Best of our wild blogs: 1 Mar 10

Singapore BiodiverCity Photo Competition: Closing date 14 Mar Attractive prizes just announced, on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog

Pulau Hantu with Dr Dan
from wild shores of singapore and Singapore Nature

新年换新树 egrets change their roost tree
from PurpleMangrove

Huge flaring at Bukom
from Singapore Nature

Monitor our Seagrass!
from Psychedelic Nature

Hantu Animals
from Psychedelic Nature

Two new nudi sightings for me!
from wonderful creation

A Very Dry MNT
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

Oriental Pied Hornbill in moult
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Fighting Spiders 2
from Ubin.sgkopi

Animal Welfare 2.0
from Midnight Monkey Monitor

Monday Morgue: 1st March 2010
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

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Submit your snap of nature: BiodiverCity photo competition

Today Online 1 Mar 10;

This scarlet dragonfly was captured on camera by Nurfarhana Azmi, 15, at the Southern Ridges, while the hungry baby nestlings were framed by Leshon Lee, 13, a nature reserves volunteer.

With this year designated as the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations, the National Parks Board is organising a photo competition, aptly themed BiodiverCity.

Pictures taken in any of the major parks and nature reserves here can be submitted. There is an open and a student category, with prizes including up to $6,000 cash. Grand prize winners also get to take part in Banyan Tree's Green Sea Turtle Conservation Programme in the Maldives. For more information, log on to www.nparks.gov.sg/IYB2010. Submit your entries by March 14.

More about International Year of Biodiversity on the Celebrating Singapore's Biodiversity blog and facebook page.

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Fate of Singapore's endangered monkeys in our hands

Straits Times Forum 1 Mar 10;

THE Straits Times recently reported the findings of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature on the status of the world's primates ('25 primates 'close to extinction' ', Feb 19).

While nearly half of the world's 400 primate species are threatened, Asia's primates are in the worst shape with 71 per cent under threat. Moreover, of the 25 most critically endangered primates, their highest concentration is in South-east Asia, which makes primate conservation a critical issue for the region.

Singapore has no endemic primate species, but we share with Johor a distinct variant (or 'sub-species') of the banded leaf monkey. Unfortunately, the Singapore population is severely threatened, with only 40 or 50 such monkeys remaining. Their future depends on us.

Even the widespread long-tailed macaque, which can be viewed with relative ease here, does not necessarily have a secure future. Throughout its range in South-east Asia, the number of such monkeys is rapidly declining because of conflict with humans or because they are trapped and traded. Many people live near long-tailed macaques, as in Singapore, and the future of these human-macaque communities will depend on our tolerance of them.

South-east Asia is one of nature's premier laboratories for the generation of biodiversity. Tragically, this unparalleled biodiversity, of which primates are a prime indicator, is imperilled by many factors, most of which are related to our patterns of consumption - of wood, paper and cooking oil, to name a few.

Singapore, despite its limited size and population, can punch well above its weight in saving endangered species. As a centre of innovation, we can find ways to use and manage natural resources more effectively. Our wealth, if wisely invested, can help protect or even improve the environment. If other cities become as conscious of limiting environmental impacts as we are, pressure on nature would greatly ease. Moreover, we can support forms of trade and tourism that preserve habitats and local cultures.

Anyone lucky enough to spend time observing wild primates will be amazed by their intelligence, resourcefulness, and the complexity of their behaviour and social structure. Our actions will result in us either pushing more primates towards the abyss, or in saving them from oblivion. If we choose the latter, we will simultaneously restore ecosystems to a state in which humans will benefit from improved ecological services (clean air, water and local climatic stability) that these habitats provide. It can be a win-win for all primates.

Tan Beng Chiak (President)
Michael Gumert (Board Member)
Shawn Lum (Board Member)
Jane Goodall Institute, Singapore Chapter

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Saving the great white hope

This will hopefully be the year when wildlife conservation gets taken seriously
Joyce Hooi, Business Times 1 Mar 10;

'In Singapore, there is surprising scope for species conservation. Some of the seagrass beds and coral reefs are small in size but they're way up there - top of the range,' said Geoffrey Davison, chairperson of the WRSCF specialist panel.

IF energy conservation is the lead on today's stage of hot-button issues, wildlife conservation is an understudy waiting in the wings.

