Parliament: Singapore adopts three-pronged approach to deal with wildlife trafficking

Audrey Tan Straits Times 28 Feb 18;

SINGAPORE - The Government has a three-pronged strategy to deter wildlife trafficking at Singapore's border checkpoints.

This includes subjecting passengers and shipments to a risk assessment, conducting multiple layers of checks at the checkpoints, and adopting a coordinated enforcement approach among the agencies involved, such as the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), Singapore Customs, as well as Immigration and Checkpoints Authority.

"Taken together, these measures have led to several successful seizures of illegal wildlife in Singapore," said Senior Minister of State for National Development Koh Poh Koon in Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 28).

Dr Koh was responding to a question raised by Mr Louis Ng (Nee Soon GRC) on what measures are in place at Singapore's border checkpoints to deter wildlife trafficking.

On the importance of risk assessment, Dr Koh said that the framework helps flag passengers and shipments that require more detailed checks. Passengers and cargo are also screened by officers and a variety of other tools, such as x-ray machines.

Singapore's agencies also work together to take quick action "after receiving credible and actionable intelligence or tip-offs from the public and from our international partners," Dr Koh said.

He warned that traffickers are subject to heavy penalties if caught with wildlife parts, facing fines of up to $500,000, up to two years' jail, or both.

Even though demand for illegal wildlife parts, such as rhino horn, ivory or pangolin scales, is not as high in Singapore compared to other countries in the region, the Republic has long been flagged by international environmental organisations as being a transit point for these items.

Mr Ng also asked if Singapore will consider deploying sniffer dogs to detect wildlife on passengers or in cargo, as the country does for narcotics.

Dr Koh said that the Government uses scanning technologies for this purpose.

"More studies are needed to determine if sniffer dogs can be more effective than our current methods," Dr Koh said.

But he added that the AVA - which falls under the purview of his ministry - is continually studying the efficacy of different tools and techniques to detect illegal wildlife at the border checkpoints.

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Malaysia: 45 tunnels to save pristine forests

mazwin nik anis The Star 28 Feb 18;

PUTRAJAYA: Only 216ha of forest will be cleared to make way for the 688km East Coast Rail Link (ECRL) alignment, with efforts being made to further reduce the size of the affected area.

This is only 10% of the 2,000ha of forest originally estimated to be lost in the course of the project, said Dr G. Balamurugan, managing director of ERE Consulting Group Sdn Bhd, which conducted the social impact assessment of the project.

This was made possible through the redesign and realignment of the ECRL, he added.

“ECRL is a project of great importance for the country. What we want is to ensure it causes minimal damage to the environment and impact on wildlife while meeting its economic and social objectives,” he said at the signing of a memorandum of agreement between China Communications Construction Co Ltd (CCCC) and the Wildlife and National Parks Department (Perhilitan) on the implementation of a wildlife management plan.

CCCC was represented by its executive managing director Bai Yinzhan while director-general Datuk Abdul Kadir Hashim signed on behalf of Perhilitan.

The signing was witnessed by Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Dr Wan Junaidi Tuanku Jaafar and China’s Ambassador to Malaysia Bai Tian.

Dr Balamurugan said the ECRL alignment runs close to 25 different forest reserves, home to animals such as elephants, tapir, tigers, barking deer and sun bears.

To minimise the impact on the environment, 45 tunnels will be built to keep the forest intact.

For wildlife to be able to roam freely and safely, 27 crossings and 100km of viaducts will also be constructed, he said.

“In areas that can’t be avoided, expeditions will be held to check for rare species of flora which will be replanted at unaffected forest areas,” he said.

Dr Wan Junaidi said the RM10mil contribution from the CCCC for a period of seven years would enable Perhilitan to take crucial measures to ensure the rail project complies with environmental requirements.

“The wildlife management plan will, among other things, minimise and monitor the impact on wildlife and their habitats along key stretches of the ECRL,” he said in his speech.

Describing this as a milestone agreement, the minister lauded the project for its environment-friendly initiatives.

