas-saving technology and gas-free electric vehicles.
The star of that marketing show has been the Chevy Volt, a rechargeable car that General Motors Corp is designing to run 40 miles on battery power, meaning some commuters would never need to fill up with gas.
But with its cash dwindling and U.S. auto sales crashing to 25-year lows, GM has joined Ford Motor Co and Chrysler LLC in seeking $25 billion in federal handouts, which are under consideration this week by the U.S. Congress.
That has critics concerned that a meltdown for Detroit could delay the rollout of green cars like the Volt. Others see a chance to prod GM and rivals to move faster as a condition of providing funding the industry says it needs to survive.
Because plug-ins like the Volt can be recharged from a cleaner-burning electric grid, proponents see them as the best way in the near term to reduce oil consumption and greenhouse gas emissions from traffic on America's roads.
GM has said it is protecting its investment in the Volt ahead of the vehicle's planned 2010 launch even as it scrambles to slash $15 billion in costs elsewhere.
EV1
"I think right now we're in what I call a serious Act Two moment with oil prices down and money tight," said Chris Paine, whose 2006 documentary "Who Killed the Electric Car?" chronicled GM's controversial decision to scrap an earlier electric car marketed in California as the Saturn EV1.
Paine, who has been working on a Volt-centered sequel, said U.S. automakers would have been better able to weather the current crisis if they had listened to critics who blasted them for turning away from electric cars earlier this decade.
"This may turn out to be the biggest blunder ever for these companies," he said.
GM Chief Executive Rick Wagoner showcased the automaker's commitment to return to making a mass-market electric car at the Los Angeles auto show two years ago.
That reversal by GM combined with an open approach to the Volt's development won over many of the automaker's harshest critics. GM has built on that good will by featuring the Volt in full-page newspaper and TV advertisements, two years before the vehicle will go on sale in limited numbers.
"I think it's somewhat ironic but also encouraging that GM was the first back into the fray," said Chelsea Sexton, who helped market the EV1 in California and has become an advocate for plug-in cars. "There's a humility there that people respond to. Detroit has been knocked down but it's not out."
But with Wagoner due in Washington this week to testify on the proposed bailout for U.S. automakers, GM dropped plans to make an announcement on the Volt's battery supplier at the Los Angeles auto show this week, people briefed on the automaker's plans have said.
Jacob Grose, an analyst with Lux Research who follows the alternative power and energy storage industry, said projects like the Volt could risk delays in the current economic climate.
"GM has pretty much bet the farm on the Chevy Volt and plug-in hybrids and certainly any major economic disruption to the company -- any kind of bankruptcy filing or anything like that -- for even the most high priority launch as this is would clearly be, would push it back a couple of years," he said.
SHOW STEALERS
Nissan-Renault chief Carlos Ghosn is expected to use his keynote speech at the L.A. auto show to highlight Nissan's push toward more environmentally friendly cars, including plug-ins.
Hyundai Motor Co, meanwhile, will be showing off a prototype of its first hybrid for the U.S. market, using lithium-ion batteries from the same LG Chem factory sources have said has been selected to supply the Volt.
Ron Cogan, editor of Green Car Journal, said Detroit automakers realize they have no alternative to pressing ahead with investment that promises to drive gains in fuel economy.
"The industry understands where the market is headed and that the greatest interest is in the vehicles with the best fuel efficiency," said Cogan, who presented the Green Car of the year award to GM's hybrid Chevy Tahoe last year.
Others are less certain Detroit can stay the course without a bailout tied directly to saving initiatives like the Volt.
Lyle Dennis, a New York neurologist who has emerged as the Volt's unofficial first fan and runs the GM-Volt.com Web site (http://gm-volt.com/), has organized a letter-writing campaign to urge lawmakers to help save GM -- and by extension the Volt.
"It just seems to me this could easily be the end of the Volt. There are certainly no guarantees," said Dennis. "I'm no fan of bailouts in general. But I don't see another way."
Environmental groups like the Sierra Club, meanwhile, are urging Congress to tie any aid to the automakers to requirements that they make cleaner vehicles and drop a legal challenge to California's new vehicle emissions standards.
"I think the temptation may be for the auto industry to say we can't accept any new requirements," said Eli Hopson of the Union of Concerned Scientists. "While that may get them through the next few months, I don't think it will get them through the next couple of years."
