Some Common Butterlies @ Ubin
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Subadult Large Hawk Cuckoo
from Bird Ecology Study Group
A species a day!
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
Baya Weaver and animal prey
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Your Insights, Straits Times 23 Jan 10;
More than 20 readers responded to last week's Insight feature on 16 ways to cut 16 per cent of carbon emissions. Many offered tips on how to lead a low-carbon lifestyle, while others made suggestions on how public amenities could be more carbon-efficient. Here are some ideas and views:
'THE multi-storey HDB carparks must be among the most polluted places. Some vehicles have their engines running, and their air-conditioning on, with their occupants taking a nap inside or missing, presumably running errands or having a meal. The worse culprits are taxis and delivery vans. I have never seen the police booking a motorist for air pollution. I can understand that vehicles delivering frozen food like ice cream and tourist buses need to keep their vehicles cool. But other vehicles that are not on the road should switch off their engines. Can our lawmen be more vigilant in policing this?'
LAURENCE LEONG via e-mail
'ONE way to cut the carbon footprint of this country is for the Government to stop encouraging the scrapping of cars unnecessarily. Do you know how much carbon emission is created to manufacture one car?'
LEON YUEN via e-mail
'USING a dishwasher may save up to 40 per cent more water than washing dishes by hand. But the cost of electricity in operating the washer far exceeds the cost savings in water usage.'
LEE HWEE HOON via SMS
'AIR-CONDITIONING large bus interchanges will lead to huge carbon emissions. The average traveller in transit typically spends less than 20 minutes waiting for the bus. So it doesn't make sense to air-condition the entire interchange.'
CHARLES TAN via SMS
'TO REDUCE carbon emissions on the roads, please ask the public bus companies to increase the air-conditioning temperatures in their buses. Hospital wards should switch off their air-conditioning during the night. Use ceiling fans and open the windows for fresh air. This saves electricity and reduces transmission of airborne viruses.'
ALLEN KOH via SMS
'HERE are my tips:
a) Reuse old clothes as rags, or donate them to charity.
b) Besides Bring Your Own Bag Day, restaurants and food vendors can have a Bring Your Own Tupperware Day for customers who wish to purchase takeaway food. Or better still, eco-conscious customers can do so on any day.
c) Newspapers can include a daily 'green column' with various tips on how to reduce, reuse and recycle.
d) Reduce the number of vending machines that consume so much electricity 24/7 as there are so many neighbourhood shops and shopping centres.'
NORMARLINA MD TAIB via e-mail
'MEATLESS Mondays, or any other day of the week, are a tasty way to fight climate change. The Vegetarian Society of Singapore's website has a list of more than 400 vegetarian eateries. Both supermarkets and wet markets sell so many vegetarian ingredients. I paid to plant a tree in Pasir Ris last year. This year, I'm trying to do less flying.'
GEORGE JACOBS via e-mail
'THE Meat-Free on Monday petition has more than 300 signatories, of which many are foreigners. We have our own Facebook group 'Meat Out For 1 Day A Week Singapore' which has 961 members, of which most are Singaporeans. In this Facebook group, we encourage members to exclude meat from their diet at least once a week at their convenience.'
EDMOND CHUA via e-mail
Lian Cheong/Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia 22 Jan 10;
SINGAPORE: It may be a more expensive Lunar New Year this year. Suppliers expect prices of Mandarin oranges and some vegetables to go up by about 10 per cent.
They said the recent cold spell has resulted in a smaller supply.
Singapore's supply of mandarin oranges comes mainly from China and Taiwan. But extreme weather, like the hurricane in Taiwan in August last year, has reduced mandarin orange supply by about a third.
Rising freight charges have added on to the costs as well.
A cold spell in the Chinese provinces of Shantung and Fujian has also reduced supply of vegetables like cabbages, lettuce, broccoli, cauliflower and spring onions.
The vice-chairman of the Pasir Panjang Wholesale Centre, a major supplier, said prices of these vegetables will go up by 10 per cent from Monday, with prices expected to stabilise only after the Lunar New Year period.
- CNA/sc
The Science of Surfaces is a four-part weekly science series that looks at the surfaces we walk on so often but know so little about. In this third part, we look at the material used to make our roads anti-skid. Next week, we look at sand.
Maria Almenoar, Straits Times 23 Jan 10;
WASTE from steel factories is what keeps a tight grip on car tyres in wet weather conditions.
Road pavers have found that steel slag, or a by-product from making steel, provides a better anti-skid property than conventional materials such as granite.
Increasingly, the Land Transport Authority (LTA), which oversees road paving, is adding recycled or waste materials into Singapore's roads.
The aim is to increase the composition of these recycled materials in roads to 70 per cent, up from the current 25 per cent.
LTA's acting manager for road infrastructure management, Mr Yoong Chin Chong, said: 'In the old days, all four layers of the road were made from granite stone but nowadays, we are looking at using recycled material which can do the same or even a better job.'
Recycled materials minimise Singapore's dependence on imports from neighbours Indonesia and Malaysia, reduce the rate at which landfills pile up and save the authorities millions of dollars.
Steel slag is one waste material, for example, that is being used in the top layer of roads, called the asphalt wearing course.
Different sizes of granite stones and steel slag are heated at about 170 deg C to remove any moisture before being mixed with a dark sticky liquid called bitumen, or what is commonly known to motorists as tar.
The steel slag with its grooves gives the road surface a honeycomb texture and makes melding with the bitumen easier and, in turn, the surface stronger.
