Best of our wild blogs: 11 Dec 10

Oh Shit!
from Macro Photography in Singapore

Purple Heron flight landing sequence
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Singapore: Bukit Timah Eco-bridge to link nature reserves on its way

Construction at BKE will begin next year
Goh Chin Lian Straits Times 11 Dec 10;

THE delayed eco-link bridge linking two nature reserves across the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) is a step closer to being built.

Local construction firm Eng Lee Engineering pipped six other bidders, including Japanese contractor Sato Kogyo, to win the contract last month.

The bridge will be built for $11.8 million, the second-lowest bid submitted.

Eng Lee has experience in building vehicular bridges, MRT viaducts and other road projects. Its track record includes bridges at Thomson, Braddell and Lornie roads, at Marina Bayfront and across a waterway in Punggol. It also worked on the Boon Lay MRT extension and Marina Coastal Expressway.

The 50m-wide green bridge is designed for animals to move between Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Central Catchment area, and for plants to be dispersed. Both areas were separated by the BKE when the highway was built in 1986. They are currently linked by a concrete bridge which is part of Rifle Range Road.

The bridge will be situated about 600m north of Rifle Range Road, between the Pan-Island Expressway and Dairy Farm exits.

Native trees and shrubs will be planted along the bridge for creatures to colonise. A hiking trail on it will let people move between the two nature reserves.

The new bridge should address concerns by conservationists about the potential loss of genetic diversity, as animal species such as the rare banded leaf monkey on one side of the BKE are cut off from their own kind on the other side.

A loss of diversity could threaten the survival of the two fragmented forests.

When plans to build the bridge were announced in September last year, it was said construction would start this year. The new start date is the second quarter of next year.

Eng Lee has six months to come up with a final design, and two years and nine months to build the bridge.

Measures have been drawn up to protect the natural setting during construction. Tree species like Senegal mahogany, and fruit trees like the jambu and durian will be retained.

The case for eco-passages was also made by the Nature Society (Singapore) when it submitted a proposal on Oct 21 to the authorities to retain the 40km stretch of Malayan Railway land as a green corridor.

Giant tree ferns and rare birds like the Buffy Fish Owl have been seen there, along with fruit and vegetable farms, mangroves and mudflats, said a report published on the society's website.

It suggested providing walking trails and a cycling route linking homes in the north and west - in areas like Choa Chu Kang and Bukit Panjang - to the city in the south, as well as to places like the Botanic Gardens, One North Park and the Southern Ridges. These green links would feed into the growing network of park connectors.

The report pointed to the value of Singapore's natural and man-made heritage in nation building and sustainable development.

It warned that while attempts like the eco-link bridge are being made to restore some heritage at great expense, much of the heritage has been irretrievably lost in the rush to transform Singapore from Third World to First.

On preserving the railway land for nature, Mr Leong Kwok Peng, vice-president of the Nature Society (Singapore), said: 'It's a ready-made nature corridor. It's the chance of a lifetime not to be missed.'

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Malaysia: 1,000 wild tigers by 2020

New Straits Times 11 Dec 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysia has reaffirmed its commitment in protecting and conserving the population of tigers in the recently-concluded Tiger Summit, held in St Petersburg, Russia.

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry, in a statement here yesterday, said that during the summit, its minister, Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas, stressed on the need for bold and affirmative action to enable the doubling of the global wild tiger population by 2022 and to prevent the extinction of the endangered species.

“It is important for leaders to take bold and affirmative decisions and actions through the Global Tiger Recovery Programme (GTRP) to save wild tigers and to double their numbers by 2022,” the statement said.

Malaysia adopted the National Tiger Conservation Plan (NTCAP) last year with the aim of having 1,000 wild tigers by 2020, and outlined 80 action plans to achieve the objective.

“Malaysia has also taken various complementary actions to support the growth of the wild tiger population. Since last year, a moratorium has been imposed on the hunting of certain tiger prey species throughout Malaysia,” it said.

Under the 10th Malaysia Plan, the government had approved a research project to track the number of tigers in the wild to monitor the implementation of the NTCAP and to look at the progress of real tiger numbers in the wild.

“ The new data will help us meet the objective of the NTCAP to have up to 1,000 wild tigers by 2020,” it said.

To implement the NTCAP, substantial resources, in terms of funds, human capital and technology, is crucial.

“Realising the huge cost in conserving tigers and their habitats, Malaysia fully supports the proposed Wildlife Premium Market+REDD mechanism where developed countries can play a more committed and effective role in conserving the world’s tigers.

“All these efforts should be reinforced and supported by strong international cooperation to combat trans-boundary illegal wildlife trade,” it said.

According to the World Wildlife Fund and other experts, there are only 3,200 tigers left in the wild now, compared with an estimated 100,000 a century ago. — Bernama

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Wild food crop relatives to be 'rescued'

Victoria Gill BBC News 10 Dec 10;

Scientists have announced a plan to collect and store the wild plant relatives of essential food crops, including wheat, rice, and potatoes.

The project, co-ordinated by the Global Crop Diversity Trust, will collect and catalogue seeds from across the globe.

The aim is to safeguard valuable genetic traits that the wild plants contain, which could be bred into crops to make them more hardy and versatile.

