Best of our wild blogs: 17 Apr 10

Even MORE posts
from Ecological observations in Singapore

Andie and the banded leaf monkeys also on Lianhe Zaobao
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

crocodile or rocking log?
from sgbeachbum

Charming Changi shore
from wonderful creation

Grappling with blogging
from Otterman speaks

Wiping out the Trade in Wildlife Recapped
from The Leafmonkey Workshop

Spotted Owlet and Indian Roller fighting for a nesting hole
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Sea turtles found dead after oil spill in India

Olive Ridley carcasses sighted near rookery
Sib Kumar Das, The Hindu 17 Apr 10;

Carcasses of Olive Ridley turtles were sighted floating near the Rushikulya rookery on the Orissa coast after an oil spill from a ship near the Gopalpur port.

Environmental activists suspect this to be the impact of the spill. Some 25 carcasses were reported to be floating between Prayagi and Arjipalli since Thursday. Most were two to three days old.

Around 7,000 litres of oil had spilt from the Essar-owned vessel MV Malabika on Tuesday evening when a barge hit it due to rough weather.

Buried hastily

It is suspected that suffocation or toxicity of spilt oil may have been a catalyst for the deaths.

Environmental activists have alleged that carcasses were being hastily buried by the authorities without any attempt to determine the cause of deaths.

Soumya Tripathy of the Greenpeace, who visited the Rushikulya rookery on Friday, said a toxic impact on mature Olive Ridleys in the sea near this coast and the young hatchlings that are about to come out from the nests on this mass nesting coast cannot be ruled out.

According to him, the spill can cause cutaneous toxic reactions and suffocation for marine turtles, which can cause death.

According to marine scientists, the planktons near the beach have been affected by the spill. This would affect the delicate marine food chain in the area. The first food of tender hatchlings are planktons and small sea animals.

It is feared that due to this pollution of the sea near the nesting site, the mortality among hatchlings may be quite high this year.

Even after four days, the residue of emulsified hydrocarbon was floating and getting carried to the rookery.

The port authorities had to deploy workers again to clean up the beach by collecting and segregating the sand affected.

Rabindra Sahu of the Rushikulya Marine Turtle Protection Committee said the effect of the spill would extend to the Chilka lake, connected to this region by the Palur canal.

Fish stinks of lubricants

He said the fish catch from this stretch now stinks of lubricants and salt producers of the area are worried that their produce too may get affected.

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Rush for REDD could undermine local forest rights

David Fogarty, Reuters 16 Apr 10;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A U.N.-backed forest preservation scheme could become too valuable and complex, raising the risk local communities, the very people seen as key to the scheme's success, could be shut out, scientists say.

Reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation, or REDD, has already attracted billion of dollars of funding pledges from rich nations keen to see the scheme established as part of a broader global climate pact from 2013.

REDD would allow developing nations to earn valuable carbon offsets for projects that preserve or rehabilitate forests, which soak up planet-warming carbon dioxide as they grow.

Rich nations would buy the offsets to help them meet emissions reduction goals at home. That demand would underpin forest investments that could reach $30 billion a year by 2020, the United Nations has estimated.

That same demand could also undermine a major shift in the way forests have been managed in poorer nations, where cash-strapped national governments have given local communities and administrations more rights and powers to run their forests.

Such "decentralized" management has been shown to boost forest carbon storage and result in better incomes in a number of developing nations, say Edward Webb and Jacob Phelps of the National University of Singapore.

The scientists, along with co-author Arun Agrawal of the University of Michigan, in a study published in Friday's issue of the Journal Science, looked at how the rush for REDD could affect local management and governance of forests.

"One of the issues has been people's rights for use and management of forests because there has been a decentralization trend over the past two or three decades," Edwards told Reuters.

The risk, they say, is that by monetizing forest carbon, REDD would substantially increase the market value of forests, including those previously considered marginal, prompting central governments to increase control.

A performance-based payment mechanism would pressure governments to avoid the risk of non-payment resulting from local failures, the authors say in the study.

"BILLIONS AT STAKE"

"With billions of dollars at stake, governments could justify recentralization by portraying themselves as more capable and reliable than local communities at protecting national interest," the authors say.

Deforestation is responsible for nearly a fifth of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions and curbing forest loss is regarded as a key way to brake the pace of global warming.

The key is incentivizing major forest nations such as Indonesia and Brazil, which have already attracted investment to create REDD pilot projects. Indonesia has more than a dozen.

