Best of our wild blogs: 15 Jun 10

Beting Bronok annual checkup
from wild shores of singapore and wonderful creations and The annotated budak and Singapore Nature and colourful clouds and psychedelic nature

Signs of coral bleaching at Beting Bronok
from wild shores of singapore

What is Coral Bleaching and What it means for the Corals
from Where Discovery Begins

双溪布洛六月华语导游图集 Album of the mandarin guide walk @ SBWR in June
from PurpleMangrove

Valuing nature, doing what with the numbers?
from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black

When nature saves your life
from Mongabay.com news

Borneo's lush forests are an illusion: trees grow on deserts
from Mongabay.com news

Raffles Museum Treasures: Spider conch
from Lazy Lizard's Tales

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Abandoned dogs: Microchips 'not a magic bullet'

Straits Times 15 Jun 10;

THERE are now a record 58,000 licensed dogs in Singapore, of which more than half, or 34,000 of them, are microchipped.

But microchipping, which has been compulsory with new dog licence applications since September 2007, does not seem to have cut down the number of lost dogs or helped reunite them with their owners. 'If it's working, it's not evident to us,' said Ms Deirdre Moss, executive officer of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).

The SPCA receives 80 to 90 lost dogs a month, most without identification, and only 10 per cent to 20 per cent have a microchip that can be traced to an owner.

The figures are similar at Action for Singapore Dogs' rescue centre: For every 10 dogs it receives, only about three are microchipped, and only one of those three is licensed.

Microchipping - implanting a tiny electronic device between the animal's shoulder blades - is not a magic bullet to ending pet abandonment, said vets and rescue groups. If the chip number is not linked to an owner's name and address in a database, there is no way to track down the owner.

All dogs older than three months are supposed to be licensed, to control the spread of rabies. Failure to comply with the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority's Animals and Birds (Dog Licensing and Control) Rules can lead to a maximum fine of $5,000.

GRACE CHUA

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Community gardening seen as a means of social integration

Planting the seeds for blooming ties
Hoe Pei Shan Straits Times 15 Jun 10;

COMMUNITY gardening can mean much more than merely planting trees in public places.

In multicultural, multiracial cities such as Singapore, it also helps to bring the community closer together.

The bonding effect of community gardening was highlighted to 230 participants at the Creating Liveable Cities Through Community Gardens seminar at Orchard Parade Hotel yesterday.

Part of the seminar series this year by the Centre for Urban Greenery and Ecology (CUGE), the event was the first of its kind on community gardening.

CUGE is jointly established by the National Parks Board (NParks) and the Workforce Development Agency.

With 390 local community gardening groups emerging in just five years, gardening has become a means of social integration, learning and community building.

'In multiracial, multicultural Singapore, community gardening is a great way to get to know one's neighbours and make friends,' said Mr Wilson Wong, founder of Green Culture Singapore - the leading online gardening forum here - and one of the speakers yesterday. The 31-year-old started a community garden in Serangoon North in 2007, which was featured in BBC's 2008 television series Around The World In 80 Gardens.

Someone who attests to the success of community gardens as avenues for social bonding is Mr Melvin Gamayot, a Filipino who came to Singapore in 1994.

Mr Gamayot, 42, who admitted he had 'never planted a tree in his life' before coming here, gamely decided to contribute to the Pasir Ris Zone 5 residents' committee (RC) community garden after moving into the area in 2006.

Armed with two potted plants, he brought his Filipino wife and three children to the eco-garden to mingle with his neighbours.

'I did not want to isolate myself and I knew it was up to me to make an effort,' said the architect who decided to take up Singapore citizenship in 2007.

'It is a great way to find playmates for the kids, too.'

Giving the keynote speech yesterday, Mr Nigel Colborn, former vice-chairman and current member of the Royal Horticultural Society's Council in Britain, also stressed the significance of plant life to both the ecosystem and urban communities. He advocated gardening in public plots of land as a means of encouraging people to have a stake in the nation. Community gardening also safeguards the green areas through inspiring responsibility and commitment to these projects.

Comparing NParks' Community In Bloom programme, which promotes and facilitates gardening efforts by the community, to the state of community gardening in Britain, Mr Colborn found Singapore to have 'achieved more in a far shorter time', making it a 'shining example to other countries'.

