True or False: Singapore to Reduce Carbon Emissions Growth by 16% from 2020 BAU Levels from AsiaIsGreen
Pied Fantail in partial moult
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Hornbills at Ubin
from wonderful creation and wild shores of singapore
Semakau Again
from Nature's Wonders
Kids, Drawings and Chek Jawa
from Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs
Cheap REDD isn't the best conservation strategy for biodiversity
from Mongabay.com news
Straits Times Forum 4 Dec 09;
I REFER to last Saturday's report, 'Sentosa's whale shark plan being reviewed'.
According to expert opinion, keeping the whale sharks in the upcoming Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) is neither practical nor feasible, despite the integrated resort's 'strong focus on education and marine life conservation'.
It is unnecessarily cruel to confine these large oceanic animals in an 8ha enclosure, vastly different from their natural environment. This aquarium is far from ideal for proper scientific study. The cacophony of peripheral activities is unnecessary and a stressful distraction. In their natural habitat, these animals have infrequent contact with humans. Held captive in a small aquarium, there is a real risk that more members of an already endangered species will die.
To fulfil its desire to contribute to marine life conservation, RWS could channel revenues, from all aspects of its business, to well-established research centres. This is a more feasible way to support conservation efforts.
I doubt the absence of the whale sharks will dampen the overall appeal of RWS as an entertainment venue.
Goh Si Guim
Acres lauds animal-friendly move
Straits Times Forum 4 Dec 09;
THE Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) would like to commend Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) for maintaining its position not to acquire and keep whale sharks in its upcoming marine park.
Whale sharks have not fared well in captivity and RWS has said that it may not be able to care for the animals. It is a tremendous risk to the lives and welfare of these animals to keep them in captivity, and a risk that should not be taken.
Acres urges the Singapore Tourism Board to give a favourable response to RWS by allowing changes to its original submission and support efforts by companies that aim to be more animal-friendly and socially responsible.
Andrea Kwan (Ms)
Campaigns Officer
Animal Concerns Research and Education Society
Straits Times Forum 4 Dec 09;
I AM inspired by recent reports in The Straits Times about Singapore's unique biodiversity.
I am a lover of forests myself and I hate to see them destroyed in the name of urbanisation and land use. The forests - or what is left of them - are precious ecosystems for the variety of wildlife in Singapore. The musang is one of them. There are countless others and I am glad there are groups here that look out for the wildlife.
Where I live, in Tampines, there is a tract of forested land. I have seen kingfishers darting about, their wings a flash of vivid blue and red. Black-shouldered kites hover in the air as they hunt for prey. Migratory birds (little egrets) graze on the grass slopes and in the tiny creek running through. I sometimes find bitterns resting on the branches. Occasionally, I spy a mated pair of white-bellied sea eagles spiralling regally in the sky.
At times, I see snakes: painted bronzebacks and equatorial spitting cobras. They enjoy basking in the sun and the solitude provided by the forested land.
This is on top of the other bird and animal species found living near and in the forested land. Changeable lizards in their flashy territorial colours scurry on tree trunks. Long- tailed shrikes make their presence known.
I am not even counting the diverse plant life. Do children know there is a wild passion flower species and how resilient it is?
So when I read the reports, I was immensely heartened. There is a rich variety of wildlife and green areas in Singapore. To know the land and its wildlife is to love it and protect it from the ravages of urbanisation.
Perhaps we should have a Friends Of Wild Lands group in Singapore, where people who are passionate about preserving these vital forested lands can get together and guard them.
By the way, the forested land where I spotted the myriad species is next to Tampines Avenue 9, nestling beside Tampines North Primary School.
I often dread seeing bulldozers gouging ugly trenches near the forested lands and fear their incursion into the heart of the forest.
I hope the authorities will think twice before allowing any such encroachments.
Joyce Chng (Ms)
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
TWELVE million tons of carbon would be equivalent to the total amount released in taking a return plane trip to the moon 6,000 times, and also the entire yearly volume of emissions from Kenya, a country with 40 million people.
That is how much Singapore would have to reduce carbon emissions by if it follows through on a proposal to cut emissions by 16 per cent below 'business as usual' levels by 2020. If no changes were made, carbon emissions are predicted to reach some 72 million tons.
The Government said on Wednesday that the proposal would mean greener transport, households, industry and buildings through a combination of regulation and fiscal measures.
The target will be set if there is a legally binding global deal obliging all countries to cut emissions, and if other countries make significant pledges as an outcome of the climate change meeting in Copenhagen next week.
The Straits Times hypothesised what each sector would need to cut based on its current share of emissions, and asked how life could change.
# INDUSTRY: The largest emitter of carbon dioxide, it is responsible for 22 million tons, or about 54 per cent of Singapore's emissions.
Its share would require it to make cuts of six million tons of carbon emissions.
Mr Edwin Khew, a former Nominated MP and chief executive of waste recycling firm IUT Global, said industry would play its part.
'Our best bet is on energy efficiency and more efficient buildings to reduce industry's carbon footprint,' he said.
He added that carbon trading credits or a carbon tax could be used to curb emissions.
# TRANSPORT: The second biggest contributor, emitting eight million tons or 19 per cent of carbon emissions. It would have to make cuts of two million tons to help reach the target.
There are about 920,000 vehicles on Singapore's roads, which would mean an average cut of 2.48 tons per vehicle each year.
That means travelling nearly 10,000km less, or just under the distance between Singapore and Paris.
This would be tough to do, said transport expert Lee Der Horng from the National University of Singapore. 'Other sectors would have to do more in order to meet the target and to cut down on carbon emissions,' he argued.
However, it would help to have electric cars on the road as well as more use of compressed natural gas in buses instead of diesel.
According to the Energy Market Authority, Singapore could reduce up to 4 per cent of its land transport emissions by 2020 if just 2 per cent of the vehicles here were electric-powered. That would mean 16,000 full-electric cars here.
# BUILDINGS: Buildings are the third largest emitter, producing six million tons or 16 per cent of carbon, mainly through the use of electricity to power lighting and air-conditioning. They would have to cut two million tons.
Just 5 per cent of Singapore's buildings are green, according to the Building and Construction Authority. Its Green Mark scheme targets 80 per cent of existing buildings to be up to standards by 2030.
Only 55 out of 337 certified Green Mark buildings now are at GoldPlus or Platinum standard - the level which Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan said buildings needed to be if they wanted to hit the emissions reduction target.
As a minimum, GoldPlus buildings must demonstrate energy savings of 25 per cent and Platinum buildings 30 per cent.
# HOUSEHOLDS: Bringing up the rear in terms of carbon emissions, they contribute 3.6 million tons or 9 per cent of the total.
They would have to cut one million tons.
Mr Ravinder Singh, head of 3T Hypermizer, which promotes energy solutions and efficiency, said that town councils could save energy in the communal lighting of corridors and parks.
But there would be sacrifices made for each household too.
'Air-conditioning, fridges and washing machines all contribute to carbon emissions,' he said.
Listing some ways cuts could be made, he noted: 'People would need to not use the water heater in this tropical country or sleep with the air-con on at night and limit it to three hours a day, but people have got to be willing to take those steps.'
Source: International Energy Agency, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources. From 2005 figures.
They are ready for transition to low-carbon economy, but hope for subsidy to cushion impact
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
INDUSTRY leaders are bracing themselves for the pain that will come with Singapore's move to cut greenhouse gas emissions and are seeking the Government's help to ease the transition.
Senior industry figures told The Straits Times yesterday that the move to curb emissions was something they were expecting to happen 'sooner or later' in line with international trends.
However, they also feel that private industries will need help to make the move to a low-carbon economy.
Power generator Tuas Power had already seen this coming, said chief executive Lim Kong Puay.
'We will embrace the drive towards energy efficiency and look at new technologies, such as the use of clean coal technologies and biomass, which allow us to further reduce our emissions,' he said.
Mr Lim acknowledged that in the short term, the higher costs would be passed on to consumers and businesses.
'So, it would be helpful if some form of subsidy could be given to cushion the impact,' he said.
The Government announced on Wednesday that Singapore would undertake voluntary action to reduce its emissions growth to 16 per cent below 'business as usual' levels by 2020 - if a global deal is reached at the climate change conference in Copenhagen this month.
A mix of regulations and fiscal measures will be used, and 'market forces will also have an important role to play to make sure that people and businesses get the right price signals', said Senior Minister S. Jayakumar.
In particular, the Green Mark standard used to rate the environmental performance of buildings may be raised, and industries will be encouraged to use energy more efficiently and reduce their carbon emissions.
Details will be announced later and will depend on the outcome at Copenhagen, but industry leaders say they anticipate a range of measures, including higher taxes that put a price on carbon.
Singapore Business Federation (SBF) chief executive Teng Theng Dar noted that sectors like manufacturing would have to begin 'factoring in plans to limit or cut their emissions ahead of 2020'.
Mr Teng believes that while some sectors will feel pain, industries such as those in clean energy and energy efficiency will clearly benefit from new opportunities.
'But given that many clean technologies are still costly to implement, it will be good if there are more assistance and funding schemes to help firms adopt sustainable solutions,' he said.
Property developers say they will embrace the higher Green Mark standard, but they want more incentives.
This could be on the demand side, with owners of green homes and buildings granted reduced property tax rates, said a GuocoLand spokesman.
