lone injured otter ? @ off Pulau Buloh - 01Jan2014
from sgbeachbum
New Year Morning Walk At Bukit Batok Nature Park (01 Jan 2014) from Beetles@SG BLOG and Short Afternoon Walk At Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (31 Dec 2013)
Caged civets in Vietnam
from Project LUWAK SG
Lip Kwok Wai and Monica Kotwani Channel NewsAsia 1 Jan 14;
SINGAPORE: The Changi Village area is on track to be developed into a sports and recreational centre.
And analysts said the recently completed Changi Cove hotel near Hendon Road could be part of the government's plan to develop the entire area into a resort and corporate retreat site.
Some of the colonial buildings around Changi Village are currently undergoing upgrading.
There are plans to redevelop them into a spa resort, restaurants and even a corporate training centre.
Five of the buildings along Hendon Road, which are expected to house the spa and restaurants, belong to the Singapore Land Authority (SLA).
The SLA has since tendered out the operations of those five buildings.
Nearby, the Changi Civil Service Club, located near the Changi Point Ferry Terminal, is also undergoing upgrading.
The upgrading is expected to be completed by the second quarter of 2014.
The Civil Service Club said once the upgrading is completed, the gross floor area of the facility will be tripled. Twenty per cent of that space will be designated for food and beverage and leisure space outlets.
Observers feel that the location in the east of the country can provide an alternative to the city centre.
Chris Koh, director of Chris International, said: "It is away from the city so if one wants to avoid the hustle and bustle of the city, the large populated areas, lots of commercial and industrial… then Changi will be a nice place."
- CNA/nd
New Straits Times 2 Jan 14;
KUALA LUMPUR: Third category strong winds and rough seas in the coasts of Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang and east Johor are expected until this Friday.
A statement from the Meteorological Department said the situation might cause winds of 60kph and waves over 5.5 metres high, exposing these areas to high water levels.
The strong winds and rough seas will present danger to beach and shipping activities, including on oil platforms.
Strong winds and choppy seas (second category) are also expected in Sabah (Interior, West Coast and Kudat), Federal Territory of Labuan and Sarawak with winds of 50 and 60kph as well as waves of up to 4.5m.
The situation is dangerous for beach and shipping activities, including fishing and ferry services. Bernama
New Straits Times 2 Jan 14;
BACHOK: A hawksbill turtle that landed on Pantai Chenang Laut in Tawang here on Tuesday surprised villagers as it was the first of such sighting in decades.
Kampung Padang Nibong residents went in droves to the beach after news spread about the discovery of the hawksbill by a teenager about 4.30pm.
Mohd Farid Ismail, 17, said he and a friend were riding horses when they spotted the turtle on the shore.
"It looked weak and its right front fin was injured.
"My friend and I led the turtle back into the sea several times.
"But it kept swimming back ashore.
"After a few times, we decided to keep it for its own safety."
He said he would hand over the 15kg turtle to the relevant authorities to be released back into the sea as he had no knowledge how to care for the reptile in captivity.
"When the turtle refused to go back into the sea, my friend helped to carry it on his motorcycle and we kept it at his horse stable."
Villager Idris Senit, 65, said the appearance of the hawksbill was extraordinary as this was the first time he saw a turtle landing since he was young boy.
He said the hawksbill's fin could have been caught in a fishing net which might have damaged it.
"It is a bit worrisome to us because the rare landing could be a bad omen."
State fisheries director Datuk Mohamad Mat Saman said it was nothing out of the ordinary for turtles to land on beaches in Kelantan.
He said there had been reports every now and then about turtle landings but it was quite rare in the state.
"Hawksbill and green turtles are the most common species that land in Kelantan," he said, adding that the leatherback species had long stopped coming to shores in the state.
Under the Fisheries Act 1985, he said it was an offence for people to abuse or catch turtles and offenders were liable to be fined up to RM500 upon conviction.
Mohamad said the department officials picked up the hawksbill from the village at 11pm on Tuesday after they were informed about its discovery.
"We will send the hawksbill to the Rantau Abang turtle sanctuary in Terengganu to rehabilitate and treat its injury as soon as possible."
