Best of our wild blogs: 4 Apr 09

Why We Do What We Do
on AsiaIsGreen

White-bellied Sea Eagle at play
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Identifying Deep-Sea Images: What is a Good Photo for ID?
don't assume what you're seeing is known and more on the Echinoblog

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Singapore Botanic Gardens celebrates 150th anniversary with year-long events

S.Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia 3 Apr 09;

SINGAPORE: The Singapore Botanic Gardens first took root in 1859. Since then, it has evolved into a much-loved civic space and one of the country's top attractions. To celebrate its 150th anniversary, a series of activities have been lined up to connect plants with people.

Singapore's Botanic Gardens had an important role to play in the rubber revolution in Southeast Asia.

The first 22 rubber seedlings were given to the Singapore Gardens by the world-renowned Kew Gardens of the United Kingdom and this contributed to the economic boom in the region.

Not many Singaporeans may be aware of these milestones. So the Singapore Botanic Gardens is having an exhibition entitled "The Seed that Changed the World" till the end of this month.

It has also documented the Botanic Gardens' 150-year history.

It will be holding year-long events to educate and engage the people on the economic importance and beauty of the Gardens. That is why the theme for the celebrations has been aptly coined as 'Connecting Plants and People'.

National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said: "The Gardens must and remain a Peoples' Garden. It must remain a place that families and their loved ones can come and share, and it must be a place where the community can come and bond because it is a custodian of our collective memories."

The day's event, described as "A Tale of Two Gardens," also paid tribute to the close ties Singapore's Botanic Gardens has with its London counterpart, which is celebrating its 250th birthday.

To mark the collaboration, special trees were planted simultaneously in Singapore and London, with guests watching the event via video conference. - CNA/vm

Treasury of plants
Straits Times 4 Apr 09;

DR CHIN See Chung, director of the Singapore Botanic Gardens, leafs through plant samples at its herbarium.

'Here is where the real history is,' he says.

Some of the 650,000 dried plant samples in the Botanic Gardens' herbarium date back to 1790, 80 years before the plant archive was officially established.

That is because herbaria - institutes that store plant specimens - swop their samples like collectors' trading cards.

There is a sprig of jasmine from 1700s India collected by Moravian missionaries.

There is a century's collection of ginger from Penang, Perak and Pahang, dating from the 1890s to the 1990s.

Some of the plants once grew here, but are now extinct.

Once plucked, the samples are pressed in newspaper and dried on low heat in an oven.

It is a recipe that ensures the plants last 'almost forever, without chemical preservatives', says Dr Chin.

The herbarium is open to the public by appointment, and to researchers from all over the world, who can borrow the plant samples - desiccated leaves, twigs, fruit and all - to study.

But the herbarium's most important work is collecting and documenting the hugely diverse flora of Malesia.

Malesia is a term used by botanists to refer to a part of South-east Asia with characteristic types of flora. It spans Singapore, parts of Malaysia and parts of Indonesia and the Philippines.

The Botanic Gardens is part of an international project, coordinated by the National Herbarium in the Netherlands. to catalogue the region's flora.

But so far, less than 25 per cent of the perhaps 50,000 species have been documented.

'Everybody is desperately trying to document the flora here before it's all lost,' Dr Chin says.

GRACE CHUA

Helping Botanic Gardens blossom
Jalelah Abu Baker, Straits Times 4 Apr 09;

THE Singapore Botanic Gardens have a strong supporter in Lady Yuen-Peng McNeice, 92.

Among her donations to the gardens is a collection of bromeliad plants in 1994. Besides a book commemorating the gardens' 150th anniversary launched yesterday, she had sponsored another book on the attraction in 1989.

The mother of two and grandmother of four has gone on African safaris to enjoy nature and take photographs, for which she was made an associate of the Royal Photographic Society of Great Britain.

Born in Malaysia, she grew up surrounded by flora and fauna. She moved to Singapore in 1947 when she married Sir Percy McNeice, the first president of the City Council here. He died in 1998.

She has not lost touch with nature even now. She still does her own gardening at her Holland Road house every afternoon. It is filled with pretty blooms and pandan, lemongrass and belimbing, a fruit commonly used in Nonya cooking.

Lady McNeice said: 'I try to collect unusual plants that I knew during my childhood.' She also has plants from Brazil and the United States, some of which she has given to the Botanic Gardens.

She first saw bromeliads - a family of flowering plants that includes the pineapple - on display at the Chelsea Flower Show and was impressed by their shapes and colours, thinking them suitable for Singapore.

So when a Californian nursery wanted to sell its bromeliads, she bought them for the Botanic Gardens. The 320 species have since been planted near the orchid garden, in a site that now bears her name.

A tree at the Botanic Gardens has also been dedicated to her for all her contributions. When asked which was her favourite spot at the gardens, she said with a smile: 'I don't have one, everything is so beautiful.'

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Reef camps for kids in Malaysia

Anusha K., The New Straits Times 4 Apr 09;

The Alstom Foundation has taken it upon itself to teach the young about the importance of conserving marine life. ANUSHA K. writes.

