Feeding of Spotted dove: 12. Singing with bill closed?
from Bird Ecology Study Group
NSS Kids’ Fun at Green Circle Eco-Farm
from Fun with Nature
Haze — whose problem is it?
from the kent ridge common
Marine protection: The legal route
from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black
LOOP SCOOPS: Teach kids to want less, recycle more!
from Story of Stuff
my paper AsiaOne 20 Oct 10;
AS CONCRETE jungle replaces more and more of Singapore's natural habitat, it is inevitable that some wild animals, such as giant snakes, would find their way into urban areas.
Two pythons were spotted in the past few days in Bendemeer and Tanjong Pagar, alarming passers-by such as information- technology executive C. H. Seah.
Last Saturday, the 42-year-old noticed a group of construction workers causing a commotion at a canal in Bendemeer's St George Lane, and so walked up to take a closer look.
To his shock, he discovered that they were crowding around a 4m-long python. He sent a photograph of the reptile to citizen-journalism website Stomp.
Another python was spotted yesterday outside Tanjong Pagar's Bestway Building in Prince Edward Road. The frightened animal almost bit a man who tried to catch it.
Mr Biswajit Guha, director of zoology at the Singapore Zoo, advised the public to avoid approaching wild snakes, especially if they appear to be weak, injured or disoriented.
"If you come across a non-venomous snake, such as a python, it would be best to leave it alone and give it a clear path to exit," he said.
He added that if the snake remained in a public area, the public can then contact Wildlife Reserves Singapore (WRS) for help.
Snakes caught by WRS (tel: 6269- 3411) undergo quarantine and health evaluations, and some may be microchipped, rehabilitated and released back into the wild.
WRS has received 127 snakes so far this year. They include those confiscated by the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority.
"Snakes prefer thickly planted areas or quiet dark corners," Mr Guha said. "It would be best to keep residential and public areas clear of clutter so that there are no hiding places for them."
The public can also call the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres, tel: 6892-9821) or any pest-control service if a snake is sighted in a public area. Police should be alerted only if the reptile poses imminent danger.
An Acres spokesman said the society receives about 60 calls each month about snake sightings.
Pest-control companies usually release the snakes into nature reserves or hand them over to WRS.
Channel NewsAsia 19 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE : The haze is back in Singapore, with the southwesterly winds blowing in the smoke from the fires in Sumatra.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said the 3-hour PSI reading on Tuesday climbed from 78 at 6pm to 84 at 8pm before dropping to 61 at 11pm. Though the readings are still in the moderate range, the condition has worsened from the 24-hour reading of 56 at 4pm.
The 24-hour PSI is a measure of the air quality over a period of 24 hours. It is updated at 4pm daily. The 3-hour PSI reading is a measure of the air quality over a period three hours. It is updated on the hour.
A PSI reading of above 100 is considered unhealthy.
The NEA said the latest satellite pass detected 202 hotspots in Sumatra, mainly in the provinces of South Sumatra, Jambi and Riau.
The winds are expected to remain southwesterly to westerly from the evening to Wednesday, and showers with thunder are expected in the late morning and afternoon on Wednesday.
NEA said the showers should help to mitigate some of the smoke haze, but there is still a possibility that some slight haziness may remain over the next few days.
The agency is monitoring the smoke haze situation closely and will provide updates should the air quality deteriorate.
Members of the public may also call the NEA Call Centre at 1800-CALL NEA (1800-2255-632) or access www.nea.gov.sg for any feedback or update on the situation.
- CNA/al/ir
Air quality in Singapore dips slightly
Channel NewsAsia 19 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE : The air quality in Singapore dipped slightly on Tuesday with a PSI (Pollutant Standards Index) reading of 56 which is in the moderate range.
This is an increase from Monday's PSI reading of 44 which was in the good range.
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), areas in the northern and western parts of Singapore registered the highest PSI levels.
The NEA had attributed the haze over the weekend to fires in Sumatra. - CNA /ls
Thick haze blankets Singapore
Air pollution takes a turn for the worse due to Indonesian fires
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 20 Oct 10;
THE smoky haze in Singapore, which has been lingering in the air over the past few days, took a turn for the worse yesterday.
The rain which fell in many areas earlier yesterday did little to quell the haze which blew in afterwards. Western Singapore seemed to be among the worst hit, although the air cleared somewhat later in the evening.
The Pollutants Standards Index (PSI), measured in three-hourly slots, stood at 84 between 5pm and 8pm, which put the air quality in the moderate range.
It fell back to 69 by 10pm. Readings of between 50 and 100 mean moderate air quality.
On Sunday, the PSI reading also crept past 50, after having done so on Oct 9 and Oct 12 as well.
Satellite pictures yesterday showed 202 'hot spots' in Sumatra, indicating where Indonesian farmers and plantation companies had set fires to clear large swathes of forests to get the land ready for the crop-planting season.
The prevailing winds from the south-west helped bring the smoke to Singapore, the National Environment Agency (NEA) said yesterday.
The showers expected here over the next two days could wash out some of the haze, the NEA said, adding that some of it could linger.
The Indonesian fire-starters, mainly in the south Sumatran provinces of Jambi and Riau, are now at the tail end of the traditional burning season that began in July.
Their practice has cast a choking, smoky pall over Singapore and the region nearly every year since the early 1990s, hurting tourism and causing breathing problems for the young and old.
The National University of Singapore's Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (Crisp) has noted from its monitoring of satellite images that hot spots grew in number in the past week.
Mr Chia Aik Song, who heads Crisp's fire-monitoring unit, said fires in Riau in particular flared up on Thursday last week.
Climatologist Matthias Roth of the National University of Singapore confirmed that the number of hot spots peaked in the past two days.
It has not helped matters that the weather has been hot and dry in Riau in the past week, which resulted in more farmers setting fires, said Mr Afdhal Mahyuddin of the global environment group WWF's Indonesia office.
But even as Riau is facing a drought, other parts of Indonesia are being lashed by heavy storms, which experts have traced to the prevailing La Nina weather system, which worsens storms, droughts and cyclones globally.
That the haze has blown into Singapore was not lost on branding consultant Mary Tan, 23, who works in the city.
She said: 'It was like being in Genting Highlands. The air felt very heavy and claustrophobic.'
Mr Thomas Banas, 34, a sales manager for shipping company Marcura, said he saw the Marina Bay Sands integrated resort 'disappear' from view from his office on the second floor of Fullerton One yesterday afternoon.
The father of three, who moved here from Hong Kong four years ago to escape the air pollution there, said: 'Every year, we are reminded that the rainforest is going up in smoke...I just think people forget about it because (the haze) goes away again.'
Additional reporting by Victoria Vaughan
Haze caused by fires in Sumatra: NEA
Angela Tan Business Times 20 Oct 10;
The National Environment Agency (NEA) said on Tuesday that the prevailing southwesterly winds have brought in some smoke haze from the fires in Sumatra.
The 24-hr PSI at 4pm is 56, in the 'moderate' range.
Since then, the 3-hr PSI at 6pm has increased to 78.
The latest satellite pass on Tuesday detected 202 hotspots in Sumatra, mainly in the provinces of South Sumatra, Jambi and Riau.
The winds are expected to remain southwesterly to westerly from this evening to Wednesday, and showers with thunder are expected in the late morning and afternoon on Wednesday.
'The showers should help to mitigate some of the smoke haze, but there is still a possibility that some slight haziness may remain tomorrow and the next 2 days,' NEA said.
The 24-hr PSI is a measure of the air quality over a period of 24 hours. It is updated at 4pm daily. The 3-hr PSI reading is a measure of the air quality over a period 3 hours. It is updated on the hour.
The Star 20 Oct 10;
PETALING JAYA: The air pollutant index (API) reading for Malacca has increased from 51 to 91 in the past three days.
Muar, in Johor, recorded an “unhealthy” API reading of 162 according to the Department of Environment website, www.doe.gov.my, as of 5pm yesterday.
“Healthy” API readings are from 0 to 50, and “unhealthy” from 100 to 200. Any reading of between 201 and 300 is considered very “unhealthy.” Readings of more than 301 is “hazardous.”
