New flickr group for seahorse sightings in Singapore
from wild shores of singapore
Another Quiet Day @ TBHP
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
We Are One!
from Butterflies of Singapore
Pairing of Yellow-vented and Sooty-headed Bulbul
from Bird Ecology Study Group
The Perils of Peer Review
from Catalogue of Organisms
Infamous Malaysian illegal wildlife trader still trades in wildlife
Amanda Yong, The New Paper 13 Aug 09;
THEY call him the 'Pablo Escobar of the wildlife trade'.
Meet Malaysian Anson Wong Keng Liang, the man described as 'one of the world's most brazen reptile smugglers' by the American authorities.
While Escobar, a feared Colombian drug lord, gained global notoriety for running one of the biggest international cocaine-smuggling networks, Wong became infamous for his pivotal role in the world wildlife trade in the 1990s.
'He is probably the biggest illegal reptile dealer in the world,' Mr Craig Hoover, who monitored the animal trade for the World Wide Fund for Nature, told The Los Angeles Times.
He was nabbed by US authorities in 1998. He pleaded guilty to 40 counts of smuggling and violation of US wildlife protection laws, and was also charged with smuggling, money laundering and conspiracy.
He was jailed 71 months and fined US$60,000 ($87,000).
Today, Mr Wong who is around 50, leads a quiet life as a businessman in a small town in Penang.
Contacted by The New Paper for a phone interview yesterday, the media-shy man said: 'I don't wish to bring all that up. It's all in the past.'
He had earlier told Malaysian newspaper The Star that he has remained 'clean' since his return to Malaysia in 2004.
'I don't want to go to jail again. I had difficulties sleeping in the cell,' he said. 'I saw gang fights, rape. Do you think I want to live through that again?'
On the comparison with the late Colombian druglord, Mr Wong said: 'The reports painted me as a monster. I'm no Pablo Escobar... I'm just like any other guy; I just got a bit greedy.'
When we asked if he had ever smuggled any wildlife into or through Singapore, he declined to comment.
'I don't think it's right for me to talk about this,' he said. 'Anyway, Singapore was only a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (of Wild Fauna and Flora) in the 1980s.'
Didn't his wildlife smuggling business only start in the early 1990s, as previously reported, we asked.
'Yes...' he said. He declined to say more.
Singapore has been a signatory to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora since November 1986.
When contacted, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said they have no records of Wong smuggling wildlife into Singapore.
Nabbed in 1998
What is known about Wong's former life has been chronicled in various media reports and even a book, The Lizard King, released in September last year by American lawyer-turned-author Bryan Christy.
Between 1995 and 1998, Wong allegedly ran a wildlife import-export business that trafficked in illegal shipments of protected reptiles from Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, worth almost US$500,000.
The US Department of Justice said he and his associates had smuggled more than 300 reptiles worth US$500,000 into the US from January 1996 to August 1998. The reptiles included rare breeds like Madagascar's ploughshare tortoise, Indonesia's Komodo dragon, and the green tree python .
Along with seven other associates, he was convicted in 2001 after a three-year investigation by the US government's Fish and Wildlife Services officials.
The story of how he was caught reads like the plot of a typical Hollywood thriller.
For five years, US authorities infiltrated his smuggling racket and used an elaborate ruse to trap him.
Codenamed 'Operation Chameleon', the sham came complete with a shell firm known as PacRim Import/Export Company.
Undercover agents posing as animal traders from the company imported and sold many of the reptiles Wong was charged with smuggling.
He was on his way to meet one such agent, George Morrison, whom Wong knew as reptile dealer 'Karl Hart', in September 1998 that Wong was arrested.
Said Mr Wong: 'When I saw George Morrison (at the airport at Mexico City), I had this 'game over' feeling. The first thing that came to my mind was my son. I couldn't bring myself to call home, I was ashamed.'
A Malaysian embassy official told him that he should make the call, he said. 'He gave me a 100 peso call card. By the time my son got to the phone, the line was disconnected. That really hurt.'
Five years since his release, he now lives with his wife and two children - a son and daughter in their 20s.
Does he feel any guilt about how his previous activities may have exacerbated the extinction of endangered animals?
He said: 'Everyone is contributing to species extinction. If you sit in an air-conditioned restaurant... (you are contributing to global warming and in turn, species extinction).
'With deforestation, habitats are lost and species go extinct. Endangered is relative. I still trade in wildlife - legally - and that's the only thing I do. But the quantity is not there anymore nor are there any (big) buyers.'
Reconsider if there are alternatives to avoid bottles being discarded
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 13 Aug 09;
THE ubiquitous bottle of mineral water that many of us can't seem to do without - especially in this heat - has come under the spotlight following a rural Australian town's decision last month to ban bottled water in its district.
And at home, Professor Tommy Koh, chairman of the Governing Council of the Asia-Pacific Water Forum, also touched on the hazards of importing and drinking bottled water in an article he co-authored for the PUB magazine, Pure.
In the article, Prof Koh urged the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources to write to all ministries, statutory boards, agencies, Temasek-linked companies and educational institutions to consider stopping the practice of serving bottled water.
Given the growing concern about the environmental impact of bottled water - among other things, discarded plastic bottles end up as litter or go into landfill - will businesses and organisations in Singapore review their use of bottled water?
The Public Utilities Board (PUB) said it is re-examining the ways it distributes Newater in order to reduce its use of plastic bottles.
Instead of giving out bottled Newater at events, one alternative being looked at is to use a water dispenser, a PUB spokeswoman told Today in response to queries on its use of plastic bottles for Newater.
According to the PUB, it manufactures 50 million gallons of Newater every day - the equivalent of 90 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
Some 2,000 litres of it - which can fill up over 5,700 bottles - are bottled for distribution to the public as part of the national water agency's public education campaigns.
This amount is less than 0.001 per cent of the amount of Newater being produced each day, said a spokeswoman.
Most of the Newater that PUB produces is supplied to factories, commercial and office buildings for air-con cooling through a dedicated distribution pipeline system.
When asked by Today if PUB should manufacture fewer bottles of Newater, Prof Koh pointed out that PUB is not in the business of selling bottled Newater and the latter is used for promoting public acceptance.
Dr Seetharam Kallidaikurichi, director of the Institute of Water Policy at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy, said the amount of bottled Newater is an insignificant quantity to cause any environmental concerns.
However, he added, the public should be made aware of the "unnecessary" buying of bottled water for drinking, especially in places where tap water is safe to drink, such as in houses and restaurants. This is because such a practice can turn into a habit and this will lead to even more plastic bottles being used - and discarded.
Some hotels - the sector is one where the use of bottled water is high - told Today that they are also looking at ways to reduce the use of such plastic bottles.
The Royal Plaza on Scotts hotel has stopped serving bottled water at meetings since the start of the year.
It places about 500 to 600 bottled water daily in its guestrooms and there are no plans to reduce this number now because the complimentary beverage bar in guestrooms is a unique selling point for the hotel, said a spokeswoman.
On why hotels serve bottled water in guestrooms, a spokeswoman from Meritus Mandarin Hotel said: "Generally, travellers (particularly from European countries) expect bottled water to be made available in the guestrooms. Also, bottled water is widely served in hotels Asia-wide."
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 13 Aug 09;
THE world's biggest compressed natural gas (CNG) refuelling station opened for business yesterday - barely four months after construction started.
The 7,066 sq m station in Old Toh Tuck Road near Jurong East, owned by gas bottler and cab operator Union Energy, has 46 pumps. Twenty-five are operational, with the rest expected to start dispensing gas when the station opens officially on Sept 9.
Union Energy managing director Teo Kiang Ang, who also runs taxi company Trans-Cab, said: 'The construction was very fast. Getting all the approvals took a year.'
He added that he is now looking to build a few more stations in the northern and eastern parts of Singapore.
With the Toh Tuck station, there are now four CNG stations serving users on the mainland.
Asked if the 4,200 or so CNG vehicles here - or 0.5 per cent of the total vehicle population - can support that many stations, Mr Teo was positive.
'Trans-Cab is aiming to have 3,000 more CNG taxis in the next 1-1/2 years or so. That's the minimum.'
The man who entered the cab industry only in 2004 now has more than 3,000 taxis on the road, with around 1,000 of them running on gas.
The newcomer is now Singapore's largest taxi group after ComfortDelGro.
Mr Teo said the station is operating very smoothly, and a convenience store operated by 7-Eleven has also just opened for business there.
Although it has been open to the public for only a day, the station is already a hit with taxi operators.
'The gas is the cheapest on the mainland, at $1.21 per kg,' said Mr Neo Nam Heng, managing director of Prime Taxis. 'And it has so many pumps.'
The $1.21 price, however, is only an introductory offer, and is expected to be adjusted to $1.32, which puts it close to the current price of CNG dispensed at Smart Energy's Mandai station.
Cabby Francis Cheh, 40, said the new station is well located, but he still prefers to go to the pump on high-security Jurong Island, as its gas costs $1.20 per kg. 'I live in Jurong, and I have a pass to enter Jurong Island,' he said.
Meanwhile, the craze among motorists to convert their cars to run on CNG seems to be losing steam.
C Melchers, a leading converter here, said business has been slow, and the company is looking to diversify, such as by importing CNG commercial vehicles.
Observers said reasons for the waning interest include petrol prices having come off their 2008 highs of more than $2 a litre - although rates have been creeping up of late - and the absence of conveniently located refuelling stations.
The Toh Tuck facility, which C Melchers helped to build, is expected to address the latter issue. It is the largest of its kind in the world. The next biggest one is in Bangkok, which has 44 pumps.
Business Times 13 Aug 09;
Urbanisation must be modified to suit local conditions: Sembcorp
IN exporting urban solutions, Singapore companies must not make the mistake of transplanting wholesale the Singapore model.