City Developments group general manager Chia Ngiang Hong agreed, adding that the Government could consider making the measures even more attractive by introducing tax incentives for developers, for example.
Former Nominated MP Edwin Khew, who is also chief executive of waste recycling firm IUT Global, said the impact on industries of the new green regime would become clear only much later.
For now, companies need to look for 'low-hanging fruits' like energy efficiency, which is easy to implement and effective in reducing carbon emissions.
Industrial developer Ascendas Land recently reduced energy consumption at its headquarters at The Galen, Singapore Science Park, by 65 per cent through a retrofit of its chiller plant.
This cut The Galen's carbon emissions by 2,500 tons a year, equivalent to taking 550 cars off the road annually, said Trane Singapore, the energy services company that did the retrofit.
Industries can reduce carbon emissions if all companies take action on energy efficiency, said Mr Khew, who added that the main obstacle is getting the financing. This is where local banks and the Government can step in by sharing some of the funding risks of such projects, which are minimal, he added.
SBF's Mr Teng noted that in learning to cut emissions, Singapore firms could also benefit by exporting their knowledge and sharing best practices in their green initiatives with the global economy.
Meeting international obligations will mean higher energy costs
Chua Mui Hoong, Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
IT WASN'T too long ago that Singapore was in the resistant camp when it came to climate change. It was the 168th country to accede to the Kyoto Protocol in 2006, nine years after it was first inked.
In the three years since, Singapore has come up to speed on climate change. The announcement on Wednesday that Singapore will cut carbon emissions by 16per cent from 'business as usual' levels by 2020 was fronted by no less than three government ministers, including Senior Minister S. Jayakumar, who will head the Singapore delegation to the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen next week.
With this firm pledge - contingent on there being a legally binding international agreement on meaningful cuts - Singapore joins the ranks of countries prepared to make substantive commitments to reduce their emission of greenhouse gases.
The Government's nuanced position on this - as on any other international issue - is governed by one simple consideration: Singapore's national interest.
The decision to take voluntary, self-funded action to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 16per cent balances quite deftly Singapore's international obligations against the domestic consequences of rising energy costs.
First, Singapore's international obligations: Climate change is shaping up to be the next big global issue after free trade - only even more polarising. Developed and developing countries are at an impasse, with the former wanting big polluters like India and China to cut emissions and the latter wanting developed countries to finance any cuts they make, since developed countries' past industrialisation efforts are responsible for most of the environmental damage. This disagreement is unlikely to be resolved easily.
Despite its high per capita income, Singapore's position on global warming is closer to that of developing countries. It resisted pressure to sign on to any Annexe One agreement, which would have made its cutting carbon emissions mandatory. Singapore argued that it bears no historical debt as a young nation-state, and that it has no alternative like wind or hydropower, to replace fossil fuels.
But continued insistence along these lines, as justified as they may be, can wear thin the patience of other countries which point disapprovingly at Singapore's energy-intensive economy and high per capita emissions. As climate change issues become mainstreamed and feed back into the free trade process, holding firm to Singapore's former position could disadvantage the country.
As a scientific consensus developed on the human contribution to global warming, Singapore accepted the 'precautionary principle' - that it is good to reduce reliance on (ever dearer) fossil fuels anyway, given their growing scarcity.
As Prof Jayakumar put it pithily, a low-lying country like Singapore can't afford to wait for total scientific certainty on global warming and rising sea levels. Rather, it should act when the consensus of opinion is 'quite overwhelming although not unanimous'.
Hence, it is in Singapore's interest to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and move to a lower-carbon lifestyle. Though it is bound by several constraints - among them, its miniscule size, the lack of alternative energy sources, dependency on energy-intensive economic activities - it must do its bit to reduce global warming. And in doing so, it can go some way towards meeting the expectations of developed countries like Australia and Japan, which want the Republic to be subject to tougher targets.
Singapore supports the position of developing countries that there is a 'common but differentiated responsibility' when it comes to global warming. Every nation has a responsibility to act but some are obliged to - or are in a position to - do more than others.
Applying this principle, Singapore wants to do its bit, though it emits only 0.2per cent of the world's carbon emissions. Its efforts would have little impact on the globe as a whole, but it will play its part, even at some domestic cost.
This is the other consideration the Singapore Government has to balance: The country's international obligation versus the domestic consequences of higher energy costs.
The Government has said it will use regulatory and fiscal (that is, tax) measures to influence households and industries towards a low-carbon lifestyle.
It will be at least a year before any action plan to reduce carbon emissions kicks in. A binding agreement among UN member-states to reduce carbon emissions will be signed only next year, at the very earliest.
Judging from the lack of online chatter, even netizens don't seem to have quite digested the meaning of the 16per cent cut. By contrast, the news made a splash on regional and international websites, with environmental websites picking it up within hours, and even the English website of China's People Daily carrying it.
As the news percolates its way to the heartland, expect unhappiness over the impending higher energy costs.
Will there be a tax on energy usage? How high? How generous will the 'offsets' package be to cushion the impact? When businesses pass on higher energy costs to consumers - as they surely will - will public transport fares, hawker food prices, housing costs, all go up too?
Environmental groups may cavil that the 16per cent pledge is at the low end of the UN recommendation that developing countries cut emissions by 15 to 30per cent below 'business as usual' projections by 2020. But most Singaporeans will be pleased that the Government chose to heed its domestic constituency.
The decision to join the climate change action brigade is only the first step - and the easy one. The tough work lies ahead: at the negotiating table, to begin with, and then later, in bringing Singaporeans on board, to accept the inevitable short-term cost increases for the sake of the long-term benefit of more sustainable development.
Global warming: Doing what's practical
Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
IN CLIMATE issues as in most matters, Singapore strives to do what is right, not what is popular. So it is with the urgent international movement to slow greenhouse gas emissions. Ahead of what is expected to be a rancorous climate conference in Copenhagen next week, the Government has announced it would cut emissions to 16 per cent below what it describes as 'business as usual' levels, by 2020. It is not an eye-popping move, but practical. The initiative will do more against global warming if it can spur industrialised countries and other holdouts to show their commitment.
As a small country, Singapore can make little difference even if it achieves the target. This is not to absolve mini-states of their share of responsibility on an escalating force that will affect all of humankind. Even though Singapore is not obliged to make cuts, as Senior Minister S. Jayakumar pointed out, doing so will add momentum to consensus on a binding climate agreement. Unless all countries are required to reduce emissions, Singapore's efforts will remain voluntary. While it hopes what is right will turn out also to be what is popular at Copenhagen, the conference outcome will, by the same token, make little difference to the scope and pace of Singapore's green programme. It has done much in the last two decades. It recycles more than half of its waste, thus reducing landfill methane gas output. It has cut carbon intensity by nearly a third. It switched from oil to natural gas in 2001 to slash emissions in electricity generation by a quarter.
The potential for further reduction will narrow as existing energy efficiencies and other green opportunities are grasped. So, the exercise is not without cost. Neither are alternative energy sources like wind and hydro power options. Going beyond the already impressive Sustainable Singapore Blueprint will entail further adjustments by households and businesses as well as the Government. National interest, however, motivates Singapore more strongly than does external expectation. Regulatory, fiscal and other measures which the Government said it would implement to meet the target are only one side of the story.
The other side consists of technological innovations that also have a market beyond Singapore. Clean energy research and development, green buildings and pollution control are all national initiatives that offer benefits internationally. The global warming adversity offers Singapore a policy, business and technology opportunity. Binding or not, the emissions target it has set will further its interests even as it contributes to the search for an international solution.
Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
With pirate attacks in the seas around Singapore experiencing a resurgence after several years of relative lull, Mavis Toh heads to Batam to speak to pirates past and present about their exploits.
FOR one month, 28-year-old Sastra Genting worked as a cleaner on board a Singapore-registered oil tanker - but it was not the job he was there for.
He found out the vessel's planned route, the number of crew on board, their schedule and responsibilities and also took pictures of the ship.
He then passed the information to his boss, a pirate syndicate chief known to him only as Pang. Mr Sastra does not know if the ship was ever attacked.
For his deed, which took place a few years ago, he got $30,000.
The money is what attracts able-bodied men without education or a future to a criminal career, said Mr Danny Abdullah, known in his hometown of Nagoya, in Batam, as the 'One-Eyed Pirate' because of the eye he lost in prison.
'Most of us didn't go to school and we can't find jobs. When we attack ships, we get good money,' Mr Danny, 38, told The Straits Times. 'If there are attacks and the boss calls, I will go anytime. My four children and wife need to eat.'
A ready pool of men like former pirates Sastra and Danny - hungry, jobless and at a loss - keeps piracy alive in Batam, the place some point to as the 'pirate hub' of South-east Asia, and elsewhere in the region.
In recent months, the South China Sea passage flanked by Indonesia's Anambas Islands and Pulau Tioman off Malaysia's east coast has surfaced as a potential hot spot for sea robbers.
Piracy there has hit a five-year high with 11 successful and two attempted attacks so far this year, surpassing the previous record of nine for the whole of 2005.
Sea robbers have also been active in the Strait of Malacca and Strait of Singapore, boarding ships on five occasions so far this year, along with two failed attempts.
While joint patrols operated by several countries have successfully curbed the number of attacks, pirate syndicates are still operating from Batam to Sulawesi.
