Biodiversity for kids during the December holidays!
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
The Good, The Bad And The NOT Ugly @ Little Sisters Island And Pulau Jong from colourful clouds
Amazing animals on the job
from Psychedelic Nature
Back to Alstonia penumatophora
from Urban Forest
Welcome home, cattle egrets@牛背鹭的栖息地
from PurpleMangrove
Project Semakau Second Anniversary Celebration
from Raffles Museum News
Besides recycling at home and using reusable food containers, he also finds his work taking on an eco-friendly spin. -myp
Victoria Barker My Paper AsiaOne 18 Nov 10;
ACTOR Edmund Chen takes environmental issues very seriously.
So seriously, in fact, that besides cultivating habits like recycling at home and using reusable food containers for takeaway orders, he also finds his work taking on an eco-friendly spin.
But the prolific 46-year-old, who has starred in Singapore- made Mandarin television dramas like Perfect Cut 2, as well as Hollywood movie Street Fighter: The Legend Of Chun Li last year, told my paper that going green wasn't always a priority.
"When I was first confronted with the idea of going green, it seemed like rocket science...(I thought) it was about things like fixing the ozone layer," the affable Chen said in an interview last week.
"It didn't seem like something an individual could do."
Still, his "love for nature" motivated him to find out more.
"I later realised that just small steps here and there, like putting the three Rs (reduce, reuse and recycle) into practice, could make a difference in the long run," he enthused.
Now, one of his best eco-friendly habits is to "tapau" (takeaway in Cantonese) his meals using his own containers.
He packs food from eateries for about half of his meals, he revealed.
"The practice is not only good for the environment, but it also brings back fond childhood memories of my grandparents packing food and taking it to me in school," the father of two, who is married to actress Xiang Yun, explained.
Back then, his school canteen did not offer many food choices, he added, "so the feeling of having someone bring you wholesome, home-cooked food was great".
These days, Chen, who owns an events and public-relations firm, Asiatainment, usually packs soupy dishes like yong tau foo from his favourite hawker stalls for himself and his wife, and for his children, "anything of their choice".
His 19-year-old son, Yi Xi, is currently serving national service, while daughter Yi Xin, 10, is in primary school.
Though taking along one's own containers for takeaways is currently not a common practice in Singapore, Chen hopes that the habit will catch on one day.
"We must not think of it as unglamorous to do so," he said. "It's something I will encourage my kids to pick up later on as well."
Indeed, during this interview at VivoCity's Banquet foodcourt, the rosy-cheeked actor - who looks much younger than his age, thanks to his healthy eating habits - seemed right at home filling his bright-yellow Tupperware container with beancurd and vegetables from a yong tau foo stall.
On the career front, Chen has added "children's book author" to his resume.
His foray into publishing has resulted in five books so far. The latest, a Chinese book entitled Dino Rulez, was released in September. Even that project came with a "green" message.
"It's about two siblings who stumble into a hole which takes them to the centre of the earth...a new environment where the air is fresher, the fruit are sweeter and the leaves are greener," he said.
"The message is that we need to keep our world like that...I wanted to make it very relatable to the children," he added.
Next up, he hopes to organise a series of workshops to encourage youth to learn about publishing and the international film industry.
Chen, who is also the Cleanliness Ambassador for the National Environment Agency, is working on a project with the National Parks Board, for which he will be drawing a series of Singapore plants.
His ultimate goal: To spread the word that every little morsel of environmental consciousness makes a difference.
"Just a little bit of effort can go a long way in giving us a better world," he said.
NEA notes blase attitude among teens especially
Amresh Gunasingham & Poon Chian Hui Straits Times 18 Nov 10;
LITTERING may be an age-old issue, but a new breed of litterbugs is giving the authorities something to worry about.
Young offenders may still be a minority, but they are growing in number. One in 10 - or 4,278 - of those caught last year were young people under the age of 21. This is up from 1,835 in 2006.
Some 400 of them, between the ages of 18 and 21, were also served Corrective Work Orders for chucking cigarette butts and food wrappers at popular hang-outs like shopping malls, parks and bus stops.
But more worrying than the numbers, says the National Environment Agency (NEA), is that young people, particularly teenagers, are displaying a 'more nonchalant' attitude towards littering.
The excuses come thick and fast and carry a familiar tune: 'I couldn't find a bin', 'littering does not harm anyone', and 'many people do it'.
Full-time national serviceman Samuel Chi, 20, admitted as much: 'Sometimes, when I am about to get into a car and I happen to be eating something, I will throw the wrapper in the carpark.'
Student Wong Ee Wen, 20, said she feels awkward backtracking to pick up litter that she has dropped.
For years, schools have attempted to play a role by organising, for example, clean-ups within their campuses or at beaches. But these tend to be done on an ad hoc basis, partly due to a lack of funding.
National University of Singapore sociologist Paulin Straughan, who worked on a study of the behaviour of litterbugs last year, said that young people may use littering as an outlet to rebel.
'In schools and at home, they have authority figures around and have to conform to norms and follow the rules. For some kids, when the glare is lifted from them, it is a chance to break the rules,' the associate professor said.
Some also litter simply because they can get away with it, given that the 100 enforcement officers at NEA cannot trawl the entire island at the same time.
The three-decade-old anti-littering message could also have become lost in translation, said Prof Straughan.
'Young people generally do not like to be told what to do. In school, they tend to get told what to do all the time.'
Full-time national serviceman Benjamin Lin, 19, recalled participating in clean-ups at East Coast beach while in primary school. But he admitted that much of what he learnt about littering was gleaned outside the classroom, from advertisements at bus stops and MRT stations and the newspapers.
The NEA's latest programme for schools, launched last week, is trying out a different tack. It hopes to tap a key finding in a recent study of litterbugs, which showed that among the young people who littered, many had a strong sense of responsibility for the environment.
The Students Embrace Litter-Free programme hopes to give students more say over how they learn about the topic.
In classrooms, for example, they will be encouraged to participate in role-playing lessons, where various scenarios involving litter will be played out and students will be asked to think about the issue, said an NEA spokesman.
