Toddycats @ ICCS – Registration for Pandan mangrove cleanup
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Upcoming trip to Chek Jawa Boardwalk - 28 Aug
from Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs
NParks update on oil spill at Chek Jawa
from wild shores of singapore
Wildlife crime in Malaysia : Question and response
from Planet of the Monyets
MPs give their take on future lines, now that planners are looking beyond just viability
Goh Chin Lian Straits Times 22 Aug 10;
Ideas have emerged on future MRT lines in Singapore, and none is considered far-fetched any more.
Building a second and larger Circle Line, or a northern coastal line through Punggol? What about an MRT line across the sea to Pulau Ubin?
Transport planners can now consider such ideas even if the proposed lines pass through quiet estates and are not viable on their own - so long as the whole MRT network benefits from these new connections.
The Government made clear its change in thinking on future MRT lines last Monday, and MPs gave The Sunday Times their ideas on where the tracks could lead.
The chairman of the Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) for Transport, Dr Lim Wee
Kiak, favours a second Circle Line that connects stations in the outer parts of existing lines, say, from Yishun to Sengkang.
Passengers now have to take the North-South Line from Yishun station to Bishan interchange, hop on the Circle Line to Serangoon interchange, then take the North-East Line to Sengkang.
'The London system is almost like a grid, while ours will be more like a web with circles that radiate from the centre,' said Dr Lim, an MP for Sembawang GRC.
His deputy chairman, Dr Muhammad Faishal Ibrahim, suggests joining stations in Ang Mo Kio (North-South Line), Hougang (North-East Line) and Bedok (East-West Line) with an MRT line.
The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) had itself provided for a larger Circle Line in its 2001 Concept Plan, to link regional centres in Tampines, Woodlands and Jurong East.
A review of the 2001 plan, to be done every 10 years, is scheduled to be completed next year.
Why not also build an MRT line to islands like Pulau Ubin and Pulau Tekong, suggested Dr Faishal, an MP for Marine Parade GRC.
Suggestions of other new MRT lines have also circulated on the Internet in recent years.
In 2005, for instance, a Raffles Institution student created a map of the MRT network and added
possible future lines based on URA master plans and National Library archives, among other sources.
He envisaged, among others, a North Coast Line from Woodlands to Changi, through Punggol and Pasir Ris stations.
That may not be far off the mark.
The 2001 Concept Plan had almost the same line, except it started from Sembawang instead of Woodlands.
A 2003 Land Transport Authority book, Getting There, also said Punggol station was designated an interchange between the North-East Line and a future line known as the North Shore Line.
A 40m by 40m box was built directly below the station to accommodate a future station on the North Shore Line.
Underpinning the Government's change in thinking is its assessment that MRT lines built after 2020 will be mainly underground and could take longer to become profitable on their own if they have to pass through less mature estates with low ridership.
But the spin-offs to the whole rail network could be huge, and transport planners are now better able to project such benefits after two decades of operating the MRT.
Transport GPC member Charles Chong, an MP for Pasir Ris-Punggol GRC, said the new policy will benefit new towns, as it takes time to build up a critical mass of passengers.
'It is a chicken-and-egg situation. People do not move into an area if the infrastructure is not developed,' he said.
Related link
Chek Jawa: a new chapter on the wildfilms blog - what an MRT line to Ubin means for Chek Jawa.
Chai Mei Ling New Straits Times 22 Aug 10;
FOR several years now, reports on dwindling firefly colonies in areas like Kuala Selangor have been making headlines, fuelled mostly by local anecdotal accounts.
But are the numbers really declining? How do we tell?
Up until four years ago, there was no way to know - not in a scientific, orderly manner at least. But now, Malaysia appears to have figured it out.
In 2006, when the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (Frim) was commissioned by the Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) to monitor the population of the Pteroptyx tener firefly along the Selangor River, the researchers did away with routine conventional methods such as sweep netting or counting through a window.
Instead, entomologist Dr Laurence G. Kirton and his team positioned themselves across the river and set up a highly-sensitive digital camera on a special tripod.
Every month, on a moonless night, they took shots of fireflies on berembang trees on the opposite riverbank.
A figure was tabulated based on counts of flashes visible in the photographs.
This night digital photography subsequently became the world's first firefly monitoring method. Quite an impressive feat, considering that the twinkling of the light, visible as it is to the naked eye, almost always does not appear on any camera screen.
While the idea of using photography wasn't new, the detailed and systematic technique in which it was done was.