This could help secure food supplies in the face of a changing climate.

All of the plant material collected will be stored in seed banks in the long term, but much of it will also be used in "pre-breeding trials" to find out if the wild varieties could be used to combat diseases that are already threatening food production.

Dr Paul Smith is head of the Millennium Seed Bank at London's Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, which is playing a key role in the project.

"There is a real sense of urgency about this," he told BBC News.

"For some of these species, we may just get this one bite of the cherry, because so many of them are already threatened [with extinction] in their natural habitats."

The hope is that the wild relatives of food crops will help plant-breeders to "correct for", not only a changing climate, but plant diseases and loss of viable agricultural land.

Cary Fowler, executive director of the Global Crop Diversity Trust explained: "All our crops were originally developed from wild species - that's how farming began.

"But they were adapted from the plants best suited to the climates of the past.

"Climate change means we need to go back to the wild to find those relatives of our crops that can thrive in the climates of the future."

Wild saviours

Crops' wild relatives make up only a tiny fraction of the material contained in the world's gene banks.

But, according to Kew, their contribution to commercial agriculture alone is estimated at more than $100 billion per year.

In the 1970s, for example, an outbreak of grassy stunt virus, which prevents the rice plant from flowering and producing grain, decimated rice harvests across Asia.

Scientists from the International Rice Research Institute screened thousands of samples of wild and locally-cultivated rice plants looking for genetic resistance to the disease.

They found it in a wild relative, Oryza nivara, which grows in India. The gene has been incorporated into most new rice varieties since the discovery.

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Unusually cold weather killing Florida's manatees

Reuters AlertNet 10 Dec 10;

ST. PETERSBURG, Fla., Dec 10 (Reuters) - Unusually cold weather last winter killed Florida's endangered manatees at a record rate, a report said on Friday.

During 2010, a record 699 manatees have died in Florida, according to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission's Research Institute.

Of those, 244 were attributed to cold weather and many of the 271 undetermined deaths were also likely caused by weather. In most years, the leading cause of manatee deaths is from collisions with power boats.

The latest surveys estimate there are only about 5,000 of the chubby marine mammals left in Florida waters.

"We are very concerned about the unusually high number of manatee deaths this year," Gil McRae, the director of the institute, said in a statement. "The cold-related deaths this past winter emphasize the importance of warm weather habitat to the Florida manatee."

The previous record of 429 manatee deaths was set in 2009 but only 56 of those were caused by cold weather.

Manatees are protected under the Endangered Species Act and the state of Florida has enacted laws to require slower motor boat speeds in some waters to prevent manatee accidents.

Manatees require warm, shallow water to survive. They often swim near power plants in the winter for warmth.

(Writing by Robert Green, editing by Greg McCune)

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WWF to move critically endangered rhinos to new habitats

WWF 9 Dec 10;

As part of its successful range expansion programme, WWF will translocate an additional 20 black rhinoceros to new landscapes in 2011, according to an agreement with a South African wildlife agency.

The rhinos will come from reserves administered by the Eastern Cape Parks & Tourism Agency (ECPTA), a public entity that manages wildlife parks other natural areas in South Africa.

WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project aims to increase the number of critically endangered black rhinoceros by moving populations to newly established habitat areas, which helps to increase breeding rates. Since 2003, the project has translocated 98 black rhinos to 6 different sites resulting in the births of at least 26 calves.

There are currently about 4,700 black rhinos in Africa, up from a low of approximately 2,100 in the early 1990s. However, rhinos are being poached at an alarming rate largely due to the illicit demand for their horns, which are used in traditional Asian medicine. At least 250 of South Africa’s rhinos have been killed in 2010.

“There are two sides to good rhino conservation. One is intensive security for existing populations. The other is managing to make sure that your population grows as fast as possible,” says Dr. Jacques Flamand, WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion Project Leader. “If you do not manage for high population growth rate, then effectively over time you are losing a lot of animals that could have been born. Rapid population growth rate can mean the difference between survival and extinction for a critically endangered species.”

Growth rates at some range expansion sites have topped 7% per year, according to Flamand. “Also, indications are that the growth rate is improving in donor populations,” he says.

The agency’s decision to donate the rhinos comes as its key population reaches the carrying capacity of its habitat. “We are proud of the fact that we have successfully tripled the number of black rhino in our reserves in the past decade,” says Sybert Liebenberg, ECPTA’s CEO. “This has enabled us to be in a position where we can contribute to the further growth of the national black rhino population by participating in WWF’s Black Rhino Range Expansion programme.”

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Car technologies may green world faster than politics

G Panicker Business Times 11 Dec 10;

IF YOU care about climate change, look beyond Cancun - to California - for real action. As politicians dance around a global agreement in the Mexican resort, two US carmakers are making a bid to start a new motor age.

Advanced vehicles may play a critical role in greening the world economy. Transport accounts for about 19 per cent of global energy use and 23 per cent of global energy-related CO2 emissions. Based on current trends, transport energy use and CO2 emissions from transport are projected to increase nearly 50 per cent by 2030 and more than 80 per cent by 2050.

