Best of our wild blogs: 12 Jun 10

Agitated Black-crowned Night Herons
from Bird Ecology Study Group

A flock of Lesser Whistling-ducks
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Climate Witness: Rifi Hamdani, Indonesia
from WWF

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UN's 'IPCC for nature' to fight back against destruction of natural world

International body will organise global response to protect ecosystems 'that underpin all life – including economic life'
Juliette Jowit guardian.co.uk 11 Jun 10;

World governments voted last night to set up a major new international body to spearhead the battle against the destruction of the natural world.

With growing concern about the human impacts of destruction of habitats and species from around the world, from riots over food shortages and high prices, to worsening floods, and global climate change, more than 80 governments voted to take action in the final hours of a week-long conference in Busan, South Korea.

The Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), also dubbed "the IPCC for nature", will be modelled on the Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change, which has been credited with driving global warming and climate change from a fringe scientific issue to mainstream public and political concern.

Achim Steiner, executive director of the United Nations Environment Programme, said: "The dream of many scientists in both developed and developing countries has been made reality. Indeed, IPBES represents a major breakthrough in terms of organising a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other ecosystems that generate multi-trillion dollar services that underpin all life – including economic life – on Earth."

Caroline Spelman, the UK environment secretary, said: "Alongside climate change, biodiversity loss is the greatest threat we face. Our very way of life is linked to the natural world; the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink; as well as providing the habitats for the Earth's millions of species of plants and animals. IPBES will provide governments and policy makers across the world with independent and trusted scientific advice so that we can take action to protect the world's natural environment."

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, will produce regular assessments of the state of biodiversity at international, regional and "sub regional" levels, mirroring the IPCC's five-yearly global assessments of global warming and its impacts. It will also develop research and conservation in developing countries, stimulate research in areas not covered, and advise policy-makers, said Professor Bob Watson, vice chair of IPBES and chief scientist at the Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs.

It will focus on "poverty alleviation, human well-being and sustainable development", he said. A recommendation to set it up will now be voted on by the UN at its meeting in September.

"It's just possible that in Busko, Korea, a significant step forward has been made towards a renewed global approach to tackle the loss of biodiversity and its consequences for the natural world and the people," said Robert Bloomfield, coordinator of the International Year of Biodiversity in the UK. "Crucially it would bring more closely together the analysis of the scientific evidence of biodiversity loss and its impact alongside the development of policy responses – this has been lacking. Then, as with the IPPC, such an overarching body would also help put biodiversity in the media spotlight – where it needs to be.

"It will be up to all the parties, including science, international governance and the media, to make sure that such a development is open to scrutiny and effective in delivering the action needed to mainstream the response required to tackle the underlying causes of a problem which has disastrous consequences if not urgently addressed."

Breakthrough in International Year of Biodiversity as Governments Give Green Light to New Gold Standard Science Policy Body
Bridging the Gap between Research and Urgent Need for Responses to Biodiversity and Ecosystem Service Losses
UNEP 11 Jun 10;

Busan/Nairobi, 11 June 2010-History was made today in the South Korean port city of Busan, when governments gave the green light to an Intergovernmental Science Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

The independent platform will in many ways mirror the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) which has assisted in catalyzing world-wide understanding and governmental action on global warming.

The new body will bridge the gulf between the wealth of scientific knowledge- documenting accelerating declines and degradation of the natural world- and the decisive government action required to reverse these damaging trends.

Its various roles will include carrying out high quality peer reviews of the wealth of science on biodiversity and ecosystem services emerging from research institutes across the globe in order to provide 'gold standard' reports to governments.

These reports will not only cover the state, status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystems, but outline transformational policy options and responses to bring about real change in their fortunes.

An IPBES will achieve this in part by prioritizing, making sense of and bringing consistency to the welter of reports and assessments conducted by United Nations bodies; research centres, universities and others as they relate to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UN Environment Programme (UNEP) which has coordinated this week's meeting, said: "The dream of many scientists in both developed and developing countries has been made reality. Indeed, IPBES represents a major breakthrough in terms of organizing a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other ecosystems that generate multi-trillion dollar services that underpin all life—including economic life—on Earth".

"It is also an important day for multilateralism in this, the UN's International Year of Biodiversity. There remained disagreements between governments as they entered this week's third and final meeting. These centred on financing for the platform up to its scope and role in building scientific assessment capacity in developing economies," he added.

"But nations put aside the smaller differences that divided them in favour of the far bigger areas of consensus that finally united them—namely the urgent need for an IPBES as a key building block towards restoring, repairing and more intelligently managing the planet's nature-based assets," said Mr. Steiner.

"I would applaud all governments for their determination and vision in writing a small-but what might one day prove a significant- new chapter in humanity's relationship with the natural world," he concluded.

Chan-Woo Kim, Director General of the Ministry of Environment, Republic of Korea who chaired the third meeting this week, said: "In the 21st century faced with many environmental challenges, the vision of 'Green Growth' should be shared in the international community. The essence of this vision is to ensure environmental sustainability while pursuing development. For this to be realized, it is crucial to have a credible, legitimate, and policy-relevant understanding on biodiversity and ecosystem services."