That word of caution comes indirectly from Low Sin Leng, executive chairman of Sembcorp Industrial Parks. What she says of her company's experience in Vietnam applies to other Singapore companies in other markets.
'There are many degrees of urbanisation,' she says. 'We must be realistic and not simply replicate Singapore's version of urbanisation in Vietnam. Urbanisation must be modified to suit local market readiness.'
Ms Low knows what she's talking about. Sembcorp Industrial Parks has been building industrial parks in Vietnam since 1994, pumping US$660 million into four huge projects totalling 4,845 hectares.
And the industrial parks - including the later ones which incorporate integrated industrial townships with high-rise apartments and villas and eco gardens - have all been pretty successful.
'These projects flourished by offering reliable utilities infrastructure and world-class manufacturing environment to an influx of foreign manufacturers keen to have access to cost-effective manufacturing sites from which to export electronics goods,' Ms Low says.
Built with local partners, Sembcorp's industrial parks in Vietnam have been 'vital' in helping the country transform 'rural land to self-sufficient industrial estates hosting global manufacturers, thereby generating positive national economic spinoffs in terms of provincial economic development and job creation'.
The new integrated townships aim to 'produce sustainable developments by way of good urban planning and improved utilities facilities with sound environmental systems'.
Ms Low says that there is no lack of business opportunities for Sembcorp, because many cities have ambitions to go urban - and International Enterprise Singapore has lots of recommendations.
'But as a commercial outfit, we have to be mindful in project selection,' she says. 'Location and timing are important considerations as well.'
There are growth opportunities in emerging markets, such as Vietnam, Cambodia, China and India.
'They like to leverage on Singapore's experience to expedite their own development,' Ms Low says. 'All know what they want, but how and who to implement it is what matters.'
She says that Singapore is looked to because 'we are good systems integrators and project implementers'.
'There is a certain level of expectation for Singapore-managed organisations,' Ms Low says. 'They are comfortable with Singapore's values and integrity, transparency and efficiency. It is a question of taking a project beyond the masterplan. That is where our success is.'
Little red dot with much to offer in urban planning
Chuang Peck Ming, Business Times 13 Aug 09;
WHAT do Singapore companies, coming from a tiny island, have to offer in urban solutions to big towns and cities elsewhere?
Plenty, says Jeffrey Ho of Surbana International Consultants, an offshoot of the Housing and Development Board.
'Singapore is one of five cities with the (world's) greatest population density,' the executive vice-president of Surbana's urban planning group points out.
'This gives us a special understanding of the issues of high-density living in cities,' he says. 'It qualifies us as an expert on compact urban development solutions.'
Mr Ho and his colleagues in Surbana's planning group 'have fundamentals that guide all our actions and thoughts'.
'These came from our Singapore experience, our heritage of nation building - internalised in our planning and design philosophy and acquired from our work at HDB and our participation in the Singapore Concept Plan.'
Mr Ho says that Surbana is therefore well-placed to tailor and apply the principles of Singapore's success in nation building to overseas markets.
'The iconic value of 'our little red dot' is most appreciated and sought after by overseas clients,' he says.
Coming from Singapore, which is recognised for good governance and long-term integrated planning, Mr Ho says that Surbana is seen as a professional urban planner that can provide 'tested, grounded, implementable solutions'.
'Because of Surbana's urban planning group's multi-culturism, we can address issues from a multi-faceted perspective,' he says. 'Over many years, we have completed many first-move projects that became global case studies. We are reputed to be capable of transforming all urban challenges into a liveable future.'
According to Mr Ho, a bright future as a global player awaits Singapore's providers of urban solutions.
In the short term, he sees urban solutions in demand to reduce and manage greenhouse gas emissions, promote greater accessibility, develop a wider range of transport options, conserve natural resources by using land more wisely and manage water resources.
In the mid to longer term, growth is not the issue, Mr Ho says. 'It's not about whether growth will occur, but how and where.'
Master-planning will be a key element in urban development, according to him. 'You must have a master plan to guide growth. The challenge is not to sprawl, but to continue to grow and create better suburbs and stronger cities - to focus on rebuilding the old before building new.'
Mr Ho says that the trend will move towards more compact development that relies on existing infrastructure.
So policies must encourage 'reconstruction, redevelopment, reinvestment and re-invention'.
Urbanisation opportunities beckon
Business Times 13 Aug 09;
Singapore companies with proven expertise in planning, building and managing cities have excellent prospects, reports CHUANG PECK MING
THE global march towards urbanisation is unstoppable - not even the deepest recession in 30 years is slowing it. And that should, at least, bring some sunshine to Singapore companies in these gloomy days.
'Urbanisation is a global mega trend,' points out Tham Poh Cheong, director of infrastructure, environmental & engineering services at International Enterprise (IE) Singapore.
Citing projections by the United Nations, he notes that half the world's population are already living in urban settings; by 2050, the number will jump to 70 per cent.
'By then, more than 20 megacities each with a population of at least 10 million will emerge,' Mr Tham says.
Many of these will be in China, the Middle East and South-east Asia.
'In China, the economic ripples created by the success of gateway cities such as Shanghai, Beijing and Guangzhou have spurred the growth of a new generation of Chinese cities such as Nanjing, Xian, Chengdu and Chongqing, which aspire to economic prosperity as well as a high quality of life for its residents,' Mr Tham says.
Environment-friendly
And, with the rising awareness of green issues, many of the cities also want to be environment-friendly.
In the Middle East, countries such as Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates are launching mega commercial and industrial projects in an attempt to reduce their reliance on oil and gas, and to diversify their economies.
Abu Dhabi has big plans to build a world-class city with massive investments in infrastructure, real estate development and cultural facilities. Likewise, Saudi Arabia is pumping billions of dollars into a series of mega economic cities to provide jobs and homes for its people.
Closer to home, escalating economic growth and urbanisation have led to demand for townships and industrial parks in countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam.
What have all these developments got to do with Singapore?
'They create enormous business opportunities for companies that are able to provide sustainable urban solutions in these cities,' Mr Tham says.
And that means Singapore companies with proven expertise in planning, building and managing cities.
'Singapore is a good model for sustainable solutions, and Singapore companies have gained the expertise from Singapore's history of physical transformation,' Mr Tham says.
Thus, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and, more recently, the World Bank have teamed up with Singapore to tap its experience in urban management and to share it with developing countries.
Not every Singapore company is in the business of providing urban solutions; in fact, many of the specialists in urbanisation work for the government. But the public sector also ropes in companies from the private sector to execute plans.
Partnerships
That is why Mr Tham says that 'Singapore companies have accumulated deep knowledge and rich experience in urban solutions'.
Indeed, Singapore now has a group of companies that can offer the whole value chain in urban solutions that few others can boast of.
Which is perhaps why IE Singapore, in pushing Singapore companies to go global, prefers that those in urban planning, building, civil engineering and management of industrial parks band together in venturing out.
'IE Singapore has actively encouraged a Singapore Inc approach to foster partnerships to secure key projects overseas,' Mr Tham says. 'Singapore companies can then combine resources and expertise to provide an attractive, complete value proposition in urban solutions. This will sharpen the competitive edge of our companies, thus maximising the chances of success.'
Better still, they should team up with government agencies such as PUB and URA, which have started their own international and consultancy arms.
'Working hand in hand with Singapore companies in the internationalisation thrust, their participation would facilitate and increase the chances of the companies in identifying and securing projects overseas,' Mr Tham says.
Singapore companies have built up a good track record in developing industrial and science-and-technology parks abroad. They are also prominent in township projects that incorporate residential, commercial, recreational and educational developments.
Keep venturing out
Cost-effectiveness, quality and sustainability are the hallmarks of Singapore's urban solutions companies, according to Mr Tham.
But Singapore companies should never rest on their laurels; instead, they must continue to strive to win more projects in the global markets.
Thus, IE Singapore has not stopped encouraging Singapore companies to venture out.
Martin Carvalho, The Star 13 Aug 09;
MALACCA: The Agriculture and Agro-based Industries Ministry plans to provide the much-needed funds to set up a hatchery for the critically endangered Hawksbill turtle at Pulau Upeh.
Minister Datuk Noh Omar said the Fisheries Department would be asked to look into the matter as the state government lacked the funds to realise the project.
“We will assist the state in the matter. I have directed the Fisheries Department to look into it,” he told reporters after opening the Farmers, Breeders and Fishermen Convention in Ayer Keroh here on Tuesday night.
Noh was commenting on the state government’s decision to revive an abandoned resort and chalet project on the 2.5ha Pulau Upeh that is home to about 100 turtle nests, representing over 20% of turtle nests in the peninsula.
However, last week, Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam said the project scheduled to start this month had been deferred until environmental and fisheries impact assessments are completed.
The state’s development plan also caused public outcry, including from WWF-Malaysia, which said the project would adversely affect the turtles.
Located off the reclaimed land in Limbongan, the island was abandoned in the mid-1990s and later sold to Tenaga Nasional Bhd for RM10.4mil as a training centre in 2003.
This year, the state bought it back for RM6.5mil.
State Rural and Agriculture Development committee chairman Datuk Mohd Hidhir Abu Hassan confirmed that the island had been gazetted as a wildlife sanctuary under the Wildlife and National Parks Department but added that the protection did not cover the island’s marine life.
Kat Austen, New Scientist 12 Aug 09;
It's 2004. Shares in Dow Chemical are tanking after news breaks that the company is to reverse its stance on the notorious industrial accident in Bhopal, India, at a plant run by its Union Carbide subsidiary. For 20 years, the company has resisted calls to increase the compensation offered to victims and clean up the site. Now it's decided to commit up to $12 billion to do so.
