Lab animal use 'tops 100 million'

Jennifer Carpenter, BBC News 17 Aug 08;

A new analysis claims the number of animals used worldwide in laboratory experiments is close to 115 million.

The annual figure is based on official statistics from 37 countries, but includes estimates for nations where data is unavailable.

The report hopes that better records will encourage more responsible policy-making and regulation.

Reported in the journal Alternatives to Laboratory Animals, the figure has been contested by pro-experiment groups.

The global estimate is the result of a joint venture between the British Union for the Abolition of Vivisection and the Dr Hadwen Trust for Humane Research.

They said it was the first estimate of global numbers of animals used in scientific research.

Data deficient

National statistics for many countries are not released, and so the UK-based team extrapolated national figures from the number of scientific papers that were published involving animals.

The research included animals that are used to maintain stocks, and also included animals deemed surplus and humanely killed.

In previous estimates, neither of these categories were included in national statistics.

"It is troubling that there are so many countries that appear not to record the lives of those animals suffering in their laboratories," said Wendy Higgins of the Trust.

"Knowing the number of animals used gives real ammunition for the general public to put pressure on their governments to play their part in the global reduction and replacement of animals in experiments," she told BBC News.

The results of the study estimate that the US and Japan use the greatest number of animals (17 million and 11 million, respectively), followed by Canada, France and Australia (all about 2.3 million).

Barbara Davies, communications director for the UK's Research Defence Society, argues that the study's final figure is inflated.

She said that the data for many countries was extremely limited, very variable and out of date.

"The paper makes too many assumptions and extrapolations to have any confidence in its conclusion," Ms Davies told BBC News.

"They know the media will pick up 115 million as the top-line result, and not delve deeper into how they achieved this number."

Ms Davies said the numbers needed to be put in context to show how society benefits from animal-testing.

GM trend

In Britain, the number of animals used in laboratory experiments declined from a peak in 1970s, but since 1997 has shown a steady increased.

Official Home Office figures show a 6% year-on-year increase.

"This year is the first time in 16 years that we have seen the number of animals used in UK labs exceed three million," comments Ms Higgins.

The use of genetically modified animals - mainly mice - has more than quadrupled since 1995, and is responsible for the recent growth in the number of animals used.

Ms Davies said these animals were a powerful way to find out what a gene did, and how a flaw in it affected human health.

"The Human Genome Project threw up many new genes but we don't know what their functions are," she added.

By knocking out genes in animals, scientists hope to gain insight into the function of all the genes found by recent genome sequencing projects.

"It is in everyone's interest to replace animals in experiments wherever possible, but it is difficult, and that is why progress is slow," Ms Davies conceded.

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Millions eating food grown with polluted water, says UN report

Study of 53 cities across the world finds 'widespread' use of waste water contaminated with heavy metals and sewage

John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 18 Aug 08;

At least 200 million people around the world risk their health daily by eating food grown using untreated waste water, some of which may be contaminated with heavy metals and raw sewage, according to major study of 53 world cities.

Urban farmers in 80% of the cities surveyed were found to be using untreated waste water, but the study said they also provided vital food for burgeoning cities at a time of unprecedented water scarcity and the worst food crisis in 30 years.

The study from the UN-backed International Water Management Institute (IMWI), said the practice of using waste water to grow food in urban areas was not confined to the poorest countries.

"It's a widespread phenomenon, occurring on 20m hectares across the developing world, especially in Asian countries like China, India and Vietnam, but also around nearly every city of sub-Saharan Africa and in many Latin American cities as well," said IWMI researcher Liqa Raschid-Sally.

"Nor is it limited to the countries and cities with the lowest GDP. It is prevalent in many mid-income countries as well", she said.

The report, launched today at World Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden, found the practice "widespread and practically inevitable".

"As long as developing countries lack suitable transport to deliver large quantities of perishable produce to urban areas, urban agriculture will remain important. In the face of water scarcity generally and a lack of access to clean water, urban farmers will have no alternative except to use … polluted water", write the authors.

The report found that few developing countries have official guidelines for the use of waste water in agriculture. Even if they do, monitoring and enforcement rarely happen and may not be realistic. As a result, though the practice may be theoretically forbidden or controlled, it is "unofficially tolerated."

Earlier in 2008, the UN's World Health Organization stated that a global environmental and health crisis was unfolding with more than 200m tonnes of human waste a year being dumped untreated in water systems, exposing hundreds of millions of people to disease.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), said on Sunday that rivers around the world are now seriously polluted "to the brink of collapse".

"Many rivers in developing countries and emerging economies are now polluted to the brink of collapse. For example, the Yangtze, China's longest river, is suffering because of pollution by untreated waste, agricultural run-off and industrial discharge", said a spokesman.

Wastewater fears for urban farms
Mark Kinver, BBC News 18 Aug 08;

Urgent action is needed to remove pollutants from urban wastewater, which is often used in cities to grow food, an international study has warned.

