Penang hit by haze from open burning in Sumatra

Straits Times 1 Aug 08;

GEORGETOWN - PENANG was overcome by haze yesterday, with three areas experiencing poor visibility of between 2km and 6km.

The haze is believed to have originated from open burning in Sumatra, Indonesia.

According to a spokesman for the Penang Meteorological Department, the situation was worsened by suspended materials in the atmosphere.

'We believe the haze is caused by open burning in Sumatra as satellite images have indicated 150 hot spots there,' he said. 'Due to the dry weather, the haze is expected to last for several days in the northern part of the peninsula.'

But the spokesman said the situation 'is not alarming'.

He explained: 'It will change for the better when there are strong winds and heavy downpours.'

As at 11am yesterday, the Air Pollutant Index (API) at Seberang Jaya, a town near Butterworth, was at 79, while visibility was 2km.

At Prai, Penang's main industrial area, the API was at 53, while visibility was 6km. Over at the Universiti Sains Malaysia, the index was at 53, with visibility at 5km.

The API for the unhealthy level is more than 100.

In June, Singapore Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim met his counterparts from Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand to discuss the haze issue.

It was the group's fifth meeting since the setting up of a task force in late 2006 to tackle the haze problem, which has hit the five countries almost annually since 1997.

Dr Yaacob unveiled two programmes that Singapore would run with Indonesia's Jambi province in north Sumatra.

One is to train farmers to rear fish for export instead of growing crops to turn them away from slash-and-burn cultivation; the other is aimed at keeping the water level in the area's peatlands up. This is because when the peatlands dry out, they catch fire easily.

Farmers and plantation owners in Indonesia's Sumatra and Borneo islands clear the land by slashing vegetation and burning it in the middle of the year, ahead of the planting season.

BERNAMA

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Marine-Life Hot Spots Shift Over Time, Study Says

Anne Minard, National Geographic News 31 Jul 08;

Earth's richest concentrations of marine life have shifted over time, cropping up where tectonic plates collide and the climate is friendliest to life, new research suggests.

Today, seas surrounding Indonesia are a hotbed for marine life. But eons ago, the Mediterranean and the Arabian seas were just as rich, scientists report in tomorrow's issue of the journal Science.

In their study, researchers compared genetic data with fossil records to discover at least three marine hot spots in the past 50 million years. The zones have migrated over time, so that almost half Earth's surface has hosted them at various periods.

"There are always hot spots, but they are always moving," said Willem Renema, a geologist at the National Museum of Natural History in the Netherlands, who led the study.

"[Hot spots] are dynamic entities. You can predict the location by looking at climate and tectonics."

Warm, Shallow Seas

Renema and his colleagues launched their investigation to explain rich veins in the marine fossil record.

Climate alone wasn't an exact match, Renema said: "The areas that are most diverse are not the warmest areas."

But when climate was considered alongside large-scale geologic processes, the fossil and genetic markers of marine biodiversity synched up.

Hot Spot Life Cycles

A present-day hot spot for marine life is the "coral triangle," a border area between the Indian and West Pacific oceans that is generally defined to include the coastal waters of Malaysia, the Philippines, and Papua New Guinea.

Besides some of the most abundant—and most diverse—coral reefs in the world, the region supports mangroves, sea grasses, algae, mollusks, arthropods, fish, and other marine species in unmatched concentrations.

Scientists behind the new study say a single hot spot can last millions of years, and that the coral triangle hot spot is much older than previously thought, stretching as far back as the Miocene epoch, which lasted from 23 to 5 million years ago.

But hot spots don't last forever, and Earth's geology has much to do with it, the team says.

As tectonic plates vie for position, one edge eventually becomes subducted, or submersed, beneath the other. The resulting uplift can produce new islands and mountains.

But during this process, nearby terrain tends to normalize, making habitat less diverse. As a result, species that depend on diverse terrain must migrate or die out.

"Usually if there are mass extinctions, they're more severe when you are in that second phase of the hot spot cycle," Renema said.

The new study suggests that species diversity peaks not necessarily where tectonic plates collide head-on, but at places where the meeting is messy and shallow seas of varying depths form.

As tectonic plates vie for position, one edge eventually moves beneath the other. Many millions of years later, the resulting uplift can produce new islands and mountains.

Following Hot Spots

David Jablonski, a paleontologist at the University of Chicago, described the researchers had a "really interesting hypothesis."

He said it's the first comprehensive presentation of an idea— that plate tectonics generate biodiversity—that first emerged in the 1980s.

Jablonski says it remains to be seen whether the abundance of marine species found today in the coral triangle has truly been hopping the globe or is in a process of contracting, with the West Pacific as a sort of last holdout.

Renema, the lead study author, concedes that more work needs to be done to track diversity hot spots more closely over time.

"We have this idea," he said, "And now we can test it."

Fish, Coral "Hotspots" Linked to Geology - Study
Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 1 Aug 08;

OSLO - Geological shifts over millions of years may explain the huge wealth of fish, corals and other life in seas between Asia and Australia and hold clues to modern conservation, researchers said on Thursday.

A study of marine fossils also showed that what is now the Mediterranean region and an area off the Middle East were previous "hotspots" -- seas with the highest numbers of marine species -- in the past 50 million years.

The formation of each marine hotspot, previously little understood, coincided with shifts of vast plates in the earth's crust, they said. Shallow seas suitable for thousands of species can emerge when continents start to collide.

