Best of our wild blogs: 5 Sep 09

"In Darwin's pocket: The voyage of the beagle from Darwin's field notebooks" Mon 07 Sep 2009, NUS DBS Seminar Room 1: 4pm - John van Wyhe from ecotax at Yahoo! Groups

One Very Angry Reptile
from Life's Indulgences

Scorpions watching
from Ubin at sgkopi.com

Black-thighed Falconet hunting during nesting
from Bird Ecology Study Group

ICCS Site Buddy Briefing at NUS LT25
from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

The suckling behavior of captive sun bears
from Bornean Sun Bear Conservation

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Slash-and-burn land clearance goes on unabated

Small farmers have no incentives to change; plantations stick with cheap and easy way
Salim Osman, Straits Times 5 Sep 09;

PEKANBARU (RIAU): Indonesia's battle against slash-and-burn agriculture seems to have stalled, raising the prospect that Singapore and other neighbours may have to live with bouts of choking haze for years to come, regional officials and environmentalists warn.

Jakarta has worked to train villagers in fire-prone areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan to practise 'zero burning' with the goal of 'zero haze'.

'But it appears to have had little effect, as people still turn to slash-and-burn methods to clear land during the dry season,' said environmentalist Zulfahmi of Greenpeace Indonesia.

One problem is that there are no incentives for small-time farmers to abandon the age-old practice. The government has not provided them with the mechanical equipment they could use to clear land for planting without burning.

But big, wealthy plantation companies also continue to use the cheap and easy method of land clearing because the ban against open burning is not being strictly enforced.

Thus, forest and land fires have ravaged thousands of hectares in Sumatra and Kalimantan, many of them on land belonging to oil palm plantation and paper-and-pulp companies.

'These fires take place in areas spanning more than 2ha,' says Mr Hariansyah Usman, the executive director of environmental group Walhi Riau. 'That goes to show that claims that the fires were started mainly by local residents, namely farmers, are just not true.'

While the government has effectively punished small-time farmers, companies with larger land concessions continue to get away with it.

Under the current environmental laws, the only action civilian investigators can take is to seek explanations and evidence from individuals or companies, and to report them to the police for prosecution. Those found guilty of damaging the environment can be jailed for up to 10 years and fined as much as 500 million rupiah (S$70,000).

The Indonesian government hopes to amend the laws to give the Environment Ministry powers to punish both companies that start fires and regional governments that fail to stop the burning.

It has also pledged to supply poor communities with mechanical land-clearing equipment.

Last week, Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar appealed to the governors and regents of fire-prone areas to stop all burning of forests by revoking by-laws that allow local farmers to clear land by burning.

His ministry is investigating 14 companies in Riau for allegedly starting forest and land fires and will submit findings to the police for legal action.

But an official at the provincial environmental agency in Riau which is investigating the companies says that will be tough due to budget constraints.

'It would cost at least 300 million rupiah to prosecute one case,' said the official, who asked not to be named. 'We don't have enough in the budget.

'In most cases, the culprits seek an out-of-court settlement. And that's the end of the matter. They can also bribe officials to close the case.'

Indonesia appears hesitant to ask for help or accept offers of assistance from its neighbours in tackling the problem, although officials here claim they would welcome any aid other than manpower.

But Ms Masnellyarti Hilman, a deputy for environmental damage control at the Environment Ministry, was quoted by The Jakarta Post as saying: 'If we can deal with it on our own, why do we need to seek help from others?'

The Riau administration, however, appears to be powerless to tackle forest fires, mainly because of a lack of money and technical expertise.

The province was hit hard by recent forest fires in July and August. The resulting haze closed the airport in Pekanbaru for three days and resulted in thousands of students being sent home.

At a meeting in Singapore on Aug19, Mr Rachmat told his Asean counterparts that Indonesia would mobilise the Forestry Ministry's forest fire prevention brigade and improve the early warning systems and also deploy military planes to launch water bombs.

But the forestry agency in Pekanbaru says the administration has allocated only 500 million rupiah to deal with forest fires this year, far less than the proposed three billion rupiah required.

'What can we do with such money?' says an agency spokesman, Mr Zulkifli. 'We don't get enough allocation because forest fires are not seen as national disasters here.'

Scarred landscapes in Riau heartland
Straits Times 5 Sep 09;

PEKANBARU (RIAU): Farmer Tholib digs tiny holes in the ground between charred tree stumps on his farm and puts tiny padi seeds into each of them.

'In six months, I will be able to reap the harvest,' he says at his 2ha plot in the Pelalawan regency.

For two straight weeks last month, fires consumed his rubber trees and bushes. All that remains are the blackened stumps.

Such scarred landscapes were common sights during my two-day journey into the Riau heartland.

Large tracts of forest land went up in smoke in July and August when fires were set deliberately to clear land during the dry season.

Things have changed little since 2005 and 2006 when I made two trips and was appalled to find a landscape of ashen remains where forests used to be.

Areas other than Pelalawan that are prone to fire include Indragiri Hulu, Rokan Hilir, Kampar, and Siak. Many of them cover an area as large as Singapore.

Wearing only soiled shorts and with his bare body streaked with soot, Mr Tholib, 50, claims that he does not know who burnt the land.

He is among a dozen farmers I spoke to in Pelalawan, about three hours drive from Pekanbaru, who clear land by the traditional method but do not want to admit it.

Echoing the words of farmers in other districts, Mr Tholib says the villagers are aware that burning the forests is harmful, but he adds that their choices are limited.

'The government should not only prohibit, but also provide a solution, such as supplying us with mechanical equipment for land clearing,' he says.

Excavators and tractors can cost up to a billion rupiah (S$142,000) - well beyond the reach of small-time farmers, who earn only about two million rupiah a year.

As their plots are on peat land, flames will continue to smoulder deep beneath the earth for weeks even when fires on the surface have been put out.

That not only releases enormous levels of carbon dioxide, a prime contributor to climate change, but also produces the thick pall of smoke that sometimes blows towards nearby Singapore and Malaysia.

Although small-time farmers contribute to the fires, the main culprits are owners of oil palm plantations and paper-and-pulp companies, say environmental groups and regional officials.

'Because these companies own thousands of hectares, there is more devastation as larger areas of land are burnt and more smog blankets the region,' says Mr Hariansyah Usman, the executive director of environmental group Walhi Riau in Pekanbaru.

