Keeping our monkeys wild: upcoming talk and walk
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
Stepping on Stonefish: A Year On (Part 1)
from Lazy Lizard's Tales and Part 2.
Testing Project Drifnet methods at Tanah Merah
from Project Driftnet Singapore and wild shores of singapore
Storky Day at Sungei Buloh
from Biodiversity Singapore
Waterfowl!
from Trek through Paradise
First Seagrass session for 2011 @ Chek Jawa
from sgbeachbum
Throw in some palm oil, churn out plastic
Ronnie Lim Business Times 4 Jan 11;
(SINGAPORE) The Republic is studying the use of 'green' materials like palm oil, sugarcane and plant biomass as an additional, strategic feedstock for Jurong Island plants to produce chemicals and industrial polymers like plastics.
'With global concerns about the long-term sustainability of crude oil' - a raw material that the refining/chemicals sector here has traditionally relied on - 'the use of bio-based feedstocks becomes a compelling option,' the Economic Development Board (EDB) stressed.
So far petrochemical crackers here use mainly naphtha, and more recently heavy 'bottoms' like hydrowax from the refineries to produce the feedstock needed by downstream chemical plants.
The establishment of an LPG terminal to import the alternative liquefied petroleum gas feedstock is also being looked at, with 'bio-renewables' like palm oil and sugarcane offering a potential third feedstock option.
'EDB believes bio-based feedstocks could add a new dimension of chemical feedstock option on Jurong Island. The fast-growing bio-based chemicals industry would also create new economic opportunities for Singapore,' it said in a background note to a tender it called for a consultant to study this.
'We are keen to position Singapore as a leading location for biomass-to-chemicals conversion technologies,' EDB's director of Energy and Chemicals Liang Ting Wee said.
'Our geographical position in the middle of a region rich in biomass and strong logistics connectivity, coupled with integration opportunities to our chemical industry, will present interesting new opportunities for companies,' he told specialist chemicals news intelligence ICIS.com.
The potential raw materials Singapore is looking at tapping to help produce bio-chemicals include crops like corn, oil palm, cassava and sugarcane, as well as bio-feedstocks like sugars (including starch), bioethanol and palm oil.
Other potential bio-feedstocks it is investigating are lignocellulosic (plant) biomass, lactic acid, glycerol and succinic acid.
The probe into the use of bio-renewables comes under the Jurong Island version 2.0 initiative, which focuses on areas like feedstock options and infrastructure developments to create new competitive advantages for Singapore's chemicals sector.
Expected to be ready by mid-year, this initiative covers various areas under study like the LPG terminal, and harnessing waste heat for desalination and recycling of waste water. It is crucial given competition from rival hubs emerging in China and the Middle East.
Under its latest bio-renewables study, EDB said it wants the contractor to study areas including 'the landed costs of bio-based feedstocks in Singapore, competitive threats in accessing such feedstocks, as well as the infrastructure requirements on Jurong Island in order to support the bio-based fuels and chemicals sector'.
Phase 1 of the two-phased study will cover areas like 'comparisons between Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia where bio-based chemical manufacturing is likely to be carried out', and also government policies, competitive threats and opportunities that would affect Singapore's access to such bio-based raw materials.
From a logistics viewpoint, the consultant will also recommend possible storage sites on both Jurong Island and the mainland for the bio-feedstocks.
Based on the study outcome for phase 1, the appointed consultant will help the government to analyse in detail the top three bio-feedstocks that will create the greatest economic opportunity for Singapore 'paying particular attention to bio-chemicals rather than biofuels'.
Esther Ng Channel NewsAsia 3 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE: A group of Singapore Polytechnic students has come up with an award-winning recycling bin which makes it more convenient for households to recycle.
The students conducted a poll with 100 HDB households, and found the majority would recycle if there was a convenient and space-saving bin that could fit into their kitchen.
The six students then went on to design a 106-litre bin -- significantly smaller than typical recycling bins seen in pubic -- which can fit into the kitchens of most households.
The three recycling compartments of the bin are flexible, and can be enlarged to hold more waste when necessary.
The bin also features a built-in compactor which serves to maximise space for waste.
There is also a "foot pedal" attached to the base of the bin, designed to flatten plastic bottles or cans.
For their innovative design, the students won the Special Merit Award of S$2,000 from the Green Wave Environmental Care Competition, organised by Sembawang Shipyard.
The students, who are currently looking for a manufacturer, said the bin would likely not cost more than S$20.
-CNA/wk
Reuse, reduce, recycle ... refined
Esther Ng Today Online 4 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE - Student Law Huimin was so passionate about recycling at home that she kept recyclables in her bedroom. But several of her classmates had parents who complained that recycled items took up too much space in their flats and looked unsightly in the kitchen.
So, Ms Law and five other Singapore Polytechnic (SP) students decided to design a stylish and compact recycling bin for their final-year project after conducting a survey of residents of 100 HDB households.
Ms Law, a 19-year-old property development and facility management student, said: "We found that most Singaporeans (87 per cent) wished they could recycle more but the lack of recycling bins at home did not encourage them to do so."
Though Singapore's national recycling rate has been increasing over the years - from 47 per cent in 2003 to 57 per cent in 2009 - the recycling rate for paper, glass and plastic for both households and businesses in 2009 were only 48 per cent, 21 per cent and 9 per cent respectively. The recycling rates for used slag, construction debris and ferrous metals in that same year were 99 per cent, 98 per cent and 92 per cent.
The SP students hope their recycling bin will get more Singaporeans to recycle. Measuring 40cm by 53cm by 71 cm, the bin has three flexible and adjustable compartments to accommodate three different types of recyclables.
Student Daryl Lim, 19, said: "It's really important to separate your waste, otherwise it contaminates the whole collection which then cannot be recycled. "
The compartments can be closed to keep out unpleasant smells and a sliding cover conceals the contents of the bin. The built-in compactor at the bottom of the bin reduces the volume of the recyclables.
Though the bin was designed for home use, it can be enlarged for commercial use, said the students.
