Turks and Caicos Islands marine national park damaged by building of a resort

Gemma Handy, The Telegraph 13 Feb 08;

One of the world's most famous coral reefs is being put at risk by work to develop a luxury resort in the heart of a Caribbean national park, local campaigners claim.

The beautiful Turks and Caicos Islands (TCI), long a haven for scuba divers, are one of the UK's remaining 14 Overseas Territories.

British residents living on the island of Providenciales have lodged an official complaint with the Foreign Affairs Select Committee saying the mammoth scheme could spell disaster for the fragile ecosystem.

For centuries the reef, one of the globe's top dive sites, has been a haven for indigenous wildlife such as turtles, shrimp, conch and lobster.

The development, which includes a Miami-style Nikki Beach resort, condominiums and yacht club, involves dredging thousands of tonnes of sand from the sea-bed to allow 200ft-long vessels to pass through.

The work is destroying the habitat for myriad seabed marine life, it is alleged, and causing silt to settle on the coral and smother it.

Divers claim parts of the ocean floor now look more like a building site than a valuable and protected ecosystem.

Local tour operators say they fear for their livelihoods while people living nearby say they have suffered with noise and dust since the project began last autumn.

Jay Stubbs has been leading sailing and snorkelling excursions in the area, known locally as Leeward Going Through, for more than 12 years with his company Sail Provo.

"There are places we used to take guests snorkelling which we can't go to any more because of the damage the silt has done to the reef," he said.

"Sediment is also building up along the mangroves making the water shallower and taking away shelter for the small, juvenile fish forcing them to relocate.

"Just last year you could see the bottom, now it's so murky even the turtles can't find their way down; we have noticed a lot more of them floating around on the surface."

A number of local tour operators' premises along with a restaurant were bulldozed last year to make way for the scheme.

"It's changing the face of the whole place," Mr Stubbs said. "Leeward Going Through has been used by boaters for generations. Now it's infringing on our livelihoods.

"When people start privatising the waterways they can assert any legal rights they like on it. All it will take is one or two complaints from high end guests about the noise from boats for them to stop us coming through.

"If that happens, how will freighters get food and cargo to the other islands? This is the main route for everyone."

Philip Shearer, of Big Blue, said: "As a seasoned diver I have seen a marked drop and decline in the quality of coral all over Grace Bay. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to see dredging is the problem.

"It is moving all the turtle grass which holds sediment at the bottom. These guys are creating a whole bunch of sediment in suspension which clogs up the reef.

"It's a major problem and sets a bad precedent if a development like that can go ahead without taking into account the full environmental impact."

Meanwhile, residents say they are being kept awake by horrendous noise. "Sometimes the sand moving trucks never stop the entire night. We can hear honking, beeping, hauling and gunning engines," one Islander claimed.

"This is not the usual 4.30am to midnight. This is going on all night."

He also expressed grave concern about the huge mountain of dredged sand at nearby Emerald Point estimated to be around 50 metres long, 200 metres wide and 15 metres high.

"The pile could be twice as high in a few months; if there was a hurricane it would be a disaster. This development is right on the edge of the Princess Alexandra National Park which has always been quite aggressively protected.

"None of us can begin to comprehend how anyone can have got permission to do anything on a coral reef. It will kill it," he added.

A spokesman for the TCI's Department of Environment and Coastal Resources (DECR) said the dredging was being monitored daily by a construction group working on behalf of the planning department and the DECR.

"Reports are regularly submitted to our office and if we see a problem the dredging is stopped while the problem is corrected," he said.

"We are in winter so a lot of sediment is being moved around even without the dredging. There will be some effects from the development but to say the dredging is the sole cause of the damage would be incorrect."

Leeward Marina Resort developer Rodney Propps, business partner of Conservative peer Lord Ashcroft, said the company had carried out a number of environmental impact studies.

"Everything we are doing we have a licence and planning permission for and all works are to international standards. We are opening the country's first mega-yacht club and that is why the Government is completely behind us.

"The noise will be finished shortly. I doubt the residents who complained are the same ones who are aware that their properties have increased in value by 400 per cent since we started."

Mr Propps said just one-sixth of the dredged sand would be sold for which the company was paying an undisclosed royalty to the Crown. The remaining sand will be used to replenish local beaches.

Silt is one of the biggest killers of coral reefs worldwide. The reason it is so destructive is because it blocks light which coral depends on to live.

Home to more life forms than any other ocean environment, coral reefs comprise the oldest and most complex ecosystems on Earth. They have existed for more than 200m years while their current level of biodiversity dates back 50m years.

In addition to pollution, a decline in water quality, overfishing and climate change are some of the biggest challenges facing these ancient sanctuaries.

Just this week, the TCI Government declared 2008 to be the Year of the Coral Reef. One can only hope this will herald protection for the reef and the marine life which depend on its survival.