A major transport study by the International Energy Agency (IEA), published in 2009, describes possible paths to 2050 under different scenarios. This study indicates that, if the transition to more efficient transport began now, real progress could be made towards reducing the growth of transport emissions over the next four decades. To significantly reduce CO2 emissions from transport, however, radical changes would be necessary.

The IEA has outlined in its Energy Technology Perspectives Blue Map scenario how technologies should be transformed by 2050 to lower emissions. Efficiency improvements with new types of vehicles and fuels can reduce transport emissions by 30 per cent by 2050. Vehicle numbers will exceed two billion by then.

Electric vehicles (EVs) and hybrids will account for 2.6 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent emission reductions if they manage to claim 60 per cent of the market share by 2050, according to the Blue Map scenario. For that, key actions must begin now and it will require great political will, strong policies, investment and incentives.

Last year, the nations accepted the global warming limit of two degrees Celcius above the pre-industrial age. They have pledged emissions reduction, though the Copenhagen Accord was a non-binding political statement. The pledges, while encouraging, are inadequate to achieve the big aim.

A legally binding agreement was beyond reach at the Cancun meeting which ended yesterday. Delegates struggled to protect the Kyoto framework beyond 2012.

Amid such political foot dragging, outright emission reduction depends on initiatives on the ground, particularly because of the increasing fossil fuel use.

Oil consumption has risen faster than coal use between 1973 and 2008, with transport accounting for 61 per cent. During this period, emissions rose 90 per cent. The US Department of Energy sees transport's oil needs rising 45 per cent by 2025, whatever the price level.

In the hope of changing the gas guzzler culture, GM and Nissan are making a modest start this month, introducing their advanced cars in a few US states, including California. GM, which lost US$1 billion on its earlier EV1 bid, is spending US$750 million on its plug-in hybrid Volt and Nissan US$5 billion on its pure electric Leaf.

Carlos Ghosn, chief executive of the Nissan and Renault alliance, expects 10 per cent of global car sales to be electric by 2020. Independent studies place demand far below, with an advantage to plug-ins.

EVs and plug-ins will have to compete also with conventional cars improving their efficiency. The US plans a 25 per cent increase in fuel economy by 2016 to 15 km per litre. Other major countries have similar plans.

EVs and plug-ins have definite efficiency edge. The US Environmental Protection Agency has given the Leaf a rating equivalent to 42 km per litre. Its driving range is 117 km on a single charge. Chevrolet's Volt gets 25 km per litre on combined driving. Its rating is 149.7 km on battery and 59.5 km on petrol. A battery-charging petrol engine extends the Volt's range to 606 km.

The agency places the Leaf's annual operating cost at US$561, a third below a Toyota hybrid and two-thirds below a mid-size conventional car. The figures for the Volt are US$601 on battery and US$1,302 fully on petrol. An EV takes up to eight hours to recharge at home but 30 minutes at a limited number of charging stations.

GM will produce 10,000 cars in the first year and 45,000 in 2012. Nissan hopes to roll out half a million by 2013. The US government is aiming for a million electric cars by 2015 - a mark that China has set for 2020. Several other producers are also targeting a production of one million or more.

The IEA says that if these new vehicle sales reach five million in 10 years, the world will be positioned to attain its Blue Map target of one billion cars by 2050, saving 15 million barrels of oil per day. By then, EVs and plug-in hybrids will account for 50 per cent of global sales.

The higher price tag for EVs is softened by federal and state incentives - as much as US$12,500 in California. Yet, it is uncertain whether consumers will warm up to EVs' green credentials quickly.

Though batteries have come a long way since the 1990s and carry warranties for over 160,000 km, the driver may still worry about getting stranded.

The IEA expects battery cost per kilowatt hour to fall 50 per cent, slashing vehicle cost by as much as US$14,000. US Energy Secretary Steven Chu says that plug-ins' batteries will be competitive under five years.

Big companies have backed the project. GE, which is building the recharging infrastructure, has ordered 25,000 cars for delivery by 2015. These vehicles should also benefit from energy prices, forecast to double by 2035.

The EV, returning from the dawn of the automobile age a century ago, is still seen as an urban car. A European study finds decarbonisation of transport by 95 per cent necessary before emissions are cut by 80 per cent. But that would require emission-free cars using hydrogen as fuel.

The big transformation to an emission-free world demands substantial political will and trillions of dollars in financial investment. It needs a global consensus. But at Cancun, the central issue - a legally binding pact - has been deferred to next year; only agreements on secondary issues such as funding for poor countries to adapt to climate changes and setting up institutions for transfer of green technology and for forest protection were haggled over.

Critical issues demand ending the rift over targets, monitoring and status of the Kyoto Protocol after 2012.

When environment ministers arrive in South Africa next December, I expect they will still be squabbling over final numbers.

Perhaps by then, the world may have a better idea of whether the new cars will find a ready market.

# The writer was formerly with BT's foreign desk

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Finland to fund sustainable energy from forests in Indonesia

Chris White Reuters AlertNet 10 Dec 10;

JAKARTA, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Finland is aiming to set up an scheme to produce renewable biomass energy from Indonesian forests next year, following in the footsteps of a lauded Norwegian agreement to tackle Indonesia's high deforestation.

