World's Largest Shark Species at Risk, Expert Says

Stefan Lovgren, National Geographic News 17 Jan 08;

This is the fifth story in a continuing series on the Megafishes Project. Join National Geographic News on the trail with project leader Zeb Hogan as he tracks down the world's largest fishes.

From a spotter airplane buzzing off the coast of Baja California, it's hard to miss the dark shape of a giant whale shark moving through the emerald green waters below.

Whale sharks are the world's largest living fish species, growing up to 40 feet (12 meters) long. They move near the surface, feeding on the plankton and krill that mass in these waters during the winter months. The Bay of La Paz, though busy with fishing boats and divers, is a safe zone for these rare and threatened animals.

But around the world, shark populations have declined dramatically in recent years, mainly due to overfishing.

Most at risk are migratory sharks, including whale sharks, which are known to travel more than 8,000 miles (12,875 kilometers) across the Pacific Ocean, from Mexico to the Tonga Islands, according to Zeb Hogan, a fisheries biologist with the University of Reno in Nevada.

"Every time a migratory shark moves from one spot to another, there's a greater chance that it might be targeted by fishermen or subject to habitat destruction," Hogan said.

Giant Creatures

Of the more than 1,000 species of sharks and rays, 145 are known to be migratory.

Eighteen percent of these thousand species are threatened with extinction, according to Hogan, compared to 45 percent of the migratory sharks and rays.

At a UN-sponsored conference on migratory sharks held in the Seychelles last month, three species—whale sharks, basking sharks, and great white sharks—were singled out as being in urgent need of protection.

It is only in recent years that targeted fishing of whale sharks has been outlawed in countries like Taiwan and India.

"While whale sharks may be protected [in some national waters], once they move 200 miles [320 kilometers] off the coast they are in the high seas, where fisheries remain almost completely unregulated," Hogan said.

Hogan leads the Megafishes Project, a three-year effort funded by the National Geographic Society to document the 20-plus species of freshwater fish that measure at least 6.5 feet (2 meters) in length or 220 pounds (100 kilograms) in weight.

Whale sharks are not a freshwater species, but Hogan has come to La Paz, on the Gulf of California, to learn more about these giant creatures, because they face many of the same threats that large fish living in lakes and rivers around the world encounter.

"Large freshwater fish like the Mekong giant catfish share some of the same life-history traits with these large migratory sharks," he said.

"They live a long time, don't reproduce until a late age, and often need vast areas to survive.

"This makes them more vulnerable to threats like overfishing and habitat destruction," he added.

Critical Habitat

Deni Ramirez Macias is a doctoral student at the Northwestern Center for Biological Research in La Paz, who studies whale sharks.

She has been tagging and taking tissue samples of whale sharks in the Bay of La Paz and comparing them with larger populations found around Holbox Island, near Cancun in the Gulf of Mexico.

The results show that the two populations are genetically different from each other.

Photographing the whale sharks, whose patterns of spots on their backs are unique to each individual, also helps scientists identify the animals to learn more about their movement and habits.

"We know for example that 30 percent of the sharks return each year to the Bay of La Paz," Ramirez said.

"We see juveniles aggregating in the coastal waters here, … and we also see pregnant females.

"We think that the southern waters of the Gulf of California is like a nursery or feeding area for juveniles … and therefore we have to make a big effort to protect and conserve this critical habitat for the whale sharks," she added.

Scientists have also enlisted the public's help in the photo identification of whale sharks.

Brad Norman is the director of ECOCEAN, a marine conservation organization based in Perth, Australia, which runs a Web-based photo-ID library that tracks whale sharks around the world.

Divers are encouraged to submit any photos they take of whale sharks to the Web site, which uses a computer program originally developed by NASA to identify the sharks.

"We'd like to think of this program as citizen science," Norman said.

"You can be a tourist or a member of the general public and help us identify individual whale sharks around the globe, and from that we can understand more about their numbers and their movement worldwide."

Renewable Resource

In La Paz—and many other places around the world—whale sharks are sparking a boom in ecotourism.

Alex Antoniou is the La Paz field director for the Shark Research Institute, a Princeton, New Jersey-based organization that hosts tourist divers on research expeditions.

"Shark ecotourism is a renewable resource and an annual source of income," Antoniou said.

"It creates a value for the shark as a living species as opposed to one that you find in the market."

Despite their giant size, whale sharks are harmless to divers and snorkelers. Since the fish feed near the surface and swim slowly, tourists can usually get close-up, uninterrupted looks at the creatures.

"To swim with these sharks is breathtaking," said David Kaplowitz, a diving enthusiast from Austin, Texas, who visited La Paz to swim with whale sharks for the first time.

"It's like a spiritual experience to be with these animals in their natural habitat."

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Shanghai to build 'green' island out of construction waste

Straits Times 18 Jan 08;

SHANGHAI plans to build an artificial island shaped like a magnolia that can house up to 80,000 people, according to media reports.

The magnolia is the city's official flower.

Local newspapers quoted an official of the Shanghai Municipal Ocean Bureau as saying that the island in Hangzhou Bay would be a sustainable community by the sea, the South China Morning Post reported.

The newspaper said that under the joint plan by the bureau and the district government of Fengxian, the 65,000 sq m project would be built using construction waste.