Why the change of heart? Dow representative Jude Finisterra, announcing the decision on the BBC World TV channel, explains that it's "the right thing to do". There's no comparison between the value of money and that of human life, he says. Fine sentiments, but expensive ones: within minutes, Dow shares have fallen by 3 per cent, the beginning of a slide that will ultimately wipe more than $2 billion off the company's value.
And that's the first Dow Chemical hears about it. The company says it doesn't have a spokesman named Finisterra, the announcement is a hoax, and it's made no promise to increase its commitment in Bhopal. Finisterra is actually Andy Bichlbaum, frontman for audacious pranksters the Yes Men.
Bichlbaum and fellow Yes Man Mike Bonanno target big business and its supporters, whose hypocrisy and callousness they aim to expose. As their new film, The Yes Men Fix the World, documents, their modus operandi is to put unexpected words into others' mouths and see what happens.
Posers
To that end, they've posed as officials of the World Trade Organization, the US Department of Housing and Urban Development, and ExxonMobil, among others, and routinely set up fake websites in the name of companies or organisations, sowing confusion about who's really saying what. This extends to their own identities: Bichlbaum and Bonanno aren't their real names. Sometimes the intention is to provoke shock and disgust at their targets' actions, sometimes it is to ridicule – but as with other pranksters, the biggest pay-offs come when they hoodwink their antagonists into giving themselves away.
At one point, for example, they present a corporate conference with an "Acceptable Risk Calculator" which determines how many lives can be lost if the profit is high enough – and sets out which nationalities can be paid off most cheaply. Their proposal is greeted with interest: it's "refreshing", they're told. Elsewhere, we see a host of free-market advocates bragging about how their lobbying prevented the US from signing up to the Kyoto protocol.
This approach has made The Yes Men plenty of enemies. Even some of those sympathetic to their causes think they push the boundaries of morality, and they've been accused of irresponsibility and thoughtlessness – for example, by giving false hope to victims of the Bhopal accident. So why do they do it?
The film forgoes the unsubtle voice-overs common among films with clear political agendas, mostly allowing the footage and interviews to speak for themselves. There are slightly patronising descriptions of the free-market ethos throughout the film, but they are sporadic and short-lived. There are also statements about the need for government regulation to protect human rights from being squashed in the pursuit of profit. But for the rest of the time the Yes Men leave it to the audience to draw their own conclusions.
Should, can't
Mine are that the Yes Men present visions of the world as it might be if ideas and minds weren't chained by "should" and "can't" – what real change might look like. The film culminates in this way, with the distribution of 80,000 copies of a fake edition of The New York Times. The cover date is six months into the future, and the spoof paper reports the end of the Iraq war and the switch to a "sane" economic regime, as well as advertisements from companies promising to dedicate themselves to good causes.
Impossible? Perhaps, but you could say the same about two ordinary men walking into the BBC and passing themselves off as representatives of one of the world's biggest companies. "Can't" is an over-used word.
The Yes Men Fix The World is showing in cinemas across the UK and will open in the US in October.
The Yes Men: 'Take to the streets'
Kat Austen, New Scientist 12 Aug 09;
Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno (not their real names) are the frontmen for the Yes Men. They got together to set up parody websites such as www.gwbush.com and graduated to huge anti-corporate, culture-jamming stunts targeting giants such as ExxonMobil and Dow Chemical. Their latest film, The Yes Men Fix the World, is showing now all over the UK and in the US later in October.
What are the Yes Men all about?
Bichlbaum: We want to make the point that if you let corporations do what they want, the world will go to hell in a hand basket. We advocate that citizens be able to decide their own futures rather than let big corporations do it.
What made you think that?
Bichlbaum: Mike and I grew up with serious distrust of power in all its forms. We both have grandfathers who died in the Holocaust and things like that have instilled in us how out of hand things can get if you just trust an ideology – and trusting an ideology is what has happened.
Look at the way that people excuse injustice: "It's the market, it's a necessary evil; like any other system it's just a kind of side effect, unfortunate." That's the way all ideologists have excused the horrors that their ideologies have unleashed on the world. They all think that it's doing basically a good job and yes, there are these problems like the Gulags or whatever, but...
Bonanno: We don't actually think that what we do is the best way to make change: there are a lot of other things that are far more important, like changing laws, holding companies accountable using the legal system, becoming politicians or protesting in the streets. I think that our actions can demonstrate that these forces that seem so insurmountable are actually fallible, or at least give people the feeling that it's possible to change.
Do you have an alternative system in mind?
Bichlbaum: We're not saying we need to do away with it entirely; we're not ideologists. What we've been doing is trying to say, let's just have a saner approach. We can figure out something else, surely; it can't be rocket science. It could be just a matter of understanding that we can't allow corporations to do whatever they want any more.
There are some fundamental problems with the system now that are just obvious, like corporate lobbying in Washington. Why not just rule it out? Then if people decide that we want healthcare for everyone, you won't have this $100 million effort to subvert it. Right now there's a big effort by people in the US to get universal healthcare. We want it, we voted for a president who promised it, and everybody's desire is for that; and yet it's clearly not going to happen because there are hundreds of millions of dollars arrayed against it.
From the pharmaceutical industry and the clinics?
Bichlbaum: Yes. Why is it right that they should be able to spend hundreds of millions of dollars to oppose our desires? It doesn't seem right. And one quick fix, one simple thing that's not ideological, is just to eliminate corporate lobbying in Washington.
What was your first act as the Yes Men?
Bichlbaum: We set up a fake World Trade Organization website in November 1999 because we couldn't make it to the Seattle protests. So we thought we'd do second best and set up the fake website to highlight through satire what we thought was bad about free-market globalisation. To our surprise a lot of people started writing to the website, thinking it was the real thing, and we eventually got invited to a conference as the WTO.
It took us about a month to realise that we should go, but we did, and we proposed various things in the name of the WTO to a small conference of lawyers in Salzburg, Austria. We said, "We should privatise the whole system of voting – basically allow corporations to buy votes directly from citizens via the internet. That cuts out the whole complex of lobbying and campaign finance and all that crap: just have the money go efficiently from point A to point B, cut out the middle man. It would just be better for all, it's a free-market solution to democracy."
People just sat there and absorbed it and applauded at the end and weren't shocked. So we just upped the volume continuously.
How do you feel about reactions to pranks like that one? Or to the one in which you unveiled an industry standard for determining how many deaths are acceptable when achieving large profits?
Bichlbaum: It's a continual surprise. There's lots of research [famously, Stanley Milgram's experiment and Philip Zimbardo's Stanford prison experiment] showing that, under certain conditions, when people are given a message by someone in authority they absorb it and do what the authority says. What's shocking isn't so much that people believe what we say or that we are the corporate people we're pretending to be: it's that they don't react when these entities say horrible things.
Bonanno: This authority thing is, I think, about human behaviour in general, wanting to respect authority, tending to go along with what people say if they are perceived to be in a position of authority. There's a certain amount of group behaviour, too. [Being among] a lot of people in an audience usually makes people less likely to react and to speak out than if they were alone, which is always surprising. You begin to realise that this also reflects on what we face in terms of really fixing the world. It's much easier for people to go along with the status quo.
And reason is not necessarily the way that people act. Reason is a nice construct and it works for making our way through life in a more sane way, but people aren't necessarily like that.
At one point Andy claimed to be a spokesman for Dow Chemical, saying Dow would pay whatever it took to clean up after the Bhopal disaster of 1984. What effect did that have?
Bonanno: We didn't expect there to be such an impact on the stock market. It wiped 3 per cent off Dow's stock price; we didn't expect that. There were reports that the US Securities and Exchange Commission was looking for us, and people suspected we might be short trading. There was a lot of suspicion, which is almost comic, but it just goes to show what point our culture has come to: like the only logical reason for doing a thing like that was to make money! It's totally absurd.
But then when we had to reflect on what it meant for the world at large, it was pretty sad because even corporate managers can't do the right thing. Even if they wanted to they would be punished by the market, by the system. That becomes the underlying thesis of our film: that we need to change the rules that allow the market to reward bad behaviour.
Why can't we just write letters and get things changed that way?
Bichlbaum: The historical precedent is that change only happens through people taking to the streets, in the US at least. In the Great Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt instituted national healthcare and a retirement plan, and labour laws, and allowed unions, and so on. All these things that everybody in the developed world takes for granted, especially in Europe, came out of the Great Depression in the US. But it didn't come out of Roosevelt: that wasn't in his plan when he took office. He had no idea what to do when he took office.
It was massive public pressure, regular people demanding these things, taking over relief offices and saying, "We need relief if we don't have jobs, we need to be kept alive." It was people in factories unionising, taking over factories and marching down the streets. There were a lot of people forcing the changes that Roosevelt conceded.
When the government didn't actively support the corporations, the workers got what they wanted, which is why it's great that we now have a president in the US who is basically on our side and is not going to actively support the corporations against people, probably. It gives us hope that if we take to the streets we're going to get what we need because we're going to be demanding it.
The same is true in other struggles: like with the abolition of slavery, you had a president who was basically sympathetic but it was mass movement that created that abolition. And segregation, and of course the end of apartheid in South Africa. It's always people.
Making their voices heard... So is climate change where they are making noise? Is that going to be your next mission?
Bichlbaum: When you have very powerful, wealthy, entrenched interests in the US fighting action on climate change, the only way to fight is to take to the streets and demand action. We have a president and a lot of people in Congress who wouldn't mind doing the right thing, but they're beholden to certain interests. If they can point to people protesting, then they have proof the public want action. They can say to the industrial forces pressuring them, "I can't do what you're telling me to do because people are taking to the streets." This is a crucial part of democracy.
Will it work? What about climate change deniers?