According to a Malaysian Meteorological Department spokesman, the visibility in Malacca up to noon yesterday dropped to 2km and 5km.
“The haze in Malacca has reduced the visibility in the area. Our observation radar registered with the meteorology station has shown Malacca to be shrouded in haze.
“We are monitoring the situation closely,” she said.
Declining air quality has been reported in several places such as in north Johor, Malacca, Negri Sembilan and Selangor in the past few days.
Ng Lian Cheong Channel NewsAsia 19 Oct 10;
SINGAPORE : Chickens in some farms in Malacca and Johor have been affected by the Newcastle disease - a viral disease that causes chickens to lay smaller-than-usual eggs.
And this has affected supply of eggs in Singapore. Compared to a month ago, there has been a decrease in egg imports by about 1.5 million or 7 per cent.
Singapore's Eggs Import and Export Trading Association said prices for eggs have also increased three cents.
Demand is also higher for larger eggs.
Newcastle disease is a contagious bird disease and is more common in Southeast Asia. Its effects are most notable in domestic poultry due to their high susceptibility.
According to the association, although the chickens are slowly recovering from the disease, the production of eggs has not gone up as quickly.
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) is monitoring the situation. - CNA /ls
Taiwan Today 19 Oct 10;
Coral bleaching in waters off Kenting in southern Taiwan has gradually receded over the past two months, said Lin Ching, director of Kenting National Park Headquarters, Oct. 19.
“Real-time data collected by our monitoring stations shows that coral bleaching has subsided to about 5 percent of the surface area of the reefs,” Lin said.
According to the park administration, serious bleaching of coral reefs did occur in early August, covering about 10 to 15 percent of the coral surface and showing signs of expansion.
This was due to rising ocean temperatures between July and September, the administration said.
However, Lin explained, northeast monsoons and typhoons have lowered water temperatures to more seasonal levels recently, indirectly resulting in a gradual reduction in coral bleaching.
Compared with same periods in the past few years, the coral bleaching phenomenon has not worsened, nor improved, the administration said.
The monitoring stations recorded average water temperatures of between 27.1 degrees Celsius and 29.1 degrees Celsius off Kenting for July and August. With the change of seasons, average temperatures dropped to between 28.4 C and 27.7 C for the September and October period, according to the park administration. (SB)
Reuters AlertNet 19 Oct 10;
NAGOYA, Japan, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Marine ecosystems around the world are at risk of substantial deterioration in coming decades as oceans face growing threats from pollution, over-fishing and climate change, a U.N. report showed on Tuesday.
The global U.N. Environment Programme report, based on studies of 18 regions, predicted that productivity would fall in nearly all areas by 2050, with fisheries to be dominated by smaller species towards the bottom of the food chain.
The report was unveiled as envoys from nearly 200 countries gathered for a U.N. meeting in Nagoya, Japan, aimed at protecting and restoring ecosystems such as forests, coral reefs and the oceans that underpin livelihoods and economies.
Surface sea temperatures could rise by 2100 if no steps are taken to address climate change, affecting coral reefs and other marine organisms, the report said.
Another threat was a continued increase in nitrogen levels, which could trigger algal blooms and lead to the poisoning of fish and other marine life.
"Multi-million dollar services, including fisheries, climate-control and ones underpinning industries such as tourism are at risk if impacts on the marine environment continue unchecked and unabated," Achim Steiner, head of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP), said in a statement.
"This global report, based on 18 regional reports, underlines that ambition and actions now need to match the scale and the urgency of the challenge."
Regional reports outlined steps that could be taken for policymakers, with the study for the North West Pacific covering China, Japan, South Korea and Russia calling for more management of ships' ballast water and regulation of fish stocks.
Ballast water from ships can be harmful to seas by transporting marine invasive species to regions from elsewhere, threatening a rise in extinctions of native marine life, the global report said. (Reporting by Chisa Fujioka; Editing by Alex Richardson)
See also Marine protection: The legal route from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black
Protect Planet Ocean Now
IUCN 19 Oct 10;
With only one per cent of the world’s oceans under protection, countries are far behind the 10 per cent target promised for 2010. A greater political will and a change in the way we manage our marine capital are needed now to preserve the Earth’s oceans for generations to come.
This month Chile announced the setting up of a large marine reserve around Sala y Gómez island in the Pacific. However, current global plans for increasing the number of marine protected areas fall far short of what’s needed to save the world’s oceans, according to a new report from IUCN, The Nature Conservancy and the United Nations Environment Programme.
“Keeping our life support system healthy is what is at stake here and now,” says Carl Gustaf Lundin, Head of IUCN’s Marine and Polar Programme. “The creation of hope spots - special places in the ocean that need special protection - will prove that the world cares about two-thirds of our planet.”
Launched today at the UN Convention for Biological Diversity, Global Ocean Protection: Current Trends and Future Opportunities - a new book by IUCN, The Nature Conservancy, UNEP and various other partners* - looks at the state of our oceans and offers solutions that will restore our marine resources while meeting future human demands. More than 30 leading conservation authors provide the best science and policy available to encourage countries to take actions that go beyond the establishment of individual protected areas.
A total of 5,880 marine protected areas exist today, mostly in coastal areas. However, current protected areas do not represent all regions, species and habitats that are important for conservation, and there are significant financial and human capacity restrictions. One way of achieving a dramatic improvement in marine conservation, while integrating food security, human welfare and health, is through proper management and spatial planning of the ocean, according to the publication.
Traditional management of marine resources is another way of responding to escalating threats to the health of oceans.
“Countries cannot afford to ignore the call for saving our oceans this time,” says Manny Mori, President, Federal States of Micronesia. “Without effective protected areas at the village or community level, there can never be a successful global ocean protected area.”
To read the full report visit: http://cmsdata.iucn.org/downloads/global_ocean_protection_report.pdf
Nagoya 2010: UNEP Report Shows Rising Threats to Marine Biodiversity
UNEP 19 Oct 10;
UNEP Regional Sea report Outlines Outlook for Action
Nagoya/Japan, 19 October 2010-The environmental and economic health of the World Seas-present and future-is outlined today in a report that underlines growing concern from pressures such as pollution, over-fishing and climate change.
The report, the Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Outlook: Global Synthesis by the UN Environment Programme (UNEP) predicts that by 2050 productivity will have decreased in nearly all areas and with it fish catches. Worldwide fisheries will be heavily dominated by smaller species lower down the food chain.
Meanwhile climate change, if unchecked, could see surface sea temperatures rise by 2100 with important implications for coral reefs and other temperature-sensitive marine organisms.
Other predicted changes include a continued and widespread increase in nitrogen levels.
This is linked with discharges of wastewaters and agricultural run off from the land and, to an extent, emissions from vehicles and shipping.
Nitrogen can trigger algal blooms which in turn can poison fish and other marine creatures as well as contribute to the development of so called 'dead zones'-areas of sea with low oxygen concentrations. These areas have increased since the mid-1960s and now cover an estimated 246,000 km2.
The report also flags concerns over the rise in marine invasive species, transported to regions from elsewhere often in ballast water of ships or attached to its hull. Furthermore, it highlights that the cumulative impacts of all of these factors will have serious consequences in the rise of extinctions of native marine species across all regions.
The continuing decline in marine biodiversity will compromise the resilience of marine and coastal ecosystems to the impacts of climate change, as well as their ability to mitigate the effects of climate change, says the report released alongside individual regional seas reports at the 10th Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity in Nagoya, Japan.
Why will extinctions happen?
Other areas of concern are linked with the fate of shell-building marine organisms, such as corals and copepods at the base of the food chain, as a result of rising concentrations of C02-so-called acidification.
Such organisms need minerals like aragonite to make their calcium skeletons. There is already evidence that concentrations of aragonite is falling across the regions as atmospheric C02 concentrations increase and are absorbed by the oceans-a trend that is set to continue and at ever lower depths unless global greenhouse gas emissions are significantly reduced.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "Decoupling growth from rising levels of pollution is the number one challenge facing this generation-this is nowhere more starkly spotlighted than in the current and future health of the world's sea and oceans."
