Best of our wild blogs: 6 Feb 19

Paying respects to Big Sister
wild shores of singapore

A Rarity @ Dairy Farm Park
Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

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Higher seafood prices, but eateries adapting swimmingly for CNY

SHERLYN SEAH Today Online 3 Feb 19;

SINGAPORE — As Singaporean families gather on Monday evening (Feb 4) to tuck into their Chinese New Year (CNY) reunion dinners, they would certainly have had to fork out more for the fish, prawns and crabs on their tables.

In the lead-up to the festive season, prices of fresh seafood have spiked by 30 to 40 per cent due to high demand and low supply, said Mr Goh Thiam Chwee, Chairman of the Singapore Fish Merchants’ General Association.

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Indonesia: Ministry investigates alleged environment damage in bauxite mining

Antara 5 Feb 19

Bintan, Riau Islands(ANTARA News) - The Environment and Forestry Ministry has deployed a team to bauxite mining sites in Bintan District to investigate alleged environment damage in the region.

Environment and Forestry Minister Siti Nurbaya stated when contacted here on Tuesday that the team had arrived at the scene and will take legal measures.

"We will take legal measures," Nurbaya remarked without elaborating further.

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The Hidden Environmental Toll of Mining the World’s Sand

By far the largest mining endeavor globally is digging up sand, mainly for the concrete that goes into buildings. But this little-noticed and largely unregulated activity has serious costs — damaging rivers, wreaking havoc on coastal ecosystems, and even wiping away entire islands.
FRED PEARCE Yale Environment 360 5 Feb 19;

Nothing sounds so dull — even for most environmentalists — as sand mining. But in India, reports of sand mafias cashing in on the country’s construction boom have lately been making headlines. Last month, the issue went viral — a 17-year-old girl named Kavya in a fishing village in the state of Kerala posted a video on a mobile phone app about how excavators and dredgers had invaded her coastal community. “The land beneath our feet is sinking away,” she said. It became a sensation across the country. Bollywood actors backed her, and now the country’s National Green Tribunal, a government body aimed at settling environmental disputes, is to consider the case.

Sand mining is the world’s largest mining endeavor, responsible for 85 percent of all mineral extraction. It is also the least regulated, and quite possibly the most corrupt and environmentally destructive. So could this be a turning point?

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