As the local gardening groups are based in only 32 per cent of all RCs and 35 per cent of private housing estates, according to NParks director of streetscape Simon Longman, he pointed out that there is much more potential for the growth of these communities.

Taking up a suggestion from Mr Colborn, Mr Longman revealed that NParks is considering a nationwide, inter-constituency gardening competition that could be inaugurated as early as next year to coincide with the arrival of the 20th World Orchid Conference to Singapore.

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Satellite tag reveals tale of shark Sammy in the wild

Transmission from tracking device on whale shark shows where the animal travelled for 33 days
Emmanuelle Landais Gulfnews 15 Jun 10;

Dubai: The satellite tag of a baby female whale shark released back into the wild by a Dubai hotel's marine department earlier this year has popped up showing where she travelled for 33 days.

Sammy the whale shark was placed in Atlantis, The Palm in August 2008 and released in March this year.

No photos of the secret nighttime release were issued by the hotel but the tag's information has now been mapped by Mote Marine Laboratory scientists in the United States.

Scientists have satellite-tagged 30 other whale sharks in the wild. Sammy, at 4.6-metres long, is believed to be the first whale shark tracked via satellite tag in the Arabian Gulf.

Check out the tracking map for Sammy

She showed normal swimming behavior during her month-long tracking period, including diving and surfacing regularly.

Her satellite tag, programmed to "pop up" and float to the surface 100 days after her tag and release, detached two months early on April 20.

It is unknown why this happened but not unusual for satellite tags to come off early.

"Even though the whale shark's tag detached early, we have put together a good-quality picture of her travels for her first month after release," said Dr. Robert Hueter, Director of Mote's Center for Shark Research and leader of the tracking project.

"After Atlantis staff tagged and released her off Dubai, the whale shark took a mostly westward path through the Arabian Gulf, traveling south of Iran and then curving southward to waters off the coast of Qatar, ending up about 348 km west of her starting point," Hueter said.

The tag reveals that between March 18 and April 20 Sammy experienced temperatures of between 22.6 and 26.8 degrees Celcius, came to the surface at least once each day, and dove as deep as 72 metres. The Arabian Gulf's average depth is 50 metres and its maximum depth is 90 metres.

The satellite tag stored location data based on sunlight levels. Mote scientists analysed the raw data, looking at dawn and dusk times along with day length to estimate the shark's position.

Those sunlight conditions change with latitude and longitude, allowing the scientists to estimate the shark's location over the course of the track.

"That's normal behaviour similar to what we've observed in other whale sharks," Hueter said.

"Atlantis is thrilled that Mote Marine Laboratory has been able to track the whale shark's progress and share the collected data so the entire whale shark community can continue to learn from her," said Steve Kaiser, Vice President of Marine Science and Engineering at Atlantis, The Palm in Dubai, which provided funding for the tag, satellite transmission, and data analysis.

The Atlantis team bought a total of five tags from Mote in 2007.

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Greenpeace on EU sustainability guidelines on palm oil production

Antara 14 Jun 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The weak sustainability guidelines published by the European Union (EU) recently on biofuels, demonstrate the growing concern among consumer countries about palm oil production and deforestation, Greenpeace Southeast Asia said.

Under the new guidelines, palm oil producers will be required to show that they have not converted forests or drained peatlands after 2008, the environmentalist organization said in a press statement over the weekend.

"These new sustainability criteria are yet another indication that global markets are demanding palm oil producers to change their destructive practices. Palm oil from deforestation or peatland clearance going into biofuels is not an option," said Bustar Maitar, Forest Team Leader of Greenpeace South East Asia.

While the revised criteria are an improvement, including the closure of a major loophole - defining palm oil plantations as forests - they remain problematic because a number of issues are not dealt with.

The guidelines are still too weak to prevent conversion of some non-pristine forests, and are unclear on how proposed safeguards for peatland will work and be monitored, despite their critical importance.

The EU also failed to address the issue of indirect land-use change (ILUC) impacts , the biggest risk of biofuel expansion as highlighted by respected international institutions, Greenpeace said.

Greenpeace EU forest policy director Sebastien Risso said: "Dirty biofuels exacerbate climate change and lead to the destruction of rainforests. Under the current scheme, Europeans wanting to cut their carbon footprint could actually make the problem worse by using biofuels. The worst biofuels are actually more polluting than petrol and there is a very real risk that Europe`s cars will run on forest destruction and animal extinction."

