Best of our wild blogs: 16 May 09

K C Tsang: To be able to see, not merely look
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Island Festivals
the latest Ubin festivities on ubin.sgkopi

Gods and ghosts
on the annotated budak blog

Bidens pilosa @Wild Wild West (Part 1)
on the Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature blog

Housekeeping
on the annotated budak blog

Why love-in-a-mist?
answer needed on the wonderful creation blog

Crows mobbing a Changeable Hawk Eagle
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Envirofest @ Toa Payoh Hub, 23 May 2009
on the Habitatnews blog

Launch of Low Carbon Singapore
an online community dedicated to help Singapore reduce her carbon emissions on AsiaIsGreen

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No whale sharks at Sentosa IR

Resorts World exploring other 'conservation-focused' options
Grace Chua, Straits Times 16 May 09;

RESORTS World at Sentosa (RWS) is scrapping its plan to exhibit whale sharks at its upcoming Marine Life Park.

The creatures had been touted as a star attraction for the 8ha oceanarium, the world's largest, when Genting International's RWS won its bid for the Sentosa integrated resort (IR) three years ago.

The plan drew intense flak from animal welfare organisations such as the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), which highlighted the limited space for huge animals that can grow to over 12m long, and their dismal survival rate in captivity.

The developer stuck to its guns - but now may have realised it made a mistake.

RWS spokesman Krist Boo admitted the resort was hoping to back out of its original plan as it believes it may not be able to care for the animals.

She told The Straits Times on Friday: 'We are discussing and exploring an alternative proposal to having whale sharks.'

The new proposal, like any change to the original IR plan, must be presented to the Government.

Lobbying against the whale shark plan began almost as soon as it was announced. In recent months, however, it has increased, with groups such as the SPCA, Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) and Sea Shepherd Conservation Society chiming in. An online petition with 9,000 signatures and a Facebook group now numbering 2,000 members have also come up.

RWS said it has been engaging the groups since 2007, though Ms Boo said that its action was not governed by 'fleeting public opinion', but 'conservation of this species'. Only the whale shark exhibit would be changed, she said, adding that the replacement would be conservation-focused.

The change is not expected to affect the cost of the IR, an expected $6.59 billion. The opening date of the Marine Life Park has yet to be confirmed, but will be after RWS' first section opens early next year. It is not clear whether earlier plans to have 700,000 marine creatures, including tiger sharks, piranhas and dolphins, are still in place.

Animal welfare groups also oppose the idea of dolphins in captivity. Still, they consider the latest development a significant victory.

Ms Deirdre Moss, executive officer of the SPCA, said: 'The SPCA is delighted that Resorts World has chosen to go this route, which would mean that whale sharks will be spared from being held captive in Singapore.'

Last month, RWS presented to non-governmental organisations and individuals an alternative proposal which is still under discussion.

Environmental blogger November Tan, 27, who was involved in the discussion, said: 'I am glad there won't be whale sharks, and I hope (civil society groups) will be involved in further consultations.'

But another potential flashpoint concerns dolphins caught in the wild, as these animals undergo 'considerable stress and suffering' in captivity, the SPCA's Ms Moss said.

Last December, the first batch of seven dolphins meant for RWS were shipped from the Solomon Islands to the Philippines, raising conservationists' ire.

Casino mulls alternatives to whale shark exhibit
AFP 16 May 09;
also carried on Channel NewsAsia on 16 May

SINGAPORE (AFP) — A Singapore casino developer said Saturday it was considering alternatives to its plan to exhibit whale sharks, the world's largest fish, which had run into strong opposition from animal welfare groups.

"We have started to explore plans for an alternative to a whale shark exhibit," Krist Boo, the spokeswoman for Resorts World at Sentosa, told AFP.

Resorts World at Sentosa, one of two casino resorts being built in Singapore, had planned to import the whale sharks for its Marine Life Park (MLP) which is set to become the world's biggest oceanarium upon completion.

The park however said its move was not due to pressure by the seven animal welfare groups which have launched an online petition that has gathered more than 9,000 signatures.

"The MLP team does not take its responsibilities to both conservation and Singapore lightly and as such, we spent the past two years doing much groundwork," it said in a statement to AFP.

"We strongly believe that our action must be governed by the conservation of this species rather than what is dictated by fleeting public opinion."

Alternative options to the whale shark exhibit being considered by the MLP were shown to the various animal welfare groups last month, it said.

"This proposal is still in the process of being refined for a further round of review," the MLP said.

Any changes to the planned whale shark exhibit would have to get the final approval of the Singapore government.

Animal welfare groups welcomed the move by Resorts World at Sentosa to consider alternatives to exhibiting whale sharks, which can reach lengths of 12 metres (40 feet) or the size of a bus.

"I think it's very progressive in that they are considering other alternatives," said Louis Ng, executive director and founder of the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society group.

Jaki Teo, the campaign coordinator behind the online petition (www.whalesharkpetition.com), hoped the authorities would consider the concerns raised by animal welfare groups about the whale sharks.

"A lot of the concerns are about the fact that they are not suited to be held in captivity," she said.

Although massive, whale sharks are docile and feed on plankton.

Resorts World at Sentosa is scheduled to open in phases starting from early 2010 and will feature the world's biggest oceanarium with 700,000 fish.

More links

• CITES to scrutinise Solomon Islands dolphin trade with links to more on the captive dolphin issue.
• Updates on whale sharks at Resorts World Sentosa
• Captive whale sharks and moral integrity of Resorts World Sentosa
• ACRES website
  
• Georgia Aquarium responds to Singapore petition against captive whale sharks.
  
• Resorts World Sentosa's response to petition against captive whale sharks
  
• Animal welfare groups oppose import of whale sharks at Sentosa IR
• The petition is at http://www.whalesharkpetition.com/
• I will boycott Resorts World Sentosa and its Marine Life Park Facebook group:
• More about the issues with lots of links

Read more!

Green blueprint an evolving document: responses from MEWR and MND

Straits Times Forum 16 May 09;

WE REFER to Ms Jessica Cheam's commentary, 'Black marks on green blueprint' (May 7). We agree that climate change would seriously impact Singapore. Thus, we have always taken the environment seriously.

We have taken many actions which have reduced Singapore's carbon emissions outside the present negotiations, such as promotion of public transport over private car use and the greening of our city.

In addition, 80 per cent of our energy now comes from natural gas, the cleanest of fossil fuels. This switch has reduced our emissions from the power sector by almost 25 per cent. Since 1990, economy-wide carbon intensity has decreased by 40 per cent.

Every emission-control measure entails costs. To afford to continue to take mitigation measures, we need to grow. We must therefore balance concern over the environment with economic growth.

The Inter-Ministerial Committee on Sustainable Development (IMCSD) was set up last year to take a whole-of-government approach to ensure that Singapore's development is sustainable.

The Sustainable Singapore blueprint is a comprehensive plan to improve resource efficiency, enhance the physical environment, develop capabilities and build an environmentally responsible community.

We aim for energy intensity (energy consumption per GDP dollar) improvements of 35 per cent from 2005 levels by 2030, building on our earlier efforts. We have factored in our unique circumstances as a resource-scarce country, dependent on global trade for our survival, and with no viable alternatives to fossil fuels for energy.

To address climate change effectively, a concerted effort by all countries is needed. The measures and goals in the blueprint are a first step. We will continually review and update these efforts.

We will employ a full range of policy instruments, including education, incentives and legislation. We will progressively introduce more stringent standards to give people and companies adequate time to adjust habits and practices.

The Government has set aside $1 billion to help businesses and individuals make more sustainable choices. This will support new initiatives to kickstart change.

There are also many separately funded initiatives that contribute to sustainable development. These include the budget for park space, the ABC Waters programme and the expansion of the rail network.

As new challenges and opportunities emerge, the budget will be reviewed. The blueprint is an evolving document. We will monitor Singapore's progress towards sustainable development, introduce new initiatives as technology and circumstances change and review the blueprint within five years.

We thank Ms Cheam for her views and welcome feedback on the blueprint at www.sustainablesingapore.gov.sg.

Philip Ong
Director, Strategic Policy
Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources
Co-Lead, IMCSD Secretariat

Teoh Zsin Woon (Ms)
Director, Strategic Planning
Ministry of National Development
Co-Lead, IMCSD Secretariat

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Pulau Semakau: Dump wonderland

Leong Siok Hui, The Star 16 May 09;

A fun tide pool walk in Singapore reveals a dynamic and rich marine ecosystem, and would you believe it’s in a landfill!

The fiddler crab does a peek-a-boo and scuttles off. The octopus hunkers down amid psychedelic sponges and alien-like soft coral, while a tiny kaleidoscopic flatworm floats by like a gentle, undulating wave.

Our necks are sore from craning, and the scorching heat from the sun is stinging our skin. But like a bunch of eager kids on a treasure hunt, we’re having a blast sloshing through ankle-deep water to spot the intriguing marine creatures lurking here.

The intertidal walk, run by National University of Singapore’s Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (RMBR), is on Pulau Semakau, 8km south of Singapore’s main island, which ironically is also the country’s only landfill.

For 365 days a year, 24/7, all the incinerated and non-incinerable trash from the country’s 4.84 million population is dumped here.

The landfill’s capacity equals 840 football fields, piled three stories high (source: www.pollutionengineering.com) and will be able to hold Singapore’s average 2.45 million tonnes of rubbish a year (2008 statistics from the National Environment Agency) until 2040.