'This will help students reflect and become more conscious that there is no excuse to litter regardless of the circumstances.'
Schools will also adopt a public space, say, a park or beach in their neighbourhoods, which they will be tasked with keeping clean.
One school that has already started doing so is Nan Hua High School, which has students monitoring the cleanliness of the bus stop outside their school every day.
Said Mr Chia Yew Loon, its head of department for community relations: 'Not only are students asked to pick up litter found at the bus stop, they are also encouraged to remind one another and even members of the public to keep the area clean.'
The authorities hope to get at least half of all the primary and secondary schools and junior colleges to take up this programme within the next two years.
So far, 26 schools have indicated an interest in the programme.
Property agent Pek Hong Hai, 44, who has two teenage daughters, said he has never told them not to litter.
'Perhaps I take it for granted that the schools would have already told them about it,' he said.
The Star 17 Nov 10;
RECENTLY, the Fisheries Research Institute (formerly known as Turtle and Marine Ecosystem Centre, TUMEC) organised the mass release of sea turtle hatchlings in Rantau Abang, Dungun, a popular spot for turtle watchers in the 80’s.
The event was aimed at raising public awareness to save the sea turtles and to highlight the management and conservation of sea turtles. In short, this was a publicity event with an aim of being included in the Malaysia’s Book of Records.
In any conservation effort, the priority is always the animals, which in this case were the sea turtles.
Hatchlings, or baby sea turtles, were released during this event, but there were also the older ones that didn’t fit the description of being a baby turtle. The drawback, however, was in the methodology used for the release of these hatchlings.
The hatchlings were held back for three to five days after they were hatched. Currently, there is no scientific evidence recommending the holding back of turtle hatchlings after they are hatched. Prof Chan Eng Heng, founder of Turtle Conservation Centre, mentioned that holding back the hatchlings would make them hungry and thus, become weak and easier preys.
It was said that the hatchlings were released at 5.45pm which means it was not dark. Hatchlings naturally hatched start their journey to the sea in the dark to reduce predation. Thus, the mass release of these baby turtles may in fact benefit marine predators such as sharks and other bigger fish which happen to be around at the time these turtles were released.
The event should have a key message which is in itself educational. There are many resorts which practise bad turtle hatchling management by keeping them and then releasing them at the wrong time of the day. This FRI event should have demonstrated to the public on how to release turtle hatchlings in a proper manner.
AZIMI AZMIN,
Help Our Penyu (HOPE).
Brett Israel OurAmazingPlanet LiveScience.com Yahoo News 17 Nov 10;
A video purporting to show evidence of a thought-to-be-extinct Tasmanian tiger is making the rounds on the Web again, suggesting the large carnivorous marsupial is alive.
The nine-second YouTube clip, which appeared on Mongabay.com yesterday (Nov. 16), claims to show a live Tasmanian tiger, or thylacine, in footage captured in 2009. Scientists are unconvinced by the video, which originally surfaced last year.
"In my opinion, the video clearly shows a red fox running across the paddock, not a thylacine," said Jeremy Austin, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Adelaide in South Australia.
Other scientists agree. The animal's gait gives it away, said Cameron Campbell of the Thylacine Museum, a website dedicated to Tasmanian tigers. Campbell said in an email that he and his fellow thylacine researchers all agree that the animal shown in the video is certainly a red fox (Vulpes vulpes), a species introduced to Australia from Europe in the mid-1800s. Since then, red foxes have spread across the continent.
Austin said the man who shot the video, Murray McAllister, sent him DNA samples of the supposed thylacine for testing. The samples tested positive for red fox.
Tasmanian tigers are not related to tigers - instead, they got their name from the stripes on their backs. Officially, the last known Tasmanian tiger (Thylacinus cynocephalus) died in 1936 at the Hobart Zoo in Tasmania.
But that hasn't stopped the hunt for the animal. So-called cryptozoologists - scientists that search for living animals believed to be extinct - are convinced that thylacines still roam the Australian countryside. Campbell is confident that thylacines survive today, but said there is no definitive proof.
Austin told OurAmazingPlanet that people should stop looking for Tasmanian tigers and start tackling Tasmania's real problems - which include habitat loss and animal mortality related to human activities.
Evangeline Majawat The New Straits Times 18 Nov 10;
KUALA LUMPUR: The Wildlife and National Parks Department has collected more than RM300,000 in fines to date this year, almost triple the amount compared with two years ago.
The amount, too, is only from 22 court cases compared with 45 in 2008, when the department raked in about RM112,000.
The higher fines from fewer cases is believed to reflect justice meted out to those who had committed serious wildlife crimes.
"I won't say that they (wildlife criminals) are becoming more desperate (to commit more serious crimes).
"The data just shows that Perhilitan has become more effective in bringing criminals to book.
"It is imposing higher fines now, compared with previous years," Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Douglas Uggah Embas told the New Straits Times, yesterday.
He attributed the success to the joint efforts of various agencies, including the Customs Department, the army and police.
Perhilitan also recorded 2,511 minor offences this year, where the compounds collected amounted to RM135,000.
World Wide Fund for Nature Malaysia executive director Datuk Dr Dionysius Sharma saw the figures as a "good sign".
"The provisions in the laws are still the same.
"But, I think the judiciary has been made to understand the severity of these wildlife crimes.
"Therefore, I'm assuming they are dishing out higher penalties which are provided for under the law."
He said the "icing on the cake" for conservationists would be when the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010 came into force next month.
The pangolin remained the top protected species for smugglers, followed by the Bengal monitor lizard and pythons.
Perhilitan director-general Datuk Abdul Rasid Samsudin said these three animals had become favourites among smugglers as demand was high.
It was believed that the mammal and two reptiles had medicinal properties, although these have never been scientifically proven.
But illegal hunters here prefer wild boars, the white-breasted water hen and the jungle fowl for local consumption.
WWF 15 Nov 10;
Beijing, China - WWF’s newest recommendations on protecting wild Amur tigers in China’s northeast show the huge potential the area has to support one of the world’s most iconic and endangered species.
