5-20 August: Green Screen 2011
from Green Drinks Singapore
Saga of the Seacil
from Lazy Lizard's Tales and Monkey spotted at Choa Chu Kang Ave 3
Magnificent part of Semakau
from wild shores of singapore
bullfrogs @ West Coast Park canal 31July2011
from sgbeachbum
Dance of the juvenile Little Terns
from Bird Ecology Study Group
A Checklist of the Algae of Singapore
from Raffles Museum News
Ronnie Lim Business Times 3 Aug 11;
(SINGAPORE) The tide has turned against allowing floating oil storage in Johor. This is the signal emerging from the latest Malaysian move to order out VLCCs anchored off Pasir Gudang, with the tankers used largely by Singapore-based international traders to store oil, industry sources here say.
One reason behind this is the new, on-shore storage terminals being built on both Johor's east and west coasts, 'with some lobbying apparently underway to get the floating storage users to start thinking about heading for shore', an industry official reckons.
Another is pollution of the waters, an industry analyst said, citing previous instances of fines meted out to oil traders using such floating storage.
They were commenting on reports yesterday which cited an unnamed senior Malaysian official confirming that a directive had been issued for seven very large crude carriers to leave Pasir Gudang waters by the end of this month. Together, the seven have the capacity to store about 1.9 million tonnes of crude or fuel oil.
But this is just the tip of the iceberg as 'there are as many as 15 to 18 VLCCs off Johor at this time', the industry official told BT. Oil traders who have made use of such floating storage previously include players like Titan, Glencore and Vitol, just to name a few.
'The reason for this is that the Singapore storage terminals are all 100 per cent full, and this has been the case for the last decade,' he said. This is despite new independent tankfarms built here recently including Hin Leong-PetroChina's Universal Terminal, Emirates National Oil Company's Horizon Terminal and Chemoil's Helios Terminal.
There is no more land available at Jurong Island for more above-ground oil storage, so JTC Corporation is now preparing to call construction tenders for very large floating structures off Pulau Sebarok by the year-end.
The shortage of storage capacity in Singapore's oil trading hub had led international traders here to either make use of VLCCs anchored off Johor, or start on-shore tankfarms there.
On the eastern coast of Johor, there are three terminal projects. The oldest is Far East Oil Terminal at Pasir Gudang with 230,000 cubic metres of storage, which is operated by Feoso and Cosco.
The second is Langsat Terminal at Tanjung Langsat operated by Dialog Group, Malaysia's MISC and oil trader Trafigura. The first two phases - offering 400,000 cu m for storage of naphtha, middle distillates, diesel and fuel oil - are in operation and recent reports say it is planning to add a 80,000 cu m third phase.
'But both suffer from shallow drafts of about 12 metres, and this restricts the size of tankers that can go in,' one source said. This is probably another reason why the VLCCs off Pasir Gudang have been ordered away, so as to enable some dredging works to improve access to the terminals, as well as to the upcoming Petronas refinery.
Vopak, one of Singapore's biggest independent tankfarm operators, together with Dialog, is also building a huge 1.3 million cu m oil storage costing US$1 billion at Pengerang, which is expected to be ready in 2014.
On Johor's western coast, oil trader Vitol and MISC are also building the 841,000 cu m Tanjung Bin terminal to store fuel oil and middle and light distillates. This is scheduled for completion in March next year.
Industry sources reckon that while the Malaysian move to drive out floating storage from its waters has started, it will likely not be done all at one go, given vested interests (like licences held for the floating storage) of some local parties.
Sharifah Mahsinah Abdullah New Straits Times 3 Aug 11;
KOTA BARU: Dishonest animal traders have resorted to injecting silicone into geckos to enhance the size of the reptiles for bigger profits.
Geckos, a lucrative business in Kelantan and the southern Thailand provinces, are being injected with silicone so that traders can put a much bigger price tag on the reptiles.
In Kelantan, rumours have spread like wildfire that the gecko is a cure for major diseases such as HIV/AIDS and this has caused prices for the reptile to shoot up.
A gecko trader who wanted to be known only as Azli said the silicone injections ploy had been uncovered only recently after a number of geckos bought from suppliers across the border died a few days after being purchased.
"I took a dead gecko to an animal expert who discovered that its head did not match the oversized body," said Azli, adding he had paid RM40,000 for the lizard.
