Trail to Chek Jawa closed
on the Pulau Ubin Stories blog
Singapore's nature: one of the new 7 wonders of the world?
on the wild shores of singapore blog
An encounter with a Siberian Blue Robin
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Malayan Night Heron sighted in Singapore’s Bidadari
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Electric Car and Electric Scooter
talk and opportunity to view on the AsiaIsGreen blog
Grace Chua, Straits Times 8 Jan 09;
ORIENTAL pied hornbills in the Singapore Hornbill Project now have new 'condominium-style' homes.
The 'intelligent nests', with cameras, sensors and scales, give researchers new ways to monitor these once-endangered birds.
The project, which began five years ago to study the birds' breeding and nesting, has been a success according to the researchers involved.
In previous years, researchers from the National Parks Board (NParks), Jurong BirdPark and Nanyang Technological University (NTU) mounted artificial nesting boxes high on trees and equipped them with simple infrared cameras to monitor each breeding pair.
The oriental pied hornbills are known to be picky about their nesting sites, laying their eggs in cavities in old and diseased trees, high off the ground.
This breeding season, the researchers have added two 'intelligent nests' kitted out with temperature and humidity sensors, weighing scales to monitor the chicks' growth and high- definition cameras which can zoom in for greater detail.
'They are like condominiums, with a security system,' quipped Mr Robert Teo, NParks' assistant director for Pulau Ubin.
The Singapore Hornbill Project is a collaboration between NParks, NTU, the National University of Singapore, Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which oversees Jurong BirdPark, and other sponsors.
For its pioneering studies of hornbill breeding, the project won a prestigious international award for achievements in avian research and conservation last year.
Project consultant Marc Cremades, a French researcher who initiated the project, believes this is the only study worldwide to monitor wild hornbills in their nests during breeding season.
The group first placed nesting boxes on mainland Singapore last year, and hopes that future generations of young hornbills will move in.
'We want to make a hotel chain for them,' Mr Cremades said.
The nesting boxes are placed 2km to 4km apart to avoid competition for territory.
With the aid of man-made nesting boxes, which are bigger than natural nests, the wild hornbills' population has more than doubled since the study began in 2004.
More than 50 oriental pied hornbills now roam Pulau Ubin, Changi and other parts of mainland Singapore, up from about 20 in 2004.
In the early 1900s, the oriental pied hornbills had completely disappeared from Singapore.
However, since 1994, when a pair was spotted on Pulau Ubin, they have been making a comeback.
Singapore's mainland areas can sustain up to 200 oriental pied hornbills, Mr Cremades believes.
A video clip of hornbills' breeding behaviour can be seen online at www.youtube.com/user/NParksSingapore
Birds have 'condo-style' home
Grace Chua, Straits Times 7 Jan 09;
ORIENTAL Pied Hornbills in the Singapore Hornbill Project now have a new, 'condominium-style' home.
The 'intelligent nests', with cameras, sensors and scales, give researchers new ways to monitor these once-endangered birds.
The project, which began five years ago to study the birds' breeding and nesting, has been a success according to the researchers involved.
In previous years, researchers from the National Parks Board, Jurong BirdPark and Nanyang Technological University mounted artificial nesting boxes high on trees and equipped them with simple infrared cameras to monitor each breeding pair.
The Oriental Pied Hornbill are known to be picky about their nesting sites, laying their eggs in cavities in old and diseased trees, high off the ground.
This breeding season, they have added two 'intelligent nests' kitted out with temperature and humidity sensors, weighing scales to monitor the chicks' growth and high-definition cameras which can zoom in to great detail.
'They are like condominiums, with a security system,' quipped Mr Robert Teo, NParks' assistant director for Pulau Ubin.
The Singapore Hornbill Project is a collaboration between NParks, NTU, the National University of Singapore, Wildlife Reserves Singapore, which oversees Jurong BirdPark, and other sponsors.
For its pioneering studies of hornbill breeding, the project won a prestigious international award for achievements in avian research and conservation last year.
Project consultant Marc Cremades, a French researcher who initiated the project, believes this is the only study worldwide to monitor wild hornbills in their nests during breeding season.
The group first placed nesting boxes on mainland Singapore last year, and hope that future generations of young hornbills will move in.
Read the full report in Thursday's edition of The Straits Times.
Straits Times 8 Jan 09;
GENEVA: The Grand Canyon, Mount Everest and Loch Ness will vie with more than 200 other spectacular places in the next phase of the global competition for the New 7 Wonders of Nature, organisers said yesterday.
Singapore's Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is one of the 261 nominees from 222 countries. These include some of the most famous mountain peaks, lakes and other attractions, such as the Great Barrier Reef, Niagara Falls and the Jeita Grotto cave in Lebanon.
Other attractions in Asia making the list are the Amah Rock of Hong Kong, Ha Long Bay of Vietnam and the Komodo National Park of Indonesia.
Each nominee needs to be officially supported to make it to the next stage of the campaign. Over a billion people are expected to vote via the Internet and nominate 77 semi-finalists for the top natural wonders, which will share in the glory already enjoyed by the seven man-made wonders chosen 18 months ago.
'We are calling on people all over the world to actively show their appreciation for our...natural world by joining together to celebrate the most extraordinary sites on our planet,' said Ms Tia Viering, a spokesman for the New 7 Wonders campaign.
Votes can be cast until July 7. Registration on the website prevents people from voting twice.
