Teachers’ Estate chikungunya-free

Today Online 10 Jun 08;

THE coast is clear — at least for some residents of Teachers’ Estate, the latest area where chikungunya surfaced.

Blood tests conducted by the National Environment Agency (NEA) showed that 311 people working and living in the private housing estate located off Upper Thomson Road were free of the virus.

The checks come after the Ministry of Health (MOH) was notified last week that two people living in the estate — an 86-year-old retiree and a domestic helper from the same household — had contracted the fever.

It was the first time that locally contracted cases of chikungunya had been reported to the MOH outside the Little India area early this year.

The MOH said 23 cases of chikungunya fever had been reported this year, with 15 of them contracted locally.

To combat the disease, the NEA conducted intensive inspection and fogging operations over the weekend. It checked more than 170 homes and 18 cases of mosquito breeding were detected. It will continue to monitor the situation. — SHERALYN TAY

Checks find no new cases of chikungunya in Teachers Housing Estate
Channel NewsAsia 9 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: Following the detection of two cases of chikungunya fever last week, the authorities have conducted property checks and taken blood samples from residents and workers in the Teachers Housing Estate, off Upper Thomson Road.

All the 311 samples collected between last Thursday and Saturday have been tested negative for the virus.

Officers from the National Environment Agency (NEA), who have found 18 instances of mosquito breeding, inspected over 170 premises in the estate and sprayed over 100 of them with insecticide.

According to the Health Ministry, the two cases last week brought the total number of reported cases of the disease in Singapore to 23 this year.- CNA/so

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Indonesian couple develop micro-hydroelectric power plants in rural areas

Channel NewsAsia 9 Jun 08;

INDONESIA: Preserve the forests to ensure a continuous supply of green energy – that's the mantra of an Indonesian couple who have developed micro-hydroelectric power plants in Indonesia's rural areas.

Deep in the rural districts of Aceh, Indonesia, Iskandar Budisaroso and his team are building another micro-hydroelectric power plant.

The area's huge water catchments will allow the plant to generate more than 400 kilowatts of green energy – enough to supply electricity to more than 2,000 rural households, once it is ready in September.

Costing US$1 million – all raised through donations from international donors – this plant is by far the biggest for Mr Iskandar since he started building micro-hydroelectric power plants in Indonesia's poor rural areas more than 20 years ago.

Mr Iskandar, People Centred Business and Economic Institute, IBEKA, said: "At that time, we don't think about clean energy or green energy because I began this in the early 80s or the late 70s. The green energy issue at that time was not in place. It was still fossil fuel everywhere."

He and his wife, Tri Mumpuni, are now hailed as the leading proponents of renewable energy in the country and their efforts have been acknowledged by the United Nation's agencies and several environmental groups.

So far, they have built more than 60 micro-hydroelectric power plants in Indonesia, aimed primarily at improving the lives of the poor.

To ensure that the projects would succeed, they have rallied the beneficiaries to preserve the forest.

Tri Mumpuni said: "I told the community that if you want constant energy or electricity, you have to take care of the catchments area. How to preserve the catchments area? You cannot cut the trees in the catchments area and you have to plant more trees."

"After that, they made a regulation (that states) nobody can cut the trees 500 metres right and left of the stream. That is the consensus of the community, not forced by the government," said Mr Iskandar.

The success of their micro-hydroelectric power plants is attracting interest from many developing countries – a 120-kilowatt project in Subang, West Java, has drawn a steady stream of international experts who not only study the technical aspects of the power plant, but also the social enterprise that is being developed to sustain each project.

The electricity produced is sold to the state-owned power company and the income is used to develop the village. For the past four years, more than 300,000 households have benefited from such schemes, which are mostly run by village cooperatives.

Mr Iskandar and his wife now want to reach out to thousands more Indonesians who are still not connected to the state power grid, and they believe they have found the right formula – promote green energy to improve the lives of the rural poor.- CNA/so

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Nature-inspired purifier wins inaugural youth water prize for Singapore

The device and its designers to compete in Stockholm next
Tania Tan, Straits Times 10 Jun 08;

THREE students from the National University of Singapore (NUS) High School have designed what they hope will be a cheap and simple way to deliver drinking water to poor communities.

Their portable water purification unit, which distils contaminated or sea water, won them the Singapore Junior Water Prize yesterday.

