Best of our wild blogs: 22 Feb 08

Last series of Chek Jawa project trips
on the cj project blog and wildfilms blog

Go wild on a landfill: Pulau Semakau
Fabulous sightings and lyrical thoughts on the ramblings of a peculiar nature blog and nature scouters blog

Beach combing on Labrador
adorable finds by adorable angels whose bane appears to be Mr Lim on the labrador blog

Legends of our Turtle Island
sea legends of Kusu on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Olive-backed Sunbird’s nest destroyed by a macaque
on the bird ecology blog

Biodiesel in Singapore
made from 100% waste vegetable oil, how to get it on the Asia Is Green blog

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Hamster fad in Singapore a worrying trend

Letter from Retnam Thillainathan, Straits Times Forum 22 Feb 08;

I READ with trepidation the report, 'Rodents are favoured pets in Year of the Rat' (Feb 20).

The report said that many people are buying pets like hamsters and guinea pigs, and they buy them in pairs for double luck. Rats are not on the shopping list because they are considered 'filthy pests'.

Hamsters and guinea pigs are prolific producers. In pairs, they would multiply quickly. What are the owners going to do about the 'population explosion'?

My concern is simple. People should not buy a pet unless they are committed to caring for it for the term of its lifespan. I hope and pray that there will not be more abandoned animals.

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Breeding fish to eat larvae not always suitable

Reply from NEA, Straits Times Forum 22 Feb 08;

WE REFER to the letter, 'Breed fish that devour mozzie larvae' (Feb 13).

Using natural predators has always been part of the World Health Organisation's (WHO) integrated vector management strategy which the National Environment Agency (NEA) supports.

In Singapore, such natural predators like the Gambusia holbrooki fish (also known as Gambusia affinis or the mosquito-fish) are already commonly found in our rural streams, canals, drains, ponds and reservoirs.

The Tilapia is another fish present in our water bodies, which also helps to remove mosquito larvae. There is also a common understanding that the Gambusia helps to remove mosquito larvae along the edges of the water bodies that cannot be reached easily by the larger Tilapia.

While the use of fish as a natural predator is suitable for large water bodies, it is not suitable for small pockets of stagnant water.

Mosquitoes can breed in a drop of stagnant water as small as the size of a 20-cent coin. NEA's primary strategy for mosquito control is to reduce and remove any potential mosquito breeding sites. Source reduction is the most effective way to control mosquitoes.

We urge everyone to prevent Aedes mosquito breeding by removing all stagnant water at home. Dengue or chikungunya can be made less of a threat if everyone takes steps to prevent mosquito breeding. This is the most effective 'weapon' in our fight against mosquito-borne diseases.

We thank your reader for the suggestion and appreciate his concern.

S. Satish Appoo
Director, Environmental Health Department
National Environment Agency

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Seagull cull urged in Australian tuna zone

ABC News 21 Feb 08;

Port Lincoln's mayor says tuna farmers should be allowed to shoot seagulls at fish feedlots to help ease an explosion in numbers of the birds.

Peter Davis says authorised methods of control such as destroying eggs on Boston Island are not working.

He says he has returned his permit to the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

Mr Davis says the problem needs to be tackled at tuna farms where the seagulls feed.

He says the booming seagull numbers are destroying the environment.

"Because of the political pressure exerted by well-intentioned environmentalists, bird lovers, predominantly in the capital cities - any farmer will tell you it is a dead-set cinch using rifle fire to very quickly discourage the pest bird - the birds are intelligent," he said.

Regional conservator for National Parks Ross Belcher says there are already strategies to eventually reduce seagull numbers.

He says shooting the birds from boats would not be acceptable.

"To suggest to shoot a bird on the wing from a boat that's bobbing up and down in the ocean is probably not going to produce a very good result," he said.

"You could have wounded birds, you could miss them and you could have projectiles flying all over the place."

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China to put 1.6 million fish into lake to clear algae

Xinhua 20 Feb 08;

HEFEI, Feb. 20 (Xinhua) -- East China's Anhui Province has resorted to the biological measure of using algae-eating fish to clear the polluted Chaohu Lake, the country's fifth largest body of freshwater.

This week, Chaohu Fishery Administration put more than 50,000 silver carp fry into the lake. It will add another 1.55 million in the coming 20 days, said deputy director Wu Changjun on Wednesday.

