25 Aug (Tue): Screening of "The Cove"
an ACRES exclusive preview from wild shores of singapore
28 Aug (Fri): Debate and Public Forum on Sharks and Shark's Fin from wild shores of singapore
Smooth-coated otters at Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve
from Otterman speaks
Exploring Changi with new friends
from wild shores of singapore
Tanah Merah - Suicidal
from Singapore Nature and wonderful creations with more on the coral reefs and sandy shores.
Looking for gravid females
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
Greater Flameback ‘kissing’
from Bird Ecology Study Group
A Quick Walk Around School
from Creatures in the Wild
Striped-tit Babblers Having A Bath
from Life's Indulgences
Insect stings
from Ubin.sgkopi
Extreme Global Warming: Assisted Species Migration or Preserving Genetic Samples? from The Daily Galaxy: News from Planet Earth & Beyond
Best of our wild blogs: 22 Aug 09
Natural history, a common heritage for Singapore
Exhibition at Botanic Gardens showcases the region's rich biodiversity
Chin See Chung, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
THE profusion and diversity of life forms, geological features and the human cultures that they encountered in their travels were the keys that stimulated the intellectual processes of both Charles Darwin and his Victorian compatriot, Alfred Russel Wallace. They both searched for a mechanism to explain long-term organic change.
Darwin spent almost five years circumnavigating the globe, observing, documenting and thinking about his ideas on evolution. He explored coastal areas of both sides of South America, visited the Galapagos and crossed the Pacific landing at Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia before returning via the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Wallace, on the other hand, spent four years in the Amazon, exploring, collecting and documenting. He unfortunately lost almost everything he collected in a fire while sailing back. He then spent eight years on a great number of islands in the Malay Archipelago, where he amassed a treasure trove of more than 125,000 natural history specimens.
Wallace and Darwin were greatly influenced by the intellectuals of the time and the growing momentum of scientific thought, seeking alternatives to the Church's thinking on the origin of life.
French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, as early as 1809 in his Philosophie Zoologique, proposed a theory to explain natural change. Central to his thesis is that traits acquired during an individual's lifetime could be passed on to its offspring. Though since discredited, this was part of the growing body of thinking on the subject.
By 1840, a clear picture of the fossil record had emerged. There was indisputable evidence that there is a progression from the primitive invertebrates to the fish, reptiles and finally mammals, with many going extinct and others appearing. Creation in a single period, 'in the beginning', did not seem tenable.
Charles Lyell's three-volume book, Principles Of Geology (1830-1833), one of the most important scientific books of the 19th century, outlined the geological forces that shaped the Earth over vast periods of time. It challenged prevailing thinking that the Earth was shaped by supernatural events, such as Noah's flood.
In the anonymously published 1844 book, Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation, (actually by Robert Chambers), was the audacious suggestion that humans had emerged from lowly animals, albeit by divine design. While this book offended, it did not offer a biological mechanism for change.
Another influential book was An Essay On The Principle Of Population, by Reverend Thomas Malthus, first published anonymously in 1798. Malthus had postulated that population growth would always exceed the growth of food supply, leading to hunger, disease and a struggle for survival resulting in a situation that would limit population growth. Malthus' idea of 'struggle for survival' directly influenced both Wallace and Darwin. While it appeared to have directed Darwin's thinking towards the theory of natural selection, it was the trigger that crystallised Wallace's thoughts.
In February 1858, after four years of exploring the Malay Archipelago, Wallace was sick with malaria in the Maluku islands, east of Sulawesi, and was thinking about the ideas of Malthus. He suddenly linked this to a mechanism that would ensure long-term organic change.
This was the concept of 'variation and the survival of the fittest'. Individuals that are better adapted would have a better chance of surviving. This is the process of 'natural selection'. It was the fundamental process leading to the origin of new species.
Wallace immediately drafted a paper and wrote to Darwin with his ideas. Darwin had explored the same theories for 20 years and was writing a book on this subject but had not publicly presented his thoughts. He was advised to present Wallace's paper together with his own at the next meeting of the Linnaean Society, the world's oldest biological society, in London on July 1, 1858.
He was also forced to prepare his book for publication. This book that changed the world, On The Origin Of Species, was published in November 1859, 150 years ago.
The theory of natural selection remained controversial throughout the rest of the 19th century. It was only in the early 20th century, when Mendelian genetics was able to explain the inheritance of specific traits that rendered certain organisms 'fitter' and thus 'selected' to replace the unfit, that acceptance became widespread.
In 1869, Wallace published his book, The Malay Archipelago, one of the greatest natural history travel books of the 19th century. His travels gave birth to his ideas on the theory of evolution. And he made significant contributions to biogeography when he linked the geographical distribution of animals and plants to the regions' geological history.
While in Singapore, Wallace explored Bukit Timah and, in two months, caught 700 species of beetles. The incredible productivity of Bukit Timah is an illustration that we live in a region with one of the richest biodiversities in the world.
It is a diversity that the Botanic Gardens was designed to celebrate in all its manifestations.
This year we are holding special events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gardens, which shares the same anniversary with the publication of On The Origin Of Species, Darwin's 200th birth anniversary and the 140th anniversary of Wallace's book, The Malay Archipelago.
It is therefore apt that the Gardens has staged an exhibition on Wallace and Darwin. 'Two Minds One Theory' illustrates the region's rich biodiversity and the beauty of natural life, and tells the story of the theory of evolution, to generate awareness and interest in biodiversity and inspire an ethos for conservation.
Natural history unlocked the door to the evolutionary theory. In Singapore, the Raffles Museum, built in 1887, was the repository of some of these records. It was an institution of magnificent displays on zoology and ethnography and a centre of scholarship, especially before the World War II years.
The Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research houses one of the world's largest collections of South-east Asian species. The museum is located on the National University of Singapore campus. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG
It was one of the few institutions in Singapore protected when so much was destroyed during the war. The museum's collections were dismantled in 1969 and its collections dispersed. The single most outstanding exhibit was the skeleton of a blue whale which, if I remember correctly as a child, hung over the grand main staircase.
Exhibited since 1903, this national icon etched itself into the memories of generations of Singaporeans. Ms Lee Chor Lin, the director of the National Museum, wrote in 2007 that the memory of the whale lived on even for people born after the whale's departure from the museum.
Today, what remains is largely hidden in storage vaults awaiting permanent public airing.
Natural history, the organisms from the different evolutionary stages and the evolutionary processes are our common heritage. It is a heritage that children, with their imagination unfettered by cultural norms and artefacts, instinctively identify with. They would love to be let loose in such a museum in all its glory.
The writer is the director of Singapore Botanic Gardens
More about the exhibition at the Singapore Botanic Gardens;
and about the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.
Chin See Chung, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
THE profusion and diversity of life forms, geological features and the human cultures that they encountered in their travels were the keys that stimulated the intellectual processes of both Charles Darwin and his Victorian compatriot, Alfred Russel Wallace. They both searched for a mechanism to explain long-term organic change.
Darwin spent almost five years circumnavigating the globe, observing, documenting and thinking about his ideas on evolution. He explored coastal areas of both sides of South America, visited the Galapagos and crossed the Pacific landing at Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia before returning via the Indian and Atlantic oceans.
Wallace, on the other hand, spent four years in the Amazon, exploring, collecting and documenting. He unfortunately lost almost everything he collected in a fire while sailing back. He then spent eight years on a great number of islands in the Malay Archipelago, where he amassed a treasure trove of more than 125,000 natural history specimens.
Wallace and Darwin were greatly influenced by the intellectuals of the time and the growing momentum of scientific thought, seeking alternatives to the Church's thinking on the origin of life.
French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, as early as 1809 in his Philosophie Zoologique, proposed a theory to explain natural change. Central to his thesis is that traits acquired during an individual's lifetime could be passed on to its offspring. Though since discredited, this was part of the growing body of thinking on the subject.
By 1840, a clear picture of the fossil record had emerged. There was indisputable evidence that there is a progression from the primitive invertebrates to the fish, reptiles and finally mammals, with many going extinct and others appearing. Creation in a single period, 'in the beginning', did not seem tenable.
Charles Lyell's three-volume book, Principles Of Geology (1830-1833), one of the most important scientific books of the 19th century, outlined the geological forces that shaped the Earth over vast periods of time. It challenged prevailing thinking that the Earth was shaped by supernatural events, such as Noah's flood.
In the anonymously published 1844 book, Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation, (actually by Robert Chambers), was the audacious suggestion that humans had emerged from lowly animals, albeit by divine design. While this book offended, it did not offer a biological mechanism for change.
Another influential book was An Essay On The Principle Of Population, by Reverend Thomas Malthus, first published anonymously in 1798. Malthus had postulated that population growth would always exceed the growth of food supply, leading to hunger, disease and a struggle for survival resulting in a situation that would limit population growth. Malthus' idea of 'struggle for survival' directly influenced both Wallace and Darwin. While it appeared to have directed Darwin's thinking towards the theory of natural selection, it was the trigger that crystallised Wallace's thoughts.
In February 1858, after four years of exploring the Malay Archipelago, Wallace was sick with malaria in the Maluku islands, east of Sulawesi, and was thinking about the ideas of Malthus. He suddenly linked this to a mechanism that would ensure long-term organic change.
This was the concept of 'variation and the survival of the fittest'. Individuals that are better adapted would have a better chance of surviving. This is the process of 'natural selection'. It was the fundamental process leading to the origin of new species.
Wallace immediately drafted a paper and wrote to Darwin with his ideas. Darwin had explored the same theories for 20 years and was writing a book on this subject but had not publicly presented his thoughts. He was advised to present Wallace's paper together with his own at the next meeting of the Linnaean Society, the world's oldest biological society, in London on July 1, 1858.
He was also forced to prepare his book for publication. This book that changed the world, On The Origin Of Species, was published in November 1859, 150 years ago.
The theory of natural selection remained controversial throughout the rest of the 19th century. It was only in the early 20th century, when Mendelian genetics was able to explain the inheritance of specific traits that rendered certain organisms 'fitter' and thus 'selected' to replace the unfit, that acceptance became widespread.
In 1869, Wallace published his book, The Malay Archipelago, one of the greatest natural history travel books of the 19th century. His travels gave birth to his ideas on the theory of evolution. And he made significant contributions to biogeography when he linked the geographical distribution of animals and plants to the regions' geological history.
While in Singapore, Wallace explored Bukit Timah and, in two months, caught 700 species of beetles. The incredible productivity of Bukit Timah is an illustration that we live in a region with one of the richest biodiversities in the world.
It is a diversity that the Botanic Gardens was designed to celebrate in all its manifestations.
This year we are holding special events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gardens, which shares the same anniversary with the publication of On The Origin Of Species, Darwin's 200th birth anniversary and the 140th anniversary of Wallace's book, The Malay Archipelago.
It is therefore apt that the Gardens has staged an exhibition on Wallace and Darwin. 'Two Minds One Theory' illustrates the region's rich biodiversity and the beauty of natural life, and tells the story of the theory of evolution, to generate awareness and interest in biodiversity and inspire an ethos for conservation.
Natural history unlocked the door to the evolutionary theory. In Singapore, the Raffles Museum, built in 1887, was the repository of some of these records. It was an institution of magnificent displays on zoology and ethnography and a centre of scholarship, especially before the World War II years.
The Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research houses one of the world's largest collections of South-east Asian species. The museum is located on the National University of Singapore campus. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANGIt was one of the few institutions in Singapore protected when so much was destroyed during the war. The museum's collections were dismantled in 1969 and its collections dispersed. The single most outstanding exhibit was the skeleton of a blue whale which, if I remember correctly as a child, hung over the grand main staircase.
Exhibited since 1903, this national icon etched itself into the memories of generations of Singaporeans. Ms Lee Chor Lin, the director of the National Museum, wrote in 2007 that the memory of the whale lived on even for people born after the whale's departure from the museum.
Today, what remains is largely hidden in storage vaults awaiting permanent public airing.
Natural history, the organisms from the different evolutionary stages and the evolutionary processes are our common heritage. It is a heritage that children, with their imagination unfettered by cultural norms and artefacts, instinctively identify with. They would love to be let loose in such a museum in all its glory.
The writer is the director of Singapore Botanic Gardens
More about the exhibition at the Singapore Botanic Gardens;
and about the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.