Upon further checks, he said it was found that the gecko had been injected with silicone and salt powder to make it big before the sale.
"The expert also suspected that the gecko had died of an overdose of silicone," said Azli, 45, from Rantau Panjang.
He said he had bought the "fake" gecko after receiving photographs from a supplier via an email in November.
"I went to Sungai Golok to take delivery of the lizard and paid the high price as the gecko was big. A buyer was already waiting to buy it from me later. But, the gecko died a few days after I brought it back home," he said.
Azli said he believed there were 10 gecko suppliers across the border taking advantage of Malaysians' interest in the reptiles.
He said locals should not simply pay if they were offered large-sized geckos, especially if the price was unreasonably high.
Meanwhile, state Wildlife Department director Rahmat Topani confirmed that syndicates were involved in producing the unusually big geckos through artificial means.
"I have been told that some victims were cheated of up to RM100,000 by a syndicate, which targets rich buyers. As far as I know, the geckos have no medical benefit at all and it does not cure illnesses," he said.
A recent report had quoted a medical practitioner in the Philippines, Dr Ofelia Monzon as saying that the lizard -- which he had referred to as the tuko (Philippine gecko) -- had not been proven to cure serious ailments like cancer, HIV and AIDS.
Bernama 2 Aug 11;
SONGKHLA, Aug 2 (Bernama) -- Forest fire smoke from Indonesia has covered many provinces in the southern part of Thailand by a new round of haze, according to Thai News Agency on Tuesday.
Chief of Thailand's Meteorological Office on the east-south coast here Wanchai Sakudomchai said that smoke from the forest fires has covered Songkhla province on Tuesday morning.
This has affected many fishing boats as they have to navigate slowly in order to prevent possible accidents due to poor visibility, he said.
The Thai News Agency reported that smaller fishing vessels have also been warned not to go out to the sea for safety reasons.
"Satellite images had shown rising spots of wildfire on the Sumatra Island and a southwest monsoon could have brought the haze to blanket Songkhla and other areas in south of Thai," he said.
The air quality index in Songkhla's Hat Yai District had stood within its standard range (58.0), he said, adding that the mild smog has not yet posed any health risk to the locals.
-- BERNAMA
Indonesia: Thick smog causes flights transfer at Dumai Airport
Antara 2 Aug 11;
Dumai, Riau (ANTARA News) - Operational chief of Pinang Kampai airport at Dumai Riau Irvan said that thick smog has caused flights to be transferred to nearby airports.
The smog that covers Dumai airport was very thick and the worst ever, especially after it caused flights transfer, Irvan said here Tuesday.
Irvan said that the airport will be reopen for flights when the smog is thinning or until more than 200 meters visibility range achieved.
Meanwhile, there is a flight transferred to airport in Pekanbaru which then be resumed to Dumai airport, a chartered Fokker 100 Pelita Air departed from Jakarta`s Halim Perdana Kusuma at 09.00 am.
The heavy smog is expected to clear out on the afternoon considering the strong wind that blows the smog wisp, and flights resumed, said Irvan.
"Fortunately the chartered Pelita Air was the only flight schedule for today, there is no schedule for any commercial flight such as Sky Aviation and Merpati," he said.
On separate occasion, Head of Forestry Department of Agriculture, Plantation and Forestry Hadiono said that the institution had received reports on peat land burn and bushfire which led the thick smog occurred on Tuesday.
"The local forest and land fires management team has also been deployed to track the hotspots locations," he said.
The team is focusing on Medang Kampai and Sungai Sembilan districts known as land and forest fire prone areas.
(Uu.A050/H-NG/F001)
Editor: Priyambodo RH
Fires Causing Haze in Riau May Close Airport
Nurfika Osman Jakarta Globe 4 Aug 11;
Thick haze from forest and ground fires has once again blanketed parts of Riau, especially the city of Dumai, drastically reducing visibility, an official said Wednesday.
The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency or BMKG said on Wednesday that a total of 131 “hotspots”— areas in satellite images indicating high temperature and most likely the presence of fire — were found in the province, reducing visibility to as little as 800 meters.
Ministry of Transportation spokesman Bambang Ervan, said there was a possibility notification would soon have to be issued to pilots warning of impaired visibility.
