Riau's four main rivers badly contaminated: Local authorities

Rizal Harahap, The Jakarta Post 18 Feb 08;

The cadmium pollution was caused by illegal gold mining

The four main rivers in Riau province are contaminated by hazardous levels of cadmium and zinc, posing a serious threat to the health of residents, say local authorities.

According to a recent study by the Riau Environmental Impact Management Agency, the cadmium and zinc levels in the Indragiri, Siak, Rokan and Kampar rivers have exceeded the maximum limits set by the government in a 2001 regulation.

Head of the agency's contamination control division, Makruf Siregar, said here Friday the cadmium level in the Kampar River reached 0.012 mg/liter, and 0.11 mg/liter in the Indragiri River.

That is far above the government-set limit of 0.01 mg/liter.

The zinc content has reached 0.18 mg/liter in the Siak River and 0.2 mg/liter in the Rokan River, above the limit of 0.05 mg/liter.

Provincial health office chief Burhanuddin Agung said high levels of cadmium and zinc posed a danger to humans.

"A high concentration of cadmium in the human body can cause anemia, teeth discoloration, loss of smell and kidney failure. The most serious effect of chronic cadmium poisoning is lung and prostate cancer," he said.

High concentrations of zinc can cause stomach ailments, nausea, anemia and a decrease in the levels of good cholesterol. It is also reported that inhaling large amounts of zinc, in the form of dust or fumes, can cause a short-term disease called metal fume fever.

Makruf said the cadmium pollution was caused by illegal gold mining near several tributaries in Logas district, Kuantan Singingi regency. He said miners here used hazardous metals in the gold purification process.

"Contamination in the Indragiri River was detected at least three years ago. Cadmium usually is used to purify gold and is often mixed with mercury. Even though we have not tested the mercury levels in the rivers due to a lack of lab equipment, we are sure the mercury level is also high," Makruf said.

He called on residents not to use water from the rivers for cooking or cleaning.

Makruf said the high zinc levels were caused by sand mining at several rivers in the province.

He said the environmental agency had asked the Kampar and Rokan Hulu regency administrations to put a stop to the mining activities.

"However, they have failed because sand mining is the main source of livelihood for poor families in the regency," he said.

Makruf said the agency had yet to bring the case to the courts, while waiting for prompt action from local authorities to manage the river pollution.

The Kuantan Singingi regency administration is reportedly planning to legalize hundreds of illegal gold mines to increase revenue from the mining sector.

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Corals May Get Help Adapting to Warmer Waters

Juliet Eilperin, Washington Post 18 Feb 08;

"Yes, it might be doomed to failure," Baker said, adding that he has no choice but to try. Otherwise, he said, "We, as scientists, are sort of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

No one doubts that human-induced climate change has been killing corals across the globe. The question is whether humans can help save them before the devastation is complete.

For decades, rising sea surface temperatures have been driving out and killing the algae, called zooxanthellae, that give reefs their often-spectacular color. That has left behind the lifeless, bleached skeletons built by clustered colonies of thousands of corals. Meanwhile, the oceans' growing acidity, caused by rising levels of carbon dioxide in the water, impedes the biological processes that allow corals to create their limestone structures.

Those changes have devastating effects on the intricate collaboration necessary to build a coral head or reef or fan. That process is the product of a symbiotic marriage between the tiny marine creatures that are corals and even tinier single-cell algae that take up residence in corals and provide them with nutrients as the algae take in energy from the sun and photosynthesize.

A 2004 study estimated that global warming had destroyed 20 percent of the world's reefs since the 1950s. An additional 24 percent are under imminent threat of collapse, and a further 26 percent face eventual destruction. Researchers have found that in seven tropical regions where most coral reefs grow, waters had warmed by 1.3 to 3 degrees over the past century. Though that might not seem like much, a temperature rise of 1.8 to 3.6 degrees above the average high temperature for the summer can trigger bleaching in many reefs.

Since then, however, scientists have learned that some corals seem to resist warming temperatures better than others. Andrew Baker, a University of Miami marine biologist, is about to embark on an experiment aimed at learning whether scientists can help corals adapt by providing them with symbiotic partners better prepared to cope with waters that are growing warmer largely because of the buildup of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

Some corals have evolved to do this on their own, over a long period of time: Now, researchers want to see if they can speed up the process.

"It's controversial; it's high risk," Baker said last week. "But it's really important we make the effort to try to show not only are we monitoring the situation, but we're trying to do everything we can, literally, to make sure there are as many corals as possible left to save."

Steve Palumbi, a Stanford University marine biology professor, directs a mapping project at his lab to determine where heat-resistant zooxanthellae reside and where they may appear in the years to come. He called Baker's work "essentially one of the first clinical trials for a response to climate change and coral bleaching. We're used to that when it comes to human health, but we're not used to doing it when it comes to the planet's health."

