Rice in Asia; shortages and sharp price rises expected

The Philippines: Price of rice could jump 60 per cent
A shortage in summer is expected to push up rice prices, forcing govt to import staple grain
Alastair McIndoe, Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

MANILA - PHILIPPINE farmers yesterday warned of soaring rice prices, a result of a shortage in supply that is taking place locally and worldwide.

The shrinking global stocks of the staple grain have also prompted the Philippine government to sign a deal with Vietnam to import more rice to boost the country's reserves.

The National Rice Farmers Council said a shortage in the lean July to September period could trigger a 60 per cent rise in the price of rice - the country's staple food - based on current average prices.

'The traders will definitely take advantage of the limited supply,' said Mr Jimmy Tadeo, the group's chairman.

The government has assured Filipinos that rice buffer stocks will hold out, but has acknowledged that rice prices are set to rise further.

As well as the tight global supply of rice and rising demand, upward pressure on prices is coming from higher oil and fertiliser costs.

Rice prices in Vietnam and Thailand, among the world's top exporters, have fetched up to US$500 (S$690) a metric tonne, a 25 per cent jump in the last month.

The Philippines consumes close to 12 million metric tonnes of rice a year. Most of it is grown domestically and production has been rising.

But wastage and the loss of rice lands have created a recurrent shortfall of around 10 to 15 per cent, which must be met by imports.

Vietnam yesterday agreed to supply the Philippines with 1.5 million metric tonnes of rice this year, a sizeable increase on an earlier commitment. The Philippines now plans to import up to 2.2 million metric tonnes this year, higher than earlier projections.

Not surprisingly, the scramble for imports has put rice self-sufficiency firmly on the front burner.

President Gloria Arroyo made this one of her economic goals when she came to power in 2001. But only one president, Mr Ferdinand Marcos, has succeeded, and then only briefly, in the late 1970s.

Dr Leocadio Sebastian, executive director of the Philippine Rice Research Institute, believes that coming close to self-sufficiency is possible, even within the term of the current administration, which ends in mid-2010.

'We have to increase production yields, which are below Vietnam and Indonesia, and invest more in irrigation systems, seeds and cropmanagement technologies,' he said.

One lawmaker has urged the administration to tap two cashed-up farm funds making up to S$760 million available this year.

Recovering post-harvest rice losses caused, among other things, by poor storage facilities could alone offset imports, according to the International Rice Research Institute.

Against the backdrop of rising prices, a steady supply of the subsidised rice sold by the National Food Authority (NFA), the state's rice-purchasing agency, will be crucial for Filipinos with low incomes.

The NFA spends millions of dollars a year buying rice at market prices and selling it more cheaply. Its rice costs 18.25 pesos (S$0.60) a kilogramme, a third less than some local and imported grains.

President Arroyo on Tuesday announced a crackdown on hoarders and profiteers buying subsidised NFA rice and then selling it at higher prices in public markets.

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM ASSOCIATED PRESS

Indonesia: Govt mulls over plan to curb exports
Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

JAKARTA - INDONESIA is considering a policy to discourage rice exports and keep prices stable to secure enough supply of the staple grain for the country's 235 million people.

The plan emerged amid fears that an expanding price gap between domestic and global markets could encourage local rice producers to sell heavily to export markets, cutting domestic supplies.

Rice is priced between US$516 (S$710) and US$653 per tonne in local markets, lower than export prices of US$618-US$745 per tonne.

Indonesian farmers may harvest 61 million tonnes of unhusked rice this year, 5 per cent more than last year, because of favourable weather and increasing use of hybrid seeds.

'The condition is quite worrying, because domestic prices fell on higher output, while international prices are high,' said Agriculture Minister Anton Apriyantono.

'This may lead to overseas shipments.'

The government is balancing the needs of farmers to profit from rising prices and the supply of the grain that makes up an essential part of the diet for some 235 million people, with half of them living under US$2 a day.

Indonesia last year supplemented its local rice output with purchases from overseas to meet demand for the commodity.

Jakarta recently gave approval to state-run logistics agency Bilog to import up to 1.5 million tonnes of rice to secure domestic supplies.

BLOOMBERG, XINHUA

Thailand: Food aid to 140,000 refugees to be cut
Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

BANGKOK - SOARING rice prices on world markets and a battered US dollar are forcing cuts in already meagre food aid to more than 140,000 refugees who have fled Myanmar into Thailand, aid agency officials said yesterday.

'This rice price is just killing us,' said Mr Jack Dunford, head of a consortium providing food, shelter and other aid to ethnic minority refugees along the Thai-Myanmar border.

Most have fled from a brutal, decades-long campaign by the Myanmar military against Karen and other ethnic minority rebels.

They are housed in a string of camps along the frontier.

With a 50 per cent increase in rice prices in the past two months and sliding US dollar against the Thai baht, Mr Dunford, executive director of the Thailand Burma Border Consortium, said he would need to make up a budgetary shortfall of US$5.8 million (S$8 million) to keep up the already inadequate level of food rations.

