Hand, Foot and Mouth Disease: New outbreak looming here

Cases last week just 12 short of epidemic level; numbers likely to rise
Lee Hui Chieh & Ang Yiying, Straits Times 23 Aug 08;

SINGAPORE is on the verge of a hand, foot and mouth disease (HFMD) outbreak, health officials revealed yesterday.

Last week, 553 people came down with the normally mild childhood disease that usually causes fever and rashes on the hands, feet and buttocks. That is just 12 fewer than the Health Ministry's official 'epidemic level'.

The tally last week was up from 415 over the previous seven days, and health officials warn the numbers are likely to rise between now and October, traditionally a peak period for HFMD.

This peak, though, usually affects fewer people than the first one from March to May, said Dr Lyn James, director of the Health Ministry's communicable diseases division. The reasons for the peaks are not known.

Still, the latest surge has already proven deadly. On Aug 6, Singapore registered its first death from HFMD since a severe outbreak from 2000 to 2001 killed seven children. Like most of those victims, three-year-old Marzuk Adi died from a severe form of HFMD caused by a virus called EV71.

This virus has been of particular concern to countries in Asia, which have been battling outbreaks of HFMD in recent years. This year, it has killed 44 in China, 10 in Taiwan and 11 in Vietnam.

The Health Ministry and the Regional Emerging Disease Intervention (Redi) Centre organised a two-day regional forum on HFMD, which was attended by more than 80 scientists and public health officers from 12 countries.

At the forum's last day yesterday, local vaccine company SingVax, Chinese vaccine company Sinovac Biotech and Taiwan's Centres for Disease Control gave updates on their progress in developing the world's first HFMD vaccine.

Both SingVax and Taiwan's CDC said they have seen good results in the laboratories and hope to start clinical trials next year.

In the absence of a vaccine, parents should ensure their children wash their hands, because the disease is often spread through saliva and faecal matter.

They should also take their children to the doctor at the first sign of symptoms, and keep them away from schools and crowded places, Dr James said.

Meanwhile, the school that Marzuk attended, Elias Kindergarten in Woodlands, reopened earlier this week after a 10-day closure to clean up.

When The Straits Times visited yesterday, about 20 to 30 children were in a queue waiting to have their teachers check their temperatures as well as hands and mouths to look for signs of HFMD.

The mother of one pupil, who wanted to be known only as Madam Hafizah, 29, said: 'The school has done its best to check. The school...and parents must know what to do.'

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Nine polar bears observed on risky open ocean swims

Dan Joling, Associated Press Yahoo News 21 Aug 08;

Nine polar bears were observed in one day swimming in open ocean off Alaska's northwest coast, an increase from previous surveys that may indicate warming conditions are forcing bears to make riskier, long-distance swims to stable sea ice or land.

The bears were spotted in the Chukchi Sea on a flight by a federal marine contractor, Science Applications International Corp.

It was hired for the Minerals Management Service in advance of future offshore oil development. The MMS in February leased 2.76 million acres within an offshore area slightly smaller than Pennsylvania.

Observers Saturday were looking for whales but also recorded walrus and polar bears, said project director Janet Clark. Many were swimming north and ranged from 15 to 65 miles off shore, she said.

Department of Interior Secretary Dirk Kempthorne in May declared polar bears a threatened species because of an alarming loss of summer sea ice and forecasts the trend will continue.

Polar bears spend most of their lives on sea ice, which they use as a platform to hunt their primary prey, ringed seals. Shallow water over the continental shelf is the most biologically productive for seals, but pack ice in recent years has receded far beyond the shelf.

Conservation groups fear that one consequence of less ice will be more energy-sapping, long-distance swims by polar bears trying to reach feeding, mating or denning areas.

Steven Amstrup, senior polar bear scientist for the U.S. Geological Survey in Anchorage, said the bears could have been on a patch of ice that broke up northwest of Alaska's coast.

"The bears that had been on that last bit of ice that remained over shallow shelf waters, are now swimming either toward land or toward the rest of the sea ice, which is a considerable distance north," he said in an e-mail response to questions.

It probably is not a big deal for a polar bear in good condition to swim 10 or 15 miles, Amstrup said, but swims of 50 to 100 miles could be exhausting.

"We have some observations of bears swimming into shore when the sea ice was not visible on the horizon," he said. "In some of these cases, the bears arrive so spent energetically, that they literally don't move for a couple days after hitting shore."

Only further research can tell the effect of greater swimming distances on polar bear populations, he said.

"Polar bears can swim quite well, but they are not aquatic animals," he said. "Their home is on the surface of the ice."

Satellite data Saturday showed the main body of pack ice about 400 miles offshore with one ribbon about 100 miles off Alaska's coast, said Mark Serreze of the National Snow and Ice Data Center.