Mr Danny told The Straits Times he belongs to a syndicate which funds about 15 other groups in Batam, Medan, Jakarta and Palembang. Each group has 10 to 15 men and they all fall under the same boss.
He has seen the boss several times but knows him only as Pang, a Malaysian Chinese businessman in his 60s who is said to have a house on Batam.
Pang gives out information on the vessels he wants attacked but does not join his men in any of the assaults. Only the most trusted have his contact details.
He keeps his men loyal by visiting those who are caught and jailed, and also giving them a weekly sum of 500,000 rupiah (S$73) so their families do not go hungry.
Mr Sastra, who is known as 'Genting Botak' among pirates and was introduced to Pang when he was just 17, said: 'He's the king... everyone who wants to be a pirate must know him.'
Three of his fellow pirates told The Straits Times that big attacks are planned meticulously and proceed only when reliable insider information can be obtained.
A team of pirates is then assembled and given a lump sum for food, lodging, weapons and transport.
For such an attack, at least two men in the group would carry guns, often bought in Batam or Malaysia. The rest are armed with machetes.
In 2004, Mr Sastra was flown to Samarinda in East Kalimantan for a heist on an oil tanker. Gathered in a hotel room were 15 men, who were given details of the vessel and their roles.
Over the next few days, they got together equipment like ropes and parangs. On the night of the attack, the men set off in two engine-powered sampans, arriving around the time they had been told the crew would be having dinner.
True enough, the masked men climbed undeterred up hooked ropes onto the oil tanker. On board, two pirates holding pistols headed for the captain.
Once captured, he was made to open the safe where the crew's salary was kept. The others were tied up and robbed of all valuables, save for their wedding rings. The crew members were then locked in a cabin.
Shortly afterwards, a separate team of pirates arrived in a vessel to siphon off the tanker's oil. These fuel thieves also handed the first group a promised sum for its role in the deal.
Both groups then sped off in separate directions. The attack took no more than two hours.
'I got $20,000, but the leader can get up to $100,000,' said Mr Sastra. 'The big boss gets profit from the oil he sells.'
But such lucrative assignments from the boss are hard to come by, especially in recent years when police patrols have been ramped up.
Sometimes the information is wrong and the heist is called off at the last minute, with that unreliable crew member never being used again.
Mr Danny recalled how he was recently flown to Medan with nine others where they stayed for a month. Their attack on an oil tanker was called off when the leader found out they had the wrong information.
To get by, the pirates mount smaller attacks in ragtag bands, staking out boats from nearby islands and going for slow-moving vessels such as tugboats.
They usually get away with between $5,000 and 8,000 worth of cellphones, jewellery and cash. But the men often lose their cash fast, splurging on trips, alcohol, drugs and girls.
One thing that is for sure: the easy money comes with a price.
Mr Danny once found himself swimming for two hours in the waters off Kalimantan when an attack went wrong. He and his gang were climbing up a vessel when an armed guard fired at them.
He also became blind in one eye after he was arrested - on his wedding night in June 1999 when 27 policemen stormed his house.
He was interrogated for information on his accomplices in an attack on a container ship.
In that attack, he and four others armed with parangs climbed up a ship passing through the Strait of Malacca and robbed the crew of 280 million rupiah worth of cellphones, jewellery and cash.
These days, he is a part-time mover, while Mr Sastra sells vegetables in a market. But both men said they would take to the high seas if called upon.
According to Mr Hosea Tobing, 58, a broker for seafarers and shipping firms, even more men could have turned to piracy since the recession due to lack of jobs.
Every day, groups hang out at a line of coffee shops in Nagoya, where the island's brokers are - hoping to land a job. They can wait up to six months for an opening at times.
'They need to make a living and there are not enough jobs,' said Mr Tobing. 'So they will do whatever to survive - and it includes attacking ships for money. They don't have a choice.'
We like hitting Singapore ships, says ex-pirate
Mavis Toh, Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
HE SITS in a corner of the coffee shop, chain-smoking through packs of unfiltered cigarettes and sipping hot tea.
Mr Norman's engine-powered sampan, once used in many a pirate raid on unsuspecting ships, now lies mostly unused in a nearby dock in Belakang Padang - an Indonesian island north-west of Batam and 25 minutes from the Singapore coast.
A few years ago, the town with a population of 19,000 was notorious as a haven for sea pirates. At its peak, piracy was the career of many of the town's young men.
But after the Indonesian authorities stepped up sea patrols around the island, Mr Norman, 31, and others like him opted out of that career and took up fishing, taxi boat operations or ran small food stalls.
Mr Norman now uses his sampan to shuttle villagers between the sleepy town of Belakang Padang and Batam for 8,000 rupiah (S$1.20) for the 20-minute journey. But he hardly leaves his regular seat at the coffee shop these days till it is time to head home. Business is poor as there are many other boat operators, mostly ex-pirates too, competing for an already tiny customer base.
On a good day, Mr Norman makes no more than 200,000 rupiah - barely enough to feed his wife and two school-going children. He was reluctant to speak much of his pirate past in the coffee shop and agreed to talk only on his sampan. Once out at sea, Mr Norman spoke of how he was once part of a gang of pirates who used to terrorise ships sailing past Belakang Padang.
Mr Norman and his gang of eight would head to a nearby island, Pulau Letong, every evening to observe passing ships.
They made use of night-vision binoculars to pick out likely targets. 'Once we spotted one, we circled the ship to make sure that there were no guards before we attacked,' he said in Bahasa Indonesia.
His friend Hashim, a former pirate and now a taxi boat operator, said ships from Singapore, Panama, Hong Kong, Greece and India were common targets. It did not matter if the vessel was an oil tanker, a cargo ship or a tugboat. All that mattered was the cash and valuables the crew had on board.
Mr Hashim said: 'We especially like Singapore ships as they carry Singapore dollars and we can use the money easily in Batam.'
Mr Hashim, 44, has boarded at least five Singapore-registered ships before.
Armed with parangs, the pirates would spend no more than 15 minutes on each ship. Once the captain had been captured, the rest of the crew usually put up little resistance, they said.
They usually would strike once a night, but sometimes, the gang would have to hit three ships if earlier pickings were poor.
Each man could pocket as much as $5,000 on one night - enough to last them several months.
Mr Norman was arrested once when some villagers ratted on him, but was released soon after due to lack of evidence.
To reduce the chances of being caught, pirates leave the village for a short period after an attack and head to Jakarta to spend on women and alcohol. Both men claimed to have washed their hands of piracy since 2004 but admitted some relatives and friends in the village still do it. 'Nowadays, the police are very strict, so they have to be very careful. No one dares to talk about it openly,' said Mr Hashim.
Villagers interviewed also said pirates sometimes gathered in houses nearby to plan attacks. One pastor said: 'They will attack, disappear for weeks or months, and when things have died down, come back and attack again.'
Tough to catch pirates in the act
Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
THE biggest challenge in foiling piracy attacks is in catching the sea robbers red-handed.
Mr Nicholas Teo, deputy director of anti-piracy group ReCAAP, said the pirates can be caught with their loot only when both the ship captain and the law enforcers react immediately.
But often, ships which have been attacked either keep mum or report late because they do not know that they have been robbed, are too embarrassed or find it too troublesome to file one.
'The sea is such a big place it's hard to catch these guys in the act. After that, by day they look just like anyone on the streets,' said Mr Teo.
Lieutenant-Colonel Yassin Kosasih, director of Riau Islands province's marine police, said their task is made harder as victims report only to the International Maritime Bureau or ReCAAP.
'How can we help investigate such cases and arrest the culprits if there was never a report filed to us?' he said.
His department also lacks the necessary equipment - namely boats that can perform 24-hour patrols.
'We have small boats, those 9m to 10m long,' he said.
He added that although Japan and the United States have given them a total of six boats, it is still insufficient.
Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand are currently part of the Malacca Strait Patrol, working to keep that stretch of waters safe.
Lt-Col Yassin said that pirates in Indonesia are mostly from Batam, Palembang and Java.
Unlike pirates from Somalia who hold both ship and crew ransom, Indonesian pirates mostly rob the ships of their cargo and flee.
Lt-Col Yassin cited the example of an attack two weeks ago, where pirates made off with US$3 million (S$4.2 million) worth of spare parts that a vessel was carrying.
'They're mostly unsophisticated. They target those (that are) easy to climb over,' he said.
MAVIS TOH
Batam an ideal base for attacks
Straits Times 4 Dec 09;
Dr Frecon says piracy is a draw for unemployed men.
BATAM is a prime spot for pirates to launch an attack due to a multitude of surrounding islands which offer hiding places both before and after any assault.
The area is also fertile ground for the pirates as 65,000 ships pass by each year.
Batam is strategically located near the Strait of Singapore and the South China Sea.
Piracy expert Eric Frecon, of the Nanyang Technological University's S.Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said: 'Pirates can always escape by going from one island to another. They are also patient and wait for times like national instability or international disorder to leave their haunts and attack ships.'
Dr Frecon, who has studied pirates in the region for nine years, said the criminal activity attracts unemployed young men who have left their native villages in search of a better life in Batam.
'When they can't find work, the easiest way to get money is to be a pirate.'
