Last dive for 2008 at Pulau Hantu
on the Pulau Hantu blog
Massive reclamation at Tuas continues until Jul 09
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Seletar shore from afar
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Hunter in the dark
on the annotated budak blog
A seven-in-one tree for birds
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Closing 2008 and welcoming 2009
on the Water Quality in Singapore blog
The Solomon Star 31 Dec 08;
SINGAPORE has been cautioned not to accept the bottlenose dolphins exported from the Solomon Islands.
Chairman of the Mexican Congress, Committee of Environment, Natural Resources and Fisheries Senator Jorge Legorreta wrote to the Singapore Minister for National Development Mah Bau Tan on this.
This was after the recent shipment of bottlenose dolphins from here to the Philippines, which will be later transferred to Singapore.
Another consignment is reported to be shipped from here soon.
In the letter obtained by the Solomon Star, which was copied to Prime Minister Dr Derek Sikua and Fisheries minister Nollen Leni, M Legorreta cautioned Mr Tan that there are plans for bottlenose dolphins from the Solomon Islands to be exported to Singapore.
“We understand that plans are underway to import a number of indo Pacific bottlenose dolphins from the Solomon Islands to your country. We wish to share our country’s experience to assist with your decision making process as you consider this import,” he said in the letter.
The senator said the 28 bottlenose dolphins exported to Mexico from the Solomon Islands in 2003 has tainted their country’s reputation.
“In July 2003, Mexico allowed an import of 28 dolphins from the Solomon Islands despite widespread criticism from CITES and non government organisations.
“Twelve of the dolphins eventually died which we see as an appalling mortality rate compared to the life of these friendly mammals living in the wild,” he stated in the letter.
“Mexico’s experience with this single import led to our government imposing an outright ban on importation and exportation of live cetaceans for entertainment purposes and this ban is still in place,” the Mexican senator said.
He said Mexico’s international reputation was damaged because of the negative publicity surrounding the single import from the Solomon Islands.
“We therefore urge the Singapore government to consider our experience and the mortality suffered by these animals when considering permits for the imports from the Solomon Islands,” he said.
By EDNAL PALMER
Melati Mohd Ariff, Bernama 31 Dec 08;
PULAU TIOMAN, Dec 31 (Bernama) -- Its curtains down for phase one of the Coral Reef Camp, an awareness campaign on the need to conserve the nation's marine parks jointly held by the Marine Parks Department (DMPM), United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) Marine Park Project and Reef Check Malaysia.
The final of the three camps scheduled for 2008 was held last November with the participation of 23 students and 12 teachers from Sekolah Kebangsaan Juara and Sekolah Kebangsaan Mukut of Pulau Tioman, Pahang.
The students were from Mukut and Juara villages located on the island's south and east respectively.
The 3-day camp was held at DMPM's Marine Park Centre located on the west coast of Tioman.
The first of such camps was held with the participation of 20 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Tekek in Pulau Tioman in May this year.
The subsequent camp was held in July 2008 with participation of 118 students from Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulau Sibu (34 students) and Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulau Tinggi (24 students), both in Johor; Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulau Redang (20) and Sekolah Kebangsaan Pulau Perhentian (20), both in Terengganu and Sekolah kebangsaan Kg Tekek, Tioman (20).
According to Communications Officer for UNDP's Marine Park Project, Chua Hooi Dean, the phase two of the Coral Reef Camp would be held between April and August in 2009.
The 2009 programmes, she added would focus on Year 5 students as opposed to 2008's programmes which saw the participation of students from Year 4, 5 and 6.
"The Phase Two camps would be more in-depth and improvisation has been made to suit the level of understanding and age group of the participants.
"Besides the camps, follow-up activities such as beach clean-up, talks and site visits would be planned for the selected students", Chua told Bernama.
Chua said the findings from the outcome of Phase Two would be used for planning Phase Three Camp in 2010.
ENHANCE AWARENESS
The objective of the entire Coral Reef Camp programme is to create and enhance awareness among island children on the importance of conserving marine biodiversity for a more sustained livelihood in the future.
