Best of our wild blogs: 24 Nov 10

Nesting Grey Herons: 1: A New Heronry
from Bird Ecology Study Group

The Dairy Farm Discoveries
from Macro Photography in Singapore

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Singapore: ExxonMobil to raise 'green' diesel output

Company may invest US$500m in new hydrotreater plant
Ronnie Lim Business Times 24 Nov 10;

(SINGAPORE) ExxonMobil - with its US$11 billion Singapore refinery and petrochemicals facility already being its largest manufacturing site worldwide - is adding yet another major diesel hydrotreater plant to ramp up production of 'green' diesel for the growing regional market.

While the company did not specify the investment amount, industry sources reckon it will be around US$500 million.

The greenlight for the new ultra-low sulphur diesel (ULSD) plant comes as the oil giant is well over halfway through building its US$5 billion second petrochemical complex on Jurong Island which is scheduled to start up in the second half of next year.

'ExxonMobil has completed feasibility studies and early design work on the new unit. Once the unit is completed, the refinery's total low sulphur diesel capacity will rise to more than 25 million litres per day,' the company said, adding to its current ULSD production of about 16 million litres per day.

The company is currently in the process of awarding the main contracts for the project, including for its engineering, procurement and construction, and the new ULSD plant is expected to be up and running in 2014.

It will be capable of producing 'more than' Euro IV specification diesel (which has a maximum sulphur content of 50 parts per million), an EM spokesperson told BT, meaning it can also produce Euro V specification diesel of a maximum 10 ppm sulphur content.

This is significant given that Singapore's National Environment Agency has recently been sounding out the oil companies here on the possibility of their introducing Euro V specification diesel by end-2014. (It had earlier legislated use of Euro IV specification diesel here since October 2006.)

ExxonMobil's announcement yesterday confirms earlier BT reports that the US oil giant was planning further expansions on additional land being reclaimed by JTC Corporation at Ayer Chawan Basin, which is next to the EM and Singapore Refining Company facilities.

'The decision to move forward with the engineering and construction of the diesel hydrotreater at our Singapore refinery reflects both the increasing demand for diesel fuel in the region and ExxonMobil's confidence in Singapore's business climate,' said Chris Erickson, EM Refining & Supply's vice-president for planning and project execution.

Kwa Chong Seng, chairman and managing director of ExxonMobil Asia Pacific, said: 'The diesel hydrotreater is just the latest in a series of major investments EM has made in Singapore to meet the increasing demand in the Asia Pacific region.'

When used in modern engines, ULSD - which is commonly used to run everything from tractor trailers, buses and marine vessels to off-road equipment like threshers and locomotives - leads to improved air quality.

The go-ahead for Singapore follows the recent completion of similar diesel hydrotreater projects at ExxonMobil's refineries in Baytown and Baton Rouge in the US, and in Antwerp in Belgium.

Those investment totalled over US$1 billion and increased its ULSD supply capacity by over 22 million litres per day, the company said.

The Singapore investment 'further demonstrates EM's commitment to disciplined refinery investment', it added.

ExxonMobil operates Singapore's largest refinery with 605,000 barrels per day of refining capacity, and it is currently building a second petrochemical complex here including a one million tonnes per annum cracker, adding to its earlier 900,000 tpa cracker at its first petrochemical complex.

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Indonesia has potential to build over 30 nuclear reactors

Antara 22 Nov 10;

Pangkalpinang, Bangka Belitung (ANTARA News) - Indonesia has the capability to build more than 30 nuclear reactors given its geological conditions and adequate material supplies, an expert said.

"Every province in Indonesia has potential to develop a nuclear reactor because there are ample material stocks and appropriate geological support," Dr Wawan Purwanto, an expert staff of the National Nuclear Energy Agency (BATAN), said here Monday
.
Currently, Indonesia has tree nuclear reactors, respectively in Serpong (Tangerang, Banten), Yogyakarta (central Java), and Bandung (West Java) with a total capacity of around 90 MW.

"One reactor has a power capacity of 30 MW for agriculture and health, while regular nuclear needs 10,000 MW for one reactor," he said.

According to him, Korea, which is only a third of Java Island, has 20 nuclear reactors, and China has 30 reactors.

"Indonesia has only three small-scale reactors, while each province has potential to develop a nuclear reactor," he said.

Nuclear power energy is cheap, has less pollution and efficient because it just needs an area measuring 25 hectares, according to Dr Wawan Purwanto.

"Babel (Bangka Belitung) has been named a nuclear energy spot in Bangka Barat District. This province will be progressing faster if it has a nuclear energy plant," he said.

Those who rejected nuclear energy plants were people who did not know about the nuclear energy, he said.

"Advanced countries have developed energy nuclear because it is crucial and less expensive compared to other types of energy," he said.

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Surprise! Hidden Yellow-Tailed Monkey Colony Discovered

livescience.com Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

A hidden colony of endangered yellow-tailed woolly monkeys was recently discovered in Peru.

The colony was found by a team of international researchers from Neotropical Primate Conservation, a U.K. charity. The yellow-tailed woolly monkey (Oreonax flavicauda) is native to a small part of the Andean cloud forest in northeastern Peru, and is so rare that it was thought extinct until a few sightings in the mid-1970s.

A monkey with a bright yellow tail would seem easy to find, but studying this species has been nearly impossible. Not only does the yellow-tailed woolly monkey live in the remote valleys and steep mountains of Peru, but their home is also cocaine country and a former stronghold of Communist guerrillas.

The findings represent the first record of this species in the Peruvian area of La Libertad since 1974, and the first time that it has been reported in the area of Huanuco. These areas are often overlooked by conservationists as most of the known range of the monkey is found in the neighboring areas of Amazonas and San Martin.

"This is a find of significant importance for the conservation of this emblematic primate," said Sam Shanee, study team leader. "With such a small wild population, these new areas give new hope for the species' survival. There are already initiatives under way for the protection of the yellow-tailed woolly monkeys, which we hope will now include protection of these new populations."

Neotropical Primate Conservation is working closely with locals to encourage and support conservation, said Noga Shanee, the other half of the husband-and-wife team that founded the organization in 2007.

"Local communities are enthusiastic about cooperating and even initiating conservation work," Shanee said. "They make us very optimistic for the future of this very special monkey."

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Sharing space with the tigers in Malaysia

Aidi Amin New Straits Times 24 Nov 10;

JELI: Life is all about coexisting with the wild for locals who have encountered and survived preying tigers.

Mek Jah Semail, 69, wrestled a tiger five years ago and survived to tell the tale as if it only happened yesterday.

"On that day, I felt stronger than ever and I thank God for letting me live. I was thrown on the ground but managed to release myself and held on to the nearest piece of wood," said Mek Jah, who sustained injuries to her head from the attack.

She had to walk several kilometres to seek treatment before fainting from loss of blood after the attack.

"The tiger may have caused me pain and trauma, but I do not hold any grudges. Instead, I thank it for reminding me how much I value life," said the widow.

Yusoff Mustafha, 64, who owns a coffee shop in Kampung Chegar Bedil, has lived here for 40 years. His encounter with a big cat was 20 years ago.

"I can still remember the tiger's face as if it wanted me to know that I was at its mercy.

"It was surreal, but I had to keep cool and not make any sudden moves that would excite these territorial animals."

He added that nowadays, the surrounding area was more developed and tiger sightings were a thing of the past.

The State Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan), however, takes reports of tiger sightings seriously and will monitor the area for a month before declaring it safe.

"There are tigers living nearby but there are no reported sightings that would raise immediate concern for residents here," said one of its officers, Cos Mas Ngau.

