Best of our wild blogs: 28 Jan 10

I love SG reefs!
a new facebook group about Singapore reefs.

Hanging parrot, leafbird and spiderhunter eating rambutan
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Eye can't see you
from The annotated budak

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Littering in parks and beaches: set a shutdown quota

Straits Times Forum 28 Jan 10;

CLEAN and green Singapore? Certainly not for some inhabitants as shown in Monday's report, 'Litterbugs turn public parks into rubbish dumps'.

Indeed, anti-littering campaigns held over the years have had little effect on litterbugs. Like all bugs, they have grown more resistant to treatment. Fines, unless they break the banks, no longer work as a deterrent. I suggest three ways to treat this public menace.

- First, the authorities should just leave the litter alone. Instead of sending out cleaners to clean parks and beaches every day, clean them once a month. These places are supposed to be the great outdoors anyway, so why clean them? Let the litter be. Eventually, if litterbugs persist in their bad and ungracious habits, there will be enough trash to make even them uncomfortable.

- Alternatively, set a limit to the amount of litter collected in a month. When the limit is reached, close the park or beach concerned for an indefinite period. Litterbugs need to be inconvenienced to learn.

- Finally, the authorities could consider making litterbugs cleaners in schools or institutions of higher learning, homes for the aged or pubic hospitals. Let them be cleaners for a week and discharge them only when they have done a good job. This way, there will be no need to spend more to hire cleaners, to clean up after people who should be punished. Best of all, litterbugs will learn that it is better to spend a little more time to walk to the trash bin than spend a week or more cleaning public buildings.

Grace Chua (Mdm)

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Housing and Development Board faces 3 key challenges

Joanne Chan and S Ramesh Today Online 28 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE - Public housing in the 21st century must evolve to meet changing needs, according to National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan.

And the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will face three key challenges: Shifting demographics, ageing estates and a need for sustainable development.

On emerging population trends that will shape future housing policies, he said: "With globalisation and changing demographics, we also see an increasingly affluent population with a growing international outlook and rising expectations. Through immigration, the population is rising and becoming more diverse with different needs."

These changes will require not only greater integration efforts but may prompt other lifestyle changes and, thus, increased expectations of what public housing can provide.

Mr Mah was speaking yesterday at the opening of the International Housing Conference in Singapore.

Singapore's ageing society may require further innovations in housing policies or building design, he also said, highlighting the second challenge: The steadily ageing profile of HDB flats and towns. There will be an urgent need to upgrade, redevelop and rejuvenate older estates to keep them relevant and vibrant.

The third consideration was the need to minimise the impact of growth on the environment and to use resources efficiently. This will contribute to Singapore's overall quest to provide a green and healthy living environment, through careful long-term planning.

Mr Mah said that environmental, economic and social sustainability have been major and constant considerations in the design of HDB towns and flats. "Design guidelines are developed to take into account Singapore's tropical climate. The choice of materials, design and construction methods are also carefully considered, as they have major bearings on buildability, resource consumption and future maintenance requirements," he said.

In the past half century, the HDB has garnered significant international recognition, including the United Nations Public Service Award.

And while new challenges may shape housing policies differently in the future,Mr Mah said the core mission of HDB remained unchanged: Providing Singaporeans with affordable quality homes and building cohesive communities.

He urged the HDB to continue its pursuit of sustainable public housing for the next 50 years and beyond.

Public housing in 21st century must meet changing needs: Minister Mah
S.Ramesh, Channel NewsAsia 27 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said public housing in the 21st century must evolve to meet changing needs.

But the core mission of the HDB remains unchanged - that of providing Singaporeans with affordable quality homes and building cohesive communities.

Speaking at the International Housing Conference in Singapore, Mr Mah noted the HDB will face increasing challenges due to shifting demographics. These include an aging population which may require further innovations in housing policies or building design.

These include an aging population, which may require further innovations in housing policies or building design.

In addition, with more new Singapore citizens, greater integration efforts will be required.

Mr Mah said rapid globalisation and affluence may also prompt other lifestyle changes and with it, increased expectations of what public housing can provide.

Singapore is also facing the steadily ageing profile of HDB flats and towns. So there will be an urgent need to upgrade, redevelop and rejuvenate older estates.

Mr Mah said HDB must meet these challenges and continue achieving environmental, economic and social sustainability. This will contribute to Singapore's overall quest to provide a green and healthy living environment, through careful long-term planning.

In the past half century, HDB achieved much for Singapore and garnered significant international recognition, including the UN Public Service Award.

And he urged HDB to continue its relentless pursuit of sustainable public housing for the next 50 years and beyond. - CNA/vm

HDB looks forward on its 50th birthday
Jessica Cheam, Straits Times 28 Jan 10;

EVEN as Singapore's public housing agency looks back to celebrate its achievements over the past 50 years, it will face increasing challenges that mean evolving to meet changing needs.

The Housing and Development Board (HDB), which marks its 50th birthday on Feb 1, must meet these challenges while maintaining its three-pronged approach of environmental, economic and social sustainability, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said yesterday.

He was addressing more than 500 delegates from around the world at the opening ceremony of a three-day international housing conference hosted by the HDB and held at Suntec City.

'In this globalised world, we face many common challenges: climate change, migration, demographic shifts, shrinking resources, among others,' he told the conference. 'These changes impact all cities alike, large or small, developed or developing, sooner or later.'

The conference was a great opportunity for policymakers, architects and urban planners to exchange ideas.

The growing challenges that HDB will face include an ageing population, which may require further innovations in housing policies or building design, he said. Others included integrating the growing number of new Singapore citizens and the effects of rising affluence.

'As the public housing authority, HDB's key task is to find innovative ways to accommodate our people, taking these challenges into account,' he said.

Speakers at the three-day conference, which discussed themes such as environmental sustainability, include housing ministers from Spain, Finland and Australia, and senior government officials from the United States and Hong Kong.

Hong Kong's Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng said Hong Kong faced similar challenges as Singapore over land size and a growing population, and had ensured public housing for lower-income earners. She will be speaking at the conference today.

