NEW blog - Cyrene Exposed!
from wild shores of singapore
The froggy Sekudu 2010
from wonderful creation and colourful clouds and wild shores of singapore and Psychedelic Nature
Our Lovely Northern Shore
from Manta Blog
Hornbill eating, preening, regurgitating and losing balance
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Raffles Museum Treasures: Common hairy crab
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales
Monday Morgue: 17th May 2010
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales
Growing interest in protecting Singapore's biodiversity leads to more funds for research
Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 17 May 10;
The oriental pied hornbill, at an 'intelligent nest' with cameras, sensors and scales, has benefited from increased funding. -- PHOTO: MARC CREMADES
CONSERVATION has long been the poor relation when it comes to science funding in Singapore, but things seem to be changing.
The spotlight is on the world's flora and fauna as this is the United Nations' Year of Biodiversity - the rich but declining web of life, which we are a part of and could not exist without.
Research into what species we have and how to conserve them has become of vital importance as globally half of all species may be disappearing in a mass extinction equalled only by the wiping out of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago, according to some estimates.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature puts the species extinction rate at between 1,000 and 10,000 times higher than it would naturally be, because of human activity.
But historically, it has been hard for conservation-themed science to get its slice of the funding pie in Singapore.
The three main sources of funding for science research are the Ministry of Education (MOE), the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and the National Research Foundation. None of them has a conservation focus.
MOE has two research funding schemes - for universities, and for the polytechnics and the Institute of Technical Education (ITE).
The university fund gives out up to $30 million a year for research projects.
The $10 million fund for polytechnics/ITE supports projects that 'add value to industry by supporting local companies to develop innovative products and systems'.
A*Star has $5.4 billion to fund research in the biomedical, physical and engineering sciences over five years ending this year, while the National Research Foundation has $5 billion for science and technology research programmes for the same period.
Against these sums, funding for local conservation efforts is paltry.
The Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) launched its conservation fund last July to plug the gap for funding research of locally threatened species such as pangolins, tree frogs, flying lemurs, flying squirrels and giant squirrels. It was the first private company here to pour money into this area.
It aims to raise $1 million a year from tickets to the attractions under its wing - the zoo, Night Safari and bird park - along with events and donation boxes. It is now considering four proposed projects.
At the same time, the Ah Meng Memorial Conservation Fund at the National University of Singapore (NUS) receives $500,000 over five years from the WRS' Conservation Fund and looks at funding research into local biodiversity and related work overseas.
The first study from the NUS fund was on the leaf-eating monkey. It found that the population was triple what was previously recorded and that the species appears to be the same as that found in Johor, meaning there could be breeding opportunities to increase the local population.
NUS' director of special projects Leo Tan, who is also a trustee of the WRS Conservation Fund, said times had changed for the better for conservation.
'When I started, we hadn't got any form of support and this was even before biotechnology came in to compete,' said Professor Tan.
'The approach to the environment and biodiversity is changing tremendously. Awareness and support has increased almost 100-fold.'
And crab expert Peter Ng said: 'In the old days, we had meagre funding. But now, with NParks and the zoo in the last couple of years, there has been a transformation in the landscape.
'If we had said in the past that the nature of Singapore had a high scientific value, people would have laughed. But we need such basic information to know how to manage things.'
In the last few years, the National Parks Board (NParks) has increased its conservation role, with more funding interest from firms.
Its spokesman said: 'We've started some projects to improve the conservation of specific species such as the oriental pied hornbill and taxonomic groups such as butterflies and dragonflies.'
Since a study on the oriental pied hornbill in 2004 led to a project to increase the local population, more than 50 bird projects have been set up.
NParks said the increase in conservation projects mirrors a growing interest from the business community.
And its director Nigel Goh said Singapore's surprising level of biodiversity was worth protecting and that the UN focus has spurred NParks in this role.
There are more tree species in Bukit Timah alone than in North America, and 31 of the 51 Asian mangrove species are found here, as well as 12 out of 23 Indo-Pacific species of sea grass.
Even groups with much less in their coffers are getting in on the act.
The Bird Group of the Nature Society Singapore will soon hand out its first grants for studies on conservation and ecology of local birds, worth $2,000 each. It hopes that this will become an annual event and will fill in some of the blanks in the Red Data Book, which is a reference guide on locally threatened species.
'Interest in conservation has been getting stronger and stronger with more young students who are green and keen to work on these kind of projects,' said the group's chairman Alan Ow Yong.
Key role for private sector in conservation
Straits Times 17 May 10;
WITH government funding pumped into biotechnology research, the private sector will play a key role in supporting conservation research through their budgets for corporate social responsibility (CSR).
World Wide Fund for Nature's corporate responsibility director Carine Seror works at getting financial support from companies and helping their green efforts.
'I think the concept of sustainability was rarely mentioned anywhere a few years ago. In a very short period of time, there has been a lot of discussion around it,' said Ms Seror. 'Although companies are part of the problem, they are also part of the solution, which is why we set up in Singapore four years ago, as many South-east Asian businesses have their headquarters here.'
Ms Marie Morice, director of CSR Asia, said companies are still more focused on reducing carbon footprint and community investment. 'CSR in terms of biodiversity is quite nascent in Asia, but it is something companies are thinking about more, and it is something they are trying to incorporate into their community programmes,' she said.
Miss Anne Devan-Song, a 22-year-old biology student at the National University of Singapore, has just completed a study on pythons. She said there is a growing number of students interested in conservation, and she plans on carrying out conservation work in the region after she graduates in July.
'Up to now, it has been Western academics coming and studying our biodiversity, which is good, but we need to have some people from the region working on this,' she said.
