How can we stop grasscutters from littering nylon strings?
wild shores of singapore
6 Reasons Why You Should Come Join Our Homecoming Event On November 11th
Wan's Ubin Journal
Read more!
Best of our wild blogs: 7 Nov 18
Read more!
School tries to keep buildings from ‘killing’ birds, NParks to release design guidelines next year
NEO CHAI CHIN Today Online 6 Nov 18;
SINGAPORE — His Facebook post last month on a beautiful Jambu Fruit Dove that slammed into the glass window of a school computer laboratory went viral, but Mr Jacob Tan did not stop there.
On the very day of the incident on Oct 16, the 33-year-old biology teacher from Commonwealth Secondary School spoke to one of the vice-principals and the school’s operations manager about reducing the risk of bird collisions in future.
Within days, students pasted some paper dots on the third-floor window, where the collision occurred, to reduce its reflective area and for closure.
By Oct 29, a contractor had put up non-reflective stickers on the large glass surfaces on either side of a wetland area on the ground floor. The wetland has plants such as the sendudok that attract birds for feeding.
Read more!
Commentary: Dear Singapore, a plastic future is not fantastic
Because plastic poisons our seafood and waters and escalates climate change, moral duty demands we act urgently to eliminate all unnecessary plastic waste and redesign essential usage, says one observer.
Vivian Claire Liew Channel NewsAsia 7 Nov 18;
SINGAPORE: This August, our world had its early Halloween moment.
Amidst the Hawaiian paradise, rising rockstar scientist Sarah-Jeanne Royer discovered significant methane and ethylene gas emanating from oceanic plastic waste.
Given the sheer and escalating volume of plastic waste generated, this discovery of a previously-unaccounted-for driver of climate change means more severe climate change than even the recent United Nations (UN) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) update warned of.
Read more!
Indonesia: Two children dead in Padang flooding
Ivany Atina Arbi The Jakarta Post 5 Nov 18;
The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) reported that at least two children were killed during floods that swamped Padang, West Sumatra over the weekend.
The children were identified as Jihat Melani, 6, and Pasilah Azhan, 10, the agency has said in a release.
The flood inundated around 1,400 houses in seven districts, including Pauh, Lubuk Kilangan, Lubuk Begalung and Koto Tangah.
Read more!
Indonesia: South Sumatra plans restoration of hundreds of hectares of peat land
Antara 6 Nov 18;
Palembang, S. Sumatra (ANTARA News) - Peat land restoration would cover around 594,231 hectares in South Sumatra this year to preserve the environment, a government official said.
The process of peat land restoration is to be completed in 2020, Head of the Regional Peat Land Restoration Team Najib Asmani said here on Tuesday.
Read more!
More field trips and learning programmes for PCF Sparkletots pre-schoolers
LOUISA TANG Today Online 5 Nov 18;
SINGAPORE — All children should be able to have the richest and broadest learning experience regardless of their background, Manpower Minister Josephine Teo said.
“Broadening the availability of affordable and quality childcare is one part of it, but it’s not the only thing that’s happening. You need intervention on all fronts,” she said on Monday (Nov 5) while announcing new and ongoing efforts taken by the PAP Community Foundation (PCF) to make out-of-classroom learning a key focus of its curriculum.
Mrs Teo is also the executive committee chairperson of PCF, which oversees PCF Sparkletots, the largest pre-school operator with about 43,000 children enrolled in more than 360 centres island-wide. She was officiating an event at Bee Amazed Garden in Yishun, where 60 pre-school children from PCF Sparkletots Sengkang were on a field trip to learn about honey bees.
Since late last month, PCF Sparkletots has been arranging more of such outdoor field trips for its students.
Read more!
Sighting of sperm whales in Arctic a sign of changing ecosystem, say scientists
Rare sighting in the Canadian Arctic as a growing number of species expand their range into warming waters
Leyland Cecco The Guardian 5 Nov 18;
A rare sighting of sperm whales in the Canadian Arctic is the latest sign of a quickly changing ecosystem, say scientists, as a growing number of species expand their range into warming Arctic waters.