"Today, and in this International Year of Biodiversity which we commemorate, we finally reached an agreement to establish an Intergovernmental science-policy Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. This historic agreement will lay the foundation for us to have full scientific assessment for appropriate policy responses for human well-being on the Planet," said Mr. Kim.

"Busan, one of the most beautiful cities in Korea, will be remembered in the international environmental community for making a huge step forward for the establishment of the IPBES," he concluded.

Mr. Kim added: "Here I would also like to thank UNEP for its role in this important breakthrough after having diligently and professionally steered and facilitated the process towards establishing an IPBES since the first meeting in Malaysia some 18 months ago".

Today's green light, given by delegates from close to 90 countries, is now expected to be sent to the 65th session of the UN General Assembly, which opens in September, for its consideration to be formally established.

It will then be presented for endorsement by environment minister attending the UNEP Governing Council/Global Ministerial at its next session scheduled for Nairobi, Kenya in February 2011.

IPBES—what is it likely to do?

This week's meeting in Busan heard that there are now a myriad of global, regional and national assessments being carried out from time to time that relate to biodiversity and ecosystem services.

These include the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment; the International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development; UNEP's Global Environment Outlook; the Global Biodiversity Outlook and the Global Forest Resources Assessment.

Others include the State of the World's Animal Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture; the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity and the IUCN Red List of threatened and endangered species.

While many, if not all are important, many of the findings are failing to translate into meaningful and decisive action by governments on the ground and in global and national planning.

This is in part due to different methodologies and standards operating across such assessments.

An IPBES can bring greater rigour to such assessments while bringing together their findings in order to provide governments with greater clarity and confidence on the conclusions in order to act.

Other areas include bringing to the attention of governments 'new topics' identified by science, outlining what is known and also aspects where more research is needed.

Some scientists, for example, claim that evidence that deoxygenated dead zones in the world's oceans took too long time to migrate from scientific circles into the domain and in-trays of policy-makers.

A similar argument is made concerning the pros and cons of biofuels. An IPBES could provide better early warning of such new topics to governments before decisions are taken.

While an IPBES will support some capacity building in developing countries, its main role will be to catalyze funding to assist developing country scientists and developing country assessments through, for example, harnessing funding via UN agencies; foundations and other sources.

Unraveling the precise role of animals, plants, insects and even microbes within ecosystems and their functions in terms of the services generated-from water purification to soil fertility-could also be a major thrust.

Some experts are convinced that many scientific discoveries, from the identification of new lower life forms to the fast disappearance of others, can often remain within the corridors of research institutes and universities for many years before they reach the wider world.

By that time is may be too late to act to either conserve or protect the species concerned whereas early warning might have put the species on the political radar giving it a better chance.

Scientists upbeat about global biodiversity panel
Anne Chaon Sat Yahoo News 12 Jun 10;

PARIS (AFP) – More than 90 countries have approved the creation of a scientific panel on biodiversity, the dream of many scientists around the world.

The panel will peer-review scientific research on biodiversity and ecosystems to ensure governments are receiving top-level information and advice, and are able to act more decisively to reverse various trends in the natural world.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, as it has been called provisionally, was "the dream of many scientists", now made reality, said Achim Steiner, UN under-secretary general.

The IPBES "represents a major breakthrough in terms of organizing a global response to the loss of living organisms and forests, freshwaters, coral reefs and other ecosystems," Steiner added.

Steiner is also head of the UN Environment Programme that oversaw the talks in South Korea where the plans were approved on Friday.

Such an expert body on biodiversity has, according to many experts, become vital as the earth is on the brink of a sixth major wave of extinction.

The current rate of species extinction as a result of human activity is more than 100 times faster than the rate of natural extinction, according to the UN.

"We must be fully aware that the disappearance of biodiversity plays a decisive role in development," said Chantal Jouanno, French secretary of state for ecology, "the stakes for the future of humanity" are high, she added.

The IPBES "should enable us to measure our dependence on biodiversity and give us ways of responding," the minister said.

The panel addresses the complexity of monitoring the effect of humans on ecosystems, more difficult than monitoring climate and measuring gas emissions, Lucien Chabasson said, from a Paris-based sustainable development institute.

Until now the United States had been sceptical about subscribing to any agenda on biodiversity, fearing the creation of another bureaucratic monster and worried that it would dictate the national political agenda.

In talks, Brazil had lead a push from southern countries and is a candidate to host the future headquarters of the organisation.

The UN General Assembly in September will have to approve the decision to set up the biodiversity panel.

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Boycott Big Oil? Prepare to give up your lifestyle

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 11 Jun 10;

WASHINGTON – Has the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico got you so mad you're ready to quit Big Oil?

Ready to park the car and take up bike-riding or walking? Well, your bike and your sneakers have petroleum products in them. And sure, you can curb energy use by shutting off the AC, but the electric fans you switch to have plastic from oil and gas in them. And the insulation to keep your home cool, also started as oil and gas. Without all that, you'll sweat and it'll be all too noticeable because deodorant comes from oil and gas too.

You can't even escape petroleum products with a nice cool fast-food milkshake — which probably has a petrochemical-based thickener.

