Floating Dutchmen tackle global warming

Russia Today 21 Feb 09;

Melting Arctic glaciers, rising sea levels and disappearing land - these are some of the effects of global warming. But it seems that the Dutch have found how to keep afloat.

You can hear the maritime birds from the small village of Peten on the shores of the Netherlands and you can feel the cool coastal breeze, but you can’t see the sea.

The view is hidden behind a massive 13-metre wall. The dyke currently protects the village from floods, but scientists say that soon it will not be able to cope with the rising sea level and, if immediate action is not taken, the only inhabitants will be fish and ducks.

“If we don’t do anything, we’ll have 65% of our people in danger and practically a half of the Netherlands might be flooded,” says Dr Cees Veerman, Chairman of the Delta Committee.

That’s because a third of the country lies below sea level. And with water levels predicted to rise by more than a metre before the end of the century, and by up to four metres in the next one, most dykes already built won’t be enough.

But the Dutch are well-versed in trying to hold back the tide, so if a more watery world becomes a reality, the inhabitants of the town of Maasbommel are prepared. They use amphibious houses which rise with the water, thus keeping their inhabitants dry. Then, when the floods abate, they sink back to their original positions.

The houses have a hollow concrete cube at the base, which keeps them floating, while a central pile anchors them to the ground so the house can’t drift away.

Cees Westdijk, owner of one such house, says that even though the house needs more maintenance such as painting, he sees it as a good investment.

In the Netherlands, one of the most densely-populated countries in Europe, demand for land is high, so instead of fighting the water, Dutch architects are now building on it – and not just houses.

“We are now working on a floating greenhouse of five hectares, that’s 50,000 square metres and in that greenhouse you can also drive around in a car, because it’s so big,” says Johann van der Pol, Dura manager of the Vermeer Construction Company.

The company’s ambitious plan is to build an entire floating city with houses, offices, stadiums and even roads.


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Two whales stranded in Central Java

Kaliayu fishermen bury two stranded whales
The Jakarta Post 21 Feb 09;

Fishermen and local villagers in Kaliayu village, Central Java, buried two whale carcasses on Saturday after failing at an attempt to push back the stranded sea creatures to sea.

Khumaedi, a local veterinarian, said the two whales were stranded alive at a beach near the village since Friday morning.

“The villages tried from afternoon until night time to push the whales back to sea. It didn’t work because the whales were too heavy. Finally, on Saturday morning the two whales died. At noon, the villagers buried the whales together near where they were found,” he said as quoted by Antara news agency.

Khumaedi explained the size of whales were almost identical, about 6.4 meters in length and weigh 1,500 kilograms each, he said.

“The weigh, however, might be slightly different as one of the whales was a female, which usually bigger than males,” he said.

When asked whether the recent bad weather had anything to do with the whales being stranded, Khumaedi said the case was unlikely.

“There’s a small chance that it was caused by the bad weather because in the last two to three days the sea waves had returned to its normal level. The fishermen have also sailed to sea,” he said.

Instead, he speculated that a natural disaster had occurred within the sea.


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Best of our wild blogs: 21 Feb 09


27 Feb (Fri): Free screening of "Remember Chek Jawa"
on the wild shores of singapore blog

The Youth Habitat Portal
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Feathered Friends at NUS
on the Running with the Wind blog

Of nesting shift duties and Coppersmith Barbets (Part 2)
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Climate crisis OUR problem
on the Straits Times Blogs by Jessica Cheam

Seen on STOMP: Two trees share one root
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog

Seletar homes and residents wanted by photographer
on the Postcards from Seletar blog

Giant Borneo Snake?
on the wild shores of singapore blog


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Asia needs to change climate policy game: Simon Tay

David Fogarty, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Asia needs to wake up to the threat of global warming and take a leading role in climate change negotiations or risk having rich nations dictate policies to curb carbon emissions, a leading policy expert said on Friday.

Simon Tay, Schwartz Fellow of the U.S.-based Asia Society, said the current U.N. climate negotiations under the Kyoto Protocol had become bogged down because of deep differences between rich and poor nations on how to fight climate change.

"My impression is that it has become a dialogue between the deaf and the dumb," he told a conference on sustainability in Singapore.

"When we look at the Kyoto regime it cannot seem to work just because it is limited to only Annex 1 developed countries," said Tay, who is also chairman of the Singapore Institute of International Affairs.

Under Kyoto's first phase, only 37 industrialized nations are committed to cutting emissions by an average of about 5 percent from 1990 levels between 2008-2012.

Nearly 200 nations will meet at the end of the year to try to seal a broader agreement to replace Kyoto and bind big developing nations and the United States to emissions curbs.

The new deal is due to be wrapped in Copenhagen by December but is at risk of failure because poorer nations won't commit to emissions curbs unless rich countries do much more to rein in carbon pollution and pay for adaptation and the transfer of clean-energy technology.

On Friday, U.N. climate panel chief R.K. Pachauri told Reuters a deal placing a strict emissions regime on rich nations was likely in Copenhagen despite pressures to dilute the climate fight in times of a global financial slowdown.

But developing nations now emit more than half of mankind's greenhouse gas pollution, the Global Carbon Project says in its latest report.

"No matter how deep the cuts are in the developed world, no matter how much they try to mitigate climate change, every good thing that is done there could easily be offset, and more, by rapid unsustainable growth in Asia," Tay said.

Asia has three of the world's top 5 emitters of greenhouse gases: Japan, India and China, with the latter widely believed to have surpassed the United States as the top carbon polluter.

Tay said Asian governments needed to better assess the threats of climate change and understand that they did not have to choose between development or tackling global warming.

"Unless Asia gets its act together and starts changing the game we will be dictated to by the developed countries once America comes on board," he said, using the image of mediaeval lords telling peasants what to do.

President Barack Obama has spoken of a "planet in peril" and says he will cut U.S. emissions back to 1990 levels by 2020. He also aims to cut emissions by 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050.

NOT A DISTANT THREAT

Tay said regional governments needed to look beyond national interests.

"We need to encourage more and more states to see that their national interests and the global concerns aren't necessarily against each other."

People in Asia also needed to understand climate change was not a distant threat.

"For too many people the perception of climate change is the grandfather clock. It's a long time coming," he said.

"Whereas the emerging science is of the stop-watch, that changes need to be happening now."

He also said governments need to change the mindset that linked growth with burning fossil fuels, saying the region was locked in a triangle between growth, energy and carbon.

One solution was to create a global cap-and-trade scheme for carbon emissions based on per-capita pollution, Shreekant Gupta of Singapore's Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, told the conference.

He said the Kyoto process was flawed because it involved too many nations and should focus on a deal between the big emitting nations. A deal should also focus on transferring wealth to poorer nations by allowing them to sell excess emissions rights.

"A global deal on climate change is about income transfer. There needs to be some hard-bargaining about money," he said.

(Editing by Valerie Lee)

It’s not the ‘great validator’
Expert says don’tuse climate as excuse for protectionism
Alicia Wong, Today Online 21 Feb 09;

VIETNAM, Thailand and Indonesia have all announced definite plans, while Singapore is not ruling it out, even though building a nuclear power plant was once not an option.

But this is the kind of “false solution” that countries must avoid when they tackle the issue of climate change, according toSingapore Institute of InternationalAffairs chairman Simon Tay.

“Evolving issues” such as this are being decided without much debate on the environmentalhazard, economic costs and safety issues — instead of being discussed during climate change negotiations, said Professor Tay.

Focusing on the wrong type of projects is one concern; using climate change as an excuse — or the “great validator” — for protectionist measures during this downturn is another for the former National Environmental Agency chairman.

For example, could a country with a carbon tax regime for its manufacturers impose import tariffs on another that has none, claiming to level the playing field for companies, he wondered.

These were among the tricky climate change issues that were discussed on Friday at the inaugural National Sustainability Conference 2009 attended by 250 participants from Government, business, academia and civil society.

One thing that conference speakers agreed on: The need for immediate, urgent action rather than a gradual approach.

Associate professor Shreekant Gupta from the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy called for deep cuts in greenhouse gas emissions “sooner not later”.

But while the global conference on climate change later this year in Copenhagen needs to deliver an agreement with “effective, not cosmetic reductions”, he does not expect all the desirable amendments to the Kyoto Protocol to be achieved.

His prediction is that a global cap-and-trade system based on per capita greenhouse gas emissions will emerge eventually, whereby countries who emit more than the cap can buy credits from those who pollute less.

But a per capita limit would affect countries with a small population producing large amounts for another country, noted Prof Tay —a fitting description for Singapore. “Asia has been a vast production base for a lot of consumption elsewhere. In that equation, who is the polluter?” he questioned.