"Multi-trillion dollar services, including fisheries, climate-control and ones underpinning industries such as tourism are at risk if impacts on the marine environment continue unchecked and unabated. Governments are rising to the challenge through actions under the Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans. This global report, based on 18 regional reports, underlines that ambition and actions now need to match the scale and the urgency of the challenge," he said.
Way Forward
The Global Synthesis report forms a baseline for understanding the main drivers of change and management responses relating to marine biodiversity.
Given that the nature and dynamics of oceans are transboundary, actions must be taken by all regions. While there are good regional examples, the report identified that management performance in many areas is generally insufficient and inadequately coordinated to address the growing problems of marine biodiversity decline and ecosystem change.
Moving forward, the preparation of National Programmes of Action (NPAs) for protecting the marine environment from land-based activities will be key in the years to come for each country. Already a number of countries have adopted NPAs or equivalent instruments.
For instance, in 2007 Japan enacted an equivalent of the NPA: the Basic Act on Ocean Policy, and established a legal system that regulates land-based activities in order to protect the marine environment.
However, further actions must include cross sectoral approaches such as ecosystem-based management to address activities and impacts affecting marine ecosystems, given that the combination of pressures from increasing human uses and the expected effects of rising temperatures and acidification of sea water promises an unwelcoming outlook for marine biodiversity and human activities that depend upon it.
Regionally, countries are working together to find solutions and adopting international provisions of Conventions and Protocols. For example, the protocols of the Regional Seas Conventions and Actions provide useful policy platforms for countries to collaborate towards meeting targeted goals to manage their shared marine environment.
Similarly, in many parts of the world, countries have adopted the International Convention for the Control and Management of Ships' Ballast Water and Sediments: one important step towards cutting introductions of marine invasive species.
Currently, the total number of contracting parties to the Convention is 27, signaling keen interest to turn the Ballast Water Convention into national law.
The challenge is underlined in the report with shipping figures. Growth in total shipping traffic reflect regional variations, however, the global annual average growth of shipping traffic is between 9% - 10% with faster growth of bulk cargoes on some routes which pose the most threat to introducing invasive species.
Extending Marine Protected Areas (MPA) worldwide has so far reached 1.17% of global ocean surface, or 4.32% of continental shelf areas. However, current levels fall far short of the target of 10% of the marine environment to be included as Protected Areas set by the 7th Conference of Parties of the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2004.
Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are being established as primary biodiversity management measures in all regions. Well managed marine protected areas can, for example, improve spawning rates and fish stocks.
The series provide a snapshot of the situation in 2010. Their preparation has revealed major differences in data availability, analytical protocols and in preparedness and approaches for the management of marine biodiversity, natural resources and ecosystem services. They stand as a baseline for future assessments as part of the Regular Process for the Global Reporting and Assessment of the State of the Marine Environment (GRAME).
Notes to Editors
The Marine Biodiversity Assessment and Outlook Series report for UNEP is available on www.marinebiodiversityseries.org
The series provide many lessons and insights and a basis for a consistent set of indicators for Regional Seas Conventions and Action Plans to monitor the impact of global and regional measures on protecting and managing marine biodiversity.
About UNEP's Regional Seas Programme
The Regional Seas Programme, launched in 1974 in the wake of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment held in Stockholm, is one of UNEP's most significant achievements in the past 30 years.
The Regional Seas Programme aims to address the accelerating degradation of the world's oceans and coastal areas through the sustainable management and use of the marine and coastal environment and by engaging neighbouring countries in comprehensive and specific actions to protect their shared marine environment. It has accomplished this by stimulating the creation of the Regional Seas Programmes' prescriptions for sound environmental management to be coordinated and implemented by countries sharing a common body of water.
Today, more than 140 countries are participating in the13 Regional Seas Programmes. Six of these Programmes are directly administered by UNEP. www.unep.org/regionalseas/
Interactive Website Uses 'Citizen Science' to Boost Global Interest in Protected Areas
UNEP 19 Oct 10;
Nagoya / Cambridge (U.K.), 19 October 2010 - Moving from the breathtaking fjords of western Norway to Australia's only active volcanoes, touring 150,000 of the world's protected areas from an armchair is now possible with the click of a mouse.
The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) has joined forces with the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to create protectedplanet.net - an interactive, social media-based website that provides in-depth information on both the leading lights and hidden gems of the conservation world.
Using the latest satellite images, users can pinpoint individual protected areas - such as national parks or marine reserves - and zoom in for information on endangered species, native plant life or types of terrain.
Protected Planet also offers visitors the opportunity to upload photographs of their trips to protected areas, write travelogues of what they saw and experienced for Wikipedia and recommend places of interest nearby-information that can be shared through social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Flickr.
This in turn might inspire others to make the journey, thus bringing much needed income to communities in often poor and sometimes remote areas of the globe.
The Ecotourism industry is growing fast and currently captures $77 billion of the global tourism market. As concern about global warming increases, more tourists than ever are opting for eco-friendly holidays, including visits to protected areas. According to Travel Weekly magazine, sustainable tourism could grow to 25% of the world's travel market by 2012, taking the value of the sector to approximately $473 billion a year.
Achim Steiner, UN Under-Secretary General and UNEP Executive Director, said: "National parks and protected areas represent one key and successful response to conserving and managing this planet's nature-based assets. And in a way that can generate revenues and livelihoods for local communities. Indeed by some estimates, $1-$2 billion of global tourism is linked to the world's network of around 150,000 protected sites".
"But the benefits of well-managed tourism are currently uneven with some parks popular magnets for tourists and others hidden gems that are relatively unknown. Protected Planet has the potential to change this by bringing the world's protected areas into a living room near you. So whether you are a government official or a scientist or a citizen looking for a holiday of a lifetime, click on www.protectedplanet.net for a new adventure," he added.
Nik Lopoukhine, Chairman of IUCN's World Commission on Protected Areas, said: "National parks and protected areas in many ways support life as we know it on planet Earth. ProtectedPlanet.net will help identify and communicate the many values of protected areas to the world, including for carbon and freshwater, ensuring that the support base for these areas will be broadened."
The disparity between popular parks and rarely visited ones is highlighted by the Annapurna Conservation Area in Nepal.
Containing some of the highest peaks in the world, Annapurna is Nepal's largest protected area. Its snow-capped peaks and mountain lakes can be viewed on protectedplanet.net.
Between 2000 and 2004, Annapurna received over 260,000 visitors, generating US$7 million in revenue. A share of the income went towards conservation projects with local partners.
Protectedplanet.net, launched today at the 10th Meeting of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity, offers an 'Explore the World' function where users can take an online visit to several protected areas.
Alongside familiar names such as the Serengeti in Tanzania or Yellowstone National Park in the United States, there are thousands of lesser-known sites that attract far fewer visitors.
Take the Monte Cristi National Park in the Dominican Republic, for example. Travel websites describe a remote site off the tourist radar, yet a quick scan on protectedplanet.net reveals diverse habitats of mangroves and beaches with abundance of birdlife, including pink-coloured spoonbills, pelicans and the magnificent frigatebird - a species renowned for its scarlet throat pouch that inflates like a balloon during mating season.
"Protectedplanet.net is about harnessing technology for biodiversity conservation. It showcases the beauty of protected areas and motivates anyone who discovers it to help, from a tourist to a government official", says Craig Mills, Project Manager of Protected Planet from UNEP's World Conservation Monitoring Centre (WCMC). "There is a huge network of people interested in protected areas out there that we haven't been tapping into, protectedplanet.net provides the place and the tools for them to get involved and do their part", he added.
As well as being an information mine for tourists, protectedplanet.net will also offer downloadable information on protected areas for governments, scientists and NGOs working on conservation. Online reports from tourists and visitors including sightings of species have the potential to strengthen that work.
Protectedplanet.net brings together information from all over the internet, including species data from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), protected area descriptions from Wikipedia, photos from Panoramio and Flickr and Google maps. The website also expands on the World Database on Protected Areas currently managed by UNEP-WCMC.
Protectedplanet.net applies an innovative, 'Web 2.0' approach to conservation and will be a powerful tool to help monitor future biodiversity targets. With half a million photos already on the site, protectedplanet.net has the potential to supply vast amounts of biodiversity information to the global community and, most importantly, to prove that it has never been easier for one person to make a difference to conservation.