Clark said the animals' origin and destination could not be known without radio collar monitoring.

"To go out there and say they were going from this point to this point would be complete speculation," Clark said.

Observers have no indication of the fate of the nine polar bears observed Saturday.

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Australian officials euthanize lost baby whale

Kristen Gelineau, Associated Press Yahoo News 22 Aug 08;

The baby humpback whale was starving, injured and hours from death. So despite anguished cries of "Murder!" and "Shame!" from protesters who thought it could still be saved, wildlife officials on Friday euthanized the animal, which had strayed into the waters off north Sydney nearly a week ago.

The decision to end the calf's life, first sighted in the inlet on Sunday, closed a story that exposed divided opinions over what should have been done for the whale, nicknamed "Colin."

Attempts to tow the 1- to 2-month-old calf out to sea failed, as it continued to try to suckle from boats it apparently mistook for its mother. A few people designed feeding mechanisms they hoped could deliver nourishment to the animal, but officials deemed artificial nursing impossible. An Aboriginal whale whisperer tried to soothe the creature, patting it while singing a humming, tongue-rolling tune — but Colin swam away to nuzzle another boat.

By Friday morning, the whale was starving, riddled with parasites, appeared to have been attacked by sharks, and had drifted into very shallow waters, said Sally Barnes, deputy director-general of the New South Wales Department of Environment and Climate Change. There was no other choice but to end the whale's misery, she said.

"It's a very sad day — it's a very emotional day," a weary-looking Barnes said as she stood in the rain soon after the 14-foot-long creature was dragged to a beach. "People have become very attached to this whale."

Wildlife officials in half a dozen boats corralled the creature into an area near the shore and injected it with a sedative. The whale could be seen thrashing and struggling in the chilly, gray waters as workers began towing it toward the beach. Several slowly stroked the animal's back, before hoisting it onto the beach and administering a lethal injection.

Gray tarps were hung around the animal's body to obstruct the view of journalists and protesters in nearby boats. Media were blocked from accessing the inlet by land, and maritime police patrolled the waters to stop boats from approaching.

The body was later sent to Sydney's Taronga Zoo for an examination.

"Shame! Shame!" yelled Brett Devine, a marine salvage and rescue worker who had hoped to feed the whale a milk and krill concoction via a tube that lay unused on his boat.

"It's shameful what we've done here today," he said angrily. "It's very un-Australian. It's disgusting."

Barnes and other marine experts defended the euthanasia, insisting the whale died in the most humane way possible.

"This animal needed to be destroyed," said Steve Coleman, an official with the animal welfare group RSPCA. "It was cruel to keep it alive."

Officials believe the calf was abandoned by its mother, possibly because she was ill. The parks service was investigating reports of an adult whale carcass being eaten by sharks off the coast of the southern state of Victoria on Friday, Barnes said. Officials hoped to collect a DNA sample from the whale to determine whether it was the mother.

Associated Press writer Tanalee Smith contributed to this report.

Australian Rangers Put Down Orphan Baby Whale
Rob Taylor, PlanetArk 22 Aug 08;

SYDNEY - An orphaned whale calf which had been suckling from a yacht in a Sydney bay in a futile bid to find its mother was given a lethal dose of anaesthetic on Friday as its condition deteriorated, Australian wildlife officers said.


"It's a tragic end to a programme that dozens of people have put their hearts and souls into," state National Parks and Wildlife Service official John Dengate told Australian radio. The humpback whale, nicknamed "Colin" by local media, was found at the weekend attempting to suckle from a moored yacht at Pittwater Bay after being abandoned by its mother off Australia's east coast.

Rangers injected a lethal dose of anaesthetic from an inflatable boat which took around 10 minutes to take effect. The whale was still alive when it was dragged to a nearby beach and covered with a tarpaulin.

"Everyone is very connected to this animal and it is a very emotional decision," state Parks Service chief Sally Barnes said.

"It's a bit like if you have got a family pet, when the vet says to you 'there is nothing more we can do', and the animal is suffering. I've taken the decision that I don't want to prolong the agony of this animal," she said.

A vet report and blood tests on Thursday revealed the two-tonne calf, believed to be only two to three weeks old, was in poor condition and had only hours to live. It was suffering from shark bite wounds and breathing difficulties.

A team of park rangers and marine scientists surrounded the animal in boats and decided to put it down shortly after sunrise.

An Aboriginal "whale whisperer" was brought to the bay on Thursday to "talk" to the calf. Colin responded by lifting its head, whisperer Bunna Lawrie recounted afterwards.

"He heard me singing and came over. I looked at him and he was full of life. He had a few scratches and cuts on him and I was a bit worried about his eyes. All he needed is a mother's milk," Lawrie told the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper.

He pleaded with authorities for a change of heart.

