GM food: Monster or saviour?

Jeremy Cooke, BBC News 30 May 08;

I have to confess, until now the whole debate about genetically-modified (GM) food has pretty much passed me by.

Most of my career has been spent as a foreign correspondent.

But last summer I returned to the UK to start a new job with the BBC. I now glory in the title Rural Affairs Correspondent.

A big part of my new brief is to report on farming. It is my (sometimes painful) duty to attend agriculture conferences and seminars. I also meet many farmers on their farms.

And over the months, time and time again the issue of GM has been raised.

I have been left in no doubt that many UK farmers - and others in the food production industry - think that GM is an important tool which can improve their efficiency, but which has been denied to them.

All of this, you could argue, counts for very little. Of course, farmers want to increase yields, or get the same yield using less land, lest sprays, less fertiliser.

And anyway, did not we as a nation make up our minds about GM almost a decade ago?

You remember: environmentalists successfully branded GM "Frankenstein Food" - they warned us of the dangers of contaminating our environment, and of unleashing powerful and unpredictable forces into the British countryside.

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Lord Peter Melchett with the case against GM food

As a nation we came down on their side of the argument. Although there is no law against growing GM in the UK, the regulations mean it is a hostile environment for the agri-business brigade. And so it remains.

So why go back to the debate? Well, two reasons strike me immediately.

The first is that - unlike 10 years ago - we are now gripped in a global food crisis. Where there were once grain mountains there are now shortages.

The second thing that has changed is the fact that in other parts of the world GM is now being grown in massive amounts. It is reckoned that an area twice the size of Britain is now under GM crops.

And guess what? There have so far been no reports of the environmental or human health disasters which we were all warned about.

So with that in mind, I set out with a question: is it time to rethink GM?

AMERICA

Let us start in America.

While we in Europe have rejected growing GM crops, the United States has enthusiastically embraced the new technology.

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Inside the world's biggest GM company

Thousands of hectares of land are now covered in GM crops. Most meals consumed in America's ultimate consumer society will have some GM content.

It is something that Americans, generally, do not even think about. Certainly, throughout the four years my family and I spent in New York we must have eaten hundreds of meals containing GM in blissful ignorance.

The main GM food crops are soya - which produces important protein - and maize. Both have been genetically modified to produce bigger yields or the same yield for the less input (less herbicide, insecticide, fertiliser).

And behind it all (or almost all of it) is the giant Monsanto corporation. A multibillion dollar world-wide outfit that dominates the world of GM.

As a journalist, getting access to what the green lobby regards as the "heart of darkness" is not easy.

But after some gentle negotiating we were welcomed to St Louis, Missouri, Monsanto's global headquarters.

Here, some of the leading scientists in the field are working on ways to improve crops and yields.

Chatting to the technicians you can tell they are a little bemused at being labelled the architects of "Frankenstein Foods". They say they simply want to make things more efficient for farmers - and so better for consumers.

The chief executive Hugh Grant, originally from Glasgow in Scotland, seems puzzled at the European distrust of GM technology.

"The scientific case is very clear. This does now get down to people saying 12 years have passed, now's the time to make some calls.

"Europe continues to wait, while countries like India aggressively move ahead, and British scientists fill their suitcases and come here to do this research because they can't do it at home," Mr Grant says.

Monsanto is happy to provide stats which say that at least 90% of the farmers they deal with are happy with their product.

But there is no ignoring the fact that Monsanto is a hugely controversial company.

In the US, I found that for some farmers the problem is not so much a distrust of GM technology, but rather the way, they say, it makes them fall under the complete control of the biotech giants.

On his farm in Missouri I met Roger Parry. An old school good ol' boy, complete with battered old pick-up truck and equally battered base ball hat.

He is one of the minority of US farmers resisting GM. He told me that the big business of biotech is making it tough for farmers to make their own decisions about what to grow. Almost all of the seed available is GM seed.

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Food prices to remain high over the next decade: UN

Business Times 31 May 08;

(PARIS) Food prices will remain high over the next decade even if they fall from current records, meaning millions more risk further hardship or hunger, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and the UN's Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a report published on Thursday.

Beyond stating the immediate need for humanitarian aid, the international bodies suggested wider deployment of genetically modified crops and a rethink of biofuel programmes that guzzle grain which could otherwise feed people and livestock.

The report, issued ahead of a world food summit in Rome next week, said that food commodity prices were likely to recede from the peaks hit recently, but that they would remain higher in the decade ahead than the one gone by.

'It's time for action,' Jacques Diouf, head of the UN's FAO told a news conference in Paris, saying that he expected 40 leaders in Rome for a summit on what should be done immediately or in the future. 'There's an immediate need for humanitarian aid to avoid poor people going hungry,' added Angel Gurria, head of the OECD.

Beef and pork prices would probably stay around 20 per cent higher than in the last 10 years, while wheat, corn and skimmed milk powder would likely command 40-60 per cent more in the 10 years ahead, in nominal terms, the joint FAO/OECD report said.

The price of rice, an Asian staple expected to become more important also in Africa in the years ahead, would likely average 30 per cent more expensive in nominal terms in the coming decade than over the 1998-2007 period.

'In many low-income countries, food expenditures average over 50 per cent of income and the higher prices contained in this outlook (report) will push more people into undernourishment,' the report said. Millions of people's purchasing power across the globe would be hit, said the report.

The cost of many food commodities has doubled over the last couple of years, sparking widespread protests and even riots in some of the worst affected spots, such as Haiti. Many factors, including drought in big commodity-producing regions such as Australia, explained some of the acceleration in prices, as did growing demand from fast-developing countries such as China and India, the report said.

But it singled out the big drive to produce biofuels as an alternative to fossil fuels, a push the US government is sponsoring heavily, and Europe as well. The benefits at environmental and economic level as well as in terms of energy security were 'at best modest and sometimes even negative', the report said. -- Reuters

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'Forget climate change, we should spend on nutrition'

Mark Henderson, The Times 31 May 08;

Malnutrition should be the world’s major priority for aid and development, a panel of eight leading economists, including five Nobel laureates, declared yesterday.

The provision of supplements of vitamin A and zinc to children in developing countries, to prevent avoidable deficiencies that affect hundreds of millions of children, is the most cost-effective way of making the world a better place, the Copenhagen Consensus initiative has found.

Three other strategies for improving diets in poor nations were also named among the top six of 30 challenges assessed by the project, which aims to prioritise solutions to the world’s many problems according to their costs and benefits.

Efforts to control global warming by cutting greenhouse gas emissions, however, were rated at the bottom of the league table, as the economists considered the high costs of such action were not justified by the payoffs. Research into new low-carbon technologies, such as solar and nuclear fusion power, was ranked as more worthwhile, in 14th place.

The previous Copenhagen Consensus, held in 2004, also listed global warming as its lowest priority. The exercise was organised by Bjorn Lomborg, the controversial Danish statistician who has long argued that though climate change is real, current approaches to fighting it offer poor value for money.

Dr Lomborg said: “This gives us the ultimate overview of how global decisions can best be made and how we can best spend money to do good in the world. Prioritising is hard. It’s much easier to say we want to do everything, but unfortunately we have limited resources. We don’t just focus on what’s fashionable, but also on what’s rational.”