Recommendations on China’s Amur Tiger Protection Plan is based on a recent study on the potential tiger habitat in the Changbaishan areas of Northeast China, which borders the Russian Far East and North Korea. The study, a joint work of WWF, WSC, and experts from Northeast Normal University of China, KORA and University of Montana was released early this year.
The study suggests that effective protection measures over the past 50 years has helped the Amur tiger bounce back in the Russian Far East, boosting the population to 430-500 today, which makes it possible for Amur tigers to migrate into neighboring China.
The study says that large tracts of forest in Changbaishan and other areas of Northeast China can support the migrating tigers and provide the conditions necessary to maintain tiger habitat and prey over the long term.
Approximately 38,500 km 2 of potential tiger habitat remains in the Changbaishan landscape. The study divides this into nine Tiger Conservation Priority Areas (TPAs), which consist of prime habitat surrounded and connected by lower quality forest that allows movement between patches. These connections ensure breeding population of tigers have access to what they need to survive.
In addition to the nine TPAs, the recommendations also identify a new TPA in the Wandashan region, another key area for tigers in Northeast China. Meanwhile, Xiaoxinganling - also in the northeast - is recommended as an area that warrants further study as a potential home for Amur tigers.
For each priority area, WWF proposes detailed and practical protection and recovery approaches including
* Establishing new nature reserves & expanding and improving existing ones;
* Establishing ecological corridors between large patches of potential tiger habitat to facilitate the movement of tiger population;
* Improving habitat and prey quality and quantity,
* Promoting tiger-friendly forest management;
* Monitoring tigers, prey and habitat, and reintroducing prey species;
* Developing alternative livelihoods to reduce the potential impact of tiger conservation on local communities.
The recommendations also set a goal of protecting 40,000 km 2 of tiger habitat and 50 tigers in China by 2020.
“Without immediate, strong action, the next few years will be catastrophic for wild tigers, and leave the species beyond recovery,” says Dr. Zhu Chunquan, WWF China Conservation Director of Biodiversity.
“The recommendations are based on solid scientific research and are extremely important for Amur tiger protection field work,” Dr. Zhu added.
Maintaining the momentum of Amur Tiger protection before the Tiger Summit, which will be held in St. Petersburg from 21 – 24 November, WWF China had also established WWF-China Amur Tiger Expert Committee chaired by Ma Jianzhang, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering on October 17.
The new recommendations represent a joint collaboration by WWF and experts from China’s Northeast Forestry University, Jilin Provincial Academy of Forestry Sciences and Northeast Normal University. WWF hopes that it will serve as an important reference for wild Amur tiger protection policy-making and can be incorporated into Chinese government’s wild Amur tiger protection plans.
Yahoo News 17 Nov 10;
PARIS (AFP) – A yardstick for estimating ocean fish stocks, many of which are under intensifying pressure from industrial trawling, is badly flawed, a study released Wednesday said.
As a result, global stocks of some commercially valuable top predators -- including certain species of tuna, sharks and halibut -- may be closer to collapse than thought, it warned.
Since the late 1990s, scientists and regional management organisations have used catch data to measure changes in the balance of species across so-called "trophic levels."
The trophic level is the species' rank in the food chain. Microscopic sea algae have a trophic level of one, while large predators such as sharks or tuna are at the highest level, four.
Proportional changes within this ranking have been used as the indicator of how well a particular species is faring.
If, for instance, a species of "Trophic Four" fish was in disproportionate decline compared with "Trophic Three" fish on which they feed, this would likely indicate overfishing.
The method presumes that humans "fish down the food web" by over-harvesting fish at the highest levels and then sequentially going after fish further down the chain.
But the new study says this technique is not smart enough.
"Applied to individual ecosystems, it's like flipping a coin -- half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer," said Trevor Branch, a University of Washington professor.
"This is important, because that measure is the most widely adopted indicator by which to determine the health of marine ecosystems."
The method's shortcomings are illustrated by the case of the Gulf of Thailand, according to the paper, which appears in the journal Nature.
The average trophic level of what is being caught is rising -- and this in principle should indicate improving ecosystem health.
But it turns out that fish at all levels have declined by about tenfold since the 1950s because of overharvesting.
This disastrous drop is masked because the "trophic level" system is based on looking at the top predators first, say the authors.
But in the Gulf of Thailand, industry first targeted mussels and shrimps near the bottom of the food web before shifting to predators higher up, says the study.
When the researchers compared the catch-based method with a more accurate one, based on trawling over a long period of study, the results differed sharply in 13 out of the 29 ecosystems they evaluated.
Applying both methods to worldwide data, the scientists say industrial fishing over the past decades has not simply worked its way downwards from the top of the food chain -- it has gone upwards, too.
"Globally we're catching more of just about everything," Branch said.
Relying on changes in the average trophic level of fish being caught "won't tell us when fishing is sustainable or if it is leading to collapse."
Scientists not involved in the study said the findings could revolutionise the way fish populations are measured.
"This study makes clear that the most common indicator, average catch trophic level, is a woefully inadequate measure of the status of marine fisheries," said Henry Gholz, an environmental biologist at the US National Science Foundation.
Scientists Question Widely Adopted Indicator of Fisheries Health and Evidence for 'Fishing Down Marine Food Webs'
ScienceDaily 17 Nov 10;
The most widely adopted measure for assessing the state of the world's oceans and fisheries led to inaccurate conclusions in nearly half the ecosystems where it was applied according to new analysis by an international team led by a University of Washington fisheries scientist.
"Applied to individual ecosystems it's like flipping a coin, half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer," said Trevor Branch, a UW assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences.
In 1998, the journal Science published a groundbreaking paper that was the first to use trends in the trophic levels of fish that were caught to measure the health of world fisheries. The trophic level of an organism shows where it fits in food webs, with microscopic algae at a trophic level of one and large predators such as sharks, halibut and tuna at a trophic level of around four.
The 1998 paper relied on four decades of catch data and averaged the trophic levels of what was caught. The authors determined those averages were declining over time and warned we were "fishing down the food web" by overharvesting fish at the highest trophic levels and then sequentially going after fish farther down the food web.
