Status of Coral Reefs: Singapore and beyond
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Just when you think it's safe to get in the water
on the annotated budak blog and nighthawk
Juvenile Batfish@Cyrene
video clip on the sgbeachbum blog
Fledgling playing statue
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
A Gloriously Superb Day
on the Garden Voices blog
Seen on STOMP: Little Guilin
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog
Start Composting at Home
on the Zero Waste Singapore blog
Ong Boon Kiat, Business Times 5 Feb 09;
SINGAPORE content providers and its Web community have been called to help make the Ocean tool on Google Earth - the Internet search giant's new tool to explore the world's seas - a success by filling it up generously with content.
'We hope that Ocean can be used as a canvas by Singapore's vibrant community of scientists, educators and curious travellers, who can fill in the blanks by contributing photos, video, data and other kinds of information to Ocean in the same way that they have in Google Earth,' said Derek Callow, head of marketing, Google South-east Asia.
Google Earth, a free application which provides maps and three-dimensional satellite images of locations around the world, has been instrumental in stirring up global interest in geospatial applications since its debut in 2005.
The Ocean tool, which went online on Tuesday as part of the latest version of Google Earth, is a marine version of the latter.
It lets users virtually dive beneath the water surface to explore 3D underwater terrain, as well as browse ocean-related content contributed by Google's partners and other Web users.
Two such partners - Protect Planet Ocean and wannadive.net - have created the first Singapore-related content with the Ocean tool, on Pulau Hantu, Labrador Park and the Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve.
Although there is limited content at the moment on display, the resources are expected to grow richer as users add and share their own content in the form of photographs, videos and articles.
Other locations where content have been created for include nearby Tioman in Malaysia, Boracay in the Philippines, the Great Barrier Reef, Monterey Bay, the Antarctic and the Patagonian Shelf.
Google's content partners at present include the BBC, California Academy of Sciences, Bishop Museum Hawaii and the Cousteau Society.
Google has been netting praise for this new tool this week. Some environmentalists have said it will lead to better protection for threatened marine species.
The tool has also impressed the European Commission, which is reportedly planning to hand over its data for use by the application.
'We hope to contribute to the growing awareness of our oceans, which cover over 80 per cent of the planet,' Mr Callow told BizIT.
'Whether Ocean will become a naval navigation tool is hard to tell as the product is still very new, but we see the inherent value in making ocean information available to the scientific community and all users around the world.'
Google Earth's new ocean features can benefit region, say environmentalists
Satish Cheney, Channel NewsAsia 4 Feb 09;
SINGAPORE: Google Earth has just gone one step further and now allows users to take a 3D dive into the sea.
Users can view ocean topography, watch regions of the Earth change over time, and even check out the scenery on Mars.
Former US vice-president, Al Gore, who is also a Nobel Peace Prize winner, said: "Google Earth uses the Earth itself as an organising metaphor, not only for visual imagery, but for all of the imagery, historical, scientific, cultural, everything you can think of… and it is organised geospatially because it makes more sense. It's easier to use.”
In Southeast Asia, Google hopes to work with environmental groups to provide more focused data for the software.
Marketing manager of Google Southeast Asia, Derek Callow, said: "There's a wealth of data from user-generated content. We're a region that's got a lot of coastlines, a lot of learning opportunities and tourist spots, but also some real environmental challenges."
And the environmental challenges include pollution and endangered marine life.
Many local environmental groups here have been embracing the Internet for quite a while now, but with this new feature on Google Earth, they say they will be able to raise more awareness about the environment, especially about marine conservation in this region.
Executive director of the Singapore Environment Council, Howard Shaw, said: "There is a lack of information in this region and the region we call the Coral Triangle, which contains the richest biodiversity of anywhere in the planet, exceeding that of the South American Amazon rainforests even."
More than 500 million people have downloaded Google Earth since it was launched in 2005. While the software is available free on Google's website, researchers and organisations can purchase a more powerful version for about US$400.
Google says the idea of adding oceans came three years ago when a scientist pointed out that the software lacked details of what is under the water, which covers almost three-quarters of the Earth's surface.
- CNA/yt
High oil prices drove up car sales last year but demand may dip as pump prices drop
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 5 Feb 09;
COMPRESSED natural gas (CNG) vehicle sales had a boom year, as soaring petrol prices in the first half of 2008 pushed more people towards alternatives.
But industry observers said interest may be waning, as pump prices have since softened.
By the end of last year, there were 2,444 cars which can run on CNG, 10 times the population in 2007. Taxis which run on CNG proliferated too, with their numbers rising by more than four times to 977 units.
The switch to CNG vehicles - deemed to be environmentally cleaner than many petrol and diesel models here - has also begun to spread to buses and trucks.
Ten-League Investments has sold the first CNG prime mover here, a six-axle vehicle which can haul 40-foot containers.
Ms Foo May Ling, a partner in Ten-League, claims the China-made truck is far cleaner than diesel trucks.
'You can stand behind it when the engine is running,' she said of its near non-existent exhaust fumes. 'For a diesel prime mover, the moment the engine is turned on, you'll get out of the way.'
The first truck has been sold to CNG refuelling station operator Smart Energy, which will use it to transport gas to its new kiosk in Serangoon North. The station is expected to open next month.
The first CNG buses have also been delivered here. King Long Singapore, which imports the China-made King Long CNG coaches, has sold the 30 buses to two tour operators here.
Mr Charles Tan, a director of King Long Singapore, said lower running cost has become less of a reason for switching to gas since petrol and diesel prices started to fall in the second half of last year.
But he said CNG buses are cheaper than diesel models, partly because of a green vehicle rebate. His CNG coach costs $150,000 compared to $180,000 for a diesel equivalent.
'How successful CNG is depends on how much the Government is willing to support it,' he said.
