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UN meet will highlight urgent need to protect biodiversity
Grace Chua Straits Times 16 Oct 10;
ON MONDAY, policymakers from around the world will gather at a United Nations meeting in Nagoya, Japan.
The fortnight-long Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) has drawn less international attention than the UN's meetings on climate change.
But it is no less important.
According to the WWF's biennial Living Planet report released this week, species populations shrank about 30 per cent overall between 1970 and 2007.
And the damage is far worse in tropical countries, which are home to most of the world's biodiversity. There, animal, plant and other species populations shrank an average of 60 per cent in the same period.
Protecting the vast array of life on earth is critical, for it supports many human activities. For instance, more than a billion people depend on seafood as their main source of protein, while fresh water for many others is filtered through forest watersheds.
To that end, some 193 countries, including Singapore, have signed and supported the CBD, an international agreement to protect biodiversity and ensure that developing countries benefit from, say, medical discoveries made on their native plants.
But the road to conservation is fraught with obstacles, say academics, non-governmental organisations and policymakers. Earlier this year, member states admitted that they had missed their 2010 target of a significant reduction in biodiversity loss, agreed on in 2002.
That is why this year's meeting is particularly critical, explained the WWF's Ms Susan Brown, head of the environment group's negotiating team.
'We don't have a Plan B because we don't have a Planet B,' she said in a phone conference earlier this week.
The CBD member states must take biodiversity loss seriously at the highest level of government, and they must put the right value on biodiversity, she urged. Already, a United Nations Environment Programme report called The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity, has put a price on the services that eco-systems provide.
In southern Thailand, for example, coastal land could be used for prawn farming, with an economic value of about US$1,220 (S$1,580) per hectare per year.
But it also holds mangrove forests that provide wood and other forest products (US$584 per hectare per year), serve as nurseries for young fish (US$987) and shelter communities from the force of tropical storms (valued at US$10,821).
In this case, the economic benefit of not converting mangroves to prawn farms should be clear.
So what is holding back efforts to protect biodiversity?
It's not that the political will is hard to muster, noted ETH Zurich ecology researcher Koh Lian Pin. Rather, biodiversity has to compete with many other issues.
'In the coming decades, the global human population will have to juggle conservation with economic development, food security and climate change all at once. Reconciling these often competing priorities will be the greatest challenge we face,' he said.
Closer to home, Malaysia and Singapore are already studying how gazetted nature sites in Johor - Pulau Kukup, Tanjung Piai and Sungai Pulai - can be marketed as an eco-tourism package with the popular Sungei Buloh wetland reserve.
In addition, the CBD member states are realising that biodiversity is not only about preserving wilderness. Half the world's population lives in cities, and that figure is expected to reach 70 per cent by 2050. While cities take up 2 per cent of the earth's surface area, they consume 75 per cent of its resources.
So in 2008, the City Biodiversity Index was mooted in Singapore as a way for urban centres to evaluate how well they are doing on conservation efforts.
That index is set to be adopted at this year's CBD meeting.
In preliminary tests of the urban biodiversity index, Singapore scored high on governance - rules to protect wildlife - and less well on eco-system services. For instance, there are few areas of soil here through which fresh water can be filtered.
Besides valuing and formally protecting biodiversity, the WWF's Ms Brown said, countries must set up legal protections for eco-systems, and there must be mechanisms for developing nations to benefit from medical and scientific discoveries made within their borders.
For example, a compound from a soil micro-organism isolated in Norway has been turned into a drug used to prevent organ rejection after transplants. The gains from such discoveries must be shared with the tropical, developing countries, where much of the world's biodiversity resides, said Ms Brown.
While lauding such a move, National University of Singapore biologist Peter Ng warned that there were practical implications for conservation biology research.
For instance, he said, the CBD had raised the profile of benefit sharing so much that biologists doing field research faced red tape and paperwork to get samples out of another country.
And what of that other hot-button issue, climate change?
Climate change and biodiversity are intricately related, and the WWF is suggesting that a joint work programme be set up between the two UN conventions on the issues, said Ms Brown.
The biodiversity conference takes place about a month before the United Nations' climate change meeting in Cancun.
'If we don't solve climate change, there will be new and greater threats to biodiversity,' she added. 'There's room for more than one spotlight on the stage.'
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 16 Oct 10;
A LOCALLY made electric car will be ready next year. It will be designed and developed at a new research facility set up by the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich (TUM).
The prototype will undergo extensive remodelling to suit local weather conditions after input is received from prospective users here. A second prototype will be developed two years later, and the car is expected to ply roads here in 2018.
NTU yesterday also inked eight deals with industry players such as ST Kinetics, Bosch, Siemens and IBM to ramp up its expertise in the field. It then hopes to engage automotive manufacturers to bring the cars to the market.
The first prototype will be unveiled at an auto show in Frankfurt, Germany, next year.
The move comes a week after the Government announced it will set up more charging stations over the next two years to encourage more electric cars on the road.
The TUM-Create centre for Electromobility, which will house about 150 researchers, will focus on developing electric cars that suit the tropical, more humid weather in Singapore.
In contrast to the hybrid vehicles now available, electric cars will be powered entirely by batteries, providing a cleaner alternative.
Researchers at NTU will also participate in an electric vehicle trial to be conducted jointly by the Land Transport Authority and Energy Market Authority (EMA) next year.
From this, they hope to glean information on the profile of drivers here, such as the size of cars they desire, and to what extent the vehicles need to be equipped with air-conditioning, said Professor Subodh Mhaisalkar, executive director of the Energy Research Institute@NTU.
Drivers in Europe generally prefer smaller cars and do not need air-conditioning due to the temperate weather there, he added. This influences the type of batteries that need to be developed to power such vehicles.
'With the 50 electric cars being tested (in the EMA's trial), we will have sufficient data on what the Singapore driver expects from his electric car. This (kind of) data is presently available only in Europe.'
A second prototype, which will incorporate these inputs, will then be developed by 2013. Each prototype will cost between $500,000 and $2 million to build.
'We expect our research to develop... the design and production of energy-saving semiconductors, power electronics and drive-by-wire technologies,' said NTU president Su Guaning.
Drive-by-wire technologies use electronic controls and systems to improve engine efficiency while reducing vehicle emissions
Speaking at the opening of the research facility yesterday, Dr Tony Tan, chairman of the National Research Foundation, noted the need to wean energy demand here away from traditional fuel-based sources, and tap clean energy.
'The knowledge and capabilities developed in electric vehicles (EVs)... would provide critical insights into issues such as what would work in EVs and what could become business opportunities.'
The move to develop an electric car here comes after the Government announced increased funding for research and development - $16.1 billion for the next five years, up 20 per cent from the previous five years'.
David Fogarty and Chisa Fujioka Reuters 15 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE/TOKYO (Reuters) - Envoys from around the world meet in Japan from Monday to try to combat the destruction of nature and to value properly the services of forests, coral reefs and oceans that underpin livelihoods and economic growth.
The United Nations says natural resources, or natural capital, are being lost at an alarming rate and urgent steps need to be taken to combat the destruction of plant and animal species that ensure mankind's survival.
Envoys will hold two weeks of talks in the Japanese city of Nagoya to try to win agreement on new targets and funding to help nations save and better manage vanishing ecosystems.
A treaty on sharing the genetic richness of nature between countries and corporations is also a central focus of the talks that are the culmination of years of negotiations.