AS a child growing up in a city, I never knew much about marine life and the importance of conserving them.

During holidays at the beach, I would pick up as many corals as I could and sometimes even bring jellyfish back to the city, much to the amazement of my parents.

To stop kids from doing such things, it is important to educate them, especially when they are young, about conserving marine life, particularly the coral reefs, which are essential in sustaining the biodiversity of the marine ecosystem.

A healthy reef supports 25 per cent of all marine animal species. Ten per cent of coastal commercial fish species live in coral reefs while 40 per cent use it as a spawning ground.

In line with its philosophy of providing environmentally-friendly products and services, Alstom (which specialises in power generation and rail transportation) aims to educate Malaysian children about the importance of our country’s coral reefs.

The move is initiated by the Alstom Foundation whose headquarters is in France. It provides funds for environmentally-friendly projects worldwide.

Alstom has 70,000 staff in 70 countries. All are given the opportunity to propose any environmentally-friendly project that fits in with its philosophy.

The Rainforest to Reef programme was among the 12 projects chosen worldwide by the foundation.

The Rainforest to Reef Programme:

This outreach programme aims to educate schoolchildren on the conservation of coral reefs. Alstom provides funding for the development of a curriculum to educate children on the Marine Park islands of Tioman, Redang and Perhentian, off the East Coast of Malaysia, which are renowned for its beautiful corals.

This programme is in collaboration with Reef Check Malaysia (RCM) and the Marine Parks department.

“The programme was proposed by one of our staff as it complements our offerings in electricity generation and rail transportation technologies which enhance economic development, social progress and environmental protection,” said Saji Raghavan, Alstom’s country president.

The curriculum will include Coral Reefs Camps for the schools on all three islands.

Tailored for primary schoolchildren in Standard Five, it was developed by RCM, a non-governmental branch of the Marine Parks Department.

The programme features local facilitators who will be responsible for its implementation in selected schools.

Saji and his team as well as several members of the media spent two days on the islands during the recent launch of the programme. This programme not only aims to protect the environment but also the livelihood of the communities involved.

The programme (which was carried out simultaneously on all three islands), started with a beach clean-up in Tioman. Some 180 children from Sekolah Kebangsaan Kampung Tekek, Pulau Tioman, a dozen teachers and 50 employees of Alstom took part in the clean-up with an equal number of participants on each island.

The children picked up trash along the roadside and on the shores. The group with the largest trash collection was the winner.

The pupils were even seen picking up trash from the bins of restaurants. They were only allowed to collect man-made trash such as plastic bottles, cigarette butts, plastic bags and wrappers. They were not allowed to collect natural things such as leaves, coconuts, tree branches and seashells.

The official launch of the programme was held on the second day at the Marine Park Exhibition Centre in Tioman Island.

Besides conserving the coral reefs, other activities will include jungle trekking, a recycling campaign, snorkelling as well as the Coral Reefs Camp.

The first batch of Coral Reef Camps 1 will be held from today until April 6 (Redang), April 11 to 13 (Perhentian) and June 27 to 29 (Tioman).

The second batch — Coral Reefs Camps 2 ­— will be held from July 11 to 13 (Redang), July 18 to 20 (Perhentian) and Aug 1 to 3 (Tioman).

The Coral Reef Camps 2 uses the same syllabus as Camp 1 but goes to different schools. The syllabus is a mix of educational and recreational activities.

Julian Hyde, general manager of RCM, said Standard Five pupils were chosen as they were more receptive with a better attention span.

“To target young adults may be a little harder as it’s hard to gain their attention for a long period,” he said.

“However, children are not the only ones who need to be educated on coral reefs. There are also certified divers who cause damage to the corals with their negligent behaviour.

“By educating the younger generation we’re already taking the first step in saving marine life,” Hyde added.

The Rainforest to Reef programme will continue until 2011.

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In defence of the Red List

Jeff McNeely, Simon Stuart, Jane Smart and Jean-Christophe Vié
New Scientist 3 Apr 09;

THE IUCN's Red List of Threatened Species is widely recognised as one of the best tools we have for guiding nature conservation. It is widely used to identify species in need of conservation measures and sites of crucial importance for biodiversity, and also to track progress on reducing biodiversity loss and to guide resource allocation. It is not perfect and no stranger to criticism, most recently in the pages of this magazine, where it was described as "unscientific and frequently wrong" (New Scientist, 14 March, p 8). This is wide of the mark.

The first IUCN Red Data Book was published in 1963 as an essentially subjective list of extinction risks. Over the past 45 years it has evolved considerably. It is no longer simply a register of species and their level of risk, but a rich compendium of information on where species live, their ecological requirements, the threats they face and the conservation actions that can be used to prevent them becoming extinct. It also covers common species, not just threatened ones.

As such, the Red List helps to answer many important questions. What is the overall status of biodiversity and how is it changing over time? What is the rate at which biodiversity is being lost? Where is biodiversity being lost most rapidly? What are the main drivers of the loss of biodiversity? What is the effectiveness and impact of conservation activities?

