Sharing Cyrene with JTC
from wild shores of singapore
Animals Galore! - Cyrene Special
from Psychedelic Nature
Sale of the Sultan and the Mermaid at the Wallace Talk this Friday
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
A day to celebrate the “honey bears”
from Bornean Sun Bear Conservation
Assurance seeks not just to encourage them to stay here but to do more
Chuang Peck Ming, Business Times 15 Jul 10;
WHILE Singapore has made international commitments to reduce the emission of carbon dioxide, it will still look after the long-term interests of oil and chemical companies that have - or will - put their money in the country.
'That's the specific message I have for them,' Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong said yesterday when he briefed Singapore reporters after wrapping up a two-day visit to Houston, home of many oil and chemical giants.
The reassurance, which Mr Lee personally gave to many of the chief executives of the oil and chemical companies, was made not just to encourage the companies to continue to stay in Singapore but also to do more there.
Mr Lee said it was useful to reiterate the point even to ExxonMobil, now building one of its biggest projects in Singapore.
He said ExxonMobil had gathered many of the industry players for him to meet during his visit. They included those in the oil supporting business whom Mr Lee said he found useful to talk to.
If Singapore wants to build a strong oil and chemical cluster, it will need also to attract the supporting firms to set up shop there, he said.
Mr Lee said his latest visit to the United States - he also stopped over in Idaho to meet up with chief executives of Fortune 500 companies - has been timely. The US economy is on the mend and it's also a time of change for the country, he noted. 'So it's been useful to get a sense of the mood of the business people (there),' he said.
While US CEOs are confident about their own businesses, Mr Lee said they are more cautious when it comes to the broader economy. Yet the CEOs don't see another dip in economic activity, even though growth is likely to be lower than expected.
'It's not a bad situation for us in Asia,' Mr Lee said. 'It means we have the basis for growth and to continue to transform and prosper in Asia.'
Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry S Is- waran, who is accompanying Mr Lee, said the CEOs they met are excited about the opportunities in Asia.
Those that already have a presence in Singapore can see that it is in an advantageous position to tap the opportunities.
Mr Iswaran said the CEOs they met like Singapore's infrastructure, legal system, intellectual protection and the quality of its people - but they like to have more of such people to work for them.
Going forward, Mr Iswaran said, Singapore must ensure that it has a ready pool of talent to attract and keep businesses anchored there.
Support for petrochem players will continue: PM
Chua Chin Hon, Straits Times 15 Jul 10;
HOUSTON: Singapore's long-term support for the petrochemical industry will not flag even if a future international treaty should require the country to cut greenhouse gas emissions, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong has said.
Speaking to the Singapore media after a roundtable discussion here with energy giant ExxonMobil and other related industry players, Mr Lee said the Government had been successful in drawing these companies to Singapore over the years and hoped they would invest even more in future.
He added: 'The industry is one which is a significant emitter of greenhouse gases, and we want them to know that while we may have commitments to reduce our (carbon dioxide) emissions under any international treaty, we are conscious of their interests and we want to protect those interests and we would like them to continue to stay in Singapore. That was a specific message that I had for them.'
ExxonMobil is building in Singapore one of its largest projects ever, a new chemicals complex that consists of a steam cracker and multiple downstream process units. When it starts operating next year, the complex will add jobs as well as make Singapore's petrochemical industry more competitive.
But governments around the world are also facing growing calls to tackle climate change and curb greenhouse gas emissions. Although last December's climate change summit in Copenhagen failed to broker a global pact on cutting emissions, observers still expect a compromise to be reached at some point on reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
The potential impact of such an agreement on the energy and petrochemical industries, however, remains unclear.
During the roundtable discussion, Mr Lee said he reassured ExxonMobil that he and the Singapore Government continued to back the company and its project.
'They know it, but I think it is useful to reiterate the point,' he added.
Mr Lee's visit this week to Houston, the United States' energy capital, was his first as Prime Minister.
He said he was impressed by the multicultural city's vibrancy and diversity, and was told that Houston in fact shared many similarities with Singapore.
'(They are both) open, diverse, cosmopolitan, and have many different populations and a high inflow of immigrants,' he said, recounting a conversation where journalists of the Houston Chronicle daily compared their city to Singapore.
Demographic figures show that nearly 45 per cent of Houston's population comprises ethnic minorities, from African Americans and Hispanics to Indians and Chinese.
'There is a certain civic pride and confidence and a thrust to a better tomorrow,' Mr Lee said of Houston. 'And I think that is the way Singapore should be.'
Prior to visiting Houston, the Prime Minister addressed about 300 top executives and investors in the IT, media and knowledge industries at the annual Sun Valley conference in Idaho.
Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry and Education S. Iswaran, who is accompanying Mr Lee on this trip, said many business leaders expressed their admiration for Singapore's infrastructure, legal system, intellectual property rights protection and the quality of its workforce. But they also said they would like a bigger talent pool.
'That, I think, is a consideration for us going forward,' said Mr Iswaran. 'How do we ensure that we continue to have talented Singaporeans augmented by talent from outside Singapore in order to attract and sustain these businesses?'
While in Idaho, Mr Lee also visited the Singapore F-15SG pilots and crews who are training with their US counterparts in the vast Mountain Home Air Force Base.
He left Houston for Singapore yesterday.
Grace Chua Straits Times 15 Jul 10;
FACTORIES, long a fixture on Singapore's landscape, churn out electronic goods, pharmaceuticals - and now, leafy green vegetables too.
The national food authority has developed 'vegetable factories' - stacked racks of lettuce, kai lan, xiao bai cai and Chinese cabbage - that can save space and cut pesticide use.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) is showing off its high-rise farm system at the Singapore Garden Festival from today to next Thursday at the Suntec convention centre.
The system, developed in the last two years, is aimed at companies which may have spare warehouse or factory space, or restaurants which want to grow vegetables in their backyards, explained Mrs Lam-Chan Lee Tiang, AVA's head of horticulture technology.
It consists of vegetables planted in soil-filled trays that are stacked on a bookshelf-like rack up to 10 shelves high.
An enclosure keeps pests out so farmers need not use chemical pest-killers, and the temperature can be controlled to allow for different plants to be grown.
Fluorescent or LED lighting does away with the need for natural light, which has traditionally posed a challenge for such high-rise farm systems, said Mrs Lam-Chan.
While hydroponics and aeroponics are able to use similar space-saving rack systems, customers here prefer soil-grown vegetables, she added.
That is because soil-grown greens are firmer when cooked, as many Asian vegetable dishes require.
The cost of such a system is somewhere between conventional agriculture and hydroponics or aeroponics.
Each four-layer stainless steel rack, with lights and materials, costs about $2,200 and can produce about 288kg of vegetables a year.
A four-layer rack uses 28-watt fluorescent tubes, but the AVA is still experimenting to find the best light conditions for growing.
Japan already has about 50 'veggie factory' systems, said Mr Satoru Matsuno, manager of Fairy Angel, which has three such factories in Japan.
Each factory costs about 3 million yen (S$46,800) per square metre, a figure that includes the land, the building, the rack system and energy supplied by solar panels, he added.
But organic farmer Ivy Singh-Lim, who runs Bollywood Veggies in Kranji, questioned the environmental friendliness of the racks' energy consumption and use of plastic.
'It's a typical prim-and-proper, plastic-and-progress display,' she scoffed.
Singapore's farms produce 7 per cent of the 136,382 tonnes of leafy vegetables consumed here each year, and the AVA aims to raise that figure to 10 per cent in the next few years.
A hectare of conventionally farmed land produces about 90 tonnes of vegetables a year, but stacked factories could multiply that, the AVA's Mrs Lam-Chan said.
Other urban farming solutions include aeroponics - growing vegetables in air and spraying their roots with a nutrient mist - as well as rooftop and vertical growing.
A mine of controversy
Teo Cheng Wee, Straits Times 15 Jul 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: A sand mining controversy is piling pressure on the opposition-led state government in Selangor, which only recently survived a highly publicised power struggle.
It is the latest blow to the Pakatan Rakyat (PR) administration, as concerns emerge over its grip on the country's richest state.
Malaysia's mainstream media, whose journalists were taken to the site, has been giving prominent coverage in the past few days to what it says is an impending environmental disaster in Selangor caused by illegal sand mining.
Reports say that Paya Indah Wetlands, a 3,100ha eco-tourism park located 50km south of Kuala Lumpur, is being destroyed by the clearing and excavation of some 120ha of land nearby.
A large sand mine is reportedly located just 50m from two lakes in the park. Newspapers ran pictures to show the proximity.
Although local villagers said the lorries and excavators turned up only two weeks ago, environmentalists were quick to decry the effect all this could have on the park. Paya Indah has 14 lakes and is home to hippos, crocodiles and more than 200 species of birds.
This is not the first time that the sand mining issue has hit the Pakatan government hard.
Two months ago, a sand mining company owned by Selangor state was accused by PR's own lawmakers of corrupt practices and mismanagement, briefly threatening the stability of the administration.
Although the state government has repeatedly asserted that the sand mining near the park is legal, this episode nevertheless is proving to be another messy setback for PR.