A silver carp will have eaten between 40 and 50 kilograms of blue algae when it reaches one kilogram. The school of fish is expected to effectively curb the blue algae pollution.

The fish could also sell for 7.5 million yuan (1.05 million U.S. dollars) on the market by year end, 15 times the investment in the fry. While the fishery authority has paid for the fry, fishermen are free to catch the mature fish, according to Wu.

From June to August last year, the nutrient runoffs and other pollutants caused blue-green algaes to bloom in the country's Taihu, Chaohu and Dianchi lakes, endangered water supply in nearby cities and posed great threat to aquatic life.

Blue-green algae has caused water pollution in the lakes where whitebait production is declining.

The output of whitebait, a small sprat famous for its fresh and tender meat, has dropped by 500 tons, 20 percent lower than last year's fishing season compared with the year previous.

An algae outbreak in the eastern Taihu Lake, the country's third largest freshwater lake, provided an alert at the end of Mayas it rendered tap water undrinkable for about 10 days for more than one million residents in Wuxi, Jiangsu Province.

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Dead dolphin was near site of US Navy sonar tests

Kenneth R. Weiss, Los Angeles Times 22 Feb 08;

Researchers say it's too early to tell if the rare animal died because of exposure to the active sonar.

A deep-diving dolphin died on the beach of the Navy's San Nicolas Island late last month during the final days of Navy exercises using a type of sonar that has been linked to fatal injuries of whales and dolphins.

Although researchers have yet to determine a cause of death, a dissection of the northern right whale dolphin's head revealed blood and other fluid in the ears and ear canals. Those same symptoms were found in deep-diving whales that washed ashore in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas after military sonar exercises.

Unlike the mass strandings of whales on the Canary Islands in 2002 and the Bahamas in 2000, only the one dolphin washed ashore Jan. 29 on San Nicolas. That occurred just as the Navy's Third Fleet in San Diego was wrapping up sonar training that has become the focus of a federal court fight and elicited an effort by President Bush to intervene.

Teri Rowles, the lead veterinarian with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cautioned against jumping to conclusions until a panel of expert radiologists can review magnetic resonance images of the dolphin's head and federal pathologists can scrutinize various tissues for disease as well as for air and fat bubbles associated with sonar-related injuries.

"At this point, we cannot rule in or rule out sonar or any other kind of intense noise," said Rowles, head of the nation's Marine Mammal Health and Stranding Response Program. "This one is perplexing at this point."

The dolphin death comes at a delicate time for the Navy, which has appealed a federal court order imposing extra safeguards to protect whales from possible harm caused by mid-frequency active sonar.

"There is no evidence that any type of naval activities caused or contributed to this dolphin's death," said Lt. Mark Walton, a spokesman for the Navy's Third Fleet.

In an appeal filed last week, the Navy stated: "During the last 40 years, there has been no documented incidents of harm, injury or death of marine mammals resulting from exposure to [mid-frequency active] sonar" in Southern California waters."

Lawyers for the Navy argue that a federal court order has no scientific basis to require the Navy to shut down sonar when marine mammals are spotted within 2,200 yards and to avoid areas along the coast and between some of the Channel Islands that are known for their abundance of marine mammals.

These and other court-imposed conditions, Navy officials said, hamper the ability to train sailors to use sonar to detect quiet-running diesel-electric submarines now operated by Iran, China, North Korea and other potentially hostile nations.

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has promised to rule on the Navy's latest appeal by March 3, so the Navy will have time to petition the U.S. Supreme Court before its next two rounds of sonar testing scheduled to begin in March.

Navy officials first spotted the right whale dolphin washed up on the north end of San Nicolas Island on Jan. 29, as the aircraft carrier Lincoln and its supporting warships were conducting war games to certify that they were prepared to meet threats of all kinds, including submarine attacks, before shipping out to the Persian Gulf in March.

The closest warship using sonar was 62 miles away the previous day and was not part of the exercise, said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Navy spokesman at the Pentagon.

The animal first washed ashore alive and Navy personnel pushed it back into the water several times in an attempt to save the dolphin before it finally died on the beach the next morning. The Navy flew the carcass to Santa Barbara Airport, where curators at the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History picked it up and performed a necropsy.

