Best of our wild blogs: 18 Dec 10

Punggol shore during low neap tide
from wonderful creation

Stepping out of our comfort zones
from The Straits Times Blogs - Jessica Cheam

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Dolphins bound for Resorts World Sentosa die, activists up in arms

Esther Ng Today Online 18 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE - Two of the seven bottlenose dolphins, which were destined for Resorts World Sentosa's (RWS) Marine Life Park, have died in a holding area at Langkawi.

The dolphins were caught from the wild in the Solomon Islands in January. Two females - one aged between four and five years and the other, around 10 - died from an acute bacterial infection of Melioidosis in October, said RWS spokesman Robin Goh on Friday. They were in "perfect health" previously, he noted. The remaining five have no signs of infection.

The virus, Burkholderia pseudomallei, can be transmitted through contact with contaminated soil and surface waters, with infections occurring primarily during the rainy season.

The deaths are set to reignite opposition to RWS' plans to house the animals as entertainers.

Marine conservationist Paul Watson told MediaCorp the "incarceration of dolphins lowers life expectancy of the animals".

"It's a trade based on blood and misery and has no place in the 21st century," said the founder and president of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals executive director Deirdre Moss agreed: "This is a tragedy. The animals were obviously under tremendous stress ... If RWS could change its stand on whale sharks, why couldn't they on dolphins?"

Last year, RWS scrapped its original plan to exhibit whale sharks. Animal Concerns Research and Education Society founder Louis Ng hopes RWS will also "re-think" its decision to keep dolphins in captivity.

Marine Life Park is still under construction. Said RWS' Mr Goh: "We currently do not have a definite date for its opening, and likewise, details like animal configuration are also being finalised."

As for the 18 dolphins being trained at Ocean Adventure Park in the Philippines for the Marine Life Park, RWS said they were in "good health".

"We're continuing with the development and establishment of the medical, behavioural, husbandry and training programmes that include the preventive medicine programme to ensure the well-being and health of the dolphins," said Mr Goh, who added that the Marine Life Park was "part of the bid" when RWS was awarded the integrated resort licence.

"We're committed to delivering the bid and the Marine Life Park that will not only boost tourism but research, conservation and education in marine mammals in this part of the region."

However, Ms Moss reiterated: "It's cruel to capture these animals from the wild with a view to entertain the public. We should promote tourism but not at the expense of these animals."

Bottlenose dolphins are listed in Appendix II of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which entail strict regulations in the trade of these mammals.

RWS has said previously it would comply with CITES.

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Singapore public housing goes green

Sharon See Today Online 18 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE - Public housing has gone green. Treelodge@Punggol is the first public housing project in Singapore to attain the Green Mark Platinum Award given to energy and water efficient buildings.

The newly-completed eco-precinct Treelodge@Punggol marks a milestone for the Housing & Development Board, with playgrounds built from recycled materials and a green roof that helps to lower temperatures within the flat.

The roof is equipped with solar panels - a first for any HDB block in Singapore.

The energy generated is used to power lights in common areas, like the corridors.

Apart from harnessing solar power, HDB senior executive engineer Ng Bingrong said the roof also has 400 sq m of space to collect rain water.

"Rain falling on the roof is drained into a tank situated on the 16th storey of the block, and is treated using a chemical-free system. The water is then stored in a tank for common area washing and irrigation," he said.

The water tank has a capacity of 7,000 litres, sufficient for a month's washing.

Recycling is also a cinch with two rubbish chutes on every floor - one for regular waste, and one for recycling.

The flats also come with larger windows to allow more natural light in. And in the bathroom, the toilet has an integrated wash basin so that the water can be recycled and used to flush the toilet.

HDB said the added eco-features have raised overall construction costs by about five to eight per cent.

But it says the total estimated energy savings (from the use of solar energy and recycled rainwater) is about two gigawatt hours, enough to power some 400 four-room households for a year. SHARON SEE

HDB's first eco-precinct
Sharon See Channel NewsAsia 17 Dec 10;

SINGAPORE: Singapore's public housing has gone green.

Treelodge@Punggol is the first public housing project to attain the Building and Construction Authority's (BCA) Green Mark Platinum Award given to energy- and water-efficient buildings.

The newly completed eco-precinct Treelodge@Punggol marks a milestone for the Housing & Development Board (HDB).

Much of the eco-features are on the rooftop. The 'green' roof has plants that help to lower the temperature in the flats.

The rooftop is also equipped with solar panels - a first for any HDB flat in Singapore.

Solar energy is then used to power lights in common areas, like the corridors.

Apart from harnessing solar power, HDB's senior executive engineer Ng Bingrong said the roof also has 400 square metres of space to collect rain water.

"Rain falling on the roof would actually be drained into a tank situated on the 16th storey of the block, and then this water would actually be treated using a
chemical-free system, and then the water would then be stored in a tank for common-area washing and irrigation."

The water tank can store up to 7,000 litres of water, which is sufficient for a month's washing.

Recycling is also a breeze with two rubbish chutes on every floor - one for regular waste, and one for recycling.

Moving indoors, HDB says, the units are designed with larger windows to allow more natural light.

And in the bathroom, the toilet has an integrated wash basin for water used to wash hands to be recycled for the next flush.

HDB says the added eco-features have raised overall construction costs by about five to eight per cent.

But it says the total estimated energy savings is about 2 gigawatt hours, enough to power some 400 4-room households for a year.

As for whether these features will be implemented in future Build-To-Order flats, HDB says it will first evaluate the level of public acceptance.

The eco-precinct Treelodge@Punggol consists of seven 16-storey blocks with 712 units, of which 40 have yet to be sold.

HDB says they were launched in August under the Sale of Balance Flat exercise and selection will be done next month.

- CNA/ir

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Singapore as Sustainable City: Step up on going green

Singapore has done well in being a sustainable city but more can be done, says an architectural design expert
tay suan chiang Straits Times 18 Dec 10;

If Singapore were a trembling student, being graded on how sustainable it is as a city, its report card might well read: room for improvement.

That is how Professor Steffen Lehmann, who specialises in sustainable design and behaviour at the University of South Australia, it.

'Singapore has been very smart in establishing itself as the leader of a 'sustainable city model for Asia',' he says.

But he feels more can be done. He is one of the experts profiled in Living Cities, a new documentary series produced by Discovery Channel.

The six-part series, which started airing on Wednesday, holds Singapore up as an example to explore issues such as sustainability, urban planning and heritage involved in creating dynamic living spaces.

Praising Singapore for practices such as integrating 'greenery in the built environment', in the form of green roofs and facades as well as park connectors, he says it can do better in areas such as using renewable energy.