Data collected by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) found that 85% of cities discharged the water without any appropriate treatment.

With many developing nations swiftly urbanising, the authors said people were at increasing risk of disease.

The findings are being presented at an international water summit in Sweden.

"As the world flips over from a predominantly rural to a predominantly urban population base, cities are going to take more and more water for agriculture," explained IWMI director general Colin Chartres.

"However, most of the water going into urban areas comes out the other end in the sewers," he told BBC News.

"We know that there is an informal sector within many cities that is using [wastewater] to grow vegetables, but there has been no data on how much of this water was being used or what the risks were."

Waste not, want not

The study, based on case studies from 53 cities in developing nations, examined where wastewater was being generated, how much was being used in urban agriculture, and to what degree the water was being treated.

With increasing food prices and growing concerns about water scarcity, the authors of the report highlighted a number of benefits of using wastewater to irrigate crops.

They said that it allowed food production in places where there was a lack of water, or where no alternative clean water sources were available.

It also recycled nutrients, meaning that farmers did not have to buy expensive fertilisers.

And irrigating farmland with wastewater also has environmental benefits, explained Dr Chartres.

"It is a pretty useful way of treating water in the sense that if the water just went straight into a river, it would cause a lot more eutrophication problems further downstream.

"So in a way it is performing an ecological service by cleaning up some of the water and recycling the nutrients."

However, Dr Chartres warned that using wastewater for irrigation was not risk free, especially as the world became more urbanised.

"If this practice is going to be increasingly commonplace and more and more people are going to be eating food produced this way, then there needs to be a bit more concern about the heavy metals and other contaminants in there.

"Ideally, the end product should be treating the water to a standard that means there is no risk, but most developing nations cannot afford to do this.

"Apparently, what happens now in areas with very polluted water is that the farmers do a smell test or a taste test," he added.

"If the water tastes too foul or smells too bad, then they won't use it to irrigate their crops - but that's a pretty dangerous way to go about things."

The IWMI report found that wastewater was being used in 80% of the cities surveyed.

This equated to 5.6 million farmers and family members dependent upon the wastewater in order to earn a living.

It added that very often industrial and domestic waste streams were mixed together. Ensuring the two were kept apart would reduce the risks from chemical contamination.

"It is really just about minimising the risks from field to fork with a series of simple measures," Dr Chartres explained.

"[These include] letting the water settle in a pond, so a lot of the eggs from worms drop out of the water, and irrigating around the crops rather than on top of them.

"When the crop is harvested, it also needs to be washed with fresh, clean water in the market, and that water needs to be constantly changed so everything else is not contaminated."

The authors said that the international community needed to develop policies and practices to reduce the health and environmental risks, while maintaining the financial and food production benefits.

The findings are being presented at the World Water Week summit in Stockholm, Sweden - a week-long conference attended by water and sanitation experts from more than 140 countries.

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Minister challenges Prince Charles to prove GM crops threat

Phil Woolas says government will go ahead with trials unless scientific evidence shows GM crops are harmful
Jenny Percival, guardian.co.uk 17 Aug 08;

A government minister today challenged the Prince of Wales to prove his claim that firms developing genetically modified crops risked environmental disaster.

"If it has been a disaster then please provide the evidence," said Phil Woolas, the environment minister, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph.

He accused Prince Charles of ignoring the needs of the world's poorest countries by attacking GM crops, and insisted the government would go ahead with trials unless scientific evidence showed they were harmful.

On Wednesday, after the prince told the Daily Telegraph that GM crops were an experiment "gone seriously wrong", the government said it welcomed all voices in the debate and stressed that safety was its priority.

But in highly critical comments that suggest high-level anger at the prince's intervention, Woolas said the government had a "moral responsibility" to investigate whether GM crops could help alleviate hunger in the developing world. It was easy for people in countries where food was plentiful to ignore the potential of GM to raise agricultural productivity, he said.

"I'm grateful to Prince Charles for raising the issue. He raises some very important doubts that are held by many people. But government ministers have a responsibility to base policy on science and I do strongly believe that we have a moral responsibility to the developing world to ask the question: can GM crops help?

"I don't understand the reasoning behind the assertion that this is dangerous for climate change."

Woolas stressed the government had yet to decide whether it should relax the controls on the cultivation of GM crops.

"Should the UK change our policy on GM to one that is more liberal?" he said. "The government has not got a predetermined decision."

The Sunday Telegraph quoted a Labour source as saying the prince had "overstepped the mark". The newspaper quoted a source close to the prince as saying he did not intend to cause a political row and "simply cares for the future".

Green groups including Friends of the Earth and the Soil Association supported the prince's view that GM crops would not help to solve the food crisis.

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"Toxic" Indian Festivals Poison Waterways - Expert

Nishika Patel, PlanetArk 19 Aug 08;

MUMBAI - Toxic chemicals from thousands of idols of Hindu gods immersed in rivers and lakes across India are causing pollution which is killing fish and contaminating food crops, experts and environmentalists said on Monday.