It has been a trying few months for Selangor's embattled Menteri Besar Khalid Ibrahim, who faces stormy internal strife, though he is well-liked by the people.
He was first hit by rumours that 15 MPs from his party had teamed up to oust him from his menteri besar post.
He stepped down as the state chief of Parti Keadilan Rakyat (PKR) amid such talk, giving way to another party leader whom he is said to be at loggerheads with.
Then rumours surfaced that he would resign as menteri besar, which he angrily denied.
The series of setbacks has had analysts speculating - and Pakatan insiders worried - that Selangor could be ripe for the ruling Barisan Nasional's (BN's) picking.
The clock is ticking in the countdown to the next general election, which must be held by 2013. And as Malaysia's richest state, Selangor is highly sought after by both the BN and PR. The latter wrested the state from BN for the first time at the 2008 polls.
Indeed, while sand mining is ostensibly an environmental issue, this latest incident has a political twist.
The media trip, which took place on Sunday, was organised by Umno's former menteri besar Khir Toyo, who is now the opposition leader in the state assembly.
After the expose, he hit out at the state government for covering up the issue. 'The truth is (Khalid) has no time to do his office work because PKR is in a shambles,' said Datuk Seri Khir.
Prime Minister Najib Razak also chimed in yesterday, saying that Malaysians 'are seeing this as a weakness on the part of the (Selangor) state government'.
Tan Sri Khalid has rubbished all accusations of impropriety.
While he admitted that there were sand mining activities near the Paya Indah Wetlands, he told reporters that these were sanctioned by the state government and closely monitored.
He maintained that the mining was safe and posed no threat to the environment despite the proximity.
A Selangor state executive councillor alleged that the journalists had been duped by Dr Khir, who took them to a different location.
Yesterday, Mr Khalid challenged Deputy Premier Muhyiddin Yassin, who had also criticised Selangor's handling of the issue, to solve the state's illegal mining issues.
'Since he said it's easy, I thought he has a magic formula. I might as well use it,' he said.
Nature Society can review environment plan
New Straits Times 14 Jul 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: The Malaysian Nature Society can review the environment management plan (EMP) on sand mining near the Paya Indah Wetlands, the Selangor government said.
Its tourism, consumer affairs and environment state executive councilor Elizabeth Wong said: "I don't see any issue with it. We also welcome suggestions to better protect the environment."
Wong was commenting on a statement by MNS head of communications Andrew Sebastian, who on Tuesday said the organisation was interested in studying the EMP.
Sebastian had expressed concerns about sand mining being too near the wetlands.
Wong also said that a news report stating the water level had dropped by 1m due to sand mining was inconclusive as firms had cleared land and created drains and canals a decade ago before sand mining took place.
She said government agencies had constantly monitored the sand mining since it began.
"We, too, are concerned. That's why we made it compulsory for firms to carry out for EMPs and environment impact assessments two years ago for such projects."
Reuters 15 Jul 10;
The world's mangroves are being destroyed up to four times faster than other forests, costing millions of dollars in losses in areas such as fisheries and storm protection, a report said Wednesday.
The study commissioned by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and The Nature Conservancy said a fifth of mangroves had been lost since 1980 and that they continued to be destroyed at a rate of around 0.7 percent a year by activities such as coastal construction and shrimp farming.
The 'World Mangrove Atlas' report noted that mangrove forests provide huge economic services, acting as nurseries for sea fish, storing carbon and providing robust defenses against floods and cyclones at a time of rising sea levels.
The trees and shrubs, which grow in saline coastal habitats, also provide excellent rot-resistant wood.
"Given their value, there can be no justification for further mangrove loss," said Emmanuel Ze Meka, head of the International Tropical Timber Organization, which helped fund the report.
The report cited evidence that mangroves reduced the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in some places.
It urged nations, especially those with the largest mangroves like Brazil, Indonesia and Australia, to do more to halt the retreat of an estimated 150,000 square kilometers of global mangrove forest cover. "The greatest drivers for mangrove forest loss are direct conversion to aquaculture, agriculture and urban land uses. Coastal zones are often densely populated and pressure for land intense. Where mangroves remain, they have often been degraded through overharvesting," it found.
It cited Malaysia as a country that uses state-ownership of mangroves to better manage them and stem their decline.
Taking stock of mangroves, thin frontlines of diversity
NatGeo News Watch 14 Jul 10;
Mark Spalding, a marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy, has spent decades researching mangroves, the rare and critically important forests that grow at the intersection of land and sea. He is also lead author of the World Atlas of Mangroves, the first in-depth look in over a decade of mangroves.
According to the Atlas, which was released today, about one fifth of all mangroves are thought to have been lost since 1980. Mangroves are lost at a rate three to four times higher than land-based global forests, despite positive restoration efforts by some countries, Spalding and the other Atlas authors note. "Any further destruction due to unsustainable activities such as, shrimp farming and coastal development, will cause significant economic and ecological decline," they warn.
"While mangroves are rare compared to other forest types, the waters all around them foster some of the greatest productivity of fish and shellfish in any coastal waters. Mangrove forests help prevent erosion and mitigate natural hazards--they are natural coastal defenses whose importance will only grow as sea level rise becomes a reality around the world," the authors noted in a news release.
David Braun interviewed Mark Spalding about the new atlas:
While the rate of loss of mangroves may be slowing, some species of mangroves are disappearing much more rapidly than others. What are the hottest spots for loss of mangroves and associated biodiversity on the planet?
The most dramatic, rapid losses at large scales almost always link to conversion to aquaculture. It is incredible to zoom in on satellite imagery and suddenly find mile after mile of rectangular "fields" of water, separated by embankments, where once there were mangroves--in Ecuador, Honduras, Thailand, China, the Philippines and elsewhere.
But this front line of destruction is constantly moving. China has lost most of its mangroves, but Indonesia is still the largest mangrove country in the world (and with the greatest diversity of species). Here the front line of is moving eastwards--the densely populated island of Java barely has any mangroves left. Southern Borneo has also lost vast areas, but here the pressure remains for more conversion. Further east some of the most extensive mangroves in the world are threatened by logging and by oil and gas extraction.
Another front line, which of course doesn't do much to the statistics, is the loss of small patches in countries where mangroves were never abundant. Coastal development, including tourism, has decimated mangroves in many small island nations, particularly in the Caribbean. Here mangrove forests are precious packets of diversity, rich in fish and crabs, sheltering resident and migratory birds. But to some eyes they are prime development land, quickly replaced by hotels or golf courses.
But loss is just the extreme end of degradation. Look at the mangroves of the Niger Delta, one of the world's largest mangrove forests. Still standing, these forests have been choked by oil pollution on a scale close to that of the Deepwater oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico for some 50 years.
Or take the mangroves in the deltas of great rivers such as the Zambezi in Mozambique or the Indus in Pakistan. Upstream water use has shrunk these mighty rivers to mere trickles, barely reaching the sea for parts of the year. Without the enriching waters of the deltas, and the resupply of sediments, erosion sets in, and the rich diversity is lost as only the hardiest species can survive.
Some countries are making big efforts to restore mangrove forests. Which examples are the most encouraging in terms of showing others the right path?
The Philippines is a fascinating place--we don't have a good handle on how many mangroves there were originally, but it seems likely that they have lost half, perhaps more of the original cover. This was largely to aquaculture, aided by some large-scale government policies and subsidies.
Recently, however the value of mangroves has risen right to the fore and there have been massive efforts to restore mangroves in many areas. And these efforts give us the whole spectrum--good news and bad.
Some of the least successful efforts have come from big money, top-down approaches: remarkable failures involving planting the wrong species in the wrong places.
But wonderful successes too. Of course some of these were also the big schemes, but many of the more successful efforts came from local initiatives. Here there was perhaps a greater effort to get around the problems of land ownership, so the mangroves were planted in the right place (a little above the mid-tide line, all the way to the high tide).
And of course local leadership gives a sense of ownership, and a sense of pride. And in the Philippines has also led to some very healthy copycat restoration as neighboring towns and villages see the benefits--fisheries, timber and coastal protection--set against the unproductive dead no-man's land of abandoned or unproductive aquaculture--and want the same.
How is technology, such as satellite-monitoring, helping mangrove restoration and conservation?
Mangroves have often lost out in large-scale satellite mapping. Even where they are extensive there are challenges for expert mappers to determine what's what due to the complex reflections from a habitat that is sometimes waterlogged, sometimes just wet, and sometimes hyper arid.
Meanwhile in many areas this problem is compounded by the fact that mangroves are narrow strips tracing the shore, with bright reflective water on one side and often completely different land use on the other. From a satellite that makes them very difficult to make out.
But with good resolution data, and with expert interpretation and verification we can make them out very well indeed. That's what this new atlas has done for the first time at a global scale. We've used mapping expertise from the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations and from the UNEP World Conservation Monitoring Centre, but such maps have benefitted immensely from expert review, verification, and quite often correction. We had a network of over 100 experts feeding into this project and that has made a huge difference.