Researchers used to believe there was just one species of zooxanthellae in corals. But since the start of the decade, they have begun to discover that there are more than a dozen, and some have an easier time adapting to rising temperatures than others.

"Not all zooxanthellae are created equal," said Mark Erdmann, a senior adviser to Conservation International's Indonesia marine program. "Previously, they were thought to be the same species everywhere."

Erdmann works in Raja Ampat, a region of Indonesia that boasts 10 times as many hard coral species as the entire Caribbean. By placing temperature-monitoring instruments throughout the area over the past two years, he has found that algae species are thriving in waters from 66.2 to 95 degrees Fahrenheit, depending on the place and time of year. (In Saudi Arabia's waters, corals flourish in nearly 97-degree temperatures.)

The algae that can tolerate the hottest conditions, Erdmann said, "very likely will be crucial to the future survival of the corals in Raja Ampat and in the vicinity." He and his colleagues have identified 15 reef areas that deserve "maximum protection" from overfishing and other pressures, Erdmann said, because they are the ones that are likely to survive in warmer seas.

The task of mapping reef areas that are both most resistant and most vulnerable has taken on urgency among scientists. Palumbi and his colleagues are preparing to publish their map of both current and future locations of heat-tolerant algae worldwide, and Wildlife Conservation Society senior zoologist Tim McClanahan has mapped the vulnerability of Indian Ocean reefs to climate change. McClanahan discovered that many of the marine protected areas cover reefs that could disappear under warmer conditions, prompting him to push for additional protection in areas where the reefs are hardier.

Just last week, moreover, a group of researchers led by Benjamin S. Halpern at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis in Santa Barbara, Calif., published a synthesis of 17 global data sets that concluded that nearly half of all coral reefs are experiencing "medium high to very high impact" from human pressures, including temperature increases, pollution and overfishing.

In the meantime, Baker -- who first broached the idea that corals might switch algae partners on their own in a 2001 article in the journal Nature -- is hoping to reverse the trend. He keeps 12,000 coral tissue samples from 20 countries in his lab at Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, freezing them at 176 degrees below zero, and has spent several years culturing them and studying their properties. In the scientific literature the thermally resistant species of zooxanthellae Baker first identified goes under the name "clade D"; in conversation he calls these algae "sort of the weeds that do well when others don't."

Two weeks ago the Pew Institute for Ocean Science awarded him a three-year, $150,000 grant to help identify the specific genetic and physiological factors that allow some corals to cope with warming better than others.

Initially, Baker and his team of about 10 researchers will do their work in the lab, artificially bleaching corals and then adding cultured algae to the water to see if other zooxanthellae varieties can help the corals adapt to the temperature shift. Corals do not expire immediately after expelling their zooxanthellae, but if they do not find another algae partner quickly enough, they will die.

In another set of experiments, the scientists plan to inject thermally resistant algae into the polyps that allow corals to reproduce. If these two trials succeed, they will try injecting these zooxanthellae into the oldest and largest coral colonies that produce the most larvae.

Ellen Pikitch, executive director of the Pew Institute for Ocean Science, said her group chose Baker's project because it offers the promise of preserving some of the world's most valuable corals.

"Reefs are under siege from many threats, but climate change is among the most serious risks to their survival," Pikitch said. "Dr. Baker's work gives us hope that the oldest corals might be saved."

Several experts, including Palumbi and Baker, caution that the experiment could fail. The process of exchanging algae partners is an evolutionary adaptation that has taken place over thousands of years, they say, and it remains unclear whether human engineering can accelerate that process.

"Yes, it might be doomed to failure," Baker said, adding that he has no choice but to try. Otherwise, he said, "We, as scientists, are sort of rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 Feb 08

Criminal Education?
another comment on captive marinelife on Hell Hath No Fury Like Nature Scorned blog

Hantu Dive
the usual favourites plus a new sighting on the colourful clouds blog

Tuas wetlands
last look at carnivorous plants and other delights before the area is converted to a bikers' track on the tidechaser blog and urban forest blog and manta blog and discovery blog

Kusu Island: isle of history
the historical role of this tiny island on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Sumatran Rhino Conservation Project (NYC-YEP)
on the nature scouter blog

Long-tailed parakeet eating palm fruits
on the bird ecology blog

A moth?
shared on the for the future of our forest blog

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Worldwide shortage of rice sends prices soaring

Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 18 Feb 08;

BANGKOK - AS THE price of rice climbs across South Asia, farmers and millers in Thailand are sitting on stocks and waiting for it to rise even further, said a top rice exporter in Bangkok.

The exporter, who requested anonymity, told The Straits Times: 'In my 25 years of trading, I have never seen such a bad position.'

There is a rice shortage in Bangladesh and China too, among other countries, while there is a wheat shortage in Afghanistan.

In local markets in Pakistan, the price of rice has gone up over the past month by more than 60 per cent year on year.

