Best of our wild blogs: 31 Aug 09

Brown Tree Snail
from Creatures Big & Small

Cold And Wet @ Pulau Hantu
from colourful clouds and the hantu blog

Green Districts: The City District as a Power Station
from Green Business Times

Key Issues for a Successful Copenhagen Climate Change Summit: The Role of Emerging Countries in Asia from Green Business Times

cold, rainy day at Sungei Buloh
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be

Chek Jawa - peaceful, untouched, a retreat from the daily stresses of life from Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs

Olive-backed Sunbird’s tongue
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Wildfacts updates: colourful fiddlers and more
from wild shores of singapore

Ship shapes
from The annotated budak and Furled and It's mothin'

Monday Morgue: 31st August 2009
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

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"The Cove" and what Singaporeans can do

Mass slaughter of dolphins exposed
Crew used commando-style tactics to film documentary of 23,000 dolphins being speared en masse in Taiji, Japan
john lui, The Straits Times 31 Aug 09;

He ends the telephone interview with Life!, with a wish that Singaporeans will avoid live dolphin shows. He notes that Singapore has them and that more are in the pipeline. 'Consumers have all the power. Don't buy a ticket,' he says.

Eco-documentaries are rarely so riveting as The Cove. The audience sees a crack team of experts sneaking into highly secret places to plant high-tech hidden cameras while dodging guards and police.

They release unmanned drone aircraft, also equipped with cameras. They appear as ghostly images on their own night-vision devices.

They return furtively the following night to retrieve their equipment and then make an escape, armed with proof that something awful is going on.

The act they captured in 2007 is the annual slaughter of dolphins in the small town of Taiji, Japan, during which 23,000 of the mammals are herded over a month-long period into a cove and speared en masse, turning the waters red.

The covert filming is now the most talked-about aspect of The Cove, which has been warmly received in Canada, the United States and Australia, and won several awards for documentary film-making.

But when the film was first conceived, the crime- caper angle never came to mind, says director Louie Psihoyos, a film-maker and photographer.

'Initially, we filmed ourselves for the 'making-of' section for the DVD,' he tells Life! on the telephone from Boulder, Colorado. But during editing, the team 'got chills' from the footage of the team's evade- and-escape tactics and decided to include it in the movie, he says.

The film is co-produced by the Oceanic Preservation Society, a non-profit organisation promoting awareness of the dangers facing the world's oceans. Its executive director Psihoyos says the US$5 million (S$7.2 million) used to make The Cove came from billionaire entrepreneur-philanthropist Jim Clark.

Many Westerners have been protesting the activities in Taiji for decades. Taiji, together with the Solomon Islands, is also a world centre for the capture and export of dolphins for live water theme park shows.

In 2007, actress Hayden Panettiere, from the sci-fi TV series Heroes, swam out towards captured dolphins in Taiji in a show of protest. Though she left the town without being arrested, she was confronted by angry fishermen, the same ones who tried to intimidate The Cove's crew when they tried to film openly.

The film tries to explain the murky issues surrounding the continued slaughter. The Japanese government and Taiji locals defend the practice with various arguments, including saying it is part of the town's cultural heritage and that dolphins and whales are the traditional meats of the Japanese.

Rubbish, says Mr Ric O'Barry, a consultant on the documentary's shoot. 'The dolphin hunt began only in 1933,' he says. The film also shows him playing footage of the hunt to passers-by on Tokyo's streets using a portable DVD player.

'They are as shocked as anyone from Paris, New York or Singapore,' he says.

He is a former dolphin trainer who caught and trained the creatures that appeared in the iconic 1960s TV show Flipper. Now an animal-rights activist, he had a change of heart after he realised how miserable the intelligent, emotional animals were in captivity. Today, he works to undo the craze for live dolphin shows he helped spawn decades ago.

He believes the real reason for the hunt is to get rid of competition in an ocean where fish stocks have plummeted.

In addition to the ethical problem, there is the health issue. Dolphin meat from the hunt, which is sold in supermarkets around the town, is highly contaminated with toxic mercury, he adds. Dolphins eat fish which ingest mercury from industrial run-off.

He ends the telephone interview with Life!, with a wish that Singaporeans will avoid live dolphin shows. He notes that Singapore has them and that more are in the pipeline.

'Consumers have all the power. Don't buy a ticket,' he says.

Read more!

Changes to make off- peak car scheme more attractive

Asha Popatlal, Channel NewsAsia 29 Aug 09;

SINGAPORE: The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is dangling more carrots to make off-peak cars more attractive to motorists.

Among them are longer usage hours, cash rebates and greater flexibility in getting licences.

Currently, owners of off-peak cars get a one-off S$17,000 tax rebate. In return, the driver can only drive during off-peak hours, from 7pm to 7am.

Owners of cars have to display a S$20 paper licence if they want to drive during peak hours.

From November 23, e-licences will replace paper licences.

So, instead of being restricted to buying these at a few physical outlets, motorists can just SMS or go online to get them.

An added option is that motorists can now drive first and pay later for such licences for up to 24 hours later, which would be useful in emergencies.

More changes will be rolled out by end January 2010.

Motorists will then be able to drive all day Saturday and on the eves of five major public holidays - New year, Lunar New year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Chrsitmas, instead of only after 3pm on those days.

But there is no free lunch.

With more driving hours available, road tax discounts will also be reduced from S$800 to S$500 while the minimum annual road tax will go up from S$50 to S$70.

Existing off-peak car owners who want to switch to the new system will also have to pay an administrative fee of S$100 for what LTA calls "back-end work".

Another incentive is cash rebates if a motorist decides to switch his normal car to an off-peak car.

Instead of the current practice of getting a lump sum rebate only when the car is deregistered, motorists will now get a cash rebate of up to S$1,100 for every six months' registration as an off-peak car until the car reaches 10 years of age.

Currently, the number of off-peak cars in Singapore makes up about eight per cent of the total car population. With the new scheme, the Land Transport Authority hopes to up that figure to 10 per cent.

But are the changes enough to persuade more motorists to opt for off-peak cars?

Said one motorist: "If the situation changes and I do not have to drive during the day, I may consider. But having said that, because I need to fetch my kids to childcare and it's during the day, it doesn't sound attractive to me."

"I don't like to be restricted. There are already a lot of restrictions on the road like bus lanes, timing, ERP. I don't want to add on another restriction to the flexibility in which you use car," said another motorist.

Car dealers said the scheme would make small cars more attractive to buyers.

Glenn Tan, group chief executive, Motor Image, said: "You'll probably see more people getting interest in the Cat A market because OPC cars have now become more convenient and it is a good buy per se now simply because the hassle could have put off some buyers."

The changes to this 15-year-old scheme comes after extensive consultations, including with off-peak car users. - CNA/vm

Off-peak car scheme revised
LTA to give out cash rebates earlier, relax restriction hours and introduce e-licences
Yeo Ghim Lay, Straits Times 31 Aug 09;

The off-peak car scheme will be revised to make it more attractive for people to switch to these red-plated cars, and in the process ease congestion around the island.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) yesterday announced three changes:

# By end-January next year, drivers who convert their cars to the off-peak scheme will get cash rebates earlier instead of having to wait until their vehicles are scrapped.

# Also by end-January next year, off-peak cars will be allowed on the roads during all hours on Saturdays and the eve of five public holidays.

# From Nov 23, electronic licences will replace the current paper permits which motorists must buy when they use their off-peak cars during restricted hours.

The changes are the result of a review of the 15-year-old scheme, which is targeted at easing traffic jams and also allowing people to own cars at a lower cost, if they use them during non-peak periods.

There are currently 45,500 of these cars with red licence plates. They make up about 8 per cent of the car population.

The change to give out early cash rebates will probably be the one to get drivers of normal cars to consider making the switch.

By the end of January next year, those who convert their cars will be given a cash rebate of up to $1,100 for every six months that the car is registered as an off-peak vehicle, until the car reaches 10 years old.

This is provided the vehicle is kept as an off-peak car for at least six months after conversion.

Currently, someone who buys a new car and registers it as an off-peak car gets a rebate of up to $17,000 off the registration taxes.

But if a driver converts his normal car to an off-peak one, he does not get a refund of the taxes.

Instead, he receives a rebate that is paid only when the car is scrapped. This rebate is $2,200 for each year that the vehicle was registered as an off-peak car.

Operations executive Winston Tan, 27, who bought a Mazda 3 six months ago, said the new cash rebate is 'quite attractive' and makes converting to the off-peak car scheme worth considering.

He also welcomed the relaxation of restriction hours.

Under the revised scheme, off-peak cars can ply the roads during all hours on Saturdays and on the eve of five public holidays - New Year's Day, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Christmas - by the end of January next year. Currently, they are allowed on the roads only before 7am or after 3pm on those days.

These extra privileges will, however, come at a price for current off-peak car owners who opt for the revised scheme with its extended hours. They will enjoy a smaller discount on their annual road tax, compared to those who choose to stick with the old scheme.