Finland's scheme, with initial investment of four million euros, is small compared to the $1 billion pledged by Norway, but is a sign more countries may look to do bilateral deals if U.N. talks in Cancun fail to produce a global climate pact.

Australia said on Thursday it would increase its spending on climate change financing by giving Indonesia an additional $45 million for projects to reduce emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) and for climate change adaption.

Protecting forests is seen by some as the easiest and cheapest option in the fight against climate change. The Finnish project aims to support the forestry industry turn towards renewable energy production.

"The focus will be on the utilisation of forest biomass and the residues of the wood processing industry as renewable energy sources," Päivi Alatalo, the deputy head of the Finnish embassy in Indonesia, told Reuters.

The projects are to be established in the regions of central Kalimantan on Borneo island and Riau province on Sumatra island, areas that have seen intense deforestation in recent years by timber and palm oil firms, both legally and illegally.

Indonesia has been pushing on the global stage for greater support in its efforts to reduce the costs of deforestation, though environment minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta rejected a proposal by Japan in Cancun this week that developing nations agree to legally binding targets to reduce emissions.

Indonesia has promised to slash its emissions by at least 26 percent from business as usual levels by 2020 but President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has also vowed to boost economic growth to 7 percent or more by 2014, with development of resources from palm oil to coal helping drive the economy.

Other big developing nations have rejected binding targets for a climate deal that developed nations want before they sign up to a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, in a rich-poor rift that has haunted the talks to agree a new global climate deal.

"Reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation, which accounts for 18 per cent of global emissions and more than 60 percent of Indonesia's total emissions in 2005, is critical to achieving a global outcome on climate change," said Australian foreign minister Kevin Rudd in a statement.

So far over $4 billion has been pledged to help Indonesia tackle deforestation from rich nations, including from the United States, Norway, Japan and now Finland.

However, the Indonesian government still faces numerous difficulties, such as lobbying by firms profiting from deforestation, competing vested interests within the forestry industry, weak governance and top-heavy bureaucracy, that is slowing the pace of action.

Norway's scheme, which proposes a two-year moratorium on new permits to clear natural forest, is meant to start in January but details of how it will work have still not been finalised.

"No projects have been finalised yet because we are still in the process of making a bilateral contract between Finland and Indonesia," said Finland's Alatalo. "But we are hoping that we will get this agreement finalised soon." (Editing by Neil Chatterjee and Miral Fahmy)

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Forest plan hangs in balance at climate conference

Mark Stevenson, Associated Press Yahoo News 9 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico – Pedro Chuc May climbs a big zapote tree, braces himself against the trunk with a rope sling and uses his sharp machete to slash v-shaped cuts in the rough bark to let the tree's resin — the base for natural chewing gum — flow into a cut-off soda bottle below.

Chuc May's ancient Mayan chicle-tapping technique doesn't harm the trees, if done right, but it earns him only about $450 per year.

A U.N. program under debate at the climate change conference in Cancun, a few hours north of his patch of trees, could help May and millions of others who live in the world's forests earn more while slowing the deforestation that accounts for one-fifth of the carbon dioxide emissions blamed for warming the planet.

For Chuc, it might mean a new distributor and a fairer price. He could be paid to plant trees, care for the forest, fight fires or be hired as a forest ranger — just about anything that helps keep forests standing and prevents the release of CO2 into the atmosphere.

It's a simple idea with a complicated name — Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation, or REDD.

Unlike old piecemeal forest-protection efforts, REDD is a global effort with standards, monitoring and a pay-for-results system that would give people incentives to leave their forests standing and to keep from emitting more carbon into the atmosphere.

The delegates in Cancun are trying to hammer out just what shape it will take: Who will administer it, who will fund it, who will enforce it and even what some of its most basic rules will be.

Anything that protects forests — alternate income for communities, solar panels, forest guards, mapping efforts — could be included in REDD.

Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, whose country has already committed $1 billion to one of the first projects, calls REDD "the fastest, the cheapest and easiest way" to reduce emissions of heat-trapping gases.

Mexican President Felipe Calderon calls it a way "to reduce both poverty and emissions at the same time."

The program was touted as one of the biggest potential deals at Cancun, but the talks have been stymied by disagreements over how to finance and evaluate projects, and over safeguards to guarantee that forest-dwellers won't be evicted by the process.

A watered-down text may be all negotiators can achieve when the conference ends on Friday. But some poor countries would need immediate aid to prepare for the plan's rigorous accounting procedures.

The world is still losing about 13 million acres (5.2 million hectares) of forests to logging per year, an area about the size of Costa Rica. While that is down from 21 million acres (8.3 million hectares) a year in the 1990s, the world is still faced with the question of what to do with as much as a billion hectares of degraded forest land where most trees have already been cut down.

The REDD negotiations have turned into minefields because countries disagree whether companies in rich countries should be able to use sponsorship of green projects in the developing world as a way to offset pollution in their home countries.

Proponents say such markets can help fund the estimated $30 billion annual cost of reducing deforestation by 50 percent.

But critics say that would mean restricting the economic options of the countries with forests, and the people who live there, so that big companies can go on polluting and rich countries can go on producing.