Globally, there is now widespread support for an enhanced form called REDD-plus that also covers sustainable management of forests, conservation and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

Draft negotiating text on REDD-plus under U.N. climate talks does not mandate the rights of local communities in forest management nor guarantee revenue from carbon offset sales, propping up fears of some green groups that REDD will trample on locals' rights.

"It is the market that is going to be coming in and serving a lot of these investments for carbon emissions reductions. And we don't see a mandate for local participation or decentralized forest management," Edwards said.

At U.N. climate talks last December in Copenhagen, the United States, Japan, Norway and three other rich nations pledged $3.5 billion as fast-start financing to ramp up REDD in poor nations. The money comes on top of other funds already pledged.

Phelps said such funding levels would drive outcomes but to

develop REDD projects was complex, time-consuming and there was a danger in rushing for a result.

"There's a tension and that tension is time," he said. "To develop REDD that is going to generate long-term emissions reductions is going to be the challenge."

(Editing by Clarence Fernandez)

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Indonesian President Calls for Developed Countries to Help Indonesia in Battle Against Global Warming

Camelia Pasandaran, Jakarta Globe 16 Apr 10;

Indonesia remains steadfast in its commitment to protecting the environment, despite international differences over the issue, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono claimed on Friday, but a comprehensive national plan to reduce emissions remains out of reach.

“We realize we have to take steps to save the environment with our own resources and funding,” Yudhoyono said at the opening of a cabinet meeting at the Presidential Palace. “With help from developed countries, we can increase our target. But even without having crunched the numbers, we can’t be negligent in protecting the environment.”

He added that Indonesia should have a concrete plan in place that could be monitored.

“This is so we can tell the world that we understand the role we must play for the sake of the environment, and are willing to play it,” he said.

Yudhoyono said several international meetings to discuss the solution had not ended as desired. These included the summits in Kyoto, during which developed countries agreed to reach emissions targets by 2012, and in Copenhagen last year, where no major binding agreement was reached.

“Developed and developing countries are waiting for one another to take the first step,” he said. “But we can’t negotiate with the climate and the Earth. I’m afraid the upcoming Mexico conference will end much the same way as Copenhagen.”

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said part of the effort to protect the country’s environment and reduce carbon emissions by 26 percent was a massive reforestation drive.

“During the flurry over regional autonomy between 1997 and its peak in 2002, there was massive clearing of land of up to 3.5 million hectares a year,” Zulkifli said. “The current rate of deforestation is around 700,000 hectares a year.”

He claimed massive illegal logging was now concentrated in Papua, with the timber exported directly.

Communication and Information Minister Tifatul Sembiring said Yudhoyono had ordered the Judicial Mafia Eradication Task Force to probe the light sentences given to those convicted of illegal logging.

“Of 92 illegal logging suspects tried at court, 49 were acquitted, 24 were sentenced to less than a year in prison and 19 were sentenced to between one and two years,” Tifatul said.

“The president has also advised governors and district heads to be more judicious when granting logging and mining concessions,” he added.

The issue of deforestation arose at Wednesday’s meeting between Vice President Boediono and Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Washington.

Boediono had highlighted three key problems in the country’s fight against the threat — fire, limited funding and capacity for reforestation and weak law enforcement.

Norway has reportedly offered technical guidance on monitoring and surveillance to prevent deforestation.

Giorgio Budi Indarto, coordinator of the Civil Society Forum for Climate Justice, said any commitment on the government’s part should move beyond mere lip service.

“The reality on the ground is that even with more commitments, there’s more environmental destruction,” he said.



Additional reporting by Fidelis Satriastanti

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Amazon Dam Project Pits Economic Benefit Against Protection of Indigenous Lands

Alexei Barrionuevo, New York Times 16 Apr 10;

RIO DE JANEIRO — The indigenous leaders had a plan. They would unite for a last, desperate stand against the mammoth dam threatening their lands in the Amazon, vowing to give their lives, if necessary, to prevent it from being built.

“This will be our last cry for help,” said the chief of the Arara tribe, José Carlos Arara, after a meeting of leaders from 13 tribes last month. “We are not here to kill. We are here to defend our rights.”

For a moment this week, it looked as if they had won an unexpected reprieve. On Wednesday, a federal judge in Para State, where the third largest dam in the world would be built, halted the government’s April 20 auction to award contracts for its construction, saying the project could cause “irreparable harm” to indigenous peoples.

But by Friday, the dam was back on the table. A judge in the capital, Brasília, overturned the ruling and said the auction would take place as scheduled.