The discounts will be reduced by $20 to $300. Those who switch to the revised scheme will also have to pay an administrative fee of $100.

The LTA said it is not making all existing off-peak car owners switch to the revised scheme. But all newly registered off-peak cars will come under it.

Finally, the LTA is making the buying of day licences more flexible. The $20 paper licences will be replaced by electronic ones from Nov 23. The new electronic licences can be bought online, at AXS stations and via SMS, in addition to the existing sales outlets.

You can go online or visit a SingPost outlet or an Automobile Association office to change the usage date of the licence or cancel it before 7am on the specified usage date. If you have to drive your car and have not bought a licence, you can still buy an electronic one up to 11.59pm the next day.

Drivers have long complained that the paper licences, which resemble parking coupons, are troublesome to use. They are also open to tampering and can be bought only over the counter.

All electronic licences will be logged into a system. Instead of stopping off-peak cars to check on their licences, LTA enforcement officers will take down the car's licence plate number and check it against the system.

Engineer Rachel Lee, 28, who currently owns an off-peak car, said she looks forward to the electronic day licence. 'It's great as well that I will be able to use my car for the whole of Saturday,' she added.

Mr Michael Wong, vice-president of the Motor Traders Association, said the changes might prompt drivers to switch to the off-peak car scheme if they do not use their cars much on weekdays.

'The unrestricted usage on Saturdays and the cash rebates make it very attractive. Consumers will always prefer having cash in their pockets instead of waiting for it,' he said.

OPC tweaks may put brakes on peak traffic
Sweet deal for owners of off-peak cars; changes may help curb spread of ERP gantries
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 30 Aug 09;

At first glance, the changes announced to the off-peak car (OPC) scheme today are far too minor to win motorists over and thus make a dent in the volume of traffic on our roads during peak hours.

Examine the tweaks more closely, however, and the picture changes.

In fact, one might even say the revisions are generous to the people who choose to drive the red-plated cars.

The change that seems likely to be the most impactful is the one that grants drivers who convert their normal cars to OPCs an upfront cash rebate.

The owner of an average family sedan who converts will get an upfront rebate of $1,100 for every six months his car is an OPC.

Currently, those who convert have to wait till they scrap their cars to realise the savings of driving an OPC.

This is not half bad, considering the fact that if you buy a new OPC today, you are given a $17,000 rebate upfront. This works out to $1,700 a year over the car's 10-year lifespan.

The revised rebate is key to winning converts. And getting more car owners to switch to red plates is in line with the Government's grand strategy of allowing people to own cars, but not to drive during peak periods.

The other improvement to the scheme which should garner cheer is the one which allows owners of such cars to drive all day on Saturdays without having to pay for a permit.

Currently, OPCs can be driven between 7pm and 7am on weekdays and from 3pm on Saturdays and the eve of five major public holidays.

They can be used freely on Sundays and all public holidays.

To use them outside the prescribed hours, an owner needs to pay for a $20 'day licence' per day.

Many OPC owners have been clamouring for this for years, saying that since more and more people here work five-day weeks, such a move makes sense.

When Transport Minister Raymond Lim announced in February that the OPC scheme would be tweaked to make it more attractive, he hinted that free use for the whole of Saturdays could be possible.

But there would be commensurate adjustments to the tax breaks that OPCs are accorded.

This is fair, because OPC drivers cannot be given a free ride at the expense of those who pay full taxes on their cars.

So, with free Saturday use, road tax discounts on OPCs will now be smaller. Instead of $800 a year, the discount is now $500.

In other words, OPC owners will pay $300 a year for the privilege of being able to drive their vehicles on Saturdays, as well as the eve of five major public holidays, without incurring more cost.

This is again a pretty decent deal.

To use a simple example, let's take the example of Driver A, who has a weekend ritual: Getting up bright and early each Saturday and spending quality time with his family by driving them to a favourite haunt for breakfast.

There are about 50 Saturdays a year, so he would have had to spend $1,000 on day licences. Include the eve of five major public holidays and the bill comes up to $1,100 a year.

That is well above the $300 road tax discount he will forgo under the new scheme.

The last measure to make OPCs more attractive - replacing the paper day licence with an e-licence - is a neutral one.

OPC owners who find it a hassle to display the parking coupon-like paper licence and who occasionally tear the wrong tabs will welcome the change.

The e-licensing arrangement also means drivers will no longer have to suffer the indignity of being flagged down by enforcement officers who make spot checks.

With an e-licence - which can be bought through the computer, the phone or at AXS terminals - there is no need to display a physical permit.

Instead, enforcement officers will simply take note of an OPC that is being used outside prescribed hours, and check the system to see if an e-licence had been bought for it.

Better yet, an e-licence can even be bought the day after one has driven the car during restricted hours.

This helps those who need to drive their off-peak cars at short notice, to sort out an urgent matter or in case of an emergency. They need not be slowed down by having to get a licence before dashing to their cars.

To be sure, there is one revision to the scheme that leaves a sour note.

The $100 fee that will be levied by the Land Transport Authority on those who convert their normal cars to OPCs is steep for what is essentially an administrative procedure.

This is on top of another $100 or so for the red plates.

But despite this, the revised scheme essentially sweetens the deal for those who want to own a car but do not really need to drive regularly during peak periods.

It is also great for those who want a second car for leisure - a two-seater convertible for the weekends, for instance.

But probably the best thing about the scheme is what was not announced today.

If enough drivers deem the improvements good enough to give the scheme a go, it could mean a reduction in peak traffic volume by 5 per cent to 10 per cent.

That may not seem like much, but it is a figure that could determine whether an electronic road pricing (ERP) gantry is erected or not.

Off-peak in tune with drivers
The New Paper 31 Aug 09;

OWNING an off-peak car (OPC) just got more enticing. The Land Transport Authority (LTA) unveiled a whole new slew of changes yesterday to enhance the OPC scheme to make it more convenient and attractive to motorists. DESMOND NG spells out the details
Restricted usage hours
31 August 2009

Restricted usage hours

# BEFORE

WEEKDAYS:

No usage from 7am to 7pm

SATURDAYS:

7am to 3pm

EVE OF NEW YEAR, LUNAR NEW YEAR, HARI RAYA PUASA, DEEPAVALI AND CHRISTMAS:

7am to 3pm

# NOW

FROM END-JAN 2010

WEEKDAYS:

7am to 7pm (unchanged)

SATURDAYS:

Unrestricted usage

EVE OF NEW YEAR, LUNAR NEW YEAR, HARI RAYA PUASA, DEEPAVALI AND CHRISTMAS:

Unrestricted usage

Supplementary Day Licence

# BEFORE

$20 day licence (paper licence) required if OPC is used during restricted hours.

Sold only at SingPost outlets, Automobile Association of Singapore (AAS) outlets and LTA.

# NOW

FROM 23 NOV 2009

e-Day Licence ($20) replaces paper licence.

Display of licence not needed.

Motorists can buy licences two weeks before the usage date, or a day after.

Motorists can buy licences online via One.Motoring portal, AXS Stations, SMS service, SingPost and AAS outlets.

LTA enforcement officers will note down the vehicle number of the OPC and verify against the system records to check if a valid e-Day licence has been purchased.

Cash rebates for conversion to new OPC scheme

# BEFORE

A person who registers a new car as an OPC enjoys an upfront tax rebate of up to $17,000.

If a person converts his normal car into an OPC, he receives a Preferential Additional Registration Fee (PARF) rebate of $2,200 per year.

This is paid as a lump sum only upon de-registration of the car.

# NOW

FROM END-JAN 2010

A person who registers a new car as an OPC enjoys an upfront tax rebate of up to $17,000. (unchanged)

Owners will enjoy a cash rebate of up to $1,100 for every six months' of registration as an OPC, until the car reaches 10-years-old.

Off-peak car scheme could do with more fine-tuning
Straits Times 6 Sep 09;

I refer to last Sunday's article, 'Off-peak car scheme revised'.

The introduction of earlier cash rebates will certainly be a factor to consider if one wishes to convert one's car to an off-peak one during this economic downturn.

The electronic licensing scheme will definitely be a boon to those who are already off-peak car (OPC) owners.

But there are two areas in the scheme that the Land Transport Authority (LTA) may consider tweaking to make OPC ownership even more attractive.

First, since the daily licensing scheme will be converted to an electronic one, wouldn't it be better to fine-tune the e-licensing system to allow for half-day, quarter-day or even hourly rated licences to be purchased, instead of just a full-day licence?

Take a case where one needs to use the car for only an hour after 7am or an hour before 7pm. It would be excessive to pay the full $20 daily licence for just an hour or two of use.

Allowing the e-licensing payment to be pro-rated would be a much fairer system.

The other issue is the red licence plates for off-peak cars.

There is a social stigma attached to these red-plated cars, which could be another reason some people may not want to make the switch.