'There is still too little energy produced, using solar power or biomass, which is biological material from living, or recently living organisms. The Singapore Government could give more incentives for people to buy solar panels,' he suggests in an e-mail interview.

Singaporeans are also too dependent on air- conditioning, he points out. 'We need better use of design principles appropriate for the tropics,' he adds.

Dr Lehmann, 47, heads the Unesco Chair in Sustainable Urban Development for Asia and the Pacific, which advises government and private bodies on sustainable architecture and urban design. Its aim is to inspire and help people live in ways that are more environmentally friendly.

No stranger to Singapore, he has visited it every two months in the last decade.

An adviser with various government and private organisations, he also guides educational institutions on architectural studies.

Much of the Republic's architecture, he feels, is 'styling and superficial - more concerned with branding and marketing'.

However, there are a few projects he approves of: the Building and Construction Authority's zero-energy building in Braddell Road, which has succeeded in achieving zero power consumption, and Henderson Waves bridge, which Dr Lehmann says, 'is a great infrastructure project'.

In future, he predicts, cities will be based on urban blocks that are six- to 10-storeys tall, with more integration of green elements.

'These will be zero-emission buildings that produce more energy than they consume,' he says.

'The opportunities for such blocks have not been fully utilised. We need to focus more on retrofitting and upgrading the existing mature housing estates from the 1960s to 1970s.'

Tall order? Maybe not.

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Falling in love with the rainforest

It's no walk in the park, but it truly is magnificent
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 18 Dec 10;

TREE hugging truly takes a literal meaning when I find myself grabbing onto a tree for dear life on the perilously steep slopes in the central highlands of Puerto Rico one hot summer afternoon.

I had been mostly crawling on all fours for the past two hours while trying to measure the diameter of trees around me.

It's an acrobatic feat of back-bending proportions: one arm hugging a tree, the other holding a metre-long pole, measuring tape between my teeth.

Miraculously, I'm able to take a measurement.

'Data collector,' I holler. 'Tree number 135, diameter 40.4 inches.'

Somewhere in the distance, my fellow volunteer echoes it back and records the numbers.

I try to leap towards the next tree but a misstep causes me to tumble on all fours again. I grab the roots of any plants I see.

'Careful, it's poisonous!' my fellow volunteer and photographer Jean Loo warns. Defeated, I sit on a semi-stable rock to catch my breath.

This is hard work - and it's only Day Two of a 10-day volunteer research project that work had dispatched me for earlier this year, in August.

I am with 12 other volunteers from six different countries across the globe, including four young Singaporeans - Jasmine-Victorina Lye, 18, Jocelyn Tay, 20, Calvin Tan, 23, and Kenneth Wong, 25.

We are at a 30-year ongoing project called Las Casas de le Selva, which spans 405ha of rainforest.

The Singaporean team were winners of this year's HSBC/NYAA Youth Environmental Awards, which recognised their contribution to local efforts in conservation. Part of the prize was this Earthwatch study trip to Puerto Rico.

The objective was to help scientists carry out their research on how to sustainably harvest forests and measure the impact of such activities on biodiversity.

Jean and I were offered the chance to go along to document the process of that research, but it was no cushy freebie.

We were thousands of kilometres from home with hardly any mobile phone signal or Internet connection, while the electricity supply was intermittent, especially during the frequent thunderstorms.

Mornings started at 6am when, after a hearty breakfast dished up by the scientists, we started our daily two-hour trek to various sites to conduct field work.

The trail was sometimes so dense that Andreas, our guide, had to chop down overgrown shrubs with a machete so we could pass.

The project director, known as '3T', taught us to use equipment such as a pentaprism (a five-sided reflecting prism) to count the number of trees in a specific area, and collect other readings like the commercial height of mature trees.

Other scientists, such as herpetologist and ethnobotanist Norman Greenhawk, showed us how to set up experimental plots for tree planting.

He also led a series of experiments where we had to count and identify anole lizards in specific plots for data collection in a biodiversity study.

Not wanting to appear a pansy, I even overcame my irrational fear of lizards and touched one. It was a significant moment for me - and an indication of how slowly, but surely, the forest had a profound effect on all of us.

While in the first few days, I was getting withdrawal symptoms from the trappings of city life - the noise, the traffic, the connectivity and material comforts - I soon began to get used to the unharried pace of life and solitude the forest offered.

Jasmine, who cried on the first day and confessed to being homesick, soon became totally in her element, leaping from tree to tree and catching lizards whenever she spotted them.

From our campsite, we stood gazing out into the vast canopy of the Puerto Rican rainforest, and for the first time for many of us, we felt the magnificence of nature.

Life was everywhere - we were surrounded by an abundance of plants and trees and flowers, silently toiling under the golden sun to manufacture the fresh oxygen that forests feed the world with.

The air was different - invigorating - and at night we slept like babies.

The forest also provided an orchestral soundtrack to our daily activities, the chirruping of assorted birds, cricket noises and the melodious 'co-co-kee-kee' calling of the native coqui frogs.

Of course, there were some minor dangers that came with it.

One night, a tarantula bigger than the size of my palm entered the girls' sleeping area and hovered dangerously above a fellow volunteer's head before she woke up, spotted it and let out an ear-piercing shriek that sent the scientists running over. On another night, I had a jungle rat rummage through my camping bag while I was asleep. It chomped through all my wires, including my earphones and iPod charger, to get to my energy snack bar.

Thankfully, I didn't see it. Sometimes, ignorance is bliss.

Surprisingly, when we approached the end of our time there, we discovered that we were all sad to leave.

We had become used to the pace of life, an experience that left a deep impression and made us view things differently.

Kenneth said the first thing he would do upon returning to Singapore was to get acquainted with our own rainforest. I couldn't agree more.

We have it on our doorstep, but how many of us take the time to get up close with it, I wondered.

As 3T put it, she's happy if volunteers leave after learning three things: Firstly, that there are different ways to live. Secondly, to fall in love with nature. And lastly, to learn how to learn.

My close encounter with nature had certainly taught me many things - above all, that there is a force in the universe that is beyond our control, but which offers us lessons in life if we care to listen.

All of us left that day knowing that someday, we would return.

Economics, not enforcement, will help save trees
Pay farmers to preserve their land, says politician
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 18 Dec 10;

THE haze from forest fires that blights Singapore and Malaysia every year can be stopped but it will not be through enforcing laws, no matter how tough they are.

The solution, according to a politician who has spent more time than most on the ecological front line, is applying some simple economic principles.

Mr Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, Costa Rica's former environment minister, maintains that paying farmers to preserve their land is close enough to a magic bullet that can halt deforestation.

He speaks from experience: Costa Rica had a high rate of deforestation before a radical programme of payments that began in the 1990s reversed the trend.