The judge in Brasília, Jirair Aram Meguerian, the president of the regional federal court, found that “there is no imminent danger for the indigenous community” because the auction “didn’t imply immediate construction” of the dam, “which involves numerous stages,” the court said in an announcement.

The legal seesaw was part of a protracted battle here over the future of such dams in indigenous territories as the government tries to meet the growing energy needs in far-away cities like São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

Halting the auction for the project, known as the Belo Monte dam, “would do grave harm to the economy,” the court said, forcing Brazil to procure other forms of energy that are “more expensive and polluting.”

Brazil uses hydroelectric power for more than 80 percent of its energy, and President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has said that more dams are needed. Dilma Rousseff, the presidential candidate that Mr. da Silva is backing as his successor, has also pushed for more dams, including Belo Monte, which would represent about 10 percent of Brazil’s total power generation.

“This project is very important for Brazil’s future energy supply, and policymakers are counting on it, particularly now that the Brazilian economy is recovering so vigorously from the economic downturn,” said Christopher Garman, analyst at Eurasia Group.

Without it, Mr. Garman said, the government could be forced to rely on dirtier energy sources, or go in the other direction and accelerate the development of renewable sources like wind and biofuel from sugar cane.

Belo Monte comes at a very different time in Brazil’s history from when it was first dreamed up under the military government some 30 years ago. With the world watching more closely, the country has struggled to find a balance between the push to develop and the demand to protect the delicate ecosystems and indigenous peoples of the Amazon.

Most previous Amazon dam projects were set in motion before Brazil’s latest Constitution was ratified in 1988, granting protections to indigenous peoples.

To build Belo Monte, builders would have to excavate two huge channels larger than the Panama Canal to divert water from the main dam to the power plant. The reservoir would flood more than 160 square miles of forest while drying up a 60-mile stretch of the Xingu River, displacing more than 20,000 people, many from indigenous communities, according to non-governmental groups citing government figures.

Government planners have revised the plant’s design several times to try to reduce its environmental impact. But before his decision was overturned, Judge Antônio Carlos de Almeida Campelo ruled Wednesday that Congress would have to pass a law changing the Constitution’s limits on building dams that negatively affect indigenous communities.

The project has also drawn a storm of criticism from advocates and celebrities, including James Cameron.

Studies by nongovernmental groups have shown that the plant would be inefficient, producing less than 30 percent of its capacity during the dry season and an average of 39 percent annually. Environmentalists fear the government would need to construct other dams upstream to guarantee enough water — dams that would flood more forest and affect yet more indigenous peoples.

Eletronorte, the government utility directing the Belo Monte project, has denied that more dams would be necessary, saying Belo Monte would be part of the national electric grid and draw capacity from other pre-existing dams when necessary.

For indigenous groups, the drying out of the Xingu would change life as they know it. So at their meeting last month, leaders from 13 tribes made an unusual decision: They decided to create a new tribe of about 2,500, and then station it directly on the construction site, occupying it for years, if need be.

“If we lose this river we have no idea what will happen to us,” the chief said. “The river provides us with fish and food. How will we eat if we no longer have fish? And how will we ever leave here if we no longer have the river to travel on?”

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Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes

Alister Doyle, Reuters 16 Apr 10;

OSLO (Reuters) - A thaw of Iceland's ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday.

They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.

"Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades," said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.

"Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems," he told Reuters. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.

"We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption," he said of Eyjafjallajokull. "The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap."

Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, said there were risks that climate change could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.

MAGMA

"The effects would be biggest with ice-capped volcanoes," she said. "If you remove a load that is big enough you will also have an effect at depths on magma production."

She and Sigmundsson wrote a 2008 paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters about possible links between global warming and Icelandic volcanoes.

That report said that about 10 percent of Iceland's biggest ice cap, Vatnajokull, has melted since 1890 and the land nearby was rising about 25 millimetres (0.98 inch) a year, bringing shifts in geological stresses.

They estimated that the thaw had led to the formation of 1.4 cubic km (0.3 cubic mile) of magma deep below ground over the past century.

At high pressures such as under an ice cap, they reckon that rocks cannot expand to turn into liquid magma even if they are hot enough. "As the ice melts the rock can melt because the pressure decreases," she said.

Sigmundsson said that monitoring of the Vatnajokull volcano since 2008 suggested that the 2008 estimate for magma generation was "probably a minimum estimate. It can be somewhat larger."

He said that melting ice seemed the main way in which climate change, blamed mainly on use of fossil fuels, could have knock-on effects on geology. The U.N. climate panel says that global warming will cause more floods, droughts and rising seas.

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