According to Chua, the programme essentially targets school children of the marine park islands who would one day be heir to the homeland.
"The Phase One programme was held with much success, coupled with encouragement from the schools and local communities.
"This is due not only to the education received by the children but also that by the adults, parents and teachers on the importance of concerving marine biodiversity", Chua said.
She said have indirectly gained facilitation skills through all the programmes held.
The Marine Parks Project would continue to work towards enhancing the locals' understanding and knowledge on protecting the nation's marine heritage for a sustainable future.
INFORMATIVE AND INVALUABLE KNOWLEDGE
Headmaster of Sekolah Kebangsaan Mukut, Rahim Johari described the Coral Reef Camp as highly beneficial as it provided first hand information on the conservation of marine life.
In his closing speech, he also said the programme served as a platform to united students from all the three schools of Tioman.
The headmaster of Sekolah Kebangsaan Juara, Abdul Rahman Mat Yunus commented: "I am very thankful to the organisers who have successfully organised this Camp which is I think of paramount importance to the students".
Meanwhile, one of the teachers that took part in the camp, Barkorie Abdullah said the knowledge imparted was invaluable.
"Besides the exposure, we learnt more in-depth knowledge on our national heritage namely the coral reefs which definitely must be conserved for the future", said the teacher who teaches at Sekolah Kebangsaan Juara.
FULL OF EXCITEMENT
As for the school children, the three-day Coral Reef Camp was filled with fun learning.
Excitement for the participants started from the onset of the camp. The 12 students from Kampung Mukut, travelled to the Marine Park Centre by fishermen's boats that took about two hours.
The other 11 children from Kampung Juara were driven in two 4WD vehicles through a newly-constructed road that cut across the hill and the ride took about 30 minutes. The school children were from Years 4, 5 and 6.
The participants for this final Camp enjoyed real camping experience where they pitched their own tents in the compound of the Marine Park Centre.
The camp's module began with an ice-breaking game for the students to allow the students to get to know each other. They were also briefed on the camp's objective and regulations before they were divided into three groups.
Activities at the camp include the talk on the basics of coral reefs, the do's and dont's in the marine parks, animal food chain and the basics of survival where the children were taken for some snorkeling exercise.
"This camp has made me aware of my responsibility to protect and love our marine heritage. I had a lot of fun learning with all my friends at the camp", said Mohd Shazwan, a standard six pupil from Sekolah Kebangsaan Mukut.
"I learnt that corals are half plants and half animals but they are dependent on a kind of algae called zooxanthellae. It was exciting to act as a Marine Park Officer. I will definitely take care of the corals so they would not be damaged", said a standard five pupil from Sekolah Kebangsaan Juara, Rasdatun Aisyah Rabidi.
The Coral Reef Camp programme has indeed achieved its key objective of educating and instilling the importance of protecting the nation's marine heritage among the islands' school children.
The children are the nation's future and in them we must inculcate good habits and deeds, remember the Malay proverb, "Kalau melentur buluh biarlah dari rebung (to bend the bamboo, it should be from its shoot)".
-- BERNAMA
As wealthy homeowners build sandbag walls and plan more extensive, costly measures, scientists say the ocean could eventually defeat all such efforts.
Kenneth R. Weiss, LA Times 30 Dec 08;
Broad Beach has long been a scenic backdrop to Malibu's public access wars. The tranquil rhythm of surf has been routinely shattered by security guards and sheriff's deputies bouncing beachgoers who spread towels on the confusing mosaic of public and private sand.
Today, Broad Beach has shrunk into a narrow sliver of its former self. And like other skinny Malibu icons, its slenderness qualified the beach for a different kind of trend-setting role: How California will deal with rising sea levels.
Sandwiched between the advancing sea and coastal armor built to protect multimillion-dollar homes, the strip of sand is being swept away by waves and tides. Soon, oceanographers and coastal engineers contend, the rising ocean will eclipse the clash between the beach-going public and the private property owners: There will be no dry sand left to fight over.
