Massive ETimor land-for-biofuel plan raises hackles

Yahoo News 24 Jun 08;

East Timor's government is under fire over an agreement to turn more than a sixth of the country's arable land over to a 100 million dollar foreign-funded ethanol project.

The Fretilin opposition has branded as a "land giveaway" a memorandum of understanding between the agriculture minister and GTLeste Biotech for a 100,000 hectare (247,000 acre) sugar plantation and ethanol plant.

The agreement with the little-known Indonesian company guarantees at least 100 million dollars in investment in return for granting GTLeste a 50-year lease over a swathe of "unproductive land" with an option for 50 years more.

The government is touting the move as a major potential source of foreign cash which could generate more than 2,000 jobs.

But opposition agriculture spokesman Estanislau da Silva told AFP the plan was made with little public consultation and could threaten food production in the impoverished and overwhelmingly agrarian country.

"They say they are going to plant sugarcane on unproductive land. Where in the world can you plant sugarcane on unproductive land?" da Silva said.

"The intention itself is very suspicious and goes against what we are doing in terms of development and increasing food production and food reliance," he said.

"Two thousand jobs means nothing to me when you give away 100,000 hectares."

"What worries us is firstly the process. For a project as big as this ... the government should consult before signing the contract," said Maximus Tahu from independent development watchdog La'o Hamutuk.

Although estimates are difficult to make, the 100,000 hectares proposed for the project comprises at least one-sixth of land that can be farmed in East Timor, including farms already in use, Tahu said. Fretilin puts the figure at one-quarter.

"We have learned from other countries that sugar cane plantations will have negative impacts on agriculture and farmers' lives. More than 80 percent of Timorese are farmers, they live on agriculture, so the land is very important for them," he said.

"Our concern is the project will contribute to the destruction of land fertility."

The government has brushed aside the criticism, saying discussions are in the early stages and no fixed site has been found for the plantation.

Environment Minister Mariano Sabino said critics of the plan had been spreading "false propaganda" that the government had already agreed to give the land to GTLeste.

"Whoever wants to discuss this, sure let's discuss this. But don't carry out false campaigns and lie that the ministry has already provided the land," he said Monday.

The ethanol plan would bring much-needed investment into rural East Timor, Sabino said.

East Timor, which gained formal independence in 2002 after 24 years of often brutal Indonesian occupation, is one of the poorest countries in Asia, with roughly 50 percent unemployment.

Soaring global oil prices and fears of global warming have led to a boom in the production of biofuels, which are mostly made from crops such as oil palms, sugarcane and soybeans.

However, scientists have questioned the environmental benefits of biofuels, saying production can encourage land clearing as well as divert food crops, pushing up global food prices.

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Conservation and banking groups team up for rainforest project

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 24 Jun 08;

The world's oldest conservation group has teamed up with a major banking group in a rainforest protection project.

Fauna and Flora International (FFI) have set up a task force with the Macquarie Group which will invest in the management of tropical rainforests and produce carbon credits for sale.

They say they will be involved in the protection of six forests at risk of deforestation over the next three years.

They are looking at rainforests in South East Asia, South America and Africa and will work with local forest communities and governments to ensure the forests survive.

Macquarie Group will provide capital and financial services for the forest projects making sure they meet carbon standards and will then sell them on the international market.

FFI will provide the expertise and contacts built up since it as established more than a century ago to push the projects to completion.

Carbon credits from the rainforests will be sold to commercial customers wanting to offset their own carbon emissions. The carbon projects will show measureable and long-term carbon reduction.

FFI chief executive officer, Mark Rose, said: "Tropical forests cover a small part of the planet, but they are home to half the world's plant and animal species.

"Forests play a vital and varied role in sustaining life on earth, but the value of that role has not been recognised. By partnering with Macquarie Group, we hope to access carbon markets in order to demonstrate the importance of forests and create an incentive for the conservation of more of the world's tropical forests."

Oliver Yates, Head of Macquarie Group's Climate Change Investments, said: "Rainforests are a natural store of carbon and important environmental infrastructure. They also have an economic value because of the carbon they store."

Every year about 13 million hectares of the world's forests are cleared and the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) has estimated that deforestation contributes 17 per cent of total global carbon emissions.

Sir Nicholas Stern and Professor Ross Garnaut have reported that reducing deforestation is essential to reaching deep reductions in global greenhouse gas emissions.

Paying to avert deforestation is not yet recognised in carbon markets under the Kyoto Protocol but voluntary market demand for high-grade validated carbon credits is high.

Support is growing for the inclusion of avoided deforestation under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, with a new emissions reduction agreement due to take effect from 2012.

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Economic giants' oil-guzzling unsustainable

Michael Richardson, Straits Times 25 Jun 08;

WHAT will happen to the price of oil and its supply if Asia's emerging economic giants, China and India, continue their quest to raise living standards and catch up with rich nations by emulating the West's energy-intensive growth model? And what will the impact be on the global environment, which is already being battered by climate change?

When the price of crude oil surged to almost US$140 (S$190) a barrel recently, it marked a 40 per cent gain this year alone. Most analysts agree that the mainspring of the oil price rise is voracious demand from China and India.

Some say that if this demand continues unchecked, crude oil price could reach US$200 a barrel or go even higher within the next few years.

Last November, the International Energy Agency (IEA) warned in its annual survey that if governments around the world stick with existing policies, global energy needs would be well over 50 per cent higher in 2030 than today and China and India together would account for 45 per cent of this increase.

China surpassed Japan several years ago to become the world's second-largest oil user after the United States.

Accommodating the energy needs of China and India, even if they adopt more sustainable policies, will be difficult. There will also have to be some painful compromises and trade-offs made between developed and developing countries in negotiations to curb global warming.

Can China and India ever mirror Western lifestyles? IEA thinks not.

'Quite simply, the resource-intensive economic model currently being pursued throughout the world cannot be sustained indefinitely,' it said in its most recent energy survey.