Developing nations want a fairer deal in sharing the wealth of their ecosystems, such as medicines created by big pharmaceutical firms, and back the draft treaty, or "access and benefit-sharing" protocol. Failure to agree the pact could derail the talks in Nagoya, conservation groups say.
Drug firms in some rich nations are worried about how it will work in practice, for example, making it harder to get patents.
"Nagoya is a milestone," said the head of the United Nations' Environment Programme, Achim Steiner. "It's the most important attempt in a decade to tackle the issue of biodiversity and ecosystem services," he told Reuters.
The United Nations says countries must fully value the benefits ecosystems bring to economies, such as food, water, clean air and medicines.
Forests are a key source of fresh water and clean air and they help regulate the climate. Coral reefs and mangroves are crucial fish breeding grounds that support mulit-billion dollar fisheries, while also protecting coastlines from storms.
TARGETS
The meeting aims to set new 2020 targets to guide nations after governments largely failed to meet a 2010 target of achieving a significant reduction in biodiversity losses.
Nations will decide either to set a 2020 deadline to halt the loss of biodiversity or opt for taking action toward halting loss of plant and animal species, the draft text shows.
Under a 20-point plan, nations will consider goals covering greater protection of fish stocks, halving or halting the loss and degradation of natural habitats, phase out incentives harmful to biodiversity and conserve much larger land and marine areas.
But developing nations, which own much of the remaining richness of plant and animal species, want a 100-fold increase in funding to achieve these targets.
Steiner said talks about funding could become difficult.
Japan biodiversity meet adopts rules on GM crop damages
Yahoo News 15 Oct 10;
TOKYO (AFP) – An international meeting on biodiversity held in Japan Friday agreed on rules which hold businesses liable if genetically modified organisms they have imported pollute ecosystems, a report said.
The meeting on the Cartagena Protocol on Biosafety reached agreement ahead of the major Convention on Biological Diversity which opens in the Japanese city of Nagoya on Monday.
The protocol holds business operators liable if genetically modified (GM) organisms which they had imported from other countries or companies pollute ecosystems and risk human health, Kyodo News said.
The protocol will open for signatures at the UN headquarters from March. The accord takes effect 90 days after 40 countries and regions ratify it.
Japan hopes to ratify it in autumn next year after obtaining parliamentary approval, Kyodo said, citing government officials.
Talks on compensation for damage caused to ecosystems by GM organisms began in earnest in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur in 2004.
The international biodiversity conference opening on Monday, which includes more than 190 countries and NGOs, is due to discuss how to pay for the "equitable sharing" of the benefits from natural resources.
The talks will also discuss a fresh target on preserving animal and plant species that are disappearing mostly as a result of human activity.
Species under threat include 21 percent of all known mammals, 30 percent of known amphibians and 12 percent of known birds, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
Scientists warn that wildlife habitat destruction is destroying ecosystems that give humans "environmental services" such as clean water and air and are vital for climate control and food production.
Valuing nature the way to protect it, WWF advises biodiversity summit
WWF 15 Oct 10;
Nagoya, Japan - Nations now gathering in Nagoya, Japan for the most crucial meeting in a decade of parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) need to not only agree on new targets for halting biodiversity loss but also set up the mechanisms and commit the resources to achieving them.
“What the world most wants from Nagoya are the agreements that will stop the continuing dramatic loss in the world’s living wealth and the continuing erosion of our life support systems,” said Jim Leape, WWF International Director General.
“First and foremost, we need to ensure that the immense value provided by healthy, functioning and diverse ecosystems is factored into economic decisions. We need to put the price tag on nature’s role in providing the clean air and water for our cities, the healthy soils and fisheries for our food and the genetic secrets and chemistry for our health.”
WWF will therefore strongly urge adoption of a proposed target to incorporate the values of biodiversity into national accounts, development and poverty reduction strategies and planning processes.
WWF earlier this week documented the scale of humanity’s demands on earth and the impacts on biodiversity with the release of a Living Planet report showing we are using one and half planet’s worth of resources while the Living Planet Index – a long established and well regarded measure of the health of biodiversity – has plummeted by 30% globally since 1970 – and by 60% in the tropics.
“The Living Planet Report is a health card for the planet and a measure of the pressures on it. It is showing us there is a real biodiversity crisis in the tropics that is undermining the development prospects of the world’s poorest countries,” Jim Leape said.
The 193 parties to the CBD – nearly all the world's nations – agreed in 2002 to “significantly reduce” the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010, in part by protecting a representative 10 per cent of habitats on a national basis. But a May 2010 CBD Secretariat report found that the 21 global goals to protect biodiversity had not been met. This includes no protection for the habitats of a fifth of all threatened species and less than one percent protection for the open oceans.
“Our prosperity and indeed our survival depend on healthy ecosystems.” Jim Leape said. “The Earth’s forests, oceans and rivers are the very foundation of our society and economy. Even in purely economic terms, it is far, far more cost effective to conserve or restore healthy ecosystems than to artificially provide natural services that we currently take for granted.”
“Governments could make huge gains simply by ending the subsidies that drive over-exploitation of natural resources.”
For instance, the global fishing fleet is two and a half times the capacity that oceans and coasts can sustain, with the World Bank estimating lost profitability of $50 billion a year, 27 million jobs at risk and the well-being of more than one billion people affected.
According to the United Nations Environment Program, investing around $8 billion a year rebuilding and greening the world's fisheries could raise catches and improve food security and income for hundreds of millions. Phasing down and phasing out fishing subsidies which could be more than three times that amount could help in cutting over-fishing while providing some of the funding for fisheries protection and restoration.
WWF is promoting a target of “20 per cent by 2020” for protected areas that nationally, would secure the survival and the richness of all terrestrial and coastal ecosystems and would include multi-national agreements for a similar proportion of protection to cover biologically rich open ocean areas outside national jurisdiction.
As well as mainstreaming biodiversity considerations into decision making and planning, WWF is also specifically pushing for limits on water abstraction to the levels rivers and groundwaters can sustainably provide. Biodiversity threatening “perverse” subsidies need to be slashed and a major international effort is needed to make fishing sustainable.
“Climate change is a key contributing factor to biodiversity loss. And it is diverse, healthy ecosystems that are the most resilient in the face of climate change impacts,” said Jim Leape. “This meeting has an opportunity to bridge the divides between the international agendas on biodiversity, development and climate – most clearly and immediately through support to a 2020 target of zero net deforestation.”
Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) programmes – already on the table in climate talks – could play a major role in countering forest loss currently running at the rate of about 36 football fields a minute in the tropics.
“REDD initiatives present an unprecedented opportunity to fund one of the important services provided by tropical plants – sequestration of carbon. Nations in Nagoya have the opportunity to create the safeguards needed to ensure that programmes to reduce carbon emissions from deforestation in tropical forests also protect the extraordinary biodiversity of those forests and the interests of the communities who depend upon them,” said Jim Leape.
WWF will also be urging progress on one of the CBD's original three objectives, establishing a fair basis for sharing the benefits of genetic resources. The 2008 CBD meeting gave a direction for a Protocol on Access and Benefit Sharing (ABS) to be finalised at Nagoya.
“An ABS Protocol that recognizes the interests of the biodiversity-rish countries and ensures the rights of indigenous peoples and local communities to genetic resources and associated traditional knowledge is long overdue,” said Jim Leape.