A much better and effective system would be to tag such cars with a Global Positioning System - like the ones used to track taxis - and keep the normal licence plate colour.

To protect the privacy of the car user, instead of tracking where the car went, the system records only the time the car was in use and its duration.

For instance, the system could verify when the car was used against its e-licence purchasing data. If there is a discrepancy, the system could automatically generate a notice or summons, stating the date and time of offence of a particular off-peak car user.

This will improve job efficiency at the LTA and reduce its operational costs in the long run.

As in any system, there is always room for improvement. The result should be a win-win situation for both car owners and the agency.

Chang Seng Onn

Read more!

Green tie-ups benefit schools and firms

Students, teachers get funding for learning projects while companies gain public exposure
Grace Chua, Straits Times 31 Aug 09;

GREENRIDGE Secondary School is a neighbourhood school with about 1,000 students in Bukit Panjang.

But it hosts a $170,000 centre, sponsored by energy company PowerSeraya, where its students and those from schools in the area can learn about energy, the environment and climate change.

Greenridge Secondary is among the growing ranks of schools that have teamed up with companies to work on environmental learning projects.

The number of such tie-ups has quadrupled since 2004, when the National Environment Agency (NEA) first set up its Adopt-a-School Programme.

Then, there were just 43 such partnerships; this year, there are almost 200.

Under the programme, schools get the chance to send their students on field trips and to workshops, and obtain funding for school projects and teacher training.

Greenridge's head of aesthetics and special projects, Mr Lee Sze Chuin, said: 'For a neighbourhood school like us...corporate partners can come in very handy.'

The scheme augments existing funds, such as the NEA's own Environment Club Fund, which gives primary, secondary and tertiary institutions between $500 and $1,500 for environment-related activities.

As for companies such as Hitachi Global Storage Technologies and chemical multinational Chevron Phillips, they gain public exposure and contribute to the community.

For example, Hitachi earlier this year contributed $80,000 to set up an environment education fund at Marsiling Secondary School, picked for its strong track record in environmental education.

Mr Ichio Iwai, deputy general manager of Hitachi Asia, said: 'We want to nurture an interest in and concern for the environment among Singaporean youths to realise a sustainable future.'

Some of these partnerships last more than just a year - over the past three years, for instance, Chevron Phillips has sponsored Lakeside Primary School's solar panels and mini-wind turbine, which power some lights and appliances.

This allowed students to learn how wind power and solar energy get converted into electrical and light energy.

The downside: Amid the economic downturn, some tie-ups have been affected.

In May, Mrs Naseema Ansar, Lakeside's science department head, said its continued partnership looked doubtful. But by last month, Chevron Phillips had agreed to support the latest project, which turns fruit scraps into detergents and compost.

NEA said there was still strong support from companies, which continued to work with their partner schools on various environmental projects.

In fact, at least one company is expanding its school tie-ups despite the downturn - local biodiesel company Alpha Biofuels, which helps schools with waste cooking oil collection programmes.

The company gets both the waste oil - which it processes into biodiesel - and a student-driven boost to its branding, said Alpha Biofuels chief executive Allan Lim.

'It'll pay off when Singaporeans are more conscious of what they do with their waste cooking oil, and more conscious of sustainability,' he added.

Read more!

Next big power stations to be sited in eastern Singapore

Business Times 31 Aug 09;

More information could be released to investors in months

SINGAPORE'S next big power stations will be built in the eastern part of the island. Potential sites will be set aside and further information on them could be released to investors within months.

With most of the existing power stations in the west, apart from Senoko in the north, 'we think there are benefits for a power station in the east', said Energy Market Authority CEO Lawrence Wong.

'It's not just about security or strategic reasons,' he said. 'Having electricity generation closer to the load or demand as new industries or clusters grow in the east makes a lot of sense in terms of reducing transmission losses.'

'We have looked at possible plots in the east that can be set aside for power stations and will be putting out some of this information in due course so investors looking at new generating plants can consider these as possibilities.'

EMA is looking at releasing information on the sites either in October or November this year as part of its annual Statement of Opportunities report, or in next year's report, depending on when it is ready.

At present, two of the three biggest power plants here, PowerSeraya with 3,100 megawatts (MW) and Tuas Power with 2,670MW, are located in the West, along with Sembcorp Cogen (815MW) and Keppel Merlimau Cogen (498MW) on Jurong Island. Only the 3,300MW Senoko Power is in the north.

The move east - where there are still large plots available for large-scale power generation - is logical given the shortage of land in the west, especially on Jurong Island.

'In the end, it's all about land availability,' said Mr Wong. 'It depends on what sort of plant the investor is looking at. For example, a cogeneration plant producing both electricity as well as steam for industries is different from a stand-alone power generation plant.

'If you are talking solely about power generation, there are not many sites available on Jurong Island for such a facility. So that's a constraint.'

Given the general shortage of land, JTC Corporation has also embarked on an island-wide underground feasibility study, with underground power stations a potential application.

On this, Mr Wong said: 'There is an inter-agency process going on within the Trade and Industry Ministry and we're not ready to talk about details yet.'

Underground plants are possible and 'already being done elsewhere', he said, recounting a recent visit he made to two underground hydro-power stations at Manapouri in New Zealand that generate about 850MW.

'But whether the idea is applicable here, given our geological considerations and our circumstances, that's a question that remains,' Mr Wong said.

Read more!

Island Power project finally taking off

GMR Group is in talks with GSPL about securing Indonesian gas
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 31 Aug 09;

(SINGAPORE) The long-stalled $1.2 billion Island Power (IP) project finally looks set to get off the ground.

India's GMR Group, which took 100 per cent ownership of IP in May, is talking with gas importer Gas Supply Pte Ltd (GSPL) about securing Indonesian gas to fuel the 800-megawatt (MW) cogeneration plant on Jurong Island.

This will be the final hurdle for IP to clear. GMR can start building the plant once it closes a gas supply deal, likely from Sumatra.

Disclosing this in a wide-ranging interview with BT, Energy Market Authority (EMA) chief executive Lawrence Wong said that 'without going into commercial details, Island Power has withdrawn its outstanding appeal to the Trade and Industry Ministry'.

'Island Power and GSPL are now working together, or at least discussing how they can work together, to secure gas from Indonesia and bring it to Singapore. The two are very much engaging one another at this stage.

'Once they get the gas, EMA hasn't got a problem with the project as IP's (generating) licence is still valid. So it's a matter of the outcome of discussions with GSPL and its ability to secure Indonesian gas.'

GMR International chief executive Ranjit Murugason said in May that the company hopes to start building IP's plant in the fourth quarter of next year and wants to see it up and running by 2013.

News of the IP-GSPL negotiations is positive, as IP previously wanted to bring in its own contracted 110 million standard cubic feet of Indonesian gas daily through the Sumatra-Singapore pipeline but was unable to do so because of commercial issues involving incumbents GSPL and PowerGas.

Long delays in IP gaining access to the pipeline led to Indonesian oil and gas regulator BPMigas cancelling IP's Sumatran gas deal in October 2007.

It was Catch-22 for IP. It could not have access to the Singapore portion of the Sumatra-Singapore pipeline unless it had a gas deal in hand first, but it had lost its gas deal because it could not gain pipeline access.

'Our position is we do want open and non-discriminatory access to the gas pipeline, whether offshore or on-shore,' Mr Wong said.

Onshore, EMA restructured the gas market last year and now has in place a Gas Network Code that separates the gas transport business from the competitive retail and import business.

'As for the offshore pipeline (the portion within Singapore waters), we specifically amended the Gas Act to give EMA the power to direct access, so we do want to have open pipeline access,' Mr Wong said.

Incumbents such as GSPL and Sembcorp, which owned the Singapore portions of the Sumatra-Singapore and Natuna-Singapore pipelines, have been reimbursed for transferring the assets to PowerGas. The IP project, first mooted in 2002 by original owners Shell and Bechtel, has undergone several ownership changes since.

New owner GMR is keen on a power presence in Singapore after it bid unsuccessfully for Tuas Power and Senoko Power during Temasek Holdings' divestment exercise last year.

GMR's decision to acquire full and direct ownership of the project came after it gained an indirect interest in IP through its 50 per cent acquisition of InterGen in June 2008.

Read more!

New woodball course opens at Punggol Park

Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia 30 Aug 09;

SINGAPORE: Woodball is a little-known sport in Singapore, but enthusiasts and those new to the game can now sharpen their swinging skills at a new woodball course at Punggol Park.

The game is a little like golf, except with a much bigger wooden ball, which you hit with a mallet.

The new woodball course was launched by Aljunied GRC MP George Yeo at a healthy lifestyle event on Sunday morning.

About 1,000 residents joined in various activities, including tai-chi. Many also put on their walking shoes for a stroll around the park's new nature trail.