"We're not here to turn nature into a good, an asset," Bolivian President Evo Morales told the Cancun conference on Thursday. "The forests are sacred to the peoples of the world and we cannot allow new policies that seek to ensure only the survival of capitalism."

The program "is quite possibly ... the largest land grab of all time," wrote Jihan Gearon of the indigenous Environmental Network. Demonstrators from pro-Indian and environmental groups paraded through the conferences halls at Cancun, shouting "No, no, no REDD!"

About $4.5 billion in REDD funding has been promised by donor governments, though only about one-sixth of that has been released. But even governments that might get the aid don't agree with each other.

Some countries want to weaken requirements that forest communities give full, informed consent to REDD programs, arguing that such strict standards may be hard to meet, said Louis Verchot of the Center for International Forestry Research.

Others insist on strong protection for the rights of native forest dwellers who depend on their environment.

"The forest is our supermarket, our hardware store and our health clinic," said Mirna Cunningham, a Miskita Indian from Nicaragua."

Many also fear money will be siphoned off by "carbon cowboys," fly-by-night operators who set up conservation programs of questionable value, take their fees and disappear.

To prevent that, REDD would require developing countries, mainly those in the world's tropical forest belt, to map woodlands, measure the emissions caused by logging and then draw up a plan to reduce them as a condition for receiving money.

Most national governments also want to control all programs in their territories, saying that would avoid surreptitious logging and encroachment by agriculture, problems that plagued piecemeal conservation programs in the past, as loggers banned from one parcel simply moved next door.

Many also argue that third-party verification of the programs could violate their national sovereignty.

In any case, most agree that a global approach with verifiable standards is needed; the old piecemeal approach wasn't up to the scale of the problem.

"The old idea was that you enriched families, so they wouldn't have to go into the forest and chop down trees with machetes," said Tony Simmons, of the World Agroforestry Center. "In many places we've enriched those families and now they can afford to buy chain saws and they can really go into the forests and do some damage."

But the new REDD system will take years to put in place. Deficit-ridden developed countries may be slow to fork over donations and some poor countries can't even start until they get seed money to make inventories of their forests and plans for managing them.

Experts say unless some standard practices are adopted everywhere, markets won't touch forest-based carbon credits.

Bolivia opposed a recent REDD draft agreement because it included market involvement and lacked sufficient safeguards for Indian communities.

Pablo Solon, who represents Bolivia at the Cancun talks, doesn't want to see the forest used just as a storage lot for carbon: If a tree is merely a carbon-capture machine, what's to stop replacement of natural forests with plantations of easily harvestable trees? Would trees be favored over other valuable ecosystems, like peat bogs and mangroves?

Still, Bolivia desperately needs funds.

"The heat level has increased. The number of fires we normally have has risen by a factor of three," Solon said. "We need planes, infrastructure, forest rangers and satellite equipment to work with."

Almost anything can fit in REDD, if it stops carbon emissions from forests.

Guyanese President Bharrat Jagdeo plans to use his money from Norway's REDD donations to buy families solar panels so they won't need wood for cooking fuel, as well as surveying to get them clear land titles and a $25,000 economic development grant for each Indian village. But he hasn't been able to get the money yet, because of what he calls bureaucracy. "It's a nightmare," he said.

Fire-prevention measures might be eligible: Daniel Nepstad of the Amazon Environmental Research Institute says emissions from forest fires now often exceed the carbon released from logging and the erosion of clear-cut lands.

At the other side of the globe, Indonesia has signed a $1 billion deal with Norway, part of it to get Indonesia ready for REDD through administrative reform, planning and management. Indonesia is the third-largest emitter of greenhouse gases in the world, mainly because of deforestation.

Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, who heads up the Indonesian government's new multi-agency task force, lays out some of the challenges: The forestry system is plagued by corruption. Every government agency has its own maps, often conflicting, of where forest boundaries lie. While the government has banned new logging permits, there are hundreds of existing ones the government says it cannot cancel.

In one of the first REDD scandals, Greenpeace International accused the Indonesian government of promoting the expansion of wood-pulp and palm-oil plantations on land that was misclassified as degraded. It says the program could put at risk forested areas the size of Norway and Denmark combined, including 50 percent of forested orangutan habitat.

Mangkusubroto's deputy, Heru Prasetyo, said the Greenpeace report was based on old data and old plans that are being changed. Mangkusubroto says "we have plenty of degraded land" where commercial plantations could expand without touching pristine woods. But he acknowledges wearily, "The policy is great, but try to enforce it through our system, that's hard."

Ajit Joy, who heads the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime in Indonesia, estimates that nearly 45 percent of the foreign wood exported to China and the United States is illegally logged.

Conviction rates for illegal logging are low, and most of those caught are truck drivers or other small fish, Joy said.

"This wood is moved in big trucks, and how could this wood pass through without corruption and connivance ... there are criminal gangs involved, there are big brokers," Joy said.

___

Associated Press writer Eduardo Verdugo contributed to this report.

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Nations struggle to make even modest climate deals

Charles J. Hanley, Associated Press Yahoo News 11 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico – Weary delegates from almost 200 nations struggled through night and day Friday to cobble together final decisions wrapping up the U.N. climate conference, small steps to revive the faltering, yearslong talks to guard the Earth against planetary warming.