India recently contributed to soaring world prices when it imposed a ban on rice exports - relaxed only partially to allow some supplies to Madagascar, Mauritius, the Comoros Islands and cyclone-hit Bangladesh.

China has banned rice exports to ensure enough is available for domestic demand.

From Kansas to Kabul, high rice and wheat prices are worrying officials and economists, and beginning to hit consumers - especially tens of millions of poor people - harder than many can remember.

In Singapore, while rice importers and supermarkets have no problems getting the staple grain, prices have escalated.

In the past three months, prices have risen sharply by 30 per cent to 40 per cent, said a spokesman for rice importer Tong Seng Produce.

FairPrice, which has diversified its rice imports - with supplies coming from Australia, Thailand, Vietnam and India - has been able to secure its regular supply.

While prices of imported rice have spiked, its spokesman said the supermarket chain would try to hold prices steady for as long as it could.

Singapore imports rice from more than 20 countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Pakistan, the United States, Egypt and Australia.

The causes of the shortages and high prices are diverse, and vary from country to country.

They include natural disasters or adverse weather; high fuel prices, which add to transport costs; hoarding and smuggling of rice and wheat to take advantage of higher prices across national borders; and, in Pakistan, a shortage of electricity that is reportedly hampering mills from functioning at full capacity.

Only around 7 per cent of the world's rice supply is traded internationally, but it is a critical amount for any country facing a shortage because rice is also a political commodity.

Worldwide, economists are worried that the diversion of agricultural land and certain crops to biofuel production is cutting into grain and cereal production for human consumption.

The prices of rice and wheat are linked. India's ban was not as much in response to a shortage of rice as to worries over the coming wheat harvest.

Indian officials are waiting for the results of the March-April wh-

eat harvest as well as the rice harvest from south India to gain a fuller picture of their stocks.

In the United States, wheat futures in Kansas City, Chicago and Minneapolis have surged to record highs on forecasts of tighter supplies and continued strong demand at home and abroad.

A recent food price survey by the Farm Bureau in the American state of Missouri found that in the fourth quarter of last year, the retail price of a 20 ounce loaf of bread had already risen 30 US cents from the previous quarter to US$2 (S$2.80).

In South-east Asia, rice traders are waiting for the results of the rice harvest in another major producing country in the region - Vietnam.

In the meantime, Thailand is one of the few countries where rice is still available in large quantities. But it is not helping.

This year, rice prices are up 50 per cent over last year - their highest level in 20 years, by some estimates.

But Thailand's rice exporters - numbering between 150 and 200, but with the top 10 controlling up to 70 per cent of the export trade - are finding rice hard to come by because of stockpiling by farmers and millers.

They have also been hit by the rising baht.

'Exporters are finding it tough, and so are consumers of rice,' said the exporter who spoke to The Straits Times.

'Even non-rice traders have gotten into hoarding rice here, so exporters have not got it. The government's procurement price for paddy is 6,700 baht (S$301) per ton, but the real price is up to close to 9,000 baht per ton.'

While the Thai government has been releasing rice from its stocks, the volume has not been enough to alleviate the situation, he said.

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Little respite seen in rising food prices

Business Times 18 Feb 08;

(HONG KONG) Rising food prices have hit Asia's poor so hard that many have taken to the streets in protest, but analysts see few signs of respite from the growing problem.

An array of factors, from rising food demand and high oil prices to global warming, could make high costs for essentials such as rice, wheat and milk a permanent fixture, they say.

'The indications are in general pointing to high prices,' Abdolreza Abbassian, a senior grains analyst at the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation in Rome, told AFP.

The agency's figures show food prices globally soared nearly 40 per cent in 2007, helping stoke protests in Myanmar, Pakistan, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Yet, Asian economic growth is a key reason why prices rose, said Joachim von Braun, from the International Food Policy Research Institute.

'High growth in per capita income, especially in Asia, is driving demand for food,' said Mr von Braun, the Washington-based group's director-general.

At the same time, Asia's growth has left many of its poor behind, he added.

They spend between 50 and 70 per cent of their meagre incomes on food, making price rises especially debilitating.

'There was also a lack of investment in agriculture, particularly in science and technology and in irrigation,' Mr von Braun said.

Apart from overall higher food demand, changes in taste favouring meat are said to be pushing up prices, since farmed animals feed heavily on grain.

Drought and bad weather, high oil prices stoking transport costs, spiking biofuel demand and low reserves have also played their part, analysts say.

'In Australia, we lost almost a year of wheat due to drought,' said Katie Dean, an economist at ANZ Bank in Sydney.

Cold weather caused grain crops to fail in Europe and the United States, while bird flu culls and disease outbreaks hit Asian poultry and meat supply, she added, citing as an example pig diseases in China.

Elsewhere, Bangladesh is struggling to feed its poor after a 2007 cyclone destroyed US$600 million worth of its rice crop.

