Rare bird rediscovered on 'most pristine' island in southeast Asia

mongabay.com 23 Oct 08;

Scientist have rediscovered the endangered Wetar Ground-dove (Gallicolumba hoedtii), one of the world's least known birds, 100 years after it was last seen on the remote Indonesian island of Wetar, reports Columbidae Conservation, a UK-based conservation group.

Surveying the rugged, 3600-square-kilometer island for bird life, scientists working for Columbidae Conservation found Wetar Ground-dove to be locally abundant, recording the largest-ever documented gathering of the species of 30-40 birds at a fig tree.

The scientists also found the endangered Timor Imperial Pigeon (Ducula cineracea) to be locally abundant. In all, the expedition reported 39 new bird species for the island.

"Wetar Island is amazing," said team leader Colin Trainor. "It has an incredible abundance of pigeons and parrots, and bird life in general. For the Wetar Ground-dove it seems very likely that Wetar is the species stronghold."

"For its size it must be the single most pristine in South-East Asia," he added.

Wetar, which neighbors the island of Timor, is mountainous and 80 percent forested with cover "ranging from tropical evergreen forest to tropical dry forest, as well as Eucalyptus savannas and hill forest," according to Columbidae Conservation.

Still while the island is remote, is faces development pressure, including the construction of a road that could open up previously inaccessible areas. Columbidae Conservation says its surveys will be used to push for conservation of the island's unique habitats.

"Even without yet completing the fieldwork and analysing the data it's very clear that Wetar is a very high conservation priority in the region," said Dr. Jonathan Walker, director of Columbidae Conservation.

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7 new species of frog discovered in Ecuador

mongabay.com 23 Oct 08;

Seven previously unknown species of frog discovered over the past two years by Ecuadorian researchers are already under threat from habitat loss, reports a newsletter from the IUCN Amphibian Specialist Group.

The frogs belong to the Glassfrog family, a group that is endemic to tropical America and has more than 140 species, of which 40 percent are threatened with extinction due to disease and habitat loss.

Of the newly described species, six were found in eastern Ecuador, one of the most biodiverse, but least studied, parts of the country. Research suggests that deforestation may already been impacting these species.

"A study developed to predict the distribution of glassfrogs from eastern Ecuador and to estimate the impacts of deforestation shows that deforestation may have already reduced up to 40% of the distribution ranges of all studied species," writes Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia, author of an article appearing in the Froglog newsletter (number 89). "Results indicate that deforestation has intensively affected the eastern Andean foothills (300–800 m above sea level), upper montane forests and inter-Andean valleys (above 2000 m a.s.l.), and the northern Amazonian lowlands of Ecuador. Predictions suggest that almost half of the habitats suitable for Centrolene audax, Centrolene buckleyi, Centrolene mariaelenae, Cochranella flavopunctata, Hyalinobatrachium pellucidum, and Nymphargus cochranae have been deforested. These species have been reported as largely absent in historical localities and are considered threatened."

The article recommends expanding in-situ conservation efforts in critical areas.

"Habitat loss represents a significant factor that threatens the long-term conservation of amphibian populations, not just destroying natural ecosystems but greatly diminishing the capacity of species to adapt to future changes, such as climate change."

The surveys were conducted by the Museo Ecuatoriano de Ciencias Naturales, King's College London, and Universidad San Francisco de Quito in coordination with researchers from other institutions including the U.S. Geological Survey and Pontificia Universidad Católica del Ecuador.

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Cities pledge action on climate change

Harumi Ozawa Harumi Ozawa, Yahoo News 23 Oct 08;

TOKYO (AFP) – Leaders of 40 of the world's major cities pledged action Thursday to fight climate change, taking measures ranging from promoting solar energy to tracking genetically modified food.

Warning that crowded urban areas were especially susceptible to the planet's rising temperatures, city officials said they needed to take the lead in adapting to climate change.

"Very important actions are taking place by mayors who act," Toronto Mayor David Miller, the chairman of the so-called C40 climate initiative of cities, said after two days of talks in Tokyo.

"The focus of this conference was adaptation and particularly on measures that support adapting to climate change that is already occurring," he told a news conference.

The city leaders also urged national governments to commit to "drastic" cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for global warming, in the period after the Kyoto Protocol's obligations expire in 2012.

Some 40 cities are part of the C40 including Beijing, London, New Delhi, New York, Paris and Sydney. City planners from 32 of them took part in the Tokyo talks.

