Since theonlinecitizen is down right now
on creationism in our schools from Arthroplog
Pre-National Day mangrove cleanup @ Lim Chu Kang, 8th August 2009 from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore
Lim Swee Cheng's "Guide to Sponges of Singapore"
and updates to wildfact sheets from wild shores of singapore
Guided Walk at Changi Beach
from Urban Forest
Rictal bristles
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Big fines to protect coral reefs
from wild shores of singapore
Ubin residents' complain over Fowl Play
Teh Jen Lee, The New Paper 4 Aug 09;
IT HAS been four years since the Government banned the keeping of poultry on Pulau Ubin, due to fears of bird flu.
But many residents of Ubin want the rule changed.
A 67-year-old resident, who declined to be named, said: 'All families here would like to keep some chickens and ducks. Otherwise, what will we depend on for a living?
'We used to get eggs and fresh meat from keeping poultry, but now we have to get these from Changi Village. Each trip there and back costs $5. Sometimes we have to wait (for) more than an hour for the bumboat because there aren't enough people to fill it.'
He has had to change his diet to mainly canned food since the poultry ban in mid-2005.
Chicken dung was also hard to replace as fertiliser.
'My fruit trees are not doing well. Their leaves are all yellow. I've tried to rear rabbits and use their droppings, but it's not as good because rabbits eat only grass,' he said in Mandarin.
'What kind of kampung is this, if there are no chickens to be seen anywhere? People bring their kids here, but there's nothing for them to see.
'They don't know what real chickens are like.'
Residents like him are unhappy that the authorities allow up to 10 chickens to be kept in cages on the mainland. But in Ubin, no chickens are allowed.
The penalty for breaking these rules is a maximum fine of $10,000 and a year in jail.
Officers from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) visit Ubin every month to enforce the rules, an AVA spokesman said. AVA officers also regularly check all farms on the mainland.
Poultry farms in Lim Chu Kang, Murai and Sungei Tengah Agrotechnology Parks are allowed to rear chickens.
In the past three years, no one has been caught for either having too many chickens or not caging them properly in mainland Singapore or Pulau Ubin.
However, chickens have been seen roaming around non-farm areas on mainland Singapore.
Some visitors to Ubin think that the poultry ban takes away the island's kampung ambience.
Mr Ravindran Kanapathy, 48, a lecturer who visits the island about five times a year, said: 'It's a sad thing to do because this is one of the few places left behind to give us the nostalgic feeling.
'Why not let it be as natural as possible?'
Another visitor, Ms Sharifah Alwi, 36, an executive, thinks it's unfair that chickens can be kept on mainland Singapore but not on Ubin.
'Best place' to keep chickens
'I disagree with it because Ubin is the best place to keep chickens,' she said.
But the pain is felt most by the residents.
Said Mr Lim Choo Zi, 80: 'They should change the rule and allow us to keep chickens.'
He said that since Ubin residents have no jobs, it's more expensive to buy meat and eggs from provision shops.
Madam Ong Swee Eng, 82, an Ubin resident who used to keep about 100 chickens, said she also wants to see the rule changed.
She said in Hokkien: 'Here there's space for the chickens. It doesn't make sense that they don't allow it here, but it's allowed on the mainland.'
With a higher population density on the mainland, which translates to more people being potentially affected if there were to be a bird-flu outbreak, shouldn't the authorities have stricter rules on the mainland?
The AVA spokesman said: 'Bird flu can be spread through infected wild birds. The risk of poultry on the mainland coming into contact with wild birds is much lower, given the urban conditions.
'The 10 caged poultry rule is not a sustainable solution for Pulau Ubin as the residents will not comply with the rule after some time.'
He added that since the bird-flu situation in the region was not abating, the risk of 'backyard poultry farms becoming infected cannot be underestimated'.
He added: 'Singapore is currently free from bird flu. If bird flu occurs at Pulau Ubin, Singapore will lose its bird-flu status and public health will be compromised.'
What about free-ranging birds at tourist attractions likes Jurong Bird Park and Sentosa?
AVA has vaccinated such birds against bird flu, said the spokesman.
AVA also conducts regular surveillance on wild birds at Sungei Buloh Nature Reserve and Pulau Ubin, as well as urban pests such as mynahs and crows.
The public can call the AVA at 18004761600 if they come across anyone keeping too many chickens or not caging them properly.
Channel NewsAsia 3 Aug 09;
SINGAPORE: Singapore's Botanic Gardens will be expanded with the addition of a new parkland.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said a 9.8-hectare parkland at Tyersall Avenue will be added to the Gardens.
This parkland will form a seamless extension to the west of the Gardens, bringing the total area of the Botanic Gardens to almost 74 hectares.
And there will be a new arboretum on the parkland. The Tyersall addition is slated to be completed by 2012.
Mr Mah said: "A rich diversity of flora and fauna, including some rare species, exists in the forest at this new site. An arboretum will be developed to capitalise on this rich biodiversity, integrating the forest in the extension with the existing rainforest within the Botanic Gardens to form an enlarged forest habitat.
"This Tyersall Learning Forest will showcase the best of tropical trees that grow under local conditions, and strengthen the Botanic Gardens' position as a premier institute for research, conservation and education.
"Visitors will be able to appreciate this unique collection of trees and plants through various thematic walks within the Tyersall Learning Forest, featuring giant trees with the potential to grow up to some 60 metres in height, trees with interesting forms and barks of various textures, a conservation collection of rare fruit and nut species, and a bamboo garden."
Another highlight of the parkland will be a new marshland that will showcase a diversity of tropical wetland plant species and aquatic wildlife, including birds and amphibians. And nature lovers can take in the beauty of the marshland from viewing decks along boardwalks on the marshland.
Mr Mah was speaking at the opening of "Garden of Hope", a new section at the Botanic Gardens, on Monday.
The Garden of Hope comprises four mini gardens, connected by footpaths with plants and recycled materials woven into the garden to create lovely forms. It is a project by students from Assumption Pathway School and Northlight School.
Over the past month, these students had worked under the guidance of two internationally recognised, award-winning garden designers - Australia's Jim Fogarty, and Singapore's Alan Tan - to design and build the garden.
The Botanic Gardens turns 150 this year and to celebrate its birthday, 150 couples will gather at the Gardens next month to exchange nuptial vows in a mass wedding ceremony.
Rare plants, wildlife to feature in Botanic Gardens' latest addition
Grace Chua, Straits Times 4 Aug 09;
RARE exotic plants, marshland and wildlife will be added to the Singapore Botanic Gardens as part of its newest extension.
A chunk of prime land off Holland Road will be the Gardens' 'Learning Forest', Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan announced yesterday.
The unoccupied 9.8ha site next to Tyersall Avenue will be turned into a showcase of different types of rainforest plants, as well as a marshland habitat, bringing the Botanic Gardens' total area to around 74ha.
The 'Learning Forest' capitalises on flora already occupying the new site, said Mr Mah.
Botanic Gardens director Chin See Chung said it will feature rare tropical plant species, which are 'a group of genetic resources that we think will be valuable in the future'.
The extension will also feature a bamboo garden and a marshland that will showcase wetland plant species, amphibians, birds and other wildlife.
Night tours of the area are also planned when the extension opens, and more parking facilities will be provided.
Almost all the trees that are already there will be conserved, the National Parks Board said.
Before the new extension opens its leafy doors in 2012, Tyersall Avenue - which currently runs along the edge of the Botanic Gardens - will be re-aligned.
At present, the parcel of land is lush forest, but in the 1850s, it was part of Tyersall Park and was first occupied by lawyer William Napier, after whom Napier Road is named. It was acquired by the Government in 1990.
The new extension was announced at the Garden Of Hope opening yesterday, which showcases four miniature gardens designed and planted by some 35 students from Assumption Pathway School and Northlight School in Upper Bukit Timah and Dunman Road respectively.
The month-long student horticulture project was part of the Singapore Botanic Gardens' 150th anniversary celebrations.
More forest, even night tours
Kiersten ow, Today Online 4 Aug 09;
COME 2012, nature lovers will have a much bigger Botanic Gardens to look forward to, and it will be one with a new forested area that could include night tours.
This with the addition of 9.8-hectares of parkland in Tyersall Avenue to the 150-year-old Botanic Gardens, bringing its total area to almost 74 hectares.
National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan, who announced the expansion plans yesterday, also highlighted the rich diversity of flora and fauna, including some rare species, at the new site.