He said that if visibility weaken to below 1 kilometer, the Sultan Syarif Qasim II International Airport in the Riau capital, Pekanbaru, will be temporarily shut down.
However, he said that so far no flights have been canceled or delayed even though the haze had also now drifted to neighboring Singapore and Malaysia.
“We hope conditions will improve. We need related parties such as local governments and forest rangers to help reduce the hotspots,” he said.
BMKG official said that there were 298 hotspots for the whole of Sumatra on Wednesday, with Riau accounting for more than 44 percent.
However, BMKG said there was a good chance the number of hotspots could decrease in coming days since the weather is forecast to be cloudy with a small chance of light rain.
Experts have said that the haze occurs each year because people and companies continue to burn forests, a cheap method of clearing land.
The practice is illegal but enforcement has been poor because of the shortage of law enforcers and the wide area of forested land involved.
Since the 1990s, Indonesia has been criticized internationally for the large amount of smoke it generates each dry season from deliberate burning in Sumatra and Kalimantan.
The resulting haze sometimes spreads to Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand and is estimated to annually cause $9 billion in losses to tourism, transportation and agriculture across the region.
An agreement among Southeast Asian nations was drawn up in 2002 to jointly tackle the haze problem, but ironically, Indonesia is the only nation that has yet to ratify it.
Wynne Parry LiveScience.com Yahoo News 2 Aug 11;
Predictions of a record-size dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico did not come to fruition today (Aug. 1) when the results of the annual survey were released.
Instead, scientists charted a large, but not unprecedented, expanse — 6,765 square miles (17,521 square kilometers) — within the gulf where water was low on oxygen. The dead zone, which peaks in summer, creates suffocating conditions for animals living within it and threatens the fishing industry in the region.
This expanse is above average, but not as large as predicted, according to Nancy Rabalais, executive director, Louisiana Universities Marine Consortium.
Earlier this year, scientists predicted the dead zone would meet or exceed its record from 2002 — more than 8,400 square miles (21,756 square km) — because of spring flooding along the Mississippi River. This flooding carried more nitrogen pollution, much of it from fertilizer used in agriculture, into the gulf.
Once in the gulf, this nitrogen causes algae blooms, which die and sink. These are broken down by bacteria that, as part of the decomposition process, suck oxygen out of the water. The influx of fresh water into the Gulf of Mexico also contributes to the dead zone. Because it is lighter, the fresh water creates a layer above the heavier salt water. This prevents the mixing that carries oxygen from surface waters down into deeper ones, Rabalais explained. [Top 5 Mightiest Floods of the Mississippi River]
Storms can whip up waters, and so disrupt this two-layer system. Tropical Storm Don, which made landfall in Texas on Friday (July 29), appears to have done just that, reducing the size of this year's dead zone, according to Rabalais, who spoke to reporters during a conference call today.
There's evidence that the dead zone actually covered more area than this summer's survey captured, according to Don Scavia, the director of the Graham Sustainability Institute at the University of Michigan. The storm, which coincided with the survey cruise, would have disrupted hypoxic, or low-oxygen, conditions, but after the storm and the cruise passed, the dead zone would have reformed. This is the risk of having a limited window to collect data all along the continental shelf, Scavia said.
"It can't be any smaller than what they measure, but it can easily be larger," he said.
There was other bad news as well. In places, conditions appear to have become quite extreme along the seafloor this summer, resulting in the release of hydrogen sulfide and a rotten-egg smell, she said.
"Hydrogen sulfide is also toxic to organisms. They can be killed by low oxygen or something that can survive low oxygen will be killed by hydrogen sulfide, so it's a double jeopardy situation for animals that live in the sediments and can't escape," she said.
During the survey, which is supported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, researchers saw animals that normally live on the seafloor, including foot-long eels, swimming near the surface in an attempt to escape low oxygen levels farther down, Rabalais said.
There is also evidence that the Gulf of Mexico is becoming more vulnerable over time.
"There is also some indication that the gulf is becoming less resilient to nitrogen pollution, which means we now get a larger low-oxygen area for less nitrogen than we did in the past," she said.
Joshua Howat Berger AFP Yahoo News 2 Aug 11;
South African ministers hosting UN climate talks at the end of the year said Tuesday the meeting must focus on keeping alive the Kyoto Protocol, the only binding global deal to cut greenhouse gases.