Hindus across India celebrate various religious festivals in September and October, paying homage to deities like Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles, and Goddess Durga, the destroyer of evil.

Elaborately painted and decorated idols are worshipped before they are taken during mass processions to rivers, lakes and the sea, where they are immersed in accordance with Hindu faith.

Environmentalists say the idols are often made from non-biodegradable materials such as plastic, cement and plaster of Paris and painted with toxic dyes.

After the statues are immersed, the toxins then contaminate food crops when villagers use the polluted water for irrigation, said Shyam Asolekar, science and engineering head at the Indian Institute of Technology in Mumbai.

"Even small traces are extremely toxic as they persist in the body for a long time and accumulate in the human tissues," said Asolekar, who has closely studied the effects of Hindu customs.

Paints contain metals like mercury, cadmium and lead, which can pass up the food chain from fish to human beings, he said.

Environmentalists said materials like plaster of Paris do not dissolve easily and reduce the oxygen level in the water, resulting in the deaths of fish and other aquatic organisms.

Statue remains from festivities last year still float in rivers and water tanks in Mumbai, where the annual "Ganesh Chaturthi" festival culminate in the immersion of some 160,000 statutes -- some up to 25 feet (7 metres) high -- by millions of devotees.

Traditionally, idols were made from mud and clay and vegetable-based dyes were used to paint them.

But commercialization of festivals such as Ganesh Chaturthi and Durga Puja has meant people want bigger and brighter idols and are no longer happy with the eco-friendly statues.

Authorities say they are taking steps to check pollution. Mumbai has dug 48 ponds this year for the immersion of idols, but environmental groups say not enough is being done.

"If we do not respect nature then we are not respecting god," said Manisha Gutman of environmental group Eco Exist.

About 80 percent of India's 1.1 billion population are Hindus. In recent years, their religious festivals and customs have come under increasing scrutiny as public awareness of environmental issues grows.

The spring festival of Holi involves the throwing of coloured powder but studies have found that the industrial powders used are often toxic and can cause asthma, temporary blindness and even skin cancer. (Writing by Bappa Majumdar; Editing by Krittivas Mukherjee and Paul Tait)

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Coal's toxic legacy to the Arctic

Richard Black, BBC News 18 Aug 08;

Coal burning in western Europe and North America has been a prime source of heavy metal pollution in the Arctic.

Scientists plotted levels of thallium, cadmium and lead in a Greenland ice core and linked them to other chemicals indicating coal as the main origin.

Clean air legislation has reduced the heavy metal load in recent years.

But writing in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), the team says increased coal burning in Asia may see levels of the metals rise.

These substances accumulate in the bodies of plants and animals living in the region, including whales, polar bears and caribou.

Some Arctic people also carry high levels of the heavy metals, which can cause a number of medical conditions, in their bodies.

Economic drivers

The study team, from the Desert Research Institute in Reno, US, analysed an ice core extracted in Greenland which gives a continuous record of pollutants deposited from the atmosphere back to 1772.

They took readings of heavy metal levels on a month-by-month basis.

Graphs show all three metals soaring between 1850 and 1900 as the industrial age took off. The early 20th Century saw inputs 10 times higher than in pre-industrial times.

The Great Depression of the 1930s saw levels dip as economies contracted, then a rise as the global marketplace recovered.

But by the 1970s, all three of the metals were decreasing in abundance, broadly coinciding with the adoption of clean air legislation in Europe and North America, the source regions for most of the input to the Greenland ice.

"In North America and western Europe, there was a big effort to clean up the air," noted lead researcher Joseph McConnell.

"Part of that was a shift from coal to oil and gas, and part was a move to burn coal at higher temperatures and burn it in a better way," he told BBC News.

The rises and falls correlate well with fluctuations in the amount of black carbon and sulphur, products of coal burning, captured in the ice, suggesting that coal was the dominant source of these emissions.

The one blip came from lead which showed a renewed rise in the 1950s, probably due to the swift increase in motoring.

Potent poison

Heavy metals are among substances that bio-accumulate; when they pass into animals, they stay there, immune to digestion and the body's waste removal processes.

When that animal is eaten by another higher up the food web, the predator, whether human or not, generally takes on a substantial part of the toxic cargo.

Most of the studies on Arctic peoples have concentrated on mercury, another heavy metal also produced by coal burning and other industries.

They suggest that mercury may have contributed to neurological impairment in some communities.

Some Arctic dwellers have been found to receive levels of cadmium above recommended safe limits through their diet. The metal's most important medical impact is kidney damage.

"There's been very little study of thallium in the Arctic, though," said Dr McConnell.

Thallium is a potent toxin.

Once incorporated into rat poison, its use is highly restricted. It was an early suspect in the race to determine what killed former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in London two years ago.