He said his men would enter the jungle twice a month under its Tiger Action Plan held in collaboration with the World Wide Fund for Nature to conduct patrols for tigers and poachers.

"Lately, our job revolves around protecting the tigers, which are endangered species. We act on the information from villagers who are our informants against poachers mostly from neighbouring countries."

He said, however, reports from the villagers could be mere rumours, adding that it was important for everyone to check with the department before spreading stories that would set villagers in a frenzy.

"The people will develop a phobia for tigers when in fact, these territorial animals roam within its terrain. If we continue to destroy its habitat, it would be unfair to refer to tigers as trespassers."

A century ago, some 100,000 tigers roamed the jungles of Asia. The number is now estimated at about 3,200, living in only seven per cent of their natural habitat.

On Sunday, during a tiger summit involving 13 world leaders in St Petersburg, Russia, US$350 million (RM1.09 billion) was proposed for a five-year Global Recovery Tiger Programme, to save the species from extinction.

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Focus on India as world meets to save tiger

Olga Nedbayeva Yahoo News 24 Nov 10;

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) – As Russia hosts an unprecedented summit on saving the wild tiger, much of the attention is focusing on India, home to nearly half of the big cats but also a leading centre for poaching.

Experts here said that despite positive steps, India is struggling to deal with poaching, with poor villagers willing to kill and sell tigers for just 100 dollars and the rangers charged with protecting the animals under-paid and poorly equipped.

"Poaching is the major threat, number two is habitat destruction," said Satya Prakash Yadav, an official with India's environment ministry taking part in the summit of 13 nations in the Russian city of Saint Petersburg.

India is home to 1,411 tigers of the estimated 3,200 still living in the wild but also to 54 percent of poaching and trafficking cases. According to a recent report by the Traffic International non-governmental organisation, more than 1,000 tigers have been killed in the last decade in Asia.

"People living around the tiger reserves are always poor and if you come offering them a big price for the tigers they will take it," said Sejal Worah, the director of the World Wildlife Fund's Indian branch.

"The poacher gets only 100 dollars but the price of all the parts could be a 100 or 200 times more than that."

Much of the poaching is fuelled by demand for tiger parts in Thailand, where there are far fewer of the wild cats, she said.

Good laws are in place to protect tigers in India, but enforcement has been lax, said Vivek Menon, the director for Southeast Asia for the International Fund for Animal Protection (IFAW), which has trained more than 7,000 rangers in India, a third of the country's anti-poaching force.

"We have seven years in prison, not fines, if you kill a tiger.... What more do you want? India has very good laws. But the problem is the implementation in such a big country," he said.

"For many years, nobody went to jail. Before, the judiciary never convicted. That has changed in the last five-six years and this is a good step."

India's federal government launched a tiger protection programme in 2007 with several million dollars allocated to urgent measures to cut down on poaching.

Among other efforts, the government recently began hiring retired soldiers to work on tiger reserves.

But Worah said the rangers are working in difficult conditions, hampering their efforts.

"It's difficult and thankless work," she said. "Often they are not paid for months and they are badly equipped. Sometimes they don't even have boots or raincoats."

Another effort has seen Indian authorities displace villages located in reserves to install tigers in the area. India is expected to commit during the summit to creating protected zones for tigers free of infrastructure, roads and people -- a move that is likely to engender controversy.

"In a country like India it is difficult to reserve a zone and to say this is only for tigers and not for anything or anyone else. We don't have the kind of space that Russia has," Worah said.

"Social problems are competing with the tigers. It is a fight every day. But it is not a fight we are losing. We make two steps forward for every step back," Menon said.

Animal-rights groups say the tiger population in India has fallen from 5,000 to fewer than 2,000 in the last five years, despite the allocation of 32,000 square kilometres (12,800 square miles) of sanctuary space.

Still, experts said India has scored some successes in its efforts to save the tiger and they hope the country is on the right track.

"Many of the success stories we talked about even here at the summit are from India," Worah said.

"India is not a bad example, it's just a realistic example," Menon said.

Tigers 'close to catastrophe': Russian PM
Olga Nedbayeva Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

SAINT PETERSBURG (AFP) – The world's last wild tigers are "close to catastrophe", Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin warned at an unprecedented summit aiming to save the animal from extinction.

The global tiger summit in Saint Petersburg, the first ever meeting of world leaders devoted to saving the fabled beast, agreed a plan aiming to double the numbers of wild tigers between now and 2022.

The Russian strongman said that the world's population of wild tigers had declined by a factor of 30 over the last century to 3,200 individuals while their habitat area was only seven percent of what it was before.

"The situation of the tiger is close to catastrophe," Putin told an audience of top officials and heads of government including Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina.

"It is a tragic and deplorable result," said the Russian premier, who has personally championed protecting Russia's remaining population of wild tigers in its Far East.

Putin underlined the importance of the meeting, billed as the final political chance to work out a plan to save the tiger.

"We are not thinking about upcoming elections but about future generations, to whom we should leave what we have admired," he said.

"No-one can reproach us for talking rubbish, when the heads of government have met to speak about a big cat," he added. "We have put the tiger on the agenda of the international community."

Putin has made no secret of his love for tigers, famously fixing a radio collar to a wild tiger in the Far East of Russia in 2008.

"Nature has sent us calls of alarm in the hope of being heard," he added. Putin also proposed offering families of tigers to Iran and Kazakhstan, where the tiger became extinct in the last half century.

The summit received a high-profile boost earlier when it emerged that Hollywood star Leonardo DiCaprio pledged one million dollars to save the tiger, and was scheduled to attend the meeting.

"Leonardo DiCaprio today committed one million dollars to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) for urgent tiger conservation efforts," the WWF said in a statement.

The WWF also confirmed reports that "DiCaprio will also attend this week's summit." It was not immediately clear whether he had already arrived in Saint Petersburg.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick said the institution hoped to provide about 100 million dollars to save the wild tiger by supporting wildlife habitat protection and stopping the illegal trade in tiger body parts.

"We have little margin for error. This summit is highlighting the last chance for this incredible animal," he said.

Sheikh Hasina said that after the summit the world now stood united in efforts to save "these magical creatures".

Poaching, often in pursuit of tiger parts destined for the lucrative Chinese medicinal market, and habitat destruction have caused the drastic weakening of the world's tiger population over the last years.

Russia is the only country to have seen its tiger population increase in the last years from 80-100 in the 1960s to around 500, a success seen by some as helped by Putin's support of the animal.

Some experts however cast doubt at the summit over the value of the radio-tagging project that Putin has spearheaded, raising concerns that it could end up harming the animal.

"They see people close up, have no fear of them, and then become easy targets for well-equipped poachers," said Yuri Zhuravlev, a zoologist who specialises in the Russian Far East.

Along with Russia, 12 other countries host fragile tiger populations -- Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Thailand and Vietnam.

Russia, China pledge to save the tiger
* Putin, Asian nations approve efforts to save tiger
* Goal to double wild tiger population by 2022
* Just 3,200 tigers remain in wild-experts
Alissa de Carbonnel Reuters AlertNet 23 Nov 10;

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao on Tuesday agreed with other Asian nations to try to double the world's wild tiger population by 2022 and save it from extinction.

Just 3,200 tigers now live in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago, and those that remain face a losing battle with poachers who supply traders in India and China with tiger parts for traditional medicines and purported aphrodisiacs.

Putin, whose country is one of 13 that are home to the world's last wild tigers, hosted a "tiger summit" with Wen and representatives from other Asian countries, the highest level meeting ever held to try to save a single species.

"It is very important to save this wonderful, imperial creature -- the tiger -- for future generations," Putin said, adding that its situation worldwide was approaching a catastrophe.

His spokesman Dmitry Peskov said a programme to double the number of free-roaming tigers by 2022 was approved on Tuesday.