Captain Noel Choong, head of the International Maritime Bureau's Piracy Reporting Centre in Kuala Lumpur, said that while pirate syndicates do operate from Batam, they have cut down on the number of attacks due to more vigilant patrols by the Indonesian authorities.
But the number of attacks nearby has been climbing of late.
There were 11 in the South China Sea in the first nine months of this year - a five-year high.
Sea robbers have also been active in the Strait of Malacca and Strait of Singapore.
Pirates have boarded ships on five occasions so far this year and have attempted boardings twice.
This figure, however, pales against the 156 attacks in the Gulf of Aden, near Yemen, from January to September.
Indonesian pirates attack all types of vessels, from tugboats to cargo ships and tankers, Capt Choong said.
One piracy hot spot, said Dr Frecon, is the Belakang Padang island. Being close to both the Singapore Strait and the Phillip Channel, it sees plenty of traffic and makes for a 'pirate hub'.
'It is cut off from the main economic and administrative centres and nobody troubles the pirates,' he said.
Dr Frecon, who has visited Belakang Padang three times, said many of the pirates were notorious gang members even up till the early 2000s.
MAVIS TOH
The Jakarta Post 3 Dec 09;
Despite previous protests and controversy, the Indonesian government has recently renewed plans to build Indonesia’s first nuclear power plant in Muria Peninsula, Central Java.
State Research and Technology Minister Suharna Surapranata, who has been serving in the new Cabinet for less than two months, said here Thursday that blueprints for the plant were in progress.
“The plan to build the nuclear power plant must go on,” Suharna said as quoted by Antara, on the sidelines of a meeting with the Nuclear Energy Regulatory Agency (Bapeten).
Among aspects still under consideration, Suharna said, included who would operate the plant once established — whether it would be the government or a private firm.
As for the location, the government seems to have stuck to the previous plan of building the plant in the Muria Peninsula in Jepara, Central Java.
As part of the process, the government is currently training and educating staff at Bapeten and the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan), who are expected to run the power plant once it opens in 2016, Suharna said.
The construction of the plant is scheduled to begin next year.
WWF 3 Dec 09;
Those people unable to make it to the Copenhagen Climate Conference this month can still contribute to stopping climate change – by using a new search engine from their own computers.
The same day the conference begins on Dec. 7, web users can start using a new green search engine called Ecosia. The new application, powered by Yahoo! and Microsoft’s Bing search engines, will allow internet surfers to protect about 2 square meters of Amazon rainforest just by clicking on sponsored links.
Although users do not donate any money themselves, the company behind Ecosia will donate at least 80 percent of its income from sponsored links to WWF’s rainforest protection programme in Brazil’s Juruena-Apui region.
“The green search engine is a very modern and inventive method of saving the world climate without a huge effort”, says WWF Germany’s director Eberhard Brandes.
“Every year billions of dollars are being earned in the internet only from advertising revenue”, says Christian Kroll, founder of Ecosia. “There is a more eco-friendly way of using these huge profits: the money should better be used to fight global warming.”
Each click on a sponsored link through Ecosia will provide WWF’s Amazon rainforest with a protected area of 2 square metres. Accordingly, 500,000 users and 1 million searches could save 2 million square metres of rainforest every day, the same size as Monaco.
“If only one percent of global internet users accessed Ecosia for their web searches, we could conserve a rainforest area as big as Switzerland every year,” says Kroll.
Rainforests are highly endangered and in the last 50 years more than a half have vanished. Every year a rainforest larger than England is burned or cut down. Deforestation is one of the most important sources of CO2 emissions in the world.
By using the green search engine internet users also reduce their own carbon footprint as the servers of Ecosia use eco-friendly electricity. The search engine will be tested starting Dec. 3 and officially launched on on Dec. 7t. On the website users can also check how many square metres of rainforest have already been saved by themselves and by the whole community.
Ecosia search engine fights climate change
Yahoo News 4 Dec 09;
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – An Ecosia search engine launching Monday is counting on the world's fascination with the Internet to help save Brazilian rainforests and battle global warming.
A brain child of "green-minded friends" in Berlin, ecosia.org is powered by Bing and Yahoo! search technology but gives at least 80 percent of its revenue to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) to protect rainforests.
Ecosia has timed its official launch for Monday to coincide with the start of world climate talks in Copenhagen.
"Ecosia will definitely be the world's greenest search engine," WWF said in a statement.
"Each search with Ecosia will protect a piece of rainforest, so by making Ecosia your search engine, you can actually help the environment one search at a time."
Ecosia is banking on the same online advertising tactics that have pumped a fortune into the coffers of Internet search king Google, with the funds benefiting nature instead of investors.
Advertisers typically pay search engines for each click on sponsored links appearing on results pages.
"Thanks to sponsored links, search engines earn billions every year," said Ecosia founder Christian Kroll.
"Ecosia believes that there is a more eco-friendly way of using these huge profits and that the money should better be used to fight global warming."
The WWF estimated that over the course of a year, a typical Internet user relying on Ecosia for search queries could protect a patch of rainforest about the size of an ice hockey rink, or 2,000 square meters (21,530 square feet).
A rainforest expanse the size of Switzerland could be saved annually with money generated by one percent of the world's Internet users switching to Ecosia, according to the WWF.
More than half the world's rainforests have been destroyed in the past 50 years and the amount of rainforest burned or cut down each year is greater than the size of England, according to Ecosia.
Deforestation generates climate changing carbon dioxide while eliminating precious wildlife habitat along with trees that produce life-sustaining oxygen.
Ecosia said it is following through on its green theme by relying on data centers that run on electricity from alternative sources that do not spew heat-trapping gases.
It will be taking on powerhouse Google, a search engine so popular that the California company's name is used as a verb to refer to searching the Internet.
Unlike Google and other search engines, Ecosia promises to dump all records of users' activities after 48 hours and not mine the data for marketing purposes.
Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 3 Dec 09;
By feeding birds, you could alter their evolutionary future, with changes visible in the very near term, scientists now conclude.
Due to winter bird-feeding, what was once a single population of birds has, in fewer than 30 generations, been split into two groups that do not interbreed, despite the fact that they continue to breed side by side in the very same forests.
"Our study documents the profound impact of human activities on the evolutionary trajectories of species," said researcher Martin Schaefer, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Freiburg in Germany. "It shows that we are influencing the fate not only of rare and endangered species, but also of the common ones that surround our daily lives."
Wings of change
Over the course of three-and-a-half years, the scientists followed birds known as blackcaps (Sylvia atricapilla) in Central Europe after humans began offering food to them. A recent divide has sprung up, with two groups following distinct migration routes in the winter - one southwest in Spain, the other northwest in the United Kingdom.
"The new northwest migratory route is shorter, and those birds feed on food provided by humans instead of fruits as the birds that migrate southwest do," Schaefer said. "As a consequence, birds migrating northwest have rounder wings, which provide better maneuverability but make them less suited for long-distance migration." They also have longer, narrower bills that are less equipped for eating large fruits like olives during the winter.
This discovery, detailed online Dec. 3 in the journal Current Biology, speaks to a long-standing debate in evolution about whether geographic separation is necessary for new species to develop. By now, the level of reproductive isolation between these populations, which live together for part of the year, is now stronger than that of other blackcaps that are always separated from one another by distances of 500 miles (800 km) or more.
"This is a nice example of the speed of evolution," Schaefer said. "It is something that we can see with our own eyes if we only look closely enough. It doesn't have to take millions of years."
If such isolation and differentiation continues, they can ultimately become separate species.
"The initial steps in speciation - that is, the evolution of reproductive isolation, have rarely been studied," Schaefer said. "This is because speciation is necessarily a historic process, and it is extremely difficult to analyze the selective pressures that lead to speciation in hindsight. Here, we can witness those initial steps."
Other species affected
Schaefer doubts these groups of birds will become different species, because the habits of humans will tend to change over time. Still, he expects humanity will continue to influence the evolution of common species.
"For example, introducing honeybees for securing pollination in crop species has the potential to influence plant-pollinator interactions," Schaefer said. "Plants might adapt to the relative lower importance of native pollinators and change to a more generalistic floral design that could be more efficiently exploited by honeybees."
When it comes to the evolutionary potential of species to adapt to modern impacts on the environment, such as ones caused by climate change, "We know that many of the species are likely unable to adapt quickly to such changes," Schaefer said. "However, I think that the blackcap provides a good example that some species are able to adapt quickly to contemporary ecological changes. This, I believe, is an important and positive result in the current debate, although I need to caution that we cannot extrapolate it easily to other species."
Feeding birds 'changes evolution'
Victoria Gill, BBC News 3 Dec 09;
Bird-feeders, hung in many a garden, can affect the way our feathered friends evolve, say scientists.
European birds called blackcaps follow a different "evolutionary path" if they spend the winter eating food put out for them in UK gardens.
The birds' natural wintering ground is southern Spain, where they feed on the fruits that grow there.
Researchers describe the impact this well-intentioned activity has had on the birds in Current Biology journal.
Dr Martin Schaefer from the University of Freiburg in Germany led the research.
He and his team found that blackcaps that migrated to the UK for the winter were in the very earliest stages of forming a new species.
He explained that some blackcaps ( Sylvia areicapilla ) would always have migrated "a little further north" than others and eventually "ended up in Britain in the winter".
"But those birds would have had nothing to eat," he said.
It was when garden bird feeders became more popular in the UK, that an evolutionary division began to emerge.