The same problem prevails in the neighbouring Indragiri Hulu regency, another four hours drive from Pangkalan Kerinchi town in Pelalawan.

Here, village officials, while acknowledging that small-time farmers are also guilty of open burning, charge that one plantation company started fires on their newly-acquired concession land.

Kuala Mulia village elder Raja Anis, 57, says a fire broke out on the plantation behind his house in June and burned for two months before rain put it out.

'But the company had the cheek to accuse local residents of starting the fire,' said village head Ramli, 50. 'How could that be as its area is fenced off?'

The villagers, however, seem better prepared for fires this time around. Many have attended fire-fighting classes organised by civic groups and regional officials.

'They can cope with small fires on their farmland,' says student Iskandar, a volunteer from civic group Masyarakat Peduli Alam in Rengat town, Indragiri Hulu. 'But I don't think they will be equipped to fight bigger fires.'

Mr Ibrahim, Kuala Mulia village secretary, says fires will continue to break out in Riau as 60 per cent of the province is peatland that is easily flammable.

'The government should stop giving concessions to companies for oil palm and paper-and-pulp production on peatland,' he says, 'because this is destructive to the environment.'

SALIM OSMAN

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Raising green awareness in China

Straits Times 5 Sep 09;

World Wide Fund for Nature China's country representative Dermot O'Gorman was in Singapore this week for a meeting of WWF senior management. He speaks to Grace Chua about urbanisation, climate change, energy and biodiversity in the world's most populous nation.

# What are the biggest environmental challenges facing China today?

Water and energy. In terms of immediacy, water is by far the most pressing - access to water, pollution, lack of clean water and adaptation to climate change.

In 1970, China was 25 per cent urban and 75 per cent rural. By about 2030, those figures will be reversed. Providing water to another 500 million to 600 million people in urban settlements will be a big challenge.

For the last decade, WWF has run a water programme focusing on the Yangtze River basin, which produces 33 per cent of China's gross domestic product (GDP) and where a quarter of China's population live. (China has a population of about 1.3 billion.)

Next month, we'll be launching the results of a Yangtze River-wide vulnerability assessment, showing that climate change will have different impacts at different parts of the basin.

# What are China's current targets for energy efficiency and use of renewable energy?

China's targets are reducing energy consumption per unit of GDP by 20 per cent by next year (4 per cent a year from 2006 to next year), and getting 20 per cent of energy needs from renewable sources by 2020.

A lot of people said these were unrealistic when they were announced in 2005, and they had less than 1 per cent in the first year, but last year, the increase in energy efficiency was more than 4per cent.

My view is that the Chinese government has recognised that in order to not only lift China's population out of poverty but also move them into the well-off middle class, they need to look at a different model because there are not enough resources in China or even in the world to take people out of poverty and into those consumption levels.

The targets are driven by a recognition of future prices of oil, but also a recognition that they need to be a resource-efficient society. It's a far-reaching strategy, thought through for the next few decades.

# What do you expect China's response to be at the United Nations Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) in December?

WWF is still optimistic that we'll be able to achieve a deal at Copenhagen, but there are still a number of hurdles.

We feel that China is already making and can continue to make important contributions to (carbon emissions) reductions through energy-efficiency initiatives and renewable-energy targets.

For the last two years, China has built one 1-megawatt wind turbine every hour, and that is only going to accelerate.

China is likely to become the world's largest producer of wind energy and then solar energy. There are fantastic business opportunities.

# What is WWF's role in shaping China's climate change policy?

The WWF has been in China for nearly 30years. We see ourselves as playing a role in bringing best practices from around the world to China, raising awareness about environmental issues to the general Chinese population, and bridging a gap of understanding between China and other countries.

# WWF is traditionally known for its biodiversity and conservation work. What are the threats that climate change poses to biodiversity in China?

We do studies of species' vulnerability to climate change - for example, in panda conservation, we take a holistic approach to managing panda populations.

We work with local nature reserves and forest bureaus to do patrols and surveys of pandas in the wild. One of the things that these patrols are telling us is that bamboo bloomings (where bamboo flowers and dies after several decades of growth) may be triggered by climatic changes.

There's further research to be done on how climate change would impact bamboo stems in Sichuan, which would have a major impact on pandas' food sources.

# What happens when some of WWF's conservation measures, such as fighting the illegal wildlife trade, run up against cultural practices like consuming traditional Chinese medicine or eating shark's fin soup?

Some of those cultural practices involve products such as shark's fin and tiger bones. We work with traditional Chinese medicine doctors to explain that tiger bones and other things don't have medicinal purposes, and work with restaurants to explain that by consuming these products, they're endangering the species.

It's no different from other environmental issues where because of growing industrialisation and wealth, people have increased access to these items, and the practices are no longer sustainable.

# What lessons can Singapore learn from China, and vice versa?

There's a long history of exchange between Singapore and China. Singapore, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing - these are really examples in Asia of cities that are on the cutting edge of a lot of things.

It's important (for them) to play a leadership role in the region to show innovation, business ideals on green energy, sustainable buildings and transport systems. There's a lot that's already being exchanged.

There are increasing opportunities for Singapore and China businesses to work together, and to collaborate on environmental and energy issues.

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More Singaporeans signing up for flexible volunteer system SG Cares

Cheryl Lim, Channel NewsAsia 4 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE : A new flexible volunteer system is gaining popularity among Singaporeans.

It is just days before the official launch of SG Cares, a flexible volunteer programme. But some 1,600 Singaporeans have already signed up, most of them first-time volunteers.

Around 200 of them have clocked in more than 400 hours of volunteer work.

Jaclyn Chew, SG Cares volunteer, said: "Before SG Cares, I had the feeling that you need to have a lot of commitment and time before you can do volunteer work. After that I realised that this is a good opportunity for me to try out what kind of volunteer work would interest me."

Organised by the National Volunteer & Philanthropy Centre, the programme centres around an online portal that matches its members to ad-hoc volunteer projects that do not require commitment to a fixed schedule.

The project is based on similar programmes in New York and Boston.

SG Cares is hoping to organise at least 50 projects each month, and it is confident that offering a variety of opportunities will draw in more volunteers.