They beat five other finalists to the $5,000 prize, which was given out for the first time here. They will also represent Singapore at the prestigious Stockholm Junior Water Prize in August.

Team member Koh Shao Yang, 17, said of the win: 'Shock is an understatement. We didn't expect to get this far.'

Their portable device draws inspiration from nature. It has a shape which resembles the jellyfish-like Portuguese man-of-war and floats on water as the sea creature does.

Made out of styrofoam and plastic, the unit uses heat from the sun to evaporate sea water off a saltwater-soaked sheet of fabric.

The distilled water, now stripped of salt, drips down the sides of the device's domed plastic roof into tiny reservoirs.

Each unit produces about 20ml of water an hour, so a few units need to be deployed together.

'It's a small mouthful,' conceded team member Rajarshi Roy, 17, but he added that, in the harshest of situations, 'even a small mouthful can save lives'.

The project impressed judges with its 'elegance and simplicity'.

'It provides a simple solution to pressing problems,' said head judge Ng Wun Jern, the executive director of the Nanyang Environment and Water Research Institute.

Fellow judge and technology director of the Public Utilities Board (PUB) Harry Seah said that the project's application was relevant, especially in disaster areas, although the device was still in its early stages of development.

Organised by Ngee Ann Polytechnic and philanthropic group the Lien Foundation and supported by the PUB, the competition drew 56 entries from 24 institutions.

It aimed to tap the creativity of youth here to produce long-term water solutions and is expected to be a fixture on the calendar, said Dr Amy Khor, the guest of honour and Senior Parliamentary Secretary with the Environment Ministry.

The team will spend the next three months fine-tuning the unit before heading for the Swedish capital for the international competition.

'We just hope to make Singapore proud,' said Mr Roy.

Singapore to participate in Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition
Channel NewsAsia 9 Jun 08;

SINGAPORE: For the first time, Singapore will take part in the prestigious Stockholm Junior Water Prize competition in August 2008. The team to represent the Republic was picked from the Singapore Junior Water Prize competition held on Monday.

The winning team came from NUS High School of Mathematics and Science where a group of students designed a device that desalinates water. Their aim was to get clean water through an innovative system based on thermal distillation.

The winning team beat five other finalists for the top prize. The competition attracted 56 teams from 24 secondary schools, junior colleges and polytechnics. The participants were students between 15 and 20 years old.

Besides its simplicity, the judges also considered how the project could help in the aftermath of disasters.

Professor Ng Wun Jern, chairman of the judging panel, said: "Aside from being able to be applied for large-scale desalination eventually, what I think is interesting about this project is its immediate relevance, which is the possibility of developing this technology into something that can be used for disaster relief. It is something simple, something that people who have been badly affected by disasters can use on their own very quickly."

The winning team received S$5,000 in cash and a trip to Stockholm. - CNA/vm

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Celebrities join World Bank in saving tigers

Lesley Wroughton, Reuters 9 Jun 08;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Hollywood celebrities Harrison Ford, Bo Derek and Robert Duvall on Monday threw their support behind a new global initiative by the World Bank to save tigers from extinction.

While the global development agency's main mission is to fight poverty in developing countries, it has rarely taken on wildlife conservation efforts of endangered species.

The new Tiger Conservation Initiative will bring together wildlife experts, scientists and governments to try to halt the killing and thriving illegal trade in tiger skins, meat and body parts used in traditional Asian medicines.

Ford, a long-time environmental activist, said efforts to protect tigers would only succeed if local communities were involved in conservation efforts.

"By committing to help wild tigers, the World Bank is sounding its intention to be a global leader in biodiversity conservation," Ford, the star of the latest "Indiana Jones" movie, told an event at Washington's Smithsonian National Zoo.

World Bank President Robert Zoellick said the decline in the number of tigers was "shocking" from over 100,000 a century ago to currently less than 4,000.

The clearing of large areas of forest land for urban development has added to their decline and disappearance from Central Asia, the Indonesian islands of Java and Bali, and most of China.

POACHING AT ALL-TIME HIGH

A World Bank report warned that "if current trends persist, tigers are likely to be the first species of large predator to vanish in historic times."

"Just as with many other challenges of sustainability, such as climate change, pandemic disease, or poverty, the crisis facing tigers overwhelms local capabilities and it is one that transcends local borders," Zoellick said.

