22 Jan (Sat): Race Against Time – Science behind a Botanic Garden Tour from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
水獭和泽巨蜥 Otter and Water monitor lizard
from PurpleMangrove
December wild facts updates: hermit crabs!
from wild shores of singapore
101230 Well it's been a year.
from Singapore Nature
101229 Odontomantis released
from Singapore Nature
Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
TWO reports on Dec 20 ('Study on facility to breed large animals for tests'; 'Dolphin exhibit still part of RWS' plan') are cause for grave concern among those involved in animal welfare.
# Animal experimentation: It was high- lighted that Singapore is studying the feasibility of building a facility to breed large animals such as pigs and monkeys for scientists to test advances on. With billions of dollars set aside for biomedical research, the question arises as to how many animals will be put through medical experiments in these laboratories?
As much as animal experimentation has been beneficial in aiding medical researchers in the study of diseases afflicting humans, it cannot be denied that it has been at the expense of the animals involved. Aside from this, there is also no guarantee that what works on animals will work on humans.
Inspections once a year by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority is a basic requirement, but is it adequate when the lives of so many sentient and intelligent beings are involved? The industry is largely self-regulated which, over time, could easily result in complacency or loss of sensitivity to the animals being studied. What goes on behind closed doors cannot be imagined, in terms of pain, discomfort or mental distress endured by a laboratory animal.
The Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA) agrees with the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Animals in research: Room for greater transparency'; last Friday), that more effort should be made in reducing, refining and replacing animals in the field of scientific research in Singapore. We would also reiterate the urgent need to bring about more transparency in the industry, and ask that independent checks of animal research facilities by animal welfare organisations be permitted.
# Dolphin exhibit: It was announced by Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) recently that it would proceed with the importation of wild caught dolphins, despite the death of two of seven dolphins at a holding area in Langkawi Island, Malaysia.
The capturing and confining of any wild creature with the intention of transforming its natural lifestyle and habits for human enjoyment and revenue is immensely cruel. The suffering of these creatures in the build-up to becoming trained performers is also unimaginable with minimal educational value to the public.
The SPCA urges RWS to seriously reconsider its decision to be party to such a cruel trade.
Deirdre Moss (Ms)
Executive Director
Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Smog watch
Grace Chua & Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
WHEN it comes to good, clean air, Singapore trumps many of its South-east Asian neighbours, but its air quality still falls short of world standards.
Blame the haze, a burgeoning car population, construction boom and growing industrial hubs like Jurong Island - all of which could potentially churn out plenty of smog that could have an impact on people's health.
Dry-season forest fires in Indonesia produced a haze that blanketed Singapore in October, sent the Pollutant Standards Index (PSI) to its worst levels since 2006 and brought on a 20 per cent surge in the number of patients who went to the doctor for asthma or other chronic lung conditions.
But official statistics point to the fact that air pollution in Singapore has not worsened over the years.
The levels of six air pollutants have gone down slightly between 1999 and last year, according to the Yearbook of Statistics Singapore.
The main mitigating factors: regular inspections and checks, and industrial emission standards that are tightened every few years to match international standards and keep up with Singapore's rapid growth.
A National Environment Agency (NEA) spokesman said it does not expect air pollutant levels to vary significantly in the short term.
What may tip the levels would be 'the future developments of Singapore's economic structure, energy mix and consumption patterns, and lifestyle choices', said the spokesman, adding that the agency will monitor such pollutants closely in the long run.
Still, fine particulate matter - its level in Singapore exceeds current limits set by the World Health Organisation - is a growing concern.
These particles are fine enough to settle in the lungs and cause health problems, said doctors.
Levels for even finer particles such as PM2.5, a pollutant 30 times smaller than the width of a strand of human hair, are also higher than ideal.
Last year, the annual mean level was 19 micrograms per cubic m. The NEA aims to cut this to 12 micrograms per cubic m by 2020.
Any level of exposure to these particles will have some impact on health, said National University of Singapore climate scientist Matthias Roth.
'That's why these guidelines are always revised over time, and even those standards are not the last word, but they are supposedly achievable,' he said.
The NEA measures several common pollutants in ambient air: sulphur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, lead, PM10 which is particulate matter finer than 10 microns in size - about one-seventh the width of a strand of human hair, carbon monoxide and ozone.
It also checks the levels of volatile organic compounds that come from trade and industry. These are chemicals like solvents, which vaporise into the air at room temperature and cause eye and lung irritation in high quantities.
In lower doses, some of these can linger in the environment although their health effects at low exposure levels are not well understood.
While the agency has maintained that Singapore's air pollution is well within the good range, residents, commuters and researchers say they would like more publicly available pollution information, and for the authority to keep a closer watch on the culprits.
The Straits Times looks at these everyday sources of outdoor air pollution here.
HAZE: Health and air quality affected
Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
OF ALL the outdoor air pollution that Singaporeans are subjected to every year, the haze probably wreaks more health havoc than any other.
At least four respiratory specialists in private practice and the Changi General Hospital said they have seen a 20 per cent jump in the number of patients with asthma and chronic lung illnesses in October, a trend which generally mirrors those seen in previous haze seasons here in the last decade.
The Pollutant Standards Index (PSI), the indicator used here to measure air quality, crept into the unhealthy range - PSI 108 - for the first time in four years in October this year.
Singapore has not managed to go a year without the haze in the last decade. In most years, it has been in the moderate range.
The haze - fumes blown this way from forest fires burning in Sumatra - contains minute ash particles known to trigger underlying health conditions.
During the last bad haze episode in 2006, Singapore had several days of air in the unhealthy range, with the PSI peaking at 130.
The worst recorded haze here was in 1997, when the air quality hit an all-time high of 226.
Besides the haze, vehicle exhaust fumes and the oil industry also contribute to pollutants in the air here.
It is not known how many asthma patients there are here. The Asthma and Allergy Association, which dispenses medical advice to such patients here, does not track such figures. But one study comparing children between the ages of 12 and 15 in 1997 and four years later in 2001, showed the proportion of asthmatics increased from 9.9 per cent to 11.9 per cent.
The same study also noted the prevalence of adult asthmatics at around 2.4 per cent in men and 2 per cent in women.
Dr Augustine Tee, a consultant at the Respiratory Department at Changi General Hospital, says the number of patients he has seen in recent years has increased, partly due to greater awareness of the issue, which meant more people were coming forward to be treated.
'But contributory factors like fluctuating air quality cannot be ruled out,' he said.
Dr Cheng Tuck Hong from the Mount Elizabeth Hospital said a higher number of people with lung-related ailments here would mirror a trend seen in other major cities such as Hong Kong and Shanghai which also have heavily polluted air.
But Dr Cheng Yew Kuang, the president of the Asthma and Allergy Association here, said studies done in the last decade here show the number of asthmatics as a proportion of the overall population has remained constant.
Experts said that overall, Singapore's air quality still compares favourably with other smog-filled cities in Asia, where people also have to contend with factors such as sharp temperature changes and the pollen season, which can trigger allergies.
AMRESH GUNASINGHAM
INDUSTRIAL: Working to clear the air
Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
EARLIER this year, a plume of black smoke rising from a refinery on the southern island of Bukom alarmed West Coast residents, who feared it could be noxious.