Angela Dewan (AFP) Google News 1 Jan 14;
Berau — Deep in the forests of Borneo island, workmen from an Indonesian timber company fell a tree with a chainsaw, stick a red tag with a serial number onto it and attach a corresponding stub to the stump.
This is all part of an arduous auditing process, one of many government attempts to clamp down on illegal logging and clean up one of the country's most corrupt and mismanaged sectors as Western countries demand proof their timber imports are legal.
Following an agreement signed with the European Union in September, Jakarta is rolling out a system under which companies holding government-issued permits are given a certificate to prove their wood is harvested within the law.
Indonesia, Asia's leading exporter of timber to the EU, is hoping the pact will help it double timber exports to Europe to the tune of $2 billion a year.
But critics say logging permits considered legal are often obtained through illegal means, and laws passed in Europe, the US and Australia to give consumers a clear conscience do little to tackle under-the-table transactions that compromise the sector.
?This system is basically asking, do you have a permit, and if you do, that box is ticked. It?s saying anything that the government does is considered legal,? said Emily Harwell, lead author of "The Dark Side of Green Growth", a recent report by Human Rights Watch.
"It is silent on corruption."
Indonesia is rapidly losing its forests, mostly to make way for plantations for timber products such as paper and palm oil.
According to a map released by Google Earth in November, two million hectares (20,000 km2) are lost annually, the equivalent of 10,000 football fields every day.
Bribery for permits
The forestry ministry is considered the country's most corrupt institution, according to a 2012 survey by the country's respected Corruption Eradication Commission (KPK), which found permits being bought from officials with bribe money was the most common act of corruption.
Timber companies in Indonesia, which has the world's third-largest expanse of rainforests, are legally obliged to comply with strict guidelines before being granted permits, such as carrying out environmental impact assessments and consulting communities affected by their operations.
But permits are handed out even when such requirements are not fulfilled, critics say, while even government data shows only 16 percent of such permits have been through the process of consulting affected communities.
Law enforcement is not only lax, it is often part of the problem. In May, mid-ranking police officer Labora Sitorus was arrested for allegedly running a $150 million illegal logging ring in the remote, eastern Papua region -- seen as Indonesia's last bastion of vast untouched rainforest.
Sitorus was caught after state financial auditors linked him to 115 containers of illegally-logged timber in Surabaya on Java island, a hub for hand-made furniture exports.
Critics like Harwell say this all means that even with Indonesia's new Timber Legality Assurance System, the mountains of cardboard packaging, dining tables and timber flooring being sent abroad with a stamp of approval are not necessarily legal at all.
Nevertheless there are some companies striving to ensure their timber is genuinely legal.
Sumalindo Lestari Jaya -- the timber company on Indonesian Borneo tagging its logs and tree stumps -- has spent years engaging with the local indigenous Dayak communities affected by its 60,000-hectare (150,000-acre) concession near the city of Berau.
Sharing the wealth
The company shares the benefits of its harvests in cash handouts, school tuition for children and basic infrastructure with four of five communities affected by its operation, and involves them in operational decision-making.
"Sumalindo didn't at first engage with the communities. But they realised that by communicating better with them, they could come up with something fair that respects everyone's rights," said Joko Sarjito from WWF, which facilitated the agreements.
The company exports construction timber, wood panelling and timber flooring to Germany, Britain, the Netherlands, Australia and Japan, and it is hoping to qualify for a superior certificate from the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), which also ensures sustainability and fair trade.
"To be honest, it doesn't really make financial sense to go for the FSC certificate. It's about 30 percent more expensive to produce, and the returns are only around five percent higher," Sumalindo board director Rudi Gunawan said.
"But we do it for our name, for pride."
While some big companies have the funds to venture into the brave new world of clean timber, artisan furniture makers have trouble even registering as a business, a basic requirement for a certificate of legality.
"In many cases, the artisan doesn't want to register formally. They are often asked for costly fees and they might not feel comfortable in that formalised environment," said Agus Djalaili, technical adviser for the Multistakeholder Forestry Programme funded by Britain's Department for International Development.
Sources in the industry said there have been several cases where artisans have simply bought certificates of legality and that the auditing process could be compromised.
