Best of our wild blogs: 12 Feb 10

Sharks’ Fin – The Red Flag
from EcoWalkthetalk and Project:FIN on Facebook

Oriental Pied Hornbills at Singapore’s Chinese Garden
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Year of no concern for the tiger?

Letter from Natalie Cook, Today Online 12 Feb 10;

I am disheartened at how Singapore is celebrating the Year of the Tiger.

Instead of highlighting how threatened the tiger is as a species, there are actions and pictures showing a complete disregard for their well-being.

The Singapore Zoo is showing its training methods by placing the tiger in a small cage so that people can walk past and take pictures of them.

On the cover of a local magazine, a celebrity is draped in a tiger skin.

Why can't we celebrate this beautiful and threatened animal by ensuring that their welfare is our main concern?

How many tigers, if any, will be left in the next Year of the Tiger if we keep on treating them the way we do now?

Singapore Zoo lets visitors get closer to white tigers
Evelyn Choo, Channel NewsAsia 9 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE: Remember the white tigers that made the headlines when a man went into their enclosure and got mauled to death at the zoo?

One year on, the Singapore Zoo is asking visitors to get to know these very same tigers.

For the first time to mark the Year of the Tiger, visitors will get the opportunity to go behind the scene to see how the white tigers are trained using operant conditioning to provide mental and behavioural stimulation for the animals.

Meet Omar - a 10-year-old Bengal tiger who resides at the Singapore Zoo. He is taught to respond correctly to stimulants and gets rewarded with a meaty treat.

Francis Lim, curator at Singapore Zoo, said: "In the past, we had to sedate the animal - that means we have to knock the animal down, let them sleep so we can do a close examination. But with this operant conditioning, we don't have to do that. It's safe for the animal, it doesn't compromise the animal's health."

For the zookeepers, it is part of a bond that has been built over seven years.

Mohamed Nasir, zookeeper at Singapore Zoo, said: "There was one time when Omar was really ill. He was really, really down because of his kidney. He was really sick, and you can really feel the pain.

"He is like our family member. Omar is a bit bossy since he is the only male here. And like a typical male he has this ego in him. And he always has to be the first one."

For S$28, visitors can witness this intimate session, but they have to stay behind the line and keep their voices down.

For the less adventurous, visitors can take a peek at what the rest of the animal kingdom are up to this Lunar New Year season. - CNA/de

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Burning smell likely due to bush fires in parts of Singapore: NEA

Channel NewsAsia 11 Feb 10;

SINGAPORE : The National Environment Agency (NEA) has said that smoke from bush fires in parts of Singapore may be responsible for the burning smell detected in some areas.

In an email response to MediaCorp, it said drier conditions over the past few days have caused some bush fires.

However, as the bush fires were not large, the smoke did not affect the PSI readings adversely over the past few days. The air quality has remained in the 'Good' range since the start of the month.

NEA also said that hotspot activities have been generally subdued in Sumatra and Borneo over the past few days.

The prevailing winds have been generally blowing from the north or northeast. So any smoke from Sumatra or Borneo would not be blown towards Singapore.

With the prevailing northeasterly winds likely to persist, NEA said Singapore will not be affected by transboundary haze pollution over the next few days.

It said Singapore is typically affected by the dry phase of the northeast monsoon between February and late March. During this period, Singapore may experience lower rainfall and fewer days of rain. - CNA/ms

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Small reactors ideal for Singapore

Go for nuclear option?
Straits Times Forum 12 Feb 10;

FURTHER to the report, 'Singapore 'should consider nuclear energy'' (Feb2), it may be useful to consider the option of building small nuclear power reactors in Singapore.

Such reactors, of which there are many designs to choose from, are compact, safer, and far simpler to operate and maintain than large reactors.

Many of the smaller ones are modular, which means one could set one up first and introduce add-ons to meet subsequent increases in power needs.

For example, a United States-Japan commercial collaboration has designed a passive safe reactor module that is factory- built, transferable to an underground site, and is claimed to be able to operate continuously for 30 years without refuelling, and is then replaceable with a fresh one.

So the dreaded reactor waste problem is much diminished, and space and security problems can be resolved by adopting one of the previously suggested concepts of an underground installation.

The demand for small power reactors came about because of the search for a reliable, simple and low-carbon-footprint energy source that can cater to the needs of remote and isolated communities, and that can replace such messy sources as diesel generators.

However, because of the intensity of energy a nuclear reactor can provide, it is also suitable for co-generation, desalination, hydrogen production and other uses, apart from producing electricity.

While large reactors should not be discounted, the potential of small generators may firm up the nuclear option more favourably for Singapore.

Tso Chih Ping (Prof)

Invest in solar and wind power
Straits Times 12 Feb 10;

MS ELSPETH Thomson's commentary on Monday, 'Nuclear power: Time for a feasibility study', discusses various energy options open to Singapore and suggests that, with new designs and many improvements, nuclear power plants are no longer as dangerous as in the past.

I believe this form of power is not suited to Singapore due to problems of siting in a land-scarce Republic, potential dangers associated with nuclear accidents, difficulties with waste disposal and possible terrorist threats.

True, Singapore needs to lessen its present dependence on gas to manufacture electricity. But its location and climate provide adequate opportunity to invest in solar and wind power at every level - from individual homes and apartment blocks to the national level with as many buildings as possible fitted with solar power panels.

As the technology develops further, costs will continue to fall and make this source of energy more feasible. After all, once the panels are in place, solar energy is a free and eternal source of power.

In addition, wind farms can be sited in numerous coastal locations - even on some offshore islands. Countries such as China and the United States are developing and using this mode of energy generation with success. In Denmark, 25 per cent of power reserves are provided by wind farms.

Nations must promote the green revolution. The old, polluting forms of fossil fuel (wood, coal, oil and gas) must be replaced with renewable energy - solar, wind, tidal, hydro and geothermal power.

