10 Jan (Sat): Free screening of "The 11th Hour"
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Rethinking Schools
on the Flying Fish Friends blog
St John’s Island Intertidal Walks
on the Raffles Museum News blog
Red-bearded Bee-eater feeding chicks
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
In the sea and up the tree
on the annotated budak blog
Vijay Joshi, Associated Press 7 Jan 09;
KUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia (AP) — The box turtle is disappearing across Malaysia because of increased illegal hunting for its meat and use in traditional Chinese medicine, wildlife activists said Wednesday.
TRAFFIC, a wildlife trade monitoring network, said in a new report that the Malayan Box Turtle "is in peril due to overexploitation" despite a Malaysian government ban on its export since 2005.
Since the ban, export of turtles for the pet trade in Japan, Europe and the United States ceased, but TRAFFIC found widespread evidence of continuing illegal export, mainly to Hong Kong, China and to a lesser extent Singapore.
Exotic meats from wildlife are much sought after by the Chinese, who also use body parts of animals for traditional medicines including aphrodisiacs.
There is no commercial breeding of the animal in Malaysia or elsewhere because it is expensive and time-consuming.
"To meet demand, animals are being taken from the wild at an unsustainable rate, which has to be addressed or they will disappear from the Malaysian countryside," said Sabine Schoppe, the author of the report.
The report said a survey of stock at two traders in Selangor state found 385 box turtles in a 38 day period.
Multiplying by the number of known illegal suppliers of turtles gives a conservative estimate of almost 22,000 animals illegally exported per year from Malaysia, Schoppe said.
"Simple maths leads you to the obvious conclusion: stop the over-exploitation of Malayan Box Turtles, before we lose them," she said.
She said the vast majority of the illegally exported Malayan Box Turtles — distinguished by three yellow stripes on the head and a dark olive carpace — are adults.
This is especially dangerous because the species has a slow reproductive cycle and produces a limited number of eggs in its life span of 30 to 35 years. A typical adult is about 20 cms (8 inches) long.
The Asian Box Turtle, which includes a range of box turtles including the Malayan variety, was listed as vulnerable to extinction by IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, in 2000.
TRAFFIC, a joint program of IUCN and WWF, urged Malaysia to strictly implement the export ban for one generation to allow numbers to recover. It also called for better regional cooperation in controlling illegal wildlife trade, particularly at border crossings.
Misliah Mohamed Basir, deputy director of Malaysia's wildlife department, said it was difficult to stamp out the illegal trade. Smugglers, if even convicted, often get away with a fine.
"We try our best to curb this, but it's not an easy job," she said.
Associated Press Writer Julia Zappei contributed to this report.
Illegal trade in Malayan Box Turtles continues
IUCN website 7 Jan 09;
The Malayan Box Turtle is disappearing across Malaysia despite a ban on its export, finds a new report by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network and a joint programme betwen IUCN and WWF. The turtles are in high demand in East Asia for their meat and for use in traditional Chinese medicine.
The Malayan Box Turtle is a subspecies of the widespread Southeast Asian Box Turtle, which is considered the commonest freshwater turtle in South-East Asia, but despite this, and even its tolerance of manmade artificial habitats, the species is in peril due to over-exploitation finds the new report, Science in CITES: The biology and ecology of the Southeast Asian Box Turtle Cuora amboinensis and its uses and trade in Malaysia.
In 2005, an export ban on Malayan Box Turtles was introduced by Department of Wildlife and National Parks (PERHILITAN), the government’s wildlife agency in Peninsular Malaysia, and similar exports bans exist in Sabah and Sarawak.
Following the ban, exports of turtles for the pet trade in Japan, Europe and the USA apparently ceased, but the latest TRAFFIC report found widespread evidence of continuing illegal export, mainly to Hong Kong, China and, to a lesser extent, Singapore.
“A harvest survey at two traders in Selangor, for example yielded 385 Malayan Box Turtles in a 38 day period; multiplying by the number of known illegal suppliers of turtles gives a conservative estimate of almost 22,000 animals illegally exported per year from Malaysia,” says Dr Sabine Schoppe, the author of the report.
The vast majority of Malayan Box Turtles illegally exported are adults, which poses a particular threat to this species, which has a slow reproductive cycle, only maturing late, and producing a limited number of eggs.
“There is no commercial breeding of Asian Box Turtle in Malaysia or elsewhere because it is expensive, time-consuming and economically unfeasible,” says Schoppe. “To meet demand, animals are being taken from the wild at an unsustainable rate, which has to be addressed or they will disappear from the Malaysian countryside.”
“Simple maths leads you to the obvious conclusion: stop the over-exploitation of Malayan Box Turtles, before we lose them.”
There are indications from every State in Peninsular Malaysia that populations of the Malayan Box Turtle are over-exploited or even locally extinct. According to local people, Malayan Box Turtles are rarely observed in the wild compared to only 5-10 years ago. The Asian Box Turtle was listed as Vulnerable to extinction by IUCN in 2000.
“It is nowadays difficult to find a Malayan Box Turtle in the wild near residential or agricultural areas,” says Azrina Abdullah, Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia. “Immediate action is needed to regulate exploitation for the future sustainable management of the Malayan Box Turtle.”
To help restore populations of Malayan Box Turtles, TRAFFIC recommends a total harvest ban or the strict implementation by PERHILITAN of the existing export ban for one generation to allow numbers to recover; conduct a non-detrimental finding on the Malayan Box Turtles, improvement of trade control measures, such as development of a bribe-proof CITES permit system; better international co-operation between government agencies in the region for controlling illegal wildlife trade, particularly at border crossings; and regular inspections and appropriate law enforcement actions taken against traders, markets and pet and aquarium shops trading illegally by relevant government authorities.
