Battling marine debris at Lim Chu Kang beach join “Pangaea Young Explorers” this Sat @ 4pm from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore
Living water
from Ubin.sgkopi
The Mangrove Crab Crew clear a gill net, rescue horseshoe crabs @ Mandai Besar from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
Feeding of Spotted Dove: 11. Five months on
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Damselfly (31) - Libellago Stigmatizans
from Nature Photography - Singapore Odonata
Yahoo News 6 Oct 10;
MANILA (AFP) – Southeast Asian nations should encourage businesses to protect the region's endangered plants and animals by showing profit can be made from biodiversity, experts said Wednesday.
Between 30-40 percent of all animal and plant species in the region could soon be extinct without action to protect them, said Rodrigo Fuentes of the think tank Southest Asian Nations (ASEAN) Centre for Biodiversity.
"You've got to involve the private sector and you've got to create a market mechanism that will encourage business to go into that," Fuentes said at an ASEAN environment forum in Manila.
ASEAN groups the economies of Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand, a market of about half a billion people.
It covers only three percent of the world's surface but has 20 percent of all its plant and animal species.
Govindan Parayil, a director of the Tokyo-based United Nations University, said there was profit to be made in "bio-prospecting," where new drugs, foods or materials can be produced from local wildlife.
However he said special measures must be taken to ensure that local communities also profit from any scientific discoveries made.
Private sector inputs in "green growth" industries like non-conventional energy could also boost ASEAN's manufacturing sector, Parayil added.
"We usually think business will not listen because this not a very profitable area to get into (but) there are great opportunities here for business in green growth," Paraynil said.
Raman Letchumanan, head of the ASEAN secretariat's environment division, called for wider use of "eco-labelling," as this encourages consumers to buy such products.
Eco-labelling, where products get a special tag after meeting high environmental standards, is already being done in Singapore and parts of Indonesia and Thailand, Letchumanan added.
Businesses must also be convinced to adapt practices that can cut costs through more efficient use of energy and raw materials, the experts said.
The experts warned that ASEAN could not copy the high-consumption model of the United States without suffering serious environmental damage.
A swampy network that eludes authorities
New Straits Times 7 Oct 10;
SELANGOR Forestry Department assistant director (operations and enforcement) Mohd Yussainy Md Yusop cuts a forlorn figure as he glares at an abandoned squatters' settlement on the edge of a mangrove forest.
The "crime scene" is littered with the debris of life: empty tins, shirts and barrels, but Yussainy knows the thieves, mainly Indonesian immigrants, will return.
The score? Money for mangroves, which are harvested illegally but methodically.
He laments the problem of finding evidence against the ringleaders who make only verbal contracts with the workers.
"The biggest difficulty is linking the workers to the syndicate bosses,"
There are an estimated five syndicates which surreptitiously harvest from 17,000ha of mangrove forest spread out across several islands including Pulau Carey, Pulau Selat and Pulau Klang.
Depending on the operation, a mangrove tauke has about 30 to 100 workers who live in the middle of the islands, visible only during an aerial survey.
They amass the cream of the crop, piling them on huge barges before selling them to locals who in turn make a fortune in trafficking the much sought-after wood, used in the construction sector as a cheap alternative to concrete pilings.
Compounding the problem, Yussainy claimed, is the various authorities who, though equipped with the latest technology and boats with more powerful engines, seem unable to nab the sluggish junks en route to the mainland.
That could be because, Yussainy claims, there is a degree of corruption in the area, which once also saw him being offered a total of RM100,000 by five smugglers just before Hari Raya.
"After that offer, I began to work with the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission," he said.
An expose by Berita Harian in August revealed that Immigration officers at the Pulau Ketam jetty were pocketing RM60,000 a month by allowing entry of illegal immigrants, which Yussainy claims is related to the mangrove theft.
The department's efforts are also hampered by 'slow boats' and the lack of enforcement officers, who in Selangor number three people -- including Yussainy.
Nabbing the thieves is difficult, unless they get the help of the army to navigate.
"Even then, it's very time-consuming and difficult." he said.
If things go on as they are, Yussainy says the mangrove ecosystem will be extinct in the next decade.
Which is why the department is working with the MACC, Customs Department and maritime enforcement officials to cripple syndicates and make mangrove theft "impossible".
Since July, the department has stopped issuing harvesting licences and began confiscating wood left at the river fringes, before it can be ferried to the mainland.
It has also begun jailing the offenders instead of having them deported.
The most recent case saw five people imprisoned for 11 months early last month under the National Forestry Act for being in possession of mangrove logs without a licence.
The department is also working with non-governmental organisations, such as the Global Environment Centre and Sahabat Alam Malaysia, on replanting projects.
"But obviously, replenishment isn't going as quickly as depletion."
Thieves living off the land
New Straits Times 7 Oct 10;
COMPRISING mostly Indonesian immigrants, the mangrove thieves live in groups of five to 10 in crudely-built wooden huts and camps.
