Best of our wild blogs: 8 Mar 10

Trekking through CCNR
from Urban Forest

New walk at the Wallace Education Centre Gallery
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

三月华语导游Mandarin guiding walk @ SBWR
from PurpleMangrove

6 Mar 2010: The many facets of our dear Otter
from The Simplicities in Life

A Walk into the Mangroves
from Where Discovery Begins

Strange creature found dead on East Coast Beach
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Crimson Sunbird harvesting nectar from hibiscus
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Rethinking our population ‘problem’
from the kent ridge common by Chen Jinwen

Monday Morgue: 8th March 2010
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Crimson Sunbird feeding at spider’s web
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Mission: Save the Mandai Orchid Garden

The 59-year-old Mandai Orchid Garden faces extinction when the lease on the land expires
tay suan chiang Straits Times Life 8 Mar 10;

Singapore's oldest orchid garden looks set to become a withering plot come January next year. That is when the 60-year land lease on which the 10-acre Mandai Orchid Garden stands will expire.

The Government has identified the plot to be part of a 30ha site, about three times the size of VivoCity mall, to be developed as a nature-themed attraction in Mandai.

The chairman of the garden, Mr Heah Hock Heng, said he has appealed at least twice to the authorities to extend the lease on the land, but has been turned down.

He tells Life! that the authorities have told him that he can keep the Mandai Orchid Garden site if he tenders for it together with the 30ha site.

He hopes to work with a home-grown brand name to put up a tender. He will focus on his garden while the partner will develop the 30ha site.

He already has plans for his site, which will include a $22-million resort consisting of about 70 high-end chalets and a spa. The Mandai Orchid Garden will still be kept, as 'it has much heritage here. Some of the orchids have been growing since 1951', says Mr Heah, 74.

If he fails to win the tender, he will move the garden to a site on Neo Tiew Road in Lim Chu Kang.

The 10-acre garden, which showcases more than 70 varieties of orchids, was started in 1951 by the late John Laycock, a lawyer and founder of the Malayan Orchid Society, now known as the Orchid Society Of South-east Asia.

Since 1961, it has been approved by the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) as a tourist attraction. Its blooms include orchids named after famous people such as former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, former OCBC Bank chairman Tan Chin Tuan and Singapore's first chief minister David Marshall.

The garden is located near the Singapore Zoological Gardens and the Night Safari. Apart from the blooms, there is also a restaurant, Vanilla Pod, on its premises. Entrance to the garden is $3.50 for adults.

Mr Heah says it receives about 200 to 300 visitors a day which works out to about 100,000 visitors a year. Singapore's other long-time attraction Haw Par Villa receives about 260,000 visitors a year, according to a 2008 report.

Mr Laycock ran the garden until his death in 1960. His daughter, Mrs Amy Ede, together with her husband John, took over the business and became known for their books and love of orchids and gardening. Mr Ede died in 2003 and his wife in 2007. The current management took over the garden in 2003.

When contacted, STB's director for attractions, Ms Jeannie Lim, says the Mandai Orchid Garden land site is part of the footprint identified for the proposed development of the 30ha site.

'STB is in discussion with them and is open to working with the owners to develop a unique and compelling nature attraction,' she says. 'They can also participate by submitting proposals when the tender for the site is launched later.'

Another group of gardening enthusiasts are also doing their bit to help save the garden from disappearing.

Mr Hendrick Kwan, the garden's curator, Ms Alice Mendoza, a part-time consultant for the garden, and Mr Mark Kaufmann, its artist-in-residence, are banding together to try and conserve the garden. They hope to approach government agencies such as the Preservation of Monuments Board, the National Heritage Board, the National Parks Board and STB with proposals on conservation of the orchids.

Mr Kwan, 32, hopes to have an orchid depository at the garden, an archive for orchid literature and a research and development centre on site to breed new orchids. 'I also want to educate children on orchids and famous names behind them, such as John Laycock,' he says.

The trio also want to reach out to the public to get feedback and their memories of the garden.

The Orchid Society Of South-east Asia's president, Dr John Elliot, says it will be a 'great tragedy if the garden is lost'. He says it would be good if the garden can be incorporated into the area's new development.

'Conservation in Singapore shouldn't be just limited to architecture, but to include orchids as well,' he says. 'The Mandai Orchid Garden is a living museum.'

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King Cobra venom has potential to delay dementia

Toxin found in venom can protect nerve cells from degeneration
Judith Tan Straits Times 8 Mar 10;

THE bite of the King Cobra, which can bring down an elephant, has been found by Singapore scientists to yield a toxin that could delay the onset of dementia and possibly help against nicotine addiction.

The unique toxin was isolated from the more than 100 other toxins that make up the venom of the world's longest poisonous snake.

Named Haditoxin by researchers from the Department of Biological Sciences at the National University of Singapore (NUS), the chemical targets specific messages sent by the nerves to the brain.

It comes from a toxin family found in almost all venomous snakes around the world, and it blocks specific subtypes of neuroreceptors - the message-receiving chemicals in the brain - protecting nerve cells from degeneration, the main cause of Alzheimer's disease.

Snake toxin expert Manjunatha Kini said it is much like how botulinum toxin, popularly known as botox, acts to relax the contraction of muscles by blocking nerve impulses.

'This is where the similarity ends. While there is a need to get another jab of botox after six to eight months, our research has shown that the effects of Haditoxin are irreversible when it comes to binding to the nicotinic acetylcholine receptor (nAChR) in mammals,' he said.

This receptor is key in neuron communication.

So far, however, the effects of the drugs can be seen only in mice and rats.

Professor Kini hopes the protein can be used as long-term therapeutic treatment for dementia in humans.

The 10-member NUS team, led by Prof Kini, spent three years intensively researching the compound. They worked closely with counterparts from the School of Medical Science at the Griffith University in Australia, and the University of Geneva in Switzerland on the study.

