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Marcus Chua's talk on the Greater Mousedeer at Pulau Ubin
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Grace Chua, Straits Times 25 Jul 09;
WHEN people try to find alternative energy sources to combat global warming, solar power is often bandied about.
But current technologies are not very efficient at converting energy from sunlight. So scientists are looking to plants, which solved the efficiency problem millions of years ago.
In a process called photosynthesis, green plants convert sunlight and carbon dioxide into oxygen, water and sugars.
Chemist Chen Hongyu (above) of Nanyang Technological University is trying to mimic that process.
Meanwhile, he is developing new techniques that could have other applications. In plants, a key step in photosynthesis involves using the sun's energy to create a negatively charged electron and a positive particle.
The excited electron starts a cascade of events that eventually turn carbon dioxide into carbohydrates, while the positive particle eventually causes water to be split to make oxygen.
Previously, researchers were able to replicate this process, but the resulting energised chemicals are free-moving and thus quickly react with one another.
Dr Chen's group uses nanotechnology - engineering on the scale of atoms and molecules - to answer this problem.
The team created tiny nanometer- size, self-assembling polymer capsules that can trap and hold electrons to separate them from the positive particles, the same way soap forms a capsule around a speck of grime to separate it from water.
In each capsule, they placed semiconductor nanoparticles that collect light energy and channel it more efficiently into the water-splitting process.
The project is still in progress, Dr Chen says.
But the polymer-capsule work might have biomedical and industrial applications, for example, different materials in a tiny polymer shell could be used to label molecules, or for drug delivery.
And some day, the water-splitting half of the photosynthesis process could be used to collect hydrogen for fuel cells.
Straits Times 25 Jul 09;
ASEAN has raised its haze alert level up a notch, as the number of hot spots detected in Sumatra grows.
The alert was raised to level two this week - which means that there have been more than 150 hot spots on two consecutive days.
This follows reports that almost twice as many hot spots have been detected on the Indonesian island this year, compared to the same time period over the past two years.
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), there were 218 hot spots in Sumatra on Monday and 446 on Tuesday. The alert is used by Asean countries as a recommendation for the mobilisation of resources during critical periods.
There are three alert levels in total.
Alert level one, which was raised on May 25, sounds out the start of the dry season. Level two is sounded when there are more than 150 hot spots on two consecutive days with dense smoke plumes. Other factors considered include persistent dry weather and whether prevailing winds are blowing towards Asean countries.
When the number of hot spots exceed 250 for two consecutive days, it goes to level three.
These trigger points were put in place by a panel of experts - Asean environment ministers and environmentalists - in 2006 to provide independent assessment of the haze situation.
In the meantime, the NEA's Meteorological Services Division said that the likelihood of Singapore being affected by the smoke haze is low for now as 'prevailing winds are from the south and the smoke haze is likely to be confined to the north of Singapore'.
JESSICA LIM
Tougher new laws in the works, says minister
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 25 Jul 09;
JAMBI (INDONESIA): Indonesia, which is in the grip of a worsening dry spell, is preparing to pass tough new laws against fire starters.
Its Minister of State for the Environment, Mr Rahmat Witoelar, said the new legislation would give his ministry greater powers from September to deal with anyone involved in illegal slash-and-burn activities, instead of having to rely on other government agencies.
Using fire to clear land is illegal in Indonesia, but lack of enforcement has been a constant criticism of its efforts to tackle the problem.
The fires are primarily linked to plantation and pulp paper companies and individual farmers.
'We will be getting handcuffs of our own... It may sound dramatic but I think this is where the greatest need is. It shows that we mean business.'
The minister was speaking on the sidelines of a ceremony with his Singapore counterpart to mark the handover of an air and weather monitoring station in Muaro Jambi yesterday.
It is one of three in the regency funded by Singapore under a $1 million joint effort with the Jambi government to tackle smoke haze.
The three facilities, operational since December last year, measure wind speed and direction, rainfall, temperature and relative humidity. Hourly readings of the level of air pollution will be relayed to officials in Jambi and Singapore.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim said that this collaboration has scaled up the capability of the Jambi officials to detect and monitor hot spots and smoke haze.
'They now have the tools to plan ahead in terms of dealing with fire-prone areas within this district.'
The monitoring stations are one of seven programmes identified under the two-year plan, which covers areas such as legislation and enforcement, and early warning and monitoring.
The next phase will work on managing peatlands, which become fire-prone stretches of land when the water table falls.
Dr Yaacob said: 'Let us not pretend that we can solve this overnight. It really needs a change in the entire ecosystem so that if a fire does break out, the peatland will not contribute towards it.'
The project involves, in part, encouraging farmers to turn to aqua-culture, in the hope that a thriving fish export industry will provide the province's population of 2.7 million with an alternative to slash-and-burn farming.
Mr Witoelar also raised concerns about the El Nino weather pattern, which is developing over the equatorial Pacific Ocean, bringing back the haze.
'It is a fact that this year's dry season will be a severe one. If El Nino were to strike, I am sure there will be some fires, but nothing compared to 2006,' he said.
'We will try to mitigate it by not adding any man-made fires.'
Of more immediate concern to the Indonesian government was the impact of the impending dry season on the agricultural industry, said the minister.
Going forward, Dr Yaacob said Singapore would keep its relationship with Jambi going and would also be prepared to work with other similarly affected provinces to 'share our experience'.
Thanking Singapore for its contribution, Mr Witoelar said that the Jambi-Singapore collaboration showed that commitment by local government was critical to making a real difference.
But the effectiveness of tougher laws has been called into question. Mr Didy Wujanto, head of Jambi Natural Resources Management, said burning made more economic sense to plantation companies driven by the bottom line.
'The companies do not want to invest money to prevent fires. Instead, they try to keep costs low by asking farmers to clear the land using fires,' he said.
Forest-fire makers to face jail under new environment law
Antara 25 Jul 09;
Jambi, (ANTARA News) - Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said his office would not hesitate to arrest and send to prison the perpetrators of forest and land fires after the issuance of a new environment law next September.
He said here over the weekend the new law which would be issued on September 8, 2009 would give the authority to the office of the environment ministry to arrest the perpetrators of forest and land fires in the country.
"The office of the environment ministry has the authorities not only to coordinate with security officers but also to arrest directly those who burn forests and land bushes," he said.
He said that his office could directly fix police lines at the areas affected by fires and hand-cuff the perpetrators.
In the meantime, haze has begun this week to blanket a number of areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
Haze and fog blanketed Pekanbaru city after the air over the Riau provincial capital was clear of haze due to heavy rainfall in the small hours of Sunday.
The dense haze and fog had prompted the attention of activists of the Tsu Chi Foundation in Pekanbaru. They went down into the streets distributing masks to passing motorists.
They also distributed the masks in residential complexes like Kuantan Jaya, in Pekanbaru city.
However, the heavy downpour on the small hours of Sunday cannot put out the flames raging in the peat land in Pekanbaru. Smoke was still seen billowing into the sky of Panam, Rumbai and Kulim.
Data of the Meteorology, Geophysics and Climatology Office (BMKG) of Pekanbaru, obtained from the monitoring by the NOAA 18 satellite, show that the forest and land fires were still raging in a number of areas in Riau province.
In Kalimantan, Indonesia is cooperating with Malaysia and Brunei Darussalam to protect Kalimantan (Borneo) through their `Heart of Borneo (HOB)` program.
The `Heart of Borneo` program was a natural resource conservation and sustainable utilization program, Hendrik Segah, HOB Coordinator of Central Kalimantan, said here on Friday.
The HOB program is aimed at protecting the sustainable utilization of one of the world`s remaining best forests in Kalimantan for the welfare fo the current and future generations.(*)
The Jakarta Post 25 Jul 09;
Evil lurks in the waters and may it continue to spook people from drawing too close or exploiting it.
This was the sort of message that Adhisa tried to convey through his doctoral thesis about the benefits of using myths to preserve and manage water ecosystems.