"There have been at least three marine biodiversity hotspots during the past 50 million years," the international team of scientists wrote in the journal Science. Previously, biodiversity has been studied on shorter timescales.

"They have moved across almost half the globe, with their timing and locations coinciding with major tectonic events," they said. Some types of corals off Australia, for instance, had evolved from species off the Middle East.

The scientists, in the Netherlands, Australia, Spain, Britain, Malaysia, the United States and Panama, said they hope that better knowledge of the long-term formation and decline of "hotspots" could give clues to conservation needs.

The Mediterranean, linked to what is now the Indian Ocean region 40 million years ago when Africa was further south, died off as the main marine hotspot as Africa ploughed north. Some areas previously under water ended high in the Alps.

The Mediterranean was succeeded by a region between the Middle East and India as the main hotspot.

Lead author Willem Renema, of the Dutch National Museum of Natural History, said conditions for the current Indo-Australian Archipelago hotspot may be past their peak in a looming slow-motion collision as Australia moves north towards Asia.

Over the past five million years, mountains were forming such as in Papua New Guinea, as the continents crumpled together. Former huge corals off Sulawesi, Indonesia, had also been lifted out of the seas by the same huge forces.

"It's clearly something we can't do anything about, but the hotspot is more vulnerable than it used to be 6 or 10 million years ago," he told Reuters.

That was a hint that humans had to be careful about adding extra stresses, such as from global warming caused by burning fossil fuels in cars, factories and power plants, he said.

"It's more vulnerable so you have to be extra cautious about what you do ... it's closer to the edge than it was," he said.

Renema also said that candidates for the next global hotspot, in 25 million years or so, were likely to be off southern or eastern Australia.

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Australian dolphin find may make marine history

The Australian 1 Aug 08;

A DIMINUTIVE dolphin called "Snubby" may make history in marine science if DNA samples taken this week from animals off the northwest Kimberley coast prove they are the world's newest dolphin species or sub-species.

The Australian snubfin dolphin, whose short dorsal fin and rounded snout differs radically from those in other dolphin species, was discovered in 2005 insmall populations across the Top End and north Queensland coasts.

The shy species was initially mistaken for an Irrawaddy dolphin, which is found in coastal areas and rivers in Southeast Asia. However, it was later confirmed as a new species unique to Australia, and the first new dolphin species found in the world for 50 years.

But the "snubbies" swimming a few hundred metres offshore from Broome's popular tourist beaches may reveal even more diversity if they are found to be a unique sub-species restricted to the Kimberley region.

Scientists from WWF Australia, led by cetacean ecologist Deborah Thiele, spent this week collecting dolphin skin samples using darts launched from a boat, to confirm whether Kimberley snubfins differ from the other northern Australian populations.

She said their long isolation from animals living further north and east along Australia's coastline could have caused evolutionary differences.

"There's been no genetic information from the Kimberley so they may be a separate species again," Dr Thiele said.

"We're doing work here and in the Northern Territory to clarify whether the dolphins we're seeing are an Australian snubfin or another new species."

Such a finding would be welcome news at a time when dolphin species are declining worldwide.

The Chinese Baiji dolphin, once found in the Yangtze River, has been declared extinct after an extensive scientific search in 2006 failed to turn up a single animal.

Dr Thiele said the Broome expedition, while yielding the possibility of a new scientific find, had also turned up good numbers of dolphins. The team recorded the first footage of snubfin dolphins spitting into the water, a technique used to herd and capture fish prey.

"But if the populations are very isolated, it means they need even more protection because there's not a huge gene pool," she said.

Tammie Matson, WWF's spokesperson for species conservation, said coastal and river dolphins were among the world's most endangered mammals.

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Congo Basin passes 1 million ha milestone in swing to sustainable forestry

WWF website 31 Jul 2008

Yaoundé, Cameroon - WWF today announced that more than one million hectares of Congo Basin forests have achieved certification under the world’s leading sustainable forestry scheme.

The world’s second largest block of rainforests, the Congo Basin is a haven for indigenous peoples and endangered species like elephants and gorillas. It is also important in sequestering carbon and safeguarding water supply and quality.

“With rampant illegal logging, vague logging concession boundaries and massive blocks of pristine forest destined for the chainsaw, this is a laudable step towards avoiding an ecological disaster,” says James P. Leape, Director General of WWF.

Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification has now been achieved for forestry operations on 1.2 million hectares, a significant step towards WWF’s Green Heart of Africa network initiative goal of having certification achieved for 50% of production forest in the Congo Basin. The certification involves logging companies SEFAC, Transformation Reef Cameroon (TRC) and WIJMA in Cameroon and CIB in the Republic of Congo.

“While the certified forests will have to be maintained according to acceptable international standards, there is urgent need for other timber business operations in the region to adopt responsible forest management practices in order to ensure the conservation of this unique forest ecosystem for the benefit of people in the region and the world,” added Mr. Leape.

To promote responsible forest management and trade in the Congo Basin, WWF-CARPO has set up the Central Africa Forest and Trade Network (CAFTN), a part of WWF’s Global Forest & Trade Network (GFTN) – which works to provide support, advice and guidance to logging companies to help them better understand how good logging practices can contribute to conservation of biodiversity, improve the livelihood of local communities and lead to a market advantage.