The jury of economists chose to emphasise malnutrition, and micronutrient supplements in particular, because of the major effects that comparatively moderate financial investments could have.

Around 140 million children suffer from vitamin A deficiency, which can cause blindness, immune system problems and death, or zinc deficiency, which can stunt growth. Supplements of these nutrients, however, are both effective and extremely cheap – at 20 US cents per person per year for vitamin A and $1 for zinc.

For just $60m a year, it would be possible to provide capsules of both micronutrients to 80 per cent of undernourished children in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, with benefits worth more than $1bn. “Each dollar does more than $17 worth of good,” Dr Lomborg said.

Douglass North, a Nobel prize-winning Professor of Economics at Washington University in St Louis, and a member of the expert panel, said: “It has immediate and important consequences for improving the wellbeing of poor people around the world - that’s why it should be our number one priority.”

Other important nutritional initiatives highlighted by the panel included fortifying food with iron, and salt with iodine, to prevent other avoidable deficiencies. Another highly-recommended solution, in fifth place, was breeding nutritionally enhanced crops, such as “Golden Rice”, a GM variety with added vitamin A.

A less glamorous issue made sixth place on the list – the treatment of worm infestations that are a common cause of malnutrition and disease. “As one of the experts said: ‘We’d rather the kids were benefiting from nutrition, and not the worms,’” Dr Lomborg said.

The economists’ second-place priority was removing subsidies and tariffs that exclude developing countries from western markets, as is currently being proposed in the World Trade Organisation’s Doha round of negotiations. While this is not a spending matter as such, but instead requires political agreement, it was considered so critical to growth in developed countries that it deserved a high placing.

Nancy Stokey, Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago, said: “There was heated debate about whether Doha belonged to this list at all, because it is a matter of political will, not budgeting. But the potential benefits are so enormous, running maybe into trillions of dollars.”

“Models estimate the net benefits could be up to $3,000 billion, five sixths of which would benefit the developing world,” Dr Lomborg said.

Further high priorities included the extension of childhood vaccination, ranked fourth overall, and improvements to education, particularly for girls.

Efforts to control HIV with antiretroviral drugs, which was the top priority of the 2004 Copenhagen Consensus, finished lower down this time, in 19th place. This reflects improvements in the situation since 2004, such as the wider availability of cheap generic drugs following agreements with pharmaceutical companies.

The low priority given to mitigating climate change was criticised by environmentalists, who questioned the economic assumptions presented to the panel. They also argued that the case for containing emissions should not anyway be considered purely in terms of value per dollar spent.

Critics of Dr Lomborg’s position and the two Copenhagen verdicts, say he undervalues the impact of rising temperatures on biodiversity and ecology, which are hard to quantify in financial terms. Others say the economists’ calculations take too little account of the potential for catastrophic effects of global warming, and the threat posed by rising sea levels to whole societies, such as low-lying islands and countries like Bangladesh and the Netherlands.

Dr Lomborg, however, said mitigation alone offered poor value for money. “Spending a dollar would get back less than one dollar of good,” he said.

Economists on the panel added that mitigation of climate change will mainly require policy decisions and fiscal instruments, such as carbon taxes, rather than direct investment of the sort they were considering for issues such as malnutrition. “Most of what we would do does not involve spending public money,” said Thomas Schelling, Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland, another Nobel laureate.

The Copenhagen recommendation on climate change stands in stark contrast to the conclusions of a group of 1,700 scientists, including six Nobel laureates, who yesterday issued an open letter calling on the US Government to implement carbon emission cuts.

The table has been drawn up after a week of deliberations, during which the panel has heard presentations on ten global challenges - terrorism; conflict; malnutrition and hunger; education; the role of women; air pollution; subsidies and trade barriers; disease; sanitation and water; and global warming.

In each case, three leading specialists in the field were asked to make the case for particular solutions and present evidence on their costs and benefits. The economists were then asked to judge all these against one another, to come up with a list of priorities.

About a quarter of the 44 solutions originally presented to the economists were dropped from the final list, as the panel considered there was insufficient evidence to assess them properly. These included all five of the solutions offered to international terrorism, and four of the five for preventing conflicts and civil wars.

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Burning food: why oil is the real villain in the food crisis

Food is now worth more as petrol than on the table, says Chris Goodall, and the unpalatable truth is that only a long and painful attack on oil consumption will reverse the spiral in food prices

Chris Goodall, The Guardian 30 May 08;

The rising cost of foods is widely being blamed on the use of grains for biofuels, and the case for the prosecution is simply made. About 100m tonnes of maize from this year's US crop will be diverted into ethanol refineries, an increase of a third on 2007's figure. This means one in 20 of all cereal grains produced in the world this year will end up in the petrol tank of US cars, the country that is most aggressively increasing the use of food for fuel.

As we are all increasingly aware, world demand for cereals has recently exceeded the available supply. The UN's food and agriculture organisation (FAO) estimates suggest that the world ran down its stocks of grains by about 50m tonnes during the past year. The 100m tonnes of maize to be used by US ethanol refineries in the next year is double last year's global grain shortfall. Without ethanol production, supply would exceed demand and price inflation might have been kept in check. The IMF largely agrees with this view, saying that growth in biofuels has caused 70% of the increase in maize prices over the last few years.

But the effect is not limited to maize. Price rises in one commodity inevitably spill over to other crops. Farmers switch from producing wheat and other grains as the price of corn rises, reducing the supply of other cereals. Similarly, increasingly expensive corn encourages food manufacturers to switch to other grains, and livestock producers to feed their animals with other foods. Soybeans, for example, are used for cattle feed when the price of corn goes up. The IMF thinks that 40% of the inflation in soybean costs is directly down to the expansion in biofuels around the world.

So can we confidently convict biofuels of the charge of causing a very large part of the spikes in food prices? Not quite. Few will dispute that biofuels have made the problem worse, but the roots of food price inflation are far deeper and even more worrying.

The first factor is one happily raised by the US ethanol industry. It points out that their refineries are using far less corn than is needed to meet the increasing demand from Chinese consumers for meat. One lobbying document points out that Chinese meat consumption per person has doubled in the last decade or so, rising almost to European levels. This increase has required an extra 200m tonnes of grain per year to feed the animals, twice what will be used in 2008 in US ethanol refineries. So rising demand from the growing middle classes in developing countries is driving prices up more than biofuels.

FAO data also indicates that more grain has gone to feed animals in the past 10 years, although their estimates are less alarming than those from the US ethanol industry. The FAO says the grain being used for animal feed has risen by about a 100m tonnes in the past 10 years, but this compares to an increase of only 70m tonnes in the amount directly consumed by people.

This leads on to a second, even more worrying issue that underlies food price inflation. Agricultural productivity is simply not growing fast enough. US government data shows global yields per hectare rose 2% a year between 1970 and 1990 and then fell to 1.1% over the succeeding period. Productivity enhancements over the next 10 years are expected to average less than 1% a year. Since world population growth is averaging somewhat over 1%, we are heading for global hunger, with biofuels only hastening the speed.