Opened in 1999, Semakau also prides itself as being a biodiversity hotspot that harbours rich marine life, including rare plant and animal species. Aside from a working landfill, you’ll also see mangroves, sandy shores, seagrass meadows and coral reefs.

Today, the island is a haven for nature buffs, researchers and interest groups like Nature Society Singapore and Sport Fishing Association Singapore.

Bird lovers come to ogle at the 55 species of birds which have been spotted here so far, like the endangered Great-Billed Heron, Pacific Reef Egret and the Malaysian Plover. And sports fishing enthusiasts enjoy catching and releasing grouper, barracuda and milk fish.

Intertidal walk

At low tide, groups like ours wade through the mudflats carpeted with lush seagrass and decked with giant anemones, molluscs and multi-hued and -shaped corals. “Intertidal”, refers to an area that is immersed by seawater during high tide and exposed during low tide.

Calling the intertidal zones home are the hardy creatures that survive amazing feats daily — drying up and overheating during low tide, and resisting pummelling waves when the water rises, as well as dealing with predators like crustaceans and wading birds.

During our two hours there, we spotted a mind-boggling variety of creatures, from sea slugs, worms and sea stars, to snakes and bizarre-looking coral.

Our guide, Robert Heigermoser, briefed us on the do’s and don’ts before the walk. The rule of thumb is not to pick up or touch anything, and follow the guide’s lead to avoid squashing tiny creatures or stepping on potentially lethal ones like jellyfish or sea urchins.

Of German origin, Heigermoser is a Singapore-based licensed nature guide and volunteer guide for RMBR. His razor-sharp eyes can even spot creatures like the Elbow Crab which blends seamlessly into the mud to waylay a prey.

Heigermoser dished out interesting information on these marine creatures. For instance, the sea stars have amazing regenerative powers — they are able to grow parts of their body that have snapped off.

And did you know that if a sea cucumber is threatened, it expels a sticky white substance that hardens upon contact with air? If provoked even further, it spills its guts, literally, in a last ditch attempt to gross out its predator.

“Of course, the gut would eventually regenerate,” Heigermose adds.

One of the most odd-looking corals was a smooth, leathery coral (Family Alcyonaceae). It looks freakishly like gloved hands, piled one on top of the other and reaching out to grab the nearest passer-by. Creepy!

Nature education

Since Semakau opened as a recreational area in July 2005, RMBR has done 60 walks for the public, schools and government agencies, and reached out to about 2,437 participants, says RMBR’s education and research officer Wang Luan Keng. Semakau is open to the public only via the various interest groups.

“Some of these participants have gone on to other nature walks or returned to our walks. Some have even signed up with us as volunteer guides,” says Wang, who was leading a group of secondary students on the same trip as yours truly.

“Others share their experience by blogging or through Facebook and encourage their friends and family to join the walk. We hope to educate the participants about the rich biodiversity in Semakau and the need to conserve our marine heritage,” adds Wang.

Also on the itinerary are a landfill tour and a short video briefing on Singapore’s solid waste management practices.

“Through the landfill tour, participants can learn about the need to protect the environment and to prolong the life span of this island by changing their lifestyle so that they can minimise the waste generated each day through the 3Rs: reduce, reuse and recycle,” points out Wang, whose RMBR has just started scientific surveys at Semakau.

“Our long-term goal is to see Pulau Semakau protected as a marine park for our present and future generations to enjoy and appreciate.”

Another passionate proponent of Semakau is environmental activist and ecology expert, Ria Tan. The Singaporean single-handedly runs the popular website, Wild Singapore, which stores a cache of information on natural areas in Singapore, flora and fauna species, photo galleries and event/activity announcements.

“With probably the largest mangroves, seagrass areas and coral reefs in Singapore, Semakau is a spectacular place to share with members of the public” according to Tan over an e-mail interview.

In 2005, Tan and a few individuals did a survey of Semakau when the National Environment Agency (who manages the landfill) was toying with the idea of opening the island for recreation.

“Its natural mangroves shelter a wide variety of flora and fauna and some are so rare that they are no longer found in mainland Singapore,” she adds.

“For example, the Seashore bat lily (Tacca leontopetaloides) which is endemic to Semakau and Pulau Pawai, the Pink-eyed pong pong tree (Cerbera manghas), and Api api jambu (Avicennia marina).”

For land-scarce Singapore, places like Semakau, Sg Buloh Mangrove Reserve, Chek Jawa in Pulau Ubin and Bukit Timah Nature Reserve are instrumental in creating eco-awareness in its young.

“In my experience, there’s an increasingly strong interest in visiting our wild places,” says Tan. “For example, there are about 3,000 unique visitors each month to the wildhappenings blog, which highlights nature activities in Singapore.”

Awareness aside, Semakau does and will keep intriguing first-timers and repeat visitors

“It’s amazing that after over 100 trips here for both public walks and surveys, we are still finding something we have never recorded before on each trip — that goes to show the rich diversity that is still awaiting discovery,” Wang sums up.

Yup, for those three hours in Semakau that afternoon, I felt like Alice stumbling into a Wonderland inhabited by shore creatures.

For more information on Semakau, visit www.wildsingapore.com. To take part in a Semakau walk, click on: http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/workshop/semakau_workshop.php (Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research).

The making of a recreational dump
The Star 16 May 09;

Every day, an average of 2,000 tonnes of ash from Singapore’s four incineration plants are shipped to Semakau. The country burns more than 90% of its garbage due to lack of space.

But where do you dump the ashes? When the last landfill closed on mainland Singapore, Semakau took over in 1999. But the government realised that creating more landfills wasn’t the answer. Hence, from the early 1990s, the government started launching national recycling programmes and to campaign for industries and residents to produce less waste.

At Semakau, they built a 7km-long rock bund to connect two offshore islands, Semakau and Sekang. The closed-up area becomes a waste pond divided into 11 interconnected bays or cells, where the ashes and debris are dumped. Once each cell fills up, it’s covered with a layer of soil and planted with grass.

From the start, Singapore’s National Environment Agency (NEA) made an effort to protect Semakau’s natural environment when designing and constructing the landfill. Mangroves destroyed during construction were replanted. The mangroves are now a thriving 13ha forest.

Silt screens were installed to ensure that the coral were not affected during reclamation works. The landfill is lined with an impermeable membrane and marine clay, and any leachate is treated at a treatment plant. Regular water testing is carried out to ensure the liners work. The mangroves are also good indicators of seepage through the liners.

“Another design feature is the built-in channels that allow the flow of seawater into non-active cells, keeping the water fresh at all times,” says an NEA spokesman via e-mail.

Today, the landill is clean and odourless, and its surrounding waters are unpolluted. All you can detect at Semakau is the salty whiff of sea water.

NEA works closely with nature groups, corporations and schools to ensure the public learn about the country’s waste management system. But come 2040, the government has to figure out what to do next.

In the meantime, Singapore residents are gearing towards minimising thrash and increasing the recycling rate from the current 56%.

More links

• Pulau Semakau how to get there and what to see and do, on wildsingapore
• Photos of Pulau Semakau's wildlife on wildsingapore flickr
  
• Blog posts about Pulau Semakau by ordinary people

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They came for songs and Tua Pek Kong

Pulau Ubin is rural setting for getai spectacle in celebration of Chinese deity's birthday
The New Paper 16 May 09;

IT WAS the first time that undergraduate Ong Jun Xiang had seen Pulau Ubin so lit up.

The sleepy north-eastern island hosted a three-hour getai show on Wednesday night at its town square in honour of Chinese deity Tua Pek Kong, marking the end of the five-day festivities.

Although the deity's birthday has been celebrated for decades on Ubin, it's only the second year that getai has replaced the customary Teochew opera.

Mr Ong, 22, who spent his childhood in Ubin, found the rural setting of the getai 'refreshing'.

For the past five nights, he and other visitors to Pulau Ubin have been enjoying free bumboat rides. Crossing over to Pulau Ubin from Changi Point Ferry Terminal usually costs $2.50.

Devotees were also feted with gifts. Given out over the five days were 2,700 hongbaos containing a dollar each; pigs, chickens and ducks that had been used as offerings; and the moon-shaped 'Tua Pek Kong biscuits'.

Hosting the show - and making the bumboat rides free - cost more than $5,000, said one of the organisers, Mr Vincent Chew, 40, a long-time Ubin resident who runs the Chew Teck Seng provision shop.

About 2,000 people turned up on Wednesday night, he estimated.

Sentimental

'People come for the getai, yes, and the biscuits,' he said. 'You can't find these biscuits anywhere else. We Ubin people can be sentimental about these things.'

Indeed, nostalgia was what compelled many, including Mr Ong and his parents, to gather at Ubin.

The island was where his parents met, worked and fell in love. He, too, grew up there, chasing chickens and geese around as a child.

Said his mother, Madam Choo Pack Lian, 51, a housewife: 'I come here every year with my husband to pray, and to support Pulau Ubin.'

She and her husband lived in Ubin for more than 30 years before moving to the mainland.

When asked what she thought about the getai, Madam Choo beamed.

'The getai's made Tua Pek Kong's celebration more popular,' she said. 'There are more mainlanders here now.'

The getai may have helped to lure mainlanders, but Ubin has worked its magic too.

For many, the dusty Ubin road, the neon lights and Chinese lanterns have led them not just to the village square, but also to memories of those idyllic kampung days. They reminisce, joke over their beers, and for a few hours, they are boys and girls again.

