Brown-throated Sunbird and Macarange heynei
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Baby cuckoo fed by tailorbird
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Coral cover at Hantu West patch reef
ReefFriends survey results from BlueWaterVolunteers
Anatomy of a Starfish Invasion!
Part 2 from The Echinoblog
Climate Change in Singapore
from Low Carbon Singapore
Cleantech Happy Hour V
from Low Carbon Singapore
Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
IN A bid to get more Singaporeans and tourists to 'go local', 14 local farms are offering fun activities and prizes for visitors next month.
About 15,000 passports, or Farmpasses, will be distributed - at the farms, schools and tourist visitor centres - throughout August.
Every weekend, all the farms will be holding activities ranging from pottery- making and charity flea markets to sampling of frog's legs and discounts on farm fresh eggs.
The farms in Kranji range from fisheries and vegetable farms to goat and crocodile farms.
Armed with a Farmpass, visitors stop by at each farm to collect a stamp. Once seven stamps are collected, they can participate in a lucky dip to claim a prize. Collect another seven stamps to receive another prize.
Lucky dip prizes include Pandan plants, soft toys, $50 food hampers and a night's stay at D-Kranji Resort, a local farmstay.
More than $60,000 in prizes are up for grabs for those who visit the participating farms.
This is part of The Kranji Countryside Association's efforts to steer more people to Singapore's cluster of farms, including Jurong Frog Farm, vegetable farm Kok Fah Technology Farm and Qian Hu Fish Farm.
Food production in Singapore is currently less than 5 per cent of total demand, but the association aims to increase this.
'The objective is to create awareness,' said Mr Kenny Eng, 35, owner of Gardenasia, a nursery farm in Kranji. 'Our countryside can be a destination for tourists and Singaporeans.
'Many don't even know there are farms here,' he added.
A free shuttle service - between the farms and Yew Tee MRT station - will also be available on weekends next month.
The event, supported by the Singapore Tourism Board, was launched yesterday evening with the tossing of a garden salad made entirely of locally grown ingredients.
North West District Mayor Teo Ho Pin was guest of honour at the event.
For more information, visit www.kranjicountryside.com
JESSICA LIM
Channel NewsAsia 30 Jul 09;
SINGAPORE: Scientists in Singapore, the Netherlands and France have developed a novel immunisation method that could lead to the development of a vaccine for malaria.
The findings of Associate Professor Laurent Renia from A*Star and his counterparts were published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine.
Their approach involved exposing two groups of healthy human subjects to mosquitoes once a month over a three-month period.
They exposed one group to mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite and the other group to uninfected mosquitoes.
During the period of exposure, the human subjects were administered with chloroquine - an anti-malaria drug that prevented the malaria parasite - P. Falciparum - from multiplying in the blood.
After eight weeks of immunisation and four weeks after the discontinuation of chloroquine administration, both groups were re-exposed to infected mosquitoes.
The scientists found that those in the vaccine group had acquired complete protection against the malaria parasite.
This unique method of immunisation allowed the human immune system to direct its response to destroy the malaria parasite at an earlier stage.
Currently, methods include the use of genetically inactivated parasites or parasites that have been weakened by radiation to induce anti-malaria immunity. This has only succeeded in inducing up to 50 per cent protection in humans.
The disease infects about 350 million to 500 million people worldwide and kills over 1 million people a year. - CNA/vm
Malaria breakthrough
Today Online 31 Jul 09;
THE search for an anti-malaria vaccine has been given a boost after a group of scientists succeeded in developing a novel immunisation method that will induce fast and effective protection against the mosquito-borne disease.
The breakthrough in malaria research was made by Associate Professor Laurent Renia from A*Star's Singapore Immunology Network (Sign) and his counterparts in the Netherlands and France.
In the study, scientists exposed two groups of healthy humans to mosquitoes once a month over a three-month period. The "vaccine group" was exposed to mosquitoes infected with the malaria parasite, plasmodium falciparum, while the "control group" was exposed to uninfected mosquitoes. Participants were also given chloroquine, an anti-malaria drug.
Eight weeks after the last round of immunisation and four weeks after the discontinuation of chloroquine administration, the subjects from both groups were re-exposed to infected mosquitoes and tested for protection against plasmodium falciparum. The scientists found that those in the vaccine group had acquired complete protection against the parasite while those in the control group developed parasitemia, a condition where parasites are found in the blood.
The study indicated that this method of immunisation allowed the human system to direct its response to eliminating the plasmodium falciparum parasite at the earlier stage of its life cycle, as chloroquine would kill it at the later stage.
Assoc Prof Renia, principal investigator at Sign, said it is not practical to apply the experimental method used in the study as a means of vaccination. "But, this method of immunisation could be applied successfully to similar investigations to find biological markers which would indicate the extent of protection against malaria," he said.
Meanwhile, a third malaria cluster, involving four cases of suspected local transmission of vivax malaria near a row of shophouses located at the junction of Sembawang Road and Admiralty Road East, has been identified this week. But the latest cluster is not related to the two earlier clusters, according to the Ministry of Health.
Mosquito bites may be key to better vaccines
Grace Chua, Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
IN AN unorthodox experiment, scientists from the Netherlands, France and Singapore deliberately infected people with the parasite that causes malaria - by subjecting them to about 40 bites from infected mosquitoes.
As hoped, the scientists were able to inoculate the volunteers against the disease. Though this approach is not a practical solution, it paves the way for developing more effective malaria vaccines.
Most people infected with the plasmodium falciparum malaria parasite suffer debilitating fever and anaemia, and may even die from the illness. But some who contract the disease several times over many years can develop natural immunity to it.
To mimic the infection-and-immunity cycle, the researchers allowed infected mosquitoes to bite 10 healthy medical students in three rounds over three months. Five others in a control group were bitten by uninfected mosquitoes.
All were protected with the drug chloroquine, which kills malaria parasites in the bloodstream.
When the volunteers ceased taking the drug, all 15 were subjected to infected-mosquito bites. None of the 10 in the vaccination group developed malaria, while all five in the control group did.
Those who got sick were given outpatient care and recovered.
While vaccination by mosquito bite is nearly impossible to carry out, Dr Laurent Renia - an immunologist with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's Singapore Immunology Network and one of the scientists on the project - said the project 'will help us understand how immunity develops, and use that mechanism to make a vaccine'.
Their work was published in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine yesterday.
Other groups are currently studying vaccines based on weakened forms of the malaria parasite, or on parts or molecules from the parasite.
'Malaria vaccines are moving from the laboratory into the real world,' wrote Dr Carlos Campbell in an editorial in the same journal.
Dr Campbell - who directs a malaria programme at the Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health, a health foundation in the United States - also noted that vaccines would be part of a multi-pronged malaria-control approach that includes insecticide-treated bed nets and mosquito-control measures.
Malaria kills almost a million people each year, mostly children and in Africa. Commercially, no vaccines exist, and the parasite is also showing signs of resistance to more drugs.
Dr Renia also noted that the study was done on the more severe plasmodium falciparum strain of malaria, which kills more people and is predominantly in Africa.
In malaria cases here, the milder plasmodium vivax strain is predominant.
'The same strategy could work on vivax, but it would have to be tested,' he said.
Malaria resisting S-E Asia's best drugs
Study uncovers a delay in clearing parasites, which could be disastrous
Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
BANGKOK: Malaria is becoming resistant to the most powerful drugs available in South-east Asia, as the World Health Organisation (WHO) races to stop the spread of the strain that could be disastrous for global malaria control.
Treatments derived from artemisinin, the basis of the most effective anti-malaria drugs, took almost twice as long to clear the parasites that cause the disease in patients in western Cambodia, as in patients in north-western Thailand, according to a study published in the New England Journal of Medicine yesterday.
The delay in parasite clearance times shows that the drugs are losing their effectiveness against the disease in Cambodia, the study said.
The failure of artemisinin-based treatments would be disastrous for global efforts aimed at curbing the death and disease wrought by the malady, said Dr Arjen Dondorp, who led the study at the Mahidol Oxford Research Unit in Bangkok.
'There is no question that this is resistant to artemisinin,' Dr Carlos Campbell, a malaria expert with the Seattle-based Programme for Appropriate Technology in Health, or Path, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.
'History warns us that it will intensify and spread unless containment steps are taken,' he added.
Scientists have known for decades that Pailin, a city near Cambodia's border with Thailand, is a breeding ground for drug-resistant malaria.
Malaria medications chloroquine and fansidar started to fail there in the 1950s and 1960s, before becoming ineffective elsewhere, according to the study.
Since the study was completed, delayed parasite clearance times have been observed in southern Cambodia, a sign that the resistant strain has already spread within the country, Dr Dondorp said.
He and his colleagues treated 40 people in Pailin and another 40 in Wang Pha in Thailand, with artesunate, a form of artemisinin, which is derived from a herb.
After three days, artesunate failed to clear the parasite in 55per cent of patients in Pailin, compared with 8per cent in Wang Pha.
