Best of our wild blogs: 13 Sep 10

Otter bliss
from The annotated budak

Snails, Solefish, Slugs galore!
from Psychedelic Nature

The Letter Of The Day Brought To You @ Big Sisters Island
from colourful clouds and into the wild

Balding mynas
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Fridge in sea? They have seen it all

For sea patrollers, keeping filth away from Singapore's waters can pose a challenge
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 13 Sep 10;

Workers from a merchant vessel throwing rubbish into a huge bin (above) on a garbage collector calling on the ship in Singapore's waters. At any one time, there are 300 ships anchored here, and when they dock, an MPA contracted vessel containing giant dustbins will call upon them to pick up their trash. -- ST PHOTOS: CHEW SENG KIM
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IT CAN be assumed that those who police Singapore's streets generally have a more colourful existence than their peers who trawl Singapore's relatively calmer seas.

But sea patrollers like Mr Chua Choon Hua, who play an important role in warding off would-be polluters, would beg to differ.

From dousing the flames of ships set ablaze in the middle of the ocean to dealing with unruly and tipsy ship captains, the 44-year-old patrol officer with the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) claims to have seen and dealt with them all.

And the one that tops the list: fishing out from the sea a rusting refrigerator long past its sell-by date. 'Some of these things have to be seen to be believed,' he chuckled.

The Straits Times recently accompanied him on a speed boat for a patrol around the Marina South Pier.

On that scorching morning, the vivid picture he painted was in contrast to the silent, hulking ships anchored out at sea.

Indeed, a typical day for Mr Chua, who works 12-hour shifts starting at the break of dawn, can be mundane. It usually involves motoring through the waters, keeping an eye out for ships that dump waste overboard, or cracking down on crews working on board ships without proper identification documents or licences.

Although pollution in the sea is not a major issue in an industry where international maritime laws are well respected, there were 24 cases here of ships charged with dumping garbage, such as plastics and effluent waste, from January to July, according to the MPA.

There were 44 such cases for the whole of last year, and 53 in 2008. Culprits were slapped with fines ranging from $150 to $500.

The danger posed by marine pollution was aptly demonstrated by the oil spill in May off the Changi coast, which sullied stretches of beaches and damaged property .

At the world's busiest port, which has an estimated 1,000 shipping vessels in its waters at any time, keeping filth away can be no less problematic than combating the growing number of litterbugs on shore who have chipped away at the island's 'clean and green' reputation.

The rise in the volume of ships calling on Singapore's port puts pressure not only on managing and servicing the vessels, but also on preventing them from polluting the sea. This is where patrollers like Mr Chua come in.

MPA's port master, Captain Lee Cheng Wee, believes perceptions of dirty seas have emerged in recent times, partly as a result of a growing public awareness of environmental protection. Add to that the greater media scrutiny whenever incidents happen, he said, and there is growing concern that the marine environment should be preserved.

In parallel with recalcitrant litterbugs on land, a similar, if smaller, circle of 'hardcore' polluters exists out at sea, noted Capt Lee.

Such offenders flout the established convention for ships that dock at Singapore's port.

At any one time, there are 300 ships anchored here, and when they dock, an MPA contracted vessel containing giant dustbins will call upon them to pick up their trash. The service is included in the port dues paid by the ships.

This is the easy part. More serious environmental issues are raised when an oil spill happens, because of its potential to spread and cause far-reaching damage to the marine and land environments.

Capt Lee remembers vividly the May oil spill, which grabbed headlines when about 2,500 tonnes of oil poured into the eastern coast after an oil tanker collided with a giant bunker.

'My initial instinct was that it was serious,' said the 54-year-old maritime industry veteran.

It would take almost a week for the slick, which spread to some beaches and conservation areas in the southern islands, to be cleaned up.

As the green movement gathers pace in an age of heightened social awareness, the pressure to buffer Singapore's 'clean and green' zone will grow.

The eyes out at sea like Mr Chua's intend to face this challenge in the same unassuming way they have gone about their jobs for much of their lives.

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Debate over paper mill's green credentials

Straits Times 13 Sep 10;

THE April paper mill in Sumatra's Riau province can boast some environmentally friendly practices, such as generating nearly all its own energy.

Still, the green credentials of the Singapore-headquartered pulp and paper giant's pulp sources are up for debate.

Paper-making requires three main inputs: energy, water and wood.

Huge amounts of energy are needed to cook wood chips down into pulp and run paper machines at 1.5km a minute, while water is used to turn pulp into slurry.

The energy for April's mill comes mostly from bark stripped off the logs used for wood chips, and a substance called black liquor, a waste product left over from cooking pulp.

Together, these provide 90 per cent of the mill's energy, with the remainder supplied by coal.

