FAQ on the Dinosaur Project
from Raffles Museum News
Exciting plans for the Mega Marine Survey!
from Mega Marine Survey of Singapore
Green Volunteers August update
from The Green Volunteers
Bronze Mannikin drying after a bath
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Life History of the Common Birdwing
from Butterflies of Singapore
Sharing Changi with Dr Dan and Debby
from wild shores of singapore and the Hantu Blog.
A Fall from Freedom
from MarineBio Blog
Less than $2m of immediate $8m needed raised as new deadline looms
Tan Dawn Wei Straits Times 14 Aug 11;
The deadline set by its sellers has come and gone, but the money to buy three dinosaurs for Singapore's upcoming natural history museum is still not in the bag.
Since it embarked on an intense race to raise $12 million for the fossils from Wyoming in the United States a month ago, the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research has managed to collect only $1.89 million through several donors and public donations through its online portal.
It has since negotiated an extension of the deadline - originally July 31 - with its American sellers and now has one to two months to raise the rest of the money.
The immediate task is to collect $8 million first to secure the three dinosaurs. The remaining $4 million, to be used for transport and to mount the exhibits, can be raised later.
Last month, the museum, which is part of the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Department of Biological Sciences, announced that it was in a bid to buy a family of three dinosaurs.
The two adults and one baby were found together between 2007 and last year in Ten Sleep, a small town in Wyoming, and are more than 80 per cent complete, which is rare for dinosaur discoveries.
The trio are diplodocid sauropod dinosaurs, among the biggest animals to have walked the earth. Two of them measure 24m in length each while the baby dinosaur is 12m.
The first large donor to come on board was Siloso Beach Resort in Sentosa, which approached the museum after reading a report of the planned acquisition in The Sunday Times a month ago.
It has pledged $500,000. The eco-hotel's executive director, Mr Kelvin Ng, said the hotel's staff all support the effort.
'We need to learn about the history of the earth. If we don't learn from the past, what are we going to do with our future?' he said, adding that the exhibits will bring in researchers and visitors.
'If a small company like us can do it, why not others?'
Three other private donors have also put money on the table. One of them is an unnamed donor who first gave $10 million to the museum when it was raising its building fund last year. This donor has pledged $1 million.
Another two - a private trust fund and a company - have pledged $250,000 and $100,000 respectively.
Dr Lee Seng Gee, the eldest son of the late Singapore philanthropist Lee Kong Chian, and his wife Della have also pledged to donate a yet-to-be determined sum, as has their DSLee Foundation. The foundation's director, Mrs Mary Hoe-Tan, said: 'We are confident that our contribution will put Singapore on the world map and be a lasting educational legacy for generations to come.'
Since news of the fund-raising broke, more than 70 individuals have also donated through the museum's online portal, amounting to $40,000.
Professor Peter Ng, director of the Raffles Museum, concedes that raising funds to buy the dinosaur bones has been a bigger challenge than when it raised $46 million to build a dedicated new museum last year.
'Public sentiment over building the museum was almost unanimous because that is seen as our natural heritage,' he said.
'But dinosaurs are a bit different. People will say: Our history has nothing to do with dinosaurs.'
He argued that for Singaporeans to learn about how evolution works and to get young people excited about science, nothing beats having dinosaurs in its exhibitions.
If successful, they will be the star attraction at the new 7,500 sq m Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum which will open at NUS in 2014.
The museum will also showcase the current Raffles Museum's collection of 500,000 specimens of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, fishes, crustaceans, insects, molluscs and other invertebrates.
The fund-raising team is still reaching out to potential donors. Some have asked about the possibility of naming rights. Prof Ng said the museum will explore the option with them if the donation is substantial.
What happens if it fails to raise the money needed?
'If we fail, the country would have lost a great opportunity to bring in something of great educational value,' said Prof Ng.
More about the dinosaur donation drive: http://rmbr.nus.edu.sg/dino/dino-online.html
Nick Bryant BBC News 13 Aug 11;
Agricultural pesticides are causing significant damage to the Great Barrier Reef, according to a new Australian government report on water quality at the site.
The report says some farmers must be more careful with their chemicals.
It found that nearly one-quarter of horticulture producers and 12% of pastoral farmers were using practices deemed unacceptable by the industry.
The Great Barrier Reef is a World Heritage-listed natural wonder.
Sugar cane criticism
In recent years, it has been coral bleaching caused by climate change that has damaged the Great Barrier Reef, but the first Australian government report on water quality there has found that agricultural pesticides are posing significant risks.