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 16 Oct 10;
Jakarta. Indonesia stands to benefit financially if it agrees on a scheme to share genetic data from its wealth of biodiversity at a conference next week in Japan, an expert in the field says.
The 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, to be held Oct. 18 to 29 in Nagoya, will attempt to draw up an agreement between more than 190 countries on a so-called access and benefit sharing protocol, also known as the genetic resources pact or ABS.
The pact is a legally binding 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.
“Indonesia is listed as one of the 12 countries with the highest biodiversity in the world, alongside Brazil, the United States and Australia, and there are indications that many countries are highly dependent on our biodiversity,” Harry Alexander, a legal expert for the Wildlife Conservancy Society and a member of the Indonesian delegation to the conference, said on Friday.
“If we don’t agree to the ABS scheme, then plenty of our genetic resources will be stolen from right under our nose.”
The ABS protocol, he added, was crucial in establishing a benefit-sharing protocol.
“We’re not talking about getting royalties from the end-products,” he said. “What we want is to share the benefits of the genetic resources. So if a country takes genetic resources from us and turns them into other products... there should be clear benefit-sharing guidelines for that.”
Separately, Emil Salim, a prominent environmentalist and presidential adviser, said Indonesia should pursue the scientific expertise and technology necessary to develop its own genetic research sector.
“Our biodiversity can be our strength when competing against China or India, because we have abundant resources,” he said.
“If we could just obtain the technology needed to exploit those genetic resources, imagine how powerful we would become on the world stage.”
The Jakarta Post 15 Oct 10;
JAKARTA: Three orphaned baby orangutans recently rescued in an East Kalimantan jungle by the Center for Orangutan Protection (COP) will be released into the wild, an environmental group said Thursday.
BOS Foundation, a local NGO dedicated to Kalimantan orangutan conservation, said it was in discussion with international donors about funding of the primates’ release.
BOS spokesman Emilia Bassar said in a media statement that the foundation accepted the baby orangutans after COP had threatened to take them to Le Grandeur Hotel in Balikpapan, East Kalimantan, where a conservation conference was taking place.
BOS runs two centers for orphaned orangutan reintroduction into the wild, one in Samboja Les-tari of East Kalimantan and the other in Nyaru Menteng in Central Kalimantan.
Foundation chairman Togu Manurung said that both facilities became overcrowded and the next reintroduction project would start early next year.
“We accepted the three babies and risked failure in reintroducing them into the wild because we do not know if they have tuberculosis or hepatitis, which are prevalent among the animals,” he said. — JP
Purna Bahadur Kunwar, WWF-Nepal WWF 15 Oct 10;
For Narad Mani Poudel, a 45-year-old farmer living in the Madi valley of Chitwan, Nepal, life used to be in a constant state of terror. Recalling an incident three years ago, he said, “Wild elephants ransacked my house and consumed almost all of the rice that I had stored for the coming season. My family and I could do nothing but watch, thankful that we got away with our lives.”
Situated in the southern part of Chitwan, the Madi valley is surrounded on all the sides by protected areas; the southern border is shared with India, through the Balmiki Tiger Reserve. However, this unique geography has led to human-wildlife conflict, resulting in severe crop damage, attacks on livestock, destruction of property and human injuries and casualties. Traditional methods of defending crops from wildlife – torches, drums, trenches and thorn bushes – proved futile. Already poor and struggling to make ends meet, the communities of Chitwan took a dim view of the parks and the animals that inhabited them; some retaliated with violence.
Purna Bahadur Kunwar, Co-manager for WWF-Nepal’s Terai Arc Landscape Protected Areas and Buffer Zone project, remembers back to 2007, when he began discussions about biodiversity conservation with community groups. “They repeated a local adage, saying they are trapped in a ‘natural jail.’ They were not paying any attention to us at that moment.”
But over the course of several months, the community groups and WWF found common ground. Residents wanted to live in peace, and WWF wanted to safeguard endangered tiger, rhino and elephant populations. Both agreed that the solution might lie in another adage: Good fences make good neighbors.
“We worked together on a detailed plan for solar-powered electric fencing. The proposal included total cost, community contribution, the possibility to leverage other funds and a management and maintenance plan for the wooden fence posts. With this plan, we called a joint meeting of four Buffer Zone User Committees of Madi,” said Kunwar.
Support for the project was unanimous. The committees chose to start from the southeastern corner of Madi valley, the Ayodhyapuri, which is contiguous to the Parsa Wildlife Reserve and home to wild elephants. It was also the area with the most reported cases of human-wildlife conflict. With the installation of 14km of solar fence, wildlife damage to crops and property dropped immediately.
WWF-Nepal assessed the first harvest following the installation of the fence and found that the value of the crop production has increased by 300%. What’s more, farmers have now started to cultivate other crops during winter season. A farmer in Ayodhyapuri expressed his satisfaction at having harvested lentils for the first time in 29 years; before he kept his field fallow during lentil cultivation because the risk of encountering wildlife or losing his whole crop was just too high.
The fence is maintained by community members, with each household contributing cash on the basis of its land holding. The farmer Narad Mani says he can sleep soundly all night without fear of his crops being destroyed or his family being harmed.
“Based on this experience, we plan to replicate this achievement with three other Buffer Zone User Committees,” said Kunwar. “I have a vision to develop this valley as a poaching free zone. Instead of lamenting their ‘natural jail,’ now I hear people say, ‘If there is a heaven, it is Madi.’”
Stuart Michael The Star 16 Oct 10;
The Selangor government has called on developers to stop buying mangrove logs for construction.
According to state tourism, consumerism and environment committee chairman Elizabeth Wong, there are other alternative materials for construction like cement in the market rather than mangrove logs.
“We need the support from the developers and the construction industry to ensure that our mangrove forest are not lost
“We have to create awareness on the need for developers to stop buying mangrove logs for construction,’’ saidWong, after visiting pockets of mangrove forest off Port Klang that were felled.
She said an estimated 20,000 logs were seized during the Selangor Forestry Department raid on illegal loggers at the area and was proud of department personnel in taking drastic action to save the mangrove forest.
“The loggers are very cunning, they only fell trees in the middle of the island so that fishermen cannot see what they are doing.
“Over the 10-year period, the price per log fluctuated between RM3 and RM7.90. This comes to about RM100 million worth of logs that the state had lost in a decade. The state should put a stop to mangrove forest logging entirely as mangrove saplings take about 15 years to be fully mature before they are ready to be harvested,’’ she said.
Wong added that the Forestry Depart-ment itself was unable to carry out raids alone but needed help from other relevant departments.
From next month onwards, the Forestry Department will carry out air surveillance to check on encroachment and stealing of mangrove logs.
“It is very difficult to monitor from land but we can see the activities better up in the sky.
“The Forestry Department will also present a paper to the state regarding the illegal logging and would even propose ways to save the mangrove forest from further devastation.
“In order to sustain the mangrove forest, we have to do replanting. We have to plant 15 trees for each tree felled,’’ she said.
Yahoo News 15 Oct 10;
JAKARTA (AFP) – Indonesia will be forced to import rice in bulk and reduce exports of other commodities after extreme weather harmed agriculture over the past few months, officials said Friday.
Crop yields -- especially rice -- were harmed when the La Nina phenomenon significantly reduced the dry season period between April and September, said Indonesian Farmers Association secretary general Benny Pasaribu.