Even though 2010 has been designated the International Year of Biodiversity by the United Nations, its furry-panda association places it in danger of being taken less seriously than carbon emissions and dwindling oil supplies.

Amid all this, an alliance has been forged between Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS), Wildlife Conservation Society Singapore and the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS).

The incongruity of the concrete-jungle setting for WRS and WCS aside, both wildlife groups have placed their faith firmly in science and education where overcoming hurdles are concerned.

The memorandum of understanding they signed recently will see them share technical expertise and work on increasing public education and awareness.

'What we can offer in this alliance is that when our governments or host nations are faced with a really powerful question, like how to save sea turtles, we can answer that authoritatively,' said Steven Sanderson, president and chief executive officer of WCS, at a recent roundtable discussion in Singapore.

'The provider of the facts does not have vested interests, like a university or WCS, and tends to be an objective observer. That's what we're about,' said Ward Woods, WCS chairman.

WRS, which is the parent company of Jurong Bird Park, the Night Safari and the Singapore Zoo, is also headed down the anorak path of knowledge through its fledgeling fund: the WRSCF (WRS Conservation Fund) - founded in 2009.

'Zoos are still seen as places to play and look like animals. We're trying to move it from viewing to learning, and then towards researching and understanding the impacts on biodiversity,' said Claire Chiang, Banyan Tree's senior vice-president and chairperson of WRS and WRSCF.

Currently, WCS has 500 ongoing projects and 24 landscapes that it is intensively involved in conserving.

Funding and knowledge, however, appear to be the least of the conservation effort's problems.

There is the issue of labyrinthian government whose left hand is in disagreement with its right hand, for one thing.

'First, you've got to get a hearing and the people in power have to care about what you are saying,' said Mr Sanderson.

'Sometimes, the same government will have two different attitudes, depending on the agency. The United States is quite famous for this, where the Department of Interior wants information on bison and the Department of Agriculture that co-regulates bison doesn't want it.'

While Singapore may not be the home where the buffalo roam, the stakes for conservation, nonetheless, exist.

'In Singapore, there is surprising scope for species conservation. Some of the seagrass beds and coral reefs are small in size but they're way up there - top of the range,' said Geoffrey Davison, chairperson of the WRSCF specialist panel.

In Singapore, while WRS may be able to leverage some corporate muscle off its main shareholder, Temasek Holdings, wildlife conservation remains relatively low on the corporate and political agenda globally.

'It was very upsetting to get the draft report of the Convention on Biological Diversity 2010 targets. At the end of 2009, the convention announced that none of the 2010 targets had been met,' said Mr Sanderson.

The situation is starker on a regional basis. Lacking a corporate incentive or a catchy phrase like 'cap-and-trade', conservation groups are a ragtag bunch with disparate ideas.

There are plant-based efforts, marine-life interest groups and associations zeroing in on coral reefs. And then there is the mind-boggling array of depths of discussion, from species-specific to policy-based themes.

Emerging from this discordant chaos, the alliance hopes to be the championing voice of reason.

'I would like to think that we could be part of the thought leadership. We may not want to tell them what to do, but by having conferences and workshops with the scientific community and other groups, we could influence them,' said Ms Chiang.

Already, some effort to give wildlife conservation the boardroom sheen of energy conservation is surfacing.

At the roundtable, phrases like 'sustainable growth models', 'network capital' and 'centre for excellence' were used in the same breath as 'Irrawaddy dolphins' and 'gorillas in Congo'.

Even if governments are receptive, corporations are politely interested and conservation groups are better organised, this effort could still be undone by poor timing.

Ms Chiang remembered organising an energy conference on climate change in 2000, a long time before the issue had even become one. 'It fell flat,' she recalled.

Whether the present is premature for wildlife issues is adjacent to the point for conservation, where WRS and WCS are concerned.

'A la Singapore, we're very good at having dialogues. We get all the parties at the table and we talk and talk and talk. It's the stamina to sustain the talking,' Ms Chiang noted wryly. 'It may take years. But if we don't keep that passion going, nothing moves.'

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Nuclear energy: The options for Singapore

Michael Richardson, For The Straits Times 1 Mar 10;

IF SINGAPORE is to go nuclear, how could it prepare for such a big change in meeting national energy needs, particularly for electricity? And what kind of reactors might be best for the small island-state?

When a country decides to use nuclear power to generate electricity, drive desalination plants or produce heat for industry, it is 'a 100-year-long-commitment', says Mr Yury Sokolov, a senior official of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations body responsible for helping nations harness nuclear power and ensuring they do so only for peaceful purposes.