'Enforcement has proven to be a major failure because it has nothing to do with the economics of making it profitable to preserve nature,' said Mr Rodriguez, 50, in a recent interview with The Straits Times.

He believes the need to enforce the law will decrease when 'perverse incentives' - profits from burning the land for agriculture or commercial activity - are removed.

If land owners are offered financial incentives higher than the 'perverse incentives', then they will prefer to protect the forest, he added.

Deforestation is a major problem in South-east Asia with businesses and land owners razing forests to make way for agriculture or logging.

Indonesia has imposed tougher laws against illegal burning but it is a mammoth task to monitor plantations spread over vast tracts of land.

Mr Rodriguez believes Singapore could play a role by leading discussions about paying land owners to preserve their forests.

While Singapore has no vast forests, it has experience in market finance and can help generate solutions such as raising funds and working with civic groups to improve awareness, he said, adding: 'Structural reforms to address deforestation also require high political will.'

What would help was if a high level 'political champion' in Indonesia were to lead these reforms.

Many agencies - from forestry to agriculture and environment - have their own interests and such reforms need the cooperation of all these bodies, he noted.

Transparency is also vital.

Norway, for example, has pledged US$1 billion (S$1.3 billion) to help Indonesia preserve its forests and with that kind of money comes accountability, said Mr Rodriguez.

'There must be ways that performance can be measured and results delivered.'

The idea of paying to preserve nature was a key development at the United Nations climate change talks in Cancun which ended last week.

Called Redd (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation), the scheme will involve a global fund set up to pay local communities who choose to preserve their forests instead of using them for commercial gain.

There are still many issues to be resolved, such as ensuring that the money paid reaches these communities and establishing how results can be measured over a long period.

Mr Rodriguez believes that Redd will eventually be up and running and prove itself as a crucial global initiative, given the lack of other options that will help arrest deforestation.

'The rationale is very simple... We must finally put a price on the negative externalities of deforestation, and account for the positive externalities - the environmental services that nature provides,' he said.

Buy a choc bar... ...plant a tree
Chocolatier is on a mission to reform the cocoa industry
Susan Long Straits Times 18 Dec 10;

MENTION chocolate and almost everyone's mouth starts to water - but there is a sour side to the sweet treat.

So sour in fact that one man is on a global mission to change our attitudes to chocolate and the way it is priced, planted and perceived.

German chocolatier and nature conservationist Philipp Kauffmann believes people should pay for the 'true costing' of the delicacy - the rain, the sun and the soil that go into making it.

That is perhaps why a skinny 100g block of his Original Beans chocolate costs US$10 (S$13) or up to €6 (S$11) in high- end supermarkets in the United States and Europe. It may be on sale soon at high-end grocers here.

You are not just getting a confectionery but also buying into a sustainable crusade not shy about proclaiming its aims.

After all, each wrapper carries a tracking certificate that pledges to plant a tree for every bar produced.

The 42-year-old, who was here for the Annual Asian Summit for Sustainable Innovation in October, hails from an illustrious line of earth scientists, agriculturists and foresters. One of the clan was Georg Ludwig Hartig, who wrote an 18th-century thesis on managing forests sustainably so future generations can enjoy them.

Mr Kauffmann has followed his ancestors' footsteps, working for World Wildlife Fund for Nature in Geneva and running a United Nations Development Project fund in New York that financed companies which protect biodiversity hot spots.

It was then that he started to invest in sustainable cocoa trading companies and small cooperatives in Latin America, and learnt about the unsavoury secrets of the industry.

In 2008, he co-founded the Original Beans company out of Amsterdam to reform the cocoa industry, which he calls 'one of the worst supply chains out of the tropics'.

'It's worse than palm oil, worse than soya and worse than cotton. It's a colonial supply chain that uses labour conditions that compare to slavery. It is mostly grown by small-hold farmers or migrant workers in badly governed African nations like the Ivory Coast, Ghana and Nigeria,' he charges.

Cocoa trees in the wild grow to 10m high but in these highly intensive, small African plantations, they are so stumped and compacted they reach only about 2m.

'Small children are needed to go in to spray pesticides because monoculture is prone to viruses and diseases,' he says.

Worst of all, cocoa grows on cleared land, giving rise to a slash-and-burn cycle of deforestation.

He decided to take on the industry, which he accuses of being an over-processed, over-marketed, 'vanilla-ised big cream pie of nothing', making products often packed with over 70 per cent sugar while refusing to address its dirty secrets like shady labour conditions.

'It doesn't take away from the experience if consumers know that at the end of the product is a place that is difficult. You don't have to be moralistic about it. Just be real,' he says.

What Original Beans offers, he says, is 'a relationship of positive contribution' to the person chomping at the end of the bar. 'It's not about paying off guilt, like in church or fair trade, but conscious consumerism.

'The best analogy for chocolate is wine; you can taste terroir. If you change the quality of agri-forestry, you can taste it. If you care about biodiversity and soil and all that, you can taste it in the product.

'When we speak about a wine of quality, people immediately think of history, vineyards, ecology, craftsmanship, aristocracy of farming, techniques of fermentation and bottling that are sophisticated and something that carries a lot of value in the land. Chocolate is exactly the same but we don't think of it in that way.'

The cocoa that goes into his chocolate comes from small farmer cooperatives in the Peruvian Andes, the Pacific rainforests of Ecuador and from more than 10,000 farmers in eastern Congo.

Buying from the Congo in particular is his attempt to 'make a good chocolate out of a difficult place and offer a different model in the worst place to grow cocoa in the world'.

But what does he say to cynics who charge that 'true costing' is just a gimmick to charge the earth?

He says he invites them to look at his costing. 'We pay premiums for organic and fair trade - in fact, we pay 10 times more than the fair trade rates on average for ecology, quality and reforestation.'

He says cocoa costs about US$3,300 (S$4,300) a tonne, on which the so-called 'fair trade' premium is only US$150 a tonne.

He also maintains that his pledge to plant a tree for every bar consumed can be validated.

'There's a paper trail right from nursery. We check that all the time and the consumer can track it on the Internet. In the process, he can get a sense of where the cacao comes from and the connection with the trees,' he says.

It's the 'job of the retailer' to get consumers to pay the US$10 a bar price tag, he says. 'But the challenge for us as consumers is to realise that we are part of the chain too.'

'If we expect to buy a chocolate bar for $3, we've to realise that at least $1 goes to the retailer, $1 goes to marketing and distribution and most of the remaining $1 goes to packaging.

'The farmer in the best case ends up with 20 cents. Nature, which is responsible for at least 50 per cent of the taste quality of the chocolate, doesn't get anything back.'