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Study of ocean life shows a "chaotic" balance of nature

Tom Spears , The Ottawa Citizen 13 Feb 08;

An eight-year study of ocean life shows a "chaotic" balance of nature, and Dutch scientists say this chaos makes it impossible to predict the rise and fall of wild species - anywhere, ever.

Ecologists and politicians often want computers to show how nature will react if we bulldoze a forest or change the global temperature, but the Baltic Sea study now argues this kind of modeling may not be worth much.

If so, it raises doubts about how we can ever preserve a healthy environment, except through good luck.

The small Baltic creatures such as plankton were isolated from the rest of the ocean and studied for eight years. Each member of the "food web," or network of who eats whom, took turns multiplying and becoming scarce, even though the scientists kept the outside conditions constant.

And they could never figure out a pattern that allowed real predictions of how any species would fare.

"Advanced mathematical techniques proved the indisputable presence of chaos in this food web," they conclude in the journal Nature," adding that "short-term prediction is possible, but long-term prediction is not."

Lead scientist Jef Huisman said it's like trying to forecast the long-term weather: all their forecasts broke down beyond a few weeks.

This is already causing a stir in some biology circles. At Duke University in North Carolina, Stuart Pimm called the work "an outstanding job" and said it raises the possibility that nature just can't be crammed into computer models.

But he adds: "In an important way it's even more interesting than that.

"One of the classic chaotic systems is the weather," he said. "We have computer models that do a good job of predicting the weather in the short term."

But the best supercomputers can't stretch that forecast beyond a week or 10 days, echoing the Baltic Sea models that failed.

"It's the way in which they fail that's interesting," Mr. Pimm says. "They fail spectacularly badly over longer and longer periods of time."

Beyond that short-term forecast, "you simply can't do better than treating it as a game of chance," he says. Past that short-term run of accuracy, the errors shoot up exponentially.

This, he says, is what the Baltic Sea experiment found - but in populations of sea creatures, not in the weather.

"The mark of chaotic systems is not that they're unpredictable (i.e. all the time). It's that in the short term you can predict them really well, but the system deviates from your prediction and deviates ... exponentially. So you start out with a tiny error, and the next day that error doubles, and then doubles again and doubles again so eventually you've got no prediction whatsoever. And that fingerprint of chaos is at the heart of this (Baltic Sea) paper.

"They're not saying, 'Aw, it's really hard to predict plankton systems.' They're finding that after the short-term intervals ... the differences will blow up exponentially."

The question now is whether this chaos will show up in populations of all wildlife from giraffes to bald eagles to crocodiles.

"That's the big question," Mr. Pimm says. "We just don't know," but this research is step one in finding out. "It alerts us to the notion that there may be a lot more stuff like this out there."

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Ocean advocates hopeful WTO cut in fishing support

Missy Ryan, Reuters 14 Feb 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Supporters of action to protect the world's fragile fish stocks are hoping that a recent proposal to drastically limit fishing subsidies will prevail in global trade talks.

"We are in such dire conditions," said Courtney Sakai, campaign director for Oceana, an environmental group that vocally opposed subsidies for boat-building, fuel and other activities they say have pushed fisheries close to exhaustion.

Critics of those subsidies, which total about $20 billion a year globally, hope that a long-awaited agreement in the World Trade Organization's Doha round will force countries like Japan to scale back payments.

"There really needs to be a reduction in these subsidies that encourage overfishing," Sakai said.

Ocean activists say that overfishing and habitat destruction could collapse the world's fish and seafood populations by 2048.

According to the United Nations, 52 percent of marine fish stocks are at or near the maximum sustainable output levels, and almost 20 percent are over-exploited.

The United States is also hoping the Doha round, which negotiators are angling to conclude this year, will be a vehicle for new restrictions.

Last year, the Bush administration called in the talks for a blanket ban on subsidies for wild-capture fishing.

Its WTO plan would have provided some exceptions for subsidies that do not encourage overfishing, such as boat buybacks, stock enhancement, or research programs.

But the latest WTO draft on issue, which was released in November, takes a different approach, prohibiting a list of subsidies that encourage over-fishing, such as vessel construction or repair or for fleet operation.

It would provide more berth for other subsidies, and would give more leeway to developing countries, where the poor may rely on fishing for their livelihoods. Those countries would be required to produce conservation plans.

Even so, said Gretchen Hamel, a spokeswoman for Trade Representative Susan Schwab, the WTO outline "sets a high level of ambition that we are pleased with, and we will work hard to make sure that it is not whittled away."

The United States does not provide the kind of subsidies targeted by ocean activists.

This week, Schwab met actor Ted Danson, who is campaigning with Oceana to raise the issue's profile in Washington. "We are on the brink of an irreversible collapse," Danson said in a speech the National Press Club.

Opposition remains to the reductions, especially from several countries with major fishing industries.