And its only when you've got the images that you can start to measure extent and change. All too often its numbers and statistics that start to turn heads and change policies, so we need reliable mapping in the first instance to make the case for management. And with that we can also start to use the same imagery for other purposes--for the design of protected areas systems, for planning for restoration, and, importantly now, planning for the proposed changes arising from sea level rise.
How does this atlas help land developers make more sensible decisions about land use? How can conservation groups use it to assist their efforts in shoring up protection of habitats?
The Atlas is a very high altitude overflight--you wouldn't use it for navigation on the ground, but it's a critical stock-take at a global and a regional scale.
Some of the most fascinating stories come from comparisons. The contrasts between countries can be shocking, with different government policies showing up quite clearly on the maps. Some countries such as Malaysia and Tanzania have state ownership of mangroves and have attempted to manage them sustainably. Others, such as the Philippines effectively privatized their mangroves, selling or leasing vast areas to aquaculture development.
The detailed descriptions which fill this Atlas give a wealth of examples, not just stand-alone, one-off stories. Such facts, backed up by repetition, and by good solid numbers and reliable science, should lie at the heart of coastal development decisions--do you want to make money fast, for a few years, from aquaculture, or have a regular good income, with employment for hundreds of people, from sustainable use? Can aquaculture be done differently? (Yes!).
And of course the conservationists need these lessons too. We need to learn from experiences round the world.
Mangroves can be restored, quite easily in fact. Mangrove plantations, using native species, can be good for wildlife as well as for timber production. How can ecotourism be developed in mangroves?
Does the atlas show any global connectivity between the last patches of mangrove forests? I was thinking specifically if certain animal species (birds, fish) need mangroves for way stations or as crucial places for their life cycles?
Mangroves are disappearing relatively fast, and some authors have talked about the end of mangroves, but I think this book shows that we're not yet dealing with "the last mangroves"--we don't know how much we've lost, but there are still many. And about a quarter are in protected areas, which is higher than for most other habitat types. That said the connectivity story is a great story to tell.
First off we need to think about how mangroves connect with adjacent areas. The big, obvious connection is fish and shellfish. Many, many offshore fisheries rely on mangroves which are critical spawning and nursery areas.
Quite a few governments and fishers don't even realize this connection. Australia benefits tens of millions of dollars annually from its prawn capture fisheries in northern waters which are almost entirely mangrove dependent--and the same can be said for Malaysia, the Guianas and many other areas.
Many coral reef fish too, utilize mangroves and adjacent salt marshes moving between the three like a connected whole. But in this case mangroves are also functionally critical--holding back sediments and stripping nutrients from the waters, enabling reefs to flourish in adjacent waters.
But there are global connections too. The most striking of course are the migratory birds--the Coppename Monding Nature Reserve in Suriname extends along just 50 km [35 miles] of coast, but is host to 1.2 million migratory shorebirds each year. These are the same birds familiar as summer arrivals in temperate countries to the north and south of the equator--that nest in vast numbers in the coasts and marshes of northern Europe, the USA, Canada and Russia.
Mangrove loss outpacing destruction of land-based forests, UN reports
UN News Centre 14 Jul 10;
14 July 2010 – Despite restoration efforts by some countries, mangroves are being lost at a rate three to four times higher than land-based forests, with one fifth of all of the world’s mangroves thought to have been lost in the past three decades, according to a new United Nations report.
Mangrove losses have slowed to 0.7 per cent annually, but the authors of the new atlas – the first global assessment of mangroves in more than a decade – warn that any further destruction due to shrimp farming and coastal development will result in significant economic and ecological declines.
Mangroves – forests straddling land and sea – are believed to generate up to $9,000 per hectare, a strong argument in favour of mangrove management, protection and restoration.
The global area of mangroves, some 150,000 square kilometers, is equivalent to the area of Suriname or half of the Philippines.
“Together, the science and the economics can drive policy shifts,” said Achim Steiner, Executive Director of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
He noted that 1,200 protected areas are safeguarding one quarter of the world’s remaining mangroves while many countries are embarking on major restorations, “a positive signal upon which to build and to accelerate a definitive response in 2010, the UN’s International Year of Biodiversity.”
More than 100 top mangrove researchers and organizations provided data, reviews and other input for the World Mangrove Atlas, a joint effort of UNEP, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), and other groups.
“Mangrove forests are the ultimate illustration of why humans need nature,” said Mark Spalding, lead author of the publication, which he noted illustrates the “extraordinary synergies” between people and forests.
Mangrove forests endangered
Aaron Cook The Sydney Morning Herald 15 Jul 10;
Global mangrove forests are being lost up to four times faster than land forests, the first international assessment in more than a decade has shown.
The World Atlas of Mangroves is the outcome of a five-year research collaboration headed by the United Nations Environment Program.
It says about one-fifth of global mangroves have vanished since 1980; the present rate of loss is 0.7 per cent a year. The assessment estimates that close to 50,000 square kilometres, one-quarter of original mangrove cover, has been lost as a result of human intervention.
Mangroves, which inhabit fringe areas between fresh water and salt water systems, are mainly lost due to urban development or to make way for agriculture or aquaculture, such as shrimp farms.
Australia has the world’s third largest mangrove coverage at 7 per cent of the global total. Only Indonesia and Brazil have more.
But Professor Richard Kingsford, director of the Australian Wetlands and Rivers Centre at the University of NSW, says Australia enjoys a rate of mangrove loss below the global average.
According to the most recent study, Australia had lost about 14 per cent of its mangroves up to 2001.
"The main cause of mangrove loss in Australia remains urban development," Professor Kingsford said. "But because a large amount of Australia’s mangroves are found in undeveloped areas along the north and east coast, the loss has been less than in other countries."
Professor Kingsford said mangroves were disappearing much more rapidly in neighbouring South-East Asia, where rampant shrimp farming was the primary culprit.
Achim Steiner, executive director of the UNEP, highlighted the "immense costs those losses have had for people as well as nature", while pointing to the importance of conservation policies.
"Together, science and economics can drive policy shifts," he said. "Protected areas are now safeguarding around a quarter of remaining mangroves and many countries are now embarking on major restorations."
Professor Kingsford said Australia’s restoration efforts were limited.
"Rehabilitation is happening a little bit, but it’s not a major rehabilitation effort," he said. "It’s much easier to prevent than restore mangrove loss, and much cheaper."
But he also highlighted the potential for increasing losses in line with rising sea levels. Mangroves follow sea water inland, posing a problem when urban areas get in the way.
He said protected mangrove forests near urban areas, such as those around Sydney Olympic Park, could be lost with rising sea levels.
Mangroves Report Reveals Threats & Opportunities to Global Economy & the Planet
UNEP 14 Jul 10;
'World Mangrove Atlas' highlights the importance of and threats to mangroves
July 14, 2010, London/Nairobi - The first global assessment of mangroves in over a decade reveals that rare and critically important mangrove forests continue to be lost at a rate three to four times higher than land-based global forests, despite positive restoration efforts by some countries.
About one fifth of all mangroves are thought to have been lost since 1980. Although losses are slowing at 0.7 per cent a year, the authors warn that any further destruction due to shrimp farming and coastal development will cause significant economic and ecological decline.
Economic assessments provide some of the most powerful arguments in favour of mangrove management, protection or restoration. Studies estimate that mangroves generate between US$2000-9000 per hectare annually, considerably more than alternative uses such as aquaculture, agriculture or insensitive tourism.
The new atlas also underscores positive trends. Restoration efforts now cover some 400,000 hectares, as foresighted countries make the link between these coastal forests and economically-important services from flood defenses and fish nurseries to carbon storage to combat climate change.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and Executive Director, UN Environment Programme (UNEP), said: "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, which is hosted by UNEP is bringing to the fore the multi-trillion dollar value of the world's nature-based assets. This atlas brings our attention onto mangroves and puts them up front and central, plotting where they are, describing where they have been lost, and underlining the immense costs those loses have had for people as well as nature".
"Together, the science and the economics can drive policy shifts. Some 1,200 protected areas are now safeguarding around a quarter of remaining mangroves and many countries are now embarking on major restorations-a positive signal upon which to build and to accelerate a definitive response in 2010, the UN's International Year of Biodiversity," he added.
"Mangrove forests are the ultimate illustration of why humans need nature," says Dr. Mark Spalding, lead author of the World Mangrove Atlas and senior marine scientist with The Nature Conservancy. "In place after place the book details the extraordinary synergies between people and forests. The trees provide hard, rot-resistant timber and make some of the best charcoal in the world. The waters all around foster some of the greatest productivity of fish and shellfish in any coastal waters. What's more, mangrove forests help prevent erosion and mitigate natural hazards from cyclones to tsunamis - these are natural coastal defenses whose importance will only grow as sea level rise becomes a reality around the world."
"Given their value, there can be no justification for further mangrove loss. What's urgently needed is for all those working in fields of forestry, fisheries and the environment to work together and communicate their worth, both to the public and to those with the capacity to make a difference", said Emmanuel Ze Meka, Executive Director of the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO) which provided the bulk of funding for the Atlas. This book goes a considerable way to communicating that message."