The forestry ministry admits there is room for improvement in the new initiative, which is not set in stone until the agreement with the EU is ratified.
?We are still developing it and we are completing the text, so we are open to views from NGOs and we want to ensure our timber is truly legal,? said Dwi Sudharto, the ministry's director general of processing and marketing of forest products.
New climate model taking greater account of cloud changes indicates heating will be at higher end of expectations
Damian Carrington The Guardian 31 Dec 13;
Temperature rises resulting from unchecked climate change will be at the severe end of those projected, according to a new scientific study.
The scientist leading the research said that unless emissions of greenhouse gases were cut, the planet would heat up by a minimum of 4C by 2100, twice the level the world's governments deem dangerous.
The research indicates that fewer clouds form as the planet warms, meaning less sunlight is reflected back into space, driving temperatures up further still. The way clouds affect global warming has been the biggest mystery surrounding future climate change.
Professor Steven Sherwood, at the University of New South Wales, in Australia, who led the new work, said: "This study breaks new ground twice: first by identifying what is controlling the cloud changes and second by strongly discounting the lowest estimates of future global warming in favour of the higher and more damaging estimates."
"4C would likely be catastrophic rather than simply dangerous," Sherwood told the Guardian. "For example, it would make life difficult, if not impossible, in much of the tropics, and would guarantee the eventual melting of the Greenland ice sheet and some of the Antarctic ice sheet", with sea levels rising by many metres as a result.
The research is a "big advance" that halves the uncertainty about how much warming is caused by rises in carbon emissions, according to scientists commenting on the study, published in the journal Nature. Hideo Shiogama and Tomoo Ogura, at Japan's National Institute for Environmental Studies, said the explanation of how fewer clouds form as the world warms was "convincing", and agreed this indicated future climate would be greater than expected. But they said more challenges lay ahead to narrow down further the projections of future temperatures.
Scientists measure the sensitivity of the Earth's climate to greenhouse gases by estimating the temperature rise that would be caused by a doubling of CO2 in the atmosphere compared with pre-industrial levels – as is likely to happen within 50 years, on current trends. For two decades, those estimates have run from 1.5C to 5C, a wide range; the new research narrowed that range to between 3C and 5C, by closely examining the biggest cause of uncertainty: clouds.
The key was to ensure that the way clouds form in the real world was accurately represented in computer climate models, which are the only tool researchers have to predict future temperatures. When water evaporates from the oceans, the vapour can rise over nine miles to form rain clouds that reflect sunlight; or it may rise just a few miles and drift back down without forming clouds. In reality, both processes occur, and climate models encompassing this complexity predicted significantly higher future temperatures than those only including the nine-mile-high clouds.
"Climate sceptics like to criticise climate models for getting things wrong, and we are the first to admit they are not perfect," said Sherwood. "But what we are finding is that the mistakes are being made by the models which predict less warming, not those that predict more."
He added: "Sceptics may also point to the 'hiatus' of temperatures since the end of the 20th century, but there is increasing evidence that this inaptly named hiatus is not seen in other measures of the climate system, and is almost certainly temporary."
Global average air temperatures have increased relatively slowly since a high point in 1998 caused by the ocean phenomenon El Niño, but observations show that heat is continuing to be trapped in increasing amounts by greenhouse gases, with over 90% disappearing into the oceans. Furthermore, a study in November suggested the "pause" may be largely an illusion resulting from the lack of temperature readings from polar regions, where warming is greatest.
Sherwood accepts his team's work on the role of clouds cannot definitively rule out that future temperature rises will lie at the lower end of projections. "But," he said, for that to be the case, "one would need to invoke some new dimension to the problem involving a major missing ingredient for which we currently have no evidence. Such a thing is not out of the question but requires a lot of faith."
He added: "Rises in global average temperatures of [at least 4C by 2100] will have profound impacts on the world and the economies of many countries if we don't urgently start to curb our emissions."
Cyrene Reef with Teamseagrass
from wonderful creation
Pasir Ris mangroves briefly with Naked Hermit Crabs
from wonderful creation
2013: The Year in Review…
from Bird Ecology Study Group
2013 Macro Highlights
from Macro Photography in Singapore
Loi Kar Yee Channel News Asia 31 Dec 13;
SINGAPORE: With rainfall in 2013 already higher than in recent years, climate researchers said to expect an even wetter year in 2014.