"As soon as the British provided a lot of bird food, those birds would have had a much higher probability of surviving the winter."
And because the UK is closer to their breeding ground, those birds would also have returned earlier to claim the best territory.
The researchers, from Germany and Canada, set out to discover if the birds that spent the winter availing themselves of garden bird-feeders were in fact a distinct group.
To do this, they studied the blackcaps at a breeding ground in Germany.
The team were able to use a chemical "signature" from the birds' claws to identify where they spent the winter, and what food they ate.
"Then we took blood samples and analysed those to assess whether... we had two distinct populations. And that's exactly what we found," said Dr Schaefer.
"To a very large extent the birds only mate [with] birds with the same overwintering grounds as them."
This initial "reproductive isolation", Dr Schaefer explained, is the very first step in the evolution of a new species.
"This tells us that by feeding birds in winter we... produce an evolutionary split. And we have produced these initial steps in as little as 50 years."
The team also observed differences in the birds' beaks, wings and plumage.
Blackcaps that migrated along the shorter route to the UK had rounder wings, and longer, narrower beaks.
The scientists said these differences were evidence that the birds had adapted to their shorter journey, and to eating seeds and fat from bird-feeders, rather than fruit from shrubs and trees.
But, Dr Schaefer pointed out that the evolution of a new bird species "could take 100,000 to a million years".
"At this stage this is reversible," he added. "And it's hard to envision a species change, because if there's another economic crisis and people stop feeding the birds, the whole system might just collapse."
Man-made change
In this case, Dr Schaefer thinks the human impact on blackcaps has been a positive thing.
"[The birds have] found a better overwintering area that is closer to the breeding ground, where they can obtain food easily.
"And I also think its positive news for us, because it means not all the changes we produce are necessarily bad, and that some species have the potential to adapt quickly to the changes."
Grahame Madge from the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) said that this was "a fascinating piece of research" and that it fitted in with the birds adapting to a changing climate.
"Blackcaps have been able to start this behaviour because of the milder winter we've experienced in the last few decades," he said.
"And because they're getting food, this reinforces the behaviour and will enable them to survive a colder winter [in the UK]."
He added that putting food out for birds in the winter was "very important" and that many birds "need the energy boost at this time of year".
Benjamin Yeh Yahoo News 3 Dec 09;
TAIPEI (AFP) – When Yeh You-chin was a boy half a century ago, he ate migratory birds with relish, but now he is at the forefront of efforts to preserve the feathered visitors to his south Taiwan home.
Yeh, the 59-year-old chief of Fangshan township, recently opened an exhibition hall devoted to the brown shrike, which passes through the area every year -- and until recently did so at great risk to itself.
"I remember how the air was filled with the strong smell of roasted shrikes," said Yeh. "Some villagers made more money catching birds than people in the cities."
Times have changed, and conservation efforts have now moved to the forefront of most people's minds in this rural part of Taiwan. The exhibition hall is testimony to this development.
"People visiting the exhibition centre can learn about brown shrikes, their relationship with human beings and their plight once they are caught in traps," Yeh said.
For centuries, people in subtropical southern Taiwan would look forward to autumn and winter, when migratory birds would fly in from northern Asia.
They called them "divine blessings" because of the delicious flavour they added to the simple rustic fare they normally put on their dinner tables.
But over the past generation the situation has changed, and the birds are now referred to as "friends from far away."
The dozens of species of migratory birds are now seen as more useful alive than dead, because they can help boost tourism revenues.
Persistent conservation efforts have paid off, as a less-dangerous environment has attracted more birds each year, in turn also luring more tourists to regions such as Hengchun near the southern tip of the island.
"The Hengchun area has become one of the world's top 20 spots for appreciating birds of prey," said Tsai Yi-zung, a bird expert at Kenting National Park in south Taiwan.
Among these is the grey-faced buzzard, better known here as "National Day bird" because its arrival roughly coincides with the island's National Day celebrations on October 10.
This year, the number of grey-faced buzzards in September and October hit a 20-year high of 49,000, according to a survey done by the national park.
"People's thinking has changed completely over the past 25 years," said Tsai.
"I can't guarantee no one here ever eats a bird, but it's definitely a very, very small number."
This is not just because Taiwanese are now so prosperous that they no longer have to rely on wildlife for vital extra protein.
Law also plays a role, and both the rules and their implementation have become stricter, with illegal bird catchers risking jail of up to six months.
But there is still room for improvement, said Yu Wei-daw of the Taipei-based Chinese Wild Bird Federation.
Police arrested two hunters at Hengchun in October and later made a rich haul at their homes, discovering 36 slaughtered grey-faced buzzards.
Meanwhile, educational programmes sponsored by the national park seek to make the schoolchildren more conscious of the need to protect the island's natural heritage.
"Many of the children who have been through the programmes have become adults, and they, unlike their parents, no longer eat the migratory birds," Tsai said.
Andrew Stern, PlanetArk 4 Dec 09;
CHICAGO - Authorities scooped up poisoned fish floating to the surface of a Chicago-area waterway on Thursday in an operation designed to keep invasive Asian carp out of the Great Lakes and prevent an ecological disaster.
So far, none of the prolific two species of Asian carp, the Bighead carp and the Silver carp, have turned up in the huge fish kill that began overnight along 6 miles of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal southwest of the city.
Some 200,000 pounds (90 tons) of dead fish are expected to be collected, weighed, inventoried, and dumped in a landfill. Most of the dead fish scooped up so far have been native carp and shad.
Silver carp and the Asian Bighead, which can grow to 5 feet and weigh more than 100 pounds (45 kg), have come to dominate sections of the Mississippi River and its tributaries.
Authorities fear that if the carp swim up to the Great Lakes, the largest fresh-water resource in the world, they could create an "ecological disaster" by consuming the bottom of the food chain and ruining the lakes' $7 billion fishery.
Since 1990s floods allowed the carp to escape into rivers from research facilities and commercial fish ponds in the South, where they were introduced to clean away weeds and other detritus, the carp have multiplied and become a "nuisance species," according to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
Along some stretches of the Illinois River, the carp make up 95 percent of the biomass and they are considered poor for eating or as a game fish. Silver carp, which leap into the air when disturbed by passing motorboats, have injured boaters.
Two electrical barriers in the canal were erected in 2002 and 2006 to shock any fish, particularly carp, that try to swim up the canal to Lake Michigan. The newer barrier is being switched off to perform maintenance on it.
To give themselves a window to complete the task and keep any carp at bay below the barrier, authorities dumped into the canal more than 2,000 pounds (900 kg) of the natural poison rotenone that prevents fish gills from absorbing oxygen.
The toxin, which is used as a broad-spectrum insecticide and pesticide, kills fish and freshwater snails but does not harm other animals. It dissipates within two days, though authorities planned to introduce a neutralizing agent to speed up the process.
ON LOOKOUT
Notre Dame University scientists recently detected carp DNA on the lake side, which could indicate the carp have already passed the barriers and the effort is too little, and, or too late.
Fishermen have been asked to look out for the invasive carp on the lake side of the barrier.
The DNA discovery led some environmentalists to call for river locks to be shut and ask for permanent separation of the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River watershed.
Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm has indicated her state might demand locks be closed permanently.
But the shipping industry argued that would be a costly mistake.
The American Waterways Operators, which represents barge operators and other water shippers, said 15 million tons a year of commodities including oil, cement, iron, coal and road salt would be disrupted or halted.
(Editing by Sandra Maler)
Decision soon on closing lock to stop Asian carp
Michael Tarm, Associated Press Yahoo News 5 Dec 09;
CHICAGO – A decision could come within days on whether to temporarily close a vital Chicago area shipping waterway in an increasingly desperate bid to stop the invasive Asian carp from reaching the Great Lakes, an Obama administration adviser said Friday.
Cameron Davis, the Great Lakes adviser to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, told The Associated Press that discussions were under way about shutting the O'Brien Lock while crews poison part of the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal to kill the giant carp.
"It's going to happen soon," he said about a decision. "We're talking, best guess, within the next two or three days."
Before making a final decision, officials want to finish searching for Asian carp and conduct other tests along the canal to pinpoint where they might be located, Davis said. If officials do choose to close the lock, it would shut down immediately.
Authorities are trying to make sure the voracious carp don't reach Lake Michigan where they could starve out smaller, less aggressive competitors and cause the collapse of the $7 billion-a-year Great Lakes sport and commercial fishing industry.
But closing the lock could also disrupt the movement of millions of tons of iron ore, coal, grain, salts and other goods.
The American Waterways Operators, a trade group representing the tug and barge industry, said Friday that a safety zone set up by the U.S. Coast Guard to search for Asian carp near the O'Brien Lock already made it impassable for commercial vessels.
"De facto it is closed ... They're playing with words on this," said Lynn Muench, a senior vice president for the group. "Our vessels cannot go through to Lake Michigan. We cannot transit." She expected traffic to be restricted for up to eight days.
The closure of the locks, especially for any longer period of time, could result in sharply higher shipping costs because commodities would have to be sent overland by truck or train.
A sense of urgency among environmentalists rose on Thursday after officials said they found a single Asian carp during a fish-kill operation this week in another part of the canal. It was the closest that an actual fish has been found to Lake Michigan.