The method has since been refined and was recently shared for the first time with the international research community at the Second International Firefly Symposium this year in Subang, Selangor.
"Photography could be a way of getting an index of the population size over a large area in a relatively short period of time.
"It took us just three days to cover seven sites stretched across 1.6km along the Selangor River, from Bukit Belimbing to beyond Kg Kuantan," said Kirton, who headed the study.
Researchers recorded a population peak between May and August, followed by a decline until October, and then picking up again in December.
This fluctuation was seen throughout the three-year observation period, said Veronica Khoo, who presented the team's findings at the symposium.
She said rainfall might be a factor.
"The drop between the months of September and November could be related to low rainfall between May and August. The larval population of the firefly and the host snail need moist habitats.
"Similarly, the increase in the abundance of adult fireflies towards the middle of the year may also be associated to high rainfall periods from November to December, and March to May each year on the central west coast of Peninsular Malaysia."
The study also recorded the peak of 2008 to be lower than 2007 and 2006 by about 40 per cent.
Why is this happening? Could this be due to habitat destruction or weather patterns?
"This is where long-term monitoring comes into the picture. It's still too early to conclude a specific trend," said Khoo.
Kirton said a clearer trend would be visible over a longer period of between five and 10 years.
"We'll be able to see whether there's an increase or decline in the firefly population. From the perspective of conservation, monitoring is very important if we want to understand the population dynamics of the species and health of the population.
"In the case of the fireflies in the Selangor River, there's concern that loss of habitat, river pollution and the building of a dam upstream could threaten the firefly population, and this would have an impact on ecotourism and the livelihoods of the community," said Kirton.
Other organised monitoring methods such as observation and sampling are also important. It is through these methods that it was discovered recently that fireflies along the Rembau and Linggi rivers were disappearing.
This is due to river modification works at the Rembau-Linggi estuary, allegedly carried out by DID to alleviate floods, stated a Universiti Putra Malaysia research.
Within 11/2 years, half the firefly colonies that used to be found in that area in Negri Sembilan had disappeared.
"When I surveyed the estuary in November 2008, there were about 122 colonies of fireflies. By June this year, there were only 64.
"Forty-four display trees have been destroyed, and some were missing. Over half the colonies had disappeared within two years," said UPM's Wan Faridah Akmal Wan Jusoh who observed and sampled the colonies.
Wan Faridah said the mangroves in the area were not gazetted as reserves, leaving them vulnerable to development.
River modification activities are not showing signs of slowing down, she added.
"If no drastic and immediate steps are taken to protect the fireflies, we fear their populations in the area will continue to drop and eventually die off."
Saving the berembang trees is not enough
New Straits Times 22 Aug 10;
FOR the longest time, we've been told that to save the fireflies we have to save the sonneratia caseolaris, or better known as berembang trees.
It makes sense, as these are the trees that fireflies flock to at night and flash their brightest, giving berembang-rich areas like Kuala Selangor the kind of glow that draws in top tourist dollar every year.
But local scientists have revealed that conserving the berembang alone isn't going to be enough.
Fireflies socialise on the trees, but it is on the ground that female fireflies lay their eggs and the larvae grow to become adults. A firefly may spend up to 80 per cent of its lifespan on the ground.
For this reason, conserving the stretch of land by the riverbank and its natural vegetation is just as important for the survival of fireflies.
In some areas in Kuala Selangor, private landowners tend to develop their land right up to the riverbank, leaving just a thin strip of berembang standing.
"The berembang tree is not a firefly habitat, it's a display tree where adult fireflies go to do their flashing and find their mate.
"The actual area where females lay their eggs is on the ground along the riverbank.
"So, leaving a strip of berembang trees along the riverbank is not going to do the fireflies much good if the land behind that strip is destroyed," said Nada Badruddin of the Forest Research Institute of Malaysia (FRIM).
Not all vegetation provides the same protection, however.
The institute, which studied the abundance and distribution of firefly larvae along the Selangor River, found that naturalised sago stands offer larvae the best survival rate.
The sago area has high decomposed plant material on the ground, which functions as a food source for snails that firefly larvae feed on. The condition also provides shelter to the larvae during the day.
Orchards and oil palm plantations, on the other hand, recorded low abundance of firefly larvae.
Bunds and the drainage system prevent river water from inundating the orchards and plantations, leaving the ground dry.
"This leads to food scarcity for the snails, making the areas less favourable habitats. "This finding highlights the negative impacts of plantation on the diversity of natural invertebrate populations," said Nada, adding that almost half the area in Kuala Selangor has been converted into oil palm plantations.
