Why sustainable power is unsustainable

Colin Barras, New Scientist 6 Feb 09;

Renewable energy needs to become a lot more renewable – a theme that emerged at the Financial Times Energy Conference in London this week.

Although scientists are agreed that we must cut carbon emissions from transport and electricity generation to prevent the globe's climate becoming hotter, and more unpredictable, the most advanced "renewable" technologies are too often based upon non-renewable resources, attendees heard.

Supratik Guha of IBM told the conference that sales of silicon solar cells are booming, with 2008 being the first year that the silicon wafers for solar cells outstripped those used for microelectronic devices.

But although silicon is the most abundant element in the Earth's crust after oxygen, it makes relatively inefficient cells that struggle to compete with electricity generated from fossil fuels. And the most advanced solar-cell technologies rely on much rarer materials than silicon.

Rare metal

The efficiency of solar cells is measured as a percentage of light energy they convert to electricity. Silicon solar cells finally reached 25% in late December. But multi-junction solar cells can achieve efficiencies greater than 40%.

Although touted as the future of solar power, those and most other multiple-junction cells owe their performance to the rare metal indium, which is far from abundant. There are fewer than 10 indium-containing minerals, and none present in significant deposits – in total the metal accounts for a paltry 0.25 parts per million of the Earth's crust.

Most of the rare and expensive element is used to manufacture LCD screens, an industry that has driven indium prices to $1000 per kilogram in recent years. Estimates that did not factor in an explosion in indium-containing solar panels reckon we have only a 10 year supply of it left.

If power from the Sun is to become a major source of electricity, solar panels would have to cover huge areas, making an alternative to indium essential.
Precious platinum

The dream of the hydrogen economy faces similar challenges, said Paul Adcock of UK firm Intelligent Energy.

A cheap way to generate hydrogen has so far proved elusive. New approaches, such as using bacterial enzymes to "split" water, have a long way to go before they are commercially viable.

So far, fuel cells are still the most effective way to turn the gas into electricity. But these mostly rely on expensive platinum to catalyse the reaction.

The trouble is, platinum makes indium appear super-abundant. It is present in the Earth's crust at just 0.003 parts per billion and is priced in $ per gram, not per kilogram. Estimates say that, if the 500 million vehicles in use today were fitted with fuel cells, all the world's platinum would be exhausted within 15 years.

Unfortunately platinum-free fuel cells are still a long way from the test track. A nickel-catalysed fuel cell developed at Wuhan University, China, has a maximum output only around 10% of that a platinum catalyst can offer.

A new approach announced yesterday demonstrates that carbon nanotubes could be more effective, as well as cheaper, than platinum. But again it will be many years before platinum-free fuel cells become a commercial prospect.
Fuel vs food?

Biofuels, like ethanol fermented from maize, are the most infamous examples of the doubtful sustainability of supposedly renewable forms of energy. This time the non-renewable resource at risk is the world's arable land, Ausilio Bauen of Imperial College London said at the meeting.

Again, there are potential solutions, but none that are ready for market. Biofuels from cellulose or even lignin can be derived from inedible plant material and wood rather than food crops. Algae, grown in outdoor tanks, continues to attract attention, and extracting biofuel from marine algae or seaweed could sidestep land use issues altogether.

Renewable energy technologies remain the great hope for the future, and are guaranteed research funds in the short term. But unless a second generation of sustainable energy ideas based on truly sustainable resources is established, the renewable light could be in danger of dimming.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 6 Feb 09

13 Feb: Free Public Seminar on Urban Biodiversity
on the ecotax mailing list

Oriental Dwarf Kingfisher and Bat Hawk sightings
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Sighting of Bat Hawk in Singapore
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Google Ocean features Pulau Hantu, Labrador and Buloh
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Nipah Island and Singapore's shores
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Toucan sighting
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Cutttlefish @ Cyrene Reef
video clip on the sgbeachbum blog

Damsel in no distress
on the annotated budak blog and hairy

Contaminant cocktail toxic to frogs
and other updates on the Water Quality in Singapore blog

Read more!

Renewed demands on Atlantis to release whale shark

Making waves over whale shark
Vesela Todorova, The National 6 Feb 09;

Conservationists have renewed their demand for the release of a whale shark that has been kept at an aquarium in Atlantis, The Palm for more than four months.

Activists last year questioned the rationale for catching the shark, which the hotel said was sick and confused. Atlantis characterised the capture as a rescue.

Atlantis since has remained silent. The controversy subsided by the end of November, after the opening of the opulent hotel, the joint venture of Kerzner International and developer Nakheel.

Yesterday, a group of environmentalists tried to remind the public about the creature’s welfare by releasing an open letter to “the management and decision-makers” of the hotel.

They wrote that Atlantis confirmed during a radio interview in September that it “would release the whale shark in due course. We now urge the Atlantis Hotel to act upon its promise”.

The document is signed by Susan Lieberman, director of the global species programme of the World Wide Fund for Nature; Azzedine Downes, vice president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare; Habiba al Marashi, chairman of the Emirates Environmental Group; and Razan al Mubarak, managing director of the Emirates Wildlife Society.

The environmentalists claim the animal’s stay in the Ambassador Lagoon, an 11-million-litre fish tank, has little value other than attracting visitors to the hotel.

“Keeping the whale shark at a hotel, which is not an educational or scientific institution, does not increase the potential for conservation of the wild population,” the letter said.

“Whale sharks are animals that migrate extremely large distances each year, and this type of distance is simply not possible in an aquarium, no matter how large the facility may be. This highly migratory nature combined with its low abundance make it particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

“Furthermore, the fact that the captive whale shark is a juvenile female increases the detriment to the wild population.

“Taking a potential breeder and thus offspring producer from the wild takes not only one whale shark from an already weakened whale shark population, but also the possible offspring she could produce if in her natural environment.”

Whale sharks, which are the world’s largest fish, are listed as vulnerable to extinction in the Red List of Threatened Species, a publication of the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Atlantis did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

Environmental groups in Dubai reignite 'free Sammy the shark' campaign
Business Intelligence: Middle East 5 Feb 09;

UAE. Sue Lieberman, Director of WWF Global Species Programme; Azzedine Downes, Vice President for International Operations, International Fund for Animal Welfare; and Habiba Al Mirashi of Emirates Environmental Group today issued an open letter to the management and decision-makers of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, in a plea to release the whale shark being held in the aquarium since September 2008.

The Atlantis confirmed during an interview with the Business Breakfast radio show on 24 September 2008 that it would release the whale shark, captured in the open see some few weeks earlier, in due course. The signatories said they are now urging the Atlantis hotel to act upon its promise.

The whale shark is listed in appendix II of CITES and is listed by IUCN as 'Vulnerable' with a decreasing population trend, thus indicating that it is a threatened species.

The whale shark is a pelagic species feeding on plankton by filtering water in continuous motion in open waters. Holding a whale shark in a constraining artificial environment where it is unable to feed in its natural patterns and has a limited area in which to move can have fatal consequences (as has previously been the case with captive whale sharks in other countries).

Whale sharks are animals that migrate extremely large distances each year, and this type of distance is simply not possible in an aquarium, no matter how large the facility may be. This highly migratory nature combined with its low abundance make it particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Furthermore, the fact that the captive whale shark is a juvenile female increases the detriment to the wild population. Taking a potential breeder and thus offspring producer from the wild takes not only one whale shark from an already weakened whale shark population, but also the possible offspring she could produce if in her natural environment.

The groups also suggested that the whale shark be tagged before release to benefit the scientific community.

"Keeping the whale shark at a hotel, which is not an educational or scientific institution, does not increase the potential for conservation of the wild population," they said.

Prior to its launch the Atlantis was marketed as a complete marine resort destination with the highest principles of conservation and support for the local marine environment. A spokesperson from the hotel was not immediately available for comment.

AN OPEN LETTER TO THE ATLANTIS HOTEL TO RELEASE THE CAPTIVE WHALE SHARK
Eye of Dubai 5 Feb 09;

This letter is addressed to the management and decision-makers of the Atlantis Hotel in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, in a plea to release the whale shark being held in the aquarium since September 2008.

The Atlantis confirmed during an interview with the Business Breakfast on September 24th 2008 that they would release the whale shark in due course. We now urge the Atlantis Hotel to act upon its promise.

The whale shark, Rhincodon typus, is listed in appendix II of CITES and is listed by IUCN as “Vulnerable” with a decreasing population trend, thus indicating that it is a threatened species.

The whale shark is a pelagic species feeding on plankton by filtering water in continuous motion in open waters. Holding a whale shark in a constraining artificial environment where it is unable to feed in its natural patterns and has a limited area in which to move can have fatal consequences (as has previously been the case with captive whale sharks in other countries).

Whale sharks are animals that migrate extremely large distances each year, and this type of distance is simply not possible in an aquarium, no matter how large the facility may be. This highly migratory nature combined with its low abundance make it particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Furthermore, the fact that the captive whale shark is a juvenile female increases the detriment to the wild population. Taking a potential breeder and thus offspring producer from the wild takes not only one whale shark from an already weakened whale shark population, but also the possible offspring she could produce if in her natural environment.

