Latest Green Jobs in Singapore [8 - 14 Oct 2012]
from Green Business Times
Damselfly (20) – Aciagrion hisopa
from Dragonflies & Damselflies of Singapore
Plant-Bird Relationship: 6. Palmae
from Bird Ecology Study Group
stork-billed kingfisher @ SBWR - OCT2012
from sgbeachbum and sandpiper & prawn dinner @ Sg Buloh Wetland Reserve - Oct2012
Skippers @ Mandai Park Connector
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
White Sea Urchin
from Monday Morgue
It had swum in there and died after water was pumped out
Grace Chua Straits Times 15 Oct 12;
WORKERS at Sembawang Shipyard were surprised to see a dead juvenile bull shark, about a metre long, when they pumped a dock dry before dawn this month.
They snapped photos and sent them to citizen journalism site Stomp.
Mr Arjun Nair, a 19-year-old technician at the shipyard, told The Straits Times his friend initially claimed he had found and killed the shark at the shipyard, and that workers later cut it up and took portions home for food.
But a spokesman for Sembawang Shipyard clarified that the shark had swum into the dock - when a ship was berthed there - and was trapped when the water was pumped out, at around 3am on Oct 3.
"When the dock was pumped dry, our workers did not know that it was a shark and thought it was only a big fish," she said. Fish are sometimes trapped in the dry dock.
The unidentified fish and other items of floating rubbish were placed into a canvas bag, which was lifted out of the dock by a crane as usual, and placed at dockside for disposal.
When the bag was opened, the workers were shocked to see that it was a shark, which by then was dead, she added.
"This is the first time in more than 40 years of docking operations that we have encountered a shark," she said.
The spokesman did not say how the shipyard disposed of the shark.
The shipyard alerted the Maritime and Port Authority, she added, in case there were other sharks in the area.
The shipyard is located on the island's northern edge.
Marine biologist Chou Loke Ming said there are sharks in Singapore waters. But sightings, mostly in the Southern Islands, are rare.
"Bull sharks are known to be aggressive," he said. "It is unlikely that there are many at Sembawang or anywhere in Singapore waters."
Bull sharks, which can grow to more than 3m in length, are native to tropical and subtropical coastal waters off Borneo, Australia and the Gulf of Thailand.
Singapore is not known for many shark attacks.
Figures from the Florida Museum of Natural History, which maintains a database of confirmed shark attacks, cite only four recorded unprovoked shark attacks here, three of which were fatal. The last fatal attack, involving a young naval diver, was in 1954.
Local nature blogger Ivan Kwan, 29, said divers and anglers more commonly encounter bamboo sharks and black-tipped reef sharks, which do not harm humans if left alone.
But he wondered what "the standard operating procedure is for these facilities when it comes to marine animals trapped in dry docks".
Said Mr Kwan: "How would the workers respond if they found a turtle, dolphin or dugong in the dry dock?"
David Ee Straits Times 15 Oct 12;
THESE residents just refuse to be evicted. Nothing much, it seems, has prevented the mynahs of Orchard Road from calling it home.
It was reported in The Sunday Times yesterday that the latest attempt at ridding the shopping strip of the mynahs - deploying a hawk - has failed.
The mynahs have been the bane of retailers and shoppers there since 2008, drawing complaints about their droppings and the noise they make.
Ecologists and bird control specialists said the authorities might want to consider using sound waves, water or nets to disperse and trap the birds.
Removing the trees with dense crowns where the mynahs roost in the evenings may be another way.
Mr Subaraj Rajathurai, co-founder of the Bird Ecology Study Group, favours replacing the trees with other varieties that have sparser canopies that do not attract roosting birds.
"If they did it carefully in phases, stage by stage, it would be a solution in the long term," he said.
But that would be "an extreme solution", said Nature Society president Shawn Lum.
Replacing the existing trees may solve the mynah problem, he said, but would lessen shade cover for pedestrians and "completely change the character of Orchard Road". He asked: "Is that what we want?"