Straits Times Forum 6 Jan 09;
I FREQUENT an NTUC FairPrice supermarket near my home. When it first started its environmental initiative, it designated every Wednesday as Bring Your Own Bag (BYOB) day. Customers who did not take along their own bags were encouraged to buy re-usable ones or donate 10 cents for every plastic bag they used.
At that time, it created unhappiness among some customers and even caused the crowds to dwindle on Wednesdays.
Sad to say, this initiative has gone the way of the dodo bird. While FairPrice still gives a 10-cent discount for a minimum $10 purchase if customers use their own bags, the BYOB scheme is now neither enforced nor taken seriously.
The cashiers proceed to bag purchases like it was any other day, and customers have also not bothered to donate money for the plastic bags they use. The only difference on Wednesdays is that there is a can placed near the cashier counters to collect donations.
I believe that there are other participating supermarkets in this initiative, which is supported by the National Environment Agency (NEA) and Singapore Environment Council (SEC), and there was even discussion to make every day a BYOB day.
However, it appears that the only retailer who has seriously walked the talk is Ikea, which charges customers for the use of plastic bags - and does so daily and consistently.
Will the supermarkets, NEA and SEC like to comment on this initiative, and whether there are still plans to make every day a BYOB day?
Cindy Tan (Ms)
Green-bagging every day at FairPrice too
Straits Times 9 Jan 09;
I REFER to the Online Forum letter on Wednesday, 'What's happened to Bring Your Own Bag day in supermarkets?'.
We thank Ms Cindy Tan for her feedback on the Bring Your Own Bag Day initiative.
At FairPrice, every day is indeed a Bring Your Own Bag Day. In line with our commitment to caring for the environment, FairPrice has participated in Bring Your Own Bag Day, aimed at reducing plastic bag usage, since it began in April last year. To further encourage customers to adopt the habit, we introduced the FairPrice Green Rewards initiative, which runs daily to reward customers who bring their own bag.
We believe this consistent approach has reaped benefits. We have seen a 100 per cent increase in the level of participation in our Green Rewards programme. Since we introduced the programme in July last year, we have saved about 30 million plastic bags through this initiative.
We believe, over time, it will become second nature for our customers to bring their own bags to pack their purchases at FairPrice.
We are heartened to know that customers like Ms Tan support this initiative and are taking steps to protect the environment we live in.
Gerry Lee
Deputy Managing Director (Group Business)
Chairman, Green Committee
NTUC FairPrice
Five bald eagles finally enjoy vast skies
Agnes Winarti, The Jakarta Post 6 Jan 09;
Saving the capital's symbol -- the bald eagle -- from extinction is everybody's business.
Bringing the raptors back into the wild is not be enough if residents fail to preserve their natural habitat, said a conservationist from the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN), Femke den Haas.
In 2006, she and her colleagues started intensifying education to save the bald eagle by visiting schools and inviting them to see the foundation's conservation activities in Kotok islet, Thousand Islands regency.
"School children are the key because they are the ones voicing our campaigns to adults around them," den Haas told The Jakarta Post recently.
So far, JAAN had been campaigning among school children of Kelapa, Harapan, Pramuka and Panggang islets.
They have begun seeing change as more and more residents take part in the monitoring of the eagles' condition and whereabouts.
"Those who found wounded eagles would call us or deliver the birds to our place, without asking for money in return, while there was also a resident asking us to free an eagle being kept as a pet by a neighbor," said den Haas, who previously worked for the Tegal Alur Animal Rescue Center in West Jakarta.
There are also murals at public places initiated by locals campaigning for eagle conservation.
"The sense of belonging is spreading ... people are starting to feel proud about their eagles. In the long term, they can benefit from becoming ecotourism guides, for example," she said.
Jatini, 37, a shop owner in Pramuka islet, said tourists came to Thousand Islands to see the eagles.
"That is a good thing for us here, in terms of the local economy."
Pramuka islet was previously known as Elang islet (Raptor), because of the many eagles found on the island. Before it was renamed, the eagle population was declining due to illegal trade and habitat destruction.
The bald eagle, or Brahminy Kites (Haliastur Indus), which has been a symbol of Jakarta since 1995, was declared a protected species by a 1990 law on conservation of natural resources and ecosystems and the 1999 law on flora and fauna preservation.
Article 21 of the 1990 law punishes those who capture, kill, own, keep, transport and trade protected animal species with a maximum of five years' imprisonment and Rp 100 million fine.
"If you see an eagle for sale, call us and we will try to get it confiscated. But never ever give money ... because in a way you are supporting the illegal trade by buying it," den Haas said.
In 2004, den Haas said, there were only three bald eagles found throughout the entire Thousand Islands. Today, JAAN has so far released 46 Brahminy Kites and three White-Belied Sea Eagles, another kind of endangered bird, back into the protected areas of the Thousand Islands National Park.
In December 2008, JAAN released five more eagles into the wild funded by the Care for Wild organization, while 27 more are still waiting for release at Pulau Kotok's rescue center. Most of the birds were confiscated from the animal markets in Pramuka and Jatinegara, both in East Jakarta, and from owners keeping them as pets.
The long-tailed monkey (Macaca Fascicularis), turtles and dolphins also live around Thousand Islands. The campaign to save the bald eagle stretches to activities to preserve coral reefs, mangroves and the whole ecosystem.