"The Nature Conservancy is an organization with its feet firmly on the ground in 30 countries," said Mark Terceck, CEO of the Conservancy. "Already we have teams working to protect and restore mangroves from Florida to Indonesia, Palau to Grenada. This book raises the stakes and engenders urgency, but it also offers hope. These are robust and resilient ecosystems. Get things right for them and the payback will be immense: security for rich biodiversity and a lifeline to many of the world's most vulnerable people."
Key Findings from the Atlas
Loss and restoration
* The global area of mangroves - 150 000 square kilometers - is equivalent to the area of Suriname, or the state of Illinois, or half the area of the Philippines. Mangrove forests straddle land and sea and are found in 123 countries in tropical and subtropical regions.
* The nations with the largest mangrove areas include Indonesia with 21 per cent of global mangroves, Brazil with 9 per cent, Australia 7 per cent, Mexico 5 per cent and Nigeria with 5 per cent.
* The greatest drivers for mangrove forest loss are direct conversion to aquaculture, agriculture and urban land uses. Coastal zones are often densely populated and pressure for land intense. Where mangroves remain, they have often been degraded through overharvesting.
* Where vast tracts of mangroves have been cleared for shrimp aquaculture, fast profits often left a legacy of long-term debts and poverty, which are hard to reverse.
* According to the FAO (Food and Agricultural Organization) mangrove losses have been considerable and are continuing. Some 35,600 square kilometers were lost between 1980 and 2005.
* While there are no accurate estimates of the original cover, there is a general consensus that it would have been over 200,000 square kilometers and that considerably more than 50,000 square kilometers or one-quarter of original mangrove cover has been lost as a result of human intervention.
* Mangroves have now been actively planted or encouraged to grow through activities such as site clearance and the removal of waste. Examples include Australia, Bangladesh, Benin, Brazil, Cuba, India, Indonesia, Pakistan, Philippines, Thailand and Vietnam.
Use and ecological niche
* Mangroves contribute to livelihoods locally and globally by providing forest resources such as timber, firewood and thatching materials as well as non-timber products.
* They are also recognized as an important greenbelt and carbon sink that protects coastal areas from natural disasters such as tsunamis, cyclones and erosion resulting from sea-level rise especially in small island countries.
* There is good evidence that mangroves even reduced the impact of the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami in a number of locations.
* There is also considerable storage of organic carbon in mangrove soils, meaning they may have an important role to play in the process of mitigating climate change. Preliminary estimates indicate that the total above-ground biomass for the world's mangrove forests may be over 3700Tg of carbon, and that carbon sequestration directly into mangrove sediments is likely to be in the range of 14-17Tg of carbon per year.
* Mangroves are also among the most important intertidal habitats for marine and coastal fisheries. Mangrove related species have been estimated to support 30 per cent of fish catch and almost 100 per cent of shrimp catch in South-East Asian countries, while mangroves and associated habitats in Queensland, Australia support 75 per cent of commercial fisheries species
Policy and solutions
* The destruction of mangroves is often prompted by local decisions, market forces, industrial demand, population expansion or poverty. However, in many countries, the fate of mangroves is also determined by high level policy decisions.
* In the Philippines, as an example, state-wide encouragement of aquaculture dating back to the 1950s led to massive losses. In Malaysia, by contrast, state ownership of mangroves prevails. While there have still been losses, large areas remain in forest reserves, managed for timber and charcoal production, with concomitant benefits for fisheries.
* Trends of mangrove gain or loss can be rapidly and quite dramatically reversed. Laws addressing the placement of aquaculture standards or water quality pollution minimization have greatly altered the shape of new aquaculture developments in many countries.
* New policies and projects have led to widespread mangrove plantation across the Philippines. Policies have led to the offsetting of mangrove loss by replanting or restoration with examples in Florida (US) and Australia.
* Many countries, such as Mexico, Belize, Tanzania and Mozambique, have also established general legal protection for mangroves, controlling destructive activities through strict licensing systems.
The Atlas
* The atlas brings together an unprecedented partnership of organizations - from forestry and conservation sectors and from across the United Nations - and includes a new and comprehensive map and account of mangrove forests.
Fidelis E Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 15 Jul 10;
Sanur, Bali. Conservationists, wildlife experts and government officials are set to meet today at an international conference in Bali to save the orangutan from extinction.
The International Workshop on Orangutan Conservation, which will run through Friday at the beachside resort town of Sanur, is aimed at stabilizing the habitat and populations of both the Sumatran and Bornean subspecies by 2017, as well as completing a three-year-old rehabilitation program to release previously captive orangutans back into the wild by 2015.
However, the chief of the Borneo Orangutan Survival foundation, Bungaran Saragih, on Wednesday said that very little progress had been made toward either goal.
“First, there are still no visible signs of stabilization of orangutan habitats or their populations,” he said.
“Second, the rehabilitation target is still far out of reach, because in the three years since the plan was announced, we haven’t seen a single individual released back into the wild.”
Part of the problem, Bungaran said, was the difficulty in finding suitably large, undisturbed areas of forest in which to release the animals.
“At BOS, we have around 850 orangutans in rehabilitation [centers], but we can’t release them precisely because of this problem,” he said.
Bungaran di d, however, say the international workshop was a step in the right direction and would allow all stakeholders to share their experiences on the current dire situation facing orangutan, as well as to evaluate actions taken thus far.
“Since 2007, there has been almost no coordination between the various stakeholders — the government, NGOs, the private sector,” he said.
“I believe that this opportunity to evaluate the implementation of the action plan couldn’t have come at a better time. Hopefully we can reach some kind of understanding and get the full cooperation of all stakeholders.”
According to Bungaran, one of the main obstacles toward realizing the action plan was the apparent reluctance of the government and private sector to get involved in orangutan conservation efforts.
“Protecting orangutans should not be the sole domain of NGOs,” he said. “We need support from the government and from businesses, and that’s the message we’ll try to get through at the workshop.”
There are an estimated 7,500 Sumatran orangutans left in the wild, and some 45,000 of their Bornean cousins. The latter subspecies is categorized as endangered, while the former is critically endangered.
Orangutan expert Sri Suci Utami Atmoko, from Jakarta’s National University, said that more needed to be done to protect the animals.
“The current quandary is in law enforcement,” she said. “There are just as many cases these days of illegal orangutan trading — particularly in Kalimantan — as there has always been.”
In terms of releasing rehabilitated orangutans into the wild, Suci said businesses needed to play a bigger role in the conservation effort.
“Consider this: nearly 70 percent of orangutans live outside protected parks and reserves,” she said, “so it’s crucial that we get the private sector to contribute their land and efforts, otherwise forget about protecting the orangutan.
“There’s this impression that only conservationists, scientists and the government should deal with orangutan conservation, but we want all stakeholders, particularly businesses, to contribute to the effort. The national action plan will never work otherwise.”
Suci said that many logging and plantation companies across the country wanted to help but were hampered by poor coordination by the authorities, which she accused of not being serious about designating conservation areas for orangutans.
“That’s a shame, because the companies are really keen about helping out, and we’d really like to welcome them on board,” she added.
Harry Santoso, director of biodiversity at the Ministry of Forestry, conceded that the orangutan release program was “going rather slow,” but blamed it on the dearth of institutions willing to contribute to the effort.
“It’s going to be tough to meet the 2015 target because there aren’t that many institutions in the country that deal with orangutan conservation,” he said. “That’s why we’re hoping for a breakthrough at this workshop.”
Harry dismissed accusations that the government had been dragging its feet on the issue of orangutan conservation by arguing that its job was to supervise, facilitate and regulate, and not to get involved in the implementation of programs.
“That’s why we’re focusing on strengthening the existing regulations, facilitating stakeholders and increasing supervision for orangutan conservation,” he said. “Our hope is that other stakeholders, such as the private sector and NGOs, also play a part.”
Jakarta Globe 14 Jul 10;
A 92-year-old man arrested in March for trapping and slaughtering 44 Sumatran tigers over his lifetime has died before he could be tried for killing the rare cats.
Wiryo Asmada’s arrest came after the Riau Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA) had placed him under surveillance following a tip from a resident.
“Investigators have learned that he has passed on. There is also an official letter confirming his death,” BKSDA head Trisnu Danisworo told the Jakarta Globe on Wednesday.
Trisnu refused to elaborate on the specifics of Wiryo’s death, saying only that he had died at the beginning of July.
Conservation officials in March put an end to Wiryo’s 75-year trapping career that had seen him kill at least 44 of the rare cats, catching him red-handed trying to sell the skin of his latest victim — a 23-year-old tiger that he had trapped on March 3 in Pelor village, Kuala Cenaku.
The aged hunter had faced up to five years in prison and a fine of Rp 100 million ($11,000).
Authorities believe Wiryo was involved with an international network trading in tiger parts. Wiryo had admitted to having regular customers in Singapore.
He had said he had been killing Sumatran tigers since he was 17. He confessed to having killed at least 44 tigers in Riau since 1960. The tally, however, did not include other tigers Wiryo may have hunted outside of Riau.
Wiryo, better known as Pak Jenggot because of his beard, said he usually sold the tigers’ body parts — skin, bones, meat, fangs and claws — to customers in Singapore.