“Illegal forest exploitation and forest crimes are largely due to poor governance and insufficient law enforcement,” said Laurent Somé, WWF Central Africa Regional Programme Office (CARPO)'s Representative.. “WWF also recognizes that responsible forest management plays an important role in the economic growth of tropical countries and reducing poverty in forest communities.

“WWF is convinced that the adoption of responsible forestry schemes by logging companies will contribute greatly to the conservation of the Congo Basin forests and towards improving the national economy and also improve the livelihoods of local communities,” Mr Some said. “For the success of responsible forestry in the Congo basin, there is a high need for government to set up enabling conditions that include enacting adequate legislation and enforcement, and promoting good governance while providing support to responsible forestry initiatives.”

By 2012, WWF expects that 7 million hectares of forest in the Congo Basin will be under credible certification while another 5 million hectares will be progressing towards credible certification.

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Ivory poaching at critical levels: Elephants on path to extinction by 2020?

EurekAlert 31 Jul 08;

African elephants are being slaughtered for their ivory at a pace unseen since an international ban on the ivory trade took effect in 1989. But the public outcry that resulted in that ban is absent today, and a University of Washington conservation biologist contends it is because the public seems to be unaware of the giant mammals' plight.

The elephant death rate from poaching throughout Africa is about 8 percent a year based on recent studies, which is actually higher than the 7.4 percent annual death rate that led to the international ivory trade ban nearly 20 years ago, said Samuel Wasser, a UW biology professor.

But the poaching death rate in the late 1980s was based on a population that numbered more than 1 million. Today the total African elephant population is less than 470,000.

"If the trend continues, there won't be any elephants except in fenced areas with a lot of enforcement to protect them," said Wasser.

He is lead author of a paper in the August issue of Conservation Biology that contends elephants are on a course that could mean most remaining large groups will be extinct by 2020 unless renewed public pressure brings about heightened enforcement.

Co-authors are William Clark of the Interpol Working Group on Wildlife Crime and the Israel Nature and Parks Authority, Ofir Drori of the Last Great Ape Organization in Cameroon, Emily Kisamo of the Lusaka Agreement Task Force in Kenya, Celia Mailand of the UW, Benezeth Mutayoba of Sokoine University in Tanzania and Matthew Stephens of the University of Chicago.

Wasser's laboratory has developed DNA tools that can determine which elephant population ivory came from. That is important because often poachers attack elephants in one country but ship the contraband ivory from an adjacent nation to throw off law enforcement.

For instance, 6.5 tons of ivory seized in Singapore in 2002 were shipped from Malawi, but DNA tracking showed the ivory came originally from an area centered on Zambia. Similarly, a 2006 shipment of 3.9 tons seized in Hong Kong had been sent from Cameroon, but DNA forensics showed it came from an area centered on Gabon.

Evidence gathered from recent major ivory seizures shows conclusively that the ivory is not coming from a broad geographic area but rather that hunters are targeting specific herds. With such information, Wasser said, authorities can beef up enforcement efforts and focus them in specific areas where poaching is known to occur as a means of preventing elephants from being killed. But that will only happen if there is sufficient public pressure to marshal funding for a much larger international effort to halt the poaching.

In 1989, most international ivory trade was banned by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (http://www.cites.org/), which regulates trade in threatened and endangered species. The restrictions banned ivory trade except for ivory from elephants that nations legally culled from their herds or those that died naturally.

At the time the treaty was enacted, poachers were killing an average of 70,000 elephants a year. The ban instigated much stronger enforcement efforts, nearly halting poaching almost immediately. However, that sense of success resulted in waning enforcement. Western aid was withdrawn four years after the ban was enacted and poaching gradually increased to the current alarming rates, Wasser said.

"The situation is worse than ever before and the public is unaware," he said, "It's very serious because elephants are an incredibly important species. They keep habitats open so other species that depend on such ecosystems can use them. Without elephants, there will be major habitat changes, with negative effects on the many species that depend on the lost habitat.

"Elephants also are a major part of ecotourism, which is an important source of hard currency for many African countries."

The illegal ivory trade is being carried out mostly by large crime syndicates, Wasser believes, and is being driven by growing markets in China and Japan, where ivory is in demand for carvings and signature stamps called hankos.

In addition, in the last few years demand has risen sharply in the United States, where much of the ivory is used to make knife handles and gun grips. In fact, a May report from the Care for the Wild International, a not-for-profit British natural protection organization, ranks the U.S. second behind China as a marketplace for illegal ivory.

But the illegal ivory trade has gotten relatively low priority from prosecutors, and new laws promoting global trade have created "a policing nightmare," Wasser says, which makes ivory poaching a high-profit, low-risk endeavor.

The only way to curb the trade, he believes, is to focus enforcement in areas where the ivory comes from in the first place, before it enters the complex, global crime trade network. Public support is crucial to helping reduce demand and to spur the needed enforcement help from the West.

However, Wasser believes that news reports about the need to cull excess elephants from managed populations in three or four countries have led many people to believe incorrectly that there are too many elephants in Africa. Those managed populations are confined by fences that limit the elephants' natural movements.

"Public support stopped the illegal ivory trade back in 1989 and can do so again," Wasser said. "The work with DNA sampling allows us to focus law enforcement on poaching hot spots.

"It forces countries to take more responsibility for what goes on within their borders, and it also gives us more insight on where to look so that, hopefully, we can stop the poachers before the elephants are actually killed."

