Tanimbar Corella eating cassia fruit
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog
Monday Morgue: 16th February 2009
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog
Coastal fish farms: where does the fish waste go?
on the wild shores of singapore blog
Seen on STOMP: Honeybee swarms near SGH
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog and Bukit Batok bushfire
Julia Chan, The New Straits Times 16 Feb 09;
KOTA KINABALU: Sipadan conjures up an image of a serene, protected underwater world -- one of the world's top dive spots.
But just a half-hour boat ride away off Pulau Mabul, the blood of magnificent sharks, crudely finned and gutted by the boatload stains the sea red.
Shark finning has been going on here for several years, and the stark contrast between Sipadan and Mabul has caused an uproar in the international diving community, with some threatening to boycott Sabah entirely.
Finning is the inhumane practice of hacking off the shark's fins and throwing its still living body back into the sea.
A diver said: "Why should we contribute to the decline of a beautiful area by supporting a place which does not protect its own resources?
"We strongly urge the resorts to lobby Sabah Parks to prohibit shark finning in the Ligitan island group area.
"If the area is not protected, we will choose to dive in other areas of Southeast Asia where the marine life is protected with the money collected," the diver said.
Fisheries Department director Rayner Stuel Galid said shark finning was not illegal in Sabah.
He said those with a valid fishing licence had the right to fish in the area, provided they didn't encroach on protected areas.
"This includes fishing for sharks," said Galid, adding that the only protected species of shark under current law was the whale shark.
He said local and foreign fishermen were fishing in the territorial waters of Indonesia and the Philippines so they were out of the jurisdiction of the department.
"Sipadan and the waters around Sipadan are off limits to fishermen, and we will work with all enforcement agencies responsible to ensure no fishing is done in these waters," said Galid.
Asked to comment, Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said: "My ministry will relay our concern to the Fisheries Department and the Semporna district officer.
"We need to be sensitive to global views to protect our tourism.
"A small mistake or inaction could have major repercussions for the industry.
"Nature lovers and the global conservation community are fast becoming an influential lobbying group who could hurt the state tourism industry if they decide to boycott Sabah in protest against such activities."
Average number for Jan over last decade was 26, but 182 this Jan
Tan May Ping, The New Paper 16 Feb 09;
WHILE a lot of the news recently focused on Australia's worst-ever bush fires, Singapore has been quietly setting a record of its own.
Last month, the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) recorded 182 bush fires - the highest figure for the month of January in the past decade.
The average number for January over the last 10 years has been 26 cases, said SCDF public affairs director Lieutenant-Colonel N Subhas.
February could well set another record as firemen have already put out 106 bush fires as of Friday.
This brings the total so far this year to 288, or two-thirds the 426 cases over the whole of last year.
LTC Subhas attributed the spike in numbers to the prolonged dry weather.
'The large numbers of vegetation fires reported so far this year due to the dry spell is unprecedented,' he said.
'The tinder dry nature of the vegetation makes it easily susceptible to fires.'
According to the National Environment Agency website, the North-east monsoon brought dry and occasionally windy conditions in January, and rainfall was substantially below average.
Northern areas around Seletar recorded less than 10mm in January. This is between 96 and 98 per cent below average.
Even the wetter areas in the eastern part of the island around Changi recorded between 32mm and 40mm of rain.
There appeared to be a breather on Wednesday and Thursday as the number of bush fires plunged to only three and one respectively.
Fires near urban areas
But on Friday, it went back up to 14.
'The three cases reported on Wednesday was the lowest figure in 29 days,' said LTC Subhas.
He added that in January, the largest bush fires occurred at Punggol Marina and Ponggol Seventeenth Avenue on 20 Jan and 26 Jan respectively.
Both fires covered an area of about three football fields each.
The record number of bush fires took marketing communications executive Edmund Sng by surprise even though he recently came across one.
Mr Sng, 27, said he was driving along Upper Serangoon Road on Monday when he saw a bush fire at a forested area next to Serangoon Secondary School.
The afternoon fire was raging and destroyed vegetation the size of about three-quarters of a football field, he said.
Said Mr Sng: 'The fire was spreading quite fast. I was afraid it would spread to the school next door, although the students had already evacuated by then.'
Mr Sng said the trees in the affected area were burnt to the ground, and the area now looks bare and charred.
'I know it's been quite dry lately. But I wonder if there is anything that can be done to prevent such fires,' he added.
LTC Subhas said the SCDF has fought bush fires with the help of the Tracked Fire-Fighting Vehicle since 2005.
'This is an all-terrain firefighting vehicle designed to negotiate through rough undulating terrains with dense shrubs and undergrowth, and is especially useful during large-scale deep-seated forested fires,' said LTC Subhas.
It is equipped with a 1,700l water tank, a portable pump, and a high-pressured water mist gun.
The SCDF has also been working with related agencies to come up with measures to contain bush fires.
For instance, dry hydrant systems have been installed at 'hot spots' such as Tampines Avenue 12 and Fort Road to provide easier and swifter access to water supply.
Other preventive measures include patrols by SCDF ground units, and grass trimming and ground wetting by various agencies.
Prevent fires
# Do not throw lighted cigarette butts or matches onto grass patches/fields and rubbish dumps.
# Do not dispose rubbish or unwanted items at grass areas or vacant lands. Rubbish dumps provide additional sources of fuel to sustain fires.
# Home owners with grass compounds should keep grass trimmed and watered. Dead leaves should be properly disposed of.
# Incense papers should be burnt in incense burners. These burners should be placed on flat open ground at a safe distance from combustible materials.
# After the prayer session, one should check around for smouldering incense in the vicinity and ensure that it is completely extinguished with water.
Dry spell causes bush fires to surge to record numbers
Cheryl Frois, Channel NewsAsia 16 February 2009;
SINGAPORE: Singapore has recorded the highest number of vegetation fires in decades due to the dry spell.
In the first two weeks of this month, 106 fires have been recorded. This follows a record 182 in January, well above the average of 26 cases for the month over the past decade.
The Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) has described this as unprecedented and said it is installing dry hydrant systems to provide water supply in areas with dry vegetation like Tampines and Fort Road.
Smoke from these vegetation fires has contributed to the particle build-up in the air, resulting in Singapore experiencing slightly hazy conditions since last Friday.
The weak winds have also contributed to the bleary conditions, as they are unable to blow the smoke particles away.
The National Environment Agency said Singapore's 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) crept up to the "moderate" range of between 53 and 57 over the weekend, rising from the "good" range the week before.
The haze is leaving many Singaporeans hot under the collar.
"Even at night, it's really hot, even turning on the air-con doesn't help," said a member of the public.
"Exercise is out of the question, movements out in the open are restricted," said another.
"I couldn't breathe. I've been coughing, because I'm quite allergic to the haze," said a third.
"Even the poor doggies at home" are feeling the heat, said a fourth.
The haziness and hot weather is expected to persist over the next three days, as wind conditions continue to be light.
- CNA/ir
Michael Richardson, Straits Times 16 Feb 09;
THE devastating bush fires in Australia, severe drought in China and the spread of haze over Indonesia's Riau province are linked by a common underlying trend - temperature rise in the Asia-Pacific region and other parts of the world.
They are an unwelcome reminder to policy makers preoccupied with the global financial and economic crisis that climate change is striking now and will strike much harder in future if not tackled effectively by the international community.
Australians, who live on the driest inhabited continent on the planet, are already counting the cost of the extreme heat and prolonged lack of rain that set the scene for the raging fires in the state of Victoria. The final death toll is expected to rise to around 300 as more bodies are discovered. Damage to property and livestock, and the cost of treating the injured, could exceed A$2 billion (S$2 billion).