'Cities should look to past strengths to leap forward'
Melissa Tan, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
URBAN sociologist Saskia Sassen of New York's Columbia University has praised Singapore's efforts at environmental sustainability but says even more radical efforts are needed.
In a lecture yesterday, she also said cities should look to past strengths to differentiate themselves, including traditional methods of sustainable development.
'In this global era, the specialised differences of cities, of urban economies, matter much more than they did 20 years ago. That means that cities compete less with each other,' she told The Straits Times after giving a lecture entitled Global Cities At A Time Of Crisis at the MND penthouse.
'It is to the advantage of cities to understand what are the different economic histories they have had, how they can use their past - rather than thinking they all have to be like London, New York, Paris,' she said.
Cities should make use of their historical or traditional expertise, she added, citing the example of Chicago.
That US city used to be a 'material economy...they had huge steel mills; they grew millions of pigs, tonnes of corn...They know how to run a global steel mill; New York doesn't,' she said.
As for Singapore, 'it needs not to think that it's competing with all other global cities. It isn't. It's only competing with some, and then only a bit...There is no perfect global city', she said.
Professor Sassen suggested that Singapore use its traditional expertise in entrepot trade - noting that it 'manages ports in South America, even in Europe'. 'It's a very broad range of potential economic activities that you can derive from your past.'
She commended the Republic's approach to environmental sustainability.
'Singapore is in the lead in terms of not just inventing in the laboratory, but also applying and implementing sustainable measures' such as road pricing policies.
But she cautioned: 'We have entered a whole new era where we need it at a much deeper level. Singapore is in a trajectory towards environmental sustainability. It is way ahead of New York, for instance. But we are discovering...in recent years how much more radical we have to be in order to address the question of global warming.'
The lecture was organised by the Centre for Liveable Cities - a policy-oriented think-tank established by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.
URBAN sociologist Saskia Sassen of New York's Columbia University has praised Singapore's efforts at environmental sustainability but says even more radical efforts are needed.
In a lecture yesterday, she also said cities should look to past strengths to differentiate themselves, including traditional methods of sustainable development.
'In this global era, the specialised differences of cities, of urban economies, matter much more than they did 20 years ago. That means that cities compete less with each other,' she told The Straits Times after giving a lecture entitled Global Cities At A Time Of Crisis at the MND penthouse.
'It is to the advantage of cities to understand what are the different economic histories they have had, how they can use their past - rather than thinking they all have to be like London, New York, Paris,' she said.
Cities should make use of their historical or traditional expertise, she added, citing the example of Chicago.
That US city used to be a 'material economy...they had huge steel mills; they grew millions of pigs, tonnes of corn...They know how to run a global steel mill; New York doesn't,' she said.
As for Singapore, 'it needs not to think that it's competing with all other global cities. It isn't. It's only competing with some, and then only a bit...There is no perfect global city', she said.
Professor Sassen suggested that Singapore use its traditional expertise in entrepot trade - noting that it 'manages ports in South America, even in Europe'. 'It's a very broad range of potential economic activities that you can derive from your past.'
She commended the Republic's approach to environmental sustainability.
'Singapore is in the lead in terms of not just inventing in the laboratory, but also applying and implementing sustainable measures' such as road pricing policies.
But she cautioned: 'We have entered a whole new era where we need it at a much deeper level. Singapore is in a trajectory towards environmental sustainability. It is way ahead of New York, for instance. But we are discovering...in recent years how much more radical we have to be in order to address the question of global warming.'
The lecture was organised by the Centre for Liveable Cities - a policy-oriented think-tank established by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.
Group to help companies explore 'green' business
Smita Krishnaswamy, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
BUSINESSES are being encouraged to embrace sustainable development in a new campaign launched by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
Sustainable development, which aims to produce while preserving the environment, encompasses everything from the use of clean energy and efficient manufacturing practices to eco-city development.
The SBF has created a specific body called the Sustainable Development Business Group to help businesses find opportunities in this area.
The group will coordinate training workshops, business missions and networking sessions with the help of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore.
The SBF is also collaborating with Temasek Polytechnic's Fuel Cell Community to establish a clean energy test-bedding facility.
SBF chief executive Teng Theng Dar said it is the perfect time to invest in green technology as many countries, including those in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation region, are committed to infrastructure investments.
He said it is in the interest of businesses to respond to the environmental movement because its benefits are obvious in reducing critical costs like utility expenses. 'We are not just talking about sustainable development for fashion's sake - there is really business value in it.'
The federation also launched a sustainability award which will be presented, in collaboration with Local Global Exhibition and Trade, at ECO World 2010, a trade conference here next April.
The award recognises innovative products and technologies that enable sustainable development.
Next month, the SBF will lead a delegation of 20 companies to the Tianjin eco city and China's New Energy Expo in Wuxi to explore opportunities in sustainable development in the country.
Also in the pipeline are business and study missions to Canada, Israel and Japan.
BUSINESSES are being encouraged to embrace sustainable development in a new campaign launched by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).
Sustainable development, which aims to produce while preserving the environment, encompasses everything from the use of clean energy and efficient manufacturing practices to eco-city development.
The SBF has created a specific body called the Sustainable Development Business Group to help businesses find opportunities in this area.
The group will coordinate training workshops, business missions and networking sessions with the help of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore.
The SBF is also collaborating with Temasek Polytechnic's Fuel Cell Community to establish a clean energy test-bedding facility.
SBF chief executive Teng Theng Dar said it is the perfect time to invest in green technology as many countries, including those in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation region, are committed to infrastructure investments.
He said it is in the interest of businesses to respond to the environmental movement because its benefits are obvious in reducing critical costs like utility expenses. 'We are not just talking about sustainable development for fashion's sake - there is really business value in it.'
The federation also launched a sustainability award which will be presented, in collaboration with Local Global Exhibition and Trade, at ECO World 2010, a trade conference here next April.
The award recognises innovative products and technologies that enable sustainable development.
Next month, the SBF will lead a delegation of 20 companies to the Tianjin eco city and China's New Energy Expo in Wuxi to explore opportunities in sustainable development in the country.
Also in the pipeline are business and study missions to Canada, Israel and Japan.
Oil spill sparks evacuation off Australian coast
Reuters 21 Aug 09;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An oil leak off Australia's western coast has sparked the evacuation of dozens of workers from a rig, the operator PTTEP Australasia said Friday.
The size of the spill is not known, but about 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the wellhead in an incident, rig operator PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL, said in a statement.
The spill occurred at a mobile offshore drilling unit West Atlas in the Timor Sea, which is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd , it said. The leak includes condensate, an extra light grade of crude oil.
Weather and sea conditions in the area remained calm and the spill was likely to be carried away from the Australian coast, the statement added.
A national clean-up plan has been activated to deal with the incident on the offshore drilling rig at the Montara development, about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast and 150 km south-east of the Ashmore Reef, the statement said.
"PTTEP is continuing planning to determine how the leak can be brought under control so the West Atlas can be safely re-boarded and begun to be restored to working order," it added.
None of the 69 people on board the rig was injured in the incident and all were evacuated, the statement added.
(Reporting by Denny Thomas; editing by James Jukwey)
Australia deploys aircraft to break up oil slick
Reuters 21 Aug 09;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia mobilized aircraft on Saturday to try to break up a growing oil slick off its northwestern coast as it struggled to stop a well gushing oil into the sea.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said 50 tons of dispersant were being prepared to try and contain the spill from a rig in the Timor Sea. A Hercules aircraft was being flown in from Singapore, and two back-up planes readied.
"This leak has occurred in one of the remotest locations possible, making any operation difficult," the rescue agency, which is coordinating the clean-up operation, said in a statement.
It was too early to determine the full impact, it said.
Rig operator PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL, has said that 40 barrels of oil leaked in the initial incident on Friday.
However, the well was still gushing oil on Saturday and emergency services said stopping it was a priority.
"AMSA is working with the company and has stressed the urgency to repair the well head and stop the oil flow and PTTEP has initiated actions to achieve this," the statement said.
The slick has reached 8 km (5 miles) in length, one of 69 employees evacuated from the rig told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Saturday.
Plans were for aircraft to begin spraying the slick later on Saturday.
The spill began on Friday at the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit, which is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd.
Australia's official overseer for the petroleum industry, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA), is investigating the incident.
A national clean-up plan has been activated to deal with the spill, which occurred at the Montara development, a project that is due to come on stream later this year.
The location has been given as about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast of Western Australia state, and 150 km south-east of Ashmore Reef, a small Australian offshore possession.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
WA oil rig: Worker expects huge spill
ABC 22 Aug 09;
An employee on the rig that is spewing oil into seas off the coast of Western Australia says the spill may cover eight kilometres of ocean.
The oil worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was one of 69 people evacuated to Darwin yesterday from the West Atlas Offshore drilling rig, 250 kilometres north of Truscott.
Crude oil began spilling from the rig about 4:00am (AEST) yesterday.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) says it is investigating the incident and is unsure of how extensive the problem is.
But the worker told the ABC that rig workers detected a gas leak before they saw bubbling around one of the 1,200-metre-deep drilling holes.
Poisonous hydrogen sulfide began leaking from the area and sparked the evacuation, he said.
He says the plug blocking the hole released soon after and within two hours he could see the slick had grown to eight kilometres as he was being flown to the Truscott airbase.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins says a search and rescue plane with an environmental specialist on board is assessing the size of the spill and the environmental situation.
She says a Hercules aircraft on loan from Singapore is expected to arrive in Darwin this morning, which will be used to spray chemicals to disperse the oil.
Ms Jiggins also says there are two aircraft at Truscott on standby to help.
"My understading is it's quite a large oil spill," she said.
"However until that aircraft comes back and provides us with more accurate information, I can't give any specific details about how big it is.
"The national plan has been activated and there are contingencies being put into place.
"Obviously we're concerned about the oil spill and about any onshore oil, so that's why we're getting the dispersements ready and hopefully that will affect the situation."
Mining company PTTEP Australasia said last night that there were no injuries among those evacuated.
PTTEP says the spill is likely to be carried away from the Australian coast by south-westerly winds.
Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre general manager Ivan Skibinski said aerial spraying will start at the site this morning.
"Oil in the water disperses naturally. With a bit of wind and choppy water the oil breaks up into smaller globules and droplets," he said.
"Chemical dispersant just aids that activity. You spray it on the oil and it helps pull the oil apart into smaller globules."
Hoses from a barge, which is at the site, were drenching the rig with seawater overnight.
SYDNEY (Reuters) - An oil leak off Australia's western coast has sparked the evacuation of dozens of workers from a rig, the operator PTTEP Australasia said Friday.
The size of the spill is not known, but about 40 barrels of oil were discharged from the wellhead in an incident, rig operator PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL, said in a statement.
The spill occurred at a mobile offshore drilling unit West Atlas in the Timor Sea, which is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd , it said. The leak includes condensate, an extra light grade of crude oil.
Weather and sea conditions in the area remained calm and the spill was likely to be carried away from the Australian coast, the statement added.
A national clean-up plan has been activated to deal with the incident on the offshore drilling rig at the Montara development, about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast and 150 km south-east of the Ashmore Reef, the statement said.
"PTTEP is continuing planning to determine how the leak can be brought under control so the West Atlas can be safely re-boarded and begun to be restored to working order," it added.
None of the 69 people on board the rig was injured in the incident and all were evacuated, the statement added.
(Reporting by Denny Thomas; editing by James Jukwey)
Australia deploys aircraft to break up oil slick
Reuters 21 Aug 09;
SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australia mobilized aircraft on Saturday to try to break up a growing oil slick off its northwestern coast as it struggled to stop a well gushing oil into the sea.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority (AMSA) said 50 tons of dispersant were being prepared to try and contain the spill from a rig in the Timor Sea. A Hercules aircraft was being flown in from Singapore, and two back-up planes readied.
"This leak has occurred in one of the remotest locations possible, making any operation difficult," the rescue agency, which is coordinating the clean-up operation, said in a statement.
It was too early to determine the full impact, it said.
Rig operator PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL, has said that 40 barrels of oil leaked in the initial incident on Friday.
However, the well was still gushing oil on Saturday and emergency services said stopping it was a priority.