'A level of per capita income in China and India comparable with that of the industrialised countries would, on today's model, require a level of energy use beyond the world's energy resource endowment and the absorptive capacity of the planet's ecosystem.'

The US, with no more than 5 per cent of the world's population, consumes 25 per cent of the world's oil. The US uses around 14 times as much oil as China on a per capita basis, and over 28 times as much as India. If per capita oil use in China and India were to increase to the current level in the US, their oil demand would rise by a combined 160 million barrels a day - almost twice the present level of world oil consumption of around 87 million barrels a day. Moreover, this does not allow for future increases in population which would intensify demand for energy.

IEA has calculated that this level of demand for oil from China, India and the rest of the world - close to 240 million barrels a day - would deplete remaining proven world reserves of conventional oil in less than 15 years. It would drain the ultimately recoverable oil and natural gas liquids (including proven reserves) that are estimated to lie under the ground and the seabed in under 26 years.

Of course, big new finds could be made. But that is getting tougher and much more expensive. Heavy oil and tar sands or shale could also be exploited to stretch oil consumption by quite a few more years. Producing, processing and then burning this kind of fuel would take a heavy toll on the environment.

According to a study just issued by the Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, China last year overtook the US to be the largest source of carbon dioxide (CO2), the main greenhouse gas warming the planet. China accounted for 24 per cent of the nearly 30 billion tonnes of CO2 spewed into the atmosphere last year; the US was responsible for 21 per cent; and India, 8 per cent.

Yet on a per capita basis, China emitted barely a quarter of the US' CO2 emissions while India emitted just 10 per cent. If per person emissions of CO2 in China and India reached current American levels, assuming no major departures from trends elsewhere, world emissions would be three times higher than today.

IEA says the implications for climate change of such an increase could be catastrophic. It adds that even sustained global fossil energy consumption at current levels risks causing a substantial rise in CO2 concentrations and temperatures around the world.

It is simply impossible to go on as now.

The writer is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Taxing time to stabilise climate

Matt Prescott, BBC Green Room 24 Jun 08;

We cannot continue using the atmosphere as a rubbish dump for greenhouse gas emissions, argues Matt Prescott. In this week's Green Room, he sets out the case why a carbon tax will make it cheaper to protect the environment than harm it.

We all depend upon the Earth's atmosphere. Yet we continue to treat it as though it were a free, limitless and indestructible rubbish dump.

With little more than our fingers crossed, we seem to cling to the hope that the atmosphere will be able to absorb all of the greenhouse gases that we pump into it without changing its chemical structure.

Unfortunately, the available scientific evidence tells us this is not the case, and that humanity's emissions have already increased the risk that dangerous, perhaps abrupt, climate change will hit billions of people over the years ahead.

The time has come for us to stop freeloading and to find a fair, affordable and effective way of valuing, in dollar terms, the maintenance of a stable climate.

Put simply, we need to make it cheaper to help the environment than to harm it.

The principle of costing carbon emissions is not new - the international carbon trade, led by the EU market, turns over billions of dollars a year.

But the majority of the world's countries, companies and citizens play no part in the exercise. It is remote and aloof, so we need something that touches everybody.

Tax incentives

I propose, as a first step, the establishment of a low rate of carbon tax; implemented globally, but raised and spent at the national level.

This tax could quickly be applied to every source of greenhouse gases in every nation, where it would act as an incentive for everyone to reduce his or her emissions.



To date, most carbon tax proposals have advocated that the full environmental and social costs of climate change should be reflected in the introductory rate of a carbon tax.

Sweden deliberately did this in 1991 and now has a carbon tax equivalent to $151 per barrel of oil. It has been a huge success and enabled the country to achieve a 9% reduction in its emissions while simultaneously achieving economic growth of 44% between 1990 and 2006.

Clearly, not every society can afford such a high upfront cost.

My suggestion would be to introduce the global carbon tax at a rate that everyone could afford and that allows every country and human activity to be brought on board from the outset.

A rate equivalent to $1 (£0.50) for every tonne of carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere would meet these criteria and also create a global minimum price for carbon.

Assuming a credible global carbon tax was established, this initial rate could then be increased using a pre-determined price escalator or further international negotiations.

The rate of $1 for every tonne of carbon dioxide would add roughly $0.0023 to the price of a litre of petrol, or $0.32 to a barrel of oil. This would raise a total of $6bn (£3bn) in the US, $5.5bn (£2.75bn) in China, $600m (£300m) in the UK and $700,000 (£350,000) in Afghanistan.

To help put these carbon tax costs in perspective, since December 1998 the price of a barrel of Brent Crude oil has increased from $9.10 to its present price of more than $135. So it's not going to wreck any economy.

To encourage innovation, each country would be allowed to raise its $1 per tonne of CO2 in any way that it saw fit. Its only international obligation would be to demonstrate that it had done so.

Carbon cash-back

Full, fair and affordable international participation is important because it would create a new and higher level playing field for businesses to compete upon, and discourage the shift of industries and investments to non-participating countries.

If a government wanted to, it could give all of the carbon tax it raised back to its citizens, on an equal per capita basis.

This would not only make people sensitive to the cost of emissions but also create a reward for those who emitted less than their fair share.

When the rebate cheque was sent out to everyone, once a year, it could also be accompanied, for example, with discounts on energy-saving home improvements.

Alternatively, citizens in richer countries could be encouraged to donate some or all of their carbon tax rebate to help others in their own country, or abroad, to adapt to the impacts of climate change.

Governments could also spend the money they raise on preparing for climate impacts.

Finally, money could also go into fast-tracking the development and uptake of low-carbon technologies such as solar heating systems, air-source heat pumps, concentrated solar power and tidal lagoons.

Countries would then find themselves importing less energy from unstable regions, and investing more in local jobs and locally supplied sources of power.

At present human activities, such as burning fossil fuels for energy and clearing rainforests for agriculture, release approximately 29bn tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. This means that a $1 tax would generate $29bn.