In China, the world's most populous nation, drought has spread to 12 provinces across central and northern China that produce the bulk of the country's wheat. The China Meteorological Administration has said that average temperatures are at 30-year highs in some areas and 50-year highs in others.
Last week, thick haze from forest fires blanketed large areas of Riau as farmers and plantations took advantage of dry conditions to burn forest and clear land cheaply. This practice, although illegal, has proved difficult to stop. It causes acrid smoke to drift over Singapore, Brunei and Malaysia when the wind blows in their direction.
No one is suggesting that above-average temperatures alone are responsible for these events. The Australian fires were fanned by wild winds and police suspect some were lit by arsonists. However, temperature rise is an important factor. It increases susceptibility to disaster, whether caused by nature or humans.
On Jan 5, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology said that last year was the 14th warmest in the country since records began in 1910 and 0.41 deg C above the 1961-1990 average. It noted that Australia had warmed by about 0.9 deg C over the last century.
The panel of international scientists advising the United Nations (UN) on climate change warned in its most recent report two years ago that fires in Australia were 'virtually certain to increase in intensity and frequency'.
It also gave examples of the impact of global warming on Asia. It said that by the 2050s, freshwater availability in Central, South, East and South-east Asia, particularly in large river basins, was projected to decrease. Coastal areas, especially heavily populated mega-delta regions in South, East and South-east Asia, would be at greatest risk due to increased flooding from the sea and, in some mega-deltas, flooding from rivers as glaciers on China's Qinghai-Tibetan plateau and in the Himalayan mountain chain melted.
The panel also said that death and illness from diseases associated with floods and droughts were expected to rise in East, South and South-east Asia.
According to the World Meteorological Organisation, the global combined sea-surface and land-surface air temperature for last year is estimated to be 0.31 deg C above the 1961-1990 annual average of 14 deg C. This makes 2008 the 10th warmest year since 1850. It is now 23 years since the world has had a cooler-than-average year.
The warmest year on record was 1998, when vast swathes of Indonesia's forest and underlying peat bogs dried out and burned, casting a pall of toxic haze over much of South-east Asia.
The UN climate panel says that emissions of greenhouse gases from human activity, mainly from burning fossil fuels and forests, are blanketing the planet, making it warmer.
Last week, the Norwegian Polar Institute reported that atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were hitting new highs, with no sign yet that the global economic slump was curbing emissions. Levels of carbon dioxide rose to 392 parts per million (ppm), a rise of over 2 ppm from a year earlier. Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere are now about the highest in 800,000 years, and up by about one-third since the industrial revolution began in the 19th century.
Even if they fall because of the economic slump, it will only be temporary. As growth picks up again, emissions will increase. Moreover, once carbon dioxide enters the atmosphere, it stays for a very long time.
We are seeing in Australia's bush fires and China's drought the grim face of the future as the temperature rises. Curbing global warming emissions and adapting to climate change will be costly. But failing to do so will be even more expensive and painful.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South-east Asian Studies.
Straits Times Forum 16 Feb 09;
I REFER to last Thursday's commentary, 'Do CNG cars have a future?'
I assume that the question of compressed natural gas (CNG) cars being 'viable' relates mainly to their economic feasibility. This is understandable, especially with the recession in full swing. However, does that mean we should 'forget' about our moral obligations to Mother Earth until our economic woes are resolved? I hope not. In fact, there is no better time than now.
The most sensible option is to intermesh economics and the environment together (where they belong): Incorporate environmental benefits from greener vehicles - or costs from polluting vehicles - into the economic costs that consumers bear.
Thus, I see no reason for the current 40 per cent green vehicle tax cut to be discontinued from 2012. Drivers brave enough to make the transition should be rewarded. Nevertheless, to be fair, if taxation is chosen, payments should be re-channelled into green investments or research.
Another important move would be to make CNG or liquefied petroleum gas pumps more accessible. Having a few at regular petrol stations would spare would-be users inconvenience and snaking queues. With other countries allowing drivers to refill at home (as the gas is used for cooking too), we still have a long way to go.
On a similar issue, I find it puzzling why cars have to run on petrol when diesel is a more environmentally friendly option, emitting less carbon dioxide and most other pollutants, as well as being cheaper.
Although diesel was once more polluting, current technologies are far better than the '20-year-old engines' in many vehicles. Is it then not time to upgrade these engines, and give drivers a choice?
Ideally, reduction in demand should be the way. Even in the current situation, perpetual traffic jams make it impossible for drivers to adopt good driving habits, as idling cars generate greenhouse gases. It is ironic that most commuters need to travel in private vehicles in a tiny, well-connected land of 707 sq km.
Fewer fossil fuel-guzzling vehicles (public transport included) would do wonders for the environment. If roads could be safer and friendlier for cyclists and pedestrians, we might see an improvement in traffic, environment and health. After all, how expensive is a pair of walking shoes?
Chen Jinwen (Miss)
WWF 16 Feb 09;
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia - Indochina’s few surviving elephants are under increasing threat from booming illegal ivory prices in Viet Nam, according to a new market analysis released today by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
An assessment of the illegal ivory trade in Viet Nam said Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to USD1500/kg and small, cut pieces selling for up to USD1863/kg.
Most of the raw ivory was said to originate from the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic, with small amounts from Viet Nam and Cambodia.
“This is a worrying trend that indicates even more pressure is being put on already fragile Asian Elephant populations,” said Azrina Abdullah. Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
According to IUCN figures, no more than 1,000 elephants are believed to survive in Lao PDR, while in Viet Nam, fewer than 150 are believed to exist. In December 2008, TRAFFIC released a report that found evidence of widespread smuggling of live Asian Elephants and their ivory from Myanmar.
Mammoth ivory from Russia was also used in small quantities, but no African raw ivory was found, although it was still being illegally imported into Viet Nam up to at least 2004.
Trade in ivory was outlawed in Viet Nam in 1992, but a major loophole in the legislation exists because shops can still sell ivory in stock dating from the prohibition. This allows some shop owners to restock illegally with recently-made carved ivory.
In 2008, TRAFFIC surveyed 669 retail outlets across Viet Nam and found 73 (11%) selling a total of 2,444 ivory items. Whilst the scale of the ivory market was smaller than in previous surveys, there were signs of increasing demand and overall numbers of craftsmen had increased since 2001. Ho Chi Minh City had the most retail outlets (49) and ivory items (1,776), but Ha Noi, with only 10 outlets, had the highest number of craftsmen.
“Although fewer ivory items were seen in 2008 than in 2001, worked ivory is increasingly being sold directly to buyers through middlemen or on the Internet, bypassing retail outlets,” said Abdullah,
“Continued demand for illegal ivory is driving the prices so high,” explained Abdullah.
Recent seizures in and outside Viet Nam also suggest that most raw ivory is being supplied to China.
The main buyers of ivory were from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and Thailand, local Vietnamese, American-Vietnamese and Europeans, in that order.
“This insidious illegal trade is further threatening the highly endangered elephants of Asia and must be stopped,” said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of the Species Programme for WWF-International.
The report recommends that Viet Nam should comply with its obligations under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), particularly regarding the reporting of ivory seizures, that national regulations and their enforcement should be tightened and offenders prosecuted, and that ivory for sale in retail outlets should be confiscated by the government and destroyed.
The report also recommends better training for wildlife law enforcement officers and continued participation in the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and similar initiatives that aim to control the illicit trafficking of ivory and other wildlife products in the region.