The National Environment Agency (NEA) gave the assurance that, although unusual, the smoke had not affected air quality on the mainland; however, complaints of polluted air from Johor refineries and odours of burnt cocoa from factories elsewhere pop up regularly in Internet forums like Stomp and punggol.org.
The NEA, concerned that the bad air problem will only intensify as industrial hubs like Jurong Island develop, is calling for expert help. It hopes to keep in check the particles more than 10 times smaller than the width of a human hair, and the levels of sulphur dioxide, which contributes to corrosive acid rain.
In its tender, it asked for consultants to compare Jurong Island's current emissions with those of petrochemical parks overseas and recommend plans for the Jurong Island infrastructure and for individual companies to maintain air quality. The consultants will also forecast industrial emissions there for the next decade.
Eight companies have submitted bids for the rights to do the six-month study, which will not only look at suspended particles and sulphur, but also at carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, heavy metals and volatile organic compounds (VOCs).
Dr Lin Jianhua, the vice-president of the chemical and materials division of testing and certification company TUV SUD PSB, said high concentrations of VOCs can irritate the eyes and lungs, so they must be filtered out of indoor air, and cleaned before being discharged outside. She added that, as an added measure, a factory's discharge pipes must stand taller than a certain height so pollutants do not linger close to the ground.
Industries can also switch to natural gas for power generation, which is cleaner than burning oil.
In some industries, however, avoiding pollutants is a challenge. Manufacturing solvent-based paints is a more pollutive activity than making water-based paints, but the continued demand for tougher solvent-based paints is driving its continued production.
Business at TUV SUD PSB has gone up 10 per cent since last year as a result of emissions standards becoming stricter every few years and businesses' rising awareness of the ills of pollution, said Dr Lin.
Emissions standards were last revised in 2008.
The NEA has 11 ambient air-quality testing stations here, but researchers here say it is not enough to work at improving air quality.
Dr Erik Velasco, a researcher with the Singapore-MIT Alliance for Research & Technology Centre for Environmental Sensing And Modelling, said during last month's Better Air Quality conference here that Singapore was far from being a smoky and polluted industrial city, 'but with the lack of publicly available air-quality data, we can't conclude that Singapore has clean air.'
He said publicly available air-quality data, such as that made available by the US Environmental Protection Agency in real time, will enable scientists to pinpoint pollution sources and work out ways to clear the air.
GRACE CHUA
MARITIME: Using fuel with less sulphur
Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
LONG before man invented the car, bus or train, ships were the preferred mode of transport for adventurers seeking newer pastures.
But for years, the industry has harboured a dirty secret - that of hulking ships steaming through the ocean, coughing out plumes of black smoke.
In Singapore, the pollution contributed by the large oil refineries operating on Jurong Island, expanding vehicle population, and annual haze blown in from Indonesia has long been tracked by the authorities here.
But as one of the world's major ports, with some 140,000 vessels calling here every year, air pollution caused by ships has so far fallen outside Singapore's radar.
Ships carry 90 per cent of the goods traded by countries around the world, and with some estimates putting their contribution to global carbon emissions at 4 per cent - double the amount from the aviation sector - it has become a matter of concern for governments around the world and green groups.
That could well explain why the National Environment Agency has recently engaged a consultant to study the impact of emissions from ships that navigate Singapore waters.
Unlike airplanes or cars, ships largely operate on cheaper residual oil, which has a sulphur content thousands of times greater than the diesel fuel used by taxis here.
Sulphur and nitrogen oxide fumes are tied to smog and acid rain, and can have a significant impact on the health of communities, especially those living near the coastline, noted Associate Professor Anthony Chin from the Centre for Maritime Studies at the National University of Singapore.
For example, an American study done in 2007 estimated that the health cost to societies in European and South Asian countries by ship emissions was US$255 billion (S$331 billion) every year.
The same study also noted that 60,000 deaths a year in coastal communities in these regions were due to respiratory-related illnesses.
But tracking this pollution is problematic, given that vessels tend to spend most of their time out in international waters, where they have not been subjected to any regulations, said experts.
That is why ports, as 'fixed facilities', should take the lead by measuring the carbon emissions from ships docked there, said Prof Chin.
Some action has already been taken. The Maritime and Port Authority signed a global protocol which makes it compulsory for ships docking here to use higher grades of fuel - with less sulphur content - progressively.
The global pact aims to reduce this sulphur content to 0.5 per cent by 2020.
Now the challenge is to attract ship owners here, given that the move to higher grade fuels will add billions of dollars to their operating costs every year.
AMRESH GUNASINGHAM
VEHICLES: Some way to go to reduce fumes
Straits Times 30 Dec 10;
NEW-CAR quotas may be slashed from next year, but there are still nearly a million vehicles here. With industries, they make up the bulk of air pollution in Singapore.
In fact, vehicle exhaust fumes could be the chief contributor to pollution in the air here, given that oil refineries primarily operate offshore, said Changi General Hospital's Dr Augustine Tee, a consultant at its Respiratory Department.
Trucks and lorries belching black smoke are a common sight on the roads, even though smoky vehicles are against the law. The total number of such vehicles booked for the offence has gone down over the years, from 14,006 in 2005 to 8,865 last year. Between January and November this year, 8,523 local and foreign vehicles were booked by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
The agency has two stations which monitor roadside air quality and help it fine-tune its vehicle emissions control measures, such as tightening fuel and vehicle standards and enforcing smoky-vehicle rules more strictly.
But the data are not made public as 'the public is not exposed to kerbside air quality 24 hours a day,' said a spokesman, and the air quality there is therefore not representative of an average person's exposure.
While cutting car numbers, switching to renewable fuels and boosting public transport help reduce air pollution, it is also important to look at fuel and vehicle emissions standards, say commuters and industry players. And Singapore's fuel and vehicle emissions standards are well behind those of other Asian countries.
Singapore follows the Euro II emissions standard for petrol vehicles, the majority of cars here, and the more stringent Euro IV standard for diesel vehicles. In comparison, Thailand has adopted the cleaner Euro III emissions standards since 2007, and new cars in Hong Kong have had to meet the even more tough Euro IV petrol standards since 2006.
So why is air quality here better than in, say, Bangkok? The frequent breezes and rain here help flush pollutants out of the air, suggested Mr Clarence Woo, executive director of the Asian Clean Fuels Association, an advocacy group for cleaner fuels.
And enforcement may be less strict in other countries. Plus, the absolute number of vehicles is lower in Singapore, as is the number of vehicles per person.
Besides the vehicle emissions standards, the quality of the fuel counts too. Mr Woo wonders if fuel sold here lives up to the European emissions standards, as the data on fuel contents are not public, though they have to meet standards set by the authorities here.
The maximum sulphur content of petrol allowed to be sold here is 500 parts per million (ppm) while that of diesel is 50 ppm. The higher the sulphur content, the more sulphur dioxide they give off when burnt for fuel.
Even drivers like pilot and businessman Prithpal Singh are concerned. Mr Singh, 50, said he would like petrol companies to declare the pollutant contents of fuel, and that fuel standards should be upped for better fuel efficiency and less pollution. 'We consider ourselves a first-world country, but our emissions standards are only Euro II,' he said.