Addressing the audience, HDB chief executive Tay Kim Poh also acknowledged yesterday that HDB has 'achieved much that we are proud of', but it is also mindful of the 'challenges to housing that are shaped by the changing needs and expectations of our people'.

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JB worst area in Johor for dengue cases

Hamdan Raja Abdullah, The Star 28 Jan 10;

MUAR: Johor Baru recorded the highest number of dengue cases in the state at the start of 2010 with 35 cases reported up to Jan 9 this year.

The city has four areas regarded as hot spots namely Taman Dahlia, Taman Century, Taman Desa Cemerlang and Taman Megah Ria.

State Women, Family, Health and Community Development Committee chairman Dr Robia Kosai said the number of cases showed that city residents still kept water containers around their homes.

“These containers and uncollected rubbish make good breeding grounds for Aedes mosquitoes.

“We urge the people, especially those living in apartments and flats, to check their surroundings for such breeding places,” she told reporters after launching a wild boar hunting party in Kampung Parit Kemang near Sungai Balang recently.

Dr Robia said the state recorded a drop in cases last year with 2,528 falling ill compared to 3,911 in 2008.

The number of deaths due to dengue was 15 in 2008 and only three last year.

She said the drop was due to increasing awareness in looking after cleanliness of homes and the surroundings among Johoreans.

She said the State Health Department had checked 494,564 premises and found 7,438 of them to be Aedes breeding grounds.

The department issued 3,383 summonses and collected RM519,150 in compounds, she said, adding that it fogged 1,104,677 premises last year.

The department held more than 6,000 talks and distributed more than 500,000 pamphlets on the matter.

“We hope that people will be more proactive in cleaning their homes and ridding all breeding grounds and rubbish in their areas this year,” she added.

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Why palm oil does not deserve its bad press

Tim Wilson, Science Alert 28 Jan 10;

Recent campaigns against palm oil show non-governmental organisations are more interested in pandering to rich country donors than promoting sustainable economic and environmental development for South-East Asia's poor.

Following attacks from palm oil industry interests in November last year, the chief executive of NatureAlert, Sean Whyte, claimed "Non-governmental organisations don't want to see it (the palm oil industry) closed down and neither are they seeking a boycott of palm oil", but to see it prosper without doing "damage to the environment".

In making such claims, however, Whyte clearly cannot see the oil palm from the plantation.

In Australia and New Zealand, NGOs have convinced celebrities, television stations and taxpayer-funded zoos to campaign for government regulation requiring manufactured food products to label palm oil ingredients separately from vegetable oils.

Their objective of mandatory labelling is to encourage consumers to choose products that don't contain palm oil and effectively introduce a consumer boycott.

The NGO campaign has had some success, with Australian Senator Nick Xenophon recently announcing he would introduce legislation directing the bi-national regulator, Food Standards Australia New Zealand, to require compulsory separate palm oil labelling.

With mandatory palm oil labelling in force, supported by consumer boycotts, food manufacturers will be faced with the business reality of either losing sales or switching to other oils in manufacturing to keep customers.

It's a decision confectionery manufacturing giant Cadbury made last year after NGOs identified they were using palm oil in their chocolate products and encouraged a consumer boycott, leading Cadbury to dump palm oil as an ingredient.

In Europe, NGOs have gone one step further and successfully lobbied to introduce Europe-wide regulations blocking palm oil biofuel imports unless they meet strict emission standards.

In developed countries, NGO campaigns often prey on the ignorance of well-intentioned donors who aren't confronted with the consequences of NGO policies on out-of-sight and, therefore, out-of-mind rural workers.

NGOs then add images of "cute" orang utans whose habitats are claimed to be lost to palm oil-caused deforestation, to encourage donors to open their wallets.

But garnering donor sympathy to fight the palm oil industry comes at the expense of the exports and livelihoods of the more than 40 per cent of Malaysia and Indonesia's smallholder oil palm growers who rely on the crop for their incomes.

In total, at least two million Malaysian and Indonesian workers depend on the palm oil industry for their livelihoods, including from the large plantation communities that make up a majority of the planted oil palm, who don't just provide salaries for workers but also heavily, or wholly, subsidised healthcare, housing and education services.

Attacks on the industry also ignore the clear benefits of palm oil. At a side-event at the United Nations Copenhagen climate change conference, critics attacked palm oil because, like many other comestibles, it may contribute to the contraction of diabetes.

But palm oil is also a rich source of vitamin A and, according to the United Nations Children's Fund, each year a million infant deaths are caused by vitamin A deficiencies.

But there's no choice between accepting one million preventable infant deaths and allowing the consumption of palm oil that may lead to the contraction of a manageable chronic disease later in life.

And the crop is also substantially more sustainable in comparison with other oils because oil palm yields at least five times the same tonnage per hectare as equivalent seeds. As a consequence, oil palm needs less land and less resources to produce more.

The irony of the attacks on the oil is that if activists were successful in blackballing its use in food manufacturing, producers would have to switch to alternative lower-yielding crops to maintain their livelihoods. The consequence would be that they would require more land and more resources to produce less.

Palm oil isn't perfect and it is responsible for some deforestation caused by rogue growers. But the benefits of palm oil far outweigh the costs.

NGOs may think that eliminating consumer demand may remove the environmental consequences caused by the industry, but attacking the root of environmental degradation won't be solved by attacking palm oil.

Around the world, the key driver of environmental degradation is rarely a single industry, but poverty.

When urban and rural communities are poor, their best escape option is through the exploitation of primary natural resources that promote economic growth and drive the development of manufacturing and service industries.

Without the development of these industries, communities will always be trapped in subsistence living, where the environment will always come second to families finding ways to stay alive and secure food and shelter, especially in rural areas.

Protecting the environment only becomes a priority when societies prosper and can afford environmental protection regulation and the resources to sustainably manage and conserve their natural assets.

Anti-palm oil NGOs like NatureAlert, Greenpeace, Wetlands International and Friends of the Earth may think demonising palm oil will help Malaysia and Indonesia improve their environmental health.