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Nepal's 'restaurant' for vultures

Charles Haviland, BBC News 31 Jul 08;

As the early morning mist lifts on the farmlands at the edge of the jungle, Yam Bahadur Nepali embarks on a job which many would find difficult but which, for him, is a regular chore.

He wheels his tricycle cart to collect the carcass of an old and sick cow which died during the night. It is to be fed to the vultures, under a unique initiative to conserve the scavenging birds. It is called the "vulture restaurant".

With some difficulty Yam Bahadur and his wife wheel the heavy beast past houses and down across wet paddy fields to the vulture feeding area.

The "restaurant" is a big grassy area surrounded by tall, fragrant sal trees. The peaceful scene is broken only by the cattle skeletons scattered around - and the vultures nestled above.

'Kidney failure'

Nepali ornithologists have established it as a place where vultures can eat healthily.

Two of the seven vulture species in the Indian subcontinent - slender-billed and white-rumped - have declined catastrophically in number and are now endangered, explained ornithologist Dhan Bahadur "DB" Chaudhary.



"In 1997 in eastern parts of Nepal there were about 67 nests," he says. "And in four or five years, in 2001, there was zero.

"So that rapidly they declined from India, Nepal and Pakistan. And over 12 years they started declining - now more than 95% of the vultures' number has gone down."

Scientists recently pinpointed the cause - the drug, diclofenac.

Farmers often give it to their cows as a painkiller. But if the cows die soon afterwards, the drug is deadly for the vultures which feed on their flesh. Mr Chaudhary says they rapidly die of kidney failure and gout.

As Hem Sagar Baral, executive director of Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN) explains, Nepal and India have now banned diclofenac because it was harming the vultures. It has been replaced by a safe drug called meloxicam.

"It is also anti-inflammatory but has been tested against vultures and other birds of prey and general birds and does not cause damage to these birds," he says.

'Massive creature'

As Yam Bahadur skins the carcass, we go into a spacious, brand-new observation hide. With us are several of the villagers who serve as volunteers on the project committee. We watch as the vultures wait.

After half an hour we are still waiting. A stray dog starts feeding on the carcass but seems worried and keeps barking.

The birds gain confidence and 22 of them land, still just watching the dog. Nearly all are the endangered White-rumped Vultures but there is also a massive creature - the biggest, the Himalayan Griffon Vulture.

They look like a rather grotesque gathering of clergymen with their blackish coats and white "collars".

Then, suddenly, they close in on the cow's corpse. It is like a rugby scrum of vultures, all wanting to gorge on the carcass, fighting with each other, the strongest in front, the weaker behind.

One vulture attacks another which has a long strand of raw meat dangling from its mouth, already half-swallowed.

The scavenging birds jump clumsily around, their wings outstretched. I tell Mr Chaudhary I think they are truly ugly animals.

"Yes, they are ugly looking, but they are really helpful for us," he says. "See - within half an hour they finished eating all that dead animal. Only the skeleton is left. It is really helpful to clean the nature."

Nepalis even nickname these birds "kuchikar", meaning a broom.

The villagers on the project's committee are engrossed by the spectacle. One is a woman farmer, Tila Devi Bhusal.

'Preserve them'

"Traditionally we see the vulture as a very bad bird," she says. "If it passes your house, then the house has to be purified. They can bring danger.

"But that belief is disappearing. People realise that vultures eat rotten things and we must preserve them."

The vulture restaurant has many volunteers but only two full-time employees.

One is Yam Bahadur who looks after the cows when they are living, not only when they die.

The project buys elderly or sick cows from farmers, looks after them humanely and treats them, if necessary, with the safe drug, meloxicam.

The cows, considered sacred by Hindus, die a natural death.

The other employee is Ishwari Chaudhary, the educational officer. He is spreading the vulture conservation message among villagers and in veterinary shops.

"We tell them about the new medicine, meloxicam, and how we can save the birds by using it," he says.

The banned drug diclofenac is still being rounded up all over Nepal. Meloxicam is more expensive, but it is injected in much smaller doses which partly compensates.

The numbers of endangered vultures are rising again.

Mr Chaudhary says that before the project was opened, he used to see a maximum of 72 vultures around one carcass.

"Once we established the vulture restaurant, in five or six months we found double that number - the maximum number I have recorded is about 156, all at the same time on the same carcass."

BCN, with support from others like Britain's Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, now wants to open more "vulture restaurants" - and scientists in India too are now showing interest in the idea.

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Caged Hens Spark Battle Over Eggs in California

Jill Serjeant, PlanetArk 1 Aug 08;

LOS ANGELES - What do hens want, and how do humans know?

That's the issue at the heart of a fierce battle looming in California between animal rights campaigners and egg producers over the welfare of caged hens that could crack the state's US$300 million egg production industry.

A November ballot measure seeking more space for calves raised for veal and breeding pigs could also make California the first US state to ban the housing in small wire cages of egg-laying hens.

If passed -- and support is currently running at 63 percent according to a July Field poll -- most of California's egg producers would be driven out of business, say opponents who have organized with the website www.safecaliforniafood.org.

Proposition 2 would give California's 20 million laying hens, most of which currently have less space than a 8-1/2 by 11 inch (210 by 297 mm) letter-sized piece of paper, room to spread their wings, lie down, stand up and turn around.