Oil is everywhere. It's in carpeting, furniture, computers and clothing. It's in the most personal of products like toothpaste, shaving cream, lipstick and vitamin capsules. Petrochemicals are the glue of our modern lives and even in glue, too.

Because of that, petrochemicals are in our blood.

When the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tested humans for environmental chemicals and metals, it recorded 212 different compounds. More than 180 of them are products that started as natural gas or oil.

"It's the material basis of our society essentially," said Michael Wilson, a research scientist at the University of California Berkeley. "This is the Petrochemical Age."

Louisiana State University environmental sciences professor Ed Overton, who works with the government on oil spill chemistry, said: "There's nothing that we do on a daily basis that isn't touched by petrochemicals."

When in the movie "The Graduate" young Benjamin is given advice about the future, it comes in one word: plastics. About 93 percent of American plastics start with natural gas or oil.

"Just about anything that's not iron or steel or metal of some sort has some petrochemical component. And that's just because of what we've been able to do with it," said West Virginia University chemistry professor Dady Dadyburjor.

Nothing shows how pervasive and malleable petrochemicals are better than shampoo, said Kevin Swift, director of economics and statistics for the American Chemistry Council, the chemical industry's trade association. The bottle is plastic. The cap is plastic. The seal and the label, too. The ink comes from petrochemicals and even the glue that holds the label to the bottle comes from oil or gas.

"The shampoo — it's all derived from petrochemicals," Swift said. "A bottle of shampoo is about 100 percent chemistry."

Just add a bit of natural fragrance.

What makes oil and natural gas the seed stock for most of our everyday materials is the element that is the essence of life: carbon.

The carbon atom acts as the spine with other atoms attaching to it in different combinations and positions. Each variation acts in new ways, Dadyburjor said.

John Warner, a former Polaroid scientist and University of Massachusetts chemistry professor, called petroleum "fundamentally a boring material" until other atoms are added and "you unleash a textbook of modern chemistry."

"Take a very complicated elegant beautiful molecule, bury it in the ground 100 million years, remove all the functionality and make hydrocarbons," said Warner, one of the founders of the green chemistry movement that attempts to be more ecologically sustainable. "Then take all the toxic nasty reagents and put back all the functional groups and end up with very complicated molecules."

The age of petrochemicals started and took root shortly after World War II, spurred by a government looking for replacements for rubber.

"Unfortunately there's a very dark side," said Carnegie Mellon chemistry professor Terry Collins. He said the underlying premise of the petrochemical industry is that "those little molecules will be good little molecules and do what they're designed for and not interact with life. What we're finding is that premise is wrong, profoundly wrong. What we're discovering is that there's a whole world of low-dose (health) effects."

Many of these chemicals are disrupting the human hormone system, Collins said.

These are substances that don't appear in nature and "they accumulate in the human body, they persist in the environment," Berkeley's Wilson said. The problem is science isn't quite sure how bad or how safe they are, he said.

But plastics also do good things for the environment, the chemistry council says. Because plastics are lighter than metals, they helped create cars that save fuel. A 2005 European study shows that conversion to plastic materials in Europe saved 26 percent in fuel.

"Compared to the alternatives, it reduces greenhouse gases (which cause global warming) and saves energy; that is rather ironic," Swift said.

Still, chemists who want more sustainable materials are working on alternatives. Another founder of green chemistry, Paul Anastas, an assistant administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, said: "We can make those things in other ways."

LSU's Overton is old enough to remember the days before petrochemicals. There were no plastic milk and soda containers. They were glass. Desks were heavy wood. There were no computers, cell phones and not much air conditioning.

"It's a much more comfortable life now, much more convenient," Overton said.

Swift said trying to live without petrochemicals now doesn't make sense, but he added: "it would make a good reality TV show."

Read more!

The imperative for urban sustainability

Business Times 12 Jun 10;

Urbanisation is the new reality for the world's increasing population, but effective leadership, good governance and integrated solutions will ensure a sustainable way forward

Andrew Tan
Director, Centre for Liveable Cities
National Environment Agency

THE world is experiencing unprecedented urban growth, with half the world's inhabitants living in cities. This is projected to increase to 70 per cent by 2050. Over the coming decades, the pace of urbanisation will hasten in many parts of the developing world, particularly in Asia.

Smaller and medium-sized cities are growing bigger, while mega-cities are transforming into mega-regions. If the last century was known as the age of globalisation, this century will be known as the age of the global city. A new narrative on the rise of Asian cities is waiting to be written, reflecting the shift in economic balance from the West to the East.

The challenges confronting cities are numerous. Small, highly compact cities like Singapore face space constraints, but bigger cities also face their own issues, such as managing urban sprawl. Slums are common in many cities in the developing world, but developed countries are not without problems, such as ageing public infrastructure and the regeneration of inner cities.

Their unique challenges aside, all cities want to attract good investments, create employment opportunities, ensure high standards of living, as well as promote social cohesion. With growing concerns over climate change and the move toward a low carbon economy, many cities are also repositioning themselves to capitalise on opportunities presented by global stimulus packages, investments in green growth, as well as the international flow of talent and capital.

At the same time, a new generation of mayors and governors who are more receptive to new ideas has taken over the helm of many of these cities. The timing is therefore opportune for a global dialogue on cities.