The cities charted out 13 areas for action to prevent the "urban heat island effect," in which temperatures tend to rise in crowded metropolitan areas.

The ideas include expanding green space in urban areas and building corridors to allow more wind and water to come into cities.

The city planners also pledged to look into renewable energies such as solar power and to introduce water retentive pavements. The widespread use of concrete is a key reason that cities absorb heat more than rural areas.

Another idea is to regulate genetically modified (GM) food and monitor the effects on global warming.

Advocates of GM food say it can solve food shortages in poor nations but critics say the crops' effects on health and the environment are untested.

Under the plan, each city can choose which of the 13 areas it wants to pursue to fight climate change caused by carbon dioxide and other emissions.

The cities that will monitor genetically modified food include Addis Ababa, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Toronto.

The cities agreed to study their chosen areas so that they can agree on concrete action when C40 mayors hold a "climate summit" next May in Seoul.

Of the cities, Tokyo opted to pursue the most ideas to fight global warming, agreeing to launch studies in nine of the areas.

Tokyo Governor Shintaro Ishihara, an environmentalist with outspoken views, said it was crucial to take more than symbolic action against climate change.

"We brought here experts who are directly facing this problem so they can discuss specifically what should be done so that the Seoul summit doesn't end up just with abstractions," Ishihara told the news conference.

"Many municipalities tend to be reserved when faced with central governments. But the situation has reached the point where they don't need to be and even shouldn't be," he said.

Ishihara renewed his criticism of international deals on climate change.

He blasted as "spineless" last year's UN-led conference in Bali that set a goal of reaching a post-Kyoto Protocol climate treaty by the end of 2009.

The C40 conference agreed to send a representative to next year's talks in Copenhagen that are due to seal the new climate deal under the Bali process.

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Energy issues: Think outside the box

Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 24 Oct 08;

MS TRI Mumpuni Iskandar, an agricultural engineer and director of the Ibeka Foundation in Indonesia, is campaigning to replace diesel power generation with renewable energy among her country's most remote communities.

She has developed micro hydel energy for villages on Indonesia's remote islands. She showed pictures of these islands rising deep green above roiling tropical seas at the recent Asia-Europe Environmental Forum's 6th Roundtable in Dublin, which focused on energy issues to be tabled at a major Asia-Europe meeting in Beijing today.

Ibeka, like Sunlabob in Laos and Geres (Renewable Energy Solutions for Development) in Cambodia, is applying technology in poor communities in Asia. But one fact that emerged from the Dublin conference is that though the renewable energy sector is growing in Asia, there needs to be more technology transfer from Europe to Asia.

That should be good news, for the sector is growing in Europe too. Germany alone has created over 300,000 jobs in the renewable energy sector in recent years. By 2010, the European Union will have created 700,000 jobs in renewable energy.

But though alternative pathways to our energy requirements do exist, they are as yet rudimentary. Our energy system remains entrenched in fossil fuels, which contribute to global warming. The fossil fuel-based energy needed to run all Coca-Cola vending machines in Japan would be enough to power the entire country of Bangladesh.

Industrial-scale biofuel exists, but only to sustain the conventional automotive and transport industry as we know it. Moreover, biofuel production has contributed to a global shortage of grain used as food.

Mr Nobuo Tanaka, executive director of the International Energy Agency, was at the Dublin conference and delivered a sober reality check: In order to meet the world's energy needs, we must consider the nuclear option.

'To achieve 50 per cent reduction of CO2 by 2050, the whole electric power sector would have be de-carbonised,' he pointed out.

'Half of that would come from renewable energy. But we need base-load generation, which can be from either nuclear or coal and gas with carbon capturing and storage. So at least quarter of electricity generation should come from nuclear.'

To make that possible, we have to build 32 nuclear reactors every year, from now to 2050, Mr Tanaka said. Somewhat superfluously, he added: 'It is a huge challenge.'

Given that, the only answer to our rapidly warming planet may be deep change in the way our economic system is structured. As Mr Tanaka admitted, 'it is very difficult to assimilate this (required) lifestyle change'.

'A really significant change is necessary in how we produce and how we use energy. A lifestyle change is necessary.'

'Decarbonising' our economic system - which means decarbonising our daily lives - is not necessarily incompatible with our survival. Decades ago, Mr Herman Daly advocated an alternative model of growth in his celebrated paper on 'steady state economics', in which he wrote:

'If you have eaten poison, it is not enough to simply resume eating healthful foods. You must get rid of the specific substances that are making you ill. Let us...apply the stomach pump to the doctrines of economic growth that we have been force-fed for the past four decades.'