Together with distributions of building supplies, soap and mosquito nets, those rations were cut earlier after a drop in donor funding.

If the gap is not filled, refugees could be issued with just 12kg of rice a month and no other food items - less than half their daily protein and calorie needs, he said. Nursery school feeding and health projects would have to be cut back or terminated.

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Cambodia: Hun Sen bans rice exports for 2 months
Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

PHNOM PENH - CAMBODIAN Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday banned rice exports in a bid to halt spiralling prices, which have reached highs of nearly US$1 (S$1.39) a kilogramme, up from US$0.40.

'Cambodia will halt the export of rice for two months,' he said.

'It is a temporary measure...but it is to ensure food security.'

He also appealed to Cambodians to be calm over the increasing prices of goods, especially that of rice, and blamed soaring rice prices on dishonest merchants out to inflate their profits, the Mekong Times newspaper reported.

The PM ordered a probe of rice merchants in Kandal, Kompong Thom and Kompong Cham provinces and asked the authorities as well as rice stall owners to report any irregularities.

He also ordered the Ministry of Commerce to put all rice mills across the country into operation in a bid to ensure that consumers would have enough supply of local rice.

XINHUA, ASSOCIATED PRESS

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Argentine strike threatens world food supplies

Farmers' protests put exports from the key agricultural country at risk
Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

BUENOS AIRES - A NATIONWIDE strike by Argentina's farmers and ranchers is raising fears that it would affect world food supplies and prices.

South America's second-largest economy after Brazil is a leading exporter of soya beans, beef and wheat.

In a first sign of trouble, soya bean prices have shot up and shipments to China, a major importer, have been disrupted.

The strike began on March 13 after the government announced new sliding-scale increases in export taxes.

Soya bean taxes, for example, were raised from 35 per cent to up to 45 per cent, with smaller increases on corn and other farm products.

The government hopes to replenish its coffers through the taxes on the back of soaring grain exports and commodity prices.

President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner's refusal to negotiate with farmers and ranchers has fuelled their ire, sparking large, pot-banging protests across Argentine cities for the first time in years.

She argued that the agricultural industry remained one of the country's most profitable despite the export tax increases, imposed at a time of surging global demand for Argentina's key exports of corn, wheat, soya beans and beef.

Protester Hector Bernardino, who was among the 5,000 who thronged the main plaza in Buenos Aires into the early hours of yesterday, said: 'This is a pretty ugly wake-up alarm for the government after just a few months in power.'

Outside the President's residence, protesters banged on the shuttered gates, shouting 'Argentina! Argentina! Cristina, resign!'

Mrs Kirchner won last year's polls and took office in December, succeeding her husband Nestor de Kirchner.

The pot-banging protests are called 'cacerolazos' - Spanish for the kinds of demonstrations used to bring down ill-fated former leaders during a 2001-2002 economic meltdown.

Protest organisers declared that the strike would continue 'indefinitely'.

The farmers' strike has forced several suppliers of soya beans and soya oil to halt shipments to China, the world's top importer, prompting worries of a possible shortage in May.

Singapore is unlikely to be affected because Argentina is not a major source of imports, the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority told The Straits Times yesterday.

Just over 3,000 tonnes of food - including seafood, fruit and beef - came in from Argentina, comprising a small fraction of total imports.

ASSOCIATED PRESS, REUTERS

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Shell, Virent work on green gasoline alternative

Tom Bergin, Reuters 26 Mar 08;

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil company Royal Dutch Shell Plc and U.S. bioscience firm Virent Energy Systems are to research a gasoline alternative from non-food crops that would reduce CO2 emissions without driving up food prices.

Shell said in a statement that unlike ethanol, currently the main biofuel alternative to gasoline, the fuel it and Virent aim to develop will be able to run in existing vehicles without the need to modify their engines.

Today's gasoline engines can usually only run on a small amounts of ethanol blended with gasoline -- typically 5 percent. Much higher percentages can be used with modification.

The project follows a trend of major oil companies, including San Ramon, California-based Chevron and London-based BP, investing in plans to produce motor fuels from crops.

The companies are mainly focusing on second-generation biofuels, which will be produced from non-food crops which can be grown on land not suitable for wheat or sugar cane.

Environmentalists critical of the oil companies say the investments, which are at most around 1 percent of the companies' total capital expenditure, are public-relations stunts aimed detracting attention from the environmental damage caused by producing and burning hydrocarbons.

Shell and Virent did not disclose the amount they are investing in the project and gave no targets for achieving commercial production of the new fuel.

Last May, Shell and Madison, Wisconsin-based Virent announced a partnership to develop processes to manufacture hydrogen from biomass, using the same technology which the partners hope will now produce "biogasoline".

Graeme Sweeney, executive vice president, future fuels and CO2 at Shell, told reporters on a media call that the collaboration on hydrogen was still active.

