Best of our wild blogs: 8 Sep 10

Joseph Lai: A Heart for the Earth
from wild shores of singapore

Sunbirds and Doves
from Trek through Paradise

Breakfast with a Milky Stork
from Life's Indulgences

Rambutans
from Ubin.sgkopi

Read more!

Pasir Ris beach still polluted

NEA warns swimmers that waters remain too contaminated with bacterium in faeces
Grace Chua Straits Times 8 Sep 10;

FOR the third year in a row, picnickers hoping to swim in the waters off Pasir Ris Beach will be disappointed, as the area off the north-eastern shore is still too contaminated by a bacterium found in faeces to swim safely in.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) gave the water there a 'fair' rating in its annual update on beach water quality yesterday, after finding too many samples containing unsafe levels of the enterococcus bacterium, which can cause gastro-intestinal illnesses like vomiting and diarrhoea if swimmers come into contact with it.

The bacterium is found in animal and human faeces, and the problem appears to be the proximity of smaller sewage treatment plants in Tampines and Changi which discharge the effluents into the area. Water treatment agency PUB said the currents off Pasir Ris Beach were not strong enough to carry the discharge out and disperse it at sea.

Some older sewage pipes may also be leaking untreated sewage.

In a study last year, the NEA also said that other sources of contamination could be moored vessels and animals in the area.

Pasir Ris has received the same rating since 2008.

It may come as small comfort to know that waters there have not actually degraded, but that more stringent World Health Organisation guidelines have been in place since that year, said the NEA.

It advised the public not to swim in Pasir Ris until the next water quality review in August next year, as works are ongoing to phase out the sewage treatment facilities nearby.

Upgrading works are also being carried out to connect sewage pipes to a modern treatment facility in Changi, with its deep-water discharge pipe.

In contrast, the recreational beaches at Sentosa, Seletar Island, Sembawang Park, Changi and East Coast Park passed water quality tests with flying colours.

In water samples collected from Pasir Ris, 7 per cent contained more than 200 enterococcus bacteria per 100ml of water, exceeding World Health Organisation benchmarks.

Only beaches with not more than 5 per cent of such samples are suitable for swimming, wakeboarding and other activities involving full-body contact or immersion.

Prior to 2008, the NEA had used a different bacterium type called faecal coliforms as a water quality measure, but enterococcus was found to be a better indicator of health risks.

At the drab and rocky Pasir Ris Beach yesterday, no one was swimming though a few people were wading.

None of the 10 beachgoers asked knew about the pollution and no-swimming advisory.

University student Lewis Tan, 20, said: 'The water looks okay, but now that I know, we're not going into the water.'

Another beachgoer, a 16-year-old student who wanted to be known only as Ashwin, pointed out that the uninvitingly murky water put people off swimming anyway.

Dr Ole Larsen, director of the DHI-NTU research centre studying water and environment issues, noted that enterococcus was an indicator of faecal contamination.

'There are many more people in Singapore than there are wild animals, so that's probably the best place to look,' Dr Larsen said.

He added that the highest numbers of bacteria tend to be found in sources that come from land, so sources farther offshore, such as Pulau Ubin or military training island Pulau Tekong, are unlikely to be the culprits.

PUB said it had started making plans to phase out the area's sewage treatment plants and mend the sewerage network in 2007.

By next year, about 23km of ageing sewers in the area will be repaired.

And by 2012, the sewerage network will be extended, doing away with 39 older sewage treatment plants.

Besides the PUB measures, the NEA is also working with the Maritime and Port Authority to make sure ships moored offshore do not discharge sewage directly into the water.

NEA advises public to refrain from swimming at Pasir Ris beach
S Ramesh Channel NewsAsia 7 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) has issued its annual water quality review of the six recreational beaches for this year and Pasir Ris beach continues to be graded as "fair" in this area.

NEA has thus advised the public to refrain from swimming at Pasir Ris beach until the next review in August 2011.

The water quality of Sentosa Island, Seletar Island, Sembawang Park, Changi and East Coast Park beaches are again graded "very good" or "good".

NEA said they are suitable for primary contact activities.

In the latest grading for Pasir Ris beach, seven per cent of the collected samples had enterococcus counts greater than 200 per 100 ml, compared to eight per cent in 2009.

Enterococcus is a type of bacteria found in the faeces of human and warm blooded animals.

According to a study released by NEA in 2009, Pasir Ris beach's water quality is affected by various possible sources.

Among them is minor leakage from older sewers, moored vessels, animals, as well as discharges from small-scale sewage treatment plants that presently serve the more remote areas in Pasir Ris.

The low beach water currents are not effective in diluting and dispersing the discharges.

To help improve the water quality at Pasir Ris beach, PUB has an ongoing plan to extend the sewer network and phase out the 39 sewer treatment plants in the Halus/Tampines, Changi and Selerang areas by 2012.

PUB is also carrying out a sewer rehabilitation programme for aging sewers in this area, under which 23 kilometres of sewers will be rehabilitated by 2011.

NEA said it would continue to closely monitor the water quality at Pasir Ris beach and inform the public of the updated beach gradings in our next annual review.

-CNA/wk

Pasir Ris beach still unsafe for swimming
Esther Ng Today Online 8 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE - Two years on, it is still not safe to swim at Pasir Ris beach.

The water there is contaminated with enterococcus - a type of bacteria found in the faeces of human and warm-blooded animals. And it is expected to stay this way for at least another year.

In its annual review of Singapore's six recreational beaches, the National Environment Agency (NEA) assessed the water quality off Pasir Ris beach as "fair": Some 7 per cent of samples collected had enterococcus counts greater than 200 per 100 millilitre, compared to 8 per cent last year.

Pasir Ris beach was first classified as unsafe for swimming in 2008, when the NEA rolled out a new grading system on recreational water quality for beaches which was based on World Health Organisation guidelines revised in 2003.

The NEA said in its latest review that possible sources for the contamination include minor leakage from older sewers, moored vessels, animals, as well as discharges from small-scale sewage treatment plants in the remote areas.

The NEA noted in a statement that the "low water currents in the concave part of Pasir Ris beach are not effective in diluting and dispersing the discharges".

To help improve the water quality at the beach, the PUB will extend the sewer network and phase out the 39 sewage treatment plants in the Halus/Tampines, Changi and Selerang areas by 2012.

It also has an ongoing sewer rehabilitation programme for ageing sewers in this area - 23 km of sewers will be rehabilitated by next year.

Work on the phasing out of the sewage treatment plants and sewer rehabilitation are both on schedule, said the NEA.

Meanwhile, the public is advised not to swim at Pasir Ris beach until the next review in August.

Since August 2008, signs have been put up along the beach to advise beach-goers against swimming in the waters.

Pasir Ris resident Khaled Talib, 46, felt the undesirable water quality was a "pity". He said: "As a result, residents here are not maximising the full use of the beach."

Under the NEA's latest review, beaches at Sentosa, Seletar Island, Sembawang Park, Changi and East Coast Park were graded "very good" or "good" for the third time in a row.


Shops at Pasir Ris beach see drop in business after NEA report
Ng Lian Cheong/Alvina Soh Channel NewsAsia 11 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE : Shops at Pasir Ris beach are seeing a drop in business, with people avoiding the area.

This follows the National Environment Agency's annual water quality review that showed it is still not safe to swim at Pasir Ris beach.

Empty tables, closed shops and barely-occupied beaches were a common sight at Pasir Ris beach this week.

Businesses, including shops and snack stores, have been affected.

Snack store owners said they earn about S$100 per day, a drop of 20 per cent from the previous week.

Shops renting out rollerblades also reported a lack of customers.

However, shop owners are optimistic. They said they expect business to pick up eventually. - CNA/ms

Read more!

Why ban kayakers from reservoir?

Straits Times Forum 8 Sep 10;

BEFORE Marina Bay reservoir was created, it was possible for anyone with his own boat to enjoy paddling at Kallang Basin. Now, it is no longer possible because PUB has banned private kayakers from Marina Reservoir. Similarly, PUB has banned kayaking at the previously accessible Punggol and Serangoon rivers - both slated as future reservoirs.

When Marina Reservoir was announced, it was presented as an exciting venue for water sports, especially non-polluting paddling sports like kayaking. After it was opened, paddlers who had long enjoyed its waters on their private kayaks were banned from it.

I believe the risk assessment of Kallang Basin/Marina Bay as a suitable kayaking venue has not changed after the building of the barrage. How is it more risky now for private kayakers to paddle there, when we have been doing it for over 20 years without incident?

Some organisations like Water Venture and even privately owned dragon boat teams are still permitted to do kayaking/boating in its waters.

A regulatory approach to managing recreation activities in Marina Reservoir - and other waterways - would be much more appreciated than an outright ban. In any case, a ban is hardly enforceable over such a wide area.

According to PUB's Active, Beautiful, Clean (ABC) Waters programme, our reservoirs are no longer just water catchment areas but also important outdoor recreation areas that enhance urban living. If so, the creation of more reservoirs should not reduce our recreation space.

Sim Cher Huey


Kayakers not banned from reservoirs
Straits Times Forum 11 Sep 10;

PUB, the national water agency, thanks Mr Sim Cher Huey for his letter on Wednesday ('Why ban kayakers from reservoir?').