Even a fraction of this would be enough to kick start low-carbon economic development and fund adaptation to climate change in many regions of the world.

One invaluable service a global carbon tax could provide would be to contribute some funds to help places such as Brazil and Indonesia to retain and extend their rainforests, providing benefits for their own societies as well as for the global community.

Clearly, if today's markets worked more perfectly, it wouldn't be necessary to propose a corrective tax because the price we paid would already include all of the costs associated with using fossil fuels.

Although a lot is expected of carbon markets they have so far failed to provide a consistent, stable and predictable carbon price for long-term investors.

Taxes also aren't perfect. Many "green taxes" have been abused by governments and treated as a way of raising general-purpose funds rather than as a way of funding green measures.

Treasuries hate having to spend the taxes raised from a particular source on a given activity; but if governments hypothecated their "green taxes" and spent more of the money they raised under this banner on environmentally beneficial activities, this would greatly enhance democratic accountability and public trust.

Nobody enjoys paying taxes, but the brutal truth is that they work. They force you to value what was previously taken for granted, and provide the funds needed to achieve socially and environmentally beneficial outcomes or to correct market failures.

I'm a believer in the power of goodwill and markets, but I am worried that they will continue to fail us, unless we start to tackle more of our excuses for inaction and consider our all of the options for delivering massive emission reductions.

We cannot continue to postpone action indefinitely or to wait for disasters to force our hand. This is because climate change is like a giant super-tanker, and we are unlikely to be able to stop it by the time that we can see it is going to hit us.

A global carbon tax cannot single-handedly stop us from using our atmosphere as a rubbish dump; but it could represent a fair and affordable step forward.

Dr Matt Prescott is an environmental consultant and director of banthebulb.org, an online campaign encouraging greater energy efficiency, and founding co-ordinator of E-Day

The Green Room is a series of opinion pieces on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

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Buoyed by Rain, Australia Wheat Farmers Chase Big Crops

Michael Byrnes, PlanetArk 25 Jun 08;

NARRABRI, Australia - Powerful lights eerily illuminate pitch-black paddocks as farmers sow newly rain-blessed soil with one of Australia's biggest wheat crops.

Rigs as big as houses seed fields in one of the most fertile parts of Australia's eastern grain belts. Farmers are praying they will beat a seven-year drought to fill silos with grain in a year of high prices.

"It's a nervous optimism," said farmer Phil Christie near Narrabri, around 500 kilometres northwest of Sydney.

Eastern Australia has been hit hardest by the country's worst drought in 100 years but good rain has fallen recently to allow long-delayed planting to get underway.

Now farmers are working around the clock to plant, with satellites steering tractors night and day along perfect straight lines.

"We really need this crop. We've had no crop for two or three years. If this one fails it will take a lot of people down," Christie said, standing in his field. "Everyone's borrowed to the hilt to put this crop in," he said smiling grimly.

Nearby, Australia's biggest wheat farmer Ron Greentree is sowing 80,000 hectares with wheat, an area almost as big as Hong Kong. Greentree hopes to produce over 200,000 tonnes of wheat, or 1 percent of Australia's total.

He smiles buoyantly beneath his battered bush hat as we stand in newly-seeded fields, the crumbling moist black earth marching in straight planting lines to the distant horizon.

"It looks pretty good," he said. But there is still a long way to go until the crops are ready for harvest towards the end of the year and September spring rains will be crucial.

"It's up to the laps of the gods and to good old mother nature. There's been a few false starts in the last few years."

Last year, farmers lost millions of dollars when they planted large areas with wheat after good rains only to then lose their crops and their investments when drought set in again.

The government, however, is optimistic. Even after a 9 percent cut in its forecast of Australia's 2008/09 wheat crop on June 17, the government is still forecasting a big crop of 23.68 million tonnes, up by more than 80 percent on last year's drought-affected crop.


GOOD CROP TO LOWER PRICES

An Australian crop of this size, together with forecast big European crops, will be enough to pull world wheat prices back from recent highs, brokers believe.

"A better rainfall situation in Australia might start to see the markets work their way lower," futures broker Garry Booth of MF Global said.

This year might be the first time in years that the world produces more wheat than it consumes, Greentree said.

Driven by shortages and strong demand, world wheat prices have been on a roller-coaster ride for a year.

They soared by over 150 percent between mid-2007 and March 2008 after crop failures in Australia and elsewhere, then fell by over 40 percent by the end of May this year as crop prospects improved, then gained over 20 percent on crop-damaging floods in the United States and dry weather in Australia's planting season.

Even in a calmer market, agriculture is now a hot industry for growers such as Greentree, as corn and rice prices have also soared.

"It has all turned around probably in this last six months. People are starting to realise that it is a very important industry, not only for the economy of Australia but also for society around the world," Greentree said.

Agriculture in Australia had been seen by governments and academics in the last 10 or 15 years as a sunset industry, he said. Now wheat is as important as steel.


COST CRISIS

Wheat prices may have doubled in the past year, but so have oil prices and other farm costs. Prices of energy-intensive fertiliser alone have risen to A$1,500 a tonne from A$600 and it costs about A$2,000 worth of fuel to run a tractor for 12 hours hauling a seeding rig.

Farmers say it now costs A$500 a hectare to plant and grow wheat, up from the old benchmark of A$250.

Banks have so far supported struggling farmers through two years of failed crops and losses, but there could be foreclosures after a couple of good seasons, Christie fears. Banks could not foreclose so far because nobody had money to buy failed farms.

Greentree, who spent A$100 million this year to nearly double the size of his landholdings to 100,000 hectares, is also hit hard by fuel prices. He uses 3 million litres of diesel a year.

"Its blown our budget to smithereens," he said.

Greentree is waiting for new-age technology to provide the answer to high costs and changing weather systems.

Narrabri Mayor George Sevil believes that the recent rains will rescue many farms from bankruptcy.

