ADB loan aims to help clean up key China wetland

Yahoo News 19 Dec 08;

MANILA (AFP) – China is to get a 45 million-dollar loan from the Asian Development Bank to clean up vital coastal wetlands in the east, the Philippines-based lender said Friday.

The Jiaozhou Bay wetlands, the most important marine ecosystem in the Qingdao region, provide a breeding ground for many types of fish and shellfish, and is a way station for migratory birds.

However, as the coastal population and economy has grown rapidly, the wetland area has shrunk by an estimated 30 percent since the 1950s, an ADB statement said.

The loan would be used to build or upgrade wastewater, sewerage, and flood management facilities, with the city of Jiaozhou providing counterpart funds equivalent to 60.8 million dollars.

Loan terms were not disclosed. ADB will also provide a 750,000-dollar technical assistance grant.

Waste dumping into rivers that empty into the bay and poor drainage facilities have caused chronic flooding around Jiaozhou, and the contaminated water pose a serious public health hazard, the ADB said.

"The wetlands need to be protected as they play a key role in flood management and coastal protection which will be increasingly significant to coastal cities as sea levels continue to rise as a result of global warming," said ADB water resources engineer Zhang Qingfeng.

Read more!

Change, but at what price?

After 2008 started with panic over food prices, the world seemed to be waking up to global warming. But then the recession hit

John Vidal, The Guardian 17 Dec 08;

No one could have predicted quite how dramatically 2008 would have ended. Even as President Bush was slashing his way through US environmental protection laws, president-elect Obama appointed Nobel prize-winning physicist Steve Chu as the next US energy secretary. Chu is seen as the repudiation of everything that Bush stood for, and predicts temperatures will rise by a staggering 6.1C by the end of the century if nothing is done. Although it does not mean the oil age is over, if you want a sign that 2008 was a tipping point, it could not have been clearer.

But go back to the start of the year. Empty shelves in Caracas, riots in India and Mexico, and rice shortages in Dhaka, Manila, and Kathmandu. Traders in at least 12 sub-Saharan African countries were hoarding food, and soaring maize and rice prices were leading to political instability. Governments were being forced one after the other to step in to protect supplies and control the cost of bread and dairy products.

The problem, said the analysts, was a mix of climate change and extreme weather leading to poor harvests in major grain-growing countries such as Australia. But the blame was also laid on the many millions of acres of maize, wheat and other crops planted in the US and elsewhere in 2007 to provide biofuels for cars rather than food for people. Catastrophe loomed, said the UN.

It happened slowly and out of sight of the cameras, in the burgeoning cities that are becoming the new frontline of deep poverty. Proof came one week ago, when the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) reported that 2008 had seen the biggest increase in malnourished people in decades. According to its preliminary data, more than 960 million people - one in every six people in the world - now go to bed hungry, and 40 million suffered malnourishment in 2008 because of higher food prices.

This year will go down as the year of interlinked food shortages, climate change and the recession. But it was also the year when it may have dawned on governments that hell-for-leather, western fossil fuel-based, car-centred growth only ends in social and ecological disaster.

There was soaring air pollution, from transporting a record 622 million passengers, and near record loss of Amazon and other tropical forests. But climate change dominated the international agenda.

A flood of scientific papers showed Arctic ice melting faster than ever and the melting of the Greenland ice sheet close to becoming irreversible. Methane, one of the most damaging climate change gases, was found bubbling up from the tundra and the Arctic ocean. There were record temperatures and near-record hurricane seasons, and scientists and environment groups who believed only a year or two ago that it would be possible to just about hold global temperature to a 2C rise accepted privately that this could now be impossible.

But it also became clear in 2008 that climate change was disproportionately impacting on the poor. Subsistence farmers around the world reported a pattern of increasingly unpredictable seasons and social problems linked directly to water and higher temperatures.

