Close Encounter with An Otter
from My Itchy Fingers
Fiddler crabs and madcap mudskippers at Chek Jawa
from Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs
Mudskippers a-leaping at Chek Jawa!
from wild shores of singapore and Colourful Chek Jawa
A Lovely Shrike
from Life's Indulgences
Fluffy
from The annotated budak
White-throated Kingfisher dive bathing
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Real Wild Life within Singapore Zoo
from Manta Blog
Sarah Stewart Google News 27 Dec 09;
KUALA LUMPUR — A massive tract of Borneo jungle, an area the size of Singapore, will soon disappear under the waters of the Bakun dam, a multi-billion-dollar project nearing completion after years of controversy.
The dam, which forced thousands of indigenous people off their ancestral lands, has struggled through setbacks and delays since its approval in 1993, as well as fierce criticism over its environmental impact.
But even before the turbines of the 2.2 billion dollar hydro-electric facility begin to turn, activists have sounded the alarm over plans for 12 more mega-dams on Malaysia's half of Borneo which it shares with Indonesia.
Balan Balang, an elderly chief of the Penan tribe, sighs as he talks of the Murum dam, the first of the dozen dams envisioned for Sarawak state, which will drown the hunting grounds and burial sites of his people.
"This government is very bad. In the old days people would fight us using machetes or spears. But now they just sign away our lives on pieces of paper," said the headman, who sports the elongated earlobes distinctive to his tribe.
"My people never want to leave our place. We want to die in our place," he said, after a long journey from his rainforest home to seek help from indigenous lawyers in Miri, a coastal town in Malaysian Borneo.
Human rights activists are intent on avoiding a repeat of the botched relocation of some 15,000 indigenous people in the Bakun area who they say have made an unhappy transition to life in resettlement areas.
Balan Balang's village is outside the Murum resettlement area, but some 1,500 people -- mostly Penan but including another of Sarawak's tribes, the Kenyah -- will be forced to abandon their homes for an uncertain future.
The chief, who is not sure of his birth date but reckons he is "between 70 and 80 years old", has seen much hardship during his long life.
As a young boy he watched fearfully as Japanese warplanes flew overhead during the World War II occupation, while rampant logging later degraded the jungles where his people forage for food, wild game, and materials for shelter.
"Now the rivers are all polluted. The wildlife has slowly disappeared -- wild boar, deer, gibbons. Even the broad-leafed plants that we use for roofing, and rattan which we use to make mats and baskets, is gone," he said.
But what brought him to Miri are new threats to his way of life, the dam project as well as plantation firms who want to clear what is left of the jungle and grow palm oil and foreign timber species.
"Our people oppose our area being included for the dam because that's where we come from, our ancestors lived and died and were buried there. For us we have no other place, that is our only place," he said.
The Penan of Sarawak, famed for their ability to live off the jungle armed only with blowpipes and machetes, number around 10,000 including 300-400 thought to be among the last nomadic hunter-gatherers on earth.
Balan Balang is just one of many tribal leaders who have sought the help of Harrison Ngau, a former member of parliament who belongs to a network of indigenous lawyers fighting for tribal rights in Sarawak.
"All these dams, why do we need so many dams here? It's just an ATM card for the political leaders to make money," said Ngau, who has been jailed in the past for his stand against mega-dams and logging of Penan territory.
"There will be further loss of their heritage, their land, whatever forest they have left," he says from his humble offices.
Ngau said a notice extinguishing the rights of the Murum people over the affected land has already been issued, and construction has begun, but so far there is no formal relocation proposal or offer of compensation.
He and his colleagues are now campaigning to halt the next of the dozen projects, the Baram Dam, but he says it is difficult to prove ancestral ownership as the oral history of his people is not admissible in court.
"It is quite sick to know that your own fellow man, your fellow Malaysian, doesn't understand the customs and cultures and history of our people," he said. "That is the tragedy here."
"Even the British colonial rulers were very respectful of communal rights, they even encouraged the native communities to record their traditional boundaries. They did much better than our present Malaysian leaders."
Ngau said that the Penan, forced to shift from the Bakun area more than a decade ago, are still struggling to survive with insufficient farming land, schools, clinics, water supply and transport.
"You haven't solved that problem -- you want to start a new problem?" he asked.
Transparency International has labelled Bakun a "monument of corruption" and highlighted debate over whether there will be enough customers in 2011 when it becomes fully operational with a 2,400MW capacity.