The female dolphin, at 6 feet 9 inches long, was a slender 132 pounds but appeared in good shape except for scrapes and scratches from washing up on the rocks, said Michelle Berman, an associate curator at the museum. This type of dolphin, sleek black with no dorsal fin and a white hourglass marking on its belly, had no obvious signs that would indicate a cause of death, she said.

The curators worked all night to perform the necropsy because clues are lost to rapid decomposition. The head was removed and refrigerated, then taken to the nearby Alamo Pintado Equine Medical Center for magnetic resonance imaging.

The initial review, Rowles said, confirmed increased fluid in the ears.

"That could be blood; it could be infection or parasites -- those are the three more common causes of fluid in the ears," she said. Or it could be trauma related to sonar.

"The lesions that we have seen to date are consistent to what has been found in whales in the Canary Islands and the Bahamas," Rowles said.

The most telling indications will not come until pathologists can complete microscopic examination of the brain, the ears and other tissues to look for gas or fat bubbles and related hemorrhaging. That's what showed up in the acoustic jaws, ears, brain and kidneys in 10 of 14 beaked whales that died after international naval exercises using mid-frequency sonar.

Scientists in the journal Nature theorized that these deep-diving whales may have panicked and bolted to the surface, causing decompression sickness, similar to the “bends” or air embolisms that can affect human divers. The problem arises when gas bubbles, compressed under the pressure of depth, expand rapidly and tear delicate tissues, like bubbles bursting from a newly popped bottle of champagne.

The microscopic analysis of most tissues should take about a month, Rowles said. It could take as long as a year to examine the ears because the bones must be slowly dissolved in fluid to peek at soft tissues inside.

Rowles expects other lab results within a week that could rule out whether the dolphin was poisoned by a neurotoxin, called domoic acid, produced by certain algae that blooms in California waters.

Joe Cordaro, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service, said about 20,000 right whale dolphins live in waters off California, Oregon and Washington. Strandings of these animals occur rarely, seldom more than once or twice a year, he said.

Right whale dolphins are social animals, seen gamboling in the waters in pods of hundreds and sometimes thousands. So if the death is linked to sonar, it would be unusual that only one animal washed ashore.

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Japanese turn backs on whaling: Greenpeace survey

MORE than two thirds of Japanese people do not support their country's whaling in the Southern Ocean, a survey reveals.

And 87 per cent of the Japanese population were surprised to learn their tax money was being used to subsidise the increasingly-unpopular whaling operation.

The survey, commissioned by Greenpeace, found that while 31 per cent of people backed whaling, 25 per cent opposed it and 44 per cent had no opinion on the issue.

The figures were more stark when it came to whaling on the "high seas", as opposed to coastal whaling, which is viewed with nostalgia by many Japanese.

More than 70 per cent of the Japanese surveyed disagreed with high seas whaling.

Even among those people who said they supported whaling, 40 per cent were against the high seas operation.

Greenpeace Australia whale campaigner Rob Nicoll said the results of the survey differed markedly from those in a recent poll by a Japanese newspaper.

"While (that) poll seemed to find the majority of Japanese people support whaling, they failed to distinguish high seas whaling from coastal whaling, which has a nationalistic and romantic traditional notion for many," Mr Nicoll said.

Related articles

Majority of Japanese support whaling: poll
Reuters 8 Feb 08;

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Sharkwater - we can stop shark fin trade

Rob Stewart, The Telegraph 21 Feb 08;

In August of 1999, I was a 19-year-old photographer on assignment to photograph sharks in the Galapagos Islands. Instead of finding sharks in all their majesty underwater, I ended up cutting dead and dying sharks from kilometres of illegally set long lines with thousands of baited hooks.

The experience launched me on a journey to uncover why there was such a huge demand for sharks, even in the most protected national parks on Earth.

The simple answer was the growing demand for shark fin soup.

Through much of Asia, shark fin soup is a status symbol of wealth and served as a sign of respect. A single pound of shark fin can sell for more than £150.

Shark bodies don't have substantial value, so fishermen started finning: discarding the bodies and keeping only the fins.

The huge demand for fins, and poor fishing regulations have decimated shark populations in every ocean on Earth.

