Best of our wild blogs: 29 Jul 10

Oil-slicked Tanah Merah: Still full of stars!
from wild shores of singapore

Stormy Sungei Buloh
from Crystal and Bryan in Singapore

Distracting feeding behaviour of Zitting Cisticola
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Six deer escape from Night Safari

Lip Kwok Wai/Satish Cheney Channel NewsAsia 28 Jul 10;

SINGAPORE: Six deer escaped from the Night Safari at the Singapore Zoological Gardens on Wednesday morning.

Five have been found but one is still missing, although it is believed to be within the Night Safari park.

The fifth deer was caught in the evening at Mandai Lake Road. It had to be sedated. It took about one and a half hours to bring the deer back to its enclosure.

The Sambar deer are all female and were found missing during a routine check by a zookeeper.

One of them had managed to get out of the Night Safari's perimeter fence. A tree had fallen on the fence, allowing the deer to walk out of the park's boundaries.

Kumar Pillai, director of zoology at Wildlife Reserves Singapore, said: "(At) the Deer Park, we've got the primary enclosure and if for some reason the animals do come out of there, we have a secondary fence to keep the animals in. But it's the secondary fence that got damaged by the fallen tree and they got out of the park."

It is the first time the deer have escaped from their enclosure.

In a separate incident, the Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) rescued three wild Sambar deer in Mandai.

Army personnel had informed WRS that deer were seen at the range. When the WRS team arrived at the scene, they found three Sambar deer cornered in the perimeter fence of the range.

One animal was found dead on the scene with neck injuries and the remaining two animals were greatly stressed and weak.

WRS vets sedated and ascertained the conditions of the dangerously weakened animals and quickly brought them back to the WRS, which is a designated rescued wildlife centre.

Unfortunately, WRS vets were only able to save one of the deer. It is currently recovering under their care.

- CNA/ir

Runaway deer, first for Night Safari
Ng Jing Yng Today Online 29 Jul 10;

SINGAPORE - Six female deer broke out from their enclosure at the Night Safari yesterday morning. One of them even managed to make its way out of the park through a break in the perimeter fencing before it was caught in the evening.

Until late last night, the last of the six deer had not been captured and is believed to be in the vicinity of the park.

But the public need not be alarmed. Sambar deer are herbivorous and tame, said Night Safari's director of zoology Kumar Pillai.

The other five were rounded up at various times throughout the day, with the last deer being caught in the evening along the roadside about half a kilometre away from the entrance of the Night Safari. The startled animal - halted in its tracks by a tranquiliser dart - was lifted by at least six staff onto a pick-up truck and taken back to the park (inset).

It was the first time deer had escaped from their enclosure and investigations are in progress, said Mr Pillai. The break in the perimeter fencing was caused by a fallen tree.

Artist Mark Kaufmann, 47, who was sculpting at the nearby Mandai Orchid Garden, was startled to see a deer poking around the flowers at about 4pm yesterday.

"I was like 'wow'," he said, adding he whipped out his mobile phone and took a picture of it. He alerted the zoo and the animal was captured.

In a separate incident, three wild sambar deer were rounded up in Mandai after they were spotted at an army range. One animal was found dead with neck injuries and the other two were greatly stressed and weak. One of them subsequently died while the other is recovering at the zoo. NG JING YNG

Deer on the loose at Night Safari
Ted Chen Straits Times 29 Jul 10;

SIX sambar deer disappeared from their Night Safari enclosure yesterday morning, sparking a big search involving about 20 zoologists and vets from the Night Safari and Singapore Zoo.

As at press-time last night, five had been found and returned to their enclosure, while one was still on the loose within the park's boundaries.

'This is the first time these deer have escaped from their enclosure,' said the Night Safari's director of zoology Kumar Pillai.

Despite the lone deer running free, Safari operations went on as normal. Visitors were not notified of the solo, wandering deer, said a spokesman.

Night Safari workers realised the six deer were missing from their enclosure at about 10am yesterday, when they noticed that a tree, about two to three stories tall, had fallen on the enclosure's fences. They then found out that the deer were missing.

One of the deer recaptured had actually crossed out of the park's boundaries. It was picked up along Mandai Lake Road at about 7pm, less than 1km away from the park's boundaries.

The other four were recaptured within two hours of their disappearance within the Safari's grounds.

Although the deer were roaming freely, Safari workers were not worried that they would be attacked by meat-eating animals.

'These dangerous animals are separated by a moat,' said Night Safari spokesman Lin Liangmin. 'It would not be easy to walk into their enclosure.'

In an unrelated incident, the Wildlife Reserves Singapore Group, which operates the Night Safari, found three wild sambar deer in Mandai yesterday morning.

One had neck injuries and was found dead, while a second one died shortly after being rescued.

Last of six missing deer spotted; temporary fence built
Alvina Soh, Ng Jing Yng Channel NewsAsia 29 Jul 10;

SINGAPORE : Park officials think they will soon be able to capture the deer that is still missing after it escaped from its enclosure at the Night Safari, along with five other deer on Wednesday.

They spotted it on Wednesday night in the park's compound.

The other five deer were caught that day after they escaped in the morning.

Meanwhile, a temporary fence has been put up.

The deer enclosure has also been checked and secured.

A fence was damaged after a tree fell on it, allowing the deer to roam free.

Wildlife Reserves Singapore said it is working to ensure that the trees within the compound and along the perimeter of the park are in good condition.

- CNA/al

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Rein in puppy mills: Animal welfare groups

Grace Chua Straits Times 29 Jul 10;

ANIMAL welfare groups put out a joint call yesterday for higher standards at pet farms to curb unethical dog breeding, or 'puppy mills'.

The statement comes four months after rescuers found 85 breeding dogs at a Pasir Ris farm neglected and suffering from severe skin and health issues.

The animal groups also met the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) earlier this month to recommend more stringent dog farm standards, stricter enforcement and a licensing system for breeders.

Organisations which put their names to the statement include the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA), the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society, Action for Singapore Dogs, the Cat Welfare Society and the House Rabbit Society of Singapore.

'Puppy mills continue to thrive because the unwitting consumer is unaware of how these operations are run - with minimum care for the breeding animals involved,' the statement said.

SPCA executive officer Deirdre Moss added that industry self-regulation was not sufficient to ensure standards, and that breeders should be licensed for accountability.

In response, the AVA said it has imposed higher pet farm standards for animal health and welfare since January last year, but that it will take time for the industry to adapt.

Pet shop staff here have also been required to take a pet care course at Temasek Polytechnic since January this year, and this requirement is being extended to those working at dog farms.

The authority is also clamping down on those who neglect animals. In a legal first here, a breeder was fined $30,000 for causing unnecessary pain and suffering to six of his dogs. As he could not pay the fine, he was sentenced to six weeks' jail.

The AVA said that while it is taking a balanced approach to regulating the dog breeding farms, it is open to working with the animal welfare groups and welcomes suggestions on improving the overall standards of the industry.

Breeder Jonathan Tay, 38, has already signed up for the Temasek Polytechnic pet care course. But he said some level of skin problems was unavoidable because of the animals' fur. 'This is a challenge for breeders... In bad weather, even humans get sick.'

GRACE CHUA

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UMS Marine Scientists Discover Widespread Coral Bleaching In Sepanggar Bay, Sabah

Newmond Tibin Bernama 29 Jul 10;

KOTA KINABALU, July 29 (Bernama) -- Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) scientists have discovered widespread coral bleaching in Sepanggar Bay, off Sabah waters.

In disclosing this, UMS Director of Borneo Marine Research Institute Prof Dr Saleem Mustafa said such activities deserved serious attention due to its implications on marine biodiversity and coral reef fisheries in the state's waters.

"UMS scientists, including M. Ali, Aw Soo Ling and Dr Abentin Estim noticed bleaching in some areas of Sepanggar Bay.

"They are of the view that in the context of Sabah, the corals have been living close to their maximum water temperature tolerance, and additional warming of water certainly has a debilitating effect on their health and survival," he told Bernama, here Thursday.

Saleem said coral bleaching was a stress response associated with ecosystem disturbances.

"It happens when corals loose the symbiotic micro algae (zooxanthellae) due to unfavorable environmental conditions.

"Bleaching stress has affected not merely the stony corals but also some soft corals, sea anemone and other marine invertebrates which have symbiotic relationship with the zooxanthellae," he said.

He said while the degree of bleaching in Sabah would require more studies to quantify, it seemed to have started in recent months based on the routine observations that have been on-going during regular dives in the area by UMS marine scientists.

Saleem said the immediate causes could be unusual variations in temperature, dilution and sedimentation.

According to him, the dry spell and warmer conditions experienced in Sabah earlier this year (January-March) had weakened the corals and dealt a blow to their resistance to environmental stress.

"During that period, temperature and solar radiations were reported to be higher than average. The sea surface temperature anomalies (deviation from normal profile) exceeded 1.5oC in the equatorial Pacific Ocean and the consequential atmospheric anomalies that developed, reflected a moderate El Nino Southern Oscillation," he said.

