Best of our wild blogs: 19 Jan 11

Emerald Dove – window kill
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Thai dive sites may be closed due to coral bleaching
from wild shores of singapore

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Midges bug Bedok folk

Residents, shops riled by insect infestation
Cai Haoxiang Straits Times 19 Jan 11;

THEY are attracted to clothes hung out to dry, land in food and end up in drinks, cling to walls and ceilings, and a mass of them can black out fluorescent lights.

Millions of these tiny green and black flies have invaded the open areas and homes of residents living in Bedok Reservoir Road.

The flies, or non-biting midges - known scientifically as Chironomidae - originated from the marshy ground around Bedok Reservoir and have been infuriating residents over the past week.

Complained Madam Vivian Ng, 48, who lives above her hardware shop in Block 740: 'My 12-year-old daughter saw the flies in her soup and told me she wanted to vomit.

'They stick on all the clothes I hang out to dry... It's horrible especially when you're eating and insects start falling around you.'

The infestation has hit eateries especially hard, said Mr Koh Hup Leong, 50, a grassroots leader overseeing the shops in the area. This is because of the proliferation of the insects in the evening hours, coinciding with when most residents are out to shop and eat, and when lights across the estate are switched on, he said.

Said Mrs Maggie Pang, 51, a supervisor at the Super Lucky Restaurant: 'Business is down by 30 per cent to 40 per cent. A lot of customers order their food, see the insects, and then run away.'

Other businesses have not been spared. Outside a beauty salon, a thick band of thousands of dead midges lined the shop's glass window.

Responding to the chorus of complaints from residents, Foreign Minister George Yeo, the MP for the Bedok Reservoir-Punggol ward of Aljunied GRC, visited the area yesterday afternoon. Accompanying him were representatives from the Aljunied Town Council, the PUB and the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The town council brought in pest control contractors yesterday morning to spray the banks of the reservoir and the walls of nearby Housing Board blocks with an insecticide.

This will continue every day until the midge infestation is gone.

The insecticide is biodegradeable, water-based and causes no health problems, said Mr Nicck Yeong of pest control company Rentokil, which is carrying out the fumigation.

Mr Yeo also visited shops and talked to residents to reassure them that the situation is under control.

'It's more of a nuisance than a danger in any health sense,' he said.

'But they are uncomfortable, get into your food and can be very irritating.'

He said the problem had been around in Bedok in previous years, and resurfaced a few weeks ago. But the insect population explosion of the last few days was unprecedented.

NEA officials told Mr Yeo that this could have been the result of changes to the ecosystem in the area. While they had yet to pinpoint the exact cause, they suggested it may be due to a chemical imbalance, or the rainy season, among other possibilities.

Said Mr Yeo: 'We don't really know, so we're going to treat it symptomatically and hope that when the weather changes, the problems will be resolved.'

The midges lay eggs in the reservoir, and the larvae cannot be eaten by fish as they are hidden in the mud, said Mr Martin Nathan, head of the NEA's North East Regional Office, offering another possible reason for the scale of the infestation this time around.

The midge problem had also surfaced recently in Teban Gardens and Yishun, added NEA senior operations manager Tang Choon Siang.

Mr Yeo said the insect explosion has attracted large numbers of swifts to the area to feed on the insects.

Spiders too, he said, have been 'working overtime', spinning webs on ceilings and walls to trap the flies.

To deal with the midge problem, Mr Yeo said, residents could switch off the lights, cover food and not open their windows. Some residents have also found high-frequency insect repellent devices useful.

But Mr Tony Teo, 64, a music instructor living in Baywater condominium, said that although his walls are covered, he is taking the infestation in his stride.

'You can't exterminate them completely, and bug spray doesn't work. Complaining is useless. We just ignore them. After a while, the insects will go away,' he said.

Bedok Reservoir faces 'swarm' problem
Qiuyi Tan Today Online 18 Jan 11;

SINGAPORE - Bedok Reservoir residents have been plagued by a swarm of green flies for the past week.

The National Environment Agency (NEA) said they are midges - they look like mosquitoes, but they do not bite and they do not carry diseases.

Millions of these flies are landing everywhere in the area. They are attracted to lights from flats and are a nuisance.