We can see this in production data from the FAO: the amount of available grain for every person in the world edged downwards last year. The world could try to compensate for faltering productivity growth by expanding the area given over to crops, but this runs the risk of increasing the rate of worldwide deforestation, already causing a fifth of global CO2 emissions.

Lastly, we must consider a thorny economic issue. Government legislation in the US and the European Union – as well as their large subsidies - may have created the ethanol industry, but the refineries can now stand on their own financial feet. With oil at $135 a barrel, it is very profitable to turn the starch in maize into motor fuel. Simply put, food is worth more as petrol than it is on the table, even if the subsidies are removed. The only way of stopping farmers selling their grain to the refineries would be to introduce an outright ban on adding ethanol to petrol.

The IMF may be correct that the rise of biofuels has caused much of the world's recent food price inflation. But now that we know how to make ethanol efficiently from foodstuffs, it is sky-high oil costs that are keeping up the price of agricultural commodities. For a sustained reduction in food prices, we need oil prices to fall to much lower levels. This would also reduce fertiliser and diesel expenses, helping to restrain the upward march in agricultural prices.

Biofuels advocates reply that by substituting for gasoline, corn ethanol helps to reduce oil consumption. Unfortunately, it is a very bad exchange. America's use of corn for ethanol absorbs 5% of the world's cereal crops but has replaced less than 1% of global oil use. The unpalatable truth is that only through a long, sustained and probably painful attack on oil consumption can the world hope to reverse the spiral in food prices.

• Chris Goodall is the publisher of www.carboncommentary.com. His book on technologies to address global warming will be published by Profile Books later in 2008

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Shocked! How the oil crisis has hit the world

Andy McSmith, Jerome Taylor and Nigel Morris, The Independent 31 May 08;

British pensioners who cannot afford to heat their homes. European hauliers and fishermen whose livelihoods are under threat. Palestinians forced to fill up their cars with olive oil. Americans asked to go down to a four-day week.

All around the world, in a multitude of ways, the soaring price of oil is hurting rich and poor alike. For the lucky ones, it is simply a matter of changing their lifestyle. But those most vulnerable to the price of oil have been driven on to the streets in angry protests, which raise a fundamental question: what can we do to survive in a world where a barrel of oil costs $127 (£64)?

Great Britain

The rise in the oil price could not come at a worse time for Gordon Brown. After a week that has seen hauliers blocking roads and air passengers facing higher surcharges, yesterday it was the impact on fuel bills that came to the fore. The Prime Minister's attempt to ease the pain felt by pensioners and low-income families from rising fuel bills was dismissed as a "sticking plaster to hold back a catastrophe". It consists mainly of advice on coping with the cost of heating rather than extra money.

The number of Britons in "fuel poverty" – 10 per cent of their income goes on energy – is thought to have reached four million. The average annual household bill for heat and light is now more than £1,000. The Government plans to reform data protection laws so that low-income families can be contacted directly by the companies and offered help. The aim is to ensure that the "social tariffs" get to the people that need them most.

Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, said the energy suppliers had agreed to increase "social assistance" from £50m a year to £150m by 2011. The money will be used to switch consumers to lower tariffs and insulate homes.

Kate Jopling, the head of public affairs at the charity Help the Aged, described the measures as a "sticking plaster to hold back a catastrophe". She said: "While it is welcome news ... this initiative does not go nearly far enough to deal with the looming fuel poverty crisis."

The Government's announcement came at the end of the week in which Mr Brown saw a rerun of the political crisis he faced in his early years as Chancellor. Lorry drivers blockaded roads into London and in Wales to demand that a planned 2p rise in fuel tax be scrapped and that "essential users" should be granted a rebate. The only time between the 1997 and 2001 elections when the Labour government looked vulnerable was when Mr Brown suspended rises in fuel taxes after a similar blockade.

Separately yesterday, Britain's Silverjet airline announced it had stopped flights after failing to get a $5m loan from Abu Dhabi-based investors, becoming the third London to New York business class-only carrier to run out of money.

Europe

Luxembourg's Finance Minister, Jean-Claude Juncker, who chairs the commission of European Union finance ministers, issued a call to all EU governments yesterday to hold their nerve and avoid the temptation to use the tax system to relieve the misery of high oil prices. He reminded them that, when they met in Manchester in 2005, they agreed that such a move would encourage demand and send the wrong message to oil producers.

That is not what France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, wanted to hear yesterday, after a week of protests by French truckers and fishermen left several motorways blocked and ports paralysed. M. Sarkozy suggested capping fuel taxes if the oil price rose further.

In the Netherlands, the protests caused less inconvenience, but made more noise when, at 11.45am on Thursday, lorry drivers across the country simultaneously blew their horns in protest at diesel prices. In Bulgaria, lorry and bus drivers launched a joint protest.

The protest spread to the seas yesterday, as fishermen across Europe went on a one-day strike, blocking ports. The biggest demonstrations were in Spain and Portugal where 10,000 protesters converged on Madrid. Some handed out free fish to underline their point that, with the current cost of fuel, they are practically giving their catches away. Passers-by pushed and shoved to get their hands on the free hake.

Meanwhile, the Newcastle to Scandinavia ferry route is being cut by the Danish company DFDS Seaways, who said it was a loss-making service incapable of being turned around. The company blamed "dramatically increasing oil prices, over-capacity in the travel marketplace and the economic slowdown".

The United States

There are signs that the fuel crisis is persuading Americans to think about leaving the car in the garage. In March this year, the number of miles driven by American motorists was 11 billion fewer than in March 2007, according to the Transportation Department. That is the sharpest drop year on year that the department has ever recorded, and the first fall of any kind recorded in the month of March since 1979.

The US Energy Department projects that this year, domestic gas consumption will drop by 190,000 barrels a day and overall petroleum use by 330,000 barrels a day, the first annual fall since 1991. But those figures look less impressive when expressed as percentages. Eleven billion fewer miles is a drop of 4.3 per cent and 330,000 barrels is less than 1 per cent of the country's total daily consumption.

Even so, this is good news for the environment, since the US's greenhouse gas emissions fell by nine million tonnes in the first quarter of 2008. And insurance companies report a sharp drop in road accidents.

An increasing number of employers, anxious to keep their staff, are offering them the option of working longer but fewer days, to cut out journeys to work. There is a plan to offer public employees on New York's Long Island the opportunity to work four 10-hour days, instead of five eight-hour days – a move which, it is reckoned, would save more than 30 barrels of oil a day. When Kent State University, in Ohio, offered this opportunity to 94 security staff, 78 of them snapped it up.

But the changing travelling habits have created problems for America's bus and subway systems, which are having to cope with a sudden increase in passengers at the same time that they are paying more for fuel. In Eugene, Oregon, 16 per cent more people took the bus this month than in April, but the town's main bus company, Lane Transit District, is losing money and cannot afford to expand.

Airlines, which are struggling to break even, are reluctant to raise the price of tickets and are introducing fees for baggage handling instead. American Airlines has slapped a $16 fee on the first piece of baggage checked in by economy-class passengers. Other airlines have followed.

But Southwest Airlines, in California, is laughing, because it took a gamble at the start of the year and bought 70 per cent of the fuel it estimated it would need in a full year for a paltry $51 a barrel – two-fifths of the current price. It is probably the only US airline that will be able to make a profit without increasing charges.