"This is a problem that cannot be handled by individual nations alone, it requires an alliance of strong local commitment backed by deep international support," he added.

Zoellick said the World Bank would convene a series of discussions with countries, conservationists and the private sector to mobilize funding for tiger conservation, and launch studies on how better to protect the cats.

The World Bank chief said there were examples of where tigers had been brought back from the brink of extinction, such as in Russia and Nepal, but added that saving the world tiger population would not be an easy task.

"All those concerned may not agree but this does not mean we should stand on the sidelines and do nothing," he said.

John Seidensticker, chief scientist at the Smithsonian National Zoo's Conservation Ecology Center, said tiger poaching and trafficking in tiger parts and meat was at an all-time high and the biggest immediate threat to tigers.

"For wild tigers to live they must have much better security on their home ground," he said, also calling on countries to properly enforce laws to protect tigers.

This, Seidensticker said, required strong political will.

"We're at a tipping point and we're going to lose wild tigers but with the World Bank initiative wild tigers now have a chance," he added

Seidensticker said tiger conservation efforts needed to be more coordinated and focused, and the World Bank could help as a global institution.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Sandra Maler)

World Bank leads tiger conservation drive
P. Parameswaran, Yahoo News 10 Jun 08;

The World Bank launched Monday a joint project with conservation groups and Hollywood to help reverse the dramatic decline of wild tigers in Asia, in what is seen as the single most important act to save the Big Cat.

The Tiger Conservation Initiative will begin by consulting with countries that have tiger populations to assess financing needs for conservation, identify funding sources and mobilize resources to protect the animals, officials said.

"Just as with many of the other challenges of sustainability -- such as climate change, pandemic disease or poverty -- the crisis facing tigers overwhelms local capabilities and transcends national boundaries," World Bank President Robert Zoellick said at the launching at the National Zoo in Washington.

"This is a problem that cannot be handled by individual nations alone. It requires an alliance of strong local commitment backed by deep international support," he said at the event held in sweltering heat alongside the zoo's enclosure of Sumatran tigers.

Even before the launching, the Washington-based bank initiative came under fire from wary tiger conservationists in India, which houses the largest number of wild tigers.

They slammed the bank for backing projects such as highways and forestry plantations in India that had harmed wildlife.

To show that the bank was sensitive to the demands of such groups, Zoellick said Monday that the bank's "first" step in the tiger conservation drive was to review its own internal policy.

"First, we at the bank are going to initiate a review to our own independent evaluation group of our projects in tiger habitats to learn from the lessons of the past for our future engagement," he said.

Actor Harrison Ford, fresh off the success of his latest movie "Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull," and actress Bo Derek were at the event to put their celebrity status behind the tiger initiative.

"Acting together, we can put fangs in tiger security and commit the resources necessary to save wild tigers," said John Seidensticker, a world renowned tiger conservation biologist and head of the Smithsonian's National Zoo center for conservation ecology.

John Berry, the zoo's director, described the World Bank-led initiative as "the single most important act for tiger conservation in history."

Tiger poaching and trafficking is at an all-time high amid exploding economic growth in Asia.

Tiger numbers have declined from more than 100,000 a century ago to around 4,000 today, driven by loss of prey and habitat due to uncontrolled development and poaching for the black market trade in tiger skins and bones.

"The decline in the numbers of tigers is shocking," Zoellick said, adding that because of poaching, tigers in many supposedly "secure" reserves across Asia had simply been wiped out.

"Tigers are disappearing from Central Asia, and from East and South Asia," he said.

The International Tiger Coalition (ITC), comprised of 39 member groups aiming to stop trade in tiger parts and products, asked the World Bank to have "open and frank" dialogue with countries on tiger conservation.

"This process is crucial in avoiding further damage to tigers brought by poorly planned development projects," said Grace Ge Gabriel, the ITC spokeswoman. "Nothing short of global action will bring back wild tigers."

The World Bank is planning to host a "Year of the tiger" summit in 2010 to provide a forum for those involved in tiger conservation to review the status of the wild tigers and their habitant.

It will be a "opportunity to hold our feet to the fire," Zoellick said.

Harrison Ford Endorses New Global Tiger Initiative
Christine Dell'Amore, National Geographic News 9 Jun 08;

A new World Bank-led tiger conservation initiative will draw on the collective might of the world's nonprofits, governments, and local citizens to prevent tigers from completely "slipping away," experts announced today at a press conference with Indiana Jones actor Harrison Ford.