"It works," he told The Jakarta Post Thursday, after defending his thesis completed at the environmental science study program at University of Indonesia, "These old myths surrounding water ecosystems actually play a large part in preserving those ecosystems.
He cited the Situ Gintung dam in Ciputat, South Jakarta, as an example, "Some myths surrounding that dam could actually have prevented what happened," he said.
The Situ Gintung dam collapsed in May, releasing an enormous flood that killed almost 100 residents and devastated hundreds of surrounding homes.
According to Adhisa, the legend of the buaya buntung (tail-less crocodile) that lurks in the Situ Gintung waters could have kept the dam intact longer.
"The myth kept people from extracting too many fish from the dam," he said, "And it also kept them from building constructions in locations that were too close to the outer limits of the dam because they were afraid of the crocodile."
The myths were apparently compatible with government regulation that stipulate that no construction is allowed within 50 meters of the dam's circumference.
"The locals abide by that rule," Adhisa said, "However, people from other areas started arriving and constructing houses within dangerously close proximity to the limit."
The local authorities, along with private developers, worsened the situation by constructing tourism facilities and a jogging track near the dam, he elaborated.
Adhisa explored the benefit of myths for other water ecosystems in the country, such as those relating to the Tanang river, the Yeh Sanih, which is a laguna in Bali, and Situ Mangga Bolong in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta.
In Situ Mangga Bolong, he discovered a set of myths that had been told among the local inhabitants for decades.
"The folklore surrounding Situ Mangga Bolong involves a decapitated head that haunts the dam area and a wandering mythical being called Si Japet that dwells in its waters," he explained.
Although the stories are only known by the Betawi locals who have lived in the area for a long time, almost all of the residents near Situ Mangga Bolong held a certain respect for the dam, Adhis said.
Environmentalist and former resident of the Situ Mangga Bolong area, Mohammad Hasroel Thayib, recalled how his neighbors had not dared to construct buildings close to the dam or even wander near it at night.
"I even invented a few of my own stories to scare the locals from getting too near dam," he chuckled, "It helped preserve the environment and it also helped to ease the competition in my fishing!"
The government, through its cultural agencies, should revitalize these myths, not only as an environmental conservation tool, but also as a cultural preservation method, Adhisa said.
Emil Salim, an economic expert and a senior environmental campaigner who was among the lecturers present at Adhisa's thesis session, criticized the argument, saying that the use of myths was much less feasible in water ecosystems located in urban areas.
"How do these myths work in areas in the city?" Emil asked.
Even water ecosystems in the center of the city had urban legends, Adhisa said. He cited the example of Situ Lembang lake in South Jakarta.
"Back in the 1970s, there was a rumor about a gang of robbers whose car drowned in the lake. Three of them were found dead, but one body could not be found.
That rumor helped keep kids away from the lake, otherwise they would have bathed or thrown garbage in it."
More importantly, those that weren't likely to humor spooks would have another tool to assist them in water ecosystem preservation: the knowledge and awareness of environmental preservation methods. This awareness is dubbed "eco-literacy" by Adhisa.
"Myths cannot work alone, they must be accompanied by adequate eco-literacy to work. Thus the government must accelerate the people's eco-literacy," he said. (dis)
James Owen, National Geographic News 24 Jul 09;
A massive cave recently uncovered in a remote Vietnamese jungle is the largest single cave passage yet found, a new survey shows.
At 262-by-262 feet (80-by-80 meters) in most places, the Son Doong cave beats out the previous world-record holder, Deer Cave in the Malaysian section of the island of Borneo.
Deer Cave is no less than 300-by-300 feet (91-by-91 meters), but it's only about a mile (1.6 kilometers) long.
By contrast, explorers walked 2.8 miles (4.5 kilometers) into Son Doong, in Phong Nha-Ke Bang National Park, before being blocked by seasonal floodwaters—and they think that the passage is even longer.
In addition, for a couple of miles Son Doong reaches more than 460-by-460 feet (140-by-140 meters), said Adam Spillane, a member of the British Cave Research Association expedition that explored the massive cavern.
Spillane was in the first of two groups to enter the cave. His team followed the passage as far as a 46-foot-high (14-meter-high) wall.
"The second team that went in got flooded out," he said. "We're going back next year to climb that wall and explore the cave further."
Laser Precision
A local farmer, who had found the entrance to the Son Doong cave several years ago, led the joint British-Vietnamese expedition team to the cavern in April.
The team found an underground river running through the first 1.6 miles (2.5 kilometers) of the limestone cavern, as well as giant stalagmites more than 230 feet (70 meters) high.
The explorers surveyed Son Doong's size using laser-based measuring devices.
Such modern technology allows caves to be measured to the nearest millimeter, said Andy Eavis, president of the International Union of Speleology, the world caving authority, based in France.
"With these laser-measuring devices, the cave sizes are dead accurate," he said. "It tends to make the caves smaller, because years ago we were estimating, and we tended to overestimate."
Eavis, who wasn't involved in the survey, agreed that the new findings confirm Son Doong's record status—despite the fact that he had discovered Borneo's now demoted Deer Cave.
"This one in Vietnam is bigger," Eavis conceded.
However the British caver can still claim the discovery of the world's largest cave chamber, Sarawak Chamber, also in Borneo.
"That is so large it may not actually be beaten," he said. "It's three times the size of Wembley Stadium" in London.
Noisy and Intimidating
Son Doong had somehow escaped detection during previous British caving expeditions to the region, which is rich in limestone grottos.
"The terrain in that area of Vietnam is very difficult," said expedition team member Spillane.
"The cave is very far out of the way. It's totally covered in jungle, and you can't see anything on Google Earth," he added, referring to the free 3-D globe software.
"You've got to be very close to the cave to find it," Spillane said. "Certainly, on previous expeditions, people have passed within a few hundred meters of the entrance without finding it."
The team was told that local people had known of the cave but were too scared to delve inside.
"It has a very loud draft and you can hear the river from the cave entrance, so it is very noisy and intimidating," Spillane said.
Bigger Caves Waiting?
Of more concern to the caving team were the poisonous centipedes that live in Son Doong.
The explorers also spotted monkeys entering through the roof of the cave to feed on snails, according to Spillane.
"There are a couple of skylights about 300 meters [985 feet] above," he said. "The monkeys are obviously able to climb in and out."
A biologist will accompany the team on its return visit next year to survey the cave's subterranean wildlife.
Eavis, of the International Union of Speleology, added that there are almost certainly bigger cave passages awaiting discovery around the world.
"That's the fantastic thing about caving," he said.
Satellite images hint, for example, that caves even larger than Son Doong lie deep in the Amazon rain forest, he said.
BBC News 24 Jul 09;
Scientists have discovered a new species of lizard in the lush Western Ghats mountain range in the Indian state of Maharashtra.
The small reptile is a form of gecko and was found by taxonomist Varad Giri in the Kolhapur district. It has been named Cnemasspis kolhapurensis.
Mr Giri and his co-workers published their findings in this month's edition of the Zootaxa journal.
It is the third new species of lizard recently discovered in the area.
Mr Giri, a curator at the Bombay Natural History Society, told the BBC that the Western Ghats has never been surveyed for amphibians and reptiles.
"A gecko of this particular character has not been recognised elsewhere in the world," he said.
Iridescent sheen
Mr Giri said he first noticed the lizard in 2005 during a survey of one of the forests in the area.
"When I first stumbled across it, the lizard looked like a normal specimen," he said.
"It was basically a form of gecko but then I saw that it was interesting because its scales were shiny."
He said that when the gecko was held up in a certain light, the tail dorsum exhibited an "iridescent sheen".
Iridescence is commonly reported in a variety of reptiles - but not geckos.
Once Mr Giri and his co-workers had analysed the specimen, they realised it was a previously unknown species.
They then enlisted the help of Dr Aaron M Bauer, an expert on lizards based at Villanova University in the US, to confirm the discovery.