As a sign of Singapore's importance in the region and its environmental efforts, several conservation groups have set up home here.
Last year, both Conservation International and Carbon Conservation set up their headquarters here, and Greenpeace is now doing likewise.
VICTORIA VAUGHAN
Michael Richardson, For The Straits Times 17 May 10;
Nearly 440 big reactors in 30 countries generate 14 per cent of the world's electricity. There are at least 15 small reactors at an advanced stage of development in various countries which could help cut global emissions. -- PHOTO: AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
SENIOR Minister Goh Chok Tong recently outlined Singapore's plans for reaching eventual self-sufficiency in water supply for homes and industry.
Opening Sembcorp Industries' Newater plant, the fifth and largest so far, he said that reused water now met 30 per cent of total demand here and that this would rise to 40 per cent by 2020.
Beyond recycling, desalination promises unlimited supplies of fresh water for countries like Singapore, which can draw freely on water from the sea. The big drawback of desalination at present is the high cost of the energy-intensive process involved.
Nuclear power may offer a way forward, providing not just reliable and affordable electricity to the national grid, but also low-cost power for desalination, heat for a wide variety of industrial processes, and hydrogen fuel for urban transport - in other words, a package solution for Singapore.
Imagine a world in which many mid- sized cities and towns had their own small nuclear reactors to generate electricity and heat. By replacing plants using fossil fuel coal, natural gas or oil, these atomic generators - emitting almost no carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas from human activity - would make the world a more sustainable place. If done in time and on a sufficiently wide scale, this could help to avert a global climate change crisis.
The science and applied knowledge to do this are advancing fast. The International Atomic Energy Agency has estimated that global demand for small reactors could reach 500 to 1,000 units by 2040 as more urban centres, industries and remote communities seek low-carbon power not just for baseload electricity but also for low-cost heat to desalinate seawater, run energy-intensive mines and industries, and produce biomass-based ethanol and hydrogen - a zero-pollution transport fuel of the future.
Today, nearly 440 big reactors in 30 countries generate 14 per cent of the world's electricity. The spread of nuclear technology through small reactors would create new regulatory and proliferation challenges, but also help cut global warming emissions as the small reactors replace plants relying on fossil fuel.
There are at least 15 different small reactors, ranging from around 30MW to 300MW, in an advanced stage of development in Japan, the United States, Russia, China, South Korea, South Africa and Argentina. They are backed by many of the world's leading reactor designers and engineering companies.
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission is preparing to start the process of approving the first of seven small reactor designs from October this year, beginning with Toshiba Corporation's Super-Safe, Small and Simple (4S) reactor - a 'nuclear battery' system, which will be offered in 10MW and 50MW versions.
The town of Galena in Alaska has given preliminary approval for Toshiba to install a 10MW 4S reactor, which the makers say will be able to operate continuously for 30 years without refuelling, something that normally takes place every few years with current large power reactors. After 30 years, the radioactive 4S fuel would be allowed to cool for a year. Then it would be removed for above-ground storage or underground disposal.
The whole 4S unit would be factory-built, transported to site and installed below ground level. Cooled by liquid metal sodium, it drives a high temperature steam cycle. Both the 10MW and 50MW versions are designed to produce heat at a constant 550deg C, suitable for power generation with electrolytic hydrogen production.
Hydrogen gas - whether burned in vehicle engines or used in fuel cells to generate electricity to drive vehicles - emits only water vapour in the exhaust.
However, hydrogen does not occur naturally. It has to be produced, mainly from natural gas. While inexpensive, this technique adds huge volumes of carbon emissions to the atmosphere.
Hydrogen can also be made by electrolysis, using electricity to split molecules of water into molecules of hydrogen and oxygen. This can be a low-carbon method if the electricity is generated from nuclear power or renewable energy sources, such as solar or wind.
However, it requires a water-splitting catalyst. Natural ones are enzymes used by plants during photosynthesis, but they are highly unstable. Commercially available metal catalysts, the best of which is the precious metal platinum, are stable but expensive. Platinum costs around US$2,000 (S$2,760) an ounce.
In what appears to be a major breakthrough, a team of scientists in the US recently announced they had discovered a metal catalyst about 70 times cheaper than platinum that could be used to split water molecules and produce hydrogen without organic additives and in different kinds of water, including sea water - the most abundant source of hydrogen on Earth.
Toshiba plans a worldwide marketing programme to sell 4S units. Eventually, it expects sales for hydrogen production to outnumber those for power supply as global demand for hydrogen for industry and as a pollution-free transport fuel rises rapidly.
Meanwhile, the US Energy Department announced in March that it was awarding US$40 million to two international groups to finish their conceptual designs and plans for next-generation reactors by August.
Both groups are proposing to build small reactors cooled by helium gas, which reaches temperatures of about 850deg C. The heat can be used not just to drive steam turbines to generate electricity but also for industrial and district heating.
Industrial applications include refining petrochemicals, plastic refining and hydrogen production - all areas of economic interest for Singapore.
The writer is a visiting senior research fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore.
Why it's not a solution
Straits Times Forum 24 May 10;
IN LAST Monday's commentary ('Small nuclear reactors a new green option') by Mr Michael Richardson, the small nuclear reactor technology was enthusiastically described as 'a packaged solution for Singapore' because not only will it provide the necessary energy for Singapore's future, but it will also reduce our dependence on fossil fuels.
Though I share the concern for the need to find an alternative energy source, I do not, however, share his enthusiasm for the small nuclear reactor technology.
# First, Mr Richardson emphasises that nuclear power can provide 'affordable electricity' for Singapore. However, historically, the promise that nuclear energy would be 'too cheap to meter' never materialised. This is because billions of dollars are needed to build a standard nuclear power plant, and much more to maintain and, later, decommission it.
