Best of our wild blogs: 20 Nov 08

A Tale of Survival (2005 paper)
on the Labrador Park: July 2005 blog

Letter to a potential environmental geography undergrad
on Monkey's Masterful Modulations blog

Pedal Ubin 13 Dec 2008 - Registration OPEN!
on the Toddycats! blog

Peregrine Falcon feasting on a Javan Myna
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Tragedy of a road kill: Mountain Bulbul I
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Giant clam, special stars and other low tide surprises
on the Singapore Celebrates our Reefs blog

Jorunna funebris Fever at Semakau
on the Manta Blog

Beautiful Lorong Halus landfill photos
and more on the Aesthetic Voyager blog

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Fish could save Brazil rainforest

Darren Garnick Boston Herald 19 Nov 08;

Scott Dowd’s regular clients don’t care much about marketing. All they want to know is when their next batch of frozen rats or squirming worms is being served.

Dowd, an Amazon biologist at the New England Aquarium, regularly takes care of three anaconda - swimming boa constrictors that crush their prey to death. He also provides hospitality for the far more gentle cardinal tetras, bright red and blue guppy-sized fish that are extremely popular with home aquarium enthusiasts.

In the wild, these shimmery cardinal tetras are lucky to live for a year. In captivity, however, their life span can be up to 10 years. For the past two decades, Dowd has been researching the pitch-black, acidic waters of the Rio Negro, a major Amazon tributary in Northern Brazil. The region, which has exported millions of tropical fish around the world since the 1950s, depends on the harvest to financially support 60 percent of its population.

“They’re beautiful,” says Dowd. “When the sun catches these cardinal tetras, they glow like Christmas ornaments.”

The Boston biologist is planning to revisit the Brazilian paradise in January as part of an ongoing “Save a Fish, Save a Tree” campaign. So far, economic factors have caused the government to zealously protect this section of rainforest because these fish thrive in the shade. But the rising popularity of farm-raised cardinal tetras puts this equation in jeopardy.

Mega-retailers of home aquariums, such as PetSmart and Wal-Mart, prefer the farmed fish because they can live at a neutral pH level, unlike the acidic conditions of the wild tetras. The changing markets mean that Brazilian fishermen are facing a dwindling customer base.

“All this is very counter-intuitive,” says Dowd. “You would think biologists would not want to take fish out of the rainforest. But the fish are the key to miminizing deforestation. The people’s other economic options - timber harvest, cattle ranching and gold mining - are environmental disasters.”

“Things look grim,” he adds. “The local fisheries look like they are headed for collapse. But there’s hope that this threat can be addressed. If you ask fish hobbyists if they care about the environment, a very high percentage say they care about it deeply.”

Dowd thinks Amazon fishermen can ride the current wave of feel-good, cause labeling. Based on the marketing model of Fair Trade coffee and FSC certified renewable lumber, he believes wild fish will sell with the “Buy a Fish, Save a Tree” branding.

New England Aquarium researchers are also helping fisheries acclimate cardinal tetras from acidic water to neutral pH tanks to make them more marketable to big-box retailers.

Other plans may include assigning lot numbers to every batch of tropical fish caught in the Rio Negro.

“Imagine if you could go online and see a video of the actual fisherman who caught your tropical fish,” says Dowd. “And if the fisherman told you directly what he would have to do if he could no longer fish.”

“I want hobbyists to know directly how their choices can affect people thousands of miles away and how they can make a contribution to saving the rainforest,” he adds. “Things don’t look good, but we can begin to turn all of this around.”

Darren Garnick’s “The Working Stiff” column runs every Wednesday. Check out the Working Stiff blog at www.bostonherald.com/blogs/workingStiff.

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Recycling set to rise with compulsory bins at condos

NEA sending notices to private apartments; they will have 6 months to comply
Shuli Sudderuddin & Seow Kai Lun, Straits Times 20 Nov 08;

IT IS waste not in Parc Oasis.

Since the Jurong East condominium installed two recycling bins at each of its 10 blocks last month, it has netted one tonne of discarded items a month - up from less than half a tonne previously.

Then, there was only one large recycling bin for the whole estate. Now, the discards can be separated into paper and other items.

The cleaners from cleaning company Coverall also benefit. They can make up to $30 a month by selling what is collected to recycling firms.

Almost four in 10 households in private apartments like Parc Oasis, where recycling facilities exist, make use of them.

The number is set to rise, after it was made compulsory this month to provide recycling bins at condos and private apartments.

The National Environment Agency sent out notices this month to 400 condos with more than 50 units each. They have been given six months to comply with the requirement. The remaining condos will receive notices in phases over the next few months.

The Government aims to have such facilities in all condos by the end of next year. The penalties for condos which do not comply include a warning letter and a 28-day grace period, after which a $200 fine will be meted out.

Said Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, at the launch of Recycling Day on Saturday in Jurong East: 'There's a lot of demand by...households in the private condominiums to have recycling facilities, but we have left this to the management committee to decide on the mode.

'What we're interested in is the outcome - that residents there have access to recycling facilities.'

Indeed, some condos started recycling initiatives on their own even before the new rules were announced.

The Straits Times did a check with 10 condos, and found that half already had bins for paper and other recyclable materials.

Nouvelle Park in Yio Chu Kang, for example, has a bin for paper in its carpark. When it is full, the estate management sells the paper to the rag-and-bone man.

At Legenda condo in Joo Chiat, residents were the driving force behind its recycling facilities.

They came up with the idea of obtaining recycling bins to encourage all residents to recycle and do their part for the environment, said retiree James Ling, 61, a member of the Legenda management council.

Since the bins were set up in March, even residents who never recycled have started doing so.

Said housewife Jasmine Tan, 37: 'I now make it a point to separate my trash, taking what can be recycled to the bins at the back.'

Developers have also tried to play their part in helping condos to go green.

Property developer City Developments (CDL), which won the President's Award for the Environment last year, has built recycling corners in its condos.

Its latest recycling initiative is a dual pneumatic disposal system, which can be found in three recently completed projects this year.

These are Parc Emily at Mount Emily Park, St Regis in Orchard Road and The Sail@Marina Bay.

Two chutes are located in the common corridor, one for normal trash and the other for recyclables.

This prompted Parc Emily resident, Mrs Nicole Wong, 35, to start recycling.

'In the past, the excuse was that it was inconvenient. Now, there's no longer any reason not to recycle,' said the IT sales manager.

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Climate change momentum fading: Asia-Pacific survey

Shaun Tandon Yahoo News 19 Nov 08;

LIMA (AFP) – Climate change is fading as a priority in the Pacific Rim as the gloomy state of the global economy takes precedence, a survey of opinion leaders showed Wednesday.

