Life History of the Common Palmfly
from Butterflies of Singapore
The Deadly Assassin
from Macro Photography in Singapore
A Long Hike To Chek Jawa @ Pulau Ubin
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Blue-tailed Bee-eater in the rain
from Bird Ecology Study Group
During one of Dr Chua Ee Kiam's trips to document the Sungei Buloh nature reserve, he had a close shave with a spitting cobra
Magdalen Ng Straits Times 28 Nov 10;
Nature sometimes needs a bit of micro-managing.
Dr Chua Ee Kiam, author of coffee- table book Wetlands In A City, once spent half an hour arranging red buta leaves on the ground to make sure they photographed 'red-side up'.
'The leaves were all there, I just had to arrange them to make them look pretty,' says the senior dental consultant by profession, 57, with a smile.
More than three years in the making, his book contains more than 360 pictures of Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve, its development, and flora and fauna. He took the pictures and wrote the accompanying text.
Commissioned by National Parks Board (NParks), the 176-page hardcover volume is available at major bookstores.
Testament to his passion for nature and enthusiastic eye for detail, the book is the result of more than 200 visits to the nature reserve, between 2007 and earlier this year.
Weekends, for him, were spent at the reserve. So were days off and annual leave.
At night, when he received calls from park rangers or volunteers about a rare fauna sighting, he would rush from his Bukit Timah home to the reserve a 20-minute drive away.
'My wife is so worried that each time I get involved in a project, I get so carried away,' he says. 'But ask anyone who does anything well: There is a lot of blood and sweat, and it will require sacrifice. This is a sacrifice I have made.'
The project was born while he was speaking to MrNg Lang, chief executive officer of NParks between 2006 and this year and now CEO of the Urban Redevelopment Authority, about the beauty of Sungei Buloh.
Dr Chua suggested that a book be devoted to the reserve, and offered to do it.
The completed product 'highlights the many gems of nature in a seemingly dull mangrove habitat', he says.
Otters and crocodiles have come to make Sungei Buloh their home and he managed to snap an image of four amorous, male Paradise Tree Snakes pursuing a female snake.
The avid nature photographer, however, still jokingly speaks about the photo that got away.
He was trying to take a picture of a black spitting cobra on the ground one morning at the nature reserve last year. 'I don't know why I wasn't afraid at first. I followed it with my hipstamatic camera and, suddenly, the snake raised its hood. I ran for my life,' he says at the Botanic Gardens last Thursday.
'There are some things that are dangerous in nature, so we should respect that. I will be much more careful the next time,' he adds.
He first got interested in nature and photography while studying dentistry at the National University of Singapore.
He watched a black-and-white film on the underwater world and was enthralled: 'I was thinking, if it can be so interesting in black and white, it must be something amazing.'
Upon graduation, the first thing he bought himself was a camera. He honed his skills by taking pictures of wildlife around Singapore.
Since then, he has published books on Pulau Ubin's Chek Jawa and about the tropical forest in Sabah, Malaysia.
His interest in photography has taken him to the United States, where he attended photography courses organised by the National Geographic in 1988.
His children - son Jeremy, 26, is a legal assistant and daughter Jessica, 21, a dentistry student - however, do not share his unflagging love of nature.
'They've followed me on a few of my trips. But it's hard to compete with the Internet and blogging these days, so they have stopped,' says Dr Chua, who is married to Amy, 53, a housewife.
'My wife comes along with me sometimes but there's a lot of waiting and walking, and that can be trying,' he adds.
He hopes to do his next project on Cantonese opera, which he thinks is a dying art in Singapore.
'It will be something challenging. I don't want to do something that is not difficult,' he says.
Related links
More about Dr Chua's books.
Freshwater variety has different patterns and commands different prices at pet shops and fish farms
Lin Yang Straits Times 28 Nov 10;
They make a delicious barbecued treat. But some Singaporeans prefer to keep stingrays alive, pampering them with shrimp for food and a climate-controlled tank.
One fish fancier even paid $200,000 for his stingray pet.
That man was Mr Matthew Yeo Kay Keng, 35. But the cash was allegedly not his. Last week, telco M1 said it was suing Mr Yeo for illicitly selling handsets to resellers and embezzling $2.09 million from the company.
Media reports said the former M1 employee had gone on a shopping spree and bought, among other things, a live stingray for $200,000.
The Sunday Times investigated to see if one stingray could conceivably be worth that much money.
In Singapore, pet shops and fish farms can sell freshwater stingrays to customers as pets.
These stingrays are smaller and have more colourful patterns on their skin than their marine cousins, which Singaporean foodies treat as a culinary delicacy.
One of the island's largest fish farms, Qian Hu, has about 45 stingrays in stock. But only serious buyers get to see the fish, which are kept in a restricted area.
Each of the tanks has five to 10 of them, gliding serenely just above the tank floor.
Qian Hu has in stock only a species called Leopoldi - prized for its speckle of white dots contrasting against dark skin.
'There is no set price for each fish,' explained Mr Tho Thiam Chye, an assistant sales manager at Qian Hu.
'Different patterns on the skin fetch different prices. But we sell each of these for between $10,000 and $20,000.'
In a good month, Qian Hu can sell 10 stingrays.
Mr Tho pointed to one of the more expensive ones - a larger ray with a denser dot pattern and unique, U-shaped specks mixed in.
'We'll sell that one for at least $16,000,' he said.
The value of a stingray depends on its skin pattern, size and gender, explained Mr Vince Koh, 43, a fengshui expert and former stingray enthusiast.
According to him, certain species have more dots on their bodies. Older stingrays tend to be bigger and have fancier patterns.
Finally, hobbyists tend to prefer females because they want them to produce offspring.
'There's also the albino. I know only one fish shop in the world that has it. One of those should be worth $65,000,' said Mr Koh.
What about $200,000 for a fish? 'That's impossible, I've never seen it, and would never pay that much,' he said.
But Qian Hu's Mr Tho will not rule out such pricing.
'It's like art. The value is really in the eye of the beholder. If it had a very special pattern, it could be worth $200,000,' he said.
Depending on when Mr Yeo bought his stingray, the high price could have been due to policy changes in Brazil, the native homeland of many stingray species.
In 2006, Brazil banned their export to protect domestic supply. Affected stingray prices increased five-fold.
Fish farms in Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia responded by starting their own breeding operations.
Realising that they were losing brisk business, Brazil changed course last year by replacing the ban with export quotas on six stingray species. Now, 5,000 Leopoldis can leave that country each year.
Prices then cooled down.
In addition, the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) made it easier for hobbyists in Singapore to acquire stingrays earlier this year.
Previously, only fish farms could sell them.
Since August, AVA has allowed their sale in pet shops as well, much to the chagrin of environmentalists.