"A declining trend in the sea surface temperature anomaly that started in the second half of March 2010 from 1.5oC and transitioned to below 0.5oC over a vast part of the equatorial Pacific Ocean paved the way for rains that have been heavy at times in the recent weeks, leading to a large volume of run-off into coastal areas of Sepanggar Bay," he said.

Saleem said sedimentation was also another serious problem that needed immediate attention.

"Sediment run-off from the land-based activities and upwelling during the heavy rains have exacerbated the turbidity of the seawaters and covered the corals.

"Under this condition, corals already weakened by high temperature could not withstand increasing scale of sedimentation and dilution.

"Together with the measures for controlling sediment inputs to the marine environment, we should also work towards protection and restoration of the connectivity of corals with other associated marine critical habitats like mangroves and sea grasses," he said.

He said the possibility of unusual regional patterns emerging from global climatic change as factors responsible for coral bleaching cannot be ruled out.

"The equatorial location of Sabah and the region around it makes it an active seat of hydrodynamics driven by changes in atmospheric conditions and ocean circulation.

"If this pattern is indeed responsible for regional warm water pools and altered chemical composition of sea water, the stress will ease out as the pattern changes," he said.

However, Saleem said: "We should be prepared to face and examine oceanic patterns unfamiliar to us due to complications caused by climate change".

He said the UMS scientists were of the view that the climate change was worsening the serious problems facing the marine ecosystem.

"With acidification of ocean, altered hydrodynamic events and warming of the sea, the marine life is heading towards more dramatic consequences.

"At local level, we should reduce stress on the coastal marine ecosystem and build resilience in corals, and expedite the development of marine protected areas. All global level, drastic reduction in carbon emission is the key factor in our fight against the effects of climate change.

Saleem said the economic costs of degradation or loss of marine habitats were enormous and deserved proper valuation for providing a sound basis for policy tools to emerge for economically viable and socially acceptable marine conservation program of action.

-- BERNAMA

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Malaysian corals on the brink, warns expert

Teh Eng Hock The Star 29 Jul 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Some 90% of Malaysia’s corals are dead due to global warming, and the reefs may never recover unless the people switch to a greener lifestyle.

Universiti Sains Malaysia marine biologist Prof Dr Zulfigar Yassin said the lack of coral reefs, which provide a home to many marine species, would lead to fewer fishes in the ocean and hurt the fishing industry.

Noting that coral life depends on how long it has been exposed to bleaching and its frequency, he said that even with measures to reduce carbon emission, closure of dive sites and reduced intake of seafood, it would take years for corals to recover.

Earlier this week, it was reported that corals in marine parks at Pulau Payar, Pulau Tioman and Pulau Redang had suffered bleaching, leading to the closure of some dive sites until the end of October.

Dr Zulfigar said bleaching had been occurring since April, spreading from the coast of India to Australia.

“It is definitely due to climate change; it cannot be due to a localised cause as in the case of the BP oil spill,” he said in an interview.

Coral bleaching is most likely to occur when the sea temperature rises above 31 °C for more than two days, making corals appear white, said Dr Zulfigar.

“Corals are essentially white. The colour comes from the algae living in them. Any stress on the corals, such as temperature (changes), will cause them to expel the algae.”

Dr Zulfigar said closing down the marine parks would certainly help the corals to recover by reducing additional stress caused by sewage from chalets, oil and grease from motorboats and abuse by tourists.

“People get upset over the closure (of the marine parks) because they are not aware, educated and sensitised to these issues.”

Some people have suggested transplanting live corals to Malaysia, but Dr Zulfigar said it was not a foolproof solution.

“Firstly, how many will survive? And you are creating a business. A price is placed on the corals.

“After the tsunami, people said it was due to a lack of mangroves. Some started selling mangrove saplings, and others planted them in places which originally did not have mangroves.”

Prof Zulfigar suggested that Malaysians start changing their lifestyle to prevent climate change. To raise awareness, Prof Zulfigar who heads a panel of judges in the Eco Earth Awards, said an essay writing competition for youths between 17 and 26 will be held. Participants are to write in English or Malay on “Global Warming And Its Effects On Malaysia” inless than 800 words, and submit it to ecoearthmalaysia@gmail.com before Aug 20.

A two-day camp awaits the shortlisted 15 participants, who will then have to come up with a five-minute documentary. The top five would join a team of scientists on a research trip to Aceh, Indonesia.

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Closure of Malaysian dive sites upsets enthusiasts

Maizatul Ranai and M. Hamzah Jamaluddin New Straits Times 29 Jul 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Diving enthusiasts have found it hard to accept the closure of several popular diving sites due to coral bleaching.

The Marine Park Department recently announced the closure of at least 12 diving spots and the ban on diving and snorkelling activities from July until October.

Ardent diver Yuhada Elis Yahya, 35, said he would not be able to get into his diving gear for months. "It is almost impossible for an active diver like me to accept this.

"I wonder what my life would be like without going under water these coming months."

The sales manager shares his passion for diving with his wife, 32-year-old medical doctor, Dr Nora Mohamad.


The couple have made the underwater world their monthly vacation retreat for years.

Yuhada said they were thinking of going to Indonesia or Sabah.

"But this will be costly as we have to spend a lot for such a trip," said the father of two.


Another diver, Afdlin Shauki, who is an artiste, said his life would be "unusual" as he would normally spend his leisure time diving with his friends.

"I am an active diver and I find solace in diving.

"It is sad that I will not be able to dive when I need to unwind from my hectic schedule."

Afdlin also expressed disappointment over claims that divers were partly to be blamed for coral bleaching.

"Many of us even volunteered to help conserve the beach.

"Coral bleaching is an outcome of climate change and it has nothing to do with divers' activities."

Universiti Teknologi Mara student, Noor Farisha Zainal Abidin, 25, said the closure would be hard for her as diving had been part of her life.

"It is sad that I have to give up diving for months."

She said most people were oblivious to the fact that the reefs were dying, and they continued throwing rubbish into the sea.

"I remember the last time that I dived.

"All I could see was dying corals with piles of rubbish all over them."

For tour operators, the closure of the diving spots meant a drop in their profits.

Ping Anchorage Travel & Tours operator Wan Masria Wan Mohd said some customers had cancelled bookings after reading about the closure in the newspapers.

"Although the closure will last until October, most of them are aware that the monsoon season falls on November, meaning they can only go to their favourite diving and snorkelling spots next year."

She said her agency was now arranging to take customers to sites not affected by the ban.

"Somehow, I wish we were informed at least two or three months before the closure so that we could have made prior arrangements with our customers."

Another tour operator, Zamros Mohd Dom, of Seri Sentosa in Pulau Tioman said his agency was anticipating great loss from the closure.

"The government should look into ways to assist operators affected by the closure."

The affected diving spots include Pulau Payar, Teluk Wangi, Pantai Damai and Coral Garden in Kedah; and Pulau Rengis, Pulau Tumok, Pulau Soyak, Pulau Chebeh and Batu Matang in Pahang.

In Terengganu, Teluk Dalam, Tanjung Tukas Darat and Tanjung Tukas Laut in Pulau Perhentian; Teluk Air Tawar in Pulau Tenggol and Teluk Bakau in Pulau Redang, will remain closed until the end of October.

Pulau Ekor Tebu, Pulau Che Isa and Pulau Tanjung Lebah diving spots in Pulau Redang have also been closed recently by the Redang Terengganu Operators' Association after checks revealed that the places were also affected by coral bleaching.

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Indonesian Sinar Mas-linked firms cutting virgin forest - report

Sunanda Creagh Reuters AlertNet 29 Jul 10;

JAKARTA, July 29 (Reuters) - Greenpeace on Thursday issued fresh accusations that palm oil firms linked to Indonesian agribusiness giant Sinar Mas have bulldozed rainforest and destroyed endangered orangutan habitats in Kalimantan.
An aerial view shows a cleared forest area under development for palm oil plantations in Kapuas Hulu district, Indonesia's West Kalimantan province July 6, 2010. The photograph was taken as part of a media trip organised by conservationist group Greenpeace, which has campaigned against palm oil expansion in forested areas in Indonesia. Picture taken July 6, 2010. REUTERS/Crack Palinggi

Sinar Mas group's palm oil unit, PT SMART Tbk lost top customers Unilever and Nestle after earlier Greenpeace allegations of virgin forest destruction.

SMART has promised to stop clearing high conservation value forests, a technical forestry term meaning forests that shelter endangered species or provide valuable natural services such as trapping climate-warming greenhouse gases. SMART said it will publish an audit of its operations on August 10. SMART manages Indonesian palm oil firms, PT Agro Lestari Mandiri (ALM) and PT Bangun Nusa Mandiri (BNM). The parent company for SMART, ALM and BNM is Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources , which is part-owned and led by the Widjaja family that controls Sinar Mas.