"If the latest projections of sea level rise are right, you can kiss goodbye the idea of a white sandy beach," said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge. "You are going to be jumping off the sea wall onto the rocks below."
The rise of sea levels, which have swelled about eight inches in the last century, are projected to accelerate with global warming.
A group of scientists this month once again elevated those projections, suggesting that a rise of up to two feet predicted last year by the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change could easily double or more within the next century. The new numbers, outlined in a study commissioned by the U.S. Climate Change Science Program, take into account the latest data and observations of glacial and land ice melting, which send torrents of fresh water into the ocean.
Although scientists are likely to continue to debate how fast the ice sheets will melt, much of the projected rise results from increasing ocean temperatures. As water warms, it expands and occupies more space.
Depending on the slope of the beach, every inch of sea-level rise claims an average of 50 inches of land. That makes the long-term prospects for California's signature beaches less than promising, as they are caught between the encroaching sea and increasingly fortified oceanfront development.
"As sea level rises, the beaches are going to get narrower and narrower," said Robert T. Guza, a wave and coastal erosion expert at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla. "It's not going to be a matter of who owns the beach. It's going to be that there will be no beach."
Adding to the problem is a chronic shortage of beach sand, as rivers and streams have been dammed and lined with concrete to direct sediment-laden flood waters safely out to sea. These flood-control measures, as well as the building of sea walls to protect sloughing seaside cliffs and bluff-top homes, have cut off the natural flow of sand to replenish beaches.
The most sensible long-term solution, scientists say, would be for development to retreat landward and allow oceanic forces to sculpt the coastline as they have for millenniums. Waves and tides gnawing at the land would turn back-beach dunes, cliffs and hillsides into beaches of the future.
Yet that's not likely to happen given the hefty investment in pricey homes and roads now occupying the back part of the beach. So short-term solutions get approved, often as emergency measures. Concrete sea walls and barricades of boulders get thrown up to protect such structures. Sand gets trucked in to backfill the eroded shoreline.
The problem is that imported sand gets swept away over time and the fortification of shoreline with concrete or boulders, while effective in the short term at protecting homes, often accelerates sand erosion. Sea walls act like mirrors, refracting the energy of the waves and magnifying their scouring power.
"You end up with what's called a drowned beach," Guza said. "At low tide, the water comes rushing up the sea wall. At high tide, there's no beach, just water."
Such are the forces at work at Broad Beach, which historically was in better shape than other exclusive Malibu enclaves where homes built on stilts now find these pilings standing amid swirling waters at high tide.
Broad Beach homeowners, operating under emergency permits from the city of Malibu, have shielded their property with 8- to 10-foot-high walls of sandbags, often encased in broad sheets of plastic to increase their durability. The haphazard construction has turned one of Malibu's most beautiful beaches into something resembling a battlefield of makeshift bunkers.
"Everyone thinks of sandbags as soft protection, but these are functioning as if it was a sea wall," said Lesley Ewing, a senior coastal engineer with the California Coastal Commission. "To the waves, they are reflecting the water like they were concrete, and the beach isn't doing well."
So far, the commission has stayed out of the issue, a departure from actions in 2005 when it ordered Broad Beach to remove illegal "No Trespassing" signs and restore the beach after earth movers scooped wet sand off the public beach and piled it in front of private homes. "We are adopting a wait-and-see approach," said Patrick Veesert, the commission's Southern California enforcement supervisor.
Like other longtime Broad Beach visitors, Robert Ferrell, 48, of Santa Monica remains suspicious about the motives behind the sandbags. He said he has spent years standing his ground against what he calls an "intimidation game" by private security guards and sheriff's deputies patrolling the beach on all-terrain vehicles.
"I think they are trying to create a privacy zone," Ferrell said. "They're very possessive around here and don't like the public in their backyards."
Ken Ehrlich, an attorney representing Broad Beach homeowners, said that although no one likes the unsightly sandbags, they are merely a temporary measure to protect homes from an unprecedented pattern of erosion.
"There is no hidden agenda here," Ehrlich said, echoing homeowners who declined to comment on the record. "The owners are trying to protect and widen the beach so these public access issues will go away."