As more trash from Jakarta washes up on the shores of the island, especially during the wet season and high tide, JAAN advised the local administration to educate residents to compost and recycle garbage.
However, a resident of Pulau Pramuka, who works as a trash picker, Suwarni, said the administration's composting program stopped a few months ago "probably because there were not enough funds allocated".
Suwarni, who only collected recyclable trash from households in Pramuka islet to be sold to a recycling factory in Tangerang, said that during the west wind season and high tide, about one of garbage could wash up on shore.
"The trash is usually picked by sanitation agency officers. But they do not work on a daily basis," he said.
Den Haas said a similar thing happened at Kotok and other islets throughout Thousand Islands.
"There is no end to it (the accumulation of trash). The administration and government should have an action plan to handle this because it affects tourism and the fishing industry.
"Now is not too late, but it will be too late if we have to wait another 10 years," said den Haas, whose foundation last year gathered residents from Kotok, Tidung, Kelapa, Harapan, Pramuka and Panggang islets to start the composting program.
Associated Press 6 Jan 08;
MANILA, Philippines (AP) — Filipino fishermen rescued an endangered sea cow, pushing it back into open water after it was stranded off a beach in the western Philippines, conservationists said Tuesday.
The World Wide Fund for Nature said two fishermen tied a rope around the refrigerator-sized mammal on Jan. 1, one day after it was trapped by low tide on the shore of Palawan island's Puerto Princesa city.
In this Jan. 1, 2009, photo released by the World Wide Fund Philippines, shown are local residents pushing back to the water a giant sea cow after it was stranded in a shallow waters of Puerto Princesa in western Philippines. (AP Photo/WWF Phils, Mavic Madillano)
After recuperating in the waist-high water, the 8.5-foot-long (2.6-meter-long) animal was declared fit for release by WWF activists.
Onlookers cheered as the sea cow — nicknamed Enero, or January in the Tagalog language — was slowly coaxed out of the lagoon.
WWF said the gentle creatures, scientifically known as Dugong Dugon, had once plied the Philippine archipelago until hunting and habitat degradation wiped out most of the herds.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature has classified the species as vulnerable or facing a high risk of extinction. There are no estimates of how many still inhabit the shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific.
Thriving populations are now protected in the Philippines' northern Isabela province, the southern Mindanao region and Palawan, WWF said.
Sea cows are thought to live up to 70 years, but females give birth to a single calf every few years. It takes up to 15 years to mature, making the species particularly vulnerable to extinction.
‘Mermaid’ rescued in Philippines
WWF website 6 Jan 09;
Manila, Philippines - Two brave fishermen from the Philippines began the year by saving the life of a trapped dugong or sea cow, the ancient sea mammal generally credited with being the origin of the mermaid myth.
On the afternoon of 1 January Henry Barlas, from the coastal barangay of Maruyogon in Puerto Princesa, noticed something unusual as he gazed at the shallow lagoon fronting his home. Less than 10 metres from shore a 2.6m long dugong lay trapped and weakened by the tide, clearly fighting for life.
Without hesitation he called his colleague Paquito Abia and with the aid of volunteers pushed the refrigerator-sized animal to safety. Since the creature was too weak to fight the ebb tide, the two fishermen fastened a rope around its midriff - it was to survive the swells that drove it ashore the animal needed to recuperate in waist-high water.
In the morning Barlas immediately notified both local officials and WWF-Philippines of the stranding before heading off to check on the dugong. When WWF assessed that the animal was fit enough for release, its ropes were untied and the animal was gradually coaxed out of the lagoon. Cheering onlookers flocked ashore to bid farewell to the wondrous creature brought in by the tide.
WWF Project Manager Mavic Matillano said: “The best part was that we barely needed to do anything. Both Henry and Paquito acted out of instinct and for this we are doubly proud. It seems that the long years of conducting dugong awareness campaigns have once again paid off.”
Trapped under similar conditions, another dugong was rescued by a 15-year old boy in 2007. “Marine mammal strandings are uncommon occurrences but they do happen,” said resident WWF dugong expert Sheila Albasin. “Fortunately it seems people know what to do when a stranding does take place.”
The gentle dugong or sea cow inhabits shallow waters of the Indo-Pacific, wherever seagrass is most abundant. It is the fourth member of the order Sirenia, alongside the three manatee species. A fifth, the gigantic eight-metre long steller’s sea cow, was completely wiped out in 1768, just 30 years after being discovered.
Sizeable herds of dugong - the source of popular mermaid lore - once plied the Philippine archipelago until hunting and habitat degradation reduced overall numbers. When seen from above, the top half of a dugong can appear like that of a human woman. Coupled with the tail fin, this produced an image of what mariners often mistook for an aquatic human.
Thriving populations are now protected in Isabela, Southern Mindanao and Palawan, keeping seagrass meadows cropped, healthy and productive. Dugongs are thought to live up to 70 years, but give birth to a only single calf every three to five years. They are classified by the IUCN as vulnerable and it is one of the flagship species that WWF protects in the Philippines.
In the last decade WWF helped establish a Roxas-based marine-mammal rescue network which has been monitoring strandings and spearheading rescues of dugongs accidentally entangled in fishing gear. Awareness drives to protect not just dugongs, but dolphins and whales, are still conducted regularly.
Daily Mail 6 Jan 09;
Their heads hacked from their graceful bodies, these tragic pictures show the fate of tigers in the brutal hands of poachers.
The photographs, released by police this morning, show officers displaying the heads and carcasses of tigers seized from a truck in Hua Hin , Thailand - a popular tourist resort.