Greenpeace said in a report released on Thursday that aerial photographs taken in July by their own photographers, as well as by a Reuters photographer, showed that ALM was still clearing carbon-rich peatland forests in Ketapang district, in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province.

"What we found was that, despite their commitment, high carbon destruction is still going on," said Greenpeace forest campaigner, Bustar Maitar.

"This is still happening, even while their auditor is writing the report."

Enormous amounts of greenhouse gases are emitted when peatland forests are cleared and drained. Their preservation is seen as crucial to preventing runaway climate change.

Greenpeace also published photographs which it said showed BNM clearing in an area in Ketapang that was identified by the United Nations Environment Program as habitat for highly endangered orangutans.

Fajar Reksoprodjo, a spokesman for SMART, told Reuters that all concessions it operated were granted by the government.

"We are working based upon what the government has allocated for us. Presumably the issuance for that is because it's not deemed by the government as high conservation value," he said.

He said that in the past, aerial photographs that appeared to show clearing in peatlands had been misinterpreted.

"What was thought by layman's or non-expert eyes was peat, turned out to be mineral soil. It has the same colouration."

SMART originally said it would release its audit in July but delayed it to the second week of August because it was not yet finished.

The auditors are paid by SMART and were selected in collaboration with Unilever, which chairs the Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), an industry body made up of producers, consumers and non-government organisations.

Agribusiness giant Cargill Inc has threatened to delist Sinar Mas as a supplier if the RSPO validates allegations of improper land conversion in earlier Greenpeace reports. (Editing by Sara Webb and Miral Fahmy)

Greenpeace makes fresh allegations against Indonesian firm
Stephen Coates (AFP) Google News 29 Jul 10;

JAKARTA — Greenpeace made fresh allegations Thursday that units of Indonesian paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas are clearing high conservation-value forests including habitats of endangered orangutans.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said new investigations showed Sinar Mas subsidiaries logging peat forests and orangutan habitats on Borneo island despite repeated promises to end such practices.

"Our photos provide fresh evidence of Sinar Mas's continued active clearance of remaining rainforests and deep peatlands," he told AFP as the environmental group released a report on the issue.

"Contrary to their claims of sustainability, land-clearing is still happening on the ground."

The allegations are the latest in a string of Greenpeace attacks on Sinar Mas, whose palm oil unit PT SMART has recently suffered the loss of major clients Unilever, Kraft and Nestle over environmental concerns.

"Sinar Mas is the leading palm oil producer in Indonesia. It is their duty to show the way and that's the reason why we have targeted them. We would be more than happy to stop this campaign," Maitar said.

In addition to sheltering critically endangered species like orangutans, high conservation-value forests are also rich stores of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Sinar Mas denies the Greenpeace allegations and SMART has promised to release an audit on August 10 to prove that its operations are sustainable.

Indonesia is considered the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly through deforestation, much of which is carried out illegally with the alleged connivance of officials and security forces.

The Greenpeace report published Thursday says Sinar Mas, which is controlled by the Widjaja family headed by company founder Eka Tjipta Widjaja, is planning to aggressively target sensitive forests in Papua province.

"Analysis by Greenpeace of areas targeted by Sinar Mas for oil palm development in Papua indicates that these areas contain 50 percent primary forest cover and significant areas of peatland," it said.

"Its future expansion into rainforest areas and peatlands will further contribute to habitat loss and climate change."

SMART President Director Daud Dharsono said the company was in fact helping to preserve forests and species such as orangutans.

"We are not responsible for clearing primary forests, which are the natural habitats for orangutans, and high conservation-value areas (HCV)," he said in a statement sent to AFP.

"On the contrary, all our concession areas do not contain primary forests and we conserve high conservation-value areas, creating sanctuaries that will continue to preserve biodiversity."

A company statement said that forested areas in Greenpeace photographs of SMART concession areas showed that the firm was conserving high-value areas on the degraded land it owned or managed.

"They are not remnants of primary forest caused by SMART?s palm oil operations. These are in fact preserved areas, as a result of our commitment to conserve HCV land," it said.

"SMART is a responsible company... We reiterate that as part of our sustainability commitments, SMART does not plant oil palm trees on peat land, primary forests nor convert land with HCV."

But Greenpeace's Maitar said Sinar Mas had been "caught red-handed", yet again.

"This is typical of a group that has an appalling record of environmental destruction," he said.

Greenpeace earlier this month accused foreign firms like Walmart, Carrefour and Tesco of contributing to forest destruction and species loss in Indonesia by buying from paper and palm oil giant Sinar Mas.

Greenpeace accuses Sinar Mas of breaking promises
Antara 29 Jul 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - A new Greenpeace investigation into the operations of Sinar Mas reveals that the company is continuing to break its own environmental commitments on protecting forests and peatland.

"We`ve caught Sinar Mas red-handed destroying valuable rainforests, and breaching the limited promises it has made to clean up its act. This is typical of a group that has an appalling record of environmental destruction.

Sinar Mas has to be reigned in if there is to be a future for what`s left of Indonesia`s rainforests. Until this group changes course, other businesses should have nothing to do with Sinar Mas," said Bustar Maitar, Greenpeace forest campaigner on a press statement on the environmental NGO`s website, Thursday.

Publishing new photographic evidence, aerial monitoring and field analysis, Greenpeace International details how the Sinar Mas group continues to clear rainforest containing priceless biodiversity - such as orang-utan habitat - and carbon-rich peatlands, despite public promises it has made to clean up its act.

"The revelations also highlight Sinar Mas` ambitions to expand its pulp and palm oil empire into millions more hectares across Indonesia, including large tracts of rainforest and peatland in the province of Papua. These ambitions are outlined in confidential Sinar Mas documents obtained by Greenpeace," Greenpeace said.

Last week, the head of Sinar Mas` palm oil division confirmed the company`s intentions to expand its empire by an additional 1 million hectares.

Sinar Mas claims not to develop on peatland and to protect forests of `high conservation value`.

Earlier Greenpeace investigations repeatedly documented cases where Sinar Mas operations actively cleared rainforest and peatland areas, including tiger and orang-utan habitats.

Following the latest revelations Greenpeace is calling on Sinar Mas to come clean and make public its maps detailing all its landholdings, to enable analysis of which areas are critically important for biodiversity and climate protection, and what it is doing in those areas. (*)

Greenpeace Says Photos Show Palm Oil Destruction in Indonesia
Arti Ekawati & Reuters Jakarta Globe 20 Jul 10;

Indonesia. Greenpeace on Thursday went into attack mode again, saying it had photographic proof that palm oil firms linked to Indonesian agrobusiness giant Sinar Mas are bulldozing rainforests and destroying the habitat of endangered orangutans in Kalimantan.

Sinar Mas, which lost top customers like Unilever and Nestle after an earlier Greenpeace allegation that it was destroying virgin forests, countered that it was working on government-awarded concessions that were already degraded before it began .

After Greenpeace’s earlier report, Sinar Mas group’s palm oil unit, PT SMART, which manages producers PT Agro Lestari Mandiri and PT Bangun Nusa Mandiri, ordered an independent audit of their operations in Central and West Kalimantan, but announcement of the results has been postponed twice and is now scheduled for Aug. 10.

Greenpeace said aerial photographs taken in July by its own photographers, as well as Reuters, showed that Agro Lestari was still clearing carbon-rich peat land forests in the Ketapang district of West Kalimantan.

The group also published photographs allegedly showing Bangun Nusa clearing an area in Ketapang that had been identified by the United Nations Environment Program as a habitat for highly endangered orangutans.

“What we found was that, despite their commitment, high levels of carbon destruction are still going on,” Greenpeace forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said.

“This is still happening, even while their auditor is writing the report,” he added.

Fajar Reksoprodjo, a spokesman for SMART, told Reuters that because the concessions it operated were granted by the government, “presumably the issuance for that is because it’s not deemed by the government as high conservation value.”

He also said that in the past, Greenpeace had misinterpreted areas in aerial photographs.

“What was thought by layman’s or non-expert eyes as peat turned out to be mineral soil. They have the same coloration,” he said.

SMART acknowledged in a statement received by the Jakarta Globe that the pictures were taken in the company’s concession area in Kapuas Hulu, West Kalimantan, but stressed that they should not be interpreted as a deforestation of a primary forest.

“We are not responsible for the opening of primary forests, which are high conservation value areas and the main habitat for orangutans,” said Daud Dharsono, president director of Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology, a plantation unit.

“Instead, our concession area consists of nonprimary forest.”

The company also stated it was conserving some areas of degraded forest that still had high conservation value.

“The green areas shown in the photograph are proof that the company conserves these areas. [The areas are] not the remains of primary forest damaged by SMART’s activity,” Daud said.

Golden Agri unit says it only operates on degraded land
Angela Tan Business Times 30 Jul 10;

PT SMART Tbk (SMART), a subsidiary of Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources, yesterday reiterated that it is not responsible for clearing primary forests and orang-utan habitats in West Kalimantan, Indonesia, and that it only operates on degraded land based on government concessions.