Widespread artemisinin resistance 'would cause millions of deaths, without exaggeration', Dr Dondorp said in an interview in January.
Malaria strikes about 250million people each year and kills more than 880,000, mostly children under five, according to the WHO.
It is among the world's most destructive infectious diseases after Aids, which kills about two million people each year.
Symptoms include fever, chills, nausea and diarrhoea. Without treatment, sufferers can die of organ failure.
In Singapore, researchers said that the predominant strain of malaria - plasmodium vivax - was still treatable with different drugs such as chloroquine.
However, cases of the more serious Plasmodium falciparum strain - which have yet to surface in Asia - show signs of multi-drug resistance.
Dr Laurent Renia, a researcher at the Singapore Immunology Network, under the Agency for Science, Technology and Research, said: 'What is being seen (in Thailand and Cambodia) is not clear resistance, where drugs cannot eliminate the parasite, but signs - meaning that where it took two days to eliminate the parasite, it's now taking three, four days.
'Why is this worrying? Artemisinin is the last drug we have. Thailand and Cambodia are in the region. People travelling there could get infected and bring back a resistant strain.'
BLOOMBERG
Additional reporting by Grace Chua in Singapore
28 infected in Singapore since May
Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
SINGAPORE is seeing its worst malaria outbreak in years, with 28 people infected locally since early May.
The victims were living at, or had recently visited, one of three areas: Mandai/Sungei Kadut, Jurong Island or Sembawang.
The majority of those infected were foreign workers living in dormitories.
The National Environment Agency has been actively fogging and trapping mosquitoes at these sites in an attempt to contain the spread of the disease.
Singapore has been declared malaria-free since 1982, although it still sees between 100 and 300 cases a year. This is because the vast majority are people who contracted the disease overseas.
The last big outbreak was in 2006, when 13 people were infected locally.
SALMA KHALIK
Alicia Wong, Today Online 31 Jul 09;
IT was a month of 17-hour weekdays and weekends back at work for staff at Government feedback portal Reach in May, when public emotion ran high after the names of the new Nominated Member of Parliament candidates were revealed.
As forum postings are not pre-moderated, the staff had to monitor the site constantly to ensure abusive and vulgar postings, as well as those breaching race and religion sensitivities, were quickly removed.
It was the "most challenging" incident since 2006, when the Feedback Unit was revamped as Reach, said assistant director Lilian Ong.
In January, moving beyond just encouraging active citizenry, Reach was appointed the Government's official platform for e-engagement.
And the task of engaging the citizenry and "closing the feedback loop" falls on the shoulders of an all-women, 18-member team - all of whom are under 30 years old.
Some had transferred from other agencies to join Reach, while others such as 26-year-old executive officer Siti Nurhidayati Mohd Said, who studied public and promotional communication, joined fresh from university.
Within Reach, there is a six-member new media team who - while no strangers to the Internet - admit they are "not very media-savvy" but are learning the ropes to online interaction. One "paradigm shift" has been the effort to sound less official, said executive officer Gail Khoo, 27, whose duties include facilitating e-engagement between agencies and citizens.
So, instead of "we refer to your email dated ...", now it is "thanks for your email". Forum posts are now replied to using the administrator's name, instead of simply signing off as "Reach".
As Ms Ong noted: "There's that balance of being personal, yet not being trivial. Being personal, yet official."
The Reach website has also changed significantly to include new capabilities such as podcasts and vodcasts. Hits have gone up by over 54 per cent since it started using social media tools.
Ms Ng Sok Hoon, 30, a former webmaster who now manages its social networking tools, said the team meets with other Government agencies to share its efforts, and stays abreast of new media trends.
The team surfs mainstream media websites as the main source of online information but also visits alternative news sites for a gauge of ground sentiment on hot issues.
Feedback up by 34 per cent
When policy changes are announced, the team reports the changes on the website to show netizens how their feedback has effected change.
A work day starts with a morning meeting to decide on, among other things, the hot topics for the website's rotating feature. Throughout the day, postings are monitored, feedback channelled to the appropriate Government agency and contributors kept updated on the progress of their feedback.
Dr Amy Khor, Reach's chairman, said the website "actively generates discussion and solicits feedback".
People are also not stopped from creating their own discussion threads.
Feedback has gone up by about 34 per cent for the first six months of the year, compared to the same period last year.
So far, 16 agencies have responded to feedback, said Dr Khor. Prior to the Government's focus on e-engagement, it was harder to get agencies to cooperate.Ms Khoo said: "We have to talk to them, tell them maybe you want to consider this and that ..."
The team is given a fair bit of autonomy to converse with citizens. Only when it is a complicated case - where prior knowledge of the situation is required, for instance - do they consult their superiors.
Dr Khor said a forthcoming initiative could be a session where netizens who ask questions can get an immediate response from a "dedicated" Government officer.
There are also plans to use Twitter more extensively, such as tweeting key points of the National Day Rally speech while it is being broadcasted.
"I don't think people can say it (Reach) is a black hole still. There's some light. It's still not bright enough, but that's where we are. We are constantly looking to how we can improve," said Dr Khor.
Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia 30 Jul 09;
SINGAPORE: The percentage of Singapore youths taking part in voluntary work is above the national average of 16.9 per cent, according to a recent survey conducted by the National University of Singapore (NUS).
The survey found that three out of 10 of its undergraduates were volunteering to help out the less fortunate. NUS undergraduates who have volunteered from May last year to May this year have been involved in the areas of social services, education, youth, community and grassroots.
The university's inaugural Undergraduate Volunteerism and Social Giving survey polled 3,143 respondents.
A third of the surveyed said they spend two hours a month volunteering, while 23.2 per cent spend between five and 10 hours a month.
The survey also revealed that 51 per cent will consider working in the non-profit sector after graduation, while 51.8 per cent said staff of non-profit organisations should be paid wages equivalent to the market rates.
The survey was conducted by the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy and the NUS Volunteer Network.
Survey results indicated that instead of the traditional multi-national corporation or smaller businesses, more students are choosing to work with social enterprises or non-profit organisations as part of their course work.
Albert Teo from the Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy at NUS Business School said: "Our youths, really, they are looking at other modes of operations beyond the free market economy sort of traditional businesses.
"So to me, that is very exciting. It shows that people are thinking - because we are in the midst of an economic crisis - are there alternative models as to how the economy is run."
The survey, which included undergraduates aged between 17 and 28, also found that those who volunteer are more likely to donate money to charitable organisations, as compared to those who do not.
73 per cent of volunteers who have done volunteer work in the past 12 months ending May have made a monetary donations towards a social cause or project in the past year, compared to 67.8 per cent of non-volunteers making monetary donations.
- CNA/yb
Undergrads keen on non-profit sector jobs
Over half of NUS students polled give positive response
Melissa Sim, Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
MORE than half of the undergraduates in a recent survey said they were interested in making a career in the non-profit sector.
This response corresponds with the reasonably high rate of volunteerism here - about 30 per cent of the 3,143 respondents said they volunteered at least once in the last 12 months. The national rate is around 17 per cent.
The survey of National University of Singapore (NUS) undergraduates, aged between 17 and 29, aimed to identify new trends in volunteering, assess undergraduate involvement and find out their attitudes towards issues in the non-profit and charity sector.
It was conducted in May by the NUS Volunteer Network, a student group made up of different clubs involved in community service, and the NUS Business School's Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy. Details were released yesterday.
Professor Albert Teo, director of the centre, said the interest in charity work follows moves by the business world to be more proactive in society: 'Businesses and business schools are going through a soul-searching phase.
'Corporate social responsibility is practised in many firms in Singapore and so more students are aware of it.'
Students and professors said the increased professionalism and higher profile of the charity sector were also reasons for the piqued interest.
President of the NUS Volunteer Network Timothy Lin added: 'It's the only sector where you can find more meaning in your job. Instead of just getting material things, you are helping people.'
There was also positivity about volunteering after graduation, with more than nine in 10 respondents saying they would do so.
But more could be done to improve the reputation of the non-profit sector, the survey found. More than half of those surveyed gave a lukewarm response, saying they had only a moderate level of confidence in charities here.
Mr Lin, an undergraduate, said this cautious view could be due to incidents such as the National Kidney Foundation scandal, which revealed the abuses at the old NKF, and the on-going Ren Ci trial, with allegedly questionable loans in the spotlight.
The survey also showed that friends were key to encouraging volunteerism as 73.9 per cent said they would volunteer if their friends engaged in such activities.
Said Prof Teo: 'This validates the importance of social networks.
'It's not easy to deal with suffering and pain, so it's important to have a network to support you, so you can share feelings and won't burn out.'
SP tops social enterprise award
Ang Yiying, Straits Times 31 Jul 09;
MAKING life better for families in a village in Batam is one of the ways by which students from Singapore Polytechnic (SP) are making a difference to the lives of the less fortunate.