Already, the NEA is in talks with the oil industry to introduce Euro IV petrol, which has a maximum sulphur content of 50 ppm, and Euro V diesel (with sulphur at 10 ppm) in the next few years.
And by 2014 or 2015, Singapore aims to move to the Euro V standard for diesel vehicles, according to the Sustainable Development Blueprint, a government plan unveiled last year for the country to grow sustainably.
GRACE CHUA
The Star 30 Dec 10;
AS we herald the New Year, it is my wish to see that in the next general election, every member of parliament and state assemblyman has a manifesto that includes the conservation of nature and the environment to ensure sustainable development for the future.
For too long, we have taken nature and the environment for granted.
In developed nations, all political leaders and elected representatives are champions of the environment and have key performance indicators (KPIs), related to conservation. Why not in Malaysia?
Hence, our leaders must buck up on their knowledge of the various United Nations internationally ratified environmental agreements of which Malaysia is a party to.
There has been lack of political will in this area that reflects on whether we are a caring society.
We must develop with our future generations in mind and it starts with knowledge of the dynamic environment, our living legacy and heritage. This area is wanting!!
In this respect, I hope Local Agenda 21 (involvement of the stakeholders) is utilised by the respective government departments especially the local authorities.
It is also imperative to emulate successful countries such as Japan, Australia and the Scandinavian nations in working closely with the NGOs in partnership.
The Government departments have the resources and manpower while the NGOs have the technical know-how and international expertise.
If the two parties can combine, it will be a potent force for the environment as the approach to development must take an innovative, sustainable and holistic approach.
The KPIs of the elected political representatives can include protecting fragile environments, conservation of valuable habitats namely the forests and wetlands, biodiversity protection, environmental education, combating poverty via permaculture (sustainable agriculture) promotion, initiating research initiatives and reaching out to all stakeholders.
With a population of about 27 million people, we have to start immediately before adverse climate changes engulf us and disrupt our future development plans.
ASSOC PROF MAKETAB MOHAMED,
President,
Malaysian Nature Society.
The Star 29 Dec 10;
BERJAYA Langkawi Resort has erected signages along its beachfront to warn and advise swimmers about the presence of jellyfish in the waters.
The resort’s general manager Graeme L. Dwyer who hails from Australia is putting to good use his experience in tackling the jellyfish danger.
He said the public had to be warned of the dangers of jellyfish and the signages provided information on the do’s and dont’s when one is stung.
Dwyer also said first aid in the form of applying or pouring vinegar on the area where one has been stung would be provided at three first aid stations set up along the 180m stretch of the beach.
He was speaking at a press briefing at the resort recently.
“The whole swimming area will be skimmed to remove any jellyfish and at a later stage, a protective beach net will be spread to safeguard the whole area.
“The jellyfish situation in Langkawi is manageable as far as the deadly box jellyfish species is concerned,” he said.
“The presence of jellyfish increases from December to March and we have to be prepared,’’ he said.
Rhodina Villanueva The Philippine Star 30 Dec 10;
MANILA, Philippines - To boost the ASEAN region’s taxonomic capacities and save the dying science of taxonomy, the Philippine-based ASEAN Center for Biodiversity (ACB), in partnership with Japan’s Ministry of Environment, recently conducted a series of workshops aimed at enhancing the capabilities of ASEAN+3 countries in the understanding and application of taxonomic knowledge in the context of sustainable biodiversity conservation and management.
ASEAN+3 refers to the 10 ASEAN member states together with Japan, China and Korea.
Rodrigo Fuentes, executive director of ACB, said, “Taxonomists, like many endangered species, are not increasing in numbers. There is a dire need to revive interest in taxonomy.”
“The diminishing status of this science and profession is crippling the ASEAN member states and other Asian countries’ capacity to effectively catalogue our biological resources. We are all aware that without knowledge and understanding of species, it would be difficult to plan and implement biodiversity conservation efforts,” Fuentes added.
Fuentes said people relate taxonomy to science only. “But we believe that taxonomy is one of the fundamental tools required by our global community to implement the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the development targets set by the World Summit for Sustainable Development.”
“Without sufficient long-term investment in human resources, infrastructure, and information resources necessary to promote taxonomy, this gap could prevent implementation of sound and scientifically based sustainable environmental management and development policies. And we are all aware that development and environment that are not sustainable are a bane to poverty reduction and other MDGs,” Fuentes added.
The workshops were part of a project on “Taxonomic Capacity Building and Governance for Conservation and Sustainable Use of Biodiversity” funded by the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund.
The first in the series focused on corals taxonomy and was held last Dec. 4-8 in Penang, Malaysian, in cooperation with the University Sains Malaysia (USM).
The training workshop introduced the participants to the general biology of reef-building corals; and upgraded their skills on the methods of morphological observation, sample collection, processing and managing of corals, advanced taxonomic methodologies such as molecular techniques, photography of corals, and use of the Internet in corals taxonomy.
The participants had hands-on experience on museum collections management, cataloguing and storage.
The ASEAN region is home to 34 percent of the world’s coral reefs. This richness, however, is increasingly at risk due human activities and climate change, among other factors.
Julio Godoy IPS News 30 Dec 10;
BERLIN, Dec 30, 2010 (IPS/IFEJ) - Nearly 12 months ago, when the U.N. heralded 2010 as the ‘International Year of Biodiversity’, unrealistic goals seemed to indicate failure for the ambitious initiative. But now that the year is drawing to a close, some experts also see the year’s progress as encouraging, and a reason for optimism.
The January 2010 inauguration of the ‘International Year of Biodiversity’ (IYB) was met with scepticism by the international community, which noted that the European Union (EU) target of halting regional decimation of species by December - formulated in 2003 - was unrealistic.
And yet leading German environmental and biology experts are labelling IYB a success. "The very fact that the U.N. called 2010 the International Year of Biodiversity was a strong signal and a warning, which moved many world leaders to finally act to protect flora and fauna around Earth," Josef Settele, head biologist at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ) told IPS.
The UFZ is the leading German centre of research on biodiversity. Settele, an expert on conservation and evolutionary biology, is editor of the UFZ ‘Atlas Biodiversity Risk’, the first of its kind to be published.
Settele admitted that the present state of biodiversity is dismaying. In Germany alone, more than 40 percent of all species inventoried in the country are considered at risk. "The overall situation of biodiversity is worrisome," Settele said. "But the EU was too ambitious in formulating the objective of stopping the decimation of biodiversity by 2010. Such a target is very unlikely to be fulfilled. Ever."
However, Settele said, several important initiatives have been launched this year that address the issue of biodiversity protection, such as the U.N. biodiversity agreement of Nagoya, and the presentation of the newest report on the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB), both in October.
With the TEEB report, Settele pointed out, the "economic importance of the world's natural assets is now firmly on the political radar. This study showcases the enormous economic value of forest, freshwater, soils and coral reefs, as well as the social and economic costs of their loss."
As an example, Settele pointed to the economic value of bees. "Thanks to TEEB, we now know that when bees pollinate flora worldwide, they produce an enormous economic value," he said.
TEEB estimated that the worldwide pollination carried out by bees in 2005 was worth some 153 billion euros (about 200 billion dollars).