Bichlbaum: We don't know. We hope so. There are millions and millions of people who feel very strongly that it's a big problem we need to do something about. Even if a small percentage of them take to the streets, they are going to be visible. We have a project to appeal to the climate change deniers: we're asking people to write tabloid articles in the style of climate deniers. We're going to launch them in a website later this month: see www.theyesmen.org/blog/become-a-tabloid-writer.
Your day jobs are in academia. What do you make of the way research is funded?
Bonanno: We feel strong affinity and sympathy for all the people who are doing sometimes amazing research projects that can't get funded because the commercial application isn't a big money maker. There may well be an important commercial application: like in pharmaceuticals, when chronic illness is privileged over curable illness because it makes a whole lot more money. You've got to wonder what our priorities are.
David Cohen, New Scientist 12 Aug 09;
Over 20 years ago, Douglas Adams, author of The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, and zoologist Mark Carwardine travelled the world to find its most endangered species. Now Adams's friend Stephen Fry has retraced his steps for a TV documentary. David Cohen meets the comedian, techno-geek and accidental environmentalist to talk about extinctions and iPhones
You're not known for being interested in ecology. So what got you interested in wildlife?
That's true. I was never a bug hunter or a collector but I have always been curious about wildlife. This series is all down to Douglas: I house-sat for him in the year he and Mark Carwardine went travelling to research Last Chance to See, the book it's named after.
Then Douglas's brother got in touch [Douglas Adams died in 2001]. It was nearly 25 years since Douglas and Mark had decided on their first visit to Nosy Mangabe, an island off Madagascar, in search of the aye-aye, which propelled them to write the book. He asked if I thought the BBC would be interested in Mark and me revisiting the same places to see what had happened. After a lot of hard work, here we are.
Had things got worse since Adams's visit?
Each place has its own unique problems. In Madagascar a slash-and-burn policy over the past 60 years has devastated four-fifths of one of the most remarkable forests there ever was. That is what threatens the lemur population in Madagascar, as opposed to the [central African] northern white rhino, now extinct in the wild, which has more to do with poaching and the cross-border incursions of whatever war is going on.
Did anything fire you up in particular?
The problem of the oceans. So many species of fish are in such appalling danger. I won't have children, but I'll have nephews and nieces, and great-nephews and nieces, and I can't see how they will ever eat a fish. They may see one in an aquarium, but the oceans are being fished out at an appalling rate. It's terrifying.
Did you bone up on the animals before you went, or did you want to be a naive pair of eyes?
Naive, but not in a disingenuous way. I'm not trying to be another David Attenborough. I have a sticky memory so I tend to remember things even though I haven't experienced them. So I couldn't pretend I'd never heard of a pangolin or didn't know what "pelagic" means. But I can ask on behalf of others.
Do you think our efforts at conservation are taking us in the right direction?
The will is there. The problem is that there are people in the natural history world who are not particularly scientific. It's easy to get hung up on your pet species and forget where that species fits into its habitat. Sometimes empiricism can get ditched in favour of a sentimental view. I'm not saying I'm not prone to burst into tears at some sights nature provides: watching turtle hatchlings run into the sea is an extraordinary spectacle that fills one with joy and excitement. I'm not saying one should hold back from an affection for a particular species. I just worry that charities jostle for our attention to push their species at the expense of habitat, which is really the key.
So what should we do?
It's not only the habitat and the animals, but also the humans in that habitat that need to be understood. For example, you can't tell people in Borneo not to cut rainforest or plant palm oil trees unless you also address the issues of population, poverty and the whole nature of the economies of developing countries.
Did the journey change you in any way?
Take the spectacled bears, Tremarctos ornatus, that I visited in South America for a different TV series a few years ago. Now, if I was to visit them again I would try to understand the hill farmers in the cloud forest in Peru and Ecuador, rather than just saying, "Let's rescue these bears." It's not as if we're going to expel man from any country. It's about coexistence.
Do you want to inspire people to follow you?
Let's not be cute about it: if people don't go to Uganda then the gorillas will die. Because of the vagaries of television I have a voice. I have half-a-million Twitter followers and a website with a million unique visitors every month, and I guess that has an influence. Tourism is not the enemy - in most places it's part of the solution. Let's not get all righteous about climate change and say that just because you like travelling the world you are a hypocrite. Take the example of the mountain gorillas. There are only a few hundred of them left: the only way of paying for the mountain rangers to keep them alive is for people to go to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in Uganda and see them.
You have a phenomenal following on Twitter, and you're famous for being a bit of a gadget fiend. Where does your techno-lust come from?
It started a long time ago. I had early computers: the Sinclairs and then a BBC Micro, which I liked. Then I was the second person in Europe to have an Apple Mac, after Douglas - who was the first. I was on the internet in the late 1980s when it was a world of WAIS and FTP and Gopher, but obviously no web. Then when the Mosaic web browser came out in 1993 I built a website. I won the Lipton Ice Tea cool website award in 1996. In 1997 I wrote the occasional speech for Tony Blair, and Peter Mandelson [then Labour Party election campaign director] came to stay with me and I showed him his first website. Blair was about to make a speech about "access to computers for every child", but they had absolutely no idea about the web and computers.
I see you have an iPhone...
It's unbelievable. I wrote in a blog that I have never seen a smartphone I haven't bought. I have cupboards and cupboards of them. I particularly love the convergence of wireless technologies in smartphones: GSM, HSDPA, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth. It's amazing, but we're nowhere near perfection yet.
In the 1960s the clever chaps who went on to work at PARC [Xerox's Palo Alto Research Center in California] posited a thing called the Dynabook. It was a sort of Platonic ideal of what a device could be, an all-in-one device that you could interface with in whatever way you wanted. It was your source of literature, communication, art and music. The iPhone is the closest we've come to that so far.
Is the time we're all spending online or with our gadgets taking us away from nature?
Yes, but it's not the case that everyone just sits in front of a computer. They do both. It's equally a pity if someone just goes on nature rambles and never tries to play a computer game. They are missing out on what it's about to be alive now. You don't have to like it, but you might try it out. These technologies are phenomena we barely understand in terms of their social impact. To characterise it as people shutting off from the world and sneering at them is a gross disservice to the technology, but more importantly to the people who use it.
Can humans and technology coexist happily?
I admit the change is strong and may seem bewildering, and it probably should seem bewildering. It's a bit like what Niels Bohr said about quantum mechanics: "If you're not shocked by it, you don't understand it." If we're not shocked by the way our world is changing, then we probably haven't grasped how much it's changing. Taking a view that technology somehow muffles the human spirit is like saying that concrete is bad because it destroys grass. Anyone who's seen a pavement knows that grass can push up through concrete. The human spirit is the same - it can push up through any amount of sealing-off.
Matt Walker, BBC News 12 Aug 09;
A new species of giant carnivorous plant has been discovered in the highlands of the central Philippines.
The pitcher plant is among the largest of all pitchers and is so big that it can catch rats as well as insects in its leafy trap.
During the same expedition, botanists also came across strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms they could not identify.
The botanists have named the pitcher plant after British natural history broadcaster David Attenborough.
They published details of the discovery in the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society earlier this year.
Word that this new species of pitcher plant existed initially came from two Christian missionaries who in 2000 attempted to scale Mount Victoria, a rarely visited peak in central Palawan in the Philippines.
With little preparation, the missionaries attempted to climb the mountain but became lost for 13 days before being rescued from the slopes.
On their return, they described seeing a large carnivorous pitcher plant.
That pricked the interest of natural history explorer Stewart McPherson of Red Fern Natural History Productions based in Poole, Dorset, UK and independent botanist Alastair Robinson, formerly of the University of Cambridge, UK and Volker Heinrich, of Bukidnon Province, the Philippines.
All three are pitcher plant experts, having travelled to remote locations in the search for new species.
So in 2007, they set off on a two-month expedition to the Philippines, which included an attempt at scaling Mount Victoria to find this exotic new plant.
Accompanied by three guides, the team hiked through lowland forest, finding large stands of a pitcher plant known to science called Nepenthes philippinensis , as well as strange pink ferns and blue mushrooms which they could not identify.
As they closed in on the summit, the forest thinned until eventually they were walking among scrub and large boulders
"At around 1,600 metres above sea level, we suddenly saw one great pitcher plant, then a second, then many more," McPherson recounts.
"It was immediately apparent that the plant we had found was not a known species."
Pitcher plants are carnivorous. Carnivorous plants come in many forms, and are known to have independently evolved at least six separate times. While some have sticky surfaces that act like flypaper, others like the Venus fly trap are snap traps, closing their leaves around their prey.
Pitchers create tube-like leaf structures into which insects and other small animals tumble and become trapped.
The team has placed type specimens of the new species in the herbarium of the Palawan State University, and have named the plant Nepenthes attenboroughii after broadcaster and natural historian David Attenborough.
"The plant is among the largest of all carnivorous plant species and produces spectacular traps as large as other species which catch not only insects, but also rodents as large as rats," says McPherson.
The pitcher plant does not appear to grow in large numbers, but McPherson hopes the remote, inaccessible mountain-top location, which has only been climbed a handful of times, will help prevent poachers from reaching it.
During the expedition, the team also encountered another pitcher, Nepenthes deaniana , which had not been seen in the wild for 100 years. The only known existing specimens of the species were lost in a herbarium fire in 1945.
On the way down the mountain, the team also came across a striking new species of sundew, a type of sticky trap plant, which they are in the process of formally describing.
Thought to be a member of the genus Drosera , the sundew produces striking large, semi-erect leaves which form a globe of blood red foliage.