The investigation into ivory trade in Viet Nam was supported by WWF-Netherlands, and the publication of the report, An assessment of the illegal ivory trade in Viet Nam, was supported by the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation.
Elephants under threat as illegal ivory price soars in Viet Nam
IUCN Press Release 16 Feb 09;
Indochina’s few surviving elephants are under increasing threat from booming illegal ivory prices in Viet Nam, according to a new market analysis released today by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network and joint programme between IUCN and WWF.
An assessment of the illegal ivory trade in Viet Nam said Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to USD1500/kg and small, cut pieces selling for up to USD1863/kg.
Most of the raw ivory was said to originate from the Lao Peoples’ Democratic Republic, with small amounts from Viet Nam and Cambodia.
“This is a worrying trend that indicates even more pressure is being put on already fragile Asian Elephant populations,” said Azrina Abdullah. Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia.
According to IUCN figures, no more than 1,000 elephants are believed to survive in Lao PDR, while in Viet Nam, fewer than 150 are believed to exist. In December 2008, TRAFFIC released a report that found evidence of widespread smuggling of live Asian Elephants and their ivory from Myanmar.
Mammoth ivory from Russia was also used in small quantities, but no African raw ivory was found, although it was still being illegally imported into Viet Nam up to at least 2004.
Trade in ivory was outlawed in Viet Nam in 1992, but a major loophole in the legislation exists because shops can still sell ivory in stock dating from the prohibition. This allows some shop owners to restock illegally with recently-made carved ivory.
In 2008, TRAFFIC surveyed 669 retail outlets across Viet Nam and found 73 (11%) selling a total of 2,444 ivory items. Whilst the scale of the ivory market was smaller than in previous surveys, there were signs of increasing demand and overall numbers of craftsmen had increased since 2001. Ho Chi Minh City had the most retail outlets (49) and ivory items (1,776), but Ha Noi, with only 10 outlets, had the highest number of craftsmen.
“Although fewer ivory items were seen in 2008 than in 2001, worked ivory is increasingly being sold directly to buyers through middlemen or on the Internet, bypassing retail outlets,” said Abdullah. “Continued demand for illegal ivory is driving the prices so high."
Recent seizures in and outside Viet Nam also suggest that most raw ivory is being supplied to China.
The main buyers of ivory were from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan) and Thailand, local Vietnamese, American-Vietnamese and Europeans, in that order.
“This insidious illegal trade is further threatening the highly endangered elephants of Asia and must be stopped,” said Dr. Susan Lieberman, Director of the Species Programme for WWF-International.
The report recommends that Viet Nam should comply with its obligations under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), particularly regarding the reporting of ivory seizures, that national regulations and their enforcement should be tightened and offenders prosecuted, and that ivory for sale in retail outlets should be confiscated by the government and destroyed.
The report also recommends better training for wildlife law enforcement officers and continued participation in the ASEAN Wildlife Enforcement Network (ASEAN-WEN) and similar initiatives that aim to control the illicit trafficking of ivory and other wildlife products in the region.
The investigation into ivory trade in Viet Nam was supported by WWF-Netherlands, and the publication of the report, An assessment of the illegal ivory trade in Viet Nam was supported by the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation.
For further information:
* Elizabeth John, Senior Communications Officer, TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, Tel: (603) 7880 3940, E-mail: jlizzjohn@yahoo.com
* Richard Thomas, Global Communications Co-ordinator, TRAFFIC International, Tel: +44 1223 279068, Email: richard.thomas@traffic.org
Rising Ivory Demand Threatens Asia Elephants - Study
PlanetArk 17 Feb 09;
SINGAPORE - Rising prices and strong demand for illegal ivory threaten the survival of Indochina's remaining elephants, according to a study by TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.
In the report, released on Monday, the group said they had surveyed 669 shops in Vietnam and found 11 percent selling nearly 2,500 ivory items.
Much of the raw ivory was said to have originated from neighbouring Laos, with the remainder from Vietnam and Cambodia. No raw African ivory was found.
"This is a worrying trend that indicates even more pressure is being put on already fragile Asian elephant populations," Azrina Abdullah, director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, said in a statement.
According to figures from the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are at most 1,000 elephants in Laos and about 150 in Vietnam.
An earlier TRAFFIC report found evidence of widespread smuggling of live Asian elephants and their ivory from Myanmar.
The latest TRAFFIC study found that Vietnamese illegal ivory prices could be the highest in the world, with reports of tusks selling for up to US$1,500 per kilogram and small, cut pieces selling for up to $1,863 a kg.
"Continued demand for illegal ivory is driving the prices so high," Abdullah said.
The report said the main buyers were from China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Thailand, local Vietnamese, American-Vietnamese and Europeans.
"Trade in ivory was outlawed in Vietnam in 1992, but a major loophole in the legislation exists because shops can still sell ivory in stock dating from the prohibition," said TRAFFIC in the statement.
"This allows some shop owners to restock illegally with recently made carved ivory," it said.
The report said there were fewer ivory items seen in shops in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi in 2008 than in 2001 during a similar survey. But it said worked ivory was increasingly being sold directly to buyers through middlemen or on the Internet, bypassing retail outlets.
It said Vietnam acceded to the UN convention that governs trade in endangered species and called on the government to close any loopholes that allowed the illegal ivory trade to flourish.
(Reporting by David Fogarty; Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
livescience.com Yahoo News 15 Feb 09;
Scientists have determined that at least 235 species live in both polar seas despite the 8,000 miles (13,000 km) between the ends of the Earth.
How some of the creatures wound up at the top and bottom of the planet is a mystery. Distance and habitat divisions - such as warm water between the two regions - are among the things that can separate creatures and lead to new species. A DNA analysis is underway to confirm if the like species are in fact identical, the researchers announced today.
The researchers also found evidence that cold water species are moving toward the poles to escape rising ocean temperatures. The project has also returned dramatic photos of species as wide-ranging as ice-loving sand fleas and an antifreeze Antarctic fish that can withstand temperatures that would freeze other fish.
Among the beasts that call both polar seas home are marathon migrators such as grey whales and birds. But the researchers, working on the ongoing Census of Marine Life, also found bipolar worms, crustaceans, and angelic snail-like pteropods.
"The polar seas, far from being biological deserts, teem with an amazing quantity and variety of life," said Ian Poiner, chair of the Census Scientific Steering Committee for the project.
Biologists from several nations have for the past two years worked on the census, at times braving 48-foot (16-meter) waves and frigid conditions.
"Only through the cooperation of 500 people from more than 25 countries could the daunting environmental challenges be overcome to produce research of such unprecedented scale and importance," Poiner said. "And humanity is only starting to understand the nature of these regions."
The team estimates there are 7,500 animals in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, and the total number of marine life species known globally is about 250,000. That number may eventually rise to about a million, scientists say. In general, other scientists have said they do not know how many species exist on Earth. The National Science Foundation estimates there could be anywhere from 5 million to 100 million species of life on the planet, but science has only identified about 2 million.
One result of the sea-life census: Researchers are beginning to understand how the polar seas act as incubators for life that sometimes ventures away from the poles as sea temperatures rise and fall over the eons. Last year they discovered that several octopus types have repeatedly colonized the deep sea, each migration coinciding with retreating Antarctic ice over 30 million years.
The scientists now theorize that the Antarctic regularly refreshes the world's oceans with many new creatures, including different varieties of sea spiders, isopods (crustaceans related to shrimp and crabs), and more. They believe the new species evolve when expansions of ice cloister around the south polar region; when the ice retreats, creatures radiate northward along the same pathways followed by the octopuses.
