Best of our wild blogs: 30 Jan 11

The Harlequin: Butterfly of the Month - January 2011
from Butterflies of Singapore

Erythropalum scandens: A most royal liana
from Flying Fish Friends

An albino Red Junglefowl
from Bird Ecology Study Group and Red Junglefowl at Tanjong Pagar, Singapore

Mount Faber Park On 22 Jan 2011
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

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Take a stroll to Sentosa island

Jason Tan Channel NewsAsia 29 Jan 11;

SINGAPORE: Sentosa is now just a stroll away from VivoCity, with the opening of the Sentosa boardwalk.

And travelling to the island on foot could now be a more fun experience.

This S$70 million boardwalk is lined with themed gardens, shops and eateries.

It is convenient for the elderly and handicapped too.

There are travellators and a covered walkway for rainy days.

To encourage more people to walk to Sentosa, the entrance fee to the island for those who enter on foot will only be S$1.

Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean was on site to launch the new walkway.

"The boardwalk is a wonderful way of connecting Singapore together with the main island. It allows both Singaporeans and tourists an additional way of getting onto Sentosa to enjoy its delights. But it's also a place where Singaporeans and tourists can come to enjoy the view, the many facilities here at the boardwalk," he said.

So far, the boardwalk has been a hit with visitors.

"I think it's good, another experience, very nice, and it's sheltered," said a visitor.

"I like it, very beautiful. The first time I'm here," said another.

"It's a lot healthier to actually walk on foot. And I think it also helps to alleviate some of the traffic conditions. As you can see it can get crowded sometimes during the rush hours over here," said a third visitor.

- CNA/ir

Boardwalk link to Sentosa opens
Melissa Lin Straits Times 30 Jan 11;

Instead of taking the cable car, train or bus, visitors to Sentosa can now stroll across a new boardwalk linking the mainland to the island.

The Sentosa Boardwalk, officially opened by Deputy Prime Minister Teo Chee Hean yesterday, will help the island cope with an increase in the number of visitors.

Apart from the footbridge, on which construction began in July 2009, the building of a cableway on the island will also start later this year, said Mr Mike Barclay, chief executive officer of Sentosa Development Corporation.

'It will run through the spine of the island, so it offers more transportation within the island,' he said, adding that there will be three stations and that the project will take about two years to complete.

In his speech at yesterday's opening, DPM Teo said the outlook for Singapore's tourism sector is promising.

'We expect to meet our target of 11.5 to 12.5 million visitors for the year 2010. If achieved, it will be our highest number,' he added.

Among the festivities at the launch were dance performances and a fireworks display.

A new Singapore record was also set when 680 members of the public stood in a row, one in front of the other, and created the nation's first foot-to-foot chain.

Mr Mohd Sahari Ibrahim, 51, and his family were the first to set foot on the boardwalk. The courier, his wife and three children started queueing at 3.30pm, although the boardwalk was scheduled to be opened only at 5.30pm.

'We wanted to be the first to see the new addition to Sentosa,' he said.

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Thailand's reefs: Green groups say government slow to act on coral

Bangkok Post 30 Jan 11;

The government has sat for four years on a master plan to save the nation's coral, and has yet to put money into it, wildlife officials and conservationists say.

The Office of Natural Resources and Environmental Policy and Planning drew up a master plan on coral reef management in 2007, but it has never been implemented, said Thorn Thamrongnawasawat, a marine conservationist and head of Kasetsart University's marine science department.

The draft contains several measures on sustainable management of coral reefs, such as regulating diving and tourism activities, a zoning plan to preserve ecologically fragile areas, proposals to handle the coral-bleaching phenomenon, and financing coral conservation projects.

"The government has no reason to wait. The plan has been completed for several years. All it lacks is money," said Dr Thorn.

A budget of two billion baht might be needed, which he insisted was not a large sum.

"It's not much compared to the revenue earned from tourism and fisheries, which rely on marine resources," the marine biologist told a seminar on coral reef management held by the For Sea Foundation in Bangkok on Friday.

Delegates came up with a list of proposals on coral reef protection which they will put to Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva on Tuesday.

They also urged the government to improve sea water quality, crack down on illegal fisheries, tackle the problem of sedimentation, and raise public awareness on marine life preservation.