The camps are built in the middle of the islands, away from the prying eyes of forestry and maritime enforcement officers and accessible only by trudging through kilometres of mud, marsh and swamp.
They live off the wild: eating plants, fish and other animals though some of them occasionally receive supplies from Pulau Ketam, courtesy of their bosses or tauke.
An aerial survey conducted by the Forestry Department revealed 30 such camps across the 17,000ha of protected mangrove islands, including Pulau Carey, Pulau Che Mat Zain and Pulau Klang.
The thieves delegate their tasks.
A few workers would fell up to 2,000 mangrove trees a day, piling the 4m-long logs at the island's edges, hidden inside narrow, shallow canals.
At high tide, the logs are almost submerged from view even though each pile can be up to 1.5m high.
At night or early in the morning, another group would load the timber onto small boats before transferring them to large junks, which would transport it to the mainland to be sold. A small boat can carry up to 250 logs while a junk can hold up to 1,500 logs.
With mangrove wood fetching up to RM7.90 per log, the syndicate bosses stand to make a killing with just two trips per night.
Many thieves, however, are exploited by the ringleaders. Paid an average of RM2 for each log, the thieves are charged for fuel, logging tools, and boat rental by the ringleaders.
But it is just a matter of time before forestry officers and maritime police catch up with the workers, while their masters, who refuse to acknowledge their link, escape the law.
Think green, not greed, say environmental activists
New Straits Times 7 Oct 10;
GREED is detrimental to the environment and will have a negative impact on the country, environmentalists warn.
Commenting on the indiscriminate clearing of mangroves nationwide, World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia executive director Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma said mangrove clearing had been going on in a few states "for quite some time".
The activity is part of the cause for more than a 90 per cent decline in fish landings throughout Peninsular Malaysia as the mangrove ecosystem is a natural fish nursery.
"Ignorance is not an excuse as we all know the importance of the mangrove ecosystem," he said, adding that he was "struggling" to figure out why such activities still occur.
Apart from it being a natural nursery, Sharma said mangroves were also a wave barrier that protected the coastline from erosion and home to various species including birds, otters and long tail macaques.
Its wood could be used to make charcoal production, which Sharma said, should be done in a sustainable manner.
Academy of Sciences Malaysia senior fellow Tan Sri Dr Ahmad Mustaffa Babjee said even a child knew the value of a mangrove ecosystem.
What was needed was the political will to stop such activities, he said.
States, he explained, needed to adopt a new way of thinking where intangible values were considered in economic planning.
"The value of a mangrove is when it is standing and not when it is felled."
Former Malaysian Nature Society president Tan Sri Salleh Mohd Nor said people were not looking at the long-term implications for short-term gains.
Greed, he explained, would rule when only the current needs were considered.
Chitra S. Nathan and Lester Kong The Star 7 Oct 10;
SEREMBAN: In mere minutes, a young woman turned from a happy mother to a grieving one when she lost her four-day-old baby to a wild monkey that was shot dead several hours later.
In the 1.15pm tragedy yesterday, the macaque stole into the living room; snatched the child and fled up the roof of the house. The baby fell to the ground and died.
The mother, V. Revathy, 26, had left her first-born child in the living room of the single-storey house near Taman Happy Garden to use the toilet. The baby’s body was discovered later outside the house with her face and neck badly bitten. She was rushed to the Tuanku Ja’afar Hospital here where she was pronounced dead.
Revathi’s father-in-law A. Valayutham, 70, was in the living room with the newborn but had gone to get a glass of water when the tragedy occurred.
“We frantically searched all over the house and saw her body covered in blood lying outside the house,” he said.
Valayutham added that he had noticed a few monkeys outside the house compound at that time.
The area where the family stayed was sandwiched between two residential areas with a foliage of trees nearby where there were monkeys.
Negri Sembilan Wildlife and National Parks director Ishak Muhamad said the macaque was shot dead at 4pm.
“We suspect the macaque was rummaging for food inside the house. It could have taken the baby to the roof thinking the newborn was food.
“The baby died when it fell to the ground. The monkey had apparently released the newborn, probably because it was alarmed by the parents’ shouts,” Ishak said yesterday.
He added that the parents had called the Fire and Rescue Department at 2.15pm, which immediately contacted the Wildlife and National Parks Department.
“We reached the house at about 3pm and set off with the baby’s father to look for the macaque,” he said.
Ishak said department officers saw the macaque in some bushes several metres from the house at about 4pm.
The macaque was shot when it began to act aggressively.
Ishak added that it was the first such case in the state, and believed the male monkey was attracted by a female kept in captivity as a pet by the family.
“This is very unusual. Normally, these monkeys simply steal food or pluck fruit from the yard,” he said.
The baby’s father, lorry driver V. Neru, 29, who was not at home when the incident occurred, said he could not believe that such a thing could have happened.