Even though the small nuclear reactor is much cheaper - costing hundreds of millions instead of billions - it nonetheless produces electrical power only in the low megawatts range, rather than the gigawatts range a standard nuclear reactor produces. It is, therefore, unclear if electricity produced by the small nuclear reactor can ever be truly affordable.
# Second, if we pursue such small nuclear reactor technology, we are merely exchanging our reliance on fossil fuels for a reliance on uranium.
Mr Richardson asks us to imagine a pollution-free world filled with such small nuclear reactors. This vision is attractive but incomplete: for this will also be a world filled with new contests and strife to secure uranium, which by any estimate exists in far smaller quantities compared to the reserves of fossil fuels.
# Finally, the question remains on what Singapore ought to do with the radioactive spent nuclear fuels from such a small nuclear reactor. Although the option of reprocessing them exists, this will add new costs and will require nuclear expertise and containment facilities that we do not have now. Reprocessing inadvertently also produces plutonium, which can lead to unwanted nuclear proliferation.
From a citizen's perspective, do we want to burden the future generations of Singapore with such nuclear waste?
We have to be extremely cautious of this new technology even when it seems to promise us a source of green energy.
Jeffrey Chan
Advantages of small nuclear reactors
Straits Times Forum 29 May 10;
I WISH to offer a different perspective from Mr Jeffrey Chan ("Small nuclear reactor: Why it's not a solution", Monday).
The attractions of "third generation plus" small nuclear reactor technology are manifold. The reactor is the size of a bus and can be built in a factory, then shipped to a power plant where it can generate up to one-quarter the power of a large nuclear reactor but costs only one-tenth as much.
The other advantages are the reactor's compact modular design and much smaller containment vessel. A large storage area for fuel is also no longer required.
It will indeed be a wise decision for Singapore to adopt small nuclear reactors to help meet our ever-increasing electricity needs.
First, we do not have to work towards being completely free from reliance on fossil fuels. Instead our additional small nuclear reactors would balance the consumption of fossil fuels.
Nuclear power plants should be viewed as a means to mitigate the rampant consumption of fossil fuels, so as to reduce pollution. Such plants are not meant to completely replace fossil fuels. Looking to the future, uranium is a good counterbalance to fossil fuel.
Second, it is a myth that nuclear energy is "too cheap to meter". Nonetheless, it is a fact that the cost of electricity generated by nuclear energy is a fraction of that generated by burning fossil fuels.
Storage and reprocessing of spent fuel rods have become safer and more economical. Decommissioning of a nuclear plant after 30 to 40 years of service is part and parcel of the process. The benefits of cheaper and cleaner energy outweigh the justifications for more fossil fuel plants.
Third, large nuclear power plants do not necessarily suit nations with small land mass and high population density. Singapore is better off using uranium as an additional source. We should not be unduly worried about nuclear proliferation with a few small nuclear power plants here.
Come 2030, future generations would be thankful to our present leaders for their foresight in adopting small nuclear power plants to meet our electricity needs.
Paul Chan
Yenni Djahidin, The Jakarta Post 17 May 10;
Almost two years after ending their expedition to one of the most remote areas in the world, a group of scientists announced Saturday that it has identified a variety of new species, including a Pinocchio-like frog with a long nose, a dwarf wallaby, and several new insects in the Foja Mountains of Indonesia’s Papua province.
One of the scientists, Bruce Beehler, told The Jakarta Post that they have had to wait this long until the participating field scientists have determined what species the animals belonged to. The process, he explained, can take weeks, months, years and even decades.
New species: (clockwise, from top left) The Imperial pigeon, tree mouse, gecko, blossom bat, long-nose tree frog and dwarf walla: Courtesy of Tim Laman/National Geographic and Neville Kemp
“For many of the insects, scientists will probably be describing new species from the Foja Mountains a decade from now because they need to do comparative work to be able to safely describe one new species,” said Beehler, a senior research scientist at the Washington-based Conservation International.
The frog has a protuberance on its nose that points upward when the male is calling, but depletes and points downward when he is less active. It was found by herpetologist Paul Oliver, who spotted the frog sitting on a bag of rice in the campsite.
The 2008 expedition was conducted by international and Indonesian scientists participating in Conservation International’s Rapid Assessment Program. Financial and scientific support for the exhibition came from the National Geographic Society, Smithsonian Institution and the Indonesian Institute of Sciences.
The scientists discovered an oversized wooly rat, a gargoyle-like gecko with bent toes and yellow eyes, an imperial pigeon, and a tiny forest wallaby. They said the wallaby is the smallest member of the kangaroo family documented in the world.
They also found a blossom bat, which feeds on rainforest nectar, a small tree-mouse, a black and white butterfly, and a flowering shrub.
The biggest surprise, according to the announcement, was a sighting of a pair of new imperial pigeons by ornithologist Neville Kemp. It said the pigeon had feathers that appeared rusty, whitish and gray.
The Foja Mountains are part of the Indonesian National Wildlife Sanctuary. However, Beehler hoped that the Indonesian government will consider changing the status of the area to a national park to raise more attention and resources.
“We would also hope that Governor Barnabas Suebu continues to provide strong green leadership in the development of Papua’s wonderful forests and wild lands,” he said.
He said that the biggest threats to the pristine area are road-building and large-scale plantation development, which could open up the Foja Mountains to future degradation.
“It is important for people to know how precious the Foja Mountains area is and how many wonderful species of plants and animals live there and no other place on earth,” he said.
A special feature on the expedition, “Discovery in the Foja Mountains,” appears in the June issue of the National Geographic magazine.