Sakai described the position of the European Union, which includes countries with active fishing industries, as "not particularly constructive."

Negotiations on fishing subsidies are one small slice of the massive and contentious agenda of the Doha round, which has been proceeding at a glacial pace since they began in 2001.

Even if consensus is secured on the fishing proposal, the rules would not become binding unless an overall Doha agreement can finally be had.

The Bush administration is hoping for a breakthrough on the round's main areas -- agriculture, industry, and services -- in the next month or two, which would allow enough time to finish talks on other issues, like fishing subsidies, before President George W. Bush leaves office.

According to the United Nation's Food and Agriculture Organization, China, Peru and the United States were the world's top fish producers in 2004.

At the end of that year, the world fishing fleet included about 4 million vessels, with the lion's share in Asia.

On China, Sakai said, a key concern is to "craft rules that ensure that it cannot use developing country treatment as a loophole to subsidize its massive, global fishing activity."

(Editing by Russell Blinch and Marguerita Choy)

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Seahorse numbers around Britain increasing

Stuart Coles, The Telegraph 14 Feb 08;

It may come as a surprise to most people that there are any seahorses at all in British coastal waters, and more surprising still that numbers appear to be increasing.

Seahorse experts met in London this month to discuss the apparent population surge in seahorses and their close relative, the pipefish.

The reasons for this increase, described as "rapid and dramatic" is not yet clear and a number of theories have been put forward including a natural population boom or warmer waters.

As with any shift in population, it is also having a knock-on effect upon other species, including sea birds.

Pipefish form a distinct family with seahorses (syngnathids) and as the name would suggest, look like straight-bodied seahorses with tiny mouths.

Numbers of the snake pipefish, once rarely seen in northern British waters, now often end up in the region's trawler nets in vast numbers, say scientists.

Once associated with deep northern waters, they have even been found recently further south by fishermen in the Thames Estuary.

A European team led by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) says that the numbers of snake pipefish in British waters has increased more than one hundredfold since 2003.

They say although there have been changes in water temperature in the North Sea since around 1988, the large numbers of snake pipefish have only appeared in the last four or five years - putting a global warming theory in doubt.

"There is no doubt that numbers of snake pipefish have increased. In the last few years they are just everywhere," said Professor Mike P Harris of CEH.

"Although climate change may well have had an effect, the jury is, we think, still out on this matter."

Cindy van Damme of the Netherlands' Wageningen IMARES - the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies, believes she may be nearer an answer.

She says recent shifts in ocean currents have led to a change in the composition of plankton - it has shrunk.

"Plankton is the major food item of pipefish and sea horses. The mouth opening of this group of fishes restricts the prey size they can handle. We think this mechanism explains the huge increase of snake pipefish. Hence this outbreak may very well last for only a limited number of years."

However long it lasts, it is impacting startlingly upon pipefish predators - which include everything from mackerel, dolphins, otters and sharks to seabirds.

Although they are eaten by birds such as gannets, kittiwakes and puffins, their spiny, 'armoured' forms, like seahorses make them difficult for young birds to swallow and digest - some young birds even choke to death on them.

In fact, their nutritional value for birds is in doubt - and their explosion in numbers seems to be linked with poor breeding seasons.

Scientists are also recording birds with large numbers of uneaten pipefish, with nests actually made of the fish. They say the pipefish appear to be a poor substitute for their normal food such as sand eels.

The explanation for increased sightings of seahorses in many place on Britain's coastline, and at vastly varying depths, may be a little more straightforward.

Neil Garrick-Maidment, Director of the UK's Seahorse Trust, doubts global warming has anything to do with it. "There's no evidence at all, as far as I can see. It's just people jumping on the bandwagon."

He says seahorses were first recorded in British waters in the 1880s and even appear in early Pictish art.

The increase is sightings is due to the Trust's British Seahorse Survey, better awareness, shifting currents and the role of the internet, says Mr Garrick-Maidment.

"There are simply more people out there looking, that's the reason we have so many sightings," he says, adding that better relationships with fishermen have added to data coming in to the Survey which was started in 1994.

"They were reluctant at first, as they didn't always want to reveal where they were fishing, but we've cracked that."

The survey has eight co-ordinators and receives frequent emailed sightings, reports and photographs from members of the public, agencies and even power stations - whose warm waters and filters are thought to attract seahorses.

Britain's changing Gulf Stream also plays a role, he says. "It's hard trying to even convince people that there are seahorses in our waters - they usually think they are tropical creatures. But the Gulf Stream is a major influence on species, we have basking sharks, turtles and all manner of jellyfish - lots of creatures people think are tropical."

Besides, he says, half of the world's seahorse species live in cold or temperate waters. If global warming does turn out to playing a role he says he "will be the first to admit I'm wrong - but I just don't see it."