On this, Assoc Prof Gupta felt that exports still boost national income.

Still, the likes of Singapore, could play a helpful, larger role in climate change issues, said speakers at the conference organised by the National University of Singapore.

Speakers suggested the Republic could bring together developed nations and large Asian countries to form agreements on tackling environmental challenges, as well as focus on technological innovations in this field and leverage on her sophisticated financial sector to help develop the global carbon market.


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Singapore committed to developing Seletar Aerospace Park

Jonathan Peeris/ Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia 21 Feb 09;

SINGAPORE: Singapore will press on with development plans for the Seletar Aerospace Park and grow the research and development (R&D) efforts for the aerospace industry.

The aviation industry has taken a nosedive amid turbulent economic conditions. But the Economic Development Board (EDB) believes that long-term prospects remain positive.

President of the Association of Aerospace Industries of Singapore, Charles Chong, said: "There are many areas where there are opportunities and I think research and development is one of them.

"We have to find new methods to do things more efficiently, to reduce costs and so on. It will be a pity if companies because of this current economic problems cut back on that, then we will never improve."

For one, Singapore is pressing ahead with plans to develop the 300-hectare Seletar Aerospace Park.

The park will host maintenance, repair and overhaul activities, as well as some manufacturing and other aviation businesses.

Giving an update on the project, the EDB said upgrading works on the Seletar Airport have started last month. And it will take about 18 months to complete the extension of the runway to 1.8 kilometres. This will allow larger aircraft to land at the airport.

The Aerospace Industries Association said the Seletar Park and similar developments in China and India will see the Asia-Pacific region taking a higher stake of the global aerospace pie.

Infrastructure aside, observers said industry players must keep up with new technologies.

Deputy director of A*STAR's Science and Engineering Research Council, Jasbir Singh, said: "I think this lull period is a time where we are trying to get more people to come on board, and hopefully by reducing their risk in investing in these ideas on their own, they can work with us."

Eight companies signed up with the council's aerospace R&D programme on Friday.

They will look into areas such as the development of intelligent sensors, advanced materials for aircraft bodies, improvements for maintenance, repair and overhaul practices.

- CNA/yt


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Bike on train? No problem

Commuters didn't mind our reporter travelling with a folding bike
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 21 Feb 09;

SMILING faces all around.

One woman even gave up her seat on the train so that I could take a seat next to my bicycle.

I was pleasantly surprised. Travelling with my foldable bike from Simei to Toa Payoh was almost a breeze.

Madam Karen Seah, 50, who was on her way to Toa Payoh at about 10am on Tuesday, said: 'I think it's good that only foldable bikes are allowed because, otherwise, it takes up too much space.

'It's a good thing to promote a healthy lifestyle, especially during holidays. Students like my son will want to go riding.'

The foldable bicycle scheme was approved after a six-month trial from May to November last year.

Currently, bikes are allowed on board only between 9.30am and 4.30pm, and 7.30pm and the end of operating hours. The timings will be revised to between 9.30am and 4pm, and 8pm and the end of operating hours from 15 Mar.

There are other guidelines that commuters need to follow.

During the trial, an average of 70 foldable bicycles were taken on board trains each week, and two bicycles on board public buses, said the Land Transport Authority (LTA).

At the same time, LTA conducted on-site surveys of over 1,000 bus and train commuters. Eight out of 10 train commuters and seven out of 10 bus commuters supported allowing foldable bikes on board during off-peak hours.

With the folded bicycle weighing at least 5kg, wheeling it around was not that easy.

While waiting to board SBS bus service 232 from Toa Payoh Hub at about 10.15am, my bicycle was the topic of conversation among two fellow commuters who were also waiting for the bus.

One of them said that buses nowadays are spacious enough for foldable bicycles. He was right.

However, if I had done my experiment during peak hours, it would have been a different story.

I found, however, that other commuters have to be understanding - I need more time when boarding or alighting the bus since I had to carry my bicycle.

Mr Jeremy Yap, LTA's group director for vehicle and transit licensing, said the foldable bicycle scheme is possible 'owing to the social graciousness and mutual accommodation of commuters'.

Mr Tommy Lam, 34, who owns a foldable bicycle, said: 'I am very happy because LTA and the transport operators recognise that there is a niche group of foldable bike cyclists who commute to work or leisure by public transport.

'I am lucky that my work starts from noon, so I can use my foldable bike to get to work.'

However, given that bicycles are only allowed during off-peak hours, this may prevent quite a lot of commuters from using their bicycles to go to work.

Moving forward, the transport operators may want to consider having buses that have external bike racks on the front and back.

This was the type of bus that was in use while I was studying near San Francisco in the US about 10 years ago.

It would allow for more than one bicycle to be on the bus at any one time. It would also not take up valuable space from commuters.

At present, if there's more than one person with a foldable bicycle waiting for the same bus, one of them will have to wait for the next bus.

Miss Tan Peng Ting, a graduate student, 27, had commuted using a bicycle daily in the US. While she applauds the scheme here because it's 'better than nothing', she thinks that the timings can be adjusted.

# The public can share their views on this scheme by contacting LTA via 1800-call-LTA (2255582), feedback@lta.gov.sg or SMS 77LTA (77582).

Don't block the way on train, bus

Here are some guidelines commuters with folding bikes have to follow:

# Foldable bicycles should be folded at all times in the MRT/LRT stations, bus interchanges/terminals and on trains and buses.

# They should not exceed 114cm by 64cm by 36cm when folded.

# The wheels should be wrapped up if they are dirty or wet.

# They should not block the aisles and doors or impede commuter movement at any time.

# When travelling by train, cyclists should use the first or last car, which is less crowded.

# Cyclists should use the lifts and wide fare gates at MRT/LRT stations where these are available.

# Foldable bicycles are not allowed on the upper deck of a bus or to be placed on the staircase leading to the upper deck.


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Are Singapore airport solar panels cost-effective?

Straits Times Forum 21 Feb 09;

I REFER to the report, 'Solar energy for Budget Terminal' (Feb 12).

I am pleased that Changi Airport's Budget Terminal is taking the green route and plans to use solar energy to meet part of its electricity needs. Towards this end, the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) is inviting tenders to convert electricity from direct sunlight on the terminal's roof. I am sure the response will be good.

However, several things puzzle and concern me after reading the report. Savings from the solar panel are estimated at about $60,000 a year, which is at least 10 per cent of the electricity consumption cost for lighting at the Budget Terminal.

The report states further that one photovoltaic (PV) panel costs about $10,000, which produces one kilowatt of energy or enough power to boil just a kettle of water. The report also states that there is little additional cost to maintain PV panels and large storage batteries.

A pertinent point that was not addressed in the report is the payback period, that is, return on investment (ROI). How long will it take CAAS to recover the money it is spending on the PV panels? From my calculations, the ROI will be 10 to 20 years.

I suggest that CAAS review the merits of spending public funds on such a project. While I support the initiative to save energy, it should not be done at an exorbitant cost. To me, the proposal makes neither commercial nor business sense. All it does is waste taxpayers' money.

I am sure there are alternative, more cost-effective energy-saving solutions available, which would offer CAAS a better ROI as it seeks to reduce energy costs and consumption.

The aviation industry faces great turbulence and, to deal with the challenges ahead, CAAS will be corporatised later this year. Amid the tough operating environment, it seems unwise to invest in projects that are less than cost-effective.

Balbeer Singh

Solar project aims to lower airport's carbon footprint too
Straits Times Forum 12 Mar 09;

I REFER to Mr Balbeer Singh's letter, 'Are airport solar panels cost-effective?' (Feb 21).

Mr Singh highlighted his concerns on the viability of the solar photovoltaic (PV) test-bedding project at the Budget Terminal.

The project is undertaken with the aim of not only saving energy but also helping to lower Changi Airport's carbon footprint through the use of clean energy. The Budget Terminal has been chosen for the project because it has a large, unobstructed roof that is most suited for tapping solar energy for the test-bedding project.

This project is also part of the national drive for Singapore to embark on viable green technologies.

As Mr Singh is probably aware, the Government is encouraging the local industry to implement green initiatives through various incentive schemes. As part of this effort, the project is supported by the Economic Development Board's (EDB) Clean Energy Research and Test-bedding (Cert) programme.

The data gathered from this project will also be used by the Singapore Polytechnic, EDB's appointed research organisation for the Cert programme, for further research on solar energy systems in Singapore.

We thank Mr Singh for his valuable feedback.