Pesticides have been found up to 60km (38 miles) inside the reef at toxic concentrations known to harm coral.
The heavy flooding and a cyclone that ripped through northern Queensland earlier in the year are thought to have made things worse, by flushing pollutants out to sea.
The report said many horticulture producers were using practices considered unacceptable, and that the sugar cane industry in the wet tropics of northern Queensland was particularly to blame.
However, the agriculture industry has said the findings are based on old data, and that there has been a significant change.
The government agrees that farmers have been using more environmentally friendly methods, but says those improvements had been undermined by Cyclone Yasi.
There have been calls from conservationists to limit the use of pesticides and to ban certain weed killers.
But sugar cane producers have argued that there are no alternatives to adequately protect their crops.
The leader of Burma's pro-democracy opposition joins chorus of alarm over China's plan to build dams on Irrawaddy river
Jonathan Watts guardian.co.uk 12 Aug 11;
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2011/aug/12/suukyi-china-dam-irrawaddy-conflict
Aung San Suu Kyi, the leader of Burma's pro-democracy opposition, has called for a halt to a massive Chinese hydropower project on the Irrawaddy river that has alarmed environmentalists and added to a long-running conflict between tribal militias and the government in Rangoon.
The Nobel laureate stepped into the fray on Thursday with a personal statement calling for greater protection for Burma's most important river, which is threatened by logging, pollution and the construction of a cascade of at least seven dams, a project managed by China Power Investment.
The biggest of them – the 3,600MW Myitsone Dam – is already under construction on the Irrawaddy despite fierce opposition from the Kachin Independence Organisation, which recently broke a 17-year-ceasefire after warning that it would fight to block the project.
The China Gezhouba Group is building the dam on the confluence of the Mali and N'Mai rivers in Kachin state, one of the world's most important biodiversity hotspots.
Once completed, it will flood the rainforest with a reservoir the size of New York city and displace 10,000 people, mostly Kachin people, as well as submerging cultural heritage sites central to Kachin identity, according to International Rivers.
The Burma Rivers Network, an NGO which represents communities along the river, said China's massive hydropower investments had widened the gulf between the government – which wants to benefit from cross-border electricity sales – and Kachin independence groups, which fear the dams will bring environmental, cultural and social disruption.
The environmental group has released what it says is a leaked environmental assessment jointly commissioned by the Burmese and Chinese authorities that recommends scrapping the project because it would cause immense damage to biodiverse ecosystems as local livelihoods as well as posing great risks in the event of an earthquake.
These concerns were reiterated by Aung San Sui Kyi, who said the dam was dangerous and divisive. "Since the commencement of the Myitsone project, the perception long held by the Kachin people that successive Burmese governments have neglected their interests has deepened," she said in her statement. "We would urge that in the interests of both national international harmony, concerned parties should reassess the scheme and cooperate to find solutions that would prevent undesirable consequences and thus allay the fears of all who are anxious to protect the Irrawaddy."
The ivory trade has doubled in Guangzhou and Fuzhou, a study has found, adding to fears for Africa's elephant and rhino populations
Greg Neale and James Burton The Observer The Guardian 14 Aug 11;
Elephant poaching in Africa and Asia is being fuelled by China's economic boom, according to a study of the ivory trade.
Authors of the new report found that the number of ivory items on sale in key centres in southern China has more than doubled since 2004, with most traded illegally. The survey comes amid reports of a dramatic rise in rhino poaching across Africa, and a spate of thefts of rhino horns from European museums and auction houses.
Based on the results of their survey, the ivory researchers are calling for China to tighten its enforcement of ivory trading regulations, saying that such a move is vital to reduce the number of elephants that are killed illegally. The report is published on the eve of a meeting in Geneva of the Cites organisation, which is responsible for controlling trade in endangered wildlife species.
Esmond Martin, a Kenya-based expert on the ivory and rhino-horn trade, and his colleague Lucy Vigne surveyed ivory carving factories and shops in Guangzhou and Fuzhou in January. In Guangzhou, they found that the volume of ivory goods on sale had doubled since 2004. But while some of the ivory they found being carved or sold was being traded legally – including an increasing number of prehistoric mammoth tusks imported from Russia – most lacked legally required documentation, and many traders were unregistered.
In Guangzhou, of 6,437 items on sale, 61% were being traded illegally. Martin said that some traders admitted having illegal ivory, or pretended that newly carved items were old. "This suggests official inspections and confiscations have not taken place in most shops," says the survey, which was commissioned by two British wildlife charities, Elephant Family and the Aspinall Foundation, as well as the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium in the US state of Ohio.