The announcement on Saturday was to mark the 2010 International Day for Biological Diversity. It said that world governments failed to meet the targets agreed to in 2002 to reduce the rate of loss of biodiversity by 2010. In October, the international community will meet in Japan to discuss new targets for the next 40 years.
“While animals and plants are being wiped out across the globe at a pace never seen in millions of years, the discovery of these absolutely incredible forms of life is much needed, positive news,” Beehler said in the statement.
He said places like the Foja Mountains show that it is not too late to stop the current species extinction crisis.
“The societies that preserve their natural resources will be the ones that will have the best quality of life in the future,” said Dr. Beehler.
Discovery of new species proves Indonesia’s rich biodiversity
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 19 May 10;
The recent finding of new species in virgin forests in Papua province confirmed the country’s wealth of biodiversity but threats remain, scientists said.
Scientists warned the swelling population, deforestation and climate change could lead to the loss of precious biodiversity.
Local and international scientists participating in Conservation International’s (CI) Rapid Assessment Program (RAP) have found new mammals, a reptile, an amphibian, a dozen insects and a new bird in a remote forest in the Foja Mountains area in Papua.
“We believe many mysteries of biodiversity remain unmasked in Foja Mountain area,” Hary Sutrisno, the research leader from the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI), told The Jakarta Post on Tuesday.
He said that scientists were racing to uncover more new species, including in Papua, and were fighting the threats of climate change and rapid deforestation.
Scientists discovered a bizarre spike-nosed tree frog, an oversized, but notably tame, woolly rat, a gargoyle-like, bent-toed gecko with yellow eyes, an imperial pigeon and a tiny forest wallaby, the smallest documented marsupial in the world.
Other discoveries recorded in the survey included a new blossom bat that feeds on rainforest nectar, a small new tree-mouse, a new black-and-white butterfly related to the common monarch, and a new flowering shrub.
The Foja Mountains encompass an area of more than 300,000 hectares of undeveloped, and undisturbed rainforest.
Hary said virgin forest in Papua was selected to verify whether biodiversity remained intact in the absence of human activity.
“It will be hard to find new species in Java or Sumatra since most of their forests have been cleared.
The government should pay more attention to protecting new species that have not been recorded yet,”
he said.
CI-Indonesia regional vice president Jatna Supriatna said, “Now that we can show how many unique forms live only in these mountain forests, it is easier for us to make the case that the world at large needs to take note and make absolutely certain that these superb forests are conserved for the well-being of the local forest peoples as well as the world at large.”
Papua Governor Barnabas Suebu warned of the need to conserve Papua’s biodiversity.
“We agree and strongly support the belief that the very high biodiversity areas in Papua should be maintained. Many endemic species in our region are still isolated and difficult to access. They need to be conserved,” he said in a statement.
Forestry Ministry director general for forest protection and nature conservation Darori hailed the
finding.
“We need more details, including estimates of the total number of new species to determine whether to declare it a protected species,” he said.
Indonesia claims to have 12 percent (515 species) of the world’s mammal species, the second-highest after the Brazil, and 17 percent (1,531 species) of total bird species, the fifth-highest in the world.
The government said Indonesia was also home to 15 percent (270 species) of amphibians and reptile species, 31,746 species of vascular plants and 37 percent of the world’s species of fish.
Darori predicted that more than half the biodiversity remained unrecorded.
Marie Camiere Yahoo News 16 May 10;
WALSRODE, Germany (AFP) – With a face like a turkey, a blood-red head, big beady eyes and large curved beak, Sherlock the vulture is no oil painting.
But police in Germany are hoping the bird could be the latest, low-tech weapon in their armoury: they want to harness Sherlock's incredible sense of smell to locate the dead bodies that sniffer dogs can't reach.
They want to attach global positioning system (GPS) tracking devices to Sherlock and get him to find the corpses of people who have disappeared in remote areas.
"It was a colleague of mine who got the idea from watching a nature programme," policeman Rainer Herrmann told AFP.
"If it works, time could be saved when looking for dead bodies because the birds can cover a much vaster area than sniffer dogs or humans."
Birds generally rely mostly on sight to locate their supper. But vultures like Sherlock have a keen sense of smell and are able to detect the scent of rotting flesh from 1,000 metres (3,000 feet) up in the air.
He can even find remains in woodland or in thick undergrowth. And unlike sniffer dogs, who need regular breaks, Sherlock is indefatigable and can cover vast tracts of land.
He is being readied for his new mission at Walsrode south of Hamburg, the largest bird park in the world with 650 different species from all corners and every different habitat of the globe spread over 24 hectares (60 acres).
The bird, whose is more at home soaring over South America's Andes or the Atacama Desert than northern Germany's Lueneburg Heath, is being taught by trainer German Alonso to love the putrid smell of dead human flesh.
Every day Alonso puts pieces of meat in small cups, on top of a strip of cloth -- provided by the police -- that has been used to cover a corpse. Sherlock's mission is to locate these tasty morsels.
If time allows, Sherlock is persuaded to perform this feat as part of the park's daily shows to its many visitors.
"Sherlock has become pretty well known in Germany. He has been in lots of television programmes and newspaper articles," Alonso says.
"Sherlock now has a rough idea of what he has to do."
But the project still has some way to go. Alonso says that it won't become reality until there is a whole squadron of trained vultures with Sherlock in charge ready to take to the skies as a team.
"But it's hard to get birds, particularly tame, young ones," he said.
Turkey Vultures like Sherlock, also known as Turkey Buzzards, are rare in captivity. And they have to be tame in order to be trained so they have to be raised from chicks.
"What we need now to make progress is a group working together as a team," he said. "If we had a trio, led by Sherlock, then we could attempt more ambitious stuff," he added.