In Northern California, one man thought he had found a way to profit from the crisis. He was spotted rummaging around in the garbage behind a Burger King, with a tube and a storage bin. When police caught up with him, they found that he had 2,500 gallons of used fryer grease stolen from various restaurants. Chip pan fat is worth more than four times what it was a few years ago, making that haul worth more than £3,000.

Outside Seattle, the owner of a pizza restaurant is thinking of installing a CCTV camera over its 50-gallon cooking-oil barrel to keep rustlers away. "Fryer grease has become gold," its owner, Nick Damianidis, told The New York Times. "And just over a year ago, I had to pay someone to take it away."

South America

With some of the most prominent oil producers operating outside of the Middle East and a preponderance of left-wing governments insulating their populations from fuel price increases with heavy subsidies, South America has so far managed better than most with the fuel crisis.

In fact soaring oil prices have bulked up budgets to record levels in countries such as Venezuela. Badly scarred by the oil crises of the 1970s, many Latin American nations have since diversified their energy mix by encouraging the use of biofuels. In Brazil, the world's largest ethanol producer, biofuels account for more than half of transport needs. But while biofuels have kept petrol prices down, food prices – particularly in Central American countries such as Mexico and Haiti – have shot up as vast tracts of arable land are switched from producing food to fuel.

Asia

Daily protests have erupted across Indonesia this week after the government removed subsidies on fuel, leading to an overnight price jump of 30 per cent. Despite being south-east Asia's largest oil producer, Indonesia has struggled to meet even domestic demand due to aging wells and declining investment. On Wednesday, Jakarta announced it would quit Opec because it was unhappy with the way the international oil cartel was dealing with the crisis. But Indonesia's poor have been left reeling by the removal of fuel subsidies and have taken to the streets.

Malaysia has told petrol stations to stop selling fuel to Singapore-registered cars. Singaporeans often take advantage of cheaper oil prices in Malaysia by driving over the border and filling up there. At the same time, airlines across the Asia-Pacific region are scrambling to cut flights and increase surcharges to boost their haemorrhaging cashflow.

This week Hong Kong's Cathay Pacific and Taiwan's China Airlines announced they were considering scaling back some long-haul routes whilst Korean Air said it would temporarily cut flights on 12 international routes over the summer. Much of the regional strain placed on Asia's oil reserves comes from China's near-insatiable consumption of energy. But in an indication of how the country is struggling to import enough fuel, at least three major Chinese cities brought in diesel rationing yesterday.

Africa

Africa is at the sharp end of the oil shock and the inter-related surge in food prices. With millions living on the tiny margin between subsistence and starvation, fuel costs can quickly become a matter of life and death. Governments already under pressure from food protests, and in some cases such as Mozambique violent riots, have now to contend with a new problem.

In South Africa, the government announced yesterday that petrol prices for next week alone would rise by 5 per cent. This brings the increase in petrol prices so far this year to 33 per cent, while the price of diesel, used extensively in farming and heavy industry, has leapt 49 per cent.

There are also growing fears that rapidly increasing fuel prices could have a knock-on effect for aid agencies in countries such as Ethiopia, which are struggling to pay for fuel. This week the Red Cross said in its annual report that rising oil and food costs would mean it now needs much more money than last year just to keep the same level of aid distribution. Africa remains the largest area of Red Cross spending, accounting for 45 per cent of the field budget in 2007.

Middle East

Not even the region with the world's largest oil reserves has escaped the pressures. As major importers beg major producers such as Saudi Arabia to release millions more barrels on to the world markets those Middle Eastern countries unlucky enough not to be sitting on lakes of black gold are facing growing resentment from their own populations over fuel prices.

In Egypt, petrol prices have risen by as much as 40 per cent in a year. Yemen has been rocked by riots in the south, which is home to only a fifth of its 22 million population but produces 80 per cent of the country's oil. Young men and separatists, angry that very little of the nation's oil wealth has trickled down to ordinary people in the south, have been protesting since April, raising concerns that Islamic militants could exploit the unrest in the notoriously fractious country.

In Gaza this week, where fuel shortages have long been a major source of seething discontent due to rationing by Israel and Hamas, Palestinians were forced to fill their cars with olive oil instead of diesel.

Iran is acutely vulnerable to rises in fuel prices because, despite being the world's second largest producer, it is still forced to import about 40 per cent of its petrol because of a lack of refining facilities. Protests last year over fuel prices brought in rationing, which is still in place in Tehran and other major Iranian cities.

Australasia

As Kevin Rudd's newly elected government tries to stem a wave of discontent over prices at the petrol pumps, the airline Qantas announced this week that it was intending to slash hundreds of jobs, freeze executive pay and shut down some domestic rural routes.

Its low-budget offshoot, Jetstar, announced it would cut the number of routes it flew by 5 per cent angering many of those living in Australia's vast interior who rely on the low budget airlines. In an indication of just how much pressure the world's airline operators are under, Qantas estimated that this year's fuel bill would be £500m more than last year. Petrol prices in Melbourne this week hit an all-time high of 164.9 cents [80p] a litre on Wednesday.

Arctic

With the threat of the world's oil reserves one day running out, energy-hungry nations are frantically looking towards the more inaccessible areas of the world for new sources. This week, the five main powers bordering the Arctic – Canada, Denmark, Norway, Russia and the United States – met in Greenland for a two-day summit to discuss their various claims of sovereignty over the Arctic Ocean seabed.

The summit was a bid to stop the Arctic becoming a flashpoint between the nations because of the natural resources it is thought to contain. Oil prospectors believe it could be home to a quarter of the world's undiscovered hydrocarbon reserves. In August, Russia upped the stakes by planting a flag under the North Pole. The five countries at the summit agreed to let the UN rule on conflicting territorial claims for the region's seabed.

Environmental campaigners, who were not allowed to attend the summit, are concerned that a new scramble for the Arctic has begun and are worried that future exploration could damage the area's sensitive ecosystems. They have called for a similar treaty to that which currently regulates the Antarctic, which bans all military activity and mineral exploitation.

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Hunters blamed for whale shark losses

Kate Tarala, thewest.com.au 29 May 08;

Scientists fear Indonesian fishermen hunting whale sharks are responsible for a 40 per cent drop in numbers along the Ningaloo Reef in the past 10 years.

“They are after the fin for the shark fin soup trade, not because they contain a lot of the material used to make the soup, but so restaurants through southern China can advertise the fact that they’ve actually got shark fin,” researcher Mark Meekan said. “The flesh of the animal is also cooked up to the consistency of tofu, in a dish called ‘tofu fish’, which is quite popular.”

Researchers from the Australian Institute of Marine Science, who presented their findings at the second annual Ningaloo Research Symposium at Murdoch University, are also worried by a drop in the size of whale sharks along the reef. The average of 6m to 7m observed in the 1990s has dropped to about 3m to 4m.

“That is important because the sharks don’t become sexually mature until about six to seven metres long. It’s a real worry. The population is becoming more and more composed of juveniles,” Dr Meekan said.

Deaths from ship strike could also contribute to the population decline. “Twenty-five per cent of the whale sharks at Ningaloo bear scars from ships,” Dr Meekan said. “These animals spend a lot of time at the surface, they float around. A modern container vessel moves at 25 knots, so the ship would not even notice if it hit one.”