The private Pacific Economic Cooperation Council released an annual survey of leaders in government, business and media ahead of a summit in Peru of 21 Asia-Pacific nations, which account for more than half the global economy.

Twenty-four percent of some 400 opinion leaders surveyed said the top priority for Asia-Pacific leaders should be addressing the US-bred financial crisis, far outweighing other issues.

Last year, the top priority was reviving stalled global trade negotiations, at 12 percent, but climate change came close at eight percent. Global warming did not even figure among the top priorities this year.

"We've been swamped by bad economic news and you don't have to look at our survey results alone to see that the interest and focus on climate change has dissipated somewhat," said Yuen Pau Woo, co-author of the report.

"You see the same shift in focus in the public away from climate change questions to questions of economic survival and growth," said Woo, president of the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.

The survey was released a day after US president-elect Barack Obama pledged to engage the world on climate change, which UN scientists warn threatens extinction for many species by the end of the century.

George W. Bush, the outgoing US president, was the industrialized world's main holdout from the Kyoto Protocol, arguing that mandatory cuts in carbon emissions blamed for global warming were too costly for the US economy.

With Bush's departure, nations are racing to meet a deadline of December 2009 to draft a new treaty on obligations for the period after 2012, when Kyoto's obligations expire.

The survey also found that 78 percent of opinion leaders predicted the United States would suffer much weaker growth in the coming year and that a US recession was the main risk for the region.

Compared with previous years, the Pacific Rim was less worried about high energy and food prices and the risk of conflict between China and Taiwan, the survey said.

Cross-strait tensions have eased dramatically since Taiwan elected Beijing-friendly President Ma Ying-jeou in March. China claims Taiwan, where China's nationalists fled in 1949 after losing the mainland's civil war.

Foreign and trade ministers were holding talks on Wednesday in Lima ahead of the summit of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum.

In the survey, only 25 percent wanted APEC to create new institutions and few expected quick action on creating a regional free-trade zone or common currency.

More important, the survey said, was ensuring a flow of liquidity during the financial crisis and preventing the so-called "spaghetti bowl effect" of competing regulations.

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Melting ice now main driver of rising sea levels: study

Yahoo News 18 Nov 08;

PARIS (AFP) – Runoff from ice caps in Antarctica and Greenland along with melting mountain glaciers have replaced expanding oceans as the main driver of rising sea levels, according to a new study.

The rate at which the global ocean water mark rises could have a devastating impact on hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying areas around the world.

Earlier research had shown that sea levels crept up and average of 3.1 millimetres (0.12 inches) per year from 1993 to 2003.

More than half of that increase came from a process called thermal expansion whereby the ocean gains in mass as climate change pushes global temperatures upward.

The other half, climate scientists calculated, was caused by land ice, especially dwindling glaciers in mountain ranges such as the Himalayas and Andes.

The new study, drawing on data from two new observational systems, shows that thermal expansion -- which is cyclical over periods measured in decades -- essentially stopped after 2003.

But sea levels continued to rise, though at the slightly diminished rate of 2.5 millimetres (0.1 inches) per year.

Which left scientists wondering: if the water had stopped expanding, what was now driving the continuing elevation of the world's oceans?

The answer, it turns out, are the only two masses of ice on Earth big enough to qualify as ice sheets: Greenland and Antarctica. Both are up to three kilometres (two miles) thick, and Greenland -- the smaller of the two -- is about the size of Mexico.

"During the last decade, Antarctica and Greenland only contributed about 0.5 mm (0.02 inches) per year to rising sea levels whereas today it is about 1.0 mm (0.04 inches) per year," said Anny Cazenave, a scientist at France's National Centre for Space Studies and lead author of the paper.

"This was surprising," she told AFP by phone.

The ice sheet that sits atop Greenland contains enough water to raise world ocean levels by seven metres (23 feet).

The most dire predictions do not foresee a complete meltdown in the foreseeable future. But even a modest increase in the rate at which these continent-sized ice-blocks are changing from solid to liquid could spell disaster.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) warned last year that thermal expansion will push sea levels up 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100, enough to wipe out several small island nations and severely disrupt mega deltas in Asia and Africa.

But the report failed to take into account recent studies on the observed and potential impact of the melting ice sheets, prompting the Nobel-winning body to later remove the upward bracket from its end-of-century forecast.

The new study was published in the peer-reviewed journal Global and Planetary Change.

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Sea Surges Could Uproot Millions In Nigeria Megacity

Nick Tattersall, PlanetArk 20 Nov 08;

LAGOS - Millions of people in Nigeria could be displaced by rising sea levels in the next half century, as ocean surges swamp some of Africa's most expensive real estate and its poorest slums, scientists say.

Africa's most populous nation, stretching from the southern fringe of the Sahara to the Gulf of Guinea, could come under triple attack from climate change as the desert encroaches on its northern pastures, rainfall erodes farmland in its eastern Niger Delta, and the Atlantic Ocean floods its southern coast.

But the greatest concern is the sprawling commercial capital Lagos, one of the fastest growing cities in the world, spread over creeks and lagoons and dangerously close to sea level.

"Lagos is a megacity with 15 million people, half of them at two metres (6 ft) above sea level, and that puts them at risk as hardly any other big city in the world," Stefan Cramer, Nigeria director of Germany's Heinrich Boll Foundation think-tank and an adviser to the Nigerian government on climate change, said.

Speaking at the launch this week of a Nigerian documentary on climate change, Cramer said most scientists predicted sea levels would rise by one metre over the next 50 years or so.

"In 50 years with a one-metre sea level rise, two million, three million people would be homeless ... By the end of the century we would have two metres and by that stage Lagos is gone as we know it," he told Reuters in an interview.

Lagos state government has been battling to reinforce the long sand spits such as Bar Beach -- whose wooden shacks are a favourite hangout for touts and hustlers known as "Area Boys" -- which protect the mouth of the main lagoon from the Atlantic.

But the effect would be limited and little was being done in terms of urban planning to adjust to the risks, Cramer said.


MANSIONS, SHANTIES AT RISK

Nigeria's economic growth, fueled by its huge oil deposits, has been among the fastest in Africa. This has drawn rural and immigrant labourers to the factories and docks of Lagos, while white-collar workers flock to its banks and blue-chip firms.

Demand for housing has exploded at both ends of the market. Shanty towns where wooden huts perch on stilts have grown into the lagoon while engineers reclaim land to build multi-million dollar villas and apartments on the exclusive Lekki peninsula.

"Most of the construction in Lekki is bound to fail because it is built on sand which has never been properly consolidated," Cramer said. "There's only one option: moving to higher ground."

Scientists predict heavier rains and higher sea levels could wipe out much of Bayelsa, one of three main states in the Niger Delta, a vast network of mangrove creeks home to isolated villages and to Africa's biggest oil and gas industry.