Strategies like Clean Development Mechanisms (CDM) - trading carbon emissions to offset pollution - are unwieldy and complicated processes that have not done anything to restrain the growth of greenhouse gas emissions.

Mr Ismid Hadad, chair of the governing body of Kehati - the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation - said at the Dublin conference that CDM is a valid instrument, but it is 'insufficient for the magnitude of the problem' that we face.

Dr Leena Srivastava of India's Energy and Resources Institute summed up the views of the Asians at the conference, many of whom work at the grassroots level, when she said: 'The bottom line is CDM is not enough; it is not adequate from the climate change of view.

'CDM needs to promote transformational change, not just incremental change. Today, the pressure...to change the development pathway is much more urgent.'

The Dublin roundtable provided input for the seventh Asia-Europe Meeting of 45 countries in Beijing, which begins today. Climate change is on the agenda.

China, which now is the world's largest CO2 emitter, may be able to show the way with its ambitious CO2 reduction plan. But the problem may be so great that even a large country like China may be unable to cope by merely fiddling with technology.

The thawing Arctic ice mass is now releasing more methane - a gas many times more powerful a driver of climate change than CO2. Leaders need to think outside the box of conventional energy- and consumption-driven economic growth.

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Australia plans electric vehicle network

Yahoo News 23 Oct 08;

MELBOURNE (AFP) – A US firm Thursday unveiled plans to build a massive one-billion-dollar (667 million US) charging network to power electric cars in Australia as it seeks cleaner and cheaper options to petrol.

Better Place, which has built plug-in stations for electric vehicles in Israel and Denmark, has joined forces with Australian power company AGL and finance group Macquarie Capital to create an Australian network.

Under the agreement, Macquarie will raise one billion dollars to build electric-vehicle networks in the country's largest cities -- Melbourne, Sydney and Brisbane -- while AGL will power the system with renewable energy.

"We call it a ubiquitous charging network across the cities," said Better Place chief executive and founder Shai Agassi in Melbourne.

"We are investing in Australia's economy and adding jobs while helping the country take a generational leap forward toward oil independence," he said.

Under the plan, the three cities will each have a network of between 200,000 and 250,000 charge stations by 2012 where drivers can plug in and power up their electric cars.

The points would probably be at homes and businesses, car parks and shopping centres, he said.

In addition, 150 switch stations will be built in each city and on major freeways, where electric batteries can be automatically replaced in drive-in stations similar to a car wash.

Under the scheme, which is likely to strike a green chord in Australia where the price of petrol is also notoriously high, drivers will pay to recharge their cars through various power supply agreements similar to mobile phone contracts.

Drivers can pick a plan and rate that best reflects their car use.

Agassi stressed that the deal was crucial as people would only buy electric vehicles if they could recharge them easily.

Franco-Japanese automaker Renault-Nissan and General Motors are both planning electric cars to debut in the next next two years, but Agassi called on Australian manufacturers to develop their own versions.

He said Australian federal and state governments must now work out how they could encourage drivers to turn to electric cars, by offering sweeteners such as tax incentives or free power for the first purchasers.

"It's more a question for the government for how quickly they want the tipping point (towards electric cars) to happen," he said.

"Every government decides what they want to do. We believe that Australia, looking at all the alternatives, will pick the right mix for Australia."

John Brumby, premier of the southern state of Victoria of which Melbourne is the capital, said his government backed the plan.

"We support any initiative that will have positive outcomes in reducing emissions in the transport sector and welcomes this innovative approach to help make broad adoption of EVs (electric vehicles) in Australia possible," he said.

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Ethanol No Longer Seen As Big Driver Of Food Price

Sam Nelson, PlanetArk 24 Oct 08;

CHICAGO - Heavy demand for corn from ethanol makers was seen as a key driver of corn futures to record highs in June, but since then the sharp decline of corn along with other commodities shows that belief was mistaken.

Corn is down about 50 percent from its record high in June, even as the amount of the grain used to produce the renewable fuel in the United States remained the same.

"The record high prices were a speculative bubble," said Stewart Ramsey, senior economist for Global Insight, Philadelphia (www.globalinsight.com/)

"We had a lot of reasons for prices to go up and to go up a lot and ethanol use was one of those," he added.