Following their efforts, the village on the Indonesian island now has a fresh source of income - a fish farm converted from an abandoned sandpit.
Annual household income for each of the 11 families in Mata Ikan involved in the project is expected to go up by 57 per cent, from 10.9 million rupiah (S$1,580) to 17 million rupiah from September last year to September this year.
Finding a new use for the pit has also stopped it from being a breeding ground for mosquitoes and reduced the risk of villagers getting dengue fever or malaria.
This was one of SP's community projects which helped it clinch the top spot in the Students in Free Enterprise (Sife) national competition last month.
At the annual competition, teams from tertiary institutions here outline community projects they have initiated and are judged by the impact of their work.
There are Sife groups at three universities and four polytechnics in Singapore. SP's group has 437 students from different disciplines involved in a total of 14 local and overseas projects.
Final-year environmental management and water technology student Lim Renhui, 18, is among those involved in the Batam project.
He said that a few members of his group had done a site visit earlier and brought back photos but it was hard for the rest to visualise the actual situation.
'The sandpit was quite big - about the size of two to three football fields - and deep, which we couldn't tell from the photos. The ground was also not as strong as we thought,' he said.
This meant they had to tweak plans by building a floating bridge across the sandpit instead of an anchored bridge.
At this year's competition, the polytechnic also presented two other community projects.
At one project in the town of Concepcion in the Philippines, 25 Sife team members taught 28 women the art of making kaya, or coconut jam. These women will in turn pass on the recipe to 400 others in the area.
Since 2004, more than 200 students have also helped in the replanting of mangrove saplings along the coastline to increase the catch for about 7,000 fishermen.
SP's third Sife initiative was a competition for secondary school students to come up with innovative business ideas which they then had to present to a panel of judges. About 4,300 students have participated in this project since its launch in 2004.
The SP team will represent Singapore in the international leg of the competition in Berlin in October and compete with 40 other teams.
The pressure is on after SP's seniors came fourth at last year's Sife World Cup - the highest ranking attained by a Singapore team.
But Mohamed Abbas Sheyed Ebramsa, 18, a final-year banking & finance and applied business psychology student who will go to Germany to co-present the projects, said the real success is helping others: 'It's not just about winning. It's about impacting lives. Even if we lose, we will still continue with the projects.'
MAKING A DIFFERENCE
'It's not just about winning. It's about impacting lives. Even if we lose, we will still continue with the projects.'
Mohamed Abbas Sheyed Ebramsa, 18, final-year banking & finance and applied business psychology student
Meltdown sparks social awakening ... among undergrads
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 31 Jul 09;
IN THE past year, over half of business students in their Honours year have been approaching Associate Professor Albert Teo to scout for social enterprises or non-profit organisations to do a practical school module with. Previously, they were more likely to partner a multinational corporation.
And Dr Teo, of the National University of Singapore (NUS), is also advising four youth expedition groups heading to Vietnam and China for community service projects.
His goal: To get them to think beyond building wells or teaching English, and instead, to understand local culture and politics, eventually developing a social enterprise in partnership with the locals.
Could these be signs that volunteerism and social giving in Singapore are slowly maturing? Perhaps so. "It shows our youths are looking at other models of operation beyond just free market economy sort of traditional businesses," said Dr Teo, director of NUS' Centre for Social Entrepreneurship and Philanthropy (CSEP), of the Honours students.
An important factor could be the economic meltdown triggered by the Lehman Brothers' collapse, said Dr Teo. "I think that got them thinking of ... alternative career paths - perhaps looking at social entrepreneurships, perhaps companies with strong corporate social responsibility programmes. To me, that's a wonderful start."
Backing him up are findings of a May NUS undergraduate survey, where half of the 3,143 respondents said they would consider working in the non-profit sector after graduation. Nine in 10 also said they might do volunteer work after graduation.
Explaining the students' willingness to consider non-profit sector careers, NUS' vice-dean for student affairs Associate Professor Tan Ern Ser said it could be due to the sector becoming more high-profile and professional.
This year, NUS' Career Centre invited the National Council of Social Service to give a career talk for the first time.
The survey also found that youths were more likely to volunteer if their friends were also doing it. But this is similar with any other activity, said NUS Rotaract Club president Karthi Poonsolai, 21, a third-year chemistry student. "The problem is, when you don't have kakis (friends) to go with, people are reluctant," she said.
NUS' CSEP will officially launch on Aug 28, and Dr Teo said findings on the link between religiosity and volunteerism would be revealed then.
Environmental groups firmly against new breeding center
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post 30 Jul 09;
NGOs are opposing the government's plan to turn the Tampang-Belimbing area, located within the South Bukit Barisan National Park (TNBBS), into a Sumatra tiger breeding center because it is located next to a human settlement.
They have also questioned the validity of the two entities' operating licenses, the Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TNWC) and PT Adhiniaga Kreasi Nusa of Artha Graha Network companies owned by businessman Tomy Winata, which are not applicable to wildlife breeding and conservation.
"The business licenses are for tourism and nature conservation, so they are not valid for tiger breeding. Even for tourism purposes, they have to allow public access," Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) campaign manager Mukri Friatna said Wednesday.
He added that becoming a wildlife breeder was not easy because the company had to meet a number of criterias stipulated in Government Regulation No. 18/1999 on plant and wildlife exploitation.
"According to the decree, wildlife breeding must be done in adequate and accessible facilities. Soldiers are guarding the TNWC and people cannot simply enter the premises," said Mukri.
Mukri speculated the breeding and conservation activities were likely to be linked to carbon trade trading activities in the longer-term. "United States Ambassador Cameron R. Hume together with dozens of other ambassadors visited the area and indirectly supported the inclusion of TNBBS as one of the forested areas to be dedicated to carbon trading," said Mukri.
The Kawan Tani environmental group that has thus far been supporting and counselling coastal communities in Lampung, also protested. Group coordinator Kurniadi said the tiger breeding drive in Tambling, like it or not, would drive away the community who had been living in the forest for centuries.
"The Belimbing tribespeople living around Tambling within TNBBS are legal citizens protected by law. They have the right to stay there because their village is an enclave, an area whose status has been excluded from the national park," said Kurniadi.
Lampung Governor Sjachroedin Z.P. said the visit the ambassadors made to the TNBBS and the tiger breeding site were business as usual. "It's a good thing *they visited the premises*, otherwise they would have never seen the site's condition."
The US ambassador supported the TNBBS conservation efforts because the national park was in a much better state than other parks in Indonesia, said Sjachroedin.
Tomy Winata told The Jakarta Post earlier he was interested in breeding tigers in TNWC because he was concerned about the environment and also because it was on of his hobbies. He said he spent hundreds of millions of rupiah every month just on operating costs.
"We have not opened the TNWC area to the public because we are afraid it will disturb the animals," he said.
Tommy has been given concession rights for a 100-hectare piece of land in the TNWC. The Forestry Ministry issued a decree in 1992 stating the Artha Graha Group was in charge of managing the area.
Besides being a tiger conservation area, the TNWC area is also home to hundreds of deer, wild buffalo and various bird species.
Tomy is reportedly in acquiring rights to another 50,000 hectares, one-seventh the size of the total TNBBS area of 360,000 hectares.
Besides a female man-eating tiger named Salma from Jambi, the conservation area is also home to three tigers from Aceh awaiting to be released in the TNBBS. Activists and the Belimbing traditional community so far have strongly protested the release of the feline mammal.
Desy Nurhayati, The Jakarta Post 30 Jul 09;
The Jakarta Environment Management Agency (BPLHD) will launch its Green Belt initiative to bring together various mangrove conservation efforts in the city’s northern coastal area.
The launch, scheduled for this Sunday at the Angke Kapuk protected forest in Pantai Indah Kapuk, North Jakarta, will be marked by the planting of 2,000 mangrove trees in a 2,000-square-meter area.
“There have been a number of separate planting drives by various stakeholders in the area, and we aim to unite them to accelerate the regeneration of mangrove forests along the coastline,” BPLHD head Peni Susanti said Thursday.
“Although each stakeholder has carried out separate conservation efforts, the areas they planted now form a circle resembling a belt, so that’s why we came up with this initiative.
“Through this initiative, we hope all stakeholders will intensify their efforts to protect mangrove trees from erosion, which has affected almost half of the total area, particularly in the protected forest,” she said.
The 334-hectare area covered under the Green Belt is divided into several zones, each of which is managed by different stakeholders.
Alit Kertaraharja, The Jakarta Post 29 Jul 09;
The beauty of underwater coral reefs and the ecosystem around Menjangan Island, one of the most popular diving sites in Bali, is on the brink of destruction as the practice of fish bombing carried out by local fishermen is on the rise.
The bombings, which use homemade explosives to catch fish, are among the most destructive fishing methods as they inflict irreversible damage on coral reefs, which serve as the basis of underwater ecosystems.
According to divers and environmental activists, it takes years for a coral population to grow just a few inches.