- CNA/so

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Solomon Islands fisheries minister says no link between dolphin trade and tuna industry

Radio New Zealand 30 Aug 09;

Solomon Islands’ Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources says there is no link between exporting live dolphins and the country’s tuna industry.

Nollen Leni’s statement follows a claim by a local environmentalist that the government’s stance on the live dolphin trade is preventing it gaining lucrative tuna contracts.

Lawrence Makili of Earth Island Institute maintains the government’s preparing to send a batch of live dolphins to Panama and that its ongoing trade in the mammals has stopped two Asian countries from establishing tuna factories in the country.

But Mr Leni says as well as there being no immediate plans to export more live dolphins, doing so should not have implications on the valuable tuna trade.

“That’s an issue which people who hate us will do that because they want us not to export dolphins but I think that’s inhuman. You tell me how many dolphins are caught in all the purse seine nets, that’s a drop in the ocean”

Read more!

Riau offers islands to foreign investors

The Jakarta Post 30 Aug 09;

Riau Islands Governor Ismeth Abdullah said on Sunday that his administration is inviting foreign investors to manage islands in the province.

“We will conduct the process transparently and according to the law. We want to avoid foreigners from managing the islands secretly,” Ismeth argued.

He said some islands in the province were already managed by foreigners.

“Nikoi island, for example, which is managed by foreign investors, attracts many tourists to its beautiful coral reefs.”

He said the involvement of foreign investors in the management of the islands had raised revenue for the island.

Ismeth explained that it takes a month for a foreign investor to get a permit, available from the province’s Investment Coordinating Agency, to manage an island. “The simple permit system is aimed at avoiding the practice of selling the islands.

Data from the agency shows that just 394 of the province’s nearly 1,800 islands are inhabited. Many islands border Vietnam, Malaysia, Singapore or Thailand.

“All the 1,795 islands in the province have been named to smooth the process and stop selling,” head of the province’s administrative affairs, Reni Yusnely, said.

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Endangered crocodiles get a lake to call their own in the Philippines

Local residents had to be persuaded not to hunt and kill the reintroduced reptiles
Lewis Smith, The Independent 31 Aug 09;

Members of the world's most threatened crocodile species have been re-introduced into the wild in a scheme that many supporters had feared "could never be done".

Fewer than 100 fully grown Philippine crocodiles survive in the wild and the species, Crocodylus mindorensis, is on the brink of extinction. But now conservationists have released 50 juvenile Philippine crocodiles which were raised in captivity into a lake on Luzon, the largest island in the Philippines.

Crocodiles have been bred in captivity by the Philippines government since 1987 but no one had dared release any of the creatures until now. Many conservationists said the project would not work because so many of the locals feared and hated the animals that any released crocodiles would be hunted down and slaughtered. It finally went ahead after researchers spent a decade working with local people to convince them to allow the crocodiles to live in peace.

The larger and more deadly saltwater crocodile is also found in the Philippines and its presence has contributed to many people's hatred of the reptiles and their eagerness to kill them. Calling someone a crocodile in the local language is regarded as a gross insult.

Jan van der Ploeg, of Leiden University in the Netherlands, who helped lead the programme, said: "We had to make sure the threats to the species were addressed and that local people were supportive. People still killed them out of fear, for food or for fun. They would kill them to make sure they wouldn't eat livestock or children.

"That we were able to bring these animals out of the farm into the wild for the first time is a great step. For a long time it was thought you couldn't reintroduce them because of the rural population of people. Now we have done it."

Merlijn van Weerd of the Mabuwaya Foundation, who led the project, said: "Many conservationists had already given it up. So apart from establishing a viable wild population of Philippine crocodiles the reintroduction also shows there is hope for Philippine biodiversity at large."

The crocodile, which is only found in the Philippines, is much rarer than the giant panda, the orang-utan or the black rhino, he said. The species used to be common throughout the archipelago but is now restricted to a handful of small islands.

Demand for crocodile-skin handbags and shoes during the 1960s and 1970s was a prime factor in the species being driven almost to extinction. Other threats include the use of dynamite by fishermen to kill or stun fish, which often simultaneously kills or maims the crocodiles. But loss of habitat is the single biggest threat, driven by destruction of the rainforests to make way for rice paddies.

The young crocodiles that were released into the wild at Lake Dicatian were about 4ft (1.2m) long and when fully grown should reach 10ft. Despite their fearsome armoury of flesh-tearing teeth, the animals only attack people when provoked. Fish, shrimps, snails, rats, and snakes are their main prey but adults will take chickens and dogs if given the opportunity.

Lake Dicatian is part of the Northern Sierra Madre National Park which is the crocodile's most important sanctuary. It was chosen for the release in part because no humans live immediately beside it. However, a campsite and observation tower have been built close to the lake in the hope of attracting eco-tourists to the area.

Ten of the released crocodiles were fitted with radio transmitters which allow scientists to follow the animals' movements and see how well they adapt to their new home. Little is known about the behaviour and needs of the species and the data is expected to provide important information that can be used to improve the success rates of future reintroductions.

The reintroduction programme is supported by several UK conservation organisations, including the Rufford Maurice Laing Foundation, which provided funding, and Flora and Fauna International.

The project is part of the Conservation Leadership Programme, a coalition of conservation organisations and BP, which is involved in schemes to help wildlife around the world.

Kiragu Mwangi of Birdlife International, one of the partner groups, said: "This is a great achievement for the project and provides hope for the future of the Philippine crocodile."

The crocodiles released into the wild on 31 July were raised at the Palawan Wildlife Rescue and Conservation Centre and the reintroduction programme was managed by the Mabuwaya Foundation, both in the Philippines.

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Bahamas set to ban catch and sale of sea turtles

David McFadden, Associated Press 31 Aug 09;

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico — Soups, stews and pies flavored with chunks of sea turtle meat will soon be illegal across the 700 islands of the Bahamas, environmental activists and scientists said Sunday.

Despite opposition from many fishermen, the Bahamas has amended fisheries laws to give full protection to all sea turtles found in the Atlantic archipelago's waters by banning the harvest, possession, purchase and sale of the endangered reptiles, including their eggs. The new rules take effect Tuesday.

"Young people here have never tasted turtle, but it had continued to be eaten by the older population in some of the outer islands," said Kim Aranha, a member of a Bahamian conservation group that led the campaign to protect sea turtles. "So we're really happy our work has paid off with this ban; the turtles couldn't do it themselves."

Previously, the Bahamian government permitted harvesting of all species of sea turtles except the hawksbill. Flesh had been used by restaurants and shells for tourist keepsakes despite turtles' status as endangered species.

It's impossible to gauge how many green turtles, loggerheads and other types were slaughtered each year in the Bahamas, but activists say counts of shells found in marina markets and information from fishermen indicate the haul was hefty.

"It has been an unrelenting catch," Karen Bjorndal, who has long studied marine turtle populations at the University of Florida's Archie Carr Center for Sea Turtle Research, said in a phone interview.

Bjorndal said the Bahamas' shallow seagrass beds and reefs are prime foraging grounds for the big, slow turtles, so the fishing ban will help spur the regional recovery of the creatures, which are also threatened by pollution and development on beaches where they lay eggs.

The Bahamas Sea Turtle Conservation Group has been pressuring the government for about two years to protect all sea turtle species, including distributing bumper stickers reading "Stop the Killing."

Not everybody is happy with the new rules. Opponents say eating turtle meat is a local tradition. Some local fishermen — a handful of whom would regularly demand money from conservationists to free captured turtles on display at marinas — argue they should be able to catch the migrating animals without any penalty.

Jane Mather, co-chairwoman of the conservation group who has received anonymous threats in recent weeks over the ban, said penalties are still being negotiated with the government but she hopes they will be "quite serious."

"Ninety percent of the Bahamian public don't want turtles killed," Mather said from the capital, Nassau.

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Kenya's hippos hard hit by drought

Francois Ausseill Yahoo News 30 Aug 09;

TSAVO WEST NATIONAL PARK, Kenya (AFP) – Kenya's persistent and bruising drought is having a serious impact on the country's wildlife, one of its main tourist attractions, obliging the Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) to feed hippos to keep them alive.

In Tsavo West national park, a vast expanse of shrubby savannah and majestic rocky outcrops in the south east of the country, hippos are dying in large numbers and other species have been forced to change their diet.

Some 15 hippos have been found dead in the park in the past few weeks for lack of any grass to graze on around the pools where they spend their days submerged to keep out of the sun.

"For the past one month, the research team has recommended that in order to have the hippos in (good) condition... we give them four bales of hay every two days," KWS ranger Edward Njuguna told AFP.

Edward and his colleague spread out the hay on the bank of a small pool where a dozen or so hippos are splashing about, just metres (yards) away from the remains of one of their number who died a month ago.

"It has been a challenge to remove the carcass. The other hippos are very defensive, one in particular - we suspect him to be a son of the dead hippo," Njuguna said.