Dr Peter Ng, a biologist from NUS, believes Upper Seletar Reservoir became infested with invasive South American stingrays when those who had the fish as pets decided to dump them.
The stingrays could upset the native food chain and cause injury to kayakers with their poisonous stingers.
'I prefer to ban them outright,' said Dr Ng.
British scientists will warn Cancún summit that entire nations could be flooded
Robin McKie The Observer The Guardian 28 Nov 10;
Devastating changes to sea levels, rainfall, water supplies, weather systems and crop yields are increasingly likely before the end of the century, scientists will warn tomorrow.
A special report, to be released at the start of climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, will reveal that up to a billion people face losing their homes in the next 90 years because of failures to agree curbs on carbon emissions.
Up to three billion people could lose access to clean water supplies because global temperatures cannot now be stopped from rising by 4C.
"The main message is that the closer we get to a four-degree rise, the harder it will be to deal with the consequences," said Dr Mark New, a climate expert at Oxford University, who organised a recent conference entitled "Four Degrees and Beyond" on behalf of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research. Tomorrow the papers from the meeting will be published to coincide with the start of the Cancún climate talks.
A key feature of these papers is that they assume that even if global carbon emission curbs were to be agreed in the future, these would be insufficient to limit global temperature rises to 2C this century – the maximum temperature rise agreed by politicians as acceptable. "To have a realistic chance of doing that, the world would have to get carbon emissions to peak within 15 years and then follow this up with a massive decarbonisation of society," said Dr Chris Huntingford, of the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology in Oxfordshire.
Few experts believe this is a remotely practical proposition, particularly in the wake of the failure of the Copenhagen climate talks last December – a point stressed by Bob Watson, former head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and now chief scientist at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs. As he put it: "Two degrees is now a wishful dream."
Researchers such as Richard Betts, head of climate impacts at the Met Office, calculate that a 4C rise could occur in less than 50 years, with melting of ice sheets and rising sea levels.
According to François Gemenne, of the Institute for Sustainable Development and International Relations in Paris, this could lead to the creation of "ghost states" whose governments-in-exile would rule over scattered citizens and land lost to rising seas.
Small island states such as Tuvalu and the Maldives are already threatened by inundation. "What would happen if a state was to physically disappear but people want to keep their nationalities?" he asked. "It could continue as a virtual state even though it is a rock under the ocean."
Peter Stott of the Met Office said the most severe effect of all these changes is likely to involve changes to the planet's ability to soak up carbon dioxide. At present, around 50% of man-made carbon emissions are absorbed by the sea and by plants on land.
"However, the amount of carbon dioxide that can be absorbed decreases as temperatures rise. We will reach a tipping point from which temperatures will go up even faster. The world will then start to look very different."
Crop failures and drought within our children's lifetimes
Steve Connor The Independent 29 Nov 10;
Children today are likely to reach old age in a world that is 4C warmer, where the 10,000-year certainties of the global climate can no longer be relied on, and widespread crop failures, drought, flooding and mass migration of the dispossessed become a part of everyday life.
This dire scenario could come as early as the 2060s – well within the lifetime of today's young people. It could mark the point when, for the first time since the end of the Ice Age, human civilisation has to cope with a highly unstable and unpredictable global climate.
A series of detailed scientific assessments of this possible "four-degree world", published today, documents for the first time the immense problems posed if the average global temperature rises by 4C above pre-industrial levels – a possibility that many experts believe is increasingly likely.
The international climate negotiations which resume this week in Cancun, Mexico, are aimed at keeping global temperatures within the "safe" limit of a 2C increase. But many scientists believe that, based on current trends, a rise of 3C or 4C is far more likely.
The greatest concern is that a 4C increase in global average temperatures – a temperature difference as great as that between now and the last Ice Age – would create dramatic transformations in the world, leading to water shortages, the collapse of agriculture in semi-arid regions and triggering a catastrophic rise in sea levels in coastal areas.
One of the studies, led by scientists from the Met Office's Hadley Centre, predicts that, unless there is a concerted international agreement to curb dramatically the burning of fossil fuels such as coal, oil and gas, a 4C warmer world is virtually inevitable by the end of this century. This critical threshold could, however, be reached within just 50 or 60 years based on other factors, such as human interference with natural feedback cycles that accelerate global warming, and the sensitivity of the climate to man-made carbon-dioxide emissions.
"Most emissions scenarios have a chance that take us past the four-degree point by the end of the 21st century, but it is down to the strength of the feedbacks and the sensitivity of the climate as to when this actually happens. It's certainly not outrageous to say it could happen in the 2060s," said Richard Betts, the lead author of the Hadley Centre study, published in the Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.
Of equal concern to scientists is the speed of climate change. A second study in the series found that a global temperature rise of between 2C and 4C could be so rapid that it would coincide with the expected peak in global population, which is expected to reach nine billion by 2050 before it begins to fall.
This would mean that the problems of water shortages and food production caused by climate change will occur at precisely the same time as the world is having to cope with feeding the greatest number of people in its history. A slower rate of climate change, on the other hand, will see the highest temperature increases occurring after the global population has peaked.
Niel Bowerman of Oxford University, who led the study into the rate of climate change, said it highlighted the urgency of having emissions peak in coming years. "Our study shows we need to start cutting emissions soon to avoid potentially dangerous rates of warming within our lifetimes, and to avoid committing ourselves to potentially unfeasible rates of emissions reduction in a couple of decades time," he added.
Climate change scientists warn of 4C global temperature rise
Team of experts say such an increase would cause severe droughts and see millions of migrants seeking refuge
Damian Carrington The Guardian 29 Nov 10;
The hellish vision of a world warmed by 4C within a lifetime has been set out by an international team of scientists, who say the glacial progress of the global climate change talks that restart in Mexico today makes the so-called safe limit of 2C impossible to keep. A 4C rise in the planet's temperature would see severe droughts across the world and millions of migrants seeking refuge as their food supplies collapse.
"There is now little to no chance of maintaining the rise in global surface temperature at below 2C, despite repeated high-level statements to the contrary," said Kevin Anderson, at the University of Manchester, who with colleague Alice Bows contributed research to a special collection of Royal Society journal papers published tomorrowtoday. "Moreover, the impacts associated with 2C have been revised upwards so that 2C now represents the threshold [of] extremely dangerous climate change."
The new analysis by Anderson and Bows takes account of the non-binding pledges made by countries in the Copenhagen Accord, the compromise document that emerged from the last major UN climate summit, and the slight dip in greenhouse gas emissions caused by the economic recession. The scientists' modelling is based on actual tonnes of emissions, not percentage reductions, and separates the predicted emissions of rich and fast-industrialising nations such as China. "2010 represents a political tipping point," said Anderson, but added in the report: "This paper is not intended as a message of futility, but rather a bare and perhaps brutal assessment of where our 'rose-tinted' and well-intentioned approach to climate change has brought us. Real hope and opportunity, if it is to arise at all, will do so from a raw and dispassionate assessment of the scale of the challenge faced by the global community."