The use of steel slag also helps to reduce the price of the top layer, which with the quality of the granite aggregate being used is now about the same as that for the bottom layers - about $11 per sq m - despite being about one-sixth the thickness.
On the top two layers, the LTA is testing the use of some of the 'old roads' or roads dug up during resurfacing.
'Old road' surfaces are processed into reclaimed asphalt, which is then crushed and screened into various sizes.
Said pavement specialist Kelvin Lee from Samwoh Corporation, one of the four asphalt production factories in Singapore: 'The field test results of using asphalt with the reclaimed asphalt pavement have been encouraging and we envisage that it will be approved for usage in the near future.'
For the bottom two layers, which need to be between 200mm and 300mm thick, the LTA is testing using processed incinerated waste from landfills.
This is made up of mostly discarded household items and contains mainly silica, glass, ceramic and metal.
The waste is exposed to weather for three months to dry before it is screened to remove unwanted materials.
It is then sieved to the required sizes before being treated by chemicals.
Already, for the bottom two layers, the LTA uses discarded blocks of concrete from construction sites when, for example, buildings are demolished.
The steel reinforcement rods are removed and the concrete is treated before it is used as road-building material.
Grace Chua, Straits Times 23 Jan 10;
DR WILLY Tan will soon run Singapore's only silkworm farm - and he is doing it for the good of science.
The Republic Polytechnic researcher is leading a project that coaxes silkworms to spin stronger silk by exposing them to an electric field before they spin.
Defence engineering firm ST Kinetics is interested in turning this tougher silk into stronger ballistic or bullet-proof vests and composite materials.
Before Dr Tan got involved with the silkworm project in 2008, the 37-year-old materials scientist had no experience rearing insects. 'I'm not a live animal person - but it's part of the scientific learning curve,' he admitted.
At the time, Republic Polytechnic's applied science school was casting about for a project to commercialise.
It approached National University of Singapore (NUS) physics researchers Liu Xiang-Yang and Du Ning, who had filed a patent for the method to make stronger silkworm silk.
Normally, silk proteins are arranged like several bundles of chopsticks, grouped to form a bigger single bundle of chopsticks. The 'chopsticks', or protein molecules, are linked with other molecules called beta crystals.
Exposing the silkworm to an electric field before it spins changes the way the crystals are lined up, firming up the 'chopstick' links and strengthening the silk strand.
That enhanced strand is 40 per cent stronger than normal silkworm silk and needs two to three times the force before it breaks, putting it on a par with spider silk.
It is also stretchier and lighter than current synthetic fibres such as Kevlar. A Kevlar-reinforced helmet can weigh several kilograms. Enhanced silk helmets could be up to 30 per cent lighter, Dr Tan estimates.
While spider silk is tougher than steel, researchers are trying to find alternatives as it is nearly impossible to mass-produce. For instance, another NUS group is studying the structure of spider silk and trying to replicate it in the laboratory.
Dr Tan's silkworm project is supported by about half a million dollars from a National Research Foundation translational grant, which helps polytechnics shepherd inventions from universities and research institutes along to commercialisation.
At the moment, the enhanced silkworm silk costs about $140 per kg to produce in the lab, but the cost will drop to about $70 per kg when the silkworm farm begins larger-scale production.
The farm, holding 16,000 cocoons in a facility the size of a large classroom, will be up and running by May.
The worms will be ordered from catalogues, from Canada, China and India, housed and bred in incubators here, and fed on a paste made from mulberry leaves.
Tape strips will be pasted along the breeding room's doorways to prevent any getaways.
When the fibres are harvested, they will be used in composite materials, and made into fabric with different weaves whose properties will be studied.
Dr Tan expects the enhanced silk to be ready for commercialisation in about three years' time.
Dr Liu said: 'People have been weaving silkworm silk for 7,000 years, and nothing has changed. This could revolutionise the silk industry.'
Ismira Lutfia, The Jakarta Globe 22 Jan 10;
Lampung. After a lengthy rehabilitation process, two Sumatran tigers were released into the jungle on the southern tip of Sumatra island on Friday, on the newly declared National Day for Wildlife Conservation.
Panti, a six-year-old tigress, and Buyung, an eight-year-old tiger, are now roaming free in the 385,000-hectare Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park, joining an estimated 45 Sumatran tigers remaining there.
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan pulled the rope that opened the cages, marking their release after 18 months of rehabilitation at a tiger rescue-center at the Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation.
“Massive deforestation has decreased the tigers’ natural habitat and has prompted human-tiger conflicts when they would roam into villages in search of food,” Zulkifli said.
The Tambling Conservation, which comprises 45,000 hectares of the park, has been home for Panti, Buyung and four other members of the critically endangered species since they were relocated from South Aceh, where they were captured by villagers. The tigers had been kept in cages at the Aceh nature conservancy office before they were moved to Lampung.
Buyung and Panti — whose name is a shortened version of her species’ Latin name, Panthera tigris — ran off in different directions when their cages were opened, quickly disappearing into the bush.
Chips were implanted into the tigers to allow the monitoring of their movements.
Earlier on Friday in Jakarta, Vice President Boediono declared January 22 National Day for Wildlife Conservation.
“Giving room to rare species is our task together,” he said during the declaration at the Vice Presidential Palace.
The release of the tigers into the wild comes a few days after the government revealed a plan to offer rare Sumatran tigers for adoption by citizens.
Tiger “adoption”— where a pair can be rented out as pets in exchange for a Rp 1 billion ($107,100) deposit — could help curb illegal hunting and trade, a Forestry Ministry official said on Friday.