The new study promises to help investigators studying the health of Arctic peoples by providing a detailed record of heavy metal input to the environment over time.

Whereas previous studies suggested the cadmium load was highest in the 1960s and 1970s, the new research shows the peak input occurred decades earlier.

As the global population increases, economies develop and natural gas supplies peak, the International Energy Agency predicts coal usage will increase globally, with the major Asian economies including China and India responsible for most of the increase.

Dr McConnell believes the picture of the last few years captured by his Greenland core suggests this renewed interest in coal burning is leading to an upturn in heavy metal input to the part of the Arctic he has studied.

But he believes more cores are needed from different regions, and is proposing to drill in other parts of the Arctic, notably areas north of Russia and east Asia, to establish the global pattern.

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Shipping pollution 'may cause 60,000 deaths a year'

Roger Highfield, The Telegraph 18 Aug 08;

Sea air in coastal cities, renowned for being bracing and healthy, is instead being heavily polluted by dirty smoke from ships a study has found.

Scientists have found ships are contributing far more polluting tiny sulphur rich particles than had previously been thought.

The tiny particles travel large distances and can become lodged in the lungs, posing a serious health hazard.

Previous studies have shown ship smoke may be responsible for as many as 60,000 deaths worldwide, according to an earlier study conducted at the University of Delaware.

"This is the first study that shows the contribution of ships to fine particulates in the atmosphere," said Prof Mark Thiemens, who headed the research team at the University of California, San Diego.

"Ships are really unregulated when it comes to air pollution standards. What we wanted to find out was the contribution of ships to the air pollution in San Diego.

"And what we found was a surprise, because no one expected that the contribution from ships of solid sulphur-rich particles called primary sulphate would be so high."

Primary sulphate, or SO4, is produced when ships burn a cheap, sulphur-rich fuel called "bunker oil."

The scientists say, these primary sulphate particulates are particularly harmful because they are especially fine, less than 1.5 microns or millionth of a metre in size.

As a result, they can travel extremely long distances because they stay in the atmosphere for longer periods and, unlike bigger dust grains and particles that are removed by the body when breathed, remain in the lungs.

Using a chemical fingerprinting technique to sample air at the end of the pier at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, the scientists found that the smoke from ships contributed as much as 44 per cent of the sulphate found in fine particulate matter in the atmosphere of coastal California.

On the days when the proportion of ship sulphate approached one-half of the fine particulate matter, the scientists determined from wind direction and speed calculations that ships burning high sulphur fuel in the Los Angeles, Long Beach and San Diego ports were a major influence.

"Our results suggest that this component of ship emissions is important and should not be ignored in the future," said Dr Gerardo Dominguez, first author.

In another study in the same journal, a team warms that the future impact of global warming is even worse than predicted when the grazing animals are taken into account.

The impact of global warming in the Arctic was studied by Penn State biologists, Dr Eric Post and Christian Pederson, to show that grazing animals will play a key role in reducing the anticipated expansion of shrub growth, thus limiting their predicted and beneficial carbon-absorbing effect.

While Dr Post and Pederson agree that global warming will promote the growth of shrubs, they argue that grazing by muskoxen and caribou will reduce the carbon-mitigating benefit of the plants, based on the findings of a novel five-year experiment in West Greenland in which they compared the effects of grazing in plots treated with increased temperatures versus those left untreated.

"We need to be aware that the 'carbon dioxide sponge' - represented especially by shrubs and trees - may not be as big as we thought it was," said Dr Post. "This finding is yet another reason to think carefully about reducing carbon-dioxide emissions."

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Beijingers hope Games clean-up stays in place

Dan Martin, Yahoo News 18 Aug 08;

Beijing's aggressive moves to get the city ready for the sporting showcase also has whet the appetite of residents for a modern, clean and orderly city -- something they hope will outlast the Olympic flame itself.

If Wen Laifu had his way, the Beijing Olympics would last forever.

The immediate reason is China's huge and growing collection of gold medals which the sports-mad Beijing resident called "extraordinary."

"Beijing is one of the great cities of the world. But we don't act like it sometimes," said Wen, a freelance ad copy writer strolling through Tiananmen Square on an overcast but pollution-free day with his wife and young son.

The Olympic host city, whose modern makeover has impressed Games visitors, is unrecognisable to many long-term residents.

Strict driving restrictions have helped ease the chronic and paralysing traffic congestion that normally clogs the streets of the ancient capital of 17 million people, taking about one-third of its three million cars off the road.

That, plus the moving or temporary shuttering of factories in the region as well as other anti-pollution moves, has been credited with helping to clear the city's notoriously smoggy skies during the Games, although favourable weather also has been a factor.

Other moves have included a clampdown on the city's blatant prostitution, but also the stifling of dissidents to avoid embarrassing political dissent during the August 8-24 Games.

Authorities have given no hint yet that the temporary beautification measures would be maintained following the Games, but many are hoping they will.