And the firm is trying to trim its freshwater use from its 2007 level of 6.5 cubic m of water per tonne of paper made.

Last year, it made about 810,000 tonnes of paper.

But the input with perhaps the largest environmental footprint is wood.

Environmental groups like Greenpeace and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) level two main accusations against large pulp and paper firms like April and Asia Pulp & Paper: that they use wood from natural forests, and that they plant on peatland, which is a major sink for the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide.

Earlier this year, April's Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification was suspended on evidence that it was felling rainforests for acacia plantations, destroying high-conservation-value (HCV) forest and draining peatland.

April's fire and sustainability manager Brad Sanders explained that concession areas granted after 2005 were assessed for HCV areas, and that just over a quarter of April's million hectares of concessions is conserved.

The company is working to have its FSC certification reinstated, Mr Sanders said. 'We're very confident that things will move forward in a positive way.'

As for planting on peatland, Mr Sanders said April has a water management plan to prevent the land from drying out and releasing its stored carbon dioxide.

He added that although peatland is not ideal for planting - its loose, soft ground means trees can topple if they get too tall - April plants only on peat as such lands are near its mill.

But the WWF's Aditya Bayunanda is sceptical about the effectiveness of such plans. 'We have not seen evidence that water management in deep peat is sustainable,' he said.

GRACE CHUA

More printers using 'green' paper
Move fuelled by growing demand among local firms for 'sustainable' paper stock
Grace Chua Straits Times 13 Sep 10;

THE PaperLinX warehouse in Tuas, tall as a cathedral, is stacked high with pallets of paper.

The paper comes in every format imaginable: ones with glossy finishes that will become corporate brochures, matte white sheets which will be turned into the pages of Lonely Planet guidebooks, and thick cardstock for book covers.

About a fifth of it bears one of two small marks that certify that the paper is 'sustainable', either the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) or Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC) logos.

The FSC, founded in Germany in 1993, has its own certification to rate paper and other forest products, such as timber and furniture, on how well forests are managed, and the products' environ-mental and social impact.

The PEFC, on the other hand, gives its stamp of approval based on certification schemes admin-istered by other countries. It is based in Switzerland.

There are various levels of certification and these may include recycled paper.

More companies here are buying sustainable-certified paper, say distributors and printers, thanks to growing awareness of environmental issues.

Ms Genevieve Chua, managing director of paper merchant PaperLinX Asia, said demand for paper is on the rise, thanks to the growth of Asian econ-omies like China and India.

'My message to people is: Recycle and reduce where you can, but when you need paper, look at sustainable choices,' she said.

City Developments Ltd (CDL), which like SMRT Corp and other organisations here uses sustainable paper, is doing just that.

CDL spokesman Belinda Lee said 92 per cent of the firm's marketing communications materials are printed on FSC-certified paper, and the company cut its internal paper use from 5,410 A4 reams in 2007 to 4,395 last year.

Within Asia, consumer awareness of sustainable paper and environmental issues is not high, admitted Mr Edwin Ng, general manager of offset printer Markono, but this is expected to change.

To meet the rising demand, more printers and distributors are becoming FSC-certified in order to handle FSC paper.

In what is called chain-of-custody certification, paper is tracked along the entire supply chain, from pulp to finished product, and such certification helps buyers ensure the product's origins are truly sustainable.

Certification costs, however, can run into tens of thousands of dollars, depending on the size of the printing company or merchant.

But help is around the corner.

Business development agency Spring Singapore offers the printing industry funding to offset the cost of being certified, in a scheme called Standards Implementation for Productivity.

'Without certification, printers will be shut out of a significant and growing part of the global publishing market,' said Spring chief executive Png Cheong Boon in a speech to the industry last year.

At Markono, which caters to international publishers, certified paper makes up about half of demand, up from 'very few orders' when it became FSC-certified in 2008, said Mr Ng.

As of July, 39 out of about 800 printers in Singapore were certified, up from just one in 2007.

Sustainable paper is about 10 per cent more costly than conventional paper, said Mr Francis Siow of Fabulous Printers, another FSC-certified firm.

Prices may also rise and fall depending on the supply, much of which comes from Europe and the United States.

Asia accounts for about 2 per cent of all certified paper, which Ms Chua from PaperlinX laments, as it means certified paper has to be shipped from afar and incur carbon footprint and transport costs.

Sustainable paper is cheaper than recycled paper, as the latter has extra steps in its production process to remove ink. Sustainable paper can also be recycled.

But sustainability certification schemes can face criticism.

The PEFC scheme came under fire when environment non-governmental organisation Greenpeace accused pulp and paper giant Asia Pulp & Paper of using destructive logging practices while 'greenwashing' itself with PEFC certification.