We urge Atlantis to reconsider their rationale for keeping the whale shark and release it back into its natural habitat as soon as possible. We would like to also suggest that the whale shark be tagged before release to benefit the scientific community. Keeping the whale shark at a hotel, which is not an educational or scientific institution, does not increase the potential for conservation of the wild population.

Read more!

Indonesia restores key maritime baseline of Nipah Island: Foreign Ministry

Lilian Budianto, The Jakarta Post 6 Feb 09;

The island of Nipah, Indonesia's outermost territory, has been given a fresh lease on life as an agreed baseline for Indonesia's maritime border with Singapore, after extensive reclamation work carried out by the government, a Foreign Ministry official said Wednesday.

Arief Havas Oegroseno, the Foreign Ministry's director general for international treaties and legal affairs, said the government had worked on the revitalization of Nipah Island, which will be developed for various purposes, including as a traffic monitoring base for anchoring vessels.

Nipah Island, part of the Riau Islands province off Sumatra, became a center of controversy in 2003 after environmentalists claimed an estimated 300 million cubic meters of sand had been dredged from seabed around it and sold to Singapore each year for its coastal expansion works that boomed from 1999.

Concerns have arisen that if the island disappears below sea level during high tides, it would risk Indonesia losing the maritime boundary that had been negotiated with Singapore since 2005.

A previous government report said Nipah only measured a total of 0.62 hectares when the tide came in, and expanded to 60 hectares during low tides.

"The island has now been brought far above sea level, just like before. We can already have buildings developed there and it has also been divided into several zones for different purposes," Havas said.

He added Nipah Island had a huge potential to be developed as an anchorage area, where vessels could anchor temporarily before entering Singapore, Malaysia or Indonesia.

"Nipah can be developed to become a traffic control area for anchored vessels. We need to finalize what we have to develop on the island , but the most promising is to make it an anchorage area," he said.

Indonesia will proceed with a fresh round of maritime negotiations with Singapore, after the signing of a deal on the western boundary of Nipah, which led Singapore to redraw its baseline from Sultan Shoal Island.

Havas said Indonesia would still propose the same principle at the negotiation, that it would not recognize reclaimed shoreline as the basis to determine a border. Singapore has reclaimed Jurong Island, Tuas View and Changi, mostly with sand imported from Indonesia's Riau Islands.

The Singaporean government said in 2007 the reclamation works would not be a factor in boundary negotiations with Indonesia.

"We also stick to the 1982 UNCLOS *United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea*, one chapter of which deals with the baselines of an archipelagic nation," he said.

An archipelagic state may draw straight baselines joining the outermost points of its most outlying islands and drying reefs, provided that within such baselines are included the main islands.

Havas said Indonesia would propose drawing an eastern boundary line from Batam Island that would divide it from Singapore's Changi.

"Besides the Batam-Changi segment, we also have one more eastern segment, which is that between Indonesia's Bintan *in the Riau Islands* and Singapore's Pedra Branca and its waters," he said.

"For the Batam-Changi segment, we are ready to negotiate, while for the Bintan-Pedra Branca segment, we are awaiting the outcome of negotiations between Singapore and Malaysia, because just south of Pedra Branca lies Malaysia's Middle Rock and South Ledge, which is still under dispute between the two countries. The completion of the whole negotiation could take a while," said Havas.

The International Court of Justice last year awarded to Singapore Pedra Branca and Middle Rock to Malaysia after decades of dispute between the two countries.

More reports about Nipah Island and Singapore's shores

• President Yudhoyono chairs meeting on Nipah Island`s development Antara 3 Feb 09;
• Singapore, Indonesia agree on western maritime boundary Salim Osman, Straits Times 4 Feb 09;
• Indonesia and Singapore agree on new boundary Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post 3 Feb 09;
• Four Villages In Madura Island May Be Gobbled Up By Sea Bernama 22 Dec 06;
• Indonesian activists back ban on sand for Singapore Yahoo News 14 Feb 07;
• Govt to boost security to enforce sand export ban Fadli, The Jakarta Post
• Singapore’s Shifting Sands Asia Sentinel 31 Jan 07;
• The shifting sands of time - and Singapore Bill Guerin Atimes 31 Jul 03;

Read more!

Dry spell to carry on in Singapore

Less rainfall than normal is expected this month, following an unusually dry January
Judith Tan, Straits Times 6 Feb 09;

THE dry run looks set to continue.

The shower on Wednesday and the sprinkles yesterday may have been a welcome break from the recent heat and dryness, but weather-watchers are predicting a February - already known as the driest month here - that will be more parched than usual.

Rain is expected on only five to eight days this month, where 11 wet days bringing 162mm are more typical. A spokesman for the Meteorological Services Division of the National Environment Agency said the first half of the month will be marked by fair, occasionally windy days, with two to three days of showers.

The parched state is a continuation of last month's conditions, the driest January in a decade. That was, in itself, a break from the usual weather pattern, since January is normally wet, with showers lasting up to three days at a stretch.

Experts blame the change on weather conditions in Siberia. The annual accumulation of very cold, dry air over Europe and Asia, which reaches its peak during winter, occurred much earlier this year.

This brought on a cold snap in Hong Kong and parts of Thailand last month, and strong north-easterly winds blowing here from over the South China Sea.

The rainfall recorded last month was only 38.3mm, and water levels in the reservoirs here fell slightly, but the PUB said this was no cause for concern.

The weatherman has cautioned against leaping to conclusions that the dry spell is a sign of global warming. There is a difference between climate change and natural variations in climate that occur from year to year, experts agree.

Read more!

Indonesia and the logging trade

A Well of Potential Waiting to Be Tapped
Jennifer Blake, Jakarta Globe 5 Feb 09;

Chainsaws buzz and birds fly squawking from their nests. Dull booms resound across the forest as old growth trees fall crashing to the forest floor. This is the sound of the logging trade, as integral a part of forests in Indonesia as the ancient trees that make loggers their fortunes. It seems unimaginable that a decade or two might see chainsaws fall silent, birds return to their nests and endangered orangutans begin to flourish in their natural habitat.

Yet these can be the forests of the future if Indonesia wakes up to the potential it has as a carbon sink for the developed world — potential that is wasting away as deforestation in this country occurs at a rate faster than anywhere else in the Global South.

It has long been clear that an environmental imperative alone will not stem the advancing tide of forest destruction in Indonesia or anywhere else. Logging has been too lucrative for too long, and traditionally, countries have had to exploit their natural resources for economic gain. But the emergence of a global carbon market could soon provide enormous economic incentives for forest protection, and change the way the world looks at trees.

The new carbon trading market is already estimated to be worth $100 billion a year. It can only expand in coming decades, as the number of available credits decrease and demand soars. With 120 million hectares of forest, Indonesia is better placed than most of the world to reap the potential rewards that carbon trading has to offer. Provided, of course, it stops cutting down the trees.

How do you convince the estimated one billion people who rely on forests for their income that a moratorium on logging would benefit them? In the long war between environmentalists and others, this is one battle where the numbers speak for themselves.

Cutting down enough trees to produce one ton of carbon earns Indonesia approximately $5. If the same number of trees are preserved and sold for carbon credits, they can earn approximately $30. The World Bank estimates that preserving forests for use as carbon sinks can earn for Indonesia between $400 million and $2 billion from the sale of carbon credits. The potential is incredible.

For those who are less mathematically inclined, you can look at the world’s forests as a large pie. Indonesia has a very large slice, which it has been nibbling away at for a while. With no reason to stop, it can eat the whole thing or sell portions of what remains to the highest bidder in the very hungry West. It will have to stop nibbling but it can be rich for doing so.

Carbon trading is already an important part of environmental policy in the West. While it seems absurd that a nation with Indonesia’s environmental credentials (deforestation in Indonesia accounts for one-fifth of total global carbon emissions each year) can alleviate the environmental obligations of developed countries, such is the logic of the Kyoto Protocol. Indonesia’s status as a developing country allows it to escape carbon caps, while countries like Australia are desperate to offload excess emissions to the tune of millions of dollars.

The proof is in the pudding. Australia was the first country to sign to a forest-carbon partnership with Indonesia, where Australia has promised 10 million Australian dollars ($6.46 million) to build Indonesia’s capacity for forest carbon accounting and monitoring. In layman’s terms, Australia is funding the development of a carbon industry in Indonesia – with a view to the eventual use of Indonesian forests as a carbon sink for Australia’s excessive emissions.

In a global market already crowded with Japanese and European buyers, Australia is exploiting neighborly ties with Indonesia to secure a stake in the country’s sought-after forests.

Is it possible that in the face of such economic motivation the constant drone of chainsaws can fall silent in the great forests of this land? And if they do, who can expect to reap the rewards? In a nation of 240 million people — 60 million of which live on forestland and are poor — can carbon trading provide a quick route out of poverty?