"AMSA is working with the company and has stressed the urgency to repair the well head and stop the oil flow and PTTEP has initiated actions to achieve this," the statement said.
The slick has reached 8 km (5 miles) in length, one of 69 employees evacuated from the rig told Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) radio on Saturday.
Plans were for aircraft to begin spraying the slick later on Saturday.
The spill began on Friday at the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit, which is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd.
Australia's official overseer for the petroleum industry, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA), is investigating the incident.
A national clean-up plan has been activated to deal with the spill, which occurred at the Montara development, a project that is due to come on stream later this year.
The location has been given as about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast of Western Australia state, and 150 km south-east of Ashmore Reef, a small Australian offshore possession.
(Editing by Alex Richardson)
WA oil rig: Worker expects huge spill
ABC 22 Aug 09;
An employee on the rig that is spewing oil into seas off the coast of Western Australia says the spill may cover eight kilometres of ocean.
The oil worker, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, was one of 69 people evacuated to Darwin yesterday from the West Atlas Offshore drilling rig, 250 kilometres north of Truscott.
Crude oil began spilling from the rig about 4:00am (AEST) yesterday.
The National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority (NOPSA) says it is investigating the incident and is unsure of how extensive the problem is.
But the worker told the ABC that rig workers detected a gas leak before they saw bubbling around one of the 1,200-metre-deep drilling holes.
Poisonous hydrogen sulfide began leaking from the area and sparked the evacuation, he said.
He says the plug blocking the hole released soon after and within two hours he could see the slick had grown to eight kilometres as he was being flown to the Truscott airbase.
Australian Maritime Safety Authority spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins says a search and rescue plane with an environmental specialist on board is assessing the size of the spill and the environmental situation.
She says a Hercules aircraft on loan from Singapore is expected to arrive in Darwin this morning, which will be used to spray chemicals to disperse the oil.
Ms Jiggins also says there are two aircraft at Truscott on standby to help.
"My understading is it's quite a large oil spill," she said.
"However until that aircraft comes back and provides us with more accurate information, I can't give any specific details about how big it is.
"The national plan has been activated and there are contingencies being put into place.
"Obviously we're concerned about the oil spill and about any onshore oil, so that's why we're getting the dispersements ready and hopefully that will affect the situation."
Mining company PTTEP Australasia said last night that there were no injuries among those evacuated.
PTTEP says the spill is likely to be carried away from the Australian coast by south-westerly winds.
Australian Marine Oil Spill Centre general manager Ivan Skibinski said aerial spraying will start at the site this morning.
"Oil in the water disperses naturally. With a bit of wind and choppy water the oil breaks up into smaller globules and droplets," he said.
"Chemical dispersant just aids that activity. You spray it on the oil and it helps pull the oil apart into smaller globules."
Hoses from a barge, which is at the site, were drenching the rig with seawater overnight.
Straight talk on tiger poaching
India's minister set to raise issue of demand for tiger parts during China visit
Ravi Velloor, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
NEW DELHI: India's feisty environment minister says he intends to tackle at source the reason his country's efforts to protect the tiger are failing - China's demand for tiger parts that fuels poaching of the big cats.
'I think we have a good enough, mature relationship with the Chinese to tell them that while we are doing our best to curb poaching, you cannot be oblivious to the fact that demand for tiger parts is the real reason for this,' said Mr Jairam Ramesh, whose ministry oversees the environment and forests.
The 55-year-old Mr Ramesh, influential as a speechwriter and political strategist to Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, is visiting China next week for four days for discussions on environmental issues.
Top of the Indian Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon-educated engineer's agenda is to work with China on evolving a common stand on climate change and joint studies on monitoring the receding Himalayan glaciers. The two Asian giants will also discuss ways to cooperate in forestry.
But Mr Ramesh's determination to bring up the issue of poaching underscores his alarm at the dwindling population in India of the Royal Bengal tiger.
Demand for tiger penis, teeth, claws and other parts from China and elsewhere in East Asia - where these are associated with aphrodisiacal qualities - has fuelled a lucrative trade in poaching. The animal parts typically are sent overland to Nepal or Bangladesh, from where they are shipped out.
India had more than 40,000 of the majestic beasts 100 years ago and tiger hunts were a popular pastime of the erstwhile royals and feudals. By 1973, the tiger population had dwindled to about 1,800 animals.
Project Tiger, launched in 1973 when the late Indira Gandhi was ruling the country, won worldwide acclaim as a conservation success, helping to double the tiger population to about 3,500 by the mid-1990s.
Since then, however, the programme has suffered a setback. Today, India is believed to have fewer than 1,300 tigers in the wild.
The non-governmental organisation Wildlife Protection Society of India estimates that India has lost 66 tigers since the year began, of which 23 were killed by poachers.
In Rajasthan's Sariska National Park, poachers are believed to have wiped out the entire population of the cats in 2005.
Alarmed at this, the authorities have tried all sorts of methods, including translocation of tigers from nearby Ranthambore sanctuary.
'Between 2002 and 2004, about 23 tigers were poached in Sariska,' Mr Ramesh said. 'We have translocated three tigers from Ranthambore, but that is not the solution. We have to fight poaching, which is the biggest threat.'
A key item of next week's India-China meeting on the environment will be the inking of an agreement between a Chinese institute and India's Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology to study the receding glaciers.
'There are between 9,000 and 15,000 glaciers on the Indian side,' Mr Ramesh said.
'While there is no conclusive evidence that links global warming to this, the majority of Himalayan glaciers are receding. It is a highly complex subject because some, like the Siachin glacier in Kashmir, are actually advancing.'
He had a word of praise for China's forestry efforts.
India, he said, succeeded in reforesting between 800,000 ha and 1 million ha every year. It needed to cultivate at least 2.5 million ha. China, on the other hand, was adding 4 million ha every year.
'Forests are a major sink for carbon dioxide and there are things we may be able to learn from them,' he added.
Ravi Velloor, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
NEW DELHI: India's feisty environment minister says he intends to tackle at source the reason his country's efforts to protect the tiger are failing - China's demand for tiger parts that fuels poaching of the big cats.
'I think we have a good enough, mature relationship with the Chinese to tell them that while we are doing our best to curb poaching, you cannot be oblivious to the fact that demand for tiger parts is the real reason for this,' said Mr Jairam Ramesh, whose ministry oversees the environment and forests.
The 55-year-old Mr Ramesh, influential as a speechwriter and political strategist to Congress party president Sonia Gandhi, is visiting China next week for four days for discussions on environmental issues.
Top of the Indian Institute of Technology and Carnegie Mellon-educated engineer's agenda is to work with China on evolving a common stand on climate change and joint studies on monitoring the receding Himalayan glaciers. The two Asian giants will also discuss ways to cooperate in forestry.
But Mr Ramesh's determination to bring up the issue of poaching underscores his alarm at the dwindling population in India of the Royal Bengal tiger.
Demand for tiger penis, teeth, claws and other parts from China and elsewhere in East Asia - where these are associated with aphrodisiacal qualities - has fuelled a lucrative trade in poaching. The animal parts typically are sent overland to Nepal or Bangladesh, from where they are shipped out.
India had more than 40,000 of the majestic beasts 100 years ago and tiger hunts were a popular pastime of the erstwhile royals and feudals. By 1973, the tiger population had dwindled to about 1,800 animals.
Project Tiger, launched in 1973 when the late Indira Gandhi was ruling the country, won worldwide acclaim as a conservation success, helping to double the tiger population to about 3,500 by the mid-1990s.
Since then, however, the programme has suffered a setback. Today, India is believed to have fewer than 1,300 tigers in the wild.
The non-governmental organisation Wildlife Protection Society of India estimates that India has lost 66 tigers since the year began, of which 23 were killed by poachers.
In Rajasthan's Sariska National Park, poachers are believed to have wiped out the entire population of the cats in 2005.
Alarmed at this, the authorities have tried all sorts of methods, including translocation of tigers from nearby Ranthambore sanctuary.
'Between 2002 and 2004, about 23 tigers were poached in Sariska,' Mr Ramesh said. 'We have translocated three tigers from Ranthambore, but that is not the solution. We have to fight poaching, which is the biggest threat.'
A key item of next week's India-China meeting on the environment will be the inking of an agreement between a Chinese institute and India's Wadia Institute of Himalayan Geology to study the receding glaciers.
'There are between 9,000 and 15,000 glaciers on the Indian side,' Mr Ramesh said.
'While there is no conclusive evidence that links global warming to this, the majority of Himalayan glaciers are receding. It is a highly complex subject because some, like the Siachin glacier in Kashmir, are actually advancing.'
He had a word of praise for China's forestry efforts.
India, he said, succeeded in reforesting between 800,000 ha and 1 million ha every year. It needed to cultivate at least 2.5 million ha. China, on the other hand, was adding 4 million ha every year.
'Forests are a major sink for carbon dioxide and there are things we may be able to learn from them,' he added.
Report lodged against Malaysian wildlife smuggler
The Star 22 Aug 09;
KUALA LUMPUR: A group of non-governmental organisations has lodged a police report against convicted wildlife smuggler Anson Wong.
The group included the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Customs Department in the report.
Speaking to reporters after lodging the report at the Brickfields Police Station, Malaysian Animal Rights Society president R. Surendran said:
“The reason we are lodging the police report is because, over the years Perhilitan has failed to take any action against Wong for smuggling and has even given Wong special permits to catch and keep animals.
“We know that one of the modus operandi of wildlife traffickers is to get permits to keep animals and later declare them dead, when in actual fact, it has been smuggled out of the country.”
Last Friday, Surendran lodged a report
with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on possible corruption involving Perhilitan.
Also present with Surendran yesterday were representatives from the Malaysian Animal Welfare Society, Pet Positive and the Indepen-dent Living and Training Centre.
Two MPs – S. Manikavasagam (Kapar) and M. Manogaran (Teluk Intan) – accompanied the group. Manikavasagam said he would raise the issue in Parliament during the October meeting.
Group: Probe wildlife smuggler
New Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
KUALA LUMPUR: Two members of parliament and three animal rights groups have lodged a police report against the National Parks and Wildlife Department for allegedly issuing permits to convicted wildlife trafficker Anson Wong to continue with his activities.
They also claimed that a top Customs official aided Wong in his illegal operations.
They called on police to probe the department's alleged link with Wong, which was made by author Bryan Christy in his book, The Lizard King.
The book details Wong's exploits in the 1990s before his arrest by United States wildlife authorities in 1998.
They also want police to investigate if Wong was involved in wildlife smuggling in the country and used Malaysia as a transit point since 1990.
The MPs are M. Manogaran (Teluk Intan) and S. Manikavasagam (Kapar), while the animal rights groups are Malaysian Animal Rights Society, Malaysian Animal Welfare Society and Pet Positive.
The report was lodged at Brickfields district police headquarters here yesterday.
They had also filed a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commision on Aug 14.
KUALA LUMPUR: A group of non-governmental organisations has lodged a police report against convicted wildlife smuggler Anson Wong.
The group included the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Customs Department in the report.
Speaking to reporters after lodging the report at the Brickfields Police Station, Malaysian Animal Rights Society president R. Surendran said:
“The reason we are lodging the police report is because, over the years Perhilitan has failed to take any action against Wong for smuggling and has even given Wong special permits to catch and keep animals.
“We know that one of the modus operandi of wildlife traffickers is to get permits to keep animals and later declare them dead, when in actual fact, it has been smuggled out of the country.”
Last Friday, Surendran lodged a report
with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission on possible corruption involving Perhilitan.
Also present with Surendran yesterday were representatives from the Malaysian Animal Welfare Society, Pet Positive and the Indepen-dent Living and Training Centre.
Two MPs – S. Manikavasagam (Kapar) and M. Manogaran (Teluk Intan) – accompanied the group. Manikavasagam said he would raise the issue in Parliament during the October meeting.
Group: Probe wildlife smuggler
New Straits Times 22 Aug 09;
KUALA LUMPUR: Two members of parliament and three animal rights groups have lodged a police report against the National Parks and Wildlife Department for allegedly issuing permits to convicted wildlife trafficker Anson Wong to continue with his activities.
They also claimed that a top Customs official aided Wong in his illegal operations.
They called on police to probe the department's alleged link with Wong, which was made by author Bryan Christy in his book, The Lizard King.
