Best of our wild blogs: 16 Sep 14

Wild dolphins! Sea turtles! In Singapore waters!
from wild shores of singapore

The Biggest Challenge
from Green Future Solutions

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Indonesia planning cloud seeding to tackle haze that is also affecting Singapore

Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja Straits Times 15 Sep 14;

The Indonesian authorities are making plans for cloud seeding operations to extinguish forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra and Riau that have shrouded Singapore in foul-smelling haze yet again.

The fires, which had been raging for days, prompted pollution levels in Singapore to climb to the unhealthy range on Sunday and early Monday morning. The pollution readings have since eased back to moderate levels.

"We are communicating with BNPB (the National Disaster Mitigation Agency) now and will start arrangement to do cloud seeding. BNPB will make the call," Mr Erwin Mulyono, a scientist with Indonesia's Applied Technology Agency (BPPT), which helps to strategise cloud seeding operations, told The Straits Times by telephone.

He added: "We have personnel ready in Pekanbaru and in Palembang right now. The aircraft (for the cloud seeding operation) are in the Halim Air Force base (in Jakarta) today and should soon be deployed there."

Haze over southern and central Sumatra in the past few days has been mostly due to forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra. The wind has been blowing a northeasterly direction over Riau, as is typical for this time of the year, sending the haze in the direction of Singapore and Peninsular Malaysia.

Hourly air quality readings in Malaysia on Monday morning have been either healthy or moderate so far.

Dr Ajisman Syafaat, a lung specialist at the Arifin Achmad state hospital in Pekanbaru, told The Straits Times that the city has been shrouded by a light haze since last Saturday.

"Hopefully the government will do something soon," he said.

In mid-March, Dr Ajisman made an appeal to the Pekanbaru municipal adimistration to evacuate pregnant women, babies and toddlers from the capital of Riau province until conditions return to normal, saying the haze situation was "too dangerous" to health.

The Sultan Thaha Syaifuddin airport in Jambi in the southern part of Sumatra was closed for four hours on Sunday as the visibility level dropped to below 1km, the minimum required for airlines to land safely, according to local online news portal Jambiekspres.co.id.

The weekly weather forecast for Jambi indicates a continued dry spell for the province. Local administration officials appealed to farmers and plantation companies not to do slash-and-burn to clear lands.

Haze from forest and plantation fires also blanketed Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan, on Sunday evening, prompting residents who were outdoors to wear masks, according to Kompas.com, the online news portal owned by Indonesia's largest newspaper. Several flights in Sumatra and Kalimantan have also been disrupted due to haze in recent days.

BNPB has been carrying out water bombing operations using helicopters in affected areas in Sumatra and Kalimantan to contain the spread of fire.

Haze returns here as fires in Indonesia rage
Feng Zengkun, Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja My Paper AsiaOne 16 Sep 14;

That burnt smell, the foggy blanket in the air - your senses have not deceived you: The haze is back in Singapore.

Singapore's National Environment Agency Pollution Standards Index (PSI) readings crossed into the unhealthy range in the early hours of yesterday morning.

The three-hour PSI was 102 at 1am and continued to rise through the night.

By 6am, the PSI hit 113, but fell slightly to 111 at 7am.

The reading tailed off after that and was 66 at 7pm, in the moderate range.

People with chronic lung and heart disease are advised to avoid prolonged or strenuous outdoor physical exertion.

Just last month, Singapore passed a law to punish polluters who cause the haze.

Firms will be fined for each day that they contribute to "unhealthy" haze. Unhealthy haze is defined in the new law as air quality having a PSI value of 101 or greater for 24 hours or more.

Polluting companies may be fined up to $100,000 a day, up to a maximum of $2 million.

The Indonesian authorities are also making plans for cloud-seeding operations to extinguish forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra and Riau that have raged for days and shrouded Singapore in the haze.

Erwin Mulyono - a scientist with Indonesia's Applied Technology Agency, which helps to strategise cloud-seeding operations - told The Straits Times: "We are communicating with BNPB (the National Disaster Mitigation Agency) now and will start arrangements to do cloud seeding. BNPB will make the call."

He added: "We have personnel ready in Pekanbaru and in Palembang right now. The aircraft (for the cloud-seeding operation) were in the Halim Air Force base (in Jakarta) yesterday and should soon be deployed there."

Haze over southern and central Sumatra in the past few days was mostly due to forest and plantation fires in South Sumatra.

The wind has been blowing in a north-easterly direction over Riau, as is typical for this time of the year, sending the haze in the direction of Singapore and the Malaysian peninsula.