But to do any good, he acknowledges that the chocolate has to taste good first.

Original Beans was recently hailed by the Financial Times as one of the 'best newcomers' in the market and is served in desserts at top-rated restaurants like The Ivy in London.

No one is prouder than him, he says, of the sweet irony of fine surroundings and sterling silver, juxtaposed with 'chocolates from the poorest war-torn countries in world'.

Give our trees a chance
Straits Times 18 Dec 10;

The Cancun climate change talks approved a landmark scheme for protecting forests. This may help to slow deforestation in South-east Asia, home to some of the world's largest rainforests. Environment Correspondent Jessica Cheam examines why mankind is bent on destroying the lungs of the world and looks at some spots where the trend has been successfully reversed.

THE growing effort to preserve the world's remaining forests received a major boost last week at the climate change talks in Cancun.

The United Nations has moved a significant step closer to implementing a plan called Redd, or Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation.

This scheme would offer financial incentives to developing countries to stop destroying their forests.

Details of the plan need to be fleshed out, such as ensuring the deal has environmental and social safeguards for the rights of indigenous people, and that deforestation does not just move from one part of a country to another.

Still, it offers hope to those fighting to save the diminishing green havens that serve as the lungs of the globe.

Rainforest Foundation Norway director Lars Lovold noted that 'important progress has been made... The decision reflects the growing understanding that a broad and participatory approach... is needed to prevent deforestation'.

But ambiguities in the scheme mean 'our fight will have to continue, both at the national level and within the ongoing UN climate negotiations', he said.

For environmentalists, one of the more baffling puzzles on our planet has long been that forests play a vital role in our lives, yet in many places people just cannot wait to take an axe to them.

Forests directly or indirectly provide us with everything from furniture to food, medicine, water and oxygen. Yet vast tracts are chopped down or burnt every year, with no thought of replanting.

About half of the planet's original forests have been cleared.

In the past 30 years alone, economic 'progress' has brought about the destruction of no less than a quarter of what had been lost in the previous 10,000 years.

The world's rainforests - much of which are in our region - could vanish in 100 years despite an encouraging decline in rates of deforestation.

South-east Asia has suffered the highest rate of deforestation in the world over the past two decades.

About 2.8 million ha of forest were chopped down or burnt a year from 1990 to 2005, according to the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO).

The main reason is, of course, Asia's phenomenal growth, says Mr Jack Hurd, director of The Nature Conservancy's Asia-Pacific forest programme.

Prosperity has lifted demand for food as well as wood-derived products such as furniture and paper, prompting local communities and businesses to cut down trees to plant crops like palm oil, for livestock grazing land or for pulp to make paper.

'It doesn't help that there's a high market value for many tree species in tropical forests, and good transportation links make it easy for trading to flourish, encouraging further deforestation,' Mr Hurd tells The Straits Times.

He points to Sumatra's Riau province and central and west Kalimantan, also in Indonesia, as deforestation hot spots. Such areas have relatively weak forestry governance or policies and land-use planning processes are underdeveloped.

'It's a combination of these things that has allowed the forests to be razed in an unsustainable fashion,' he says.

Apart from providing fresh oxygen and being a key source of food and medicine, forests absorb a huge amount of climate-warming carbon. Chop down the trees and that carbon is released into the atmosphere, speeding up climate change.

A recent report by The Economist estimated that across the world, forests and the soil beneath them absorb a quarter of all carbon emissions. They also regulate water run-off, mitigate floods and droughts, and are key to making rain.

Deforestation contributes almost 20 per cent to global greenhouse gas emissions - more than that from the world's ships, cars, planes and buses combined.

But there is some good news. The FAO noted earlier this year that, for the first time on record, the worldwide pace of deforestation has slowed, owing to increased awareness of ecological issues.

The world lost 13 million ha of forests a year between 2000 and this year - down from about 16 million in the 1990 to 2000 period, it said.

Mr Hurd points to large-scale reforestation programmes in China, India and Vietnam that help to explain this trend.

These responses are usually prompted by a country's realisation that it has almost completely depleted its forest resources, says Mr Hurd.

The key challenge is to convince countries not to completely destroy their forests before realising it is too late.

Some heavily forested countries have been more successful than others in this regard. Puerto Rico is one that has reversed its rate of deforestation, thanks to a re-planting effort led by the United States. The programme and a decline in farming as people flock to cities for jobs have led to the regeneration of forests in Puerto Rico.

Scientists at forestry projects such as the Tropic Ventures Education and Research Foundation are researching and implementing methods to sustainably harvest the trees that have re- grown on the island over the past 30 years.

In particular, scientists are researching a method called line planting to produce timber on land that is unsuited for long- term agricultural use.

This turns the forest into plantations by keeping the shelter of some of the bigger trees to protect the soil, while growing other trees for harvest.

Tropic Ventures director Thrity Vakil wants to prove sustainable forestry is possible. In the longer term, she aims to initiate a new, sustainable wood market for Puerto Rico, which has to import wood from the US despite its vast forests.

Costa Rica is another leading example. It consistently ranks among the top environmentally performing countries and on league tables of the 'greenest' nations.

It used to be one of the worst nations in Central America for deforestation but green policies put in place in the 1990s reversed the trend.

Its former environment and energy minister, Mr Carlos Manuel Rodriguez, told The Straits Times recently that it all boiled down to paying people to preserve their forests.

The concept is called payment for environmental services or PES.

In 1996, Costa Rica began a radical programme to address deforestation by paying farmers and land owners to keep forests intact. It imposed a 3.5 per cent tax on fossil fuels and started a fund that paid farmers every month. The current payout is about US$78 (S$102) per hectare a year. This makes it more profitable than other options such as agriculture, Mr Rodriguez added.

The UN plan may prove to be a milestone in the history of forest protection.

Similar to Costa Rica's PES, it will see developed nations provide finance to help developing countries protect forests, although the details have to be worked out.

Still, some funds have started flowing. At last year's UN climate talks in Copenhagen, governments committed US$4.5 billion to finance Redd-related investments over the next three years.

In addition, Indonesia has agreed to place a two-year moratorium on new concessions to clear natural forests and peatlands under a US$1 billion deal signed with Norway earlier this year.

But while deforestation is slowing in some areas, it is not enough.

Investments have to be speeded up and existing solutions in sustainable forestry must be shared and expanded if deforestation is to be tackled, says Mr Hurd.

'This requires a lot of political will... and the private sector will also have to step up. Both government and businesses have to be engaged and be part of the solution, otherwise they will remain part of the problem.'

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Malaysia: Rare dolphins sighted in Sarawak

Rintos Mail The Star 18 Dec 10;

FOUR species of inshore cetaceans have been sighted inhabiting the coastal waters and main estuaries of Sarawak.