The growing demand for palm oil, including for biofuels, is putting immense pressure on Indonesia`s forests. Annually, Indonesia loses almost 2 million hectares of forests, and is the third largest emitter on the planet.

In particular, the conversion of carbon-rich peat lands causes considerable Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions.

"Multinationals and the EU are giving Indonesia`s industry and government a clear signal: stop clearing forests and draining peatlands. Now it is time to take the necessary steps to change the bad image of Indonesian palm oil. That means no more palm oil expansion to forests and peatlands," said Bustar Maitar.

"President Yudhoyono must go beyond his moratorium on new concessions and declare a moratorium on current deforestation and protect all peatlands," he added.

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Indonesia to have difficulty achieving Millennium Development Goals targets

Antara 15 Jun 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia will have difficulty achieving its MDG (Millennium Development Goals) targets because of the low commitment of its government and political institutions to prioritizing health and education, a developmental economist said.

"I am pessimistic about Indonesia`s ability to achieve its MDG targets by 2015," University of Indonesia (UI) economic development lecturer Mayling Oey Gardiner said in a speech to mark her appointment as a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI) here Monday.

She said, in 2009, a total of 189 UN member countries had committed themselves to attaining the following eight goals : fighting poverty and hunger, making education available to all, encouraging gender equality and woman`s empowerment, reducing infant mortality, improving maternal health, combating HIV/AIDS, malaria, and other contagious diseases, ensuring preservation of the environment, and promoting global partnerships for development.

According Mayling, Indonesia managed to lower its poverty rate from 20.6 percent in 1990 to 16.6 percent in 2007, but the poor people were identified as those living on less than one US dollar per capita per day.

"But if the spending level was raised to two US dollars per capita per day, there would still be 49 percent of the population categorized as poor," she said.

In terms of realizing elementary education for all, if elementary education was defined as nine years of schooling, Indonesia`s target was still a long way off.

"In 2007 the pure participation rate in elementary education was 94 percent but the pure participation rate of children aged 13 to 15 years in secondary education was only 67 percent, and so far there had been no breakthrough to increase this figure," she said.

She regretted that the government was now enthusiastically subsidizing so-called international-standard schools with as much Rp500 million a year per school while there was no subsiidy at all to enable elementary school children in remote parts of the country to continue their studies at secondary schools as called for in the MDG program.

In the public health field, Mayling said, she had so far not heard a firm government commitment to prioritize the lowering of the maternal and infant mortality rate while its MDG target called for reduction of the current figure to 102 per 100,000 deliveries by 2015.

"A survey in 2007 put the maternal mortality rate at 228 per 100,000 deliveries. This was related to the fact that a high number of deliveries took place without the assistance of trained medical personnel, namely one-third of deliveries," she said. (*)

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Rising sea levels to blame for many Ho Chi Minh City floods

Vietnam News 15 Jun 10;

HCM CITY — Staying one step ahead of climate change and not avoiding direct confrontation with the phenomenon was one of many adaptation strategies proposed yesterday at a conference in HCM City.

The conference identified several approaches, strategies and measures to adapt to climate change as HCM City pursued its development goals, including learning from the experiences of Rotterdam City.

Nguyen Thai Lai, deputy minister of Natural Resources and Environment, said the climate change impacts challenged the city, but they should also be seen as an opportunity to "identify directions for development."

The rise in sea levels, increasing temperatures and rainfall were flooding around 117 wards regularly during the rainy season, said Dao Anh Kiet, director of HCM City's Department of Natural Resources and Environment. "With a 75cm sea level rise in 2050, 10 per cent of the city's area will be totally flooded," he said.

Outlining the strategy of keeping one step ahead of the weather phenomenon, Dao Xuan Hoc, deputy minister of Agriculture and Rural Development advised the city to stick to its plan of moving towards the sea.

"Developing the city in the eastern direction is one of the ways for us to adapt to climate change actively," he said.

Vu Thuy Hai of the Urban and Rural Planning Sub-Institute under the Ministry of Construction said the Prime Minister had in January approved a master plan for HCM City for the 2025-35 period that included the development direction to the sea.

