UN climate talks: strut your stuff and save the planet

Simon Sturdee Yahoo News 4 Dec 08;

POZNAN, Poland (AFP) – "Hey DJ! Play that funky music!" might be one of the more unusual rallying cries for saving the planet. But the "Mini Sustainable Club" featured at the 12-day UN climate conference here has a purpose. Their disco show is one of many wacky ideas on display for cutting mankind's carbon footprint and adapting to the ravages of climate change.

Also on display are fog-catchers from Cape Verde, a model of a "no-waste city" with zero carbon emissions, hydrogen-powered cars, air conditioning driven by sea water, biofuels from algae and a solar station for drying sewage sludge.

They are some of 120 concepts, some of them already in operation, on show as the 192-nation UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) seeks to get the ball rolling for a new global climate change pact in a year's time.

Once inside the Dutch-made "club for two people", pounding music starts up and, as you dance, the spring-loaded floor converts your movements into electricity, setting off arrays of disco lights powered by your exertions.

If you really go for it -- AFP didn't -- a mirrored ball on the ceiling lights up.

"I don't know if it will be popular," one bemused dancer said as he emerged.

In a corner of the 7,000-square-metre (75,500-square-feet) exhibition hall is an orange pod, rather like a ski lift, housing a Polish inventor with a sky-high idea to "revolutionise" public transport in cities.

Similar to the planned ULTra (Urban Light Transport) pilot scheme at London's Heathrow airport, MISTER Ltd's pods, suspended 10-15 metres (30-50 feet) in the air, would each transport up to five or so passengers, whizzing them along a rail.

"If we replaced London's metro system with such a system we would be able to carry all of the metro traffic with only a quarter of the capacity for about a 20th of the cost ... and energy-wise about one-tenth," inventor Ollie Mikosza told AFP.

"Because it is such a jump in thinking, it is ignored as impossible," he lamented.

"But I cheer myself up that cars and aeroplanes were likewise doomed to failure by the horse lobbies... Progress is made by people who are dismissed as lunatics."

With climate change forecast to make water ever scarcer, technologies on show propose transforming water vapour in the air into quantities that can be drunk or even irrigate crops.

One such gizmo comes from a firm called Dutch Rainmaker, which uses windmills to blow air onto a compression cooling system that then condenses the water vapour.

Another is distinctly more low-tech but highly effective: fog-catchers that are already providing more than 90,000 litres (20,000 gallons) of water per year to people in the Serra Malagueta Mountains in the Cape Verde islands, off West Africa.

Fine mesh netting suspended in a wooden frame "catches" the fog and the resulting droplets trickle downwards to be collected and used to water plants or purified for drinking, Zuzanna Armada from the exhibition says.

Activating a tiny spray from a machine, she explains: "This is fog. It collects raindrops, 'fogdrops' actually ... It's very simple and it's very cheap."

But climate change is not just a threat, it is already a reality, and the exhibition also showcases technologies that help communities around the world cope with floods and droughts.

One such is the "hanging gardens" of Bangladesh, where rising sea levels could devour 17 percent of the country's total area by 2050, according to the Nobel-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

The project, already in place for 250 families, is also very simple: growing vegetables in pots on bamboo platforms above the reach of polluted, salt-water floods.

A futuristic design is the "Waterboxx", made by Dutch firm AquaPro BV, a container that collects rainwater and condensation in which a young tree can be grown in areas left infertile by creeping desertification.

It doses out each day the amount of water that the sapling needs, prevents it from overheating and protects it against rodents.

"It's probably not that useful here (in Poland)," Armada concedes, with an eye on the grey skies outside.

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Rich countries carry out '21st century land grab'

Debora Mackenzie, New Scientist 4 Dec 08;

HISTORY may be repeating itself. Until the mid-20th century, many European countries grew rich on the resources of their colonies. Now, countries including China, Kuwait and Sweden are snapping up vast tracts of agricultural land in poorer nations, especially in Africa, to grow biofuels and food for themselves.

The land grabs have sparked accusations of neocolonialism and fears that the practice could worsen poverty. Yet some organisations think this could be a chance for poor countries to trade land and labour for the technology and investment vital for developing their own food and energy production.

The rush for land was triggered by this year's food crisis and the European push for biofuels. The South Korean firm Daewoo made headlines last week when it sought a 99-year lease on 1.3 million hectares of Madagascar to grow maize and oil palm. The deal is far from unusual.

A number of companies are growing sugar cane in Tanzania, for example, to make bioethanol for European countries to meet European Union targets. This year, investors from Gulf states initiated so many farm projects in Africa and south-east Asia that the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) urged caution to prevent a political backlash.

"Egypt is investing in Sudan; Libya in Ukraine; Saudi Arabia in Thailand; China in Africa, the Philippines and Russia," says Joachim von Braun, head of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) in Washington DC.

As population growth and dwindling oil supplies make farmland the strategic resource that oilfields are now, the hunger for land looks set to increase. China has 20 per cent of the world's people and only 9 per cent of the farmland, and that is dwindling. According to a detailed analysis by the NGO Grain, Chinese companies and the government have since 2007 leased or purchased 2 million hectares of foreign farmland.