Some of the park's lodges have followed KWS's lead and have started spreading hay or vegetable peelings to feed the hippos and keep them in the vicinity of the lodge to ensure that their visitors can enjoy the sight of hippos feeding as they sip their gin and tonic on the verandah.

Cedric Khayale, a KWS research scientist, explained that hippos have been particularly hard hit because in periods of drought other species that would normally graze further away come closer to the banks and eat the grass the hippos would normally eat.

This forces the hippos to look for grass further away and many succumb to exhaustion. Even a healthy hippo can only look for food in a radius of about seven kilometres from the river or lake bank.

Other herbivores have responded to the absence of grazing land by changing what they eat.

"When the situation worsens buffaloes start eating leaves and branches and elephants uproot trees and strip the bark from acacias. That's not something you see often when there's rain," Njuguna said.

The situation is by no means unique to Tsavo. In the past 12 months, the parks and reserves of the Samburu region, further to the north have recorded 38 deaths of elephants directly linked to the drought.

In the park on the banks of Lake Nakuru, world famous for its flamingoes, KWS has set up artificial water points. The lake water is too salty for the animals and the rivers that normally flow into the lake have dried up.

The drought has also brought about a massive and illegal intrusion of livestock into the country's national parks.

"What is happening now is the result of three consecutive failed rainy seasons," said Daniel Woodley who heads the KWS team at Tsavo West.

"The communities around Tsavo didn't get crops... Their reliance on other natural resources increased: timber, honey, charcoal, which is probably the main cash crop in drought period, bush meat, and illegal fishing."

Woodley said that in times of drought people take their livestock wherever they see a patch of green and some water.

"It's easy to manage the communities that are living outside our boundaries through community programs, rotation grazing," Woodley said.

But when the number of head of livestock hits 200,000 in Tsavo West park and a similar number in Tsavo East it has a hugely disruptive effect on the environment, he said.

Some of the cattle brought into Tsavo have been herded hundreds of kilometres in search of grass and watering points.

The more cattle are herded into the park, the more elephants move out, destroying the already poor harvests of local farmers.

"Helicopters, aircraft, rangers... We put a lot of effort into getting livestock out of the park and elephants back into it," Woodley said.

Kenya is normally hit by severe drought once every 10 to 15 years, Woodley said.

"But not on this scale. We've never had such a huge livestock invasion... nor was the population around the park so reliant on other natural resources. And nor was the country was so economically week."

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India's failed monsoon worst since 1972, hits crops badly

Business Times 31 Aug 09;

(NEW DELHI) India's monsoon rains may improve next month but are still set to be the worst in four decades, and the slow filling of reservoirs is putting winter crops and power supplies at risk.

Monsoon rains, the lifeline for farms that support more than half of India's 1.1 billion people, have been patchy this year and about 40 per cent of India's districts are drought-hit.

Weather office head Ajay Tyagi said September rainfall will improve, but the four-month season since June would still be about 20 per cent below normal, making it the worst since 1972, when there was also a severe El Nino phenomenon in which changes in sea temperature in the Pacific Ocean affects weather.

Low rains have ravaged India's rice crop and hit soybean, cane and groundnut, and disrupted the flow into the main reservoirs that are vital for hydropower generation and winter irrigation.

'Water storage in reservoirs is a very good regionalised and robust indicator of realistic rainfall in the vast catchment. It is a much better and practical parameter as compared to point estimate measured by rain-gauges,' the Farm Ministry said.

Reservoirs are important for hydropower, which accounts for a quarter of India's generation capacity of about 150,000 megawatts. They also provide water to irrigate winter crops.

A 19 per cent rain deficit in 2002 reduced India's summer-sown harvest by 22 per cent and the output of winter-sown crops by 13 per cent. This year, the cane crop in India's top producing state of Uttar Pradesh is expected to shrink about 16 per cent because of drought in most parts of the region, raising prospects of large raw sugar imports by the world's top consumer of the sweetener.

Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said the sugar industry had agreed to provide more sugar at lower prices during the festival season in the next two months to rein in prices.

India's soybean output may drop as much as 19 per cent in the new season because of failed monsoon rains, reducing soymeal export deals to a trickle, traders and industry officials said last Friday.

'We expect about 8-9 million tonnes output,' said Sandeep Bajoria, chief executive of Mumbai-based trading firm Sunvin Group. -- Reuters

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Coastal erosion threatens Goa's idyllic beaches

Lita Barretto Yahoo News 29 Aug 09;

PANAJI, India (AFP) – India's resort state of Goa has been hit by several setbacks in the last 18 months, including high-profile crime and the knock-on effects of Islamist extremist attacks up the coast in Mumbai.

But with each holiday season, a greater threat to the tourist trade emerges -- coastal erosion that is leading to fears that some of the former Portuguese colony's famous white sandy beaches could disappear for good.

The Goa assembly heard last month that more than 10 percent of the 105-kilometre (65-mile) coastline was falling into the sea, including the beach next to the state governor's official Raj Bhavan residency.

"A total of 21 stretches are affected. They cover 11.22 kilometres of coastal area," Goa's minister for water resources Filipe Neri Rodrigues told the state parliament.

Two major stretches of beach -- Colva, in south Goa, and Coco Beach, in the north -- are being reinforced with flexible barriers called "geotubes" which stop land being undercut by erosion, Rodrigues said.

Other beaches where work is required include Calangute, Baga, Sinquerim, Candolim and Palolem, which attract many of the 2.4 million tourists from India and abroad who flock to Goa every year.

"The sea erosion over the years has intensified to a very large extent, resulting in a very huge threat not only to the coastline but also to human lives," Rodrigues' department said on its website.

For Goa's many shoreline tourist bars, the situation could wreck already insecure livelihoods.

Last tourist season, business dipped sharply after the widely-publicised rape and unsolved death of a 15-year-old British girl in February 2008.

The investigation into the death of Scarlett Keeling, whose battered body was found on a beach, exposed the dark underbelly of traditionally laid-back Goa and led to a police crackdown on drink and drug-fuelled excess.

Many tourists also stayed away after militants killed 166 people in Mumbai in November last year, while restrictions were placed on Goa's annual Christmas and New Year beach parties on security grounds.

"If we lose the beaches to soil erosion, tourism will naturally be affected," said Cruz Cardoso, a local entrepreneur who heads the Goa Shack Owners Association.

Flooding due to coastal erosion had already affected trade at some beaches, he added.

The state tourist authority has expressed concern and said it is working with scientists to shore up beaches so they are not lost to the Arabian Sea.

"We're taking it very seriously because we understand how important beaches are to us," Lyndon Monteiro, vice-chairman of the Goa Tourism Development Corporation, told AFP.

"We're doing whatever is required to see that our beaches are protected from nature's fury... We're confident we can address this issue and people are aware. They know that we must act fast and in the right manner."

Goa's predicament is faced by many coastal areas around the world, as global warming affects sea levels, the intensity of storms and ocean currents.

Monteiro also accepted that haphazard and unauthorised development since tourism took off in Goa from the days of the hippie trail in the late 1960s and early 1970s has added to its woes.

Environmental scientists have said the destruction of mangroves and salt pans, plus sand mining and construction for tourism have exacerbated problems.

The UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change has warned that coastal erosion could displace millions and many idyllic destinations, like the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, could be wiped off the tourist map.

In India, about 1,500 kilometres or 26 percent of the mainland coastline faces "serious erosion" and is "actively retreating", according to the Asian Development Bank.

The Manila-based organisation is currently providing technical assistance for a 1.2-million-dollar sustainable coastal protection and management project of shorelines in three states along India's west coast, including Goa.

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Melting glaciers threaten 'Nepal tsunami'

Subel Bhandari Yahoo News 29 Aug 09;

LUKLA, Nepal (AFP) – Over two decades, Funuru Sherpa has watched the lake above his native village of Dengboche in Nepal's Himalayas grow, as the glacier that feeds it melts.

The 29-year-old, who runs a busy Internet cafe for tourists visiting the Everest region, remembers his grandfather telling him that 50 years ago the lake did not exist. "Before, it was all ice," he told AFP in the eastern Himalayan town of Lukla, in the shadow of Mount Everest.

"This is proof that the glaciers in the high Himalayas are melting. And that must be because the temperatures have gone up."

Scientists say the Imja Glacier above Dengboche is retreating by about 70 metres (230 feet) a year, and the melting ice has formed a huge lake that could devastate villages downstream if it bursts.

The trend is not new. Nepal's International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development (ICIMOD), which has studied the Himalayas for three decades, says many of the country's glaciers have been retreating for centuries.

But ICIMOD glaciologist Samjwal Ratna Bajracharya said this was now happening at an alarming speed, with temperatures in the Himalayas rising at a much faster rate than the global average.

"Our studies of the past 30 years show that the temperatures (in the Himalayas) are rising up to eight times faster than the global average. Melting is taking place higher and faster," Bajracharya told AFP.