Some of the programmes offered by SG Cares include beach clean-ups, playing bingo with the elderly and youth reading programmes. The organisation hopes that these programmes will help them attract their target of 7,000 to 8,000 volunteers by September next year.

David Fong, director, SG Cares, said: "We hope that by having this facility, by making it easy, convenient and meaningful, we can at least try and facilitate this transformation to make volunteering a whole lot more spontaneous."

Although the programme is aimed at busy Singaporeans, the group is also hoping to draw in groups of volunteers like schools and companies as well.

Those interested can log on SG Cares' website from Sunday, September 6.
http://www.sgcares.org/
- CNA/ms

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Singapore hospitals on alert for new flu wave

Four-fifths of people in Singapore have not been exposed to H1N1 yet
Jessica Jaganathan, Straits Times 5 Sep 09;

HOSPITALS are on their guard for a possible second wave of Influenza A (H1N1), even as the number of cases dips.

Infectious disease experts estimate that the first wave infected about 700,000 people here. This means more than four-fifths of the population have still not been exposed to the virus.

The estimates were based on the fatality rate of 0.1 per cent - the ratio of deaths within the population - used by the World Health Organisation (WHO) for previous influenza pandemics.

Hospitals are making sure they have enough wards, manpower, medical supplies and infection control measures in place to deal with increased numbers, the Ministry of Health (MOH) told The Straits Times.

Alexandra Hospital, for instance, has been given funds by MOH to convert a private ward with 15 beds into a dedicated H1N1 ward.

The extra ward will double the number of beds that the hospital now has for H1N1 flu patients, who are housed together, separate from other patients. Alexandra needed all the beds at the peak of the outbreak last month.

As of Aug 31, 1,181 people with H1N1 had been hospitalised, with 77 needing intensive care. To date, 17 have died: four had no pre-existing conditions.

Associate Professor Paul Ananth Tambyah, head of the National University Hospital's infectious diseases division, said the numbers were in line with those from other countries and validated Singapore's approach to have pandemic-preparedness clinics look after the vast majority of patients with flu.

The latest fatality was a six-year-old boy, who The Straits Times understands was from Batam, Indonesia, and had sought treatment here for leukaemia.

Dr Wong Sin Yew, an infectious diseases physician in private practice and former head of the Communicable Disease Centre, said it was difficult to estimate how quickly H1N1 had spread compared to the seasonal flu, which is not tested as thoroughly.

But, as in other countries, the majority of those infected, and who were seriously ill or have died, are between 15 and 64 years old.

Dr Natalie Tan Woon Hui, associate consultant of KK Women's and Children's Hospital's infectious disease service, said nearly one in three of Singapore's 1,181 hospital admissions were those aged 14 or below.

She added that children with or without underlying conditions were equally susceptible, though the latter were usually less sick.

The WHO predicts that two billion people will likely be infected worldwide by this new virus, with a 'second wave' expected during winter in the northern hemisphere, the traditional flu season.

Prof Tambyah said this could be anywhere from next month to January for the United States and Europe, and countries with large numbers of travellers from those areas.

But as the virus has not changed much so far, the outbreak is likely to be mild and not drawn out, said doctors.

'When the second wave does occur, those who have been infected with H1N1 are unlikely to be infected again, provided there is no significant mutation,' said Dr Wong.

The ministry is taking no chances, and will have two million courses of the anti-viral drug Tamiflu by the end of this year, almost double the original stockpile. Another 200,000 courses of Relenza will be added to the current 550,000 in the national stockpile.

Singapore has a contract with Australian drug maker CSL for a pandemic vaccine, enough for the population.

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Pork sales in Singapore take a hit

Many play it safe for fear of H1N1 but experts say that eating pork, even from pigs with the virus, is safe
Jessica Lim, Straits Times 5 Sep 09;

DESPITE assurances that it is safe to eat, sales of fresh pork took a hit yesterday.

The degree to which they fell varied - some suppliers said it was by as much as 35 per cent, while others said it was much smaller.

At wet markets, especially, it was clear that buyers were staying away, a reaction to news yesterday that the Influenza A (H1N1) virus was detected in some imported pigs from Indonesia's Pulau Bulan, Singapore's sole source of live pigs.

Soon Hin Food Trading, which distributes meat from 350 live pigs to wet markets daily, said sales fell by 30 per cent.

The owner of the business, Mr Liew Woon Lui, 38, said a third of his customers have told him they do not want deliveries today. 'They said they would just sell the leftover pork from the day before.'

Another supplier, who distributes meat from 50 live pigs daily, said his sales fell by 35 per cent.

The company's business operations manager, who did not want to be named, said: 'People are shunning pork, even though there is nothing to be scared of.'

He expects the sales slump to last at least a month.

The situation varied at several markets visited by The Straits Times yesterday.

At the Ghim Moh market, pork sellers were still waiting for stocks to clear at 12.30pm.

'Usually, we are sold out by now,' said Mr Lim Choon Hee.

The 52-year-old said his sales were down 30 per cent, and added that he fears the worst is yet to come.

At other markets in Chinatown and Toa Payoh, the situation seemed slightly better.

'We've seen just a small drop today,' said Mr Poon Tai Sam, who runs a stall at the Smith Street wet market.

'It's still too early to tell,' he added.

Things were more stable at supermarkets.

NTUC FairPrice said there was no change in demand for pork from Indonesia, though it added that it was too early to predict what would happen.

The chain, Singapore's largest, also went back on an earlier decision to stop supplies from Pulau Bulan.

It said yesterday that it would continue to offer fresh pork from the island as long as there is demand.

The Sheng Siong chain, which has 22 outlets, will do the same, as will Giant Hypermarket, which has eight outlets.

Meanwhile, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority reiterated in a statement yesterday that the pork available here is safe to eat as only healthy pigs are imported into Singapore.

It added: 'The H1N1 virus is not transmitted through the handling and consumption of pork and pork products, including ham, bacon, sausages and canned pork.'

Experts elsewhere have also consistently said that eating pork, even from pigs with H1N1, is safe.

The virus is not found in the meat or bloodsteam of infected pigs, but only in respiratory secretions.

Besides, they added, cooking the meat to an internal temperature of 70 deg C kills all bacteria and viruses.

Try telling that to consumers.

Several who spoke to The Straits Times said they are not taking any chances, assurances or not.