The sudden upsurge in the midge population may be caused by a change in weather and an imbalance of the ecosystem, said the NEA.

Many of the higher floor units have not been spared as the insects are carried by wind into residents' homes.

The Foreign Minister and MP for the area, Mr George Yeo, who inspected the area on Tuesday afternoon, said the Aljunied Town Council is spraying safe pesticides along the mud banks where the insects breed.

Residents have been advised to keep windows closed as pest control personnel attempt to reduce the fly population by spraying a biological agent called BTI into the water at the edge of the reservoir, on the void decks and various floors of the HDB flats.

Saying that the agent was completely safe, Mr Yeo said he hoped it would help contain the problem.

A resident at Block 710/Bedok Reservoir, Mr Tia Siew Hian, said: "They are attracted to the lights so we shut the windows to keep them out. It's very irritating because they get into your nose, ears and eyes."

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7.27 million hectares of forests in C Kalimantan damaged

Antara 18 Jan 11;

Palangka Raya, Central Kalimantan (ANTARA News) - About 7.27 million hectares of forests in Central Kalimantan are damaged due to deforestation, a lecturer said here Tuesday.

"Deforestation and barren land in Central Kalimantan cover more than 7.27 million hectares, while rapid forest degradation is less than 150 thousand hectares per year in the area," Sidik R Usop, the lecturer, said here Tuesday.

According to him, forest rehabilitation capacity was only 50 thousand hectares per year, either it implemented Special Fund Allocation for Forest Rehabilitation (DAKDR) or National Rehabilitation Movement (Gerhan).

"Based on data recorded in 2006, Kotawaringin Timur district was included in a category of the largest barren land reached 953.296 hectares. Then, Murung Raya district owned 2.403.972 hectares and Seruyan district had 891.946 hectares of barren land," he said.

He said in 2009 the barren land area in Central Kalimantan was about 9.596.161,6 hectares with the most area was in Seruyan district of 976.559.3 hectares and Kotawaringin Timur district was 976.555 hectares.

"Any impacts due to forest burn and deforestation were smog, air pollution, health disorder and air transportation disruption," he said.

Moreover, he added, the affects of the forest degradation were climate change, global warming, ecology, economy, social and culture failure and also barren land expansion.

While in mining sector, effects of the deforestation were about land and forest degradation, erosion, river expanse change and superficiality, waste pile, water snoring, mercury polluted water and biodiversity degradation.

"Green Central Kalimantan Province is a demand against the climate change and global warming where the local administration has had an agreement to be the project pilot of REDD+ program," he said.

Therefore, he added, the participation of civil citizens in the district was necessary to support the Green Province movement because the province functioned as a place for civil society who cared about environment issues to gather.

"Their role can criticize the central government if it has uncontrolled administration on natural resources, so that the environment could be a medium for political, economical and ideology," he ended.

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Last refuge of rare fish threatened by Yangtze dam plans

Developers of hydroelectric plant have redrawn the boundaries of a crucial freshwater reserve for rare and economically important species
Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk 18 Jan 11;

The last refuge for many of China's rarest and most economically important wild fish has mere days to secure public support before it is trimmed, dammed and ruinously diminished, conservationists warned today.

The alarm was raised after the authorities in Chongqing quietly moved to redraw the boundaries of a crucial freshwater reserve on the Yangtze, which was supposed to have been the bottom line for nature conservation in one of the world's most important centres of biodiversity.

The Upper Yangtze Rare and Endemic Fish Nature Reserve was created in the 1990s as a haven for species that were threatened by the Three Gorges dam, the world's biggest hydroelectric plant.

Among the hundreds of species it protects are four types of wild carp that experts say are essential to China's food security because they provide the diverse genetic stock on which fish farms depend for healthy breeding.

In recent years, the importance of this 400km-long ecological hold-out has increased as China's hunger for energy has driven power companies to build two more mega-dams – Xiangjiaba and Xiluodu – that have swamped the shoals and stilled the rapids along thousands of kilometres of Asia's biggest river.

Downstream, the combination of dams, pollution, overfishing and river traffic have decimated fish stocks, wiped out at least one species – the Baiji or Yangtze river dolphin – and left others – like the giant Yangtze sturgeon (Acipenser dabryanus), the Chinese paddlefish or the finless porpoise – critically endangered.