US food prices, which normally rise by about 2.5 percent a year, surged by 4 percent in 2007, the biggest increase in 17 years. World food prices jumped a stunning 40 percent, causing food riots, hoarding and bread lines in some countries.

The government has forecast that US food prices will rise 5.5 percent this year and 4.5 percent in 2009.

Chicago Board of Trade corn futures set a record high $7.65 per bushel for a spot contract at the end of June. By the spot contract's price had been halved to $3.85 per bushel.

The use of corn to produce ethanol in the United States does add to the price of the grain. Analysts, including some in the ethanol sector, say ethanol demand adds about 75 cents to $1.00 per bushel to the price of corn, as a rule of thumb. Other analysts say it adds around 20 percent, or just under 80 cents per bushel at current prices.

Those estimates hint that $4 per bushel corn might be priced at only $3 without demand for ethanol fuel.

Federal law calls for production of 9 billion gallons of biofuels this year and 10.5 billion next year. The requirement increases to 36 billion gallons by 2022, with ethanol supply from corn capped at 15 billion gallons.

It takes roughly one bushel of corn to produce 2.8 gallons of ethanol.

The Department of Agriculture has earmarked 4.0 billion bushels of corn or roughly a third of this year's US corn crop for ethanol use next year, up from 3.0 billion bushels or about 23 percent of last year's record 13.1 billion crop.


MONEY SHIFT TO COMMODITIES KEY REASON FOR PRICE GAINS

Analysts said soaring corn prices were a symptom of big shifts of investment money into corn and other commodities. As big money began shifting out of stocks a few years ago, commodity markets like corn futures began climbing.

"There was a speculative bubble in the market and that's one of the biggest things that came out of the market is just that equity markets weren't good and for a while the money came into commodities," Ramsay said.

By mid-February non-commercial investors, including speculators, index and hedge funds and managed pools of money, held nearly 484,000 long positions in CBOT corn futures or 2.42 billion bushels of corn.

That would be enough to produce more than 6.7 billion gallons of ethanol and more than 20 million tonnes of livestock feed, according to the Renewable Fuels Association, Washington D.C.

By October those investors held about 240,000 long positions in the corn market, less than half the levels seen in the spring and early summer, the RFA said.

"We had adequate corn stocks, there was no shortage of corn, that wasn't the issue," said Don Roose, analyst and president of US Commodities, West Des Moines, Iowa.

"What we got into is the dollar went so low, crude oil went up and that inflated a lot of things...it was that factor of the least resistance moving up...it was an all-in attitude in the commodity markets in general no matter what it was."

US capacity to make ethanol has risen about 60 percent since last year to about 11.2 billion gallons per year and if all the new plants and expansions come on line total US capacity would be about 13.8 billion gpy.

(Reporting by Sam Nelson; Editing by David Gregorio)

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Potent greenhouse gas more common than estimated: study

Yahoo News 23 Oct 08;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – A potent greenhouse gas many thousands of times more effective at warming the world's atmosphere than carbon dioxide (CO2) is four times more prevalent than previously thought, according to a study released Thursday.

Researchers using a new NASA-funded measurement network discovered there was 4,200 metric tons of the gas nitrogen trifluoride in the atmosphere in 2006, not 1,200 tons as previously estimated for that year.

In 2008 there are 5,400 metric tons of the gas in the atmosphere, an average of an 11 percent tonnage increase per year, said Ray Weiss, head of the research team from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California.

Nitrogen trifluoride, which could not be detected in the atmosphere using previous techniques, is 17,000 times more potent as a global warming agent than a similar mass of CO2.

Emissions of nitrogen trifluoride, which is one of several gases used during the manufacture of liquid crystal flat-panel TV displays and electronic microcircuits, were previously considered so low that the gas was not thought to be a significant potential contributor to global warming.

As such the gas was not covered by the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 agreement to reduce greenhouse gas emissions signed by 182 countries, but not by some industrialized nations including the United States.

"Accurately measuring small amounts of nitrogen trifluoride in air has proven to be a very difficult experimental problem, and we are very pleased to have succeeded in this effort," Weiss said.

The study, published in the October 31 edition of the American Geophysical Union's Geophysical Research Letters, notes that together with the gas being more potent than CO2 at trapping solar heat within the atmosphere, it also survives in the atmosphere around five times longer than CO2.

At present, however, current nitrogen trifluoride emissions contribute only around 0.15 percent of the total global warming effect caused by human-produced CO2 emissions.