Financial firms have been quick to get in on the act too, and are moving their money from food to the land that produces it. The British hedge fund manager Dexion Capital, for instance, plans to invest $270 million in 1.2 million hectares in Australia, Russia and South America.

The question is whether incoming technology and investment can be harnessed to increase food production for the poorer countries themselves. Although the global financial crisis has halted the rise in food prices, this week IFPRI warned that the slowdown will also cut investment in farming, which will raise food prices by up to 27 per cent by 2020.

All foreign deals so far pledge to turn "unused" or "underutilised" land into farmland to yield food. This might sound good on paper, but the reality is not so clear cut.

First, is the land really unused? Many analysts agree that most land that can be farmed is already in use, but some disagree. "Africa still has lots," says Peter Hartmann, head of the non-profit International Institute for Tropical Agriculture in Ibadan, Nigeria. He says for every hectare of African farmland there are around 2.5 hectares of "equivalent rainfed arable land" unused for want of technology or capital.

But seemingly unoccupied land is probably used for at least part of the year by someone, says Michael Taylor of the International Land Coalition (ILC), which groups 65 agencies, from local farm groups to the World Bank, concerned with land access. Nomadic herders, rarely a priority for governments, are being dispossessed by bioethanol developments in Kenya, he says, and they also depend on the "unused" land that Madagascar offered Daewoo. Ethiopia's communal lands, such as grazing areas, are being leased to private investors, says anthropologist Marco Bassi of the University of Oxford. "This will destroy shifting cultivators and pastoralists."

In many cases, land is used by such people because its soil or water is unsuitable for intensive cultivation. The danger, then, is that foreign leaseholders might extract what they can from these areas, then leave once soil and water resources have been exhausted.

Some people see upsides, though. "I could imagine such land use benefiting people," says Hartmann. Foreign investors build roads, storage and port facilities that local farmers can also use to sell crops - a bottleneck in much of African agriculture.

"Such investments are not to be generally condemned," says von Braun. Leaseholders might press for better tax situations for farmers, while host countries could insist on local hiring. Some investors are even offering schools and healthcare facilities, although in the past such promises have notoriously not been kept.

The best option would be for foreign firms to contract local small farmers to grow crops for them, says Paul Mathieu of the FAO. "Investors could say, if you use this seed and follow our advice we promise to buy the crop. That could be a win-win situation." German company Flora Eco Power produces biodiesel in Ethiopia in this way.

"These deals could provide more security and predictability for poor farmers than just selling crops on open markets," agrees Duncan Green of Oxfam.

However, existing arrangements of this kind are generally "between partners with vastly unequal power", says Green, and they offer few guarantees for locals. Hartmann and von Braun say a code of conduct is needed, and that it must include provisions for local producers, property rights, sustainable management and transparent rules. The FAO is now trying to write such guidelines, says Mathieu.

They will be no good if no one uses them, though, and so far there is little sign that investors are keen to work with locals. Many Chinese projects, for example, bring in farmers from China. If the foreign-owned farms simply take the crops and run, offering nothing to local people, it could be a recipe - as Europe's colonialists discovered - for trouble.

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Best of our wild blogs: 4 Dec 08

An Oriental Scops Owl came for a visit
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

The drongo's tale
on the annotated budak blog and The frog that quacks.

What projects do our gifted students choose?
Research interests of our top secondary school students - Science Mentorship Programme (SMP) on the Water Quality in Singapore blog

Faster, cheaper land reclamation in Singapore
links to related articles on the wild shores of singapore blog

Dead dugong in Phuket: entangled in fishing net?
on the wild shores of singapore blog

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Faster, cheaper for firms to get reclaimed land in Singapore

Joyce Teo, Straits Times 4 Dec 08;

RECLAIMED land in Singapore will soon be made available to industrial companies much more quickly and cheaply.

This is thanks to a joint initiative of the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) and industrial landlord JTC Corp to streamline the building of shore protection.

Cutting edge analysis of wave erosion patterns will mean up to $16 million in savings for every kilometre of reclaimed shoreline. The wait for the land could be cut by up to eight months.

Currently, rock embankments costing $12.5 million per km are erected on the shoreline of newly-reclaimed land to prevent soil erosion, SLA said.

But once this land is leased to industrial tenants, they often need to spend about $5 million to tear down the embankment and erect shore protection to suit their operational needs. This is a time-consuming, costly process.

Under the SLA-JTC initiative, the impact of waves on different stretches of the coastline and reclaimed land will be analysed scientifically.

Engineers will then determine the appropriate level of shoreline protection to be put in place for three months until an industrial lessee takes over the land.

The cost of putting in and removing the new shore protection is only about 10 per cent of the one-size-fits-all rock embankment used previously.

Said SLA's assistant chief executive, Mr Simon Ong: 'This pro-enterprise initiative helps to attract investors to develop land in Singapore and enhances the economy's competitiveness.'

SLA is the gatekeeper for all land reclamation projects in Singapore.

The first test case for the new approach is the reclamation that has been done for a mega shipyard in Tuas.