Initially, $350 million will be spent over the next five years, according to coordinators the World Bank and conservation organisation WWF.

But implementation will be key and without tough measures to halt poaching and deforestation by the 13 nations, which also include India, Thailand and Indonesia, tigers could cease to exist in the wild by that time.

"Here is a species that is literally on the brink of extinction," said WWF's director general Jim Leape. "If we cannot succeed now, if current trends continue, by 2022 we will have only scattered remnants of the populations left."

A series of measures were approved to double the wild tiger population by 2022, which include preserving tiger habitats by prohibiting building work in breeding places, a collaborative crackdown to eradicate poaching by using global police agency Interpol and the United Nations, and to continue seeking funds.

Putin, who was given a tiger cub for his 56th birthday, has tried to court Russia's growing environmental movement by throwing his weight behind efforts to save the tiger, that roams across the vast forests of Russia's Far East.

An ex-KGB spy who sports a macho image, Putin referred to Indian freedom fighter Mahatma Gandhi's quote: "The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated."

TIGER TRADE

But conservation groups say governments and activists have failed to stop the poachers.

"The tiger population around the world has been dwindling away and the tiger conservation community has been putting in a lot of effort, but we're not succeeding," said John Robinson, chief conservation officer of the U.S.-based Wildlife Conservation Society.

"If nothing changes radically we are going to see a lot of tiger populations blinking out," he told Reuters.

Wild tiger numbers have tumbled 97 percent in the past decade and up to four of the nine tiger subspecies have vanished.

A marker of the summit's success will be the launch of a consortium to fight wildlife smuggling, said John Sellar, chief enforcement officer for the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"The key thing is enforcement," he told Reuters. "The situation is now so serious that if we don't get enforcement very soon then the money that we're spending in other areas, one could almost say, is flushing down the toilet."

India is at the centre of the trade with the most seizures of tiger parts, followed by China, where nearly every inch of the tiger fetches a high price, with pelts sold for as much as $35,000, according to black market database Havoscope.

Russia's Putin seeks deal to save the tiger
* Putin to host tiger summit with Asian leaders
* Goal to double wild tiger population by 2022
* Just 3,200 tigers remain in wild-experts
Alissa de Carbonnel Reuters AlertNet 23 Nov 10;

ST PETERSBURG, Russia, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin will try to thrash out a deal with Asian leaders on Tuesday to double the world's wild tiger population by 2022 and save it from extinction.

Just 3,200 tigers now roam free, down from 100,000 a century ago, and those that remain face a losing battle with poachers who supply traders in India and China with tiger parts for traditional medicines and purported aphrodisiacs.

Putin is trying to turn the tables on the poachers by hosting a "tiger summit" with Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and representatives from other Asian countries, the highest level meeting ever held to try to save the species.

"Here is a species that is literally on the brink of extinction," the director general of conservation organisation WWF, Jim Leape, told the conference. "If we cannot succeed now, if current trends continue, by 2022 we will have only scattered remnants of the populations left."

The leaders are expected to agree a $350-million programme coordinated by the World Bank and WWF to double the tiger population by 2022.

But implementation will be key and without tough measures to halt poaching and deforestation by the 13 nations that are home to the planet's last free-roaming tigers, they could cease to exist in the wild by 2022.

Putin, who was given a tiger cub for his 56th birthday, has tried to court Russia's growing environmental movement by throwing his weight behind efforts to save the tiger, that roams across the vast forests of Russia's Far East.

TIGER TRADE

But conservation groups say governments and activists have failed to stop the poachers.

"The tiger population around the world has been dwindling away and the tiger conservation community has been putting in a lot of effort, but we're not succeeding," said John Robinson, chief conservation officer of the Wildlife Conservation Society.

"If nothing changes radically we are going to see a lot of tiger populations blinking out," he told Reuters.

Tiger numbers have tumbled 97 percent in the past decade and up to four of the nine tiger subspecies have vanished.

A marker of the summit's success will be the launch of a consortium to fight wildlife smuggling, said John Sellar, chief enforcement officer for the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

"The key thing is enforcement," he told Reuters. "The situation is now so serious that if we don't get enforcement very soon then the money that we're spending in other areas, one could almost say, is flushing down the toilet."

India is at the centre of the trade with the most seizures of tiger parts, followed by China, where nearly every inch of the tiger fetches a high price, with pelts sold for as much as $35,000, according to black market database Havoscope.

"If someone breaks into your house at night and steals your DVD player, the insurance company is going to pay for you to go and get another. When the final tiger or leopard is gone -- that's it," said Sellar.

"If we can't do it for the tiger, then I think we have to ask, are we going to be able to do it for anything else?"

Factbox: World Leaders Meet To Try To Save The Tiger
Alissa de Carbonnel PlanetArk 24 Nov 10;

With just 3,200 left in the wild, tigers could become extinct within a decade unless countries step up efforts to halt poaching and deforestation, wildlife experts told a "tiger summit" in Russia this week.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao join world leaders on Tuesday to endorse a pledge to double the number of tigers in the wild by 2022.

Here are some facts about the tiger:

* The four-day "tiger summit" is the highest ever political meeting to discuss the fate of a single species.

* Tigers were once common in at least 25 countries. Today they survive in dwindling numbers, stretched thin across just 13 nations: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

* Tigers now occupy barely 7 percent of their historic range, according to conservation organization WWF.

* Three of nine tiger subspecies are extinct: the Bali tiger in the 1940s, the Caspian tiger in the 1970s and the Java tiger in the 1980s. The south China tiger, which has not been seen in the wild for over 40 years, is feared extinct.

* The five other tiger subspecies are endangered. They are the Siberian Amur Tiger (450-500 in number), Bengal Tiger (1,700-2,000), Indochinese Tiger (350-700), the Sumatran Tiger (400) and the Malayan Tiger (200-500).

* 97 percent of the tiger population has vanished in the last 100 years -- as few as 3,200 wild tigers remain, down from 100,000 a century ago.

* Just 1,000 breeding females remain in the wild.

* Despite global bans, poaching is the biggest threat to the tigers' survival. More than 1,000 tigers have been killed over the last decade for illegal trade, an average of 104 to 119 tigers a year, wildlife trade monitor Traffic says, although it views this as only a fraction of the trade.

* India is the center of the illegal trade, followed by China, where demand is rampant for tiger parts used in traditional medicines and as so-called aphrodisiacs.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

DiCaprio donates $1 million to save tigers
Reuters 23 Nov 10;

LOS ANGELES, Nov 23 (Reuters) - Leonardo DiCaprio on Tuesday donated $1 million toward efforts to save tigers from extinction as he arrived in Moscow to take part in an international "tiger summit."

The star of movies "Titanic" and "Inception" made the $1 million commitment to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), with whom he has been working this year on the Save Tigers Now campaign.

DiCaprio, 36, is a committed environmentalist and a WWF board member who recently visited Nepal and Bhutan and toured a tiger habitat by elephant with an anti-poaching staff.

According to wildlife experts just 3,200 tigers now live in the wild, down from 100,000 a century ago. Russia is hosting a 13-nation meeting in St Petersburg this week to try and double the world's wild tiger population by 2022.

DiCaprio is among those attending the first-ever tiger summit. The actor's first attempt to get to St Petersburg suffered a set-back on Sunday when his commercial flight to Moscow was forced to return to New York after one of the plane's engines shut down.

DiCaprio "wishes to commend the actions of the pilot and flight crew in bringing the plane to a safe landing," the actor's representative said in a statement.

DiCaprio's $1 million donation will help support anti-poaching efforts and protect critical tiger forests where the needs are most urgent.