Greenhouse Gas Four Times More Than Thought – Study
PlanetArk 24 Oct 08;

WASHINGTON - Levels of a powerful greenhouse gas are four times as high as previously thought, according to new measurements released on Thursday.

New analytical techniques show that about 5,400 metric tons of nitrogen trifluoride are in the atmosphere, with amounts increasing by about 11 percent per year.

Ray Weiss of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California, and colleagues said it had not been possible to accurately measure this gas before.

They said nitrogen trifluoride is 17,000 times more effective at warming the atmosphere than an equal mass of carbon dioxide, although it does not yet contribute much to global warming.

Previous estimates had put levels of the gas at less than 1,200 metric tons in 2006.

Nitrogen trifluoride, a colourless, odourless, nonflammable gas, is used to etch silicon wafers and in some lasers.

Writing in Geophysical Research Letters, Weiss and colleagues said they analyzed air samples gathered over the past 30 years under the NASA-funded Advanced Global Atmospheric Gases Experiment.

Weiss said nitrogen trifluoride needs to be regulated, as carbon dioxide is.

"From a climate perspective, there is a need to add nitrogen trifluoride to the suite of greenhouse gases whose production is inventoried and whose emissions are regulated under the Kyoto Protocol, thus providing meaningful incentives for its wise use," he said.

Michael Prather, an atmospheric chemist at the University of California at Irvine, noted nitrogen trifluoride is being used more commonly and predicted that more would be found in the atmosphere.

"It is now shown to be an important greenhouse gas," Prather, who was not involved with the Scripps study, said in a statement. "Now we need to get hard numbers on how much is flowing through the system, from production to disposal."

(Reporting by Maggie Fox, editing by Philip Barbara)

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US pledges $40M for 'Amazon of the Seas'

Veronica Uy, The Philippines Inquirer 23 Oct 08;

MANILA, Philippines—The United States government on Thursday pledged $40 million to help save the marine and coastal ecosystems in East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands that comprise the Coral Triangle, which is also known as the Amazon of the Seas for its biodiversity.

A statement from the US embassy here said US Ambassador to the Philippines Kristie Kenney made the pledge to support international effort at stopping the degradation of the area believed to be the world's greatest expanse of mangrove, coral reef, and fish
biodiversity.

"The Coral Triangle is under threat from pollution, unsustainable fishing practices, and climate change," it said.

The embassy said the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the US Department of State will provide the fund over five years to the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), a consortium formed to promote sustainable fisheries and coastal resource management programs in the six countries that comprise the Coral Triangle.

The CTI seeks to protect the Coral Triangle, an area of six million square kilometers of ocean and coasts where the Indian and Pacific oceans meet and is home to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs and represents 75 percent of the known coral species.

"The Coral Triangle Initiative builds on three decades of assistance that the US government has provided for coastal resources management in the Asia-Pacific," Kenney said.

Part of the USAID fund goes to a consortium of NGOs, including the World Wildlife Fund, The Nature Conservancy, and Conservation International to protect the Coral Triangle by working with government and private-sector partners. It also supports scientific research in the Coral Triangle.

"The degradation of the Coral Triangle is so great that we must hurry to preserve the best of it," said Dr. J.E.N. "Charlie" Veron, the marine scientist who maintains that the Coral Triangle is the global epicenter for marine life.

"The CTI will encourage responsible fishing practices while raising the profile of the CT6 and their marine ecosystems [and] that will attract tourist dollars, generate local income, and encourage changes in laws to support conservation," he said.

According to the US embassy, the Coral Triangle's marine and coastal resources -- and the goods and services they provide -- are threatened by over-fishing, blast and cyanide fishing, sedimentation and other forms of pollution from coastal development, poor agricultural practices and deforestation, and ocean acidification due to global
warming.

These factors are adversely affecting the region's fish, coral, and mangroves, as well as the 120 million people dependent on them for their livelihood.

In the Philippines, the fishing industry employs more than a million people, or five percent of the national labor force. The country is the world's 11th largest fish producer.

"However, its resources are declining and its biodiversity is under threat due to human activities," the embassy said.

To enhance regional security and prosperity, the CTI will address the challenges of food security, sustainable livelihoods, responsible trade, good governance, biodiversity preservation, and climate change. "These are issues that cross geographical and political boundaries," it said.

"The CTI will be a great benefit the people of the Philippines and, in particular, to the children of the Philippines and their children's children," said Kenney.