In recent months, the homeowners hired coastal engineers to better understand the erosion and come up with a solution that is likely to include a wall of buried boulders to fortify the beach, rock structures called groins stretching out to sea to retain sand and a regular campaign to re-nourish the emaciated beach with tons of imported sand. The cost is estimated at $10 million to $20 million and the homeowners, who include many Hollywood celebrities, are considering only private funding, Ehrlich said.
"Our hope is that at the end of this process, there is more of Broad Beach for everybody to share," he said. "The homeowners can have their private beach and the public can have its share too."
To scientists like JPL's Patzert, such efforts can buy time. Still, he's betting on the swelling sea to take ultimate control of Broad Beach.
By his calculus, catastrophe will strike when a two- to five-foot rise in sea level is joined by a 7-foot high tide and El Niño-generated storm surf of 10 feet or more.
"These folks in these overly rich communities will be sipping their martinis during some big El Niño and watching their backyards disappear in 5-feet chunks," Patzert said. "In the end, Mother Nature and global warming will win. No matter how much concrete they pour, all of those sea walls and houses will end up in the ocean."blic access wars. The tranquil rhythm of surf has been routinely shattered by security guards and sheriff's deputies bouncing beachgoers who spread towels on the confusing mosaic of public and private sand.
Today, Broad Beach has shrunk into a narrow sliver of its former self. And like other skinny Malibu icons, its slenderness qualified the beach for a different kind of trend-setting role: How California will deal with rising sea levels.
The New Paper 31 Dec 08;
With the opening of Ngee Ann Polytechnic's solar technology centre last month, Singapore is taking another step towards adopting solar technology on a wide scale.
Infographics journalists CEL GULAPA and FADZIL HAMZAH and reporter TEH JEN LEE show you what a sun-powered city of the future will look like.
GIVEN the reality of global warming, it is a good thing that the sun's plentiful energy can be harnessed in a variety of ways.
Solar energy can power anything from personal products like cars and phones to community infrastructure like signboards and traffic lights. As the supply of fossil fuels falls in the coming years, we will see the switch to renewable forms of energy.
Sunny Singapore would be the ideal place for solar power to take off in a big way.
But what type of solar technology works best in the tropics, where high temperatures and humidity would cause solar cells to degrade more quickly than in temperate regions?
Ngee Ann Polytechnic's new million-dollar solar technology centre, which opened on 12 Nov, aims to shed some light on this.
The centre, on the school's Clementi Road campus, is part of the Economic Development Board's $17 million Clean Energy Research and Testbedding programme.
About 100 solar panels of various types and sizes are being tested there to evaluate their efficiency under different weather conditions such as rain, wind and cloud cover.
'For example, wind blowing across a solar panel can cool down its surface, affecting how much solar energy it produces. Cost efficiency will also be considered as a factor,' said the director of Ngee Ann Polytechnic's school of engineering, Mr Koh Wee Hiong.
He explained that solar power can be used in two ways - the first is with the grid-tie system in which the sun's energy supplements the electricity in the national power grid.
Fuel for planes?
Then there are stand-alone systems which function independently. The simplest example is that of a solar-powered calculator. Stand-alone systems can be used in remote locations, and even power cars and planes.
One of the centre's projects involves the study of thin-film solar cells in Singapore's climate. Thin-film cells are cheap but have not been found to be very efficient.
In all, five types of solar panels are being tested. Among them are building-integrated photovoltaic cells in the form of roofing material or glass walls.
While the panels are being tested, whatever electricity they generate is used to power the centre (about 20 per cent of its energy needs can come from solar power) or fed back to the national grid.
They can contribute up to 50 kilowatt-hours-a-day, enough to power a household air-conditioner for two days.
The centre will also showcase projects by students in the engineering school's new full-time diploma course in clean energy management.
The class, which will have a first intake of 40 students, is among six new courses the polytechnic is offering from next year.
The diploma students will get a chance to spend a semester in a German university to join an international team in building the world's best solar car.