PUB does not ban kayakers from our reservoirs. In fact, since 2005, it has been actively promoting water activities at our reservoirs as part of our efforts to inject life and vibrancy into our reservoirs, and to encourage the public to bond with water. Members of the public can enjoy kayaking activities at various reservoirs.

PUB has worked with partners such as the Singapore Canoe Federation and People's Association to open kayaking centres at Bedok Reservoir, MacRitchie Reservoir, Jurong Lake and Lower Seletar Reservoir. Members of the public can also try their hand at sailing at Marina Barrage.

PUB works closely with the operators to ensure that water activities are conducted in a safe and proper manner. As a public agency, PUB has the responsibility to ensure that water activities conducted in the reservoirs are safe for all users as well as ensure the security of our reservoirs, which contain vital installations and equipment.

Water is sometimes discharged via certain channels when the reservoir level is too high, causing rapid flow of water. If individual kayakers are allowed to kayak outside the designated areas without any supervision, reservoir operations may be affected and the kayakers may put their lives at risk.

Kayaking centre operators ensure that members of the public are briefed on safety regulations and they do not venture outside the designated areas. The operators also keep the life vests and kayaks in good condition and track the number of kayaks out on the waters so that all individuals are accounted for.

Tan Nguan Sen
Director, Catchment and Waterways
PUB, the national water agency

Read more!

How Singapore Zoo is ensuring survival of endangered animals

Straits Times 8 Sep 10;

I REFER to the letter ('Polar bears and zoo's green contradiction'; Sept 1) by Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) executive director Louis Ng, which argued that polar bears Sheba and Inuka should be moved out of Singapore.

First, both mother and son polar bears were born in captivity, with Inuka being the first polar bear to be born in the tropics at Singapore Zoo close to 20 years ago.

Both bears have neither the necessary skills nor training to be released into the wild.

Sheba is now 33 years old, which is eight years above the average lifespan of a polar bear in captivity and almost double the longevity of a polar bear in the wild (15 to 18 years).

Second, we would like to reiterate that Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) has been consulting the Animal Welfare and Ethics Committee (Awec) and adhering to its recommendations.

It was Awec's strong recommendation in 2006 - under the chairmanship of Professor Tommy Koh - that the polar bears should remain here, considering their age, familiarity with their keepers and environment, and the uncertainty of whether other facilities would be able to provide the same high level of care.

It was also at this time that WRS started the conceptualisation of the Frozen Tundra exhibit at River Safari, as an upgrade to the polar bears' habitat.

All through this process, WRS had continued to upgrade their existing habitat, with new air-conditioners, misting fans and net shades.

On Mr Ng's point about the carbon footprint of the polar bear enclosure, we would like to highlight that WRS will be using currently available green building technology to ensure that energy use and carbon emissions are kept at minimal levels.

Environmentally friendly and energy-efficient cooling towers will be used to cool the new habitat, and independent experts will be assessing the construction of River Safari when it is built.

In fact, it is worth noting that all our parks are the first zoological institutions in South-east Asia to achieve both ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certifications, which indicate compliance with the highest standards in environment, health and safety.

Established and well-run zoos play an important part in ensuring the survival of endangered animals such as the polar bears. WRS remains deeply committed to running world-class wildlife institutions and ensuring the long-term survival of earth's biodiversity.

Fanny Lai (Ms)
Group CEO
Wildlife Reserves Singapore

Sheba and Inuka thriving well in Singapore
Straits Times 8 Sep 10;

I APPRECIATE the views expressed in the letter ('Polar bears and zoo's green contradiction'; Sept 1) by Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) executive director Louis Ng.

In 2006, the Animal Welfare and Ethics Committee (Awec) undertook an extensive review of whether we should keep the polar bears, Sheba and Inuka, in Singapore. After careful consideration, the committee decided it was against the best interests of the bears to be released into the wild or moved out of Singapore Zoo.

First, the natural habitat of polar bears is extremely resource-sparse, and cubs are trained from a young age to swim and travel vast distances to hunt for prey. Having been raised in captivity, both Sheba and Inuka do not have the necessary skills or knowledge to hunt for their own food. In addition, climate change has caused the melting of the ice caps, resulting in more wild polar bears dying of starvation. Both bears will not be able to survive the introduction into such a harsh environment.

Other options were also considered, namely to relocate Inuka to a different zoological institution after the passing of Sheba. We recommended that Inuka should remain here and not be sent to a temperate country because it would cause him more stress, with the move having its own share of risks.

On the one hand, logic prevails that Arctic animals should reside in temperate climates. On the other hand, Sheba, who is 33, has lived eight years past her average lifespan, and Inuka, who was born here, will be 20 years old by end 2010. This shows that they are thriving well in this environment.

Nevertheless, Awec will continue to keep an open view. With new discoveries in veterinary science, as well as improvements in captive animal breeding and management around the world, there will be a need to assess the situation again.

Captive habitats provided by wildlife institutions have enabled polar bears to successfully reproduce and raise their young as in the case of Sheba and Inuka.

We are glad that Wildlife Reserves Singapore has decided to move the bears to their new enclosure at the River Safari, which will serve as a better living environment. We believe both of them will continue to be provided with the best care and facilities here.

Professor Leo Tan
Chairman
Animal Welfare and Ethics Committee

Conservation the catchword for zoos today
Fanny Lai for the Straits Times 8 Sep 10;

OVER the years, I have visited more than 200 zoos and aquariums. They range from the world's oldest zoo - in Vienna, Austria - to an exotic zoo built on the volcanic slopes at the source of the Amazon River in Banos, Ecuador, and a conservation-focused zoo in the Bronx, United States.

I have also seen many bad zoos that should be closed down and whose owners should be prosecuted. I once saw a tiger at a well-known zoo being kept in an old office with a wooden door and glass window. I have observed a heavily-sedated lion being used for tourist contact; the poor lion could not walk on all fours. In another zoo, I learnt of monkeys being traded as food in the zoo's backyard.

Only 10 per cent of the estimated 3,000 zoos and aquariums in the world are members of the World Association of Zoos and Aquariums (Waza). All Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) parks - Jurong Bird Park, Night Safari and Singapore Zoo - are Waza members. They were the first zoological institutions in South-east Asia to achieve both ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001 certifications, which indicate compliance with the highest standards in environment, health and safety.

What puzzles me is that zoos remain popular attractions, with 650 million visitors worldwide annually, though many of them do not meet even the most basic of standards.

Does it have to do with society's low expectation of zoos?

History has shown that humans instinctively desire to control the beasts around them. Some 5,000 years ago, Egyptian pharaohs kept hippos, hartebeests, elephants, giraffes, baboons, cheetahs, leopards and monkeys. A Chinese emperor built a 'Garden of Intelligence' to keep deer and birds, and Admiral Cheng Ho returned from Africa with giraffes and zebras to please his ruler.

Today, in some societies, zoos remain places for the exhibition of exotic animals to satisfy the curiosity of people - a circus to entertain people at the expense of the animals. But good zoos today have evolved into places for conservation and education.

At WRS, we have changed our mission from providing recreation to promoting education; from captive breeding to habitat conservation; and from animal husbandry to animal science advancement.

We welcomed 3.6 million visitors last year, of which 250,000 were students using our parks as living and learning classrooms. Living animals are powerful tools to help bond children with nature.

For formal education, we work with the Ministry of Education to complement mainstream classroom lessons, and we subsidise student admission fees. We conduct workshops for teachers, and sponsor seminars for zoo educators in Asia.

We increased the learning opportunities in our parks by replacing commemorative plaques with educational material for children. We weave engaging stories about the animals at feeding sessions, and conduct tours of our rescue, nutrition, and health care and research centres. We publish educational magazines and have revamped our animal presentations to reinforce a conservation message.

True respect for wildlife can be stimulated only by learning about animals in their natural habitats. We design our exhibits with minimal confinement to let people respect our animals in their natural habitats. We adhere to, and in most cases surpass Waza's standards of animal welfare and ethics, and requirements for enclosure size, features and amenities. WRS is also at the forefront of developing animal enrichment activities to expose our animals to generous doses of mental and physical stimulation.

WRS parks are renowned for breeding critically endangered animals and the study of South-east Asian rainforest animals. To help revive the endangered wildlife populations, we use our experience in breeding critically endangered animal species and releasing them into the wild. Our collection acts as insurance in the event that wild populations go extinct. We succeeded in reintroducing the oriental pied hornbill, which was believed to be locally extinct in 1991. Today, a healthy population of 80 birds thrives.

Our parks have also taken on the roles of official wildlife rescue centres to help reduce incidences of illegal wildlife trade. We have rescued, rehabilitated and repatriated more than 20,000 wild animals. We have also trained staff from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority to identify and handle endangered wildlife.

The role of zoos has changed. We have to be an active player in the conservation of our ecosystems. We have to be the catalyst in promoting a sustainable lifestyle to preserve our biodiversity. We have to instil a respect for wildlife and turn people into active conservationists.

However, our progress will be constrained by problems: The number of threatened species is greater than what zoos can accommodate. Zoos have limited financial resources and success in maintaining large populations of endangered animals. Zoos cannot conserve wild behaviour and fully replicate natural habitats. Some zoo visitors just want to have fun and are not ready to learn.

We need time and commitment, and public as well as private support, to realise our vision.