For every kilometre of shoreline of land reclaimed under the new approach for the shipyard, the Government saved five months in construction time and about $11.25 million in costs. The shipyard owner saved nearly three months in construction time and about $4.5 million.

'Time is money to investors and timely availability of the land for development will affect the investors' decision of whether or not to establish in Singapore,' said Mr Ong.

As land is scarce here, many parts of Singapore's waterfront are being reclaimed for residential, commercial, recreational and industrial purposes.

JTC reclaims land for industrial purposes and then leases it to industrial firms. Waterfront industrial sites, for example, are highly sought after by shipbuilding and marine-related industries.

Mr Ong Geok Soo, JTC's assistant chief executive, said: 'At the operational level, this new procedure allows our customers to occupy the reclaimed land quickly to catch their business cycle once the land is formed without having to wait for shore protection works to be completed.' He said when investors are building a plant, JTC does shore protection work, which cuts the handover time.

There are no updated figures on the extent of land reclamation here.

A 2006 article in The Straits Times stated that Singapore's land area had grown about 17 per cent from 581.5 sq km in 1960. It said by 2030, another 50 sq km is set to be added - so the island will have expanded by a quarter altogether.

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Small countries can 'pack a punch'

Nobel laureate says they can make a difference in green war by fighting together
Shobana Kesava, Straits Times 4 Dec 08;

SMALL developing countries can pack a punch in the war against climate change, if they deliver it together, an approach Nobel laureate and Costa Rican President Oscar Arias Sanchez hopes they will take.

The world must work with nature to combat global warming or face worse disasters than any war between men, said Dr Arias, in an address on the Costa Rican Peace With Nature Initiative at the Institute of Policy Studies Nobel Laureate Lecture yesterday.

The Central American country has committed to carbon neutrality by 2021. If it succeeds, it will be the first to achieve the goal of emitting no more greenhouse gases than it absorbs.

Other nations such as New Zealand, Norway and Monaco have followed suit, with similar green goals set to be achieved by 2050.

'We are the only developing country to have such a goal,' said Dr Arias, 68, who first led the country from 1986 to 1990.

A few years ago, Costa Rica was stripping its land of natural resources like timber and gold for revenue but changed course after Dr Arias was re-elected in 2006.

Its focus is now on maintaining its vast tropical forest. Just over half of the country's land - 26,000 sq km - is covered by forest.

He urged developing countries not to think small.

'I don't think it is fair to give excuses and wait for the United States to set the agenda. We need to fight climate change because we are responsible, not only for our country but also for the world,' he said.

Costa Rica would be happy to lead in this field. The developing nation of 4.4 million people with a per capita GDP of US$10,000 (S$15,200) has been ranked by Yale University as fifth in the world in environmental performance. Last year, The Economist ranked it the most democratic country in Latin America.

'We do it and ask other countries to follow our path. We can be a paradigm for other countries in the developing world, and band with other countries to move this,' he said.

Costa Rica pipped all countries in its greening effort last year, planting seven million trees to help in reforestation.

'The world spent well over a trillion dollars on weapons and soldiers when so much of it could have gone towards education and health care,' he said.

Costa Rica abolished its own army 60 years ago in its commitment to peace. Dr Arias' presidency in the 1980s led to the end of civil strife in Central America, when he brokered a five-country peace agreement. For this he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1987.

Yesterday, he spoke to a 300-strong international audience, including members of the business community, civil society, government and academia.

Costa Rica's record is impressive, said Nature Society of Singapore president Shawn Lum.

'Within a decade, Costa Rica has completely turned around from destroying its forests to having a very vocal voice in protecting it, which makes me confident other small countries can make a stand too,' he said.

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Ensure forest preservation projects do not rot away

Michael Richardson, Straits Times 4 Dec 08;

CAN the world's remaining tropical forests in Indonesia and elsewhere be protected and brought into the battle against climate change?

Working out ways of halting or slowing the cutting of forests for timber and agriculture will be one of the key issues discussed this week and next at the United Nations forum on climate change, which reconvened in Poznan, Poland, on Monday.

Trees soak up and store carbon dioxide when they grow and release it when they rot or are burnt. Carbon dioxide is the main greenhouse gas blamed by many scientists for warming the planet. Deforestation contributes about 20 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity and most of it occurs in forest-rich developing nations in Africa, South-east Asia and South America. So any international deal to preserve forests is of critical interest to the world.

The talks in Poznan are part of a process that began in Bali, Indonesia, a year ago to try to reach agreement on a new climate change treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012.

Under the Kyoto Protocol, all developed economies, except the United States, have agreed to cut greenhouse gases by an average of 5 per cent by 2012 from 1990 levels. The Bush administration rejected Kyoto, arguing that it unfairly excused China, India, Indonesia and other emerging economies from binding commitments. US President-elect Barack Obama has promised to bring America back to the negotiating table as a constructive partner in climate change talks.

Kyoto includes national cap and trade systems, which allow countries and companies to achieve reductions in their greenhouse gas emissions by buying and selling carbon credits. Kyoto also permits tree-planting programmes in its carbon trading scheme, but not forest preservation. This is expected to change in a post-Kyoto arrangement.