The short answer is no. Carbon credits can only be sold by landowners. Much of Indonesia’s forests are national parks, so profits from their sale will fill state coffers. Perhaps rewards will flow on to Indonesia’s people in terms of expanding health care and education budgets, but that remains to be seen.

Corrupt and irresponsible forestry companies have already swindled many local landowners out of their property, and can now on-sell it for carbon credits. The harsh reality is that the vast majority of carbon trading profits can flow straight into overseas accounts, as foreign firms reap the rewards of their unethically acquired forest land. And while the primary business is the trading of credits, carbon trading has a secondary tier of money-making potential. The financial services that monitor and log carbon-rich forest regions will play an important role in the booming industry.

It is no secret that Jakarta’s financial services sector does not have the capacity to act as a hub for a local carbon trading system. The legwork will likely take place overseas and Sydney is already gunning for a slice of the pie, with the New South Wales government last year announcing a new task force to establish Sydney as the regional center for carbon trade. Where profits from carbon ventures in Indonesia end up lining the pockets of Sydney’s financial executives, the benefits of carbon trading with the developed world becomes a lot less clear for Indonesia.

The environmental rewards of preserving forests cannot be contested. Whether the economic rewards can supersede the profits the logging industry offers in the short term remains to be seen. The future of Indonesia’s forests hangs on how the Indonesian government handles the opportunities the global carbon trade will provide in the immediate future.

Carbon trading is already a multibillion-dollar industry and will likely change the face of trade between nations over the next two decades. Will Indonesia be prepared to face up to the forestry industry and capitalize on the potential of preservation? And apart from the orangutans, who will reap the rewards?



Jennifer Blake is an intern at the Jakarta Globe.

Read more!

EU seeks teeth to protect sharks

Yahoo News 5 Feb 09;

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The EU Commission on Thursday proposed tighter rules to protect sharks, including obliging fishermen to throw back sharks caught accidentally, but Green groups expressed doubts about the moves.

"Many people associate sharks with going to the cinema, more than with beaches or restaurants. But the latest information we have confirms that human beings are now a far bigger threat to sharks than sharks ever were to us," said EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg.

One of the other key measures proposed is banning fishing boats from hacking off the valuable shark fins on board then throwing the rest of the carcass back in the water.

However fin hacking would be allowed as long as the carcass was kept on board.

The EU plan also includes possible temporary fishing exclusion zones to protect young or reproducing sharks and tightened rules on fishing gear to minimise unwanted catches and ensure such catches are released back into the water.

"Sharks are very vulnerable to over-exploitation and the consequences of depleting their numbers may have very serious consequences not only for sharks but also for marine ecosystems and for fishermen themselves," Borg said.

Green groups were unimpressed, saying the package, which must be approved by member states and the EU parliament, already lacks teeth.

"Sharks are slow-growing and produce relatively small numbers of young. Many of these species are already threatened with extinction," said Aaron McLoughlin, head of the WWF's European Marine Programme.

"The plan lacks a solid commitment to seek mandatory collection of data on shark catch, a critical element if the EU is to succeed in the conservation of these species," he added.

A recent study by the International Union for the Conservation of Nature suggests that as many as one-third of the shark species caught in EU waters are threatened by excessive fishing.

The Madrid-based Oceana group saw "big plans but little action" in the proposals.

"We got a vague document which does not contain measures to achieve the goal of conservation and sustainable management of sharks. It appears to have been published out of political obligation," complained Ricardo Aguilar, Oceana Europe's director of investigation.

Sharks are targeted by British, French, Spanish and Portuguese fleets, with the Spanish fishing fleet taking more than half of the European catch of around 100,000 tonnes each year, according to the Shark Alliance, which provided Brussels with data.

Shark meat is served in restaurants across Europe, including at traditional British fish-and-chip shops, according to WWF.

At a press conference to unveil the European Commission's plans, Borg said that between 1984 and 2004, world shark catches grew from 600,000 to over 810,000 tonnes.

Of these, more than half are taken in the North Atlantic, including in the North Sea, and a sizeable number are also caught in the Mediterranean.

Borg highlighted the need to protect other vulnerable species, including related skates and rays.

EU gives shark protection teeth
Richard Black, BBC News 5 Feb 09;

The European Commission has unveiled measures aimed at protecting sharks, many of which are in sharp decline.

The proposals would close loopholes in current shark finning regulations, cut catches of endangered species and set quotas according to scientific advice.

About half of ocean-going shark species are threatened with extinction.

Conservation groups have given a mixed reaction to the commission's proposals, which now go to the European Parliament and Council of Ministers for approval.

"The plan is a great step forwards for the conservation of sharks in European waters and beyond," said Sonja Fordham, policy director of the Shark Alliance, a coalition of organisations representing conservation, science and recreational interests.

"The commitments to science-based fishing limits, endangered species protection, and a stronger finning ban are essential to securing a brighter future for some of Europe's most vulnerable and neglected animals."

The regulations will also apply to sharks' close relatives, skates and rays.

But the Madrid-based conservation group Oceana said the proposals did not go far enough.

"We have got a vague document which does not contain measures to achieve the goal of conservation and sustainable management of sharks," said the group's director of investigations, Ricardo Aguilar.

"Key omissions include a commitment to the precautionary approach, and integration with existing EU and global environmental measures that aim to protect threatened sharks and their habitats."

Among other things, Oceana had been lobbying for a much tighter timescale on the introduction of these controls, some of which may not come into force for four years - and then only if the European Parliament and Council of Ministers agree.

Body of evidence

The most concrete of the commission's proposals concerns the regulations on finning.

European vessels are not allowed to remove fins from sharks and dump the carcasses in the water - a practice that used to be rife as fishermen sought to supply fins to the lucrative East Asian market with the minimum bother.

Instead they have to land detached fins and carcasses in a ratio of weights that is supposed to ensure that everything makes it to port - one carcass for every fin.

Activists have long held that the use of relative weights is a loophole that fishermen can and do manipulate, allowing them to discard up to half of the carcasses.

They have urged the EU to mandate that all sharks must be landed with fins still attached, as the US does for many of its shark fisheries.

The commission has now accepted this argument, and is proposing that "fins attached" becomes standard across EU fleets, although there might be exceptions.

Other elements of the proposals include:

* for commercially targeted species, setting catch limits in line with scientific advice
* banning fishing in areas important for reproduction and rearing, and on threatened species
* placing observers on boats reporting large amounts of bycatch ("accidental" catches)
* collecting more data through the supply chain
* applying these restrictions to all EU-registered vessels, wherever they operate

Bycatch is a particularly thorny issue. Sharks regularly become impaled on hooks dragged by boats targeting high-value species such as tuna, or entangled in nets.

The commission envisages developing types of fishing gear that allow fishermen to target more specifically what they want to catch.

In recent years, it has become clear that sharks, rays and skates are inherently vulnerable to overfishing because they reproduce slowly and live long lives - a factor that EU Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg recognised as he unveiled the new proposals.

"Sharks are very vulnerable to overexploitation, and the consequences of depleting their numbers may have very serious consequences not only for sharks but also for marine ecosystems and for fishermen themselves," he said.

"That is why we have set out a plan of action today which will both establish a more precautionary approach to managing fisheries where sharks are caught, and support the substantial research still needed to understand fully the role sharks play in the life of our oceans and the impact which fishing may have on them."

European shark plan needs more teeth
WWF 5 Feb 09;

Brussels, 5 February 2009—The European Commission today announced a new Action Plan to protect sharks in European waters, which has been broadly welcomed by WWF and TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

The plan includes provisions for more observers of trawlers, prohibitions on discarding most sharks as by-catch, a tighter prohibition on shark finning and catch limits for sharks in line with advice from fisheries management organizations.

However, the plan needs rapid implementation and strengthened actions such as mandatory recording of catch data if it is to be effective in arresting a rapid decline in shark populations in European waters where roughly one third of the shark species are already threatened with extinction, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).

“The commitment to shark conservation is to be commended, although TRAFFIC and WWF are deeply concerned that some of the measures will not be implemented for considerable periods,” said Steven Broad, Director of TRAFFIC.

Although the Plan calls for countries to collect information on sharks caught, this will be on a voluntary basis.


TRAFFIC and WWF also called on the EU to allocated adequate resources to ensure the Plan could be properly implemented, and for the Council and the European Parliament to adopt the plan without diluting the proposed measures or extending the period of implementation.

“Although we fully support the adoption and speedy implementation of the plan, we believe it contains major gaps that do not take a sufficiently precautionary approach to shark conservation, as recommended by the United Nations and others,” said Dr Susan Lieberman, WWF International’s Species Programme Director.

“Many of these species are already threatened with extinction. WWF and TRAFFIC are dismayed that the plan lacks a solid commitment to seek mandatory collection of data on shark catch—a critical element if the EU is to succeed in the conservation of these species,” Dr Lieberman added.

Sharks are targeted by UK, French, Spanish and Portuguese fishermen; shark tails and meat are used to prepare “caldeirada” or “Schillerlocken” and shark meat is served in restaurants across Europe, and in the UK in traditional fish-and-chip shops.