The quarter-finalists include some lesser known sites, such as Yasur Volcano on the island of Vanuatu and Nigeria's Zuma Rock.
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Related links
Singapore's nature: one of the new 7 wonders of the world? on the wild shores of singapore blog.
New website allows the young to discuss, offer ideas on govt policies
April Chong, Straits Times 8 Jan 09;
REACH - the agency created to engage citizens - launched a youth-oriented, interactive website yesterday.
Designed to get young people more involved in shaping government policies, the website - Youth Vibes - is 'by youth, for youth'.
The website is an offshoot of the successful student ambassador programme launched by Reach - an acronym for Reaching Everyone for Active Citizenry @ Home - last February.
Youth Vibes will include feature stories and journal articles by young people, and allow participants to blog, discuss issues and make comments.
'Through (Youth Vibes), we hope to cultivate a participative citizenry from young and kick-start their interest in affecting changes in the community they live in,' said Reach chairman Amy Khor.
Kwan Jin Yao, 17, an editorial member of the website, is part of a group of young people who will keep the website updated and relevant.
'We hope young people can come in here to make constructive criticism. Unlike other forums where a lot of discussions are lost, there will be follow-ups here,' said the Hwa Chong Institution student.
Feedback collected from discussions on the site will be sent regularly to the relevant organisations, including government departments.
The launch of the website was combined with an appreciation lunch for Reach contributors. Among them was 19-year-old national serviceman Soh Yi Da.
He has been giving feedback to Reach and its predecessor, the Feedback Unit, for the last five years.
He also started his own school feedback symposium. 'I believe that by making ourselves heard, we can shape a better Singapore where we belong,' he said.
Some of his views have been adapted for use. One example is the implementation of internships for students at government agencies, an idea he came up with during his school days.
Reach has also appointed five grassroots feedback facilitators from different constituencies. They will help get the message out to the heartland and engage residents in giving feedback to the Government.
Minister for Community Development, Youth and Sports Vivian Balakrishnan, who co-hosted the lunch with Dr Khor, stressed the need for the 'three Is' in better citizen engagement:
# The need for the Government to reveal as much 'information' as possible, accurately and credibly, so the people can participate in solution generation;
# The need to respond quickly to feedback and to have more resources to man the various 'interaction' channels; and
# The need for more people to feel 'involved' in nation-building, problem- solving and creating the future.
He made an analogy between getting feedback and the Singapore Flyer, where the lunch was held: 'This cannot be a process where things are just going round and round and occasionally getting stuck, with no output, with no effect on the ground and no changes.'
aprilc@sph.com.sg
Online forum grows
LAST year, the Reach discussion forum had:
# 12,000 postings, a 30 per cent increase from the year before.
# 1.5 million views, a 21 per cent increase from the year before.
# Since the Reach Facebook group was introduced in June last year, it has received 1,700 postings.
# Hottest topics on the Reach forum include the cost of living and transport issues such as ERP charges.
The new Youth Vibes website can be found at www.reach.gov.sg/youthvibes
Straits Times 8 Jan 09;
THE World Bank's expertise-sharing agreement with Singapore to tap the city state's urban development model for use in growing nations is recognition that it has something unique to teach in liveability. It is a natural progression from the various forms of technical assistance, in manpower training and systems engineering for example, that Singapore has provided developing nations for many years.
Attap huts in the swamps of Bukit Ho Swee and many other insanitary squatter areas have given way in little time to modern homes and offices in a clean, well-planned and vibrant metropolis. This has been one standard snapshot of Singapore's transformation.
The United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN Habitat) discovered last year that Singapore is the only city in the world without slums - certainly something to celebrate, considering that about 6 per cent of urban areas in even more developed countries are slums.
The World Bank's urban-hub arrangement with the Republic will now allow Singapore to share essentials in sustainable urban development - namely, efficiency and conservation in energy use, water management, air pollution control, and planning and policy. There should be no lack of countries wanting to partake of the programme. There are more than 400 cities with populations of at least a million each, up from only 16 in 1900. Hundreds of millions of people migrate from rural to urban areas every year, increasing the demand for land, water and jobs, and challenging the capacity of cities to remain liveable and free of social tension.
Apart from being completely slum-free, Singapore is the only country that the UN Development Programme lists in its annual Human Development Index as being 100 per cent urban. Developing countries that still have sizeable rural populations will need to take away or adapt only ideas and approaches relevant to their particular needs. One size, certainly, does not fit all in urban solutions. Even though development experts no longer consider rural-urban population drift to be as big a problem as it was a few decades ago, many cities still face impossible pressures to provide basic services for new arrivals.
Singapore has been able to control immigration and carry out urban development in a systematic manner. Obviously, no single city has the answers to all urban liveability issues. The training of self-generating local expertise to run systems based on Singapore's model is essential for the programme to be completely useful to recipient nations. This is after all a technology-transfer exercise, not a matter of cloning successes.
Bungalow owner defaults on mortgage payments, sale may follow
Kalpana Rashiwala, Business Times 8 Jan 09;
(SINGAPORE) The first mortgagee sale of a bungalow on Sentosa Cove - an upscale waterfront housing haunt that was all the rage among well-heeled investors during the bull run - could be in the works.
BT understands that a permanent resident who developed his bungalow on a 99-year leasehold plot on Ocean Drive has defaulted on his mortgage payments and the financial institutions involved are considering whether to sell the property or - if the regulations permit - to lease it out in the meantime.