Dr Wan Junaidi said he had informed the Cabinet that the ministry wanted to be consulted from the start of the project so that any concerns and impact on the environment could be addressed.

“With the agreement on the implementation of a dedicated wildlife management plan for ECRL, this key catalytic rail project will proceed with adequate safeguards.

“This is a win-win situation as the ministry strongly believes that development and the environment must always go hand in hand.

“I am glad to see that CCCC is proving to be a good and responsible partner for the ECRL by focusing on protecting the environment.

“This collaboration will ensure the project incurs minimal damage to the environment and protects the welfare of wildlife,” he said.

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Indonesia: Bears handed over to Riau conservation authority

Rizal Harahap The Jakarta Post 27 Feb 18;

Worried about the legal sanctions he might face for keeping a protected species, Adi, 28, a resident of Sungai Buluh village in Bunut district, Pelalawan regency, Riau, handed over a pair of sun bears to the Riau chapter of the Natural Resources Conservation Agency.

Agency spokesperson Dian Indriati said Adi had voluntarily handed over the sun bears that he had kept for three years.

“The agency’s ranger team led by Murmaiddin Putraper fetched the bears in Bunut on Monday evening. The bears are now in Pekanbaru and are undergoing a medical assessment by a medical team,” Dian said on Tuesday.

She said that the two bears, a male and a female, were about 4 years old and in good condition. Information collected by the agency revealed that the bears were found by Adi when he was working on an oil palm plantation in Bunut about three years ago.

“When they were found, the bears were still very young and had been abandoned by their mother. Adi later decided to take care of them until he was made aware that under the prevailing laws, it is prohibited to keep protected wildlife and this might lead to legal sanctions,” said Dian.

Law No.5/1990 on the conservation of biodiversity and its ecosystem stipulates that anyone found guilty of hunting, keeping and trading in wildlife may face a maximum of five years in prison and a maximum fine of Rp 100 million (US$7,310). (ebf)

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North Atlantic right whales may face extinction after no new births recorded

Declining fertility and rising mortality, exacerbated by fishing industry, prompts experts to warn whales could be extinct by 2040
Joanna Walters The Guardian 26 Feb 18;

The dwindling North Atlantic right whale population is on track to finish its breeding season without any new births, prompting experts to warn again that without human intervention, the species will face extinction.

Scientists observing the whale community off the US east coast have not recorded a single mother-calf pair this winter. Last year saw a record number of deaths in the population. Threats to the whales include entanglement in lobster fishing ropes and an increasing struggle to find food in abnormally warm waters.

The combination of rising mortality and declining fertility is now seen as potentially catastrophic. There are estimated to be as few as 430 North Atlantic right whales left in the world, including just 100 potential mothers.

“At the rate we are killing them off, this 100 females will be gone in 20 years,” said Mark Baumgartner, a marine ecologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. Without action, he warned, North Atlantic right whales will be functionally extinct by 2040.

A 10-year-old female was found dead off the Virginia coast in January, entangled in fishing gear, in the first recorded death of 2018. That followed a record 18 premature deaths in 2017, Baumgartner said.

Woods Hole and other groups, including the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, have been tracing right whale numbers in earnest since the mid-1980s.

Federal research suggests 82% of premature deaths are caused by entanglement in fishing line. The prime culprit is the New England lobster industry. Crab fishing in Canadian waters is another cause of such deaths.

Baumgartner said that until about seven years ago, the population of North Atlantic right whales was healthy. But then lobster fishermen began greatly increasing the strength of ropes used to attach lobster pots to marker buoys.

Whales becoming entangled are now far less able to break free, Baumgartner said. Some are killed outright, others cannot swim properly, causing them to starve or to lose so much blubber that females become infertile.

“Lobster and crab fishing and whales are able to comfortably co-exist,” Baumgartner said. “We are trying to propose solutions, it’s urgent.”

Baumgartner said the US government should intervene to regulate fishing gear. He also said the industry should explore technology enabling fishermen to track and gather lobster pots without using roped buoys.