“There is much demand from rich people who want them, who feel that if they own a tiger they are big shots. We have to take concrete steps to protect these animals,” said Darori, the ministry’s chief of forest protection and nature conservancy.
The tiger “renters” would be required to allow quarterly visits by a team of vets, animal welfare officers and ministerial staff. They would also be required to provide the tigers with cages of minimum dimensions: five meters high, six meters wide and 10 meters long.
The animals would come from captivity.
Darori acknowledged that he had already received complaints about the plan from 12 environmental organizations.
“So we have invited them for consultations before we continue with this plan. If we can agree, it will be put into practice as soon as possible,” he said.
Environmental activists have criticized the plan, saying it was a wrong approach to saving the tigers from extinction.
Greenpeace’s forest campaigner, Bustar Maitar, said the plan was tantamount to selling off the tigers.
“It shows the government is not serious about addressing the real issues threatening Sumatran tigers. They need to stop issuing forest concessions,” he said.
Only about 400 Sumatran tigers are believed to be left in Indonesia. Deforestation has destroyed much of their native habitat and they are hunted for traditional medicines and illegal menageries.
With additional reporting from Reuters and Camelia Pasandaran
Tigers freed despite protests from NGOs, villagers
Oyos Saroso H.N., The Jakarta Post 23 Jan 10;
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan on Friday released two Sumatran tigers from the Tambling Wildlife Nature Conservation (TWNC) in West Lampung, despite strong objection from environmentalists and community members.
Before releasing them at TWNC, located within the Bukit Barisan Selatan National Park (TNBBS), forestry officers attached collars linked to GPS around the Sumatran tigers' necks to monitor their movement. The collars have been designed to fall off in two years.
The GPS collar will submit data every eight hours to supervision stations located in six places: the TNBBS center in Tanggamus, the Biological Diversity Directorate in Jakarta, the Safari Park in Bogor, the TWNC in West Lampung and two monitoring stations in the Arta Graha building in Jakarta.
The tigers, named Buyung (age seven) and Panti (five), originated from Aceh. Only one tiger currently remains at the TWNC tiger conservation center, a 4-year-old tiger named Ucok.
In July 2008, businessman Tomy Winata took five tigers from Aceh, which were believed to have attacked residents in Aceh. They are named Agam, Pangeran, Buyung, Panti and Ucok. Agam and Pangeran were released into the wild by then forestry minister M.S. Kaban at TWNC on July 22, 2008.
Minister Zulkifli said the condition of the forest where the two tigers were released was strong compared to other areas in Lampung and other parts of Indonesia. "Many animals of prey are found in the area, such as wild boars, deer and wild ducks. There's no need to worry about food shortage in the jungle," Zulkifli said.
Conservationists remain opposed to the tigers' release in the area that borders with human settlement. They blamed the government for neglecting the Belimbing community's rights.
"The tigers' release in TNBBS, which borders with the settlement of the Belimbing community, shows that the government and the Lampung administration cannot protect their citizens," Lampung chapter Traditional Communities Alliance (AMAN) head Ichwanto M. Nuh said.
Belimbing clan head in Pengekahan Khusairi Gelar Raja Muda, 51, said members of the traditional community refused to move from the area because they had proof of land rights in the forested area. "During Kaban's tenure as minister, he promised to relocate us to a safer area. However, the relocation of 164 families, or 500 people, has not occurred," he said. West Lampung Regent Mukhlis said hundreds of residents had been living in Way Haru village since 1942. Although they live within the national park, the government has recognized their village as a legal enclave.
"They cannot be categorized as squatters because they lived in the area before it was mapped and included within the TNBBS. However, efforts to ask the minister to issue an approval to relocate residents have been in vain," Mukhlis said.
Tomy Winata set up the TWNC in 2003. It has since been managed by PT Adiniaga Kreasindo, Tomy's subsidiary company. He obtained a concession to manage around 30,000 hectares of the TNBBS as a tiger conservation area. According to Tomy, his company informed residents not to live within the TNBBS long before the arrival of tigers from Aceh.
"I have even built a school and community health center for villagers. I have not received profit from running this place for the past five years. Instead I've spent Rp 500 million *US$50,000* each month for operational costs," Tomy said.
Wahyoe Boediwardhana, The Jakarta Post 22 Jan 10;
The pace of deforestation in Java from 2007 to 2010 has reached 10,000 hectares and has become a serious threat to people and protected wildlife on the island. East Java is recorded as the biggest contributor to deforestation in Java, at a rate of 438.1 hectares annually.
ProFauna Indonesia campaign officer Radius Nursidi said recently the actual pace of deforestation is believed to be higher than the data issued by the government. The deforestation rate of 10,000 hectares is based on data issued by the Forestry Ministry and took place from 2003 to 2006. The deforestation rate in Java is recorded at 2,500 hectares annually, or 0.2 percent of Indonesia’s total, which is 1.17 million hectares annually.
Although Java is ranked fourth after Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi in terms of deforestation levels, the remaining forested areas in Java are vital because Java is home to many rare and endemic wildlife species threatened with extinction, while the forest, as the protected animals’ habitat, has not been well preserved.
“The current situation could pose a serious threat to people and rare animal species in Java, such as the Javan hawk eagle [Spizaetus bartels], silvery gibbon [Hylobates moloch], Javan langur [Trachypithecus auratus], Sunda slow loris [Nycticebus coucang], Javan surili [Presbytis comata], Javan rhinoceros [Sunda rhinoceros] and other endemic animals,” Radius said.