But any short-term environmental improvements will be traded off against the livelihoods of the rural poor, who would be better able to protect their environment when they have economically developed and can afford to do so.

An opinion provided by OnlineOpinion.com.au - Australia's e-journal of social and political debate.

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Understanding Chinese consumer motivation the key to controlling unsustainable wildlife consumption

TRAFFIC 28 Jan 10;

A survey of consumer attitudes in China concluded urgent action is needed to reduce consumer demand for endangered wildlife Click photo to enlarge China, Beijing, 28 January 2010—Concerted action is needed in China to reduce consumer demand for endangered wildlife, according to a new report by TRAFFIC, wildlife trade monitoring network, into consumer attitudes in China.

Released ahead of Chinese New Year of the Tiger, which begins on 14 February, the report, Understanding the motivations: the first step toward influencing China’s unsustainable wildlife consumption, calls for a reduction in wildlife consumption during the New Year celebrations, normally the peak time for wildlife consumption in the country.

“The Chinese people favour eating wildlife meat as a tonic in winter and many believe it’s good for their health. They are not aware that this kind of consumption could threaten the survival of endangered wildlife,” said Prof. Xu Hongfa, Head of TRAFFIC East Asia China programme.

TRAFFIC, working with a professional market research company, found that 44% of respondents claimed to have consumed wildlife in the past 12 months, the majority (36%) as food. However, most respondents were aware of the conservation status of China’s National Grade 1 and Grade 2 protected species, and relatively few consumed these in any form.

The surveys found that consumption of wild species, particularly consumption of wild meats and wild animal medicines/tonics is widespread, with most people having either a neutral or acceptance attitude towards the consumption of wild animals as food.

The report, which focused on six major cities in China, found that the scale and pattern of wildlife consumption varies across the country. Guangzhou has the highest incidence of consumption, followed by Kunming, Chengdu and Harbin. Those with higher incomes and education levels were consistently more likely to consume wildlife as food, possibly due to the prevalence of wildlife consumption in the Chinese business sector.

The factors motivating wildlife consumption are complex and rooted in culture, motivated by both ‘emotional’ and ‘functional’ reasons. Respondents consumed wildlife because they saw it as representing social status and showing respect for guests (‘emotional motivation’) and because they believed it to be nourishing and to have curative values, ideas rooted in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) (functional motivation’).

Prof Xu added: “This report aims to let consumers understand that unsustainable consumption of wild meat can threaten wild animal's survival.”

This persistent consumer demand is increasingly placing wild animals and plants, and their ecosystems—both in China and abroad—at risk through unsustainable and often illegal wildlife trade. As a result, wild populations of many species have become depleted in China, and sourcing has shifted to countries in South-east Asia, South Asia, the Russian Far East and further afield.

The study found three principal barriers to unsustainable wildlife consumption: limited availability, illegality, and price.

The government of China has demonstrated it has the ability to control wildlife trade through the highly effective temporary suspension of such trade following the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003. However, trade in wild animals for meat and medicinal purposes has subsequently resumed, and is believed to be on the increase, said Prof Xu.

The report suggests that an effective long-term communications campaign should target both end-users, focusing on those segments of the population that consume the most wildlife and/or have high potential for cutting down on wildlife consumption, and influential individuals and sectors of society able to reach wider audiences.

In China, the media, government wildlife law enforcement agencies, and the TCM community are already helping combat unsustainable wildlife consumption, and these efforts should be strengthened and sustained through a long-term strategy.

Notes
Understanding the motivations: the first step toward influencing China’s unsustainable wildlife consumption (PDF, 1.6 MB)

The report presents the results of a survey of consumer attitudes conducted in six cities in China (Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Kunming, Harbin and Chengdu) aimed at understanding attitudes and behaviour toward wildlife consumption in these cities. TRAFFIC’s research team conducted 10 expert interviews and eight focus group sessions, as well as a survey of 969 people from various age groups, income and education levels.

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1,000 endangered turtles found dead in Orissa beach

Thaindian News 27 Jan 10;

Bhubaneswar, Jan 27 (IANS) At least 1,000 endangered Olive Ridley turtles have been found dead in an Orissa beach since November, a senior state wildlife official said Wednesday.

The carcasses were spotted at various places between the mouths of the Devi and Dhamra rivers under Gahirmatha marine sanctuary, one of the world’s largest turtle nesting sites, in Kendrapada district, 174 km from here.

“We have spotted the carcasses of at least 1,000 turtles this winter. Some of them were spotted this week,” Divisional Forest Officer P.K. Behera told IANS.

Around this time last year, the total carcasses of turtles found on the same beach were about 2,000, he said.

The turtle mortality has come down this year due to various protection measures the government has initiated, he said.

Citing the measures, Behera said government has set up several camps near the coast and deployed dozens of officials to keep vigil.

The turtles arrive and congregate in the shallow coastal waters in October, they nest between December and March, and most hatchlings emerge by May.

Thousands of turtles have already arrived for mating. Behera said forest officials have already spotted the turtles in the sea water. They are likely to climb ashore for mass nesting in February, he said. About 700,000-800,000 endangered Olive Ridley turtles nest every winter at this site.

More at : 1,000 endangered turtles found dead in Orissa beach http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/enviornment/1000-endangered-turtles-found-dead-in-orissa-beach_100310286.html#ixzz0dnFXuWr7

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Mangrove rehabilitation in Bali urged

Wasti Atmodjo, The Jakarta Post 27 Jan 10;

Bali Forest Office has frequently asked several government offices and state-owned companies to return the borrowed mangrove forest areas in Nusa Dua to the office.

Head of the office AAN Buana said Monday that the governmental offices and private companies had utilized 169.4 hectares of mangrove forest areas for various facilities including office buildings and headquarters under an agreement of five to 10 years of utilization.

A number of government agencies included Bali provincial administration, Bali Public Works Office, the Public Works Ministry, the state-owned PLN electricity company, the state-owned oil company PT Pertamina, Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics (BMKG) office, and Bali Tourism Development Corporation (BTDC), which managed the Nusa Dua resort complex.