The two-and-a-half-storey waterfronting property has a land area of about 8,300 sq ft. The first storey has a swimming pool, separate living and dining areas, wet and dry kitchens and a guest room. The second level has a total of five bedrooms, each with an attached bathroom. The attic has an entertainment room.
A couple of bungalows on Sentosa Cove were put on the auction block last year. One, which had been put up for sale by its owner, was offered at an October auction conducted by DTZ. There were no takers at the asking price of $18 million, which reflects about $2,300 per square foot based on the bungalow's land area of 7,800 sq ft. The Singaporean owner, who has lived in the unit, is now trying to sell the unit by private treaty, said Shaun Poh, DTZ senior director for investment advisory services and auction.
The asking price being sought is similar to the level that boutique developer Wah Khiaw is also said to be quietly seeking for a couple of completed and leased bungalows, which are also along Ocean Drive.
However, industry observers say that such asking prices are considered steep in today's market. A more realistic price level for bungalows on Sentosa Cove today would be around the $11-12 million range or about $1,300 to $1,700 psf of land - but even then they would get 'a good run for their money' from freehold Good Class Bungalows on mainland Singapore. 'For about $10-11 million, one could get a 'decent' GCB in a liveable condition in say, Yarwood Avenue in the Dunearn Road area,' a property agent pointed out.
'Sentosa Cove has lost its appeal in today's market. A couple of years ago, this kind of waterfront living was the in-thing, when people had money, credit was easy and foreigners were rushing to buy such properties, especially with the expedited approval channel for foreigners to buy landed homes on Sentosa Cove. In today's market, foreigners have suffered the most.
'As for Singaporeans, they may still not be used to the idea of waterfront living. If you drive at Sentosa Cove on weekdays, you can see many empty completed bungalows. Some families have lived in the units but find the location inconvenient, for example, ferrying children to and from school,' the agent said.
'They would much prefer the convenience of owning a freehold GCB on mainland. The way I look at it, selling bungalows on Sentosa Cove is going to be very difficult in the near future,' he added.
DTZ's Mr Poh also revealed he is working with a few other Singaporeans keen on selling their Sentosa Cove bungalows. 'In the past, many Singaporeans had bought sites for bungalow development with the intention of selling the completed properties to foreigners. But in the current climate, that's going to be tough. So these sellers will have to be realistic in their pricing as they'll face competition from both foreigners and Singaporeans trying to divest their bungalows on Sentosa Cove,' he said.
Mr Poh also reckons the market for landed waterfront housing on Sentosa Cove has yet to mature among Singaporeans, who might take some time to catch on to a lifestyle of having their own bungalows, with their own jetty to moor their yacht outside their garden. 'Even among valuers, there can be a wide variation of opinions on valuations of such homes, especially when there haven't been many transactions,' he said.
Agreeing, CB Richard Ellis executive director (valuation) Li Hiaw Ho said there have hardly been any transactions of bungalows on Sentosa Cove. 'While we all know values have dropped, it is harder to pinpoint the extent of the drop until there is more evidence of transactions.'
James Mpinga, Tanzania Daily News 7 Jan 09;
WHEN Judy awoke from a reverie, the cows were already in the restaurant of the Millennium Sea Breeze Resort where she works as general manager. Judy wasn’t quite sure how she would serve her clients on the hoof. “Our restaurant is on the beach.
And often times during spring tide, the water laps right up to the top stairs,” Judy recalls. And so it was on this day, when a herd of cattle and goats took a leisurely walk home – a regular sight for guests out to enjoy an evening drink on the hotel’s terraces.
Not so lucky for the beasts this time around, though. “Well, I was in my office, minding my P’s and Q’s and doing the daily administration when I heard some bellowing and snorting,” Judy says, in a small note she has written as a memento about a rather unusual day at the hotel. “I rush to the scene to find that this particular herd had got out of their depth and were struggling to keep their heads above the water,” she recalls.
As it turned out, the beasts weren’t that stupid after all. “They saw the opportunity. Instead of wallowing in their misery, they made a sharp turn to the right … straight into my restaurant.” The rest is, indeed, a day to remember for this amiable South African hotelier.
The Millennium is one of the new beachfront facilities that embody the latest of Tanzania’s growing tourism destinations in the old enclave of Bagamoyo. But the underside story is that it has taken hardly a decade for this fabulous facility to come under threat from the sea.
But Tanzania is not alone. Neither is Bagamoyo the only place to suffer from growing beach degradation in Tanzania. Dar es Salaam has since lost its talc-white sandy beaches to marching waves. The African Hotel is all but in ruins on the city’s northern beach circuit.
Rising sea levels also threaten the Kim Beach Resort across the Magogoni Channel at Kigamboni on the southern stretch – which, like Bagamoyo, is another new sensation in tourism development. Here, sea waves have eaten their way into dry land some 200 metres within the past century.
Apparently, precious little is being done to factor in this prime cost to the tourism industry everywhere across the globe. Across Africa, already an estimated 27 million international tourists seeking to relax by the African ocean resorts were likely to find their beloved choice beach, nesting places were no longer there in the summer of 2002.
According to UNESCO figures of the day, the African coastline was then receding by at least one to two metres every year in parts of Cote d’Ivoire, the Gambia and elsewhere within the continent.