"Illegal poaching of tigers for their parts and massive habitat loss due to palm oil, timber and paper production are driving this species to extinction," he said. "If we don't take action now, one of the most iconic animals on our planet could be gone in just a few decades. By saving tigers, we can also protect some of our last remaining ancient forests and improve the lives of indigenous communities."

The 13 countries where tigers still exist are Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam.

(Reporting by Jill Serjeant; Editing by Bob Tourtellotte)

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Powerful alliance to fight wildlife crime comes into effect at Tiger Forum

UNEP 23 Nov 10;

Saint Petersburg/Geneva/Lyon/Vienna/Washington D.C./Brussels, 23 November 2010 - While the majority of the discussions at the International Tiger Forum in Saint Petersburg this week are understandably on the tiger's habitats and ecosystems, the heads of five major international agencies have met to seal a powerful alliance to fight wildlife crime effectively and discuss collective actions to stop the key drivers that are bringing the largest of the wild cats to the brink of extinction: poaching, smuggling and illegal trade.

The Secretary-General of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), the Secretary-General of ICPO-INTERPOL, the Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), the President of the World Bank and the Secretary-General of the World Customs Organization (WCO) have signed a Letter of Understanding that brings into effect today the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC).

Commenting on the creation of the consortium in the UN International Year of Biodiversity, CITES Secretary-General John Scanlon said: "ICCWC sends a very clear message that a new era of wildlife law enforcement is upon us, one where wildlife criminals will face a determined and coordinated opposition, rather than the current situation where the risks of detection and of facing penalties that match their crimes are often low."

"Poaching and illegal trade have brought wild tigers close to the point of no return. Only if we work together, can we ensure that tigers will survive. Our children should inherit the privilege of looking at tigers in the wild and not only behind bars in a zoo. Instead, it is those criminals who poach and smuggle tigers that should be the ones behind bars," he added.

"The threat of wildlife and environmental crime is one which is taken very seriously by INTERPOL as demonstrated by the recent unanimous vote by our General Assembly in support of greater global policing efforts in these areas," said INTERPOL Secretary General Ronald K. Noble. "Environmental crime is global theft and as the world's largest police organization INTERPOL is committed, with the support of each of our 188 member countries, to build on the work already being done in protecting our planet for future generations."

"The United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, has asked me to convey his strong support of this timely Forum. He welcomes this initiative and expects it to achieve tangible results, " said Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime Yury Fedotov. "Wildlife crime frequently involves money laundering, fraud, counterfeiting and violence, and in some cases it may have links to terrorist activities or insurgencies. Ending wildlife crime against tigers and other endangered species, particularly transnational trafficking, requires a coordinated global response. At the national level, we need to strengthen law enforcement capacity to deal with this and environmental crime more broadly. Internationally, we must encourage and develop a culture of cooperation and criminal intelligence sharing to stop transnational trafficking in endangered species."

"Our wildlife is precious and an essential part of the earth's rich biodiversity, making it incumbent upon all of us to stand together and take concerted action to protect endangered species from prevailing threats," said Secretary General of the WCO, Kunio Mikuriya. "Already committed to protecting the environment, the global Customs community is pleased to be a party to this international consortium and I am sure that WCO Member Customs administrations will play a key role in strengthening border controls to combat wildlife crime through enhanced cooperation and the active sharing of vital information, Mikuriya added.

"We know what is causing the decline in numbers of wild tigers: illegal poaching, trafficking, and loss of habitat," said World Bank President Robert B. Zoellick. "But the good news is that tiger populations can recover. We have to protect their habitats and ranges; target illegal trade; and find ways that people can benefit more from live tigers than dead ones."

In the run-up to Saint Petersburg summit, an ICCWC concept group provided enforcement-related guidance to the Global Tiger Initiative and drafted the section on combating wildlife crime in the Global Tiger Recovery Program. Now that the ICCWC Letter of Understanding is signed, the five agencies are ready to help deliver action on the ground to bring criminals to justice.

Although specialized staff from the five agencies have worked together in the past to support national agencies in their efforts to tackle the increasingly organized and sophisticated nature of wildlife crime, this will be the first time that they work collaboratively in this field. ICCWC will bring together the expertise of each agency in a formidable manner.

The Letter of Understanding was signed in Lyon by the Secretary-General of CITES, John Scanlon, and Ronald K. Noble, Secretary-General of INTERPOL, and in Brussels by Kunio Mikuriya, Secretary General of the World Customs Organization. Two more signatures were placed on the Letter today: those of Yury Fedotov, Executive Director of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, and Robert Zoellick, President of the World Bank.

The last two signatures having been added to the document today, the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) comes into effect.

Protected from international commercial trade through a listing in CITES Appendix I since 1975, tigers still suffer significantly from illegal trade. They are poached for their skins and body parts, which are used for decorative and traditional medicine purposes.

It is almost four decades since the world realized that tiger numbers were falling alarmingly. Since the 1970s, governments and the conservation community have spent tens of millions of dollars trying to save this magnificent animal. Those efforts have unfortunately not yet lead to a reverse in the decline in tiger populations, which is why the leaders of tiger range States are meeting in St Petersburg this week.

New alliance to fight wildlife crime
Experts hope that five-agency group can combat growing illicit trade
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 25 Nov 10;

BANGKOK: An agreement just signed between five agencies to set up the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime (ICCWC) is seen as a major step forward in the fight against criminal networks trading in biodiversity and natural resources.

Timed to coincide with the Tiger Forum in Russia, the agreement signed in France brought together the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites), Interpol, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, the World Customs Organisation and the World Bank, which has been driving the global tiger recovery plan.

'It sends a message that this is an international problem and will be treated as a priority by these agencies,' said wildlife crime officer Justin Gosling with Interpol's environmental crime programme.

'We all have separate mandates, but they complement one another,' added the former British police detective who is now based in Thailand - one of Asia's major illegal wildlife trade hubs.

'This should lead to better on-ground enforcement and the tackling of the criminal networks,' he said.

A joint statement from the ICCWC on Tuesday, referring specifically to tigers, said the consortium is a 'powerful alliance to fight wildlife crime effectively and discuss collective actions to stop the key drivers that are bringing the largest of the wild cats to the brink of extinction: poaching, smuggling and illegal trade'.

Cites secretary-general John Scanlon said the inception of the ICCWC 'sends a very clear message that a new era of wildlife law enforcement is upon us... where wildlife criminals will face a determined and coordinated opposition, rather than the current situation, where the risks of detection and of facing penalties that match their crimes are often low'.

He added: 'Poaching and illegal trade have brought wild tigers close to the point of no return... Our children should inherit the privilege of looking at tigers in the wild and not only at those behind bars in a zoo.'

But while the ICCWC appears tiger-centred, it will beef up the fight against wildlife crime across the spectrum. Criminal syndicates dealing in tigers also trade in other forms of wildlife.

The idea of the five organisations cooperating was hatched about a year ago by Cites and shaped in subsequent meetings.

Experts on the trafficking of wildlife and natural resources hope the new alliance will plug weaknesses in South-east Asia, where Asean's Wildlife Enforcement Network, set up with much fanfare in 2005, failed to make a dent in a criminal trade which may be on the rise.

'People don't imagine the kind of money involved in wildlife trafficking. They still too often believe that local poachers go out and shoot whatever they can find, when in fact you have real networks of professional criminals getting organised to kill and ship wildlife on a massive scale,' former Scottish police officer John Sellar, who led the fight against green crimes in Cites, was quoted as saying by Agence France-Presse.

Intelligence sharing has been a critical weak link in international efforts to curb environmental crime - which includes trade in wildlife, natural resources and gases that deplete the ozone layer.