Cnemasspis kolhapurensis are mostly small in size and have a circular, rather than elliptical, pupil. They are generally found in forests although some have also been found in areas inhabited by humans.
Mr Giri said it is a ground-dwelling specimen and can be seen in leaf litter or under rocks.
'Under threat'
"Presently this species is known only to this area. It is endemic to the northern parts of the Western Ghats," he added.
The Western Ghats mountain range is said to be one of the world's "biodiversity hotspots".
But analysts say that the area is at risk of a biodiversity crisis, because it has long been under threat from logging and human encroachment.
Mr Giri says the discovery may well help in arguments to preserve parts of the landscape.
"This is really important now because there is a lot of human interference and deforestation," he said.
Other new species of lizard previously discovered in the area were Hemidactlyus sataraensis and Hemidactylus aaronbaueri.
LiveScience.com 24 Jul 09;
For the first time in nearly 50 years, a population of a nearly extinct type of frog has been rediscovered in California's San Bernardino National Forest.
USGS scientists found this adult mountain yellow-legged frog on June 10 in Tahquitz Creek, a rediscovered population of the endangered frog in the San Jacinto Wilderness, San Bernardino National Forest, California. Credit: Adam Backlin, U.S. Geological Survey
The rare mountain yellow-legged frog was re-found when biologists from the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) and scientists from the San Diego Natural History Museum retraced a 1908 expedition through the San Jacinto Wilderness near Idyllwild, Calif.
Scientists hope that this rediscovery, along with captive breeding and efforts to restore frog habitat, bodes well for the future of the Southern California amphibian.
Globally, amphibians are on the decline because of habitat loss, effects of climate change and the spread of a deadly pathogen called the chytrid fungus.
The mountain yellow-legged frog is one of three frogs or toads on the federal Endangered Species List in Southern California. Prior to this recent discovery, USGS researchers had estimated there were about 122 adult mountain yellow-legged frogs in the wild.
USGS and San Diego Natural History Museum biologists found the endangered frog during separate trips in June. The frogs were spotted at two locations about 2.5 miles apart in the Tahquitz and Willow creeks in the San Jacinto Mountains. The number of frogs in the area has not yet been determined.
"If this population is large, it could play an important role in the re-establishment of this species across Southern California," said Adam Backlin, a USGS scientist who led the survey team that spotted the first new Tahquitz Creek frogs on June 10.
Mountain yellow-legged frogs are not known to migrate far, possibly indicating a significant population. The size of the site represents much more habitat than occupied by the eight other mountain yellow-legged frog populations in the San Jacinto, San Bernardino, and San Gabriel mountain ranges. In those areas, the frog occupies less than a half-mile of stream.
The San Diego Zoo's Institute for Conservation Research was the first to breed a mountain yellow-legged frog in captivity. That amphibian has recently morphed from a tadpole into a froglet, or juvenile frog.
The goal of the breeding program, which began after the rare frogs were rescued from a drying creek, is to return the mountain yellow-legged frog to its native habitat.
Evidence of endangered frog group found in California
John Antczak, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jul 09;
LOS ANGELES – Scientists have found evidence of a potentially large population of the nearly extinct mountain yellow-legged frog in a Southern California wilderness where it hadn't been seen in a half-century, raising prospects for restoring the species to its once wide range.
Like amphibians whose numbers are in decline worldwide, the frog species was believed to have fewer than 200 adult members spread across the San Gabriel, San Bernardino and San Jacinto mountain ranges.
In June, U.S. Geological Survey biologists and a team from the San Diego Natural History Museum each separately found a mountain yellow-legged frog at locations 2 1/2 miles apart in the Tahquitz and Willow creeks area of the San Jacintos, about 85 miles southeast of Los Angeles.
At the time, the USGS team was only intent on assessing the suitability of the area for re-establishing the species, ecologist Adam Backlin said Friday.
In 10 years of working with the species, up to 300 locations had been surveyed in the three mountain ranges without any new populations being discovered, so there was no expectation of finding any frogs, Backlin said.
The first frog was found June 10 in Tahquitz Creek.
"We were just blown away," he said.
The museum scientists made their discovery as they followed in the footsteps of a 1908 natural history expedition in order to determine biological changes. That frog was found June 21 in Willow Creek, a tributary of the Tahquitz.
Scientists knew that the frogs had lived there about 50 years ago because museums have examples of the species from the area, Backlin said.
The historic record indicates the frogs were abundant in every area that had permanent water above an elevation of 1,200 feet, he said.
"Between 1968, the 1970s, they just disappeared off the map," he said. "We're trying to figure out now what happened. So anything that is still currently out there has probably persisted since that time."
The frogs don't bask like other frogs and are hard to spot, he said.
The frogs also typically don't move from place to place, so the distance between the two newly discovered frogs is a preliminary indication of a big population.
"And if there's a large population, there may be more frogs in that one creek than we know of across the entire range of the species," Backlin said.
The discoveries follow the San Diego Zoo's first-ever success in breeding a mountain yellow-legged frog in captivity. Tadpoles rescued from a drying stream in the San Bernardino National Forest were taken to the zoo, and eggs were discovered in a tank in December. One frog matured.
Backlin said captive breeding is difficult because of the need to replicate conditions that include the chill of winter, when the frogs are used to hibernating.
"The hope is that we'll get a lot of animals from that captive population this spring and use those to start developing new populations," he said.
Matt Walker, BBC News 22 Jul 09;
The precarious status of the Bactrian camel has been highlighted by a new genetic study.
An analysis by scientists in China and Inner Mongolia shows that wild Bactrian camels are distantly related to their domestic two-humped counterparts.
That reinforces the idea that the few hundred remaining wild Bactrian camels are unique, and should be kept separate from those in domestic herds.
Bactrians are the last remaining wild camels of any type.
Bactrian camels ( Camelus bactrianus ) are huge animals that stand up to 2.3m tall at the shoulder and can weigh up to 690kg.
Fewer than 1000 wild Bactrian camels survive in just a few areas in north-west China and south-west Mongolia.
The animal is listed as critically endangered and the Zoological Society of London's EDGE of Existence programme ranks them among the 100 most evolutionarily distinct but globally endangered animals.
Domestic rival
Despite the tiny number in the wild, a significant number of domestic Bactrian camels are herded in the cold deserts in China and Mongolia.
However, the relationship between wild Bactrian camels and those kept domestically has been unclear.
The wild camels have smaller, more slender bodies with thinner, more lithe legs, and lower pyramid-shaped humps.
Recent research has also shown that the two find it difficult to interbreed.
To find out more about this relationship, Rimutu Ji of the Inner Mongolia Agricultural University in Huhhot, China, and He Meng of Shanghai Jiao Tong University, teamed up with scientists from the Chinese Academy of Sciences to sample the DNA of 18 domestic and three wild camels selected from different regions.
The researchers confirmed that the different groups of wild camel in Gansu, China and Govi-Altay, Mongolia are closely related, though they could not determine their common ancestor.
They also confirmed that all domestic camels originated from the same population.
However, domestic camels did not originate from the group of camels that still survive in the wild, say the researchers.
Separate entities
They found that the domestic and wild camels first diverged around 700,000 years ago.
The researchers cannot be sure, but they suspect that changes to the climate may have caused one group of Bactrian camels to migrate en masse away from the others, and that the ancestor of the domestic two-humped camel probably went extinct thousands of years ago.
That confirms what conservationists have long suspected: that the two groups are genetically unique, and must be considered to be distinct subspecies.
"The wild group is worthy of conservation as a separate entity," says Richard Kock, conservation programme manager for the Zoological Society of London.
"What is important is that the population needs to remain discrete and in a reasonably high number if it is not to be genetically swamped out by hybridisation with the domestic animal."
The wild one-humped dromedary camel ( Camelus dromedarius ) is already extinct, making the remaining wild Bactrians the last known wild camels.
David Fleshler, South Florida Sun-Sentinel 24 Jul 09;
Military divers returned to Fort Lauderdale this week to resume the job of salvaging hundreds of thousands of tires dumped offshore in the early 1970s in a failed attempt to create an artificial reef.
