wildsingapore news: Oct 24, 2009

Best of our wild blogs: 24 Oct 09

A Visit to the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research (RMBR)
from the kent ridge common

Free Lecture: The Influence of Climate Change on Maritime Australia and Pacific Islands: Biology and Business
from Pulau Hantu

Killer litter: what happened to that bottle cap you tossed?
from wild shores of singapore

Nowhere to hide
from The annotated budak

A Lizard that Lacks Ears
from Creatures in the Wild

Being Entertained
from Life's Indulgences

Bees, hornets and bee-eaters
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Caterpillars: The Loop and Hairy
from Creatures in the Wild

Cities can be the death of plants: Study

Learning how species become extinct may help prevent further die-offs
Grace Chua, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

AN INTERNATIONAL team of botanists, including one from Singapore, has carried out the first large-scale analysis of how cities drive plants extinct.

Both the rate of landscape change and the number of native plants left will affect plant survival in future, they found.

Understanding how vegetation goes extinct will help scientists predict - and hopefully stem - further die-offs, said National University of Singapore biologist Richard Corlett, a co-author of the study.

Dr Corlett and botanists from Australia, New Zealand, the United States and the United Kingdom compared extinction rates in three groups of cities.

In the first group are cities where the native plant life started to be transformed more than 400 years ago, such as Hong Kong, Vienna and Zurich.

Singapore, New York City and Auckland fall into the second group, where transformation took place after 1600 but before any plant surveys were done.

And the third group comprises younger cities such as Melbourne and San Diego, where native plants were surveyed but later transformed by urban development.

Cities in the first two groups had the highest extinction rates due to agriculture and urban development.

But where a greater proportion of native vegetation - over 30 per cent - was left, the extinction rate was lower.

For instance, New York City, founded in the 1600s, has lost perhaps half of its original species, whereas Durban in South Africa, founded in 1824 and with 60 per cent of its native vegetation cover left, has lost fewer species.

The botanists' study is published in the current issue of the journal, Ecology Letters.

In Singapore, about 30 per cent of plant species recorded since the 19th century have gone extinct, and studies have predicted that up to three-quarters of the original species are gone.

Singapore has about 1,500 plant species now.

Dr Corlett said that Singapore still had a wide range of plants and animals though this biodiversity was under threat from climate change and global warming.

'But you've only got to look at a map of Singapore to see that it's not a good place to be a wild species,' he added.

Natural habitats here are cramped, so there may be an extinction debt - gradual, delayed die-offs of species whose populations are too small to be sustained.

With 60 per cent of the world's population set to be living in cities by 2030, up from 50 per cent now, the importance of such studies is likely to rise.

'It's part of a growing recognition that we live in a human-dominated landscape,' Dr Corlett said.

National University of Singapore plant ecologist Edward Webb commented: 'The article points out how important it is to retain native vegetation in urban areas - and by vegetation I do not mean single trees but habitat such as forest and high-diversity parks like Bukit Timah, the Singapore Botanical Gardens, Sungei Buloh and Pulau Ubin.'

Managing the vegetation of natural systems such as terrestrial forest and coastal mangroves, and cultivating urban landscapes with native species could help minimise the extinction debt, he added.

Biodiversity vital to human health

Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

PAEDIATRICIAN Aaron Bernstein spoke on the relationship between biodiversity and human health at this week's Asean Conference on Biodiversity at Republic Polytechnic.

He argues that biodiversity provides us with food, clean air and sources of medicine, and that its loss can have an impact on health, for example, the spread of infectious diseases such as the Nipah virus.

Dr Bernstein, 32, who studied human biology at Stanford University and trained in medicine in Chicago, is co-author of Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends On Biodiversity, with Harvard Nobel laureate Eric Chivian.

He will give a public lecture on the same topic next Tuesday at 10am at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

# How would you communicate the urgency of protecting biodiversity for human health to people in cities?

There are a couple of things. One is making the urban environment as biodiverse and rich as possible, so that people can see the difference between what was and what is.

(In 1995) in Chicago, where I grew up, hundreds and hundreds of people died in one summer because it was too hot.

Then the city started greening rooftops, planting these gardens on the tops of buildings. As a result, fewer people died of heat-related problems.

When people understand that something is important to their health, they see it in a very different way.

People in the rainforest know that cutting down trees and unsustainably harvesting things will damage their livelihood.

What people in urban centres don't understand is that their health depends on rainforests too - those rainforests store a huge amount of carbon, and cutting them down will have a huge impact on climate change.

# But often, people fail to conserve biodiversity not because they don't recognise its importance but because of their poverty and immediate needs. How do you solve that?

Governments need to do everything possible to relieve poverty, so these people can continue to live in a part of the world they have lived in forever, and not sacrifice the resource they know is critical to their survival.

In Ecuador, for example, there is some of the most pristine rainforest in the world.

The indigenous people who live there have been offered money for the oil there.

But would the developed world be willing to pay for this very small part of the rainforest so that these people do not have to sacrifice their resources?

# But how do you put a value on ecosystem services, and who pays for that?

The question of putting a value on ecosystem services is very dangerous. It suggests that by putting a price tag on nature, we can in the future somehow buy it back, which is a really dangerous thing to think about.

For example, how do you value (cancer drug) Taxol? In 1960, before the drug was discovered, you would have valued its source, the Pacific yew tree, at zero. In 2000, you would value it at $1.6 billion. But it could have gone extinct even before the drug was discovered.

I view ecosystem valuation as a necessary evil, because the political world operates on fiscal responsibility.

# You mention things going extinct before their benefits can be discovered - can you talk about that?

Gro Brundtland, the former director- general of the World Health Organisation, said: 'The library of life is on fire and we don't even know all the titles of the books yet.'

For instance, the gastric-brooding frog swallows its fertilised eggs and basically vomits young frogs, but the tadpoles aren't digested because they produce compounds that stop the stomach secreting acid.

That could have been key to treating peptic ulcer disease, but that research had to be stopped because both species of gastric brooding frogs went extinct in the 1980s.

Peptic ulcer disease affects tens of millions, costs billions of dollars to treat. In these frogs, we might have had a new way to treat these diseases. But they're gone. We cannot buy them back. We cannot put a price tag on them. We just can't.

Morning Glory experts get together

Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

THE Morning Glory has attracted so much attention in the last 250 years that there are some 8,000 names for an estimated 1,800 species.

In the first meeting of its kind, the world's experts in the Convolvulaceae family, of which the purple flower is a member, gathered at the Singapore Botanic Gardens to discuss the issues surrounding the taxonomy - naming and classification - of the species.

Taking a leaf out of the book of social networking platforms such as Facebook, the botanists from as far as Brazil, Ethiopia and Britain agreed to upload information onto ETAXA, a new online platform for taxonomy.

The workshop was organised by Dr George Staples, a senior researcher at the Singapore Botanic Gardens who has 25 years' experience with the Convolvulaceae family.

He said participants made a few discoveries concerning taxonomy on a workshop field trip last month to Pulau Ubin - for example, a species thought to be native to Brazil may actually be a weed of Asian origin.

'This will make a difference in the country's approach to the species - it won't want to spend lots of money to conserve it if it's a weed,' he said.

Until recently, the classification of species was done independently by researchers around the world. These botanists publish their work in peer-reviewed journals - a process which can take two years or longer.

'Social networking can provide a way to share data before publishing. Colleagues can share images and specimen data and reach a group decision on what name should be used - it may still take weeks or months, but it's a lot quicker,' said Dr Staples.

He stressed that this method would not act as a replacement for the traditional route but as a complement.

'The use of the Internet is creating a level playing field, as in the past scientists would have to travel to other museums to compare specimens to see if they had discovered a new species,' he added.

Ms Lisa Walley, 34, is a Web systems manager who was involved in the creation of ETAXA for the Solanaceae family while working at the Natural History Museum in London. Her expertise in the area enabled the botanists to make a decision to use the ETAXA platform, and she will facilitate Dr Staples and his fellow researchers in going online.

