Anemone hunt at Pulau Hantu!
from wild shores of singapore and wonderful creation and Singapore Nature
Courtship of the Asian Golden Weaver
from Bird Ecology Study Group
tongue-ing lizard @ SBWR June 2011
from sgbeachbum
Mangrove ‘Alba’
from Urban Forest
Chek Jawa wild piglets
from Ubin.sgkopi
When life begins on bare ground
from Life's Indulgences
Water level surged from 50% to overflowing in less than two minutes
Grace Chua Straits Times 8 Jun 11;
IN A matter of minutes during Sunday's heavy storm, Stamford Canal at Orchard Road was overwhelmed.
So was the PUB's water level sensor software, which sends out SMS flood alerts to building owners in flood-prone areas.
The software was programmed to send out alerts when water levels in canals hit 75 per cent, indicating a 'moderate' risk of flooding; then at 90 to 99 per cent, indicating a 'high' risk. It was not programmed to send out text alerts if the water level went beyond 100 per cent.
However, at the Stamford Canal in front of Forum The Shopping Mall that day, water levels surged from 50 per cent to overflowing - or above 100 per cent - in two minutes or less.
The result? The building managements of Tanglin Mall and St Regis Residences and Hotel did not receive any alerts. Both the mall and St Regis Residences suffered serious flooding, although the hotel was spared that.
PUB explained what happened yesterday, a day after it had revealed that it sent flood alerts to building owners except those from Tanglin Mall and the St Regis complex.
The national water agency said the software glitch has since been fixed.
It has been re-programmed so that SMS alerts will be sent out once a canal is completely filled; that is, when water levels hit 100 per cent and above.
PUB said that the earlier system had assumed that alerts would have been sent at the 75 per cent and 90 per cent marks, making another alert redundant.
However, on Sunday, water levels at that segment of Stamford Canal rose 'three or four times faster than anything we have seen before', said Mr Peng Kah Poh, director of PUB's infocommunnications department.
'It was so high that it bypassed the trigger points of 75 per cent and 90 per cent, so the SMS alert was not sent,' he said.
The PUB said that from next month, members of the public can also subscribe to the SMS service.
It will also look at shortening the current two-minute time interval for monitoring water levels during wet weather.
It will also review how often the sensors 'sample' water levels during thunderstorms, as well as where additional sensors should be.
The PUB started installing water-level sensors in several major drains and canals from 2007. After the big floods in June last year, more were installed, and water-level information was also made available to the public on its website.
By the end of last year, there were 90 such sensors in waterways like Stamford Canal, which runs under Orchard Road.
There are now 93 water sensors, and this will be increased to 150 by the end of this year, including in the drains leading to the Stamford Canal near the junction of Napier and Grange roads.
In a separate trial, the PUB is also monitoring flooding and water levels through CCTV cameras along Bukit Timah Road, and said it will soon decide whether to roll this scheme out elsewhere.
SMS alerts are currently sent to 117 schools, and condominium and building managers, in flood-affected areas that have subscribed to them.
Building managers and shopowners in such areas said they would like to sign up for the alerts.
A spokesman for CapitaMalls Asia, which manages Ion Orchard and Plaza Singapura, said both buildings would be signing up, although Ion Orchard was not affected by the floods this year or last year, and also has building features to prevent water from getting into ground-floor entrances.
At Cluny Court in Bukit Timah, Ms Elisa Ding, director of manager Cluny Lease, said it had signed up for SMS alerts after it was badly flooded last year. It received alerts last year but not this year. The PUB clarified that this was because Cluny Court had put a larger hump across its basement to prevent water flowing in.
But even if building managers do receive alerts, there is sometimes hardly any time to react.
Mr Chik Hai Lam of Goldvein, which owns Liat Towers, remarked: 'They kept on giving me SMSes I have no time to read.'
But he said the SMSes were enough to prepare his team, which was on site early in the morning on Sunday.
Liat Towers was spared heavy flooding.
Additional reporting by Fiona Low, Yuen Sin & Neo Wen Tong
PUB may tweak building codes, drain design rules
Daryl Chin Straits Times 8 Jun 11;
FOLLOWING Sunday's flood which put the upper reaches of Orchard Road and other places under water, national water agency PUB is looking into tweaking the building codes.
Beyond tightening the requirements to further flood-proof buildings, it will also review the guidelines defining the design and construction of stormwater drains across the island and raising the level of freshly reclaimed land.
Details on the changes to building codes are still sketchy, but Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan had cited flood- proofing buildings as one area that his ministry, the PUB and the Building and Construction Authority need to look into.
Specialists in engineering, asked by The Straits Times to identify possible changes to the building codes, said the tweaks could come in the form of raising the ground level of buildings above flood levels, and enlarging their networks of underground drains.
Associate Professor Susanto Teng of the Nanyang Technological University's (NTU) School of Civil and Environmental Engineering said the PUB has its work cut out for it: It has to study current flood levels, find out the causes of the deluge and change building codes accordingly.
The PUB lists online a code of practice on the draining of surface water which all buildings must follow to the letter.
It states, for example, the minimum height of the platform on which a building must stand. This minimum level depends on where the building is and what it is used for.
Another building requirement states the maximum or crest level which flood water is allowed to reach - at least 75cm above the highest tide level in the area.
Buildings with basements are required to have water pumps of sufficient size and must install separate holding tanks for rainwater that is collected, and water that is to be pumped out.
If a building breaches the code, PUB can, under the Sewerage and Drainage Act, issue a notice to direct building owners to fix the fault.
The agency would only say that 'a few' such notices have been issued.
Associate Professor Tan Soon Keat, who is also from NTU's School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, suggested that the Government and building owners explore setting up larger stormwater catchment areas, either under roads or within buildings.
'But these are just possibilities, as more studies are needed. One thing is for sure: owners can no longer assume floods will not occur on their premises,' he said.
Mr Pek Lian Guan, executive director and chief executive of building construction and civil engineering contractor Tiong Seng Holdings, suggested that buildings be required to invest in bigger water pumps so they can better cope with sudden deluges of water.
Dr Ho Nyok Yong, director of engineering firm Samwoh Corporation, said changes to the building code were called for, but that the issue was a complicated one because of the rapid changes in land usage and increasing urbanisation.
He added: 'You can keep redirecting water, but it has to flow somewhere. It's good that the authorities are checking whether the existing drainage system is good enough to withstand heavy rains, but it must be properly planned to solve the issue once and for all.'
Mr Pek said that whatever provisions were made to change the way buildings are constructed would only be a 'second layer of defence'.
'The first line should come in the form of an updated overall drainage plan,' he said.
PUB improves SMS alert system for flood risks
Hetty Musfirah Abdul Khamid Channel NewsAsia 7 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE: National water agency PUB is improving its SMS alert system for flood risks.
In July, it will also make the SMS alert system available for the public to subscribe to.
And the system will also be made more sensitive to rising water levels.
The measures come after building owners at Orchard Road - specifically Tanglin Mall and St Regis - failed to receive SMS alerts about the floods on Sunday morning.
Currently the alert system is only made available to building owners in areas that are susceptible to floods.
Each subscriber receives alerts triggered from water sensors located along drains and canals.
Stamford Canal, which runs through Orchard Road, has seven water sensors.
When it rains, the sensors monitor water levels every two minutes - a shorter frequency compared to 10-minute intervals during dry weather conditions.
When water levels hit the 75% mark (which indicates moderate flood risk) or 90% mark (which indicates a high flood risk), the sensors will trigger off a process to send an SMS alert to subscribers.
The catch is that the system was not designed to trigger an SMS alert when water levels hit 100%. That was why Tanglin Mall and St Regis did not receive the SMS alerts on Sunday.
PUB says that due to the high intensity of rain on Sunday, the water levels had already hit 100% when the water sensor serving the two locations read the levels.
The particular water sensor is located at Stamford Canal near Forum Mall.
"For that particular day, what happened was that the rate of increase for the water was pretty high; it was so high that it bypassed the trigger points of 75% and 90% levels. So the SMS alert was not sent," said PUB's director for infocomm department, Peng Kah Poh.
PUB says it has already tweaked the system, such that it will start triggering SMS alerts if water levels hit 100%.
It will also look into shortening the two-minute time interval for monitoring water levels.
"We based the two minutes on past records. We have actually been monitoring these level sensors for the past two to three years, and what actually happened on that Sunday was that the rate of increase of water was at least three to four times....than the worst-case scenario," said Mr Peng.
The SMS alert system is also useful for PUB. It says that once it receives alerts that water levels have hit the 50% mark in certain sites, it will deploy contractors and staff to those places to check for blockage and monitor the situation. Gratings will also be opened to flush out flood waters where possible.
There are currently 93 water sensors along Singapore's drains and canals. These will be further increased to 150 by the end of this year.
PUB says it will install water sensors for the drains leading to the Stamford Canal near the junction of Napier Road and Grange Road.