In Singapore, let us move forward with solar and wind power.

Peter C.N. Hardstone

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Tigers roam around regent’s office in Bengkulu

The Jakarta Post 12 Feb 10;

Residents of a housing complex near the Kaur regency administration office in Bengkulu woke up on Friday to the remains of three goats that had been mauled by at least two Sumatran tigers overnight, Antara has reported.

Deputy Regent Suarni Muhidin said a local resident, Syamsuri, reported the loss of three of his 33 goats and found traces of tiger footprints around his yard. The regency administration office guards said they heard the goats bleating just before midnight, as the tigers attacked them.

Several times residents of Maje district, located 25 kilometers away from the administration office complex, have reported that their cattle had fallen prey to tigers.

“Tiger used to spread fear in Maje, but now it is sparking anxiety in an area closer to the administration office,” Suarni said.

He called on residents to avoid hunting deer, or the tigers would continue to come looking for cattle.

Head of the Bengkulu Natural Resources Conservation Agency Supartono said forest rangers would evict the protected carnivores from residential areas and keep them inside the conservation area.

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WWF launches campaign in Indonesia to save Sumatran tiger

Antara 11 Feb 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) Indonesia is to launch a public campaign in support of efforts to conserve the Sumatran tiger, a spokesperson said.

The campaign as part of WWF`s "Year of the Tiger" program would be held in Jakarta February 12-13 and involve many elements of society, including environmental activists, governmental agencies handling environmental matters and the business community, Desnarita Murni, a WWF Indonesia coordinator, said here Thursday.

The purpose of the campaign was to persuade the general public to develop concern for the fate of the Sumatran tiger which was the only surviving tiger species in Indonesia, she said.

"The number of Sumatran tigers living in the wild in Indonesia has now declined to about 400, So we must all do our best to preserve them, if we don`t want the species to die out," Murni said.

The Sumatran tiger had become endangered because of the high frequency of tiger-hunting activity.

"Trade in tiger body parts is continuing. More and more tiger habitats are being destroyed by human activities. So, if we don`t take joint actions, their extinction will only be a matter of time," she said.

WWF had also invited the government, the business world and other parties to take part in the campaign, "Preservation of our bio-diversity requires the cooperation of all. WWF cannot work without the support of other parties," Murni said.(*)

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Tens of thousands hectares of forests in Sumatra damaged

Antara 12 Feb 10;

Muaraenim, S Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Some 53,334 hectares of state conversion forests in the production forests of PT Musi Hutan Persada (PT MHP) in Muaraenim regency, South Sumatra, were heavily damaged by illegal logging activities.

"Already 70 pct of the forests in Muaraenim were seriously damaged, because of the 76,191 ha forests, only 30 percent remains intact or 22,857 ha," Ahmad Mirza of the Muaraenim forestry service said here Thursday.

Under forestry ministerial decree no 1775/Menhut/VIII/2001, forest management had been entrusted to the Muaraenim regency administration for development into a Special Bee Development Center.

He said the forest damage was caused by the stealing hundreds of cubics of pinus trees of the Inhutani.

"Now the forest is finished to have been cut by irresponsible people, but the Muaraenim police managed to seize 10 trucks loaded with logs, and arrested the 23 of the perpetrators" he added.

The police is currently interrogating five witnesses, but for the lack of evidence, the police had difficulties in naming illegal logging suspects. (*)

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‘Indonesian President still reluctant’ on nuclear plans despite UN approval

Lilian Budianto, The Jakarta Post 11 Feb 10;

Indonesia has gained endorsement by the UN nuclear watchdog to develop a nuclear power plant, but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is reluctant to pursue it as it could see his popularity plummet, say experts and lawmakers.

Hudi Hastowo, chairman of the National Atomic Energy Agency (Batan), said Wednesday that Jakarta had been given an endorsement last year by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to develop nuclear power, but it had not been followed up with a plan of action, despite proposals of cooperation from major nuclear states.

Japan, South Korea, France as well as Iran have offered help to Jakarta develop nuclear power, but the President is yet to approve the plans.

The current powersupply shortage has forced the state-run power firm to impose alternating blackouts in many areas, with foreign investors complaining the country needs to upgrade its power infrastructure before they invest.

Hudi said that Indonesia had established cooperation with the US over nuclear power for peaceful use that would expire in 2030.

“We have also sought cooperation with Russia and South Korea, but that has not been ratified by the President,” he said.

Hudi was speaking at the launch of a report by a nuclear watchdog sponsored by Australia and Japan.

The International Commission for Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament said nuclear disarmament should be pursued by “minimizing” the number of nuclear warheads to no more than 2,000, by 2025, with the goal of “eliminating” them altogether.

Indonesia relies on coal, oil and gas to generate electricity for its population of 240 million. The government has sought to develop four nuclear plants that could support 10 percent of its electricity demands by 2025.

Muhammad Najib, a lawmaker from the National Mandate Party (PAN), said the government should go ahead with nuclear development despite safety concerns from environmentalists.

With the IAEA endorsement, he said, “The President should see the nuclear power plant as an opportunity rather than as a challenge that could harm his presidency,” he said.

Beside environmental concerns, observers have said that Jakarta might be reluctant to develop nuclear power through cooperation with other nuclear states because it does not want to trigger geopolitical concerns from other countries.

However Hamzah Thayeb, the Foreign Ministry’s director general for Asia and Pacific affairs, said Indonesia had no particular reservations about whom it would cooperate with.

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Human error to blame for Indonesia's mud volcano: scientists

Yahoo News 12 Feb 10;

PARIS (AFP) – Scientists Friday unveiled fresh evidence that gas drillers were to blame for unleashing a mud volcano in Indonesia's East Java that claimed 14 lives and displaced tens of thousands of people.

In a paper published by the journal Marine and Petroleum Geology, a group led by experts from Britain's Durham University said the new clues bolstered suspicions the catastrophe was caused by human error.