Fong Kok Wai
Director
(Engineering and Real Estate Development)
Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore


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Australian plan tells developers to weigh up years of sea change

Ben Cubby and Wendy Frew, Sydney Morning Herald 21 Feb 09;

EVERY new beachside home, coastal apartment block and piece of infrastructure on the coastline of NSW would have to be re-examined under a State Government draft policy on rising sea levels.

The draft document, to be released today, contains guidelines for local councils which say the impact of rising sea levels should be assessed "over the life of an asset", meaning that long-term developments would need to take sea-level rise into account for decades into the future.

The policy will put developers and insurance companies on notice that scientific advice from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the CSIRO is now the state's benchmark, and that this can be updated as scientific predictions change. The benchmark says sea levels in NSW can be expected to rise up to 40 centimetres by 2050. This would affect many thousands of homes and subject low-lying areas to the "Venice effect", according to an earlier State Government report on the issue. It would lead to worse flooding and damage to coastal infrastructure, the Government said.

It is not clear how the policy will effect a controversial section in the Government's Environmental Planning and Assessment Act, which allows the State Government to have the final say on large developments and override council planning laws.

That section of the act - part 3A - attracted criticism this week when it became clear developers were using it to trump local government planning restrictions on building in bushfire prone areas.

However, the Government said there would be no regulatory or statutory requirement for developments to comply with the rising sea level benchmarks.


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Malaysian Environmental Auditing, Management Plan For Logging

Bernama 20 Feb 09;

MIRI, Feb 20 (Bernama) -- Timber companies would soon be required to undertake environmental auditing and management plan as prerequisite to carry out activities in Sarawak, state environment assistant minister Dr Abang Abdul Rauf Abang Zen said.

He said the move to enforce the prerequisites would come as additional assurances that all logging companies were committed towards protecting the environment while carrying out activities.

In a press conference at the state natural resources and environment board (NREB) office here today, Dr Abang Abdul Rauf said the NREB would hold a dialogue with Sarawak Timber Association (STA) members in Kuching on March 3 to explain details of the requirement.

He said under the current practice, only the environmental impact assessment (EIA) study was imposed before any logging activity was carried out.

"However, this alone is not sufficient as it has been manipulated by certain timber companies," he added.

Abdul Rauf said that under the Sarawak Natural Resources and Environment Ordinance, only companies licensed to carry out logging in 500 hectares or more were required to undertake the EIA.

He said this left those with smaller logging plots with no commitment to protect the environment.

He said timber companies could benefit from these prerequisites as people around the world were concerned about the environment and bought timber only from those which practised environmental-friendly logging activities.

In addition to the prerequisites, Dr Abang Abdul Rauf also planned to implement an Integrated Watershed Management Plan (IWMP) to regulate land usage activities within the Bakun Hydroelectric Project catchment area.

Concerns over commitment towards environmental protection came up recently after recent NREB studies at Bakun in Belaga had confirmed that logging and land clearing activities were the main cause of high level of suspended solids in the Belaga, Balui and Baleh Rivers.

The increased solid presence had suffocated and killed hundreds of fish and other life in tributaries of Batang Rajang, Malaysia's longest river.

-- BERNAMA


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Vietnam plants ‘green walls’ to fight rising seas

Vietnam News 20 Feb 09;

HAI PHONG — Northern Hai Phong port city is intensifying efforts to expand plantation of submerged forests along its coastline in a bid to boost defences against storms and the rising sea level.

A survey conducted by the Hai Phong Agriculture and Rural Development Department found mangroves covered more than 3,000ha along the city’s coast, 2,000ha less than in the 1997-2000 period.

According to a recent survey by a United Nations body, Hai Phong and HCM City face the greatest threat from rising sea levels.

The growth of mangrove is believed to be an effective measure to create ‘green walls’ to mitigate the effects of rising sea levels.

The Government recently approved a plan for the city to grow 2,800ha more to mitigate losses incurred by the rising sea water level.

Dr Phan Nguyen Hong, from the Submerged Forest Ecosystem Research Centre, said Viet Nam must restore and protect these forests, mainly comprised of mangroves, to mitigate losses caused by rising sea water levels.

"It is one of the most urgent tasks," he said.

A report from the International Panel on Climate Change revealed that the global warming was accelerating the meltdown of ice at both the south and the north poles, which in turn is resulting in rising sea levels. It’s thought that up to 12.2 per cent of Viet Nam’s land is under threat of being encroached by the sea, also endangering the lives of 17 million people by the end of this century.

Hong warned that much of the nation’s submerged forests had been severely damaged by shrimp farming and the building of tourist and industrial areas.

While Viet Nam had more than 400,000ha of this kind of forest in 1943, the figure dropped to 279,000ha in 2006.

While mangrove areas in Hai Phong extended across more than 5,000ha in the late 1990s, a lot of mangroves have been cleared to make way for shrimp farms. Lax land management is believed as a major factor leading to the loss of mangroves.

Deputy Director of Hai Phong Agriculture and Rural Development Department Nguyen Van Tung said the department had advised the city People’s Committee to build a strategy aimed at coping with the rising sea level by planting more mangroves. According to the Government, it costs about VND10 billion ($625,000) to restore about 2,900ha of mangroves in the city’s coastal land.

The funds for Hai Phong’s mangrove expansion will come from the State budget, and are also part of a total sum of VND2,740 billion ($171 million) targeted for growing mangroves for natural disaster prevention. The State has already approved the funds for the mangrove project.

The Agriculture and Rural Development Ministry is carrying out an overall plan worth VND1.9 trillion (US$109 million) to restore mangroves along the nation’s coastline by 2015. —VNS


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Orissa to set up centre to study sea turtles

The Hindu 20 Feb 09;

Discovered in march 1994 by the scientists of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and State Wildlife Organisation of the forest department, the rookery at this place is given much importance as at present there are very few places left in the world, where this type of endangared sea turtle breed in such a large number.

Berhampur (PTI): Orissa government has proposed to set up a research centre at Rushikulya river mouth to study the endangered Olive Ridley sea turtles.

The proposed site in Ganjam district is one of the three major nesting places of the Olive Ridley in the State and thousands of them come ashore for mass nesting.

The high power committee on protection of the Olive Ridley had recommended setting up of the research centre and the government has proposed to establish it at Rushikulya mouth, B.K. Patnaik, Orissa's Chief Wildlife Warden said.

Experts including Priyambada Mohnaty Hezmadi and senior research fellow Chandra Sekhar Kar are preparing the project report on the proposed research centre.

"Setting up of a research centre is necessary to know the migration route of the turtles as well as their other activities during the mating season and nesting period. Although there are two other rookeries in the State — Gahirmatha and Devi River Mouth — Rushikulya Mouth has been selected as the favourable site for the proposed research centre," Patnaik said. "The site is very approachable and is one of the largest mass nesting sites in the world."

Experts, however, said there were no basic facilities to camp in the beach to conduct research work at present.

A record number of about 2.5 lakh Olive Ridleys in a 3-km stretch beach from Gokharakuda to Purunabandha have already laid their eggs, A.K. Jena, Divisional Forest Officer, Berhampur said. The mass nesting started from monday night and continued till thursday morning.

Orissa Governor, M.C. Bhandare had visited the rookery on Wednesday to witness the unique scene of nesting.

Discovered in march 1994 by the scientists of Wildlife Institute of India (WII) and State Wildlife Organisation of the forest department, the rookery at this place is given much importance as at present there are very few places left in the world, where this type of endangared sea turtle breed in such a large number. Apart from the Indian coast, such mass nesting was observed in Costa Rica and Mexico.

Though it is considred as the second largest rookery after Gahiramatha beach, Rushikulya Mouth is yet to receive due attention from the government, experts said.

However, the government has agreed to make a budgetary provision for the protection of ridleys as well as for the development of the site, Patnaik said.


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Closing the net on illegal fishing

BBC News 20 Feb 09;

"The problem of illegal fishing is enormously widespread," observes Michael Lodge, an OECD fisheries expert.

"We have estimated the problem as being as much as 20% of the global catch."

Since 2000, the UN has been warning about the grave consequences of overfishing in the world's seas.

However, the impact of illegal fishing is adding to the strain on the already overexploited oceans.

The skippers of the illegal fishing boats tend to favour the waters of some of the poorest nations, which are often inadequately policed as a result of a lack of resources.

The Atlantic Ocean, off the coast of West Africa, is one of the most fertile fishing grounds in the world.

For centuries, the waters have supported generations of small coastal communities, but as the world's appetite for fish continues to grow, the rich fishing grounds have attracted the attention of illegal vessels.

Almost half of the boats in the area are estimated to be operating outside the law.