'We are not responsible for clearing primary forests, which are the natural habitats for orang-utans, and High Conservation Value areas. On the contrary, all our concession areas do not contain primary forests and we conserve High Conservation Value areas, creating sanctuaries that will continue to preserve biodiversity,' said Daud Dharsono, president-director of SMART in a statement.

'In addition, in the case of degraded land, there could be areas with High Conservation Value...These areas are conserved.'

The assertions came amid renewed allegations by environmental group, Greenpeace, that units linked to Indonesian paper and palm oil giant, Sinar Mas, are logging in high conservation-value forests.

Greenpeace Indonesia forest campaigner Bustar Maitar said new investigations showed Sinar Mas subsidiaries logging peat forests and orang-utan habitats on Borneo island despite repeated promises to end such practices.

There are aerial photographs taken by journalists on a flight organised by Greenpeace around July 5 and 6, 2010 - some taken over SMART's concession areas in West Kalimantan.

In its latest statement, SMART claims the deforestation and the impact on orang-utans and other biodiversity would have already taken place well before SMART had management or control of degraded land.

The latest Greenpeace report published on Thursday said Sinar Mas, which is controlled by the Widjaja family headed by company founder Eka Tjipta Widjaja, is planning to aggressively target sensitive forests in Papua province.

'Analysis by Greenpeace of areas targeted by Sinar Mas for oil palm development in Papua indicates that these areas contain 50 per cent primary forest cover and significant areas of peatland,' it said.

Indonesia is considered the world's third-biggest emitter of greenhouse gases, mainly through deforestation, much of which is done illegally with the alleged connivance of officials and security forces.

SMART has promised to release an audit on Aug 10 to prove that its operations are sustainable. The Indonesian group is reeling from a public relations nightmare as corporates including retail giant Carrefour have suspended all orders of paper products from Sinar Mas' subsidiary, Asia Pulp & Paper, following reports from Greenpeace.

Golden Agri and Greenpeace battle rages on
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 30 Jul 10;

GREENPEACE opened a new attack on Golden Agri-Resources yesterday by releasing pictures that it claims show the palm oil producer clearing rain forests of high conservation value.

The aerial pictures are contained in a new report which alleges that the firm is still clearing carbon-rich peat land forests in Ketapang district, in Indonesia's West Kalimantan province.

The claims came on the day that Golden Agri unit PT Smart had meant to release an audit report on previous Greenpeace allegations about the firm's activities, but it postponed the release until Aug 10.

Greenpeace campaigner Bustar Maitar told The Straits Times: 'Delaying the report is not helping them. We have found that land clearing is still being continued, and this undermines the company's commitment to sustainability.'

PT Smart issued a statement yesterday saying that the aerial pictures are 'not the evidence of deforestation of primary forests, as referenced in media reports'. It said all concession areas owned or managed by PT Smart are located on degraded land, based on government concessions and in accordance with national laws and regulations. It added that deforestation would already have taken place well before Smart took control.

PT Smart president director Daud Dharsono also said yesterday: 'All our concession areas do not contain primary forests and we conserve high conservation value areas, creating sanctuaries that will continue to preserve biodiversity.'

The firm reiterated that it does not plant oil palm trees on peat land, and it aims to obtain a sustainability certification for all its palm oil operating units by 2015.

Firms such as Unilever and Nestle have dropped Smart as a supplier since Greenpeace began its series of accusations.

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Plankton, base of ocean food web, in big decline

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press 28 Jul 10;

WASHINGTON – Despite their tiny size, plant plankton found in the world's oceans are crucial to much of life on Earth. They are the foundation of the bountiful marine food web, produce half the world's oxygen and suck up harmful carbon dioxide.

And they are declining sharply.

Worldwide phytoplankton levels are down 40 percent since the 1950s, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Nature. The likely cause is global warming, which makes it hard for the plant plankton to get vital nutrients, researchers say.

The numbers are both staggering and disturbing, say the Canadian scientists who did the study and a top U.S. government scientist.

"It's concerning because phytoplankton is the basic currency for everything going on in the ocean," said Dalhousie University biology professor Boris Worm, a study co-author. "It's almost like a recession ... that has been going on for decades."

Half a million datapoints dating to 1899 show that plant plankton levels in nearly all of the world's oceans started to drop in the 1950s. The biggest changes are in the Arctic, southern and equatorial Atlantic and equatorial Pacific oceans. Only the Indian Ocean is not showing a decline. The study's authors said it's too early to say that plant plankton is on the verge of vanishing.

Virginia Burkett, the chief climate change scientist for U.S. Geological Survey, said the plankton numbers are worrisome and show problems that can't be seen just by watching bigger more charismatic species like dolphins or whales.

"These tiny species are indicating that large-scale changes in the ocean are affecting the primary productivity of the planet," said Burkett, who wasn't involved in the study.

When plant plankton plummet — like they do during El Nino climate cycles_ sea birds and marine mammals starve and die in huge numbers, experts said.

"Phytoplankton ultimately affects all of us in our daily lives," said lead author Daniel Boyce, also of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "Much of the oxygen in our atmosphere today was produced by phytoplankton or phytoplankton precursors over the past 2 billion years."

Plant plankton — some of it visible, some microscopic — help keep Earth cool. They take carbon dioxide — the key greenhouse gas — out of the air to keep the world from getting even warmer, Boyce said.

Worm said when the surface of the ocean gets warmer, the warm water at the top doesn't mix as easily with the cooler water below. That makes it tougher for the plant plankton which are light and often live near the ocean surface to get nutrients in deeper, cooler water. It also matches other global warming trends, with the biggest effects at the poles and around the equator.

Previous plankton research has mostly relied on satellite data that only goes back to 1978. But Worm and colleagues used a low-tech technology — disks devised by Vatican scientist Pietro Angelo Secchi, in the 19th century. These disks measure the murkiness of the ocean. The murkier the waters, the more plankton.

It's a proxy the scientific community has long accepted as legitimate, said Paul Falkowski of Rutgers University, who has used Secchi disk data for his work.

He and other independent scientists said the methods and conclusions of the new study made sense.

Base of Ocean Food Chain Is in Decline, Study Finds
Wynne Parry LiveScience.com Yahoo News 28 Jul 10;

Across the globe, the microscopic plants at the base of the oceans' food chain have been disappearing over the past century at a rate of about 1 percent per year, researchers have found.

The decline of these tiny plants, called phytoplankton, has large significance because they produce half the organic matter on the planet and play an important role in Earth's carbon cycle.

"They support everything, including us," said Daniel Boyce, a doctoral student in marine biology at Canada's Dalhousie University and a member of the team that studied phytoplankton levels. "It seems the oceans are being stressed, and global climate change seems to be at the center of this shift."

The study documented a connection between rising sea surface temperatures and declines in phytoplankton, a phenomenon that was already well known, said study team member Boris Worm, a marine biologist at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia.

"What is new here is we are showing as temperature has increased over the last century, so have phytoplankton declined," he told OurAmazingPlanet. "The global link hasn't been defined before."

While previous research relied on satellite data, which present only a limited record, the Dalhousie researchers were able to look back as far as 1899 by using measurements of ocean transparency - an indicator of phytoplankton abundance - and direct measurements of chlorophyll pigment concentration. (Chlorophyll is a pigment in plants that absorbs light and gives them their green color.)

The researchers found that the strongest single predictor for phytoplankton levels was ocean surface temperature. The connection is actually indirect, according to Worm, because rising surface temperatures prevent mixing between the oceans' oxygen-rich upper layers, where phytoplankton are present, and the colder, more nutrient-rich waters below.

The study, detailed in the July 29 issue of the journal Nature, found that rising surface temperatures were associated with declining phytoplankton in eight of 10 regions. Of the other two regions, the North Indian Ocean had a stable phytoplankton population and the South Indian Ocean showed growth.

The decline in phytoplankton seen around the poles, where it seems logical that increasing warmth would drive more growth, could be driven by increasing winds and ocean mixing, the researcher said.

Local factors such as polar melting and nutrient-rich runoff from agriculture also can influence the phytoplankton, Worm said.

"But all of these effects are unlikely to play out evenly on a global scale," he said. "The only driver we have that affects phytoplankton everywhere is ocean warming."

Declining algae threatens ocean food chain: study
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 28 Jul 10;

PARIS (AFP) – A century-long decline in tiny algae called phytoplankton could disrupt the global ocean food chain, including the human consumption of fish, according to a study released Wednesday.

The microscopic organisms -- which prop up the pyramid of marine animal life from shrimps to killer whales -- have been disappearing globally at a rate of one percent per year, researchers reported.

Since 1950, phytoplankon mass has dropped by about 40 percent, most likely due to the accelerating impact of global warming, they reported.

"Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run," said lead author Daniel Boyce, a professor at Dalhousie University in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.

"A decline affects everything up the food chain, including humans."

