Whiskered Treeswift’s 180ยบ head turn
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Dredging near Kusu Island continues until Aug 10
from wild shores of singapore and Reclamation at Jurong Island near natural sites, continues until Aug 10
'Attap Chee' - on NParks Buzz Mar 10
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
New species: What’s in a name?
from World Bank blog by Tony Whitten
A stark snapshot of nature loss
from BBC blog by Richard Black
Reuters 25 Feb 10;
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Love your seafood as much as the environment? A new guide to sustainable fish stocks in the Asia Pacific aims to help diners in Singapore enjoy their meals without harming one of the world's major marine ecosystems.
Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in the Asia Pacific region, with an average 100,000 tonnes consumed each year, according to environmental group WWF, which launched the Singapore Seafood Guide on Thursday.
The guide is the WWF's second in the region -- a guide for Hong Kong seafood lovers was launched a few years ago.
"By using this guide consumers and corporations can make a difference through informed seafood choices," said Amy Ho, managing director of WWF Singapore.
"When buying seafood or dining out, we can use the Singapore seafood guide to choose species that are fished and farmed responsibly," she added in a statement.
The guide uses a simple traffic light system: green means recommended eating choice; yellow stands for only eat occasionally and red means avoid eating.
Singapore is a hub for seafood and almost all of it is imported, the WWF said, much of it from the unique, and fragile, marine ecosystem next door known as The Coral Triangle.
"The Coral Triangle is under increasing threat because fish are being taken out faster than they can be replenished," said Geoffrey Muldoon of the WWF's Coral Triangle Programme.
"In the past most people have been unaware of where the fish on their plates comes from or whether the species they are eating are heavily overfished or caught in ways that are damaging to marine environment. Much of the seafood you see in Singapore may be from areas that have been overfished for years."
The Singapore Seafood Guide is available as a free download from the WWF Singapore website (www.wwf.sg) and will also be distributed free of charge throughout the country.
The Coral Triangle, dubbed the nursery of the seas, is the most diverse marine region on the planet, and home to more than 3,000 species of reef fish and commercially valuable species such as tuna, in addition to 500 species of reef-building coral.
It covers around 6 million sq km (2.3 million sq mile) of ocean across six countries -- Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, Philippines, Solomon Islands, and East Timor -- and directly sustains the lives of more than 120 million people, the WWF said.
(Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Alex Richardson)
WWF launches guide on sustainable fish stocks
Mustafa Shafawi, Channel NewsAsia 25 Feb 10;
SINGAPORE : A new guide on sustainable fish stocks in the Asia Pacific by environmental group WWF aims to help diners in Singapore enjoy their meals without harming one of the world's major marine ecosystems.
The guide uses a simple traffic light system - green means 'recommended eating choice', yellow stands for 'only eat occasionally' and red means 'avoid eating'.
It lists black pomfret, tiger prawn and flower crab among the seafood to avoid eating.
The Singapore Seafood Guide is the WWF's second in the region. A guide for Hong Kong seafood lovers was launched a few years ago.
The Singapore guide is available as a free download from the WWF Singapore website.
It will also be distributed free of charge throughout Singapore.
WWF said Singapore is one of the biggest seafood consumers in the Asia Pacific region, with an average 100,000 tonnes consumed each year. - CNA/ms
Pomfret and seabass red-flagged
WWF guide sorts seafood into three categories based on sustainability
Grace Chua, Straits Times 26 Feb 10;
GO EASY on the seabass and pomfret.
This is the message for seafood-loving Singaporeans from the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF), which is concerned that some of the seafood popular here comes from over-fished sources.
It has produced a made-for-Singapore guide to sustainable seafood, the first one tailored to the local market.
The guide puts seafood commonly available here on three lists - the 'recommended' or green list, the 'think twice' or yellow list and the 'avoid' or red list.
What's a seafood lover to do, then?
Choose seafood on the recommended list over those on the other two, and seafood on the 'think twice' list over those on the 'avoid' list, said Ms Amy Ho, managing director of WWF Singapore.
'The aim is to raise awareness and encourage customers to ask where the fish is from.'
She should know that the task of changing consumer attitudes and behaviour is not easy. When the WWF launched a similar guide three years ago in Hong Kong, it found that getting groups or communities to buy into the idea was the toughest part, although a 'ripple effect' followed later.
Changing consumer preferences for seafood is difficult because the demand for it cannot be met if it is continually sourced from where it is not reproducing fast enough, she added.
Most of the 105,163 tonnes of live, chilled or frozen seafood imported into Singapore last year - excluding prawns, cockles and crabs - came from the ecologically fragile Coral Triangle.
This zone covers the waters off Indonesia, Malaysia and the Philippines, but it is not the only over-fished area; more than a quarter of the world's fish stocks are under threat, said the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation. Cod stocks which collapsed in the north-west Atlantic in the 1980s have still not recovered.
Eating seafood farmed sustainably is the way to go, but the farms here produce only about 4 per cent of the fish consumed; the aim is to get it up to 15 per cent in five years.
Ms Ho explained that some fish grow too slowly to replace those caught; fish farms add to the problem by catching fingerlings or young fish from the wild.
On the green list are the species for which harvest quotas have been set for commercial and recreational fishing, for example, abalone from Australia.
Not all farmed seafood is in the clear. Tiger prawns farmed in the region are on the red list because of what it takes to farm them. Many South-east Asian mangrove forests, which support entire networks of plants and animals, have been destroyed to make way for prawn farms; when mangrove forests go, the coastlines lose their natural buffer against floods and hurricanes.
It is noticeable that most of the seafood on the guide's recommended list is from far-off places - and more expensive. Examples are Australian abalone, oysters from Canada and China, and green-lipped mussels from New Zealand.
Several red-listed species like the black pomfret, tiger prawns and yellowtail scad or selar are what consumers would go for because they are cheaper and more familiar.
But Singapore Environment Council executive director Howard Shaw said this may be an issue only in the short term: 'As the aquaculture industry develops and grows, it's possible to produce seafood that's affordable for low-income earners.'
Singapore's markets have some way to go in labelling seafood. Checks on fresh seafood sold at Cold Storage, Giant, FairPrice and Sheng Siong supermarkets showed that only Cold Storage labels it by country of origin; but packaged fish balls and salmon are labelled by country of origin in all four supermarket chains.
The WWF plans to update the guide every two to three years, and is shooting for all seafood to make it to the green list, Ms Ho said.
Go for green list
TO PRODUCE its guide on sustainable seafood, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) assessed wild-caught seafood on criteria such as:
# How long it takes to grow to maturity, since a shorter growth period means it reaches table size earlier.
# How well-regulated the fishing activity is.
# Whether the population in the wild is healthy.
How fish are caught, too, makes a difference to the effects of the fishing activity on the environment. For example, long drift nets which float with the current often also trap unwanted species, or bycatch.
Farmed fish were rated based on whether the young fish were harvested from the wild, which depletes wild stocks, and by the amount of pollution their farms added to the environment.
'AVOID' RED LIST: Bluefin tuna from around the world, crimson snapper and grey prawns from Indonesia, flower crab and unicorn leather jackets from the South China Sea.
'THINK TWICE' YELLOW LIST: Four finger threadfin, milkfish and seabass from Singapore farms, narrow-barred Spanish mackerel or batang from Indonesia and silver pomfret from the South China Sea.
'RECOMMENDED' GREEN LIST: Abalone and coral trout from Australia, geoduck from North America, green-lipped mussels from New Zealand, mud crab from India and Sri Lanka and narrow-barred Spanish mackerel or batang from Malaysia.