Nigeria's oil industry increasingly is moving offshore and onshore installations in the delta's shallow swampland can be raised to protect them, meaning the impact on the sector would be limited. But villagers will be defenceless.

"We may lose quite a good percentage of Lagos ... and probably the whole of Bayelsa," said Emmanuel Obot, executive director of the Nigerian Conservation Foundation.

"If that happens, the refugee problem will be so massive that I don't think Nigeria is ready," he said.

The creators of "Global Warming: Nigeria Under Attack" plan to show the documentary in schools and churches around Nigeria.

With scenes of villagers sitting outside mud huts discussing using less wood in their cooking, or farmers showing crops swept away by flooding, the aim is to tailor the message of films like Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" to an African audience.

"Luckily the scientists are telling us that we haven't run out of time entirely and that if we take the issue seriously, it might not be too late," said producer Desmond Majekodunmi.

(Editing by Randy Fabi and Michael Roddy)

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The high cost of island resorts in Thailand

Developments in Phuket deny local fisherman access to protected fishing waters
Anchalee Kongrut, Bangkok Post 20 Nov 08;

Hame Tinkohyao, a 58-year-old fisherman, did not look at all excited when our boat glided past the stunningly beautiful rock caves and islands in the Andaman Sea. The well-weathered fisherman says he's seen this area hundreds and thousands of times.

"I can remember every beach and every rock cave here. I can clearly visualise them with my eyes closed," said Uncle Hame. And he was not bragging. As many tourists may consider the pristine Koh Yao Yai in Phangnga Bay of Phangnga province a paradise island, for Uncle Hame, it is his birthplace and source of livelihood.

"In the old days, the rock caves were adorned with orchids. Nowadays, much of the stalactites and stalagmites are broken because of tourists ... and many orchids have been stolen," the fisherman added, sighing.

In front of us was Koh Naka - a very beautiful island that will soon be the location for a six-star resort. Uncle Hame says the island just got a new local nickname. "The local fishermen here call it Koh Resort (Island of resorts)," he said, with a cynical laugh. He pointed to another famous island, Koh Raet, which too will become the location of an expensive residential resort and recreational yacht marinas - being developed by Jumeirah - a real-estate development group famous for its palm-shape island and sail-boat-like shape high-rise in Dubai.

"Almost every island outside the national park territory will become a Koh Resort," he said, with worry.

His remark reflects the concerns of local fishermen towards unchecked property development that have invaded in almost every nook and cranny of pristine beaches and islands in Phuket and in the Andaman Sea.

These developments obstruct local fisheries and deny the fishermen access to the beaches and rich ecology they so heavily depend on.

"We usually quarrel with deep sea fishing boats that use destructive fishing gear to catch fish and destroy the sea grass and coral reefs. But I can assure you ... dealing with big fishing boats is far easier than dealing with property developers. Because you can chase them [fishing boats] out of the three-kilometre fishing zone reserved by law for local fishermen. But we don't know how to deal with expensive developers," shared Uncle Hame. For him, the real threat comes from yacht marinas, which are popping up like mushrooms all over Phuket Island and other islands in the Andaman Sea.

For instance, Jumeirah - a real-estate development firm from United Arab Emirates - will build a residential resort and a private marina on Koh Raet that will contain 120 to 400 million baht units. A six-star resort on Koh Maphrao is being built by a development company from the UK. Ratan Tata - an Indian steel tycoon - will build Taj Exotic, a high-end residential resort that will be sold for 128 to 384 million baht per unit.

The marinas are considered a must for wealthy buyers who feel it is troublesome to go to a shared marina by car.

The locals' concern with marinas and developers was recently highlighted at the Assembly of Fisher Folks in Phuket. The conference was organised by a network of small-scale fishery communities in the southern provinces of Thailand.

"If the construction of marinas affects the local marine ecology, the livelihoods of the fishermen will also be severely affected," said Supaporn Anuchiracheeva, programme coordinator of Oxfam, an international non-governmental organisation that advocates sustainable development.

The construction of marinas, she says, involves sand dredging, which destroys the sea bed; a vital commodity that is tantamount to fertile soil used for farming. Subsequently, the locals will find it difficult to access the local beaches and bays. It is a common practice among hotel and resort projects to put fences around their properties; many of them openly discourage local fishermen to fish near their bays.

What's brewing is a new form of a natural resource war, which the poor will most likely lose, given that the government's policy supports the tourism industry.

Currently, there are three recreational marinas in Phuket - Royal Phuket Marina, Boat Laguna and Yacht Heaven - all on the east side of the island.

There are other two developers planning to build private marinas nearby. One of the marinas being constructed belongs to the Yamu. The marina project of the Yamu is facing fierce opposition by the local villagers.

The problem is the east side of Phuket Island is considered ecologically valuable and the last remaining mangrove forest, which serves as a breeding ground for fish and a storm and wave breaker. The west side of the island, which is famous for its sandy beaches, has already banned any off-shore construction.

The local villagers are fighting back, however. In 2006, the fishing communities near the Yamu project petitioned the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) to inspect the marina construction there as it falls under the environmentally protected list. A year before, the commission received another petiton from fishing communities on Koh Yao Yai in Phangnga province.

Both cases are alike in that both involve small-scale fishermen living in strong communities that have received many awards from the authorities for their efforts in protecting marine life.

For them, the marina threat is just another war they have to fight to protect their seas.

In 2006, Ban Ya Mee villagers including Uncle Hame closed the bay of Koh Yao Yai for three months. Eventually, the transport authority decided to cancel the construction permit following NHRC's findings that the construction violated the law. There was an investigation of land grabbing conducted by the Department of Special Investigation (also known as the FBI of Thailand).

Although Phuket's governor finally decided to stop the Yamu project, its developer insisted that it would continue the project because it has already received the proper constrution permits.

"We have to build it (marina). We did not break any law and we are willing to comply with every requirement," said Pariyes Rattanadilok Na Phuket, general manager of the Yamu. She says the local villagers' fear was unfounded.

"They can still access the beach and fish there. Indeed, the residents of Yamu will be happy to wake-up and see their presence. They will be able to feel that they live among the local community,"she added.

According to Pariyes, her company built a new road to benefit local fishermen to enter the beach. This once battered public road has been replaced and runs from the project directly to the beach front. Meanwhile, the local villagers will sue the company for taking away public property.

Nalinee Thongtham, the marine ecologist at the Phuket Marine Biological Centre under the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, says the construction of these recreational marinas will definitely damage sea ecology.

The construction of marinas, she believes, requires the excavation of the sea bed, caused by sand dredging. Consequently, the sea grass, coral reefs and spawning ground for fish will be scooped out during construction. Sediments during the construction and oil slicks from yachts will damage water quality.