Songtham Suksawang, director of the National Parks, Wildlife and Plant Conservation Department's national parks research division, said staff were finding it hard to enforce marine resources protection regulations amid staff shortages and protests from business groups.

"If we impose tough measures, business operators will resist," he said.

The department may increase entrance fees at marine national parks to raise funds to care for natural resources.

Saran Kittiwannakul, president of the For Sea Foundation, said local people were key players in coral protection.

The residents of Koh Tao in Surat Thani province have come up with projects to protect the island's environment, such as holding beach-cleaning days twice a month, he said.

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PM: Malaysia keen to list Sabah's Maliau Basin as a world heritage site

Muguntan Vanar The Star 29 Jan 11;

MALIAU BASIN (SABAH): Malaysia is very keen to list Sabah's Lost World, the Maliau Basin as a world heritage site.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak, in endorsing the state government's proposal, said that a World Heritage listing by UNESCO would bring immediate world attention and interest in the 58,400-hectare untouched tropical rainforest, just slightly smaller than Singapore.

He said the heritage listing of Mount Kinabalu National Park, George Town, Gunung Mulu National Park and Malacca had seen a jump in worldwide interest in such areas of natural or historical importance.

However, he said there was a lot of work to be done to obtain such a World Heritage status as the government and various had to meet with various guidelines to be able to meet the requirements of Unesco in listing it as a world heritage site.

“I would support the Chief Minister in getting this place listed as a world heritage site," he told reporters after becoming the first Prime Minister to step foot in the Maliau Basin where he opened the Maliau Basin Studies Centre and also launched the study of the Stability of Altered Forest Eco-Systems (SAFE) conducted by Royal Socieity of UK and sponsored by Sime Darby Foundation.

Najib said that Maliau Basin was becoming an integral part of an ecological experiment in an area that contained rare flora and fauna, including six types of pitcher plants and more then 80 species of orchids and endangered wildlife, from rhinocerous to orang utans.

''Only about 25% of Maliau Basin has been explored. From four major expeditions between 1986 to 2005, we learned it has the greatest number of waterfalls any where in Malaysia.

“About 40 of them, in all, including the famous seven-tiered Maliau Falls and Sabah's only ox-bow lake called Lake Linumunsut."

However, he said conservation required funding and hoped the private sector, local and international, could play a significant role in sustaining and extending Malaysia's conservation efforts.

''This will be crucial in making Maliau Basin Studies Centre a premier facility for tropical rainforest, research and scientific discovery in the region," he added.

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Philippines crocodile may be extinct in 10 years

Charlie Lagasca Philippines Star 27 Jan 11;

BAYOMBONG, Nueva Vizcaya, Philippines – The Philippine crocodile, classified as critically endangered by the World Conservation Union, will be extinct in 10 years if no conservation measures are immediately undertaken.

The Mabuwaya Foundation Inc. (MFI), an organization engaged in protecting the species, said only 100 mature Philippine crocodiles are left in the wilds of Isabela and Liguasan Marsh in Maguindanao.

Philippine crocodiles (scientific name Crocodylus mindorensis) are endemic to the country. They thrive in freshwater and are non-threatening to humans unless provoked.

“The Philippine crocodile is the world’s most severely threatened crocodile species. It is at a real risk of going extinct in the near future if no conservation action is taken,” said Marites Balbas, communication officer of Mabuwaya Foundation.

The foundation collaborates with international conservationist group Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

The foundation will release today 19 baby Philippine crocodiles in the wetlands of San Mariano in Isabela where 49 young crocodiles of same species had been released two years ago.

These were caught in hatchling stage and raised in captivity for a year and a half until it was determined that they could survive in the wild.

The procedure, called “head-starting,” has been practiced since 2005 to raise the Philippine crocodile population by increasing the survival chances of newborn crocodiles in the wild.

The crocodiles will be released in honor of the inauguration of the foundation’s Municipal Philippine Crocodile Rearing Station in San Mariano.

The population of Philippine crocodiles is threatened by hunting and the conversion of their natural habitat –creeks, ponds, and marshes – into residential or commercial spaces.

Another crocodile species endemic to the Philippines is the saltwater crocodile (Crocoydlus porosus). It is, however, not endangered like the Philippine crocodile.