According to the Meteorological Service Singapore, the total rainfall recorded from January 1 to December 26 this year was 2732.4mm.
This is an increase of about 27 per cent over last year, when rainfall was 2159.9mm.
Annual rainfall was 2524.2mm in 2011.
- CNA/gn
A change of Punggol shore?
from wonderful creation
A damselfly eating another damselfly
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Climate issues, human-wildlife conflicts could feature prominently in the year ahead
Neo Chai Chin Today Online 31 Dec 13;
SINGAPORE — It was a year in which the transboundary nature of environmental issues hit home and, in the year ahead, climate issues, human-wildlife conflicts as well as the Cross Island Line’s potential impact on a nature reserve could feature prominently in the news.
Haze resulting from the burning of forests and plantations in Sumatra reached hazardous levels in Singapore and parts of Malaysia in June, sending the public scrambling for N95 masks and the Singapore Government putting mitigation plans into action.
The worst of the haze lasted several days but, for National University of Singapore climate change researcher Jason Cohen, it “really helped to open up people’s minds to this idea of international environmental issues” and served as a wake-up call that “no matter how well the Government does”, it cannot keep the environment of Singapore clean “on its own”.
A Haze Monitoring System for five countries in the region was developed by Singapore and adopted at the ASEAN Summit in Brunei in October. Its success hinges on accurate, up-to-date data from concession maps and satellite images overlaid to keep tabs on firms that clear land by burning.
Despite its tentative beginning, with uncertainties over the sharing of concession maps, Dr Cohen is optimistic about the system. “Any data that can be released is better than none.”
PROJECTING EXTREME WEATHER SCENARIOS
Three months after the haze, scientists in September pronounced it “extremely likely” that human influence is the dominant cause of global warming in the last 60 years and the Centre for Climate Research Singapore (CCRS) said the Republic could consequently expect more frequent and intense rainfall and more extreme temperatures in the coming decades.
Climate change, related scientifically to the haze in some ways, is the single most difficult global environment issue to deal with, said Dr Cohen.
He did not feel the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s Fifth Assessment Report (the Physical Science Basis and Summary for Policymakers) significantly increased public consciousness of climate change.
But for CCRS Director Chris Gordon, the first part of the assessment report released in September gave “considerably greater confidence in the projection that there will be an increase in heavy rainfall events over this region and, therefore, over Singapore in the future”. The report’s sections on impact and mitigation will be released in March and April next year.
Work is under way at the CCRS to “downscale” projections made in the report to produce scenarios for Singapore. Part of the Republic’s Second National Climate Change Study, its first phase of climate projections, is expected to be completed by the end of next year. Some questions it seeks to answer include: In an extreme scenario, how could we expect temperatures and rainfall to change by the end of this century? By how much do we expect sea levels to rise?
Such information will then feed into the second phase of the study, with projections used by infrastructure agencies to determine what coastal defences or flood drainage would be necessary here.
Dr Gordon stressed that climate projections are for the long term — over 50 to 100 years. “It is true that climate change will have some impact but, at this point in time, it’s still a relatively small impact.”
In the short term, natural variations largely account for the varying levels of rainfall and temperature, which make the weather impossible to predict beyond three months.
The Northeast Monsoon which started in November and could last until early March, for instance, has brought above-average rainfall this month and will likely bring 10 to 20 per cent more rain than average in the first two months next year. What causes year-to-year monsoon variation is “a whole range of different things”, such as temperatures of the ocean and those of the winds blowing from Siberia, said Dr Gordon.
UNITING FOR MACRITCHIE
Then, there is the delicate issue of the route of the future Cross Island Line (CRL). The underground train line is to be ready around 2030 but, when it was first announced in January and depicted to cut under MacRitchie Reservoir and the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, nature groups were immediately concerned. The groups and the authorities soon engaged in dialogue, which the Nature Society’s CRL spokesman Tony O’Dempsey said have been smooth so far.
The Nature Society has proposed alternative routes for the line to avoid cutting through the nature reserve and has formed a working group with other non-governmental organisations and individuals to collate biodiversity studies done on the reserve in the past 20 years.