The measure would come into force in California -- which ranks 6th in US egg production -- in 2015, three years after a similar ban already agreed in the European Union..

"California voters recognize this is a modest reform and that all animals, including those raised for food, deserve humane treatment," said Jennifer Fearing, campaign manager for Yes on Prop. 2 (www.YesonProp2.com).

"Californians have a long history of very progressive attitudes towards animals and have a commitment to outlawing animal cruelty where it exists," Fearing told Reuters.

In rural San Diego County, brothers Ryan and Alan Armstrong are proud of their 60 year-old family egg farm business and say it is in their best business interests to provide good conditions for their 500,000 hens.

"If the hens are uncomfortable, if they are too hot or too cold, or don't get enough water or don't like their feed, the first thing that gets hit is egg production," Ryan Armstrong told Reuters.

About 10 percent of the Armstrong hens are cage-free. In one vast breezy barn, 8,800 brown, loudly clucking hens roam under a 9,000 sq foot (836 sq meters) roof. But the brothers say relative freedom is not necessarily a good thing.

"People have the idea that cage-free is healthier but it's not. The hens sometimes lay eggs in the manure on the ground. Sometimes they eat it. If one is sick, it's impossible to catch and remove it. Another problem with so many hens living together is cannibalism," Ryan Armstrong said.


CAGE-FREE DEMAND

Demand in California for cage-free eggs, which normally carry about a one dollar premium per dozen, has leveled off in the past three years, according to the brothers.

"We had planned 12 cage-free buildings but we only put up six because demand is not there," Alan Armstrong said.

The brothers said their highest production came from the sort of conditions that most rile animal campaigners -- an air conditioned, computer-controlled barn housing 130,000 hens in cages of six each, stacked five high.

Manure is collected on trays under each wire cage, clean, white eggs roll onto conveyor belts, and sick or injured hens can be quickly identified and removed.

"The supporters of Prop. 2 are asking us to throw all that away so chickens can spread their wings but that doesn't make birds healthier. Sometimes what is better for a hen isn't always what you think it might be," Ryan Armstrong said.

He said the costs of extra equipment, labor and land needed to meet the Prop. 2 changes would "put our family out of business and all that will happen is that egg production will be driven out of California to Mexico, where standards are lower."

Animal rights groups say farms like the Armstrongs are the exception not the rule. An undercover investigation in May by the vegan campaign group Mercy for Animals of a large egg farm in Merced, northern California, showed video of rotting hen carcasses in cages with live hens and scrawny hens covered in excrement.

Fearing said the "Yes" campaign had vast grass-roots support from animal lovers across California. "People get it. We would never keep our pets in cages so small they couldn't turn around and farm animals don't deserve that misery either," she said.

Farmers says such sentiment is out of place in commercial food production. "People want to eat animals raised for food but they want them to be treated like pets. They are not pets to us, but their livelihood is in our best interests," Ryan Armstrong said. (Editing by Jackie Frank)

Read more!

Green Revolution Emerges in Smokestack China

Jeremy Lovell, PlanetArk 1 Aug 08;

LONDON - China, pilloried as the world's biggest polluter, has quietly taken a lead in moving to a low carbon economy, an independent climate advisory group said on Friday.

Although it is building one coal-fired power station a week and its carbon dioxide emissions have surged since 2002, from seven percent of the global total to more than 24 percent, China is also making strides in renewable energy and green technology.

"Everybody sees China as this monster polluter, but it is doing so much more than that," said Changhua Wu, China director of The Climate Group -- an independent, non-profit organisation advising business and governments on combating climate change.

"China is already leading in certain types of technologies. In the power sector it is in clean coal, solar, wind. In transport it is developing more efficient compact cars and electric cars," she told Reuters in London, where she is launching the report, "China's Clean Revolution".

She noted, however, that China still had a long way to go.

China produces carbon emissions of 5.1 tonnes per head -- one quarter of the United States -- but with a population of 1.3 billion people it would equal the planet's entire emissions on its own if it hit US levels.

Washington says it can do nothing to combat global warming unless Beijing takes steps to cut its booming emissions of climate changing carbon gases from burning fossil fuels for power and transport.

For its part China, along with other major developing countries, argues that most of the carbon in the atmosphere was put there by the rich developed nations who must therefore shoulder the burden of dealing with its causes and effects.

"Developed countries really need to demonstrate their sincerity, demonstrate the feasibility of the solutions, really demonstrate that they are serious about this," said Wu.

"Telling developing countries that they must do it when they themselves are not is just not acceptable."

While on the surface it appears to be a major diplomatic standoff, China is already acting on its own, driven by serious domestic stress from rampant pollution and rising food prices caused in part by replacement for biofuel production.


GREEN MESSAGE

"In China the top leadership are all of the same mindset. China opened up 30 years ago. But our economic miracle was driven by intense resource use that produced great pollution ... and recently unrest," Wu said in an interview.

"That is fully understood. The leadership has been thinking about a new pathway. They know they can't repeat the path of the past. They know it has to be clean, it has to be more efficient. Low carbon has now been integrated into this new pathway."

The report says China is the world's top maker of solar power panels, is set to become the top exporter of wind turbines and has two-thirds of the global market in solar water heaters.

China is also is a leading producer of energy efficient domestic appliances and rechargeable batteries.