Other partners to the project are the Asian Development Bank, the Global Environment Facility, the United Nations Development Program, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Bank, the Australian government, the Walton Family Foundation, and the NGO consortium, all under the leadership of the CT6 governments.

"A cross-border effort like the CTI is vital to restore the Coral Triangle's ecosystems," said Olivier Carduner, director of USAID's Regional Development Mission for Asia, noting that tuna might breed in one country's waters, mature in another's, and then migrate and be caught anywhere in the Pacific region.

"By coordinating our efforts, leveraging our funds, uniting our political will, and reaching out to key stakeholders, we can save these extraordinary marine ecosystems," he said.

US govt pledges 40 million dollars to preserve Asia reefs
AFP 23 Oct 08;

MANILA (AFP) — The United States has pledged nearly 40 million dollars to save the world's greatest expanse of coral reef, mangrove and fish ecosystems, the US embassy in Manila said Thursday.

Ambassador Kristie Kenney announced the fresh aid during a regional conference on the so-called "Coral Triangle".

The six million square-kilometre (2.3 million square-mile) expanse of water and coastline where the Pacific and Indian Oceans meet contains the greatest concentration of marine organisms anywhere in the world, scientists say.

The area, which is home to 30 percent of the world's coral reefs and three-quarters of known coral species, is under threat from pollution, unsustainable fishing practices and climate change, Kenney told the conference.

The assistance -- worth 39.45 million dollars -- will go to the Coral Triangle Initiative, a consortium formed to promote sustainable fisheries and coastal resource management programmes in East Timor, Indonesia, Malaysia, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, and the Solomon Islands.

"The Coral Triangle Initiative builds on three decades of assistance that the US government has provided for coastal resources management in the Asia-Pacific," Kenney said.

The conference was also told that an agreement binding all six nations to protect the coral triangle will be signed by national leaders in Indonesia next year.

"While coral reefs and mangroves may be static, migratory species, pollution, climate change and illegal fishing do not respect national boundaries," Philippine Environment Secretary Lito Atienza told the conference.

Atienza said the agreement was a "grand experiment" to show that neighbours could work together to conserve their common natural resources.

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Honolulu Declaration Offers Ways to Curb Ocean Acidification

NBC Chicago 23 Oct 08;

"Difficult to detect, irreversible and the largest and most significant threat that oceans face today."

KAILUA-KONA, Hawaii, August 27, 2008 (ENS) - As the oceans absorb increasing amounts of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, they are becoming increasingly acid, weakening the world's coral reefs. Top marine scientists and The Nature Conservancy offered a plan to combat ocean acidification that includes limits on fossil fuel emissions, reduction of stress on reefs, and creation of marine protected areas to build resilience of tropical marine ecosystems.

The plan is contained in the Honolulu Declaration on Ocean Acidification and Reef Management, which the scientists presented Wednesday to the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force gathered in Kailua-Kona for their last meeting during the International Year of the Reef.

The Honolulu Declaration contains the findings and recommendations of a workshop convened by The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii earlier this month. Participants included climate and marine scientists and coral reef managers from the United States and Australia - two of the countries with the world's largest stretches of coral reefs.

"The reefs of the world are at risk, and Hawaii's isolated reefs are especially vulnerable to stresses of any kind, particularly to the rapidly emerging stress brought on by climate change," said Rod Salm, director of tropical marine conservation for the Conservancy's Asia-Pacific program.

"Ocean acidification is creeping, progressive, and insidious - likened by one workshop participant to osteoporosis of the reef - a weakening of the reef structure that makes corals more vulnerable to breakage from waves and human use," Salm told the task force.

He was speaking to members of the outgoing Bush administration, as the U.S. Coral Reef Task Force is co-chaired by the departments of Commerce and of the Interior, and includes leaders of 12 federal agencies, seven U.S. states and territories, and three associated states. Their stated mission is to lead, coordinate, and strengthen U.S. government actions to better preserve and protect coral reef ecosystems.

"Because it is difficult to detect, unlike mass coral bleaching, we don't know whether we have reached or surpassed the critical thresholds for any coral species, such as we have for temperature thresholds," Salm said.

Not only is ocean acidification hard to detect, he warned, ocean acidification is potentially irreversible.

In July, scientists at the International Coral Reef Symposium in Florida declared acidification as the largest and most significant threat that oceans face today. Current estimates show that all coral reefs could be gone by the end of the century or, in the worst case scenario, possibly decades sooner, Salm pointed out.