"Whoever timed it did a good job. This will get everyone back on their feet," he said.

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Warming May Make 'Perfect Storm' of Disease

Charles Q. Choi, LiveScience.com Yahoo News 25 Jun 08;

A "perfect storm" of diseases can get unleashed by the kind of extreme swings in weather expected with global warming, triggering mass die-offs of wildlife or livestock, research now reveals.

Now the first clear example of such a perfect storm of diseases has been discovered by an international team of scientists.

Global warming is predicted to lead to extreme swings in weather events such as droughts and floods. These could theoretically lead normally tolerable diseases to converge and trigger multiple outbreaks of epidemics with catastrophic mortality.

The clear example of a disease cascade came when researchers investigated outbreaks of canine distemper virus that killed an unusually high number of lions in East Africa, at Tanzania at Serengeti National Park in 1994 and Ngorongoro Crater in 2001.

These infections can have awful effects, such as "a grand mal seizure - the animal is unable to control its movements, starts thrashing about helplessly with every muscle in its body flexed to the maximum, grinding its teeth and foaming at the mouth," said researcher Craig Packer, an ecologist at the University of Minnesota. "Then the seizure stops for a few minutes before starting all over again."

Numerous epidemics of this virus have occurred within these ecosystems over the past 30 years that had proved essentially harmless to the lions, however the lions that survived the 1994 and 2001 distemper epidemics were in unusually poor condition.

"The lions were lethargic, thin, anemic, and had enlarged lymph nodes, physical changes that do not usually occur after recovery from canine distemper virus," said researcher Linda Munson, a veterinary pathologist at the University of California, Davis.

The reason could be that the virus outbreaks in 1994 and 2001 were both preceded by severe droughts, one of the types of weather events predicted to occur more frequently as Earth's climate continues to warm. This debilitated populations of Cape buffalo, a major prey of lions.

After the rains returned, the weakened, starving buffalo suffered heavy tick infestations, resulting in high levels of a tick-borne blood parasite in the lions. These parasites are normally present in the felines at harmless levels.

The canine distemper virus had suppressed the immune systems of the lions, which was already challenged by the high level of blood parasites - a sort of one-two punch. The tick-borne disease thus reached fatally high levels, leading to mass die-offs of lions. The poor condition of survivors of the 1994 and 2001 epidemics also turned out to be due to very high levels of blood parasites.

It was known that global warming and climate change can alter or expand the range of germs, but now we also know that it could "dramatically alter the normal balance between hosts, their parasites and the pathogens those ticks transmit in the same ecosystem where these relationships have been in balance for years," Munson said.

The number of lions analyzed in the Serengeti in 1994 dropped by more than a third after the double infection. Similar losses occurred in Ngorongoro Crater in 2001.

"This is a good example of how extreme variations in climate can lead to disease outbreaks," said Princeton University ecologist Andrew Dobson, who did not participate in this study. "We'll have to look for more and more examples of this as climate gets more variable."

Co-infections may lie at the heart of many of the most serious die-offs in nature, Packer said. Dobson added, "It's likely going on all the time - there just aren't enough people doing this kind of long-term study to see it."

Another place to look for the potential impact of co-infections would be colony collapse disorder in honeybees, he added. This mysterious ailment is claiming the lives of an alarming amount of the bees that help pollinate dozens of key flowering crops, such as apples and citrus fruit.

"There is a strong suspicion that colony collapse disorder is caused by co-infection of multiple disease agents, but more research is needed to nail it down," Packer told LiveScience.

The lion populations recovered quickly, within years of each of the two big die-offs. However, most climate change models predict an increase in droughts in East Africa, so the lions' ability to rebound might increasingly get challenged.

"The next step would be to try to minimize ticks on the lions during the next drought to see if tick removal protected the lions from mortality in case of a co-incident outbreak of distemper," Packer said.

Munson, Packer and colleagues detailed their findings in the June 25 issue of the journal PLoS ONE.

Floods, Droughts Make Mild Diseases Deadly - Study
Julie Steenhuysen, PlanetArk 26 Jun 08;

CHICAGO - Extreme floods and droughts brought on by climate change can turn normally harmless infections into significant threats, international researchers said on Tuesday.


They said weather extremes can create conditions in which several fairly harmless diseases converge at once, creating a "one-two punch" that can devastate populations of wildlife or livestock.

"When you have these extreme swings it will tend to synchronize these kinds of co-infections, which are likely to be more common with climate change," said Craig Packer of the University of Minnesota, whose study appears in the Public Library of Science journal PLoS ONE.

Many researchers have predicted that climate changes brought on by heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions could alter traditional relationships between pathogens and their hosts, making normally benign diseases more deadly.

Packer said his team has found a real-world example.

The researchers studied two unusually lethal outbreaks of canine distemper virus or CDV that occurred in 1994 and 2001 in a population of lions in Tanzania's Serengeti National Park and Ngorongoro Crater.

Most canine distemper outbreaks in the past have caused little or no harm to lions in the region, Packer said.

"It turns out that the lethal outbreaks had immediately followed severe droughts within the country, which had a very interesting effect on the ecosystem," Packer said in a telephone interview.

He said the droughts weakened local populations of Cape Buffalo, which were then infested with ticks. "Those buffalo had been weakened to the extent that they could no longer fight off infections from the ticks," Packer said.

So, when the lions feasted on this rich source of meat, they became infected with tick-borne blood parasites.

The lions, meanwhile, had been fighting off an outbreak of the canine distemper virus, which had suppressed their immune systems. "That one-two punch is what killed them," Packer said.

"A distemper infection is like having a short, sharp bout of AIDS," Packer explained.

"It's an immunosuppressive virus. If you are being challenged, it now allows those other diseases to completely take over. That's what happened."

Packer said the study suggests extreme climate conditions can change traditional relationships between pathogens and their hosts.

"That could be a concern not just for wild animals like lions, but also for livestock, people, you name it," he said.