Fostering a global dialogue on cities - Singapore's unique role

Singapore can play a unique role in the emerging global discourse on cities. Our unique position in Asia, our familiarity with East and West, and our network of international linkages, allows us to provide a meeting place for all stakeholders keen to develop solutions for sustainable cities. Singapore itself has been a test bed of urban transformation. As a small city lacking natural resources, innovative solutions have always formed a part of our efforts to ensure that this city-state can thrive as a cohesive nation and a vibrant economy.

We have much to share in terms of our expertise over the 40 years of our development in areas such as public housing, urban greenery, water management, and pollution control. We have also much to learn from cities at the forefront of the current urban revolution, such as Seoul, London, New York, Shanghai, or Sydney.

A growing cluster of leading institutions, think tanks, businesses, and NGOs have established themselves in Singapore, including the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy and the World Bank Knowledge Hub, and industry players such as IBM, Keppel, Sembcorp, Siemens, Veolia, McKinsey & Company with their city solutions, and NGOs such as the Singapore Environmental Council and Conservation International.

Singapore's agencies are working closely with such partners under the new 'urban solutions' thrust to identify and develop solutions to the problems confronting cities. They range from urban master-planning, public housing, water and waste management, to preserving biodiversity and infrastructure financing. Comprehensive solutions are needed for many of the complex urban problems involving cross-cutting issues like water, energy and food security.

Galvanising leadership from public, private and people sectors

While the path to building a sustainable future for our cities is complex and hinges on numerous factors which require holistic and integrated solutions, good governance and leadership are essential.

Dealing with the complex challenges of urbanisation will require a great deal of government effort, involving the public, private and people sectors.

Partnerships between government and industry players which tap on the dynamism and expertise of the private sector will help drive the development and adoption of urban solutions, leading to mutually beneficial outcomes for both industry and the urban environment. Likewise the community at large must also play their part in fostering liveable, vibrant, and distinctive cities.

It is in this context that Singapore is hosting the second World Cities Summit this month. Currently, there is no single strategic platform where leaders, policymakers and solution providers can converge to discuss the challenges facing cities in a holistic manner.

With a high-level gathering of more than 25 ministers and 40 mayors and governors from all over the world making their way to Singapore to discuss practical, replicable, and scaleable solutions for urban sustainability, the World Cities Summit aims to provide such a platform.

Key highlights include a series of high-level plenaries and expert panel sessions, the inaugural World Mayors' Forum, and the award of the inaugural Lee Kuan Yew World City Prize to Bilbao City Hall.

This is an exciting era for cities such as Singapore. As we see the global economy picking up, we know that the massive urbanisation seen in recent years is only going to accelerate. The opportunity is here for governments, industries, and communities to make cities more liveable and sustainable.

The consequences of not doing so are immense but the rewards of our efforts to improve the livelihoods of millions promise to be even greater.

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Hydrogen power for JTC building

Developer's CleanTech One building to be first of its kind here in 2011
Grace Chua Straits Times 12 Jun 10;

THE first building in the upcoming CleanTech Park in Jurong will be the first in Singapore to run on hydrogen power generated in-house.

To be completed late next year, the developer JTC Corporation's CleanTech One building will have a one-megawatt power plant that will generate hydrogen when it is fed wood chips, plant waste and other biological material.

The fuel-cell plant, expected to provide about 20 per cent of CleanTech One's power needs, is the latest foray into hydrogen-fuel technology here.

The fuel produces no polluting carbon dioxide when turned into energy and is hence regarded as 'clean'.

Companies and institutions worldwide are trying to adopt hydrogen-fuel technology as a possible replacement for fossil fuels, which produce carbon dioxide when burned to generate electricity.

The accumulation of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has been identified as a key factor behind climate change.

Besides chugging along on hydrogen power, CleanTech One has other eco-friendly features, including the generous use of natural ventilation, a dehumidifier powered by solar energy and a biodigester to decompose food waste cleanly, a JTC spokesman said.

JTC's director of its aerospace, marine and cleantech cluster Tang Wai Yee said CleanTech One would be a test-bed for such technology, and expressed hope that other clean technologies would be discovered or commercialised there.

Hydrogen fuel cells work by converting the chemical energy of hydrogen into electricity and water. The gas can be obtained from hydrocarbon-containing fuels like natural gas, biogas and diesel.

Cost is one obstacle to its wider use.

Producing power from hydrogen fuel cells now costs about $4,000 per kilowatt (kW), said Mr Avier Lim, the founder of fuel-cell firm GasHub Technology.

This price tag makes hydrogen power generation competitive only in places like rural Indonesia, for instance, where the costs of diesel-power generation and generator maintenance are relatively high.

Statistics from the United States Department of Energy put the cost of diesel-power generation at US$800 to US$1,500 (S$1,130 to S$2,120) per kW.

Developer JTC would not disclose the cost of its hydrogen fuel cell plant; it would say only that it was included in the $90 million it cost to design and build its building.

GasHub's Mr Lim reckons a plant that size can take three to four years to recoup its costs, depending on its efficiency.

Hydrogen fuel projects have had a patchy record here.

In last year's Shell Eco-Marathon, a hydrogen fuel cell car built by a National University of Singapore team travelled 484km on a single litre of the fuel.