No grand compact mandating deep cuts in global warming gases was in the cards. Instead, the two-week session focused on a proliferation of secondary issues — a "Green Fund" to help poor nations, deforestation, technology sales and other matters.

The cross-cutting interests of rich and poor nations, tropical and temperate, oil producers, desperate islanders and comfortable continental powers, all combined once more to tie up the annual negotiating session of environment ministers down to its scheduled final hours.

"Everything is still being negotiated until we have the full package," the European Union's climate chief, Connie Hedegaard, told reporters. "The balance between the elements is what is at stake today."

Coordinated by host Mexico, small groups of delegates, each led by two ministers, worked overnight and well into Friday behind closed doors at their meeting site, a sprawling beachside resort hotel.

Negotiators had made progress on one key issue: financial support for developing nations to obtain clean-energy technology to cut their own greenhouse gas emissions, and to adapt to potentially damaging climate change — by shifting agricultural practices, for example, and building seawalls against the rise of warming seas.

In the "Copenhagen Accord" that emerged from last year's climate summit in the Danish capital, richer nations promised $100 billion for such a Green Fund by 2020.

"There is a consensus that we set up a climate fund," Bangladesh's state minister for environment, Mohammed Hasan Mahmud, reported Friday. Details of oversight, such as its governing board's balance between rich- and poor-nation representatives, were left to post-Cancun negotiations.

Mahmud lamented that once again a hoped-for overarching pact to slash global emissions was being deferred at least another year, to the 2011 conference in Durban, South Africa.

"I doubt if the Durban (conference) will deliver the desired level of results if the negotiations go the way we have been going through here," he said.

Other issues facing intense last-minute negotiation at Cancun:

_Setting up a global structure to make it easier for developing nations to obtain patented technology for clean energy and climate adaptation.

_Pinning down more elements of a complex, controversial plan to compensate poorer nations for protecting their climate-friendly forests.

_Taking voluntary pledges of emissions controls made under the Copenhagen Accord by the U.S., China and other nations, and "anchoring" them in a Cancun document, giving them more formal U.N. status.

_Agreeing on methods for monitoring and verifying that developing nations are fulfilling those voluntary pledges.

In the 1992 U.N. climate treaty, the world's nations promised to do their best to rein in carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gases emitted by industry, transportation and agriculture. In the two decades since, the annual conferences' only big advance came in 1997 in Kyoto, Japan, when parties agreed on modest mandatory reductions by richer nations.

But the U.S., alone in the industrial world, rejected the Kyoto Protocol, complaining it would hurt its economy and that such emerging economies as China and India should have taken on emissions obligations.

Since then China has replaced the U.S. as the world's biggest emitter, but it has resisted calls that it assume legally binding commitments — not to lower its emissions, but to restrain their growth.

Here at Cancun such issues came to a head, as Japan and Russia fought pressure to acknowledge in a final decision that they will commit to a second period of emissions reductions under Kyoto, whose current targets expire in 2012.

The Japanese complained that with the rise of China, India, Brazil and others, the 37 Kyoto industrial nations now account for only 27 percent of global greenhouse emissions. They want a new, legally binding pact obligating the U.S., China and other major emitters.

The upcoming takeover of the U.S. House of Representatives by the Republicans, many of whom dismiss strong scientific evidence of human-caused warming, rules out any carbon-capping legislation for at least two years, however.

While the decades-long talks stumble along, climate change moves ahead.

The atmosphere's concentration of carbon dioxide now stands at about 390 parts per million, up from 280 ppm before the industrial age. Scientists project average global temperatures, which rose 0.7 degrees C (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) in the 20th century, will jump by as much as 6.4 degrees C (11.5 degrees F) by 2100 if too little is done.

The U.N. Environment Program estimates the voluntary Copenhagen pledges, even if fulfilled, would go only 60 percent of the way toward keeping the temperature rise below a dangerous 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F) above preindustrial levels.

Oceans are rising at twice the rate of the 20th century, researchers say, and Pacific islanders report they're already losing shoreline and settlements to encroaching seas.

"It's worrying to imagine what will happen 10 years from now at this rate," said Bruno Sekoli of Lesotho, a spokesman for poorer nations.

"Climate change is a problem that has to be solved. There is no other way."

UN climate talks offer compromise to end stalemate
BBC News 10 Dec 10;

The latest negotiating text at the UN climate talks in Cancun, Mexico, appears to hint at a possible compromise to break a stalemate.

Earlier, prospects for a deal appeared to be receding, with nations clashing on future emission commitments.

Japan and Russia were opposed to further cuts under the Kyoto Protocol - a major demand of developing countries.

There were also divisions over a proposed fund to help poor nations deal with climate impacts.

According to the Reuters news agency, the latest draft made a reference to a "second commitment period" of the Kyoto Protocol.

This refers to an extension beyond the framework's first 2008-2012 round, which had been a divisive issue between industrialised and developing nations during the 12-day talks.

However, it still needs to be presented to the plenary of the 190-nation gathering.