"La Nina played a big role in decreasing agricultural output. It has caused flooding across Indonesia that also reduced production of some crops," he said.
"If this condition persists, then crop output could sink further," he added.
La Nina is a weather pattern that leads to stronger monsoons, greater rainfall and hurricanes in the Pacific basin.
"Growth in rice production has reached only two percent this year compared to 6.7 percent in 2009," said state logistics agency head Sutarto Alimoeso.
"In order to maintain the stockpile of rice, the agency will import rice from Thailand and Vietnam," he added.
Indonesia, the world's third largest rice producer, is expected to import up to 300,000 metric tonnes of rice in the country's first bulk purchase since 2007.
Indonesian Cocoa Association chairman Zulhefi Sikumbang said La Nina had also caused many cocoa plants to be infected by fungus and eventually rot.
"Compared to last year, the production of cocoa has fallen more than 10 percent. The farmers in Sulawesi and Sumatra islands are affected the most by this," he said.
In 2009, cocoa production reached 550,000 tonnes, while this year it is predicted to total 500,000 tonnes despite a target of 600,000 tonnes.
The intense rainfall has also disrupted chilli crops, rubber-tapping activity and production of minerals such as tin and coal.
But Indonesia's palm oil industry, the world's largest, has mostly been unaffected.
The local climatology agency has predicted that the extreme weather across the archipelago will continue until March next year.
A similar weather pattern occurred in 1998, but this year's rainfall was more intense, according to the agency.
Indonesia has abundant biodiversity: alternative staples to rice
Antara 15 Oct 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has abundant biodiversity as an alternative in place of rice as staple food, an environmentalist has said.
"We have biodiversity in abundance as an alternative to replace rice as staple food and therefore don`t worry about food shortage," former environment minister Emil Salim said here.
The member of Presidential Advisory Council as the adviser for environment and sustainable development issues said other staple food in place of rice had long been known by Indonesian people but unfortunately it has yet to be popularized to replace rice.
He said that if the abundant biodiversity was used properly, the government would not bother itself to import rice because Indonesia has more than 30 types of hybrid rice and over 100 varieties of non-hybrid rice that had been developed by the farmers.
Besides, Indonesia is also rich in basic food of various kinds such as sago, edible tuber, corn and other stuff that could be developed to replace rice.
The government is planning to launch "A Day Without Rice" campaign this year in a bid to reduce ride consumption in Indonesia because it is double to global consumption.
With that "A Day Without Rice" campaign, it is expected to create 1.2 million tons of rice efficiency and to reduce the people`s dependency on rice.
Indonesia experiences a decrease in rice production this year because of extreme weather condition and and incessant rain that has created harvest failure in a number of areas across the country.
Indonesians Urged to Kick Rice Habit
Bilhuda Haryanto Jakarta Globe 21 Oct 10;
Jakarta. As cases of poverty-induced starvation still occur in resource-rich Indonesia, the government is calling on people to diversify their diets in order to strengthen the nation’s food resilience.
“We have numerous sources of carbohydrates [in Indonesia], so we need to end our sole dependency on rice. There are sweet potatoes [for instance] and there is cassava,” Indroyono Soesilo, the secretary general at the Coordinating Ministry for People’s Welfare, said at an international seminar held in Jakarta last Saturday, on World Food Day 2010.
The ministry says about 30 million people in Indonesia live below the poverty line. But it aims to have reduced that number by 8 percent in 2014.
Soesilo said a long-term strategy is needed to wean the country off its dependence on rice, which nowadays has to be imported.
“It is crucial for us to cut down starvation, food insufficiency and to eliminate poverty,” he added.
In Indonesia, 77 foodstuffs are grown with nutritional values similar to rice, so, according to Soesilo, a transition should not be too difficult.
But development in the fields of technology and farming infrastructure are still necessary to help boost food supplies.
“The research and development team at the Agency for the Assessment and Application of Technology has come up with an invention to produce noodles from corn flour and sago flour,” Soesilo said.
“It would help cut our demand for imported wheat, which is the primary ingredient to the wheat flour needed to make our instant noodles,” he added.
The director for food and agriculture at the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas), Wahyuningsih Darajatiningsih, said corn, sweet potatoes and cassava can be harvested several times a year in Indonesia and thus could be in abundance.
Yet, she said, the Indonesian demand for rice remains much larger than demand for other potential staple foods.
Hasbullah Thabrany, a public health expert from the University of Indonesia, lamented what he called a lack of effort on the part of the government and said a solution to the country’s food-supply problem should immediately be found.
“The government needs to face the problems instead of just telling fairy tales about its successful policies,” he said.
“Government subsidies should go to assisting [farmers] during the harvesting season, because full potential is seldom reached,” he added.
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, 13 percent of Indonesians are poor and have insufficient access to food.
“The main problem is [food] distribution and access,” said Benni H Sormin, assistant FAO representative for Indonesia.
However, Coordinating Minister for People’s Welfare Agung Laksono denied there are cases of starvation in the country.
“No Indonesians are starving at this moment. And even if there is starvation, we must fight it in a serious, focused and systematic way,” he was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.
Nethy Dharma Somba and Markus Makur, The Jakarta Post 15 Oct 10;
Environmentalists insisted Thursday that the fatal flash floods in Wasior district in West Papua were caused by environmental degradation in the area.
They challenged President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s claim that the condition in the area was reasonably good and was not to blame for the flood, which has claimed about 150 lives.
Yudhoyono said he had observed the forest condition, seen aerial photographs of forests around Wa sior, and found no visible signs of damage. “I have seen the forests and they are still well maintained,” the President said during his visit to the district. Yudhoyono and First Lady Ani Yudhoyono arrived Thursday morning at the Kuri Pasai seaport in Wasior to meet flood victims.
Yudhoyono said he had seen remnants of logs around the area, yet asserted that the finding could not be associated with illegal logging activities. “Those logs were from uprooted trees,” Yudhoyono was quoted as saying by Antara.
He also spoke with Teluk Wondama district officials. He instructed local authorities to extend the emergency response to the victims from Oct. 8 to Oct. 31. Emergency response efforts were originally scheduled for 10 days.
Meanwhile, activists have blamed the flash flood and mudslide of Oct. 4 on environmental damage caused by natural and human factors.
The flood destroyed 80 percent of conservation forests, such as the 1,453,500 hectares in Cenderawasih Bay Marine National Park and the Mount Wondiboy Natural Preserve (73 million square kilometers).
“How could the protected areas be devastated by the incident, which was not only caused by nature but also other causes?’ Foker environmental group director Septer Manufandu said in Jayapura on Thursday.
Soil structure around the Wondiboy mountainous region is unstable and prone to landslides. The surrounding ecosystem often changes due to high rainfall.
“Rainfall around Mount Wondiboy is recorded at between 4,000 and 5,000 millimeters per year. The natural condition is prone to disaster, let alone activities degrading the environment,” said Lyndon Pangkali from the Papua WWF.
Based on the latest data from Wasior, the death toll stands at 154 with 123 missing, 188 seriously injured and 2,652 people taking shelter in Teluk Wondama, Manokwari, Nabire and other areas.
The Mimika regency administration is sending relief aid to Wasior, said Mimika Deputy Regent Abdul Muis on Thursday.