While we at IUCN welcome constructive criticism, we are exasperated by critics who fail to recognise the steady improvements IUCN has been making in trying to present an objective picture of the conservation status of species worldwide, as well as helping to ensure that biodiversity loss is recognised as a crucial issue at the highest political levels.

In recent years, a large number of articles have been published in the scientific literature championing the Red List's merits (for example Trends in Ecology & Evolution, vol 21, p 71). No other conservation tool can claim the same level of rigour, the same degree of transparency and the same amount of debate and consultation. It is important to note that the Red List is one of the very few biodiversity indices, if not the only one, for which the methodology has been published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (PLoS ONE, vol 2, e140).

One oft-repeated criticism is that the list is excessively cautious because it assigns too many species to a category labelled "data deficient", meaning there is not enough information to assess conservation status. This is a weak argument. Rather than rushing to a judgement based on poor data, we highlight those species that need more research before an objective decision can be made. Handling uncertainty in a structured way is not common practice in the conservation world, but this is what the Red List does. Given the magnitude of the extinction crisis there is a need to provide sound advice to decision-makers who are pressing scientists to inform them about the state of biodiversity.

Similarly, we have heard arguments faulting the Red List for assigning extinction risk based on how fast a species is declining, rather than on absolute numbers. While this can lead to species such as the green turtle being listed as endangered when there are still more than 2 million individuals, criticising it on these grounds is misleading. Decline is a key indicator of extinction risk. As many conservation experts can attest, there are numerous instances of formerly abundant species declining to extremely low levels very rapidly - think of American bison and passenger pigeons in the past and, more recently, Asian vultures and saiga antelope.

Both these criticisms were addressed in a major paper that appeared in Conservation Biology last year (vol 22, p 1424). It was disappointing to see New Scientist repeating them without reference to that paper.

One criticism in the article was new even to us: that the Red List diverts resources away from species that really need them. This argument is baseless. It is like accusing humanitarian organisations of putting children in Eritrea at risk because they are publishing a report on Darfur.

Of course, the Red List is open to improvement. IUCN regularly convenes a group of respected scientists to review and refine the system, and its guidelines are constantly updated to reflect the latest scientific thinking and insights. One important issue this group is working on at the moment is how to integrate climate change into the listing process. Our preliminary results show that a large number of species that do not currently appear as threatened on the Red List are susceptible to climate change.

The Red List remains the most accurate tool for measuring the state of species. The fact that it is based on the work of more than 7000 scientists does not mean it is "cobbled together". It makes it richer, with an unparalleled reach. Yes, it is open to debate and challenge, but the diversity of the sources it draws on makes it unique and irreplaceable. There are countless examples showing that, where used properly, it can be deployed to develop conservation programmes that have enormous benefits.

It is extremely difficult to raise awareness among decision-makers about the crucial importance of giving attention to all life forms on our planet. Everybody in the conservation movement wants biodiversity to receive the same level of attention as climate change, but this is no easy task. The Red List, thanks to its objectivity and high standards, is one of the very few tools that could allow this to happen.

Jeff McNeely is chief scientist of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Simon Stuart is chair of IUCN's species survival commission. Jane Smart is head of IUCN's biodiversity conservation group. Jean-Christophe Vié is deputy head of IUCN's species programme

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Indian Ocean tuna commission a failure - again

WWF 3 Apr 09;

Bali, Indonesia: The Indian Ocean Tuna Commission – in the spotlight as some coastal fishers whose stocks it has failed to protect turn to piracy instead - is continuing in its unbroken record of failure to regulate one of the world's largest tuna fisheries.

The commission, which has just concluded its 13th meeting in Bali, failed to set catch limits for any of the fisheries it is supposed to be regulating, failed to agree any new measures to restrain rampant over-fishing, failed to set effective rules on shark finning and put off a much needed decision to reform itself.

IOTC scientists, grappling with dangerously inadequate information on all stocks, had warned that yellowfin tuna was “probably” overfished..

"Most of the world's large tuna fisheries are poorly managed by bodies that commission scientific assessments and then set catch quotas that ignore them, but the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission is the most dysfunctional of all," said WWF International Marine Director Miguel Jorge.

“Another stumbling block in the negotiations has been EU intransigence on large Spanish and French fleets maintaining their swordfish catch levels at dangerously high levels.

“At the same time the commission has just been wringing its hands on the piracy issue, with a resolution failing to note that the pirates now attacking merchant shipping are from coastal communities that got into the aggressive habit of trying to defend their fishing livelihoods from illegal fishing by foreign fishing boats.”

The meeting also failed to make adequate progress on proposals to ban shark-finning by requiring sharks to be landed whole – with fins naturally attached - rather than with the existing limited restriction of having a whole shark to fins ratio of just five percent, making it hard to identify how many sharks of which potentially endangered species are being taken in what may be one of the most wasteful and unsustainable fisheries.