Last fortnight during the Budget announcement, the Government said it will tax CNG at the pumps - the way petrol is taxed - from 2012. It will start off with a levy of 20 cents per kg.
It also said CNG cars will continue to be granted the green vehicle rebate till end-2011. This rebate is equivalent to a 40 per cent registration tax cut for cars, and 5 per cent for commercial vehicles.
Motorist Melvin Toh, 27, said the changes are likely to dampen the demand for CNG cars after 2011. 'The key benefit is the 40 per cent rebate,' said the wealth manager, who drives a CNG Honda.
Yesterday in Parliament, Nominated MP Edwin Khew, who is chairman of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore, asked the Government to consider more breaks for CNG vehicles, which he said helped lower the amount of fine soot in the air.
These include not levying a duty on CNG till 2015, and providing incentives for those who invest in CNG stations.
Mr Khew pointed out that consumers became less keen on CNG towards the end of last year because of falling petrol prices as well as the spectre of a hefty tax that may be levied on gas-powered cars.
He said this had caused 10 out of 20 workshops which convert vehicles to run on CNG to close.
The Budget Statement has brought more clarity to would-be converts.
Mr Gilbert von der Aue, sales manager at CNG retrofitter C. Melchers, said there have been 'a couple more enquiries since the Budget, but we need a few more weeks to have a better gauge'.
He said the opening of two new stations this year will make it more attractive to users as well as those contemplating a switch.
Besides the Serangoon station, a massive facility in Old Toh Tuck Road will improve convenience. Due to open in July, it will have 38 pumps - more than the total at three stations operating today.
Mr von der Aue expects the new stations to lead to lower prices. CNG is now retailing at about $1.20 per kg, or 89 cents per litre.
High petrol prices last year had also fuelled strong demand for hybrid cars. The cohort of petrol-electric cars stood at nearly 2,000 units at the end of the year, 90 per cent more than in 2007. But despite the growth spurts, 'green' vehicles make up less than 1 per cent of the 880,000 vehicles here.
christan@sph.com.sg
Jermyn Chow, Straits Times 5 Feb 09;
THE annual drive to remind Singaporeans of their role to play in defending the country marks its 25th anniversary this year by getting back to the basics and asking: 'What will you defend?'
Organisers want to 'get personal' with every individual. They would like each man, woman and child to think about what is important enough to them to fight for, and share their views with others.
Colonel Lim Kok Siong, director of the Defence Ministry unit, Nexus, which runs the campaign, said organisers felt the message should not be from the top down, the way it was when it first started in 1984.
'It's not a government agency that owns or drives the campaign,' he said.
The concept of Total Defence was introduced to remind Singaporeans of the nation's limited national resources and how modern warfare would not spare civilians from the suffering of war. Everyone needs to play a part to deter a potential aggressor. Constraints have not really changed now, said Col Lim, as people are still Singapore's only resource.
But the threats have broadened. As it was then, Total Defence is a rallying call to pull together as a nation to weather any crisis - including the deepest recession Singapore has ever seen.
Total Defence Day is observed every year on Feb 15, the day in 1942 that Singapore fell to the Japanese during World War II, a grim reminder of a small country's vulnerability.
Unity is crucial, said Col Lim. He said: 'When you have the confidence that people are with you and will support you, you can overcome fear and move ahead.'
Twelve faces were chosen from all walks of life to front this year's campaign - from a full-time national serviceman to Ambassador-at-large Tommy Koh.
One of the 12 chosen, Madam Yang Chek Salikin, a nurse at the Institute of Mental Health, said she would defend the well-being of her patients. Said Madam Salikin, 55: 'They are close to my heart and I want to ensure that they get the best of care and best medicine.'
Individuals can also make their voices heard through an online video contest. The best submission that is sent to www.whatwillyoudefend.sg/takepart stands to win an Apple MacBook worth about $1,500.
So far, more than 100 videos have been submitted.
Another highlight is a 30-minute musical revue written by local playwright Jonathan Lim. Titled Five Pillars, One Roof, the musical will be performed on Feb 15 at Suntec City when Defence Minister Teo Chee Hean launches the Total Defence 25 campaign.
Cheering the move to take the message to the individual, Mr Lim said: 'The Government trusts us enough to let us talk about Total Defence, so why not let ourselves be heard?'
An interactive exhibition will also go up from Feb 15 at Suntec City to showcase the works of youth and students. The top 10 animation clips chosen for the N.E.mation contest, which is in its third year, will be on display.
Kor Kian Beng, Straits Times 5 Feb 09;
THE explosive growth in the proportion of foreigners here will slow and their numbers may even dip as the economy contracts this year.
But continuing to shut them out when things get better will not be in Singapore's long-term interest, said Deputy Prime Minister Wong Kan Seng in Parliament on Tuesday.
Responding to Madam Ho Geok Choo (West Coast GRC) on population trends and immigration policies, he said that when the economy grew strongly over the past few years, Singapore's non-resident population rose to meet the man-power needs, especially in labour-intensive industries like construction.
'As we enter into a period of economic contraction, our non-resident population is unlikely to grow at the same rate as in the past. The current proportion of non-resident population of 25 per cent may decline,' he added.
Mr Wong, who is Home Affairs Minister, cited figures from the Population Trends 2008 which showed that as of last June, 65 per cent of the 4.84 million population were Singaporeans, while 10 per cent were permanent residents (PRs).
The remaining 25 per cent were referred to as the non-residents - mostly transient foreigners working, studying and living here. They numbered 1.2 million last June - a spike of 19 per cent over the previous year.
The jump showed that Singapore's foreign manpower needs are highly dependent on the economy, said Mr Wong.
Madam Ho asked about the employment scene, particularly measures to address concerns among Singaporeans over job competition from foreigners in the downturn.