Twelve years later, newly compiled data has emerged that considers such things as the numbers and types of fish that actually live in these ecosystems, as well as catch data. An analysis in the Nov. 18 issue of Nature reveals weaknesses in assessing ecosystem health from changes in the trophic levels of what is being caught.
"This is important because that measure is the most widely adopted indicator by which to determine the overall health of marine ecosystems," said Branch, lead author of the new analysis in Nature. Those involved with the U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity, for instance, chose to use the average trophic level of fish being caught as the main measure of global marine diversity.
An example of the problem with the measure is in the Gulf of Thailand, where the average trophic level of what is being caught is rising, which should indicate improving ecosystem health according to proponents of that measure. Instead, it turns out fish at all levels have declined tenfold since the 1950s because of overharvesting.
"The measure only declines if fisheries aimed for top predators first, but for the Gulf of Thailand the measure fails because fisheries first targeted mussels and shrimps near the bottom of the food web, before shifting to predators higher up in the food web," Branch said.
Including the Gulf of Thailand, Branch found that changes in the average trophic levels of what was being caught and what was found when fish populations were surveyed differed in 13 of the 29 trawl surveys from 14 ecosystems. Trawl surveys, generally done from research vessels, count the kinds and abundance of fish and are repeated over time to reveal trends.
Branch and his co-authors are the first to combine so many trawl surveys for analysis -- no one had combined more than a handful before. The trawl survey data came from efforts started three years ago by fisheries scientists and ecologists gathered at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif. They brought together worldwide catch data, stock assessments, scientific trawl surveys, small-scale fishery data and modeling results. What emerged is the most comprehensive set of data yet for fisheries researchers and managers.
It paints a different picture from previous catch data and has revealed another major new finding: On a global scale humans don't appear to be fishing down the food web, Branch said.
The new catch data reveal that, following declines during the 1970s in the average trophic levels of fish being caught, catches of fish at all trophic levels have generally gone up since the mid-80s. Included are high-trophic predators such as bigeye tuna, skipjack tuna and blue whiting.
"Globally we're catching more of just about everything," Branch said. "Therefore relying on changes in the average trophic level of fish being caught won't tell us when fishing is sustainable or if it is leading to collapse." That's because when harvests of everything increase about equally, the average trophic level of what is caught remains steady. The same is true if everything is overfished to collapse. Both scenarios were modeled as part of the Nature analysis.
"The 1998 paper was tremendously influential in gathering together global data on catches and trophic levels and it warned about fishing impacts on ecosystems," Branch says. "Our new data from trawl surveys and fisheries assessments now tell us that catches weren't enough. In the future we will need to focus our limited resources on tracking trends in species that are especially vulnerable to fishing and developing indicators that reflect fish abundance, biodiversity and marine ecosystem health. Only through such efforts can we reliably assess human impacts on marine ecosystems."
"In this paper we conducted the first large-scale test of whether changes in the average trophic levels of what is caught are a good indicator of ecosystem status," says Beth Fulton, a co-author and ecosystem modeler with the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, Australia. "Catch data might be easiest to get, but that doesn't help if what it tells us is wrong. Instead we really need to look directly at what the ecosystems are doing."
Other co-authors are Reg Watson and Grace Pablico, University of British Columbia; Simon Jennings, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science and University of East Anglia, England; Carey McGilliard, University of Washington; Daniel Ricard, Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia; and Sean Tracey, University of Tasmania, Australia.
The work was supported by the National Science Foundation, Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation and the UW School of Aquatic and Fishery Sciences. It used data from the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis working group, used the stock assessment database funded by the Canadian Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation and used data from the Sea Around Us project funded by Pew Charitable Trust.
Journal References:
1. Trevor A. Branch, Reg Watson, Elizabeth A. Fulton, Simon Jennings, Carey R. McGilliard, Grace T. Pablico, Daniel Ricard, Sean R. Tracey. The trophic fingerprint of marine fisheries. Nature, 2010; 468 (7322): 431 DOI: 10.1038/nature09528
2. D. Pauly. Fishing Down Marine Food Webs. Science, 1998; 279 (5352): 860 DOI: 10.1126/science.279.5352.860
Alister Doyle, Reuters 18 Nov 10;
(Reuters) - Bleak scientific findings that over-fishing will empty the oceans of big fish and leave just small creatures such as jellyfish or plankton seem based on flawed data, a study said on Wednesday.
An international team of scientists concluded that a far wider diversity of creatures was likely to survive -- from predators such as sharks and tuna to tiny molluscs and algae -- in a possible reprieve for the diversity of marine life.
Writing in the journal Nature, they said an influential study in 1998 gave rise to a widely used yardstick indicating that over-fishing would lead to "fishing down marine food webs", shifting to ever smaller species as big ones were depleted.
But checks of stock abundance and other data indicated that the measure gave inaccurate readings from the Gulf of Thailand to seas off Alaska, according to the scientists in the United States, Canada, Australia and Britain.
"If you are fishing down the food web, the terminal state of the oceans would be jellyfish and plankton," lead author Trevor Branch, assistant professor of aquatic and fishery sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle, told Reuters.
"What we see now is that everything is going to be reduced but we still have predators and prey and everything in between."
There were exceptions, such as a collapse of northern cod or South American sardine stocks linked to over-fishing, he said.
The study did not assess whether the seas were in a better or worse state overall than previously believed. A related study in the journal Science in 2009, however, found that some steps to curb over-fishing were showing success.
Branch said the findings were not necessarily good news for larger fish. "It means there are some out there but we are fishing them harder than ever before. It's good news and bad news," he said.
TUNA, OYSTERS
The report said the 1998 "mean trophic level" (MTL) gauge of catches used a flawed rating scale -- algae 1, herbivores 2, carnivores 3 or 4 or more. A catch of bigeye tuna might rate 4.5, for instance, while a net of American oysters rated 2.0.
A trend towards lower MTL numbers in catches worldwide led to the conclusion that over-fishing was stripping the oceans of predators. But a review of data and new evidence revealed no overall decline in the balance of marine species, he said.
In the Gulf of Thailand, for instance, the MTL number had risen, which should indicate an improvement in marine stocks. But it was up simply because local fishermen who used to catch mussels and shrimps had turned to larger fish.