Meanwhile, the census finds smaller marine species are replacing larger ones in some Arctic waters. The reasons are unclear but the implications for the Arctic food web may be profound, the scientists said.
More photos: Rich Life Under the Sea
Study: 'Astonishing richness' in polar sea species
Michael Casey, Associated Press 16 Feb 09;
BANGKOK, Thailand – The polar oceans are not biological deserts after all.
A marine census released Monday documented 7,500 species in the Antarctic and 5,500 in the Arctic, including several hundred that researchers believe could be new to science.
"The textbooks have said there is less diversity at the poles than the tropics, but we found astonishing richness of marine life in the Antarctic and Arctic oceans," said Victoria Wadley, a researcher from the Australian Antarctic Division who took part in the Antarctic survey. "We are rewriting the textbooks."
In one of the biggest surprises, researchers said they discovered dozens of species common to both polar seas — separated by nearly 7,000 miles (11,000 kilometers). Now they have to figure out how they separated.
"We probably know more about deep space than we do about the deep polar oceans in our own backyard," said Gilly Llewellyn, leader of the oceans program for the environmental group WWF-Australia. She did not take part in the survey. "This critical research is helping reveal the amazing biodiversity of the polar regions."
Most of the new discoveries were simpler life forms known as invertebrates, or animals without backbones.
Researchers found scores of sea spider species that were as big as a human hand, and tiny, shrimp-like crustaceans in the Arctic basin that live at a depth of 9,850 feet (3,000 meters).
The survey is one of several projects of the Census of Marine Life, an international effort to catalog all life in the oceans. The 10-year census, scheduled for final publication in 2010, is supported by governments, divisions of the United Nations and private conservation organizations.
The survey — which included over 500 polar researchers from 25 countries — took place during International Polar Year which ran in 2007-2008.
Researchers endured up to 48-foot (16-meter) waves on their trip to the Antarctic, while their colleagues in the Arctic worked under the watchful eye of a security guard hired to protect them from polar bears.
New technology also helped make the expeditions more efficient and productive than in the past. Researchers used cell-phone-like tracking devices to record the Arctic migration of narwhals, a whale with a long twisted tooth, and remotely operated submersibles to reach several miles (kilometers) down into the oceans to study delicate marine animals that are impossible to collect.
As many as 235 species were found in both polar seas, including five whale species, six sea birds and nearly 100 species of crustaceans.
"We think of the Arctic and Antarctic as similar habitats but they are separated by great distances," said University of Alaska Fairbanks plankton ecologist Russ Hopcroft, who took part in the Arctic survey.
"So finding species at both ends of the Earth — some of which don't have a known connection in between — raises a whole bunch of evolutionary questions," he said.
Hopcroft and other polar researchers will now try to determine how long these species have been separated and whether they have drifted apart genetically.
David Barnes, of the British Antarctic Survey, said there a number of possibilities to explain how similar species live so far apart.
Some may have traveled along the deep-sea currents that link the poles or may have thrived during the height of the last ice age about 20,000 years ago when the polar environment was expanded and the two habitats were closer.
Hopcroft and Barnes cautioned that more work needs to be done to confirm whether the 235 species are indeed the same or differ genetically.
"Painstaking work by geneticists investigating both nuclear and mitochondrial genes will only be able to confirm this," Barnes said in an e-mail interview. "It may be they separated sometime ago but similar selective pressures have meant they have not changed much."
Creatures in both Arctic, Antarctic puzzle experts
Alister Doyle, Reuters 15 Feb 09;
OSLO (Reuters) - At least 235 types of cold-loving creatures thrive in both Arctic and Antarctic seas, puzzling scientists about how they got to both ends of the earth, a study showed on Sunday.
Until now, the warm tropics have been seen as a barrier keeping polar bears in the Arctic separate from penguins in the Antarctic. Only a few creatures have been known from both polar regions, such as long-migrating grey whales or Arctic terns.
"At least 235 species live in both polar seas despite an 11,000-km (6,835 miles) distance in between," according to the Census of Marine Life, a decade-long international project to map the world's oceans with results due in October 2010.
Species living at both poles include cold-water worms, crustaceans, sea cucumbers and snail-like pteropods. They make up two percent of the 7,500 Antarctic and 5,500 Arctic animals known to date, out of a global total estimated at up to 250,000.
"The Arctic and Antarctic are much more alike than we thought," Ron O'Dor, senior scientist of the census, told Reuters. Genetic studies were being carried out to confirm that the 235 species were identical.
The findings, along with a discovery that the frigid seas teem with life, raise questions about where common polar species "originated and how they wound up at both ends of the earth," the census said in a statement.
Among theories were that larvae of some species could be swept northwards from Antarctica by chill currents along the deep floor of the Atlantic Ocean -- away from warm surface waters in the tropics that would kill them.
GO NORTH
"Animals can be dispersed over such long distances at the deep sea floor," Julian Gutt of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany, a senior member of the census, told Reuters. "The most likely direction is from the Antarctic."
He said, however, that he knew of no finds of cold-loving species in the depths near the equator to back up the theory.
Ice Ages may have helped species disperse.
During Ice Ages, Antarctica's ice smothered surrounding seas and caused new northbound currents that could have carried species such as sea spiders or crustaceans known as isopods. Genetic studies have traced many types of octopus to an Antarctic ancestor.
Among other findings, researchers said smaller marine species of copepods, a sort of crustacean, were replacing larger ones in some Arctic waters, perhaps because of shifts linked to global warming.
"A change in these few species might impact the whole food system," Rolf Gradinger of the University of Alaska said. The larger copepods were key food for creatures such as whales and seabirds.
Among bizarre creatures, one of the Antarctic ice fish known as Chionodraco hamatus can withstand temperatures that would freeze the blood of other fish.
The census is seeking to lay down a benchmark for judging long-term shifts in the oceans. The U.N. General Assembly has asked for regular assessments of the oceans to gauge the impact of pollution, over-fishing and climate change.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Ice oceans 'are not poles apart'
Mark Kinver, BBC News 15 Feb 09;
At least 235 marine species are living in both polar regions, despite being 12,000km apart, a census has found.
Scientists were surprised to find the same species of "swimming snails" at both poles, raising questions about how they evolved and became so dispersed.
The census, involving 500 researchers from more than 25 nations, was carried out during International Polar Year.
The findings form part of the global Census of Marine Life (CoML) report, which will be published in 2010.
"Some of the more obvious species like birds and whales migrate between the poles on an annual basis," explained Ron O'Dor, CoML's co-senior scientist.
But he added the presence of smaller creatures, such as worms living in mud, sea cucumbers and "swimming snails", at both locations had particularly interested researchers on the project.
'Conveyor belt'
One of the swimming snails, or sea butterflies, found in the icy waters of both the Arctic and Antarctic was Cliona limacina .
The creature feeds on Limacina helicina , which is another swimming snail found in the waters of both poles.
Dr O'Dor said that although there was 12,000km separating the two habitats, it did not create a huge barrier for marine wildlife, as a mountain range does for terrestrial species.
"The oceans are a mixing ground," he told BBC News. "There are all kinds of currents that allow things to move around."
He also added that the temperature differences in the oceans did not vary enough to act as a thermal barrier.
"The deep ocean at the poles falls as low as -1C (30F), but the deep ocean at the equator might not get above 4C (39F).
"There is continuity in the ocean as a result of the major current systems, which we call the 'conveyor belt'; a lot of these animals have egg and larvae stages that can get transferred in this water."