The island's electricity would be generated by wind and wave power, and its drinking water provided through desalination technology.

Shanghai produces about 37,000 tonnes of construction waste every day, which account for 30 per cent of its total solid waste.

'The goal is to make it an advanced city with international standards,' said bureau official Pang Zengdi.

The reports said an expert panel had endorsed the plan but did not outline a timetable for work on the island.

Last October, a Shanghai-based real estate developer bought one of the 300 artificial islands in Dubai's The World property project for US$28 million (S$40 million). The island was named after Shanghai.

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Rising Seas Threaten China's Sinking Coastal Cities

Christopher Bodeen, Associated Press National Geographic News 17 Jan 08;

Sea levels off Shanghai and other Chinese coastal cities are rising at an alarming rate, leading to contamination of drinking water supplies and other threats, China's State Oceanic Administration reported Thursday.

Waters off the industrial port city of Tianjin, 60 miles (100 kilometers) southeast of Beijing, rose by 7.72 inches (20 centimeters) over the past three decades, the administration said.

Seas off the business hub of Shanghai have risen by 4.53 inches (11.5 centimeters) over the same period, the report said.

Administration experts said global climate change and the sinking of coastal land due to the pumping of ground water were the major causes behind rising water levels.

Salt in the Aquifer

"Sea level rises worldwide cannot be reversed, so Chinese city officials and planners must take measures to adapt to the change," Chen Manchun, an administration researcher, was quoted as saying on the central government's official web site.

Globally rising seas threaten to submerge low-lying island groups, erode coastlines, and force the construction of vast new levees. Scientists have warned that melting of the vast glaciers of Greenland will cause a significant rise in sea levels.

Higher sea levels and sinking land caused by dropping water table levels complicate Shanghai's already difficult task of providing safe water supplies to its 20 million people due to salt water leaching into its aquifer, the administration said.

Along China's coastline, sea levels have risen by an average of 3.54 inches (9 centimeters), while average coastal water temperatures were slightly warmer, the report said.

Waters levels have risen more quickly in the country's north, the report said, but gave no reasons for the disparity.

Meanwhile, the administration's China 2007 Sea Environmental Quality Report, also released this week, showed a marked deterioration in coastal water quality as a result of pollution from onshore human activity.

China's coastal cities hit by rise in sea levels
Straits Times 18 Jan 08;

Waters off Shanghai surged by 115mm in 30 years, contaminating water supplies
BEIJING - SEA levels off Shanghai and other Chinese coastal cities are rising at an alarming rate, leading to contamination of drinking water supplies and other threats, China's State Oceanic Administration reported yesterday.

It said waters off the industrial port city of Tianjin, 100km south-east of Beijing, rose by 196mm over the past three decades.

Seas off the business hub of Shanghai rose by 115mm over the same period, the report added.

Administration experts said global climate change and the sinking of coastal land due to the pumping of groundwater were the major causes of the rising water levels.

'Sea level rises worldwide cannot be reversed, so Chinese city officials and planners must take measures to adapt to the change,' Mr Chen Manchun, an administration researcher, was quoted as saying on the central government's official website.

Globally, rising seas threaten to submerge low-lying island groups, erode coastlines and force the construction of vast new levees.

Some scientists have warned that melting of the vast glaciers of Greenland could cause a 4m rise in sea levels in the centuries to come.

Higher sea levels and the sinking of coastal land further complicate Shanghai's already difficult task of providing safe water supplies to its 20 million people due to salt water leaching into its aquifer, the administration said. An aquifer is an area of permeable rock which absorbs and holds water.

Along China's 18,000km of coastline, sea levels have risen by an average of 90mm, and average coastal water temperatures were slightly warmer, the report said.

Water levels have risen more quickly in the country's north, the report said, but it gave no reasons for this.

Meanwhile, the administration's China 2007 Sea Environmental Quality Report, also released this week, showed a marked deterioration in coastal water quality as a result of pollution from human activity onshore.

An Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) report last month warned that Asia's massive delta cities have the most to fear from catastrophic storm floods driven by climate change.

Out of 136 port cities assessed around the world for their exposure to once-in-a-century coastal flooding, 38 per cent are in Asia and 27 per cent are located in deltas, the OECD said.

As many as 150 million people in the world's big coastal cities are likely to be at risk from flooding by the 2070s - more than three times the number now, according to the report.

Climate change, population growth and urban development will mean that the number at risk will rise from the current 40 million and total property and infrastructure exposure is forecast to rise to US$35 trillion (S$50 trillion) - 9 per cent of projected global gross domestic product.

The OECD report, which was put together by disaster modelling firm Risk Management Solutions and leading scientists, is the first part of the largest-ever study on urban coastal flood exposure.

The report analysed the vulnerability now and in the future of 136 port cities to a one-in-a-century major flood.

The 10 cities most at risk, in terms of exposed population, listed are Mumbai, Guangzhou, Shanghai, Miami, Ho Chi Minh City, Kolkata, Greater New York, Osaka-Kobe, Alexandria and New Orleans.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE, REUTERS

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North Sea fish species up due to warming

Charles Clover, The Telegraph 17 Jan 08;

There are more species of fish in the North Sea as a result of rising water temperatures, but the changes are unlikely to please fishermen overall, scientists have said.