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Mynah an invasive alien and efforts should be taken to reduce its impact: Malaysian Nature Society

Rintos Mail The Star 13 Sep 10;

MALAYSIAN NATURE SOCIETY (MNS) has declared the mynah an invasive alien and suggested efforts to reduce the impact of this exotic invader on native birds.

Its immediate past president Anthony Sebastian said the mynah was first sighted in Kuching about 20 years ago, before it invaded Balai Ringin in 1998 and Sibu and Miri in 2005.

He said its population had exploded across Kuching and were a serious environmental threat to native birds.

“Mynahs are one of the most invasive birds in the world. They take over nesting hollows, evicting birds and small mammals and prey on nestling,” he said.

Anthony said mynahs originated from Java, India, Vietnam and Cambodia and was purportedly released in Kuching by pet lovers. He said the birds bred rapidly and competed with other birds for food and nesting space.

“Due to this competition, the birds will have an effect on the population of indigenous bird species,” he said. “Mynahs are omnivores, and eat nearly everything. They are a lot like scavengers and thus abundant in populated areas due to all the food resources and scraps created by humans.”

He said the number of these birds must be controlled to prevent them from becoming a major problem. He recommended that anyone who has observed these birds interacting with indigenous species, or seen their nest sites should try to remove them.

According to him, in Australia, Indian mynah birds were considered as pest because they caused damages in orchards of soft fruits and berries.

The mynah is estimated to cost farmers in the vicinity of Aus$300mil a year. Its fouling of lawns and clotheslines has propelled it into the top 10 most hated feral animals in Australia.

Anthony said the Australian local councils had spent millions of dollars to eradicate these birds.

The common mynah has a dark-brown plumage, with a black head, throat, and upper breast, and a yellow beak, feet, and skin around the eye. A conspicuous white patch is visible under the wings when the bird is in flight.

The natural nesting sites of the common mynah are cavities in trees, either natural, or excavated by other species of birds, such as woodpeckers.

However, in some of its introduced habitats where it lives in proximity to humans, the adaptable common mynah will also nest in holes in walls and buildings.

Because the common mynah is a loosely colonial nester, large populations may breed in places where there are suitable nesting and foraging habitats.

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Bakun dam faces 'white elephant' claims

Sarah Stewart Yahoo News 12 Sep 10;

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) – The multi-billion-dollar Bakun dam in Borneo, already condemned as a catastrophe for the environment and tribal people, is now battling suggestions it could become a giant white elephant.

The dam, which will eventually submerge an area the size of Singapore, is finally nearing completion after suffering a series of setbacks and delays since its approval in 1993.

But at the last hurdle the project has stumbled again, with delays in winning the state government's permission to begin the flooding process and no deal yet on purchasing its hefty 2,400 megawatt output.

With ambitious plans for an undersea cable to feed the Bakun's electricity to the Malaysian peninsula now abandoned, the Sarawak state government is the only feasible buyer -- leaving it with a very strong hand.

Negotiations with the dam developer Sarawak Hidro, a subsidiary of the national finance ministry, have reportedly been tough.

"It's a case where the owner of the project is naming an asking price that is very different to what the buyer would want," said Wong Chew Hann, an analyst at Malaysia's top bank Maybank.

"I understand there's quite a huge mismatch," she said. "I'm not sure what they've incorporated into the pricing, but the cost of the project has gone up so much since it was started."

As well as the cost of construction, there is the expense of compensating tribal people for their forced relocation from ancestral lands, and suppliers affected by the long delays.

"So the question is, are you going to incorporate all the compensation costs in the tariff price?" said Wong.

With the indigenous people from the Bakun catchment area long since resettled and its valuable timber resources long since felled, the dam has been ready to be flooded since April.

The state government had delayed permission, saying it was still evaluating river levels and the impact on boat transport.

A Sarawak minister reportedly said last week that the necessary permit has been granted, denying both that it had been used as a bargaining chip to lower the tariff and that Sarawak was facing an energy glut.

Sarawak Hidro managing director Zulkiflie Osman played down suggestions that he has been held to ransom by the state government.

"Both parties are working together and want it to be settled amicably, with a tariff acceptable to both parties," he told AFP, adding that he expected to strike a tariff deal before December.

The next of Sarawak's mega-dams, the Murum, which is being developed by the state government, is due to come online in 2013 but Osman said he was convinced the state authorities will not bypass the Bakun in favour of its own project.

Alongside the power purchase negotiations, the federal government is also said to be discussing selling the entire Bakun facility -- built at a reported cost of 7.3 billion ringgit (2.4 billion dollars) -- to the state government, but pricing and finance problems have emerged.

The Star daily reported in July that the federal government was seeking 8.0 billion ringgit while the state government offer was just 6.0 billion ringgit.