'Barcode of life'
Dr O'Dor said that part of the CoML's work included examining organisms' genetic information, which would help the scientists to identify any differences between the seemingly identical species.
"The traditional approach was to describe an organism's physical features, so if these organisms lived in very similar habitats, did very similar jobs and ate similar food, then they often looked very alike even if they came from different origins.
"So we are also working very closely with the Barcode of Life team at the University of Guelph (Canada), and we hope that by 2010 that we will have about 90% of marine species barcoded."
The project aims to develop DNA barcoding as a global standard for identifying species using key genetic markers - much like a shop barcode uniquely identifies a retail product.
"It's a new way to mark or classify things," Dr O'Dor observed.
"Even though organisms look exactly the same and have been identified as being the same type by traditional methods, genetic information can reveal them to be a sub-species or different populations."
COML, which began back in 2000, carried out 17 regional censuses involving more than 2,000 scientists from 82 nations.
Currently, the census teams are collating and examining the data collected by the various surveys, ahead of the publication in October 2010 of the first global Census of Marine Life.
Global warming 'changing balance' of marine life in polar seas
Scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted have documented changes in species distribution in the polar regions as warmer oceans spur migration
Jessica Aldred, guardian.co.uk 15 Feb 09;
Global warming is changing the distribution, abundance and diversity of marine life in the polar seas with "profound" implications for creatures further up the food chain, according to scientists involved in the most comprehensive study of life in the oceans ever conducted.
Researchers from the Arctic Ocean Diversity (Arcod) project have documented rising numbers of warm-water crustaceans in the seas around Norway's Svalbard Islands. Arcod is part of the Census of Marine Life, a huge 10-year project involving researchers in more than 80 nations that aims to chart the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.
They say an increasing number of these species are extending their range towards the poles as previously cold waters between Norway and the North Pole become warmer and more hospitable.
The team, led by Dr Rolf Gradinger, from the University of Alaska, also collected evidence from the polar Chukchi Sea, between Russia and Alaska, which showed that at least three species have extended their range northwards by up to 500km. The most notable is the snow crab, which has crossed the Bering Strait and is occurring in the Chukchi Sea for the first time.
"This is an example of a general trend we are observing where water is warming further north and making this region more suitable for southerly species," Gradinger said.
The Census is a huge 10-year project involving researchers in more than 80 nations that aims to chart the diversity, distribution and abundance of life in the oceans.
The team also found that smaller species are replacing larger ones in some Arctic waters, a shift which could have profound implications further up the food chain.
"We are finding two smaller species of plankton. This difference in size is big enough to cause a problem for the breeding populations of birds and whales as they will be forced to eat smaller species that has less energy content."
Gradinger's team of scientists from the University of Alaska and the Shirshov Institute of Oceanology in Moscow has collected its findings over five years. Their research has been released in conjunction with another survey from the Census of Antarctic Marine Life (CAML) following a series of expeditions during International Polar Year 2007-08. Both projects will contribute data on polar regions to the global Census of Marine Life, which is due to be released in 2010.
"In oceanographical terms these [Arctic] changes are huge," said Gradinger. "A change in temperature of just a few degrees will see the loss of sea ice cover and with it the sea ice algae, small animals and crustaceans which depend on it. By 2050 the arctic oceans may be ice free, we will lose these animals and that will have implications further up the food chain."
"From an Arctic perspective it's not only about an increase in temperature, it's a complete change in the ecosystem - salinity, ice melt, flow, currents - all of these together will have an impact."
The Antarctic team also reported evidence that some species of pteropods - snail-like species also known as sea butterflies - are moving further towards the pole. "It is similar to the Arctic – animals adapted to cold water environments are having to head to the poles to keep to colder climes as northern waters warm," said Dr Julian Gutt of the CAML.
By comparing notes, Arcod and CAML scientists found that at least 235 species live in both polar regions despite being 6,800 miles (11,000km) apart. Marine life that both poles share includes grey whales, birds, worms, crustaceans and pteropods. Scientists say the discovery opens a host of future research questions over where they originated and how they ended up at opposite ends of the earth.
Another major finding from the 18 research expeditions conducted by CAML during 2007-08 has revealed that life on the seafloor around the Antarctic continent forms a single bioregion - not separate ecosystems, as previously thought. Sampling from 1m locations around the 5,300 miles (8,500km) of Antarctic seafloor - or benthos - has also confirmed that the system is united by a single high-speed current.
"These findings are a major part of new information because so little was really known historically about these regions," said Ron O'Dor, the chief scientist of the census.
Gradinger added: "It's extremely difficult to get information from polar seas because we don't have good historical data. But we must collect data now to evaluate the impact of climate change and the use of the seas for tourism, fishing and shipping. With the warming of Arctic commercial exploitation might increase and therefore it's important to document what species are occurring currently."
Scientists from around the world have been involved in 17 different marine projects that will inform the census, a 10-year project that will provide a snapshot of life in the world's oceans.
The Earth's ice oceans have already revealed some secrets that have excited scientists. Last year at team of British Antarctic Survey scientists working on the census found that seas surrounding an archipelago near the tip of the Antarctic peninsula are richer in animal life than the Galapagos Islands, challenging the notion that warm seas in tropical zones are higher in biodiversity.
In February last year, giant sea creatures, including sea spiders the size of dinner plates and jellyfish with six-metre long tentacles, were found by Australian scientists working on a census project in the deep waters around Antarctica.
Julie Steenhuysen, Reuters 15 Feb 09;
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Farmers and plant breeders around the globe are planting thousands of endangered seeds as part of an effort to save 100,000 varieties of food crops from extinction.
In many cases, only a handful of seeds remain from rare varieties of barley, rice and wheat whose history can be traced back to the Neolithic era, said Carey Fowler of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, who is speaking on Sunday at the American Association for the Advancement of Science meeting in Chicago.
"If we don't do the job right, they are gone," he said in an interview.
The effort, which Fowler thinks is the biggest biological rescue effort ever undertaken, is aimed at rescuing seeds stored under less-than-optimal conditions in underfunded seed banks as well as those threatened by human and natural disasters.
The rescuers hope to preserve seed samples that might provide genetic traits needed to fight disease or address climate change.
So far, the trust has agreements in place with 49 gene banks in 46 countries in Africa, Asia and the Americas. The deals cover some 53,000 of the 100,000 varieties that researchers believe are endangered, including rare varieties of bananas and plantains, potatoes, chickpeas, corn, coconuts, breadfruit, cowpeas and yams.
Once cultivated, the harvested seeds will be divided into three lots. One will remain in their native gene bank. Another will be sent to a gene bank meeting international standards for gene preservation.
And the third, which Fowler terms "the insurance policy," will be placed in the Svalbard Global Seed Vault in Norway, a $10 million facility in a cavern near the North Pole designed to keep the seeds frozen for 200 years even if mechanical refrigeration units fail.
"This is the biological foundation for agriculture," Fowler said. "It is the raw material that plant breeders use to help agriculture crops adapt to climate change, to drought or the next pest or disease, or simply be more productive in terms of yield."
(Editing by Patricia Zengerle)
Doomsday seed vault's stores are growing
Yahoo News 16 Feb 09;
CHICAGO (AFP) – The stores of seeds in a "doomsday" vault in the Norwegian Arctic are growing as researchers rush to preserve 100,000 crop varieties from potential extinction.
The imperiled seeds are going to be critical for protecting the global food supply against devastating crop losses as a result of climate change, said Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.
"These resources stand between us and catastrophic starvation," Fowler said. "You can't imagine a solution to climate change without crop diversity."