A poll last month by the Beijing Social Facts and Public Opinion Survey Centre found that 96 percent of Beijing residents felt the measures had been beneficial and 60 percent wanted them to continue.

"These measures have been successful. The city is better now," said Zhao Wei, 39, who operates a chain of six dry-cleaning outlets.

The driving restrictions, which have limited motorists to driving on alternate days based on their license plate number, have forced him to take the bus and subways every other day.

They also have slightly disrupted business by complicating delivery of chemicals and other supplies he needs, though like nearly all Chinese questioned by AFP, he saw that as a necessary inconvenience during the Olympics.

Independent estimates have put annual direct economic losses from the city's gridlock at up to one billion dollars. The World Health Organisation estimates about 650,000 people die prematurely in China each year from air pollution.

Zhao is willing to sacrifice for a better city, adding that Beijing's notorious gridlock already regularly causes supply disruptions and that rising petrol prices have made driving more expensive anyway.

He said Beijing should adopt limits on car ownership similar to those in Shanghai, China's largest city.

"Chinese can accept hardship for the greater good, especially under government guidance. It is one of our national strengths," said Zhao, riding the subway to an Olympic basketball game with friends.

Hong Guangli, a 25-year-old economics graduate student, is realistic, noting that business pressures are likely to bring a return to the free-for-all growth behind Beijing's problems.

Yet he remained hopeful that the government, having seen that seemingly intractable problems can be addressed with the proper motivation, will place new emphasis on improving living conditions, not just in Beijing, but nationwide.

"We cannot move as quickly in China as in your country. But we are making progress," he said.

Read more!

China's Olympic Pollution Efforts Paid Off, Expert Says

Rick Lovett, National Geographic News 15 Aug 08;

Beijing's air for the opening track-and-field events at the 2008 Summer Olympic Games is "better than expected," said U.S. Olympic distance runner Amy Yoder Begley.

"When I came to China to race in 2002," Yoder Begly said in an e-mail earlier this week, "the air caused my lungs and nasal passages to burn." She also described the sensation as "swallowing glass."

Although air pollution in China's capital city is almost always worse than anywhere in the United States, Chinese efforts to clean up the air before the Games have paid off.

The country shut down all nearby factories and ordered half the cars off the road, creating tangible improvements, scientists say.

"I'm measuring about a 20 to 40 percent reduction in particulate matter compared to a year ago," said Staci Simonich, an environmental chemist from Oregon State University whose lab group has made three trips to Beijing to study the city's air.

Ups and Downs

Day-to-day pollution levels have tended to fluctuate. When it rains, pollution drops, then builds back up—unless there's a strong north wind to blow it away, Simonich said.

"We've seen some real ups and downs," Simonich said from her temporary lab at Peking University in Beijing.

On a good day, the air quality is still below levels American athletes are accustomed to.

U.S. runner Yoder Begley's 10,000-meter teammate Kara Goucher grew up in the clean air of northern Minnesota, and had never been to Beijing before this summer.

"[T]he pollution and smog in Beijing is much, much worse than I imagined," she wrote earlier in the week—before the latest rain—on a blog for the Duluth News Tribune.

"Its a bit eerie how the sun never comes out all day. If you are walking around the village and you look ahead, you can't see all of the buildings. The pollution creates a fog that clouds over everything. It is unimaginable. I am shocked by how bad it is."

Simonich's measurements confirm that the air, although better, is still heavily polluted by U.S. standards.

On average, she said, she's been measuring particulate levels about six times higher than those seen in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics.

A good day in Beijing, she said, is roughly comparable to America's most polluted cities.

The Chinese were hoping for more than the improvements seen in Simonich's tests, but their efforts have been undercut by the smog-trapping climate.

"I think they've done as much as they can," Simonich said. "But … the role that meteorology plays is so important."

Extreme Heat

The same weather that traps smog can make Beijing extremely hot and humid.

Goucher and Yoder Begley prepared for their competitions by training for a week in Houston, along with fellow distance runner Galen Rupp.

"The workouts went great," the group's coach, Alberto Salazar, told the Portland Oregonian newspaper. "We ran in hotter conditions than we expect to see in Beijing."

But that doesn't mean the heat won't be a major factor for less-prepared competitors.

"The air is so thick," Yoder Begley wrote on her blog. "You sweat through your clothes in minutes and stay wet all day."

The weather took a toll last weekend in the men's bicycling road race, a hilly 152-mile (245-kilometer) event in which 53 of 143 competitors dropped out.

"I worked hard, but the heat and humidity were too much for me," Dutch cyclist Karsten Kroon told the Salt Lake Tribune. "You feel your head explode."

Mari Holden, a 2000 silver-medalist-turned-coach, sympathized.

"I always had a hard time with heat and humidity," she told National Geographic News. "I've had instances where I ended up in the hospital."

Whatever the conditions, however, athletes say they are still driven to do their best.