'H1N1 in pork is still very new. I will stop eating it until more is known,' said mother-of-three Stella Lim, 47.

'It is up to us consumers to decide how convinced we are, and I am definitely not convinced.'


It's safe to eat pork, say experts

# Can I catch H1N1 from eating pork?

There have been no cases of a person getting the disease from eating pork. The H1N1 virus is not found in either the bloodstream or meat of the pig, and is restricted to respiratory secretions.

In accordance with international guidelines, pork should be well cooked (to an internal temperature of 70 deg C). This kills bacteria and viruses commonly found in pigs, but which are not normally tested for. But pork does not contain the H1N1 virus.

Dr Alex Thiermann, special adviser to the Director-General of the World Organisation for Animal Health

# Who is at risk from catching H1N1 from pigs?

It is common for pig communities to have influenza, although this virus may be a relatively new strain. People in contact with infected live pigs such as farmers and transportation workers are at risk, and surveillance should be stepped up. If the pig is dead, however, it is unlikely to transmit the virus.

Dr Martin Hibberd of the Genome Institute in Singapore, an infectious diseases expert

# Why is H1N1 surfacing in pigs now, and should these infected pigs be put down as a safety precaution?

Cases are being detected because countries are stepping up tests for H1N1. The international recommended protocol is that any sick pig should be quarantined.

The animals are able to recover within a few days, after which the quarantine can be lifted and the pigs can be sold on the market.

Dr Thiermann

Sales of pork drop after H1N1 virus found in imports of live pigs
Ting Kheng Siong/Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia 4 Sep 09;

SINGAPORE : Sales of pork have dropped by as much as 40 per cent, a day after it was reported that some live pigs infected with the H1N1 flu virus were imported into Singapore.

Despite assurance from authorities that there is no risk of catching the virus from eating pork, consumers are playing it safe.

Pork sellers normally see brisk business this time of the year. The seventh lunar month is celebrated by many Chinese, and pork is usually offered to the hungry ghosts.

But on Friday, some consumers were giving fresh pork a miss. Neither were they taking any chances with Australian chilled pork.

Tan Hoo Leong, pork seller, said: "Usually by this time of the day, most of us would have sold everything. But today, there is still some left. Business has gone down 30, 40 per cent."

All this caution came after the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) found the H1N1 virus in live pigs from Indonesia. The AVA said infected pork, if cooked properly, is safe to eat. But that is not enough to soothe the concerns of consumers.

Many shoppers are ditching pork, and opting for chicken and fish.

At one supermarket chain, sales of pork have dropped by about 25 per cent. 90 per cent of its supply comes from Indonesia, and the store said it will be a couple of months before consumer confidence picks up again.

But some restaurants said they have not been affected yet.

Edison Ho, managing director, Pin Si Kitchen, said: "Some customers will ask where our pork is from. Our manager will explain that we get our supplies from China."

This restaurant also caters for banquets marking the seventh lunar month, where roast suckling pig is often served. But it said it will substitute the pork with another meat, if customers ask for it. - CNA/ms

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Scientists See Rare Turtle for First Time in the Wild

livescience.com Yahoo News 5 Sep 09;

Known only by museum specimens and a few captive individuals, one of the world's rarest turtle species - the Arakan forest turtle - has been observed for the first time in the wild.

A Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) team discovered five of the critically endangered turtles in a wildlife sanctuary in Myanmar (Burma) in Southeast Asia. The sanctuary, originally established to protect elephants, contains thick stands of impenetrable bamboo forests and is rarely visited by people according to the report.

The adult turtles measure less than a foot in length; its shell is light brown with some black mottling. The species was believed extinct until 1994, when conservationists found a few specimens in a food market in China. Before then, the last know record of the species was of a single animal collected by a British Army officer in 1908. Many Asian turtle species have been driven to near extinction due to their demand as food.

The WCS team also found yellow tortoises and Asian leaf turtles in the sanctuary - two other species threatened by the illegal wildlife trade.

"Throughout Asia, turtles are being wiped out by poachers for the illegal wildlife trade," said Colin Poole, WCS Director of Asia programs. "We are delighted and astonished that this extremely rare species is alive and well in Myanmar. Now we must do what we can to protect the remaining population."

A report documenting the turtles' discovery was prepared by Dr. Steven Platt of Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas and Khin Myo Myo of WCS. It recommends several steps to ensure that the turtles remain protected in the sanctuary. These include training of local protected area staff, conservation groups and graduate students to collect additional data on the species, and establishing permanent guard posts on roads leading in and out of the park to thwart potential poaching.

The research was supported by Andy Sabin and the Turtle Conservation Fund.

Turtle thought to be extinct spotted in Myanmar
Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 7 Sep 09;

BANGKOK – The rare Arakan forest turtle, once though to be extinct, has been rediscovered in a remote forest in Myanmar, boosting chances of saving the reptile after hunting almost destroyed its population, researchers said Monday.

Texas researcher Steven Platt and staff from the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society discovered five of the brown-and-tan-spotted turtles in May during a survey of wildlife in the Rakhine Yoma Elephant Sanctuary.

The sanctuary contains thick stands of impenetrable bamboo forests, with the only trails made by the park's elephants, said Platt, of Sul Ross State University in Alpine, Texas.

Plat said he and his team were able to reach the area only by small boat and endured round-the-clock torrential rains and bands of leeches before finding their first Arakan turtle on May 31.

"At this moment, all of the physical hardships of the trip were forgotten," Platt said in an e-mail interview.

Native to the Arakan hills of western Myanmar, the turtles were believed extinct for close to a century until they started turning up in Asian food markets in the mid-1990s.

The local name for the turtle is "Pyant Cheezar," which translates to "turtle that eats rhinoceros feces." Sumatran rhinos were once found in the area, but vanished half a century ago due to hunting.

Scientists blame the near-disappearance of the turtle on their popularity in Asia as an ingredient in cooking and medicine. Known by its scientific name, Heosemys depressa, it is listed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources and has proven difficult to breed in captivity.

The discovery in May makes scientists hopeful that the species can survive.

"Throughout Asia, turtles are being wiped out by poachers for the illegal wildlife trade," Colin Poole, the Wildlife Conservation Society's director of Asia programs, said in a statement. "We are delighted and astonished that this extremely rare species is alive and well in Myanmar. Now we must do what we can to protect the remaining population."