In December 2008, European Fisheries ministers agreed to reduce total allowable quotas and committed to a zero catch for certain deep water sharks by 2010.

However, TRAFFIC and WWF believe that the acceptable bycatch in these regulations is still too high, and although shark finning has already been prohibited in EU and adjacent waters, control and enforcement of this ban is currently too lax and needs to be tightened up.

“Sharks are slow growing and produce relatively small numbers of young,” said Aaron McLoughlin, Head of WWF’s European Marine Programme.

Read more!

Exotic animals trapped in net of Mexican drug trade

Mica Rosenberg, Reuters 5 Feb 09;

MEXICO CITY (Reuters) - From the live snakes that smugglers stuff with packets of cocaine to the white tigers drug lords keep as exotic pets, rare animals are being increasingly sucked into Mexico's deadly narcotics trade.

Drug gang leaders like to show off rarities like sea turtle skin boots and build ostentatious private zoos at their mansions.

They also reap additional profits by sharing routes with animal traffickers who cram humming birds into cigarette packs and baby monkeys into car air conditioning ducts to be sold to underground pet traders in the United States.

Mexico's raging drug war killed some 5,700 people last year and some cartel leaders have even been rumored to throw rivals to their big cats as food.

The global illegal trade in live species and animal parts -- used for luxury accessories, Asian medicine or folk remedies like aphrodisiacs -- is estimated to be worth up to $20 billion a year, Interpol has said.

The big profits available from selling wildlife on the black market -- where a certain type of endangered South American macaw can fetch $90,000 and a predatory python around $30,000 -- are added incentive to Mexican gangs moving other contraband.

"You can sometimes make as much profit, if not more, than drug smuggling with less consequences, because law enforcement is not paying attention and if you are caught the penalty is just a slap on the wrist," said Crawford Allan, the North American head of wildlife trade watchdog group Traffic.

TURTLE SKIN AND COCAINE

China and the United States are the largest markets for banned pets and animal products, making the U.S.-Mexico border a busy corridor for the smuggling of many rare species from across Latin America and other parts of the world.

"There is some evidence the same people are trading in both (drugs and animals)," Allan said in Mexico City, where Traffic is helping train inspectors to spot banned animal shipments.

In a major 2007 sting operation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the largest of its kind, undercover agents spent three years infiltrating a ring smuggling endangered sea turtle skins from the shores of southern Mexico to as far north as Chicago.

Illegal drugs turned up on both sides of the border over the course of the investigation, U.S. Fish and Wildlife agent Nicholas Chavez said.

In the United States, marijuana was seized at one of the raided warehouses filled with animal skin boots. On the Mexican side, smugglers offered to ship cocaine along with the hides of turtles whose numbers are rapidly dwindling in the wild.

"It was just thrown out there like 'Hey, we can also move this stuff if you want.'... They are pretty much moving anything that they can," Chavez said.

The animals can serve a double purpose when they are used to cover up drug shipments.

"You have cases where there are drugs hidden in false compartments within crates containing live venomous snakes and written on top it says: 'Venomous snakes. Don't open!' So no customs guy is going to want to open that," Allan said.

Bags of liquid cocaine, transparent and only barely visible due to its slight yellow hue, have been found floating in or lining plastic bags containing live tropical fish.

In one shocking case at Miami's international airport, some of the 312 boa constrictors found in a 1993 shipment from Colombia were surgically implanted with condoms full of cocaine weighing a total of 80 pounds (36 kg). All the snakes ended up dead.

NARCO ZOOS

Colombian drug lords used to stock their own private zoos with lions, tigers, hippos, venomous snakes and other exotic animals, and Mexico's cartel leaders picked up the same hobby as they took over as dominant players in the cocaine industry.

The head of the Gulf Cartel's feared armed wing the Zetas had two lions and a tiger on his ranch and it is widely rumored, and sometimes printed in newspapers, that he fed the cats with the bodies of cartel rivals.

Mexico's local market for exotic pets is also growing.

Since they breed well in captivity, you can legally buy a tiger in Mexico for a couple of thousand dollars, less than the cost of some pedigree dogs, government officials say.

"It's a show of power and is incredibly common in the criminal underworld. The worst of the worst have exotic animals," Patricio Patron, the head of Mexico's environmental protection agency, told Reuters.

A raid on a drug mansion last year in an upscale Mexico City neighborhood netted a menagerie of two lions, two Bengal tigers, two black jaguars and a monkey -- all of them well-fed and likely tended to by a personal veterinarian.

But not all pets are as lucky as the somewhat tubby big cats, which were sent to a public zoo after the drug raid.

Many smuggled animals do not survive their long, dark, suffocating journeys.

Chavez, the U.S. agent who works along the U.S.-Mexico border, once found nine baby monkeys -- which are usually captured in the wild after their mother is killed -- crammed into a car's air conditioning ducts, most of them dead of suffocation.

Jorge Yanez, a government wildlife expert who runs a shelter for rescued animals in central Mexico, said he once saw four hummingbirds bound and stuffed into an empty pack of cigarettes.

"For every 10 that are trafficked, only one survives," Yanez said at the shelter, which is nestled in a pine forest and works to rehabilitate and release into the wild Mexican species like hawks, wild boars and lynxes that were seized in police raids or handed in by overwhelmed owners.

(Editing by Kieran Murray and Philip Barbara)

Read more!

Sea level rise in the US may be worse than expected

Yahoo News 6 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON – Long-term sea level increases that could have a devastating effect on southern Florida and highly populated coastal areas may be even larger than once thought, a report suggests.

Some studies have suggested that melting of ice in Antarctica and other areas could raise sea levels by 16 feet to 17 feet over the long run, a potential threat to coastal areas such as Washington, D.C., New York City and California.

But a report in Friday's edition of the journal Science warns that factors not previously considered could one day boost that increase to up to 21 feet in some areas.

The study did not list a time frame for such a dramatic change. But co-author Peter Clark, a geoscientist at Oregon State University, stressed that they "aren't suggesting that a collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet is imminent."

The most recent International Panel on Climate Change report estimated sea level rise of up to 3 feet by the end of this century.

"People have been trying prepare for sea level rise for some time, it's not a new issue," Clark said, noting that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and U.S. Geological Survey are holding a meeting in San Francisco on the effects of coastal change.

Earlier research has focused on melting ice adding water to the oceans and on thermal expansion of sea water in a warmer climate over long periods of time.

In the new report geophysicist Jerry X. Mitrovica and physics graduate student Natalya Gomez of the University of Toronto, Canada, and Clark, say other factors need to be considered.

_When an ice sheet melts, its gravitational pull on the ocean is reduced and water moves away from it. That means sea levels could fall near Antarctica and rise more than expected in the northern hemisphere.

_Antarctic bedrock that currently sits under the weight of the ice sheet will rebound from the weight, pushing some water out into the ocean.

_The melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet will cause the Earth's rotation axis to shift, potentially moving water northward.

"The net effect of all of these processes is that if the West Antarctic ice sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected," Mitrovica said in a statement.

Antarctic Meltdown Would Flood Washington, D.C.
Andrea Thompson, livescience.com 5 Feb 09;

Washington, D.C., and other coastal U.S. cities could find themselves under several more feet of water than previously predicted if warming temperatures destroy the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, a new study based on a model predicts.

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS) towers about 6,000 feet (1,800 meters) above sea level over a large section of Antarctica. It holds about 500,000 cubic miles (2.2 million cubic kilometers) of ice, about the same amount of ice contained in the Greenland Ice Sheet.

This vast swath of ice is the anchor for numerous glaciers that drain into the polar sea and is bounded by the Ross and Ronne Ice Shelves. Whether or when this ice sheet might melt is still very uncertain, but even a partial melt would have a bigger impact on some coastal areas than others.

The new research found that sea level rise would not be uniform around the globe, owing to odd gravitational effects and predicted shifts in the planet's rotation.

Collapse concern

Throughout hundreds of millions of years in Earth's past, polar ice caps have grown and receded in cycles lasting thousands or even hundreds of thousands of years. When caps melted, seas rose.

What's different today is that melting of ice at both poles is occurring faster than what has naturally occurred in the past.

Some scientists are worried that our current path of warming could cause the collapse of all or part of the WAIS over the coming decades or centuries. These worries have been further fueled by a recent study in the journal Nature that indicates that more of the WAIS is warming that was previously thought.

"The West Antarctic is fringed by ice shelves which act to stabilize the ice sheet - these shelves are sensitive to global warming, and if they break up, the ice sheet will have a lot less impediment to collapse," said co-author of the new study Jerry Mitrovica, of the University of Toronto and the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research.

In its most recent report, released in 2007, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimates that a full collapse of the ice sheet would raise sea levels by 16 feet (5 meters) globally.

Mitrovica and his colleagues say that this is an oversimplification, and that sea level rise will be higher than expected, and greater in some places than in others.