Hoisting nets high up between the trees to trap the mynahs would work, said ecologist Yong Ding Li. But he cautioned that if the stakes needed to prop the nets up were to fall, they may pose a danger to pedestrians.
Bird control firm Mastermark said sound waves would not effectively deter the birds, while a sprinkler system would inconvenience passers-by.
None of these methods is a silver bullet, said Mastermark manager Gloria Ngoi. A combination of methods to "displace and relocate the birds would be a very good option", she added.
Dr Lum, though, questioned whether the mynahs should be considered a problem at all, unless they pose a public health risk.
"Where else in the world can you go where you've got these modern, sleek buildings, and wild birds roosting outside?" he asked.
"To me, it adds to the glamour of Orchard Road."
When contacted, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority said it has commissioned a study of the mynah population here, which started in June. Findings from the study will determine the next move, said a spokesman.
Three sites proposed for companies to test renewable energy solutions
Feng Zengkun Straits Times 15 Oct 12;
A PLAN to supply Pulau Ubin with clean, reliable and more affordable electricity has moved one step closer to reality.
The Government has selected three plots of land on the island north-east of Singapore which may be suitable for green technologies such as micro-wind turbines and solar panels.
It plans to eventually invite companies to test their clean and renewable energy solutions on those land plots.
For now, the Energy Market Authority (EMA) wants to hire consultants to study the land plots and recommend possible types of clean and renewable technologies for them.
The consultants can also propose alternate sites.
In a call for proposals this month, the EMA said the consultants' suggestions should be "sensitive" to the areas' biodiversity and aligned with the island's "rustic and natural character".
The study will also include recommending feasible business models for the clean and renewable energy technologies. The deadline for proposals is Oct 23.
The nine-month study is part of the Government's plan to supply clean, reliable and cost-competitive electricity to residents and businesses on Pulau Ubin, which is currently used for activities such as fishing, cycling and kayaking.
The 100 or so islanders currently rely on their own generators as the cost of laying cables from the mainland is too high.
Last year, the EMA announced a local consortium will build an electricity micro-grid at Pulau Ubin's jetty area to test solar power and biodiesel energy technology.
Under the contract, the consortium will provide electricity at a price of not more than 80 cents per kilowatt hour (kwh), lower than the rate of $1 or more per kwh for diesel generators.
The green technologies deployed on the chosen plots of land will be hooked up to the micro-grid, which is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
When the whole project is up and running, the Government will assess whether it can reliably supply electricity from a micro-grid using intermittent renewable energy resources.
This will improve Singapore's smart-grid design capabilities and management of intermittent renewable energy sources, preparing it for "a future when renewable resources become more significant in our energy system", said the EMA in its tender document.
Users to Benefit from Electricity Micro-Grid on Pulau Ubin
Energy Market Authority press release 10 Oct 13;
Residents and businesses at Pulau Ubin can now enjoy cheaper, cleaner and more reliable electricity supply from a micro-grid incorporating biodiesel and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology. This is part of an EMA test-bed to assess the impact of intermittent energy sources like solar on grid operations.
Unlike conventional power generators which can provide a steady supply of electricity, solar is intermittent in nature as the amount of energy produced is dependent on weather conditions. In other countries, the increasing use of intermittent energy sources like solar and wind has resulted in power disruptions. This challenge needs to be carefully managed to ensure reliability of supply to consumers, especially when solar forms an increasing part of Singapore’s overall energy mix in future.
Witnessing the launch of the micro-grid on Pulau Ubin, Mr S Iswaran (Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office and Second Minister for Home Affairs and Trade & Industry) said, “The learning points from the test-bed will help to enhance our ability to manage intermittent energy sources. It will enable Singapore to maximize the amount of solar and other forms of renewable energy we can deploy when those technologies become commercially viable. This in turn will contribute to our long term goal of diversifying our energy mix and moving towards a sustainable energy future for Singapore.”
