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Straits Times Forum 25 Jan 11;
IT APPEARS that Resorts World Sentosa (RWS) has severely underestimated the demands of its bid proposal for the Marine Life Park ("Langkawi dolphin pens 'appalling'"; Jan 14).
It started with a reversal on its ability to house a whale shark. Then despite its assurances, two dolphins died.
It seems there are no contingency or fail-safe plans in place should things go awry.
The Singapore Tourism Board (STB) reviewed and arbitrated over the decision to award the contract to RWS. It, therefore, has an extended responsibility in this issue which goes beyond simply stressing that RWS must comply with the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites) and Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) regulations.
On commercial grounds, the current situation is grossly unfair to the other international bidders who were not selected but submitted proposals they could have fulfilled.
Insisting on accountability will serve to deter future project bidders from submitting inflated proposals solely designed to win the bid, and which they may be little confident of completing.
What recourse do winning bidders have, should they encounter insurmountable difficulties, which is highly possible with these complex projects?
In the case of RWS, the dolphins are now bearing the brutal cost of the project's steep learning curve. We should seriously consider scrapping this contentious project to focus on other aspects of marine welfare instead.
Can STB and RWS clarify these queries to justify the claims of walking the talk on marine conservation.
Roger Chow
Mustafa Shafawi Channel NewsAsia 24 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE: Animal welfare group, ACRES, (Animal Concerns, Research & Education Society) has won its appeal against the Clerk-of-Works who oversaw the construction of its Wildlife Rescue Centre (AWRC).
The AWRC had to be demolished due to environmental pollution caused by the use of unsuitable backfill materials.
In its judgement, delivered on January 20, the Court of Appeal concluded that Mr. Tan Boon Kwee was in breach of his duty of care to ACRES.
This negligence caused ACRES to suffer economic losses.
Justice Andrew Phang stated that ACRES has had to suffer the unnecessary stress and inconvenience of having to deal with a number of government agencies regarding the environmental damage from the contaminated back as well as delay the opening of the shelter and the commencement of the good work the shelter was intended for.
Justice Phang said while these may not be legally recoverable losses, it was a testament to the fortitude and determination of ACRES staff that they were not deterred by the numerous setbacks.
ACRES had sued the main contractor, ANA Contractor, and Mr Tan back in September 2008.
In March 2010, while Justice Kan Ting Chiu found the contractor liable and ordered them to pay damages, he dismissed the claim against Mr Tan. ACRES then appealed against the dismissal.
ACRES Director, Louis Ng, expressed delight at the verdict and said justice had been served. He added that ACRES will proceed to assess damages against both ANA and Mr. Tan.
The National Environment Agency has also filed criminal charges against both ANA and Mr Tan.
The NEA trial is scheduled for February.
Acres wins case against clerk of works
K.C. Vijayan Straits Times 25 Jan 11;
THE Court of Appeal has held a clerk of works to be negligent and liable for the losses caused to an animal rights group.
Mr Tan Boon Kwee was the site supervisor and a director of A n A Contractors, which was hired to build a home for abandoned animals in Choa Chu Kang.
The appeals court, presided by Judge of Appeal Chao Hick Tin, in a judgment released last Thursday, overruled a lower court and held that the mess would have been avoided if Mr Tan had supervised the work properly.
The position of clerk of works, now known as resident technical officer or site supervisor, is provided for in the Building Control Regulations.
The saga began in September 2006, when Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) hired A n A to level a plot of land about the size of two football fields to build an animal shelter for $650,000. It was to have housed 400 animals like star tortoises and primates, rescued from the illegal wildlife trade or found injured, before they would be released here or overseas.
The contractor filled the land with woodchips that rotted and contaminated the soil and discharged brackish water. The 1.5ha area of 62 animal enclosures had to be demolished and the backfill material removed.
Acres sued A n A in the High Court, which last year ordered the company to pay damages, but held that Mr Tan was not liable.
Acres, through lawyers from Straits Law Practice, appealed and argued that Mr Tan owed a common law duty of care to supervise the backfilling and ensure suitable material was used.
But the contractor's lawyers from Lee & Lee countered that the Building Control Act did not impose such a duty on Mr Tan.
Judge of Appeal Andrew Phang noted there was nothing during the debate before the Act was passed to show Parliament intended that there should be no civil redress against negligent site supervisors.
'In the field of public and workplace safety, there is no reason why the courts should not be astute to introduce minimum standards of skill and care via the tort of negligence,' he wrote.
Both A n A and Mr Tan will have to pay damages to be assessed by the court registrar.
Acres executive director and founder Louis Ng said he hoped the problems can be rectified, and looked forward to opening the main sanctuary area.
Evelyn Choo Channel NewsAsia 24 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE : National water agency PUB said road-raising works, a flood-preventive measure, for Orchard Road are eight per cent completed.
It added that it is still on track to meet the completion deadline in June.
It is business as usual along Orchard Road in the daytime, but when the shopping district goes to sleep, roadworks begin.
Contractors have been asked to work from midnight to 6 am to minimise disruptions to traffic.
On top of that, works were halted during the festive periods.
Senior director of PUB, Yap Kheng Guan, said: "Work is planned in a way that even in those limited hours that we have, if we have to forgo those hours to make sure that the atmosphere is not in any way diluted, we will do so.
"And after Chinese New Year, if there are any special events, we will then make way for these events to take place, even if it means sacrificing those working hours."
The works along the 1.4-kilometre stretch of Orchard Road are split into three stages.
Firstly, kerbs along the roads have to be raised - and they have already been 90 per cent completed.
Secondly, the roads have to be raised by 10 centimetres initially. And finally, the roads will be layered by another 20 centimetres in height.
As of now, only half of Scotts Road has been completed - that is eight per cent of the project.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim, touring the stretch of road, gave a progress update.
He said: "The kerb-raising - we are almost there, close to 90 per cent. Road-raising - we've done only about eight per cent. But the most important thing, I think, is that we've done this very well in terms of the overall coordination, both with the other users of the road and the business association.
"By all accounts, we're on track to finish the project by June this year. This is a very important part of our work to ensure the resilience of Orchard Road will be increased towards the kind of rainfall we saw last June."
Dr Yaacob added that he has not heard any complaints from the public or tenants regarding the construction.
But there was one initial concern raised by building owners - that the raised roads would mean they would have to adjust the height of their building entrances as well.
But the executive director of the Orchard Road Business Association, Steven Goh, said that problem has been addressed.
He added: "I think with the road-raising works, there will be some interfacing with the car park entrances into the buildings. And also they will be affecting some of the pavement areas as well.
"So you need to work with the individual stakeholders because the level of the pavement is different from building to building. So we are able to address that individually."
The popular shopping district was badly hit by floods last year, and the project started in November as a preventive measure.
- CNA/al
Orchard Road work 'on track'
Evelyn Choo Today Online 25 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE - Some two months after work started, the project to raise a stretch of Orchard Road to prevent a repeat of the flooding last June is "8 per cent" complete, according to the PUB.
And the statutory board noted yesterday that the project is on track for completion in less than five months.
The PUB began work in November on raising a 1.4km stretch between Orange Grove Road and Cairnhill Road.
Work is split into three stages: Elevating the kerbs along the road, raising the road by 10cm initially and, finally, layering the road to increase its height by another 20cm.
By June, upon the project's completion, the road will be raised by about 30cm.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim checked on the project's progress yesterday: Ninety per cent of the first stage has been completed, while half of Scotts Road has been raised by 30cm - roughly constituting 8 per cent of the work, according to the PUB.
Dr Yaacob reiterated that he was confident the project will be completed on time.
He said: "The most important thing ... is that we've done this very well in terms of the overall coordination, both with the other users of the road and the business association."
To minimise disruption to traffic, the work is carried out between midnight and 6am. Work was halted during the festive periods, the PUB said.
PUB senior director Yap Kheng Guan said: "Work is planned in a way that even in the limited hours that we have, if we have to forgo those hours to make sure that the atmosphere is not in any way diluted, we will do so.
"And after Chinese New Year, if there are any special events, we will make way for these events to take place, even if it means sacrificing those working hours."