The Bakun's output far exceeds existing energy needs in Sarawak, a relatively undeveloped Malaysian state, and is mostly destined for industrial users such as aluminium smelters, but these are still on the drawing board.

"The main problem is that currently there is no demand for such a big capacity yet, and in order for Sarawak Energy to purchase the dam they would need adequate funding," said an analyst with a major research house.

"The banks would ask for some kind of feasibility study, and as there is no real demand yet this project risks becoming a white elephant," said the analyst, who declined to be named.

Newspaper reports have questioned how the federal government can ever hope to recover the huge amount of money it has sunk into the project.

"Marred by too many disagreements, the 7.3 billion ringgit project could very well turn out to be a non-starter," the Star said last month, adding that with both the Bakun and Murum dams online there would be a "very real possibility" of a power glut.

Transparency International has labelled Bakun a "monument of corruption" in Sarawak, which has been ruled for three decades by the formidable chief minister Taib Mahmud.

There has also been fierce criticism over the botched relocation of 15,000 indigenous people, who have made an unhappy transition to life in drab resettlement areas.

Baru Bian, chairman of the opposition party Keadilan in Sarawak, said the Bakun project was designed purely to profit cronies, and not planned in the public interest.

"The dam is a waste of public funds, it's not necessary, and what is paramount is that it is disturbing and disrupting the lives of the natives and the environment -- the trees and the forests."

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Billionaire saves marine reserve plans in the Chagos

The Independent 12 Sep 10;

A Swiss billionaire has stepped in to save plans to create the world's largest marine reserve from public spending cuts, it emerged today.

Ministers are in talks over a £3.5 million deal for America's Cup-winning yachtsman Ernesto Bertarelli to fund the policing of the zone around the British-owned Chagos Islands.

The Marine Protected Area (MPA) will cover some quarter of a million square miles of sea around the archipelago in the Indian Ocean and include a "no-take" reserve banning commercial fishing.

It was approved by then foreign secretary David Miliband in April amid complaints that the Government failed to take account of the needs of the territory's exiled inhabitants.

The Chagos have been the subject of a long-running controversy as the islanders exiled to make way for the Diego Garcia US airbase continue a legal fight for the right to return home.

Fears had been raised however that the project could be scrapped without private funding to offset the £750,000 a year set to be lost in fees for lucrative tuna fishing licences.

But campaign group the Blue Marine Foundation said it had secured the backing of the Bertarelli Foundation to provide the necessary financial backing - with ministers agreeing the deal in principle last week and detailed contracts now being drawn up.

Italian-born entrepreneur Mr Bertarelli and his British wife Kirsty - a former Miss UK - are believed to share a £6 billion fortune based on pharmaceuticals and biotechnology.

The deal includes the provision of a patrol boat - named the Pacific Marlin.

Blue Marine said a £1.5 million deal to provide fuel for the patrols had been negotiated separately by the Pew Foundation, part of the Chagos Environmental Network, and the Pentagon.

Junior foreign office minister Henry Bellingham welcomed the initiative - hailing it as a "great example" of how the Government could engage the private sector to find funding.

"As the world's largest marine reserve, the MPA will bring huge environmental benefits to the Indian Ocean and to the world," he said.

"It will double the global coverage of the world's oceans benefiting from full protection. We hope that the UK's example encourages others to do the same in other vulnerable areas.

"We are very grateful to the Bertarelli family, their foundation and to the Blue Marine Foundation for their interest and we look forward to working with them.

"This Government wants to form innovative partnerships with the private sector to deliver ambitious objectives. This is a great example of how this could work in practice."

Journalist Charles Clover, who set up Blue Marine in the wake of making a film - The End of the Line - about global overfishing, said he had feared the whole project could have been scuppered "because of what is, to a government, a relatively small amount of money".

A search by fellow campaigners to find a rich individual willing to help found the Bertarelli Foundation had "the vision and the pockets to match", he said. "Hats off to them."

Conservationists have long campaigned for the creation of a marine reserve to protect some of the world's most unspoilt seas and coral reefs against pollution, climate change and loss of species.

The 55 islands across 210,000 square miles in the middle of the Indian Ocean which form the British Overseas Territory have at least 60 endangered species in their coral reefs and waters.

They are home to more than 220 types of coral, 1,000 species of fish and at least 33 different seabirds and have been described as the most pristine tropical marine environment on Earth.

Diego Garcia is the only one of the coral islands which make up the Chagos archipelago which is inhabited - by the US base.

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Mortal combat: Can India's tigers win the fight for survival?

Andrew Buncombe The Independent 11 Sep 10;

One of the world's most magnificent creatures is on the brink of being wiped out entirely – and India is locked in a complicated battle to save it

The overhang close to the edge of the waterfall is obscured by thick grass and trees, which makes it impossible to see fully inside. "It is places like this that the tiger is looking for," says Sreenivasa Murthy, the park director of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh. "This is prime tiger habitat."