Mr Wong's response: 'For the Government, Singaporeans' interests must come first. But excluding foreigners from coming here to work when there's a legitimate need for companies to hire them will be against our long-term interests.'
He added that Singapore had to consider all factors needed to keep its economy competitive. It could not follow blindly what other countries did in their immigration policies. This is especially if foreign manpower is needed to keep companies going, when they are competing with foreign companies, or to keep companies cost-effective.
Mr Wong also listed various programmes to assist Singaporeans, including the Workfare Income Supplement scheme, which gives an income boost to low-wage workers.
He also said that immigration was still needed to boost the population. Singapore's total fertility rate was 1.29 last year - far from the 2.1 replacement rate.
But he added: 'This will be done on a selective basis, taking in consideration the contributions or potential contributions of the immigrants to our economy.'
Over the last five years, 58,000 PRs became citizens, while 242,000 were added to the PR pool. This growth underscored the importance of integrating new citizens and PRs into society here so that communal bonds will be fostered and social cohesion enhanced, said Mr Wong.
The Government is working on a proposal to further help the integration process. More details will be announced during the debate on the budget for individual ministries.
Markus Junianto Sihaloho, Jakarta Globe 4 Feb 09;
Defense Minister Juwono Sudarsono is urging other government departments to help shape a proposal to develop economic zones along the ecologically prized 2,000-kilometer-long border region between Malaysia and Kalimantan “as soon as possible.”
The call from the defense minister, who cites sovereignty threats from neighboring countries as one of the reasons behind the plan, is likely to cause outrage among environmentalists and seemingly flies in the face of the historic “Heart of Borneo” declaration signed by the heads of Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia and Malaysia in 2007.
It was hoped that the declaration would lead to the conservation and sustainable management of what has been called “the most important center of biological diversity in the world,” covering approximately 220,000 square kilometers of equatorial rainforests — almost a third of the island.
Speaking to journalists after a meeting at the House of Representatives, or DPR, on Monday evening, Juwono said the ministry had already drafted a concept plan to establish economic zones along the land borders.
The draft includes plans to establish new plantations and construct new roads along the border.
The concept was presented to other ministers during a recent meeting at the Coordinating Ministry of Political, Legal, and Security Affairs, Juwono said.
“We have to carry it out as soon as possible, but need other ministries to cooperate with us,” Juwono said.
He said the plan would involve a huge amount of capital but added that it would be supported by local businesspeople willing to invest money in developing the border areas.
“But they would also develop the border areas to be more promising for the citizens living there,” he said.
An economic presence acted as a good marker of a country’s sovereignty along border areas and would act as a nonmilitary deterrent to any encroachment on Indonesian territory, Juwono said.
Theo L. Sambuaga, the chairman of House Defense Commission I, which oversees defense, backed the proposal, claiming on Tuesday that the government needed to address poverty along the border.
“We have to guarantee the welfare of our citizens living near borders, so they will never think to favor or move to the neighboring countries,” the lawmaker said.
In terms of the massive investment required to develop the border, Theo said the government could use the state budget allotted from the ministries of people’s welfare and public works spread throughout several ministerial plans.
“The government has allotted money for the Ministry of Education to build new schools. If it merged with the border establishment program, the school could be built there,” Theo said.
Environmental nongovernmental organization WWF said on its Web site that the 2007 declaration signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono formally ended plans to create the world’s largest palm oil plantation in Kalimantan along Indonesia’s mountainous border with Malaysia.
The scheme, supported by Chinese investment, was expected to cover an area of 1.8 million hectares and would have had long-lasting, damaging consequences to the Heart of Borneo, the site said.
“The island is home to 13 species of primates, 150 species of reptiles and amphibians, over 350 species of birds and around 15,000 species of plants, and continues to be the source of many new
discoveries,” it said.
Yahoo News 4 Feb 09;
AVALON, Calif. – A decade after they were nearly wiped out by disease, the distinct wild foxes on Santa Catalina Island have made a huge recovery.
The Catalina Island fox, a subspecies of 5-pound foxes unique to the island 22 miles off the Southern California coast, topped out at 784 in a recent count, biologists said Tuesday. That's up from just 100 or so in 1999, when the population dwindled after an outbreak of canine distemper virus. The island once had about 1,300 of the foxes.
"These numbers are fantastic news," said Julie King, senior wildlife biologist for the Catalina Island Conservancy.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service put the animals on the endangered species list in 2004.
King said a dry year in 2007 followed by a wet 2008 was beneficial for the foxes.
The 2007 drought killed off many mule deer. The foxes grew fat off the carcasses and had large litters in the 2008 breeding season. Then last year's heavier rain made the rodent population explode, providing a good food source for the young.
"The mice were convenient to-go packages of protein for females to retrieve and feed to their pups," King said.
When the population fell to its 1999 low, the conservancy and the Institute for Wildlife Studies started a $2 million recovery program that included captive breeding and vaccinations.
"For a small conservancy to bring a species back from the brink of extinction to a stabilized, growing population in less than 10 years is no small feat," said Carlos de la Rosa, the conservancy's chief conservation and education officer.
Animal rights activists said using air guns under the sea could be a shock to a population of Chinese white dophins and threaten their survival
Meggie Lu, Taipei Times 5 Feb 09;
A group of animal rights activists yesterday called on the US government to reject a proposal by the Columbia University-affiliated Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (L-DEO) to conduct earthquake studies on Taiwan’s sea floor, saying that air guns used in the project would harm the near-extinct Chinese white dolphins living in the area.
“Taiwan’s population of Chinese white dolphins (Sousa chinensis) was rated ‘critically endangered’ by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) in 2008; currently, we estimate that less than 100 animals exist,” said Allen Chen (陳昭倫), spokesperson for the East Taiwan Strait Sousa Technique and Advisory Working Group.