Other controversial measures were a failure to extend the high seas large scale drift net ban to coastal waters, deferring consideration of vital Catch Documentation Scheme improvements and failure to adopt a realistic observer program.

“Many member States appear to be operating on a hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil basis which supports continuing rampant non-compliance with even a lax management regime,” said Jorge.

“No-one knows what is really going on, few seem to care, States report their catches late or not at all and the scientists that are supposed to be the cornerstone of the system are doing the best they can with the scraps of data they are given.”

While some regional fisheries management organizations are functioning better than others, WWF is taking its dissatisfaction with the workings of some of the flagship commissions such as the IOTC to the marketplace and work with the seafood industry to demand better management by RFMOs and sustainable tuna fishing

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Debris, climate change threaten new Hawaiian marine monument

Allison Winter, The New York Times 3 Apr 09;

A remote location and special federal protection can't shield a new Hawaiian national monument from debris, invasive species and climate change, according to a new report.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's peer-reviewed report is aimed at providing a baseline for monitoring the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument and identifying management priorities.

The 1,100-mile chain of islands in the Papahanaumokuakea monument is home to almost 70 percent of U.S. tropical near-shore corals, endangered monk seals and sea turtles. A quarter of the 7,000 or so species that live there are unique to the islands.

The report found monk seals in significant decline, with their reproductive success falling by about 60 percent over the past 50 years. NOAA said a 2006 recovery plan for the seal could reverse that decline.

President George W. Bush created the monument two years ago, establishing one of the largest marine conservation areas in the world. The move won Bush rare praise from environmentalists and was followed by the designation of three additional Pacific monuments last winter.

Bush applied the highest level of protection to the Papahanaumokuakea monument, preventing all fishing and mining. But the remote location of both monuments poses some management challenges.

Past activities in the area permanently degraded part of the monument, the report says. Some beaches and reefs are deteriorating because of debris, though the report found most habitats in good condition.

The monument also faces ongoing threats from climate change, ocean acidification, rising sea surface temperatures and sea level rise.

"Global issues of concern arising outside monument boundaries, such as marine debris, ocean acidification and invasive species, degrade fragile monument living resources and habitats," said Aulani Wilhelm, the monument superintendent.

Hawaii has one of the worst marine trash problems in the world because of its location in circular currents that send trash its way, threatening marine mammals and birds. The monument is jointly managed by NOAA and the Interior Department's Fish and Wildlife Service.

The Bush administration's budgets designated some cash for cleaning up the monument -- but not enough to allow the agencies to do the job effectively. About 57 tons of garbage a year washes into the 140,000 square-mile island chain, and debris removal fell to 35 tons a year after the monument was designated.

Restricted human access to the monument has helped its water quality, the report says. Despite past military use that left behind contamination on the atolls, water quality remains good.

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Study: False killer whales declining off Hawaii

Audrey Mcavoy, Associated Press Yahoo News 3 Apr 09;

HONOLULU – The population of false killer whales in waters close to Hawaii appears to have dramatically declined over the past 20 years, a new study says.

It's not known for sure why the dolphin species is decreasing, but the academic paper says the reason likely has to do with declining food supplies and how the mammals are getting caught and injured on the longline fishing lines that stretch as many as 50 miles long from some commercial fishing vessels.

The report's publication in this month's edition of Pacific Science comes weeks after environmental activists sued the federal government for allegedly failing to prevent longline fishing fleets from accidentally capturing the animals off Hawaii.

False killer whales can grow as long as 16 feet and weigh over one ton. They look like killer whales, but they're almost completely black instead of black and white.

They're found in tropical and temperate waters worldwide, including Maryland, Japan, Australia and Scotland.

Robin Baird, one of the study's co-authors, estimates about 120 false killer whales currently live in waters up to 60 miles off Hawaii's coasts.

Researchers who conducted an aerial survey of waters up to 34 miles offshore in 1989 counted 470 individuals in one group of false killer whales. They also found groups of 380 and 460 individuals.

In contrast, researchers saw no false killer whales during aerial surveys of the same area in 2000 and 2003.

Baird, a marine biologist with Cascadia Research Collective in Olympia, Wash., said several surveys analyzed for the paper don't say much about the false killer whale population when viewed individually. But taken together the data make a convincing case, he said.

The data "came together to present really a much more alarming picture," he said.

Baird suspects a combination of longline fishing, declining prey, and environmental toxins are hurting the dolphins.

False killer whales tend to get caught by longline fishing because they eat the fish fishermen have snagged for human consumption: yellowfin tuna, mahimahi, and ono.

The dolphins also have less food to eat because heavy fishing by humans has depleted stocks of yellowfin tuna and other fish they like, including mongchong, albacore tuna and swordfish.

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Urban hunters do most harm to ape populations

Nora Schultz, New Scientist 3 Apr 09;

Commercial hunters from towns are exacting a much bigger toll on great apes than subsistence hunters from small villages, according to an analysis of ape nest density near human settlements.