Douglas B. Hendrie, a freshwater turtle expert from Education for Nature-Vietnam who did not take part in the research, said he was not surprised by the discovery because he had heard anecdotes of hunters and guides finding the turtle.

"That said, I think it is good to bring attention to the species," Hendrie said in an e-mail interview, adding that it is an "an important part of furthering the aims of conservation."

Platt and the conservation society recommend that guard posts be set up on roads leading in and out of the park to thwart poaching and that additional data be collected on the species to develop a conservation plan for it.

In this 2009 photo released by the Wildlife Conservation Society, juvenile Arakan Forest turtles are observed in the wild in Myanmar by a team of scientists led by the Wildlife Conservation Society. Researchers say they have found a rare turtle thought to be extinct in the wild during a trip to a remote forest in Myanmar, boosting the chances of saving the brown-and-tan spotted reptile. Texas researcher Steven Platt and members of the Wildlife Conservation Society discovered the first of five Arakan Forest turtles in May during a survey of the Rakhine Yoma Elephant Sanctuary wildlife. (AP Photo/Wildlife Conservation Society, Steven Platt)

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Google trick tracks extinctions

Judith Burns, BBC News 4 Sep 09;

Google's algorithm for ranking web pages can be adapted to determine which species are critical for sustaining ecosystems, say researchers.

According to a paper in PLoS Computational Biology, "PageRank" can be applied to the study of food webs.

These are the complex networks of who eats whom in an ecosystem.

The scientists say their version of PageRank could be a simple way of working out which extinctions would lead to ecosystem collapse.

Every species is embedded in a complex network of relationships with others. So a single extinction can cascade into the loss of seemingly unrelated species.

Investigating when this might happen using more conventional methods is complicated as even in simple ecosystems, the number of combinations exceeds the number of atoms in the universe. So it would be impossible to try them all.

Co-author Dr Stefano Allesina realised he could apply PageRank to the problem when he stumbled across an article in a journal of applied mathematics describing the Google algorithm.

The researchers say they had to make minor changes to it to adapt it for ecology.

Dr Allesina, of the University of Chicago's department of ecology and Evolution, told BBC News: "First of all we had to reverse the definition of the algorithm.

"In PageRank, a web page is important if important pages point to it. In our approach a species is important if it points to important species."

Cyclical element

They also had to design in a cyclical element into the food web system in order to make it applicable to the algorithm.

They did this by including what Dr Allesina terms the "detritus pool". He said: "When an organism dies it goes into the detritus pool and in turn gets cycled back into the food web through the primary producers, the plants.

"Each species points to the detritus and the detritus points only to the plants. This makes the web circular and therefore leads to the application of the algorithm."

Dr Allesina and co-author Dr Mercedes Pascual of University of Michigan have tested their method against published food webs, using it to rank species according to the damage they would cause if they were removed from the ecosystem.

They also tested algorithms already in use in computational biology to find a solution to the same problem.

They found that PageRank gave them exactly the same solution as these much more complicated algorithms.

Dr Glyn Davies, director of programmes at WWF-UK, welcomed the work. He said: "As the rate of species extinction increases, conservation organisations strive to build political support for maintaining healthy and productive ecosystems which hold a full complement of species.

"Any research that strengthens our understanding of the complex web of ecological processes that bind us all is welcome."

Google’s Internet Techniques Inspire Studies of Food Webs
Henry Fountain, The New York Times 4 Sep 09;

A major reason Google’s search engine is so successful is its PageRank algorithm, which assigns a pecking order to Web pages based on the pages that point to them. A page is important, according to Google, if other important pages link to it.

But the Internet is not the only web around. In ecology, for instance, there are food webs — the often complex networks of who eats whom.

Inspired by PageRank, Stefano Allesina of the University of Chicago and Mercedes Pascual of the University of Michigan have devised an algorithm of their own for the relationships in a food web. As described in the online open-access journal PLoS Computational Biology, the algorithm uses the links between species in a food web to determine the relative importance of species in a food web, which will have the most impact if they become extinct.

Dr. Allesina, who studies network theory and biology, was reading a paper about Google’s algorithm one day while at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “I said, ‘This reminds me of something,’ ” he recalled.

One key to PageRank’s success is that its developers introduced a small probability that a Web user would jump from one page to any other. This in effect makes the Web circular, and makes the algorithm solvable. But in food webs, Dr. Allesina said, “you can’t go from the grass to the lion — the grass has to go through the gazelle first.

“We could not use the same trick to make food webs circular,” he went on.

So they used another trick, he said. Since all organisms die and decompose, they created a “detritus pool” that all species link to. The pool also links to primary producers in a food web, which make use of the decomposed matter.

Their algorithm differs also in that it determines the relative importance of species through reverse engineering — by seeing which species make the food web collapse fastest if they are removed. The researchers found that the algorithm produces results that were as accurate as much more complex (and computationally costly) software that builds webs from the ground up, simulating evolution.

The next step, Dr. Allesina said, is to refine the algorithm so that it will work with more complex webs. There are many other factors that affect extinctions, including pollution and habitat loss. The goal is to create an algorithm that can take these and other elements into account as well.

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NY researchers give ladybugs a birds-and-bees talk

Mary Esch, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Sep 09;

ITHACA, N.Y. – A year after they launched a nationwide search for dwindling native ladybugs, New York researchers are breeding colonies of them from insects found by citizen scientists in Oregon and Colorado.

John Losey, an entomologist at Cornell University, launched the Lost Ladybug Project last year to try to figure out why once-common native ladybug species had all but disappeared across the country. The project, funded by the National Science Foundation, recruits citizen scientists — especially children — to search for ladybugs and send photos of them to Losey and his colleagues.

Of particular interest are the nine-spotted, two-spotted and transverse ladybugs, three native species that have declined dramatically in the last decade, possibly because of the release of non-native species to control crop pests.

"Between 1999 and last year when we started the program, less than 10 individuals of the nine-spot were collected anywhere in the country," Losey said. "That used to be the most dominant species across the U.S. and Canada."

Hundreds of participants across the U.S. and Canada have sent in thousands of photos since the project launched. While some of the photos were of native species, most of the pictures showed the multicolored Asian ladybug and the European seven-spotted ladybug, which were introduced for agricultural pest control and have become widespread as the dominant species.