In north-east Brazil, which has always been drought-prone but which has seen temperatures rise at least 1C in only 30 years, more than 1.5 million people now cannot access enough water, and must leave home to find work in the biofuel fields in the south of the country each year. In Bangladesh, Uganda, Niger, Malawi, Nepal and elsewhere people also said that temperatures were becoming hotter and rains less and less predictable.

Another trend became apparent. Rich countries, worried about fast rising global populations and dwindling food and fuel supplies, began buying up farmland in poor countries.

In the UK, environment secretary Hilary Benn said that Britain's food supplies, which come increasingly from abroad, were overdependent on oil - a situation, he said, that "must change".

But the most extreme admission of oncoming climate and food problems came from Mohamed Nasheed, the new president of the low-lying Maldives, who said he was looking for a new homeland, possibly in India, for the time when his country was swamped by rising seas.

The big, still unanswered question of 2008 was how far the financial, food and ecological crises were linked. The best evidence may come from a 1972 study. A group of economists and ecologists were commissioned to predict the consequences of a rapidly growing world population, rapid industrialisation in developing countries, and growing pollution. Their famous book, Limits to Growth, predicted widespread and growing hunger, oil shortages, and ecological and economic collapse by the mid-21st century if countries did not rethink economic growth.

Actually, for much of this year, it looked as if the rich world had begun to address sustainable development. Europe committed itself to generating 20% of all its energy from renewables by 2020, and banned incandescent light bulbs; Britain became the first country in the world to set itself a legal target of 80% reduction in carbon emissions by 2050; and more than 70 countries now have national goals for accelerating the use of renewable energy. Businesses, UN agencies, UK politicians and many individuals all genuinely tried to reduce emissions.

Led by Britain, pressure mounted for a global trading scheme, and Gordon Brown's forest adviser, financier Johan Eliasch, recommended that a multibillion-pound fund be set up to pay the owners of the world's rainforests not to cut them down. The irony was that a separate study by the Woodland Trust found that ancient woodland in Britain was being felled at a rate even faster than the Amazon rainforest.

Clean energy took off in 2008, and climate change mitigation became an industry, backed by the world's biggest companies. According to HSBC, companies in the climate mitigation business now generate $300bn (£201bn) in revenues each year. Last month, the International Energy Agency predicted that renewable energy would overtake natural gas to become the second largest source of power generation worldwide within two years, and that global wind and solar generating capacity would increase by more than 30%.

The energy revolution that had been predicted to start after 2015 appeared to be well under way. Architect Norman Foster designed Masdar, a car-free, solar- powered ecotopia for 40,000 people in the Arabian desert. Sheikh Khalifa bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Abu Dhabi's ruler, was so impressed he ordered two, at $15bn each.

In mid-summer, with oil at over $130 a barrel and government-level talk of oil supplies "peaking", there was concern that the price could top $200 a barrel. As people rushed to buy smaller cars, fit better boilers and get into wind and solar power, it seemed possible that the constant rise of emissions might genuinely be reversed. Yet by this month, the global economy was crashing its gears, and oil had dropped to under $40 a barrel.

Whether the world weans itself off oil and fossil fuels will probably determine global sustainability over the next 20 years. Low oil prices traditionally push energy efficiency off the policy agenda. Economic recessions have punctured green economic bubbles in the past. When times are tight, the wisdom goes, no one invests in new or risky technologies, and countries stick to cheap and dirty energy.

Plummeting demand

That was happening in part by the end of 2008. Plummeting demand for recycled materials, especially in China, has drastically lowered prices for old paper, plastic and metals. US and European cities were forced to scale back recycling programmes. Meanwhile, South Africa decided this month that it could not afford "clean" nuclear power stations and plans to increase massively its cheaper but dirtier coal-burning stations. Britain, too, went ahead with plans for more opencast mines.