Endangered diversity gives lessons
Massie Santos Ballon, Philippine Daily Inquirer 15 Aug 09;
Filed Under: Environmental Issues, Natural Resources (general)
DESPITE their name, I think of pitcher plants as carnivorous, flip-top jugs without handles. And I think they’re fascinating because these plants lure insects into examining the inside from the inside and then trap and eat them.
Pitcher plants belong to several different genera, including Nepenthes, and some 16 different Nepenthes pitcher plant species one already named for this country are native to the Philippines.
Reinforcing the nation’s title as the region with the third-largest collection of Nepenthes diversity, British and Filipino researchers have recently identified still another pitcher plant species on a mountaintop in Palawan.
In the February issue of the Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society, researchers from England’s University of Cambridge, Germany’s LMU Munich and the Philippines’ Palawan State University reported finding a new species of pitcher plant within a 10-square-kilometer region of Mount Victoria.
This new species has larger pitchers compared to other pitcher plants found in the area, and the pitchers aren’t as rounded, being shaped more like trumpets.
Significance
When it came to naming the new species, it seemed fitting that the name should have significance to both nations represented.
“We have chosen to name this species after the [British] broadcaster and naturalist, Sir David Attenborough, whose astounding television documentaries have made the world’s natural history accessible and understandable to millions,” the researchers wrote in their paper.
“As a keen enthusiast of the genus and a patron of Philippine conservation efforts, it is fitting that this spectacular new species be dedicated to him on the occasion of his 80th birthday.”
While N. attenboroughii was found on Mount Victoria, researchers have also found it in a few areas throughout Palawan.
Based on the number of plants found though, this pitcher plant species is already considered critically endangered in accordance with the World Conservation Union Red List Criteria.
If you’re inclined to be cynical, then you might think that announcing the existence of a newly discovered and threatened species might hasten its extinction as collectors have them removed from the wild.
As a counterweight, consider that in early August, several dozen critically endangered Philippine crocodiles that had been raised in captivity were released into the wilds of the Northern Sierra Madre Natural Park located near the Central Luzon provinces of Aurora and Isabela.
Protected habitat
Since the park is the largest protected habitat in the country and is already home to several other rare and endangered species, among them the Philippine eagle, the Philippine eagle-owl, several turtle species and the dugong, moving the crocodiles here suggests that endangered species aren’t quite ready to disappear yet.
If you’re an optimist, then the discovery of a new plant species confirms a recent report from the World Wildlife Fund’s Nepal office that says more than 350 new species have been discovered in the Eastern Himalayas in the past decade.
Among these discoveries are a bright green frog that “glides” in the air using its large webbed feet, a tiny deer considered the oldest and smallest deer species, and the first scorpion discovered in Nepal.
I said at the beginning that I think the pitcher plants are cool, but I don’t think they feel the same way. Some years ago I had a nonendangered, Nepenthes-species pitcher plant that I planned to use as a natural pest control.
I thought it would feast on the flies and mosquitoes that liked dining on me, but I think it starved to death instead.
Lesson learned: either place the plant where the insects abound, or else feed the plant much smaller pieces of raw meat.
Richard Harris, NPR 12 Aug 09;
When we burn fossil fuels, we are not just putting carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. A lot of it goes into the sea. There, carbon dioxide turns into carbonic acid. And that turns ocean water corrosive, particularly to shellfish and corals.
Biologists are now coming to realize that rising acid levels in the ocean can affect many other forms of sea life as well.
Visit Moss Landing, Calif., in the spring and at first blush it seems marine life is flourishing. Sea lions, weighing in at 600 pounds or more, jostle for space and spar with one another as they try to cram themselves onto docks that groan under their weight.
Marine biologist Eric Pane looks on approvingly at what seems to be part of a Pacific success story. Up and down the coast, biologists see healthy populations of marine mammals, fish and other wildlife.
But as we cross the street and head into his laboratory at the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, Pane's outlook about the future of life in the sea takes a dark turn. His budding career as a marine biologist is framed by an ominous trend: civilization is venting carbon dioxide from tailpipes, smokestacks and chimneys at a prodigious rate.
"And at least a third of it so far, has actually ended up in our oceans," Pane says. "(That's) sort of good and bad news because it has prevented more CO2 from accumulating in the atmosphere but it comes at a price. More CO2 in the ocean leads to it being acidified."
Acidity is measured on the pH scale. Already, the oceans are a tenth of a unit more acidic. And by the end of the century, the pH is expected to change by half a unit. But don't be fooled by these modest-sounding numbers.
"So we say 'only' — 'only' half a unit. What's the big deal about that? Well, that's a tripling of acidity," Pane says. "That's a three-fold increase.
That's because the pH scale is logarithmic, so each unit increase actually represents a ten-fold increase in acidity.
Examining Acidity's Effects On Animals
Over the past half-dozen years, marine biologists studying ocean acidification have focused mostly on the animals they assume will be the most vulnerable, such as coral reefs and shellfish. If acid levels in the ocean get too high, their shells can literally dissolve.
Pane is part of a second wave of research on ocean acidification as biologists try to understand the consequences for all the life in the sea.
"Right now we're scrambling and we're trying to get our feet beneath us," he says.
The simplest issue, he says, is to understand how organisms respond to acidification — as well as how the ecosystem responds.
"We're trying at this point to get as many animals as we can across a spectrum of invertebrates [and] vertebrates," he says. "All we can get to, basically so we can get them into the lab and expose them to these different scenarios of CO2."
Pane's lab is focusing on animals that live in relatively deep water. Many live nearby. There's an enormous underwater canyon just offshore, slicing through Monterey Bay.
"We've got gastropods, marine snails. We've had brachiopods," he says. "We've worked with decapod crabs, basic crustacea. We're hoping to get some smaller fish in, down in our seawater lab facility."
At a lab bench inside the facility, three-inch-long marine snails sit in a glass dish. They came from 700 meters offshore. The snails have holes drilled in the top of their shells to make it easier for researchers to draw frequent blood samples.
Different Animals, Different Challenges
Each animal they want to study presents different challenges — whether it's getting a blood sample from a snail or figuring out how to keep deep sea fish alive in the lab. It's also not always so obvious what effects to look for.
A change in acid can actually impose a subtle "energy tax" on marine animals. They already use some energy pumping acid out of their cells to maintain a healthy pH. As the oceans get more acidic, Pane says, the animals will be forced to expend more energy to maintain that balance.
That means less energy for such things as growing and reproducing, Pane says.
"So we're going to be looking at growth rates of organisms over a long time," he says. "We're going to be looking at fecundity, amount of offspring produced. The health of offspring produced. And then try to extrapolate in a long term approach into what's going to happen to these ecosystems that we know."
It's too early to say, just yet, what this portends for life at sea — up to and including the fat and happy sea lions down on the dock.
"I think the least we can say is there's going to be profound changes to ocean ecosystems. From there, where we go and the judgments we make about that is an issue for further on."
Marine biology sounds to most people like an exciting career, but Pane says his work is actually a bit depressing. "Within a few years there's going to be change basically, and I'm not sure how it's going to work out."
Changing The Ocean's Chemistry
There are just a few people in the world who have actually been thinking about ocean acidification for decades. And one of those is down the hall from Pane. Peter Brewer realized that something was amiss with the ocean's chemistry back in the 1960s, and he's seen the problem grow much, much worse.
"The quantity of carbon dioxide we've put in the ocean is now well over 500 billion tons," he says. "And you can't just transfer that much mass without making changes to the physical properties as well as the biological properties."
Brewer says the carbon dioxide has already altered ocean chemistry in such a way that it affects the way sound travels through the ocean. That effect will grow, as more and more carbon dioxide ends up in the sea.
"One assumes that whales, which communicate at these frequencies, will sense this effect," Brewer says. "Whether they will adapt their communication patterns, one does not know."
Scientists may simply have to wait and watch to see how that unintentional human experiment evolves. But they won't have to wait much longer to see what rising acid levels will do to ecosystems at the bottom of the sea.
An Undersea Experiment
Brewer takes us to a lab where scientists are working on an instrument that will eventually study carbon dioxide increases right on the sea floor.
It has a green metal frame, bigger than a car, with Plexiglas wings that can unfurl underwater. One of the technicians is sitting right in the middle of the machine... where a test chamber will be.
"We can put some animals in there, add some carbon dioxide," Brewer explains. "It will flow through the chamber. We can create a change and we can observe behavior and make measurements."
Studying animals on the ocean bottom would, after all, be a more realistic experiment than a lab study — presuming they can get the test chamber to do a good job of simulating future ocean conditions. It'll probably take another year to sort out the technical challenges of getting this instrument to work well.
And while those problems seem solvable, Brewer ponders the enormous societal problems that created the acidity problem in the first place.
"We're all in a bind here," he says. "It's going to be very hard to maintain this number of people on the planet and not have these problems. It worries me that scientists sound the alarm but don't come up with solutions. We're going to have to try."
Technology has revolutionized ocean science during his career. He can only hope that it will also revolutionize the way we produce energy — before the oceans suffer irreparable harm.
Andy Coghlan, New Scientist 12 Aug 09;
The famous Galapagos finches could be among the first casualties of mosquitoes that are stowing away on aircraft, potentially bringing fatal viruses to the islands.
Live mosquitoes captured in the holds of aircraft arriving on the Galapagos from mainland Ecuador were found to survive and breed on the islands. Although none of the captured mosquitoes carried lethal viruses such as the West Nile virus (WNV) – which decimated bird populations in the US after arriving in New York in 1999 – they have the potential to do so.
WNV has been reported in Colombia and Argentina, and could have reached Ecuador, says Simon Goodman of the University of Leeds, who co-led the research team. It is not only the finches that are at risk. "West Nile virus also affects reptiles and mammals, and so could impact other iconic Galapagos species such as marine iguanas and sea lions," Goodman says.