Go for green list
Straits Times 26 Feb 10;
TO PRODUCE its guide on sustainable seafood, the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) assessed wild-caught seafood on criteria such as:
# How long it takes to grow to maturity, since a shorter growth period means it reaches table size earlier.
# How well-regulated the fishing activity is.
# Whether the population in the wild is healthy.
How fish are caught, too, makes a difference to the effects of the fishing activity on the environment. For example, long drift nets which float with the current often also trap unwanted species, or bycatch.
Farmed fish were rated based on whether the young fish were harvested from the wild, which depletes wild stocks, and by the amount of pollution their farms added to the environment.
'AVOID' RED LIST: Bluefin tuna from around the world, crimson snapper and grey prawns from Indonesia, flower crab and unicorn leather jackets from the South China Sea.
'THINK TWICE' YELLOW LIST: Four finger threadfin, milkfish and seabass from Singapore farms, narrow-barred Spanish mackerel or batang from Indonesia and silver pomfret from the South China Sea.
'RECOMMENDED' GREEN LIST: Abalone and coral trout from Australia, geoduck from North America, green-lipped mussels from New Zealand, mud crab from India and Sri Lanka and narrow-barred Spanish mackerel or batang from Malaysia.
New guide offers food for thought
Conservation group's seafood guide aims to make consumers more aware of endangered animal species
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 26 Feb 10;
SINGAPORE - The next time you go to a restaurant or supermarket for seafood, opt for mud crab instead of flower crab. And if you like Chilean seabass, make sure it comes from South Georgia in the South Atlantic Ocean instead of those caught elsewhere.
Consumers in Singapore should think twice, or avoid altogether, 32 of 46 commonly-eaten seafood species, according to the World Wide Fund for Nature (Singapore).
Species like tiger prawn from Indonesia and Thailand, and bluefin tuna are considered over-fished and to be avoided. Even milkfish and seabass farmed locally have been accorded "think twice" status, due to the risk of becoming unsustainable.
And in case you think this is all too much to remember on your next dine-out, a new pocket-sized seafood guide is now available - with species split into green (recommended), yellow (think twice), and red (avoid) categories.
Launched by conservation group WWF Singapore, the guide aims to get more consumers here asking questions about their food. "With this guide, you know what's on the Green list. So we encourage you to ask - what is this fish or seafood type you're being served at the restaurant, where this seafood comes from," said WWF Singapore managing director Amy Ho.
The guide took a year to produce, and included field visits to markets and fishery ports to suss out frequently-consumed species, as well as a rigorous process to determine how sustainable each was.
But are consumers willing to raise questions?
"To be quite honest, if (a dish) were served in front of me, I wouldn't ask, especially if I am at a business lunch. I think it's a bit rude to ask and reject if the fish is endangered," said food enthusiast and business development executive Wong Peishan, 24.
Sales administrator Jean Lum, 55, who usually buys red grouper, snapper and silver pomfret at the wet market, was willing to buy species that are not endangered as "there are so many types of fish".
Still, she felt it was "frightening" that many popular catches - like Indonesia-fished orange-spotted grouper and crimson and Malabar snapper - were on the "Red" list.
"It would be a big problem if we can't eat so many types of fish," she said.
As for asking fishmongers where their stock is from, Ms Lum said: "We have been buying the fish for so long, they will wonder why we are suddenly asking questions."
Restaurants could be more pro-active and introduce "eco-friendly set menus" at reasonable prices, Ms Wong suggested.
Dining establishments that have made the first move are few. Fairmont Singapore, for one, has gradually removed Chilean seabass, bluefin tuna and shark's fin from the menus of its restaurants like Szechuan Court and Inagiku since 2008.
It plans to use more "green" seafood items, and get its chefs to be "more dynamic" in sharing information with guests, said Ms Belladonnah Lim, Fairmont Singapore and Swissotel The Stamford's marketing communications director.
Restaurant Association of Singapore president Ang Kiam Meng said he was unaware of details in the guide, but suggested that WWF Singapore reach out to fishermen as well.
WWF Singapore plans to engage traders, distributors and retailers including supermarkets in the coming months.
All stakeholders can play a role, Ms Ho said. Companies can adopt the guide as part of their corporate dining policy, dining outlets can remove "red" species and replace them with "green" ones, and traders can obtain their stocks from sustainable suppliers.
Singaporeans consume 100,000 tonnes of seafood a year, ranking among the top in the Asia-Pacific. Not surprisingly, much of the waters near our island - including the bio-diverse Coral Triangle framed by the Philippines, East Java and the Solomon Islands - are being overfished.
More about the fish guide and download a copy on the WWF website.
Get a copy of the guide at WWF's screening of "The End of the Line" on 27 Feb (Sat).
More on Can eat or not? The Singapore Seafood Guide to sustainable seafood choices on the wild shores of singapore blog.
Catherine Wong Mei Ling, For The Straits Times 25 Feb 10;
THE terms climate change, carbon emissions and environmental sustainability have become almost synonymous. But China's recent census on pollution reminds us that environmental sustainability is much bigger than just carbon emissions and climate change.
Have we allowed climate change to obscure the wider problem of pollution? And in focusing on nature's impact on humans through climate change, have we lost sight of the human impact on nature?
China's recent pollution census reveals that while the country's industry has polluted the atmosphere, its farmers have been choking up its waters. But water pollution has been relegated to the sidelines in the climate change debate because it does not lead to global warming or rising sea levels. There is also no mechanism to encourage companies to avoid dumping effluent into rivers, unlike in the case of carbon emissions.
But the effects of water pollution on humans, marine life and biodiversity are immense. About 1.8 million children die each year as a result of diarrhoea, partly due to contaminated water, and close to half of all the people in developing countries suffer from health problems caused by water and sanitation deficits.
Because of climate change, the inefficient use of water and the shift to biofuel crop cultivation, water problems are becoming increasingly severe. Some 1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to water and 2.6 billion lack basic sanitation, according to the 2006 United Nations Human Development Report.
We also need to segment industries by their contribution to climate change. Failure to do so tends to shield some polluters from the debate. For example, the livestock sector produces more greenhouse gas emissions as measured in carbon dioxide equivalent than transport, according to a 2006 report by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, and yet is more or less ignored in the climate change debate.
Furthermore, livestock accounts for 35-40 per cent of global emissions of methane, which is about 21 times more effective in trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide over a 100-year period.
The damage does not end there: 65 per cent of global nitrous oxide emissions - the most lethal of the three greenhouse gases and 296 times more effective than carbon dioxide in trapping heat - comes from livestock.
Clearing land and forests for pasture or feed crops is also a major source of land and water degradation. Yet according to statistics from the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change's Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), the bulk of the attention and money is going to the energy industries, which form about 60 per cent of registered CDM projects, compared with 4.9 per cent for agriculture.
The problems of betting too heavily on renewable sources of energy are already evident. The rush to cash in on biofuel crops was partly to blame for the 2008 food crisis when the price of corn more than doubled and the food import bill of developing countries rose by 25 per cent.
Studies have shown that biofuels have adverse environmental effects. According to a 2008 Princeton study, clearing untouched land to grow biofuel crops releases long-sequestered carbon into the atmosphere. Research by Nobel chemistry laureate P.J. Crutzen shows that nitrous oxide released from agro-biofuel production can cause climate warming.
The expansion of farmland for biofuels could also result in farmers and households competing for water, according to a study by The Nature Conservancy. Other critics say that some biofuels exacerbate water scarcity as they require a significant amount of water to produce energy. Plug-in hybrid cars would also increase water consumption because they need electricity and most types of power plants use water as a coolant.
But businesses and governments are throwing their weight behind the electric car. China not only aims to be a leading producer of hybrid and electric vehicles by 2013, but is also giving large subsidies to buyers of electric cars. Singapore, too, is considering sizeable tax breaks for those who opt for plug-in hybrids. While all these would help curb carbon emissions, governments must bear in mind the risks that carbon-reducing technologies pose.