About 30 Army and Navy divers worked about a mile and a half off the beach at Hugh Taylor Birch State Park on Friday to haul tires off the ocean floor and collect them on the Army assault vessel Brandy Station. The day's catch: About 1,400 tires.
It is the third year of a project created to address a difficult environmental problem and provide a training opportunity for divers who need to accumulate hours below the surface. And while this may not be as challenging as clearing mines in advance of a beach assault, it is a massive task that will take years to complete.
Up to 2 million tires had been tied into bundles and shoved into the ocean in an attempt to create undersea structures that would support marine life and attract fish for people to catch. But many of the tires broke loose and actually damaged coral reefs.
State and county environmental agencies have teamed up with the military to try to deal with the problem. The divers work only during the summer, when wind and sea are calmer.
The section of ocean floor being worked on this week contains about 300,000 tires resting on the eastern edge of the second reef from shore.
"They're right up against the reef, and when we have strong storms they get pushed up onto the reef," said Pat Quinn, a biologist with the Broward County Environmental Protection and Growth Management Department. "Tires bouncing onto the reef are obviously bad for the reef environment."
The divers will work through August. Last summer they hauled up 44,500 tires, which went to a recycler in Georgia.
Pollution, pesticides and habitat loss bring dragonflies close to the brink after 325m years
Adam Vaughan, guardian.co.uk 25 Jul 09;
Dragonflies may have hovered and hunted across the planet for the last 325m years, but their modern relatives are staring extinction in the face. Experts warn that one-third of British species are now under threat, a plight that today sees the opening of the UK's first ever dragonfly centre to celebrate and protect one of the country's most fascinating insects.
Located at Wicken Fen nature reserve in Cambridgeshire, the new centre hopes to reverse the decline of the 42 species found regularly in the UK. Conservationists blame the decline on the loss of wetlands, and pesticides and insecticides drifting from farmland.
Springwatch presenter Chris Packham, who opened the centre today, said: "The loss of wetland habitat throughout the UK is having a massive impact on the long-term survival prospects for many dragonfly species." He warned that three British species have already become extinct since the 1960s.
Dragonflies spend much of their lives underwater as larva "nymphs", and when the winged adult finally emerges its flying lifetime is comparatively short, ranging from just weeks for small species to a few years for the largest. They are a key indicator of water quality and a valuable natural predator of mosquitoes and midges.
Some British species are faring worse than others. White-faced darters have seen a signifcant loss and drying out of the bog pools where they live, while the Norfolk hawker's limited distribution - mostly in the Norfolk Broads - has left it vulnerable to sea level rises and salt water infiltration.
As well as pressure from the historic loss of East Anglian fens, many of which have been drained and converted to farmland, British dragonflies and their prey are at risk from insecticides and pesticides. Vicky Kindemba, freshwater officer at conservation charity Buglife, said: "Different chemicals affect invertebates differently, but one we know about is permethrin - used to treat wood and animals to remove fleas and woodworm - which can affect dragonflies when it finds its way into the water course." Chemicals reaching rivers and streams from agricultural run-off can disrupt dragonfly breeding patterns - reducing the number of eggs, for example.
There are signs that increasingly conservation-conscious farmers are aware of the problem. David Felce, who runs Midloe Grange Farm near the site of the new dragonfly centre, said: "We have several types of dragonfly on the farm, including blue emperors and brown hawkers, which we've protected by building grass buffer zones near our seven ponds and water courses. As well as acting as a failsafe to keep insecticides away from dragonflies and other insects, the grass is a habitat for wildlife in its own right."
Dragonflies are doing better this year compared to 2008, according to anecdotal evidence from naturalists at the British Dragonfly Society. "We think it's due to the sustained wet weather during late spring and early summer last year," said Katharine Parkes, a spokesperson for the society. "This year, although we've still had wet weather, it's been showery rather than sustained, and dragonflies are very good at making the most of sunny intervals."
However, long-term records are required to establish an accurate picture of dragonfly health, and the data collected by naturalists from 1986 to 2005 shows a third of British species are now classified as endangered, vulnerable or near-threatened under official Red List criteria.
Wicken Fen, where the dragonfly centre opened today, is one of the few bright spots for dragonflies and home to 21 of Britain's species. Stuart Warrington, the National Trust's Nature Conservation Advisor for the East of England, said: "Dragonflies symbolise the importance of Wicken Fen and our ambitious project to create a 22 square mile nature reserve. Work to develop good quality habitats for dragonflies, such as clean ditches and ponds, has led to successful breeding of all the species found at Wicken and on the land surrounding the fen."
The new centre, staffed by volunteers, will give visitors access to educational displays, advanced courses on species identification and guided "safaris" to see the fen's darting inhabitants, from the emperor dragonfly to the hairy dragonfly.
Dragonflies: fast facts
• The dragonfly family has more species than any other mammal
• The wings of a dragonfly beat at up to 35 times a second
• The insects can fly forwards and backwards at up to 18mph
• The eyes of a dragonfly cover a field of vision close to 360°
• The largest species have been known to fly across the Atlantic Ocean
• Dragonflies don't sting humans
Yahoo News 24 Jul 09;
ISTANBUL (AFP) – An Australian-based fur company has begun culling baby seals in Namibia after animal rights activists failed to pay on time the millions of dollars they pledged to buy the company out, the owner said Friday.
"Nothing came from these associations and we have begun the annual slaughter," Hatem Yavuz -- who has offices both in Sydney and Istanbul in his native Turkey -- told AFP.
Earlier this month, animal rights activists announced that they had launched a campaign to raise 14.2 million US dollars (9.9 million euros) to buy out Yavuz's company which buys the pelts.
Yavuz said that he had been ready to go along with the offer -- made by several associations, including Seal Alert South Africa and Humane Society International -- but said he now felt they had been dishonest.
"I told them 'You want to buy me out, buy me out'. Today, there is nothing on the table. They kept the money in their pocket," he said.
The culling began "about a week ago," after a two-week delay, Yavuz added.
The annual commercial seal harvesting season in Namibia officially began on July 1 with a quota of 85,000 pups due to be clubbed to death and 6000 bulls to be shot on the country's coast.
In May this year, the European Union banned imports and exports of all seal products in their 27 member states, including transporting these products through the EU to other parts of the world.
Matt Walker, BBC News 24 Jul 09;
Lions in Cameroon are having their kills stolen from under their noses by hungry villagers.
Incidences of such kleptoparasitism, the stealing of food from another, usually occur between top predators such as lion, hyena and cheetah.
But people are increasingly getting in on the act, conservationists say.
They suspect the practice may be much more common than thought, and are concerned that it could threaten the dwindling numbers of lions in Cameroon.
An account of one particular incident where local villagers were caught stealing meat from a lion kill has been published in the African Journal of Ecology.
On the morning of the 28 March 2006, biologist Marjolein Schoe of Leiden University in The Netherlands and colleagues were tracking a male lion fitted with a radio collar in Benoue National Park, in the Northern Province of Cameroon.
They found him and a collared female lion both feeding on a newly killed Western hartebeest antelope.
As Schoe's vehicle approached, both lions fled into nearby thicket where they remained hidden until the researchers left.
Around 5pm that afternoon, the researchers returned to the site of the kill.
As they arrived, they encountered several local villagers, who also ran away and hid in the bush.
All the remaining meat on the hartebeest carcass had been stripped away by knife, leaving only the head, feet and a few remains. Leaves also littered the carcass, suggesting that the whoever had cut away the meat had used leaves to package it.
Near to the hartebeest also lay a wooden pole, further evidence that people had been scavenging from the kill.
"Marjolein Schoe was involved in fieldwork and she actually made this field observation. She was surprised and angry actually that people had chased off the lions," says colleague Hans de Iongh of Leiden University, who is also a member of the World Conservation Union's Cat Specialist Group and the African Lion Working Group.