The pace of the decline -- heaviest in polar and tropical regions -- matched the rate at which surface ocean temperatures have increased as a result of climate change, the study said.

Like all plants, phytoplankton need sunlight and nutrients to grow.

But warmer oceans become more stratified, creating a "dead zone" at the surface in which fewer nutrients are delivered from deeper layers.

The findings are worrying, the researchers said.

"Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary support system -- they produce half the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface carbon dioxide, and ultimately support all fisheries," said co-author Boris Worm.

Boyce and colleagues combined historical and high-tech data to measure the marine algae's progressive ebb.

Satellites provided the most accurate gauge, but usable images from space of Earth's ocean biosphere have only been available since the late 1990s -- too recent to show longterm trends.

To reach back further in time, Boyce and colleagues combed through logs compiled since the late 19th century using a 20-centimetre (eight-inch) white disk lowered into sea water until an observer lost sight of it.

The degree to which light penetrates the ocean's top layer, it turns out, is a good measure of the concentration of the chlorophyll found in all phytoplankton.

The study, published in Nature, "does not portend well for pelagic, or open water, ecosystems in a world that is likely to be warmer," David Siegel, a researcher at the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Bryan Franz, an ocean biologist at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, said in a commentary.

In a separate study, also in Nature, a team of researchers led by Derek Tittensor of Dalhousie found a close tie between sea temperatures and the concentration of biodiversity in the world's oceans.

Across more than 11,000 species ranging from zooplankton to whales, the only environmental factor linked to all species groups was temperature.

"This relationship suggests that ocean warming, such as that due to climate change, may rearrange the distribution of ocean life," Tittensor said in a statement.

Plankton decline across oceans as waters warm
BBC News 28 Jul 10;

The amount of phytoplankton - tiny marine plants - in the top layers of the oceans has declined markedly over the last century, research suggests.

Writing in the journal Nature, scientists say the decline appears to be linked to rising water temperatures.

They made their finding by looking at records of the transparency of sea water, which is affected by the plants.

The decline - about 1% per year - could be ecologically significant as plankton sit at the base of marine food chains.

This is the first study to attempt a comprehensive global look at plankton changes over such a long time scale.

"What we think is happening is that the oceans are becoming more stratified as the water warms," said research leader Daniel Boyce from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada.

"The plants need sunlight from above and nutrients from below; and as it becomes more stratified, that limits the availability of nutrients," he told BBC News.

Phytoplankton are typically eaten by zooplankton - tiny marine animals - which themselves are prey for small fish and other animals.

Disk record

The first reliable system for measuring the transparency of sea water was developed by astronomer and Jesuit priest Pietro Angelo Secchi.

Asked by the Pope in 1865 to measure the clarity of water in the Mediterranean Sea for the Papal navy, he conceived and developed the "Secchi disk", which must be one of the simplest instruments ever deployed; it is simply lowered into the sea until its white colour disappears from view.

Various substances in the water can affect its transparency; but one of the main ones is the concentration of chlorophyll, the green pigment that is key to photosynthesis in plants at sea and on land.

The long-term but patchy record provided by Secchi disk measurements around the world has been augmented by shipboard analysis of water samples, and more recently by satellite measurements of ocean colour.

The final tally included 445,237 data points from Secchi disks spanning the period 1899-2008.

"This study took three years, and we spent lots of time going through the data checking that there wasn't any 'garbage' in there," said Mr Boyce.

"The data is good in the northern hemisphere and it gets better in recent times, but it's more patchy in the southern hemisphere - the Southern Ocean, the southern Indian Ocean, and so on."

The higher quality data available since 1950 has allowed the team to calculate that since that time, the world has seen a phytoplankton decline of about 40%.

Ocean cycling

The decline is seen in most parts of the world, one marked exception being the Indian Ocean. There are also phytoplankton increases in coastal zones where fertiliser run-off from agricultural land is increasing nutrient supplies.

However, the pattern is far from steady. As well as the long-term downward trend, there are strong variations spanning a few years or a few decades.

Many of these variations are correlated with natural cycles of temperature seen in the oceans, including the El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO), the North Atlantic Oscillation and the Arctic Oscillation.

The warmer ends of these cycles co-incide with a reduction in plankton growth, while abundance is higher in the colder phase.

Carl-Gustaf Lundin, head of the marine programme at the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), suggested there could be other factors involved - notably the huge expansion in open-ocean fishing that has taken place over the century.

"Logically you would expect that as fishing has gone up, the amount of zooplankton would have risen - and that should have led to a decline in phytoplankton," he told BBC News.

"So there's something about fishing that hasn't been factored into this analysis."

The method of dividing oceans into grids that the Dalhousie researchers used, he said, did not permit scrutiny of areas where this might be particularly important, such as the upwelling in the Eastern Pacific that supports the Peruvian anchovy fishery - the biggest fishery on the planet.

Absorbing facts

If the trend is real, it could also act to accelerate warming, the team noted.

Photosynthesis by phytoplankton removes carbon dioxide from the air and produces oxygen.

In several parts of the world, notably the Southern Ocean, scientists have already noted that the waters appear to be absorbing less CO2 - although this is principally thought to be because of changes to wind patterns - and leaving more CO2 in the air should logically lead to greater warming.

"Phytoplankton... produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO2, and ultimately support all of our fisheries," said Boris Worm, another member of the Dalhousie team.

"An ocean with less phytoplankton will function differently."

The question is: how differently?

If the planet continues to warm in line with projections of computer models of climate, the overall decline in phytoplankton might be expected to continue.

But, said, Daniel Boyce, that was not certain.

"It's tempting to say there will be further declines, but on the other hand there could be other drivers of change, so I don't think that saying 'temperature rise brings a phytoplankton decline' is the end of the picture," he said.

The implications, noted Dr Lundin, could be significant.

"If in fact productivity is going down so much, the implication would be that less carbon capture and storage is happening in the open ocean," he said.

"So that's a service that humanity is getting for free that it will lose; and there would also be an impact on fish, with less fish in the oceans over time."

Marine Phytoplankton Declining: Striking Global Changes at the Base of the Marine Food Web Linked to Rising Ocean Temperatures
ScienceDaily 28 Jul 10;

A new article published in the 29 July issue of the journal Nature reveals for the first time that microscopic marine algae known as "phytoplankton" have been declining globally over the 20th century. Phytoplankton forms the basis of the marine food chain and sustains diverse assemblages of species ranging from tiny zooplankton to large marine mammals, seabirds, and fish. Says lead author Daniel Boyce, "Phytoplankton is the fuel on which marine ecosystems run. A decline of phytoplankton affects everything up the food chain, including humans."

Using an unprecedented collection of historical and recent oceanographic data, a team from Canada's Dalhousie University documented phytoplankton declines of about 1% of the global average per year. This trend is particularly well documented in the Northern Hemisphere and after 1950, and would translate into a decline of approximately 40% since 1950. The scientists found that long-term phytoplankton declines were negatively correlated with rising sea surface temperatures and changing oceanographic conditions.

The goal of the three-year analysis was to resolve one of the most pressing issues in oceanography, namely to answer the seemingly simple question of whether the ocean is becoming more (or less) „green' with algae. Previous analyses had been limited to more recent satellite data (consistently available since 1997) and have yielded variable results. To extend the record into the past, the authors analysed a unique compilation of historical measurements of ocean transparency going back to the very beginning of quantitative oceanography in the late 1800s, and combined these with additional samples of phytoplankton pigment (chlorophyll) from ocean-going research vessels. The end result was a database of just under half a million observations which enabled the scientists to estimate phytoplankton trends over the entire globe going back to the year 1899.

The scientists report that most phytoplankton declines occurred in polar and tropical regions and in the open oceans where most phytoplankton production occurs. Rising sea surface temperatures were negatively correlated with phytoplankton growth over most of the globe, especially close to the equator. Phytoplankton need both sunlight and nutrients to grow; warm oceans are strongly stratified, which limits the amount of nutrients that are delivered from deeper waters to the surface ocean. Rising temperatures may contribute to making the tropical oceans even more stratified, leading to increasing nutrient limitation and phytoplankton declines. The scientists also found that large-scale climate fluctuations, such as the El-Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO), affect phytoplankton on a year-to-year basis, by changing short-term oceanographic conditions.

The findings contribute to a growing body of scientific evidence indicating that global warming is altering the fundamentals of marine ecosystems. Says co-author Marlon Lewis, "Climate-driven phytoplankton declines are another important dimension of global change in the oceans, which are already stressed by the effects of fishing and pollution. Better observational tools and scientific understanding are needed to enable accurate forecasts of the future health of the ocean." Explains co-author Boris Worm, "Phytoplankton are a critical part of our planetary life support system. They produce half of the oxygen we breathe, draw down surface CO2, and ultimately support all of our fisheries. An ocean with less phytoplankton will function differently, and this has to be accounted for in our management efforts."