The team's car will take part in the biennial World Solar Challenge in Australia, where competitors race their solar vehicles over a 3,000km route from Darwin to Adelaide.
Straits Times Forum 31 Dec 08;
I REFER to Mrs Lee-Huan Ai-Min's letter last Thursday, '2-in-1 textbooks not a good idea'. I agree wholeheartedly. Most parents of schoolchildren are frustrated with the rampant wastage of textbooks we are 'required' to buy each year. Other than the two-in-one textbooks Mrs Lee-Huan described, there is other evidence of wastage:
# For many years, there have been incessant changes in textbooks. While I appreciate that this is because of updates or changes in the syllabus, there have been instances when only minimal changes are made on a few pages. As a result, parents have to buy the new edition, while the older one, though only a little 'out-dated', is no longer usable. Even if the update is necessary, does it justify the waste of resources?
# Many times, books that are 'required' on the booklist are not used, or hardly used. This sometimes occurs because teachers do not have sufficient time to complete the syllabus. But there are also times when unnecessary books are on the compulsory booklist. For example, from 2005 to last year, Use Of The Abacus Workbook was on the booklist of Primary 2 pupils in at least two different primary schools, though it did not appear that any time was planned during lessons to teach the subject.
It is ironic that, while students are drilled on the importance of reducing, re-using and recycling, they see such blatant disregard of the environment.
It is stated in some textbooks that their paper has been manufactured from sustainable forests. While this is commendable, it would be better to use recycled paper. Otherwise, can paper thickness be reduced? Books and schoolbags will be lighter, and cost savings can be passed on to parents.
I appeal to the Ministry of Education, schools and publishers to consider the plight of many poor families who can do without such wastage. I also urge them to act responsibly towards the environment, because we have only one Earth to care for.
Chan Pui Yee (Ms)
The Economist 30 Dec 08;
Man is assaulting the oceans. They will smite him if he does not take care
NOT much is known about the sea, it is said; the surface of Mars is better mapped. But 2,000 holes have now been drilled in the bottom, 100,000 photographs have been taken, satellites monitor the five oceans and everywhere floats fitted with instruments rise and fall like perpetual yo-yos. Quite a lot is known, and very little is reassuring.
The worries begin at the surface, where an atmosphere newly laden with man-made carbon dioxide interacts with the briny. The sea has thus become more acidic, making life difficult, if not impossible, for marine organisms with calcium-carbonate shells or skeletons. These are not all as familiar as shrimps and lobsters, yet species like krill, tiny shrimp-like creatures, play a crucial part in the food chain: kill them off, and you may kill off their predators, whose predators may be the ones you enjoy served fried, grilled or with sauce tartare. Worse, you may destabilise an entire ecosystem.
That is also what acidification does to coral reefs, especially if they are already suffering from overfishing, overheating or pollution. Many are, and most are therefore gravely damaged. Some scientists believe that coral reefs, home to a quarter of all marine species, may virtually disappear within a few decades. That would be the end of the rainforests of the seas.
Carbon dioxide affects the sea in other ways, too, notably through global warming. The oceans expand as they warm up. They are also swollen by melting glaciers, ice caps and ice sheets: Greenland’s ice is on track to melt completely, which will eventually raise the sea level by about seven metres (23ft). Even by the end of this century, the level may well have risen by 80cm, perhaps by much more. For the 630m people who live within 10km (six miles) of the sea, this is serious. Countries like Bangladesh, with 150m inhabitants, will be inundated. Even people living far inland may be affected by the warming: droughts in the western United States seem to be caused by changing surface temperatures in the tropical Pacific.
And then there are the red tides of algal blooms, the plagues of jellyfish and the dead zones where only simple organisms thrive. All of these are increasing in intensity, frequency and extent. All of these, too, seem to be associated with various stresses man inflicts on marine ecosystems: overfishing, global warming, fertilisers running from land into rivers and estuaries, often the whole lot in concatenation.