The government should take practical and political measures to protect the remaining forest and wildlife in Java. It should set up security posts at the entrances to natural conservation areas.
At present, Nursidi said, “people can enter and leave the natural conservation areas easily, including wildlife poachers”.
Forest conversion in Java has a direct impact on widespread poaching, especially in East Java.
ProFauna observations show wildlife poaching and illegal logging are still taking place on a regular basis in areas, such as the R. Soerjo Grand Forest Park in Pasuruan and Merubetiri National Park in Banyuwangi, due to lax supervision by authorities and ease of access.
ProFauna’s latest survey of 70 bird markets in 58 cities nationwide in 2009, found at least 183 protected animals being traded freely. “And the province trading the largest number of protected animals is East Java,” ProFauna Indonesia chairman Rosek Nursahid said. Generally, the trade in protected animals at major bird markets, such as in Surabaya and Jakarta is done covertly, with animals not displayed openly but secretly, in traders’ storehouses or homes, and shown only to prospective buyers.
Rosek said the wildlife trade issue should be made a national issue because it violated the 1990 law on the conservation of biological natural resources and their ecosystem. The law stipulates that violators involved in the illegal trade of wildlife species can face a 5-year prison sentence and be fined Rp 100 million (about US$10,000). “Despite the law protecting wildlife from illegal trading, in practice the trade is still going on in many places in Indonesia,” said Rosek.
Camelia Pasandaran & Fidelis Satriastanti, Jakarta Globe 22 Jan 10;
The government on Friday said it would allocate 100,000 hectares of forest land to be declared Hutan Tanaman Rakyat , or “People’s Plantations,” as part of efforts to reduce poverty and cut greenhouse gas emissions through sustainable forestry practices.
“We’ve decided to give away 100,000 hectares of forest land to 10,000 households,” Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said at the vice presidential palace after Friday was declared National Day of Nature Conservation.
“In addition, we’re also going to give 40,000 hectares of forest land to 20,000 households for community-based forest management and 30,000 hectares to 11,000 households for village-managed forests.”
Based on a report by the Nairobi-based World Agroforestry Center, poverty figures tend to be high in and around forests.
The country’s forestry policy has been criticized for failing to safeguard resources, while communities were frequently omitted from conservation programs.
Zulkifli said that the program could result in livelihoods for at least six people per household.
“If one hectare could result in Rp 200 million ($21,500), 10 hectares equal Rp 2 billion — it could increase our people’s welfare.
“ We don’t want them to be only workers, instead they should be masters of their own areas,” he said.
The plantations will be developed in 10 districts, including Jeneponto, South Sulawesi and Musi Banyuasin, South Sumatra.
Wandojo Siswanto, head of the climate change working group at the ministry, added that the project was also part of the government’s efforts to reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent by 2020.
“It is related to how we can achieve the 26 percent emission cuts and was already set out in the ministry’s contract with the president [in the 100 days program],” Wandojo said, adding that a total of 500,000 hectares were targeted to become “People’s Plantations.”
The proposal is also intended to instigate changes to people’s way of life and attitudes toward the forest.
Wandojo emphasized the inextricable link between sustainable forestry management and climate change.
“It would also be a way to improve welfare,” he said. “Because people can enjoy the benefits of the forest without damaging it.”
Richard Black, BBC News 22 Jan 10;
Governments must tackle the underlying causes of biodiversity loss if they are to stem the rate at which ecosystems and species are disappearing.
That was one of the conclusions of an inter-governmental workshop in London held in preparation for October's UN biodiversity summit in Nagoya, Japan.
Delegates agreed that protecting nature would bring economic benefits to nations and their citizens.
Representatives of 54 countries attended the UK-hosted meeting.
The organisers hope that securing agreement on fundamental issues now will keep the October summit of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) free from the kind of divisions that dogged last month's climate change summit in Copenhagen.
The UK's Marine and Natural Environment Minister Huw Irranca-Davies said that despite the weak Copenhagen outcome, there had been general agreement on the need for strong international action on biodiversity.
"One of the most important things was a strong feeling that we need to come out of Nagoya with something concrete on the table - something that works all the way down the local and community levels as well," he told BBC News.
"People are really focused on trying to stem the tide [of biodiversity loss] and reverse it."
The UN calculates that species are currently going extinct at about 1,000 times the "natural" rate; and economic analyses being prepared for the UN Environment Programme (Unep) show that ecosystems, such as coral reefs and rainforests, are worth far more intact than depleted.
Species at risk
In 2002, governments set a target of significantly reducing the rate of global biodiversity loss by 2010 - a target that is not going to be met.
Many observers now argue that it was not really achievable; global ambitions did not translate into local and regional action, and not enough attention was paid to the underlying factors causing depletion of the natural world.
New targets are likely to be set at the Nagoya meeting that are designed to be more scientifically valid and achievable.
But according to Simon Stuart, chair of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature's (IUCN) Species Survival Commission, setting targets is not the most important task facing governments.
"We have a chance of a much tougher target for 2020 than we had for 2010, which would be about having no net biodiversity loss," he said.
"I think the key thing is whether we'll see over the next few years concerted action on the drivers of biodiversity loss - if we don't see that in the next few years, then we certainly won't see good results by 2020."
All of those drivers, he noted, were related to the expansion of the human footprint - among them population growth, loss of habitat, climate change, ocean acidification, and growing demand for food.