The international trade in elephant ivory was banned in 1990, but in recent years some auctions of tusks from elephants that have died naturally, or which had been confiscated from poachers, have been permitted in a small number of African countries. Chinese traders bought 62 tonnes of ivory in 2008 from Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.
Supporters of the sales say that the proceeds can fund conservation, but opponents say that any legal trade risks encouraging poaching. Martin said : "It is shocking that the retail ivory trade is not better controlled in southern China. China continues to be the largest importer of illegal ivory in the world, mostly from Africa, but also from endangered Asian elephants. Inspections of shops would not take much money nor manpower and would cut down this illegal trade significantly if carried out effectively. Such law enforcement is urgent to reduce elephant poaching."
There has also been a dramatic surge in rhino poaching across Africa. The price of rhino horn has soared in the far east where it is used in alternative medicine as a cure for everything from nightmares to dysentery. In South Africa alone, where horn is worth more per gram than cocaine, the monitoring network "Traffic" reported that 333 rhinos were killed last year, and 193 in the first six months of this year. In 2007, only 13 rhinos were poached.
There have also been more than 20 thefts from museums and auction houses in Europe, including three in Britain, with others in Germany, Belgium, Italy and Sweden. The Natural History Museum in London has now replaced its rhino horns with fakes, while the Horniman Museum in south-east London has removed its collection entirely. One British theft was from Sworders auction house in Essex in February, when the mounted head of a black rhino was taken the day before it was to be sold. Guy Schooling, the managing director of Sworders, said that there was a break-in two weeks before the auction, but thieves went away empty handed. When they returned a second time, "they yanked the head off the wall and bolted, leaving a considerable amount of damage in their wake".
In May, a head was stolen from the Haslemere Educational Museum in Surrey. The museum has now removed all rhino exhibits from display. The most recent theft occurred last week at Ipswich Museum, when a popular exhibit "Rosie the Rhino" had its horn stolen overnight.
The sharp increase in European thefts was described by Detective Constable Ian Lawson of the Metropolitan Police's Arts and Antiques Unit as "an extraordinary series of events". There had been an "unheard of" number of robberies from museums this year, he said, involving more than one gang. "But we do believe a significant amount of thefts across Europe are being committed by a group of Irish travellers," he said.
Most stolen horn is sent abroad, police believe. In October last year, a Lancashire man, Donald Allison, was jailed for twelve months as he tried to smuggle two horns into Asia. They turned out to have been taken from the body of a rhino at Colchester Zoo. Ten horns were also seized at Shannon Airport in Ireland in 2009.Antique horns are particularly prized, Lawson said, because they "tend to be larger than wild rhino horns".
Schooling said that the rise in price has been driven by changes in European law, making rhino horn much harder to sell legitimately. It is now illegal to sell rhino horn trophies and mounted horns in the UK. Stuffed rhino heads can still be sold, but each sale must be approved by Defra. One such head was the subject of a bidding war between Chinese herbalists when it was auctioned off in March. It eventually fetched £35,000.
Schooling described the new law as a "poorly thought-out" and "politically expedient" piece of legislation. "If you reduce the supply [of horn] and the demand is the same, then the price will go up," he said.
Have a Crabby National Day!
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!
A commentary on Singapore's Natural Landscape
from Nature Spies
Armed and dangerless
from The annotated budak
A Mission on 6 Aug @ Lornie Trail
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Pasir Ris is still alive!
from wild shores of singapore
Straits Times Forum 12 Aug 11;
IN LAND-SCARCE Singapore, where economic development continues unabated, it is prudent to leave some historic land untouched for the sake of posterity.
Singapore's first public pool in Mount Emily was opened in 1931 and closed after 1982. This landmark area should be added to the present Mount Emily Park.
The Bidadari Cemetery is now defunct and Woodleigh MRT station occupies part of the former site. I do not know what has happened to the tombs of our early pioneers like R.A.J. Bidwell, the architect behind landmarks like the Raffles Hotel, and scholar and community leader Lim Boon Keng.
The Bukit Brown cemetery, which was opened in 1922, will soon be consigned to history books, with the land being used for housing needs. The Land Transport Authority plans to build the Bukit Brown MRT station near the cemetery. The tombs of early pioneers like Chew Boon Lay should be preserved to remind future generations of their invaluable contributions to our nation. A recent trek also revealed to me the rich flora and fauna at this old cemetery.