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Oil spill shows need for marine parks: WWF

AAP Brisbane Times 24 Nov 10;

Australia's worst offshore oil spill has proven the need for a marine sanctuary network to prevent drilling for oil and gas in environmentally sensitive areas, the conservation group WWF says.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson outlined to parliament on Wednesday the key findings of a commission of inquiry into the Montara spill in the Timor Sea in 2009.

The report recommended that Thai-based company PTTEP Australasia show cause to the government why its rights to operate in Australian territory should not be cancelled.
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Mr Ferguson said he would wait for an independent departmental review of PTTEP's action plan before making a decision on whether to review its licence to operate in the Montara oilfield and issue a show cause notice.

In response to the report, WWF-Australia called on the federal government to get serious about protecting Australia's oceans and coasts.

Creating a network of marine sanctuaries that would prevent drilling for oil and gas in the most environmentally sensitive areas was the only way to do that, WWF's Conservation Manager Gilly Llewellyn said.

"When WWF visited the toxic spill last year, it was evident dolphins and sea birds were swimming through a noxious mix of oil and chemical dispersants," she said.

"This kind of environmental disaster is unacceptable. Montara and the Gulf of Mexico spill have shown the worst-case scenario can and does happen."

Dr Llewellyn said the government had indicated it would implement many of the report's recommendations and that would reduce the risk of more catastrophic oil spills.

A shift to a central offshore petroleum regulator was one positive move.

"However, we need to make sure that whatever changes are made are backed up by having the right people with the right resources to do the job," Dr Llewellyn said

WWF Western Australia director Paul Gamblin said the oil and gas industry was booming off the WA coast, close to environmentally important areas like Ningaloo Reef, and there were bids to drill off Margaret River and Rottnest Island near Perth.

"Currently 99 per cent of our waters are open to industry. Where is the balance and the sense in that?

"Until we get that balance right, the warnings from Montara and the Gulf of Mexico spill will not have been heeded by government," Mr Gamblin said.

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Timor Sea oil spill: Australia faults Thai-owned firm

Yahoo News 24 Nov 10;

SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia said on Wednesday that a Thai-owned oil firm's "widespread and systematic shortcomings" caused the worst offshore drilling accident in the country's history, which created a massive oil slick.

A government report found PTTEP Australasia failed to observe "sensible" practice at the Montara field in the pristine Timor Sea off Australia's northwest coast, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson told parliament.

"The widespread and systematic shortcomings of PTTEP Australasia's procedures were a direct cause of the loss of well-control," Ferguson said.

"Well-control practices approved by the regulator would have been sufficient to prevent the loss of well-control, however PTTEP Australasia did not adhere to these practices or its own well-construction standards."

The report also criticised the Australian regulator which oversaw the project, saying its "minimalist approach" to its responsibilities gave it little chance of discovering the company's poor practices.

The leak in the Timor Sea from August 21 to November 3 was the worst Australia has seen from an offshore oil platform, although it was smaller than this year's spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL, is being pursued for compensation by Indonesia over the Montara slick which environmentalists say grew to almost 90,000 square kilometres (35,000 square miles).


Worst offshore oil spill linked to systemic failure
ABC News 24 Nov 10;

An inquiry into Australia's worst offshore oil spill says the Thai-based owner of the oil well is to blame for the environmental disaster.

Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson has tabled in Parliament the report on the August 2009 Montara oil spill off Australia's north-west coast.

Oil and gas flowed uncontrollably into the Timor Sea, about 250 kilometres off the coast, for about 10 weeks, making it the third largest oil spill ever in Australia, and the worst offshore incident of its kind in the country.

The report says the company did not adhere to approved control measures or well-construction standards.

"The inquiry has concluded that PTTEP Australasia (Ashmore Cartier) Pty Ltd did not observe sensible oilfield practices at the Montara oilfield," the report states.

"Major shortcomings in the company's procedures were widespread and systemic, directly leading to the blowout."

Mr Ferguson told Parliament he has accepted the report's recommendation that PTTEP should have its operating licence reviewed.

"The Government is committed to doing everything possible to avoid incidents like Montara in the future and is working to ensure we achieve the best and safest offshore petroleum industry in the world," he said.

"Industry, government and regulators must be absolutely committed to a culture of high safety standards and environmental protection within a framework of continuous improvement."

Mr Ferguson also told Parliament the Northern Territory's Department of Resources failed to adequately regulate operation of the oil well.

"The commissioner found that the Northern Territory Department of Resources was not a sufficiently diligent regulator, adopting a minimalist approach to its regulatory responsibilities," he said.

"The way in which the regulator conducted its responsibilities gave it little chance of discovering PTTEP poor practices."

'Accident waiting to happen'

The inquiry found that PTTEP treated the Northern Territory Department of Resources as if it were a "soft touch".

"In essence, the way that PTTEP AA operated the Montara oilfield did not come within a 'bull's roar' of sensible oilfield practice.

"The blowout was not a reflection of one unfortunate incident, or of bad luck.

"What happened with the H1 well was an accident waiting to happen; the company's systems and processes were so deficient and its key personnel so lacking in basic competence, that the blowout can properly be said to have been an event waiting to occur."

Mr Ferguson said the Montara oil spill should never have happened.

"At the heart of this matter is the failure of the operator and the failure of the regulator to adhere to this regime.

"Montara was preventable.

"If either, or preferably both PTTEP AA or the Northern Territory designated authority had done their jobs properly and complied with requirements, the Montara blowout would never have happened."

Mr Ferguson says the Government will move to have a single, national offshore regulator of the industry.

The Greens Senator Rachel Siewert has welcomed the report and the Government's response.

But she says the Greens are extremely concerned that PTTEP has been allowed to continue operating since the incident.

"We will be pursuing legislative changes that ensure that the Government has the power to make sure that a company that is in this situation cannot continue to operate in our waters for another up to 18 months or longer until a Commission of Inquiry of this nature produces its findings."

Deal coming on Timor oil slick
The Jakarta Post 24 Nov 10;

JAKARTA: Thai-headquartered PTTEP Australasia will respond in writing to Indonesia’s request for damages from an oil spill at the Montaro rig the company operates in the Timor Sea, an Indonesian official says.

“PTTEP will provide a response by Dec. 10, including the steps required to assess and process the claim,” Indonesian negotiator Rosa Vivien Ratnawati said.

Though officials declined to comment, Indonesia reportedly requested US$2.2 billion in compensation for damage from the oil spill.

An agreement on compensation was reached during a meeting between Indonesian and PTTEP officials in Singapore last week.

“The PTTEP will also provide a compilation of data and scientific reports supporting its previous representations made in Singapore,” she said.

Officials from Indonesia and PTTEP are slated to meet again in Jakarta on Dec. 16.

“At the upcoming meeting, experts from Indonesia and PTTEP will discuss scientific evidence submitted by each party,” she said. — JP

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Tinned tuna not always as labelled: report

Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

PARIS (AFP) – Thirty percent of tinned tunas tested in a dozen countries were mislabelled or had other irregularities, according to a new report based on genetic analysis.

Some of the 50 brands sampled contained different species of tuna across the same product, or two different species in the same tin, an illegal practice in Europe.

Some tins, for example, labelled as skipjack -- a plentiful tuna-like fish found in the Indian and Pacific oceans -- also had bigeye or yellowtail tuna, both species with declining populations.

The independent report, commissioned by Greenpeace, was timed to coincide with the annual meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT), running in Paris through Saturday.

ICCAT's 48 member states, including the European Union, are charged with ensuring the sustainability of fisheries in the Atlantic.

"Tuna companies are indiscriminately stuffing multiple species of tuna, including juveniles of species in decline, into tins that shoppers rightfully expect to contain a sustainable product," said Greenpeace International oceans campaigner Nina Thuellen.