Chen, who is an assistant research fellow at Academia Sinica’s Research Center for Biodiversity, said that although Chinese white dolphins are also found along the coasts of China, India and east Africa, “studies have revealed that [the Chinese white dolphin] population in Taiwan never crosses the Taiwan Strait and therefore is independent from the rest of the Chinese white dolphins in the world.”
SEA FLOOR
Earlier last month, Chen’s group and the Wild at Heart Legal Defense Association (WaH), an environmental group, found a public announcement on the US’ National Marine Fisheries Service Web site saying that the L-DEO planned to conduct a sea floor investigation project in the exclusive economic zone that includes Taiwan, China, Japan and the Philippines for its earthquake research, Chen said.
“The transect line will hit the dolphin’s habitat from Hsinchu to Yunlin along the island’s west coast,” he said.
“Air guns that are 265 decibels [dB], multibeam echosounders and sub-bottom profilers will be used under the sea in the project,” said WaH founder Robin Winkler (文魯彬), adding that the noise level of an exploding atomic bomb is about 300db.
Chen said although L-DEO had applied for Incidental Harassment Authorization under the condition that only Level B Harassments (potential disturbances) based on the US’ Marine Mammal Protection Act would be done to the mammal stock, Level A Harassments (potential injuries) are in fact highly likely.
“To the dolphins, this is like firing gigantic ‘firecrackers’ in their homes ... As dolphins navigate with sound waves, this will grossly disturb their movement, in addition to shocking the animals,” he said.
‘POORLY DONE’
Chen also said the environmental impact assessment on the project was poorly done.
“All data were drawn from existing documents and guesstimates from past experiences, instead of sending researchers to Taiwan to investigate life in the seas,” he said.
“We acknowledge that [earthquake] investigations are very important and know that many technologies are used to make the world a better place. However, when a technology threatens existing ecosystems, its implementation needs to be reconsidered, and alternative options explored,” Green Party Taiwan Secretary-General Pan Han-shen (潘翰聲) said.
Scientists grade 53 major fishing nations on how they comply with UN's voluntary code of conduct
Alok Jha, guardian.co.uk 4 Feb 09;
More than 40% of the world's fishing is carried out unsustainably and largely in defiance of international codes of conduct, according to a new study. The team that carried out the research said that voluntary schemes to prevent overfishing should be replaced with binding international laws that can better protect marine ecosystems.
Scientists graded the 53 major fishing nations - those that take 96% of the world's marine catch - on how their intentions matched actions in complying with the UN's code, a voluntary measure developed in 1995 as a potential way to tackle overfishing.
The code sets out criteria on how countries should implement the right type of equipment for how fish are caught and how to minimise ecosystem impacts such as catching unwanted fish species that have to be thrown back into the sea and minimising effects on dolphins and other mammals.
Norway comes top of the list with a compliance rate of 60%, followed by the United States, Canada, Australia, Iceland and Namibia.
In the bottom 28 countries, representing more than 40% of the world's marine fish catch, the compliance rates were so poor that the authors gave them "fail" grades, meaning they complied with less than 40% of the UN code of conduct. Twelve countries in this category also failed in all or most sections of the compliance analysis. The UK is ranked 14th.
The work, carried out by Tony Pitcher and Ganapathiraju Pramod of the fisheries centre at the University of British Columbia in Cabnada, Daniela Kalikoski at the Federal University of Rio Grande in Brazil and Katherine Short at WWF International in Switzerland, is published in the journal Nature tomorrow.
Giles Bartlett, WWF's fisheries policy officer, said he was surprised by the low scores of countries that are thought to have the most progressive fishing policies. "We know the global oceans are in crisis but I thought that the highest-scoring countries would score higher than they've done. That shows the challenge is pervasive – not just in the high seas but in areas we consider to be the best-managed in the world such as Australia, New Zealand, Iceland and Canada."
Overall, the five questions on which countries scored worst concerned introducing ecosystem-based management, controlling illegal fishing, reducing excess fishing capacity and minimising bycatch and destructive fishing practices.
The authors wrote that new international rules were needed to address overfishing. "Although the voluntary nature of the code may have been necessary in getting all-nation agreement when it was drafted in the early 1990s, attitudes to the oceans have changed," they said.
"There is now widespread scientific consensus on the ecological impacts of continued overfishing and the threats to seafood security, and broad agreement on policy issues such as curtailing illegal catches and minimising the impacts of fishing on marine ecosystems. The time has come for a new integrated international legal instrument covering all aspects of fisheries management."
Bartlett said that the next reform of the EU's common fisheries policy, due in 2012, had the potential to tackle some of the problems. "The last reform was going to adopt ecosystem management as a fundamental principle but it hasn't delivered on that," said Bartlett. "[They should] look at the best systems in the world in terms of governance such as Australia, where they've changed the emphasis of fisheries management to keeping ownership of resources to the industry. This means the industry doesn't have the incentive to overfish, the incentive is to look after the resource."
Other management systems include setting up marine reserves. "You can look at how humans use the sea and look at how humans mitigate those impacts, be they fisheries impacts or oil and gas exploration. Marine reserves are the best tool for mitigating those impacts on the ocean."
"The United Kingdom comes out 14th below Namibia and South Africa and only just above Malaysia," said independent fisheries biologist Doug Herdson. "What is most surprising is the spread of the European Union nations 10th to 31st when all are supposed to be following a 'common fisheries policy'. It can certainly be argued that things have been changing in the four years since the majority of this study was carried out; most notably the EU's maritime strategy, its discards policy, and the UK's marine bill, though none of these is yet in effect."
He added: "The global problem is the mindset that economic necessity must override everything else, and consequent failure to recognise that no economic measure can succeed if it is not supported by a sustainable environment. Despite recent studies showing the degradation of marine ecosystems, we have not yet outgrown the 19th-century concept that the seas are endlessly bountiful."