Notes to Editors
Protected Planet can be found at www.protectedplanet.net
Tourism and Protected Areas
Natural and cultural resources in protected areas (e.g. biodiversity, landscape and recreational values, scenic views and open spaces) are an important driver of tourism, the world's largest industry. Over 40% of European tourists surveyed in 2000 included a visit to a national park in their travels.
In New Zealand, economic activity from conservation areas on the west coast of South Island led to an extra 1,814 jobs in 2004 (15% of total jobs), and extra spending in the region of US$ 221 million/year (10% of total spending), mainly from tourism
In Bolivia, protected area tourism generates over 20,000 jobs, indirectly supporting over 100,000 people
About UNEP-WCMC
UNEP-WCMC is the specialist biodiversity information and assessment centre of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), run collaboratively with WCMC, a UK charity, based in Cambridge, U.K. UNEP-WCMC's mission is to evaluate and highlight the many values of biodiversity and put authoritative biodiversity knowledge at the centre of decision-making. Since its establishment in the 1970s, the Centre has been at the forefront of the compilation, management, analysis and dissemination of global biodiversity information, and has an outstanding record of achievement'.
About IUCN
IUCN is the world's oldest and largest global environmental network with more than 1,000 government and NGO member organizations and almost 11,000 volunteer scientists in more than 160 countries.
It supports scientific research, manages field projects all over the world and brings governments, non-government organizations, United Nations agencies, companies and local communities together to develop and implement policy, laws and best practices. IUCN's Programme on Protected Areas administers the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA) - the world's premier network of protected area expertise. WCPA has over 1,400 members, spanning 140 countries. For more than 50 years, IUCN and WCPA have been at the forefront of global action on protected areas.
UN turns to wiki power for wildlife conservation
Richard Black, BBC News 19 Oct 10;
The UN Environment Programme is turning to the wiki-world in an attempt to improve protection of the natural one.
Its new venture - protectedplanet.net - aims to help people visit little-known protected areas, so generating revenue and improving knowledge about them.
The launch at the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting came amid reports warning that protection of the sea needs to be increased rapidly.
A target to protect 10% of oceans by 2012 will be missed by a long way.
Protected areas are one of the most effective ways of safeguarding plants, animals and ecosystems, said Charles Besancon, head of the protected areas programme at the UN Environment Programme (Unep).
"We know national parks and protected areas are important for many functions - they provide fresh water to one-third of the world's largest urban areas, they protect carbon, they protect endangered species," he told BBC News.
"For example, the last 600 mountain gorillas are in protected areas surrounded by communities - without the protected areas, we'd lose the mountain gorilla."
Unep maintains a database of protected areas around the world, based on data from governments and other authorities.
But with an estimated 150,000 sites in existence, data on what is in the sites and how they are protected is, in many cases, scanty.
"[The database] doesn't get updated as much as we'd like; so we've recognised that the best way is to reach out to the public," said Mr Besancon.
Park life
Protectedplanet.net links into and from existing web-based resources, such as Google maps, Wikipedia and the Google-owned photo-sharing site Panoramio.
Species information comes from the less well-known Global Biodiversity Information Facility (Gbif).
Users can search for sites close to a holiday destination, for example - and may find there are protected areas or national parks that do not usually feature in tourist itineraries.
Unep hopes this will increase the number of people visiting such sites, generating revenue that can help with their upkeep.
It will also allow first-time visitors to create Wikipedia entries on the areas, or post photos, that can attract others.
Meanwhile, public feedback on how sites are managing their wildlife could enhance standards.
Protecting land and sea features in a number of targets agreed under the Convention on Biological Diversity.
But whereas about 13% of the Earth's land area is now under some form of protection, the record for marine areas is barely 1% - way short of the 10% by 2012 target, for example.
In a major report launched here, a number of organisations including the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and The Nature Conservancy (TNC) say that needs to be increased rapidly.
Failing to do so, they warn, will make it harder for marine ecosystems to survive in a world where ocean water is becoming on average warmer and more acidic as a consequence of greenhouse gas emissions.
As the report was being launched here, scientists were warning that coral reefs in Southeast Asia and the Indian Ocean are seeing a major die-off due to unusually warm water conditions.
The Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, a network of university research facilities, said the warming caused coral "bleaching" in Indonesia, the Philippines, Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore, Burma and Sri Lanka.
"It is certainly the worst coral die-off we have seen since 1998," said Andrew Baird, a scientist at James Cook University.
"It may prove to be the worst such event known to science."
Warm water causes coral to expel the algae with which they usually live in a symbiotic relationship - without which they die.
The unusually high temperatures of 1998 were caused by El Nino conditions in combination with the gradual warming attributable to greenhouse gas emissions.
Francois Simard, deputy head of IUCN's Marine Programme and an author on the new report, suggested the issues of climate change and marine protection were closely linked.
"Marine life is under threat, that's absolutely clear - and (with warming and acidification) it's not a matter of management of the sea, it's a matter of management of our activities as human beings, of our emissions.
"But at least we should take care of what we have in a proper way."
University of Arizona EurekAlert 18 Oct 10;
Relationships among organisms, or mutualisms, might be more important to global ecosystem health than previously thought, argues a research team involving UA professor Judith Bronstein
Mutually beneficial partnerships among species may play highly important but vastly underrecognized roles in keeping the Earth's ecosystems running, a group of evolutionary biologists suggests in a study.
The authors present evidence that human impacts may be forcing these mutualist systems down unprecedented evolutionary paths.
"With global climate change, evolutionary change can happen very rapidly, over a few years," said Judith Bronstein, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the UA's College of Science and senior author on the paper. "That can be a good thing or a bad thing, we don't know, but people need to start looking at those effects."
In an effort to distill out common traits underlying biological partnerships and to develop a set of lessons to guide future research and conservation efforts, the researchers sifted through almost 200 research studies on the effects of global change on mutualisms, or interactions between organisms that benefit both partners.
Experts from several fields joined forces in this study and published their conclusions in Ecology Letters, one of the most influential journals in the field of ecology.
"The alarmist view is that if you disrupt an interaction, you lose the interaction, you lose the community, and, ultimately, the ecosystem," Bronstein said. "We are trying to challenge people to make that explicit and to figure out whether their data support that. We need to ask, 'What is the range of possible things that can happen?'"
"It is not all doom-and-gloom," lead author E. Toby Kiers added. "There are clear cases in which mutualisms show a surprising ability to adapt to global change."
Even though the study of mutualistic relationships in nature is young, biologists have already discovered that every species is in one way or another involved in one or more partnerships, sometimes hundreds.
Some examples of mutualisms are well known from high-school biology textbooks, such as the fig wasp, which ensures the fig tree's propagation by pollinating its flowers and whose larvae get to use the fig fruit as a safe – and delicious – nursery in return.
Others are less obvious, but crucial for the health and functioning of entire ecosystems. Corals, for example, the tiny polyps they are, could never build their reef structures – massive hubs of marine biodiversity – without the help of microscopic algae living in their tissues. The algae, called zooxanthellae, use sunlight to make nutrients and help the polyps build their calcareous skeleton.
Despite the importance of mutualisms for ecosystems worldwide, Kiers, an evolutionary biologist at the Free University of Amsterdam, pointed out "there is a gaping hole in the current science, namely the ways that humans are disrupting the evolution of mutualisms."
Bronstein has observed a tendency to look at species interactions in the face of human-caused change in ways that are too simplistic.
"The idea of co-extinction has received a lot of press, meaning that if you lose one species, the other will invariably vanish, too. It's certainly a risk, especially if the mutualism is highly specific in the sense that one cannot exist without the other. But there are very, very few relationships that are that specific and vulnerable."
Kiers added that in contrast to co-extinction, small changes or shifts in mutualistic relationships are the most ubiquitous and possibly the most potent global disruptions.
"Unfortunately, because they are more subtle, these processes are harder to see and rarely discussed," she said.
The authors argue that because every species is involved directly or indirectly in mutualistic partnerships and mutualists act as key players in global carbon and nutrient cycles, pollination and seed dispersal, the breakdown of those relationships could accelerate and worsen effects of global change on biodiversity loss and ecosystem disruption.