The book details Wong's exploits in the 1990s before his arrest by United States wildlife authorities in 1998.
They also want police to investigate if Wong was involved in wildlife smuggling in the country and used Malaysia as a transit point since 1990.
The MPs are M. Manogaran (Teluk Intan) and S. Manikavasagam (Kapar), while the animal rights groups are Malaysian Animal Rights Society, Malaysian Animal Welfare Society and Pet Positive.
The report was lodged at Brickfields district police headquarters here yesterday.
They had also filed a report with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commision on Aug 14.
Oil palm millls pollute Kinabatangan floodplains
Lip service by palm oil mills
Daily Express 21 Aug 09;
Kota Kinabalu: The State Government expressed disappointment, Thursday, that many palm oil mills in the Kinabatangan floodplain continue to discharge effluents into the Kinabatangan River.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun, said these owners were not honouring their promise to comply with existing regulations and rules to treat the waste from their mills.
He said this after attending a presentation by an environmental consultant appointed by the Department of Environment (DOE) to do a comprehensive study on the causes of pollution and its impact on the Kinabatangan River as well as proposing strategies and action plans to improve the water quality of the floodplain.
The findings showed that 29 palm oil mills discharged their wastes into the Kinabatangan basin, mostly in the middle and lower basin area. It also revealed that poor maintenance of effluent ponds is one of the reasons for the pollution problem affecting the Kinabatangan River and compliance rate on effluent discharge is only between 40 and 73 per cent.
Other major contributors are loading of sediments from logging and agriculture activities. The Kinabatangan river plain hosts a variety of wildlife, including the highly-sensitive proboscis monkeys, orang utans, elephants, crocodiles and birds.
"I am sad and disappointed that many palm oil mill owners in Kinabatangan failed to abide by the regulations and rules.
"In fact I have met all the owners twice, if I am not mistaken, and they promised to address the effluent problem immediately. I have given them good time to do the necessary.
"But after I heard about the result of the consultancy findings, I see that many (mill owners) are not serious. Even the East Malaysian Planters Association (EMPA) gave assurance that all its members will take immediate action to treat the effluents," he said.
Masidi was launching the 2nd Stakeholder Consultative Seminar for the Study on Prevention of Pollution and Improvement of Water Quality of Kinabatangan River, Thursday. Also present was Department of Environment (DOE) Sabah Director, Abdul Razak bin Abdul Manap.
A total of RM2 million is allocated to DOE to carry out the comprehensive study on pollution problems in the Kinabatangan and to propose strategies and action plans to improve the water quality. The study which started nine months ago will end in November.
Masidi hoped all the mill owners in Kinabatangan would honour their promise as he would prefer not to take grave action against them.
He said there is a need for the owners to have a high sense of self-awareness and responsibility towards the environment, people and nation.
"This is not only to show their responsibility É we are talking about the interest of the entire country. If we are true and very responsible Malaysians, then we should not quarrel or question about the costs to spend in making the improvement as we are doing it for the country."
Furthermore, Masidi said addressing the effluent problem would benefit the mill owners in the light of the imminent full implementation of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
The owners would not be able to sell their products to the European Union (EU) if there was no RSPO certification.
"A lot of planters and palm oil mill owners may face problems if they do not have the RSPO certification on good practices on environment sustainability in producing their products.
"Hence, I believe it would be best for those involved in palm oil production to immediately make sure they fulfil the required EU standard so that their products can still penetrate the EU market. Failing to do so, they would not be able to export the palm oil," he said.
The implementation of the RSPO is being carried out in stages and so far only four palm oil mills in Sabah have complied with the RSPO certification, including one in the Kinabatangan area.
Masidi also concurred with one of the findings that penalties under the Environmental Quality Act are not a deterrent to errant players in the industry.
Also, it highlighted the shortage of enforcement personnel to oversee activities in the Kinabatangan floodplain.
"Since I took over the Ministry two years ago, 14 new posts were created and it is still insufficient. We could keep adding more enforcement officers but until then and unless the owners start to comply, I believe things will not go anywhere.
"When looking at the national scenario, for instance, bear in mind that Sabah is a quarter of Malaysia and the sheer size of Kinabatangan, which is equivalent to four states, is already a logistical problem.
The presenter of the findings was right when he mentioned that it is easier said than done," he said.
On a proposal to increase the penalties under the Act, Masidi assured that he will liaise with the DOE to seriously look into the matter. He would also be looking into creating a reward system to recognise the efforts of planters and mill owners who regulate themselves without being told to comply.
For instance, he said, at the recent Sabah Environmental Awards one plantation company was given the "Special Minister Award" for practising good environmental practices.
On serious encroachment on riparian reserves, Masidi said he has directed the Land and Survey Department to take action against those planting oil palm close to the banks of the Kinabatangan River and jeopardising the free-movement of wildlife from one area to another.
Daily Express 21 Aug 09;
Kota Kinabalu: The State Government expressed disappointment, Thursday, that many palm oil mills in the Kinabatangan floodplain continue to discharge effluents into the Kinabatangan River.
State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister, Datuk Masidi Manjun, said these owners were not honouring their promise to comply with existing regulations and rules to treat the waste from their mills.
He said this after attending a presentation by an environmental consultant appointed by the Department of Environment (DOE) to do a comprehensive study on the causes of pollution and its impact on the Kinabatangan River as well as proposing strategies and action plans to improve the water quality of the floodplain.
The findings showed that 29 palm oil mills discharged their wastes into the Kinabatangan basin, mostly in the middle and lower basin area. It also revealed that poor maintenance of effluent ponds is one of the reasons for the pollution problem affecting the Kinabatangan River and compliance rate on effluent discharge is only between 40 and 73 per cent.
Other major contributors are loading of sediments from logging and agriculture activities. The Kinabatangan river plain hosts a variety of wildlife, including the highly-sensitive proboscis monkeys, orang utans, elephants, crocodiles and birds.
"I am sad and disappointed that many palm oil mill owners in Kinabatangan failed to abide by the regulations and rules.
"In fact I have met all the owners twice, if I am not mistaken, and they promised to address the effluent problem immediately. I have given them good time to do the necessary.
"But after I heard about the result of the consultancy findings, I see that many (mill owners) are not serious. Even the East Malaysian Planters Association (EMPA) gave assurance that all its members will take immediate action to treat the effluents," he said.
Masidi was launching the 2nd Stakeholder Consultative Seminar for the Study on Prevention of Pollution and Improvement of Water Quality of Kinabatangan River, Thursday. Also present was Department of Environment (DOE) Sabah Director, Abdul Razak bin Abdul Manap.
A total of RM2 million is allocated to DOE to carry out the comprehensive study on pollution problems in the Kinabatangan and to propose strategies and action plans to improve the water quality. The study which started nine months ago will end in November.
Masidi hoped all the mill owners in Kinabatangan would honour their promise as he would prefer not to take grave action against them.
He said there is a need for the owners to have a high sense of self-awareness and responsibility towards the environment, people and nation.
"This is not only to show their responsibility É we are talking about the interest of the entire country. If we are true and very responsible Malaysians, then we should not quarrel or question about the costs to spend in making the improvement as we are doing it for the country."
Furthermore, Masidi said addressing the effluent problem would benefit the mill owners in the light of the imminent full implementation of the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).
The owners would not be able to sell their products to the European Union (EU) if there was no RSPO certification.
"A lot of planters and palm oil mill owners may face problems if they do not have the RSPO certification on good practices on environment sustainability in producing their products.
"Hence, I believe it would be best for those involved in palm oil production to immediately make sure they fulfil the required EU standard so that their products can still penetrate the EU market. Failing to do so, they would not be able to export the palm oil," he said.
The implementation of the RSPO is being carried out in stages and so far only four palm oil mills in Sabah have complied with the RSPO certification, including one in the Kinabatangan area.
Masidi also concurred with one of the findings that penalties under the Environmental Quality Act are not a deterrent to errant players in the industry.
Also, it highlighted the shortage of enforcement personnel to oversee activities in the Kinabatangan floodplain.
"Since I took over the Ministry two years ago, 14 new posts were created and it is still insufficient. We could keep adding more enforcement officers but until then and unless the owners start to comply, I believe things will not go anywhere.
"When looking at the national scenario, for instance, bear in mind that Sabah is a quarter of Malaysia and the sheer size of Kinabatangan, which is equivalent to four states, is already a logistical problem.
The presenter of the findings was right when he mentioned that it is easier said than done," he said.
On a proposal to increase the penalties under the Act, Masidi assured that he will liaise with the DOE to seriously look into the matter. He would also be looking into creating a reward system to recognise the efforts of planters and mill owners who regulate themselves without being told to comply.
For instance, he said, at the recent Sabah Environmental Awards one plantation company was given the "Special Minister Award" for practising good environmental practices.
On serious encroachment on riparian reserves, Masidi said he has directed the Land and Survey Department to take action against those planting oil palm close to the banks of the Kinabatangan River and jeopardising the free-movement of wildlife from one area to another.
Predators key to sustainable farming: barn owls in Malaysian palm oil plantations
University of Queensland 21 Aug 09;
Barn owls have emerged as the unlikely heroes in the fight against climate change, saving Malaysian farmers more than money, UQ PhD Student Chong Leong Puan has found.
A student from UQ's School of Integrative Systems, Mr Puan examined predator behaviour to determine the effectiveness of barn owls in rodent control on Malaysian palm oil plantations.
“Owl species that are associated with forest habitats are regarded as an indicator of forest health,” Mr Puan said.
“Many species remain high in the food chain and have an ecological role of maintaining ecosystems in a steady state.”
Mr Puan, a representative for the World Owl Trust, saw a need to research a more cost effective and environmentally friendly method of pest control.
“I spent 14 months on a palm oil plantation in Malaysia trapping rats, observing owl breeding conditions and collecting owl pellets,” he said.
Mr Puan found that high rodent levels correspond with increased owl fertility rates.
“There was a significant positive correlation between the relative abundance of rats captured and number of pellets collected during breeding months of the birds,” Mr Puan said.
He also found that biological controls can be used to overcome environmental problems associated with chemical pesticides, such as rodent resistance and secondary poisoning of non-target animals.
The cost efficiency of such biological controls are another reason to adopt the method in Malaysia, the world's second largest palm oil producer.
Annually, rodents cost the palm oil industry more than $32 million USD, with many plantations relying heavily on chemical control methods.
At a time when both the economy and the environment are struggling on the global stage, Mr Puan's findings pave the way for sustainable farming practices across the agricultural industry.
Barn owls have emerged as the unlikely heroes in the fight against climate change, saving Malaysian farmers more than money, UQ PhD Student Chong Leong Puan has found.
A student from UQ's School of Integrative Systems, Mr Puan examined predator behaviour to determine the effectiveness of barn owls in rodent control on Malaysian palm oil plantations.
“Owl species that are associated with forest habitats are regarded as an indicator of forest health,” Mr Puan said.
“Many species remain high in the food chain and have an ecological role of maintaining ecosystems in a steady state.”
Mr Puan, a representative for the World Owl Trust, saw a need to research a more cost effective and environmentally friendly method of pest control.
“I spent 14 months on a palm oil plantation in Malaysia trapping rats, observing owl breeding conditions and collecting owl pellets,” he said.
Mr Puan found that high rodent levels correspond with increased owl fertility rates.
“There was a significant positive correlation between the relative abundance of rats captured and number of pellets collected during breeding months of the birds,” Mr Puan said.
He also found that biological controls can be used to overcome environmental problems associated with chemical pesticides, such as rodent resistance and secondary poisoning of non-target animals.
The cost efficiency of such biological controls are another reason to adopt the method in Malaysia, the world's second largest palm oil producer.
Annually, rodents cost the palm oil industry more than $32 million USD, with many plantations relying heavily on chemical control methods.
At a time when both the economy and the environment are struggling on the global stage, Mr Puan's findings pave the way for sustainable farming practices across the agricultural industry.
Birdwatching 'not environmentally friendly'
Birdwatching may not be the environmental pastime people think, with new research claiming the activity encourages pollution.
Chris Irvine, The Telegraph 21 Aug 09;
An academic study suggests competitions to spot as many species of bird in a day, along with thousands of enthusiasts visiting a garden when a rare bird is spotted, means a heavy use of transport.