Muis said his office had urged the private sector and religious groups in Mimika to raise assistance to Wasior. “We have stockpiled food such as instant noodles and rice, and will immediately send them to Wasior,” he said.
Regional police chiefs to wage war against illegal logging
Antara 15 Oct 10;
Makassar, S Sulawesi (ANTARA News) - All regional police chiefs in the eastern region of Indonesia have agreed to wage a war against illegal logging activities they blame for the occurrence of natural disasters.
The regional police chiefs of the Indonesian eastern region reached the agreement during a training on the handling of natural disaster and emergency response here on Friday.
South Sulawesi Police Chief Insp. Gen. Johny Wainal Usman said here on Friday that all regional police chiefs for Indonesian eastern region had made the agreement after seeing the many flash flood incidents as a results of illegal logging.
"During the meeting we all agreed to fight against the culprits of illegal logging in an effort to minimize the occurrence of natural disasters," he said.
Among those making the agreement were Johny Wainal Usman, East Nusa Tenggara Police Chief Brig. Gen. Yorry Y Worang, Central Sulawesi Police Chief Brig Gen Amin Saleh, Southeast Sulawesi Police Head Brig. Gen Sigit Sudarmanto, North Sulawesi Police Chief Brig Gen Carlo Tewu, West Nusa Tenggara Police head Brig. Gen Arif Wachyunadi and Maluku and North Maluku Police Chef Brig. Gen Erlan Lukman M.
"We hope we could contribute to the nation by taking repressive measures against illegal loggers. The main cause of floods is the fact that the upstream area of the rivers have been denuded," Johny Wainal Usman said.
Fidelis E. Satriastanti & Markus Junianto Sihaloho Jakarta Globe 14 Oct 10;
Jakarta. Ten civil-society groups, including Greenpeace, have called on the government to get serious about implementing a moratorium on issuing new logging concessions in critical areas.
The proposed two-year moratorium, set to begin in 2011, was announced earlier this year by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono as part of a deal with Norway to fund UN-sponsored emissions-reduction (REDD) schemes in the forestry sector.
Kumi Naidoo, the executive director of Greenpeace International, said on Thursday that the moratorium offered a golden opportunity to suspend the devastation of Indonesia’s forests.
“We need to use the moratorium to engage public participation, proper research and look at all the alternatives, and also look at it in terms of the future of the palm oil industry,” he said.
“In terms of REDD and REDD Plus, there’s a danger that if we don’t use the moratorium period to actually agree on procedures on transparency, then resources from REDD Plus” could be lost.
Naidoo said that while Indonesia had reasonably good forest conservation laws, the problem was in enforcement.
“The inability of the government to police such massive areas allows a lot of loopholes to be exploited [by] certain industries,” he said.
Bambang Sukmananto, a senior Forestry Ministry official, said his office was keen to work alongside groups such as Greenpeace, which he said could not resolve the issues of deforestation by themselves.
“We’re after the same goal, but we have different points of view,” he said. “For us, it’s more than just the environmental issue. We also need to consider the economic impact.”
Meanwhile, Pramono Anung, a deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, backed Greenpeace’s call for the government to make the best use of the moratorium period, and said more attention ought to be paid to environmental issues.
Speaking after the meeting with Greenpeace, Pramono said the House shared the same concern that Indonesian forests should be conserved.
“We agree with Greenpeace that special attention must be given to the forest moratorium in Riau and Kalimantan,” he said.
He added that the government must also tighten its supervision of the mining sector to minimize environmental damage from prospecting and mining.
Pramono also addressed complaints by Greenpeace that port authorities had denied the group’s ship, the Rainbow Warrior, entry into Indonesia.
The ship was supposed to dock at Tanjung Priok Port in North Jakarta, but was turned away.
“I believe the government should have allowed the ship to dock,” Pramono said. “Denying this permission only hurts our country’s standing in the international community.”
He said the purpose of the ship’s visit was to educate Indonesian children about environment issues, so the visit should not have been prevented.
Greenpeace, RI NGOs call for full forest protection
Antara 15 Oct 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Greenpeace and several Indonesian NGOs working for biodiversity, human rights, climate protection and representing indigenous people, called on the Indonesian and Norwegian governments to close loopholes in a billion dollar deal to immediately implement a moratorium on all further natural forest clearance both within new and existing concession areas.
"It is not only what you do, but also what you do not do, for which you are accountable. The Indonesian government must ensure the protection of all peatlands, tropical forests, biodiversity and indigenous people. The devil is in the detail. Details of this deal will set a precedent for future agreements to end deforestation globally, so it must be watertight," said Kumi Naidoo, Executive Director of Greenpeace International here, Thursday (Oct. 14) as published on Greenpeace Southeast Asia`s official website.
Details of the US$1 billion deal are being negotiated after a letter of intent was signed in May this year by Norwegian and Indonesian Governments. As part of the agreement, Indonesia announced a two-year moratorium on any new concessions on conversion of natural forests and peatlands into plantations.
"Irrespective of the moratorium, vast areas of tropical rainforests and carbon-rich peatlands are still earmarked for destruction in Indonesia. To be effective, this deal must revoke all existing permits to clear within these areas," he added.
Current Government concessions and illegal logging are devastating Indonesia`s carbon-rich peatlands and rainforests for palm oil and pulp and paper plantations.
The clearing of peatlands and forests significantly contributes to climate change.
Indigenous people`s customary lands and rights have been violated, causing social conflict, and natural habitats of endangered species are dwindling.
"Today we provided Indonesian decision makers with what civil society organizations recognize as minimum criteria and indicators for an effective moratorium. Norway`s negotiations with Indonesia to end forest destruction and to protect peatlands could change the course of history and move us forward to solving some of the major crises of our time: tropical rainforest destruction, species extinction and climate change," said Berry Nahdian Forqan, Executive Director of Walhi.
Kumi Naidoo was speaking at a media briefing in Jakarta after the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior on its `Turn the Tide tour of Southeast Asia` was denied entry by the Indonesian government for no plausible grounds.
"We are saddened by this unfortunate turn of events. Greenpeace is as much Indonesian as it is Canadian, Dutch, Australian, Chinese or any other nation. We are an organisation dedicated only to global environmental protection and peace. We are an organisation that exists only at the wish of the global civil community," Kumi said.
Deforestation is responsible for about one-fifth of global greenhouse gas emissions.
Ending deforestation must be central to a global strategy to tackle climate change, as it has the greatest potential to quickly deliver massive greenhouse gas emissions cuts.
The Rainbow Warrior`s two-and-a-half month voyage across Southeast Asia to promote a green and peaceful future began in Thailand on September 17, 2010 and will conclude in Philippines on November 30.
This visit to the region, the ship`s fourth, coincides with the 10th year anniversary of Greenpeace`s official presence in Southeast Asia - as well as the Rainbow Warrior`s first ever tour of the region, the `Toxics-Free Asia Tour` in 2000.
Yahoo News 15 Oct 10;
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Countries in the lower Mekong River region should delay any decisions about building hydropower dams for 10 years, an influential new study said Friday, warning of the many risks involved.
The recommendation was made in a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report commissioned by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental advisory body that deals with all Mekong River-related activities.
The MRC -- which represents Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- is studying the possible construction of 11 hydropower projects on southeast Asia's longest river.
"The recommendation to defer dam construction for a 10-year period is very significant," said Tiffany Hacker, an interim communication advisor for the MRC.