The findings will be published in a peer journal, Journal of Biological Chemistry on Friday.

Research is still ongoing and it will be several years before an actual drug is developed for treatment and made available on the market.

King Cobras live mainly in the rain forests and plains of India, southern China, and South-east Asia. They can grow to more than 5m and when confronted, raise up to a third of their bodies straight off the ground and still move forward to attack.

Their venom is not the most potent, but the amount of neurotoxins they can deliver in a single bite is enough to kill an elephant or 20 people.

Haditoxin is the third new compound with therapeutic properties that the team has discovered from the venom of the King Cobra.

The other two are Ohanin that could help treat anxiety and �-Cardiotoxin for the treatment of hypertension (high blood pressure).

These two compounds are currently being studied to be developed into drugs to treat the two conditions.

Prof Kini said the nACh receptors also binds nicotine, making it addictive and the ability of Haditoxins to block these receptors could be an answer to treating the problem of smoking.

'But as the mechanism of action by the toxin is not yet clear, understanding these processes is interesting in terms of research as well as therapeutics,' he added.

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Green: Ghazally on a mission

Suzanna Pillay, The New Straits Times 7 Mar 10;

The abundant animal and plant life of Malaysia's tropical habitats becomes less of a mystery when you scour the books of renowned scientist Dr Ghazally Ismail, writes SUZANNA PILLAY

NOT many people would find the lowly creeping flatworm an interesting creature. For scientist Dr Ghazally Ismail, however, it is the most fascinating resident in the Malaysian forest.

“It is the first symmetrical design in the evolutionary process that enabled an organism to move forward to hunt for food. It is more advanced than sponges and coral polyps that remain stationary and wait for food to pass by, and even more advanced than jellyfish that pulse aimlessly in the water in search of food. “The flatworm’s striking colours, which contrast with the forest floor, are beautiful too,” says this passionate naturalist and environmental advocate who has been up Mount Kinabalu six times.

And his pick of the most misunderstood creature? “The poor rhinoceros. These animals are being pushed to the brink of extinction because of a long-standing fallacy that their horns have medicinal value.

“Nothing is more erroneous than to believe that the horn has such properties when in fact its chemical composition is exactly similar to our fingernails — keratin, the most inert chemical component of our body parts.

“People who kill these magnificent beasts for their horns just need to chew on their fingernails!” The flatworm and rhino are just a few of the fascinating creatures you can read about in Dr Ghazally’s new book The Malaysian Rainforest Realm; Fascinating Facts in Q & A, which he co-wrote with his daughter Salina.

If you had ever wondered how the Brahminy Kite got its name, or why the slow loris has such huge eyes, then this is the book for you.

Written in question-and-answer format, the book offers facts and answers to a wealth of fascinating Malaysian flora and fauna simply but succinctly. Why did they opt for a Q & A format? “In learning, everything starts with a question,” says Dr Ghazally. The format was also inspired by the fact that Salina had earlier conceptualised a 13-episode science series in English for television, Just Curious, that explained the science around us.

“Our book is crafted to elicit interest and educate readers about wildlife and nature. People would have a deeper appreciation of the antics and marvels of nature when they know the answers to those nagging questions that arise about plants and animals during nature walks.

“This in turn would inculcate a love of nature, which ultimately, would move them into protecting it. This, we believe, is the key to nature education,” explained Ghazally.

“Echoing what Senegalese poet Baba Dioum said: ‘In the end, we will conserve only what we love, we will love what we understand and we will understand what we are taught.” A former Dean of the Faculty of Science and Natural Resources at Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia (UKM) Sabah Campus from 1981-1992, Ghazally has contributed immensely to research and conservation of both terrestrial and marine ecosystems in Borneo.

One of his past career highs was in 1983-1984 when he met famed French underwater explorer Jacques Cousteau.

Then, Cousteau and his Calypso team were filming the mangroves in Sarawak and Kalimantan.

“We (Dr Ghazally and Sabah Parks) invited Costeau and his team to Sabah to do a requisition of the coral reefs at Sipadan Island. Then, Sipadan was hardly known to scuba divers and remained a well-kept secret as one of the most beautiful oceanic islands in the world.

Dr Ghazally was invited on board Cousteau’s research vessel The Calypso. He met the team of marine scientists and filmmakers that had so immensely contributed and educated the world on marine life. “I shook hands with the famous Sir Jacques Cousteau and his wife on board the vessel. It was indeed a memorable moment which I cherish to this day.” The visit resulted in Cousteau acquiring additional financial support to film a documentary on Sipadan featuring the tomb for sea turtles in the underwater caves of the island. This unravelled the mystery of the hundreds of turtle shells found in the underwater caves of Sipadan, stacked one on top of the other.

The documentary provided insight into how hundreds of giant sea turtles had drowned in the dark underwater caves.

Apart from The Malaysian Rainforest Realm, a second book by Dr Ghazally titled Taman Negara: A Bastion of Malaysia’s Biodiversity is due to be launched on March 21 in KL.

A third on the Tasik Chini Biosphere Reserve is now in print. Published by UKM, it is to commemorate and signify the designation of Tasik Chini as one of the few Unesco’s Biosphere Reserves in the world. Dr Ghazally, however, is not resting on his laurels. Currently he is working on another book for UKM.

“It’s called Living Laboratories of UKM: Putting Ecosystem under the Microscope and is a book on the five research field stations run by UKM throughout the country: Hutan Simpan Bangi studying lowland dipterocarp forest; Fraser’s Hill for tropical montane forest; Sungai Pulai, Mersing Johor for mangrove forest; Tasik Chini for tropical freshwater ecosystem and Langkawi Geoparks for ecological and geological study of a tropical island ecosystem.