Taking a pill to suppress the symptoms of an illness does not cure the disease. Perhaps we not only have to rethink climate change but also capitalism as a whole. It may be that we need to organise capitalism and human life so they fit nature, rather than the other way around.
The writer is a research associate at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.
Uma Shankari, Business Times 23 Feb 10;
THE government has decided to do away with a tax allowance scheme for businesses introduced in the 1940s to encourage Singapore's industrialisation. The axed scheme will be replaced by one designed to enhance land productivity - but only companies from nine chosen sectors will benefit from the new scheme.
Singapore should promote the intensification of industrial land use and move towards more land-efficient and higher value-added activities, Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said yesterday.
'The Industrial Building Allowance (IBA) has met its objective but is no longer adequate or relevant to meet our current priorities,' he said. 'It does not distinguish between efficient and inefficient uses of industrial land.'
In its report earlier this year, the Economic Strategies Committee said Singapore has to support the intensification of industrial land use as there are now greater demands on the country's limited land resources.
The IBA gave tax allowances to companies for capital expenditure on the construction or purchase of an industrial building or structure.
Its replacement, the Land Intensification Allowance (LIA), similarly allows companies to claim for capital expenditure incurred to construct a qualifying building or structure.
But only companies from nine sectors - pharmaceuticals, petrochemicals, petroleum, chemicals, semiconductor-wafer fabrication, aerospace, marine and offshore engineering, solar cell manufacturing and other 'speciality' industries - will qualify for the LIA.
These sectors have been singled out as part of the government's long-term plans to move Singapore's manufacturing sector up the value-added chain.
The building or structure will also have to meet the gross plot ratio (GPR) benchmark relevant to the industry sector of the building user. To encourage intensification, the benchmarks for each industry sector will be set around the 75th percentile of actual GPRs for the sector.
Qualifying firms will be granted a first-time allowance of 25 per cent, then 5 per cent each year for qualifying expenditure on the construction of buildings.
Analysts are surprised by the switch, as fewer companies will now qualify.
'The old IBA did not restrict the benefits to only a few sectors,' said David Lee, executive director of tax services for KPMG. 'At the end of the day, if those (nine industry) sectors are the ones they are encouraging, they can always give them incentives instead.'
He pointed out that the new scheme means that companies in some of Singapore's biggest industries - such as electronics manufacturing and equipment manufacturing - will be missed out.
Ernst & Young tax director Helen Bok said: 'Many companies will be disappointed that the IBA will be phased out because this is a significant deduction for those carrying on qualifying activities. This will increase their cost of doing business in Singapore.'
But pegging the tax allowances to building plot ratios will encourage building owners to maximise land use, which is a good move for land-scarce Singapore, said Colliers managing director Dennis Yeo.
Christopher Tan, Straits Times 25 Feb 10;
A TAX waiver for green vehicles brought into Singapore for test-bedding has been made sweeter.
The Government has enhanced what is known as the Transport Technology Innovation Development Scheme (Tides), which allows vehicles such as electric cars, plug-in hybrids and fuel-cell cars to be exempted from certificate of entitlement, Additional Registration Fee and Customs duty.
This practically renders them tax-free.
In the Budget announcement this week, the Government said the Tides tax-free period has been extended from the original two years to six. The number of cars allowed under Tides has also been expanded substantially: from 300 units to 1,300.
The Government estimates that the enhanced scheme - first reported by The Straits Times on Feb8 - will cost $75 million in forgone taxes.
Several vehicle manufacturers, car dealers and fleet operators are applauding the move.
Daimler South-east Asia spokesman Helfried Scharf said: 'We are very happy to see the Government taking test-bedding so seriously.'
'We're working very hard' to secure a supply of cars for test-bedding here, he added, but did not give details. 'Hopefully, we'll have something to announce soon.'
BMW Asia spokesman Erin Atan said the enhanced Tides scheme could speed up BMW's decision to introduce such models here. It is expected to roll out its first electric Beemer by 2013.
She described the new scheme as 'fantastic news', adding that the company has been in dialogue with the Economic Development Board, which administers Tides.
Mitsubishi agent Cycle & Carriage, which has a ready supply of electric hatchbacks, cheered the tweaked scheme. C&C director of operations Alvyn Ang said the longer waiver period of the new scheme will allow users to depreciate the cost of the cars over six years instead of two.
'It removes a lot of uncertainty,' he added.
Asked for a list of vehicle types that will qualify for Tides, an EDB spokesman said any company that brings in vehicles for test-bedding can apply. 'But there's no guarantee everyone will get it. We will assess each applicant on its merits,' he said.
Green rebate for imported used hybrids as well
Samuel Ee, Business Times 23 Feb 10;
THE Green Vehicle Rebate scheme will be extended to imported used green vehicles, thus allowing used petrol-electric hybrids to enjoy the same lower registration taxes as new hybrids.
Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said in his Budget Speech 2010 yesterday that he will 'expand the scope of the Green Vehicle Rebate scheme to include imported used green vehicles'.
This means used hybrid cars imported into Singapore will have to pay tax equivalent to only 40 per cent of OMV (open market value). The usual ARF (additional registration fee) payable for new or used petrol-engined cars is 100 per cent of OMV. But the used car surcharge of $10,000 will continue to apply to used hybrids.
Yesterday's announcement is the result of a proposal made to various government agencies by the Automobile Importer & Exporter Association (AIEA) last October.
'We are very happy with the government's positive response to our proposal,' said AIEA vice-president Jerry Low. 'We believe that if consumers are being encouraged to buy new hybrids, we should not discriminate against used hybrids.'
But as to whether he thought this meant importers will start bringing in more used hybrids now, he said it depends on demand.
'The market will react accordingly,' said Mr Low. 'If there is demand, there will be supply.'
He said the most important thing is that there is now a level playing field.
In yesterday's Budget Speech, Mr Tharman also touched on further incentives for clean technologies.
He said: 'To encourage test-bedding of clean technologies, I will enhance the Transport Technology Innovation Development Scheme (Tides) for new green vehicles.'
Tides is a scheme used to register expensive eco-friendly cars like the Mitsubishi iMiEV pure electric vehicle without registration fees or COE for four years. An ordinary Mitsubishi i with a 660cc petrol engine has an OMV of roughly $14,000. But the electric version - the iMiEV - has an OMV of almost $90,000 because of its sophisticated battery technology.
Based on the Green Vehicle Rebate, the iMiEV would cost $177,380. But with Tides approval, the list price of the iMiEV is only $90,000. That excludes an annual administrative fee of $1,600 to the government.
Over the next three years, 50 units of the iMiEV will take part in a $20 million test-bed project to test the electric vehicle infrastructure. The project will include the setting up of a pilot network of charging stations.
(AFP) Google News 24 Feb 10;
HANOI — Thousands of people in southern Vietnam have turned out to say goodbye to a whale whose corpse fishermen found floating off the country's coast, an official said Tuesday.
The whale, estimated to weigh about 15 tonnes was buried during a ceremony lasting about three hours beside the sea in southern Bac Lieu province.
"A burial ceremony for the whale took place this morning and local fishermen believe that the animal will bring them luck at sea," Le Dong Duong, director of the provincial department of maritime resource exploitation, told AFP.
Up to 12,000 people, many of them fishermen and some from neighbouring provinces, had come to see the corpse and participate in religious rites since Monday, he added.
Fishermen discovered the dead whale late Sunday and spent about 15 hours towing it back to the coast, Duong added.
"We don't yet know what caused its death, or its age, because we didn't see any injuries on its body," he said, recalling that a similar case occurred four or five years ago in the province.