The company being fingered for the disaster, drilling firm Lapindo Brantas, replied in the same journal that the "Lusi" mud volcano was unleashed by an earthquake at Yogyakarta, 280 kilometres (174 miles) away.

Lusi's mud has been devouring land and homes in Sidoarjo district since May 2006, imperilling as many as 100,000 people through subsidence and inflicting damage at 4.9 billion dollars, according to an estimate by an Australian expert.

Durham professor Richard Davies said drillers, looking for gas nearby, had made a series of mistakes.

They had overestimated the pressure the well could tolerate, and had not placed protective casing around a section of open well.

Then, after failing to find any gas, they hauled the drill out while the hole was extremely unstable. By withdrawing the drill, they exposed the well hole to a "kick" from pressurised water and gas from surrounding rock formations.

The result was a volcano-like inflow that the drillers tried in vain to stop, he said.

"We found that one of the on-site daily drilling reports states that Lapindo Brantas pumped heavy drilling mud into the well to try to stop the mud volcano," Davies said in a press release.

By pumping in this heavy mud, the drillers had hoped to create sufficient pressure in the column of the well hole to block the fluid pouring in from the rupture, said Davies.

"This was partially successful, and the eruption of the mud volcano slowed down. The fact that the eruption slowed provides the first conclusive evidence that the bore hole was connected to the volcano at the time of eruption."

He added: "This is the clearest evidence uncovered so far that the Lusi mud volcano was triggered by drilling. We have detailed data, collected over two years, that show the events that led to the creation of the Lusi volcano."

A co-author of the discussion paper, Michael Manga, a professor at the University of California at Berkeley, added the Yogyakarta quake was too small and distant to have caused Lusi.

"The stresses produced by the earthquake were minute -- smaller than those created by tides and weather," he said.

Arguments over the causes of Lusi have become a political issue in Indonesia.

The row has hamstrung payments of compensation to people forced from their homes and farmers and factory owners who have lost agricultural land and property to the sea of mud.

Australian specialist Mark Tingay of Curtin University of Technology said last year that Lusi was filling the equivalent of 50 Olympic-size swimming pools every day and could continue spewing over the next 30 years.

New study links drilling to Indonesia mud volcano
Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 12 Feb 10;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - A team of scientists said in a report on Friday that they had found the strongest evidence yet linking a devastating mud volcano in Indonesia to drilling at a gas exploration well by local energy firm PT Lapindo Brantas.

Lapindo has denied triggering the disaster through its drilling activities, arguing the mud volcano near Indonesia's second-biggest city of Surabaya was triggered by an earthquake.

The hot mud started spewing from the East Java drilling site in 2006 and has now displaced nearly 60,000 people.

A scientific team led by Richard Davies of Britain's Durham University said data released by Lapindo provided new evidence indicating that drilling caused the disaster.

"We found that one of the on-site daily drilling reports states that Lapindo Brantas pumped heavy drilling mud into the well to try to stop the mud volcano. This was partially successful and the eruption of the mud volcano slowed down," Davies said in a statement.

"The fact that the eruption slowed provides the first conclusive evidence that the bore hole was connected to the volcano at the time of eruption."

The team led by Davies had previously said in 2008 that it was almost certain drilling caused the disaster.

Mark Tingay, a member of the team who is based at Australia's Curtin University, disputed Lapindo's assertion that mud flow was partly triggered by an earthquake in the Central Java city of Yogyakarta two days earlier.

"The earthquake they claimed was responsible had trivial impact because of the distance" between Yogyakarta and the disaster site, he told Reuters by telephone. Yogyakarta is over 250 km (155.3 miles) south west of the mud volcano site.

Lapindo vice president, Yuniwati Teryana, said the research was wrong.

"They don't have complete data. There is no correlation between the mud eruption and Lapindo," she said, adding Lapindo's view was supported by a decision by Indonesia's Supreme Court in 2009 when it dismissed a lawsuit over the disaster.

"In the court we had several witnesses, including those for and against, who gave their opinion. We should all respect the court result."

Indonesian police also stopped last year a criminal investigation into whether drilling cause the disaster, citing a lack of evidence.

Teryana said Lapindo had already spent 6.3 trillion rupiah ($672.7 million) compensating those affected by the disaster.

The mud volcano has been particularly embarrassing for the government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, since Lapindo is linked to the Bakrie Group, controlled by the family of Indonesia's former Chief Welfare Minister Aburizal Bakrie.

Bakrie, a powerful businessman, is no longer a minister but is the current head of the Golkar Party, which is part of coalition in parliament supporting Yudhoyono.

(Editing by Ed Davies and Alex Richardson)

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'Rewilding' the World: A Bright Spot for Biodiversity

caroline fraser Environment 360 11 Feb 10;

As burgeoning human populations place greater pressure on wild areas, a new strategy has emerged to protect threatened lands and wildlife. Known as ‘rewilding,’ it involves expanding core wilderness areas, connecting them via corridors that allow humans and animals to co-exist, and protecting and reintroducing top predators.

Five years ago, when I began researching a book about efforts to stem biodiversity loss, environmental politics was dominated — as it still is — by climate change, a parallel crisis that greatly exacerbates damage to ecosystems and loss of species. Essential as the emphasis on climate is, however, it has engendered a kind of despair among biodiversity specialists, casting a shadow over this other fundamental issue. Talk to people in the conservation trenches, and they will agree with Rodrigo Fuentes, director of a biodiversity center in the Philippines: “Biodiversity loss is a forgotten crisis. It rarely makes the headlines.”

Clearly, we understand the gravity of the biodiversity problem better than we understand the solutions. Despite numerous campaigns by the United Nations and other organizations to stem the loss of habitat and species, the world’s biodiversity — and the ecosystem services supported by it, including carbon sequestration and flood control — is approaching what Hilary Benn, the U.K.’s environment secretary, has called “a point of no return.”