Mr Garrick-Maidmen, who founded the world's first seahorse aquarium (in Exeter) and has spent 28 years studying and breeding them, clearly has not lost his great enthusiasm.

"They are fascinating, magical creatures. We have only just scratched the surface of what we know, there's an awful lot of work to do. Hence the Survey will be going on for a long time yet."

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Shoppers Fret More Over Food Packaging Waste - Poll

PlanetArk 15 Feb 08;

OSLO - Wasteful food packaging is among the fastest-growing environmental concerns for shoppers worldwide with New Zealanders most willing to cut back, a poll showed on Thursday.

The Internet-based survey in 48 nations, by the Nielsen Company, indicated that 40 percent of respondents were "very concerned" by trash from food packaging in November 2007 against just 31 percent in the previous poll in May 2007.

"Concern for packaging waste increased more than any other environmental concern," Nielsen said of the replies by 25,000 people. The survey also probed attitudes to climate change, water shortages, air and water pollution and use of pesticides.

"While eco-friendly packaging might not be the top priority for shoppers today, it's certainly a growing priority the food industry cannot ignore," said Patrick Dodd, president of the Nielsen Company, Europe.

Retailers such as Wal-Mart, Carrefour or Tesco are all pushing to cut back.

Half of those surveyed expressed willingness to give up "convenience packaging" -- for instance boxes to help make food more easily stacked or transported, re-sealable containers or plastic packages also used during cooking.

But only about 30 percent would abandon packaging meant to keep food clean, untouched by other shoppers or, for instance, labels with instructions for cooking and use.

The survey showed that New Zealanders were most willing to cut back, with more than 65 percent willing to forego convenience packaging. People in Finland, Ireland, the Czech Republic and Norway were also among those most willing to cut.

At the other end of the scale, people in Thailand and Japan were least willing to give up any kind of packaging.

Nielsen said urban shoppers in Asia often bought fresh food from markets and did not buy supermarket food packed for a long shelf life. They often prized aesthetics or easily stored goods.

Europeans and North Americans were those least prepared to give up packaging meant to ensure hygiene.

Overall, Nielsen said consumers were shifting to demand paper, cardboard or glass, all of which can be recycled, rather than plastic or polystyrene.

Bernard Leveau of packaging specialists Multivac in France said there were many ways of simplifying packaging. The firm had cut the thickness of plastic film used in food packaging by 30-35 percent while keeping the same strength, he said.

He also said retailers in the 1980s strived to extend the shelf life of fresh food -- such as up to three weeks for meat -- demanding complex packaging. "We're noticing that a shelf life of eight or 10 days is generally enough," he told Reuters.

Among other shifts, biodegradable materials for packaging could replace plastics and canned foods could often be sold in far less heavy containers.

-- For Reuters latest environment blogs go to: http://blogs.reuters.com/environment/

(Editing by Elizabeth Piper)

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Oceans eyed as new energy source

Brian Skoloff, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Feb 08;

Just 15 miles off Florida's coast, the world's most powerful sustained ocean current — the mighty Gulf Stream — rushes by at nearly 8.5 billion gallons per second. And it never stops.

To scientists, it represents a tantalizing possibility: a new, plentiful and uninterrupted source of clean energy.

Florida Atlantic University researchers say the current could someday be used to drive thousands of underwater turbines, produce as much energy as perhaps 10 nuclear plants and supply one-third of Florida's electricity. A small test turbine is expected to be installed within months.

"We can produce power 24/7," said Frederick Driscoll, director of the university's Center of Excellence in Ocean Energy Technology. Using a $5 million research grant from the state, the university is working to develop the technology in hopes that big energy and engineering companies will eventually build huge underwater arrays of turbines.

From Oregon to Maine, Europe to Australia and beyond, researchers are looking to the sea — currents, tides and waves — for its infinite energy. So far, there are no commercial-scale projects in the U.S. delivering electricity to the grid.

Because the technology is still taking shape, it is too soon to say how much it might cost. But researchers hope to make it as cost-effective as fossil fuels. While the initial investment may be higher, the currents that drive the machinery are free.

There are still many unknowns and risks. One fear is the "Cuisinart effect": The spinning underwater blades could chop up fish and other creatures.

Researchers said the underwater turbines would pose little risk to passing ships. The equipment would be moored to the ocean floor, with the tops of the blades spinning 30 to 40 feet below the surface, because that's where the Gulf Stream flows fastest. But standard navigation equipment on ocean vessels could easily guide them around the turbine fields if their hulls reached that deep, researchers said.

And unlike offshore wind turbines, which have run into opposition from environmentalists worried that the technology would spoil the ocean view, the machinery would be invisible from the surface, with only a few buoys marking the fields.

David White of the Ocean Conservancy said much of the technology is largely untested in the outdoors, so it is too soon to say what the environmental effects might be.