Last month, officials said they found DNA evidence that the carp may have breached an electrical barrier on the Chicago Sanitary and Ship Canal that is meant to hold back the fish from the lakes. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and five environmental groups have threatened to sue if the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to force it to temporarily shut three locks near Chicago over fears the carp will creep into the Great Lakes.
The carp — which can grow to 4 feet long and 100 pounds and are known for leaping out of the water when boats are near — were imported by Southern fish farms in the 1970s but escaped into the Mississippi in large numbers during flooding in the 1990s and have been making their way northward ever since.
The Mississippi and the Great Lakes are connected by a complex, 250-mile network of rivers and canals engineered more than a century ago. It runs from Chicago, on the southern edge of Lake Michigan, to a spot on the Mississippi just north of St. Louis.
In the ongoing battle against the Asian carp, environmental officials began dumping poison Wednesday in a nearly six-mile stretch of the canal to kill off any Asian carp while the electrical barrier was turned off for maintenance. Work was expected to finish on Saturday.
___
Associated Press Writer John Flesher in Traverse City, Mich., contributed to this report.
Randall Palmer, PlanetArk 4 Dec 09;
OTTAWA - The widely used weed killer atrazine affects the sexual development of frogs, raising questions about the effects of its use in the environment, the University of Ottawa said on Thursday.
A study by researchers at the university found that at low levels comparable to those measured in the Canadian environment, fewer tadpoles reached the froglet stage and the ratio of females to males increased.
"Atrazine is one of the top-selling herbicides used worldwide and was designed to inhibit weed growth in cornfields," the university said in a statement.
"It is so widely used that it can be detected in many rivers, streams and in some water supplies. This has raised the alarm on the possibility of other serious detrimental environmental effects."
Syngenta AG, a major Swiss manufacturer of atrazine, has long defended its safety. The company has said it is one of the best-studied herbicides available and pointed to previous safety reviews from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and World Health Organization, among others.
The EPA said in October that it was reviewing the health impacts of the herbicide. Some studies have tied it to birth defects, low birth weight and premature babies.
(Editing by Peter Galloway)
At a warehouse near Manila's infamous Smokey Mountain dump, slum-dwellers working for a British-led charity are turning rubbish into fashion items that are proving a hit in top-end London shops.
Jason Gutierrez, in Manila for AFP
The Telegraph 3 Dec 09;
Under a dim fluorescent lamp, amid the constant humming of sewing machines, about 20 women cut pieces of cloth and other materials found amid the garbage to make teddy bears.
Others are busy putting finishing touches to handbags and purses made from discarded toothpaste tubes, while glossy magazines are turned into colourful bracelets.
"This bag costs about 100 pounds sterling or more in London," said Jane Walker, a former publishing executive from Southampton who gave up her lavish lifestyle in 1996 to set up the Philippine Christian Foundation in Manila after seeing the plight of the poor here.
Walker said about 200 bags were currently being shipped to boutiques in London, and the foundation was unable to meet demand.
"I had to turn down three shops in London ordering our products because we keep running out."
Walker said a deal to supply a major luxury chain was also in the works, while negotiations were underway with an American company to produce shoes and slippers using discarded car tyres.
Known in the local press as Manila's "angel of the dumps" for her work among the scavengers of Smokey Mountain, the 45-year-old single mother's tireless efforts have helped entire families out of crushing poverty.
Last year, she was made a Member of the Order of the British Empire by Queen Elizabeth II in honour of her work.
Relying mainly on corporate donations, the non-profit foundation provides livelihood projects, health services and free education to the children of families living on the dump.
Covering a sprawling area in Tondo district near Manila bay and just a few kilometres (miles) from the presidential palace, Smokey Mountain has come to symbolise pervasive poverty in this south-east Asian nation of 92 million people.
An entire colony of squatter families lives off the dump, which got its name from methane gas-induced black smoke billowing from the mound.
While parts of the site have been levelled to make official settlements over the past decade, a large portion remains a permanent open dump for tons of daily refuse from Manila's 12 million inhabitants.
Before Walker set up her foundation, swarms of children and entire families would descend on the rubbish, scavenging for items to sell at junkshops.
The thousands of people living on Smokey Mountain had no other way out, and the few pesos earned from a day's gruelling work was spent on food.
Many still scavenge.
But through Walker's efforts, a school was built, an abandoned warehouse was transformed into a livelihood centre where hot meals were offered and the children were given a semblance of a normal life.
Then, when the global financial crisis hit last year and many donors cut back on corporate social responsibility work, Walker was forced to find creative ways to raise new funding.
She came up with the idea of turning trash into fashion accessories and began getting members of the community, mainly mothers, to start sewing together ring tabs from aluminum cans into tiny purses.
She then expanded the project to include laptop and shoulder bags for women.
Other products soon followed - necklaces and bracelets from colourful magazines, and stuffed toys from readily available material from the dump.
"The magazines are cut into triangular shapes and glued and rolled, keeping the brightly coloured part as the last part to roll so the beads are more interesting," Walker said.
"The beads are then dipped in clear varnish and later assembled into jewellery."
The products were first sold to friends, but then found their way into a specialty store carrying eco-friendly fashion in Manila's upmarket Makati financial district. Soon, there were orders from shops in London.
"The mothers come up with their own designs, they are all very creative," she said.
At any given time, about 40 families are directly employed by the foundation, with each earning at least 3,000 pesos (£39) a month - far more than they could earn from picking trash alone.
"This has helped me a lot because I can work and watch my grandchildren go to school," said Martha Dominguez, 60, as she delicately put together a stuffed toy.
"We lived surrounded by trash all our lives, not knowing that we could have made it into money."
Walker said the project gave the people involved more than just income.
"There is a big social angle to the project. Many mothers consider mastering the techniques in making bags their biggest achievement in life," she said.
Proceeds from the sales are not enough to sustain the foundation's entire operations but they have helped fill a void left by the donor slump.
"We will never be 100 per cent financially sustainable, but if we can aim to be at least 50 per cent self-sufficient, then we can expand the work we are doing," Walker said, adding the long-term goal was for the organisation to have its own boutique in Manila.
Meanwhile, Walker and her staff are busy trying to expand the fashion line.
"We are always taking in stuff from the dumps. Right now, I'm trying to figure out how to use old piano keyboards as a design on a hand bag," she said, briefly pausing before her eyes lit up.
"Ahh, I need to drill holes into them first."
Supermarket responds to environmental concerns about its policy
Martin Hickman, The Independent 3 Dec 09;
Waitrose is to switch its own-brand foods to "sustainable" palm oil in a move intended to help prevent deforestation, climate change and other problems caused by the world's cheapest vegetable oil.
Setting out a radical new timetable on the controversy, the retailer said it would ensure supplies for 1,000 products were certified by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) by 2012. In the meantime, it will buy GreenPalm certificates for production, equivalent to its annual usage.
This turns Waitrose from one of the slowest-moving supermarkets on palm oil into one of the fastest. In a league table published by the wildlife charity WWF on 28 October, the supermarket group came a lowly 18th out of 25 UK retailers and manufacturers.
Another company that scored poorly, Britain's biggest baker, Warburtons, is in talks with the WWF about improving its policy. Palm oil – found in a range of foods and household products, including biscuits, chocolate, soap, and shampoo – is associated with human rights abuses and loss of wildlife, including the endangered orang-utan.
It is also a large cause of deforestation, which generates 20 per cent of global climate change emissions. Since The Independent published an investigation into the problems associated with the use of palm oil earlier this year, Nestlé, Mars, Cadbury and Marks & Spencer have announced overhauls of their sourcing.
Waitrose said one-tenth of its own-label range – 1,000 products – contained between 0.001 per cent and 4 per cent palm oil. Wherever possible, it said it was seeking to eliminate or minimise the ingredient, but added that it "continued to be important to the texture" of cakes, biscuits and pastries.
In a tacit admission that its previous policy had been inadequate, Mark Price, Waitrose's managing director, said: "Our mediocre rating in WWF's Palm Oil Buyers' Scorecard 2009 has toughened our resolve. We want to be part of the solution, not contributing to the environmental problems caused by the growth in palm oil use."
The supermarket chain will start work on reducing the amount of palm oil used in soap and biscuits, which account for 25 per cent of its usage. David Nussbaum, chief executive of WWF-UK, said the grocer was putting its words into practice. "We hope that this will encourage many other household names to take responsibility for their actions," he said.
Environmentalists are divided about the effectiveness of the RSPO; Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace say it is riddled with loopholes. In an interview last month, the Energy minister, Joan Ruddock, said that despite its shortcomings the scheme represented the best chance of saving the rainforests.
Changing their ways? How the stores score
* Sainsbury's has acted quicker than any other major retailer on palm oil, scoring 26 out of 30 in the WWF rankings, followed by Marks & Spencer on 25.5. Asda scored 21 and Tesco 16. Waitrose scored 8.5.
* Fourteen other British firms scored lower than 15, including Co-op (13), Morrisons (9.5), Lidl (8), Boots (6.5) and Aldi (0). ABF, which makes Kingsmill and Allinson bread, also scored 0.
Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 3 Dec 09;
Large dams may cause shifting regional weather extremes.
This finding is causing scientists to wonder if aging dams around the world can withstand the extreme weather events they may inadvertently generate.