In the trees behind the overhang there is movement. Something is bending the branches, disturbing the tropical foliage. Almost certainly, it is a member of a troop of langur monkeys we disturbed just moments earlier. But perhaps it is something else. Perhaps...

It is very rare to see a tiger in India today, even if you are looking in the right place. From an estimated population of around 100,000 at the turn of the 20th century, the official number now stands at a little over 1,400 animals. Many experts believe the actual size of the population may even be as few as 800.

Over the past 100 years, tiger populations across the world have fallen by as much as 95 per cent; there may now be as few as 3,000 tigers left living in the wild. Of the nine sub-species, three – the Caspian, Javanese and Balinese – are already gone. A fourth, the South China tiger, is currently considered "functionally extinct".

The key reasons for the astonishing, fatal decline of this remarkable animal – as leaders from the 13 so-called "tiger range countries" will ponder when they meet next week in St Petersburg – are simple: an unceasing and lucrative illegal trade in tiger parts and pelts for Chinese "medicine", and the destruction of tiger habitats as human communities continue to expand and spread. Beyond that, there is corruption, excessive bureaucracy, questionable expertise and even a selective blindness that prevents the authorities from fully accepting that the world is on the brink of seeing one of its great species slip into extinction.

The story of the Panna Tiger Reserve in Madhya Pradesh, the state in central India that inspired Rudyard Kipling to write The Jungle Book – Shere Khan was a Bengal tiger – is a microcosm of the large cat's broader struggle for survival in an increasingly urbanised world. In 2002, it was estimated there were at least 35 animals in the park. In the following five years, there was a rapid decline as poaching soared, with the park authorities unable to either stop the poaching or even admit it was happening. In 2005, the man who then headed the park said its tiger population had never been healthier.

But after whistleblowers repeatedly revealed the steady erosion of the animals, a new census was carried out and, in the summer of last year, the authorities were finally forced to reveal the news that stunned wildlife activists across the world: there was no longer a single tiger in the Panna reserve. Wildlife officials claimed there was no "explicable reason" for their demise, but activists had been issuing warnings for years. "It's a national disgrace," said Shehla Masood of the Udai Society, a local activists' group. "The shrinking numbers of tigers in India shows the apathy of the Indian government which cannot protect citizens, let alone tigers."

Yet given all the challenges they face, tigers are remarkably resilient. In the aftermath of the Panna debacle and the attempt by the authorities to cover up what had happened, a new management team set about trying to turn the reserve around. Last November, three adult tigers – one female from Kanha reserve, another from Bandhavgarh, and a male from Pench – were flown in and released inside Panna. Within days, park rangers reported that the male had mated with the Bandhavgarh female. On 15 April this year, staff watched as the female made several trips from her den, emerging with what looked like soft toys gently held in her mouth. She had given birth to four live cubs.

On the verandah of a forest department-owned bungalow on the edge of Panna's tiger reserve, Sreenivasa Murthy pulls up a map of the park on his laptop. Appointed field director last year and tasked with trying to fix damage that appeared irreparable, his domai of forest and table-top plateau stretches over 542 sq km. The southern, eastern and northern boundaries are all susceptible, he says. The Ken River, which bisects the park from south to north as it makes its way to join the Ganges in the city of Varanasi, is one particularly easy way for poachers to enter. In his role as a state official, Murthy has to employ the skills of a diplomat and politician as well as those of a park director. While a central government report published last year into the reasons for Panna's tiger extinction blamed poaching, the state government did not reach the same conclusion. He does not deny poaching is a problem, but he says that it is not the only issue.

Murthy believes the park should remain a sanctuary, with humans banned from its inner core. A total of 16 villages had existed inside the park, of which 11 have been relocated. He wants all of them moved. At the same time, he believes it is important to reach out to local communities and build a relationship. If a tiger should kill a cow or other livestock, it is vital, he says, that park officials are quickly on the scene to pay compensation. Otherwise, local communities could take it into their own hands, using easily-obtainable poison to kill the tiger.

Not everyone agrees with his approach. Some conservationists argue that keeping local people out of the forest and preventing them from hunting and collecting firewood only creates anger. As such, they are less likely to respond to requests from officials to help protect the animals. Yet Murthy believes it is possible to have it both ways if there is a sufficiently strong political will. "At the moment, the support for these communities is not there," he says.

In the meantime, the director spends much of his energy ensuring that his tigers do not slip from the confines of his park. Of the three adult tigers in Panna, the radio collars on only two of the animals are working, so it is a challenge to keep track of the third big cat. Using walkie-talkies to maintain contact with 30 staff dedicated to monitoring the animals, he tries to know where the tigers are at any time of day or night. And should it become apparent that one of the tigers is approaching the edge of the reserve, teams are dispatched to disturb the animal and drive it back into the relative safety of the forest.