(Editing by Quentin Bryar)

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U.N.'s Pachauri urges caution in biofuel use

Ingrid Melander, Reuters 26 Mar 08;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The world must take care when developing biofuels to avoid perverse environmental effects and higher food prices, Nobel Peace Prize winner and climate change scientist Rajendra Pachauri said on Wednesday.

Speaking at the European Parliament, he questioned whether the United States' policy of converting corn (maize) into ethanol for use as a transport fuel would reduce the emission of greenhouse gases blamed for global warming.

Controversy has grown over using food crops to make biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels. Some environmentalists and politicians say it has raised food prices, distorted government budgets and led to deforestation in southeast Asia and Brazil.

"We should be very, very careful about coming up with biofuel solutions that have major impact on production of food grains and may have an implication for overall food security," Pachauri, chairman of the U.N.'s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told a news conference.

"Questions do arise about what is being done in North America, for instance to convert corn into sugar then into biofuels, into ethanol," he said.

The United States is the world's biggest producer of biofuels, derived mostly from corn.

"Several questions have arisen on even the emissions implication of that route, and the fact that this has clearly raised prices of corn," said Pachauri, whose panel shared the Nobel prize with former U.S. Vice President Al Gore last year.

Scientists say some kinds of biofuel generate as much carbon dioxide (CO2) as the fossil fuels they replace.

Supporters, however, say biofuels are the only renewable alternative to fossil fuels and do generally result in greenhouse gas emission savings.

Pachauri, in Brussels for talks with European Union lawmakers, said it was crucial to look at other ways of producing biofuels, including investing strongly in research and development to convert cellulosic material into liquid fuels, as well as using agricultural residues.

EU leaders pledged last year to increase the proportion of biofuels used in petrol- and diesel-consuming land transport to 10 percent by 2020, but concern that this is pushing up food prices has led the bloc to say it may reconsider its strategy.

Pachauri declined to comment on this specific target but said the EU should regularly seek feedback on its impact and review it if necessary.

"I think we have to set up a system by which we get a proper feedback and evaluate it on a regular basis," he told Reuters.

Earlier this month EU leaders pledged to pass laws within 12 months to implement ambitious goals for combating climate change, including slashing greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent by 2020 and increasing the share of renewable energy.

Pachauri commended the 27-nation bloc's efforts, saying it had taken a much needed leadership role on climate change.

Asked if countries applying strict emissions curbs to fight climate change should tax imports from countries which do not, Pachauri said he hoped this would not be necessary.

The outcome of a U.N. conference in Copenhagen next year meant to adopt a new climate change treaty would be instrumental in that regard, he said.

(Editing by Tim Pearce)

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Diverting food products to make biofuels is foolish: Indian finance chief

Yahoo News 26 Mar 08;

Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram on Wednesday criticised countries like the US for diverting farm products to produce biofuels, saying this had led to soaring global food prices.

While growing demand was one reason for skyrocketing food prices, the use of agricultural products to make biofuels was another cause, he told a public lecture organised by the Lee Kuan Yew School Public Policy in Singapore.

"It has been estimated that nearly 20 percent of corn grown in the United States is diverted for producing biofuels," he said in his speech to academics, students and diplomats.

"As citizens of the world, we ought to be concerned about the foolishness of growing food and diverting it into fuel."

Chidambaram slammed the "lopsided priorities of certain countries" that produce fuel at a cheaper cost to meet the transport needs of a certain section of their population even if it leads to higher food prices elsewhere.

The price of many food commodities has soared worldwide to record levels over the last year due to booming demand in fast-growing Asian countries as well as the increased use of biofuels.

Present-generation biofuels are derived from food crops such as corn, sugar cane and soybeans.

Biofuels were initially viewed as an environmentally-friendly alternative with no geopolitical risk compared with dirty fossil fuels, but they are now under attack as some unintended consequences emerge.

Speaking at a forum after his speech, the Indian finance chief said countries producing large quantities of food should sell it to the rest of the world at reasonable prices.

"But a very insular selfish approach encourages them to convert food into fuel. I think it is the most foolish thing that humanity can do," he said.

"There are non-food items that can be produced to make biofuels... To convert corn to fuel... I think it's outrageous and it must be condemned."

Chidambaram, who spoke on the challenge of sustaining economic growth amid global uncertainty, said the relentless rise in food and commodity prices have put an "enormous problem" on developing countries.

The price of oil, for example, has risen from 34 US dollars a barrel in 2004 to more than 110 US dollars a barrel recently, he said.

Urea, a fertilizer, cost only 175 dollars per metric tonne in 2004, rising to 288 dollars in April 2007 and 370 dollars as of January this year, he said, adding that the prices of metals and minerals have also risen sharply.

Palm oil cost 471 dollars per metric tonne in 2004, rising to 1,177 dollars by February 2008, he said.

He said organisations such as the Group of 20 biggest economies and the Group of Seven industrialised countries should get together and agree on a band for oil prices to either rise or fall.