The whale's struggle to survive captivated Australians, who strongly oppose Japanese "scientific" whale killing and flock to whale-watching tours during the giant mammals' annual migration to the Antarctic and return to breed in warmer Australian waters.

On Monday a team of workers towed the private yacht out to sea to try to lure the calf into deeper water, hoping that it would find its mother or another passing whale pod, but it was spotted close to the beach at Pittwater again on Tuesday.

(Reporting by Rob Taylor, editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

Lost baby whale euthanised in Australia
Yahoo News 22 Aug 08;

A lost baby whale which captured hearts around the world as it tried to suckle from an Australian yacht it thought was its mother was killed Friday to end its suffering, wildlife rangers said.

"The calf has been quietly and humanely euthanised," National Parks and Wildlife Service spokesman Chris McIntosh told AFP. "It was a sad moment, but it went quietly to sleep."

A vet on board a small boat in Pittwater Bay near Sydney's Palm Beach first administered an anaesthetic through a large needle, by simply leaning overboard and injecting the weakened humpback calf, he said.

The animal, nicknamed Colin, was then moved onto the beach and given the euthanasia drug behind screens under tight security, with a small group of protesters kept outside an exclusion zone.

The calf's fate had been the focus of growing concern in Australia as efforts to reunite it with passing pods of humpback whales failed and a series of desperate rescue proposals was made.

The army was asked whether it could help float Colin back out to sea while a scientist suggested it could be fed formula milk through an artificial teat.

An Aboriginal 'whale whisperer' was brought in to comfort him on Thursday, singing ancient songs which brought Colin to the side of the national parks' boat, where it lifted its head and allowed itself to be patted.

"He felt really lonely and he wanted to be with his mother and family," said Bunna Lawrie of the Mirning tribe from the Great Australian Bight.

But the head of the national parks service, Sally Barnes, said that while the decision to euthanise the whale was difficult there was no other option.

"It was suffering extremely so we've had to make the very difficult decision," she said.

The calf was first spotted on Sunday and had weakened rapidly over the past couple of days without the daily 230 litres of mothers' milk which it would normally consume.

In a remarkable effort to return it to the ocean, the calf was lured out to sea on Monday by a 'mother ship', a whale-sized yacht from which it had been trying to suckle after apparently being abandoned by its mother.

But after failing to find its own mother or an adoptive parent among the pods of whales passing Pittwater, Colin returned to the bay and again began trying to suckle yachts.

The humpbacks are on the return leg of an epic annual round trip from the Antarctic to tropical waters to breed, and they can be seen ploughing homewards not far off Sydney's beaches on most days.

Experts say that the passing whales and Colin would have been able to communicate, but that the chance of him being adopted was always extremely slim.

The whale's body was taken to Sydney's Taronga zoo, where an autopsy will be carried out.

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Japan ends whale hunt with 211 catches

Yahoo News 23 Aug 08;

Japanese whaling ships will start arriving back back home Saturday after catching 211 whales during their three-month voyage in the northwest Pacific, the fisheries agency said.

The main ship of the six-vessel fleet, 8,044-ton Nisshin-maru, will arrive in Tokyo on Saturday, with the rest returning to their ports by the end of the month, the agency said.

Since they left on June 6, the ships caught 100 sei whales, 59 minke whales, 50 Bryde's whales and two sperm whales, the agency said Friday.

The Japanese government, which says whaling is part of the national culture, plans to kill around 1,000 whales a year using a loophole in a 1986 international moratorium that allows "lethal research" on whales.

Japan's last catch in the Antarctic Ocean earlier this year came to little more than half of that due to harassment by Sea Shepherd activists, who hurled stink bombs and hopped onto the whaling ship.

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Whaling under fire as Norway catches only 50% of its quota

Gwladys Fouché, guardian.co.uk 22 Aug 08;

Norway will not catch enough whales to meet its quota this year, in what environmentalists are claiming is proof that the nation should abandon the activity completely.

Since the whaling season started on April 1, fishermen have caught around half the number of animals allowed by the authorities – 533 common minke whales out of a quota of 1,052.

The season ends on August 31 and fishermen recognise they will fall short. "I don't think we will do it," said Bjoern-Hugo Bendiksen, chairman of the Norwegian Whalers' Union.

Conservation groups say the catch came short because Norwegians' taste for the mammal has declined. "This shows that people don't want to eat whale meat anymore. The market is not there," said Truls Gulowsen from Greenpeace. "The Norwegian government should stop supporting a dying industry and apply the 1986 international moratorium on whaling."

Fishermen deny that falling demand is behind the low catch. "We were able to meet the quota in the two best areas for whaling, around [the Arctic archipelago of] Svalbard" and along the northern coast of Norway, explained Bendiksen, who caught 23 animals this season.