At the same time it has brought in stringent measures to boost fuel efficiency and has boosted production of electric-powered bicycles and efficient compact cars.

"China has got the green message. Companies are making profits in pushing forward the low carbon economy," Wu said.

Much as Japan, rebuilding from scratch after World War Two, led the industrial boom in the global economy, so leading developing countries like China and India are looking to lead the world into the low carbon age.

"The thinking in China is that there is no doubt that in 20 or 30 years time China will be a world leader," Wu said.

"To be a respected, responsible leader of the world we have to start thinking now about what we should do to lead up to the day when China has to lead and will be able to lead well. Climate change is one of the key issues there." (Editing by Luke Baker and Philippa Fletcher)


China's 'rapid renewables surge'
Mark Kinver, BBC News 1 Aug 08;

China's rapid investment in low carbon technologies has catapulted the nation up the global renewable energy rankings, a report shows.

The Climate Group study said China invested $12bn (£6bn) in renewables during 2007, second only to Germany.

However, it was expected to top the table by the end of 2009, it added.

The findings have been published as China faces criticism over its air quality ahead of the Beijing Olympic Games, which begin on 8 August.

The report, China's Clean Revolution, brings together the latest data on the country's burgeoning renewables sector in one publication.

Co-author Changhua Wu, The Climate Group's China director, said the rapid rise in investment was, in part, the result of the government realising that the western model of industrialisation was unsustainable.

"China has been experiencing similar problems during its industrial revolution that western nations saw during their period of rapid growth - pollution, environmental damage and resource depletion," she told BBC News.

"Domestically, we are being constrained in many ways; we do not have that many natural resources anymore.

"We have to rely on the international markets, so there is a big security concern there."

Uncertainty over future energy supplies has seen global fuel prices reach record levels, which has resulted in renewable technologies becoming a more attractive option.

The report said China's $12bn investment in renewables during 2007 was only just behind top-of-the-table Germany, which spent $14bn.

In order to meet its target of increasing the percentage of energy from low carbon technologies from 8% in 2006 to 15% by 2020, China is expected to invest an average of $33bn annually for the next 12 years.

This was going to result in China becoming the leading investor by the end of 2009, Ms Wu forecast.

Figures within the report showed that China was already the leading producer in terms of installed renewable generation capacity.

It has the world's largest hydroelectricity capacity since the controversial Three Gorges project began producing electricity, and the fifth largest fleet of wind turbines on the planet.

Although its installed capacity of photovoltaic (PV) panels is still relatively low, it is already a leading manufacturer of solar panels.

Ms Wu explained that the rapid growth of the sector was being driven by both government and business.

"In order to really drive towards a low carbon economy, policy incentives are crucial; but it is not always the case," she said.

"The wind sector's fast growth was mainly a result of domestic policies, because the government offered incentives to developments so that private and public sector entrepreneurs would jump on it.

"But the solar PV sector benefitted mainly from the international market, such as demand from the US and EU.

"Even today, the policy incentives are still not there, yet it still has grown to the level it is now."

Lingering legacy

However, despite the advances in low carbon technology, the legacy of rapid economic growth, which was primarily fuelled by burning coal, has been soaring greenhouse gas emissions.

In the final days before the opening ceremony of the Olympic Games in Beijing, there has been growing international concern over the air quality in the Chinese capital as the world's top athletes begin to arrive.

Organisers of the Games had promised that the city's notorious pollution would be cleaned up, so failure to deliver would be seen as an embarrassing environmental shortcoming.

City officials said that they would introduce emergency measures, such as banning the use of private cars and closing some factories, if conditions did not improve.

Although Beijing's troubles are currently under the media spotlight, air quality is a nationwide problem. According to figures from the World Bank, 20 of the planet's 30 most polluted cities are in China.

"In terms of total emissions, China is already the world's biggest emitter," Ms Wu said. "That's publicly available information, even the government is not denying it anymore.

"But if you look at emissions on a per capita basis, we are not the biggest emitters because we have 1.3bn people."

The report suggests that if China's population emitted as much as US citizens, its total emissions would be roughly equivalent to those of the entire planet's human activity.

"But just looking at numbers does not help tackle global climate change," Ms Wu added.

"In China, we are concerned about the speed of growth in emissions; it is really scary."

The report showed that China was only responsible for about 7% of greenhouse gases emitted in the period before 2002, when more than 90% of emissions from human activity were released.

But since the turn of the century, it added, China's portion has been growing steadily and now accounts for 24% of the global total.

The government is looking to stabilise its emissions by 2020, primarily through greater energy efficiency and the expansion of the nation's renewable energy infrastructure, including electric cars.

Ms Wu added that within the international climate negotiations, the Chinese were looking to developed nations to prove that they were serious about tackling climate change, such as delivering the mandatory cuts in emissions outlined in the Kyoto Protocol.

"If they are not able to do it with the technology available to them, then is it reasonable to expect China and India to do it?

"China does not commit itself to a number and then not deliver," she said, referring to whether China would sign up to legally binding targets in the ongoing UN climate negotiations about what system should replace the current Kyoto Protocol when it expires in 2012.

"If they commit, then they are very, very serious about; so they have to figure out what is possible."

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New rainforest species revealed

An expedition to the rainforests of Guyana has discovered species new to science.
BBC News 30 Jul 08;

A team of researchers and wildlife film-makers spent six weeks searching the pristine forest as part of a BBC documentary.