She said that having all the names for particular species listed in one place helps scientists to better communicate and provide information so the ecological issues can be faced.

There are about 50 researchers studying this family who can contribute to and use the data on this new site.

Orchard's prized sky gardens

Shopping mall Orchard Central won the first prize in the Skyrise Greenery Awards for its rare oases
tay suan chiang, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

At a time when many malls are carving out ever more shop space within their premises, Orchard Central devoted 1,500 sq m to flora.

Located on the 11th and 12th floors of the mall, its two sky gardens are two rare green oases high above Orchard Road. Orchard Central, developed by Far East Organization, is one of few malls in the shopping belt that has sky gardens.

Its greening efforts have earned the mall the first prize in the completed projects category at this year's SIA-NParks Skyrise Greenery Awards. It won US$5,000 (S$6,980).

The awards are open to other countries in the region, such as China and Korea.

Now in its second year, the annual awards organised by the Singapore Institute of Architects (SIA) and National Parks Board (NParks) promote and recognise the greening efforts in high-rise developments.

Out of 14 entries received this year, there were only three winners. Entries were judged on how they would enhance the country's cityscape and environment, choice of plant materials, quality of maintenance and sustainability.

Besides Orchard Central, this year's other winner in the completed projects category is Central Horizon in Toa Payoh, which won US$3,000. In the ideas/ unbuilt works category, Solaris at one-north won the first prize of US$1,500.

Mr Ng San Son, an associate with DP Architects, which built Orchard Central, said making the mall green was an important part of the plans. The sky gardens cost the mall developers more than $1 million.

'This site used to be a carpark with plenty of trees, so we wanted to bring plants back to the site,' said Mr Ng, who worked with landscape architecture firm Dlqdesign on the sky gardens.

The mall's outdoors escalators will take visitors to the sky gardens, which will be opened to the public at the end of the month.

From both gardens, shoppers have clear views of Orchard Road.

On the 11th storey, the 600 sq m garden has an installation by Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama in one corner, which also features a 13m-high green wall covered mostly with ferns.

There will be four restaurants on this level, each with its own private courtyard that opens to the sky garden.

On the 12th-storey rooftop is another 900 sq m of green space. Here, a pond runs across the length of the mall. The flora found here include water lilies, water hyacinths, bromeliads and Brazilian fire trees, all of which are plants that grow well under full sunlight.

To add to the greenery, two restaurants on this level - Vietnamese eatery Nouc and Japanese eatery Kuriya Penthouse - also have private gardens. Both restaurants will open next month.

Mr Chng Kiong Huat, Far East Organization's executive director for development project, said: 'We wanted to create a unique experience on the rooftop for our diners as well as socially contribute back to Orchard Road.

'So we made this area public with 24-hour access for everyone to share this new scenic Orchard Road.'

Meanwhile, some Toa Payoh Central residents have been enjoying their garden in the sky, too.

Central Horizon, a Selective En-bloc Redevelopment project, consists of five 40-storey HDB blocks connected on the 12th floor by a 240m-long sky garden.

Ms Lily Leong, a vice-president at architectural firm Surbana International Consultants which was behind the project, said the gardens are the new hot spots for the residents to get together.

As well as bougainvillaeas and ixora, shrubs were planted at this garden as they would not be easily uprooted by the wind, she added.

Another garden at Central Horizon occupies 3,000 sq m on the eighth-storey rooftop of the multi-storey carpark.

She declined to reveal the exact costs for the construction of the public sky gardens, stating that 'the landscaping cost is about 1 per cent of the actual construction cost' of Central Horizon.

Instead of just isolated spots of sky gardens, Solaris will have a garden that spirals from the ground floor to the roof of the 15-storey building for research and development in Buona Vista.

The $148-million Solaris is expected to be completed next year.

taysc@sph.com.sg

Book launch

In conjunction with the awards, NParks, the National University of Singapore and the Building and Construction Authority are launching a book on vertical gardening.

Vertical Greening For The Tropics showcases successful examples of vertical gardens in Singapore. The book ($29) is available at major bookstores from Nov 1.

Human tidal wave to fight climate change

Grace Chua, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

MORE than 300 people will dress in blue today at the Lasalle College of the Arts to form a human tidal wave, while trees are planted in Kenya and demonstrations are held in India.

In all, activists from more than 170 countries will take part in public activities to mark International Day of Climate Action. The aim is to bring down atmospheric carbon dioxide from its current 390 parts per million to 350, the highest possible concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere before runaway climate change becomes likely.

These public actions will educate people about climate change, said Mr Wilson Ang, 28, president of key organiser Environmental Challenge Organisation (ECO) Singapore.

His group will organise three activities in Singapore with performing arts company Skinned Knee Productions, the Vegetarian Society of Singapore and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society. Other groups, including a National University of Singapore youth entrepreneur group and the Association of Muslim Professionals' youth arm, will hold conferences and panels.

Even without joining the movement or spending to create a recycling culture, Mr Ang said the top three ways individuals can combat climate change are by:

# Reducing waste, such as plastic and packaging materials;

# Increasing energy efficiency by, for instance, installing solar films on windows; and

# Being conscious of the resources needed to produce food for consumption.

Mr Ang said: 'If we reduce the need to waste, then the existing recycling mechanism is good enough.'

Event organisers hope to galvanise policymakers and governments to reach an agreement on emissions targets and other climate change actions with a compilation of photographs from their public actions worldwide.

ECO Singapore hopes to get leaders in Singapore to look at solutions such as labelling food and other products with the amount of carbon that went into making these, and developing regional pacts for sharing alternative energy know-how.

Here are the details of today's event:

# 8am to 10am: Participants will form a giant '350' at Hong Lim Park, and a photo will be taken;

# 11am to 3pm: Vegetarian food and information fair at Singapore Management University;

# 4pm to 4.30pm: A human tidal wave at the Lasalle College of the Arts.

Further information about the local events is available at www.350sg.com

GRACE CHUA

Green School set up in Bali forest

School will groom future leaders to tackle climate change
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

SPIRALLING bamboo structures tucked away in the rainforests of Ubud, Bali, mark the site of the unique Green School.

Built entirely of bamboo, surrounded by fields of crops, managed by the students, and powered by a nearby river, the school aims to be carbon neutral.

Alongside the school's traditional curriculum of maths, science and English, the 125 students take part in a green studies curriculum and a creative arts programme overseen by Mr Ronald Stones, formerly head of the Tanglin Trust School in Singapore.

Canadian jewellery designer John Hardy hired Mr Stones as director when he decided to set up the school after watching An Inconvenient Truth, a film by former United States vice-president Al Gore.

Mr Hardy was one of six environmental pioneers who spoke in Singapore earlier this month at the launch of Qi, an Internet-based social enterprise which aims to provide a platform for inspiring individuals working for the environment in Asia.

Qi was set up by publisher Paul Coleman and his partner Mette Kristine Oustrup, who has worked in the fashion industry as co-founder of the French trend agency Style-Vision.

Through these talks, the environmental pioneers hope to inspire people to live their lives in ways which sustain the environment.

Mr Hardy, 59, hopes his school will be the start of a network of green schools nurturing leaders to help rescue the planet from the perils of climate change.

The students at the Green School hail from 26 countries and 20 per cent are local children on scholarships.

Annual fees for the secondary school are US$9,262.50 (S$12,900), with an additional US$850 annual building fee.

The school has 21 teachers and has space for 700 students.

Another speaker at the launch of Qi was Dr Willie Smit, 52, founder of Tapergy, a company which uses sugar palm for biofuel. He was spurred into action after he rescued a dying baby orang utan from a garbage heap in Balikpapan, Indonesia.

He now takes care of more than 1,000 orang utan in his rescue centres in Balikpapan and Palangkaraya in East and Central Kalimantan.

Seeing that deforestation is the primary destroyer of the primate's habitat, Dr Smit has worked to recreate a rainforest in Samboja Lestari in western Borneo.

In 2002, the area was one of the poorest in the district - with half of the population unemployed.