All the valuable timber has already been removed from its catchment area, and the dam will begin filling up in January, taking eight months to submerge all 70,000 hectares (270 square miles).
Details of the 12 mega-dams envisaged by state body Sarawak Energy Berhad are scant -- a map of proposed locations of dams purportedly to be built by 2020 was published on the Internet and seized on by campaigners.
Sarawak's Rural Development Minister James Masing said that all 12 dams may not make it off the drawing board.
"That is a masterplan that we have the potential to build, they may not be built for 50 years," he told AFP earlier this year.
Masing, who is helping formulate the Murum relocation, said it is likely to happen in three to four years' time but that first there should be a careful study of the people involved.
"There are some areas we have to refine. The settlement project must be done properly. What was done in Bakun may not be one of the best, we may have been ignorant of some of the issues," he told AFP earlier this year.
"We want to change them for the better," said Masing, an anthropologist by training. "They have good reason not to trust us, but we are not there to destroy them, we are trying our best to assist them."
I've formulated a few theories why people prefer birds in cages instead of flying free
Chua Mui Hoong, Straits Times 27 Dec 09;
I have a theory about men who keep birds in cages and fishes in tanks.
They probably also like their women in their place: decorative, content to sit in a corner until called upon to perform.
This breed of men probably likes things confined, boxed in. They are prepared to spend minimal effort to upkeep their pets (fish and birds being easy to care for), yet expect them to be healthy, breed and perform tricks on demand.
Ever wondered why most people who keep pet birds in cages are men?
If you don't believe me, take the bus or drive out to Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4. Near the wet market is a large grass field with dozens of poles on which men string up their bird cages. There's a big singing competition on this morning. Yes, today, Dec 27.
Men from all over Singapore will congregate there for a merobok singing competition. Even though the name sounds crackly, merobok are in fact zebra doves.
The bird field will resonate with their cooing and trilling. Judges will walk up and down the rows awarding points.
Merobok are classified by the tone of their calls, with Category A for birds with lowest-toned calls and C or D for higher tones.
The birds that call and sing the loudest, and most melodiously, and have the nicest display, will be champions.
This is probably more information than you really need on merobok. I learnt all these during a recent jaunt to the bird zone, when I took my mum to the wet market and we walked past the area.
A friendly man displaying several birds there told us a merobok costs anything from tens of dollars, to hundreds to tens of thousands.
Champion singers can fetch in excess of $100,000, a figure which stunned my frugal mother so much, she repeated it throughout the rest of the day. 'Over $100,000 for a bird. You can buy a flat for that price!'
Pet birds make for serious business in Singapore.
On several recent trips to bird singing corners, I conducted my usual research on such topics: I talked to people in the know, read Wikipedia, greased my superficial knowledge with my own views on human nature and came up with a list of reasons why men keep birds in cages.
Why was it mainly men who kept birds as pets, anyway? When I asked one man this in a bird corner in a nearby estate, he said defensively: 'Got women. Once, I saw a woman in a Mercedes take her bird here.'
It was such a rare occurrence, he remembered it.
So what is it with men and birds in cages? First, the obvious reasons. It's just a hobby.
And as hobbies go, pet birds are easy and harmless. They need feeding and a change of water once a day. If you're bored, you can whistle and if you're lucky, the birdie responds.
Like fish in tanks, birds require little emotional investment and minimal physical upkeep, but are still responsive. From an investment-yield point of view, they make a better choice than a human female who needs a lot of emotional and financial maintenance, and doesn't always respond with a cheerful chirp when you want her to.
The pop psychologist in me thus came up with my first thesis: Birds in cages provide distraction and solace for a certain type of men, who may have problems with real-life relationships.
The stereotypical view of bird-keepers is that of a lonely elderly man with no family, who has at least a bird to keep him company.
In this view, keeping birds is a way of sublimating desire for female company.
I can hear the angry howls from the thousands of men who are perfectly well-adjusted adults, whose dozens of birds at home co-exist happily with their long-suffering wives and children.
Maybe they fall into the second category: For some men, keeping birds is another way to show off their prowess over others.
You can spot the men with champion singers by the smugness on their faces at competitions. At a recent bird-display evening, I made a beeline for one man sitting among a dozen and chatted him up about his birds. He had this air of knowingness. Of course, he turned out to be the owner of the noisiest bird that evening.
Evolutionary biology tells us hierarchy is latent in any homo-sapien male social grouping. In the pet bird community, status and hierarchy are accorded to men who own or have trained or bred the best singing birds, who more often than not are housed in expensive cages.