Ruben Sario The Star 21 Aug 10;
KOTA KINABALU: A rejection of the Detailed Environmental Impact Assessment (DEIA) for a controversial coal-fired power plant in Sabah’s east coast appears to be only a temporary setback for the project’s proponents.
Officials of Lahad Datu Energy Sdn Bhd (LDE), the company undertaking the 300 MW coal plant project, said they were closely studying the Department of Environment’s (DOE) notification to reject the DEIA.
“The department gave its reasons for rejecting the DEIA. In that letter, it also gave us the opportunity to re-submit the DEIA. We are looking into this,” Lahad Datu Energy project manager Ahmad Farid Yahya told StarBizWeek when contacted yesterday.
(LDE is 80% owned by Lahad Datu Holdings while Yayasan Sabah has the remaining 20% stake).
Lahad Datu Holdings meanwhile is a company formed by Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB-51%), Eden-Nova Sdn Bhd (35%) and Maser (M) Sdn Bhd (14%).)
Sabah Environmental Protection Department (EPD) director Yabi Yangkat had said on Thursday that he had been been informed of the DoE’s decision by the department’s director-general a day earlier.
Yabi said the main reason for the rejection was that many important environmental parameters in respect of the proposed project was not addressed in the DEIA.
He said the DOE also took note of the range of shortcomings and queries raised at the DEIA panel review meeting at the department’s office in the state capital on Aug 27.
Among those at the panel review were representatives of a group of NGOs under the umbrella name of Green Surf (Sabah Unite to Re-Power the Future) comprising among others WWF Malaysia and the Sabah Environmental Protection Association (Sepa).
Immediately after DOE’s decision became known, Green Surf spokesman Wong Tack said the DEIA rejection was enough reason for the project to be scrapped.
Wong, the SEPA president, said it was time for all stake holders to work together to come up with alternative solutions to dirty energy like coal, in solving Sabah’s power supply needs.
State power supply provider, Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd (SESB) had estimated that by 2025 Sabah’s demand for electricity was expected to reach 2,330 MW.
The present capacity is 755 MW, with reserve margin at less than 20%. This margin goes to below 10% if the risks of existing aging diesel-fired power plants are taken into account.
With rapid development, including various initiatives generated by the Sabah Development Corridor, the state would require at least 820 MW by this year.
Sabah’s power demand is expected to grow at an estimated 7% to 8% annually.
Opposition almost instantly brewed after plans were announced for the construction of the coal-fired plant at Silam in the Sabah east coast Lahad Datu district four years ago following concerns over its environmental impact on the nearby pristine Danum Valley conservation area.
(In February 2008, TNB awarded RM1.01bil contract to China National Electric Equipment Corp to build the coal-fired plant. The contract was awarded through Lahad Datu Energy.)
The Sabah government subsequently relocated the project to Seguntor in Sandakan but had to backtrack on its decision following stiff opposition to project from folk in the east coast district.
Finally, on a visit to the east coast town of Tawau in September last year, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak announced that the project would be sited at Kampung Sinakut an area was part of the Felda Sahabat land development scheme, some 100km from Lahad Datu town.
But many Sabahans worry about the environmental impact of the power plant and question whether coal was necessary as Sabah had numerous natural gas reserves apart from tonnes of biomass or waste its oil palm industry.
They point to a Universiti Tunku Abdul Rahman (UTAR) study last year that found that hydropower, biomass and the Bakun dam are feasible alternatives to a coal-fired power plant in the state.
These options meet key objectives of the National Energy Policy, which includes promoting the use of clean energy and minimising negative impacts of power production to the environment.
Results also show the options are not only environment friendly, but also better ways of generating power in terms of cost. This was revealed in a paper written by UTAR doctoral student Koh Siong Lee and his supervisor Dr Lim Yun Seng.
The paper used Sabah as a case study to investigate the feasibility of achieving a balance between needed economic growth and protecting the environment.
“It is very encouraging to find from the results that, not only are these options more environmental friendly than the coal plant, the financial performance compared well with that of the coal plant.
“This is mainly due to savings from the fuel cost. These three options have higher capital cost. However, with zero fuel cost, the annual running cost of the plant is much lower than that of the coal plant, resulting in low lifetime cost,” Dr Lim and Koh said.
The paper warned that tourism may suffer as there was concern the coal plant would threaten sensitive ecosystems that attracted a large number of travelers to Sabah.