As distance runner Shalane Flanagan told the Associated Press: "Unless I can't walk and my lungs are falling out, or I'm coughing up a lung, I'll be running."

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 18 Aug 08

N. Sivasothi updates on the marine conservation community
video clip of his talk during the launch of International Year of the Reef on the singapore celebrates our reefs blog

Reclamation works at Sentosa continues
from an MPA notice on the wild shores of singapore blog

Bugs by the beach
a look at intertidal insects on the annotated budak blog

Baby blue eyes
on the budak blog

Changi shore with lunar eclipse
on the wonderful creations blog

The Life History of the Yamfly
on the butterflies of singapore blog

Nest decorated with plentiful silk/floss
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Read more!

Behind world food crisis is a world water crisis

WWF website 18 Aug 08;
WWF Director General James Leape will tell the opening session of World Water Week in Stockholm that a world water crisis is a key factor behind current global anxieties over faltering food supplies and rising food costs.

"Behind the world food crisis is a global freshwater crisis, expected to rapidly worsen as climate change impacts intensify," Mr Leape said. "Irrigation-fed agriculture provides 45 per cent of the world’s food supplies, and without it, we could not feed our planet's population of six billion people."

Many of the world's irrigation areas, however, from wealthy to less developed nations, are highly stressed and drawing more water than rivers and groundwater reserves can sustain.

Freshwater food reserves are also declining in the face of the quickening pace of dam construction and unsustainable water extractions from rivers.

"Millions of people depend on freshwater fisheries as a major food source," Mr Leape said. "Freshwater food stocks can provide up to 80 per cent of dietary protein for the 60 million people of the Mekong basin, for example. And that's just one river."

WWF is taking a major role in World Water Week to highlight a host of other water related problems and their potential solutions.

Faltering river systems are increasing conflict, reducing power production, weakening important aquatic transport networks and increasing health risks - not least through reduced performance in transporting and naturally treating wastes.

Wetlands in particular play a major role in reducing disaster impacts and in climate regulation, with peatlands covering just 3-4 per cent of world land area but containing an estimated 25-30 per cent of the carbon in terrestrial vegetation and soils. Release of this stored carbon would be enough to raise global temperatures by 2-3º C.

"Freshwater systems are home to around 40 per cent of all the species on earth," Mr Leape said. "And our impact is shown by the fact that we are losing these species faster than any other."

Mr Leape said the world was a long way from being ready for a worsening water crisis, with profligate water use still the rule rather than the exception, protection and management schemes for only a minority of freshwater reserves and effective protection and management for only a minority of schemes.

"A global treaty for co-operatively managing rivers and lakes that cross or form borders is still languishing in limbo more than a decade after being approved by a clear majority in the United Nations," Mr Leape said.

WWF will spend the week in Stockholm outlining solutions to the water crisis grounded in its work with governments, business and communities world wide.

"Water management for human needs alone is damaging the natural systems we all depend on," Mr Leape said. "No management is even worse.

"Maintaining the health of freshwater ecosystems has to become one of the major aims of freshwater management generally."

WWF is to present studies showing the water footprint of the UK and conference hosts Sweden extends to some of the driest and most under-privileged areas of the world - but both water exporting and water importing areas can do much to reduce their demand on water resources.

"We are also concerned that the world continues to mainly discuss adaption to climate change rather than doing it," Mr Leape said. "We have been doing it, all over the world, and we have found that that improving the health of freshwater ecosystems now makes a great contribution to improving their resilience to climate impacts in the future.

"It is ironic that currently it is not foresight and planning but major natural disasters that lead to significant efforts to repair damaged rivers and wetlands. Foresight and planning now will reduce the risk and damage from future extreme weather events, while having many economic, social and environmental benefits."

Of the world's total water resources, 97.5 per cent is salty and of the remaining but mainly frozen freshwater, only one per cent is available for human use.

"Even this tiny proportion, however, would be enough for humans to live on earth if the water cycle was properly functioning and if we managed our water use wisely," Mr Leape said.

Read more!

Malaysian project will 'block Johor Straits'

Satiman Jamin, New Straits Times 18 Aug 08;

JOHOR BARU: Residents of Kampung Mohd Amin here are questioning the rationale of continuing with the Lido Boulevard project when the scenic bridge project may be revived. The century-old village will be affected as it is situated opposite the stretch of Lido Beach which is the proposed project site.

Lido Boulevard, a high end residential and commercial project, will be built on a reclaimed stretch of the Johor Straits, with reclamation work due to start next month, leaving just 50m of waterway on some stretches.

Kampung Mohd Amin Umno youth chief Saiful Adli Jamian, 38, said the Lido Boulevard development would negate the benefits of a bridge as there would no longer be a waterway.

He said the most important impact of a bridge, strategically and environmentally, would not be realised with the Lido Boulevard blocking the Johor Straits.

"If the Lido Boulevard project is allowed to proceed next month, it will only strengthen Singapore strategically.

"Vessels passing by the Johor Straits will have to enter Singapore's water."