David A. Siegel & Bryan A. Franz. Oceanography: Century of phytoplankton change. Nature, July 28, 2010; p569 DOI: 10.1038/466569a

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Marine Biodiversity Threatened, Study Finds

Lynne Peeples LiveScience.com 28 Jul 10;

Warming ocean waters, coupled with direct human actions such as pollution and overfishing, may threaten the rich diversity of life under the sea, a new U.S.-Canadian study suggests.

Researchers looked at how various factors have influenced the distribution of a spectrum of species - from seagrass to squid to sharks. Their findings help fill in the moving map of biodiversity across the world's oceans, knowledge that long has lagged behind that of diversity patterns on land.

"We wanted to find out which species were where, and why some places were greater hotspots of diversity than others," said lead researcher Derek Tittensor of Canada's Dalhousie University, in Halifax, Nova Scotia. "We were also interested in how these newly mapped hot spots related to human impacts on the oceans."

Species patterns

With the help of a public database created by the international network of researchers who conducted the Census of Marine Life, Tittensor and his colleagues identified the home waters of more than 11,000 species across 13 major groups. Then they began to uncover patterns.

Among coastal creatures, including corals and mangroves, the greatest area of diversity for most species groups was around the tropics of Southeast Asia. This was expected, given that terrestrial biodiversity is known to be highest around the equator and lowest at the poles.

Whales and other open-ocean species, on the other hand, were found in greatest concentrations along strips of sea at subtropical latitudes - those latitudes to the north and south of the tropical zone embracing the equator.

In addition to this "surprising pattern," Tittensor said, his team discovered a "worrying sign": These same hot spots of marine life overlapped areas with the largest human footprints, which raises the threat of severe species losses from pollution and other human action. Meanwhile, the combined effects of pollution, exploitation and habitat destruction put at risk the benefits humans gain from diverse ecosystems, such as water filtration and fish protein.

Warmer oceans

Another potentially devastating trend emerged when the team looked at environmental effects. Sea-surface temperature stood out as the only factor that consistently influenced all species groups, which suggests climate change could rearrange the distribution of oceanic life. Warmer parts of the ocean, for example, tended to sustain greater species diversity. But at the extremes of the temperature scale, Tittensor said, biodiversity may no longer be increasing. Instead it may be reaching a plateau or declining.

"In temperate regions, you may see more southern species coming in, due to warming, whereas in polar regions you tend to see a decline in diversity," he explained.

Still, the present picture is far from clear, leaving the future of the oceans unpredictable. Climate change affects more than just water temperature - ocean acidification and the bleaching of coral reefs are also global-warming-related problems. And these environmental effects probably interact with the array of other human actions.

The researchers hope their new map of diversity will provide a baseline that can be used to monitor future changes as the waters continue to warm, eventually eliciting a more complete understanding of what is going on. The map also could guide marine conservation by identifying areas where a large number of species could be protected at one time.

"There is amazing diversity in the oceans, and I'd like to see that continue," Tittensor said. "I think limiting warming and other human impacts is an important step."

The study is detailed in the July 28 edition of the journal Nature.

Warming of Oceans Will Reduce and Rearrange Marine Life
Jess McNally Wired Science 28 Jul 10;

The warmth of the ocean is the critical factor that determines how much productivity and biodiversity there is in the ocean, and where.

In two separate studies, researchers found that warming oceans have led to a massive decline in the amount of plant life in the sea over the last century, and that temperature is tightly linked to global patterns of marine biodiversity.

“We are just now understanding how deeply temperature affects ocean life,” said biologist Boris Worm of Dalhousie University, a co-author on both papers appearing July 28 in Nature. “It is not necessarily that increased temperature is destroying biodiversity, but we do know that a warmer ocean will look very different.”

In one study that looks at historical records of algae abundance over the last hundred years, Worm and his co-authors found that warming ocean temperatures are correlated to a massive decline in the amount of marine algae, or phytoplankton. Marine algae are the base of the entire ocean food chain, and were also responsible for originally creating oxygen on the planet.

The study estimates the decline in marine algae has been approximately 40 percent since 1950.

“I think that if this study holds up, it will be one of the biggest biological changes in recent times simply because of its scale,” said Worm. “The ocean is two-thirds of the earth’s surface area, and because of the depth dimension it is probably 80 to 90 percent of the biosphere. Even the deep sea depends on phytoplankton production that rains down. On land, by contrast, there is only a very thin layer of production.”

The study on marine phytoplankton is the first to look at changes over the last century at a global scale with data from as far back as 1899. Similar models have been made using satellite data, but that data only extends back to 1979.

“One of the most important aspects of the new paper is that they’ve come up with the same answer but from a different approach than we saw from space,” said marine botanist Michael Behrenfeld of Oregon State University. “I think that we should be concerned that this convergence of multiple approaches sees a reduction in the phytoplankton pigments as the ocean warms. If we continue to warm the climate we will probably see further reductions.”
Biodiversity map of coastal and oceanic marine creatures, red boxes mark hotspots/ Tittensor.

In a study of general marine biodiversity, scientists have made the first global map of the biodiversity of the oceans for more than 11,000 marine species, from tiny shrimp-like creatures to whales, building on 6.5 million records from the Census for Marine Life and other databases. Of all the factors they looked at to explain why some regions had more or fewer types of creatures, the only factor that consistently explained the patterns for the 13 groups of marine life they studied was temperature.

“It was surprising that we found such a strong correlation to marine biodiversity and temperature,” said biologist Derek Tittensor of the University of Dalhousie, lead author of the marine biodiversity map study. “You might expect a different response to temperature from cold and warm-blooded animals, for example.”

Ocean temperature had different effects on the number of different creatures in coastal habitats versus open-ocean habitats. The biodiversity hotspots for coastal marine ecosystems were mostly near the equator where ocean temperatures are warmest, much like on land.

But for open ocean ecosystems, which included many deep-sea creatures, whales and big fish like tuna, the hotspots for diversity were at the mid-latitudes, where temperatures were slightly cooler.

“What we can draw from this study is that it is very likely that we will see a reorganization of biodiversity in the ocean from a warming ocean, but right now it’s very hard to predict exactly what that reorganization will be,” said Tittensor.

The hotspots in biodiversity are also the areas that have attracted the most human impacts, such as fishing and habitat destruction, meaning that we are harming the areas that we should be trying to conserve.

By mapping where the biodiversity of marine life is today, scientists now have a baseline for comparing species distributions in the future. Understanding these changes will help them understand how marine biodiversity is being affected by changes in the amount of marine algae, for example.

“In order to understand life in the ocean, we need to understand where it is,” said Worm. “It’s a basis for understanding and also managing ocean life.”

“The ocean is something that we’re not very good at thinking about,” Worm added. “It is one of those things that is so big to see that it has been hard to see it until now.”

Citations
1) Daniel Boyce, Marlon Lewis and Boris Worm. “Global phytoplankton decline over the past century.” Nature, July 28.
2) Derek Tittensor, Camilo Mora, Walter Jetz, Heike Lotze, Daniel Ricard, Edward Vanden Berghe, and Boris Worm. “Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa.” Nature, July 28.

Marine Biodiversity Strongly Linked to Ocean Temperature
ScienceDaily 29 Jul 10;

In an unprecedented effort that will be published online on the 28th of July by the international journal Nature, a team of scientists mapped and analyzed global biodiversity patterns for over 11,000 marine species ranging from tiny zooplankton to sharks and whales. The researchers found striking similarities among the distribution patterns, with temperature strongly linked to biodiversity for all thirteen groups studied. These results imply that future changes in ocean temperature, such as those due to climate change, may greatly affect the distribution of life in the sea.

The scientists also found a high overlap between areas of high human impact and hotspots of marine diversity.

Much research has been conducted on diversity patterns on land, but our knowledge of the distribution of marine life has been more limited. This has changed through the decade-long efforts of the Census of Marine Life, upon which the current paper builds. The authors synthesized global diversity patterns for major species groups including corals, fishes, whales, seals, sharks, mangroves, seagrasses, and zooplankton. In the process, the global diversity of all coastal fish species has been mapped for the first time.

The researchers were interested in whether there are consistent "biodiversity hotspots" -- areas of especially high numbers of species for many different types of marine organisms simultaneously. They found that the distribution of marine life showed two fundamental patterns: coastal species such as corals and coastal fishes tended to peak in diversity around Southeast Asia, whereas open-ocean creatures such as tunas and whales showed much broader hotspots across the mid-latitude oceans.

The scientists also tested whether these global patterns could be consistently explained by one or more environmental factors. Temperature was the only factor found to be linked with the distribution of all species groups, with the availability of habitat also playing a role.

Says lead author Derek Tittensor of Dalhousie University, "it was striking how consistently temperature was linked with marine diversity. This relationship suggests that ocean warming, such as that due to climate change, may rearrange the distribution of oceanic life." Co-author Walter Jetz of Yale University notes "while we are increasingly aware of global gradients in diversity and their associated environmental factors, our knowledge of patterns in the ocean has lagged behind that of patterns on land. Our study attempts to help overcome this disparity."