Many twitchers will travel hundreds, potentially thousands, of miles just to see a bird, according to Professor Spencer Schaffner, who admits being a birdwatcher himself.
Prof Schaffner's research on "Environmental Sport" also found that many sites where new breeding grounds are being set up are often former landfill or other sites which still leak pollution.
As they have been covered with grass to make a park or wildlife area, many of the environmental hazards are still present but being ignored, particularly by birdwatchers, he said.
Prof Schaffner, from the University of Illinois, said he had noticed a big increase in competitive events for the twitchers.
It often involves having to spot as many different kinds of bird in a set period and can involve driving hundreds of miles a day to find another breed to tick off the list.
There are even some who spend their whole lives, full time, trying to spot every one of the 10,000 breeds in the world but only a handful have got as far as 8,000.
More than 5,000 people travelled to Kent recently to see a Golden-winged warbler which had been blown off course to land in Britain.
Writing in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Prof Schaffner said: "Birding is... an ostensibly green category of sport relying on both environmental protection and degradation.
"Competitive birders log many hours in their cars. Some even fully to spot a single species of bird.
"We tend to think getting out there in the outdoors and doing things that I'm calling environmental sport is part of saving the planet.
"It's considered part of being green and caring about nature. But a lot of the environments we do that in are altered, manufactured, human-modified places.
"And a lot of the stuff we do isn't necessarily in the best interest of those ideas of conservation."
Former landfill sites converted into 'natural areas' still pose "significant dangers to the environment" because of toxic chemicals just beneath the surface, he said.
Twitchers ignore the problems because the bird species seem to be thriving although many may simply be moving through the area as part of a migration path, said the professor.
Chris Irvine, The Telegraph 21 Aug 09;
An academic study suggests competitions to spot as many species of bird in a day, along with thousands of enthusiasts visiting a garden when a rare bird is spotted, means a heavy use of transport.
Many twitchers will travel hundreds, potentially thousands, of miles just to see a bird, according to Professor Spencer Schaffner, who admits being a birdwatcher himself.
Prof Schaffner's research on "Environmental Sport" also found that many sites where new breeding grounds are being set up are often former landfill or other sites which still leak pollution.
As they have been covered with grass to make a park or wildlife area, many of the environmental hazards are still present but being ignored, particularly by birdwatchers, he said.
Prof Schaffner, from the University of Illinois, said he had noticed a big increase in competitive events for the twitchers.
It often involves having to spot as many different kinds of bird in a set period and can involve driving hundreds of miles a day to find another breed to tick off the list.
There are even some who spend their whole lives, full time, trying to spot every one of the 10,000 breeds in the world but only a handful have got as far as 8,000.
More than 5,000 people travelled to Kent recently to see a Golden-winged warbler which had been blown off course to land in Britain.
Writing in the Journal of Sport and Social Issues, Prof Schaffner said: "Birding is... an ostensibly green category of sport relying on both environmental protection and degradation.
"Competitive birders log many hours in their cars. Some even fully to spot a single species of bird.
"We tend to think getting out there in the outdoors and doing things that I'm calling environmental sport is part of saving the planet.
"It's considered part of being green and caring about nature. But a lot of the environments we do that in are altered, manufactured, human-modified places.
"And a lot of the stuff we do isn't necessarily in the best interest of those ideas of conservation."
Former landfill sites converted into 'natural areas' still pose "significant dangers to the environment" because of toxic chemicals just beneath the surface, he said.
Twitchers ignore the problems because the bird species seem to be thriving although many may simply be moving through the area as part of a migration path, said the professor.
Traffic noise could be ruining sex lives of frogs
Rod Mcguirk, Associated Press Yahoo News 21 Aug 09;
CANBERRA, Australia – Traffic noise could be ruining the sex lives of urban frogs by drowning out the seductive croaks of amorous males, an Australian researcher said Friday.
A well-projected and energetic croak is the male frog's most important asset in the quest to attract mates to his pond, Melbourne University ecologist Kirsten Parris said.
But competition from traffic noise in Melbourne could be a reason why frog numbers have declined in Australia's second-largest city since her survey of more than 100 ponds began in 2000, she said.
"If there are a number of different males calling, the one that sounds the best often gets the girl," Parris told The Associated Press. "You have to be pretty clear about your assets if you're a male frog."
"Generally, if he's putting a lot of energy into calling — if he's calling loudly or quickly or for a long time or all those things combined — it shows he's fit and strong and generally those things tend to correlate with female choice," she added.
Parris found the distance at which a frog suitor can be heard by a potential mate is slashed by city noise.
"This makes it much harder for frogs to attract mates and this could then mean that their breeding success is reduced," Parris said.
Frog species with low-pitched croaks are most disadvantaged because they are competing against the low-pitched rumble of traffic and machinery such as air conditioners, she said.
The southern brown tree frog has adapted by raising the pitch of its croak in areas where there is traffic din, she found.
In the noisiest parts of Melbourne, the frog's usual pitch cannot be heard by other frogs beyond 21 yards (19 meters). At the higher pitch, the croaks carry an additional 16 feet (5 meters).
The popplebonk frog's call can be heard by females from 875 yards (800 meters) without background noise. That range shrinks to only 46 feet (14 meters) near busy roads.
Parris presented her research on Thursday to the 10th International Ecology Congress in the eastern city of Brisbane.
Ken Thompson, a University of Sheffield ecologist who edits the British journal, Functional Ecology, described Parris' findings of reduced mating because of traffic noise as "highly plausible."
"There is accumulating evidence that noise in urban habitats is having an effect on the behavior of animals," Thompson said.
He said his own university's research found British birds were singing at night because their habitats had become too noisy during the day.
CANBERRA, Australia – Traffic noise could be ruining the sex lives of urban frogs by drowning out the seductive croaks of amorous males, an Australian researcher said Friday.
A well-projected and energetic croak is the male frog's most important asset in the quest to attract mates to his pond, Melbourne University ecologist Kirsten Parris said.
But competition from traffic noise in Melbourne could be a reason why frog numbers have declined in Australia's second-largest city since her survey of more than 100 ponds began in 2000, she said.
"If there are a number of different males calling, the one that sounds the best often gets the girl," Parris told The Associated Press. "You have to be pretty clear about your assets if you're a male frog."
"Generally, if he's putting a lot of energy into calling — if he's calling loudly or quickly or for a long time or all those things combined — it shows he's fit and strong and generally those things tend to correlate with female choice," she added.
Parris found the distance at which a frog suitor can be heard by a potential mate is slashed by city noise.
"This makes it much harder for frogs to attract mates and this could then mean that their breeding success is reduced," Parris said.
Frog species with low-pitched croaks are most disadvantaged because they are competing against the low-pitched rumble of traffic and machinery such as air conditioners, she said.
The southern brown tree frog has adapted by raising the pitch of its croak in areas where there is traffic din, she found.
In the noisiest parts of Melbourne, the frog's usual pitch cannot be heard by other frogs beyond 21 yards (19 meters). At the higher pitch, the croaks carry an additional 16 feet (5 meters).
The popplebonk frog's call can be heard by females from 875 yards (800 meters) without background noise. That range shrinks to only 46 feet (14 meters) near busy roads.
Parris presented her research on Thursday to the 10th International Ecology Congress in the eastern city of Brisbane.
Ken Thompson, a University of Sheffield ecologist who edits the British journal, Functional Ecology, described Parris' findings of reduced mating because of traffic noise as "highly plausible."
"There is accumulating evidence that noise in urban habitats is having an effect on the behavior of animals," Thompson said.
He said his own university's research found British birds were singing at night because their habitats had become too noisy during the day.
Carbon traders bet on California redwoods
Peter Henderson, Reuters 21 Aug 09;
GARCIA RIVER FOREST, California (Reuters) - A stand of young redwoods, survivors in what was once a magnificent forest of towering giants, could play a small part of the battle to slow global warming -- and forms part of an emerging market.
The trees, which trap quantities of the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet, are sold as living carbon traps or "sinks" rather than cut for timber, a model that could go global. But the prospect of a worldwide market could also attract hustlers eager to make a quick buck without making a difference to the planet.
"It's easy to game it," said forest owner Chris Kelly of the developing forest carbon market. "We just have to figure out how to do it right."
Deforestation accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions that are heating up the earth so slowing its pace is a relatively cheap way to limit global warming. That's why preserving forests is a top agenda item of international climate change talks scheduled for December.
But devising a fair way to reward those who own and control forests for their true contribution to the atmosphere has proved difficult and complicated.
The United States, which has lagged in addressing global warming, leads the world in developing a market for forests that soak up carbon dioxide emissions. The Garcia forest presents a test case of how the system could work -- or fail.
"When we talk about deforestation, we've already done it here," said Louis Blumberg of the Nature Conservancy, which helped plan carbon sales at the Garcia project. Some 95 percent of old-growth redwoods are already gone in California, and the state must better manage what has grown back.
"We moved carbon out of the ground and the trees into the air. We need to hit the reset button," said Blumberg, who directs the environmental group's California Climate Change project.
With its towering redwoods and gurgling streams, the Garcia forest looks wild and healthy -- but it's a shadow of what it once was. Six-foot-(2-meter) wide stumps hint at its former grandeur a century or two ago.
Ninety percent of the wood it once held is already gone. If managed like most commercial forests, it would probably stay at roughly its current size. However, the non-profit owners have sharply reduced timber harvesting and are making some of their profits by selling carbon credits, so the forest may recover, at least partially.
Climate change can be slowed in two ways:
-- cutting emissions from industry, automobiles, airplanes and other tools of industrial society, or
-- soaking up more emissions once they are in the air.
For forest projects to succeed, the world must find a way to stop emerging economies like Brazil and Indonesia from cutting down tropical jungles. U.S.-based projects, which focus on growing bigger trees and holding more carbon, could help a little but cannot in themselves solve the problem.
But the U.S. plan could offer a direction and an example for others to follow.
VOLUNTARY MARKET IS THE START
Under a cap-and-trade system, the main global mechanism for addressing climate change, polluters face limits on how much they can emit. To meet those limits, they can manage their own emissions, buy credits from companies who emit less than their cap, or buy offsets.
Forests are not part of the biggest regulated carbon market, in Europe, but California's law to open a regulated market for carbon pollution in 2012 includes them, and so does a federal plan being debated in the U.S. Congress.
A voluntary market has sprung up in the meantime.
"These projects take time. It's not the kind of thing that you can turn a switch and you've got millions of acres of forests sequestering CO2," said Eron Bloomgarden, president of environmental markets at Equator LLC, a for-profit venture creating forest carbon projects.
California forest projects fetch $5 to $12 a CO2 ton, more than in other parts of the world and other types of sequestration, because they meet California's developing rules, the closest thing yet to regulations for an official forest market, said Lenny Hochschild, a managing director at environmental brokerage Evolution Markets.
For-profit forest owners increasingly are being tempted to sell carbon, joining non-profits pioneers, he said.
"If you incentivize folks to clean up the environment, they'll clean up the environment," he said.
Voluntary deals and trade on platforms like the Chicago Climate Exchange doubled last year to more than $700 million, according to Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance.
Forest credits were a fraction of that. But a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis of a draft national plan projects more than 100 million tons of forest offsets in 2015, rising to well over 400 million in 2050.
Nations gathering in December in Copenhagen to negotiate a follow-up to the Kyoto climate change treaty could introduce forest credit trade to cut developing nation deforestation.
THE GARCIA EXAMPLE
Timber and carbon prices both have plummeted since the Conservation Fund bought Garcia with grant money and a low interest loan, but the carbon credit sales have been enough to pay interest on the loan.
The largest tree in the world by volume, a California redwood, is nearly 275 feet high with a diameter of more than 17 feet, testimony to what might grow on Garcia -- in 1,000 years. But the danger to the Garcia project, and investors, is vivid: charred trunks of trees destroyed in a fire last year. Very little wood was lost because redwoods are flame resistant and ridges acted as fire breaks. The experience was enough to make Kelly wary of projects in regions with less hearty trees.
The Conservation Fund keeps a reserve of credits in case of disaster, and the state is debating whether to create a pool of credits that could be doled out in emergencies. Something like that will be needed for a fool-proof, disaster-proof system.