“Each represents a unique ecosystem providing opportunities for scientists to carry out long-term ecological study on different tropical habitats. The book hopefully will attract more researchers to carry out long-term investigations on the biodiversity and environmental changes in these tropical ecosystems,” he says.

What would be the one important green message that he could impart to Malaysians about forest and ecosystem? “Choose the right leaders. It is so much more important to change your leaders than to change your energy-saving light bulbs or switch to eating only organic vegetables.

“This is because leaders write the rules, set the standards and offer the tax incentives that drive market behaviour across the whole country.

“Whatever steps we take individually to become greener matter only to ourselves, becoming healthier and affecting our small household. But when leaders change the rules, you get scale change across the whole marketplace. And that is the enormity of change we need to see to make a difference.”

The Malaysian Rainforest Realm (RM69.90, Marshall Cavendish Editions) is available at all leading bookstores. Curiosity enriches the mind

Q: What books do you read? Who are your favourite authors?

GHAZALLY: I read anything that satisfies my curiosity ...health, science, technology and environmental issues, politics, when things just don’t make any sense whatsoever! My favourite authors only write very very occasionally ... Sir David Attenborough, Edward O Wilson and Lewis Thomas. All are hard-core naturalists and highly committed environmentalists.

Q: What is your favourite film of all time? What have you seen recently? What do you think is the best film on wildlife?

G: Eric Segal’s 1970 Love Story featuring Ali McGraw and Ryan O’Neal. Why? It must be the impressionable age I was at when I watched that movie. It is a simple tale of young love defeated by death ...very simple storyline but emotive. Avatar is the latest movie I’ve seen. Science fiction verging on fantasy, but I think it is going to change the entire movie landscape of the future.

3-D viewing is in and I love it! Some of the issues raised in Avatar hits home when you love nature as much as I do.

The best film on wildlife must be Life In The Undergrowth by Sir David Attenborough.

Amazing revelations of the invertebrate world - the unseen world that we often take for granted but is vitally part of our existence in this world.

Q: Who is your favourite animal conservationist and why?

G: Sir David Attenborough and David Suzuki - both wildlife documentary makers. They are effectively spreading the message of conservation through film, and therefore, reaching a much wider audience. Their contributions reach global proportions.

Q: What is your favourite television programme on the wildlife channel?

G: National Geographic. There are more research and factual information that go into the script and narration. Other wildlife channels tend to emphasise more on commercial and entertainment values and less on educational content.

Q: What kind of music do you listen to?

G: All kinds of music — from keroncong to hip-hop because I love music for its rhythm and beats. Nonetheless, I do tend to gravitate towards ballads and evergreens of the 1980’s — Lionel Ritchie, Rod Stewart, sometimes folksy tunes like those of Alanis Morissette, Dido ...and even rap and hip-hop like Eminem and Black-eyed Peas.

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Indonesia and Malaysia Team Up Against Palm Oil Critics

Arti Ekawati Jakarta Globe 7 Mar 10;

Indonesia and Malaysian palm oil producers have agreed to jointly tackle challenging environmental and labor issues which threaten to hinder the development of the industry in both countries.

Producers have lately come under attack on a number of fronts. Environmentalists complain the growth of palm oil plantations contributes to deforestation, threatens wildlife and increases greenhouse gas emissions, while there has also been criticism of the industry’s use of underage labor.

Late on Friday, Indonesia and Malaysian signed a memorandum of understanding in which they agreed to collaborate and improve communication between producers in both countries to counter the impact of critics of the industry and also to improve sustainability.

“Through collaboration, hopefully we can face the negative campaign [against the industry] and the accusations of environmental damage,” said Indonesia’s Agriculture Minister Suswono, after the signing ceremony.

The world’s top palm oil producers, Indonesia and Malaysia together account for about 85 percent of global output.

Suswono cited Unilever’s suspension last year of palm oil purchases from PT Smart, after a report from Greenpeace which claimed the company did not use sustainable production processes, as an example of the type of situation where the industry would benefit from enhanced cooperation.

“It’s not fair,” he said. “In the future, if there are any accusations, we will immediately form an independent team to inspect the case. So that we, palm oil producers, will have a stronger bargaining position than the buyer.”

As part of the coordination efforts, six palm oil industry associations from Indonesia and Malaysia on Friday signed a memorandum of collaboration that will, among other things, establish a steering committee to advise the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, an organization that issues certificates to palm oil producers that comply with certain environmental standards. A number of major palm oil buyers do not buy from companies that lack the certification.

Under the memorandum of collaboration, producers are also encouraged to develop sustainable plantation practices, including restoring land after it has been used for palm oil plantations.

Malaysian Plantation Industries and Commodities Minister Tan Sri Bernard Giluk Dompok said environmental issues were being increasingly used to attack the palm oil industrys.

“There is no reason for palm oil producers in the two countries to not to cooperate and discuss issues of common interest,” he said.

Dato’ Mamat Salleh, the Malaysian Palm Oil Association’s chief executive, said the industry would face increased environmental challenges in the future.

One hurdle for the water-intensive industry was the development of so-called water footprints, a measure used to show how much water is used in the production of palm oil, he said.

“There will be new environmental issues, which could make palm oil plantations become more controversial in the future,” Dato said. “We need fair scientific research so that we can also improve our plantations,” he said.

Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (Gapki) chairman Joefly J Bachroeny said the cooperation efforts were also aimed at helping Indonesian and Malaysian palm oil producers to improve sustainability.

RI, Malaysia promote new approach to CPO exports
Mustaqim Adamrah, The Jakarta Post 9 Mar 10;

Indonesia and Malaysia — the world’s two largest crude palm oil (CPO) producers — seek to jointly professionalize dispute management on environmental issues and public relations to counter EU negative campaigns.