"We understand that there are environmental trade-offs, and we need to start looking to alternative energy and everything should be on the table," he said. "But what are the environmental consequences? We just don't know that yet."

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has issued 47 preliminary permits for ocean, wave and tidal energy projects, said spokeswoman Celeste Miller. Most such permits grant rights just to study an area's energy-producing potential, not to build anything.

The field has been dealt some setbacks. An ocean test last year ended in disaster when its $2 million buoy off Oregon's coast sank to the sea floor. Similarly, a small test project using turbines powered by tidal currents in New York City's East River ran into trouble last year after turbine blades broke.

The Gulf Stream is about 30 miles wide and shifts only slightly in its course, passing closer to Florida than to any other major land mass. "It's the best location in the world to harness ocean current power," Driscoll said.

Researchers on the West Coast, where the currents are not as powerful, are looking instead to waves to generate power.

Canada-based Finavera Renewables has received a FERC license to test a wave energy project in Washington state. It will eventually include four buoys in a bay and generate enough power for up to 700 homes. The 35-ton buoys rise above the water about 6 feet and extend some 60 feet down. Inside each buoy, a piston rises and falls with the waves.

The company hopes later to be the first in the U.S. to operate a commercial-scale "wave farm," situated off Northern California. The project with Pacific Gas and Electric calls for Finavera to produce enough electricity to power up to 600 homes by 2012. Finavera eventually wants to supply 30,000 households.

Roger Bedard of the Electric Power Research Institute said an analysis by his organization found that wave- and tide-generated energy could supply only about 6.5 percent of today's electricity needs.

Finavera spokesman Myke Clark acknowledged that wave energy is "definitely not the only answer" to the nation's power needs and is never going to be as cheap as coal. But it could be "part of the energy mix," and could be used to great advantage off the coasts of Third World countries, where entire towns have no connection to electrical grids, he said.

Nick Furman, executive director of the Oregon Dungeness Crab Commission, said he fears the wave technology could crowd out his industry, which last year brought in 50 million pounds of crab and contributed $150 million to the state's economy.

"We've got a limited amount of flat sandy bottom on the Oregon Coast where we can put out pots and where we can fish, and the wave energy folks are telling us they need the same flat, sandy bottom," Furman said.

"It's not the 10-buoy wave park that has the industry concerned. It's that if it's successful, then that park turns into a 200- or 400-buoy park and it just keeps growing."

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Energy Saving Most Effective In CO2 Cutting - Report

PlanetArk 15 Feb 08;

UNITED NATIONS - Squeezing more productivity out of the energy that industries, homes and vehicles burn is the most economical way to stifle rising energy demand and control output of planet-warming gases, according to a new report from the McKinsey Global Institute.

For decades, many countries have mostly invested in finding more supplies of oil, gas and coal to meet the rising energy needs of growing populations, but as energy costs and global warming concerns rise, interest in investing in ways to slow energy demand is beginning to take hold.

"We've identified huge opportunities to reduce energy demand and carbon emissions through improved efficiency," Diana Farrell, the director of the MGI, said in an interview.

Slowing global energy waste at industries like pulp and paper, oil refining and steel, homes and cars could more than halve global energy demand growth from current levels of 2.2 percent a year, according to the report, "The Case for Investing in Energy Productivity," released by the MGI on Thursday at a United Nations Investor Summit on Climate Risk.

Initial global investments would total about $170 billion per year. But they would pay for themselves through energy savings, with an average internal return rate of 17 percent, the report said.

Industries would need to invest about $83 billion per year, homes would need to invest about $40 billion and transport and commercial sectors will need to invest $25 billion and $22 billion a year, respectively.

Less burning of fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas as a result of the efficiencies would cut greenhouse gas output, the report said.

Getting companies to change their energy habits, however, is no easy task.

"The vast majority of global executives say fixing global warming problems can boost profits," said Farrell. "But few are acting on the opportunities."

John Holdren, a climate expert at Harvard University, told investors efficiencies can be helpful in slowing global warming, but that much more needs to be done, such as developing new fuels and methods to bury carbon emissions, to stop catastrophic consequences such as flooding from rising seas.

"The low-hanging fruit is wonderful, but we need to reach higher still," he said.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner; Editing by Christian Wiessner)

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Swedish drivers face test of eco-credentials

Ilze Filks, Reuters 13 Feb 08;

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Swedish driving instructor Lars Rembjer has two words of advice for his pupils, the first in the world to have to prove they can be kind to the environment to get their licenses: think ahead.

Those words apply to the road, the potential consequences of climate change and the roughly 10 percent in savings on fuel achievable with simple care behind the wheel.

Sweden, the homeland of carmakers Volvo and Saab, began demanding ecodriving skills from those applying for a car license at the end of 2007. Truck and motorcycle drivers will face a similarly toughened test come April 1.