Madam Chan Mei Ling, 50, who went with her husband and friends, said: 'It's like a '60s kampung. You can't find this kind of atmosphere in Singapore anymore.'

The getai performers, too, enjoyed the kampung atmosphere.

'You feel like you can really relax here,' said Ms Tay Yin Yin, 23, an artiste with Jack Neo's management company.

'It's like going to another country.'

She says that she will return next year if invited.

Even non-Chinese were spotted in the crowd.

Mr Nikchand Munnilal, 60, a salesman, was enjoying the getai show with his friends.

When asked if he could understand the songs, he laughed, saying: 'Music is an international language.

'And I like Ubin. It's peaceful, it's beautiful: The only place in Singapore where we can escape from city life.'

Han Yongming, newsroom intern

More links

• Pulau Ubin how to get there, what to see and do, on wildsingapore
• Island Festivals the latest Ubin festivities on ubin.sgkopi
• Gods and ghosts on the annotated budak blog

Read more!

Jakarta rain caused by rising sea temperature

Prodita Sabarini, The Jakarta Post 15 May 09;

A rare increase in sea temperatures has caused a prolonged rainy season and the recent torrential rain that flooded North Jakarta, a Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) official says.

The BMKG previously pre-dicted the wet season would end around mid-April in the northern area of Jakarta and mid-May in South Jakarta.

Already mid-May, this week, a flash flood burst a dam in Pluit, North Jakarta, after heavy rain in the area.

The flash flood inundated six subdistricts in the area, including the affluent residential complex of Pantai Mutiara.

The head of climatology and air quality analysis at BMKG, Soetamto, said the agency had failed to predict the heavy rain due to a rare increase in the sea temperature by 1 degree Celsius.

"The Java Sea and the sea in the southern part of Java, in the third and fourth weeks of April, experienced a temperature increase of 1 degree Celsius," Soetamto said.

The Java Sea lies between the islands of Java and Kalimantan to the north, Sumatra to the west and Sulawesi to the east.

Soetamto said the temperature rise caused high evaporation, which resulted in continued heavy rainfall during May.

Soetamto said the agency pre-dicted the rain would continue to pound North Jakarta until the end of May, while South Jakarta was likely to see the start of the dry season in June.

He said that annually, the sea temperature in Java dropped in April in the lead-up to the dry season.

During the last 15 years of monitoring, a rise in the sea temperature by 1 degree has occurred only once, in 2005.

Soetamto did not comment when asked whether the phenomenon was related to global climate change.

However, he said this was "a very rare case".

"That's why people were surprised to experience rain in the middle of May," he said.

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Funding Pledges Roll In for Coral Initiative

Fidelis E. Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 15 May 09;

With the ink hardly dry on the Coral Triangle Initiative signed on Friday in Manado, the plan to protect the six-nation Asia-Pacific region’s threatened marine and coastal habitat has already gathered as much as $300 million in initial funding pledges, officials said, much of it in co-financing mobilized by the Asian Development Bank.

“Indonesia, through the president, has given $5 million to the program, Papua New Guinea $2 million, Malaysia $1 million and the Philippines $5 million,” said Freddy Numberi, Indonesia’s minister of maritime affairs and fisheries, adding that Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo had given her personal pledge for her country’s funds.

In his opening speech at the CTI summit, Solomon Islands Prime Minister Michael Somare said his country was also committed to allocating $2 million.

The bulk of the funds comes from outside the region, however, with the United States pledging $41.6 million and the Global Environmental Facility, an independent financial organization that provides grants to developing countries for environmental remediation, pledging $63 million more.

Australia added another $2 million. Peter Garret, the Australian environment minister, told reporters that the Australian portion was only the first phase of a continuing commitment to support the triangle initiative and help to fund a permanent secretariat.

“This investment will focus on areas where we can make the greatest contribution, by sharing our knowledge and directly supporting capacity-building in marine biodiversity conservation, sustainable fisheries, protecting vulnerable marine species, and community empowerment,” Garret said in a prepared statement.

A GEF official said 76 percent of the organization’s funds, or $45.4 million, had already been allocated to implement nine projects in the six countries that make up the organization.

“Each country [in the GEF] has overall allocation funding through different focal points, such as climate change, waters, biodiversity, they all have access to the funding and it’s their choice how much they want to allocate to the Coral Triangle Initiative; the decision is theirs,” he said.

“But overall, they decided to allocate all together $63 million and the Asian Development Bank has been successfully in mobilizing $300 million in co-finance.”

“We are a global environmental facility, so our aim is to foster global diversity and the coral triangle is the ‘Amazon of the Oceans,’ a reference to the huge Amazon rainforest of South America that is considered vital to carbon sequestration. So it’s a global heritage,” the delegate said.

CTI gets $120m to protect marine environment
Adianto P. Simamora and Indah Setiawati, The Jakarta Post 16 May 09;

Leaders of the six Coral Triangle countries concluded their summit in Manado on Friday with state members and donors pledging a total of US$120 million in funding for coral conservation activities in the 75,000-square-kilometer Coral Triangle area.

The Coral Triangle - bounded by Malaysia, the Philippines, Papua New Guinea, the Solomon Islands, Timor Leste and Indonesia -makes up 1 percent of the Earth's surface but contains 76 percent of its coral reef species and 37 percent of its reef fish species, and supports the lives of more than 100 million people.

Under the Coral Triangle Initiative on Coral Reefs, Fisheries and Food Security (CTI-CFF), the leaders signed a declaration vowing to cooperate to safeguard the world's richest marine resources and ensure the income, livelihoods and food security of millions dependent on the triangle.

In his opening speech, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono pledged US$5 million to support the implementation of CTI programs, and also offered to host the CTI's permanent secretariat by providing full financial support for its daily operations.

"If other coral triangle countries accept this offer, we are prepared to provide full financial support for the day-to-day operations of the secretariat," he said.

Yudhoyono, Malaysian prime minister Mohd. Najib Tun Abdul Razak, Papua New Guinea prime minister Michael Somare, Philippine president Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, Solomon Islands prime minister Derek Sikua and Timor Leste president Jose Ramos Horta then adopted the CTI Regional Plan of Action, a non-binding document to conserve and manage coastal and marine resources within the coral triangle.

The Philippines has promised to contribute $5 million, with Papua New Guinea and Malaysia pledging $2 million and $1million, respectively.

From the donor countries, the US will commit $41.6 million and Australia said it would provide an initial $1.5 million. The Global Environment Facility (GEF), the largest donor organization under the UN, has provided $63 million.

Najib said the implementation of coral triangle projects should be based on national priorities and in line with national policies of each of the six member countries.

"We, too, must recognize the role of local and indigenous communities in this area and integrate their traditional, scientific, technical and technological knowledge in this project," he told the summit. "This is to ensure relevancy of the project on the ground."

Somare said there was an urgent need to address and manage the challenges brought by climate change and its impacts on the coral triangle, underlining all funding for coral triangle activities should be coordinated through a national arrangement.

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EU And Malaysia To Cooperate On Curbing Illegal Fishing

Bernama 15 May 09;

KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 (Bernama) -- The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union (EU), and the Ministry of Agriculture and Agro-Based Industries will host a seminar on May 18 for local policy makers, stakeholders and authorities in the fisheries industry to address illegal,unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing.

"IUU fishing is a world-wide phenomenon with disastrous environmental and socio-economic impact,threatening the sustainable exploitation of living aquatic resources and marine biodiversity.

"It also has serious overall consequences for coastal countries like Malaysia who lose out on marine resources to illegal operators," the Ambassador and Head of Delegation of the European Commission to Malaysia, Vincent Piket said in a statement here today.

He also said developing countries paid a particularly high price for illegal fishing as their stocks are depleted by unlawful operators.

According to Piket, the loss of resources means a loss of revenue for the coastal states, with legitimate fishermen facing an unfair price competition from illegal operators who also rob them of their livelihood.

"The EU has been active in the fight against illegal fishing for over a decade. However, the results achieved at the international level has not succeeded in reducing the scope of illegal fishing," he said.

For that reason, he explained, the EU had adopted the IUU Regulation to prevent, deter and eliminate illegal fishing and it will come into force on Jan 1, 2010.

Prior to the formal adoption of this regulation, the EU was assisting non-EU countries with its implementation.

"The seminar will help Malaysian authorities adhere to the regulation. We are hopeful that it will also better equip them to address illegal fishing," Piket said.

The EU is also organising a similar seminar in other Asian countries as part of the information campaign for non-EU countries.

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WWF-Malaysia Hails Government Commitment In the Coral Triangle Initiative

Bernama 15 May 09;

KUALA LUMPUR, May 15 (Bernama) -- World Wide Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF-Malaysia) has congratulated the Malaysian Government for signing a declaration and agreeing to be an active participant of the Coral Triangle Initiative.

WWF-Malaysia in a statement here Friday said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak together with Heads of State of five other countries of the region, signed a Declaration to emphasize Malaysia's commitment to manage and conserve the living marine resources of the Coral Triangle, in Manado, North Sulawesi.

"The Coral Triangle is considered to be the most biologically diverse and the richest marine resource area in the world," WWF-Malaysia said.

The six countries involved in the unique and noble venture are Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands and Timor Leste.

It said as part of the Declaration, a Regional Plan of Action with five major goals was adopted.