A more optimistic group of people say the recession may not only check unsustainable growth but also provide breathing space for the world to move to more sensible policies. Governments, said leading greens, have a historic opportunity to "climate proof" their economies in response to economic troubles. Obama and Gordon Brown both said that millions of jobs could be created in green building, wind power, solar thermal and other green technologies.

They were backed by energy gurus such as Amory Lovins, co-director of the Rocky Mountain Institute, and environmental analyst Lester Brown, who argued that the needs to deal with both climate change and energy security have set renewable energy on a path that cannot be reversed.

The consensus is that 2008 was volatile and dangerously unpredictable. But if governments don't change, it may come to be seen as a calm before the storm.

Read more!

Japan launches first solar cargo ship

Yahoo News 19 Dec 08;

TOKYO (AFP) – The world's first cargo ship partly propelled by solar power took to the seas on Friday in Japan, aiming to cut fuel costs and carbon emissions when automakers export their products.

Auriga Leader, a freighter developed by shipping line Nippon Yusen K.K. and oil distributor Nippon Oil Corp., took off from a shipyard in the western city of Kobe, officials of the two firms said.

The huge freighter capable of carrying 6,400 automobiles is equipped with 328 solar panels at a cost of 150 million yen (1.68 million dollars), the officials said.

The ship will initially transport vehicles being sent for sale overseas by Japan's top automaker Toyota Motor Corp. The project was conceived before the global economic crisis, which has forced automakers to drastically cut production as sales dwindle.

Company officials said the 60,213-tonne, 200-metre (660-foot) long ship is the first large vessel in the world with a solar-based propulsion system. So far solar energy has been limited to supporting lighting and crew's living quarters.

The solar power system can generate 40 kilowatts, which would initially cover only 0.2 percent of the ship's energy consumption for propulsion, but company officials said they hoped to raise the ratio.

The shipping industry has come under growing pressure to take part in efforts to curb global warming, which is blamed on carbon emissions.

Estimates say maritime transport accounts for anything from 1.4 percent to 4.5 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions. But the industry remains largely unregulated due to its international nature.

Nippon Yusen, Japan's largest shipping company, has set a goal of halving its fuel consumption and carbon-dioxide emissions by 2010.

Resource-poor Japan has been looking for ways to reduce its dependency on foreign oil.

Read more!

Renewable energy law to woo investors in the Philippines

Perks like tax breaks to boost self-sufficiency in the Philippines
Alastair McIndoe, Straits Times 20 Dec 08;

MANILA: The Philippines has passed legislation to boost investment in renewable energy via tax breaks and other credits. The move is aimed at both helping the country become more energy self-sufficient and at cutting greenhouse gas emissions.

President Gloria Arroyo said the Renewable Energy Act, which she signed into law this week, was the 'first and most comprehensive renewable energy law in South-east Asia'.

Green groups agreed, saying this was a 'landmark' for the region. It took almost 20 years to get the Bill passed.

Greenpeace energy expert Amalie Obusan said she hoped Asean would be able to formulate a 'shared vision' on renewable energy and emissions reductions for its leaders' summit, to be held in Thailand in February.

The package of measures to encourage the production and consumption of renewable energy in the Philippines includes a reduced corporate tax rate of 10per cent - a third of the normal level - for power producers using renewable energy.

The Philippines is the world's second largest producer of geothermal power after the United States.

Energy experts and environmentalists say it is among the countries in the region that have the highest potential for developing renewable energy on a large scale.

'It has a particularly high potential to develop wind and solar power, which currently makes up just 1per cent of the energy mix,' said Ms Obusan.

The new measures require utilities to source a certain amount of their electricity from renewable energy sources.

Mrs Arroyo said the incentives should enable the Philippines to capture a slice of the rising global investments in renewable energy, which totalled US$71 billion (S$103 billion) last year.

'With our Renewable Energy Act, we can move aggressively to develop these resources,' she said.

'This is also timely because it mitigates climate change. All of these efforts are working to improve the overall quality of life of the Filipino people,' she added.