“In the case study of Sabah as a developing economy, it was found that the need for energy at a competitive price can be achieved with options which do not damage the environment. The renewable and green options are technologically proven, financially attractive and emit little greenhouse gases,” Dr Lim and Koh stated.
In their paper, they also recommended that there should be “minimum barriers” for SESB and the government to adopt biomass from palm oil, hydropower and electricity from Bakun which have more than adequate potential to meet 300 MW that would be generated by the coal plant.
Tenaga Nasional Bhd chairman Tan Sri Leo Moggie in explaining the rationale of the coal-fired plant had said the company had considered various options before deciding on a coal-fired plant for Sabah’s east coast.
He pointed out TNB was already operating larger coal fired plants in the peninsula such as the 2,100 MW facilities in Manjung Perak and Tanjung Bin in Johor with minimal impact on the environment.
Every possible fuel option was considered before deciding on coal as the choice. A gas-fired plant would have been preferred. It is certainly more environmentally acceptable apart from being faster to build, Moggie noted.
But he also added that the natural gas was only available in the west coast of Sabah and a power generation plant was needed in the east coast.
He said power planners, including consultants engaged by SESB, agree that with increasing demand, the absence of a power plant in east Sabah will render electricity supply in the state extremely unreliable. Sabah will be wholly dependent on power plants located in the west coast.
A power plant in the east coast is crucial to provide system reliability and generation capacity under an “islanded” operation when the east-west link is interrupted, thus providing acceptable security of supply for the whole state, Moggie added.
It also provides flexibility of the transmission system. The development of a new power plant in the east coast will also enable SESB to retire its aging, unreliable, noisy and highly polluting diesel sets currently in operation in Sandakan, Lahad Datu, Tawau and
Semporna.
He said coal was the most economically viable fuel option for the east coast of Sabah, against other alternatives.
Abundance supply of coal from nearby huge Kalimantan coal reserve will provide secured supply of coal, at competitive price thus ensuring continuous operation of the plant and optimum cost of supply/tariff, he added.
Moggie also noted that biomass is only suitable for producing small volumes of power within the range of 2MW to 10MW.
Similarly, the use of diesel is only suitable for producing small amount of power suited for stand-alone stations. These, however, are also costly and polluting.
At present, the technology for renewable energy is of little help, To produce 300MW of power, over 50,000 solar panels and about 90 sq km of land would be required.
To plant up over 300 wind turbines would require land bigger than the size of Singapore, he added.
Firm to find out why EIA was rejected
Julia Chan New Straits Times 21 Aug 10;
KOTA KINABALU: Lahad Datu Energy, the company behind the controversial coal-fired power plant project in Lahad Datu, is studying the reasons for the rejection of its environmental impact assessment by the Department of Environment (DOE).
Plant director and project manager Ahmad Faraid Yahya said the company was considering to appeal and resubmit its detailed environment impact assessment (DEIA) report.
"For now, we are just going through the letter and the stipulations into why the report was rejected," he said yesterday.
The decision to reject the DEIA, prepared by UKM Pakarunding, was reportedly for not addressing environmental parameters.
The rejection is seen as a big step towards the scrapping of the project after objections from environmentalists and non-governmental organisations.
Sabah Environment Protection Department director Yabi Yangkat said the rejection was based on several concerns that were not addressed, including questions raised by the public and NGOs at the panel of review meeting.
"There were many aspects. From the efficiency of the coal technology to ash travel... if the project proponents can address all these issues and submit a fresh report, it could be approved in the future," he said.
Lahad Datu Energy is a joint venture between Tenaga Nasional Bhd and several private companies, including state-owned companies.
Work on the 300mW plant was scheduled to begin next month at Kampung Sinakut in Felda Sahabat, and is intended to meet the shortage of electricity supply in the east coast of the state.
Audrey McAvoy AP Google News 21 Aug 10;
PEARL HARBOR, Hawaii — Scientists returning from a 30-day research expedition to the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands found what they believe are 10 new species of coral.
Researchers returned to Oahu on Friday from the remote string of atolls that make up the largest conservation area in the country, the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument.
They found the species during a series of dives from Nihoa Island in the south to Kure Atoll in the north.
More than half were found at deep water coral reefs more than 150 feet below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
Scientists plan to analyze the specimens they gathered to verify they're species that haven't been identified before.
Sarah Whyte Sydney Morning Herald 22 Aug 10;
ALMOST 4000 sea creatures have been caught in shark nets lining NSW beaches over the past 20 years, new government figures reveal, prompting calls from environmentalists to immediately ban the meshing.