15-ton whale found dead off southern Vietnam coast
Thanhniennews.com 24 Feb 10;
Hundreds of fishermen in the southern province of Bac Lieu on Monday moved a 15-ton whale inshore after it was found dead the day before.
Nguyen Van Dang, head of the Coast Guard Post No.666, said a local fisherman found the giant ocean mammal dead some 26 sea miles off Vinh Thinh Commune in Hoa Binh District at around 7 a.m. on Sunday.
The fisherman then contacted the agency, which later cooperated with local authorities and fishermen to bring the 16-meter long whale to the coast.
“A burial ceremony for the whale took place this morning and local fishermen believe that the animal will bring them luck at sea,” the Agence France Presse quoted Le Dong Duong, director of the provincial department of maritime resource exploitation, as saying Monday.
Local fishermen said the animal was rotting and must have died two to three days earlier.
Concerned agencies in Bac Lieu have launched an investigation to determine the whale’s species and the cause of its death.
“We don’t yet know what caused its death, or its age, because we didn’t see any injuries on its body,” Duong said, adding that a similar case occurred four or five years ago in the province.
Vietnamese fishermen, especially those from the central coast, worship whales as the God of the Sea.
Reported by Tran Thanh Phong
Thousands attend whale's funeral
(UKPA) Google News 24 Feb 10;
Thousands of Vietnamese fishermen have given a royal send-off to a 15-ton dead whale, gathering at a southern Vietnamese village to pay homage to the creature they called "Your Excellency".
Nearly 10,000 people converged in Bac Lieu province to bid farewell to the 52-foot whale, said coast guard official Do Tien Ha.
They burned incense in his honour and are planning to build a temple at the site of his burial.
Whales are considered sacred among Vietnamese fishers. They are referred to by the title "ngai," the same honorific used for kings, emperors and other esteemed leaders.
"Whenever whales arrive, dead or alive, local fishermen believe they bring luck and safety," Mr Ha said by phone from Bac Lieu.
The dead whale was spotted 26 miles off the coast on Sunday. Several dozen fishermen on 10 boats spent a day hauling it ashore.
Victoria Gill, BBC News 24 Feb 10;
Scientists have discovered an area of the North Atlantic Ocean where plastic debris accumulates.
The region is said to compare with the well-documented "great Pacific garbage patch".
Karen Lavender Law of the Sea Education Association told the BBC that the issue of plastics had been "largely ignored" in the Atlantic.
She announced the findings of a two-decade-long study at the Ocean Sciences Meeting in Portland, US.
The work is the conclusion of the longest and most extensive record of plastic marine debris in any ocean basin.
Scientists and students from the SEA collected plastic and marine debris in fine mesh nets that were towed behind a research vessel.
The nets dragged along were half-in and half-out of the water, picking up debris and small marine organisms from the sea surface.
The researchers carried out 6,100 tows in areas of the Caribbean and the North Atlantic - off the coast of the US. More than half of these expeditions revealed floating pieces of plastic on the water surface.
These were pieces of low-density plastic that are used to make many consumer products, including plastic bags.
Dr Lavender Law said that the pieces of plastic she and her team picked up in the nets were generally very small - up to 1cm across.
"We found a region fairly far north in the Atlantic Ocean where this debris appears to be concentrated and remains over long periods of time," she explained.
"More than 80% of the plastic pieces we collected in the tows were found between 22 and 38 degrees north. So we have a latitude for [where this] rubbish seems to accumulate," she said.
The maximum "plastic density" was 200,000 pieces of debris per square kilometre.
"That's a maximum that is comparable with the Great Pacific Garbage Patch," said Dr Lavender Law.
But she pointed out that there was not yet a clear estimate of the size of the patches in either the Pacific or the Atlantic.
"You can think of it in a similar way [to the Pacific Garbage Patch], but I think the word 'patch' can be misleading. This is widely dispersed and it's small pieces of plastic," she said.
The impacts on the marine environment of the plastics were still unknown, added the researcher.
"But we know that many marine organisms are consuming these plastics and we know this has a bad effect on seabirds in particular," she told BBC News.
Nikolai Maximenko from University of Hawaii, who was not involved in the study, said that it was very important to continue the research to find out the impacts of plastic on the marine ecosystem.
He told BBC News: "We don't know how much is consumed by living organisms; we don't have enough data.
"I think this is a big target for the next decade - a global network to observe plastics in the ocean."
Yahoo News 23 Feb 10;
MADRID (AFP) – The Iberian lynx, the world's most endangered feline species, could be a step further from extinction after a Spanish woman left three million euros in her will to help protect the animals.
The woman bequeathed a total of nine million euros (12 million dollars) to animal charities, one-third of which is to go to the lynxes, local authorities in Spain's southern Andalucia region said Tuesday.
A six-year-old captive breeding programme for the lynx is based in Andalucia's Donana National Park.
The Madrid newspaper El Pais said the woman died in October 2008 in Spain's Canary Islands at the age of 60, but that little else was known about her.
Barely 200 Iberian lynxes are believed to remain in the wild, mostly in protected areas of southern Spain. At the start of the 20th century there were around 100,000 in Spain and Portugal.
But urban development, hunting, and most of all a dramatic decline due to disease in the number of wild rabbits, the lynx's main prey, have sharply reduced the numbers of the spotted cats, which can grow to about one metre (three feet) in length.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature now lists the species as "critically endangered" -- the highest category of risk for a wild animal.
UNEP 24 Feb 10;
Unique Migratory Bird Project Boosts Wetland Sites for Endangered Species and Water Birds Across Large Parts of Asia
Bali, 24 February 2010 - The future of the iconic Siberian Crane, Grus leucogeranus, a critically endangered species, is looking brighter thanks to an international effort by China, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia, four countries along the bird's dramatic migratory routes.
The conservation project, supported by the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and implemented by the International Crane Foundation through the UN Environment Programme (UNEP), is the first of its kind to use a 'flyway' approach to stabilize and to sustain the remaining 3,000-3,500 Siberian Cranes and millions of other migratory waterbirds. A flyway is a flight path used in annual bird migration from breeding grounds to non-breeding areas, which often span continents and oceans.
This partnership has also played a catalytic role in boosting the conservation and rehabilitation of wetlands covering some 7 million hectares -ecosystems of high environmental and economic importance.
Every year the Siberian Crane, one of the word's most endangered birds, migrates up to 5,000 kilometres from its breeding grounds in northern Siberia, along two migration routes to wintering sites in southern China and Iran.
During these immense journeys, the cranes cross some of the highest mountains on Earth, as well as some of the harshest deserts. However, in recent years, the draining of critical wetlands, where the birds normally take respite on route, as well as hunting, have threatened the survival of the cranes and other migratory waterbirds.
The story of this unique 10 year-project along two main flyways in Eastern and Western Eurasia is told in the book Safe Flyways for the Siberian Crane which was launched today at UNEP's 11th Special Session of the Governing Council/Global Ministerial Forum in Bali, Indonesia.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "The Siberian Crane Wetland Project underlines how conservation of biodiversity and human concerns go hand in hand: a key point to underline in the UN's International Year of Biodiversity."
"The Siberian Cranes need the wetlands to rest and to feed. But communities and countries need wetlands too. Not only are they important suppliers and purifiers of drinking water and productive fisheries, but they play a significant role in flood defence and combating climate change. Indeed, by some estimates wetlands may be storing between 10 per cent and 20 per cent of all land-based carbon," he added.
Monique Barbut, Chief Executive Officer of the GEF, said: "Some 60 per cent of wetlands worldwide - and up to 90 per cent in Europe - have been destroyed in the past 100 years, principally due to drainage for agriculture but also through pollution, dams, canals, groundwater pumping, urban development and peat extraction."
"Thus this project has been a cost-effective investment in both people and wildlife - securing the future of this iconic bird but also assisting to secure the future health and well-being of hundreds of thousands if not millions of people," she added.