"Coral reefs are the lifeblood of our oceans and we depend on them for survival," said Suzanne Case, executive director of The Nature Conservancy of Hawaii. "Without urgent action to limit carbon dioxide emissions and improve management of marine protected areas, even vast treasured reefs like the Great Barrier Reef and Northwestern Hawaiian Islands will become wastelands of dead coral."

"The Honolulu Declaration offers tangible and practical steps we can take now to prevent further ocean acidification and ensure the survival of our vitally important and irreplaceable rainforests of the sea," she said.

The ocean absorbs about one-third of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which dissolves in seawater and causes an increase in acidification and a decrease in the amount of carbonate available for calcifying organisms like corals to build their skeletons.

"If current emission trends continue," Salm told the task force, "we could see a doubling of atmospheric CO2 in a little as 50 years; and ocean acidification will continue to an extent and at rates that have not occurred for tens of millions of years."

Some scientists believe that Hawaii reefs will succumb faster to the impacts of ocean acidification because they exist in isolation and at a higher latitude in cooler waters. Research shows that CO2 is absorbed more readily in cooler than warmer ocean waters.

Hawaii's reefs are far removed from other coral reef systems, at the very edge of the region where reefs can grow, which means that any change in water temperature or chemistry results in greater stress and consequence, workshop participants said.

"It is clear that seawater chemistry will change in coming decades and centuries in ways that will dramatically alter marine life," said Joan Kleypas, a scientist with the National Center for Atmospheric Research, a workshop participant and signer of the Honolulu Declaration.

"We are only beginning to understand the complex interactions between large-scale chemistry changes and marine ecology. It is vital to develop research strategies to better understand the long-term vulnerabilities of sensitive marine organisms to these changes," Kleypas said in 2006, upon publication of her report on the effects of increased atmospheric CO2 on marine life.

Workshop participant Richard Feely, who also signed the Honolulu Declaration, is an oceanographer at NOAA's Pacific Marine Environmental Laboratory in Seattle. He said ocean acidification "is leading to the most dramatic changes in marine chemistry in at least the past 650,000 years."

Salm called workshop a landmark meeting of minds that created a solid foundation for a new era of coral reef conservation, and said that action steps proposed by the group, if enacted, will help to save coral reefs from escalating destruction.

"While the consequences of inaction are too depressing to contemplate, there is good news," said Salm. "Our workshop showed that there are some practical steps we can take to buy time for coral reefs while CO2 levels are stabilized; that there is hope for coral reefs if we act now."

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Best of our wild blogs: 23 Oct 08

Crane barge to work off Sentosa's natural shore
on the wild shores of singapore blog

The origin of the name “Lazarus” Island?
on the compressed air junkie blog

Plain-pouched Hornbill’s eyelashes
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Join the upcoming Chek Jawa boardwalk tour
on the adventures with the naked hermit crabs blog

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Perak constructing more artificial reefs to boost fish production

More fish with fake reefs
Clara Chooi, The Star 23 Oct 08;

THE Fisheries Department in Perak is constructing more artificial reefs to boost the production of fish to meet demands by the public who opted for marine-based food supply for health reasons.


Department deputy director-general Datuk Ahamad Sabki Mahmood said people were becoming more health conscious and looking for an alternative source of protein.

“People are becoming more health conscious these days and eating fish is a good, staple diet.

“We do not want this trend to deplete our fish supply and as such the construction of artificial reefs would boost marine production,” he said after witnessing the launch of the first recreational artificial reef in Sitiawan, some 90km from Ipoh on Tuesday.

Ahamad Sabki added that the department was working hard towards meeting the country’s target to produce at least two million metric tonnes of fish annually.

“Our current consumption stands at 1.2 million metric tonnes. We believe that with the construction of more artificial reefs like this one, we can boost the production and multiply the creation of more fish colonies,” he said.

He added that under the Ninth Malaysia Plan, a total of RM9.4mil had been allocated for the purpose of creating artificial reefs - recreational reefs for local fishermen and the larger “seabed” reefs to help create new colonies of fish.

“These reefs can also deter fishing trawlers from encroaching into prohibited zones and hence destroying the environment,” he said.

The prohibited zones, he said, included waters that were less than five nautical miles from the shore or marine parks.

Ahamad Sabki said that to date, the department had spent some 70% of the 9MP allocation with artificial reefs placed in Terengganu, Pahang, Labuan and now Perak.