Bronstein pointed to pollination, a type of mutualism that has received "90 percent of the attention, because there is absolutely no doubt that plants are flowering earlier due to global climate change."
"This is causing a lot of concern," she said, "because it means that at the time the flowers open, their pollinators may not yet be around. That would mean that pollination of these plants would fail. While that is definitely a possibility and there is some good evidence for it in some situations, it is not the only thing that can happen when pollination gets disrupted. For example, there are known cases in which pollinators have been lost from an island through overhunting, and the plants have evolved traits that allow them to be pollinated by other animals."
Seed dispersal is another example. Many plants rely on mammals catching their fruit in their fur and carrying them to new habitats. Where large mammals were forced out of an ecosystem through habitat destruction or hunting, the plants were found to evolve smaller and smaller fruit that could be carried by smaller mammals or birds.
As different as the relationship between a flower and a bee may seem from coral polyps that cultivate microbes in their tissue, Bronstein and her co-workers identified certain recurring themes.
For example, how a mutualistic relationships plays out depends a lot on its ecological setting, Bronstein explained.
"Many species of ants milk aphids for the highly nutritious honeydew they produce. In return, the ants protect them from predators and parasites. But if the ants get starved for protein, they will eat the aphids, very readily. So the effect the ants have on the aphids ranges from highly beneficial to detrimental. To assess any mutualistic relationship, you have to know its context."
The authors identify three scenarios that can happen over the course of evolutionary timeframes when mutualist relationships are disrupted by human doing, regardless of their specific nature: a switch to new partners, a shift from mutual benefit to antagonism or abandonment of the interaction.
"If one or both of the groups that were interacting come into contact with new partners and adapt to them, as in the example of flowers adapting to new pollinators, the mutualistic interaction persitsts, just with different partners," Bronstein explained.
How humans shape their environment can drastically change a mutual interaction: One of nature's most widespread and important mutualisms is between tree roots and certain fungi in the soil. The fungi help the plant grow by providing nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus to them, while the plant pays them back in carbohydrates.
"What happens when we dump a lot of nitrogen fertilizer into the system?" Bronstein said. "The plants no longer need their fungi and sever their connections with them. The fungi don't have an option and potentially just die or adapt to a more parasitic lifestyle. But what will happen if at some point in the future we stop using the fertilizer?"
"In the light of human-caused change, we have reason to be concerned about this, especially given the importance of these fungi to global carbon sequestration."
Kiers pointed to laboratory scale experiments suggesting that rapid evolutionary change can happen in very short timeframes.
"We have this wealth of knowledge from experiments looking at evolution on a short scale," she said. "Scientists have shown that it is possible for organisms to evolve in the lab. There is a lot to learn from these rapid evolution studies and it is time we start applying them to real world."
"There is an important message here," Bronstein added. "Throughout evolutionary history, habitats have changed enormously. Species have changed over these evolutionary time scales, but interactions have as well, and we expect this to continue. Our findings show that it is probably not enough to try and protect species on an individual level. We need to broaden our focus and start preserving mutualisms in the context of their ecosystems."
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The co-authors on the paper are Todd Palmer (University of Florida, Gainsville), Anthony Ives (University of Wisconsin, Madison) and John Bruno (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill).
Environment News Service 19 Oct 10;
NAGOYA, Aichi, Japan, October 19, 2010 (ENS) - A new strategy to halt the loss of the Earth's diverse living beings is expected to emerge from a United Nations conference that opened Monday in Nagoya. As 2010 is the International Year of Biodiversity, there is an urgency to these negotiations because species are disappearing in unprecedented numbers.
Species extinction rates are now as high as a thousand times the natural rate, and the world is nearing a "tipping point" where there could be irreversible loss, warned Ahmed Djoghlaf, the executive secretary of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, in his opening speech to the delegates.
Of the world's 5,490 mammals, 78 are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild, with 188 Critically Endangered and 450 Endangered, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature. Habitat loss, over-exploitation, pollution, disease and human-induced climate change are the factors driving these extinctions, the IUCN says.
Although more than 16,000 delegates representing the 193 Parties to the Convention and their partners are attending, this is "not just another UN conference," said Djoghlaf, but "the most important meeting on biodiversity in the history of the United Nations."
He called on delegates "to address the unprecedented loss of biodiversity seriously compounded by global warming."
Although the world failed to meet its 2010 target of slowing the loss of global biodiversity, the delegates gathered at Nagoya are tasked with setting another target, to be embodied in the Aichi-Nagoya Strategic Plan for the next decade, with a vision for 2050.
"This is not another plan," said Djoghlaf. "It will be, as recommended by last month's historic New York summit on biodiversity, the overarching coordinated global biodiversity framework of the whole biodiversity family, including the United Nations system."
The Aichi-Nagoya Strategic Plan hammered out by delegates over the next nine days will be submitted October 27 to the high-level segment of the conference, which will be attended by several world leaders and more than 100 environment ministers.
"Here there is an opportunity to shape the landscape and the trajectory of humanity's response to the loss of its natural and nature-based assets in profound and transformational ways," Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, told delegates on opening day. "Here and together we can begin to put in place the kinds of far sighted policy-responses and smart mechanisms that have been incubating for years in many countries and communities."
"The plants and animals, fungi and micro-organisms that produce and clean our air, generate drinking water, hydro-power and irrigation; provide food, shelter and medicines and also bring to many joy and a spiritual dimension to our daily lives need a big helping hand from this 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties - if not for their sakes, for ours," Steiner said.
BirdLife International, the world's foremost bird conservation group with partners in more than 100 countries and territories, outlined five essential goals the Nagoya conference must meet to be successful.
The conference must:
1. adopt a comprehensive, ambitious and achievable strategic plan with associated 2020 targets that take us well beyond business as usual
2. agree mechanisms to ensure that each country has access to the resources it needs for effective implementation of the Convention on Biodiversity
3. conclude negotiations on the international Access and Benefit Sharing, ABS, regime resulting in a Protocol to the Convention with legally binding provisions
4. agree to expand protected area networks, particularly in marine areas
5. agree clear actions to promote synergies between the Convention on Biological Diversity and the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change at national and international levels
"The ongoing decline of the world's biological resources - such as rainforests, coral reefs and agricultural biodiversity - threatens to increase poverty and people's vulnerability to climate change," said Dr. Dilys Roe, a senior researcher at International Institute for Environment and Development and co-author, with BirdLife, of a new, free book, "Banking on biodiversity: a natural way out of poverty."
"These challenges must be tackled together rather than in isolation," said Roe.
Djoghlaf, Steiner and nongovernmental organizations appealed urgently to all government delegates in Nagoya to finalize a legally-binding protocol on access to genetic resources and sharing of the benefits of that access, known as Access and Benefits-Sharing or ABS.
The Convention establishes that a person or institution seeking access to the genetic material of a biological resource in a foreign country should seek the prior informed consent of that country. The person or institution seeking access must also negotiate and agree on the terms and conditions of access and use of this resource.
Genetic resources are used by research institutes, universities and private companies in pharmaceuticals, agriculture, horticulture, cosmetics and biotechnology for research and to develop products.
For example, an appetite suppressant has been derived from species of Hoodia, succulent plants indigenous to southern Africa and long used by the San people to stave off hunger and thirst. One brand of Hoodia pills includes a San-approved certification process.
In February 2006 an agreement was signed between the San and the Southern African Hoodia Growers, empowering the SAHG as the exclusive, legal, approval body for growers and purveyors of natural Hoodia gordonii grown in South Africa. The San receive six percent of the revenue from Hoodia sales made through this group.
The certification process allows traceability of the San-endorsed Hoodia with all legal documents in place under the national Nature Conservation Ordinance and Biodiversity Act and international rules under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, CITES.
An ABS protocol could include these elements.
Djoghlaf explained to delegates how their work at the conference would shape biodiversity conservation at all levels of government.
"The Aichi Nagoya Strategic Biodiversity Plan will need to be translated before the New Delhi Biodiversity Summit [in 2012] into national biodiversity strategies and action plans tailored to the needs and circumstances of the Parties and their partners," he said.