"If we are serious about ending poverty, the place to start is to make food and fuel available at reasonable prices," he said.

Referring to the global financial turmoil, Chidambaram said the crisis in risky US home mortgages that triggered the turbulence was due to poor regulation and lax supervision.

"If this had happened in developing countries, we would have been lectured on the virtues of bankruptcy," he said in an apparent dig at the bailout of US financial institutions hit by the turmoil.

"Since this is happening in developed countries, no one pauses to ask whether all the old arguments are not being made to stand on their head."

US biofuel policies 'outrageous'
Today Online 27 Mar 08;

INDIA'S finance minister said yesterday it was "outrageous" for countries like the United States to be turning food into biofuels at the cost of feeding the world's poor, who are already hit by the current surge in oil and food prices.

Mr P Chidambaram said developing economies were shouldering an "enormous burden" from the relentless rise in prices of food and commodities. Some countries like India subsidise food and fuel.

Speaking at a lecture at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy in Singapore, Mr Chidambaram said the situation was worsened by the diversion of food to produce biofuels in some countries, citing the US as an example, where he said it was estimated nearly 20 per cent of corn goes to making biofuels.

"It is a sign of the lopsided priorities of certain countries that they will resort to measures that will produce fuel at a cheaper cost … even while a larger proportion of the world's population is deprived of food at reasonable prices or, as in the case of some countries, deprived of food altogether," Mr Chidambaram said. "I think it is outrageous and it must be condemned."

Corn, soybeans, sugar cane and other crops are seen as sources of clean and cheap biofuels. This means less grain is available for human consumption, driving up prices for basic foodstuffs. — AP

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British fishing industry turning green, says watchdog

· UK fleets rise to meet ecological standards
· Greenpeace says flaws in labelling scheme remain

Severin Carrell, The Guardian 26 Mar 08;

Britain's fishing industry is in line to become one of the greenest in the world, with a record number of fleets to be awarded coveted "eco-labels" for their catches of haddock, dover sole, herring and prawns.

The Marine Stewardship Council, which oversees the best-known environmental scheme for fisheries, said several of the UK's largest fleets were on course to join its labelling scheme, proving their environmental credentials .

By next year, the council estimates 275,000 tonnes of fish such as mackerel, haddock and sea bass caught by British trawlers will carry its trademark blue eco-label, making it possible for takeaways and supermarkets to begin selling "green" fish and chips and eco-labelled scampi.

At present, the only eco-labelled fisheries in British waters are small, niche industries catching seafood such as dover sole - one of the most threatened fish in British waters - langoustines and cockles, which currently account for just 4,580 tonnes each year.

The industry's drive towards environmental accreditation marks a profound shift in attitude after decades of open conflict with green campaigners over plunging fish stocks and illegal landings, particularly in the North Sea. It requires fisheries to agree to strict catch levels, protecting young and spawning stock, cutting the "by-catch" of non-target species and using only the correct fishing nets.

In parallel with the MSC programme, the Sea Fish Industry Authority has persuaded 437 UK trawlers - roughly 60% of the British fleet - to join a "responsible fishing" scheme similar to the red tractor quality mark used by farmers, although its environmental standards are weaker.

Trawlermen have come under intense pressure to take part in conservation schemes from companies such as Young's, the UK's largest seafood supplier, and supermarkets. Britain's biggest retailers, particularly Asda and Morrisons, have faced embarrassing campaigns of direct action, led by Greenpeace, over their sale of fish from depleted seas, and supermarkets are now competing to become the UK's greenest fishmonger, dropping threatened species such as skate, dover sole and swordfish from their counters.

Asda has pledged that by 2012, all its fish will be MSC-certified, while Sainsbury's has promised to double its range of eco-labelled seafood. Waitrose and Marks & Spencer already have very strict seafood policies, and ban unsustainable British-caught fish from their shelves. As a result, sales of eco-labelled fish in British shops jumped by 15% last year, to £110m.

Mike Parker, the deputy chief executive of Young's, which produces four-fifths of the eco-labelled fish sold in the UK, said that if these much larger fleets passed the MSC's assessment, up to half of all the wild-caught fish caught by British trawlers would become eco-friendly.

"That's highly significant," he said. "That would make the UK the most significant eco-fish market in the world."

The MSC's biggest coup has been to persuade two of Britain's largest fisheries - the Scottish fleets which catch roughly 200,000 tonnes of mackerel and herring in the North Sea and north Atlantic - to apply for its eco-label.

Several major prawn fisheries - now the industry's most valuable catch - have also applied. North Sea cod may follow after several Norwegian fleets applied to join the MSC, although Young's refuses to stock North Sea cod because it believes the fish is still far too threatened.

Currently, nearly all eco-labelled fish sold in the UK is shipped or flown into Britain from abroad, often from fisheries near Alaska, New Zealand and South Africa which have been criticised by Greenpeace. It accuses the MSC of being too lax, ignoring significant problems with "by-catch", where high volumes of other fish species are caught, and overlooking the damage caused by trawling on fragile seabeds. Greenpeace broadly supports the MSC, but is worried that the North Sea is still too threatened to allow its fish to be branded as eco-friendly.