Marine conservationist Helen Bours, who has been tracking illegal and unlicensed boats for more than 20 years, says that it is a hidden world of which very little is known.

"These vessels are at sea for years," she tells Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report programme on the BBC World News Channel.

"They transfer their fish on to other vessels, they get refuelled at sea; even the crews are changed at sea.

"So nobody sees what's happening, and there's nobody to go there and tell them to respect the rules. It's another world."

Fisheries experts from the UK government have attempted in recent years to assess the scale of the problem.

"In 2005, we commissioned a major study of the impact of illegal fishing on developing nations," said Tim Bostock, a fisheries advisor for the UK's Department for International Development.

"We were able to derive a total figure for the value of fish stolen from the world each year. This figure was of the order of US $9bn (£6.3bn).

Taking stock

Two inspectors from Guinea, during an expedition organised by Greenpeace and the Environmental Justice Foundation, headed out to sea with a list of the vessels authorised to fish the nation's waters.

From the air, a group of Chinese trawlers was spotted and after a quick check it was found that one of the vessels was not licensed.

"This vessel is under arrest for fishing without a licence in Guinean waters," explained Helen Bours.

"They never expect a surveillance patrol to come that far from shore because they know the Guinean authorities don't normally have the means to come out this far."

During the month-long expedition, about half of the 92 vessels spotted in the region were found to be fishing illegally.

Many of the unlicensed boats use huge weighted nets with a very fine mesh. These are scrapped along the sea bed, scooping up everything in their path.

This method catches a very large amount of juvenile fish, wiping out the chance of these creatures reaching sexual maturity and spawning future generations to replenish the fish stocks.

Not only is the problem threatening the long-term economic opportunities for the region, it is depriving the population of a very valuable source of protein.

"It's stealing the fish, killing people and endangering the marine environment and the fish stocks; not just here but all over the world," said Ms Bours.

The precise figure for the number of vessels fishing illegally is unknown, but officials are worried that the size of the unlawful fishermen greatly exceeds most national fishing fleets.

"China is the largest fisher in the world, and the illegal fishers would come second," says Joe Borg, the EU fisheries commissioner.

"So we are speaking of fishing carried out legally by bodies like the EU, Chile and Peru being outranked by illegal fishing.

"We are speaking of a very, very big problem."

The Television Trust for the Environment's (TVE) Earth Report - Stolen Fish - will be broadcast on the BBC World News Channel on 20-25 February 2008. Please check schedules.


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'Algae-eating fish' used to clean up Chinese lake

Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

SHANGHAI (AFP) – Chinese authorities have again turned to algae-eating fish in a bid to clean up a pollution-linked blue green bloom on one of the country's most scenic lakes, state media reported Friday.

Taihu Lake in eastern China has seen a re-emergence of algae growth that forced authorities to cut water supplies to 2.3 million residents of the nearby city of Wuxi in 2007, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

About 10 million fish, including green carp and silver carp, will be released into the lake as part of a 7.4 million-yuan (1.1 million-dollar) effort, Lin Jianhua, head of the Taihu Lake Fishing Administration was quoted as saying.

However, it would take 10 times that amount of fish to clean up the entire 2,400 square-kilometre (900 square mile) lake, he was quoted as saying,

A silver carp could consume 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of algae and other plankton while gaining only one kilogramme (2.2 pounds) in weight, Lin said.

The lake in Jiangsu province, long celebrated through Chinese history as one of the country's most scenic bodies of water, has been massively polluted by the dumping of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste.

Although authorities have invested five billion yuan in pipes to prevent sewage from being dumped into the lake, the degradation of the water remains a major problem, Lin was quoted as saying.

Millions of algae-eating fish have been used to clean up Taihu and other lakes before, with previous efforts hailed as a bonanza for the local fishing industry despite the suspicions of eating fish that feasted on toxins.

The 2007 water crisis made Taihu a symbol of China's nationwide problem of deteriorating water quality, with even Premier Wen Jiabao publicly calling for the lake to be cleaned up.

Algae blooms are common on many Chinese freshwater lakes and are chiefly caused by untreated sewage containing high concentrations of nitrogen, a main ingredient in detergents and fertilisers.

Like much of China's environment, water quality has suffered severely amid the nation's breakneck economic growth over the past two decades.


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Most wars hit world's rich wildlife areas

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most wars in the last half-century occurred in places that shelter some of the most biologically diverse and environmentally threatened wildlife on Earth, a new study reported on Friday.

These include the Vietnam war, when the use of the defoliant Agent Orange destroyed forest cover, and timber harvesting that funded wars in Liberia, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the study in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.

Eighty-one percent of major armed conflicts from 1950 to 2000 happened in 34 regions known as biodiversity hot spots, which contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, the study said.

A total of 23 of the 34 hot spots saw warfare in the second half of the 20th century, the study found.

More than 90 percent of major wars -- those resulting in more than 1,000 deaths -- occurred in countries that contain one of the 34 identified hot spots, the study found.

These centers of endangered wildlife often are located in poor countries with dense human populations, which put pressure on the natural and political environment in normal times, study author Russell Mittermeier said in a telephone interview.

"You're looking at a very fragile platform on which human and other life depends," Mittermeier said. "And any slight perturbation for political reasons, or whatever, results in stress within the human populations. And very often that erupts into violent conflict."

WAR REFUGEES BECOME HUNTERS

Refugees from wars in and around biodiversity hot spots can add to the problem by hunting for food, cutting trees for firewood and building camps in these endangered environments.

Mittermeier, president of the environmental organization Conservation International, pointed to Madagascar as an example where immediate violent conflict threatens biodiversity.

"We have to be ready to respond and to persist during times of political turmoil, because it's not always going to be stable," said Michael Hoffmann, a conservation biologist with Conservation International and a co-author of the study.

"When you're in the middle of a war zone, obviously your number one priority is to stay alive," Hoffmann said by telephone. "But that's why one of the key things that we emphasize (is) to be there in times of conflict and not just pack your bags and say, oh, it's too difficult."

The study did not specify what caused the extraordinary correlation between wars and regions of endangered biodiversity, but said this needed further investigation.

The study's authors urged conservation groups and the broader international community to work with military, reconstruction and humanitarian programs in conflict zones.

More information on the 34 biodiversity hot spots is available online at www.biodiversityhotspots.org. (Editing by Vicki Allen)

8 in 10 conflicts in environmental 'hotspots': study
Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Most conflicts fought in the second half of the last century were waged in biologically diverse, fragile places, with many negative consequences and a few surprising positive ones, a study said Friday.

A team of international conservation scientists found that 81 percent of conflicts fought between 1950 and 2000 in which at least 1,000 people died played out in "biodiversity hotspots" from the Himalayas in Asia to the coastal forests of east Africa.

The hotspots contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened, said the study, which was published in Conservation Biology magazine.

Of the 34 such hotspots around the globe, only 11 escaped armed conflict during the 50-year period, the authors said.

Conflicts often play out in the hotspots because fighters take advantage of the cover provided by deep forests and high mountains.

And the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has increased conflict's impact on the world's fragile zones.

During the Vietnam War, for example, the United States used herbicides to exfoliate 14 percent of the southeast Asian country's forests and more than half of its coastal mangroves in a bid to deprive the enemy of shelter and sustenance, according to the study.

The impact on the key areas extends "far beyond the actual fighting," said Thor Hanson of the University of Idaho, the lead author of the study.

"War preparations and lingering post-conflict activities also have important implications for biodiversity hotspots and the people who live there," he said.

The proliferation of small arms -- the weapon of choice in most conflicts -- leads to "increased hunting for bushmeat, wildlife products and sport, often by the soldiers themselves," the study says.

In Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been wracked by conflict on and off since 1960, hippopotamus herds in Virunga National Park have been nearly wiped out by poachers, and the huge central African country's rich mineral resources have been plundered by fighters to fund the conflicts.

The humanitarian crises that inevitably accompany conflicts also impact the environment.

"During the civil war in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, over two million refugees flooded camps in neighboring countries, and the demand for fuelwood led to the deforestation of more than 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) -- or 74,000 acres (30,000 hectares) -- of land in Virunga National Park," the study says.

"Delays in repatriation and the persistence of unexploded ordnance can last for decades, perpetuating the environmental impacts of the conflict," it says.

But amid the destruction of war, the study highlights a silver lining for the environment: altered human activity in conflict areas "sometimes creates tangible conservation opportunities," it says.

The demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea is a good example of how conflict can be a friend to the environment.

The four-kilometer (2.4-mile) wide stretch of no man's land between the two neighbors has been uninhabited for decades and become a "de facto nature reserve harboring numerous threatened species," the study says.