The KTM railway land has now reverted to Singapore. Other than those parts affected by road widening and housing development, this rich parcel of land should be preserved. The stretch from Yew Tee to Woodlands is a sanctuary for monitor lizards, snakes, tortoises and kingfishers. Any future development will sound the death knell for these species.
The manicured tracks of our park connectors do not seem to attract wildlife, which can flourish only in marshes and swampy areas. I still find mudskippers and horseshoe crabs at the beach near the Kranji Reservoir Park.
Our mangrove swamps should be preserved, otherwise future generations will see such rare creatures only in their textbooks.
Heng Cho Choon
Grace Chua Straits Times 12 Aug 11;
ALGAE can be a problem for waterways, feeding on excess nutrients and clogging water bodies with algal bloom.
But researchers at the National University of Singapore (NUS) believe they can harness that very growth to treat wastewater, and cut the energy used in treatment by as much as 80 per cent.
That is because wastewater treatment takes a lot of energy, most of it to bubble air through, or aerate, sludge ponds so bacteria can eat the waste.
Instead, associate professors Loh Kai Chee, 47, and Tong Yen Wah, 38, keep the bacteria, but replace the aeration process with algae which produce oxygen. In turn, the algae gobble up the carbon dioxide that the bacteria produce, as well as any waste products the latter do not eat.
Prof Loh and Prof Tong, of NUS' chemical and bioengineering department, started devising their system about two years ago.
They were inspired by a previous government grant call asking for research to improve the energy efficiency of wastewater treatment.
They did not get the grant, but kept plugging away at the system.
Now, they have got as far as a lab-bench experimental setup - a 250ml flask full of algae and an identical flask full of bacteria. The liquids in the twin flasks never mix, meeting only in a reactor where a membrane made of plastic fibres lets the necessary gases through.
So far, they have tested on a high-concentration sugar solution that mimics the concentration of wastewater, but have not yet tried it on real wastewater. That is one of the next steps, explained Prof Loh.
Another would be genetically engineering strains of algae that grow faster and thus consume more carbon dioxide, a project Prof Tong is working on.
After that, scaling up to a pilot or demonstration plant should be straightforward, as the membranes used are commercially available.
They reckon the process could even be a net producer of energy, if the algae are digested at the end of their life to harvest methane gas which is then burned to generate power.
Currently, the sludge left over from wastewater treatment can also be digested for such biogas, which can generate about half of the energy needed to run the treatment process. But Prof Loh and Prof Tong say their system is better because using algae saves energy on aeration.
Their idea did not come out of the blue. The NUS researchers worked with algae for four years, at first trying to get biofuel from it.
In fact, researchers at the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York are growing algae in wastewater, both helping to clean the wastewater and harvest the algae for biofuel.
But other research groups trying to use algae for water treatment mixed the algae and wastewater, said Prof Loh.
For that, the strains of algae and treatment bacteria had to be carefully picked so they would not compete with or kill each other.
So the realisation that algae and bacteria could exchange gases and nutrients through a membrane was a 'eureka moment' of sorts, Prof Loh explained.
He said: 'Maybe people were too wedded to the idea that we need the two micro-organisms to be in the same broth, and we need to select them to live with each other.'
LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Aug 11;
To see the world's most thriving undersea wildlife park, head to the southern tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula.
Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP) is the world's most robust marine reserve in the world, according to a new study led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California, San Diego.
Results of their 10-year analysis of Cabo Pulmo revealed that the total amount of fish in the reserve ecosystem — the biomass — boomed by more than 460 percent from 1999 to 2009. Citizens living around Cabo Pulmo, which was previously depleted by fishing, established the park in 1995 and have strictly enforced its "no take" restrictions.
"We could have never dreamt of such an extraordinary recovery of marine life at Cabo Pulmo," said Enric Sala, the National Geographic explorer-in-residence who started the study in 1999. "In 1999, there were only medium-sized fishes, but 10 years later it's full of large parrotfish, groupers, snappers and even sharks."
Striking results
The most striking result of the study, the authors say, is that sea creatures at a depleted site can recover up to a level comparable to remote, pristine sites that have never been fished by humans.
"The study's results are surprising in several ways," said Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. "A biomass increase of 463 percent in a reserve as large as Cabo Pulmo (71 square kilometers) represents tons of new fish produced every year. No other marine reserve in the world has shown such a fish recovery."