Saiful said the Lido Boulevard project should be reconsidered due to many factors, including the impact on the environment, local community and future developments, especially if the government anticipated that the bridge project would be revived.
"If the project is to proceed, they might as well extend the reclamation works of Lido Boulevard and create a second causeway to Singapore because Malaysian territorial waters will not be there anymore."

He said extending the Lido Boulevard project to Singapore would create a 2.4km-wide causeway, a cost-saving alternative to the bridge with the same environmental and strategic costs to Malaysia.

Saiful said the loss of Pedra Branca to Singapore on May 23 should have made the government more alert in safeguarding Malaysia's interests when making decisions which involved the republic.

"A bridge built after Lido Boulevard will mean Singapore controlling the waterways and shipping in the area, with Johor having voluntarily discarded the Johor Straits by dumping millions of tonnes of sands to build luxury condominiums," he said.

Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman said on Friday that the state government had made preparations to accommodate the construction of the Johor Baru-Singapore bridge if the project was revived.

Some old articles about Lido Boulevard

Johor To Get RM2.7 Billion Garden City
Bernama 27 Nov 07;

JOHOR BAHARU, Nov 27 (Bernama) -- Central Malaysian Properties Sdn Bhd (CMP), linked to tycoon Tan Sri Vincent Tan, is to develop a RM2.7 billion integrated residential cum commercial waterfront city here.

Menteri Besar Datuk Abdul Ghani Othman tonight launched the Lido Boulevard project, which will be one of the biggest private finance initiatives to date in the Iskandar Development Region (IDR).

Coming up on a 49.371ha beachfront just outside Johor Baharu's central business district, it is designed to be the garden city of the south.

The privatisation project awarded last Aug 30 is a joint venture between CMP and State Secretary, Johor (Inc), an investment holding company of the state government which is also the landowner.

The Lido Boulevard, with a gross development value of RM2.7 billion, is CMP's flagship development and will be financed through shareholder funds and other internal financial arrangements.

The company will commence sales early next year.

"This development will not only change the Johor Baharu skyline but also raise our city's profile internationally," Abdul Ghani said at the launch.

"The idea is to design and reposition Johor Baharu as an international gateway to Malaysia, with a myriad of iconic buildings and top-notch public amenities and facilities."

The project, to be developed in phases, will stretch nearly 2.4 km along Lido Beach from the present Lot One shopping mall to the office of the Harbour Master.

"The development blueprint is based on the theme of a garden city, with landscaped gardens, water fountains and park-like facilities which will account for nearly a quarter of the entire development area," said CMP managing director Datuk Chan Tien Ghee.

The development will have four main components - luxury condominiums, waterfront office suites, a hotel and a shopping mall.

There will be eight blocks of high end condominiums of between 18 and 26 floors each offering 914 units.

There will be another eight blocks of waterfront office suites, a 296-room hotel-cum-serviced residence and a three storey waterfront retail complex with some 74,322.40 sq m of floor space.

Incorporated within the mall will be an international sized ice skating rink and a 32-lane bowling alley.

Chan later presented to Abdul Ghani a cheque for the RM1 million CMP Humanitarian and Environmental Fund which will be used to deal with any social and environmental issues that arise from the project.-- BERNAMA

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Huge gatherings of whale sharks discovered in Gulf of Mexico

Scientists believe whale sharks regularly congregate off Mississippi and Louisiana coasts
Jim Tharpe, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution 15 Aug 08;

Scientists have become increasingly convinced that huge gatherings of giant whale sharks occur with clockwork regularity in the northern Gulf of Mexico off the coasts of Mississippi and Louisiana.

Scientist Eric Hoffmayer, who is trying to unravel the mysterious “aggregations,” said that as many as 100 of the bus-sized sharks have been spotted feeding in clusters at three separate areas about 40 to 100 miles offshore.

“We have lots of reports of 30 or 50 animals in one place,” said Hoffmayer, a scientist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory in Ocean Springs, Miss. “They are obviously gathering for a reason. But right now we are not sure what that is, or how they know to show up at these spots.”

Whale sharks, a key attraction at the Georgia Aquarium, are the planet’s biggest shark and can grow to more than 45 feet long. They are generally solitary, ocean-roaming creatures. Nobody knows how many exist. But there are a handful of locations around the globe where the polka-dotted, filter-feeding sharks congregate in large numbers to feast on plankton or fish eggs.

The northern Gulf aggregations, which occur from June through September, would be a major new discovery if scientists can confirm that they are occurring at regular, predictable intervals.

Hoffmayer recently discussed his findings with Georgia Aquarium researchers at the Second International Whale Shark Conference on Isla Holbox, Mexico. The downtown Atlanta aquarium is funding whale shark research in the plankton-rich waters off Holbox, a narrow strip of land alongside the Yucatan Peninsula north of Cancun that attracts hundreds of whale sharks each summer in one of the world’s largest aggregations.