Yet Robin Howes, chief executive of the MSC, said he believed the UK industry had reached a tipping point. He added: "I think sustainability has become part and parcel of the market. There's an awful lot of people in the industry who recognise the practices of the past aren't sustainable, and that that threatens their livelihoods."

Howes insisted the MSC was tougher than Greenpeace admits. He said the controversial hoki fishery in New Zealand had recently had its quota cut in half, while the council had refused to pass some fisheries, including one North Sea lobster fishery.

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'Climate change: adapt to it, don't fight it'

The Telegraph 26 Mar 08;

The world would be better off adapting to the consequences of climate change rather than trying to fight the causes, according to scientists.

They accept the scientific consensus on global warming but differ about what needs to be done about it.

The group, including Mike Hulme, the founding director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at the University of East Anglia, also believe that climate change may not necessarily be as catastrophic for the planet as has been forecast.

Their controversial view, which they accept will lead to them being branded as "the new pariahs of global warming", is that the world would be better off fighting the consequences of climate change - hunger, storm damage and disease - rather than spending billions of pounds trying to stabilise CO2 emissions across the planet.

Roger Pielke Jr, an environmental policy expert at the University of Colorado at Boulder, told the journal Natural Hazards Review: "Everything has been put on the back of carbon dioxide, and carbon dioxide cannot carry that weight."

He went on: "I've been accused of taking money from Exxon or being a right-wing hack. I would characterise us as realists. Realists on what is politically possible."

Daniel Sarewitz, a public policy expert at the Arizona State University, told the Los Angeles Times this view represented the "radical middle".

The United Nations estimates that global warming would increase the number of people at risk of hunger from 777m in 2020 to 885m by 2080, a 14 per cent rise, if current development patterns continue.

But Prof Hulme said that increase could be tackled by funding better irrigation systems, drought-resistant crops and more-efficient food transport systems, rather than fighting global warming.

"If you're really concerned about drought, those are much more effective strategies than trying to bring down greenhouse gas concentrations," he said.

And on malaria - which could be carried by mosquitos into Africa's highland regions with higher temperatures - Paul Reiter, an expert on mosquito-borne disease at the Pasteur Institute in Paris told the newspaper: "We should be more concerned with controlling the disease than trying to change the weather."

He recommended heavier use of pesticides to kill mosquitoes - the same strategy that eradicated malaria in the United States and elsewhere.

Hans von Storch, director of the Institute of Coastal Research in Germany, added that the problems were already so big that the burdens caused by rising temperatures would be relatively small. It would be like driving at 160 kilometres per hour when "going 150... is already dangerous," he said.

But many scientists believe downplaying the importance of emissions reductions is dangerous. Stephen Schneider, a climatologist at Stanford University, said: "You can't adapt to melting the Greenland ice sheet. You can't adapt to species that have gone extinct."

Other scientists said that if adaptation were so simple, it would have already been done. Professor Sir Andrew Haines, director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, said: "I agree we need better strategies to combat malaria and increasing resources are being devoted to this end.

"However, malaria is only one of a number of health outcomes that are likely to be affected by climate change.

"There are also major health co-benefits from policies to promote more equitable access to clean energy, for example by reducing exposure to indoor and outdoor air pollution and by promoting active transport policies."

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Thailand's northern provinces battle haze

Yahoo News 25 Mar 08;

Thailand's northern provinces are battling a haze which has blanketed parts of the region after the annual burning of wood and agricultural waste, health authorities said Wednesday.

Provinces including Chiang Rai and Chiang Mai, popular with tourists and trekkers, are suffering from poor air quality because of the smog, which descended earlier this month.

Air quality in Thailand is measured in micrograms of particles of matter per cubic metre, with 120 considered unhealthy, and 300 considered dangerous.

Chiang Rai town recorded levels of up to 137.9 on Monday, while Chiang Mai city saw levels soar to 171.3 on the same day, the pollution control department said. Mae Hong Son and Lamphun provinces are also affected.

Air quality was returning to normal levels on Wednesday, but Health Minister Chiya Sasomsub said his ministry will give 200,000 face masks to villagers affected by the haze and ask local hospitals to be on alert.

"Health officials will also educate and campaign to try and tell villagers that they should not burn forests, rubbish or grasses, as this will help reduce the amount of dust in the air," he said in a statement.

The Thai government declared a state of emergency in much of its northern region in March last year after forest fires and slash-and-burn farming sent a cloud of smoke and dust across eight provinces.

Seasonal fires bring haze to Thai north
Chiang Mai among areas suffering poor visibility and high levels of pollution
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 27 Mar 08;

BANGKOK - SEASONAL forest fires and the burning of chaff and corn stubble continued to shroud Chiang Mai and several other parts of northern Thailand in smoke and dust yesterday.