SP hopes to find a manufacturer for the bin and is confident it can retail for under $20.
For their efforts, the six students won a Special Merit Award of $2,000 from Sembawang Shipyard's Green Wave Environmental Care Competition last October. The competition requires students to think of innovative ideas and projects that can improve and protect the environment.
Bernadette Carreon Yahoo News 4 Jan 10;
KOROR, Palau (AFP) – The shark -- feared as a bloodthirsty killer and hunted to the brink of extinction in many parts of the world -- has found a passionate champion in the tiny Pacific nation of Palau.
With just one ageing patrol boat policing an area of ocean roughly the size of France, Palau says it has still managed to make significant inroads towards curbing the illegal fishing that threatens the marine predators' survival.
The country declared the world's first shark sanctuary in September 2009, banning shark fishing in its exclusive economic zone, which covers almost 630,000 square kilometres (240,000 square miles) of the northern Pacific.
Palau Shark Sanctuary founder Dermot Keane, an Irishman who dedicated himself to saving the animals after first visiting the archipelago in 1995, said foreign fishing vessels hunting sharks were once common in Palau waters.
The trade feeds Asia's appetite for shark fin soup, a delicacy that has increased in popularity as the region's wealth has grown, putting pressure on shark populations across the globe, Keane said.
Known as finning, it involves hacking the fins off captured sharks then throwing their bodies back into the sea to die.
"When I first came here, there were 50 or 60 shark boats working the waters," Keane told AFP. "They had shark fins hanging from the rigging.
"Not only was it visually offensive for someone who came here as a tourist to scuba dive, the smell was pretty awful too. The sight of shark fins laid out to dry on the boats was not a positive image for Palau."
The Pew Environment Group estimates up to 73 million sharks are killed annually for their fins, which fetch up to 100 US dollars a kilogram on the black market.
It says sharks are slow to reproduce, making them unsuitable for commercial fishing.
Keane, who now helps run a diving business after moving to Palau permanently in 1997, said that as top predators, sharks had a vital ecological role and the country was determined to protect the 130 species found in its waters.
"We're seeing less and less of the pelagic (deep water) sharks," he said.
"With their removal an unbalanced food chain results, changing the way the natural environment functions."
The Irishman began campaigning to halt finning in the late 1990s and hit upon the idea of a shark sanctuary after finding that many members of the public found gruesome images of mutilated sharks too confrontational.
"It was very much a blood and guts message of showing people pictures of sharks and fins and trying to explain what was going on," he said.
"At the same time, through my work, I was trying to promote Palau as a tourist destination and I was concerned I was working against myself.
"So I started looking for a way to save sharks which was positive, and that's how I arrived at the idea."
Keane admitted there was initially scepticism about offering protection to a predator many seafaring communities regard not only as a deadly threat to their own lives, but also as competition for fish stocks.
"At first, if you were to press the locals about whether they were for or against it (shark finning), most of them, even though they weren't directly involved in it, would say 'never mind the sharks, they take our fish'."
Since then, attitudes have changed in the nation of about 21,000 people, making it one of the world's leading advocates for shark preservation.
President Johnson Toribiong has repeatedly raised the plight of sharks at the United Nations, citing studies that show the predators have far greater value as tourist attractions than as a commercial catch.
"The need to protect sharks outweighs the need to enjoy a bowl of soup," Toribiong said on the sanctuary's first anniversary.
"These creatures are being slaughtered and are at the brink of extinction unless we take positive action to protect them."
While resources to police the sanctuary are scarce, Thomas Tutii from Palau's Marine Law Enforcement Division said foreign vessels were getting the message and there had been no finning arrests for more than a year.
"We can't completely stop illegal shark fishing but the declaration has been effective," he said. "We haven?t seen shark fins on board the foreign fishing vessels and they seem to be complying and they are more conscious that they're not allowed to fish for shark."
Palau's move to protect its sharks has prompted other nations, including the Maldives and Honduras, to establish similar sanctuaries.
Richard Brooks, an underwater photographer in Palau, said the sanctuary had helped educate the public that the misunderstood creatures should be respected, not feared.
"They're a natural part of the eco-system and removing any part of the eco-system, it will change and it will have a domino effect," he said.
"They are actually more scared of humans, than we are of them."
Dennis Wong New Straits Times 4 Jan 11;
KUCHING: The Borneo Bay Cat (Catopuma badia), the world's rarest cat species, was recently sighted in the Pulong Tau National Park here.
This heightens the importance of the national park as a reservoir of the rich biodiversity of many endemic, rare and threatened species in the highland area.
Three images of the cat were captured near Batu Lawi and Long Repung on camera traps installed by the Sarawak Forestry Department and Sarawak Forestry Corporation.
Eight years ago, the same species was sighted in the Lanjak Entimau Wildlife Sanctuary in a joint study involving Universiti Malaysia Sarawak.
The cat, listed as endangered on the International Union for Conservation of Nature red list, is totally protected in Sarawak.
A mature bay cat is almost the size of a large domesticated cat with an extra long tail.
It normally has two colour morphs, with the reds being more common than the grays.
Pulong Tau National Park is located in the state's northern highlands in the Miri and Limbang divisions.
The park was gazetted in 2005 to protect an area of about 60,000ha of pristine rainforest, which includes Gunung Murud, Sarawak's highest peak (2,424m) and the Tama Abu Range.
It is the site of the transboundary biodiversity conservation project involving the Kayan Mentarang National Park in East Kalimantan.
The project is supported by the International Tropical Timber Organisation with the state Forestry Department as implementing agency.
Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
TEHRAN (AFP) – A Siberian tiger delivered to Iran by Russia in a swap deal last year has died from a disease which one official said it contracted before it was given to Tehran, reports said on Monday.
The tiger was a resident of Tehran's Eram Zoo since April 2010 when Russia gave it to Iran along with a Siberian tigress in exchange for two Persian leopards.