About 30 residents and businesses have signed up for electricity from the micro-grid, built by a local consortium comprising Daily Life Renewable Energy Pte Ltd (DLRE) and OKH Holdings Pte Ltd (OKH), a wholly-owned subsidiary of SGX mainboard-listed OKH Global Ltd. An illustration of the Pulau Ubin micro-grid Test-bed is in Annex 1.
“Many Ubin residents and businesses I spoke to shared with me that they have been looking forward to this day. Instead of diesel generators, the island’s residents and businesses can now enjoy access to cheaper, cleaner and more reliable electricity supply.” said Dr Mohamad Maliki Osman, Minister of State for National Development and Defence, Mayor for South East District and Member of Parliament for East Coast GRC.
The test-bed also demonstrates emerging opportunities in the energy sector for Singapore companies. Mr Thomas Bon, Managing Director of OKH, added, “Both OKH and DLRE have worked closely together with government agencies, community leaders as well as the residents and businesses on Pulau Ubin, on all stages of this project. This micro-grid is a demonstration of our Singapore-based companies’ capabilities in smart grid Engineering-Procurement-Construction and will support our regionalisation plans to develop and promote Remote Area Power Utility Services as a sustainable business model.”
With the completion of the micro-grid, EMA is now exploring how other companies and research organisations could use it as a platform to develop and pilot energy-related technologies and solutions.
Pelagic Outing October 2012
from Con Foley Photography
Enhancing the butterfly habitat @ Tampines Eco Green (Part II)
from The Green Volunteers
Girl Guides Fun at Chek Jawa Guided Walk
from Peiyan.Photography and wild shores of singapore
disappearing croc @ sg buloh wetland reserve - Oct2012
from sgbeachbum
A Rare Young Talent
from Butterflies of Singapore
Common Sandpipers’ Tail-Fanning & Raised-Wings Displays
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Alvina Soh Channel NewsAsia 13 Oct 12;
SINGAPORE: Singapore's Marine Life Park said its acquisition of 25 Indo-pacific bottlenose dolphins caught in the wild, followed international requirements.
A spokesman of Marine Life Park said Saturday that they are in line with the requirements of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), which regulates the trade of animals to protect wildlife species from extinction.
The spokesman had said so in response to queries from Channel NewsAsia on a report that a court in the Philippines has moved to stop the 25 dolphins from being re-exported to Singapore.
This followed calls from environmentalists and activists to prevent the transfer of the mammals, which are housed temporarily in Manila before being sent to Marine Life Park.
A report on the website of The Philippine Star said a Quezon City court decided on Friday to stop the Department of Agriculture and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources from issuing a permit to re-export the 25 dolphins in Ocean Adventure Park in Subic.
The report added that the court granted a petition by animal welfare groups and issued a 72-hour "temporary environment protection order" preventing the re-export of the dolphins.
The dolphins were imported from the Solomon Islands in 2008, 2009, and 2011 and brought to Subic for training while Marine Life Park was under construction.
The Philippine report said the court decided to stop the 're-exportation' on the grounds that doing so would cause irreparable damage to the dolphins.
Responding to the report, the spokesman of Marine Life Park said on Saturday that the movement of marine animals, including dolphins, is governed by the United Nations Environment Programme which upholds the policies of CITES.
Marine Life Park's spokesman said the dolphins are currently doing well in the Philippines.
He added that the Marine Life Park has an experienced team of animal experts who collectively represent over 300 years of experience working in more than 60 reputable zoological facilities around the world.
"With a mission to promote marine education, conservation and research, Marine Life Park strives to offer an educational and memorable experience that inspires a generation of stewards for the environment," said the statement from Marine Life Park.
But Singapore animal welfare group ACRES said on Saturday that it welcomes the latest news.
ACRES' chief executive Louis Ng said, "It has sent a very strong message out. A judge has reviewed the case, they've reviewed the literature and have agreed that this re-export shouldn't take place.
"We hope that they will make this ban permanent, and we are hopeful that the Philippines government will uphold the law and return these dolphins back to the Solomon Islands."
ACRES added that it would be a violation of Philippine law to allow the dolphins to be re-exported to Singapore and highlighted that the capture of the dolphins was unsustainable as the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins were a "very localised and small population."