"If you use the rising MTL, the Gulf of Thailand is in the best state it has ever been in," Branch said. But Gulf of Thailand stocks of almost all species are about 10 percent of levels in the 1950s in one of the worst ecosystem collapses.
"Half the time you get the right answer and half the time you get the wrong answer," he said of MTL, saying it was like flipping a coin. Better yardsticks were the use of surveys to measure the abundance of fish as well as catch data.
(editing by Paul Taylor)
IRIN Reuters AlertNet 17 Nov 10;
JOHANNESBURG, 17 November 2010 (IRIN) - If wheat and maize production do not rise substantially in 2011, global food security could be uncertain for the next two years, the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has warned.
Wheat and maize prices have shot past their 2009 highs, with FAO adding that international food import bills could surpass one trillion US dollars in 2010. Food imports last topped the trillion dollar mark during the 2007/08 food price crisis.
The organization anticipates that world cereals stocks will shrink by seven percent, with barley declining 35 percent, maize by 12 percent and wheat by 10 percent.
Cereal stocks are not as low as they were in 2007/08, "but we are being slightly alarmist in our outlook to get production figures up next year," said Abdolreza Abbassian, secretary of the Intergovernmental Group on Grains at FAO. "Stocks of yellow maize, which is used largely for animal feed, are getting to the low level they were in 2007/2008."
Six percent more maize will have to be produced in 2011 than in 2010, while wheat stocks need to rise by more 3.5 percent to ensure the world has enough reserves to tide it over 2011, said the FAO Food Outlook, released on 17 November [ http://www.fao.org/news/newsroom-journalists/embargoed-documents/en/?no_ cache=1&tx_fbfilebase_pi1%5Bfunction%5D=download&tx_fbfilebase_pi1%5Bfile%5D=NTI%253D ].
"We not only need to replenish our stocks in 2011 but we need to do better than that to ensure we have stocks to last us in 2012," said Abbassian. FAO calculations have not taken into account the possibility of unfavourable weather conditions next year.
"We are assuming we will have normal growing conditions, but if we have heavy rains or drought in some of the cereal-producing countries we could be in trouble, or if we have great growing conditions production could go up by more than expected levels," Abbassian said.
Global wheat and barley stocks declined in 2010 as severe drought and fires slashed production in Russia and Ukraine [ http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportID=88287 ] two of the world's largest producers. The news drove up wheat prices by 45 percent and even 80 percent in the second half of 2010, with an export ban imposed by Russia adding impetus. Canada, another major wheat producer, was also hit by bad weather.
World wheat inventories are forecast to fall to 181 million tonnes, 10 percent below the 2010 level but still 25 percent above the critically low level of 2008, the Outlook said.
Maize stocks are already low as production slipped in the United States, the world's largest producer, while demand continued to grow. "With soya beans fetching good prices at the moment, many farmers in the US tended to devote more of their land to soya beans, which affected maize yields," said Abbassian.
The pressure on wheat prices affected maize, forcing prices up 50 percent from 2009 levels. [ http://www.irinnews.org/PrintReport.aspx?ReportID=90472 ]
Fortunately, stocks of rice - the staple consumed by more than half the world's population - are adequate, but prices could come under pressure if other cereals become more expensive in 2011, according to FAO's Outlook.
Global cereal prices were not going to come down at any time soon, Abbassian commented, and "It is still very early to predict how much farmers will plant in 2011 - so still a lot of unknowns."
Food prices may rise by up to 20%, warns UN
Poor harvests put global food reserves under pressure, with African and Asian countries likely to be worst hit
John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 17 Nov 10;
The UN today warned that food prices could rise by 10%-20% next year after poor harvests and an expected rundown of global reserves. More than 70 African and Asian countries will be the worst hit, said the Food and Agricultural Organisation in its monthly report.
In its gloomiest forecast since the 2007/08 food crisis, which saw food riots in more than 25 countries and 100 million extra hungry people, the report's authors urged states to prepare for hardship.
"Countries must remain vigilant against supply shocks," the report warned. "Consumers may have little choice but to pay higher prices for their food. The size of next year's harvest becomes increasingly critical. For stocks to be replenished and prices to return to more normal levels, large production expansions are needed in 2011."
Prices of wheat, maize and many other foods traded internationally have risen by up to 40% in just a few months. Sugar, butter and cassava prices are at 30-year highs, and meat and fish are both significantly more expensive than last year.
Food price inflation – fuelled by price speculation, the searing heatwave in Russia in the summer and heavy trading on futures markets – is now running at up to 15% a year in some countries. According to the UN, international food import bills could pass the $1tn mark, with prices in most commodities up sharply from 2009.
Extreme volatility in the world markets has taken the UN by surprise and forced it to reassess its forecasts for next year. "Rarely have markets exhibited this level of uncertainty and sudden turns in such a brief period of time. World cereal production this year, which is currently put at 2,216m tonnes, is 2% below 2009 levels, 63m tonnes less than the forecast reported in June," said the authors.
"Contrary to earlier predictions, world cereal production is now forecast to contract by 2% rather than to expand by 1.2%, as anticipated in June," they said.
Global food reserves, which currently stand at around 74 days, are now expected to decrease significantly in the next few months. "Cereal reserves may drop by around 7%, barley nearly 35%, maize 12% and wheat 10%. Only rice reserves are expected to increase, by 6% next year," said the report.
Much now hangs on next year's harvests, it said. "International prices could rise even more if production next year does not increase significantly – especially in maize, soybean and wheat. Even the price of rice, the supply of which is more adequate than other cereals, may be affected if prices of other major food crops continue climbing."
But food analysts said the prospects for a bumper world harvest next year were slim. "2011 will not be a good harvest. The condition of winter wheat crops is not good. Neither the US nor Russia are expecting good harvests," said Lester Brown, founder of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute.
"The poorest will suffer the most because they feel the effect of price rises directly. In the US and Europe, wheat may only make up 10% of the price of a loaf of bread."
Dessy Sagita Jakarta Globe 17 Nov 10;
Jakarta. The large number of fatalities caused by the tsunami that devastated the Mentawai Islands off the coast of West Sumatra last month could have been avoided if the much-hyped early warning system had worked properly, an expert says.