The law prohibits hunting, killing, selling, and buying of the species. Violators will be fined P100,000.

Endangered crocodiles released to fight extinction
(AFP) Google News 27 Jan 11;

MANILA — Nineteen of the world's most critically endangered crocodiles were released Thursday into the wild in the Philippines as part of efforts to save the species from extinction, conservationists said.

The freshwater crocodiles, which had been reared for 18 months at a breeding centre, were set free in a national park in the remote north of the country that is one of just two remaining natural habitats for the reptile.

If they survive, the number of known Philippine crocodiles in the wild will increase by roughly a fifth, according to Marites Balbas, spokeswoman for the Mabuwaya Foundation that is behind the conservation programme.

"The Philippine crocodile is the world's most severely threatened crocodile species with less than 100 adults remaining in the wild. It could go extinct in 10 years if nothing is done," Balbas said.

The International Union for the Conservation of Nature lists the Philippine crocodile as "critically endangered," just one step away from being extinct in the wild.

The Philippine crocodile has plunged to the verge of extinction due to destruction of its habitat, dynamite fishing and killings by humans who consider it dangerous, said Balbas.

However the released crocodiles -- which are only 35 to 50 centimetres (14 to 20 inches) long -- will be safe in the park, according to Balbas.

"There is enough food and people are educated on how to protect them. We actually have groups in the local community who guard the sanctuary. They are aware that killing crocodiles is prohibited," she said.

The crocodiles can grow up to 2.7 metres (nine feet) long.

Thursday's events continue a programme that began in 2005 in which dozens of captive-raised Philippine crocodiles have been released back into the wild in the Sierra Madre Natural Park in the northern province of Isabela.

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Fake seagrass could help boost fish numbers: New Zealand study

Andre Hueber NZ Herald 30 Jan 11;

Scientists are using fake grass mats under the sea to prove how New Zealand's fish stocks can be boosted.

The plastic mats are being used at Coromandel by NIWA scientists to test how seagrass attracts fish such as juvenile snapper and trevally.

A large amount of New Zealand's seagrass has been lost from sediment from land development washing into harbours. Seagrass at Whangarei Harbour has gone from 14 sq km in the 1960s to virtually none, while Tauranga Harbour lost 90 per cent of its seagrass between 1959 and 1966.

There has been a resurgence in the greater Auckland region, with seagrass expanding in the lower Kaipara, at Snells Beach and St Heliers.

NIWA fisheries ecologist Dr Mark Morrison said scientists had created artificial beds at Whangapoua Estuary. The "plants" were made from plastic fronds 5cm to 30cm long and tied to wire frames to form an artificial mat.

"We made them with tantalising long blades of artificial grass, the things fish really go for," Dr Morrison said.

Fish numbers reached their highest towards the highest seagrass densities. This summer fish are being tagged to track their survival and growth rates.

"What we found, initially, is that fish are really looking for shelter and seagrasses provide good protection to fish."

New Zealand Recreational Fishing Council president Geoff Rowling said the research and steps to enlarge seagrass areas was vital.

Council vice president Sheryl Hart said fishermen needed to get smart, but it was ultimately up to local body authorities to stop agricultural run-off and sediment run-off from development - the best way to encourage regrowth.

Fish battling to survive with seagrass decline
TVNZ 30 Jan 11;

Fewer young fish are surviving because it's becoming harder to find enough food and shelter in New Zealand waters.

The National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (NIWA) said the alarming decline of seagrass is having a major impact on fish numbers.

Fisheries ecologist from NIWA Mark Morrison said fish use seagrass for protection.

"To them it's not the fact that it's sea grass per se but it's structure and they can hide in it from and protect themselves from being eaten by bigger fish and other predators," Morrison told ONE News

But that protection has been deteriorating for the last century.

Whangarei Harbour had 14 square kilometres of it in 1960 and now it's almost all gone.

Tauranga Harbour lost 90% of its seagrass between 1959 and 1996.

Morrison said the decline and loss is a world wide problem.

"We're not alone in it and in fact some areas are much worse off," he said.

The cause of the long term decline is thought to be sediment from land developments running into the ocean.