The money wrangle concerned the proposed "Green Fund" - a vehicle that would gather and distribute funds running to perhaps $100bn (£63bn) per year by 2020.

During overnight discussions into Friday morning, the US, EU and Japan stuck to their line that the World Bank must administer the fund.

For developing countries, this was unacceptable, as they viewed the bank as a western-run institution.

Brazilian negotiator Luiz Figueiredo said Japan and Russia "accept this language, while before they didn't accept it", the AFP news agency reported.

The UK's Climate Secretary Chris Huhne told journalists:"I think we've made good technical progress in terms of finding potential solutions on the Japan, Russia versus second commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol issue."

However, he warned that there was a "real danger" that the annual talks could become a "zombie process" if there was not a successful outcome.

Balancing act

BBC environment correspondent Richard Black, reporting from the summit in Cancun, said the compromise text was a step forward but the talks were still likely to go down to the wire.

"The new document is strong on acknowledging the scale of the problem, but does not commit parties to new measures to curb emissions," he observed.

"It is a very short not-fomally-negotiated bit of text. Some countries are likely to object to the way it's been constructed outside formal negotiations.

"It recognises that developed countries would need to cut their combined emissions by 25-40% below 1990 levels by 2020 in order to meet 1.5C or 2C targets - but does not say how it is to be done."

He added that it "urged" Annex One countries (industrialised nations) to "raise the level of ambition" in order to meet the 25-40% threshold.

Also, he noted that the next text also offered details of a mechanism that could overcome the Japanese/Russian concerns.

"Annex One countries and the US would deposit their emission pledges into the same document - therefore enabling the Kyoto Protocol refuseniks to argue that they were not taking their cuts under the protocol."

Some - especially the Latin American Alba bloc, spear-headed by Bolivia - also object to the Green Fund as currently conceived, because they believe western nations have a duty to pay up from the public purse, whereas the fund calls for money to be raised through levies on carbon trading, taxes on aviation, or other "innovative mechanisms".

Bolivia's hardline stance was not popular with all other developing countries, with Costa Rica saying the nation's delegation were "leading the process to delay the discussion".

A number of world leaders - as many as 20 - scheduled phone calls to Japanese Prime Minister Naoko Kan, in an attempt to get him to soften Japan's position on the Kyoto Protocol.

'Washed away'

UK Prime Minister David Cameron held a conversation with the premier.

Environmental groups took out an advertisement in the UK's Financial Times asking whether Japan's stance meant the Kyoto Protocol had been "washed away" - a reference to the acclaimed Japanese animation Spirited Away.

But Japanese sources said Mr Kan was sticking to his guns.

The government had been pressed by business leaders to hold firm on this issue; and giving ground would be seen as a concession to China at a time when the two countries were clashing over disputed islands and supplies of rare earth elements, a key ingredient of some electronic devices.

It appeared that none of the leaders has put in a call to Moscow, whose opposition to further cuts under the protocol appeared just as solid as Japan's.

India offered beleaguered delegates a ray of optimism by indicating it might be prepared to accept legally-binding constraints on its carbon emissions - but not yet.

However, the meanings of phrases such as "legally-binding" are subject to a range of interpretations, and it is clear that the Indian position will depend on other elements of any final package.

A number of nations wanted the pledges countries made around the time of last year's Copenhagen summit to be "inscribed" into formal UN agreements, so that they could be reviewed and negotiated at a later date.

Several analyses have indicated the pledges do not add up to enough to keep the global average temperature rise since pre-industrial times below the 2C (3.6F) ceiling that many countries regard as the maximum "safe" level, let alone the 1.5C that others demand.

However, it appeared that inscription was being resisted by a number of developed nations. Campaigners cited Canada, Russia and Japan.

The talks were due to conclude at 6pm local time on Friday (0000 GMT Saturday), but look set to continue into the night - possibly beyond.

Rumours suggest the Mexican host government may even call formally for an extra day.

On other issues, there was a stand-off between Mexico and South Africa - hosts of next year's meeting - as to who should run the UN climate process through next year, with neither apparently keen on the idea.

Deadlock over Kyoto means Cancún talks have little to show after two weeks
Cancún climate talks turning into a never-ending global talking shop, say many of the Suzanne Goldenberg and John Vidal guardian.co.uk 10 Dec 10;

The future of international climate diplomacy was put into jeopardy today as the UN global warming conference at Cancún entered its final hours with no resolution to the divide between rich and poor countries. "We have very limited time to make a last push," warned Mexico's foreign minister, Patricia Espinosa. "No party can lose sight of what is at stake."

On what should have been the final hours of two weeks of negotiations, Connie Hedegaard, the European Union's climate change commissioner, warned that the UN process was at risk of becoming a never-ending set of meetings unless they reach a positive outcome at Cancún.

"Everyone must realise that if we don't get things done here in Cancún, it's very difficult to see how you go from A to B," she said. "If we leave Cancún without getting anything out of this, I think multilateralism has a problem."

After two weeks of talks, despite an all-night bargaining session, ministers had managed by mid-morning on the final day to agree on just one paragraph of text.