The finding that numbers of gorillas and chimpanzees appear to have dwindled twice as much near towns in Gabon than near villages supports a focus on conservation efforts that tackle commercial hunting over those that aim to convince villagers to give up subsistence hunting, says Hjalmar Kühl at the Max-Planck-Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology in Leipzig, Germany, who conducted the study with colleagues.

The team counted sleeping nests left by gorillas and chimps in Gabon's mountainous Moukalaba Doudou National Park. They found that nest density decreased the closer they got to the towns that surround the park. The towns' populations range from 10,000 to 18,000 people.

Although some nests could be found close to the towns, their overall density was only half that seen in the centre of the park. In contrast, the team found no such gradient near smaller villages.

"This suggests that the impact local subsistence hunting has is much smaller than that from commercial hunters coming from the bigger towns," says Kühl.
'Already rare'

The existence of organised bushmeat transport and trade cartels had suggested that town-based hunting is indeed commercial and caters for more than just the local people's needs, with primate meat reaching plates as far as North America.

"But until now we didn't know how drastically it was affecting the apes," says Kühl.

The problem with estimating the impact of ape hunting just from watching local markets and hunters, he explains, is that this reveals little about how the population may be suffering as a whole. "We rarely find ape meat in the markets, but these animals are already so rare and reproduce so slowly that even comparatively low-level hunting might do a lot of damage," he says.

The absence of chimp and gorilla nests near the towns now confirms what might be expected: that ape populations have already suffered from commercial hunting. Because the researchers did not find a similar depletion of nests near smaller villages, they also conclude that any ape meat that makes it to the urban areas is not brought and sold there by the villagers, but results from organised hunting trips from the towns people themselves.
'Major challenge'

"This fits in with what we know from case studies about commercial hunting. It tends to be organised by relatively wealthy people who already have access to the necessary vehicles and funds," says Kühl. As a result, he argues, future conservation efforts should focus on restricting and monitoring transport into and out of the park. Initiatives to provide local villagers with alternatives to subsistence hunting should not be abandoned but "are less crucial", he says.

"There is still a lot of debate on how to stop the trade into urban centres," says Marcus Rowcliffe, an expert in the bushmeat trade at the Institute of Zoology in London, UK. "Effective control systems are going to depend on government capacities to enforce law and fight corruption," he says, "and that is going to be a major challenge."

Journal reference: Journal of Biological Conservation (DOI: 10.1016/j.biocon.2009.02.032)

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New Delhi ban on plastic bags falls flat

Threat of fine and jail doesn't deter residents, due to poor enforcement
P. Jayaram, Straits Times 4 Apr 09;

NEW DELHI: Nearly three months after India's national capital banned the use, sale and storage of plastic bags, the ubiquitous bags have refused to go away.

In vegetable markets, shops and even shopping malls, traders and customers continue to use plastic bags that experts say harm the environment and choke storm-water drains.

Not surprisingly, the Jan 16 announcement had been received with scepticism in a city whose residents are used to bans being flouted openly.

They say the ban on plastic bags will meet the same fate as so many other 'don'ts' issued by the authorities in the past: 'Don't litter the roads', 'Don't smoke in public', 'Don't use roadsides as toilets'. The list of punishable offences is long but is seldom enforced.

But environmentalists have not lost hope yet.

'The ban was long overdue. A blanket ban was necessary,' said Mr Kushal Yadav, coordinator and campaigner at the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), a Delhi-based non-governmental organisation.

'It is a good beginning, though 100 per cent compliance would take a long time,' he told The Straits Times.

He said when hill stations like Shimla and Nainital banned plastic bags two years ago, there was scepticism about whether it would be effective. 'Today, you cannot see a plastic bag in these places,' he said.

But he agreed the capital's record of enforcement of such bans has been poor.

The ban on plastic bags covers hotels, large hospitals, restaurants and eateries, liquor shops, markets, shopping centres and fruit and vegetable outlets.

Mr Ravi Kumar Aggarwal, president of the All-India Plastic Industries Association, told The Straits Times the ban is 'sheer madness' and 'foolhardy'.

He claimed plastic bags accounted for only 10 per cent of the solid waste in Delhi and there was no proof that they were responsible for choked drains.

The ban would result in the closure of more than 2,000 plastic bag manufacturing units in the capital and render 10,000 traders and 100,000 workers jobless.

Referring to the maximum penalty of 100,000 rupees (S$3,000) or a five-year prison term for violation of the ban, Mr Aggarwal said this would provide yet another avenue for corruption by law enforcers.

A government panel had, in a report to the Delhi High Court last year, said a complete ban on plastic bags in the city was 'impossible' and suggested setting up recycling units by the manufacturers, on the basis of the 'polluter pays principle', to tackle the problem.

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Slum cooker protects environment, helps poor

Barry Moody, Reuters 2 Apr 09;

NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya's huge and squalid slums don't have much of anything, except mountains of trash that fill rivers and muddy streets, breeding disease.

Now Kenyan designers have built a cooker that uses the trash as fuel to feed the poor, provide hot water and destroy toxic waste, as well as curbing the destruction of woodlands.