Marine Life Park at Resorts World Sentosa, billed as the world's largest oceanarium, is scheduled to open by December, and will involve more than 100,000 marine animals.
- CNA/lp
Philippine court stops export of RWS dolphins
Derrick Ho Straits Times 14 Oct 12;
A Philippine court yesterday temporarily blocked the export of 25 captive dolphins meant to be the main attraction at the Marine Life Park at Resorts World Sentosa (RWS).
A Quezon City court issued a 72-hour "temporary environment protection order" preventing the mammals from being exported to Singapore, after animal rights groups there filed a civil suit, according to the Philippine Star newspaper.
The groups included the Earth Island Institute, Philippine Animal Welfare Society and the Compassion and Responsibility Philippines. They alleged that exporting the bottlenose dolphins for sport or entertainment was illegal, cruel and would cause the extinction of the species.
The suit was filed against the Philippine agricultural secretary, Department of Agriculture and the the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, as well as Resorts World Sentosa, the Star reported.
When asked if the resort was reconsidering bringing the dolphins to Singapore, a Marine Life spokesman said last night that the dolphins were acquired in accordance with regulations stipulated by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.
"The dolphins are currently doing well in the Philippines," it said in a statement.
It declined to say how it would respond to the action by the groups in the Philippines.
Nor would it say when it had been planning to bring the dolphins to Singapore, or if it was now doing anything to secure their transfer here.
The park has received flak from animal activist groups for its purchase and plan to have 27 wild- caught dolphins as a key attraction.
Two of the dolphins died of a bacterial infection while being kept at Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Last month, RWS said the dolphins, which animal activists want released back to their natural habitat, would be on display only next year as they would need enough time to settle into their new enclosure.
Straits Times 14 Oct 12;
Orchard Road's hawk patrols have failed. It turns out that the bird of prey is no match for the pesky, noisy mynahs plaguing the shopping strip.
It is the latest attempt to fix the bird nuisance that has failed, and for business owners there it is back to the drawing board.
Mynahs have been bothering retailers and shoppers since 2008, after the Somerset carpark was redeveloped and the trees felled.
The birds moved from that roosting spot to the area near Cathay Cineleisure Orchard and The Heeren, and an estimated 2,000 to 5,000 descend at dusk, especially between 6.45pm and 7pm.
People have complained about noise and droppings that strike pedestrians, cars and walkways. So far this year, the authorities have received 13 reports about the bird nuisance.
When earlier efforts flopped, the Orchard Road Business Association hit on the idea to bring in the hawks last year, hoping that regular hawk flights would shoo the mynahs away.
Jurong Bird Park was happy to help, and provided a hawk and handler for three test runs from September last year.
Alas, the big bird was found to be intimidated by the large flock of mynahs, said park general manager Raja Segran.
He thinks there are other reasons why the idea could not take off, though some might suspect these are just a hawk's excuses:
The mynahs' new surroundings meant the hawk needed a long time to adjust;
The thick-canopied trees made it difficult for the bird handler to keep contact with the hawk;
Vehicles could knock down the hawk.
"The movement of the crowd and noise from vehicles along that stretch made the hawk very distracted," he said. "The flow of traffic on Orchard Road made it too risky to fly our birds there."
Just in case anyone thinks it might all be a case of a cowardly hawk, he also had this to say: "Birds of prey are persistent hunters, and if they decide to go after a prey the pursuit can sometimes lead to accidents."
The main thing, though, is that the mynah numbers proved overwhelming.
In the trials, which included releasing the hawk onto a tree, it was found that at first the hawk frightened the mynahs off.
"But after a while, the mynahs were seen coming back to the tree where the hawk was, as if very curious to see what bird it was," he said.
It proved too much for the intimidated hawk.
In 2009, several Orchard Road malls installed sonic devices to scare the birds away. That did not work. The use of chemicals to get rid of the birds was deemed inhumane.