The price of rice rose around 70 per cent in Bangladesh last year. It now stands at around 50 US cents per kilogramme, but many Bangladeshis live on less than a dollar per day.

More recently, unexpected snowstorms swept across rice-growing areas in China, where rising food costs have already raised the fear of unrest.

Analysts are still wary of pinning the blame for these events explicitly on the impact of global warming.

But a Stanford University study found that climate change could cut South Asian millet, maize and rice production by 10 per cent or more by 2030.

Climate change, in particular the drive to cut greenhouse gas emissions from conventional fuels to curb global warming, has also driven demand for biofuels. The high cost of crude oil, which hit record levels in January, has made biofuel production more commercially viable.

Farmers are switching to growing crops such as corn or jatropha, a weed, to feed the biofuel industry rather than crops destined for the dinner table.

'Ambitious government biofuel targets are leading to pressure on prices and probably to some sort of structural increase overall in trend food prices,' said Ms Dean.

Thailand, for instance, now requires that all its diesel fuel includes a component made from palm oil, which is also used for cooking. However, the new regulation has sent palm oil prices soaring, contributing to shortages amid shrinking supplies.

The UN food agency's figures show the amount of US maize used for biofuel has doubled since 2003, and predict European wheat use for ethanol could rise 12-fold by 2016.

Such trends have led worried Asian governments to address the rise in food prices following popular unrest.

Indonesia has cut tariffs on soyabean imports, a staple food it gets mostly from the United States, and wants to curb its reliance on imports. Malaysia is to establish a national food stockpile. It recently arrested dozens of activists protesting food price rises.

Vietnam said that it would suspend rice exports, and India did so last year, said Duncan Macintosh, Manila-based development director for the International Rice Research Institute.

But while economists expect food supplies to rise somewhat in response to higher prices, Mr Macintosh said that others doubted it was that easy.

'Myanmar could increase rice production, Indonesia's got a bit of spare land, but there isn't some huge new area that could kick in quickly,' he said.

Urbanisation and industrialisation in Asia were eliminating farmland and soaking up scarce water resources, he added.

Meanwhile, government policies were trying to push people out of subsistence agricultural lives into the industrial sector and urban jobs. 'The key is to increase the productivity per hectare right across Asia,' he said. 'But that is a very long-term fix.'

'Even if prices fall,' cautioned Mr Abbassian, 'the chances they will come down substantially are perhaps not there.' - AFP

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China, wary of social unrest, scrambles to contain food prices

Business Times 18 Feb 08;

It wants to avoid mistakes of 1988 as inflation hits 10-year high of 6.9%

(HONG KONG) Rocketing food prices in China have sown deep concern among the communist leadership, ever wary of social unrest, as they fumble to control inflation without repeating past mistakes, analysts say.

Overall inflation in China is running at a 10-year high - around 6.9 per cent in November year-on-year, official statistics show.

Inflation is now being driven almost exclusively by increases in the price of food, in particular the staple meat, pork, which has spiked 60 per cent year-on-year.

Prices have faced even greater upward pressure in recent weeks, as severe weather has crippled the transport system at the time demand is greatest over the Chinese New Year.

A report by Credit Suisse said 10 per cent of China's farmland has been affected by the extreme cold, and one per cent could see a complete loss of crops and vegetables.

Price increases have been seen in food items ranging from cooking oil to apple juice, as China's growth and global demand creates what economists have dubbed 'agflation' referring specifically to rises in prices of agricultural commodities.

Analysts say authorities in Beijing are becoming increasingly concerned about the prospect of food prices getting out of hand, but add that the problem is not yet approaching the levels that led to widespread popular dissatisfaction almost a decade ago.

'They (the central government) are increasingly nervous about it,' said Andy Rothman, Shanghai-based China macro-strategist for CLSA. 'But it is a long, long way from the inflation problems before 1989.'

In January, the National Development and Reform Commission announced tightened supervision of prices for grain, edible oils, meat, poultry, eggs, feed and other items in both wholesale and retail markets. This followed the announcement in late December that from Jan 1 the government would slap taxes ranging from 5 to 25 per cent on exports of a range of products including wheat, corn, rice and soybeans to try and ensure stable food supplies at home.

The actions appeared to be stoked by memories of the widespread protests that resulted from the government's clumsy handling of food price controls that led to inflation of around 50 per cent in the summer of 1988. Public anger prompted the demonstrations that the following summer morphed into anti-government protests and the death at the hands of the army of hundreds, possibly thousands, of civilians.

Vincent Chan, head of China research for Credit Suisse, cited another change in recent months, saying people were now expecting price rises.

'If you look at the statistics, then China's inflation problem is simply a food inflation problem,' he said. 'In the past, we have not really had a problem of inflation expectation (but) this year we have already seen that. And that normally means that prices will rise.'

CLSA's Mr Rothman said pork price inflation is only a short-term problem, and predicted prices will start to fall back later this year.