Among Asean's larger economies, Vietnam and the Philippines are the bloc's biggest users of renewable energy, accounting for about 22 per cent of their energy mixes, according to a report by the Asian Institute of Technology, using data from 2000.

Next comes Malaysia with 7 per cent, followed by Indonesia at 5.9 per cent, Thailand at 2.8 per cent, and zero per cent for Singapore.

The Philippines still relies heavily on coal and oil - both imported - for power, which, in roughly equal measure, together account for nearly half of the country's energy mix.

Over the years, the country has managed to substantially reduce its oil imports by developing indigenous oil and gas sources off the western island of Palawan.

Even so, US$7.5billion was spent on oil shipments last year, representing about 5per cent of the country's gross domestic product.

Mrs Arroyo has set a target for the Philippines to become 60percent self-sufficient in energy by the time her terms ends in 2010.

The reported level in 2005 was 56.6 per cent.

Read more!

Oil prices: A little pain isn't a bad thing

Tion Kwa, Straits Times 20 Dec 08;
IF YOU drive, you'll like where oil prices are hanging out these days. You might even be thinking of cranking up the air-conditioner at home. So it might seem counter- intuitive to say that under US$40 a barrel is a bad place for oil prices to stay.

But it is. It's bad for everyone. Given where demand was just six months ago, today's oil prices reflect how badly and quickly economic growth has been pummelled into nothing. If you worry about the environment, low oil prices take away all the incentives from investing in expensive alternatives. And finally, if you're an oil producer, you're not making enough to look for new oil.

Honestly, it's a good thing barrels of oil might soon trade for more money. Or at least, we should hope they do.

But it won't happen because Opec says so. Which it tried to do this week, when it announced it was cutting production by 2.2 million barrels a day. No one believed the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries when it promised to raise production when prices were high; no one believes it now when prices are low. Actually, no one knows why there's still Opec at all: It can't control its members, it can't control supply and it has no influence over prices. But that's another story.

One reason oil should be rising is that the US dollar finally is losing steam. Well, you'd think that it should. After all, the pair are supposed to move inversely to each other. Now, after the flight to the safety of US assets - more specifically, Treasury bills - during October and into late November, demand for the dollar has been quickly easing.

Yet, something odd happened. In the past few weeks when the dollar weakened, oil didn't rise. So where's the correlation?

In fact, correlations don't always match. They can change dance partners.

Sure, because oil is priced in dollars, it should be pricier if the dollar falls. But details like these aren't what investors and traders are looking at right now.

For the moment, the focus is on something more elemental: How much economic gloom is there going to be? The longer the economic slide continues, the longer will the demand for oil be depressed. The more countries slip into recession and the longer they stay there, the less people will be inclined to spend and to drive.

Now, if markets were perfect, there would be an index for all this. But markets are made of people, and people are not perfect. Perhaps that's why, despite the fact that people all over the world buy and use oil, it's only US demand, stock and draw-down levels that affect prices for everyone. Actually, it's really because the United States is the only country that keeps precise data and releases it regularly every Wednesday. It's not a perfect way to judge supply and demand. But it's the only one we have.

For the same reason, oil is looking at the US stock market for clues. Sure, the US isn't the world. But it's the most important economy. And for that matter, Wall Street isn't the American economy, either - but it's the only daily gauge of that economy. So again, it's not perfect. But it'll do.

In recent weeks, oil has been marching in step with the Dow, instead of inversely tracking the dollar. And if sentiments coming out of Wall Street hold out - that stocks have been building a bottom - then we're likely also to soon see a floor in oil prices. As long as oil doesn't decide to change dance partner again, petroleum should rise too.

The second reason oil should rise comes in two parts. First, current prices are encouraging those who can afford it to build up stock.

Next, repeated interest rate cuts in the US have made dollar financing cheaper. This lowers the carrying cost of futures contracts. Thus, oil traders will be more interested in rolling over contracts when they expire, instead of releasing the oil into the spot market.

