Best of our wild blogs: 20 May 10

22 May-20 Jun: BiodiverCity Photo Exhibition @ Orchard
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Tomato clownfish at Terumbu Semakau
from wonderful creation and Singapore Nature and wild shores of singapore

Butterfly of the Month - May 2010
from Butterflies of Singapore

Hard and soft
from The annotated budak

Diverse Beting Bembam Besar
from Psychedelic Nature

Perspectives
from ashira

Saving Singapore's wild orchids
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Raffles Museum Treasures: Christmas Island Frigatebirds
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Distinguishing the Green-billed Malkoha in the field
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Clips from Orangutan Diary showing the devastating events of habitat destruction in Borneo from Bornean Sun Bear Conservation

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Plans afoot to upgrade Jurong Island facilities

Aim is to maintain Singapore's energy, chemicals hub lead
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 20 May 10;

FOLLOWING Jurong Island's successful development as an internationally-competitive, integrated petrochemicals hub, Singapore will be embarking on a 'Jurong Island version 2.0' upgrade to maintain this lead, Trade and Industry Minister Lim Hng Kiang said yesterday.

Mr Lim, who officiated at the ground-breaking for Lanxess' 400 million euro (S$685 million) second-generation synthetic rubber plant, said that this new initiative, involving inputs from industry, 'will focus on areas such as system-level energy efficiency solutions and new competitive feedstock and logistics options'.

The 'version 2.0' initiative will also look into optimising the use of valuable resources such as energy, land and water, in addition to the 'plug-and-play' infrastructure such as feedstocks, logistics and utilities that it already offers investors. It is aimed at helping Singapore maintain its position as a leading global energy and chemicals hub, he stressed.

Speaking to BT on the sidelines of the Lanxess event, Heah Soon Poh, JTC Corporation director (Biomedical and Chemicals), said that JTC will be discussing with industry players regarding both their needs, as well as their participation, in the latest initiative.

'The whole idea is to strengthen Jurong Island's two pillars of its sustainability (like offering investors a superior workforce) and competitiveness,' he said.

To support this, JTC will later be rolling out various sub-initiatives covering areas like energy, water, alternative energy, and logistics and transport.

One example of what can be done with energy, said Mr Heah, will be to look at how to tap unused 'cold' energy from the liquefied natural gas receiving terminal being built here, he added.

As for new competitive feedstock, BT recently reported that Shell Chemicals is, for instance, already at an advanced planning stage for a world-scale high-purity ethylene oxide plant on Jurong Island - with this potentially drawing in downstream players such as detergent plants to a new 'high-purity' chemicals corridor here.

This follows the recent start-up of Shell's new US$3 billion petrochemical complex here, with a downstream mono-ethylene glycol plant offering materials for such a project.

Asked about this, Julian Ho, Economic Development Board's assistant managing director, confirmed that Singapore is talking with investors worldwide regarding investment in the 'high purity' chemicals corridor.

Mr Lim, in his speech, said that with the chemicals sector contributing about one-third of Singapore's total manufacturing output last year, the government wants to focus on growing the specialty chemicals sector which contributes over half the chemical cluster's total value-add.

This is crucial given that Singapore is located in a region with fast-growing demand for more specialty and higher value chemicals and polymers, he said.

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Census of Javan rhinos at Ujung Kulong National Park

Javanese rhinos don’t want to miss population census
Multa Fidrus, The Jakarta Post 19 May 10;

While the Central Statistics Bureau is busy administering a national census, the Ujung Kulong National Park is conducting a similar survey to determine the population of endangered Javanese rhinos in Pandeglang, which lies on the western tip of Java.

Head of the park Agus Priambudi told journalists in Serang on Wednesday that the park authorities had sent a joint team of 80 field workers from the park, the Indonesian Rhino Foundation and the Bogor Institute of Agriculture to carry out the regular census, which will be completed Saturday.

He estimated the population of the protected species at between 50 and 60. In the latest census in 2008, the team discovered four foot prints of infants, possibly aged below one year.

Agus said the findings proved the rhinos were procreating and that their numbers were on the increase.

This year, video cameras set up throughout the area will assist in the census.

Agus said that methods used in previous censuses, including measuring foot prints, had been error-prone.

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Bali Police Pull Endangered Turtles From the Pot

Made Arya Kencana Jakarta Globe 19 May 10;

Denpasar. Bali Police announced on Wednesday that they had rescued 71 endangered green turtles being kept for their meat.