Hooshang Ziaee, an adviser to Iran's Environmental Protection Organisation, told ISNA news agency that the tiger had been infected with Feline Immunodeficiency Virus (FIV) but it was unclear when it died.
"The preliminary laboratory tests show that the Siberian tiger.... tested positive for FIV," Ziaee said, adding that a Bengal tiger and five other lions at the Eram zoo had also tested positive for FIV.
"The final cause for the death of the Siberian tiger was that it and other felines fed on diseased donkeys," he said.
Eram zoo director Amir Elhami said the tiger had been infected with FIV before arriving to the zoo but denied that other animals contracted the virus.
"The doctors tested the dead feline and have concluded that it already had immunodeficiency which means he was vulnerable to any disease," Elhami was quoted as saying by Fars news agency.
"None of the other animals in the zoo have FIV and so it is clear that before the tiger was transferred to the zoo, it had this disease. In the past few days we also tested our lions (for FIV), but none of them have the disease," he said.
Iran obtained the two Siberian tigers from Russia as part of its efforts to breed anew the species which had become extinct 50 years earlier in the country Ziaee said, adding that the tigress was healthy.
Russia swapped the tigers for the Persian leopards in order to re-introduce the breed -- extinct in its Caucasus since the start of the last century.
Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Weakened by inbreeding and disease, bumble bees have died off at an astonishing rate over the past 20 years, with some US populations diving more than 90 percent, according to a new study.
The findings are of concern because bees play a crucial role in pollinating crops such as tomatoes, peppers and berries, said the findings of a three-year study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).
Similar declines have also been seen in Europe and Asia, said Sydney Cameron, of the Department of Entomology and Institute for Genomic Biology at the University of Illinois, the main author of the study.
"The decline of bumble bees in the US is associated with two things we were able to study: the pathogen Nosema bombi and a decline in genetic diversity. But we are not saying Nosema is the cause. We don't know," said Cameron.
"It's just an association. There may be other causes."
He added that the decline is "huge and recent," having taken place in the last two decades.
Nosema bombi is a bee pathogen that has also afflicted European bumble bees.
Researchers examined eight species of North American bumble bees and found that the "relative abundance of four species has dropped by more than 90 percent, suggesting die-offs further supported by shrinking geographic ranges," said the study.
"Compared with species of relatively stable population sizes, the dwindling bee species had low genetic diversity, potentially rendering them prone to pathogens and environmental pressures."
Their cousins, the honey bees, have also experienced catastrophic die-offs since 2006 in a phenomenon known as "colony collapse disorder," though the causes have yet to be fully determined.
Bumble bees also make honey, but it is used to feed the colony, not farmed for human consumption.
They are however raised in Europe for pollinating greenhouse vegetables in a multi-billion-dollar industry that has more recently taken off in Japan and Israel and is being developed in Mexico and China, Cameron said.
"We need to start to develop other bees for pollination beside honey bees, because they are suffering enormously," he added.
There are around 250 species of bumble bee, including 50 in the United States alone.
Researchers Find "Alarming" Decline In Bumblebees
Maggie Fox PlanetArk 4 Jan 11;
Four previously abundant species of bumblebee are close to disappearing in the United States, researchers reported Monday in a study confirming that the agriculturally important bees are being affected worldwide.
They documented a 96 percent decline in the numbers of the four species, and said their range had shrunk by as much as 87 percent. As with honeybees, a pathogen is partly involved, but the researchers also found evidence of inbreeding caused by habitat loss.
"We provide incontrovertible evidence that multiple Bombus species have experienced sharp population declines at the national level," the researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, calling the findings "alarming."
"These are one of the most important pollinators of native plants," Sydney Cameron of the University of Illinois, Urbana, who led the study, said in a telephone interview.
In recent years, experts have documented a disappearance of bees in what is widely called colony collapse disorder, blamed on many factors including parasites, fungi, stress, pesticides and viruses. But most studies have focused on honeybees.
Bumblebees are also important pollinators, Cameron said, but are far less studied. Bumblebees pollinate tomatoes, blueberries and cranberries, she noted.
"The 50 species (of bumblebees) in the United States are traditionally associated with prairies and with high alpine vegetations," she added.
"Just as important -- they land on a flower and they have this behavior called buzz pollination that enables them to cause pollen to fly off the flower."
POLLINATING TOMATOES
This is the way to pollinate tomatoes, Cameron said -- although smaller bees can accomplish the same effect if enough cluster on a single flower.
Several reports have documented the disappearance of bumblebees in Europe and Asia, but no one had done a large national study in the Americas.
Cameron's team did a three-year study of 382 sites in 40 states and also looked at more than 73,000 museum records.
"We show that the relative abundance of four species have declined by up to 96 percent and that their surveyed geographic ranges have contracted by 23 percent to 87 percent," they wrote.
While no crops are in immediate danger, the results show that experts need to pay attention, Cameron said. Pollinators such as bees and bats often have specific tongue lengths and pollination behaviors that have evolved along with the species of plants they pollinate.
Bumblebees can fly in colder weather than other species, and are key to pollinating native species in the tundra and at high elevations, Cameron said.
Genetic tests show that the four affected bumblebee species are inbred and other tests implicate a parasite called Nosema bombi, Cameron said.
"This is a wake-up call that bumblebee species are declining not only in Europe, not only in Asia, but also in North America," she said.
(Editing by Vicki Allen)
Four Bumblebee Species on the Decline in North America
Wynne Parry LiveScience.com Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
The populations of four species of North American bumblebee have declined, a new study has confirmed. The study also found that fungal infections are more likely to plague these bees than other, more stable bumblebee species.
Although perhaps not as dramatic as the sudden disappearance of honeybees, a phenomenon dubbed colony collapse disorder, reports of vanishing bumble bees have appeared in recent years in North America and Europe.
Until now, however, the North American reports were isolated and small-scale, according to Jeffrey Lozier, a study researcher and postdoctoral researcher at the University of Illinois.
"What we wanted to do is say 'If you look at the entire country, do these patterns hold up?'" Lozier said. "We picked these target species because they sort of were canaries in the coal mine."