Chi-chi Zhang, Associate Press Yahoo News 4 Feb 09;
BEIJING – Pressure from a dam, its reservoir's heavy waters weighing on geologic fault lines, may have helped trigger China's devastating earthquake last May, some scientists say, in a finding that suggests human activity played a role in the disaster.
The magnitude-7.9 quake in Sichuan province was China's worst in a generation, causing 70,000 deaths and leaving 5 million homeless. Just 550 yards (meters) from the fault line and 3.5 miles (5.5 kilometers) from the epicenter stands the 511-foot-high (156-meter-high) Zipingpu dam, the area's largest. The quake cracked Zipingpu, forcing the reservoir to be drained.
Fan Xiao, a chief engineer at the Sichuan Geology and Mineral Bureau, said Wednesday that the immense weight of Zipingpu's waters — 315 million tons — likely affected the timing and magnitude of the quake. Though earthquakes are not rare in the area, one of such magnitude had not occurred for thousands of years, Fan said.
"I'm not saying the earthquake would not have happened without the dam, but the presence of the massive Zipingpu dam may have changed the size or time of the quake, thus creating a more violent quake," Fan said in a telephone interview.
Seismologists recognize that large bodies of water may exert pressure on fault lines deep in the earth, leading to earthquakes. The pressure can push the sides of fault lines harder together, increasing friction, or cause the fault lines to slip apart.
Scientists have recorded smaller earthquakes possibly caused by reservoirs. A magnitude-6.4 quake near India's Koyna dam killed at least 180 people in 1967 and is thought to have been induced by the reservoir.
Fan is among a number of experts who have voiced concerns in recent months about the likelihood that Zipingpu may have contributed to last year's quake. Their concerns were reported last month in Science magazine.
The Chinese government has portrayed the Sichuan quake as an unavoidable natural disaster, and it has promoted the building of large dams to meet the country's energy needs and reduce flooding.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydroelectric project, was built to end flooding in the Yangtze River and provide a clean energy alternative to coal, but has instead been plagued with problems, from resettlement to landslides.
Many scientists are not convinced that the Zipingpu dam caused the Sichuan quake, even if it may have been a factor. Lei Xinglin, a geophysicist at the government's China Earthquake Administration, said reservoirs increase seismic activity but will not cause an earthquake. He called for further investigation.
"A reservoir in the region will have positive and negative effects on a potential earthquake, but it is ridiculous to say an earthquake was caused by the dam," Lei said. "In order to gain more knowledge, we still need to carefully research this topic rather than jumping to conclusions."
Lei said a fall in the Zipingpu reservoir's waters between December 2007 and the time of the earthquake and the penetration of water into the fault line were "major factors" in the quake.
Roger Musson, a seismologist with the British Geological Survey, said at best Zipingpu may have accelerated the timing of the quake.
"But the scale of the Wenchuan earthquake (185 miles, or 300 kilometers, of rupture) indicates that it was a true tectonic event which would have occurred with or without the Zipingpu dam," Musson said in an e-mail. "It is thus only a question as to whether stresses from the reservoir advanced the timing of the earthquake."
Also calling for further investigation is Christian Klose, a geophysical hazards research scientist from Columbia University in New York. An abstract of a paper he presented at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco in December said the added weight weakened the fault below Zipingpu.
Fan, the Chinese engineer, said he was so convinced of Zipingpu's potential dangers that he strongly opposed its construction in 2003, worried that a disaster would devastate the Min River valley below. He said he began pointing to the dam as a possible cause just a month after the quake.
Still, many large dams continue to be built. Fan said he has continued to write letters to government officials voicing concerns about dams being built on the Dadu and Jinsha rivers to the west and northwest of the quake zone.
FAO team returns from the field
FAO website 4 Feb 09;
4 February 2009, Rome – Findings made during a field verification and evaluation visit by an international team of scientists led by experts from FAO and the Government of Liberia suggest that the potential threats of current and future outbreaks in the ongoing Liberian caterpillar plague could be contained more easily than previously thought.
The team, which visited seven affected areas in Liberia for three days last week, established that the insects were not Armyworms, as had been reported, but larvae of another moth species. One important difference is that these insects pupate, or spin their cocoons, on the ground under fallen leaves. That makes it relatively easier to dispose of the cocoons and limit further infestation.
Armyworms, on the other hand, bore 4-5 cm deep into the ground to pupate and are thus much harder to control. Emerging from the cocoon, an adult Armyworm moth can then fly 1 000 kilometers and lay more than 1 000 eggs after mating.
Spectre of catastrophe
This had raised the spectre of a potentially catastrophic secondary infestation following the first outbreak, which affected some 500 000 people and prompted the Liberian Government to declare a national emergency last week. But team members returning from the field reported villagers destroying cocoons by stamping on them or collecting and burning them. However, this is not enough to prevent their spread to diverse plant species including cultivated crops.
Samples of larvae, pupae and adults were collected for identification. Digital photos were emailed to specialist laboratories in the UK, Commonwealth Agricultural Bureaux International (CABI) and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) Biological Control/Biodiversity Centre in Benin. The latter identified the pest as Achaea catocaloides rena (f.) Berio (Noctuidae, Catocalinae).
The four-man team, which included FAO experts from Ghana and Sierra Leone, supported by two local entomologists, confirmed that the caterpillars had polluted water bodies and damaged crops such as coffee, cocoa, plantain, bananas and wild flora. Large adult moth populations had also contaminated the environment with their powdery scales, which could cause allergies.
Staple food crops
But staple food crops such as maize, rice, sorghum and millet , which are scarce during this dry season, had generally not been affected. The team said the caterpillars moved to other food sources after having eaten through the leaves of the Dahoma trees where they chiefly reside.