But previous hydrogen-fuel pilot projects, such as a scheme to make small, powerful power generators, have failed.

The Rolls Royce one costing US$100 million to US$200 million started five years ago, in which the Singapore Government had a stake, could not progress to production stage due to technical issues.

Mr Lim said fuel cells need more support infrastructure and government endorsement, as is available in other countries.

Associate Professor Lu Wen Feng of the National University of Singapore, who supervises the Eco-Marathon hydrogen car team, said the efficiency and reliability of fuel cells need improving.

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SOS! Malaysians hooked on seafood

Save Our Seafood campaign urges them to cut down to prevent depletion
Elizabeth Looi, Straits Times 12 Jun 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians have been advised to cut down their consumption of pomfret, lobster, ray and other popular sea fish if they want to save them from depletion.

The call by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia urges Malaysians to refrain from eating sea fish that are overfished, caught or farmed using methods that are damaging to the environment.

Malaysia's seafood consumption is the highest in South-east Asia, and the second largest in Asia after Japan, with an average consumption of 1.4 billion kg every year, the non-governmental organisation (NGO) stated.

This eating preference is leading to the depletion of fisheries resources in the waters surrounding the country, green groups believe.

WWF - with a local NGO, Malaysian Nature Society - launched a Save Our Seafood campaign this week to promote sustainable seafood choices.

'We must be more responsible in our consumption of fish because we simply cannot afford to deplete our oceans of marine life, as it would jeopardise one of our key food sources as well as the fisheries industry that sustains millions of livelihoods,' said WWF Malaysia executive director and chief executive officer Dionysius Sharma at the launch of the campaign.

A palm-size Malaysia Sustainable Seafood Guidebook unveiled at the launch advises Malaysians to avoid 21 types of seafood. It also names 13 species they should be wary of or think twice before eating.

Of the 50 most popular Malaysian seafood species, the book recommends that Malaysians eat only 17, such as anchovies, tuna and Indian mackerel, which have not been over-exploited. The list is based on a 21-month study by WWF that included seafood eating habits in the country.

Apart from being a big consumer, Malaysia is also among the top exporters of seafood, mainly to Europe. The seafood industry is the second largest food export industry in the country, with a total export value of over RM2.5 billion (S$1.07 billion) every year.

In 2007, the total fish production was 1.65 million tonnes valued at RM5.8 billion. It went up to 1.75 million tonnes the following year, recording a value of RM7.4 billion.

Seafood lovers, however, are not willing to give up their favourite food so fast. Instead of blaming consumers for the rapid depletion, the government must take the responsibility to enforce stricter measures on fishing methods, they say.

'We have allowed seafood species to be harvested even before they are ready for consumption, unlike Western countries, where you can't take in a catch if it does not meet the required length or weight,' said seafood lover E.K. Cheah, whose father and grandfather were fishermen.


List to help you watch what you eat
Straits Times 12 Jun 10;

SOME of the WWF recommendations:

Avoid eating:
# Silver pomfret, black pomfret
# Ray
# Threadfin breams
# Flounder
# Indian squid, needle cuttlefish
# Mud spiny lobster, slipper lobster
# Bigeye trevally
# Brown stripe red snapper
# Coral trout
# Orange-spotted grouper

Eat occasionally:
# Sea cucumber
# John's snapper, red snapper
# Flower crab
# Banana prawn
# Coral grouper
# Sea bass
# Tiger prawn, whiteleg prawn
# Brown-marbled grouper

Recommended eating choice:
# Anchovies
# Oval squid
# Tuna
# Indian mackerel, Spanish mackerel
# Mangrove red snapper
# Humpback grouper, giant grouper
# Oysters
# Mud crab

Read more!

More hotspots detected despite Indonesia's pledge to reduce forest fires

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 11 Jun 10;

The government’s pledge to reduce forest fires in attempt to help slow climate change is now under question after a report revealed the number of recorded hotspots soared last year.

The 2009 State Environment Report launched by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono showed the number of fire hotspots rose to 32,416 in 2009 from only 19,192 in the previous year.

The Environment Ministry pointed its finger at weak law enforcement and a lack of supervision from local authorities for the increasing number.

“Illegal land clearing with fires by local people in Kalimantan and Sumatra is still rampant,” Heddy Mukna, deputy assistant for forest and land management at the Environment Ministry told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

He said that in Kalimantan, local administrations were forced to withdraw policies prohibiting land clearing due the protests from local people.

“It [land clearing] caused the increase number of hotspots in Kalimantan last year.”

The report showed the number of hotspots in West Kalimantan increased to 7,276 in 2009 from 2,881 in the previous year.

In Central Kalimantan, the total number of hotspots reached 4,942 last year from only 1,852 in 2008, while in South Kalimantan fires jumped to 1,291 from only 372 in 2008.

Read more!

Time to act on wildlife corridors, says Sabah

Ruben Sario The Star 12 Jun 10;

KOTA KINABALU: Enough talk, says the Sabah Government, which wants a time frame for the establishment of urgently-needed corridors in forests divided by plantations.

State Tourism, Culture and Environ­ment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun said the time for talking was over.