At some point coal plants may be buying forest offsets by the millions of tons, Kelly said. "You want to make sure that if they lose half that forest, there is some makeup of the balance," he said.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson, Editing by Alan Elsner)
FACTBOX: How forest carbon offsets work
Reuters 21 Aug 09;
(Reuters) - The United States lags in efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions but is a world leader in developing standards to give credits to forest owners who manage their trees to maximize carbon storage.
Here is how forests could be included in a California, U.S. or international system for trading pollution credits:
* Globally, forest credits are seen as a way to save threatened tropical forests, but in California, where 95 percent of old growth redwoods are gone, the goal is growing back what's been lost and managing young forests.
* Debate over the mechanics of trading forest carbon has obstructed creation of a global system.
California voluntary trade in forest credits is spurred by plans to start a regulated carbon trade market in 2012, which would include forest credits. Constantly developing rules for the voluntary market are expected to apply to the regulated one.
* Generally forests could be a tradable type of "offset" to greenhouse gas emissions, since they suck up carbon dioxide. Under a cap-and-trade system, polluters face limits on how much they can emit. To meet those limits they can manage their own emissions, buy credits from companies who emit less than their cap, and buy offsets.
* Creating a reliable forest offset is complex. The carbon saved must be additional to what would otherwise be, quantifiable, permanent, verifiable and enforceable. Enforceability over decades is fraught in a world where many nations have fuzzy rules of forest ownership, governments rise and fall, and legal systems vary in strength.
In California there is a debate about who is responsible when a forest goes up in smoke, for instance -- the forest owner or the credit holder. Consensus is forming around requiring forest owners to keep reserves that collectively form an insurance pool for any forest which is devastated.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson, Editing by Alan Elsner)
GARCIA RIVER FOREST, California (Reuters) - A stand of young redwoods, survivors in what was once a magnificent forest of towering giants, could play a small part of the battle to slow global warming -- and forms part of an emerging market.
The trees, which trap quantities of the carbon dioxide that is warming the planet, are sold as living carbon traps or "sinks" rather than cut for timber, a model that could go global. But the prospect of a worldwide market could also attract hustlers eager to make a quick buck without making a difference to the planet.
"It's easy to game it," said forest owner Chris Kelly of the developing forest carbon market. "We just have to figure out how to do it right."
Deforestation accounts for a fifth of greenhouse gas emissions that are heating up the earth so slowing its pace is a relatively cheap way to limit global warming. That's why preserving forests is a top agenda item of international climate change talks scheduled for December.
But devising a fair way to reward those who own and control forests for their true contribution to the atmosphere has proved difficult and complicated.
The United States, which has lagged in addressing global warming, leads the world in developing a market for forests that soak up carbon dioxide emissions. The Garcia forest presents a test case of how the system could work -- or fail.
"When we talk about deforestation, we've already done it here," said Louis Blumberg of the Nature Conservancy, which helped plan carbon sales at the Garcia project. Some 95 percent of old-growth redwoods are already gone in California, and the state must better manage what has grown back.
"We moved carbon out of the ground and the trees into the air. We need to hit the reset button," said Blumberg, who directs the environmental group's California Climate Change project.
With its towering redwoods and gurgling streams, the Garcia forest looks wild and healthy -- but it's a shadow of what it once was. Six-foot-(2-meter) wide stumps hint at its former grandeur a century or two ago.
Ninety percent of the wood it once held is already gone. If managed like most commercial forests, it would probably stay at roughly its current size. However, the non-profit owners have sharply reduced timber harvesting and are making some of their profits by selling carbon credits, so the forest may recover, at least partially.
Climate change can be slowed in two ways:
-- cutting emissions from industry, automobiles, airplanes and other tools of industrial society, or
-- soaking up more emissions once they are in the air.
For forest projects to succeed, the world must find a way to stop emerging economies like Brazil and Indonesia from cutting down tropical jungles. U.S.-based projects, which focus on growing bigger trees and holding more carbon, could help a little but cannot in themselves solve the problem.
But the U.S. plan could offer a direction and an example for others to follow.
VOLUNTARY MARKET IS THE START
Under a cap-and-trade system, the main global mechanism for addressing climate change, polluters face limits on how much they can emit. To meet those limits, they can manage their own emissions, buy credits from companies who emit less than their cap, or buy offsets.
Forests are not part of the biggest regulated carbon market, in Europe, but California's law to open a regulated market for carbon pollution in 2012 includes them, and so does a federal plan being debated in the U.S. Congress.
A voluntary market has sprung up in the meantime.
"These projects take time. It's not the kind of thing that you can turn a switch and you've got millions of acres of forests sequestering CO2," said Eron Bloomgarden, president of environmental markets at Equator LLC, a for-profit venture creating forest carbon projects.
California forest projects fetch $5 to $12 a CO2 ton, more than in other parts of the world and other types of sequestration, because they meet California's developing rules, the closest thing yet to regulations for an official forest market, said Lenny Hochschild, a managing director at environmental brokerage Evolution Markets.
For-profit forest owners increasingly are being tempted to sell carbon, joining non-profits pioneers, he said.
"If you incentivize folks to clean up the environment, they'll clean up the environment," he said.
Voluntary deals and trade on platforms like the Chicago Climate Exchange doubled last year to more than $700 million, according to Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance.
Forest credits were a fraction of that. But a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis of a draft national plan projects more than 100 million tons of forest offsets in 2015, rising to well over 400 million in 2050.
Nations gathering in December in Copenhagen to negotiate a follow-up to the Kyoto climate change treaty could introduce forest credit trade to cut developing nation deforestation.
THE GARCIA EXAMPLE
Timber and carbon prices both have plummeted since the Conservation Fund bought Garcia with grant money and a low interest loan, but the carbon credit sales have been enough to pay interest on the loan.
The largest tree in the world by volume, a California redwood, is nearly 275 feet high with a diameter of more than 17 feet, testimony to what might grow on Garcia -- in 1,000 years. But the danger to the Garcia project, and investors, is vivid: charred trunks of trees destroyed in a fire last year. Very little wood was lost because redwoods are flame resistant and ridges acted as fire breaks. The experience was enough to make Kelly wary of projects in regions with less hearty trees.
The Conservation Fund keeps a reserve of credits in case of disaster, and the state is debating whether to create a pool of credits that could be doled out in emergencies. Something like that will be needed for a fool-proof, disaster-proof system.
At some point coal plants may be buying forest offsets by the millions of tons, Kelly said. "You want to make sure that if they lose half that forest, there is some makeup of the balance," he said.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson, Editing by Alan Elsner)
FACTBOX: How forest carbon offsets work
Reuters 21 Aug 09;
(Reuters) - The United States lags in efforts to curb greenhouse gas emissions but is a world leader in developing standards to give credits to forest owners who manage their trees to maximize carbon storage.
Here is how forests could be included in a California, U.S. or international system for trading pollution credits:
* Globally, forest credits are seen as a way to save threatened tropical forests, but in California, where 95 percent of old growth redwoods are gone, the goal is growing back what's been lost and managing young forests.
* Debate over the mechanics of trading forest carbon has obstructed creation of a global system.
California voluntary trade in forest credits is spurred by plans to start a regulated carbon trade market in 2012, which would include forest credits. Constantly developing rules for the voluntary market are expected to apply to the regulated one.
* Generally forests could be a tradable type of "offset" to greenhouse gas emissions, since they suck up carbon dioxide. Under a cap-and-trade system, polluters face limits on how much they can emit. To meet those limits they can manage their own emissions, buy credits from companies who emit less than their cap, and buy offsets.
* Creating a reliable forest offset is complex. The carbon saved must be additional to what would otherwise be, quantifiable, permanent, verifiable and enforceable. Enforceability over decades is fraught in a world where many nations have fuzzy rules of forest ownership, governments rise and fall, and legal systems vary in strength.
In California there is a debate about who is responsible when a forest goes up in smoke, for instance -- the forest owner or the credit holder. Consensus is forming around requiring forest owners to keep reserves that collectively form an insurance pool for any forest which is devastated.
(Reporting by Peter Henderson, Editing by Alan Elsner)
In Brazil, Paying Farmers to Let the Trees Stand
Elisabeth Rosenthal, The New York Times 21 Aug 09;
QUERENCIA, Brazil — José Marcolini, a farmer here, has a permit from the Brazilian government to raze 12,500 acres of rain forest this year to create highly profitable new soy fields.
But he says he is struggling with his conscience. A Brazilian environmental group is offering him a yearly cash payment to leave his forest standing to help combat climate change.
Mr. Marcolini says he cares about the environment. But he also has a family to feed, and he is dubious that the group’s initial offer in the negotiation — $12 per acre, per year — is enough for him to accept.
“For me to resist the pressure, surrounded by soybeans, I’ll have to be paid — a lot,” said Mr. Marcolini, 53, noting that cleared farmland here in the state of Mato Grosso sells for up to $1,300 an acre.
Mato Grosso means thick forests, and the name was once apt. But today, this Brazilian state is a global epicenter of deforestation. Driven by profits derived from fertile soil, the region’s dense forests have been aggressively cleared over the past decade, and Mato Grasso is now Brazil’s leading producer of soy, corn and cattle, exported across the globe by multinational companies.
Deforestation, a critical contributor to climate change, effectively accounts for 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and 70 percent of the emissions in Brazil. Halting new deforestation, experts say, is as powerful a way to combat warming as closing the world’s coal plants.
But until now, there has been no financial reward for keeping forest standing. Which is why a growing number of scientists, politicians and environmentalists argue that cash payments — like that offered to Mr. Marcolini — are the only way to end tropical forest destruction and provide a game-changing strategy in efforts to limit global warming.
Unlike high-tech solutions like capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide or making “green” fuel from algae, preserving a forest yields a strikingly simple environmental payback: a landowner reduces his property’s emissions to zero.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, said that deforestation “absolutely” needed to be addressed by a new international climate agreement being negotiated this year. “But people cut down trees because there is an economic rationale for doing it, and you need to provide them with a financial alternative,” he said.
Both the most recent draft of the agreement and the climate bill passed by the House in late June in the United States include plans for rich countries and companies to pay the poor to preserve their forests.
The payment strategies may include direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing, as well as indirect subsidies, like higher prices for beef and soy that are produced without resorting to clear-cutting. Deforestation creates carbon emissions through fires and machinery that are used to fell trees, and it also destroys the plant life that helps absorb carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories around the globe.
But getting the cash incentives right is a complex and uncharted business. In much of the developing world, including here, deforestation has been tied to economic progress. Pedro Alves Guimarães, 73, a weathered man sitting at the edge of the region’s River of the Dead, came to Mato Grosso in 1964 in search of free land, pushing into the jungle until he found a site and built a hut as a base for raising cattle. While he regrets the loss of the forest, he has welcomed amenities like the school built a few years ago that his grandchildren attend, or the electricity put in last year that allowed him to buy his first freezer.
Also, environmental groups caution that, designed poorly, programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them. For example, one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life.
“There is the capacity to get a very perverse outcome,” said Sean Cadman, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society of Australia.
Global as well as local economic forces are driving deforestation — Brazil and Indonesia lead the world in the extent of their rain forests lost each year. The forests are felled to help feed the world’s growing population and meet its growing appetite for meat. Much of Brazil’s soy is bought by American-based companies like Cargill or Archer Daniels Midland and used to feed cows as far away as Europe and China. In Indonesia, rain forests are felled to plant palms for the palm oil, which is a component of biofuels.
Brazil has tried to balance development and conservation.
Last year, with a grant from Norway that could bring the country $1 billion, it created an Amazon Fund to help communities maintain their forest. National laws stipulate that 80 percent of every tract in the upper Amazon — and 50 percent in more developed regions — must remain forested, but it is a vast territory with little law enforcement. Soy exporters officially have a moratorium on using product from newly deforested land.
Here in Mato Grasso, 700 square miles of rain forest was stripped in the last five months of 2007 alone, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, which tracks vanishing forests.
“With so much money to be made, there are no laws that will keep forest standing,” John Carter, a rancher who settled here 15 years ago, said as he flew his Cessna over the denuded land one day this summer.
Until very recently, developing the Amazon was the priority, and some settlers feel betrayed by the new stigma surrounding deforestation. Much as in the 19th-century American West, the Brazilian government encouraged settlement through homesteaders’ benefits like cheap land and housing subsidies, many of which still exist today.