What they found added credence to worries of coast-to-coast declines in some - but not all - bumble bees and more evidence of trouble for pollinators that fertilize both wild plants and crops. The cause remains unclear and may be complex.
"We need to keep a general view that pollinators seem to be declining, but each bumblebee species may be responding to different pressures that are causing declines," said James Strange, a study author and a research entomologist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. "Not all the bees are disappearing. It turns out there may be winners and there may be losers."
Bee collecting
Like honeybees, bumblebees are employed to pollinate agricultural crops. Though they are less numerous, their high-frequency buzz gives them an advantage, as the sound waves free more pollen than a honeybee's buzz, and their large size allows them to continue working in colder temperatures, according to Lozier.
The study focused on the western bumblebee, the American bumblebee, the rusty-patched bumblebee, and the yellowbanded bumblebee. Collectively, their ranges span the continental United States, while the researchers trapped bumblebees at 382 locations across the country. They also collected data on four species of bumblebee believed to be stable, and their results indicated that these were indeed doing fine.
To get a sense of how the abundance and distribution of the bees may have changed, the researchers looked at bumblebees preserved in museum collections from 1900 to 1999, compiling a database of more than 73,000 historical specimens.
Their findings revealed that among the bees collected in the field from 2007 through 2009, the four target species made up much smaller portions of the total catches than they had historically. These changes in relative abundance began to appear within the last 20 to 30 years, according to the research published Jan. 3 (Monday) in the journal the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Based on this data, the researchers estimated that the four target species had also seen their ranges decline. For example, the researchers collected western bumblebees in the Rocky Mountains and the intermountain west (between the Rockies and the Pacific coast), but it was largely absent from the western portion of its historical range, closer to the Pacific coast.
The survey found only 22 rusty-patched bumblebees and 31 yellow-banded bumblebees.
Cause still unknown
The researchers also looked for infections by a fungus - Nosema bombi - and at the level of genetic diversity among the eight bumblebee species. They found that 37 percent of the western bumblebees they collected carried the fungus, and 15 percent carried it among the American bumblebee, significantly higher infection rates than those seen among the four stable species. Although there was evidence of higher infection rates among the other two target species, too few were collected to provide any definitive results.
While these findings indicate an association between the fungus and declining populations, they don't necessarily show that the fungus is driving the declines, Lozier said.
For the American and western bumblebee, researchers found that populations also had less genetic diversity than stable species. (Once again, too few samples were collected from other two species.) This is significant because genetic diversity enables a population to respond to changing environments or novel threats like disease, according to Lozier.
"The amazing thing we did find is gene flow appears very high," Lozier said. For example, American bumblebees caught in Texas were genetically indistinguishable from those from South Dakota, suggesting the bees are reproducing (and spreading genes) across wide swaths of the United States.
"If gene flow is really this high, it could prove a potential mechanism for the spread of the pathogen," he said.
The puzzle of pollinator declines
The origin of the fungus and how it spread isn't completely clear, but there are theories. It has been theorized that, after decimating commercial bumblebee facilities in California, N. bombi escaped and became responsible for declines among wild populations in the Pacific Northwest, according to these researchers.
The elevated N. bombi infections among struggling bumblebees, and the possibility that the fungus was introduced from Europe, calls to mind reports of other introduced fungal pathogens decimating species - like the chytrid fungus killing amphibians on multiple continents and Geomyces destructans, which is wiping out some North American bats, they write.
Two papers published in December in the journal PLoS ONE explored the plethora of infections faced by honeybees. One paper found that a certain type of virus implicated in colony collapse disorder may be transmitted by pollen and can infect other pollinators such as bumblebees and wasps. Another study linked a viral-fungal tag team to the disorder. The researchers of those studies found that infection becomes more lethal when the virus and fungus infected the same bee together.
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 3 Jan 11;
Indonesia’s much-hyped promise to enact a moratorium on new logging concessions from Jan. 1 has been held up over the question of which of the two draft presidential decrees on the issue should be signed.
The two-year moratorium on new concessions in peatland and primary forests is part of a bilateral deal with Norway, in exchange for which Indonesia will receive $1 billion in funding for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD-Plus) schemes.
In order to make the moratorium legally binding, it must be backed by a presidential decree. However, the government has drafted two substantially different texts.
The version submitted by the Ministry of Forestry is titled “Suspension of New Permits for Primary Forest and Peatland Conversion.”
Another draft was later penned by the national REDD-Plus task force. It is titled “Suspension of Services and Issuance of New Permits for Primary and Secondary Forests and Peatland in Forest Areas and Other Uses Areas.”
Copies of both drafts were obtained by the Jakarta Globe. The REDD-Plus task force’s draft text was more specific about which kinds of permits would no longer be issued. Such permits included those for logging, plantations and mining.
The Ministry of Forestry draft, by contrast, only states that the moratorium applies to “new conversion permits for primary forests and peatland for two years, starting Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012.”
T he task force draft also gives specific instructions to the Forestry Ministry, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, the National Land Agency, the national REDD agency, governors and district heads to cease granting permits related to the management of primary and secondary forests.
The Forestry Ministry’s version only issues this instruction to the Home Affairs Ministry, governors and district heads.
Agus Purnomo, the presidential adviser for climate change, said both drafts were still being examined by the president’s office and that no decision had been made on which to sign.
He could not confirm how many drafts had been submitted, but said at least three had been drawn up.
“I don’t know exactly how many draft decrees have been proposed for the moratorium,” he said. “There was one from Emil Salim [the presidential adviser for environmental affairs], one from the Ministry of Forestry and one from Kuntoro Mangkusborto [head of the REDD-Plus task force].”
Agus added that it was unclear which of the drafts President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono would finally sign.
“All I know is that all those institutions are still working out how to formulate the final draft,” he said.
He added that the government had missed the deadline to make the moratorium legally binding, but said the deal would still be valid once the decree was finally signed.