"The melting of glaciers and formation of glacier lakes is a key indicator of the temperature rise. And lately, we have seen massive ice melt."

Nepal has more than 2,300 glacial lakes and experts say at least 20 are in danger of bursting.

At almost one square kilometre (0.38 square miles), the Imja lake is the country's second biggest, estimated to hold 36 million cubic metres (47 million cubic yards) of water, and is considered the biggest flood threat.

It is a subject close to the heart of Nepalese mountaineer Apa Sherpa, who has climbed Everest a record 19 times.

In 1985 Apa Sherpa lost his house and farm when the Dig Tsho glacial lake burst, causing a giant wave to flow down the mountain.

Seven people were killed by the flood, which swept away bridges and houses and destroyed a new hydropower station.

"For me, climate change is personal," said the climber, who dedicated his latest Everest expedition to raising awareness of the impact of climate change on mountain communities.

"There's probably no one who can relate to this issue in the way that I can."

Information about how many people would be affected by a glacial lake bursting remains limited, but experts say the floodwaters could reach as far as Nepal's southern planes and beyond.

Environment secretary Uday Raj Sharma said last week the bursting of the Imja lake would be like a "Nepalese tsunami," comparing it with the 2004 Indian Ocean disaster in which around 220,000 people died.

The government has asked international donors for help in tackling the hazardous glacial lakes, which will be discussed at regional talks here next week aimed at highlighting the dangers climate change poses to the Himalayas.

But experts say there are no easy solutions.

The mountain communities most at risk are often reluctant to leave their homes, while draining the lakes is expensive and dangerous and does not always work.

Ten years ago Nepal launched a three-million-dollar project funded by the Dutch government to lower the water level in the country's biggest glacial lake, Tsho Rolpa, in the eastern Himalayas.

The lake had grown from 0.23 square kilometres in 1957 to 1.65 square kilometres in 1997 and threatened villages and a major hydropower plant under construction downstream.

Engineers cut a channel 70 metres long and seven metres wide into the side of the lake and successfully lowered the water level, reducing the risk of it bursting its banks.

But ICIMOD's Bajracharya said the project was expensive and had only reduced rather than eliminated the risk of a flood.

"We spent three million dollars without actually solving the problem," he said, calling on the government to focus instead on creating awareness programmes and early warning systems for communities at risk.

Pasang Omo is a father of three who lives in the village of Shomare in the eastern Himalayas, which experts say would likely be wiped out if the Imja lake burst.

He agrees that the government has not done enough to help the mountain communities most at risk.

"Everyone comes to us and tell us a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood will sweep through our villages. But it doesn't do us any good," said Omo, 45, who works as a porter for trekkers.

"It?s like telling someone they are sick but not giving them a cure."

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Water crisis threatens Yemen's swelling population

Alistair Lyon, Reuters 30 Aug 09;

SANAA (Reuters) - Gentle showers temporarily damp the dust and cool the August heat of Sanaa, but cannot remedy a grim water outlook for the Yemeni capital's 2 million people.

Some residents receive piped city water only once every nine days and others get none at all. The sinking water table means the municipality can now operate only 80 of its 180 wells, said Naji Abu Hatim, a Yemeni expert at the World Bank.

"People don't believe the magnitude of the problem. They see a little cloud and say, 'oh, God is still there, he can give us water'," he added. "But water is Yemen's number one problem."

That might seem a startling claim given that the country is also grappling with a tribal revolt in the north, violent unrest in the south, al Qaeda militancy and widespread poverty.

But water shortages in the southern city of Aden are already fuelling violence. One person was shot dead and three were wounded, two of them police, during water protests on August 24.

And fast-depleting aquifers make Yemen's plight the starkest in a desperately water-scarce region. Local disputes over water rights may turn violent, especially in tribal areas. Competition for supplies between cities and the countryside may sharpen.

"Yemen's water share per capita is under 100 cubic meters a year, compared to the water poverty line of 1,000 cubic meters," said Hosny Khordagui, Cairo-based head of the U.N. Development Program's water governance program in Arab countries.

Arab states, except Egypt, Iraq and Lebanon, all fall short of the water poverty line and the regional trend, blamed on climate change, is toward consistently lower rainfall.

Unlike wealthy Gulf oil states, Yemen, the Arab world's poorest country, is ill-placed to fill the gap between supply and demand with desalination. "They are thinking of it, but economically I very much doubt they can do it," Khordagui said.

UNATTRACTIVE OPTIONS

Desalinating seawater and pumping it 2,000 meters uphill to the inland capital would be hugely expensive. Water could be transferred to Sanaa from another basin, but this might spark conflict with nearby provinces that are also parched.

"One idea, which is politically unacceptable, is to move the capital elsewhere. I don't see it happening," Khordagui said.

Sanaa, 50 years ago a sleepy, walled town of perhaps 50,000, is among the world's fastest-growing cities, with a population exploding at an estimated 8 percent a year, according to the World Bank, of which 5 percent is due to rural migration.

Water scarcity is forcing many poorer villagers to sell up and move to Yemen's cities, where few have the skills to thrive, even though they are expected to send money home to relatives.

From the 1970s, Yemenis turned swiftly from rain-fed farming to irrigation using water pumped from new tube wells, encouraged by the government and foreign donors keen to expand production.

"Finally they found irrigated agriculture was unsustainable because of the depletion of groundwater," Abu Hatim said.

Agriculture sucks up more than 90 percent of water used and a third of that goes to irrigate fields of qat, a mild narcotic intrinsic to the daily social life of most Yemenis.

Mismanagement of water resources is one reason why Yemen's plight is worse than that of neighbors such as Oman, argues Jac van der Gun, director of the International Groundwater Resources Assessment Center in The Netherlands.

Both countries have dwindling oil resources, but Oman's oil wealth is shared among only three million, compared to Yemen's population of 23 million, which is set to double in 20 years.

"Oman is a positive example of stability and charismatic leadership, so it is much easier for them to control their water problems. Yemen is not anarchic, but it comes close," he said.

Van der Gun cited the troubled northern province of Saada, the bastion of Shi'ite tribesmen whose intermittent rebellion against the government flared into fierce battles this month.

"Saada has a huge water problem, but they can't think about the future because they are thinking about today," he added.

Despite the afternoon downpours in Sanaa, Yemen's northern highlands have been suffering a two-year drought.

"The rains this year have been poor and late," said Ramon Scoble, a water expert for the German development agency GTZ who works in Amran province, just north of the capital.

"Rural sectors of north Yemen may face famine," he said, echoing a warning sounded in June by Abdul-Karim al-Iryani, senior political adviser to President Ali Abdullah Saleh.

"They won't be producing their own foodstuffs for another year and they won't have harvested enough seed to be able to grow again next year," Scoble said.

The government, backed by foreign donors, began applying a comprehensive strategy for water resources, irrigation, water supply, the environment and capacity building in 2005.

But experts describe implementation as patchy. The World Bank's Abu Hatim said the program was a palliative measure.

"It will not solve the problems, only alleviate them to buy time. The catastrophe is coming, but we don't know when."

(Editing by Jon Hemming)

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Los Angeles wildfire forces thousands from homes

Mary Milliken, Reuters 30 Aug 09;

LA CANADA FLINTRIDGE, California (Reuters) - A wildfire in the heavily populated Los Angeles foothills threatened 10,000 homes on Sunday, and California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger warned residents to heed evacuation orders for the "out of control" and "very dangerous" blaze.

The heat-driven fire nearly doubled in size overnight and has now burned 35,000 acres of thick, bone-dry brush in the mountains above five towns, a 12-mile stretch from La Crescenta to La Canada Flintridge, the California Fire Department said.

Authorities have ordered residents to evacuate about 2,000 homes threatened by the fire about 15 miles northeast of downtown Los Angeles.

"These fires are still totally out of control," Schwarzenegger told reporters at the firefighters' command post in Lake View Terrace, California. "This is a huge and is a very dangerous fire. The fire is moving very close to homes and to structures... this is why it's important to pay close attention to the evacuation."

In La Crescenta, the streets were deserted on Sunday afternoon except for a few residents fleeing with their suitcases and other belongings on foot.

Bob Sebesta, 47, sat watching the burning ridge from his in-laws' house, which everyone evacuated last night with pictures, paperwork and "stuff you can't replace."

"I keep thinking I should go water the backyard," Sebesta said.

Three remote homes have been destroyed so far and some 10,000 others and 2,500 other buildings are in danger, as is Mount Wilson, the nexus for key telecommunications facilities.

"That site is the nerve center for most of communication in the Los Angeles area," Station Fire Commander Mike Dietrich said. "It is not out of danger as we speak."

Fire commanders said at a news briefing that more than three homes were lost in the Big Tujunga canyon, though they did not know the exact number.

"We have eyewitness reports that our house is gone and as many as 30 may be lost," said Beth Halaas, who lives year-round in the canyon, where most homes are for weekend use.