Under this plan, the city developed port townships in Hiep Phuoc Ward, taking advantage of the Soai Rap estuary, as well as enhanced urban development in the way to Cai Mep – Thi Vai estuary in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, she said.

Tredo Vellinga of the Port of Rotterdam said moving ports from the inner city to the coastal area was a wise move that his city had also taken as an adaptation measure, taking back inland spaces for residential development.

He recommended that HCM City assess the effects of climate change on the development of low-lying and flood prone areas and develop research programmes to gather evidence on climate change impacts.

Velinga said it was necessary to keep the original geometry of tributaries and to control the discharge of waste into rivers.

Arnoud Molenaar, climate adaptation director of Rotterdam City praised the initiative shown by HCM City authorities "to act in time and start in time... to adapt well to the situation of climate change impacts."

He said Rotterdam was trying to ensure that all its plans and projects including supply of water and power were aligned with its long-term development vision.

Some Vietnamese participants at the conference didn't feel the application of Dutch models might be suited for HCM City because it has a more complex hydrology system compared with Rotterdam.

An official of the Southern Institute for Irrigation Planning called for prioritising pressing needs. "We should deal first with the matter of irrigation for the city and prioritise it rather than finding approaches to move to the sea."

Kiet noted that the city's strategy for climate change adaptation and city planning has been approved by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment but it could not be prioritised because the work needed to be coordinated by the ministry for the whole region, including the Cuu Long (Mekong) Delta provinces. — VNS

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Nepal orders probe into slaughter of rhinos

Binaj Gurubacharya, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Jun 10;

KATMANDU, Nepal – Nepal's government was investigating the poaching of rhinos in the Himalayan nation after 28 of the endangered animals were killed over the past 11 months, an official said Monday.

Prime Minister Madhav Kumar Nepal and Forest Minister Deepak Bohara summoned conservation officials and the chiefs of police and army Sunday ordering them to come up with a strategy to halt the killings.

The Rhinos are protected by the government and the forests are declared conservation areas. Security forces are tasked with guarding them, however, increased political turmoil in Nepal has meant their redeployment to urban areas.

"Stopping the poaching is a major challenge for us. There is always an increase in poaching of wildlife in the conservation area when there is political problems," said Department of Forest and Wildlife Conservation official Megh Bahadur Pandey.

Indian rhinos are native to northern India and southern Nepal. Only about 200 remained before tough preservation laws began to be stringently enforced in the 20th century. Now there are an estimated 2,500 in the wild, though rhino poaching remains a serious problem.

The last count done in 2008 put the rhino population in Nepal at 435.

The Indian rhino is the second-largest of five living species, about three times the size of a Sumatran at up to 6,000 pounds (2,700 kilograms), standing 6 feet (1.8 meters) tall and 12 feet (3.7 meters) long.

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Failure to protect wetlands puts migratory waterbirds at risk – UN

UN Media Release 14 Jun 10;

14 June 2010 – Efforts to conserve migratory waterbirds are being threatened by the lack of protection of key wetlands used by the birds as they traverse Africa, the Middle East, Europe and Central Asia, according to an inter-agency information website launched today with the support of the United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP).

Migratory waterbirds, such as waders, terns and geese, need an unbroken chain of wetlands to complete their annual life-cycles, according to the new information tool dubbed “Critical Site Network (CSN),” jointly developed by Wetlands International, BirdLife International and the UNEP’s World Conservation Monitoring Centre (UNEP-WCMC).

One third of the critical wetlands, the world’s most vulnerable ecosystems, are entirely unprotected and as a result, an alarming 42 per cent of the migratory waterbird species are in decline, according to the website. The same wetlands benefit people by providing clean water and opportunities for fishing, agriculture, recreation and tourism.

“The Critical Site Network Tool will provide an unprecedented level of access to information for all waterbird species covered by the African-Eurasian Migratory Waterbird Agreement (AEWA),” said Bert Lenten, Executive Secretary of AEWA, an international wildlife treaty administered by UNEP.

“It brings together for the first time some of the most current and comprehensive information available internationally on the species and the sites they use,” he added. “To target conservation efforts effectively, access to reliable information about the critical sites that migratory waterbirds depend upon, and the ecological requirements of these species, is key,” Mr. Lenten stressed.