Bruce Carlson, the aquarium’s chief science officer, said aquarium researchers are just beginning to talk with Hoffmayer and his associates about their findings. The aquarium is the only fish tank outside Asia to house whale sharks.

“There is already collaboration in terms of information sharing, and there will probably be more in the future,” Carlson said.

Confirming the aggregations is a difficult task. Scientists are confronted with a species that can wander across oceans solo, then suddenly appear in large groups to feed.

Hoffmayer enlists the help of fishermen, oil rig workers and pilots. He asks them to report the time, date and duration of whale sharks sightings, recording the sharks’ GPS coordinates and the number and size of sharks they see.

His group has created its own whale shark Web page, connected to his lab’s Web site, where whale shark observers can record their sightings. Hoffmayer’s group also has tagged a few whale sharks with satellite transmission devices.

Florida-based shark scientist Robert Hueter, whose Holbox research is partially funded by the aquarium, said he is intrigued by the northern Gulf aggregations and thinks they could somehow be related to the sharks he has observed off Holbox.

Hueter and his assistants, John Tyminski and Mexico-based biologist Rafael de la Parra, have placed about 700 visual tags on whale sharks off the Yucatan over the last few years. Those plastic identification tags let scientists know where the sharks were first spotted and — if they are resighted — where they travel to.

“None of the tags have been resighted in the northern Gulf,” Hueter said. “That doesn’t mean none of the sharks have traveled there. The tags could have been shed or they might not have been seen. But after tagging 700, you think they’d have spotted something up there.”

Hueter said one whale shark tagged off Holbox with a satellite transmitting device did move northwest from the Yucatan to an area off the Texas Coast. Hueter, director of the Center for Shark Research at Sarasota’s Mote Marine Laboratory, said he envisions future collaboration with Hoffmayer on his findings.

“When you talk about a species that travels thousands of miles and knows no political boundaries, collaboration between scientists is essential,” Hueter said.

Hoffmayer’s work has been mostly a labor of love, since he does not have a consistent funding source for his whale shark research. “It’s piecemeal,” he said.

He theorizes the big sharks get together in the northern Gulf to dine on massive concentrations of fish eggs; bonita, skipjack and tuna spawn in the area. Like Hueter, he believes the northern Gulf gatherings could somehow be connected to whale shark aggregations near Holbox, which occur at roughly the same time of year.

The Holbox whale sharks have spawned a booming ecotourism business for the small island, where fisherman have learned how to turn a buck hauling tourists offshore to snorkel with the gentle giants. Whale shark aggregations also have created ecotourism businesses in Australia, the Philippines, Belize and a few other locales.

So far, however, the northern Gulf whale shark gatherings are known only to a few scientists, pilots, charter boat captains and oil rig workers who have glimpsed the natural phenomenon far from the sight of land.

A boat approaching one of the aggregations on a calm day would probably first see the dorsal fins and huge tails of the sharks sticking out of the water. The sharks swim slowly and quietly near the surface, their huge mouths agape to take in tons of seawater from which they collect the tiny marine organisms and fish eggs they eat.

Occasionally, the sharks feed vertically, which means they stop in one spot and angle their bodies at 45-degrees, sucking in water near the surface and hoovering in their tiny prey.

Hoffmayer said that until recently scientists believed whale shark encounters in the northern Gulf were rare. In 2002, he said, scientists discovered two whale sharks in a school of yellowfin, blackfin and skipjack tuna.

“We wanted to know what the whale sharks were doing in a school of tuna,” he said.

Hoffmayer asked some local offshore fishermen if they had ever encountered whale sharks. Their answer stunned him.

“They said, ‘We see whale sharks all the time,”’ he recalled. “These guys see a lot of stuff out there, and they never think to contact us, and we had not been contacting them.”

Hoffmayer published a 2005 paper on the initial sightings and has continued to gather evidence to support his theory, enlisting fishermen and helicopter pilots who serve the Gulf’s 3,500 oil rigs.

Hoffmayer said that in 2006 a tuna fishing boat returned with video of 100 or so whale sharks it happened upon in the northern Gulf. That was two weeks after Hoffmayer and his researchers encountered a group of 16 whale sharks in the same area.

“A third of our sightings are of groups of animals,” he said. “We had a sighting of 30 or so a few weeks ago off the coast of Texas.”

One theory, Hoffmayer said, is that the whale sharks are initially widely dispersed in the northern Gulf, lazily feeding on plankton.

But, he said, they might somehow know when to congregate in fish spawning areas, where they would be able to gorge on nutrient-rich eggs.

Many fish species spawn on certain phases of the moon’s cycle, Hoffmayer said.

Perhaps the big sharks are guided by the lunar phases. But like many things about whale sharks, no one really knows.

“How do 30 animals know to show up for what is a 12-hour [spawning] event?” he asked. “Now that’s a wonderful mystery. It’s what we’re trying to figure out.”

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