The predators have plummeted from 100,000 to 4,000 in the past century and now occupy only 7 percent of their original range.

The "urgent, immediate threat" of poaching continues to whittle down that number, Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank Group, told a press briefing at the Smithsonian Institution's National Zoo in Washington, D.C.

The new initiative will take a hard look at existing projects in tiger habitats, review existing efforts to combat the trade in illegal tiger parts, and develop alternative funding for saving tigers, among other strategies.

In addition, a 2010 "Year of the Tiger" summit will bring together the many groups and individuals working to preserve the big cat.

"If wild tigers are to be saved, they must be seen as more valuable alive than dead," Zoellick said.

Because tigers are at the top of the food chain, their health is an "indicator of biodiversity and a barometer for sustainability," he added.

Partner organizations include the International Tiger Coalition, the National Zoo, and the Global Environment Facility.

Illegal Trade

The "great preservers of the past"—inaccessibility and poverty—no longer shield tigers from humans, who are poaching and trafficking the animals at an unprecedented rate, said John Seidensticker, a conservation biologist at the National Zoo.

As Asian economies flourish, the demand for tiger meat and parts for traditional Chinese medicine and trophies has wiped out most of the tigers living in reserves. (See a photo of an illegal tiger skin for sale in Myanmar [Burma].)

The big cats, which once prowled most of Asia, have already disappeared from Central Asia and almost all of China.

In the face of development pressures, the new initiative should also focus on how to balance habitat conservation with the needs of local people in countries where tigers still roam, experts said.

Actor Harrison Ford, vice chair of the board of directors of the nonprofit Conservation International—one of the groups that will participate in the new plan—emphasized that local people should have a say.

"I recognize that these projects work more efficiently and more sustainably when local communities are involved," Ford told National Geographic News. "That's the general reality of the situation."

"I've seen how conservation outcomes are scaled up when a variety of people … pool together to apply their influence," he said.

Promising Steps

In general, tigers can recover if their habitat is protected, conservationists say.

Siberian tigers in the Russian Far East have bounced back to a stable population of about 500 thanks to vigorous conservation efforts.

And ASEAN-WEN, a network of Asian countries committed to halting wildlife crime inside their borders, is a promising first step, said the Zoo's Seidensticker. The network complements the international treaty CITES, which bans illegal trafficking of endangered species.

But tigers will rebound only with strong political will and only if everyone involved—from local people to governments—demands that they survive, Seidensticker said. Conservation projects largely remain underfunded and low-priority in many tiger-inhabited countries.

"A world without tigers would be a world without hope," Seidensticker said. "It would be like a clear night sky without stars."

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Deep-Sea Creatures Contaminated

LiveScience Yahoo News 9 Jun 08;

Chemicals produced by humans have been found in deep-sea squid and other creatures, further evidence that contaminants make their way deep into the marine food web, scientists said Monday.

Researchers found a variety of chemical contaminants in nine species of cephalopods, which include octopods, squids, cuttlefishes and nautiluses. These species are food for dolphins, narwhals, killer whales and other toothed whales. The researchers collected nine species of cephalopods up to a mile down and deeper in the western North Atlantic Ocean by trawling.

"It was surprising to find measurable and sometimes high amounts of toxic pollutants in such a deep and remote environment," said Michael Vecchione, a researcher with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Among the chemicals detected, all of which don't degrade and therefore persist for a very long time:

Tributyltin (TBT), an additive used to control growth of organisms and is found in antifouling paints for boats, wood preservatives.

Dichlorodiphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), a pesticide banned in the U.S. in the 1970s but still used on a limited basis in some parts of the world to control diseases like malaria.

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), used to insulate electrical transformers and capacitors and in coatings, sealants, adhesives, paints, wood floor finishes, and in carbonless copy paper.

PCB production was banned in the U.S. in the 1970s.

Brominated diphenyl ethers (BDEs), used as flame retardants in a variety of household products, from plastics to foam in furniture and fabrics.

The findings will be published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin.

Recent studies have reported the accumulation of such chemicals in the blubber and tissues of whales and other predatory marine mammals as well as in some deep-sea fish. Other investigators had speculated that the pollutants in marine mammals had resulted from feeding on contaminated squids. However, almost no information existed prior to this study about POPs in deep-sea cephalopods.