Of the official count of 3944 creatures trapped, about 60 per cent were sharks and less than 4 per cent were considered "target" species (or those particularly harmful to humans) - that is, 100 great whites and 49 tiger sharks.
The haul - as recorded in the Department of Primary Industries' Report into the NSW Shark Meshing (Bather Protection) Program - included a total of 2521 sharks.
Among them were 15 grey nurses, a harmless species considered critically endangered.
Also on the list were stingrays (1269), dolphins (52), turtles (47), whales (six), seals (four), a penguin and a dugong.
Humane Society International's director Michael Kennedy said the public would be shocked to know how many animals were killed in the nets, which are strung off parts of 51 popular beaches from Stockton in the north down to South Wollongong, from September 1 to April 30.
"We know from our own research and from the government's research that these nets do kill a large amount of threatened marine animals," Mr Kennedy said. "It is very hard to justify their continued use."
The Humane Society is calling on the NSW government to invest in alternative protection measures, such as radio signals, sonar technology and electric nets.
"The government needs to be brave enough to use these new devices rather than kill the animals," Mr Kennedy said.
Primary Industries Minister Stephen Whan said shark control measures were constantly reviewed but there were no viable alternatives to meshing, although the government would again trial additional aerial patrols of selected beaches from late December.
"There are no guarantees when entering the ocean; there are sharks off NSW beaches and in NSW water," said Mr Whan, who described the netting program as a phenomenal success.
"In over 50 years, there has not been a fatal shark attack on a meshed beach."
Surf Life Saving NSW also advocated further research into shark net alternatives.
"The risk of shark attacks is extremely low and anecdotally we are aware it does have environmental impacts," spokeswoman Donna Wishart said. "The shark nets don't actually fence off the beaches but they do work to stop sharks establishing territorial areas near the shoreline."
Figures compiled by Sydney's Taronga Zoo show there have been 151 shark attacks around Australia over the past decade, including 15 fatalities. The zoo's life sciences manager John West said shark nets were still the most effective method of reducing sharks in an area but he recommended shaving a month from each end of the meshing season.
The government said netting contractors were expected to check the nets every 72 hours, weather permitting. A former NSW shark net contractor, who asked not to be named, said it would be possible to check the nets daily if the government paid more.
"The nets are definitely effective," he said. "But the pingers used to warn off dolphins and whales have never worked."
Queenscliff Surf Club coach Damien Daley said the consensus among surf lifesavers was that the nets were environmentally damaging. "When I dive, 50 per cent of the animals caught in the nets are not sharks." … You are more likely to be killed by a strike of lightning than a shark."
But Adrian Salteer, owner of a fishing charter boat, Kingfisher, said the nets should remain. "When there are 4 million people just in Sydney, it's all about balance. Do you try and save the sharks or have people eaten?"
Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
WELLINGTON (AFP) – Nearly 60 pilot whales have died after becoming stranded on a beach in New Zealand on Friday, conservation officials said.
The mass stranding of a pod of 73 whales was discovered mid-morning and Carolyn Smith from the Department of Conservation said the whales probably beached overnight, which was why so many died before a rescue operation was launched.
The area around Kaitaia beach, in the far north of New Zealand, was experiencing heavy rain and wind which Smith said helped the surviving whales by ensuring they did not dry out but made it difficult for rescuers preparing to refloat the mammals.
At least five people are needed to work with each of the whales, which weigh up to 1.5 tonnes.
Whale beachings are not uncommon along the New Zealand coast and more than 100 pilot whales died in a stranding in the South Island last December.
Stranded whales transported to survival in New Zealand
Yahoo News 21 Aug 10;
WELLINGTON (AFP) – Thirteen pilot whales that survived a mass stranding in the far north of New Zealand were transported nearly a kilometre to calm waters and refloated on Saturday, conservation officials said.
Another 45 whales died after they beached themselves in stormy weather on Friday.
Weather conditions hampered initial rescue efforts and the whales were cared for on the beach overnight before being transported to a more sheltered bay.
The department of conservation said they towed a female whale out to sea ahead of the other 12 in the hope she would lead them away from the shore.
By evening, about half the whales had headed out to sea while the remainder stayed near the bay and were being monitored by conservation staff in case they attempted to go ashore again.
A team of more than 70 from the Department of Conservation, Project Jonah and Whale Rescue were involved in the rescue mission.
Kimberly Muncaster of Project Jonah said the surviving whales were in a "fairly poor condition".