After five years of teaching environmentally friendly driving techniques at his Stockholm motor school, Rembjer was ready for this, as were his students.

His first ecodriving lesson is that the thinking ahead starts before the engine does.

"One doesn't have to start the engine immediately but (should) finish all the preparations first: Put a gear in, release the handbrake and perhaps have a look around you. Then you start the engine," Rembjer said as he guided a student through the early stages of a lesson in a biofuel Volvo.

Advance planning is also key once a driver hits the road.

Sweden, which has the most fuel-thirsty cars in the European Union, will announce its carbon dioxide reduction targets this autumn, environment ministry spokesman Tomas Uddin said.

Ecodriving may help slow a steady rise in carbon dioxide emissions from transport, which the Swedish Environmental Protection Agency says have been rising on the back of an advancing economy, despite a fall in overall output.

BUSINESSES KEEN

Rembjer's fuel-saving equation is simple: use the engine to slow the vehicle before hitting the brakes, drive in as high a gear as possible, try to avoid aggressive acceleration from a standing start and only overtake when necessary.

Countries all over Europe are showing an interest in following Sweden into this new world, according to Per-Olof Nilsson, an official at the Swedish Road Administration (Vagverket in Swedish), which devised the new driving test.

He said this is especially true of Netherlands and Finland, where ecodriving instruction was born more than 10 years ago.

"We're frontrunners," Nilsson said of Sweden's new test.

"It's much discussed all through Europe. We've taken part in several workshops all over (Europe) where we have discussed these questions, especially what is the best way to test this question and also the best way of teaching it."

He said ecodriving also has generated significant interest among transport companies, with many major firms already offering fuel-saving driving tips to their drivers.

"They can save lots of money by reducing emissions and we get a better environment at the same time," Nilsson said.

Rembjer, a driving instructor for 20 years, also cited compelling economic arguments for ecodriving.

"Ecodriving is the future because there are only winners. The environment benefits and your wallet benefits," he said.

"We have ecodriving courses for companies who send all their staff to us and save money. They see that it pays off. They see that in a year's time they have recovered the cost for the course and that they're starting to make money."

In five years teaching the method, Rembjer has met no opposition or reluctance from students, although other instructors and some parents have raised objections.

He said the parents usually come around once they hear about the benefits: about a tenth of those who had called to complain ended up taking an ecodriving course themselves.

Nilsson said given the Swedish Road Administration's portfolio of responsibilities, the addition of environmentally friendly driving made sense.

Student Sofia Lundstrom, 18, said Rembjer's tuition has made ecodriving natural for her.

"I've driven this way all the time so I don't really feel the difference," she said after a lesson.

Lundstrom said she was happy ecodriving had been added to the driving test since she is worried about the environment. Nor was she daunted about being scrutinized on her skills.

"It's deeply ingrained. For example, when I am with my parents and they drive, I ... tell them what they're doing wrong -- 'Now you're ruining the environment'," she said.

(Reporting by Ilze Filks, writing by Sarah Edmonds; Editing by Charles Dick)

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Shell sets out vision of energy future

Yahoo News 14 Feb 08;

Anglo-Dutch oil giant Shell unveiled its vision of the world's future energy sources Thursday, suggesting two scenarios where policy either remains with individual countries or is decentralised to allow a reduction in energy consumption and carbon emissions.

In both cases, Shell envisaged gas and oil prices should reach a "plateau" at around 2015, but the main energy source will be provided by coal, which is "available, cheap" and requires simple technology, the company said.

The company's vice-president, Jeremy Bentham, outlined the possibilities in a report -- "Shell energy scenarios to 2050: an era of revolutionary change" -- to reporters in London Thursday.

The report said energy demands were growing at an unprecedented rate and conventional suppliers will have a job on their hands to keep pace. At the same time, "environmental stresses" are increasing, it added.

Against such a background, Shell outlined two scenarios for policymakers.

The first scenario it envisaged was business continuing as usual and energy policy remaining an issue for individual countries, with fears of slower economic growth dissuading policy-setters from investing in renewable energy sources.

In such circumstances, Shell said energy prices would be highly volatile and investment decisions difficult to predict.

For that reason, Shell said it favoured as a "blueprint" a second scenario: energy policy set by a number of different bodies, such as sub-state regions, municipal authorities, industry and non-government organisations.

Under this scheme, the carbon market will be well-developed, new laws will favour carbon capture schemes, "second generation" biofuel projects, the general public will modify their energy habits and prices will be more stable.

"Both scenarios are plausible," said Bentham.

The next five years are crucial because they "will set the framework for the investments of the next 15 years," Bentham said.

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Green Volunteer Network update 14 Feb 08

From Grant Pereira, volunteers needed at Ubin Green House, nature guiding at Pasir Ris Park. Help also needed with whale shark campaign, carpentry, topiary, saplings and planting, rat infestation. As well as with Orang Aslis in Johor.