Brandon Laforest, a marine biologist with the World Wildlife Fund, and guide Titus Allooloo were working on a project monitoring the effect of marine traffic on the region’s narwhal population when they spotted the pair of large whales just outside Pond Inlet, a community at the northern tip of Baffin Island in September.
Video of the incident, released at the end of October, captures the second known sighting of sperm whales in the region. In 2014, hunters from Pond Inlet spotted them in the area.
Read more!
More protection: UN says Earth's ozone layer is healing
SETH BORENSTEIN Associated Press Yahoo News 6 Nov 18;
WASHINGTON (AP) — Earth's protective ozone layer is finally healing from damage caused by aerosol sprays and coolants, a new United Nations report said.
The ozone layer had been thinning since the late 1970s. Scientists raised the alarm and ozone-depleting chemicals were phased out worldwide.
As a result, the upper ozone layer above the Northern Hemisphere should be completely repaired in the 2030s and the gaping Antarctic ozone hole should disappear in the 2060s, according to a scientific assessment released Monday at a conference in Quito, Ecuador. The Southern Hemisphere lags a bit and its ozone layer should be healed by mid-century.
"It's really good news," said report co-chairman Paul Newman, chief Earth scientist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. "If ozone-depleting substances had continued to increase, we would have seen huge effects. We stopped that."
Read more!
Wind farm 'predator' effect hits ecosystems: study
Patrick GALEY AFP Yahoo News 6 Nov 18;
Paris (AFP) - Wind farms act as a top "predator" in some ecosystems, harming birds at the top of the food chain and triggering a knock-on effect overlooked by green energy advocates, scientists said Monday.
Wind is the fastest-growing renewable energy sector, supplying around four percent of global electricity demand.
Close to 17 million hectares -- an area roughly the size of Tunisia -- is currently used for generating wind energy worldwide, and researchers warned that developers had "greatly underestimated" the impact the technology has on wildlife.
Read more!
Large hydropower dams 'not sustainable' in the developing world
Matt McGrath BBC 6 Nov 18;
A new study says that many large scale hydropower projects in Europe and the US have been disastrous for the environment.
Dozens of these dams are being removed every year, with many considered dangerous and uneconomic.
But the authors fear that the unsustainable nature of these projects has not been recognised in the developing world.
Thousands of new dams are now being planned for rivers in Africa and Asia.
Read more!
Best of our wild blogs: 5 Nov 18
Open for registration – Love MacRitchie Walk with NUS Toddycats! on 11 Nov 2018 (Sun)
Love our MacRitchie Forest
24 Nov (Sat): NSS Kids’ Fun with Marine Life at Sentosa’s Natural Shore
Celebrating Singapore Shores!
A meat-eater’s month long affair with vegetables
EnVoice
Kima? Taklobo? Bénitier?
Mei Lin NEO
Read more!
Unpiloted drones could be used for maintenance checks on Southern Islands
The Singapore Land Authority is looking to use drones to perform scheduled inspections on offshore islands under its care – remotely and without a pilot. In March, SLA conducted trials on Pulau Seringat and Kusu Island – an area of some 42 hectares among the Southern Islands region – to explore the possible uses of drones for operational purposes.
Gwyneth Teo Channel NewsAsia 4 Nov 18;
SINGAPORE: The Singapore Land Authority is looking to use drones to perform scheduled inspections on offshore islands under its care – remotely and without a pilot.
In March, SLA conducted trials on Pulau Seringat and Kusu Island – an area of some 42 hectares among the Southern Islands region – to explore the possible uses of drones for operational purposes.
Conducted with robotics experts HUS Unmanned Systems, the drone flew according to pre-planned waypoints and pre-defined flight schedules instead of being manually piloted.
Read more!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
visitors since Nov 07