To the extent that this happens - it's still early and this needs to be watched - it keeps out oil from the immediate- demand market. Together with support for prices that comes from stock build-up activity, this should move prices higher.

Finally, the pace of the decline in demand is apparently shrinking. That's not to say that it's a trend yet. And even farther from saying that demand is rising again. But it just might be that the really bad time from October is behind us.

Indeed, the best sign we can have of better economic conditions and future prospects would be to see oil taking a healthy leap forward of a few more bucks. Sometimes, a little pain at the petrol pump isn't a bad thing.

Read more!

Global warming causing more tropical storms: NASA

Yahoo News 19 Dec 08;

LOS ANGELES (AFP) – Global warming is increasing the frequency of extremely high clouds in the Earth's tropics that cause severe storms and rainfall, according to a NASA study released Friday.

The space agency's Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) said a study by its scientists "found a strong correlation between the frequency of these clouds and seasonal variations in the average sea surface temperature of the tropical oceans."

"For every degree Centigrade (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in average ocean surface temperature, the team observed a 45-percent increase in the frequency of the very high clouds," according to the study, recently published in Geophysical Research Letters.

"At the present rate of global warming of 0.13 degrees Celsius (0.23 degrees Fahrenheit) per decade, the team inferred the frequency of these storms can be expected to increase by six percent per decade."

JPL Senior Research Scientist Hartmut Aumann headed the study on five years of data from the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) on NASA's Aqua spacecraft, an instrument that observes climate variations.

The link between global warming and the frequency and intensity of severe storms has long been a source of speculation for climate modelers, noted the Pasadena, California-based JPL.

Read more!

Swiss glaciers 'in full retreat'

Jonathan Amos, BBC News 19 Dec 08;

Swiss glaciers are melting away at an accelerating rate and many will vanish this century if climate projections are correct, two new studies suggest.

One assessment found that some 10 cubic km of ice have been lost from 1,500 glaciers over the past nine years.

The other study, based on a sample of 30 representative glaciers, indicates the group's members are now losing a metre of thickness every year.

Both pieces of work come out of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology.

"The trend is negative, but what we see is that the trend is also steepening," said Matthias Huss from the Zurich university's Laboratory of Hydraulics, Hydrology and Glaciology.

"Glaciers are starting to lose mass increasingly fast," he told BBC News.

The retreat is being driven largely by longer melting seasons. The other key factor in glacier health - the amount of winter snowfall to replace ice melt - shows no long-term changes.

The two studies are being presented here at the American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting, the world's largest annual gathering of Earth scientists.

They are not the first to assess the status of Swiss glaciers but few others can match their scope.

Summer heatwave

In one, Daniel Farinotti and his team tried to assess the total volume of ice in Swiss glaciers -1,500 of them, from the mighty Aletschgletscher (the largest glacier in the Alps) to small ice fields that cover less than three square km.

The research used direct measurements where available, and combined this with modelling to estimate ice volumes for areas that are data-deficient.

The assessment found a total ice volume present in the Swiss Alps of about 75 cubic km by the year 1999 (a baseline for the purpose of the study). It is a bigger figure than previously thought.

"However, 1999 is quite some time ago now, so what we did was try to calculate the volume lost since this baseline; and we estimate a figure of 13% - from 1999 to today," explained Mr Farinotti.

For 2003, remembered for its strong heatwave across Europe, the team estimates that 3-4% of the volume in Switzerland at that time was lost in that one year alone.

Mr Farinotti said his study highlighted the importance of the largest glaciers as ice reservoirs: more than 80% of the total ice volume is stored in the 50 largest glaciers.

"Aletschgletscher, for example, has about 12% of the area of Swiss glaciers but it contains about a quarter of all ice that is present in Switzerland," he told BBC News.