Indonesia's Forestry Freeze Plan is Still on Ice
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 5 Jan 11;
Despite repeated setbacks for a long-awaited moratorium on new forestry concessions, the Forestry Ministry is still arguing over the details of the plan.
Hadi Daryanto, the ministry’s director general of forestry management, insisted on Tuesday that it should be in charge of implementing the freeze.
“The Forestry Ministry will be most effective because the ministry has the authority over forest lands, whether they are for mining activities or for plantations,” he said. “If there are others involved, then it would only create more red tape.”
Hadi said the minister of forestry and district heads were responsible for granting permits, while governors could only give recommendations.
The two-year moratorium on new concessions in peat lands and primary forests was agreed to by Indonesia as part of a $1 billion deal with Norway. The funding was meant for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD-Plus) schemes, which had initially been scheduled to begin on Jan. 1.
But President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has yet to issue an instruction on the moratorium and at least two substantially different drafts of the moratorium exist, one prepared by the Forestry Ministry and the other by the national REDD-Plus task force.
The task force’s draft text was more specific about the types of permits that would no longer be issued, including those for logging, land lease, plantations and mining.
The Forestry Ministry’s draft, by contrast, only states that the moratorium applies to “new conversion permits for primary forests and peat lands for two years, starting Jan. 1, 2011, to Dec. 31, 2012.”
The task force’s draft also details specific instructions for the ministries of forestry and energy and mineral resources, National Land Agency (BPN), National REDD Agency, governors and district heads to cease granting permits related to the management of primary and secondary forests.
The Forestry Ministry’s version only issues this instruction to the Home Affairs Ministry, governors and district heads.
Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, meanwhile, said there were still plenty of drafts regarding the moratorium and they were all up for discussion. “The drafts are still being discussed at the Coordinating Ministry for the Economy,” he said. “I have already said that there was a January 1, 2011, deadline, but, as we are still discussing it, I don’t know when it will be issued. I am still hoping that it will be this month.”
Commenting on the competing drafts, Hadi, who is also a member of the task force, said there were few differences because the task force’s draft was derived from the ministry’s.
“There are no differences between them, the task force only added their input to our draft, including to add the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources and National Land Agency into the presidential instruction,” he said, adding that he did not know if the task force’s draft had already been submitted to the president.
The next stage in the process is for the drafts on the moratorium to be discussed at the cabinet level.
Indonesia Divided Over Forest Moratorium
Olivia Rondonuwu PlanetArk 6 Jan 11;
Indonesia's government is still trying to thrash out the details of a two-year moratorium on forest clearing under a $1 billion climate deal with Norway, leading it to miss a planned January 1 start and continued uncertainty for plantation firms.
The divergence of views between different Indonesian government ministries mirrors the inability of nations to agree a concrete pact to limit global greenhouse gas emissions at U.N. talks in Cancun last month.
While the government still hopes to finalize the ban in coming weeks, the potential for further delays or a watered-down version of a much-lauded bilateral agreement would be another blow for global efforts to slow climate change.
The delay means continued uncertainty for palm oil, pulp and paper and mining firms hoping to expand.
At issue are different views on how much forest and what type of forest to include in the ban. There is also uncertainty on whether to allow holders of existing permits to clear forest to go ahead or to compensate them instead.
"We are dealing with so many stakeholders, so in a democratic process we need negotiation, discussion, compromises -- as long as the principle is still being held we are on the right track," Kuntoro Mangkusubroto, a respected technocrat who heads the president's special delivery unit, told Reuters.
The dispute shows the difficulties for Indonesia of slashing emissions while still spurring economic growth, as the country earns billions each year from cutting down forests to sell timber, paper and palm oil.
Mangkusubroto, tasked with steering the climate deal with Norway, and the forestry ministry have submitted competing drafts for the proposed moratorium, seen by Reuters, and the decision on how to proceed now rests with President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono.
He has to choose between two starkly differing drafts: the forestry ministry wants the ban only on new permits to clear primary forests and peatlands for two years, while the presidential delivery unit wants it to include secondary forests, to review existing permits and consider extending the timeframe.
Primary forests are untouched while secondary forests have been selectively logged, though boundaries are often unclear and illegal logging is rampant in one of Asia's most corrupt countries. Forests soak up the main greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2).
FOR PEAT'S SAKE
Peatlands emit huge quantities of greenhouse gases if drained and cleared, and heavy deforestation led the World Bank to name Indonesia the world's third largest emitter in 2005.
Yudhoyono aims to slash 26 percent of the country's emissions by 2020 versus business-as-usual levels, or 41 percent with international support. The Norway deal, which rests on emissions cuts from saving forests being proven, was heralded as an example of how bilateral deals could help fight climate change.
Plantation and mining firms have opposed the moratorium, which could slow the expansion of firms such as Astra Agro Lestari and delay coal and mining projects worth $14 billion by the likes of BHP Billiton.
So far there are few signs that palm oil exports from the world's largest producer will be hit. Indonesia's trade minister said on Wednesday palm oil exports are expected to grow 16 percent in value this year amid new investment in the sector.
However, the draft from Mangkusubroto calls for a review on existing permit holders, though firms would be excluded if they have already invested in projects by December 2010 and the forest was heavily damaged.
Mangkusubroto said he is preparing incentives and compensation for firms such as land swaps.
"We cannot just leave them like that. We have to give them options," he said.
On the other hand, forestry minister Zulkifli Hasan, a politician from a political party allied with Yudhoyono, told Reuters he wanted the freeze applied only to new permits to maintain business and legal certainty.
"Businesses which already hold permits can go ahead, we cannot and may not stop them, because we have exploited (the forest) for 40 years, so there are many firms who hold forest permits," Hasan said in an interview.
The ministry has identified 35 million hectares (87 million acres) of land that can be used selectively for business, and nine plantation firms have submitted requests to use 320,000 hectares of forest.
He added the ban will still protect 43.8 million hectares of primary forests and half of the 20 million hectares of peatlands, while applying sustainable forest management practices to another 48.5 million hectares.