Some of the turtles “were so big it took three people to lift each one,” Andi Taqdir Rahmantiro, director of the Bali Police’s detectives unit said, adding that the biggest turtles weighed as much as 200 kilograms each.

Green turtles (Chelonia mydas) were once commonly used in ritual sacrifices across the predominantly Hindu island, while their meat is a traditional delicacy. In recent years, however, there has been a shift toward symbolic sacrifices where the animals are released alive into the sea.

Andi said the animals were seized on Wednesday from a warehouse in Denpasar owned by Jero Mangku Buda. He added Buda had long fronted as a pork vendor, but actually sold turtle meat on the sly.

Police had staked out Buda’s food stall for months before posing as potential turtle meat buyers to make the arrest. During questioning, the suspect told investigators about the warehouse, just 200 meters away from the food stall.

Buda said he had bought the consignment of turtles for Rp 35 million ($3,850) from a fisherman at Amed Harbor in Karangasem a day earlier, who in turn had netted them in the Sulawesi Sea.

He did not tell police whether he had killed or sold any from the batch, but said he often sold off entire turtles for Rp 700,000 each, while serving up turtle meat for Rp 45,000 a portion.

“He says he’s only done it once before, but we’re not buying it,” Bali Police spokesman Gde Sugianyar Dwi Putra said. “In the meantime, we’re tracking down the supplier.”

Buda would likely be charged with poaching, which could see him face up to five years in prison and Rp 100 million in fines, Sugianyar said.

Police will deliver the 71 turtles to the Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) office in Bali, which plans to release them into the sea from Kuta Beach.

“For now, though, we’ll keeping them at the turtle conservation center in Serangan,” BKSDA Bali head Pamen Sitorus said.

Indonesia implemented a turtle trade ban in 1999, and rejected a proposal last year by Bali Governor I Made Mangku Pastika to set an annual quota of 1,000 animals for sacrificial ceremonies. However, high demand has driven the trade underground, with police foiling several smuggling attempts in recent years.

In February 2009, police stopped a boat carrying 26 turtles, while in July a shipment of 42 turtles from Java was foiled. In September, authorities seized 140 kilograms of turtle meat.


Too old for this: A police officer sprays dozens of turtles with water at the Bali Police Headquarters on Wednesday. The police confiscated 71 turtles – all believed to be more than seventy years old – from a suspected illegal trader who had transported the animals from Sulawesi. JP/Zul Trio Anggono, from Jakarta Post 19 May 10;

Indonesian police seize 71 green turtles
Yahoo News 19 May 10;

DENPASAR, Indonesia (AFP) – Indonesian police said Wednesday they had rescued 71 endangered green sea turtles after a raid on a warehouse on the holiday island of Bali.

The animals were alive but with their flippers tied with rope after police investigated suspicious activity by the 55-year-old warehouse owner, senior detective Andi Rahmantiro told AFP.

The turtles were probably destined for local food markets, he added.

"We have been eyeing the area for a while but we needed stronger evidence. Yesterday our officers raided the location because the information was certain," Rahmantiro said.

"The suspect confessed to planning to sell the turtles for 700,000 rupiah (77 dollars) each. On the market they can actually reach about two to four million rupiah each."

An estimated 100,000 green sea turtles are killed in the Indo-Australian archipelago each year, mostly for their meat, according to environmental group WWF.

Turtle meat is a traditional part of the Balinese diet but consumption has fallen since its peak in the 1970s thanks to greater awareness of the species and its importance to the local tourism industry.

Rahmantiro said the rescued turtles, most of which were more than 10 years old, would be released back into the sea.

The warehouse owner faces up to five years in jail for violating conservation laws.

Indonesian police seize 71 giant turtles in Bali
Associated Press Google News 19 May 10;

DENPASAR, Indonesia — Indonesian police have confiscated 71 endangered giant sea turtles from a food stall on the resort island of Bali, an officer said Wednesday.

The owner of the stall was arrested when the giant green turtles, named chelonia mydas, were found inside his storehouse in Denpasar, chief detective Col. Andi Taqdir Rahmantiro said.

Rahmantiro said the stall owner told police he purchased the turtles, with an average size of more than 3.3 feet (one meter), from fishermen who caught them in waters off Sulawesi island.