"What really matters is how much ice we have in the big glaciers, because the small ones will disappear; that seems clear. For them, it's just a matter of years. But in glaciers like Aletsch that have a lot of ice, they will be around for decades."

The study by Mr Huss and his team takes a slightly different approach. It considers just a key group of 30 glaciers, representing all sizes, types, and locations.

Again, using a mixture of direct data and modelling, the scientists analysed the mass trends from 1900 to 2007.

Over this period, there is a significant negative trend. It is not linear, however. There are two distinct phases when glaciers gained mass, and even a phase in the 1940s when the glaciers lost mass faster than they do now.

But in general, over the period, there is a retreat; and in the last 30-50 years, the shrinkage has accelerated.

Mr Huss has applied future climate projections to the 10km-long Rhone Glacier, which in Swiss terms is mid-sized.

"Rhone Glacier will have almost gone in 100 years," said Mr Huss.

"It first retreats not very fast, until about 2050. Then, it retreats really quite fast. It means that most glaciers, the smaller ones, will have disappeared by the end of this century."

Switzerland's glaciers are iconic but their shrinkage is more than just an issue for the tourists with their cameras; their loss would have profound ecosystem and economic consequences.

"Glaciers store the water in winter and release it in the summer when it is dry and warm when there is more need for water," added Mr Huss.

"And they can also store it in the wet and cold years and release it in the hot and warm years. That's an important reservoir.

"In the south-western part of Switzerland, almost all run-off water from glaciers is temporarily stored and used for electricity production. More than half the electricity consumed in Switzerland is produced from hydropower."

The Huss-led research builds on work published in the Journal of Geophysical Research this year. The Farinotti-led research has been submitted to the Journals of Glaciology, and the Journal of Global and Planetary Change.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 19 Dec 08

Full moon madness: last low spring tide of 2008
on the Singapore Celebrates our Reefs! blog

Fishy business on Siloso
on the Lazy Lizard's Tales blog and more Siloso stories: Siloso Suntan and Siloso seagrass and sea stars

Jurong Island to expand
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Bittern but not shy
on the annotated budak blog

Chinese Pond Heron washing food before eating
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Are you a Lorax?
on the wild shores of singapore blog

"Do one thing for nature this Christmas..."
on the ashira blog

Wrap Your Christmas Gift With Cloth
on the Zero Waste Singapore blog

Read more!

Green crusader meets red tape in Singapore

He gets school children around the world to plant trees, but can’t do so in the Garden City
Esther Ng, Today Online 19 Dec 08;

FOR the past two years, Mr Mohammad Tajeran has been cycling around the world, planting trees in each country he visits, to spread the message among the young that we can save the earth from climate change.

“I especially love going to schools and talking to kids. We talk about trees and their importance in our life, and what we individually can do for our planet,” said the 32-year-old mechanical engineer from Iran who quit his job to embark on this mission in December 2006.

“Kids are our future — if they learn how to look after nature then we will have green earth and blue sky.”

But after planting 900 trees across countries such as India, Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Australia and New Zealand, Mr Tajeran has hit a roadblock in, ironically, the Garden City of Singapore.

He had planned to plant his tree at a certain primary school in the north-west of Singapore. But yesterday, he was told he could not proceed as he did not apply for permission from the Ministry of Education.

The operations manager of the school told Today that before any plant or tree could be cut down or planted, such approval was necessary.

So unless fate intervenes, it looks like Mr Tajeran would have to leave for Sarawak this Saturday without planting his tree on Singapore soil. In each country that he visits, Mr Tajeran drops by a local school and asks to plant a tree.

This approach had served him well in some countries, but not in Australia or New Zealand where regulations dictated that permission had to be sought. “Thankfully, there are people reading my blog, and somehow things worked out.”

Besides red tape, Mr Tajeran has to contend with a limited purse — he set out with only US$300 ($430), relying on the kindness of strangers to sponsor trees, lodging, food and airfare.