Studies from Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada have shown that shark populations, as well as populations of all large predators in the oceans have dropped an estimated 90 per cent in the last 30 years.

Some species of shark, such as the tiger, bull and dusky shark have dropped by more than 95 per cent.

I realised that sharks were going to be wiped out, largely because nobody knew what was going on in the oceans, and if they did know, they didn't care because they were afraid of sharks.

In 2002 I set out to make Sharkwater, a film that would bring the public closer to sharks than ever before. I thought if people could understand sharks, and see them as beautiful, necessary animals, they would fight for their protection.

I joined Captain Paul Watson, founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society, in Los Angeles. Watson's ship, the Ocean Warrior, was going to Cocos, Costa Rica, by invitation from the Costa Rican president to deter poaching within the ill-protected marine reserve.

Through my journey with Paul, we collided with a pirate finning boat, were charged with attempted murder, exposed corrupt governments, fled for our lives from machine-gun toting coast guards, and started filming ourselves to keep ourselves out of prison. This journey changed the film from a beautiful shark movie to a human drama spanning four years, 15 countries, that nearly ended my life.

Currently only a couple of dozen countries, including those in the EU, have banned shark finning, mostly in the last five years. As with any fishery, there is a lag time between the exploitation and the realisation and acknowledgement by the public.

Only in 2004 was the first fish placed on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES). Some species of sharks have recently been listed on CITES, and they happen to be the most recognisable - the great white - or the likeable whale and basking sharks, which are large filter feeders that support thriving tourist industries.

Protection is much more difficult to acquire for other less charismatic, but equally or more gravely endangered shark species such as the oceanic whitetip shark, whose populations are estimated to have declined by 99 per cent in the Gulf of Mexico.

Our failure to protect the oceans is largely because what's out of sight is out of mind. We don't see underwater exploitation the same way we see it on land, and thus most of our concern and environmental policy lies above the surface.

We waste an estimated 54 billion pounds of fish every year, and fisheries worldwide are expected to collapse by 2048.

We're destroying species in the ocean in ways that could never happen on land simply because we wouldn't stand for it.

We are, however, capable of great change if made aware of the issue, as demonstrated with whaling.

The situation for whales has turned around through public pressure, forcing the International Whaling Commission into existence. Sharks can be saved only if the public knows what's happening.

Recent studies from Dalhousie University suggest that the first early warning signs of ecosystem collapse are now present due to the removal of large sharks and predators from their environment.

This scenario is similar in reaction to the "top down" phenomenon of removing predators demonstrated on the west coast of North America with the sea otter. Sea otters were hunted for their pelts, which removed pressure from their main food source, the urchins.

Urchin populations exploded, eating the kelp forests that were the breeding grounds of the pacific herring. Without the herring, populations of whales, dolphins, sea lions, sharks and large fish were nearly eliminated.

Similarly, Ransom Myers and Julia Baum's recent study [Science, March 2007] has shown that the removal of sharks from the Atlantic coast has caused some of their food populations, such as smaller sharks, skates and rays, to explode in numbers, decimating populations of shellfish, and wiping out century old fisheries.

This is just the beginning in a cascade of events analogous but far greater than the otter/kelp example from the west coast.

The difference is, we've removed the top predator from every ocean - the predator that has been shaping the oceans for more than 400 million years and has seen life on Earth rebuild five times - and the food web that will be affected includes humans.

I set out to make Sharkwater because I know that humans' sustainable use of the planet is inevitable, or we will cease to exist. Ninety-nine per cent of all species that ever existed are now extinct.

Humans have lived on Earth less than a million years, a small fraction of the time other successful species have.

Just as humanity has evolved in the past towards cultural and racial equality, humans are at another crossroads where their evolution as a species towards a more sustainable use of the planet is a necessity. As bleak as the situation seems, there is hope. Examples of fisheries that have recovered and become viable again exist the world over, and examples of sustainable use of the oceans have existed throughout history.

We do however need a renewed view of the ocean - not as a toxic waste dump, but as a source for life and an essential part of the Earth as an ecosystem. Life on land depends on life in the oceans. Seventy per cent of the oxygen we breathe comes from life in the oceans that sits below sharks in the food chain.