Happily, however, there is more to the story.

A group of solutions is emerging under the rubric of “rewilding,” and this new movement has made considerable progress over the past decade. A Marshall Plan for the environment, rewilding promotes the expansion of core wilderness areas on a vast scale, the restoration of corridors between them (to fight the “island” effect of isolated parks and protected areas), and the reintroduction or protection of top predators.

Known by a shorthand formula — “cores, corridors, and carnivores” — rewilding was first proposed in 1998 by the founder of conservation biology, Michael Soulé, and his fellow conservation biologist, Reed Noss. It was quickly adopted by grassroots initiatives, such as the Yellowstone to Yukon Conservation Initiative (Y2Y), a plan to protect and restore connectivity of ecosystems throughout the Rocky Mountains.

Since then, its central tenets have found their way into the programs of international conservation organizations, which have embraced “continental-scale” conservation and growing bolder in the size of their preservationist programs. As both a conservation method and a grassroots movement, rewilding has taken hold in every inhabited continent, with projects stretching from densely-populated western Europe (the European Green Belt, on the path of the former Iron Curtain) to the remote reaches of southern Africa. What’s more: It has proven an adaptable model, bringing conservation to people and places outside the traditional system of parks and protected areas that lack the resources to succeed on their own.

Encouraging new revenue streams and conservation on private lands, rewilding has achieved notable successes, along with instructive failures. In northern Kenya, an area plagued by lawlessness and drought, the Craig family turned their struggling cattle ranch into the Lewa Wildlife Conservancy, protecting endangered rhinos and building a popular ecotourism business. Then Ian Craig, the family’s third generation — tutored as a teenager in the Kenyan bush by a young Maasai man, Kinanjui Lesenteria — promoted the conservancy model among the Maasai, Samburu, and Meru people on group ranches who had seen their pastoralist lifestyle crippled by successive droughts.

Eleven group ranches have since joined the Northern Rangelands Trust, with eight of those creating their own conservancies, setting aside a percentage of their grazing land for wildlife and planning eco-lodges. Those with lodges have already dedicated revenue for community improvements, such as schools and medical clinics. A million-and-a-half acres of northern Kenya have thus been set aside for wildlife management, and security for people and wildlife has improved. The Lewa conservancy provides technical assistance and equipment for patrolling Trust lands.

Conservationists in Kenya are seeing a marked improvement in formerly overgrazed areas. Elephants have rebounded from the poaching of years past, resuming their migratory routes, and the highly endangered Grevy’s zebra — which suffered severe habitat loss in recent decades — is returning to old haunts. Lewa now serves as a model for other conservancies in southern Kenya, and visitors from Uganda, Tanzania, and Ethiopia have come to study it. A similar community forestry program in Nepal is restoring corridors there for tigers, the one-horned rhino, and the Asian elephant.

In the American Southwest, galvanized by surprise sightings of jaguars, conservationists have banded together to buy private land in northern Mexico, establishing a core wilderness area to keep that species — and a host of other unique wildlife — viable. They have also reached out to the reserve’s neighbors: Mexican ranchers, like American ones, have always shot big predators on sight, but biologists with Defenders of Wildlife designed a clever contest, equipping ranches with remote camera traps. For every picture of a live jaguar, mountain lion, or other cat, participating ranchers who promised to leave the animals unmolested were paid a handsome sum — $500 for a jaguar, $100 for a mountain lion. Asked what he would do with the money, one rancher said, “Buy more cats!”

Rewilding groups are also learning from their failures. In southern Africa, the Peace Parks Foundation (PPF), which has launched several of the biggest planned conservation projects on the planet, got off on the wrong foot with its Great Limpopo Peace Park, designed to link parks in South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. The group released elephants, lions, and other dangerous wildlife into an area where unwitting villagers had yet to be informed of the program. Years later, the organization is still struggling to relocate those villagers affected. International funding agencies attacked the approach and, for a time, cut funding; since then, the PPF has realigned its priorities, making sure to engage communities in prolonged consultations about their needs. No additional projects have called for shifting populations.

Conservation on private lands, wildlife conservancies, community-forests: These efforts have significantly expanded the reach of conservation, which cannot rely on parks alone. Another innovation has been in new approaches to financing. Breaking away from the standard fund-raising model — a never-ending cycle, since most money is spent immediately on short-term grants and projects — several rewilding groups have embraced the endowment as a way of supporting conservation’s long-term needs. University of Pennsylvania biologist Daniel Janzen has been instrumental in the phenomenal success of the Area de Conservación Guanacaste (ACG) in northwestern Costa Rica, which accomplished what was once thought impossible by restoring former cattle ranches to dry tropical forest and rainforest. ACG thrives on the interest from its $30 million endowment. Janzen is now seeking a half-billion dollars to endow the entire Costa Rican park system in perpetuity.

But rewilding’s greatest potential may lie in the creation of green jobs. ACG pioneered “parataxonomy,” providing local people with a six-month “bioliteracy” training course in collecting and processing insect specimens that could then be passed on to taxonomists for identification. The parataxonomists are valued contributors to Costa Rica’s National Biodiversity Institute and instrumental in the country’s massive effort to compile an inventory of its extraordinary biodiversity. They have served as foot soldiers in “bioprospecting,” the collection of specimens that may prove useful in medicines or cosmetics: Extracts from the quassia tree, for example, have yielded both a treatment for stomachaches and a promising natural pesticide. The parataxonomy program has been copied in other biodiverse areas in Central Africa and Papua New Guinea.

In several projects, job creation is paired with carbon sequestration. The Baviaanskloof Mega-reserve Project in South Africa has created hundreds of jobs in ecotourism and restoration, training workers to remove invasives and plant native bush in a delicate Cape habitat overgrazed by goats. In Australia, ecological restoration of salt-damaged wheat farms conducted by the Gondwana Link project has provided carbon sequestration while regrowing native bush.