"What you do on the land goes down through the catchments, the rivers and it goes into the estuaries and seas. It has these big cascade effects down to the open coast," Morrison said.

NIWA is trying to help fish protect themselves in some areas, by putting plastic seagrass in its Coromandel estuary reserve to imitate the natural plant.

Morrison said 16 species have already flocked to the reserve.

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Enemy invaders or rare new species?

Nicky Phillips Sydney Morning Herald 30 Jan 11;

INTRODUCED plant species are becoming stronger, more versatile invaders by rapidly evolving to suit Australia's harsh climate, research has found.

Sydney scientists studied more than 20 introduced species and found that 70 per cent had changed significantly in less than 100 years.

The silver lining to this find, said study co-author Angela Moles, is "if the introduced plants can change rapidly, it gives us hope that a decent proportion of our native flora might be able to change in response to climate change".

Researchers studied introduced herbs and grasses because they were fast-growing and would have gone through multiple generations since their arrival.

Some species had halved in height and leaf size, becoming more like Australian natives.

"That makes a lot of sense. If you are growing in a low-nutrient, low-rainfall environment like Australia, you don't want to be a big lush plant," Dr Moles said.

The researchers also analysed the rate of change of Australian native grasses, as well as of the introduced species in their native environment in Britain. Neither group transformed as much as the introduced species in Australia.

"It really looks like the changes are because they've been introduced into a new environment," Dr Moles said, adding that this study was proof that evolution was "happening all around us".

The findings also raised an interesting question about how introduced species are classified.

"If they keep changing … they are eventually going to become different species," Dr Moles said.

"At that point do we keep trying to eradicate these things or do we treasure them because they are a rare new species?"

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Big cities are not always biggest polluters

(AFP) Google News 25 Jan 11;

WASHINGTON — Big cities like New York, London and Shanghai send less pollution into the atmosphere per capita than places like Denver and Rotterdam, said a study released Tuesday.

Researchers examined data from 100 cities in 33 nations for clues about which were the biggest polluters and why, according to the report in the peer-reviewed journal Environment and Urbanization.

While cities across the world were to blame for around 71 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, urban dwellers who can use public transport rather than drive helped to lower per capita emissions in some cities.

For instance, the sprawling western US city of Denver's per capita emissions were nearly double those in New York City, home to eight million inhabitants and a gritty, heavily used subway system.

"This is mainly attributable to New York's greater density and much lower reliance on the automobile for commuting," said the study.

Even Denver's per capita emissions, at 21.5 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, were sharply higher than Shanghai at 11.2 tCO2e, Paris (5.2) and Athens (10.4).

Chinese cities stood out from the rest of the world because their average emissions were far higher -- for instance with Beijing emitting 10.1 tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent -- than the country as a whole which emits 3.4 tCO2e.

"This reflects the high reliance on fossil fuels for electricity production, a significant industrial base within many cities and a relatively poor and large rural population," said the study.

Looking at greenhouse gas emissions per GDP, researchers found that "citizens of Tokyo are 5.6 times more efficient than Canadians."

The port city of Rotterdam in the Netherlands got a particularly bad rap because of its links to shipping and heavy industry.

"Rotterdam's per capita value of 29.8 tCO2e versus 12.67 tCO2e for the Netherlands reflects the large impact of the city's port in attracting industry, as well as fuelling of ships," said the study.

"This is similar to cities with busy airports and highlights the need to view the city-based GHG emissions cautiously and holistically."

Other trends included the tendency for cities in cold climates to have higher emissions, and for poor and middle income countries to have lower emissions per capita than wealthy countries.

When researchers looked at cities in Asia, Latin America and Africa, they found low emissions per person across the board.

"This paper reminds us that it is the world's wealthiest cities and their wealthiest inhabitants that cause unsustainable levels of greenhouse gas emissions, not cities in general," said editor David Satterthwaite, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Environment and Development.

"Most cities in Africa, Asia and Latin America have low emissions per person. The challenge for them is to keep these emissions low even as their wealth grows."

An analysis of three neighborhoods in Toronto found that the highest emissions came from the suburbs, where streets are lined with large single family homes that are far from commercial centers.

The lowest levels of emissions came from areas with apartment complexes in walking distance to shopping and transit.