Environmentalists have criticised the country for dragging its feet ahead of the high-level meeting of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), widely seen as a last-ditch chance to renew the emissions reduction targets agreed to in Kyoto, Japan in 1997.
But environment minister Edna Molewa said organisers are committed to extending the Kyoto agreement at the November 28 to December 9 talks in the eastern port city of Durban.
"We don't want South Africa to be the death of the Kyoto Protocol," she told journalists in Pretoria.
"We would like to have some mechanism agreed upon which will ensure that we retain the architecture."
Kyoto is the only international agreement with binding targets for curbing carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping greenhouse gases.
But its future is uncertain because China and the United States, the world's top two polluters, are not subject to its constraints.
A first five-year commitment period covering 37 industrialised countries expires at the end of 2012.
Japan, Canada and Russia have said they will not sign up for a new round of carbon-cutting vows.
The European Union (EU) says it will only do so if other nations -- including emerging giants like China and India, which do not have binding targets and have so far rejected them -- beef up efforts in a parallel negotiating arena.
The international head of environmental group Greenpeace, South African activist Kumi Naidoo, criticised organisers in his home country Tuesday for getting off to a slow start.
"We are worried that there's less than six months left before we get to Durban. There has to be much stronger leadership and guidance being offered in terms of setting up the ambition levels for the negotiations," he told AFP.
But South African foreign minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, who is charged with organising the complex talks, said her country's preparations were on track.
"South Africa is very much on schedule, if not ahead of schedule," she said, calling Durban "the last stop" to extend the Kyoto commitments.
South Africa has scaled down its expectations for the meeting, and now acknowledges that a global deal to beat back the threat of climate change may not be in the cards for this year.
"While we might not get a legally-binding agreement in Durban, voices are saying, 'Let's start a discussion on the legal framework of the future, of how we should together sign on some long-term commitment to make sure that we don't fold our arms and do nothing about the reality that has become climate change," Nkoana-Mashabane said.
But she also said it is too early to predict what will come out of the talks.
"We can't sit here on the second day of August and prophesy what will be the outcome on December 9. What we can commit to is that we will continue to listen to all voices," she said.
Otters@SBWR
from Life's Indulgences
Cyrene AND Raffles Lighthouse!
from wild shores of singapore
My first talk on Civet Poop! With otter and jungle fowl at Ubin from The Diet of the Common Palm Civet in Singapore
garbage motherload @ pandan estuary 31July2011
from sgbeachbum
Today Online 2 Aug 11;
SINGAPORE -The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has launched a second tranche of S$10 million in funding under its Food Fund programme yesterday with an aim to maximise local farm productivity.
Two new categories have been introduced - a Challenge Call for R&D projects to tackle specific challenges faced by the industry; and an Open Call for all other R&D projects to allow new ideas and innovative projects to surface.
Under the Challenge Call, applicants for the funding can submit proposals for R&D projects on topics, such as achieving consistent fish fry production for commonly farmed species.
Applicants can also submit proposals for R&D projects that maximise local farm productivity in any of the three key food items of eggs, fish and leafy vegetables under the Open Call category.
AVA chief executive officer Tan Poh Hong urged companies to take this opportunity and apply for the funds, saying it is the agency's aim to help as many companies as possible to raise their productivity level and enhance food supply resilience for Singapore.
The inaugural launch in December 2009 attracted 48 applications, of which the AVA awarded about S$6 million to 15 projects. Interested companies can visit the AVA's website www.ava.gov.sg for more information. CHANNEL NEWSASIA
AVA launches $10m Food Fund second tranche
Business Times 2 Aug 11;
THE Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) launched a second tranche of $10 million under its Food Fund programme yesterday.
Several changes were introduced to develop farm capability. Apart from continuing to co-fund research and development (R&D) in local food farming technology, AVA introduced two new R&D categories - namely the Challenge Call and the Open Call.
In the former category, applicants have to submit proposals on projects which aim to either develop a cost-effective technology to reduce poultry waste and produce good-quality composts, or to achieve consistent fish fry production for commonly farmed species. In the latter, applicants have to propose projects to maximise farm productivity in any of the three food items of eggs, fish and leafy vegetables.
In addition to continuing to co-fund the use of modern technology in upgrading farm capability, AVA has differentiated the funding of farm capability into three categories: basic farm capability (purchase of basic equipment), advance farm capability (purchase of advance equipment) and technical boosters (trial usage of seeds or fish fry from new sources of better quality.