'This is a supply problem. In 2006, pork prices had a 10-year low. There was not any incentive for farmers to raise more pigs. This was made worse by blue-ear disease which stopped supply when demand was rising,' he said.

The other major factor in Chinese inflation, cooking oil, was more complicated, he said, as 60 per cent of it is imported.

'The major contributor to the rise is US ethanol policy and there is little the Chinese can do about that,' he said.

Subsidies in the US have seen a major switch in land use to grow crops for fuel, rather than food, prompting worldwide increases in some staple foods.

The UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation said in October that China was expected to slash its exports of cereals from 7.7 million tonnes in 2006-7 to 6.2 million tonnes in 2007-8. At the same time it would probably increase imports to 10.1 million tonnes from 9.3 million tonnes.

China imported 32.2 million tonnes of oilcrops, including corn and soybeans, in 2006-7, which the FAO said was expected to rise to 37.3 million tonnes in 2007-8, with exports expected to fall to 1.3 million tonnes from 1.5 million tonnes.

Mr Rothman said there had been anecdotal evidence of subsidies to poor rural areas, which if accurate could indicate the government's willingness to take action to keep a lid on food prices and prevent any hint of social unease. -- AFP

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High global grain prices hit Japan's foodmakers

Business Times 18 Feb 08;

(TOKYO) Japanese producers of tofu, one of the country's traditional foods, are being squeezed by high global grain prices as they struggle to maintain profits while keeping down costs for consumers.

Major corporate food producers began a fresh round of price hikes this month, charging more for everything from beer, beef and mayonnaise to 'miso' paste made from fermented soy beans.

A recent survey found most Japanese firms believed they could pass on less than half of the increased costs to their customers, fearing that if they raised prices too high they would lose buyers.

Among the hardest hit foodmakers are mom-and-pop producers of tofu, the high-protein curd of soy milk which originated in China and is a staple food in Japan.

Small shops which supply nearby households with fresh tofu have tried hard not to raise their prices, but now say they see no other way to stay afloat.

'We have no choice but to increase the price of our tofu soon,' said Tokyo tofu maker Tadashi Ohfushi, as he worked in his tiny shop in the shadow of the glitzy Ginza shopping district.

The 77-year-old industry veteran, whose father began the family shop some 80 years ago, said he is paying about 10 per cent more for his raw ingredient than he was six months ago.

His bean wholesaler has hiked the price of domestically-produced soybeans by about 10 per cent in that time, while the international price of soybeans has nearly doubled in the past year.

A bushel ( 27 kilograms) of soybeans was trading at around US$12.50 in January on the Chicago Board of Trade, up from US$6.68 a year earlier.

Meanwhile, Japanese soybeans, priced by weight, sold for 7,267 yen (S$95.52) per 60 kilograms in January, up from a low for the year of 5,764 yen last July - but barely changed from the 7,257 yen a year earlier.

'Broadly speaking, the domestic soy price remained flat,' said an agricultural ministry official dealing with domestic farming and food products.

'But wholesalers, distributors and storage firms are charging more due to rising oil prices and other costs,' he said.

Tofu maker Mr Ohfushi recognised the trend and said he did not want to raise the price of his products to survive in the competitive market. 'But I think consumers and restaurants understand our situation. Soybean prices are very volatile,' he said.

A January survey of 8,761 companies by research group Teikoku Databank found 90 per cent of agricultural companies across Japan were feeling the pinch from rising raw material costs.

More than three-quarters of the firms said they could pass on no more than 50 per cent of the increased costs to clients, both retail and wholesale.

Many expressed worries that smaller firms would be hit hardest, as bigger companies often had the financial wherewithal to absorb some of the increased costs, the survey found.

The skyrocketing commodity prices have been hitting particularly hard since October and the pain is set to intensify.

Seasoning giant Kikkoman will raise the price of all of its soy sauce products by an average of 11 per cent from March 16 this year - its first price increase in 17 years.

'The current increase of raw material and oil prices is beyond our corporate efforts to cut costs and is putting us in an extraordinary situation,' said a statement by the company, which dates back to the 17th century.

Fellow giant company Nissin Food, whose founder created instant noodles, has hinted at another price hike as the government-set price of imported wheat is set to rise soon.

Nissin raised the price of its noodles in January, also its first hike in 17 years, by between 7 and 11 per cent.

'Wider use of bioethanol and biodiesel as well as massive flows of capital from investment funds are creating abnormality in the (grains) market,' Nissin Food president Koki Ando recently told reporters.

Policymakers have acknowledged the concerns, but resource-poor Japan is left with few options. The country relies on imports for 60 per cent of its food, a situation reinforced by a recent scare over Chinese-made dumplings laced with pesticide.

Farm Minister Masatoshi Wakabayashi suggested that consumers would have to endure the price hikes, as the corporate sector can only do so much to absorb the rising costs.

'By gaining understanding of consumers, I want to emphasise that we as a nation must overcome the price rise of grains,' he said in early January.