It was nearly 75 years ago that scientists first speculated that large dams could vastly transform local climate. Weather results from the interaction of warm and cool air, and dams can hold vast reservoirs of water that can influence the heat and moisture of the air above them. Dams also can radically alter irrigation patterns in the surrounding land, impacting their climate patterns as well.
A number of recent studies and computer models suggest that dams can indeed boost rainfall by increasing atmospheric moisture.
"The findings are still preliminary, but we do see a trend," said researcher Faisal Hossain, a hydrologist at Tennessee Technological University in Cookeville.
Coming back to haunt us?
Large dams apparently triggered more extreme rainfall in southern Africa, India, Central Asia and the western United States in particular when compared to other regions, with rainfall becoming more common and more extreme.
"For instance, what we might have thought of as a 50-year flood - big ones that only come every 50 years or so - might have now become 30- or 40-year floods," Hossain said. "Heavier events are much more common now."
This raises the possibility that large dams might have been designed for much less rainfall than originally expected from past climate, raising concerns about their safety. In the continental United States, when it comes to large dams that each hold back at least roughly 800 million gallons of water (3 million cubic meters), more than 85 percent will be more than 50 years old by 2020, leading scientists to wonder if they can survive the extreme weather they helped generate.
"The idea that large dams built since the '30s and '40s to protect us from floods can come back to haunt us is a very provocative one," Hossain said.
As these dams have aged, they have lost a lot of how much water they can store because a lot of accumulated silt and sediment, meaning flooding or even bursting can become more of a concern.
"Typically, in 20 or 30 years, even 30 to 40 percent of storage can get lost because of sediment," Hossain said. "And if we want to handle rainfall that might become more extreme, we really need more storage."
Global concern
The fact that at least 45,000 large dams have been built worldwide since the 1930s makes questions about their safety a global concern. When it comes to potential solutions to such problems, authorities may want to let out water during dry seasons to lower the level of dams to have more storage capacity available during extreme rainfalls.
Hossain did note other factors could be responsible for this trend they have seen. "There is the question of whether or not this is all part of global warming instead of a local effect with dams," he noted. "That of course needs to be looked into more carefully."
Research meteorologist Marshall Shepherd at the University of Georgia in Atlanta, who did not take part in this research, said, "These results are interesting and plausible." He added that it would be interesting to see how big dams need to be in order to affect climate. "In my urban work, I often get asked this same question. How big does the city have to be in order to alter the rainfall?" he noted.
The scientists detailed their findings in the Dec. 1 issue of the American Geophysical Union journal Eos.
Australian Institute of Marine Science
Science Alert 4 Dec 09;
Massive corals are being used by marine scientists to unravel the effects of climate and environmental change on coral reefs in Australia’s remote north-west. Often referred to as the Methuselah’s of coral reefs because they can be older than 500 years, these massive corals grow in a series of annual bands that store a wealth of information about the environment in which they grow. It is the old skeletal material contained deep within the coral that allows researchers to compare present day growth rates with those pre-dating the industrial revolution and hence examine the consequences of climate change on coral reefs.
The team of scientists, led by Eric Matson and Dr Tim Cooper from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), has just returned from Rowley Shoals, approx 300 km west of Broome, with long coral cores up to 350 years old, about the time when Dutch sailors in square-riggers were exploring the west coast of Australia.
Coral reefs are facing a serious crisis in the face of a changing climate. "Since the industrial revolution, levels of atmospheric carbon dioxide have risen from approximately 280 ppm to current day levels of 390 ppm" said Dr Cooper. "As a consequence, seawater temperatures have risen over the past 200 years and evidence is emerging that part of this extra CO2 may be absorbed by the oceans making them more acidic" he said. "These processes have already had a measurable effect on coral growth rates in some parts of the world, including the Great Barrier Reef, but virtually nothing is known about the climate history or growth rates of corals on reefs along Australia’s west coast" said Dr Cooper.
Specialised commercial diving equipment was needed to carefully remove a biopsy of coral skeleton with only minimal stress to the massive corals. "The only living part of massive corals is a thin layer of tissue 0.5-1 cm thick that deposits the coral skeleton beneath it as the coral grows upwards, which look similar to the layers in an onion" said Mr Matson. "We use a hydraulic drill with a diamond-studded bit to remove the core and the hole is plugged when we’re finished to promote a quick recovery from the procedure," he said. "The coral will continue growing and show no effects that a sample of skeleton has been removed from it" said Mr Matson.
Dr Janice Lough, who leads the Responding to Climate Change Research Team at AIMS was excited by the team’s haul of coral cores. "AIMS’ scientists have already detected recent declines in coral growth rates on the Great Barrier Reef but this material from Western Australia will help us determine if western coral reefs are suffering the same fate as their eastern counterparts," she said.
The trip to the Rowley Shoals is part of the first significant long-core sampling effort by the team in WA and follows a trip to Ningaloo Reef last year. The objective of the study is to collect information on the effects of climate change on coral growth rates and reconstruct past marine climate and environmental histories from reefs in the Indian Ocean spanning Indonesia to those adjacent to Perth and compare these with the extensive coral skeletal records for the Great Barrier Reef maintained at the AIMS Townsville facility.
The AIMS WA study will increase scientific knowledge of the region, provide clues to the impacts of climate change on marine communities and assist the development of future sustainability strategies.
Thaindian News 3 Dec 09;
Sunderbans (West Bengal), Dec.3 (ANI): Rising sea levels has forced thousands of families to leave their ancestral houses and lands in the Sunderbans area of West Bengal, and many more are living in the constant fear of losing theirs.
At least 10,000 inhabitants have been turned into environmental refugees and another 70,000 are in the danger of meeting the same fate over the next thirty years, environmental experts say.
After a 10-year study in and around the Bay of Bengal, oceanographers say the sea is rising at 3.14 millimetres a year in the Sunderbans against a global average of 2 mm, threatening low-lying areas of India and Bangladesh.
Sugato Hazra, an oceanographer at Jadavpur University in Kolkata, the capital of West Bengal, who led the team that conducted the study, said an increase in the sea temperature was compounding the problems for the islanders.
“In Sunderbans the impact (of global warming) is very high because not only the coastline is retreating and we are losing islands and losing land at the rate of say, in 30 years we have lost 90 square kilometre area including two islands. A lot of people have become environmental migrants but also high intensity cyclones are increasing in Bay of Bengal because of the rise in the sea surface temperature,” said Hazra, director of the School of Oceanography at the Jadavpur University.
According to a United Nations climate panel report, human activity was causing global warming and it predicted more droughts, heat-waves and rising seas.
But for the Sunderbans, made up of hundreds of islands, criss-crossed by narrow water channels and home to many of India’s dwindling tiger populations, the threat is more immediate.
At least 15 islands have been affected but erosion is widespread in other islands as well, Hazra said.
A combination of drought and then heavy rainfall this year plus increasing soil salinity have made it impossible to grow enough food to survive on traditional agriculture alone.
At least four million people live in the islands spread across 9,630 sq. km (3,700 sq. miles) of mangrove swamps. (ANI)
Read more: http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/india-news/rising-sea-level-threatens-sunderbans-inhabitants_100283875.html#ixzz0YfnKi1K5
University of Sydney, Science Alert 4 Dec 09;
Dr William Figueira from the School of Biological Sciences has helped to produce the first Australian benchmark of climate-change impacts on marine ecosystems.
The Marine Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation Report Card for Australia, launched on Friday 27 November at the Queensland Maritime Museum, provides a biennial guide for scientists, government and the community on observed and projected impacts of climate change on marine ecosystems.
Dr Figueira is one of over 70 scientists from more than 35 universities and organisations invited to contribute to the Report Card, which summarises knowledge on climate change impacts over the past decade, predicts what will happen by the end of this century, and offers adaptation responses that can also inform policy makers. This information is compiled on numerous categories under the broad topics of marine climate and marine biodiversity.
"The report card represents a major undertaking by scientists which seeks to clarify the effects of climate change to Australia's oceans and provide a road map for future science in this area," Dr Figueira says.
Along with a team of scientists led by Professor David Booth from the University of Technology, Dr Figueira produced an assessment of the likely impact of climate change on Australia's temperate coastal and demersal fish populations. This information came from primary literature and research conducted by members of the team.
"Our findings on the report card show that fish from south-eastern waters are expanding their range southwards into cooler water," says Dr Figueira.
"For example, we are seeing new species arriving from the north into Tasmanian coastal waters. This movement is linked to warming temperatures and a strengthening of the East Australian Current."
According to Dr Figueira's team, stressors such as overfishing and habitat disturbance are likely to exacerbate impacts of climate change for temperate fish. Their report recommends reducing overfishing and maintaining, restoring and protecting essential fish habitats such as seagrass beds, salt marshes, coral reefs, mangroves and macrolagal beds.
Key concerns from the Report Card include; waters around Australia becoming warmer and more acidic, increases in strengths of major warm-water currents such as the East Australian Current which is predicted to strengthen 20 per cent by 2100, changes in the productivity of marine ecosystems and shifts in the distribution and abundance of species. The Report Card identifies where change is already occurring, likely trends and confidence levels in those trends depending on the state of knowledge. The Director of the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility (NCCARF), Professor Jean Palutikof, says the Report Card reflects both the increased bank of knowledge about impacts, and the responses of government, industry and the community.