It is also conducting a trial run of monitoring water levels through CCTV cameras like those along Bukit Timah Canal.
- CNA/ir http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif
PUB tweaks flood alert system
From next month, public can subscribe to SMS alerts, too
Hetty Musfirah Abdul Khamid Today Online 8 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - The floods at Tanglin had risen so swiftly that it was well beyond the sensor mark that triggered alerts to warn subscribers of the impending flood - as the system was not designed to do so after water levels went past a certain point.
Hence, Tanglin Mall and St Regis did not receive the SMS alerts on Sunday, when the intense rain caused water to pour into the two buildings along Orchard Road, said the Public Utilities Board (PUB) yesterday, as it unveiled a raft of measures to improve the SMS alert system for impending floods.
Under the current alert system - only available to building owners in areas prone to flooding - subscribers receive alerts triggered by water sensors located along drains and canals.
When it rains, the sensors monitor water levels every two minutes, compared to 10-minute intervals during dry conditions.
When water levels hit the 75-per-cent mark (which indicates moderate flood risk) or 90 per cent mark (which indicates a high flood risk), the sensors send an SMS alert to subscribers. The PUB also checks sites where water levels hit the 50 per cent mark for blockages, and monitors the situation there.
However, the system was not designed to trigger an SMS alert when water levels reach 100 per cent - the level reached on Sunday according to a sensor reading at Stamford Canal near Forum mall.
"On that day, the rate of increase for the water was pretty high; it was so high that it bypassed the trigger points of 75 per cent and 90 per cent levels. So the SMS alert was not sent," said PUB infocomm department director Peng Kah Poh.
The PUB has tweaked the system so that it will start sending SMS alerts if the water levels rise beyond the 100 per cent mark.
From next month, members of the public can also subscribe to the alerts.
The PUB will also look into reducing the two-minute interval for monitoring water levels when it rains.
"We based the two minutes on past records. We have actually been monitoring these level sensors for the past two to three years, and what actually happened on that Sunday was that the rate of increase of water was easily about three to four times ... than the worst-case scenario," said Mr Peng.
The number of water sensors will also be increased to 150 by the end of this year, from the current 93.
The PUB said it will install water sensors at the drains leading to the Stamford Canal near the junction of Napier Road and Grange Road.
It is also conducting a trial run of monitoring water levels through CCTV cameras like those along Bukit Timah Canal.
Tessarina's S$90,000 investment that kept the flood waters at bay
Ong Dai Lin Today Online 8 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - When the heavens opened on Sunday morning, Tessarina condominium resident, Dr Audrey Tan, was worried and yet filled with anticipation at the same time.
The building at Wilby Road, off Bukit Timah Road, had been flooded twice, and Dr Tan, the chairman of the condominium's flood committee, told MediaCorp: "Sunday was a real test since Wilby Road was raised ... Now we know that the raising of the road was very successful."
The Land Transport Authority (LTA) and the PUB had completed a three-month project in January to raise the road level by almost a metre in some areas. This was critical in preventing flooding outside Tessarina condo on Sunday, said Dr Tan.
The condominium was badly hit during the Bukit Timah floods in November 2009. After it was flooded again last July, a flood committee was set up to tackle the problem. By February, the residents had pooled S$90,000 to install six flood barriers at the exits and a closed-circuit television camera (CCTV) to monitor Bukit Timah Canal.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Vivian Balakrishnan went to the Tessarina yesterday evening to understand what worked for the condominium. Its management committee demonstrated how the flood barriers kept out the waters.
They also showed him their CCTV camera on the 10th storey, which monitors the canal. When the waters reach a certain level, a staff member will sound a siren to alert residents. This will let them know the flood barriers will be closed and they can then decide if they want to drive their cars from the basement car park to higher ground.
Dr Balakrishnan said: "So there are some measures which you can take at a local level as a final line of defence, while PUB works on the long-term solution, which is expanding downstream the drainage and making sure that any work that (LTA) does won't compromise the drainage from here and from the road into the canal."
Dr Tan said Member of Parliament for Holland-Bukit Timah Group Representation Constituency, Mr Christopher de Souza, had worked very hard with the authorities to get Wilby Road raised.
Mr de Souza, who noted that other parts of Bukit Timah Road also saw flash floods, said he would now look at how those residents could be helped. He said: "I share the anxiety of my residents who live along Bukit Timah Road ... and will make concerted efforts to help alleviate the flooding." ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY NG JING YNG
Straits Times 8 Jun 11;
A MINOR oil slick on the Kallang River was cleaned up yesterday.
National water agency PUB confined the spread of the film of oil to a stretch of the river lining Potong Pasir Avenue 1 and called in contractors to remove it.
The source of the pollution is being investigated and the water quality there will continue to be monitored, said a PUB spokesman.
The oily film was first noticed on the river next to Blocks 114 and 115 at Potong Pasir Avenue1 yesterday afternoon.
Contractors placed booms on the water to confine the slick to a 100m stretch and sopped up the oil in the evening.
The PUB said in a statement that the oil film was not expected to affect water quality, but water samples have been taken for tests.
Oil spill at Kallang River
Channel NewsAsia 7 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE : An oil spill was discovered at Kallang River, next to Potong Pasir Avenue 1, on Tuesday afternoon.
The national water agency, PUB, was alerted and it dispatched contractors to use oil booms to confine the spill to 100 metres along the side of the waterway.
PUB said removal of the oil slick was completed in the evening.
It added that the oil film was not expected to impact water quality in the Kallang River.
However, water samples from the river were taken for tests.
PUB is working with the National Environment Agency (NEA) to investigate the cause of the pollution and will continue to monitor the water quality along its waterways.
- CNA/al
Meeting today between MP, LTA and residents to work out solutions
Ng Jing Yng Today Online 7 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - The residents of a Bukit Timah condominium are upset that construction work for an MRT station is taking place right at their doorstep.
While the drilling has begun for the King Albert Park MRT Station, part of the Downtown Line 2, Maplewoods residents said they only found out recently that the construction space for the tunnel-boring machine is located at their condominium's exit and entrance points.
Residents told MediaCorp that, from this Saturday, they would have to take an alternative route from the condominium, which many claimed would be dangerous and inconvenient for their children going to the nearby Methodist Girls' School (MGS), given the presence of heavy construction vehicles and fast-moving vehicles.
Motorists leaving the condominium will also have to contend with fast-moving traffic along Bukit Timah Road. Many wanted to know why they were not consulted in advance as the boring activity would also block rubbish trucks and fire engines from entering the condominium area.
Out of the condominium's 697 units, 458 signed a petition which was sent to Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. Residents also met their Member of Parliament Christopher De Souza to highlight their worries.
Ms Nancy Lim, 41, who has a daughter studying in Primary 1 in MGS, said: "We are aware that the train station will come to benefit Bukit Timah residents but there has to be some sort of burden sharing. This area is very densely populated and we would like an explanation."
Mr De Souza said the residents had "genuine concerns" and told MediaCorp that some solutions would be offered at a meeting today.
Options include opening up a link between Maplewoods and MGS and having a dedicated filter lane into Bukit Timah Road for exiting drivers.
"I won't be able to address all the concerns as there are construction limitations. But I'll do my best," Mr De Souza said.
The Land Transport Authority (LTA), in response to media queries, said officers had regularly updated residents on construction work and had reviewed the traffic scheme following their feedback.
While disruptions were expected, its spokesperson said the LTA would work closely with residents and Mr De Souza to provide regular updates and address concerns.
More details of the review will be made known at today's meeting.
Solutions offered to Maplewoods residents
Channel NewsAsia 7 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE: MP for Holland-Bukit Timah GRC, Christopher De Souza, has offered solutions to residents of a Bukit Timah condominium for construction works that has begun for the King Albert Park MRT station.
Residents of Maplewoods have earlier signed a petition against the construction works at their doorstep.
They would have to take an alternative route from the condominium, which they claimed would be dangerous for their children going to the nearby Methodist Girls' School (MGS).
Mr De Souza met residents on Tuesday evening and stressed that safety issues would be a priority. He assured residents that the footpath along Bukit Timah Road would be kept.
Also, a pathway linking Maplewoods directly into MGS could be built. Other ideas include reconfiguring traffic flowing in and out of Maplewoods.
Mr De Souza said he cannot over promise as there are construction limits. But where safety of children and drivers are concerned, Mr De Souza believes he can deliver.
He said residents were open to the ideas and were relieved as the safety of their children have been looked after.
Mr De Souza also gathered feedback from residents concerning the issue of flash floods - which also affected Maplewoods on Sunday.
He said: "I thought that it would be good to come to the ground, understand the anxieties of residents where the floods where concern. Because the last time when I was with the residents of Tessarina, we managed to find a public-private partnership solution to raise Wilby Road and that has caused the prevention of floods this time round for Tessarina.