Police seized tiger carcasses weighing up to 250 kilograms from a truck passing through Hua Hin, in the Prachuap Kiri Khan province.
The tigers were believed to be smuggled from Malaysia and on their way to China, police said.
Two Thai men have been arrested in connection with the smuggling, police said.
A tiger can see for around £800 - but, broken into body parts, their value can soar to £26,500.
With profits so high, traffickers are usually armed and ready to do battle - and China is one of the world's biggest markets for tigers.
Last month Malaysia, where the tigers were believed to have been captured, announced plans to step up its protection of the rare creatures.
Numbers of Malayan tigers have dropped in Malaysia from 3,000 to 500 in the past half-century mostly because of illegal hunting and the human encroachment.
Tiger meat is exported, served at exotic restaurants and used in traditional Chinese medicine.
It is illegal to kill tigers in Malaysia however - and the World Wildlife Fund was optimistic that the new 12-year plan to step up protection of the big cats, once voted the world's favourite animal, will help boost their population.
The new plan seeks to double the population from 500 to 1,000 by 2020 - but it still must be implemented at state level.
Richard Black, BBC News 6 Jan 09;
The US is to establish what it calls "the largest area of protected sea in the world" around its Pacific islands.
Commercial fishing and mining will be banned in the protected zones which include the Marianas Trench, the deepest area of ocean on the planet.
The area totals 500,000 sq km (190,000 sq miles) of sea and sea floor.
While welcoming the protection package, environmental activists said that without curbing climate change, the other measures would be meaningless.
President George W Bush will formally announce the measure during an address on Tuesday evening in Washington.
Briefing journalists in advance, his environmental advisor James Connaughton said the move meant the US was "setting the mark for the world with respect to effective marine management".
"The conservation action is going to benefit the public and future generations through enhanced science, knowledge and awareness, and just good old-fashioned inspiration, because these places are exceptionally dynamic when it comes to the marine environment," said the chairman of the White House council on environmental quality.
The areas covered include some of the islands most remote from the world's large populations centres, which have not so far encountered the intense fishing present across much of the oceans.
They also encompass some of the most biologically diverse places on the planet, undersea volcanoes and hot seafloor vents, and submarine pools of sulphur thought to be unique on Earth.
War monuments
The measure involves establishing three new "national monuments" around different US territories in the Pacific.
Together they encompass the Marianas Trench and the long arc of volcanoes and undersea vents along the Mariana Islands chain, south of Japan and north of Papua New Guinea; coral reefs around the three northernmost islands of the Marianas; and eight more coral atolls and islands.
The Marianas group includes islands such as Saipan and Tinian which played significant roles in World War II, and Guam which is still a major US base.
One of the other places now receiving protection, Johnston Atoll, was formerly used to stockpile chemical weapons.
Mr Connaughton said the national monuments would be established in a way "that also fully respects our nation's national security needs by ensuring freedom of navigation for all vessels in accordance with international law and by ensuring that our military can stay ready and be globally mobile".
The Marianas Trench, which reaches depths of about 11km (about seven miles), and the string of volcanoes and vents will be protected from mineral exploration.
The coral areas will also see a complete ban on commercial fishing out to 50 nautical miles from shore.
"It's very significant both from an ecological and biological perspective as well as in its political symbolism," said Joshua Reichert, managing director of the Pew Environment Group.
"In the Marianas alone, the area that's been protected contains some of world's most exceptional geology. Rose Atoll has the highest proportion of live coral cover anywhere in the world."
Brendan Cummings, oceans programme director at the Center for Biological Diversity which has brought several court actions against the Bush administration on climate change, also welcomed the commercial fishing ban but said curbing greenhouse emissions was also vital for the long-term preservation of corals.
"Unless we deal with global warming, all other protective measures for coral reefs will be rendered meaningless," he said.
"Ultimately, Bush's legacy as a climate criminal will far outweigh his ocean legacy, as any benefit coral reefs receive from this monument designation will be bleached away by warming seas."
As well as warming the oceans, rising carbon dioxide emissions are slowly reducing the alkalinity of seawater, which is also projected to have a detrimental effect on coral growth.
President Bush's administration has come under fire in recent months from environmentalists angered by its reluctance to cut carbon emissions, by its moves to weaken endangered species legislation and by its support for naval use of sonar systems that can kill whales.
But, said Mr Reichert, the outgoing president has "protected more special places in the sea than any other person in history".
Largest Marine Reserve Declared; Home to Mariana Trench
Dina Cappiello, Associated Press National Geographic News 6 Jan 09;
The home of a giant land crab, a sunken island ringed by pink-colored coral, and equatorial waters teeming with sharks and other predators have been designated national marine monuments by U.S. President George W. Bush in the largest marine conservation effort in history. (See photos on the National Geographic website.)
The three areas—totaling some 195,274 square miles (505,757 square kilometers)—include the Mariana Trench and the waters and corals surrounding three uninhabited islands in the Northern Mariana Islands, Rose Atoll in American Samoa, and seven islands strung along the equator in the central Pacific Ocean.
"We should be very happy because it's the largest marine area ever protected," said Enric Sala, a marine ecologist and National Geographic fellow and emerging explorer. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)
"We don't need more research to know that more of these remote intact places need to be protected," said Sala, who has helped conduct some of the few scientific surveys in the remote central Pacific islands, particularly in the pristine Kingman Reef.
"This is the only chance we have left to protect parts of the ocean that are still natural."
Palmyra Atoll, a region included in the monument, and Kingman Reef are among the most biodiverse marine ecosystems on earth, according to Suzanne Case, Hawaii director of the nonprofit The Nature Conservancy.