At an informal gathering held Tuesday at Lovina Beach, Buleleng, scores of local diving operators lamented the present state of Menjangan Island's and urged the local administration and security agencies to take firm measures to save the island.
"We truly regret the ongoing waves of fish bombings that have taken place over the past month.
"If the authorities don't take the necessary steps to protect the island then we believe this jewel of biodiversity will be damaged beyond repair," said Imanuel Jarakana, from Spice Dive-Lovina.
The fish bombing, he stressed, had caused damage at several diving points around the island.
"The worst damage is located in the offshore area known as Pos III, which is located on the northern side of the island. We have calculated that fish bombing has destroyed 50 percent of that area," he added.
The gathering was attended by Dewa Made Japa (Sunrise Dive), Anie Safari (Permai Dive), Putu Sudarma (Wisnu Dive), July (Jubawa Dive Shop) and Yono (Yos Dive Centre).
"We have received numerous complaints from visitors. They say they have encountered a growing number of dead fish and damaged coral reefs during their dives," said Dewa Made Japa.
The diving operators said that despite the rising waves of fish bombing, they had yet to see any concrete action from security agencies and the local administration.
They claim that none of the local security agencies have carried out regular patrols to protect the island, or to capture the fishermen responsible for the destructive practises.
"That fish bombing practices are on the rise means one thing - that security officers are not doing their jobs," said Anie Safari.
The indifference showed by both the local administration and security agencies, according to local dive operators, was perplexing, particularly since the administration had increased the price of tickets to enter the island from Rp 5,000 to Rp 20,000.
"How can they increase the price of admission tickets, but fail to increase measures to protect the island?" asked Putu Sudarma.
They recalled that a similar situation had occurred five years ago. At that time, security agencies, environmental NGOs and dive operators had worked together to stop the bombings and rehabilitate the damaged coral reefs.
"In the last two years, the condition of the underwater ecosystem has improved greatly. The improvement drives the number of visitors and the level of their satisfaction," Imanuel added.
An average of 100 divers visit the island each day.
Fardah, Antara 30 Jul 09;
Jakarta, (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has received United States assistance to conduct a fire-fighting exercise and Malaysian aid to organize a course on tackling forest and plantation fires happening in Riau Province in particular.
Forest fires in Indonesia have become an international concern as they release carbon emissions, which could worsen global warming, and haze, which could cross the border to neighboring countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, and Thailand.
Amid haze enveloping in Riau Province, the Indonesian Defense Forces (TNI) and the United States Pacific Command (US Pacom) were holding a joint forest fire-fighting exercise at Pasir Putih square, Kampar District, Riau, on Thursday (July 30).
"Despite the haze, the exercise ran well from early morning until 11 am local time," Lt Col Ayi Supriatna, operational division chief of the Wira Bima district military command, said in Pekanbaru on Thursday
Some 13 personnel of the US Pacom and hundreds of others from the Riau administration and related government institutions joined the forest and plantation fire extinguishing exercise. A number of Singapore and Thai military personnel were also present as observers.
The two-day joint fire extinguishing exercise involved three helicopters and a number of fire trucks. Riau was chosen for the exercise because forest fires, especially in peat land areas often happen in the region.
Prior to the joint exercise, a workshop aimed to share experiences in overcoming forest fires between the Indonesian military and the US Pacom was held in Pekanbaru, on July 27-28, 2009.
Riau Province was covered by thick haze which reduced visibility to one km. Based on the NOAA Satellite 18 monitoring, there were 74 hotspots in Riau, said Rahmat Tauladani of the Sultan Syarif Kasim (SSK) II airport`s meteorological, climatological, and geophysics (BMKG) office, in Pekanbaru on Thursday.
The hotspots were detected in Bengkalis (five hotspots), Siak (three), Pelalawan (33), Indragiri Hulu (22), Indragiri Hilir (eight), and Kuantan Singingi (three). He predicted tht similar fires also occurred in Jambi and South Sumatra.
Meanwhile, Malaysia's news agency Bernama reported from Seri Iskandar on Wednesday (July 28), Riau authorities welcomed the offer by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to cooperate in efforts to fight the haze due to forest and peat soil fires.
Malaysia`s Deputy Minister Joseph Kurup said as part of the cooperation the Riau authorities had sent several of their environmental officers to undergo courses and training about all aspects related to forest fires.
Earlier reports said the situation in Riau had reached a serious level and strong winds now from the southeast to the northeast may bring the haze to Malaysia and Singapore.
Kurup said the ministry would also strive to put up a monitoring and a planned drainage system like in Rokan Hilir, a small district in Riau. That is to handle the burning in Riau which is an area that has much forest fires and is closest to
Peninsular Malaysia, he said.
He said besides Riau, several provinces in Indonesia which will be part of the haze fight are Kalimantan Tengah, Aceh and Jambi.
Haze has forced the closure of airports in Pekanbaru and Dumai, Riau Province,
several times over the past few months, with haze reducing visibility up to less than 300 meters.
On May 26, 2009, a number of elementary schools were closed due to haze covering Rokan Hilir, Riau Province, as the haze could affect the health of school children.
The haze which has deteriorated the quality of the air in the region, has also affected the health of local people. The Jalan Delima community health center (Puskesmas) at Panam, Tampan sub district, Riau, for instance, received a total of 300 respiratory infection patients in May, and the number increased to about 500 in June.
The dense haze and fog prompted the attention of activists of the Tsu Chi Foundation in Pekanbaru. They went down into the streets distributing masks to passing motorists.
Harsh Punishment
Fires have become more frequent and widespread especially on Sumatra and Kalimantan islands due to human-induced changes in the forest ecosystem. During the El Nino of 1982-83, fires burned about 3.7 million hectares of forest degraded by commercial logging and agriculture in Kalimantan.
Scrub, grassland, logged-over forest, and rainforest are often cleared for cash crops like oil palm and rubber. Indonesia`s goal for the year 2000 was to have 5.5 million hectares of oil-palm plantation, double its previous area. The cheapest way to clear new land is to clear-cut the trees followed by burning.
In 1987, another 2 million ha of forest went up in smoke in Kalimantan, East Timor, Sumatra, Sulawesi, and Java. In 1991, fires burned more than 50,000 ha of forest.
According to ASEAN HazeAction online, the blaze of 1997-1998 which affected Brunei Darussalam, Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, was among the most damaging in recorded history. Those countries are members of ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations).
More than 9 million hectares of land were burnt, 6.5 million of which were forested areas. The damage was estimated at more than US$ 9 billion in terms of economic, social and environmental losses, including the release of an estimated 1-2 billion tonnes of carbon.
Fires in peat soils have been identified as a major contributor to transboundary haze pollution in the region. 60% of the world?s tropical peatlands are found in Southeast Asia,covering an estimated area of 24 million hectares. Of this, Indonesia has about 70% of the region?s peatlands. The land and forest fires in 1997-1998, 2002 and 2005 in Southeast Asia have destroyed more than 3 million hectares of peatlands.
In June 2002, ASEAN adopted an ASEAN Agreement on Transboundary Haze Pollution that entered into force in November 2003.
Substantial progress has been made in implementing this Agreement, including the conduct of simulation exercises; implementation of the ASEAN Peatland Management Strategy (APMS); use of zero burning and controlled-burning practices; and more recently the deployment of the Panel of ASEAN Experts on Fire and Haze Assessment and Coordination.
Meanwhile, the Indonesian government has prepared a new law which could impose harsh punishment to those setting fore fires deliberately.
Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said in Jambi on July 25, 2009, that 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 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 authority not only to coordinate with security officers but also to arrest directly those who burn forests and bushes," the minister said.
The environment ministry has so far been considered powerless to prevent or act against activity that triggered forest fires as it had no authority in enforcing the law on the environment.
With the expected new law, the ministry would be able to directly set up police lines around the areas affected by fires and arrest the perpetrator, the minister said. (*)
RI-US forest-fire-fighting exercise proceeds under haze
Antara 30 Jul 09;
Pekanbaru, Riau Province (ANTARA News) - Haze again covered Riau province while Indonesia and the United States were holding a joint forest fire extinguishing exercise at Pasir Putih square, Kampar District, Riau, on Thursday.
However, the haze produced by forest and plantation fires in the province would not affect the implementation of the joint exercise, operational division chief of the Wira Bima district military command , Lt Col Ayi Supriatna said here on Thursday.
"The simulation has been running well since the morning until 11 am local time," he said.
The exercise was organized by the Indonesian Military head quarters (Mabes TNI) and the United States Pacific Command (US Pacom).
Some 13 personnel of the US Pacom and hundreds of others from the Riau administration and related government institutions joined the forest and plantation fire extinguishing exercise. A number of Singapore and Thai military personnel were also present as observers.
The joint fire extinguishing exercise involved three helicopters and a number of fire trucks, he said.
Riau was chosen for the exercise because forest fires, especially in peat land areas often happen in the region, he pointed out.