Vecchione and colleagues wanted to see if whales had a unique capacity to accumulate pollutants or if they were simply one of the top predators in a contaminated deep-sea food web.

"The cephalopod species we analyzed span a wide range of sizes and represent an important component of the oceanic food web," Vecchione said. "The fact that we detected a variety of pollutants in specimens collected from more than 3,000 feet deep is evidence that human-produced chemicals are reaching remote areas of the open ocean, accumulating in prey species, and therefore available to higher levels of marine life. Contamination of the deep-sea food web is happening, and it is a real concern."

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Island Birds Can Adapt to Predators, Study Suggests

Anne Minard, National Geographic News 9 Jun 08;

An island bird in New Zealand is able to change its nesting behavior to outwit predators—offering a ray of hope for island species worldwide facing threats from exotic invaders—researchers have discovered.

Melanie Massaro, a biologist at the University of Canterbury, and her co-authors found that New Zealand bellbird mothers spend longer periods of time on their nests when the risk of predation rises.

Both male and female bellbirds also make fewer trips to and from the nests, which reduces activity that might draw predators' attention.

Although the research focused on a single New Zealand bird, the conclusions suggest that island birds worldwide may be able to adapt to predation, the authors say.

The new study flies in the face of a widely accepted theory that suggests that island birds are especially vulnerable to predators because they've missed the opportunity to evolve alongside them, unlike their mainland counterparts.

"The main findings of our study are that naïve endemic island birds are not necessarily trapped by their evolutionary history as is generally considered to be the case, but they have the ability to change their behaviors in ways that appear adaptive," Massaro said.

"More importantly, our study demonstrates that such a change can occur over an ecologically relevant time scale of years and not centuries."

The work appears in this week's online journal PLoS ONE.

Island of Opportunity

The introduction of predatory mammals such as rats, cats, and weasels to oceanic islands has caused the extinction of many native birds. On New Zealand, casualties have included huias, piopios, and bush wrens.

The study authors point out that exotic predators threaten the survival of a quarter of the world's remaining endangered bird species.

But studying the effects of exotic invasion is difficult, because "very few island bird populations still exist in habitats that have not been affected by human-mediated changes," Massaro said.

"This study took advantage of the unique situation in New Zealand where exotic predators were introduced, but a few offshore islands remained undisturbed."

Her research team looked at three sites: a site where exotic predators have become well established, a site where exotic predators were experimentally removed, and an offshore island lacking exotic predators.

They found that, as the risk of predation increased, female bellbirds spent more time on their nests each round of incubating, a strategy that minimized activity at the nest and decreased the risk of predators locating and destroying the eggs.

"Parental activity during the nestling period, measured as number of feeding visits per hour, also decreased with increasing nest predation risk across sites, which would further reduce the risk of an exotic predator destroying the nest," Massaro said.

Massaro's team also compared the parental behavior of New Zealand bellbirds with that of two related honeyeaters in Tasmania, an environment where native birds co-evolved with a variety of predatory mammals.

"We were able to confirm that parental care patterns in previously naïve populations of bellbirds that have since been exposed to exotic mammalian predators are converging with those of birds that evolved in continental areas with a high risk of predation," she said.

More Work Needed

Tim Blackburn, who heads up the Institute of Zoology in Regent's Park, London, noted that in general "the longer that a species has been isolated on an island, the more likely it is to go extinct when predators are introduced. Isolation causes bird species to lose their responses to predators."

Blackburn said it's possible that bellbirds may be relatively recent arrivals to New Zealand, and thus more likely to redevelop antipredator behaviors than other species that have gone extinct.

He's also unsure about whether the bellbirds' strategy is working.

"The bellbirds in the predator treatment have changed their behavior but still have higher nest predation rates than bellbirds on predator-free islands," he said.

"It is not clear from the paper whether the behavioral changes have made sufficient difference to nesting success to allow the bellbird population to persist in the face of predators, or whether the population with predators persists because of immigration of individuals from other areas."

And he expressed concerns about drawing grand conclusions from a study of limited scope.

"The main shortcoming is that they only have single field sites for each of their experimental treatments," he said. "It would be very interesting to see whether the same results hold for other bellbird populations with and without predators."

More Work Needed

Massaro said that her team largely agrees with Blackburn "that likely many island bird species are doomed because of their evolutionary history," Massaro said.