Instead, Bendiksen claims boats have intentionally avoided the hunting areas that are further away, such as the waters around Jan Mayen, an island 600 miles west of the Norwegian mainland. "Only one boat went there this season. It's a long, dangerous trip and it's very expensive because of the increased fuel costs. So it's not worth the risk," he said.

According to official regulations fishermen have three weeks from the moment they catch a whale to deliver it to a processing plant onshore. But "processing plants don't have enough capacity to deal with the meat," thus limiting how much whalers can catch, claims Bendiksen.

Norway resumed commercial whaling in 1993, despite an international moratorium put in place in 1986 to protect the species from extinction. Only one other nation, Iceland, has followed suit, in 2006. Japan allows whaling for scientific reasons, although a large number of whale steaks are found in fish markets every year.

Norway's whale catches have been declining in recent years. In 2004 fishermen hunted 639 animals from a total quota of 796. Last year they caught just 597, out of a quota of 1,052 – the highest quota allowed since 1993. Around 30 ships were involved in this year's hunting season.

Conservationists have long argued that all forms of whale hunting should be banned because it is cruel and stocks are too low for hunting to be sustainable. But Norway defies the ban because whaling "has high political status, even though it's a marginal industry," according to Gulowsen.

"It's a symbolic issue for the government, a way to show its independence from the international community when it comes to controlling its natural resources," he said.

For many Norwegians, especially for those living in the Arctic north where whaling is considered a normal economic activity, eating whale is as ordinary as eating cod or salmon. Whale steaks are available at supermarkets and are served in restaurants.

Norway hunts only one type of whale, the common minke whale, which is considered as "threatened with extinction" according to Cites, the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which bans its international trade.

The common minke whale is viewed as "near threatened" according to the Red List of the IUCN, the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the second lowest step on its "Red List", its classification of endangered species. In August, the IUCN said common minke whales, along with other big whales, were slowly recovering from the threat of extinction thanks to the 1986 moratorium.

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Namibia to issue permits to shoot endangered bull elephants

Paul Eccleston, The Telegraph 22 Aug 08;

A decision to allow the trophy-hunting of endangered elephants in Namibia has angered conservation groups.

Trophy permits have been issued for the killing of six bull elephants by the government's Ministry of Environment and Tourism (MET).

It will allow any big game hunter willing to pay about $40,000 the right to hunt and shoot a bull elephant in Namibia's north-west desert region.

But opponents say killing bull elephants in an already endangered population is unsustainable and risks pushing the desert elephant towards extinction.

The elephants, who spend their lives wandering the arid wastes of the Kunene region in search of food and water, were decimated by hunting and poaching in the 1980s and reached a low point of only 52 individuals.

But conservation policies and protection measures adopted by the Namibian government have seen numbers recover to somewhere between 240-400.

But breeding success is very low with a calf mortality rate as high as 80 per cent and many of the cows also die soon after giving birth.

This could be due to genetic deficiencies caused by in-breeding and the loss of even a few of the remaining breeding bull elephants would further weaken the gene pool and have devastating consequences for future generations.

The lucrative hunting permits, a valuable source of income, have been granted to conservancies in the Kunene Region run by local communities who then sell them on to professional hunting companies.

But local groups who work to protect the elephant claim the decision to grant the trophy permits had been based on inflated estimates of elephant numbers.

Ironically the elephant is seen as a key species by the government to its wildlife tourism industry which brings in much needed foreign currency and provides hundreds of jobs in tourism camps and lodges.

Critics say granting the permits is short-sighted because the elephants are worth far more alive than dead apart from the damage to Namibia's international reputation as a tourist destination.

Conservation scientist Dr Betsy Fox said the elephant population in the Kunene region would not be able to cope with the loss of six bulls.

"I think MET officials who approved these quotas are not thinking in terms of the best conservation measures for the keystone species in the Kunene region, but are succumbing to pressure from conservancies to earn quick bucks," she said in a letter to the MET.

The desert elephants don't normally come into contact with people but farmers have gradually encroached on their range bringing them into conflict with local communities.

Last year a farmer was chased and torn apart by a cow elephant in an area where elephants had previously been shot at to drive them away.

Elephant-Human Relations Aid is a volunteer organisation, established in 2003, which helps protect the elephant by working with local communities in Namibia helping protect infrastructure such as walls, fences and windmills from damage by elephants.

Operations director Johannes Haasbroek said that in the south of the Kunene region - where three of the trophy permits have been granted - only three breeding bulls had been spotted in total.

He said the permits should not have been issued because not enough work had been done by the Namibian government in scientifically establishing elephant numbers and he called on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to revoke all trading permits until the counting was carried out.

"The Government should stop issuing 'problem animal' and trophy permits. From Sept 2006 to Sept 2007 12 large bulls have been shot in the Kunene region as 'problem animals'.