Indonesian Palm Oil Board vice chairman Derom Bangun admitted that a memorandum of cooperation between the two countries’ producers just inked last Friday did not include a dispute settlement mechanism if CPO buyers unilaterally revoked contracts with their suppliers over environmental issues.

“No, there is no specific point [on a dispute settlement mechanism stipulated in the memorandum],” he told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

“[But] perhaps that will be in place later during the joint implementation of the memorandum. What was signed was only a cooperation framework,” he said.

The memorandum was signed by the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association (Gapki) and the Malaysian Palm Oil Association (MPOA).

The Indonesian Oil Palm Farmers Association (Apkasindo),the Sarawak Oil Palm Plantation Owners Association (SOPPOA),the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda) and the Association of Plantation Investors of Malaysia in Indonesia (APIMI) are also involved.

The memorandum is aimed at mitigating negative campaigns on palm oil, while setting up a task force on best sustainable development practices, Antara reported.

Agriculture Minister Suwono, who also attended the signing, said Indonesia and Malaysia, controlling 85 percent of the world’s output and could control global prices, as well as fight negative campaigning which claimed producers were clearing rainforests illegally.

Indonesia’s CPO production last year topped 20 million tons and is projected to reach 40 million tons in 2020. Suswono said cooperation was to help prevent repetition of unilateral revocation of supply contracts on the lines of the Netherlands-based consumer goods giant Unilever which had ended deals with Duta Palma and PT SMART.

In December, Unilever said in a statement that it had suspended all future purchases of palm oil worth up to US$33 million from SMART after obtaining photographic evidence of Sinar Mas clearing protected rainforests, including reserves for Indonesia‘s endangered orangutan population.

SMART, Indonesia ’s largest CPO producer, is a Sinar Mas Group subsidiary. Unilever was following up a report by the environmental NGO Greenpeace that had detailed serious allegations against the environmental practices of Sinar Mas.

Two months later, Unilever blacklisted Indonesian planter Duta Palma and told its dealers not to source palm oil from that company on concerns over rainforest destruction, Reuters reported.

Duta Palma corporate secretary Sasanti dismissed Unilever’s allegation that it had destroyed forests to produce CPO, Bisnis Indonesia daily reported in its Feb. 27 issue. For the time being, Derom, who is also the Indonesian Palm Oil Producers Association’s (Gapki) representative in the Malaysia-headquartered Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), said disputing parties could report to the RSPO by also providing clear evidence to help settle any case of unilateral revocation.

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Humans driving extinction faster than species can evolve, say experts

Conservationists say rate of new species slower than diversity loss caused by the destruction of habitats and climate change
Juliette Jowit, guardian.co.uk 7 Mar 10;

For the first time since the dinosaurs disappeared, humans are driving animals and plants to extinction faster than new species can evolve, one of the world's experts on biodiversity has warned.

Conservation experts have already signalled that the world is in the grip of the "sixth great extinction" of species, driven by the destruction of natural habitats, hunting, the spread of alien predators and disease, and climate change.

However until recently it has been hoped that the rate at which new species were evolving could keep pace with the loss of diversity of life.

Speaking in advance of two reports next week on the state of wildlife in Britain and Europe, Simon Stuart, chair of the Species Survival Commission for the International Union for the Conservation of Nature – the body which officially declares species threatened and extinct – said that point had now "almost certainly" been crossed.

"Measuring the rate at which new species evolve is difficult, but there's no question that the current extinction rates are faster than that; I think it's inevitable," said Stuart.

The IUCN created shock waves with its major assessment of the world's biodiversity in 2004, which calculated that the rate of extinction had reached 100-1,000 times that suggested by the fossil records before humans.

No formal calculations have been published since, but conservationists agree the rate of loss has increased since then, and Stuart said it was possible that the dramatic predictions of experts like the renowned Harvard biologist E O Wilson, that the rate of loss could reach 10,000 times the background rate in two decades, could be correct.

"All the evidence is he's right," said Stuart. "Some people claim it already is that ... things can only have deteriorated because of the drivers of the losses, such as habitat loss and climate change, all getting worse. But we haven't measured extinction rates again since 2004 and because our current estimates contain a tenfold range there has to be a very big deterioration or improvement to pick up a change."

Extinction is part of the constant evolution of life, and only 2-4% of the species that have ever lived on Earth are thought to be alive today. However fossil records suggest that for most of the planet's 3.5bn year history the steady rate of loss of species is thought to be about one in every million species each year.

Only 869 extinctions have been formally recorded since 1500, however, because scientists have only "described" nearly 2m of an estimated 5-30m species around the world, and only assessed the conservation status of 3% of those, the global rate of extinction is extrapolated from the rate of loss among species which are known. In this way the IUCN calculated in 2004 that the rate of loss had risen to 100-1,000 per millions species annually – a situation comparable to the five previous "mass extinctions" – the last of which was when the dinosaurs were wiped out about 65m years ago.

Critics, including The Skeptical Environmentalist author, Bjørn Lomborg, have argued that because such figures rely on so many estimates of the number of underlying species and the past rate of extinctions based on fossil records of marine animals, the huge margins for error make these figures too unreliable to form the basis of expensive conservation actions.

However Stuart said that the IUCN figure was likely to be an underestimate of the problem, because scientists are very reluctant to declare species extinct even when they have sometimes not been seen for decades, and because few of the world's plants, fungi and invertebrates have yet been formally recorded and assessed.

The calculated increase in the extinction rate should also be compared to another study of thresholds of resilience for the natural world by Swedish scientists, who warned that anything over 10 times the background rate of extinction – 10 species in every million per year – was above the limit that could be tolerated if the world was to be safe for humans, said Stuart.

"No one's claiming it's as small as 10 times," he said. "There are uncertainties all the way down; the only thing we're certain about is the extent is way beyond what's natural and it's getting worse."