Solomon Star 17 May 10;
After objections from conservationists and scientists, Ocean Park has decided not to use its charitable foundation to fund a Solomons Islands study that could lead to wild dolphins being imported into Hong Kong.
It will directly fund the US$100,000 study - on whether the dolphin population in the Pacific country is sufficient to allow for exports - rather than through its Ocean Park Conservation Foundation (OPCF).
The study, expected to begin before the end of the year, will take two to three years, and the park promised not to consider imports of wild dolphin pending results of the study.
The decision followed fierce criticism from conservationists and scientists, including former OPCF co-director Dr Thomas Jefferson, co-director of the foundation from 1998 to 2001, said the idea of involving it in the project was "counter to the original aims and goals of the foundation as an organization dedicated to preserving wild populations of marine mammals".
The idea of funding the study through the OPCF was also criticised by Professor John Wang, a member of the cetacean specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, a recipient of OPCF funds.
Wang, who works with Trent University in Canada and the National Museum of Marine Biology in Taiwan and receives funding for several projects a year, said he might not have been able to have any further dealings with the foundation if it was involved in the Solomon Islands study.
"I would have a difficult time being associated with an organisation that funds such work," he said. "The perception that scientists may be getting funding from OPCF for an assessment that may lead to more captures [of dolphins] doesn't look good for any of the scientists who have received funding in the past."
Gendron, the theme park's executive director for zoological operations, told the Post the decision not to fund the project through the OPCF had been under discussion internally and a decision was made "in the past week".
Simon Parry
South China Morning Post
BBC News 17 May 10;
A leading collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions housed at a research centre in Sao Paulo, Brazil, has been destroyed by fire.
The curator of the Butantan Institute said the destruction of the entire collection was a "loss to humanity".
The nearly 80,000 preserved snakes and the thousands of specimens of spiders and scorpions were used in research.
Live animals housed nearby that are used to produce serums and vaccines were not harmed, the institute said.
"The entire collection was lost, the biggest collection of snakes in the world," curator Francisco Franco said. "It's a loss to humanity."
A firefighter said the flammable liquid used to preserve the specimens helped spread the fire.
The cause of the blaze is being investigated.
Some of the specimens in the 100-year-old collection were of rare or extinct species.
Brazil fire burns huge collection of dead snakes
Tales Azzoni, Associated Press Yahoo News 16 May 10;
SAO PAULO – A fire in Brazil destroyed what may be the world's largest scientific collection of dead snakes, spiders and scorpions that served as the main source for research on many species, scientists said Sunday.
Members of the Instituto Butantan said the nearly 100-year-old collection lost in Saturday's fire included almost 80,000 snakes and several thousand specimens of spiders and scorpions. The specimens were used to study evolution and provided information on how to avert extinctions, said institute director Otavio Mercadante.
"The entire collection was lost, the biggest collection of snakes in the world," curator Francisco Franco told Globo TV and other local media. "It's a loss to humanity."
The institute's live animals were kept at a building adjacent to the one burned, and volunteers rushed to remove them in case the fire spread. The fire did not hurt any humans or live animals.
Many of the animals are used in the production of vaccines and biopharmaceuticals, some derived from venom.
Officials said the production of vaccines and other drugs will not be affected.
"Even if we could gather another collection with 100,000 specimens, the historic value would still be lost," researcher Thais Guedes said.
Some of the specimens had not yet been catalogued.
Authorities said an investigation on what caused the fire was immediately opened. A faulty electrical circuit was among the main possibilities being looked into. The laboratory where the collection was located was open only to researchers and students, but authorities did not immediately discard the possibility of arson.
The dead specimens were preserved in flammable liquids, which helped spread of the flames, said firefighter Capt. Miguel Jodas.
Institute officials said they are already working on a plan to start rebuilding the collection.
Presi Mandari Yahoo News 16 May 10;
LONG HUBUNG, Indonesia (AFP) – Dayak tribesman Hanye Jaang didn't know it, but he used to be part of a multi-billion-dollar "mafia" that is ravaging Indonesia's forests and, scientists say, warming the climate.
The wiry 36-year-old still cuts down trees but now he's doing it legally in a way that minimises damage to fragile forest ecosystems.
"I don't have to play hide-and-seek with the forest police anymore. It's safe doing my job now," he told AFP in the jungles of East Kalimantan, or Indonesian Borneo.
He is also free of the powerful mafia bosses known as "cukong" who run Indonesia's illicit timber industry.
"When I worked by myself I sometimes didn't get paid by the cukong. I used to earn big money but they stole my timber many times," he said.
Jaang is typical of the tribesmen who work for PT Belayan River Timber at its 97,500-hectare (241,000-acre) concession near Samarinda on southeastern Borneo.
With assistance from the US-based Nature Conservancy (TNC), the company is seeking to have its timber products certified by the internationally recognized Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) as sustainably harvested.
Key to its strategy is the adoption of a cable system to pull felled trees from the forest, rather than using bulldozers that cut a four-metre (12-foot) path of destruction wherever they go.
FSC certification will enable Belayan River Timber to sell its products more easily in Europe and the United States, where import rules have recently been tightened to stem demand for cheap, illegal timber.
But experts agree that certification alone is not going to stop Indonesia's forests disappearing at a rate of about 300 football fields an hour, according to TNC estimates.
TNC sustainable forest management specialist Benjamin Jarvis said only 1.1 million hectares of Indonesian forest were being logged according to FSC standards, or less than two percent of the land under logging concessions.
That's an improvement on a few years ago, but nowhere near enough to make a difference, Center for International Forestry Research scientist Herry Purnomo said.