The reefs, he said, were made of concrete tetrapods (a four-legged concrete structure) stacked upon one another that would serve as ‘homes’ to the demersal or deep-water fishes.

“They like to play around the blocks and will treat the place as their new ‘apartment’. The concrete material, though expensive, lasts very long underwater and allows encrustation of corals and minerals over time,” he said.

During the launch, the department lowered 60 units of artificial reefs into the waters of Pulau Sembilan, off Kampung Acheh in Sitiawan.

“We will also be placing 14 units of the ‘seabed’ reefs in Teluk Intan,” he said, adding that the cost for both reefs amounted to RM300,000.

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Floating island to house foreign workers

House them on self-contained island
Letter from Timmy Tng, Today Online 23 Oct 08;

IF JAPAN could build a floating airport in the middle of the sea, we can also build a self-contained floating island to house foreign workers. It can be linked with a bridge to the mainland. The benefits are: Free up land on the mainland; reduce social tension; better control of mainland security; and reduce the strain on our public transport system.

The authorities should give this idea of a floating city some serious thought.

A step forward into the past?
Idea of floating dormitories smacks of segregation
John Kwok, Today Online 23 Oct 08;

I REFER to the report, “Floating Dormitories?” (Oct 20).

The news report could well have been published in late 18th-century London. After the American war of independence in 1775, Britain could no longer transport convicts to penal colonies in America, and with the city’s prisons overcrowded, a plan was conceived to convert a number of large decommissioned naval vessels into places of confinement — floating prisons.

It took a lot less time and money to construct these floating prisons than to build new prisons on land.

Moored securely on the River Thames in what was meant to be a two-year temporary measure, these floating prisons, or Hulks, remained afloat and in operation for 80 years long.

Those familiar with the classic Great Expectations by Charles Dickens would have read about London’s Hulks in the opening chapter. Convicts sentenced to be transported (in other words exiled), would be put on these Hulks until asuitable time, means and location could be found to transport them.

And who were those convictsdestined for the Hulks?

These floating prison ships were a product of a society that wanted nothing to do with the city’s “undesirables”, the underclass and poor.

Hulks belonged to a time and society that was more conscious about its image and status. And in the years that these floating “temporary” measures were in place, the Hulks were crammed and overcrowded with petty convicts.

The English, back in the 18th century, had found that floating communities were a good place to house groups of people that were not socially accepted by mainstream society until an alternate solution could be found. And when the alternative solution was found, it was called Australia, that is, the convicts were transferred to other ships and sent to the new continent.

The rest, as they say, is history.

Fast forward to the 21st century, utilising floating structures could be a good solution in land-scarce Singapore.

But we are also revisiting an old and tested method of segregation — a floating community that is kept at a distance determined by the length of a mooring rope.

While this may start off as a good plan by optimising space and technology to house a transient population of foreign workers, there is this inherent danger that the floating dormitories of this age may be interpreted as a step back to the age-old policy of segregation.

As such, Singaporeans need to be prudent of proposals that, in spite of their good intentions, may be interpreted otherwise.

The writer is a Singaporean postgraduate researcher with the University ofWollongong, Australia.

Structures should not be penalised?
Letter from Brydon Timothy Wang, Perth, Australia
Today Online 25 Oct 08;

I REFER to the commentary, “A stepforward into the past” (Oct 23) by Mr John Kwok.

Floating dormitories have the additional benefit of being used as emergency housing. This is particularly important given the natural disasters that have affected the surrounding regions.

While floating structures retain, by their flexible location and “blue field” site (that is, no surrounding neighbourhoods), the ability to incorporate sensitive programmes, such as nuclear reactors, sewage treatment plants, et cetera, away from the mainland — the structures should not be penalised for this outstanding advantage, neither should the decision-makers who site these structures be perceived as attempting to demarcate social boundaries.

The reality is that discrimination and perceptions of superiority can only be tackled with proper community engagement and education. Raising such issues in a debate about the effectiveness and strength of a proposed technology only serves to muddy the issue.

Other questions and points the author could have easily raised include the possible reduction in travelling time exacted on workers by having these structures located closer to their work sites or how proper standards applied to these facilities can ensure a higher quality of life for these workers.

In fact, the author would certainly have realised the great potential these floating dormitories have in relieving pressures on residential land holdings in coastal Australia where they are facing accommodation strain. I appreciate the writer’s comments, but environmentally, socially and economically, the technology offers an urban design solution that is as akinto prison boats as an apple to an orange.

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