Environmental groups have long objected to damming the river, arguing that it would damage fragile ecosystems.
The assessment, led by consultants with the help of the MRC, government agencies and civil society representatives, said more time was needed to study the risks that come with building dams in such a complex environment.
"The mainstream projects are likely to result in serious and irreversible environmental damage and... losses in biological diversity and ecological integrity," the report said.
It also warned that the dams would have a negative impact on fisheries and could "lead to increasing food insecurity for millions of people".
The MRC stressed that it was under no obligation to follow the report's recommendations, but Hacker told AFP that member countries were "likely to take the findings seriously".
The four countries will now study the findings "for at least six months" before deciding on how to proceed, Hacker said.
More than 60 million people rely in some way on the river, which is the world's largest inland fishery, according to the MRC.
The wildlife group WWF has warned that the Mekong giant catfish -- one of the world's biggest freshwater fish -- could be driven to extinction if plans to build hydropower dams on the river go ahead, blocking spawning grounds.
Delay building of dams: Report
Official study advises pushing back plans by 10 years, citing risk of ecological damage
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 20 Oct 10;
BANGKOK: An official report has called for plans to build dams on the Mekong river to be deferred, citing concerns that they would disrupt the ecology of the river system.
The report, commissioned by the Vientiane- based Mekong River Commission (MRC), recommends that plans for 11 mainstream hydropower dams be pushed back by 10 years.
Coming amid a rush by regional governments to tap the 4,500km-long river for electricity and water, it is the first real test for both governments and corporations involved, which will find it difficult to ignore the report.
Set up in 1995 by Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, the commission is an advisory body dealing with Mekong river-related activities. It has been criticised as a tool of its member governments, but its Strategic Environmental Assessment report, which was submitted this month and conflicts with official plans, could change that view.
The report warned that damming the Mekong could damage ecosystems along the river, disrupt other uses, and reduce productivity in fisheries and agriculture.
'The proposed developments when under construction and operating have the potential to create... international tensions within the Lower Mekong Basin,' the report warned.
Starting in China and meandering through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the Mekong is one of the most productive rivers in the world and the lifeblood of some 60 million people.
The latest report adds to a growing pile of cautionary notes on damming the Mekong. Environmentalists have long opposed plans for the dams, and some have blamed dams already built upstream in China for the Mekong's falling water levels.
Numerous studies have shown that dams will disrupt the flow of water, triggering changes in the river's course and flood patterns, and interrupting biological connectivity - in turn altering the subsistence livelihood base especially of those living downstream in the lower Mekong nations of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.
'The social and environmental damage likely (from) any one of the mainstream dams is of a scale that cannot be ignored,' said Vientiane-based Marc Goichot, senior adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature's Greater Mekong programme.
'We need this 10-year deferral so innovative technology... can be developed to allow energy production without high risk to the river and the people dependent on its resources.'
The latest report gives critics of the dams - as well as the MRC - some ammunition in their opposition to the dams. A Vientiane-based expert on water governance, who asked not to be named, said the report showed the commission was trying to ensure that all issues were being assessed in a transparent manner.
'The MRC has known for months that (the report) was heading in this direction,' the expert told The Straits Times.
The report will figure in a process requiring the commission's member countries to notify and consult one another on planned hydropower dam projects. Next week, a critical meeting in this process will take place, providing the first signal of whether governments will take the report seriously.
The government of Laos, in particular, which has ambitious plans to become the 'battery of South-east Asia' through hydropower dams, is unlikely to be happy. Neither are investors in the 11 dams, which include companies from China, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.
One immediate test case will be a 1,280 megawatt hydropower dam being proposed for the Kaeng Luang rapids in Xayaboury province in Laos. A Thai corporation is involved in the construction, and most of the electricity will be bought by Thailand.
Anil Singh, The Times of India 15 Oct 10;
MUMBAI: Those worried about large swathes of mangroves drying up as soon as the monsoon receded can rest easy. Botanists and entomologists say there is no link between the recent oil spill and the browning of mangroves in the creeks of Mumbai and Thane.
"It is a moth attack but there is nothing to worry as the mangroves will turn green in a month," said Deepak Apte, assistant director of Bombay Natural History Society, who studied the effect of the recent oil spill on the mangroves. The moth attack, he said, has almost become an annual feature now.
According to entomologists, the moth in question is the Hyblaea puera, better known as the teak defoliator. Native to South-East Asia, its caterpillar feeds on teak and 45 other plant species, including several kinds of mangroves. A flush of new, tender leaves are necessary to elicit egg laying.
According to Avinash Kubal, deputy director of the Maharashtra Nature Park, the moth breeds when rains have been delayed or sporadic. Up to 1,000 eggs can be laid by one female on the undersurface of the leaf and the larvae hatch in two days. The caterpillars devour the mangrove leaves, cocoon themselves in the shriveled remains and emerge a week later in brown wings.
The adult moths are relatively small, with a wing span of 3-4 cm, and have a characteristic resting posture that conceals the black and orange-yellow hind wings under the grayish-brown fore-wings.
These moths hover around street lights and at railway stations in September and early October. They normally fly at night using moonlight for direction, but get confused by artificial lights.
Although, these moths have been appearing in Mumbai's mangroves since the past 15 years, no serious study has been done on them. In 1995, a massive moth population caused such defoliation in mangroves that the navy was called in to aerially survey the damage. Navratri mandals faced the nuisance of thousands of moths swarming around their floodlights.
According to Apte, a rapid assessment two months after the spill has revealed out that the mangroves are now showing signs of regeneration, especially the ones at Uran. Elephanta is the worst affected area with no signs of regeneration.
"In Uran, there are stunted mangroves which are three to four feet tall and it is an open canopy but in Vashi the mangroves are 10 feet high and it's a dense, closed canopy. So Vashi might take time to recoup," said Apte. According to him, the washing away of the oil with the tide and rain is the best way to deal with the problem.
Bhuwan Sharma Inter Press Service Reuters AlertNet 4 Oct 10;
KATHMANDU, Oct 4 (IPS) - For the last two climbing seasons, Dawa Sherpa has missed scaling the summit of Mt Everest. But the climate ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and two-time Everest summiteer may not be relishing the thought of bearing witness once more to the impact of rising temperatures on the world’s highest peak. Indeed, he says that even making one's way just up to Base Camp, which lies at an altitude of 5,380 metres, can already give one the dismal view of the devastation climate change is wreaking.
"Snow cover in the mountains is decreasing, crevasses are opening up in the glaciers," says Dawa. "Avalanches (have been) occurring frequently (in) the past two years."
In 2010, one of his Sherpa staff lost his life to an avalanche. Dawa also recalls Appa Sherpa, the 20-time Everest summiteer who has been climbing Everest since 1990, as saying last year that he has seen small puddles of water even at an altitude of 8,000 metres.
Snow and glaciers cover about 10 percent of the area of Nepal, where about 10 percent of the stream flows can be traced back to the glaciers.
Melting glaciers and receding snowlines, however, are just among the many manifestations of climate change in this tiny Himalayan nation.
Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation Joint Secretary Dr Jagadish Chandra Baral shares with IPS a striking example of how climate change has been affecting Nepal's horticulture sector.