Maria Cecilia Wey de Brito, secretary for biodiversity and forests with the Brazilian government, who co-chaired the meeting with Mr Irranca-Davies, acknowledged that these issues would be difficult to tackle, but said it could be done.
"Of course it's not easy; but it's possible, because what is at risk is our maintenance as a species on the planet," she said.
"We think that people will understand very well that if our ecosystem services get to a state where we won't have them anymore - the pollinators, for example - this is going to be disastrous.
"So I think this is something that is going to be possible, because it's totally necessary."
Richer harvests
Eighteen years after the biodiversity convention came into existence, one of its key aims - to agree a mechanism for fairly and sustainably profiting from nature exploitation - remains unrealised.
The UN would like to conclude an agreement on it this year; and Mr Irranca-Davis noted there had been some progress during the London talks. Delegates from developing countries - that have historically been suspicious of the notion - have been speaking of its potential benefits.
He said that some developing countries with rich biodiversity assets had expressed an interest establishing an agreement for good, sustainable exploitation of their own natural resources.
"[Some] developing nations expressed the view that, if we get those sort of agreements right, there is more potential to harvest from biodiversity," he said.
"So it's in our interests not only to protect, but to identify where those biodiversity riches are and to exploit them further, but in the right way, and making sure that these benefits are not just to developed countries, but to developing nations as well."
The meeting also discussed whether an expert panel should be set up to collate research on biodiversity - analogous to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change - but there is as yet no consensus.
Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times 22 Jan 10;
Contrary to their denials, employees of the Arizona Game and Fish Department intentionally snared the last known jaguar in the Southwest last year, a report by the federal government says.
Wildlife advocates and politicians had demanded a federal investigation of the capture of the male cat, nicknamed Macho B, which was freed soon after he was snared but later recaptured and euthanized because he was ailing. Many described the department’s account of his capture and death as suspicious.
The report, issued by the inspector general of the Interior Department, said the Arizona game and fish employees had acted inappropriately in many ways, starting with the snaring.
But Arizona’s Game and Fish Department called the document incomplete and denied that it was to blame.
“The department stands by its previous statements that the department did not direct any department employee or any other person associated with the initial capture to intentionally capture a jaguar,” said Tom Cadden, the department’s spokesman.
In February, the 118-pound jaguar, which then appeared to be in fine health, was captured in a leg-hold snare in the mountains near Nogales, Ariz. His canine tooth was broken as a result. He was tranquilized, equipped with a radio collar and released.
Days later it was found that Macho B was not moving, and he was recaptured and brought to the Phoenix zoo. Veterinarians there said he was suffering from irreversible kidney failure and euthanized him.
Arizona’s Game and Fish Department repeatedly denied that the snare was intended for the jaguar and said it had been set for mountain lions or bears. But the outcry from wildlife advocates and local politicians led to several investigations, including a joint criminal inquiry by the law enforcement arm of the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, which is part of the Interior Department, and the Justice Department.
In its report, the inspector general listed several violations by the Arizona employees. It said the trap was set in an area that the employees knew Macho B patrolled. By law they needed to notify the federal authorities before setting the trap and get a permit but did not do so.
The employees also had a necropsy performed on the jaguar but not a full one, as would have been appropriate, the report said.
Without the full necropsy it is impossible to know whether Macho B’s death was related to his being snared.
In describing the jaguar’s capture as intentional, the report did not offer specific evidence. But it said that the United States attorney’s office in Tucson was in possession of the specifics related to the investigation.
Tom Buckley, a spokesman for the federal Fish and Wildlife Service, said it was too early to know if any charges would be filed.
Some critics of the jaguar’s capture said they were vindicated by the preliminary findings.
“This is a moral indictment if not a criminal one,” said Michael Robinson of the Center for Biological Diversity, a wildlife advocacy group based in Tucson.
The jaguar has been listed since 1997 as endangered, the highest level of peril for a wild species. Last week the Fish and Wildlife Service said it would take steps to designate and protect its habitat and draft a recovery plan.
Yahoo News 22 Jan 10;
MOSCOW (AFP) – A leak from Russia's new Siberian oil pipeline shows the potentially damaging consequences the project could have for the endangered Siberian tiger, an environmental campaign group warned on Friday.
Around 300 cubic metres (10,600 cubic feet) of oil leaked from the pipeline in eastern Siberia, Igor Dyomin, spokesman for Russian oil pipeline monopoly Transneft told AFP.
The leak covered an area 10 metres (yards) across and two kilometres (1.2 miles) long, he said.
"The major accident on the new Siberia-Pacific oil pipeline which has just come into operation shows the project has major flaws around ecological safety," the environmental campaign group WWF said in a statement.
"The WWF is worried about the planned extension of the pipeline through the Siberian tiger's habitat."
The first section of the pipeline, linking Taishet in eastern Siberia with Skovorodino in the Amur region, entered service in December.
A second section is planned which will run 2,100 kilometres (1,300 miles) from Skovorodino to the Kozmino oil terminal near the Pacific Ocean port of Nakhodka.
Russia, the world's largest exporter of crude oil, hopes the route will help it diversify its customer base away from Europe by supplying energy-hungry Asian nations.
"A discharge of oil took place during regulatory work on the pipeline," Dyomin said.
"We are trying to establish the cause, but it is not connected to the operation of the pipeline. We have not ruled out human error," he said, adding that the results of the investigation were expected in a month.
The WWF said the causes of the accident should be assessed in public and called for a fresh assessment of the second stage of the pipeline project, involving all parties.