Some of the worrying changes may not be entirely the work of man. But one that surely has no other cause is the dearth of fish in the sea: most of the big ones have now been hauled out, and the rest will be gone within decades if the pillage continues at current rates. Indeed, over three-quarters of all marine fish species are below, or on the brink of falling below, sustainable levels. Another change is the appearance of a mass of discarded plastic that swirls round in two clots in the Pacific, each as large as the United States. And the sea has plenty of other ills, as our special report this week explains.
Neptune would weep
Each of these changes is a catastrophe. Together they make for something much worse. Moreover, they are happening alarmingly fast—in decades, rather than the aeons needed for fish and plants to adapt. Many are irreversible. It will take tens of thousands of years for ocean chemistry to return to a condition similar to its pre-industrial state of 200 years ago, says Britain’s most eminent body of scientists, the Royal Society. Many also fear that some changes are reaching thresholds after which further changes may accelerate uncontrollably. No one fully understands why the cod have not returned to the Grand Banks off Canada, even after 16 years of no fishing. No one quite knows why glaciers and ice shelves are melting so fast, or how a meltwater lake on the Greenland ice sheet covering six square kilometres could drain away in 24 hours, as it did in 2006. Such unexpected events make scientists nervous.
What can be done to put matters right? The sea, the last part of the world where man acts as a hunter-gatherer—as well as bather, miner, dumper and general polluter—needs management, just as the land does. Economics demands it as much as environmentalism, for the world squanders money through its poor stewardship of the oceans. Bad management and overfishing waste $50 billion a year, says the World Bank.
Economics also provides some answers. For a start, fishing subsidies should be abolished in an industry characterised by overcapacity and inefficiency. Then governments need to look at ways of giving those who exploit the resources of the sea an interest in their conservation. One such is the system of individual transferable fishing quotas that have been shown to work in Iceland, Norway, New Zealand and the western United States. Similar rights could be given to nitrogen polluters, as they have been to carbon polluters in Europe, and to seabed miners on continental shelves. A system of options and futures trading for fish could also help.
Quotas work in national waters. But the high seas, beyond the limits of national control, present bigger problems, and many fear that the tuna, sharks and other big fish that swim in the open ocean will be wiped out. Yet international fishing agreements covering parts of the North Atlantic show that management can work even in such common waters—though the Atlantic tuna commission also shows it can fail. And where fishing cannot be managed, it must simply be stopped. Nothing did so much good for fish stocks in northern Europe in the past 150 years as the second world war: by keeping trawlers in port, it let fisheries recover. A preferable solution today would be marine reserves, the more, and the bigger, the better.
In a world whose demand for protein grows daily, the need to conserve stocks is plain. The remedies are not hard to grasp. Politicians, however, are supine. Few of them, especially in Europe, are ready to stand up to potent lobbies, except in small countries where fishing is so important economically that the threat of mass extinctions cannot be ignored.
Now bind the restless wave
Yet the mass extinction, however remote, that should be concentrating minds is that of mankind. It is not wise to dismiss it where CO2 emissions, the other great curse of the oceans, are concerned. In the long run, the seas are the great sink for nearly all carbon. They may be able to help avert some global warming—for instance, by providing storage for CO2, by providing energy through wave or tidal power, or by somehow taking carbon out of the atmosphere faster than at present. They will, however, continue to change and be changed as long as man continues to put so much carbon into the atmosphere.
So far, the rising sea levels, dying corals and spreading algal blooms are only minor distractions for most people. A few more hurricanes like Katrina, a few dramatic floods in the coastal cities of the rich world, perhaps even the shutting down of a part of the world’s great conveyor belt of ocean currents, especially if it were the one that warms up western Europe: any of these would catch the attention of policymakers. The trouble is that by then it may be too late.
S. Murari, Reuters 30 Dec 08;
CHENNAI, India (Reuters) - More than 15,000 people in southern India protested against the extension of a new tiger reserve Tuesday, despite official assurances that they will not lose their homes to the sanctuary.
Representatives from all parties in Tamil Nadu state, including the state's ruling party, took part in what is the third such protest since November against the extension of the Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary, police said.