"This is already January 2011 and after seven months of discourses and reviews in the public and within the government, the government is yet to produce a clear strategy and legal framework," said Fitrian Ardiansyah, forest climate policy analyst at WWF.
(Editing by David Fogarty)
Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 3 Jan 11;
At least five lakes and 65 rivers across the country were contaminated as a result of human activity last year, the country’s leading environmental group says.
Mukri Friatna, head of advocacy for the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said on Monday that the figure for rivers found to be polluted was up from 53 in 2009.
“These are all newly polluted rivers because we didn’t count those that were already heavily polluted, such as the Ciliwung River [in Jakarta],” he said.
The lakes polluted last year include Sentani in Papua, which has been contaminated with domestic waste, and Unhas in South Sulawesi, which is polluted with heavy metals.
The other lakes are Situ Rawa Badung in West Java (contaminated with mercury), Sembuluh in Central Kalimantan (a dumping ground for crude palm oil waste), and Penantian in South Sumatra (polluted by a nearby coal-fired power plant).
Mukri said the contamination problem has been exacerbated by the proliferation of industrial waste.
“Industries tend to dump their liquid waste during the rainy season, assuming that the rain will help wash it out to sea,” he said. “However, these days we see them dumping their waste more indiscriminately, even outside the rainy season. We found cases of this in Kalimantan. The government should be serious about assessing companies’ environmental impact.”
He added the government should also update its liquid waste disposal standards because they were no longer applicable to current conditions.
Mukri said any given stretch of the Ciliwung, for example, hosts fewer factories dumping their waste directly into the water than a similar stretch of the Citarum River, thus requiring a different policy.
The Citarum passes through several heavy-polluting industrial estates in Bekasi and has been called the world’s dirtiest river by the Asian Development Bank.
“The more factories are concentrated in an area, the more waste is dumped and hence the higher the need to boost the waste disposal standards,” Mukri said. “This is the kind of thing that the Environment Ministry needs to address.”
Sigit Hermono, the assistant deputy for river and lake degradation at the Environment Ministry, acknowledged Walhi’s findings but said he had not read the report. “I’m not directly responsible for those rivers, but I’m sure the regional [environmental] offices will be able to provide similar data,” he said.
He added the ministry had prioritized 13 rivers in Java for restoration, including the Ciliwung, and also said it would look into sources of the contamination before evaluating waste disposal standards. “You need to make sure what kinds of waste are out there.”
Five of Indonesia`s great lakes polluted in 2010, Walhi
Antara 3 Jan 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Five big lakes in Indonesia were in 2010 polluted by pollutants from mining activity and oil palm plantations, an envirnmental organization said.
"Besides rivers, five lakes have been polluted by waste," Mukri Friatna, an officer of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) said here Monday.
Identifying the polluted lakes, he said, Sentani lake in Papua was contaminated by household waste.
Unhas Lake in Makassar, South Sulawesi, was polluted by heavy metal waste, Mukri said, adding that Situ Rawabadung lake in East Jakarta was also polluted by mercury.
Sembuluh Lake in Seruyan District, Central Kalimantan, was polluted by CPO (Crude Palm Oil) waste while Penantian Lake in Muaraenim , Palembang, South Sumatra, was polluted by waste from a power plant.
The level of pollution in the lakes was so high that people residing around them could no longer use the water for their daily needs and for fish cultivation.
The level of pollution was measured in terms of Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Chemical Oxygen Demand and Ph in excess of normal standards.
According to Health Minister Decree no. 907/Menkes/SK/VII/2002, the acidity level (Ph) of water for consumption should be 6.5 to 8.5, in line with the standard of the World Health Organization (WHO.
Walhi had recorded that there were 75 polluting activities which affected 65 rivers and five seas in 2010.
Batota River in Kutai Timur of East Kalimantan Province and 18 others in some regions were polluted with coal mining waste, he said.
The Rembang and Indralaya rivers in Ogan Ilir, South Sumatra, were polluted by oil and the Nuangan river in Manado by toxic waste.
Moreover, Mukri said, the Bali River in Kotabaru, East Kalimantan, was polluted by iron ore and the Ulu Muntok river in Bangka by tin.
There were also 21 rivers in Sumatra and Kalimantan polluted by CPO waste and 22 others by industrial and mixed waste.
Antara 3 Jan 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Wastes from oil palm plantations and mining operations were the greatest polluters of the environmet in 2010, the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said.
"Oil palm plantations ranked first as a producer of pollutants, followed by mining," said Mukri Friatna, head of Walhi`s advocacy department, in Jakarta, on Monday.
Walhi noted that there were 31 pollution cases involving oil palm plantations and 19 cases involving coal mining and seven cases involving gold mining.
The reported pollution cases, according to Friatna, did not include pollution of the Citarum and other urban rivers such as those in Jakarta.
In 2010, there were 75 cases of river pollution including 65 rivers and five marine regions polluted by liquid wastes from private and state-owned companies.
Pollution of those rivers and marine regions had impacted on the high contents of biological oxygen demand (BOD.), chemical oxygen demand (COD) and acidity (PH) surpassing the specified quality standards so that the water is not consumable or able to used.
In addition, the pollution is extremely hazardous on the preservation of the environment as well as becoming a serious threat on human health and safety. The high level of pollution that surpassing quality standards can kill fish, marine biota and other micro organism due to the absence of oxygen.
Out of the whole pollution cases, according to Friatna, only 14 cases that had been brought to courts, despite the law on the environment protection and management, Law Number 32 Year 2009, outlines a very clear regulation on such matters.
The law stipulates that legal actions can be taken against polluters both due to negligence and especially on purpose. The law also stipulates the government as the party is punishable if it does not take the specified action.
Walhi recommends that government regulation number 27 year 2007 on the analysis of environmental impacts (Amdal) be revised to make it stronger. In addition, the strategic studies on the environment must soon be issued.(*)
IUCN 3 Jan 11;
The world’s forests are essential to life in all its diversity and to attaining humanity’s biggest goals such as reducing poverty, curbing climate change and achieving sustainable development. Throughout 2011 IUCN will work towards making sure that forests deliver their maximum potential for human well-being and biodiversity conservation.