The whales migrate seasonally between New England and Florida, calving off Florida and Georgia from November to February. They primarily feed on phytoplankton. Scientists believe rapid warming of the Gulf of Maine, linked to climate change, is drastically depleting that food source.

Past measures to prevent ship collisions and to safeguard feeding areas have helped. Several environmental groups have sued the federal government, demanding greater protection for right whales.

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More than 100 cities now mostly powered by renewable energy, data shows

The number of cities getting at least 70% of their total electricity supply from renewable energy has more than doubled since 2015
Elle Hunt The Guardian 27 Feb 18;

The number of cities reporting they are predominantly powered by clean energy has more than doubled since 2015, as momentum builds for cities around the world to switch from fossil fuels to renewable sources.

Data published on Tuesday by the not-for-profit environmental impact researcher CDP found that 101 of the more than 570 cities on its books sourced at least 70% of their electricity from renewable sources in 2017, compared to 42 in 2015.

Nicolette Bartlett, CDP’s director of climate change, attributed the increase to both more cities reporting to CDP as well as a global shift towards renewable energy.

The data was a “comprehensive picture of what cities are doing with regards to renewable energy,” she told Guardian Cities.

That large urban centres as disparate as Auckland, Nairobi, Oslo and Brasília were successfully moving away from fossil fuels was held up as evidence of a changing tide by Kyra Appleby, CDP’s director of cities.

“Reassuringly, our data shows much commitment and ambition,” she said in a statement. “Cities not only want to shift to renewably energy, but, most importantly – they can.”

Much of the drive for climate action at city level in the past year has been spurred on by the global covenant of more than 7,400 mayors that formed in the wake of Donald Trump’s decision to withdraw from the Paris accord.

Burlington, Vermont, was the only US city reporting to CDP that sourced all of its power from renewable sources after having fully transitioned in 2015. Research from the Sierra Club states there are five such cities in the US in total.

Burlington is now exploring how to become zero-carbon.

Mayor Miro Weinberger said to CDP that its shift to a diverse mix of biomass, hydro, wind and solar power had boosted the local economy, and encouraged other cities to follow suit. Across the US 58 towns and cities, including Atlanta and San Diego, have set a target of 100% renewable energy.

In Britain, 14 more cities and towns had signed up to the UK100 local government network’s target of 100% clean energy by 2050, bringing the total to 84. Among the recent local authority recruits were Liverpool City Region, Barking and Dagenham, Bristol, Bury, Peterborough, Redcar and Cleveland.

But the CDP data showed 43 cities worldwide were already entirely powered by clean energy, with the vast majority (30) in Latin America, where more cities reported to CDP and hydropower is more widespread.

In the six months to July, Latin American cities reported having instigated $183m of renewable energy projects – less than Europe ($1.7bn) or Africa ($236m). Europe topped the list for projects open for investment, but laid claim to just 20% of the 101 cities to be predominantly powered by clean energy.

The Icelandic capital Reyjkavik, sourcing all electricity from hydropower and geothermal, was among them. It is now working to make all cars and public transit fossil-free by 2040.

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Arctic warming: scientists alarmed by 'crazy' temperature rises

Record warmth in the Arctic this month could yet prove to be a freak occurrence, but experts warn the warming event is unprecedented
Jonathan Watts The Guardian 27 Feb 18;

An alarming heatwave in the sunless winter Arctic is causing blizzards in Europe and forcing scientists to reconsider even their most pessimistic forecasts of climate change.

Although it could yet prove to be a freak event, the primary concern is that global warming is eroding the polar vortex, the powerful winds that once insulated the frozen north.

The north pole gets no sunlight until March, but an influx of warm air has pushed temperatures in Siberia up by as much as 35C above historical averages this month. Greenland has already experienced 61 hours above freezing in 2018 - more than three times as many hours as in any previous year.

Seasoned observers have described what is happening as “crazy,” “weird,” and “simply shocking”.