Building owners were initially concerned that the project would mean they would have to adjust the height of their building entrances as well.
But Orchard Road Business Association executive director Steven Goh said this has been addressed, with the authorities working with the individual property owners.
Works to raise Orchard Road on schedule
Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 25 Jan 11;
THE ambitious $26 million project to raise a 1.4km stretch of Orchard Road, in a bid to stave off future floods, is on target for completion as scheduled in June.
About 70 per cent of the roadside kerbs have been lifted. And although less than a tenth of the road itself has been raised, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim said yesterday he was confident work would be completed on time.
Speaking to reporters after a visit to the area, he said he was pleased with the progress so far, given the need to satisfy the competing needs of drivers and tenants in the area.
He said the engineers faced constraints, including having to work only at night to avoid the busy traffic along the premier shopping belt. They also work only on short stretches at a time so that as few lanes as possible are closed.
Dr Yaacob said the work could be stepped up after the Chinese New Year break, when it will be halted temporarily as part of an agreement between national water agency PUB and local businesses. 'The experts will look at the work plan and see how this can be accelerated. Given the option, we want to finish as quickly as possible,' he said.
The works aim to prevent a repeat of the floods that deluged parts of Orchard Road in June and July last year.
The floods came after bouts of unusually intense rainfall over a few hours, and cost retailers millions of dollars in damage. Basements and carparks of buildings like Liat Towers and Lucky Plaza were flooded.
As a result, the Government chose to raise the stretch of road from Orchard Parade Hotel to Cairnhill by an average of 30cm. It decided it was not feasible to widen the drains because the area was too built up.
Dr Yaacob yesterday asked businesses in Orchard to play their part by putting in place protection measures at buildings vulnerable to floods.
Some older buildings, for example, were designed based on outdated building codes that did not make it compulsory to install humps at the entrance of basement carparks.
He said businesses should follow the example of Liat Towers, which spent about $200,000 installing a pop-up barrier. 'We have been using public funds because we want to make sure Orchard is resilient to floods. At the same time, other parts of the system must also do their part,' he said.
Mr Steven Goh, executive director of the Orchard Road Business Association, said communication between businesses and the authorities had been mostly smooth.
However, some firms had raised concerns that construction at times blocked their carpark entrances. Others complained that the pavements were blocked for pedestrians, he said.
'The level of the pavements varies from building to building, so this has got to be addressed individually,' he said.
Asked if the project would allay public fears of a repeat of last year's floods, Dr Yaacob said: 'My sense is this will definitely build up the resilience of Orchard against the rain we saw last June.'
But he added: 'Will it prevent a similar event? We have to wait and see.'
ExxonMobil project said to hit construction snags; startup may now be early next year
Ronnie Lim, Business Times 25 Jan 11;
(SINGAPORE) The commercial startup of ExxonMobil's mega US$5-6 billion second petrochemical complex on Jurong Island, scheduled for the second half of this year, may be delayed.
Citing some construction 'issues', sources said the startup could possibly now be pushed back to early next year.
The US oil giant first broke ground in November 2007 for the complex - Singapore's largest single manufacturing investment to date - which was initially expected to begin operations in early 2011. This date was subsequently revised to H2 2011, when ExxonMobil provided a project update last April.
Sources cited issues like additional piling needed due to some soil subsidence, as well as delays from underground pipelines being installed late at a crucial plant site. This has apparently caused missed deadlines by some contractors there, and could potentially lead to a 3-6 month delay.
'But it's not a disaster like Shell's earlier hydrocracker woes, and more a hiccup,' one source said of the ExxonMobil project, citing the 1980 incident when Shell had to demolish and rebuild sub-standard, below-design strength concrete structures for its hydrocracker plant.
When contacted, an ExxonMobil spokesman would only say: 'We anticipate mechanical completion and startup of most of the units to occur in phases during 2011. The scale, complexity and interdependence of the units of this project requires that the startup process be done carefully and in sequence. Our top priority is the safety of our workforce.
'Exact dates will be determined when we can ensure that startup and continuing operations can be conducted safely and in a reliable manner. We cannot provide exact dates at this time. The startup process for many of the units can take months.'
The project had earlier reached a construction peak in the second half of last year with about 22,000 workers employed, the spokesman added, saying that 'the workforce is ramping down and there are currently about 19,000 workers on-site'.
ExxonMobil's first complex includes a 900,000- tonne per annum (tpa) main ethylene cracker on the petrochemicals island.
The latest complex comprises an upstream ethylene cracker of one million tpa, the largest here, and six secondary plants, plus a dedicated 220-megawatt cogeneration unit to supply utilities to the complex. The six downstream plants comprise two 650,000 tpa polyethylene units; a 450,000 tpa polypropylene unit; a 300,000 tpa specialty elastomers unit; an aromatics unit to produce 340,000 tpa of benzene; and an oxo-alcohol expansion of 125,000 tpa.
What has apparently added to the project's complexity is the fact that several contractors from different countries are in charge of the various sub-projects.
For instance, ExxonMobil awarded the construction contract for the steam cracker recovery unit to the Shaw Group, and that for the steam cracker furnaces to Mitsui Engineering & Shipbuilding and Heurtey. Mitsui was also given the building contracts for the polypropylene and specialty elastomer units, while those for the two polyethylene units went to Mitsubishi Heavy Industries.
Last April - when the project reached a major milestone, with the arrival of seven giant furnace modules for the main cracker - EM Chemical's venture executive Georges Grosliere told BT that 'there are 15 sub-projects altogether' at the complex, with the first of these (the oxo-alcohol plant) already completed in September 2009.
'The philosophy is to get all these ready and tested before the cracker's startup in the second half of 2011,' he said at that time.
Zul Othman Today Online 25 Jan 11;
SINGAPORE - While many would say that the green movement to cut carbon dioxide emissions and reduce its amount in the atmosphere is gaining steam, Pulitzer Prize winning author Thomas L Friedman thinks otherwise.
In fact, the 57-year-old New York Times columnist believes what we are seeing now is more of a "party" than anything else.
Speaking to 1,000 people at the National University of Singapore's University Cultural Centre Hall yesterday, he said a truly "green revolution" can only be arrived at when all involved realise it is time to either "change or die".
He added: "You know it's a real revolution when the word 'green' disappears completely.
"There will be no green buildings for example - there will just be a building that you can't build unless you use the highest levels of energy efficiency and sustainability."
As a journalist, Mr Friedman has reported on the Middle East conflict, the end of the Cold War, the United States domestic politics and foreign policy and the worldwide impact of the terrorist threat.
But in his 2008 book, Hot, Flat, and Crowded: Why We Need a Green Revolution - and How It Can Renew America, Mr Friedman has been exploring the parallels between the climate crisis and the global economic crisis.
Explaining the motivation behind the book, Mr Friedman said it has become obvious that for a variety of reasons the US has lost its "groove" in recent years.
The book, he added, was his own contribution towards how "we can get our groove back" as a country.
So does he think that his words have had any resonance with American lawmakers?
Mr Friedman said: "I do believe it's getting there but it's not happening fast enough. I remain a die-hard optimist as we're moving in the right direction but it's nowhere at the speed, scale and scope that we need."
America could also learn from China in the area of clean technology, he said.
"The biggest thing that happened in the world was when China decided to go green. To my fellow Americans, I say watch out: Not only will we be importing toys but also the next generation of clean technology as well," said Mr Friedman.
Five reasons for a revolution
Shivali Nayak, RazorTV Straits Times 25 Jan 11;
THE world has been having a green 'party' and not a green revolution.
So says world-renowned author and columnist Thomas L Friedman, who was in Singapore on Monday to talk about why the world needs an environmental revolution. He believes that the world has to act soon - if it wants to function sustainably.
This is the second time that the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy is hosting the author of non-fiction best sellers such as The World Is Flat and The Lexus & the Olive Tree.
This time round, his lecture focused on his latest book, Hot, Flat & Crowded, which explains why the world needs a green revolution as soon as possible.
The three-time Pulitzer Prize winner enthralled audiences with an hour-long lecture, in which he highlighted five challenges the world is facing. They are energy and natural resources, petrol-dictatorship, climate change, energy poverty and biodiversity loss.