The study is available on the Internet at http://www.plosone.org/doi/pone.0002545. (Editing by Maggie Fox and Todd Eastham)

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World weather expert says El Nino, La Nina outlook mild

Yahoo News 24 Jun 08;

The World Meteorological Organisation said Tuesday that 2008 was proving a year of respite from natural climatic phenomena identified by scientists as causing havoc with weather patterns.

The effects of El Nino and La Nina, respectively the warming and related cooling of Pacific sea surface temperatures, are felt in many parts of the globe, and have been blamed for a lengthy drought in Australia, flooding in the Horn of Africa and Bolivia, and more severe winter monsoons in South Asia in 2006-2007.

However, WMO official Rupa Kumar Kroll said that effects over the coming months are expected to be mild.

"Near neutral conditions are considered the most likely outcome for the middle part of the year and shortly thereafter," Kroll said, adding that La Nina "gradually weakened from its peak strength in February."

"Rapid development of El Nino or re-development of La Nina is not considered likely for the middle part of the year," he said.

The expert nevertheless cautioned that other factors which also influence seasonal climatic patterns could still trigger extreme weather conditions.

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Former UN sec-gen Annan calls for 'climate justice'

Yahoo News 24 Jun 08;

Former UN secretary general Kofi Annan on Tuesday called for 'climate justice', saying that it was polluters who should pay for the effects of climate change, and not the poorest and most vulnerable.

He said funding should be made available to help disadvantaged communities adapt to the effects of global warming as he urged for the international community to focus on adaptation measures.

"We must have climate justice. As an international community, we must recognise that the polluter must pay and not the poor and vulnerable," said Annan at the first high-level meeting of his new humanitarian forum.

During the two-day conference, the Global Humanitarian Forum brings together luminaries from the worlds of politics, business, diplomacy and development to discuss how best to adapt to climate change -- the issue that Annan has called "one of the most significant humanitarian challenges of our time."

Annan noted that communities needed to be "empowered" with the knowledge and tools to deal with the worst effects of climate change.

"We cannot allow the extra cost of adapting to climate change to be siphoned off from the ongoing poverty challenge. We should act immediately to provide them with additional funding and appropriate technical assistance," he said.

Such assistance included providing technologies on weather warnings; supplying farmers with seeds and fertilizers that were adapted to the changing climate, and ensuring that families had insurance for their homes.

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Best of our wild blogs: 24 Jun 08

Upcoming walk at the Chek Jawa boardwalk this sunday
on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs blog

A walk on Cyrene
the Chek Jawa of the South! on the wildfilms blog

Singapore's neglected heritage
about our reefs, with Cyrene Reef as an example on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Sea of trash
New York Times article on the News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore blog

Spectacled Spiderhunter collecting nectar
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Nerites of Labrador
video clip on the sgbeachbum blog

What happens to reef life when fishing is banned?
on the wildfilms blog

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Barrier Reef 'no-take' zones see leap in fish numbers

Rachel Nowak,
NewScientist.com 23 Jun 08;

A controversial decision to halt commercial and recreational fishing across vast areas of the Great Barrier Reef has proven remarkably effective for reviving coral trout numbers.

"Everyone is a little surprised," admits Garry Russ, a marine biologist at James Cook University in Townsville.

"We've seen a consistent pattern of recovery of coral trout from just north of Cairns to as far south as Heron Island," he says. "It's an extraordinarily large area."

In mid 2004, the Australian government rezoned the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park to create the world's largest network of marine "no-take" zones.
No fishing

Fishing was totally banned across a third of the park – more that 100,000 km2 – including parts of 70 biologically distinct "bioregions".

At the time, surveys found that the majority of Australians wanted protection for the reef, but the move was also highly controversial among both commercial and recreational fishers who primarily target coral trout.

Surveys carried out by Russ's team now show that coral trout numbers have increased by over 60% in no-take areas around two groups of inshore islands – Palm Island and the Whitsundays – 18 months to two years after rezoning.

By contrast, Coral trout numbers in nearby fished areas did not change. "In the long term, the hope is that as numbers build up in protected areas, more fish will spawn successfully, enhancing numbers in fished areas," says Russ.
Full recovery

A second team led by Hugh Sweatman of the Australian Institute of Marine Science in Townsville, has also found that coral trout numbers had increased significantly in no-take zones around reefs from 32 to 200 kilometres off-shore.

In four of these offshore regions, numbers of coral trout were between 31 and 64% higher compared to unprotected regions nearby, just two years after the zoning took place.

The consistency of the results, combined with the finding that in-shore coral trout numbers did not decrease, suggests that the differences are indeed due to decreased fishing in the off-shore no-take zones, rather than increased fishing elsewhere, says Russ.

"It's a very positive start, but full recovery of coral trout will take 10 to 15 years of really effective protection," says Russ. The two teams are monitoring 160 different species of fish, but so far only numbers of coral trout have changed since the rezoning.

Journal reference: Current Biology (vol18, p 514)

Coral trout hooked on fishing ban
Dani Cooper, ABC 24 Jun 08;

Coral trout numbers on the Great Barrier Reef have bounced back in areas where fishing is banned, a new study shows.

Writing in today's Current Biology journal, researchers from James Cook University (JCU) and the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS), say their study shows no-take marine reserves, in which fishing is completely banned, are effective in protecting exploited species.

Study author Professor Garry Russ, from the School of Marine and Tropical Biology at JCU, says the numbers of coral trout, a favoured target of commercial and recreational fisheries, bounced back in no-take reserves within two years or less of the area being rezoned.

On 1 July 2004 the Australian Government threw a protective net over the Great Barrier Reef by banning fishing in about a third of the marine park.
Worth the controversy

The move, which locked fishermen out of 100,000 square kilometres of the reef, created intense community debate with the Government offering compensation packages to those affected by the ban.

Russ says his study shows the controversial move was worth the pain.

He says the team has documented increases in coral trout density between 31% and 68% in two years or less.