To capitalise on this, he said an arboretum will be developed which will integrate the forest in the extension with the existing rainforest here to form an enlarged forest habitat.
And in line with the Gardens' core mission of "connecting plants and people", Mr Mah said "the Tyersall Learning Forest will showcase the best of tropical trees that grow under local conditions and strengthen the Botanic Gardens' position as a premier institute for research, conservation and education".
Another highlight here will be a new marshland that will showcase a diversity of tropical wetland plant species and aquatic wildlife, including birds and amphibians. Nature enthusiasts will be able to take in the beauty of the marshland from viewing decks along boardwalks.
Mr Mah was speaking at the opening of the "Garden of Hope", a new feature by students.
Dr Chin See Chung, director of the Botanic Gardens, said this is a significant extension due its naturalistic setting, and "people will get a slightly different experience".
He added: "If you come … there are always sounds in the forest, at night there will be more sounds, there will be an opportunity to see some of these wildlife."
Acknowledging the risk of losing the natural habitats for rare species, Dr Chin said the new area will be developed "sensitively so there is minimal damage to the garden, so we can integrate the excess and facilitate visitorship, without damaging existing forest".
The expansion plans for the Botanic Gardens have been welcomed by the Nature Society of Singapore. "This is a great move, as far as ecology is concerned," said Dr Ho Hua Chew, an exco member - as this means wildlife will have "more room to move and forage". And the green lung in the area has also been preserved.
Five fish farms here link up and 10 others keen to join cooperative
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 4 Aug 09;
MORE local fish are now on supermarket shelves - the result of fish farmers in Singapore banding together.
Five fish farms here formed a cooperative in May - the first one among farms here - and they now sell their output directly to NTUC FairPrice, which buys an average of 500kg of fish from them daily for most of its 89 outlets.
With this sale being virtually in the bag, the fish farms will be spurred to raise their output, which will grow the stockpile of local food.
At the moment, the output of the co-op - to be registered as a business in two months - makes up about 5 per cent of the fish sold in Singapore, with FairPrice being its chief client.
It is a modest start. After all, Singapore has 105 fish farms, breeding fish like sea bass and mullet from fry bought from places like Taiwan and Indonesia.
The co-op's founder, fish farmer Malcolm Ong, 46, is determined to push membership in the Singapore Marine Aquaculture Cooperative to 50 in the next year. Already, 10 more farmers have expressed interest in joining it, he said.
In Singapore, which imports more than 90 per cent of its food, co-ops give some protection from turbulence in global food supply and prices. The world's wild fish supply has been thinning, the result of overfishing and climate change.
Unstable prices could be round the corner. Without a co-op, farmers unsure of market demand would be wary of overbreeding, for fear of being unable to sell the fish a year later, when they are grown enough to go to the market.
Thus far, fish farmers here have sold mixed stocks of local and imported fish to retailers at Jurong Fishery Port, an arrangement that has given them no push to raise their output.
And until now, FairPrice had not accepted direct sales from individual farmers to avoid the hassle of working with different individuals.
The change is among moves that the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) hopes will push the percentage of local fish in the national supply from 4 per cent to 15 per cent in the next five years. The AVA is also stepping up efforts to breed fish through genetic selection, identifying faster-growing breeds and supplying their fry to local fish farms, in a bid to raise productivity.
Even if more locally raised fish are on supermarket shelves, it is unlikely they will be cheaper, however. Market prices will still prevail.
'The intention here is to increase productivity and the supply of local food,' said Ms Wee Joo Yong, who heads the AVA's Marine Aquaculture Branch. 'We are not targeting prices, which depend on market forces.'
She explained, however, that with co-ops being able to procure fish feed and fish fry in bulk, the lowered production costs for the farmers could lead to lower costs down the road.
Co-op founder Mr Ong, who owns Metropolitan Fishery Group, expects the costs on his 2ha farm off Lim Chu Kang to come down by 20 per cent.
FairPrice will hold a local farm fish and seafood fair on Thursday, aimed at diversifying the food supply and keeping supply and prices stable.
Meanwhile, other stores, such as heartland chain MCP Supermarket, think working with the co-op is a good idea.
Mr Raymond Tan, who owns the six-outlet chain, said: 'It's good to support each other.'
Six reasons and more why Singaporeans should buy locally-farmed fish
Today Online 4 Aug 09;
NTUC FairPrice aims to get local consumers to buy more locally-farmed fish.
Singapore's leading supermarket chain is partnering the local fish farmers' cooperative in a locally-farmed fish and seafood fair on Thursday.
Six varieties of such fish will be introduced: Grey mullet, milk fish, seabass, red snapper, black king fish (cobia) and green mussel.
They will be available at 45 FairPrice supermarkets across the island.
The move comes only days after the Government announced it would aim to boost the local supply of fish from 4 per cent of the stock, to 15 per cent in five years.
"This is part of our food supply diversification strategy," said Mr Tng Ah Yiam, FairPrice's director of integrated purchasing.
But why should consumers buy into locally-farmed seafood? Because it's guaranteed fresh and of high quality, noted FairPrice.
Said Mr Tng: "The advantages of supplying locally-farmed fish include faster delivery between point of harvest and point of sale, improvement in quality due to shorter delivery time and lower transport costs."
In addition, the farms have to comply with stringent Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority standards.
Pearl Forss, Channel NewsAsia 3 Aug 09;
SINGAPORE: As concerns about food safety increase, more is being done to promote local farming.
Singapore wants to bump up its local supply of greens from 7 to 10 per cent of overall supply and to do so in a land scarce country, the solution is science.
Seed plug technology, which involves growing seeds in a controlled environment with automated irrigation, is going to be more widely used.
Wong Hon Mun, deputy director, Food & Veterinary Admin, Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA), said: "As you are growing your vegetables, you are also growing your seeds, so by the time you harvest your vegetables, your seedlings are ready for transplanting."
This way, farms can grow 12 crops a year instead of the current nine. Presently, 19,000 tonnes of vegetables are produced in Singapore every year.
Singapore has 110.2 hectares of land in the Agrotechnology Parks for the cultivation of vegetable produce, of which some 87.6 hectares are used solely for soil cultivation of vegetables, while the rest are for hydroponics cultivation, production of bean sprouts and mushrooms.
Besides vegetables, Singapore also wants to be more self sufficient in its fish supply by aiming to almost quadruple the current amount in five years. The Marine Aquaculture Centre is looking at a process called selective breeding to increase the supply of fish here.
The 105 fish farms in Singapore are also working together to improve efficiency and increase supply. They have formed a cooperative which will sell their fish to local supermarket chain, NTUC FairPrice.
Malcolm Ong, managing director, Metropolitan Fishery Group, said: "We can get supplies in bulk and this could be translated to better prices for the consumer."
Shoppers will also get fresher fish, as the time needed from the net to the supermarket rack is less than 24 hours.
To support local farming, FairPrice is launching a Local Farmed Fish and Seafood Fair this week. Six varieties of locally farmed fish will be sold during this fair and they will be available at 45 FairPrice supermarkets across the island.
FairPrice introduced the locally farmed Grey Mullet and Milk Fish at some of its stores in May this year. Sales have increased by more than 20 per cent since then.
- CNA/938LIVE/so
Channel NewsAsia 3 Aug 09;
SINGAPORE : Singapore's largest NEWater plant at Changi has begun its first phase of commercial operations.
This came after the Sembcorp Changi NEWater Plant (SCNP) had successfully met the stringent quality criteria set out by the national water agency, PUB.
The SCNP has an initial production capacity of 69,000 cubic metres of NEWater per day. When fully completed in mid-2010, the facility will be capable of producing a total of 228,000 cubic metres of NEWater per day.
"This will make it Singapore's largest NEWater plant and one of the largest water recycling plants in the world," said Sembcorp, which has a 25-year water supply contract with PUB.
Mr Tang Kin Fei, Sembcorp's group president & CEO, said: "We are pleased with our successful completion of final testing at the first phase of the plant, as
well as the smooth delivery of our first flow of NEWater."
"We are continuing to make good progress and are ahead of schedule on the execution of the second phase of the facility."
The Changi plant will supply roughly 15 per cent of Singapore's current water needs. With this, NEWater will meet 30 per cent of Singapore's current water needs by next year.
Introduced in 2003, NEWater is one of Singapore's four diversified sources of water supply. The other three are water from local catchments, imported water and desalinated water.