"Many of the offices have been occupying the reclaimed mangrove forest areas for more than 10 years. There should be clarification from the related users," Buana said.

Based on the Forestry Ministry's Decree No.P 43/2008, the utilization of forested areas must be limited to 20 years.

Buana added that the agreement period had already expired.

"We must take further action - legal action if necessary."

He said the forest office had reported the case to the Prosecutor's Office, and was awaiting a response.

Data from the forest office revealed BTDC had asked permission to utilize 30 hectares of mangrove forests for the development of a lagoon in the Nusa Dua resort complex for the 1994-1999 period.

The company was also granted a permit to use a 3.03-hectare mangrove forest as the site for an alternative entrance road for the 1992-2000 period.

"Up to the present, there has been no renewal agreement," Buana said.

The Public Works Ministry used 46.08 hectares for an estuary estate (1994-1999) and 14.40 hectares (1984-1989) for a waste disposal center. BMKG used 0.02 hectares of forest area to construct a wind-monitoring tower (1991-1996).

Bali provincial administration built a ceramic study and research center on a 1.37 hectares of land, while Pertamina used 0.04 hectares for the construction of a connecting pipe to the Ngurah Rai Airport.

PT PLN used 66.55 hectares of mangrove areas to construct the Pesanggaran power plant.

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Ecotourism in Indonesia exempted from EIA permit

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 28 Jan 10;

Investors can now develop a conservation forest into an ecotourist destination without carrying out a study on its impact on the environment, as part of the government’s latest policy to relax bureaucracy.

The decision was made when many conservation forests were converted into palm oil plantations or mining fields, as had occurred in Kalimantan.

The Forestry Ministry and State Environment Ministry agreed to revise the 1990 government regulation on tourism in an effort to lure investors to develop ecotourism across the country.

“We agree to drop the requirement for Amdal documents for investors who are interested in developing ecotourism in conservation forests,” Darori, director general of forest protection at the Forestry Ministry told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

The revised government regulation is due this month.

He said that the money generated from the business would be used to fund conserving forests and help improve locals’ income.

Darori said that developers were prohibited from building infrastructure and other facilities that would damage the environment.

“There will be no asphalt roads and cement buildings in the ecotourism sites,” he said.

The permits to transform the conservation forest into ecotourist sites were issued by the Forestry Ministry.

The authority to issue the Amdal document, which was aimed to assess whether activities could harm the environment, lies with the State Environment Ministry.

Deputy for spatial planning at the State Environment Ministry Hermien Rosita said that ecotourism would not harm the environment.

“Our assessment shows there is no significant impact and that’s why we agreed to drop the Amdal requirement,” she told the Post.

She said that developers should instead implement the environmental management scheme (UKL) and the environmental monitoring scheme (UPL).

The 2009 Environmental Law requires that each business obliging to secure the UKL/UPL should secure the environmental permit issued by the State Environment Ministry.

The decision to ease the regulations on ecotourism was also made as the State Environment Ministry promised to tighten the Amdal process to prevent further environmental degradation in the country, often blamed for major natural disasters.

Almost all forested provinces in the country have suffered annual floods in the wet season and water crisis in the dry season. Experts blamed the problem on poor forest management.

The 1990 regulation stipulates the ecotourist sites be developed by cooperatives, individuals, the private sector or the government, with a total renting period of 30 years.

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Kalimantan great for oil-palm investment

The Star 28 Jan 10;

BALIKPAPAN (East Kaliman-tan): Kalimantan offers vast potential for Malaysian investors to venture into oil palm plantation.

PT Dermaga Perkasapratama operations director Leong Kim Wah, who is from Kuala Lumpur, said there were vast tracts of land suitable for oil palm plantation in Kalimantan.

“Those who are keen should liaise directly with the district officer or mayor, and the governor,” he told a group of businessman from Sabah led by former Sabah chief minister Harris Salleh on a 10-day tour of Kalimantan.

The trip sponsored by Berjaya Foundation was to look into the investment potential in the Indonesian province.

On Pt Dermaga Perkasapratama, a subsidiary of the Bayan Group, Leong said the company had been in East Kalimantan since the 1980s and was involved in infrastructure construction for the oil and gas industry.

He said the company ventured into coal mining in 1974.

“Last year, it produced 10 million tonnes of coal and exported it to Asian countries, including Malaysia, and Europe,” he added.

Leong said the company, which had its head office in Jakarta, produced up to 11 million tonnes of coal a year from six mines in Balikpapan. — Bernama

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Kalimantan Seen as Perfect Test Case for New Green Law

Fidelis E Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 27 Jan 10;

It’s the all too familiar good news-bad news story for the country’s environment. The good news is the law to take down those involved in the destruction of the environment is in place and ready for action. The bad news is that the government does not seem particularly eager to use it.

“We don’t want the law to turn into another paper tiger,” said Asep Warlan Yusuf, an environmental law expert at Bandung’s Parahyangan University. “It’s high time the government took some real action against environment offenders.”

The State Ministry for the Environment, Asep said, “lacks the courage to fight the good fight by taking environmental cases to court.”

The Environmental Protection and Management Law became effective on Oct. 3, 2009.

Siti Maimunah, national coordinator of the Mining Advocacy Network (Jatam), said the government should immediately begin putting the law to work in Kalimantan, where the environment is in full retreat in the face of massive mining operations and the spread of palm oil plantations.

“You want this law to work, you start with Kalimantan,” she said. “This would be a real test because the Kalimantan case is very urgent.”

Siti said Kalimantan for years had been the scene of unchecked exploitation, as large companies dug up its coal and minerals, cut down its forests and created massive palm oil plantations.

Siti said local administrations in Kalimantan had tried to contain the destruction with spatial planning, which she described as little more than a “suicide plan.”

“Kalimantan is staring at its own destruction because the development planning [of the various government departments] is a mess that concentrates on exploitation,” she said.

Kalimantan, she said, seems to have implemented “mismanagement planning.”

“Look at Samarinda [the capital of East Kalimantan],” she said. “The local government has been forced to spend billions of rupiah to build a canal to prevent massive floods caused by the coal industries surrounding the city.”