Marco Lambertini, Chief Executive of BirdLife International, said the CSN identifies priority sites for the protection of migratory waterbirds and highlights knowledge gaps, revealing that many stop-over and non-breeding localities were still not well known.

“Only by combining adequate knowledge, targeted action, appropriate funding and local capacity on the ground will we be able to make a difference for migratory species,” he added.

The tool, whose development was partly funded by the Global Environment Facility (GEF), an international environment financing organization, provides comprehensive information on 294 waterbird species from 3,020 sites. It is designed to make information easily available on the most important sites for migratory waterbirds, both at the national and international level.

In a related development, new conservation plans for the Siberian crane have been endorsed to save the species from extinction, UNEP reported during a meeting of the Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS) in Bonn today.

“During the International Year of Biodiversity, CMS continues to protect this majestic bird and its wetland habitats that are critical to humans and species alike,” said CMS Executive Secretary Elizabeth Maruma Mrema. “Not only [do] these ecosystems supply drinking water, but they act as a flood defence and as carbon sink to mitigate climate change,” she added.

During its annual migration the Siberian crane travels 5,000 kilometres from its breeding grounds in western Siberia and Yakutia, intermediate resting and feeding places, to its wintering sites in southern China and Iran.

In the course of these journeys along three migration routes, called flyways, they overcome considerable obstacles such as high mountains and vast deserts. Major threats such as hunting in West and Central Asia and the drainage of critical wetlands in East Asia put them at an even greater risk. Only 3,000 to 3,500 birds remain globally.

Conservation efforts include the launch earlier this year of the Siberian Crane Wetland Project (SCWP) with a $10.3 million financing from GEF, which was initiated to make the journey of Siberian cranes and other waterbirds safer through securing major waterbird habitats.

The project has succeeded in safeguarding a network of 16 critical wetlands for waterbirds in China, Iran, Kazakhstan and Russia while securing water flows to sustain wetland ecosystem services including supplying purified water to millions of people in the Eurasian region, according to UNEP.

An expansion of the critical site network and infrastructure established during the development of the SCWP will now be applied to hot spots in 11 countries that are signatories to UNEP’s Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species of Wild Animals (CMS).

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French oyster business faces fresh plague crisis

Hugh Schofield BBC News 13 Jun 10;

French oyster-growers are facing ruin because of a viral epidemic that for a third year in a row has been wiping out millions of baby shellfish.

From the Mediterranean coast to the bay of Arcachon on the Atlantic and now Brittany, farmers have been watching in dismay in recent weeks as the virus once again moved northwards, keeping pace with the rising sea temperature.

In 2008 and 2009, the industry was ravaged by the same epidemic, with many farms losing 80-100% of their stocks of naissains - first-year spats.

Because it takes three years to grow a commercially viable oyster, so far the economic impact of the crisis has been limited.

But now all pre-2008 production has been depleted, so major shortages are predicted next winter when demand peaks around Christmas and New Year. In France that is when some 90% of oysters are sold.

The Committee to Save Oyster-Farming - an ad-hoc group set up in answer to the crisis - has warned that 40% of the country's 4,800 mainly family-run businesses could be forced to close, with the loss of thousands of jobs.

The state marine research agency (Ifremer) said it is "one of the worst crises in the history of French oyster-farming".

Man-made problem

Last month hundreds of farmers staged a much-publicised protest in central Paris, dumping lorry-loads of oyster-shells on one of the Seine river bridges.

Their pressure paid off, because the French government has now promised a 150m euro rescue package to tide the industry through the next three years.

Low-tide on the sand flats at Le Po, a hamlet near Carnac in southern Brittany, exposes the poches or bags of oysters being cultivated by Bruno Lemoine. Last week he detected the first signs of the epidemic, with many of the inch-long molluscs lying open and empty.

"The sea here has just reached 17C (62.6F), which is the temperature when the virus hits. In a week or two I predict that 70% of these naissains will be dead. We are in real trouble," he said.

Scientists have no difficulty identifying the cause of the hecatomb. It is a strain of herpes virus designated OsHV-1, which is often accompanied by a bacterium called Vibrio splendidus.

The OsHV-1 virus has been around for millions of years, attacking oysters in the wild. But now oysters are being mass-produced, and in conditions which many believe have encouraged the virus to spread.

"This is not the first time the oyster business has been in crisis, but it is the first time the crisis has been man-made," said Francois Gouzer, whose business at Saint-Philibert has been in the family for three generations.