The mixing of species and inclusion of under-sized tuna from over-fished stocks is due mainly to the use of so-called fish aggregation devices, or FADs, she said.

These man-made floating objects -- some makeshift collections of flotsam, others high-tech constructs -- attract the fish in open seas, where they are then caught in huge, curtain-like draw nets.

Endangered species of turtles and sharks also get trapped and die.

Once in the freezers, identification and sorting of juveniles is very difficult, resulting in multiple species in the same tin.

"Retailers must act now to immediately shift their business away from cheap tuna caught using FADs," Thuellen said, adding that the devices should be banned by ICCAT and other regional fisheries management organisations.

Carried out by Spanish laboratory AZTI Tecnalia, the tests analysed canned tuna products from Austria, Australia, Greece, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Canada, Spain, Italy, the United States, Britain, Switzerland and Germany.

At least five brands were tested in each country, totalling 165 different products.

Five main species of tuna make up the annual worldwide catch of 4.0 to 4.5 million tonnes.

Destined mainly for supermarket shelves, skipjack (Katsuwonus pelamis) accounts for 60 percent of the total.

Yellowfin (Thunnus albacares) or bigeye (Thunnus obesus), both under pressure from industrial fishing, comprise 24 and 10 percent of the global tuna market respectively.

Thunnus alalunga, better known as albacore, follows with five percent, while Atlantic Bluefin (Thunnus thynnus), highly prized in Japan, is less than one percent.

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Rice Prices May Gain as Thailand Cuts Crop Outlook on Floods, Theera Says

Supunnabul Suwannakij Bloomberg 24 Nov 10;

Thailand, the world’s biggest rice exporter, said output from the nation’s main harvest may fall below its previous estimate as the worst floods in five decades devastated crops, supporting prices of Asia’s staple food.

“This could be the worst damage to rice crops since the 2006 floods,” Theera Wongsamut, Agriculture and Cooperatives minister, said in an interview in Bangkok. Output of rough rice from the main crop, which began harvesting in October and represents 70 percent of Thailand’s total production, may fall by 7 percent from the previous year, he said.

Storms and flooding since July have destroyed rice crops in Thailand, Vietnam and Pakistan, the three biggest shippers, driving futures to this year’s high of $15.59 per 100 pounds on Nov. 9 on the Chicago Board of Trade. World food prices climbed to the highest level in more than two years in October as the cost of cereals, cooking oils and sugar surged, the United Nations’ Food & Agriculture Organization said.

Production from the main crop is estimated to decline by 1.6 million metric tons to 21.66 million tons, Theera said. That compares with the ministry’s Nov. 9 forecast of 22.34 million.

Rice futures in Chicago soared 63 percent from this year’s low on June 30 through Nov. 9 as flooding ravaged Asian crops and on speculation that dry weather in the U.S. may force the fourth-largest shipper to miss a forecast for record production. The January-delivery contract gained 0.5 percent to $13.47 at 1:02 p.m. Singapore time.

Thai rice-export prices, the benchmark for Asia, climbed to $552 a ton on Nov. 17, the highest since Feb. 17, according to the Thai Rice Exporters Association. The price is set weekly.

Growth Constraints

The flooding across two-thirds of Thailand is the worst in five decades and may slash the country’s economic growth by 0.3 percentage point this year to 7.9 percent, state planning agency the National Economic and Social Development Board said on Nov. 22.

About 11 million rai (4.3 million acres) of agricultural land, equivalent to 8.5 percent of the total, were inundated. Floods deluged approximately 8.3 million rai of rice land, equivalent to 15 percent of the total area for main-crop production, Theera said.

“About 4 million rai of rice crops are estimated to be entirely devastated,” Theera said. Actual damage levels will be finalized around the middle of December, he said.

Second-crop production, which begins in April, may rise to 9.3 million tons from 8.26 million tons last year, when drought caused by the El Nino weather pattern and the spread of planthoppers, insects that kill cotton plants and also spread disease, hurt production, he said.

La Nina

Output from the second crop will help bring the total harvest this year to 31 million tons, Theera said. That compares with 31.5 million tons last year.

“This will be adequate for domestic consumption and exports,” Theera said. The country annually consumes about 18 million tons of the grain.

The Thai floods have spread to 51 provinces since October, killing 241 people and affecting at least 8.7 million residents, according to the Department of Disaster Prevention & Mitigation. Floodwaters have receded in 37 provinces, it said.

A La Nina weather event has brought heavier-than-usual rainfall to parts of Asia this year, deluging farms and mines in Southeast Asia, driving rubber futures to a 30-year high and sending tin prices to a record. Typhoon Megi also destroyed rice crops in October in the Philippines, the world’s biggest buyer.

Global Deficit

The U.S. Department of Agriculture cut its estimate for global milled-rice output to 452.5 million tons on Oct. 8, 171,000 tons short of forecast demand. The global deficit, the first in four years, may be wider as typhoons and flooding hit Southeast Asia days after the USDA released that estimate.

Global milled output may be 450 million tons in the 2010-2011 season, 10 million tons less than previously forecast, Samarendu Mohanty, a senior economist at the International Rice Research Institute, said Nov. 9. The “supply situation is definitely very tight this year and next year,” he said.

Still, Vietnam, the world’s second-largest exporter, shipped a record 6.11 million tons from Jan. 1 to Nov. 19 because of a larger stockpile carried over from the previous year, the Vietnam Food Association said Nov. 22. That compares with shipments of 6.05 million tons for the whole of 2009.

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Rice production withers as Egypt diverts water supply

Fatma Ahmed Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

KAFR EL-SHEIKH, Egypt (AFP) – In Kafr el-Sheikh, rice farmers once looked forward to harvest time, but work has dried up in the large Nile Delta town since water shortages prompted heavy restrictions on production.

Under pressure from upstream countries to use its share of the river's waters more sparingly, Egypt's government has decided to severely restrict the farming of this water-intensive crop.

But the move threatens the price and supply of a commodity that feeds many of the country's burgeoning poor, as well as being a lucrative Egyptian export and a key employer in the agricultural sector.

"Right now we should be in the middle of our work season, which we wait for all year. Normally after the rice harvest we work day and night to meet demand," said Mohammed, a local farmer.

"But since they banned us from growing rice in several regions to save water, we have no work."

"Many jobs depend on the production of rice -- the farmers, the processing plants, the road transport, the exports ... It's a very important industry for Kafr el-Sheikh and an essential source of income for its inhabitants," said Ahmed Nasr, from the town's chamber of commerce.

Rationalising the use of its precious water supplies is a growing imperative for Cairo, with Ethiopia, Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda demanding a more equitable share of the Nile waters on which Egypt so heavily depends.

Experts reckon that, mainly due to outdated water grids and flawed domestic water policies, one in four Egyptians is already without adequate access to drinking water.

Treaties signed more than 50 years ago entitled Egypt to 55.5 billion cubic metres (two trillion cubic feet) each year, and another 18.5 billion cubic metres to Sudan, on the whole accounting for 87 percent of the river's waters.

According to official data, around 20 percent of the Egyptian quota goes on rice production, which is now banned south of Cairo and restricted to certain regions of the delta, Egypt's traditional bread basket.

But climate change has already forced some farmers to abandon their land in the fertile delta, which provides around a third of the crops for Egypt's growing population and which rising sea levels are threatening to turn into a salty wasteland.

The rice industry has already been hammered by the government's restrictions. Egypt's paddy fields have shrunk to just half the area they covered two years ago. Production, which stood at 3.8 million tonnes in 2009, of which 300,000 was for export, is expected to fall sharply.