Wildlife threat
Goodman and his colleagues found 74 live insects after searching the holds of 93 aircraft landing on Baltra Island in the Galapagos. Of these, six were Culex quinquefasciatus mosquitoes, which transmit WNV and the parasite that causes bird malaria. Two more were caught in aircraft that landed on nearby San Cristobal.
"The consequences for wildlife could be severe," says Marm Kilpatrick of the University of California, Santa Cruz. The findings are probably an underestimate of the true numbers of mosquitoes arriving, he says.
By comparing genes from mosquitoes caught on the mainland with those on the Galapagos, the researchers were able to show that arrivals from Ecuador survive and breed with Galapagos mosquitoes.
Goodman recommends stepping up the spraying of aircraft with insecticide before they leave mainland Ecuador.
Journal reference: Proceedings of the Royal Society B, DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2009.0998
Galapagos face ecological disaster due to tourism: study
Yahoo News 12 Aug 09;
LONDON, (AFP) – Mosquitoes brought into the Galapagos on tourist planes and boats threaten to wreak "ecological disaster" in the islands, central to Darwin's theory of evolution, a study said Wednesday.
The insects can spread potentially lethal diseases in the archipelago off Ecuador's Pacific coast, used by Charles Darwin as the basis of his seminal work "On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection".
"Few tourists realise the irony that their trip to Galapagos may actually increase the risk of an ecological disaster," said Simon Goodman of Leeds University, one of the study's co-authors.
"That we haven't already seen serious disease impacts in Galapagos is probably just a matter of luck."
The study found that the southern house mosquito, Culex quinquefasciatus, was regularly hitching rides on planes from the South American mainland, and island-hopping on tourist boats between the different islands.
Species threatened by diseases such as avian malaria or West Nile include the islands' best-known residents, its giant tortoises, as well as marine iguanas, sea lions and finches.
Arnaud Bataille, another researcher on the eight-page study, said: "On average the number of mosquitoes per aeroplane is low, but many aircraft arrive each day from the mainland in order to service the tourist industry."
Worse, "the mosquitoes seem able to survive and breed once they leave the plane," he added.
Goodman noted that Ecuador recently introduced a requirement for all aircraft flying to the Galapagos to have insecticide treatment, but said similar moves are needed for ships, and the impact needs to be evaluated.
"With tourism growing so rapidly, the future of Galapagos hangs on the ability of the Ecuadorian government to maintain stringent biosecurity protection for the islands," he said.
The study, co-authored by Leeds University, the Zoological Society of London, the University of Guayaquil, the Galapagos National Park and the Charles Darwin Foundation, was published in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society, Britain's de-facto academy of sciences.
Some 10,000 people, mostly fishermen, live on the volcanic Galapagos archipelago, which rose from the Pacific seabed 10 million years ago and became famous when Darwin visited to conduct research in 1835.
Stowaway mosquitoes threaten Galapagos wildlife
Ben Hirschler, Reuters 12 Aug 09;
LONDON (Reuters) - The unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islandsis under threat from disease-carrying mosquitoes arriving on board growing numbers of aircraft and tourist boats, researchers said on Wednesday.
Experts fear the spread of the southern house mosquito, or Culex quinquefasciatus, could have the same devastating effect in the Galapagos as in Hawaii during the late 19th century, when disease wiped out many indigenous birds.
The mosquito was first spotted in the Galapagos in the mid-1980s, but its presence then was considered a one-off.
Now research by British and Ecuadorean scientists has found the insects are, in fact, transported regularly by plane and are island-hopping on boats, spreading throughout the archipelago.
Genetic tests also confirm they are able to survive and breed once they arrive at their new home.
"More ships and more aircraft are coming to the Galapagos every year and the risk of something being introduced is growing all the time," said Leeds University researcher Simon Goodman.
"That we haven't already seen serious disease impacts in Galapagos is probably just a matter of luck." The southern house mosquito is a carrier of diseases including avian malaria, avian pox and West Nile fever.
It was brought to Hawaii in water barrels on whaling ships, leading to diseases that are blamed for wiping out many bird species. Only 19 out of 42 species and subspecies of honeycreeper now remain in Hawaii.
Goodman and colleagues, who published their findings in the Proceedings of the Royal Society, fear everything is in place for a similar wipe-out in the Galapagos, given the rapid growth in transport links with the mainland.
Tourism is a major source of income for the Galapagos and is growing by around 14 percent a year.
The government of Ecuador recently introduced a requirement for insecticide spraying on aircraft flying to the Galapagos, but the scientists said the scheme's effectiveness was not being monitored and the rules did not apply to cargo ships.
Mosquitoes are the latest in a string of invaders -- including rats, wild pigs, flies and invasive plants -- that have colonized the Pacific islands, located about 600 miles off South America's coast along the equator.
British naturalist Charles Darwin developed his theory of evolution in the 19th century after studying the islands' unique animal population.
ScienceDaily 11 Aug 09;
A team of scientists from the University of Toronto, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources and the University of Guelph has identified a drastic invasion of round goby into many Great Lakes tributaries, including several areas of the Thames, Sydenham, Ausable and Grand Rivers. A number of the affected areas are known as "species-at-risk" hot spots.
"This invasion poses many potential threats for native species of fish and mussels," says Mark Poos, a PhD Candidate in U of T's Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology.
Poos is lead author of the study published recently in the international journal Biological Invasions. Up to 89 per cent of fish species and 17 per cent of mussel species are either known or suspected to be affected by the goby invasion. Of particular concern is the impact on species that have a conservation designation, including such endangered species as the small eastern sand darter fish and mussels such as the wavy rayed lampmussel.
The Great Lakes and its tributaries are Canada's most diverse aquatic ecosystems, but are also the most fragile, notes Poos. Several of these rivers hold species found nowhere else in Canada, including 11 endangered species and two threatened species. Furthermore, the round goby, an aggressive ground-feeder, is a threat to three globally rare species: the rayed bean, northern riffleshell and snuffbox mussels.
Round gobies entered the St. Clair River in 1990 likely through ballast water from ocean-going ships. Despite over 15 years of potential invasion through natural dispersal from the Great Lakes into tributaries, the round goby threat did not manifest itself until now. "It was previously thought that these high-diversity areas were immune to invasion. This study shows that this is likely not the case," says Poos. He advises anglers to be watchful for round goby and if they catch one: do not release it back into the water. Other tips to prevent the spread of round goby include not releasing live bait into the water, draining your boat before leaving any water access and never transferring fish from one location to another.
If people do catch round goby they should report the capture to http://www.invadingspecies.com.
Adapted from materials provided by University of Toronto. Original article written by Kim Luke.
Susan Montoya Bryan, Associated Press Yahoo News 13 Aug 09;
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. – American wildlife officials and ranchers are raising questions over a plan to release a rare North American gray wolf to its historic range in northern Mexico: Will it stay south of the border and what can be done if it threatens livestock?
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service said this week it learned of the plan to release captive-bred Mexican gray wolves during a meeting with Mexican officials.
A male, female and two yearlings could be released in Sonora state, bordering Arizona and New Mexico, as early as October. Another release is planned for December and more could happen next year as part of an effort by both countries to return the wolves to the wild.
"I think we kind of assumed it would happen eventually but we didn't realize it was going to happen this quickly," said Charna Lefton, regional spokeswoman with the Fish and Wildlife Service in Albuquerque.
The Mexican agency that oversees natural resources and the environment, known as SEMARNAT, did not immediately respond to telephone and email requests for comment.
While wildlife officials and conservationists generally support the move, Lefton says "everyone is asking the same questions."
What if the wolves cross into the United States? Will they be protected under the federal Endangered Species Act? Or will they have the same "nonessential, experimental" designation as wolves released as part of a reintroduction effort in New Mexico and Arizona?
The Fish and Wildlife Service has posed those questions to the agency's attorneys and are hoping for answers in coming weeks. The agency also plans another meeting with Mexican officials.
The Mexican wolf, a subspecies of the gray wolf, was exterminated in the wild in the Southwest by the 1930s after a campaign by the federal government to control the predator.
A handful of wolves were captured in Mexico in the late 1970s to save the animal from extinction. In 1998, the U.S. government began reintroducing wolves along the Arizona-New Mexico line in a 4 million-acre territory. Biologists had hoped to have at least 100 wolves by now, but recent surveys show about half that. It's unclear how many wolves are in Mexico's Sonora state.
The wolves in Arizona and New Mexico do not have full protection under the Endangered Species Act because they are designated as "experimental," giving game officials greater flexibility to manage them and even allows permanent removal — by capturing or killing — after three confirmed livestock kills in a year.
Conservationists contend any wolves found outside the reintroduction area in the two states would be protected under the Endangered Species Act unless the Fish and Wildlife seeks a contrary rule.
Wolves returning to the wild in Mexico only complicates a troubled effort in the United States, especially if the animals cross the border, said Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers' Association.
"You've got the potential of wolves coming down on you from the north that have one endangered status, and you've got wolves coming from the south that may have a different status," she said. "How are you supposed to tell the difference?"
Conservationists are encouraged by Mexico's plans, saying more wolves in the wild will help ensure species survival. If the U.S. and Mexico populations mingle, that would bolster the animal's limited genetic pool.
Reuters 12 Aug 09;
DHAKA (Reuters) - The United States and Germany have agreed to donate $19 million for the reforestation of a Bangladesh wildlife sanctuary under a global climate change mitigation project, the U.S. embassy said on Wednesday.
Low-lying Bangladesh, a country of some 150 million people, is at risk from rising world sea levels caused by climate change, with experts warning of millions of people being forced out of from their homes and encroaching into forests.
The funds will be used for the reforestation of Chunati Wildlife Sanctuary, a major corridor for the movement of Asian elephants between Myanmar and Bangladesh and home to an important timber species under threat.