Among the important issues the Plan of Action will address are food security and poverty reduction, along with the conversation of endangered marine species and sustainable management of living marine resources, it said.

"WWF-Malaysia together with other NGOs assisted in drafting the Regional Plan of Action and we are looking forward to supporting our Government in finalizing our own National Plan of Action emphasizing sustainable fishing, creating more MPAs (Marine Protected Areas) with good management practices, conservation of endangered marine species, such as marine turtles, and the impact of climate change on the marine eco-systems and the fishing sector," it said.

WWF-Malaysia in collaboration with the Department of Fisheries Malaysia and Sabah is working on establishing the ecosystem approach as a tool for fisheries resource management, considering that the demersal fish stock in Malaysia's territorial and EEZ waters has declined drastically in the last 35 years.

It said it would continue to support the Department of Fisheries and partners to implement the National Plan of Action for Marine Turtles which was launched in November 2008.

WWF-Malaysia has called on the Malaysian Government to allocate more resources to the relevant government authorities to implement activities which would fulfil the country's obligation under the Coral Triangle Initiative Declaration, and more importantly to achieve its own national policies to manage and conserve Malaysia's marine environment, to provide food security and to eradicate poverty.

-- BERNAMA

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Queensland's wild dugongs to be studied

Crystal Ja, 9news 15 May 09;

Queensland biologists are getting up close and personal with some of Moreton Bay's wild dugongs in an on-going study monitoring their health and sex lives.

Workers from the Gold Coast's Sea World and the University of Queensland hope to capture and release 17 dugongs during a week-long study in Moreton Bay, home to one of Australia's densest dugong populations.

Research team leader Janet Lanyon says the animals would be brought on to the research boat and examined for about 30 to 40 minutes.

The biologists will look to blood, urine, faecal and exhaled air samples, as well as tears, to assess the health of the animal, checking for illness or disease, as well as its reproductive capabilities.

"Assessing the health of these animals is a valuable tool in determining the fitness of wildlife populations," Dr Lanyon said.

"And once we understand seasonality and timing of reproductive patterns, we will be able to develop useful models of population dynamics for vulnerable dugongs."

The odd-looking marine mammal, a protected species in Australia, is in decline across the globe with fears human interference is largely to blame.

Because dugongs enjoy living in shallow waters, they are more vulnerable to human activity, with reports of dugongs being caught in fishing nets and hit by boats.

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Thai Navy makes grisly tiger seizure

WWF 15 May 09;

Nongkhai/Bangkok, Thailand —The Thai Navy has seized two Tiger carcasses and 45 pangolins, and arrested eight traffickers who had planned to smuggle the animals across the Mekong River into Lao PDF.

Navy officers followed two cars carrying the traffickers in Ponpang village in the Rattana Wapi district of Nongkai Province on April 26, and made the arrests as they were attempting to transfer the slaughtered Tigers and live pangolins to a boat.

Eight people were arrested including a Vietnamese woman and her Thai husband. Several others in the boat fled upon sighting the navy officers.

The two Tiger carcasses, chopped in half, and the 45 pangolins, two of which were dead, were found inside the two cars.

The navy and Natural Resources and Environmental Crime Suppression Division have sent the tiger carcasses to the Department of National Parks for DNA testing.

“TRAFFIC lauds the Thai authorities for carrying out these DNA tests. Determining the origin of these Tigers is crucial if authorities hope to end this tragic trade,” said TRAFFIC Southeast Asia’s Acting Director Chris R. Shepherd.

This seizure is not the first case involving Tigers being smuggled across this border.

In January 2008, the Thai Navy thwarted an attempt to smuggle six slaughtered Tigers, five Leopards and 275 live pangolins across the Thai-Laos border.

In that incident, the Tigers had also been found sliced in half, while the Leopards had had their organs removed.

News reports quoted authorities saying that at least six people escaped into the forest while others on a waiting boat fled into Lao carrying four sacks believed to contain more animal remains.

This January, Thai police seized four Tiger carcasses in the resort town of Hua Hin.

The dead Tigers, weighing about 250 kg had been decapitated and were found in a truck passing through Hua Hin in the Prachuap Kiri Khan province.

Police said the dead Tigers were believed to have come from Malaysia and were being transported to China.

A Thai daily, Bangkok Post, also reported that genetic testing would be conducted on the Tiger carcasses at Kasetsart University to see if they were domesticated or wild animals.

The following month, Thai authorities discovered the butchered carcasses of two Tigers and a panther when they stopped a truck in the southern province of Pattani.

The driver of the vehicle was arrested and charged with illegal possession of the carcasses of endangered wildlife.

He told authorities he was hired to drive from Sungai Golok, a town on the Malaysian border to Hat Yai in Thailand. Reports said the carcasses were also sent for DNA testing to determine the subspecies and hence the origin of the animals.

TRAFFIC also encouraged governments throughout Southeast Asia to work together to tackle the problem.

“The trail of butchered Tigers winds through many countries in Southeast Asia.

“Tracking down those who illegally kill and trade these Tigers and putting them behind bars is a task countries cannot accomplish their own,” said Shepherd.

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Key meeting of UN wildlife body in limbo: official

Yahoo News 15 May 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The only UN conference with the power to ban trade in threatened species remains in limbo nearly three months after Qatar failed to confirm a pledge to host the meeting, a UN official said Friday.

The 175-nation Convention for the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) is to meet next year, in one of the most important global forums on wildlife protection.

The Gulf state lobbied hard at the last CITES conference, held in The Hague in June 2007, to host the 12-day, triennial event. The next meeting was originally scheduled to take place in January 2010.

But in February, Qatar informally told CITES that it had been unable to book a conference centre, according to a source in the CITES secretariat who asked not to be named.

Qatar said it might be able to accommodate the roughly 2,000 participants at the end of March 2010, but has not followed up, which has caused consternation within the UN agency.

"CITES cannot announce new dates until they are officially confirmed," said the source.

"The delay is creating problems in CITES processes and affecting other Parties, NGOs and media that want to attend the meeting. This is very embarrassing."

Privately, UN officials say Qatar seems reluctant to honour its pledge, but are mystified as to why.

"We really don't know what the problem is. It is hard for me to imagine it is money," the diplomat said.

Host nations of CITES conferences are expected to help cover expenses for delegates from poor countries, as well as for secretariat officials, amounting to over a million dollars.

"If CITES doesn't hear back soon, we will be obliged to go to 'Plan B' and host the meeting in another place, but that will be quite difficult at this stage," he said.

An official in Doha at the Permanent Committee for Organising Conferences, the government body charged with preparing international events, told AFP he was unaware of the CITES conference and no plans to host it were underway.

Attempts to reach officials at the foreign ministry or the Supreme Council for the Environment and Natural Reserves were unsuccessful.

Since coming into force in 1975, CITES has played a critical role in protecting animals and plants -- ranging from big cats to cacti to corals -- from commercial over-exploitation.

International trade in thousands of species are restricted or banned outright under its binding provisions.

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Wounded Elephant's Fate Weighs On Many Vietnamese

Ho Binh Minh, PlanetArk 15 May 09;

HANOI - A circus elephant has become a poster pachyderm against poaching of his endangered Asian species, capturing the hearts of many Vietnamese after an old wound caused by a trap flared up.

The fate of Kham Bun made headlines in Vietnam recently after the Hanoi circus said the elephant, who was rescued by rangers in 2007, might need to have its front leg amputated because the wound had started to gape again.

Kham Bun was captured, and wounded, in 2006 in the central highland province of Daklak.

The poachers tried to treat his wound then, but it was never properly cured and the elephant, who was given to the circus on orders from the government, was unable to perform.

Vietnam's population of the Elephas maximus, or Asian elephant, has been declining rapidly in recent decades due to deforestation and illegal hunting.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, there are about 150 elephants left in the country's forests, down from between 1,500 to 2,000 nearly two decades ago.

Newspapers said several people, many of them children, had offered to pay for Kham Bun's food and medical care after hearing his story. A traditional medicine practitioner even traveled to Hanoi from Buon Don village, where Kham Bun was first caught and treated, to help save his leg.

On Thursday, veterinarians and circus director Vu Ngoan Hop decided amputation was unnecessary and that the elephant's wound could be treated.

"The experts have concluded that the elephant is very strong," Hop told Reuters.

"We need to do a small surgery to widen the hole and check if any foreign matter is in there. There's no way that we would we would amputate its leg."

Rising prices and strong demand for illegal ivory threaten the survival of Indochina's remaining elephants, said TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

The group said they had surveyed almost 700 shops in Vietnam and found 11 percent selling nearly 2,500 ivory items originating from Laos, Vietnam and Cambodia.

(Editing by Miral Fahmy)

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Fruit Bats Have It Tougher Than Other Mammals

Sarah Ktisti, PlanetArk 15 May 09;

NICOSIA - Fruit bats are getting a raw deal when it comes to their survival, European experts on the endangered mammal said on Thursday.

The furry creatures' penchant for juicy fruit has made them enemy number one on the fruit farmer's hit list, they told a conference in Cyprus.

"Fruit bats are generally having a tougher time than other mammals," co-chair of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Bat Specialist Group, Paul Racey said.

There are 41,000 species of bat worldwide and 16,000 of these are under threat from extinction.

Cyprus is the only country in Europe which is home to the fruit bat.

Centuries of conflict between fruit farmers and the "flying fox" pillaging their crops, as was the case in Cyprus, almost wiped out the island's bat population.