For instance, the seafront of Grand-Bassam, the colonial capital of Cote d’Ivoire, was then reported to be in grave danger of crumbling into the water – as was the Nigerian coastline also in danger as the sea ate away an astonishing 20-30m of terrestrial life-forms every year.
Recognizing that coastal degradation was a global problem, Tanzania has since teamed up with eleven other African countries – Cote d’Ivoire, Gambia, Ghana, Kenya, Mauritius, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, Seychelles and South Africa – to do something about it.
At Heads of State level, these 11 countries have since adopted a Programme of Interventions, including a portfolio of 19 projects developed by five working groups, each working on five key themes defined by the national teams as priority areas for intervention. These are coastal erosion, management of key ecosystems and habitats, pollution, sustainable use of living resources and tourism.
The project has since been taken under the umbrella of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), initiated and put together by African leaders and subsequently endorsed by the G8.
The first cycle of the 'African process for the development and protection of the marine and coastal environment in sub-Saharan Africa', as this Type 2 initiative is known, has been integrated into the Environment Component of the NEPAD Action Plan, under the administration of Senegal.
Africa’s 63,124 km of coastline is crucial to the economies of many of its states, especially through fishing and tourism. And some island states, like Seychelles and Mauritius in the Indian Ocean, are almost entirely dependent on their coastal resources for income.
For a total area of 455 square kilometres, UNESCO says the Seychelles has 491 km of coastline, where its entire population is said to be living effectively on the coast – and whose boom in tourism has brought about rapid economic development.
Those who were in Johannesburg will recall the poignant appeal for help from the state of Tuvalu (26 square), a tiny group of atolls in the South Pacific with 12,000 inhabitants which is slowly sinking into the sea.
According to a report published by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change last year, sea levels may rise a metre over the next 50–100 years. The average altitude of Tuvalu is 1.5 metres. Unesco is giving a voice to small island states through its Small Islands Voice project launched in 2002.
The Organization may have been pleased to see that the need for sustainable development in small island states has since been given importance – but then ‘small’ isn’t just a numerical factor: small and weak economies in a huge country such as Tanzania are just as bad news as the deadpan ‘small’ geographical size of Tuvalu.
In Tanzania, choice portions of the coastline are literally dying: every metre of sediment eaten away and brought into the sea means dead sea-grass and by extension, dead nesting grounds supporting many critical marine life forms.
Recent studies now indicate a deadly spiral at sea: fragile sites which serve as feeding, reproductive, nursery, habitats and nesting grounds are all coming under threat from increasing sand loads brought in from eroded dry lands.
According to the latest findings by the National Environment Management Council (NEMC), beach erosion has caused significant negative effects to both marine and terrestrial environments.
“When you look at the terrestrial environment … it has destroyed buildings and other coastal infrastructure such as roads … it has destroyed coastal farms (coconut farms) and other coastal vegetation,” says Lewis Nzali, a senior marine biologist at NEMC.
Just as negatively altered are the plants and animals less tolerant to marine waters, Nzali says, in a paper presented at the Second Scientific Conference on Environmental Sustainability in Tanzania: Climate Change and Beach Erosion along the Dar es Salaam and Bagamoyo Coastline. His sentiments are shared by other scientists. “Coastal erosion also poses threats to the country’s coastal tourism infrastructure,” say R.E.
Sallema and G.Y.S Mtui, in a new study on technologies and legal instruments to address climate change impacts along the country’s coastal and marine resources. Such resources hold immense promise for future generations, but we have also made serious compromises.
Leslie Tang, Channel NewsAsia 7 Jan 09;
HONG KONG: Hong Kong's Ocean Park has decided to send two sturgeons, which became ill under their care, back to mainland China.
The rare fish were from a batch of 10 given by the mainland to mark the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
Three of the fish have already died, marking a diplomatic embarrassment for Hong Kong.
Ocean Park had been transitioning the sturgeons from freshwater to saltwater and the fish have not adapted well.
The two sick fish will be transferred back to a freshwater facility on the mainland. As for the remaining five sturgeons, Ocean Park said it is still deciding what to do.
- CNA/so
Related links
Yahoo News 4 Jan 08;
Hope Yen, Associated Press Yahoo News 7 Jan 09;
WASHINGTON – The Bush administration has failed to provide protections required by law to more than a dozen marine mammals potentially at risk of death or injury due to commercial fishing, congressional investigators said Wednesday.
The report by the Government Accountability Office assessed the National Marine Fisheries Service, which identifies potentially endangered animals such as whales and dolphins that can become entangled in fishing gear or lobster traps. It found that out of 30 marine mammals deserving protection under federal guidelines, the agency had failed to set up teams of experts to provide protection for 14 of them.
According to the GAO, the fisheries service was generally aware it needed to take protective measures for the additional mammals, which included the Hawaiian stock of false killer whales and the Central North Pacific stock of humpback whales. But it had not done so because officials said they either had faulty data and lacked money to obtain better information, or believed factors other than commercial fishing were to blame.
The GAO also said the fisheries service generally lacked a "comprehensive strategy" for assessing the effectiveness of its animal protection measures and often missed deadlines to set up teams and devise safety plans.
The report urged Congress to have the fisheries service report on any data limitations. Lawmakers should also consider steps to ensure the agency complies with federal law, it said.
The fisheries service "faces a very large, complex and difficult task in trying to protect marine mammals from incidental mortality and serious injury during the course of commercial fishing operations," investigators wrote.