He also took questions from the 1,000-strong audience at the National University of Singapore's University Cultural Centre. RazorTV has the highlights of the Q&A.
Ella Davies BBC News 24 Jan 11;
Iran's critically endangered cheetahs are the last remaining survivors of a unique, ancient Asian subspecies, genetics experts reveal.
New analysis confirms Iran's cheetahs belong to the subspecies Acinonyx jubatus venaticus. DNA comparisons show that these Asiatic cheetahs split from other cheetahs, which live in Africa, 30,000 years ago.
Researchers suggest that Iran's cheetahs must be conserved to protect the future of all cheetahs.
Cheetahs formerly existed in 44 countries in Africa but are now only found in 29.
Historically, they were also recorded across southwest and central Asia but can now only be found in Iran.
Scientists have previously said that cheetahs have low genetic variability, theorising that a "population crash" approximately 10,000 years ago led to inbreeding in the species.
Despite this, five 'different' subspecies are currently described according to where they live.
Genetic studies in the 1990s confirmed cheetahs found in southern Africa (A. j. jubatus) and east Africa (A. j. raineyi) as separate subspecies.
However, it has not been clear whether populations in west Africa (A. j. hecki), northern-east Africa (A. j. soemmeringii), and north Africa and Iran (A. j. venaticus) are genetically different enough to deserve their current status as subspecies.
Aiming to solve the puzzle of modern cheetahs' origins, scientists from the University of Veterinary Medicine in Vienna, Austria have been working in collaboration with the Iranian Department of Environment and wildcat conservation group Panthera.
Their findings are published in the journal Molecular Ecology.
Dr Pamela Burger and her team analysed the DNA of cheetahs from a wide geographical and historical range, including medieval remains found in north-western Iran.
"With our data we prove that current Iranian cheetahs represent the historical Asiatic subspecies A.j. venaticus as they share a similar genetic profile with specimen originating from northwestern Iran in 800-900 CE," explains Dr Burger.
The researchers have also been able to distinguish Iranian cheetahs from their nearest neighbours in northern-east Africa which were confirmed as A. j. soemmeringii.
Cheetahs in north Africa, previously considered the same subspecies as those in Iran, were actually found to have more in common genetically with those in west Africa.
By comparing sequences in the DNA, researchers have found that the unique Asiatic cheetahs separated from the rest of the species in southern Africa over 30,000 years ago.
Dr Burger explains that because this split occurred long before the theorised population crash, A.j. venaticus represents a highly distinct lineage.
"The implications of our discovery are that the confirmation of the subspecies is a basis for future conservation management. If the aim is to conserve this biodiversity, subspecies should not be mixed," she says.
Currently estimated at just 60-100 individuals with less than half at mature breeding age, the Iranian cheetah population is classified as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List.
Together with the United Nations Development Programme, Panthera and the Wildlife Conservation Society the Iranian Department of the Environment has established a programme to make conservation of the Asiatic cheetah a national priority.
Conservationists are concerned that time is running out for Iran's cheetahs.
"We have been successful in stabilising numbers in Iran but we still have a long way to go before we can consider this unique sub-species secure," says Alireza Jourabchian, Director of the Conservation of the Asiatic Cheetah Programme (CACP) in Iran.
Threats facing the small population include overhunting of cheetah prey, habitat degradation and direct poaching.
What's On CN Xiamen 23 Jan 11;
Tourists throng to Xiamen, a world-famous resort in southeast China, for its seaside, sunshine and scenic cultural heritage sites. Now, Chinese white dolphins, as part of the city's oceanic landscape, may become the new sought-after attraction for tourists.
Xiamen is the only city in the world which allows people to see inshore dolphins on its beaches, whereas in other countries, such as Japan and Peru, people have to get to dolphins in the open sea after hours of ship-riding.
"In December, more than 30 dolphins appeared in one group in the Wuyuan Bay of Xiamen," Chen Bingyu, from the Xiamen Precious and Rare Marine Species Reserve Management Office, told Xinhua. "It's the first time in more than 20 years."
"In recent years, more and more dolphins have begun to appear in nearby sea areas," said Zhou Lumin, deputy chief of Xiamen Municipal Oceanic and Fishery Administration. "It's time for Xiamen to develop its dolphin-watching business."
The Chinese white dolphin, boasting the nickname of "giant panda in the sea" and living mainly in the sea areas around Xiamen and the Pearl River estuary in southern China, is a mammal guarded under the first-class state protection.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, it was not unusual for Xiamen citizens to enjoy watching groups of dolphins frolic in the sea.
"Unfortunately, the undue exploitation, pollution and consequent deterioration of the ecosystem around the area drove dolphins far away," said Chen.
As one of China's first four special economic zones, Xiamen has seen an unprecedented economic boom since 1980.
Twenty or thirty years ago, scenes of dolphins frolicking in groups faded out of sight and even out of mind of most Xiamen residents.
"The number of Chinese white dolphins is an important indicator for the ecological situation in the inshore sea areas," Zhou Lumin noted.
"Only when the oceanic ecosystem returns to normal, will the dolphin population rise again," Zhou added.
In 1994, Xiamen issued its first rules on the use of sea areas, regulations for oceanic environmental protection and regulations on conservation of the Chinese white dolphins.
Further, in 1997, the provincial Chinese white dolphin reserve of 5,500 hectares was set up in Xiamen to try to lure back the rare mammals.
"It's no easy task," said Zhou. "Dolphins feed on various kinds of fishes and shrimps and eat as much as seven kilograms of food at a time. They also require a high-quality water environment."
Meanwhile, "the environments suitable for dolphins are suitable for human beings as well," said Zhou.
Efforts have been made to improve and restore the marine ecosystem around Xiamen since the mid-1990s, with another 30-odd related laws and regulations issued following the 1994 rules and related public awareness campaigns built through media publicity.
Zhou divided the process of comprehensive management of marine ecology of Xiamen into three phases.
Firstly, pollution control. Waste materials were prevented from being directly discharged into the sea as more refuse disposal and sewage treatment plants were built.
Secondly, during the first decade of the 21st century, ecological reconstruction was put on top of the city's development agenda. Sea areas were allocated to more ecological and environment-friendly industries.
"Now we're in the third stage -- to restore the marine ecosystem of Xiamen," said Zhou, highlighting such projects as releasing fish fry into the sea, dredging silt from nearby sea areas and blasting part of the Gaoji Causeway to ease the water flow.
These efforts, said Professor Yu Dongsheng with the Xiamen-based Third Institute of the National Oceanography Bureau, had good results in conserving endangered animal species and expanding the living space of Chinese white dolphins.
"According to the data collected through marine monitoring stations, the number of dolphins around Xiamen has been increasing steadily since 2005," said Chen, adding that the population increase pointed to improvements in the quality of the marine ecosystem.
"When I was jogging along the beach one morning last October," Chen Wang, a citizen of Xiamen, recalled, "I saw three dolphins. And a month later, when I was on a boat, I saw five. Oh, they' re fantastic!"
More and more tourists will be able to share Chen Wang's excitement.
"We're going to set up some observation spots for tourists to watch dolphins more conveniently," said Zhou, hoping the move will also help people further understand the sea and act to protect it.
"Xiamen is a garden city in the sea. Isn't it wonderful to have dolphins around it?"
The World is sinking: Dubai islands 'falling into the sea'
The islands were intended as the ultimate luxury possession, even for Dubai.
Richard Spencer The Telegraph 20 Jan 11;
But the World, the ambitiously-constructed archipelago of islands shaped like the countries of the globe, is sinking back into the sea, according to evidence cited before a property tribunal.
The islands were intended to be developed with tailor-made hotel complexes and luxury villas, and sold to millionaires. They are off the coast of Dubai and accessible by yacht or motor boat.
Now their sands are eroding and the navigational channels between them are silting up, the British lawyer for a company bringing a case against the state-run developer, Nakheel, has told judges.
"The islands are gradually falling back into the sea," Richard Wilmot-Smith QC, for Penguin Marine, said. The evidence showed "erosion and deterioration of The World islands", he added.