In particular, the IPCC estimate ignores three important effects of such a massive ice melt:

* Gravity: Like planets and other cosmic bodies exert a gravitational pull on each other, huge ice sheets exert a gravitational pull on the nearby ocean, drawing water towards it. If an ice sheet melted, that pull would be gone, and water would move away. In the case of the WAIS, the net effect would be a fall in sea level within about 1,200 miles (2,000 km) of the ice sheet and a higher-than-expected rise in sea levels in the Northern Hemisphere, further away.

* Rebound: The WAIS is called a marine-based ice sheet because the weight of all that ice has depressed the bedrock underneath to the point that most of it sits below sea level. If all, or even some, of that ice melts, the bedrock will rebound, pushing some of the water on top of it out into the ocean, further contributing to sea level rise.

* Earth's rotation: A collapse of the WAIS would also shift the South Pole location of the Earth's rotation axis (an imaginary line running through the Earth from pole to pole -about 1,600 feet (500 meters) from its present location. This would shift water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and the southern Indian Ocean.

Mitrovica and his fellow researchers took these effects into account and came up with a new projection of what would happen across the world if the WAIS melted out. Their findings are detailed in the Feb. 6 issue of the journal Science.

"The net effect of all of these processes is that if the West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses, the rise in sea levels around many coastal regions will be as much as 25 per cent more than expected, for a total of between 6 and 7 meters [20 to 23 feet] if the whole ice sheet melts," Mitrovica said. "That's a lot of additional water, particularly around such highly populated areas as Washington, D.C., New York City, and the California coastline."

Submerging threat

Six meters of sea level rise would eventually inundate the nation's capital, because even though it doesn't have an extensive coastline, it was originally a low-lying, swampy area connected to the Chesapeake Bay.

It would also put virtually all of south Florida and southern Louisiana underwater. The West Coast of North America, Europe and coastal areas around the Indian Ocean would all be inundated more than previously expected.

Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse May Swamp U.S. Coasts
Will Dunham, PlanetArk 6 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON - North America's coastlines would be hit especially hard by rising sea levels if the huge West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapses and melts in a warming world as some experts fear, scientists said on Thursday.

The loss of that ice sheet alone would inundate some coastal areas, swamping New York, Washington D.C., south Florida, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle, with sea levels in some places higher by 21 feet or more than today, the researchers wrote in the journal Science.

Factors including changes in the Earth's rotation from the loss of the huge ice sheet would make sea level changes highly variable around the globe, they said. The southern Indian Ocean region also would be heavily affected, they added.

"You pay the price in North America," University of Toronto geophysicist Jerry Mitrovica said in a telephone interview.

"The peak sea level rise occurs on the coasts of the United States -- the New York area and down the coast, the eastern seaboard of the United States," Mitrovica added. "On the West coast, it's even just a little bit bigger."

The West Antarctic Ice Sheet covers about 350,000 square miles (900,000 square km), the size of U.S. states Texas and Oklahoma combined. Its volume equals about 100 times the amount of water in all of North America's Great Lakes, said Natalya Gomez of the University of Toronto, another researcher.

Mitrovica said this is not imminent, but rather: "It's a time scale of hundreds of years."

The United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change estimates a loss of the ice sheet would raise sea levels around the world on average by about 16.5 feet.

But Mitrovica said the additional ocean volume would not be like adding water to a bath tub and watching the level rise equally, due to other complicated factors.

The researchers said the melting of the ice sheet would cause the Earth's rotation axis to shift about a third of a mile from its current position. This would move water from the southern Atlantic and Pacific oceans northward toward North America and into the southern Indian Ocean.

The loss of the ice sheet also would erase its previous gravitational pull on the surrounding ocean, pushing water away from Antarctica, they said. And the bedrock underneath could rise without the weight of the ice sheet holding it down, pushing some water out into the ocean.

The study did not consider possible melting of other ice sheets in Greenland or Antarctica that could raise sea levels.

(Editing by Maggie Fox and Cynthia Osterman)

Read more!

Fish-dependent countries face climate change threat: study

Yahoo News 5 Feb 09;

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – Climate change poses a grave threat to dozens of countries where people depend on fish for food, according to a study published Friday that said catches are imperilled by coastal storms and damage to coral reefs.

The WorldFish research centre identified 33 countries as "highly vulnerable" to the effects of climate change because of their heavy reliance on fisheries and limited alternative sources of protein.

Many of the group, which takes in the African nations of Malawi, Guinea, Senegal, Uganda; Bangladesh, Cambodia and Vietnam in Asia; and Peru and Colombia in South America; are among the world's poorest countries.

"Low-lying highly populated countries like Bangladesh and Cambodia will face major inundations of crop land with rising sea levels and this will cause a loss of productive land and impact their economies badly," the study's lead author Edward Allison told AFP.

"As fish is central to many economies and diets, people in the tropics and subtropics will be affected as they have a limited ability to develop other sources of income and food in the face of such change," he added.

"The damage will be greatly compounded unless governments and international institutions like the World Bank act now to include the fish sector in plans for helping the poor cope with climate change."

Global fisheries provide more than 2.6 billion people with at least 20 percent of their average annual protein intake, the study said, citing UN data.

The report, prepared by the Malaysia-based WorldFish and a number of universities and research groups, said climate change threatened to destroy coral reefs, push salt water into freshwater habitats and produce more coastal storms.

It said that the 33 "highly vulnerable" countries produce 20 percent of the world's fish exports and that they should be given priority in efforts to help them adapt to climate change.

Two-thirds of the most vulnerable nations are in Africa, where fish accounts for more than half of the daily animal protein consumed and where fish production is highly sensitive to climate variations.

In South Asia, the report said potential problems including bleaching of coral reefs and changes in river flows as a result of reduced snowfalls present a danger to freshwater habitats.

Allison said the next step would be to investigate the impact climate change will have on these countries and the cost of adapting to the new environment.

He said a lack of data meant researchers were unable to include 60 nations including the tiny Pacific states of Kiribati and the Solomon Islands, and the military dictatorship of Myanmar, that were likely to be highly vulnerable.

Climate Change To Hit Africa Fisheries Hard: Study
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 6 Feb 09;

OSLO - African nations will be the most vulnerable to the impact of climate change on fisheries, ranging from damage to coral reefs to more severe river floods, according to a study of 132 nations on Thursday.

Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo were most at risk, according to the report which said it was the first to rank nations by their ability to adapt economically to projected impacts of global warming on fisheries.

"Countries of the developing world are going to find it most difficult to cope," said Stephen Hall, head of the Malaysia-based WorldFish Center which led the study by an international team of scientists.

Two-thirds of a group of 33 countries judged "highly vulnerable" were in Africa with most others in Asia and Latin America. Russia, with heavy reliance on fisheries, was the main exception in third place in the ranking.

"Although warming will be most pronounced at high latitudes, the countries with economies most vulnerable to warming-related effects on fisheries lie in the tropics," according to the report, published in the journal Fish and Fisheries.

Shifts could include damage to corals, which are nurseries for many fish. Inland, droughts or floods can disrupt fish supplies in lakes or rivers. "Vulnerability is not limited to coastal states," Hall said.

Those most at risk included Mauritania, Senegal, Sierra Leone and landlocked Mali in Africa, Peru and Colombia in South America and Bangladesh, Pakistan and Vietnam in Asia.

"Vulnerability was due to the combined effect of predicted warming, the relative importance of fisheries to national economies and diets, and limited societal capacity to adapt to potential impacts and opportunities," it said.

FOOD

Worldwide, more than 2.6 billion people rely on fish for at least 20 percent of their protein intake. Rates of dependence on fish were higher in many of the vulnerable nations.

But the study lacked data for dozens of nations, including many small island developing states in the Pacific Ocean and the Indian Ocean. Hall said they were also likely to be at risk.

Hall said the study could prompt nations to think about how to safeguard fisheries. The U.N. Climate Panel says greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels, will bring more heatwaves, disruptions to rainfall, and rising seas.

"The key measure is to invest in ensuring that the fisheries resources they have are well managed," he said. Countries should also try to diversify their economies.

The study was by scientists at the WorldFish Center, the University of East Anglia, Britain's Center for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science, Canada's Simon Fraser University, the University of Bremen and the Mekong River Commission.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

Read more!

U.S. panel urges ban on fishing in warming Arctic

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 5 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a pre-emptive strike against the expected effects of climate change, a U.S. advisory panel on Thursday urged a ban on commercial fishing across a wide swath of the Arctic Sea off the Alaskan coast.

The North Pacific Fishery Management Council voted to prohibit fishing in nearly 200,000 square nautical miles of Arctic waters in the so-called U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone, which stretches from 3 miles offshore to 200 miles offshore, starting at the Bering Strait and extending north and east to the U.S.-Canada border.

This area includes the Beaufort and Chukchi seas, home to polar bears and other species listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act. It also includes vast areas of oil and gas leases.

There is no industrial fishing now in the area of the potential ban, but with Arctic sea ice ebbing and sea surface temperatures rising, environmentalists, scientists and policy-makers are already seeing some fish species moving northward into the U.S. Arctic. Without a ban, the fishing fleet would presumably follow.