That's because the crops currently being used by farmers will not be able to evolve quickly enough on their own to adjust to predicted drought, rising temperatures and new pests and diseases, he said.
One recent study found that corn yields in Africa will fall by 30 percent by 2030 unless heat-resistant varieties are developed, Fowler noted.
"Evolution is in our control," he said in an interview. "It's in our seed bank. You take traits form different varieties and make new ones."
That process currently takes about 10 years. But Fowler said his organization is hoping to speed up the development of new varieties by cataloguing the genetic traits of the seeds that it stores.
Their gene bank -- dug into a mountainside near Longyearbyen, in the Svalbard islands in the far north of Norway -- will be made public to help spur research, which Fowler says is woefully inadequate.
"Six people in the world are breeding bananas. Ditto for yams, a major crop in Africa," Fowler said ahead of a presentation Sunday to the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Fowler said the Global Crop Diversity Trust has agreements with 49 institutes in 46 countries to rescue some 53,000 of the 100,000 crop samples identified as endangered.
Agreements for preserving the remaining varieties are expected to be completed soon.
They include rare varieties of barley, wheat, rice, banana, plantain, potato, cassava, chickpea, maize, lentil, bean, sorghum, millet, coconut, breadfruit, cowpea and yam.
The varieties most at risk are being stored in poorly funded seed banks in Africa and Asia where varieties are being lost due to inadequate refrigeration and the destruction of the facilities as a result of civil strife and natural disasters.
Researchers do not know how many varieties of crops have already been lost. But the industrialization of farming has had a major impact on crop diversity.
In 1903, US farmers planted 578 varieties of beans. By 1983 just 32 varieties remained in seedbanks.
"When you lose one of these samples you're losing something you can't find in a farmer's field," Fowler said.
"We can't afford to lose this diversity when it's so easy and cheap to conserve it."
Guy Newey Yahoo News 15 Feb 09;
HONG KONG (AFP) – In China, where dissent is often brutally suppressed, publicly shaming powerful corporations for destroying the environment is fraught with risk. Ma Jun treads carefully.
The author of "China's Water Crisis," a savage catalogue of the country's environmental collapse, Ma now takes the fight to polluters, shaming factories on a website run by his non-governmental organisation the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs (IPE).
And working out how far a small campaign group can push businesses -- and the officials who back them -- has become his specialty.
"There is a space there, but there is a line as well. The key is to understand both," said the soft-spoken 40-year-old.
"This is the Chinese condition. This is a country that has been ruled in a top-down way for thousands of years. Now you want to do things in a different way? We have to have some patience."
There is no doubting the severity of China's environmental crisis.
Centuries of slashing forests, diverting rivers and expanding agriculture were compounded by the arrival of the world's most polluting industries during the economic boom of the last 30 years.
More than 60 percent of China's rivers and lakes are now dangerously contaminated, according to official figures. The desert is spreading from the north and the World Bank says 20 of the world's 30 filthiest cities are in China.
China's senior environment official Zhou Shengxian has said there were more than 50,000 public disturbances linked to pollution in 2005, state media reported, the last year any figures were released.
Despite the groundswell of anger, Ma is adamant any environmental progress must be measured.
"We want to see change, but we also want to see that this does not sink China into total chaos," he said.
The World Bank estimates the cost of air and water pollution is about 5.8 percent of the country's GDP, prompting new central government policies.
Tougher rhetoric has been followed by stringent targets, major clean-ups and reforestation programmes.
There is also increased tolerance of critical media coverage of environmental issues and a wary acceptance of small-scale international and local NGOs.
But enforcement remains woefully lax, and Ma -- who was named one of Time magazine's 100 most influential people in the world in 2006 -- hopes public scrutiny can pressure polluters to clean up, as it has in the United States.
"Public participation is the key to dealing with our environmental problems," said Ma, who studied at Yale University in 2004.
"The pre-condition for any meaningful participation should be to allow those who are affected to have access to the information."
Using government statistics the IPE has created a map highlighting 30,000 violators of air and water regulations. Firms can only be removed after a third-party audit.
While Ma uses only government-approved data, his approach has still provoked angry responses from businessmen and occasionally from local officials.
"There are some extreme cases when they created a certificate with a chop (an official stamp) saying the company is 'basically OK' within hours (of being named on the site)," said Ma. "These are awkward moments."
Ma's gentle and legalistic approach is crucial.
"When they learn that all the data come from the government I think many of them feel more at ease," he said.
Inducements have been offered -- in a "delicate" way, Ma said -- by those convinced the website is an elaborate shakedown.
"It is the traditional Chinese way of doing things," said Ma, who says he has never taken a bribe.
Ma Jun was born in Qingdao, a city on China's east coast. He grew up in Beijing, where his father, an aerospace engineer, encouraged him to learn English from one of the first foreign-language radio programmes.
He studied English and journalism at university before becoming an assistant in the South China Morning Post's Beijing bureau.
Travelling with the paper's correspondents, he witnessed the toll China's economic boom was taking, prompting the research that developed into his 1999 book.
The discord between the idealised versions of the country's natural richness that fill Chinese literature and the brutal scarring of the landscape Ma saw inspired the groundbreaking study.
"It was an astonishing book. China's equivalent of 'Silent Spring' (the 1962 book by Rachel Carson credited with helping launch the environmental movement in the United States)," said Mark O'Neill, a colleague during the 1990s, who added Ma's calm approach was crucial to the NGO's success.
"He has made the maximum use of the space, but without getting himself arrested or getting locked up. This takes great intelligence and savvy."
Most of the companies the website pinpoints are Chinese, but multinationals with operations in China have also been named.
Ma hopes the website will challenge the argument, repeated by big firms, that the complexity of modern supply chains prevents proper monitoring.
"From now on you cannot say 'I do not know'," said Ma, who runs IPE out of a small Beijing apartment.
US giant General Electric (GE) has used the site to check suppliers, and said it could even help find new customers.
"I think it could be an opportunity where we may be able to use some of our technology to help turn around a factory," said Albert Xie, head of GE's Ecomagination project in China, which develops environmentally-friendly business opportunities.
Last summer, Ma's NGO launched the Green Choice Alliance Programme where corporations commit not to take goods from suppliers who flout environmental regulations.
The aim is to give a competitive advantage when selling goods and stop firms having to obsess about low costs.
"If they only care about quality and pricing and nothing else, you push (suppliers) to cut corners," he said.
Multinationals are crucial to any genuine progress, Ma said.
Former Wal-Mart chief executive officer Lee Scott said in Beijing last year the firm would require suppliers to ensure the factories they buy from receive the highest ratings in audits of environmental and social practices by 2012.
"That is the game-changer," said Ma.
"If you are below legal discharge standards you are out of the game. Only by adopting it can you compete," Ma said.
Ma is realistic about the challenge of cleaning up China's pollution -- "We still haven't seen the turning point," he said -- but he believes there is a genuine desire for improvement.
"At the time I wrote my book, it was not just officials, many ordinary people believed we needed to get rich before we deal with our environmental problems," he said.
"Recently, things have changed," he said, adding a database like his would have been "unimaginable" only eight years ago.
Indeed, just the fact that green NGOs are allowed to organise -- impossible for democracy or labour rights campaigners -- indicates a real commitment.
Ma resists any comparison with environmental groups in eastern Europe at the end of the Soviet era, some of which acted as Trojan horses for nascent democratic movements.
"I am sure that it is a worry for the government," he said, nevertheless repeating his mantra of gradual change.