“I rushed to the hospital only to be told that she was gone.
“She was our bundle of joy and we were looking forward to spending many happy years with her ... I just cannot believe she’s gone,” he said.
R. Shanty, 35, who lives nearby said it was common to see monkeys in groups of three or four in the area.
“A while back, my pet dog was attacked by these monkeys. Its badly-bitten body was thrown from a tree.
“I really hope the authorities take action and not wait until another life is lost,” she said.
Rahang assemblyman M.K. Arumugam, who visited the family yesterday evening, expressed regret over the incident.
“I have brought this matter up before but sadly no action was taken. I am very disappointed that something like this had to happen before the authorities took notice,” he said.
Macaques can be an aggressive breed, says expert
Loh Foon Fong The Star 7 Oct 10;
PETALING JAYA: If a monkey killed the infant in Seremban, the perpetrator was likely to be either the long-tailed macaque (macaca fascicularis) or pig-tailed macaque (macaca nemestrina), said an expert.
Associate professor Dr S. Vellayan, one of the country’s pioneers in primatology and based in Universiti Teknologi Mara, said the two species were aggressive and had bitten human beings.
“We can determine whether the baby was bitten by a monkey by looking at the bites and scratches,” he said in an interview, adding that it was usually the males which tended to be aggressive.
“If the monkey had carried away and killed the baby, it could have entered the house following development encroachment into its habitat,” he said.
He advised the public to not make direct eye contact with monkeys which might feel threatened and become aggressive.
“To ward off the monkeys, people could keep dogs, use small fire crackers or laser pointers to cause fright,” he said.
Malaysian Nature Society head of environment education division Shan Mugaraj said long-tailed macaques were persistent and could turn aggressive when they did not get what they wanted, such as food.
Baby dies after monkey attack
Heidi Foo The New Straits Times 7 Oct 10;
SEREMBAN: First-time parents V. Nehru and V. Revathy were proud when they were blessed with a baby girl four days ago.
Their joy, however, was short-lived when their child died after she was believed to have been bitten by a wild monkey yesterday.
Nehru, 29, a lorry driver, said he was at work when the incident happened at their home in Taman Happy here.
He rushed to Tuanku Jaafar Hospital here after Revathy, 26, informed him of the attack.
"I was shocked that my baby girl was attacked by a monkey. My wife gave birth to her on Sunday and we never expected this to happen.
"We had just thought of a name for her. We had planned to register her as Devagi."
Nehru said on that day, his father was babysitting the child in the living room and had gone to the kitchen to get a drink. His mother was cooking in the kitchen while his wife was in the bathroom.
"When my wife came out from the bathroom, she didn't see our baby and began searching for her in the house.
"She later found our baby on the ground near the back door. Our daughter had bite marks on her ears, neck and head."
He said his family had a pet female monkey and that another monkey, believed to be a male long-tailed macaque, was attracted to it.
"Our pet monkey has never harassed anyone or caused any disturbance in the neighbourhood. Two months ago, we noticed that a male monkey was loitering near an abandoned house near our home.
"We believe that monkey could have entered our home and taken our baby."
Meanwhile, state Wildlife and National Parks director Ishak Mohamad said the wild monkey could have been attracted to the female pet monkey kept in a cage.
He said enforcement personnel had shot one of two wild monkeys which were loitering near the abandoned house.
"The wild monkeys are around because people have been giving them food. Stop feeding them, they are wild animals and dangerous."
Rahang assemblyman M.K. Arumugam said wild monkeys were a familiar sight in the area as passers-by frequently fed them.
He said the unkempt surroundings of the abandoned house had made it a suitable place for the wild monkeys.
"I have written to the Seremban Municipal Council to locate the owner and clear the area.
"The owner should be fined for not keeping the surroundings clean."
Killer macaque still alive
Sarban Singh and Chitra S. Nathan The Star 8 Oct 10;
SEREMBAN: Residents of Taman Happy Garden and Taman Mok Sum are claiming that the authorities had shot the wrong macaque and the one responsible for killing a four-day-old baby is still lurking in the nearby jungle.
They said the dominant alpha male monkey was too intelligent to become an easy target for Wildlife and National Parks Department officers.
Retired government servant Mohinder Singh, 74, said the alpha male could grow up to 0.7m.
“The monkey killed by the officers yesterday was much smaller. Alpha males are bigger and stronger and they have even attacked and killed mongrels,” he said, adding that last year, a group of monkeys almost attacked a five-year-old girl who ventured out of her house to play.
Another resident, P. Vellai, 56, said the dominant monkey was not afraid of women.
“The alpha male is huge. The one shot by the officers does not fit the description,” she said, adding that the alpha male was always surrounded by other monkeys while the one shot was all alone.
Earlier in the afternoon, the baby was cremated at the Jalan Tun Dr Ismail crematorium and the ashes were strewn in waters off Port Dickson.