"The authorities would hand out free cartridges to keep bat numbers down," said conservation expert Andreas Demetropoulos.

In line with Cyprus's EU accession, fruit bats came under the protection of Natura 2000 -- an international convention for the protection of endangered species.

With 22 bat species on the eastern Mediterranean island, Demetropoulos and his team are carrying out a three-year study on the distribution and diversity of bats.

"Cyprus has a lot of natural caves around limestone areas, and many old mineshafts are mostly inhabited by bats," Demetropoulos said.

"To stop the continuous victimization suffered by bats in Cyprus, the Agriculture ministry and various NGOs on the island are trying to educate adults and children about bats," said director of Cyprus Environment Service, Antonis Antoniou.

Since 2007 the Cyprus government has been funding farmers to invest in nets to protect their fruit and the bats.

In India and many other countries, bats have always been classified as vermin. While in Seychelles, one third of hotels and restaurants surveyed by the Environment Ministry served "flying fox."

Viewed in popular folklore as an ominous sign, bats are not as bad as superstition makes them out to be, Racey said.

"A fruit bat's role as a pollinator and in seed dispersal helps keep the native plants regenerating," Racey told Reuters.

Meanwhile, other species of bat help reduce pest species such as biting midges or malaria carrying insects, as well as the need for using a number of pesticides being sprayed on crops, experts said.

(Editing by Paul Casciato)

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Indian mynah bird next to face Australian cull

Australian hostility to 'feral' animals again evident as councils mobilised into planning culls by strength of public opinion
Toni O'Loughlin in Sydney, guardian.co.uk 15 May 09;

Australia's hatred of the Indian mynah bird ignited this week, with local councils drawing up plans for community cullings to combat the pest.

Like another loathed invader, the cane toad, the bird was originally imported from Asia to eat cane beetles, but is now the latest target of Australians' complex relationship with its wildlife.

The mynah is estimated to cost east coast farmers in the vicinity of AS$300 million a year. Its fouling of lawns and clotheslines has propelled it into the top 10 most hated feral animals in Australia.

One caller to talk back radio, reacting to the council plans, gleefully recounted how her husband had built and deployed a mynah bird trap in celebration of their last wedding anniversary.

The irate residents have jolted councils into action, with one in Sydney's western suburbs reportedly spending $5,000 to catch just two birds.

The mynahs are also expanding slowly westwards, evicting native parrots and possums from their nests as they go.

Bird-hunting neighbourhood vigilantes have had some success. Canberra's Indian Mynah Action group, set up three years ago by dedicated bird watcher, have carefully documented all 27,500 Indian mynahs they have killed.

Founding member, Bill Handke, knows they will never eradicate the bird but says "it's not a reason to do nothing".

But scientists say Australian attitudes to invasive species, colloquially known as ferals, often have little to do with science.

"Hate isn't strong enough" to describe how Australians feel about ferals says Professor Tony Peacock, who heads Invasive Species Cooperative Research Centre in Canberra.

For the past 18 months he has tracked public opinion on a host of invasive animals including wild cats, dogs, brumbies, camels, and a swag of other detested creatures including the Indian mynah.

Consistently the cane toad rates as the number one hated pest, even though scientists say the damage it wreaks pales in comparison to other species.

The Indian mynah ranks at seven, though it has been as high as fourth. Rabbits have moved up to third place.

"Four out of ten people were saying they hated rabbits but its now five to six people because we have been doing a lot of publicity about them," Peacock says.

Peacock, who hopes to harness anti-feral sentiment to recruit volunteers to help map the resurgent rabbit population, says that older people particularly dislike the pest because they remember when it literally plagued the land.

"Even if you didn't come from a farm you would go to your uncle's farm for holidays, so you were aware that rabbits and foxes were a problem because your uncle had to go out and shoot them," Peacock says.

The detestation of alien species in Australia come in part from the importance of the country's unique wildlife in the national psyche. Although an increasingly remote experience, Australians continue to identify with the bush says Tim Low, a founder of the Invasive Species Council.

"It's definitely part of the national culture. We love the fact that we have strange animals like kangaroos, platypus and koalas. There's a lot of hostility to the idea that foreign animals can come in and destroy the native habitat," Low says.

Yet ironically this pride has failed to protect the dingo and the kangaroo, which appears on the national coat of arms, from being culled as pests.

They rank 15 and 17 respectively on Peacock's surveys.

So reviled is the dingo that Lyn Watson, who breeds the native canine in Victoria, is worried they are being pushed to the edge of extinction.

"Australia has a powerful rural lobby and when animals get in the way, we kill them," she says.

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David Attenborough: Our planet is overcrowded

Alison George, New Scientist 15 May 09;

Veteran TV naturalist David Attenborough loves humans as much as other wildlife. But not when global populations are out of control, he tells Alison George

"I'M NOT doing anything exciting right now, like wrestling with gorillas. I'm working on radio scripts," says David Attenborough, a bit apologetically. Yet while his home in the leafy London suburb of Richmond is no longer full of the woolly monkeys, bushbabies or other exotic creatures his autobiography had living there, it's still a rich habitat. His collection of tribal art dominates the walls, a tribute to human inventiveness.

He has stopped keeping pets since his wife died, more than 10 years ago. "You can't, when you go away filming for weeks," he says. But his home is not entirely devoid of animal life. "I have great crested newts in the pond, and a darling robin that comes in the kitchen."

The latest venture for this veteran of wildlife documentaries is as controversial as anything he has done in his long career. He has become a patron of the Optimum Population Trust, a think tank on population growth and environment with a scary website showing the global population as it grows. "For the past 20 years I've never had any doubt that the source of the Earth's ills is overpopulation. I can't go on saying this sort of thing and then fail to put my head above the parapet."

There are nearly three times as many people on the planet as when Attenborough started making television programmes in the 1950s - a fact that has convinced him that if we don't find a solution to our population problems, nature will. "Other horrible factors will come along and fix it, like mass starvation."

Trying to pin him down about the specifics of what to do, however, proves tricky. He says it involves persuading people that their lives and the lives of their children would be better if they didn't exceed a certain number of births per family. And that dramatic drop in birth rate rests on providing universal suffrage, education - particularly for women - and decent standards of living for all. It's a daunting task, but the first step, he argues, is to acknowledge that population is a problem.

But isn't the problem solving itself, as people have fewer children and population growth rates slow? Yes, he says, if you discount immigration, the UK's population is more or less static, but it is not so elsewhere. This troubles Attenborough: sounding off about high population and fertility rates in other countries can sound patronising - or worse.

The world at the start of Attenborough's career half a century ago was clearly a very different place. His passion about population seems to connect to a feeling that part of the joy of living rests in the natural world - a world without too many people, where seeking out wildlife means hard days canoeing rather than watching tourist boats arrive twice daily.

As a species, he says, we need to learn modesty, that we can't overrun everything. "If I had more intellectual athleticism I would tackle the problem of why I think other creatures have a right to live. I do think that, but can't justify it in a very convincing way."

For all his love of wild animals and places, Attenborough does not want to be immersed in them full-time. That's why he has chosen to live in London for more than 50 years. "I would go mad if I lived in the rainforest," he laughs. "I like what human beings do, I'm fascinated by them, and if you want to know any of those things, a big city is the place." He would miss libraries, concerts, theatre - and the chance to wander into the British Museum "just to have a look at something".

Talking exactly as he does on TV - breathily, enthusiastically, gesticulating to emphasise certain words - Attenborough is old-school charming. He seems at pains to be even-handed, to see both sides, an attitude he attributes to his early years at the BBC. In those days, it was a public-service monopoly and its broadcasters thought they knew best - a mindset he kicked against.

This even-handedness also allows him to be sanguine about the re-editing of one of his programmes by Dutch creationists, who changed the original narration that the dinosaurs disappeared "65 million years ago" to "a very long time ago". "I don't think I can object to that," he says. "If they imposed a positive creationist message and said 'God killed the dinosaurs', then I would object."

While Attenborough has no truck with those who attribute the wonders of nature to a creator (see #AskAttenborough: Your questions answered), he is reluctant to call himself an atheist. "I'm not, because, with due respect to Richard Dawkins who is a friend and who I admire, that doesn't seem to me a scientific statement. Often when I open a termite's nest and see thousands of blind organisms working away that lack the sense mechanism to see me, I can't help thinking maybe there's a sense mechanism I'm missing, that there's someone around who created this. We cannot discount that. But I don't know."

Though he alludes wistfully to his younger days, he also seems to be enjoying the chance to relax more. "When you get to your 80s, the lust to stir your stumps isn't as great as it was. I think, 'Great, I don't have to do anything today'." Even so, later this year he will be off to the Antarctic and the Arctic to film his next epic for the BBC, The Frozen Planet.

As for retirement: "No, I will go on. It's having things to do that have grit in them, and unpleasantness - and people who want you to do them because they want to see the results. That's what work is. The thought of not having anything to do like that is awful."


Profile

David Attenborough read natural sciences at the University of Cambridge. Joining the BBC's fledgling TV service in 1952, he helped to pioneer the wildlife documentary. A new edition of his autobiography, Life on Air (BBC Books), is published this month.

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Learning from “good” beetles key to sustainable cotton production

WWF 15 May 09;

Andhra Pradesh, India – For Rajita Nandsee and many other families in her village, growing sustainable cotton means getting excited about insects – a sharp contrast to how farmers typically feel towards pests.