The writer is the group CEO of Wildlife Reserves Singapore.

Read more!

Indonesian man caught smuggling birds, ant larvae into Singapore

Kimberly Spykerman Straits Times 8 Sep 10;

AN INDONESIAN man was busted on Sunday afternoon at the Singapore Cruise Centre for attempting to smuggle in birds and dead ant larvae when he did not have a permit to do so. Their intended destination was a bird shop in Telok Blangah.

The 49-year-old tourist was stopped at the arrival hall by officers from the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) when he seemed visibly flustered after being directed to undergo checks on his hand luggage.

Opening the heavy cardboard boxes, officers found 16kg of dead ant larvae in eight pallets wrapped in newspaper.

Ant larvae are a controlled item and cannot be imported without a permit. Dead ant larvae are usually used to feed birds.

The sound of faint chirping then drew the officers' attention to the man's sling bag.

Inside were 11 live birds stuffed into small boxes pierced with holes. They included five mata putehs, three shamas, two flycatchers and one leaf bird. A permit must also be obtained to import birds.

The man admitted to trying to smuggle in the items and was referred to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) for further investigations.

According to the ICA, smuggling of plants, animals and food has gone up by 44 per cent to 3,900 in the first six months of the year, from 2,700 over the same period of time last year.

Overall, contraband smuggling arrests in the first half of the year have peaked at 33,100, a record high for any six-month period.

Importing live birds without an AVA permit is a violation of the Animals and Birds Act, for which the man could be jailed a year and fined $10,000. For importing the dead ant larvae without an AVA permit, which is an offence under the Plant Importation Rules, he could be jailed three years and fined $10,000.

ICA thwarts man's bird-smuggling plans
Channel NewsAsia 7 Sep 10;

SINGAPORE: The Immigration & Checkpoints Authority (ICA) officers thwarted a man's plan to smuggle birds using his sling bag.

ICA officers on Sunday inspected hand-carried boxes of an Indonesian traveller when they thought they heard faint chirping.

Further inspection showed the 49-year-old man's sling bag had 11 birds peering through the several small boxes they were in.

Officers also found 16 kilogrammes of ant larvae.

The Indonesian claimed he intended to sell the contraband items to a bird shop in Telok Blangah and has been referred to the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority (AVA) for investigations.

ICA said the importation of live birds without an AVA permit is a violation of the Animals and Birds Act, which carries a maximum penalty of S$10,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

-CNA/wk

Read more!

A New Hope For Malayan Tigers

Ummi Nadiah Rosli Bernama 8 Sep 10;

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 8 (Bernama) -- Chopped up into four parts and stored in a refrigerator, forest rangers were aghast with their findings in a house in the Tumpat district of Kelantan.

Believed to have been shot after it was trapped, the head, body and internal organs of the Malayan tiger, an endangered species, was preserved along with its carcass.

This particular case that occurred five years ago is just another grim reminder of how wildlife like tigers, are callously killed for profit.

The tiger is a totally protected species under the Protection of Wild Life Act 1973, and commercial trade is prohibited by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

However, poaching and illegal trading remains one of the most urgent threats for the Malayan tiger.

In a lucrative black-market trade, tiger trafficking does not show any signs of slowing down. Demand is still strong for tiger body parts which are mainly used in Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) and served as a delicacy in wild-meat restaurants.

Could Malaysia be decimating its own national icon?

WANTED: DEAD OR ALIVE

With increased law enforcement in the country and around the region in recent times, there have been more seizures of tigers, alive and dead.

Compared to just one tiger seized in Malaysia from 2005 to 2006, at least 37 tigers were seized in Malaysia from 2008 to 2009, including five Malayan tigers seized in Thailand.

Senior Programme Officer for TRAFFIC (The Wildlife Trade Monitoring Network) Southeast Asia, Kanitha Krishnasamy stated that the level of illegal trade over the last few years have shown significant increase.

"TRAFFIC monitors wildlife trade for plants and animals, and our goal is to reduce illegal wildlife trade in the region. The tiger is one of TRAFFIC's flagship species, along with other animals like the Orang Utans, marine turtles, and elephants.

We are preparing a detailed report in highlighting seizures, and the results show that there has been an increase in illegal trade in tigers, specifically in this region. The smuggling areas identified are in Sumatra, Peninsular Malaysia at the Belum-Temengor area and the Thai-Myanmar border."

Kanitha added that tigers were being poached for meat which are supplied to exotic food restaurants, and for TCM. Furthermore, its skin and head are highly prized as trophies for the affluent and some of them kept as pets.

In Indonesia, tiger parts such as teeth and claws are sought after as amulets, believed by the locals to have curative and magical properties.

Due to persisting wildlife consumerism in Southeast Asia, major markets supplying illegal products still operate openly in many countries.

The region is a major centre for the wildlife trade, both as a supplier and consumer of wildlife products. Hence, monitoring the illegal tiger trade is a cross-boundary issue, most often involving parties from within and outside the region.

"There are no thorough or recent enough surveys on tiger part demand in Malaysia. We are not sure of the level of TCM claiming to be from tiger parts in Malaysia, but from our past experience, we know that a lot of products get channeled to China."

REVISED ACT BRINGS HOPE

TRAFFIC not only monitors the poaching and illegal trade of tigers, but also of its key prey species such as deer and wild boars.

However, operations to clamp down on poaching were previously an uphill battle as the penalties were hardly a deterrent for the perpetrators.

Take the Tumpat tiger case. Under the 1972 Wildlife Act, it is an offence to possess tiger meat, and the Thai national arrested in cutting up the tiger was faced with imprisonment of up to five years or a fine of up to RM15,000. That's a slap on the wrist, as the tiger parts he was in possession with were valued at double that amount.

But in July this year, the Government made great strides in wildlife conservation by passing a bill in Parliament to revise the outdated 1972 Act.

Known as the 'Wildlife Conservation Act 2010', now the punishment for totally protected animal related crimes (which covers the Tiger, Serow, Gaur, Javan Rhinoceros, Leopard, Clouded Leopard or False Gharial) is a fine of not less than RM100,000 and not more than RM500,000, and with imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years.

In addition, Section 87 of the Wildlife Act 2010 hopes to further curb illegal wildlife trade.

Under the clause, any person who sells anything which contains or is claimed to contain any derivative of any totally protected wildlife commits an offence and shall, on conviction, be liable to a fine not exceeding twenty thousand ringgit or to imprisonment for 1 year or both.

SET TO IMPACT ILLEGAL WILDLIFE TRADE

This is set to impact the trade, because as long as you claim to have derivatives like animal bones, meat, fats, skin in the packaging, label or mark on the product, it is considered an offence and the burden of proof has shifted to the person being accused rather than the prosecutor.

Kanitha explained that derivatives are very relevant for traditional Chinese medicine shops as previously, the loophole in the law allowed derivatives to be openly available for sale, and authorities could not confiscate the items.

"Claiming to use derivatives, even if you don't, for publicity purpose only in fact fuels the demand. People will buy it for the sheer reason that they think tiger parts have some medicinal value. This loophole has now been covered with the new act.

"If the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) sees a product that says it contains wildlife derivatives, they can seize the product without any question because the law provides for it."

The revised Act has also refined clauses pertaining to what the Orang Asli can hunt. This allows better regulation of hunting activities and the more confined list of animals does not include tigers.

TRAINING FOR ENFORCEMENT AGENCIES

Since the law provides for so much more in the revised Wildlife Act, authorities are now armed with the tools and opportunities to improve on enforcement actions.

But can our enforcement officers tell the difference between what is a protected species and what is not?

Since illegal wildlife are often not smuggled in full forms, TRAFFIC has over the years carried out trainings for enforcement officers to recognize what is and isn't illegal.

"TRAFFIC has trained over 1,000 enforcement officers at airports, customs and the judiciary in each of the 10 ASEAN countries.

Through the training, we sensitize them on the smuggling methods. For instance, when they scan a bag, they should be able to detect what they're seeing. Is it batik or endangered tortoises? It could be anything," Kanitha said.

"Moreover, our training with the judiciary is aimed at bringing attention to why poaching and illegal trading are as important as any other crimes. With the new Wildlife Act 2010, we hope that the judiciary system will use these opportunities to the full extent to prosecute more wildlife criminals."

-- BERNAMA

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Forgotten Tracks - Tracing Malaysia's Tigers
Ummi Nadiah Rosli Bernama 7 Sep 10;

KUALA LUMPUR, Sept 7 (Bernama) -- The roar of these magnificent creatures will soon be a mere echo of the past as their fabled ninth life has turned into their last plight for survival.

Since 1895, the 'King of the Jungle' has been a national inspiration; its majestic figures gracing coat-of-arms and institutional crests, leaving an indelible mark on the nation's identity.

Representing strength and courage, the Panthera tigris, or Tigers, are a stoic embodiment of Malaysia's progress into the country that she is today.

Fast-forward to 2010 - there are as few as 3,200 tigers left in the wild, barely spread across 13 countries.

This is a drastic decline from the 100,000 wild tigers that roamed as recently as a century ago, having lost 93 percent of its original habitat to humans during the period.

Out of the nine tiger sub-species that existed worldwide, three have been lost to extinction - the Balinese, Caspian and Javan. Research recognised the Malayan tiger as one of the six living tiger sub-species apart from the Amur tiger, Sumatran tiger, Bengal tiger, South China tiger and Northern mainland Indochinese tiger.