“We were planning a grand Deepavali but that will not happen now. My heart bled when I saw my little baby with stitches on her head and face,” said a sobbing V. Revathy, 26, the baby’s mother.
Lorry attendant V. Nehru, 30, said they had planned to register their daughter’s birth on Sunday but now she had died without a name.
He also said that it was possible that the killer monkey was attracted to their female pet monkey as male monkeys used to hang around her cage.
Later, state MCA chairman Datuk Dr Yeow Chai Thiam and state MIC secretary S. Bathumalai visited the family and presented them with some financial aid.
Baby could have been mistaken for pet’s offspring
The Star 8 Oct 10;
SEREMBAN: The macaque that abducted and bit a four-day-old baby here may have mistaken the newborn as the offspring of the family’s pet female monkey.
State Wildlife and National Parks officer Zafifi Ramli said the monkey could have been provoked to attack the baby when it felt its position as the alpha male in the area threatened.
“The male may have been attracted to the female macaque kept by the family. It is possible that the monkey attacked the baby after it mistook the newborn for the female’s offspring when it felt its position as the alpha male was at stake,” he said.
The last such incident, he said, was in 2008 when a kindergarten pupil survived an attack by a monkey in Taman Tuanku Ja’afar.
He said the department had received a complaint a year ago from Taman Happy Garden residents and had acted on it by trapping the monkeys that were being a menace.
“We usually set traps and take the offending monkeys away but if the monkeys are aggressive and are a threat to security, we sometimes have no choice but to shoot them,” he said, adding that complaints had also been received from residents in Taman SEA, Taman Desa Ros and Taman Guru previously.
“Based on our investigations, we believe the monkey that was shot by our officers was the one responsible for the attack as it had traces of blood on its mouth,” he said.
However, he could not confirm if the blood belonged to the infant or was from the injuries sustained by the monkey after it fell from the tree.
Earlier, Wildlife and National Parks Department director Ishak Muhamad said the family did not commit an offence by keeping the monkey as a pet.
Seremban Municipal Council president Datuk Abdul Halim Abdul Latif said such complaints were normally referred to the Wildlife Department as the council was not equipped to handle such cases.
Stephen Then The Star 7 Oct 10;
MIRI: Illegal wildlife traders in Asean nations, including Malaysia, are making a killing – literally.
A whopping US$30bil (RM90bil) in black money is generated annually from the poaching and smuggling of endangered wildlife and animal parts in countries in South-East Asia, according to the latest figures compiled by regional and international wildlife agencies.
This shocking statistics is being tabled for discussion among wildlife enforcement agencies of Asean member countries, the US-AID, European Commission and Asean Centre for Biodiversity (ACB) in Thailand.
Representatives are currently in Khao Yai National Park to attend the first Asean regional course on wildlife protection and enforcement, which began on Monday.
The course, which will last until Oct 16, is jointly organised by Asean-Wildlife Enforcement Network (Asean-Wen), US-AID, EC and ACB. The main US-AID implementing partner with Asean is Freeland Foundation.
The foundation is an international organisation investigating the wildlife trade and it provides training to conserve natural habitats and build local capacity to protect critical ecosystems.
Freeland Foundation media liaison officer Pornvadee Piyakhun said via e-mail yesterday that senior wildlife department officers from all Asean countries were at the course.
“This is the first-ever Asean operational training course for rangers throughout Asean countries and from Bhutan. The course is a means to drastically improve the security and protection of our ecosystem in Asean.
“We are coming up with better patrolling and better environment management systems because the remaining natural ecosystems in South-East Asia are facing serious threats from poaching and illegal forest clearings,” he said.
“This region is a major source of animals for those involved in the illicit trade of wildlife and animal parts. These illegal traders are supplying a global market and their trade is worth between US$10bil to US$30bil (RM30bil to RM90bil) annually in the black market.”
Meanwhile, the Asean-Wen secretariat in Bangkok e-mailed to The Star the latest regional statistics concerning seizures in Asean countries.
Last month alone, more than 1.5 tonnes of tiger and elephant parts, tiger and leopard skins, ivory tusks, gall bladders and other wildlife were seized in Vietnam.
In Cambodia, more than 500kg of endangered animal parts were seized, more than 1,000 rare tortoises were confiscated alive in Thailand, 422 live clouded monitor lizards rescued from poachers in Johor, and in Singapore, three men were arrested for auctioning tiger parts, tiger skins and hedgehogs via the Internet.
Asean-Wen also managed to stop an attempt to smuggle endangered oriental birds from Changi Airport in Singapore to Indonesia.
Made Arya Kencana Jakarta Globe 6 Oct 10;
Denpasar. A water crisis has highlighted the struggle Bali faces to provide the basics for residents and the millions of tourists from around the world who come to the resort island each year.
Now authorities in Bali have announced they will raise the groundwater tax by 1,000 percent in an attempt to curb consumption.