Dr Smit - who is originally from the Netherlands and now lives in Tomohon, Indonesia - surrounded his forest with fire-resistant sugar palms, which need to be harvested daily, providing jobs and incomes for local people.

The project provides employment for 3,000 people who fill a range of roles from working with the orang utan and carrying out reforestation and research to making furniture from waste wood.

The forest has lowered the temperature in the area by between 3 deg C and 5 deg C.

Qi's next event will be held next month to coincide with the Apec meeting in Singapore, and the theme will be sustainable business, reforestation, carbon financing and renewable energy. For more information visit www.qi-global.com

Can A Number Solve the Climate Change Conundrum?

Organizers of 350 Day aim to stabilize the planet and prevent disaster. Turns out many more are paying attention than expected.

Douglas Fischer and The Daily Climate, Scientific American 23 Oct 09;

Author Bill McKibben never saw this coming. Founder of 350.org, an environmental campaign aimed at holding atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations below 350 parts-per-million, McKibben sent word that this Saturday would be the day to take to the streets.

The call went viral in ways far beyond anything McKibben and fellow organizers imagined: As of Thursday morning some 4,317 actions and rallies are planned in 171 countries, with 300 events in China, 1500 across the United States, 500-plus in Central and South America.

Organizers credit the increasing inter-connectedness of Web, cellular and social networks for the spread, saying such random and organic growth would have been impossible even two years ago.

The climate crisis is also starting to resonate in a significant way, McKibben added. This is arguably the largest political event ever to take a data point as a rallying cry, he said, and people - particularly the youth behind many of the actions planned for Saturday - get it.

"This is the one most important number in the world right now," McKibben said in an interview. "It's the one number that applies as absolutely in the Maldives as in Manhattan. It somehow has worked its magic."

* On the shores of the dwindling Dead Sea, Israeli activists will make a giant human "3" on their beach, Palestinians a huge "5" on their shore and Jordanians a "0" on theirs.
* In the coup-ridden capital of Honduras, parishioners of the Amor, Fe, y Vida church will host a neighborhood tree-planting while across town activists plan a 5-kilometer march.
* Up in Canada's Yukon Territory, a Whitehorse youth group is planning a group hug - 350 people strong - of the territorial legislature.
* With a nod to folk singer Pete Seeger, Greenfield, Mass.' Amandla Chorus has reworked the lyrics to Beethoven's classic Ode to Joy and will perform their version at the town 350 Day festival.
* An energy group is throwing a black-tie gala in Shanghai; in Beijing a few hundred students intend to cycle through downtown; way out in Western China a handful of students plans to hike to a melting glacier.

"We were prepared for a great day in the United States," said Jamie Henn, 350.org's coordinator, who organized China with a visit, some emails, a few calls and a bunch of instant message "chats." "We had no idea it would take off the way it has internationally."

"The great thing about these digits (3-5-0) is that you can recognize them no matter what script you're using," he added. "It goes to show how wired the world is in many ways, and how you can take a real simple and focused bit of information and broadcast it around the world."

The number stems from the amount of planet-warming carbon dioxide scientists believe the atmosphere can safely hold before climate systems start to go haywire.

For the millennia before the industrial revolution, when humans started pumping industrial emissions into the atmosphere, carbon dioxide levels had held fairly steady at about 280 parts-per-million. Carbon dioxide concentrations rose gradually but steadily to the mid-20th century, when they started to skyrocket. Today the level is 387 ppm, with many analysts expecting the globe to hit 450 ppm or even 550 ppm before world economies "decarbonize" sufficiently to radically reduce emissions.

The problem is that data from the past 100 million years suggests the planet was largely ice-free until carbon dioxide levels fell below 450 ppm, plus or minus 100 ppm. Somewhere between 350 ppm and 550 ppm, climatologists suspect, is a critical threshold that triggers irreversible climate change, loss of major ice sheets, abrupt sea-level rise and massive shifts in forests and agriculture.

Until recently the notion of bringing atmospheric carbon dioxide levels back to 350 ppm - voiced most vocally by McKibben and NASA's Jim Hansen - was dismissed as wild-eyed optimism. The Earth last saw 350 ppm in 1987, when President Reagan was in office; the molecule hangs in the atmosphere for centuries; and the world's major industrialized economies so far have shown little ability - to say nothing of inclination - to turn off the tap.

"We know better than anybody exactly how difficult this is and how politically unrealistic it is at the moment," McKibben said. "Our job is to change the political reality, because the physical and chemical reality is not going to change."

Momentum is building for a lower target, particularly as more data and better computer models become available. Last month several of the prominent climatologists and ecologists published a study in the journal Nature calling for the need to set planetary boundaries that must not be transgressed. The 350 ppm threshold was one. "These are rates of change that cannot continue without significantly eroding the resilience of major components of Earth-system functioning," they wrote.

That sense of urgency - that humanity has already stepped out of its safe operating space and is treading in the red zone - is what has propelled the campaign to the far corners of the world, McKibben said. It's as if, after years of admonition, your doctor finds your cholesterol in the danger zone and declares it must come down. "That's the day you go out and buy the running shoes," McKibben said.

That's the message Eveline MacDougall got in Greenfield, Mass. Director of the Amandla Chorus, MacDougall is 45 and doesn't "do computers." Her 78-year-old mother told her about 350.org. "This is a woman who used to call me up and make sure I'm flossing," she said. "Now she's calling me up and saying we're above 380 and need to get below 350."

MacDougall said she has worked with Pete Seeger over the years, retooling songs for various events. Ode to Joy, she decided, was ripe for 350 Day, and she asked the chorus' 45 singers to draft new lyrics. "I got four phone calls in a row, boom boom boom boom," she said.

"It's a number people can wrap their minds around," MacDougall added. "350 is a limit, and basically over that we're screwed. It's very clear."

The limit's "holistic" concept is what appealed to Matt Koop-Pearce, living a continent away in Whitehorse. Koop-Pearce coordinates events for Bringing Youth Toward Equity, a social justice organization advocating for youth. His boss learned of 350 Day through connections at Canada Youth Climate Coalition; BYTE wanted to participate but didn't like the idea of a march or protest or other action that might be seen as aggressive. Then they heard cyclists in Victoria, British Columbia planned to circle the legislature there, and the idea of a group hug was born.

As of Wednesday, 160 in a town of 26,000 people had signed on.

"There are many, many people ... who don't get why I'm asking them to sign up," he said. "We're not asking them to get behind a political ideology. We're asking them to get behind a fact of the environment."

Koop-Pearce is 24, grew up in the '90s. He remembers thinking "Wow, what a boring time to be alive.... Nothing defines my life historically." The climate crisis, he said, has changed that.

And when McKibben looks around, he finds he's surrounded by faces like Koop-Pearce's: Young, adept at social networking, looking for a cause and possessing intuitive understanding of how to use the tools of the newly wired world to make this happen.

"We couldn't have done this two or three years ago," he said. "We needed not just the Web, but the Web built out over cell phones."

But it's the unplanned stuff - the call from the Hip Hop Caucus, for instance, which came Tuesday - that leaves him floored.

"The dominant metaphor has been a potluck supper," he said. "We said what the date was and what the theme was, and all around the world people have come up with dishes to cook."

350 Day is Saturday 24 October. For information or to find an event near you, visit 350.org.

This article was first published at DailyClimate.org.

One charger for all phones

Switch to universal charger is on track and will cut down energy consumption, e-waste
Serene Luo, Straits Times 24 Oct 09;

THE dream of a one-size-fits-all cellphone charger is no longer just wishful thinking.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the technology arm of the United Nations, has just given its stamp of approval for a universal charger system that will allow mobile phone users to juice up their devices from any available charger, regardless of manufacturer or make. The move will 'dramatically cut the number of chargers produced, shipped and subsequently discarded as new models become available' because new phones can still use existing chargers, a statement from the ITU said.

As it is now, new phone chargers are packaged with every new handset. Consumers are thus likely to have a drawer of unused chargers collecting dust, as many people in countries like Singapore change cellphones every year or so.