The Poznan meeting will consider proposals for a pay-to-preserve forest scheme known as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation, or REDD. Under this scheme, richer countries would pay to maintain forests in tropical regions to offset their own emissions.

Many countries favour such forestry offsets, both as a means of directing billions of dollars to developing nations that protect their forests, as well as making it cheaper for advanced economies to meet their greenhouse gas emission limits.

However, there are many challenges. How accurately can forest carbon emissions savings be measured and what sort of forest should be included: Only primary jungle or re-grown forests and plantations as well, even if they hold less carbon? Will REDD forests remain standing for the long term and can illegal logging and fire be prevented? Will a halt in logging in one area cause deforestation in another?

Some non-government organisations (NGOs) fear that attaching a substantial preservation value to forests could lead to land disputes, loss of livelihoods and intervention by corrupt officials and profit- seeking outsiders. Other NGOs say that cheap REDD credits could allow rich nations to avoid making deep emission cuts at home and thus do little to help reverse global warming.

Indonesia has become the centre of REDD trial programmes in Asia because it still has large areas of forest, despite rapid deforestation. The country has 91 million hectares of tree cover, although it is estimated to have lost 70 per cent of its original forest. As a result, South-east Asia's biggest country is among the world's largest greenhouse gas emitters, according to a report commissioned by the World Bank and Britain's international aid agency.

Last month, California and two other states in the US signed an agreement with Indonesia's Aceh province to integrate forest carbon credits from Aceh into US emissions trading schemes. The pact, the first of its kind, is a significant step towards global acceptance of carbon credits from forest protection. It is linked to the preservation of a 750,000-ha forest reserve in Aceh called Ulu Masen, which will save 3.4 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted each year (if the trees were to be cut), or 100 million tonnes over the project's lifetime.

Australian firm Carbon Conservation teamed up with the Aceh government last year to sell the offsets, known as verified emissions reductions. These usually trade from US$4 to US$10 (S$6 to S$15) for a tonne of carbon saved.

International NGO Fauna and Flora International, which supports the Ulu Masen project, is also working with Australia's Macquarie financial services group to develop three REDD projects in West Kalimantan and Papua.

Investment firm New Forests, headquartered in Sydney, has signed a deal with the government of Papua province, the location of much of Indonesia's remaining pristine forest. The deal will protect 200,000 ha and save up to 40 million tonnes of carbon dioxide from being emitted over the lifetime of the project.

Meanwhile, the Australian government has pledged A$30 million (S$29 million) as part of a project to protect 50,000 ha of Kalimantan forest and rehabilitate at least 50,000 ha of drained peat swamp, which could become a potent source of greenhouse gas emissions if it were to dry out and catch fire.

These are promising projects not just for forest preservation in Indonesia but also for poverty alleviation and local empowerment - provided they are well-run and corruption is kept at bay.

The writer is an energy and security specialist at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Target big-time polluters, not me with my old bulbs

Reggie J, The New Paper 4 Dec 08;

CLIMATE change is worrying and I wouldn't want to belittle the issue of global warming - but sometimes, I wonder if much of what we are told is a lot of hot air.

China relies on carbon for 70 per cent of its energy and its economy is growing fast. So is India's. They and the US account for much of the carbon pollution in the world.

So anybody imagining that it makes a difference if a housewife in Toa Payoh replaces her light bulbs with low-energy ones might just as well throw a sugar cube into the water around the Marina Barrage to make it sweeter.

Take a look at any big city at night. Even our own. Office buildings are lit up like Christmas trees, advertising hoardings are illuminated to be seen from afar, and street lights burn every few metres from one another.

Yet we are made to feel guilty for leaving the television on stand-by.

So tight is the grip of environmental consciousness that in some countries, the old incandescent bulbs are being banned.

Presumably, the authorities imagine the poor can just change to the more expensive low-energy bulbs overnight?

I am not a supporter of nuclear energy. I am pleased that Singapore's small size may more or less rule out nuclear energy being a feasible alternative energy option, and it will seek to use more solar power.

It's amazing that we are not getting more out of the 12 hours of sunlight we are blessed with every day.

More importantly, to get anywhere close to solving the energy problem, there's a need to motivate both industry and the public to think of the economics when buying equipment or using energy.

World leaders will have to recognise that this is a global problem. Either we act together or we fry together.

But don't hold your breath that the biggest polluters are going to be persuaded by that argument any time soon.

# The writer is a former Singaporean marketing professional.

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Illegal Leopard Killings Rise in India, Groups Say

Paroma Basu, National Geographic News 3 Dec 08;

A recent flurry of leopard-skin seizures by Indian wildlife authorities suggests that as tigers decline, poachers are increasingly on the prowl for the country's other big cat.

At least 141 leopards have fallen to poaching so far in 2008, compared to 24 tigers killed in the same period, according to the New Delhi-based nonprofit Wildlife Protection Society of India.

About 27 of those skins have been taken in just the past few months, which conservationists say is evidence of a spike in poaching.

"The situation is serious," said Tito Joseph, program manager at the wildlife society, which has tracked poacher arrests and animal-skin seizures in India for more than a decade.