The project
The race to conserve the wetlands and this rarest of birds-the Siberian Crane -came as its numbers plummeted. Despite decades of conservation efforts, seven of the world's fifteen crane species were threatened with extinction by the 1970s.
Similar trends appeared among the ducks, geese, swans and other waterbird groups. Globally, 40 per cent of known waterbird populations are declining, and in Asia the statistics have risen to 59 per cent.
While the causes of the declines are diverse and vary among species, population growth, hunting and escalating demands on limited water supplies, have contributed to the loss and degradation of wetland habitats on which waterbirds, like the crane, depend.
The Siberian Crane Wetland Project which arose out of concern for the widespread loss of wetlands, is an unique example of how concerted action in four countries supported by regional efforts, has resulted in safeguarding a network of 16 critical wetlands over two flyways.
The project chose the Siberian Crane as a flagship species for inspiring action to safeguard all migratory birds. Launched a decade ago, with US$10.3 million in GEF financing, the SWCP emphasized public awareness and working with governments and local communities to protect key wetlands across Eurasia - to date over 7 million hectares, a landmass equivalent to Ireland or 3.5 times the area of Israel.
The project has been successful on many fronts. It not only strengthened the 16 critical wetlands across Eurasia for the waterbirds but has also assured improved water supplies for millions of people living in this region.
The project has also achieved the following:
* Water management planning, wetland restoration and related hydrological monitoring and research in China and Kazakhstan;
* A "flyway" environmental education programme covering 120 sites in nine countries that integrates subjects on wetlands and waterbird conservation through crane celebrations and the development of national school curricula;
* Development of "Practical Advice for Reducing Avian Influenza Risks at Wetlands of Importance to Waterbirds", benefiting both human health and bird conservation;
* Improved knowledge of monitoring programmes and knowledge of migratory waterbird distribution which help to identify and respond to emerging threats;
* Secured key wetland sites through international recognition and improved national protection;
* Improved recognition of the benefits of engaging stakeholders and local communities which have shifted towards constructive engagement and conflict resolution;
* Increased ecological awareness and giving stronger support for conservation, especially among schools and youth;
More specifically, at wetland sites in each of the four countries where there are flyways, project managers report significant collaboration and achievements.
These include:
China has pioneered approaches on resolving water distribution and wetland conservation. In northeastern China on the Songnen Plain livestock wetland grazing impacts were mitigated through community development programmes to help local herdsmen better manage the grazing of their animals on the wetlands.
A network of forestry protection stations have been developed in 15 counties around Poyang Lake Basin in southern China, significantly enhancing waterbird protection. Midwinter counts have been conducted across 68 sub-lakes of the Poyang Lake Basin over six consecutive years, this combined with regional water studies, providing a sound scientific base for management decisions.
Iran has supported alternative methods of governance of wetland reserves through community involvement; microcredit schemes have been set up with several bird-trapper associations in Iran and integrated pest management pilots were run in the Fereydoon Kenar Non-Shooting Area in an effort to reduce the use of pesticides and herbicides, protecting the health of both humans and birds.
Kazakhstan has expanded and established nature reserves and used public communications to raise awareness and engage stakeholders. A highly effective environmental education programme was implemented, and local communities benefited from sustainable livelihood training and development of community-based organizations on subjects ranging from water management and biodiversity conservation to care of disabled children.
Russia has created effective ecological monitoring programs and piloted innovative ways for providing local support for federal nature reserves.
The project has dramatically strengthened the network of wetlands for the waterbirds and the local communities who depend on these wetlands. Globally, 34 per cent of waterbird populations are stable and 17 percent are increasing. In Asia, 27 per cent are stable and 10 per cent are increasing.
The fate of the birds and the wetlands depends on increased protection and effective management of water resources. While captive breeding and release back into the wild is now being pursued, the survival rate will still depend on wetland management and safe flyways.
While the project has been largely successful on the Eastern Flyway, which is used by most of the Siberian Cranes and spans Russian and China, more attention will be given to the Western Flyway that covers Russia, Kazakhstan and Iran where hunting and wetland drainage continues to endanger the birds.
An agreement with the Convention of Migratory Species (CMS), which has been signed by 11 range states, is ensuring that follow-up work on protecting the Siberian Cranes and all migratory waterbirds along both flyways will continue into the future.
International cooperation saving Siberian crane: UN
Yahoo News 24 Feb 10;
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) – The threat of extinction for the majestic Siberian crane is receding thanks to cooperation among countries including China, Russia and Iran, the UN said Wednesday.
The bird, which has pure white plumage and stands about 1.4 metres (4.6 feet) tall, is considered to be in serious danger of extinction with an estimated population of just 3,000 to 3,500 left.
"The future of the Siberian crane is looking brighter thanks to the international effort by China, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia, four countries along the bird's migratory routes," said Claire Mirande, director of the Siberian Crane Wetland Project.
The Siberian crane migrates about 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) every year from its breeding grounds in northern Siberia to Iran or southern China. Large parts of the wetlands on its route are being drained for farming.
Mirande was speaking at the annual meeting of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) on the Indonesian island of Bali.
She said UNEP's crane project in the countries involved has played a key role in boosting the conservation and rehabilitation of 16 critical wetlands over the two main routes flown by the birds.
7 Map Ta Phut projects resume
Court lets 6 SCG and 1 PTT project continue
Bangkok Post 25 Feb 10;
The Central Administrative Court yesterday announced that seven suspended projects in the Map Ta Phut industrial zone can resume construction.
Six of the approved projects belong to Siam Cement Group, one to PTT.
The projects are among 64 industrial projects worth hundreds of billions of baht that were ordered suspended by the court last December.
The court found that state agencies had failed to abide by requirements under the 2007 Constitution requiring environmental and health impact assessments and independent reviews for major industrial projects.
The PTT Group, which had 18 projects suspended in the area, will now be allowed to resume construction at its $130 million Bisphenol-A project. The project is run by PTT Phenol, a venture 40% held by PTT and the rest by PTT subsidiaries, PTT Aromatics and Refinery (PTTAR) and PTT Chemical.
Chainoi Puankosoom, president and chief executive of PTTAR, welcomed the court's decision.
"Project construction was nearly completed [before the suspension]," Mr Chainoi said.
"With the court's order, we will accelerate the construction process and begin testing."
But Mr Chainoi said the seven projects approved to resume work may only complete construction and begin testing. It remains uncertain whether they will be allowed to start commercial operations.
According to a statement released by the Administrative Court, the seven projects will still have to secure the necessary regulatory approvals before production can begin.
This suggests that it may be several months before actual operations can start.
A committee led by former premier Anand Panyarachun expects to complete a framework on how new projects can meet constitutional requirements within the next several months.
The Industry Ministry submitted the appeal for the PTT Phenol project to resume operations. PTT last Friday also submitted petitions seeking to start commercial operations for six other group projects at Map Tha Phut.
The six Siam Cement projects allowed to resume construction include projects run by subsidiaries Map Tha Phut Tank Terminal and Thai Polyethylene; Siam Polyethylene and Siam Synthetic Latex, two joint ventures between SCG and Dow Chemicals; and a project run by Thai MMA, a 50/50 venture between SCG and Mitsui Chemicals.
"We have to thank the court for its mercy and for allowing us to continue these projects" said Venus Asavasitthithavorn, SCG corporate communication director.
"We also must thank the public and the communities themselves for their understanding and for the chance to proceed with our plans.
"SCG promises that we will take care of the environment and the communities continuously and forever ... The verdict shows that industries can live together with communities in a sustainable manner."
The Map Tha Phut impasse has been a major issue weighing down investor sentiment, with local and foreign businesses expressing concern about new regulatory and policy risk in the wake of the court's decision.