Whale beachings are not uncommon along the New Zealand coast and more than 100 pilot whales died in a stranding in the South Island last December.
Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
LONDON (AFP) – The RSPCA on Friday called for a ban on importing elephants for British zoos, saying captive elephants are "suffering" and no more should be bought to the UK until welfare issues are dealt with.
The recommendation follows publication of a report, commissioned by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, on the welfare of elephants in zoos.
RSPCA scientist Dr Ros Clubb said: "We are extremely disappointed that the report did not recommend an outright ban on importing elephants to UK zoos.
"The RSPCA believes that until solutions to the extensive and serious welfare problems can be found we should not be introducing more elephants. Elephants are without question suffering in zoos."
"Adding yet more elephants to an ailing population simply masks the problems and if drastic improvements to these problems cannot be found, the RSPCA believes zoos should phase out elephant keeping," Clubb said.
The report, written by scientists from Bristol University, suggests that if importation was stopped there would be "no merit" in establishing a separate, genetically isolated population in the UK.
Scientists say elephants in zoos have high levels of obesity, behavioural abnormalities and higher infant mortality rates. Elephants in the wild live almost three times longer than those in zoos, stadius have shown.
There are about 70 elephants in 13 zoos around the UK. Visitor records show they are seen by about seven million people each year.
Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
BRUSSELS (AFP) – A European Union ban on importing seal products took effect as planned Friday but it will not affect hunters and fur traders who have filed a court challenge, the EU Commission said.
The European Union's decision to ban such imports has angered Canada and prompted a legal challenge by Inuit groups from Canada and Greenland.
The European Commission, the EU's executive arm, was caught by surprise on Thursday when an Inuit organisation made public a decision by the European General Court to temporarily freeze the ban.
After commission lawyers scrambled to determine what the court's order meant for the regulation, officials said the ban would not apply to the plaintiffs in the case before the General Court.
"The commission would like to clarify that the trade ban put in place ... still comes into effect today," Maria Kokkonen, a commission spokeswoman, said in a statement.
"However, it will not apply to the applicants in this court case until the General Court has had the opportunity to hear all parties involved," she added.
But an attorney for the groups, Jan Bouckaert, said he did not believe that the freeze was limited to the plaintiffs.
"For us the regulation is suspended," he said.
"The petitioners consider that this regulation seriously harms them and that the damage is difficult to repair," Bouckaert said.
Kokkonen said the European Council, which represents the bloc's 27 members, the European Parliament and the commission have until September 7 to present their arguments against the freeze.
A hearing would likely follow soon after and the judge would then decide whether to keep the suspension in place until a final ruling is made on the legality of the ban.
Native groups, hunters and fur companies from Canada, Greenland and Norway are among 16 plaintiffs contesting the European regulation, saying it is unfair and discriminatory.
The European Parliament announced the ban last year after public outcry over Canada's annual commercial seal hunt, which animal rights activists denounce as cruel.
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, whose government is defending the sealers at the World Trade Organization, described the ban as "completely unfair" and "flagrant discrimination" against Canadian sealers who have been following established rules of animal husbandry.
The European ban includes an exemption for seal products derived from hunts traditionally conducted by Inuit and indigenous communities for subsistence.
Despite the exemption, Inuits insist that they are nevertheless affected because it shrinks the market for the product.
The native Canadian organisation Inuit Tapiriit Kanatami (ITK) cheered the decision by European General Court president Marc Jaeger to suspend the ban.
"In our view, the seal ban is both illegal and immoral," said ITK president Mary Simon, urging the European Parliament to "see fit at this stage to do the right thing and withdraw its legislation."
Marina Koreneva Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
PAVLOVSK, Russia (AFP) – "I could not imagine that this no longer exists. I've spent my whole life here," cries botanist Alexandra Kondrikova, looking out over the fields of Russia's Pavlovsk seed collection.
The fields of crops at the centre outside Russia's second city of Saint Petersburg contains Europe's largest field genebank of fruits and berries and dates back almost 90 years.
But within months the Pavlovsk Station could be reduced to a building site after courts gave the go-ahead to for the land to be handed over to a federal construction agency that plans to build cottages on the site.
The plans have already prompted international crop diversity groups to appeal to President Dmitry Medvedev to halt the planned development and save one of the world's most valuable crop collections.
"You would need years to move this collection and this would be fatal for the plants. This is clear," said Kondrikova, who has worked at the collection since 1981 and has already identified 28 new types of honeysuckle.
She earns just 8,000 rubles (260 dollars/204 euros) a month.