At issue are the hatcheries - mainly based further south on the Atlantic coast - where in the past five years oyster eggs have been produced by the million with a main eye on the profit margin. The oyster larvae are then transferred elsewhere on the French coast for further cultivation.
'Sorcerers' apprentices'

Some 80% of hatchery shellfish are so-called "triploid" sterile oysters that have been specially developed for the market.

With an extra pair of chromosomes these oysters grow more quickly than conventional "diploids", and do not develop the milky substance that makes ordinary oysters unsellable in the summer months.

"Unofficially everyone thinks the hatcheries are to blame, even if no-one says so openly," says Jacques Cadoret, one of the biggest producers in the country. "Certain sorcerers' apprentices have been playing games in their labs, trying to get oyster eggs by unnatural means."

At Ifremer, scientists say that triploid oysters cannot alone explain the spread of the virus because they have not been noticeably worse hit than diploids.

They also point out that many of those complaning about hatcheries today were the first to urge their creation in order to boost production.

However, they concede that intensive farming methods may be a factor in the current crisis.

"It is true that in recent years production of oysters in France has been absolutely colossal. Certain practices may have been developed that have weakened the species, and made it more susceptible to disease," says Nathalie Cochennec, in charge of tracking the virus at Ifremer.

According to Ms Cochennec, the best hope now is for scientists to breed new strains of the oyster that will prove resistant to the disease. The risk is that this policy could take many years to come to fruition.

Older hands need no reminding of the fragility of oyster farming. In France cultivation dates only from the mid 19th Century, but twice since then entire species have been wiped out by disease: first in the 1920s and then again in 1970.

Today's species - the Pacific oyster or Crassostrea Gigas - has only been cultivated in France for some 40 years.

"There used to be a saying among oyster-farmers - always be ready to move," says Francois Cadoret, now in his 80s, whose family has raised oysters at Locmariacquer since 1870. "People forget it's a most unreliable business."

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'Largest Biological Reservoir' Discovered Below Seafloor

Remy Melina livescience.com 14 Jun 10;

The crust located beneath the ocean floor is the site of what could possibly be the Earth's largest biological reservoir, where scientists have discovered marine microbes thriving in harsh environments without any sunlight.

"I think this research is exciting because it offers us a glimpse into a habitat on Earth that we know next to nothing about," said Beth Orcutt, a post-doctoral fellow at Aarhus University in Denmark and the University of Southern California.

Burrowing more than a mile (1.6 kilometers) underwater and drilling through 850 feet (260 meters) of rock, a group of microbiologists has uncovered a little-explored world under the ocean floor. Using a robotic submarine to probe the harsh environment, the scientists were amazed to find a world teaming with microbial life hidden beneath the sediment.

"I hope that the general public will understand that the ocean isn't just a giant pond with a featureless, unexciting bottom," Orcutt said. "The seafloor and sub-seafloor are exciting environments where microbes rule."

Orcutt and her colleagues developed new hole-boring technologies in order to reach the deep-sea life forms. Because they are buried so far below the ocean floor, the microbes dwelling beneath the marine crust receive no light. The team of microbiologists is studying how these organisms are able to survive in such harsh conditions without having to rely on a light source for energy and sustenance.

"If you consider how much ocean crust there is on Earth, and how much of that is hydrologically active, then this environment could be one of the most massive habitats for microbial life on Earth. There may be new species of life and new types of metabolism that we haven't discovered yet," Orcutt said.

Besides uncovering new species, studying these resilient life forms may provide insight into how microorganisms may live on other planets, braving similarly severe conditions, the researchers believe.

"We have to develop sophisticated experiments to try to learn more about these microbial habitats, experiments which will reveal new information about how life survives and thrives on Earth and maybe about how life may exist on other planets," Orcutt said.

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Green Revolution's diet of big carbon savings

Richard Black BBC News 14 Jun 10;

The Green Revolution of the 1960s raised crop yields and cut hunger - and also saved decades worth of greenhouse gas emissions, a study concludes.

US researchers found cumulative global emissions since 1850 would have been one third as much again without the Green Revolution's higher yields.

Although modern farming uses more energy and chemicals, much less land needs to be cleared.