Launched in December 2009, AVA's Food Fund aims to support farm capability development and food source diversification so as to ensure a resilient supply of food for Singapore.
$30m boost for future food research
Kelly Tay Business Times 4 Aug 11;
AS part of its Competitive Research Programme (CRP) Funding Scheme, the National Research Foundation (NRF) yesterday awarded $30 million in grants to three food research projects. Under the theme 'Meeting Future Food Demands for Singapore', the awardees will receive funding support of up to $10 million per proposal, over three to five years.
The three successful projects will address future food challenges through technology: Seabass that breeds easily and grows twice as fast as the normal variety; rice that is not only disease-resistant but thrives under poor conditions; and fish that is less susceptible to infection, thanks to the development of virus-controlling biotechnologies.
The NRF's decision was based on the recommendation of its International Evaluation Panel (IEP), and was made after a rigorous competitive process. In October, 35 white papers were submitted by Singapore- based researchers. Eleven of these were picked to flesh out full proposals, which were sent for international peer reviews. The IEP then met to choose the final three.
Said IEP member and Nobel Laureate Richard Roberts: 'We believe Singapore can develop long-term solutions to meet the increasing demands on the food eco-system, and contribute to the food security of the region, if not the world.'
Funding boost for fish fry, rice research
Projects to develop bigger fish, superior rice are among three to get total of up to $30m
Jessica Lim Straits Times 4 Aug 11;
SINGAPORE may not grow rice, but a team doing research into superior varieties is among three recipients of funding from the National Research Foundation (NRF).
The other two projects involve developing Asian seabass and tilapia fry that can grow bigger and be more disease-resistant, and the production of virus-resistant fish cells and anti-viral drugs.
A fund of up to $30 million over five years was awarded by the NRF to the three teams yesterday.
The government body will dispense the amount to the teams - one from the Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory (TLL) and two from the National University of Singapore.
'We are confident the projects will lead to breakthroughs in food technology,' said NRF spokesman Lee Ren Jie.
'This is especially pertinent at a time when food security is emerging as a pressing concern for Singapore,' he added, noting that the rice project will help cement the country's reputation as a research hub for the grain.
'Given Singapore's reliance on imported rice, it makes sense for us to develop superior strains that will improve the region's rice security as a whole and ultimately benefit Singapore.'
The Republic imports all the rice consumed here from countries such as Vietnam and Thailand, and brings in 90 per cent of all the food eaten here.
The funding could also help Singapore meet its target of raising local production of fish from 4 per cent of domestic demand to 15 per cent.
Biology professor Laszlo Orban from TLL, who does research on reproductive genomics, said the funding will allow his 14-man team to use state-of-the-art technology.
The team, which works closely with experts from the Marine Aquaculture Centre of the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority, should be able to produce the superior fry in about three years' time.
'These fish fry will grow 25 per cent to 30 per cent bigger in the same period of time. They will also be disease-resistant, so mortality rate will fall,' Prof Orban said.
A company, he added, will be spun off to produce and sell the fry to farmers here and in the region.
Mr Malcolm Ong, chief executive of the Metropolitan Fishery Group, welcomes the two fish-related projects.
'I am dependent on fry from overseas and few survive the trip here. More die when they cannot adjust to the local climate,' said the farmer, who supplies fish to supermarket chain FairPrice. Only about 30 per cent of the fish fry he buys from countries like Indonesia survive.
'If scientists can work to produce better species of fry for sale here that are faster growing, it will definitely help us increase production,' he said.
The two other teams could not be contacted.
Study reveals 20 sites that are key to ensuring the survival of marine mammals
Alok Jha guardian.co.uk 1 Aug 11;
Scientists have identified the 20 most important regions of the world's oceans and lakes that are key to ensuring the survival of the planet's marine mammals such as seals and porpoises. Their analysis also shows, however, that most of these areas are already under pressure from human impacts such as pollution and shipping.
Marine ecosystems around the world are deteriorating rapidly, according to Sandra Pompa, an ecologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who led the study, in particular due to habitat degradation, introduction of exotic species and over-exploitation of natural resources. Many species of marine mammals have experienced severe population depletion and several – including the Caribbean monk seal, Atlantic gray whale and the Steller's sea cow – became extinct in the 20th century because of the trade in their fur, blubber and meat.