Each manufacturer has its own proprietary charger design, and different models require different chargers now.

Electronic waste now makes up 5 per cent of all solid waste worldwide - and mobile phones and computers are the biggest culprits because they are replaced most frequently, said Greenpeace International, a global organisation that campaigns against environment degradation.

Between 30 million and 50 million tonnes of such e-waste are discarded yearly worldwide.

Chargers using the new Universal Charging Solution, or UCS, are also three times more energy efficient than unrated chargers.

The switch to a universal charger is likely to halve standby energy consumption and reduce redundant chargers by 51,000 tonnes a year, the GSM Association predicted. The change will also cut annual greenhouse gas emissions by 13.6 million tonnes.

The move, proposed by the GSM Association in February, is supported by leading phone manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung and Sony Ericsson, as well as carriers like NTT DoCoMo, AT&T and Vodafone.

Cellphones which use universal chargers are expected to start appearing next year and go mainstream by 2012. They will have micro USB ports, like those now on digital cameras and music players.

Nokia spokesman Francis Cheong told The Straits Times it had piloted a programme in Europe where people could choose to buy phones without the chargers. 'We are also surveying consumers to see if more people would like this choice,' he said.

Technology consultancy Ovum's senior analyst Emeka Obiodu said 'once UCS reaches a critical mass in circulation after 2012, the industry should stop shipping a new charger with every new phone. That would save over 500 million new chargers that would have been manufactured', he said.

One Size Fits All Phone Chargers On The Way
Nicola Leske, PlanetArk 23 Oct 09;

FRANKFURT - Ever forget your phone charger and no one around has the same kind of handset?

Have a drawer full of useless old phone chargers at home?

Breathe a sigh of relief.

The International Telecommunication Union (ITU), the United Nations' telecom arm, said on Thursday it had given its stamp of approval "to an energy-efficient one-charger-fits-all new mobile phone solution.

"Every mobile phone user will benefit from the new Universal Charging Solution (UCS), which enables the same charger to be used for all future handsets, regardless of make and model," the ITU said in a statement.

"Some manufacturers are already incorporating the UCS in their devices," an ITU spokesman said.

The association hopes a universal charger will help reduce waste by cutting down on the number of chargers produced and then thrown away with the purchase of a new handset.

There are already more than 4 billion mobile phone subscriptions around the world.

In June, top mobile phone suppliers such as Nokia, Sony Ericsson and other industry majors agreed to back an EU-wide harmonization of phone chargers, which means phones compatible with standard charging devices are available in Europe from next year.

The EU estimates unwanted phone accessories account for thousands of tons of waste in Europe each year.

Now, if only they could come up with a single plug.

(Editing by Michael Shields and Dan Lalor)

E-waste the new gold in the city of scattered garbage

The Jakarta Post 23 Oct 09;

In a city where administration officials can only daydream about a sophisticated waste management system, one man’s pile of electronics waste, or e-waste, might be another’s gold mine.

"I guess that's just Jakarta. You can sell anything," said Wellman H.S.T, a scrap collector who operates in Tebet, South Jakarta.

Wellman has been involved in the scrap buying and selling business for six months. He said he usually earned between Rp 6 million (US$638) and Rp 15 million a month.

Across from the small pick up truck in which he sat was a small "office", where different kinds of garbage were weighed and sorted according to their materials.

Sacks of plastic bottles and piles of flattened cardboard boxes filled the back of the truck while more waited in the "office".

Sometimes, amid the piles of bottles and cardboards, one could discover a broken computer mouse, scratched compact discs, and even more sophisticated electronics such as laptops.

"The electronics are dissected into several parts, such as plastic and copper, then those parts go to different places," Wellman said.

The plastic parts, for example, usually went to a factory in Durensawit, East Jakarta, where they would be recycled into plastic grains that can be molded into new things.

"The metal parts usually go to another factory in Pulogadung *East Jakarta*," he said.

Wellman's business is just the first step in the lengthy recycle process for the city's electronics.

The whole journey proves that in the capital even the most allegedly useless, or even hazardous, things, are marketable.

At a dump site not far from Wellman's truck, scavengers were busy unloading the day's picks, which they collected from the houses in the neighborhood.

"Sometimes the cart people *second-hand items collectors* come to look for things that they can sell again," a garbage man said..

House owners often call them to come to their houses when they have goods that they no longer use, including electronic equipments.

Occasionally, they also look for those goods in garbage bins or dump sites.

They are then likely to offer those goods to others who can profit from them, such as the vendors at a flea market in the Jatinegara area, East Jakarta.

In Jatinegara, one can find the most bizarre things sold by these vendors, from broken speakers, ancient joysticks for video games, and other obscure electronic components.

"Sometimes I buy things from the cart people, or sometimes people come here to sell their used goods," said Arifin, a vendor.

That day he displayed a broken computer mouse, a dusty doll, and old pairs of shoes.

When asked about whether the mouse was still working, he said he wasn't sure.

"When people sell me electronics, I ask them if the goods are still working or not and I believe what they say," he said.

"When a buyer asks me if the goods are still working or not, I just tell them I don't know."

The mouse would usually be sold for Rp 5,000, if people do not bargain, he said.

Arifin said some people bought broken electronic wares, to use the components to fix other electronics.

"There's a man in Bekasi who specializes in buying broken television sets to repair them and sell those repaired units to others."

Not all vendors paid scant attention to the functioning status of the electronic goods.

Abdul Latief, who sells his wares near Arifin's spot, said that all his goods - which included printers and land telephones, were still usable.

"I always test them... I even check whether the printers can still connect to computers properly," he said.

A few meters from Arifin and Abdul Latief were rows of vendors selling used cellular phones.

Unlike the sets sold in most vendors in trade centers such as the ITC Mangga Dua, West Jakarta, or Roxy, West Jakarta, these sets were stripped to the essentials without any packaging or even charging units.

Buying cellular phones in that condition might be a risky step to take, but still, many flocked to these roadside vendors.

"Why would anyone go to Roxy to buy or sell their cellular phones? It's too far, and unlike here, the prices are higher and the trade is less flexible," said Irfan Sofyan, a cellular phone vendor.

Even when the cellular phones are broken, some people will still find a use for them, Arifin said.

"Some people use them to learn how to repair broken phones."

Electronic goods that fail to end up in flea markets will likely be dissected and end up in places like Wellman's rusty scale to be priced before being taken to the recycling factories.

Thus, everyone in the electronic waste chain benefits, if not necessarily from gold taken from circuit boards.

"Almost nothing is actually thrown away," Wellman said.

Maryanto, from the non-profit organization Friends of the Environment, warned that the city's methods of re-using and recycling were unhealthy.

"The cart people and others in the informal sector who are working in the field *of selling garbage* base their choices *on what to keep or throw away* on the value of the goods, not the level of hazard that might come with those goods," he said. (dis)

ASEAN Gearing Up To Be Global Green Auto Hub

Nopporn Wong-Anan, PlanetArk 23 Oct 09;

HUA HIN, Thailand - Southeast Asia is gearing up to become a global hub for the production and sale of environmentally friendly cars, a Thai deputy cabinet minister said on Thursday.

Trade ministry officials from members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) assigned regional industry bodies on Thursday to draft common guidelines for green cars, hoping to leverage Thailand's role as an auto manufacturing hub and large car markets in Indonesia and Malaysia.

"ASEAN's aim is to be a global auto production base," Deputy Commerce Minister Alongkorn Polabutr told a news conference.

"As Thailand is already the Detroit of Asia and Malaysia and Indonesia are huge auto markets, we should all cooperate to develop the auto industry."

The officials assigned automotive industry groups in ASEAN, such as the ASEAN Automobile Federation, "to come up with the future guidelines for green and clean vehicles," Alongkorn said.

Thailand was already pursuing this route by promoting a policy for a flexible fuel vehicle, which can use a mixed fuel with up to 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline, he said.