"So I wanted to understand the terrain, the resident's concerns, feel their anxieties and see how we can come up with solution to decrease the flooding in future."
-CNA/ac
Construction works near Bukit Timah condo postponed for a week
Ng Jing Yng Today Online 8 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE - After a meeting which lasted more than four hours with the authorities and their Member of Parliament (MP), residents at a Bukit Timah condominium will see construction works, which involve a tunnel-boring machine, postponed for a week.
Following the closed-door meeting at Maplewoods condominium along Bukit Timah Road, residents told MediaCorp that the discussions were extensive but there were still some issues to be sorted out.
The condo residents had wanted the tunnel-boring machine meant for constructing the King Albert Park MRT Station, part of the Downtown Line 2, to be shifted away from their condo entrance and exit points.
They were worried that the alternative route, which they were supposed to take from this Saturday due to the construction works, would be dangerous and disruptive for their children walking to the nearby Methodist Girls' School (MGS) and drivers exiting to busy Bukit Timah Road.
Speaking to reporters mid-way through the meeting, MP Christopher De Souza explained that "it speaks of a (fairer) option" to locate the construction space for a tunnel-boring machine outside Maplewoods condominium, as situating it at Sixth Avenue would result in having to demolish the 10 shophouses and evicting residents living there.
"I cannot overpromise but on the issue of safety… we have already come up with new proposals and we can deliver a much safer option already to the residents," he added.
Together with Land Transport Authority officials, Mr De Souza presented solutions to ease residents' safety concerns. They include retaining the original walkway but narrowing it to accommodate construction works and having road marshals to direct construction vehicles.
While the rubbish collection area will be cordoned of for construction, he said rubbish trucks will be allowed into the construction sites for daily refuse removal.
One Maplewoods resident whose daughter is studying in MGS (Secondary), said she was glad that their voices were being heard. Although the residents did not agree with all the solutions offered, they did show some initiative on the part of the decision-makers, said the resident, who asked not to be named.
However, another resident, whose daughter is in MGS (Primary), felt that the meeting did not yield much as the options presented left them with no room for negotiations.
Iata AGM told to guard against actions that can lead to unintended market distortions
Ven Sreenivasan Business Times 7 Jun 11;
(SINGAPORE) Unilateral and uncoordinated environmental initiatives which impose costs via punitive taxes on other parties would be short-sighted and create market distortions.
Singapore Deputy Prime Minister and Finance Minister Tharman Shanmugaratnam said this in his welcome address at the 67th Annual General Meeting of the International Air Transport Association (Iata) yesterday.
Speaking to some 700 delegates at Marina Bay Sands, Mr Tharman noted that the most important strategic response of governments and industry to environmental challenges was to work together to remove measures and practices that impede fair competition.
Mr Tharman's remarks were read by many delegates as a veiled reference to the European Union's decision to impose emissions tax on global carriers flying into its air space from 2012.
'We should also guard against well-intended actions that can lead to unintended market distortions,' said Mr Tharman, who is also Minister for Manpower. 'To take just one example, in addressing climate change, we should harmonise measures at an international level so as to ensure a level playing field for all, as well as minimise multiple cost layers from unilateral localised emissions trading schemes and environmental taxes. Such coordinated efforts will ultimately yield more efficient outcomes for all stakeholders and allow the industry to grow in an environmentally sustainable manner.'
The EU's emissions trading system or ETS would allocate pre-determined baseline annual emission credits to airlines, but charge them for additional credits for any emissions which exceed the allowable amount.
Iata estimates that airlines will have to cough-up excess of US$1.5 billion for these credits.
Mr Tharman said that the Singapore Government was committed to providing an environment with minimal regulatory and cost burdens on airlines to enable the industry to remain cost-efficient and grow.
'We are also committed to avoiding and removing market barriers. This is reflected in our pursuit of a liberal aviation policy, such as in concluding bilateral Open Skies Agreements with over 40 countries to date. At the multilateral level, we have also worked closely with our Asean partners to bring about air services liberalisation within the region, as well as with Asean's key dialogue partners such as China and India.'
The Singapore Government is also seeking to foster a supportive environment for innovations in international transport, he added. He cited the example of the close consultations to develop provisional rules for the first ultra-long range flights in the form of non-stop connections between Singapore and points in North America in 2004.
'The pilots' association, airline management and the Civil Aviation Authority of Singapore (CAAS) were deeply involved, guided by a scientific approach and assisted by other aviation authorities and scientific agencies,' he said. 'These rules have gone on to shape international standards on flight time limitations for air crew.'
Michelle Nick AAP Sydney Morning Herald 6 Jun 11;
Balloons, plastic bags, nylon rope and even rubber thongs are providing a deadly diet for Australia's critically endangered sea turtle population, a new study shows.
On the eve of World Ocean Day, research by the Earthwatch program Turtles in Trouble has shown that 36 per cent of Australian sea turtles are affected by marine litter, with some 18,000 pieces of plastic litter floating on every square kilometre of the world's oceans.
University of Queensland marine biologist Dr Kathy Townsend said the problem of marine waste had to be tackled before the already low population numbers of sea turtles became even more depleted.
"This thing is everyone's fault, and because it's everyone's fault no one takes responsibility," Dr Townsend said.
"We need to stop generating so much waste.
"We are doing the inconceivable, we are starting to fill up the oceans of the world."
The Turtles in Trouble program found turtles had swallowed balloons, plastic bags, nylon rope, styrofoam and thongs, among other things, possibly mistaking them for jellyfish.
Once ingested, the plastic causes a gut impaction which leads to the contents of the animal's gut decomposing.
"The animal becomes positively buoyant and it can't dive down to eat, it can't get out of the way of predators, it can't get out of the way of boats, so it really is quite a tragic thing," Dr Townsend said.
It can result in so-called "floating syndrome", where the turtle may take months to gradually starve to death.
"It's a really long, drawn-out, painful death," Dr Townsend said.
Earthwatch Australia executive director Richard Gilmore said a number of measures can be taken to reduce marine rubbish.
"Australia's marine environment is absolutely fundamental to our economy, our environment and to our way of life," Mr Gilmore said.
Dr Townsend said that everyone can do their share.
"Start refusing those items that have a useful lifetime of only minutes and yet take years if not decades to degrade," she said.
"Do you really need to have a plastic top on your paper coffee cup? Refuse that, you don't need that".
Marine rubbish also affects Victoria's famous fairy penguins, which frequently get entangled in debris.
Dr Townsend said if the problem is not addressed it will only get worse but with awareness she hopes the correct choices will be made to reduce the amount of rubbish reaching the marine environment.
Third of dead turtles killed by marine rubbish
Lexi Metherell ABC News 7 Jun 11;
A new study has revealed the number of turtles being killed by rubbish dumped in the ocean is far higher than rangers previously estimated.
The Earthwatch research reveals that more than one third of turtles that die in Moreton Bay have either eaten or been entangled in marine rubbish.
For a long time it has been thought turtles mistakenly consume soft plastic items like plastic bags and cling film because they believe they are jellyfish.
The report provides more evidence that the creatures are selecting soft plastics over other types of rubbish.
Earthwatch researcher Dr Kathy Townsend dissected and examined the guts of more than 120 dead turtles from the eastern areas of Moreton Bay in Queensland.
She says soft plastic items were found more often than hard plastic, and 30 per cent of the dead turtles she examined had ingested rubbish.
"We went out and looked at what we were finding in the guts of the turtle and then compared that to what we were finding on the beaches in which the turtles had washed up," she said.
"Surprisingly what we ended up finding is that the turtles seem to be selecting or targeting soft plastics with the idea that perhaps these animals are targeting that because they look like jellyfish."
Dr Townsend says ingesting rubbish is particularly dangerous for turtles because of their anatomy.
She says swallowing rubbish means turtles become dehydrated and starve to death in a process that can drag out for months.
"Sea turtles, because of their anatomy, cannot vomit, so if it can't go out the back end, it ends up getting stuck," she said.
"This debris then causes the gut to enter a type of paralysis state and all of the debris and organics that are mixed in with that debris just start to decompose.
"The decomposition process causes gas and the animals then become positively buoyant and that's not good if you're a marine animal because that means you can no longer dive to feed, you can't dive to get out of the way of predators or boats and things as well."
The research found that another 6 per cent of turtles had died after becoming entangled in rubbish.
Dr Townsend says earlier estimates by rangers had put the proportion of turtles dying because of marine rubbish at just 2 per cent.
"I'm not saying that we all of a sudden have more debris in the environment than we had previously; I don't think that's the case," she said.
"I think it's just a case of our methodology has changed and ... the full impact is now actually coming to light."
Dr Townsend says being hit by a boat is the top threat to turtles in the area, but she says rubbish in the water comes a close second.
She says half of all marine debris comes from the land while the other half is from the boats and ships, which she says are allowed to dump rubbish in the ocean once they are a certain distance from the coast.