But the increased number of seizures may be due to improved wildlife enforcement and agency coordination, rather than an actual rise in leopard killings, said Ramesh Pandey, deputy director of the government's new Wildlife Crime Control Bureau.

Authorities seize between 150 to 200 leopard skins and bodies from around the country every year—implying a steady market for leopard skins and parts.

Even so "there is no doubt that the leopard is under threat," Pandey said.

Cheaper than Tigers

Indian leopard skin and parts largely wind up in China, traveling via Nepal, experts say.

The skin serves various decorative purposes, while leopard bones and other parts are most likely masqueraded as tiger products and sold for use in traditional Chinese medicine, said Joseph of the wildlife society.

Tiger goods are much more valuable than leopard merchandise.

But as India's tiger population has dwindled to just 1,411 individuals—most of them in protected reserves—it is getting more cost-effective for traders to get into the leopard business, experts say.

"There is increased value for leopard shins, claws, bones, and penises because it is getting much harder to catch tigers," said Kartick Satyanarayan, co-founder of Wildlife SOS, a nonprofit animal rescue group in New Delhi that works with the Indian government to nab poachers.

Adaptable Predators

It's also easier to catch leopards because they are more plentiful than tigers.

Although there is still no official estimate on leopard populations in India, wildlife advocates guess the population could be anywhere between 10,000 to 20,000. A detailed leopard census will be carried out over the next three years, experts say.

Unlike tigers, which prefer to live deep in the jungle, nocturnal and solitary leopards can adapt easily to a variety of landscapes.

That includes, increasingly, the fringes of human settlements.

It's this adaptability that has also made leopards vulnerable to run-ins with humans, said Rajesh Gopal, member secretary of the government's National Tiger Conservation Authority, which has been allotted more than U.S. $1 billion over the next five years to protect both big cat species in India.

Farmer Conflicts

While poachers are responsible for supplying at least half of all leopard skins and parts to China, leopards killed by farmers and landowners provide another source.

As leopard habitat shrinks, more of the predators are attacking livestock for food.

Although the government compensates farmers who lose livestock to wildlife, payments usually take so long to arrive that villagers take matters into their own hands.

For instance, reports of leopards being poisoned to death are more and more common. In November, a five-year-old leopard was found dead after a suspected poisoning near the town of Gūdalūr, in southern India.

The wildlife society estimates that at least 38 leopards have died in similar situations in India this year.

"When leopards become a nuisance, many villagers resort to poisoning them and then selling the bodies off to traders for a pittance," said Gopal of the conservation authority.

"These [skins and body parts] then end up in big trading hub centers like Nāgpur [a central Indian city] or New Delhi before crossing the border and going away. All this is no secret."

Solutions

Ensuring the faster delivery of compensation payments to farmers and creating alternative livelihoods for poacher groups would both slow the big cat trade, Gopal said.

But authorities must also agree on changing the way land is used, for example by creating managed buffer zones in which humans and animals could peacefully co-exist.

"There are still healthy populations of leopards," Gopal said. "So even if we wake up right now, we can still save all these precious animals from getting extinct."

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UK Marine bill marks new approach to ocean conservation

Conservation groups celebrate as a marine bill is included in the Queen's speech
Alok Jha, guardian.co.uk 3 Dec 08;

A marine bill to protect the UK's ocean wildlife and improve public access to the coast was included in today's Queen's speech after years of campaigning by conservation groups.

The marine and coastal access bill is a new approach to managing the marine environment that will include conservation zones, a new planning system, reform of fisheries and access to the coasts. It will also include the establishment of a new organisation to manage the seas around the UK.

Marine conservation zones (MCZs) will protect nationally important habitats and species such as eelgrass beds, seahorses and sea fans.

According to the Marine Conservation Society (MCS), there are more than 6,000 sites of scientific interest on land, but only three sites protecting habitats of national importance at sea.

Melissa Moore, senior policy officer of the MCS, welcomed the government's commitment to the marine bill but said it needed "toughening up" if it is to leave a lasting legacy for nature conservation.

"It is now in the hands of MPs and Lords who need to further strengthen the bill if it is to achieve its goals for healthy ecosystems. Any weakening would be disastrous for our seas," she said.

Access to the coast will also be improved under the new bill. Specifically it will try to secure a long-distance route around the coast of England including beaches, cliffs, rocks and dunes, with public access for coastal walking and other recreational activities.

The MCS has warned, however, that fragile coastal habitats such as estuaries, saltmarsh and bird sanctuaries are excluded from any proposed new routes.

The new marine planning system will aim to introduce longterm objectives for the seas around the UK, and encourage the creation of more detailed local marine plans.

All of the regulation and enforcement of the new rules will fall under the remit of the new marine management organisation.

Natasha Barker, senior marine policy officer at WWF UK, said the new marine bill could not come too soon for UK seas and its wildlife and coastal communities.

"In the time it's taken to introduce the UK marine bill, the impacts of climate change have amplified the many pressures already taking their toll on marine biodiversity. Now we finally have an opportunity to reverse the decline."