The reason is that while the number of bottom-dwelling fish species has increased by half since 1985, in response to a temperature increase of almost 1.5 °C, most of the new additions are of little commercial value.

Some of the new species, such as anchovies and red mullet, are a welcome addition to trawler catches but this will not compensate for the large valuable species such as wolffish, spurdog and ling which are moving to the north, according to the study published in the journal Global Change Biology.
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The authors, Jan Hiddink of Bangor University in Wales and Remment ter Hofstede of Wageningen IMARES in the Netherlands, say similar changes are probably under way in other northern waters.

'This research will help us understand and predict what the effect of climate change on biodiversity will be.

"Fishery managers will have to adapt their practices to a fishery with many small species rather than a few large species', according to Dr Hiddink from Bangor university.

Increases in fish species richness depend on easy migration of fish species from the south, and higher species numbers to the south. According to EU scientists, though, the Bay of Biscay anchovy has been significantly overfished.

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Decide on polar bears first, then oil: lawmaker

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 17 Jan 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. government must decide first if polar bears are threatened by climate change before it opens part of their icy habitat to oil drilling, the head of a congressional environment panel said on Thursday.

The decision whether to list the big Arctic bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act was supposed to happen last week but was postponed for up to 30 days.

That means it could come after the government offers 29.4 million acres in the Chukchi Sea off the Alaskan coast in a sale of oil leases on February 6.

"Rushing to allow drilling in polar bear habitat before protecting the bear would be the epitome of this administration's backward energy policy, a policy of drill first and ask questions later," Rep. Ed Markey said at a hearing of the House (of Representatives) Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, which he chairs.

Testifying on the matter were two key Bush administration officials: Dale Hall, director of the Fish and Wildlife Service that has been investigating the polar bear's status, and Randall Luthi, director of the Minerals Management Service, which announced the oil lease sale last week.

World polar bear populations are currently stable, but U.S. scientists predict that two-thirds of them could be gone by 2050 if predictions about melting sea ice hold true. Polar bears live and hunt on sea ice; when it melts they either drown or are forced onto land, where they are inefficient hunters.

This is the first time global warming has been a factor in arguing for threatened status for any species in the United States and that makes the decision more complex.

Instead of the limited measures required to rescue a species threatened by a drained swamp or denuded forest, polar bears depend on sea ice. That ice is melting at an accelerated rate, at least partly because of human-generated global warming, scientists have reported.

"DO SOMETHING ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE"

Hall has previously acknowledged there is no substantial scientific uncertainty, as defined under the Endangered Species Act, about the polar bear case. He said the volume of material from scientists and public hearings caused the delay in making the decision on whether to list the bear as threatened.

Under congressional questioning, Hall noted that 20 percent of polar bear habitat has disappeared since the 1970s and said human-caused global warming must be addressed now.

"We need to do something about climate change, starting yesterday," Hall said. "And it needs to be a serious effort to control greenhouse gases, which is probably the only thing we can control. If the Earth is tilting ... we can't control that but we need to look at things we can control."

The Bush administration is alone among major industrialized countries in rejecting the carbon-curbing Kyoto protocol. Washington also opposes mandatory limits on climate-warming greenhouse emissions.

Luthi, whose agency announced the Chukchi Sea oil lease sale, said there were an estimated 15 billion barrels of oil in the area and that these were needed as world demand for petroleum is rising.

Luthi said the risk to the bears from oil drilling would be negligible and that if the oil sales went through before a decision was reached on the polar bears, there would be "an additional layer of consultation" with conservation officials as oil and gas companies worked in the area.

He acknowledged his agency's environmental impact assessment said there was a 33 to 50 percent chance of a 1,000-barrel spill in this area, but also said no wildlife had been endangered by this kind of exploratory drilling.

Steven Amstrup, a scientist with the U.S. Geological Survey, told the panel that if polar bears came in contact with spilled oil, they would probably die.

"Polar bears do not do well when they get into oil," Amstrup said. "They tend to groom themselves, they ingest the oil and the spills, basically, are most likely fatal."

(Editing by Frances Kerry)

Bush officials say oil drilling will not harm polar bears
Yahoo News 18 Jan 08;

US officials defended plans for oil drilling in the Chukchi Sea off northwestern Alaska, telling lawmakers that it would not harm polar bears, already threatened by global warming.

Randall Luthi, director of the Interior Department's Minerals Management Service, which sells oil drilling rights, told Congress Thursday that the 1972 Marine Mammal Protection Act provides adequate safeguards to polar bears from oil exploration accidents such as oil spills.

In addition, he said, contracts with oil companies include measures to minimize the impact such activities can have on the polar bear population.

"We believe adequate protection exists," he told the House of Representatives special committee on global warming.

The US government estimates crude oil reserves under the Chukchi Sea at 15 billion barrels.

Representative Edward Markey demanded polar bears be declared a threatened species under the Endangered Species Act due to global warming prior to the sale of oil drilling rights in the Chukchi Sea, scheduled for February 6.

If not, "we will be accelerating the day when the polar bear will be extinct," he said.