While the increase is for everyone, officials have made clear they hope it serves to encourage a decrease in the excessive use of groundwater by the tourism industry, which has brought jobs and revenue to the island but also has burdened its resources.
“We hope with a tax hike, hotels and restaurants will implement water-efficiency programs,” Bali Governor Made Mangku Pastika said on Wednesday.
He said the tax increase was based on a 2009 gubernatorial decree on the price of water.
Pastika said up to 5.3 million cubic meters of water were used annually, while the island’s annual water supply was just 4.7 million cubic meters.
“Take a look at the rivers and lakes in Bali, their water volume is decreasing by the day.”
Pastika said the revenue from the higher tax would be used for reforestation and conservation programs to help renew water sources.
“The hotel industry must be able to reduce water usage by recycling wastewater or filtering it and using it to water hotel gardens,” he said.
In Denpasar, the water crisis has hit most parts of the city, especially housing complexes located on higher ground.
Pastika said the crisis had occurred because the state water supply company, PDAM, only had limited supplies.
“We are forced to distribute the already limited supply of water to many customers,” said Maha Putra, director of PDAM’s Denpasar office.
Nyoman Sunarta, an environmental hydrology researcher at Udayana University, said recently that excessive exploitation of groundwater had led to seawater intrusion, and this would eventually pollute groundwater reservoirs in residential areas.
Sunarta said one reason for the water deficit was the conversion of rice fields into housing complexes and resorts.
He said his research projected Bali would suffer an annual water deficit of up to 27.6 million cubic meters by 2015.
Ida Bagus Ngurah Wijaya, chairman of the Bali Tourism Board, said such a large increase in the groundwater tax would place a massive burden on the tourism industry.
Hotels currently pay a maximum of Rp 3,000 (33 cents) for a cubic meter of water, but if the tax hike is implemented, many hotels would have to pay billions of rupiah every month.
I Made Arjaya, a member of Bali’s provincial legislature, demanded the tourism industry be allowed to convey its objections before a final decision was made on the new tax.
Fidelis E Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 6 Oct 10;
Jakarta. As a country rich in biodiversity, Indonesia will strongly push for an international legally-binding compensation scheme covering the use of natural resources between countries at upcoming talks in Nagoya, Japan, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said on Wednesday.
The 10th Conference of the Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which will be held Oct. 18-29, will attempt to draw up an agreement between over 190 countries on a so-called access and benefit sharing protocol, also known as the genetic resources pact.
The pact is basically an agreement on how countries can use genes from plants or animals that originate in other countries, and aims to ensure that developing countries are compensated for discoveries that are derived from their native species.
“At the negotiations, we will be forceful on the ABS issue because we, as one of the mega-biodiverse countries, should not only be spectators [on biodiversity issues].
We need to make sure that we will benefit from the richness of our natural resources,” the minister said.
Indonesia stands to benefit handsomely from a genetic resources pact.
Based on a report from the UN Convention on Biological Diversity, the country is ranked among the world’s top five nations for its plant biodiversity, with 55 percent of all species endemic here.
For fauna, around 12 percent, or 515 species, of known animal species worldwide are found in the country.
However, Gusti said he did not expect that all of Indonesia’s demands would be met at the negotiations.
“I have a feeling that negotiations will be tough, but we will lobby other developing countries to reach this agreement,” he said.
Some countries that have voiced concerns over the ABS include Australia, New Zealand and Canada. Meanwhile, Japan and the European Union have thus far voiced their support for the protocol.
Harry Alexander, assistant director for law and policy at the Wildlife Conservation Society, said the ABS would be very important for Indonesia because of the potential economic benefits coming from the agreement.
“Indonesia is basically a provider for the world because we are a mega-diverse country,” Alexander said.
“The fair and equitable sharing will provide economic benefits for provider countries such as Indonesia, because other countries have been taking genetic resources from us without paying.”
“It will be hard for other negotiators, but it’s not fair to let them keep on taking our genetic resources for free,” he said.
Chisa Fujioka PlanetArk 7 Oct 10;
The world should not rush to reach agreement on a United Nations protocol that could have a huge impact on businesses by setting rules for access to genetic resources and discoveries, a Japanese lobby said on Wednesday.
Negotiators from over 190 countries will gather in Nagoya, Japan, from Oct 18-29 to try to finalize an outline that would affect how and when companies and researchers can use genes from plants or animals that originate in developing countries.
Countries rich in diverse plant and animal species, including Brazil, India and Colombia, say the measure would help to ensure that developing countries benefit from discoveries based on native species or traditional medicine.
But talks over the "access and benefit sharing" (ABS) protocol have been bogged down by differences between developed and developing countries over issues such as the scope of the agreement and the terms of access to genetic resources.
Takashi Yoshimura, manager of industrial technology at Japan's biggest business lobby, Nippon Keidanren, said more discussion was needed to pin down details so the pact would be one that companies could accept and implement.