The marine ecology in the east side of Phuket was seriously damaged by destructive fishing gear. But the situation has improved following the locals' mangrove reforestation projects and campaign against destructive fishing.

"Villagers have been helping us to protect marine ecology. The province's policy to allow marina constructions will be equivalent to cheating the villagers. They have worked very long and hard to protect this public property ... only to see it go right into the hands of private investment,"she said.

Nalinee says the marina issue extends beyond the scope of rational science of environment and conservation. "One day, the marinas will be ubiquitous like spikes springing out from durians if the province or the government do not come up with proper regulations," she added.

"The problem is that they see marinas as a booster for tourism and equate world-class tourism with yachting and marinas," she explained.

Those who oppose the project do not hate these luxury marinas, she says. "But there is a need to research real demands, carrying capacity and land zoning," she said.

Wasant Panich, a human rights commissioner, says the current law allows small marinas - less than 500 tonnes - to apply with provincial officials. Developers only conduct an Initial Environmental Examination Report (IEE) to the governor as part of acquiring a construction permit.

Larger marinas need to apply with the Ministry of Natural Resources and conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) - a more demanding process.

Currently, the Ministry of Natural Resource and Environment is revising the laws to make it harder for future marina construction. Under this new draft, which is yet to be approved by the cabinet - all marina construction projects must conduct an EIA and be approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.

But rights commissioner Wasant Panich does not think the problem will stop with tougher EIA laws. The EIA proves to be ineffective in many development projects because it can be easily manipulated in favour of investors.

He says the province must introduce marina zoning and ban them anywhere near ecologically sensitive areas. For NHRC, he says, marina construction can be seen as a rights violation because it involves conflict of interest between private investors and the local communities over use of commons or public areas.

"These marinas are just recreational facilities. It's about time for the government to estimate the level of destruction impacted by this costly hobby to our natural resources and the lives of local fishermen," said Wasant.

According to the 2008 Collier report, which researched property development in Phuket and Andaman, the marinas have driven-up the cost of property on the east coast of Phuket island - once a cheaper area. Other rivals such as Langawi island of Malaysia will build a luxurious marina for super yachts, to compete with Phuket.

Wasant put a big question mark on the benefit of marinas and high-end real-estate development to the "ordinary" people of Thailand.

"My simple question is where does the money go and who will walk away with the biggest slice of pie?"

Answers vary depending on who is answering the question.

In the economic spectrum, land investors in Phuket are no longer Thais, but expatriates based in Singapore and Hong Kong and international hospitality companies. The new wave of Phuket and Andaman island residents are a melting pot of nationalities, namely UK, Australian, Korean, Russian and Middle Eastern tycoons, according to the Collier report.

For ordinary folk like Uncle Hame, the answer about what matters to him is simple - the seas and their fishing boats.

"These resorts will not let my shabby boats get near their expensive yachts. They might fear that our Rua Thong (local dialect for small fishing boat) will damage these expensive barges.

"One day, these resorts may prevent us to pass their beaches or sail by the bay because of the sputtering noise from our boat engines, which might disturb their residents."

Phuket development has positive effects
The Bangkok Post 24 Nov 08;

I refer to your article ''The High Cost of Island Resorts''. I would like to correct the following assumptions and reported facts.

''Although Phuket's governor finally decided to stop the Yamu project'', is factually incorrect, we have never had any component of our project stopped by the Phuket governor. The construction of the hotel and villas in accordance with construction permits issued following completion of the government's Impact on the Environment Evaluation are continuing with the hotel scheduled for opening in the 4th quarter of 2009. We also plan, subject to government approval, to develop a private marina. The marina has already received a positive IEE approval and the application for the remaining permits is an ongoing process.

Contrary to the viewpoint expressed in your report, marinas are an important tool for the regeneration of marine environments.

The proposed marina is located in a heavily silted area where there has not been for a long time any coral, sea grass or any marine life. The creation of a marina was recommended to us by the marine consultants HR Wallingford as the optimal method of marine life regeneration. The benefit to the marine ecology is further demonstrated by the recent activity in Phuket where 10 aircraft are to be ''sunk'' off Bang Tao Bay to create the ''Coral Reef Squadron'', the first artificial reef project of its kind in Thailand (http://www.phuketgazette.net/dailynews/index.asp?id=6912).This project takes a practical approach to marine ecology and shows a clear understanding of the marine evolutionary process.

The Coral Reef Squadron creates the same environment as marinas, which have been proven to act as floating reefs where the evolutionary cycle is replicated. Beginning with algae and barnacle growth and the bacteria that provide food for smaller fish and then attracting the larger fish, alongside coral growth.

Furthermore, marinas have been proven to protect the seabed by providing designated areas for boats to dock rather than the scattergun approach involved with dropping an anchor at non-specified locations, which causes a broad area of damage to the sea-bed.

One need only visit marinas and piers all over the world to realise that marine life thrives in these environments, even when all sea-life had previously disappeared.

Our programme at the Yamu includes mangrove reforestation and the creation of sustainable fishing projects. We have already identified the role that we can play in supporting local fishermen by determining that our own fish supplies shall be provided wherever possible by local fishermen employing traditional fishing methods.

Campbell Kane are very proud of the work we are doing with the local community and the numerous programmes we have undertaken and the relationship of mutual cooperation that we have created here at the Yamu village. This reflects the importance we accord to environmentalism and co-operation as core components of our development ethos.

The land on which the development has been constructed has always been private; villagers have previously enjoyed access to the beach at the discretion of the owner. We have enshrined these privileges in an agreement between The Cape and the village so that the villagers' rights to access the beach are now legally recognised.

Our development has an economic as well as an environmental benefit - direct investment in projects at Yamu will exceed 5 billion baht, creating significant tax revenues as well as flowing though into the local economy through job creation and purchasing. Estimates suggest that we will directly create 700 new jobs in Phuket and attract over 700 million baht per year in terms of tourist revenues.

It is essential however that these benefits are not purchased at the cost of the environment in which we live.

We believe it is crucial influential newspapers such as the Bangkok Post research and understand the true nature of such programmes and the significant benefits that they bring to the environment and to the community.

We would like to invite you to join us at The Yamu at any time for an open discussion on this subject.

IAN HENRY
CEO
Campbell Kane

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New Study Finds World's Coastal Waters Are Vastly Under Protected

Countries Falling Short of International Goal to Protect at Least 10 Percent of Oceans and Coasts by 2012
The Nature Conservancy 19 Nov 08;

ARLINGTON, VA — November 19, 2008 — A new study published in Conservation Letters finds that protection of marine habitats is lagging far behind that of terrestrial areas. While 12 percent of the world’s lands are protected, only 4 percent of the world’s coastal waters fall within “marine protected areas,” a conservation tool used around the world to preserve ocean resources.