Many more species are "discovered" every year around the world, than are recorded extinct, but these "new" plants and animals are existing species found by humans for the first time, not newly evolved species.

In addition to extinctions, the IUCN has listed 208 species as "possibly extinct", some of which have not been seen for decades. Nearly 17,300 species are considered under threat, some in such small populations that only successful conservation action can stop them from becoming extinct in future. This includes one-in-five mammals assessed, one-in-eight birds, one-in-three amphibians, and one-in-four corals.

Later this year the Convention on Biological Diversity is expected to formally declare that the pledge by world leaders in 2002 to reduce the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010 has not been met, and to agree new, stronger targets.

Despite the worsening problem, and the increasing threat of climate change, experts stress that understanding of the problems which drive plants and animals to extinction has improved greatly, and that targeted conservation can be successful in saving species from likely extinction in the wild.

This year has been declared the International Year of Biodiversity and it is also hoped that a major UN report this summer, on the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity, will encourage governments to devote more funds to conservation.

Professor Norman MacLeod, keeper of palaeontology at the Natural History Museum in London, cautioned that when fossil experts find evidence of a great extinction it can appear in a layer of rock covering perhaps 10,000 years, so they cannot say for sure if there was a sudden crisis or a build up of abnormally high extinction rates over centuries or millennia.

For this reason, the "mathematical artefacts" of extinction estimates were not sufficient to be certain about the current state of extinction, said MacLeod.

"If things aren't falling dead at your feel that doesn't mean you're not in the middle of a big extinction event," he said. "By the same token if the extinctions are and remain relatively modest then the changes, [even] aggregated over many years, are still going to end up a relatively modest extinction event."

Species on the brink of being declared extinct

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) lists 208 species as "possibly extinct", more than half of which are amphibians. They are defined as species which are "on the balance of evidence likely to be extinct, but for which there is a small chance that they may still be extant".

Kouprey (or Grey ox; Bos sauveli)

What: Wild cattle with horns that live in small herds

Domain: Mostly Cambodia; also Laos, Vietnam, Thailand

Population: No first-hand sightings since 1969

Main threats: hunting for meat and trade, livestock diseases and habitat destruction

Webbed-footed coqui (or stream coqui; Eleutherodactylus karlschmidti)

What: Large black frog living in mountain streams

Domain: East and west Puerto Rico

Population: Not seen since 1976

Main threats: Disease (chytridiomycosis), climate change and invasive predators

Golden coqui frog (Eleutherodactylus jasperi)

What: Small orange frog living in forest or open rocky areas

Domain: Sierra de Cayey, Puerto Rico

Population: No sightings since 1981

Main threats: Unknown but suspected habitat destruction, climate change, disease (chytridiomycosis) and invasive predators

Spix's macaw (or little blue macaw; Cyanopsitta spixii)

What: Bright blue birds with long tails and grey/white heads

Domain: Brazil

Population: The last known wild bird disappeared in 2000; there are 78 in captivity

Main threats: Destruction of the birds' favoured Tabebuia caraiba trees for nesting, and trapping

Café marron (Ramosmania rodriguesii)

What: White flowering shrub related to the coffee plant family

Domain: Island of Rodrigues, Republic of Mauritius

Population: A single wild plant is known

Main threats: Habitat loss, introduced grazing animals and alien plants

Source: IUCN and Royal Botanic Gardens Kew. To mark the International Year of Biodiversity, the IUCN is running a daily profile of a threatened species throughout 2010. See iucn.org.

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Australian government approves prawn farm near Great Barrier Reef

Gabrielle Dunlevy, AAP, Sydney Morning Herald 5 Mar 10;

Federal Environment Minister Peter Garrett has approved Australia's largest prawn farm, despite concerns about the impact of the $40 million facility on the Great Barrier Reef.

Pacific Reef Fisheries plans to build 259 land-based aquaculture ponds, each covering one hectare, adjacent to the Elliot River at Guthalungra, north of Bowen, Queensland.

The facility would grow 2,500 tonnes of black tiger prawns by 2012 and inject $13 million a year into Queensland's economy.

Mr Garrett on Friday announced the plan was approved with 19 strict conditions to protect the World Heritage area.

The conditions would set an example of best practice environmentally sustainable development, Mr Garrett said.

"Under the conditional approval granted today, Pacific Reef Fisheries will be required to monitor seagrass, coral and water quality in Abbot Bay, and provide regular results to my department," he said in a statement.

"Should the levels of nutrients and sediment entering the bay from the facility increase to above those I approved, operations must be reduced or stop immediately, the incident must be reported to my department, and a review of processes must be done."

But conservation group WWF said the federal government must look at the cumulative effect of several large developments proposed for the Bowen area, which include large-scale water infrastructure and a port expansion.

WWF reef catchments manager Piet Filet told AAP he was pleased conditions had been placed on the prawn farm but a long range view was also vital.

"There's a range of activities happening in that area that on a one by one basis, may look harmless, but ... the federal government must look at whether they have the best mix of projects," Dr Filet said.

"It's great to see that conditions are put on this prawn farm, that's good practice.

"But what does it mean to the World Heritage area, that's where the Australian government has a very strong responsibility."

Before the facility is built, the design and operation arrangements must be independently assessed and certified.

The farm would be constructed in stages, so its impact on the reef could be monitored, Mr Garrett said.

"The reef must be protected not only as a priceless natural resource, but as a fundamental part of the Queensland economy," he said.

"This project demonstrates that positive environmental results can be achieved while also supporting employment and local economies."

Garrett 'ignored' advice from scientists
The Cairns Post 6 Mar 10;

UNDER siege Environment Minister Peter Garrett appears to have ignored the advice of yet another group - this time scientists, who urged him to extend a research program in north Queensland.