Far eastern Russia is the main habitat for the Siberian tiger, the world's largest feline.
Around 450 remain in the wild there, and a further 20 to 25 live in China.
Yahoo News 22 Jan 10;
JOHANNESBURG (AFP) – Poachers have killed 14 rhinos in South Africa this year, the national parks authority said Friday, announcing military patrols in the world-famous Kruger National Park.
"These poachers are members of well-resourced syndicates and are also involved in chilling crimes like human trafficking, arms smuggling, prostitution and drug trafficking," said David Mabunda, chief of the South African National Parks (SANParks) in a statement.
"They are dangerous criminals."
Rhino poaching has intensified in South Africa with 14 slaughtered -- seven in Kruger and seven in the North West province -- in the first two weeks of January. Last year, 122 were killed nationwide.
SANParks said plans were on for soldiers to patrol the borders of Kruger and to camp in specific areas. Kruger shares about 450 kilometres (280 miles) of international borders with Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
"The military will be primarily going to patrol that," spokeswoman Wanda Mukutshulwa told AFP, referring to the border areas with Zimbabwe and Mozambique.
Patrols within the park, which is half the size of the Netherlands, would be ad-hoc, she added.
Rhinos are usually shot by poachers for their horn which is sold for medicinal or ornamental use at huge profits.
Authorities have arrested 46 people since 2008 with two arrests so far this year in Kruger, where 50 rhinos were killed last year.
South Africa is a well-known wildlife destination and home to Africa's big five animals -- lion, elephant, rhino, leopard and buffalo.
IUCN 22 Jan 10;
Invasive Alien Species, ranging from disease and plants, to rats and goats, are one of the top three threats to life on this planet, according to a new publication coordinated by the Global Invasive Species Programme (GISP), of which IUCN is a partner. Most countries have made international commitments to tackle this threat, but only half have introduced relevant legislation and even fewer are taking adequate action on the ground.
The publication, “Global indicators of biological invasion: species numbers, biodiversity impact and policy responses”, looked at 57 countries and found that, on average, there are 50 non-indigenous species per country which have a negative impact on biodiversity. The number of invasive alien species ranged from nine in Equatorial Guinea to 222 in New Zealand.
A total of 542 species were documented as invasive aliens, including 316 plants, 101 marine organisms, 44 freshwater fish, 43 mammal, 23 bird and 15 amphibian species. According to Prof. Melodie McGeoch, lead author on the publication and member of the Centre for Invasion Biology, these numbers are a significant underestimate. “We showed that regions with low development status and little investment in research have lower than expected numbers of invasive aliens”. An increase in the number and spread of alien species, which adversely affect the habitats they invade, is nonetheless attributed to a substantial rise in international trade over the past 25 years.
“While some threatened species on the IUCN Red List have improved in status as a result of successful control or eradication of invasive alien species, a growing number are more threatened owing to increasing spread and threats from non-indigenous species,” says Dr Stuart Butchart from BirdLife International. “This shows that although we are winning some battles in the fight against invasive species, current evidence suggests that we are losing the war.”
If left uncontrolled, invasive alien species can have a serious impact on native species. The Yellowhead, a bird endemic to New Zealand, has suffered considerably in recent years due to a surge in the number of rats. Two populations of the Yellowhead are now extinct and three more are significantly falling in number, leading to the species to move up from Vulnerable to Endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species™.
Similarly, the pathogenic chytrid fungus, which was entirely unknown until 1998, is thought to be the cause of the decline and extinction of many amphibian populations around the globe. The disease, caused by the fungus, can be spread by humans and a host of other species, ranging from exotic fish to African Clawed Frogs.
But the impact of invasive alien species can be successfully controlled. The Black-vented Shearwater, a seabird native to Natividad Island off the Pacific coast of Mexico, was under threat from cats, goats and sheep. But since they’ve been eradicated, the status of the bird has been reduced from Vulnerable to Near Threatened on the IUCN Red List. Similarly, the control of the Red Fox in south-western Australia in the last decade allowed the population of the endemic Western Brush Wallaby to recover sufficiently for it to be downlisted on the IUCN Red List to Least Concern.
“It’s likely to be more cost effective to prevent the spread of invasive species in the first place than to tackle the biodiversity crisis once they have become established,” says Dr Bill Jackson, IUCN’s Deputy Director General and Chairman of GISP. “With sufficient funds and political will, invasive species can be controlled or eradicated. This will allow native species to be saved from extinction, but countries need to dramatically improve the way they deal with the problem.”
Editor’s notes:
The publication was produced by scientists from the Centre for Invasion Biology (Stellenbosch University), BirdLife International and IUCN.
Full publication available at: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/fulltext/123243506/PDFSTART?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
Invasive species threat growing globally, experts warn
Threat to native species from alien invaders is growing and posing one of the greatest threats to wildlife around the world, conservationists say
Press Association, guardian.co.uk 22 Jan 10;
Hundreds of invasive species - from rats to diseases - are posing one of the greatest threats to wildlife around the world, conservationists warned today.
A study of 57 countries coordinated by the Global Invasive Species programme (pdf) found 542 types of animals and plants were putting native wildlife at risk in places where they are not naturally found.
On average, around 50 non-native species are having a negative impact on existing plants and animals in each country, ranging from nine in Equatorial Guinea to a massive 222 in New Zealand.
On the list of invasive aliens are 316 plants, 101 marine species, 44 freshwater fish, 43 mammals, 23 birds and 15 types of amphibian.