A rise of 4C could be seen as soon as 2060 in a worst case scenario, according to research in the same journal, led by the Met Office's Richard Betts and first revealed in the Guardian last year. Betts accepts the scenario is extreme but argues it is also plausible given the rapidly rising trend in emissions.
Rachel Warren, at the University of East Anglia, described a 4C world in her research paper: "Drought and desertification would be widespread ... There would be a need to shift agricultural cropping to new areas, impinging on [wild] ecosystems. Large-scale adaptation to sea-level rise would be necessary. Human and natural systems would be subject to increasing levels of agricultural pests and diseases, and increases in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events."
Warren added: "This world would also rapidly be losing its ecosystem services, owing to large losses in biodiversity, forests, coastal wetlands, mangroves and saltmarshes [and] an acidified and potentially dysfunctional marine ecosystem. In such a 4C world, the limits for human adaptation are likely to be exceeded in many parts of the world."
Another Met Office study analyses how a 4C rise would differ from a 2C rise, concluding that threats to water supplies are far worse, in particular in southern Europe and north Africa, where regional temperatures would rise 6-8C. The 4C world would also see enhanced warming over most of the US, Canada and northern Asia.
In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), "the prognosis for agriculture and food security in a 4C world is bleak", according Philip Thornton, of Kenya's International Livestock Research Institute, who led another research team. He notes there will be an extra billion people populating Africacontinent by 2050.
"Croppers and livestock keepers in SSA have in the past shown themselves to be highly adaptable to short- and long-term variations in climate. But the kind of changes that would occur in a 4C+ world would be way beyond anything experienced in recent times. It is not difficult to envisage a situation where the adaptive capacity and resilience of hundreds of millions of people could simply be overwhelmed by events," Thornton's team concludes.
over scattered citizens and land that has been abandoned to rising seas, an expert said yesterday.
Another team tackled another complex question: what would happen to humid tropical forests in a 4C world? There was the risk of forest die-off in the Amazon, central America and parts of Africa, but some regions, e.g. around the Congo basin, would have the potential for forest expansion. The scientist noted, however, that in practice deforestation might be the most important factor.
The speed – as well as the size – of the temperature rise is crucial too, warned scientists from Oxford University, as faster rates of global warming could outpace the ability of human civilisation and the natural world to adapt. "Dangerous climate change depends on how fast the planet is warming up, not just how hot it gets," said Myles Allen of Oxford University's department of Pphysics. "It's not just how much we emit, but how fast we do so."
Worst case study: global temp up 4 degrees C by 2060s
* Temperatures might, in worst case, rise 4 C by 2060s
* Rising seas could bring $270 bln annual containment bill
* Four degree C rise would disrupt food, water supplies
Alister Doyle, Reuters 29 Nov 10;
CANCUN, Mexico, Nov 28 (Reuters) - World temperatures could soar by 4 degrees Celsius (7.2 degrees Fahrenheit) by the 2060s in the worst case of global climate change and require an annual investment of $270 billion just to contain rising sea levels, studies suggested on Sunday.
Such a rapid rise, within the lifetimes of many young people today, is double the 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit) ceiling set by 140 governments at a U.N. climate summit in Copenhagen last year and would disrupt food and water supplies in many parts of the globe.
Rising greenhouse gas emissions this decade meant the 2 degree goal was "extremely difficult, arguably impossible, raising the likelihood of global temperature rises of 3 or 4 degrees C within this century," an international team wrote.
The studies, published to coincide with annual U.N. climate talks in Mexico starting on Monday, said few researchers had examined in detail the possible impact of a 4 degrees C rise above pre-industrial levels.
"Across many sectors -- coastal cities, farming, water stress, ecosystems or migration, the impacts will be greater," than at 2 degrees, wrote Mark New of Oxford University in England, who led the international team.
One study, published in the British journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A, said temperatures could rise by 4 degrees C in the worst case by the early 2060s.
Other scenarios showed the threshold breached later in the century or not at all by 2100, raising risks of abrupt changes such as a loss of Arctic sea ice in summer, a thaw in permafrost or a drying out of the Amazon rainforest.
MIGRATION
One of the papers gave what it called a "pragmatic estimate" that sea levels might rise by between 0.5 and 2 meters (1.64 to 6.56 feet) by 2100 if temperatures rose 4 degrees Celsius.
Containing a sea level rise of 2 meters, mostly building Dutch-style sea walls, would require annual investments of up to $270 billion a year by 2100.
That sum might limit migration to perhaps 305,000 people from the most vulnerable areas, wrote Robert Nicholls of the University of Southampton. Lack of protective measures could mean the forced resettlement of 187 million people.
People living on small islands, in Asia, Africa or river deltas were most at risk.
The studies concluded that governments should do more both to cut greenhouse gas emissions and research back-up methods such as "geo-engineering" programs that could dim sunlight or seek to suck greenhouse gases from the air. (Editing by Todd Eastham)
Antara 27 Nov 10;
Makassar (ANTARA News) - Around 4,000 islands in Indonesia may disappear when the sea surface rises due to global warming, a government official said.
"Global climate change could cause the sea level to rise high enough submerge 4,000 islands in Indonesia," William Suhandar, deputy to the head of the Presidential Work Unit for Development Management and Supervision (UKP4), said here Saturday.
As many as 4,000 of Indonesia`s 17,500 islands might disappear if the sea level rose by two meters, he said.
"This will be unavoidable if global warming continues causing the sea level to keep rising as happened thousands of years ago when ice bergs melted," he said.
The earth`s surface temperature had risen 0.7 degrees Celsius over the last 100 years, he said, adding that this was tangible and reasonable evidence of climate change.
Moreover, the period 1995-2010 had been recorded as the hottest in the last 150 years since 1850, he said.
"There has been an unusual shift in rainfall patterns so that it is now difficult to distinguish the seasons, to differentiate the rainy from the dry season," he said.
Extreme weather and temperatures which occur every year could lead to or trigger natural disasters, he said.
He aid there were two major causes of climate change. One was mismanaged land utilization, deforestation and carbon emission from fossil fuels that exacerbate the green house effect in the atmosphere leading to rising global temperature.
The increasing global temperature could cause the sea level to rise and this posed a threat to around 4,000 islands in Indonesia, he said.
Mitigation of and adaptation to climate change could be advantageous to minimize the effect of global warming and climate change, he said.(*)
The Star 27 Nov 10;
SERDANG: Malaysia is looking into forming strategic alliances with other countries for food production, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
He said under such an arrangement, Malaysia would venture into developing food production hubs in the partner countries.
"This is one of the initiatives that can be taken to ensure food security for Malaysia. We have taken various steps towards this purpose and will continue to take steps to raise food production in the country," he said.