"Although this observation did not fit in the main objective of the [original] study, we decided to publish it, since such events are rarely observed."
Large predators, such as lions, spotted hyenas, African wild dogs and cheetahs routinely steal fresh kills from one another, a behaviour known as kleptoparasitism.
But de Iongh says he has come across another incidence in Cameroon's Waza National Park where people chased away lions from a newly killed roan antelope, before taking the meat.
Further research by de Iongh, Schoe and colleague Barbara Croes also suggests that the practise of stealing lion kills may be more prevalent than thought.
"From interviews with Bororo herdsmen, we have learned that it is a common habit among this tribe to chase away lions from fresh kills, with sticks or with fire," says de Iongh.
Other lion researchers across Africa have also provided de Iongh's team with anecdotal reports of people stealing meat from lion kills.
"This suggests that it may be more common practice than we think," says de Iongh.
People are stealing the meat to get an easy source of protein, say the researchers, as lions may be wary enough of people to be easily scared off their kills.
But the researchers fear that stealing the lions' food may have a detrimental impact on the big cats.
"We believe that the impact of this kind of behaviour might be significant on lion populations, since lions have to spent an enormous energy effort to capture the same amount of prey, if their prey gets stolen," says de Iongh. "This may have a serious impact on a lion population which is already under serious stress by human encroachment and may eventually contribute to more rapid extinction."
In Waza National Park, for example, the population of lions is thought to have declined from 50 to 60 animals in the 1990s to between 12 and 20 in 2008, when the last survey was conducted.
Considering that an estimated six lions are killed each year by livestock owners and poachers, de Iongh and his colleagues fear that lions in the park are on the verge of going extinct.
By ELISABETH ROSENTHAL
Published: July 24, 2009
XINGU NATIONAL PARK, Brazil — As the naked, painted young men of the Kamayurá tribe prepare for the ritualized war games of a festival, they end their haunting fireside chant with a blowing sound — “whoosh, whoosh” — a symbolic attempt to eliminate the scent of fish so they will not be detected by enemies. For centuries, fish from jungle lakes and rivers have been a staple of the Kamayurá diet, the tribe’s primary source of protein.
But fish smells are not a problem for the warriors anymore. Deforestation and, some scientists contend, global climate change are making the Amazon region drier and hotter, decimating fish stocks in this area and imperiling the Kamayurá’s very existence. Like other small indigenous cultures around the world with little money or capacity to move, they are struggling to adapt to the changes.
“Us old monkeys can take the hunger, but the little ones suffer — they’re always asking for fish,” said Kotok, the tribe’s chief, who stood in front of a hut containing the tribe’s sacred flutes on a recent evening. He wore a white T-shirt over the tribe’s traditional dress, which is basically nothing.
Chief Kotok, who like all of the Kamayurá people goes by only one name, said that men can now fish all night without a bite in streams where fish used to be abundant; they safely swim in lakes previously teeming with piranhas.
Responsible for 3 wives, 24 children and hundreds of other tribe members, he said his once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream.
“I’m stressed and anxious — this has all changed so quickly, and life has become very hard,” he said in Portuguese, speaking through an interpreter. “As a chief, I have to have vision and look down the road, but I don’t know what will happen to my children and grandchildren.”
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says that up to 30 percent of animals and plants face an increased risk of extinction if global temperatures rise 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) in coming decades. But anthropologists also fear a wave of cultural extinction for dozens of small indigenous groups — the loss of their traditions, their arts, their languages.
“In some places, people will have to move to preserve their culture,” said Gonzalo Oviedo, a senior adviser on social policy at the International Union for Conservation of Nature in Gland, Switzerland. “But some of those that are small and marginal will assimilate and disappear.”
To make do without fish, Kamayurá children are eating ants on their traditional spongy flatbread, made from tropical cassava flour. “There aren’t as many around because the kids have eaten them,” Chief Kotok said of the ants. Sometimes members of the tribe kill monkeys for their meat, but, the chief said, “You have to eat 30 monkeys to fill your stomach.”
Living deep in the forest with no transportation and little money, he noted, “We don’t have a way to go to the grocery store for rice and beans to supplement what is missing.”
Tacuma, the tribe’s wizened senior shaman, said that the only threat he could remember rivaling climate change was a measles virus that arrived deep in the Amazon in 1954, killing more than 90 percent of the Kamayurá.
Cultures threatened by climate change span the globe. They include rainforest residents like the Kamayurá who face dwindling food supplies; remote Arctic communities where the only roads were frozen rivers that are now flowing most of the year; and residents of low-lying islands whose land is threatened by rising seas.
Many indigenous people depend intimately on the cycles of nature and have had to adapt to climate variations — a season of drought, for example, or a hurricane that kills animals.
But worldwide, the change is large, rapid and inexorable, heading in only one direction: warmer. Eskimo settlements like Kivalina and Shishmaref in Alaska are “literally being washed away,” said Thomas Thornton, an anthropologist who studies the region, because the sea ice that long protected their shores is melting and the seas around are rising. Without that hard ice, it becomes difficult, if not impossible, to hunt for seals, a mainstay of the traditional diet.
Some Eskimo groups are suing polluters and developed nations, demanding compensation and help with adapting.
“As they see it, they didn’t cause the problem, and their lifestyle is being threatened by pollution from industrial nations,” said Dr. Thornton, who is a researcher at the Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford. “The message is that this is about people, not just about polar bears and wildlife.”
At climate negotiations in December in Poznan, Poland, the United Nations created an “adaptation fund” through which rich nations could in theory help poor nations adjust to climate change. But some of the money was expected to come from voluntary contributions, and there have been none so far, said Yvo De Boer, the executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. “It would help if rich countries could make financial commitments,” he said.
Throughout history, the traditional final response for indigenous cultures threatened by untenable climate conditions or political strife was to move. But today, moving is often impossible. Land surrounding tribes is now usually occupied by an expanding global population, and once-nomadic groups have often settled down, building homes and schools and even declaring statehood.
The Kamayurá live in the middle of Xingu National Park, a vast territory that was once deep in the Amazon but is now surrounded by farms and ranches.
About 5,000 square miles of Amazon forest are being cut down annually in recent years, according to the Brazilian government. And with far less foliage, there is less moisture in the regional water cycle, lending unpredictability to seasonal rains and leaving the climate drier and hotter.
That has upended the cycles of nature that long regulated Kamayurá life. They wake with the sun and have no set meals, eating whenever they are hungry.
Fish stocks began to dwindle in the 1990s and “have just collapsed” since 2006, said Chief Kotok, who is considering the possibility of fish farming, in which fish would be fed in a penned area of a lake. With hotter temperatures as well as less rain and humidity in the region, water levels in rivers are extremely low. Fish cannot get to their spawning grounds.
Last year, for the first time, the beach on the lake that abuts the village was not covered by water in the rainy season, rendering useless the tribe’s method of catching turtles by putting food in holes that would fill up, luring the animals.
The tribe’s agriculture has suffered, too. For centuries, the Kamayurá planted their summer crops when a certain star appeared on the horizon. “When it appeared, everyone celebrated because it was the sign to start planting cassava since the rain and wind would come,” Chief Kotok recalled. But starting seven or eight seasons ago, the star’s appearance was no longer followed by rain, an ominous divergence, forcing the tribe to adjust its schedule.
It has been an ever-shifting game of trial and error since. Last year, families had to plant their cassava four times — it died in September, October and November because there was not enough moisture in the ground. It was not until December that the planting took. The corn also failed, said Mapulu, the chief’s sister. “It sprouted and withered away,” she said.
A specialist in medicinal plants, Ms. Mapulu said that a root she used to treat diarrhea and other ailments had become nearly impossible to find because the forest flora had changed. The grass they use to bound together the essential beams of their huts has also become difficult to find.
But perhaps the Kamayurá’s greatest fear are the new summer forest fires. Once too moist to ignite, the forest here is now flammable because of the drier weather. In 2007, Xingu National Park burned for the first time, and thousands of acres were destroyed.