At the tenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nagoya in Japan, world leaders approved a key measure to protect biodiversity: a goal of eliminating all subsidies for agriculture and fishery, which provoke decimation of flora and fauna, by the year 2020. Worldwide, these subsidies amount to some 670 billion dollars.
Kai Frobel, professor of geology and ecology at the German university of Bayreuth, praised the Nagoya conference as a major step in the international protection of biodiversity. Frobel told IPS that the implementation of such measures in Europe constitutes a litmus test for the political will of European leaders to live up to their own environmental commitments.
Official subsidies for European agriculture and fisheries constitute the largest chunk of the EU budget, and must be revised before 2013. "We will see… whether the governments in France and Germany are willing to continue wasting taxpayers' money to finance the destruction of nature," Frobel warned.
Frobel also praised the Nagoya decision for including language regulating access and benefit sharing. According to one clause, industrialised countries must pay each time they use biological resources, including genetic material, from developing countries.
Furthermore, the Nagoya agreement establishes the expansion of new protected areas. "All these measures constitute a clear progress towards protecting biodiversity," Frobel said.
However, Frobel pointed out, actions speak louder than words.
"The measures must be implemented," he warned. "As of now, the Nagoya agreement constitutes only a binding declaration of intentions. Nagoya will only be a success if the measures the world leaders agreed upon there last October are actually put in practice."
Frobel worries that in the coming year biodiversity may disappear from the political agenda. "During 2011, the EU must negotiate its agricultural policy after 2013, and therefore the subject of biodiversity will be present in Europe," he said. "But otherwise, biodiversity won't dominate the political agenda as much as it did in 2010."
Frobel urged his colleagues worldwide to promote the importance of protecting biodiversity. "Biodiversity must become an integral part of the elementary syllabus, in order to teach younger generations to appreciate the social and economic value of flora and fauna.
"People have also come to realise that the protection of biodiversity does not mean protecting one particular species, but whole ecosystems," he said.
*This story is part of a series of features on biodiversity by Inter Press Service (IPS), CGIAR/Biodiversity International, International Federation of Environmental Journalists (IFEJ), and the United Nations Environment Programme/Convention on Biological Diversity (UNEP/CBD) - all members of the Alliance of Communicators for Sustainable Development. (END)
AFP Google News 29 Dec 10;
PARIS — Capping the UN's International Year of Biodiversity, botanists in Britain and the United States on Wednesday unveiled a library of plant names aimed at helping conservationists, drug designers and agriculture researchers.
The database, accessible at www.theplantlist.org, identifies 1.25 million names for plants, ranging from essential food crops such as wheat, rice and corn to garden roses and exotic jungle ferns, and provides links to published research.
The aim is to clear up a century-old taxonomic jumble in which non-standard names sowed ignorance, rivalry and sometimes damaging confusion about the world's plant wealth.
"Without accurate names, understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos, costing vast sums of money and threatening lives in the case of plants used for food or medicine," Britain's Royal Botanic Gardens (RBG) said.
The project brought together scores of experts at RBG's famous Kew Gardens in London with the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis.
It traces its origins to a 1999 botanical congress which called for a clear picture of plant biodiversity to help preserve species under threat.
The Plant List is described as a working list that will require finetuning.
"(It) is really a major step forward," said Peter Wyse Jackson, president of the Missouri Botanical Garden.
"It provides for the first time a basic checklist of what plants there are on the planet, and it can be used for so many purposes, planning conservation, action looking at the economic importance of plants and so on."
Of the 1.25 million names, 1.04 million are of species rank while the remainder are "infraspecific," meaning they are families or sub-groups of species.
The longest name is Ornithogalum adseptentrionesvergentulum, for a group of species that includes the ?Star of Bethlehem? plant. The shortest names include Poa fax, or scaly poa, a purplish flower native to Western Australia.
Only 300,000 names for species have been accepted as standard terms by the experts, and 480,000 others have been deemed "synonyms," or alternatives to accepted names.
A whopping 260,000 names are "unresolved," meaning that data is too sketchy to determine swiftly whether the claim for a new plant find is backed by the facts. This part of the list will be whittled down by experts over the years to come.
Under a plan adopted in Nagoya, Japan, last October, members of the UN's Biodiversity Convention agreed to set up a complete plant database by 2020.
One in five of the world's known plant species is under threat of extinction, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) said in September.
Habitat loss, climate change, pollution and invasive species are the major perils.
Plant list weeds out mass naming duplications
Ben Webster The Times The Australian 30 Dec 10;
LIFE on Earth is less diverse than we have been led to believe, with a review of the world's million named plants able to confirm only a third of them as unique.
The Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew, south west London, has updated a project conceived 130 years ago by Charles Darwin to identify every plant known to science.
But it found that the list, which was started in the 1880s with the help of a bequest from the great naturalist of 250 pounds a year for five years, was largely made up of repetitions. Hundreds of botanists thought that they had discovered new species but they were naming previously identified plants.
Kew, working with the Missouri Botanical Garden in the US, found that a sub-species of English Oak had been "discovered" 168 times. The Plant List, published online yesterday, also weeds out 51 synonyms for the common beech, 29 for the common daisy and 26 for the bluebell. The giant sequoia, native of Sierra Nevada in California, has been named 18 times by different botanists.
By painstakingly comparing entries, Kew found 300,000 unique species and 480,000 synonyms of those species. Another 260,000 names are listed as "unresolved", meaning that botanists have so far been unable to determine whether they are a separate species or a duplication of one of the 300,000.
Families of plants with the highest proportion of unresolved names include the umbellifers, such as carrot and celery, the cactus family and the solanaceae family, which includes the potato and tomato.
Kew found 17,844 different names for hawkweeds but decided that 8,000 of these were synonyms. It has so far identified 1,411 different species of hawkweed but says that it needs to do more work on another 8,000 names to determine whether they are unique.
Researchers at Kew said that the lack of a definitive list of all plants had held back conservation efforts and prevented institutions from sharing information on the same plant. By identifying the synonyms for each plant, the Kew study has enabled scientists anywhere in the world to gain access to all the research conducted into a particular species.
Conservation bodies are expected to use the list to focus their efforts on truly endangered species rather than wasting resources protecting plants that may be rare in one place but abundant in another. Kew reviewed the "Red List" of threatened plants of Botswana and found that six of the names listed there were actually synonyms of other plants that were not threatened.
The linking of different names for the same plant is also likely to help medical research. Mu Xiang, a plant widely used in traditional Chinese medicine, has five synonyms. Kew said that health regulators in different areas would now be able to share information on the remedy.
A Kew spokesman said: "Without accurate names, understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos, costing vast sums of money and threatening lives in the case of plants used for food or medicine. The Plant List provides a way of linking the different scientific names used for a particular species together, thus meeting the needs of the conservation community by providing reliable names for all communication about plants and their uses."
Eimear Nic Lughadha, the Kew scientist who led the Plant List project, said: "We can now pull all the information together on the same plant and plot on a map where it occurs. This enables us to decide quickly which species are most threatened."