Lokendra Singh holds up a small black-and-white photograph taken in 1956 that shows a young boy holding a British-made .350 Rigby rifle and standing behind the body of a dead tiger. Another photograph, taken in 1960, shows the same boy with the bodies of three animals. "I remember the evening that I shot those tigers. I was standing on a rock at the mouth of the cave and the family of tigers came out one by one and I kept on shooting," says Singh, a member of the royal family of Panna and uncle of the current maharajah. "Nowadays it looks very bad, but back then people used to say, 'You cannot be a proper Rajput unless you shoot tigers'."

The same evening, says Singh, a former state politician and member of the national parliament, he decided he would fight to save tigers instead of shooting them. When he became a member of the state assembly in 1977, one of the first things he campaigned for was the establishment of the Panna reserve. His wish became reality in 1981 and he was the founding chairman of the park's advisory board. He remains an active conservationist.

These days, explains Singh, Panna's tigers are not being shot by gun-toting members of India's aristocracy, but by teams of professional poachers who belong to nomadic tribes that have a hunting tradition dating back centuries. For an adult tiger, the poachers will earn around 250,000 INR (around £3,440), a vast sum of money in this part of the world.

The method for catching the tiger is simple but lethally effective. The poachers set their steel-sprung traps at night on paths not patrolled by forest officers. They then retire, hiding in platforms they have built amid the jungle. When an animal is trapped, they will cautiously approach, stabbing it in the mouth with a pointed stick or stuffing it with earth to silence the tiger's cries. Rather than risk damaging the valuable pelt by using a gun, the men then club the tiger to death, often with bamboo poles filled with metal. The tiger will often be skinned shortly after dawn. Some of the animal's organs, among them the highly-prized penis, will be removed and the skin will be treated with turmeric and salt to cure it. The carcass itself may be buried, with the hunters returning a week later to collect the bones once the flesh has rotted away. "It's professional poaching and it's going on across India," says Singh.

The people suspected of being responsible for the demise of the tigers in Panna are the Baheliya tribe, one of two traditional hunting communities blamed for poaching tigers, lions and other endangered species in parks across India. Originally from Katni in Madhya Pradesh, the tribe is now scattered. Undercover investigations suggest most of the 35 tigers lost in Panna between 2002-2008 were killed by a small group of Baheliyas. Officials say that gathering evidence to charge poachers and pursue them through the courts is very difficult. But last spring, authorities had a rare success when they arrested Mintar Singh, a member of the Baheliya clan, who was accused not only poaching tigers in Panna between 2004-2006, but also of killing rare Gir lions in the state of Gujarat in 2007. He is currently awaiting trial.

The authorities have had other successes. In 2007, police in the state of Uttar Pradesh, which neighbours Madhya Pradesh, carried out a raid on the home of Shabbir Hasan Qureshi, believed to be one of the most important middlemen between the poachers and buyers in China and Tibet. He is in jail, waiting to come to trial. "Qureshi was probably handling a quarter of all the trade in India and many tigers have been through his hands this year alone," Belinda Wright, executive director of the Wildlife Protection Society of India, said at the time. "Taking him out is huge – a major breakthrough."

While some of the main suspected poachers prove elusive, campaigners and officials know the whereabouts of many of those alleged of involvement. Indeed, outside of Panna, close to a village called Janwar, members of the Baheliya tribe are camped out by the side of the road. Their shacks are made from plastic and branches and they have with them just a few basic belongings. The tribe members tell me that in recent months they have been constantly harried by forest department officials and that they have stopped any sort of hunting in the forests. "We have left every piece of trapping equipment," says a man who gives his name as Garis. A woman displaying a box of small glass bottles, adds: "We survive by selling scent and medicine. But now we're not allowed to go into the jungle to get the herbs."

The clan members deny they have ever been involved in killing tigers and when asked why they think all the tigers have disappeared, they say they have no idea. Likewise, when asked about the whereabouts of some of the Baheliyas accused of poaching many of Panna's tigers – men with monikers such as English, Rakitlal, Plate, Gilet and Lalarsi – they say they do not know. "Our future should be sorted by the government," says Garis. "If land is not given to us, how can we live? We used to roam, now we have left everything behind."

Raghu Chundawat has devoted much of his life to trying to save India's tigers and yet today he considers himself an outcast, Rassled by the authorities and chased in the courts. He is the whistleblower that nobody wanted to believe, and despite the fact that his claims were proven true, he does not believe the system has changed. "It is the system that has failed the tigers in Panna," he says over tea at his property, close to the Ken River. "This applies to the lowest member of staff to the highest and all the people on committees. We know that up to 40 tigers have died but still there is no accountability."