The study also assessed the overlap between hotspots of marine diversity and human impacts, i.e. the combined effects of fishing, habitat alteration, climate change and pollution. Human impacts were found to be particularly concentrated in areas of high diversity, suggesting the potential for severe species losses in these regions. Says co-author Camilo Mora of Dalhousie University, "the combined effects of exploitation, habitat alteration, pollution and climate change are threatening the diversity of life in the global ocean. Our research provides further evidence that limiting ocean warming and other human impacts will be particularly important in securing these hotspots of marine biodiversity into the future."

Co-author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University also highlights the need to maintain biodiversity in the face of these impacts: "biodiversity and the functioning of ecosystems are often tightly coupled, with highly diverse ecosystems providing more goods and services that benefit human beings, as well as being more resilient in the face of disturbance, than less diverse ecosystems. The observed concentration of human impacts in our richest marine areas is a worrying indication of our growing footprint in the oceans."

Many of the data used for this study come from the Ocean Biogeographic Information System, (OBIS) a public database created by the Census of Marine Life. Says Edward Vanden Berghe of Rutgers University, co-author of the paper and executive director of OBIS: "with OBIS we've created a framework for sharing and re-using data, which makes this type of global, all-encompassing science possible."

Derek P. Tittensor, Camilo Mora, Walter Jetz, Heike K. Lotze, Daniel Ricard, Edward Vanden Berghe & Boris Worm. Global patterns and predictors of marine biodiversity across taxa. Nature, July 28, 2010 DOI: 10.1038/nature09329

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Dugong deaths in Queensland shock experts

Bruce Mckean Daily Mercury 29 Jul 10;

ANGLERS, conservationists and marine experts have been shocked by the deaths of five dugongs in fishing nets in north Queensland during the past two weeks.

The bodies of four dead dugong were found at Bowling Green Bay last Thursday by a recreational fisher.

It is believed the marine animals had died in a net and that an attempt was made to sink them, using ropes and makeshift anchors, in a bid to avoid discovery.

The incident has sparked increased patrols by Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service, Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol and the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who are concerned about illegal netting.

James Cook University Professor of Environmental Science Helene Marsh, an international authority on dugongs, called the deaths a “disaster”.

She said the importance of the reef as a dugong feeding ground was one of the reasons it was given a world heritage listing.

The fifth death occurred at Mission Beach and photographs shown to the Daily Mercury clearly identify netting marks on the dugong’s body.

Dugongs are a protected species.

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Galapagos dropped from UNESCO endangered list

Yahoo News 28 Jul 10;

BRASILIA (AFP) – UNESCO's World Heritage Committee said Wednesday it has removed Ecuador's Galapagos Islands from its list of endangered sites, due to Quito's protective efforts in the Pacific archipelago.

"By a vote of 14 to five, with one abstention," the committee removed the islands from its endangered environments list, where it was included in 2007, said Brazil's Culture Ministry, which presides over this week's committee meeting in Brasilia.

"It's important to recognize the Ecuadoran government's effort in protecting and preserving this heritage site," Brazilian Heritage Institute president Luiz Fernando de Almeida said in a statement.

Brazil had requested that the Galapagos be removed from the endangered list.

Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) west of Ecuador's coast, the Galapagos archipelago of 13 main islands and 17 islets has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978 for its rich plant and animal life both on land and in the surrounding sea.

In 2007, the organization declared the island chain's environment endangered due to the increase of tourism and the introduction of invasive species.

Some 10,000 people, mostly fishermen, live on the volcanic archipelago, which rose from the Pacific seabed 10 million years ago and became famous when Darwin visited to conduct research in 1835.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's List of World Heritage in Danger includes 31 cultural or natural sites around the globe at imminent risk of degradation or destruction.

The 34th annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee this year takes place in the Brazilian capital from July 25 to August 3.

Galapagos removal from endangered list 'premature': body
Yahoo News 29 Jul 10;

BRASILIA (AFP) – A body which gives conservation advice to UNESCO on Thursday criticized the removal of the Galapagos islands from the UN agency's list of endangered world heritage, calling it hasty.

"The removal of this unique site of global importance to humanity is somewhat premature," the head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, Julia Marton-Lefevre, said.

"Threats from tourism, invasive species and overfishing are still factors and the situation in the Galapagos remains critical," added Tim Badman, who heads the IUCN's World Heritage Program.

The IUCN gives official advice to UNESCO's World Heritage Committee, which in a meeting in Brasilia on Wednesday decided to strike Galapagos from its endangered sites list, on which it was entered in 2007.

The move, made at Brazil's request, was meant to reflect the progress the Ecuadoran government had made in protecting its archipelago, which was made famous by evolution theorist Charles Darwin who studied its fauna in 1835.

The committee voted 14 to five to remove the islands from the list, with one abstention, according to the Brazilian culture ministry which presided over the meeting.

Badman said that, while "we recognize the major efforts of the Ecuadoran government to rectify the situation there.. IUCN's recommendation for the Galapagos was that it should not be removed from the Danger List as there is work still to be done."

Located 1,000 kilometers (620 miles) west of Ecuador's coast, the Galapagos archipelago of 19 islands and more than 100 islets and rocky outcrops has been a UNESCO World Heritage Site since 1978 for the rich plant and animal life found both on its land and in the surrounding sea.

In 2007, the organization declared the island chain's environment endangered due to the increase of tourism and the introduction of invasive species.

Some 10,000 people, mostly fishermen, live on the volcanic archipelago, which rose from the Pacific seabed 10 million years ago and became famous when Darwin visited to conduct research in 1835.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's List of World Heritage in Danger includes 31 cultural or natural sites around the globe at imminent risk of degradation or destruction.

The 34th annual meeting of the World Heritage Committee this year is taking place in the Brazilian capital from July 25 to August 3.

Fears for unique wildlife of Galapagos as UN drops islands' protected status
Scientists condemn 'premature' removal of world heritage listing

Michael McCarthy, The Independent 29 Jul 10;

A panel of politicians has voted to remove the Galapagos Islands from the UN's list of World Heritage Sites in danger – in spite of a firm recommendation from scientists and officials who visited the islands that they should keep their status.

The Pacific archipelago, whose unique wildlife inspired Charles Darwin's theory of evolution were included on the list in 2007 after scientists warned they were facing environmental disaster from mass tourism, immigration, development, overfishing and the invasion of alien species.

Following a visit in April, a group of UN scientists raised concerns that port facilities in Ecuador, to whom the islands belong, and Galapagos were still not sufficiently bio-secure to prevent more alien species such as plants, fungi and even diseases being transported from mainland South America to the islands.

They also raised new concerns about the sport fishing industry which is taking off in Galapagos without a proper regulatory framework, and recommended the islands remain on the danger list. However, on Wednesday the politicians, members of the World Heritage Committee of Unesco, the UN's cultural body, ignored them, and in effect gave Galapagos a clean bill of health.

Last night Toni Darton, director of Britain's Galapagos Conservation Trust, the principal charity supplying environmental backup to the islands' national park and Charles Darwin research foundation, said: "We are very concerned by this decision and its implications. It is premature. It suggests the islands are out of danger and they are not. They are still in danger, absolutely."

There were 40 species on the islands whose conservation status was "critically endangered," Mrs Darton said.

The archipelago, 600 miles off Ecuador's coast, the first location to be declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco 30 years ago, is remarkable for its endemic wildlife which has developed over millions of years in isolation and includes giant tortoises, marine iguanas, flightless cormorants and 13 separate species of finch.

After visiting the islands in 1835, Charles Darwin realised that these 13 separate species had probably originated in a single species that had arrived on the islands from the South American mainland many thousands of years earlier, and as a direct result began to conceive his theory of evolution by natural selection.

In recent years the islands have become increasingly popular as a tourist destination, and the influx of tourists, combined with immigration from the mainland, has resulted in growing environmental threats. The population has grown from 2,000 people in 1960 to more than 30,000 now.

Although the World Heritage Committee put the islands on its danger list only three years ago, they were removed from the list by the committee at its meeting in Brazil's capital Brasilia. The panel of 21 states, which has a rotating membership and currently does not include the UK, voted 15-4 to delist Galapagos, at the instigation of Brazil, and after hearing an appeal from the environment minister of Ecuador.

"Although the Ecuadorian government has taken significant steps to make Galapagos a national priority for conservation, it is too early for these to have any real impact," said Mrs Darton. "Saving Galapagos is a marathon, not a sprint."

Island wonders

Marine Iguana

One of the iconic species of Galapagos, the marine iguana, Amblyrhynchus cristatus, is found nowhere else in the world and is unique among lizards in that it can live and hunt for food (much of it kelp) in the sea, with the ability to dive down to depths of 30ft. It has spread to all the islands in the archipelago where it lives mainly on rocky shores, although it can also be found in marshes and mangrove beaches.