Some tiger populations could be pushed to the same fate, including the Malayan tiger (Panthera tigris jacksoni/Panthera tigris Malayensis). Recognised as the ninth sub-species in 2004, the Malayan tiger is unique to the Malay Peninsula.

While 3,000 Malayan tigers were estimated to exist in Peninsular Malaysia in the 1950's, today, the number has dwindled to only about 500. With each Merdeka celebration, Malaysia's iconic species is at the point of no return. Will this year's Merdeka be any different for our tigers?

UNIQUELY MALAYSIAN

Found in Southern Thailand and Peninsula Malaysia, the Malayan tiger weighs around 120 kg for adult males and 100 kg for females, and male Malayan tigers are slightly bigger than their female counterpart.

According to Mark Rayan Darmaraj, Field Biologist from the World Wildlife Fund (WWF)- Malaysia's Tiger Conservation Programme, the Malayan tiger is the second smallest sub-species after the Sumatran tiger.

"The life span of these tigers in the wild can be from 10 to 15 years, while those kept in captivity can live up to 25 years. We know from the genetic analysis that the DNA of the Malayan tiger is distinct to other sub-species. At the same time, very few studies have been done on them, so biologically and ecologically, they are still very mysterious animals."

POPULATION UNCERTAIN

Listed as an Endangered Species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, and in WWF's "Ten to Watch in 2010" list, preserving the existing tiger populations has become a race against time.

However, the fact that biological/ecological research on the Malayan tiger is still in infancy poses a challenge for conservation efforts.

For example, information on dietary preference, morphological measurements, demographic parameters, social structure, communication, home range sizes, and dispersal capabilities are all lacking.

Mark stated, "Currently we don't have much baseline information on tiger density in our forests, we don't know exactly how many tigers are there. Only when we start to figure out how many tigers are in the area, can we provide tiger-friendly management guidelines for sustainable forest management in Malaysia."

One of the few available studies is conducted in Taman Negara National Park from 1999 to 2001 found that tigers occur at very low densities of one to two tigers per 100 km.

Another study conducted by WWF between October 2004 and July 2005 at Gunung Basor Forest Reserve in Jeli District, Kelantan, a selectively logged forest, found 3 adult tigers per 100 km. This indicated that the population of tigers were 30 percent higher than the highest estimate derived by the earlier research.

Additionally, preliminary camera-trapping surveys by WWF in the Temenggor Forest Reserve found at least 6 tigers within a 100 km study site, further highlighting the importance of selectively-logged forests for tiger conservation.

Meanwhile, preliminary camera-trapping surveys under the Johor Wildlife Conservation Project in 350 square km of Endau-Rompin found a minimum of seven tigers.

"Although robust density estimates of tigers are not available, based on our findings, there could potentially be around 493 to 1480 Malayan tigers in the wild. But with so much of poaching happening and other negative impacts, 500 tigers is a safe count," Mark said.

TIGER CORRIDORS

As tigers have large habitat requirements, the effects of land conversion in the rainforest, leading to fragmentation and isolation of forest reserves will severely affect the long-term viability of tiger populations across the landscape.

Thus, the Central Forest Spine (CFS) identified by the Department of Town and Country Planning under the National Physical Plan in 2005 is the backbone of the environmentally sensitive forest network.

The CFS, consisting of 51,000 km of contiguous forests, is divided into three landscapes which are the Main Range (20,000 km), the Greater Taman Negara (15,000 km) and the Southern Forest (10,000 km).

The CFS provides linkages for ecological corridors to connect tiger populations across three core priority areas which are the Belum-Temenggor Complex (3,546 km) Taman Negara (4,343 km) and the Endau-Rompin Complex (2,389 km).

These corridors serve as critical ecosystem areas, as well as habitats for tigers' natural prey such as sambar deer, barking deer and wild boar.

THREATS TO THE TIGER

Although 45 percent of Malaysia is still forested, the country's apex predator is gravely threatened by habitat loss, forest fragmentation, prey depletion, poaching and retaliatory killing.

Accelerating deforestation, especially in environmentally-sensitive areas particularly in the states of Johor, Kelantan and Selangor for the establishment of timber latex clone plantations has contributed to the loss of many natural tiger habitats.

Furthermore, the clearing of forest areas to make way for monoculture plantations further reduces habitat quality for tigers. The building of roads, including highways and logging roads is another major threat to tigers and their prey as they provide poachers with easy access to once remote forests.

The Gerik-Jeli Highway is an example of how roads can fragment a contiguous habit, in this case, the Belum-Temenggor forest. Access roads into tiger habitats have also increased human-tiger conflicts.

Conflict areas such as in Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan and Kedah are attributed to poorly-planned agricultural development and tiger prey depletion due to illegal hunting that in turn causes domesticated animal predation by tigers and retaliatory killings.

In June this year, a 3-year old Malayan tiger was shot by the country's security corps, RELA, after it was found looking for food in a village in Perak.

That's one less tiger in the wild, and a sad ending to the same creature that adorns our national emblems.

-- BERNAMA

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Wildlife trade in Malaysia is still roaring

Yuen Meikeng The Star 8 Sep 10;

PETALING JAYA: Wildlife trafficker Anson Wong may be behind bars, but an animal collector claims several pet shops in the Klang Valley are still receiving their supply from sources related to him.

Nicholas Lee (not his real name), who has a collection of over 50 exotic pets, claimed that a pet shop owner told him that its supply of wild animals would not be cut off although Wong had been sentenced to six months in jail.

“In my years of collecting exotic animals, the pet shops that I frequent told me they received their supplies from Penang.

“It is a fact that there is only one wildlife supplier in Penang – Anson Wong,” said the 33-year-old, who started his hobby by keeping a few iguanas when he was in Form Four.

Lee, a marketing manager, said his pets were obtained legally and he had licences for each of them.

His exotic collection includes snakes, frogs, lizards and tarantula spiders.

Lee said wildlife collectors kept such animals because it was fascinating to see how they grew and behaved.

On Monday, Wong — described as the ‘’Pablo Escobar of the wildlife trade’’ — was jailed six months and fined a total of RM190,000 for smuggling 95 snakes without a permit.

Wong was caught at the KL International Airport on Aug 26 while trying to smuggle boa constrictors without a permit to Jakarta.

He pleaded guilty to the offence.

Natural Resources and Envi­ronment Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas said his ministry would appeal and seek a tougher penalty against Wong as he believed the wildlife trafficker got off lightly.

The ministry’s senior legal adviser, Faridz Gohim Abdullah, who acted for the prosecution in Wong’s case, said the ministry should file their appeal within 14 days after the date of sentencing.

“However, this matter is now being handled by the Attorney-General’s Chambers,” he said.

Wong’s lawyer, M. Sivam, said he had yet to receive instructions from his client to appeal against his sentence.

Probe on how Wong boarded plane with snakes
Christina Chin The Star 8 Sep 10;

GEORGE TOWN: Malaysia Airports Holdings Bhd (MAHB) is still trying to solve the mystery of how wildlife trafficker Anson Wong managed to board a flight at Penang International Airport with a bag full of snakes.

“I cannot give you the details of the investigation but we will try to complete it as soon as possible,” said MAHB senior general manager (operations services) Datuk Azmi Murad.

Ninety-five boa constrictors, two rhinoceros vipers and a matamata turtle were found by baggage handlers in Wong’s check-in suitcase during his transit through KLIA from Penang on a flight bound for Jakar­ta.

The snakes were found in containers wrapped in sarong.

Wong was arrested on Aug 26. He was jailed six months and fined RM190,000 on Monday for smuggling 95 snakes.

State Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh called for transparency and urged the Malay­sian Anti-Corruption Commission to investigate the alleged involvement of a high-ranking officer from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks with the wildlife dealer.

Known as the “Pablo Escobar of the wildlife trade”, Wong had earlier been linked to the proposed tiger park initiated by the Penang government.

Two Bengal tigers allegedly belonging to Wong were previously kept at the Bukit Jambul Hibiscus, Orchids and Reptile Farm but have been moved to a private location.

They will eventually be housed in a reptile garden in the forest reserve.

Phee said the state government had no dealings with Wong.

“All our facilities at the forest reserve are ready but we have yet to move the reptiles and tigers there because we want to make sure that everything is done legally.

State MACC director Datuk Latifah Md Yatim could not be reached for comment.

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Bani folk keep Phillipines mangrove forest alive

Yolanda Sotelo Inquirer Northern Luzon 8 Sep 10;

TUCKED IN the coastal town of Bani in western Pangasinan is a flourishing ecosystem
–almost 40 hectares of healthy mangrove forest that is home to various species of shellfish, fish and birds.

But 20 years ago, the Bangrin Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the village of San Miguel was almost a barren area. “There were very few mangroves then. Very few and far in between. It was being readied to become fishponds,” says Solomon Ochave, 50, president of the Bangrin Federation, an umbrella of people’s organizations taking care of the MPA.

Former Mayor Gabriel Navarro says the forest was a victim of the national government’s policy to convert mangrove areas into fishponds as part of efforts to increase fish production.

“Bani used to have 2,000 hectares of mangrove forests, but after the massive conversion in the 1970s up to the 1980s, only a hectare was left,” he says.