By killing sharks, we're destroying the top predator from the most important ecosystem for our own survival. Just as awareness was gained for whales, and the consumption of tiger, panda or elephant is now taboo, sharks can be saved.

Despite the seemingly bleak situation, our hope lies in the majesty of the Earth itself. Our home is a single planet amongst billions that supports life so diverse in ecosystems that life has perpetuated for 3.5 billion years.

Now evolution has sculpted a species [humans] so sophisticated that it can destroy the natural world upon which it depends… or awaken, and choose to live in balance.
# Rob Stewart is the director/star of the award-winning new documentary Sharkwater, which opens in selected cinemas nationwide on 22nd February. For more information, go to www.sharkwater.com .

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Office waste costs UK business £15bn, campaigners say

Jessica Aldred, guardian.co.uk 21 Feb 08;

Campaigners are taking a giant rubbish bin to the streets of London today to highlight how much waste is generated in offices around the UK in a single day.

Envirowise, a government-funded group that advises business on sustainability, said bad waste practices are costing UK industry at least £15bn each year.

Today's One Bin Day campaign marks an effort to illustrate the problem and to prompt office works to rethink the way they use materials and handle waste.

The group is parading a giant, two-and-a-half metre high waste paper bin around the capital - made from the 1,584 sheets of paper that the average office worker prints off in a month - and urging the nation's 25 million office workers to use just one bin per office.

"One Bin Day is designed to make people think about what they buy, use and throw away," said Envirowise programme director, Martin Gibson.

"Much of what we discard can be reduced or recycled, but the convenience of a bin right by your desk makes for a big temptation to throw away valuable resources."

Envirowise wants offices to remove individual desk bins and force workers to walk to just one central bin.

"The visual impact can be staggering," Gibson said. "If workers follow their normal practices, the central bin will soon be overflowing within a matter of hours. This will help focus attention on just how much is used and thrown away daily. Once people start thinking about how they use things, they often think of how to reduce the amount they use, and improve the reuse and recycling of what is left."

Earlier today the giant bin was on London Bridge, and will later move to office commuter hotspots such as Liverpool Street and Victoria stations.

Envirowise says that approximately 70% of office waste is recyclable, but on average only 7.5% reaches a recycling facility. Some 80.6m tonnes of printing and writing paper enters the waste stream each year in the UK - 24% of total UK waste, figures show.

Recycling one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, three cubic yards of landfill space, and 4,000 kilowatts of energy. The average office worker uses 50 sheets of paper a day in unnecessary printing, figures show.

At 17.7%, Britain has one of the lowest recycling rates in Europe for the 335m tonnes of solid waste it produces each year.

Food waste accounts for one-fifth of all waste nationally, while Britons throw away 12bn aluminium cans and 6bn bottles a year, Envirowise said.

Waste from households, commerce and industry continues to grow by 3% a year. To help address this the group has put together a publication for offices that want to find out more about reducing waste, at envirowise.gov.uk.

Their tips include:

• Set the office printer to print on both sides of the paper by default.
• Use electronic communication where possible to reduce printing and faxing.
• Don't print out emails unless absolutely necessary. Add "Think before you print" to the bottom of email signatures as a prompt to others.
• Avoid over-production of marketing and publicity material by reviewing distribution lists and regularly updating databases.
• Collect all paper that has been printed on one side and reuse it for printing in draft, or for scrap message pads.
• Reuse envelopes wherever possible, especially for sending information internally.
• Place recycling bins in all offices.
• Ensure that vending machines allow the use of china mugs rather than plastic vending cups.
• Avoid purchasing disposable catering products such as milk jiggers, sugar sachets and paper plates.

The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE) tested the use of one central bin in its estates division last year. It provided recycling bins for paper, cans and glass, and a communal lidded bin for waste going to landfill in an office of 30 staff.

"The campaign has been so successful at cutting waste and increasing environmental awareness that all new staff are briefed on how the scheme operates; we now only use transparent bin bags so we can be more aware of the waste we produce instead of hiding it in black bin bags; and we're extending the one bin provision to other departments at the LSE," said Victoria Hands, the college's environmental and sustainability manager.

Campaign to reduce unnecessary office waste
Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 21 Feb 08;

A campaign aimed at cutting the huge amounts of unnecessary waste generated by offices has been launched.