Upriver, the state has promised to safeguard the last untamed stretch. A coalition of scientists and conservationists has opposed development in the reserve. Premier Wen Jiabao has expressed unease about the impact of excess dam-building on environmentally important areas.

But this goal has run up against the interests of the Three Gorges Project Development Corporation and local officials, who want to build yet another hydroelectric plant at Xiaonanhai that would choke the river to power the development of the poor local economy.

The developers appear to have gained the upper hand last week when the Ministry of Environmental Protection announced plans to redraw the boundary of the reserve so that it would no longer encompass the area of the proposed dam. This leaves less than 10 days for public discussion, according to conservationists who are dismayed there has been almost no domestic coverage, partly because many of the 29 endangered fish species – such as Chinese paddle, Yangtze sturgeon and Chinese sucker – are unknown outside of expert circles.

"This is the last hold-out for much of China's freshwater biodiversity. It is a rare situation when one project can do so much damage," said Ma Jun of the Institute for Public and Environmental Affairs, one of the country's leading green campaign groups. "Part of the problem is that unlike pandas, snub-nosed monkeys or Tibetan antelopes, most people have not heard of or seen the fish affected."

Local government insists no decision has been made on the dam, but past precedent suggests that construction will begin before the formal environmental impact assessment is made, by which time developers will argue that it would be a huge waste of money to cancel.

Less often calculated is the economic loss of biodiversity. With fewer wild carp to bolster farm stocks, environmental experts say China is taking a risk with a primary source of protein. Since the Three Gorges was built, the downstream carp population has crashed by 90%, according to Guo Qiaoyu, Yangtze River project manager at The Nature Conservancy.

"This is economically important. We eat a lot of these fish. We need to help people realise its important to protect fish reserves and not just tap the power of the river," said Guo. "If we lose this reserve, the wild population will almost be wiped out.

It is rare for the Nature Conservancy to oppose dam construction, which they accept as important to China's development. But the US-based NGO has sent a letter to the government, urging full protection of the Yangtze reserve, which looks set to be a test case of the authorities' willingness to conserve.

"I feel very frustrated. This reserve was first set up as a compensation for the Three Gorges Dam. And then for other dams on the Jingsha cascade," said Guo. "If you change this reserve again to make way for another dam, it shows that we don't have a baseline for conservation, that anything can be overridden in the interests of economic development. It sets a terrible precedent."

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Kazakhstan extends Saiga antelope hunting ban until 2021

Yahoo News 18 Jan 11;

ASTANA (AFP) – Kazakhstan on Tuesday extended a ban on hunting saiga antelopes until 2021 as the Central Asian nation seeks to save the endangered species.

An order by the country's agriculture ministry to extend the ban was issued in November 2010 and published in local media on Tuesday, effective immediately.

The previous ban lasted until late last year.

Saiga antelopes, which have distinctive bulbous noses, are listed as a critically endangered species by WWF.

The Kazakh agriculture ministry put the country's saiga population at over 90,000 antelopes as of late 2010, although the WWF estimates the antelope's entire number at 50,000, having shrunk from over a million in the 1990s.

Its population fell drastically following the collapse of the Soviet Union, due to uncontrolled hunting and demand for its horns in Chinese medicine.

The introduction of the new ban follows an outbreak of pasteurellosis, an infectious disease that strikes the lungs and intestines, that claimed nearly 12,000 saiga antelopes in Kazakhstan last year.

The antelopes migrate between Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Turkmenistan and China.

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Giant snails monitor air pollution in Russia

Yahoo News 18 Jan 11;

SAINT PETERSBURG, Russia (AFP) – A Russian waterworks has recruited giant African snails to act as living sensors to monitor air pollution from a sewage incinerator, the company said Tuesday.

The waterworks is using six snails as an innovative way to monitor pollution from a incinerator that burns sewage residue on the outskirts of Saint Petersburg, the Vodokanal state utilities company said in a statement.

The Achatina snails, which reach 20 centimetres in length and are widespread in Sub-Saharan Africa, were chosen because "they have lungs and breathe air like humans," the company said.

The snails have been fitted with heart monitors and motion sensors while breathing smoke from the plant and their readings will be compared with a control group, waterworks spokeswoman Oksana Popova told AFP.