"It is one of those issues where it's everybody's fault. It's just the way that we live and it's all about the debris that we're creating," she said.
"As soon as it's everybody's fault, it becomes nobody's responsibility, and that's really the difficult thing to crack.
"You also have to take responsibility on a personal level for the impetus to start - to be able to fix the problem."
Marine muck takes terrible toll on turtles
Lexi Metherell ABC Net 7 Jun 11;
ELEANOR HALL: To Queensland now where a study suggests that the number of turtles being killed by rubbish dumped in the ocean is far higher than rangers had previously estimated.
The research is being released today by Earthwatch. It reveals that more than a third of the turtles who die in Moreton Bay have either eaten or been entangled in marine rubbish, as Lexi Metherell reports.
LEXI METHERELL: It's long been thought that turtles mistakenly consume soft plastic items like plastic bags and cling film because they believe they're jelly fish, and there's now more evidence that the creatures are selecting soft plastics over other types of rubbish.
KATHY TOWSEND: We went out and looked at what we were finding in the guts of the turtle and then compared that to what we were finding on the beaches in which the turtles had washed up and surprisingly what we ended up finding is that the turtles seem to be selecting or targeting soft plastics with the idea that perhaps these animals are targeting that because they look like jellyfish.
LEXI METHERELL: The University of Queensland's Dr Kathy Townsend is a researcher with Earthwatch.
She dissected and examined the contents of the gut of more than 120 dead turtles from the eastern areas of Morton Bay in Queensland.
She says far more soft plastic items than hard plastic items were found in their gut, and 30 per cent of the dead turtles she examined had ingested rubbish.
KATHY TOWSEND: Sea turtles, because of their anatomy, cannot vomit so if it can't go out the back end, it ends up getting stuck. This debris then causes the gut to enter a type of paralysis state and all of the debris and the organics that are mixed in with that debris just start to decompose.
And the decomposition process causes gas and the animals then become positively buoyant and that's not good if you're a marine animal because that means you can no longer dive to feed, you can't dive to get out of the way of predators or boats and all these other things as well.
So it also means that they basically become very dehydrated and they starve to death and this can last for months.
LEXI METHERELL: Another 6 per cent had died after becoming entangled in rubbish.
Doctor Townsend says earlier estimates by rangers had put the proportion of turtles dying because of marine rubbish at just 2 per cent.
KATHY TOWSEND: I'm not saying that we all of a sudden have more debris in the environment than we had previously, I don't think that's the case. I think it's just a case of our methodology has changed and we're actually - the full impact is now actually coming to light.
LEXI METHERELL: Dr Townsend says being hit by a boat is the top threat to turtles in the area, but she says rubbish in the water comes a close second.
She says half of all marine debris comes from the land. The other half is from the boats and ships, which she says are allowed to dump rubbish in the ocean once they're a certain distance from the coast.
KATHY TOWSEND: It's one of those issues where it's everybody's fault because it's just the way that we live and it's all about the debris that we're creating and as soon as it's everybody's fault, it becomes nobody's responsibility and that's really the difficult thing to crack.
You also have to take responsibility on a personal level for the impetus to start, to be able to fix the problem.
ELEANOR HALL: And that's Dr Kathy Townsend from Earthwatch ending that report by Lexi Metherell.
Plastic greatest danger for marine turtles
EarthWatch Media Release 6 Jun 11;
with links to other media reports
NEW research from the Earthwatch program Turtles in Trouble shows that 36 per cent of marine turtles are affected by marine rubbish, with soft plastic being the major villain.
Marine scientist Dr Kathy Townsend, of the University of Queensland, says the results of the project shows the impact marine rubbish has on the death of turtles is more than 17 times higher than the two per cent previously suggested.
"Turtles have been found to have eaten most plastic items, but the most common items eaten are soft plastics, such as plastic bags and lolly wrappers, and pieces of hard broken-down plastic," Dr Townsend said.
"The ratio of soft plastics - plastic bags, bait bags and cling film - to hard plastics found in turtle gut contents compared to the ratio found in the environment was significantly higher."
She said this indicated that turtles select soft plastics as food, as has been suggested anecdotally.
The executive director of Earthwatch Australia, Richard Gilmore, said the new research and the work of Dr Townsend highlighted the need for the community to be more aware of the impact of marine rubbish.
Alex Ogle Yahoo News 6 Jun 11;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Shark defenders hope to capitalize on a series of victories in their fight against the lucrative fin trade, releasing a report Monday calling for sanctuaries to save the world's oldest predator.
As legislation inches forward in California to ban the import and purchase of fins used in gourmet Chinese soups -- source of the global shark population crash -- activists are pushing for a sanctuary in the Bahamas in a bid to halt drastic overfishing that sees 73 million sharks killed each year.
"We've begun removing them from the oceans at an unprecedented rate in their 400-million-year history," Global Shark Conservation at the Pew Environment Group (PEG) director Matt Rand told AFP, as activists heading the conservation movement convened in Washington last week for a strategy meet.
"They predate dinosaurs by about 100 million years, and somehow survived the extinction that killed those creatures. But they're not surviving the situation they're in today. All for a bowl of soup."
Hunger for their fins has exploded with the growing practice of "finning" -- hacking off fins from the live animals and throwing them back in the water to die -- responsible for a 90 percent decline for some species.
Some 30 percent of all shark species are immediately threatened or near threatened with extinction, according to the report.
The sharks' own biology make them especially vulnerable to overfishing as they are more akin to mammals like whales and dolphins, reaching sexual maturity in their teens, and then only have a few pups at a time.
Activists hope to replicate Palau's success story.
In a landmark 2009 move, the Pacific territory became what Rand called a "preeminent champion" in shark conservation, as the first nation to declare its waters -- about the size of Texas -- a shark safe haven.
The Maldives followed suit a year later, and Honduras has a moratorium on finning.
But if the Bahamas resolves to make such a commitment, Rand said, its wealth of sharks and dedicated shark tourists could make it the "crown jewel of shark conservation in the Atlantic."
Financial reasoning is a key weapon in the defenders' arsenal: according to a Pew-commissioned study released last month, a single reef shark can be worth nearly $2 million in tourism revenue over its lifetime.
In the Bahamas, similarly, the shark diving industry is already worth some $80 million a year, a figure likely to rise if a sanctuary is imposed, said Bahamas National Trust Council executive director Eric Carey.
The payoff appears fruitful, but fishermen who have seen their regular fish stocks decline in recent years have been particularly receptive to raiders of the pervasive fin trade who reach out to communities wherever sharks are found, touting the fins' high value at around $700 per kilo.
In California, the ban moving through the state house builds on the US Shark Conservation Act, signed by President Barack Obama in January, which clamps down on finning.
The measure is seen as strongly backed by California voters, but has divided the West Coast state's Asian-American communities.
It's seen especially stiff opposition from lawmakers with strong Chinese constituencies, where the practice is defended as a tradition, and the proposed law slammed as an attack on heritage.
"Shark fin soup is considered an honored traditional delicacy and is served at many of our sacred occasions," Fiona Ma, a San Francisco Democrat, told The San Diego Union Tribune.
The effort to stem the biggest demand -- from the Chinese mainland, and Hong Kong -- is a key aim for the movement.
Just how to do that, though, remains a major question.
"If the dynamics of the trade are not changed quickly, we will lose many species of sharks within a generation," Rand warned amid the days-long strategy sessions in Washington last week, where the Pew group was joined by dive shop owners and ecologists from around the world.
In a rare boost for activists from within the Asian giant, billionaire delegate Ding Liguo at the National People's Congress proposed a shark fin trade ban earlier this year in the face of huge opposition.
In a bid to shift in opinion there, he insisted "only legislation can stop shark fin trading and reduce the killings of sharks."
Saving the top marine predators means "using this growing momentum," according to Karen Sack, Pew Environment Group's director of International Ocean Conservation, who urged the visiting shark activists "to keep bringing it to the desks" of those in a position to affect change.
Beh Lih Yi Yahoo News 7 Jun 11;
HONG KONG (AFP) – Hong Kong's ambitious plans to expand its airport to meet soaring demand have sparked protests from environmentalists who say it would further endanger the city's rare Chinese white dolphins.
The southern Chinese city started a three-month consultation on its 20-year airport development blueprint last week, which includes a proposal for a new third runway due to booming cargo and travel demand in the region.
Airline groups have pushed for the third runway, which would cost up to HK$136.2 billion ($17.5 billion), to ensure the airport -- the world's biggest cargo hub in 2010 -- stays competitive on the global stage.
The project will be the city's costliest ever infrastructure project, taking into account expected inflation over the 10-year construction period.
But environmentalists say the project, which would include reclamation of 650 hectares (1,600 acres) of land from the sea, would threaten the survival of Chinese white dolphins, which are already facing population decline.