"The big surprise was that we detected a consistent, rapid increase in multiple large reserves spread over 1000 kilometres offshore and 700 kilometres inshore," he says.

The team used an underwater visual census survey to monitor numbers in the new coral reef reserves and in control areas that remained open to fishing before the ban took effect and one and a half to two years after rezoning.
Significantly higher

They found that coral trout numbers were significantly higher in no-take reserves than in sites that remained open to fishing in four of five offshore regions and two of three inshore regions.

Russ says the figures are probably due to a decrease in fishing mortality inside the new reserves rather than an increase in fishing outside.

"Our results provide an encouraging message that bold political steps to protect biodiversity can produce rapid, positive results for exploited species at ecosystem scales," Russ says.

"It is an important lesson for the entire world."

Down Under, Fish Numbers Climb Up
Lauren Cahoon, ScienceNOW Daily News 23 Jun 08;

In a time when positive news for the planet is rare, scientists announced today some promising ecological findings from Australia. The coral trout, a key fish species in the Great Barrier Reef, has made a stunningly rapid comeback--a turnaround the researchers credit to a sweeping conservation policy that banned all fishing in protected areas. As a keystone species of coral reefs, the trout's return could signal the improving health of the entire ecosystem.

In 2004, the Australian government designated a network of no-take zones--areas where all forms of fishing are prohibited--in the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park. The park, spanning 344,400 square kilometers and recognized as an international icon of natural beauty, houses the world’s largest collection of coral reefs and supports abundant diversity and many endangered species. The no-take zones encompassed 33% of the park's area--a controversial move that was sparked by a growing concern over the health of the region. This sweeping approach to conservation was the first of its kind--such a large-scale ban on fishing was unprecedented--but were these efforts worth the trouble?

To find out, fisheries biologist Garry Russ of James Cook University in Queensland, Australia, and colleagues compared fish populations right before and 2 years after the fishing ban was established. They surveyed 46 no-take preserves and 46 preserves where fishing was still allowed. Of the organisms surveyed, the coral trout staged the strongest comeback in the no-take marine preserves. The fish's numbers increased by 31% to 68% in the span of only 1.5 to 2 years, the team reports in Current Biology. What's more, the boost in coral trout numbers was widespread, occurring wherever a no-take preserve had been established. "I was personally stunned by the sheer scale of the positive response" to the ban, says Russ.

Although coral trout are the only species to have bounced back definitely, the researchers believe it could be a good sign for marine conservation. "Our findings show that large-scale reserve networks, set up to protect biodiversity and ecosystems, can produce rapid positive responses for targeted species," says Russ. "It is an important lesson for the entire world."

Tropical ecologist Leanne Fernandes, director of Earth to Ocean, a marine resource management consulting firm in North Queensland, Australia, agrees that the study is encouraging, but she says that no-take areas are only part of the solution. "The risk is that this may not be adequate, in the long run, to sustain the ecosystem as a whole," says Fernandes, who notes that pollution, climate change, and water quality can also drive down fish numbers. Marine ecologist Stephen Palumbi of Stanford University in Palo Alto, California, praises the scope of the research. "It's like the Hubble telescope for coral science," he says, "and this study is the first snapshot from this telescope."

Ban Spurs Dramatic Fish Recovery in Australia
Anne Minard, National Geographic News 24 Jun 08;

Australia's coral trout have thrived under a fishing ban on the Great Barrier Reef, showing that no-take reserves can spur dramatic comebacks in overfished ocean habitats, new research suggests.

But the bold move to ban fishing to save fish would be hard to replicate along most other coasts, said the Australian study's lead author.

Coral trout is the common name of about a half-dozen fish species from the grouper and cod family targeted by commercial and recreational hook-and-line fisheries in Australia.

Scientists behind the new study found that the fish bounced back within two years after no-take reserves were established.

Garry Russ, a marine biologist at James Cook University who led the research, said his team was "surprised" to find coral trout population increases of up to 68 percent in such a short period of time.

"This represents a positive and unprecedented response to reserve protection," he said.

The study appears in today's issue of the journal Current Biology.

Largest No-Fish Zone

Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park generates about five and a half billion U.S. dollars annually from tourism and fisheries.

Four years ago the Australian government rezoned the park, placing nearly one-third of it into the world's largest network of no-take marine reserves. They cover more than 62,000 square miles (100,000 square kilometers).

To monitor the new reserves, researchers used underwater imaging techniques to survey coral reefs inside and outside protected areas, where fishing was still allowed.

The scientists found that coral trout numbers were significantly higher in no-take reserves than in sites that remained open to fishing.

Researchers say the increase is probably due to decreased fish mortality inside the new reserves, rather than increased fishing outside.

"Although preliminary, our results provide an encouraging message that bold political steps to protect biodiversity can produce rapid, positive results for exploited species at ecosystem scales," Russ said.

"No Surprise"

Enric Sala, a marine biologist at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California in San Diego, said it's intuitive that a fishing ban would help fish survive.

"This rebound is great news, but it is not 'new' news," he said. "When you truly protect a species from fishing or create a no-take marine reserve, large fishes come back."

Sala notes that Florida jewfish and Mediterranean dusky grouper rebounded under similar conditions.

Study co-author Hugh Sweatman, a reef ecologist at the Australian Institute of Marine Science, agrees.

"My 10-year-old son saw the graphs and said, If you stop fishing, don't you expect to find more fish? And he is right," Sweatman said.

He noted that while individual reserves have resulted in quick increases of target species before, "what is new about our study is the rapid, fairly consistent effect in multiple reserves over a huge area."

The ecologist says the Great Barrier Reef fishing ban has offered a rare chance to test whether the largely theoretical idea of marine reserve networks actually works, adding that many questions remain.

Among them: the long-term effects of no-take reserves on coral trout populations, as well as other species on the Great Barrier Reef food chain.

Russ, the lead study author, is currently investigating whether juvenile coral trout from protected areas will migrate to help repopulate stocks in less-protected areas over time.