These are not bulls that have been positively identified as problems, but permits issued to merely placate pressure on the MET from surrounding communities. This off take, added to the trophy hunts, could have catastrophic affects on the desert elephant population," he said.

He warned that killing bull elephants would seriously damage elephants groups because they played an important social role in keeping adolescent bulls in check as well as passing on ecological intelligence.

"Eradicating the bulls could lead to a social breakdown and a massive loss of knowledge. This knowledge is needed to alleviate the pressure on resources," he said.

"Misuse of resources will only lead to more conflict with humans, more pressure on government and more elephants being shot. This domino effect can head them to extinction faster than we can ever believe."

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Wasted food draining the world of water, experts say

Nina Larson, Yahoo News 22 Aug 08;

As much as half the water used to grow food worldwide is lost due to waste, experts said at a Stockholm conference that wrapped up Friday, pointing out that the squandered resources are a major contributor to global water shortages.

"There is huge waste and loss of water through food that is produced, since roughly 50 percent of the food that farmers grow is lost or wasted," said Jan Lundqvist, who heads the scientific programme at the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI).

"There is a need for a mentality shift... It would make a lot of sense for people to waste less," he told AFP.

According to SIWI, which hosted the annual World Water Week in the Swedish capital, tremendous amounts of food, and thus water, are discarded in the fields, during processing, in transport, in supermarkets, restaurants and in people's kitchens.

In a new report on saving water the institute points out that in the United States, 30 percent of food, worth 48.3 billion dollars (32.5 billion euros), is thrown away each year.

"That corresponds to 40 trillion litres of irrigation water, enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people," said the report, entitled Saving Water: from Field to Fork -- Curbing Losses and Wastage in the Food Chain.

Food wastage depended largely on the society in which it was grown and consumed. In poor countries most food was lost in the fields or due to lack of storage and cooling systems or poor transport mechanisms.

"In many areas of the world you simply cannot store food efficiently, because it is not handled well," SIWI project director Jakob Granit told AFP.

In richer societies, most waste happened at the consumer level, while changing diets and an increased appetite for water-intensive foods like dairy products and meet, especially beef, in these regions amplified the water drainage, according to experts.

"In urban settings, we have lost touch with realities. People do not know where food comes from, they do not know what it takes to produce food," Lundqvist said, pointing out that it takes between 10 and 15 tonnes water to produce a single kilo (2.2 pounds) of beef.

"Now if you throw away half of that kilo, that means you've thrown away 7.5 tonnes of water," he said.

As the world struggles to feed and provide water to growing populations, it was essential that governments strived to reduce the amount of food wasted by at least 50 percent by 2025, according to the SIWI report.

"Unless we change our practices, water will be a key constraint to food production in the future," Pasquale Steduto of the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation's Water Resources, Development and Management Service said in a statement.

For change to happen, economic incentives were essential, according to Granit.

"The key incentive to make change is the price," he said, pointing out that in Sweden the consumption of beef had recently "gone down by 30 percent because the price went up."

And in Kuwait, where water remained a free commodity, each person on average used 600 litres of water a day, while in water-rich Sweden the average was just 150 litres, he said.

"We pay a price here for water that is not very high, but we also couple that with education and awareness so people know there is a cost to the environment to use that water," Granit said.

According to Lundqvist, today's massive food waste actually has a silver lining.

"It means there is a huge potential for improvement," he said.

Urgent Steps Needed To Combat Food Wastage - Report
PlanetArk 22 Aug 08;

STOCKHOLM - The United States and some other developed states throw away nearly a third of their food each year, according to a report that said on Thursday the world was producing more than enough to feed its population.

The report, produced by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) and the Stockholm International Water Institute, called for a 50 percent reduction in the amount of food wasted after production by 2025.

Since huge amounts of water are required to produce crops and other foodstuffs, cutting waste would boost water supplies for agriculture and household use.

"More than enough food is produced to feed a healthy global population," said the report, released during an annual week-long conference on global water issues in Stockholm.

The authors said that in the United States, up to 30 percent of food, worth some $48.3 billion, is thrown away each year.

"That's like leaving the tap running and pouring 40 trillion litres of water into the garbage can -- enough water to meet the household needs of 500 million people," the report said.

The report did not provide rankings in terms of waste but said similar levels were reported in Europe.

It cited a study showing one third of food in Britain was thrown away, with a high percentage untouched and in its original packaging. In Sweden, families with small children throw away about 25 percent of the food they have bought and brought home, the report said.

As much as half the water used to produce food globally may be wasted, said Dr Charlotte de Fraiture, a researcher at IWMI.

Further pressure on water and food production is coming from demand for biofuels, from water-intensive agriculture such as beef production and from population growth.

These trends will spark crises in many places, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia, the report said.