The council's unanimous decision includes a process for initiating commercial fishing in the future, "but only when the council has ... sufficient scientific information on a potential fish stock and knowledge of how commercial fishing might affect the Arctic ecosystem," council staff member Bill Wilson said in an e-mail from Seattle, where the panel met.

This kind of forward-thinking approach is highly unusual, said Chris Krenz of the marine conservation group Oceana.

HEADING OFF ECOSYSTEM DAMAGE

It is more customary for fisheries to spring up on their own, with official management racing to catch up after declines in fish population or ecosystem damage from overfishing have already occurred, Krenz said by telephone.

"This is the exact opposite," Krenz said. "(It) will help ensure that any fishing that does take place is done sustainably and without harming the health or the ecosystem or opportunities for the subsistence way of life of the people of the U.S. Arctic."

The Pew Environment Group, the Ocean Conservancy, World Wildlife Fund and Greenpeace all added their plaudits.

The Marine Conservation Alliance, an association of fishermen, processors and communities involved in fisheries off Alaska, supported the decision: "The Council's action to close these waters as a precautionary measure gives us the opportunity to conduct the scientific review necessary to develop a plan for how sustainable fisheries might be conducted in the Arctic in the future."

Another reason to prohibit fishing in this area is to learn more about the impact of global warming in the Arctic, which is little understood, Krenz said.

The Arctic is warming about twice as fast, on average, as the rest of the world. The last two years have seen dramatic decreases in the amount of sea ice that remains during the northern summer, and the extent of January sea ice is well below normal when compared to the long-term record, the U.S. National Snow and Ice Data Center reported this week.

Krenz said the council's action could serve as a model for other nations and other industries, including oil and gas exploration, contemplating moves into the Arctic.

The council's recommendation must ultimately be approved by the U.S. commerce secretary; the approval process, including a period of public comment, could take a year.

(Editing by Cynthia Osterman)

Read more!

China Declares Emergency As Drought Bites

Lucy Hornby, PlanetArk 6 Feb 09;

LIDONG VILLAGE - China has declared an emergency over a drought which could damage the important wheat crop, threatening further hardship for farmers amid slumping economic growth.

The dry winter gripping parts of central and northern China has sent Zhengzhou wheat futures up 5 percent this week but physical prices have not moved, with most investors confident the country's reserves and last year's big harvest can offset any fall in wheat production this spring.

The drought could hurt farmers in Henan, Anhui and Shandong, where many have lost factory and construction jobs after China's growth faltered in late 2008.

"This winter there was no snow, no rain. That's not good for the wheat," said Zhao Mifen.

Zhao and her husband farm one-fifth of a hectare in the flat plains near Xingtai, in southern Hebei Province, and supplement their income making construction materials.

The national Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief this week declared a "level 2" emergency, warning of a "severe drought rarely seen in history," the People's Daily reported.

The absence of rain or snow since November has affected 9.5 million ha of farmland -- 37,000 square miles, or 43 percent of the winter wheat sources, the China Daily reported.

In the hardest-hit areas, in Henan and Anhui, output of winter wheat, which is harvested in May, could be reduced by one-fifth, agricultural analyst Ma Wenfeng told the China Daily.

Overall, output from major wheat-growing areas could be cut by 2 to 5 percent, Ma estimated.

IRRIGATION

Chinese culture originated in the flat central plains, where for millenia farmers and rulers have wrestled the rivers to control flooding and irrigate the dry fields.

This time, the central government has mobilized drought relief funds and irrigation assistance, even as a downturn in the export sector raises worries that farming communities will suffer from a drop in remittances from migrant workers.

Local officials must make "fighting the drought and protecting seedlings a major task" and expand irrigation coverage said Zhang Zhitong, deputy chief of the drought relief office.

Sun Tongling said his wheat crop was about normal, as he opened an irrigation channel into his crops near Lidong village.

"It's true that it's been dry this winter with no snow. We won't really know until March if there has been any damage."

Almost 40 percent of drought-hit wheat areas in seven provinces had been irrigated, the Agriculture Ministry said.

Many more farmers who order their lives by the lunar calendar will wait until after the Lantern Festival on Monday to begin irrigating and fertilizing their fields.

"You can see the wheat is a bit yellow already, but we're not allowed to irrigate here until after the Lantern Festival," said Wang Baoxi, who was building a house near his fields in Houyan village, in the foothills west of Xingtai.

"The wells are low but there's plenty of water in the reservoir."

(Editing by Nick Macfie)

Drought threatens Chinese wheat crop
Low rainfall in the north has put nearly half of the country's harvest at risk
Tania Branigan, guardian.co.uk 4 Feb 09;

A severe drought in northern China – considered the country's breadbasket – has hit almost 43% of the country's wheat crop this winter, senior officials have warned.

Low rainfall since October has affected more than 9.3m hectares (229.71 acres) of land in northern China across six major grain-producing provinces, according to the Office of State Flood Control and Drought Relief Headquarters. Last week it warned that 3.7 million people and 1.85 million livestock had lost access to drinking water.

Vice-premier Hui Liangyu has urged local officials to make tackling the water shortage a priority, state media reported today. Beijing has set aside 100m yuan (£10m) of funding to help farmers combat the problem and have sent specialist teams to the worst affected areas. Provincial governments are planning to seed clouds to ensure it rains.

Henan Daily reported that the drought is the province's most severe since 1951, with no rain for 105 days. It warned that up to 63% of the region's wheat crop is threatened.

In Anhui the provincial government said the drought had already caused losses of 1.6bn yuan. It has set aside hundreds of millions of yuan to assist farmers.

Sun Zhengcai, the agriculture minister, blamed low rainfall since October for the problems. The meteorological administration says no rain is forecast over the next week.

But environmental campaigners warned the lack of rainfall had merely exacerbated a long term problem in a naturally dry region where consumption has soared, thanks to intensive agriculture, industry and a rising and increasingly urbanised population.

Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs and author of China's Water Crisis, said that to have more than 100 rainless days was a record in recent decades.

But he added: "Water use in the region is not sustainable. We have seen rivers running dry because too much water has been diverted for farming and increasingly for urban and industrial use. We have seen the water table dropping steadily over the last three decades. Obviously this kind of drought adds insult to injury."

While the authorities had helped industry and cities to increase the efficiency of water usage, it was not enough to solve the problem.

Ma said the northern half of China had over 40% of the country's population, more than 50% of the arable land and much industry due to its coal reserves – yet less than 20% of the nation's water.

China said last month that it would spend 21.3bn yuan on the next phase of its ambitious water diversion project to help the arid north. The multibillion pound scheme, which will take up to half a century to complete, will connect the Yangtze, Huaihe, Yellow and Haihe rivers. It will require the creation of east, middle and western channels and will eventually divert 44.8bn cubic metres of water annually. The first phase of the eastern programme will begin to deliver water by 2013.

Ma said the scheme was first conceived in the fifties, but that many people believed its time had come because the situation in the north was now so dire. "We have to keep in mind that this will not fill up the whole gap," he said. "From now on the focus should be seriously shifted to conserving water."

Campaigners have warned that the scheme could have serious social and environmental repercussions, changing the ecosystem and requiring mass resettlement.

Read more!

Bird Flu Virus Still Cause For Concern: Experts

Maggie Fox, PlanetArk 5 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON - The H5N1 bird flu virus, which has now sickened more than 400 people globally, is infecting birds and people all across China and is still a cause for serious concern, flu experts said on Tuesday.

Recent cases are the expected winter seasonal surge seen for many types of viruses, they said, and there is no evidence that it is mutating into a more dangerous form.

"In the past three months, we have continued to see a great deal of activity," Dr. Keiji Fukuda of the World Health Organization told reporters.

Chinese officials confirmed a new case on Monday in a 23-year-old woman in Hunan province, who was being treated.

All the patients were around chickens, so there is little concern that people are passing the virus to one anther, the flu experts told a news briefing at a meeting in Washington of the Infectious Diseases Society of America.

"These cases and the widespread nature of them continue to point out how persistent this virus is and how widespread it is," Fukuda said. "We believe that the threat of pandemic influenza remains as high as ever."

Since 2003, the H5N1 avian influenza virus has infected 404 people in 15 countries and killed 254 of them. It has killed or forced the destruction of more than 300 million birds as it spread to 61 countries in Asia, the Middle East, Europe and Africa.

"This is a very unusual virus and the reason why it so unusual is that it is probably the most lethal influenza virus that has ever been discovered," Fukuda said.

AMAZING ABILITY TO KILL

"It really has an amazing ability to kill a variety of birds and mammals, including people."

Fukuda said China had investigated each case thoroughly, and he did not see any especially worrying signs in the eight recent cases.

"It has been noticed that the people who have been infected are spread across a wide area of China. What that tells us is that the virus is widespread in China. But we have known for a long time that it is widespread in Southeast Asia in general," he said.

It is also known that vaccinating birds against H5N1 is not 100 percent effective, so it is not surprising that individual birds would become infected and spread the virus to people, he said.