“Unfortunately, we found that great swathes of the world’s coastal waters are unprotected, meaning coastal livelihoods, incomes and food supplies are all at risk as fish stocks fall and coastlines erode,” said Mark Spalding, senior marine scientist at The Nature Conservancy and lead author of the study. “The good news is that marine protected areas can be a powerful tool to ensure that ocean habitats remain healthy and productive for future generations – but we need to expand and strengthen protection efforts now.”

Coastal waters including bays and estuaries and rich habitats such as mangroves, salt marshes and coral reefs, are essential for communities and economies around globe, but these ecosystems are also among the most threatened on the planet. Rising sea levels, increasingly intense storms linked to climate change, rapidly expanding coastal populations and habitat loss are all current challenges to conserving and protecting coastal resources.

The study examined the protection status for each of the world’s varied coastal ecoregions (geographically and scientifically similar areas), but also expanded its vision out to the open oceans. Here levels of protection are even less and the researchers found that only 0.7 percent of all ocean areas fall within protected areas.

At the 2004 Convention on Biological Diversity conference in Malaysia, more than 180 countries committed to protecting 10 percent of their respective oceans and coasts by 2012, and to creating “a global network of comprehensive, representative and effectively managed” marine protected areas (MPAs).

“The year 2008 marks the halfway point to this target, yet we are still far off-course, with great gaps in our efforts and little or no chance of reaching our goal on time,” added Spalding. “While there are sparks of hope with many new and exciting marine conservation efforts and a growing list of success stories, world leaders need to prioritize protection of our oceans before it’s too late.”

Success stories where great advances have been made in marine protection include areas such as the Northwest Hawaiian Islands, Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, and the Phoenix Islands in the Pacific Ocean. These examples are all large-scale protected areas, but even small protected areas can make a difference, such as the network of protected areas in the waters around many Caribbean Islands which serves as a great model for how countries can protect their oceans, improve fish-catches and tourism income, and provide a more secure environment for future generations.

Despite these positive examples, the number of effectively managed marine protected areas is limited, so fishermen, tour operators and community leaders have few examples to follow and therefore often remain unconvinced of the benefits of marine protection.

The study was a collaboration between The Nature Conservancy, United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC) and the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Using a marine classification system of coastal ecoregions (232 distinct ecological regions around the world) developed by The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund and other partners, the study found that:

• Approximately half of all ecoregions have less than one percent of their oceans under MPA coverage, and 21 have no MPAs at all.
• Only 18 percent of the world’s ecoregions have MPA coverage greater than 10 percent, including a number of very large MPAs, such as the Great Barrier Reef.
• Temperate areas are not as well protected as tropical areas. Temperate areas include the Northern Atlantic, South America and Northern Africa, which are host to rare and valuable habitats; including giant kelp forests, oyster reefs and deep coral communities and which support rich fisheries.
• Tropical areas, such as the Tropical Atlantic Ocean, are benefiting from higher levels of marine protection, especially in the Caribbean, where some fishing communities are now witnessing healthier and more abundant oceans.
• Most existing efforts are concentrated in a narrow coastal belt, within a kilometer of the coast, while further offshore marine protection efforts are minimal. In the high seas, beyond the jurisdiction of individual nations, marine protection remains virtually non-existent.

Slow progress on ocean protection
Richard Black, BBC News website 20 Nov 08;

Less than 1% of the world's oceans have been given protected status, according to a major survey.

Governments have committed to a target of protecting 10% by 2012, which the authors of the new report say there is no chance of meeting.

Protecting ecologically important areas can help fish stocks to regenerate, and benefit the tourism industry.

The survey was led by The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and is published in the journal Conservation Letters.

"For those of us working in the issue full-time it's not a surprise, we've known all along that marine protection is lagging behind what's happening on land, but it's nice to have it pinned down," said TNC's Mark Spalding.

"It's depressing that we've still got so far to go, but there are points of hope," he told BBC News.

Coastal concentration

Four years ago, signatories to the UN's biodiversity convention - which includes almost every country - pledged to protect at least 10% of the oceans in a way that makes sense ecologically.

Protecting them does not mean banning activities such as fishing or shipping completely, but making sure they are carried out sustainably.

All of the areas currently protected fall into countries' Exclusive Economic Zones, and the majority are along coasts, the study finds.

Even so, only about 4% of coastal waters are protected.

Countries diverge widely in how much protection they have mandated.

Whereas New Zealand has almost 70% of its coastline under some form of protection, countries around the Mediterranean have set aside less than 2%.

In the developing world, Dr Spalding cites Guinea-Bissau as a country that has had invested in protection, particularly in the Bijagos Archipelago, which is home to a community of hippos dwelling along its mangrove coast, as well as more conventional marine species.

Palau, Indonesia, Micronesia and several Caribbean states are also making significant progress, he said.

About 12% of the Earth's land surface has been put under protection.

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Scientists find new penguin, extinct for 500 years

Ray Lilley, Associated Press Yahoo News 19 Nov 08;

WELLINGTON, New Zealand – Researchers studying a rare and endangered species of penguin have uncovered a previously unknown species that disappeared about 500 years ago.

The research suggests that the first humans in New Zealand hunted the newly found Waitaha penguin to extinction by 1500, about 250 years after their arrival on the islands. But the loss of the Waitaha allowed another kind of penguin to thrive — the yellow-eyed species that now also faces extinction, Philip Seddon of Otago University, a co-author of the study, said Wednesday.

The team was testing DNA from the bones of prehistoric modern yellow-eyed penguins for genetic changes associated with human settlement when it found some bones that were older — and had different DNA.

Tests on the older bones "lead us to describe a new penguin species that became extinct only a few hundred years ago," the team reported in a paper in the biological research journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences.

Polynesian settlers came to New Zealand around 1250 and are known to have hunted species such as the large, flightless moa bird to extinction.

Seddon said dating techniques used on bones pulled from old Maori trash pits revealed a gap in time between the disappearance of the Waitaha and the arrival of the yellow-eyed penguin.

The gap indicates the extinction of the older bird created the opportunity for the newer to colonize New Zealand's main islands around 500 years ago, said Sanne Boessenkool, an Otago University doctoral student who led the team of researchers, including some from Australia's Adelaide University and New Zealand's Canterbury Museum.

Competition between the two penguin species may have previously prevented the yellow-eyed penguin from expanding north, the researchers noted.

David Penny of New Zealand's Massey University, who was not involved in the research, said the Waitaha was an example of another native species that was unable to adapt to a human presence.

"In addition, it is vitally important to know how species, such as the yellow-eyed penguin, are able to respond to new opportunities," he said. "It is becoming apparent that some species can respond to things like climate change, and others cannot. The more we know, the more we can help."

The yellow-eyed penguin is considered one of the world's rarest. An estimated population of 7,000 in New Zealand is the focus of an extensive conservation effort.