Natural predation was not likely to account for the drop in the number of whale sharks at Ningaloo Reef.

At smaller sizes whale sharks might be pursued by killer whales, great white sharks or tiger sharks, but its thick skin makes it a difficult meal to catch.

The AIMS team used satellite tagging to track whale sharks for up to eight months after leaving Ningaloo Reef. Dr Meekan said it was alarming to find that some whale sharks travelled well into the waters of Indonesia and South-East Asia, where hunting was a real threat.

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Best of our wild blogs: 30 May 08

What to do when we find a weakened raptor
on the bird ecology blog

Reef in Red
a lyrical look at Cyrene on the budak blog

Fieldtrip at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
on the lazy lizard tales blog

Dam(n) these silly ideas...
on the lazy lizard tales blog

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U.N. experts warn of economic cost of species loss

Madeline Chambers, Reuters 29 May 08;

BONN, Germany (Reuters) - Mankind is causing 50 billion euros ($78 billion) of damage to the planet's land areas every year, making it imperative governments act to save plants and animals, a Deutsche Bank official told a U.N. conference.

A study, presented to delegates from 191 countries in the U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity on Thursday, said recent pressure on commodity and food prices highlighted the effects of the loss of biodiversity to society.

"Urgent remedial action is essential because species loss and ecosystem degradation are inextricably linked to human well-being," said Pavan Sukhdev, a banker at Deutsche Bank and the main author of the report.

On top of the current 50 billion euros annual loss from land-based ecosystems caused by factors including pollution and deforestation, the cumulative loss could amount to at least 7 percent of annual consumption by 2050, said the report.

Deforestation, if continued at current levels, would cost some 6 percent of world gross domestic product by 2050, he said.

The idea of the report is to spur action to safeguard wildlife in the way Britain's Stern report sparked action to fight climate change after the economic costs were outlined, German Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said.

European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the study proved biodiversity was not just about saving pandas and tigers but underscored the need to preserve natural wealth.

"The report shows we are eating away at our natural capital and making ourselves vulnerable to climate change," he said.

Delegates and environment groups praised the report, entitled "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity", saying the figures helped make the case for integrating biodiversity into policy.

Sukhdev will present a second, fuller, report next year.

Delegates at the U.N. meeting are trying to agree on ways to save species which experts say are facing their biggest crisis since the dinosaurs died out 65 million years ago. Three species vanish every hour, they say.

"CRUNCH TIME"

The conference ends on Friday and environmentalists warned that much still had to be done, even after 11-days of negotiations on issues like creating and managing protected natural areas, tackling deforestation and invasive species.

"This is crunch time," said WWF Director General Jim Leape. "We're gathered here under urgent circumstances."

Gabriel said progress had been made on a roadmap for rules on access to genetic resources and sharing their benefits.

Sukhdev warned if no action is taken, 11 percent of the earth's natural areas could be lost by 2050, mainly due to farming, infrastructure growth and climate change.

He also said research showed the world's commercial fisheries are likely to have collapsed within 50 years unless trends are reversed. That would be devastating for the 1 billion people who rely on fisheries for protein and could lead to up to $80 billion to $100 billion in income loss for the sector.

The report says assigning just 1 percent of global GDP could achieve significant improvements in air and water quality and human health as well as ensure progress towards climate targets.

(Reporting by Madeline Chambers, editing by Alister Doyle and Ibon Villelabeitia)

Ecosystem damage costs trillions per year: study
Yahoo News 29 May 08;

Environmental damage and species loss costs between 1.35 and 3.1 trillion euros (2.1 to 4.8 trillion dollars) every year, according to a report released Thursday at a major UN conference on biodiversity.

The study, commissioned by the European Union (EU) and the German government, is the biggest assessment ever made of the economic impact of ecological damage, and supporters compared it to the famous "Stern Report" on the cost of climate change.

It was issued at a meeting of the UN Convention on Biodiversity, a 12-day meeting in Bonn of 6,000 representatives from 191 nations due to wind up on Friday.

The report, entitled "The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity," attaches a monetary value to species and to environmental assets that usually are not considered in cash terms.

It looks, for instance, at the dollar value of clean water, healthy soil, protection from floods and soil erosion, natural medicines and natural sinks that store greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane.

"Though our wellbeing is totally dependent on these 'ecosystem services', they are predominantly public goods with no markets and no prices," the report notes.

Principal author Pavan Sukhdev, who heads Deutsche Bank's global markets business in India, described this lack as "trying to navigate uncharted and turbulent waters with an old and defective economic compass."

Sukhdev warned that some ecosystems were probably already damaged beyond repair, and predicted other systems would be badly wounded unless protective measures were urgently taken.

He said that by 2050, under a "business-as-usual" scenario, these catastrophes loom:

-- 11 percent of natural areas remaining in 2000 could be lost due to conversion to agriculture, development, and climate change;

-- 40 percent of land currently under low-impact agriculture could become intensively farmed, accelerate biodiversity losses;

-- 60 percent of coral reefs could be lost, directly affecting the livelihood of a billion people.

As with climate change, the consequences of this damage will fall mainly on the world's poorest and most vulnerable denizens, according to the report.

The true value of biodiversity and ecosystem services must be incorporated into policy decisions, the study said.

Environmental groups at the meeting in Bonn welcomed the report. "This is a long overdue recognition of biodiversity as a key development issue," said Gordon Shepard, director of international policy for World Wildlife Fund International.

The report puts a spotlight "on the economic value of biodiversity both to our global economy and for the millions of people directly dependent on natural resources for their livelihoods," he said.

Joan Ruddock, the British Minister for Wildlife, said the report "is vital to the effort to stem the loss of species and habitats," and announced that Britain would help fund a fuller study.

About 150 species of flora and fauna go extinct every day, a rate that is 100 to 1000 times higher than a natural dying out of species, according to scientists.

The inspiration for the new report is the landmark 2006 assessment by British economist Sir Nicholas Stern that sparked awareness about the economic cost of global warming.

Stern said that climate change could shrink the global economy by as much as 20 percent, but if action were taken immediately, the bill would be only one percent of global gross domestic product (GDP).

Nature loss 'to hurt global poor'
Richard Black, BBC News website 29 May 08;

Damage to forests, rivers, marine life and other aspects of nature could halve living standards for the world's poor, a major report has concluded.

Current rates of natural decline might reduce global GDP by about 7% by 2050.

The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) review is modelled on the Stern Review of climate change.

It will be released at the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) meeting in Bonn, where 60 leaders have pledged to halt deforestation by 2020.

"You come up with answers like 6% or 8% of global GDP when you think about the benefits of intact ecosystems, for example in controlling water, controlling floods and droughts, the flow of nutrients from forest to field," said the project's leader Pavan Sukhdev.

"But then you realise that the major beneficiaries [of nature] are the billion and a half of the world's poor; these natural systems account for as much as 40%-50% of what we define as the 'GDP of the poor'," he told BBC News.

Globalised decline

The TEEB review was set up by the German government and the European Commission during the German G8 presidency.