The fire that started on Wednesday above the exclusive community of La Canada Flintridge is only 5 percent contained and officials expected that, with hot temperatures and low humidity, it would grow larger. The cause of the fire is being investigated.

HEALTH WARNINGS

Dense smoke filled the skies over the foothills and authorities issued health warnings for the Los Angeles basin.

The flames appeared to wane on Saturday evening in the area near NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory but raged at the other end and moved through the mountains toward the inland community of Acton, where evacuations were ordered on Sunday.

A wooded neighborhood on the slopes of La Crescenta got the evacuation order in the middle of the night, but only around half the neighborhood left.

On Sunday afternoon, brothers Vince and John Bollier looked out onto the mountains in front of their parents' house, where the fire had left only gray ash on the slopes.

"Last night was an inferno," said Vince Bollier. "It was close but it wasn't life threatening, although a lot of people would have characterized it as dangerous."

Sheriff's deputies spent Sunday afternoon urging residents to leave, and it appeared that most had.

Helicopters have been flying over the neighborhood for days now, filling up with water to drop along the area where homes meet the bone dry wilderness.

The saving grace in the Station fire has been the absence of high winds, but much of the brush in the area has not burned in 60 years, terrain is difficult to access and humidity is low. Winds were picking up on Sunday afternoon.

Four firefighters have been injured and three civilians have suffered burns, including two who were badly burned on Saturday after they tried to ride out the fire by sitting in a hot tub.

More than 2,000 firefighters and other personnel are on the ground but it is the aerial assault with water and retardant that has best kept the fire from moving into homes, many of them worth millions of dollars.

The relative lack of high winds has made fighting the fires from the air difficult because thick smoke hanging over them made them hard to see, Schwarzenegger said, adding that many of the flames are up to 80 to 100 feet high.

Utility Southern California Edison said the blaze has cut power to about 250 customers.

The mayor of La Canada Flintridge, Laura Olhasso, said the situation was looking better for residents after firefighters beat back flames from backyards overnight, and evacuation orders were lifted for some residents on Sunday afternoon.

Schwarzenegger declared a state of emergency in Los Angeles County last week in response to four fires in the area.

On Sunday, he said, there were eight "huge" fires burning statewide. In total, 55,000 acres have burned, he said.

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom in Los Angeles; editing by Mohammad Zargham)

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UN meeting: help nations adapt to global warming

Eliane Engeler Associated Press Google News 30 Aug 09;

GENEVA — As nations negotiate tough decisions on cutting greenhouse gases, the United Nations is holding a separate conference on coping with more floods, droughts and other effects of climate change already assured.

The World Climate Conference — which avoids the political pitfall of discussing cuts to carbon emissions — aims to make sure poor countries have the same access to climate data as rich ones, and that the information is shared among scientists and governments worldwide.

A large U.S. delegation is attending, eager to impress with the new Obama administration's commitment to combatting climate change.

"Climate change is real," said delegation leader Jane Lubchenco, administrator of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. "It is happening now, in our backyards and around the globe."

Delegates to the five-day conference starting Monday in Geneva hope to set up a Global Framework for Climate Services to ensure that early warnings for tsunamis and hurricanes reach everybody and that farmers in remote African regions know about upcoming droughts and floods.

Lubchenco said decision-makers would require reliable information about the current and projected impacts of climate change.

Many countries, however, lack information about even their own climates.

"Hydrological networks in Africa are totally insufficient," said meeting host Michel Jarraud, head of the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization. "Many water basins are managed without any information about precipitation and run-off amount of water in the underground water table."

Governments across the globe are facing a December deadline for separate U.N. talks aimed at forging a new accord to replace the 1997 Kyoto Protocol on reducing greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and climate change. Organizers of the Dec. 7-18 U.N. meeting in Copenhagen, Denmark, hope to reach an agreement on limiting the warming of the Earth's temperature to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above levels 150 years ago.

"Even if Copenhagen is very successful in making decisions on the mitigation of greenhouse gases, there will still be a certain amount of warming" to which the world will have to adapt, Jarraud said.

Rising sea levels may prompt some countries to build more dikes, relocate inhabitants from low-lying islands and ensure health services can cope with diseases such as malaria that may spread, he said.

This week's World Climate Conference brings together about 15 heads of state, including those from Cameroon, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Slovenia, Switzerland, Tajikistan and Togo, as well as 80 ministers from various governments. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is to speak Wednesday.

The conference, costing some 4.5 million Swiss francs ($4.2 million), was sponsored by several countries, including Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Japan, Russia, Saudi Arabia and Spain. The United States contributed $500,000, while Switzerland put in 1.8 million francs ($1.7 million).

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Some U.S. Buildings Not Living Up to Green Label

Mireya Navarro, The New York Times 30 Aug 09;

The Federal Building in downtown Youngstown, Ohio, features an extensive use of natural light to illuminate offices and a white roof to reflect heat.

It has LEED certification, the country’s most recognized seal of approval for green buildings.

But the building is hardly a model of energy efficiency. According to an environmental assessment last year, it did not score high enough to qualify for the Energy Star label granted by the Environmental Protection Agency, which ranks buildings after looking at a year’s worth of utility bills.

The building’s cooling system, a major gas guzzler, was one culprit. Another was its design: to get its LEED label, it racked up points for things like native landscaping rather than structural energy-saving features, according to a study by the General Services Administration, which owns the building.

Builders covet LEED certification — it stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design — as a way to gain tax credits, attract tenants, charge premium rents and project an image of environmental responsibility. But the gap between design and construction, which LEED certifies, and how some buildings actually perform led the program last week to announce that it would begin collecting information about energy use from all the buildings it certifies.

Buildings would provide the information voluntarily, said officials with the United States Green Building Council, the nonprofit organization that administers the LEED program, and the data would be kept confidential. But starting this year, the program also is requiring all newly constructed buildings to provide energy and water bills for the first five years of operation as a condition for certification. The label could be rescinded if the data is not produced, the officials said.

The council’s own research suggests that a quarter of the new buildings that have been certified do not save as much energy as their designs predicted and that most do not track energy consumption once in use. And the program has been under attack from architects, engineers and energy experts who argue that because building performance is not tracked, the certification may be falling short in reducing emissions tied to global warming.

Some experts have contended that the seal should be withheld until a building proves itself energy efficient, which is the cornerstone of what makes a building green, and that energy-use data from every rated building should be made public.

“The plaque should be installed with removable screws,” said Henry Gifford, an energy consultant in New York City. “Once the plaque is glued on, there’s no incentive to do better.”

Scot Horst, the council’s senior vice president for its certification program, said that any changes in the process would have to be made by consensus to ensure that the building industry would comply. Already, some construction lawyers have said that owners might face additional risk of lawsuits if buildings are found to underperform.

The council is planning several meetings with builders, owners, developers and others around the country in September and October to promote its building performance initiative, which could lead to further revisions in the rating program to ensure buildings reduce energy consumption as much as they can.

Mr. Horst called the issue of performance one of his “absolute priorities.”

“If you’re not reducing carbon, you’re not doing your job,” he said.

The LEED label, developed by the council in 1998 to have a third-party verification of a building’s environmental soundness, certifies new homes, schools and other buildings, as well as existing ones. (The certification for existing buildings is the only one currently tied to energy performance.) Its oldest and largest program, in terms of square footage, is the certification of new commercial and institutional buildings, with 1,946 projects already certified and 15,000 more that have applied for certification. Many other buildings include environmentally friendly features and advertise themselves as “green” but do not seek the LEED label.

The program uses a point system based on a broad checklist of features and buildings can be certified by accumulating points on not just efficient energy use but also water conservation, proximity to public transportation, indoor air quality and use of environment-friendly materials.

Council officials say that these other categories also help reduce energy use and emissions. And many architects and engineers praise the comprehensiveness of the label. But the wide scope of the program, many in the industry point out, also means that buildings have been able to get certified by accumulating most of their points through features like bamboo flooring, while paying little attention to optimizing energy use.

Another problem is that the certification relies on energy models to predict how much energy a planned building will use, but council officials and many experts agree that such models are inexact. Once a building opens, it may use more energy than was predicted by the design. And how a building is used — how many occupants it has, for example — affects its energy consumption.

“If the occupants don’t turn off the lights, the building doesn’t do as well as expected,” said Mark Frankel, technical director for the New Buildings Institute, which promotes improved energy performance in new commercial construction and conducted the research commissioned by the Green Building Council on LEED buildings.

“In the real world, the mechanical systems may have problems, so that increases energy use,” Mr. Frankel said, adding that keeping track of energy use is rarely a priority for owners.

LEED energy standards have grown more stringent over the years, and construction like the Youngstown federal building, built in 2002, would not be certified under the current version of the program, the G.S.A. study noted. The LEED standard goes through periodic revisions, and this year, the minimum energy requirements needed for the basic LEED certification for new buildings were raised.