Osmantri, from the World Wide Fund’s Sumatran Tiger Trade Monitoring program in Riau, said the arrest of Wiryo had been a positive step because few cases involving the trade in Sumatran tigers were ever solved, but that much more needed to be done. He added that only two suspects had ever been arrested in connection with the trade.
Osmantri said BKSDA in particular needed to step up its efforts against international syndicates involved in the illegal tiger trade.
“With all its resources, BKSDA only managed to arrest an elderly hunter. BKSDA should have been able to arrest the collectors, the buyers and anyone who ordered the Sumatran tiger,” Osmantri said.
An official at BKSDA’s office in Rengat district, Murmaidin Iskandar, said the hunting of Sumatran tigers had become more common in the past three years. According to the World Wildlife Fund, there are fewer than 300 Sumatran tigers remaining in the wild in Indonesia, half of them in Riau. Budi Otmansyah
Yahoo News 14 Jul 10;
NUSA DUA, Indonesia (AFP) – Representatives from 13 "tiger-range countries" on Wednesday drew up a rescue declaration in Bali in a bid to save the big cats from extinction.
The declaration, which is to be signed in September at a "tiger summit" in St. Petersburg in Russia, aims to double the number of wild tigers across their range by 2022.
It includes plans to "do everything possible to effectively manage, preserve, protect and enhance habitats".
It also pledges to "work collaboratively to eradicate poaching, smuggling and illegal trade of tigers, their parts and derivatives".
Countries invited to attend the St. Petersburg summit are Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, India, Indonesia, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.
World Bank Global Tiger Initiative programme director Keshav Varma said there was a "clear direction to move forward" after the pre-summit meeting in Bali, but funding was still an issue.
"There is a need to develop a global fund, multi-donor trust fund or some kind of flexible financial mechanism for this," Varma said.
Indonesian conservation official Harry Santoso said Indonesia was working on a proposal to obtain 54.17 million dollars of grant from the Global Environment Facility for biodiversity conservation projects.
Santoso said they were yet to figure out how much of the grant would be allocated for tiger conservation.
"Now that these countries have shown their willingness to act, the success of any global plan launched in St. Petersburg will depend on financial support from the international community and the tiger nations themselves," WWF Tiger Programme head Michael Baltzer said in a statement.
Peter Greste BBC News 14 Jul 10;
The Matthews Range of mountains rises from the arid brown plains of northern Kenya like a green tropical island; its peaks looming above the dusty haze blanketing the otherwise featureless landscape.
The flat lands that surround it stretch for almost 100km in any direction, leaving the Matthews blissfully isolated.
It has been this way for at least 10 millennia, the dry sea lapping against its shores - sometimes rising, sometimes falling in a tide driven by periods of global warming and cooling that has always kept it cut off from the rest of East Africa's forests.
But that isolation has also helped protect the Matthews from any serious human encroachment.
The Samburu tribes who graze their cattle in the surrounding grasslands have for most of their history left it largely untouched, retreating there only when drought forces them to search for grazing or when the elders harvest plants used for traditional medicines.
It is what the scientists have dubbed a "sky island": a remarkably untouched patch of tropical highland forest that has been allowed to evolve in its own direction, free of influence from the rest of the region by that dry gulf too vast for most plants and insects to cross.
"It's impressive to see how intact this forest really is," says Quentin Luke, panting and sweating on the flanks of one of the higher peaks.
Over his shoulder, he slings a bag filled with plants he's collected on the trek that have never been seen here before. By the end of two weeks, he would find more than 150.
Indicator species
Mr Luke is one of Kenya's most respected botanists and he's been contracted by the Nature Conservancy, a US-based conservation organisation that arranged the first comprehensive scientific survey of the ecology of the Matthews Range.
In all, there are about a dozen international and Kenyan scientists taking part in the study, and according to the expedition organiser Matt Brown, Mr Luke's findings go a long way towards meeting at least two of their five objectives.
"We want to document a biological inventory of these hills. We also want to work out the current condition of the habitat and assess the level of threat to the ecosystem," he said.
The team also aims to identify some key "indicator species" that the local Namanyak community can use to monitor the health of the forest; they plan to transfer some of their skills to the Namanyak game scouts who police the hills; and finally record what the local elders know of the forest.
Their ultimate aim is to preserve the Matthews, not just for what the scientists expect will be a biological bonanza, but for the "ecological services" the forest provides to the surrounding communities such as clean water and dry-season grazing.
But those communities are growing fast, and the pressure on the Matthews is growing with it. Here and there along the flanks of the hills, dark green scars run vertically up the slopes - clear evidence, says Mr Luke, of fires caused by honey hunters who use smoke to drive bees out of their hives.
The group is taking a pragmatic approach.
Matt Brown says: "It obviously doesn't work just to fence off the area and keep people out and claim that you're helping them by protecting the forest for future generations.
"It's really about focusing on that balance between people and wildlife and finding ways that they can continue to sustainably use the forest."
The Northern Rangelands Trust (NRT) is central to the project. A Kenyan organisation that creates community-based conservancies, the NRT convinced the Samburu tribes surrounding the Matthews to join their scheme.
But there is not much point in forming a conservancy without a scientific understanding of what is going on in forest. Which is why the NRT invited the Nature Conservancy in for its study.
For entomologist Dino Martins, there is plenty to look at.
With a butterfly net tucked under his arm and a back-pack full of specimen jars, Mr Martins has been scouring the valleys and creeks for butterflies and dragonflies.
"They're really good indicators of the health of an ecosystem," said Mr Martins. "They can't survive without good, clean water and lots of food-sources."
And by that measure, the ecosystem appears to be healthy indeed. In the space of two weeks, Mr Martins managed to record 125 butterfly species - roughly 15% of all Kenya's butterflies, and more than twice that of all the UK.
"Those insects also tell us the ecosystem has been very stable, and the high diversity especially of butterflies suggests that the forest has been here not just for a 1,000 or 10,000 years but actually for several million years."
It's a conclusion that Quentin Luke agrees with. Among the plants he's most interested in is the Matthews Cycad - a huge palm-like tree with bottle-green fronds that dot the forest.
The cycad's origins stretch back 280 million years when they dominated the landscape. They are a true living fossil and a hint that perhaps the Matthews Range can trace its origins back that far as well.
"They are a weird species that has male and female plants and an unusual system of pollination," Mr Luke said.
"And apart from one or two other forests in East Africa, we don't find this particular species anywhere else in the world."
And anywhere else, that fact alone might justify saving the Matthews. But here, with growing numbers of cattle looking for grass to graze and humans looking for timber to burn, there need to be other reasons to protect it.
The Nature Conservancy and the Northern Rangelands Trust are convinced they can find it.
Matthew Brown And Ramit Plushnick-masti, Associated Press Yahoo News 14 Jul 10;
NEW ORLEANS – Scientists are reporting early signs that the Gulf of Mexico oil spill is altering the marine food web by killing or tainting some creatures and spurring the growth of others more suited to a fouled environment.
Near the spill site, researchers have documented a massive die-off of pyrosomes — cucumber-shaped, gelatinous organisms fed on by endangered sea turtles.
Along the coast, droplets of oil are being found inside the shells of young crabs that are a mainstay in the diet of fish, turtles and shorebirds.
And at the base of the food web, tiny organisms that consume oil and gas are proliferating.
If such impacts continue, the scientists warn of a grim reshuffling of sealife that could over time cascade through the ecosystem and imperil the region's multibillion-dollar fishing industry.
Federal wildlife officials say the impacts are not irreversible, and no tainted seafood has yet been found. But Rep. Ed Markey, D-Mass., who chairs a House committee investigating the spill, warned Tuesday that the problem is just unfolding and toxic oil could be entering seafood stocks as predators eat contaminated marine life.
"You change the base of the food web, it's going to ripple through the entire food web," said marine scientist Rob Condon, who found oil-loving bacteria off the Alabama coastline, more than 90 miles from BP's collapsed Deepwater Horizon drill rig. "Ultimately it's going to impact fishing and introduce a lot of contaminants into the food web."
The food web is the fundamental fabric of life in the Gulf. Once referred to as the food chain, the updated term reflects the cyclical nature of a process in which even the largest predator becomes a food source as it dies and decomposes.
What has emerged from research done to date are snapshots of disruption across a swath of the northern Gulf of Mexico. It stretches from the 5,000-feet deep waters at the spill site to the continental shelf off Alabama and the shallow coastal marshes of Louisiana.
Much of the spill — estimated at up to 182 million gallons of oil and around 12 billion cubic feet of natural gas — was broken into small droplets by chemical dispersants at the site of the leaking well head. That reduced the direct impact to the shoreline and kept much of the oil and natural gas suspended in the water.
But immature crabs born offshore are suspected to be bringing that oil — tucked into their shells — into coastal estuaries from Pensacola, Fla., to Galveston, Texas. Oil being carried by small organisms for long distances means the spill's effects could be wider than previously suspected, said Tulane professor Caz Taylor.