Using birds of prey to solve bird nuisance problems has worked elsewhere. In Britain, two hawks, accompanied by their handlers, successfully drove seagulls away from a mall in Exeter. They did four flights a week for 20 weeks.
For now, mynahs rule in Orchard Road. And the search is on for the next best idea.
Jessica Lim
Isabella Cota PlanetArk 11 Oct 12;
Costa Rica on Wednesday passed a blanket ban on shark finning, in which the fins are sliced off sharks, often while they are alive, before the fish are thrown back into the ocean to die.
President Laura Chinchilla signed an executive order banning shark finning in the Central American nation's coastal waters, closing loopholes in an existing law passed in 2001.
"Costa Rica may set an example to the world when it comes to environmental protection, but it must be noted that we had a significant lag when it comes to protecting the oceans," Chinchilla told reporters at a signing ceremony in Manuel Antonio National Park on the country's Pacific coast.
The new order amends previous legislation that outlawed shark finning but continued to allow the transportation and importation of fins from other countries.
Penalties under the ban include fines and the cancellation of fishing licenses for those who are caught finning sharks. Catching sharks for food, as a means of subsistence, however, will continue to be allowed.
Chinchilla also announced an investment of up to $15 million in a new radar system that will allow authorities to better identify boats breaking the ban.
Environmental activists have campaigned against shark finning for years. They say it is cruel, and a threat to sea life and the preservation of the oceans.
Shark fins are in high demand in Asian countries including China and Japan, where shark fin soup is considered a delicacy.
(Reporting by Isabella Cota; Editing by Tim Gaynor and Eric Beech)
Roger Harrabin BBC News 13 Oct 12;
A 10-fold rise in Marine Protected Areas has been recorded over a decade.
A report to a UN meeting on biodiversity in Hyderabad reports that more than 8.3 million sq km - 2.3% of the global ocean area - is now protected.
The percentage is small but the rapid growth in recent times leads to hope that the world will hit its target of 10% protected by 2020.
This would have looked most unlikely prospect just a few years ago.
The aspiration was agreed by the Convention on Biological Diversity in 2004 with a target date of 2012. Progress was so slow at first that the target was slipped to 2020 - with some researchers forecasting it would not be reached until mid-century.
But recently there have been huge additions - like Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) in the UK-controlled Chagos archipelago and US-controlled uninhabited territories in the mid-Pacific.
The Cook Islands recently announced a 1.1 million sq km MPA - that is four times the area of the UK land mass. New Caledonia's is even bigger - 1.4 million sq km.
Australia has added a further 2.7 million sq km to its listing of the Great Barrier Reef. Now 28 countries have designated MPAs of more than 10%.
But these statistics may not be quite so impressive as they appear as most of them are far distant from people who would be likely to over-exploit them.
And a recent paper on the demise of the Barrier Reef demonstrates that declaring an area protected does not necessarily shield it from distant influences like over-nutrification.
Mark Spalding from the Nature Conservancy, lead author of the report, told BBC News: "This is great news in the sense that the prospect looked so hopeless until recently. We really should manage to meet the 10% target now.
"But we have to ask whether the targets in themselves are enough - or whether governments need to be smarter to ensure that they're protecting the very most important areas.
"I don't want to knock any of the MPAs but some appear to be easy wins, where you could stick a pin on a map and maybe send a patrol vessel. We need more than that."
Dr Spalding said it was vital now for nations to concentrate efforts on MPAs near heavily-populated coastlines where marine resources were most at risk.
The UK government has been accused of dragging its feet after postponing by a year the introduction of MPAs around the coast of England.
Sights Unseen (PURE Magazine Oct-Dec 2012 Issue, featuring Private Lives: An Exposé on Singapore’s Rainforests from Raffles Museum News
Rio N. Araja Manila Standard 13 Oct 12;
The Quezon City Regional Trial Court issued a 72-hour temporary environmental protection order directing Agriculture Secretary Proceso Alcala and Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources Director Asis Perez to prevent the re-exportation of 25 dolphins to Singapore.