But its authors stress that although there are a few conservation opportunities associated with conflict, "this does not mean warfare is good."


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How TB Jumps From Humans to Wildlife -- Vet Seeks Clues

Helen Fields, National Geographic magazine 20 Feb 09;

In ordinary circumstances, Kathleen Alexander would gladly have let her two kids run around the front yard on their own. But during her stint as senior wildlife veterinary officer for Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks from 1995 to 2001, things were not exactly normal. Their front yard was Chobe National Park, a 4,000-square-mile (10,360 square-kilometer) park in northern Botswana with lots of free-ranging wildlife. Alexander always went outside with her children, so they wouldn't get "smushed by an elephant."

But one sunny day in June 2000, she encountered a different problem: two banded mongooses, so thin their ribs stuck out, wandering around the sand pit where the children liked to play. These groundhog-sized animals are common through sub-Saharan Africa, but they run away from humans. Alarmingly, these mongooses weren't afraid of her. "It was clear they were sick," she recalled.

Alexander trapped one of the animals and tested it. Her tests revealed it was sick with tuberculosis—the human version. For the first time, free-range wild animals were confirmed to have contracted a human disease.

(For more on non-human strains of tuberculosis read "Lions in South Africa Pressured by TB Outbreak, Hunters.")

It's well known that diseases can—and do—move from animals to people. Avian influenza, which comes from birds, was first confirmed in humans in 1997. But the opposite had never been proven for wild animals, although animals in captivity were sometimes known to get human illnesses.

Tracking TB in Mongooses

Tuberculosis (TB), a highly contagious disease that spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or spits, is a serious problem across southern Africa. Most people in Botswana are infected by the time they are adults. Tuberculosis and HIV often go together; many people with AIDS actually die of TB. The towns of Kasane and Kazungula, next to Chobe National Park, are no exception. Those towns are also infused with wildlife. Warthogs wander the streets and mongooses are common.

Alexander believes mongooses probably pick up the bacteria that cause tuberculosis by nosing around human waste. They like to investigate possible food sources by sticking their noses straight into garbage piles, septic tanks, and sputum. Alexander thinks bacteria get into tiny cuts on their noses, then spread through their bodies. Unlike humans, who can be infected with tuberculosis for years, mongooses appear to sicken and die immediately.

Since that first discovery in 2000, Alexander, who now teaches at Virginia Tech, has been tracking tuberculosis in Chobe National Park's mongooses with support from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. She hopes to learn more about how the mongooses get infected with tuberculosis and how they fit into the park ecosystem. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

Most of the mongooses in the park now sport GPS collars that record their movements. "Following them on foot is just not possible because of all the elephants and lions," Alexander said. She hopes to figure out what they do all day and who their major predators are. Maybe domestic dogs hang out with mongooses in the wild, which would mean they could carry deadly bacteria back to their owners. Or perhaps scavengers like hyenas are getting tuberculosis from mongoose carcasses.

In the meantime, tuberculosis outbreaks among mongooses continue. Alexander has documented five since 2000, and dozens of animals have died. One troop that hangs around a tourist lodge had more than 20 healthy animals eight years ago; after a 2008 outbreak, only seven remain. In 1996, scabies, a parasitic skin disease, was found in rare mountain gorillas that live along the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The gorillas are a popular ecotourism attraction and get a lot of visits from researchers and rangers, too. Veterinarians who studied the outbreak concluded that the gorillas probably caught the parasites from humans (although they couldn't rule out the possibility that other animals were the source). One baby gorilla died. A more deadly human disease could wipe out an entire family of gorillas.

Animal diseases in humans have been well documented. Avian flu is a constant worry. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which in 2003 made people around the world flinch at every cough, probably originated in bats. HIV started as a primate virus and, according to the most commonly accepted theory, probably jumped to hunters when they killed, butchered, and ate infected chimpanzees.

It makes perfect sense that diseases would also go the other way, said University of Georgia epidemiologist David Stallknecht: "Humans are really putting a lot of infectious material on the ground, so it's just a no-brainer" that wild animals would sometimes get human illnesses. And not just in Africa—it could happen anywhere animals and people come into contact.

So why had it never been confirmed before Alexander encountered two sick mongooses in Botswana? Probably, Stallknecht said, because no one was looking.

In fact, there are plenty of examples of animals in captivity getting diseases from the humans they spend their days with. Zookeepers who work with primates know to stay home—or wear a face mask—when they have a cold, so their charges don't catch the sniffles.

Contagious diseases are a problem with less closely related animals, too. In 1996, three circus elephants from an Illinois farm died of tuberculosis; the bacteria that infected them was identical to that in the sputum of one of their human handlers who had the disease. Now elephant farmers in the U.S. are required to test the animals every year, checking for tuberculosis bacteria with a procedure called a "trunk wash."

Could Risks Boomerang Back to Humans?

As humans keep moving into wildlife territory for tourism or because of population pressures, they'll probably bring more disease to wild animals, warns Kristine Smith, a wildlife veterinarian who works on global health at the Wildlife Conservation Society. "More and more, some of the last wild places in the planet are heavily bordered by dense communities," she said—in many cases, desperately poor communities with little access to health care, and often no running water or sewers.

Researchers are also concerned that a human disease in wildlife might provide bacteria or viruses with another haven in which to evolve and combine with other pathogens, which could make them more dangerous later. For example, said Alexander, it's possible that tuberculosis could evolve to be more virulent when it enters a new host.

Human disease transmission to wildlife could come back around to hurt humans, too, Smith said. "If they're contracting diseases that we can get, they're going to be spreaders. Someone can give an animal a disease, and someone else can get it."

At this point, no infectious diseases have been shown to jump from humans to wild animals and back again; it may not happen often. Some of the diseases that jump may be relatively harmless to animals, or may not get back to humans at all—but scientists just don't know enough yet about how diseases move around.

Alexander hopes new genetic tests that can detect a long list of pathogens at once will give her and other scientists a an easy way to find human diseases in wildlife and determine their prevalence, leading to a clearer picture. "It seems improbable that every other animal is linked up in terms of pathogen transmission, but we don't give [diseases] to anybody else," she said. She hopes her work will help other wildlife experts and epidemiologists understand how to better protect free-ranging animals from human disease—and ultimately stop them from bringing it into our front yards.

Conservation Concerns

Banded mongooses aren't in danger of going extinct. They live across southern Africa in large numbers. But if a disease can jump from humans to one wild animal, it could do the same with others. A new human disease could be disastrous for an endangered species. That includes a lot of primates. Since they're so closely related to humans, it's not hard for them to get our diseases.



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New Butterfly Discovered with Mustache Disguise

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

A mustache on a butterfly has tipped off curators at the Natural History Museum in London that a specimen in their collection for 90 years actually belongs to a new species.

A curator found the disguised insect, initially collected from the dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia, among the 3 million butterfly specimens at the museum where it had lain undiscovered.

Blanca Huertas compared the mustachioed specimen with a recently found wild specimen, allowing her to identify the older specimen as Splendeuptychia ackeryi, or Magdalena valley ringlet, whose distinguishing feature is unusually hairy mouthparts. (The name ackeryi is dedicated to Phil Ackery, the former collection manager of the butterfly collections at the museum.)

"We have almost 9 million butterflies and moths in our collections, a comprehensive example of the Earth's diversity," Huertas said. "But there are many new species still waiting to be discovered, both in museum collections and in the field."

Huertas discovered the new species in the wild when she travelled, with two colleagues, on an expedition to a remote mountain in Colombia in 2005. The entomologists did not realize, however, that the butterfly they had seen in Colombia had not been named and described until they returned to the England and studied the specimens in the Museum's collections, dating from 1920.

Butterflies are a diverse group of insects with almost 20,000 known species, 40 percent of which are in South America, Huertas said.

The description of the new butterfly is published in the latest issue of the journal Zootaxa. The expedition to Colombia was supported by the BP Conservation Programme, BirdLife International, Conservation International, Flora & Fauna International, Wildlife Conservation Society, Rio Tinto plc, Duke of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, Fundación ProAves and many other Colombian institutions.


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Recycling: we could all save cash and the planet by improving rubbish system

Councils and communities are already reaping the beneift of a scheme to change behaviour and reduce environmental impact

Trewin Restorick, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09

This week we learned from the Local Government Association (LGA) that supermarkets are still producing excessive food packaging. Landfill sites across the globe are overflowing with our rubbish, and local councils and their residents are paying the price in landfill tax. The LGA argues that supermarkets should pay towards the collection of their packaging as an incentive to cut back. Yet, with such a sharp focus on supermarkets, it's easy to overlook what else can be done.