"This will be more cost effective than increasing food production acreage in Malaysia," he told the media after simultaneously launching the Malaysian Agriculture and Agrotourism (MAHA) international exposition and National Farmers, Breeders and Fishermen's Day 2010 at the Malaysian Agro-Exposition Park here Saturday.
"This is one of the initiatives that can be taken to ensure food security for Malaysia. We have taken various steps towards this purpose and will continue to take steps to raise food production for the country," he said.
However, he said there was no pressing need to increase acreage for food production for now and that what was more important was to increase agricultural yields through use of new seeds, technology and good infrastructure.
The prime minister was confident that the measures being taken would help avert a food crisis like high market prices or shortages, down the road.
Following the world food crisis in 2008, Malaysia undertook several measures under its Food Supply Guarantee Policy to raise food production in the country.
Najib also said natural disasters could impact food production.
"With climate change becoming a global phenomenon now, not a single country will be spared from its effects. What is important is how countries come together to tackle this climate change problem," he said.
He said the nation's agriculture sector continued to grow and contributed RM10.1bil to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in the second quarter of this year, an increase of 2.4 percent over the corresponding period last year.
Of the figure, the agro-food sector contributed RM4.7bil or 46.5 percent while the planting, breeding and fisheries sub-sectors grew by 9.5 percent, 13.9 percent and 7.8 percent respectively. - Bernama
Jennifer Pinkowski Time Magazine 27 Nov 10;
There are worse places to be than in the eco-paradise of Sabah, a state on the northeast tip of Malaysian Borneo. To one side is the Coral Triangle, home to the world's richest ocean diversity; to the other is the Heart of Borneo, a 22-million-hectare rain forest. In the middle is a vast swath of 1,100 palm plantations. Every year hundreds of thousands of tourists visit Sabah to explore its marvels of biodiversity, hiking elephant paths, spotting shy orangutans and scuba diving with hammerhead sharks.
It's hard to imagine a worse place for a brand new 300 MW coal-fired power plant than here. But it will be a real challenge for Sabah to get by otherwise. And there, in a Southern Pacific garden spot, are all the world's eco-tensions writ small.
Malaysia has taken clear steps to make environmental health a national priority. In the fall of 2009, Prime Minister Najib Razak pledged at the U.N. climate change conference in Copenhagen that his country, already a Kyoto Protocol signatory, would reduce its carbon emissions by 40% by 2020. It is one of the few countries in Southeast Asia with renewable energy standards, despite the fact that it has reliable stores of conventional fuels; its oil, gas and energy sectors accounted for 10% of the country's GDP in 2009.
But Malaysia is also a land of pressing energy needs, and Sabah tells that story better than most places. Officials anticipate a 7.7% annual energy demand increase through 2020, which Sabah Electricity, the state power company, has proposed meeting by adding seven new energy facilities to the 17 already in existence. Most are fueled by natural gas, followed by hydropower and diesel. One of those new facilities, promised by Razak just months before his pledge in Copenhagen, is slated for the Sabah palm plantation region. And this one will be fired by coal — Sabah's first such plant.
Twice before in the last three years, the local electricity utility, a subsidiary of Tenaga Nasional Bhd (TNB), which owns 80% of Malaysia's power generation, had lobbied to build a coal-fired plant. Both times the plans were shot down by the federal Department of Environment (DOE) and local opposition.
This latest plant, however, is different. Not only is it slated for federally owned land, it also has the backing of the prime minister. Sabah's environmental groups formed a coalition to fight the plant, but they kept hearing the same thing over and over again: Ini Najib mau. Najib wants this.
Still, what Najib wants is not necessarily what the rest of his government wants, and in August, the DOE once again stepped in, rejecting a detailed environmental impact assessment for the plant. TNB is expected to submit a revised statement early next year and when the company does, environmentalists fear the jig could be up; this time a coal plant may actually get built.
It doesn't have to be this way, environmentalists say. Some 60% of Malaysia is rain forest, the vast majority of it found in Sabah and its neighbor state, Sarawak. Though renewables currently account for only 1% of the country's energy production, mostly from hydropower, Sabah's abundant sunshine, geothermal sources, extensive network of strong rivers and a long coastline give it the potential to make Malaysia a regional leader in clean energy.
These resources are underdeveloped, however, and until the renewables sector can get itself ginned up, the threat of a coal-fired plant looms. One stopgap for Sabah would be to build the power plants it needs but fuel them with palm oil production waste. Sabah currently produces about 30% of Malaysia's palm oil, which combined with Indonesia's, constitutes 90% of the world's palm oil exports. A palm waste biomass plant could readily meet the 300-MW target Razak promised, according to one recent energy analysis.
Of course, palm plantations — and their waste — do their own serious environmental damage. In Southeast Asia, slash-and-burn land clearing has destroyed vast forest regions to make way for monocrops like palms, a practice that has been strongly implicated in global warming. That hardly makes this region a good place to do more burning. Still, even greens concede that palm burning is a step up from coal, if only because it provides something to do with the 70 million tons of palm production waste the country generates each year, most of which is dumped in mill ponds or illegally burned in open pits.
Despite these problems, Malaysia still heads into the 2010 climate talks in Cancun on Nov. 29 as one of the world's better-intentioned environmental citizens. But it remains to be seen how these good impulses will play out in Sabah's fragile and beautiful ecosystem.
Mag pours cold water on Sabah coal plant
The Star 3 Dec 10;
KOTA KINABALU: A controversial coal-fired power plant project in Sabah’s east coast has caught the attention of Time magazine, which reported that it was “hard to imagine a worse place” to build such a facility.
In the Nov 27 article appearing in its online edition (http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2031862,00.html), the magazine described Sabah as an eco-paradise.
In the article titled “Malaysia: A coal plant in paradise”, writer Jennifer Pinkowski pointed out that on one side of Sabah was the Coral Triangle, “home to the world’s richest ocean diversity; to the other is the Heart of Borneo, a 22-million-hectare rainforest. In the middle is a vast swath of 1,100 palm plantations.”
She acknowledged that electricity demand in the state was set to increase at a rate of 7.7% a year until 2020.
To meet these needs, Sabah Electricity Sdn Bhd was building seven power stations – fuelled either by natural gas, hydro-power or diesel.
One of the seven new stations is the proposed 300MW coal-fired plant that had been twice relocated from Silam near Lahad Datu to Sandakan and now to Tungku, also near Lahad Datu.
Pinkowski noted that the final site for the coal-fired plant had been announced just before Malaysia’s pledge at the UN climate change conference in Copenhagen that the country, already a Kyoto Protocol signatory, would reduce its carbon emissions by 40% by 2020.
She said in this regard, Sabah’s abundant sunshine, geothermal sources, extensive network of strong rivers and a long coastline gave it the potential to make Malaysia a regional leader in clean energy.