"The third runway is going to bring a huge problem to the white dolphins," Samuel Hung, Hong Kong Dolphin Conservation Society chairman, told AFP.
"It will be right at the centre of the dolphin population range in Hong Kong. (The affected area) is usually used as a corridor for them to travel back and forth. It will take the habitat away from the dolphins," he said.
Experts say there are about 2,500 of the mammals, also known as pink dolphins, in the Pearl River Delta region, the body of water between Macau and Hong Kong. About 100 are in Hong Kong waters with the rest in Chinese waters.
The dolphins, a sub-species of the Indo-Pacific humpback dolphins, are unique for their pink skin. They are listed as "near threatened" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.
The mammal was the official mascot at the handover ceremony when the former British colony returned to Chinese rule in 1997, while dolphin watching is one of the tourist attractions in Hong Kong.
But Hung said their population has been in "significant decline" over the past few years, threatened by overfishing, an increase in maritime traffic, water pollution, habitat loss and coastal development.
"Hong Kong is blessed with the white dolphins despite such a small area of waters. It is very important for us to protect this population," Andy Cornish, director of conservation group WWF Hong Kong, told AFP.
"The environmental impact is going to be major. WWF is not anti-development but Hong Kong people need to be aware of the impact," Cornish said, referring to the airport expansion plans.
There are also fears that a third runway would worsen the city's already severe air pollution and hamper its target to cut greenhouse gas emissions by up to 33 percent by 2020, based on 2005 levels.
Poor air quality is a frequent complaint among the seven million residents of the densely populated financial hub, whose stunning skyline is often obscured by smog.
Advocates of a new runway, including home carrier Cathay Pacific and the International Air Transport Association (IATA), say a third runway is crucial, with the current two runways forecast to reach saturation point by around 2020, according to the airport authority.
The airport blueprint also includes another option, which is to maintain two runways and enhance facilities at an estimated cost of HK$42.5 billion.
"If Hong Kong International Airport does not expand, or fails to expand in a timely manner, to meet our future aviation traffic demand, there will be adverse consequences," Stanley Hui, Hong Kong's Airport Authority chief has warned.
The price tag for the new runway would be far higher than the HK$55 billion cost of the existing facilities at the airport, which opened in 1998, due to soaring construction material prices and the amount of reclamation required.
The airport, ranked third worldwide based on international passengers flown in 2010 after London and Paris, saw its busiest single day in April with 1,003 flight movements.
It handled 4.1 million tons of cargo and 50.9 million passengers in 2010.
Antara 7 Jun 11;
Gorontalo (ANTARA News) - The world`s best turtle habitat in three islands in Gorontalo, Sulawesi, are threatened by human activities.
Four turtle species are discovered in the islands called Pepaya, Mas and Raja islands located in the Sumalata waters in North Gorontalo.
The four turtle species found in the locations are locally known as "penyu hijau" (chelonia mydas), "penyu sisik" (eretmochelys imbricate), "penyu tempayan" (Caretta caretta) and "penyu belimbing" (dermochelys coriacea).
There are only seven turtle species in the world and four of them are found in the islands.
According to Ismail Kulupani, the forest ranger of the islands, the biggest threat on the turtles is illegal poaching besides fish bombing activities.
The islands have been named a nature reserve since the Dutch colonial time in 1936. "A lot of coral reefs where the food for the turtles come from have been damaged," he said.
He said the islands have so far received minimum attention from the local government or media attention. He said the local government had even once proposed changing the islands into a tourism area.
"This means a lot of officials are still not aware of the importance of nature reserve," he said.
(H-YH/A/O001)
(ANTARA)
Editor: Ella Syafputri
The Jakarta Post 6 Jun 11;
The Jambi administration has announced plans to develop a special area of elephant habitat in its latest attempt to end years of conflicts between elephants and the local population.
“We're trying to find the best way to preserve the elephants and end their conflicts with humans, especially in Sarolangun and Batanghari regencies,” Jambi Natural Resources Conservation Agency chief Trisiswo said in Jambi on Tuesday.
He added the administration had chosen a site inside a 101,000-hectare plot of forest owned by conservation firm PT Restorasi Ekosistem Konservasi Indonesia (REKI).
“I've talked about it with PT REKI and they have agreed [to provide the land for the elephant habitat],” Trisiswo said, as quoted by tempointeraktif.com.
The move comes after a number of villagers in Pauh district, Sarolangun, complained that 17 elephants had ransacked their 200-hectare rubber tree plantation in January. Similar incidents, some of which led to the killing of elephants, have been occurring for years.
“Upon visiting the location, [I saw] that the elephants live far from people's settlements and the plantation is in a production forest area,” Trisiswo said.
TRAFFIC 7 Jun 11;
June 2011—the latest issue of TIME magazine reveals a secret plot in China to breed imported white rhinos commercially for their horns to be used in medicine—a scheme that would be in direct contravention of national and international laws, and which contradicts statements made in 2010 by Chinese officials at an international meeting and representatives of the traditional Chinese medicine industry.
In March 2010, members of the World Federation of Chinese Medicine Societies, headquartered in Beijing made a declaration saying they did not want their industry tainted by the use of endangered species parts or derivatives.
Later that month, Chinese officials had affirmed to world governments at CITES (the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora) that there were no intentions to permit rhino farming in the country, yet a TIME reporter uncovered detailed business plans by an ammunitions company to sell and market rhino horn pills, with an aim to generate a 60 million dollar profit annually.
“The natural world is scarred with the unintended consequences of what those only interested in profit might consider ‘good business plans’,” said Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC’s expert on the rhino horn trade.
“The scale of the Chinese market is potentially so awesome, one miscalculation and we potentially could lose entire species, poached to meet the rising demand.”
Asian demand for rhino horn is fuelling a rhino poaching spree in southern Africa, which has seen the number of animals illegally killed in South Africa alone rise to more than 333 in 2010 and shows no signs of abating.
The plan to profit commercially from the importation of live rhinos into China, as alleged by TIME, is also problematic for South African authorities who have reportedly allowed the exportation of 103 live white rhinos since 2007.
South Africa requires the importing country to have adequate legislation in place to ensure live rhinos will only be used for the purpose indicated on the CITES export and import permits to avoid parts and derivatives of live specimens being used commercially.
TIME reveals that these rhinos may in fact find their horns whittled down by one kilogramme each year, using a “self-suction living rhinoceros horn-scraping tool”, under a curious new patent application filed by a subsidiary company of the munitions manufacturer in June 2010.
“South Africa should impose a moratorium on all further exports of live rhinos, unless China can demonstrate that their intended use is compliant with the country’s export policy.
“None of the live rhinos sent to China were for commercial purposes” says Milliken. “It appears that people are being misled.”
Cost-benefit analysis of nature is rigged in favour of business – and delivers the countryside to those who would destroy it
George Monbiot guardian.co.uk 6 Jun 11;
Love, economists have discovered, is depreciating rapidly. On current trends, it is expected to fall by £1.78 per passion-hour between now and 2030. The opportunity cost of a kiss foregone has declined by £0.36 since 1988. By 2050 the net present value of a night under the stars could be as little as £56.13. This reduction in the true value of love, they warn, could inflict serious economic damage.
None of that is true, but it's not far off. Love is one of the few natural blessings which has yet to be fully costed and commodified. They're probably working on it now.
Under the last government, the Department for Transport announced that it had discovered "the real value of time". Here's the surreal sentence in which this bombshell was dropped: "Forecast growth in the real value of time is shown in table 3." Last week, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced the results of its national ecosystem assessment, a massive exercise involving 500 experts. The assessment, it tells us, establishes "the true value of nature … for the very first time". If you thought the true value of nature was the wonder and delight it invoked, you're wrong. It turns out that it's a figure with a pound sign on the front. All that remains is for the Cabinet Office to tell us the true value of love and the price of society, and we'll have a single figure for the meaning of life.
The government has not yet produced one number for "the true value of nature", but its scientists have costed some of the assets that will one day enable this magical synthesis to be achieved. The assessment has produced figures, for example, for the value of green spaces to human wellbeing. If we look after them well, our parks and greens will enhance our wellbeing to the tune of £290 per household per year in 2060.
How do they calculate these values? The report tells us that the "ecosystem services" it assesses include "recreation, health and solace", and natural spaces "in which our culture finds its roots and sense of place". These must be taken into account when costing "shared social value". Shared social value arises from developing "a sense of purpose", and being "able to achieve important personal goals and participate in society". It is enhanced by "supportive personal relationships" and "strong and inclusive communities". These are among the benefits which the experts claim to be costing.
The exercise is well-intentioned. The environment department rightly points out that businesses and politicians ignore the uncosted damage their decisions might inflict on the natural world and human welfare. It seeks to address this oversight by showing that "there are real economic reasons for looking after nature". But there are two big problems.