"The apple-growing belt in the Mustang district is gradually shifting to higher altitudes," says Baral, who writes frequently on climate change, because warming temperatures have resulted in their fruits getting worms. "People there claim that while they could easily produce healthy apples as low as Lete (2,480 metres) until a few years ago, the apples now tend to catch worms even in higher altitudes like Larjung (2,550 metres), Kobang (2,640 metres) and Marpha (2,670 metres)."
Mustang is located near the Tibet border. Recently, a village there was dubbed as Nepal's first ‘climate refugee village'.
Efforts are now underway to resettle the entire village of Dhe to a lower area of Mustang. Among other things, the sources of water there are drying up, while the flora in and around the area have been vanishing fast, leaving the
villagers' cattle herds and other grazing animals with little to eat.
According to the English-language national daily ‘Republica', which broke the news about Dhe in June, "(a)
total of 150 people (23 households) …are being shifted due to the adverse impact of climate change on the livelihoods of the poor in the village".
"Dhe village has been facing an acute shortage of water for irrigation over the last six to seven years," it added. "The irrigated land over the period has also been reduced to less than 50 percent and animal husbandry (particularly goat keeping) has declined by 40 to 45 percent.
The irony is that Nepal itself is said to contribute next to nothing to climate change, which is traced by experts to greenhouse gas emissions of countries around the world.
China and India, which sandwich Nepal, in fact happen to be two of the world's fastest industrialising and highest carbon dioxide-emitting countries.
Earlier in 2010, though, those who have expressed doubt that climate change is real had a field day when the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced it had made a mistake in saying the Himalayan glaciers may be gone by 2035. The climate-change sceptics took this as yet another piece of evidence that much of what had been said of the global phenomenon had been nothing but hysterical hype.
But IPCC has clarified that while it had made an error on the date, it did not make a mistake about the melting away of the Himalayan glaciers.
Madan Shrestha of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology also remarks, "We have ample scientific evidence to prove that climate change is causing the Himalayan glaciers to retreat."
Shrestha has been studying Nepal's glaciers since 1974, when he was a part of the Glaciological Expedition to Nepal (a joint effort of Japan and Nepal).
He says that he was shocked beyond belief to see a picture taken in October 2009 of the Yala glacier (5,100 metres to 5,700 metres) in Lamtang area in central Nepal. Comments Shrestha: "The photograph was evidence of the fact
that the glacier's mass had decreased and there was a significant terminus retreat."
A comparative analysis of photographs taken during different time periods clearly reveals that the fate of other glaciers such as AX010 (4,950 metres to 5,390 metres) glacier in Shorong mountain in East Nepal is no different, he adds.
Shrestha says, though, that since Nepal's contribution to
global climate change is minimal, there is not much it needs to do in terms of mitigation. "As a token response to international efforts we should voice our willingness to be a part of mitigation efforts," he says, "but our focus has to be on adaptation".
By that, he means introducing heat-resistant crop varieties and working to strengthen the dam structures so
that they can withstand increased water pressure, among other thing. He says that Nepal can take a cue from Bangladesh, which has already introduced a flood-resistant variety of rice.
"It is high time we factored in climate change in our development discourse," says Shrestha. "This has simply been not happening."
*This IPS story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network http://www.cdkn.org
A river ran through it
National Science Foundation EurekAlert 15 Oct 10;
Rivers and streams supply the lifeblood to ecosystems across the globe, providing water for drinking and irrigation for humans as well as a wide array of life forms from single-celled organisms up to the fish humans eat.
But humans and nature itself are making it tough on rivers to continue in their central role to support fish species, according to new research by a team of scientists including John Sabo, a biologist at Arizona State University.
Globally, rivers and streams are being drained due to human use and climate change. These and other human impacts alter the natural variability of river flows.
Some affected rivers have dried and no longer run, while others have seen increases in the variability of flows due to storm floods.
The result is that humans and nature are conspiring to shorten food chains, particularly by eliminating top predators like many large-bodied fish.
"Floods and droughts shorten the food chain, but they do it in different ways," said Sabo.
Sabo is the lead author of a paper reporting results of a study of 36 rivers in this week's issue of the journal Science.
"The length of food chains is a crucial determinate of the functioning of ecosystems," says Alan Tessier, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.
"Ecologists have long sought to explain why food chain length varies among different ecosystems. This study provides a quantitative answer to that question for stream ecosystems, and provides critical evidence for the importance of flow variation."
High flows "take out the middle men in the food web, making fish [the top predator] feed lower in the food chain," said Sabo. "Droughts completely knock out the top predator."
"The result is a simpler food web, but the effects we see for low flows are more catastrophic for fish--and are long-lasting."
Sabo and co-authors--Jacques Finlay, University of Minnesota, St. Paul; Theodore Kennedy, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Flagstaff, Ariz.; and David Post, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.--suggest that the fate of large-bodied fishes should be more carefully factored into the management of water use, especially as growing human populations and climate change affect water availability.
The researchers studied rivers and streams in the U.S. ranging in size from the Mississippi and Colorado Rivers, down to small tributaries.
The rivers provide water to large cities like New York City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.
The study employed naturally occurring stable isotopes of the element nitrogen to measure how top-predators were faring in the food chain.
Nitrogen provides an indicator as it bioaccumulates, increasing by 3.4 parts per million with each link in the food chain.
"Floods simplify the food web by taking out some of the intermediate players so the big fish begin to eat lower on the chain," Sabo said.
"With droughts, it's completely different: droughts eliminate the top predator altogether because many fish can't tolerate the low oxygen and high temperatures that result when a stream starts drying out."
He added that climate change will play a growing role in coming years.
"Climate is giving us a new set of operating terms to work with," Sabo said. "We will experience overall drying and greater weather variability, both of which will shorten river food chains.
There will be drying in some regions, particularly along the equator, and increased flow in some rivers, primarily at higher latitudes, scientists believe.
"We will see more variability because there will be change in the seasonality of storms," said Sabo. "Ocean currents are changing, and the way the ocean blows storms our way is going to be different."
The human effect on rivers and streams, and the food chain they support, is closely tied to land-use change, such as water diversion and regulation of flows due to dams.
Sabo outlined a classic scenario that humans face during drought years.
As drought takes hold, the need for water for irrigation and agriculture increases and leads to a draw-down of natural river flows.
The effects downstream can be devastating.
"We would not have guessed that the infrequent drought that results would have a big effect on a stream, but our results show that it does," Sabo said.
"Some streams affected by drying five to ten years ago are still missing large-bodied fishes, compared with same-sized streams that never dried.
"Food webs can recover sooner after a flood, in roughly a year, but it takes far longer to recover in the case of drying or drought."
The study hints that competing users of a river's water--for agricultural production and recreational uses like fishing--need to work out amenable uses of rivers and streams that not only look to the immediate future, but also project long-term effects.
"The question becomes: can you have fish and tomatoes on the same table?" Sabo asked.
"They compete for the same resources, and society depends on both: agriculture for grain, fruits, vegetables, and fish for protein, particularly in the developing world.
"Humans may need to make hard decisions about how to allocate water so that we grow the right food, but still leave enough in rivers to sustain fish populations."
Stephen Leahy Inter Press Service Reuters AlertNet 5 Oct 10;
BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct 5 (IPS) - Failure to protect and invest in nature has left the world’s rivers in crisis, threatening the water supply of more than five billion people according to a new study. Pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, conversion of wetlands, and water-works engineering have severely impacting global river systems, the first- ever health assessment of the planet’s riverine ecosystems reported in Nature last week. "What made our jaws drop is that some of the highest threat levels in the world are in the United States and Europe," says Peter McIntyre, a co-author of the report who is a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S.