"It will be also translated into action plans at the municipal level. This is the objective of the first-ever City Biodiversity Summit to be held at the end of this week," Djoghlaf explained. "The expected 300 mayors from all over the world will have before them the Urban Biodiversity Index specially designed with the support of Singapore and test-bedded by 34 cities."
"Based on the experience gained by Aichi Prefecture and Ishikawa, prefectural strategies and action plans will be also promoted," he said. "Based on the experience of our host, biodiversity basic law will be encouraged. This is the objective of the summit on Parliamentarians and Biodiversity to be held in partnership with Globe International."
On October 25-26, just before the opening of the high-level segment at Nagoya, 122 legislators from around the world will convene a forum co-hosted by GLOBE International, GLOBE Japan and the CBD Secretariat. It will focus on the concept of natural capital as a means to mainstream biodiversity and ecosystems services into policy making.
Antara 20 Oct 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said Tuesday Malaysia is ready to have talks with Indonesia on bilateral trade in timber amid increased allegations that the neighboring state had been receiving Indonesian timber from illegal logging.
"I have met with the Malaysian side and they said `zero tolerance` to timbers from illegal logging and smuggling. Hopefully, we will sign a memorandum of understanding with them (on the issue)," said Minister Hasan.
He added that illegal logging had caused Indonesia huge financial losses as well as deforestation.
The minister also said that when visited China, he got information from Chinese timber business circle that they still received timbers (merbau wood) from Malaysia and Singapore.
As Indonesia has signed a cooperation agreement for eradicating trade of timbers supplied from illegal logging activities, now illegal logging has decreased significantly. China now does not want to receive uncertified merbau woods from the suppliers.
Efforts on putting pressure to trade of timber from illegal logging activities, according to Hasan, has shown positive progress that it has increasingly been difficult to sell uncertified timbers. Indonesia has issued a policy of subjecting the trade on timber legality verification system (SVLK) since September 1, 2010.
Three Indonesian companies which have been certified to export timber based on the system are PD Sinar Agung (Tangerang), PT Karya Guna Ekatama (Pasuruan) and PT Tanjung Timberindo Industry (Deli Serdang).
World Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), in its position paper on illegal logging, says that the global trade in roundwood, paper, furniture, and other products originating from illegally extracted timber is a multi-million dollar industry. Illegal logging and related trade occurs when timber is harvested, transported, processed, bought or sold in violation of national or sub-national laws.
Although generally portrayed as a problem in tropical forests, illegality also occurs in developed countries and economies in transition. Illegal logging takes place in many countries on a small scale and may have limited impact on the environment or society in general.
Illegal logging has a particularly devastating effect on biodiversity because the perpetrators often deliberately target remaining high-conservation-value forests, including protected areas, which contain the highly valuable hardwood species that have been overexploited elsewhere.
Illegal logging also affects human communities through loss of natural forest resources and sometimes through intimidation and violence. The hundreds of millions of dollars of tax revenues lost around the world as a result of illegal logging and related trade also has a wider social impact. (*)
Michael Taylor PlanetArk 20 Oct 10;
Palm oil buyers in India and China need to join those in Europe in signing up for a certification scheme to promote sustainable palm oil, consumer goods giant Unilever said on Tuesday.
The Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) an industry body of consumers, green groups and plantation companies, was formed in 2004 and aims to promote growth and use of sustainable oil palm products.
"We need to increase the uptake of certified oil in the market," Jan Kees Vis, global director sustainable sourcing development at Unilever told Reuters. "We know that the demand from Europe is not enough."
Annual production capacity of RSPO-certified sustainable palm oil jumped over the 3 million tonnes mark last month, according to the Roundtable. Certification for green palm oil started in August 2008.
"Global production is about 45 million tonnes -- India takes 8 million tonnes, China 7 million tonnes, Europe about 6 million tonnes, United States and Egypt 1 million tonnes," added Vis, who was elected to lead the RSPO at its conception in 2004.
Unilever, the world's top palm oil buyer, uses palm oil for products like Dove soap and Stork margarine.
The Anglo-Dutch firm said in April that it would more than double this year to 400,000 tonnes its purchases of palm oil production certified as sustainable.
But the certified palm oil sector has been plagued by weak demand due to the higher cost involved.
Palm oil planters have also complained that premiums for eco-friendly palm oil are not high enough to encourage production.
"There is more production at the moment than there is demand and if that continues, the incentive for more growers to get certified will diminish," Vis said. "We need to get the Indian and the Chinese market involved, which is difficult to do."
"We do need to involve more smallholder farmers," added Vis, speaking ahead of the RSPO's annual meeting in Jakarta from November 8-11.
SMART RESPONSE AWAITED
Indonesia is the world's No. 2 producer of the vegetable oil.
But accusations from green groups over deforestation have led to firms such as Burger King, Nestle and Unilever to stop buying palm oil from firms, such as PT SMART Tbk.
In August, SMART, which is part of Singapore-listed Golden Agri-Resources, got a mixed score card in an independent environmental audit.
Greenpeace has accused the palm oil giant of clearing peatland and forests with high conservation value that shelter endangered species.
"The verification exercise was fine," said Vis. "We are waiting for a response from PT SMART -- a response in terms of an improvement plan or programme to be put in place.
"So far, we're encouraged by the level of co-operation we see from PT SMART with certifiers and the willingness they have to communicate and discuss the findings."
Vis added that Unilever would like to see Golden Agri-Resources become a member of RSPO, and make a public commitment to have all their holdings certified in a certain time-frame.
Unilever expects to buy between 1.2 million and 1.5 million tonnes of palm oil this year, unchanged from 2009.
"It is a real mixed (economic) picture, so the real trick for a company, is to allocate resources into the markets that show potential for growth," he said.
"Palm oil is the cooking oil of the 2 billion poorest people on the planet. Population growth is going to happen, so that's where markets will grow -- Central Asia, Africa, South East Asia."
(Editing by William Hardy)
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 19 Oct 10;
The government has failed to deliver on one of its main re-election campaign promises of prioritizing efforts to protect the environment, activists say.
This view was shared by a coalition of seven environmental groups in an assessment of the first-year performance of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono’s second-term Cabinet.
“Many of the government’s plans to protect the environment have yet to be implemented [in the field],” Chalid Muhammad, chairman of the Indonesian Green Institute, told reporters on Monday.
The green groups gave the government a red rating — indicating poor performance — for environmental issues.
Chalid said that Yudhoyono’s administration had used environmental issues to gain international popularity, but had failed to deliver on his promises at home.
He said the government’s much-hyped campaign to plant 1 billion trees per year had not been backed up by a policy to impose deforestation limits on companies operating in forest concession areas.
“The government also failed to give enough information to the public about the unpredictable weather changes due to climate change,” he said.
People’s Coalition for Justice in Fisheries secretary-general Riza Damanik said that the government had failed to achieve food security, especially in coastal areas.
The groups called on Yudhoyono to replace ministers in charge of the environment, namely the environment minister, the forestry minister, the agriculture minister, the energy and mineral resources minister and the maritime affairs and fisheries minister.
Rhino Soebagyo, from the Indonesian Center for Environmental Law blasted the Environment Ministry for failing to implement the 2009 Environment Law to stop environmental damage.
“The deadline has passed, and not one single government regulation has been issued to implement the powerful law,” he said.
The law, which required that 12 government regulations be issued by Oct. 3, stipulates that attaining an environmental permit can be used as a prerequisite in obtaining or maintaining a business license.
The environment permit would integrate licenses for disposal of liquid waste into water sources, use of waste water for land applications, temporary storage of hazardous water, collecting hazardous waste, processing hazardous waste and disposal of liquid waste to the sea or other areas.
Rhino said insufficient law enforcement was allowing massive environmental violations to continue.
The Sawit Watch said palm oil plantation expansion claimed 350,000 hectares of land this year.
“We are still studying the relationship between clearing land for oil palm plantations and the increase of flooding in the country,” Jefri Saragih from Sawit Watch said.
The group proposed 12 demands to present to President Yudhoyono, which included to improve leadership at the Environment Ministry and to prioritize the environment in the management of natural resources.
They also urged the government to conduct legal audits of big plantations and fisheries companies by involving the public.