A day earlier, Thailand's King Bhumibol Adulyadej had voiced concern over the pollution problem.

There was some improvement in conditions yesterday compared to several days back, Chiang Mai residents said, but the pollution level was still bad.

One resident told The Straits Times over the phone that a recently installed air purifier could work for only 20 minutes at a time before the filter became clogged.

The Thai authorities use a standard called PM10 - indicating levels of dust particles smaller than 10 microns in diameter, likely to be inhaled by humans - to measure smoke and dust pollution.

A few days ago, the PM10 pollution level was at a dangerous 200, but as of yesterday afternoon, it had dropped to between 74 and 95 in and around Chiang Mai.

Anything above 120 is considered hazardous to health.

Amid the mounting summer heat, Mae Hong Son province, which usually bears the brunt of forest fires in the rugged hills of the Thai-Myanmar border, has been the worst hit.

Wildfires could be seen in the hills at night, residents said.

On Tuesday, an incoming Thai Airways flight had to be diverted because of poor visibility.

Yesterday's morning flight from Chiang Mai to Mae Hong Son was also cancelled.

By 3pm yesterday, however, visibility had improved from 1.2km to 5km, and normal air services had been restored.

An official of Mae Hong Son municipality told The Straits Times that conditions in the morning were usually bad but would improve by the afternoon - and yesterday was better than previous days.

The Ministry of Public Health in Bangkok on Tuesday scrambled to send 200,000 face masks to northern towns after King Bhumibol asked for daily reports on the situation.

Pollution Control Department chief Supat Wangwongwatana said that the problem was related to forest fires in 'hot spots' in Thailand, as well as neighbouring Myanmar and Laos.

On Tuesday, he was reported as saying: 'The number of hot spots in Indochina was getting high on March 22 with 952, and gradually dropped to 575 and only 271 on March 24.'

Local officials and residents are hoping for rain to dampen fires and clear the air.

They include those involved in Chiang Mai's thriving tourism sector, which according to some reports has seen a dip in bookings following reports of the pollution.

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Vast Antarctic Ice Shelf on Verge of Collapse

Andrea Thompson, LiveScience Yahoo News 25 Mar 08;

A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent.

Scientists are shocked by the rapid change of events.

Glaciologist Ted Scambos of the University of Colorado was monitoring satellite images of the Wilkins Ice Shelf and spotted a huge iceberg measuring 25 miles by 1.5 miles (41 kilometers by 2.5 kilometers) that appeared to have broken away from the shelf.

Scambos alerted colleagues at the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) that it looked like the entire ice shelf - about 6,180 square miles (16,000 square kilometers - about the size of Northern Ireland)- was at risk of collapsing.

David Vaughan of the BAS had predicted in 1993 that the northern part of the Wilkins Ice Shelf was likely to be lost within 30 years if warming on the Peninsula continued at the same rate.

"Wilkins is the largest ice shelf on the Antarctic Peninsula yet to be threatened," he said. "I didn't expect to see things happen this quickly. The ice shelf is hanging by a thread - we'll know in the next few days and weeks what its fate will be."

Aircraft reconnaissance

The BAS scientists sent an aircraft out on a reconnaissance mission to survey the extent of damage to the ice shelf.

Jim Elliot, who captured video of the breakout said, "I've never seen anything like this before - it was awesome. We flew along the main crack and observed the sheer scale of movement from the breakage. Big hefty chunks of ice, the size of small houses, look as though they've been thrown around like rubble - it's like an explosion."

An initial iceberg calved away from the Wilkins Ice Shelf on Feb. 28. A series of images shows the edge of the ice shelf proceeding to crumble and disintegrate in a pattern characteristic of climate-caused ice shelf retreats throughout the northern Antarctic Peninsula. The disintegration left a sky-blue patch of hundreds of large blocks of exposed old glacier ice floating across the ocean surface.

Though these broken chunks of ice have spread into the sea, they won't raise sea levels because the ice shelf was already floating on the water.

By March 8, the ice shelf had lost just over 160 square miles (414 square kilometers) of ice, and the disintegrated ice had spread over 540 square miles (1,400 square kilometers). As of mid-March only a narrow strip of shelf ice between Charcot and Latady islands was protecting several thousand more kilometers of the ice shelf from potentially breaking up.

The region where the Wilkins Ice Shelf lies has experienced unprecedented warming in the past 50 years, with several ice shelves retreating in the past 30 years. Six of these ice shelves have collapsed completely: Prince Gustav Channel, Larsen Inlet, Larsen A, Larsen B, Wordie, Muller and the Jones Ice Shelf.

Antarctic warming

The Wilkins Ice Shelf was stable for most of the last century until it began retreating in the 1990s. A previous major breakout occurred there in 1998 when 390 square miles (1,000 square kilometers) of ice was lost in just a few months.

"We believe the Wilkins has been in place for at least a few hundred years, but warm air and exposure to ocean waves are causing it to break up," Scambos said.