“We need to quantify our progress in the establishment of these corridors. These should no longer be open-ended commitments,” he said when closing a two-day workshop on action plans for the conservation of the Borneo Sumatran rhinocerous, pygmy elephants and orang utan in Tuaran near here yesterday.

He said the state would also push for the re-establishment of 500m-wide tracts of forests or riparian reserves along banks of key rivers such the Kinabatangan and Segama.

Acknowledging that much of the land for forest corridors and riparian reserves were now owned by plantations, notably oil palm, Masidi said the state was counting on the cooperation of their owners to “voluntarily” make the areas available.

“We hope they are willing to hand over the land as a token contribution to ensure the perpetuity of our wildlife.

“We need to have a good balance between agriculture and environmental conservation, more so if it involves iconic species such as the orang utan and elephants,” he said, adding that state authorities would be working with the Malaysian Palm Oil Council on the matter.

Masidi said action plans for the orang utan, rhinocerous and elephants showed Sabah was heading in the right direction.

The action plans call for, among others, the urgent establishment of the forest corridors as scientific work over many years have come up with results that show that each species was endangered due to a number of reasons, which include forest fragmentation.

Currently, Sabah has 11,000 orang utan, that is 80% of Malaysia’s wild orang-utan population.

The Borneo pygmy elephant is estimated to number 2,000 and is only found in Sabah and on the border with Kalimantan.

The survival of Bornean subspecies of the Sumatran rhinocerous is the most dire with an estimated 40 left.

The workshop involving wildlife experts and representatives from the plantation and tourism sectors was organised by the Sabah Wildlife Department.

Read more!

Measures to cope with rising sea levels in Mekong Delta

VOV News 12 Jun 10;

The Institute of Water Resources and Environment (IWRE) has put forth a series of measures to help Mekong Delta provinces deal with climate change, rising sea levels and floods.

At a seminar on an overall plan for Mekong Delta given of climate change and rising sea levels held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development (MARD) in Hanoi on June 11, IWRE representatives pointed out three major solutions, including upgrading and linking tide control and salinity prevention systems with flood mitigation and drainage systems to protect production.

Regional localities should complete dyke works to ensure partial flood control as well as strengthen flood drainage and control works through the lower sections of the Tien and Vam Co Rivers, they suggested.

According to MARD Deputy Minister Dao Xuan Hoc, the Mekong Delta is a region predicted to be hardest hit by climate change and rising sea levels. Once it happens, the region’s flood drainage will face more difficulties, especially for the Long Xuyen Quadrangle and the southwest part of the Hau River.

A MARD research shows that climate change has prolonged flooding time in the Mekong Delta by 1-2 months, greatly affecting agricultural production, particularly rice growing, in the region.

The Mekong Delta is known as Vietnam’s largest granary and seafood depot with its rice and seafood outputs accounting for 53 percent and 60 percent of the country’s totals respectively.

Read more!

Report finds some good news for Great Barrier Reef

Sarah Clarke ABC Net 12 Jun 10;

ELIZABETH JACKSON: After facing what appeared to be a gloomy outlook, there's finally some good news for the Great Barrier Reef.

After a hot summer, and a series of heatwaves last year, scientists say late monsoonal conditions protected much of the coral from a major bleaching event.

But a new study shows mortality in the world's tropical oceans is increasing, and as bleaching becomes more common, corals simply aren't getting enough time to recover.

Our environment reporter Sarah Clarke travelled to the Great Barrier Reef for this report.

SARAH CLARKE: 2009 may have been the second warmest year on record, ending the hottest decade in a century, but that heat didn't translate to ocean temperatures, with a trough delivering last minute respite for much of Australia's oceans.

Ray Berkelmans is from the Australian Institute of Marine Science.

RAY BERKELMANS: Thankfully, just around Christmas time the active monsoon trough started and that persisted for just about most of the summer.

So together with high cloud cover and strong winds, that kept us from getting warm conditions for most of the summers.

SARAH CLARKE: Those cooler conditions chilled the ocean, protecting much of the Great Barrier Reef. There was some mild bleaching recorded in the southern region but the worst was further north.

Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is from the University of Queensland.

OVE HOEGH-GULDBERG: Right up in northern Australia, you know, in the Torres Strait region you had extremely warm weather for a very long period of time; that pushed sea temperatures above the long term summer maximum by several degrees, and of course that's what drove bleaching.

SARAH CLARKE: Bleaching occurs when coral's stress in unusually warmer waters. The worst events in Australia were recorded in 1998 and 2002. Some parts of the Great Barrier Reef have since recovered, but there has been some coral mortality.

And a study by John Bruno from the University of North Carolina now shows between one and two per cent of the world's tropical corals are being lost each year.

JOHN BRUNO: Well Sarah, we've seen coral reefs degrading over the last three or four decades. So we don't have a lot of data from the late 60s and the early 70s, but we're quite sure things started really taking off in the early to mid 80s.

So our best guess is that we've lot about half of the world's living coral cover over the last three or four decades.

SARAH CLARKE: That's combined with new research which suggests that it can take some corals up to 18 months to recover. And as bleaching events become more common, some species won't have enough time to rebuild.

And that translates to a grim outlook for unique places like the Great Barrier Reef, according to Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland.