Hourly air-quality readings in Malaysia yesterday morning have been either healthy or moderate so far.
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/haze-returns-here-fires-indonesia-rage#sthash.ZdLUsU1h.dpuf

Expect slight haze on Tuesday: NEA
Channel NewsAsia 15 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: The National Environment Agency (NEA) said to expect occasional slight haze on Monday night (Sep 15). As of 6pm, the 3-hour Pollutant Standard Index (PSI) reading stood at 64, according to the NEA website. This is in the "moderate" band, and down from a high of 113 at 6am on Monday.

However, the 24-hour PSI reading for western parts of Singapore was still in the "unhealthy" range of over 100.

NEA said to expect slightly hazy conditions on Tuesday, with prevailing winds forecast to blow from the southeast or southwest. "Overall air quality for the next 24 hours is expected to fluctuate between the high-end of the 'moderate' range and the low-end of the 'unhealthy' range," NEA stated.

Members of the public started to report a "burning smell" and dropping visibility as early as 7pm on Sunday. NEA said in a statement that levels of PM2.5 were elevated from 10pm on Sunday to 7am on Monday, with mainly the western parts of Singapore affected. This is likely due to hotspots in South Sumatra detected over the past three to four days, it said.

"We haven't noticed any significant jump in hotspots. It's been quite active since the beginning of the month. A large fire that we have been tracking has been burning for at least a week. So the reason why it's affecting air quality in Singapore now is because the previous wind direction did not take the smoke directly to Singapore," explained Mr Chia Aik Song, Associate Scientist with the Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing (CRISP) at the National University of Singapore.

However, a check of a website run by Indonesia's National Disaster Mitigation Agency shows there are close to 690 hotspots detected on Monday, mainly in Kalimantan.

NEA has requested an urgent update from Indonesia on the ground situation and measures they are taking to address the hotspots in southern Sumatra. It had already sent a letter to Indonesian authorities on Friday. In response, Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment has informed them that a forest fire control team has been mobilised, and that the Indonesian National Board for Disaster has also sent emergency response teams to the area.

- CNA/ly/ac

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Malaysia: Malayan tigers in danger of becoming extinct

patrick lee The Star 16 Sep 14;

PETALING JAYA: Poachers and deve­lopment have pushed Malaysia’s tigers to the brink of extinction.

The country’s national animal is now categorised as a critically endangered species on the IUCN Red List, with official estimates pegging the population of the big cats to as low as 250 to 340.

“Poaching for illegal commercial trade is the greatest and most urgent threat to tigers in Malaysia, followed by loss and fragmentation of forests,” Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat) said a joint statement.

Mycat general manager Dr Kae Kawanishi said data collected only by NGOs showed more than 2,241 poacher traps and 1,728 illegal camp sites were destroyed in local forest reserves and protected areas between 2010 and 2013.

“Intelligence has also indicated a sharp increase in the number of trespassers and poachers in forests across the region since 2012,” she told The Star.

Dr Kae said tigers and other wildlife were being hunted by both local and foreign poachers “right under our noses”.

Previously, the estimated number of Malayan tigers in the country was at 500.

In 2013, a man from Kedah was sentenced to five years jail for ha­ving eight tiger skins, 22 tiger skulls and nine elephant tusks. He was not fined.

TRAFFIC Southeast Asia senior communications officer Elizabeth John said nearly 100 live tigers and tiger parts were seized by authorities between 2000 and 2012.

“How long can any wild tiger po­pulation cope with that level of slaughter?” she asked.

WWF Malaysia chief executive Datuk Dr Dionysus Sharma said current efforts to save the Malayan tiger were not enough.

“If this trend continues, then tiger numbers can be expected to go down further,” he said.

He said TX2, a WWF move to double numbers in 13 tiger range countries by 2022 may be possible if poaching was kept under control, and enough tiger prey around to support those numbers.

Malayan tiger now critically endangered, numbering as few as 250
patrick lee The Star 15 Sep 14;

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia's national animal, the Malayan tiger, is being being pushed to the point of extinction.

Current estimates have pegged Malaysia's tiger population at as little as 250 to 340 tigers in Peninsular forests, nearly half of the previous estimate of 500 tigers.

"Despite all efforts, including the strengthening of legislation and increased patrolling, tiger conservation across the vast tropical forest landscape continue to face challenges."

"Poaching for illegal commercial trade is the greatest and most urgent threat to tigers in Malaysia, followed by loss and fragmentation of forests," said a joint statement by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) and the Malaysian Conservation Alliance for Tigers (Mycat).

It was added that the new estimates were made from studies conducted between 2010 to 2013 using camera traps under a standardised protocol at seven sites across three major tiger landscapes in Peninsular Malaysia.