Chemical oceanographer John Kessler from Texas A&M University and geochemist David Valentine from the University of California-Santa Barbara recently spent about two weeks sampling the waters in a six-mile radius around the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon rig. More than 3,000 feet below the surface, they found natural gas levels have reached about 100,000 times normal, Kessler said.
Already those concentrations are pushing down oxygen levels as the gas gets broken down by bacteria, Kessler and Valentine said. When oxygen levels drop low enough, the breakdown of oil and gas grinds to a halt and most life can't be sustained.
The researchers also found dead pyrosomes covering the Gulf's surface in and around the spill site. "There were thousands of these guys dead on the surface, just a mass eradication of them," Kessler said.
Scientists said they believe the pyrosomes — six inches to a foot in length — have been killed by the toxins in the oil because there have no other explanation, though they plan further testing.
The researchers say the dead creatures probably are floating to the surface rather than sinking because they have absorbed gas bubbles as they filtered water for food.
The death of pyrosomes could set off a ripple effect. One species that could be directly affected by what is happening to the pyrosomes would be sea turtles, said Laurence Madin, a research director at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Cape Cod, Mass. Some larger fish, such as tuna, may also feed on pyrosomes.
"If the pyrosomes are dying because they've got hydrocarbons in their tissues and then they're getting eaten by turtles, it's going to get into the turtles," said Madin. It was uncertain whether that would kill or sicken the turtles.
The BP spill also is altering the food web by providing vast food for bacteria that consume oil and gas, allowing them to flourish.
At the same time, the surface slick is blocking sunlight needed to sustain plant-like phytoplankton, which under normal circumstances would be at the base of the food web.
Phytoplankton are food for small bait fish such as menhaden, and a decline in those fish could reduce tuna, red snapper and other populations important to the Gulf's fishing industries, said Condon, a researcher with Alabama's Dauphin Island Sea Lab.
Seafood safety tests on hundreds of fish, shrimp and other marine life that could make it into the food supply so far have turned up negative for dangerous oil contamination.
Assuming the BP gusher is stopped and the cleanup successful, government and fishing industry scientists said the Gulf still could rebound to a healthy condition.
Ron Luken, chief scientist for Omega Protein, a Houston-based company that harvests menhaden to extract fish oil, says most adult fish could avoid the spill by swimming to areas untainted by crude. Young fish and other small creatures already in those clean waters could later repopulate the impacted areas.
"I don't think anybody has documented wholesale changes," said Steve Murawski, chief scientist for the National Marine Fisheries Service. "If that actually occurs, that has a potentially great ramification for life at the higher end of the food web."
Experts fear long oil effect on marine life, food chain
Michael Mathes Yahoo News 18 Jul 10;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Scientists studying the massive BP oil spill fear a decades-long, "cascading" effect on marine life that could lead to a shift in the overall biological network in the Gulf of Mexico.
With some 400 species estimated to be at risk -- from the tiniest oil-eating bacteria to shrimp and crabs, endangered sea turtles, brown pelicans and sperm whales -- experts say the impact of oil and chemical dispersants on the food chain has already begun, and could grow exponentially.
"A major environmental experiment is underway," Ron Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, told AFP.
"We are already impacting the base of the food chain," he said, including plankton, which provide crucial food for fish, and juvenile shrimp in intertidal marshes along the Gulf Coast.
Kendall, whose institute is studying tissue samples from live and dead Gulf fish to analyze the spill's impact, helped study effects of the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil disaster on wildlife in Alaska's Prince William Sound.
With the Exxon Valdez, a finite amount of oil poured into the sea -- about one 17th of the low estimate of the oil that has gushed from a ruptured well into the Gulf -- and rose to the surface to coat the shoreline.
"This is so much more complex, what we're dealing with now," he said, noting that the 1.84 million gallons (7.0 million liters) of chemical dispersants used to fight the spill has kept some of the oil from fouling shores, but created potentially drastic problems by breaking up the oil has into droplets that may never be recovered.
Dispersants, says Kendall, release aromatic hydrocarbons and allow small oil droplets to be consumed by marine life, potentially threatening the food supply for humans.
No contaminated Gulf fish or seafood has reached the market, according to experts, but authorities have closed some 35 percent of all fishing waters, threatening the livelihoods of thousands and putting the region's multibillion-dollar seafood industry in peril.
Researchers have reportedly observed major die-offs of organisms such as pyrosomes, cucumber-shaped creatures that are favorite meals of endangered sea turtles, which have been dying by the hundreds.
Kendall acknowledged that species shifts are possible but added that "we're at the early stages of documenting the scientific effects of what's occurring."
BP and the US government say they have found more than 2,600 dead birds, mammals and turtles, but Doug Inkley, a senior scientist at the National Wildlife Federation, warns that could be the tip of the iceberg.
Many dead fish and sharks sink, so their numbers may never be known.
Inkley pointed to ongoing studies which show oil is expected to have a large effect on plankton -- and the animals that eat them.
"This could be an effect that will ripple all the way up the food chain," he said.
He fears a delayed disaster, similar to when Prince William Sound's Pacific herring population collapsed four years after the Exxon Valdez spill, likely because few of the herring that spawned in 1989 reached maturity.
Dozens of marine and bird species were beginning their breeding season in April when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded and sank, setting off the huge spill.
"You could have a (population) crash later because of the failure of many of the young to survive this year," said Inkley. "The impacts on wildlife I expect will last for years, if not decades."
Congressman Ed Markey, chairman of a House subcommittee on energy and the environment, echoed the concerns in a letter to the Food and Drug Administration.
He said evidence showed "the marine food chain in the Gulf of Mexico has already been contaminated," and pointed to researchers who recently uncovered oil droplets found inside crab larvae harvested from the Gulf.
"This finding is particularly disconcerting because these larvae are a source of food for numerous aquatic species and this is therefore the first sign that hydrocarbons have entered into the food web."
Complicating the scenario, the Gulf will soon host millions of fowl on autumn and winter migrations.
"We'll have a whole new wave of ducks and waterbirds that will be coming here and getting affected," Kendall said. "Who knows what impact that will bring?"
Woeful climate threatens nation's husbandry
Yuli Tri Suwarni, The Jakarta Post 15 Jul 10;
Unpredictable changes in world climate and the global energy crisis have affected the production of livestock, according to an expert.
"We used to have a year of half rain and half sunshine. Farmers had no difficulties in poultry provision," Iman Hernawan, a poultry nutritionist from Padjadjaran University, said in Bandung on Wednesday.
He said the current unpredictable climate had been adverse to the husbandry, in regard to productivity and quality, over the past two years.
Indonesian husbandry, which is only a sub-tier of the agriculture industry, according to Iman, will find it increasingly difficult to operate because of the absence of mechanisms to provide feed.
The world energy crisis, he added, exacerbated the condition with corn and soybean producing countries reducing exports of the crops, often used for feed, opting instead to convert the commodity into bio-ethanol.
"Such conditions have caused a stagnation in the growth of Indonesia's cattle population," Iman said.
Data shows that the beef cattle population in Indonesia experienced a rise from 11.5 million in 2007 to 12.2 million in 2008 before stagnating to 12.6 million in 2009. East Java has the largest stock of cattle with 3.4 million.
The population of dairy cattle is also said to have experienced near stagnation with only a 6.5 percent rise from 457,000 in 2008 to 487,000 in 2009.
Jajang Sumarno said the difficulties in breeding cattle related to a lack of available feed, adding he had to slash the amount of grass feed because of shrinking grasslands.
(AFP) Google News 14 Jul 10;
SYDNEY — Plagues of mice and locusts are threatening huge swathes of Australia's farming heartland and could wipe out crops worth one billion dollars (880 million US), scientists warned Wednesday.
Millions of mice are currently devouring crops and will be joined within months by dense swarms of locusts, affecting southeastern regions with the combined area of Portugal.
"This is the result of what we are calling a perfect storm," said Chris Adriaansen from the Australian Plague Locust Commission. "Many millions of eggs will hatch."
High rainfall and mild temperatures have created ideal breeding conditions for the pests, which will hit parts of New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland and South Australia, experts told a briefing.
Mass locust hatching in September and October is set to create swarms of up to 15,000 per square metre (yard), devastating crops at a rate of several hundred metres a day.
Scientists said the best way to stop the plagues was to predict their movement and use pesticides, but held out hope that cannibalism by the locusts could limit the disaster.
"Locusts are constantly nibbling on each other and are more than willing to feed on each other," said Greg Sword, an Associate Professor at the University of Sydney's Molecular Ecology Lab.
"The locusts would effectively be feeding on themselves and could help limit their own populations."
Aerial tracking aircraft will be used to follow the outbreaks, allowing farmers to target the use of pesticides to protect their vegetable and grain crops.
"The problem with poisons is that they have other impacts throughout the ecosystem," said Mathew Crowther, a lecturer in wildlife management at the University of Sydney.
"They're also quite expensive, and when the farmers do put them out, often a lot of the damage is already done."
But the impact of inaction could be far worse, with Adriaansen estimating losses of up to one billion Australian dollars if the plagues are left unchecked.
And while scientists are confident they will ultimately be able to control the outbreak, it is expected to continue for several months at least.