She added: "We must also connect the land and sea to ensure future marine plans take into account terrestrial activities and improve management of our coastline."

Earlier this year MPs urged the government to ensure more "concrete safeguards" for landowners than were included in the draft marine bill published in April.

Marine Bill to protect UK's ocean wildlife included in Queen's speech
A controversial Bill to protect the UK's ocean wildlife and improve public access to the coast was included in the Queen's speech.
Louise Gray, The Telegraph 3 Dec 08;

The Marine Bill will create a network of marine national parks where wildlife is protected, introduce a new planning system for the oceans, reform fisheries and improve access to the coasts.

Conservationists welcomed the legislation but the fishing industry and landowners are more wary.

Melissa Moore, senior policy officer at the Marine Conservation Society, welcomed the government's commitment to providing the same protection to wildlife at sea as wildlife on land.

But Philip MacMullen, head of environmental responsibility at seafood industry body Seafish, said economic activities in the sea should not be forgotten. He called for the Bill to include protection for the traditional rights of access for fishermen.

The rights of access to the coast have also caused controversy.

Henry Aubrey-Fletcher, president of the Country Land and Business Association, said landowners would be fighting for the right of appeal and compensation if a planned coastal route around Britain goes through their land.

He said: "The Government apparently sees no need for an independent right of appeal despite recommendations in favour of it from both pre-legislative committees. In the draft Bill, there was no provision for compensation, even when loss could be proven. The CLA will be lobbying on these issues once the Bill is published. Unless they are addressed, natural justice is at risk."

Safe havens will protect marine wildlife
Lewis Smith, The Times 4 Dec 08;

Nature reserves designed to provide safe havens for marine wildlife are to be created as part of legislation announced yesterday.

The announcement of a marine Bill, a Labour manifesto pledge, with powers to create protected zones within Britain’s 200-mile limit marks the final phase of a conservation campaign that has lasted more than 15 years.

At least 100 different types of marine habitat are under consideration for protection as marine conservation zones and a high proportion of the 8,000 species off our shores are expected to benefit. Only three marine nature reserves have been created since the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act, and the Bill is intended to speed their introduction dramatically, with a network of scores of protected zones by 2012.

Hilary Benn, the Environment Secretary, described the announcement as a “significant day for our seas and the wonders that lie beneath them”.

“This new system of protection and management of our seas will help to halt the decline in biodiversity and to create clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse oceans and seas,” he said.

Devolved powers have already been agreed for the Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish assemblies but it is expected that they will work with the Joint Ministerial Committee to ensure that legislation is created nationally. In Scotland, a marine Bill is expected to be introduced early next year.

It was unclear last night when the Bill would be introduced for England, but earlier this year Jonathan Shaw, then the Fisheries Minister, promised that it would receive Royal Assent by the middle of next summer.

Planning rules for marine developments, whether huge wind farms or new harbour walls, will be streamlined under the Marine and Coastal Access Bill to create a single licensing authority – the Marine Management Organisation.

The Government’s cherished plan for widening public access to the coastline by securing a long-distance path along the entire coast of England will be included within the Bill. Safeguards to landowner rights remain a contentious issue.

Marine conservationists have been fighting for the Bill since the early 1990s when they realised that the 1981 Wildlife and Countryside Act was inadequate for protecting life in the seas.

Under the forthcoming legislation the conservation zones will have different levels of protection depending on the needs of individual species and habitat types.

The strongest type of protection will ban any form of commercial activity within a zone, similar to the no-take zones that ban fishing around Lundy in the South West and Lamlash Bay in the Isle of Arran.

Only 0.0008 per cent of Britain’s seas – about three square miles – are covered by no-take zones, compared with the 30 per cent that the Marine Conservation Society believes is necessary to allow wildlife to recover at least partially from the steep declines of the last century. Under the European Habitat’s Directive, 80 marine sites have already received protection but it applies to a handful of species and habitat types and has been criticised for being limited and often unenforced. Among the habitat types most in need of protection are sub-tidal sea grass beds – which have declined dramatically since the 1930s – and maerl reefs, formed of hard algal growths.

The announcement of the Bill was greeted with relief and delight among environmental groups. Natasha Barker, at WWF-UK said: “We finally have an opportunity to reverse the decline in our seas.”

Mark Avery, the RSPB conservation director, said: “The UK’s seas are internationally important for marine wildlife, including seabirds, whales, fish and corals. Despite this importance, the conservation movement has been waiting for decades for adequate protection. This has been a manifesto commitment for several years and we trust that the legislation will not be watered down before it reaches Royal Assent.”

However, at Seafish, the seafood industry body, Philip MacMullen said conservation zones were only part of the solution to improving marine stocks. He maintained that “the current, more responsible attitude to the management of seafood stocks on the part of the industry” would be a factor.

Sir Martin Doughty, the chairman of Natural England, welcomed the coastal access proposals: “There are enormous social, health and environmental benefits in enabling the public to access more of England’s coastline.

“The Bill presents a real opportunity to take a historic step in the way people enjoy England’s wonderful countryside and coastline.”