The paper notes that factors such as the protection of spawning areas for large predators have been key to the reserve's robustness. Most importantly, local enforcement, led by the determined action of a few families, has been a major factor in the park's success. Boat captains, dive masters and other locals work to enforce the park's regulations and share surveillance, fauna protection and ocean cleanliness efforts.
"We believe that the success of CPNP is greatly due to local leadership, effective self-enforcement by local stakeholders, and the general support of the broader community," the authors wrote in their report.
Local impacts
Strictly enforced marine reserves have been proven to help reduce local poverty and increase economic benefits, the researchers say. The national park's marine life recovery has spawned eco-tourism businesses, including coral reef diving and kayaking, making it a model for areas depleted by fishing in the Gulf of California and elsewhere.
"The reefs are full of hard corals and sea fans, creating an amazing habitat for lobsters, octopuses, rays and small fish," said Brad Erisman, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the article. "During some seasons, thousands of mobula rays congregate inside the park and swim above the reef in a magnificent way."
The scientists have been combining efforts to monitor the Gulf of California's rocky reefs every year for more than a decade, sampling more than 30 islands and peninsula locations along Baja California, stretching from Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Angel de la Guarda to Cabo San Lucas and Cabo Pulmo south of the Bahia de La Paz.
During the 10 years of study, the researchers found that Cabo Pulmo's fish species richness blossomed into a biodiversity "hot spot." Animals such as tiger sharks, bull sharks and black tip reef sharks increased significantly. Scientists continue to find evidence that such top predators keep coral reefs healthy. Other large fish at Cabo Pulmo include gulf groupers, dog snappers and leopard groupers.
The study was published in the journal Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE.
Hidden Baja Undersea Park Is the World's Most Robust Marine Reserve
ScienceDaily 12 Aug 11;
A thriving undersea wildlife park tucked away near the southern tip of Mexico's Baja peninsula has proven to be the world's most robust marine reserve in the world, according to a new study led by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at UC San Diego.
Results of a 10-year analysis of Cabo Pulmo National Park (CPNP), published in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) ONE journal, revealed that the total amount of fish in the reserve ecosystem (the "biomass") boomed more than 460 percent from 1999 to 2009. Citizens living around Cabo Pulmo, previously depleted by fishing, established the park in 1995 and have strictly enforced its "no take" restrictions.
"We could have never dreamt of such an extraordinary recovery of marine life at Cabo Pulmo," said National Geographic Explorer-in-Residence Enric Sala, who started the study in 1999. "In 1999 there were only medium-sized fishes, but ten years later it's full of large parrotfish, groupers, snappers and even sharks."
The most striking result of the paper, the authors say, is that fish communities at a depleted site can recover up to a level comparable to remote, pristine sites that have never been fished by humans.
"The study's results are surprising in several ways," said Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher, World Wildlife Fund Kathryn Fuller fellow and lead author of the study. "A biomass increase of 463 percent in a reserve as large as Cabo Pulmo (71 square kilometers) represents tons of new fish produced every year. No other marine reserve in the world has shown such a fish recovery."
The paper notes that factors such as the protection of spawning areas for large predators have been key to the reserve's robustness. Most importantly, local enforcement, led by the determined action of a few families, has been a major factor in the park's success. Boat captains, dive masters and other locals work to enforce the park's regulations and share surveillance, fauna protection and ocean cleanliness efforts.
"We believe that the success of CPNP is greatly due to local leadership, effective self-enforcement by local stakeholders, and the general support of the broader community," the authors note in their report.
Strictly enforced marine reserves have been proven to help reduce local poverty and increase economic benefits, the researchers say. Cabo Pulmo's marine life recovery has spawned eco-tourism businesses, including coral reef diving and kayaking, making it a model for areas depleted by fishing in the Gulf of California and elsewhere.
"The reefs are full of hard corals and sea fans, creating an amazing habitat for lobsters, octopuses, rays and small fish," said Brad Erisman, a Scripps postdoctoral researcher and co-author of the article. "During some seasons thousands of mobula rays congregate inside the park and swim above the reef in a magnificent way."
The scientists have been combining efforts to monitor the Gulf of California's rocky reefs every year for more than a decade, sampling more than 30 islands and peninsula locations along Baja California, stretching from Puerto Refugio on the northern tip of Angel de la Guarda to Cabo San Lucas and Cabo Pulmo south of the Bahia de La Paz.
In the ten years studied, the researchers found that Cabo Pulmo's fish species richness blossomed into a biodiversity "hot spot." Animals such as tiger sharks, bull sharks and black tip reef sharks increased significantly. Scientists continue to find evidence that such top predators keep coral reefs healthy. Other large fish at Cabo Pulmo include gulf groupers, dog snappers and leopard groupers.