She said that the original list, funded by Darwin and published a century ago under the title Index Kewensis, had simply been a list of 400,000 names, with little effort to remove duplication. An average of 6,000 names had been added every year since it was first published, with many new names describing plants already listed. "It was difficult to cross-check before the internet existed. This [duplication] happens much less often now," she added.
US, UK scientists draw up list of world's plants
Raphael G. Satter, Associated Press Yahoo News 29 Dec 10;
LONDON – British and U.S. scientists say they've compiled the most comprehensive list of land plant species ever published — a 300,000-species strong compendium that they hope will boost conservation, trade and medicine.
The list, drawn up by researchers at Kew Gardens in London and the Missouri Botanical Garden in St. Louis, is intended to help resolve one of botany's most basic problems: Figuring out which plants go by what name.
Some plants have been labeled differently by researchers operating in different countries over the past century, while in other cases the different variants of the same plant have been erroneously identified as belonging to different species. There are also cases in which plants names' have been applied mistakenly, or just misspelled.
Although a rose by any other name may still smell as sweet, scientists say that attaching different labels to the same plant can rob researchers of the chance to get the information they need.
"If you only know it by one of its many names you only get part of the story," said Eimear Nic Lughadha, the senior scientist at Kew responsible for the list.
It's a problem that frustrates everyone from agricultural regulators to pharmaceutical researchers.
"Imagine trying to find everything that's ever been published about a plant: Which chemicals are in it, whether it's poisonous or not, where is it found," said Alan Paton, one of Nic Lughadha's colleagues at the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. "To find that information, you need to know all of the different scientific names that have been used for it."
The plant compendium aims to clear up that confusion by putting all the various names in one place — and sorting out which ones apply to which plant. To that end researchers in the U.S. and Britain have been scooping up existing databases — with names such as GrassBase and iPlants — and combining them with checklists from organizations such as the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families and The International Legume Database and Information Service.
Kew's final list carries more than 1 million scientific names, of which 300,000 are accepted names for plant species. Another 480,000 are additional names, or synonyms, for those species. The rest are unresolved — they could apply to a previously identified plant, or they could describe a different organism altogether.
Botanists are still working their way through the backlog of unassigned names.
"Finishing that list will be a long task," Nic Lughadha said. "And, of course, new species are being described all the time."
Missouri Botanical Garden, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, announce the Plant List
Accomplishment fundamental to plant conservation efforts worldwide
Missouri Botanical Garden EurekAlert 29 Dec 10;
(ST. LOUIS): As the 2010 United Nations International Year of Biodiversity comes to a close, the Missouri Botanical Garden (MBG) and the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew (RBG Kew) announce the completion of The Plant List. This landmark international resource is a working list of all land plant species(1), fundamental to understanding and documenting plant diversity and effective conservation of plants. The completion of The Plant List accomplishes Target 1 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC), which called for a widely accessible working list of known plant species as a step towards a complete world flora. The Plant List can be accessed by visiting www.theplantlist.org.
"The on-time completion of The Plant List is a significant accomplishment for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and the Missouri Botanical Garden, and our partners worldwide," said Professor Stephen Hopper, Director, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "This is crucial to planning, implementing and monitoring plant conservation programs around the world."
Without accurate names, understanding and communication about global plant life would descend into inefficient chaos, costing vast sums of money and threatening lives in the case of plants used for food or medicine. The Plant List provides a way of linking the different scientific names used for a particular species together, thus meeting the needs of the conservation community by providing reliable names for all communication about plants and their uses.
The Plant List includes 1.25 million scientific plant names, of which 1.04 million are names of species rank. Of the species names included in The Plant List, about 300,000 (29 percent) are accepted names for species and about 480,000 (46 percent) are recorded as synonyms of those species. The status of the remaining 260,000 names is "unresolved" since the contributing data sets do not contain sufficient evidence to decide whether they should be accepted names or synonyms. The Plant List includes a further 204,000 scientific plant names of infraspecific taxonomic rank linked to those species names. These numbers will change in the future as data quality improves.
"All validly published names for plants to the level of species have been included in The Plant List, the majority of them synonyms; no names have been deleted," said Dr. Peter H. Raven, President Emeritus, Missouri Botanical Garden.
Since 2008, botanists and information technology specialists at MBG and RBG Kew have been developing and testing an innovative new approach to generating The Plant List. The approach involved merging existing names and synonymy relationships from the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew's World Checklist of Selected Plant Families with over one million plant names from Tropicos®, which has been the Missouri Botanical Garden's main online taxonomic resource since 1982.
Researchers and specialists used names and synonymy relationships from regional floras and checklists and worked out a rules-based approach(2) to merge them with RBG Kew's records into The Plant List. The project has relied on collaboration with other botanists and their institutions around the world working towards GSPC Target 1; major contributions have come from The International Compositae Alliance (www.compositae.org), International Legume Database & Information Service (www.ildis.org) and The International Plant Names Index (www.ipni.org).
"This is a breakthrough," said Chuck Miller, Vice President of Information Systems at the Missouri Botanical Garden. "By capturing taxonomic knowledge into a rulebase, computers could be employed to aid the task of sorting out the millions of plant name records assembled over the past two decades in Tropicos®, the World Checklist of Selected Plant Families and other sources to produce this product that achieves the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation Target 1."
The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation (GSPC) was first proposed at the XVI International Botanical Congress in St. Louis in 1999. It was adopted in April 2002 by the Convention on Biological Diversity as a guide and framework for plant conservation policies and priorities worldwide at all levels. The GSPC consists of a plan containing 16 targets to address the loss of plant species around the world. At the 10th Meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nagoya, Japan in October 2010, an updated plan was adopted for the period of 2011 through 2020 with updated targets. The first three objectives of the new Global Strategy for Plant Conservation are that plant diversity is well understood, documented and recognized; plant diversity is urgently and effectively conserved; and plant diversity is used in a sustainable and equitable manner. The completion of The Plant List is a significant step towards the new GSPC Target 1 – to create an online flora of all known plants by 2020.
"Having an accurate and comprehensive list of the world's flora will be a fundamental requirement to underpin future plant conservation efforts," said Dr. Peter Wyse Jackson, President, Missouri Botanical Garden. "The Plant List provides this new resource and will be widely used and much welcomed. Meeting this important GSPC target for 2010 represents a remarkable achievement for all those involved and provides the basis on which we can build towards the newly adopted 2020 target."
"For anyone that depends upon reliable information about plants, including professionals working in health, food and agriculture or rural development, The Plant List represents a significant information product," said Bob Allkin, Information Project Manager, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. "It will enable such professionals to find all published research about a given plant regardless of which name was used in those publications."
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With scientists working in 38 countries on six continents around the globe, the Missouri Botanical Garden has one of the three largest plant science programs in the world. Its mission is "to discover and share knowledge about plants and their environment in order to preserve and enrich life." The Garden focuses its work on areas that are rich in biodiversity yet threatened by habitat destruction, and operates the world's most active research and training programs in tropical botany. Garden scientists collaborate with local institutions, schools and indigenous peoples to understand plants, create awareness, offer alternatives and craft conservation strategies. The Missouri Botanical Garden is striving for a world that can sustain us without sacrificing prosperity for future generations, a world where people share a commitment to managing biological diversity for the common benefit. Today, 151 years after opening, the Missouri Botanical Garden is a National Historic Landmark and a center for science, conservation, education and horticultural display.