In the late 1980s, politicians and influential businessmen staked their claims to about 40 ha of mangrove forests and felled most of the trees there.

Navarro’s father, the late Marcelo Navarro Sr. who was mayor at that time, defied the national government’s order to open the area for conversion and, instead, planned to revive the mangrove forest.

“He was ahead of his time, already doing environmental conservation projects long before it became a mode,” Navarro says.

Gabriel’s brother, Marcelo Jr., who is now the mayor, and his son, Councilor John Paul, who chairs the council’s environment committee, are pursuing the mangrove rehabilitation project to continue the work left by the elder Navarro.

“This is our father’s legacy to the town, and we are very proud of it,” Marcelo Jr. says.

The same passion has rubbed on to people who wanted the rehabilitation effort to succeed.

Thriving ecosystem

Virginia Raray, the project coordinator, guides visitors by boat to the mangrove forest to observe the thriving ecosystem. Something there seems to awe and silence visitors – perhaps the mangroves’ tangled roots, their flowers and fruits of different colors and shapes, or the chirping of birds.

Birds started flying every which way as the boat passed through the sanctuary. “When disturbed, nestlings or baby birds instinctively fly and they fell down and drown. This is why the protocol now is for everyone to stay quiet,” municipal agriculturist Gloria Gloria says.

Fifty-seven species of birds, including the endangered Philippine duck, have made the Bangrin forest their home.

According to the municipality’s quarterly assessments, the bird population never goes down 1,000 each time, but the dominant species depend on the survey month, Raray says. In January, a survey team counted 4,796 birds.

The mangrove forest is watery or muddy, depending on the tide. Its bed teems with 21 species of shellfish and nine species of fish, including the lapu-lapu (grouper).

The first mangrove seedlings (propagules) were planted sometime in 1990 when Bani entered into a three-year community contract with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) for an integrated mangrove rehabilitation project.

Five years later, another municipal initiative – a community-based upland development project – won the DENR’s Likas Yaman Award with a prize of P1 million worth of environmental projects. The local officials decided to use the award to expand the mangrove plantation which, in turn, won the Likas Yaman Award in 1996.

Seedlings were planted in more than nine ha of forest land the following year. The project was stalled, however, when three typhoons came in 1998 and battered the year-old seedlings, leaving only 600 of the 30,130 seedlings standing.

But Bani officials did not lose heart.

In 2000, during a consultation with the fisher folk, it was agreed that the plantation site be declared a marine protected area, empowering the community to oversee and protect the reforestation project.

Covenant

A covenant was signed between the local government and the fishermen of Barangays Aporao and San Miguel for them to become co-managers. This led to continuous planting of various mangrove species and expanding the project areas.

While various agencies help in technical guidance and funds, the residents are directly involved in planting and taking care of the seedlings, and guarding the area from illegal activities.

A netted fence protects the seedlings from debris. During high tide, the residents would painstakingly remove the floating algae before the seedlings are suffocated.

Like eager parents, they count each stem and sprouting leaf for documentation. The growth of mature trees is monitored and their trunks are measured yearly.

“The fishermen also protect the mangrove forest from poaching and other illegal activities,” Ochave says. “Fishing is strictly prohibited inside the protected area, but it is allowed outside the boundaries.”

Nursery

William Raboy, Bangrin Federation vice president, says the fishermen have realized that the protected area, which serves as nursery to fish and shellfish, is a big help in increasing their fish catch. Daily fish catch rose from 2 kilograms in 1995 to 3.25 kg in 2000 and 6.68 kg in 2007, he said.

The mangrove forest’s thick canopy has also attracted both endemic and migratory birds, which, in turn, draws the attention of conservationists, bird watchers, students and tourists.

The forest has been declared a bird sanctuary in 2008 and one of the 13 bird-watching sites in the country by the recreational outdoor exchange, Wild Bird Club of the Philippines and the Department of Tourism.

A 500-meter-long boardwalk was built for bird watchers. A pavilion is being constructed for the visitors.

The town bought two motorized boats and five paddle boats to service visitors for a minimal fee. Members of people’s organizations act as tour guides.

Navarro says the community’s determination to keep the mangrove forest alive is so strong. “I don’t know what keeps them motivated, but they really are,” he says.

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Marine Scientists Seek Standards For Oil Spill Research

Christopher Joyce NPR 7 Sep 10;

Much of the scientific effort that has followed the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has focused on how much oil escaped and where it's gone. But biologists want to know how that oil might affect marine life over the long term, and many say they're puzzled by the lack of an organized research effort to measure the damage.

Take, for example, the scientists at Mote Marine Laboratory in Sarasota, Fla. After the BP well blew up and jettisoned some 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf, Mote became a refuge for endangered sea turtles. The Unified Command team in the Gulf — an organization of federal departments and BP — rescued turtles and cleaned them up. They then sent them to Mote to recuperate, and biologists there wanted to know if and how the oil might have affected the turtles.

John Reynolds, the director of marine mammal and sea turtle research, was one of those scientists. "Tissue samples can be acquired," he said several weeks ago, "but Unified Command governs how those tissue samples are used, by whom, and then [they] apparently own all the data and all the information. And that ownership may last decades."

Frustrating?

"Of course it's frustrating," says Reynolds.

That was in August. Since then, other marine scientists are reporting the same frustration. They know that some scientific data on the effects of the spill may become evidence in court, and they're not sure how to proceed.

The government is now conducting a "Natural Resource Damage Assessment," which will pave the way for recovering damages from BP in court. The assessment comes with rules on how to conduct research, but many scientists say they don't know the rules or who's in charge.

"I am a little mystified that there hasn't been a broader scientific discussion led by the federal government to try to scope out where there is good strong knowledge and where there is need for more information," says Christopher D'Elia, dean of the School of the Coast and Environment at Louisiana State University.

Last week federal agencies convened meetings across the Gulf with scientists to focus on tracking the remaining oil. But D'Elia says the government is behind the curve on long-term biological effects.

"It's like four months after the murder has occurred," he says. "You know, the body has decayed and the dogs have walked off with the bones, so it's really hard to solve the mystery under those circumstances. Science planning has not been good at all."

Comparing Apples With Apples

Assessing the damage to the Gulf will be an expensive undertaking.

So far, the National Science Foundation has spent over $17 million to get biologists out into the Gulf, and BP has provided about $30 million to universities and research institutes.

This is a start, scientists say, but it's not nearly enough. Good research takes more than money, though.

William Hogarth, dean of the College of Marine Science at the University of South Florida, says scientists need to agree on what they're measuring and how they measure it "so that what's done off of Louisiana waters will be compatible to what we do in Florida waters so there won't be comparing apples and oranges. We want to compare apples to apples," Hogarth explains.

Apples, in this case, are things like chemical or physical signs of oil in water or genetic damage to fish or oil's effects on coral reproduction. If scientists measure effects in different ways, the results might not be compatible.

Steven Murawski, the scientist organizing research for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, says following the rules for the damage assessment takes time. He acknowledges the government hasn't communicated as much as many scientists would like.

"We're trying to balance the need for the public's desire for almost complete transparency at time scales that are almost unrealistic with our fiduciary responsibility to recover natural resource damages for the country," Murawski says.

He says NOAA is moving toward a study that will examine the effects on the entire ecosystem of marine life in the Gulf. In the meantime, he says scientists funded by the government can discuss and publish their results. But if they take BP money for that research, they will not be asked to testify in court on behalf of the government.

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World's smallest seahorse facing extinction in Gulf oil spill clean-up

National Geographic 7 Sep 10;

One of the world's smallest seahorse species could disappear due to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill and subsequent clean-up efforts, conservationists from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) warned today.

"The dwarf seahorse (Hippocampus zosterae), found only in waters off the Gulf Coast, now faces a bleak future after its much of its habitat was destroyed by the spill," ZSL said in a news release.

NGS stock photo of dwarf seahorse by Robert Sisson

"Scientists are worried that the clean-up process could further diminish dwarf seahorse populations and other marine life," ZSL added.

Conservationists from the ZSL Project Seahorse team are urging BP to minimize the use of chemical dispersants and the burning of oil during the clean-up process, which is expected to take years, ZSL said.

The conservation charity said:

"Dwarf seahorses, which are less than one inch long, produce few young, making them vulnerable to environmental change.

"The population of dwarf seahorses is expected to decrease dramatically during the clean-up, after the spill exposed them to high levels of oil toxins and destroyed large swaths of their food-rich habitat.

"To slow the oil spill's movement, BP has burned off the oil caught in seagrass mats floating in open water. While most seahorses live in seagrass beds in the coastal shallows of the Gulf, others live in these loose mats of vegetation offshore.

"Burning these mats has killed many marine animals while depriving others of their habitat and exposing them to further toxicity."

"Seagrass is vital to the long-term health of coastal ecosystems, sheltering marine animals, acting as fish nurseries, improving water quality, and preventing erosion. In extreme cases where seahorses are at high risk of poisoning such as this one, seagrass mats and beds can be cut to reduce toxic exposure," said Heather Koldewey, ZSL's program manager for the International Marine and Freshwater Conservation Programme.

"However we are urging BP to continue to use booms in the clean-up to isolate the oil slicks. These can be skimmed, left to evaporate, or treated with biological agents like fertilisers, which promote the growth of micro-organisms that biodegrade oil," Koldewey said.