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Queen puts toe in happy waters
Richard Black on the UK's new marine bill on the BBC News blog

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Greenhouse gases make oceans noisier: UN, wildlife groups

Yahoo News 3 Dec 08;

ROME (AFP) – Greenhouse gases worsen ocean noise by raising acidity levels and causing sound to travel farther, making it ever harder for marine mammals to communicate, UN and wildlife experts said Wednesday.

"Acidity is a new, strange and unwanted development... for a whole range of marine animals," Mark Simmonds of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society told a news conference.

Simmonds, the society's scientific director, was speaking as the UN Convention on the Conservation of Migratory Species (CMS) began three days of debate on a resolution aimed at combatting ocean noise, which is caused primarily by shipping, oil and gas exploration and military sonars.

"Noisy activities are producing an acoustic fog that prevents whales from maintaining social groups, finding each other for breeding purposes, and so forth," Simmonds said.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California, which is studying the rising acidity of seawater, says on its website: "As the oceans become more acidic, sounds will travel farther," notably low-frequency sounds "used by marine mammals to find food and mates."

Legal expert Veronica Frank of the International Fund for Animal Welfare said ocean noise has doubled each decade for the past 40 years and is expected to keep increasing.

"Blue whales' capacity to communicate has been reduced by 90 percent," she said.

The proposed resolution would urge the 110 parties to the CMS to mitigate the impact of ocean noise on vulnerable species, assess the environmental impact of sound-producing activities and avoid the use of high-intensity naval sonars that could pose risks for marine mammals.

The issue of ocean noise is an "international hot potato" because of the commercial and military interests involved, Simmonds said.

One study found that sounds from seismic surveys using powerful airguns travelled more than 3,000 kilometers (1,800 miles) from the source, the UN Environment Programme said in a communique.

Sound naturally travels farther in water than air because water has more mass.

Man-Made Noise In World's Seas Threatens Wildlife
Silvia Aloisi, PlanetArk 4 Dec 08;

ROME - Man-made noise in the world's seas and oceans is becoming an increasing threat to whales, dolphins and turtles who use sound to communicate, forage for food and find mates, wildlife experts said on Wednesday.

Rumbling ship engines, seismic surveys by oil and gas companies, and intrusive military sonars are triggering an "acoustic fog and cacophony of sounds" underwater, scaring marine animals and affecting their behavior.

"There is now evidence linking loud underwater noises with some major strandings of marine mammals, especially deep diving beaked whales," Mark Simmonds, Science Director of the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, told a news conference in Rome.

Simmonds, who was speaking on the sidelines of a December 1-5 United Nations Environment Program's Convention on Migratory Species conference, said there are also growing indications that certain tissue damage in cetaceans is linked to noise.

Experts suspect that startled animals may tend to dive erratically and suffer something similar to human divers getting the "bends" -- illness symptoms experienced when divers do not carry out proper decompression stops after a long or deep dive.

According to "Ocean Noise: Turn It Down," a new report by the International Fund for Animal Welfare, the distance over which blue whales can communicate has been cut by 90 percent as a result of higher noise levels.

Over the past 50 years, low frequency underwater noise has doubled every 10 years over the previous decade, while the number of ships has tripled, the report also said.

It added that sound produced by air guns used for seismic surveys in oil exploration can travel more than 3,000 km (1,864 miles) from their source.

The rising number of vessels, and their increasing speed, has led to more ships striking marine animals already threatened by hunting and climate change.

Experts say there are also concerns that rising levels of carbon dioxide are pushing water acidity levels up and contributing to noisier oceans, because when acidity rises, water absorbs less noise.

"If there is a lot of background noise, the animals can't hear the boat coming," said Simmonds. "It's the cocktail party effect."

Marine conservationists at the Rome conference are urging governments and industry to adopt quieter ship engines, tighter rules on seismic surveys and less disrupting sonar technologies by navies.

The European Union has submitted a draft resolution to the convention calling on members to consider a wide range of measures to reduce underwater noise.

But Simmonds said conservationists were concerned that pressures from the military and energy industry as well as the need for more research into marine noise pollution may lead to the resolution being substantially weakened.

"We simply don't know at this stage how many animals are affected by noise pollution, but the lack of full scientific evidence should not be a reason to delay action, said Simmonds."

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Eco-problems of the 80s return to haunt us

Tamsin Osborne, New Scientist 3 Dec 08;

Not only are 1980s garish clothes and synthpop music back in fashion, but it seems the era's environmental problems are also returning to haunt us.

One of the first empirical studies to look at how global warming is affecting ecosystem health has found that the wet winters of recent years have hampered the recovery of streams from damage caused by acid rain decades ago.

We are going to find more and more cases where climate change exacerbates other forms of environmental degradation, says Peter Kareiva of US environment charity The Nature Conservancy.

"Previous achievements in environmental sustainability can be overturned when climate disruption piles on," he says. "There is a good chance that the climate's interactions with other environmental stresses may end up being the greatest risk we face, as opposed to the direct impacts of global warming."

Acid rain was one of the defining environmental issues of the 1980s, causing acid deposition in streams and rivers, making them uninhabitable for many species. But with increasing efforts to clean up sources of acid rain, acidity levels in the water had been steadily dropping.
Wet, wet, wet

Steve Ormerod and colleagues at Cardiff University in the UK have monitored the temperature and acidity levels of 14 Welsh streams - as well as the insects living there - for the past 25 years.