"We do not want to see negotiators hurry to reach a conclusion that could pose problems in the future," Yoshimura told Reuters.
"The scope must be clearly defined and be reasonable, while making clear how that would be guaranteed. We also want to make sure that as long as there is a contract, companies would not be subject to other terms."
The protocol is part of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, which recognizes the sovereign rights of states over their natural resources in areas within their jurisdiction.
The U.N. talks in Nagoya will also aim to agree on a global target to protect the diversity of plants and animals after failure to reach a goal set in 2002 of a "significant reduction" in losses by 2010.
Yoshimura said Japanese companies backed global efforts to safeguard biological diversity but were worried about the potential impact the ABS protocol could have for industries such as pharmaceuticals and agriculture.
"We are concerned because, depending on the content of the ABS protocol, it could stifle innovation and lead to higher costs for consumers," he said.
For example, developing countries are calling for the protocol to cover genetic resources provided before the biodiversity convention came into force in 1993.
That could require companies to raise prices of existing goods and services to make up for money going to resource-rich countries.
"It's not just Japan companies, but industries in other developed countries also share our concerns," Yoshimura said.
The lobby was also worried that the protocol would dent Japanese companies' international competitiveness, given that the United States has not ratified the biodiversity convention.
"U.S. companies would not have to go through what could be cumbersome rules, while those in the convention would need to go through various procedures and bear costs," he said.
"There are worries over what impact that would have on competition for development in various areas."
(Editing by Joseph Radford)
Chris Buckley PlanetArk 7 Oct 10;
Greenhouse gas emissions worldwide risk overshooting by a third the threshold beyond which dangerous global warming looms, the environment group WWF said on Wednesday, urging climate talks in China to tackle the gap.
Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting this week in the north Chinese city of Tianjin trying to agree on the shape of the successor to the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the key U.N. treaty on fighting global warming, which expires in 2012.
Climate talks so far this year have focused on trust-building funding goals, with little talk about countries' targets to reduce the greenhouse gases, especially carbon dioxide from fossil fuels and other sources, heating up the atmosphere.
The report from WWF said the world is precariously close to eating up its "carbon budget" -- the limit of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions that would hold atmospheric concentrations below levels likely to trigger dangerous climate change, says the report.
"If we imagine the global carbon budget as a giant cake, the world has already gobbled up most of it," says the report.
"The climate talks in Tianjin need to see at least some indications of this trend changing," said Gordon Shepherd, the leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative, in a press release accompanying the report, which was emailed to reporters.
Carbon dioxide is a crucial part of the atmosphere and is absorbed and released by plants, oceans and soils in a natural cycle.
But mankind's activities from burning fossil fuels to deforestation are disrupting this cycle, leading to more CO2 in the atmosphere than can be absorbed by nature. This accumulation is on course to overspend a limited carbon budget.
BALANCING THE BUDGET
How to share out the shrinking carbon budget will be a contentious part of climate change diplomacy for a long time.
Nations need to contain global greenhouse gas emissions to the equivalent of 40 billion tons (gigatons) of carbon dioxide a year by 2020 to contain future temperature rises at below 1.5 degrees Celsius from pre-industrial levels, said WWF.
"But the world is on track to emissions levels of 47.9 to 53.6 gigatons, based on promised reductions in major economies -- which on past experience may well not be achieved," it said.
Fraught climate negotiations last year failed to agree on a binding treaty and climaxed in a bitter meeting in Copenhagen, which produced a non-binding accord that later recorded the emissions pledges of participant countries.
Officials in Tianjin hope to foster agreement on climate funds for developing countries, protecting carbon-absorbing forests and transfers of green technology. These would be stepping stones for a high-level meeting in Cancun, Mexico, late this year.
That meeting, they hope, will build to a binding agreement late next year. Some developed nations want a new treaty that binds all the big greenhouse gas polluters to emissions reductions. Kyoto only commits rich nations to meet emissions targets.
The U.N. climate change chief, Christiana Figueres, said on Monday the climate talks should now focus on securing formal pledges of the emissions cuts vows already made, "fully realizing it is a first, necessary but insufficient step.
(Editing by Chris Buckley)
2020 emissions set to exceed dangerous levels by one third
WWF 6 Oct 10;
Tianjin, China: Global greenhouse gas emissions under current policy settings could be up to nearly one third more in 2020 than the trend needed to avoid catastrophic climate change, according to the latest “gigatonne gap” analysis conducted by WWF.
Plugging The Gap, a paper released today at UN climate negotiations going on this week in Tianjin, China, shows recent science setting an emissions budget of 40 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent in 2020 to avoid dangerous climate change.
But the world is on track to emissions levels of 47.9 to 53.6 gigatonnes, based on promised reductions in major economies – which on past experience may well not be achieved.