"I participated, back in the 1990s, in the studies for the declaration of the marine park. Frankly, we decided to go ahead because the community was so determined but the place at that time was not in good environmental health," said Exequiel Ezcurra, Director of the University of California Institute for Mexico and the United States (UC MEXUS) and co-author of the article. "If you visit the place now, you cannot believe the change that has taken place. And all of it has occurred thanks to the determination of a community of coastal villagers that decided to take care of their place and to be at the helm of their own destiny."
"Few policymakers around the world are aware that fish size and abundance can increase inside marine reserves to extraordinary levels within a decade after protection is established; fewer still know that these increases often translate into economic benefits for coastal communities" said Aburto-Oropeza. "Therefore, showing what's happened in Cabo Pulmo will contribute to ongoing conservation efforts in the marine environment and recovery of local coastal economies."
In addition to Aburto-Oropeza, co-authors include Brad Erisman and Grantly Galland of Scripps Oceanography; Ismael Mascareñas-Osorio of Centro para la Biodiversidad Marina y la Conservación in La Paz, Mexico; Enric Sala of the National Geographic Society and Centre d'Estudis Avançats de Blanes in Spain; and Exequiel Ezcurra of UC-MEXUS at UC Riverside.
The research was funded by the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, International Community Foundation, Moore Family Foundation, Pew Fellowship Program on Marine Conservation, Robins Family Foundation, The Tinker Foundation and the Walton Family Foundation.
Journal Reference:
Octavio Aburto-Oropeza, Brad Erisman, Grantly R. Galland, Ismael Mascareñas-Osorio, Enric Sala, Exequiel Ezcurra. Large Recovery of Fish Biomass in a No-Take Marine Reserve. PLoS ONE, 2011; 6 (8): e23601 DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0023601
Olivia Rondonuwu Reuters 12 Aug 11;
NUSA DUA, Indonesia, Aug 12 (Reuters Life!) - Construction cranes on beaches, damaged coral, and floating trash in the turquoise waters off Bali are an unfortunate sign of just how successful the Indonesian resort island has been in attracting tourists.
Foreign visitors have been drawn to the unique Hindu culture, art and volcanic landscapes of Bali since the 19th century, but in recent years growing wealth in Asia has spurred new hordes of tourists from around the region.
The island has also used its charm to become a top venue for international conferences and events involving thousands more people, many of which take place in the Nusa Dua resort complex, south of the airport, where international hotel chains such as Westin and Marriott have taken root.
The flood of cash from these conferences, during which room prices surge due to tight demand, is prompting the bulldozing of hills for more resorts in an island that some people already think is far too crowded, with little or no thought given to the limits of the environment.
"What is happening in Bali now is over-exploitation of the tourism industry. A policy of selling it cheap, and exploiting it to the last bit," said Wayan Suardana, the head of local green group Walhi in Bali.
Suardana said old resorts should be renovated and that attention needs to be paid to a host of problems born from the surging success that include a scarcity of electricity and clean water, mounting trash, and traffic jams.
But instead, the local government has given the go-ahead to build a 200-hectare resort to host the 2013 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum in Jimbaran, a hilly area overlooking a beautiful bay, threatening farmers' livelihood, Suardana said.
In the Nusa Dua area, the small, winding road is misted by dust from construction on developments in at least three adjacent areas and streams of trucks carrying rocks and cement.
Wayan Solo, the administrative head of Benoa -- where Nusa Dua is located -- said two resorts and a villa complex are being built just south of Nusa Dua, with completion set for next year.
TOURISM'S MIDAS TOUCH
Mass-market tourism, which arrived in Bali several decades ago, proved invaluable for the tiny, densely populated island, half the size of Jamaica but with a population of 3.5 million.
With not enough fertile land to go around, tourism provided jobs in hotels, services, manufacturing of things such as souvenirs and furniture, and construction.
Despite some downturns during the political turmoil of the late 1990s and after incidents such as 9/11 attacks in the United States, the 2002 and 2005 Bali bombings, and the 2008 financial crisis, tourism is rebounding more strongly than ever.
Some 2.4 million people flew in to Bali in 2009, nearly double the 2005 figure. According to government statistics, the number of arrivals at Bali's airport for the first half of this year is up 10 percent compared to the same period last year.
With its magnificent aquamarine water, white sand beaches, majestic cliffs, and numerous hotels, arid southern Bali has been Indonesia's main tourist magnet for decades.