Sembcorp is the third private company to supply water to PUB under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) approach.
The first two are Singspring and Keppel Seghers NEWater Development Co which own and operate the Singspring Desalination Plant and Keppel Seghers Ulu Pandan NEWater Plant respectively.
- CNA/al
Tilapia fish farms give residents alternative to slash-and-burn farming
Straits Times 3 Aug 09;
JAMBI (INDONESIA): Reeling in a tilapia from the murky pond in front of him, farmer H. Baso Intang proclaimed triumphantly: 'These fish provide 5 million rupiah (S$724) in extra income for each family here every year.'
The pond is in a sprawling facility in Indonesia's Muaro Jambi Regency, which is now dotted with 2,399 other ponds stocked with tilapia, a fish popular on dinner tables here. Each pond yields up to 2,500 fish a year.
The money made from selling the fish is a lifeline for families here, who have left behind their traditional livelihood of slash-and-burn farming for fish rearing.
The authorities hope that the blossoming industry in this sleepy regency with a population of 234,000 can be replicated across fire-prone Jambi province and the rest of the country.
Muaro Jambi, occupying a tenth of Jambi on Sumatra Island, is an epicentre of the annual fires set to the bush as part of seasonal land clearing.
This practice of razing the land, which also takes place in Kalimantan on the island of Borneo, is what gives rise to the smoky haze that has often choked Indonesia and neighbouring countries over the past decade.
The region - primarily Indonesia - has lost US$9 billion (S$13 billion) in tourism revenue and flights delayed or cancelled because of poor visibility.
The people, especially those already with respiratory ailments, have suffered health problems too, pointed out Mr Burhanuddin Mahir, a local legislative head.
But Indonesia's defence has consistently been that it lacks the money and technical expertise to prevent or control the fires across its vast archipelago.
Jambi Governor Zulkifli Nurdin told The Straits Times that slash-and-burn farming is practised out of necessity. It is a cheaper way for poor farmers to clear the land for planting.
To make things worse, the country's peatland releases carbon dioxide as it dries out. When set alight in the dry season, thick smoky plumes result.
The chief of the Jambi Natural Resources Conservation Centre, Mr Didy Wurdjanto, said local officials have found it difficult to convince farmers to stop the burning, especially when they cannot afford to buy machines to clear the land.
Equipment such as excavators and tractors can cost up to 1 billion rupiah, and the typical small-scale farmer makes at most only 2 million rupiah a year, said Mr Afdhal Mahyuddin, a communications officer of the World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF) in Riau, another fire-prone area in Sumatra.
In Jambi, the local government is attempting to bridge this gap.
Mr Intang, who is also a local fish fry distributor, said 60 per cent of the equipment costs needed to set up his fish farming facility came from the government.
Funding aside, the government also runs training workshops to wean farmers from slash-and-burn farming.
Governor Nurdin believes that on top of these initiatives, developing the province's other industries in palm oil and coal, and sourcing avenues for export, are also key to reducing the risk of fires.
Economic growth in Jambi hit 7.16 per cent last year, up from 4.2 per cent nine years ago, driven primarily by the burgeoning oil palm, rubber and fishery industries, he said.
In the regency of Muaro Jambi alone, 92,000ha of land now sits under oil palm plantations; 59,000ha has been given over to rubber plantations and 150,000ha to fishery industries.
The agricultural sector contributed more than 79 billion rupiah - a third of the regency's gross domestic product (GDP) in 2007.
This is a positive step in addressing the poverty gap that stymies many farmers in Indonesia, said Dr Tobias Axelsson of the department of economic history at Lund University, Sweden.
'It goes back to the strategy of increasing the people's income...Getting them out of the poverty trap is important,' he said.
This involves forging new, alternative careers for them.
'If the government helps bring in new technology and knowledge, a new path is created the people can go down, increasing the chances for more sustainable and long-term impact,' Dr Axelsson said.
In tandem with the improved economy, the number of hot spots in Jambi has gone down by 23 per cent in the past two years, from a peak of 2,150 hot spots in 2006, Singapore's National Environment Agency (NEA) said.
This year, the situation is back under the microscope, as Indonesia wrestles against an extended dry spell typical of an El Nino weather pattern.
Dry spells raise the flag for forest fires.
Singapore is playing a role to keep the haze in check through a now two-year-old, $1 million collaboration with Jambi.
The plan comprises nine programmes designed to help the provincial government prevent or mitigate the fires. These include efforts to teach farmers zero-burning practices and to train local officials to interpret satellite pictures so that they can monitor hot spots.
Last week, Singapore Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim was in Jambi to hand over three air and weather monitoring stations funded by Singapore. These will enable speedier detection of fires and faster action to prevent haze.
Muaro Jambi is Indonesia's star haze-prevention project. When The Straits Times visited it at the height of the haze season last week, the air was clear and free of the tell-tale acrid smell of burning.
But challenges remain.
WWF's Mr Mahyuddin noted that while Indonesia has been effective in punishing small-scale landowners, companies with larger land concessions continue to get away with it.
Environmental groups say at least 70 per cent of Sumatra's forest fires come from land owned by plantation and paper-pulp companies.
But despite calls on Jakarta to impose stiffer penalties, few companies are prosecuted because of a lack of evidence.
Environmentalists have also long alleged collusion and corruption between government officials and the companies.
Ultimately, what Singapore and its neighbours in the region hope is that Indonesia will take greater ownership of the issue, said Mr Joseph Hui, director-general of the environmental protection division at NEA, which has played a key role in coordinating efforts between Singapore and Jambi.
'At the end of it all, what we are doing in Jambi is a small part of the entire region.'
To see any impact on fighting the haze, Indonesia will have to take greater ownership and start similar initiatives elsewhere, he said.
'If everyone behaves responsibly, things will improve. It is more beneficial to them than anyone else because they are the people most affected,' he said.
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 3 Aug 09;
The government has said that private companies might responsible for ongoing forest fires in Riau, which has forced the temporary closure of the regional airport on Monday because of thick haze caused visibility to drop.
The State Ministry for the Environment deployed a team to investigate the repeated forest fires to determine where and how the fires started.
“Seeing such huge forest fires, I am suspicious it is the work of companies operating in the province. Our team is still working in the field to investigate it,” Illyas Asaad, deputy environment minister for law enforcement, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.
Data from WWF Indonesia shows the number of hotspots in Riau province increased from 973 in January to 2,395 in July, the highest number in the nation.
A hotspot is defined as a fire covering at least a hectare.
The WWF said that the number dropped to 83 in April, before again increasing to 953 in May.
On August 1, the WWF detected a total of 97 hotspots in Riau. It said that about 52 percent of the hotspots were located on land belonging to the local people, 31 percent were in production forests while the remaining 17 percent were on private plantations.
Illyas said his office would announce the results of its investigation this week.
Reuters 3 Aug 09;
MANILA (Reuters) - An activist from Myanmar who was tortured by the military as a student and now runs an NGO probing infrastructure projects is among this year's winners of the Ramon Magsaysay Award, its committee said Monday.
Also cited for the award, Asia's equivalent of the Nobel, were two Chinese men, an Indian, a Filipino and a Thai woman.
Ka Hsaw Wa of Myanmar, co-founder of EarthRights International, was recognized for "dauntlessly pursuing non-violent yet effective channels of redress, exposure, and education for the defense of human rights, the environment and democracy," the committee said.
Yu Xiaogang of China was given the award for raising concerns about dams in his country and advocating social impact assessments in all such mega-infrastructure projects.
Ma Jun, also of China and a former journalist, was awarded for publicizing environmental issues in China, including naming over 10,000 companies violating emission standards.
Indian Deep Joshi, who has management and engineering degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was cited for decades of development work in rural India, and founding a non-profit organization that recruits university graduates and grooms them to do grassroots projects in poor communities.
Antonio Oposa Jr., a Filipino environmental activist and lawyer, was awarded for helping protest abuse of marine eco-systems, including organizing sea patrols to raid boat operators engaged in illegal dynamite fishing.
Krisana Kraisintu of Thailand was recognized for her work in producing generic drugs for HIV/AIDS victims, many times cheaper than the multiple pills from pharmaceutical companies. She has worked both in Thailand and in sub-Saharan Africa.