The sanctuary lies about 350 km (219 miles) southeast of Dhaka.
Under the project, to be implemented over the next four years, trees will be planted to help restore 2,000 hectares of forest land and to decrease carbon emissions in the region.
The project will help restore the severely degraded sanctuary, raise awareness through public education, and create alternative income opportunities for over 125,000 people who live in communities in and around Chunati, a U.S. embassy statement said.
Sea levels rose 17 cm (6 inches) in the 20th century and the U.N. Climate Panel estimated in 2007 they could rise by another 18-59 cm by 2100, and perhaps even more if a thaw of Greenland or Antarctica accelerates.
Bangladesh is considered among the most vulnerable countries to climate change with millions living less than a meter above sea level.
(Reporting by Nizam Ahmed; Editing by Sugita Katyal)
Reuters 12 Aug 09;
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Kenya said on Wednesday it would plant 7.6 billion trees over the next 20 years to redress decades of chopping down forest cover, the effect of which is now being felt in acute water and power shortages.
Just 3 percent of land in the agriculture-based east African economy is covered by forests that are protected by the authorities, compared with a government target of 10 percent.
"We will have to plant 4.1 million hectares in order to make a percentage that is internationally acceptable," Environment Minister John Michuki told reporters.
"You are talking about 7.6 billion trees," he said. "In my estimation, it is going to cost us $20 billion over 20 years."
That amount is nearly twice the government's annual spending, which will be about $11 billion in fiscal 2009/10.
By comparison, the authorities in Nairobi expect to spend just over $650 million this year on the country's crumbling roads, and around $400 million on energy projects.
The impact of forest destruction is being felt by Kenyans, with rivers drying up and hydro-electric power generation, farm production and tourism all suffering as a result.
Kenya's biggest forest, the Mau, has lost a quarter of its 400,000 hectares in recent years to unchecked human settlement, illegal logging and the burning of charcoal.
A report released by Prime Minister Raila Odinga last month showed that politicians had been allocated large parcels of Mau land by corrupt officials, mostly during the 1990s.
Michuki was speaking at the launch of a solar-charged mobile phone handset costing just 2,999 shilling ($39) by Safaricom, the nation's leading mobile operator.
There are some 18 million active SIM cards in Kenya. But only about 18 percent of its 36 million people have electricity in their homes. Mobile users in rural areas not linked to the national grid often have problems charging their phones.
(Reporting by Helen Nyambura-Mwaura; Editing by Daniel Wallis)
($1=76.65 Kenyan Shilling)
Brian Handwerk, National Geographic News 12 Aug 09;
Hungry pests cost farmers millions in crops losses each year, resulting in the widespread use of chemical pesticides, to which many bugs eventually become immune.
But one effective deterrent is clean, green, and sustainable—the wasps, flies, ladybugs, and other predators that happily feast on crop pests.
Scientists and farmers are learning to make better use of this powerful weapon by reshaping the landscape to create abundant habitat for pest predators, encouraging them to make farms their homes.
Rebecca Chaplin-Kramer, a doctoral candidate at the University of California, Berkeley, released the results of her multiyear "biological control" study last week at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
Promoting predator habitat doesn't have the instant impact of pesticides, but it could be highly sustainable, as established predator populations can thrive indefinitely, Chaplin-Kramer noted. (Learn more about sustainable agriculture.)
Inviting pest predators might also save money. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates that farmers spend more than U.S. $30 billion a year on pest control—and the cost continues to climb. (Related: "Pesticides Float From Distant Farms to Protected Forests, Study Says.")
Yet pests still wipe out more than a third of potential crops. In addition, more than 500 pest species have developed resistance to chemicals that once kept them in check.
Happily Harboring Killers
Previous studies had shown that diverse landscapes promote bigger populations of pest predators. But it's tough to evaluate the effect that farmers really care about: how much pest control such predators actually provide.
Chaplin-Kramer is hoping to find out.
She's been working in the fields of California's Salinas Valley since 2006, examining how predator habitat can provide pest control on both the local level—that is, within a farm's fields—and in the surrounding landscape.
Chaplin-Kramer specifically studies the cabbage aphid, the plague of many broccoli crops and favored prey of the syrphid fly.
She first surveyed a handful of test farms that mixed their crops with hedgerows, weeds, and even strips of flowers or plant cover designed to attract predatory bugs. Other sites contained only rows of broccoli plants.
But quantifying the role of habitat in pest control can be tricky, since a variety of factors, such as weather variables, can affect how many aphids might be found in a given field.
"Surveys can't really tell me the whole story," she explained. "If a site has low pest levels, are predators keeping them in check, or did they just not show up there?"
So Chaplin-Kramer put out broccoli plants infested with 50 aphids each in closed and open cages. Open cages let natural predators do their best at pest control, while closed cages allowed aphids to live or die depending only on prevailing conditions.
The cages were then stationed in a variety of environments ranging from pure, diverse natural habitats to monoculture farm fields.
The results showed that natural pest control is boosted significantly when predator populations are booming in more diverse natural landscapes surrounding a field. Lacking such surroundings, farmers can still gain key benefits by planting locally complex fields.
"Natural landscapes exhibit about five times the level of pest control of agricultural landscapes in the early season," Chaplin-Kramer said.
"In the late season, within the agricultural landscapes, the locally diverse farms have more than four times the pest control of the locally simple farms," she said.
The studies also showed that predators tend to arrive in farm fields a bit later in the growing season. This suggests that farm habitats may not be able to hold aphids in check early on, and that pesticides or other controls may be needed to prevent pests from gaining an irreversible foothold.
Also, the pest-control prowess of even the most predator-friendly landscapes may be trumped by natural factors, such as temperature or moisture, which regulate pest populations.
Farmers' Friends?
The results paint a picture of a promising but complicated endeavor, as many farmers will attest.
Phil Foster, who runs Pinnacle Organics in San Juan Bautista and Hollister, California, worked with Chaplin-Kramer on the study. He typically plants 30 or 40 different crops from eight families. He also rotates crops and plants predator-friendly hedgerows.
"I've found that a whole farm system is pretty important," he said. "We're in our 20th season of organic production, and for us it's a learning process all the time."
Foster's lettuce crop provides one example of how he helps make pest predators feel right at home.
"Probably 5 to 8 percent of the acreage goes to insectary plants, like dill and coriander and cilantro, that are known to attract beneficial insects like syrphid fly adults and parasitic wasps," he said.
Foster doesn't harvest the herbs but instead plants them solely to attract predators—though he ponders the possibility of pairing dill with his cucumber crop to produce pickles.
Steve Stevens, a Tillar, Arkansas, cotton farmer who has to contend with aphids, doesn't run an organic operation but still counts on lots of pest protection from natural sources.
"We try to hold back any sprays until we absolutely have to," he said, "because we also want to preserve our beneficial [insects] as long as possible in the season."
Stevens explained that for him, predatory insects provide a way to increase "resistance management."
"If we continue to overspray with some of these insecticides, we're going to use them up, because insects can become resistant to insecticides," he said.
One Weapon in an Arsenal
Insecticide limitations are one reason biological control is gaining traction, according to Robert Wiedenmann, head of the University of Arkansas entomology department. (Related: "Are Birds Best Hope for Pest-Ridden Coffee Crops?")
"Also, there's not universal acceptance [of biological control], because there's not universal knowledge about it," he added. "It's not an easily understood or 'off the shelf' kind of technology, and that is limiting a lot of its use."
There are other drawbacks, he said.
"Many natural enemies, especially parasites of insects, are fairly specific. They are not going to provide a benefit against all pests, a universal benefit similar to what a pesticide would provide. A habitat that provides benefit against aphids may not provide any benefits against army worms."
That's why Wiedenmann stresses that biological control, while full of promise, is likely to be only one weapon in a farmer's arsenal.
However, he believes it may be an important long-term solution, potentially resulting in farm environments with widespread natural pest control that kicks in automatically each season.
"The future of integrated pest management, if it's really integrated, [means we] will not rely almost exclusively on pesticides," he said, "or on waiting until we have a problem and then trying to solve it."
Better crops could ease India's monsoon worries.
Henry I. Miller, Wall Street Journal 12 Aug 09;
News that India may suffer a weaker-than-normal monsoon this year is raising concerns about crop yields and food supply. As worrying as those reports are, however, this is only a short-term element of a much bigger problem with the availability of water there. Even when the rains do come, India's water usage still will be at unsustainable levels. Better crop plants that use water more efficiently could be a big part of the solution—if only bureaucrats and activists would get out of the way.
Irrigation for agriculture accounts for roughly 70% of the world's fresh water consumption, but that figure can be higher in some places, depending on crop types and local hydrological conditions. India, for instance, is the world's second-largest producer of cotton, the thirstiest of crops: It takes 11,000 liters of water to produce a single kilogram. In just one example of the consequences, consumption from irrigation and other human uses is depleting groundwater in the northwestern part of India at the unsustainable rate of four centimeters per year despite consistent rainfall levels, according to an article published this week in the British journal Nature.
The results of this research should get policy makers to focus on how water is being used, especially in India's agricultural sector. The introduction of plants that grow with less water would allow more to be freed up for other uses. Plant biologists have identified genes regulating water utilization that can be transferred into important crop plants. Some modifications allow plants to grow with less or lower-quality water. The first drought-resistant crop, maize, is expected to be commercialized by 2012. If field testing goes well, India would be a potential market for this variety.