Though it said that more sites needed to be surveyed to determine a more robust tiger population estimate here, it added that the Malayan tiger now met the IUCN Red List criteria of "Critically Endangered".

It previously classified as "Endangered" in 2008.

Previous moves to increase Malaysia's tiger population to 1,000 by 2020, such as specified in the National Tiger Conservation Action Plan, were now considered "unachievable".

Immediate tiger conservation efforts are being explored, including the setting up of tiger patrol units in the Belum-Temengor, Taman Negara and Endau-Rompin tiger priority areas.

Also included were a comprehensive national Tiger Survey in the Peninsular's remaining major forest landscape, and the strengthening of existing forest and tiger conservation mechanisms.

It was added that though federal funding and donations from Mycat's NGO donors had helped thus far, more resources were needed.

There are no Malayan tigers in Borneo.

According to the Mycat website, tiger populations a century ago measured about 100,000 worldwide, declining to about less than 3,200 today.

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Indonesia: Greenpeace Activists Mourn Burnt Peatland

Jakarta Globe 16 Sep 14;

Jakarta. Greenpeace mourners on Monday placed funeral wreaths on burned peatland in Riau province, highlighting an ongoing crisis and urging President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono to secure his “green” legacy by ensuring real peatland protection.

Speaking in a blackened landscape adjacent to Tanjung Leban village in Rokan Hilir district, locally born Greenpeace forest activist Rusmadya Maharuddin explained that data shows three quarters of Indonesia’s recent hotspots were burning in peatland.

The president’s moratorium on new forest concessions clearly does not go far enough to ensure protection for the nation’s peatlands, which store almost 60 billion tones of carbon, Rusmadya said.

“We are standing on peatland which should be protected, according to the forest clearing moratorium map. Yet clearing and draining of the wider landscape has left the land as dry as a tinderbox. Ongoing fire destruction and smoke haze are inevitable in this situation.”

Peatland drainage and conversion has released enough greenhouse gas to put Indonesia among the world’s top three emitters. This has put at risk President Yudhoyono’s commitment to the world to reduce Indonesia’s emissions by between 26 percent and 41 percent by 2020.

Unfortunately the president’s response to the peat crisis has missed the mark. The draft peat regulation awaiting his signature fails to protect peatland as an ecosystem-landscape and peat areas within existing concessions. Destroying one part of a peat dome can lead to the rapid demise of the “protected” parts through drying out and edge effects.

Yuyun Indradi, Greenpeace’s forest political campaigner, urged the president not to sign the flawed peat regulation in his last days in office.

“Indonesia’s peatland forests are dying. They need strong and comprehensive protection, but the draft peat regulation does not provide that,” Yuyun said in Jakarta.

Activists can only hope Joko Widodo will take strong actions against forest clearing.

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Plastic rubbish from land, not ships, killing Australian sea life, say scientists

Research shows three-quarters of rubbish was plastic and debris concentrated near cities
Australian Associated Press theguardian.com 15 Sep 14;

Mounds of plastic rubbish along Australia’s coastline are growing and killing wildlife which is ingesting or becoming ensnared in it, researchers say.

Scientists visited more than 170 sites along the coast and found about three-quarters of the rubbish was plastic from the land, not vessels on the ocean, and debris was concentrated near cities.

The density of plastic ranged from a few thousand pieces per square kilometre to more than 40,000 pieces, a CSIRO scientist, Denise Hardesty, said.

“There has been an increase in plastic as we have had an increase in our population,” Hardesty said on Monday.

The report showed other marine debris included bottles, cans, bags, balloons, rubber, metal, fibreglass and cigarettes that could smother coral reefs, kill wildlife and even pose a threat to human health.

About one-third of marine turtles around the world had probably ingested debris, and that figure had increased since plastic production began in the 1950s, Hardesty said.

Up to 15,000 turtles had also been killed in the Gulf of Carpentaria, off Australia’s northern coast, after becoming ensnared by derelict fishing nets.

Meanwhile, the Tasman Sea, south of Australia, was a problem hot spot for seabirds.

“Globally, nearly half of all seabird species are likely to ingest debris, Hardesty said.

By identifying sources and hot spots of debris, solutions could be developed, including improved waste management, targeted education and technology advancements, she said.

Local council outreach, anti-dumping campaigns, advertising and incentive strategies such as South Australia’s container deposit scheme were effective in reducing marine debris, the report found.

The research is part of TeachWild, a national three-year research and education program developed by EarthWatch Australia in partnership with CSIRO and Shell.

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