(Reporting by Raju Gopalakrishnan; Editing by Rosemarie Francisco and Bill Tarrant)
The Star 3 Aug 09;
KOTA KINABALU: Nearly half of Sabah’s 7.6 million hectare land area is now under permanent forest cover following amendments to a state law that has seen the creation of 12 new forest reserves.
Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Nasrun Datu Mansor said at the state assembly that 3.6 million ha were now preserved as forests – ranging from the unique Karangas jungles in the south western Sipitang districts to mangroves at islands along the east coast.
“It is our intention to leave our forests untouched as much as possible for our future generations,” he said.
In this regard, he said, Sabah has exceeded the national forestry policy requiring the states to preserve 47% of their land under forest cover.
Tabling the amendments to the Forests (Constitution of Forest Reserves and Amendment) Enactment 1984, Nasrun said the acreage of Class 1 Forest Reserves had been increased by more than 22,000ha, nearly the size of Penang island.
He said the state now had more than 3.6 million ha of such forests compared to about 3.5 million ha previously.
Nasrun said the size of mangrove and virgin forests had also increased by 4,647ha and 486ha respectively following the amendments.
The state now had more than 320,000ha of mangrove forests while its virgin jungle reserves now stood at more than 92,000ha.
The size of forest reserves for recreational use had also increased by 344ha to more than 21,000ha.
Nasrun said Sabah was also reducing the size of commercial forest reserves by 17,594ha from 2.63 million ha so that the acreage for the Class 1 Forest Reserves could be increased.
12 forest reserves created
Daily Express 4 Aug 09;
Kota Kinabalu: In an unparalleled move undertaken by any State Government in favour of water catchment conservation in Malaysia, the State Legislative Assembly approved, Monday, the creation of 12 forest reserves through the passage of the Forests (Constitution of Forest Reserves and Amendment) Enactment 1984.
Tabling the Bill, Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Nasrun Datu Mansor said with the development nearly half of Sabah's 7.6 million-hectare land area is now under permanent forest cover.
He said a total of 3.6 million hectares were now preserved as forests ranging from the unique karangas jungles in the south western Sipitang districts to mangroves at islands along the east coast.
In this regard, he said Sabah has exceeded the national forestry policy requiring the states to preserve 47 per cent of their land under forest cover.
Nasrun said the amount of Class 1 Protection Forest Reserves had been increased by more than 22,000 hectares, nearly the size of Penang island.
He said the State now had more than 3.6mil hectares of such forests compared to about 3.5mil hectares previously.
Nasrun said the amount of mangrove and virgin forest reserves had also increased by 4,647 hectares and 486 hectares respectively following the amendments.
The State now had more than 320,000 hectares of mangrove forests while its virgin jungle reserves now stood at more than 92,000 hectares.
The amount of amenity forest reserves for recreational use had also been increased by 344 hectares to more than 21,000 hectares.
Conversely, Nasrun said Sabah was reducing the amount of its commercial forest reserves by 17,594 hectares from 2.63mil hectares to make way for the increased Class 1 Protection Forest Reserves.
"It is our intention to leave as much of our forests untouched for future generations," he said, adding the amendment was also to re-classify two Second Class Forest Reserves (commercial) and First Class Forest Reserve (Protection).
The amendment was also to re-gazzette four existing forest reserves for coordination and updating of the Forest Enactment Schedule 1984.
The newly created I Class forest reserves are Gomantong-Geluang-Gesusu (590ha) in Kudat, Bukit Hampuan (1,253ha) in Ranau, Bukau Api-Api (2,095ha) in Beaufort and Ganui (330ha) that used to be in the Sabah Forest Industries' concession area.
Also 900ha of Sipitang Forest Reserve and 16,750ha of Sungai Pinangah and Gunung Rara Forest Reserves were re-classified as Protection Forest Reserve (Class 1) to be known as Sipitang Forest Reserve (Class I) and Imbak Canyon Forest Reserve (Class I), respectively.
These areas are found to be suitable for water catchment, maintaining climate stability, soil protection, research, education, flora and fauna conservation and eco-tourism.
Under the amendment, 56ha of the Deramakot forest was also constituted and classified as a Commercial Forest Reserve (Class II) to be known as Deramakot Forest Reserve (Extension).
The areas classified as Amenity Forest Reserves (Class IV) among others were Pulau Tabun (16 ha) and Pulau Saranga (18 ha) in Lahad Datu and the 8.53 ha land on which the State Forestry Department headquarters is located in Sandakan, Batu Punggul (150 ha) in Labang Valley, Sapulut, Nabawan.
About 791 ha of Pulau Malawali (100km east of Kudat) and 3,856.56 ha of Sungai Lasun and Pulau Evans forests in Lahad Datu are to be constituted and classified as Mangrove Forest Reserve (Class V).
12 Forest Reserves Will Be Created In Sabah
Bernama 3 Aug 09;
KOTA KINABALU, Aug 3 (Bernama) -- The Sabah state assembly on Monday passed the Forest Enactment (Forest Reserve Creation and Amendment) 1994 which will lead to the creation of 12 forest reserves.
The forest reserves to be created were Gomantong-Geluang-Gesusu, Bukit Hampuan, Api-Api, Ganui, Deramakot, Pulau Tabun and Pulau Saranga, Khazanah, Batu Punggul, Pulau Malawali, Sg Lasun and Pulau Evans, Kerangas and Sepilok.
Assistant Minister to the Chief Minister Datuk Nasrun Datu Mansur who tabled the bill said the 12 forest reserves would cover some 9,706.7 hectares.
He said the state government had also reclassified Sipitang Class II commercial forest reserve and Imbak Kanyon Class II forest reserve as Class 1 forest reserve (Protected.
It had also reclassified a commercial forest reserve and a forest reserve as Class I forest reserve (Protected).
Nasrun said the amendment also reclassified four forest reserves to streamline and update the Forest Enactment Schedule 1984.
They were Sapagaya Class I (Protected), Kebun Cina Class IV (Amenities), Rumbia Class IV (Amenities) and Kelawat Class I (Protected).
He said the creation of 12 forest reserves would expand Sabah's forest reserves from 3,594,366 hectares to 3,604,894 hectares or about 49 percent of the state.
-- BERNAMA
Henry Fountain, The New York Times 3 Aug 09;
After decades of overharvesting of oysters in the Chesapeake Bay and many fruitless efforts to replenish them, scientists have re-established a significant population of the shellfish along the Virginia shore.
Researchers from the Virginia Institute of Marine Science at the College of William & Mary say that large experimental reefs created five years ago are now home to more than 180 million native oysters. That is still a far cry from the late 1880s, when the bay held billions of the oysters, Crassostrea virginica, and watermen harvested about 25 million bushels annually. But more larvae have been settling on the new reefs every year, the researchers said.
The results, they added, suggest there is a potential for further restoration in the bay by creating additional reefs where harvesting is prohibited.
“What we need are thousands of acres of permanently restored sanctuary reefs to turn this situation we have with the oyster around,” said David M. Schulte, a doctoral student at the institute and an author of a paper published in Science last week that describes the work. The sanctuaries would aid the oyster harvest by helping to seed nearby areas, but the overall effort would benefit the bay in other ways, by helping to clean the water and providing more habitat for fish, crabs and other marine life.
Mr. Schulte said that when he began the experiment, he assumed there would be only a 10 percent survival rate among juvenile oysters on the reefs, which are near the mouth of the Great Wicomico River, just south of the Potomac. Throughout the bay, high mortality due to disease, as well as overfishing, had reduced the population to about 1 percent of 19th-century levels.
The current harvest is less than 200,000 bushels a year, and the situation has become so dire that there is an elaborate proposal to introduce the Asian oyster, C. ariakensis, as an alternative.
But Mr. Schulte said that in the first year of the study there was about a 30 percent survival rate on the reefs. “I was really surprised,” he said. “That’s really what helped this project become what it has.”
“We’re hoping that the population in the Great Wicomico is stable,” he added.
A Virginia fisheries official said he was optimistic that the restoration technique was working, but that the next several years would be critical.
“The looming question is whether what we’re seeing is just a short-term effect or long-term restoration,” said Jack Travelstead, chief of the fisheries management division of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission. “Enormous numbers of oysters are thriving in that area, but oyster diseases are still present.”
He noted that in 1996 there was a very good spawn of oysters in the same river, but that as they grew most eventually died from disease. “We’re a little bit concerned that we might experience that here,” he said.