On a recent afternoon in Andhra Pradesh state in India, Devender Reddy (pictured below) was happy to prove that point by showing off a test area he oversees near Nandsee’s village, replete with a yellow plastic screen covered in a lot of bugs.

The screen secretes fragrance pheromones that attract insects and is part of a larger WWF-IKEA joint project in the area, for which Reddy acts as a project manager. Everybody involved works to encourage the sustainable growing of cotton by introducing innovative practices to villagers.

"We can see whether the number of insects is increasing or decreasing,” Reddy said. “The farmers use the information to decide what type of pest reduction measure they want to use."

Cotton has been used as a fiber in clothing and textiles for more than 5,000 years, but the plant’s popularity and its dazzling white surface have a downside - cotton is a thirsty crop which often requires large quantities of water and chemicals.

However, WWF and the international furnishings company IKEA are working to solve that problem, and negate cotton production’s negative effects on the environment and people’s health.

For the last three years, the two organizations have run a joint project to support more sustainable cotton production in the Warangal district of the Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, and the project already is showing success.

"Our goals included reducing the use of water, chemical spraying and chemical fertilizers whilst increasing family incomes,” said Vamshi Krishna, project leader. “We have managed to break many trends and we have great hopes for the future.”

Cotton Boom

The mid 1990s saw a cotton boom in India and the cotton growers in Warangal expanded their area of cultivation. Many farmers took out loans but the competition from American cotton growers with huge subsidies led to a fall in prices. Drought and serious insect damage contributed to crop failure and poor yields in the early 2000s.

After this, many farmers chose to use new types of cotton and seeds resistant to insect attack, such as genetically modified cotton (Bt cotton).

Twenty-two-year-old Chiranjeeevi Rnukuntta, from the village of Shyampet, is one of those farmers who had to live with the consequences of those difficult times. His parents committed suicide, one after the other, in 2001 and 2002. They had borrowed money during the drought and could not repay it.

"I had two younger sisters to care for and I had to take care of everything," says Chiranjeevi, who is also a part-time student. “It took me three years to get back on my feet but now I believe in myself and my future.”


Cotton growers test new approaches

The WWF and IKEA project for more sustainable cotton production began in 2006 on a small scale with around 40 families. Today, the project covers 18 villages and involves around 600 cotton growers. More than 6,000 villagers and farmers have taken part in meetings for the project and the number of growers involved is on the rise.

When the project began, the cotton growers formed a cooperative and members discussed issues such as what can be bought in collectively and how the chain from cultivation to market can be made more effective.

"It is positive that we can find solutions and make decisions together. All sorts of issues are handled, from insect control and drinking water quality to how we can get better prices from the buyers and increase our incomes,” said Purushotham Reddy, winner of the ‘Farmer of the Year’ award from the Warangal district authorities.

Andhra Pradesh is a state that traditionally uses a great deal of water for irrigation and is responsible for one quarter of India’s total chemical use. New methods are needed to face the challenges of the future and to improve the current situation, according to WWF.

An important driver for change has been the opportunity for families to receive training at the project’s Farmer Field School. The training course runs for 20 weeks during the high season from August to November. The participants meet twice a week to learn more about cultivation techniques, water and environmental issues.

The model used in the Warangal project is called Better Management Practices (BMPs). It involves adapting cultivation methods to increase yields, minimize environmental effects and achieve best possible social conditions for the farmers. The cotton growers work with test areas where they test co-planting of crops, look at which pests are active and test biological pesticides. For example, growing maize and cotton close to each other is a way of reducing insect damage.

The Cotton plant has long growing and flowering seasons and this makes the plant sensitive to insect damage. In the past, the farmer would spray their plants 20-30 times per season; today they only spray six to seven times per season. They often use plant-based preparations - amongst others, from the Neem tree and extract of Vitex and biological pesticides, with "good" beetles that eat up the pests.

"Last year was a good year. We could work without any toxic chemicals. It’s good for our health to use less chemicals." said Rajita Nandsee, who added that she hopes for more investment in water and toilets in the villages.

Villagers currently have to buy jugs of drinking water that are driven to the village.

"In the future we hope that we can increase our income so that we can pay for a good education for our children," she said.


Environmental and health benefits

Water problems have worsened in India. Groundwater availability is declining in many areas, cotton is one of the thirstiest agricultural crops, and new approaches are needed to cope with future climatic changes.

The cotton growers mainly use rainwater stored in tanks to water their crops, but this is often not enough. So in Warangal, the farmers have invested in drip irrigation. They also treat the soil before sowing by ploughing and applying compost and silt, which helps the soil to retain water. The results so far are very positive. Water consumption has been halved, the use of chemicals has fallen by about 40 percent and artificial fertilizers have been reduced by 30 percent.

"We have broken the negative trend and our next goal in the project is to reach 5,000 cotton growers” said Vamshi Krishna, a project manager for WWF India´s sustainable cotton project.

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WWF aquaculture green plan for shrimp and scallops sparks outrage

Environmental and human rights groups accuse WWF of alienating local communities from aquaculture debate
Leo Hickman The Guardian 15 May 09;

Some campaign groups prefer to shun the company of the big corporations they wish would change their ways. Placard-waving protests, high-profile demonstrations and embarrassing exposes are their modus operandi.

However, other campaign groups prefer to adopt the "softly, softly, catchee monkey" approach, believing you will only achieve your aims through genial dialogue, participation and praise-based persuasion.

Since it was founded in 1961, WWF (then known as the World Wildlife Fund) has tended to fall into the latter of the two groups. It is one of the world's most high-profile campaign groups, boasting five million supporters, and has achieved extraordinary leverage with both governments and corporations around the planet. The group's "Guiding Principles" state that it will "seek dialogue and avoid unnecessary confrontation", as well as "strive to build partnerships with other organizations, governments, business and local communities to enhance WWF's effectiveness".

On occasions, though, this approach can irk other groups trying to achieve similar aims. For example, this week more than 70 human rights and environmental groups from around the world signed a letter expressing "outrage" at the planned launch of WWF's Aquaculture Stewardship Council (ASC). The new global standard for "responsible seafood farming" is modelled on the Marine Stewardship Council's labelling and auditing system for wild-caught seafood and aims to certify aquaculture farms around the world that comply with its standards.

Earlier this year, WWF initiated "Aquaculture Dialogues" for nine species: salmon, shrimp, pangasius, tilapia, abalone and four types of bivalve shellfish – clams, oysters, scallops and mussels.

But the signatories of the letter are far from impressed:

Strong opposition to this latest ... certification initiative is based upon our years of collective experience in working to counter the negative effects of the industrial aquaculture of shrimp, salmon and other carnivorous marine fin-fish species. We see the ASC as yet another attempt by a Big International NGO to formulate some ill-conceived plan to remedy the problems of unsustainable industrial aquaculture.

These kinds of flawed remedies do not involve the local communities and grassroots movements in the process of defining steps to be taken, thereby excluding those peoples most affected by these industries' ongoing assaults on ocean health and coastal integrity.

Current attempts by WWF and other intended certifiers are not supported by local communities and indigenous peoples, the global network of NGOs, academics and citizens who are still demanding a moratorium on further expansion of these socially disruptive and ecologically destructive industries.

WWF denied it was excluding local people involved in aquaculture:

Since the process to set up the ASC began in 2004, a significant amount of funding has been invested in engaging stakeholders in the process and ensuring that the dialogue is not industry-based. More than 35 Aquaculture Dialogue meetings have been held in the world's most prominent aquaculture regions.

These have included shrimp meetings in Asia and South America last year, and salmon meetings in Scotland. The dialogues are open to anyone and WWF has encouraged all stakeholders, not just industry players, to engage with them.

The Guardian's Felicity Lawrence has written about the damage caused by industrial-scale aquaculture - in particular, tiger prawn farms in Vietnam – both for the paper and her book Not On the Label. Her findings paint a pretty bleak picture about the impact this type of farming can have both on local communities and the environment in which they live.

So, can campaign groups sometimes get too close to the corporations they seek to change? Standards and certification schemes can certainly help to raise standards greatly, but can they do so when they fail to involve the participation of all involved, particularly local community groups, as the signatories of this letter are claiming?

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Fishing for trash off Rio

Claire De Oliveira Yahoo News 15 May 09;

RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – Sitting in his fishing boat in the bay of Rio de Janeiro, Gabriel has an easy time hauling in his "catch," plucking it from the sea with his own hands, not with a net.

But that's because the bounty he is grabbing isn't fish -- it's the floating trash that sullies the waters of one of the world's most beautiful cities.

Gabriel, a professional fisherman for two decades, is one of an army of boatman-cleaners employed by the state of Rio de Janeiro to remove tons of detritus from the city's spectacular harbor.

"We were catching more and more rubbish in our nets and sometimes it got caught in our boats' propellors and broke them," he explained.

Under a new state program started early this year, he and the crews on another 140 boats head out three times a week to pick up floating junk that can be recycled: plastic bottles, plastic sheets, paper, cardboard. On average, 15 tons of trash are recovered each time.

The initiative, called Baia Limpa (Clean Bay) and sponsored by Brazil's state-run oil company Petrobras, is just the latest attempt in a long string of operations to clear Rio's Guanabara Bay of pollution.

Since 1995, similar operations have sucked up more than a billion dollars, with few results. The zone -- not so far away from the famed open-sea beaches of Copacabana and Ipanema popular with tourists -- remains a maritime dump.