Details such as ornate carvings on hardwood cages and the use of exquisite porcelain water and feeding bowls are the equivalent of a man decking out his trophy wife in expensive designer jewellery: to showcase his wealth, status and connoisseurship.
But wait, you say. Some people keep pet birds just for fun. They don't have problems relating to human beings, and are not interested in birds as status symbols.
Maybe I'm jaundiced. Bird owners will say they take good care of their pets.
Some may say their birds were bred in captivity and would not survive in the wild. Canaries, for example, have been bred as pets for centuries and are no longer fit to live in the wild.
Others may say their birds have a better life in sheltered cages than in the wild where they face real danger to life and limb. Some wild birds may be badly injured, needing human rehabilitation.
Which leads me to thesis 3: that some people keep birds to satisfy their nurturing instinct.
Humans have a long history of domesticating animals for pets as companionship, or as work animals on farms.
Ethicists write reams about the rights and wrongs of such practices. Kind humans try to make sure the animals under their charge are comfortable and cared for.
I accept that some people take good care of pet birds.
For me, I love watching birds in the wild. Yesterday, I saw a black-capped kingfisher splash in the canal. Minutes before I started this piece, an eagle perched on a tree branch in front of my window, giving me a full frontal view as it scratched itself.
Some like birds in cages. I like to see mine in the wild, flying free, at ease with the dangers and joys of an unfettered life.
Trial didn't go well; NParks says daylight needed for pruning & steps taken to ease traffic jams
Jamie Ee Wen Wei, Straits Times 27 Dec 09;
When civil servant Fong Ying Yi sees workmen pruning trees along the roads in the day, she often wonders why it cannot be done at night instead.
'It can be quite inconvenient because all the cars will start to slow down to get out of the lane. It's only when you drive closer that you realise there's tree pruning going on,' said the 25-year-old, who has been driving for about five years.
Tree pruning has been a sore point among motorists, several of whom have voiced their frustrations in the press recently.
They want it to be done at night to reduce traffic jams along expressways and major roads.
The discussion was sparked by a column written by former Straits Times editor Leslie Fong, who raised the idea of night pruning after being caught in slow traffic along the Pan-Island Expressway as a result of some plant pruning.
The National Parks Board (NParks), which takes care of most of the trees along expressways and major roads, said it had in fact considered night pruning.
Eight months ago, it tested the idea along Orchard Road but the trial did not go well.
Mr Simon Longman, NParks' director of streetscape, said workers found it difficult to distinguish dead or diseased branches in the inner crown of trees even though strong lighting was used during the night operation.
The glare and shadows cast by the lighting added to the difficulty of cutting the correct branch.
As a result, the pruning operation had to be repeated in the day to ensure that all dead and diseased branches were removed.
Then, there was also the issue of noise generated by chainsaws which would exceed the permitted noise level for residential areas at night.
Contractors are given small windows by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) - usually two to three hours daily - along busy roads like the Central Expressway, Ayer Rajah Expressway and Orchard Road to prune trees.
'They usually don't block the roads for long,' said Mr Longman.
Each tree requires at least 30 minutes to prune.
Trees along expressways and heritage roads - where mature trees and greenery are preserved and protected - are inspected at least once every 12 months. For trees along major roads or in parkland, it is at least once every 18 months.
The NParks has 11 contractors - each with four to five teams of between three and six men - that help it maintain trees and plants islandwide. Their task is to spot and remove branches likely to snap or are diseased.
Mr Longman said the board's contractors avoid peak hours on weekday mornings and evenings.
In the Orchard Road belt, for instance, pruning is done after 9.30am and must be completed before the lunch hour.
Each year, the board also reviews the time windows with the LTA to ensure that traffic congestion caused by pruning operations is minimised.
Contractors are also instructed to stop pruning when they see traffic building up along the roads.
Pruning operations are typically contained within a single lane, with a portion of it closed so the removed branches can be dropped safely. Vehicles can still move along the other lanes, Mr Longman said.
He added that the board is constantly improving its operational practices, such as using better technology, and training and certifying its workers to shorten the pruning time, thus minimising traffic congestion.
Through its tree inspection regime, the board has sustained the annual rate of fallen trees and tree branches at a low level for the last five years - 62 per cent below the levels in year 2000.
'Pruning operations may slow down traffic but there are tremendous benefits. Snap branches are reduced and as a result, serious accidents are avoided,' said Mr Longman.
At least some road users agree.