Pichai Lertsupongkit, a senior vice-president of Thanachart Securities, said the court decision yesterday would be well-received by the market, even though in financial terms the actual impact was relatively small.
"The market expects that there will be other projects given permission to proceed going forward," he said.
"It should help boost investor sentiment as well as share valuations for the companies involved."
Shares of SCC closed on the SET yesterday at 220 baht, unchanged, in trade worth 166 million baht. PTT closed at 231 baht, down two satang, in trade worth 1.8 billion baht.
Muklis Ali, PlanetArk 25 Feb 10;
JAKARTA - Indonesia's oil production, which has slumped in recent years, could be hit by new environment laws in Southeast Asia's biggest economy, a senior official in the energy ministry said on Wednesday.
Indonesia has said it would produce 965,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil and condensate this year, compared with 949,100 bpd in 2009, and 1.5 million bpd in the 1990s.
"If the environment law comes into force then many oil companies could reduce activities, and oil production will fall sharply this year," Evita Legowo, director general oil and gas, told reporters.
Legowo said that state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina could be affected by the new law.
"There are laws affecting water quality which in the oil sector can not be implemented, especially in the enhanced oil recovery projects like in Duri field," Legowo added.
Duri field in central Sumatra is operated by a unit of Chevron. Several other major global oil firms, including ConocoPhillips and France's Total, operate in Indonesia.
Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta told Reuters in October 2009 that he intended to enforce a new environment law that allows the government to cancel the operating permit of any company found to be breaching the terms of its environmental impact assessment.
"The investment in oil sector will also fall as the environment law provides for strong punishment," Legowo said.
Indonesia has struggled to attract fresh investment to develop new fields, partly due to uncertain regulations and red tape. Many of its remaining unexploited fields are in remote areas or under deep water, requiring high levels of investment and specialized technology.
Proven and potential oil reserves in Indonesia dropped to 8.3 billion barrels last year, down from 9.6 billion barrels in 2001.
(Editing by Sara Webb)
Environment law may cause 50-pct drop in oil, gas production
Antara 24 Feb 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry officials said Indonesia`s oil and gas production could drop by up to 50 percent if the industry had to comply with standard environmental quality requirements stipulated in a new environment protection law.
Under Law No 32/2009 on Protection and Management of the Living Environment due to come into force on April 1, 2010, oil and gas companies would have to reduce the temperature of waste water from their oil and gas production processes from 45 degrees to 40 degrees Celsius.
"The national oil production target has been set at 965,000 barrels per day but this will have to be lowered by almost 50 percent because of the requirement in the new ennvironment protection law," the energy and mineral resources ministry`s director general for oil and gas affairs, Evita Legowo, said here Wednesday.
The oil and gas contractors in the country would not be able to meet the standard environmental quality requirement in the law, she said.
The obligation to reduce the temperature of the oil and gas companies` waste water would increase their production costs and the process for them to meet the requirment would take a long time, she said.
Noting that the law also carried sanctions for failure to meet the standard quality requirement, Evita said among the oil and gas companies to be affected the most by the legal provision were PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia and PT Pertamina.
Meanwhile, Budi Indianto, the Oil and Gas Industry Regulatory Agency (BP Migas) deputy chief for operations control, said the agency was proposing to give the industry two or three years` time to comply with the mandatory standard environmental quality requirement.
He said the implementation of the environment protection law would imply an increase in the state`s cost recovery obligation toward oil and gas companies. "We must first study this implication. We cannot allow the state`s obligation to become too expensive," he said.(*)
No revision to environmentlaw: Ministry
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 2 Mar 10;
The Environment Ministry has insisted that it would not delay the implementation of the 2009 Environment Law as it did not believe it would hamper the mining of the country’s rich natural resources.
The ministry also asserted that it would not amend an article of the law, which has created controversy as it was initiated purely by the House of Representatives.
The statement was made in response to calls from the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry and oil and gas business groups for a two-year delay over fears that the law’s tightened standards of emissions and waste water levels could hurt oil and gas production.
“The complaint against the new emissions and waste water standards is baseless. We have not yet discussed the draft of the government regulation to set the new standards,” Illyas Asaad, deputy for environmental compliance at the Environment Ministry told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Article 100 of the 2009 Environment Law stipulates that anyone violating standards of waste water, emissions and noise levels will face a maximum of three years imprisonment and/or up to Rp 3 billion in fines.
Antara 24 Feb 10;
Nusa Dua (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono outlined five strategies to save the environment when officially opening the 11th Special Session of the UNEP Governing Council /Global Ministerial Environment Forum, here on Wednesday.
The first strategy is to change the pattern of production and consumption in order to save the Earth which is seriously damaged, for the sake of the present and future generations.
Other strategies are to lower biodiversity loss by implementing real actions; to promote new orientation of development and economic paradigm which are pro-poor, pro-job, and pro-growth; to finalize agreements for sustainable development; and to finalize negotiations on climate change to ensure the success of the planned Mexico Climate Change Summit , the head of state said.
On the occasion, United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Executive Director Achim Steiner presented a UNEP Award of Leadership to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono for promoting and conserving marine ecosystem management.
President Yudhoyono said he accepted the award as a recognition to the work of the whole Indonesian people in managing the marine ecosystem.
He also reaffirmed Indonesia`s commitment to reducing the level of deforestation and land degradation and to lowering the level of carbon emissions.
The world environmental minister meeting taking place under the auspices of UNEP at the Bali International Convention Center from
February 24 to 26, is being participated in by around 1,000 delegates from 130 countries.The meeting`s slogan is "One Planet: Our Responsibility.(*)
Yudhoyono receives UNEP Award for coral initiative
Erwida Maulia, The Jakarta Post 24 Feb 10;
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been honored with the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) Award for Leadership in Promoting Ocean and Marine Conservation and Management.
The award was presented Wednesday by UNEP executive director Achiem Steiner during the opening of UNEP's 11th Special Session of the Governing Council in Nusa Dua, Bali, which is the first ministerial-level meeting organized by the UN body since the Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen.
The President was honored for "personally spearheading" the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), the high-level political commitment among the governments of several countries around the Coral Triangle area, to safeguard the region's marine and coastal biological resources for the sustainable growth and prosperity of current and future generations.
The Coral Triangle covers the areas of Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, East Timor and Papua New Guinea. It lies across mere 1 percent of the earth’s surface, but is said to contain a third of the world's coral and three-quarters of its coral reef species.
In August 2007, Yudhoyono wrote to seven other leaders in the area proposing a new CTI, which was then agreed upon and signed in Manado shortly after the World Ocean Conference in May 2009.
"The CTI represents a key step in protecting one of the most important marine ecosystems on the planet," UNEP director of information Satinder Bindra said before presenting the award to the Indonesian President.
"It's a commendable example of regional cooperation and it's an initiative which has been personally spearheaded by His Excellency President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono," he added.
In his speech after the award ceremony, Yudhoyono said the award belonged to all Indonesians, not just to him.
Jim Gomez And Frank Jordans, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Feb 10;
GENEVA – World weather agencies have agreed to collect more precise temperature data to improve climate change science, officials said Wednesday, as U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers to reject efforts by skeptics to derail a global climate deal.
Britain's Met Office proposed that climate scientists around the world undertake the "grand challenge" of measuring land surface temperatures as often as several times a day, and allow independent scrutiny of the data — a move that would go some way toward answering demands by skeptics for access to the raw figures used to predict climate change.
"This effort will ensure that the datasets are completely robust and that all methods are transparent," the Met Office said. The agency added that "any such analysis does not undermine the existing independent datasets that all reflect a warming trend."