With all but one of the islands still uninhabited – Greenland – and that one a showpiece owned by the ruler of Dubai, most of the development plans have been brought to a crashing halt by the financial crisis.
Nakheel, the developer, was part of Dubai World, the state-owned conglomerate that had to be bailed out of debts put at around $25 billion at the end of 2009. The Dubai World Tribunal was set up to hear cases arising out of the restructuring and separation of the companies involved.
The low-lying islands represent a vague shape out to sea when viewed from Dubai's beaches, but are visible by satellite or from the top of the city's Burg Khalifa, the world's tallest building, which opened to the public last year.
According to the company, 70 per cent of the World's 300 islands have been sold. Nakheel is also behind Dubai's famous Palm-shaped offshore developments. Villas in the only one near completion, Palm Jumeirah, were given to or bought by footballers including David Beckham and Michael Owen.
Though few celebrity buyers were found for The World, it was rumoured – or joked – that Brad Pitt and Angeline Jolie had considered Ethiopia.
Many investors who did buy the islands proved unwilling or unable to finance further work when Dubai's property prices halved in the space of a year.
Some were hit by troubles elsewhere – the owner of the company which bought Ireland for £24 million, John O'Dolan, committed suicide, while the man who bought Britain for £43 million, Safi Qurashi, is serving seven years in jail in Dubai after being accused of bouncing cheques.
The dispute being heard by the property tribunal involves Penguin Marine, the company which bought the rights to provide boat travel to the islands.
With little business, it is trying to exit the contract, which involves paying an annual fee of just under £1 million to Nakheel.
Nahkeel say they will cash an advanced payment guarantee worth just over £1 million if that happens.
Penguin claim that work on the islands has "effectively stopped". Mr Wilmot-Smith described the project as "dead".
Graham Lovett, for Nakheel, said the project was not dead but admitted it was "in a coma".
"This is a ten-year project which has slowed down," he said. "This is a project which will be completed."
He said Penguin would make money eventually. "That's the price Penguin makes to stay in the game," he said. "They have the potential to earn millions."
The tribunal found for Nakheel on Thursday, saying it would give full reasoning later.
A spokesman for Nakheel insisted the islands were not sinking. "Our periodical monitoring survey over the past three years didn't observe any substantial erosion that requires sand nourishment," a statement said.
New Straits Times 24 Jan 11;
PUTRAJAYA: The Court of Appeal will hear businessman Anson Wong Keng Liang's appeal against his sentence for illegally exporting 95 reptiles.
A three-man bench led by Datuk Hasan Lah allowed Wong's leave application to appeal against the decision by a High Court.
Wong's counsel Datuk Muhammad Shafee Abdullah told reporters that a notice of appeal must be filed within 14 days after leave was obtained.
"However, we will file by today (Monday) for the appeal to be heard as soon as possible," he said.
The Court of Appeal also allowed three questions of law to be ventilated during appeal and judge Datuk Abdul Malik Ishak, a member of the panel, also indicated that the case would be expedited as the issue was on jail term.
On Sept 6, the magistrate's court sentenced Wong to six months' jail and fined him RM190,000 after he pleaded guilty to illegally exporting 95 boa constrictors without a permit at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Sepang at 8.50pm on Aug 26.
Wong, 52, an international wildlife trader, was at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport on transit from Penang to Jakarta when the snakes were found in his suitcase.
The prosecution filed an appeal for a heavier sentence following an outcry. On Nov 5, the High Court imposed a five-year jail term and revoked the fine, ordering it to be returned to Wong.
Stuart Michael and Christina Low The Star 25 Jan 11;
MANGROVE trees are still being logged in islands off Port Klang despite a ban by the Selangor government.
Selangor Forestry Department assistant director (operations and enforcement) Mohd Yussainy Md Yusop this showed that the thieves were not afraid of the authorities.
The department seized about 50,000 mangrove logs with an estimated value of RM500,000 in Pulau Ketam, off Port Klang, recently.
Yussainy said the thieves were defying the authorities by placing the logs at the same site.
“It is difficult to catch the thieves in action as they know how to evade the authorities because they know the area well.
“The thieves usually employ three or four foreigners in an island for a month to cut the trees and pile the logs near the river.
“The logs are shipped out by small boats during high tide and under the cover of darkness,” he said.
Yussainy said the middleman would provide food, water, gas and other necessities for the foreigners during the stay on the island.
“The foreigners are paid RM1 for each mangrove log,’’ he said.
During a joint operation by the State Forestry Department and Port Klang marine police recently,Yussainy and his team caught a middleman in his 40s who showed how the operation was carried out.
“We have caught the loggers and middleman but not the wholesaler. We are on the verge of busting the entire gang ring soon,’’ he said.
Port Klang marine police commanding officer Deputy Supt Norzaid Muhammad Said said his men would not give up and continue with more operations.
Norzaid said when the suspect took his men to a makeshift house built on stilts, the occupants had fled just minutes before the raid as a pot of rice was being cooked on the stove.
He said the mangrove area was important not only to preserve the environment but also to prevent floods or natural disasters such as a tsunami.
“Frequent patrolling in such areas is needed and we believe the culprits will return to the spots. As long as there is a demand for mangrove logs, illegal logging will continue,” he said.
Norzaid said the marine police would continue to work closely with the state Forestry Department to put an end to such activities.
“We may also consider changing our modus operandi in dealing with these illegal loggers,” said Norzaid.
One India News 24 Jan 11;
Mumbai, Jan 24 (PTI) The oil spill caused by the collision between two merchant vessels off the city coast las tyear has affected the regeneration of the mangrove vegetation,according to a study.
However, the mature stands of the most populated mangrove, Avicennia, was least affected by the marine disaster that occurred over five months ago, Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS), a city-based NGO, has said.
"Avicennia marina has survived through several decades of heavy pollutions at Mumbai coast. Its mature stands were least affected by the oil spill. However, the spill certainly affected the regeneration putting the entire population of mangroves at stake," Deepak Apte, BNHS Deputy Director(conservation) said in his interim report on "Study of impact of oil spill on mangroves of Mumbai and Raigad coast from August to November 2010."
The final report is expected in November as more seasonal data is required to attain a sound idea about impact on mangrove seedling establishment as well as faunal communities, Apte said.
"The collision and subsequent oil spill certainly caused significant disturbance to the marine and coastal habitats. The oil, which spread over about 12.73 sq km area,had its own serious consequences over the marine life."
The study also reported three dead Indo-Pacific Hump-backed Dolphins - two at Uran and one at Sasvane - both in adjoining Raigad district.
The mangrove community on Mumbai and surrounding coastal mudflats are dominated by Avicennia. (more) PTI LV RSYETB
Two cargo ships - MSC Chitra and MV Khalija - had collided on August 9. This had resulted in the release of an estimated 400 to 500 tonnes of fuel oil from their fuel tanks.
Following the crash, one of them, MSC Chitra, had tilted sharply and containers loaded on it had fallen into the sea.
As many as 31 of the 1,219 containers loaded on the vessels had hazardous chemicals, including pesticides.
The study covered oil spill affected coastal areas of Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Raigad districts including Colaba, Gharapuri, Vashi, Sewri, Karanja, Uran, Rewas, Mandava, Sasavane, Awas and Khim, Apte said
It said monitoring of ecologically sensitive species is important to assess the long-term impacts of the spill.
The reduction of oil content of the soil samples from August to September and from September to October varied largely from site to site. This can be attributed to the tidal movements and consequently oil being washed off from one place and getting deposited at the other, Apte added.
Yuen Meikeng, Zalinah Nordin and Allison Lai The Star 25 Jan 11;
PETALING JAYA: Excessive rain over the past few months has affected domestic vegetable production, pushing up prices by as much as 100%.
The production in Cameron Highlands - the nation’s largest vegetable producer - has dropped by 20%, said Malaysian Vegetable Growers Association secretary-general Chay Ee Mong.
The frequent rain has made it difficult for farmers in Ringlet, Tanah Rata, Brinchang and Kampung Raja to plant vegetables.