Medical officer Charmaine Tang, 25, said: 'It's important that the works go on for the sake of beautifying Singapore's roads and for safety too. Can you imagine if a branch falls on my car in the middle of the expressway?'
Chan Li Leen, The Star 27 Dec 09;
GOPENG: Cloned durians like D24 may be all the rage nowadays, but for the real aficionado, the jungle variety from the hills here still reigns supreme.
They are collected daily by orang asli in the jungles of Ulu Geroh and nearby Ulu Kampar and sold to middlemen, who then distribute them as far away as Kuala Lumpur and Selangor.
Middleman Tee Chee Mong, 56, said jungle durians taste and smell better than cloned ones.
“They are also much cheaper than your D24, Raja Kunyit or whatever fanciful name you call those cloned durians.
“Jungle durians are better because they come from trees matured from seeds and not through the grafting process,” he said as he waited at the Ulu Geroh foothill, about 12km from the town centre, for orang asli to come with their harvests.
He added that orang asli used only natural fertilisers and did not use pesticides on their durian trees.
Yan Barus, who supplies durians to Tee, said he could earn between RM1 and RM5 for each fruit depending on the size.
“I collect about 80 to 100 fruits at my grandfather’s orchard on Ulu Kampar Hill each morning. I can earn an average of RM80 a day.
“I also help the middlemen transport fruits that are harvested by others for 20 sen each,” said the 24-year-old, whose typical working day starts at 8am.
Yan, who has been harvesting durians since he was 10, said his job had become easier since he got himself a motorcycle.
“I used to make my way up and down the hill on foot with a basket of durians on my back,” he said.
Jungle durians from these hills come into season twice yearly – in the middle and at end of the year – and are sold at an average of RM10 per kilo in big towns and cities.
Bernama 25 Dec 09;
NIBONG TEBAL, Dec 25 (Bernama) -- Some five million mangrove trees were planted in coastal areas throughout the country since 2005 in the aftermath of the Dec 26 2004 tsunami tragedy which claimed the lives of 68 Malaysians.
Penang forestry director Mohd Puat Dahalan said the trees would serve as a "protective wall" in the event a tsunami were to strike again.
"Besides this, the mangrove trees will also help in reducing erosion of the coastline," he told reporters after officiating a mangrove planting ceremony in remembering the tragedy, here on Saturday.
He added that contractors tasked with the job of planting mangrove trees were being closely monitored to ensure the trees planted di dnot wilt.
Meanwhile, Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) member, Mohideen Abdul Kader suggested that the contracts to plant the trees be farmed out to the local population especially fishermen so as to help raise their income.
In Kuala Muda, Kedah, Yusoof Awang, the chairman of the Permatang Katong Tsunami Resettlement Scheme, called on the Kedah government to uphold its election promise not to charge the 126 families resettled at the scheme rent of RM50 a month.
He said PAS had promised them that they could stay at the houses for free if it were to come into power in the state which it did following the 2008 general election.
Eleven people were killed in the fishing settlement while 126 families were made homeless in the tsunami disaster on Dec 26, 2004.
-- BERNAMA
Mangrove trees slowly taking root in Penang via replanting programme
Winnie Yeoh, The Star 27 Dec 09;
GEORGE TOWN: The Forestry Department and several environmental NGOs have planted more than five million mangrove saplings nationwide over the last five years and they are not slowing down.
Penang Forestry Department director Mohd Puat Dahalan said since 2007, 88,000 mangrove saplings have been planted on 22ha of land with a survival rate of more than 70%.
“We are working closely with NGOs like Sahabat Alam Malaysia (SAM) and the Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (Pifwa) in the planting effort which covers locations from Perlis to Johor and Sabah and Sarawak.
“We’ll monitor the saplings to make sure our efforts are not wasted,” he said during the fifth mangrove replanting programme in commemoration of the tsunami at Kuala Sungai Haji Ibrahim in Sungai Acheh, Nibong Tebal, yesterday.
More than 50 fishermen and their children took part, digging up the mud to plant 600 mangrove saplings at the site which was not spared the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.
SAM council member Mohideen Abdul Kader said cooperation from the community was vital in ensuring the success of the planting effort as they were able to monitor the situation closely.
“Volunteers are also simultaneously planting 3,500 of these plants in seven other locations in Langkawi, Kerpan, Merbok, Tanjung Dawai in Kedah, Pontian in Johor, Kuala Kurau and Segari in Perak,” he said.