Mr Garrett, stripped of his energy efficiency portfolio after he was accused of ignoring safety warnings about the trouble-plagued home insulation program, also ignored advice from a group set up to advise him about Reef and rainforest research, a whistleblower says.

The Marine and Tropical Science Research Facility Ministerial Advisory Council, made up of representatives from regional business and industry, research organisations, indigenous and community groups, had recommended Mr Garrett extend research to other parts of the Great Barrier Reef and make scientific data more freely available to the community.

But after it made these recommendations to Mr Garrett in 2008, the advisory council was sacked, and its role taken on by another committee, made up of only scientific and public service representatives.

Former Chairman of the MTSRF Ministerial Advisory Council John McIntyre fears the dismissal of the council, in 2008, may eventually lead to the North's scientific resources being steered away from local stakeholders, and instead come under the control of Federal bureaucrats.

It comes as 20 scientists - including key researchers - have quit their positions in Cairns, with many more expected to follow, out of concern there will not be enough funding for future research projects in North Queensland.

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China buys up African rhinos ‘to farm for horn’

Jonathan Leake, The Times Online 7 Mar 10;

RHINOS, among the world’s most endangered and iconic animals, are being farmed on Chinese wildlife reserves in order to harvest their horns, a report by international conservation monitors has suggested.

The monitors have found that China has imported 141 live white rhino from South Africa since 2000, far more than is needed for tourism purposes.

They have also gathered evidence that the aim of the purchases is to set up rhino farms.

“The suspicion is that these rhinos are being aggregated into herds and farmed for their horns, which are valued for medicinal purposes,” said Tom Milliken of Traffic, the wildlife trade monitoring network.

The revelation about China’s surge in rhino purchases is part of an official report to be delivered to Cites (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species). A meeting has been organised in Qatar from next weekend to discuss the burgeoning trade in threatened animals and plants.

The report says: “Since 2000 Chinese data suggest 141 rhinos were obtained from South Africa. Reports of horn harvesting of captive rhinos in China have surfaced but need further verification. Clarification on the purpose of keeping large aggregations of captive rhino in China would be welcomed.”

The discovery has alarmed British and European Union officials, who plan to ask the Chinese to explain if they are allowing rhino farming.

Defra, the environment ministry, said: “There are allegations around horn harvesting of captive rhinos in China and these need to be investigated.”

Rhinos have suffered a catastrophic decline in numbers over the past 50 years. There are five rhino species, of which three live in Asia.

One of these, the Javan rhino, is close to extinction, with just 130 creatures estimated to be left, while the closely related Sumatran rhino numbers only about 300. Even the great one-horned rhino, found mainly in India, has only about 2,800 animals.

However, it is the fate of the more numerous African rhinos that is causing the most concern because of a surge in poaching, as well as exports.

Of the two African species, black rhinos number only about 4,200 while there are an estimated 17,500 white rhinos left. These days most are kept in reserves and wildlife parks, unlike a century ago when hundreds of thousands of animals roamed Africa.

The recent decline is, according to Traffic, almost all because of surging demand for rhino horn in Asian traditional medicine. Despite being made mainly of keratin, the same protein found in fingernails and hair, the ground-up horn is reputed to calm fevers such as malaria. There is also a renewed threat to rhinos from claims, said to be emanating from Vietnam, that the horn can cure cancer.

Rhino horn is now so valuable that Vietnamese embassy officials have been caught trying to smuggle horns back home. Similarly, South Africa has seen a surge in applications from Vietnamese hunters for licences to shoot captive-bred animals in private wildlife reserves.

Mark Jones, programme director for Care for the Wild International, a conservation charity involved with the Cites agreement, said all rhino species were fully protected under the treaty — so the aim of the Qatar conference should be to improve enforcement.

He added: “We would like to know what China is doing with all the live rhinos it is importing from South Africa but the increased reports of rhino poaching, particularly in South Africa and Zimbabwe, are very worrying too.”

Rhinos are just one of several species whose chances of survival could be determined by the talks. Others include African elephants, polar bears, bluefin tuna and hammerhead sharks.

One of the thorniest issues under discussion is the growing number of tiger farms in China, where about 6,000 of the big cats are held in captivity — compared with the 50 or so which are left in the wild.

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Bad weather phenomenon leaving folk high and dry in Sarawak

Stephen Then The Star 8 Mar 10;

MIRI: The worsening drought caused by the El Nino weather phenomenon has wreaked havoc in rural farmlands across interior Sarawak, causing crop failures from the central to the northern region.

Harvests of subsistence crops, especially padi, have dropped to about only 30% of normal yields.

The weather is said to have affected many settlements in the mountainous regions of Bario and Bakelalan in the northernmost interior of Limbang, Ulu Baram and Ulu Tinjar in Miri Division and also throughout territories in central Sarawak.

On Friday, Bakelalan assemblyman Nelson Balang Rining visited Ulu Merario in Bario where rivers and padi fields were said to have dried up.

He said the harvest this year was especially poor compared with previous years.

“The problem has worsened over the past month,’’ said Balang

“Residents in the highlands are complaining of shrinking padi supply,” he added.

Balang said the drought had affected even places located on the mountains, with the temperature surging to abnormal levels in the highlands.

Alarms bells are also ringing in Ulu Baram and Ulu Tinjar where farmers are desperately seeking help to buy rice from urban centres after the padi supply from their farmlands began to dwindle.

Long Panai community leader Ding Laeng said that people in almost all settlements had reported poor padi harvests.

“We have to go to Marudi town just to buy rice because our farms are not producing like they did in previous years. The weather is especially dry this year,” he added.

In central Sarawak, the situation is bleak in the settlements in the heart of Belaga district in Kapit Division.

Several settlements located deep inside timber concession zones, eight hours from the Bakun dam, have to rely on outside help to replenish their padi supplies.