In the United States, the restoration of wetlands is generating jobs, from Chesapeake Bay in the east to Puget Sound in the west. The Puget Sound Partnership, a network of environmental groups and state agencies — tasked with cleaning up decades of pollutants — represents one of the most massive ecological restoration projects in the nation’s history: The partnership recently identified a half-a-billion dollars worth of “shovel-ready” stimulus projects, from removing tons of fishing nets and other debris to restoring tidal salt marsh habitat, itself a powerfully-effective means of sequestering carbon.

Rewilding represents what Dan Janzen has termed “sustainable conservation”: It opens up significant areas to conservation management, and it puts people to work. What international agencies and NGOs need to do is identify rewilding programs that are demonstrably working, support them, and replicate them. As it stands now, even the most successful are not big enough to make the difference for biodiversity. But they could be — and for considerably less money than it will cost to replace the ecosystem services we are destroying, estimated at two to five trillion dollars a year worldwide. What conservation has been doing for decades is simply not working. It’s time to move forward with something bigger, something proven, something new.

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Preserving world’s biodiversity vital for economic development, UN official warns

UN News Centre 11 Feb 10;

11 February 2010 – Saving the world’s myriad diverse species, which are being lost to human activity at an unprecedented rate that some experts put at 1,000 times the natural progression, is vital not just for environmental reasons but for the economic well-being of humankind, a senior United Nations official said today.

“Without preserving biodiversity and preserving our natural habitat, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) just cannot be achieved,” UN Development Programme (UNDP) Environment and Energy Group Director Veerle Vandeweerd warned, referring to targets set by the 2000 UN summit to slash a host of social ills, from extreme poverty and hunger to maternal and infant mortality to lack of access to education and health care, all by 2015.

Stressing the importance of the UN naming 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity, she cited former Norwegian prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who in 1993 said that the library of life is on fire. “And 17 years later the library of life, which is our biodiversity, is still on fire,” Ms. Vandeweerd told a news briefing in New York.

The reason why UNDP is “so involved in biodiversity and why we think it is so important is indeed because biodiversity is not about greenness, biodiversity is about the economy, and biodiversity is about the life of people at the community level.

“The loss of biodiversity and the degradation of natural resources impact first and foremost the poor and the women and the vulnerable and we should not forget that three quarters of the world’s population depend on natural resources for their daily living and their daily survival, from the food, the shelter, the recreation, everything; three quarters of the world population is directly related to biodiversity on this planet.”

In launching the Year, the UN has stressed that the variety of life on Earth is vital to sustaining the living networks and systems that provide health, wealth, food and fuel.

“Humans are part of nature's rich diversity and have the power to protect or destroy it,” the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), which is hosted by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), says in summarizing the Year’s main message, with its focus on raising awareness to generate public pressure for action by the world's decision makers.

The Convention, which opened for signature at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, entered into force at the end of 1993 and now has 193 Parties, is based on the premise that the world’s diverse ecosystems purify the air and the water that are the basis of life, stabilize and moderate the Earth's climate, renew soil fertility and pollinate plants.

Yet human activity is causing this diversity to be lost are irreversibly at a greatly accelerated rate. As an example, Ms. Vandeweerd cited marine species. “In fact, the last frontier of the world lies in the ocean and it’s sad to see that we are destroying our oceans so quickly before we even know which biodiversity is harboured in the ocean,” she said.

“The deep sea biodiversity is something that we are just coming to know, is already being destroyed by all kinds of fishing. We are still discovering new species in the deep sea every single day and before we even discover them we are killing them.”

UNDP is working in two key areas in the field of biodiversity: to unleash the economic potential of protected areas (22 per cent of Earth) to help communities there achieve more sustainable livelihoods; and in the rest of the world to insert biodiversity in the economic sector such as agriculture, forestry, mining and tourism.

“For us there is no doubt that the Year of Biodiversity hopefully should become a year when we pay much more attention to biodiversity and conservation… where the world will pay at least as much attention to biodiversity as to climate change,” she concluded.

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Momentum Shifts to Skeptics on Global Warming Debate

Robert Roy Britt, livescience.com Yahoo News 12 Feb 10;

Eroding confidence in climate science punctuated by a pair of blizzards has global warming skeptics across the United States calling for a sharp rollback to years of political and industrial efforts to curb greenhouse emissions thought to contribute to global warming.

Climate scientists are on the defensive, and they're not backing down.

Public views have shifted starkly over the past year on the long-running controversy over whether global warming is real, and whether human activity contributes to it.

In a survey released last month, the percentage of Americans who think global warming is happening declined 14 percentage points vs. the year prior, to 57 percent. The survey, from the Yale Project on Climate Change, found that only half of U.S. residents say they are "somewhat" or "very worried" about global warming, a 13-point decrease from 2008.

"There is no question that there has been a change in momentum on this subject," said Dana Fisher, a climate policy expert at Columbia University.

Meanwhile, the vast majority of climate scientists still agree the data on global warming is solid, despite the setback of "Climategate" - a set of highly controversial, private e-mails among climate researchers that were hacked from a university server that point to possible cases of misconduct and that climate skeptics have touted as the "smoking gun" against climate change, though no scientific fraud was revealed. The leading climate researchers also still agree that humans are contributing to climate change by the production of greenhouse gases from the burning of fossil fuels.

"People who are opposed to solving the carbon-climate problem have lost the scientific debate," said Ken Caldeira of the Carnegie Institution Department of Global Ecology. "Therefore, they have had to move from discussion of the facts to character assassination, innuendo, and the politics of the personal attack."

Caldeira told LiveScience today that he views the tactics as "disgusting." But he sees a silver lining in them: "These are the death throes of a wounded opposition," he said.

Blizzard of developments

Global warming skeptics wasted no time in recent days taking advantage of the recent blizzards - which climate scientists say are in fact part of what we can expect from climate change - to promote their point of view.