A key to the success of the new reefs, Mr. Schulte said, is their height and extent. The reefs, which were created by the United States Army Corps of Engineers by dumping oyster shells, are 10 to 18 inches high and cover more than 80 acres, with the largest about 20 acres.
In earlier restoration efforts, most of the reefs were lower, so the oysters had to cope with stirred-up sediment. Oysters are filter feeders, and filtering out sediment expends energy they could use for growth and makes them more susceptible to disease. Having the shellfish higher in the water column — they tend to grow on top of the reef, in thick layers — appears to keep them healthier.
Most of the earlier reefs were also smaller, usually about an acre in size. Mr. Travelstead said the new effort had shown that “it’s not just build it higher, but build it larger and inundate it with healthy broodstock that is showing some signs of disease resistance.”
“This is a first attempt at altering the scale,” he added. “But scale means money, and that’s pretty hard to find these days.”
Scott McGuire, a volunteer with the Coastal Conservation Association of Maryland, a sport fishing group, said that his organization supported the creation of more sanctuaries like the ones in the study. “This type of research is what we’ve been asking for a long time,” he said. Oysters, he said, are a keystone species in the bay. “They filter the water and provide all kinds of ecological niches for other organisms. And they create lots of good fish habitat.”
Ken Smith, president of the Virginia Watermen’s Association, said he was not surprised by the results of the study. He said watermen had been putting oysters in cages and raising them off the bottom, “and we have gotten the same results that the scientists have gotten.”
Mr. Smith said his group, too, would support more sanctuaries if they would contribute to the health of the bay and indirectly to the watermen’s livelihood. Harvesting oysters used to be his primary source of income, he said, “but for 20 years, it’s been dead.”
Amra Hadziosmanovic Yahoo News 2 Aug 09;
KRUG MOUNTAIN, Bosnia-Hercegovina (AFP) – Dozens of wild horses graze peacefully atop a Bosnian plateau where the silence is broken only by neighing -- a breathtaking sight enthusiasts are fighting to preserve.
"Chocolate is one of the strongest stallions here. He wins every fight and has never lost any of his females or foals. But he's very distrustful of people. He never comes close to anyone," says Mario Jozic, who has taken up the cause of the animals.
The statuesque stallion lives up to his reputation, strutting across the open grassland authoritatively to a group of mares with head hanging low.
"This is how he commands his group. The other group came too close so he moved his mares away," explains Jozic, who is surrounded by around 90 horses which he tries to lure closer with bread.
Some horses from the herd of brown, chestnut, gray, black and white coats pull their heads up in curiosity before seeing a familiar face.
Among the long, ungroomed manes and ruffled tails, those with foals are the wariest, moving off cautiously before a few come close enough to accept the dry buns from Jozic's hand.
"This is Sponger," the activist says, referring to the horse first to stretch out his neck and take the treat.
Jozic, 44, is passionate about the horses which inhabit the 1,300-metre (4,000-foot) high plateau of Krug Mountain, some 10 kilometres (six miles) outside the southwestern Bosnian town of Livno.
"I have watched them for years and I can say that the worst disease that threatens them is man," Jozic says with resignation.
But thanks to concerns raised by horse-lovers like Jozic, public interest has grown and authorities in the Livno region pledged recently to help the animals which are estimated to number around 200.
Hundreds of people come here every year to watch and take photographs of the horses which have lived in the wild for more than 30 years.
The origins of the herd are believed to date back to the 1970s, when villagers who left the area to work in Europe's affluent West returned and freed their workhorses, replacing them with tractors and other machinery.
At the time, they numbered only a couple of dozen, but they have since bred naturally in the wild.
"It is a rare phenomenon," Velija Katica, a professor at Sarajevo University's veterinary faculty, tells AFP.
"It's really incredible that they have survived in such difficult conditions. With little food, no veterinary care in a mountain where winters are so severe, and above all that with inhumane treatment by people.
"By living in the wild they have gradually developed survival instincts that domestic horses do not have," Katica adds.
To reach the horses, Jozic drives from Livno over rough terrain dappled with limestone rocks and rare shrubs.
He says the animals are in their prime during the mating season and winter, when the area is exposed to icy winds.
"It's most fascinating to see them on a wild run during the winter while their bodies are steaming."
The main threat the Bosnian mustangs face is from people, who kill them mostly to use their meat as dog food.
"We used to find their corpses with both back legs hacked off," Jozic says, blaming dog breeders.
"It is horrible. Police do react when someone reports this crime but we cannot keep an eye on them all the time."
During winter, the horses are often victims of road accidents as they descend from the Krug plateau to lick salt from the asphalt when hungry.
To help the animals, Jozic convinced a forestry office to build feeders a safe distance from passing traffic.
"It's sad when you know how little money it requires to do things right," he says.
"It would be enough to engage two or three rangers to patrol the area a few times a day and discourage those mean people. These horses can survive on their own under the laws of nature."
Protecting the horses is not a priority in the country still recovering from its 1992-1995 war and hit hard by the global recession, but Livno authorities recently announced measures to aid them.
"We will engage someone to take care of them professionally. They should be protected," says Livno county official Nediljko Rimac.
A group of nature-lovers set up a web site www.divljikonji.org and organised an online petition that has been signed by almost 7,500 people from the whole Balkan region since last December.
Its aim is to pressure the authorities.
Livno's tourist authorities called on local officials to adopt necessary laws to protect the horses.
"The interest of tourists is huge, but nothing can be organised before local authorities define the horses' status," says Slava Kukic, head of the Livno tourist organisation.
Many villagers want the horses to disappear as they sometimes ruin their crops, while others claim ownership over dozens of them.
"It seems that they belong to everybody and at the same time they don't belong to anybody," says Kukic.
Amitabh Avasthi, National Geographic News 3 Aug 09;
The most malignant known form of malaria may have jumped from chimpanzees to humans, according to a new study of one of the most deadly diseases in the world.
Malaria, a mosquito-borne illness, can be caused in humans by one of four strains of the Plasmodium parasite. More than a million people die from malaria each year.
P. falciparum is the most virulent of these strains and accounts for nearly 85 percent of all malaria infections. (See a malaria parasite picture.)
Three of the four human strains are known to have originally come from Old World monkeys. The exact origins of P. falciparum have been a mystery.
Researchers had thought that P. falciparum and P. reichenowi—the malaria strain found in chimpanzees—evolved independently from a common ancestor about five to seven million years ago.
But the new study has found that the human strain is actually a mutated form of the chimp strain.
"Current wisdom that P. falciparum has been in humans for millions and millions of years is wrong," said study co-author Nathan Wolfe, director of the Global Viral Forecasting Initiative based in San Francisco, California, and a National Geographic emerging explorer. (The National Geographic Society owns National Geographic News.)
"We now know that there was a point in time when this was primarily a disease in chimpanzees that jumped and took hold in humans."
Just One Jump
Wolfe and his colleagues analyzed tissues samples from 94 live wild and wild-born captive chimpanzees in Cameroon and Côte d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast). Eight of the animals were found to have malaria.
The team discovered that the human and chimpanzee strains have certain genetic similarities, but that the chimp strain is more genetically diverse.
Further analysis placed all 133 variants of P. falciparum found around the world under a single branch of the P. reichenowi family tree.
"This suggests that there has been only one transfer. P. falciparum is the result of a single cross-species transmission event," said Wolfe, whose work appears this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The scientists aren't sure how the chimp strain mutated to become infectious to humans or when it might have made the jump, although the oldest known human cases of malaria date back thousands of years.
The team believes it's possible that, as early humans settled into an agrarian lifestyle in Africa, their likely encroachment into chimpanzee territory provided the parasite with new opportunities.
Parasite Evolution
Biologist Dan Hartl of Harvard University noted that, until now, only one sample of the chimpanzee parasite had ever been studied.
"Researchers had believed that P. falciparum probably originated from parasites in birds," said Hartl, who was not involved in the study.
"[Wolfe and colleagues'] paper proves that is not true, and that data from those early studies were misleading."
Late last year, a team led by Arnab Pain, a malaria researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in Cambridge, U.K., announced they had sequenced the genome of P. knowlesi, a monkey malaria parasite that can also infect humans.
Pain agrees that Wolfe and his colleagues have conclusively proven that the chimpanzee malaria parasite was transferred only once to humans.
But researchers would need to know the entire genetic makeup of the chimp parasite to find out what changes it underwent, he added.
"How much the parasite changed, we don't know the full story yet."