Prior to the joint exercise, a workshop aimed to share experiences in overcoming forest fire between the Indonesian military and the U.S. Pacom was held here on July 27-28, 2009.
Since early Thursday, Riau Province has been covered by quite thick haze which reduced the visibility to one km.
Based on the NOAA Satellite 18 monitoring, there were 74 hotspots detected in Riau, said Rahmat Tauladani of the Sultan Syarif Kasim (SSK) II airport`s meteorological, climatological, and geophysics (BMKG) office, here on Thursday.
The hotspots were detected in Bengkalis (five hotspots), Siak (three), Pelalawan (33), Indragiri Hulu (22), Indragiri Hilir (eight), and Kuantan Singingi (three).
The Pekanbaru BMKG office predicted that forest and plantation fires also occurred in South Sumatra and Jambi. (*)
Apinya Wipatayotin, The Bangkok Post 31 Jul 09;
Environmental, social and human rights groups are slamming the adoption of plans for hydropower dams on the Salween River by Asean energy ministers.
The groups yesterday claimed the dams would cause massive damage to the river and communities that rely on it, lead to forced relocation and labour abuses, and would enrich Burma's military junta rather than Burmese people.
New regional energy plans including cooperation on multi-billion-baht hydropower development were agreed at the 27th Asean Energy Ministers Meeting which ended in Mandalay yesterday.
The ministers adopted the Thai-drafted Asean Plan of Action for Energy Cooperation 2010-1015, which is a guideline for supporting Asean energy cooperation such as the use of clean coal technologies and nuclear energy cooperation to generate power.
Thai Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul and representatives from the Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand reportedly held talks with Burmese government officials about the development of the Hut Gyi hydropower dam on the Salween River, which forms part of the Thai-Burmese border.
The proposed dam is to be built opposite Mae Hong Son province. It will have an estimated capacity of up to 1,000 megawatts.
International environmental and human rights activists have long opposed the Hut Gyi dam project, saying it would cause grave damage to the river's ecology and lead to forced relocation and forced labour among Burmese ethnic minorities.
Non-government organisations, including the Burma Rivers Network (BRN) and OilWatch Southeast Asia, issued statements when the energy ministers meeting began on Tuesday calling for energy development projects in Burma to be terminated.
Burma's military regime is forging ahead with plans to export more energy to its neighbours. These include plans for more than 20 large hydroelectric dams to supply power to Thailand, China and the Asean power grid, BRN said.
"The revenue from the energy sector is the main source of income for the Burmese generals. It has been well documented that energy projects have caused environmental devastation and human rights abuses throughout the country," it said in a statement.
"Energy projects in Burma should be for the benefit of the Burmese people and not at their expense," said Sai Khur Hseng of the Ethnic Community Development Forum.
The Thai government has yet to make a decision on whether to go ahead with the Hut Gyi dam project pending a recommendation from a committee studying the impact of the mega-dam. It is due to report next month.
Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva set up the committee, which is made up of energy and environmental experts and economists, in April to help him make a decision on the controversial project.
ICUN 28 Jul 09;
Dr Richard Thomas, TRAFFIC
Addressing priority bushmeat trade, livelihood and food security issues in Africa
Bushmeat trade is one that provokes stronger emotions than any other aspect of wildlife trade; most people recoil from images of the severed hands or heads of Great Apes, which look all too human.
Yet more than 34 million people living in Africa’s Congo Basin depend on wildlife as their significant and direct source of protein. More than one million tonnes of bushmeat are consumed per year in the Democratic Republic of Congo alone. Agricultural food production in this region has not increased significantly throughout the last 40 years, so that many rural societies still depend on wildlife resources.
Most popular with hunters are duikers (small antelopes) and primates—an estimated minimum of 3,000 to 6,000 Great Apes are killed annually for the trade—but overall 42 mammal species of international conservation concern have been identified in the commercial African bushmeat trade, and local extinctions of leopard, golden cat and elephant have been caused through excessive harvest.
Many believe the unsustainable levels of bushmeat trade represent the most immediate threat to the Congo Basin’s wildlife over the next 5 to 25 years. Many species are hunted to dangerously low levels with harvesting rates exceeding several times the sustainable rate.
Clearly, this conservation crisis needs to be tackled, but in a rational and logical manner.
In its support to Central African governments and their mission to design and implement national bushmeat strategies, TRAFFIC is analysing the bushmeat trade dynamics in selected countries of the region, thereby identifying key priorities and gaps for the whole Central African sub-region. TRAFFIC has also generated some generic research at regional level to answer some basic questions such as what levels of natural wild bushmeat production are possible and under what circumstances? How do land use patterns impact on the productivity of wild bushmeat? Where is bushmeat traded? Even why is it eaten?
Some early results have perhaps been surprising.
Bushmeat consumption increases significantly with personal wealth; such food is increasingly regarded as a luxury product throughout much of Central Africa. As such, the development of animal husbandry to supply protein needs may not satisfy the bushmeat demand.
There is also a significant relationship between bushmeat production and population density, with consumption rising per capita as more of the population moves into urban centres—the current trend of urbanisation throughout Central Africa may trigger a large increase in the consumption of bushmeat.
Through understanding the dynamics and market forces driving the bushmeat trade, TRAFFIC expects to be able to help develop solutions to avert this ever looming crisis. Whether TRAFFIC succeeds or not will become obvious in the next 5 to 25 years as the crisis comes to a head.
Much of TRAFFIC’s work on bushmeat has been undertaken thanks to funding provided by BMZ, the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development.
Long an act of faith on the part of conservationists, a new study shows that restoration benefits biodiversity--and humanity
Brendan Borrell, Scientific American 30 Jul 09;
Is pulling up invasive kudzu worth the effort? What about sprucing up a degraded stream channel? Restoring damaged ecosystems has long been an act of faith on the part of nature-lovers, but now a new study provides the strongest evidence to date that the practice is not only good for biodiversity, but also for humanity.
Since the rise of ecological economics in the 1990s, conservationists have tried to estimate the dollar value of all the eco-services Mother Nature provides society, in the hopes of preserving them. Tropical forests, for instance, can sequester climate-warming carbon dioxide, and coastal salt marshes provide breeding grounds for fisheries as well as filtration systems to keep fertilizer runoff from suffocating seas.
Although many conservationists have assumed that pristine ecosystems and biodiversity hot spots would offer the greatest benefits to humanity, few studies have confronted the question of eco-rehab head-on. Without that link conservationists have been hard-pressed to make an economic argument for restoration projects large and small. But an analysis published in this week's Science demonstrates that reparation generally provides a significant improvement in the services that ecosystems provide humanity.
"We were amazed when we found such a strong signal between restoration projects that increase biodiversity and those that increase ecosystem services," says James Bullock an ecologist at the Center for Ecology and Hydrology in Wallingford, England, "This is one of the first tests."
To study the question, José Benayas, a biologist at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, Bullock and colleagues pooled data from 89 restoration projects around the globe and looked at how restoring ecosystems impacted their biodiversity and their eco-services. By both measures, restored ecosystems were deficient compared with untouched ones, but the practice still had the capacity to increase biodiversity and eco-services by 44 and 25 percent, respectively.
Restoration seems to work better in some habitats than others. Terrestrial tropical ecosystems respond strongly to rehab, whereas temperate aquatic ones, such as saltwater marshes, fared poorly by both measures. In a few cases, restoration was found to have negative effects on biodiversity or ecosystem services or both.
Robert Costanza, an ecological economist at the University of Vermont in Burlington, says the new study will finally give managers quantitative information about the costs and benefits of restoration. In the past managers simply restored ecosystems to match an arbitrary point in history. "Measuring potential ecosystem benefits and the cost of restoration allows you to use limited resources more efficiently," he says. "That's different from a lot of the restoration planning going on today."
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 30 Jul 09;
Britain's rarest snake is about to expand its range. In a pioneering wildlife project, the non-venomous smooth snake is to be re-introduced to Devon after a 50-year absence.
Currently found only on lowland heaths in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset, the smooth snake is not only rare, but is probably Britain's most elusive reptile. Grey-brown with black markings, it is secretive and timid, and is glimpsed far less frequently than our other two native snakes, the venomous adder and the harmless grass snake.
Historically, smooth snakes were more widespread, but disappeared from a wide area of southern England because of habitat loss. In Devon the last recorded sightings were in the 1950s. However, with the restoration of heathland over the past two decades, conservationists are now hoping to return Coronella austriaca to much of its former range, with Devon at the top of the list.
This summer, experts from the newly-formed charity Amphibian and Reptile Conservation (ARC) will collect 10 smooth snakes, under licence, from several well-populated sites in Dorset. The snakes will be taken to a special area of east Devon known as the pebblebed heaths, and released on a heathland nature reserve owned by The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
"This is a tremendously exciting project for us as it marks the beginning of what we hope will be the re-establishment of the species to Devon, and potentially a huge expansion of range for smooth snakes," said Nick Moulton from ARC, a group which was formed earlier this month when the charity Froglife merged with the Herpetological Conservation Trust.