Paine said he remains uncertain of how his film will end, or even what it will be titled. He has tentatively called his follow-up "Revenge of the Electric Car" but realizes there may be a darker ending by 2010, when the film and the Volt are due.
"That's when will find out if it's really the revenge or the curse of the electric car," he said.
(Reporting by Kevin Krolicki and Nichola Groom; Editing by Eddie Evans)
Don't print this post
Making paper emits three times more carbon than global aviation. The only answer is to consume less
Tony Juniper, guardian.co.uk 17 Nov 08;
Of all the natural resources we use every day, paper is one that hardly provokes a second thought. The thin films of tree fibres touch nearly every facet of our lives. From the napkins around paper coffee cups to our morning newspaper, the junk mail and the bedtime book, paper is everywhere. We use more and more of it, and its impact on the environment is huge.
Paper manufacture consumes vast quantities of water. Chemicals are used to boost fast-growing monoculture plantations, and pulp mills discharge huge quantities of chemicals. In terms of energy consumption in its production, paper equals steel.
Combine this with deforestation and emissions from landfill and we find that the pulp and paper industry contributes around 10% of global carbon emissions – that's about three times global aviation emissions.
Some argue that paper consumption must grow in proportion to the size of the economy, but this is a highly simplistic view. Much of the paper we consume provides little or no economic or social value.
For example, research by Xerox revealed that office workers bin 45% of everything they print each day. And it's not just in offices that we waste huge quantities of paper. In the USA, ForestEthics calculated that the annual carbon emissions from junk mail alone were equivalent to those from more than 9m cars. This finding led top Nasa climate scientist James Hansen to back the call for a national Do Not Mail registry.
While we are increasingly aware of the emissions from our cars, how many people are cutting down on paper? How many companies correctly account for their paper footprint in their CRS reports?
ClimateforIdeas.org discovered that carbon audits carried out by the paper industry fails to take into account the true carbon emissions from deforestation associated with paper production.
The more global paper demand grows, the more land is needed to grow it. This sits alongside other demands for land, for urbanisation, agriculture and nature protection.
The more paper we use, the more these other pressures will be exacerbated. Indeed, for developing nations to follow patterns of paper consumption now prevailing in western countries, more than double the land that is already covered in monoculture plantations for paper production would be needed.
Many paper plantations are already highly contentious, especially in developing nations. This is because they have limited ecological value, use toxic chemicals and fertilisers and have devastating consequences on local livelihoods.
In common with other resources, it seems that the case for increased consumption in developing countries is very clear, and thus the case for reductions in the high-consuming countries is logically the other side of the equation. One way to characterise the choices that emerge is to weigh the necessity of there being enough school books in Uganda compared to our need for more and more junk mail to go straight in our bulging bins in the west. Stop Junk Mail is useful site help you reduce the amount of junk mail you receive, if you'd like to reduce your own paper footprint.
If there is to any chance for the sustainable management of natural resources, at the same time as providing all the world's people with their needs, then the developed world needs to lead by example in ensuring that more equitable patterns of consumption emerge.
One campaign that is dealing head-on with the issue is Shrink. This coalition is asking individuals to consume less paper and is inviting pledges from British industry to set targets to reduce their paper use by 50%. The French government is also now active on this subject. This month it will hold a workshop in conjunction with my former colleagues at Amis de la Terre to discuss how to achieve that reduction.
If Sarkozy has identified this as a problem for France, then he must see it as a problem for Europe. It would therefore be a very positive step if he were to use the tail end of his EU presidency to press for a reduced consumption target across all member states.
Reducing consumption to sustainable levels is the key and this is a challenge we all have to embrace.
Start by not printing this post, or indeed anything else, unless it's absolutely necessary. And fill your printer with recycled paper.
Amazon, the online retailer, has promised to end the frustration that ruins many parents' Christmas day: packaging rage.
Harry Wallop, The Telegraph 18 Nov 08;
It has pledged to stop sending toys, computers and other goods out in difficult-to-open plastic boxes.
The shopping website has joined leading manufacturers, including toy company Mattel and software giant Microsoft, to come up with a solution it says is both eco and customer-friendly.
Called "frustration free packaging", the company aims to replace plastic wrapping with a simple, recyclable cardboard box.