While H5N1 rarely infects people, experts fear it could mutate into a form that people could easily pass to one another, sparking a pandemic that could kill tens of millions and topple the global economy.

Dr. Nancy Cox of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said while the virus is mutating steadily, it is not taking on any startling changes yet.

"We have not seen changes in the genes of H5N1 viruses that would be indicative of the kind of change that we would expect were the virus to become more transmissible from human to human," she said.

Fukuda and other experts praised China for being so quick to report and investigate each case.

"Hopefully, we will see this become the standard behavior for most countries," Fukuda said.

Experts say the odds of an influenza pandemic of some sort are 100 percent. No one can say when or where it might happen, or what strain of flu might cause it, and Fukuda noted that H5N1 is not the only threat.

Read more!

Canada's bid to cut greenhouse gases flawed: probe

David Ljunggren, Reuters 5 Feb 09;

OTTAWA (Reuters) - Two of Canada's major strategies for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases have major flaws and cannot achieve the promised results, the country's environmental watchdog said on Thursday.

The report by Environment Commissioner Scott Vaughan promises to be a fresh headache for Canada's minority Conservative government, which critics say is only paying lip service to green causes.

"The government cannot demonstrate that the money it is spending on some important environmental programs is making a difference," Vaughan said at a news conference.

Soon after winning power in early 2006, the Conservatives walked away from the Kyoto Protocol on climate change, saying the cuts it required would harm the economy.

The Environment Department has since produced a less stringent plan that it says will reduce emissions by 50 percent from 2007 levels by 2050. One element of the plan is a C$1.5 billion ($1.2 billion) clean air trust fund that is designed to cut emissions by 16 megatons a year from 2008 to 2012.

"The department conducted almost no analysis to support that figure ... the little analysis it did undertake is based on flawed assumptions," Vaughan wrote in his report.

Ottawa handed over the C$1.5 billion to Canada's 10 provinces and three territories but did not require them to spend it on cutting emissions and did not oblige them to report the results of the actions they took.

"The nature of the trust fund makes it very unlikely that the department can report real, measurable and justifiable results," Vaughan said.

David McGuinty, finance spokesman for the opposition Liberals, told reporters he had raised concerns months ago about what he called a C$1.5 billion fraud.

"No one knows where the money is going," he said.

Vaughan also criticized a C$635 million program designed to give tax credits to those who use public transport.

In 2007, the Environment Department said this would cut emissions by 220,000 tonnes a year. A year later, it slashed this estimate to just 35,000 tonnes.

"The tax credit will have a negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions ... it is almost impossible to measure actual greenhouse gas emission reductions attributable to the tax credit," wrote Vaughan, citing the many factors that influence use of public transit.

"Environment Canada could not provide any analysis to support the assertion that the tax credit would result in measurable impacts."

Vaughan said the federal Finance Ministry had calculated that it should cost no more than C$800 to cut one tonne of greenhouse gas emissions. The cost of doing so under the transit tax would be well over C$3,000 a tonne, he said.

Environment Minister Jim Prentice said Ottawa had relied on the best information that was available at the time.

"We have to examine the report ... and I imagine we will make improvements," he told reporters.

The Pembina Institute green think tank said it was "deplorable that Canadians were given the impression the federal government was taking significant action on global warming, when in reality Canada's action was and remains feeble by international standards".

($1=$1.23 Canadian)

(Reporting by David Ljunggren; Editing by Frank McGurty)

Canada failing on CO2 cuts: audit
Yahoo News 6 Feb 09;

OTTAWA (AFP) – The Canadian government's efforts to reduce greenhouse gases and other pollution at a cost of more than two billion dollars have not produced any measurable results, a watchdog said Thursday.

"The government cannot demonstrate that the money it is spending on some important environmental programs is making a difference," Scott Vaughan, Canada's new environment commissioner, told a press conference.

"The government needs to know what works, what doesn't and why. However, our audit work for this report found gaps in the information."

And in areas where data was available, he said he found Canadians got little value for their money.

In his Report of the Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development, Vaughan looked at the government's key climate change programs and found no evidence to support its CO2 emissions reductions claims.

Specifically, he pointed to a 1.5-billion-dollar (1.2-billion-US) transfer to the provinces and territories to cut 80 megatonnes of greenhouse gases by 2012 and a 635-million-dollar (296-million-US) public transit tax credit.

The report said Environment Canada used "flawed analyses and assumptions" in establishing the amounts of CO2 reductions it expected each region to achieve as a result of the trust fund.

Because the 13 provinces and territories are not required to report how the funds are used, it is "very unlikely that (Environment Canada) will be able to report real, measurable, and verifiable results," it says.

The public transit tax credit, when it was announced in 2007, was to lower greenhouse gas emissions by 220,000 tonnes annually by encouraging bus and subway ridership.

The following year, Environment Canada lowered its estimate of expected emissions reductions to 30,000 tonnes per year.

Vaughan said in his report the public transit program would have a "negligible impact on Canada's greenhouse gas emissions."

Canada had agreed under the international Kyoto Protocol to reduce carbon dioxide emissions to 6.0 percent below 1990 levels by 2012, but emissions have instead increased by more than 35 percent.

In 2007, the government outlined a new plan to cut greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent, based on 2006 levels, by 2020, saying the targets agreed to by the previous administration were unattainable.

Read more!

Nightmarish Caterpillar Swarm Defies Control in Liberia

Karen Lange, National Geographic News 5 Feb 09;

They came by the millions out of the forest.

From off in the bush, townspeople at the epicenter of the plague heard a low roar, like the sound of heavy rain cascading down through the leaves. It was caterpillar droppings.

In early January, when the long, black caterpillars reached the creeks that serve as the main water sources for the town of Belefanai in north-central Liberia, the creatures' feces instantly turned streams dark and undrinkable.

Moving through the forest canopy on webs, devouring the leaves as they went, the caterpillars advanced like nothing the townspeople had ever seen.

They ate food and cash crops—coffee, cocoa, citrus, plantain, banana, and cassava. They took over homes and people fled.

Venturing into the forest meant being hit by a wave of caterpillars that appeared to be moving forward about as fast as the average person walks.

"The worms would drop on you from all angles," said Moses M. Kolinmore, a mason who arrived in Belefanai just as townspeople realized they had to get word to the government.

"They would cover the whole ground—thousands upon thousands of thick, strong, stubborn worms. It was fearful, very fearful."

The outbreak, which began in December in a remote, forested region of Guinea just over the border from Belefanai, has affected an estimated half million people in more than a hundred towns and villages, prompting the Liberian government to declare a state of emergency.

This week entomologists identified the insect as a moth with a name only scientists had heard before: Achaea catocaloides.

A New Pestilence

The caterpillar is not, as first suspected, the African army worm, a creature well-known for infesting huge regions of East Africa.

Instead, it is a similar brownish "noctuid" caterpillar/moth that has never before been reported as a widespread pest in Liberia but annually plagues parts of nearby Benin (see map).

Government officials and international experts are searching for a strategy to control the outbreak, which threatens to spread because first -generation Achaea caterpillars are dropping to the ground and turning into pupae, then moths.

The moths can fly long distances—up to 620 miles (1,000 kilometers) if the winds are right—and then lay eggs that will hatch into still more caterpillars. Each moth not killed will lay 500 to 1,000 eggs and start the cycle again.

Johnson Nyelartah, a teacher in Belefanai, said townspeople are bracing for another worm invasion, "It is our fear that these butterflies will multiply [into] more than we had before," he said.

One cause for optimism: The caterpillars and moths are dry-season pests, and Liberia's dry season should last only another month or so, experts say.

"We are hoping the rains will end the outbreak," said J. Qwelibo Subah, director general of Liberia's Central Agricultural Research Institute (CARI), who is coordinating the response to the infestation.

Unappealing Options

In the interim, the Ministry of Agriculture is scrambling for solutions.

Fifty-five field staff are scouting for concentrations of the caterpillars and moths, spraying them with pesticide from the ground and collecting and burning the pupae in their cocoons. Farmers have been setting slow-burning fires in leaf litter to smoke caterpillars out of trees and incinerate them.

Because the caterpillar infests wide areas so rarely, scientists have not researched a way to safely and selectively kill large numbers of Achaea catocaloides.

If all other measures fail, Subah said, he would not rule out aerial spraying, even though UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) officials have advised against the technique, because it would kill many other species and further contaminate open water supplies.

"We are considering all options," Subah said.

Why Now?

There's a lot about this outbreak experts still don't understand—making it impossible to say for certain how it can be stopped.

For starters, no one is sure what turned Achaea catocaloides—one of the most common moths across central and West Africa—into a nightmarish plague in Liberia's forest.

It could have been the weather, experts say.

During the dry season, a strong wind called the harmattan blows from the Sahara across West Africa. Perhaps in late 2008, this wind picked up Achaea catocaloides moths and then deposited a large concentration along the Guinea-Liberia border.

Or perhaps there was an unnoticed local increase in Achaea catocaloides numbers and, when the temperature was right, the population exploded, said Gregory Tarplah, an entomologist with Liberia's Ministry of Agriculture.