Many farmers have since started growing substitute crops, but they are often taking a hit to their profits by doing so.

Rice prices have yet to spike in Egypt, but they threaten to do so just as the country faces heavy inflation on such other dietary staples as meat, tomatoes and certain vegetables.

Egypt is the world's largest wheat importer. Given the decision by Russia -- the biggest producer -- to ban exports earlier this year, Cairo is buying millions of tonnes of the cereal on the global market at great expense.

Meanwhile, to limit the impact on the domestic market of its restrictions on rice production, the government decided in June to ban exports until further notice.

"I am going to lose my hard-won markets. Instead of earning foreign currency, I'm going to have to spend it on imports. We're going to find we have the same problem as with grain," said Nasr.

Others criticise Egypt's decision to focus its agricultural production on lucrative export crops, at the expense of basic food supplies for its 80 million people.

"Why reduce the area allocated to rice production when it is the staple diet of many Egyptians," asked Habib Ayeb, at the American University in Cairo, pointing out that Egypt is a major exporter of another water-intensive crop -- strawberries.

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Air Pollution Exceeds Safety Limits In Big Asian Cities: Report

Tan Ee Lyn PlanetArk 23 Nov 10;

Air pollution in major cities in Asia exceeds the World Health Organisation's (WHO) air quality guidelines and toxic cocktails result in more than 530,000 premature deaths a year, according to a new report issued on Tuesday.

Issued by the U.S.-based Health Effects Institute, the study found that elderly people with cardiopulmonary and other chronic illnesses were especially vulnerable and they tended to die prematurely when their conditions were exacerbated by bad air.

"In general, those susceptible to air pollution are people who are older, who have cardiopulmonary disease, stroke, conditions often related to aging," the institute's vice president, Robert O'Keefe, said by telephone.

"In Asia, the elderly will become more susceptible to air pollution and become more frail. The more frail are the ones dying prematurely from COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease), cardiovascular disease," he said.

The study took into account three main pollutants -- particulate matter of 10 micrometers and smaller, nitrogen dioxide and sulphur dioxide. Not a single city in Asia had all three pollutants within limits considered acceptable by the World Health Organisation.

Although sulphur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide in Dhaka were within safety limits, particulates in the capital of Bangladesh were more than five times over WHO guidelines.

The same was true in Singapore, whose particulates exceeded WHO guidelines by 50 percent.

"The levels of air pollution across Asia routinely exceed WHO guidelines and that is evidenced in ... significant excess mortality from air pollution-related disease," O'Keefe said.

The very young are at risk too.

"There is exacerbation of asthma among children. There is also some evidence of low birth weight," he said.

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World's lakes getting hotter, more than the air

Seth Borenstein, Associated Press Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

WASHINGTON – A first-of-its-kind NASA study is finding nice cool lakes are heating up — even faster than air.

Two NASA scientists used satellite data to look at 104 large inland lakes around the world and found that on average they have warmed 2 degrees (1.1 degree Celsius) since 1985. That's about two-and-a-half times the increase in global temperatures in the same time period.

Russia's Lake Ladoga and America's Lake Tahoe are warming significantly and the most, said study co-author Simon Hook, a scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab in Pasadena, Calif. Tahoe has heated up by 3 degrees (1.7 degrees Celsius) since 1985, while Ladoga has been even hotter, going up by 4 degrees (2.2 degrees Celsius).

The study was published Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

Hook and his colleague used several satellites and looked at thermal infrared images of the lakes in winter and summer. They also confirmed the numbers by comparing them to buoy data.

"It fits with what we see with air temperature measurements," Hook said. "We were surprised that in some places the lakes appear to be warming more than the air temperature."

The next question to look at is why the lakes seem to be warming faster than the air or land, Hook said. One reason could be the way lakes warm — in a more gradual manner than land but also slower to cool.

NASA climate scientist Gavin Schmidt, who was not part of the study, said the research made sense and adds another independent measuring system to show that the world is warming up. Eleven different indicators — including air temperature, humidity, snow cover, ocean heat content — show statistically significant man-made global warming, while no environmental measurements show otherwise, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Warming lakes is No. 12 and "another brick in the wall," said University of Victoria climate scientist Andrew Weaver.

Overall, 41 lakes increased temperatures in a statistically significant way, with another 59 individually warming but not enough to be considered significant. Only four showed temperature drops, but not significantly, Hook said.

NASA says Earth's lakes are warming
Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – The Earth's largest lakes have warmed up over the past 25 years in response to climate change, the US space agency said Tuesday, announcing the first such global study of its kind.

Scientists Philipp Schneider and Simon Hook of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California used satellite data to measure the surface temperature of 167 lakes around the world, NASA said.

"They reported an average warming rate of 0.81 degrees Fahrenheit per decade, with some lakes warming as much as 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit per decade," NASA said in a statement.

"The results were consistent with the expected changes associated with global warming," it said.

Researchers found the "largest and most consistent area of warming was northern Europe," while the "warming trend was slightly weaker in southeastern Europe, around the Black and Caspian seas and Kazakhstan," NASA said.

"The trends increased slightly farther east in Siberia, Mongolia and northern China."

The southwestern United States experienced "slightly higher" trends than the Great Lakes region, while the tropics and mid-latitudes of the Southern Hemisphere showed "weaker" warming, NASA said.

"Our analysis provides a new, independent data source for assessing the impact of climate change over land around the world," said Schneider, lead author of the study published this week in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

"The results have implications for lake ecosystems, which can be adversely affected by even small water temperature changes."

NASA selected bodies of water that were at least 193 square miles (500 square kilometers) or larger, and had significant amounts of water away from the shoreline so that land temperature changes did not interfere with measurements.

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UN: Emission pledges fall short of climate target

Matti Huuhtanen, Associated Press Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

HELSINKI – Emissions cuts pledged by countries in a nonbinding climate accord last year fall short of what's needed to avoid the worst consequences of global warming, the U.N.'s environment agency said Tuesday.

The sobering report by the U.N. Environmental Program comes as climate negotiators prepare for another round of talks next week in Cancun, Mexico.

Even if the voluntary pledges made last year in the so-called Copenhagen Accord are fully met, that will only achieve 60 percent of the emissions cuts required to keep temperatures from rising less than 2 degrees C (3.6 F) above preindustrial levels and head off the worst effects of global warming, the UNEP said.

However, UNEP Executive Director Achim Steiner called those pledges "a good first step," and that the gap can be reduced further with steeper emissions cuts.

"There is a gap between the science and current ambition levels," Steiner said in a statement. "But, what this report shows is that the options on the table right now in the negotiations can get us almost 60 per cent of the way there."

The failure of the annual U.N. conference to produce a climate agreement last year in Copenhagen, Denmark, has raised doubts about whether the long-running, 194-nation talks can ever agree on a legally binding treaty for reining in global warming.

The core shortcoming has been in finding a consensus formula for mandatory reductions in countries' emissions of carbon dioxide and other global warming gases. A dispute between the United States and China has stymied progress on this central element of any global climate deal.

Negotiators are not expected to solve that standoff in Cancun. Instead, delegates will focus on climate financial aid, deforestation and other secondary issues to try to revive momentum toward an umbrella deal at next year's conference in South Africa or at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 2012.

Eighty-five of the 140 countries that have associated themselves with the Copenhagen Accord have pledged to cut emissions or rein in their growth by 2020, the report said.

UNEP found that if those pledges are fully met, global emissions levels would reach about 49 gigatons of carbon dioxide equivalent by 2020. That's still 5 gigatons too high to have a chance to limit global warming to 2 degrees C this century.