Amazon has started the scheme in the United States after complaints from customers of cuts and bruises from existing packages.
It said that it would come over to the UK if the project was successful in America. "Every initiative that works in the US makes its way across the Atlantic," said a spokesman.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos said: "I shouldn't have to start each Christmas morning with needle-nose pliers and wire cutters. But that is what I do, I arm myself, and it still takes me 10 minutes to open each package."
Waste Watch, a British refuse charity, welcomed the move. Spokesman Mike Webster said: "Amazon has to be applauded for this, and we would call on the rest of the industry to follow their lead.
"Every Christmas we produce an extra three million tonnes of waste, and this could impact significantly on that. But we need manufacturers to think about this too - it really comes back to the product design stage, and that needs to be re-thought."
Svetlana Kovalyova, Reuters 18 Nov 08;
MILAN (Reuters) - Rainforest nations will lobby the United Nations to set up a single body to coordinate the use of carbon credit trading to stop deforestation at a conference next month in Poland, an official from the countries said on Tuesday.
"A new body should be built to coordinate initiatives (on cutting emissions from deforestation) that are going around now," Federica Bietta, Deputy Director of New York-based Coalition for Rainforest Nations, which represents about 40 countries, told Reuters on the margins of a deforestation conference in Milan.
The Coalition and other supporters of the United Nations'-backed scheme, called REDD, or reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation, hope to include it into a successor of the Kyoto Protocol on climate change after 2012.
"There is money floating around... but countries don't know where to put it. There are various ideas, often not coordinated and that is very confusing," Bietta said.
She said the Coalition would propose the creation of such a body at a conference in Poznan, Poland, in December which has been convened as part of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC).
The conference is expected to help craft a global agreement by December 2009 on carbon-capping mechanisms to succeed Kyoto.
Bietta said the coordinating body should be linked to UNFCCC, other U.N. agencies and the World Bank, and should help developed and developing countries to ensure transparency of funds allocation.
LITTLE REDD BOOK
The proposed new body would lead REDD initiatives in the next three or four years, until a new carbon market -- estimated by various analysts in a range between $10 billion and $30 billion a year -- kicked in, Bietta said.
"The new body is needed to fill the gap between now and 2012," she said.
Already, 20 key proposed projects to cut carbon emissions from deforestations and degradation feature in The Little REDD Book that will be presented in Poznan (www.littleREDDbook.org).
Deforestation contributes about 20 percent to global greenhouse gas emissions with forests disappearing at a rate of about 13 million hectares -- about the size of Greece -- a year.
The European Commission has been cautious about forest credit trade, saying new cheap offsets would flood the existing carbon market and send prices at the European Union's Emission Trading Scheme (ETS) tumbling.
Peter Zapfel from Environment Directorate General at the European Commission told the conference the potential forest credit market under the REDD scheme would cover 6 gigatonnes of annual carbon emissions, three times bigger than emissions covered by the ETS.
The Commission's alternative proposal to REDD is to set up a Global Forest Carbon Mechanism where part of the EU's carbon trade proceeds would be used to reward developing countries for reducing deforestation.
Zapfel said the EU's council of ministers and parliament were likely to back the Commission's proposal.
(Editing by James Jukwey)
UK climate minister Joan Ruddock wary of reliance on radical technology that could be used by some as an excuse to avoid meeting targets to reduce carbon emissions
James Randerson, guardian.co.uk 18 Nov 08;
Research into drastic solutions to climate change such as cloud seeding, sun shades in space and ocean fertilisation risks hampering global climate negotiations by giving some countries an excuse for not agreeing to short-term emissions reductions, a UK government minister warned today.
The remarks by Joan Ruddock, a minister in the Department of Energy and Climate Change, appear to be a thinly veiled dig at the Bush administration, whose delegation attempted to insert a section into last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on developing technology to block sunlight and cool the planet. The proposed text referred to it as an "important insurance" against the impacts of climate change.
Speaking to MPs on the Department for Innovation, Universities and Skills select committee, Ruddock was defending the government's unwillingness to fund research into so-called geoengineering – large-scale, untested interventions that either soak up carbon dioxide or prevent sunlight warming the planet
"The concern is that people who don't want to enter into agreements that mean they have to reduce their emissions might see this as a means of doing nothing, of being able to say, 'science will provide, there will be a way out'," she said, "it could be used politically in that way which would be extremely unfortunate."