Bold Strategy

Sweatman says the bold strategy to protect coral trout in Australia would be hard to replicate elsewhere.

The Great Barrier Reef is "a large area with a small and relatively rich coastal human population that is not depending on the reefs for the next meal," he said.

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Singapore to share urban planning experience at summit

Channel NewsAsia 23 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Singapore will share its experience in urban planning and housing with cities which are facing similar challenges.

Population growth and urbanisation are putting city planners here and abroad under pressure to find solutions for housing, transport, waste disposal and other needs.

And Singapore, with some successes in areas like resource management and housing policy, hopes to work with other foreign cities in mutual areas of cooperation.

Chan Heng Kee, CEO of Civil Service College, co-organiser of World Cities Summit, said: "I won't say Singapore has the answer or the model, but beyond providing just the platform where people can come together for conversations and learning, I do think that in some areas, Singapore has done fairly well - for example, water management.

"And I think our housing policy is something that is very well regarded around the world. Urban planning – (the ability) to plan long term and safeguard land for future growth and development – that's something we have done very well.

"These are areas that, I think, we can share some lessons and experiences with other cities and at the same time, we can also learn from other cities which do well in other areas."

Mayors from cities like Melbourne and Yokohama will present their perspectives on environmentally friendly land transportation and management of green spaces at the World Cities Summit.

With more than 700 high-level participants attending the summit, organisers hope that this can lead to innovative solutions to key challenges facing world cities today, especially East Asian cities which are experiencing rapid population growth and economic development.- CNA/so

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Haze likely in next three months

The cause: hotter weather plus burning activities in region; Singapore to run 2 new anti-haze programmes in Jambi, Indonesia
Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 24 Jun 08;

BRACE yourselves for bad-air days ahead.

The smoky haze is likely to be back in the next three months as a result of a combination of hotter, drier weather and burning activities in Malaysia and Indonesia.

However, Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim said the number of hot spots in Indonesia has come down considerably.

'I wouldn't say there will be no haze. I think the hot spots have come down. Indonesia's own plan of action is to reduce the number by 50 per cent. That means there will still be hot spots, but the number will be reduced.'

He added that his own sense of the situation was that efforts on the ground were already in place, but that 'like all plans, there is always a weakest link that we don't understand until it gets implemented'.

The Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre has noted a weakening of the La Nina weather phenomenon, which would have brought wet weather to douse the smoky fires that the region's farmers set.

With the phenomenon weakening, the next three months are expected to be drier than in the same period last year.

The south-west monsoon winds, expected to blow rain away from Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore, will also bring drier weather, which could set the scene for Singapore to be enveloped in the choking haze.

Dr Yaacob gave this forecast at a press conference following a meeting with his counterparts from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand yesterday.

It was the group's fifth meeting since the setting up of a task force in late 2006 to tackle the problem, which has hit the five countries almost annually since 1997.

Farmers and plantation owners in Indonesia's Sumatra and Borneo islands clear the land by slashing its vegetation and burning it in the middle of the year, ahead of the planting season.

Dr Yaacob and Indonesia's Deputy Minister for Nature Conservation Enhancement and Environmental Degradation Control, Mrs Masnellyarti Hillman, said the containment measures discussed at the meeting centred on involving local communities in combating the haze.

Malaysia, for example, is working with Indonesia to train communities in fire-fighting in Riau province. Both countries are also installing haze-monitoring equipment there.

Dr Yaacob unveiled two programmes Singapore will run with Indonesia's Jambi province in north Sumatra. One is to train farmers to rear fish for export instead of growing crops, to turn them away from slash-and-burn cultivation; the other is aimed at keeping the water level in the area's peatlands up. This is because when they dry out, they catch fire easily.

The two programmes, expected to cost $800,000, come on top of the $1 million set aside earlier for seven Singapore-Jambi programmes.

Of the seven, two have been completed. These provided training for Jambi officials in reading satellite pictures for hot-spot information, and for farmers and officials on eco-friendly farming.

The ministers will meet again in Phuket, Thailand, in October.

ASEAN environment ministers hopeful haze won't be as bad this year
Channel NewsAsia 24 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE : Drier weather over the next three months may trigger more hot spot activities and spell the return of the haze.

But with some measures to contain the Indonesian forest fire situation already in place, regional environment ministers attending the fifth meeting of the Sub-Regional Ministerial Steering Committee on Transboundary Haze Pollution are hopeful the situation will be better compared to 2006.

At any top-level haze meeting this time of the year, there is always one burning question - will the haze be back?

Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore's Environment and Water Resources Minister, said: "I wouldn't say there is no haze. I think the hot spots have come down. Indonesia's own POA (Programme of Action) is to reduce it by 50 per cent. That means there will still be hot spots, but the number will be reduced.

"My sense is that the efforts on the ground are already in place. Like all plans, there is always a weakest link that we don't understand until it gets implemented."

Indonesia has budgeted some US$87 million on land and forest fire control.

Masnellyarti Hilman, Indonesia's Deputy Minister for Nature Conservation, Enhancement and Environmental Degradation, said the government has informed the people not use fires to clear their land.

"... we'll do the monitoring. We'll come to the district level to check... and (work) together with the local government," the minister added.

Indonesia is also receiving help from its ASEAN neighbours.

Singapore is concentrating its efforts on an area called Jambi, which - if successful - can be used as a model for other Indonesian regions tackling the haze problem. It has already committed over US$700,000 for some seven projects there.

Singapore and Indonesia are now looking at two new action programmes, costing over half a million US dollars.

In the first programme, Singapore Food Industries will train farmers in fishing, so they can develop an alternate livelihood. The second involves managing the vast tracts of peatland in Indonesia, which can smoulder and burn for a long time.

Malaysia, one of five other countries at the meeting, has been focusing its efforts in Riau Province. From next month, it will spend US$600,000 to train farmers in zero-burning techniques and fire-fighting, and install an air monitoring station.