The group believes it has revealed two fish species, one frog species and a number of bat flies that have not been described previously.

The finds are detailed in the BBC series Lost Land of the Jaguar.

The three-part documentary includes footage of the elusive South American cat.
Dr George McGavin (BBC)

"In a short time, we caught hundreds of species, 10% of which may be new to science. It was unreal, unbelievable," exclaimed Dr George McGavin, a zoologist and one of the four presenters of the documentary.

He added: "Catching is the easy bit, the hard bit is going back to the lab and examining the species, comparing them to collections and books - seeing if they are new to science. One hour in the field can equal hundreds of hours in the lab.

Dr McGavin told the BBC News Website: "The expedition captured on film the discovery of the strongest candidates for new species - two fishes."

These are a small banded fish (Hemiodus sp.) netted near the expedition's base camp, and a parasitic catfish (Vandellia sp.) that fell out of the gills of a larger catfish.

The expedition also filmed the world's heaviest snake, the anaconda, "which looked like a pile of tractor tyres," said Dr McGavin. It also shows the world's largest eagle, the harpy eagle.

Dr McGavin's highlight, however, was holding the Goliath spider. "It was quite a thrill, luring this spider, the size of a soup plate, out of its hole and holding it. Although I can see that this wouldn't be everyone's idea of fun," he laughed.

The film aims to highlight the need to save this truly unique rainforest.

"We have a choice, we really are at the cross-roads now. We can decide to keep these rich hotspots of nature or see them razed to the ground," said Dr McGavin.

He added: "If we lose the species at the rate we are going, we will be losing untold riches."

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'Oil from algae' promises climate friendly fuel

Alok Jha, guardian.co.uk 31 Jul 08;

A liquid fuel made from plants that is chemically identical to crude oil but which does not contribute to climate change when it is burned or, unlike other biofuels, need agricultural land to produce sounds too good to be true. But a company in San Diego claims to have developed exactly that – a sustainable version of oil it calls "green crude".

Sapphire Energy uses single-celled organisms such as algae to produce a chemical mixture from which it is possible to extract fuels for cars or airplanes. When it is burned, the fuel only releases into the air the carbon dioxide absorbed by the algae during its growth, making the whole process carbon neutral.

Major investors are already opening their cheque books: Sapphire has raised a total of $50m (£25m) in venture capital in recent weeks, the highest amount ever for an algae biotech company, including a significant investment from the UK's Wellcome Trust.

Algae are seen by many experts as promising a source of green fuel in the future: ranging from single-celled organisms to large seaweeds, they are the world's most abundant form of plant life and, via photosynthesis, are extremely efficient at using sunlight and carbon dioxide from the air to make organic material such as sugars, proteins and, under the right conditions, oils.

Yusuf Chisti at Massey University in New Zealand estimates that algae could produce almost 100,000 litres of biodiesel a year per hectare of land, compared to 6,000 litres a hectare for oil palm, currently the most productive biofuel.

'Green gasoline'

The money for Sapphire came flooding in after the company recently reached its most significant milestone yet, refining high-octane gasoline from their green crude. "The resulting gasoline is completely compatible with current infrastructure, meaning absolutely no change to consumer's cars," said a Sapphire spokesperson.

An added advantage is that their gasoline does not have contaminants such as sulphur, nitrogen and benzene that are contained in standard crude oil and the company believes the cost of their fuels will be comparable to standard fossil fuels on the market.

Many biotech companies around the world are working on using algae to produce ethanol or biodiesels that could replace traditional transport fuels while avoiding the problems raised by traditional crop-based biofuels, such as displacing food crops. A Sapphire spokesperson said that, with algae, there was no need to use valuable farmland to grow the basic resource. "In fact the process uses non-arable land and non-potable water and delivers 10 to 100 times more energy per acre than cropland biofuels."

Where Sapphire departs from other algae companies is that their aim is not to produce standard biofuels such as ethanol or biodiesel. Instead, they take their inspiration from the way crude oil was created in the first place, millions of years ago.

"Way back when, when the algae were responsible for creating the long-chain hydrocarbons like diesels and heavy oils, the biomass just got buried and compressed and formed crude oil," said Steven Skill, a researcher in how algae can be used to make organic chemicals at Plymouth Marine Laboratory and who is familiar with Sapphire's work. "Algae synthesise these long-chain hydrocarbons within the cells."

Sapphire would not reveal details of the type of algae they are using but Skill thinks it is probably using genetically-modified cyanobacteria, which used to be called blue-green algae. These organisms can grow quickly (some blooms can double their mass in just an hour), operate in high temperatures and some strains can even fix nitrogen from the air to make their own fertilisers.

"Sapphire claim they can engineer whatever they like now on the strain of algae they're working with," said Skill. The next step, he said, depended on developing the engineering and cultivation systems to grow the algae economically.

Commercial production

John Loughhead, executive director of the UK Energy Research Centre, said that research on algae was a crucial part of the work to develop green energy sources in the future. "I'd say it's a very sound idea but the question is, are they able to do anything practical in an efficient way? The key questions are the efficiency with which this process happens."

He added: "They also have the classic renewables problem in that you're dealing with the ultimate energy source, the Sun, which is quite diffuse, so you're only getting in peak conditions around 0.5KW per square metre. You need vast, great big farms."