"Our study reveals, that on average, the richer the country the greater the threat to river systems," McIntyre told IPS.
Expensive water-works engineering to control freshwater quality and quantity in rich countries decimate rivers' natural abilities to control and clean water the Nature study found. River systems provide an estimated six to seven trillion dollars in services to humanity every year, but the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on engineering systems impairs those services for short-term gain, says co-author Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, an expert on global water resources.
"We need to take another approach, to join hands with nature and work together," Vörösmarty said in an interview. "If we do humanity will get a far better payback in the future."
Rivers are the arteries of the planet, linking continents through coastal zones to the ocean. More than 120,000 species of plants and animals make up the world's riverine ecosystems that provide the multi-trillion dollar services humanity relies upon - however up to 20,000 are at risk of extinction
Vörösmarty says.
An international team examined data sets on 23 factors that impact rivers around the world and created state-of-the-art computer models to integrate all of the information to paint the first ever global picture of the health of river systems. More than 65 percent of the world's rivers are in trouble and this finding is very "conservative" since there was not enough data to assess impacts of climate change, pharmaceutical compounds, mining wastes and massive inter-basin water transfers like the Colorado River in the western U.S.
Where rivers are least at risk are where human populations are smallest. Rivers in arctic regions and relatively inaccessible areas of the tropics appear to be in the best health, according to the findings.
In an unrelated study more than 80 percent of male bass fish exhibited female traits such as egg production because of a "toxic stew" of pollutants in the Potomac River that flows through Washington, DC scientists reported last week. Similar findings have been made in many U.S. rivers.
"In the industrialised world, we tend to compromise our surface waters and then try to fix problems by throwing trillions of dollars at the issues. We can afford to do that in rich countries, but poor countries can't afford to do it," says Vörösmarty.
In Vörösmarty's study the bitter pill for the developed world is that their huge investments in engineering water systems is in reality a kind of mismanagement. "It's a maladaptive approach that creates vulnerabilities," he says.
Protecting watersheds, for example, can reduce the costs of drinking water treatment, preserve floodplains for flood protection, and enhance rural livelihoods. In the 1980s New York City determined it was far cheaper to protect and restore the source of its water supply - the Catskill/Delaware forests and wetlands - than spend six to eight billion dollars on a water treatment plant. "The benefits were very clear and the City saved billions of dollars," says Vörösmarty.
However this well-documented and highly successful strategy has not been emulated by many other cities including those in China or India where engineering expertise is highly prized and huge engineering works are a matter of national pride. Water management costs will skyrocket if developing countries emulate the approach of developed nations, Vörösmarty says. One of China's major waterways, the Yellow River, no longer reaches the sea many days of the year and five percent of China's rivers can no longer support fish.
It is better to invest in sustaining existing ecosystems than destroying them and attempting to engineer solutions, says Vörösmarty. "There needs to be a dialogue in China about the implications of engineering the water supply. It can work in the short term but takes a lot of energy and stresses river ecosystems that will eventually collapse."
According to McIntyre, Latin American cities are doing better, and are protecting the water catchment areas. "Much of this is sparked by local brewery companies that have a vested interest in protecting clean, natural water."
The study stresses prevention of problems and the long-term benefits of prevention and protection. Restoration of natural systems after they are destroyed or damaged is expensive and difficult. Of some 37,000 river and stream restoration projects in the U.S., few have in fact been restored despite a billion-dollar investment, says Vörösmarty. "We don't realise what we're doing when we screw up river systems, nor do we know how to fix them."
IRIN Reuters AlertNet 15 Oct 10;
BANGKOK, 12 October 2010 (IRIN) - Improving the resiliency of cities is critical to disaster mitigation in Asia, according to specialists.
"Cities are more vulnerable because there are a higher concentration of people at risk; at the same time they are the economic engine so the impact of the damage is greater," N.M.S.I Arambepola, director of Urban Disaster Risk Management with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, told IRIN on the eve of the International Day for Disaster Reduction, 13 October.
The UN's 2010-2011 campaign theme, Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready, seeks to convince city leaders and local governments around the world to work with grassroots networks and national authorities to boost their cities' resilience, including providing homeowners with incentives to reduce their exposure to disasters, improve school and hospital safety and invest in flood drainage.
Experts say this is important for the Asian region where many fast-growing, high-density settlements exist in low-lying, flood-prone areas or on earthquake fault-lines.
"If you don't keep up the administration, for example, if you have land codes but don't enforce them, the risk of destruction and human and economic exposure is that much higher," Jerry Velasquez, senior regional coordinator with the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) told IRIN.
Seven of the 10 most populous cities in the world are in Asia and the region's urban population is expected to double from 1.36 billion to 2.64 billion by 2030, according to the UN Population Fund.
Until now, 60 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, out of 118 worldwide, have signed up to the campaign, pledging to invest in infrastructure, better land-planning and awareness-raising.
The biggest priority should be land-use planning and better construction of buildings, Arambepola said.
"Because of poor land-use planning, many countries in Asia have a problem of informal settlements. With so many people migrating to the cities, many of the most vulnerable urban populations settle in the more disaster-prone areas where no one else wants to live."
On 13 October, representatives from cities across Thailand will come together to pledge their commitment to making the country's cities safer.
Bangkok and Patong will be named role-model cities, to be used as benchmarks for participating cities around the world to evaluate their own efforts.
Patong, in the tourist-popular Phuket province in southern Thailand, which was badly affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, has invested US$18 million in implementing early-warning radars, re-zoning the beach and training response teams.
"Every city needs to be safe," said Chairat Sukban, Patong's deputy mayor.
Bernama 15 Oct 10;
KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's strive to adopt a green lifestyle is essential not only to drive economic growth and improve quality of life but also to preserve the environment for future generations.
Against this backdrop, it is important for all Malaysians to assume their role to ensure the success of the green technology development which is aimed at reducing carbon emission and protecting the environment.
Malaysia voluntarily made a commitment to reduce up to 40 per cent of carbon emission intensity to Gross Domestic Product by 2020 and had decided to conserve depletion of natural resources and reduce pollution.
According to the Treasury in its 2010/2011 Economic Report released Friday, Malaysia is serious in promoting green technology in the country to ensure sustainable development as well as to reverse climate change effect by reducing global warming.
Moving in this direction, it established a Green Technology Financing Scheme (GTFS) of RM1.5 billion to provide soft loans to producers and users of GT, provided buyers of buildings awarded the Green Building Index certificate stamp duty exemption on instruments of transfer of ownership and embarked on developing Cyberjaya and Putrajaya as green technology pioneer townships.
The treasury also says the government has introduced the Awareness, Faculty, Finance, Infrastructure, Research and Marketing framework in the Tenth Malaysia Plan to develop a comprehensive ecosystem for environmental sustainability.
At the ministries level, the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water will work hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education to promote and foster awareness among students.
The Ministry of Human Resource, Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Tourism will also include green courses in their skills training programmes.
On the other hand, the Ministry of Transport and the International Trade and Industry Ministry will also develop an infrastructure roadmap for the use of electric vehicles beginning with a pilot project in Putrajaya.
-- BERNAMA
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