"We want our cars to contribute to the reduction of greenhouse gas," he said.

Commerce Minister Porntiva Nakasai said ASEAN trade ministry officials, at a meeting with auto industry representatives, urged governments to help offset falling sales by speeding up tariff cut commitments under AFTA, the region's free trade area agreement, providing loans to SMEs and speeding up electronic customs.

Southeast Asia has long struggled with air pollution stemming from weak or unenforced controls on vehicle emissions.

(Editing by John Ruwitch and Ron Popeski)

30 New Tibetan Plant Species Found

Joanne S. Wong, The Harvard Crimson 23 Oct 09;

Thirty new species of plants and fungi were discovered in the Hengduan Mountains of Tibet in a recent research project conducted by Harvard researchers in collaboration with Chinese collectors.

Over the past five years, researcher David E. Boufford and others affiliated with the Harvard University Herbaria—an extensive collection of pressed, dried plant specimens housed at a Divinity Avenue facility—have been working to collect specimens of plant life in the remote mountain range on the Tibetan Plateau.

“If you’re interested in the plants in China, you have to go the mountains,” he said. “Because most of the vegetation in the lowlands was lost as land was converted to agriculture.”

The region has been designated by the nonprofit organization Conservation International as one of the 34 “hotspots” of biodiversity in the world. According to Boufford, these hotspots only occupy 2.5 percent of the globe’s surface yet account for 35 to 40 percent of the variety in the world’s plant species.

The project’s manager Susan Kelley, an executive assistant associated with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, expressed that in terms of plant life, the mountain range is probably the richest part of the North Temperate Zone, which includes North America, Europe, and northern Asia. For example, more than 220 species of “Pedicularis,” a genus of flowering plants, have been found in the area—about 10 times more than in all of North America.

“To see such diversity at that elevation is really unusual,” she said.

Kelley was also involved in creating an online gazetteer that helps researchers to locate places in the region—sorting out the confusion that can arise from the propagation of a variety of transliterated names. The site also makes accessible a database of specimen images and descriptions.

“As provincial and county boundaries have changed, names [of places] have changed,” she said. “The gazetteer was intended not only for our project...[but also other] geologists who have explored that area.”

Field work was a very important component of the species-finding project, as much of the initial processing was done on-site. Boufford, who has done several stints in Tibet, said conducting research in the field is very different than working in a laboratory.

“To see these things in nature, you get a better idea of the diversity and variation,” he said. “You see where [the plants] grow, their interactions with insects and other animals.”

Boufford has been at the Harvard Herbaria for over 28 years and continues to work on other flora projects, including some in Japan, Korea and North America. He said that Harvard’s facility has one of the best collections for studying Asian plants in the world.

“We also have one of the best libraries in the world for systematic botany studies,” he said. “Some of the collections go back to the late 1700s.”

Tiger skin trade in China exposed

Jody Bourton, BBC News 23 Oct 09;

An undercover investigation has revealed the continued trade in tiger skins in China.

Covert filming by the Environment Investigation Agency shows traders selling skins of tigers and other rare animals such as snow leopards.

The skins are sold as luxury items and are used for clothes and home decor.

The campaigning group has published its investigation a few days before an international summit on big cat conservation in Kathmandu, Nepal.

Buying and selling big cat skins and body parts is illegal in China.

However, a team from the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), based in London, UK and Washington DC, US says its investigations reveal the trade in big cats still occurs in many parts of the country, including Tibet.

Between 25 July and 19 August 2009 the EIA carried out investigations in markets in five cities in western China.

Skin sale

In just 21 days the team was offered four full tiger skins, 12 leopard skins, 11 snow leopard skins and two clouded leopard skins as well as associated bones and teeth from the species.

"It's really quite significant," says EIA spokesperson Alasdair Cameron.

"What's interesting is the market has changed. Previously the market was for skins amongst the Tibetan community, that market has largely collapsed and what we're seeing now is skins bought for decoration and taxidermy amongst Chinese businesspeople," he says.

"People are buying them for prestige, skins are very expensive and tend to cost around 20,000 US dollars each," Mr Cameron explains.

"We're also being told skins are being used for non-financial bribery within China, so the demand is increasing outside of the Tibetan areas."

The EIA says the animals are being smuggled into China from various places including Tibet, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Covert operation

The team captured the illegal trade on film using a hidden camera while they enquired about animal skins on sale.

What surprised the team was how easy it was to find and purchase the endangered animal products.

"There is some law enforcement in China, in a few regions, but there are whole swathes of the country where this trade is allowed to carry on with almost no fear of detection," Mr Cameron says.

"Some of the places we have been to, skins are openly displayed in shop windows while police cars drive past."

Debbie Banks, lead campaigner of the EIA, believes not is enough is being done by the Chinese authorities to combat the trade.

"If China can put a man into space, they can do more to save the wild tiger," she says.

Tiger meet

On the 27 October a summit is being held in Kathmandu, Nepal to discuss how best to save wild tigers from extinction.

The Kathmandu Global Tiger Workshop will bring together tiger experts and conservation organisations from around the world to further efforts to protect the animal, especially running up to the Chinese calendar's year of the tiger in 2010.

However, Mr Cameron has mixed feelings about the forthcoming year of the tiger.

"We're hoping to use the year of the tiger as a way to highlight the threats faced by the animal but traders in China are actually saying that next year is going to be great because people will want to get a piece of the tiger in the year of the tiger."

"There could actually be a spike in demand."

Southern Bluefin quota cuts could be “too little, too late”

WWF 23 Oct 09;

Jeju Island, South Korea, 23 October - A 20 percent cut in the Southern Bluefin Tuna take could still be too little, too late for the species which is on the brink of collapse, WWF and the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC warned today.

Speaking at the conclusion of the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin (CCSBT) Tuna meeting in Jeju Island, South Korea, TRAFFIC’s Global Marine Programme Leader Glenn Sant said that even under a best case scenario, the Southern Bluefin Tuna populations would not recover for many years.

“The members agree it is a crisis with the breeding stock being somewhere between three and eight per cent of its original level,” said Sant.

“A 20 per cent cut is a step towards resolving the terribly low level of Southern Bluefin Tuna Stock, with the scientific assessment of the scenario saying there could be recovery, but only after many years.”

WWF and TRAFFIC had asked for a temporary closure of the fishery, while Australia had requested a 50 per cent cut in catches.

On the other side of the world, the Atlantic Bluefin Tuna has been proposed for an international trade ban under CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), with WWF also to press a forthcoming meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas for a moratorium on the fishery.

Both fisheries are plagued with illegal and over-fishing.

“Our biggest concern is the need to reduce illegal catches and ensure that members stick to their quotas so that we don’t have some members withdrawing from the bank while others bank recovery for the future,” said Sant.

“Some members have been burnt by this situation in the past when a member in effect overcaught its quota by some 200,000 tonnes over 20 years, in effect withdrawing all the stock recovery banked by others.”

At the end of two years the members will agree a management procedure that will more effectively advise them on what changes need to be made.

If this cannot be agreed in 2011 the catch will be further reduced to 50% of its current catch and an emergency rule has been agreed that if there are signs recruitment of juvenile fish to the population falls below historical lows the fishery will be shut.

“In theory this is all positive, but with the tuna stock at the lowest level it has ever been fished to, there is concern it may not recover,” said Sant.

Despite Timor Sea spill, oil licences granted

Peter Ker, The Age 24 Oct 09;

THE company responsible for one of the biggest oil spills in Australian history was yesterday given access to more Australian oilfields, after winning support from the Rudd Government.

As its workers began their fourth attempt at fixing the Montara oil leak off the Kimberley coast, Thai company PTTEP yesterday took control of five new exploration licences and several oilfields in Australian waters.

Despite growing concerns about the impact of the two-month oil leak, the $11 million purchase of new oil assets was supported by Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson and Australia's Foreign Investment Review Board.

Purchased from fellow oil exploration company OMV, the licences give PTTEP control of an extra 1480 square kilometres of Australian waters near the leaking Montara rig, about 650 kilometres west of Darwin.