It takes at least 15 years from the time a government approves a nuclear programme to the start of power generation. The operating life of many commercial reactors in the United States, Japan and Europe has been extended from around 40 years to as much as 70 or 80 years. Safely managing the high-level radioactive waste from nuclear plants extends this commitment for many more years.

Just to build a national nuclear power infrastructure is complex, requiring more than 10 years of planning according to the IAEA. 'When we talk about infrastructure... we mean a system that provides legal, regulatory, technological, human and industrial support to ensure the effectiveness of the nuclear power programme and ensure that obligations for safety, security and safeguards are met,' Mr Sokolov says.

Singapore is one of over 60 countries examining whether, and if so how, to include nuclear power in their energy plans. The IAEA says almost 35 countries in Asia, Africa and South America are considering or already launching a nuclear power programme. It expects that as many as 20 could have reactors running by 2030, adding to the 31 that already generate varying proportions of their electricity from nuclear energy.

France gets 76 per cent of its electricity from nuclear power, Lithuania 73 per cent, Slovakia 56 per cent and Belgium 54 per cent. But most nuclear economies get less than half, and often less than one-third, partly because they do not want to become too reliant on any single energy source.

One of the attractions of nuclear power is that although the capital cost is high, running costs are low, global supplies of uranium fuel are plentiful, and the amount of imported fuel for an average-sized plant is usually not more than 150 tonnes - enough to produce a supply of electricity for one or two years before some of the fuel has to be replaced.

In Asia, 36 per cent of South Korea's electricity is nuclear-generated, 25 per cent of Japan's, and 17 per cent of Taiwan's. China, India and Pakistan get just 2 per cent of their electricity from nuclear power, though China and India plan to boost those shares in coming decades.

Chile is one country studying its long-term energy options. It turned to the Finnish nuclear safety regulator for advice and was told that the general rule in power grid management is that no single electricity generator should make up more than 10 per cent of capacity.

In Singapore, peak demand is no more than 6,000 megawatts. So if the 10 per cent of capacity guideline was followed, this would rule out most of the nuclear power plants available today because they each generate more than 600 MW. The largest reactors are rated at 1,650 MW and may cost as much as US$10 billion (S$14 billion) to finance and build.

Choosing a safe site for a power reactor in a densely-populated island-state is also a problem.

Singapore may have to wait for a new generation of smaller, less expensive and inherently safer technologies to be proven. The recent energy subcommittee report to the government made this point but added that there are 'modular designs which allow smaller reactors to be produced and fuel-efficient designs that reduce the amount of waste produced'.

Unfortunately, while small reactors hold great promise, one of the most advanced designs has just suffered a serious setback. The South African government last month stopped funding the firm developing so-called pebble bed modular reactors of between 80 MW and 165 MW, forcing the company to consider stringent staff cuts and restructuring.

Meanwhile, what more could Singapore do to prepare for a possible nuclear future? One option is to consider a research reactor. There are 283 such reactors in 56 countries, including several South-east Asian countries. They are much smaller than power reactors. In fact, the total power of the world's research reactors combined is little more than a single large power reactor.

Many research reactors are on university campuses where they are used for research and training, materials testing, or the production of radioisotopes. There is currently a global shortage of technetium-99, the most widely used isotope in nuclear medicine.

A power reactor produces and controls the release of energy from splitting the atoms of certain elements, usually derived from uranium. In a research reactor, the main purpose is to use the neutrons released from fission. It becomes a very useful neutron factory.

The energy subcommittee report made no direct reference to research reactors when it recommended that Singapore should begin studying the feasibility of nuclear energy. However, the subcommittee added: 'At the same time, developing expertise in the evolving nuclear energy technologies will have economic spin-offs and applications in fields such as research and nuclear medicine.'

The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of South East Asian Studies.

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Will growing seagrass beds bring back rare sea cows to Chilika?

Jatindra Dash ICT by IANS thaindian.com 1 Mar 10;

Chilika (Orissa), March 1 (IANS) Wild life experts are hoping the highly endangered dugong or sea cow could again come visiting Orissa’s Chilika Lake, thanks to the expanding beds of sea grass growing in the shallow waters - a critical requirement for the big marine animal.