“The whole Xingu was burning — it stung our lungs and our eyes,” Chief Kotok said. “We had nowhere to escape. We suffered along with the animals.”
Sonia Kolesnikov-Jessop, The New York Times 24 Jul 09;
SINGAPORE — Steve Wasik demonstrates that he is on message with his company’s philosophy by always carrying one of its colorful — and reusable — aluminum bottles.
During a recent interview here, the one he drank from stated in bold pink letters, “Make Love not Landfill.”
When Mr. Wasik joined Sigg in 2005 as head of a newly set-up American subsidiary, the Swiss manufacturer had roughly $20 million in global sales and limited distribution outside Europe. Mr. Wasik, who became the company’s first foreign chief executive in 2008, has helped more than triple sales and expand its presence in the United States and Asia.
With his marketing background in the beverage and fashion industries, the 47-year-old executive repositioned Sigg by placing less emphasis on the water containers’ Swiss quality standards to promote them as an eco-chic accessory. He got lucky when the actress Julia Roberts told millions of Oprah Winfrey viewers last year “everybody just needs to get a Sigg,” providing the spontaneous type of word-of-mouth endorsement he could have only dreamed about.
Are Sigg bottles actually eco-friendly? Bob Lilienfeld, editor of Use-less-stuff.com, points out that reusable bottles are much less wasteful than disposable bottles, but metal water bottles are not necessarily better than reusable plastic ones. “The key for all reusable containers is to figure out how to ensure that people keep using them. You could argue that the Sigg bottles are very expensive, which might reduce purchase interest. But if the price ensures that people who do buy them remember to bring them home, refill and reuse them, it’s a positive.”
Sigg increased production by more than 90 percent last year to six million bottles, and although Mr. Wasik is cautious about the near-term future, he still expects production to increase to seven million this year. “Last year was out of control. The market was booming because of the huge green wave taking place and the BPA scare,” he said, referring to the claims made about the potential health risks of the chemical bisphenol-a in some hard, clear plastic bottles. “This year, we’ve suffered in the U.S. and Japan because of the economic situation.”
Sigg, owned by the U.S. private equity firm Riverside Group, does not release financial data, but Mr. Wasik said annual sales this year should grow 15 percent globally to between $60 million and $100 million.
The bottled-water industry in the United States has been on a phenomenal expansion, according to data from Beverage Marketing, a U.S.-based data and consulting firm, though the market dipped slightly last year. Retail sales of single-serving plastic bottles increased from 1.4 billion gallons in 2000 to 5.2 billion gallons last year, lifting their share of total bottled water volume from 29 percent to more than 60 percent.
With 45 percent of Sigg’s total sales now in the United States, Mr. Wasik sees further potential to expand there while also addressing the limited adoption of reusable bottles around the world. “I believe reusable bottles only represent less than 5 percent of the overall water bottle market in the U.S., and probably less than 1 percent around the world,” he said. “There are a lot of markets out there that haven’t been tapped. France is one example, where we still have a very small presence. Italy, Spain are still virgin markets.”
After getting a master’s degree in business administration from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, Mr. Wasik joined Cadbury Schweppes in 1991, working there for four years on marketing products like Mott’s Apple Juice and Clamato, as well as Schweppes soft drinks. Four years later, he became the general manager for North America at Naya Water. “I actually thought I was making a move in the right direction, from selling what is basically sugared water to teenagers to pure water,” he said, laughing.
In 1999, he joined Chanel as general manager of Bourjois USA, where he helped introduce the cosmetics brand in the United States, and was later promoted to general manager of Bourjois Europe.
Seeking to return to the United States, Mr. Wasik left Chanel in 2005 and shortly after joined Sigg. “It reminded me a lot of Naya, a small brand with a tremendous potential for growth,” he recalled.
Mr. Wasik sees himself as a brand architect, “somebody who can see pieces and construct a story that makes sense. What I’m good at is being able to look at the product, the competitive arena, and being able to figure out how best to develop and leverage a brand story.”
This year, Sigg launched a brand called SteelWorks that makes stainless steel thermoses and flasks in China. It already accounts for about 5 percent of the company’s total sales.
“Some customers still prefer stainless over aluminum,” Mr. Wasik said. “At the end of the day, steel is still a heck of a lot more ecological than disposable products. I’d love to sell only Sigg bottles, but if we can get people to use reusable bottles, we’re doing our job, because we’re getting them out of using disposable plastic.”
Tracie Cone, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jun 09;
FRESNO, Calif. – By investing in water-saving technology, California's drought-burdened farmers could save enough water annually to fill four times over a reservoir that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger supports building, according to a report released this week.
The study by the nonprofit Pacific Institute urges regulatory agencies and lawmakers to focus on farm investments rather than large infrastructure projects such as the Temperance Flat Reservoir. Doing so could ensure more reliable water supplies as a warming planet increases the length and frequency of droughts, the report suggested.
"We need to start thinking of investing in these efficiency improvements," said lead author Heather Cooley. "That's what will give the biggest bang for the buck."
As California suffers its third year of drought and critical fish species decline in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta estuary, reductions in pumping to farmers and municipal users have some clamoring for new reservoirs and canal systems to protect the state's $39 billion agriculture industry.
"This is one of the pieces that needs to be dealt with as we look at our water future, but it's not the piece that's going to save us," said Doug Mosebar, president of the California Farm Bureau. "We need water storage, conservation and desalination."
The report said water-intensive flood irrigation has certainly declined since 2001, when 60 percent of farmers used it, but the method still is widely used in some areas.
From 2003 to 2005, San Joaquin Valley farmers spent $1.5 billion on water-saving technology, Mosebar said.
Many farmers with historic water rights have no incentive to conserve, the report said, because they get their full allocation of canal water every year no matter the weather conditions, while others get none.
The report said water contracts should be renegotiated to reflect the new reality of a dwindling supply.
"This sounds like the Mother Teresa approach," said Shawn Coburn, a farmer who helped found the Latino Water Coalition. "These guys are living in a fantasy world. When you're talking about reappropriating water rights, you're messing with the value of property and it's enormous. It's Socialism 101."
The new report suggests farmers who conserve should be rewarded with lower water rates, while large users should pay more, like the two-tiered systems that exist in many municipal water districts. The money raised could pay for conversion to drip and other water-saving systems.
The report said the government could encourage switching to expensive water conservation systems by offering reduced property taxes or a waiver of sales taxes for equipment purchases.
Some changes, the report said, will be more difficult to make — such as devising a system that allows farmers to receive water deliveries from canals when their crops need it, not simply when the district schedules them to take it.
"We need to move beyond the status quo, because it's clearly not working for farmers," Cooley said.
BBC News 24 Jul 09;
RSPB Scotland has lodged an objection to plans for Scotland's largest community wind farm, on Shetland.
The Viking Energy project, for 150 turbines, is a joint venture between Scottish and Southern Energy and the island community. It has been estimated the project could make £37m a year locally and create many jobs.
Now RSPB Scotland has added its voice, on the grounds of possible bird species impact, to local resistance.
Populations of birds, including the golden plover, could be threatened by some of the turbines, RSPB Scotland said.
'Review position'
RSPB Scotland's head of conservation policy, Lloyd Austin, said: "We very much appreciate the consultation the developers sought with us at the early stages of the design and the effort they have taken to avoid SSSIs and other protected areas.
"However, now we have analysed the full detail of the application, it is clear a wide range of bird species will be impacted.
"However, we would be prepared to review our position if these issues could be satisfactorily resolved."
Land conservation charity, the John Muir Trust, last week urged people to object to the plans.
The trust said the development would "significantly affect" about a fifth of mainland Shetland.
More than 3,500 people are said to have signed a petition against the plans.
Stephen Sackur, BBC News 24 Jul 09;
There are few places in the world where the effects of global warming appear to be more dramatic than the Ilulissat ice fjord.
This is probably why green-tinged politicians and celebrities are routinely spotted posing for pictures close to the vast icebergs calved from the glacier at the head of the fjord.