The big breakthrough came in June, when 6-year-old Alyson Yates and her mom, Kate, started sending in photos of nine-spotted ladybugs from their rural backyard in Lakeview, Ore., in the sagebrush desert east of the Cascades.

"It was really an amazing find," Losey said. "Usually, someone just finds one or two. Alyson and Kate sent in a couple one day, a few more three days later, a couple more a few days after that. It became apparent they had a population out there."

So Losey and a colleague boarded a plane with their collecting nets and came back to Ithaca with 13 nine-spotted and more than 30 transverse ladybugs.

"Aly was thrilled that people would come all the way from New York to go collecting in our yard," said Kate Yates, who got involved in the project when her daughter saw an ad in the National Wildlife Federation's Ranger Rick magazine for children. "She just had a wonderful time looking for ladybugs, and we were ecstatic when we found some of the nine-spots they were looking for."

The researchers got an overnight shipment of 13 more nine-spots from 40-year-old Sheena Beaverson of Champaign, Ill., who sent in more than 200 ladybug photos while she was staying in Boulder, Colo., for a month.

Searching for ladybugs was a lot like looking for seashells on the beach, said Beaverson, who works for the Illinois State Geological Survey. "At first you look at every single one; later on you start looking for something rare or something special."

Since they arrived at Cornell, the beetles have been busily reproducing inside gossamer net cages lined up in Losey's lab, gorging on juicy green pea aphids raised for them on fava bean plants in the university's greenhouse.

Losey plans to conduct a number of studies with the captive populations in hopes of learning why they declined in the wild.

"The leading theory is that the decline had something to do with ladybugs that were imported," Losey said. "That's mostly based on the timing of the decline, which coincides with the introduction of the seven-spot."

"It does do a lot of good in pest control," Losey said. "The question is whether it just replaced the existing ladybugs or added to the diversity."

The Asian multicolored ladybug, which was released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in the 1970s and '80s to control scale insects on trees, didn't become widely established until after the natives declined, Losey said. The round Asian beetle is famous for swarming by the thousands on homes on warm autumn days.

"Some of the things we'll look at are, do the native species take longer to develop than the imported ones? Do they not eat as much? Are they more susceptible to parasitoids or pathogens? Did they interbreed and take on the appearance of the seven-spot?" Losey said.

Pest management based on natural predators requires knowledge of the life cycle and feeding habits of the predators.

"The different ladybug species forage different parts of the plant, different parts of the field, at different times of day, and seek different prey," Losey said. "If you want the most effective suppression of pests, you need a whole variety of ladybugs because then they work together and cover different parts of the environment."

Ladybugs eat a wide range of plant-damaging pests, including aphids, mealybugs, scale, and the eggs and young larvae of European corn borers and eastern tent caterpillars.

At some point, field studies will be conducted with the ladybugs being bred in Losey's lab. But it's not a captive breeding program aimed at re-establishing the natives in the wild, he said.

"It could evolve into one, but for now, we're just trying to determine why they declined and what the implications are."

___

On the Net:

http://www.lostladybug.org/

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Australia 'reef and beef' project launched

Yahoo News 4 Sep 09;

SYDNEY (AFP) – An Australian scientist Friday launched what he called a "reef and beef" study into whether feeding cows seaweed would reduce their flatulent carbon emissions, in a move that could help save the Great Barrier Reef.

Tony Parker, from James Cook University, said cattle produced up to 20 percent of global man-made methane emissions, and the problem was largely linked to their diet.

At least 50 percent of these cows lived in developing nations, many of which were in the tropics, where the quality of pasture tended to deteriorate in the winter, increasing emissions, Parker said.

"Seaweed, algae and other sea grasses have been proven to be much more digestible than land grass because they have less cellulose and more starch," added Parker's research partner Rocky de Nys.

"A better diet for cattle, then, will encourage better digestion and thus lead to a decrease in methane emissions."

Methane gas from livestock accounts for about 12 percent of Australia's annual greenhouse emissions, with flatulence from 120 million sheep, cows and goats comprising its third-largest source of damaging gases.

The average beef cow expels the equivalent of around 1,500 kilograms (3,300 pounds) of carbon per year.

The scientists said that using seaweed as cattle fodder could also have wider benefits for the environment, by providing coastal farmers with a way to clean waterways that flowed into the Great Barrier Reef.

Seaweed could be used to clear nitrogen and phosphorous from farming water, but few farmers adopted the method because they were left with "a huge biomass that they don't know what to do with," De Nys said.

He said those nutrients were partly responsible for the breakdown of aquatic ecosystems within the iconic Barrier Reef, which authorities warned this week faced significant threats from climate change and farming runoff.

"I like to call it the 'reef and beef' project because it has far reaching implications that come full circle: starting with seaweed, taking in the beef and aquaculture industries, and extending back out to the sea to help conserve the Great Barrier Reef," added Parker.

Australia's centre-left government has committed to reducing emissions by at least five percent of 2000 levels by 2020, including the introduction by 2011 of a carbon trading scheme.

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has committed to deeper cuts of up to 25 percent if world leaders agree on an "ambitious" reduction plan at Copenhagen in December.

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World's climate could cool first, warm later

Fred Pearce, New Scientist 4 Sep 09;

Forecasts of climate change are about to go seriously out of kilter. One of the world's top climate modellers said Thursday we could be about to enter "one or even two decades during which temperatures cool.

"People will say this is global warming disappearing," he told more than 1500 of the world's top climate scientists gathering in Geneva at the UN's World Climate Conference.

"I am not one of the sceptics," insisted Mojib Latif of the Leibniz Institute of Marine Sciences at Kiel University, Germany. "However, we have to ask the nasty questions ourselves or other people will do it."

Few climate scientists go as far as Latif, an author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. But more and more agree that the short-term prognosis for climate change is much less certain than once thought.
Nature vs humans

This is bad timing. The UN's World Meteorological Organization called the conference in order to draft a global plan for providing "climate services" to the world: that is, to deliver climate predictions useful to everyone from farmers worried about the next rainy season to doctors trying to predict malaria epidemics and builders of dams, roads and other infrastructure who need to assess the risk of floods and droughts 30 years hence.