Heather Masonjones, a seahorse biologist at the University of Tampa, said: "It's absolutely critical that measures be taken to preserve the seagrass mats and beds during this vulnerable time.

"Incidents such as the explosion of the Mariner Energy oil platform, in the Gulf of Mexico only last Thursday, demonstrate how we must act quickly and carefully to give these fragile marine species the best chance of survival."

ZSL is an international scientific, conservation and educational charity. It runs two zoos, including London Zoo, carries out scientific research at the Institute of Zoology, and is involved in field conservation internationally.

Posted by David Braun from media material submitted by ZSL.

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Microbes are eating BP oil without using up oxygen

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 8 Sep 10;

WASHINGTON – Government scientists studying the BP disaster are reporting the best possible outcome: Microbes are consuming the oil in the Gulf without depleting the oxygen in the water and creating "dead zones" where fish cannot survive.

Outside scientists said this so far vindicates the difficult and much-debated decision by BP and the government to use massive amounts of chemical dispersants deep underwater to break up the oil before it reached the surface.

Oxygen levels in some places where the BP oil spilled are down by 20 percent, but that is not nearly low enough to create dead zones, according to the 95-page report released Tuesday.

In an unusual move, BP released 771,000 gallons of chemical dispersant about a mile deep, right at the spewing wellhead instead of on the surface, to break down the oil into tiny droplets.

The idea was to make it easier for oil-eating microbes to do their job. But the risk was that the microbes would use up the oxygen in the water. So BP had to perform a delicate balancing act.

"Has it hit the sweet spot? Yes. Was it by design? Partly," said Steve Murawski, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration senior scientist who headed the federal team of researchers.

One reason that oxygen levels didn't drop too low was the natural mixing of water in the Gulf, which kept bringing in oxygen from other areas, Murawski said. Oxygen levels would have had to fall by three-quarters for the water to be classified as a dead zone, he said.

The Gulf of Mexico already has a yearly major problem with a natural dead zone — this year, it is the size of Massachusetts — because of farm runoff coming down the Mississippi River. Fertilizer in the runoff stimulates the runaway growth of algae, depleting the oxygen in a giant patch of the Gulf every summer.

Federal officials had been tracking oxygen levels and use of dispersants since the spill, which spewed more than 200 million gallons of oil into the Gulf between April and July. Had the oxygen plummeted near dangerous levels, the dispersant use would have been stopped, said Greg Wilson, science adviser at the Environmental Protection Agency's emergency management office.

The use of dispersants has been a source of fierce debate because it involves an environmental trade-off: protecting the shoreline from oil at the risk of causing unknown problems in the deep. While dispersants make it easier for bacteria to degrade the oil, they tend to hide oil below the surface. There have also been concerns about the chemicals' toxicity and the long-term effects on marine life.

In May, the federal government convened about 50 scientists for advice on whether to continue using the dispersants. Though the researchers were divided before the meeting, they unanimously recommended continuing with the chemicals, said University of California Davis oil spill scientist Ron Tjeerdema.

"The best of two options — neither of which were great — was to continue dispersing," Tjeerdema said.

Louisiana State University researcher Ed Overton, who also was part of that meeting, said he feels vindicated. "Right now it looks like an incredibly good idea," he said. "It was a risky but necessary application. Damage was going to be done somewhere."

But Overton said it may be years before scientists know if there is long-term damage from the dispersants.

Last month, after federal officials said much of the oil had dissolved, dispersed or evaporated, outside researchers were skeptical. Two new studies called that into question, finding that invisible underwater plumes of oil remained deep underwater.

But Tuesday's report dovetails with another outside study, published last month, announcing the discovery of a new oil-consuming microbe in the Gulf that was flourishing on BP's spill.

The sagging oxygen levels also lend more weight to the government's claims last month that microbes are consuming oil, because there would be no dip in oxygen if the bacteria weren't feeding on the BP leftovers, Murawski said.

The new work is based on data collected from May through August at 419 locations by nine government and private research ships in the Gulf.

Larry McKinney, director of a Gulf of Mexico research center at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi, said the new federal data showed that it was a "nearly perfect" outcome.

"They hit it on the head, which is good," said McKinney, who was not involved in the report.

NOAA report: http://tinyurl.com/39cbbs4

Oxygen drops near BP spill but no "dead zone"-US
* Oxygen sags 20 pct in Gulf of Mexico near BP spill
* Drop in oxygen did not create "dead zone" around well
* Explosive blowout at Macondo wellhead may have helped
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters AlertNet 7 Sep 10;

WASHINGTON, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Hungry microbes feasting on spilled BP oil caused a drop in oxygen levels in the Gulf of Mexico, but did not create a marine "dead zone" near the wellhead, U.S. scientists reported on Tuesday.

The amount of oxygen decreased by 20 percent from the long-term average in areas where oil from the broken BP Macondo wellhead was detected by government and independent observers, scientists from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration told reporters.

"All the scientists working in the Gulf have been carefully watching dissolved oxygen levels because excess carbon in the system might lead to a dead zone," said NOAA's Steve Murawski. "While we saw a decrease in oxygen, we are not seeing a continued downward trend over time."

Summer dead zones are common in shallower areas of the Gulf of Mexico, caused by run-off from farm chemicals flowing down the Mississippi River.

Dead zones have such low oxygen levels that most marine life -- including commercial important fish and shellfish -- cannot survive, and scientists feared the BP spill would create such a zone in deep water around the Macondo wellhead after the April 20 blowout at the Deepwater Horizon rig.

"SWEET SPOT"

That did not happen, Murawski said, and at this point is unlikely. He said oxygen levels had hit a "sweet spot," with microbes consuming enough of the dispersed oil to cause what he called a sag in oxygen, but not enough to cause a low-oxygen dead zone.

Part of the spilled BP oil was broken up into tiny particles by chemical dispersants, which made it more palatable to petroleum-eating microbes, Murawski said.

"Has it hit a sweet spot? Yes. Was it by design? Partly."

The NOAA findings are in line with research presented by scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

Both of these institutions published articles in August noting the initial presence of an underwater plume of oil in the Gulf of Mexico and the disappearance of the oil when deep-water microbes efficiently ate it without giving off much oxygen.

The ruptured BP well had been secured with no threat of spewing crude. A cap on top of the failed blowout preventer at the Macondo well sealed in all oil flow since July 15, and on Friday, the company replaced the failed equipment with a new giant stack of valves and pipes.

Once the new blowout preventer is tested, BP can resume drilling a relief well that will bore into the Macondo well, pump in mud and cement to plug it for good.

(Editing by Stacey Joyce)

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Climate Change`s Impact In Indonesian Fisheries Becoming Near, Real

Fardah Antara 7 Sep 10;

Jakarta (ANTARA) - Ode (45), a fisherman of Lebak District, Banten Province, has to sell his belongings to buy food for his family as bad weather has forced him to stay away from open seas over the past two months.

"I recently sold my television set to meet our daily needs," he told ANTARA at a local fish market in Lebak, Thursday (3/9).

Like Ode, other fishermen in Lebak District have also complained about their meager fish catches lately due to continuing bad weather conditions marked by strong winds, rain or huge waves in the Indian Ocean.

The fishermen said they could hardly get any fish because of strong winds, rain and huge waves at night in the Indian Ocean. Besides, the bad weather was dangerous for fishermen, he said.

Another fisherman, Keong (25), told a similar story as he had been unable to fish in the open sea due to bad weather during the past two months.

"We have been able to catch only small fish that sell at very low prices," he said.
Rohman (55), a Panggarangan fisherman, also in Lebak District, said he had switched to farming to earn a living, because fishing with very low fish catches was not profitable.

"Every time I have to fish in the sea, I have to spend Rp40,000 on fuel, while I just manage to get Rp20,000 to Rp30,000 from selling the fish," he said.

Around 2,912 fishermen and fishery workers in Lebak are now jobless due to the drastic decline in fish catches, according to Ade Supriatman, secretary of the Lebak chapter of the Indonesian Fishermen`s Association.

"I am very much concerned about the local fishermen`s economic condition as their fish catches have decreased sharply during the past few months," he said.

In Jakarta, last Tuesday (Aug 31), Gelwin Yusuf, head of the marine and fishery affairs ministry`s marine and fishery research agency explained that the prevailing climate change phenomena had affected Indonesia`s fishery industry and caused the fish catches to dwindle.

"Indonesia`s fish catches have been affected by climate change phenomena," said
"The crucial aspect caused by the climate change is increasing pressure on the food resilience, including a composition balance change in the types of fish catch results," he said.

If the La Nina weather phenomenon which has been triggering wet drought in Indonesia continues until late 2010 or early 2011, sardine fish (Sardinella longiceps) catches in the Bali Strait will drop, he said.

The sardine fish catch decline might reach 24 percent from that in 2009, or 17 percent over the last 25 years.

Besides, climate change has also reduced production of swamp fish in Indonesian waters by 5 percent over the past 13 years.

According to Gelwin, climate change also had the potential of altering the type composition of fish catches.

He cited as an example that in Atlantic Ocean waters, fish catch results had changed from demersal fish species to pelagic species.