If none of the pledges made in Copenhagen are fulfilled, emissions would reach 56 gigatons, said the report, which Steiner said was meant to remind countries of how far the Copenhagen decisions would take them.

"But (it's) also to point out that there is still a challenge that the world would have to address even if all of what was promised to each other in Copenhagen was implemented," he told reporters during the launch of the report in Helsinki.

"So the message to Cancun is, Copenhagen did not yield a legally binding outcome but Copenhagen has within the accord a series of pledges that are meaningful and potentially far-reaching," he added.

Joseph Alcamo, chief scientist of the U.N. organization, said participants at Cancun should build on the Copenhagen pledges and urged rules to avoid "higher emissions because of lenient emission credits."

"We estimated that lenient emission credits would lead to about 1 to 2 gigatons emissions higher in 2020 that would occur otherwise," he told the AP from London. "If these rules are tightened up then they would get 1 to 2 gigatons closer to the 2 degree target."

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on countries to make good on their pledges and to further the negotiations in Cancun.

"There is no time to waste," Ban said in a statement. "By closing the gap between the science and current ambition levels, we can seize the opportunity to usher in a new era of low-carbon prosperity and sustainable development for all."

The takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives by Republicans, many of whom dismiss strong scientific evidence of human-caused warming, all but rules out U.S. action for at least two years.

Cancun negotiators hope at least for agreement on a "green fund" to disburse aid that developed countries promised at Copenhagen — $100 billion a year by 2020 — for developing countries to adapt to a changing climate by building seawalls, shifting farming patterns, and installing clean energy sources.

The developing world hopes, too, for better terms for transferring patented green technology from richer nations. In a third area, delegates aim to make progress on the complex issue of compensating poorer nations for protecting their forests, key to the planet's ability to absorb carbon dioxide.

UN body warns Copenhagen climate targets could be missed
Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

HELSINKI (AFP) – The Copenhagen accord targets to cut global warming will be missed unless next week's climate change conference transforms promises into action, the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said Tuesday.

Representatives from 194 countries meet in the Mexican resort city of Cancun from November 29 to December 10 for a new bid to strike a deal to curb greenhouse gases following on last December's Copenhagen meeting.

"Copenhagen does not have to be the lost summit if we go forward and implement those goals," UN Under Secretary General Achim Steiner told reporters in Helsinki at the launch of UNEP's Emissions Gap Report.

The UNEP's report showed that even if every nation honours the promises it made in the 2009 Copenhagen Accord, carbon dioxide emissions levels will still not reach the goal of 44 gigatonnes a year by 2020.

That level is enough to limit global warming to two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial temperatures.

"If we continue with business as usual, emissions could reach 56 gigatonnes by 2020," the UNEP's chief scientist Joseph Alcamo warned via a video conference from London.

The gap of 12 gigatonnes between the goal and the worst-case scenario is more than double the annual emission output of the entire European Union.

Alcamo told AFP that if Copenhagen's best-case scenario comes true, in which more ambitious pledges were honoured, emissions would be cut to 49 gigatonnes a year by 2020.

Steiner said the major issues are energy efficiency in both the developed and developing world, and the failure industrial and commercial sectors to move to low-carbon technologies.

"We've learned in 10 years that we can't just leave it up to the market, it is dependent on environmental policy," he told AFP.

He said this is why nations in Cancun must set up a system of both sanctions and incentives to encourage the 110 signatory nations to the Copenhagen Accord to honour their pledges.

Copenhagen's summit failed to create a binding agreement, and while Steiner did not explicitly call for a legal pact, he did stress the importance of a framework in order to get the international community to cooperate.

"The issue in Copenhagen wasn't technology and money, it was about what was a fair deal... we cannot continue to ask some countries to take responsibility while others get a free ride," Steiner said, though he declined to say which countries were not living up to their responsibilities.

Global Impact Of EU 30 Pct Carbon Cut Small:IEA
Patryk Wasilewski PlanetArk 23 Nov 10;

New European Union proposals for a tough cut in carbon dioxide emissions would have only a limited impact on the global warming process, International Energy Agency chief economist told Reuters on Monday.

The EU has agreed a goal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by at least 20 percent by 2020 compared with 1990 levels, but proposals have surfaced that the cut should reach 30 percent.

Fatih Birol, of the IEA, said the gains from the tougher EU reduction target would roughly equal only two weeks of China's emissions.

"The United States and China are essential for combating climate change globally. We estimate extending Europe's plan to cut emissions from 20 to 30 percent would roughly equal China's two-week gas output," Birol said in an interview.

Birol was skeptical about the chance of a breakthrough in the forthcoming United Nations climate summit in Mexico.

"The wind is not blowing in the right direction for fighting global warming. Frankly, there are virtually no chances for the Cancun summit to end in legally binding agreement," Birol said, adding, "I would be very happy to be proven wrong on this."

Environment ministers from nearly 200 countries are to gather in Cancun, Mexico, at a November 29-December10 conference to try and thrash out details of a global climate deal, which is expected to be finalized in December 2011.

The Cancun talks follow a disappointing summit in Copenhagen last year, which failed to agree on a successor deal to the present Kyoto Protocol, which ends in 2012.

(Editing by Jane Baird)

China admits it is the world's biggest polluter
Marianne Barriaux Yahoo News 23 Nov 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – China acknowledged on Tuesday that it is the world's biggest greenhouse gas emitter, as it called on the United States to ensure climate change talks opening next week make progress.

Speaking at a briefing ahead of the UN talks in Mexico, Xie Zhenhua, China's top climate change official, told reporters: "Our emissions volume now stands at number one in the world.

His comments appeared to be the nation's first public recognition of the fact.

Up to now, Chinese officials had not clearly acknowledged the nation's world-leading emissions, which had nevertheless been confirmed by scientists and international organisations such as the International Energy Agency.

They preferred to emphasise the need to use emissions per capita -- where China is far behind developed countries -- as a benchmark.

The November 29 to December 10 talks in the Mexican resort of Cancun are set to open with deep rifts between developed and developing nations, mainly China and the United States -- the two biggest sources of carbon emissions.

The United States wants China to commit to emissions cuts but Beijing argues that it and other developing nations should be exempt from such curbs as they need to grow their economies and lift people from poverty.

It also notes that the emissions of industrialised, mainly Western, countries over the centuries are historically responsible for the build-up of carbon in the atmosphere.

"We hope the United States will play a leadership role and drive the entire process of negotiations," said Xie, vice director of the National Development and Reform Commission -- China's top economic planning agency.

He announced no new Chinese proposals for the talks but vowed the nation would seek to limit growth in its emissions.

"We will not allow our emissions to increase unchecked. China is taking decisive actions to slow down our emissions so that our emissions peak can come at an early date," he said, without giving a timetable.

He also reaffirmed Beijing's position that developed nations must bear the brunt of efforts to curb emissions of the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming and climate change.

"We will absolutely not accept any obligations that go beyond developing countries' abilities," he said.

"Developed countries have historical responsibilities and must assume their obligations. This is something we must adhere to," he said, when asked whether China should take on more of a role at the Cancun summit.

China has set a 2020 target of reducing carbon emissions per unit of gross domestic product by 40-45 percent from 2005 levels. That amounts essentially to a vow of energy efficiency, but its emissions will continue to soar.

It has refused to estimate when its carbon emissions will peak and then begin to fall, although officials have indicated it could take decades.

The talks in Cancun are the latest round of negotiations in a long-running UN effort to forge a global treaty to limit carbon emissions, which are blamed for trapping heat in the Earth's atmosphere.

Xie said the ultimate goal of climate change negotiations should be "a result that not everyone is satisfied with but that everyone can accept."

Scientists say rising temperatures could lead to an increase in catastrophic extreme weather.

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