The areas harbor the highest fish biomass in the Pacific and are one of the few places still dominated by sharks and other predators, Case said in an email.
"At a time when positive news about our seas is rare, the designation of three new marine national monuments in the Pacific is a landmark to be celebrated," she added.
Rare Treasures
Each location harbors unique species—such as a bird that incubates its eggs in the heat of underwater volcanoes—and some of the rarest geological formations on Earth, including a sulfur pool. The only other known pool exists on Jupiter's moon Io.
All will be protected as national monuments—the same status afforded to statues and cultural sites—under the 1906 Antiquities Act. The law allows the government to immediately phase out commercial fishing and other extractive uses.
It will be the second time Bush has used the law to protect marine resources.
Two years ago, the president made a huge swath of the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands a national monument, barring fishing, oil and gas extraction, and tourism from its waters and coral reefs. At the time, that area was the largest conservation area in the world.
Savings Accounts
The three areas to be designated Tuesday are larger, though the decisions came with some opposition.
Northern Mariana Islands government officials and indigenous communities, for instance, initially objected to the monument designation, citing concerns about sovereignty, fishing, and mineral exploration.
Recreational fishing, tourism, and scientific research with a federal permit could still occur inside the three areas under the new law. The designations will not conflict with U.S. military activities or freedom of navigation, White House officials said.
The decisions also fell short in size and scope of what conservationists, including Sala, had hoped for.
"The bottom line is that less than a tenth of one percent of the ocean is protected," Sala said, versus 12 percent of land area locked up in reserves.
Reserves are important conservation strategies, Sala said, in that pristine environments can be thought of "savings accounts."
That's because protecting large areas allows marine life to flourish and eventually spill over into neighboring ecosystems, constantly replenishing the seas.
Christine Dell'Amore of National Geographic News contributed to this report.
Bush To Declare Pacific Areas Protected Monuments
Jeff Mason, PlanetArk 7 Jan 09;
WASHINGTON - President George W. Bush will designate nearly 200,000 square miles (518,000 sq km) of the Pacific ocean on Tuesday as a protected region, White House officials said, making the areas hands-off for oil drilling or other extraction procedures.
Bush, who often draws ire from activists for his record on environmental issues, will declare three areas in the central Pacific "marine national monuments," spokeswoman Dana Perino said.
"The president's actions will prevent the destruction and extraction of natural resources from these beautiful and biologically diverse areas without conflicting with our military's activities and freedom of navigation, which are vital to our national security," she told a briefing.
She said the new protected areas will comprise the largest area of ocean set aside as marine protected areas in the world, at 195,280 square miles (505,500 sq km).
The areas are home to huge underwater mud volcanoes, coral reefs, and rare species of whales among other things.
The White House said in August it would consider a group of islands and atolls in the remote central Pacific, including the Rose Atoll near American Samoa, and some of the waters around the Northern Mariana Islands in the western Pacific for protection.
James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality, told reporters on Monday the three areas decided upon included the Mariana National Monument, Pacific Remote Islands National Monument, and the Rose Atoll.
Bush established a national monument in the northwestern Hawaiian Islands in 2006, creating the largest marine protected area in the world at the time.
The Pew Environment Group praised the latest decision.
"This historic action by President Bush protects some of the world's most unique and biologically significant ocean habitat," Joshua Reichert, the group's managing director, said in a statement.
"Together with the Hawaii marine monument established two years ago, this marks the end of an era in which humans have increasingly understood the need to conserve vanishing wild places on land but failed to comprehend the similar plight of our oceans. It comes none too soon."
Earlier this year Bush lifted a White House ban on offshore drilling closer to home as gasoline prices were soaring. Environmentalists said that largely symbolic move would hurt wildlife while doing little to bring down fuel prices.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
Bush to establish world's largest marine protection area
Kerry Sheridan Yahoo News 5 Jan 09;
WASHINGTON(AFP) (AFP) – Seeking to add an environmental boost to his legacy, President George W. Bush is to announce the creation of the world's largest oceanic protected area in three parts of the Pacific.
In a bid to protect pristine coral reefs, rare fish and underwater volcanoes, Bush on Tuesday will mark out an area spanning some 195,000 square miles (505,000 sq km) in the Pacific Ocean as a trio of "marine national monuments," a spokesman said.
The areas include the Mariana Trench and northern Mariana Islands, the Rose Atoll in American Samoa and a chain of remote islands in the Central Pacific.
Fishing will be barred or limited in many island areas while the 21 volcanoes and hydrothermal vents along the ocean floor beneath the Mariana Islands will also be protected.
"This is very, very big," James Connaughton, chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality Issues, told reporters Monday ahead of Bush's announcement.
"In the last several years, it's on par with what we've been able to accomplish on land over the course of the last 100 years," he said, noting that the total area would "comprise the largest areas of ocean or ocean seabed set aside as marine protected areas in the world."
Collectively, the three areas will nudge out the Phoenix Island Protected Area, established in 2008 by the South Pacific nation of Kiribati as the world's largest protected area.
They also top Bush's last such announcement of a marine protection area in 2006 -- the 140,000 square miles (363,000 square kilometers) of Pacific Ocean near the northwestern Hawaiian islands.
"Because these areas are pristine it gives us the best opportunity to understand effects in the ocean system," said Connaughton.
In some island areas, commercial fishing will be prohibited within 50 nautical miles while indigenous, recreational or research fishing will be permitted on a case-by-case basis, Connaughton said.