The working group will make its submission to the Land Transport Authority (LTA) by the end of this year, and is involved in determining the scope of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for which the LTA will call a tender in the first quarter of 2014.
Never before have NGOs been involved at this early stage of a project’s development and Mr O’Dempsey said the society is also requesting for findings of the EIA to be made public.
“The big deal here is that the CRL sets a precedent — if we keep it out of the nature reserve, it will limit other future projects that potentially encroach on the nature reserves,” he said.
The last time so many nature advocacy groups worked together was to oppose the reclamation of Chek Jawa wetland in Pulau Ubin over a decade ago, said co-founder of Cicada Tree Eco Place Vilma D’Rozario, who is part of the working group. “To me, the CRL is the worst thing that could happen to our forests … When things like that happen, all the advocacy groups come together,” she said, welcoming dialogue with the authorities.
Dr D’Rozario and three friends had protested by chaining themselves to a tree in Hong Lim Park for 24 hours in June, attracting young nature enthusiasts eager to pitch in.
The result: An initiative called Love Our MacRitchie Forest (lovemacritchie.wordpress.com), whose website is managed by NUS research assistant Chloe Tan and undergraduate David Tan.
The CRL issue has sparked a groundswell of efforts to share the nature reserve’s richness with the wider public: Cicada Tree Eco Place has held five public talks by botanist Joseph Lai, as well as 18 free walks for the public since June. The Raffles Museum Toddycats, a group of nature volunteers, has 20 trained Love MacRitchie guides and will be recruiting more next year, said Ms Tan.
A Toddycat, Ms Tan had studied the diversity of small mammals in different types of forest in Singapore during her honours year and found native species like the Singapore Rat and Common Treeshrew doing well only in and around mature forests of the Central Water Catchment.
“It is important to me that the boundaries of the Central Catchment Nature Reserve are not breached by development works because this would open the floodgates to further encroachment … in future,” she said.
MOZZIES AND WILDLIFE
More wildlife-human conflicts could arise, with developments in Singapore and Malaysia eating into remaining forest areas, said Mr O’Dempsey.
“We need to approach land development intelligently to accommodate this situation,” he said. This means better rubbish collection, better buffering between nature areas and residential developments, better building design so developments blend in rather than abut the nature areas and better understanding of the natural environment by residents.
Singaporeans also need to keep an eye out for dengue and other infectious diseases in the year ahead, said experts from Tan Tock Seng Hospital. Weekly dengue numbers reported are still relatively high despite December being a cooler time of the year.
Based on Singapore’s experience during the 2004 to 2005 epidemic which also involved Dengue Serotype 1, “there may be a chance that the trend this year may continue into next year”, said Professor Leo Yee Sin, Director of TTSH’s Institute of Infectious Disease and Epidemiology.
Singapore logged a record of more than 21,000 dengue cases this year. Next year’s numbers will depend on multiple factors, including temperature and rainfall, the mosquito population, human population density and immunity, as well as the emergence of a new strain of the dengue virus, said TTSH’s epidemiology department head Angela Chow. ADDITIONAL REPORTING BY SIAU MING EN
Related links
Love our MacRitchie Forest: walks, talks and petition. Also on facebook.
AsiaOne 30 Dec 13;
Singapore - A total of 110 hotspots detected around Asia has caused a deterioration in Singapore's air quality, the National Environmental Agency said in an update to the media on Monday.
The 24-hr PSI at 6pm today remains in the 'Good' range, hovering at 44 to 49, while the 3-hr PSI stands at 38.
NEA added that the PM2.5 is the range of 25 to 30μg/m3.
Northern ASEAN and parts of East Asia have been experiencing dry weather conditions over the past several weeks, contributing to the increase in hotspots.
Winds blowing from the north or northeast are pushing the dust particles and haze towards Singapore.
In a Facebook update on Monday, Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Vivian Balakrishnan said that the latest haze is "a reminder that we can never take the environment for granted."
NEA has forecasted showers over Singapore for the next few days, and expects the air quality to improve and remain in the 'Good' range.