Experts seek to investigate ecology in Arabian Gulf and Gulf of Oman.
Emmanuelle Landais Gulf News 28 Nov 10;
Dubai: Frequent divers in the UAE and Oman have at least one common goal: to spot a whale shark.
And over the years this goal has been achieved on a near-weekly basis. Now, research is being done to find out why exactly these gentle giants favour the Arabian Gulf, something of a cul-de-sac on their migration route through the Indian Ocean.
David Robinson, a marine biology doctorate student from the UK, set about finding answers to such questions after the first 2009 Arabian Seas Whale Shark Symposium in Fujairah.
"There had been no significant amount of scientific research carried out on whale sharks in the Arabian Gulf or Gulf of Oman," he said. A major reason for Robinson to launch the Shark Watch Arabia research programme as part of his PhD with the Heriot-Watt University.
He sought to investigate the ecology of whale sharks in the Arabian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman.
"There certainly are whale sharks in this region, just how many, when and why they occur is still a mystery and questions that the project aims to answer," said Robinson.
While there have been newborns confirmed from offshore Pakistan and Oman, which suggests that the Northern Arabian Sea may be home to mature females that are rarely seen at other study sites throughout the world, there is a lot of speculation about the region and why the sharks are here.
No confirmation
"Nobody even knows if in fact whale sharks have defined breeding or birthing grounds. To my knowledge there is no evidence to suggest that whale sharks give birth in the Arabian Gulf.
"As far as I am aware there has never been a confirmed neonate found in Gulf waters," he said.
"The project only started in June of this year but hopefully after a couple of years of data collection I will be in a better position to answer [why whale sharks enter the Gulf]; I simply don't know why they are here….yet."
Catching sight of a whale shark emerging from the blue depths of the Musandam and photographing it is key to the project's goal of identifying individual animals.
The spot pattern on each whale shark is unique, like a human fingerprint, said Robinson, and when photographs are uploaded onto the project's website, software that uses specific algorithms to look at the distance between each spot helps differentiate between each whale shark. "With the right photograph, you can tell the difference between individual sharks. The area located behind the gills and above the pectoral fin … is the area used all over the world and thought to be the most stable," he said.
So far 50 whale shark encounters have been recorded in the region and 23 individual sharks have been identified, in just four months. Thirty-six of those encounters have been since June this year and more encounters are being reported.
A satellite tag sponsored by Le Méridien Al Aqah Beach Resort was ready to be deployed on a suitable whale shark last week - however no whale sharks showed themselves.
How to help
If you encounter a whale shark in the region, please report the sighting via www.sharkwatcharabia.com
Angela Doland, Associated Press Yahoo News 27 Nov 10;
PARIS – An international conservation conference in Paris made progress Saturday on protecting sharks but didn't do anything to save the Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been severely overfished to feed the market for sushi in Japan, environmental groups said.
Delegates from 48 nations spent 11 days in Paris haggling over fishing quotas for the Atlantic and Mediterranean, poring over scientific data and pitting the demands of environmentalists against those of the fishing industry.
Conservation groups said delegates took steps in the right direction with moves to protect oceanic whitetip sharks and many hammerheads in the Atlantic, though they had hoped for more. Sharks were once an accidental catch for fishermen but have been increasingly targeted because of the growing market in Asia for their fins, an expensive delicacy used in soup.
WWF, Greenpeace, Oceana and the Pew Environment Group all strongly criticized the 2011 bluefin quotas set by the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas, or ICCAT, which manages tuna in the Atlantic and Mediterranean as well as species that have traditionally been accidental catches for tuna fishermen.
Environmental groups had hoped to see bluefin fishing slashed or suspended, saying illegal fishing is rampant in the Mediterranean and that scientists don't have good enough data to evaluate the problem.
The commission agreed to cut the bluefin fishing quota in the eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean from 13,500 to 12,900 metric tons annually — about a 4 percent reduction. It also agreed on measures to try to improve enforcement of quotas on bluefin, prized for its tender red meat.
Sergi Tudela, head of WWF Mediterranean's fisheries program, attacked the "measly quota reduction." Oliver Knowles, Greenpeace oceans campaigner, complained that "the word 'conservation' should be removed from ICCAT's name."
Russell F. Smith, representing the U.S. delegation, told The AP, "I think we made some progress. I wish we'd made more."
Meanwhile, the CNPMEM French fishing industry union praised the decision, saying "reason prevailed."
The international commission's committee of scientists had said keeping the status quo was acceptable, but environmentalists say there is so much unreported fishing that doing so is irresponsible.
Japan buys nearly 80 percent of the annual Atlantic bluefin catch. Top-grade sushi with fatty bluefin can go for as much as 2,000 yen ($24) a piece in high-end Tokyo restaurants.
While the focus of the Paris meeting was tuna, sharks have become a growing concern. Environmentalists say there are disastrously inadequate rules on shark capture.
Although there are elaborate international fishing regulations and quotas for other types of fish, sharks have long been an afterthought, even though some species have declined by 99 percent, Oceana said.
The international commission banned fishermen from catching and retaining oceanic whitetip sharks. It voted to limit the catch of several types of hammerhead sharks and to require countries to keep data on shortfin mako sharks.
Delegates also decided that Atlantic fishermen will now be required to carry special gear to remove hooks from sea turtles.
While the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas and other regional commissions regulate fishing, trade bans are handled by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, or CITES. Environmentalists were sorely disappointed by a meeting of that body in March, where Atlantic bluefin and six species of sharks failed to get protection.
Hammerheads, other sharks protected at fisheries meet
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 27 Nov 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Half-a-dozen species of endangered sharks hunted on the high seas to satisfy a burgeoning Asian market for sharkfin soup are now protected in the Atlantic, a fisheries group decided Saturday.
Scalloped, smooth and great hammerheads, along with oceanic white tip, cannot be targeted or kept if caught accidentally, the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) said.
Three other types of hammerhead are included in the ban: smalleye, scoophead, and whitefin.
However, a proposal submitted by the European Union to extend the same level of protection to the porbeagle shark, critically endangered in the northeast Atlantic and Mediterranean, was shot down.
"Canada was adamant that they were not going to let its porbeagle fishery go," said Elizabeth Wilson, a marine scientist at Washington-based advocacy group Oceana.
The decisions on sharks follow 10 days of closed-door haggling at the 48-member ICCAT, which is poised to announce quotas and other measures on bluefin tuna.
ICCAT is charged with ensuring that commercial fisheries are sustainable, and has the authority to set quotas and restrictions.
At least 1.3 million sharks were harvested from the Atlantic in 2008 by industrial-scale fisheries unhampered by catch or size limits, according to a recent report.
The actual figure is likely several fold higher due to under-reporting.