The state government declared Mudumalai as a tiger reserve earlier this year as part of a federal government initiative, called "Project Tiger," to boost the country's dwindling numbers of big cats.
There were about 40,000 tigers in India a century ago. A government census report published this year says the tiger population has fallen to 1,411, down from 3,642 in 2002, largely due to dwindling habitat and poaching.
A special panel set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in 2006 that thousands of poor villagers inside India's tiger reserves would have to be relocated to protect the endangered animals from poachers and smugglers. Some experts have put the number at around 300,000.
Poachers and smugglers exploit the grinding poverty of forest villagers to keep them on their side. Authorities have tried educating the villagers, handing out monetary incentives and drafting them as informants.
Tuesday's demonstrators were not against the declaration of a 321 sq km (125 sq mile) core area but against the creation of a buffer zone, Rajeev Srivastava, a field director for Project Tiger said.
Around 350 families living in the core area have been given a 1 million rupee ($20,800) payout, but those in the buffer areas fear they will be evicted, Srivastava said.
"We have no intention to dislodge anyone from the buffer zone. In fact, people in this zone will be involved in the project as trackers and guides for eco-tourists to enhance their means of livelihood."
The Mudumalai wildlife sanctuary is part of the larger Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve on a mountain range that spans three Indian states.
There are 48 tigers in the Nilgiri Reserve across which the tigers are free to roam, Srivastava added.
(Editing by Matthias Williams)
Peter Henderson, Reuters 30 Dec 08;
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Charging that the outgoing Bush administration is trying to gut the Endangered Species Act, California has sued to stop the federal government from going ahead with mining, logging and other environmentally sensitive projects without consulting scientists.
This month the Interior and Commerce Departments changed rules to enable federal agencies to decide for themselves whether their actions put wildlife at risk, scrapping a previous requirement that they conduct reviews with scientists to determine whether their actions might hurt endangered or threatened species.
"The Bush administration is seeking to gut the Endangered Species Act on its way out the door," California Attorney General Jerry Brown said in a statement announcing the suit, which was filed Monday in Northern California Federal District Court to force the government to drop the rule changes.
Brown argued that scrapping the scientific reviews would significantly increase the risk that federal agencies would greenlight projects that could harm endangered species and their habitats.
The Interior Department has contended the agencies can make good decisions themselves without the input of scientists, but environmentalists swiftly denounced the move.
Before California weighed in, the Natural Resources Defense Council, National Wildlife Federation and the Center for Biological Diversity had all launched similar actions in court to block the rule changes.
Since President George W. Bush took office in 2001, 58 species have been added to the endangered species list, compared with 522 during the eight years of President Bill Clinton's administration.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson, Editing Chris Wilson)
Mead Gruver, Associated Press National Geographic News 30 Dec 08;
Yellowstone National Park was jostled by a host of small earthquakes for a third straight day Monday, and scientists watched closely to see whether the more than 250 tremors were a sign of something bigger to come.
Swarms of small earthquakes happen frequently in Yellowstone, located in Wyoming in the western U.S., but it's very unusual for so many earthquakes to happen over several days, said Robert Smith, a professor of geophysics at the University of Utah.
"They're certainly not normal," Smith said. "We haven't had earthquakes in this energy or extent in many years."
Smith directs the Yellowstone Seismic Network, which operates seismic stations around the park. He said the quakes have ranged in strength from barely detectable to one of magnitude 3.8 that happened Saturday. A magnitude 4 quake is capable of producing moderate damage.
"This is an active volcanic and tectonic area, and these are the kinds of things we have to pay attention to," Smith said. "We might be seeing something precursory.
"Could it develop into a bigger fault or something related to hydrothermal activity? We don't know. That's what we're there to do, to monitor it for public safety."
No Cause for Alarm?
The strongest of dozens of tremors Monday was a magnitude 3.3 quake shortly after noon. All the quakes were centered beneath the northwest end of Yellowstone Lake.
A park ranger based at the north end of the lake reported feeling nine quakes over a 24-hour period over the weekend, according to park spokeswoman Stacy Vallie. No damage was reported.