Pompa led a team of scientists to try and identify which parts of the world's oceans were most crucial for the world's 129 marine mammal populations. Their results, published on Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, revealed nine key global conservation sites that hold 84% of marine mammal species and 11 "irreplaceable" conservation sites, which contain species that are found nowhere else.
For the study, she split the oceans up into a grid of roughly 10,000 square kilometre boxes and examined which species lived in which boxes. The boxes were also assigned values based on whether they contained important feeding grounds or if they were in migration routes.
The main conservation areas, which contain 108 species, are the coasts of Baja California, north-eastern America, Peru, Argentina, north-western Africa, South Africa, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand. The 11 smaller conservation zones, which each contained unique species specific to them, included areas around Hawaiian and Galapagos Islands, Lake Baikal in Siberia and major rivers such as the Amazon, Ganges and Yangtze.
Pompa also correlated her map with information on human impacts such as climate disruption, ocean-based pollution and commercial shipping. Areas where there was no impact were scored zero, while areas of high impact were scored three. "Seventy per cent of the most impacted areas were near a key conservation site," said Pompa. "We are competing with [the sea mammals] in terms of shipping or ocean pollution. We want to build industry or touristic attractions and it's their home."
The next species of marine mammal that is likely to become extinct, said the researchers, is the Mexican vaquita, a small porpoise that is endemic to a small geographic area in the most northern part of Baja California. It is thought to number around 250 individuals in the wild.
"The Baikal seal, it's also a very small-numbered population," said Pompa. "Maybe you can think about the vaquita escaping the Gulf into somewhere else but the Baikal seal can't. It's a freshwater endemic mammal species. If any disruption in the lake should happen or a new sickness, they're all packed in one lake."
The researchers said that their maps should be the start of a conversation about where to site new conservation areas to safeguard the world's marine mammals. "Perhaps you are a government or NGO, you can use this information as a tool depending on the aim you have," said Pompa.
"Marine conservation is barely beginning. Marine mammals are great species because they represent healthy ecosystems so, if you begin to lose the species that give you a clue to a healthy ecosystem then you start with the degradation of all of the oceans. A visual projection of where is the richness, where are the endangered species, which corridors we need to protect in order to have all the species present in the world, it's a nice start to know where to focus the effort."
Study shows best places to protect marine mammals
Randolph E. Schmid AP Yahoo News 1 Aug 11;
WASHINGTON (AP) — From sea otters to blue whales, marine mammals are under stress from climate change, ocean acidification, hunting and other threats. Researchers have identified 20 important sites around the world where they say conservation efforts should concentrate.
Marine mammals are widely distributed in the oceans and some freshwater locations, but 11 of the conservation sites are home to creatures found nowhere else, according to the study led by Sandra Pompa of the National Autonomous University of Mexico.
Researchers dubbed those sites "irreplaceable" and added that the nine others selected include representatives of 84 percent of all marine mammals.
Currently the most endangered marine mammal is the vaquita, a porpoise that lives in the northern section of the Gulf of California, Pompa said.
The 11 sites deemed irreplaceable were the Hawaiian Islands, Galapagos Islands, Amazon River, San Felix and Juan Fernandez Islands off the coast of Chile, Mediterranean Sea, Caspian Sea, Lake Baikal in Russia, Yangtze River, Indus River, Ganges River and the Kerguelen Islands in the southern Indian Ocean.
In addition, the nine sites picked for their species richness were along the coasts of Baja California, much of the eastern coast of the Americas (the Atlantic coast of the U.S. and including coastal areas of Cuba, Hispaniola, Colombia and Venezuela), Peru, Argentina, Northwestern Africa, South Africa, Japan, Australia and New Zealand.
The findings in the study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, will be valuable as a conservation tool for organizations and governments that want to focus on endangered species, Pompa said.
At least three species — the Caribbean monk seal, Atlantic gray whale and Steller's sea cow — became extinct because of hunting for their fur, blubber and meat during the 19th and 20th centuries, the researchers noted. The most recent extinction, declared in 2008, was the baiji, a type of porpoise, from the Yangtze River in China.
http://www.pnas.org
New Straits Times 2 Aug 11;
KOTA KINABALU: If things had remained the same, an orang utan named Ten-Ten may have ended up dead in the jungles of Pensiangan.