Turtle meat is a traditional delicacy in the predominantly Hindu province of Bali, although Indonesia has banned turtle trade and consumption due to concerns about dwindling numbers and threats by animal welfare groups of a tourist boycott of Bali.

Turtles are among several protected species in Indonesia, a vast nation of 17,000 islands.

Police investigating turtle supplier
Antara 20 May 10;

Denpasar (ANTARA News) - Bali police is currently investigating people who had supplied tens of green turtles (Chelonia mydas) to the island which had become a center of foreign tourists.

"We are investigating those involved in the supply or dispatch of scores of the endangered animals to Bali," Bali police spokesman Senior Commissioner Gde Sugianyar said in Denpasar Thursday.

He said the police on Wednesday seized 71 green turtles at a place in Pamogan, Denpasar.

Bali chief detective Senior Commissioner Andi Taqdir Rahmantiro said the endangered animals had been confiscated at a collecting place at a storage facility owned by Jero Mangku Budha (55).

He said the animals had been seized before they were sold to a number of foodstalls providing special balinese delicacies, locally known as "lawar".

The result of police investigation showed that the 71 turtles came from Sulawesi waters at May 17, 2010.

He said he will cooperate with Sulawesi police in going after the people who had dispatched the endangered animals.

With regard to the turtles, the police spokesman said they had been sent to Bali, and would later be released into their natural habitat.

The suspect told the police the animals will be used for religious rites.
But the police later found out that the animals will be sold to the foodtalls, as the suspect was known to own foodstalls selling lawar.

The suspect admitted to the police that the tens of years old turtles had been bought at Rp35 million, and will be sold to the foodstalls at Rp700 thousand each.

For the crime, Sugianyar said Mangku Budha had violated Law No 5 of 1990 on the conservation of biodiversity, and may face a maximum jail term of five years and a fine of a Rp100 million.(*)

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Indonesia Ignores Forestry Violations in Riau: NGOs

Budi Otmansyah, Jakarta Globe 19 May 10;

Environmentalists in Riau have condemned a Forestry Ministry team’s report that found no violations in the management of woodland concessions in the province’s Kampar Peninsula, despite clear evidence to the contrary.

Kampar Peninsula Preservation Team (TP2SK) coordinator Susanto Kurniawan said the findings ignored the fact that the Forest Stewardship Council had rescinded the SmartWood sustainable logging accreditation for logger Asia Paper Resources International Limited for failing to comply with environmental and social standards.

April subsidiary PT Riau Andalan Pulp & Paper has been accused of continued logging in high-value conservation forests, including the Kampar peat forest.

Meanwhile, one of its main suppliers, Sumatra Sylva Lestari, is embroiled in allegations of rights abuse against local residents.

“Any statement to the effect that there are no violations in forest management in the Kampar Peninsula are deceptive,” Susanto said.

“First, a revocation of SmartWood accreditation is proof a company is not complying with sustainable logging practices. Second, logging in the Kampar peat forest will release significant amounts of carbon dioxide trapped in the peat swamps and contribute to global warming. Those most at risk from the impact are the residents of Riau.”

Fellow TP2SK member and director of the environmental NGO Scale Up, Ahmad Zazali, said the forestry minister had not responded to the group’s objections over the report’s findings.

Ministry officials had told him the study had been limited to monitoring RAPP’s technology.

This clearly veered from the main issue that RAPP was operating illegally, Zazali said.

“The team’s findings aren’t final yet and the minister hasn’t made any decisions,” he said. “The minister must seriously consider the revocation of the SmartWood certification and the protests by residents of Teluk Binjai and Teluk Meranti villages, whose livelhoods are threatened by the destruction of the peat forest.”

TP2SK member and Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) Riau director Hariansyah Usman, said April had failed to abide by its own commitment to sustainable forestry by allowing its subsidiary to continue destroying the environment and stoking community unrest.

“If Riau Governor Rusli Zainal can’t see that there’s a problem here, then he’s out of the loop,” Hariansyah said. “He’s clearly siding with RAPP’s business interests at the expense of the rights of the local people, which itself is unconstitutional.”

Greenpeace Southeast Asia forest campaigner Zulfahmi, called on the forestry minister to stick by his recent pledge to protect the country’s peat forests.

“If RAPP is allowed to continue logging in the Kampar Peninsula, then the government will be condoning a felony,” he said.