Pest- and disease-resistant strains also indirectly help water efficiency. Because much of the loss to insects and diseases occurs after the plants are fully grown—that is, after most of the water required to grow a crop has already been applied—the use of crop varieties that experience lower post-harvest losses in yield means that the farming and irrigation of fewer plants can produce the same total amount of food. More than 13 million farmers in at least 25 countries already are using genetically modified crop varieties to produce higher yields with lower inputs and reduced impact on the environment. In 2008, India ranked fourth in the world (behind the United States, Argentina and Brazil) in cultivation of genetically modified crops, with 7.6 million hectares.
But research and development are being hampered by resistance from activists and discouraged by governmental overregulation. There are more than a dozen vocal and radical activist groups—of which Greenpeace is the prototype—around the world opposed to this kind of technology. They have concocted tales in developing countries about genetically modified crops causing homosexuality, impotence, illnesses like HIV/AIDS, and even baldness. One of the most vocal activists is Delhi-based Vandana Shiva, who denies not only the manifest benefits and potential of genetically modified crops, but even derides the 20th century's stellar Green Revolution as having inflicted violence on the environment. She claims that genetically modified crop technology is untested, unproven and unsafe—all of which are demonstrably untrue.
This pressure both encourages overregulation in response to questionable science and also offers cover to those who want to overregulate these crops for other reasons. The United Nations agency that sets international food standards, the Codex Alimentarius Commission, has established requirements for data on genetic construction, composition, toxicity, and the like specific to genetically modified foods that are hugely expensive—and that could not be met by any food derived from conventionally modified plants. In addition the Cartagena "biosafety protocol," crafted under the aegis of the United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity, has created unscientific and burdensome regulations of field trials and transport of genetically modified organisms (but not of other conventional plants such as invasive vines or weedy grasses that are far more worrisome). The United States has not ratified this convention.
Meanwhile, governments interested in protecting their agricultural sectors from foreign competition are all too happy to use spurious fears over genetically modified crops to erect trade barriers. Witness the European Union's unscientific, protectionist restrictions on the import of genetically modified agricultural products. This, as much as any other U.N. regulation, effectively discourages the use of these technologies. A study by Professor David Zilberman at the University of California at Berkeley dates the worldwide slowdown in the development pipeline to the EU's 1998 ban on genetically modified products.
The U.N.'s misadventures in regulation fly in the face of the quarter-century-old scientific consensus that modern genetic modification is essentially an extension or refinement of conventional (but less precise and less predictable) ways of modifying crops to create or enhance desirable characteristics.
The U.N.'s inconsistency is striking. The Food and Agriculture Organization calls for a greater allocation of resources to agriculture, but then makes those resources drastically less cost-effective via unnecessary, unscientific regulation of genetically modified plants. The Secretary-General of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization announces that "integrated water-resources management is the key to achieving the Millennium Development Goals of securing access to safe water, sanitation and environmental protection," while an alphabet soup of other U.N. agencies is making virtually impossible the development of crops that can grow with low-quality water or under drought conditions.
By compromising commerce and the quality of life, water scarcity has the potential to destabilize industrialized and developing countries alike. Scarcity hinders economic development; excessive water extraction lowers ground levels and exacerbates rising sea levels; and poor water quality makes populations vulnerable to water-related diseases, such as cholera, dysentery, viral hepatitis A and typhoid. Especially during drought conditions—which currently afflict much of Europe, Africa, Australia, South America and the U.S.—even a small percentage reduction in the use of water for irrigation could result in huge benefits, both economic and humanitarian.
Some of the planet's biggest drought fears may be in India today, but no one will be immune to water worries in the future. It's essential that bureaucrats and activists stop blocking agricultural technologies that can give us more crop for the drop.
Dr. Miller is a fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution and author of "The Frankenfood Myth" (Praeger, 2004).
A new study using satellite data suggests the region is using more groundwater than is being replenished by rainfall
David Biello, Scientific American 12 Aug 09;
The fields of barley, rice and wheat that feed much of India are running out of water, according to a new study based on satellite data and published online in Nature today. The heartland of last century's Green Revolution lost 109 cubic kilometers of water from its Indus River plain aquifer between August 2002 and October 2008.
"By our estimates, the water table is declining at a rate of one foot per year averaged over the Indian states of Rajasthan, Punjab and Haryana, including the national capital territory of Delhi," an area in northwestern India that covers more than 438,000 square kilometers, says NASA hydrologist Matthew Rodell, lead author of the paper. "We are not able to estimate the total amount of groundwater in storage [in the aquifer], so we can't say when it will be gone, but residents are already feeling the effects and it will only become worse."
The consequences include wells that run dry, water shortages in India's capital and, potentially, a decline in yields from agriculture. India's Ministry of Water Resources has long suggested that tapping the aquifer for irrigation was exceeding the limited regional rainfall that replenishes its water, and the World Bank has warned that the country faces a water crisis. On a yearly basis, nearly 63 cubic kilometers of water are drawn from the aquifer, whereas the Indian government estimates that roughly 45 cubic kilometers of water recharge the aquifer annually.
The scientists relied on data from the pair of GRACE satellites—NASA's Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment orbiters launched in 2002—that measure subtle changes in Earth's gravitational field, which are often the result of shifting water, whether on the surface or deep beneath it. In addition to large-scale water losses detected in Greenland and other polar regions by the GRACE satellites, northwestern India stands out as another area of rapid water loss. "Basically, it is like we weigh Earth every month and we look at the changes," explains geophysicist Isabella Velicogna of the University of California, Irvine, part of the research team.
The primary reason for such groundwater depletion is irrigation, which has fed the Green Revolution that transformed cereal production in the region and helped sustain a growing population that has reached 114 million people. Between 1970 and 1999 irrigated fields in India tripled in overall extent to cover more than 33 million hectares.
That irrigation now looks unsustainable: "The problem is that groundwater consumption was not capped at a sustainable level and now it will be difficult to curb demand," Rodell notes.
It is also clear that global warming's accelerated melting of the nearby Himalayan glaciers is not the primary culprit in the region's water deficit. These meltwaters feed the rivers of northwestern India and beyond, but that water soon flows out of the area and is lost to it. Even with a generous assumption that all Himalayan glacial melting since 1962 (roughly 13.4 cubic kilometers per year) was concentrated in the 150-kilometer stretch of land closest to the study zone rather than spread across the entirety of the Himalayas, the scientists could explain, at most, 15 percent of the water loss in northwestern India. And the arid region's rainfall levels were above the average of 50 centimeters per year from 2002 to 2008.
The water contained in the Indus River plain aquifer, once pumped, is lost to the region via evaporation from irrigation or transpiration from irrigated plants. And GRACE has detected similar depletion in the U.S., as well, including the Ogallala Aquifer under the western plains and the groundwater in the California's Central Valley. "Groundwater resources are being rapidly depleted in many regions of the world," says U.C. Irvine hydrologist James Famiglietti, another team member. "These signals of groundwater loss, in particular in the Central Valley, are very strong."
The solution may be to impose limits on pumping aquifer water— particularly in the case of northwestern India, which uses it to fill seasonal rice paddies covering some 38,000 square kilometers. "If farmers would shift away from water-intensive crops, such as rice, and implement more efficient irrigation methods, that would help," Rodell says.
As population growth continues and food production increases, however, demand for groundwater will only increase, Famiglietti warns. Nevertheless, this research, he says, "suggests that we can keep track of rates at which groundwater reserves are dwindling the world over."
India's water use 'unsustainable'
Richard Black, BBC News 13 Aug 09;
Parts of India are on track for severe water shortages, according to results from Nasa's gravity satellites.
The Grace mission discovered that in the country's north-west - including Delhi - the water table is falling by about 4cm (1.6 inches) per year.
Writing in the journal Nature, they say rainfall has not changed, and water use is too high, mainly for farming.
The finding is published two days after an Indian government report warning of a potential water crisis.
That report noted that access to water was one of the main factors governing the pace of development in the world's second most populous nation.
About a quarter of India is experiencing drought conditions, as the monsoon rains have been weaker and later than usual.
But weather and climatic factors are not responsible for water depletion in the northwestern states of Rajasthan, Haryana and Punjab, according to the Nasa study.
"We looked at the rainfall record and during this decade, it's relatively steady - there have been some up and down years but generally there's no drought situation, there's no major trend in rainfall," said Matt Rodell, a hydrologist at Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center near Washington DC.
"So naturally we would expect the groundwater level to stay where it is unless there is an excessive stress due to people pumping too much water, which is what we believe is happening."
State of Grace
The Grace (Gravity Recovery And Climate Experiment) mission uses two satellites flying along the same orbit, one just in front of the other.
Minute differences in the Earth's gravitational pull cause the two craft to shift slightly in their positions relative to one another.
The mission can measure groundwater depletion because the amount of water in aquifers has a small gravitational attraction for the satellites.
Three years ago, Grace scientists noted a loss of water in parts of Africa - but the Indian result is more striking.
"Over the six-year timeframe of this study, about 109 cubic kilometres of water were depleted from this region - more than double the capacity of India's largest reservoir is gone between 2002 and 2008," Dr Rodell told the BBC.
The northwest of India is heavily irrigated; and the Indian government's State of the Environment report, published on Tuesday, noted that irrigation increased rice yields seven-fold in some regions compared to rain-fed fields.
Dr Raj Gupta, a scientist working for the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT), said that the current drought would lead to more groundwater extraction.
"Farmers receive no rains so they are pumping a lot more water than the government expected, so the water table will fall further," he said.
"The farmers have to irrigate, and that's why they're pumping more water, mining more water. The situation has to stop today or tomorrow."
Dr Gupta noted that some farmers might be able to switch from rice to crops that demand less water, such as maize or sorghum.
But, he said, that would depend on government policies - which have traditionally promoted rice - and on market demand.
Climate change is likely to be a constraint too, with the area of South Asia suitable for wheat forecast to halve over the next 50 years.
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