“It’s a pity that so many people died unnecessarily when it’s actually easy to evacuate,” Costas Synolakis, director of the Tsunami Research Center at the University of Southern California, said on Tuesday.
Synolakis said that after the 7.7-magnitude earthquake struck off Mentawai, some people saw the warning about a tsunami on television.
“But that was in Sikakap, the biggest city in Mentawai,” he said. “There were many other villages that didn’t even have electricity, they received absolutely no warning to evacuate.”
He said the main flaw of the German-Indonesian Tsunami Warning System (GITWS) set up in the area was in the dissemination of information to the public.
“It isn’t enough to say that an earthquake has happened and how big it is — the main point is to make sure that the warning goes through to the last village,” he said.
He added that what Indonesia really needed was a warning system connected to a network of solar-powered sirens, given that many coastal areas across the country were not connected to the national electricity grid.
“So when an earthquake happens, the sirens will be blaring, waking people up, and they’ll evacuate,” he said.
He said the warning system should also be able to provide a good measurement of the water level to prevent false alarms.
The German authorities previously issued a statement saying their system worked properly on the day, sending warnings via satellite to 400 institutions in Indonesia, including the police, local emergency centers and the media.
The warning aired by the Indonesian government on television was not direct enough to force people to evacuate because it only warned of the “potential for a tsunami,” Synolakis said.
“Don’t say that there’s a potential for a tsunami, say that there will be a tsunami, evacuate now,” he said.
Because Indonesia was located in the Pacific Ring of Fire and would always face the threat of a tsunami, the people should be taught that any earthquake lasting more than 30 seconds should prompt an evacuation, he said.
They should understand that such a quake is strong enough to generate a tsunami, even if the shaking is not very strong, he said.
Synolakis also said it was crucial for Indonesians to stop spreading rumors of larger quakes and tsunamis immediately after a disaster. Because of these rampant rumors, he argued, many of the survivors in the Mentawais now live with a sense of complete helplessness.
“It’s unfortunate that Indonesia is a laboratory for major disasters, but the whole world can learn to save lives from this condition,” he said.
“The most important thing is to live in peace with nature.”
Synolakis, who recently concluded a visit to the Mentawais, said the earthquake that led to the tsunami was particularly noteworthy because even at a magnitude of 7.7, it did not cause much shaking on land, thereby failing to alert the islanders that there had been a major quake.
“Most people we talked to said they could feel the earthquake, but since it wasn’t big enough, they decided to go back to sleep instead of evacuating,” he said.
He added that 10 percent of all earthquakes across the Indonesian archipelago shared similar traits of not producing much shaking but were still capable of generating powerful tsunamis.
Synolakis said the purpose of his visit to Indonesia was to study the mechanics of this rare phenomenon of “tsunami earthquakes,” in cooperation with the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and the US Natural Science Foundation.
“If we can find the answers, we will able to save more lives,” he said.
Yahoo News 17 Nov 10;
PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen dismissed concerns Wednesday that Chinese dams were responsible for the Mekong River's low water levels, telling environmentalists not to be "too extreme".
Hun Sen blamed decades-low water levels in southeast Asia's longest river on "irregular rainfall" caused by global climate change.
The so-called "Mighty Mekong" dropped to its lowest level in 50 years in northern Thailand and Laos earlier this year, alarming communities who depend on the waterway for food, transport, drinking water and irrigation.
"That the Mekong River, or other rivers, have lower or higher levels of water depends on the rain," Hun Sen told reporters after a regional meeting with leaders from Thailand, Laos, Vietnam and Myanmar.
"So please don't be too extreme about the environment and don't say hydropower dams cause water levels to drop in the lower Mekong. If you think that, it is a mistake."
China has eight planned or existing dams on the Mekong River, and rejects activists' claims that these have contributed to low water-levels downstream.
"There is no clear data-sharing from China on how they manage their Mekong dams, so they can still insist that they are not causing the problem," said Premrudee Daoroung from Bangkok-based environmental group TERRA.
"However, looking at northern Thailand, we can see the hydrology change is very abnormal and it be will hard for people there to keep believing that it is not because of the dams," she told AFP.
The Mekong River Commission (MRC) -- an intergovernmental advisory body representing Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- is currently studying the possible construction of 11 hydropower projects on the lower Mekong river.
Last month, the MRC released an influential report urging the four countries to delay any decisions about building dams for 10 years due to the many risks involved.
Environmental groups have long objected to damming the river, arguing that it would damage fragile ecosystems.
More than 60 million people rely in some way on the river, which is the world's largest inland fishery, producing an annual estimated catch of 3.9 million tonnes, according to the MRC.
Laurie Goering PlanetArk 18 Nov 10;
Development agencies worldwide are joining forces to spend $200 million in a 10-year programme to help the agriculture sector prepare for climate change and cut greenhouse gas emissions, farm research groups said on Wednesday.
The funding will go to research on how to feed a growing, more affluent world population in the face of expectations of worsening floods and droughts.
"The food security challenge facing us as humans is large," said Gerald Nelson, a senior research fellow with the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington, speaking to reporters alongside other farming experts.
By 2050 as a result of climate change, global "potential to produce food" could decline by 5 to 10 percent, after an average increase through 2020, said Andy Jarvis, an agriculture policy expert at the International Center for Tropical Agriculture, based in Cali, Colombia.
Higher temperatures and more variable rainfall will produce agricultural winners and losers, especially favoring cooler, northern hemisphere countries that do not suffer food shortages.
"It shows globally there'll be greater inequity in production," said Bruce Campbell, head of the Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR), which will help direct the new research programme.
STAPLES
The programme will use an Australian climate model to look at how rising temperatures and rainfall changes affect 50 major crops worldwide including sorghum, millet, sweet potato, wheat, rice and maize.
Climate models point to accelerating declines in production of rain-fed wheat worldwide of 2.2 percent by 2020, 4 percent by 2050 and 18.6 percent by 2080, unless climate change is curbed or effective adaptive measures are put in place, scientists told reporters.