Markey has proposed legislation that would require the government to make a decision on the polar bear's status before opening its habitat to drilling.

But Dale Hall, the director of US Fish and Wildlife Services, refused to commit to making the decision prior to February 6.

"It's not just making the decision, it's making it clear," he said.

Hall announced January 9 he had postponed a decision on polar bears up to a month more.

Such a decision would be the first time the administration has linked a species' threat of extinction with climate change.

A US government expert on polar bears said that the melting of sea ice due to global warming would cause a two-thirds drop in the world polar bear population by 2050, and named the Chukchi Sea as one of the most threatened polar bear habitats.

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China Drought Underlines Hydropower Reliance Risks

Emma Graham-Harrison, PlanetArk 18 Jan 08;

BEIJING - A major drought has squeezed electricity output at big dams across southwest China, highlighting the risks of Beijing's massive hydropower expansion plans on coal and oil markets in a warmer, drier world.

Ships are stranded, millions are short on drinking water, and power supplies to big consumers in several Chinese provinces have been cut back, industry officials and local media have said.

And while building more dams will help Beijing meet more of its electricity demand using resources within its own borders, it also risks short-term surges in consumption of oil, coal or natural gas to generate emergency power when rivers run low.

The world's number-two energy user already gets 15 percent of its electricity from hydropower and aims to increase capacity by more than half to 190 gigawatts -- over double Britain's entire stock of power plants -- by the end of the decade.

But Australia's similarly ambitious Snowy Hydro power scheme, designed more than half a century ago as a lifeline for the fertile yet dry Murray-Darling river basin, offers a grim warning.

Normally the provider of three quarters of the mainland's renewable energy, it has seen output tumble and drowned towns re-emerge from shrinking reservoirs after years of poor rains.

"The Australian example shows how risky hydropower is, from the point of view of droughts," said CLSA analyst Simon Powell.

"The Snowy system really is not being dispatched at all. And that has caused a tightening of supply on the generation side, resulting in a spiking of wholesale electricity prices."

Other countries like Pakistan and Vietnam that are heavily reliant on hydropower have been forced to step up imports of fuel oil or buy power from neighbours during dry spells, driving up costs for producers and unsettling regional oil markets.


SHORTAGES CREEP BACK

In 2004, China endured its worst power shortages in decades as new plant construction lagged far behind rapid economic growth. Many businesses turned to diesel-fired generators to stave off blackouts, causing oil demand to surge by 15 percent, a key factor behind oil prices' first ascent above US$50 a barrel.

The International Energy Agency estimated that up to 350,000 barrels per day of oil demand, or over a third of total consumption growth that year, went to power generation.

That strain has since eased, as China builds new power stations at a rate unprecedented anywhere in the world; installed capacity has grown by half since the end of 2004.

But in some areas the shortage of local resources -- from coal to water -- is emerging as a new cause of an old problem.

Southwestern Yunnan and Sichuan provinces are both facing electricity shortages because of low water levels in rivers. The strain is so serious in Sichuan that it has affected supplies to major users like metals smelters.

Nearby Guizhou province is also suffering from outages because tight supplies of thermal coal are compounding problems caused by low water levels.

Water levels on the country's longest river, the Yangtze, are the lowest since records began in 1866, state media reported, though reservoirs at its massive Three Gorges project -- the world's biggest hydroelectric plant -- remain healthy.

"This year's dry season came a month earlier than usual and water levels fell sooner than expected," the China Daily quoted an unnamed government official saying on Thursday.

The dry spell is not a one-off. Last year also saw historic droughts in some parts of the country and officials have repeatedly warned that climate change is already affecting China.

"With the impact of global warming, drought and water scarcity are increasingly grave," the State Council, or cabinet, said in a recent directive.

Beijing's fight to curb greenhouse gas emissions includes boosting the role of renewables in powering its economy, which has the added attraction of cutting reliance on oil imports.

"In terms of energy security the government is right to push for hydropower. China also has a lot of water resources that are untapped," said Donovan Huang, research analyst at Nomura.


WORSE TO COME

But the country has naturally low per capita water resources, and China's top water official has warned that the challenge of managing scarce supplies is compounded by climate change.

The frequency of both the droughts and floods that regularly batter China are expected to increase in a warmer world.

And rural demands could compound the impact of short supplies, because China tends to time releases of water to suit the needs of farmers rather than power companies.

For instance, water levels behind major reservoirs nationwide rose 6 percent in early January from 2006, but only because dam operators are stocking up ahead of spring planting season.

Below dams, boat traffic piled up on drought-stricken rivers, and authorities had to release water from behind the Three Gorges Dam to ease cargo ship stranding downstream.

That may have helped power wholesalers in the manufacturing hub of Guangdong, which is looking to the dam for extra supply to help tide over expected summer shortfalls, local media reported.

But if the dam cannot deliver, generators will have to chase tight coal or pricey fuel oil supplies, pushing prices up in a cycle that global warming could make unpleasantly familiar. (Additional reporting by Polly Yam in Hong Kong; Editing by Jonathan Leff and Ramthan Hussain)

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Naples Waste Linked to Death and Disease

Robin Pomeroy and Laura Viggiano, PlanetArk 18 Jan 08;

NAPLES - Piles of trash building up in Naples have filled the air with a putrid stench and spoiled the view for tourists, but the city's waste crisis may also be killing its people.