OVE HOEGH-GULDBERG: Now, you can never say from one season to the next that the next year is going to be a mass bleaching event, but what we're seeing is that that overall risk is increasing over time as the temperature goes up.

You don't have to be a mathematical genius to work out that, you know, 30 to 40 years from now we've lost most of the coral that we have here today, and that's why a lot of us are very concerned.

ELIZABETH JACKSON: Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the University of Queensland ending that report from Sarah Clarke.

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"Pirate fishing" takes root off West African coast

Richard Valdmanis Reuters 11 Jun 10;

OUAKAM BEACH Senegal (Reuters) - Saliou N'Diaye comes from a long line of once-wealthy Lebou fishermen who call the Cap Vert peninsula on Africa's western tip home. But he hopes his children don't follow him to the sea.

"There are no fish left now," he said, fingering the blade of a knife and surveying the dozens of brightly painted wooden boats on the cliff-framed beach at Ouakam north of Dakar.

"We spend a week at sea to bring back $10 worth of fish. It is not a life I want for my children."

It is a story echoed in villages all along West Africa's coast, an area once famous for its rich fishing grounds but which experts say is being ruined by ever-increasing illegal trawling by international vessels.

European and Asian fleets, drawn by the zone's shoddy maritime surveillance, are taking as much as $1 billion worth of illegal catch each year from West Africa's waters to feed voracious demand back home, experts say, threatening a key source of local food and employment.

Fishermen say declines in catches have led many to attempt do-or-die boat rides to Europe, a symbol of hope in a poverty-stricken region, and hundreds of rickety boats are believed to sink among the Atlantic's white caps each year.

"Pirate fishing is having a direct impact on some of the world's poorest people," said Pape Samba Diouf of the World Wildlife Fund in Dakar. "The biggest problem is the inability of coastal states in the region to patrol their own waters."

The global fishing fleet takes in about 90 billion metric tons of marine fish per year and experts estimate that a fifth of that is captured illegally, particularly in regions ill-equipped to enforce their maritime boundaries.

The European Union said it has passed strict regulations barring vessels from engaging in illegal fishing. "They have to act in full transparency to the specific rules coming from international agreements," said European Commission fisheries spokesman Oliver Drewes.

But environmental groups say trawlers are flouting the regulations, and making use of lax enforcement at ports like Las Palmas in Spain's Canary Islands to shuffle illegal catches in with legitimate ones before shipment to European markets.

"The situation continues to be bad and is very likely getting worse," said Steve Trent, director of Environmental Justice Foundation which has taken surveys of fishing vessels active in the area. He said as many as 60 percent of the fishing vessels off Guinea's coast are unlicensed.

PIRATE BOATS

In the palm-fringed Ivory Coast fishing village of Lahou, sandwiched between a thin sliver of lagoon and the Atlantic ocean, fishermen stand in the waves casting their nets.

Residents say the fish on which they depend are fast disappearing and blame "Chinese" boats, as they call them, because they say most of the crews look east Asian.

"It's no longer profitable to fish," said Henry Joel Segui, as he stood in the sand repairing his net. "There are boats which come and cause us trouble, those Chinese over there," he said, nodding toward the black shape of a trawler out to sea.

West Africa's best fishing grounds -- stretching from Mauritania in the north to Angola in the south -- have traditionally teemed with tuna, dorado, and other fish species drawn by a nutrient-rich upwelling current.

That resource has for centuries supported fishing communities with food and employment in a job-scarce region where 75 percent of available protein comes from the sea.

While data on local catches is hard to find in the region, Ivory Coast says its reported catch fell 30 percent last year and is down to about a quarter of its recent peaks.

Jeanson Djobo Anvran, director of Ivory Coast's fishing regulator, said the illegal trawlers came from China, Korea and all over Europe.

"We don't have the means to properly oversee our fishing grounds," he said. "To counter these pirates requires international cooperation."

Africom, the U.S. military command center for Africa, has been running training programs for West African navies and coast guards to combat piracy and illegal fishing though experts say a lack of boats and money for fuel is a key stumbling block.

In Lahou, Ivorian fish seller Helene Lizier held up her measly wares of two small fish from her plastic bucket. "Everyone is suffering because of those boats," she said.

(Additional reporting by Tim Cocks in Abidjan and Pete Harrison in Brussels; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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West Africans rue rising seas as climate talks stall

Tim Cocks and Loucoumane Coulibaly, Reuters 11 Jun 10;

GRAND-LAHOU, Ivory Coast, June 11 (Reuters) - When the ocean swallowed up their homes, it also divided the people of this sleepy Ivorian fishing village -- half of them moved inland, the other half stayed to brave the waves.

Picking through the decaying, algae-caked shell of a concrete house that was ruined years ago by the advancing Atlantic, fisherman Jack Baueur said he had no regrets.

"It would have been too hard to leave," he said. "We were born here. We don't want to start a life somewhere else. We're going to stay here until the sea floods us out."

In populated coastal West Africa, rising sea levels linked to the melting of the polar ice caps are conspiring with coastal erosion to slowly submerge communities.