Organisers say poor waste practices cost British industry £15bn per year with more than 80m tonnes of printing and writing paper thrown out in the UK annually.

The One Bin campaign launched by the sustainable business organisation Envirowise is intended to hammer home the recycling message.

By removing individual desk bins and forcing people to walk to just one central bin, Envirowise hopes to make the nation's 25m office workers think twice about the way they use materials and handle waste.

Programme director Dr Martin Gibson said: "One Bin Day is designed to make people think about what they buy, use and throw away. It highlights how much waste a typical office can generate in just one day. Much of what we discard can be reduced or recycled but the convenience of a bin right by your desk makes for a big temptation to throw away valuable resources."

The average office worker can get through 50 sheets of paper daily and although about 70 per cent of office waste is recyclable only about 10 per cent goes for recycling.

Dr Gibson said: "The visual impact can be staggering. If workers follow their normal practices, the central bin will soon be overflowing within a matter of hours.

"This will help focus attention on just how much is used and thrown away daily. Once people start thinking about how they use things, they often think of how to reduce the amount they use and improve the reuse and recycling of what is left."

For an overview of the campaign see www.envirowise.gov.uk/onebinday.

Facts and figures
# The UK produces 335m tonnes of solid waste every year but we only recycle 17.7 per cent of it - one of the worst rates in Europe.

# Waste costs UK industry at least £15bn a year.

# Britons create their own body weight in waste every five days.

# 80 per cent of all products are thrown away after just one use.

# The UK produces 3m tonnes of plastic waste each year. Approximately 85 per cent is landfilled, 8 per cent incinerated and 7 per cent recycled.

# Industry, commerce and household waste is collectively growing by 3 per cent per annum.

# Food waste accounts for 21 per cent of total waste and is the largest single proportion of all waste.

# Collectively, paper and card are the next most commonly collected material for recycling, accounting for 28 per cent of all recycling.

# The average office worker gets through up to 50 sheets of paper a day, a lot of which is unnecessary printing.

# In the UK nearly 5m tonnes of paper is dumped in landfill or incinerated every year.

# Recycling just one tonne of paper can save 7,000 gallons of water. It also saves 17 trees, 380 gallons of oil, 3 cubic yards of landfill space and 4,000 kilowatts of electricity - more electricity than the average household uses in a year.

# We throw away 12bn aluminium cans in the UK every year.

# It takes as much energy to make one new aluminium can from raw materials as it does to make twenty from recycled aluminium.

# We throw away five of every six bottles sold in the UK. This means over 6bn bottles are going to landfill every year.

# The energy saved by recycling just one bottle will power a computer for 25 minutes.

# If you recycle just one glass bottle you will save enough energy to power a 60 watt light bulb for 6 hours.

# Computer monitors use twice the energy of PCs - switch monitors off when away from your desk for meetings or lunch.

# 70 per cent of office waste is recyclable - but on average only 7.5 per cent reaches a recycling facility.

# Landfill taxes are rising by 32 per cent a year so it makes sense on all fronts to sort your waste out sooner rather than later.

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Eco-Singapore takes on Earth Hour 2008: A Singapore Grassroot Movement

Email from Wilson Ang of Eco-Singapore:

Dear All,

On the 29th March 2008 at 8pm, cities across the world will turn off their lights for one hour, supporting the Earth Hour 2008 campaign by World Wildlife Fund. This will send a powerful global message that collectively, we can take action on global warming. Earth Hour aims to reach out to individuals, spreading the word of Earth Hour to all.

ECO Singapore has taken the initiative this year to work on this campaign by pro-actively reaching out to the grassroots such as the schools, Community Clubs and Residents' Committees.

We sincerely hope to be able to reach out individuals like yourself to spread on this campaign and its message.

The collective action that everyone will be doing across cities is to turn off their lights on 29th March 2008 from 8pm to 9pm local time.

It is a grassroot initiative and we need a group of volunteers to help coordinate this effort via internet.

The commitment will short and intensive, but meaningful.

Should you be interested, please feel free to drop an email to marketing@eco-singapore.org

Our existing two volunteers, Kephren & Aarti will loop you in the process and update you of the progress.