Two fields from the station covering a total area of 90 hectares have already been ceded to the federal construction agency and one of them will be auctioned off as soon as September.
"Officials are showing that they do not care about a collection that was formed in the last century and 90 of whose species are unique," the Pavlovsk station's acting director Fyodor Mikhovich said.
"The main thing for them is that they can earn one billion rubles (30 million dollars) by selling off the station's fields," he added.
To make matters worse, the law is stacked against the station's case, Mikhovich admitted.
He said the law states that land can be ceded if it is disused -- and officials are claiming the Pavlovsk Station is disused land as "there is nothing but grass".
"But what to they want to see? Coconuts?" he asked.
Under another mind-boggling quirk, the fact that the land is deemed as "priceless" also gives developers a right to build there.
"To legally prove that we are using these lands, we need to put a value on the collection which is impossible. There are no methods for that. How can we put a price on a collection that is unique and only exists here," he said.
From the outside, the vast fields of grasses, bushes and trees do not look particularly remarkable and contrast with the glitzy weekend homes being built in Pavlovsk by rich Petersburgers.
But the 500 hectares of the station contain 12,000 varieties of apples, strawberries, cherries, raspberries, currants and other crops.
Leading crop diversity group the Crop Diversity Trust has called on the Russian government to halt the planned development and the complaints have already brought acknowledgement from the Kremlin.
After receiving an appeal from Russia's civic chamber, Medvedev "gave the instruction for this issue to be scrutinised," the president wrote on his Twitter feed. However it remains to be seen how this will be pursued.
Ironically, the controversy has collided with Russia's worst drought on record which has seen one quarter of its crops destroyed and again underlined the importance of seedbanks.
"This land is gold and I do not believe that scientists will be able to defend themselves against officials who are only worried about filling their own pockets", said Pavlovsk resident Anatoly Kurpoatkin.
"I would not be surprised if they declared the Hermitage Museum unused to sell its land," he said, referring to the famed art museum and imperial palace in Saint Petersburg.
The Pavlovsk seedbank was established in the 1920s by Russian scientist Nikolai Vavilov. In the siege of Leningrad by Nazi Germany in World War II its scientists, according to locals, starved to death rather than eat the seeds.
Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
GENEVA (AFP) – The UN disaster prevention agency said Friday that communities should have been kept away from flood-exposed river banks in Pakistan, as it underlined the human hand in a string of catastrophes.
"If people had not settled on the river banks, definitely the disaster would have been less, because that is the main cause of the disaster," said Salvano Briceno, director of the UN's International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
The ISDR also pointed to landslides in China, wildfires in Russia and drought in Niger this summer as examples of how communities and towns were increasingly placed or left in harm's way.
"The vulnerability of human settlements is on the rise and is not yet being addressed by governments or communities," added Briceno.
Briceno argued that while extreme weather or climate change and poverty added to the challenges, the biggest source of harm was people living in hazard-prone areas while too little was done to reduce the risks they face.
"It is clearly human responsibility in the making of the disaster, disasters are not natural," he added, urging local authorities, donors and aid agencies to bolster long-term steps to cut those risks with the recovery.
Briceno acknowledged that all four countries were doing something but the pace of change was too slow and scattered worldwide.
It was also hampered by poverty, war and displacement, notably in Pakistan, and a focus on the response to disasters rather than preventing their impact.
The UN official noted that the South Asian country confronted annual monsoons rains, faced added melting from Himalayan glaciers with global warming and disruptive shifts in weather patterns.
"There are clearly, from nature's perspective, some aggravating factors. But the reality is that those river banks should never have been (open) for people to settle on," Briceno said, calling it a known risk.
He nonetheless praised Pakistan's flood alert system and the response by the disaster management authority.
"What is worrying is the long term effect, the displacement. By moving they might go to other risk areas," such as fragile slopes or quake zones, Briceno said.
In Russia, Briceno blamed the lack of clearance of undergrowth in forests for amplifying wildfires that left up to 200,000 hectares (495,000 acres) of woodland and peat bog ablaze for more than a month, killing over 50 people and locking Moscow in a thick smog.
More than 2,100 people were killed or missing and 12 million evacuated nationwide in China, following a spate of mudslides since July caused by torrential rains, inundating urban areas and burying parts of the northern city of Ankang.
Briceno said "the magnitude of the challenge is huge," in China, even though local authorities were taking more steps than most countries to keep populations away from harm.