They are the Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris), Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops aduncus), Indo-Pacific humpback dolphin (Sousa chinensis) and Finless porpoise (Neophocaenia phacaenoides).

Of the four, the Irrawaddy dolphin was the most common and could be considered as the flagship species of Sarawak, said Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) international initiatives/species at risk manager James Bali when presenting his paper on Records of the Irrawaddy in Sarawak, with Special Reference to Batang Lupar, Saribas, Rajang and Lassa.

He was one of the presenters at the three-day 10th Hornbill Workshop themed “Managing Ecosystem for Sustainability” organised by SFC in Miri, which ended yesterday.

Bali said sightings of the Irrawaddy dolphins in Sarawak had been documented from Sarawak River, lower waters of Santubong branch of the Sarawak River, Rajang River, Rajang Mangrove, Saribas River, major estuaries namely Sematan, Santubong, Bako, Muara Tebas, Bintulu, Lawas and Kuala Paloh by journalists and scientists.

Based on a 2008 assessment by the World Convention Union Red List of Threatened Species, the Irrawaddy dolphins are classified as “Vulnerable” species in Bangladesh and India, but “Critically Endangered” in Laos, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand and Malaysia with the population trend decreasing in Sarawak.

In Sarawak, this species is listed as Totally Protected Animal under the Wildlife Protection Ordinance, 1998.

Earlier in his presentation on “An Offshore Boat Survey on Cetaceans in Sarawak”, he said seven species, 21 sightings and 144 individuals of cetaceans were recorded in 2008.

The individual cetaceans comprised Spinner (Stenella longirostris), Pantropical Spotted (Tenella attenuata), Indo-Pacific bottlenose, Common bottlenose (Tursiops truncatus), Indo-Pacific humpback and Irrawaddy.

Bali said the most significant finding during the survey was two sightings of the Common bottlenose at the North Luconia Shoal (Terumbu Raja Jarum), the first record of the species in Sarawak waters.

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Rapid demonstration of illicit slow loris trade

TRAFFIC 17 Dec 10;

Jakarta, Indonesia, 17th December 2010—Just a day after conservationists and government officials gathered to discuss the future of slow lorises, 18 of these threatened primates were seen openly for sale in Pasar Jati Negara, one of Jakarta’s major bird markets.

Slow lorises are seriously threatened by trade, and wildlife markets in many parts of western Indonesia openly display these totally protected primates for sale, with little or no fear of prosecution.

In the Jati Negara Market on 10th December, slow lorises were seen displayed in cages at several stalls fronting a main road. At one stall, TRAFFIC staff counted six lorises crowded into a single cage.

“These animals exemplify the threats slow lorises and other protected species face in Indonesia—trade is carried out openly and dealers do not fear reprimand or penalties”, said Deputy Regional Director of TRAFFIC Southeast Asia, Chris R. Shepherd.

Other species observed for sale alongside the lorises in Jati Negara market that day included Crested Serpent-eagle, Changeable Hawk-eagle, Black-winged Kite and Leopard Cat. All are totally protected under Indonesia’s laws and cannot be commercially traded.

Speaking at the Slow Loris Conservation in Indonesia seminar a day earlier, Shepherd had called for urgent efforts on the part of the authorities to stop the illegal trade in such species.

He said slow lorises were sometimes confiscated by authorities but there was little or no deterrent to those dealing in them because penalties were rarely handed down.

“Dealers are well aware of the illegality of their trade in these species. Only with successful prosecution and sustained efforts by authorities to close down this trade, will the situation change. Anything less is meaningless.”

Indonesia is home to three species of slow loris: the Greater Slow Loris (Nycticebus coucang), the Bornean Slow Loris (N. menagensis) and the Javan Slow Loris (N. javanicus).

The latter is the most seriously threatened, and is considered Endangered by the IUCN and included in the top 25 most threatened primates in the world. These small, nocturnal primates are valued as pets in Indonesia.

Seminar participants also requested the Indonesian government revise the list of nationally protected species to include all species of slow lorises under the genus Nycticebus. Current only one species is recognized, while taxonomists have agreed three species are native to Indonesia.

The seminar, organized by International Animal Rescue Indonesia (IAR), also saw the participation of rescue centres in Indonesia that care for confiscated lorises.

The IAR rescue rehab centre reported that it has received more than 150 lorises in the past three years, mainly surrendered by pet owners. Less than a quarter of these animals came from confiscations.

“These primates are traded openly in main bird markets in Jakarta and some pet shops in malls in Bandung and many other parts of the country. It is obvious that people do not take the Indonesian laws seriously,” said Karmele Llano Sánchez, Veterinary Director of International Animal Rescue Indonesia.

“Only a small percentage of traded lorises are rescued and even those can rarely be returned to the wild as traders remove their teeth prior to selling the animals. If we seriously want to protect these threatened species, tackling the illegal trade must be taken seriously”, she added.

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India: Study of marine turtles to be carried out on coastline

The Times of India 17 Dec 10;

BHAVNAGAR: In a major step towards conservation of marine turtles on Gujarat coastline, a study will be carried out by department of marine sciences, Bhavnagar University.

"The three-year project `Monitoring of Marine Turtles` is being funded by Union ministry of earth sciences. The process in this regard has been initiated by the department," said Dr IR Gadhvi, reader and head of department of marine sciences, Bhavnagar University.

"During the study period, our team will find out the habitat of the marine turtles and will continuously monitor them. The study area will cover 120 km of coastal areas, mainly Bhavnagar district coast and some parts of Amreli district coastline. The monitoring will help us know the turtles` behaviour and nesting patterns, movement, and food chains besides the population estimation of the endangered species," said Gadhvi.

He said that generally Olive Ridley and Green Turtles are found in our coastal areas. Both the species are endangered.

"Earlier, sporadic studies were carried out by some institutions on specified areas on the coastline. However, till now, we do not have exact figure of marine turtles on entire Gujarat coast area. We are hopeful to find out the habitats and population estimation in our notified study area. The monitoring process will help us understand the threat aspect to these marine species and also about what steps should be taken to conserve marine turtles in future. Also, the study will provide the idea of better conservation point of view in context of industrial development that are taking place across the coastline in Gujarat," he said.

Moreover, state forest department has established breeding centers for marine turtles on coastal in order to conserve them.

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Indonesia: Elephant-human conflicts on the rise in Aceh

Antara 17 Dec 10;

Banda Aceh (ANTARA News) - Conflicts between elephants and humans in Aceh province have been on the rise in recent months, prompting conservationists to take extra measures to anticipate disturbances by the animals in 2011.