Chundawat began studying tigers in 1996 and by use of photo-trapping, he and his team of independent researchers, funded by NGOs, were able to show that in 2002 there were 35 tigers in the park. It was at that point that they began to notice an increase in dead prey species, caught in snares. One tiger went missing and then a second was found dead, also killed by a snare. There was evidence of more poaching. "We reported it to the authorities. They were very aggressive. It was the typical 'shoot the messenger' thing," he says. "They targeted us, restricted our movements."

Eventually, Chundawat went to the media, which led to the authorities charging him with various wild-sounding allegations and banning him from the park. Arun Singh, a reporter with the local newspaper, Nav Bharat Times, used information from the whistleblower in several stories that led to international headlines, and was able to confirm the details from people living inside the reserve. "I had a good relationship with all the villagers inside the park. They told me. They gave me evidence of poaching," says Singh, sitting in the simple second-floor room that serves as his bureau, close to the centre of Panna.

Yet the local authorities continued to dismiss claims that the tigers were threatened. In 2005, the then park director held a press conference at which he said there were 35 tigers in the park. "We asked to see the evidence. They manipulated the results," alleges Singh.

While the state authorities installed new management in the aftermath of Panna's debacle, those who were in charge while the tigers were eradicated have suffered no punishment or rebuke. Indeed, the then park director was promoted to a higher position within the state department of wildlife. As is often the case in India, while there may be no shortage of public money sloshing around, there is no accountability.

But with the elision of such accountability, with such strident oversight from the very highest levels of India's political establishment, how will the tigers survive? "The biggest threat to tigers is a lack of good governance. The first thing to do is reform all systems of governance," says Valmit Thakar, one of India's most celebrated conservationists and a member of a panel that advises the prime minister. "Disband the forest service and create a focused, specialised service that can deliver to the tiger and wildlife." The price of not doing so, he says, will be the loss of the tiger and the admission that "we didn't have the ability to save the most charismatic species that nature created for this planet".

But how long can the tiger wait for these reforms? Many experts already believe it is too late to save a genetically viable population of wild tigers across India, outside of just two or three heavily managed reserves. In public they force themselves to sound optimistic, but privately they hold grave doubts.

Yet even now, the situation at Panna shows there is still hope for this most threatened of wild creatures. Back in the four-wheel drive, after pointing out the potential tiger lairs close to the waterfall, Sreenivasa Murthy, the man drafted in last year after one of the most shameful chapters in India's faltering narrative to save the tiger, takes a call on his mobile phone.

Initially he says nothing, but just smiles. Then he explains that one of his park officials had called to say that the park's adult male tiger, which last year successfully mated with the female flown in from Bandhavgarh, had now been seen with the tigress from Kanha. He grins and says: "We think they have mated as well."

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Logging spells danger for Europe's last primeval forest

Bernard Osser Yahoo News 12 Sep 10;

BIALOWIEZA, Poland (AFP) – Deep in the forest, along a dirt road off-limits to tourists, the trunks of centuries-old fir trees lie waiting to be hauled to a sawmill -- felled giants from Europe's last primeval forest.

Further in, old oak and ash trunks wait to be turned into planks, furniture or matchsticks: proof, say ecologists, of illicit logging that is endangering the ancient Bialowieza forest in eastern Poland.

"Some of the trees have been cut down illegally by Poland's National Forests service, in violation of European Union legislation," contends Polish environmentalist Adam Bohdan, who with other campaigners has raised the alarm in Warsaw and Brussels.

State forestry officials deny any logging for commercial purposes in Bialowieza, saying only diseased or infested trees are being felled in the vast woodland area which is home to wild bison, lynx and wolves.

"We are also ecologists," says Andrzej Antczak, head of the Bialowieza forest service. "We log only to protect the forest from bark beetles -- insects that pose a grave danger to trees. We want to help nature defend itself and we do it according to Polish legislation," he insists.

Last year, forest authorities allowed the logging of some 100,000 cubic metres (3.5 million cubic feet) of wood in Bialowieza, or 0.35 percent of all timber produced in the country.

But ecologists are unconvinced. Last month, they filed a complaint with the European Commission against Poland for alleged non-conformity with EU environmental rules.

Days later, Greenpeace held a love-in for Bialowieza, hoisting a banner with an enormous heart reading "I love puszcza" (I love the forest) across the facade of the environment ministry in Warsaw.

The move paved the way to an agreement with the ministry to halt logging in Bialowieza until the end of last month.

Sprawling across 150,000 hectares, the Bialowieza forest reaches across the Polish border with Belarus, where it is entirely protected as a nature park.