After nine years of development, the prototype "Community Cooker" is close to being rolled out in overcrowded refugee camps as well as slums around the country where the filth encourages diseases including cholera.

Invented by Nairobi architect Jim Archer, the cooker combines simplicity with the capacity to confront several environmental challenges simultaneously. The design was highly commended at the World Architecture Festival in Barcelona last year.

The prototype is working in Nairobi's Kibera slum, said to be the biggest in Africa, where around 800,000 people live.

Potatoes, rice and tea cook on some of the eight hotplates above a roaring, spitting furnace. A joint of meat roasts in an oven that can also be used for bread.

Behind the black-painted corrugated iron cooking area, rubbish collected by local youths dries on racks before being pushed into the furnace.

Technicians have spent three years modifying the firebox to produce enough heat to destroy toxins in the rubbish, particularly plastics, although they are striving to get the temperature higher still.

The stove is one of several projects giving hope amid endemic violence, crime and disease in the huge slums. In another part of Kibera, a group of 35 youths have developed a farm on a former rubbish dump, feeding themselves and selling cucumbers, pumpkins and tomatoes.

HEALTH HAZARDS

The health hazards posed by garbage assault the eye as soon as you enter Kibera.

The slum looks as if it is literally built on trash, with waste including excrement filling the rough mud streets and streams, so only fetid pools remain.

Small rubbish fires stutter on the roadsides, spreading acrid smoke near kiosks selling food.

Pigs and goats forage in the waste and children play by filthy streams and drink from water pipes covered in garbage.

Slums like Kibera, home to 60 percent of Nairobi's population, receive no garbage collection or other services from city authorities.

Many inhabitants struggle to afford the kerosene for their own stoves, so Archer's idea was to clear at least some of the waste, while providing hot water for bathing and communal cooking facilities.

While the prototype cooker, in Kibera's Laini Saba village, has been dogged by local squabbles, drought and design problems, it proved the idea worked. A tall chimney carries the once-choking fumes away and initial emissions tests have been favorable, Archer's firm says.

Now the Kenyan Red Cross is preparing to install similar cookers in the Dadaab and Kakuma refugee camps near the Somali border, where cholera has already broken out this year, and at least one European aid organization is looking at wide deployment.

Juma Ochieng of the Red Cross told Reuters the Community Cooker had benefits for health, sanitation and conservation, and would create employment for young people working to build and maintain the stoves.

Residents of Kibera, scene of bloodshed in last year's Kenyan election crisis and home to many criminal gangs, agree.

"It employs the youth....They would be stealing if they were not here ...They would have been in trouble if we didn't have this cooker," said James Mokaya, 56, a member of the community that runs the prototype.

The Kibera stove cost more than $10,000 to build as a prototype but both Ndede and Mumo Musuva, an architect working for Archer's practice, estimate each would cost $5-6,000 once produced in larger numbers. This compares with $50 million for industrial incinerators in Europe.

SLOWING DEFORESTATION

The Red Cross's Ochieng says the cookers will also reduce the risk of deadly slum fires from kerosene stoves in densely populated slums.

"As the Red Cross we are looking at taking them countrywide very soon," he said. He thinks 8-10 will be built by the end of this year and at least a 100 over the next five years, depending on donor funding.

Henry Ndede, of the Kenya regional office for the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), which provided funds to set up the Kibera cooker, says more work needs to be done to improve materials used in it and raise the temperature still higher to ensure the destruction of carcinogens in plastic.

The stove reaches around 650 Celsius (1,200 Fahrenheit) at present. Ndede says 1,000 degrees is needed but is happy that the prototype has proven rubbish can be turned into energy.

"It is an ideal item for densely populated areas like slums and refugee camps," he said. "Every city in this country has a slum area with highly combustible material with high calorific value."

He said the cooker would also relieve serious pressure on forest areas. The Dadaab camp houses 250,000 people although it was built for 80,000. Surrounding woodland has been cut down to provide cooking fuel.

"In Dadaab you have to go more than 50 km (30 miles) to fetch firewood. It takes you two weeks on donkey-back," he said.

(Additional reporting by Ruth Njeng'ere; Editing by Sara Ledwith)

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The tide is high, but are we holding on?

Construction Week Online 4 Apr 09;

With sea levels predicted to rise by at least half a metre this century Bahrain Editor Benjamin Millington explores what it means for the longevity of the 21st century’s coastal developments.

If you type “rising sea levels” into the Google news search engine you’ll retrieve hundreds of articles from around the world each telling the same story – we are losing our coastline.

Waves are swallowing houses in Vietnam, villages are disappearing in Ghana, Australia is making plans to relocate coastal towns, sea water is lapping at windowsills in China and the Pacific Islands are losing their islands.

In light of this, the Arabian Gulf must be the only part of the world where the length of coastline and number of islands is actually increasing rather than decreasing.

The UAE, Qatar and Bahrain are all zealously reclaiming land from the sea to create island communities where residents enjoy the beach in their backyard.