Chief Cabinet Secretary Nobutaka Machimura has worried that the trend could damage consumer spending, which the world's second largest economy badly needs in its ongoing recovery.

Consumption has been solid in recent years, and has formed the basis of Japan's economic recovery. But policymakers are concerned that rising food prices could cut into consumers' willingness to continue to spend at a time when world markets are being rattled by the financial woes currently facing the US economy.

'We are not seeing any sudden and rapid increase of the consumer price index. But it can surely affect consumers' propensity to spend,' Mr Machimura said.

For now, tofu maker Mr Ohfushi can only hope that consumers understand.

'I don't know what will happen in the future. But I think the soybean price will continue to rise,' he said. 'It doesn't seem normal not to raise our prices.' - AFP

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Sharks disappearing as fin chopping rises

Reuters 17 Feb 08;

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Populations of tiger, bull, dusky and other sea sharks have plummeted by more than 95 percent since the 1970s as fisherman kill the animals for their fins or when they scoop other fish from the ocean, according to an expert from the World Conservation Union, or IUCN.

At particular risk is the scalloped hammerhead shark, whose young swim mostly in shallow waters along shores all over the world to avoid predators.

The scalloped hammerhead will be listed on the 2008 IUCN Red List as globally "endangered" due to overfishing and high demand for its valuable fins in the shark fin trade, said Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN's shark specialist group.

"As a result of high and mostly unrestricted fishing pressure, many sharks are now considered to be at risk of extinction," Baum said in a statement.

The numbers of many other large shark species have plunged due to increased demand for shark fins and meat, recreational shark fisheries, as well as tuna and swordfish fisheries, where millions of sharks are taken as bycatch each year, said Baum, a fellow at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Last year, IUCN put the great hammerhead, the largest of the nine species of hammerhead, on the Red List as "endangered." IUCN said in September that numbers of the shark in the eastern Atlantic may have crashed by 80 percent in the last 25 years.

Hammerhead meat has a very low value but the sharks are among the most endangered species because their fins are highly prized for the Asian delicacy shark-fin soup. In shark finning, fishermen chop the fins of the animals and dump the sharks back into the sea.

Fishing for sharks in international waters is unrestricted, said Baum, who supports a recently adopted U.N. resolution calling for immediate shark catch limits and a ban on shark finning.

(Reporting by Timothy Gardner, editing by Stuart Grudgings)

Shark species face extinction, says research
The Telegraph 18 Feb 08;

Nine new species of sharks, including the scalloped hammerhead, are to be added to the official list of animals at global risk of extinction, scientists have revealed.

The World Conservation Union (IUCN) will add them to its "red list" of vulnerable species later this year after recent analyses showed over- fishing has reduced some populations by as much as 99 per cent.

Experts are particularly concerned at the rapid decline of the scalloped hammerhead, which the IUCN will list as "endangered" - its second highest of five levels of concern.

Sharks' fins are highly prized as a delicacy in Chinese cooking, and prices can reach as much as £150 per kg.

An estimated 100 million sharks are killed every year, with many fishermen simply slicing off their fins before throwing them back into the water where they usually drown or bleed to death.

Dr Julia Baum, a member of the IUCN's Shark Specialist Group, revealed the plans to add the species to the endangered list at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) conference in Boston.

Dr Baum, a marine ecologist at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego, said: "Our oceans are being emptied of sharks and the scale of the problem is global.

"If we carry on without doing anything about it we are looking at a high risk that some of these could be extinct within our lifetime.

"On the high seas and in international waters there are no regulations or catch limits. It's a free for all.

"Over the last decade conservation concerns have been mounting. Now we need to convert that into action to introduce effective measures that are strictly enforced."

There are 126 sharks listed as at risk of extinction - defined by the IUCN as critically endangered, endangered or vulnerable.

Research by Dr Baum and colleagues found numbers of tiger, bull, dusky, smooth and scalloped hammerhead shark have collapsed by between 95 and 99 per cent off the US east coast since 1970.

Last year the Shark Specialist Group of the IUCN met to assess the risks to oceanic shark species - those that are highly mobile and live primarily in the open ocean, away from coastal areas.

Apart from classifying the scalloped hammerhead as endangered, the smooth hammerhead, the shortfin mako, the bigeye thresher and the common thresher will be listed as vulnerable.

Tiger, dusky and bull sharks will either be classed as vulnerable or "near threatened" - a category defined as close to the threshold for risk of extinction. The silky shark will also be classed as near threatened.

Scalloped hammerheads congregate in large numbers around seamounts and islands, making them easy targets for fishermen. It takes 16 years for them to reach maturity, meaning that populations take a long time to recover.

There are no catch limits in international waters and existing bans on "finning" are ineffective. Spanish fishing fleets in particular have been targeting sharks.

Millions of sharks are also taken by recreational fishermen and as bycatch by fleets fishing for tuna and swordfish.