The family of climate skeptic Republican Senator for Oklahoma James M. Inhofe built an igloo on Capitol Hill, with a cardboard sign reading "Al Gore's New Home." The New York Times mentioned it on its front page today.

Conservative Fox TV show host Sean Hannity said last week's blizzard "would seem to contradict Al Gore's hysterical global warming theories."

Policy changes also seem to be snowballing.

The Utah House of Representatives approved a resolution yesterday that questions global warming and calls on the federal government to not proceed with legislation regulating carbon dioxide emissions. Sponsor of the resolution Rep. Kerry Gibson (R-Ogden) said: "I believe in global warming," according to the local Deseret News. "I believe in global cooling, in (weather) cycles. We've had an ice age, extreme heat," but can humans, "in our everyday lives," change the environment around us?

Arizona Republican Gov. Jan Brewer withdrew her state yesterday from the Western Climate Initiative, a group of seven states and four Canadian provinces that had agreed to implement a "cap and trade" system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Brewer said efforts to cut emissions are too expensive, according to today's Arizona Republic.

Climate science

Largely lost in the present debate, amid talk of blizzards and the chilly winter across much of the country, is this simple fact: The decade 2000 through 2009 was the warmest since the 1880s, when modern record keeping began.

A warming world does not mean the disappearance of winter altogether, climate experts say. Earth's seasons will continue even with global warming. And while climate change may mean that some regions see milder, warmer winters than in the past, other regions could see stormier winter months. Extremes will be magnified, computer models suggest.

"There's substantial year-to-year variability of global temperature caused by the tropical El Niño-La Niña cycle," explains James Hansen, director of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS). "But when we average temperature over five or ten years to minimize that variability, we find that global warming is continuing unabated."

Throughout the last three decades, GISS records show Earth's surface temperature has trended upward by about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 Fahrenheit) per decade. Last year tied with a cluster of other recent years - 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006 and 2007 1998 and 2007 - as the second warmest year since 1880.

"The science of climate change remains robust and is unchanged by any of the media hype of the last few months," said Melanie Fitzpatrick, a climate scientist with the Union of Concerned Scientists. "The reality of global warming has been confirmed by 11 of the world's National Academies of Sciences, as well as 18 different scientific societies across the nation. At the same time, well-funded contrarian groups continue to manufacture doubt around climate science in an attempt to undermine public understanding. We should be paying attention to what's happening in the atmosphere, not the blogosphere."

Behind the momentum shift

So why has the debate's momentum shifted so starkly?

In an e-mail to LiveScience, Columbia University's Fisher cited three things - in addition to the blizzards:

* The success in climate skepticism (in terms of climate skeptics' ability to take advantage of Climategate and to raise questions about climate science).
* The failure of the Copenhagen round of the climate negotiations (United Nations Climate Change Conference) held in December.
* The slowing of progress toward the Obama Administration's agenda, which included climate change, combined with Republican backlash.

"Scientists should take this opportunity to ensure that there is more transparency in terms of how they come to their conclusions. Also, scientists should try to communicate their findings to lay people in more accessible ways," she said.

Caldeira agrees that "scientists need to be as open [and] as forthcoming as possible in their research." But like many researchers, he does not think the isolated instances where science has stumbled erase the overwhelming evidence that the planet is warming. "I also believe this openness has characterized nearly all of the research that has been conducted to date," he said.

Caldeira admits the tactics of global warming skeptics have been successful.

"Having lost the argument on the scientific facts, the opposition has had tremendous success in their new strategy of character assassination," he said. "This strategy has been aided and abetted by major media outlets like the New York Times."

The question is whether the momentum shift will reach a tipping point.

"I see the play given by the media to these new tactics as a passing fad," Caldeira said. "Eventually baseless attacks on the morality of climate scientists will cease to make news."

Fitzpatrick worries that the issue has become so politicized that Congress may be frozen into inaction.

"As a scientist who has worked at both poles studying the response of ice sheets and sea ice to a warming climate, I am deeply concerned that the public is being misled by those who oppose action to reduce emissions," she told LiveScience today. "We are running out of time to act. The science has been clear for two decades. We know humans are largely responsible for the global warming we've experienced in the last half century. Because we know the risks of severe climate impacts increase with unchecked emissions, inaction is now inexcusable."

Andrea Thompson contributed reporting for this article.

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Known Lithium Deposits Can Cover Electric Car Boom

Mica Rosenberg and Eduardo Garcia, PlanetArk 12 Feb 10;

MEXICO CITY/LA PAZ - Hopes of an electric car boom are spurring companies to seek new lithium sources, but new finds may be lower quality and costlier to develop than established deposits able to meet demand for years to come.

Lithium is a key component in rechargeable batteries that power laptop computers, digital cameras and cell phones. Demand for the silver-white metal is expected to surge if carmakers start producing electric or hybrid vehicles on a large scale.

Excitement is brewing about new projects in Bolivia -- which could hold the world's largest lithium bounty -- and in Mexico, where a small company says it has a site with up to 800,000 tonnes of the highly reactive and versatile metal.

But all lithium deposits are not created equal and experts say the new finds may be poor quality or expensive to extract.

Some companies are choosing to play it safe with leading lithium suppliers and start-ups in Argentina and Chile, the source of over half of the world's lithium output.

A sister company to Toyota Motor Corp agreed with Australia's Orocobre Ltd in January to jointly develop a $80-$100 million lithium project at Argentina's Olaroz salt lake, for example.

"It seems generally accepted that reserves and resources will be adequate, but it's easy for junior exploration companies to raise money on the strength of the lithium buzz," Keith Evans, one of the world's leading lithium experts, said.

"Exploration activity has exploded. They all hope to find sources that can be competitive, (but) Chile and Argentina have sufficient reserves for billions of years," Evans said.

Across the globe, there are nine pipeline projects in places like Australia, Finland, Canada, Serbia, and the United States and about 60 early-stage exploration projects, Evans said.