To date, the only other shark species subject to a fishing ban in the Atlantic is the big-eye thresher, a measure passed last year.
"These decisions increase the chances that these species will continue to swim in the Atlantic," said Matt Rand, a shark expert with the Pew Environment Group.
"But there's a lot more work to be done. Fifty percent of open water sharks in the world are threatened with extinction," he said, citing the classification of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
A push by the United States to require that all sharks be brought back to shore whole failed to muster the needed consensus.
The measure would have boosted enforcement of a widely flouted international ban on finning, whereby dead or dying shark are dumped back into the sea after the choice morsel has been removed.
Another US proposal to establish quotas for the shortfin mako shark also fell short.
"Half the countries at the meeting were opposed," said Wilson.
While willing to ban catches of certain species that are already in sharp decline, these nations do not want to set a precedent of establishing quotas for sharks with relatively healthy populations, she explained.
There are no multinational limits on shark fishing anywhere in the world.
ICCAT did, however, call for data collection on the shortfin mako to help scientists measure population levels.
It also voted a measure requiring commercial fishermen to remove hooks and netting from accidentally caught sea turtles, and to keep records.
North Atlantic populations of the oceanic white tip have declined by 70 percent, and hammerheads by more than 99 percent, according to IUCN.
Sharks have reigned at the top of the ocean food chain for hundreds of millions of years.
But the consummate predators are especially vulnerable to industrial-scale overfishing because they mature slowly and produce few offspring.
Tens of millions of the open-water predators are extracted from global seas every year.
Regional studies have shown that when shark populations crash the impact cascades down through the food chain, often in unpredictable and deleterious ways.
Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 27 Nov 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Fishing nations opted Saturday to leave catch limits for eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna virtually unchanged despite concerns that the species is perilously close to collapse.
Annual quotas for the sushi mainstay will be trimmed from 13,500 tonnes this year to 12,900 tonnes in 2011, the 48-member International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) decided at the close of a 10-day meeting in Paris.
Some nations here favoured a much lower cap, or even a suspension of fishing, to ensure bluefin's long-term viability.
But industry representatives and the governments that back them insisted the new catch limits were sufficient.
"They will make it possible to reach maximum sustainable yield by 2022, which represents a balance between respecting natural resources and preserving the social-economic fabric," said Bruno Le Maire, France's agriculture and fisheries minister in a statement.
ICCAT scientists calculate that the new catch levels will put eastern Atlantic bluefin on track for a 70 percent chance of reaching sustainability by that date.
The same scientists, however, caution that the data upon which these estimates are based is spotty at best, while conservationists counter that a 30 percent risk of failure is too high.
The head of the Japanese delegation, Masanori Miyahara, told AFP he was satisfied with the outcome, but said stronger compliance measures were needed.
"The actual catch level will be around 11,000, which is a large reduction off current levels," he added, noting that some members had pledged not to use up their quotas.
Japan is the world's top consumer of bluefin buying up more than 80 percent of all the fish taken from the Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic.
The United States, which had pushed for a sharper reduction, expressed disappointment.
"I can't say that we acted in as precautionary a manner as I would have liked," said Russell Smith, a Department of Commerce official and head of the US delegation.
Currently, eastern Atlantic bluefin are at 85 percent of historical levels and 30 percent of "maximum sustainable yield", the target for recovery.
Green groups reacted angrily.
"This outcome confirms that the bluefin's days are numbered and has demonstrated ICCAT's inability to act on its own mandate," said Greenpeace International oceans campaigner Oliver Knowles.
"The word 'conservation' should be removed from ICCAT's name."
Going into the meeting, the European Union -- allocated more than half the annual catch -- was sharply divided.
Fishing nations led by France pushed to maintain the status quo, even as the EU fisheries commissioner Maria Damanaki said they should be slashed to 6,000 tonnes.
A backdoor attempt by France, meanwhile, to stretch out payments of its "tuna debt"-- incurred in 2007 when it surpassed a national quota of 5,000 tonnes by more than 100 percent -- failed.
A proposal submitted on its behalf by Morocco was shot down in the final plenary.
As things stand, France's bluefin haul for 2011 could drop from about 2,000 to 500 tonnes, barely enough to keep a handful of commercial vessels busy during the one- or two-month long fishing season.
Sue Lieberman of the Pew Environment Group said current quotas did not take into account ICCAT's history of mismanagement.
"It ignores all the evidence of fraud, illegal fishing and laundering," she said.
The 30-page "recovery plan" adopted by ICCAT includes several new measures to combat these problems, including a Japanese proposal whereby each country's ability to monitor and police its catches would be first submitted to ICCAT's compliance committee for approval.
"We have to do many things to ensure compliance before the fishing season starts," Miyahara said.
The plan also bans for the first time multi-nation fishing operations by countries with sizable tuna fleets, a technique that has been used to disguise excess catches.
Bleak future for bluefin as tuna commission only marginally trims catches
WWF 27 Nov 10;
Paris, France - "Wilfully blind" members of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas (ICCAT) have left Mediterranean bluefin tuna still on a trajectory of collapse, WWF said as the commission's annual meeting closed in Paris with only marginal cuts to catch levels.
With more than four decades of failure behind it protecting the bluefin fisheries under its care, ICCAT today agreed to trim catch quotas by only 600 tonnes compared to the more than 6000 tonnes needed to just even the odds of saving the species.
“Greed and mismanagement have taken priority over sustainability and common sense at this ICCAT meeting when it comes to Atlantic bluefin. This measly quota reduction is insufficient to ensure the recovery of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean Sea,” said Dr Sergi Tudela, Head of WWF Mediterrean’s Fisheries Programme.
Key countries backed away from commitments to ensure a sustainably managed fishery, leaving only one brighter spot - the meeting declined to rubberstamp another amnesty to fishing nations required under ICCAT rules to pay back past overfishing against future catches.
"Doha commitment" promises come to nothing
The so called "Doha commitments" were made by key ICCAT member states including the EU, Japan and the US after key bluefin tuna market after key bluefin tuna market Japan orchestrated a vote against proposals to introduce the highest level of trade restrictions for bluefin tuna at the March meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).
The outcome of the Paris meeting recalls ICCAT's action in the 1990s, where promises and concessions on catches were made in the face of threats to refer the collapsing western Atlantic bluefin tuna to CITES, only to be followed by a hard line on reducing catches once the danger of referral to CITES had passed.
Under pressure from the Mediterranean fishing industry and countries benefiting from the highly profitable trade of the sushi favourite red-fleshed bluefin tuna, ICCAT today also held back other efforts to regulate the fishery in the Mediterranean, where the eastern Atlantic population of bluefin tuna migrates to spawn.
“After years of observing ICCAT and countless opportunities to do the right thing, it is clear to us that the commission’s interests lie not in the sustainable harvesting of bluefin tuna but in pandering to short-term business interests," Dr Tudela said. "There have been no effective measures implemented here to deal with widespread illegal and unreported fishing for bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean.”