Flightless Cormorant

The flightless cormorant, Phalacrocorax harrisi, also known as the Galapagos cormorant, is another unique species in that it is the only cormorant which has lost the ability to fly. There are only 1,500 birds in the population, which makes it one of the rarest birds in the world, and it is the subject of an active conservation programme.

Giant Tortoise

Weighing as much as 660lbs, and up to 4ft long, the Galapagos giant tortoise, Geochelone nigra, is the biggest tortoise in the world, and one of the planet's longest-lived organisms with a life expectancy in the wild estimated at up to 150 years. Its numbers have dramatically fallen since the islands were discovered because of hunting and the introduction of predators, but a captive breeding programme has been very successful and has now released hundreds of juveniles back into the wild on their home islands.

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China floods wash explosive chemicals into river

Reuters 28 Jul 10;

(Reuters) - Flooding in northeastern China has washed more than 1,000 barrels containing explosive chemicals into a major river, state media said on Wednesday, as the death toll from flooding nationally this year neared 1,000.

The incident happened along the flood-swollen Songhua River in Jilin city in Jilin province in the late morning, the official Xinhua news agency said.

Residents contacted by telephone said water supplies had been cut off for a time in parts of the city, but were starting to return to normal.

The containers, from a chemical plant, held more than 160,000 kg (352,700 lb) of explosive chemical fluids, Xinhua said, citing local officials.

"Emergency workers have been trying to recover the containers and local environmental protection authorities were closely monitoring the water quality of the river," the report said.

China periodically faces spills into rivers that result in water supplies being cut off, most seriously in 2005 when an explosion at an industrial plant sent toxic chemicals streaming into the Songhua River further upstream, in Harbin.

The incident forced the shut-down of water supplies to nearly 4 million people.

Rains so far this year across large swathes of central and southern China have killed 928 people and left 477 missing, causing around 176.5 billion yuan ($26.04 billion) in damage, Xinhua said.

A total of 875,000 homes have collapsed, 9.61 million people have been evacuated and 8.76 million hectares of crops ruined, it added.

Northeastern China has also been lashed by torrential rains over the past few days. ($1=6.778 Yuan)

Over 1,000 chemical barrels washed into China river: report
Yahoo News 28 Jul 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – More than a thousand barrels of explosive chemicals were washed into a major waterway in northeastern China on Wednesday, state media said, in the country's latest environmental accident.

The incident occurred around 10 a.m. (0200 GMT) in Jilin province after floodwaters swept the barrels into the Songhua river, the official Xinhua news agency reported, citing the local government.

The barrels were from a local factory near Jilin city and contained more than 160 tonnes of methyl chloride, a highly explosive colourless gas, the report said.

Emergency workers were trying to recover the barrels and local environmental protection authorities were monitoring the water quality of the river, it added.

Jilin is the latest province to have been hit by recent deadly floods that have killed 333 people since July 14 and left another 300 missing, according to the latest official figures.

China races to recover chemical barrels from river
Yahoo News 30 Jul 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – Workers on Friday struggled to recover 3,000 barrels filled with hazardous chemicals that were swept into a river in northeast China by floods, amid fears some had sunk, state media said.

Soldiers and emergency personnel fanned out at several points along the Songhua river in Jilin and Heilongjiang provinces to recover the barrels, which came from two factories damaged by floodwaters, Xinhua news agency reported.

A total of 7,000 barrels were known to be missing from the plants near the city of Jilin -- 3,000 of them filled with trimethyl chloro silicane or hexamethyl disilazane, both colourless, toxic liquids.

So far, workers using cranes and steel nets have recovered about 3,000 barrels, but it was not immediately clear how many of them contained the chemicals, Xinhua said.

While tests have so far shown no signs of water contamination, workers tracking the barrels have apparently lost sight of some of them -- fuelling fears they have sunk to the riverbed, making their retrieval more difficult.

On Friday, the local government encouraged the public to join the salvage efforts, offering a reward of 100 yuan (15 dollars) for each full barrel retrieved, and 50 yuan for each empty container, Xinhua reported.

The Songhua is the major source of drinking water for about 4.3 million people. Prices of bottled water soared Wednesday as worried consumers cleared shop shelves, but then returned to normal, the China Daily said.

Water supplies in Jilin city were restored on Thursday after being cut off the day before.

Jilin is the latest province to be hit by deadly floods that have killed more than 300 people since July 14 and left another 300 missing, according to official figures.

In 2005, millions of people in Heilongjiang province were left without water for four days after an explosion at a benzene factory spilled the carcinogenic chemical into the Songhua.

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China's Three Gorges dam close to limit as heavy rains persist

Flooding across the country has left 1,200 dead or missing
Associated Press guardian.co.uk 28 Jul 10;

Record high water levels are putting the capacity of China's massive Three Gorges dam to the test after heavy rains across the country, compounding flooding problems that have left more than 1,200 people dead or missing.

The dam's water flow reached 56,000 cubic metres per second (1.96 million cubic feet), the biggest peak flow this year, with the water height reaching 158 metres (518 feet), the official Xinhua news agency reported. This is about 10% less than the dam's maximum capacity.

Chinese officials for years have boasted the dam could withstand floods so severe they come only once every 10,000 years. The dam is the world's largest hydroelectric project.

Floods this year have killed at least 823 people, with 437 missing, and have caused damage worth tens of billions of dollars, according to the state flood control agency. More heavy rains are expected for the south-east, south-west and north-east parts of the country.

Thousands of workers sandbagged riverbanks and checked reservoirs in Wuhan city in central Hubei province in preparation for potential floods expected to flow from the swollen Yangtze and Han rivers, an official with the Yangtze water resources commission said. "Right now the Han river in Hubei province is on the verge of breaching warning levels," said the official, who gave his name as Zhang.

The Han is expected to rise this week to its highest level in two decades, Xinhua has reported.

Though China experiences heavy rain every summer, flooding this year is the worst in more than a decade, as the flood-prone Yangtze basin has seen 15% more rain than in an average year, Duan Yihong, director of the National Meteorological Centre, said in a transcript of an interview posted on the Xinhua website.

"Rains should begin to slow down in August but it is hard to predict now what exactly will happen," said Duan. "We have to be vigilant and closely monitor the weather – do a better job of forecasting."

Thousands of rescuers in central China's Henan province searched for survivors after a bridge collapsed from heaving flooding in the Yi river over the weekend, killing 37 people with 29 missing, Xinhua reported.

In the southern province of Sichuan rescuers searched for 21 missing after rain triggered a landslide that buried 58 homes.

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UN declares access to clean water a human right

Gerard Aziakou Yahoo News 28 Jul 10;

UNITED NATIONS (AFP) – The UN General Assembly on Wednesday recognized access to clean water and sanitation as a human right, a move hailed by water advocates as a momentous step toward a future treaty.

After more than 15 years of contentious debate on the issue, 122 countries voted in favor of a compromise Bolivian resolution enshrining the right, while the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia and 37 other nations abstained.

The non-binding text "declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of the right to life."

It expresses deep concern that 884 million people lack access to safe drinking water and that more 2.6 billion do not have access to basic sanitation.

It notes that roughly two million people die every year from diseases caused by unsafe water and sanitation, most of them small children.

And it points to the pledge made by world leaders in 2000 as part of the poverty-reduction Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to reduce by half, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation.

The resolution urges states and international organizations to provide financial and technological assistance to help developing countries "scale up efforts to provide safe, clean, accessible and affordable water and sanitation for all."

"This is a historic day for the world, a big step in the right direction" toward the distant goal of a water treaty, Canada's leading water activist Maude Barlow told AFP.

"It is going to mean a huge amount to our movement around the world, to local community groups fighting for water rights, water justice against governments, corporations which are not respecting their rights."

Barlow, a former senior adviser to the UN General Assembly on the water issue, said some wealthy countries abstained out of fear "that they are going to be asked to pay the price tag" or that the resolution would give "tools to their own people to use against them."

She welcomed the fact that major countries such as China, Russia, Germany, France, Spain and Brazil backed the resolution.

Of her country's abstention, she said: "We are terribly disappointed."

She said Canada's conservative government wants the right to sell water.

"They know that if they say it is a human right it will be a contradiction to want to turn it into a commodity," she added.

The resolution also welcomes the Geneva-based UN Human Rights Council?s request that Portugal's Catarina de Albuquerque, the UN Independent Expert on human rights obligations related to access to safe drinking water, report annually to the General Assembly as well.

De Albuquerque?s report is to focus on the key challenges to achieving the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation, as well as on progress towards the relevant MDGs.

Germany's UN Ambassador Peter Wittig also hailed the resolution, although he said he would have preferred language with "a clearer message on the primary responsibility of states to ensure the realization of human rights for all those living under their jurisdiction."

And he disagreed with those member states that voiced concern about the impact of the resolution on the Geneva process led by de Albuquerque.

"We see the resolution as a complement to the ongoing process on water and sanitation in Geneva," he noted.

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