The move was praised by environmentalists, though details remained unclear on the degree of protection the areas will be afforded.
For scientists, the designations are "wonderful opportunities," said Roger McManus, vice president for global marine programs at the environmental group Conservation International.
"You don't get a better natural laboratory than we have in these places," he said.
Naming them as marine monuments "will do a lot to protect the coral reefs and also do a lot restore fish populations in the regions," McManus said.
However, he noted that many of the remote island areas have been previously named national wildife refuges and are "essentially no-take areas already" when it comes to fishing.
"The real key is what additional protection is provided above and beyond" by Bush's designation, he said.
Among the protected areas are the 1,500 mile-long (2,400-kilometer) Marianas Trench, including submerged active volcanoes and hydrothermal vents that run along the Marianas Island chain, an area that contains the deepest point on Earth.
The Pacific Remote Islands National Monument will comprise areas with coral reef ecosystems that are home to sharks, endangered turtles and millions of seabirds off seven areas: Kingman Reef; Palmyra Atoll; Howland, Baker, and Jarvis Islands; and Johnston Atoll; and Wake Island.
Finally, the Rose Atoll Marine National Monument will be named around a small but dense coral reef known for its pink shade at Rose Atoll, a remote area around American Samoa.
"The waters around Rose Atoll also are home to giant clams, reef sharks, and very large parrot fish, and are a frequent location where you can find humpback and pilot whales and porpoises," Connaughton said.
A monumental decision for the oceans
IUCN Press Release 6 Jan 09;
President Bush today will formally designate three areas in the Pacific as Marine National Monuments. IUCN has been one of the major partners of the U.S. Government in the creation of these marine protected areas. The scientific and technical advice provided by IUCN to the President’s Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) has paid off, as it will result in the creation of the world’s largest ocean protected area covering 195,280 square miles.
The three new Marine National Monuments include two regions of the Line Islands that span the central Pacific and an area in the western Pacific which encompasses the northern Marianas chain and the Mariana Trench – the deepest ocean canyon in the world. Together these new protected areas boast enormous biodiversity both in terms of species and habitats.
"This is a great way to start 2009,"exclaims Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of the IUCN Global Marine Programme. "It demonstrates the ability of marine conservation to bring humanity together in protecting some of the most unique ocean areas in the world."
"This significant act protecting the deepest part of our oceans comes over 100 years since the United States protected the deepest place on land, the Grand Canyon. Recognition of the need to fully protect large areas of ocean has been growing in recent years – we hope that this will be followed by other nations around the world," said Dan Laffoley, Marine Chair of IUCN’s World Commission on Protected Areas who led on the IUCN advice to CEQ.
"The U.S. Government is to be applauded for its significant efforts in adding to the U.S. and global marine protected estate," said Scott Hajost, Executive Director of IUCN U.S.
However, conservation of the designated areas appears not to be complete.
"We would hope that the whole Mariana Trench – and not only the bottom – is protected. If fishing in this surface water continues, then many of the rare deep sea creatures living in the trench will starve," said Lundin.
While we can’t forget that fighting climate change remains a major challenge to assure the future of the oceans, increasing the number of marine protected areas is an absolute must. Dramatically improving high seas governance should also be a top priority. We must now hope that the incoming U.S. Administration will build on today’s announcement and give our oceans the attention they deserve," added Lundin,
Ben Hirschler, PlanetArk 6 Jan 09;
LONDON - Seventeen previously unknown species of reptiles and amphibians have been found in the threatened rainforests of eastern Tanzania, Italian and Tanzanian scientists reported on Monday.
The haul of new species, which include chameleons, tree frogs and snakes, highlights the rich biodiversity of the East African country's South Nguru Mountains region, they wrote in the journal Acta Herpetologica.
Authors Michele Menegon of the Natural Science Museum of Trento in Italy and colleagues said the region's ecosystem was under threat from fire, logging, collection of wood for fuel and land clearance for cultivation.
To stem the damage, the government and villagers have outlined a series of steps needed to improve conservation, such as reducing the population's dependence on unsustainable methods of growing cardamoms, a popular cooking spice and an important cash crop for highland farmers.
"The program represents an opportunity to reverse the current trend of forest loss and degradation," the scientists wrote.
"To succeed, the program will need sustained commitment from the government of Tanzania, civil society organizations, the local communities and development partners."
(Editing by Nicholas Vinocur)
Daniel Schweimler, BBC News 6 Jan 09;
You might think that 180,000 squawking, screeching parrots living in 35,000 nests along 12km (seven miles) of coastline would draw quite a lot of attention.
They make a lot of noise and, with their green backs and red and yellow bellies, are a spectacular sight as they swoop and circle above the cliffs looking out over the Atlantic Ocean.
British naturalist Charles Darwin found and wrote about them on his travels in the 1830s.
But not many Argentines are aware of the burrowing parrots (Cyanoliseus patagonus) which form the world's biggest parrot colony.
Admittedly, the birds are a long way from major centres of population - about 30km from the town of Viedma on the north-eastern tip of the region of Patagonia.
One Argentine who is not only aware of but facinated by the parrots is biologist Juan Masello. He returns every year from his home in Germany to track and chart their progress.
The birds, which can live for more than 20 years, are monogamous. Each year, after migration to warmer climates, they somehow return to the same nest, in the same hole carved among 35,000 other similar holes, some up to 3m deep, in the sandstone cliffs.
Tourism threat
It is a species that guards its secrets. The whole colony disappears for several days shortly before their annual autumn migration. And, despite intense observation, no one knows where they go.