Instead, it is growing up at the Sepilok Orang Utan Rehabilitation Centre in Sandakan after it was rescued by the Sabah Wildlife Department. Ten-Ten, barely a month old then, was rescued on Oct 10 in Keningau, just days after it was found abandoned in the interior jungles of Pensiangan.
In the past, it would have been ignored, chased away or even killed.
In a few years, after it learns how to feed itself in the jungle, Ten-Ten will join the 11,000 orang utan population in 16 protected forests in Sabah.
State Wildlife director Dr Laurentius Ambu said the perception, or rather, appreciation of orang utans, which carry an iconic status as a flagship tourism product, had changed for the better.
"The government, villagers, corporations and non-governmental organisations are all for the protection of the species."
Ambu said the orang utan population was healthy in Sabah and "it shows that management of our resources are on the right track, along with sound policies".
He attributed the success to the department's 4,300ha centre, which pioneered animal preservation efforts since it was opened in 1964.
Orang utans are also kept in captivity at the Lok Kawi Zoological Park but most of them are those that were domesticated or abandoned.
"One key factor are government policies on the preservation of flora and fauna.
"According to standards set by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, at least 10 per cent of the land mass should be protected.
"In Sabah, we protect 15.5 per cent of our land mass, which is dedicated to the preservation of flora and fauna."
On threats of agricultural land clearing against the species, he said the issue did not arise because all 16 locations where the primates were concentrated were forest reserves.
"On top of that, orang utans are versatile animals because they can survive in secondary forests and they can eat many plants, including oil palm kernels.
"There are some orang utans outside the main habitats, say, at the edge of a village in one of the districts where, in the past, they would have been chased away.
"But, with people now more aware of orang utans, they'd get top class attention and protection."
Niluksi Koswanage PlanetArk 2 Aug 11;
Malaysia, the word's No.2 palm oil producer, will come up with a certification scheme to ensure the tropical oil is grown without clearing forests and destroying wildlife, a newspaper reported on Monday.
The Business Times quoted Commodities Minister Bernard Dompok as saying the Southeast Asian country had to act on its own, signaling it was responding to growing scrutiny by green groups and activists.
"This is at a preliminary stage," Dompok said during a working visit to promote Malaysian commodities in Australia.
"But we will go ahead because the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil keeps on changing its goal posts on how to produce sustainable palm oil," he added, referring to a body of planters and green groups tasked with certifying green palm oil.
Malaysia joins top palm oil producer Indonesia that is set to issue its own certification for planters next year on growing concerns that the RSPO has been dominated by green groups and sales of eco-friendly palm oil have been slow.
Malaysian Palm Oil Council Chief Yusof Basiron said the Malaysian scheme will emulate the one by Indonesia, which is mandatory and where offenders could be punished by law.
"The industry is already highly monitored. We will just tweak it a little bit and look at what the market and the NGOs want," said Basiron who was also in Australia for the working visit.
"If they don't want deforestation, then we will include it in the certification requirements. If they don't want orang utan to be destroyed, we will include it too," he added.
The RSPO scheme is voluntary but in recent months it has taken a harder stance on plantations. In April, the RSPO censured Malaysia's No.2 planter IOI Corp for green violations and suspended ongoing plans to certify its estates.
ScienceDaily 1 Aug 11;
The oceans cover 71% of our planet, with over half with a depth greater than 3000 m. Although our knowledge is still very limited, we know that the deep ocean contains a diversity of habitats and ecosystems, supports high biodiversity, and harbors important biological and mineral resources. Human activities are, however increasingly affecting deep-sea habitats, resulting in the potential for biodiversity loss and, with this, the loss of many goods and services provided by deep-sea ecosystems.
These conclusions come from an international study conducted during the Census of Marine Life project SYNDEEP (Towards a First Global Synthesis of Biodiversity, Biogeography, and Ecosystem Function in the Deep Sea). The authors, over 20 deep-sea experts, conducted a semi-quantitative analysis of the most important anthropogenic impacts that affect deep-sea habitats at the global scale in the past, present and future scenarios. The impacts were grouped in three major categories: waste and litter dumping, resource exploitation, and climate change. The authors identified which deep-sea habitats are at highest risk in the short and mid-term, as well as what will be the main anthropogenic impacts affecting these areas, in a paper published in PLoS ONE on Aug. 1, 2011.