“It’s clear that some countries are facing up to the necessary transformations of their economies but other countries have failed to endorse this new trend speedily and are risking the safety and prosperity of all,” said Gordon Shepherd, Leader of WWF’s Global Climate Initiative.
“The climate talks in Tianjin need to see at least some indications of this trend changing.”
The WWF analysis shows that governments have more than enough options to close the ‘Gigatonne gap’ between what has been pledged and what is needed. Promising options include rapidly transforming carbon-intense economies in the developed world, ensuring financial support for enhanced climate action in developing countries, and regulating new sectors and gases currently not covered by the climate regime.
WWF warns that failure to embrace these solutions would put the world at risk of overspending its remaining carbon budget – the total amount of carbon we can still afford to emit to the atmosphere before crossing the threshold of 1.5˚C warming over pre-industrial levels. WWF analysis estimates the global carbon budget for the period 2010 to 2050 at less than 1000 Gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent emissions.
“Every school kid could calculate that if we let annual emissions grow to 50 Gigatonnes and more we will soon have badly overspent our fixed budget,” said Shepherd. “We must decrease annual emissions year after year and share the remaining budget equitably between industrialized countries that already used much of it and developing countries that had no such opportunity.”
The paper shows that setting science-based emission reduction targets in industrialized countries is the most effective solution, with a potential of stopping up to 4.3 Gigatonnes per year from being emitted to the atmosphere.
WWF made it clear that emissions calculations are considerably complicated by significant accounting loopholes which can allow double counting or even fictitious claims of emissions reductions. Closing known policy loopholes and accounting tricks currently undermining the integrity of emission reduction targets would add up to another 2.4 Gigatonnes per year by 2020.
For instance, the double-counting of climate finance and emission cuts from the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) is estimated at 1 Gigatonne. Currently, such cuts can still be counted in both the inventories of developing countries where they occur and the inventories of developed countries that buy the generated CDM credits. Similarly, money spent by developed countries to buy CDM credits is often also counted as part of the finance support for developing countries they are committed to.
Truly additional financial support for developing countries to boost their low-carbon transition beyond the unilateral actions they pledge already would add another 1.7 Gigatonnes, while covering omitted sectors like shipping or aviation and eliminating non-additional CDM credits generated by projects that would have happened anyway could shrink the gap by at least 1.3 Gigatonnes.
* U.S. wants China, India to accept firmer emissions goals
* China says current treaty stays
* U.S. negotiator says climate talks need to show they work
* Rich and emerging nations differ over emissions checks
Chris Buckley Reuters AlertNet 6 Oct 10;
TIANJIN, China, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The United States and EU said on Wednesday that U.N. climate talks were making less progress than hoped due to rifts over rising economies' emission goals, while China pushed back and put the onus on rich nations.
Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting this week in the northern Chinese city of Tianjin, trying to agree on the shape of the successor to the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the key U.N. treaty on fighting global warming, which expires in 2012.
Midway through the talks, however, initial hopes that they can deliver progress on trust-building goals have become snared in procedural skirmishing that boils down to feuding over how far rich and emerging nations should curb their greenhouse gas emissions and how they should check on each other's efforts.
Negotiators said the contention could damage prospects for negotiations late this year in Cancun, Mexico, which are intended to lay the foundations for a new, legally-binding climate pact.
"There is less agreement than one might have hoped to find at this stage," said Jonathan Pershing, the United States' lead U.S. negotiator in Tianjin.
"It's going to require a lot of work to get to some significant outcome by the end of this week, which then leads us into a significant outcome in Cancun," he told reporters.
Fraught climate negotiations last year failed to agree on a binding treaty and climaxed in a bitter meeting in Copenhagen, which produced a vague and non-binding accord that later recorded the emissions pledges of participant countries.
Fearing deadlock in efforts to reach a binding pact by late next year, governments have been pushing in Tianjin for broad agreement on less contentious objectives: a fund for climate action, a scheme to protect carbon-absorbing rainforests, and policies to share clean energy technology with poorer nations.
Pershing said he still hoped that the makings of a deal can come together at Cancun, and warned that failure in Mexico could damage the whole U.N. climate negotiations.
Big developing nations -- such as China, India and Brazil -- should take on firmer emissions reduction obligations as part of a new treaty that would abandon a simple division between rich and developing countries, said Pershing.
The current Kyoto Protocol only commits nearly 40 industrialised nations to meet binding targets.
A European Union official at the Tianjin talks said they had made headway on some issues, but also voiced worry for Cancun.
"We are very concerned with the procedural blockages and we find it simply inexplicable that they keep on popping up on the issues that are of vital importance for the final deal," Jurgen Lefevere of the European Commission climate action office told reporters. "There is still hope," he added later.
CHINA PUSHES BACK
China is the world's top greenhouse gas emitter from human activity, with the United States second.
China and India have pledged emissions reduction steps under the Copenhagen accord, but want Kyoto to be extended to lock in commitments by rich countries and to ensure their own emissions are not subject to binding international caps.