"Historically, much of the former heathland areas have been lost to land use pressures, and the remaining sites are often fragmented and isolated," he said.
"The smooth snake is not very mobile and cannot naturally re-colonise isolated heathland sites. With this re-introduction, all we do is give the animals a helping hand to cross these areas. The East Devon heaths are in superb condition and very well managed, and we believe that the re-introduction has every chance of success."
The smooth snake is a priority species in the UK and the re-introduction is fully supported and licensed by Natural England, the Government's adviser on the natural environment, as well as having the help of the RSPB.
Smooth snake releases will continue every summer for the next few years to establish a healthy self-sustaining population.
Rare snake brought back to heaths
BBC News 29 Jul 09;
A rare species of snake is to be reintroduced in Devon after an absence of 50 years, conservationists said.
Smooth snakes are to be released at an RSPB nature reserve over several years.
The non-venomous and secretive reptile was last recorded in the county in the 1950s. It disappeared after the loss of its natural habitat.
The project involves Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust, the RSPB and Natural England.
The snakes are currently only found on lowland heaths in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset.
But with restoration of suitable heathland habitat in Devon over the past two decades, wildlife experts are hoping to return it to much of its former range.
The snakes will be taken from well-populated sites in Dorset.
Nick Moulton, of Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, said the scheme marked the beginning of what is hoped will be a huge expansion of range for the reptile, whose survival was once "hanging on a knife-edge" in the UK.
He said: "Historically, much of the former heathland areas have been lost to many land use pressures and the remaining sites are often fragmented and isolated.
"The smooth snake is not very mobile and, in many cases, cannot naturally re-colonise isolated heath sites.
"With this re-introduction, all we do is give the animals a helping hand to cross these areas.
"The east Devon heaths are in a superb condition and very well-managed and we believe the re-introduction has every chance of success."
East Devon RSPB site manager Toby Taylor said the restoration of the heaths had led to a resurgence of other wildlife associated with the habitat, including Dartford warblers, nightjars and silver studded blue butterflies.
He said: "The return of the smooth snake will really complement this. It's the icing on the cake for us."
Snake reintroduced to Devon after 50 years
The rare smooth snake is to be reintroduced in Devon after an absence of 50 years, conservationists said.
The Telegraph 30 Jul 09;
The snake is currently only found on lowland heaths in Sussex, Surrey, Hampshire and Dorset, but with restoration of its heathland habitat over the past two decades wildlife experts are hoping to return it to much of its former range.
The non-venomous and secretive reptile disappeared from much of its range due to the loss of habitat and was last recorded in Devon in the 1950s.
A project by Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, East Devon Pebblebed Heaths Conservation Trust and the RSPB, supported by Natural England, will see the release of smooth snakes at an RSPB nature reserve over the next few years.
The snakes will be taken from well-populated sites in Dorset.
Nick Moulton, of Amphibian and Reptile Conservation, said the scheme marked the beginning of what is hoped will be a huge expansion of range for the reptile, whose survival was once "hanging on a knife-edge" in the UK.
"Historically, much of the former heathland areas has been lost to many land use pressures and the remaining sites are often fragmented and isolated.
"The smooth snake is not very mobile and in many cases cannot naturally re-colonise isolated heath sites," he said.
"With this re-introduction, all we do is give the animals a helping hand to cross these areas. The east Devon heaths are in a superb condition and very well-managed and we believe the re-introduction has every chance of success."
The RSPB's Toby Taylor, site manager in east Devon, said the restoration of the heaths had led to a resurgence of other wildlife associated with the habitat including Dartford warblers, nightjars and silver studded blue butterflies.
"The return of the smooth snake will really complement this; it's the icing on the cake for us," he said.
Yahoo News 30 Jul 09;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australian scientists on Thursday announced a ground-breaking genome-mapping project that could help the Great Barrier Reef fight off the twin threats of climate change and toxic farm chemicals.
Geneticists said they would unlock the secrets of the colourful 'acropora millepora' coral, one of the main components of the northeastern tourist attraction, the growth of which has slowed markedly in recent years.
"This gene-mapping project has both practical and scientific significance," said professor David Miller of Australia's Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University.
"It will help us to understand how corals build reefs -- and why they fail to do so when they are under stress."
The project, Australia's first attempt to gene-sequence a complex animal, is expected to yield insights into why the Reef's growth has been hampered by warmer sea temperatures and chemical run-off.
The World Heritage-listed, 345,000-square-kilometre (133,000-square-mile) reef is one of Australia's top attractions and has been short-listed in a competition to find the world's seven natural wonders.
However, the reef has come under growing threat from climate change and chemical run-off with Australia announcing a crackdown in January on farmers who let pesticides and fertilisers leak into the sea.
Ewen Callaway, New Scientist 30 Jul 09;
Fishery scientists are having a glass-half-full moment. A new global survey of commercial fish stocks concludes that many threatened ecosystems are on the mend, thanks to good stewardship.
And the other half of that glass? Sixty-three per cent of the fish populations they surveyed are still at unsustainable levels, with things looking grimmest in the developing world.
"When you look region by region, you can document solutions and the problems become more manageable," says Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada, who led the study.
This is a considerably rosier picture than the one painted by Worm's group in a controversial 2006 study projecting a worldwide collapse of all existing fisheries by 2048, based on current trends.
"I was one of those who criticised the conclusion that all fish would be gone by 2048 because my personal experience has been very different," says Ray Hilborn, who as a researcher at the University of Washington in Seattle has studied well-managed fisheries in the Pacific Northwest and Alaska, such as Pacific salmon.
CSI: Fisheries
For the latest study, Hilborn teamed up with Worm and others to analyse various data from dozens of fisheries in numerous large ecosystems. The 2006 survey relied principally on gross catch reports, which may have masked nuances in individual fisheries.
In particular, the researchers focused on measuring the total biomass of a species that caught each year. They then related those figures to estimates of fishing levels that would sustain stocks in the long term.
"This was a little bit like a crime-scene investigation for overfishing: where do we see evidence of overfishing and where do we see improvement," Worm says.
Out of 10 regions in North America, northern Europe and Oceania that his team looked at closely, five showed signs of improvement, with diminishing rates of exploitation in recent years. For the most part, fish populations in Alaska and New Zealand never plummeted drastically because of good management from the start.
Fisheries in the Baltic Sea, North Sea and off the coast of the UK and Ireland, however, tend to face continued declines in stocks. And New Zealand and California were the only places where Worm's team projected that fewer than 10 per cent of species would collapse.
'No single solution'
"The big thing to me is that a number of systems were at least heading in the right direction," Worm says.
More discriminate fishing gear targeted to large individuals of specific species, government-imposed catch limits, and the creation of marine reserves all helped rebuild stocks, they say.
"In order to avoid collapse you need to do a number of things, there is not one solution that will get you there," Worm says.
His team examined limited data from Africa, however, the outlook for sustainable fishing appears bleak, with the exception of improvements in the practices of small-scale fisherman in Kenya. For instance, restrictions in industrial countries are already pushing industrialised world fleets south.
Local hardship
"Most counties in Africa are selling fishing rights to industrialised nations which catch large amounts of seafood, effectively out-competing local fisherman," says team member Tim McClanahan, of the Wildlife Conservation Society Marine Program in Mombasa, Kenya.
"It's a real hardship for the local communities to have their fish taken by these big fleets," says Peter Kareiva, a marine biologist at the Nature Conservancy in Seattle, Washington, who was not involved in the survey.
Still, Kareiva sees the new report as a turning point for fisheries science. "Yes, there are certainly extensively overfished stocks and the oceans are in trouble, but there are some examples of decent management and reason for hope," he says. "This doom and gloom doesn't get us anywhere."
Journal reference: Science (DOI: 10.1126/science.1173146)
Having Fish and Eating It Too
Cornelia Dean, Straits Times 30 Jul 09;
Can we have our fish and eat it too? An unusual collaboration of marine ecologists and fisheries management scientists says the answer may be yes.
In a research paper in Friday’s issue of the journal Science, the two groups, long at odds with each other, offer a global assessment of the world’s saltwater fish and their environments.
Their conclusions are at once gloomy — overfishing continues to threaten many species — and upbeat: a combination of steps can turn things around. But because antagonism between ecologists and fisheries management experts has been intense, many familiar with the study say the most important factor is that it was done at all.
They say they hope the study will inspire similar collaborations between scientists whose focus is safely exploiting specific natural resources and those interested mainly in conserving them.
“We need to merge those two communities,” said Steve Murawski, chief fisheries scientist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. “This paper starts to bridge that gap.”
The collaboration began in 2006 when Boris Worm, a marine ecologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and other scientists made an alarming prediction: if current trends continue, by 2048 overfishing will have destroyed most commercially important populations of saltwater fish. Ecologists applauded the work. But among fisheries management scientists, reactions ranged from skepticism to fury over what many called an alarmist report.