“It was revolting and sad when the world said that deforestation was bad — we were told to come here and that we had to tear it down,” said Mato Grosso’s secretary of agriculture, Neldo Egon Weirich, 56, who moved here in 1978 and noted that to be eligible for loans to buy tractors and seed, a farmer had to clear 80 percent of his land.
He is proud to have turned Mato Grosso from a malarial zone into an agricultural powerhouse. “Mato Grosso is under a microscope — we know we have to do something,” Mr. Weirich said. “But we can’t just stop production.”
Even today, settlers around the globe are buying or claiming cheap “useless” forest and transforming it into farmland.
Clearing away the trees is often the best way to declare and ensure ownership. Land that Mr. Carter has intentionally left forested for its environmental benefit has been intermittently overtaken by squatters — a common problem here. In parts of Southeast Asia, early experiments in paying landowners for preserving forest have been hampered because it is often unclear who owns, or controls, property.
There are various ideas about how to rein in deforestation.
Mr. Carter has started a landowners’ environmental group, called Aliança da Terra, whose members agree to have their properties surveyed for good environmental practices and their forests tracked by satellite by scientists at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), ensuring that they are not cultivating newly cleared land. Mr. Carter is currently negotiating with companies like McDonalds to purchase only from farms that have been certified.
The United Nations program, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation or REDD, will reward countries that preserve forests with carbon credits that can be sold and turned into cash for forest owners through the global carbon market. The United Nations already gives such credits for cleaning factories and planting trees. Carbon credits are bought by companies or countries that have exceeded their emissions limits, as a way to balance their emissions budget.
Daniel Nepstad, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, has mapped out large areas of the Amazon “pixel by pixel” to determine the land value if it was converted to raise cattle or grow soy, to help determine how much landowners should be paid to conserve forest. Most experts feel that landowners will accept lower prices as they realize the benefits of saving forest, like conserving water and burnishing their image with buyers.
Mr. Weirich, the agriculture secretary, said he was skeptical about that. But he, too, senses that there may for the first time be money in forest preservation and has recently decided to be certified by Aliança da Terra.
“We want to adopt practices that will put us ahead in the market,” he said.
The initial offer Mr. Marcolini has from the environmental group is perhaps not enough to save the forest here. But, he said, if his land was in a more remote part of the Amazon, with less farming potential, “I’d take that offer and run with it.”
QUERENCIA, Brazil — José Marcolini, a farmer here, has a permit from the Brazilian government to raze 12,500 acres of rain forest this year to create highly profitable new soy fields.
But he says he is struggling with his conscience. A Brazilian environmental group is offering him a yearly cash payment to leave his forest standing to help combat climate change.
Mr. Marcolini says he cares about the environment. But he also has a family to feed, and he is dubious that the group’s initial offer in the negotiation — $12 per acre, per year — is enough for him to accept.
“For me to resist the pressure, surrounded by soybeans, I’ll have to be paid — a lot,” said Mr. Marcolini, 53, noting that cleared farmland here in the state of Mato Grosso sells for up to $1,300 an acre.
Mato Grosso means thick forests, and the name was once apt. But today, this Brazilian state is a global epicenter of deforestation. Driven by profits derived from fertile soil, the region’s dense forests have been aggressively cleared over the past decade, and Mato Grasso is now Brazil’s leading producer of soy, corn and cattle, exported across the globe by multinational companies.
Deforestation, a critical contributor to climate change, effectively accounts for 20 percent of the world’s carbon dioxide emissions and 70 percent of the emissions in Brazil. Halting new deforestation, experts say, is as powerful a way to combat warming as closing the world’s coal plants.
But until now, there has been no financial reward for keeping forest standing. Which is why a growing number of scientists, politicians and environmentalists argue that cash payments — like that offered to Mr. Marcolini — are the only way to end tropical forest destruction and provide a game-changing strategy in efforts to limit global warming.
Unlike high-tech solutions like capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide or making “green” fuel from algae, preserving a forest yields a strikingly simple environmental payback: a landowner reduces his property’s emissions to zero.
Yvo de Boer, executive secretary of the United Nations Framework on Climate Change, said that deforestation “absolutely” needed to be addressed by a new international climate agreement being negotiated this year. “But people cut down trees because there is an economic rationale for doing it, and you need to provide them with a financial alternative,” he said.
Both the most recent draft of the agreement and the climate bill passed by the House in late June in the United States include plans for rich countries and companies to pay the poor to preserve their forests.
The payment strategies may include direct payments to landowners to keep forests standing, as well as indirect subsidies, like higher prices for beef and soy that are produced without resorting to clear-cutting. Deforestation creates carbon emissions through fires and machinery that are used to fell trees, and it also destroys the plant life that helps absorb carbon dioxide emissions from cars and factories around the globe.
But getting the cash incentives right is a complex and uncharted business. In much of the developing world, including here, deforestation has been tied to economic progress. Pedro Alves Guimarães, 73, a weathered man sitting at the edge of the region’s River of the Dead, came to Mato Grosso in 1964 in search of free land, pushing into the jungle until he found a site and built a hut as a base for raising cattle. While he regrets the loss of the forest, he has welcomed amenities like the school built a few years ago that his grandchildren attend, or the electricity put in last year that allowed him to buy his first freezer.
Also, environmental groups caution that, designed poorly, programs to pay for forest preservation could merely serve as a cash cow for the very people who are destroying them. For example, one proposed version of the new United Nations plan would allow plantations of trees, like palms grown for palm oil, to count as forest, even though tree plantations do not have nearly the carbon absorption potential of genuine forest and are far less diverse in plant and animal life.
“There is the capacity to get a very perverse outcome,” said Sean Cadman, a spokesman for the Wilderness Society of Australia.
Global as well as local economic forces are driving deforestation — Brazil and Indonesia lead the world in the extent of their rain forests lost each year. The forests are felled to help feed the world’s growing population and meet its growing appetite for meat. Much of Brazil’s soy is bought by American-based companies like Cargill or Archer Daniels Midland and used to feed cows as far away as Europe and China. In Indonesia, rain forests are felled to plant palms for the palm oil, which is a component of biofuels.
Brazil has tried to balance development and conservation.
Last year, with a grant from Norway that could bring the country $1 billion, it created an Amazon Fund to help communities maintain their forest. National laws stipulate that 80 percent of every tract in the upper Amazon — and 50 percent in more developed regions — must remain forested, but it is a vast territory with little law enforcement. Soy exporters officially have a moratorium on using product from newly deforested land.
Here in Mato Grasso, 700 square miles of rain forest was stripped in the last five months of 2007 alone, according to Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, which tracks vanishing forests.
“With so much money to be made, there are no laws that will keep forest standing,” John Carter, a rancher who settled here 15 years ago, said as he flew his Cessna over the denuded land one day this summer.
Until very recently, developing the Amazon was the priority, and some settlers feel betrayed by the new stigma surrounding deforestation. Much as in the 19th-century American West, the Brazilian government encouraged settlement through homesteaders’ benefits like cheap land and housing subsidies, many of which still exist today.
“It was revolting and sad when the world said that deforestation was bad — we were told to come here and that we had to tear it down,” said Mato Grosso’s secretary of agriculture, Neldo Egon Weirich, 56, who moved here in 1978 and noted that to be eligible for loans to buy tractors and seed, a farmer had to clear 80 percent of his land.
He is proud to have turned Mato Grosso from a malarial zone into an agricultural powerhouse. “Mato Grosso is under a microscope — we know we have to do something,” Mr. Weirich said. “But we can’t just stop production.”
Even today, settlers around the globe are buying or claiming cheap “useless” forest and transforming it into farmland.
Clearing away the trees is often the best way to declare and ensure ownership. Land that Mr. Carter has intentionally left forested for its environmental benefit has been intermittently overtaken by squatters — a common problem here. In parts of Southeast Asia, early experiments in paying landowners for preserving forest have been hampered because it is often unclear who owns, or controls, property.
There are various ideas about how to rein in deforestation.
Mr. Carter has started a landowners’ environmental group, called Aliança da Terra, whose members agree to have their properties surveyed for good environmental practices and their forests tracked by satellite by scientists at the Amazon Institute for Environmental Research (IPAM), ensuring that they are not cultivating newly cleared land. Mr. Carter is currently negotiating with companies like McDonalds to purchase only from farms that have been certified.
The United Nations program, called Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation or REDD, will reward countries that preserve forests with carbon credits that can be sold and turned into cash for forest owners through the global carbon market. The United Nations already gives such credits for cleaning factories and planting trees. Carbon credits are bought by companies or countries that have exceeded their emissions limits, as a way to balance their emissions budget.
Daniel Nepstad, a scientist at the Woods Hole Research Center, has mapped out large areas of the Amazon “pixel by pixel” to determine the land value if it was converted to raise cattle or grow soy, to help determine how much landowners should be paid to conserve forest. Most experts feel that landowners will accept lower prices as they realize the benefits of saving forest, like conserving water and burnishing their image with buyers.
Mr. Weirich, the agriculture secretary, said he was skeptical about that. But he, too, senses that there may for the first time be money in forest preservation and has recently decided to be certified by Aliança da Terra.
“We want to adopt practices that will put us ahead in the market,” he said.
The initial offer Mr. Marcolini has from the environmental group is perhaps not enough to save the forest here. But, he said, if his land was in a more remote part of the Amazon, with less farming potential, “I’d take that offer and run with it.”
Prickly Problem: Engineering Mosquitoes to Spread Less Disease without Boosting Virulence
Scientists are creating transgenic mosquitoes with reduced ability to carry the devastating diseases that have plagued much of humanity. But will these modifications also generate more virulent infections?
Charles Q. Choi, Scientific American 21 Aug 09;
Scientists around the world are currently hard at work genetically engineering new strains of mosquitoes that are poor hosts for diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever, in the hopes of cutting down the spread of these germs. New research suggests, however, that although these insects might succeed in reducing the number of infections, they might also inadvertently boost the severity of remaining ones.
Researchers at Yale University and their colleagues investigated dengue, a mosquito-borne virus for which there is no vaccine or cure. Roughly 50 million cases of dengue occur per year, leading to some 500,000 hospitalizations and several thousand deaths annually.
Insecticides are currently used to control dengue, a practice which runs the risk of breeding insecticide-resistant bloodsuckers. One potential alternative strategy, first proposed more than four decades ago, is to introduce genes into mosquitoes to prevent infections—for instance, by interfering with the spread of germs from the insect's gut to its saliva.
After using mathematical models to investigate the potential evolution of dengue virus in response to genetic modifications of mosquitoes, the researchers found that strategies to block transmission of the virus between mosquitoes and humans may create an evolutionary pressure for the dengue to become more virulent—that is, drive up the extent to which the virus exploits its victims. This in turn could make remaining infections more deadly for humans.
The researchers investigated other transgenic approaches toward mosquito control, as well. Ones that reduce mosquito biting—perhaps by decreasing host-seeking behavior—can also run the risk of increasing dengue virulence and thus severity. Strategies that increased mosquito death rates, however, such as use of genes that kill off females or decrease mosquito immunity to infections, do not seem to impact virulence in humans. Similar findings apply to other lethal mosquito-control techniques, such as by infecting them with diseases that bring an early death, the researchers add.
Although the researchers focused on dengue, "nothing about the mathematical model is specific to dengue, so its results can apply to malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, as well," says researcher Jan Medlock, an applied mathematician now at Clemson University in South Carolina.
"If we could stop malaria, dengue and yellow fever, there would be incredible benefits for humanity, so these strategies are definitely worth exploring very slowly and carefully," Medlock adds. "On the other hand, there is a long history of introductions of new animals to ecosystems that have been disastrous and often irreversible, such as the introduction of mongooses onto the Hawaiian Islands, and there's always the concern that modified mosquitoes might lead to a similar story by making dengue irreparably worse. This is something scientists are aware needs careful thought."
Medlock notes there are still points of uncertainty in the work, such as whether the dengue virus could evolve fast enough to avoid eradication. "There's tons of research yet that could be done," he says.