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Nature Studies by Michael McCarthy: The 21st century bodes ill for non-human species

The Independent 28 Jan 11;

If the Earth is eventually to be overwhelmed by the human species, is it a crime to speak up for the Earth? Our morality is anthropocentric: at the heart of our notions of good and bad lies human suffering, and what we can do to avoid it.

This is so deep-rooted in us, so instinctive, that it has been internalised in the language: one of our most prized virtues is humanity, one of deepest tributes to another person is that they are humane. He (or she) is a humane human. It's only one letter, one squiggle away from saying he (or she) is a human human. We automatically define objective good by what is best for ourselves.

Where humanity's interests clash, therefore, with other interests, the second are likely to get short shrift from us, and it will be a brave soul indeed who will venture the idea that perhaps human welfare should not always, automatically, be the primary consideration. Just forming the thought makes you an eccentric, does it not? Out to lunch. Beyond the pale. Go down that road and before long you'll be up there with the batty old biddy who shares her house with 60 cats.

But what about when the interests of our species start to clash, head-on, with the proper functioning of the planet which is our only home? What view should we take of this? That it is of no consequence? For such a clash is now clearly in view, and will occur in the lifetimes of most people reading this.

Last week, the Government released its Foresight report on The Future Of Food And Farming, a sobering document if ever there was one: it put into sharp focus just how difficult it is going to be to feed the 9 billion-plus people who will occupy the Earth in 2050. The report called for a new agricultural revolution, for the essence of the situation is that the land in use today for growing crops, across the world, will have to work twice as hard; and reflecting on this led me eventually to a singular thought which I bet you have never seen formulated, never mind disseminated, a thought which you may think puts me squarely up there with batty old cat-obsessives, but which I will nevertheless articulate: what does the 21st century hold for insects?

Very few of us are bothered about creepy-crawlies, which is doubtless why there has been so little awareness of the staggering decline in insect numbers which has emerged, in recent years, as a disturbing environmental phenomenon, indeed, as one of the defining ecological features of our age and an alarming pointer to the future. But they don't only creep and crawl; these are "the little things that run the world", playing key roles in myriad ecosystems, and their disappearance has profound dangers – finally recognised, of course, in the concern over the widespread vanishing of honeybees and other pollinators (two-thirds of our crops and fruit are pollinated by the wind, but the rest need insect pollination).

There is little doubt that these declines in general have been caused by the tide of pesticides which has washed over the land with intensive farming: pesticides kill far, far more insects than the pests which are their actual target species. Pesticide manufacturers, incidentally, could not care less. They might belatedly care about pollinators; about everything else they could not give a tinker's cuss, and the dead moths, mayflies, butterflies, lacewings, leatherjackets, ladybirds, all these represent just so much collateral damage.

But what is going to happen when, to feed 9 billion people by 2050, the land has to work twice as hard? When intensive agriculture has to be doubly intensified? When crop pests have to be ever more ruthlessly suppressed? What room will there be in the world for insects then?

It seems to me that one of the prices of feeding 9 billion people in the 21st Century will be to sacrifice them. You may say, at least we will always preserve the pollinators, but I will make you another bet, on that: I will wager you a pound to a pinch of snuff that there is a scientist somewhere, right now, working on the idea of how we can genetically modify insect-pollinated crops to make them able to be pollinated by the wind.

Insects, of course, will not be the only sacrifice; I am using them merely as a proxy for tigers, whales, rainforests, coral reefs, for everything else in the natural world, which the human species now so overwhelmingly dominates, appropriating to itself already most of the annual plant growth, most of the fertile land, most of the fish stocks, most of the fresh water, you name it.

This domination is only going to increase; this domination, it seems to me, is going to overwhelm the natural world in all sorts of ways, through pollution, through resource depletion, through climate change of course, and yes, through the need to feed nine billion.

Who could argue against the alleviation of hunger? Which of us can so far step outside our species as to deny even one of our fellows the right to eat? But what then about the Earth, what if our needs as humans do overwhelm it, and consign much of its life to the dustbin of history – what is our reaction to be? Too bad?

Who is to speak up for the Earth? We should remember that 2050, with its 9 billion-plus people, is only as far away in the future, now, as the break-up of The Beatles is in the past, and the time to think hard about these matters has arrived.

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