East Kalimantan is home to 1,212 coal mining operations, permits for which were issued by local administrations as authorized under the Regional Autonomy Law. There are an additional 32 permits issued by the central government. In neighboring South Kalimantan, there are around 400 mining operations.

Many of these permits, however, are allegedly being misused due to a lack of control and kickbacks, which has allowed miners to open sites in conservation areas or nature reserves. Reclamation or rehabilitation of the exploited sites is almost nonexistent.

On Monday, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan threatened to revoke the permits of mining companies operating in Kalimantan conservation areas.

“[We] will check those mining operations this week and if there are any violations, we will not hesitate to review their permits and urge them to rehabilitate the areas,” Zulkifli said. The minister was responding to a report in a national newspaper that around 200 mining concessionaires are operating in conservation areas in South Kalimantan.

Environmental law expert Mas Achmad Santosa lauded the new law, but said the government needed to make immediate use of it to go after companies damaging the environment.

“This law should help resolve the longstanding problem of departmental egoism,” Santosa said. “Although this law is perceived to be solely the province of the State Ministry for the Environment, in fact, it can be used by other [government departments], such as the mining and forestry [ministries].”

“[The other ministries] don’t need further education or information on the law, they should be able to jump right in. However, the State Ministry for the Environment should be the one to make the breakthrough.”

Santosa said the new law no longer dealt only with “brown issues,” that is only toxic chemical pollution, but had been expanded to deal with “green issues” linked to forestry and other sectors.

“Compared to other laws this is a strong one, especially for Kalimantan because it defines corporate crimes, introduces a more integrated monitoring system through clauses in the operation permits and even has a back-up control from the district to the central level [of the government],” he said.

Asked to comment on demands by activists that the law be deployed immediately, State Minister for the Environment Gusti Muhammad Hatta said he had already instructed his staff to carry out an inventory of the mining activities in Kalimantan and to compose a government regulation to accompany the new law.

“[The mining operators] will be punished according to their level of non-compliance, and not all of the cases will be settled in court,” he said on Wednesday.

In another development, a number of green groups, including Jatam and the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), have filed a suit against the State Ministry for the Environment at the Jakarta Administrative Court concerning the ministry’s environmental assessment of two major mining companies in Sulawesi, PT Meares Soputan Mining and PT Tambang Tondano Nusajaya.

Eight villagers, representatives of residents in North Minahasa district, North Sulawesi, claim the ministry’s decision to allow the companies to operate was a violation of regional environmental regulations. The villagers say that the companies’ operations will hurt the environment.

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Indonesia plans 'green' growth fund

Arlina Arshad Yahoo News 27 Jan 10;

JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia is hoping to raise hundreds of millions of dollars from foreign governments to fund "green infrastructure" projects, a finance ministry official said Wednesday.

The "Green Investment Fund" would finance an ambitious development programme designed to simultaneously boost economic growth while reducing emissions blamed for climate change, senior investment official Langgeng Subur said.

Letters promoting the fund had been sent to several embassies in Jakarta, and Britain had already expressed its willingness to participate, he said.

"So far, the UK has replied saying it's ready to assist. It has also stated an amount but at this point I won't reveal how much," he told AFP.

Expressions of interest also had come from countries including Australia, France, Japan and the United States, he added.

"It's still in the early stages but we plan to launch it this year," Subur said.

"The fund will help to drive infrastructure developments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Indonesia is committed to fulfilling our target of cutting emissions by 26 percent by 2020."

Edward Gustely, a foreign adviser to the finance ministry, said the goal was to raise a billion dollars with an initial deposit of 100 million dollars from the Indonesian government.

"What we want to do is to scale greater investment in green infrastructure and market deployment of clean technology to address immediate and future needs of climate change," he said.

"Our goal is to launch it within this year but we don't know how fast we can do this."

Projects eligible for the funds would be things like new geothermal or hydro power stations, bio-waste technologies and water distribution projects -- which might struggle to raise capital through market channels, he said.

Indonesia is one of the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, thanks mainly to massive deforestation for the timber trade and to make way for palm oil plantations.

Greenpeace awarded Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono the "World Cup of Forest Destruction" on Tuesday as the real football Jules Rimet Trophy passed through Jakarta.

Environmentalists say the government has done almost nothing to stop deforestation -- much of it illegal and linked to corrupt officials -- which would go a long way to achieving its emissions targets.

A report by Human Rights Watch last month said corruption in the Indonesian forestry sector cost the government two billion dollars a year and supported a lucrative black market in timber products.

The US-based watchdog said graft would undermine Indonesia's ability to attract foreign finance for greenhouse mitigation schemes like reduced deforestation.

But Gustely said the Indonesian government was strongly committed to "seriously address the effects of climate change and... reduce its current emissions".

Countries which invested in the proposed fund would measure returns on the basis of "verification of greenhouse gas reductions", he added.

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China's Cabinet Says Pollution Situation Still Serious

Ben Blanchard, Reuters 28 Jan 10;

BEIJING - China still faces a serious threat from pollution despite recent government efforts to clean up, the Cabinet said on Wednesday, adding the country would step up investment in environmentally friendly industries.

While noting some progress at closing outdated factories, cleaning up dirty rivers and increasing access to clean drinking water, the State Council, or Cabinet, warned against any resting on laurels during a regular meeting.

"Though our country's environmental protection work has achieved positive results, generally the pollution of the environment has yet to be controlled," according to a statement posted on the government's website (www.gov.cn) about the meeting, chaired by Premier Wen Jiabao.

"Supervision and management abilities over the environment remain lagging, and the situation is still severe," it added.

We must "increase investment in and forcefully develop environmentally-friendly industries, as well as strengthen the ability to protect the environment," the statement said.

"Spare no effort in promoting efforts to fight pollution and cut emissions ... vigorously reduce air pollution and emissions from the thermal power generation, steel, nonferrous and cement industries," it added, without elaborating.

More than 30 years of breakneck economic growth have had an appalling affect on China's environment, with rivers blackened and blankets of smog smothering many cities.