Vegetable farms most affected by the weather and other contributing factors are the ones growing cabbage, lettuce, leek, red chilli, lotus roots, Chinese parsley, spring onion and coriander.
This has resulted in their prices increasing by between 30% and 100%.
The highest vegetable price increase is registered in Penang where the price of spring onion has more than doubled from RM4 per kilo to RM9 per kilo.
Chay said other factors influencing the price increase were shortage of foreign labour and frequent natural disasters in vegetable supplying countries.
He said the supply of vegetables also depends on foreign imports and with China hit by floods recently, price increase could not be avoided.
“The bad weather is also compounded by the shortage of workers. There are not many foreign workers in the agriculture sector because they generally do not want to work in farms,” he said.
He said the situation was expected to improve later this month as the weather improved.
In Penang, checks at the Bayan Baru, Batu Lanchang and Cecil Street markets showed that the price of Chinese parsley has increased from RM6 per kilo last week to RM10 per kilo, spring onion from RM4 per kilo to RM9 per kilo and coriander from RM7 per kilo to RM10 per kilo.
Lim Kooi Seng, a vegetable dealer at the Batu Lancang market, said he would normally sell 30kg of Chinese parsley, spring onion and coriander per day but due to short supply he could only get less than 10kg daily now.
He also said that the price of lotus root, cabbage and romaine lettuce from China had shot up.
“Previously, lotus root was RM8 per kilo.
“Now it’s RM13 per kilo and the price of romaine lettuce has doubled to RM4 per kilo.”
Sui-Lee Wee and Niu Shuping PlanetArk 25 Jan 11;
Most of China's wheat-growing areas in the north are suffering from drought with some seeing no rain for more than three months while the second most important wheat province of Shandong is facing its worst drought in a century.
Experts say that if the drought goes on over coming weeks, with no effective measures to combat it, the winter wheat crop, which accounts for more than 90 percent of the country's wheat harvest, could be hurt significantly.
Guo Tiancai, deputy chief of the agriculture ministry's wheat experts group, said the dry weather had not hurt the winter crop for now, as earlier irrigation was providing enough moisture.
"But as the temperature warms up in spring and wheat grows faster, any measures which are not in place during the period could cause big losses to the final yield ... immeasurable losses."
He urged authorities and farmers to ensure crops are watered at the appropriate time, with spring coming next month, adding the coming four months would be crucial for wheat. His speech was posted on the ministry's web site (www.moa.gov.cn).
In the Shandong cities of Linyi, Rizhao and Weifang, the dry spell has lowered reservoirs so dramatically that authorities are using fire trucks to deliver daily drinking water to residents, the China Daily reported.
Shandong's provincial flood control and drought relief headquarters has warned that the number of people affected could rise to 300,000 if precipitation does not come soon, the newspaper added.
More than 240,000 people are facing drinking water shortages.
Over the weekend, Premier Wen Jiabao toured another drought-hit region, the central province of Henan and also the country's top wheat area and pledged that the government would build more water-saving projects this year, the Communist Party mouthpiece the People's Daily said.
Drought has affected winter wheat crops in 17 percent of China's wheat-growing areas in the country's northern bread basket, and dry weather is forecast to go on for some time, the government said last month.
Meanwhile, parts of southern China have been hit by freezing rain and heavy snow, affecting crops and causing traffic disruptions.
A cold snap with freezing rain and snow is likely to hit many parts of southwestern China in the middle of this week, the People's Daily said, citing weather forecasters.
The extreme weather comes amid a government campaign to fight rising food costs -- the main driver of Chinese inflation -- which have picked up again in recent weeks.
The capital Beijing, still without snow this winter, looks likely to break a 60-year record for the latest date for its first snowfall, with little prospect of snow in the week ahead, the People's Daily said.
(Editing by Robert Birsel)
China drought threatens water supplies: media
Yahoo News 24 Jan 11;
BEIJING (AFP) – A months-long dry spell across northern China is threatening drinking water supplies and crops, and more bone-dry conditions are expected, state media said Monday.
The capital Beijing has had no significant precipitation in more than three months, the longest such spell in the city in 40 years, the Beijing Times said.
The dry conditions in Shandong province along the northeastern coast are the worst in more than 60 years and have left hundreds of thousands of people facing drinking water shortages, the China Daily reported.
Northern China has for years battled a water shortage that experts say is caused by global warming, drought, and surging consumption, especially among the tens of millions of people who live in Beijing and booming adjacent areas.
About 90 percent of winter wheat seedlings around the sprawling city of 20 million have wilted dangerously, the Beijing Times quoted the city weather bureau's climate chief Chen Dagang as saying.
City reservoirs that had dwindled for years were expected to be particularly hard-hit this year by the lack of replenishing winter snows and no end in sight to the dry conditions, it quoted Beijing's water resources bureau as saying.
Rainfall in heavily-populated Shandong has dropped by 86 percent since October and as many as 300,000 people could soon face water shortages, up from the current 240,000, the China Daily said, quoting drought relief officials.
In some areas, local authorities have sent fire trucks to deliver drinking water to citizens, it said.
Authorities have launched a project to divert water from a tributary of the Yangtze River -- China's longest -- in the central part of the country to help alleviate the north's water woes.
Water was originally due to begin flowing from the central line to Beijing by 2010 but was postponed to 2014 largely due to the issues arising from the resettlement of people affected by the huge undertaking, media reports have said.
Crop warning over China drought
BBC News 24 Jan 11;
A prolonged dry spell in parts of northern, central and eastern China is threatening both crops and water supplies, Chinese state media says.
Shandong province is experiencing its driest weather for 60 years.
Half the wheat-growing land there is affected, while almost a quarter of a million people face drinking water shortages, the China Daily said.
Beijing has also been experiencing its longest dry spell for more than 30 years, another state daily said.
The Chinese capital has had no significant rainfall for three months, the Beijing Times reported.
Analysts say this drought is likely to put further pressure on food prices, which have been rising sharply for months.
'Big losses'
Earlier this month, the authorities pledged $15bn (£9.4bn; 98.6bn yuan) in support to help farmers cope with the effect of the drought.
Guo Tiancai, a wheat expert at the agriculture ministry, said that although measures to date were providing adequate irrigation for the winter wheat crop, further drought would be damaging.
"As the temperature warms up in spring and wheat grows faster, any measures which are not in place during the period could cause big losses to the final yield... immeasurable losses," he wrote in a notice on the ministry's website.
In Shandong, many areas had seen no rain for four months, the provincial water bureau said. Fire trucks were being used to deliver water to 240,000 people and 107,000 livestock.
The northern provinces of Shanxi and Hebei have also experienced lower than average rainfall, while the central province of Henan is facing drought.
Visiting Henan at the weekend, Premier Wen Jiabao called for more investment in technologies aimed at reducing the impact of drought, China Daily said.
Forecasters say the dry weather could continue well into the spring.
Yahoo News 25 Jan 11;
LONDON (AFP) – The world needs fundamental changes to the global food system to feed the expanding population, according to a British government report out Monday on how to feed the planet until 2050.
Governments must take action to change dietary habits, cut waste, reduce subsidies and embrace genetically modified food, said the "Global Food and Farming Futures" report.
The study led by Professor John Beddington, the British government's chief scientific adviser, said that with the global population forecast to reach nine billion in 40 years' time, radical changes were needed to a system already struggling to feed the existing population.
"With the global population set to rise and food prices likely to increase, it is crucial that a wide range of complementary actions from policy makers, farmers and businesses are taken now," Beddington said.
"Urgent change is required throughout the food system to bring sustainability centre stage and end hunger. It is also vital for other areas, such as climate change mitigation, conflict, and economic growth."
The report found that the threat of hunger could increase, saying that current efforts were already stalling and food prices could rise substantially over the next 40 years.
As hunger spreads, the threat of migration and conflict will increase, while wider economic growth would also be affected, it said.
The global food system is already living beyond its means, consuming resources faster than they can be replenished, it said.
Substantial changes to water and energy use and addressing climate change are needed to bring about sustainability, the report found.
It also warned that there was "no quick fix" to the problems.
Beddington said the world's food system was already failing on two counts.
"Firstly, it is unsustainable, with resources being used faster than they can be naturally replenished," he said.