Mr Masello is hoping that technological advances will allow the birds to be tracked more precisely.
He and other environmentalists say the burrowing parrots, like many other parrot species, face a number of different threats.
Despite new legislation designed to tackle the trade in exotic species, the parrots are captured for the lucrative pet trade.
A booming tourist industry has seen holiday homes being built closer and closer to the colony. Irresponsible visitors forge tracks through the sandstone rocks where the parrots nest.
There is also an array of loud bikes and buggies being driven along the beach - traffic that disturbs the young birds. And paragliders now fly off the cliffs where only the parrots once flew.
Mr Masello says that many of these problems can be resolved with education, debate and compromise. But he says the biggest threat facing the burrowing parrots is the advance of agriculture.
Exasperated farmers
Argentina's agriculture has boomed in recent years with beef, grains and soya fetching high prices on world markets.
Argentina's agricultural heartland is the Pampas - the lush, green pastures in the centre of the country.
But recent high prices have tempted farmers to cultivate land further afield, on what they call marginal land where the soil is poor. In the region around the parrot colony, they have scraped away the only vegetation of hardy thorned shrubs.
A few years of intensive farming drains the nutrition from the already poor soil and creates a desert.
"The vegetation is being removed at a rate of 3.7% a year," said Mr Masello.
"That is huge…four times higher than the Amazon."
The farmers blame the parrots, which they deem a pest, for the deterioration.
They accuse the feathered fiends of stealing their seeds and ruining their crops. Mr Masello admits that the parrots do take some seeds, but says the damage is minimal and insignificant.
"Some farmers are exasperated," said local farm leader Pedro Eddy.
"They've told me they'd like to fumigate the nests, exterminate them. But I don't think that's quite right. The parrots are only a problem because the farming is marginal. Tourism, attracted by this tremendous spectacle, could bring in more money than grain brings to the region," he said.
Noisy nuisance?
Many environmentalists say the farmers shouldn't even be there in the first place.
Either way, the parrots, which eat seeds, grasses and fruits, are finding their feeding grounds to be shrinking.
Mauricio Failla, the local representative of the Argentine Wildlife Foundation, says the answer lies in education.
He said that a few years ago, most local people viewed the parrots as a noisy nuisance. But with an extensive programme of visits to local schools and field trips to the parrot colony on the beach, opinions are changing.
The local provincial authority is looking at a new law to declare the colony a protected area. But the scheme has so far fallen foul of political infighting and bureaucracy.
Local representative Adriana Gutierrez told BBC News that the law would be in place soon. But Argentines have learned to be wary of politicians' promises.
Dawn comes early this far south, and the parrots make themselves heard before most people would like to be stirring from their sleep.
But after a few hours on the cliffs with thousands of swooping, screeching burrowing parrots, it was difficult not to be captivated by their beauty and curiosity.
Even if, several hours after leaving the region, their squawking was still ringing in my ears.
BBC News 6 Jan 09;
Australian scientists say they want to build a fence on Tasmania to prevent the spread of a cancer that threatens the Tasmanian Devil with extinction.
The scientists say there is no cure for the contagious disease which has already infected two-thirds of Tasmania's devil population. They warn that unless action is taken the world's largest marsupial carnivore could be extinct within 20 years.
They hope a fence will separate the healthy and infected animals.
Until now the strategy has been to remove healthy animals and to place them in quarantine.
Earlier this year the Tasmanian Devil - unique to the island - was declared an endangered species because of the disease - which results in facial tumours.
Recent research which found that the devils cannot pass on the disease to their offspring had offered scientists some hope .
But they also received a setback when it emerged that a Tasmanian devil named Cedric, who was thought to be immune to the cancer, had contracted the disease.
Two coin-sized tumours were cut out of his face and, although it is hoped he will make a full recovery, it casts doubt on much of the research work conducted over the past two years, the BBC's Nick Bryant reports from Sydney.
Jeff Bentley, BBC The Green Room 6 Jan 09;
Centuries of crop diversification are at risk of being lost forever, warns Jeff Bentley. In this week's Green Room, he says a growing dependency on just a few modern, high-yielding varieties is leaving the world's food supplies exposed.
A potato is not just a potato; there are thousands of local varieties still grown in their birthplace in the Andes. Some are long, thin and purple; others are lemon yellow and floury, or shaped like a bull's horn.
Most crops have many varieties, a rich heritage that most urban dwellers are no longer aware of.
The cultivated potato comes in six different species and perhaps 3,000 varieties, most found only in the Andes. That is a lot of genetic information.
Until recently these local, native varieties were safe on the farm, but as farmers turn increasingly to modern, high-yielding varieties, the old ones are being abandoned.
For example, in the 1970s near Lake Titicaca, agronomists collected more than 200 varieties of quinoa, a native Andean grain. Now, no more than 50 of these are still grown.
Our generation is snuffing out ancient races of crops which fed the Incas, the Mayans, the Sumerians, and the Tang dynasty.
But it's not entirely too late to save these crop varieties, and their irreplaceable genetic information.
In 1997, the government agency responsible for Bolivia's collection of quinoa suddenly collapsed.
Many of the 1,800 accessions of this native grain were no longer found in the field, and would have been lost forever without the thoughtfulness of Alejandro Bonifacio, a native Aymara.
With no agency to care for the quinoa collection, Dr Bonifacio simply took it home.
It took him a year to find work elsewhere, but he saved these endangered crop varieties and has spent the past 10 years adding to it and describing it.
If only all crops were so lucky.
The impoverished smallhold farmers who nurture crop diversity need to sell some of their harvest to make a living, but selling can be stressful.