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Unilever to keep buying Indonesia palm oil despite row

AFP Google News 19 May 10;

JAKARTA — Anglo-Dutch food and cosmetics giant Unilever said Wednesday it would continue to get 65 percent of its total palm oil purchases from Indonesia, despite concerns about deforestation by the industry.

The comment came after Unilever suspended future purchases from palm oil giant Sinar Mas in December, after Greenpeace alleged the Indonesian firm was devastating rainforests and habitats for endangered species like orangutans.

The destruction of the Southeast Asian archipelago's dwindling forests is threatening biodiversity and is the main reason Indonesia is considered the world's third biggest greenhouse gas emitter, scientists say.

"Most of the purchases under the current contract (with Sinar Mas) have already been fulfilled and the contract is due to end in weeks," Unilever Indonesia corporate secretary Sancoyo Antarikso said.

"We have not determined which company will take over the contract, but it will be an Indonesian company."

Greenpeace Southeast Asia forests campaigner Joko Arif said Unilever needed to ensure that "sustainability of forests" was a priority as it seeks a new supplier of palm oil, a key ingredient in many of the company's products.

Sinar Mas has denied allegations it is illegally clearing forests to make way for palm oil plantations, a common practice in Indonesia, which has failed to crack down on rampant illegal logging and deforestation.

Nestle, the world's largest food company, has also dropped Sinar Mas as a palm oil supplier but said Monday it would resume buying from the company if an independent audit cleared the Jakarta-based firm of improper practices.

Sinar Mas insists it is committed to sustainable environmental principles promoted by the palm oil industry body.

It has launched an audit of its practices by the Netherlands-based Control Union Certification and British Standard institute, the results of which are expected in July.

Palm oil is used extensively as biofuel and for making processed food and toiletries, but extensive plantations in major producers like Indonesia, the world's top exporter, have replaced vast tracts of rainforest.

-- Dow Jones Newswires contributed to this story --

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Four endangered mountain gorillas die in Rwanda

Hereward Holland, PlanetArk 20 May 10;

Three baby mountain gorillas and an adult female have died in Rwanda's Volcanoes National Park, possibly from a combination of extremely cold and rainy weather, wildlife authorities said on Wednesday.

Around 680 mountain gorillas remain in the wild, making them one of the world's most endangered great apes, the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said in a statement.

The cause of death is not yet known but there was no indication of foul play, the statement added.

"We are all shocked and saddened by the death of these baby gorillas as well as the adult female, and by the grave implications for the mountain gorilla population as a whole," Eugene Rutagarama, director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), said in the statement.

Around half the mountain gorilla population live in the Virunga chain of volcanoes, which straddle the central African countries of Rwanda, Uganda and eastern Democratic Republic of Congo.

The rest live in Bwindi Impenetrable Park in Uganda.

The primates are under threat from poachers, the destruction of their habitat, the live ape trade, disease and fragmentation, the WWF said.

Rwanda's gorilla-viewing tourism industry is a leading source of foreign exchange.

(Reporting by Hereward Holland; Editing by Michael Taylor)

Four gorillas die in Volcanoes National Park
WWF 19 May 10;

Nairobi, Kenya – WWF is saddened by the death of four mountain gorillas in Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park. The mother and three infant gorillas were part of an estimated 380 members of the highly endangered Virunga mountain gorilla population.

On Sunday, May 16, trackers from the Karisoke Research Centre visiting the Pablo group reported they had found a dead female and her baby—Mutesi— alive but very weak. As the trackers went to find the rest of the group they then discovered another dead baby gorilla. Fortunately, the second baby’s mother was found a day later with no signs of illness.

The trackers immediately alerted the Rwandan Development Board which mobilized veterinarians to try and save the ailing baby Mutesi. In the quickly fading daylight, the veterinarians decided to move towards the park to link up with the trackers. Their valiant efforts to administer antibiotics and warm her up were futile. Baby Mutesi was hardly breathing; she died about two hours later.

“Each baby mountain gorilla is a source of great hope and is monitored very closely,” says Eugene Rutagarama, Director of the International Gorilla Conservation Program (IGCP), a coalition of the African Wildlife Foundation, Fauna & Flora International, and W WF. “We are all shocked and saddened by the death of these baby gorillas as well as the adult female, and by the grave implications for the mountain gorilla population as a whole.”