The order of Judge Bernelito Fernandez of Branch 101 bars the shipment of the 25 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops aduncus), which were caught in the waters of Solomon Islands, to the Marine Life Park at the Resorts World Sentosa in Singapore.
Fernandez said he saw the need to issue the TEPO “as this will result in grave and irreparable damage to the population of the dolphins from the Solomon Islands and generations yet to come and to the environment in general as the said activity has been scientifically shown to be detrimental to the survival of the species and in violation of domestic law and international conventions.”
The judge issued the TEPO after environmental and animal welfare groups filed a petition urging the government to stop the trans-shipment of the dolphins to Singapore. The cetaceans are now at the Ocean Adventure Park in Subic while Marine Life Park is being finished.
Marine Life Park, billed as the world’s largest oceanarium, is scheduled to open on Dec. 7 and will involve more than 60 million liters of water and 100,000 marine animals from over 800 species.
Trixie Concepcion of Earth Islands Institute said the importation of the dolphins should have been barred because it violates the country’s commitment under the Convention on the International Trade of Endangered Species and Philippine Wildlife Resources Conservation and Protection Act, or Republic Act 9147.
Anna Cabrera, director of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society, said the import permits were issued without proper evaluation of the best scientific data, adding that the marine mammals were forcibly snatched from their families and will make shorten their natural lives.
She noted that dolphins, whales and other cetaceans are not suited to captivity since they are highly social creatures that are used to being in families or pods.
Other complaining groups include the Compassion and Responsibility to Animals, Welfare Philippines, Dolphins Love Freedom Network, Save Philippine Seas, Save Freedom Island Movement, Wild Bird Club of the Philippines and other individuals.
The groups asked Alcala and Perez to deny the re-export permit application and work for the release of the dolphins back to their natural habitat.
Philippine court halts dolphin export to Singapore
(AFP) Google News 13 Oct 12;
MANILA — A court has blocked the export of 25 captive dolphins trained in the Philippines to become show animals at a Singapore casino, a Filipino official and animal rights groups said Saturday.
A civil suit filed by the rights groups alleged the traffic in live Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins for sport or entertainment was illegal, cruel and would cause the extinction of the species.
The large marine mammals were shipped to a marine park in the northern Philippines between 2008 and 2011, said Anna Cabrera, head of the Philippine Animal Welfare Society.
"The dolphins, caught in the wild from the Solomon Islands, were forcibly snatched from their families and will live short, miserable lives in captivity as show animals for Resorts World in Singapore," Cabrera said in a statement.
The Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources, the government office in charge of the dolphin permits, would formally respond to the court order on Monday, said bureau director Asis Perez.
He disputed the suit's allegation that dolphin trading would be detrimental to the survival of the species and thus not authorised by the Philippines' wildlife conservation law.
"These are regulated species that you can trade, and we are supposed to regulate the trade," he told AFP.
"They were sent here only for the purpose of training them," he said.
The importers had complied with all regulatory requirements, and have asked for government permission to ship them to Singapore after their training, Perez added.
The dolphins were to have been sent to Resorts World Sentosa, a giant casino resort in Singapore, according to a copy of the written order issued by regional trial court judge Bernelito Fernandez.
Fernandez said he was studying the animal rights groups' plea to ban dolphin traffic in the Philippines, said the court document, furnished to AFP by Earth Island Institute, one of the other plaintiffs.
Court officials were unavailable for comment Saturday.
Resorts World Sentosa's Philippine lawyers named in the suit could not be contacted.
Swiss-based conservation group International Union for the Conservation of Nature said on its website that there were many threats on local bottlenose dolphin populations.
However, "the species is widespread and abundant, and none of these threats is believed to be resulting in a major global population decline", it added.
QC court stops shipment of dolphins to Singapore
Julie M. Aurelio Philippine Daily Inquirer 14 Oct 12;
MANILA, Philippines—A Quezon City court on Friday barred the Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) from reexporting to Singapore 25 captive dolphins held at Ocean Adventure Park in Subic, Zambales.