The first is that this assessment is total nonsense, pure reductionist gobbledegook, dressed up in the language of objectivity and reason, but ascribing prices to emotional responses: prices, which, for all the high-falutin' language it uses, can only be arbitrary. It has been constructed by people who feel safe only with numbers, who must drag the whole world into their comfort zone in order to feel that they have it under control. The graphics used by the assessment are telling: they portray the connections between people and nature as interlocking cogs. It's as clear a warning as we could take that this is an almost comical attempt to force both nature and human emotion into a linear, mechanistic vision.
The second problem is that it delivers the natural world into the hands of those who would destroy it. Picture, for example, a planning enquiry for an opencast coalmine. The public benefits arising from the forests and meadows it will destroy have been costed at £1m per year. The income from opening the mine will be £10m per year. No further argument needs to be made. The coalmine's barrister, presenting these figures to the inquiry, has an indefeasible case: public objections have already been addressed by the pricing exercise; there is nothing more to be discussed. When you turn nature into an accounting exercise, its destruction can be justified as soon as the business case comes out right. It almost always comes out right.
Cost-benefit analysis is systematically rigged in favour of business. Take, for example, the decision-making process for transport infrastructure. The last government developed an appraisal method which almost guaranteed that new roads, railways and runways would be built, regardless of the damage they might do or the paltry benefits they might deliver. The method costs people's time according to how much they earn, and uses this cost to create a value for the development. So, for example, it says the market price of an hour spent travelling in a taxi is £45, but the price of an hour spent travelling by bicycle is just £17, because cyclists tend to be poorer than taxi passengers.
Its assumptions are utterly illogical. For example, commuters are deemed to use all the time saved by a new high-speed rail link to get to work earlier, rather than to live further away. Rich rail passengers are expected to do no useful work on trains, but to twiddle their thumbs and stare vacantly out of the window throughout the journey.
This costing system explains why successive governments want to invest in high-speed rail rather than cycle lanes, and why multibillion pound road schemes which cut two minutes off your journey are deemed to offer value for money. None of this is accidental: the cost-benefit models governments use excite intense interest from business lobbyists. Civil servants with an eye on lucrative directorships in their retirement ensure that the decision-making process is rigged in favour of overdevelopment.
This is the machine into which nature must now be fed. The national ecosystem assessment hands the biosphere on a plate to the construction industry.
It's the definitive neoliberal triumph: the monetisation and marketisation of nature, its reduction to a tradeable asset. Once you have surrendered it to the realm of Pareto optimisation and Kaldor-Hicks compensation, everything is up for grabs. These well-intentioned dolts, the fellows of the grand academy of Lagado who produced the government's assessment, have crushed the natural world into a column of figures. Now it can be swapped for money.
• A fully referenced version of this article can be found on George Monbiot's website
Richard Black BBC News 7 Jun 11;
The government has published proposals aimed at curbing loss of nature across England and strengthening links between people and the wild.
The Natural Environment White Paper aims to put a value on nature, and use economic levers to conserve it.
Businesses building on green space may have to pay "biodiversity offsets".
The government intends to establish an index of "natural capital", to sit beside GDP and the new index of well-being as markers of society's health.
Last week, the National Ecosystem Assessment (NEA) concluded that nature was worth billions of pounds to the UK each year, through providing "ecosystem services" such as clean water, pollination and fertile soil.
The white paper calls for the establishment of 12 "improvement areas" in places where ecological health has been degraded.
Some public funds will be available to restore them, to be allocated on a competitive basis.
But the government is expected to ask businesses and community groups to raise money and lead the process.
Establishing these restoration areas was one of the measures advocated in a government-commissioned report, Making Space for Nature, published last year.
Both it, and the NEA, concluded that more aspects of nature are declining across the UK than are improving.
And Making Space for Nature said England's protected wild areas were too fragmented, failing to offer long-term stability and protection to wildlife.
The assessment called for "corridors" to be established to allow wildlife to move from one area to another.
"The big thing for us is we want the white paper to map out a vision of how we can move from the current state of a net loss of nature to a position of net gain," said Helen Meech, The National Trust's assistant director-general for external affairs.
Offsetting the damage
The white paper establishes a number of ways in which nature can be restored to better health.
These include the establishment of a "biodiversity offset" scheme, under which businesses developing schemes that affect nature would have to pay for conservation in a different place.
This is a concept that is already used by some businesses, such as mining giant Rio Tinto, that have declared policies of "no net loss of biodiversity".
The paper also includes tweaks to planning regulations, although more profound reforms are due later in the year.
"The government needs to take a fresh look - and a smarter approach - at the way we use and manage the natural environment," said Paul Wilkinson, head of living landscape at The Wildlife Trusts.
"We currently find ourselves working amidst an array of policies and mechanisms that determine how land is used and managed.
"Few of these were designed with nature in mind, and virtually none allow for its restoration."
Some organisations want incentives in areas such as health and education to be used in ways relating to nature.
The "pupil premium" that schools receive for enrolling poor students could be used to fund visits to forests or rivers, while Department of Health funding for people to use gyms could be diverted into outdoor exercise projects.
Some interested groups are concerned that short-term priorities such as dealing with the recession could reduce spending on nature.
But advisers such as the National Trust say the government must stick with the long-term message of the NEA - that investing in nature protection will pay dividends in future.
"We're in the middle of a time of great economic constraint, and we're urging the government not to constrain their ambition but to take a long-term view," Ms Meech told BBC News.
Yahoo News 7 Jun 11;
PARIS (AFP) – All but seven percent of the world's tropical forests are "managed poorly or not at all" despite efforts to boost sustainability, according to a major report released Tuesday.
Forces driving forest destruction across four continents -- including rising food and fuel prices, and growing demand for timber -- threaten to overwhelm future conservation efforts, warned the 420-page study by the Japan-based International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO), an intergovernmental agency group that promotes sustainable use of forests.
"Less than 10 percent of all forests are sustainably managed, and we expect deforestation to continue," said Steven Johnson, ITTO's communications director.
"The economic rationale is just so compelling. Revenue streams coming from standing forests just can't compete against conversion to agriculture or biofuel crops, pasture land for livestock, or palm oil plantation," he said by phone.
Tropical forests play an essential role in Earth's carbon cycle, absorbing about a quarter of CO2 emissions generated by human activity.
Deforestation, which releases stored carbon, accounts for 10 to 20 percent of greenhouse-gas emissions globally.
Forests are also a lifeline for nearly a billion people around the world living at or close to subsistence.
The report, "Status of Tropical Forest Management 2011," covers 33 countries and about 90 percent of global trade in tropical timber, and presents itself as the most comprehensive assessment of its kind ever conducted.
So-called "natural permanent tropical forest" currently stand at 761 million hectares (1,880 million acres) worldwide, it estimates, with just over half "production forest," and the rest "protection forest."
The good news is that the area under sustainable management has grown by 50 percent in five years to 53 million hectares (134 million acres), equivalent to the surface of Thailand or Spain.
But these gains must be stacked against the millions of hectares (acres) of tropical forests cleared each year for crops, pastures or development, the report cautioned.
Tropical forests 'better managed'
Richard Black BBC News 7 Jun 11;
The world's tropical forests are better managed now than five years ago, concludes a survey by the International Tropical Timber Organisation (ITTO).
The area under some form of sustainable management plan increased by about 50% over the period; but about 90% of tropical forest lacks protection.
The most significant improvements have been seen in Africa, the report says.
The ITTO is a pro-sustainable use trade body whose 60 member countries account for 90% of the global timber trade.
Its current report - Status of Tropical Forest Management 2011 - analysed data from 33 important forest countries, including the really big players such as Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and Indonesia.
"The top line is that the area under sustainable forest management has gone up from 36 to 53 million hectares in five years," said Duncan Poore, one of the report's authors and a former head of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN).
"That's a substantial improvement, but there's still a long way to go," he told BBC News.
"Forests scheduled by ITTO members as permanent forest cover 760m hectares - so what's under sustainable management is less than 10%, which is disappointing."
Deforestation 'to continue'
Countries that have made major increases in protection include Bolivia, Brazil, Cameroon, Congo, Gabon, Peru and Venezuela.
However, satellite observations recently revealed an alarming escalation in deforestation in Brazil, indicating that loss of forest in some areas of a country can continue even as protection increases in other areas.
"My personal view is that it's more important to make sure that countries decide what forest they want to keep and for what purpose, and look after that satisfactorily, than to weep crocodile tears over deforestation," said Dr Poore.
"The reality is that in most countries, deforestation is going to continue. But if they look after areas that are really important ecologically, that may not be a problem."
The ITTO report makes clear that pressures leading to forest clearance are continuing to rise, with the expansion of the world's population, growing use of raw materials such as wood, and increasing demand for land on which to settle and grow food.
The big hope of many in the conservation community is that rich countries may soon start funding poorer ones to protect forests in the interests of absorbing carbon dioxide and curbing climate change.