"Australia needs a guide to likely changes in the marine environment and we feel well-positioned now to bring together the science and the latest climate projections to consider options for adaptation," Professor Palutikof says.
Funded by the Australian Climate Change Science Program,the National Climate Change Adaptation Research Facility, and CSIRO's Climate Adaptation Flagship, the project is an early outcome of a broader national response to climate change being conducted through the NCCARF.
Editor's Note: Original news release can be found here.
NIWA www.scoop.co.nz 4 Dec 09;
Preliminary results from their survey of the physical and human effects of the Samoa tsunami have direct relevance for New Zealand say the scientists involved.
A team of NZ scientists say the results of their field work after the Samoa Tsunami are of interest internationally and here in New Zealand.
The team from the National Institute of Water & Atmospheric Research (NIWA) and GNS Science spent nearly two weeks in the field: six days in American Samoa and seven days in Samoa. In Samoa, the NIWA / GNS Science delegation was part of a UNESCO–IOC International Tsunami Survey Team.
This project was unique in that it involved a coordinated team of international scientists who sought to collect evidence across a wide spectrum of the tsunami’s impact on communities, individuals, infrastructure, and the environment.
“We broke new ground for the disaster loss assessment research community. Our results illustrate an effective use of cutting edge field methods,” says NIWA’s Dr Shona van Zijll de Jong.
The aim of the visit was to gather a wide range of information to help Samoa, and other Pacific Islands including New Zealand, become better prepared to cope with future disasters.
Samoa, like New Zealand, is vulnerable to a wide range of natural disasters such as earthquakes and tsunamis, cyclones and floods. Samoa’s recent experience with natural disasters, such as the two closely-spaced cyclones in 1990 and 1991, have assisted in better preparing many local communities to withstand the impact of such natural hazards and to plan for the future.
Preliminary results from their survey of the physical and human effects of the Samoa tsunami have direct relevance for New Zealand say the scientists involved.
Size of tsunami
The Samoa tsunami consisted of two to three significant waves; the second wave was said by witnesses to be larger. The delay between the earthquake and the arrival of the first wave was about 10 minutes in Samoa and 20 minutes in American Samoa.
The maximum height reached by the tsunami on the land was 14 metres above mean sea level in Samoa and 10 metres in American Samoa. The furthest inland the waves reached was over 700 metres from the shore.
“This size of tsunami is also possible for New Zealand, equivalent to about a one-in-500 year event for the most populated parts of New Zealand,” says GNS Science spokesman John Callan.
Building damage
Buildings sustained varying degrees of damage. The importance of reinforcement was very clear – traditional light timber buildings were typically completely destroyed at an inundation depth of 1.5m or higher, whereas adding minimal reinforced-concrete columns reduced the damage levels significantly.
Building damage was correlated with water depth, structural strength, shielding, condition of foundations, quality of building materials used, quality of workmanship, and adherence to the building code.
It was also very clear that plants, trees, and mangroves reduced flow speeds and depths over land – leading to greater chances of human survival and lower levels of building damage.
“The same thing will be true in New Zealand as in Samoa: solidly constructed buildings which are appropriately located will survive much better than flimsy buildings right on the beach,” says Dr Stefan Reese of NIWA.
“It’s also clear that practices such as flattening sand dunes or removing beach vegetation would increase the potential for tsunami damage.”
Community response
In Samoa, it was clear that community-based tsunami education activities had saved lives in some areas, while in others there was still some confusion about how to respond.
The impact of the tsunami may have permanently changed residential patterns in Samoa. “Many people are scared of the sea, and people are staying away from devastated villages” says Dr van Zijll de Jong.
“The sea has been a source of livelihood and identity for generations. The violence of the tsunami really shook them. Their sense of personal security and economic well-being is deeply shaken.”
The Government of Samoa is very supportive of communities that want to resettle further inland. However, the families that have moved inland are very aware of the challenges facing them in re establishing their communities, particularly with it now being cyclone season. There is a very strong social fabric in Samoa, through families, villages, religious organisations and right up into government at a local and national level. It is this strong social fabric that strengthens the local, cultural and economic features of the Samoan coastal communities and holds the basis for the resilience that allows people to more quickly recover from disasters says van Zijll de Jong.
The team also found that national and international response to the disaster had been extremely good. The interface between the Government of Samoa and in-coming international, regional and local humanitarian groups who had the capacity to respond to the disaster was impressive.
The team from NIWA and GNS Science was part of a UNESCO-IOC International Tsunami Survey team from New Zealand, Australia, Fiji, French-Polynesia, Italy, Japan, and the USA, in collaboration with teams from several ministries within the Government of Samoa.
The research report and methods are of interest to the local and international disaster loss assessment research community: New Zealand Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management; the World Bank; United Nations Development Programme and Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC) of UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization)
Samoan Tsunami wave was 46 feet high
Yahoo News 4 Dec 09;
WELLINGTON, New Zealand – The tsunami that killed more than 200 people in the Samoan islands and Tonga earlier this year towered up to 46 feet (14 meters) high — more then twice as tall as most of the buildings it slammed into, scientists said Friday.
New Zealand scientists studying the size, power and reach of the tsunami as part of efforts to guard against future disasters said they found up to three destructive waves were caused by the magnitude 8.0 undersea earthquake in September.
The massive waves that struck Samoa, American Samoa and Tonga totally destroyed traditional wooden buildings, many of them singly story, along the coast while reinforced concrete buildings sustained only minor damage, said Stefan Reese, a risk engineer with New Zealand's National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research.
The waves were up to 46 feet (14 meters) high, Reese told The Associated Press. The scientists measured watermarks on buildings and trees to help confirm the height of the waves.
"In some areas there was virtually nothing left" after the waves reached up to 765 yards (700 meters) inland, Reese said.
Wide reefs saved some villages by helping to reduce the waves' height to about 10 feet (3 meters), Reese said.
The Samoan quake created a sea floor fault up to 190 miles (300 kilometers) long and 23 feet (7 meters) deep.
The Sept. 29 tsunami killed 34 people in American Samoa, 183 in Samoa and nine in Tonga.
Radical plan to cut CO2 argues that paying for family planning is developing world is the best bet
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 3 Dec 09;
Consumers in the developed world are to be offered a radical method of offsetting their carbon emissions in an ambitious attempt to tackle climate change - by paying for contraception measures in poorer countries to curb the rapidly growing global population.
The scheme - set up by an organisation backed by Sir David Attenborough, the former diplomat Sir Crispin Tickell and green figureheads such as Jonathon Porritt and James Lovelock - argues that family planning is the most effective way to reduce the likelihood of catastrophic global warming.
Optimum Population Trust (Opt) stresses that birth control will be provided only to those who have no access to it, and only unwanted births would be avoided. Opt estimates that 80 million pregnancies each year are unwanted.
The cost-benefit analysis commissioned by the trust claims that family planning is the cheapest way to reduce carbon emissions. Every £4 spent on contraception, it says, saves one tonne of CO2 being added to global warming, but a similar reduction in emissions would require an £8 investment in tree planting, £15 in wind power, £31 in solar energy and £56 in hybrid vehicle technology.
Calculations based on the trust's figures show the 10 tonnes emitted by a return flight from London to Sydney would be offset by enabling the avoidance of one unwanted birth in a country such as Kenya. Such action not only cuts emissions but reduces the number of people who will fall victim to climate change, it says.
"The scheme, called PopOffsets, understands the connection [between population increase and climate change]," says the trust director Roger Martin. "It offers a practical and sensible response. For the first time ever individuals, companies and organisations will have the opportunity to offset their carbon voluntarily by supporting projects to provide family planning services where there is currently unmet demand."
In papers released with the launch of the offset scheme, the trust claims that reducing CO 2 by 34 gigatonnes would cost about $220bn with family planning, but more than $1tn with low carbon technologies. The 34 gigatonnes is roughly what the world emits in a year, and would be achieved by cutting the projected global population in 2050 by 500 million.
The world's population, presently 6.8 billion, is increasing by nearly 84 million a year. The growth is equivalent to a new country the size of Germany each year, or a city the size of Birmingham every week. It is expected by the UN to peak at about 9 billion people in 2050. By this time, UN scientists say global carbon emissions must have reduced by at least 80% to avoid dangerous rises in temperature, meaning the carbon footprint of each citizen in 2050 will have to be very low.
"The current level of human population growth is unsustainable and places acute pressure on global resources. Human activity is exacerbating global warming, and higher population levels inevitably mean higher emissions and more climate change victims," said Martin.
The giant carbon footprints of developed countries mean prevented births will save far more carbon than those in developing nations.
However, some development groups opposed the plan. "We are keen that any money raised [from offsets] help the poorest who are most vulnerable to climate change. [But] it would be misleading if it was spent in this way. It should go to [immediate] things like disaster risk reduction, food security and water," said Paul Cook, advocacy director of Tearfund, a faith-based development group.
Population control is highly contentious in rich and poor countries alike Some, such as Jonathon Porritt, the former Sustainable Development Commission chair, have said promotion of reproductive health is one of the most progressive forms of intervention. "Had there been no 'one child family' policy in China there would now have been 400 million additional Chinese citizens," he has said.
But other thinkers, such as the Guardian columnist George Monbiot, say global population increase pales into insignificance when compared with the effect of increased consumption and economic growth.
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