"This will be a problem that will continue into (southern hemisphere) summer," said Adriaansen.
News of the plagues comes after a mass sabotage in Queensland wiped out seven million vegetable plants, mainly tomatoes, which cost an estimated 50 million dollars and is expected to send prices soaring.
Ben Blanchard and Manny Mogato Reuters 15 Jul 10;
* Local authorities urge evacuation of 300,000 in Japan
* Typhoon Conson expected to hit China, Vietnam late Friday
* Power restored in Manila, minimal damage to crops (Adds details on storm landing in China, paragraphs 5-7)
BEIJING/MANILA, July 15 (Reuters) - Heavy rains and powerful winds battered East Asia on Thursday, pressing authorities to evacuate hundreds of thousands of people from their homes in Japan and putting China on alert for its worst floods in years.
In the Philippines, power was gradually restored to millions of homes in and around Manila after Typhoon Conson hit the capital harder than expected on Tuesday night, killing 23 people and leaving dozens missing.
Tropical Storm Risk downgraded the typhoon to a tropical storm on Thursday, but the Philippines' weather bureau said it was expected to regain strength as it moved over the South China Sea and headed towards southern China and northern Vietnam.
Conson was due to hit land late on Friday, the Tropical Storm Risk website (http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com) said.
China's Xinhua news agency said the storm would make landfall in Hainan island's southern resort city of Sanya before moving into Guangdong and Guangxi, bringing heavy rain.
"Winds will gradually strengthen and it may increase in intensity to a typhoon," the China Meteorological Administration said on its website (www.cma.gov.cn).
More than 24,000 fishing boats have taken shelter in harbours around Hainan and ferry services between the island the mainland will be stopped in the early evening, Xinhua said.
Typhoons and tropical storms regularly hit the Philippines, China, Taiwan and Japan in the second half of the year, gathering strength from the warm waters of the Pacific Ocean or South China Sea before normally weakening over land.
Japan's Kyodo news agency said local governments had recommended that some 300,000 people be evacuated from their homes, as the Meteorological Agency forecast heavy rains from a separate weather system for the west and east of the country later on Thursday.
TV images showed some houses tilted after being hit by mudslides, swollen rivers and abandoned cars almost totally submerged in flooded streets. Footage also showed a rescue crew saving a man caught in a fallen tree on a fast-running river.
Authorities say at least two people have been killed.
"NO ROOM FOR OPTIMISM" IN CHINA
Central China also faces its worst flooding since 1998, when thousands died, as rain continues to batter the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River.
"Although the current situation along the Yangtze River has yet to reach the danger level, it is definitely at a crucial point," the China Daily quoted senior flood official Wang Jingquan as saying.
"If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, coupled with the continuous rainfall in the middle and lower reaches, severe flooding similar to that in 1998 will occur," Wang added.
"There will be no room for optimism as the incoming Typhoon Conson will add to the grave situation in flood control."
Yangtze floods 12 years ago killed more than 4,000 people and forced the evacuation of more than 18 million.
Rain across a large swathe of southern China has already killed around 400 people this year.
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local governments to step up flood relief efforts and "stressed that people residing in areas under the threat of floods and typhoons must be relocated to safety in a timely manner", the report said.
POWER RETURNS IN MANILA
Trains, planes and ferries returned to normal operations in the Philippines as Typhoon Conson tracked toward Hainan.
More than 8,000 people remained in temporary shelters in five cities and 47 towns on Luzon, the Philippines' main island.
About 40 percent of the Luzon power grid's daily requirement of nearly 5,500 megawatts had been restored, although repairs have been slowed down by damaged bridges and roads, fallen trees and posts and snapped cables and transmission lines.
Power distributor Manila Electric Co (Meralco)
Civil defence chief Benito Ramos said the typhoon had not caused a great deal of damage to rice- and coconut-growing areas near the capital. (Additional reporting by Yoko Nishikawa; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)
Reuters 15 Jul 10;
BEIJING, July 15 (Reuters) - Central China faces its worst flooding since 1998 when thousands died, as rain continues to batter the upper and middle reaches of the Yangtze River, a state newspaper said on Thursday.
"Although the current situation along the Yangtze River has yet to reach the danger level, it is definitely at a crucial point," the China Daily quoted senior flood official Wang Jingquan as saying.
"If heavy rain hits the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, coupled with the continuous rainfall in the middle and lower reaches, severe flooding similar to that in 1998 will occur," Wang added.
"There will be no room for optimism as the incoming Typhoon Conson will add to the grave situation in flood control," he added, referring to a storm heading towards the southern Chinese provinces of Guangdong and Hainan.
Yangtze floods in 1998 killed more than 4,000 people, forced the evacuation of more than 18 million and causes damage worth $37 billion, the newspaper said.
Rain across a large swathe of southern China has already killed around 400 people this year.
Storms over the last week in Yunnan, Sichuan and Hunan provinces have killed at least 41 and left nearly 40 others missing, with many vanishing under landslides.
President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao have ordered local governments to step up flood relief efforts and "stressed that people residing in areas under the threat of floods and typhoons must be relocated to safety in a timely manner", the report said. (Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Alex Richardson)
David Fogarty PlanetArk 15 Jul 10;
Sea levels are rising unevenly in the Indian Ocean, placing millions at risk along low-lying coastlines in Bangladesh, Indonesia and Sri Lanka, scientists say in a study.
Researchers from the University of Colorado and the National Center for Atmospheric Research say the rising sea levels are caused in part by climate change and are triggered by warming seas and changes to atmospheric circulation patterns.
In his acceptance speech for the Nobel Peace Prize last year, President Barack Obama warned that if the world does nothing to confront climate change, "we will face more drought, famine and mass displacement that will fuel more conflict for decades".
The authors of the latest study say higher seas could exacerbate monsoon flooding, placing crops, homes and livelihoods at greater risk. They argue a better understanding of the changes are needed to improve risk assessment planning for the future.
Sea levels in general are rising globally by about 3 mm (0.1181 inch) a year. Scientists blame rising temperatures caused by the growing amounts of greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, that trap heat in the atmosphere.
Oceans are absorbing a large part of this extra heat, causing them to expand and sea levels to rise. Warmer temperatures are also causing glaciers and parts of the ice blanketing Greenland and West Antarctica to melt.
The team of researchers in their study used long-term tide gauge data, satellite observations and computer climate models to build a picture of sea level rises in the Indian Ocean since the 1960s.
They found that sea-level rise is particularly high along the coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, Sri Lanka, Sumatra and Java and that these areas could suffer rises greater than the global average.
But they also found that sea levels are falling in other areas. The study indicated that the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coast show the largest sea-level drop.
WARM POOL
"Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform," said co-author Gerald Meehl of NCAR in Boulder, Colorado.
The study is published in the latest issue of the journal Nature Geoscience.
A key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, a large oval-shaped area spanning the tropical oceans from the east coast of Africa to the International Date Line in the Pacific.
The pool has warmed by about 0.5 degrees Celsius (1 degree Fahrenheit) over the past 50 years, primarily because of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions. The warmer water has strengthened two major atmospheric circulation patterns that have a major impact on sea levels.
"Our new results show that human-caused atmosphericoceanic circulation changes over the Indian Ocean, which have not been studied previously, contribute to the regional variability of sea-level change," the researchers say in the study.
The two main wind patterns in the region are the Hadley and Walker circulations.
In the Hadley circulation, air currents rise above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flow poleward at upper levels, then sink to the ocean in the subtropics and cause surface air to flow back toward the equator.
The Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool.
Strengthening of these two patterns could have far-reaching impacts on AsianAustralian monsoons, Indonesian floods and drought in Africa, the study says.
Indian Ocean Sea Levels Rising Due to Greenhouse Gases
Environment News Service 14 Jul 10;
BOULDER, Colorado, July 14, 2010 (ENS) - Rising sea levels in parts of the Indian Ocean appear to be a result of increases of atmospheric greenhouse gases caused by human activities, finds new research led by scientists at the University of Colorado at Boulder and funded by federal government agencies.
The study of sea surface measurements going back to the 1960s and satellite observations shows sea levels are rising along coastlines of the Bay of Bengal, the Arabian Sea, the island nation of Sri Lanka, and the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java.
"Our new results show that human-caused changes of atmospheric and oceanic circulation over the Indian Ocean region, which have not been studied previously, are the major cause for the regional variability of sea level change," wrote the authors in "Nature Geoscience," where the research is published in the current issue.
The findings indicate "anthropogenic climate warming likely is amplifying regional sea rise changes in parts of the Indian Ocean, threatening inhabitants of some coastal areas and islands," said CU-Boulder Associate Professor Weiqing Han, the study's lead author.
The sea level rise, which may aggravate monsoon flooding in Bangladesh and India, could have far-reaching impacts on both future regional and global climate, warned Han of CU-Boulder's atmospheric and oceanic sciences department.
The Indian Ocean is the world's third largest ocean and makes up about 20 percent of the water on Earth's surface. The ocean is bounded on the west by East Africa, on the north by India, on the east by Indochina and Australia, and on the south by the Southern Ocean off the coast of Antarctica.