In December the United Nations passed a resolution calling for catch limits and true shark-finning bans, and the European Union is currently drawing up a plan of action.

Sonja Fordham, of the Shark Alliance conservation alliance, said: "People think these wide-ranging, fast sharks are resilient to fishing; however, this is not the case.

"Concerned citizens can really help by making their fisheries ministers aware that they support conservation measures such as catch limits."

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Six Sumatra Orang-Utans to be released into Jambi National Park

Antara 17 Feb 08;

Jambi (ANTARA News) - Six Sumatra orang-utans (Pongo pigmaeus abelii) from the Sumatra Orang-Utan Quarantine Center in Batu Mbelin Village, Sibolangit Subdistrict, Deli Serdang, North Sumatra province, were scheduled to arrive at Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park (TNBT) in Tebo Regency, Jambi, on February 19, 2008.

They are leaving North Sumatra for their destination by land on February 18, 2008, and were slated to arrive in Tebo regency on the following day, Head of the Jambi Province Natural Reserve Conservation Institute (BKSDA) Agung Setyabudi said in Jambi on Sunday.

The government has turned the Jambi-Riau TNBT into a protection and breeding ground of the Sumatra orang-utan.

Previously the six orang-utans were quarantined for 20 months at the Sumatra Orang-Utan Quarantine Center of the North Sumatra Lestari Ecosystem Foundation (YEL).

The six big apes as confiscated objects of the Nanggroe Aceh Darussalam (NAD) Natural Reserve Conservation Agency (BKSDA) are called Ahmad (13), Mopi and Deknong (8), Cut and Yanti (6), and Anjeli (5).

The six orang-utans will bring the total number of orang-utans set free into the Bukit Tiga Puluh National Park to 100.

It was estimated that only 6,500 Sumatra orang-utans still survived today and are living in the Leuser exosystem area and in the Batangtoru protected forests in North Sumatra. (*)

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Migratory birds disappear in China storms

Yahoo News 18 Feb 08;

About 100,000 migratory birds disappeared in recent fierce snow storms in eastern China, state media reported Sunday.

About 95 percent of the world's white cranes, half of the white-naped cranes and 60 percent of swan geese are believed to migrate to a nature reserve at Poyang Lake each year in Jiangxi province, Xinhua news agency said.

Poyang Lake is China's biggest fresh water lake and an internationally significant wetland area.

Hundreds of workers at the reserve distributed grain, corn and vegetables but found only 40,000 birds, leaving about 100,000 unaccounted for, said Luo Shengjin, deputy director of the reserve.

Luo said no mass deaths had been uncovered and the birds could have migrated elsewhere. But the reserve was still concerned and was planning to employ helicopters to widen the search for the missing birds.

The worst weather in decades hit large areas of China last month, killing at least 107 people and causing more than 15 billion dollars in economic losses, according to official figures.

180,000 stranded as big freeze returns to China
Straits Times 18 Feb 08;

BEIJING - ALMOST 180,000 people have been stranded in the south-western Chinese province of Yunnan after snow and freezing weather returned, state media reported yesterday.

The bad weather blocked roads and caused blackouts.

More than 14,000km of roads have been affected, and 20,000 vehicles are stuck, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

Like much of southern, central and eastern China, Yunnan had slowly been recovering from unseasonably snowy and icy weather which brought transport to a near standstill ahead of the Chinese New Year holiday and left millions without power.

However, snow returned to Yunnan on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

'The repairs were greatly hampered by the plateau climate, poor facilities and shortage of money. The workers do not even have special anti-freeze or snow-removing equipment,' Xinhua reported.

The government is also struggling to bring the electricity grid back up in Yunnan's second largest city, Qujing, where more than two million people are affected.

But in a piece of good news, the government announced yesterday that almost 90 per cent of the people who had experienced power cuts in large swathes of the country are now reconnected, with more than 14,000 damaged power lines repaired. As of Saturday night, power had been restored to 23.28 million people.

The winter storms - the worst in five decades - began on Jan 10 and have killed at least 107 people and caused 111.1 billion yuan (S$22 billion) in economic damage.

Yesterday, weather officials forecast that snow or sleet will continue to fall on southern China over the next three days, Xinhua said.

Yunnan, the south-western Tibet region, as well as Qinghai and Gansu provinces in north-west China would experience heavy snow or sleet.

REUTERS

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Southern Ocean rise due to warming, not ice melts

Michael Byrnes, Reuters 17 Feb 08;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Rises in the sea level around Antarctica in the past decade are almost entirely due a warming ocean, not ice melting, an Australian scientist leading a major international research program said.

The 15-year study of temperature and salinity changes in the Southern Ocean found average temperatures warmed by about three-tenths of a degree Celsius.

Satellites also measured a rise of about 2 centimeters (about an inch) in seas in the southern polar region over an area half the size of Australia, Rintoul told Reuters.