"Secondly, a billion people are going hungry with another billion people suffering from 'hidden hunger', whilst a billion people are over-consuming."
The report said that new technologies such as genetic modification, cloned livestock and nanotechnology "should not be excluded a priori on ethical or moral grounds" and have the potential to be "very valuable for the poorest people in low-income countries".
Meanwhile investment in technology research is "essential" given the magnitude of the food security challenges ahead.
Britain's Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said the report showed ways to unlock an "agricultural revolution in the developing world".
New strategies would "benefit the poorest the most, simply by improving access to knowledge and technology, creating better access to markets and investing in infrastructure".
Britain's International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell said that "with one seventh of the world's population still hungry, the report was a clarion call to arms".
Report: Urgent action needed to avert global hunger
Pallab Ghosh BBC News 24 Jan 11;
A UK government-commissioned study into food security has called for urgent action to avert global hunger.
The Foresight Report on Food and Farming Futures says the current system is unsustainable and will fail to end hunger unless radically redesigned.
It is the first study across a range of disciplines deemed to have put such fears on a firm analytical footing.
The report is the culmination of a two-year study, involving 400 experts from 35 countries.
According to the government's chief scientific adviser, Professor Sir John Beddington, the study provides compelling evidence for governments to act now.
The report emphasises changes to farming, to ensure that increasing yields does not come at the expense of sustainability and to provide incentives to the agricultural sector that address malnutrition.
It also recommends that the most resource-intensive types of food are curbed and that waste is minimised in food production.
"We know in the next 20 years the world population will increase to something like 8.3 billion people," he told BBC News.
"We know that urbanisation is going to be a driver and that something of the order of 65-70% of the world's population will be living in cities at that time.
"We know that the world is getting more prosperous and that the demand for basic commodities - food, water and energy - will be rising as that prosperity increases, increasing at the same time as the population."
He warned: "We have 20 years to arguably deliver something of the order of 40% more food; 30% more available fresh water and of the order of 50% more energy.
"We can't wait 20 years or 10 years indeed - this is really urgent."
Radical changes
Professor Beddington commissioned the study and was among the first to warn of "a perfect storm" of a growing population, climate change and diminishing resources for food production.
The Foresight report says that the food production system will need to be radically changed, not just to produce more food but to produce it sustainably.
"There is an urgency in taking what may be very difficult policy decisions," the authors say.
"(But) 925 million people suffer hunger and perhaps a further billion lack micronutrients. The task is difficult because the food system is working for the majority of people but those at risk of hunger have least influence on decision-making."
Professor Beddington also said he viewed the billion people who overeat and are therefore obese as another symptom of the failure of the food production system to deliver good health and well-being to the world's growing population.
The report says that "piecemeal" changes are not an option: "Nothing less is required than a redesign of the whole food system to bring sustainability to the fore."
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The authors are calling for food and agriculture to move up the political agenda and be co-ordinated with efforts to tackle the impact of climate change, water and energy supplies and the loss of farm land.
They also warn that there is no "silver bullet" that will solve the problem but concerted action is needed on many fronts.
Facing reality
Professor Beddington said: "We've got to actually face up to the fact that this is a complicated problem which involves vastly different levels of society and we need to be persuading policy makers not to think about food in isolation, not to think about climate change in isolation, not to think about water in isolation, not to think about energy in isolation. All of them are intimately related."
The report adds that new research can play an important role. It also says that the use of any particular technology, such as genetic modification, cloning and nanotechnology should not be ruled out. But it acknowledges that there is resistance to the application of controversial technologies.
"Achieving a strong evidence base (of the safety or otherwise) in controversial areas is not enough. Genuine public debate needs to play a crucial role," the report says.
However, by assessing 40 success stories from Africa the report authors say the spread of existing best-practice could treble food production.
"Ending hunger is one of the greatest challenges to be considered by this project," the report observes.
It calls for protection of the poorest from sharp price increases through government intervention and greater liberalisation of the trade in food in order to offset market volatility.
They also note that China has invested heavily in agriculture and is consequently one of the few countries to have met the Millenium Development Goal (MDG) of halving hunger.
The report also calls for new measures to hold governments and food producers to account. This would involve developing objective measures on how well they are doing to reduce hunger, combat climate change and environmental degradation and boosting food production.
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 25 Jan 11;
World efforts to slow deforestation should do more to address underlying causes such as rising demand for crops or biofuels, widening from a U.N. focus on using trees to fight climate change, a study said Monday.
It said a series of projects to protect forests had had limited success in recent decades -- U.N. figures show that 13 million hectares (32 million acres) of forest were lost every year from 2000-09, an area equivalent to the size of Greece.
The report by the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) suggested that the current U.N.-led efforts to protect forests had too narrow a focus on promoting trees as stores of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas.
"Our findings suggest that disregarding the impact of forests on sectors such as agriculture and energy will doom any new international efforts whose goal is to conserve forests and slow climate change," said Jeremy Rayner, who chaired the IUFRO panel and is a professor at the University of Saskatchewan.
Deforestation accounts for perhaps 10 percent of all emissions of greenhouse gases from human activities. Trees soak up carbon as they grow but release it when they burn or decay.
The IUFRO study said a key problem was that deforestation, from the Amazon to the Congo, was often caused by economic pressures far away. A popular global brand of cookies, for instance, uses palm oil grown on deforested land in Indonesia.
COMPLEXITY
IUFRO urged policies of "embracing complexity" to help protect forests, including educating consumers, rather than rely on a one-size-fits-all mechanism such as carbon storage.
It called for better efforts, for instance, to aid indigenous peoples, whose livelihoods depend on healthy forests.
Among promising measures were amendments to the U.S. Lacey Act, which makes it illegal to import wood known to come from stolen timber. Brazil, for instance, has enacted procedures to tackle deforestation in the Amazon, it said.
The IUFRO report will be issued at U.N. talks in New York this week marking the start of the U.N.'s International Year of Forests.
Almost 200 nations agreed at a meeting in Cancun, Mexico, last month to step up efforts to protect forests with a plan that aims to put a price on the carbon stored in trees, while helping indigenous peoples and promoting sustainable use.
Authors of the IUFRO study said that the U.N. plan, known as REDD+, was promising. "Our worry is that this won't be enough," Benjamin Cashore, a forestry expert at Yale University and an IUFRO author, told Reuters.
He said that governments often simplistically placed too much faith in the lastest idea, like carbon markets.
He said many past schemes had failed to brake deforestation, such as boycotts of some timber in the 1980s by rich consumers, or an international tropical timber agreement that sought to unite producers and consumers.
(With extra reporting by David Fogarty in Singapore)
Forest accords not saving trees, experts
Yahoo News 24 Jan 11;
NEW YORK (AFP) – International accords on saving vulnerable forests are having little impact because they do not attack the core causes such as growing demand for biofuels and food crops, a new report said.
With Africa and South American alone losing 7.4 million hectares (18.3 million acres) of forest a year, the International Union of Forest Research Organizations (IUFRO) said a drastic change of policy is needed by the United Nations and governments.
Sixty international experts said in the report, to be presented at a UN forum this week, that too much attention is being put on forests as a store of carbon dioxide, the main gas blamed for global warming.
Deforestation accounts for about a quarter of the global greenhouse gas emissions each year which are blamed for rising temperatures. Live trees act as a sponge for carbon but give it off when they decay or are burned.
"Our findings suggest that disregarding the impact on forests of sectors such as agriculture and energy will doom any new international efforts whose goal is to conserve forests and slow climate change," said Jeremy Rayner of the University of Saskatchewan and chairman of the IUFRO report panel.
Even the most recent UN backed initiative, Reducing Deforestation in Developing countries (REDD) is criticized because the panel said it seeks a single global solution.
The experts said that REDD and other international accords should concentrate on helping known as REDD, should focus more on supporting regional and national efforts to save the forests at risk.
"Unless all sectors work together to address the impact of global consumption, including growing demand for food and biofuels, and problems of land scarcity, REDD will fail to arrest environmental degradation and will heighten poverty," said Constance McDermott of Oxford University?s Environmental Change Institute.