Lithium consulting company TRU Group says that existing lithium plants will continue to dominate the market through to 2020 and that pipeline projects will account for less than one-fifth of production by 2017.

CHILE AND ARGENTINA LEAD

Bolivia has a huge lithium deposit at the Uyuni salt lake, but state-run mining company Comibol may struggle to exploit it lacking know-how and capital. A high degree of magnesium and regular flooding may complicate lithium recovery.

To develop the area, the Bolivian government would have to spend $500 million on roads, water and energy infrastructure.

Last year, Mexican company Piero Sutti announced the discovery of a major lithium and potash deposit in the central state of Zacatecas and is ramping up exploration on the property spanning 124,000 acres. But experts still know little about what the source could hold.

"Being spread out over a large area is not a benefit, on the contrary, it makes it much more difficult and costly to extract," William Tahil at Meridian International Research said. "These resources are unlikely to make Mexico a major producer like Chile or even Argentina," he said.

In Chile and Argentina, a flurry of companies are expanding exploration at known sites as automakers race to develop low-emission cars powered by lithium-ion batteries thought to be more friendly to the environment.

Demand for lithium in batteries had been increasing by more than 20 percent annually in recent years but is now flattening on global economic worries, says Roskill Information Services.

The Salar de Atacama, the largest salt flat in Chile, is believed to contain the best quality lithium deposits. Chile is debating whether to allow more private companies to extract lithium or to protect the deposits for national business.

Chile's giant fertilizer producer Soquimich (SQM) and U.S.-based Rockwood operate in the Atacama and experts say they have the potential to surpass many times the some 20,000 tonnes of lithium produced in 2009.

In neighboring Argentina, Canada's Lithium One is exploring the Salar del Hombre Muerto, where top producer FMC Corp already has a lithium plant and more projects are on the way as international companies show increased interest.

Projects in the two countries should be able to fuel the electric car craze for a long time, lithium expert Evans said.

SQM, FMC and Rockwood together control some 8 million tonnes of lithium, said Evans, roughly a quarter of the world's reserves.

Just one million tonnes of lithium is enough to produce 395 million units of Chevrolet's Volt electric car (16kWh) or 250 million units Nissan's Leaf (24 kWh), Evans said.

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An Oil-Less Recovery Dims The Future For Oil

Alex Lawler, PlanetArk 12 Feb 10;

LONDON - The world may lose its taste for oil long before oil itself runs out, if the trend in the West becomes global.

Demand for oil may well have peaked in the developed world, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday, postponing further any possible supply crunch. But emerging nations still want more, the IEA said.

More efficient cars and the increasing use of electricity and gas instead of oil in areas outside transport, such as heating, have driven the move in the West.

Recession has also played a part.

Before the economic crisis, western Europe and Japan were posting declines in oil demand, but top consumer the United States had sustained robust growth due to an expanding economy and less focus on conservation.

The U.S. pattern looks to have changed, on some forecasts. The recession and use of alternatives such as natural gas and coal are limiting oil use, as is the growing number of smaller, more efficient cars being sold.

"This recovery risks being 'oil-less' as far as the OECD is concerned, potentially supporting the argument that OECD demand has peaked," said the IEA in its monthly report.

Members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, monitored by the IEA, will account for 53 percent of world oil demand in 2010, down from 54 percent in 2009, the agency said.

While oil use is growing in emerging economies, the flattening out of OECD demand is tempering that growth, deferring any strain on the world's producers in meeting demand. Producers were stretched in the run up to 2008, when oil hit a record near $150 a barrel.

"With oil demand peaking in the OECD, you will be postponing further into the future the time when we come to test productive capacity again as we did in 2008," said Harry Tchilinguirian, analyst at BNP Paribas.

WORLD DEMAND STILL RISING

World oil demand is still expected to grow this year and for the foreseeable future, led by China and India. This means a strain on supplies may not be deferred for long.

"You are delaying by a couple of years, but in between the main uncertainty is how policy evolves in non-OECD countries," BNP Paribas' Tchilinguirian said.

"Here, much will depend on the pace of price reform, energy efficiency of the booming vehicle fleet and government policy."

Oil demand in the OECD has become less sensitive to economic growth than in the past and fuel switching means sudden bursts of cold weather have less impact on heating oil consumption.

OECD demand for heating oil will fall in the first quarter despite the severe winter, according to the IEA, which said fuel sources such as gas, renewables and nuclear power were becoming fuels of choice.

The trend of flattening OECD demand and rising consumption in developing markets also suggested the established seasonal oil demand patterns will wane in future.

"Traditionally the seasonality in oil demand was the summer driving season and winter heating season," said Mike Wittner, analyst at Societe Generale.

"As non-OECD demand keeps growing, the traditional seasonality in global demand patterns is going to become less and less."

While advocates of reduced oil use may be beneficiaries of peak OECD oil demand, the oil refining industry in those markets looks to be a main loser.

Total SA's CEO, Christophe de Margerie said on Thursday that more refinery closures were needed in OECD countries due to fuel product overcapacity.

"What's going on with Total is only a sign that something has to give," said an industry official who declined to be identified by name because of the political sensitivity of the issue.

"Probably the first refineries to go will be small Japanese refineries and some European refineries. We have a mismatch between refining capacity and where the demand is, and some tough decisions will have to be made."

(Editing by William Hardy)

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Climate Change Affecting Kenya's Coffee Output

Helen Nyambura-Mwaura, PlanetArk 12 Feb 10;

MOMBASA - Climate change has affected Kenyan coffee production through unpredictable rainfall patterns and excessive droughts, making crop management and disease control a nightmare, a researcher said on Thursday.

Intermittent rainfall in the 2007/08 crop year, for example, caused a terrible bout of the Coffee Berry Disease that cut Kenyan output 23 percent to 42,000 metric tons as farmers were caught out by rains and did not protect their crop in time.