The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is a world-famous scientific organization, internationally respected for its outstanding living collection of plants and world-class herbarium as well as its scientific expertise in plant diversity, conservation and sustainable development in the U.K. and around the world. Kew Gardens is also a major international visitor attraction. Its landscaped 132 hectares and Kew's country estate, Wakehurst Place, attract nearly 2 million visitors every year. Kew was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in July 2003 and celebrated its 250th anniversary in 2009. Wakehurst Place is home to Kew's Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild plant seed bank in the world. The Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew and its partners have collected and conserved seed from 10 percent of the world's wild flowering plant species (c. 30, 000 species) and aim to conserve 25 percent by 2020.
Collapse of Earth's marine life 378 to 375 million years ago holds key
The National Science Foundation 29 Dec 10;
An influx of invasive species can stop the dominant natural process of new species formation and trigger mass extinction events, according to research results published today in the journal PLoS ONE.
The study of the collapse of Earth's marine life 378 to 375 million years ago suggests that the planet's current ecosystems, which are struggling with biodiversity loss, could meet a similar fate.
Although Earth has experienced five major mass extinction events, the environmental crash during the Late Devonian was unlike any other in the planet's history.
The actual number of extinctions wasn't higher than the natural rate of species loss, but very few new species arose.
"We refer to the Late Devonian as a mass extinction, but it was actually a biodiversity crisis," said Alycia Stigall, a scientist at Ohio University and author of the PLoS ONE paper.
"This research significantly contributes to our understanding of species invasions from a deep-time perspective," said Lisa Boush, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Earth Sciences, which funded the research.&
"The knowledge is critical to determining the cause and extent of mass extinctions through time, especially the five biggest biodiversity crises in the history of life on Earth. It provides an important perspective on our current biodiversity crises."
The research suggests that the typical method by which new species originate--vicariance--was absent during this ancient phase of Earth's history, and could be to blame for the mass extinction.
Vicariance occurs when a population becomes geographically divided by a natural, long-term event, such as the formation of a mountain range or a new river channel, and evolves into different species.
New species also can originate through dispersal, which occurs when a subset of a population moves to a new location.
In a departure from previous studies, Stigall used phylogenetic analysis, which draws on an understanding of the tree of evolutionary relationships to examine how individual speciation events occurred.
She focused on one bivalve, Leptodesma (Leiopteria), and two brachiopods, Floweria and Schizophoria (Schizophoria), as well as a predatory crustacean, Archaeostraca.
These small, shelled marine animals were some of the most common inhabitants of the Late Devonian oceans, which had the most extensive reef system in Earth's history.
The seas teemed with huge predatory fish such as Dunkleosteus, and smaller life forms such as trilobites and crinoids (sea lilies).
The first forests and terrestrial ecosystems appeared during this time; amphibians began to walk on land.
As sea levels rose and the continents closed in to form connected land masses, however, some species gained access to environments they hadn't inhabited before.
The hardiest of these invasive species that could thrive on a variety of food sources and in new climates became dominant, wiping out more locally adapted species.
The invasive species were so prolific at this time that it became difficult for many new species to arise.
"The main mode of speciation that occurs in the geological record is shut down during the Devonian," said Stigall. "It just stops in its tracks."
Of the species Stigall studied, most lost substantial diversity during the Late Devonian, and one, Floweria, became extinct.
The entire marine ecosystem suffered a major collapse. Reef-forming corals were decimated and reefs did not appear on Earth again for 100 million years.
The giant fishes, trilobites, sponges and brachiopods also declined dramatically, while organisms on land had much higher survival rates.
The study is relevant for the current biodiversity crisis, Stigall said, as human activity has introduced a high number of invasive species into new ecosystems.
In addition, the modern extinction rate exceeds the rate of ancient extinction events, including the event that wiped out the dinosaurs 65 million years ago.
"Even if you can stop habitat loss, the fact that we've moved all these invasive species around the planet will take a long time to recover from because the high level of invasions has suppressed the speciation rate substantially," Stigall said.
Maintaining Earth's ecosystems, she suggests, would be helped by focusing efforts and resources on protection of new species generation.
"The more we know about this process," Stigall said, "the more we will understand how to best preserve biodiversity."
The research was also funded by the American Chemical Society and Ohio University.
-NSF-
Antara 29 Dec 10;
Timika, Papua (ANTARA News) - Mimika police foiled an attempt to smuggle out 10,914 pig-nose turtles from Timika last Sunday (Dec 26).
Mimika Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Mochammad Sagi on Wednesday confirmed the busting of the smuggling operation.
The confiscated turtles would be released into the Wania River, Paumako harbor, Mimika Timur District, on Thursday (Dec 30), he said.
One person identified as Jemmy was arrested in the case, and the police were still investigating several other witnesses.
Jemmy admitted that he had planned to dispatch the turtles out of Timika within the next few days.
Police raided Jemmy`s house in the Kamoro SP1 Timika area on Sunday (Dec 26) after receiving a tip-off from local people.
In addition to the pig-nose turtles, the police also found and seized a package of crystal methamphetamine in Jemmy`s house.
In March 2009, the Papua Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) released over 10,000 pig-nosed turtles, a species endemic to the province, into the Otakwa River in the Lorentz National Park.
The turtles were seized by the Mimika Police and a BKSDA team in Timika in February 2009.
They were poached in East Mimika district and to be smuggled out of the province. Pig-nose turtles (Caretto-chelys insclupta) are protected under Law No. 7/1999 on preservation of plant and animal species.
Over 10,000 pig-nose turtles released into habitat
Antara 31 Dec 10;
Timika, Papua (ANTARA News) - Some 10,908 pig-nose turtles were released into their habitat in the Wania River, Paumako harbor, Mimika Timur District, Papua Province, Thursday (Dec 30).
"We have released them into the Wania River, Paumako harbor," Mimika Police Chief Adjunct Senior Commissioner Mochammad Sagi confirmed here Friday.
The event witnessed among others by Deputy District Head of Mimika Abdul Muis was aimed at preserving the endangered animals, he said.
Pig-nose turtles are protected under Law No. 5/1990 on Natural Resources and Ecosystems Conservation.
Mimika police had foiled an attempt to smuggle out the 10,908 pig-nose turtles from Timika last Sunday (Dec 26) and arrested two people identified by their initials as A and YW.
Police raided YW`s house in the Kamoro SP1 Timika area and seized the pig-nose turtles after receiving a tip-off from local people.
The turtles had been poached in the Asmat region and were to have been transported to Jakarta.
In addition to the pig-nose turtles, the police also found and seized a package of crystal methamphetamine in Jemmy`s house.
In March 2009, the Papua Natural Resources Conservation Center (BKSDA) released over 10,000 pig-nosed turtles, a species endemic to the province, into the Otakwa River in the Lorentz National Park.
The turtles were seized by the Mimika Police and a BKSDA team in Timika in February 2009.
Claire De Oliveira Yahoo News 29 Dec 10;
RIO DE JANEIRO (AFP) – The police operation is carried out with the precision of a military ambush: a dozen officers in camouflage leap from a truck and quickly take control of the blackmarket alleyways in a northern Rio suburb.