The GAO report comes a day after President George W. Bush designated what he called "three beautiful and biologically diverse areas of the Pacific Ocean" as national marine monuments in what was the largest marine conservation effort in history. Bush used his announcement to broadly defend his environmental record.
"For an administration that is desperately trying to create a legacy of ocean stewardship before leaving office, it is disappointing to hear that they have dropped the ball on reducing incidental deaths of mammals due to commercial fishing," said Rep. Nick J. Rahall, D-W.Va. He is chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee, which requested the GAO report.
Central Florida News 6 Jan 09;
BREVARD COUNTY -- Loggerhead sea turtle nesting in Florida has dropped 41 percent the last 10 years, according to new numbers from Florida Fish and Wildlife.
The largest concentration of loggerheads in the U.S. is in Brevard County, at the Archie Carr National Wildlife Refuge, south of Melbourne Beach.
Since 1998, the loggerhead population has dropped from near 60,000 to less than 30,000 in 2008.
Though there was a spike in the population last year, Florida Fish and Wildlife said not to be fooled by those numbers, as the trend was that the numbers were dropping.
Researchers said they were not sure what was causing the population drop, saying that it could be anything from lights on the beach to beach erosion projects, or even something far out to the sea over which the state has no control.
The state said recent hurricanes were probably not to blame, because the turtles that are nesting are between 20 and 30 years old.
BBC News 7 Jan 09;
Wildlife experts in California, US, are concerned about a mysterious illness affecting brown pelicans from San Diego to San Francisco.
Dozens of the birds - bruised and disoriented - have been landing on highways, airport runways, farm fields and house backyards. The pelicans have been coming down many kilometres from their normal habitats.
The International Bird Rescue Research Center, which is dealing with the sick animals, says the cause is unknown.
"Typically this time of year we would see a significant die-off of young brown pelicans. We are seeing a larger than normal die-off of adults," it said in a release.
Sometimes this behaviour has been associated with domoic acid, a neurotoxin produced by marine algae (phytoplankton). The birds would take in the acid by eating fish and shellfish that have themselves ingested the algae.
But the flamingos were not exhibiting the other symptoms typical of this problem, the centre added.
Blood samples and carcasses have been sent to laboratories for investigation, the LA Times has reported.
"We just became aware of this problem a few days ago," David Caron, a professor of biological sciences at the University of Southern California, told the paper.
"By the end of the week, we'll have information that should tell us whether or not these animals test positive for phytoplankton toxins."
One theory is that the birds may have ingested chemicals from fire retardants used widely by emergency services recently to tackle severe blazes that ravaged the state.
Increase of sick brown pelicans baffles experts
Denise Petski, Associated Press Yahoo News 7 Jan 09;
LOS ANGELES – Wildlife experts are trying to figure out why sick, disoriented and bruised California brown pelicans are being found in record numbers along more than 1,000 miles of coastline.
The birds, some of them dead, have been spotted from San Francisco to Baja California, Mexico. Many have been found far from their homes on roads, fields and backyards.
The pelicans started appearing late last month north of San Pedro in Southern California, then began appearing farther north, said Jay Holcomb, executive director of the International Bird Rescue Research Center in Fairfield, in Northern California.
The center's San Pedro facility received more than 40 birds in the past seven to 10 days, while the Fairfield one has received about 25, Holcomb said Tuesday.
A man vacationing in Baja California alerted the center about a similar problem there this week after discovering sick pelicans on the beach south of San Felipe.
"There are dead or sick brown's all over the place," Rick Meyer wrote in an e-mail Monday to the research center. "Normally there are just a couple, but in the last 10 days there is one every 100 feet... Something's going on."
In the Los Angeles area in the last week, birds have been reported staggering across a road in the beach community of Playa del Rey and on a runway at Los Angeles International Airport. One bird was reported to have struck a vehicle.
Bird rescuers knew something strange was happening because the increasing numbers of sick pelicans involved adults, ages 3 and older, Holcomb said. Typically, this time of year there is a significant die-off of young brown pelicans, but marine biologists say they are seeing a larger-than-normal die-off of adults.
The sick birds are thin, seem confused and disoriented, and have discoloration on their pouches and feet, Holcomb said.
"This type of disorientation in adult pelicans is something we'd see during a domoic acid outbreak, but we have yet to see them exhibiting the other common symptoms," he said.
Domoic acid, a neurotoxin, is produced by microscopic algae. Birds and sea mammals ingest the acid by eating fish and shellfish that consume the algae.
Birds poisoned by domoic acid generally experience seizures, but the pelicans admitted to the rescue centers did not suffer seizures, Holcomb said.
Rescuers have sent pelican blood samples and carcasses to state and federal wildlife authorities and laboratories that specialize in detecting potentially fatal algae toxins. Holcomb said test results are expected in about a week.
Meanwhile, veterinarians and volunteers are nursing the growing number of feathered patients with intravenous fluids, medications and a diet of smelt and squid. Holcomb said rescuers have been successful in nursing many of the ailing birds back to health, but the cost is staggering — $500 to $1,000 per bird.
The California brown pelican is a subspecies of the common brown pelican. Its habitat stretches from Mexico's Sinaloa and Nayarit coasts to the Channel Islands off Southern California.
Brown pelicans nearly became extinct in the 1960s and 1970s because the pesticide DDT infiltrated their food. The species started to recover in 1972 when DDT was banned in the United States.