Pifwa chairman Ilias Shafie said mangrove trees were often sacrificed for modern development.
He said mangrove trees were instrumental in blocking the effects of the 2004 tsunami.
Agnes S. Jayakarna, Jakarta Post 26 Dec 09;
The Surabaya municipal administration will work with a number of institutions to develop a mangrove forest along the city's eastern coastal area, citing the impacts of global warming.
Surabaya Development Planning Agency head Tri Risma Harini said recently the administration had proposed Rp 3 billion for the project from the 2010 municipal budget.
"We plan to allocate money to fund the development of a Mangrove Information Center, or MIC, which is expected to be completed in 2010," she said.
She added the administration was working on the plan with cigarette producer PT H.M. Sampoerna and was now finishing up the project's detailed engineering design.
Risma also said the city had allocated 2,551 hectares for the mangrove forest conservation project. The site straddles the districts of Rungkut, Sukolilo and Gununganyar.
Fifty-one hectares will be used for the conservation center, Risma went on, with 200 hectares as a supporting area and the rest to be developed as a cultivation area.
She added the cultivation area would feature ecotourism facilities, fish ponds and an ecofriendly camping ground.
All facilities within this area will be built in an environmentally friendly manner, she said.
Under a 2007 municipal bylaw on zoning, the Surabaya administration has redesigned much of the city's eastern area as a conservation zone. Previously, most of these areas were used for commercial and residential development.
Risma said the mangrove forest development project was aimed at protecting the city's coastal area from erosion and to support the conservation of the habitats of endemic species of birds, mammals, fish and insects.
The Nature Conservation and Education Foundation (YPKA) has repeatedly called on the municipal administration to urgently develop the city's eastern coastal area as a conservation area, citing the continued existence of the 16 mangrove, 137 bird, seven mammal, 18 fish, 10 amphibian, seven crustacean and 53 insect species living there.
YPKA researcher Ahmad Suwandi said the area played a key role as a transit point for migratory birds flying from Australia and New Zealand to Siberia.
December and February marks the high point of the birds' migratory stopover in Surabaya.
Risma said the municipal administration would seek interested third parties to help in the development of the eastern coastal area as a conservation site.
"We need others to join with us to make the project a success," she said.
"We are also encouraging local residents to support the program in order to create a better environment for all."
In the first phase of educating the public on the need to conserve the area, the Surabaya administration has invited residents of Rungkut, Gununganyar and Sukolilo to get involved in mangrove conservation in their areas.
Residents are also encouraged to protect and plant mangrove trees.
Keith Bradsher, The New York Times 25 Dec 09;
GUYUN VILLAGE, China — Some of the greenest technologies of the age, from electric cars to efficient light bulbs to very large wind turbines, are made possible by an unusual group of elements called rare earths. The world’s dependence on these substances is rising fast.
Just one problem: These elements come almost entirely from China, from some of the most environmentally damaging mines in the country, in an industry dominated by criminal gangs.
Western capitals have suddenly grown worried over China’s near monopoly, which gives it a potential stranglehold on technologies of the future.
In Washington, Congress is fretting about the United States military’s dependence on Chinese rare earths, and has just ordered a study of potential alternatives.
Here in Guyun Village, a small community in southeastern China fringed by lush bamboo groves and banana trees, the environmental damage can be seen in the red-brown scars of barren clay that run down narrow valleys and the dead lands below, where emerald rice fields once grew.
Miners scrape off the topsoil and shovel golden-flecked clay into dirt pits, using acids to extract the rare earths. The acids ultimately wash into streams and rivers, destroying rice paddies and fish farms and tainting water supplies.
On a recent rainy afternoon, Zeng Guohui, a 41-year-old laborer, walked to an abandoned mine where he used to shovel ore, and pointed out still-barren expanses of dirt and mud. The mine exhausted the local deposit of heavy rare earths in three years, but a decade after the mine closed, no one has tried to revive the downstream rice fields.
Small mines producing heavy rare earths like dysprosium and terbium still operate on nearby hills. “There are constant protests because it damages the farmland — people are always demanding compensation,” Mr. Zeng said.
“In many places, the mining is abused,” said Wang Caifeng, the top rare-earths industry regulator at the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology in China.
“This has caused great harm to the ecology and environment.”