Although the fact of their pupating on the ground was obviously good news, the experts also noted, however, that “emergency preparedness for secondary and tertiary outbreaks are not in place as a preventive measure”.
The Liberia Ministry of Agriculture is leading in discussions with FAO and other partners on how to contain the infestation after confirmation of the true identity of the caterpillars involved. This is also the opportunity to develop a better response system against migrant pests in the sub-region based on monitoring, early warning, biocontrol, capacity building and contingency planning.
FAO expert urges more sustainable approach
FAO website 4 Feb 09;
4 February 2009, New Delhi - The world's farmers must quickly switch to more sustainable and productive farming systems to grow the food needed by a swelling world population and respond to climate change, FAO's top crops expert told an international farm congress here today.
In a keynote speech to 1,000 participants at the IVth World Congress on Conservation Agriculture (CA) in New Delhi, Shivaji Pandey, Director of FAO's Plant Production and Protection Division, endorsed CA as an essential part of that change.
"The world has no alternative to pursuing Sustainable Crop Production Intensification to meet the growing food and feed demand, to alleviate poverty and to protect its natural resources. Conservation Agriculture is an essential element of that Intensification," Pandey said.
Conservation Agriculture is a farming system that does away with regular ploughing and tillage and promotes permanent soil cover and diversified crops rotation to ensure optimal soil health and productivity. Introduced some 25 years ago, it is now practiced on 100 million ha of land across the world.
Environmental damage
Conventional intensive farming methods had often contributed to environmental damage, resulting in declining rates of agricultural productivity just as the world needs to double its food production to feed nine billion people by 2050, Pandey said.
"In the name of intensification in many places around the world, farmers over-ploughed, over-fertilized, over-irrigated, over-applied pesticides," he declared. "But in so doing we also affected all aspects of the soil, water, land, biodiversity and the services provided by an intact ecosystem. That began to bring yield growth rates down."
On current trends, the rate of growth in agricultural productivity is expected to fall to 1.5% between now and 2030 and further to 0.9% between 2030 and 2050, compared with 2.3% per year since 1961.
In developing countries, growth in wheat yields has gone down from about 5% in 1980 to 2% in 2005. Growth in rice yields went down from 3.2% to 1.2% during the same period while maize yields dropped from 3.1% to 1%.
Smaller footprint
Conservation agriculture could not only help bring yields back up but also deliver several important environmental benefits, Pandey continued. Aside from restoring soil health, it also saved on energy use in agriculture, reducing the footprint of a sector which currently accounts for some 30 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.
It could further mitigate climate change by helping sequester carbon in the soil and also potentially save 1,200 km³ of water a year by 2030 since healthy soil retains more moisture and needs less irrigation.
Only with sustainable intensification of crop production can serious progress be made towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals on hunger and poverty reduction and on ensuring environmental sustainability, Pandey warned. "We are currently headed in the wrong direction for both of them," he added.
He urged governments, donors and other stakeholders to provide policy and financial support to ensure early, wider uptake of CA. Training, participatory research and building strong farmers' organizations should be accelerated while newly-developed CA equipment should be made widely available and/or manufactured locally.
Delegates to the four-day Congress include farmers, experts, and policy makers from all over the world. The meeting is hosted by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the National Academy of Agricultural Sciences (NAAS). FAO, along with IFAD and other Indian and international organizations are among the sponsors and co-organizers of this largest global gathering of the Conservation Agriculture community.
Dominic Waughray
Senior director, head of environmental initiatives, World Economic Forum, Geneva
BBC News 2 Feb 09;
In 2008, Saudi Arabia ceased to be self sufficient in wheat production.
It is looking to access land overseas to grow crops, possibly in Pakistan or the Horn of Africa. China is acquiring agricultural land in Southern Africa for similar purposes. And Daewoo Logistic is looking to lease land in Madagascar, to grow food for South Korea. Other countries in South Asia and the Gulf are considering similar moves.
Scale of problem
None of these countries needs the land for the sake of territorial expansion.
What they need the land for is more fundamental: food. In all these cases, it is a shortage of water that has prompted this move.
The experience of Saudi Arabia, China and South Korea today could be a foretaste of what will follow elsewhere.
It stems from the failure of national governments and the international trade system to address the looming water crisis. Without changes, we face a scramble for water over the next two decades.
When water availability drops below 1500 cubic meters per person per year, a country needs to start importing food, particularly water intense crops.
Saudi Arabia faces this problem. Twenty other countries fell below this threshold in 2000, and another 14 will join them by 2030.
Industrialisation
It is not just about absolute water scarcity, however.
For many of the fast growing economies in Asia and the Middle East, there are trade offs.
As economies expand, governments have to choose whether to allocate water to agriculture, or to expanding cities and industries instead.
This is a challenge that China and South Korea face.
When a country devotes 40% of its renewable water resources or more to irrigation, it starts to face these water allocation issues.
By 2030, under business as usual, all of South Asia will reach the 40% threshold; the Middle East and North Africa region will have hit 58%.
Agriculture almost always loses out to the industrialising economy, especially to the energy and manufacturing sectors, in such water allocation decisions.
Current trends suggest that by 2030, demand for extra water will soar.
Rapidly industrialising economies across South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa, which support approximately 2.5 billion people, will be forced to look elsewhere for water-rich land for their food.
Deep problems
Why is finding the water for agriculture becoming such a profound issue?
First, we have been incredibly wasteful with our agricultural water over the years, and now face shortages of groundwater in many parts of the farming world.
Second, as we grow richer, we tend to eat more meat, which requires more water.
Third, trying to reform water use in agriculture is often deemed political suicide, so inertia prevails.
Fourth, we have an outdated global trade system for agriculture.
While over 70% of the world's freshwater withdrawals are used for agriculture, historically this water has been heavily subsidised and therefore free or hugely under-priced.