Ongoing Leaps
According to study co-author Wolfe, the new work hints that even today similar disease-causing parasites may be ready to make the leap from monkeys and apes to humans.
"Our study suggests that there is a [version of P. reichenowi] out there that is very similar to P. falciparum—it has a tremendous amount of genetic diversity, and is present in animals that are close to humans in a very geographically distributed area," Wolfe said.
That means there's a chance that a new malaria parasite might make its way into people, he said.
The work also highlights how long a disease can last once a parasite has made that leap, Wolfe added.
"What this finding demonstrates is that the kinds of jumps we're having right now—HIV, SARS, etc.—could very well be the beginning of something that lasts for thousands of years."
BBC News 3 Aug 09;
Gorillas have been found, for the first time, to be a source of HIV.
Previous research had shown the HIV-1 strain, the main source of human infections, with 33m cases worldwide, originated from a virus in chimpanzees.
But researchers have now discovered an HIV infection in a Cameroonian woman which is clearly linked to a gorilla strain, Nature Medicine reports.
A researcher told the BBC that, though it was a new type of HIV, current drugs might still help combat its effects.
HIV originated from a similar virus in chimpanzees called Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV).
Although HIV/Aids was first recognised by scientists in the 1980s, it is thought to have first entered the human population early in the 20th Century in the region of the Democratic Republic of Congo.
The virus probably originally jumped into humans after people came into contact with infected bush meat.
SIV viruses have been reported in other primates, including gorillas.
Unusual case
French doctors treating the 62-year-old Cameroonian woman who was living in Paris said they initially spotted some discrepancies in routine viral load tests.
Further analysis of the HIV strain she was infected with showed it was more closely related to SIV from gorillas than HIV from humans.
She is the only person known to be infected with the new strain, but the researchers expect to find other cases.
Before moving to Paris, she had lived in a semi-urban area of Cameroon and had no contact with gorillas or bush meat, suggesting she caught the virus from someone else who was carrying the gorilla strain.
Analysis of the virus in the laboratory has confirmed that it can replicate in human cells.
Co-author Dr David Robertson, from the University of Manchester, said it was the first definitive transfer of HIV seen from a source other than a chimpanzee, and highlighted the need to monitor for the emergence of new strains.
"This demonstrates that HIV evolution is an ongoing process.
"The virus can jump from species to species, from primate to primate, and that includes us; pathogens have been with us for millions of years and routinely switch host species."
The fact the patient had been diagnosed in France showed how human mobility can rapidly transfer a virus from one area of the world to another, he said.
New problems 'unlikely'
Speaking to the BBC's Wold Today programme, Dr Robertson said there was no reason to believe that existing drugs would not work on the new virus.
"If some day we do manage to develop a vaccine, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't work," he said.
"There's no reason to believe this virus will present any new problems, as it were, that we don't already face."
Professor Paul Sharp, from the University of Edinburgh, said the virus probably initially transferred from chimpanzees to gorillas.
He said the latest finding was interesting but perhaps not surprising.
"The medical implication is that, because this virus is not very closely related to the other three HIV-1 groups, it is not detected by conventional tests.
"So the virus could be cryptically spreading in the population."
However, he said that he would guess it would not spread widely and become a major problem.
"Although the patient with this virus was not ill, there is no reason to believe that it will not lead to Aids," he added.
Reuters 3 Aug 09;
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Rising temperatures in the tropics due to climate change are likely to encourage the proliferation of the coffee berry borer, one of the crop's most devastating pests, a study released on Monday showed.
But reverting to an old way of growing coffee bushes under tree shade could reduce the temperature, it said. Shade also harbors the borer's predators.
"By analyzing climatic data ... the icipe-led team of researchers observed that the insect is capable of easily adapting to a wide range of temperature variations often found in coffee growing areas," a statement by the International Center of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe) said.
"Rising global temperatures will increase H. hampei (coffee berry borer) populations and in effect the damage it causes to coffee. Particularly devastating consequences are expected in coffee growing areas where the coffee trees produce fruits throughout the year, like Colombia," it said in a statement.
The research was carried out in Colombia, Kenya, Tanzania and Africa's largest coffee producer, Ethiopia.
The scientists also found that the geographical area susceptible to the black bug would increase to sub-tropical regions that were formerly unaffected.
However, the most suitable way for coffee production systems to cope with warmer temperatures would be to go back to the origins of the crop as an "understory" tree of the forests, the researchers said.
In Ethiopia -- considered to be the origin of the bean -- some coffee farmers still have their crop growing in forests.
In practical terms, large-scale producers may have to introduce taller shade trees in their estates, icipe said.
(Reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura)
ScienceDaily 3 Aug 09;
Entire populations of North American fish already are being affected by several emerging diseases, a problem that threatens to increase in the future with climate change and other stresses on aquatic ecosystems, according to a noted U.S. Geological Survey researcher giving an invited talk on this subject August 3 at the Wildlife Disease Association conference in Blaine, Wash.
"A generation ago, we couldn't have imaged the explosive growth in disease issues facing many of our wild fish populations," said Dr. Jim Winton, a fish disease specialist at the USGS Western Fisheries Research Center. "Most fish health research at that time was directed toward diseases of farmed fish."
In contrast, said Winton, recent studies in natural aquatic systems have revealed that, in addition to being a cause of natural death, infectious and parasitic fish diseases can produce significantly greater mortality in altered habitats leading to population fluctuations, extinction of endangered fish, reduced overall health and increased susceptibility to predation.
In addition, said Winton, populations of certain fish species have suffered catastrophic losses after non-native diseases were first introduced into a water body. Examples include whirling disease in the intermountain west and the recent introduction of viral hemorrhagic septicemia in the Great Lakes.
"The scientific community is increasingly concerned that global trade, extensive habitat alteration, accumulations of contaminants and other human-caused stresses stressors, including climate change, will affect the distribution or severity of fish diseases and contribute to increasing population-scale losses in these important natural resources," Winton said.
Disease is often ignored as a factor affecting wild populations of fish and wildlife because the effects are difficult to observe and quantify, noted Winton. But as cold-blooded animals, fish are highly dependent on environmental conditions, especially temperature, to help maintain critical physiological processes such as immune function that can affect whether a fish gets a disease or parasite, how it is affected by it, and how the disease progresses.
In particular, said Winton, some fish – such as salmon, trout and muskellunge - have a fairly narrow range of water temperatures they can live in. "If that temperature is exceeded over a period of time, not only may die-offs occur, but also, the increased stress and altered immune function will lead to greater levels of infectious or parasitic diseases which is why global warming is of particular concern.
Winton said that increased scientific recognition of fish diseases as a potential population-limiting factor in wild populations of fish is partly the result of the emergence of high-profile diseases such as whirling disease in wild-spawning rainbow trout in the Rocky Mountain West, viral hemorrhagic septicemia in the North Pacific Ocean and the Great Lakes, and a fungal-like disease, ichthyophoniasis, in adult Chinook salmon in the Yukon River.
The 58th annual meeting of the Wildlife Disease Association (WDA) will be August 2-7, 2009, in Blaine, Wash. The theme is Wildlife Health from Land to Sea: Impacts of a Changing World. USGS scientist Dr. Jim Winton, is presenting the paper, "The ecology of emerging diseases among populations of wild fish."
Adapted from materials provided by United States Geological Survey.
Ed Stoddard, Reuters 3 Aug 09;
CARBON, Wyoming (Reuters) - They used to mine coal in the abandoned town of Carbon. Now this patch of southern Wyoming is a battleground in the debate over what many hope will be the clean energy source of the future: wind power.
At the heart of the dispute are plans to build a network of wind farms in the American West that conservationists fear could disrupt threatened habitat such as sage brush, a dwindling piece of the region's fragile ecosystem.
This has made the greater sage grouse -- which as its name suggests is totally dependent on sage brush -- an unlikely poster child for some U.S. environmentalists, in much the same way that the rare spotted owl became a symbol in the 1980s of pitched battles with the logging industry.
Wyoming is home to 54 percent of the greater sage grouse population in North America. The bird's status is being evaluated for inclusion on the U.S. government's threatened or endangered species list, which would give it more protection.
The problem: The chicken-sized bird lives in the vast tracts of wind-whipped open spaces that make Wyoming highly attractive to the wind industry.
Near Carbon, the focus is on a 198-turbine, $600 million wind farm proposed by Horizon Wind Energy.