China's greenhouse gas emissions will keep rising for years yet, but its top climate change negotiator Xie Zhenhua said it was unfair to press the country on when its emissions would peak while rich nations failed to slash theirs.
He also told reporters at the talks that his government would not budge from demanding the Kyoto Protocol be the basis of any new climate deal. The United States is not a party to the Protocol and would have to come under a separate deal.
"When the world's emissions peak depends on developed countries leading with dramatic cuts in their emissions, making space for developing countries," said Xie.
China and other emerging nations will accept international "consultation and analysis" of their emissions, but not anything equal to the standards expected of rich economies, said Xie. (Editing by Sugita Katyal)
China says unreasonable to set CO2 peak yet
Reuters AlertNet 6 Oct 10;
TIANJIN, China, Oct 6 (Reuters) - China's top climate negotiator on Wednesday said it was unreasonable to expect his country to set a peak for its greenhouse gas emissions while rich economies fail cut theirs.
Xie Zhenhua also said China would not budge from its commitment to making the Kyoto Protocol -- the current climate change pact that does not set mandatory caps on poorer countries' emissions -- the basis of any new climate deal.
"A rise in greenhouse gases is necessary and, it should be said, reasonable," he said of China and other developing countries. "The key is that we must adopt effective measures to control the rate of growth, so it won't be unfettered," he told reporters at climate talks in the north Chinese city of Tianjin.
China's greenhouse gas emissions are the largest of any nation. Burning fossil fuels and deforestation are blamed for heating up the planet. (Editing by David Fogarty)
U.S. says climate talks fail to make headway
* U.S. envoy voices fears over direction of climate talks
* Says Kyoto pact's rich-poor divide "historical artefact"
* Other delegates express frustration over direction of talks
Chris Buckley Reuters AlertNet 6 Oct 10;
TIANJIN, China, Oct 6 (Reuters) - The United States said on Wednesday U.N. climate talks were making less progress than hoped because of a rift over poorer nations' emission goals, and that other avenues might be needed to tackle climate change.
Negotiators from 177 governments are meeting this week in the north Chinese city of Tianjin trying to agree on the shape of the successor to the current phase of the Kyoto Protocol, the key U.N. treaty on fighting global warming, which expires in 2012.
"There is less agreement than one might have hoped to find at this stage," said Jonathan Pershing, the United States Deputy Special Envoy for Climate Change and lead U.S. negotiator in Tianjin.
"It's going to require a lot of work to get to some significant outcome by the end of this week, which then leads us into a significant outcome in Cancun," he told reporters, referring to the main round of talks at the end of the year in Mexico.
Fraught climate negotiations last year failed to agree on a binding treaty and climaxed in a bitter meeting in Copenhagen, which produced a non-binding accord that later recorded the emissions pledges of participant countries.
More than 110 nations that backed the accord also agreed to limit warming to below two degrees Celsius but the United Nations says the pledges aren't tough enough to meet this goal.
Developing nations say wealthy countries need to do more because they've emitted the bulk of mankind's greenhouse gas emissions since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Fearing deadlock, the United Nations and Mexico have been pushing for agreement on less contentious issues such as a scheme to protect carbon-absorbing rainforests, a deal to share clean energy technology with poorer nations and to help them adapt to the impacts of climate change.
But Pershing repeated the U.S. stance on wanting a full package to be agreed.
"The consequences of not having an agreement coming out of Cancun are things that we have to worry about," he said. "It doesn't mean that things may not happen; it may mean that we don't use this process exclusively as the way to move forward."
Underscoring the lack of trust between rich and poorer nations, he pointed to the need for big developing nations such as China, India and Brazil to commit to legally binding emissions reduction obligations as part of a new treaty.
The Kyoto Protocol only commits nearly 40 industrialised nations to meet binding targets in the pact's first phase till 2012.
China is the world's top greenhouse gas emitter after the United States, India is number 3. Both, which have pledged a range of emissions reduction steps under the Copenhagen accord, want Kyoto to be extended into a second period to make sure rich nations don't wriggle out of taking climate action.
Pershing said poorer nations' pledges under the accord must be internationally verifiable, something that was agreed in the final hours of last year's turbulent climate talks in Denmark.
Many negotiators at the Tianjin meeting echoed frustration at the slow pace, while some said that was an inevitable part of such a complex discussion.
"Things are going very slowly," said a delegate from a large African country, who spoke on condition he was not identified. "It's like we're going round and round in a whirlpool."
Thilmeeza Hussain, an official from the Maldives at the talks, said smaller, vulnerable countries worried that big emitters could use shifting away from the Kyoto Protocol to weaken their emissions-cutting commitments.
"If it's a two-track process, how can we create a legally binding treaty so that they don't jump ship?" she told Reuters. (Writing by David Fogarty)
Posts
visitors since Nov 07