But in its own study last year of 121 new buildings certified through 2006, the Green Building Council found that more than half — 53 percent — did not qualify for the Energy Star label and 15 percent scored below 30 in that program, meaning they used more energy per square foot than at least 70 percent of comparable buildings in the existing national stock.

Anecdotal information from follow-up research to that study indicated that the best-performing buildings had limited window areas and tended to be smaller.

Sometimes, a building’s inhabitants are the first to notice energy-wasting features.

At the Octagon, a LEED-certified residential rental building on Roosevelt Island in New York City, residents like Alan Siegal say that obvious energy savers, like motion sensors in the hallway, are hard to miss.

But Mr. Siegal, 59, a customs service broker, said his three-bedroom apartment has floor-to-ceiling glass windows that offer great views but also strong drafts.

“If there’s a lot of glass, is that going to be efficient?” he asked.

Bruce Becker, whose company Becker and Becker Associates developed and owns the Octagon, said that the windows offer day lighting but conceded that there were plenty of opportunities to become more energy efficient. He said the Octagon would soon switch to a fuel cell system for heat and electricity, partly to cut energy costs at a time of a depressed rental market.

Mr. Horst, the LEED executive, said that LEED may eventually move toward the E.P.A.’s Energy Star model, which attests to energy efficiency only for the year the label was given, similar to restaurant ratings.

“Ultimately, where we want to be is, once you’re performing at a certain level, you continue to be recertified,” Mr. Horst said.

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Climate trouble may be bubbling up in far north

Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press 31 Aug 09;

MACKENZIE RIVER DELTA, Northwest Territories – Only a squawk from a sandhill crane broke the Arctic silence — and a low gurgle of bubbles, a watery whisper of trouble repeated in countless spots around the polar world.

"On a calm day, you can see 20 or more `seeps' out across this lake," said Canadian researcher Rob Bowen, sidling his small rubber boat up beside one of them. A tossed match would have set it ablaze.

"It's essentially pure methane."

Pure methane, gas bubbling up from underwater vents, escaping into northern skies, adds to the global-warming gases accumulating in the atmosphere. And pure methane escaping in the massive amounts known to be locked in the Arctic permafrost and seabed would spell a climate catastrophe.

Is such an unlocking under way?

Researchers say air temperatures here in northwest Canada, in Siberia and elsewhere in the Arctic have risen more than 2.5 C (4.5 F) since 1970 — much faster than the global average. The summer thaw is reaching deeper into frozen soil, at a rate of 4 centimeters (1.5 inches) a year, and a further 7 C (13 F) temperature rise is possible this century, says the authoritative, U.N.-sponsored Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

In 2007, air monitors detected a rise in methane concentrations in the atmosphere, apparently from far northern sources. Russian researchers in Siberia expressed alarm, warning of a potential surge in the powerful greenhouse gas, additional warming of several degrees, and unpredictable consequences for Earth's climate.

Others say massive seeps of methane might take centuries. But the Russian scenario is disturbing enough to have led six U.S. national laboratories last year to launch a joint investigation of rapid methane release. And IPCC Chairman Rajendra Pachauri in July asked his scientific network to focus on "abrupt, irreversible climate change" from thawing permafrost.

The data will come from teams like one led by Scott Dallimore, who with Bowen and others pitched tents here on the remote, boggy fringe of North America, 2,200 kilometers (1,400 miles) from the North Pole, to learn more about seeps in the 25,000 lakes of this vast river delta.

A "puzzle," Dallimore calls it.

"Many factors are poorly studied, so we're really doing frontier science here," the Geological Survey of Canada scientist said. "There is a very large storehouse of greenhouse gases within the permafrost, and if that storehouse of greenhouse gases is fluxing to the surface, that's important to know. And it's important to know if that flux will change with time."

Permafrost, tundra soil frozen year-round and covering almost one-fifth of Earth's land surface, runs anywhere from 50 to 600 meters (160 to 2,000 feet) deep in this region. Entombed in that freezer is carbon — plant and animal matter accumulated through millennia.

As the soil thaws, these ancient deposits finally decompose, attacked by microbes, producing carbon dioxide and — if in water — methane. Both are greenhouse gases, but methane is many times more powerful in warming the atmosphere.

Researchers led by the University of Florida's Ted Schuur last year calculated that the top 3 meters (10 feet) of permafrost alone contain more carbon than is currently in the atmosphere.

"It's safe to say the surface permafrost, 3 to 5 meters, is at risk of thawing in the next 100 years," Schuur said by telephone from an Alaska research site. "It can't stay intact."

Methane also is present in another form, as hydrates — ice-like formations deep underground and under the seabed in which methane molecules are trapped within crystals of frozen water. If warmed, the methane will escape.

Dallimore, who has long researched hydrates as energy sources, believes a breakdown of such huge undersea formations may have produced conical "hills" found offshore in the Beaufort Sea bed, some of them 40 meters (more than 100 feet) high.

With underwater robots, he detected methane gas leaking from these seabed features, which resemble the strange hills ashore here that the Inuvialuit, or Eskimos, call "pingos." And because the coastal plain is subsiding and seas are rising from warming, more permafrost is being inundated, exposed to water warmer than the air.

The methane seeps that the Canadians were studying in the Mackenzie Delta, amid grassy islands, steel-gray lakes and summertime temperatures well above freezing, are saucer-like indentations just 10 meters (30 feet) or so down on the lake bed.

The ultimate source of that gas — hydrates, decomposition or older natural gas deposits — is unclear, but Dallimore's immediate goal is quantifying the known emissions and finding the unknown.

With tent-like, instrument-laden enclosures they positioned over two seeps, each several meters (yards) wide, the researchers have determined they are emitting methane at a rate of up to 0.6 cubic meters (almost 1 cubic yard) per minute.

Dallimore's team is also monitoring the seeps with underwater listening devices, to assess whether seasonal change — warming — affects the emissions rate.

Even if the lake seeps are centuries old, Bowen said, the question is, "Will they be accelerated by recent changes?"

A second question: Are more seeps developing?

To begin answering that, Dallimore is working with German and Canadian specialists in aerial surveying, teams that will fly over swaths of Arctic terrain to detect methane "hot spots" via spectrometric imagery, instruments identifying chemicals by their signatures on the light spectrum.

Research crews are hard at work elsewhere, too, to get a handle on this possible planetary threat.

"I and others are trying to take field observations and get it scaled up to global models," said Alaska researcher Schuur. From some 400 boreholes drilled deep into the tundra worldwide, "we see historic warming of permafrost. Much of it is now around 2 below zero (28 F)," Schuur said.

A Coast Guard C-130 aircraft is overflying Alaska this summer with instruments sampling the air for methane and carbon dioxide. In parts of Alaska, scientists believe the number of "thermokarst" lakes — formed when terrain collapses over thawing permafrost and fills with meltwater — may have doubled in the past three decades. Those lakes then expand, thawing more permafrost on their edges, exposing more carbon.

Off Norway's Arctic archipelago of Svalbard last September, British scientists reported finding 250 methane plumes rising from the shallow seabed. They're probably old, scientists said, but only further research can assess whether they're stable. In March, Norwegian officials did say methane levels had risen on Svalbard.

Afloat above the huge, shallow continental shelf north of Siberia, Russian researchers have detected seabed "methane chimneys" sending gas bubbling up to the surface, possibly from hydrates.

Reporting to the European Geophysical Union last year, the scientists, affiliated with the University of Alaska and the Russian Academy of Sciences, cited "extreme" saturation of methane in surface waters and in the air above. They said up to 10 percent of the undersea permafrost area had melted, and it was "highly possible" that this would open the way to abrupt release of an estimated 50 billion tons of methane.

Depending on how much dissolved in the sea, that might multiply methane in the atmosphere several-fold, boosting temperatures enough to cause "catastrophic greenhouse warming," as the Russians called it. It would be self-perpetuating, melting more permafrost, emitting more methane.

Some might label that alarmism. And Stockholm University researcher Orjan Gustafsson, a partner in the Russians' field work, acknowledged that "the scientific community is quite split on how fast the permafrost can thaw."

But there's no doubt the north contains enough potential methane and carbon dioxide to cause abrupt climate change, Gustafsson said by telephone from Sweden.

Canada's pre-eminent permafrost expert, Chris Burn, has trekked to lonely locations in these high latitudes for almost three decades, meticulously chronicling the changes in the tundra.

On a stopover at the Aurora Research Institute in the Mackenzie Delta town of Inuvik, the Carleton University scientist agreed "we need many, many more field observations." But his teams have found the frozen ground warming down to about 80 meters, and he believes the world is courting disaster in failing to curb warming by curbing greenhouse emissions.

"If we lost just 1 percent of the carbon in permafrost today, we'd be close to a year's contributions from industrial sources," he said. "I don't think policymakers have woken up to this. It's not in their risk assessments."

How likely is a major release?

"I don't think it's a case of likelihood," he said. "I think we are playing with fire."

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