Among the most prominent critics was Ray Hilborn, a professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle. Yet the disagreement did not play out in typical scientific fashion with, as Dr. Hilborn put it, “researchers firing critical papers back and forth.” Instead, he and Dr. Worm found themselves debating the issue on National Public Radio.
“We started talking and found more common ground than we had expected,” Dr. Worm said. Dr. Hilborn recalled thinking that Dr. Worm “actually seemed like a reasonable person.”
The two decided to work together on the issue. They sought and received financing and began organizing workshops at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, an organization sponsored by the National Science Foundation and based at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
At first, Dr. Hilborn said in an interview, “the fisheries management people would go to lunch and the marine ecologists would go to lunch” — separately. But soon they were collecting and sharing data and recruiting more colleagues to analyze it.
Dr. Hilborn said he and Dr. Worm now understood why the ecologists and the management scientists disagreed so sharply in the first place. For one thing, he said, as long as a fish species was sustaining itself, management scientists were relatively untroubled if its abundance fell to only 40 or 50 percent of what it might otherwise be. Yet to ecologists, he said, such a stock would be characterized as “depleted” — “a very pejorative word.”
In the end, the scientists concluded that 63 percent of saltwater fish stocks had been depleted “below what we think of as a target range,” Dr. Worm said.
But they also agreed that fish in well-managed areas, including the United States, were recovering or doing well. They wrote that management techniques like closing some areas to fishing, restricting the use of certain fishing gear or allocating shares of the catch to individual fishermen, communities or others could allow depleted fish stocks to rebound.
The researchers suggest that a calculation of how many fish in a given species can be caught in a given region without threatening the stock, called maximum sustainable yield, is less useful than a standard that takes into account the health of the wider marine environment. They also agreed that solutions did not lie only in management techniques but also in the political will to apply them, even if they initially caused economic disruption.
Because the new paper represents the views of both camps, its conclusions are likely to be influential, Dr. Murawski said. “Getting a strong statement from those communities that there is more to agree on than to disagree on builds confidence,” he said.
At a news conference on Wednesday, Dr. Worm said he hoped to be alive in 2048, when he would turn 79. If he is, he said, “I will be hosting a seafood party — at least I hope so.”
New Hope For Fisheries
ScienceDaily 30 Jul 09;
Scientists have joined forces in a groundbreaking assessment on the status of marine fisheries and ecosystems. The two-year study, led by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University and Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington and including an international team of 19 co-authors, shows that steps taken to curb overfishing are beginning to succeed in five of the ten large marine ecosystems that they examined.
The paper, which appears in the July 31 issue of the journal Science, provides new hope for rebuilding troubled fisheries.
The study had two goals: to examine current trends in fish abundance and exploitation rates (the proportion of fish taken out of the sea) and to identify which tools managers have applied in their efforts to rebuild depleted fish stocks. The work is a significant leap forward because it reveals that the rate of fishing has been reduced in several regions around the world, resulting in some stock recovery. Moreover, it bolsters the case that sound management can contribute to the rebuilding of fisheries elsewhere.
It's good news for several regions in the U.S., Iceland and New Zealand. "These highly managed ecosystems are improving" says Hilborn. "Yet there is still a long way to go: of all fish stocks that we examined sixty-three percent remained below target and still needed to be rebuilt."
"Across all regions we are still seeing a troubling trend of increasing stock collapse," adds Worm. "But this paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause. The encouraging result is that exploitation rate – the ultimate driver of depletion and collapse – is decreasing in half of the ten systems we examined in detail. This means that management in those areas is setting the stage for ecological and economic recovery. It's only a start – but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring overfishing under control."
The authors caution that their analysis was mostly confined to intensively managed fisheries in developed countries, where scientific data on fish abundance is collected. They also point out that some excess fishing effort is simply displaced to countries with weaker laws and enforcement capacity.
While most of the fisheries that showed improvement are managed by a few wealthy nations, there are some notable exceptions. In Kenya, for example, scientists, managers, and local communities have teamed up to close some key areas to fishing and restrict certain types of fishing gear. This led to an increase in the size and amount of fish available, and a consequent increase in fishers' incomes. "These successes are local - but they are inspiring others to follow suit," says Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Kenya.
"We know that more fish can be harvested with less fishing effort and less impact on the environment, if we first slow down and allow overfished populations to rebuild," adds co-author Jeremy Collie from the University of Rhode Island. "Scientists and managers in places as different as Iceland and Kenya have been able to reduce overfishing and rebuild fish populations despite serious challenges."
The authors emphasize that a range of management solutions are available to help rebuild fish stocks. They found that a combination of approaches, such as catch quotas and community management coupled with strategically placed fishing closures, ocean zoning, selective fishing gear and economic incentives, offer promise for restoring fisheries and ecosystems. However "lessons from one spot need to be applied very carefully to a new area," says coauthor Beth Fulton of the CSIRO Wealth from Oceans Flagship in Australia, since "there are no single silver bullet solutions. Management efforts must be customized to the place and the people."
According to the authors' analysis, Alaska and New Zealand have led the world in terms of management success by not waiting until drastic measures are needed to conserve, restore and rebuild marine resources. Some other regions are currently recovering from overfishing: fish abundance has recently been increasing above the long-term average in Iceland, the Northeast U.S. Shelf and the California Current.
This new study is a follow-up to a 2006 paper in Science by Worm and others that highlighted a widespread global trend toward fisheries collapse. The results of that paper led to a public disagreement between Worm and Hilborn. Through their subsequent discussions, however, the two scientists recognized a shared sense of purpose. They decided to collaborate on a more detailed assessment of the world's fisheries, and brought together many of the world's most talented fisheries scientists and ecologists for a two-year series of working groups at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) in Santa Barbara, California. The current paper is the result of those meetings.
"Prior to this study, evaluations of the status of world fish stocks and communities were based on catch records for lack of a better alternative. Results were controversial because catch trends may not give an accurate picture of the trends in fish abundance," explains Ana Parma of Centro Nacional Patagónico in Argentina. "This is the first exhaustive attempt to assemble the best-available data on the status of marine fisheries and trends in exploitation rates, a major breakthrough that has allowed scientists from different backgrounds to reach a consensus about the status of fisheries and actions needed."
The analysis includes catch data, stock assessments, scientific trawl surveys, small-scale fishery data and modeling results. The authors liken their strategy to constructing a "Russian doll", with each nested layer of data adding to the strength and value of the whole.
In looking at the tools that have been used to reduce exploitation rate, the authors note that "some of the most spectacular rebuilding efforts have involved bold experimentation with closed areas, gear and effort restrictions and new approaches to catch allocations and enforcement." Laws that explicitly forbid overexploitation and specify clear rules and targets for rebuilding were seen as an important prerequisite, for example in the U.S.
While the study suggests that these tools have long-term benefits, they also come with short-term costs to fishers. "Some places have chosen to end overfishing," says Trevor Branch, a co-author from the University of Washington. "That choice can be painful for fishermen in the short term, but in the long term it benefits fish, fishermen, and our ocean ecosystems as a whole."
Key among the group's recommendations is to fish at rates lower than those producing maximum sustainable yield (MSY), a long-standing and internationally accepted benchmark for total catch. They call for MSY to be reinterpreted as an absolute upper limit rather than a target, in line with U.N. recommendations.
The authors used ecosystem models to calculate a multi-species MSY (or MMSY) that adds up yield across all species, taking account of their interrelations. That analysis suggests that fishing below MMSY yields just as much fish as exceeding that benchmark, but has many ecological benefits including fewer species collapses, an increase in fish size and fish abundance. "Below MMSY there is a fishing-conservation sweet spot," says co-author Steven Palumbi of Stanford University, "where economic and ecosystem benefits converge."
The team also notes that in addition to reducing exploitation rates below MMSY, there are several other measures that can reduce fishing impacts on ecosystems. "Fishing at maximum yield comes at a significant cost of species collapses," explains Heike Lotze, a co-author from Dalhousie University. "But even low levels of fishing do change marine ecosystems and may collapse vulnerable species. That's why we require a combination of measures, including gear restrictions and closed areas, in order to meet both fisheries and conservation objectives."
The authors caution that much work remains to be done to end global overfishing, as a large fraction of global fisheries are not properly managed, reported or regulated. Particularly outside wealthy industrialized nations, prospects for reducing fishing mortality are often more limited unless fishers get access to alternative sources of food and income. Therefore the authors highlight the need for a more global perspective on rebuilding marine resources.
"Fisheries managers currently presiding over depleted fish stocks need to become fast followers of the successes revealed in this paper," says Pamela Mace, a co-author from the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries. "We need to move much more rapidly towards rebuilding individual fish populations and restoring the ecosystems of which they are a part, if there is to be any hope for the long-term viability of fisheries and fishing communities."