"The biggest contribution so far has been from warming of the oceans through expansion," said Steve Rintoul, Australian leader of an Australian-French-U.S. scientific program.

Melting sea ice or Antarctic ice shelves jutting into the ocean do not directly add to sea level rises.

Rintoul was speaking as French ship L'Astrolabe prepared to depart on Monday from Hobart, on Australia's southern island of Tasmania, for its fifth voyage of the current summer season for the Surveillance of the Ocean Astral (Survostral) program.

The research program has been taking temperature and salinity readings for 15 years to a depth of 700 meters along the 2,700 km, six-day route between Hobart and the Antarctic.

This has produced the longest continuous record of temperature and salinity changes in the Southern Ocean for scientists studying how the ocean contributes to global climate.

"Survostral has given us a foundation for much of what is known about the way the ocean in this inhospitable and difficult-to-access region controls the global climate," Rintoul said.

The project leader said sea level rise was not uniform in the Southern Ocean and that rises were not guaranteed to continue at the same rate in the future.

The study had also shown that the Southern Ocean's uptake of carbon dioxide changed with the seasons.

In summer, an increase in phytoplankton brought about by the greater light caused the Southern Ocean to absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than in colder months, he said.

The study showed that as waters warmed, some species of phytoplankton were extending further south, although more research was needed to determine the importance of this finding.

"What's significant is that we've detected changes in the physical environment and now we're also detecting changes in the biology in response to those physical changes.

"The next challenge is to figure out what these biological changes mean for carbon uptake and for higher levels of the food chain," he said.

Tiny phytoplankton are at the bottom of the food chain and are a crucial food source for a number of species.

Investigations by the L'Astrolabe in the world's largest ocean current between Tasmania and Antarctica had shown that deep streams of water were taking warming deep into the ocean.

"The program started as just measuring temperature and salinity. We've now recently begun a much more comprehensive chemistry and biology program of measurements," Rintoul said.

This would widen the scientific investigation to the impact of climate change on biology and on the carbon cycle, he said.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

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Rapid sinking of Mississippi Delta only skin deep: study

Marlowe Hood, Yahoo News 17 Feb 08;

Other major delta areas already feeling the impact of rising sea levels include Mumbai and Kolkata in India, as well as Shanghai and Dhaka. "Tokyo also has a major subsidence problem," he added.

The Mississippi Delta is sinking fast, posing a challenge for the rebuilding of coastal Louisiana after the devastation wrought in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, a study released Sunday confirmed.

Across large swathes of southern Louisiana, average annual subsidence of five-to-10 millimetres (0.2 to 0.4 inches) have contributed to sea-level rise, shoreline erosion and wetland loss, they said.

The findings have implications for delta regions around the world -- home to tens of millions of people -- already threatened by rising sea levels caused by global warming, the researchers told AFP.

But the study, published in Nature, also shows for the first time that the sinking of the Mississippi Delta is, geologically speaking, only skin deep, limited to a layer of peaty sediment less than 100 meters (300 feet) thick.

This is good news, say the researchers, because it means that flood-control structures -- if anchored in the rock-hard stratum below this softer, organic-rich layer -- stand a better chance of remaining stable and not subsiding.

The new findings could also help determine the effect of coastal restoration projects, such as plans to divert water and sediment from the Mississippi River to depleted wetlands.

The prevailing theory up to now has been that subsidence occurs deeper beneath the surface in Earth's crust due to the crushing weight of accumulating sediment.

But the study "shows that the high rates of subsidence at the land surface can be quite easily explained by what happens in the shallow subsurface, say 50 to 100 meters (150 to 300 feet)," Torbjorn Tornqvist, director of the Coastal Centre of the US Department of Energy's National Institute for Climate Change Research, told AFP.

Some parts of New Orleans, he said, had sunk more than two meters in five or six decades, caused in large measure by artificial drainage.

Tornqvist, a professor at Tulane University in New Orleans, and colleagues punched more than 100 holes up to 15 meters (50 feet) deep in the Bayou Lafourche region and used radiocarbon-dating to examine the sediment cores.

They found that rates of subsidence over the last 1,000 years were at least five millimeters a year, and up to twice that in shallower sediment.

Tens of millions of people around the world live in low-lying deltas caught between the scissors of land subsidence -- caused by depleted water tables and dense human habitation -- and rising sea levels driven by climate change.

"Compaction is a problem in many of these cities, often enhanced by human activities such as groundwater extraction," said Tornqvist, citing Manila and Bangkok as good examples.

Oil and gas withdrawal can also be factors in subsidence, he added.

Compaction is the process that squeezes water out of sediment, leading to a decrease in volume and accelerated sinking of land surfaces.

Other major delta areas already feeling the impact of rising sea levels include Mumbai and Kolkata in India, as well as Shanghai and Dhaka. "Tokyo also has a major subsidence problem," he added.

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