"Unless we change our practices, water will be a key constraint to food production in the future," said Pasquale Steduto of the United Nations FAO. (Editing by Michael Winfrey)

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China Became Net Food Importer In First Half of 2008

Jonathan Lynn, PlanetArk 22 Aug 08;

GENEVA - China became a net food importer in cash terms in the first half of this year, as soaring food prices ate into its traditional surplus in agricultural goods.

The swing into deficit largely reflects the surge in prices of commodity staples such as grain and soybeans.

But it also sheds an interesting light on China's stance in last month's abortive global trade talks when Beijing, increasingly concerned about food security, sided with India and against the United States in pushing for a safeguard to protect developing-country farmers from a surge in imports.

According to data from Global Trade Information Services Inc, Geneva, (GTIS), China had a deficit of $5.78 billion on its trade in agricultural products in the first half of this year, against a surplus of $2.45 billion a year earlier, as the value of imports rose 72 percent while exports rose 12 percent.

GTIS supplies and analyses international merchandise data. The figures show trade in categories 1-24 of the harmonised system (HS) used internationally to classify products, covering animal products, vegetable products and foodstuffs, and including products for animal feeds as well as food for people.


FOOD FROM UNCLE SAM

In that period imports from the United States, China's biggest farm supplier, almost doubled. They rose 95 percent from Brazil and 132 percent from Argentina, the next biggest suppliers. But exports to Japan, China's biggest food customer, fell 12 percent, while rising 13 percent to the United States.

World Trade Organisation (WTO) data, measuring trade in food on a slightly different basis, show China was a net food exporter every year from 2000 to 2007, except for 2004 when it ran a small deficit of $0.2 billion.

Its surplus in food peaked at $6.4 billion in 2002, and was only $0.9 billion in 2007, as food prices started to climb.

The sheer size of China's food trade meant that in 2006, when it still ran a surplus of $5.0 billion, it was both the world's fourth biggest exporter, behind the European Union, United States and Brazil, and fourth biggest importer, behind the European Union, United States and Japan, WTO data show.

Since then it has suffered a classic deterioration in its terms of trade, with the price of its food imports rising much faster than the price of its food exports.

In terms of value, China's main agricultural imports are grains and cereals, soybeans, and edible oils, while its major exports include fish and fish products, vegetables, grains including rice, and fruit and fruit juice.

The value of imports of soybeans in the first seven months of this year rose 118.6 percent to $12.3 billion, but in volume terms the rise was only 22.8 percent, to 20.7 million tonnes, according to official data in Chinese Customs Statistics.

The value of fish exports rose only 9.5 percent to $2.88 billion, but they fell 4.0 percent in volume terms to 1.0 million tonnes, the data show.

The rising food bill will have put pressure on Beijing to adopt a more protectionist stance in farm trade, even though it has benefited from the free-trade system umpired by the WTO, which China joined in 2001.

China is now the world's second biggest overall exporter, after Germany.

In last month's WTO talks, India and other developing countries insisted on a safeguard that would allow poor nations to raise tariffs temporarily above current levels to withstand a flood of imports threatening subsistence farmers' livelihoods.

The proposal was of particular interest to China, which cut its tariffs sharply as the price of admission to the WTO.

"On those important issues... which affect millions of poor farmers, that is an area we can't really make further concessions," China's WTO ambassador Sun Zhenyu told WTO members after the collapse of the talks.

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Mark Trevelyan)

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West Africa's coastline redrawn by climate change: experts

Aminu Abubakar, Yahoo News 23 Aug 08;

Rising sea levels caused by climate change will brutally redraw a 4,000-kilometre (2500-mile) stretch of west African coastline from Senegal to Cameroon by century's end, experts were told AFP Friday.

"The cost of Guinea will cease to exist by the end of this century," said Stefan Cramer, a marine geologist and head of German green group Heinrich Boll Stiftung's operations in Nigeria.

"The countries most threatened by this looming environmental disaster are Gambia, Nigeria, Burkina Fasso and Ghana," he told AFP on the sidelines of a major UN climate conference in the Ghanaian capital Accra.

Cramer said sea levels were set to rise up to two centimetres (0.8 inches) per year, enough to devastate large swathes of fragile coastline, especially in low-lying and densely populated deltas.

Last year UN climate change experts initially predicted more modest rises of 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches), but in a final version of their report left the upper limit open-ended due to mounting scientific evidence that levels might climb much higher.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) had not taken into account the potential impact of runoff from the 3,000-metre (1.9 mile) thick Greenland ice cap, which covers an areas three times the size of Nigeria.

Recent studies have suggested the continent-sized ice block could be melting far more quickly than once thought.

Among the cities worst hit would be the Gambian capital Banjul and Lagos, Nigeria's economic capital and home to 15 million. Some parts of Lagos lie below sea-level today and it is already subject to frequent flooding.