The Antarctic Peninsula has warmed faster than anywhere else in the Southern Hemisphere; temperature records show that the region has warmed by nearly 3 degrees Celsius during the past 50 years - several times the global average and only matched in Alaska.

Other parts of Antarctica, including the East Antarctic Ice Sheet, seem to be more stable, though areas of melt have been observed in recent years.

Melting in the Antarctic is different than the recent record melt in the Arctic. Antarctica is composed of ice sheets, or huge masses of ice up to 2.5 miles (4 kilometers) thick that lie on top of bedrock and flow toward the coast, and ice shelves, the floating extensions of ice sheets. Arctic ice is primarily sea ice, some of which persists year-round and some of which melts in the summer and freezes again in the winter.

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Peru tribe battles oil giant over pollution

Dan Collyns, BBC News 24 Mar 08;

It is a familiar story. Big business moves into a pristine wilderness and starts destroying the environment and by turn the livelihoods of the indigenous people who live there.

But in a reversal of plot, there are now cases of people living traditional lifestyles who are now invading the territory of the big companies and taking them on at their own game.

The story of the Achuar tribe living in the Amazon rainforest of north-eastern Peru is one of them.

Last year, they filed a class action lawsuit against oil giant Occidental Petroleum, in Los Angeles.

Now they are awaiting a judge's decision on whether the case can proceed in the US or will be sent back to Peru, where it stands little chance of coming to court.

'No credible data

The Achuar people, who have lived for thousands of years in the rainforest, allege that the company contaminated their territory during more than 30 years of oil drilling, making their people sick, even causing some to die, and damaging their land and livelihoods beyond repair.

Occidental Petroleum, which pulled out of Peru eight years ago, denies liability in the case.

It has responded, saying: "We are aware of no credible data of negative community health impacts resulting from Occidental's operations in Peru."

The oil bonanza began in Peru almost 40 years ago when many foreign companies were given an open invitation by successive governments to test and drill in the Amazon.

What they did not consider was the devastating impact it would have on the native people, principally the Achuar - their land, their livelihood and their health.

The Achuar's spiritual leader, Tomas Maynas, wears a bright red headdress made of toucan feathers, and has red war paint streaked on his face. He is the plaintiff in the suit against the company.

He remembers how everything changed when the oil companies arrived. He says the animals ran away, the fish died and their crops started to wilt.

"The Peruvian state just wants to extract as much oil as they can from our land. They've made millions of dollars but we haven't seen it here.

"We know there's wealth here and there'll be more drilling so the state will keep on killing us. But sometimes, when there is pressure, the state gives in."

The lawsuit alleges Occidental Petroleum ignored industry standards and employed out-of-date practices, dumping around 9bn barrels of toxic waste water into streams and rivers over 30 years.

After Occidental left, its operations were taken over by Pluspetrol.

Pluspetrol agreed to change practices in late 2006 when the Achuar, after repeated attempts to negotiate, took direct action.

Shotguns and spears

Many of the older Achuar men once fought in tribal wars with their neighbours, now they finally had the chance to hit their elusive new enemies where it hurt - in their pockets.

Peacefully, yet armed with shotguns and spears, they occupied and held the Amazon oil wells in October 2006.

The government and the company, losing millions of dollars a day, were forced to come to the negotiating table.

The Achuar came away with a commitment from Pluspetrol to reduce contamination and to pay millions of dollars to clean up and establish a 10-year health plan.

It was thanks to help from outside but also a new generation of indigenous leaders who are learning how to protect their rights in the modern world.

"A whole generation had their health damaged. How can we keep quiet as our parents did?" asks 29-year-old Petronila Chumpi.

"We can't allow this, we're a new generation, we know how to read and write and we have to help our people because they didn't have the knowledge to defend themselves against the oil companies. But now we do."

Improvement

Even on a fast motorboat, Trompeteros is a long day's journey up three rain-swollen rivers from Loreto's regional capital, Iquitos. A hamlet of some 3,000 people, it is situated right opposite Block Eight, one of the main oil wells.

Local people say there is still contamination and oil spills, but now the Achuar have GPS transceivers to log the problems where they find them.

Little by little there are signs of improvement.

But there is frustration on the part of Pluspetrol, which has pledged to pay millions of dollars, that the government is not playing a bigger role.

"This oil industry should be of benefit for everybody - maybe today it's not of benefit to indigenous people and the government should find the best way to solve that problem," says Roberto Ramallo, general manager of Pluspetrol Norte.

But the problem is that the Achuar and other tribes live on top of potentially enormous reserves of crude oil.

Thanks to an intense drive to auction it off, almost three-quarters of the Peruvian Amazon is leased for oil exploration and extraction.

High global demand and the price of oil is also making companies look at the Peruvian Amazon as an attractive prospect, but is it sustainable?

"All of this petroleum exploration in the Amazon is a grand experiment," says Bill Powers of E-Tech, a not-for-profit engineering firm.