The experts praised initiatives in Asia and Europe which they said should be copied elsewhere.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) has developed a regional standard for monitoring illegal logging and also set up a special system for forest-related research.
"The hope is that such a process will allow decision-makers to learn from the mistakes of the past," said the IUFRO report.
Among other "bright spots", IUFRO pointed to a US law which makes it illegal to import wood known to come from stolen timber.
The European Union is making a similar effort to halt illegal wood imports through "due diligence" investigations, which has led to partnerships with major exporters such as Cameroon.
Brazil, long the target of an international campaign to reverse its forest destruction, has enacted new environmental and policy reforms that have the potential to slow forest loss in the Amazon Basin, IUFRO said.
The report is to be presented to the UN Forum on Forests this week as part of the launch of the International Year of Forests.
Juliane von Reppert-Bismarck Yahoo News 24 Jan 11;
Jatropha, a biofuel-producing plant once touted as a wonder-crop, is turning out to be much less dependable than first thought, both environmentalists and industry players say.
Some biofuel producers found themselves agreeing with many of the criticisms detailed in a report launched by campaign group Friends of the Earth this week -- "Jatropha: money doesn't grow on trees."
Jatropha has been widely heralded as a wonder plant whose cultivation on non-arable land in Africa, Asia and Latin America would provide biodiesel and jobs in poor countries without using farmland needed to feed growing numbers of local people.
"The plant can withstand dry conditions, low nutrient levels and exposed conditions," according to the website of the Netherlands-based Jatropha Investment Fund. "Many desert areas and land which is not currently cultivated will be very suitable for the establishment of plantations."
But some biofuels producers have found the plant less robust than first thought.
"Jatropha is not the miracle crop that many people think it is," said Dominic Fava, business development manager of British biofuels firm D1 Oils, which processes jatropha grown in Asia and Africa.
Other company managers say that while the plant needs no irrigation, high yields depend on good soil and chemical additives.
"The idea that jatropha can be grown on marginal land is a red herring," Harry Stourton, Business Development Director of UK-based Sun Biofuels, which cultivates jatropha in Mozambique and Tanzania, told Reuters.
"It does grow on marginal land, but if you use marginal land you'll get marginal yields," he said.
Sun Biofuels estimates its Mozambique plantation, once it matures in two years, may yield two tonnes of oil per hectare of jatropha, and notes it is grown with fertilizers and pesticides on the fertile land of former tobacco fields.
"It is perhaps inappropriate to be offering guaranteed returns at such a stage of domestication, when we've still got a lot to learn about this crop," said Fava.
The report was launched amid a heated debate in the European Union about biofuels, which critics charge are competing for land with food crops and creating unwanted side-effects around the globe.
"It's good that developers agree jatropha is no wonder-crop. But it means they'll grow on fertile land," said Christine Pohl, author of the report.
"We think such land should be used for food production, particularly in light of growing populations and in light of global food insecurity," she said.
(Editing by Tim Pearce)
Laura MacInnis PlanetArk 25 Jan 11;
Natural disasters caused $109 billion in economic damage last year, three times more than in 2009, with Chile and China bearing most of the cost, the United Nations said Monday.
The 8.8-magnitude earthquake that struck Chile in February cost $30 billion. Landslides and floods last summer in China caused $18 billion in losses, data compiled by the Center for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED) showed.
Although Haiti's January 12 earthquake was the deadliest event of 2010, killing 316,000 people according to the government in Port-au-Prince, its economic toll was $8 billion. The July-August floods in Pakistan cost $9.5 billion.
Margareta Wahlstrom, the U.N. assistant secretary-general for disaster risk reduction, said fast-developing countries were facing increasing price tags from natural disasters.
"The accumulated wealth that is affected by disaster events is growing," she told a news briefing in Geneva, where most of the U.N.'s emergency and aid operations are based.
Cities are particularly vulnerable to big economic losses when poorly-maintained infrastructure is rattled by earthquakes or exposed to big storms, Wahlstrom said.
"With more extreme weather events, and more earthquakes in urban areas, the state of repair or disrepair in urban areas is really critical," she said.
CLIMATE CHANGE
The most populous cities on earthquake fault lines include Mexico City, New York, Mumbai, Delhi, Shanghai, Kolkata, Jakarta and Tokyo, according to the U.N.'s International Strategy for Disaster Reduction.
Many people also live in parts of urban areas vulnerable to landslides and floods, which are anticipated to occur more often as a result of climate change, Wahlstrom said, also warning of rising risks from "silent events" like droughts.
Of the 373 disasters recorded last year, 22 were in China, 16 were in India and 14 were in the Philippines, CRED said.
The storms, earthquakes, heatwaves and cold snaps affected 207 million people and killed 296,800, according to the data, which does not incorporate an increase of Haiti's death toll announced earlier this month by Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive.
The global toll estimates that 55,736 people died from a summer heatwave in Russia which led to crop failures and helped drive up food prices.
It also says 2,968 people were killed in an April earthquake in China and 1,985 died from the Pakistani floods.
The 2009 economic price tag of $34.9 billion was unusually low because of the lack of a major weather or climate event in the period, which nonetheless saw floods and typhoons in Asia and an earthquake in Indonesia.
A major earthquake in China in 2008 caused $86 billion in damage, bringing that year's economic toll to approximately $200 billion. In 2005, the hurricanes that struck the southern United States drove up the global disaster toll to nearly $250 billion.
The economic cost estimates are based on data from national authorities as well as insurance companies including Swiss Re, Munich Re and Lloyd's. CRED is part of the University of Louvain in Belgium and maintains a database of international disasters for the United Nations.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
2010 'one of worst' years for disasters: UN
Yahoo News 24 Jan 11;
GENEVA (AFP) – 2010 was one of the worst years on record for natural disasters over the past two decades, leaving nearly 297,000 people dead, research for the United Nations showed on Monday.
The devastating earthquake in Haiti a year ago accounted for about two thirds of the toll, killing more than 222,500 people, according to the Belgium-based Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED).
The CRED found that the summer heatwave in Russia was the second deadliest disaster of the year, leaving 55,736 people dead according to figures it compiled from insurers and media reports of official sources.
The year was "one of the worst in decades in terms of the number of people killed and in terms of economic losses," Margareta Wahlstroem, UN special representative for disaster risk reduction, told journalists.
"These figures are bad, but could be seen as benign in years to come," she said, pointing to the impact of unplanned growth of urban areas, environmental degradation and climate change.
The economic cost of the 373 major disasters recorded in 2010 reached 109 billion dollars, headed by an estimated 30 billion dollars in damage caused by the powerful earthquake that struck Chile in February.
The earthquake unleashed a tsunami that swept away villages and claimed most of the 521 dead.
Summer floods and landslides in China caused an estimated 18 billion dollars in damage, while floods in Pakistan cost 9.5 billion dollars, according to the CRED's annual study.
Although impoverished Haiti is still struggling to recover from the quake that devastated much of the capital, Port-au-Prince, it ranked lower down the global economic scale with an estimated eight billion dollars in losses.
Asians accounted for 89 percent of the 207 million people affected by disasters worldwide last year, the CRED said.
Disaster Risk Reduction Critical After Deadliest Year in Decades
Environmental News Service 24 Jan 11;
WASHINGTON, DC, January 24, 2011 (ENS) - Recognizing "increasing disaster risks due to climate change and rapid urban development," the World Bank and South Korea's National Emergency Management Agency on Friday signed an agreement to strengthen cooperation, and facilitate international partnership for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
"We embark on a longer term partnership for reducing natural disaster risks faced by disaster prone countries in Asia and Pacific," said Dr. Yeon-Soo Park, NEMA's administrator.
Park said a Centre of Excellence will be created in Korea "for supporting countries on disaster risk reduction." The partners also will create a web-based regional platform for disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation.
James Adams, the World Bank's vice president for East Asia and the Pacific, said the partnership "creates new opportunities for utilizing Korea's superior experience in disaster risk reduction and climate change adaptation and sharing it with other disaster prone countries in the region while offering a platform for Korea and the World Bank to jointly strengthen their assistance in the field."