Recent investigations have shown the high levels of non-compliance and rule-bending still rife across the Mediterranean bluefin tuna fishery. While there are observers on vessels there is a lot of guess work involved, and control measures were not significantly improved at the Paris ICCAT meeting.
“ICCAT members are wilfully blind to the fact that failing to reduce fishing quotas to precautionary levels recommended by science will logically result in the lack of recovery of the species. Before this meeting WWF asked whether ICCAT wants to remain ineffective or help save bluefin tuna. The answer is becoming all too clear,” said Tudela.
WWF welcomed the decision to finally respect the so-called payback regulations, meaning that countries which have overfished would see their quotas reduced accordingly in future to compensate. This application of fishing rules is crucial in Europe at a time when the EU is reforming its common fisheries policy and has pledged to follow science and slash illegal fishing.
In 2007 France fished well over 10,000 tonnes, while in 2011 its quota will be less than 1,000 after payback. France’s 2011 quota should be allocated among artisanal fleets rather than the industrial purse seine vessels that are responsible for the massive overfishing in the recent past.
WWF is urging that capacity reduction measures put in place today also focus on cutting purse seiners. The new rules dictate that within three years boat capacity in the Mediterranean – currently far too high – should be aligned with fishing quotas. While current figures for boat numbers underestimate real capacity, this is a positive move.
Coming into the meeting ICCAT’s chairman Dr Fabio Hazin talked of “the obligation to respect science” and expressed “confidence and consequent optimism” that countries would “act responsibly and adopt measures needed to ensure sustainability” of fish stocks. But ICCAT members countries have fallen short of this expectation.
“Everyone talked of respecting science and wanting to adopt measures to ensure recovery of bluefin tuna in the Mediterranean, but the measures adopted today are highly risky given the dire status of bluefin tuna stocks and all the blanks and unknowns in the current data gathering and analysis,” said Dr Tudela of WWF.
ICCAT has for years failed to implement recovery and sustainable management of the bluefin tuna fishery in the Mediterranean Sea.
WWF, an observer at the negotiations during the ICCAT meeting, was calling on governments to end rule-bending and impunity for illegal fishing, and urging the inter-governmental body to implement a science-based management plan that will allow the Atlantic bluefin tuna to recover.
WWF was also calling for the establishment of no-fishing sanctuaries in the six identified spawning grounds in the Mediterranean Sea, but this suggestion was removed entirely from the agenda.
A proposal to ban international trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna through a listing on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) was defeated in Doha, Qatar last March. But the main harvesting and consuming countries of eastern Atlantic bluefin tuna, the EU and Japan – as well as Norway, Canada and the U.S. – promised to lead in getting sustainable and science-based fisheries management measures adopted at this year’s ICCAT meeting.
Japan in particular opposed the CITES listing and stressed that ICCAT was the place to sustainably manage Atlantic bluefin tuna and that countries would show the world ICCAT is capable of ensuring the recovery of the species.
“WWF is disappointed the Doha commitments were not respected here in Paris. We had high hopes that Japan especially would take leadership at this ICCAT meeting in putting in place sustainable and precautionary management measures for bluefin tuna as well as enforcing strict compliance,” said Dr Aiko Yamauchi, Fisheries Officer at WWF-Japan. “The results fall short of our high expectations, in spite of fresh evidence of widespread rule-breaking again this year. We are urging Japan to strictly enforce compliance rules.”
ICCAT’s scientists will next assess bluefin tuna stocks in the East Atlantic in 2012, when they vow to address the uncertainties in data to ensure recommendations are clearer. Data quality must improve but also the methodologies employed to analyse figures. WWF will work with scientists to optimise the process during the next two years.
Fishing nations criticised over deal on bluefin tuna
BBC News 27 Nov 10;
Fishing nations have agreed a small cut in Atlantic bluefin tuna quotas, after meeting in Paris.
The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT) set the 2011 quota at 12,900 tonnes, down from 13,500 tonnes.
Conservationists say the bluefin tuna is threatened by overfishing, and much deeper cuts are needed.
They have criticised ICCAT in the past for failing to ensure that the species and others are fished sustainably.
Correspondents say the 48 countries represented at the talks were divided over what action to take, with some calling for a lower quota or even a temporary suspension of bluefin fishing to allow stocks to recover.
But industry representatives and the governments that back them said the limits agreed at the meeting were sufficient.
"The actual catch level will be around 11,000, which is a large reduction from current levels," the head of the Japanese delegation, Masanori Miyahara, said, adding that some members had promised not to use up their quotas.
The decision was criticised by Sue Lieberman, policy director of the US-based Pew Environment Group.
"Despite sound science to show how threatened these species are... Atlantic bluefin tuna once again were denied the protection they desperately need," she said.
"ICCAT member governments had more than enough information to act decisively. They failed to do so."
Pacific group seeks 30 percent cut in tuna catch
Yahoo News 26 Nov 10;
MAJURO, Marshall Islands (AFP) – An influential group of Pacific fishing nations called Saturday for a near-30 percent cut in next year's tuna catch next year as concern about over-fishing increases.
The eight members of the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA) group control waters where a quarter of the world's tuna is caught.
At a meeting in Majuro, in the Marshall Islands, they agreed to cut licensed fishing days from 40,000 to 28,469 next year.
"There is more urgency than ever to protect fish stocks in the Pacific," said Marshall Islands Resources Minister Mattlan Zackhras.
"If we don't do anything as the resource owners, then we're not doing our part for future generations to benefit from the resource."
The PNA nations -- Papua New Guinea, Solomon Islands, Palau, Federated States of Micronesia, Nauru, Kiribati, Marshall Islands, Kiribati and Tuvalu -- operate a system known as the "vessel day scheme", selling "fishing days" instead of licensing a set number of vessels to fish in the region.
But during the three years the scheme has been in place the scattering of tiny nations has had difficulty enforcing it, reducing its effectiveness for conservation.
"The islands have set hard limits but have had difficulty in actually doing it," said Phil Roberts of Tri-Marine International, one of the world's largest suppliers of tuna, who attended the talks in Majuro.
"The proposal to cut to 28,000 fishing days in 2011 means they will have to cut back a lot of boats. If they don't, they will never get fishing under control."
Zackhras said there is determination to reduce the level of fishing as research showed bigeye and yellowfin tuna -- favourites for Japan's sushi and sashimi markets -- are being overfished.
"There is a strong commitment from all countries," Zackhras said. "We will see a lot of changes in the coming year."
Piracy sidelines third of Taiwan's Indian Ocean tuna fleet
Yahoo News 26 Nov 10;
PARIS (AFP) – More than a third of Taiwan's tuna-fishing fleet in the Indian Ocean has been scared off by the threat of piracy, according to Taiwanese delegates at a fisheries meeting underway in Paris.