Are these people climate change skeptics? Or are the islands built on sound scientific knowledge?

The key resource for information on rising sea levels is the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which collates published scientific literature and produces global climate change assessments every five to six years.

Their fourth and latest assessment in 2007 predicted sea levels would rise between 18cm and 59cm this century, a worrying set of figures for any coastal development.

But John Hunter, an Australian scientist and contributor to the IPCC assessments, said more recent predictions are even worse.

“Many people have since suggested much bigger rises, Hansen, an American scientist says the upper limit could be around 5m,” he said.

“Not many people really believe that, but another recent paper suggests with good reason that we are set for a rise between 80cm and 2m this century. “That’s what I would allow for based on the very latest research.”

Hunter said the research behind all of these predictions comes from the various scientists monitoring and computer modeling the two main factors contributing to rising sea levels.

The first is the melting of land-based ice which is mainly occurring in Greenland, Antarctica and mountain glaciers. The second is the increase in sea temperature which is causing the ocean to expand and thus sea levels to rise.

But predicting the impact of these events, which themselves are caused by a long list of complex factors, is far from precise and constantly changing. This in turn makes determining just how high above sea level it is safe to build a bit of a scientific stab in the dark.

“People may be conversant with sea level rise at the time of design and construction, but if it was 10 years ago they’d be relying on some very old IPCC research – that’s what you’ve got to be careful of,” said Hunter.

And if Hunter’s predictions of a rise between 80cm and 2m are correct, it means the largest and most well known developer of land reclamation projects, Nakheel, has based its famous Dubai projects on data that is already outdated.

Shaun Lenehan, head of environment for Dubai’s largest developer of land reclamation projects Nakheel, said its trilogy of Palm shaped island projects and the World have been built to take into account a sea level rise of 60cm this century, 20cm less than Hunter’s minimum prediction.

But this is not to say that Nakheel has been reckless in its approach to determining the height of its projects; 60cm is still at the upper end of the IPCC’s current assessment and relatively conservative in comparison to other developments.

Last October, the Bahrain government released a land reclamation and dredging manual which recommended all projects in the Kingdom only factor in a 40cm rise in sea level this century.

This, they claimed, is the optimum level to prevent “over-reclaiming” and unnecessarily building islands too high. But whether its 40cm or 60cm, as the body of scientific research grows, the potential is there for larger
predictions over the coming decades and ultimately the realisation of much bigger rises in sea levels. For coastal developments built in line with yesterdays predictions it means an increased vulnerability to storm surges and one in 100 year flooding events, which are also set to dramatically increase by 2100.

“If the sea levels only rise half a metre this century, this means that in most places, what we call a 100 year storm event will be happening about four times a year,” said Hunter. “That’s a huge change. If you’re designing things for a 1-in-100-year event you’re going to finish up at the end of the century with flooding every few months.”

“And this is actually only allowing for sea level rise. We’re not sure on how the frequency and strength of meteorological surges are going to change with climate change. If the storms get worse as well then you have to make a further allowance.”

The artificial advantage

While Nakheel and other reclamation developers will inevitably face ongoing maintenance to combat rising tides over this century, their artificial islands are unlikely to be the first coastal developments to suffer major flooding.

Lenehan explains that reclaimed islands at least have the advantage of determining the height of their development to take into account factors like sea level rises, one in 100 year storms, king tides and storm surges.

He said their projects are generally at least 3m above the water level and areas exposed to the wave climate and storm surges are built higher depending on their vulnerability.

This, he said, is a luxury many other coastal areas don’t have, including large parts of Dubai’s mainland.

“If you look at a topographic survey you can see that with a high tide at [Dubai] creek you might get 1½m freeboard between the top of the water and the land. On the palm we’ve got 3m freeboard,” Lenehan said.

“In fact if you stand on our project at Mina Rashid, you can actually see that it is higher than the adjacent mainland.

“So if by the end of the century sea level rise did come up to the max forecast, large areas of Deira, the Creek and Bur Dubai would be underwater and Mina Rashid would still be above.”

Similarly, low lying cities and countries around the world will be battling for survival well before Nakheel’s Palms.

In 1987 the then president of the Maldives, Maumoon Abdul Gayoom, was famously quoted on his nation’s future.

“As for my own country, the Maldives, a mean sea level rise of 2m would suffice to virtually submerge the entire country of 1190 small islands, most of which barely rise 2m above mean sea level,” he said.

“That would be the death of a nation. With a mere 1m rise also, a storm surge would be catastrophic, and possibly fatal to the nation.”

The time lag

For several decades now small island nations around the globe have been making impassioned pleas to the developed world to cut greenhouse gas emissions to curb the rising seas.

This year a group of small island leaders put a resolution before the United Nations calling on the Security Council to tackle the issue as a threat to international peace and security.

But the horse may have already bolted with regards to saving our lowest lying coastal areas.

“The sea has been rising at about 3mm per year over the last decade and scientists expect that to accelerate along with the temperature of the globe,” said Hunter.