Much of the sewage from Rio's 10 million residents still spills directly into the sea -- which also collects old cars, televisions, tires, refrigerators and other discarded items thrown into rivers swollen during the rainy summer months.

But fishermen frustrated with the poisonous effect on fish stocks, especially from suffocating plastic refuse, aren't giving up, and have signed on to the new Baia Limpa program in the hope it will finally make a difference.

"Ten years ago, you could still live from fishing. You can't today," said Edmo, a 54-year-old who has spent three decades living off the sea.

He and Gabriel and the others are employed for three-month stints to clear away the floating trash, during which they receive financial aid. Nearly 1,200 fishermen are expected to participate by the end of 2009.

The aim, though, is not to supplant fishing altogether -- nor even to return the bay to pristine condition.

A geographer involved in the project, Jamylle Ferreira, told AFP the main goal is to "map the worst zones and to analyse the rubbish."

He added: "We know we won't be able to clean up the bay, but that's not our intention. What we want to do first is learn from the fishermen, who know the worst-hit areas, often at the mouths of the rivers where they live."

But, Ferreira said, in Rio there were some obstacles, notably from district municipalities "that aren't working with us," and which were leaving bags of recovered trash uncollected.

Some of the trash that is picked up goes to a recycling plant installed on the bay and financed by the private sector. Anything that can't be converted is incinerated and used in energy-production.

The plant, which handles 30 tons of garbage a day, is a pilot scheme that authorities hope will spread to other parts of Brazil.

"We sell units that treat 150 tons of trash a day -- which is what a population of 180,000 residents puts out -- for a cost of 15 million dollars," explained the plant's manager, Jorge Nascimento.

Ultimately, the target is to recycle 100 percent of the waste that comes from urban centers. But such an ideal lies some way off, especially in Brazil, where recycling itself its not widespread and only sporadically observed.

For Rio's bay, the impact of the new cleaning program has yet to be measured.

Perhaps the most telling sign will be any indication its slow disappearance -- its sedimentation from the daily avalanche of detritus -- has been slowed.

According to some studies, the bay is filling up slowly but surely and at its current rate could vanish under the tons of sludge within 200 to 500 years.

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Google Ocean shows effects of climate change

Melinda Chickering, Associated Press, The Independent 15 May 09;

The same satellite technology that allows more than 500 million users to view everything from the Grand Canyon to a neighbour's backyard is now helping them glide through the depths of the ocean, track a whale or compare reviews of their favourite dive locations.

The developers of Google Ocean - built using visual satellite images, sonar waves bounced off ships and data pooled from scientists and individuals - say it could also help highlight the effects of climate change on the seas.

But three months after its launch, the site has high-resolution images of less than 5 per cent of the sea, much of it from around the United States and Japan where research facilities are collaborating closely with Google.

The site has time-delay photos that show the melting polar ice caps, Google's chief technology advocate, Michael Jones said Friday on the final day of the World Ocean Conference in Indonesia.

Jones said the company is still recruiting teams to collect content that will improve nascent efforts to map the underwater world. He urged governments, scientists and divers to upload reviews, photos and even video footage.

"Those kinds of visualizations help people — not just a fellow scientist but everyday people — develop a certainty about the importance of changes that could affect their lifestyle or their ability to live at all," he said.

Next to nothing has been uploaded on, for instance, Southeast Asia's coral reefs, the largest and most biologically diverse in the world, which experts warned this week could be wiped out by the end of the century as water temperatures rise.

"If we help people see (the ocean) by helping scientists to show it, then people can at least have a dialogue about it," Jones said.

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Massive EU support for global food security

Historic agreement with FAO
FAO 15 May 09;

15 May 2009, Brussels/Rome - Europe remains firmly committed to help poor countries boost agricultural production, FAO said today, welcoming a historic €106 million ($144 million) donation from the European Union in support of farmers hardest hit by the global food crisis.

The signing today in Brussels of an assistance package to ten countries in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean who suffered most from the 2007-2008 food price crisis is a major boost to efforts to turn the tide of worsening food security, expected to deteriorate even further this year as the financial and economic crisis deepens in developing countries.

"This is the biggest agreement ever signed between the EC and FAO," said FAO Director-General Jacques Diouf. "We are extremely pleased that in these times of turmoil, Europe shows an unwavering commitment to the plight of around one billion people who go to bed hungry every night." Diouf added that even though international food commodity prices have gone down recently, high and volatile food prices continue to plague developing countries.

Getting agriculture back on its feet

The aid package is part of the EU's €1 billion response to the food crisis, dubbed the ‘Food Facility'. As the economic crisis is pushing more people into hunger and poverty, it sends the urgent message that the time has come to get agriculture back on its feet, responding to FAO's calls for increased investment in agriculture after three decades of decline.

"The Food Facility is the result of extraordinary collaboration between the European Commission and the UN Secretary-General's High-Level Task Force on the Global Food Security Crisis, where FAO played an important role, to identify and develop programmes that will have a quick, but lasting impact on food security," said José Maria Sumpsi, FAO's Assistant Director-General for Technical Cooperation.

He added that it is also an enormous stimulus to FAO's efforts in dealing with the impact of high food prices in developing countries.

FAO is currently engaged in over 90 countries, in most cases supporting food production through the supply of improved seeds, fertilizers, other agricultural inputs and technical assistance of around $350 million in 2008. Nearly seven million smallholder farmers and their 35 million dependents — the majority women and children — benefited directly from this support.

Facts on projects in targeted countries

• Afghanistan: support to seed industry and seed production;
• Central African Republic: seed multiplication, conservation agriculture, reintegration of ex-combatants in the agricultural sector, opening of 80 input shops;
• Democratic Republic of the Congo: seed distribution, rehabilitation of agricultural assets, support to farmer organizations, food security information;
• Guinea Bissau: provision of agricultural inputs, lay-out of 300 school gardens, rehabilitation of agricultural infrastructure;
• Haiti: natural resource management and water storage, diversification and intensification of agriculture, aquaculture/fishing;
• Liberia: joint programme with UN partners, capacity building of extension agents and farmers, agricultural input supply, school gardens;
• Mozambique: quality seed production and distribution; establishment of seed production plant;
• Pakistan: seed distribution, small-scale irrigation and water harvesting, agricultural implements/machinery for 100 farmer associations, farmer training;
• Sierra Leone: establishment of 100 agribusiness centres;
• Zimbabwe: provision of agricultural inputs to 150 000 vulnerable farming families.

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Safer Chemicals Management Moves Closer

UNEP 15 May 09;

GENEVA, 15 May – The world has taken significant steps this week towards ensuring that chemicals are produced, used and disposed of as safely as possible. The second International Conference on Chemicals Management – ICCM2 – which ends today, has made progress in several key areas and has defined its priorities for future work.

Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), who was at the high-level segment of the conference, said: "Reaping the benefits that chemicals offer to a modern society while reducing their potential for harm to the lowest level possible is a task for everyone – governments, international agencies like UNEP and many others, non-governmental organisations, and scientists. SAICM this week really has proved its worth as the one worldwide forum which brings together the people who can make change happen. I am particularly encouraged at the way it has focussed attention on the four emerging issues – nanotechnology, e-waste, chemicals in everyday products, and lead in paint – because that will encourage us all to work harder to find some answers."

Conference president is Dr Ivan Erzen of Slovenia said: "This is a unique and comprehensive effort to address chemicals issues holistically, bringing all concerned actors and stakeholders to one table, with equal rights of participation and negotiation. The inclusion of all sectors, whether private or public, helps us to better understand our respective concerns and interests. SAICM is uniquely equipped to facilitate a dialogue between Governments, intergovernmental organizations, industry, non-governmental organizations and civil society."

The ICCM is the governing body of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, SAICM, which is part of UNEP. The co-ordinator of the SAICM secretariat, Matthew Gubb, said: "The Conference has also considered how to ensure that sufficient resources are available to give meaning to the Strategic Approach in developing countries. SAICM has already been successful with its Quick Start Programme, a start-up trust fund which is currently running projects worth USD 20 million in close to 80 countries." He added that "the Conference considered that more efforts were necessary to achieve the goal of minimizing the risks of chemicals to human health and the environment."

Apart from its work on the emerging issues (see Notes to Editors), ICCM2 held two high-level round-tables, one on finance and the other on public health, the environment and chemicals management.

Concrete results from the conference, attended by almost 800 delegates, are expected in relation to the consideration of emerging issues, the linkages between health as well as sustainable development and chemicals management, and the financing of sound chemicals management.

Notes to Editors:

SAICM's Four Emerging Issues In 2009 SAICM has chosen four topics as emerging policy issues:

- nanotechnology and manufactured nanomaterials

- chemicals in products

- electronic waste

- lead in paint.

A working definition is that each is "an issue involving the production, distribution and use of chemicals which has not yet been generally recognised or sufficiently addressed but which may have significant adverse effects on human beings and/or the environment".

Nanotechnology is about developing very small objects, typically at a scale of a millionth of a millimetre. One nanometre is about 1/50,000th the width of a human hair. First-generation nanotechnology is already on the market in products such as paints, coatings and cosmetics, medical appliances and diagnostic tools, clothing, household appliances, food packaging, plastics and fuel catalysts.

Examples include:

- improved solar collectors and wind turbines

- better batteries

- replacements for highly polluting brominated flame retardants

- fuel additives and energy savers

- the provision of clean water.