The Niger delta's income-generating oil fields are especially vulnerable, Cramer said.

In Ghana, "up to 1,000 kilometres of land may be lost in the Volta Delta owing to sea-level rise and inundation," Yvo de Boer, head of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, said at the meeting.

The devastation wrought by rising sea levels is amplified by increasingly violent tropical storms, which can create sea surges up to three metres (10 feet) high.

In August 2007 a storm 5,000 kilometres off the coast of Lagos destroyed protective beach barriers, highlighting the vulnerability of the entire African west coast.

Another serious threat is salty sea water intrusion into fertile agricultural land.

"This will make the ground water undrinkable and unsuitable for agricultural purposes. The result will be food and water insecurity," said George Awudi, Ghana Programme Coordinator for Friends of the Earth.

Environmental experts offer different solutions, but all agree on the futility -- and prohibitive cost -- of erecting massive sea barriers.

"The sensible option is moving to higher ground, which is a tough option especially for Nigeria as it means giving up its economic centres in Lagos and its oil installations in the Delta," Cramer said.

But Awudi insisted that relocation was an "unthinkable option due to its economic, social and cultural implications."

The solution, he said, is to focus on the source of the problem rather than on how to adapt to its consequences.

"The industrialised countries should take proactive steps in curtailing greenhouse gas emissions," he said.

But even if carbon dioxide emissions drop dramatically, experts say, sea levels would continue to rise for 50 to 100 years.

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Struggling Forestries Bet On Biofuel Boom

Agnieszka Flak, PlanetArk 22 Aug 08;

HELSINKI - European and North American forestry companies are increasingly investing in making biofuels out of wood residues, a market they say will be closely linked with their core paper business.

Making production self-sufficient is their primary target as rising energy costs hurt their already low profit margins, but they also see bioenergy as a lucrative business in itself.

"We wouldn't be there if we didn't see good profits out of that kind of business," said Jussi Pesonen, chief executive of the world's top magazine paper maker UPM-Kymmene.

UPM has for years invested in energy production and its paper plants are already self-sufficient in Finland and at 70 percent across its operations globally.

Pesonen said combining energy production with paper-making was a natural move and adds value to biomass used.

"Bioenergy is well integrated into the paper and pulp mills, where you can combine biomass coming from forests and mass production," he said.

That is what makes the business so profitable, he said.

"Standalone, a biodiesel plant wouldn't be that competitive," he said.

Along with some of its peers, UPM is now investing in developing biodiesel technology, looking to reduce dependency on skyrocketing electricity costs.

Stora Enso, the world's top paper and board maker, has formed a joint venture with refiner Neste Oil to jointly develop technology for producing biofuels from wood residues.


PINE TREE OIL

Swedish refiner Preem said last month it planned to start making biodiesel from pine tree oil, a non-edible forestry industry waste product, in the face of criticism biofuel has pushed food prices to record highs.

Biofuels are mainly produced from food crops such as wheat, maize, sugar cane and vegetable oils and are seen as a way to cut greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to climate change.

But critics say diverting land from food crops to biofuel feedstock production has helped push up global food prices.

"Previously wood scraps have been unused totally, so this will definitely improve the companies' profitability," Handelsbanken analyst Sampo Timonen said.

"But it is not going to change the total picture of the forestry industry - it will be a side product."

The profitability of the biofuel production also depends on the size of subsidies governments will provide as part of their drive to meet EU directives for increasing the share of biofuels among traditional energy sources.

But Norwegian newsprint maker Norske Skog said in the long run the biofuels business was more promising than that.

"I think ten years from now the biofuel industry will be equally as big as the paper industry today," Chief Executive Christian Rynning-Toennesen said.

"It will not help Norske Skog's earnings in the next year or two, but it could be significant in the long term."

Oil company Chevron Corp and forest products maker Weyerhaeuser have launched a 50-50 venture to develop technology to transform wood and other cellulose sources into clean-burning fuels for cars and trucks.

Ethanol from plant cellulose has the same chemical properties as ethanol made from corn and sugar cane, but it is produced from a variety of nonedible materials such as cereal straw, wood, sawdust and switchgrass.

In the United States, corn is the dominant feedstock used to make ethanol. As the number of corn-fed ethanol plants has mushroomed, the price of the crop has steadily risen. This has led a number of companies to explore alternative raw materials, which could help reduce the pressure on corn prices.

(Additional reporting by Camilla Knudsen and John Acher; editing by Sue Thomas)

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Corruption 'threatens China rainforest'

BBC News 22 Aug 08;

Farmers in the tropical region of Xishuangbanna in China's south-west Yunnan province recently staged a protest, accusing local officials of colluding with the rubber industry to destroy the local rainforest.

The BBC's Jill McGivering investigated their allegations, which the government denies.