Mild haze detected but PSI still in 'Good' range
Melissa Chong Channel NewsAsia 30 Dec 13;
SINGAPORE: Mild haze was detected in Singapore on Monday.
However, the PSI did not exceed 50, which means air quality remains in the 'Good' range (0-50).
According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), air quality has deteriorated since Sunday.
The NEA said northeasterly winds were blowing dust particles from the northern ASEAN region, where 110 hotspots were detected on Sunday.
Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said on his Facebook page that it is a reminder we can never take the environment for granted.
NEA assured the air quality should improve the next few days as rain is forecasted.
- CNA/gn
Air quality to improve in next few days: NEA
Dry weather conditions, 110 hot spots around Asia the reasons behind haze
Kok Xing Hui Today Online 31 Dec 13;
SINGAPORE — Despite a mild haze that was detected yesterday, air quality has remained in the “Good” range (0-50) and is expected to improve over the next few days, said the National Environment Agency (NEA).
Writing on his Facebook page, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Vivian Balakrishnan said the episode served as a “reminder that we can never take the environment for granted”.
In an advisory issued last evening, the NEA said air quality has “deteriorated” since Sunday. Yesterday’s 24-hr PSI reading at 6pm was in the range of 44 to 49.
The agency said recent dry weather conditions in the northern ASEAN region and parts of East Asia were the reasons behind the haze and added that 110 hot spots were detected in northern ASEAN on Dec 29. “The haze is due to dust particles conveyed by the winds blowing from the north or north-east,” wrote Dr Balakrishnan.
The hot spots detected were mainly concentrated in Thailand, Cambodia and Myanmar, unlike in June, when Singapore experienced a prolonged haze situation due to fires in Sumatra, which caused the PSI reading to hit a record high of 401 .
The haze in June, the worst experienced by the Republic and Malaysia since 1997, prompted regional governments to discuss measures to tackle transboundary haze pollution more effectively. In October, ASEAN leaders formally adopted the Singapore-developed haze monitoring system for five member states: Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei and Thailand.
On the current mild haze, the NEA said it is monitoring the situation closely and will provide updates when necessary.
For the next few days, showers are forecast over Singapore and the NEA said it expects the air quality to improve and remain in the “Good” range.
The Star 31 Dec 13;
KUALA LUMPUR: Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak has announced the setting up of a special committee to work out emergency response procedures in facing natural disasters.
The Prime Minister did not name the committee but said it was a precautionary measure when dealing with natural disasters such as the recent floods that struck several states.
In his latest post on his Facebook account, Najib also recorded his appreciation to all those who had extended relief aid to the flood victims.
He also referred to the current floods in Sarawak and prayed for God to ease the burden on those affected.
“I pray that God will ease the burden of the households affected by the floods in Bintulu, Miri, Sarikei and other areas, he said.
Incessant rain for almost a week had caused floods in four Sarawak divisions, namely Miri, Bintulu, Betong and Sri Aman.
As of today, 261 people from 60 households in Miri and Bintulu had been evacuated to relief centres.
Of the total, 222 were in the Bintulu division and 34 in Niah and five in Marudi, both being sub-districts in the Miri division. — Bernama
Panel to devise strategies to tackle floods
New Straits Times 1 Jan 1;
KUANTAN: The government will draft comprehensive measures to tackle floods, including improving the existing standard operating procedures (SOP) and exploring the possibility of introducing an early warning system.
Deputy Prime Minister Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin said he would chair a special committee meeting on Friday, which will be attended by representatives from all states, National Security Council and agencies. "We will find ways to coordinate (relief efforts) more efficiently, including the introduction of an early warning system."
He said this after presenting flood aid, including school bags donated by the Student Volunteer Foundation to pupils at SK Permatang Badak here yesterday.
Muhyiddin, who is also education minister, said the committee would discuss measures to improve facilities in flood relief centres and food supply storage facilities.
He said an in-depth plan on logistics and aid distribution to areas cut off by the floods will be also be identified.
Muhyiddin said although the SOPs were followed during the disaster, there was a need to make changes, especially with the unpredictable weather trend.
He said affected schools in Sarawak will be allowed to postpone their opening until the situation improved. "These schools are allowed to delay the new term until the situation is safe."
He said they can hold replacement classes later.
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