Geneticist Luke Alphey of the University of Oxford and its spin-off biotechnology company Oxitec in England who did not participate in this study notes, "It is extremely helpful to have theoretical analyses to give a view of the evolutionary responses that viruses might have, so you can monitor for incipient changes and hopefully do something about the design of your strategy." He and his colleagues are pursuing a transgenic mosquito strategy that employs sterile males as competition for wild males over mates, hopefully leading to smaller populations of the insects.
Alphey adds: "There are insecticides and other interventions used against dengue that are not transgenic but apply similar kinds of evolutionary pressures on the virus, and it would be very interesting to see if there's any data from the field with those interventions for the kinds of effects this study here suggests might appear."
Medlock and his colleagues will detail their findings in the October issue of The American Naturalist.
Charles Q. Choi, Scientific American 21 Aug 09;
Scientists around the world are currently hard at work genetically engineering new strains of mosquitoes that are poor hosts for diseases such as malaria, dengue and yellow fever, in the hopes of cutting down the spread of these germs. New research suggests, however, that although these insects might succeed in reducing the number of infections, they might also inadvertently boost the severity of remaining ones.
Researchers at Yale University and their colleagues investigated dengue, a mosquito-borne virus for which there is no vaccine or cure. Roughly 50 million cases of dengue occur per year, leading to some 500,000 hospitalizations and several thousand deaths annually.
Insecticides are currently used to control dengue, a practice which runs the risk of breeding insecticide-resistant bloodsuckers. One potential alternative strategy, first proposed more than four decades ago, is to introduce genes into mosquitoes to prevent infections—for instance, by interfering with the spread of germs from the insect's gut to its saliva.
After using mathematical models to investigate the potential evolution of dengue virus in response to genetic modifications of mosquitoes, the researchers found that strategies to block transmission of the virus between mosquitoes and humans may create an evolutionary pressure for the dengue to become more virulent—that is, drive up the extent to which the virus exploits its victims. This in turn could make remaining infections more deadly for humans.
The researchers investigated other transgenic approaches toward mosquito control, as well. Ones that reduce mosquito biting—perhaps by decreasing host-seeking behavior—can also run the risk of increasing dengue virulence and thus severity. Strategies that increased mosquito death rates, however, such as use of genes that kill off females or decrease mosquito immunity to infections, do not seem to impact virulence in humans. Similar findings apply to other lethal mosquito-control techniques, such as by infecting them with diseases that bring an early death, the researchers add.
Although the researchers focused on dengue, "nothing about the mathematical model is specific to dengue, so its results can apply to malaria and other mosquito-borne diseases, as well," says researcher Jan Medlock, an applied mathematician now at Clemson University in South Carolina.
"If we could stop malaria, dengue and yellow fever, there would be incredible benefits for humanity, so these strategies are definitely worth exploring very slowly and carefully," Medlock adds. "On the other hand, there is a long history of introductions of new animals to ecosystems that have been disastrous and often irreversible, such as the introduction of mongooses onto the Hawaiian Islands, and there's always the concern that modified mosquitoes might lead to a similar story by making dengue irreparably worse. This is something scientists are aware needs careful thought."
Medlock notes there are still points of uncertainty in the work, such as whether the dengue virus could evolve fast enough to avoid eradication. "There's tons of research yet that could be done," he says.
Geneticist Luke Alphey of the University of Oxford and its spin-off biotechnology company Oxitec in England who did not participate in this study notes, "It is extremely helpful to have theoretical analyses to give a view of the evolutionary responses that viruses might have, so you can monitor for incipient changes and hopefully do something about the design of your strategy." He and his colleagues are pursuing a transgenic mosquito strategy that employs sterile males as competition for wild males over mates, hopefully leading to smaller populations of the insects.
Alphey adds: "There are insecticides and other interventions used against dengue that are not transgenic but apply similar kinds of evolutionary pressures on the virus, and it would be very interesting to see if there's any data from the field with those interventions for the kinds of effects this study here suggests might appear."
Medlock and his colleagues will detail their findings in the October issue of The American Naturalist.
Formula Zero (carbon): Motor racing without the emissions
The Independent 21 Aug 09;
The thrill of motor racing without the emissions? It's not just hot air, Michael McCarthy discovers
It felt like a sudden glimpse of the future. Environmentally-friendly motor racing came to Britain with the first outing of a championship series with a difference – Formula Zero.
At a track in Surrey, teams from Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain competed in souped-up machines of an entirely new sort: they were all emissions-free.
While Formula One brings thrills, tension, high-speed cornering and nail-biting competitiveness, Formula Zero bids to do all that without the biggest drawback of every motor vehicle – the carbon dioxide coming out of the tailpipe and helping to cause climate change.
Its cars run on electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and all that comes out of their exhausts is water vapour.
It is the vision of two Dutchmen, Godert van Hardenbroek and Eelco Rietveld, who may well be the Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley of the future, although at the moment they are starting small: rather than putting out 200mph monsters they are using go-karts which reach about 45mph on a track that would comfortably fit inside half a football field (but is difficult to master because of its tight corners).
However, they are single-mindedly ambitious, and hope to be racing full-sized cars by 2011 and, perhaps, eventually to replace Formula One itself as automotive technology becomes less and less dependent on the petrol engine. They own the Formula Zero brand.
"Carbon-free motor racing is just as entertaining, I have no doubt about it," Mr van Hardenbroek, a 40-year-old former designer from Utrecht, said yesterday at Britain's first Formula Zero meeting at Mytchett in Surrey. "My ambition is to become the dominant force in all of motor racing and eventually replace Formula One, although how quickly that happens depends on the market [for carbon-free cars]."
It may sound a bit over the top until you start to think about how quickly electric vehicle development is now moving, with high-performance sports cars such as the Tesla Roadster (0 – 60 in 3.9 seconds) already in production – then it doesn't seem nearly so much of a fantasy. Mr van Hardenbroek said nobody knew if electric machines could eventually match fully the high speeds and endurance of present Formula One supercars, but he thought it was possible.
Besides the lack of end-of-pipe pollution, another striking difference with Formula Zero is that the cars' engines are virtually silent, their only sound being the noise of the tyres on the track – the screaming whine which is one of Formula One's trademarks is missing completely. Mr van Hardenbroek said: "Sure, some people may miss the sound of screaming engines, but a new generation will be completely thrilled with the sound our cars make. I would compare it to pop music. There's always a generation which rejects the sounds of their parents."
He and Mr Rietveld had the idea for Formula Zero a decade ago when they attended a conference on sustainable entrepreneurship and saw a delegate buy a Maserati. "It didn't seem very sustainable, but then Eelco and I said to each other, 'This is the future we want to live in. We want to have a nice car and drive fast, but do it in a more intelligent way that is compatible with nature and the ecosystem.'"
He went on: "We want to change something in the way we live – we have to change because of climate change – but also have fun. It's not just being Calvinistic and righteous and trying to make other people feel bad. It's about doing something which is worthwhile and fun at the same time. It's really about making a symbol of the change which is required."
The four teams competing this week in knock-out time trials were all based around élite technological universities, mainly consisting of engineering students and more senior advisers. Britain's team was from Imperial College, London; the Belgian team was from the University of Leuven, the Dutch from the University of Delft and the Spanish from the University of Zaragoza. In the sprint race, the Belgian team came first, the Spanish second, the Dutch third and the British team fourth.
F1's attempts to clean up its image
*Formula One itself, and the FIA, the governing body in charge of motor racing, are both waking up to the fact that in a world increasingly preoccupied with climate change, their sport can be seen as the very epitome of gas-guzzling.
They are aware that, notwithstanding the to-hell-with-global-warming attitude of certain motoring commentators, they have a growing image problem. Recently, the FIA set up an Environmentally Sustainable Motor Sport Commission to explore the possibility of a greener version of screaming round a circuit, and two months ago it held its first policy meeting, attended by major motor manufacturers from Ferrari to Ford.
The commission is now drawing up a series of environmental policies, which, according to the commission's president, Peter Wright, "will not only reduce the environmental impact of motor sport, but also help it act as a catalyst for environmental changes in the wider motoring sector." They are understood to be focusing on energy efficiency and changes such as the use of biofuels – in the US, the IndyCar series is already running on ethanol, a fuel produced from crops.
The thrill of motor racing without the emissions? It's not just hot air, Michael McCarthy discovers
It felt like a sudden glimpse of the future. Environmentally-friendly motor racing came to Britain with the first outing of a championship series with a difference – Formula Zero.
At a track in Surrey, teams from Britain, Belgium, the Netherlands and Spain competed in souped-up machines of an entirely new sort: they were all emissions-free.
While Formula One brings thrills, tension, high-speed cornering and nail-biting competitiveness, Formula Zero bids to do all that without the biggest drawback of every motor vehicle – the carbon dioxide coming out of the tailpipe and helping to cause climate change.
Its cars run on electric motors powered by hydrogen fuel cells, and all that comes out of their exhausts is water vapour.
It is the vision of two Dutchmen, Godert van Hardenbroek and Eelco Rietveld, who may well be the Bernie Ecclestone and Max Mosley of the future, although at the moment they are starting small: rather than putting out 200mph monsters they are using go-karts which reach about 45mph on a track that would comfortably fit inside half a football field (but is difficult to master because of its tight corners).
However, they are single-mindedly ambitious, and hope to be racing full-sized cars by 2011 and, perhaps, eventually to replace Formula One itself as automotive technology becomes less and less dependent on the petrol engine. They own the Formula Zero brand.
"Carbon-free motor racing is just as entertaining, I have no doubt about it," Mr van Hardenbroek, a 40-year-old former designer from Utrecht, said yesterday at Britain's first Formula Zero meeting at Mytchett in Surrey. "My ambition is to become the dominant force in all of motor racing and eventually replace Formula One, although how quickly that happens depends on the market [for carbon-free cars]."
It may sound a bit over the top until you start to think about how quickly electric vehicle development is now moving, with high-performance sports cars such as the Tesla Roadster (0 – 60 in 3.9 seconds) already in production – then it doesn't seem nearly so much of a fantasy. Mr van Hardenbroek said nobody knew if electric machines could eventually match fully the high speeds and endurance of present Formula One supercars, but he thought it was possible.
Besides the lack of end-of-pipe pollution, another striking difference with Formula Zero is that the cars' engines are virtually silent, their only sound being the noise of the tyres on the track – the screaming whine which is one of Formula One's trademarks is missing completely. Mr van Hardenbroek said: "Sure, some people may miss the sound of screaming engines, but a new generation will be completely thrilled with the sound our cars make. I would compare it to pop music. There's always a generation which rejects the sounds of their parents."
He and Mr Rietveld had the idea for Formula Zero a decade ago when they attended a conference on sustainable entrepreneurship and saw a delegate buy a Maserati. "It didn't seem very sustainable, but then Eelco and I said to each other, 'This is the future we want to live in. We want to have a nice car and drive fast, but do it in a more intelligent way that is compatible with nature and the ecosystem.'"
He went on: "We want to change something in the way we live – we have to change because of climate change – but also have fun. It's not just being Calvinistic and righteous and trying to make other people feel bad. It's about doing something which is worthwhile and fun at the same time. It's really about making a symbol of the change which is required."
The four teams competing this week in knock-out time trials were all based around élite technological universities, mainly consisting of engineering students and more senior advisers. Britain's team was from Imperial College, London; the Belgian team was from the University of Leuven, the Dutch from the University of Delft and the Spanish from the University of Zaragoza. In the sprint race, the Belgian team came first, the Spanish second, the Dutch third and the British team fourth.
F1's attempts to clean up its image
*Formula One itself, and the FIA, the governing body in charge of motor racing, are both waking up to the fact that in a world increasingly preoccupied with climate change, their sport can be seen as the very epitome of gas-guzzling.
They are aware that, notwithstanding the to-hell-with-global-warming attitude of certain motoring commentators, they have a growing image problem. Recently, the FIA set up an Environmentally Sustainable Motor Sport Commission to explore the possibility of a greener version of screaming round a circuit, and two months ago it held its first policy meeting, attended by major motor manufacturers from Ferrari to Ford.
The commission is now drawing up a series of environmental policies, which, according to the commission's president, Peter Wright, "will not only reduce the environmental impact of motor sport, but also help it act as a catalyst for environmental changes in the wider motoring sector." They are understood to be focusing on energy efficiency and changes such as the use of biofuels – in the US, the IndyCar series is already running on ethanol, a fuel produced from crops.