Climate negotiators from around the world were winding up talks in Bonn, Germany, on Friday, to try to thrash out a new U.N. treaty on global warming and CO2 emissions, after failing to reach a binding deal in Copenhagen last year.

But it may be 2011 before any a replacement for the 1997 Kyoto Protocol emerges, despite pleas from poorer nations worst effected by climate change -- such as the small island states which see rising sea levels as an existential threat.

Coastal West Africans powerless to influence the horse trading in Bonn want urgent help to adapt to higher seas.

"The developed countries are at the root of this, so we can do nothing. I want them to come to our aid, because we are the people threatened, we are the ones suffering," said Baueur, as goats scavenged in the wreckage of a beach house completely levelled except for its cement staircase.

"THE SEA IS SWEEPING US AWAY"

The U.N.'s climate change panel predicts global warming will raise the sea by 18 to 59 cm (7 and 24 inches) this century, submerging low lying parts of coastal Africa, especially the densely populated major cities of West Africa, although the rate is disputed between scientists.

Africa has 320 coastal cities and 56 million people living in coastal zones less than 10 metres above sea level.

"The sea is sweeping us away," said Grand Lahou market trader Marie Ebesse, who has already had to move four times.

"We're crying for help. Someone has to rescue us."

But experts say the retreat of West Africa's coast is exacerbated by poor land management on the coast and badly planned buildings -- some think these are the lead cause.

"Yes, the melting glaciers are pushing up the seas, but for a us a far bigger concern is coastal erosion," said Marc Guinhouya, the chief pollution monitor of Togo, a tiny country with nearly half its population living on the coast.

"Every country (in West Africa) must try to construct barriers to protect its coast. We are using rocks and breakwaters and the effects are palpable. In places, the sea is pushed back over nearly 50 metres," he added.

Perhaps the biggest challenge is faced by West Africa's megacity of Lagos in Nigeria, where some 15 million people live on islands, along beaches and on the edge of lagoons.

The Lagos government has tried to reinforce sand banks that separate the mouth of the main lagoon from the Atlantic. They have also built new canals, dredged existing ones and fixed drains to ease flooding.

But analysts say poor urban planning in West Africa has left a huge amount of coastal property vulnerable -- sea walls meant to prevent erosion worsen it, as the waves crash on them, sucking the sand from all around them.

For many, there may be no choice but to move.

That doesn't please Vincent Aboya, whose beachfront walls on the Ivory Coast hotel he founded three decades ago are cracked and crumbling from the lashing of waves.

"I can't do this alone," he said. "We need the government help to construct defences against that sea." (Additional reporting by John Zodzi; writing by Tim Cocks; editing by Philippa Fletcher)

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New UN climate text under fire as talks end

Alister Doyle Reuters 11 Jun 10;

BONN Germany (Reuters) - Rich and poor nations alike criticized a new blueprint for a U.N. climate treaty on Friday as two weeks of talks among 185 countries ended with small steps toward an elusive deal.

A streamlined climate draft, meant to help talks on a new pact, cut out some of the most draconian options for greenhouse gas and dropped all references to "Copenhagen" -- where a U.N. summit in December fell short of agreeing a treaty.

"The group is dismayed that the ... text is unbalanced," developing nations in the Group of 77 and China said in a statement. Several of them said the 22-page text wrongly put emphasis on greenhouse gas curbs by the poor, not the rich.

Among rich nations, the United States said it would study the text but that some elements were "unacceptable." The European Union also expressed "concerns" about the text, which updates a previous 42-page draft rejected last week.

The new text outlines a goal of cutting world emissions of greenhouse gases by "at least 50-85 percent from 1990 levels by 2050" and for developed nations to reduce emissions by at least 80-95 percent from 1990 levels by mid-century.

It drops far more radical options, some championed by Bolivia, for a cut of at least 95 percent in world emissions by 2050 as part of a fight to slow droughts, floods, a spread of disease and rising sea levels.

Margaret Mukahanana-Sangarwe of Zimbabwe, who chairs the U.N. talks on action by all nations to slow global warming, said the text would be updated for a next meeting in Bonn in August.

SHORTCOMINGS

Yvo de Boer, the departing head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, said he felt the main reaction to the text was that, "yes, it has shortcomings...but that people are willing to take it as the basis for future work."

Many delegates say that a new legally binding deal is out of reach for 2010 and now more likely in 2011. Apart from deep splits over negotiating texts, U.S. legislation on cutting emissions is stalled in the Senate.

The May 31-June 11 session was the biggest since Copenhagen, where more than 120 nations agreed a non-binding deal to limit a rise in average world temperatures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) over pre-industrial times.

But it lacked details of how to reach this goal.

"This session has made important progress...Countries have been talking to each other rather than at each other," de Boer said of the Bonn talks.

De Boer said there was progress on climate funds, sharing green technology and issues such as slowing deforestation. He said an extra meeting of negotiators was likely in China before an annual meeting in Mexico from November 29-December 10.

The new draft text keeps some elements of the Copenhagen Accord, including a plan for aid to developing nations of $10 billion a year from 2010 to 2012, rising to more than $100 billion from 2020.

Australian delegate Robert Owen-Jones announced in Bonn that Canberra was contributing 559 million Australian dollars ($469 million) to the 2010-12 funds.

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