Early work shows that West Africa could see declines in soybean, wheat, potato and sorghum production, but some gains - at least initially - in crops such as sugarcane and sweet potato.
In India's Indo-Gangetic Plain, a major rice and wheat breadbasket that feeds 600 million people, higher temperatures in March would damage heads of wheat as these fill out, cutting harvests, Jarvis said.
Maintaining adequate food production in the face of climate pressures may require some societies to switch their staple crops, if varieties more tolerant of drought, floods and pests cannot be successfully developed, Jarvis said.
In one example of how to increase production and cut greenhouse gases at the same time, herders could curb emissions of methane from their livestock and as much as triple milk and meat production by grazing animals on specialized grass species rather than wild pasture.
Agriculture produces between 20 and 33 percent of the world's carbon emissions, depending on whether the conversion of forests to farmland is included, scientists say.
The project aimed to reduce poverty by 10 percent by 2050 in targeted "hot spot" regions in Africa and India, and reduce the number of malnourished poor in those areas by 25 percent, as well as curb greenhouse gas emissions by "millions of tonnes," Campbell said.
(Additional reporting by Gerard Wynn, editing by Jane Baird)
Alister Doyle Yahoo News 18 Nov 10;
The United Arab Emirates, Australia and the United States have the worst overall records for emitting greenhouse gases, according to an index published on Wednesday combining current and historic emissions.
The top of the 183-nation ranking, compiled by British consultancy Maplecroft, was dominated by rich countries and OPEC members. It said it aimed to alert investors to countries vulnerable if U.N.-led climate talks ever agreed wider penalties on carbon.
The ranking of carbon dioxide emissions from energy use placed the UAE top, largely because of a sharp rise in emissions in recent years linked to desalination plants in an economy almost entirely dependent on fossil fuels.
"Desalination is a positive way to address water security but high emissions underline the need to find more energy-efficient innovations," Maplecroft said in a statement.
Australia, dependent on coal, was second ahead of the United States, by far the biggest cumulative emitter since 1900 and now the number two national emitter behind China. Both Australians and Americans have high per capita emissions.
They were trailed by Canada, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Russia, Belgium and Kazakhstan in the top 10.
The index gave a 50 percent weighting to current per capita emissions of greenhouse gases, 25 percent to total national emissions and the remaining 25 percent to cumulative historic emissions.
Annual U.N. climate talks will take place in the Caribbean resort of Cancun, Mexico, from November 29 to December 10.
A treaty to limit emissions is out of reach for 2010 as part of efforts to slow rising temperatures which the U.N. panel of climate scientists says will lead to more droughts, heat waves, mudslides, floods and rising seas.
"As the world moves toward a low carbon economy, more rigorous environmental policies may leave companies exposed to costly operating expenses and new investment requirements," said Maplecroft's head of maps and indices, Fiona Place.
China was 26th in the index. Its per capita emissions from a population of 1.3 billion are a fraction of those of industrialized countries such as the United States or Australia.
African countries with low emissions were bottom of the list. Chad, where only about 2 percent of the population have access to electricity, was last in 183rd place.
(Editing by Andrew Dobbie)
Why is China crucial in the fight against climate change?
Gerard Wynn Reuters 17 Nov 10;
Nov 17 (Reuters) - China's rapid economic growth is steering the world out of financial crisis but also pumping greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere, undermining global efforts to avoid dangerous climate change. [ID:nLDE68L23Z]
WHAT ARE CHINA'S CARBON DIOXIDE (CO2) EMISSIONS?
China's CO2 emissions in 2009 from burning fossil fuels were 7.5 billion tonnes, or 24 percent of the global total, according to the energy company BP
WHERE DOES CHINA RANK IN GLOBAL CARBON EMITTERS
China is the world's biggest carbon emitter, and is rapidly extending its lead because its emissions are growing much faster than number two emitter, the United States.
China's emissions from fossil fuels overtook those of the United States in 2008, according to BP data.
HOW FAST ARE ITS EMISSIONS GROWING?
China's emissions grew about 9 percent last year, in line with its economic output.
That contrasts with number two the United States, whose emissions fell about 7 percent in the wake of the financial crisis.
DO CHINA'S CO2 EMISSIONS THREATEN THE WORLD'S CLIMATE?
The International Energy Agency, energy adviser to developed countries, last year proposed 2020 emissions limits for various countries compatible with the goal of limiting global warming to 2 degrees, a common benchmark for dangerous climate change.
It suggested a China goal of 8.4 billion tonnes. At its current rate of increase China will pass that level in 2011 with another decade of likely rises ahead.
Carbon emissions from India, which says it is now the world's no.3 emitter, are also expected to keep growing from 1.8 tonnes per capita now (versus more than 5 tonnes per-capita for China) to 3.6 tonnes by 2030, the Indian government says.
But India says greater investments in renewable and nuclear energy will curb the growth in emissions. [ID:nSGE6940EP]
WHAT DOES CHINA SAY ABOUT ITS GROWING CARBON EMISSIONS
China has resisted an absolute cap on its greenhouse gas emissions, like those developed countries are expected to implement. It says a cap would be unfair because it contributed less to the problem historically, its emissions per-capita are still relatively low and it needs leeway to grow its economy.
WHAT DOES THE REST OF THE WORLD SAY?
Britain's energy and climate change secretary, Chris Huhne, said in September:
"(China has) just announced an increase in carbon emissions which is the same scale as the entire carbon emissions of the United Kingdom. All the carbon emissions reductions throughout the world are effectively cancelled out by China's increase. I'm sure it will be resolved in the right direction, and for the sake of our collective interests I hope very quickly."
WHAT IS CHINA DOING TO CONTAIN ITS EMISSIONS
China's focus is on reducing "carbon intensity" -- the amount of the main greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO2), emitted for each dollar of economic activity. It plans to reduce this by 40-45 percent by 2020 compared to 2005.
It also wants to raise the proportion of non-fossil fuels in total primary energy use to 15 percent by 2020 from less than 9 percent in 2009. [ID:nTOE6A003C] [ID:nTOE69H066]
China's new five-year plan and a follow-up one for 2016-2020 will detail how to reach the intensity goal and shift to low-carbon growth. But it is struggling to meet an existing target to cut energy intensity by 20 percent from 2005-10.