With the Montara leak yet to be resolved, the deal prompted concern from scientists and environmentalists such as University of West Australia associate professor of marine ecology Euan Harvey.

''They need to demonstrate they cannot impact on others' livelihoods or on the ecosystem, and at the moment they've demonstrated very clearly that they can't do that,'' he said.

Professor Harvey, who has spent recent years researching marine biology in the waters close to the spill, said the oil slick posed a big risk to the larvae of large finfish, which spawn in October.

Australian Marine Conservation Society spokesman Darren Kindleysides said PTTEP's track record should be taken into account before access was granted to new oilfields.

''Clearly PTTEP's track record has been pretty shabby in recent months,'' he said. ''Major questions still hang unanswered over why this spill happened and why it hasn't been plugged yet.''

Australian Conservation Foundation spokesman Chris Smyth called the timing extraordinary.

But the Government leapt to the defence of PTTEP, with spokesman Michael Bradley stressing that the company would be ''treated the same as any other company''.

''PTTEP is a major international oil company with strong technical capability and financial capacity,'' he said.

''The causes of the Montara well leak are unknown at this stage … PTTEP will continue to be treated by government on a non-discriminatory basis in its activities and operations here in Australia.''

The federal Resources Department estimated this week up to 2000 barrels - about 318,000 litres - of oil was leaking each day at Montara, yet PTTEP said the amount was up to five times lower.

Environmental group WWF released the results of a three-day survey of wildlife around the oil slick yesterday, after a sea voyage to the region.

Survey teams reported seeing 430 animals and witnessed sea snakes and dolphins swimming through the slick. WWF did not find any dead animals, but spokeswoman Gilly Llewellyn said she was confident the slick was affecting animals.

PTTEP yesterday delayed its fourth attempt to intercept the leaking well.

Belum-Temengor Tropical Rainforest master plan ready next year

The Star 23 Oct 09;

THE Integrated Master Plan for the Sustainable Management of Belum-Temengor Tropical Rainforest (BTTR) will be ready within a year.

Revealing this at the end of a two-day conference towards the development of the master plan yesterday, Perak Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Dr Zambry Abd Kadir said the state was working with the Northern Corridor Implementation Authority to put together the master plan.

The master plan, he said, would be ready in eight to 12 months’ time.

“The challenge now is how to ensure sustainable development there without destroying the ecosystem, hence, the need for a comprehensive plan,” he said.

On funding, Dr Zambry said there would be some budget allocation from the Federal Government.

Earlier, participants of the conference had concluded and recommended through round table discussions that BTTR should include the Royal Belum State Park, Temengor Forest Reserve, South Belum Forest Reserve, parts of Gerik Forest Reserve, buffer strip along the East-West Highway and the Temengor Lake.

They also suggested that BTTR be listed as a World Heritage site or Ramsar site.

The Ramsar Convention (The Convention on Wetlands of Inter-national Importance, especially as Waterfowl Habitat) is an international treaty for the conservation and sustainable utilisation of wetlands.

They further suggested a review of all laws to determine efficacy and to reconcile all existing laws to achieve the conservation objective.

It was also recommended that the Perak State Park Corporation Enactment be amended to include membership of private corporations in order to reflect effective representation from all relevant quarters.

Also raised through the discussions were matters related to sustainable eco-tourism and marketing, the self-sustainability of BTTR, management and research and development.

Spanning 330,000ha, BTTR is the largest continuous forest complex in Peninsular Malaysia and is estimated to be as old as 130 million years old.

Marks & Spencer makes palm oil pledge to save forests

Commitment aimed at halting ecological damage done in South-east Asia

Martin Hickman, The Independent 23 Oct 09;

Marks & Spencer will become the first British retailer to commit to paying more for sustainable palm oil across its entire range today in an attempt to limit the environmental damage from its production in south-east Asia.

In a rolling programme over the next six years, M&S will buy GreenPalm certificates for sustainably produced palm oil equivalent to the amount it uses in almost 1,000 food, beauty and home products.

Like other food manufacturers, M&S pours palm oil, the world's cheapest vegetable fat, into a wide variety of food and household products such as biscuits and convenience foods.

By early next year, the retailer said nine products, including 200g packs of oatcakes, a 500g cookie selection and seven types of cooked potatoes, would be covered by the GreenPalm scheme. By 2015, it promised to buy certificates for all relevant products.

M&S, which would not disclose the cost of the commitment, is also funding a 120-acre wildlife corridor between plantations in Borneo.

Paul Willgoss, head of food technology, said M&S had been using alternatives to palm oil over the past two years wherever possible, for example using rapeseed oil in fish fingers.

"Where palm oil can't be replaced as an ingredient, we will only use certified sustainable palm oil," he said.

"By early 2010 we will have the UK's widest selection of certified sustainable palm oil products, with a range of nine items including cookies, oatcakes and potatoes."

Widely regarded as an environmental disaster, palm oil production has precipitated the destruction of vast swathes of rainforest on the Indonesian and Malaysian islands of Sumatra and Borneo, which has led to the eviction of indigenous tribes and moved orangutans closer to extinction.

Under an initiative launched by Unilever in 2004, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) certifies producers that abide by a series of environmental rules including a ban on new plantations in virgin forest.

However, only one per cent of RSPO oil had been sold by this summer because separating a "clean" supply from more damaging production costs an extra 10 to 20 per cent. Under the ancillary GreenPalm scheme, firms continue using normal supplies while buying certificates for otherwise undervalued RSPO production to reward environmental stewardship. A Hull-based firm, AAK, auctions the certificates for around £6 a tonne, adding about two per cent to the cost.

M&S, which is likely to use tens of thousands of tonnes annually, said sustainable production was central to its commitment to reduce CO2 emissions linked to deforestation, and hoped its actions would "send a clear signal of demand to the market".

In May, The Independent disclosed the confirmed, or suspected, presence of palm oil in 43 of the UK's 100 best-selling brands, including Flora, Hovis, Kingsmill, KitKat, Dove, Comfort and Persil.

Next week, the wildlife group WWF, which helped found the RSPO, will publish ratings of the palm oil policies of British food companies in an attempt to raise pressure on them to source supplies sustainably.

Sandra Charity, its UK head of forest programmes, described Marks & Spencer's move as "significant". Adam Harrison, senior policy adviser, added: "It is vitally important that all retailers and manufacturers show by their actions that they want to eliminate the negative impacts of our demand for palm oil.

"By supporting sustainable production in this way, M&S has demonstrated just the sort of action that WWF wants to see others take now that certified sustainable palm oil is available for all to buy."

Brazil Drivers Ditch Biofuel Over High Sugar Costs

Peter Murphy, PlanetArk 23 Oct 09;

SAO PAULO - Some Brazilian motorists who fuel their cars solely on cane-based ethanol are switching back to gasoline as high sugar prices now make the biofuel more costly in some states.

Brazil is a pioneer in biofuel with its millions of flex-fuel cars that can run solely on ethanol or gasoline, or any mixture of both. Usually cheaper than gasoline, drivers needed no persuasion to switch when flex-fuel arrived in 2003.

But as mills use cane to produce more sugar in response to a world deficit that pushed prices to near their highest in three decades, prices for ethanol, made using the same cane, have leapt up to 50 percent in places in just a few months.

"(Drivers) have gone back to gasoline," said Paulo Mizutani, head of the sugar and ethanol division at Cosan, Brazil's top producer of the products. He said demand for ethanol in the center-south region fell to about 1.6 billion liters a month from 2 billion liters earlier this year.

"It could be like this until March when a new (cane) harvest starts," he said, speaking to reporters at Brazil's Sugar Dinner Week, an industry event held every other year in the world's top sugar grower.

Only in states with higher levels of sales tax, has ethanol become comparatively more expensive. Price data from National Petroleum Agency (ANP) showed that ethanol in southern states Minas Gerais and Santa Catarina were at or above the threshold of 70 percent of gasoline prices above which it is effectively more costly than gasoline.