Cause of deaths unknown at this time

While the cause of death has yet to be determined, the gorillas are thought to have died because of the extreme cold and rainy conditions. The gorillas’ current range is high on Mt. Karisimbi, and at high altitude it will be even colder. There are no signs of foul-play. However, all the dead gorillas were taken to the Mountain Gorilla Veterinary Project laboratory for necropsy in order to determine the possible causes of the deaths.

There only about 680 mountain gorillas in the wild making them one of the world’s most highly endangered great apes.

About half the population lives in the Virunga Volcanoes, a chain of active and inactive volcanoes that straddles the borders of Rwanda, Uganda, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC). The other half lives in Bwindi Impenetrable Park in Uganda.

Since the four dead gorillas were discovered, the Rwanda Development Board and Karisoke Research Centre staff have identified all other gorilla groups in Volcanoes National Park to confirm that there have been no further casualties.

“We can thankfully report that for all other research and tourism gorilla groups all individuals were identified,” says Maryke Gray, IGCP’s technical advisor. “There were no missing gorillas and no gorillas were found to have serious health problems.”

Results of latest census may provide hope for the future

The news of the gorilla deaths is casting a pall over enthusiasm being generated by a mountain gorilla census being conducted across the Virunga Volcanoes. Facilitated by IGCP and funded by WWF, a team of 80 park officials and other experts over two months collected data on gorilla activity as well as faecal samples for genetic analysis and health.

The results are now being analyzed and are expected to be released in October 2010. The last census of mountain gorillas in the Virunga Volcanoes, conducted in 2003, revealed the population had increased 17 percent since the previous census in 1989. Conservationists are hoping to see another rise this time around.

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Action to save Baltic Sea is lagging: WWF

Yahoo News 19 May 10;

HELSINKI (AFP) – Action to save the Baltic Sea is lagging far behind schedule, environmental group WWF said Wednesday, a day before regional ministers are to meet on the protection of the highly polluted sea in Moscow.

"Efforts by coastal states to implement the common programme of action for the Baltic Sea are well behind schedule and schedules are being pushed further forward," WWF said in a statement, citing a monitoring report it commissioned from Gaia Consulting.

Even simple measures, like replacing phosphates in detergents with other, harmless components to prevent the hazardous overconcentration of nutrients had been pushed back in most of the countries surrounding the Baltic, WWF said.

Eutrophication, or the overconcentration of nutrients caused by sewage and agricultural run-off into the water, is seen as one of the biggest environmental problems for the shallow, semi-enclosed and brackish Baltic Sea.

The environment ministers of countries surrounding it -- Russia, Finland, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia -- are due to meet in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the current state of the ailing sea and efforts to restore its ecological status.

In 2007, the countries committed to the Baltic Sea Action Plan of measures aimed at protecting and restoring it to good status by 2021, and in February regional leaders pledged action, but WWF said many of the efforts were delayed.

"The strength and the idea of the Action Plan is that the same Baltic Sea protection measures are implemented in all coastal states simultaneously to generate a significant combined impact," Sampsa Vilhunen, head of WWF Finland's marine programme said in the statement.

"However, it looks like the programme is being implemented in a fragmented way and action is marked by the principle of the lowest common denominator: when one party stalls, the whole effort is easily slowed down," he said.

For example, while more than 10 percent of the Baltic Sea is already considered a marine protection area, the protected areas do not yet form a unified conservation network, according to the report.

WWF said the time for rhetoric was over and urged ministers in Moscow to outline new, concrete actions to save the Baltic.

The WWF report, "Analysis of the status of implementation of the Baltic Sea Action Plan for WWF", can be found at http://www.wwf.fi/wwf/www/uploads/pdf/wwf_bsap_implementation_analysis_17052010.final.pdf

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Why China holds 'rare' cards in the race to go green

Tom Heap, BBC News 19 May 10;

From electric cars to wind turbines, environmentally-friendly technology around the world needs rare earth metals. But China - where over 90% of these minerals are mined - is saying it now wants to keep more for its own industry.

The leafy banks of the Birmingham and Worcester canal may be an unlikely place to discuss a looming industrial crisis but it was here that Professor Rex Harris of Birmingham University took me on his hydrogen-powered electric barge.

The super efficient motor, like most electric vehicle motors, uses rare earth magnets.