Yahoo News 19 Oct 10;
NEW DELHI (AFP) – India launched a "green" court Tuesday to make polluters pay damages as it steps up its policing of the country's environmental laws.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said India was only the third country in the world after Australia and New Zealand to set up such a tribunal.
"This is the first body of its kind (in India) to apply the polluter pays principle and the principle of sustainable development," Ramesh told reporters in New Delhi.
"Anybody and everybody can approach the tribunal to claim civil damages arising out of inadequate implementation of environment laws," said Ramesh, who has been carving out a reputation as a green crusader.
Ramesh has insisted that India's desire for fast economic growth must not come at the expense of the environment.
The tribunal, which will operate around India, is to be made up of members who are environmental experts and has powers to "try all matters related to and arising out of environmental issues", said a government statement.
The move to launch the tribunal was the latest sign of a tougher approach by India to improving its green track record as concerns mount about the impact of growing industrialisation on air and water quality, forests and wildlife.
On Monday a government panel urged that clearance granted to South Korean steel giant POSCO for the construction of a 12-billion-dollar plant in eastern India be scrapped due to environmental concerns.
In August, the government rejected plans by British-based Vedanta Resources to mine bauxite in an area held sacred by Indian tribespeople and also cited "serious violations" of environmental rules.
Amy Coopes Yahoo News 19 Oct 10;
SYDNEY (AFP) – The world's top polluter, China, is a surprise leader in clean energy efforts, a study showed Tuesday, outstripping the United States and Japan and leaving Australia lagging far behind.
The Vivid Economics report, commissioned by Australia's Climate Institute thinktank, showed China was second only to Britain in the value of its incentives to cut pollution from electricity generation.
Britain's efforts were estimated at 29.30 US dollars per tonne of carbon to China's 14.20 US dollars, with the United States clocking 5.10, Japan 3.10, Australia 1.70 and just 70 US cents for South Korea.
The six countries account for just under half of all global emissions.
"The Chinese leadership have made a strategic decision that they missed out on the last two industrial revolutions and they don't want to miss out on the third one," said Erwin Jackson, director of the Climate Institute, of China's "surprising" dominance.
"They are now commanding the largest market share of clean energy investment at a global level as a result," Jackson told AFP.
China's investment in clean energy topped 35 billion US dollars in 2009 compared with 11 billion in Britain and 18 billion in the United States, and Jackson said it was set to increase tenfold over the next decade.
The main driver of China's performance was its commitment to shutting down more than 100 small coal-fired power plants for cleaner coal stations by 2011, which the report said would reduce emissions by 15 percent.
It also offered subsidies worth billions of yuan for green energy projects, aiming to generate 15 percent of the nation's total energy from renewable sources by 2020.
In Japan, 10 major power producers had joined a voluntary scheme aiming to cut emissions by 20 percent of 1990 levels by 2012, a major initiative which accounted for more than half of its clean energy rating.
Variations of an emissions cap-and-trade system were in place in South Korea, Britain, Tokyo, and parts of the United States, the report said.
The study said there were few policies which applied directly to coal, despite the fact it was the major source of fuel and carbon pollution for the six countries.
It also warned that none of the countries was on track to meet reduction targets agreed after last year's global climate summit at Copenhagen, with Japan lagging worst in relative terms.
Jackson said the report showed that Europe and China were ahead of the game on pollution reduction investment, far outpacing countries such as Australia -- the world's worst per capita polluter due to its heavy dependence on coal.
Without action to price carbon, he said Australia risked falling foul of anti-pollution taxes, with countries such as Japan and India already taxing imports of coal and similar moves foreshadowed in the United States and Europe.
Australian Climate Change Minister Greg Combet welcomed the report, saying a carbon price "will not only provide an incentive to reduce pollution but also ... drive this country's long-term competitiveness".
The ruling Labor party in Australia, the world's largest coal exporter, has shelved emissions trading laws after failing to pass them and nearly lost power at August polls, with the eco-minded Greens party winning a record vote share.
Prime Minister Julia Gillard, now at the head of a Greens-backed coalition government, has urged penalties for carbon pollution and formed a cross-party committee to investigate the best way to slash emissions.
Yahoo News 20 Oct 10;
PARIS (AFP) – South Asia is the world's most climate-vulnerable region, its fast-growing populations badly exposed to flood, drought, storms and sea-level rise, according to a survey of 170 nations published on Wednesday.
Of the 16 countries listed as being at "extreme" risk from climate change over the next 30 years, five are from South Asia, with Bangladesh and India in first and second places, Nepal in fourth, Afghanistan in eighth and Pakistan at 16th.
The Climate Change Vulnerability Index, compiled by a British-based global risks advisory firm, Maplecroft, is intended as a guide for strategic investment and policymaking.
The barometer is based on 42 social, economic and environmental factors, including the responsiveness of government, to assess the risk to population, ecosystems and business from climate change.
South Asia is especially vulnerable because of changes in weather patterns that result in natural disasters, including floods in Pakistan and Bangladesh this year that affected more than 20 million people, Maplecroft said.
"There is growing evidence climate change is increasing the intensity and frequency of climatic events," the firm's environmental analyst, Anna Moss, said.
"Very minor changes to temperature can have major impacts on the human environment, including changes to water availability and crop productivity, the loss of land due to sea-level rise, and the spread of disease."
Bangladesh is rated No.1 because of a double whammy. It has the highest risk of drought and the highest risk of famine.
It is also struggling with extreme poverty, high dependence on agriculture -- the economic sector most affected by climate change -- and a government that is the least capable of coping with climate impacts.
As for India, "almost the whole (of the country) has a high or extreme degree of sensitivity to climate change, due to acute population pressure and a consequential strain on natural resources," Maplecroft said.
"This is compounded by a high degree of poverty, poor general health and the agricultural dependency of much of the populace."
China (49th), Brazil (81st) and Japan (86th) were among countries in the "high risk" category.
The "medium risk" category included Russia (117th), the United States (129th), Germany (131st), France (133rd) and Britain (138th).
Norway led the group of 11 nations considered at least risk, which is dominated by fellow Scandinavians as well as the Netherlands, which has worked hard to defend its low-lying land from rising seas.
Maplecroft published a climate vulnerability index in 2009 that placed 28 nations at "extreme risk", headed by Somalia, Haiti, Afghanistan, Sierra Leone and Burundi.
However, the 2009 and 2010 indices are not comparable, Maplecroft's Fiona Place said.
The new index, largely reworked, uses three "sub-indices" that focus especially on a country's ability to respond to climate change stress.
"The most serious vulnerabilities to climate change are found in a group of developing countries with socio-economic systems ill-equipped to address development challenges such as food and water security, in addition to being burdened by unstable economies and weak institutions," Place said in an email exchange with AFP.
"This is the case for a large number of countries, with southern Asia and Africa of particular concern."
Bangladesh, India most at risk from climate change
* Bangladesh, India, Madagascar most at risk-Maplecroft
* Nordic region least vulnerable to global warming
Alister Doyle, Reuters AlertNet 20 Oct 10;
OSLO, Oct 20 (Reuters) - Bangladesh and India are the countries most vulnerable to climate change, according to an index on Wednesday that rates the Nordic region least at risk.
British consultancy Maplecroft said its rankings showed that several "big economies of the future" in Asia were among those facing the biggest risks from global warming in the next 30 years as were large parts of Africa.
It said poverty and large low-lying coastal regions prone to floods and cyclones were among factors making Bangladesh the most exposed country. India, in second place, was vulnerable because of pressures from a rising population of 1.1 billion.
Madagascar was in third place, followed by Nepal, Mozambique, the Philippines, Haiti, Afghanistan, Zimbabwe and Myanmar. Vietnam, in 13th place and flood-hit Pakistan in 16th were also in the most exposed group.
"Understanding climate vulnerability will help companies make their investments more resilient to unexpected change," wrote Matthew Bunce, principal analyst at Maplecroft, who noted that many Asian countries were attracting large investments.
Norway was bottom of the list of 171 nations, least vulnerable ahead of Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Sweden and Denmark -- all rich north European nations which may initially gain from factors such as longer crop growing seasons.