"We have seen climate change in intermittent rainfall patterns, extended drought and very high temperatures," said Joseph Kimemia, director of research at Kenya's Coffee Research Foundation (CRF).

"Coffee operates within a very narrow temperature range of 19-25 degrees (Celsius). When you start getting temperatures above that, it affects photosynthesis and in some cases, trees wilt and dry up. We have see trees drying up in some marginal coffee areas."

For coffee to flower, for example, it needs a couple of months of dry weather followed by showers. This year, Kenya had rains in January, normally a very dry month when the bushes undergo what is known as stress before they flower.

Because of the unpredictable weather, bushes are flowering when they should not and have coffee berries at different stages of maturity. This means farmers have to hire labor through most of the year to pick very few kilos of coffee.

"You look at a coffee tree and cannot determine the season because it has beans of all ages. That is a problem when it comes to disease management, insect management and the worst problem is in harvesting," he said. "The cost is enormous."

IRRIGATION NOT AN OPTION

In a normal year, farmers spray their crop protectively against Coffee Berry Disease (CBD) as from April but because of unexpected rains, they are unable to plan.

"It makes management totally difficult. That is one of the reasons we had CBD," Kimemia told Reuters on the sidelines of the annual African Fine Coffee Conference bringing together producers from nine African countries, buyers and suppliers.

"Farmers went into spraying but the damage was done. It was throwing good money after bad money, making our coffee production cost higher than it should be."

Drought may mean crop losses ranging from 10 percent to the entire crop in some areas, but a bigger cost would be if the country were to lose its global market share.

Unlike Ethiopia and Uganda, which are Africa's top coffee producers, Kenyan coffee output is under 1 percent of global production but its beans are popular for blends and its buyers have specific volume requirements.

"If you are not able to meet that volume in one, two years, they are traders, so naturally they will look for another coffee to replace your coffee. And when they do that, then they cannot come back, even when you get back to production."

The most immediate solution is for farmers to conserve whatever rainfall they receive through mulching, digging trenches to hold water, pruning, forking and planting shade trees.

"We have no time for research because the problem is with us," Kimemia said. "If we can get agronomic practices that conserve moisture, that is what we need before we talk about new technologies or new varieties that are drought tolerant."

(Editing by George Obulutsa and Clarence Fernandez)

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Don't put climate science on ice: Achim Steiner

Achim Steiner, Straits Times 12 Feb 10;

THE science of climate change has been on the defensive in recent weeks, owing to an error that dramatically overstated the rate at which the Himalayan glaciers could disappear. Some in the media, and those who are sceptical about climate change, are currently having a field day, parsing every comma in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) 2007 assessment.

Some strident voices are even dismissing climate change as a hoax on a par with the Y2K computer bug. As a result, the public has become increasingly bewildered, as the unremitting questioning of the IPCC and its chair assumes almost witch-hunting proportions.

The time has really come for a reality check. It is quite right to pinpoint errors, make corrections, and check and re-check sources for accuracy. It is also right that the IPCC has acknowledged the need for ever more stringent and transparent quality-control procedures to minimise any such risks in future reports.

But let us also put aside the myth that the science of climate change is holed below the water line and is sinking fast on a sea of falsehoods.

Over the course of 22 years, the IPCC has drawn upon the expertise of thousands of the best scientific minds, nominated by their own governments, in order to make sense of the complexity of unfolding environmental events and their potential impacts on economies and societies. The panel has striven to deliver the 'perfect' product in terms of its mandate, scientific rigour, peer review and openness, and has brought forward the knowledge - but also the knowledge gaps - in terms of our understanding of global warming.

Its 2007 report represents the best possible risk assessment available, notwithstanding an error in its statement of Himalayan glacial melt rates.

One notion promulgated in recent weeks is that the IPCC is sensationalist: this is perhaps the most astonishing, if not risible claim of all. Indeed, the panel has more often been criticised for being far too conservative in its projections of, for example, the likely sea-level rise in the 21st century. Indeed, caution rather than sensation has been the panel's watchword throughout its existence.

In its first assessment, in 1990, the IPCC commented that observed temperature increases were 'broadly consistent with predictions of climate models, but it is also of the same magnitude as natural climate variability'. The second assessment, in 1995, said: 'Results indicate that the observed trend in global mean temperature over the past 100 years is unlikely to be entirely natural in origin.'

In 2001, its third assessment reported: 'There is new and stronger evidence that most of the warming observed over the last 50 years is attributable to human activities.' By 2007, the consensus had reached 'very high confidence' - at least a 90 per cent chance of being correct - in scientists' understanding of how human activities are causing the world to become warmer.

This does not sound like a partial or proselytising body, but one that has striven to assemble, order and make sense of a rapidly evolving scientific puzzle for which new pieces emerge almost daily while others remain to be found. So perhaps the real issue that is being overlooked is this: confronted by the growing realisation that humanity has become a significant driver of changes to our planet, the IPCC, since its inception, has been in a race against time.

The overwhelming evidence now indicates that greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within the next decade if we are to have any reasonable chance of keeping the global rise in temperature down to manageable levels. Any delay may generate environmental and economic risks of a magnitude that proves impossible to handle.

The fact is that the world would have to make a transition to a low-carbon, resource-efficient future even if there were no climate change. With the world's human population set to rise from six billion to nine billion people in the next half-century, we need to improve management of our atmosphere, air, lands, soils and oceans anyway.

Rather than undermine the IPCC's work, we should renew and re-double our efforts to support its mammoth task in assembling the science and knowledge for its fifth assessment in 2014. What is needed is an urgent international response to the multiple challenges of energy security, air pollution, natural-resource management and climate change.

The IPCC is as fallible as the human beings that comprise it. But it remains without doubt the best and most solid foundation we have for a community of more than 190 nations to make these most critical current and future global choices.

The writer is executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, which co-hosts the IPCC.

PROJECT SYNDICATE

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