She added that funding research on such projects would deflect engineers away from more pressing solutions to climate change such as carbon capture and storage – extracting carbon dioxide from the emissions put out by fossil fuel power stations and injecting it underground.
The science minister Lord Drayson added that many of the proposals – such as launching huge mirrors into space, adding particles into the atmosphere to deflect light or seeding algal blooms in the ocean using iron fertiliser – were extremely costly and had risks that were poorly understood. "Some of the projects that are being postulated under geoengineering do strike one as being in the realm of science fiction," he said.
But Steve Rayner, professor of science and civilisation at the Said Business School in Oxford, pointed out that not all options were expensive. Some such as iron fertilisation would be within reach of wealthy individuals - he called them, "a 'Greenfinger' rather than 'Goldfinger'."
Currently, the research councils – which decide how public science funding is spent – do not fund any projects into geoengineering directly, although the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council has allocated £3m for an "ideas factory" into potential projects next year.
According to Dr Phil Williamson at the University of East Anglia, who wrote the Natural Environment Research Council's submission to the select committee hearing, around £50m of the government's research spend is peripherally related to geo-engineering.
The select committee's chair, the liberal democrat MP Phil Willis, said he was disappointed with the government's position of adopting only a "watching brief" over the emerging field. "That seems to me a very very negative way of actually facing up to the challenge of the future," he said. "It's a very pessimistic view of emerging science and Britain's place within that emerging science community."
He said government should support many different avenues to tackling climate change. "There have to be plethora of solutions. Some of which we do not know whether they will work, but that is the whole purpose of science."
But the chief scientific advisor to the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, Prof Bob Watson, said that funding should be focussed on the most immediate solutions. "I think the question is whether [geoengineering] is the highest priority at the moment given scarce resources.
"First [priority] is actually putting investment into current technologies and pre-commercial technologies such as carbon capture and storage," he said, "Clearly I think this is something which has to be move quickly. I would call it an Apollo-type programme... we need to go in parallel and try multiple approaches simultaneously." He advocated that the EU, US and Japan work together on research into CCS.
Some scientists and engineers will also be disappointed with the government's dismissal of the field. In the introduction to a collection of scientific papers published by the Royal Society in September on the topic Prof Brian Launder of the University of Manchester and Prof Michael Thompson of the University of Cambridge wrote: "While such geoscale interventions may be risky, the time may well come when they are accepted as less risky than doing nothing... There is increasingly the sense that governments are failing to come to grips with the urgency of setting in place measures that will assuredly lead to our planet reaching a safe equilibrium."
Yahoo News 18 Nov 08;
LONDON (AFP) – Lawmakers gave final approval Tuesday to a bill committing Britain to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80 percent by 2050 -- the first country to have such a legally binding framework on climate change.
Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband said the bill, which must now be signed into law by the queen, "makes Britain a world leader on climate policy".
"It's the first legislation of its kind in the world. It will tie this and future governments into legally binding emission targets -- an 80 percent cut by 2050, with five-year carbon budgets along the way," he said.
"It sends a clear message before European and global climate talks that serious action is possible."
Britain originally intended to cut emissions by 60 percent on 1990 levels by 2050, but changed this to 80 percent last month on the recommendation of a government-appointed committee.
The committee said the cuts would cost about one to two percent of gross domestic product (GDP) and were "challenging but feasible".
Under the bill's other measures, an independent committee on climate change will be created to advise the government on new carbon budgets, which will cap Britain's pollution over five-year periods.
The government is then obliged to report to parliament on how it plans to meet these limits, which include all industries, including international shipping and aviation to and from Britain.
The legislation also contains powers to establish emissions trading schemes, measures on biofuels, powers to reduce household waste and to require retailers to reduce the use of plastic bags.
Ministers are also obliged to report every five years on the risks climate change poses to Britain, and say how it intends to address these.
Climate change minister Joan Ruddock said she had recently spoken to officials in the US Congress and they had praised the way British lawmakers worked together on such an important issue.
The bulk of the bill was passed last month by 463 votes to three.
Ruddock said she hoped the election of Barack Obama as new president would lead to changes in the US policy on emissions.
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