The proposal was approved in principle by some 150 delegates meeting under the auspices of the World Meteorological Organization this week in Antalya, Turkey. It comes after e-mails stolen from a British university and several mistakes made in a 2007 report issued by the U.N.-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change prompted public debate over the reliability of climate change predictions.
Skeptics claim scientists have secretly manipulated climate data and suppressed contrary views — allegations that have been denied by researchers and the climate change panel.
Nevertheless, the Met Office said current measurements were "fundamentally ill-conditioned to answer 21st century questions such as how extremes are changing and therefore what adaptation and mitigation decisions should be taken."
Ban Ki-moon urged environment ministers meeting in Bali, Indonesia, on Wednesday to reject attempts by skeptics to undermine efforts to forge a climate change deal, saying global warming poses "a clear and present danger."
In a message read by a U.N. official, Ban referred to the controversy over the 2007 climate panel report that drew widespread criticism and calls for the panel's chairman, Rajendra Pachauri, to resign.
The report's conclusion that Himalayan glaciers would melt by 2035 turned out to be incorrect, an error that bolstered arguments from climate skeptics that fears of global warming are overblown.
A U.N. conference in Copenhagen in December failed to achieve a binding deal on curbing greenhouse gas emissions. But Ban said it was important that the confrence set a target of keeping keep global temperatures from rising, and established a program of climate aid to poorer nations.
"To maintain the momentum, I urge you to reject last-ditch attempts by climate skeptics to derail your negotiations by exaggerating shortcomings in the ... report," Ban said at the start of an annual U.N. meeting of environmental officials from 130 countries on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
"Tell the world that you unanimously agree that climate change is a clear and present danger," Ban said.
Indonesian Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa said his country will hold an informal meeting of all environmental ministers and officials in Bali on Friday to discuss how to reach a binding treaty in Cancun later this year on greenhouse gas reductions.
A U.N. study issued Tuesday said countries will have to significantly increase their pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions to prevent the catastrophic effects of climate change.
Sixty nations — including China, the United States and the 27-member European Union — met a Jan. 31 deadline to submit pledges to the U.N. for reducing greenhouse gases as part of a voluntary plan to roll back emissions. Together the countries produce 78 percent of the world's greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.
Countries set a target in Copenhagen of keeping the Earth's average temperature from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above the levels that existed before nations began industrializing in the late 18th century.
Scientists believe global emissions must be cut in half by mid-century to avoid the melting of glaciers and ice caps, the flooding of low-lying coastal cities and islands, and worsening droughts in Africa and elsewhere.
Ban Ki-moon urges environment ministers to reject attempts by sceptics to undermine negotiations by exaggerating shortcomings in Himalayan glaciers report
Associated Press guardian.co.uk 24 Feb 10;
The UN secretary-general Ban Ki-moon, today urged environment ministers to reject attempts by sceptics to undermine efforts to forge a climate change deal, stressing that global warming poses "a clear and present danger."
In a message read by a UN official, Ban referred to the controversy over mistakes made in a 2007 report issued by the UN-affiliated Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which have been criticised by climate sceptics.
Despite the failure to forge a binding deal on curbing heat-trapping greenhouse gas emissions at a UN conference in Copenhagen last December, Ban said the meeting made an important step forward by setting a target to keep global temperature from rising and establishing a program of climate aid to poorer nations.
"To maintain the momentum, I urge you to reject last-ditch attempts by climate sceptics to derail your negotiations by exaggerating shortcomings in the ... report," Ban said in the statement read at the start of an annual UN meeting of environmental officials from 130 countries on the Indonesian resort island of Bali.
"Tell the world that you unanimously agree that climate change is a clear and present danger," Ban said. A British poll yesterday showed public conviction about the threat of climate change has declined sharply in the last year.
The Indonesian president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, said time was running out, but expressed confidence that a binding climate change deal could be forged at the next climate change summit later this year in Cancun, Mexico.
"I'm convinced that we're still not too late," he said at the Bali conference.
Indonesian foreign minister, Marty Natalegawa, said Indonesia will hold an informal meeting of all environmental ministers and officials from 130 countries Friday in Bali to discuss ways of ensuring that a binding treaty on greenhouse gas cutbacks could be forged in Cancun.
"No sealed deal happened in Copenhagen, so it's now more urgent than ever for us to work diligently between now and Mexico," Natalegawa told The Associated Press in an interview.
"It should have been urgent last year, but we didn't live up to that urgency," he said.
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 24 Feb 10;
Indonesia has proposed informal climate talks ahead of this year’s Mexico conference to restore the already fading trust among rich and developing nations in order to reach a binding treaty on emission cuts.
The first meeting will be held in Bali on Friday on the sidelines of a ministerial forum attended by more than 100 ministers.
“The key now is to restore the fading trust among delegates from rich and developing countries. Otherwise, a deadlock remains a very possible outcome in Mexico,” the executive director of the National Council on Climate Change (DNPI), Rachmat Witoelar, told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
Indonesia, Rachmat said, proposed to the UN to host an informal meeting to resolve pending issues on a long-term agreement on emission cuts before the Mexico summit in December. The UN has given its approval.
After the Bali meeting, climate talks delegates will be invited to meet in April in Bonn and hold another meeting in September.
“Relying only on official UN schedules will not be enough to resolve the pending issues, mainly emission cut targets,” he said.
The UN will hold its official conferences in Bonn in June and in Mexico in October.
The summit, which will decide on whether to agree on a new binding treaty on emission cuts, will be held in December in Mexico.
Many remained pessimistic that the binding protocol on emission cuts can be reached in Mexico after failure in Copenhagen, despite the presence of more than 100 heads of state at the negotiations.
The executive secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) unexpectedly announced he would be stepping down in July, making negotiations more difficult in Mexico.
Rachmat said developing and poor countries had so far blamed rich nations for being arrogant in negotiations, including in Copenhagen last year.
“The rich nations, on the other hand, underestimate developing countries. There must be a way out to break this distrust as soon as possible,” he said.
Foreign Minister Marty Natalegawa is scheduled to be the main speaker on informal consultation on climate change on Friday.
The meeting, held in Nusa Dua, Bali could be reminiscent of the UN’s success in producing the Bali road map in 2007.
The Bali road map requires countries to agree on a new binding treaty in 2009. In that conference, delegates gave a standing ovation after US negotiators expressed their readiness to join the Bali road map.
Director of the campaign department of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), Teguh Surya, hailed the Indonesian government’s initiative to rebuild trust among climate talk delegates.
“The idea is good as long as Indonesia can ensure countries return to two-track negotiations under the UNFCCC’s Ad Hoc Working Groups,” he said.
Alister Doyle, Reuters 24 Feb 10;
OSLO (Reuters) - The United States is at odds with China and other developing nations by favoring a Copenhagen climate accord as the blueprint in 2010 for a stronger deal to fight global warming, documents showed on Wednesday.
In a sign of hurdles ahead, developing nations are instead stressing U.N. texts worked out since 2007 to guide talks after the Copenhagen climate summit in December disappointed many nations by failing to agree a legally binding treaty.
A 5-page U.S. document outlining ideas for 2010 praises the non-binding Copenhagen Accord, the main outcome of the summit, as the basis for work due to culminate with a meeting of environment ministers in Cancun, Mexico, from November 29-December 10.
"We would welcome a further formalization of the Accord in Mexico," according to the U.S. submission dated February 22 and posted on the website of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat.
It says the accord led to "landmark outcomes that...provide the basis for an agreed outcome in Mexico."
The Copenhagen Accord seeks to limit global warming to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times. It also promises aid for developing nations approaching $30 billion for 2010-12, rising to $100 billion a year from 2020.
Developing nations fear that the Accord could supplant a 1992 Climate Convention which, they say, stresses more clearly that rich nations must take the lead to avoid more floods, mudslides, sandstorms or rising ocean levels.