Within minutes, their human targets are rounded up -- along with the "hostages" they are holding: birds, turtles, monkeys and reptiles.
This is Brazil's war on animal smugglers, a fight against the raiders of the flora and fauna of Latin America's most bio-rich nation. It's a fight authorities say they are winning.
"Thanks to checks, we have cut the traffic in exotic animals on the market by 80 percent compared to last year," Lieutenant Marcele Figueiredo, a 28-year-old woman commanding Rio's special environmental police battalion, told AFP.
Created in 1983, the battalion counts 400 officers, six of them female. And it has no time to rest.
Each year in Brazil, 250,000 animals are grabbed and stuffed in bags or cages for sale, according to official statistics.
Animal trafficking ranks as the third most lucrative criminal activity in Brazil, after the sale of arms and drugs, police say.
It generates a billion dollars a year, according to an association called Renctas which is dedicated to fighting the trade.
Under Brazilian law, hunting and keeping in captivity any wild animal is prohibited except on a few rare farms with special authorization.
But blackmarketeers keep an underground trade going, selling a green parrot or a toucan grabbed from its habitat for prices 10 percent those being asked in legal shops.
"That price difference is what keeps the trafficking going," Figueiredo said.
Every species is prey for Brazil's poachers. Birds are most often sold, going for 10 dollars for an ordinary breed to up to 10,000 dollars for a Hyacinth Macaw, a beautiful blue parrot prized as pets. The more endangered the animal, the higher its price.
Around 40 percent of the trafficked animals are headed for Europe or North America. Brazilian buyers, though, also fuel the activity.
One man arrested for trying to sell a green parrot for the equivalent of a few dollars claimed he did not know he was breaking the law.
"I just wanted to get rid of it because it bites," he said, before receiving a fine and being released on a promise of not offending again.
That bird and the other animals seized are taken to a state sorting center close to Rio, where they are put in quarantine.
Around 8,000 animals a year arrive in the facility, many of them in pitiful condition.
There are a few primates among them -- monkeys abandoned by their owners as they become more aggressive adults.
"It's really a problem," one veterinarian at the center said, explaining that the monkeys are unable to fend for themselves if released into the wild.
The ones that do make it to the center are the lucky ones. Half the animals smuggled die in transit.
"They are transported in awful conditions. They're kept in tiny closed boxes with little air. They go for hours without eating or drinking," said one vet, Daniel Marchesi.
"There is a huge diversity of species in Brazil, and some very beautiful animals which people want to own. And it's in the Brazilian culture to have all sorts of exotic animals at home," Marchesi said.
The Star 30 Dec 10;
KOTA KINABALU: Universiti Malaysia Sabah (UMS) is trying out the mini estate concept to boost seaweed production that may help Malaysia emerge as a global seaweed producer.
The projects are now under trial in Semporna as location seen most suitable as it is part of the Coral Triangle encompassing leading seaweed producers Indonesia and the Philippines.
UMS School of Science and Technology Assoc Prof Dr Suhaimi Md Yasir said phase one of the project will stretch over 2,000ha and should yield about one to five million metric tonnes of seaweed per year.
“We will try to achieve this figure, which has a value of about US$130mil (RM404.3m)”, he said.
UMS is in the Malaysian Seaweed Development Industry Steering Committee chaired by the Fisheries Department.
“In phase one, we look at the database including oceanography, water quality for that area and so on.
“Because when you have the database, it is easy for the investors to come in. They know the water quality, area, topography and weather pattern.
“How you manage the nursery for the seedling collection is very important in maintaining growth rate and quality”, said Suhaimi.
Phase two is from 2011 to 2015 (10th Malaysia Plan), covering not only Sabah but Sarawak and the Peninsula too.
The seaweed planting trial has been conducted in Langkawi and Terengganu as well.
Suhaimi added while phase one of the project is about capacity building among others, the second phase will aim for national development, meaning seaweed becomes a commodity.
“It will no longer be small-scale but involves 50,000 to 100,000ha with a production target of about 200,000 to 300,000 metric tonnes per year.
“We want the private sector and government-linked companies to be involved. We also want to nurture small and medium scale entrepreneurs in this field. We work on the quality.”
Towards the end, UMS had enlisted the collaboration of the Federal Land Development Authority (Felda).
Even now, a company founded by Salleh Mohd Salleh in 2009, with a few foreign investors and Tawau-based Tacara Sdn Bhd are producing and exporting 500 metric tonnes of seaweed produce per month.
UMS Marine Science graduate Japson Wong, 25, from Kota Kinabalu is also a participant in the mini estate concept.
His interest in seaweed aquaculture was sparked by experience while doing field work in Banggi under Prof Dr Mohd Rizuan Nordin and further exposure to seaweed farming during his industrial training.
He applied through the Sabah Fisheries Department to be included in the Graduate Farmers Programme.
By April 2009, he was already in Pulau Omadal, where he and 21 other participants, including four women from Lahad Datu, Keningau and Kota Kinabalu were allotted two hectares each, a house and the necessary tools to start their respective project.
“When we started we encountered a lot of problems. Bad weeds were growing because the area was quite shallow”, he said.
The unwanted weeds affected growth rate. Progress was slow and to make matters worse, the seaweed would sometimes just drop into the sea.
There is also that seasonal challenge - the north and south winds.
“The north wind is good because the waves it creates contains the nutrients that nourish the seaweeds,” said Wong.
Wong realised it is a tedious endeavour which will not make him rich in the near future, but the thought that he will eventually prosper from all the hard work keeps him going.
At present, Indonesia is the leading producer of seaweed with an output of 150,000 metric tonnes in 2009 having overtaken the Philippines which could only manage 100,000 metric tonnes.
Presently, Malaysia is placed insignificantly under ‘others’ accounting for just five percent. World demand is expected to reach 400,000 metric tonnes by 2012.
Indonesia has indicated it would ban raw seaweed export by that time, hence Malaysia’s necessity to increase productivity, in order to cater for export and domestic needs.
The Coral Triangle is capable of supplying 80% of the world demand with the kappaphycus seaweed, known for its thickening and gelling properties, that can be found in abundance.
It is a major source of carrageenan, a colloidal substance chiefly used as an emulsifying and stabilizing ingredient in foods, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals. — Bernama
Andy Chua The Star 30 Dec 10;
PLASTIC bags will soon be a thing of the past in major supermarkets in Sibu.
Sibu Municipal Council (SMC) decided at this year’s last full council meeting yesterday that the “Say no to plastic bag” campaign should not just be observed once a week, and it wanted supermarkets to take the lead in changing mindsets.
However, the commencement date will be decided in another meeting soon.
Currently, 60 businesses are participating in the campaign, which started on Nov 15, 2009. They would not give out plastic bags on Monday and instead, charged 20 sen for each plastic bag if a shopper insisted on using them.
All 26 SMC councillors yesterday agreed that the campaign be carried on a daily basis.
Public health, environment and municipal services standing committee chairman councillor Tong Hing Lee had brought the matter up for the council to decide after discussions with the participating businesses on whether the campaign should be observed daily came to a dead end.
The councillors were unanimous in their decision and SMC was urged to give a one-month grace period to the supermarkets to adjust to the new ruling.