The government has pledged to do more to tackle pollution -- a cause of violent protests in some parts of China -- by closing factories and mines and investing in green technology, but admits it faces a hard and long fight.

(Editing by Jerry Norton)

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Bacteria Transformed into Biofuel Refineries

Synthetic biology has allowed scientists to tweak E. coli to produce fuels from sugar and, more sustainably, cellulose
David Biello Scientific American 27 Jan 10;

The bacteria responsible for most cases of food poisoning in the U.S. has been turned into an efficient biological factory to make chemicals, medicines and, now, fuels. Chemical engineer Jay Keasling of the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues have manipulated the genetic code of Escherichia coli, a common gut bacteria, so that it can chew up plant-derived sugar to produce diesel and other hydrocarbons, according to results published in the January 28 issue of Nature.

"We incorporated genes that enabled production of biodiesel—esters [organic compounds] of fatty acids and ethanol—directly," Keasling explains. "The fuel that is produced by our E. coli can be used directly as biodiesel. In contrast, fats or oils from plants must be chemically esterified before they can be used."

Perhaps more importantly, the researchers have also imported genes that allow E. coli to secrete enzymes that break down the tough material that makes up the bulk of plants—cellulose, specifically hemicellulose—and produce the sugar needed to fuel this process. "The organism can produce the fuel from a very inexpensive sugar supply, namely cellulosic biomass," Keasling adds.

The E. coli directly secretes the resulting biodiesel, which then floats to the top of a fermentation vat, so there is neither the necessity for distillation or other purification processes nor the need, as in biodiesel from algae, to break the cell to get the oil out.

This new process for transforming E. coli into a cellulosic biodiesel refinery involves the tools of synthetic biology. For example, Keasling and his team cloned genes from Clostridium stercorarium and Bacteroides ovatus—bacteria that thrive in soil and the guts of plant-eating animals, respectively—which produce enzymes that break down cellulose. The team then added an extra bit of genetic code in the form of short amino acid sequences that instruct the altered E. coli cells to secrete the bacterial enzyme, which breaks down the plant cellulose, turning it into sugar; the E. coli in turn transforms that sugar into biodiesel.

The process is perfect for making hydrocarbons with at least 12 carbon atoms in them, ranging from diesel to chemical precursors—and even jet fuel, or kerosene. But it cannot, yet, make shorter chain hydrocarbons like gasoline. "Gasoline tends to contain short-chain hydrocarbons, say C8, with more branches, whereas diesel and jet fuel contain long-chain hydrocarbons with few branches," Keasling notes. "There are other ways to make gasoline. We are working on these technologies, as well."

After all, the U.S. alone burns some 140 billion gallons of gasoline a year, compared with just two billion gallons of biodiesel. But Keasling has estimated in the past that a mere 400,000 hectares of Miscanthus giganteus—a more than three-meter tall Asian grass—chewed up by specially engineered microbes, like the E. coli here, could produce enough fuel to meet all U.S. transportation needs. That's roughly one quarter of the current amount of land devoted to raising crops in the U.S.

E. coli is the most likely candidate for such work, because it is an extremely well-studied organism as well as a hardy one. "E. coli tolerated the genetic changes quite well," Keasling says. "It was somewhat surprising. Because all organisms require fatty acids for their cell membrane to survive, if you rob them of some fatty acids, they turn up the fatty acid biosynthesis to make up for the depletion."

E. coli "grows fast, three times faster than yeast, 50 times faster than Mycoplasma, 100 times faster than most agricultural microbes," explains geneticist and technology developer George Church at Harvard Medical School, who was not involved in this research. "It can survive in detergents or gasoline that will kill lesser creatures, like us. It's fairly easily manipulated." Plus, E. coli can be turned into a microbial factory for almost anything that is presently manufactured but organic—from electrical conductors to fuel. "If it's organic, then, immediately, it becomes plausible that you can make it with biological systems."

The idea in this case is to produce a batch of biofuel from a single colony through E. coli's natural ability to proliferate and, after producing the fuel, dispose of the E. coli and start anew with a fresh colony, according to Keasling. "This minimizes the mutations that might arise if one continually subcultured the microbe," he says. The idea is also to engineer the new organism, deleting key metabolic pathways, such that it would never survive in the wild in order to prevent escapes with unintended environmental impacts, among other dangers.

But ranging outside of its natural processes, E. coli is not the most efficient producer of biofuel. "We are at about 10 percent of the theoretical maximum yield from sugar," Keasling notes. "We would like to be at 80 to 90 percent to make this commercially viable. Furthermore, we would need a large-scale production process," such as 100,000 liter tanks to allow mass production of microbial fuel.

Nevertheless, several companies, including LS9, which helped with the research, as well as Gevo and Keasling-founded Amyris Biotechnologies, are working on making fuel from microbes a reality at the pump—not just at the beer tap.

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India's 'miracle' biofuel crop: too good to be true?

Yasmeen Mohiuddin Yahoo News 26 Jan 10;

NEW DELHI (AFP) – To its fans, jatropha is a miracle crop, an eco-friendly answer to India's growing energy needs, but some experts are starting to question whether the wonder-shrub is too good to be true.

The seeds of the wild plant, which grows abundantly across India, produce non-edible oil that can be blended with diesel, to make the biofuel that is part of government efforts to cut carbon emissions and combat climate change.

That, combined with the shrub's much vaunted ability to flourish on poorly irrigated land, should make it the perfect crop for wasteland in the drought-prone nation.

But new research shows jatropha, which has received huge government backing in recent years, yields less than experts had first predicted and is now being grown on fertile farmland -- undermining two of its best selling points.

"Jatropha is being talked of as a crop that will grow on marginal and uncultivated land, and which will not compete with mainstream cultivation," said Sharachchandra Lele, a senior fellow at ATREE, an Indian environmental research group promoting sustainable development.

"But this is not what is happening in practice. Some state governments are promoting its cultivation on regular agricultural land, where it will displace existing crops, including food crops," said Lele.

"We are basically subsidising the urban elite's petrol consumption at the cost of rural livelihoods and food production."