WWF 7 Jan 09;
Beijing, China - Forests owned by members of the Chinese chapter of WWF's Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) and certified by the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) went beyond 1,000,000 hectares for the very first time late last year.
Set up and managed by WWF, GFTN aims to eliminate illegal logging and improve the management of valuable and threatened forests. By facilitating trade links between companies committed to achieving and supporting responsible forestry, the GFTN creates market conditions that help conserve the world’s forests while providing economic and social benefits for the businesses and people that depend on them.
This latest news marks a significant step for GFTN-China in its widescale promotion of FSC certification. The FSC is an independent, not for profit, non-governmental organization that provides standard setting, trademark assurance and accreditation services for companies and organizations interested in responsible forestry. WWF is one of the main supporters of FSC globally and has been working on FSC certification for about eight years in China.
In July 2008, 116,217 ha of forest from the Fujian Yong’an Forestry Group and in October 230,405 ha of forest from the Heilongjiang Muling Forestry Bureau got FSC certification. Both are GFTN-China participants.
The Yong’an Forest Group became the first enterprise with over 100,000 ha of FSC-certified forest in southern China. Yong’an’s certification ensures the raw material supplies to those timber processing enterprises who demand FSC-certified material.
As a priority region for forestry development, the collective forest area in south China faces many challenges due to the abundant forest species, complex forest features and diversified land tenure. “The complex situation there makes it difficult to carry out large-scale FSC forest certification,” said Dermot O’Gorman, WWF-China Country Representative. “But Yong’an’s corporate operation has effectively integrated forest resources of different ownership, which sets a good example for forest certification and sustainable forest management in the south.”
The State Forestry Administration selected Yong’an as one of its pilot units to develop their sustainable forest management plan in 2006. At the same time, WWF China and Tetra Pak jointly supported the company to identify High Conservation Value Forests (HCVFs) and provided technical training on forest certification. Yong’an later passed GFTN-China baseline appraisal and joined the network as the 20th member.
Muling Forest Bureau is in the south-east part of Heilongjiang Province. The total forest managed area is over 260,000 ha and the forest volume is 22 million cubic metres. Since it was founded Muling has produced 15.66 million cubic metres of commercial timber.
“Muling is not only located in a WWF priority area – the Amur/Heilong Eco-Region – but it is also in the major timber production and processing area of north-east China neighboring the Russian far-east,” said Mr. Jin Zhonghao, GFTN-China Manager.
“Therefore Muling’s getting FSC certification supports the global demand for FSC-certified oak and other raw materials produced in this area. Furthermore, Muling can promote its successful experience and certified raw material to the international market through the platform of GFTN.” With support from IKEA, WWF China provided technical training to Muling during its certification process.
Mr. Yuan Jilian, Director General of Muling, said: “FSC certification is the most acknowledged international forest certification scheme that promotes the well-managed forest practices with the impetus of market mechanism. It is also a platform to make the forestry enterprises more competitive in practising responsible forestry and attracting investment.”
Mr Su Ming, Deputy Director of International Cooperation, the State Forestry Administration of China, said: “Sustainable management is a long-term goal for China’s forestry development while forest certification is one of the most effective methods to ensure this goal.
“We’re delighted by the cooperation between domestic forestry companies and international conservation organizations to introduce such advance management concepts and approaches to China.”
Alaskan salmon, pollack, herring and mackerel make list of fish that is good for consumers and environment
James Meikle, guardian.co.uk 7 Jan 09;
Consumers are to be officially advised for the first time to eat ethically as well as healthily as the government tries to encourage people to adopt a more environmentally friendly diet.
British fish eaters will also be encouraged to turn to species whose stocks are not at risk from overfishing. A huge rise in consumption would result if existing health advice was followed properly.
Consumption of oily fish is less than half of what it should be if all Britons followed the advice, although white fish consumption is far nearer recommended levels.
The government's Food Standards Agency (FSA) already advises consumers to eat one portion of white and one of oily fish each week, in fresh, frozen or tinned form. The fish provide protein, vitamins and oily fish are particularly valuable for their omega-3 fatty acids, which offer protection against heart disease.
But it warns against eating too much because of the low levels of pollutants — particularly from the oily varieties — which can build up in the body. Girls and women of childbearing age and women who are breastfeeding are warned not to eat more than two portions a week and avoid shark, swordfish and marlin because they can carry high levels of methylmercury.
The FSA hopes that more environmental awareness will protect fish and encourage more fish eating among those who worry whether such a diet threatens species. About a quarter of the world's fish stocks are overfished, half are fished to their sustainable limits and less than a quarter are thought to be so healthy that they can be further exploited. Although fish farming might help, there is public concern over the industry's potential to damage the environment and its reliance on fish feeds, which can further reduce stocks.
The FSA today issued a consultation paper on how to pass on environmental advice. Rather than develop its own from scratch, it is likely to point consumers towards organisations such as the Marine Stewardship Council (MSC) and Marine Conservation Society (MCS) which already advises consumers on the sustainability of stocks. The MSC has an international system for labelling fish from sustainable sources.
For instance, the MSC endorses Alaskan salmon and pollack, herring from Scotland, the North Sea, the Thames and Hastings, and is about to approve Scottish mackerel. But the present lists of white and oily fish on the FSA website do not mention the viability of their stocks. The MCS is worried about the future of several species — including cod from large parts of the Atlantic, wild halibut and orange roughy.