Whatever happened, once the caterpillars emerged in great numbers they needed an expanded food supply.

They turned from eating their favorite food, the Dahoma tree, to eating most any tree in their path. And they began to migrate in search of more.

Desperate Measures

To provide uncontaminated water to communities overrun with the worms, the Liberian government is fixing broken hand pumps, digging wells, and installing new pumps.

It's barely enough, Tarplah said. In Belefanai, for example, thousands of people depend on just three wells with hand pumps.

"People get on line in the morning, and then sometimes at two or three in the afternoon they get water," Kolinmore, the mason, said. "Sometimes the well runs out of water."

If water is in short supply now, food will be later in 2009.

Already this year's rice harvest will be smaller than usual. Swarms of worms along the paths into the forest kept farmers home during the crucial time when they usually cut and burn fields to grow the staple crop.

"The next season will be the hungry season," Kolinmore said.

Read more!

U.N. chief says domestic politics undermine climate fight

Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters 5 Feb 09;

NEW DELHI (Reuters) - A climate deal at Copenhagen may not be possible unless politicians take tough decisions without worrying about winning elections and compulsions of their domestic politics, the U.N. Secretary-General said on Thursday.

Ban Ki-moon said the situation had been compounded by the global financial downturn that was making it more difficult for the political leadership to take unpopular decisions.

"Their first priority maybe (is) to get elected first of all, whatever maybe the case," Ban told a conference on sustainable development in New Delhi. "But they must overcome and look beyond this personal political leadership. They have to demonstrate their leadership as a global leader.

"For political leaders, there is always clearly some political risks that they want to avoid. Political psychology in the midst of global financial crisis, global downturn, (is) they are very weak to the voters."

From rich nations to developing countries many are shelving ambitions for deep cuts or caps in greenhouse gas emissions as the economic slowdown overshadows the fight against climate change.

In countries such as India, the fourth-largest polluter in the world, climate change is hardly seen as an election issue and barely features on the agenda of political parties.

Ban called on political leaders to look beyond their domestic politics for a deal in Copenhagen. "We have to look at the whole generational issues. Therefore please look beyond your own domestic concerns and look for the future," he said.

About 190 countries are trying to craft a broader climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol that only binds wealthy nations to emissions targets between 2008 and 2012.

The new deal is due to be wrapped in Copenhagen by December.

Ban said Copenhagen's success depended on how the political leadership responded to three main challenges.

"First, Copenhagen must clarify commitments of developed countries to reduce their emissions, by setting ambitious mid-term targets, with credible baselines.

"We must also achieve clarity on what mitigation actions developing countries will be prepared to make."

Alongside, Copenhagen must advance on the issue of financing the mitigation and adaptation needs of developing countries, he said.

"Thirdly, governments, as well as the U.N. system must come up with credible solutions for the governance of new funds, and for their implementation response."

UN chief addresses climate change conference
Yasmeen Mohiuddin Yahoo News 5 Feb 09;

NEW DELHI (AFP) – UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon warned Thursday that failure to tackle climate change would lead to global economic upheaval, as he appealed to nations to reach agreement on carbon emission cuts.

"Deserts are spreading. Water scarcity is increasing. Tropical forests are shrinking. Our once prolific fisheries are in danger of collapse," said Ban at the start of a three-day conference in New Delhi on sustainable development.

"Failure to combat climate change will increase poverty and hardship. It will destabilise economies, breed insecurity in many countries and undermine our goals for sustainable development."

All countries must strive to reach a "conclusive carbon emissions reduction" deal in Copenhagen in December, he said at the meeting.

The gathering in the Danish capital is set to discuss initiatives aimed at tackling climate change when the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012.

"Copenhagen must clarify commitments of developed countries to reduce their emissions," said Ban, adding: "We must also achieve clarity on what mitigation actions developing countries will be prepared to make.

"In Copenhagen we must now bring all this all together in an ambitious, comprehensive and ratifiable agreement."

Much of the focus at the New Delhi conference will be on the United States, which was set to lay out President Barack Obama's new climate change policy, according to organisers.

John Kerry, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, was due to address the meeting via a video link.

The Obama administration has already begun shredding the climate policies formulated under ex-president George W. Bush and is vowing to lead the global fight against climate change.

Ban said Obama had assured him climate change was his "domestic as well as international priority" and also of Washington's "full cooperation to make Copenhagen a success."

He added he sensed a new worldwide momentum to address climate change.

"Here in India, in China, in the economies of Europe and North America, in Brazil, and also in many regions in Africa I find a new determination and new initiatives," he said, but cautioned there was no time to waste.

"Science has shown we are depleting the planet?s natural assets at an unsustainable rate," Ban said. "We all realise poverty cannot be overcome if we neglect the environment or deplete our natural capital."

Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said New Delhi was "extremely concerned about climate change."

At the same time, he told the meeting "some of the worst impacts of climate change take place in developing countries which have had no share in having caused this problem."

India, China and other emerging economies have long argued industrialised nations are historically responsible for greenhouse gases already in the atmosphere and so must do more to fix the problem.

They have resisted targeted curbs on their own carbon emissions, claiming their ascent from poverty could be jeopardised by a straitjacket on their carbon emissions.

Developing countries were excluded from binding targets for greenhouse gases under the 1997 Kyoto Protocol -- the key reason the US refused to ratify the treaty.

However, activists say ensuring China and India take action now has become vital because their carbon output has risen dramatically with the booms in their fossil fuel-dependent economies.

China now outstrips the US as the world's biggest greenhouse gas polluter while India is poised to overtake Russia as the third biggest emitter, according to a report last September by the Global Carbon Project.

Read more!

'Strong arm' tactics to get India to agree to strict emissions cuts criticised

China and India signal opposition to binding limits on emissions as UN secretary general says developing world 'must do more'
Randeep Ramesh, guardian.co.uk 5 Feb 09;

Environmentalists have strongly criticised attempts to "strong arm" developing countries such as India into a binding commitment to cut greenhouse gas emissions after the United Nations secretary general asked poorer nations to "get on board" with the industrialised world to find solutions to the climate crisis.

Ban Ki-moon told the Delhi Sustainable Development Summit that although "Brazil has been taking a quite proactive role in the implementation of biofuel and forestation policies. China and India have also taken steps. But that is not enough, they have to do more."

The UN's top official said that climate change was a "common and shared" responsibility and that the time for arguments about who caused and contributed to global warming was over.

"We should not argue who is more responsible, who is less responsible, who should do more… This is a common, shared responsibility," Ban said.

There appears a global consensus over the impact of global warming. Wheat yields are down, water is becoming scarcer and the frequency and severity of floods and droughts are increasing. Ban's clarion call in Delhi comes in a year which will end with a deadline to negotiate a global treaty to combat climate change. The current phase of the Kyoto protocol runs out in 2012.

But talks have run aground as industrialised countries have refused to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions unless emerging economies such as China and India commit to an emissions cap.

Both India and China, which have per capita emissions that are a fraction of the west, have pointed out the Kyoto protocol was supposed to mean emission reduction targets of 5% by 2012 but between 1990 and 2005, emissions had increased. In fact, US emissions have increased 20% during that period.

Earlier this week Chinese prime minister Wen Jiaobao said in an interview that it was "difficult for China to take quantified emission reduction quotas at the Copenhagen conference, because this country is still at an early stage of development… Europe started its industrialisation several hundred years ago, but for China, it has only been dozens of years."

India has also signalled its strong opposition to binding limits on emissions. The Indian prime minister, Manmohan Singh, has said that India would be willing to undertake to keep its per capita emissions below those of industrialised countries, thus giving the latter a strong incentive to reduce their emissions as quickly as possible.

The Centre for Science and Environment, an influential thinktank based in Delhi, has also pointed out that "the stock of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere was built up over centuries in the process of creating nations' wealth. This is the natural debt of nations, and they must pay up."

Others criticised the United Nations for foisting an "ineffectual" Clean Development Mechanism on the developing world, which aims to allow rich nations claim credit for emissions reductions they fund in poorer nations. Himanshu Thakkar, co-ordinator at the South Asia Network on Dams, Rivers & People, said that India needed "no lectures from the west which has been polluting (for decades). We have also looked at the UN and seen the CDM (Clean Development Mechanism) as completely inefficient. We have seen no new technology being used in India and no benefit to anyone but big companies."

However, the United Nation's top climate change official Yvo de Boer told reporters that to get developing countries to sign up for emission limits public money from the wealthy world would be needed to fund climate change action programmes.

In December the UN said said $86bn £59bn a year will be needed by 2015 for poor countries to adapt to global warming but admitted that it was struggling to raise even the fund's administration costs of $4m.

The Indian prime minister's advisers on climate change told the Guardian that countries such as Britain were "pushing hard" for India to adopt experimental technologies and using cash as an incentive. "They have been pushing Carbon Capture and Storage. But these are not proven technologies. What happens if the gas leaks out and causes deaths?"

Read more!