"There doesn't seem to be anything to be alarmed about," Vallie said.
Smith said it's difficult to say what might be causing the tremors. He pointed out that Yellowstone is the caldera of a volcano that last erupted 70,000 years ago.
He said Yellowstone remains very geologically active—and its famous geysers and hot springs are a reminder that a pool of magma still exists 5 to 10 miles (8 to 16 kilometers) underground.
"That's just the surface manifestation of the enormous amount of heat that's being released through the system," he said.
Yellowstone has had significant earthquakes as well as minor ones in recent decades. In 1959, a magnitude 7.5 quake near Hebgen Lake just west of the park triggered a landslide that killed 28 people.
The Telegraph 30 Dec 08;
2008 was the year man-made global warming was disproved, according to the Telegraph's Christopher Booker. Sceptics have long argued that there are other explanations for climate change other than man-made CO2 and here we look at some of the arguments put forward by those who believe that global warming is all a hoax.
Temperatures are falling, not rising
As Christopher Booker says in his review of 2008, temperatures have been dropping in a wholly unpredicted way over the past year. Last winter, the northern hemisphere saw its greatest snow cover since 1966, which in the northern US states and Canada was dubbed the "winter from hell". This winter looks set to be even worse.
The earth was hotter 1,000 years ago
Evidence from all over the world indicates that the earth was hotter 1,000 years ago than it is today. Research shows that temperatures were higher in what is known as the Mediaeval Warming period than they were in the 1990s.
The earth's surface temperature is not at record levels
According to Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies analysis of surface air temperature measurements, the meteorological December 2007 to November 2008 was the coolest year since 2000. Their data has also shown that the hottest decade of the 20th century was not the 1990s but the 1930s.
Ice is not disappearing
Arctic website Crysophere Today reported that Arctic ice volume was 500,000 sq km greater than this time last year. Additionally, Antarctic sea-ice this year reached its highest level since satellite records began in 1979. Polar bear numbers are also at record levels.
Himalayan glaciers
A report by the UN Environment Program this year claimed that the cause of melting glaciers in the Himalayas was not global warming but the local warming effect of a vast "atmospheric brown cloud" over that region, made up of soot particles from Asia's dramatically increased burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Temperatures are still dropping
Nasa satellite readings on global temperatures from the University of Alabama show that August was the fourth month this year when temperatures fell below their 30-year average, ie since satellite records began. November 2008 in the USA was only the 39th warmest since records began 113 years ago.
Reuters 30 Dec 08;
LONDON (Reuters) - Next year is set to be one of the top-five warmest on record, British climate scientists said on Tuesday.
The average global temperature for 2009 is expected to be more than 0.4 degrees celsius above the long-term average, despite the continued cooling of huge areas of the Pacific Ocean, a phenomenon known as La Nina.
That would make it the warmest year since 2005, according to researchers at the Met Office, who say there is also a growing probability of record temperatures after next year.
Currently the warmest year on record is 1998, which saw average temperatures of 14.52 degrees celsius - well above the 1961-1990 long-term average of 14 degrees celsius.
Warm weather that year was strongly influenced by El Nino, an abnormal warming of surface ocean waters in the eastern tropical Pacific.
Theories abound as to what triggers the mechanisms that cause an El Nino or La Nina event but scientists agree that they are playing an increasingly important role in global weather patterns.
The strength of the prevailing trade winds that blow from east to west across the equatorial Pacific is thought to be an important factor.
"Further warming to record levels is likely once a moderate El Nino develops," said Professor Chris Folland at the Met Office Hadley Center. "Phenomena such as El Nino and La Nina have a significant influence on global surface temperature."
Professor Phil Jones, director of the climate research unit at the University of East Anglia, said global warming had not gone away despite the fact that 2009, like the year just gone, would not break records.
"What matters is the underlying rate of warming," he said.
He noted the average temperature over 2001-2007 was 14.44 degrees celsius, 0.21 degrees celsius warmer than corresponding values for 1991-2000.
(Reporting by Christina Fincher; Editing by Christian Wiessner)
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