The ministers will meet again in October in Phuket, Thailand. - CNA/ms

Goodbye haze, hello fresh fish?
Singapore expandsprogrammes in Jambi to tackle forest fires
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 24 Jun 08;

IT IS a first for the Jambi Master Plan — and it may mean not only :curbing the threat of haze to the region during the dry season, but also a fresh source of seafood for Singapore from the Sumatran province.:

Yesterday, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim announced two new programmes under the master plan, which will see Singapore involved in the management of fire-prone peatland and the development of alternative livelihoods for Jambi natives.

Both programmes will, for the first time, involve the private sector — Dutch firm Delft Hydraulics will conduct peat management training on the “ground, managerial and scientific levels” at Jambi, while Singapore Food Industries (SFI) will help raise aquaculture standards with the help of experts engaged by the company.

SFI will help Jambi’s farmers improve the size and quality of their yields to meet Singapore’s Agri-food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) import requirements, said Mr Roger Yeo, SFI’s chief executive, when contacted by Today.

SFI imported 1,173 metric tonnes of seafood last year — just 0.7 per cent of Singapore’s total consumption — so, “if the project goes well, it will allow SFI to trade competitively”, said Mr Yeo.

Both projects are expected to cost about $800,000 and should be ready for implementation by the year’s end, said the National Environment Agency.

Dr Yaacob addressed reporters together with his Malaysian, Indonesian, Bruneian and Thai counterparts at the Pan Pacific Hotel after talks on transboundary haze pollution. The ministers praisedIndonesia’s efforts in reducing the numberof hotspots by half since 2006 and agreed that continued vigilance was needed to prevent land and forest fires, which contribute to the region’s haze each year.

Malaysia is also lending its expertise to Indonesia. It signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Indonesia’s Riau government on June 3 to build capacity in zero-burning techniques, fire-fighting and the installation of an air-quality monitoring system. The programmes will begin next month.

Indonesia will also hold a simulation exercise in forest and land fire control in central Kalimantan next month, and will work with the local authorities in Riau province on peatland management.

Airplanes are also on standby to put out fires, said Ms Masnellyarti Hillman, Indonesia’s Deputy Minister for Nature Conservation Enhancement and Environmental Degradation Control.

When asked to predict the haze situation this year — which typically surfaces during the dry months of May to October — Dr Yaacob said the various governments would “work very hard and hope for the best”.

“I wouldn’t say that there will be no haze,” he said, but added that if all goes well, “the situation will be slightly better than what we had in 2006” — the last time our Pollutant Standards Index hit a high of 128, a level considered unhealthy.

Measures taken to combat haze in South-east Asia
Lynn Kan, Business Times 24 Jun 08;

MEASURES are in place to ward off a bad bout of haze during the coming dry season, Environment and Water Resources Minister Yaacob Ibrahim said yesterday at a meeting of regional environment ministers.

The two-day meeting, which ended yesterday, brought together environment ministers and officials from Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand and Brunei. With latest updates showing an encouraging 51 per cent reduction in hot spots in Sumatra and Kalimantan, they are pressing on to include private sector companies in plans to combat the haze.

In the past two years, Singapore and Malaysia have aided Indonesia financially and technologically to combat haze on the ground. Singapore has partnered Jambi province by committing $1 million to various programmes, such as training in the interpretation of satellite photos and educating villagers on sustainable land clearing.

Dutch company Delft Hydraulics will soon provide expertise and consultation on managing peatlands in Jambi, as peat fires are extremely difficult to extinguish and susceptible to burning out of control.

Singapore and Jambi officials are looking at ways to wean farmers off of slash-and-burn agriculture to encourage them to take up aquaculture instead. Singapore Food Industries has been roped in to help provide commercial channels for agriculture products.

Aside from Jambi, Riau province has worked with the Malaysian government to prevent forest fires. In June, Riau and Malaysia signed a Memorandum of Understanding that included a commitment to promote zero burning and train community fire-fighting units to handle small fires.

'We have the necessary plans in place and we've worked very hard,' said Dr Ibrahim. 'We won't say there will be no haze, because every plan has a weak link that will not show until it is executed - but we certainly hope for the best.'

Indonesia`s haze plan praised by region
Antara 24 Jun 08;

Singapore (ANTARA News) - Regional officials on Monday praised Indonesia's efforts to reduce a haze caused by forest fires which regularly choke Southeast Asia.

The blazes, set by large plantations and farmers, send smoke into Indonesian skies and across boundaries into neighbouring countries each year during the May to October dry season.

"I wouldn't say that there will be no haze," Yaacob Ibrahim, Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, was quoted by AFP as telling reporters after talks among regional officials on ways to tackle the haze.

"But having said that, we also noted the efforts of our Indonesian counterparts, where they have set a target and reaffirmed the target to reduce the hotspots by 50 percent -- which we welcome."

Yaacob said the target gave cause for optimism that "the situation will be slightly better" than in 2006, the last severe outbreak of the haze.

Singapore joined representatives from Brunei, Malaysia, Indonesia and Thailand for Monday's talks.

"Over the next few months, increased hotspot activities may occur in the fire-prone areas of Sumatra, peninsula Malaysia and Borneo, particularly during extended periods of dry weather," the committee said in a statement.

It said parts of Southeast Asia "can expect drier weather in the next three months as compared to the same period last year."

Indonesia's Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar said in April that hotspots had been reduced by 51 percent last year in key provinces and that improvement should continue.

Firefighting helicopters will be put on standby in the most fire-prone provinces, said Masyud, director of the information centre at Indonesia's ministry of forestry.

"Indonesia is highly concerned with land and forest fires and we are prepared to manage it if it happens this year," Masyud said.

"So far the weather has been kind. There has been a lot of rain."

The worst haze outbreak in 1997-98 cost the region an estimated nine billion dollars by disrupting air travel, tourism and other business.

Officials will hold further talks in Thailand in October. (*)

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