"(Foreigners) are observers, they want to see things changing faster. But to us, we are part of it. We need to make sure this thing does not sink into chaos," he said.
Reuters 15 Jan 09;
BEIJING (Reuters) - China, faced with widespread water shortages exacerbated by its worst drought in decades, aims to cut the amount of water it uses to produce each dollar of national income by 60 percent by 2020, state media said.
The target, unveiled by Water Resources Minister Chen Lei, underlines Beijing's growing concern over chronic water shortages that it fears could undermine its ability to feed itself and crimp economic growth in the long run.
"We must take strict measures to preserve water resources in the face of the severe lack of water worsened by factors such as overuse, pollution and drought," the official Xinhua news agency quoted Chen as telling a conference on Saturday.
Chen did not give details on how Beijing would improve efficiency, but he said the ministry would tighten management of water resources and take measures to reduce waste.
Specifically, the government plans by 2020 to reduce to 125 cubic meters (27,500 gallons) the amount of water used for each 10,000 yuan ($1,460) of gross domestic product, Chen said.
The water efficiency target follows similar ones announced earlier for cutting pollution and increasing energy efficiency, as Beijing seeks to get away from what it concedes is an unsustainably resource-intensive growth model, marked by an overreliance on heavy industry.
For instance, the government aims to reduce energy intensity -- the amount of fuel needed to generate each dollar of national income -- by 20 percent by 2010.
Xinhua cited official statistics as showing that China on average lacks 40 billion cubic meters of water each year, leaving over 200 million farmers short of drinking water and large swathes of farmland too dry to grow crops on.
A severe drought currently affecting large parts of the country has underscored the seriousness of the problem, creating acute drinking water shortages for nearly 5 million people, according to the Office of Flood Control and Drought Relief.
In one part of drought-hit Henan province, more than 3,000 villagers are currently forced to trek over two hours round-trip to fetch water, Xinhua said in a separate report on its website on Sunday.
Authorities are looking to massive water diversion projects to ease chronic shortages in Beijing and other parts of northern China, including a South-North Water Diversion Project.
Yet outright shortages of water are exacerbated by water pollution, which leaves many of its rivers unfit for irrigation.
(Reporting by Jason Subler and Li Jiansheng; Editing by Tomasz Janowski)
Peter Martell Yahoo News 14 Feb 09;
MIRINDANYI, Sudan (AFP) – It seems such a simple task: pumping the handle of a water borehole up and down until the clear and cool liquid splashes into the plastic container.
And in the dry and dusty southern Sudanese village of Mirindanyi, they have been celebrating doing just that since their pump was installed last year.
But it was not always this way. Beforehand, "it took two hours to the river to collect the water, then two hours back," said Floris Fazir, pausing to heave a 20-litre container on her head.
"In the dry season, we got the water from a scraped well on the river bed, and that was dirty. We would get sick often. But water from the borehole is sweet to drink."
Southern Sudan, an oil-rich but grossly underdeveloped region about the size of Spain and Portugal, is slowly recovering after years of bloody north-south civil war.
Four million people were displaced from or within south Sudan during the 21 years of battle, according to assessments made after the 2005 peace deal which joined the southern rebel leadership with the Arab-led northern government.
Some 1.7 million people have since returned, according to the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), but the lack of services remains dire.
Provision of drinking water "remains the top priority in all areas of returns," the IOM said in a January report, warning that almost a quarter of villages surveyed relied on river water as their main source.
But for communities such as Mirindanyi -- a typical farming settlement some 190 kilometres (120 miles) west of Juba, capital of semi-autonomous southern Sudan -- even river water vanishes during the dry season from December to March.
Without a borehole, water was collected from shallow and dirty wells scraped into the river bed.
"Before, the school would close in the dry season because the children would be collecting water all day," mother of eight Grace Justin said of the thatched classroom by the borehole.
She and her family could carry back just 40 litres a day -- for 10 people. Basic World Health Organisation sanitation guidelines say people should have at least 20 litres a day each, and that the source should be less than a kilometre (0.6 miles) from the home.
"We had only enough for cooking and drinking, not for washing," Justin said.
Mirindanyi was a frontline zone during the civil war, with rebel and government forces battling back and forth through the remote bush, and villages in the area were abandoned for years.
Development has always been a rarity in the region. Residents say the long and rocky track to the village has been untouched since the British colonial authorities ordered it built before Sudan's independence in 1956.
"We want to provide a good water supply close to every village," said Helen Turkie, area head of the Southern Sudan Refugee and Rehabilitation Commission, the government authority supporting humanitarian development.
"Along with schools and health centres, these are what the people need."
But boreholes do not come cheap.
"Each costs at least 13,000 dollars (10,000 euros) -- more if it is deep," said Augustino Buya, local programme manager for the British aid agency Oxfam which funded the Mirindanyi borehole, one of 340 it has drilled in south Sudan since the war ended.
Demand is also heavy, and huge areas remain without clean water supplies. "Each is designed to cater for 500 people, but many are being used by even 3,000," Buya added.
The presence of boreholes has already had an impact on health, reducing sickness including water-borne diseases, officials say.
In the local community health centre at Dosho, volunteer worker Godwin Jimma scanned down the neat ruled lines of the register.
"There has been a decrease in diarrhoea since we stopped collecting the water from the river," Jimma said.
"Fewer children are dying now," he added, pausing by the baby-weighing scale hanging in the simple tin-roofed building.
Maintenance is a major problem, however. The metal pumps are basic designs, and heavy use in tough conditions puts great strain on them. More than 40 percent of boreholes in villages assessed by the IOM were not working.
In nearby Wanpi, women walked wearily through the dry grass. Their pump was broken, dozens of people had descended on the village for a celebration, and now they faced hours of back-breaking work fetching water.
"I check everything is working fine and do regular maintenance, but I can't do complicated repairs," said Bullen Tio, trained as a "water caretaker" by Oxfam. This time an engineer must be called out to fix the broken Wanpi pump.
Water carrying is women's work, and while the borehole in Mirindanyi has cut down the hours needed for that, there are always other tough tasks they must do such as tending the crops, washing, gathering firewood and cooking.
"It has helped them," said elder Supana Juruba, lay priest of the village's thatched-hut church, nodding towards one woman pumping water. "Now there is more time for them to do other work."
The boreholes are changing lives.
"Carrying water was such hard work. Now I get to lie in the morning in bed -- more time with my husband," said grandmother Monica Elizai with a big wink and a toothless laugh.
The government is expected to give the go-ahead to the coal-burning Kingsnorth power plant. Here, one of the world's foremost climate experts launches an excoriating attack on Britain's long love affair with the most polluting fossil fuel of all
Comments (301)
James Hansen, The Observer 15 Feb 09;
A year ago, I wrote to Gordon Brown asking him to place a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants in Britain. I have asked the same of Angela Merkel, Barack Obama, Kevin Rudd and other leaders. The reason is this - coal is the single greatest threat to civilisation and all life on our planet.
The climate is nearing tipping points. Changes are beginning to appear and there is a potential for explosive changes, effects that would be irreversible, if we do not rapidly slow fossil-fuel emissions over the next few decades. As Arctic sea ice melts, the darker ocean absorbs more sunlight and speeds melting. As the tundra melts, methane, a strong greenhouse gas, is released, causing more warming. As species are exterminated by shifting climate zones, ecosystems can collapse, destroying more species.
The public, buffeted by weather fluctuations and economic turmoil, has little time to analyse decadal changes. How can people be expected to evaluate and filter out advice emanating from those pushing special interests? How can people distinguish between top-notch science and pseudo-science?