The widening dispute about the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the overall shape of the agreement being worked on in Cancún risked overwhelming progress made on such areas as preventing deforestation, protecting peat lands, and the green fund. The most positive comment the EU's Joke Schauvliege could muster for reporters was: "Everybody is still on speaking terms." The UK's energy and climate change minister, Chris Huhne, was more positive. "There's still all to play for. We're in a much better position at this stage than we were in Copenhagen. But there is nothing to stop one or more countries having a hissy fit and throwing their toys out of the pram."

Such crises are routine at UN climate meetings. This time, though, the dispute cuts to the very structure of the negotiations: on Thursday, Russia joined Japan in its opposition to a second term of the Kyoto Protocol. Canada has also refused to renew its commitment to Kyoto.

The prospects grew even more gloomy around dawn when the United States pulled back from an agreement on a green fund and said it needed progress on all issues in the talks.

The US has insisted on withholding support for agreements on issues of forest preservation and technology until its conditions are met on its core issue of verifying emissions reductions by emerging economies such as China. This has frustrated progress, turning Cancún into an all-or-nothing event. "It's the overall package," Hedegaard said. "It's the totality."

By midday, negotiators were reconciled to working through the night to Saturday to try to avoid a collapse over the future of Kyoto. There was a parallel effort in world capitals, with David Cameron phoning the Japanese prime minister, Naoto Kan, overnight. Negotiators and environmental groups said there were a number of creative options to try to get around the dispute over Kyoto.

The task had become even more difficult after Russia's climate change envoy, Alexander Berditsky, told the summit on Thursday that his country would not sign on to a second commitment.

Russia's announcement further cemented the divide between rich and poor countries over the future of the agreement following a statement from Japan at the start of the talks that it too would not sign an extension of Kyoto.

Japan reiterated its opposition on Thursday night, with its negotiator, Akira Yamada, saying a renewal of Kyoto was "not an appropriate way or an effective way or a fair way to tackle climate change".

Developing countries say Kyoto is essential as the only international agreement requiring industrialised countries to reduce their emissions. "A second commitment period is a must in the outcome," said Brazil's climate change negotiator, Luiz Figueiredo.

But some developing countries have also admitted they were open to a fudge – deferring the question of Kyoto's future to next year's climate summit in South Africa.

Climate talks down to wire, Mexico pushes for deal
* Mexico leads efforts to broker deal on Kyoto Protocol
* Little progress overnight in Cancun
* British, Japanese PMs speak by phone
Gerard Wynn and Alister Doyle Reuters AlertNet 10 Dec 10;

CANCUN, Mexico, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Mexico scrambled to break an impasse between rich and poor nations over future cuts in greenhouse gas emissions on Friday as 190-nation climate talks went down to the wire.

Delegates said there was little progress in overnight talks in Mexico's beach resort of Cancun and that the negotiations, due to end on Friday. may well be extended into Saturday as all sides seek a deal to address global warming.

"It's in the hands of the Mexican presidency," John Ashe, who is chairing key discussions about the future of the Kyoto Protocol, told Reuters.

The Kyoto Protocol currently binds almost 40 rich countries to cut greenhouse gases until 2012, but wealthy and poor nations are divided over what obligations they should all assume over the next few years.

Negotiators hope for a modest deal in Cancun to set up a fund to help developing nations tackle climate change, protect tropical forests and agree a mechanism to share clean techn ologies

Ambitions are low after last year's U.N. summit in Copenhagen fell short of a treaty.

Mexico's Foreign Minister Patricia Espinosa is presiding the two weeks of talks in Cancun and is leading efforts to broker a deal over the future of Kyoto which is blocking progress on other issues.

Britain's Prime Minister David Cameron spoke with Japanese Prime Minister Naoto Kan by telephone to discuss the standoff after Tokyo said it would not sign up for an extension of Kyoto beyond 2012 unless developing nations also commit to cutting their greenhouse gas emissions. The position has angered many developing countries.

A Japanese foreign ministry statment said that Kan would work to make the talks a success. Delegates of Britain and Brazil are also working in Cancun to help unlock a deal.

Ashe said it was "hard to say" if there would be progress on Friday, adding that Mexico's Espinosa was drawing up new texts for delegates.

"At least there's confidence that she could put something for them to consider. This was not the case in Copenhagen. If there's one thing that we've learned in Cancun is that trust has been restored," he told Reuters.

The Copenhagen summit collapsed in acrimony, agreeing only a non-binding accord to limit a rise in temperatrures to below 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times. Another failure in Cacnun would badly damage the UN-led talks.

Kyoto currently obliges almost 40 developed nations to cut emissions by an averge of 5.2 percent below 1990 levels from 2008 to 2012.

Japan insists that all major emitters, including China, India and the United States, must sign up for a new treaty to succeed Kyoto.

Developing nations say that rich nations, which have emitted most greenhouse gases by burning fossil fuels since the Industrial Revolution, must extend Kyoto before the poor sign up for curbs that would damage their drive to end poverty.

Separately, India said that it might eventually commit itself to legally-binding emissions curbs in a shift that could help the negotiations in Cancun. India has previously rejected any legally binding commitments. (Additional reporting by Krittivas Mukherjee in New Delhi and Yoko Kubota in Tokyo; Editing by Kieran Murray)

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