Every year UK households throw away the equivalent of three million double-decker buses – almost 30m tonnes – of rubbish. If lined one in front of the other, the queue would stretch from London to Sydney and back. While supermarkets have a lot to answer for, individuals also have the power to make decisions that will reduce their household waste. Local authorities need to look closer to home and ensure there are practical measures in place to help residents reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible.

Crucial though recycling bins and collections are, it's also vital that local authorities inform and support their residents to make sure they are doing all they can at an individual level.

Research has shown that people are more likely to recycle if they see people, and organisations, around them doing it. We need to take advantage of the way in which individuals can inspire and encourage one another.

This approach is already having an impact in local authorities that are part of Global Action Plan's EcoTeams programme, which works to change behaviour and reduce environmental impact at community level through education, training and support. Small groups of households, or EcoTeams, meet regularly over a six-month period to reduce their impact on the environment. During these meetings the teams receive guidance on waste and shopping as well as energy use, transport and water. They set themselves achievable targets, and support each other in meeting them.

The results speak for themselves. Independent academic research shows that households who participate in EcoTeams programmes reduce their waste by an average of 20%. They are more likely to buy products that can be recycled over products that cannot, and try to buy products with minimal or no packaging. Local councils only need to do the maths to see that they could make themselves huge savings on recycling and landfill costs if all households in their area were doing the same.

And it's not just local councils that could be saving money. EcoTeams households make a saving of around £150 a year on their energy and water bills by reducing their gas and electricity consumption – a considerable sum in these difficult economic times.

So what is it that makes the EcoTeams programme work so well? We all know that we should be doing more to reduce our impact on the environment, but for most of us this remains a good intention which never becomes a reality. For EcoTeams members, the secret of the programme's success is being part of a group, where they will receive both support and pressure to change their behaviour.

Evidence shows that EcoTeams participants continue to carry out the pro-environmental actions for months and years after finishing the programme, and it's the focus on small but significant changes to existing lifestyles that makes these changes more likely to be sustained long term.

Rather than simply telling people what to do, we need to motivate, engage and involve them. What better way to do this than bringing people together to support and encourage one another? The Local Government Association should be commended for highlighting the need to reduce waste in the UK – but it is overlooking the unlocked potential of our local communities in helping to achieve this.

Trewin Restorick is chief executive of Global Action Plan, an independent environmental charity that encourages consumers to behave in a more environmentally responsible way.


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Environment ministers to tackle mercury pollution

Daniel Wallis, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

NAIROBI (Reuters) - More than 140 nations agreed on Friday to negotiate a legally binding global treaty to phase out the use of deadly mercury, a toxic heavy metal that threatens the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The deal came at a major U.N. meeting of environment ministers in Kenya after President Barack Obama's new administration said on Monday the United States had reversed its stance on the issue and was now in favor of a legal ban.

"This is truly good news and I hope that citizens across the world will embrace this decision," U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) head Achim Steiner told a news conference.

"Today the world's environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over but the time for action on this pollution is now."

About 6,000 tons of mercury -- which has been known for more than a century to damage the human nervous system -- enter the environment every year. Mercury's other effects include liver damage, memory loss or disturbances to vision.

Of the total, 2,000 tons is from coal burned in power stations and homes. Increased coal use in Asia means emissions may be rising, UNEP experts fear.

Western countries have slashed their usage of mercury, but activists say poorer nations are increasingly relying on it for processes including small-scale gold mining.

The new agreement covers a package of measures aimed at reducing demand in industrial products and processes, while also seeking to cut emissions to the atmosphere and clean up contaminated sites.

The European Union had already called for an international treaty, and hopes were high ahead of this week's meeting that the new U.S. government would reverse its predecessor's stance and support that. Some states favor a voluntary approach.

Preparations for negotiations on the treaty will start later this year, officials said, with discussions beginning in earnest in 2010 and aiming to wrap up by 2013.

Anti-mercury campaigners hailed Friday's unanimous agreement, saying the U.S. U-turn had encouraged other countries, notably India and China, to back the proposal.

"This was made possible by President Obama's global view and the inspiration and momentum generated by it," said Michael Bender, director of the U.S. Mercury Policy Project and the Zero Mercury Working Group.

Breakthrough deal to end global mercury pollution
• Treaty to reduce supply of mercury and its use in products
• Deal seen as first success of new Obama administration

Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09;

Environment ministers overcame seven years of obstacles today and committed to reducing the world's mercury pollution.

In a sign of America's return to a global leadership role, United Nations environment ministers meeting in Nairobi agreed to take immediate steps to limit exposure to mercury.

The White House said it would press hard for a legally binding treaty when negotiations get under way later this year.

"The United States will play a leading role in working with other nations to craft a global, legally binding agreement that will prevent the spread of mercury into the environment," said Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House council on environmental quality.

The Bush administration had blocked international efforts to limit mercury - although such protections are in place in America.

Mercury, which can travel thousands of miles from its original source, damages the central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and babies.

The treaty will include measures to reduce the supply of mercury and its use in products, such as thermomenters, and processes, like paper making. It will also seek to cut back on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for about half of the world's mercury pollution.

The new-found consensus in Nairobi, which saw the US, India and China lifting their resistance to a binding global mercury treaty, raised hopes for progress later this year at the crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen on an international climate change deal.

"There was a seismic shift from the American government from its previous position," said Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the UN environment programme. "It was clear from the beginning of this week that the US negotiators had been given a clear line from Washington, and indeed the White House, to come together with the rest of the world and do something."

"The US has taken a leadership role that will chart a new course on mercury protections around the world. We have set a strong example that is already influencing others to do the same," said Susan Egan Keane, an analyst at the US National Resources Defence Council.

Barack Obama had earlier taken a number of steps at home to break with the George Bush legacy on the environment - most notably restoring the power of government agencies to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants.

The strong push from the US side in Nairobi this week evidently helped wear down resistance from governments such as China and India. China is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants, while Indian manufacturers still use many processes that depend on the metal.

The eight-point plan agreed on Friday calls for reduction in mercury emissions from power plants, and in its use in thermometers and other household products, as well as in plastics production and paper-making. It would cut down on the use of mercury in gold panning, a process that results in huge quantities of the heavy metal being washed into streams.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but pollution has caused levels to rise sharply in many fish species, increasing the danger to humans that eat them.

"Today the world's environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over - the time for action on this pollution is now," said Unep's director, Achim Steiner.

Formal treaty negotiations will get underway later this year, with a view to reaching a final agreement in 2013.


(Editing by David Clarke and Richard Hubbard)
States agree to mercury treaty talks
Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

NAIROBI (AFP) – More than 140 countries agreed Friday to launch negotiations establishing a treaty on mercury to limit pollution affecting millions of people across the world, the UN environment body said.

They also agreed an interim plan to curb pollution while awaiting the treaty because "the risk to human health was so significant that accelerated action... is needed," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement.

"Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and immediate action towards a transition to a low-mercury world," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said at the end of the body's governing council meeting in Nairobi.

He added that world ministers who attended the week-long meeting "decided the time for talking was over. The time for action on this pollution is now."

The interim plan includes boosting countries' efforts on safe stockpiling of mercury, reducing supply and use among artisanal miners as well as reducing mercury in products such as thermometers.

Mercury is a heavy metal whose highly toxic compounds -- propagated notably by the production of coal, certain kinds of plastics and improper disposal of fluorescent light bulbs -- poison millions of people worldwide.

Fish-eating is the prime source of exposure among humans. The effects of mercury ingestion include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.


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Carbon offset pricing may confuse tourists

Nina Chestney, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

LONDON (Reuters) - Air travelers are paying vastly differing prices to offset their contribution to climate change, in some cases three times market levels, despite efforts to increase transparency in an unregulated market.

Under a regulated carbon market, countries and companies buy offsets to help them meet binding international climate targets.

Prices have halved in recent weeks as recession reduces industrial output and expected emissions.

But prices which consumers pay in an unofficial market have lagged behind those falls.

Carbon offsetting is offered to tourists and business travelers by many airlines and offset developers so as to allow people to justify flying by funding a carbon reduction project elsewhere.

"If the market for CERs (offsets) is at 10 euros and you are charging around 30 to offset you have to ask what is happening there," said International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance spokesman Edward Hanrahan.

Prices differed partly due to the quality of the offset credit, he added.

Prices vary from 9-30 euros per ton of avoided carbon dioxide, a survey of 12 providers showed.

Carbon offsets traded on regulated exchanges at 9 euros on Friday, while unregulated prices can be much lower.