LEGITIMACY
A document from China says that existing U.N. texts are "the only legitimate basis for further negotiations." Elements of the Copenhagen Accord could be considered and "where appropriate" be built into negotiating texts, it says.
Other major emerging nations including India make similar points. Saudi Arabia, which has often expressed fears that a shift to cleaner renewable energies will undermine its oil exports, is more blunt.
"Since the 'Copenhagen Accord' has not been formally adopted, it has no legal status...and thus can't be used as basis or reference for further negotiations," it said.
The U.N. texts are more vague than the Copenhagen Accord and lack firm targets after disputes focused on, for instance, the depth of cuts in developed nations' greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. But developing nations reckon they are more balanced.
Government negotiators will first meet in Bonn, Germany, from April 9-11 to try to bridge differences. The head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, said this week that it would be "very difficult" to agree a treaty in Mexico.
The Copenhagen Accord was not adopted by all 194 nations and was merely "noted" by delegates after opposition from a handful of developing nations including Sudan and Bolivia.
About 100 nations have since said they back the deal but China and India have not spelt out if they are willing to be listed among associates of the deal -- even though their leaders negotiated the text with U.S. President Barack Obama.
A European Union document also emphasizes existing U.N. texts but sees a role for the Accord. "The Copenhagen Accord provides important additional input and guidance needed for the further elaboration and finalization of these texts," it says.
Ben Blanchard, PlanetArk 24 Feb 10;
BEIJING - President Hu Jintao said on Tuesday China was committed to fighting climate change, both at home and in cooperation with the rest of the world, but stopped short of offering any new policies.
Britain, Sweden and other countries have accused China of obstructing December's Copenhagen climate summit, which ended with a non-binding accord that set a target of limiting global warming to a maximum 2 degrees Celsius but was scant on details.
Chinese officials have said their country would never accept outside checks of its plans to slow greenhouse gas emissions and could only make a promise of "increasing transparency."
Hu told a study meeting attended by senior politicians, including Premier Wen Jiabao, that China took the problem seriously, state television reported.
"We must fully recognize the importance, urgency and difficulty of dealing with climate change," the report paraphrased Hu as saying. "We must make it an important strategy for our socio-economic development."
The government says some areas of the country are already seeing the effects of climate change, with higher temperatures and reduced rainfall in some parts and stronger storms in others.
China has pledged to cut the amount of carbon dioxide produced for each unit of economic growth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.
This "carbon intensity" goal would let China's greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.
Hu said energy saving, emission cuts and environmental awareness must be inculcated into not only every government worker but Chinese society as a whole, state television said.
"Climate change is a common, important challenge faced by countries around the world," he said. "For a long time, we have paid a great deal of importance to tackling the climate change issue on the basis of being responsible to our own people and the people of the world."
As the world's biggest emitter, China has faced growing pressure from developed countries and some poor ones to set firmer and deeper goals to curb its greenhouse gases.
China says its emissions historically have been much lower than the developed world's, and its emissions per capita are still much lower than those of wealthy societies.
"Dealing with the problem must be done on the basis of the country's economic development," Hu said.
"We must proactively participate in global cooperation to fight climate change," he said.
(Editing by Paul Tait)
China's Hu says tackling climate change 'urgent'
Yahoo News 24 Feb 10;
BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese President Hu Jintao has said the country must urgently confront climate change and make it a central part of the government's development strategy, state media said Wednesday.
Britain and other countries have accused China of vetoing attempts to give legal force to an agreement at UN climate change talks in Copenhagen in December and blocking an agreement on reductions in global emissions.
China, the world's biggest carbon polluter, has said it was never planning to accept outside reviews of its efforts to slow greenhouse gas emissions at the talks in Denmark.
Hu, addressing a Communist Party politburo "study meeting" on Tuesday, said China was committed to fighting climate change, and should boost environmental awareness among the population at large, the China Daily reported.
"We must fully recognise the importance, urgency and difficulty of dealing with climate change," Hu said.
"We must make it an important strategy for our socio-economic development."
Premier Wen Jiabao, who attended Tuesday's meeting, said China would continue to play "an active and constructive role" in working with the international community to reach a comprehensive and binding climate deal.
China has submitted its plans to fight climate change to the United Nations but described them as voluntary and has not formally endorsed the Copenhagen deal.
Beijing has repeatedly said rich countries should take the lead in committing to substantial emission reduction targets and provide financing to developing countries battling climate change.
Hu's comments came at high-level discussions signalling China will roll out economic and industrial policies aimed at fighting climate change as part of its five-year plan for 2011-15, the newspaper said.
Chris Buckley, PlanetArk 25 Feb 10;
BEIJING - Rich and developing countries have little hope of overcoming key disagreements over how to fight global warming, China's climate change ambassador said on Wednesday, warning of a year of troubled negotiations.
China's Special Representative for Climate Change Negotiations, Yu Qingtai, said as nations seek a new global treaty on climate change by the end of 2010, major players are unlikely to budge on the issues that stymied stronger agreement at the contentious Copenhagen climate summit in late 2009.
"There may be some adjustments and shifts in the positions and tactics of the various sides, but I personally believe that on some core issues, the positions of the major parties will not undergo any substantive changes," Yu said at a meeting in Beijing on China's climate change policies.
After they failed to agree on a comprehensive pact at Copenhagen, negotiators now hope to put together a binding treaty through meetings culminating in Mexico late this year.
Yu was not hopeful.
"We can expect that in the coming year, there'll still be a mix of consensus and conflict, of cooperation and struggle, on the stage of climate diplomacy," he said. "The progress of the international negotiations faces very many difficulties."
Yu's comments added to recent gloomy forecasts for the climate negotiations, an issue that could add to tensions with the United States.
Agreeing a U.N. climate treaty in 2010 will be "very difficult," the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, Yvo de Boer, said on Tuesday.
DISPUTES
China has passed the United States to become the biggest producer of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity. Yet China is a developing country with average greenhouse gas output per person far lower than in wealthy countries.
That dual status has put Beijing at the heart of disputes with the United States, European Union and other rich economies about how developed and big developing countries should share out burdens for controlling greenhouse gas emissions.
Also crucial is how much international scrutiny should apply to the emissions actions of big developing nations.
In Copenhagen, China and other poorer countries accused the West of offering too little in the way of emissions cuts and climate funds and technology to the Third World.
Britain, Sweden and other countries accused China of obstructing stronger agreement at the Copenhagen summit, which ended with a non-binding accord.
China should not expect wealthy countries to change their tune this year, said Yu.
"I believe that there won't be any substantive change in the developed countries' settled policy of shifting blame to the developing countries," he said.
"They will continue pressuring the developing countries to shoulder unreasonable responsibilities."
The speeches by Yu and other Chinese climate policy officials were published online by an official news website (www.china.com.cn).
Yu said China and other developing countries would defend their right to grow their economies without taking on internationally binding emissions targets.
Chinese President Hu Jintao said on Tuesday he was committed to fighting climate change and pressing forward with a domestic goal to cut carbon intensity.
China has vowed to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide -- the main greenhouse gas from human activity -- emitted to create each unit of economic worth by 40-45 percent by 2020, compared with 2005 levels.
This goal would let China's greenhouse gas emissions keep rising, but more slowly than economic growth.
But Hu also said Beijing was committed to the "common but differentiated" principle: that developing countries should take action to fight climate change, but not assume the internationally binding emissions targets that developed countries must shoulder under U.N.-backed climate treaties.
Yu said negotiators should not expect China to budge.
"When it comes to responsibilities that we should not assume, that harm our national interests, we will resolutely hold out, no matter how much pressure there is in the negotiations," said Yu.
(Editing by David Fogarty)
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