Seagrass meadows are the only marine flowering plants found in shallow waters. They serve as spawning and nursery grounds for a large numbers of fish and invertebrate species, and provide a critical habitat for dugongs and turtles.

The seagrass beds, which also play an important role in the food web of inshore coastal ecosystems, are declining globally.

However, experts have found the seagrass meadows to be expanding in the Chilika Lake, the largest brackish water lagoon in Asia.

The lake, some 100 km from state capital Bhubaneswar, is spread over Puri, Khordha and Ganjam districts. It is home to the largest congregation of migratory birds in the country and also to more than 150 endangered Irrawaddy dolphins.

“The seagrass meadows were only 20 sq km in 2000 in the lake, but it has now expanded to 80 sq km due to various conservation measures,” Ajit Patnaik, chief executive of Chilika Development Authority (CDA), told IANS.

Till date, 58 species of seagrass belonging to 12 genera are known to occur the world over. “In Chilika, five species of seagrass are recorded so far,” he said.

According to Patnaik, the dugong was last sighted in Chilika in 1902. “Unfortunately, they are now extinct from the lake,” Patnaik said.

“We hope the dugongs again come back to the lake as the seagrass meadows are now a common sight,” he said.

The dugong is listed by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) as a species vulnerable to extinction. The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species also limits or bans the trade of derived products in the large marine animal.

The mammal, which has a lifespan of over 70 years, has a slow rate of reproduction and heavily depends on seagrass for subsistence. At birth, a dugong can be around 27.5 kg and an adult could be around 360 kg.

The dugong is threatened by hunting, habitat degradation, pollution and human activities. Their natural predators are sharks, whales and crocodiles.

Commonly found in the Indian and Pacific oceans, dugongs are seen along the coasts of Africa, India and Sri Lanka.

Despite a recent surge in research activity, studies on Indian seagrass are few and inadequate. Large regions and a major stretch of coastlines of the country are still unexplored for sea grass.

“We (CDA) have entered into a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Leibniz University, Hannover, Germany, to do a study on the seagrass here,” Patnaik said.

Jutta Papenbrock of Institute of Botany, Leibniz University Hannover (LUH), who is a molecular taxonomist, visited the lake along with Matthias Pilz from Cologne University last week and carried out an in-depth study, he said.

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Indonesia: A Day of Quakes, Downpours and Strong Winds

Zaky Pawas & Antara, Jakarta Globe 1 Mar 10;

Nature seemed to be on a rampage on Sunday. Wild weather baffled many in West Java and Jakarta while mid-sized earthquakes managed to shake different provinces across the country, just days after Tuesday’s landslide at a tea plantation in West Java that has so far claimed 33 lives.

A heavy downpour of sleet and strong winds hit Bandung on Sunday afternoon, while hail-like rain slammed the regions of Antapani, Cicaheum, Gedebage, Ujungberung and Cileunyi areas, Antara reported.

The storm claimed the life of a resident identified as Usep in Ujungberung subdistrict of Bandung. He died after the storm caused a tree to fall on a small hut in which he had taken shelter, killing him instantly, witnesses said.

Bandung residents expressed curiosity about the sleet, which reportedly caused damage to the roofs of many houses in Cidurian and Cisaranten areas in Bandung. There is concern the heavy downpour could cause the Citarum River to overflow and worsen the floods affecting Baleendah and Dayeuhkolot subdistricts around Bandung.

In the capital, strong winds and torrential rains in Ciputat, South Jakarta, toppled three billboards and a number of trees. Four people were injured as a result of flying roof tiles, while falling trees and billboards left a number of vehicles damaged. In East Jakarta, strong winds caused a tree to crash on top of a car parked at the Taman Mini Indonesia recreational park.

A 5.2-magnitude quake shook the town of Tarutung in North Sumatra, leaving residents in a state of panic. The Meteorology and Geophysics Agency (BMG) said on its Web site that the quake struck at 7:13 p.m. on Sunday.

“The power went out immediately after the quake,” Anderson, a resident of Tarutung, told the Jakarta Globe.

“Plates on the dining table fell to the floor and broke,” Anderson said, adding that aftershocks were felt at least 10 times up until 10.30 p.m.

“The rain’s very heavy and residents are staying home following the quake. They’re all very scared. What we’re most worried about is a landslide,” Anderson said.

Meanwhile, the BMG reported that a 5-magnitude earthquake shook Sumbawa in West Nusa Tenggara province at 3:33 p.m. local time on Sunday. There were no immediate reports of casualties or damage.