1) ORANG ASLI NEED HELP....

A friend of mine is helping a group of Orang Aslis (about 600 of them) near Gelang Patah, Johor. They live near the mangrove/sea shores so I figure they could be Orang Laut (Sea people).

Because of the pollution they are unable to make a living catching fish and crabs. As since the cutting of mangroves for firewood is banned there is no regular income to speak of.

Many are undernourished and are infected by lice (even their homes). We need canned food, cereals, noodles, mlio/horlicks, coffee, tea, sugar milk, medicated soap/shampoo, lice powder, toothbrushes and toothpaste, vitamins (especially “C”).

No need T-shirt as my friend in Johor is collecting them. Cash would also be appreciated as we can buy lice powder/shampoo at Giant supermarket Johor Baru where its cheaper and we don’t have the hassle of lugging it across the causeway etc.

I do not drive so appreciate very much if stuff can be delivered to our office at Cluny Road. If any of you have a car or van you could help by providing transport to collect stuff and send to our office.

I intend to visit them soon to see how we can help them. Develop some sustainable income (anyone for a very basic Orang Asli homestay? After we get rid of the bugs of course!).

This collection would make a great school project. Eventually would need volunteer doctors/dentists to visit.

2) UBIN GREEN HOUSE NEEDS VOLUNTEERS

We need volunteers to help man our Ubin Green House on Sundays and Public Holidays (10.00 am to 6.00 pm). Please email grace_ang@singnet.com.sg if you can help.

3) NATURE GUIDE TRAINING PASIR RIS PARK

We are starting another nature guide training for Pasir Ris Park. Pasir Ris Park is the 3rd most popular park in Singapore and has a good variety of fauna and flora. There are spice and native tree gardens, mangroves and many interesting species of trees.

Dates: All Saturdays, meet 10.00 am SHARP Pasir Ris MRT station control. March 1st, 15th , 22nd and 29th. You have to attend at least 3 of these 4 walks and after these walks you will owe us 3 walks as nature guides and do 3 pieces of research on Fauna, Flora, cultural or historical (our choice). You will also required to purchase a copy of Dr. Wee Yeow Chin’s “Tropical Tress and Shrubs” at $25 per copy (outside $30 percopy). Its really a good book both for reference and research, I use it often and highly recommend it.

It’s also your way of showing that you’re serious about being a nature guide. Training restricted to 20 participants and first come first served. Email me your full name, DOB and Mobile number if you can commit to the above dates.

4) ADEX 2008 SHOW 18TH TO 20TH APRIL 2008

Volunteers needed 10.00 am to 9.00 pm. (two shifts) 10.00 am to 4.30 pm or 3.30 pm to 9 pm. Check out (www.asiadiveexpo.com). If you want to help, email grace_ang@singnet.com.sg your name, mobile, dates and times you can help.

5) ANYONE KNOW ANYTHING ABOUT TOPIARY

Needed expert to help us design and set up a topiary of a large elephant. Email me if you can help. Thanks.

6) ANY CARPENTERS OUT THERE

At Pulau Ubin we have been given 2 vey old coffee shop tables (more than 50 years old). They are in bad shape and need a good carpenter. Anyone can help? We probably have to cannibalise one table for the other.

7) VOLUNTEERS LIVING AROUND PASIR RIS

Elias Park Primary School is the first primary school to join our S.P.R.O.U.T.S. project. We also have been given a small plot of land near Block 512 Pasir Ris Street 52. If you live around Paris Ris and want to help, let me know.

8) SAPLINGS NEEDED.....

For our S.P.R.O.U.T.S. programmes we are looking for the following saplings: Curry leaf, Weeping willow, Cherry tree, Guava, Java plum. If you have any to spare or know where we can dig up some please let me know. Thanks.

9) A BETTER MOUSE TRAP

We have a major rat infestation at our Ubin Green House. This is because of the dog and cat food we keep in the house (from now on, only canned food donations please).

Besides the bloody snap traps, poisons, gums etc... Do any of you know a less messy (and smelly) way of catching these critters? As we only open the house once a week, we need to trap them alive. Any suggestions? (house locked up so we cannot keep cats in the house).

10) WHALE SHARK EDUCATIONAL CAMPAIGN

In my capacity of Asian Educational Coordinator of Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, we shall be doing an educational project on the whale shark. I need volunteers and researchers to help to put this project together. If you want to help please email me your name, DOB and mobile number, use Whale shark as header.

11) GARDENING TIP

When you boil eggs or vegetables do not throw away the water as its rich in vitamins and minerals. Instead let it cool down completely and use it to water your plants.

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Kiribati creates world's largest marine reserve

David Fogarty, Reuters 14 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - The Pacific island nation of Kiribati has created the world's largest protected marine reserve, a California-sized wilderness brimming with reefs, fish and birds, conservation groups said on Thursday.