But the hundreds of hotels have absorbed water in the small island of 3.5 million residents, said Suardana, leaving farmers in the northern part of Bali, which has working plantations of crops such as rice and coffee, chronically short of water.
Still more land is taken out of agricultural commission all the time. Bali's Environmental Agency said 700 hectares of land is converted yearly for hotels, roads and housing, some of it villas for foreigners and wealthy Indonesians.
In addition, the hotels produce growing mountains of trash. Some 13,000 cubic metres of trash arriving at processing plants across Bali per day, but only half is being processed, said Alit Sastrawan, head of the agency.
Lack of monitoring has also meant that trash from big hotels may be dumped on just any available empty land, said Made Suarnata, the head of the Wisnu Foundation, which campaigns for community-based waste recycling.
Perhaps even more serious is damage to one of the island's biggest draws, its pristine waters.
Decades of development in southern Bali have contributed to coral bleaching and beach erosion, adding to damage from an El Nino weather pattern in the late 1990s.
"What used to be a huge reef in Sanur, the natural barrier of Bali, was covered by sedimentation, the result of massive development and reclamation in southern Bali, bleaching and eventually killing the coral," said Ketut Sarjana Putra, a scientist at Bali-based Conservation International Indonesia.
While Sanur's reef is beyond hope, coral is recovering in northwestern Pemuteran and the neighbouring island of Nusa Penida. But something has still been lost, with long-term divers saying fish numbers are sharply lower.
Thinking of the environmental degradation, Suarnata recalled an old Balinese saying, "Merta matemahang Wishya" -- "a blessing that is not managed well can turn to danger."
He added: "The tourism industry has given us good benefits, but if we aren't serious about managing it, with trash piling up across the island and inviting disease, who would want to come?" (Editing by Elaine Lies)
Expressions of a Javan Myna
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Singapore Biodiversity Encyclopedia on Bestsellers list
from Raffles Museum News
Leaping Dolphins!
from Natura Gig
The glass is half-full: conservation has made a difference
from Mongabay.com news
Sonia Kolensnikov-Jessop New York Times 28 Jul 11;
SINGAPORE — The math is impressive. In the last 25 years, the population of Singapore has nearly doubled, to more than five million. Over the same period, its green cover — planted areas that appear green on satellite photos, from parks to rooftops — has increased from a little more than a third of the city-state’s area to nearly half.
But it is not enough. In Singapore’s next “green road map,” its 10-year development plan, the country aims to go from being “a garden city” to “a city in a garden.” “The difference might sound very small,” says Poon Hong Yuen, the chief executive of the country’s National Parks Board, “but it’s a bit like saying my house has a garden and my house is in the middle of a garden. What it means is having pervasive greenery, as well as biodiversity, including wildlife, all around you.”
More and more cities are waking up to the need to be more than sweatshops on a citywide scale. Singapore rose to international prominence by constructing a country that was orderly and efficient. But being globally competitive today is about more than productivity. It is about sustainability, too.
In order to attract so-called knowledge workers, in industries like computing, biotechnology and other forms of new technology, a city has to be an appealing place to work, play, live, and raise a family.
“As we’ve moved into the more knowledge-based industries, they bring along talent who like to live in a great city,” said Mr. Poon. “It’s no longer about being well tended, but also about the liveability, the excitement of living in a great city — and biodiversity is part of it.”
According to the United Nations, more than half of the world’s population lived in cities in 2008 and that percentage is set to rise to 70 percent by 2050.
Singapore ranked 28th in the Mercer 2010 Quality of Living survey of the world’s most liveable cities, and in 22nd place as an Eco-City. It tied with San Francisco in 51st position in The Economist’s index of the World’s Most Liveable Cities, making it the fourth-best city to live in Asia after Osaka, Tokyo and Hong Kong.
Singapore aggressively pursued its reputation as a green city as early as the 1960s and 1970s, when the newly independent country was in the rush of rapid economic development and urbanization. While the authorities built thousands of public housing blocks, they also planted trees and shrubs along the main highway bringing visitors from the airport to the city center. At the time, the government was attempting to attract a certain type of foreign investment, particularly manufacturing, and the key justification for having well-tended trees and parks was an economic one: to underscore to investors that the country was well run, well tended, and stable.
With economic policies focusing in recent years on developing creative industries and the service sector, Singapore is facing new pressures to attract talent. And with many companies in Asia, in particular, reporting a dearth of high-skilled talent, offering international companies and their employees a greener working environment becomes a big selling point.