During the Census of Marine Life program, a ten-year program that investigated diversity, distribution, and abundance of life in the global ocean and which ended inn 2010, researchers from its five deep-sea projects sampled and studied the different deep-sea habitats around the globe. The analysis of the current article is based on the results of the Census of Marine Life projects, synthesized during SYNDEEP, and also from data published previously in the scientific literature.
In the past, the main human impact affecting deep-sea ecosystems was the dumping or disposal of litter into the oceans. These activities were banned in 1972, but their consequences are still present today, together with the continuing illegal disposal of litter from ships and the arrival of litter and contaminants from coastal areas and river discharges. In particular, the accumulation of plastics on the deep seafloor, which degrade into microplastics, called mermaid tears, that can be ingested by the fauna, has consequences still unknown but predicted to be important. Moreover, there is increasing evidence of the accumulation of chemical pollutants of industrial origin, such as mercury, lead and persistent organic pollutants (e.g. dioxins, PCBs) in the sediment and fauna, including in species of commercial interest.
Currently, and because of the reduction of resources on land and in shallow waters, the largest direct impacts come from the exploitation of deep-sea resources and, in particular, from fisheries. In the future, however, the authors of this study predict that the most pervasive impacts may come from ocean acidification and climate change, which act at the global scale and can have important effects from surface waters to the abyssal seafloor. Some of these effects include an increase in water temperature that can cause important changes in stratification of the water column, accumulation of nutrients, and oceanic water circulation with corresponding alteration of hypoxia and faunal community structure.
Most importantly, the authors predict synergies amongst certain anthropogenic impacts and, in particular, between climate change and activities such as resource exploitation, wherein combined impacts may be particularly deleterious to deep-sea faunal communities.
According to the experts, seamounts, cold-water corals, upper margin slopes and submarine canyons are the habitats most likely to be affected by anthropogenic impacts in the short and mid time scale. The activities that may be of highest impact are deepwater fishing together with climate change and ocean acidification, as well as the accumulation of marine litter and chemical pollutants. The authors also highlight other activities that may put at risk deep-sea communities in the near future: mineral extraction at hydrothermal vents and possibly on abyssal plains. These extractive activities will target important deposits of copper, nickel and cobalt in the manganese nodules of the Pacific abyssal plain, deposits of manganese, iron, cobalt, cupper and platinum in the ferromanganese crust of seamounts, and large amounts of exploitable metals (gold, zinc, copper, lead, cadmium and silver) in the massive sulphide deposits of hydrothermal vents. It is in these hydrothermal vents where the impact of mineral exploitation is likely to happen first. This exploitation appears to be commercially viable and detailed pilot projects and environmental impact assessments have been conducted in areas of Papua New Guinea, where extraction should start in the near future. Although researchers, industry and policy makers have worked together since the start to evaluate potential impacts and minimize extraction effects, the real impact of such industrial activity is unknown as our knowledge of the biodiversity and functioning of hydrothermal vents, both active and extinct, is still limited. The results of this review and synthesis are especially timely, given increasing interests in mining the deep-sea floor, including mining of rare earth elements, a crucial resource for novel electronic equipment and green-energy technologies.
The main problem is that we still know very little of what we call the deep sea, making it difficult to evaluate accurately the real impact of industrial activities, litter accumulation and climate change in the deep sea habitats. The deep sea is considered to expand from the end of the continental shelf at approximately 200-250 m depth to the great abyssal depths between 3000 and 6000 m, which may reach down to 11 km in areas such as the Mariana Trench. The deep seafloor covers 73% of the oceans with an estimated area of 326 million square kilometers. Of this great expanse, only the area equivalent to a few football fields has been sampled biologically. We continue, therefore, to discover new habitats and species, but the negative impacts of human activity appear to be much faster in reaching the great depths of our oceans.
Journal Reference:
Eva Ramirez-Llodra, Paul A. Tyler, Maria C. Baker, Odd Aksel Bergstad, Malcolm R. Clark, Elva Escobar, Lisa A. Levin, Lenaick Menot, Ashley A. Rowden, Craig R. Smith, Cindy L. Van Dover. Man and the Last Great Wilderness: Human Impact on the Deep Sea. PLoS ONE, 2011; 6 (8): e22588 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0022588
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