The two institutions selected Mr Sukhdev, a managing director in the global markets division at Deutsche Bank, to lead it.

At the time, in an article for the BBC News website, Germany's environment minister Sigmar Gabriel wrote: "Biological diversity constitutes the indispensable foundation for our lives and for global economic development.

"[But] two-thirds of these ecosystem services are already in decline, some dramatically. We need a greening of globalisation."

The document to be released at the CBD is an interim report into what the team acknowledges are complex, difficult and under-researched issues.

The 7% figure is largely based on loss of forests. The report will acknowledge that the costs of losing some ecosystems have barely been quantified.

The trends are understood well enough - a 50% shrinkage of wetlands over the past 100 years, a rate of species loss between 100 and 1,000 times the rate that would occur without 6.5 billion humans on the planet, a sharp decline in ocean fish stocks and one third of coral reefs damaged.

However, putting a monetary value on them is probably much more difficult, the team acknowledges, than putting a cost on climate change.

The report highlights some of the planet's ecologically damaged zones such as Haiti, where heavy deforestation - largely caused by the poor as they cut wood to sell for cash - means soil is washed away and the ground much less productive.

'Too little, too late'

There are some indications that biodiversity and ecosystem issues are now being heard at the top tables of politics.

G8 environment ministers meeting in Japan last weekend agreed a document noting that "biodiversity is the basis of human security and... the loss of biodiversity exacerbates inequality and instability in human society".

It also emphasised the importance of protected areas and of curbing deforestation.

At the CBD on Wednesday, 60 countries signed pledges to halt net deforestation by 2020.

But the main CBD target agreed by all signatories at the Rio de Janeiro Earth Summit in 1992 - to "halt and begin to reverse" biodiversity loss by 2010 - is very unlikely to be met.

An early draft of the TEEB review, seen by BBC News, concluded: "Lessons from the last 100 years demonstrate that mankind has usually acted too little and too late in the face of similar threats - asbestos, CFCs, acid rain, declining fisheries, BSE and - most recently - climate change".

The Stern Review talked to governments in a way that earlier climate reports could not, because it was written by and for economists; and the architects of TEEB hope it will eventually do the same thing for biodiversity.

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Bringing wildlife back to the city: Singapore’s idea

Sheralyn Tay, Today Online 30 May 08;

ULTRA-URBAN Singapore has a proposal for the world: Create :a City Biodiversity Index.

To better enhance the conservation of urban biodiversity — the variety of plant and animal life in an urban ecosystem — Minister of National Development Mah Bow Tan raised this idea yesterday :in Bonn, Germany, at the 9th conference of the parties to the convention on biological diversity.

Said Mr Mah: “Currently, there are no well-established indices to measure biodiversity in cities. Such a City Biodiversity Index can assist cities in the benchmarking of our biodiversity conservation efforts over time.

“It can help us to evaluate our progress in reducing the rate of biodiversity loss.”

He noted that Singapore, urbanised as it is, has managed to not only set aside 10 per cent of land for parks and nature reserves — it has even increased the green cover, consisting of parks, park connectors, streetscape and waterfront greenery, to 50 per cent.

This is a 10-per-cent increase over the past 20 years, despite a 70-per-cent growth in population, he said.

Other testaments to Singapore’s convervation efforts is the creation of an on-site coral nursery alongside an offshore landfill.

And the Oriental Pied Hornbill, which disappeared from Singapore for: more than 50 years, is now establishing healthy populations on Pulau Ubin.

Conservationist Mr N Sivasothi, of the biological science department at the National University of Singapore, welcomed the index concept as it would raise awareness of Singapore’s biodiversity on a macrolevel, he said.

At the micro-level, it will help inform decisions such as how to integrate existing nature with urban projects, he felt.

Singapore proposes establishment of City Biodiversity Index
Channel NewsAsia 29 May 08;

SINGAPORE : Singapore has proposed the creation of a "City Biodiversity Index", and National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said this will help cities evaluate progress in reducing biodiversity loss.

Mr Mah was addressing delegates at a conference hosted by the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in Bonn, Germany.

While many technical details needed to be worked out, Mr Mah said the proposed index could be set up under the convention's auspices and serve as a benchmark for biodiversity conservation efforts.

The city-state has offered to host the first meeting of an expert panel to kick-start the development of the new index.

Touching on Singapore's efforts, Mr Mah cited a successful conservation project which saw the return of the Oriental Pied Hornbill to the republic after more than 50 years. - CNA /ls

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Sentosa IR says ‘no’ to shark’s fin

But high rollers can stillrequest the dish, saysResorts World, which will also launch marine life fund
Neo Chai Chin, Today Online 30 May 08;

DISNEY in Hong Kong did it. Now, Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS) is also keeping shark’s fin off the menu at all its banquets and restaurants, when doors open in 2010.

But high rollers can still get their dish and eat it too — the Chinese delicacy will be available on request at the integrated resorts’ private gaming rooms, said Ms Krist Boo, RWS’ head of communications.

For business’ sake, “we will never say no to a high roller, but we will try to educate and persuade them”, she said, adding that alternatives like scallops and lobsters would be available.

The IR operator made the announcement yesterday as it launched a marine conservation fund, a move wildlife activists dubbed timely and in the spirit of corporate social responsibility.

On the shark’s fin issue, WS has also roped in wildlife welfare groups WildAid and the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) as partners.

Because of the large scale of RWS — it expects to contribute at least $15 billion in tourism revenue by 2015 and will house the world’s largest oceanarium with 700,000 marine species — the company felt it could “make an impact across Asia” by removing shark’s fin from its menus, said Ms Boo.

“It is a very bold step for a casino to take. A lot of high rollers are Chinese, and businessmen.”

Acres’ executive director Louis Ng said: “We hope that this is a good step that the rest of the corporations and, most importantly, the restaurants, resorts and hotels will follow.”

Mr Peter Knights, executive director of San Francisco-based international conservation group WildAid, said: “Sharks are like the flagship species for the oceans. They’re something people can understand, and what’s happening to them is typical of what’s happening in the oceans.”

To boost marine research, conservation and education, RWS also launched the RWS Marine Life Fund, which will sponsor efforts of researchers, non-governmental organisations as well as students aged 10 to 18.

Entirely funded by RWS, whose parent company is Genting International, the fund will “start small” with up to $100,000 given out this year and next, said Ms Boo. When the resort opens in two years’ time, annual funding will be increased to $1 million.

A quarter of the fund will be set aside for school projects, and there is no cap on applied funding. Applications for $20,000 or less will be assessed by an RWS committee, while those seeking more than $20,000 will also be assessed by an independent reviewer, such as a conservation agency.

Groups from around the world may apply while details have not been firmed up, Ms Boo said. All factors being equal, a project closer to home would probably be given more priority.

Although RWS’ oceanarium drew objections from nature groups when announced two years ago, RWS hopes that through the Marine Life Fund, a group of young volunteers for the oceanarium can eventually be formed.

In 2006, Acres was among a handful of societies that opposed the IR’s oceanarium on grounds that it confined “limitless numbers of animals to attract and entertain the public”.

Mr Ng yesterday said Acres would “evaluate” the partnership with RWS, and admitted there were still “issues to iron out”.