Named a World Heritage site in 1979, it is home to 20,000 animal species, including 250 types of bird and 62 species of mammals -- among them Europe's largest, the bison.

Europe's tallest trees, firs towering 50 metres high (164 feet), and oaks and ashes of 40 metres, also flourish here, in an ecosystem untouched by human hand for more than 10 millennia.

"Bialowieza is unique. The forest has been there since the ice from the last Ice Age melted 12,000 years ago," explains Zdzislaw Szkiruc, director of the Bialowieza national park.

The park spreads over around 16 percent of the Polish part of the forest. Another 20 percent is strictly protected and the remainder is administered by Poland's state-run National Forests organisation.

Green activists have focused their energies on the battle to expand the designated national park area to cover the entire Polish part of the forest.

But the mayor of Bialowieza, a town of 2,400 residents, is lukewarm about the plans.

"We cannot forget about people who live near the forest," says Albert Litwinowicz.

"Residents are divided over the prospect of the park being expanded," he says. "Previous enlargements brought more inconveniences than advantages. The government promised money, but not a cent was paid into our coffers," he said.

"Today residents are afraid they won't be able to enter the park to gather mushrooms or berries as they have always done. Those who work in the woodland are afraid, they'll lose their jobs," the mayor explained.

What residents think matters because under existing legislation it is up to their local representatives to decide on the park's extension -- another thing that environmentalists would like to see change.

"Certainly, the Bialowieza forest doesn't belong only to us, it belongs to all Poles, it belongs to all of Europe and the residents of the region cannot be the only ones to decide about its future.

"But why should they be the only ones to pay the price?" asks Litwinowicz.

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Taiwan turns plastic junk to 'green' gold

Amber Wang Yahoo News 12 Sep 10;

TAIPEI (AFP) – The mountains of used plastic bottles at a recycling station in Taipei emit a faint smell of garbage dump, but soon they will be turned into wigs and clothes that people will wear.

From fake hair to football jerseys and building bricks, Taiwan is breathing new life into its massive plastics waste, creating a booming new business at the same time as it aims to go green.

The island started recycling plastic more than a decade ago amid growing environmental concerns, and today it boasts about 73 percent recycling rates, according to the cabinet's Environmental Protection Administration.

Last year, nearly 180,000 tonnes of used plastic were collected and turned into raw materials worth 4.5 billion Taiwan dollars (140 million US), which cut down garbage disposal costs and carbon dioxide emissions, it said.

"Recycled plastics can be made into many products such as garments, flower pots, wigs and zippers," said Ma Nien-ho, a spokesman for the administration's recycling fund management board.

"We are not only protecting the environment but also making money," he said.

Taiwan took pride in the so-called "eco-fabric" that was used by local companies to make the jerseys for nine teams competing in the recent football World Cup in South Africa.

Each jersey, made from eight plastic bottles melted and processed into polyester, is 13 percent lighter than traditional fabric and can absorb and disperse sweat more quickly, according to Taiwan Textile Research Institute.

"The production process is also more environmentally friendly as it takes less water and energy to dye the shirts when using coloured bottles," said Alex Lo, managing director of Super Textile Corporation.

Super Textile, a leading Taiwanese maker of eco-fabric, started exporting to the United States and Japan in recent years, which gave a boost of up to 10 percent to its business, Lo said.

"The response has been much warmer in the past two years due to rising awareness on global warming and fluctuating cotton prices," Lo said.

"We are optimistic that the World Cup publicity will help stir up more demand."

Taiwan, a small island that consumes about 4.5 billion plastic bottles annually, is seen as having an advantage in manufacturing eco-textiles through lower transportation and recycling costs.

Tzu Chi Foundation, one of the island's largest charity groups, runs 4,500 recycling stations across Taiwan with the help of about 70,000 volunteers who collected 12,000 tonnes of used bottles last year.

The foundation has distributed more than 300,000 blankets made from plastic bottles since 2007 for relief uses at home and abroad, it said.

And perhaps in the near future houses built from recycled plastic bottles will mushroom across the island after "Eco Ark", the world's first such building, is unveiled in November.

"Eco Ark" -- a three-storey 24-metre (78-feet) high exhibition hall due to debut at the Taipei International Floral Exposition, is built from 1.5 million recycled plastic bottles and cost 300 million Taiwan dollars.

"The bottles are processed to make bricks that can resist earthquakes, wind and fire while providing the building with natural lighting to save electricity," said its architect Arthur Huang.

"The 'polli-bricks' are also less expensive than conventional materials like wood and glass so the construction cost is much lower."

Huang said his firm is currently building a luxury boutique hotel and several factories and corporate buildings with the bricks.

"Just imagine if we can replace all the steel roofs in the buildings in Taipei with light transparent polli-bricks. That would make the city look more beautiful."

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