"Certification is one of the most effective instruments to help stop forest degradation and destruction, but it's still far from enough to help save Indonesia's forests," he said.
-- Seeing REDD over illegal logging --
A report by a coalition including the BlueGreen Alliance and the Rainforest Action Network (RAN) released in the United States this month found that 40 to 55 percent of Indonesia's timber is illegally harvested.
It warned that 98 percent of the archipelago's lowland forests could be gone by 2022.
What's at stake is not only the forests and their precious plants and animals, such as endangered Sumatran tigers and Javan rhinos.
According to RAN, carbon emissions from deforestation in Indonesia account for about five percent of global emissions, or more than all the cars, planes, buses and trains in the United States combined.
So the illegal trade is devastating species, undermining the legal timber industry and jeopardising UN-backed plans for a global market in carbon credits for avoided deforestation, known by its acronym REDD.
The market, which is likely to be a key part of any new international climate treaty, would see rich and polluting countries pay developing countries like Brazil and Indonesia to preserve their forests and the carbon they store.
But groups like Human Rights Watch, RAN and the BlueGreen Alliance say such plans are doomed to failure unless they address the problem of illegal logging.
"Otherwise, even the most well-intentioned plans would be undercut by demand-side forces and leakage of illegal timber products," the BlueGreen Alliance report said.
Little progress has been made in the fight against the timber barons since leaders of the Group of Eight, the biggest consumer countries, pledged to "tackle illegal logging" at their summit at Gleneagles in 2005.
Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono recently vowed to take on the "logging mafia" but analysts doubt he will confront the powerful networks of officials, security personnel and big business who are involved.
For every logger like Jaang, there are many more who are still working for the cukong, cashing in on growing world demand for cheap timber products.
BlueGreen Alliance report: http://www.bluegreenalliance.org/admin/publications/files/BGA-IndonesiaLogRpt-p7-Wells.pdf
Sunanda Creagh, PlanetArk 17 May 10;
Partial green certification for one of Asia's biggest paper producers has been suspended over concerns for high conservation value forests in Indonesia, the company and an independent auditor said on Thursday.
Full certification -- proof that companies have not used wood sourced illegally or from high value forests -- gives firms access to lucrative public procurement markets in Europe, where many governments have sworn off non-certified products.
Until a recent audit, privately owned Asia Pacific Resources International Holdings Limited (APRIL), which operates one of the world's largest pulp mills, had Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) Controlled Wood certification for its operations in Indonesia.
However Rainforest Alliance, the independent auditor charged with making sure APRIL met FSC standards, found "environmental and social issues that APRIL must resolve," both parties said in a joint statement.
"APRIL and Rainforest Alliance senior management are discussing actions that APRIL can take to re-acquire FSC Controlled Wood certification and eventually... attain full FSC Forest Management certification," the statement said.
A spokeswoman for APRIL, Ee Poh Luan, told Reuters on Thursday that the problem was a technical one.
"The suspension is due to a difference in how high conservation value forest is defined rather than how is managing the forest," she said. "We are managing it responsibly."
The FSC website says the certification in question is granted only to firms which avoid five types of wood: illegally harvested; harvested in violation of tradition and civil rights; from forests in which high conservation values are threatened; from natural forests; and from areas where genetically modified trees are planted.
Forest preservation is seen as a key to slowing down global warming because trees soak up enormous amounts of climate-warming greenhouse gases.
MARKET ACCESS
Losing one type of certification could affect APRIL's access to some markets in Europe where governments have promised not to buy non-certified products, said Robert Nasi, a specialist in the issue at the Center for International Forestry Research in West Java, Indonesia.
Without certification, "they will not be able to sell to any ministry or any public procurement in Germany and in Netherlands," Nasi said.
"For example, if the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Germany is wanting to buy a few tonnes of paper, they cannot buy it from APRIL," he said.
However, APRIL's spokeswoman said FSC Controlled Wood certification was only one of many certifications that the firm holds.
"As a further assurance, we seek independent certification across our supply chain with other certification bodies such as LEI, Green Proper and OHSAS," she said.
"No government procurement standards rely exclusively on any one particular certification standard, recognizing the diversity of geographical and political contexts in which wood products are manufactured."
(Editing by David Fox)
John Irish and Noemie Olive, PlanetArk 17 May 10;
The World Wildlife Fund is urging governments in the Arctic to suspend all oil exploration due to "severe risks" of spills or blowouts until a comprehensive plan to deal with disasters is in place, a senior official said.
Bill Eichbaum, a WWF vice-president, said extreme weather, icy conditions, lack of regulation and the absence of a coordinated plan of action between nations could lead to a crisis even worse than in the Gulf of Mexico.
"What we're seeing in the Arctic is the beginning of a major new industrial activity with variable standards from country to country and the potential for an accident," he told Reuters Television at the Global Oceans Conference in Paris.
BP Plc is struggling to stop oil gushing unchecked from a ruptured undersea well in Louisiana at an estimated rate of 5,000 barrels a day, threatening shipping, wildlife, beaches and one of the most fertile U.S. fishing grounds.
Eichbaum, who is vice-president of the WWF's Arctic policy, said the events in the Gulf of Mexico had made it even more important to suspend the licenses in the Arctic.
"One thinks exploration is simple, but you don't know what those pressures are ... you can have a guess, but when you go in it's unknown," he said. "We think the risk is so severe, there should be a stop to further exploration."
Canada, Russia, Norway, the United States and Denmark, the only nations with Arctic coastlines, are racing to file territorial claims over oil, gas and precious metal reserves that could become more accessible as the Arctic ice cap shrinks.