And the threat to native species from alien invaders is growing, the experts warned.
Invasive plants and animals are those which threaten native wildlife, by eating native species, laying eggs, damaging their habitat, spreading disease or by competing with them for the same "niche" in an ecosystem.
Many invasive species are successful because they have no natural predators in their new environment.
Examples of non-native species causing problems in the UK include grey squirrels, whose spread has led to widespread declines in red squirrels, the rampant plant Japanese knotweed, American signal crayfish and water primroses.
The study said that, globally, the increase and spread of invasive species is the result of a substantial rise in international trade in the past 25 years.
In some places invasive species are driving native wildlife towards extinction, for example in New Zealand where the yellowhead bird is now endangered because of a surge in the number of rats, while the chytrid fungus is spreading around the world causing massive declines in amphibians.
There are examples of success stories, in which threatened wildlife has bounced back after control measures were taken against the invasive species.
On Mexico's Natividad Island, the black-vented shearwater was at risk from the introduction of cats, goats and sheep, but its numbers are now recovering following an eradication programme.
And control of the red fox in south Western Australia has allowed the western brush wallaby to recover sufficiently for it to be downgraded on the "red list" of endangered species compiled by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
But while most countries have made commitments to tackle the threat of invasive species, only half have introduced legislation and even fewer are taking enough action on the ground, according to the IUCN.
Dr Stuart Butchart, from Birdlife International and one of the authors of the study, said: "While some threatened species on the IUCN red list have improved in status as a result of successful control or eradication of invasive alien species, a growing number are more threatened owing to increasing spread and threats from non-indigenous species.
"This shows that although we are winning some battles in the fight against invasive species, current evidence suggests that we are losing the war."
Chewang Norphel has an ingenious solution to the droughts in his Himalayan homeland
Andrew Buncombe, The Independent 22 Jan 10;
At times, the moonscape land of Ladakh can appear as dry as a desert. In this most northerly part of India, tucked high in the Himalayas, there is virtually no rainfall and almost 75 per cent of the local farmers rely on meltwater from the glaciers to irrigate their once-a-year crops.
It was in Ladakh, confronted by receding glaciers – currently at the centre of an increasingly bitter dispute between scientists and Delhi – that Chewang Norphel, a government engineer, hit upon an idea to use nature to give the locals a helping hand with growing more food.
Seeing how much fresh water was wasted during the winter – as villagers left their taps running to prevent them freezing solid – and noticing the way that they stored snow on shaded areas of the mountain, he decided to create his own artificial glaciers.
That was more than a decade ago. Now, with funding from the Indian army – which is keen to maintain the support of local people in a strategically sensitive area close to the border with China – Mr Norphel has created 10 artificial glaciers and is planning more.
Crucially he has constructed them at lower elevations than the naturally occurring glaciers so that they melt at least a month earlier, providing the farmers with an opportunity to produce a second harvest of wheat, barley, peas and potatoes.
Such has been his success that to local people and environmentalists, he is known simply as Mr Glacier.
"I am a civil engineer by training and I was working in rural development. I had to visit every village and I noticed that all their problems were related to water," Mr Norphel said. "I thought about how to solve the problem. There was a pipe near my house that provided water for a village. During the winter we had to keep it open to stop it freezing. I thought that if we could hold that water it would all turn into ice."
The engineer set about building a system of pipes with holes in them that diverted water to a shaded part of the hillside and slowly reduced the volume as the water froze to ice. Over the years he has fine-tuned the design of the glaciers and their location on the hillsides.
Natural glaciers, he explained, begin to melt in June or July but by locating his artificial constructions 4,000ft lower down the valley, he is able to ensure they melt in May, which is typically when farmers finish sowing their crops.
Last year his teams built three glaciers for Stamko, one of many villages that have suffered from a drastic lack of water for farming. "There are a total of 113 rural villages in Ladakh and 80 of them depend on the glaciers for irrigation," he said.
The magical but fragile eco-system of Ladakh and its traditional inhabitants are threatened most directly by the ironic combination of droughts and floods. Mr Norphel, 74, is certain of several things: that the glaciers are retreating more quickly than before; that the region receives less snowfall and moisture than it did when he was younger; and that the region is progressively getting warmer. The engineer's instincts are supported by a survey recently conducted by Geres India, a rural development organisation based in Ladakh. It found a remarkable rising trend of average temperatures by 1C for winter and 5C for summer between 1973 and 2008.
During the same period, rainfall and snowfall had shown a clear declining trend. "Altogether snowfall has come down by almost 60 per cent in the past 50 years," the group's spokesman, Tundup Angmo, told Reuters.
Yet India's Himalayan glaciers are currently the focus of heated debate. This week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) admitted that a claim included in a 938-page scientific report that all of India's glaciers would disappear by 2035 was incorrect, after it emerged it was based on an unsubstantiated media report. The IPCC expressed its "regret [for] the poor application of well-established IPCC procedures in this instance".
India's environment minister, Jairam Ramesh, often attacked by activists, seized on the admission. "The health of the glaciers is a cause of grave concern, but the IPCC's alarmist position that they would melt by 2035 was not based on an iota of scientific evidence," he told reporters. Mr Ramesh's ministry recently published a study paper which claimed that the Himalayan glaciers, which give birth to several key river systems including the Indus, Ganges and Brahmaputra, which provide water to hundreds of millions of people, had not retreated abnormally.