It has been used wastefully as a result.
More than a quarter of India's harvest, for example, could be at risk by 2025 as groundwater is depleted beyond recovery; already 10% depends on water mined from unsustainable groundwater sources.
Water scarcity may soon cause a loss of global crop production of 350 million tonnes, almost equal to all the grain the US grows.
Different diets
Food demand is projected to grow by 70-90% by 2050. But more than 25% of the increase in grain demand will be due to changes in diets, rather than to population growth.
A typical meat-eater's diet requires about 5,400 litres of water a day to produce, double what a vegetarian requires for the same nutritional value.
Global production of meat is projected to more than double from 229 million tonnes in 1999/01 to 465 million tonnes in 2050, notably across Asia.
Ironically, while more "crop-per-drop" is required to meet future grain demand, the fastest-growing nations are also diverting more and more water away from agriculture to support growing cities and industry, compounding the problem.
Volatile prices
Making agriculture more water-efficient commonly involves government intervention to re-assess historical allocations to farmers, raise water prices, and implement technological change.
Most politicians choose to avoid addressing such issues.
And there is no correlation between the places that are best suited to grow different foods and those that actually do in practice.
Three of the world's top ten food exporters are water scarce, and three of the top ten food importers are water rich.
There is less overall global trade in agriculture, when we need more. Food prices have become much more volatile, as recent price rises showed.
Bilateral alliances
Without bold water reforms in national agricultural policies or reform to the global trade system, bilateral land-for-water deals will inevitably increase.
Such deals may seem rational now, but the scale of the problem in the next two decades demands a global solution.
Under business as usual, by 2030 we could see multiple countries from South Asia and the Middle East competing with each other to secure bilateral land-for-water deals: cash-rich, water-poor nations competing to secure deals with water-rich nations around the world.
A rapid retreat from a globalised, 21st Century world, back into a 19th Century style network of bilateral alliances and trade deals, with all of the associated political and economic complications, is likely.
The scramble for water has begun, and governments must react; the implications of doing nothing are too profound to contemplate.
The opinions expressed are those of the author and are not held by the BBC or the World Economic Forum unless specifically stated.
Amy Coopes, Yahoo News 4 Feb 09;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Floods ravaging northern Australia have washed crocodiles onto the streets, where one was hit by a car, authorities said in a warning to residents Wednesday.
More than 60 percent of the vast northeastern state of Queensland has been declared a disaster area, and flooding after two recent cyclones has affected almost 3,000 homes, they said.
The army has been called in to help with rescue and recovery efforts, while three reports of large crocodiles washed up from flooded rivers have come in from homes in the Gulf of Carpentaria region.
"I'm not sure if it's the same crocodile moving around -- on the three sides of Normanton there's been a large croc seen right up close to the water's edge," said mayor Joyce Zahner.
"Hopefully he'll stay in the water and the kids will stay on the land," Zahner told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
A crocodile measuring 1.6 metres (5.3 feet) long was run over by a car on a street in the city of Townsville on Tuesday, wildlife rangers said.
The croc lost a few teeth and suffered bruising but was receiving medical attention, they said.
Four Chinese tourists were rescued after their camper van was swept from a remote causeway in far northern Queensland into high waters, police said.
None of the group, which included a 75-year-old, could swim and they huddled on the vehicle's roof for more than an hour before being winched to safety suffering mild hypothermia.
In the worst flood-affected town of Ingham 2,900 homes were hit, including 50 which were totally swamped, emergency authorities said.
Dozens of people had been evacuated to emergency accommodation in a nearby school as more than 360 millimetres (14 inches) of rain fell in the 24 hours from Tuesday morning.
The damage bill is estimated at 110 million dollars (76 million US) and growing, said Neil Roberts, Queensland state's emergency services minister.
"But we won't really know the full extent of the damage until the water subsides, so that figure could double, it could treble," he said, adding that it was the worst flooding he had seen in the area in 30 years.
Fresh food supplies were flown into the westerly townships of Normanton and Karumba, which had been cut off by flood waters for a number of days.
The region is bracing for further floods, with a tropical low pressure system threatening to develop into a cyclone about 150 kilometres (93 miles) off Queensland's north coast, forecasters said.
"The conditions -- as far as meteorological conditions are concerned -- are quite favourable for the system to once again develop into a tropical cyclone," a weather bureau spokesman said.
The floods came amid a record once-in-a-century heatwave in south-eastern Australia, in which 29 houses were razed by major wildfires and up to 35 people died.
Meteorologists have warned the extreme temperatures and downpours -- a common feature of Australian summers -- would only increase as a result of climate change.
Michael Perry, PlanetArk 5 Feb 09;
SYDNEY - Droughts in Australia have traditionally been linked to El Nino events in the Pacific Ocean, but a new study says the key driver of major droughts has been a warming and cooling cycle in the Indian Ocean.
The research shows Australia's major droughts over the past 120 years, including the Federation drought (1895-1902), the World War Two drought (1937-1945), and the present drought (post-1995), all coincide with fluctuations in ocean temperature known as the Indian Ocean Dipole (IOD).
Researchers from the University of New South Wales (UNSW) say their study explains why a series of La Nina weather events, which usually bring Pacific rains to Australia, have failed to break the current drought, the worst in 100 years.
When the IOD is in a negative phase it creates cool Indian Ocean water west of Australia and warm Timor Sea water to the north. This generates winds that pick up moisture from the ocean and sweep across southern Australia, delivering wet conditions.
In a positive phase, the pattern of Indian Ocean temperatures is reversed, weakening the winds and reducing the amount of moisture picked up and transported across Australia, said the study to be published in Geophysical Research Letters.
"What we have found is that there has not been a single wet event, not a single negative event in the Indian Ocean Dipole since 1992," said Caroline Ummenhofer from the UNSW Climate Change Research Center, who led the research.