Villagers struggle to understand why the harvest that was so much work now fetches such a low price. The person who buys the product often gets the blame.
Researchers in Peru and Bolivia found that farmers and other people further up the food chain hardly knew each other.
But when farmers, wholesalers, even chefs and supermarket staff all sat down together they learned about each others' concerns.
Crossroad for crops
The invisible hand of the market, it seems, can favour the farmers and crop diversity. For example, heirloom potatoes are being sold to upscale Andean shoppers in smart little net bags. Because farmers can sell native spuds at a good price, they are planting more of them.
West Africans domesticated a native species of rice, called Oryza glaberrima , 3,500 years ago. The grain was relative of the Asian rice Oryza sativa .
Yet 450 years ago, the Asian species reached Africa and all but displaced the native rice, which had a thinner head of grain and thus brought in a smaller harvest.
By the 1990s, native African rice was reduced to a few pockets on scattered farms.
Then in the 1990s, Sierra Leonean plant breeder Monty Jones and colleagues found a way to create a fertile hybrid between African and Asian rice.
Called "Nerica" (New Rice for Africa), it could yield a bumper harvest like its Asian parent, but it was as tough as its African side, resistant to drought, pests and disease.
Scientists have bred many varieties of Nerica and farmers all over West Africa are starting to grow them.
This new rice, descended from an endangered species, is helping Africa to feed itself, yet this opportunity would have been lost if O. glaberrima had gone extinct.
As the Earth gets warmer, we will need to breed other hardy new crop varieties. Plant breeding is like playing cards: more hands are possible with a full deck.
We'll only be able to create new varieties in the future if we save the old ones we have now.
Many rare crop varieties are now grown on just a few farms, often by elderly people. The crops will be lost forever unless young people start to grow them.
If humanity mourns the loss of wild plants, we should really worry about the extinction of cultivated ones. These plants sustain our lives.
Dr Jeff Bentley is a Cabi Associate. Cabi is a science-based development and information organisation. Jeff works as an agricultural anthropologist and is based in Cochabamba, Bolivia
The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website
Yahoo News 6 Jan 09;
SEOUL (AFP) – South Korea said Tuesday it will invest some 38 billion dollars over the next four years in "eco-friendly" projects to create jobs and boost its slumping economy.
The government unveiled what it calls "Green New Deals" following the first meeting of cabinet ministers this year, which was presided over by President Lee Myung-Bak.
The deals feature 36 projects including the creation of network of bicycle tracks, provision of two million energy-saving "Green Homes" across the country as well as the construction of facilities using gas from rubbish.
"The Green New Deals are a strong expression of the government will to exert all its efforts to ease people's pain and create jobs," Prime Minister Han Seung-Soo said in a statement.
He said the projects -- amounting to 50 trillion won -- would lead to the creation of 960,000 new jobs and lay the ground work for further economic growth.
The central Bank of Korea has warned that facility investment will fall 3.8 percent this year, following a 0.2 percent contraction in 2008, undermining South Korea's growth potential.
Unemployment rose to 3.1 percent in November from the previous month's three percent as companies avoided hiring new workers due to a bleak economic outlook, the National Statistical Office said in December.
The Ministry of Strategy and Finance last month cut the country's 2009 economic growth forecast by one percentage point to three percent, saying the global financial crisis had spread to the real economy.
Under the projects, 18 trillion won will be invested in cleaning four major rivers and developing their surroundings to reduce disaster risks by building dams, banks and water-treatment facilities.
Another 11 trillion won will go to the construction of "eco-friendly" transportation networks including high-speed railways and hundreds of kilometres of bicycle tracks.
Energy-recycling projects include the production of garbage gas, while trees will also be planted and facilities built to harness energy from forest biological material.
The government will also invest in developing hybrid vehicle technologies.
Rob Taylor, Reuters 6 Jan 09;
CANBERRA (Reuters) - Climate change and rising sea levels pose one of the biggest threats to security in the Pacific and may also spark a global conflict over energy reserves under melting Arctic ice, according to Australia's military.
A confidential security review by Australia's Defense Force, completed in 2007 but obtained in summary by the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper, said environmental stress had increased the risk of conflicts in the Pacific over resources and food.
But the biggest threat of global conflict currently lay beneath the Arctic as melting icecaps gave rise to an international race for undersea oil and gas deposits, it said.
"Environmental stress, caused by both climate change and a range of other factors, will act as a threat multiplier in fragile states around the world, increasing the chances of state failure," said the summary, published in the Herald on Wednesday.
"The Arctic is melting, potentially making the extraction of undersea energy deposits commercially viable. Conflict is a remote possibility if these disputes are not resolved peacefully," the assessment said.
The "Climate Change, The Environment, Resources And Conflict" summary report was obtained under Freedom of Information laws which allow Australians to access official documents provided it does not hurt national or government security.
The military refused to release the full report because it could harm Australia's defense capability and international relations, the Herald said.
Australia is a close U.S. ally and the report said climate change would likely "increase demands for the Australian Defense Force to be deployed on additional stabilization, post-conflict reconstruction and disaster relief operations in the future."
Australian soldiers are already deployed alongside U.S. and European counterparts in Iraq, Afghanistan, as well as in East Timor and Solomon Islands in the Pacific.
The defense analysis said rising sea levels would affect nations and islands with low-lying coastlines, and may lead to increase in refugees from vulnerable Pacific islands.
It could also lead to more illegal immigration and fishing, bringing disputes over access to scarce food resources. That could mean an increasing presence north of Australia by the country's navy, the report said.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
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