Abubakar Cekmad, head of Aceh`s Natural Resources Conservation Agency (BKSDA), said on Friday his institution would form three more Conservation Response Units (CRUs) in addition to the three existing ones. This was necessary because there had been more human- elephant conflicts lately.

The three new CRUs, he said, would be established at Jantho, Aceh Besar district, North Aceh and East Aceh. Last year, three such units were created, namely in Aceh Jaya, West Aceh and Pidie districts.

"The the CRUs will be set up in areas prone to disturbances by elephants. We have had difficulties overcoming the problems because the distances were too great for us to bring domesticated elephants that can lure the wild ones back into their habitats," Cekmad said.

The year 2010 has been worse in terms of conflict intensity between humans and elephants with tens of cases taking place in the disturbance-prone areas, he added.

Cekmad added the formation of CRUs was a way to minimize elephant disturbances to human settlements. "With the CRUs, BKSDA will be able to respond quickly if there are elephants coming near human settlements," he explained.

In addition, BKSDA had also constructed an elephant terminal at Seree, Lembah Sulawah subdistrict in Aceh Besar district which now had 35 domesticated elephants. Funding had been received from the local government.

"There`s a great need for funding for these operations to take back elephants to their habitats," Cekmad said, adding that the source for the funding has been from those regencies.

Last week, three elephants were found dead in Ketibung Musara village, East Aceh. The elephants seemed to have been killed with poison. These animals were poisoned after they wreaked havoc with the houses in the village.

In 1996, there were 600-700 elephants in Aceh Province, and the number was estimated decreasing to 350-450 in 2007. The population of elephants in Aceh had depleted by almost 40 percent during 1996-2006 and from 2007 to September 2008, 39 elephants were captured or killed.(*)

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Malaysia: Local tuna industry falls short

The Star 17 Dec 10;

GEORGE TOWN: Only 33 Malaysian tuna vessels are plying the Indian Ocean, far short of the 103-ship quota approved for the country by the Indian Ocean Tuna Commission (IOTC).

Malaysian Fisheries Department director-general Datuk Ahamad Sabki Mahmood said if Malaysia did not take up the quota which was approved in 2002 and effective till 2012, there would be a problem asking for a bigger fleet allowance in future.

“Countries like Taiwan, Korea, China, Japan and Spain have all been taking full advantage of the free resources in the Indian Ocean, but we, who are located much nearer, are not participating as much as we could.

“There are now 4,000 international ships fishing in the Indian Ocean which is the second biggest tuna resource after the Western Central Pacific Ocean,” he said after opening the 2010 Tuna Industry Development Symposium at a hotel here.

Ahamad Sabki said the country’s tuna industry failed to develop as anticipated, with the yearly haul reaching only 5% of the targeted amount.

He said the low participation and interest of local parties in the industry was an area of concern.

“From what we can see, the industry has not developed to the extent that we had hoped for. Currently, we only bring in 3,000 metric tonnes of tuna a year, compared to our targeted 60,000 metric tonnes,” he said.

Ahamad Sabki said the main causes preventing more local participation in the tuna industry were a lack of three things — high-tech technology to catch tuna, bigger boats to support the haul and trained fishermen who could handle them in the far oceans.

“We’re looking at linking up with places like Taiwan and Acheh (Indonesia) to provide training programmes for our fishermen. Through symposiums like this, we also hope to come up with ideas to help develop the industry,” he said.

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Poisoning drives vulture decline in Masai Mara, Kenya

Victoria Gill BBC News 17 Dec 10;

Vulture populations in one of Africa's most important wildlife reserves have declined by 60%, say scientists.

The researchers suggest that the decline of vultures in Kenya's Masai Mara is being driven by poisoning.

The US-based Peregrine Fund says farmers occasionally lace the bodies of dead cattle or goats with a toxic pesticide called furadan.

This appears to be aimed at carnivores that kill the livestock, but one carcass can poison up to 150 vultures.

Munir Virani, who is director of the Peregrine Fund's Africa programmes, has called for use of furadan to be banned in the region "to preserve these keystone members of the scavenging community".

"People may think of vultures as ugly and disgusting, but the birds are essential for the ecosystem," he says.

Their taste for carrion actually makes them the landscape's clean-up team - ensuring the region is not littered with bodies, helping contain the spread of disease and recycling nutrients.

The results of this latest survey of vultures are published in the journal Biological Conservation.

The terrible consequences of a vulture population crash have already been demonstrated during a case that became known as the Asian vulture crisis.

Populations of Gyps vultures in particular, in South Asia, crashed by more than 95% over just a few years in the 1990s, primarily because farmers treated their cattle with the pain-killing drug diclofenac.

The pain-killer, it turned out, was lethal to the vultures, which fed on the dead cattle.

As well as driving three species of vulture to the brink of extinction, the crisis provided a huge amount of food for wild dogs, which moved in to take the place of the birds.

This had the devastating side-effect of increasing the spread of rabies. And Dr Virani is concerned that a similar situation could happen in Kenya.

The solution in Africa though, could be much more straightforward than in South Asia.

By boosting the public image of vultures in the country, the Peregrine Fund hopes to stop people from carrying out these "revenge poisoning attacks".

Between 2003 and 2005, Dr Virani and his colleagues drove across the expansive Kenyan landscapes, counting vultures.

He and his colleagues then compared the results of these surveys with the results of surveys carried out in the 1980s. The comparison revealed a 60% decline in vultures.

Corinne Kendall's work has taken this survey a step further.

Ms Kendal is a researcher from Princeton University in the US, who has also been working with the Peregrine Fund - tracking and monitoring the birds to investigate the extent of the poisoning.

"We attached the GPS trackers like little backpacks," she tells BBC News. "There's a piece that sits on their chest and two loops around each wing."

"But we had four out of 16 vultures killed in the first year and three of those were confirmed cases of poisoning.

"From a sample of 16, it's difficult to know how representative that is, but it's extremely worrying."

The transmitters also revealed that most of the poisoning happened outside of the reserve, which is a protected area.

"If they stayed in the Mara Serengeti they would hardly ever get poisoned," says Ms Kendall.

"But, based on the transmitters, it appears that the vultures that use the Masai Mara have very large home ranges - from 30,000 to 80,000 square kilometres, depending on the species."

And the birds can travel over 250km in a single day.

This means that poisoning in and around the Masai Mara could have an effect on the vulture populations, not just in other parts of Kenya, but in other countries in Africa.

Ms Kendall explains to BBC News that in the Mara ecosystem, the birds consume 70% of all available meat.

"If we lose vultures, there's no other animal that will be able to consume the volume," she says.

The reserve is a vast dining table for the birds, especially during the annual wildebeest migration, when 1.5 million of the animals march across the plains in search of grass.