A 5-magnitude quake also shook Saumlaki, Maluku.

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Rampant conversion of land in Tesso Nilo National Park into oil palm plantations

Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post 1 Mar 10;

Illegal conversion of conservation areas into oil palm plantations remains rampant in the Tesso Nilo National Park, Riau, allegedly involving high military figures, environmental activists say.

Speaking to The Jakarta Post over the weekend, Harijal Jalil, the executive director of NGO Tropika, said up to thousands of hectares had been turned into oil palm plantations and changed ownerships with the businesspeople trading on military names for publicity.

"Since the late 1990s, the land's ownerships were changed several times through a number of transactions involving heads of subdistricts," Harijal said.

An investigation conducted by a coalition of environmental NGOs in 2005, Harijal said, reveals the land was bought at Rp 500,000 per hectare.

"If nothing is done about it, I'm afraid the park that has been designated as the Sumatran elephant conservation center will completely turn into plantation areas," Harijal said.

Harijal also said to cover up their involvement, the suspected military figures avoided direct partipation in the transaction process.

"Businesspeople tend to do the transactions but parts of the purchased land were put under the ownership of the military personnel."

Businesspeople also turned to assistance from local officials, former councilors and low-level military personnel to smooth and secure their business activities.

"Such practices have made illegal conversion of land more and more uncontrollable and heavy machinery tools can easily go in and out of the park region," Harijal said.

He therefore urged the central government to take stern action against the practices and take over the authorization of the park, arguing that local institutions proved powerless in tackling the affair.

"They can start by cancelling the certificates of ownership issued by the respective subdistrict heads."

The head of the TNTN management agency, Hayani Suprahman, acknowledged the practices but said the area owned by the suspected military figure was only around 70 hectares.

The rest of the area is classified as a limited production forest area.

Hayani also said the suspected military figure was a former commander of a military district in Riau who had now been assigned in a city in East Java province's region.

"We reported the case to the military police last year, but they said they couldn't do anything because the figure had a certificate of ownership issued in 1998 by the National Land Agency *BPN* in Indragiri Hulu."

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Afghanistan protects newly rediscovered rare bird

Kay Johnson, Associated Press Yahoo News 28 Feb 10;

KABUL – Afghanistan's fledging conservation agency moved Sunday to protect one of the world's rarest birds after the species was rediscovered in the war-ravaged country's northeast.

The remote Pamir Mountains are the only known breeding area of the large-billed reed warbler, a species so elusive that it had been documented only twice before in more than a century.

A researcher with the New York-based Wildlife Conservation Society stumbled upon the tiny, olive-brown bird during a wildlife survey in 2008 and taped its distinctive song. Later, a research team caught and released 20 of the birds — the largest number ever recorded.

On Sunday, Afghanistan's National Environment Protection Agency added the large-billed reed warbler to its list of protected species, which was established only last year.

Mustafa Zahir, the agency's director-general, acknowledged the difficulties of trying to protect wildlife in a country preoccupied with the Taliban insurgency. On Friday, suicide attackers killed 16 people in Kabul, the capital, and thousands of Afghan and NATO forces are fighting to root out the hard-line Islamists from their southern stronghold.

But Zahir, who is the grandson of Afghanistan's former king, said the discovery of the large-billed reed warbler provided some welcome positive news.

"It is not true that our country is full of only bad stories," Zahir said. "This bird, after so many years, has been discovered here. Everyone thought it was extinct."

The bird's discovery in Afghanistan kicked off a small flurry in conservation circles.

The large-billed reed warbler was first documented in India in 1867 but wasn't found again until 2006 — with a single bird in Thailand. The Pamir Mountains, in the sparsely populated Badakhshan province near China, is now home to the world's only known large population of the bird.

The Afghan environmental agency also added 14 other species to the protected list on Sunday. It now includes 48 species including the rare snow leopard, the Asiatic cheetah and the markhor, a type of wild goat with large spiral horns.

While conservation efforts are in their infancy in Afghanistan, there have been some recent successes. Authorities in Badakhshan last week seized a snow leopard from villagers who had trapped it and planned to sell it. The snow leopard — one of an estimated 150 left in the wild — will be freed once its injuries from the trap are healed, Zahir said.