The ranking combined exposure to extremes such as droughts, cyclones and mudslides, sensitivity to damage tied to poverty, population, internal conflicts and dependence on agriculture, and the capacity of a country to adapt.
The U.N. panel of climate scientists says it is at least 90 percent likely that a build-up of greenhouse gases, mainly from human use of fossil fuels, is responsible for most warming in the past 50 years.
Among major economies, the United States ranked at 129, China 49 and Japan 87. Most European Union nations were low on the list, among less vulnerable countries.
Mexico, which will host annual U.N. climate talks from Nov. 29-Dec. 10 trying to agree building blocks for a U.N. climate deal, was the most vulnerable of rich nations in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development at 45.
Fiona Place, an environmental analyst at Maplecroft, told Reuters the ranking could help companies plan and identify markets where new environmental technologies are needed.
She also said it could help when the U.N. negotiations are focusing more on helping developing countries adapt to the impacts of global warming.
Some states were left off the list because of a lack of data, including North Korea, and small island states like the Maldives that are vulnerable to rising sea levels. (Editing by Tim Pearce)
Yahoo News 20 Oct 10;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Large swathes of the planet could experience extreme drought within the next 30 years unless greenhouse gas emissions are cut, according to a study released Tuesday.
"We are facing the possibility of widespread drought in the coming decades, but this has yet to be fully recognized by both the public and the climate change research community," said National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) scientist Aiguo Dai, who conducted the study.
"If the projections in this study come even close to being realized, the consequences for society worldwide will be enormous," he said.
Parts of Asia, the United States, and southern Europe, and much of Africa, Latin America and the Middle East could be hit by severe drought in the next few decades, with regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea seeing "almost unprecedented" drought conditions, the study says.
"Severe drought conditions can profoundly impact agriculture, water resources, tourism, ecosystems, and basic human welfare," says the study, published in Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Climate Change.
In the United States, drought causes six to eight billion dollars in damages a year on average, and drought-related disasters killed more than half a million people in Africa in the 1980s, the study says.
While vast areas of the world will become extremely dry for long periods, higher-latitude regions from northern Europe to Russia, Canada, Alaska and India could become wetter.
Increased moisture in those regions would not, however, make up for the drier conditions across much of the rest of the world.
"The increased wetness over the northern, sparsely populated high latitudes can't match the drying over the more densely populated temperate and tropical areas," Dai said.
Dai used results from 22 computer models used by the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), to make projections about temperature, precipitation, humidity and other climate factors based on current projections of greenhouse gas emissions.
Maps of the world that Dai produced using the data show "severe drought by the 2060s over most of Africa, southern Europe and the Middle East, most of Americas (except Alaska and northern Canada, Uruguay, and northeastern Argentina), Australia, and Southeast Asia," the study says.
The maps also show that most of central and northern Eurasia, Alaska and northern Canada, and India would become wetter over the same period.
The study's predictions are based on current projections of what greenhouse gas emissions will be this century.
What actually happens in the next few decades will depend on several factors, including the actual future level of greenhouse gas emissions and natural climate cycles such as El Nino, which often reduces precipitation over low-latitude land areas.
The study follows on from earlier research, including by Dai and the IPCC, that found that global warming will probably alter precipitation patterns as the subtropics expand.
Drought could hit world's populous areas - study
* South Europe, Latin America among driest areas by 2100
* Russia, Canada will see more moisture
* Unprecedented drought possible by century's end
Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters AlertNet 19 Oct 10;
WASHINGTON, Oct 19 (Reuters) - Some of the world's most populous areas -- southern Europe, northern Africa, the western U.S. and much of Latin America -- could face severe, even unprecedented drought by 2100, researchers said on Tuesday.
Increasing drought has long been forecast as a consequence of climate change, but a new study from the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research projects serious impact by the 2030s. Impacts by century's end could go beyond anything in the historical record, the study suggests.
To get an idea of how severe the drought might get, scientists use a measure called the Palmer Drought Severity Index, or PDSI. A positive score is wet, a negative score is dry and a score of zero is neither overly wet nor dry.
As an example, the most severe drought in recent history, in the Sahel region of western Africa in the 1970s, had a PDSI of -3 or -4.
By contrast, the new study indicates some areas with high populations could see drought in the -15 or -20 range by the end of the century.
"Historical PDSI for the last 60 years show a drying trend over southern Europe but nothing like those values at the end of this century," study author Aiguo Dai said in answer to e-mailed questions. "Decadal mean values of PDSI have not reached -15 to -20 levels in the past in any records over the world."
A GENERALLY DRIER WORLD
Areas likely to experience significant drying include:
-- the western two-thirds of the United States;
-- much of Latin America, especially large parts of Mexico and Brazil;
-- regions bordering the Mediterranean Sea;
-- large parts of southwest Asia;
-- southeast Asia, including China and neighboring countries, and
-- most of Africa and Australia.
While Earth is expected to get dryer overall, some areas will see a lowering of the drought risk. These include:
-- much of northern Europe;
-- Russia;
-- Canada;
-- Alaska, and
-- some areas of the Southern Hemisphere.
That doesn't necessarily mean that agriculture will migrate from the drought areas to these places in the high latitudes, Dai wrote.
"The high-latitude land areas will experience large changes in terms of warmer temperatures and more precipitation, and thus may indeed become more habitable than today," he wrote. "However, limited sunshine, short growing season, and very cold nighttime temperature will still prevent farming over most of these high-latitude regions."
The study's findings are based on computer models and the best current predictions of climate-warming greenhouse gas emissions. This could change depending on actual greenhouse emissions in the future as well as natural climate cycles such as El Nino, the center said in a statement.
More information and graphics on the study can be seen at https://www2.ucar.edu/news/climate-change-drought-may-threaten-much-globe-within-decades .
(Editing by Paul Simao)
Monash University Science Alert 20 Oct 10;
Policy makers are too reliant on technological fixes to solve current climate change problems, according to a new book written by Monash University engineering academics Patrick Moriarty and Damon Honnery.
Released last week, Rise and Fall of the Carbon Civilisation outlines the view that the problems the globe faces in climate change are serious and potential courses of action are limited, but policy makers are overly-optimistic in their belief that technological fixes can solve the climate change problem.
"Technology functions as the modern equivalent of magic," Dr Moriarty said.
In their book the authors review many of the major options for climate mitigation including renewable energy, energy efficiency, clean coal, nuclear energy, geosequestration and geoengineering and find that no combination of these can achieve what is needed.
"We can achieve many things through our use of technology, but this problem is bigger than anything we have faced to date - and time is against us," Associate Professor Honnery said.
The authors argue that the world will soon need to move to a carbon-neutral civilisation because of a combination of serious environmental and resource challenges, including climate change and the depletion of conventional fossil fuels.
"The question the world must address is: how can we reduce consumption while at the same time improve equity in global energy and resource allocation?" Associate Professor Honnery said.
The authors argue that high-energy consuming countries will have to adopt alternative social practices to reduce their consumption, rather than look to technological or economic 'quick fixes'.
"The climate problem and our lack of real progress in mitigating it is a direct consequence of our global economic system," Dr Moriarty said.
"Solving the climate problem will require us to completely alter the way we run our economies. While important, carbon taxes are only transitional instruments to the deeper changes needed," Dr Moriarty said.
The authors remain positive that change can be made.
"It's not too late to try and salvage the damage that has been done, but magic is not the answer - we need to drastically change our behaviour to get any significant changes," Dr Moriarty said.
But the authors warn that unless we make these changes our generation may be the first to leave a plundered and degraded planet as an enduring legacy to future generations.
Yahoo News 18 Oct 10;
WASHINGTON – The government's monthly climate report is beginning to sound like a broken record.
The National Climate Data Center reported Monday that the January-September period is tied with 1998 for the warmest first nine months on record.
The agency said the average temperature for the period was 1.17 degrees above normal for records going back 131 years. For a full year the warmest on record was 2005.
The agency added that it has been the warmest January-September on record in the Northern Hemisphere and the second warmest in the Southern Hemisphere.
Steadily rising temperatures in recent decades have raised concerns among environmentalists and atmospheric scientists concerned that human-generated pollutants are contributing the a dangerous global warming.
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Online: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov
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