But despite years of discussion, establishment of an international mechanism for Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation (REDD) remains elusive, largely because of wider disagreements within the UN climate convention.
Bringing a REDD scheme into existence would, said Dr Poore, be "very important" for the long-term health of tropical forests.
Food Demand Eating Into Tropical Forests: Report
Gerard Wynn PlanetArk 8 Jun 11;
Slowing deforestation and greater awareness of the value of standing trees may come too late to save the world's biggest rainforests, according to a global assessment of tropical forests published Tuesday.
Tropical forests are threatened by pressures to clear land to produce food and biofuels and to plant fast-growing trees for timber, wood fuel and paper.
Awareness was growing in tropical countries of consumer demands, especially in western countries, for wood harvested sustainably, but perhaps not fast enough to counter growing world demand for food, said Duncan Poore, co-author of the report and former head of the World Conservation Union (IUCN).
"There's been an extraordinary change of attitude and culture. They may not be practicing it, or able to because of a lack of funds, but they know it's there," said Poore.
But he was not optimistic for the fate of the biggest areas of rainforest in Brazil, Indonesia and central Africa.
"The fundamental point is that conserving forests is not as lucrative as converting to other uses. When you consider the increase in consumption in China, India it's a very alarming prospect," he said, referring to demand to convert forests to farms for food and biofuels.
The global area of permanent, natural tropical forests, either protected or harvested for indigenous tree species, was likely to continue to fall in the medium term, said the report, "Status of tropical forest management 2011."
CONCERNS
The report was published by the international agency for monitoring and promoting sustainable management, the Japan-based International Tropical Timber Organization.
It expressed concerns about weak law enforcement, inadequate funds for forest protection, poor data on forest management and uncertain forest tenure rights.
The total area of permanent, natural tropical forest in 2010 was 761 million hectares, of which 403 million hectares was managed, for example to harvest indigenous tree species for timber, and 358 million hectares protected.
The area managed using sustainable practices had increased slightly, it said, to about 53 million hectares from 36 million hectares in 2010 compared with 2005.
A sharp fall in the protected area over that period in particular in Brazil and India was likely mostly because of accounting changes, it said.
Deforestation rates generally from 2005-2010 were below 1 percent, it found, but much higher in particular countries and especially in Togo and Nigeria.
That supported a report by the U.N.'s food agency, which found the rate of destruction of the world's three largest forests fell 25 percent this decade compared with the previous one, but remained alarmingly high in some countries.
In the long-run, a proposed system of payments to tropical countries for reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) may place a higher value on standing trees compared with chopping them down, Tuesday's report said.
But that proposal has become bogged down in U.N. climate talks locked in wrangling over sharing greenhouse gas emissions cuts between industrialized and emerging economies.
(Editing by Janet Lawrence)
Yahoo News 7 Jun 11;
ROME (AFP) – Food prices are to remain high and volatile into 2012, presenting a "threat" to poor countries that will have to spend up to a third more on food imports this year, the UN food agency said on Tuesday.
The Rome-based Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said its food price index averaged 232 points in May -- down from a revised estimate of 235 points in April but was still 37 percent above its level in May 2010.
"High and volatile agricultural commodity prices are likely to prevail for the rest of this year and into 2012," FAO said in a statement.
The reason for the monthly decline was the slight decrease in international prices of cereals and sugar, which offset increases for meat and dairy.
FAO said the next few months will be "critical" -- with encouraging prospects for the wheat harvests in Russia and Ukraine but a potential for lower maize and wheat yields in Europe and North America due to the weather.
"The general situation for agricultural crops and food commodities is tight with world prices at stubbornly high levels, posing a threat to many low-income food deficit countries," said David Hallam, head of FAO's markets division.
FAO said the cost of global food imports is set to reach a record of $1.29 trillion (879 billion euros) in 2011 -- 21 percent more than in 2010.
Low-income food deficit countries and least developed countries will likely have to spend 27 and 30 percent more respectively on food imports, FAO said.
High food prices have benefits
Poorer, agricultural economies stand to gain, says DBS
Jamie Lee Business Times 7 Jun 11;
HIGHER food prices can be more punishing on urban economies such as Singapore and the poor living in these countries, but can lift Asia overall by boosting the larger, poorer and more agricultural economies such as China, DBS Research said in a report.
China, Thailand and India, which have low per capita incomes, collectively exported US$43 billion more food than they imported last year - DBS head of economic research David Carbon estimated - and would take advantage of higher prices.
Meanwhile, food consumption by the top food importers and the richest in Asia on a per capita income basis - Singapore, Hong Kong and South Korea - is around 6-8 per cent of their GDP, much less than their poorest counterparts in India, Indonesia and the Philippines who spend between 20 and 35 per cent of their income on food.
'(This) illustrates what most of us sense intuitively: that poorer people spend more of their income on food than richer people,' said Mr Carbon yesterday. 'The good news is they are Asia's richest three countries and are most able to afford the higher cost of food.'
This, however, means that the poor in these urban countries will be hit hard, with Mr Carbon noting that governments have always tried to 'subsidise rapid urban industrialisation by taxing farmers'.
'Social stability is much more critical in urban areas than in the countryside. You don't get riots in the streets where there are no streets,' he said. 'Keeping food prices low helps the urban poor. And while we are surely right to want social stability and more income equality, keeping food prices low seems just as surely to be the wrong way to achieve these goals.'
Income inequity in poor countries such as China can also narrow with higher food prices, with DBS estimating that a 30 per cent rise in agricultural prices raises per-capita income by 9 per cent on Hainan Island, China's poorest province. Rich cities of Shanghai and Beijing barely flinch in response.
Other economists, however, take a different tack.
'Evidence that the gains to farmers from being a net food exporter outweighs the costs of rising food prices, such that income inequality falls, is not compelling,' said Bank of America Merrill Lynch economist Chua Hak Bin, noting that food price inflation hurts the poor the most, in rich and poor countries alike.
'High food prices will typically a hit a large proportion of households in poorer economies. Gains from higher food prices, if the country is a net food exporter, accrues only to a small segment of farmers.'
CIMB economist Song Seng Wun argued that corporate profit distribution is a crucial point in determining income gap. 'A spike in palm oil prices benefits the owners of these large plantations rather than the Indian workers working at these very large estates.'
Barclays Capital economist Leong Wai Ho sees upside risks to raw food prices in the second half of the year due to erratic weather such as droughts in southern China.
Rise in food prices might help reduce income disparity
Stella Lee Channel NewsAsia 8 Jun 11;
SINGAPORE: Food prices are on the rise, but some economists argue that it may help some Asian countries that are net exporters of food. And they add that this may even reduce to some extent the income disparity between nations.
According to a report issued by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation, world food prices are likely to remain high into 2012.
Over the past 12 months in Asia, food prices have gone up by 25 per cent in Vietnam, 11 per cent in China and have risen between eight and nine per cent in Thailand, India and South Korea.
One agricultural commodity that has been particularly affected is corn. It has more than doubled in price over the last 12 months.
Ker Chung Yang, an investment analyst with Phillips Futures, said: "The corn demand for food and the corn demand for biofuel production...is sort of trying to fulfil the demand for people."
The US government has attempted to stimulate the use of biofuels with subsidies as an alternative to crude oil. The biofuel subsidies have prompted farmers to shift corn supplies away from the agriculture market.
Other agricultural commodities that have seen significant rallies in price include coffee, wheat and sugar. Over the past year, coffee prices have nearly doubled, and wheat prices have risen 70 per cent.
But on the bright side, economists said global food price increases will reduce income inequality between Asian countries, as poorer nations dependent on agriculture will benefit.
Net food exporters, Thailand, India and China, are set to raise their average incomes. But this will not be the same for the wealthier countries or net food importers, like South Korea, Hong Kong, and Singapore, who will see a reduction in their real income.
David Carbon, Managing Director of Economic and Currency Research at DBS, said: "If you talk about food prices going up and getting a bit more income equality between the rural and urban areas, then that might not be such a bad thing. And again you get this equaliser in income so the distribution tends to become more balanced and more equal."
According to a report by DBS Research, any rise of income inequality within individual Asian countries may hamper the pace of overall inequality reduction in the region. But it adds that with time, overall income inequality in Asia will be reduced as the income disparity in the population heavy countries, such as Thailand and China, is steadily falling.
-CNA/ac
Pete Harrison PlanetArk 7 Jun 11;
The European Union has a right to impose legislation to cut emissions from aviation and showing weakness would encourage further challenges to EU policies, the EU's climate chief told airlines Monday.
Global airlines have attacked the European Union at their annual meeting over its plan to force them into the region's carbon market.
From January 1 next year, the EU will require all airlines flying to Europe to be included in the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS), a system that forces polluters to buy permits for each tonne of carbon dioxide they emit above a certain cap.