Info on Earth Hour:
http://www.earthhour.org

Info on ECO Singapore:
http://www.eco-singapore.org

With Warm Regards,
Wilson Ang
91474541

Related articles

24 world cities in 'Earth Hour' black-out: organisers
Yahoo News 19 Feb 08;

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Fires raze tens of hectares of forest, peat land in Jambi

Antara 22 Feb 08;

Jambi (ANTARA News) - Fires ravaged tens of hectares of forest and peat land in West Tanjung Jabung district, Jambi province, in the past two days.

The blazes was put out by firefighters on Thursday, West Tanjung Jabung district head Abdulllah Hich said.

The fires were strongly believed to have been caused by the uncontrolled application of the slash-and-burn method in clearing land for farming.

He warned local people and plantation companies against practicing slash-and-burn farming to avoid further forest and peat land fires.

The heat of the dry season accompanied by strong winds had made it easy for fires to break out and spread over wide areas, Hich said. (*)

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Chikungunya fighters in Singapore breathe easy after 6 weeks

Lee Hui Chieh, Straits Times 22 Feb 08;

SINGAPORE'S first outbreak of the mosquito-borne disease chikungunya is over, health officials have declared.

Yesterday was the 24th day since the last person to catch the virus fell sick - a milestone that means the disease has likely been beaten.

Overall, 13 who lived or worked in Little India got the virus, which causes fever and joint pain but is rarely fatal.

The all-clear caps six frenzied weeks for health and environment officers, who targeted the centre of the outbreak, destroyed mosquito breeding grounds, took blood samples and handed out fines.

A spokesman for the National Environment Agency (NEA) said: 'We believe that through our close coordination, we were able to avert a potentially larger outbreak.'

The 24th day had been marked as the finish line because that is twice the disease's incubation period. Any new cases of the virus would have surfaced within that time.

While the battle against chikungunya has been won, the authorities cautioned yesterday that the disease could return.

The Health Ministry and the NEA said Singapore remains at risk as it is a popular stop with travellers from places where the disease has a foothold.

In fact, it was probably an infected traveller who sparked the outbreak, although health officers have not been able to identify this 'patient zero'.

Still, the end was met with relief from the health and environment officers who have been battling the outbreak.

One of them was Dr Tan Li Kiang, 34, a research scientist with the NEA's Environmental Health Institute (EHI). She said: 'We have been feeling 'jetlag'. I've been praying that there won't be any more new cases.'

The outbreak was uncovered when a 27-year-old Bangladeshi man turned up at a clinic at Upper Weld Road, off Clive Street, complaining of a high fever and body aches. A doctor sent the man's blood sample for testing and the result was positive for chikungunya.

Over the next three weeks, the Health Ministry sent 15 public health officers out to Clive Street to find others who might be infected. That was double the number of officers sent out on a regular day.

Doctors who usually did policy work helped collect blood samples from people who lived or worked in the area.

Officers, though, had trouble keeping tabs on people in Little India, which hosts many foreign workers and tourists.

Public health officer Han Hwi Kwang, 36, said: 'One day you took blood from people, but when you went back to the same place the next day, you realised, there's a whole new group.'

In the three weeks till Feb 4, they sent samples from 2,626 people to the EHI for testing.

There, seven research officers tested 400 to 500 blood samples daily. Seven others helped with labelling and paperwork.

They burned the midnight oil so the results could be out before the next morning in a bid to get those infected to hospital as soon as possible.

Dr Tan, who oversaw the testing, often worked from 9am to 2am daily in the first two weeks of the outbreak. The mother of a 20-month-old boy said: 'I didn't get to see my son awake for four days in a row.'

NEA sent 55 officers and 40 pest control operators to wipe out mosquitoes and breeding grounds in Little India.

In the last six weeks, they checked more than 5,500 properties, destroyed 78 breeding sites, and meted out fines of $100 to $200 to 43 people for allowing mosquitoes to breed.

The agency also issued 532 orders for the removal of roof gutters that had fallen into disrepair in Little India, of which 322 have been taken down.

Nine people have been fined $2,000 each for refusing to comply, while the rest have asked for more time to do so.

The EHI's head, Dr Ng Lee Ching said: 'I'm happy that everyone was prompt in their response to the outbreak.'

An official from the International Society for Infectious Diseases praised Singapore's effort as 'an outstanding example of detecting and then responding to the appearance of a disease new to an area'.

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