Councillor Christopher Adrian added that with the new measure, the mindset of the younger generation could be changed to become more environment-friendly.
“There are presently still a lot of people who dump used plastic bags like there is no tomorrow,” he said.
The people of Sibu generate an average of 130 tonnes of refuse of which 15% are plastic materials. The move to reduce the use of plastic bags will lighten the load on the public sanitary landfill at Jalan Kemuyang.
Nigel Tutt PlanetArk 30 Dec 10;
Italy, one of the top users of plastic shopping bags in Europe, is banning them starting January 1, with retailers warning of chaos and many stores braced for the switch.
Italian critics say polyethylene bags use too much oil to produce, take too long to break down, clog drains and easily spread to become eye sores and environmental hazards.
Italians use about 20 billion bags a year -- more than 330 per person -- or about one-fifth of the total used in Europe, according to Italian environmentalist lobby Legambiente.
Starting on Saturday, retailers are banned from providing shoppers polyethylene bags. They can use bags made of such material as biodegradable plastic, cloth or paper.
Other European countries have tried voluntary schemes to cut plastic bag use, such as promoting reusable cotton bags. In 2002 Ireland imposed a levy on bags of 15 euro cents (20 U.S. cents) that cut use by 90 percent within a week.
"You are talking of a revolution that is already under way," Legambiente scientific chief Stefano Ciafani said of the shift to biodegradable bags.
Two hundred municipalities out of Italy's 8,000 have introduced their own plastic bag bans, including the cities of Turin and Venice, Ciafani said.
Many supermarket chains have started using biodegradable bags for shoppers even if not on a nationwide basis, Legambiente says on its website.
LACK OF DETAILS
Legislation on the bag ban was set in December 2006 with an original deadline of January 2010. The halt was delayed because of industry opposition but was pushed through by Environment Minister Stefania Prestigiacomo in a blanket decree last week.
Federdistribuzione, Italy's retailers association, said the January 1 deadline could lead to "chaos" and poor service for shoppers given lack of detail in the decree, business newspaper Il Sole 24 Ore said this week.
Italy's rubber and plastics federation estimated the cost of changing over machines to make biodegradable bags was 30,000 euros ($39,440) to 50,000 euros per plant, the paper said.
Shops and shoppers seem prepared. The mid-size Billa supermarket on Milan's bustling Via Torino is ready with white biodegradable bags costing 10 euro cents, twice the price for existing yellow plastic bags, Billa manager Aldo Vismara said.
"We will have them at the check-out from January 1, 2011, and we will replace the yellow ones," he said.
On the downside of the shift, Vismara said there was the possibility the white bag could disintegrate in the rain.
Shoppers worried about the strength of the new bags.
"It's a positive move if the bags are strong enough. The worry is, what happens if they break?" shopper Rosanna said, declining to give her family name.
(Editing by Paul Casciato)
Amy Coopes Yahoo News 29 Dec 10;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's Prime Minister Julia Gillard on Wednesday warned "unprecedented" flooding would worsen after entire towns were cut off and soldiers airlifted hundreds of people from northeastern towns.
Drenching rains unleashed by a tropical cyclone have left vast tracts of the state of Queensland under water, with 1,000 evacuations and 38 regions declared natural disaster areas.
Gillard launched a public appeal for relief funds, pledging one million dollars (one million US) of government money to help those hit by the "particularly devastating" deluge.
"Some communities are seeing floodwaters higher than they've seen in decades, and for some communities floodwaters have never reached these levels before (in) the time that we have been recording floods," Gillard told reporters.
"For many communities we haven't even seen the peak of the floodwaters yet, that's a number of days away."
Hundreds fled their homes in the coastal city of Bundaberg, north of Brisbane, and in nearby Emerald, while the inundated town of Theodore was completely emptied by soldiers with Black Hawk helicopters.
The area resembled a vast inland sea, with crops and farmland worth billions of dollars drowned by the downpour, said local MP Vaughan Johnson.
"I flew over the area from Alpha to Barcaldine in a helicopter yesterday and I've never seen water laying in that country (area) like it is now -- never," Johnson told ABC radio.
"It's like a delta system draining, and you've got to see it to believe it."
Some people were left homeless after the surge and were camping in evacuation centres with little more than the clothes on their backs, while others took refuge in mining camps or with family and friends.
"We've got nowhere to go, we've got no family here," said Bundaberg man Daniel Bell, whose home was completely swamped. "You feel powerless. Absolutely powerless. All you can do is pray."
Floodwaters are expected to peak Friday at Emerald, with authorities warning the disaster will exceed major floods there in early 2008 that forced 2,700 evacuations and left a damage bill in excess of 50 million dollars.
Residents of the town of Rockhampton may be forcibly evacuated later this week as the flooding spreads and there is further rain, potentially closing the city's airport and all inbound roads and railways, said mayor Brad Carter.
Rockhampton's river is forecast to sit near flood levels for as long as 10 days, putting about 400 homes at risk.
The town of Dalby, to the southwest, may run out of drinking water within two days following damage to its water treatment plant, and local authorities are considering trucking in supplies.
Economists have estimated that the flooding could cost the economy as much as seven billion dollars in agricultural losses and delays to coal shipments.
Gillard, who is on a Christmas break, said she would tour affected areas in the coming days.
Australian Downpour Spreads South, Cuts Off Towns
PlanetArk 29 Dec 10;
Heavy rain across much of eastern Australia left towns cut off by floods on Monday as the storms spread southwards and threatened agriculture and mining, forecasters said.
The deluge over the Christmas weekend has gradually moved south from northeastern Queensland to hit agricultural areas of New South Wales, with further rainfall forecast for coming days.
Up to 250 mm of rain was recorded in the 24 hours to 6 p.m. EST Sunday in parts of Queensland, as the remains of a tropical cyclone that hit the coast on Saturday moved across inland areas, Australia's Bureau of Meteorology said.
Sugar planters, wheat growers and coal miners in the affected states are among those likely to be hardest hit.
Several towns had been cut off in both states by rising floodwaters, while emergency services have evacuated families in the worst-hit areas. Gale warnings were issued for some coastal areas.
Flood warnings were in place on Monday for more than a dozen rivers in each state, while forecasters warned of the potential for flash flooding.
Much of the rain has fallen on key sugar growing areas of Queensland. Australia, a top sugar exporter along with Brazil and Thailand, this month slashed its current year sugar export forecast by 25 percent as flooding reduced sugar content of cane.
The crop damage over recent weeks has helped propel sugar prices to 30-year highs and forced the nation's biggest sugar exporter, Queensland Sugar Ltd (QSL), to buy more raw sugar from Brazil and Thailand to meet its export commitments following the wettest spring on record.
Industry body Canegrowers has said this year's crop had largely been harvested, so the rain would have less impact, but there were still concerns about sugar cane planted in the last six months and due for harvest around May.
The wheat harvest has also largely ground to a halt in affected areas.
Australia is also a leading coal exporter, much of it mined in the eastern states. Coal mines have been flooded and some producers have declared "force majeure" - indicating to their buyers that they may not be able to meet targets as originally agreed for reasons beyond their control.
(Editing by Nick Macfie)
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