In Sao Paulo, it was around 60 percent and about 67 percent in neighboring Rio de Janeiro, meaning it still offered better value for the money. A liter of ethanol in Sao Paulo city costs about 1.50 in Brazilian reais, equivalent to US$3.26 per gallon.

Ethanol's lower energy concentration means a tank of the biofuel will do around 70 percent of the miles a tank of gasoline would permit, though it gives engines added zip.

Brazil began mass producing ethanol-only cars in the 1970s in response to the oil crisis, but when sugar prices later spiked, motorists were lumbered with higher fuel costs. Flex-fuel gets around this by allowing the driver to choose.

"Ecologically sound is a nice idea but no one will pay for it," Mizutani said.

He held out little hope that Brazilians, who already pay comparatively high taxes on goods and services, would shell out more for ethanol despite its environmental selling points.

"Your car goes quicker. It is clean and renewable energy and it is Brazilian. I think the consumers should not only look at the economic side but at these aspects too."

“Toolbox” to aid in promoting right to food

FAO 23 Oct 09;

Five-volume set provides governments and civil society with "how-to" guidelines

23 October 2009, Rome - FAO has published a "methodological toolbox" on the right to food, designed to provide countries, institutions civil society and other stakeholders with a series of effective instruments they can use to assert the right to adequate food as a basic human right.

The publication comes at a time when scores of countries are seeking a way to incorporate the right to food into their legislations, strategies, policies and programs. The toolbox can provide useful guidance to policymakers and stakeholders interested in moving in the above direction.

"The right to food is not a utopia," said Barbara Ekwall, right to food team leader. "It can be realized for every woman, man and child, even in times of crisis. We have the legal framework in form of international, regional and national human rights standards. To make the right to adequate food a reality for all, action at country level is essential. It is there that the difference will be made for those who are suffering from hunger."

"The development, launch and distribution of the Right to Food Methodological Toolbox was realized thanks to the support of Germany, with contributions from Norway, Spain and the Netherlands.

The toolbox — prepared by the agency's right to food team — is a book binder including six different volumes that provide practical information and detailed guidance on ways to integrate the right to food into different levels of national legislation, policies and programmees. It provides operational assistance to those seeking to monitor the right to adequate food and to identify and classify vulnerable groups suffering from hunger and food insecurity. There are also a large number of recommendations on planning, implementing and monitoring public allocations and expenditures in this field.

The toolbox, was put together by experts and practitioners with ample knowledge and experience in a variety of fields. The five volumes offer practical information into a variety of important subjects such as:

* introducing the right to food into a constitution or into national legislation;
* monitoring the right to adequate food, addressed largely to technical staff in public sector institutions and civil society organisations responsible for planning and monitoring food security, nutrition and poverty;
* assisting governments, civil society and other stakeholders in assessing the right to food situation;
* exploring how government budgets relate to the realization of the right to food, offering a 10-steps program for building the case for a right to food approach, analysing the government budget and presenting a claim.

Finally, the right to food toolbox includes a Curriculum Outline that will help to strengthen country capacity to implement the right to food. It can be used by teachers, trainers and other educators in developing specific courses or training programmes on the right to food.

Satellites to help Kenyans insure against drought

Alister Doyle, Reuters 22 Oct 09;

OSLO (Reuters) - Satellites measuring the greenness of Kenya from space are set to help insure livestock herders against droughts and mitigate the effects of climate change, experts said Friday.

"This is a new approach to tackle an old problem," Carlos Sere, director general of the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI), said of the satellite-based insurance for cattle, goats and other animals.

"In the volatile climate change world this type of project will be more important," he said during a visit to Oslo. The Kenyan pilot scheme, due to start in early 2010, would be the first such satellite insurance for a developing nation.

Satellite images will measure the greenness of vegetation in the Marsabit area of northern Kenya. A shift to brown will trigger payouts to pastoralists because of expected livestock deaths from drought.

"Traditionally we have helped pastoralists by sending them hay if there is a drought, or treating the weakest animals with vaccines to keep off diseases," Sere said. "That's very inefficient and expensive.

"With traditional insurance you can insure your cow. But then the vet has to come and certify that it's dead. The transaction costs are huge," he said. The satellite system bypasses the need for such verification.

Andrew Mude, an ILRI expert, said talks were being held with Kenyan insurer UAP, reinsurance from Swiss Re and Kenya's Equity Bank on details.

Annual premiums were likely to be $50-100 a year for households with 6-8 cattle, the ILRI said. Aid agencies might prefer to pay premiums rather than help after a drought.

MONGOLIAN BLIZZARDS

Sere said satellite insurance hoped to avoid flaws in other "index based" insurance schemes which give payouts to all farmers if more than a certain number die in benchmark flocks.

He said that a U.N. deal to fight climate change due to be agreed in Copenhagen in December should keep the poor in mind when trying to limit greenhouse gases from agriculture.

Livestock generates 18 percent of world greenhouse gases, more than the total from transport, according to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization. Animals produce large amounts of heat-trapping methane from their digestive systems.

"Our overall pitch is: yes, the world may be producing too many animal products," Sere said.

"But in Africa and Asia you have large numbers of people producing small amounts each in intricate systems that are key to feeding billions of people," he said.

That meant that greenhouse gas curbs should focus mostly on agriculture in developed nations, he said. Cows in developing nations, for instance, produce milk, work as plow animals and are a source of other products such as meat, hides or manure.

Ravaged by drought, Madagascar feels the full effect of climate change

A 10% increase in temperature and a 10% decrease in rainfall sees Indian Ocean island struggle to feed its children
David Smith, guardian.co.uk 23 Oct 09;

Remanonjona Feroce founded the village of Anjamahavelo – meaning At the Lucky Baobab – in Madagascar a generation ago. With memories of a flood still fresh, he chose a spot far from the nearest river. He cleared the wild forest and sacrificed a sheep in the hope that it would make the owls, lemurs and snakes go away.

"Animals can't live together with little children and young girls," explained Feroce, an 85-year-old great-grandfather. "They don't want snakes to be here because they have bad spirits. They strangle children by curling around the neck. Owls are bad birds. If one hoots, it means somebody will die."

The animals did go away, but so did the luck of Anjamahavelo, a cluster of wooden houses. Southern Madagascar has had three years of crop failure in five years, resulting in chronic hunger for tens of thousands of families and soaring rates of malnutrition, stunted growth and death among children.

Three forces are combining with deadly effect on the Indian Ocean island, which is incalculably rich in wildlife but impoverished in basic infrastructure. Climate change is widely blamed for playing havoc with the seasons and destroying agricultural harvests. This is exacerbated by local deforestation, which has altered the microclimate and reduced rainfall.

Finally, a bloody political coup earlier this year paralysed essential services and led to the crippling suspension of several foreign aid programmes. The UN says that nearly half of households in the south have severe food shortages.

To feed her five children in Anjamahavelo, Tinalisy – her only name – works as a prostitute at the end of each month, when the local men, mostly in the police, have been paid. The unmarried 27-year-old has slept with men for sex since she was 17. "If the men don't want to marry, that is not really a problem. We have to survive."

Tinalisy says her 20-month-old daughter, Vany Lentine, suffers a fever each evening. "We eat once or twice a day – always cassava. I'm worried but what I can do? There is no money. People here are unhappy because their children do not eat. There is nothing to be happy about."

Other villagers say that the fierce competition for dwindling resources has led to lawlessness and violence. Valiotaky, 56, the village chief, supplies an explanation for the drought. "When we plant trees we don't have rain and nothing grows," he said. "I think God is angry. Young people don't respect the traditions."

Perversely, people in the south are so starved of water that they crave the increasingly fierce cyclones that pound the north three times a year. Two separate dry seasons have progressively expanded until they meet to form one long hot season, hitting crops such as maize, manioc and sweet potato.

Tovoheryzo Raobijaona, director of a food insecurity early warning system in nearby Ambovombe, said: "Before, people spoke about the cycle of drought every 10 years. Now it's every five years, or every three years. After a bad year like 2009, people need two to three years to get back to standard."