The Indian government has aggressively promoted production of the crop, setting its sights on 11 million hectares (27 million acres) of plantations nationwide by next year.

Government policy stipulates that by 2017 all petrol and diesel fuel must have 20 percent biofuel content, one of many moves aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions blamed for climate change.

K.D. Gupta, chairman of the Institute of Applied Systems and Rural Development, one of the staunchest backers of jatropha for biofuel, denied that good agricultural land was being used to cultivate the crop.

"Farmers are not going to plant jatropha, because other crops are yielding more returns," said Gupta.

Two Indian research institutes initially reported a yield of 7.5 tonnes of jatropha seeds per hectare (three tons per acre) under irrigated conditions.

Similarly, a 2007 report by the state-run National Oilseeds and Vegetable Oils Development Board (NOVOD) predicted yields of three to five tonnes per hectare.

But research by ATREE has shown that yields under normal conditions were less than one tonne per hectare and suggested it was doubtful yields could ever reach those touted by the crop's supporters.

The poor results have not dashed the hopes of businesses keen to promote the plant.

"It all depends on how you manage the crop," said Subhas Patnaik, chief operating officer of Mission Biofuels, which started cultivating jatropha in 2007 and currently owns around 130,000 hectares in five states.

"The whole challenge is how to get better yields from this crop and once you're able to prove that to the farmer and to everybody then definitely it is going to be a miracle crop," said Patnaik.

Gupta said his Institute of Applied Systems and Rural Development had planted two million jatropha saplings over 1,300 hectares mostly in northern India and said it was too early to judge the crop, because it took years to fully develop and produce desirable returns.

But ATREE's Lele remains unconvinced.

"Neither for energy security nor for mitigating carbon emissions is jatropha cultivation by any means the first option," he said.

"Much more could be achieved through investments in public transport and reductions in private vehicle use."

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Effects of forest fire on carbon emissions, climate impacts often overestimated

Oregon State University, EurekAlert 27 Jan 10;

CORVALLIS, Ore. – A recent study at Oregon State University indicates that some past approaches to calculating the impacts of forest fires have grossly overestimated the number of live trees that burn up and the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as a result.

The research was done on the Metolius River Watershed in the central Oregon Cascade Range, where about one-third – or 100,000 acres – of the area burned in four large fires in 2002-03. Although some previous studies assumed that 30 percent of the mass of living trees was consumed during forest fires, this study found that only 1-3 percent was consumed.

Some estimates done around that time suggested that the B&B Complex fire in 2003, just one of the four Metolius fires, released 600 percent more carbon emissions than all other energy and fossil fuel use that year in the state of Oregon – but this study concluded that the four fires combined produced only about 2.5 percent of annual statewide carbon emissions.

Even in 2002, the most extreme fire year in recent history, the researchers estimate that all fires across Oregon emitted only about 22 percent of industrial and fossil fuel emissions in the state – and that number is much lower for most years, about 3 percent on average for the 10 years from 1992 to 2001.

The OSU researchers said there are some serious misconceptions about how much of a forest actually burns during fires, a great range of variability, and much less carbon released than previously suggested. Some past analyses of carbon release have been based on studies of Canadian forests that are quite different than many U.S. forests, they said.

"A new appreciation needs to be made of what we're calling 'pyrodiversity,' or wide variation in fire effects and responses," said Garrett Meigs, a research assistant in OSU's Department of Forest Ecosystems and Society. "And more studies should account for the full gradient of fire effects."

The past estimates of fire severity and the amounts of carbon release have often been high and probably overestimated in many cases, said Beverly Law, a professor of forest ecosystems and society at OSU.

"Most of the immediate carbon emissions are not even from the trees but rather the brush, leaf litter and debris on the forest floor, and even below ground," Law said. "In the past we often did not assess the effects of fire on trees or carbon dynamics very accurately."

Even when a very severe fire kills almost all of the trees in a patch, the scientists said, the trees are still standing and only drop to the forest floor, decay, and release their carbon content very slowly over several decades. Grasses and shrubs quickly grow back after high-severity fires, offsetting some of the carbon release from the dead and decaying trees. And across most of these Metolius burned areas, the researchers observed generally abundant tree regeneration that will result in a relatively fast recovery of carbon uptake and storage.

"A severe fire does turn a forest from a carbon sink into an atmospheric carbon source in the near-term," Law said. "It might take 20-30 years in eastern Oregon, where trees grow and decay more slowly, for the forest to begin absorbing more carbon than it gives off, and 5-10 years on the west side of the Cascades."

Since fire events are episodic in nature while greenhouse gas emissions are continuous and increasing, climate change mitigation strategies focused on human-caused emissions will have more impact than those emphasizing wildfire, the researchers said. And to be accurate, estimates of carbon impacts have to better consider burn severity, non-tree responses, and below-ground processes, they said.

"Even though it looks like everything is burning up in forest fires, that simply isn't what happens," Meigs said. "The trees are not vaporized even during a very intense fire. In a low-severity fire many of them are not even killed. And in the Pacific Northwest, the majority of burned area is not stand-replacement fire."

Fire suppression has resulted in a short-term reduction of greenhouse gases, the researchers said, but on a long-term basis fire will still be an inevitable part of forest ecosystems. Timber harvest also has much more impact on carbon dynamics than fire. Because of this, forest fires will be a relatively minor player in greenhouse gas mitigation strategies compared to other factors, such as human consumption of fossil fuels, they said.

Global warming could cause higher levels of forest fire and associated carbon emissions in the future, the researchers said, although there are many uncertainties about how climate change will affect forests, and no indication that forest fire carbon emissions will become comparable to those caused by fossil fuel use.

This research was published recently in the journal Ecosystems, and funded by the U.S. Department of Energy.

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Editor's Note: Images of different types of forest fire are available to illustrate this story:

* High severity fire: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/4304290099/
* Moderate severity fire: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/4305047774/
* Low severity fire: http://www.flickr.com/photos/oregonstateuniversity/4304321895/

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Global Warming To Trigger More Warming

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 28 Jan 10;

OSLO - Climate change caused by mankind will release extra heat-trapping gases stored in nature into the atmosphere in a small spur to global warming, a study showed.