There are 17 rare-earth elements — some of which, despite the name, are not particularly rare — but two heavy rare earths, dysprosium and terbium, are in especially short supply, mainly because they have emerged as the miracle ingredients of green energy products. Tiny quantities of dysprosium can make magnets in electric motors lighter by 90 percent, while terbium can help cut the electricity usage of lights by 80 percent. Dysprosium prices have climbed nearly sevenfold since 2003, to $53 a pound. Terbium prices quadrupled from 2003 to 2008, peaking at $407 a pound, before slumping in the global economic crisis to $205 a pound.
China mines more than 99 percent of the world’s dysprosium and terbium. Most of China’s production comes from about 200 mines here in northern Guangdong and in neighboring Jiangxi Province.
China is also the world’s dominant producer of lighter rare earth elements, valuable to a wide range of industries. But these are in less short supply, and the mining is more regulated.
Half the heavy rare earth mines have licenses and the other half are illegal, industry executives said. But even the legal mines, like the one where Mr. Zeng worked, often pose environmental hazards.
A close-knit group of mainland Chinese gangs with a capacity for murder dominates much of the mining and has ties to local officials, said Stephen G. Vickers, the former head of criminal intelligence for the Hong Kong police who is now the chief executive of International Risk, a global security company.
Mr. Zeng defended the industry, saying that he had cousins who owned rare-earth mines and were legitimate businessmen who paid compensation to farmers.
The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued a draft plan last April to halt all exports of heavy rare earths, partly on environmental grounds and partly to force other countries to buy manufactured products from China. When the plan was reported on Sept. 1, Western governments and companies strongly objected and Ms. Wang announced on Sept. 3 that China would not halt exports and would revise its overall plan. But the ministry subsequently cut the annual export quota for all rare earths by 12 percent, the fourth steep cut in as many years.
Congress responded to the Chinese moves by ordering the Defense Department to conduct a comprehensive review, by April 1, of the American military’s dependence on imported rare earths for devices like night-vision gear and rangefinders.
Western users of heavy rare earths say that they have no way of figuring out what proportion of the minerals they buy from China comes from responsibly operated mines. Licensed and illegal mines alike sell to itinerant traders. They buy the valuable material with sacks of cash, then sell it to processing centers in and around Guangzhou that separate the rare earths from each other.
Companies that buy these rare earths, including a few in Japan and the West, turn them into refined metal powders.
“I don’t know if part of that feed, internal in China, came from an illegal mine and went in a legal separator,” said David Kennedy, the president of Great Western Technologies in Troy, Mich., which imports Chinese rare earths and turns them into powders that are sold worldwide.
Smuggling is another issue. Mr. Kennedy said that he bought only rare earths covered by Chinese export licenses. But up to half of China’s exports of heavy rare earths leave the country illegally, other industry executives said.
Zhang Peichen, deputy director of the government-backed Baotou Rare Earth Research Institute, said that smugglers mix rare earths with steel and then export the steel composites, making the smuggling hard to detect. The process is eventually reversed, frequently in Japan, and the rare earths are recovered. Chinese customs officials have stepped up their scrutiny of steel exports to try to stop this trick, one trader said.
According to the Baotou institute, heavy rare-earth deposits in the hills here will be exhausted in 15 years. Companies want to expand production outside China, but most rare-earth deposits, unlike those in southern China, are accompanied by radioactive uranium and thorium that complicate mining.
Multinational corporations are starting to review their dependence on heavy rare earths. Toyota said that it bought auto parts that include rare earths, but did not participate in the purchases of materials by its suppliers. Osram, a large lighting manufacturer that is part of Siemens of Germany, said it used the lowest feasible amount of rare earths.
The biggest user of heavy rare earths in the years ahead could be large wind turbines, which need much lighter magnets for the five-ton generators at the top of ever-taller towers. Vestas, a Danish company that has become the world’s biggest wind turbine manufacturer, said that prototypes for its next generation used dysprosium, and that the company was studying the sustainability of the supply. Goldwind, the biggest Chinese turbine maker, has switched from conventional magnets to rare-earth magnets.
Executives in the $1.3 billion rare-earths mining industry say that less environmentally damaging mining is needed, given the importance of their product for green energy technologies. Developers hope to open mines in Canada, South Africa and Australia, but all are years from large-scale production and will produce sizable quantities of light rare earths. Their output of heavy rare earths will most likely be snapped up to meet rising demand from the wind turbine industry.
“This industry wants to save the world,” said Nicholas Curtis, the executive chairman of the Lynas Corporation of Australia, in a speech to an industry gathering in Hong Kong in late November. “We can’t do it and leave a product that is glowing in the dark somewhere else, killing people.”
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