"So without vultures, during the wildebeest migration you would have carcasses lying everywhere and you would see lots of disease spread," said Ms Kendall.

Under threat

In the last three months alone, Dr Virani says he has discovered six cases where vultures have been poisoned.

The Peregrine Fund has now recommend that three vulture species - the African white-backed, Ruppell's, and hooded vultures - be relisted as Vulnerable on the IUCN Red List, an internationally recognised compilation of threatened species.

"If we lost the vultures," says Dr Murani, "tourists would have to travel around the reserve with face masks on, because the stench from rotting wildebeest carcasses would be unbearable."

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Philippines: New pitcher plant species to be named after slain botanist

Redempto Anda Inquirer Southern Luzon 17 Dec 10;

Filed Under: Natural Sciences, Philippines - Regions

PUERTO PRINCESA CITY, Philippines—Scientists have discovered a new species of pitcher plant in central Palawan and are naming it after noted Filipino botanist Leonardo Co who was killed last November 10 in what the Philippine military claimed as crossfire between government security forces and an insurgent group.

The pitcher plant species, believed by its discoverers to be the only one of its kind in the world, is distinguished by its unusual dark strains and enlarged traps, said the newest post on the scientists' website Redfern Natural History Productions.

It was collected by scientists Greg Bourke, Mark Jaunzem, Jehson Cervancia and Stewart McPherson last November 10 in an area of the Victoria-Anipahan Range in the central region of Palawan island where other new species of the carnivorous plant have been discovered.

"This magnificent new plant is closely related to N. mira/N. deaniana/N. gantungensis, but has distinctive pitcher morphology, and uniquely among Palawan Nepenthes that it can produce pitchers that are extremely dark, almost black,” the biologists said on the website.

They added that the black strains were not typical overall but made the plant very interesting.

“The pitcher structure is also distinctive, and the traps get up to at least 25 centimeters or so tall," they said.

Co, who had extensively studied and documented the biodiversity of Palawan, had earlier discovered a suspected new species of orchid distinguished by its golden lip petals in the high elevations of Mt. Mantalingahan south of the Anipahan range.

Co was killed along with two co-workers, Julio Borromeo and Sofronio Cortez, last November 15 in Leyte while doing field work during what the military claimed was an encounter between government and rebel groups.

Co was killed around the same time the Palawan scientific expedition was being held.

"It seems a sad irony that this black pitcher plant was found so soon after he died. Permits are currently being sought to name this beautiful plant in his honor," said the scientists.

The discovery of the black colored pitcher plant came on the heels of the discovery in 2007 in the same site by another group of scientists, including Mc Pherson, of one of the largest pitcher plants in the world--the Nepenthes attenboroughii.

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Indonesian Polluters May Lose Access to Loans

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 17 Dec 10;

Jakarta, Indonesia. The Environment Ministry and the central bank on Friday signed a memorandum of understanding making it mandatory for banks to deny loans to companies that violated pollution standards.

Under the agreement, lenders would have to consult the ministry’s list of companies taking part in the Corporate Environmental Performance Ratings, or Proper, to check the applicants’ rating.

If a company is listed as black, or failing to comply with environmental protection standards, it will be denied financing.

“We want to make use of the list not only for the companies but also for banks so that they won’t give any loans [to companies] that have been damaging the environment,” Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta said on Friday.

“We don’t want banks to take any risks because companies rated black have a high chance of being shut down. If they’ve already borrowed money [from the banks] and then close down, what will happen to the money?”

The color-coded Proper ratings award a gold to companies that show the highest compliance with environmental regulations and demonstrate a proactive sense of responsibility toward their surrounding communities.

This is followed by blue and green marks, while toward the bottom of the list, a red rating indicates a lack of compliance with environmental regulations, and black is reserved for companies that knowingly and deliberately pollute the environment.

Darmin Nasution, governor of Bank Indonesia, said both the central bank and the ministry expected to issue a regulation to enforce the agreement soon.

“We want to have concrete action to follow up on this MoU, maybe even forming a working group [from both institutions] that will try to draft operating methods and eventually formulate it into regulations,” he said.

“In other words, we hope this becomes [standard practice] at banks.”

Darmin also said he planned to increase the part played by the banking sector in environmental preservation.

“What we expect is that banks will play an active role,” he said.

“One way to do this is by downgrading a bank’s rating if a company they’ve given a loan to is found to have violated environmental regulations.

“It doesn’t mean that banks will automatically collapse, but it will affect their rating as banks. This is an appropriate measure to get banks to be more involved in environmental issues.”

Muliaman Hadad, a deputy Bank Indonesia governor, said an existing BI regulation calling on banks to consider a loan applicant’s environmental credentials, would need to be re-evaluated.

“We already have the regulation in place, but with this MoU, we’ll need to evaluate how we enforce banking commitment over environmental issues, especially in terms of educating the bankers,” he said.

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China to step up efforts to control Mother Nature

Yahoo News 16 Dec 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – China plans to step up a weather-manipulation programme that has stirred debate about tinkering with Mother Nature, state media said on Friday.

Zheng Guoguang, director of the China Meteorological Administration, said chronic water shortages in parts of the country will worsen in the decades ahead and "thus we need to control the weather," Xinhua news agency reported.

China last year began to set aside a special budget for weather-control activities, and spending grew 19 percent in the first 10 months of this year to 114 million dollars, the report said.

Such activities will be expanded to combat extreme weather such as droughts, "explore airborne water resources, improve the ecological environment," and secure stable water supplies for cities, industry and agriculture, Xinhua said, citing the administration's plans.

China has increasingly relied on weather-changing methods in recent years, both for political reasons and to address frequent droughts.

It fired chemical-laden "rain dispersal rockets" over Beijing to wring moisture out of threatening clouds and clear the capital's smoggy skies for the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony in August 2008.

It did the same ahead of the October 2009 60th National Day celebrations in the capital, which were headlined by a nationally televised military parade touting the country's rise.

Cloud-seeding typically involves firing substances such as silver iodide, salts and dry ice into the sky, which bring on the formation of larger raindrops.

But the technique has sparked controversy.

Beijing residents griped about flight delays, traffic snarls, cancelled classes and other inconveniences of a surprise heavy snowstorm in November 2009 that was artificially induced and was the city's earliest snowfall in 20 years.

Some experts also have said more research must be done into the potential effects of repeated use of such methods.

Chinese authorities divulge few details about weather-control efforts and repeated AFP requests for access to the programme have been refused.