Rosemary Hignett, head of nutrition at the FSA, said: "We recognise the potential impact our advice might have on demands for fish. By helping to ensure they have access to clear and reliable information about sustainable sources of fish, consumers will be able to make more informed choices."
Britons are notoriously conservative about their fish choices despite increased sales of unusual types such as pollack, whiting, coley and sea bass, in some cases fuelled by the enthusiasm of celebrity chefs, or by consumers' environmental concerns and lower prices. But salmon, cod and haddock still dominate our diets with cod, haddock and tuna being among our top imports. Meanwhile we export large amounts of salmon, mackerel, herring and monkfish, with France and Spain our biggest customers.
Yahoo News 7 Jan 09;
BANGKOK (AFP) – Police investigators from Southeast Asia, China and the United States met in Bangkok Wednesday to share strategies for tackling the illegal international trade in tigers, leopards and pangolins.
Big cats prized for their skin and body parts and pangolins, or scaly anteaters, which are used in cooking, are under particular threat from organised trafficking gangs in Asia.
Investigators from Thailand, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia and Vietnam joined representatives from China and the United States for a three-day workshop on curbing the crime.
"Concerted and coordinated joint actions are required to address the illegal exploitation and trade," said Chumphon Suckasaem, a senior officer with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) Wildlife Enforcement Network.
Chumphon said the trade had already taken its toll, "threatening to irrevocably damage Southeast Asia's ecosystems."
But he said more than 100 arrests connected with major wildlife crime had been made since mid-July 2008.
"Compared to the past the police are more interested in the wildlife issue... it's stronger than it was before," said Colonel Subsak Chavalviwat of Thailand's wildlife police department.
Subsak admitted there remained difficult cultural barriers in countries such as China, where there is still a strong demand for big cat parts.
"Sometimes its difficult but I'm confident so I'm going to keep doing it and keep trying," he said.
"It's saving the animals, saving the forests and saving the humans because if the biodiversity is good then we are living in a good environment for humans' health," he added.
Pangolins are the most traded species in Southeast Asia, with Chumphon estimating 30,000 specimens had been confiscated by authorities between 1998 and 2007.
The World Wildlife Fund estimated last year that there were only around 3,500 tigers left in the world.
Yahoo News 7 Jan 09;
SYDNEY (AFP) – One of the world's most venomous spiders, Australia's funnel-web, is enjoying the summer so much it appears to have brought forward its annual mating ritual, according to an expert.
Joel Shakespeare, head spider keeper at the Australian Reptile Park north of Sydney, said the number of funnel-webs found around Sydney was unusually high for this time of year, with about 50 specimens brought to him in the past week.
"Generally we have an average of about 10 a week," he told AFP.
"But we're having that wet, humid weather which is bringing them out to mate. So it's really a spike with the funnel webs."
Funnel-webs -- large, dark spiders which can grow up to five centimetres in length -- are found in most parts of Australia and have been known to cause death to humans within 76 minutes of biting.
Shakespeare, who milks funnel-webs to provide venom to produce anti-venom, said a two-year-old boy was bitten by one of the deadly spiders in November but survived after being taken to hospital and given the antidote.
Australia is enduring a southern hemisphere summer heatwave which has sparked bushfires in New South Wales state and seen temperatures top 30 degrees Celsius (86 Fahrenheit) in Sydney.
The hot weather has also reportedly seen hospitals report a sharp increase in the numbers of spider and snake bites.
"It's normally young children and middle-aged men that are bitten," Naren Gunja, deputy medical director and toxicologist at the New South Wales Poison Information Centre told The Australian newspaper.
"Children don't understand how dangerous snakes can be, while often alcohol is involved with older males who are bitten."
The good news is that the hotter the summer becomes, the less likely funnel-webs are to be seen because they cannot survive long in direct sunlight.
"They can die in 10 minutes in the sun," Shakespeare said, although he added the deadly arachnids could still be found inside homes, shoes and other sheltered areas as they attempt to escape the heat.
Funnel-webs have not claimed a life in Australia since 1982, the year that the anti-venom was developed.
Jerome Cartillier Yahoo News 7 Jan 08;
"The problem is that people are confusing weather with climate"
PARIS (AFP) – A cold front is sweeping across Europe after gripping swathes of North America last month, but the deep freeze does not mean the threat of global warming has abated, caution scientists.
"The major trend is unmistakably one of warming," Michel Jarraud, secretary general of the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO), told AFP.
"If we look at the trajectory over the last 160 years, it overlays a large natural variability, and that's what causes confusion."
The cooler weather that was a hallmark of 2008 can be explained partly by La Nina, a reversal of the phenomenon by which warm waters build up on the surface of the Pacific, said Jarraud.
"The problem is that people are confusing weather with climate," Susan Solomon, a top scientist on the UN's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC), said in a recent interview.
"Weather is important locally, and from year to year. But what you really have to look at when you are interested in climate is the larger scale -- the whole world -- and the longer term," she said.
Even if 2008 was on balance chillier than 2007, it still ranks as the 10th warmest year on record, she pointed out.
And over the long haul, average global surface temperatures have climbed significantly -- between 0.75 and 1.0 degrees Celsius (1.35 and 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) -- since 1850, when accurate weather statistics were first recorded.
The IPCC has said that by century's end, the increase will very likely be 2.4 to 4.0 C (4.3 to 7.8 C).
Exactly how much will depend on the extent to which humans can reduce atmospheric concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2), the principal greenhouse gas.