"That means all you are left with in southeast Australia is dry events. The cause of the "Big Dry," the current drought, is actually due to a lack of negative Indian Ocean Dipole events that remove the wet years from southeast Australia."
Dipole events tend to last for about six months and it was unclear if there would be another positive event this year.
There have been positive IODs for the past three years.
"In a few months' time it will be more certain if there is an Indian Ocean Dipole event is occurring (in 2009)," said Ummenhofer.
KEY DROUGHT DRIVER
Traditionally, scientists have linked El Nino events in the Pacific Ocean with Australian droughts.
El Nino occurs when the eastern Pacific Ocean heats up, with warmer, moist weather moving toward the east, leaving drier weather in the western Pacific and Australia.
La Nina occurs when the eastern Pacific Ocean cools, leaving the western Pacific warmer and increasing the chance of wetter conditions over Australia.
The researchers compared the IOD and La Nina and El Nino events and droughts between 1889 and 2006 and found positive IODs matched major droughts.
"We have shown that the state of the Indian Ocean is highly important for rainfall and droughts in southeast Australia, more than the variability associated with the El Nino/La Nina cycle in the Pacific Ocean," said Ummenhofer in a briefing on the study.
"The Indian Ocean Dipole is the key factor for driving major southeast Australian droughts over the past 120 years."
The researchers said more study was needed to pinpoint the cause of IODs, with half linked to La Nina events in the Pacific and the other half dependent purely on the Indian Ocean.
"The Indian Ocean is the least studied and therefore it's a lot less clear...what sets off these events," said Ummenhofer.
But the researchers said the IOD, like El Nino and La Nina, was predictable three to six months out. Indian Ocean Dipole events usually appear around May, June and peak in September to November.
"There are some indications that positive Indian Ocean Dipole are becoming more frequent and negative events less frequent. However, this needs to further investigation."
(Editing by David Fogarty)
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 5 Feb 09;
OSLO - Arctic storms could worsen because of global warming in a threat to possible new businesses such as oil and gas exploration, fisheries or shipping, a study showed on Wednesday.
"Large increases in the potential for extreme weather events were found along the entire southern rim of the Arctic Ocean, including the Barents, Bering and Beaufort Seas," according to the study of Arctic weather by scientists in Norway and Britain.
A shrinking of sea ice around the North Pole, which thawed to a record low in the summer of 2007, was likely to spawn more powerful storms that form only over open water and can cause hurricane-strength winds.
"The bad news is that as the sea ice retreats you open up a lot of new areas to this kind of extreme weather," said Erik Kolstad of the Bjerknes Center for Climate Change in Norway who wrote the study with a British Antarctic Survey researcher.
Potential new businesses in the North -- such as fisheries, oil and gas or shipping -- would be vulnerable to extremes caused by polar lows and arctic fronts, the researchers wrote in the journal Climate Dynamics.
Companies needed to factor in risks of worsening weather in planning, especially at times of year with least sea ice. "In autumn and early winter there will be polar lows in many new regions," Kolstad told Reuters.
He said that there would be less ice and more storms, for instance, in the eastern Barents Sea where Russian group Gazprom aims to develop the giant Shtokman gas field.
SHIPS
And potential new short-cut shipping routes between the Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans along the northern coast of Canada and Alaska or Russia could turn out to be stormier than expected.
He also said that more storms could increase erosion of coasts in the sparsely populated Arctic.
The report was based on data collected in the European Arctic and focused on Arctic change. It also suggested that more populated regions further south in Europe might benefit if storms tended northwards.
"This may prove to be good news for people along the coastlines of Norway, Iceland, the British Isles and Northern Europe in general," a statement said.
The U.N. Climate Panel says that a build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, mainly from burning fossil fuels, is stoking a warming that will cause more heatwaves, floods and droughts and rising sea levels.
(Editing by Charles Dick)
Carbon emissions in the UK have fallen by just one per cent in the last decade, according to new figures, casting doubt on ambitious climate change targets.
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 4 Feb 09;
The UK's carbon dioxide emissions fell by 1.5 per cent in 2007, according to the Department for Energy and Climate Change.
Figures for 2007 also revealed that output of all six greenhouse gases, including methane and nitrous oxide, was down 1.7 per cent on 2006 levels.
The greatest CO2 savings were made by homes improving efficiency and business cutting energy, although certain sectors such as transport saw an increase in emissions.
The statistics put the UK well ahead of its target under the Kyoto Protocol to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2012. Greenhouse gas emissions were down 22 per cent down on 1990 levels in 2007.
But there are more domestic stringent targets including a goal to cut carbon dioxide output, the gas which makes up the majority of the UK's emissions, by 20 per cent below 1990 levels by 2010 – which it has long been expected to be missed. Emissions of CO2 were 12.8 per cent down on 1990 levels in 2007.
The Climate Change Act has also set legally-binding targets for the UK to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions by 80 per cent by 2050 and CO2 by at least 26 per cent by 2020.
Greg Clark, Tory spokesman on climate change, said the new figures cast doubt on the targets.
"These figures show that for all Labour's posturing on climate change, emissions of carbon dioxide have fallen by just one per cent since 1997. The reason is emblematic of the failure of Labour: it signs up to targets, but has no plan to deliver them," he said.
Robin Webster, of Friends of the Earth, pointed out that the figures do not include emissions from international aviation or shipping.
"The reality is that UK carbon dioxide emissions are still higher than when Labour came to power in 1997, despite repeated promises of significant cuts," she said.
But Ed Miliband, the energy and climate change minister, said the UK would cut emissions more quickly in the next few years.
"We need to reduce emissions even more quickly and I believe the policies we are putting in place now will set us on that path to meet the challenging targets we set ourselves in the Climate Change Act," he said.
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