"This (Gulf) accident was in a place where every resource was available to respond, but that's not the case in the Arctic," said Eichbaum. "The conditions there are severe and we in the environmental community are concerned that oil and gas exploration not be allowed there until there is an understanding of how to respond."
Oil majors such as BP, ExxonMobil and Chevron are investing millions of dollars to lease tracts of Canada's Beaufort Sea, north of the Northwest Territories.
In the United States, Royal Dutch Shell spent $2.1 billion on Chukchi Sea leases in 2008, and ConocoPhillips, the third-largest U.S. oil company, paid $506 million for its Chukchi leases the same year.
U.S. President Barack Obama gave the nod in March for companies with licenses awarded under the previous Bush administration to pursue exploration in the Arctic, although it stopped new licenses until more scientific research is done.
(Editing by Diana Abdallah)
Mayank Bhardwaj, PlanetArk 17 May 10;
Monsoon rains, critical to farm output in India's trillion-dollar economy, will arrive on May 30, two days before normal, India's Earth Sciences Minister Prithviraj Chavan said on Friday.
India's weather office has already forecast a normal June-September monsoon this year after the 2009 season saw the worst drought in nearly four decades.
The forecast will be updated next month.
A statement from the India Meteorology Department said monsoon clouds would appear over the Andaman Sea next week and move to the mainland ahead of the normal onset date of June 1.
"The model suggests the date of onset of south-west monsoon over Kerala is likely to be on May 30, with a model error of four days," the statement said.
Weak rainfall last year led to a sustained rise in food prices in India, while New York Raw sugar futures soared to a 29-year high because of a big deficit in India, the world's biggest consumer.
Monsoon rains are also vital for the soybean crop in India, the world's biggest importer of edible oils.
Last year's drought raised India's edible oil import needs, helping it overtake China to become the world's biggest buyer.
In April, a weather scientist said that based on prevailing conditions, monsoon rains were likely to hit India's southern coast a week early.
A good monsoon forecast and its timely arrival will boost India's food output and calm soaring headline inflation, which stood at 9.59 percent in April, easing from 9.9 percent in the previous month and 10 percent in February.
India's Farm Minister Sharad Pawar said on Thursday that the government would closely watch monsoon rains before easing export curbs on grains, which were imposed when prices were rising.
(Editing by Malini Menon)
livescience.com Yahoo News 16 May 10;
Lake Tanganyika, the second oldest and the second-deepest lake in the world, is warmer than it has been in more than 1,500 years, a new analysis released today finds.
The east African rift lake has experienced unprecedented warming during the last century, and its surface waters are the warmest on record. The warmer waters are linked to a decrease in the lake's productivity, likely affecting fish stocks upon which millions of people in the region depend, the study found.
Rift lakes are created when two pieces of continental crust expand apart and eventually become ocean basins over millions of years. Lake Tanganyika is 13-million years old and nearly a mile deep (1.5 kilometers). The world's deepest lake is Lake Baikal in Siberia at 1,642 meters (5,387 feet).
Researchers took core samples from the lakebed that laid out a 1,500-year history of the lake's surface temperature, the first record of temperature variability for the lake over this time span. The rift is part of a giant crack in Africa that will eventually create a new ocean.
A high average temperature of 78.8 degrees Fahrenheit (26 degrees Celsius), measured in 2003, is the warmest the lake has been in that millennium and a half. Lake Tanganyika also experienced its biggest temperature change in the 20th century, which has affected its unique ecosystem that relies upon the natural conveyance of nutrients from the depths to jumpstart the food chain upon which the fish survive.
"Our data show a consistent relationship between lake surface temperature and productivity (such as fish stocks)," said geologist Jessica Tierney of Brown University."As the lake gets warmer we expect productivity to decline, and we expect that it will affect the fishing industry."
Warming causes productivity in the lake to decline because it creates stark differences in water density - the water at the surface become much warmer than the water at depth, and cold water is denser than warm water. The warmer, less dense surface waters are less likely to overturn and mix with the cooler waters below, so it becomes more difficult for winds to churn the water and cycle nutrients and oxygen between the lake's surface and depths.
An estimated 10 million people live near the lake, and fishing is a crucial component for the region's diet and livelihood: Up to 200,000 tons of sardines and four other fish species are harvested annually from Lake Tanganyika, a haul that makes up a significant portion of local residents' diets, according to a 2001 report by the Lake Tanganyika Biodiversity Project.
Lake Tanganyika is bordered by Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Tanzania, and Zambia - four of the poorest countries in the world, according to the United Nations Human Development Index.
Warming in Lake Tanganyika highest in 1,500 years
Yahoo News 16 May 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Lake Tanganyika, the second oldest and second deepest lake in the world, is now at its warmest in 1,500 years, threatening the fishing industry on which millions of lives depend, scientists said on Sunday.
The evidence comes from cores drilled into sedimentary layers in the lake bottom that point to climate changes over many centuries.
Tanganyika's surface waters, at 26 degrees Celsius (78.8 degrees Fahrenheit), are now at temperatures that are "unprecedented since AD 500," they reported in the journal Nature Geoscience.
The warming accelerated in the late 20th century, tallying with abundant data from other sites pointing the finger at man-made, heat-trapping greenhouse gases, they said.
As it has warmed, the lake has also suffered a fall in biological activity, they said.
Surface layers that warm become harder to penetrate by cool currents, welling up from the lake's depths, which bring vital nutrients that feed the first links in the food chain. Ultimately, commercial fish species become affected.
"The people throughout south-central Africa depend on the fish from Lake Tanganyika as a crucial source of protein," said Andrew Cohen, a professor of geological sciences at the University of Arizona, who took part in coring expeditions in 2001 and 2004.