The key player in the process is the Indo-Pacific warm pool, an enormous, bathtub-shaped area of the tropical oceans stretching from the east coast of Africa west to the International Date Line in the Pacific.
The warm pool has heated by about one degree Fahrenheit, or 0.5 degrees Celsius, in the past 50 years, an effect "primarily caused by human-generated increases of greenhouse gases," said Han.
"If future anthropogenic warming effects in the Indo-Pacific warm pool dominate natural variability, mid-ocean islands such as the Mascarenhas Archipelago, coasts of Indonesia, Sumatra and the north Indian Ocean may experience significantly more sea level rise than the global average," said Han.
While a number of areas in the Indian Ocean region are showing sea level rise, the study also indicated the Seychelles Islands and Zanzibar off Tanzania's coastline show falling sea levels.
Sea rise in some areas correlates with sea level fall in other areas, said co-author Gerald Meehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research, NCAR, in Boulder.
Global sea level patterns are not geographically uniform, he explained.
The patterns of sea level change are driven by the combined enhancement of two primary atmospheric wind patterns known as the Hadley circulation and the Walker circulation.
The Hadley circulation in the Indian Ocean is dominated by air currents rising above strongly heated tropical waters near the equator and flowing poleward, then sinking to the ocean in the subtropics and causing surface air to flow back toward the equator.
The Walker circulation causes air to rise and flow westward at upper levels, sink to the surface and then flow eastward back toward the Indo-Pacific warm pool. "The combined enhancement of the Hadley and Walker circulation form a distinct surface wind pattern that drives specific sea level patterns," said Han.
The international research team used several sophisticated ocean and climate models for the study, including the Parallel Ocean Program, the ocean component of NCAR's widely used Community Climate System Model. In addition, the team used a wind-driven, linear ocean model for the study.
Han said that based on all-season data records, there is no significant sea level rise around the Maldives. But when the team looked at winter season data only, the Maldives show significant sea level rise, a cause for concern.
The smallest Asian country, the Maldives is made up of more than 1,000 islands, about 200 of which are inhabited by about 300,000 people, and are on average only about five feet above sea level.
The complex circulation patterns in the Indian Ocean may also affect precipitation by forcing even more atmospheric air down to the surface in Indian Ocean subtropical regions than normal, Han speculated.
"This may favor a weakening of atmospheric convection in the subtropics, which may increase rainfall in the eastern tropical regions of the Indian Ocean and increase drought in the western equatorial Indian Ocean region, including east Africa," Han said.
The new study indicates that in order to document sea level change on a global scale, researchers also need to know the specifics of regional sea level changes that will be important for coastal and island regions, said Aixue Hu of NCAR. Along the coasts of the northern Indian Ocean, seas have risen by an average of about 0.5 inches, or 13 millimeters, per decade.
"It is important for us to understand the regional changes of the sea level, which will have effects on coastal and island regions," said Hu.
Co-authors included Balaji Rajagopalan, Xiao-Wei Quan, Jih-wang Wang and Laurie Trenary of CU-Boulder, Gerald Meehl, John Fasullo, Aixue Hu, William Large and Stephen Yeager of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Jialin Lin of Ohio State University, and Alan Walcraft and Toshiaki Shinoda of the Naval Research Laboratory in Mississippi.
The study was funded by NCAR, the National Science Foundation, NASA and the U.S. Department of Energy.
AFP Yahoo News 15 Jul 10;
LONDON (AFP) - – British ministers on Wednesday launched a new Google Earth map designed to show the potential impact of temperature rises of four degrees Celsius.
The interactive map lets members of the public see the dramatic changes that could occur if action is not taken to curb greenhouse gas emissions.
Significant alterations include higher temperatures over land compared to the sea, and extreme temperature increases in the Arctic, according to the map.
It was created using analysis from the Met Office Hadley Centre, a largely state-funded climate change research unit that advises government, and other leading scientists in the field, according to a Foreign Office statement.
Unveiling the map, Foreign Office minister Henry Bellingham said it demonstrated the new government's determination to tackle climate change and show a wide audience the dangers or rising temperatures.
"The threat from climate change has not gone away and this government is committed to doing what it can to take action," he said.
"We are committed to being the 'greenest' government ever."
Greg Barker, energy and climate change minister, said: "This map reinforces our determination to act against dangerous man-made climate change."
Vicky Pope, from the Met Office, added: "If greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise, global average temperatures could increase by four degrees Celsius by the end of the century, and possibly as early as 2060."
The map can be viewed at: www.fco.gov.uk/google-earth-4degrees.kml.
Google Earth must already be installed for the application to work.
River flows have dropped to their lowest levels in 50 years, hundreds of fish have died and reservoirs are drying out, figures show
John Vidal guardian.co.uk 14 Jul 10;
The last six months have been the second driest recorded in the UK in 96 years, with river flows in some areas at their lowest levels in 50 years and much of northern England and western Scotland now "exceptionally" water-stressed.
Provisional June figures released today by the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, a publicly funded leading research establishment, also show reservoir levels falling rapidly in north-west England and Wales. However, underground water levels in most major aquifers in Eastern, Central and Southern England are at normal levels, suggesting restrictions on water use will not be needed over most of Britain. A hosepipe ban has been imposed on 6.5m people in the north-west.
The regional drought, which has hit the normally wet, western areas of Britain unusually hard, is now causing "significant" environmental and ecological stress, says the centre which monitors river flows, underground water levels and soil moisture. North-west England in particular, has received nearly 40% less rain than normal this year, with only 1929 on record as being drier. Without an extremely wet November 2009, the situation would have been far worse, suggests the centre.
Also in northern England, almost half of the Leeds and Liverpool canal, the longest in Britain, is scheduled to close from 2 August from Gargrave in the Yorkshire Dales and Wigan. The move follows a drop in the levels of seven moor-top reservoirs which feed the stretch. British Waterways said levels were just under 30% of capacity instead of the usual July figure of 80%.
The drop in river levels has led to many hundreds of fish deaths. Hundreds have already died and specialists working with water companies and the Environment Agency in Wales, Scotland and the Lake District have rescued thousands more in the Taff, Terne, Tywi and Ely rivers, among others.
"In some places we've had to deal with some pretty serious environmental consequences such as fish-kill incidents linked to poor water quality and low flows," said an Environment Agency Wales spokesman.
The Telegraph 15 Jul 10;
The UK's seas are experiencing warmer temperatures, rising sea levels, changes in fish stocks and declines in breeding seabirds as a result of climate change, a report showed today.
According to the annual report for the Government by almost 100 scientists from 40 leading UK organisations, some fish moved northwards by between 50km to 400km (30-250 miles) over the past 30 years, with coldwater species such as monkfish moving furthest.
Plankton, which underpin the marine food chain, are also shifting, according to the review of what is happening to our seas and potential future impacts of climate change.
The study said global warming contributed to a 9% decline in the number of seabirds breeding in the UK between 2000 and 2008 and a drop in breeding success.
UK sea levels rose in line with global rises of an average 1.8mm a year since 1955.
The rate of increase escalated in recent years, with sea levels rising by 3mm a year on average since 1992, the Marine Climate Change Impacts Partnership said.
The oceans are becoming more acidic, at a rate faster than anything experienced in the past 55 million years, with concerns for ecosystems and species that could be affected by the changes.
And sea temperatures are generally rising, although there are fluctuations between years and UK coastal sea surface temperatures were lower in 2008 than the 2003 to 2007 average.
The report said warmer temperatures in the seas had an impact on coldwater species such as cod, threatening the survival of larvae and the growth of the fish, while salmon and eels were shown to be particularly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.
The shifting distribution of fish, partly as a result of climate change, was having an impact on the effectiveness of closing fishery areas to manage stocks sustainably.
But elsewhere there were boosts for fisheries, with seabass off the coast of the South West and South Wales quadrupling since 1985 and squid becoming more abundant in the northern North Sea.
The report card, which also looked at regional impacts of climate change on the seas, warned there was erosion of saltmarshes, which provide important habitat for species and can help limit flooding, on the coasts of the English Channel.
It also said red seaweed, introduced from Asia, was now present in Kent, Devon and Cornwall, while the increased temperatures in the seas were leading to increased disease outbreaks in pink sea fan.
In Scotland, birds including Arctic skuas, black-legged kittiwakes and shags have declined due to a drop in food availability.
The report outlines potential impacts of climate change on the UK's seas, including rises in sea levels which could top half a metre by the end of the century.
Sea levels could increase by between 21cm and 68cm in Cardiff and by 7cm to 55cm in Belfast, while increased algal blooms could lead to fish-kills.
Changes in winter wave heights in the Irish Sea and northern Channel could hit built structures, while storm surges could further erode saltmarshes in the eastern English Channel.
Marine environment minister Richard Benyon said: "For hundreds of years our seas have supported our fishing industry that provides us with food and coastal communities a way of life, as well as the vital marine ecosystem that is home to half the world species and habitats.
"But the seas and oceans are changing and we are only just starting to understand what this means.
"Scientific studies through partnerships such as this provide the research and knowledge that we need to take to understand how climate change is affecting the world's waters and what action we need to take."
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