'Forests 2011’ will be an international celebration of the central role of people in the management, conservation and sustainable development of our world’s forests,” says Julia Marton-Lefèvre, IUCN Director General. “The air we breathe, the food, water and medicines we need to survive, the variety of life on earth, the climate that shapes our present and future—they all depend on forests. 2011 must be the year when the world recognizes the vital importance of healthy forests to life on earth – for all people and biodiversity.”
As a member of the Collaborative Partnership on Forests, IUCN will play a key role in increasing public awareness of the centrality of the world’s forests to human and natural well-being. Over the course of the year, IUCN will be highlighting new findings from its innovative Livelihoods and Landscapes Strategy, announcing bold new initiatives in its forest landscape restoration work and building upon recent successes of the international 2010 REDD-plus (Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest degradation) agenda.
Forests 2011 comes right after the International Year of Biodiversity, which culminated in a global plan to save and restore nature and a turning point in international climate negotiations reached at the Cancun climate talks last December.
Forests 2011 picks up where 2010 left off – with an increased international awareness about the role of healthy ecosystems in combating climate change and reversing biodiversity loss.
Home to 80% of world’s biodiversity and 300 million people, forests provide for the livelihoods of 1.6 billion people, almost a quarter of humanity.
Forests cover 31% of the total land area and store more carbon than the amount currently present in the Earth’s atmosphere. They offer the quickest, most cost effective and largest means of curbing global emissions. Halving these emissions between 2010 and 2200 would save an estimated US$ 3.7 trillion.
All these facts and many more show how important forests are for the survival and well-being of current and future generations. The International Year of Forests aims to increase public awareness about the multiple benefits of healthy forests and the ways to keep them standing and healthy.
Notes
* Forests 2011 will be formally launched at the UN Forum on Forests (UNFF) meeting on 24 January, in New York.
* IUCN’s web portal will focus on Forests 2011 throughout the year and will be live from 24 January 2011. It will be found here: www.iucn.org/iyf
* For more information on UNFF and Forests 2011, please go to: http://www.un.org/en/events/iyof2011/
Samantha, selected from Planet Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
Who would have known 20 years ago that so many of the foods that we eat would be produced in a lab rather than nature? Scientifically designed seeds are becoming a larger than ever portion of our diet and for the most part, it's difficult for the consumer to even realize it because of a lack of labeling.
According to Sustainable Table, about 200 million acres of farmland worldwide are now used to grow genetically modified organisms (GMOs). The most common GMO crops are soybeans, which represent 63 percent of all GMO crops, corn at 19 percent, cotton at 13 percent, and canola at 5 percent.
The list of seeds, and later foods, that have already been modified also include alfalfa, tomatoes, chicory, flax, papaya, potato, rice, sugar beets, and squash. The future of our global food supply is laden with seeds, and most recently animals, modified for human consumption. You may be surprised to see what's on the horizon.
None of these have been approved yet by the FDA, but with what we've seen so far, who's to say that they won't be in the future.
1. Super Chicken Eggs
New biotechnology is being used to develop genetically modified chickens that produce compounds that can be harvested from the eggs. The compounds in the eggs can be used to fight a range of diseases from diabetes, to viruses to tooth decay, according to Jacqueline Jacob and Richard Miles - Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences.
According to the BBC, U.K. scientists have developed genetically modified chickens capable of laying eggs containing proteins needed to make cancer-fighting drugs.
While these additives may be beneficial on their own, I think most of us would prefer to know what medications and drugs we were taking, rather than getting them in the form of an egg. Let alone all the side effects from feeding people all these extra additives.
2. Non-Browning Apples
According to Food Safety News, Okanagan Specialty Fruits of Summerland, British Columbia, a biotechnology company, has submitted an application to the U.S Department of Agriculture's Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service for market approval for a GMO apple that doesn't brown after being sliced.
The apple doesn't brown because the gene that produces the enzyme polyphenol oxidase (what actually turns the apple brown) is silenced. The apples still brown but just not as quickly. What's next, avocados that never go bad and pears that never get brown spots? Crazy stuff.
3. Fast-Growing Salmon
Unless you've been hibernating for the past few months, you've heard about this one and with good reason because salmon would be the first GMO animal approved by the FDA for human consumption.
According to Ars Technica:
These genetically modified Atlantic salmon have two foreign DNA sequences inserted into their genomes. One encodes a growth hormone from Chinook salmon. The other is the on-switch used by an antifreeze gene from ocean pout, an eel-like fish found in the Northwest Atlantic Ocean. When placed alongside the growth hormone, this on-switch makes the salmon produce the growth hormone in cold weather when they otherwise wouldn't. Importantly, the GM salmon do not grow larger than regular salmon; they just achieve their size in sixteen to eighteen months rather than three years.
The FDA isn't evaluating the environmental concerns including pollution, waste, mating, and concentration of disease that go along with Aqua Bounty's approval, just whether it's safe for human consumption and it's way too early to know that either.
4. Hyper-Producing Seeds
Scientists are working to manipulate DNA to create hyper-producing seeds, specifically plum tomato seeds that increase the yield by half.
Zachary Lippman and his team at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, produced a strain of hyper-productive tomato seeds by altering the command gene that tells plants when and how many flowers to generate, according to the New York Times. He's also thinking about the modification in melons and soybeans.
5. Enviro-Pigs
Christine over at TreeHugger wrote that Canada has approved limited production of animals dubbed "enviropigs," pigs that are modified to produce 65 percent less phosphorous in their poop and urine.
Pig farms are notorious for producing a world of waste, three times more excrement than human beings do. Lloyd wrote about a Rolling Stone article entitled "Pork's Dirty Little Secret" which reported that an estimated 500,000 pigs at a subsidiary of pork giant Smithfield generate more fecal matter each year than the 1.5 million inhabitants of Manhattan. The stream of waste is loaded with phosphorus which causes the growth of excessive algae in lakes and streams which in turn, sucks the oxygen out of water and kills off all life.