"They want to build it around here but we need to be thinking truly green. It is not just about our carbon footprint," said Alison Holloran of the National Audubon Society in Wyoming, as she pointed to clumps of grayish sage brush along a dirt road.
Wind power will play a huge role in any move by the United States to reduce its emissions of the greenhouse gases that most scientists believe are the main causes of rapid climate change. The burning of coal and the use of other fossil fuels such as oil are the largest single source of carbon emissions, so the race is on for "clean energy" alternatives.
SHADES OF BROWN
In the public mind, wind is regarded as about as "green" an energy source as you can get. But some environmentalists see shades of brown in the industry.
They say the wind turbines and the development that goes with them, including roads and transmission lines, will further fragment critical sage habitat and disturb the grouse and other wildlife.
Horizon says the grouse issue requires more study.
"There is no peer-reviewed research on how sage grouse respond to turbines," said Arlo Corwin, Horizon's development director for the western region. "We believe that obtaining this research is essential to see if wind turbines and sage grouse are going to be able to coexist."
There have been several wind power skirmishes in the United States. Off Cape Cod in Massachusetts, there is a battle over plans for an offshore wind farm that opponents say will disrupt navigation and shipping. There have also been concerns about bird/turbine collisions in some places.
Wind now delivers about 1.25 percent of the United States' electricity supply, but the industry is growing fast, according to the American Wind Energy Association. It says wind power generation now offsets about 54 million tons of carbon a year.
In Wyoming, there are about 20 wind farms and four additional projects under construction, the association says. It ranks the state 12th in U.S. wind production but seventh in potential generation -- meaning a lot of untapped capacity.
Wind turbines already spin in Carbon County not far from Horizon's proposed development area, where the treeless countryside looks stark. The town of Carbon was abandoned over a century ago and only a few brick foundations remain.
HARSH LANDSCAPE
In this harsh landscape, sage sustains life. The greater sage grouse and around 20 other bird species depend on it for survival, and the sturdy plant also sustains big game species such as elk and mule deer during the cold Wyoming winter.
Corwin said Horizon's planned wind development, known as the Simpson Ridge project, would make use of existing transmission lines that run through the area, removing at least one concern.
Horizon is evaluating when to apply for a permit to develop the site, which is also attractive because landowners have agreed to host the turbines on their property.
Last year, Wyoming said it would restrict development on greater sage grouse habitats it has designated "core population areas."
U.S. government wildlife officials say that other kinds of development have not been favorable for the grouse.
"The impact of fragmentation is very, very clear. We know that they won't occupy habitat close to an interstate for example. They are a landscape species and need big open intact habitats," said Brian Kelly, a field supervisor for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in Wyoming.
Kelly said such concerns applied to all developments, including gas, oil and even housing -- not just wind.
About 20 percent of the state is regarded as "core" for the bird.
"If we conserve that 20 percent we effectively conserve 40 percent of the birds in North America. That's why it is significant," Kelly said.
The state government estimates that only about 14 percent of Wyoming's "economically viable wind areas" -- which is based on factors like wind strength, speed and duration -- is within core sage and grouse grounds while 86 percent is outside.
"We don't need to pick one or the other, grouse or wind. We can have robust sage grouse populations and robust wind development in Wyoming -- no problem," said Aaron Clark, an energy advisor to the governor of Wyoming.
The wind industry has disputed these figures and some of the definitions used by wildlife and state officials.
Horizon's Corwin noted that sage, which has lost about half of its historic range by some estimates, is also under threat from climate change. And reducing greenhouse gas emissions by harnessing energy sources such as wind is seen as the best way to slow or stop global warming.
(Editing by Doina Chiacu)
Forecasters say this one is brewing up to be the second-strongest on record
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 3 Aug 09;
A new El Niño has begun. The sporadic Pacific Ocean warming, which can disrupt weather patterns across the world, is intensifying, say meteorologists.
So, over the next few months, there may be increased drought in Africa, India and Australia, heavier rainfall in South America and increased extremes in Britain, of warm and cold. It may make 2010 one of the hottest years on record.
The cyclical phenomenon, which happens every two to seven years, is a major determinant of global weather systems. The 1997-98 El Niño combined with global warming to push 1998 into being the world's hottest year, and caused major droughts and catastrophic forest fires in South-east Asia which sent a pall of smoke right across the region.
At present, forecasters do not expect this El Niño to equal that of 1998, but it may be the second-strongest, and concerned groups, from international insurance companies to commodity traders, to aid agencies such as Oxfam, have begun to follow its progress anxiously. Its potential for economic and social impact is considerable.
Professor Chris Folland, of the Met Office Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, said: "We are likely to see more global warming than we have seen in the past few years, which have been rather cool. In fact, we are already seeing it."
El Niño is a periodic warming of the normally cold waters of the eastern tropical Pacific, the ocean region westwards out from South America along the line of the equator. Since the Pacific is a heat reservoir which drives wind patterns around the world, the change in its temperature alters global weather. An El Niño is defined by ocean surface temperatures rising by more than 0.5C above the average.
This El Niño is well beyond that, says the Climate Prediction Center of the US National Weather Service. "Sea surface temperatures remain +0.5 to +1.5 above average across much of the equatorial Pacific Ocean," the centre reported last week. "Observations and dynamical model forecasts indicate El Niño conditions will continue to intensify and are expected to last through the northern hemisphere winter of 2009-10."
The last El Niño was in 2006-07 and, at its peak, sea surface temperatures averaged about 0.9 degrees above normal. But this is a stage which has already been reached by this one.
The last El Niño, comparatively weak though it was, is thought to have been partly responsible for the extraordinarily warm weather in Britain between the summer of 2006 and the spring of 2007: July 2006 was Britain's hottest month, autumn 2006 (September, October and November) was the warmest autumn, winter 2006-07 (December, January and February) was the second warmest in Britain, and April 2007 was our warmest April.
People have forgotten this because there then began our recent cooler and wetter period, with Britain's two "washout summers" of 2007 and 2008, and they may, in turn, have been associated with the counter-phenomenon of La Niña, a cooling of the eastern tropical Pacific waters, which followed. The start of the present El Niño was one reason the Met Office predicted a "barbecue summer" for 2009.
livescience.com 3 Aug 09;
For people who are looking for ways to reduce their "carbon footprint," here's one radical idea that could have a big long-term impact, some scientists say: Have fewer kids.
A study by statisticians at Oregon State University concluded that in the United States, the carbon legacy and greenhouse gas impact of an extra child is almost 20 times more important than some of the other environment-friendly practices people might employ during their entire lives - things like driving a high mileage car, recycling, or using energy-efficient appliances and light bulbs.
"In discussions about climate change, we tend to focus on the carbon emissions of an individual over his or her lifetime," said study team member Paul Murtaugh. "Those are important issues and it's essential that they should be considered. But an added challenge facing us is continuing population growth and increasing global consumption of resources."
Reproductive choices haven't gained as much attention in the consideration of human impact to the Earth, Murtaugh said. When an individual produces a child - and that child potentially produces more descendants in the future - the effect on the environment can be many times the impact produced by a person during their lifetime.
A child's impact
Under current conditions in the United States, for instance, each child ultimately adds about 9,441 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the carbon legacy of an average parent - about 5.7 times the lifetime emissions for which, on average, a person is responsible.
The impact doesn't only come through increased emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases - larger populations also generate more waste and tax water supplies.
Other offbeat environmental impacts have been in the news recently:
* One 2007 study found that divorce squanders resources, because people who once shared resources such as energy now use twice as much under two roofs.
* The current obesity epidemic may also be hurting the climate, because food production is a major contributor to global warming.
The impact of having children differs between countries. While some developing nations have much higher populations and rates of population growth than the United States, their overall impact on the global carbon equation is often reduced by shorter life spans and less consumption. The long-term impact of a child born to a family in China is less than one-fifth the impact of a child born in the United States, the study found.
However, as the developing world increases both its population and consumption levels, this equation may even out.
"China and India right now are steadily increasing their carbon emissions and industrial development, and other developing nations may also continue to increase as they seek higher standards of living," Murtaugh said.
Not advocating law
The researchers note that they are not advocating government controls or intervention on population issues, but say they simply want to make people aware of the environmental consequences of their reproductive choices.
"Many people are unaware of the power of exponential population growth," Murtaugh said. "Future growth amplifies the consequences of people's reproductive choices today, the same way that compound interest amplifies a bank balance."