Buyers pay per ton of their expected carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, for example for taking a flight.

The money helps fund projects which reduce emissions elsewhere, such as planting trees or trapping methane emissions from waste dumps in developing countries.

Offset developer Tricorona charges around 30 euros a ton on its website for "high quality" offsets, including tax.

"We are currently reviewing our pricing, in the wake of current market conditions," business development manager Conor Foley told Reuters, adding that the company would launch new prices on Monday.

"We will not have a mark-up of more than 25 percent. For 2007, it was 15 percent," he said explaining that the mark-up is defined as the profit after deducting administration costs. "The rest goes to project activities."

British Airways charges around 19 euros per ton to offset a London to Bangkok flight. The company website says that is based on market prices in November.

"We don't make any money from this. We buy a set amount of CERs at a fixed price depending on the time of purchase. We use them until they run out and then we buy more," a company spokeswoman said.

For additional news and analysis on the global carbon markets, go to here

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Peter Blackburn)


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Rich nations failing to meet climate aid pledges

World's richest countries have pledged nearly $18bn to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, but less than $1bn has been disbursed

John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09;

Developing countries have received less than 10% of the money promised by rich countries to help them adapt to global warming, an analysis by the Guardian has found.

The failure is fostering deep distrust between rich and poor nations and is seriously undermining key negotiations on a global climate deal.

The world's richest countries have together pledged nearly $18bn (£12.5bn) in the last seven years, but despite world leaders' rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than $0.9bn has been disbursed and long delays are plaguing many funds.

The lack of action is causing growing concern among diplomats and UN climate talks negotiators who have warned that a global agreement on climate change to succeed the Kyoto treaty is at risk if rich countries do not make the money available.

"It's a scandal. The amount the developed countries have provided is peanuts. It is poisoning the UN negotiations. What [the rich countries] offer to the poorest is derisory, the equivalent of one banker's bonus. It's an insult to people who are already experiencing increasingextreme events," said Bernarditas Muller of the Phillippines, the chief negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries.

The analysis has found that the poorest countries have received the least help from the rich. The UN's Least developed countries fund has disbursed only $47m in seven years. The analysis, based on data collected by the independent Overseas Development Institute in London and confirmed by the UN, has also found:

• Britain has pledged nearly $1.5bn but has so far deposited under $0.3bn

• Africa, the poorest continent, has received less than 12% of all the climate fund money spent in the last four years

• It can take poor countries more than three years to access money

• Most of the money promised for climate change comes out of official aid budgets, leaving less for health, education and poverty action

According to the UN, $50-70bn a year needs to be invested immediately to help the poor countries adapt to extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves, with much more needed later. "I recognise the frustration. Contributions to funds have been disappointingly low and the least developed countries have received very little. Without significant finance you will not get developing country engagement [in negotiations]. Funding is key to unlocking an outcome for the talks," said Yvo de Boer, head of UN Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCC), which oversees the talks.

Rich countries have accepted their moral responsibility for global warming, and are legally obliged by the Kyoto protocol to provide finance to poor countries to tackle climate change - but there is no enforcement or targets. "The situation is becoming very serious. The sums are ridiculously small and whole system has broken down. The financial commitments are weak and there is a great gap between the promises and the reality. It is very risky for the UN negotiations and for mankind," said the Juan Lozano Ramirez, the Colombian environment minister.

So far 12 rich countries, led by the UK, Germany, Japan and the US, have pledged $6.1bn to two climate investment funds administered by the World Bank. But no money has been deposited in them and any money available will be in the form of loans, not grants, with stringent conditions on how the money is spent. A pilot project for eight countries has been announced but no money is likely to be disbursed for nearly a year.

The bank has set up four other climate funds but no money has been deposited in them. In the current economic crisis, analysts believe rich countries are likely to use delaying tactics and it could be several years before deposits are made. Poor countries do not want the World bank to administer money pledged for them, as they perceive it to be run in the interests of rich nations.

The second major source of funds is the UN, which through its financial arm - the Global Environment Facility (GEF) - distributes nearly $250m a year to poor countries for climate change projects. Nearly one-third of the $760m distributed in the last three years, has gone to China, India and Brazil. Less than $100m of this has gone to projects in the world's 49 poorest countries.

Criticism centres on the GEF-administered Least-Developed Countries Fund (LCDF). In seven years, rich countries have deposited $172m for this but only $47m has been disbursed, mostly in very small grants. A seperate climate adaptation fund for the poorest countries set up in 2002 has only financed 22 projects, together worth $50m.

Bonizella Biagini, a spokesman for the GEF said: "The LCDF was set up in 2001 but the UNFCCC only decided how to operationalise it in 2005. We expect at least 12 projects to be endorsed in 2009, on top of the three that have already reached that stage. To implement a project requires time to sharpen the problem statement, negotiate partnerships and prepare on the ground implementation. Clearly there is insufficient money to cover the needs for adaptation in the least developed countries."

A third source of climate funds are "bilateral agreements", between individual countries. Japan has pledged more than $10bn of official aid over five years but has so far deposited nothing. Spain has promised $528m but released only $85m. Norway, Germany, Australia and others have also pledged but released very little.

A spokesman for CSRL, a coalition of 70 Bangladeshi environment groups, expressed concerns on hard it is to release the funds: "Climate change financing is inadequate and complex. Of 15 projects that Bangladesh designed in 2005, only one has been approved by the GEF but this will only receive a US$3.1m. A co-financer will have to be found to finance the rest."

Alison Doig, a climate spokesperson for Christian Aid, said: "The money available for the poor is a fraction of the annual cost of climate change already happening in developing countries and less than 1% of the $2.8 trillion committed by rich countries to rescuing banks and stimulating economic growth. Diverting funds from development assistance to fight climate change means that the poor suffer twice. The funds are too small and not directed to the most vulnerable. So the poor are left to suffer, and there is less in the pot for poverty reduction actions."

Britain has pledged more than any other country except Japan. It has promised £800m in loans for the World Bank's environmental transformation fund, £50m to protect the Congo basin forests and £75m to help Bangladesh adapt. But no payments are believed to have have reached recipients yet. In addition it has paid $250m for climate change funds for 2006-10.

A spokesman for the UK Department for International Development said: "It is the world's poorest who suffer most and we expect the UK's first contribution to global climate change funds to take place imminently.Progress to date has been ahead of plan - at the end of January, Mexico, Egypt and Turkey were given the green light to apply for funding for clean technology projects and a further eight developing countries were offered funding for adaptation."

"People are feeling the effects of climate change now. We are very willing to do more, but it needs the rich to show more willing", said Muller.


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Wheat gene found to overcome fungal disease: study

Yahoo News 21 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An international research team has discovered a gene to make wheat resistance to a fungal disease responsible for millions of (acres) hectares of lost crops worldwide, according to a study published Thursday.

"This is the first step to achieving more durable resistance to a devastating disease in wheat," said Cristobal Uauy, co-author of the report, which was lead by researchers in Great Britain, United States and Israel.

Researchers had previously engineered wheat strains to be resistant against "stripe rust" disease, but it has enjoyed limited durability in practice because the fungus Puccinia striiformis had always "mutated to overcome them," according to the study authors.

But the new gene found in wild wheat overcomes this problem, said researchers, whose work is published in the US journal Science.

"This gene makes wheat more resistant to all stripe rust fungus races tested so far," said Uauy, who works at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England.

Common wheat provides some 20 percent of the calories eaten by all of humanity, said the study authors.


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EU prepares for battle over growing GM maize crops

Jeremy Smith, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union biotech experts will discuss next week whether to allow more cultivation of genetically modified crops but little progress is expected to break years of EU deadlock on biotechnology.

Two GM maize types are to be considered at the Wednesday meeting. If the experts fail to agree, which officials and diplomats say is the most likely outcome, both applications will be escalated to EU ministers for a decision.

The crops are Bt-11 maize, engineered by Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta, and 1507 maize -- jointly developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a unit of DuPont Co and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds.

"It's almost certain to be a non-opinion," said one official at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, meaning that there was unlikely to be enough majority under the EU's weighted voting system to approve or reject the applications: stalemate.

The European Union has long been split on GMO policy and its 27 member countries consistently clash over whether to approve new varieties for import but without ever reaching a conclusion. GM crop cultivation is the "big one," diplomats say, in that no new modified crops have been approved for growing since 1998. There has been a string of GM approvals since 2004, however, but only as imported products for use in food and feed.

While diplomats say approving a new GM crop for growing is nigh on impossible in the EU's current climate, if next week's GM applications get sent to ministers and then there is a second voting stalemate, they would then return to the Commission.