Sixty-six of 141 vessels equipped to fish bigeye tuna "have ceased their operations due to the escalating situation," noted a document submitted by Taiwan to the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Bluefin Tuna (ICCAT).
"The escalation of piracy ... has severely undermined the livelihood of the fishermen concerned and affected the legitimate operation of the industry," it said.
Since 2009, three Taiwan-flagged vessels and their crews have been hijacked by pirates from Somalia.
One, the Wen Fa No 161, was detained for more than 10 months and was released in February 2010 "only after paying a huge ransom," the document said.
Two other vessels, the Jih Chun Tsai No. 68 and the Tai Yuan No. 227, along with their crews, "are still held by pirates," it said.
To compensate for the lost business, Taiwan is seeking permission to "transfer" 15 of the mothballed fishing vessels from the Indian Ocean to the Atlantic.
The 48-member ICCAT, meeting in Paris through Saturday, is charged with setting the rules and quotas for fisheries in the Atlantic and Mediterranean, including all species of commercially-fished tunas.
The transfer would be limited to 2010 and 2011, the proposal said.
"Once the problem of piracy is resolved, or the period is expired, the vessels ... will return to the Indian Ocean," it said.
The main focus of the Paris meeting is the plight of Atlantic bluefin tuna, which has been fished to the brink of viability.
Bigeye is more plentiful, but conservationists say stricter quotas should be put in place now for this species as well to avoid the future collapse of stocks.
Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Yahoo News 27 Nov 10;
ZITACUARO, Mexico – This small patch of mountain fir forest is a model of sorts for the global effort to save trees and fight climate change. The problem is that saving trees has not saved the forest's most famous visitors: Monarch butterflies.
Millions of Monarch butterflies migrate here from the United States and Canada every year, but their numbers declined by 75 percent last year alone, apparently because of changing weather and vegetation patterns.
The Monarch butterfly reserve shows how complex the battle against climate change has become, as the world prepares for a United Nations climate conference in Cancun next week. The conference is expected to focus in part on how best to preserve forests, with questions about who should pay and and how to treat communities who already live in the jungles and forests of developing countries.
Forest preservation is the goal of a popular U.N.-sponsored program known as REDD, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, which garnered more mentions than any other program approved at the last international climate meeting in Copenhagen. The hope is for developed nations to pay poorer ones $22 to $38 billion per year to help them preserve forests.
"It is not a hypothetical idea or theory," said Mexico's Environment Secretary Juan Rafael Elvira Quesada of the REDD program. "It's working in many countries around the world. What we really require is....that it convert into an agreement at Cancun."
The Monarch butterfly reserve is an example both of how the program could work, and of its limitations.
The reserve in the mountains west of Mexico City benefits from international help, such as payments to communities to preserve trees and alternative income projects. The deforestation rate there is down by about 95 percent.
Fernando Solis Martinez, 54, is the head of a "communal property commission" that takes care of jointly-owned land inherited from Indian ancestors in San Juan Xoconusco, a village within the 13,550 hectare (33,482 acre) reserve. He oversees the watering and replanting of oyamel fir seedlings at the village's tree nursery. The 120,000 seedlings will be distributed throughout the reserve come June, when the rains return, to replace areas cut or washed away in severe storms.
"This nursery is a way to do maintenance on the forest, and provide jobs for more people," said Solis Martinez, as he takes a break from efforts to rebuild a balky water pump.
Set up three years ago with help from the World Wildlife Fund, the nursery is part of a mix of projects — direct payments from the government and contributions from private companies; a scheme for collecting sap and selling it to turpentine manufacturers; sales of woven pine-needle artisanry, and hopes for a tourist operation — that could provide income streams for future generations.
It is not paradise; most residents of Xoconusco still have to work for about 120 pesos ($10) per day) at flower hothouses down in the valley, and illicit loggers are a constant threat. Most communities send patrols of 10 men into the mountains every day to listen for the distant sounds of chain saws. But despite the challenges, the program appears to be working.
Gabriel Colin Camacho, 37, the new head of communal lands in the village of Crescencio Morales, has started to turn around that community's reputation as one of the worst areas for deforestation in the reserve. Now he says most of his neighbors realize that a steady stream of government payments would end if the forest disappears.
"Before, we saw the forest as nothing more than money, that we could take without any considerations," he said. "You could say that we were fools, because we sold the wood for less than it was worth."
Deforestation and soil degradation causes between 17 and 20 percent of greenhouse gases worldwide, a greater proportion than transport. But the idea of saving forests to trap greenhouse gases has come a long way since the days when simply planting a stretch of eucalyptus trees on a clear-cut plain would qualify as "offsets," the practice of balancing greenhouse-gas emissions in one place by "trapping" carbon in trees.
The world is still losing 12.8 million acres (5.2 million hectares) of forest per year, despite reforestation efforts that reduced the annual rate of loss from 20.3 million acres (8.3 million hectares) in the 1990s. So far, an alliance of about a dozen developed nations is providing about $4.6 billion in funding for projects in about 60 developing nations.
But when you're talking that amount of money, you want some accounting and control, tree by saved tree. And of course you have to raise the money: high-emission companies looking for offsets offer a potentially rich source of funds. The idea angers many activists.
"We do not accept, and the people of the world will not accept, using forests as a sort of reserve so that big corporations can keep on polluting," said Raul Benet, an activist who is organizing protests at Cancun.
While the Monarch Butterfly Reserve is a success story, trees alone won't keep it going.
If the butterflies disappear — and by all accounts they are doing badly — interest in the forest could quickly evaporate. The REDD program has been improved to take into account the importance of biodiversity in forests.
While experts aren't really sure what has been battering the butterflies, changing weather patterns are clearly taking a toll.
Last year, clusters of butterflies covered a total area equal to only about 1.9 hectares (4.7 acres), compared to about 8 hectares (almost 20 acres) in the 2008-2009 winter season. Experts say it is still too soon to estimate figures on this year's migration.
Monarch expert Lincoln Brower cites climate swings of wet and dry weather, storms that damaged the reserve, and the crowding out of the only plant the Monarchs lay their eggs on, the milkweed, by genetically-modified crops.
Javier Espinosa, the coordinator of statistics for Mexico's National Weather Service, said February 2010 — when most of the storm damage occurred — was the wettest on record for the area in 70 years. Brower thinks the February storms may have killed 30 percent of the butterflies.
Brower cautions that a cold snap, combined with wet weather and spotty tree cover, could be disastrous, freezing the Monarchs, but warmer weather could hurt them by making them more restive, burning up the fat reserves they need to fly north in the spring.
Any extreme variation in weather hurts the migration, and that is more or less what climate change is expected to cause. "I think it's a disaster of major proportions that's not being recognized," Brower said.
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