Algae can easily be grown in open ponds, but these result in very low-density blooms and are therefore an inefficient way to produce lots of fuel. Skill said that Sapphire would need advances in technology called photobioreactors to make a successful leap to commercial production.

Photobioreactors are closed vessels that would provide plenty of light and carefully tuned conditions that could intensively grow the microorganisms. Several teams around the world are testing designs for growing algae in them but none have so far made it to market.

Also crucial to making the green crude commercially viable is to use the byproducts other than oil from the algae. "You can probably derive 40% of the algae's weight in oil and you've got 60% of other stuff and there's a lot of valuable components in that in terms of chemical feed stocks."

These extra ingredients, which include fats, sugars and proteins, could be used for animal feeds or even as replacements for other petroleum products used in everything from cosmetics to plastics.

Sapphire said it expects to be at a stage of commercial production of green crude within three to five years. Geoffrey Love, head of venture capital at the Wellcome Trust, said the investment was made with this in mind. "There was already in place a very strong scientific and management team.

"They'd already made milestone-based progress to proving they could make not just biodiesel, which plenty of other companies out there can do, but proper crude oil."

He added that the biomedical charity had its own scientific diligence work done before making the investment and that the backing of another investment group that Trust often worked with, Arch Ventures, swung their own decision.

Doug Parr, chief scientist at Greenpeace UK, said: "We urgently need to find ways of consigning the fossil fuel economy to history. Algae could offer promise, but to get a real grip on what this technology could offer we need far more information at our fingertips.

"The crucial requirement is that the end product can be produced in large quantities in a sustainable way, otherwise we're simply jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire."

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Wind farm a blot on Scottish greenness, says Bellamy

David Bellamy has described the wind farm decision as ’baffling’
Mike Wade, Times Online 30 Jul 08;

David Bellamy, the broadcaster and environmentalist, has lambasted the Scottish government's “baffling” decision to approve the construction of the huge Clyde wind farm in South Lanarkshire, describing the project as “an enormous blot on the credibility of Scotland as a green place”.

His comments are a stark contrast to those of Alex Salmond, the First Minister, who last week announced the scheme as a step on the road to making Scotland the “green capital” of Europe. A total of 152 turbines are to be installed in clusters in the South Lanarkshire hill near the village of Abington, close to the M74.

Dr Bellamy represents an increasingly vocal minority within a green lobby that has been largely supportive of wind power. He is deeply critical, attacking both its reliability and its impact on the environment. Some critics of wind farms even blame their fluctuating output for a widespread power failure in East Anglia in May, and for a massive blackout across Germany and parts of France in November 2006.

“These things produce a very wobbly amount of energy - they have to be backed up all the time by gas or coal to make sure that we have grid security,” Dr Bellamy said.

“Research in Holland has shown that the amount of energy produced is very small. Why are we despoiling great chunks of the countryside when there are other more economic ways of doing it? If the Scottish government goes ahead, it will only regret it.”

A decision by the Holyrood administration in January, to block plans for a wind farm on the Isle of Lewis, had delighted him. “That was about impugning the sanctity of a very important natural area, and a great hub of tourism. I had an extra glass of red wine after that announcement. But this decision is simply baffling,” Dr Bellamy said.

Supporters of the Abington scheme say that it will bring £600 million in investment and create 200 construction jobs when it goes on site next year. Since it stands alongside a motorway, one argument in the development's favour is based on the notion that this rural area has already been “industrialised”.

The project has bitterly divided the local community, where it is supported by some landowners who stand to benefit from rents, but opposed by others who believe that the turbines will ruin the view.

Opponents are appalled by the size of the turbines, which stand 300ft (91m) high and have blades the length of a jumbo jet's wing. To make matters worse, Dr Bellamy said, the installation of these turbines could be contemplated by power generation companies only because of massive subsidies that are ultimately funded by consumers. In that regard, he welcomed a report by the House of Commons Business and Enterprise Committee, which this week called for a windfall tax on energy companies that are said to have profited from the EU trading scheme for carbon emissions.

He said: “If these hidden subsidies were taken away, there would not be a single wind turbine built in Britain. It costs a lot of money to build a wind farm - and it's the offshore people who fund it. Scotland is one the most amazing bits of Europe, and it hasn't been buggered up yet.”

David Mundell, the Conservative MP for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, echoed Dr Bellamy's comments and criticised the project as “an abomination”.

David Bruce, of the Scottish Wind Assessment Project, who grew up near Abington, said that the development was a disaster for the local environment. He said: “The Lewis site was heavily designated under European law for its wildlife. Abington is in South Lanarkshire and the countryside there is a forgotten jewel. It is not designated, so there is an open season for industrialisation. It should not be thrown away on a whim.”

Some environmental groups, including the WWF, have backed the Clyde wind farm. A spokesman for the Scottish government said that it represented an important step in the development of renewable energy in Scotland and in meeting European targets.

“It is another step towards making Scotland the green energy capital of Europe,” he added.

“All forms of renewable energy - including onshore wind energy projects such as this - will have a crucial role to play in realising Scotland's vast green energy potential and cutting the harmful emissions that cause climate change.”

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Best of our wild blogs: 31 Jul 08

Our coral nursery
more about what you can expect at the booth during Reef Celebrations, on the ashira blog

Silver-eared Mesia feeding fledgling
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

ARTivate Movie Screening
environmental themed movie screenings on the AsiaIsGreen blog

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