"This resource is likely threatened by the lake's unprecedented warming since the late 19th century and the associated loss of lake productivity."
An estimated 10 million people in Burundi, Tanzania, Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo depend on the lake, using it for drinking water and for fish, of which up to 200,000 tonnes, mainly sardines, are harvested each year.
The paper, led by Jessica Tierney, a geologist at Brown University, appears in the journal Nature Geoscience.
In a separate study, a pair of Swiss scientists spelt out detailed warnings about the peril facing Europe's Mediterranean rim from global warming.
Previous work has already established the Iberian peninsular and European countries on the Mediterranean as badly exposed to heatwaves and water stress, based on current warming trends.
Erich Fischer and Christoph Schaer of the ETH Zurich technical university predicted the frequency of heatwave days will rise from an average of about two days per summer for the period 1961-1990 to around 13 days for 2021-2050.
For the period 2071-2100, there will be 40 heatwave days per summer.
"In terms of health impacts, our projects are most severe for low-altitude river basins in southern Europe and for the Mediterranean coasts, affecting many densely populated urban centres," the pair say.
In 2003, around 40,000 people were killed by a devastating heatwave that gripped Europe.
Africa's Lake Tanganyika Warming Fast, Life Dying
Tim Cocks, PlanetArk 17 May 10;
The lake, which straddles the border between Tanzania in East Africa and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, is the world's second largest by volume and its second deepest, the paper says.
Lead scientist on the project Jessica Tierney told Reuters the sharp rise in temperature coincided with rises in human emissions of greenhouse gases seen in the past century, so the study added to evidence that emissions are warming the planet.
The 'Great Lakes' such as Tanganyika, Malawi and Kenya's lake Turkana were formed millions of years ago by the tectonic plate movements that tore Africa's Great Rift Valley.
Some 10 million people live around Tanganyika and depend upon it for drinking water and food, mostly fish.
Geologists at Rhode Island's Brown University used carbon dating to measure the age of sediments on the lake floor. They then tested fossilized micro-organisms whose membranes differ at various temperatures to gauge how hot it was at times past.
The results were published in Nature Geoscience on Sunday.
"Lake Tanganyika has experienced unprecedented warming in the last century," a press release accompanying the paper said. "The warming likely is affecting valuable fish stocks upon which millions of people depend."
"INTENSE WARMING"
Most climate change studies have focused on the atmosphere, but increasingly scientists are studying the effects on the oceans, seas and lakes, which all absorb a huge amount of heat.
The paper argues that recent rises in temperature are correlated with a loss of biological productivity in the lake, suggesting higher temperatures may be killing life.
"Lake Tanganyika has become warmer, increasingly stratified and less productive over the past 90 years," the paper says.
"Unprecedented temperatures and a ... decrease in productivity can be attributed to (human) ... global warming."
The rise in temperature over the past 90 years was about 0.9 degrees Celsius and was accompanied by a drop in algae volumes.
"We're showing that the trend of warming that we've seen is also affecting these remote places in the tropics in a very severe way," Tierney said by telephone from the United States. "We've seen intense warming in recent times ... not down to natural variations in climate."
She said the lake life had been harmed because in a lake as deep as Tanganyika, the nutrients form at the bottom but the algae needed to make use of them live at the top.
Higher surface temperatures mean less mixing of waters at the top and bottom." That's why a warmer lake means less life."
But the paper admits that other factors, like overfishing, may be doing more harm than any warming.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 16 May 10;
People in cities around the Mediterranean including Athens, Rome and Marseilles are likely to suffer most in Europe from ever more scorching heatwaves this century caused by climate change, scientists said on Sunday.
The number of heatwaves was likely to surge to almost 3 each summer from 2071-2100 in the Mediterranean region from just one every third year from 1961-1990, it said. Most other parts of Europe would suffer far less.
The number of Mediterranean summer days with temperatures above 105 Fahrenheit (40.6C), a threshold in the United States for public health warnings, would rise to about 16 a year from 1.6 in the same period.
Heat-related health problems would be felt most by people living near the coast or in low-lying river valleys, according to scientists in Switzerland and the United States writing in the journal Nature Geoscience about health and heat projections.
"Some of the most densely populated European regions, such as the urban areas of Athens, Bucharest, Marseilles, Milan, Rome and Naples, would experience the severest changes in health indicators," they wrote.
About 40,000 people died in an extreme heatwave in Europe in 2003. But Erich Fischer, lead author of the study at the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science at ETH Zurich, said it was uncertain how deadly future heatwaves would be.
Air pollution might aggravate health risks for people with respiratory or heart problems in hotter temperatures, he said. And he said the study did not consider that cities can act as "heat islands" -- often warmer than surrounding countryside.
On the other hand, improved weather forecasts can help ensure that people at risk -- especially the elderly and the very young -- stay in the shade and drink more on hot days. And air conditioning might become more efficient and widely used.
"People living in Arizona show that you can adapt to heat," Fischer told Reuters. In such hot climates, people avoid straining themselves outdoors at the hottest part of the day.
He said the study was the first to pinpoint areas of Europe where rising temperatures would coincide with rising humidity, high night-time temperatures and long-lasting heatwaves -- all factors that can aggravate health problems.
Global warming will mean more moisture in the air from the Mediterranean, for instance, making it harder for people to sweat away excess heat. High night-time temperatures can make sleep harder.
"We see the strongest increases in the number of these days with dangerous health conditions ... all along the coast of the Mediterranean and in low-altitude river basins, such as the Po or the Danube," he said.
The study defines a heatwave as at least 6 days in a row with temperatures among the hottest 10 percent of those recorded in the region for those dates. That means that a heatwave in Greece is hotter than one in Scandinavia.
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