China is spearheading the opposition, saying it will cost Chinese airlines 800 million yuan ($123 million) in the first year and more than triple that by 2020.
The Association of European Airlines (AEA) and aircraft maker Airbus wrote to EU climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard last month, saying they were worried the dispute would result in trade conflict and retaliatory measures.
Hedegaard replied to Airbus Chief Executive Tom Enders and AEA chairman Steve Ridgway Monday, saying that to back down now on agreed legislation would in itself send out a dangerous signal of weakness.
"If nations and regions do not defend their legitimate right to legislate and take appropriate non-discriminatory measures applicable to all economic operators, it would send an extremely unfortunate signal and create problems not just for the global climate, but also for European companies and businesses," Hedegaard wrote.
A Commission source clarified that both Hedegaard and her colleagues feared that backing down would open the door to a flood of new complaints over EU standards and policies.
AVIATION U-TURN-
The laws on aviation emissions have long been approved by all 27 EU governments, the European Parliament and the EU's executive Commission.
Nevertheless, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) has stepped up pressure on the EU to delay or scrap the plan. "The last thing we want to see is a trade war," said IATA director general Giovanni Bisignani.
But Hedegaard's letter to Airbus and AEA gave a subtle reminder that the EU only chose to include aviation in its carbon trading scheme after IATA had given its support to carbon markets as the best tool for the job.
She noted that in a 2004 submission to the United Nations, IATA had argued in favor of the principle of emissions trading.
"Compliance costs under emissions trading would be about 66 percent to 75 percent lower than with taxes or charges to achieve the same target," reads the IATA submission, also seen by Reuters.
IATA was not immediately available to comment on why it had apparently changed its stance.
(Editing by Rex Merrifield)
Rob Taylor and James Grubel PlanetArk 7 Jun 11;
Australian plans to put a price on carbon emissions won't stop the nation's strong economic growth and will have only a small impact on incomes, according to Treasury modeling to be unveiled by Treasurer Wayne Swan on Tuesday.
The carbon price is a key policy which could make or break Prime Minister Julia Gillard's minority government, which relies on support from the Greens and three independents for its one-seat parliamentary majority.
The government is struggling to sell its climate policy, in the face of opposition claims that it will drive up the cost of living and trigger job losses.
Swan will spell out Labor's argument for a carbon tax and eventual emissions trading scheme in a speech to the National Press Club, and he will release new modeling on the impact of a carbon price.
"Our economy will continue to grow solidly while making deep cuts in carbon pollution," Swan will say, according to excerpts of his speech obtained by Reuters.
"The modeling will show real national income growing strongly under a carbon price, at an average annual rate per person of around 1.1 percent until 2050.
"This means a carbon price would only reduce annual growth in GNP per person by about one tenth of one percentage point."
Swan's speech says Treasury modeling will show real national income per person would be 16 percent higher by 2020, and about 56 percent higher by 2050.
Gillard plans to introduce a carbon tax on 1,000 of the country's biggest polluters from July 2012, with a move to an emissions trading scheme three to five years later.
Australia has one of the world's highest per capital levels of greenhouse gas emissions because of reliance on aging coal-fired power stations for 80 percent of its electricity.
But the government is facing a tough fight to win over voters, with a new Galaxy poll showing 58 percent of Australians opposed emissions pricing and 64 percent wanted new elections to be fought on climate policy.
Only 24 percent of respondents believed Gillard had a mandate from a dead-heat election last year to introduce a carbon price, while 73 percent expected to be financially worse off under the scheme.
Thousands of carbon price backers rallied in major cities across the country over the weekend, hoping to counter similar recent demonstrations by opponents of the tax.
Swan has already promoted the benefits of a carbon price on the switch from coal-fired electricity to cleaner gas-fired electricity for Australia.
"Treasury modeling shows a carbon price will see gas-fired electricity generation expand by between 150 and 300 percent over the period to 2050," Swan said in a weekly economic note.
Australia is a major producer and exporter of thermal coal, but is also expected to see gas production soar with a series of massive coal-seam gas projects in the works.
"Dirty energy will become more expensive and clean energy cheaper under a carbon price, creating the jobs of the future and helping to protect our environment and our economy," Swan said.
But mining firms warned last week that the planned carbon pollution cutting scheme would slash investment, output and jobs, and demanded the minority government enter talks to recast its ideas.
Australia says economy stronger with carbon tax
Yahoo News 7 Jun 11;
SYDNEY (AFP) – Australia's economy will continue to grow strongly if a carbon price is introduced, Treasurer Wayne Swan said Tuesday and warned of a possible backlash over coal exports if Canberra failed to act.
Making deep cuts in carbon pollution would not cripple the economy, with modelling showing growth in real national income rising at an average annual rate of 1.1 percent per person until 2050 with a carbon tax, he said.
This compares with growth of 1.2 percent without a levy on pollution.
"Don't believe the vested interests who argue Australia must choose between a stronger economy and decent environmental outcomes," Swan told the National Press Club.
"Jobs will still be created, industries will prosper, and our economy will continue to grow strongly with a carbon price."
Swan said employment would also continue to grow if the government proceeded with its plans to place a pricing mechanism on pollution, with modelling showing no significant difference if a carbon tax was introduced.
"By 2020, national employment is projected to increase by 1.6 million jobs, while at the same time growth in domestically-produced pollution slows," he said.
The treasurer said Australia was the world's worst per capita carbon emitter and could not afford to be left behind as other countries transformed their economies to reduce emissions blamed for global warming.
"No first-rate, first-world economy will be anything other than a clean-energy economy into the future," he said.
While the world would continue to burn Australian coal, a major export for the economy, the nation also needed to export technology that would make the fossil fuel more viable in the future, he added.
"Today Australia has a relatively low-emission coal sector, and we expect it to continue to grow as the world moves to cut its emissions," he said.
"But if we don't innovate further, we run the risk that the rest of world will impose a penalty on our exports in the future."
The centre-left Labor government of Prime Minister Julia Gillard wants to introduce a tax on 1,000 major industrial carbon polluters by mid-2012, with this giving way to a market-based mechanism within 3-5 years.
But the plan has been attacked by the conservative opposition, which claims it will send jobs offshore, hurt industry and raise the cost of living for Australians who will face higher energy costs.
Swan said a report by the Productivity Commission to be released Thursday would show that seven of Australia's top 10 trading partners have already adopted policies to reduce pollution and support clean energy.
"The approaches vary from country to country, but the report will make it clear that market mechanisms are a far more cost-effective way than other approaches like regulation and subsidies," he said.
Alister Doyle PlanetArk 7 Jun 11;
The world must invent new ways to protect people driven from their homes by climate change without copying safeguards for those uprooted by wars or persecution, the head of the U.N. refugee agency said on Monday.
"There is a protection gap in the international system that needs to be addressed," United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres told Reuters during a conference in Oslo on climate change and displaced people.
Guterres said that people moving to escape the impacts of floods, droughts or storms needed different types of support from that enshrined in a 1951 U.N. refugee convention for victims of conflicts or political oppression.
"We must now reconsider our approach" to help people uprooted by global warming, he said in a speech, adding that he considered environmental degradation and climate change to be "the defining challenge of our times."
People in rural areas of Africa whose crops failed, for instance, were likely to move to a city in their home country rather than cross a border to seek shelter in a refugee camp run by the UNHCR.
For people staying in the same country "it makes no sense" to set up camps with separate medical and water services, Guterres said. More appropriate would be local plans to cope with an influx to urban areas.
"Primary responsibility for the protection and well-being of affected populations will ... rest with the states concerned," he said.
Durations can differ with the two kinds of displacements, as those who flee natural disasters like floods may be able to return quickly -- an option rarely available to other refugees.
Guterres urged a "massive program of support" for nations most affected by natural disasters, both related to global warming stoked by human burning of fossil fuels and to natural hazards such as earthquakes or tsunamis.
The UNHCR had "refused to embrace the new terminology of 'climate refugees' or 'environmental refugees', fearing that this would complicate and confuse the organization's efforts to protect the victims of persecution and armed conflict," he said.
He suggested a "global guiding framework" to set standards for the temporary protection and treatment of people driven across borders by climate change and natural disasters.
In 2010, 42 million people were forced from their homes by natural disasters, led by storms and floods in China and Pakistan, according to a report by the Norwegian Refugee Council's Geneva-based Internal Displacement Monitoring Center.
The number, almost equivalent to the population of Spain, compared with 17 million in 2009 and 36 million in 2008 when monitoring began. It focused on sudden disasters, from hurricanes to volcanic eruptions, and excluded slow-moving events such as droughts.
It did not try to work out if global warming was a factor over the three years but said that climate change was likely to raise the numbers this century.
Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said climate change was amplifying the impact of calamities.
"Natural disasters are becoming more disastrous. Livelihoods are eroding faster. Larger numbers of people are being forced to move," he said in a speech.
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