Rex gave me two matchbox sized neodymium-boron magnets, offering me £50 to push them together.

His money was safe, the magnetic field was too strong. Such power is vital to green technology, so much of which is based on the efficient generation, use and storage of electricity.

So we need to be sure of good supply of rare earth magnets.

"We worry about peak oil," he says, "we should worry about peak magnets as well."

Dangers of dependence

Rare earth metals are relatively abundant in the Earth's crust, but they are difficult to extract.

Most came form the United States in the 1960s but tightening environmental regulations and a price war closed the last Californian mine, handing China a virtual monopoly.

American strategic metal consultant, Jack Lifton has been warning the US government of the dangers of dependence.

"Last year the Chinese announced their regular five year plan, looking ahead to 2010 to 2015.

"They said they would continue to reduce the export of these materials to the West and that they were considering stopping the export of certain of them."

The Chinese motives are pretty clear. They want Western users to do their manufacturing in China and they need supplies for their own ambitious wind energy programme.

They plan to build 120 GW of wind generated electricity by 2020, more than Britain's entire electricity production.

That alone demands a full year's supply of rare earth metals.

The former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once remarked "There is oil in the Middle East, there is rare earth in China."

Environmental concerns

Japan has already woken up to the implications of this by building up stockpiles.

Toyota, who make the rare earth guzzling Prius hybrid car, is considering opening its own mine in Vietnam.

The United States is worried about supplies for the military while the UK government has examined the risks for our own plans for more electric cars.

The search is now on for alternative sources of rare earths, with mines planned for California, Australia, Arctic Canada and even Greenland.

But they are delayed by environmental concerns stoked by the Chinese experience.

Their principal source is Baotou in Chinese Inner Mongolia where enormous open-cast mines scar the landscape whilst refineries leak vast quantities of polluted water into the landscape.

Independent expert, Jack Lifton says we can't demand zero impact. If we want green technology then we need to mine, he says. "The green road always starts with black earth."

Cleaner alternative

However, Professor Animesh Jha at Leeds University thinks he may have a cleaner alternative.

He has discovered that titanium dioxide ore could be an important source.

The purification of this chemical, commonly used in paints, leaves a residue of rare earths. He believes this could by-pass the Chinese and the environmental problems of mining.

"There are very nice deposits of titanium oxide all over the world... Norway, India, Brazil, US. They all have rare earths in them."

Combine Professor Jha's technique with the fruits of new mines and the careful recycling of rare earth metals currently in use in our laptops and mobile phones and we may be able to provide sufficient supplies in the future.

But new processes take time to perfect and new mines take years to come on-stream.

That still leaves a long gap when the green revolution will rely on the economic and political judgement of China's exporters.

Costing the Earth can be heard on BBC Radio 4 at 9pm on Wednesday 19th May 2010 and at 1.30pm on Thursday 20th May and after on BBC iPlayer

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Malaysia Has Most CDM Projects In Region To Cut Greenhouse Gas

Bernama 19 May 10;

KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has 81 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to date to help cut greenhouse gases, the highest number in Southeast Asia, Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup said today.

The CDM mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would allow net global greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced at a much lower global cost with industralised countries financing emission reduction projects in developing countries where the cost was lower, he said.

"It will benefit us in terms of technology transfer," Joseph said in opening the Waste Management Conference and Exhibition 2010, here Wednesday.

The ministry is the designated national authority for CDM in Malaysia which aimed to enable developing countries to leapfrog outdated technologies and achieve sustainable development cost effectively.

The two-day conference themed "1Green Malaysia" is organised by the non-government organisation, Environmental Management and Research Association of Malaysia (Ensearch).

Also present were Environment Department director-general Datuk Rosnani Ibarahim (repeat Ibarahim) and Ensearch president Peter Ho Yueh Chuen.

Ministry deputy under secretary for environment conservation Dr Gary W.Theseira, in his presentation at the conference, said the government aimed to increase energy efficiency by three percent and step up renewable energy and waste management to meet the goal of cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.

The improvement in Energy Efficiency (EE) was expected to remove nine million tonnes of CO2 while renewable energy was anticipated to reduce 11 million tonnes and the waste management sector would cut 10 million tonnes.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced Malaysia was adopting a voluntary reduction of up to 40 per cent of emission from 2005 levels at the Climate Change Conference in Cophenhagen last year subject to assistance from developed countries.