If that happens, the Commission would -- probably -- end up issuing standard 10-year licenses. But that may take some time.

Even now, more than 10 years later, only one GM crop has won EU approval for commercial cultivation: a gene-altered maize made by U.S. biotech company Monsanto, known as MON 810.

Other companies want to change that situation and have filed lawsuits against the Commission for what they say is too much delay in getting their products approved and into EU markets. Pioneer is one of those complainants and filed its case in 2007.

"The fact is: the 1507 maize cultivation application has been unduly delayed since it was submitted nearly eight years ago, has been imported into the EU since 2006 and has been approved for cultivation in seven countries already," said Mike Hall, Pioneer's communications manager for Europe.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

Another German minister calls for GMO maize ban
Reuters 21 Feb 09;

HAMBURG (Reuters) - Germany should reconsider its policy of permitting farmers to grow maize with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and consider banning biotech crops, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Friday.

Gabriel is the second minister to raise a change of GMO policy this week, following Farm Minister Ilse Aigner's statement she may review permission to grow MON 810 GMO maize, developed by U.S. biotech group Monsanto Co..

Germany should consider following countries like France, which had imposed a unilateral bans on GMO maize cultivation, Gabriel said in a statement.

"We should also follow this prudent course taken by our neighbors," Gabriel said.

MON 810 maize has been approved as safe to cultivate by the European Union and all farmers in the bloc are theoretically free to grow and sell it. The maize is resistant to the corn borer, whose caterpillars damage plantings.

France and Greece have imposed unilateral bans which are controversial in the face of the EU wide approval and are claimed by some to break EU regulations.

Moves are under way to force both countries to lift their bans, although EU biotech experts on Monday failed to agree on issuing an order to both countries to allow GMO crop cultivation.

Gabriel said Germany should review its policy of permitting GMO cultivation before this season's crops are sown in the spring.

"The top priority in the use of genetic technology in agriculture must be placed much more on the precautionary protection of people and the environment," Gabriel said.

In early February, German farmers registered intentions to plant 3,567 hectares of GMO maize for the 2009 harvest, up slightly from the 3,207 hectares cultivated in 2008.

But the total is an insignificant part of the German annual maize cultivation of around 1.8 to 2.0 million hectares.

Earlier this week Monsanto hit back at German government criticism, saying its MON 810 GMO maize had been approved as safe by Germany's own Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety along with the European Food Safety Authority, the EU's key food safety agency.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan; Editing by James Jukwey)


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California farms lose main water source to drought

Steve Gorman, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The main irrigation system for California farmers, the Central Valley Project, expects to halt water deliveries to most of its growers this year due to one of the worst droughts in state history, federal managers said on Friday.

The zero-water allocation for most CVP users was declared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as California water officials repeated their plans to cut amounts supplied from a separate state-run water project to 15 percent of normal allotments.

The cutbacks are a huge blow to farmers in the Central Valley, which produces over half of the fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States, and will undoubtedly lead to higher prices for a wide variety of crops.

A recent University of California forecast projected that a scenario like the one announced on Friday would cause a loss of 60,000 to 80,000 jobs and over $2 billion in lost revenue.

The state already is coping with an unemployment rate well above the national average.

A spokeswoman for the Reclamation Bureau, Lynnette Wirth, described circumstances as "grim."

"It doesn't get any worse than zero," California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar said in a statement. "Our water reliability has hit rock bottom."

He called on state authorities to take any steps possible to ease the situation, including ensuring that "voluntary, short-term water sales and transfers proceed quickly."

The Central Valley, a fertile but arid region stretching some 500 miles from Bakersfield to Redding, is the agricultural heartland of California, which ranks as the nation's No. 1 farm state in terms of the value of crops produced -- more than $36 billion a year.

The principal source of water for farms and ranches in the valley is the federally built and managed CVP, a vast network of dams, pumping stations and canals that collects runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountain range and delivers it to irrigation districts throughout the region.

The largest of those -- and biggest in the nation -- the Westlands Water District, encompasses just over 700 farmers on 600,000 acres of land, two-thirds of which will be idled by the cutoff in water supplies, spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said.

She said layoffs already have begun in anticipation of the cutbacks. Some growers will do their best to get by with unused water supplies left over from last year and local groundwater.

The CVP as a whole typically supplies irrigation water for about 3 million acres of farmland. This year, that will drop by 1 million acres or less, Wirth said.

Federal officials say allocations might be increased later in the year to 10 percent of contracted amounts, but only if the drought unexpectedly eases considerably.

Despite a recent flurry of winter storms, California is in the third year of a drought shaping up to be the state's worst ever. The snowpack in the Sierras remains far below normal, and reservoirs fed by mountain runoff are badly depleted as well.

Complicating matters are federal court restrictions on water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Northern California, which furnishes much of the state's irrigation and drinking supplies, in order to protect endangered fish species.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Christian Wiessner)


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Natural Resource Management Critical to Peacebuilding

Over Forty Per cent of Intrastate Conflicts Linked to Natural Resources, Says UNEP Report
UNEP Press Release 20 Feb 09;

Nairobi, 20 February 2009 - Intrastate conflicts are likely to drag on and escalate without a greater focus on environment and natural resources in the peacebuilding process, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In addition, conflicts with a link to natural resources are twice as likely to relapse within the first five years, as shown by data collected by Uppsala University and the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

Even so, fewer that 25 per cent of peace agreements for resource-linked conflicts have addressed those linkages, leaving many post-conflict countries vulnerable to conflict relapse.

A stronger role for environment in post-conflict planning, along with greater capacity for early warning, are required to address environmental risks and capitalize on opportunities, the report says. This includes a more robust and comprehensive inclusion of environmental issues in UN peacebuilding activities, and a more careful harnessing of natural resources for economic recovery, essential services and sustainable livelihoods.

A timely input from UNEP as a fragile peace prevails in the Middle East and conflict rages on in Darfur and the Northern provinces of DR Congo, the paper analyses the links between environment, conflict and peacebuilding through fourteen case studies, including Afghanistan, Darfur, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The often devastating direct impacts of conflict on the environment have been established by UNEP through some 15 post-conflict environmental assessments, which have documented environmental damage from armed conflict around the world since 1999. But the indirect consequences of post-conflict coping mechanisms and the damage inflicted to the capacity of government institutions are also key problems.

Even after an initial cessation of violence, natural resources can contribute to conflict relapse in the post-conflict period, and help finance a continued insurgency. No less that 18 violent conflicts have been fuelled by the exploitation of natural resources since 1990.

As the global population continues to rise, and demand for resources continues to grow, there is significant potential for conflicts over natural resources to intensify in the coming decades. In addition, new conflicts could be generated by the possible consequences of climate change for water availability and food security, for example.

UNEP's new report, however, suggests that there are also considerable opportunities for environment to contribute to peace consolidation rather than conflict.

Naming sustainable livelihoods, dialogue and confidence-building as potential keys to peacebuilding, the report also emphasizes the important role that carefully managed resources can play to jump-start economic activity in post-conflict countries. By providing a platform for cooperation, common environmental needs and resource-related goals can be a significant impetus for peace.

The report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP, was co-authored by the Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding established by UNEP in 2008, which is composed of senior experts from academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and think tanks that have demonstrated leadership in environment and conflict issues.

With continued support from the Government of Finland, a collection of 60 case studies on best practices of natural resource management for peacebuilding will be published by UNEP as a follow up to this report in 2010. In addition, UNEP is joining forces with the European Commission, the UN Development Programme, the UN Department of Political Affairs, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office and UN-Habitat to develop guidance and training to address resource-based conflicts at the field level.

Notes To Editors:

About this report

This report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP on the environmental dimensions of disasters and conflicts, aims to summarize the latest knowledge and field experience on the linkages between environment, conflict and peacebuilding, and to demonstrate the need for those linkages to be addressed in a more coherent and systematic way by the UN, Member States and other stakeholders. As such, it is linked to a wider cooperation on conflict and natural resource management started between the European Commission and the United Nations system in 2008, which has resulted in a new project funded by the European Commission under the Instrument for Stability on "Strengthening Capacities for Consensual and Sustainable Management of Land and Natural Resources."

A joint product of UNEP and the Expert Advisory Group, this paper was co-authored by Richard Matthew of the University of California, Irvine, Oli Brown of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and David Jensen of UNEP's Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB). It was open for peer review to all UN agencies, programmes and funds working on conflict and peacebuilding, as well as to the Member States and observers of the Peacebuilding Commission. It was also released as a consultation draft at four international meetings during 2008, involving over 250 environment, security, peacebuilding and development practitioners.


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