WHAT DO EXPERTS SAY?
British economist Nicholas Stern said in November that in its next five-year plan China would have to repeat the ambition of its last energy intensity target and add a 10 percent reduction in emissions per unit of energy.
"This is a stronger level of ambition than currently envisaged but would be necessary to have a reasonable chance of limiting warming to no more than 2 degrees," he said.
The International Energy Agency said in November that China would lead the world in deploying renewable energy technologies by 2035. [ID:nLDE6A81BN] (Editing by Ed Lane)
* Adaptation Fund seen able to manage "green fund" aid
* Signed first deal last week: $8.6 mln to Senegal-Khan
Alister Doyle, Reuters 17 Nov 10;
OSLO, Nov 17 (Reuters) - A tiny U.N. fund that is starting to help developing nations adapt to climate change could expand to manage part of a planned $100 billion aid mechanism to be debated at U.N. talks in Mexico, the chair of the fund said.
Developing nations reckon the existing Adaptation Fund, which signed its first deal last week to give $8.6 million to Senegal to fight coastal erosion, could overcome objections from donors to win a wider role, Farrukh Iqbal Khan told Reuters.
Almost 200 nations will meet in the Mexican resort of Cancun from Nov. 29 to Dec. 10 to discuss measures including a new "green fund" to help the poor shift from fossil fuels and adapt to floods, droughts, heatwaves and rising sea levels.
"The Adaptation Fund has grown after a great deal of effort over many years ... it is up and running and is an independent, international entity," Khan, a senior Pakistani official, said in a telephone interview.
"Developing countries are very clear -- it could be the main adaptation window in the larger financial mechanism attached to the global green fund," he said.
The Adaptation Fund is expected to total $450 million by 2012, a fraction of aid meant to rise to $100 billion a year from 2020 under a plan agreed at the Copenhagen climate summit last year to help developing nations cope with global warming.
The planned new green fund would manage the $100 billion to cover adaptation, aid to developing nations to cut greenhouse gas emissions and mechanisms to share clean-energy technologies.
RICH, POOR
Some donors are reluctant to let the Adaptation Fund take a wider role. About two-thirds of its board are from developing countries, meaning recipients have most say.
Donors "do have a point there, that there should be equal representation," Khan said. But he said the fund had proved that it could take decisions by consensus.
Another hurdle is that the Adaptation Fund is part of the U.N.'s existing Kyoto Protocol for cutting greenhouse gas emissions until 2012. Kyoto does not include the United States, which never ratified the 1997 U.N. deal.
Its funds come from a 2 percent levy on green projects in developing nations under Kyoto. Separately this year, Spain contributed 45 million euros ($60.79 million) and Germany 10 million euros.
Apart from Senegal, the fund has approved but not yet signed a $5.7 million deal with Honduras to protect water supplies for 13,000 households in Tegucigalpa from more powerful storms. Khan said most projects so far focused on water and agriculture.
Other projects include protecting northern Pakistan from floods caused by a melt of Himalayan glacial lakes or a scheme to safeguard fresh water in the Maldives from storms bringing more salt water onto the Indian Ocean islands.
He said there were tough choices in deciding funds in a little-studied field of the "economics of adaptation". That included judgments about, for instance, which projects might save most lives or do most to boost economic growth. (Editing by Janet Lawrence)
* Long-established mitigation efforts get most funding
* More cash needed to help nations adapt to impacts-IIED
* Poor countries like Bangladesh may not get needed funds
Laurie Goering Reuters AlertNet 18 Nov 10;
Too much of the $30 billion pledged as "fast-start" climate aid will go to projects that curb emissions instead of efforts to help vulnerable nations adapt to extreme weather and rising seas, a study said on Wednesday.
Under the non-binding Copenhagen Accord agreed at a U.N. summit in December 2009, donors agreed that money to give a quick push to efforts to slow climate change from 2010-12 would have a "balanced allocation between adaptation and mitigation".
But only 11 to 16 percent of the money promised so far will go to adaptation actions such as building sea walls and promoting new farming practices, according to the report by the London-based International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED).
Just $3 billion of the $30 billion pledged for 2010 to 2012 has been clearly allocated to adaptation projects in the world's poorest countries, and some of the commitments are in the form of loans rather than grants, the report said.
It said this estimate was "very rough and perhaps low", partly because of a lack of information from donors.
"The big promises for adaptation funding made at Copenhagen are not being met," said David Ciplet, a researcher at Brown University in the United States and one of the report's authors.
"Adaptation is absolutely crucial for the billions of people who face the rising intensity of climate disasters," he said.
Mitigation projects have won funds largely because efforts to reduce emissions are generally bigger, older and better established, said J. Timmons Roberts, director of the Center for Environmental Studies at Brown University and another of the report's authors.
SMALL, LOCAL
By contrast, many adaptation efforts are small, local and new. Changing that mix to ensure that adaptation programmes receive a larger share of funding is crucial, the report said.
It is also hard to find out whether funds pledged to climate change are new or recycled from other aid commitments, said the report's authors, who called for an independent registry of climate change-related projects under the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change.
The Copenhagen Accord promised that the fast-start funds totalling $30 billion from 2010-12 would be "new and additional" but gave no clear definition.
"Industrialised nations seem to think they can get away with an 'anything goes' approach, where whatever they describe as 'adaptation funding' counts," said Roberts.
The report's findings suggest that vulnerable countries like Bangladesh -- where millions of people could be displaced by rising sea levels, worsening storm surges and other climate-related problems -- may not get the aid they need.
"Government support is very limited. The government tries its best but there are so many people and people really suffer," said Muhammed Chowdhury, a Bangladesh climate negotiator.
As the low-lying South Asian country celebrates the Muslim festival of Eid this week, tens of thousands of people displaced by Cyclone Aila in 2009 and Cyclone Sidr in 2007 are still living in roadside shacks, waiting for protective embankments to be rebuilt so they can return home, he said. (Editing by Alister Doyle and Tim Pearce)
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