But inhaling minute particles can damage the lungs, arteries and the entire cardio-vascular system. Are nanotech products similarly damaging? And what happens when they break down, or interact with other substances? Can nanoparticles penetrate the skin, or cross the blood-brain barrier? Will they distort commodity markets, disrupt trade and destroy jobs? The potential for nanotechnology to widen existing economic gaps is significant.

Chemicals in Products - this category can be understood as "chemicals in products where you might not expect to find them". We expect to find chemicals developed by humans in pesticides and pharmaceuticals, for example, but we may forget that they are also in tables, books, clothes and shoes. Particularly vulnerable groups may face heightened risks. These can include children at all stages of development, including before birth. Sometimes the risks can be substantial, as from lead in jewellery, and phthalates in plastics. Historically, reducing chemical risks has concentrated on releases during manufacturing. But we now realise that dangerous substances may also be released from products during use, and at the end of their useful lives.

Electronic Waste is known also as e-waste or Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE). It comes from machines like fridges, air conditioners, microwave ovens, fluorescent light bulbs, washing machines, computers, mobile telephones, TVs and stereo equipment. The high rate of obsolescence in many of these means a fast turnover and a huge waste stream, much of which is exported from developed to developing countries, sometimes for further use as second-hand equipment and sometimes as end-of-life waste. E-waste contains persistent, bio-accumulative and hazardous (PBT) substances like heavy metals (lead, nickel, chromium, mercury) and organic pollutants like polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and brominated flame retardants (BFRs). Many developing countries do not have the infrastructure to manage e-waste properly, or an effective regulatory framework. Nor do many people realise how dangerous the wastes can be.

Lead in Paint. No level of exposure to lead is considered safe. It is recognised today as one of the twenty leading risk factors contributing to the global burden of disease. Eliminating lead exposure from gasoline has been one of the most significant environment health improvements in recent times. But lead-containing products are still widely made and sold across much of the developing world. Lead in paint is the second largest source of exposure to lead following exposure from gasoline. Paint containing lead is used in infrastructure like bridges, industry (car parts) and for marine uses, as well as domestically. The evidence of neurological damage, especially to children (whose intelligence can be impaired) and to workers in the lead industry is beyond doubt. Adults can suffer renal and cardiovascular damage. Some studies suggest a link to behavioural problems as well. Lead damage is irreversible, and its effects appear to persist into adolescence and adulthood. House dust is the commonest way in which children are harmed by lead in paint. The lead remains a risk for many years after the paint has been used. Small intelligence changes in an individual child can have substantial impacts on an entire population.

About SAICM:

The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is a policy framework. SAICM has as its overall objective the achievement of the sound management of chemicals throughout their life cycle so that, by 2020, chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on human health and the environment. This "2020 goal" was adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 as part of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.

SAICM comprises the Dubai Declaration on International Chemicals Management, expressing high-level political commitment to SAICM, and an Overarching Policy Strategy which sets out its scope, needs, objectives, financial considerations, underlying principles and approaches and implementation and review arrangements. Objectives are grouped under five themes: risk reduction; knowledge and information; governance; capacity-building and technical cooperation; and illegal international traffic.

The Declaration and Strategy are accompanied by a Global Plan of Action, a working tool and guidance document to support implementation of SAICM and other relevant international initiatives.

UN Chemicals Conference Ends on Positive Note
UNEP 15 May 09;

Geneva, 15 May 2009 - The second International Conference on Chemicals Management - ICCM2 - has ended here, with significant progress in several key areas and greater clarity on its priorities for future work.

The ICCM is the governing body of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management, SAICM, which is part of the United Nations Environment Programme.

The co-ordinator of the SAICM secretariat, Matthew Gubb, said: "The Conference has been a major milestone in the evolution of SAICM, taking us beyond the establishment phase to new challenges and equipping us for accelerated implementation in the years ahead. SAICM has already been successful with its Quick Start Programme, a start-up trust fund which is currently running projects worth USD 20 million in close to 80 countries."

But he added: "The Conference considered that more efforts were necessary to achieve the goal of minimizing the risks of chemicals to human health and the environment."

ICCM2 held two high-level round-tables, one on finance and the other on public health, the environment and chemicals management.

Concrete results from the conference, attended by almost 800 delegates, included agreement to take forward work on five emerging issues - nanotechnology, e-waste, lead in paint, chemicals in everyday products, and perfluorinated chemicals.

These are used for treating surfaces to make them resistant to heat, corrosion and other problems, but, like the chemicals known as POPs - persistent organic pollutants - they are toxic and accumulate in the body, and are easily transported for long distances.

The agreement to develop work on these five problems means SAICM - which is not itself an organisation that can develop international legislation - will soon be better able to advise governments concerned about the impacts on their countries.

ICCM2 also agreed that the linkages between health, sustainable development and chemicals management should be accentuated, and laid the groundwork for substantially augmented financing for international chemicals management work.

It was agreed to hold the third meeting of the International Conference on Chemicals Management, ICCM3, in 2012. No decision was reached on the venue.

Notes to Editors:

About SAICM:

The Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) is a policy framework. SAICM has as its overall objective the achievement of the sound management of chemicals throughout their life cycle so that, by 2020, chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on human health and the environment. This "2020 goal" was adopted by the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002 as part of the Johannesburg Plan of Implementation.

SAICM comprises the Dubai Declaration on International Chemicals Management, expressing high-level political commitment to SAICM, and an Overarching Policy Strategy which sets out its scope, needs, objectives, financial considerations, underlying principles and approaches and implementation and review arrangements. Objectives are grouped under five themes: risk reduction; knowledge and information; governance; capacity-building and technical cooperation; and illegal international traffic.

The Declaration and Strategy are accompanied by a Global Plan of Action, a working tool and guidance document to support implementation of SAICM and other relevant international initiatives.

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The Great Wall of Carbon

Paul Krugman, Straits Times 16 May 09;

I HAVE seen the future, and it won't work.

These should be hopeful times for environmentalists. Junk science no longer rules in Washington. President Barack Obama has spoken forcefully about the need to take action on climate change. The people I talk to are increasingly optimistic that the United States Congress will soon establish a cap-and-trade system that limits emissions of greenhouse gases, with the limits growing steadily tighter over time. And once America acts, we can expect much of the world to follow its lead.

But that still leaves the problem of China, where I have been for most of the last week.

Like every visitor to China, I was awed by the scale of the country's development. Even the annoying aspects - much of my time was spent viewing the Great Wall of Traffic - are by-products of the nation's economic success.

But China cannot continue along its current path because the planet can't handle the strain.

The scientific consensus on prospects for global warming has become much more pessimistic over the last few years. Indeed, the latest projections from reputable climate scientists border on the apocalyptic. Why? Because the rate at which greenhouse gas emissions are rising is matching or exceeding the worst-case scenarios.

And the growth of emissions from China - already the world's largest producer of carbon dioxide - is one main reason for this new pessimism.

China's emissions, which come largely from its coal-burning electricity plants, doubled between 1996 and 2006. That was a much faster pace of growth than in the previous decade. And the trend seems set to continue: In January, China announced that it plans to continue its reliance on coal as its main energy source and that to feed its economic growth it will increase coal production 30 per cent by 2015. That's a decision that, all by itself, will swamp any emission reductions elsewhere.

So what is to be done about the China problem?

Nothing, say the Chinese. Each time I raised the issue during my visit, I was met with outraged declarations that it was unfair to expect China to limit its use of fossil fuels. After all, they declared, the West faced no similar constraints during its development; while China may be the world's largest source of carbon dioxide emissions, its per capita emissions are still far below American levels; and anyway, the great bulk of the global warming that has already happened is due not to China but to the past carbon emissions of today's wealthy nations.

And they're right. It is unfair to expect China to live within constraints that we didn't have to face when our own economy was on its way up. But that unfairness doesn't change the fact that letting China match the West's past profligacy would doom the Earth as we know it.

Historical injustice aside, the Chinese also insisted that they should not be held responsible for the greenhouse gases they emit when producing goods for foreign consumers. But they refused to accept the logical implication of this view - that the burden should fall on those foreign consumers instead, that shoppers who buy Chinese products should pay a 'carbon tariff' that reflects the emissions associated with those goods' production. That, said the Chinese, would violate the principles of free trade.

Sorry, but the climate change consequences of Chinese production have to be taken into account somewhere. And anyway, the problem with China is not so much what it produces as how it produces it. Remember, China now emits more carbon dioxide than the US, even though its gross domestic product is only about half as large (and the US, in turn, is an emissions hog compared with Europe or Japan).

The good news is that the very inefficiency of China's energy use offers huge scope for improvement. Given the right policies, China could continue to grow rapidly without increasing its carbon emissions. But first it has to realise that policy changes are necessary.

There are hints, in statements emanating from China, that the country's policymakers are starting to realise that their current position is unsustainable. But I suspect that they don't realise how quickly the whole game is about to change.

As the US and other advanced countries finally move to confront climate change, they will also be morally empowered to confront those nations that refuse to act. Sooner than most people think, countries that refuse to limit their greenhouse gas emissions will face sanctions, probably in the form of taxes on their exports. They will complain bitterly that this is protectionism, but so what? Globalisation doesn't do much good if the globe itself becomes unliveable.

It's time to save the planet. And like it or not, China will have to do its part.

NEW YORK TIMES

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