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EU Revamps Cod Recovery Plan In Bid To Save Species

Jeremy Smith, PlanetArk 20 Nov 08;

BRUSSELS - European Union fisheries ministers agreed on Wednesday to changes in a plan aimed at replenishing cod stocks, so severely overfished in EU waters that scientists repeatedly warn of the threat of extinction.

The EU agreed a long-term recovery plan for cod in 2004 but, of the four stock areas that it covers, only one has so far shown any sign of recovery, and even that is limited.

Worried about the cod's chances of survival, the EU will now limit the total amount of fish that may be removed from the sea, based on maximum fishing yields instead of permitted cod catches.

It hopes this change will help reduce the amount of cod that are taken as a by-catch with other fish species and thrown back to die. The aim is to achieve gradual cuts in "fish removals", using these targets as the basis for annual catch quotas.

"We have been able to achieve political agreement by unanimity, making positive changes to the way we manage stocks," EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg told a news conference. "This is a significant improvement to the first recovery plan."

Even so, EU ministers weakened some of Borg's proposals, altering "fish removal" rates to allow slightly more cod to be taken out of the sea. They also agreed to set a ceiling of 20 percent on the increase in catch from one year to the next, whereas Borg had wanted a maximum increase of 15 percent.

They turned down his proposal to include the Celtic Sea in the plan, which covers -- as in 2004 -- the North Sea, Irish Sea, west of Scotland, eastern Channel, Kattegat and Skaggerak.

For years now, scientists have said cod is so overfished in European waters that it runs the risk of stock collapse and extinction. Their advice for 2008, for example, was for fishermen to cut the catch to less than half the 2006 volume.

But EU ministers diluted the proposed cut in the quota from last year, setting it at only 18 percent, and raised the final quota by 11 percent in the North Sea -- dismaying conservation groups which attacked any increase while cod recovery seemed precarious.

The ministers also changed the rules limiting the number of days on which trawlers may go to sea, basing them on groups of vessels that use the same fishing tackle, combined with their engine size.

"This is really about proper conservation of cod stocks. It's quite iconic, as well as being economically significant," one EU diplomat said.

"It also sets an important conservation precedent ... and a direction for how the CFP (EU's Common Fisheries Policy) may progress in the future," he said.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)

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Use Flower Power To Save Europe's Bees - EU Lawmaker

PlanetArk 20 Nov 08;

STRASBOURG - Honey bees, whose numbers are falling, must be given flowery "recovery zones" in Europe's farmlands to aid their survival, a leading EU lawmaker said on Wednesday.

Bees pollinate numerous crops and scientists have expressed alarm over their mysterious and rapid decline. Experts have warned that a drop in the bee population could harm agriculture.

"If we continue to neglect the global bee population, then this will have a dramatic effect on our already strained world food supplies," said Neil Parish, who chairs the European Parliament's agriculture committee.

Parish, a British conservative, said vast swathes of single crops such as wheat often made it difficult for bees to find enough nectar.

But he said farmers could help bees by planting patches of bee-friendly flowers -- including daisies, borage and lavender.

"We're talking about less than one percent of the land for bee-friendly crops -- in corners where farmers can't get to with their machinery, round trees and under hedges."

Genetically modified crops, climate change, pesticides and modern farming techniques have all been blamed for making bees vulnerable to parasites, viruses and other diseases.

More research is needed to pin down the exact cause of the declining number of bees, the European Parliament is expected to recommend in its vote on Wednesday evening.

"The experts themselves are mystified," said Parish. "A failure to act now could have catastrophic consequences."

The EU parliament's vote will carry no legal weight but is intended to nudge the European Commission and EU member states to take the matter seriously.

(Reporting by Pete Harrison; Editing by Catherine Bosley and Paul Casciato)

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South Korea leases Madagascar land to grow food crops

Straits Times 20 Nov 08;

SEOUL: Daewoo Logistics of South Korea has secured farmland in Madagascar, off Africa, to grow food crops for its country, in a deal that was probably the largest of its kind, foreign media reported.

The Seoul-based company said it had leased 1.3 million hectares of farmland - about half the size of Belgium - from Madagascar's government for 99 years, the Financial Times said on Tuesday.

The move by Daewoo Logistics follows similar deals by other countries short of arable land and comes after wild fluctuations of food prices early this year.

Al-Qudra Holding, an investment company based in Abu Dhabi, said in August that it planned to buy 400,000ha of arable land in countries in Africa and Asia by the end of the first quarter of next year.

Malaysia's biggest palm planter is looking to develop plantations in Africa, and Kuwait has leased rice fields in Cambodia and plans to import food from the Asian country.

The United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organisation warned this year that the race by some countries to secure farmland overseas risked creating a 'neo-colonial' system, the Financial Times reported.

Those fears could be intensified by the fact that Daewoo Logistics' farm in Madagascar represents about half of the African country's arable land, according to United States government estimates.

One million hectares in the western part of Madagascar will be dedicated to corn, and 300,000ha in the east to oil palm planting, said Mr Shin Dong Hyun, who is in charge of the project for Daewoo Logistics.

The ultimate annual production targets will be four million tonnes for corn and 500,000 tonnes for palm oil. Four million tonnes of corn comprise more than half of South Korea's annual corn needs.

The corn and palm oil harvests, which are crops for feed and biofuels, would be shipped back to South Korea. South Korean President Lee Myung Bak said in April that the country may seek to farm rice and other grain overseas, possibly signing 50-year leases for agricultural land in Russia's Far East.

REUTERS, BLOOMBERG, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE

South Korean company takes over part of Madagascar to grow biofuels
The African island state of Madagascar has agreed to allow a South Korean company to take over huge tracts of its territory for farmland in a deal showing the worldwide scramble for resources across the continent.
Richard Spencer, The Telegraph 20 Nov 08;

Daewoo Logistics is taking a 99-year lease on 3.2 million acres of land, half the size of Belgium, to grow maize and biofuels, building its own roads and other infrastructure to service the new farms that will be created on currently undeveloped open space.

The amount is almost half the currently farmed land in the country.

The deal is a sign of the concern of many countries, particularly the intensely populated nations of the far east, about ensuring the safety and reliability of food and other supplies in an increasingly competitive world.

Chinese companies have signed similar deals across a number of African nations in recent years, even sending its own workforce to join local residents in working their new estates.

The Madagascar deal is striking by its size and, according to some reports, its financing. Daewoo Logistics, one of a new breed of Korean companies born from the break-up of its traditional, huge conglomerates after the Asian financial crisis, says it may have to pay nothing for the land.

What the four Madagascar regional governments with which it has negotiated stand to gain are jobs, roads and experience of advanced agricultural techniques.