The Phoenix Islands Protected Area, covering 410,500 square kilometers, is one of the planet's last intact coral archipelagos and is threatened by over-fishing and climate change, the groups say.

It lies near the equator about half way between Fiji and Hawaii.

"The creation of this amazing marine protected area by a small island nation represents a commitment of historic proportions," said Russell Mittermeier, president of Conservation International.

The U.S.-based group, along with the New England Aquarium, is helping the Kiribati government develop a management and funding plan for the largely uninhabited area.

Studies led by the U.S. aquarium have found more than 120 species of coral and 520 species of fish, some new to science.

The area also has some of the most important sea bird nesting sites in the Pacific, large fish populations and sea turtles, the aquarium and Conservation International say.

The protected zone is more than double the area Kiribati originally pledged to protect at a U.N. biodiversity conference in Brazil in 2006.

"The new boundary includes extensive seamount and deep-sea habitat, tuna spawning grounds and as yet unsurveyed submerged reef systems," said Greg Stone, the aquarium's vice-president of global marine programs.

SURVEILLANCE

Kiribati says it needs more money to pay for surveillance against illegal fishing as well as develop a trust fund, possibly as large as $100 million, to pay for running costs and compensate the government for lost income from commercial fishing licenses.

"A major part of the operational cost is the surveillance and we have a patrol boat donated by Australia," Tebwe Ietaake, secretary of Kiribati's environment ministry, told Reuters.

"We are also looking at the cooperation of Australia and New Zealand in aerial surveillance flights over the region," he said.

He said the government would still allow subsistence fishing by local fishing communities.

Conservation International said it was crucial to protect the area from over fishing because healthy reefs and fishing grounds helped the area better withstand the impacts of climate change.

The reefs were already facing the threat of warming seas, which has caused repeated coral bleaching around Kiribati and elsewhere in the Pacific, such as the Great Barrier Reef.

Parts of Kiribati, too, are already suffering from the effects of rising seas, including coastal erosion in the vast archipelago and salt water intrusion into fresh water supplies.

The expanded Phoenix islands reserve is closely matched in size to the Papahanaumokuakea Marine National Monument in Hawaii, the single largest conservation area under the U.S. flag, covering 137,797 square miles of the Pacific Ocean.

Australia's Great Barrier Reef Marine Park covers about 345,000 sq km, and extends more than 2,300 km along the Queensland coast.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

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Rare sandpipers found in Myanmar

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 13 Feb 08;

Eighty-four spoon-billed sandpipers have been discovered in a coastal stretch of Myanmar, offering hope for saving the endangered birds, a conservation group said Thursday.

The discovery in early February comes only months after Russian researchers reported that numbers of the tiny birds — with speckled brow feathers and a distinctive spoon-shaped bill — had dropped 70 percent in the past few years in their breeding sites in Siberia and none had been seen this year in their traditional wintering sites in Bangladesh, Britain-based conservation group BirdLife International said.

The World Conservation Union lists the bird as endangered with only 200 to 300 pairs left in the wild.

The discovery of 84 birds wintering in Myanmar — only one of which appears to have come from Siberia — raises the prospect of breeding grounds elsewhere, BirdLife said. The birds' migration route takes them from Siberia down through Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China and Taiwan, to their main wintering grounds in South Asia.

"This is an important piece of the jigsaw," Simba Chan, senior conservation manager at BirdLife's Asia Division, said in a statement. "If present trends continue, the spoon-billed sandpiper faces extinction in the next few years. If we are to save the species, we need to identify and conserve not only its breeding sites, but its migration stopover sites and wintering grounds too."

Spoon-billed sandpipers face a myriad of threats because of their complicated migration routes, from expanding shrimp farms and salt pans in Bangladesh to coastal development in China and South Korea. Their eggs are often eaten by foraging dogs and foxes in Russia.

Armed with historical records, satellite data and reports of sightings, researchers set out three years ago to search for other winter grounds for the shorebird in South Asia.

After finding nothing in India and only a handful of birds in Bangladesh, they turned to Myanmar, where they found the birds at Arakan in the Bay of Bengal, and Martaban Bay near the Thai border.

"It was a big relief that we finally have come close to solving the mystery of the wintering sandpipers," said Christopher Zockler, part of the international survey team that also included Thai, Japanese and Russian bird experts.

Zockler said spoon-billed sandpipers are just one of a string of rare birds found recently in Myanmar, putting it on the map of birders worldwide. Two years ago, experts found the only other known population of Gurney's Pitta outside of Thailand in Myanmar.

"Its coastlines have the potential for many more surprises," Zockler said, adding that his team talked with the government about designating protected areas where the spoon-billed sandpipers were found. "It hasn't been surveyed at all before and it's less developed. It's the last oasis in a very fast developing region."

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