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Bangkok One Of Nine Asian Cities To Be Flooded Within A Decade

The Director of a leading Thai research institute has warned that if preventive steps are not taken, large areas of Bangkok’s inner city and suburbs will be submerged within 10 years affecting nearly 700,000 people and causing an estimated damage of 150 biliion baht.
Pattaya Daily News 16 Dec 10;

Bangkok 16th December 2010 (PDN) : According to Mr. Seri Suparatit of the Sirindhorn International Environmental Park, Bangkok will be one of 9 cities in Asia to be affected by severe flooding. In an interview conducted on 16th December, he said the combination of several factors will cause water levels to rise, submerging large areas of the inner city and suburbs within a decade.

Certain areas of the city including Klongteoy-Donmeung, Thonburi, Lat Phrao and Bang Khun Thian are particularly vulnerable and could incur an economic loss of 150 billion baht.

The Environmental Park had received funding from the World Bank to carry out a detailed risk assessment, following a case study by the Economic Advisory Council of the European Union, World Bank, World Vision Foundation and the Intergovernmental Committee on Climate Change (IPCC) which found that 9 Asian cities would be susceptible to severe flooding in the near future. The nine cities are Guangdong, Shanghai, Dhaka, Calcuttar, Mumbai, Rangoon, Haiphong, Ho Chi Minh City and Bangkok.

The factors that pose a threat to Bangkok are a 5% increase in rainfall, land subsidence of 4 mm per year, a rise in sea level of 1.3 cm per year, an increased inflow of water from the North, and a failure of urban planning which has resulted in a 50% decrease in water absorbing wetlands and green areas in the city over the last 30 years.

Some 680,000 of the city’s population will be affected, together with 1.16 million buildings, 900,000 of these being residential. One-third of them will be in the area of Bang Khun Thian, Bang Bon, Bang Kae and Samutprakarn. Also, about 89,000 buildings in Donmeung area will be affected.

When asked by reporters if a way has been found to avoid the flooding, Mr. Seri said the World Bank had already received the results of the research and submitted a report to the former Bangkok Governor Apirak Kosayothin, but no action had been taken.

The research suggested that the following measures should be taken : 1. Search for and put aside areas of land in Northern Bangkok for so-called “Monkey Cheeks”, or water retention areas. 2. Expand the drainage canals. 3. Build a five-metre-high barrier along 80km of the coast to protect the capital (a measure already implemented by Vietnam).
Mr. Seri said that as yet he had seen no serious plan to prepare people to cope with the severe impact of the situation. “Without any prevention plan, we may have to use our ground floors for keeping boats”, he said.

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California approves first broad US climate plan

Yahoo News 17 Dec 10;

SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) – California has approved the most sweeping US plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, acting on its own against climate change as proposed nationwide plans flounder in Washington.

The largest US state, which would be the world's eighth largest economy if a country, will from 2012 start a "cap-and-trade" system under which industry will be required to cut emissions but can trade credits on a new market.

Outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, who has differed sharply with much of his Republican Party on the environment, saw the decision by a state panel late Thursday as part of his legacy.

"I campaigned in 2003 about that -- I want to show California that we can protect both the economy and the environment," the actor-turned-politician told the California Air Resources Board which voted 9-1 for the plan at a meeting in the state capital Sacramento.

"This is not just about global climate change," said Schwarzenegger, acknowledging that some people were skeptical about scientists' view that temperature are rising.

"Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector, so it's also an economic plus," he said.

The European Union now has the world's only wide-scale cap-and-trade plan, which plays a pivotal role in the bloc's commitments to reduce the emissions blamed for climate change.

Ten states on the US East Coast have also run a cap-and-trade system that started last year, but the initiative -- the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative -- is limited to the power sector.

The US House of Representatives in 2009 approved plans for the first nationwide cap-and-trade system, with President Barack Obama's Democratic Party arguing that it would spur a new green economy and fight climate change.

The proposal died in the Senate, with Republicans leading charges that it would hurt an already weak economy. Prospects for approval have all but vanished after the Republicans swept congressional elections last month.

But voters in Democratic-leaning California soundly defeated a referendum, supported by oil interests, that would have frozen the state's actions on climate change.

Louis Blumberg, director of climate change for The Nature Conservancy environmental group's California branch, said that the state offered "a model" for others.

"At a time of critical need for decisive action to address climate change, California's tremendous leadership is creating renewed momentum at the federal and international levels," Blumberg said.

Initially, California will technically not restrict emissions but instead freely allocate "allowances" to businesses covering their carbon output. The state will gradually reduce allowances, forcing firms to go green.

Companies can also earn credit by supporting environmental projects in forests or farms, including through preservation of woods in Mexico's Chiapas state and Brazil's Acre state.

The provision has divided environmental activists, some of whom voiced anger that companies could reduce their own requirements to curb pollution by supporting timber firms that cut down forests but then plant new trees.

"We cannot and should not try to clear-cut our way out of climate change," said an action appeal from the Sierra Club California.

California aims to reduce carbon emissions by 25 percent, bringing them even with 1990 levels by 2020. The goal is less ambitious than that of the European Union, which has committed to reductions of 20 percent from 1990 levels by 2020.

California approves extensive carbon-trading scheme
BBC News 17 Dec 10;

California has approved an extensive carbon-trading plan aimed at cutting greenhouse emissions.

State regulators passed a "cap-and-trade" framework to let companies buy and sell permits, giving them an incentive to emit fewer gases.

The aim is to create the second-largest market in the field, after Europe's.

State officials hope the scheme will be copied across the US, but opponents warn it may harm California's growth and lead to higher electricity prices.

California's Air Resources Board approved the new rules late on Thursday. They are part of a landmark state climate bill passed by the legislature in 2006, which set 1 January 2011 as the deadline for enacting a cap-and-trade system.

The scheme means that from 2012 California will allocate licences to pollute and create a market where they can be traded.

A company that emits fewer greenhouse gases than its permits allow, could sell the extra capacity to a dirtier firm.

By making over-polluting more expensive, the scheme aims to provide incentives to develop greener technology.

Over time the total amount of greenhouse gas emissions - the cap - is to be reduced. California wants to cut emissions to 1990 levels by 2020.
Costs

Although all firms will eventually need to buy greenhouse gas allowances, most of the permits will be given away in the first three-year period.

But many businesses fear they will suffer in an economy that is struggling to emerge from recession, the BBC's Rajesh Mirchandani in Los Angeles says.

Dorothy Rothrock of the California Manufacturers and Technology Association told Reuters news agency: "There are definitely going to be some costs incurred right up front for these companies."

Outgoing Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - who supports environmental causes - argues that growth in emerging green technologies will offset the costs of cap-and-trade.

"Since 2006 or so green jobs have been created 10 times faster than in any other sector," he said.

California - the world's eighth largest economy - already has strict climate-related regulations, including renewable energy mandates for utilities, and tough fuel-efficiency standards for cars.

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