Shin Dong Hyun, the Daewoo manager in charge of the project, said it was hoping to form a consortium with a Korean animal feed company and Chinese firms to run the project.

It was hoping eventually to grow 5 million metric tons of maize a year and 500,000 tons of palm oil, a major form of biofuel. It will use local labour and some expertise from South Africa.

South Korea is one of the most densely populated nations on earth, with 49 million people squeezed on to space the size of Scotland and Wales. Its shortage of arable land makes it the world's third largest importer of maize.

The company is working within a government-set ambition of increasing the amount of grain it produces either at home or through its own ventures abroad to half its supplies, from just over a quarter at present.

"We plan to improve productivity to produce 10 metric tons of maize per hectare but it will take quite a long time to reach that level," Mr Shin said.

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Palm oil drive to continue: Jakarta

Minister defends expanding cultivation even as global demand for commodity falls
Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja, Straits Times 20 Nov 08;

JAKARTA: The Indonesian government has defended the country's drive to expand oil palm cultivation, resisting demands by environmentalists who say it is destroying the country's natural forests and peatlands.

Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono has said that Indonesia would still retain 60 per cent of its forests, in addition to the 23 million ha already marked out as protected forest.

Besides, he told an annual meeting on sustainable palm oil in Bali earlier this week, any moratorium on deforestation, as environmental group Greenpeace recently demanded, was beyond the government's control.

Yesterday, a forestry official said Indonesia will plant 100 million trees this year to limit deforestation.

Global demand for palm oil - which apart from being used in cooking and food products, is also increasingly being used as an alternative biofuel - has seen more land being cleared for bigger plantations.

Environmentalists say the rapid deforestation threatens the survival of native wild orang utans in the forests.

The expansion of oil palm cultivation often creates thick haze - caused by companies and farmers using slash-and-burn methods to clear the land - that can spread to the skies above Singapore and Malaysia.

The minister's remarks immediately drew a sharp response from environmentalists.

Mr Arif Wicaksono, Greenpeace's political adviser in Indonesia, said Mr Anton's statement contradicted a commitment made by the government last year, when it said new crops would not need to be planted on natural forest.

'If they say 'no' to a moratorium, that means Indonesia intends to destroy its forest in the name of palm oil,' Mr Arif told The Straits Times yesterday.

'They shouldn't use new land, as they can use the existing, degraded lands to grow their new crops.'

The government says only 6.8 million out of the country's 133 million ha of land - or about 5 per cent - have been planted with oil palm.

But non-government organisations say the figures are much higher: According to independent monitor Sawit Watch, a further 18 million ha have been cleared, on top of the land already planted.

Last week, Greenpeace stopped several shipments of palm oil from leaving Indonesia.

Mr Anton, however, had noted the economic necessity of oil palm cultivation.

Palm oil serves as one of the main drivers of Indonesia's economy. Last year, the country earned US$7.9 billion (S$12 billion) from palm oil exports, up from US$4.8 billion the previous year. Palm oil accounted for about 7 per cent of the country's total exports last year.

Indonesia is now the world's largest crude palm oil producer. It churned out 17.4 million tonnes last year and is expected to produce 19.8 million tonnes this year.

The agriculture ministry projects oil palm cultivation to expand to cover 7.7 million ha next year, up from an estimated 7.16 million ha this year.

But analysts point out that with crude palm oil prices falling as a result of weakening global demand, this is not the right time to talk about expansion.

Indeed, some oil palm growers are already cutting back expansion plans. Astra Agro Lestari, Indonesia's largest publicly-listed oil palm grower, earlier this year set a target to grow 30,000 ha of new oil palm trees in the year, but is now planning to trim it to 20,000 ha.

'Low crude palm oil prices and high fertiliser prices have been our reasons for the cut,' head of investor and public relations Tjahjo Dwi Ariantono told The Straits Times.

Next year's expansion plans, he added, would depend on the price of crude palm oil futures. He said: 'If it falls further, then we have to put a brake on expansion so that we won't be throwing away the cash money that we have.'

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Indonesia To Plant 100 Million Trees This Year

PlanetArk 20 Nov 08;

JAKARTA - Indonesia, which has been losing forests at a rapid pace in recent years, plans to plant 100 million trees across the country this year in an effort to limit deforestation, a forestry official said on Wednesday.

Indonesia has lost an estimated 70 percent of its original frontier forest, but it still has a total forest area of more than 225 million acres (91 million hectares), with a host of exotic plants and animals waiting to be discovered.

The richest forests are found in Borneo -- the world's third-largest island shared among Indonesia, Malaysia and Brunei -- which is home to about 2,000 types of trees, more than 350 species of birds and 210 mammal species.

The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) has said in a report that Indonesia was suffering the fastest forest loss in the world at almost 1.9 million hectares per year.

In 2007, Indonesia succeeded in planting more than 100 million trees, surpassing its planting target of 79 million, said forestry ministry spokesman Masyhud.

"The realisation of planting in 2007 shows that the public is enthusiastic ... we hope it can become the culture of the community," Masyhud said.

Indonesia plans to start planting on Nov 28 and continue through December to coincide with the rainy season or planting season, Masyhud said.

Southeast Asia's biggest economy is also among the world's top three greenhouse gas emitters because of deforestation, peatland degradation, forest fires, according to a report sponsored by the World Bank and Britain's development arm.

(Reporting by Telly Nathalia; Editing by Sugita Katyal and Sanjeev Miglani)

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Macedonia plants six million trees to revive fire-ravaged forests

Yahoo News 19 Nov 08;

SKOPJE (AFP) – Macedonians took a day off work on Wednesday to plant six million trees in an action launched back in March to revive forests after fires ravaged an estimated 35,000 hectares of greenery.

"The main goal of the 'Day of The Tree -- Plant your future' initiative is to protect the environment and increase ecological awareness among citizens," the government said in a statement.

Along with human rights activists and artists, many citizens took the opportunity of a day off work as volunteers to plant the trees. Participants also included 1,800 soldiers who alone planted 200,000.

Wildfires destroyed thousands of hectars of forests in the region around the southern town of Bitola during last summer.

Organisers hope Macedonia's neighbours in the Balkans would follow suit with similar actions, proposing they plant millions of trees throughout the region.

The initiative was first organised in March by Boris Trajanov, prominent Macedonian opera singer and UNESCO Artist for Peace.

At the time, more than 200,000 people, among them ministers, policemen, government officials, artists and ambassadors, planted two million trees throughout the country.

The action was a bid to revive the forestry of Macedonia, which suffered at least 600 devastating fires in the summer of 2007, mostly caused by human error, but also due to extremely high temperatures, especially in July.

At least 35,000 hectares of forests are estimated to have been burned in the past two years, causing damage of up to 30 million euros (37.8 million dollars).

Experts said that restoring the damaged ecosystem could take up to 50 years.