But the knock-on effect of the additional carbon dioxide -- stored in soils, plants and the oceans -- on top of industrial emissions building up in the atmosphere will be less severe than suggested by some recent studies, they said.

"We are confirming that the feedback exists and is positive. That's bad news," lead author David Frank of the Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL said of the study in Thursday's edition of the journal Nature.

"But if we compare our results with some recent estimates (showing a bigger feedback effect) then it's good news," Frank, an American citizen, told Reuters of the report with other experts in Switzerland and Germany.

The data, based on natural swings in temperatures from 1050-1800, indicated that a rise of one degree Celsius (1.6 degree Fahrenheit) would increase carbon dioxide concentrations by about 7.7 parts per million in the atmosphere.

That is far below recent estimates of 40 ppm that would be a much stronger boost to feared climate changes such as floods, desertification, wildfires, rising sea levels and more powerful storm, they said.

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have already risen to about 390 ppm from about 280 ppm before the Industrial Revolution. Only some models in the last major U.N. climate report, in 2007, included assessments of carbon cycle feedbacks.

Frank said the new study marks an advance by quantifying feedback over the past 1,000 years and will help refine computer models for predicting future temperatures.

SURPRISES

"In a warmer climate, we should not expect pleasant surprises in the form of more efficient uptake of carbon by oceans and land," Hugues Goosse of the Universite Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, wrote in a comment in Nature.

The experts made 220,000 comparisons of carbon dioxide levels -- trapped in tiny bubbles in annual layers of Antarctic ice -- against temperatures inferred from natural sources such as tree rings or lake sediments over the years 1050-1800.

Goosse said the study refined a general view that rising temperatures amplify warming from nature even though some impacts are likely to suck carbon dioxide from the air.

Carbon might be freed to the air by a projected shift to drier conditions in some areas, for instance in the east Amazon rainforest. But that could be partly offset if temperatures rise in the Arctic, allowing more plants to grow.

Warmer soils might accelerate the respiration of tiny organisms, releasing extra carbon dioxide to the air. Wetlands or oceans may also release carbon if temperatures rise.

Frank said it was hard to say how the new findings might have altered estimates in a report by the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change in 2007 that world temperatures could rise by between 1.1 and 6.4 Celsius by 2100.

"Of the models that did include the carbon cycle, our results suggests that those with slightly below average feedbacks might be more accurate," he said. "But we can't now say exactly what sort of temperature range that would imply."

Runaway CO2 rise 'could be lower'
Roger Harrabin, BBC News 27 Jan 10;

The most alarming forecasts of natural systems amplifying the human-induced greenhouse effect may be too high, according to a new report.

The study in Nature confirms that as the planet warms, oceans and forests will absorb proportionally less CO2.

It says this will increase the effects of man-made warming - but much less than recent research has suggested.

The authors warn, though, that their research will not reduce projections of future temperature rises.

Further, they say their concern about man-made climate change remains high.

The research, from a team of scientists in Switzerland and Germany, attempts to settle one of the great debates in climate science about exactly how the Earth's natural carbon cycle will exacerbate any man-made warming.

Positive, negative

Some climate sceptics have argued that a warmer world will increase the land available for vegetation, which will in turn absorb CO2 and temper further warming. This is known as a negative feedback loop - the Earth acting to keep itself in balance.

But the Nature research concludes that any negative feedback will be swamped by positive feedback in which extra CO2 is released from the oceans and from already-forested areas.

The oceans are the world's great store of CO2, but the warmer they become, the less CO2 they can absorb. And forests dried out by increased temperatures tend to decay and release CO2 from their trees and soils.

Commenting in Nature on the new research, Hugues Goosse from the Université Catholique de Louvain in Belgium said: "In a warmer climate, we should not expect pleasant surprises in the form of more efficient uptake of carbon by oceans and land… that would limit the amplitude of future climate change".

The IPCC's fourth assessment report had a broad range of estimates as to how far natural systems would contribute to a spiral of warming. The Nature paper narrows that range to the lower end of previous estimates.

The report's lead author, David Frank from the Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, told BBC News that many of the calculations for the IPCC assessment report did not include an integrated carbon cycle.

He said that if the results his paper were widely accepted, the overall effect on climate projections would be neutral.

"It might lead to a downward mean revision of those (climate) models which already include the carbon cycle, but an upward revision in those which do not include the carbon cycle.

"That'll probably even itself out to signify no real change in the temperature projections overall," he said.

'Comforting'

The team's calculations are based on a probabilistic analysis of climate variation between the years 1050 and 1800 - that is, before the Industrial Revolution introduced fossil carbon into the atmosphere.

Using 200,000 data points, the study - believed by Nature to be the most comprehensive of its kind so far - compared the Antarctic ice core record of trapped CO2 bubbles with so-called proxy data like tree rings, which are used to estimate temperature changes.

The most likely value among their estimates suggests that for every degree Celsius of warming, natural ecosystems tend to release an extra 7.7 parts per million of CO2 to the atmosphere (the full range of their estimate was between 1.7 and 21.4 parts per million).

This stands in sharp contrast to the recent estimates of positive feedback models, which suggest a release of 40 parts per million per degree; the team say with 95% certainty that value is an overestimate.

The paper will surely not be the last word in this difficult area of research, with multiple uncertainties over data sources.

"I think that the magnitude of the warming amplification given by the carbon cycle is a live issue that will not suddenly be sorted by another paper trying to fit to palaeo-data," Professor Brian Hoskins, a climate expert from Imperial College London, told BBC News.

Professor Tim Lenton from the University of East Anglia said: "It looks intriguing and comforting if they are right. The immediate problem I can see is that past variations in CO2 and temperature over the last millennium were very small, and this group are assuming that the relationship they derive from these very small variations can be extrapolated to the much larger variations in temperature we expect this century.

"We have plenty of reason to believe that the shape of the relationship may change (be nonlinear) when we 'hit the system harder'. So, I don't think they can rule out that the positive feedback from the carbon cycle could become stronger in a significantly warmer climate."

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