Standing at the barricades erected by local people to stop the authorities reopening an old landfill in the Pianura neighbourhood, Salvatore Mele, whose son died of cancer, believes the illness was caused by pollution from trash.

"I lost him when he was 21," he said.

Besides fouling the port city's image and adding to risks to the Mediterranean from from sewage and pollution, the waste is in some areas associated with higher death rates and certain types of cancer, studies have shown.

A government-appointed former police chief has been given army backup for a four-month quest to end a crisis which the Italian government declared a 'state of emergency' in 1994, but local people say years of illegal dumping is poisoning them.

"My mum got sick in 2004. We just had time to find what was wrong before she died, 15 days later, of a breast cancer. My father's sister died of the same thing a year later," said Pina Mangiapia, a 38-year-old housewife on the Pianura barricades.

Mangiapia blames the waste dump for three cancer deaths in the family, for the melanoma her husband had removed from his leg, and for her four-year-old son's chronic dermatitis.

Scientists say it can be difficult to assess the extent to which pollution is to blame for illnesses also provoked by genetic, socio-economic and lifestyle factors.

But there is proof that parts of Naples and its hinterland, in the shadow of the volcano Mount Vesuvius, have been steadily contaminated by decades of illegal waste dumping and burning.


TRIANGLE OF DEATH

Medical journal Lancet Oncology in 2004 dubbed part of the Campania region, of which Naples is the capital, "the triangle of death" because the air, soil and water are polluted by high levels of cancer-causing toxins believed to have come from waste.

Research released last year by Italy's National Research Council found that among people living closest to the least-regulated waste-disposal sites -- where trash is dumped in fields or burnt without any controls -- the mortality rate was 12 percent greater than the norm for women and 9 percent greater for men.

Fatal liver cancers were much more common -- up 29 percent for women and 19 percent for men in the most at-risk areas -- and there were huge increases in congenital malformations of the nervous and urinary systems.

While more than half the places studied in the area did not show abnormal health problems, the study implies a significant health risk for those living in the worst areas.

"First we need to make the dumps safe, close them off, properly gather the bio-gas and control the runoff," said Fabrizio Bianchi, who conducted the research. "We have to get out of this crisis."

Naples' failure to deal with its own household waste hit crisis point at the end of December when all refuse collection stopped as waste dumps had reached capacity, leaving people with no choice but to throw it onto the streets.


TOXIC, LUCRATIVE

Political ineptitude, corruption and crime have conspired to stop the creation of a modern, safe disposal system. People despair of their politicians and are suspicious of government schemes -- like a new incinerator -- aimed at ending the crisis.

Like many in and around the 'triangle of death', those in Pianura say their council-run landfill was not properly managed and became a tipping site for hazardous waste.

But an even bigger source of pollution is the Camorra, the Naples mafia which runs a lucrative line in dumping and burning rubbish illegally.

More than domestic trash, the Camorra focuses on disposal of industrial waste which it brings to Campania from Italy's rich north -- one of a string of crimes against the environment earning the mafia an estimated 6 billion euros a year.

"The Camorra continues to control the cycle of industrial waste that comes from the north of Italy," said Michele Buonomo of Legambiente, a campaign group which closely monitors organised crime's assault on the environment.

"That's why practically every night in vast areas of Campania, waste arrives to be burned." (Editing by Sara Ledwith)

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Retailers Go Green to Cut Costs

Nicole Maestri, PlanetArk 18 Jan 08;

NEW YORK - For retailers, going for the green means going for the greenbacks.

That was the point hammered home at the National Retail Federation convention in New York this week.

Many retailers at the conference were touting their environmental efforts, from building stores with recycled materials to installing low-flow water faucets and investing in solar power, as benefits to the bottom line.

Meanwhile, some experts said going green would eventually become the only feasible route as energy costs skyrocket and regulators -- both federal and local -- take a hard look at businesses' environmental efforts.

The green trend began in earnest in 2005, when Wal-Mart Stores Inc, under fire for its labor and health-care practices, latched onto the issue.

The company has since announced far-reaching goals, saying it eventually wants to use only renewable energy, create zero waste and sell products that sustain resources and the environment.

It opened two stores in 2005 to experiment with ways to cut waste, studying everything from recycling french fry oil to testing wind power, in hopes that successful technologies could be incorporated at other stores.

While critics said the moves were designed to improve its image, Wal-Mart, with more than 4,100 US stores, has insisted they will improve operations and cut costs.

"We're going to take waste out, cost out and make our business more efficient," said Leslie Dach, executive vice president of corporate affairs and government relations.

Even little changes can mean big cost savings, Dach said. For instance, an employee suggested the retailer could turn off the lights in its break-room vending machines.

"We discovered that if you took out those light bulbs, we could save US$1 million a year in our electricity bill," Dach said. "No surprise that we went ahead and we did that."


PERVASIVE CULTURE

Suzanne Malec-McKenna, a commissioner with the Chicago Department of the Environment, emphasized at the conference that "green can be green."

Studies have shown consumers prefer shopping in a "vegetated" area, she said, such as in stores that have trees outside.