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Power of the Future: A Timeline to Energy Independence

Michael Schirber, livescience.com Yahoo News 19 Nov 08;

President-elect Barack Obama has plans to invest $150 billion in clean energy technology over the next 10 years. With similar initiatives in other countries, when might we expect exciting alternative technology to deliver true energy independence?

The predictions are all over the map.

In July of this year, Al Gore made probably the most ambitious forecast: we can get all our electricity from solar, wind and other clean carbon-free sources in just 10 short years.

"This goal is achievable, affordable and transformative," he said.

Many others think it will take longer.

The European Renewable Energy Council and Greenpeace recently released their Energy [R]evolution Report, in which they predict renewables will need more like 80 years to completely replace fossil fuels.

"Al Gore can say 10 years because he is Al Gore," said Sven Teske of the Greenpeace International renewable energy campaign. "We can actually back up our targets."

In their report, Teske and his fellow authors asked the renewable energy industry what it thought it could deliver with proven technologies. This renewable potential was then matched up against economic growth predictions.

To stimulate the turnover in energy supply, governments will need to agree to ambitious reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, Teske told LiveScience.

However, he admits that it's a two-way street. Environmental groups and the renewable industry need to provide politicians with reasonable roadmaps for cutting carbon out of the energy equation.

"We hope we have some positive influence in making it easier for politicians to agree on tough emission reductions," Teske said.

Here is what the future may hold if roadmaps, predictions and policy targets all come true.

2009:

World leaders meet in Copenhagen, Denmark, to design a follow-up to the Kyoto Protocol.

All new homes built in Germany have renewable energy heating systems.

2010:

5.2 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions emissions from 1990 levels is achieved by those countries that signed the Kyoto Protocol.

20 percent of California's electricity comes from renewables.

Toyota releases a plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

2012:

The London Olympics is a low-carbon, zero-waste games.

2014:

No more incandescent bulbs sold in the United States, as proscribed by 2007 Energy Bill.

2018:

100 percent of U.S. electricity comes from solar, wind and other renewables (Gore's prediction).

$255 billion spent per year (more than four times what is currently spent) on biofuels, wind power, solar photovoltaics, and hydrogen fuel cells, according to market research firm Clean Edge.

$150 billion invested by this date by the U.S. government on climate-friendly energy development (Obama's plan).

2020:

All new cars are hybrids, according to an anonymous survey of car industry executives by IBM's Institute for Business Value.

35 miles per gallon is average for the U.S. fleet.

20 percent of the European Union's energy comes from renewables.

15 percent of China's energy comes from renewables.

Sweden is oil-free.

2022:

36 billion gallons of biofuels sold in the United States, up from 4.7 billion gallons in 2007.

2025:

25 percent of U.S. electricity comes from renewables (Obama's plan).

2030:

50 percent increase in world energy demand from 2005 levels, according to U.S. Department of Energy (DOE).

All new federal buildings are carbon-neutral, as stated in 2007 Energy Act.

70 percent of Hawaii's energy comes from renewables, thanks in part to a ban on new coal plants.

One-fifth of U.S. power comes from wind, the DOE predicts.

One-fourth of U.S. workers wear a green collar, according to the American Solar Energy Society.

20 million new jobs created by renewable industry, says United Nations report.

2050:

50 percent of the world's energy comes from renewables, claims the Energy [R]evolution Report.

2090:

100 percent of the world's energy comes from renewables, claims the Energy [R]evolution Report.

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US, Indonesia Link Up On Forest Carbon Credits

David Fogarty, PlanetArk 20 Nov 08;

SINGAPORE - California and two other US states signed a pact late on Tuesday with Indonesia's Aceh province that could see forest carbon credits from Aceh accepted into US emissions trading schemes.

The pact, the first of its kind, marks a major step in global acceptance of carbon credits derived from projects aimed at halting the destruction of the developing world's remaining forests, which soak up vast amounts of planet-warming carbon dioxide.

The governors of Aceh, California, Illinois and Wisconsin signed the pact in Los Angeles. It commits the three states to working towards accepting avoided deforestation carbon credits from a major forest reserve in Aceh into their emissions schemes.

"This MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) will wake up the world to reducing emissions by stopping the destruction of our forests," said Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf.

"This will open up a door to robust, verified forest carbon credits being accepted into American markets," he said in an SMS to Reuters from Los Angeles.

The United Nations has backed a pay-and-preserve scheme called Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation (REDD) in which rich nations buy carbon credits from developing nations in return for keeping their rainforests standing.

Deforestation counts for about 20 percent of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions.

The scheme, which is still being developed, could be worth tens of billions of dollars a year and could transform how developing states value their remaining forests.

But there have been concerns about how best to measure and verify a forest remains in tact for the long term and how best to calculate a forest's carbon stock.

The United Nations hopes to include REDD into the successor of the Kyoto Protocol from 2013 but for the moment a number of avoided deforestation projects are being developed to yield verified emissions reductions, or VERs. These usually trade between $4 and $10 for a tonne of carbon saved.


REAL AND ROBUST

In Aceh, Yusuf has backed the preservation of a 750,000 ha (1.88 million acres) forest reserve named Ulu Masen. Australia-based Carbon Conservation has helped develop a plan to protect and rehabilitate the forest and linked up with Merrill Lynch to sell carbon credits from the project.

The aim was to produce the first batch of more than 500,000 VERs in the second half of next year, said Carbon Conservation CEO Dorjee Sun.

"There's no trading scheme in the world which currently accepts international REDD credits," Sun told Reuters from Los Angeles after the deal was signed.

"The goal is to make sure the quality of the emissions reductions from Indonesia are on par with those that are being issued in America. So there's got to be a large amount of synchronisation of standards to make sure that credits created in Aceh are real, robust, verifiable and accountable," he said.

US President-elect Barack Obama has pledged to create a national emissions cap-and-trade system but already there are state-based schemes under development.

California is part of the Western Climate Initiative, set for launch in 2012, while Wisconsin and Illinois are part of the Midwestern Regional Greenhouse Gas Reduction Accord, set for launch in 2010.

Sun said the next step was to ensure the Ulu Masen project could produce robust credits to match the requirements of California's Global Warming Solutions Act (Assembly Bill 32).

He said his team will conduct an extensive survey of Ulu Masen's carbon stock by satellite monitoring and on the ground and have developed a sampling method.

"In order to verify it, we've been taking remote sensing, satellite photography. However, to do the actual verification, it is not enough to show people photos of forests."

A key part of the project was applying newly released accounting rules governing voluntary market REDD projects under the globally recognised Voluntary Carbon Standard.

"We need to synchronise all the information against the standard and then have it independently verified," Sun said, adding he hoped to complete the verification by around June next year.

(Editing by James Jukwey)

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