Yet Mr Norphel is under no doubts about the reality of what is happening to the environment in which he grew up and where he is now trying to use nature to help itself. "When I was small, if there was a foot of snow it would last for six months. Now it will melt in a week," he said. "That is the result of climate change."
Alister Doyle, Reuters 22 Jan 10;
OSLO (Reuters) - The world is showing only lukewarm enthusiasm for a "Copenhagen Accord" to curb climate change, with no sign so far of deeper-than-planned 2020 curbs on greenhouse gas emissions before a January 31 deadline.
In Brussels, a draft European Union letter on Friday showed plans for the 27-nation bloc to reiterate a minimum offer of a 20 percent cut in emissions by 2020 below 1990 levels, pleasing industry, and a 30 percent cut if other nations act comparably.
Other countries are likely to do the same after last month's Copenhagen summit ended with a low-ambition accord. No nations have since announced radically tougher plans for action.
"I think that countries are going to stick to their ranges," said Nick Mabey, head of the E3G think-tank in London. He said it was too early for an overhaul of national goals.
"It's almost like the beginning of a new negotiation," said Gordon Shepherd, director of international policy at the WWF environmental group.
Many countries were still torn between showing "a burst of enthusiasm" to rebuild momentum after Copenhagen and "complete caution," taking time to review next moves, he said.
Few countries have so far sent letters to the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat before a January 31 deadline for outlining goals for 2020 set by the Copenhagen Accord, which was worked out by major emitters led by China and the United States.
LIMIT WARMING
The deal sets a goal to limit global warming to a 2 degree Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) temperature rise above pre-industrial times but omits details of how. It also backs a target of $100 billion in annual aid for developing nations from 2020.
And it said rich countries should submit by January 31 their targets for cuts in emissions by 2020 and developing nations should outline actions for slowing the rise of emissions to help avert more heatwaves, sandstorms, floods and rising sea levels.
The U.S. Climate Action Network said Brazil, South Korea, South Africa, Ghana, Australia, France, Canada, Papua New Guinea and the Maldives had indicated they were committed to the accord. Cuba has said it will not take part.
The U.N. Secretariat declined comment on the list.
The summit failed to adopt the Copenhagen Accord after opposition from Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua and Sudan. That meant the conference merely "took note" of the plan.
The United Nations says the January 31 deadline is likely to be missed and that countries can sign up later. But experts say the accord would look in trouble if its main backers -- such as Washington and Beijing -- fail formally to sign up.
U.S. President Barack Obama's provisional offer of a 17 percent emissions cut below 2005 levels by 2020 -- or 4 percent below the U.N. benchmark year of 1990 -- may be harder to achieve after the Democrats lost a key Senate seat this week.
China, India, South Africa and Brazil will meet in New Delhi on Sunday.
Among those with most ambitious goals, Norway said before Copenhagen it would cut emissions by 30 percent by 2020, and might go to 40 percent. "Norway will submit its number by the deadline, but we have not decided the level of ambition," environment ministry spokeswoman Tone Hertzberg said.
(Additional reporting by Pete Harrison in Brussels; Editing by Elizabeth Fullerton)
Pete Harrison, Reuters 22 Jan 10;
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union will stick with its lowest offer for cutting carbon emissions under a U.N. climate accord, fulfilling the wishes of industry, a draft letter shows.
The 27-nation bloc has committed to unilaterally cut carbon dioxide to 20 percent below 1990 levels over the next decade.
Ahead of the U.N. climate talks in Copenhagen in December it offered to deepen those cuts to 30 percent if other rich countries made similar efforts.
That offer still stands, according to the draft letter to top U.N. climate official Yvo de Boer. But it is unlikely to be carried out because the Copenhagen talks ended with a weak deal.
Experts say the total cuts offered there by rich countries amount to no more than 18 percent and fall far short of the 25-40 percent that U.N. scientists outline as necessary to avert dangerous climate change.
The world is currently on track for temperatures to rise to 3.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of this century, which would bring catastrophic melting of ice sheets and rising seas, some scientists say.
But many EU countries and industries are wary of increasing cuts to 30 percent alone, because the cost of cutting emissions might put factories at a disadvantage to rivals in less regulated countries.
LEVERAGE
"After the Copenhagen failure, the EU would be foolish to again unilaterally increase its greenhouse gas objective," Gordon Moffat, the head of steel industry group Eurofer, said in a statement on Thursday. "Another 10 percent would be fatal."
But environmentalists say the EU is naive to think its conditional 30 percent offer creates any negotiating leverage and the bloc should move there anyway to set a moral example.
"Tackling climate negotiations with the same strategy as trade negotiations will simply get them bogged down like the current Doha round of trade talks," Greenpeace campaigner Joris den Blanken said.
Spain, which holds the EU's rotating presidency until July, drafted the letter, seen by Reuters, and will wait for feedback from all 27 EU nations before signing and sending it next week.
While participants in the EU's Emissions Trading Scheme, the bloc's main weapon against climate change, were worried that a 30 percent goal would raise the cost of carbon permits, analysts said the 20 percent target was largely priced into the market.
"Thirty percent is out of the picture for now," said Emmanuel Fages of Societe Generale. "Nobody was seriously attaching any probability to it post-Copenhagen."
At a meeting of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Thursday, a group of eastern European countries led by Poland joined Italy, Cyprus and Malta to call for the deletion of any reference to the 30 percent, even as a conditional offer, diplomats said.
Britain, Denmark, France and the Netherlands wanted the 30 percent offer to be prominent but to remain conditional.
(Additional reporting by Michael Szabo in London, editing by Anthony Barker)
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