"For example, we are quite aware that [the] kakapo, the famous flightless parrot of New Zealand, will unlikely ever [to] be able to coexist with mammalian predators.

"In general, what evolved over millions of years can't change within a few decades or hundreds of years."

But Massaro and her co-authors believe other conservation efforts could benefit from the knowledge that at least one island bird can respond to exotic predators—especially when the elimination of such predators is not possible.

More work, particularly to see if other birds are able to adapt as well as bellbirds, is needed, she said.

"While we have shown in this study that bellbirds have adjusted behaviorally to the presence of exotic predators to some degree, it is presently unknown whether other endemic island birds have responded in a similar fashion," she said.

Her team is already looking at responses to new predation by other island bird species.

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More Than a Million Birds Killed in Cyprus - Group

PlanetArk 10 Jun 08;

NICOSIA - More than a million birds, most of them migratory, were killed in Cyprus in the past year and served up as local culinary delicacies, conservationists said on Monday.

Songbirds are a popular dish on the east Mediterranean island, which lies on a key migratory route. Although trapping and consumption is banned, they are still served up in some restaurants, say wildlife campaigners.

"Unless decisive action is taken the future will be bleak for Europe's migrant birds," said Martin Hellicar, executive director of the BirdLife charity in Cyprus.

Hellicar said surveys by the organisation suggested more than 1.1 million birds had been killed from March 2007 to February 2008. Indiscriminate trapping methods meant many threatened migratory birds and resident birds were killed, he said.

"In terms of Europe, Cyprus are probably the worst trapping offenders," Hellicar told Reuters.

Blackcaps, robins and song thrushes are the main targets, caught in thickets of vegetation in fine mist nets or on sticks dipped in sticky lime. Birds are lured to coastal areas by birdsong recordings. There are also suggestions that boats are also being used for trappings at sea.

One tiny bird, served picked, fried or grilled, goes for five euros each in some taverns, BirdLife said.

(Reporting by Michele Kambas, editing by Paul Casciato)

Million migrating birds killed as Cyprus delicacy: NGO
Yahoo News 9 Jun 08;

More than one million migratory birds were illegally trapped and killed over the past year to feed an illicit Cypriot taste for such delicacies, an conservationist group said on Monday.

According to a field survey by Birdlife Cyprus carried out between March 2007 and February 2008, an estimated 1.1 million birds were indiscriminately killed with the use of mist nets and limesticks.

These methods are used to catch black caps and song thrushes, much sought after delicacies on Cyprus that fetch five euros (more than seven dollars) a bird at restaurants, making the illegal trade a lucrative one.

"Cyprus is most probably the worst in Europe for killing migratory birds. They are in the premier league for offenders," Birdlife director Martin Helicar told AFP.

"If there isn't the political will to clamp down on the restaurants, then Cyprus will return to the bad old days of the 1990s when up to 10 million birds were killed," he added.

A huge crackdown on trappers and restaurants was enforced before Cyprus joined the European Union in May 2004 but now conservationists say the government lacks the political will to eradicate the trade.

"MPs have already tabled a bill before parliament that would decriminalise such activity and greatly reduce the fines," said Hellicar.

He said MPs were proposing to amend existing legislation which provides for a maximum three-year jail term and or 17,000-euro fine to be replaced with on-the-spot penalties of up to 200 euros for nets and 100 euros for sticks.

"Unless the law is properly enforced millions of migratory birds are at risk," he said.

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Mass dolphin strandings very rare, say experts

Urmee Khan, The Telegraph 9 Jun 08;

Although 'mass strandings' of dolphins are fairly rare, they do occur every year throughout the world.

Dolphins are very sociable and will communicate to each other by whistling, and in times of distress this can cause a large group of dolphins to cluster together.

According to experts, mass strandings are usually linked to natural reasons or directly caused by humans.

Dr Peter Evans, director of Sea Watch Foundation, says the strandings can happen if an older dolphin, usually a female, is sick or suffering from a disease, causing the rest of the pod to follow.

"In such circumstances, the dolphin seeks shallow water to enable it to breathe easier."

Certain types of shore and some particular coast lines are more prone to strandings than others. Shallow, sloping shores made of soft sediments can attract pods of dolphins.

Human factors responsible for mass strandings can include sea pollution and intense noise pollution from naval sonar can also be responsible for a mass stranding.