RWS has also in recent years helped to relocate the corals from Sentosa’s northern coastline affected by reclamation works to the Southern Islands.

No shark's fin served here
Resorts World at Sentosa shows its commitment to the environment
Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 30 May 08;

SHARK'S fin is off the menu at the massive casino resort being built on Sentosa, making it only the second major retreat in the region to shy away from the controversial delicacy.

The decision by Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS) is designed to promote goodwill and highlight the complex's commitment to the environment, said vice-president of communications Krist Boo.

Shark's fin has recently become a highly contentious dish. Environmental groups have stepped up protests against restaurants and resorts that offer the cartilage soup, saying about one-third of shark species in the world are critically endangered. It is estimated that tens of millions of the animals have their fins cut off annually before being thrown back into the sea where they die.

While RWS will not serve the cartilage soup in its restaurants, it will make it available to high-rollers, the lucrative guests who gamble heavily in casinos.

'We did our sums and we cannot say no to the high-rollers. But we felt at least 90 per cent of what might normally be served will be done away with if we take it off the menu,' Ms Boo said.

Yesterday's decision is virtually unheard of in large entertainment centres and casinos in the region.

Only Hong Kong Disneyland has taken shark's fin off the menu. That was prompted by international campaigns by animal welfare groups.

Yesterday, the executive director of United States-based environmental group WildAid welcomed RWS' decision.

'No arm twisting was necessary here. This was completely their call,' said Mr Peter Knights, who attended a press conference at the resort.

The move will see RWS' Chinese restaurants lose a possible money maker, said Ms Boo. Its straw poll of four Singapore restaurants and one hotel chain found up to 70 per cent of their revenue comes from shark's fin and abalone, she said.

Mr Louis Ng, executive director of Singapore's Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), doubts the dish will be missed.

'There was a restaurant serving up fake shark's-fin soup for years here before it got caught, which goes to show we don't need shark's fin,' he said yesterday.

Both Mr Knights and Mr Ng helped RWS announce another programme yesterday: a wildlife conservation fund into which RWS said it will put $3.2 million over the next five years. The RWS Marine Life Fund will hand out grants to projects designed to help protect sea life. A quarter of the available funds are expected to go to schoolchildren.

Resorts World at Sentosa drops shark's fin from menus
Channel NewsAsia 29 May 08;

SINGAPORE: Growing affluence is fuelling demand for a popular Asian delicacy – shark's fin.

According to a recent survey carried out by Singapore's Environment Council and US-based conservation group Wild-Aid, 70 million sharks are killed each year to meet the demand for shark's fin, resulting in a reduction in the number of sharks by as much as 90 percent over the last 20 years.

However, the popularity of shark's fin soup among customers often means that most restaurants cannot afford to drop the dish from their menus.

Louis Ng, executive director, Animal Concerns Research & Education Society (ACRES), said: "In the past, if you didn't serve shark's fin at your wedding dinner, others would term you as cheapskate."

To support conservation efforts, one of Singapore's upcoming integrated resorts - Resorts World at Sentosa - said it would not be offering shark's fin on its menu when it opens in 2010. It does not, however, rule out exceptions.

Krist Boo, Resorts World at Sentosa, said: "In the private gaming rooms, if a high roller asks for shark's fin, we will serve it and that's a business decision."

Together with its move to keep shark's fin off its menus, the resort has also launched a Marine Life Fund as part of its corporate social responsibility programme.

It has set aside some US$70,000 (SGD$100,000) for 2008 and 2009 to fund research and conservation efforts, and up to US$700,000 a year when the resort opens in 2010.

A quarter of the fund will be reserved for school projects with a marine conservation theme.- CNA/so

Sentosa launches fund to further marine cause
Business Times 30 May 08;

RESORTS World at Sentosa (RWS) yesterday launched a fund to sponsor education, research and conservation efforts related to marine life in a bid to further the marine conservation cause.

The RWS Marine Life Fund will disburse up to S$100,000 each year in 2008 and 2009, and up to S$1 million each year from 2010 when the Resort opens.

'We hope to see some good applications for the Marine Life Fund. What's exciting for us is that this fund is not reserved only for established conservation groups, but it has a pocket solely devoted to kids,' said RWS's Communications head Krist Boo.

'We hope it will encourage children to learn about the ocean, and to love it. The online application process is easy for all.'

The new initiatives launched are an extension of the Resort's conservation efforts. In 2006, RWS undertook the initiative to relocate corals and other marine life around the northern coastline affected by reclamation works that were carried out as part of the Resort's construction.

To encourage and cultivate an interest for the oceans, besides researchers and NGOs, the Fund is also open to schoolchildren. 25 per cent of this Fund will be set aside for kids working on school projects related to marine conservation. There is no cap on the applied funding, and projects could span anything from fieldwork to classroom models. All applications will be assessed by a RWS committee which oversees the Fund, and for applications for funding above $20,000, an independent reviewer will be included in the assessment.

Resorts World at Sentosa boosts marine conservation efforts with the launch of RWS Marine Life Fund and a shark fin free menu
Resorts World Sentosa press release 29 May 08;

Singapore, 29 May 2008 – Resorts World at Sentosa (RWS) today launched a fund to sponsor research, education and conservation efforts related to marine life, to further the marine conservation cause. The RWS Marine Life Fund will dispatch up to S$100,000 each year in 2008 and 2009; and up to S$1 million each year from 2010 when the Resort opens.

To encourage and cultivate an interest for the oceans, besides researchers and NGOs, the Fund is also open to schoolchildren. 25 per cent of this Fund will be set aside for kids working on school projects related to marine conservation. There is no cap on the applied funding, and projects could span anything from fieldwork to classroom models. All applications will be assessed by a RWS committee which oversees the Fund, and for applications for funding above $20,000, an independent reviewer will be included in the assessment.

Reinforcing this commitment to marine conservation and research, the Resort also announced that shark fin will not be offered on the menus of banquets and restaurants throughout the Resort. Instead, alternatives to this traditional Asian delicacy, often served at celebratory and wedding dinners, will be made available. RWS is taking this step in the belief that the consumption of shark fin is currently unsustainable due to the declining shark population and growing demand for shark fin.

RWS’s Communications Head Krist Boo, who oversees the project, said, “We hope to see some good applications for the Marine Life Fund. What’s exciting for us is that this fund is not reserved only for established conservation groups, but it has a pocket solely devoted to kids. We hope it will encourage children to learn about the ocean, and to love it. The online application process is easy for all.”

She added, “As for shark fin, we are taking it off the menu because being a landmark project in Asia, we believe we can make a difference. There are communities that have consumed shark meat and fins for generations and we respect that. What we are advocating is an end to mass consumption patterns that appear unsustainable for the shark population. We are fortunate to have WildAid and ACRES, two well-respected conservation groups, as partners in this cause.’’

Mr Peter Knights, Executive Director of WildAid, headquartered in San Francisco, said, “Just as with action to stem global warming, it is vital that corporations and the public take the lead, as government action is invariably too little too late. By eating alternatives, consumers can help to save sharks and protect our oceans and we applaud Resorts World at Sentosa’s lead on this.”