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Iran agrees to give Russia wild leopards

Yahoo News 1 Mar 10;

MOSCOW (AFP) – Iran has promised to donate two wild leopards to Russia, officials said Sunday, bringing closer the aim of settling the rare animals near the 2014 Winter Olympics host city of Sochi.

The reintroduction of the Persian leopard -- extinct in Russia's Caucasus region since the start of the last century -- is being championed by Prime Minister Vladimir Putin ahead of the games.

"There is an agreement with the government of Iran... Initially two female (leopards) will be given. They will be delivered in the spring," the head of the Sochi National Park, Nikolai Penkovsky, told the Interfax news agency

The inititaive to reintroduce the leopard is part of a drive to promote the mountainous region around Sochi, marking the western edge of the Caucasus mountains, as an area of natural beauty and diversity.

The agreement with Iran follows a visit to Tehran by Russian Natural Resources Minister Yury Trutnev for talks with the head of the Iranian environmental protection agency, Mohammad Javad Mohammadizadeh.

Iran's ISNA news agency also said the meeting had secured a pledge from Iran to give two leopards to Russia.

Turkmenistan has already given Russia two male leopards which are being held in a reserve outside Sochi.

Penkovsky said that for the reintroduction programme to have an effect, three females and three males would be required.

Many environmentalists have bitterly criticised plans for the 2014 Games, for which much infrastructure for the ski events has to be built from scratch.

The Russian branch of WWF this month accused the government of inflicting "huge damage" on the environment and said its future cooperation with the project was now in question.

Iran is one of the last holdouts of the leopards, commonly known as the Persian leopard, although there are smaller populations in Armenia, Georgia and Turkmenistan.

Russia has a severely endangered population of Amur leopards in its Far East region but it is a different sub species to the Persian leopard.

Despite his reputation as a tough-guy policymaker, Putin has been happy to display a soft spot for animals and personally welcomed the two Turkmen leopards in Sochi.

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Slovak ecologists slam oil pipe plan in unique water reservoir

Tatiana Bednarikova Yahoo News 1 Mar 10;

BRATISLAVA (AFP) – Plans for an oil pipeline through central Europe's largest drinking water reservoir in southwestern Slovakia have sparked outrage among Slovak environmentalists and water companies alike.

Slovak state-owned downstream oil company Transpetrol is planning to connect Austria to the Druzhba pipeline -- pumping Russian oil to central Europe -- via a connector passing through the Zitny ostrov (Rye Island) protected area.

But the 1,900-square-kilometre island on the Danube river contains some 10 billion cubic metres of high-quality drinking water reserves.

"An oil pipeline leading through Zitny ostrov would endanger a unique and irreplaceable drinking-water resource for Bratislava and surrounding regions," Zenon Mikle, spokesman for a company supplying water to the Slovak capital, told AFP.

Transpetrol and Austrian downstream oil giant OMV expect to start building the 62-kilometre (39-mile) pipeline connecting Druzhba and the Trans-Alpine pipeline in 2012.

Slovakia, which depends on Russia for 98 percent of its oil supplies, accounting for about 5.5 million tonnes per year, is betting on the pipeline as an alternative source in case Russia decides to halt supplies through Druzhba.

The country has been trying to diversify its energy sources after it was left without oil supplies for three days in January 2007 when Russia interrupted deliveries following an energy dispute between Moscow and Belarussian authorities in Minsk.

In December 2009, Russia threatened to halt oil deliveries again over a price dispute with Ukraine.

"In case of a crisis, (via the new connector) we would be able to replace oil supplies immediately through a reverse flow from Austria," Slovak Economy Minister Lubomir Jahnatek said recently.

But Karel Hirman, an energy security specialist, told AFP this was out of the question as "the pipeline would enable direct oil supplies from Russia to Austria but it wouldn't improve Slovakia's energy security in any way."

The Slovak Economy Ministry said in a press release it had asked Transpetrol to prepare at least one alternative route bypassing the protected area.

It added it would "support only a route that complies with all environmental protection and security standards" when taking the final decision expected in June or later.

Sven Pusswald, spokesman for OMV which holds a 26-percent stake in the project, said Slovakia alone was responsible for this section of the route, but that "the Slovaks are examining a number of different alternative routes."

In any case, an environmental NGO started a petition called "No to the pipeline through Zitny ostrov" earlier this month to fight the project.

"We have collected up to 12,000 signatures in two weeks, people are eager to sign," activist Miroslav Dragun told AFP.

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