The study was based at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS), funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Adapted from materials provided by Communication Partnership for Science and the Sea, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.
World's fisheries at risk of collapse, but recovery is possible: study
Yahoo News 30 Jul 09;
CHICAGO (AFP) – The world's fisheries are at risk of collapse, but recovery is possible if governments act to manage commercial fishing, a comprehensive study published Thursday has found.
Several regions in the United States, Iceland and New Zealand have made significant progress in rebuilding stocks devastated by decades of overfishing through careful management strategies.
But the study, published in the journal Science, found that 63 percent of assessed fish stocks worldwide require rebuilding to reverse the collapse of vulnerable species.
"Across all regions, we are still seeing a troubling trend of increasing stock collapse," said lead author Boris Worm of Canada's Dalhousie University.
"But this paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause."
Half of the 10 regions examined had managed to decrease their exploitation rate (the proportion of the total fish population that is caught) -- the primary driver of depletion of collapse.
"This means that management in those areas is setting the stage for ecological and economic recovery," Worm said. "It's only a start -- but it gives me hope that we have the ability to bring overfishing under control."
Worm cautioned that the analysis -- the most comprehensive to date -- was mostly confined to managed fisheries in developed countries where long-term data on fish abundance is collected.
The threat of collapse could thus be even higher in the remaining 75 percent of the world's fisheries.
The study found that a range of management strategies helped protect and restore fishing stocks.
Switching to nets that allow smaller fish to escape and closing some key areas to fishing helped Kenya increase the size and amount of fish available and boost fishing incomes.
In many areas, however, take rates will have to be cut in half in order to preserve fish stocks, Worm said in a conference call with reporters.
The study, which Science editor Andrew Sugden called an "important and convincing new analysis" and "a real step forward toward the goal of restoring fisheries" was published in a special issue dedicated to ecological restoration.
In a separate study, researchers found that ecological restoration on land can reverse some, but not all, of the environmental degradation caused by humans.
Spanish and British researchers analyzed 89 assessments of restoration attempts in a wide range of ecosystems around the world.
They found that biodiversity had improved, on average, by 44 percent while ecosystem services like carbon storage and soil and water management increased by 25 percent.
"However, values of both remained lower (14 and 20 percent respectively) in restored than in intact reference ecosystems," lead author Jose Rey Benayas of Spain's Alcala University wrote.
The "unprecedented" restoration of native oysters in Virginia was also documented by researchers who built oyster reefs in nine protected sanctuaries in the Great Wicomico River.
There were less than two oysters per square meter in the river when the reefs were built in 2004.
By 2007, the nine reefs housed 185 million oysters -- nearly as many as can be found in all the waters of neighboring Maryland.
And the highest reefs housed over 1,000 oysters per square meters, nearly ten times typical densities on protected reefs in Chesapeake Bay.
"Similar approaches with other natural and artificial reefs could lead to recovery of the native oyster throughout North America, as well as other ecosystems worldwide where native oysters have been functionally extirpated," wrote lead author David Shulte of the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
World fisheries collapse can be averted: study
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 30 Jul 09;
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The world's commercial fisheries, pressured by overfishing and threatened with possible collapse by mid-century, could be rebuilt with careful management, researchers reported on Thursday.
In fact, a fisheries expert who in 2006 predicted total global collapse of fish and seafood populations by 2048 is more optimistic of recovery, based on a wide-ranging two-year study by scientists in North and South America, Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
Still, 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide need to be rebuilt, the researchers said.
"I am somewhat more hopeful that we will be in a better state ... than what we originally predicted, simply because I see that we have the management tools that are proven to work," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. He is a co-author of a paper in the journal Science and also an author of the pessimistic 2006 report.
These tools include: restrictions on gear like nets so that smaller, younger fish can escape; limits on the total allowable catch; closing some areas to fishing; certifying fisheries as sustainable; offering shares of the total allowable catch to each person who fishes in a specified area.
Worm's optimism was provisional, however, because the current research only looked at about one-quarter of the world's marine ecosystems, mostly in the developed world where data is plentiful and management can be monitored and enforced.
Of the 10 major ecosystems they studied, the scientists found five marine areas have cut the average percentage of fish they take, relative to estimates of the total number of fish. Two other ecosystems were never overexploited, leaving three areas overexploited.
HELPING FISHERIES SURVIVE
One key to helping fisheries survive is to revamp a long-used standard called maximum sustainable yield, which means figuring out the highest number of fish that can be caught in an area without hurting the species' ability to reproduce.
The researchers recommended setting fishing limits below the estimated maximum sustainable yield. Maximum sustainable yield should be an absolute upper limit, they said, rather than a target that is frequently exceeded.
Ray Hilborn, a co-author from the University of Washington in Seattle, noted in a telephone briefing that fisheries are also likely to feel pressure from climate change and ocean acidification, which is exacerbated by emissions of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.
Hilborn said places with a strong regulations to protect fisheries will probably be in good shape by 2048, but areas that lack this kind of institutional framework could be "quite overfished" by that time.
Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society told reporters that efforts in the developed world to curtail overfishing could mean more overfishing in the developing world, especially in Africa.
The fisheries in the study are: Iceland Shelf, Northeast U.S. Shelf, North Sea, Newfoundland-Labrador Shelf, Celtic-Biscay Shelf, Baltic Sea, Southern Australia Shelf, Eastern Bering Sea, California Current, New Zealand Shelf.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Fish for dinner: Overfishing easing in some areas
Randolph E. Schmid, Associated Press Yahoo News 31 Jul 09;
WASHINGTON – Crabcakes and fish sticks won't be disappearing after all.
Two years after a study warned that overfishing could cause a collapse in the world's seafood stocks by 2048, an update says the tide is turning, at least in some areas.
"This paper shows that our oceans are not a lost cause," said Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, lead author of both reports. "I'm somewhat more hopeful ... than what we were seeing two years ago."
It's personal as well as scientific.
"I have actually given thought to whether I will be hosting a seafood party then," Worm said, meaning 2048.
Ray Hilborn of the University of Washington challenged Worm's original report, leading the two — plus 19 other researchers — to launch the study that led to the new findings. They're being published in Friday's edition of the journal Science.
The news isn't all good.
Of 10 areas of the world that were studied, significant overfishing continues in three, but steps have been taken to curb excesses in five others, Hilborn and Worm report. The other two were not a problem in either study.
Hilborn noted that 63 percent of fish stocks remain below desired levels. It takes time to rebuild after steps are taken to reduce the catch.
Rebecca Goldburg, director of Marine Science at the Pew Environment Group, commented that "two scientists who once held opposing views about the state of ocean fisheries now agree about the significance of global fisheries declines and the solutions needed to reverse these trends. If fishery managers worldwide heed these important scientific findings, then we have an extraordinary opportunity to restore ocean fisheries."
Michael Fogarty of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration noted a dramatic recovery of haddock on Georges Bank, off New England, as well as improvements in redfish, scallop and other fish. But still others, such as cod and flounder, remain vulnerable, he said at a briefing.
"We feel confident that the tide of overexploitation can be reversed on a global basis," Fogarty said, citing such steps as exclusion areas, changes in fishing gear, assignments of rights to harvest and incentives for fishers to take a long-term view.
Two areas, Alaska and New Zealand, have led the world in terms of management success by not waiting until drastic measures are needed to conserve, the report said. These areas were not a problem in either study.
Regions where excess exploitation has halted are Iceland, southern Australia, the Northeast U.S., the Newfoundland-Labrador area and the California Current, which flows south along the U.S. West Coast.
Still being overfished, the report said, are the North and Baltic seas and the Bay of Biscay region.
A newly developing problem is the movement of major fishing efforts to the developing world, with foreign fleets operating off east and west Africa under access agreements with local governments. These fleets compete with local fishers and almost all the fish they catch is taken to industrialized countries.
"The prognosis for Africa is not nearly as good as it is for wealthier areas," commented Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society in Mombasa, Kenya.
"Prior to this study, evaluations of the status of world fish stocks and communities were based on catch records for lack of a better alternative. Results were controversial because catch trends may not give an accurate picture of the trends in fish abundance," Ana Parma of Centro Nacional Patagonico in Argentina, said in a statement.
"This is the first exhaustive attempt to assemble the best-available data on the status of marine fisheries and trends in exploitation rates," she said. The new analysis includes catch data, stock assessments, scientific trawl surveys, small-scale fishery data and computer modeling results.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation and the University of California, Santa Barbara.
A separate study, also in Science, reports that researchers have successfully restored populations of native oysters to the Chesapeake Bay.
The local oyster population had collapsed after years of overfishing. Researchers launched the restoration effort in 2004, constructing artificial reefs in protected areas of the Great Wicomico River in Virginia.
The oysters are thriving in these areas, demonstrating how similar recovery efforts might work elsewhere, according to the researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science of the College of William and Mary.
That research was funded by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Blue Crab Advanced Research Consortium and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
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