"Look," they say, "the ice is melting. Unless we dramatically cut our emissions now, the Greenland Ice Sheet and our planet are in peril."
Are they right? Do scientific studies of the Greenland Ice Sheet indicate that catastrophe is around the corner?
The answer does not seem to be entirely straightforward.
The Ilulissat glacier has indeed retreated dramatically in recent years - more than 15km in the last decade alone - but plenty of evidence suggests such rapid change in the ice is not unprecedented.
In fact, over the last 10,000 years (a period of long-term warming since the end of the last Ice Age), the glaciers on Greenland's west coast have been through many periods of advance and retreat.
Four thousand years ago, the Earth was significantly warmer than it is now, and accordingly the glacier retreated; but the evidence suggests it was perhaps only 20km back from its current position.
In other words, the Ilulissat glacier may reach a point in its retreat where the dynamics of the ice sheet make further regression very difficult, and very slow.
So when the more excitable climate campaigners claim that Greenland's ice sheet - which contains roughly 10% of the world's fresh water - is "melting" and that catastrophic rises in sea level can be expected within a century, it is advisable to take a deep breath and ponder the complexities of the ice.
The increased speed of flow of the Ilulissat glacier - from 7 to 14 km in a single year - means that an extraordinary mass of ice is indeed being disgorged into the sea.
Glaciologists reckon as much as 35 cubic kilometres of ice each year is being shed from this one outlet alone. But there is a countervailing trend.
Increased precipitation over the ice sheet, ie more snow, means at least some of the loss of mass in the ice sheet is being made good.
It may even be that the ice in the middle of the Greenland sheet is becoming thicker while it is retreating at the margins.
Even the experts are not entirely sure how to explain the dramatic speeding up of ice movement and melt inside the Illulisat fjord.
Danish glaciologist Andreas Ahlstroem believes a significant warming of the sea is a crucial factor. But glacier movement is quickening far into the ice sheet, suggesting that increased meltwater underneath the ice is also having a major impact.
Could the retreat of Greenland's glaciers be a harbinger of a much bigger change: the disappearance of the entire ice sheet?
Given even the most gloomy temperature projections for the next century that is extremely unlikely.
The ice in the middle of Greenland is some three kilometres thick and, deep down, it is hundreds of thousands of years old.
Indeed this core ice provides an invaluable record of conditions that prevailed during the last great interglacial period, which came to an end more than 100,000 years ago.
Greenland has not always been icebound. Two and a half million years ago it was covered in forest and heath, but even the worst-case scenario of man-made climate change is unlikely to reduce the northern hemisphere's greatest mass of ice to a pathetic pile of slush in the foreseeable future.
The series of HARDtalk programmes from Greenland will be broadcast on BBC World and the BBC News Channel on 28-30 July 2009.
Janet Mcconnaughey, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jul 09;
NEW ORLEANS – The Gulf of Mexico's "dead zone" — where there is too little oxygen in the water for anything to live — is less than half the size predicted earlier this year but also unusually severe, a scientist said Friday.
The hypoxic area forms every year in the Gulf, caused by bacteria feeding on algae blooms from the flow of farming runoff and other nutrients from the Mississippi River and others.
This year's area covers 3,000 square miles, but is also unusually thick, stretching from the bottom nearly to the surface, according to Nancy Rabalais, a researcher who specializes in the problem for the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
The 3,000 square miles is one of the smallest measurements of the zone since measurements began in 1985, according to a graph in a news release sent from a research vessel in the Gulf. Only those in 1987, 1988 and 2000 were smaller.
Other scientists had predicted that this year's dead zone would cover about 7,500 to 8,500 square miles.
Possible reasons for the difference include high winds and waves that helped mix more oxygen into some waters, she wrote.
"This was surprisingly small given the forecast to be among the largest ever and the expanse of the dead zone earlier this summer," she wrote.
Hypoxia occurs when algae blooms, fed by nitrates and phosphates in the water, die and fall to the bottom. At the same time, winds die down, meaning that fresh water coming out of the rivers doesn't get mixed into the denser salt water below it. Microbes feeding on the dead algae use up oxygen from the bottom up.
Rabalais said that in some areas where the oxygen was lowest, crabs, eels and shrimp — creatures which usually live on the bottom — were seen swimming at the surface.
Other studies indicate that severely low oxygen levels in early July contributed to "jubilees" — forced movement of fish, crabs and shrimp into shallow waters — off Grand Isle, she said.
Rabalais and other researchers are expected on Monday to discuss the hypoxic problem in a telephone news conference with Jane Lubchenco, head of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
"We want to raise some of the issues behind it and some of the debate about the changes needed to shrink it," NOAA spokesman Ben Sherman said Wednesday.
While the Gulf's dead zone is among the largest, there are more than 250 hypoxic areas in U.S. waters, according to researcher Robert Diaz of Virginia Marine Institute.
Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium: http://www.lumcon.edu/
NOAA: http://www.noaa.gov/
U.S. "dead zone" smaller but more severe: NOAA
Timothy Gardner, Reuters 27 Jul 09;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The "dead zone" in the Gulf of Mexico, an area choked by low oxygen levels that threatens marine life, is smaller than expected this year but more deadly, the government said on Monday.
The zone, caused by a runoff of agricultural chemicals from farms along the Mississippi River, measured about 3,000 square miles or about 1.5 times the size of the state of Delaware, compared with estimates that it would measure up to nearly 8,500 square miles, scientists said.
"Clearly the flow of excess nitrogen and phosphorus from agricultural fields in the Mississippi drainage basin continues to wreak havoc with life in the Gulf," said Jane Lubchenco, the administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told reporters in a teleconference.
Unusually strong winds and currents stirred the waters and brought oxygen back in, making the zone smaller than anticipated.
But Nancy Rabalais, a scientist from the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, who helped measure the zone during a week-long expedition, said it was more severe because the low oxygen levels are closer to the surface than in recent years.
The dead zone threatens Gulf fisheries worth nearly $3 billion per year.
Now marine life that normally feed close to the sea bottom, including eels and certain kinds of shrimp and crabs, are being found closer to the surface.
The dead zone is caused by fertilizers and nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus that wash off crop lands into the Mississippi, leading to the overproduction of tiny organisms such as algae in the Gulf of Mexico.
If the organisms are not eaten, they die and fall to the bottom of the ocean where bacteria rots them, sucking oxygen from the water.
The average size of the dead zone during the past five years has been about 6,000 square miles, or nearly the size of the state of Connecticut.
Federal and state agencies have worked together in the Gulf of Mexico and Mississippi River Watershed Nutrient Task Force since 2001 to control growth of the zone. It wants to cut it to about 2,00O square miles by 2015.
But some say progress on controlling runoff has been slow.
"Really relatively little has been done to implement the action plan," said Donald Boesch, a marine scientist at the University of Maryland. He said U.S. mandates for more biofuels made from corn contribute to chemical runoff and the zone's size.
For their part, biofuels companies say they are using fewer chemicals to grow corn every year.
Unlike other efforts in other regions that have dead zones, such as the Chesapeake Bay and the Baltic Sea, numerical goals have not been set for reducing nutrients from areas near the Mississippi basin, Boesch said.
A federal environmental regulator said the task force will meet in Iowa in the autumn to bring new leadership and ideas to tackle the problem.
(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)
Dead Zone in Gulf Is Smaller Than Forecast but More Concentrated in Parts
Henry Fountain, The New York Times 27 Jul 09;
Scientists said Monday that the region of oxygen-starved water in the northern Gulf of Mexico this summer was smaller than forecast, which means less disruption of shrimp, crabs and other marine species, and of the fisheries that depend on them.
But researchers found that although the so-called dead zone along the Texas and Louisiana coasts was smaller — about 3,000 square miles compared with a prediction of about 8,000 square miles — the actual volume of low-oxygen, or hypoxic, water may be higher, as the layer is deeper and thicker in some parts of the gulf than normal. And the five-year average size of the dead zone is still considered far too big, about three times a target of 2,000 square miles set for 2015 by an intergovernmental task force.