With the reduction in acid rain, they expected to see many insect species recolonising the streams. But their findings revealed that the aquatic ecosystems hadn't recovered as well as expected.

The researchers blame the recent increase in rainfall during the winter months. According to Ormerod, up to 40% of the last 25 years-worth of improvements have been cancelled out as a result of the recent weather changes.

"It looks as though wetter winter conditions are a problem, and given that the prediction is for rainfall volumes to go up by about 30%, there is this potential for knocking out recovery from things like acidification," he says.
Dead or alive

Increased rainfall reduces the buffering capacity of river systems by diluting base ions in the water and increasing acid ion input by increasing run-off from soils. "This is sufficient to push things in the acid direction again," Ormerod says. "So even though we've fixed an awful lot of the acid deposition problem, we still get the kind of acid episodes that are knocking out sensitive organisms."

Other environmental pollutants, such as nitrates are also affected by weather changes. In drought conditions, the flow volumes of rivers go down, and nitrates and other pollutants being discharged into rivers can have a greater ecological impact.

The spread of invasive species, sediment mobilisation, and the management of land use could all potentially be affected by climate change, says Ormerod. "Our work really emphasises that those predictions are being upheld," he says.

Experts told New Scientist that they are concerned that Ormerod's study might be just one example of a wider phenomenon where recent changes to the climate are exacerbating other environmental problems.
Crowded house

Tony Janetos, of the Joint Global Change Research Institute in Baltimore says there are many ways in which climate change can amplify existing environmental stress. For example, the rise in sea levels and the consequent rise in storm surges make the challenge of coastal erosion and property damage much more costly.

Also, "the expected increases in drought frequency in the western US make existing water management challenges more severe, and are already leading to an increase of wildfires and pest infestations in the regions forests - both of which have long-term implications for ecosystem integrity and economic impacts."

Ecologist Tim Seastedt of the University of Colorado says the warmer temperatures, combined with a longer growing season, elevated carbon dioxide concentrations, and higher inorganic nitrogen inputs are boosting the success of invasive species.

"This has expressed itself with the emergence of annual plants as significant cover components in our grasslands, something not seen in the past," he says. "Our native perennial species have not, to date, been able to keep up with these changes."

Seastedt says we need to be proactive in establishing desirable species in the appropriate habitats. "Just treating past problems is no longer sufficient," he says.

Journal reference: Journal of Applied Ecology (DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2008.01587.x)

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Evidence smacks down scaremongering on climate policies

WWF 3 Dec 08;

Poznan, Poland: Fears that companies will simply relocate to “pollution havens” in the face of tougher climate policies and damage the international competitiveness of countries have little support from the evidence, a WWF survey presented this morning to the Poznan climate conference has shown.

”When discussing targets for emission reductions in Poznan today, industrialized countries should leave their competitiveness fears at the door,” said Kim Carstensen, leader of the WWF Global Climate Initiative.

“Deep cuts in CO2 will neither drive industries abroad nor ruin national economies. They protect nations from future climate damage, give them the competitive edge of an early mover, and create millions of green jobs.”

Industry scaremongering and the painting of doom and gloom scenarios about the impact of climate policies on competitiveness continue to be a significant restraint on policy in the developed world, with fierce domestic lobbying for unambitious emissions reductions targets delaying a planned Australian government announcement on targets this week.

The Australian announcement had originally been intended to coincide with the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change summit in Poznan. The summit needs to prepare much of the architecture in order for a post-Kyoto international agreement, to be concluded next year, to be considered a success.

WWF's survey of studies on impacts on competitiveness finds little support from economists for impacts on national competitiveness and, while relocation is a possibility for some energy intensive industries, “practice appears much more complex than theory”.

A decade long study of “leakage effects” from environmental taxation in Europe found very small and sometimes negative leakage effects due to technology improvement spurred by the regulatory initiatives.

The report also notes that the creation of new and expanded markets, for instance in energy efficiency and alternative energy, is ofter greater than any competitive losses especially for “early movers” in emerging markets.

“On the other hand, lax standards in vehicle fuel efficiency are widely known to have had an adverse impact General Motors' international competitiveness, as the demand for fuel-efficient cars increases throughout the world,” the report notes.

With another study finding that the relationship between climate policy and relocation being “statistically weak and insufficient for policy-making”, the survey goes on to note that actual increases in production costs from climate policies are often moderate and “international trade is more complex than that depicted by corporate lobbyists”.

“To find solutions for the few manufacturing activities that are potentially exposed to competitiveness and leakage concerns, further detailed studies are required to assess the various trade barriers that determine
their ability to pass on costs, and the determinants of location of new investments,” the study says
“Economic studies suggest that industrial competitiveness is a manageable issue that requires technical solutions, not a blurry political debate.”

WWF is urging developed countries to commit at Poznan to emissions cuts of 25 to 40 per cent from 1990 levels by 2020, with developing countries also needing to significantly reduce emissions.

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