But even still, scientifically altering a pig so that it's less polluting seems counterintuitive to me.
Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
BEIJING (AFP) – Chinese scientists say they have developed nuclear fuel reprocessing technology that could effectively end uranium supply concerns, state media said Monday, as Beijing strives for energy security.
The technology, developed by state-run China National Nuclear Corp (CNNC) in the remote northwestern province of Gansu, enables the country to re-use irradiated nuclear fuel, China Central Television said.
"China's proven uranium sources will last only 50 to 70 years, but this now changes to 3,000 years," said the report, which provided scant details on what it described as a "breakthrough."
Other countries have already developed technology to reprocess spent fuel, which is extremely costly.
"Globally, within the nuclear fuel industry, we're one of a minority of countries that can do the nuclear fuel cycle," Sun Qin, general manager of CNNC, was quoted as saying in the report.
The development would be an important step forward in China's plans to increase the share of alternative power sources in its energy mix to reduce pollution and achieve energy security.
It has stepped up investment in nuclear power in an effort to slash carbon emissions and scale down the nation's heavy reliance on polluting coal, which accounts for 70 percent of its power needs.
China, now the world's second-largest economy after surpassing Japan in 2010, aims to get 15 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2020.
It aims to increase nuclear power capacity to 70-80 gigawatts by 2020, accounting for about five percent of the country's total installed power capacity, state press reports have said.
The government said previously the target was 40 gigawatts.
China, which currently has 13 nuclear reactors in operation, produces around 750 tonnes of uranium a year but annual demand could rise to 20,000 tonnes a year by 2020, the China Daily newspaper has said.
China Boasts Breakthrough In Nuclear Technology
Zhou Xin and Benjamin Kang Lim PlanetArk 4 Jan 11;
Chinese scientists have made a breakthrough in spent fuel reprocessing technology that could potentially solve China's uranium supply problem, state television reported on Monday.
The technology, developed and tested at the No.404 Factory of China National Nuclear Corp in the Gobi desert in remote Gansu province, enables the re-use of irradiated fuel and is able to boost the usage rate of uranium materials at nuclear plants by 60 folds.
"With the new technology, China's existing detected uranium resources can be used for 3,000 years," Chinese Central Television reported.
China, as well as France, the United Kingdom and Russia, actively supports reprocessing as a means for the management of highly radioactive spent fuel and as a source of fissile material for future nuclear fuel supply.
But independent scientists argued that commercial application of nuclear fuel reprocessing has always been hindered by cost, technology, proliferation risk and safety challenges.
China has 171,400 tons of proven uranium resources spread mainly in eight provinces -- Jiangxi, Guangdong, Hunan, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi, Liaoning and Yunnan.
China is planning a massive push into nuclear power in an effort to wean itself off coal, the dirtiest fossil fuel. It now has 12 working reactors with 10.15 gigawatt of total generating capacity.
China has set an official target of 40 gigawatts (GW) of installed nuclear generating capacity by 2020, but the government indicated it could double the goal to about 80 GW as faster expansion was one of the more feasible solutions for achieving emissions reduction goals.
As such, China will need to source more than 60 percent of the uranium needed for its nuclear power plants from overseas by 2020, even if the country moves forward with a modest nuclear expansion plan, Chinese researchers say.
(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)
Yahoo News 3 Jan 11;
FRANKFURT (AFP) – The Haiti earthquake and floods in Pakistan and China helped make 2010 an exceptional year for natural disasters, killing 295,000 and costing $130 billion, the world's top reinsurer said Monday.
"The high number of weather-related natural catastrophes and record temperatures both globally and in different regions of the world provide further indications of advancing climate change," said Munich Re in a report.
The last time so many people died in natural disasters was in 1983, when 300,000 people died, mainly due to famine in Ethiopia, spokesman Gerd Henghuber told AFP.
A total of 950 natural disasters were recorded last year, making 2010 the second worst year since 1980. The average number of events over the past 10 years was 785.
And in terms of economic cost, insured losses amounted to approximately $37 billion, putting 2010 among the six most loss-intensive years for the insurance industry since 1980.
"2010 showed the major risks we have to cope with. There were a number of severe earthquakes. The hurricane season was also eventful," said Torsten Jeworrek, the firm's chief executive.
The earthquake in Haiti in January was by far the worst disaster in terms of human cost, killing 222,570 people, Munich Re said. Some 56,000 died in a combination of heatwaves and forest fires in Russia, it said.
The other most destructive events were an earthquake in China in April that killed 2,700, floods in Pakistan between July and September that cost 1,760 lives and August floods in China in which 1,470 perished.
Although the Haiti earthquake resulted in human devastation on a "staggering scale", it cost the industry very little as very few people in the poverty-stricken country can afford insurance.
However, an earthquake in Chile that hit over a month later was the world's most expensive natural disaster last year, with overall losses of 30 billion dollars and insured losses of eight billion dollars.
The second most expensive disaster for the insurance industry was a series of earthquakes that rattled New Zealand, which cost an estimated 3.3 billion dollars but caused no deaths.
The global distribution of natural catastrophes in 2010 was however "comparable to that of previous years," Munich Re said.
The American continent suffered the most disasters -- 365 in total -- with 310 in Asia. A total of 120 natural disasters were recorded in Europe, 90 in Africa and 65 in Australia and Oceania.
In 2009, considered a "benign" year due to the absence of major catastrophes and a less severe than usual hurricane season in the North Atlantic, there were 900 "destructive natural hazard events", costing some 60 billion dollars.
Around 11,000 people lost their lives in natural disasters in 2009, well below the average of 77,000.
Last month, another major reinsurer, Swiss Re, reported that man-made and natural disasters generated worldwide economic losses of 222 billion dollars in 2010, more than three times the figure for the previous year.
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