“It’s a smaller footprint,” said Nancy N. Rabalais, executive director of the Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium, at a telephone news conference announcing the finding. She said unusual winds and currents this spring had driven much of the hypoxic water to the east, reducing the size of the zone but concentrating it. “In actuality we found quite a severe area that was large in volume,” she said. “Organisms were obviously stressed.”
Forecasts for hypoxic zones in the gulf are based on measurements of the nitrogen and phosphorus entering the water from agricultural runoff and other sources in the Mississippi River watershed. The forecast earlier this year was for a zone that would come near the record 8,500-square-mile-zone detected in 2002.
“But the model is based on predictions of what the zone would look like in a normal physical environment,” said Donald Scavia of the University of Michigan, one of the forecast’s preparers. “But this year we didn’t have normal physical conditions.”
When nitrogen and phosphorus enter the gulf, these nutrients cause an overabundance of algae — too much for other marine organisms to consume. Some of the algae die, sink to the bottom and decompose, and the bacteria that do the decomposing use up most of the oxygen in the water.
Faced with depleted levels of oxygen, fish and other creatures that can swim will leave for other waters. Those that cannot leave often die or show signs of reproductive or other stress. Shrimp and other fisheries in the gulf can be affected for weeks or longer.
In an interview, Dr. Rabalais, who has been mapping the gulf hypoxic zone during summer research cruises for 25 years, said that in the most affected areas, where levels of dissolved oxygen were near zero, she and her colleagues saw crabs, eels and brown shrimp swimming toward the surface, fleeing the low-oxygen water. Predator fish were obviously affected too, she said, as there were none around to eat the smaller escapees. “Any self-respecting fish would have eaten those brown shrimp,” she said.
Jane Lubchenco, under secretary of commerce and administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said the gulf dead zone was the most “notorious” of about 250 such regions around the country.
Agricultural runoff, she said, “continues to wreak havoc with life in the gulf.” Governments are working to promote programs to reduce nutrient runoff, like “engineered” wetlands that can remove nitrogen, but Dr. Lubchenco added, “Some progress is being made, but not enough.”
BBC News 24 Jul 09;
Clouds over the North-East Pacific dissipate as the ocean warms, according to a study in the journal Science.
Researchers have described this as a "vicious cycle" of warming, as reduced cloud cover allows more of the Sun's rays to heat the Earth.
They say warming could gradually reduce the low-level cloud cover that is thought to help cool the globe.
But the team stressed that it was not yet possible to quantify how much this might impact on global temperatures.
They said that accurate simulations of these cloud effects would improve the models scientists use to predict future climate change patterns.
The accuracy of these models has been hampered by the uncertain influence of clouds on the global climate system.
The low-level clouds studied here are of particular interest, as they have been shown to have a net cooling effect on the Earth, by reflecting the Sun's rays.
Lead author Amy Clement, from the University of Miami, US, tried to resolve the uncertainty in the cloud data.
Each satellite that gathers cloud data is slightly differently calibrated, and observations made by people from the Earth's surface have to be subjective. "So if there were trends in either one of those (data sets), you would be very suspect," Dr Clement told the Science podcast.
So she and her colleagues looked at both satellite and surface-based observations together.
"Basically, our approach was to take imperfect but independent data sets and add them together," she told BBC News.
"Where they agreed we said it added confidence that the signals were real and not just some spurious trend."
Dr Clement described the findings as "almost shocking".
They noticed that, in the past 50 years, there had been a "positive feedback" cycle in the low-cloud cover, so when the surface of the ocean was warmer, there had been less cloud cover.
"These are subtle changes that take place over decades," Dr Clement commented. "But it's indicative of a vicious circle."
Better modelling
The authors then tested leading climate models and found that only one - a model designed by scientists at the UK Met Office's Hadley Centre - reproduced this cloud effect.
This particular model predicts one of the more pessimistic climate change scenarios, with temperature increases at the high end of the range of forecasts.
Dr Clement said that this range of different projected temperature increases, in response to greenhouse gases, had been "almost entirely" caused by the uncertainty about cloud feedback.
Daniel Lunt, a climate scientist from the University of Bristol, UK, said this was an "important finding", but that it would be a "quantum leap" to conclude that this single model's predictions about the effects of cloud cover on the future climate would be correct.
"Cloud feedbacks do not necessarily work in the same way under conditions of natural variability compared to (how they will work during) future carbon dioxide-induced warming," he explained.
But Dr Clement said: "This is coming from a model where this cloud feedback has been validated against observations. So the fact that (its predictions are) at the upper end of the range is something that merits more attention."
Dr Clement stated that the findings provided "a new way of looking at cloud changes".
"This can help improve the simulation of clouds in climate models, which will lead to more accurate projections of future climate changes," she said.
Matt Collins, a researcher from the Hadley Centre, said that the findings gave him confidence in the ability of models to predict climate change.
It was impossible to extrapolate this one test and say exactly what would happen in the future climate, he told BBC News. "But we have been studying cloud feedback mechanisms for years, and this gives us justification to pursue this project."
Mia Shanley and Ilona Wissenbach, Reuters 24 Jul 09;
ARE, Sweden (Reuters) - Germany called a French idea to slap "carbon tariffs" on products from countries that are not trying to cut greenhouse gases a form of "eco-imperialism" and a direct violation of WTO rules.
The issue of greenhouse tariffs has met bitter opposition from developing countries such as China and India, who count on the developed world to buy their exports as they build their economies in the face of the worst financial crisis in decades.
Matthias Machnig, Germany's State Secretary for the Environment, told a news briefing on Friday that a French push for Europe to impose carbon tariffs on imports from countries that flout rules on carbon emissions would send the wrong signal to the international community.
"There are two problems -- the WTO (World Trade Organization), and the signal would be that this is a new form of eco-imperialism," Machnig said.
"We are closing our markets for their products, and I don't think this is a very helpful signal for the international negotiations."
European environment and energy ministers are meeting in Sweden to try to come up with a single vision of how the 27-member bloc will fight global warming, ahead of a major environment summit in Copenhagen.
The first phase of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on cutting greenhouse gas emissions is set to expire in 2012. Final negotiations on a successor climate change pact will take place in the Danish capital at the end of the year.
U.S. LEGISLATION
The U.S. House of Representatives has already passed legislation that contains carbon tariffs. It would allow the United States to impose duties on imports of carbon-intensive goods such as steel, cement, paper and glass from countries that have not taken steps to reduce their own emissions.
Some say such tariffs could be a backup plan for Europe, should United Nations members fail to reach a deal in Copenhagen.
But Swedish Environment Minister Andreas Carlgren, whose country holds the rotating European Union presidency, said member states currently had no "plan B" beyond landing a deal in Copenhagen. He said there was as yet no official proposal on the table from the French regarding carbon tariffs. "We are absolutely against each try to make use of green protectionism," Carlgren told Reuters. "There should be no threat of borders, of walls or barriers for imports from developing countries."
French President Nicolas Sarkozy's office said last month such taxes could help create a "level playing field" for European companies competing with international firms from countries that have not put a price on carbon emissions.
EU Energy Commissioner Andris Piebalgs has said member states should keep the French proposal in mind, but also worries how such tariffs could be viewed by other countries.
China said earlier this month carbon tariffs would violate the rules of the WTO and the spirit of the Kyoto Protocol.
Such tariffs would represent a radical shift for the WTO, whose goal is reducing barriers to trade. However, the WTO says it is possible to impose import tariffs if such taxes are also imposed on a country's own industry to ensure a level playing field.
However, Europe could see some progress on domestic carbon taxes on a national level within the 27-member bloc. Sweden's finance minister, Anders Borg, plans to raise the issue at the next finance ministers' meeting, Industry Minister Maud Olofsson told a press briefing.
(Additional reporting by Johan Ahlander and Julien Toyer; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
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