Those who lead us have no excuse - they are elected to guide, to protect the public and its best interests. They have at their disposal the best scientific organisations in the world, such as the Royal Society and the US National Academy of Sciences. Only in the past few years did the science crystallise, revealing the urgency. Our planet is in peril. If we do not change course, we'll hand our children a situation that is out of their control. One ecological collapse will lead to another, in amplifying feedbacks.
The amount of carbon dioxide in the air has already risen to a dangerous level. The pre-industrial carbon dioxide amount was 280 parts per million (ppm). Humans, by burning coal, oil and gas, have increased this to 385 ppm; it continues to grow by about 2 ppm per year.
Earth, with its four-kilometre-deep oceans, responds only slowly to changes of carbon dioxide. So the climate will continue to change, even if we make maximum effort to slow the growth of carbon dioxide. Arctic sea ice will melt away in the summer season within the next few decades. Mountain glaciers, providing fresh water for rivers that supply hundreds of millions of people, will disappear - practically all of the glaciers could be gone within 50 years - if carbon dioxide continues to increase at current rates. Coral reefs, harbouring a quarter of ocean species, are threatened.
The greatest danger hanging over our children and grandchildren is initiation of changes that will be irreversible on any time scale that humans can imagine. If coastal ice shelves buttressing the west Antarctic ice sheet continue to disintegrate, the sheet could disgorge into the ocean, raising sea levels by several metres in a century. Such rates of sea level change have occurred many times in Earth's history in response to global warming rates no higher than those of the past 30 years. Almost half of the world's great cities are located on coastlines.
The most threatening change, from my perspective, is extermination of species. Several times in Earth's history, rapid global warming occurred, apparently spurred by amplifying feedbacks. In each case, more than half of plant and animal species became extinct. New species came into being over tens and hundreds of thousands of years. But these are time scales and generations that we cannot imagine. If we drive our fellow species to extinction, we will leave a far more desolate planet for our descendants than the world we inherited from our elders.
Clearly, if we burn all fossil fuels, we will destroy the planet we know. Carbon dioxide would increase to 500 ppm or more. We would set the planet on a course to the ice-free state, with sea level 75 metres higher. Climatic disasters would occur continually. The tragedy of the situation, if we do not wake up in time, is that the changes that must be made to stabilise the atmosphere and climate make sense for other reasons. They would produce a healthier atmosphere, improved agricultural productivity, clean water and an ocean providing fish that are safe to eat.
Fossil-fuel reservoirs will dictate the actions needed to solve the problem. Oil, of which half the readily accessible reserves have already been burnt, is used in vehicles, so it's impractical to capture the carbon dioxide. This is likely to drive carbon dioxide levels to at least 400 ppm. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide - coal - it will be practical to bring carbon dioxide back to 350 ppm, lower still if we improve agricultural and forestry practices, increasing carbon storage in trees and soil.
Coal is not only the largest fossil fuel reservoir of carbon dioxide, it is the dirtiest fuel. Coal is polluting the world's oceans and streams with mercury, arsenic and other dangerous chemicals. The dirtiest trick that governments play on their citizens is the pretence that they are working on "clean coal" or that they will build power plants that are "capture-ready" in case technology is ever developed to capture all pollutants.
The trains carrying coal to power plants are death trains. Coal-fired power plants are factories of death. When I testified against the proposed Kingsnorth power plant, I estimated that in its lifetime it would be responsible for the extermination of about 400 species - its proportionate contribution to the number that would be committed to extinction if carbon dioxide rose another 100 ppm.
The German and Australian governments pretend to be green. When I show German officials the evidence that the coal source must be cut off, they say they will tighten the "carbon cap". But a cap only slows the use of a fuel - it does not leave it in the ground. When I point out that their new coal plants require that they convince Russia to leave its oil in the ground, they are silent. The Australian government was elected on a platform of solving the climate problem, but then, with the help of industry, it set emission targets so high as to guarantee untold disasters for the young, let alone the unborn. These governments are not green. They are black - coal black.
The three countries most responsible, per capita, for filling the air with carbon dioxide from fossil fuels are the UK, the US and Germany, in that order. Politicians here have asked me why am I speaking to them. Surely the US must lead? But coal interests have great power in the US; the essential moratorium and phase-out of coal requires a growing public demand and a political will yet to be demonstrated.
The Prime Minister should not underestimate his potential to transform the situation. And he must not pretend to be ignorant of the consequences of continuing to burn coal or take refuge in a "carbon cap" or some "target" for future emission reductions. My message to Gordon Brown is that young people are beginning to understand the situation. They want to know: will you join their side? Remember that history, and your children, will judge you.
• James Hansen is director of Nasa's Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. He was the first scientist to warn the US Congress of the dangers of climate change
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 15 Feb 09;
PARIS (AFP) – New studies have warned of triggers in the natural environment, including a greenhouse-gas timebomb in Siberia and Canada, that could viciously amplify global warming.
Thawing subarctic tundra could unleash billions of tonnes of gases that have been safely stored in frosty soil, while oceans and forests are becoming less able to suck carbon dioxide (CO2) out of the atmosphere, according to papers presented this weekend.
Together, these phenomena mean that more heat-trapping gases will enter the atmosphere, which in turn will stoke global warming, thrusting the machinery of climate change into higher gear.
Researchers in Finland and Russia discovered that nitrous oxide is leaking into the air from so-called "peat circle" ecosystems found throughout the tundra, a vast expanse of territory in higher latitudes.
CO2 and methane account for the lion's share of the gases that have driven global temperatures inexorably higher over the last century.
Nitrous oxide, or N2O, is far less plentiful in volume, but 300 times more potent as a greenhouse gas than CO2. It accounts for about six percent of total global warming, mainly due to a shift toward chemical-intensive agriculture.
In experiments near the Russian city of Vorkuta, Pertti Martikainen of the University of Kuopio in Finland and colleagues found that N2O leaked as a result of cryoturbation, a process that occurs when frozen soil is thawed and then refreezes.
"There is evidence that warming of the Arctic will accelerate cryoturbation, which would lead to an increased abundance of peat circles in the future," said their paper, published on Sunday in the journal Nature Geoscience.
"This would increase N20 emissions from tundra, and therefore a positive feedback to climate change."
Research presented Saturday at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Chicago suggested that the frozen soil of the tundra stored far more greenhouse gas that previously thought.
"Melting permafrost is poised to be a strong foot on the accelerator pedal of atmospheric CO2," said Chris Field, a professor at Stanford and a top scientist on the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC).
"The new estimate of the total amount of carbon that's frozen in permafrost soils in on the order of 1,000 billion (one trillion) tonnes," he said.
By comparison, the amount of CO2 that has been released through the burning of fossil fuels since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is around 350 billion tonnes.
The greenhouse gases in the tundra, which also includes methane, come from the decayed remains of vegetation that died long ago.
Meanwhile, new research on the Southern Ocean surrounded Antarctica suggest that the sea, a vital "carbon sink," is sucking up less CO2 than before.
Nicolas Metzl, a researcher at the French National Research Institute, said fierce winds -- aggravated by climate change and gaps in the ozone layer -- were churning the sea, which brought CO2 to the surface and released it into the air.
This adds to previous research that points to the sea's drooping effectiveness as a carbon sponge, he said.
"Today, human activity injects about 10 billion tonnes of CO2 per year into the atmosphere, compared to around six billion in the early 1990s," said Metzl.
"Before we had an ocean that captured some two billion tonnes -- about a third. Today we are below two billion tonnes," less than a fifth of the total, he added.
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