But some of the climate scientists gathered in Geneva to discuss how this might be done admitted that, on such timescales, natural variability is at least as important as the long-term climate changes from global warming. "In many ways we know more about what will happen in the 2050s than next year," said Vicky Pope from the UK Met Office.
Cold Atlantic

Latif predicted that in the next few years a natural cooling trend would dominate over warming caused by humans. The cooling would be down to cyclical changes to ocean currents and temperatures in the North Atlantic, a feature known as the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO).

Breaking with climate-change orthodoxy, he said NAO cycles were probably responsible for some of the strong global warming seen in the past three decades. "But how much? The jury is still out," he told the conference. The NAO is now moving into a colder phase.

Latif said NAO cycles also explained the recent recovery of the Sahel region of Africa from the droughts of the 1970s and 1980s. James Murphy, head of climate prediction at the Met Office, agreed and linked the NAO to Indian monsoons, Atlantic hurricanes and sea ice in the Arctic. "The oceans are key to decadal natural variability," he said.

Another favourite climate nostrum was upturned when Pope warned that the dramatic Arctic ice loss in recent summers was partly a product of natural cycles rather than global warming. Preliminary reports suggest there has been much less melting this year than in 2007 or 2008.

In candid mood, climate scientists avoided blaming nature for their faltering predictions, however. "Model biases are also still a serious problem. We have a long way to go to get them right. They are hurting our forecasts," said Tim Stockdale of the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts in Reading, UK.

The world may badly want reliable forecasts of future climate. But such predictions are proving as elusive as the perfect weather forecast.

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Dutch learn to live with, instead of fight, rising seas

Ben Berkowitz, Reuters 4 Sep 09;

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - The watermark column inside Amsterdam's city hall is more than just a tourist attraction, it's a reminder that the Dutch capital like much of the rest of the Netherlands is well below sea level.

Some 70 percent of the country's economic output is generated below sea level, protected by a complex-system of ancient dikes and modern cement barriers that hold back water from the sea and the multitude of rivers that weave through the country.

Now, with scientists' predicting that sea levels will rise by about one meter (3.3 feet) this century, the Dutch are reversing centuries of tradition to create natural flood plains for rivers as well as rebuild mangrove swamps as buffers against the sea.

"We've been adapting for 1,000 years. That's nothing new. It's just that climate change is going faster than it was before," said Lennart Silvis, the operational manager of the public-private Netherlands Water Partnership.

Instead of raising dikes, the Dutch want to reclaim land and build public recreation areas that can absorb storm surges.

Rather than dredging sand to maintain beaches, they are looking at dumping piles of sand offshore to create "sand engines" shifted by the tides. Marshes may be renewed to break the power of incoming waves.

There is even a campaign called "Room for the River" which would weaken levees to recreate natural flood plains along rivers, including the Rhine and its tributaries which flooded in 1995 following heavy rainfall that almost led to a calamity.

While the dikes can be shored up, as happened in 1995 preventing the country from being submerged in 6 meters (20 feet) of water, the dikes could collapse if the sand and clay that form the barriers absorb too much water over time.

Hence the need for a longer-term solution given the possibility the Netherlands may face sustained pressure from its rivers throughout this century as glaciers in Switzerland melt, raising the water level of the Rhine.

River discharge in the country is expected to rise 12.5 percent in the coming years. This is on top of rising levels already seen in the past 10 to 12 years.

Those who work to promote such ideas say natural water buffers are a smarter move than building higher flood walls that may not stand the test of time as sea and river levels rise.

"100 billion (euros) spent on safety alone under uncertain conditions is maybe not the wisest investment," said Raimond Hafkenscheid, director of the Co-operative Program on Water and Climate (CPWC) in The Hague.

SWIMMING TO SURVIVE

Perhaps no country on Earth lives with rising seas in the way the Netherlands does. If the nationwide network of pumping stations failed, within a week the entire country would be covered in 1 meter (3 feet) of water.

From the age of four, virtually all children in the Netherlands start five years of swimming classes. Achieving the final "diploma" requires a test that includes treading water for half a minute, navigating an obstacle and then swimming 100 meters (328 feet) while fully dressed in heavy winter clothing.

It may sound extreme, but for Dutch families that remember the great flood of 1953, which killed over 1,800 people, wiped two villages off the map and required one of the post-war era's largest international relief efforts, it is a small price to pay for peace of mind.

That flood, the source of the high watermark at Amsterdam city hall, drove water levels 4.5 meters (15 feet) above normal.

"A city can't be prepared for all the change that will come but it can be flexible," said Koen Olthuis, one of the principals of Waterstudio, a Rijswijk-based architecture firm that has designed floating structures around the world.

Fresh off a commission designing a floating mosque in Dubai, Oltenhuis is working on Het Nieuwe Water, a 2.5-kilometre wide project near the Hague that would include a series of floating apartments designed to rise and fall with the water level.

Such ideas are not new, there are already floating houses in the Dutch town of Maasbommel, to say nothing of Amsterdam's houseboats. But they point toward the trend of living with the water, rather than trying to keep it out.

IMPLEMENTING CHANGE

The ultimate goal of the varied efforts across the country is to keep people dry while at the same time react more quickly to the threat of flooding.

The problem, some say, is that the Dutch are so confident about their existing flood systems that they don't respond with any particular urgency when danger threatens.

"We would like to be two times faster and two times better in our decision making," said Piet Dircke, a program manager at engineering firm Arcadis and the chairman of the Flood Control 2015 initiative.

At the IJkdijk near Groningen in the far north of the country, the group is testing a range of sensors from differet companies embedded within dikes to see if any demonstrate potential in predicting when and how a dike will fail.

But even before water hits the dikes, there are those who think it would be better to block its path in the first place.

Enter the Wadden Works, a concept for a campground alongside small lakes that would sit in front of the Afsluitdijk, a causeway built in the late 1920s and early 1930s to close off a salt water inlet of the North Sea called the Zuiderzee.

Developed by engineering and consultancy firm DHV, the Works would create a major new recreation area in the north of the country while also acting as a natural breakwater for one of the most important dikes in the world.

Almost anyone involved in water in the Netherlands will tell you without hesitation that preparation is essential as water will encroach from rising seas and river flooding due to climate change.

"We are more accepting now of the concept that nature will come, the water will rise," said Martin Karelse, a hydraulic engineer by training who serves as a program manager for DHV.