The people from Long Abit and Long Kajang near the Sarawak-Kalimantan border had sought help from the Catholic Church in Belaga.

Belaga Catholic Parish priest Rev Father Sylvester Ding said he had sent 5,000kg of emergency rice supplies to the two settlements with trucks provided by the timber companies.

‘‘I heard other settlements are also in need of urgent rice supplies. They cannot cope because of the crop failures,” he said.

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Thailand wants China's help with Mekong drought: PM

Yahoo News 8 Mar 10;

BANGKOK (AFP) – Thailand will ask China for help in dealing with the record-low water levels in the Mekong River, on which more than 60 million people depend, the prime minister said Sunday.

The flows are the lowest for 20 years, according to the Mekong River Commission (MRC), which has said water supply, navigation and irrigation are at threat.

"We can see the level of the water is getting lower," premier Abhisit Vejjajiva said on the issue, which is affecting northern Laos as well as northern Thailand and southern China.

"We will ask the foreign ministry to talk with a representative from China in terms of co-operation and in terms of management systems in the region," he said on his weekly television programme.

The government has been urged by local activists to hold talks with Beijing on the Mekong following alarming drops in the river's flow, local media reported last month.

The Bangkok Post said the Save the Mekong Coalition - an alliance of environmental groups and Mekong riverside communities - believes the unusually low water levels are caused by Chinese dams.

But Jeremy Bird, chief executive officer of the MRC's secretariat, pointed to extremely low rainfalls in Laos and China.

However, he told AFP last week it was "difficult for us to say categorically that there's no link" between the low water levels and the eight existing or planned dams on the mainstream Mekong in China.

Chavanond Intarakomalyasut, secretary to the foreign ministry, said that Thailand was "not accusing anyone" and blamed the drought on low rainfall across the region.

"The help that we want to get from China is that we want to talk with them," he told AFP. "We would like to solve the problem with them".

More than 60 million people in the lower Mekong basin depend on the river system for food, transport and economic activity, the inter-governmental MRC says, adding that it is home to the world's most valuable inland fishery.

"Severe drought will have an impact on agriculture, food security, access to clean water and river transport and will affect the economic development of people already facing serious poverty," the group has said in a statement.

River tour operators have stopped offering services on the river between the Laotian tourist centre of Luang Prabang and Huay Xai on the Thai border, it added.

Mighty Mekong is drying up
China dams blamed by Thais downstream for fishing and crop woes
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 9 Mar 10;

CHIANG KHONG: Resentment is simmering among Thai fishing communities along the Mekong River facing a prolonged dry spell and record-low water levels.

Local residents blame China's dams upstream for disrupting fish and other marine life, causing a sharp drop in fish catches and in turn affecting their livelihoods.

Experts and Chinese officials, however, are not convinced that the problem lies with the dams.

China's Assistant Foreign Minister told Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva when they met in Bangkok yesterday that its dams in Yunnan province do not have a significant impact on water levels downstream.

'China would not do anything to damage mutual interest with neighbouring countries in the Mekong,' Mr Hu Zheng-yue was quoted by the Thai media as saying.

The country is experiencing an unusually long dry spell. Some locals say they last saw rain in October last year.

This reporter spent two days visiting communities along the Mekong and talking to people there.

Summer has yet to peak, but already forests and roadsides are littered with tinder-dry teak leaves that crush into a million fragments underfoot.

Smoke from brush and forest fires - some started deliberately to clear land for cultivation - hangs like a shroud over the region and fills the river valley.

The Mekong is one of the world's longest rivers.

Beginning in the Tibetan plateau, it runs through China's Yunnan province, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam.

The river has dropped to its lowest level in at least 20 years, according to residents.

Shipping between China and Thailand has literally ground to a halt - calling into question the utility of a new port being built at Chiang Saen to accommodate 500-tonne ships instead of the current maximum of 300 tonnes.

Riverbed crops continue to wither, and household taps are running dry as the water levels in wells drop.

More than a dozen communities in towns from Chiang Saen, near Thailand's northern border, to Pa Dai, where the Mekong leaves Thailand for a while to run through Laos, have been affected.

The locals say they have seen the river's water level go up or down by as much as a metre in a single day.

The erratic water levels have disrupted breeding and spawning in the Mekong, where about 70per cent of the fish stock is migratory.

Locals told The Straits Times that their catches of fish had dropped and that large fish were now a rarity.

They also said that unexplained fluctuations in water levels had destroyed dry season crops such as chillies, vegetables and tobacco grown on the exposed portions of the river bed.

Thai senator Prasarn Marukpitak, who is the chairman of a senate sub-committee on the Mekong, said that 'China does not seem concerned'.

While acknowledging that the Chinese need water for their own needs, he said they 'should not think the river is theirs'.

Mr Niwat Roykaew, 50, the head of a conservation group based in Chiang Khong, told The Straits Times: 'Governments can't solve these problems. It is the people who are the key.'

Mr Niwat, who is a teacher, is part of a growing number of activists across the four lower Mekong countries who are networking at a community level to exert pressure on their governments to demand an end to the exploitation of the Mekong.

He listed other issues that add to the problem: navigation, the use of chemical fertilisers in fields adjoining the river, the use of dynamite and electricity to catch fish, and encroachments on wetlands.

But much of his ire is directed at China - and at experts who say that the drought, not the dams, is to blame for the current situation.

China, they point out, contributes just 16 per cent of the water flow in the Mekong, while Laos contributes 35 per cent.

'Academics and experts often ignore local knowledge,' Mr Niwat said. 'But for us here, we just know the dams are a major factor.'

Last month, a Chiang Rai provincial official wrote to Yunnan's governor to ask that water be released to ease the shortage in the lower Mekong, Mr Niwat said.

In his reply, the governor said he could not do so because Yunnan needed water for agriculture during the dry season.