Mr Louis Ng, Executive Director of Singapore-based ACRES (Animal Concerns Research and Education Society), said, “ACRES applauds RWS for leaving shark fin soup off their menu and we urge the public to support this progressive move. We certainly hope that other companies and restaurants follow RWS’s example which will undoubtedly make a difference for the world’s remaining sharks.”

The new initiatives launched today are an extension of the Resort’s conservation efforts. In 2006, RWS undertook the initiative to relocate corals and other marine life around the northern coastline affected by reclamation works that were carried out as part of the Resort’s construction. To preserve a part of Singapore’s natural marine heritage, the affected corals were moved to the Southern Islands, and are now thriving in their new homes.

Application procedures for the RWS Marine Life Fund are available at www.rwsentosa.com

About Resorts World at Sentosa
Slated to be one of the world’s most exciting family destinations, Resorts World at Sentosa is a collection of resorts and attractions with a plethora of fun-filled offerings for the entire family.

Taking pride of place on Singapore’s resort island of Sentosa and spanning 49 hectares, this S$6 billion mega-resort will be home to Southeast Asia’s first and only Universal Studios theme park, the world’s largest oceanarium and the region’s first integrated destination spa.

The resort also boasts some 1,800 rooms, spread across its six hotels of varying themes, with full conference and meeting amenities. Topping the list are Maxims Residences, Hotel Michael and Singapore’s very own Hard Rock Hotel.

Beyond resorts and attractions, world-class entertainment such as the Crane Dance – a spectacular multi-media moving art with cleverly choreographed animatronic cranes, set out at the waterfront – will also be presented to the public.

A 1,700-seat theatre will feature a magical dreamlike extravaganza with water, light and visual effects, alongside retail and dining options at the Festive Walk with roving acts and street performances at the Bull Ring.

Indeed, come 2010, Resorts World at Sentosa looks set to welcome 15 million visitors. It will be a place that Singapore can proudly call its own.

About WildAid
WildAid is an international conservation organization dedicated to reducing the demand for endangered and threatened wildlife products (see ww.wildaid.org) WildAid’s shark campaign is designed to improve management of shark fisheries, end the practice of “shark finning” and to reduce consumption of shark fin soup to sustainable levels.

About ACRES
ACRES is a local charity and Institution of Public Character, founded by Singaporeans in 2001, with a main aim of fostering respect and compassion for all animals. It has embarked on numerous projects to improve the welfare of captive animals and protect wild animals throughout Asia. Tackling the illegal wildlife trade has been a major focus in recent years.

ACRES has created much-needed awareness on animal protection issues through extensive educational outreach efforts. It strongly promotes community involvement in addressing animal protection issues, and thousands of individuals have volunteered with ACRES to make the world a better place for animals. It currently has more than 12,000 individuals on its supporter database.

Media contacts
Lee Sin Yee
Resorts World at Sentosa
Tel: + 65 6407 9769
Email: sinyee.lee@RWSentosa.com

Adeline Lee
Weber Shandwick
for Resorts World at Sentosa
Tel: +65 6825 8011
Email: ali@webershandwick.com

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'It's like gold falling from sky': using rainwater in Singapore

Retiree saves $40 a month on water bills using rainwater for household chores
Mr Liang collects rainwater and stores it in his collection of 200 plastic bottles
He uses water for chores like watering plants
Natashia Lee, The New Paper 30 May 08

A ROW of 10 empty plastic pails line the doorway of a ground-floor flat at Yishun. Some distance away is a shelf, stacked with 200 plastic bottles.

They belong to Mr Liang Su Yan, 70, a retired bus driver who has been using the buckets to collect rainwater for the past five years.

In a single storm, he can collect up to 10 full buckets.

It is recycling at its best.

Mr Liang uses the rainwater to water his plants, mop his floor, and even do his laundry.

His efforts have come up to substantial savings in water bills. He now pays $30 a month compared to the $70 he paid previously.

Previously, he was living with his two grown-up children, also in Yishun.

Said Mr Liang: 'I had 20 pots of plants when I was at my previous home, and I was using tap water to water the plants.'

It was the presence of several construction projects in his neighbourhood that sparked the idea.

Said Mr Liang, who now lives with his wife in a three-room flat: 'Five years ago, I saw empty plastic bottles being littered by the construction workers working in the area, and I thought, what a waste.'

He started picking up the discarded bottles, and soon, he was collecting up to ten bottles every month.

When he first started, he placed only two to three pails outside his home.

Said Mr Liang: 'Back then, I had only 20 small potted plants and didn't need much water for them.'

He would transfer the rainwater from the buckets to the bottles, and cap them for storage.

If he collected more water than he could store, he added bleach to the leftover water to prevent mosquitos from breeding.

Now, his garden has grown to about the width of a basketball court, and includes papaya trees, cactuses, and pepper plants.

These days, Mr Liang uses 20 bottles of rainwater to water his garden.

He has even gone the extra mile to purify the rainwater.

He bought a water purifier in 2005 after a friend recommended it to him.

Now he uses the clean water to mop the floor at home and do the laundry. The device cost him more than $1,000.

Said Mr Liang: 'If I had continued to use tap water, my water bill would probably be about $20 more than what I'm paying now.'

But his water conservation efforts have raised some eyebrows.

Officers from the Sembawang Town Council spoke to Mr Liang in 2005 as they were concerned that the water posed a dengue risk.

He was warned not to keep the water for more than two nights.

But he assured them that the buckets were always emptied immediately, and any leftover rainwater was sprinkled with granular insecticide and covered.

Mr Liang said he plans to continue his recycling efforts.

'It's like gold falling from the sky. If we don't use it, don't you think it's a terrible waste?'

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NParks' research into cooling techniques bears fruit

Channel NewsAsia 29 May 08;

SINGAPORE: The National Parks Board's (NParks) research at its Prototype Glasshouse Complex has literally blossomed – a large variety of temperate plants has not stopped flowering since it was brought to Singapore eight months ago.

The six glasshouses of the S$7 million complex at HortPark are filled with a hundred species of blooms, native to the highlands of New Guinea, East Africa and South America.

Anton van der Schans, assistant director of Horticulture, Gardens by the Bay, NParks, said: "Certainly rare in Singapore is the Wollemi Pine – a large coniferous pine tree that was fairly recently discovered in the Blue Mountains to the west of Sydney, growing at a very rugged area down in the bottom of a big sandstone gorge."

The NParks team is testing the integration of several advanced cooling technologies that can be introduced at the 2-hectare new conservatories at the Gardens by the Bay.

The glasshouses simulate humidity and temperatures similar to those found in the Mediterranean regions and tropical highlands. On average, the temperature is kept at 25 degrees Celsius in the day and it dips to about 16 degrees Celsius at night.

The cultivation and display of hundreds of species of temperate plants at the conservatories at Marina Bay will be one of the largest in Asia.

Kenneth Er, general manager of Gardens by the Bay, NParks, said: "Prototype glasshouses would have implications on the way we construct glass buildings and atriums locally, even in the industry. Obviously for us, we want to try to achieve longer flowering persistence in a cost-efficient and energy-efficient manner."

Phase One of the Gardens by the Bay, which includes the conservatories, is expected to be completed by 2010. The project is estimated to cost S$900 million.- CNA/so

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