Unicef, the UN's children's agency, said that in the past six months 8,632 children had been treated for severe acute malnutrition in three southern regions – more than double the expected number. The UN's World Food Programme (WFP) warns that 150,000 children could be affected this year.

There are reports of people resorting to eating lemurs and turtles, even though these are culturally taboo. They have also resumed cutting down trees for firewood or to make space for rice fields, inadvertently adding to the drought problem by reducing the capacity of forests to capture water that will evaporate into clouds and become rain.

The added impact of global climate change is difficult to quantify. The World Bank says that only one thing is certain: in the past half century Madagascar has seen a 10% increase in temperature and 10% decrease in rainfall. Experts say it is not a question of whether this trend will continue, but by how much.

Silvia Caruso, deputy country director of the WFP, said: "Environmental degradation and climate change are building on each other. The results are dramatic in Madagascar."

This has been compounded by political instability. In March Andry Rajoelina, a city mayor, businessman and former DJ, seized power from president Marc Ravalomanana after clashes that left dozens dead. The fallout has been political deadlock, economic downturn, job losses, price inflation, collapsing public services, a flight of investors and international sanctions on a country that relies on foreign aid for half its budget.

Caruso added: "The coup has paralysed services that we need to work with in the provinces. It has made the response to drought more complex. We had to fill the gaps at regional level."

Bruno Maes, Unicef's representative for Madagascar, described the coup as "a disaster for children", adding: "Madagascar was on the road to take-off. They understood it was time to make reforms in health and education, so that all children can have access. Now all this is frozen. Nothing is moving."

Unicef has provided medicine and training to all regional health clinics for acute malnutrition cases, supported food distribution and worked to improve sanitation. The WFP has begun programmes to provide school meals to 215,000 children, help 8,000 households mitigate against environmental change and supply supplementary feeding to around 70,000 children under two and pregnant and lactating women.

Maes said Unicef was also negotiating with the World Bank to directly administer money earmarked for teachers' salaries. "Children's rights should be addressed in any situation – whatever the crisis."
Case-study: 'Lack of food is eating us up'

Zanasoa Relais Anjado, 38, has 11 children. Her husband, a former plantation worker, is unemployed. They live in Anjado village in southern Madagascar.

"Lack of food is eating us up every day. We often go through very hard moments – in the most difficult we ate only tamarinds [fruit] mixed with ashes. We were hungry and tired and had to beg for something to eat. We were like famine victims … I have 11 children and I don't know how to feed them. Sometimes we have one meal a day, sometimes two. One of my children was sick. He managed to survive and recover, but I know people in the community who are still very weak. The river is 5km from here and we walk for hours to get there … With rainwater we would cook food and diversify agriculture. We'd plant cabbages, green leaves, corn and beans. What we planted so far dried and failed … It will be really difficult and we will suffer. That is why I am asking the government for help, directly and immediately. Without it, we risk dying here. I don't care about the political situation in the country. The only thing that concerns me is that I'm eating."

Copenhagen 'backup' group meets

BBC News 23 Oct 09;

Legislators from 16 major economies will meet on Saturday to seek consensus on a raft of climate-related policies ahead of December talks in Copenhagen.

The 120 delegates believe that the policies could address 70% of the emissions cuts necessary before 2020.

A consensus, if reached, could ensure the policies are put into practice regardless of the outcome of the landmark climate talks in December.

The group will present its results to the Danish PM who will host the talks.

The delegates will include Climate and Energy Minister Ed Miliband, a number of MEPs and former UK Foreign Office head Lord Michael Jay alongside people holding in climate- and environment-related posts in 16 nations.

The meeting has been organised by the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe).

'Real opportunity'

Issues to be discussed are standards for building and appliance standards, vehicle fuel efficiencies, renewable energy and forestry.

Together, the delegates hope to agree targets that they have committed to push through their own governments at home. In addition, they will band together to push for ambitious targets at the December COP15 (Conferences of the Parties) meeting.

Any deals that are agreed at the weekend meeting are particularly relevant in light of the claim made last week by Yvo De Boer, head of the UN Climate Change Secretariat, that a comprehensive and binding treaty at the December talks was unlikely.

Danish Prime Minister and COP15 host Lars Lokke Rasmussen said of the meeting: "The Globe Copenhagen Legislators Forum...presents a very real opportunity to outline to national leaders where the political boundaries could be for an ambitious agreement at the formal negotiations.

"This will be a powerful and new intervention contributing to the international response to climate change."

20,000 people, 192 countries. Welcome to the carbon circus

Robin Pagnamenta, Times Online 24 Oct 09;

It has been billed as the last-chance saloon; a final opportunity for the world to seal a deal to prevent catastrophic climate change.

With only 44 days to go until the meeting in Copenhagen, the world is waiting to see if its politicians can deliver, and live up to the hype.

Whatever the outcome of the 15th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, Copenhagen is braced for a carbon circus.

Hotels in the Danish capital are nearly fully booked, meaning that thousands of those due to arrive in the city from December 7 to 18 will have to stay in neighbouring Sweden — pumping out more carbon when they commute daily across the Öresund straits from Malmö.

Amid the razzmatazz, protesters and corporate sponsorship from BMW, Honda and Mercedes, as many as 20,000 delegates from 192 countries will cram into the Bella centre. Their aim is to forge a deal that will cut global greenhouse gas emissions and prevent a rise in temperatures of more than 2C (3.6F).

Scientists believe that any increase above this level would be the tipping point for irreversible damage — paving the way for rising seas, floods, storms and droughts that would threaten hundreds of millions of people.

At the centre of this meeting, led by Yvo de Boer, the UN climate head, is a 180-page document of negotiating text. The Kyoto Protocol, by contrast, which the Copenhagen agreement is meant to replace when it expires in 2012, ran to only 30 pages at the equivalent stage.

“There is limited time and so much to be done,” Andrew Hedges, a partner at Norton Rose, which specialises in carbon law, said. “If political leaders fail then the scientists tell us that the consequences could be catastrophic.”

That may sound like a powerful incentive for a deal to be struck but the challenges are immense.

Perhaps the biggest stumbling block is the complex climate politics between the US, China and India. Developing countries led by China — which is the biggest carbon polluter in the world — and India say that by 2020 the developed world needs to commit itself to cuts at least 40 per cent below 1990 levels to avoid the worst of climate change.

In the US, the second-biggest emitter, the focus on healthcare reform has reduced the chances of a commitment on anything like this scale. The US Senate has not agreed a goal for 2020.

Although China and India are not expected to agree to cuts in their emissions before 2020, coaxing them into longer-term reductions without US leadership will be tough.

It is a stalemate that threatens to kill a deal in Copenhagen despite pledges from the EU, Japan and other countries to cut their emissions by as much as 30 per cent by 2020 — and good progress that has been made in other areas such as an agreement designed to slow global deforestation by awarding forest credits.

There are many reasons why the Kyoto Protocol failed to curb the growth in global emissions; one of which is that its targets applied only to a small group of affluent countries and ignored rapidly growing emissions from the developing world.

Governments want the new treaty to encompass more nations and more sources of greenhouse gases, such as forestry and changing land use. They also want to create a framework for wealthy countries to supply money and technology to poor nations to help them to adapt to and reduce the inevitable impacts of climate change.They are keen to refine a global trading regime for carbon emissions to help to cut greenhouse gases from industry.

Copenhagen is perhaps viewed best as a Bretton Woods for carbon — an agreement that, if successful, could define the global industrial and commercial landscape of the 21st century.

Talk of it as a last-chance saloon may be premature. The most likely outcome may be a political commitment to cut emissions by mid-century and an agreement to keep wrangling over the details.

Scientists believe climate change is an urgent problem and that, according to the last report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, it is more than 90 per cent likely that humans are responsible.

There is already talk of follow-up meetings next year. Copenhagen may merely mark the start of a long period of uncertainty over global carbon regulation that may take years to resolve.

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