The DA and BFAR, as well as the Singapore-based Resorts World in Sentosa, Singapore, were also ordered not to import any more dolphins into the Philippines while the temporary environment protection order (Tepo) was in effect.
QC Regional Trial Court First Vice Executive Judge Bernelito Fernandez granted the 72-hour Tepo sought by several animal rights groups that raised the alarm over the Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins’ plight.
Extreme urgency
“After a thorough review of the allegations in support of the prayer for the issuance of a Tepo, this court finds that there exists extreme urgency and that the subject 25 captive dolphins and the petitioners will suffer grave injustice and irreparable injury should the reexporting of the captive dolphins and the importing of additional dolphins into the country be undertaken at this time,” the two-page order read.
Fernandez issued the Tepo on Friday afternoon as Executive Judge Fernando Sagun was in Bacolod City on official business. Fernandez ordered the personal serving of the Tepo on the three respondents.
The petition filed by the Earth Island Institute (EII), Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS), and Compassion and Responsibility to Animals Welfare Philippines et al. will be heard by RTC Branch 101.
Fernandez said this branch was the “only designated environment court” in Quezon City that could act on the petition.
The petitioners sought the Tepo after learning that the dolphins—which were imported from the Solomon Islands in 2008, 2009 and 2011—were to be reexported to Singapore.
The EII said it received a notice from the BFAR seeking its comment on the reexportation of the dolphins on Oct. 4.
Trained to perform
The dolphins had been kept in Subic where they were trained to perform in aquatic shows while the Singapore marine attraction was being built.
The petitioners noted that other countries had banned the dolphin trade altogether.
Aside from the Tepo, the animal welfare groups asked for the nullification of dolphin import permits dating back to 2008 and the voiding of all such permits from the Solomon Islands.
The importation and exportation of the marine creatures violates the country’s international agreements and the Wildlife Preservation and Conservation Act.
The petitioners also asked the court to direct the respondents “to hold in custody the dolphins currently at Ocean Adventure at their expense until they are rehabilitated for release back to the wild.”
This is aside from the periodic reports the respondents must make before the eventual release of the dolphins.
Jakarta Globe 12 Oct 12;
The destruction of protective reefs, mangroves, wetlands and forested slopes has seen Indonesia drop five spots to 33rd place out of 173 countries on the World Risk Index for vulnerability to disasters.
The report, released in Brussels on Thursday by the German Alliance for Development Works, the United Nations University’s Institute for Environment and Human Security and The Nature Conservancy, examines the risks of and solutions for natural disasters and determines the risk of becoming the victim of a disaster as a result of natural hazards.
“The new World Risk Report gives us a vivid picture of how environmental destruction on a global scale is increasingly becoming a direct threat to human beings as well,” said Alliance director Peter Mucke.
He added that where slopes had been deforested, where protective reefs, mangroves and wetlands had degenerated or even completely disappeared, the forces of nature hit with far more intense force on inhabited areas.
The top 15 most at-risk nations are all tropical and coastal where coastal habitats like reefs and mangroves are incredibly important for people’s livelihoods. Reefs, for example, can reduce wave energy approaching coasts by more than 85 percent.
Abdul Halim, TNC Indonesia’s marine program director, said that Southeast Asia, and in particular Indonesia, had by far the greatest number of people in low elevation areas and its reefs were the most threatened.
“We must strive to inspire government and local stakeholders for higher engagement in marine conservation and sustainable use of resources,” he said.
The countries with the greatest number of at-risk people who may receive risk reduction benefits from reefs (people living at elevations below 10 meters and within 50 kilometers of coral reefs) are Indonesia and India, with more than 35 million people in danger in both nations.
Next is the Philippines with more than 20 million and China with more than 15 million, while Brazil, Vietnam and the United States have more than seven million each.
The report was launched to coincide with the International Day for Disaster Reduction.
It noted that the recorded number of disasters and casualties worldwide for the decade from 2002 to 2011 was alarming: 4,130 disasters, more than a million deaths and economic losses of at least $1.195 trillion.
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