Pelagic fish live in water columns of coastal, ocean and lake waters, but not on the bottom of the sea or lakes. They can be contrasted with demersal fish, which do live on or near the bottom, and reef fish which are associated with coral reefs.

Climate change has also altered fish catch results from vertebrate to invertebrate sea animals.

Apart from affecting food resilience, climate change is also putting pressure on coral reefs and marine biota ecosystem, coastal communities, and regional security such as increased competition for fish resources, he said.

Seas and maritime technology could contribute for mitigation and adaptation strategy of the climate change, according to the official.

As part of the adaptation strategy, the fishery and marine affairs ministry has developed some 2,612 climate-change-impact-proof houses in Tengerang (Banten), Pamekasan and Lamongan (East Java), Demak, Pekalongan, Rembang, and Brebes (Central Java), Indramayu and Banjar (West Java), Riau (Sumatra), and Bali.

The ministry also issues forecast maps of fish catch areas twice a week, covering Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, East Nusa Tenggara (NTT), West Nusa Tenggara (NTB), Sulawesi, and Maluku, as well as Papua.

Adaptive technology in the aquaculture is also crucial to produce prime varieties immune against the climate change impacts, low-emission fish food, and environmentally friendly aquaculture technology, he added.

Indonesia`s neighboring country of Australia, has also experienced a similar situation. A new Australia`s Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) study recently found that climate change is driving a widespread number of fish south as the oceans warm.

CSIRO has identified south-eastern Australia as a climate change hotspot, with well documented changes already occurring over the last 70 years.

CSIRO spokesman Dr Peter Last said a snapshot of the distribution of coastal fish has located 43 types of fish outside their normal range. Those species on the move include rock flathead, tiger sharks and Queensland groupers.

The study also found up to 19 species of Tasmanian coastal fish have undergone serious declines, and some are possibly extinct locally.

Besides the fishery sector, Climate change impacts have also threatened Indonesia`s agricultural products.

Indonesia needs to strengthen its domestic food stock to anticipate extreme climate change, Agriculture Minister Suswono said in Jakarta recently.

The unexpected La Nina during the current supposedly dry season, has caused heavy rains and floods in some provinces such as West Java, South Sulawesi, Central Kalimantan, South Kalimantan and Gorontalo (Sulawesi).

Floods have affected around 100,000 hectares of fields, however it is still below one percent of total rice fields that reach 13 million hectares.

Failures caused by pests are found in around 3,800 hectares of fields which is above the average in the last five years.

The minister said the climate change had caused the spread of brown planthoppers but various efforts had already been taken to overcome them such as through development of pest-or drought-resilient varieties.

"We must remain alert towards possible extreme climate change by increasing our food stock," he said, despite a prediction that the country might still enjoy a surplus of 5.6 million tons of rice at the end of the year.

The minister said India, China and Russia had also done the same thing to anticipate climate change that could cause a drop in production.

The minister said the country`s rice surplus of 5.6 million tons by the end of the year would be able to meet national needs if conditions are normal without pest attacks, floods or drought.

"The problem is that the climate change is uncertain. It is not impossible for floods and drought to happen or pests to attack. So we must not ignore food supply. We must strengthen the stock," he said. (*)

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No food crisis seen, but greater market stability needed

FAO Assistant-Director General on current food situation
FAO 7 Sep 10;

7 September 2010, Rome - Food commodities markets will remain more volatile in years ahead and the international community will need to develop appropriate ways of dealing with that, a top FAO official said today.

Responding to questions concerning the current turbulence on international food markets, Hafez Ghanem, Assistant Director-General for Economic and Social Development, said the G20 could take the lead in devising measures to ensure greater market stability over the medium and long term.

In an interview published on the FAO homepage, Ghanem was asked whether the world was headed for a repeat of the 2007-2008 World Food Crisis. His reply:

“The market fundamentals are sound and very different from 2007-2008. Despite the shortfall in Russia’s wheat production, this year’s cereal harvest was the third highest on record and stocks are high. Under these conditions we don’t believe that we are headed for a new food crisis, but we will continue monitoring the situation closely.

“So as regards the overall supply and demand situation there’s no cause to worry. The picture could, however, change if there is another shock to supply, for example due to more bad weather, or if government policies lead to increased anxiety in the market, provoking panic buying..”

Q. So what we’re seeing now is market volatility and turbulence, not a crisis?

A. As I said the elements for a crisis do not appear to be there. But in the years ahead we’ll probably be seeing more of the turbulence we’re experiencing now because markets are set to become more volatile in the medium term for at least three reasons: a) the growing importance as a cereal producer of the Black Sea region, where yields fluctuate greatly from one season to the next; b) the expected increase of extreme weather events linked to climate change; and c) the growing importance of non-commercial actors in commodities markets.

Q. What should the international community’s response be?

A. Given the importance of food markets in fighting hunger and ensuring economic stability FAO feels that the international community, perhaps under the leadership of the G20, should start looking at ways of dealing with higher volatility. That would include discussion of improved regulation of markets, of ensuring greater market transparency, and of establishing an appropriate level of emergency stocks. We also need to find ways of assuring a fluid and efficient international trade in food products.

Q. What is the role of speculation in the present turbulence?

A. The situation we see today was not created by speculators but was caused by a drought in Russia. Speculation can magnify the impact of real shocks but cannot create such shocks. Non-commercial actors are bringing much-needed liquidity into food commodities markets and that is welcome.

But while any idea of limiting their role would be counter-productive, we should perhaps be looking at ways of tightening the regulatory framework in futures markets in order to limit any adverse impacts from speculation while at the same time enhancing the transparency of such markets.

Q. How does FAO view Russia’s export ban on wheat, which was recently extended to 2011.

A. As a general rule export bans are to be avoided as they create market instability. They increase food prices for poor importing countries while also hurting producers in the country imposing the ban since they are not able to benefit from higher international prices.

Q. If there is no crisis, why has FAO decided to hold an emergency session of its Inter-Governmental Group on Grains?

A. This is not an emergency meeting. The purpose of the meeting will be to present members with the latest supply and demand balance, Members will be asked to describe the situation in their own countries, particularly as regards the policies they have put in place to cope with emergencies since the crisis of 2007-2008.

In the current situation there is a lot of uncertainty about the evolving supply and demand situation and the measures different countries are taking to limit price variability. The meeting will bring policy-makers and experts together to exchange information and discuss the current situation face to face. Better information means more market transparency and that should mean less volatility. Also discussed will be the question of what countries should do in the medium term to enhance their preparedness for future episodes of volatility.

The IGG on Grains and the IGG on Rice, which will be meeting on September 24 in Rome, represents a forum for intergovernmental consultation and exchange on trends in production, consumption, trade, stocks and prices of wheat and coarse grains, including regular appraisal of the world grain situation and short term outlook.

Q. What should countries be doing to strengthen global food security?

A. Aside from the specific issues I mentioned earlier, the key to long-term food security lies in investing in the agricultural sector in developing countries so they can produce the extra food needed for a world population expected to reach more than 9 billion in 2050.

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Wheat price spike raises food insecurity: U.N. expert

* Poor countries seen highly vulnerable to price gains
* U.N. expert blames speculation from traders for rises
Reuters AlertNet 7 Sep 10;

GENEVA, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Riots over high bread prices in Mozambique and food shortages elsewhere should be a wake-up call for governments which papered over food security problems that arose two years ago, a United Nations expert warned on Tuesday.

"Donors have not delivered on their promises," Olivier De Schutter, the U.N. special rapporteur on the right to food, said during a mission to Syria.

"Most poor countries are still highly vulnerable. They continue to rely for their export revenues on a limited range of commodities, and their food security is excessively dependent on food imports whose prices are increasingly high and volatile." Almost 150 people were arrested in Mozambique after riots over a 30 percent rise in the price of bread, the result of soaring global wheat prices. [ID:nLDE6850FH]

Egyptians have also protested over food prices and experts have warned that riots could break out in Africa and the Middle East. [ID:nLDE67A0Y0]

De Schutter, noting that Syria was also affected by severe drought, said that increasing food and fuel prices hurt poorer countries most, especially those reliant on imports.

"Price increases are exacerbated by speculation from unregulated traders, and they are transmitted directly to households, who often spend 60 to 70 per cent of their incomes on food," he said.

Although the world cereal output in 2010 should still be the third highest on record, fears about future supplies have led the prices of wheat to increase 70 percent on international markets since last year, according to the United Nations. Much of the spike has been linked to drought and fires in Russia, which had been the world's No. 3 wheat exporter, and a decision by the Russian government to extend a grain export ban until late 2011.

De Schutter said overall food prices on international markets have already increased by five percent since July. A food price index by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, a U.N. agency, has hit its highest level since September 2008.

The FAO has called an emergency meeting for Sept. 24 in Rome for governments to confront weaknesses in the global food system and find ways to boost reserves. The U.N. expert said it was critical for donor countries to provide meaningful assistance.

"In 2008, many governments were taken by surprise," he said. "We have today a much better understanding of what needs to be done to realise the right to food." (Reporting by Laura MacInnis; Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Noah Barkin)

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Climate change may add to disaster death tolls

* Death toll from natural disasters has declined
* But climate change may worsen disease after-effects
Alister Doyle, Reuters AlertNet 7 Sep 10;

OSLO, Sept 7 (Reuters) - Natural disasters are tending to kill fewer people but climate change may add to the toll by unleashing more extreme weather and causing after-effects such as disease and malnutrition, experts say.