"If you're attempting to add green to your business on the outside," she said, " ... you're going to drive more business to you."

For environmental efforts to succeed, retailers said, they must have measurable goals, show returns and be incorporated into all aspects of the business.

Dach said Wal-Mart had made sure "every buyer, everyone in finance, everyone in operations understands that making sustainable choices is part of their overall job descriptions."

Because of that, he said: "In good times and bad, when budgets are good or budgets are cut, sustainability still remains a very important part of our business."

Even a retailer like REI, whose business revolves around selling outdoor gear and clothing, found it hard to swallow the notion that being green could save money, said Kevin Hagen, the company's head of corporate social responsibility.

But REI discovered that by building stores with skylights that bring in natural light, it saved not only on energy but also on staffing costs because employees quit less frequently. Hagen also said those stores generated more sales than the rest of the chain.

Still, not all retailers are on board.

"None of my companies have talked about it (or) seem to care," said JP Morgan analyst Brian Tunick, who covers specialty clothing retailers like American Eagle Outfitters Inc and Aeropostale Inc.

However, Brenda Mathison, Best Buy Co Inc's director of environmental affairs, said some investors were eager to back companies that take the environment into account.

To cut its emissions, Best Buy is adding solar power to its stores, Mathison said. It is also recycling packaging and looking to build electronics that consume less energy.

Chicago official Malec-McKenna said that as technologies improve to help retailers build eco-friendly stores and products, "it's going to be economically inefficient not to be green."

Stacy Janiak, vice chairman in Deloitte's US retail practice, said big retailers were taking the lead to try to institute changes on their own terms, before the government comes up with its own solution.

"If you're not ahead of it," she said, "it will be mandated." (Editing by Lisa Von Ahn)

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France gets tough on maritime polluters

Today Online 18 Jan 08;

PARIS — A court has convicted the French oil giant Total SA of maritime pollution for hauling fuel in a dubious and rusty tanker which split in two in a 1999 storm, causing France's worst oil spill. The ruling on Wednesday marked the first time a French court awarded damages for harm to the ecology.

The court ordered Total and three other defendants to pay 192 million euros ($404 million) in compensation to 101 civil parties, mainly associations involved in the clean-up or ecology groups.

Far less punishing for Total than the damages was the 375,000-euro fine accompanying the guilty verdict for maritime pollution — the maximum fine for that offence. The court faulted the company for "carelessness" in leasing the 23-year-old Maltese-registered vessel which had had eight names and numerous owners.

Ecology Minister Jean-Louis Borloo said the verdict "marks a very important step" by recognising "the notion of an ecological harm resulting from an attack on the environment".

The court also convicted Italian company Registro Italiano Navale, or Rina, which had inspected the vessel, as well as the ship's Italian owner, Giuseppe Savarese, and Antonio Pollara, head of Italian company Panship, which was operating the vessel.

The verdict was less harsh than it might have been. Total was acquitted of complicity in endangering people in the spill that soiled some 400km of Atlantic coastal beaches in the region known as Brittany. Total suggested it was studying whether to appeal the case. It has 10 days to do so. — AP

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Canada may become the oil giant of the future

Michael Richardson, Business Times 18 Jan 08;

The National Energy Board predicts that increasing production of oil from oil sands would make Canada the fourth-biggest oil producer in 2015

THE world may be running out of conventional oil, which for more than a century has fuelled our transport and industry. But as the price of this relatively liquid and easy-to-extract crude oil hovers not far from its record high of just over US$100 per barrel, the incentive to exploit vast untapped reserves of heavy oil and oil sands is unleashing a new boom in petroleum production, currently centred on Canada.

Chinese and Western energy giants have announced investments of more than US$100 billion to develop Canadian deposits of oil sands over the next decade.

This resource is a mixture of bitumen, sand, clay and silt found mainly beneath some 140,000 square kilometres of forest in Alberta province.

Canadian oil sands hold an estimated 1.7 trillion barrels of crude oil, second only to Saudi Arabia's conventional oil riches. Worldwide, in countries ranging from the United States, Venezuela and Australia, reserves of heavy oil and oil sands amount to around six trillion barrels.

They could keep the planet's oil-dependent economy going for many more decades until hydrogen or some other clean fuel can take over from petroleum. However, the cost could be very high in terms of environmental damage unless scientists and engineers can find less polluting ways to extracting usable energy from heavy oil and oil sands.

Canada's energy regulator recently lowered its forecast of output growth from the reserves in Alberta amid soaring costs of labour and equipment that are slowing development.

Still, the National Energy Board predicted that increasing production of oil from the sands would make Canada the fourth-biggest oil producer in 2015, after Saudi Arabia, Russia and the US.

It is in seventh position at present. The board projects oil sands output will be 2.8 million barrels per day in 2015, down from its earlier three million barrels. 2007 production is estimated at 1.6 million barrels per day. By 2030, this will rise to 4.15 million barrels per day, comprising 90 per cent of Canada's oil output.

China wants some of this oil to flow its way across the Pacific. But the lion's share is expected to go across the border to the US, the world's biggest oil consumer. Canada supplies around 2.5 million barrels of crude and oil products a day to the US, comprising about 18 per cent of US imported oil.