The environmental activist was extremely nervous when he met us, dashing from place to place to find somewhere private enough to talk.

He had reason to worry. He wanted to speak out in support of a group of farmers in a remote part of the tropical region of Xishuangbanna who have made some controversial claims.

Last month the farmers held a protest, complaining that local officials were turning a blind eye to a law that the rainforest must be protected. The farmers alleged that some local officials were colluding with rubber companies, allowing them to flout the rules and cut down the forest to plant rubber trees. Several farmers were arrested.

The activist told me that the farmers were fighting to preserve their traditional way of life.

"Where the forest is destroyed," he told me, "it causes drought. The farmers have to go a long way to get water. And without water, they can't live."

Surveillance

When I travelled to the area and tried to meet one of the protesters, the authorities intervened. Police officers followed, questioned and searched me and later detained my driver.

That surveillance - which lasted three days - made it hard for me to investigate the farmers' main allegation against local officials.

There is no doubt though that the rainforest is under threat.

Chinese scientists who have studied the rainforest say it has declined dramatically. Several decades ago it covered about 70% of Xishuangbanna. That has fallen to about 43% today.

Its existence is extremely important, they say - and not just to the local farmers.

The rainforest harbours extremely rich biological diversity. A great many animal and plant species depend on it. It also affects the region's climate.

'Foreigners responsible'

Dong Xue-jing is the head of the Xishuangbanna regional government's Forest and Jungles Department.

He denies the rainforest is still being cleared. He was aware of the recent protest, he said, but insisted the vast majority of those responsible for cutting down the forest were foreigners.

"Some people from Vietnam and Laos have been coming over the border and chopping the forest down for valuable natural oil," he told me.

"It's maybe 90% foreigners who are responsible. But we've already arrested five or six of them."

The attractions of rubber are powerful. Many of the villagers in the region are from China's Dai ethnic minority. It has long been a poor area, desperate for development. The rubber has brought new wealth.

I visited one Dai village where local people have chosen to plant rubber. I walked through a dirt yard, past chickens and dogs, and climbed a ladder to the family's raised wooden stilt-house.

Electricity

Income from the rubber has bought these people new comforts.

"Local people understand about the environment and ecology," the mother of the house told me.

"But rubber is powerful. We know it's bad for the environment but we also know that now we have electricity and life is much easier."

The Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Gardens is a place of scientific research and is also safeguarding a slice of the original rainforest.

It is already a major tourist attraction for visitors from other parts of China.

Some analysts are optimistic that as Chinese people become wealthier, environmental protection will assume a higher priority.

In the meantime, the Botanical Gardens are preserving one small piece of Xishuangbanna's original habitat.

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Scientists Urge US To Protect Economy From Climate

Timothy Gardner, PlanetArk 22 Aug 08;

NEW YORK - Eight scientific organizations urged the next US president to help protect the country from climate change by pushing for increased funding for research and forecasting, saying about $2 trillion of US economic output could be hurt by storms, floods and droughts.

"We don't think we have the right kind of tools to help decision makers plan for the future," Jack Fellows, the vice president for corporate affairs of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, a consortium of 71 universities, told reporters in a teleconference on Wednesday.

The groups, including the American Geophysical Union and the American Meteorological Society, urged Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama and Republican rival John McCain to support $9 billion in investments between 2010 and 2014 to help protect the country from extreme weather, which would nearly double the current US budget for the area.

The UN's science panel says extreme weather events could hit more often as temperatures rise due to climate change.

Each year the United States suffers billions of dollars in weather-related damages ranging from widespread events like Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, and the more recent droughts in the Southeast, to smaller, more frequent glitches like airline delays from storms, they said.

More than a quarter of the country's economic output, about $2 trillion, is vulnerable to extreme weather, they added.

The investments would pay for satellite and ground-based instruments that observe the Earth's climate and for computers to help make weather predictions more accurate.

John Snow, the co-chairman of the Weather Coalition, a business and university group that advocates for better weather prediction, said improved computers would help scientists forecast extreme weather events more locally, which could help cities better prepare for weather disasters.

It could also help businesses that produce virtually no greenhouse emissions, such as wind farms, know where to best locate their operations, he said.

The scientists said cooler temperatures in the first half of this year are making their task more difficult. "One of the challenges we face ... is to make the case that while we are in a period of warming, we should not expect every year to be the warmest year on record," Snow said.

The global mean temperature to the end of July was 0.50 degrees Fahrenheit (0.28 C) above the 1961-1990 average, the UK-based MetOffice for climate change research said on Wednesday. That would make the first half of 2008 the coolest since 2000.

Neither campaign responded immediately to questions about the plea for funding. Obama and McCain, who face off in a November election, both support regulation of greenhouse gases through market mechanisms such as cap-and-trade programs on emissions.

(Editing by Eric Beech)

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