“This is obviously subject to what we do in terms of mitigating greenhouse gases but certainly for the first few decades or at least first half of this century that hardly affects sea level rises.

“There’s a big time lag effect here and there’s not much we can do about it. Once we really curb greenhouse gas emissions then we’ll have to wait decades, maybe centuries for sea level rise to flatten off.”

It’s a sobering thought and one which leads to the question, even if land reclamation projects are safe from sea rise this century, what will happen next century? At the rate things are going it seems likely most coastal development’s will face a watery future at some point.

While none of us will be around to see it, it’s a depressing thought that unlike the Pyramids of Egypt or India’s Taj Mahal these iconic developments of the 21st century may not stand the test of time for future generations.

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Massive Antarctic ice shelf set to break loose

Yahoo News 3 Apr 09;

PARIS (AFP) – A Jamaica-sized ice shelf is close to wrenching itself away from Antarctica, following dramatic weakening of an ice "bridge" linking it to the continent, the European Space Agency (ESA) reported Friday.

The icy umbilical cord tying the Wilkins Ice Shelf to two islands on the Antarctic peninsula "looks set to collapse," ESA said.

The evidence comes from radar pictures taken on Thursday by its Envisat Earth-monitoring satellite, the Paris-based agency said in a press release.

Scientists have been keeping a worried eye on this ice shelf for years.

For many, it is a barometer of global warming, which has hit the Antarctic peninsula harder than almost any region on Earth.

The Wilkins Ice Shelf was stable for most of the last century, covering around 16,000 square kilometres (6,000 square miles) before it began to retreat in the 1990s.

By May 2009, an ice bridge, about 2.7 kms (1.7 miles) wide on average and just 900 metres (yards) at its narrowest point, was all that connected it to Charcot and Latady islands.

Over the past year, the ice shelf has lost about 1,800 square kilometres (700 square miles), or about 14 percent of its size, in further breakup events, ESA said.

New pictures show "the beginning of what appears to be the demise of the ice bridge" itself, it added.

This week, rifts formed along the central axis of the bridge and a large chunk of ice broke away. The stress patterns are now expanding rapidly, pointing to a likely imminent collapse of the link.

Ice shelves are ledges of thick ice that float on the sea and are attached to the land. They are formed when ice is exuded from ice sheet on land.

In the past 20 years, Antarctica has lost seven shelves.

The process is marked by shrinkage and the breakaway of increasingly bigger chunks before the remainder of the shelf snaps away from the coast.

It then disintegrates into debris or into icebergs that eventually melt as they drift northwards.

Scientists are especially puzzled that the Wilkins has suffered big breakups during the southern hemisphere's winter, when atmospheric temperatures are at their lowest.

One theory is that relatively warm currents from the Southern Ocean are scouring the underside of the shelf, thinning it rapidly from underneath.

In the past 50 years, the peninsula -- the tongue of Antarctica that juts up towards South America -- has experienced warming of 2.5 degrees Celsius (4.5 degrees Fahrenheit), which is many times higher than the global average.

In the early 1990s, many experts predicted that it would take 30 years for a shelf as vast as the Wilkins to be lost.

Antarctica is the world's biggest store of freshwater. Its ice, located on land in two vast slabs and on the peninsula, holds enough water to raise global sea levels by 57 metres (185 feet).

The Antarctic ice shelves do not add to sea levels when they melt. Like the Arctic ice cap, they float on the sea and thus displace their own volume.

Wordie Ice Shelf has disappeared: scientists
Reuters 3 Apr 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - One Antarctic ice shelf has quickly vanished, another is disappearing and glaciers are melting faster than anyone thought due to climate change, U.S. and British government researchers reported on Friday.

They said the Wordie Ice Shelf, which had been disintegrating since the 1960s, is gone and the northern part of the Larsen Ice Shelf no longer exists. More than 3,200 square miles (8,300 square km) have broken off from the Larsen shelf since 1986.

Climate change is to blame, according to the report from the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey, available at pubs.usgs.gov/imap/2600/B.

"The rapid retreat of glaciers there demonstrates once again the profound effects our planet is already experiencing -- more rapidly than previously known -- as a consequence of climate change," U.S. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar said in a statement.

"This continued and often significant glacier retreat is a wakeup call that change is happening ... and we need to be prepared," USGS glaciologist Jane Ferrigno, who led the Antarctica study, said in a statement.

"Antarctica is of special interest because it holds an estimated 91 percent of the Earth's glacier volume, and change anywhere in the ice sheet poses significant hazards to society," she said.

In another report published in the journal Geophysical Letters, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that ice is melting much more rapidly than expected in the Arctic as well, based on new computer analyses and recent ice measurements.

The U.N. Climate Panel projects that world atmospheric temperature will rise by between 1.8 and 4.0 degrees Celsius because of emissions of greenhouse gases that could bring floods, droughts, heat waves and more powerful storms.

As glaciers and ice sheets melt, they can raise overall ocean levels and swamp low-lying areas.

(Reporting by Maggie Fox; Editing by Xavier Briand)

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