-- BERNAMA

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Study: Ocean Warmed Significantly Over Past 16 Years

Brett Israel, livescience.com Yahoo News 19 May 10;

The ocean has warmed significantly over the past decade and a half, a new study based on different sources of ocean warming data suggests.

The new study, detailed in the May 20 issue of the journal Nature, revealed that the top 2,300 feet (700 meters) of the world's oceans warmed 0.64 watts per square meter from 1993 to 2008. That's equal to adding the energy from 100 million atomic bombs to the ocean each year during the 16-year period, said John Lyman of the University of Hawaii.

Water takes longer to heat up and cool down than does the air or land, so ocean warming is considered to be a better indicator of global warming than measurements of global atmospheric temperatures at the Earth's surface.

But until now, scientists were not sure how the heat energy in the upper ocean had changed in recent decades or what ocean warming meant for the Earth's energy balance.

Lyman and colleagues combined different ocean monitoring groups' data sets, taking into account different sources of bias and uncertainty - due to researchers using different instruments, the lack of instrument coverage in the ocean, and different ways of analyzing data used among research groups - and put forth a warming rate estimate for the upper ocean that it is more useful in climate models.

Ocean heat content is a useful measurement for studying the Earth's warming, because the upper ocean acts as a giant heat sink and absorbs 90 percent of the heat energy that is added to the Earth's atmosphere from the warming caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases, Lyman said.

While the ocean warmed from 1993 to 2008, the data suggest that warming has stalled since 2003. However, researchers are not certain what pattern ocean warming will follow, and the stall could be attributed to natural variability in the data, Lyman told LiveScience.

"The key thing for studying climate is what the long-term trends are doing," said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was not involved in the study. "However you cut it, those long-term trends are still there."

Despite the variability, the long-term increase in ocean heat content is real and cannot be dismissed as an artifact of measurement error, said climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State. Climate models based on increases in man-made greenhouse gases predict an increase in ocean warming that is similar to the new model's estimate.

"The study is a sobering reminder that human-caused climate change is very real, and by many measures actually proceeding faster than the models have projected," Mann said.

World's Water Steadily Warming Up
Daniel Fineren, PlanetArk 21 May 10;

The top layer of the world's ocean has warmed steadily since 1993, a strong sign of global warming and a key driver of sea level rise, according to a study by an international team of scientists.

"The ocean is the biggest reservoir for heat in the climate system, so as the planet warms, we're finding that 80 to 90 percent of the increased heat ends up in the ocean," said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Scientists from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Britain's Met Office, the University of Hamburg in Germany and the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan analyzed different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008 to assess the size and certainty of growing heat storage in the ocean.

They estimated that the heat content of the ocean has increased over the last 16 years and the energy stored is now enough to light nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for every person on the planet.

Warmer oceans cause sea levels to rise as seawater expands as it heats up, accounting for about one-third to one-half of global sea level rise, scientists say.

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2010 on track to be hottest ever: U.S. climate data

Michael Szabo, PlanetArk 20 May 10;

This year is on track to be the hottest ever after data published by America's climate agency this week showed record global temperatures in April and the first four months of 2010.

'The combined April global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest on record at 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit (14.5 degrees Celsius), which is 1.37 degrees F (0.76 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 56.7 F (13.7 C),' the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a report on its website dated Monday, May 17.

These temperatures surpassed the previous record set in 1998, NOAA added.

The agency said April's global land surface temperatures were the third warmest according to its records, which date back to 1880.

It noted warmer-than-normal conditions in Canada, Alaska, eastern U.S., Australia, South Asia, northern Africa and northern Russia.

'Cooler-than-normal places included Mongolia, Argentina, far eastern Russia, the western contiguous United States and most of China,' NOAA said, adding global snow cover was the fourth-lowest on record.

China had its coolest April since 1961, but wettest since 1974, it said.

April was the largest since 2001, they were still below average for the 11th consecutive April as a result of warmer-than-average ocean surface temperatures.

NOAA said Arctic ice covered around 5.7 million square miles {14.7 million square kilometers), 2.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent.

The El Nino weather pattern warming the Pacific Ocean weakened in April and is expected to continue through June, NOAA said, echoing a March report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Scientists said El Nino was partly responsible for 2009 being the fifth warmest year on record.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; editing by James Jukwey)

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