Murtaugh's findings are detailed in a 2009 issue of the journal Global Environmental Change.
Krittivas Mukherjee, Reuters 3 Aug 09;
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - India will make energy efficiency ratings a must for electric appliances, including airconditioners and refrigerators, from January, stepping up domestic efforts to fight climate change, officials said.
Power distribution transformers and fluorescent lights will also carry labels that provide information about the energy consumption of a product and enable customers to make an informed choice.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said the efficiency ratings system will extend to all electric motors, color televisions and LPG stoves by June, 2010. Labeling is currently voluntary.
"This will include all appliances in these categories to be sold in India or for export," Ramesh said.
Energy efficiency is a key focus in India's national climate change policy, unveiled last year and which lays out a roadmap to a green economy but doesn't fix a target for carbon emissions.
The government hopes to save 10,000 megawatts of power by efficient use of energy by 2012.
A top climate official said India would unveil a trading scheme centered on energy efficiency certificates that could possibly expand to renewable energy.
The plan involves creating a market-based mechanism that would allow businesses using more energy than stipulated to compensate by buying energy certificates from those using less energy or using renewable energy.
The government is setting up energy benchmarks for each industry sector. Companies that do not meet the benchmarks would have to buy these certificates under a reward and penalty system. "The broad outlines are ready and we should be able to finalize it within a few months," the official, who asked to remain anonymous, said.
Most firms in India, which is Asia's third-largest economy and the fourth-largest emitter of planet-warming carbon dioxide, have yet to plan for the impact of climate change and do not measure emissions or have deadlines to curb them, according to studies.
India's top firms also face little stakeholder pressure to combat climate change with only about 40 percent of major companies setting voluntary carbon emission reduction goals, according to a survey of CEOs by KPMG consultants last year.
(Editing by Alistair Scrutton and David Fogarty)
Andrew C. Revkin, The New York Times 3 Aug 09;
Two years ago, an international scientific panel seized worldwide attention by reporting that human activity was warming the planet in ways that could greatly disrupt human affairs and nature.
The work of the group, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former Vice President Al Gore. After two decades of delivering climate reports to the world without fanfare, it suddenly had a wide following.
But as the panel gears up for its next climate review, many specialists in climate science and policy, both inside and out of the network, are warning that it could quickly lose relevance unless it adjusts its methods and focus.
Although the panel, founded in 1988 and operating under the United Nations’ auspices, has garnered awards and acclaim, there is scant evidence that nations are acting on its warnings. Emissions of heat-trapping gases have grown. Talks about a new climate treaty remain largely deadlocked.
“Like grabbing the tail of a tiger, the I.P.C.C. has gotten the world’s attention, but now the challenge is to get the tiger to head in the right direction,” said Michael MacCracken, a longtime contributor to panel reports and a chief scientist for the Climate Institute, a nonprofit group. “For the I.P.C.C., this means providing guidance that will minimize climate impacts and maximize investments in a prosperous and sustainable future.”
Environmentalists assert that the reports by the panel are watered down by a requirement that sponsoring governments approve its summaries line by line.
Some experts fret that the organization, charged with assessing fast-evolving science, has failed to keep pace with an explosion of climate research.
At the same time, scientists who question the likelihood of a calamitous disruption of the Earth’s climate accuse the panel of cherry-picking studies and playing down levels of uncertainty about the severity of global warming.
“It just feels like the I.P.C.C. has gone from being a broker of science to a gatekeeper,” said John R. Christy, a climate scientist at the University of Alabama, Huntsville, and a former panel author.
In an interview, Rajendra K. Pachauri, chairman of the I.P.C.C., rejected the charge of bias, noting layers of transparent peer review.
But he acknowledged the challenges that the group faces in translating complex science in a way that produces meaningful responses.
Under its charter, the group cannot recommend a course of action to cut climate risks. It has laid out specific paths for emissions of greenhouse gases that governments would need to follow to avoid overheating the planet, but governments need not follow those paths.
For example, Dr. Pachauri noted that while the leaders of the Group of 8 industrial nations pledged last month to try to limit global warming to 2 degrees Fahrenheit beyond the planet’s current temperature, they failed to embrace the emissions reductions that the panel says would be needed to keep that promise.
Finding ways to guide nations without being prescriptive is a prime focus as the network of scientists embarks on its fifth assessment of research on climate trends, projections and policy options.
While the new study is not scheduled for release until 2014, its shape will be determined at an October meeting of government representatives from more than 80 countries.
In preparation for that meeting, 200 scientists who have held leading roles in the climate assessments met in Venice last month to identify new priorities. Building on a “vision document” developed by Dr. Pachauri, they began writing an outline of the fifth report to present to the government representatives meeting in Bali in October.
One goal for the next report is a much more thorough assessment of how fast and far seas could rise from unabated warming. The panel’s 2007 report expressly excluded the influence of melting ice sheets because of limited understanding of how fast they could melt.
Shying away from discussing such possibilities because there is low scientific confidence can imply there is also a low probability they may occur, said Stephen H. Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford and longtime panel member. That is not necessarily the case, he said.
More attention will be devoted to research on the potential for dangerous changes in ocean chemistry as seas absorb billions of tons of carbon dioxide. Another focus will be large-scale artificial methods of countering warming, called geo-engineering.
The panel will also try harder to identify anticipated impacts of climate change on certain regions, and options for fostering resilience in especially vulnerable places like sub-Saharan Africa.
Dr. Pachauri noted that the panel put its Nobel Prize winnings, around $670,000, into an account for helping the world’s poorest countries respond to drought, flood and other climate risks. (Mr. Gore gave his share to the Alliance for Climate Protection. )
But tens of billions of dollars in aid will be needed as explosive population growth and shifting climate patterns make poor nations more vulnerable, according to a variety of studies.
Some specialists in climate modeling warn that governments may have overinflated expectations that science can reliably forecast how global warming will play out locally.
Gavin A. Schmidt, a climate modeler at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies in Manhattan, part of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, said that efforts to use computer simulations of local conditions to forecast specific results of climate shifts over a decade or so were still in early stages of development.
“Simply hoping that higher resolution will magically improve predictability at smaller scales is just wishful thinking,” Dr. Schmidt said in an e-mail message.
Other scientists involved in shaping the next report worry that the runaway growth in peer-reviewed studies of climate change is making a broad, fair assessment of such research impossible.
In Venice, Neville Nicholls, a lead writer on several parts of the last report, submitted a chart showing that 4,500 climate studies were published in 2007, triple the total a decade earlier.
Given that the hundreds of scientists on the panel volunteer their time, this presents a daunting challenge, said Dr. Nicholls, a climate scientist at Monash University in Victoria, Australia.
He proposes that the group write more focused, expeditious reports on issues relevant to setting policy.
Dr. Nicholls suggested that the panel could eventually shift to reviewing the flow of research on more basic questions through a constantly updated Wikipedia-style system.
The panel already does occasional special reports, with one coming next year on the potential of renewable energy technologies to cut greenhouse emissions, and another in 2011 on limiting risks from drought and other climate-driven disasters.
Christopher Field, a participant and chairman of one section of the forthcoming assessment, said that an important focus was psychological and sociological research on how people act in the face of uncertain butsubstantial threats.
“We’ve identified the nature of the problem, and social science shows it’s of the toughest category,” said Dr. Field, who directs the Carnegie Institution department of global ecology at Stanford.
One hope is that the final October outline, once approved, will encourage governments to invest more resources in such research, so that the 2014 report can incorporate findings.
In the end, perhaps the most vital shift is for the panel to pay more attention to the murkier but most consequential possibilities in a warming world, said Dr. Schneider.
The panel, he said, could do more to distinguish between outcomes from warming that research shows are truly unlikely, like a shutdown of Atlantic Ocean currents, and those that are possible but uncertain. One example of this kind, he said, is the chance that the planet could heat up far more than climate models project; another is the possible sustained disintegration of ice sheets.
Dr. Schneider noted that society relied on risk analyses of this sort all the time, with issues like choosing treatments for rare but poorly understood cancers (Dr. Schneider survived such an episode) and with assessing military strategies.
It may be uncomfortable for scientists who seek certainty in data to turn to the issue of how to weigh uncertain threats. But decision makers are not well served if the spectrum of poorly known possibilities, along with the level of uncertainty, are not also conveyed by experts, he said.
“If you say nothing until you have high confidence and solid evidence,” he said, “you’re failing society.”
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