“This is an anomaly among anomalies. It is far enough outside the historical range that it is worrying – it is a suggestion that there are further surprises in store as we continue to poke the angry beast that is our climate,” said Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “The Arctic has always been regarded as a bellwether because of the vicious circle that amplify human-caused warming in that particular region. And it is sending out a clear warning.”

Although most of the media headlines in recent days have focused on Europe’s unusually cold weather in a jolly tone, the concern is that this is not so much a reassuring return to winters as normal, but rather a displacement of what ought to be happening farther north.

At the world’s most northerly land weather station - Cape Morris Jesup at the northern tip of Greenland – recent temperatures have been, at times, warmer than London and Zurich, which are thousands of miles to the south. Although the recent peak of 6.1C on Sunday was not quite a record, but on the previous two occasions (2011 and 2017) the highs lasted just a few hours before returning closer to the historical average. Last week there were 10 days above freezing for at least part of the day at this weather station, just 440 miles from the north pole.

“Spikes in temperature are part of the normal weather patterns – what has been unusual about this event is that it has persisted for so long and that it has been so warm,” said Ruth Mottram of the Danish Meteorological Institute. “Going back to the late 1950s at least we have never seen such high temperatures in the high Arctic.”

The cause and significance of this sharp uptick are now under scrutiny. Temperatures often fluctuate in the Arctic due to the strength or weakness of the polar vortex, the circle of winds – including the jetstream – that help to deflect warmer air masses and keep the region cool. As this natural force field fluctuates, there have been many previous temperature spikes, which make historical charts of Arctic winter weather resemble an electrocardiogram.

But the heat peaks are becoming more frequent and lasting longer – never more so than this year. “In 50 years of Arctic reconstructions, the current warming event is both the most intense and one of the longest-lived warming events ever observed during winter,” said Robert Rohde, lead scientist of Berkeley Earth, a non-profit organisation dedicated to climate science.

The question now is whether this signals a weakening or collapse of the polar vortex, the circle of strong winds that keep the Arctic cold by deflecting other air masses. The vortex depends on the temperature difference between the Arctic and mid-latitudes, but that gap is shrinking because the pole is warming faster than anywhere on Earth. While average temperatures have increased by about 1C, the warming at the pole – closer to 3C – is melting the ice mass. According to Nasa, Arctic sea ice is now declining at a rate of 13.2% per decade, leaving more open water and higher temperatures.

Some scientists speak of a hypothesis known as “warm Arctic, cold continents” as the polar vortex becomes less stable - sucking in more warm air and expelling more cold fronts, such as those currently being experienced in the UK and northern Europe. Rohde notes that this theory remains controversial and is not evident in all climate models, but this year’s temperature patterns have been consistent with that forecast.

Longer term, Rohde expects more variation. “As we rapidly warm the Arctic, we can expect that future years will bring us even more examples of unprecedented weather.”

Jesper Theilgaard, a meteorologist with 40 years’ experience and founder of website Climate Dissemination, said the recent trends are outside previous warming events. “No doubt these warming events bring trouble to the people and the nature. Shifting rain and snow – melt and frost make the surface icy and therefore difficult for animals to find anything to eat. Living conditions in such shifting weather types are very difficult.”

Others caution that it is premature to see this as a major shift away from forecasts. “The current excursions of 20C or more above average experienced in the Arctic are almost certainly mostly due to natural variability,” said Zeke Hausfather of Berkeley Earth. “While they have been boosted by the underlying warming trend, we don’t have any strong evidence that the factors driving short-term Arctic variability will increase in a warming world. If anything, climate models suggest the opposite is true, that high-latitude winters will be slightly less variable as the world warms.”

Although it is too soon to know whether overall projections for Arctic warming should be changed, the recent temperatures add to uncertainty and raises the possibility of knock-on effects accelerating climate change.

“This is too short-term an excursion to say whether or not it changes the overall projections for Arctic warming,” says Mann. “But it suggests that we may be underestimating the tendency for short-term extreme warming events in the Arctic. And those initial warming events can trigger even greater warming because of the ‘feedback loops’ associated with the melting of ice and the potential release of methane (a very strong greenhouse gas).”

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