Better warnings of cyclones or heat waves and an easing of poverty in developing nations in the past few decades have made many nations better prepared for weather extremes, helping to curb death tolls.

"In terms of actually saving lives we are doing well," said Diarmid Campbell-Lendrum, a senior expert at the United Nations' World Health Organization (WHO).

"But that's no guarantee for the future as we see the hazard increasing, particularly things like heat stress where we may not be very well prepared," he told Reuters.

Rising temperatures can aggravate the aftermath of disasters, as well as causing creeping changes from higher temperatures such as disruptions to food production.

"Climate change just adds another reason why we should be getting on with controlling malaria, diarrhoea and dealing with the problem of malnutrition," said Campbell-Lendrum. "Those are the big challenges.

U.N. studies project global warming will cause more droughts, wildfires, heat waves, floods, mudslides and rising sea levels -- all threats for an increasing human population set to reach 9 billion by 2050 from 6.8 billion now.

And it is often the after-effects of natural disasters that are the worst, in terms of extra deaths.

Deaths from extreme weather this year such as in Pakistan's floods "are a warning that we need to renew efforts to bring climate change under control," said Andrew Haines, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

"There is an increased death rate from indirect causes -- people become impoverished, so child death rates that are not normally counted rise," Haines said.

"There might be a substantial under-estimate in the deaths," he said. Climate change would add to the damaging after-effects of natural disasters.

BIGGER RISK FROM DISEASE

More than 1,750 people have died in Pakistan's floods but millions more are at risk of disease. At least 54 people died from wildfires in Russia in July and August that drove up world grain prices -- threatening malnutrition for the poor.

The WHO will issue a report next year updating an initial 2003 study that estimated an extra 150,000 people were dying every year from global warming -- mainly from malnutrition, diarrhoea and malaria.

It projected that the toll was set to double by 2030. Campbell-Lendrum declined to predict the new numbers.

"The short-term response is disaster preparedness" to help save lives, said Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme, pointing to successes in Bangladesh and Cuba in limiting deaths from storms in recent decades.

In Bangladesh, for instance, advance warning and shelters have helped. Cyclone Bhola killed 300,000 people in 1970, while a 1991 cyclone killed 139,000, according to the EM-DAT disaster database. In 2007, Cyclone Sidr killed 3,500 people.

Alongside investments in flood defences in Pakistan, or better information about how to cope with heat waves, Steiner said, the long-term solution had to be cuts in greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels. "Ultimately it is addressing the fundamental drivers of environmental change which will either lead the world to have increasingly to invest in disaster management or development," he told Reuters. "That is the choice of this generation."

Campbell-Lendrum said the WHO's 2003 study may have under-estimated the impact of inland flooding, such as in Pakistan, and of heat waves such as in Russia. Up to 70,000 people died in Europe in 2003 from a heat wave.

He said climate change was an argument to bolster basic health services in poor nations, where 830 million people suffer malnutrition and are most at risk.

A changing climate also has both bad and good effects -- more people are under threat from heat waves, for instance, but some elderly people also survive better with milder winters.

Other studies have linked warming to the spread of ticks, bearing encephalitis, in northern Europe. One hinted at a higher rate of suicides among Australian farmers during droughts, according to the U.N. panel of climate scientists.

The EM-DAT database shows deaths from natural disasters have fallen from about 500,000 a year a century ago to below 50,000 most recent years. The numbers include disasters unrelated to climate change such as tsunamis and volcanic eruptions. The worst recent year was 2004, with the Indian Ocean tsunami.

(Editing by Mark Heinrich)

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Climate: New study slashes estimate of icecap loss

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 7 Sep 10;

PARIS (AFP) – Estimates of the rate of ice loss from Greenland and West Antarctica, one of the most worrying questions in the global warming debate, should be halved, according to Dutch and US scientists.

In the last two years, several teams have estimated Greenland is shedding roughly 230 gigatonnes of ice, or 230 billion tonnes, per year and West Antarctica around 132 gigatonnes annually.

Together, that would account for more than half of the annual three-millimetre (0.2 inch) yearly rise in sea levels, a pace that compares dramatically with 1.8mm (0.07 inches) annually in the early 1960s.

But, according to the new study, published in the September issue of the journal Nature Geoscience, the ice estimates fail to correct for a phenomenon known as glacial isostatic adjustment.

This is the term for the rebounding of Earth's crust following the last Ice Age.

Glaciers that were kilometers (miles) thick smothered Antarctica and most of the northern hemisphere for tens of thousands of years, compressing the elastic crust beneath it with their titanic weight.

When the glaciers started to retreat around 20,000 years ago, the crust started to rebound, and is still doing so.

This movement, though, is not just a single vertical motion, lead researcher Bert Vermeersen of Delft Technical University, in the Netherlands, said in phone interview with AFP.

"A good analogy is that it's like a mattress after someone has been sleeping on it all night," he said.

The weight of the sleeper creates a hollow as the material compress downwards and outwards. When the person gets up, the mattress starts to recover. This movement, seen in close-up, is both upwards and downwards and also sideways, too, as the decompressed material expands outwards and pulls on adjacent stuffing.

Often ignored or considered a minor factor in previous research, post-glacial rebound turns out to be important, says the paper.

It looks at tiny changes in Earth's gravitational field provided by two satellites since 2002, from GPS measurements on land, and from figures for sea floor pressure.

These revealed, among other things, that southern Greenland is in fact subsiding, as the crust beneath it is pulled by the post-glacial rebound from northern America.

With glacial isostatic adjustment modelled in, the loss from Greenland is put at 104 gigatonnes, plus or minus 23 gigatonnes, and 64 gigatonnes from West Antarctica, plus or minus 32 gigatonnes.

These variations show a large degree of uncertainty, but Vermeersen believes that even so a clearer picture is emerging on icesheet loss.

"The corrections for deformations of the Earth's crust have a considerable effect on the amount of ice that is estimated to be melting each year," said Vermeersen, whose team worked with NASA's Jet Propulsation Laboratory and the Netherlands Institute for Space Research.

"We have concluded that the Greenland and West Antarctica ice caps are melting at approximately half the speed originally predicted."

If the figures for overall sea level rise are accurate, icesheet loss would be contribute about 30 percent, rather than roughly half, to the total, said Vermeersen. The rest would come mainly from thermal expansion, meaning that as the sea warms it rises.

The debate is important because of fears that Earth's biggest reservoirs of ice, capable of driving up ocean levels by many metres (feet) if lost, are melting much faster than global-warming scenarios had predicted.

In 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted oceans would rise by 18-59 centimeters (7.2 and 23.6 inches) by 2100, a figure that at its upper range means vulnerable coastal cities would become swamped within a few generations.

The increase would depend on warming estimated at between 1.1 and 6.4 degrees Celsius (1.98-11.52 degrees Fahrenheit) this century, the IPCC said. It stressed, though, the uncertainties about icesheet loss.

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Low-Carbon Market To Treble By 2020: HSBC

PlanetArk 8 Sep 10;

The world's low-carbon energy market is likely to treble by 2020, HSBC analysts forecast on Monday, saying that rising concerns about resource scarcity would support broad consensus on the threat of climate change.

The electric vehicle market would benefit most, growing more than 20 times by 2020 to reach $473 billion, said HSBC's "Sizing the climate economy" report.

Climate policy has faced headwinds including faltering U.N. climate talks to agree a post-2012 successor to the Kyoto Protocol and repeated Senate setbacks to a U.S. climate bill.

But mounting pressure on land, water and energy as a result of growth in emerging economies and world population will add momentum toward a more efficient "climate economy," the bank said.

"A new climate is starting to emerge, driven as much by resource scarcity and industrial innovation as by the raw realities of global warming," the HSBC report said.

A market in low-carbon energy and efficiency technologies will at least double to $1.5 trillion from $740 billion now, but HSBC analysts expected that it would more likely treble to $2.2 trillion, implying global annual market growth of 7-11 percent from 2009-2020.

By region, the market will grow fastest in China, which will leap-frog the United States but still trail the European Union, which has set itself tough renewable energy, emissions and efficiency targets to 2020.

"In the EU we expect renewable but not energy efficiency targets to be met; in the United States we project limited growth in clean energy; and in China, we expect current targets for clean energy to be exceeded," the report said.

The dominant sector shift would be to efficiency technologies such as building insulation and electric cars, which would overtake low-carbon energy technologies such as wind, solar and nuclear power.

Renewable energy is the biggest low carbon sector now, and revenues would grow at 9.4 percent annually to a market size of more than $500 billion by 2020 but still lag transport efficiency at nearly $700 billion in 10 years' time after 18 percent annual growth.

A low-carbon energy economy requires higher upfront costs, for example in insulation or expensive wind turbines. That has led to doubts that targets will be met given spending constraints following the financial crisis.

But low-carbon technologies also cut operating costs by saving on energy or using free, renewable sources.

Under what it called the "conviction" scenario, which HSBC says is most likely, annual capital investment would grow from an annualized $460 billion in 2010 to $1.5 trillion in 2020.

New funding models would be required to meet this, especially where investment was from the household sector as for example to purchase electric vehicles or upgrade housing.

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