This makes Canada the largest single source of foreign oil for America and a linchpin of its energy future. US refiners are modifying their facilities to handle the heavy bitumen-based crude from Alberta's oil sands.

With conventional oil prices expected to remain high on the back of rising demand from Asia, the future of the oil sands industry is promising. Some oil sands companies claim they can operate profitably even if the price of conventional oil falls back to US$30 per barrel. But analysts say that new projects may only be profitable at around double this level.

However, the industry causes bad pollution and leaves a mess behind, according to environmental activists. Only a small portion of the Canadian forest will be cleared for open pit oil sand mining.

But extracting oil from the sand generates up to four times more carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas warming the planet, than conventional oil drilling and production.

Environmentalists say that the oil sands boom will produce 100 million metric tons of CO2 by 2012. As much as five barrels of water have to be diverted from Alberta's rivers to produce a single barrel of crude from the sands and the process has to be powered by huge amounts of natural gas.

For deeper oil sands reserves, the main method of extraction involves injecting into the ground a high-pressure stream heated by gas to soften the bitumen so that it can be pumped to the surface.

But a promising new system, already tried successfully in one Alberta oil sands mine, injects air into the deposit down a vertical well. When ignited, the heat generated in the reservoir reduces the viscosity of the heavy oil, allowing it to drain into a separate well. From there, it rises to the surface.

Developers claim this system recovers 70-80 per cent of the oil, compared to only 10-40 per cent using other technologies.

Last month, an international team of scientists announced that they had found out how to hasten the natural breakdown by bacteria of oil sands into clean-burning methane, or natural gas, in deeply buried deposits.

Their aim is to move the process out of the laboratory into the field - making something that would occur naturally over millions of years take place in just 10 years or so.

The writer is an energy specialist at the Institute of South East Asian Studies. This is a personal comment

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Recycled paper scandal in Japan

Kwan Weng Kin, Straits Times 18 Jan 08;

Blow to nation's green image as firms admit lying about scrap content of paper goods

IN TOKYO - JAPAN'S image as a global leader in tackling environmental issues has taken a jolt with the disclosure that major Japanese paper makers have lied about the scrap content of their recycled paper products.

The scandal came to light when Japan's postal service discovered that the millions of New Year greeting cards made from recycled paper which it sold last year actually contained less waste paper than claimed by its five suppliers.

This has prompted the head of Nippon Paper Group, the parent company of one of Japan's largest paper makers Nippon Paper Industries, to announce that he would resign once the company has uncovered the scale of the deception.

The company produced 54 per cent of the 'eco-friendly' New Year greeting cards supplied to Japan Post.

Instead of the 40 per cent scrap content stipulated in its contract with Japan Post, Nippon Paper's greeting cards contained only 1 per cent used paper.

Addressing a press conference on Wednesday, Nippon Paper Group president Masatomo Nakamura admitted to the deception, which he said had come about because of the company's emphasis on ensuring quality.

'We cannot deny that we had committed environmental deception. We sincerely accept the fact that we betrayed the trust of the people and we apologise,' he said.

He said that with the present technology, it was not possible to make postcards that are smooth and free of specks using more than 5 per cent of used paper in the production process.

The firm had reportedly also lied about the scrap content of its other paper products, such as notebooks, as far back as 1996.

'We gave precedence to securing product quality by lowering the scrap content. I will take responsibility for ignoring the dishonest practice for many years,' said Mr Nakamura.

The practice of reducing scrap content to ensure the quality of recycled paper products is believed to be rampant in the industry. It reportedly does not mean more profits for paper makers.

Japan's largest paper maker, Oji Paper, which also supplied greeting cards to Japan Post, admitted yesterday that it had also been falsifying the content of recycled paper products.

The latest example of wide-scale corporate deception follows a spate of disclosures about mislabelling of food products last year. The revelations deal a strong blow to Japan's reputation for being fastidious about quality.

In recent years, Japanese manufacturers have put great stress on eco-friendly products and technologies.

The production of recycled paper products was encouraged by a government policy, implemented in April 2001, that required all government agencies to buy eco-friendly products.

The revelation that recycled paper products here are not what they appear to be comes just as Japan is striving to project itself as a leader in tackling global warming, which involves cutting down on carbon dioxide emissions.

This year, in particular, the government is seeking to spearhead international efforts to tackle global warming at the July G-8 Summit, which Japan will host.

Ironically, while the use of recycled paper products will help to save more trees, it does not reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

In fact, last September, Japanese paper companies decided to reduce the amount of waste paper used in their recycled products as an energy-saving measure. They said that making recycled paper entirely from waste paper released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than making paper completely from wood chips.

Japanese media criticises companies over fake 'recycled' goods
Yahoo News 19 Jan 08;

Media on Saturday criticised Japan's top paper firms for lying about the use of recycled products in goods billed as being made from such materials, the latest in a series of scandals in the corporate sector.

Five major paper producers admitted in the past week that their products contained significantly less recycled materials than advertised -- or none at all -- in their bid to offer quality products and create a good business image.

"We were utterly stunned by the cases of fake recycled papers, made by the five companies that lead the sector emphasising its environmental friendliness," the influential Nikkei business daily said in an editorial.