Sarah Dolman from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) said: "Earlier this year over 50 deep diving whales washed up in Scotland, Ireland and Wales and that was due to high-powered naval sonars which can cause a great deal of distress."

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Death traps for marine turtles

Geoffrey Bew, Gulf Daily News 10 Jun 08;

BAD fishing practices caused the deaths of at least 170 sea turtles in Bahrain last year, according to a study released yesterday.

They were mainly killed during the shrimping season by trawlers, nets and traps, according to the Bahrain Centre for Studies and Research (BCSR).

Head of the organisation's fisheries studies and technical manager of the marine turtle protection programme Dr Ebrahim Abdulqader called for urgent changes in fishing methods, to protect the endangered species.

"We were able to estimate, according to the data we have, that 170 was the minimum number of turtles which died," said Dr Abdulqader.

"It could have been higher than that, because of non-reporting.

"The shrimping trawlers are responsible for most of the deaths.

"Most of the cases happened between July and October, during the shrimping season.

"Most also occurred in the northern area of Bahrain located around the habitat of shrimps where sea grass is found."

The turtles' main nesting season is between June and September.

Dr Abdulqader said the other main threats to sea turtles were from dredging and reclamation, litter dumped at sea, pollution and recreational boats speeding through shallow water.

The study, which covered five coastal areas in the northern, eastern and western areas of Bahrain, used reported sightings from fishermen and a questionnaire to collect data.

It was sponsored by the Public Commission for the Protection of Marine Resources, Environment and Wildlife and the company Banagas.

The findings were unveiled during a meeting at the BCSR near Awali, attended by around 40 people including academics and environmental officials.

Dr Abdulqader called raising awareness among fishermen about the problem and the importance of introducing new types of nets that do not trap sea turtles.

"These deaths are unnecessary and are not acceptable," he told the GDN.

"These animals are part of the eco system of marine animals and it is also a beautiful creature that is attractive to divers.

"If there is a specific procedure that fishermen can follow that will minimise the impact."

The report found there are two types of turtle in Bahraini waters, the green turtle and hawksbill turtle.

However, Dr Abdulqader said he was unable to estimate the number of turtles that may exist in Bahrain because of a lack of historical data. geoff@gdn.com.bh

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Dozens of Dolphins Die, Stranded on Madagascar Beach

PlanetArk 10 Jun 08;

ANTANANARIVO - Some 55 dolphins have died, after coming ashore on a beach in the northwest of Madagascar, conservationists said on Monday.

The melon-headed whales, a species of dolphin, were first spotted at sea last month, but then became stranded on a beach last week, Herilala Randriamahazo, from the Wildlife Conservation Society, a non-profit organisation, told Reuters.

"We have counted 55 dead dolphins today," Randriamahazo said by telephone from Antsohihy, the seaside town where the dolphins died. They were buried in a mass grave, he said.

American specialists had arrived on Monday to examine possible reasons for the beaching and to lead some remaining dolphins out to sea, he said.

"This is the first time that Madagascar has seen such sea animals," he said.

A spokeswoman for the Indian Ocean island's environment ministry said the dolphins had created a stir. "Lots of people are going to Antsohihy to see these animals for the first time," she said.

(Writing by Ed Harris)

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Too many fishermen cause stocks to dwindle in giant Lake Malawi

Felix Mponda, Yahoo News 9 Jun 08;

Saidi Afida rows his dugout canoe back to the beach on the shores of Lake Malawi with a worried face.

"Things have really changed," says Afida, in between selling his catch to a group of women at Senga Bay beach in central Malawi.

"Just five years ago I came back from fishing with a full canoe every day. Now it's barely half full," he says.

Afida, 33, knows the the cause of the problem, but he can't do anything about it.

"There are too many of us fishing in this lake. Everybody has become a fisherman and we all fish from the shallow waters."

The 22,490 square kilometer Lake Malawi, bordered by Tanzania and Mozambique, covers a third of the country and is Africa's third largest pool of fresh water.

Home to more than 500 species of fish, it plays a crucial nutritional role by providing for over 60 percent of national protein requirements.

It also is a key source of employment in one of Africa's most impoverished nations. While an estimated 40,000 people fish its waters, many more derive their livelihoods indirectly through industries such as fish processing and boat repairs.