The Asia Pacific region is extremely vulnerable to the impacts of natural disasters. In East Asia and Pacific alone, over the past two decades, floods, typhoons and earthquakes have affected two million people, killing nearly 90,000 and causing damages of more than US$151 billion.
This kind of action is needed urgently in view of the fact that last year the world experienced the highest number of disaster-related casualties in at least two decades, the United Nations' top disaster reduction official said today at UN headquarters in New York.
"Unless we act now, we will see more and more disasters due to unplanned urbanization and environmental degradation. And weather-related disasters are sure to rise in the future, due to factors that include climate change," said Margareta Wahlstrom, who heads the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, the UN body that coordinates efforts to achieve reduction in disaster losses and build resilient nations and communities.
Some 373 natural disasters claimed the lives of more than 296,800 people last year, affecting nearly 208 million people and costing nearly $110 billion, according to annual data compiled by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters, CRED, of the Universite catholique de Louvain in Belgium, Wahlstrom said.
The January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti killed more than 222,500 people, while the Russian summer heat wave caused about 56,000 fatalities, making these events the two deadliest of the year.
"These figures are bad, but could be seen as benign in years to come," said Wahlstrom, who also serves as UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon's Special Representative for Disaster Risk Reduction.
"It's critical for local governments, city leaders and their partners to incorporate climate change adaptation in urban planning," Wahlstrom said, stressing that disaster risk reduction is no longer optional.
CRED's data shows that for the first year, the Americas were the world's worst affected continents in terms of fatalities, with 75 percent of total deaths caused by the earthquake in Haiti.
Europe was the region with the second highest number of deaths, with the heat wave in Russia accounting for nearly a fifth of 2010's total fatalities.
Other extreme climate events in Europe included Storm Xynthia last February, floods in France in June and the extreme winter conditions all over Europe throughout December.
Asia experienced fewer disaster-related deaths with 4.7 percent of total fatalities, but remained the region most prone to natural disasters. An estimated 89 percent of the total number of people affected by natural disasters last year resided in Asia.
Five of the 10 most deadly disasters occurred in China, Pakistan, and Indonesia. Earthquakes killed almost 3,000 people in China in April and 530 people in Indonesia in October.
Between May and August, floods killed more than 1,500 people in China, and another 1,765 were killed by mudslides, landslides or rock fall triggered by heavy rainfall and floods in August.
Nearly 2,000 people died in Pakistan's massive floods. Flood-related destruction in Pakistan was estimated at $9.5 billion.
Floods and landslides during the summer in China are estimated to have cost $18 billion in losses
The Haiti earthquake caused damage worth $8 billion, according to the CRED data.
The costliest event in 2010, however, was the earthquake in Chile in February, with damages valued at $30 billion.
The other two years when natural disasters caused higher losses were 2005, when damages from Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma alone amounted to $139 billion; and 2008, when the earthquake in Sichuan, China, caused $86 billion worth of damages, a figure than brought the total losses for that year to about $200 billion.
China's £1.1bn desalination plant is just the latest megaproject in its increasingly desperate race against water shortages
Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk 24 Jan 11;
The highest-tech effort yet to ease China's water crisis sits between a wide, flat grid of salt farms and two giant cooling towers that rise up from a vast expanse of reclaimed land on the western shore of the Bohai Sea.
Odourless, quiet and billowing clear white smoke into a sharp blue sky, the Beijiang desalination and power plant contrast sharply with the tangled pipes, dirty chimneys and foul waterways more usually associated with China's traditional industrial landscape.
The 12.1bn yuan (£1.1bn) facility is the most advanced of a series of showcase megaprojects rising up in the Tianjin-Binhai development zone. This stretch of coastline is at the forefront of the government's ambitious and costly attempt to use science and technology to shift China on to a more sustainable path of development. A 10-minute drive away, a cluster of cranes and half-completed towers marks the site of the country's most ambitious eco-city project, which aims to create a community the size of Bristol from scratch within 10 years. Further on, another giant construction site marks the emergence of what looks set to be the world's first industrial-scale experiment of cutting-edge coal gasification and carbon-capture technology.
But while those projects are works in progress, the desalination plant is already operational, and as such gives an indication of the enormous financial and technical challenges facing China's attempted transition.
Engineers from the operating company – the State Development and Investment Corporation – say the facility is the biggest and most advanced of its type in Asia.
It combines a Chinese ultra-supercritical power plant with state-of-the-art Israeli desalination equipment to generate 400MW of coal-fired electricity and supply 200,000 cubic metres of salt-free potable water from the sea.
To avoid the usual environmental problems associated with desalination, the plant collects – and sells – the salt derived from the seawater, rather than discharging it back into the ocean. While other plants are energy-intensive, Tianjin's engineers boast of a more efficient use of coal, because excess steam that would otherwise be emitted from the thermal power plant is instead run through pipes in seawater distillation chambers.
But it is leaking money. Since it began operations last April, the plant has never run at more than a quarter of capacity. The plant's owner has yet to sign supply deals with three local utilities.
"The plant is not profitable at present. But as the economy develops, its value will increase," said Guo Qigang, the general manager. "Desalination provides value for society, it bolsters economic development and contributes to the environment because it prevents overdrawing of underground water."
As is the case for the one-third of Chinese wind turbines that are not yet connected to the grid, supply from the desalination plant is being partly held up by the shortcomings of the distribution infrastructure. Unless extra minerals are added, the purified water can damage existing pipes, and often appears yellow when it comes out of the taps.
But the main problem is cost. Companies are reluctant to switch from the cheaper water that can be pumped from rivers, lakes and aquifers, even though these traditional sources are straining from decades of overutilisation. The price of a cubic metre of desalinated water is 8 yuan, compared to the normal 5 yuan tariff in Tianjin.
Industry sources say the utilities are also worried that once they accept expensive desalinated water, there will be no going back.
"They don't want to give up the old resources because they know they won't get permission to use them again," said Wang Shichang, head of the desalination research centre at Tianjin University. "But the delay won't last long. China is working on plans to further develop desalination, because we face scarce water resources and rising demand."
Tianjin has a chronic shortage. Drought, overuse and pollution have left its population of 10 million with just a 10th of the water of the average global citizen.
Vast expanses of northern China, including Beijing, face much the same problem, with an accumulated water deficit of 200bn cubic metres. Until now, it has has been made up by the steady depletion of non-renewable aquifers.
To head off a looming crisis, the government is resorting to ever more desperate and expensive measures, including the world's biggest hydro-engineering project – the South-North Water Diversion Project – which aims to divert part of the flow of the Yangtze along three massive channels. This scheme has been plagued by contamination fears, cost overruns and resettlement difficulties that have left it several years behind schedule and unlikely to undercut desalination on price.
No solution is going to be cheap or easy. Environmentalists warn that even with advances in technology, seawater is not the best answer to China's problems. Desalination plants put pressure on marine ecosystems, create extra demand for coal and water and, critics say, distract attention from the more important goals of improving efficiency, conserving resources and reducing carbon dioxide emissions.
Other sceptics contrarily deride the megaprojects in Tianjin as Potemkin eco-showcases that mask a broader trend of waste and environmental destruction. They say these problems would be better addressed by applying market principles to water prices, which are currently among the lowest in the world due to government caps.
Holding down prices will be more difficult in the future as the Politburo – which is dominated by Communist party engineers – adopts increasingly expensive supply-side strategies to ease the pressure on the environment.
Guo Youzhi, head of the China Desalination Association, predicts the next five-year economic plan, due this spring, will ramp up incentives for alternative supplies of energy and water and set a target of 2m cubic metres of desalinated water per day, up 150% from current levels.
Researchers are also looking into the possibility of piping desalinated water 150km to Beijing, which is the biggest urban drain on conventional resources.
Market analysts foresee steady expansion.
"We think China will build an additional 20 plants. They have to," said Simon Powell, head of sustainable research at the CLSA brokerage. "We think tariffs will go up and desalination costs will come down so it will be profitable in future."
But he cautioned that even this would not solve China's water problems. "All the planned desalination plants will at best supply only half of Beijing's water. It's a drop in the ocean."
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