"This is a deep-rooted problem that can destroy the public confidence in the industrial sector as a whole," it said.

The paper companies admission came after a media investigation, and all the firms released lists of affected products, ranging from post cards to photo copy paper.

Daio Paper Corp, for example, said it had advertised that a type of computer printer paper was made entirely from recycled materials when only seven percent of it actually was made of such products.

The Mainichi Shimbun said the case was about "corporate ego", rather than going "eco," and that the companies preyed on consumers who wanted to help the environment.

"Our disappointment is not the technological shortcomings. Rather, we are disappointed by the attitude of the companies that felt OK to announce false data," the newspaper said in an editorial.

Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda also condemned the companies' actions.

"They lied to consumers. Their actions did not really amount to environmental measures, so their problems are two-faceted," Fukuda said Friday.

The scandal comes after a string of cases of deceit by various Japanese firms were revealed last year, including architects who lied about building safety and food producers who mislabelled production dates.

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A little bit of shrimp farming is OK?

A little bit of shrimp farming is OK, environment economists say
Journal Watch Online 17 Jan 08;

The choice between total devastation and total conservation of mangroves is a false one, according to analysis published today in Science.

With a team of colleagues, Edward Barbier, a professor of economics at the University of Wyoming, studied the effects of conversion to shrimp aquaculture on a 10 km stretch of Thailand’s mangrove.

Because mangroves play such a pivotal role in coastal protection from storms, hurricanes and tsunamis, their economic value is high (compared to the potential cost of disaster recovery in their absence).

However, these benefits are only felt locally, whereas the profits from shrimp farms line pockets around the world.

Barbier’s group found that a small amount – no more than 20 percent – of farming makes little difference to the protective powers of the mangrove: it’s only at higher levels of degradation that things start to bite.

Understanding the impact of shrimp farming properly could help conservation managers achieve a delicate balance between ecosystem protection and keeping the fat cats happy.

Source: Barbier EB, Koch EW, Silliman BR, Hacker SD, Wolanski E, Primavera J, Granek EF, Polasky S, Aswani S, Cramer LA, Stoms DM, Kennedy CJ, Bael D, Kappel CV, Perillo GME & Reed DJ (2008) Coastal ecosystem-based management with nonlinear ecological functions and values. Science DOI:

Ecosystem Based Management Not Enough to Reverse Coastal Habitat Decline
Newswise.com 17 Jan 08;

Newswise — Worldwide coastal ecosystems and habitats will continue to decline unless economists and ecologists work together to improve current methods to assess coastal ecosystem benefits, according to an article today in the global scientific journal, Science.

Edward B. Barbier, the John S. Bugas Professor of Economics at the University of Wyoming, is the lead author among 15 others on the subject (“Coastal ecosystem-based management with non-linear ecological functions and values.”)

Recent research indicates that global coastal population densities are nearly three times those of inland areas and are rapidly rising, Barbier says. As coastal and marine habitats come under more pressure from human exploitation, economists, ecologists and other scientists need to collaborate to improve the understanding of the myriad “benefits” lost through such overuse to better inform coastal and marine management decisions, he says.

“The long-term sustainability of these populations depends upon coastal ecosystems and the services they provide, such as storm buffering, fisheries production and enhanced water quality,” he adds. “To arrest coastal habitat decline, concerned international organizations and scientists are calling for a new approach.”

He says ecosystem-based management (EBM) is a way to reconcile the decline in vital coastal ecosystem services with continuing human development pressures. Barbier and his colleagues endorse the general need for coastal EBM, but their research indicates that strategy is “likely to fail” unless others, such as economists and ecologists, work together.

“Too often, poor ecological data lead to inaccurate valuation of these benefits, resulting frequently in an ‘all or none’ choice of either preserving or converting all coastal habitats to human use,” Barbier says. “This ‘all or none’ outcome is at odds with EBM strategies, which are trying to find acceptable compromises between conservation and development.”

To illustrate the importance of this dilemma, Barbier and his team focus on the key ecosystem service of coastal wetlands acting as “natural barriers” to the economic damages caused by frequent coastal storm events. In recent years, this critical “storm prevention” service of coastal habits -- such as mangroves and marshlands -- has received considerable attention caused through massive damages. Those were inflicted by the December 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, the August 2005 Hurricane Katrina along the Gulf Coast and the November 2007 Cyclone Sidr in coastal Bangladesh.

From field studies of mangroves, salt marshes, seagrass beds, near shore coral reefs, and sand dunes, the study shows that the ability of these critical habitat to “attenuate” or break up, incoming storm surges and waves declines considerably as more habitat is lost.

Barbier’s research in Thailand demonstrates how mangroves successfully protect coastal regions.

“We show that by valuing correctly this ‘natural barrier’ service, the best land use is neither complete conversion of the mangroves to an alternative use, such as commercial shrimp aquaculture, nor preservation of all the mangrove forest,” he says. “Instead, the best coastal management policy is a mix of these development and conservation options. In fact, the outcome from our Thailand mangrove valuation example corresponds to ‘best practice’ guidelines for mangrove management in Asia, which recommend that ideal mangrove-pond ratios should not exceed 20 percent of the habitat area converted to ponds.”

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