Alexander Bulirani, director of fisheries in the ministry of agriculture and food security, says the number of fishermen had increased by 124 percent in the last decade but denies that stocks are running low.

"The lake still has substantial amount of fish in deep waters" which ordinary fishermen cannot reach without motorised boats.

He said recent research had shown the existence of deep-water offshore fish stocks estimated at a maximum sustainable yield of about 33,000 tonnes per year.

Despite the more than doubling of the size of the fleet, fish production is currently at 50,000 tonnes per annum, down from a peak of 75,000 tonnes in the 1980s.

In order to help fishermen get access to stocks in deep waters, the government has teamed up with the African Development Bank to provide credit to acquire equipment such as outboard engines, fishing nets and drying racks.

Moses Banda, chief fisheries research officer, said the project seeks to give credit to 7,000 fishing communities in four districts along the lakeshore, including Mangochi in southern Malawi, where most of the Chambo is caught.

Bankrolled to the tune of 183 million kwacha (130,000 US dollars), the main aim of the project is to improve household incomes in a country where half of the 13 million citizens live on less than a dollar a day.

Nevertheless, many fishermen fear their industry is doomed without a clear recognition that stocks are finite and that the best chance of preserving stocks in the long-term is to make alternative employment more attractive.

"Will the fish last in this lake? What will our children feed and rely on?" says Iman Saidi.

The 24-year-old has opted for a life as a fishermen even though he had wanted to become a teacher.

"I thought I could become a teacher for a change, but with no jobs, I need to feed my family of two," he said.

Sandalamu Katembo, 70, who retired two decades ago, says there are no job opportunities in this small fishing town on the lake's southwestern shores.

"Young men go to school but they end up taking up fishing as their career. Why go to school then?" he asks.

Daulos Mauambeta, executive director of the leading environmental group, Wildlife Society of Malawi (WSM), says the only solution to halting overfishing is to stop the "open policy" which allows anybody with a licence to "fish as long as they want."

"Malawi needs to establish a quota system. We have this major weakness which allows anybody to fish the whole year. Fish is free here," he told AFP.

Mauambeta said the fishing industry lacks the capacity to monitor and enforce its own regulations.

"There are no guards to monitor the sizes and volumes of catch. In other countries, that's very strict."

The WSM chief also suggests that fishermen must be taught conservation.

"Fishermen are business people, not conservation people. We need to breed a culture that they need to conserve fish to sustain their business."

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Africa Fast Running Down Resources - WWF Report

PlanetArk 10 Jun 08;

GENEVA - Many African countries are rapidly running down their natural resources as growing populations push the continent towards its ecological limits, the conservation organisation WWF said on Monday.

The warning was issued in its first-ever detailed report on Africa's ecological footprint -- an estimate of the area of a country or region's land and sea surface used annually in meeting the individual consumption demands of its people.

"A growing number of African countries are depleting their natural resources -- or will shortly be doing so -- faster than they can be replaced," said WWF President, Chief Emeka Anyaoku, in presenting the findings to a Johannesburg conference.

The report put Egypt, Libya and Algeria at the head of a list of nations of the continent already living well beyond their ecological means.

But nine others were also using up their bio-capacity -- Morocco, Tunisia, Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda, Senegal, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

The Swiss-based WWF, previously known as the World Wide Fund for Nature but now identified only by the initials and its panda logo, issued the report, "Africa-Ecological Footprint and Human Well-being" together with a US-based research body, the Global Footprint Network.

It said that despite over-consumption of resources in some countries, Africa's overall ecological footprint at 1.1 hectares of land and sea -- still behind the continent's total biocapacity of 1.3 hectares per head of population.

And the African figures are still well below the global average footprint of 2.2 hectares per person which, with 1.8 hectares available, is running at a rate suggesting humanity will need two planets by 2050.

But the big danger for the continent is that its current population of some 680 million is growing rapidly and is predicted to double, meaning Africa will account for nearly a quarter of the world's people by 2050.

Although development is vital for Africans, at the lower end of the United Nations' human welfare index, they have to "work with, rather than against, ecological budget constraints," said Global Footprint Network director Mathis Wackernagel.

"Development that ignores the limits of our natural resources ultimately ends up imposing disproportionate costs on the most vulnerable and the most dependent on the health of natural systems, such as the rural poor," he added. (Reporting by Robert Evans; Editing by Jon Boyle)

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