Meanwhile, in impoverished Niger, where more than half the population faces famine, the impact of a drought that wiped out local harvests could have been tempered with a switch to less water hungry crops than traditional subsistence ones, the UN official claimed.
John Heilprin, Associated Press Yahoo News 21 Aug 10;
UNITED NATIONS – An obscure U.N. board that oversees a $2.7 billion market intended to cut heat-trapping gases has agreed to take steps that could lead to it eventually reining in what European and U.S. environmentalists are calling a huge scam.
At a meeting this week that ended Friday, the executive board of the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism said that five chemical plants in China would no longer qualify for funding as so-called carbon offset credits until the environmentalists' claims can be further investigated.
The "CDM" credits have been widely used in the carbon trading markets of the European Union, Japan and other nations that signed onto the 1997 Kyoto Protocol requiring mandatory cuts in greenhouse gases.
Rather than cut their own carbon emissions, industrialized nations can buy the credits which then pay developing countries to cut their greenhouse gases instead.
But environmentalists say rich nations could be wasting billions of dollars on what some are calling "perverse financial incentives," because some of the largest projects funded by the U.N.-managed CDM are a golden goose for chemical makers without making meaningful cuts in emissions.
The CDM executive board, based in Bonn, Germany, has asked for a decades' worth of data on the gases from those five plants in China to study whether the system was manipulated.
The controversy revolves around the apparent conflict between the Kyoto climate treaty and another U.N. treaty, the 1987 Montreal Protocol for repairing the Earth's fragile ozone layer.
The money from the CDM-authorized fund goes to pay the carbon offset credits claimed by more than 20 chemical makers mostly in China and India, but also in nations such as South Korea, Argentina and Mexico.
The chemical makers are paid as much as $100,000 or more for every ton they destroy of a potent greenhouse gas, HFC-23. The price for destroying it is based on its being 11,700 times more powerful as a climate-warming gas than carbon dioxide.
But that gas is a byproduct of an ozone-friendly refrigerant, HCFC-22, which those chemical makers also are paid to produce under the U.N.'s ozone treaty. Environmentalists say there is so much money in getting rid of HFC-23 that the chemical makers are overproducing HCFC-22 to have more of the byproduct to destroy.
"The evidence is overwhelming that manufacturers are creating excess HFC-23 simply to destroy it and earn carbon credits," said Mark Roberts of the Environmental Investigation Agency, a research and advocacy group. "This is the biggest environmental scandal in history and makes an absolute mockery of international efforts to combat climate change.
HCFC-22 is widely used in hair sprays, air conditioners and some refrigerators because it less damaging to the seasonal ozone hole over Antarctica than previous coolants. It has been promoted under the ozone treaty, often considered one of the world's most successful environmental treaties, as a replacement for chloroflourocarbons, or CFCs.
Yahoo News 20 Aug 10;
PARIS (AFP) – A UN-requested review of the world's top panel of climate scientists, accused of flaws in a key assessment on global warming, will be unveiled on August 30, the investigating committee said on Friday.
The five-month probe into "the processes and procedures" of the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is being conducted by the InterAcademy Council (IAC), gathering 15 leading science academies.
Its report will be handed to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri in New York on August 30, and will be followed by a press conference, according to a statement for the IAC by Britain's Royal Society.
The IPCC issued a landmark report in 2007 that unleashed a surge of political momentum for tackling climate change.
The 938-page document found evidence that climate change was already underway and pointed the finger of blame at carbon emissions -- heat-trapping "greenhouse" gases that mainly come from burning coal, gas and oil.
In late 2009, in the runup to the UN's climate summit in Copenhagen, the IPCC was rocked by the leaking of emails between some of its scientists that, according to skeptics, showed data had been skewed.
A part of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report was then taken to task for predicting that Himalayan glaciers which provide water to a billion people in Asia could be lost by 2035.
Other challenges have been mounted to a passage estimating the threat to Bangladesh from rising oceans and to a figure about how much of the Netherlands lies below sea level.
British scientists at the centre of the leaked email controversy were cleared by a House of Commons inquiry and an independent review of any scientific malpractice, although they were also criticised for lacking openness towards public requests for information.
The IPCC has admitted that the Himalayan glacier reference was wrong, but says its core conclusions about climate change are sound, an opinion shared by mainstream scientists.
It also cautions that climate science is a new and evolving discipline, which means that data on extreme weather events and regional impacts may be sketchy.
The Fourth Assessment Report was instrumental in earning the IPCC a co-share of the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize along with former US vice president Al Gore.
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