While living organisms are frequently used to monitor pollution, an expert dismissed the use of snails to monitor the controversial incinerator as a publicity stunt.

"Burning sludge emits toxic dioxins," said Dmitry Artamonov, who heads the the Saint Petersburg office of Greenpeace environmental campaigning group

"I don't know if snails get cancer, but even if they do, it won't happen straight away, and we will not hear about it from Vodokanal."

Artamonov said that last year Vodokanal refused Greenpeace access when activists wanted to take a water sample at the sewage treatment facility, which is one of the biggest in the country.

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Climate change could boost crops in US, China

Kerry Sheridan Yahoo News 19 Jan 11;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A growing world population combined with the steady effects of climate change are forecast to create a global food shortage in the next 10 years, but the news isn't all bad for some countries.

The United States, China, Ethiopia and parts of northern Europe are among the select few that are expected to be able to grow more crops as a result of changes in temperature and rainfall, according to a study out Tuesday.

However, those gains will not be enough to stave off an increase in world starvation and price spikes for food as a result of a shortfall in three of the four main cereal crops, it said.

The forecast is based on UN figures about climate change released in 2007, and projects the impact of temperature changes that will leave the planet at least 2.4 degrees Celsius (4.3 Fahrenheit) warmer by 2020.

"The analysis is based on the conclusions of the 2007 IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Fourth Assessment Report," said lead author Liliana Hisas of the Universal Ecological Fund, a non-profit group.

"Our other guiding principles were using the business-as-usual path the world is currently following, and assess the impacts of climate change with a short-term target of one decade."

A population boom will leave the world with an additional 890 million people in 2020, for a total of 7.8 billion, up from the current level of 6.9 billion, the study said.

And across-the-board deficits in wheat, rice and maize means there will not be enough to feed all those extra mouths.

The result will be more prevalent hunger -- one in five people going hungry, up from the current rate of one in seven -- and food price spikes of up to 20 percent, according to the study.

"At least every other newborn in Africa; one in every four newborns in Asia; and one in every seven newborns in Latin America and the Caribbean would be sentenced to undernourishment and malnutrition," it added.

On the whole, Africa is expected to be the hardest hit. Due to hotter, drier temperatures, nearly two thirds of arable land on the continent could be lost by 2025, and maize growing could die out completely in some areas.

Grape and olive growing in Mediterranean countries like Italy, Spain and France will suffer due to mounting dryness, as will the vineyards of California -- a 3.9-billion-dollar industry.

Elsewhere in the United States, the lead global producer of maize and soybean, wheat crops are forecast to grow five to 20 percent, while corn crops could falter slightly.

The US and Canada combine to produce 13 percent of the world's wheat, 38 percent of maize and 36 percent of soybeans.

Northern Europe could see wheat yields climb between three and four percent.

Meanwhile, the vast continent of Asia will see drastically different impacts in crop growth and rainfall.

India, the second largest world producer of rice and wheat, could see yields fall 30 percent, the study said.

But not so for China, the world's biggest producer of wheat and rice, which is "expected to increase its crop yields up to 20 percent."

The effects of climate change are expected to be harsher for India because of its tropical climate, as opposed to China, which lies in the temperate zone. Growers in Bangladesh and Pakistan could also expect to see declines.

Ethiopia was singled out in Africa as a country that could benefit because higher temperatures could combine with rainfall changes to boost the growth of its key crop, coffee. Ethiopia is the world's sixth largest coffee producer.

The United States and Canada are among the countries expected to grow more of every main cereal group, but still fall short of an expanding population's needs.

Soybean production is forecast to result in a five percent surplus, but the other three will see deficits across the world due to rising demand: a 14 percent shortfall in wheat, 11 percent for rice and nine percent for maize.

The study urged nations to undertake plans to adjust crop timing and move livestock to areas where water availability is improved.

Some dietary habits may have to shift, such as consuming more potatoes, beans and lentils instead of cereal grains and animal proteins.

But the primary change it recommended was reducing harmful pollutants in the atmosphere, or greenhouse gases (GHG).

"Reducing GHG emissions is the first and most important step. Efforts so far have been numerous, but unsuccessful," the study said.

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