"It's just coming into the jungle, developing the resource, getting the economic benefit and historically it's been whatever happens to whoever was there before, happens.

"There's no plan, there's no effort made to ensure that they maintain their cultural integrity or that they have something to do once the rivers and the forest don't provide what they used to provide."

Future plans

Carbon trading schemes have yet to reach this part of the Amazon and the oil boom is not the only threat.

President Alan Garcia has proposed privatising large areas of the rainforest, but local officials say the government in Lima does not understand the impact this would have.

The regional president of Loreto, Ivan Vasquez, says the Amazon needs to preserve its diversity at all costs.

"The ecosystem is the genetic bank of the Amazon, as it brings together genetic matrices which don't exist anywhere else - thousands of interconnected genetic bases.

"That is our capital, the genetic bank that we have to preserve for humanity, and for the world."

The Achuar have so far rejected new oil exploration on their territory.

Their story is an emblematic case of resistance for indigenous Amazonians and is unprecedented in Peru.

But the Peruvian rainforest, the biggest stretch of Amazon outside Brazil, is still the focus of the relentless global hunt to find new sources of fossil fuels.

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New 'battle of Midway' over plastic

David Shukman, BBC News 26 Mar 08;

On the coral atoll of Midway in the central Pacific - famous for America's first victory over the Japanese fleet in World War Two - wildlife experts are facing a new battle against a rising tide of plastic waste.

The Midway Islands are home to some of the world's most valuable and endangered species and they all are at risk from choking, starving or drowning in the plastic drifting in the ocean.

Nearly two million Laysan albatrosses live here and researchers have come to the staggering conclusion that every single one contains some quantity of plastic.

About one-third of all albatross chicks die on Midway, many as the result of being mistakenly fed plastic by their parents.

I watched as the deputy manager of the wildlife refuge here, Matt Brown, opened the corpse of one albatross and found inside it the handle of a toothbrush, a bottle top and a piece of fishing net.

He explained how some chicks never develop the strength to fly off the islands to search for food because their stomachs are filled with plastic.

"It is disheartening to see such a monumental problem. It's really going to take not just people in a refuge or people working with birds like this - it's really a global effort to solve this problem."

According to Matt Brown, the need for action is urgent because plastic waste adds to a list of existing threats.

"The plastic is just another, very large straw on the camel's back that's really endangering the future of these birds."

Many albatrosses are found to have swallowed disposable cigarette lighters - which look remarkably similar to their staple food of squid.

Others become ensnared in plastic. We were alerted to one albatross chick with a large green hook fixed inside its beak. The beak itself had become deformed.

One of the experts here, John Klavitter, carefully extracted the hook and found a small plastic net dangling from it.

The net may once have held some fruit, hung on display in some distant shop, only to end up threatening the life of one of the world's greatest sea-birds.

The staff here regularly try to clear up the plastic but the task is huge.

We filmed a clean-up operation on one short stretch of beach and after just 30 minutes there was a vast pile of fishing floats, bottles, plastic sheeting, toys, torches, and deodorant sticks.

One challenge is finding every small piece of plastic - it's often the tiniest fragments that cause most damage.

Another is maintaining morale as each tide or wind brings another load of plastic to Midway's shores.

In theory the wildlife here enjoys a double layer of bureaucratic protection - lying within a wildlife refuge and a newly declared Marine National Monument.

But none of that counts for much if products designed to be cheap, durable and long-lasting are allowed into the oceans in the first place.

Related links

Diary from the middle of nowhere on the BBC website

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Switch off and save the earth, Singaporeans urged

One hour of total darkness?
Jinny Koh Today Online 26 Mar 08;

SHOULD Singapore experience an islandwide blackout from 8pm to 9pm this Saturday, it would, for once, be good news — at least for the environment.

Proponents of Earth Hour 2008, a worldwide effort to create awareness about global warming, are urging Singaporeans to switch off all lights for that hour.

Already, seven major corporations, including Microsoft, CapitaLand, Suntec Convention Centre and Philips Electronics Singapore, have pledged their participation. Today, more than 50 students from Raffles Girls School and Chong Cheng High School (Main) will be getting schoolmates to join the programme.

But how would the average Singaporean respond? Of the 25 people Today polled, 16 declined to participate, most because they said moving about at home in the dark could be dangerous, or they needed to work. Some felt turning off air-conditioners would be more useful. Others saw no point in saving energy for just an hour. "The effort on my part is an everyday thing — I switch off the light if I'm not using it," said Ms Anita Tan, 40, a business development executive.

But nine people thought an hour was a small sacrifice in light of the global environmental crisis.

"It wouldn't make a huge difference to my electricity bills but if my whole block can do that together, the collective impact on the electricity saved would be quite significant," said student Lim Yan Wen, 22.

Launched in Sydney last year, Earth Hour — a World Wide Fund initiative — saw 2.2 million Australians taking part, and the symbolic event has become a global movement.

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