“To be frank, we did not have a very conscious idea to conserve biodiversity right from the beginning. That was not the blueprint,” Mr. Poon said. “For a very long time, we focused only on plants and it has worked very well for us, but now we feel that to engage people and get them excited, especially the young, we need to include a wildlife component and moving forward we want to do more.”
Biodiversity will play an important role in the 1 billion Singaporean dollar, or $829 million, Gardens by the Bay project. The first phase of the 101-hectare, or 250-acre, green site the Bay South Garden, is set to open next June. While there are no plans to artificially introduce wildlife into the gardens, the National Parks Board hopes that newly resurgent species, including hornbills, kingfishers and dragonflies, will find a haven there.
Lim Eng Hwee, the deputy chief executive for planning at the Urban Redevelopment Authority, who is in charge of allocating land usage in Singapore, believes that the Gardens by the Bay project will not only enhance the quality of the urban environment, but will also enhance the aesthetic and economic value of the surrounding developments, “similar to Central Park in New York and Hyde Park in London.”
“From a monetary point of view, there is a very strong argument, supported by various researchers, about the increase in the value of the adjacent site you get from having a significant, well-designed green space: a 15 to 20 percent uplift in prices,” agrees Andrew Grant of Grant Associates, the British landscape architecture firm that designed the Bay South Garden.
The Bay South Garden includes two giant conservatories that are set to become new architectural landmarks for Singapore. The 1.2-hectare Flower Dome conservatory will replicate the climate of the Mediterranean and include a semiarid subtropical environment, while the 0.8 hectare Cloud Forest conservatory replicates the cool-moist climate found in tropical mountain regions 1,000 meters to 3,500 meters, or half a mile to two miles, above sea level.
Close to 10 percent of the total land area in Singapore is set aside for parks and nature reserves, and the government has plans to add more park space over the next 10 years to 15 years, “from about 3,300 hectares today to 4,200 hectares,” Mr. Lim said.
This is all part of a global effort to reconnect cities to nature. Last October, an assembly of the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity held in Nagoya, Japan, approved a strategic plan for conserving the planet’s biodiversity over the next 10 years. It has 20 ambitious targets, including halving and where feasible bringing close to zero the rate of loss of natural habitats, including forests; restoring at least 15 percent of degraded areas; and extending protected terrestrial areas from 13 percent of land at present to 17 percent, and protected marine areas from 1 percent to 10 percent.
“The new strategic plan has been guided by the wake-up call contained in the report on the status of biodiversity in the world released by the secretariat in May 2010,” Dr. Ahmed Djoghlaf, executive secretary of the United Nations’ Convention on Biological Diversity, wrote in an e-mail.
The report warned that the present rate of loss of biodiversity may be up to 1,000 times higher than the natural rate of extinction.
The Nagoya assembly also endorsed a new tool to help cities evaluate their biodiversity conservation efforts, the City Biodiversity index. “It is the first time that a partnership between local authorities and policy makers has been established,” said Dr. Djoghlaf, explaining that the plan of action was meant to implement the strategic goals, known as Aichi targets, at the municipal level.
“The engagement of the local authorities is essential for the success of the new 2020 targets,” Dr. Djoghlaf said.
Singaporean officials at the United Nations proposed and helped develop the index and so far about 28 cities around the world have started using it. They include Nagoya, London, Montreal, Brussels and Curitiba, Brazil. Dr. Djoghlaf said that a global report on the status of biodiversity in cities is now being prepared and will be submitted to a city summit meeting to be held in Singapore in June 2012.
Singapore’s own biodiversity efforts over the past 10 years have started to have some positive benefits. About 500 new species of flora and fauna, like the green tree snail and the long-legged fly, have been spotted again or have been seen for the first time, including 100 species new to science, data from the National Parks Board show.
One of the recent success stories has been the reintroduction of the Oriental pied hornbill — the bird’s population has increased from just a pair 16 years ago to about 160 today. The National Parks Board is hoping to launch other wildlife projects, introducing or increasing populations of a variety of species like the Colugo, a flying lemur, and the banded leaf monkey, which is native to Singapore.
In this regard, however, Singapore’s legendary orderliness is not all that useful. “We’ve found that our current roadside trees, with mono-species all at the same height, looks great, but is not that great for birds to hop around; they don’t like that,” Mr. Poon noted.
A version of this article appeared in print on July 29, 2011, in The International Herald Tribune with the headline: An Urban Jungle for the 21st Century.
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