The study is published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"Converting a forest or some scrubland to an agricultural area causes a lot of natural carbon in that ecosystem to be oxidized and lost to the atmosphere," said Steven Davis, from the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology at Stanford University in California.

"What our study shows is that these indirect impacts from converting land to agriculture outweigh the direct emissions that come from the modern, intensive style of agriculture."
Hunger tackled

The researchers constructed alternative scenarios for how global society might have developed since the 1960s had the new, high-yielding Green Revolution varieties of rice, maize and other crops that raised crop yields in Asia and South America never existed.

These new varieties turned countries such as India, which imported food in the best of times and needed emergency aid in the worst, into major exporters.

Without the new crops - but with the growth in the human population and all the other socio-economic trends seen since the 1960s - feeding the world at current levels would mean the use of more than twice as much land as is currently used for agriculture, the researchers found.

Farming this way would have required less energy and use of chemicals such as fertilisers, whose production involves emissions of CO2 and whose use generates nitrous oxide, another greenhouse gas.

However, additional emissions from the extra land clearance, releasing carbon stored in trees and soil, would have been the more important factor by far.

Meeting extra food demand this way would have released about 160 Gigatonnes (billion tonnes) of carbon (GtC) over the decades - which, the researchers note, "corresponds to 34% of the total 478 GtC emitted by humans between 1850 and 2005".

"That's about 20 years of fossil fuel burning at present rates," observed Dr Davis.
Modern gains

Modern intensive agriculture is often criticised over its relatively heavy use of chemicals, which can impact insects, larger animals and plant life in the vicinity of the farm.

In addition, the run-off of excess fertiliser into rivers and lakes can generate blooms of algae and "dead zones" of water where nothing can survive.

However, strictly from the point of view of greenhouse gas emissions, intensive farming appears to be significantly the better option.

"Our results dispel the notion that industrial agricultural with its petrochemicals is inherently worse for the climate than a more 'old-fashioned' way of doing things," said Dr Davis.

He and his team suggest that policymakers keen to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should look towards further increases in crop yields, which they say might be more economical than other innovations.

Existing research shows that curbing production of meat - which is an inefficient user of land and water - would by itself have some impact on emissions, though by precisely how much is debated.

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What Are Rare Earth Elements?

Jeremy Hsu livescience.com 14 Jun 10;

Mineral deposits in Afghanistan may be worth $1 trillion, according to news reports. The deposits are reported to contain rare earth elements.

The so-called rare earths - which include exotic-sounding elements like dysprosium, cerium, and ytterbium - are actually more abundant than other familiar metals, but tend to become concentrated in less exploitable ore deposits, according to the U.S. Geological Survey. Consequently, most of the world's supply of these elements comes from only a few sources.

Consumers may not know that their computer hard drives, TV screens, and smartphones contain rare earth elements. The often-irreplaceable metals also support everything from green technologies to military hardware.

For example, europium makes the red color for television monitors and energy-efficient LED light bulbs, while neodymium makes some of the most powerful magnets found in everyday electronics, wind turbines and hybrid cars.

Light rare earth elements include the metals ranging from lanthanum to gadolinium on the periodic table of elements, while heavy rare earth metals range from terbium to lutetium.

So-called green technologies often depend upon rare earth elements. For instance, Toyota uses an estimated 7,500 tons of lanthanum and 1,000 tons of neodymium per year to build its Prius cars, according to Jack Lifton, an independent consultant who works with U.S. Rare Earths, a company that owns the rights to rare earth element resources in the U.S.

Rare earth minerals are just as crucial for military applications, such as lasers, radar, missile-guidance systems, satellites and aircraft electronics.

China and the U.S. have some of the largest rare earth mineral deposits, but other deposits exist in countries such as Australia, Brazil, India, Malaysia, South Africa, Sri Lanka and Thailand, according to the USGS.

Mining is just the first step. Extracting the individual rare earth metals from the raw ore requires thousands of stainless steel tanks holding many chemical solutions, according to Jim Hedrick, a former USGS rare earth specialist. The overall refining process converts ore into oxides, and then converts the oxides into refined metals.

Only China currently has the equipment to refine rare earth metals from start to finish, and it supplies as much as 97 percent of the world's rare earth oxides. Opening one mine and building a separation plant might cost anywhere from $500 million to $1 billion, Hedrick said.

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