The chill in Europe claimed seven more lives in Poland and one in Belgium overnight Tuesday, adding to a toll of at least 10 dead from previous days.
The coldest place was Dippoldiswalde-Reinberg near Dresden, eastern Germany, where the mercury plunged to - 27.7 C (- 4 F). Snow fell in France's Mediterranean port of Marseille.
Annual variations mask the incremental upward creep of the thermometer due to global warming, which averages out to only two hundredths of a degree Celsius per year, noted Jean Jouzel, one of France's leading climate scientists.
One way to see the transition, he said, is to look at the impact of climate change on plant life.
"We see very clearly, for example, that the grape harvest in France has moved inexorably forward by several weeks over the last 50 years. But from one year to the next, it can start a few days earlier or later," he said.
Scientists now agree that climate change is a reality, and that human activity is largely to blame, but they still differ on the pace at which it is unfolding.
And they are still divided over the perceived danger of runaway warming caused by self-reinforcing "positive feedbacks".
The melting of the Arctic ice cap, for example, is both a symptom and a cause of global warming.
It is a sign of rising temperatures and also discreetly adds to the warming cycle. Ice reflects solar rays, so the loss of this floating cover exposes the sea to more of the Sun's heat.
To make things even more difficult to decipher, global warming is not a linear process.
According to a study published last year in the scientific journal Nature, the overall warming trend could be slowed over the next decade by a shift in ocean currents, especially a weakening of the Gulf Stream that warms the north Atlantic.
Cold snaps are routinely seized upon by a dwindling rearguard of climate skeptics as "proof" that climate change is exaggerated or an outright fabrication, Jouzel said.
But that is no reason for serious climate scientists to exaggerate either, he added.
"It also up to us to be careful to not say every time we have a hot summer, 'See, it's global warming!'," he said.
Channel NewsAsia 8 Jan 09;
PARIS: The world's paramount authority on trade in farm animals on Wednesday urged countries not to let up in the fight against deadly bird flu.
Outbreaks of H5N1 avian influence among poultry fell last year, as did the toll among humans who came into contact with infected birds, but the story is far from over, said Bernard Vallat, director general of the World Organisation for Animal Health, or OIE.
"There is still a risk from the poultry trade, because the virus has become endemic in some countries that have been unable to get rid of it," Vallat told reporters.
Vallat singled out Egypt and Indonesia as countries where, he said, veterinary surveillance was insufficient.
In China and Vietnam, said Vallat, outbreaks of H5N1 had been managed thanks to systematic vaccination of poultry flocks.
"However, this is expensive and will have to stop one day," he said.
H5N1 bird flu has now killed 248 people since it re-appeared in Asia in 2003, according to the the latest World Health Organisation (WHO) tally.
Of these, 113 died in Indonesia, 52 in Vietnam, 21 in China and 17 in Vietnam.
Deaths last year numbered 31, after 59 in 2007 and 79 in 2006. Eighteen occurred in Indonesia, five in Vietnam and four each in Egypt and in China.
Scientists fear the virus could eventually mutate into a form more easily transmissible between humans, triggering a global pandemic.
Despite the declining human toll, "the theoretical risk of the virus mutating and becoming a killer is still there," said Vallat, who made the comments in a New Year's meeting with reporters in Paris.
Vallat said it was in the interest of rich countries to beef up veterinary surveillance in poor countries.
As a result of globalisation, the spread of an animal-borne disease to other economies can have disastrous consequences, he noted.
On Monday, a 19-year-old Chinese woman died of H5N1 in Beijing after coming into contact with ducks at a poultry market. Authorities in Vietnam also announced on Tuesday an eight-year-old girl had tested positive for H5N1 in the north of the country. - AFP/de
Winston Chai, Business Times 8 Jan 09;
IN these penny-pinching times, gadget makers are set to go bigger on eco-friendly products that promise to go easy on both the environment as well as the consumer's wallet.
Industry players widely expect consumers to rein in their spending on technology gizmos amid looming fears of more retrenchments and wage cuts.
'We expect a shift in consumer mindset away from high-priced, high-premium goods and services, and towards products that make a lot of sense price-performance- wise,' said Woody Nam, president and CEO of LG Electronics Asia.
But Joe O'Sullivan, chief operating officer of InFocus Corporation, cautioned: 'The kneejerk reaction to a tight economic situation is to buy cheap solutions. While this is a valid option in some circumstances, it's not always the case when investing in IT.'
With belt-tightening being top- of-mind, the nascent eco-friendly technology movement is set to gather more steam in the coming months as consumers place greater emphasis on green products that could be more cost-effective to maintain in the long run.
This trend is one of the key themes taking centre stage at the annual CES technology tradeshow in Las Vegas this week, an event often viewed as the harbinger of consumer technology advancements for the year ahead.
Motorola, for example, showcased the world's first carbon neutral handset that is made out of recycled plastic materials. Energy-efficient televisions, solar-powered gadgets and electric vehicles are among the other products that are taking the spotlight at this year's show with eco-friendliness becoming the new industry buzzword.
'With high energy prices, better environmental awareness and more conservatively spending consumers, the adoption of green and energy-saving technologies in consumer electronic products will be a key trend.
'In 2009 and beyond, consumers will expect their electrical appliances, TV units, air-cons and other products to incorporate some element of energy efficiency and environmental-friendliness,' said LG's Mr Nam.
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