A Thai conservationist and former senator, Ms Tuenjai Deetes, told The Straits Times it was time for a six-party agreement on sharing the waters of the Mekong.

'There is clear evidence that development projects that do not consider trans-boundary social and environmental impacts have disastrous impacts on downstream areas,' she said.

Dams, dams and more dams
Straits Times 9 Mar 10;



# China's first dam on the Mekong - known there as the Lancang Jiang river - was built in 1995.

Until then, there were no dams on the river.

# The 1,500MW Manwan hydropower project was the first in a series of eight dams planned for the upper Mekong.

There are currently three in operation, two being built and soon to be commissioned, and three more in the project stage.

# The soon-to-be-operational, 4,200MW Xiaowan project will - at 292m - be one of the highest dams in the world, with a reservoir 169km in length.

# Compounding the woes of the Mekong in the future will be a series of dams in Laos.

# The Vientiane-based, intergovernmental Mekong River Commission (MRC), which will hold its annual meeting in Thailand next month, says there is no clear link between the dams in China and the water level of the Mekong.

The current crisis, it says, owes its origins to a drought across Yunnan and parts of northern Thailand and Laos.

Mention of the MRC provokes derision among activists in villages along the Mekong.

The problem, they say, is that China is not a member but merely a dialogue partner of the MRC, which is a toothless body.

NIRMAL GHOSH

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Mini-cyclone, record floods hit Australia

Yahoo News 7 Mar 10;

MELBOURNE (AFP) – Melbourne was bracing itself Sunday for further storms after a mini-cyclone ripped through Australia's second largest city, bringing with it hail stones the size of tennis balls.

The storm dumped heavy rain across the southern state of Victoria, and smashed into the regional capital with winds of up to 100 kilometres (62 miles) an hour, cutting power to 100,000 homes.

Some 26 millimetres (one inch) of rain fell on Melbourne within an hour while other areas recorded up to 70 millimetres during the Saturday storm.

"Yesterday we had golf-to-tennis ball-sized hail and certainly there's a prospect of similar sized hail somewhere in the state today," Richard Carlyon, the Bureau of Meteorology's senior forecaster, told ABC radio.

"Whether it's Melbourne I'm not so sure about... but if it's not Melbourne, I think there's a very good prospect of large hail being reported somewhere in the state."

In the city centre the National Gallery of Victoria suffered flooding, while the Docklands Stadium was among those buildings damaged during the violent storm, which washed out horse races.

Bureau of Meteorology forecaster Wasyl Drosdowsky said the hail that hit in one suburban area was up to 10 centimetres (four inches) in diameter.

"(It was) tennis ball size roughly," he said. "As far as we can tell, that's close to the biggest hail we've seen in Melbourne."

As the city readied for further violent storms Sunday, once-in-a-century floods were peaking in the state of Queensland in the country's northeast, parts of which have been in drought for almost a decade.

Townships in the state's cotton-growing south were cut off by rising flood waters and in St George the Balonne River reached 13.5 metres (44 feet), its highest level since records began in 1890.

Queensland Premier Anna Bligh said the cost of the flooding would be in the hundreds of millions of dollars, as there had been major damage to highways and rail lines had been washed away.

"This is a massive water event which has smashed all the records known here in the southwest," she told reporters Sunday as she toured St George.

"All this water ultimately is going to mean great things for local (farmers) but there is a lot of pain to be felt in these communities before we can see total recovery."

In the nearby tiny town of Nindigully, residents were marvelling at the amount of water surrounding the rural outpost.

"Overall, we are happy to have experienced this flood because of the beauty of vast expanses of water through the bush that you never forget," Steve Burns, the owner of the 146-year-old Nindigully Pub told AAP.

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Bali Tradition Inspires World Event to Battle Global Warming

Made Arya Kencana Jakarta Globe 7 Mar 10;

Denpasar. On March 21, Indonesia will enjoy four hours of complete silence — that is, if everyone in the country participates in the third annual “World Day of Silence.”

Inspired by Bali’s Day of Silence, locally known as Nyepi, the world event is dedicated to battling global warming by not using cellular phones, riding motorbikes or driving cars, and turning off electronic appliances such as air conditioners, televisions, lamps, radios and computers from 10 a.m to 2 p.m.

Over the weekend, local environmental associations began promoting the World Day of Silence.

A number of groups, including the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), the Environmental Research Center (PPLH), and the Bali Organic Association, spent Saturday collecting signatures at Kuta Beach and the Ground Zero monument on Legian Road to help the action a global movement.

March 21 was chosen to coincide with the equinox, when the sun is precisely above the equator.

This year, the World Day of Silence will be celebrated locally in front of the Bajra Sandi Monument in Denpasar.

“Our colleagues in Australia, the Netherlands and Germany are also” collecting signatures to make the World Day of Silence a global movement, said Gusti Ayu Fransiska Kusumadewi, the coordinator of the action, adding that they were aiming to collect 10,000 signatures.

Gusti said that in the long run, the organizers were aiming to collect 10 million signatures so that the United Nations would officially recognize March 21 as the World Day of Silence.

Meanwhile, Herni Frilia Hastuti, an activist with Bali’s Environmental Research Center, said the campaign was also to support Nyepi, which will be celebrated on March 16.

“The Nyepi celebration has proved to be able to reduce emissions by 20 million tons. So one person is very precious to us to join this movement to reduce global emissions,” Herni said.

Nyepi, which begins at 6 a.m. on March 16 and lasts for 24 hours, is the Balinese Hindu ritual that prescribes complete quiet and prohibits such worldly distractions as work, travel and entertainment.

The island will also be in complete darkness because the celebration prohibits any lights. Tourists are advised not to leave their hotels and Bali’s Ngurah Rai International Airport will be closed to honor the day.

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