A government commission recommended last year that the Netherlands spend an extra 1 billion euros a year over 100 years to improve its flood control. With the Dutch economy hurting from the global slowdown, few expect the mid-September budget to allocate anything close to that.

While the existing flood defenses are generally held to be adequate, the uncertainties around climate change leave those closest to the water -- literally and figuratively -- on edge.

"Not everything in the Netherlands is as set in place and organized as people think," the CPWC's Hafkenscheid said.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Engineering better than tax on climate: economists

Alister Doyle, Reuters 3 Sep 09;

GENEVA (Reuters) - "Climate engineering" projects, such as spraying seawater into the sky to dim sunlight, would be a more effective brake on global warming than increasing taxes on energy, a group of economists said on Friday.

Led by Bjorn Lomborg, a Danish statistician and author of "The Skeptical Environmentalist," a book which questioned orthodox environmental views, the group ranked "cloud whitening" as a top option in combating climate change.

"Climate engineering could provide a cheap, rapid and effective response to global warming," the economists said.

Lomborg's panel ranked research into "marine cloud whitening technology" -- having boats spray seawater droplets into the sky to create clouds -- as the best of 21 ideas reviewed.

They ranked more research into clean energy such as solar and wind power second, ahead of research into spewing tiny dust-like particles high into the atmosphere to block sunlight and research into burying greenhouse gases.

Among the least promising solutions, the group said that: "carbon taxes would be an expensive, ineffective way to reduce the suffering from global warming."

Many governments favor schemes that would place a price on carbon emissions, which would mean higher energy taxes.

"We should look at climate engineering as a fix for the first 50 to 100 years," Lomborg told Reuters of the findings, meant as alternative advice to governments working on a new U.N. climate treaty due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December.

"Research into green energy is what is going to fix the climate in the long term," he added.

LARGELY SPECULATIVE?

Earlier this week, Britain's main science academy, the Royal Society, recommended more research into climate engineering as an insurance policy but said it was not an alternative to cuts in emissions of greenhouse gases.

And the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the scientific group that advises the United Nations, concluded in a 2007 report that technologies such as blocking sunlight "remain largely speculative and unproven, and with the risks of unknown side-effects."

"We found that climate engineering has great promise," Thomas Schelling, a Nobel Prize winning U.S. economist who was in Lomborg's group, said in a statement. "Even if one approaches it from a skeptical viewpoint, it is important to invest in research to identify the limitations and risks."

Others economists in the group were Norwegian Finn Kydland and American Vernon Smith, both Nobel economics laureates, as well as Nancy Stokey from the University of Chicago and Jagdish Bhagwati from Columbia University.

(Editing by Robin Pomeroy)

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Tackling wider air pollution would speed climate action: UN

Yahoo News 4 Sep 09;

GENEVA (AFP) – Countries could speed up their action against climate change if they tackled air pollution as well as carbon dioxide enissions, the UN Environment Programme said Friday.

UNEP executive director Achim Steiner said there is strong evidence that the world's climate is changing faster than initially expected, adding to the urgency for concrete measures against global warming.

"It is... becoming clear that the world must also deploy all available means to combat climate change," Steiner said.

"At this critical juncture, every transformative measure and no substance contributing to climate change should be overlooked."

Troubled negotiations on emissions targets in climate change talks are focusing on carbon dioxide, but scientists estimate that nearly 50 percent of greenhouse gas emissions come from other compounds, according to UNEP.

The agency believes that national efforts to control the pollutants -- such as black carbon or soot, low level ozone or smog, methane and nitrogen compounds -- could simultaneously generate health and economic savings as well, and address other environmental concerns.

CO2 cuts and other international steps at the Copenhagen conference in December were the "over-arching concern," Steiner said.

But countries could also take individual action to control air pollution from inefficient burning of wood, coal, diesel engines, methane emissions from agriculture and by tackling deforestation, officials underlined.

"There remains some scientific uncertainty about some of these pollutants' precise contribution to global warming," Steiner acknowledged.

"But a growing body of evidence points to a potentially significant role," he added.

The air pollutants highlighted by UNEP also tend to have a shorter lifespan in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide.

Efforts to tackle them could have a swift impact in reducing the concentration of greenhouse gases, according to scientists.

Widen global warming fight beyond CO2: U.N.
Alister Doyle, Reuters 4 Sep 09;

GENEVA (Reuters) - The world should widen a fight against global warming by curbing a string of pollutants other than carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP) said on Friday.

Heat-trapping methane, nitrogen compounds, low-level ozone and soot are responsible for almost half of the man-made emissions stoking climate change in the 21st century, it said.

A wider assault on pollutants, twinned with cuts in carbon dioxide, would help toward a new U.N. climate pact due to be agreed in December and have other benefits such as improving human health, raising crop yields and protecting forests.

"The science is showing us that global warming is happening faster and on a greater scale than anticipated," UNEP executive director Achim Steiner told Reuters on the sidelines of a World Climate Conference in Geneva.

"There are other avenues by which we can move forward" than cutting carbon dioxide, the main focus of a planned new U.N. climate deal to be agreed in Copenhagen in December. "And there are multiple benefits."

Soot or 'black carbon', for instance, is among air pollutants blamed for killing between 1.6 and 1.8 million people a year, many from respiratory diseases caused by smoke from wood-burning stoves in developing nations.

FISH STOCKS

And ozone, a component of smog often linked to emissions of fossil fuels, has been blamed for loss of more than 6 billion euros ($8.56 billion) worth of crops in the European Union in 2000. U.S. studies suggest it cuts annual U.S. cereals output by 5 percent.

Nitrogen compounds, from sources such as sewage and inefficient use of fertilizers, stoke global warming and can cause "dead zones" in the oceans that cut fish stocks.

And methane, which comes from sources such as deforestation and livestock, contributes up to 20 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions.

"We believe that those involved in the negotiations (on a new climate pact) should broaden their field of vision," Joseph Alcamo, UNEP chief scientist, told a news conference. "It's not just a matter of carbon dioxide and energy."

Many of the non-carbon dioxide pollutants are not regulated by international treaties.

The U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol for combating global warming, for instance, sets limits only for developed nations on emissions until 2012 of six gases including carbon dioxide, methane and nitrous oxide.

(Editing by Ralph Boulton)

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