“Getting food and lodging is not a problem. All you have to do is ask, and people will give,” said the Iranian who is staying with a Singaporean here.

Speech therapist Zunaida Rashid said she opened her home to him on account of her good friend in Adelaide, who had called and asked if she would offer her “couch to a total stranger”. She added: “Like most Singaporeans, I was a little bit cynical, but I couldn’t say no to a good friend.”

Most of Mr Tajeran’s accommodation in Australia was found on website www.couchsurfing.com, a Web listing of people offering their homes to host travellers.

Raising money for airfare and visas is tougher, but he gets help by chronicling his adventures and appealing for funds on his blog.

“Sure, I get a little worried when I’m low on finances, but somehow the money comes through. Everywhere I’ve been to, the people are amazing.”

The avid outdoorsman leaves for Sarawak and Sabah on Saturday, then heads to China and South Korea.

He hopes to get a visa to Japan and Canada, and reckons that within five to seven years, he should be able to complete his journey round the world.

Read more!

World Bank to spread Singapore success globally

MOU will allow it to tap Republic's expertise in tackling urban problems
Robin Chan & Fiona Chan, Straits Times 19 Dec 08'

THE efficient e-government services or the neatly planned roads and buildings Singapore calls its own could become a benchmark for other cities across the world.

Under a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed with the World Bank at the Foreign Ministry yesterday, public servants here will be roped in to advise countries struggling with urban problems like water management and overcrowding.

Nine bodies will be involved, including the Economic Development Board, the National Environment Agency, the Public Utilities Board and the Urban Redevelopment Authority as well as the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

World Bank president Robert Zoellick, in town on a one-day visit, said that Singapore's unique development experience can be of great value to the developing world. 'Connecting this knowledge with the World Bank Group's development operations in East Asia and around the world creates a vital source of relevant and tested expertise that can benefit many countries,' he said.

Developing countries, most notably China, are facing large-scale challenges as millions of people move from rural areas to the cities.

'Countries across the world are struggling with the sheer scale of the urban challenge before them,' said Mr Zoellick.The challenge is for governments to find 'sensible solutions' to managing the increased demand for land, water, and jobs while ensuring that the cities remain 'liveable and socially cohesive', he added.

Foreign Minister George Yeo acknowledged that the agreement was needed now: 'This is something which meets the needs of the times. Asia is urbanising on a scale and speed never seen before.'

At first glance, rural-urban migration might not seem a problem with a Singapore solution, but the World Bank wants to tap the country's experience in dealing with urban issues, education and public administration systems. It believes that those skills combined with its own in areas of global development and operational experience can make an impact.

The bank commented in a 1993 report that Singapore was one of East Asia's 'miracle' economies, having rapidly transformed itself from a Third World to First World nation.

Mr Yeo noted that when Singapore first started developing, the Government was not thinking about larger lessons.

'We were just being practical, having to squeeze a lot into a small space, feeling our way into the future by practice, by responding to the pressures of necessity.'

He said there was now great interest in applying the Republic's methods on a wider scale and the World Bank's resources can facilitate that process.

Singapore and the World Bank will collaborate though various means. These include capacity-building programmes with training courses, study visits and workshops, seconding local experts to the bank and developing joint projects.

Mr Zoellick said the initiatives will be focused on Asia first, possibly China and some countries in South-east Asia.

The new partnership - called the World Bank-Singapore Urban Hub - will make it easier to provide advice and technical assistance on vital issues such as managing waste and water, financing urban infrastructure and urban planning.

Work through the partnership is already underway with a civil service development project for Laos. The agreement will also see more cooperation between the International Finance Corporation, the World Bank's private sector arm, and Singapore-based companies.

Mr Zoellick said: 'Whether the issue be public administration, or water policy, or transportation, or green areas and ecological dimensions, there's a tremendous amount that we can draw from the Singapore experience.'

World Bank, Singapore to set up Urban Hub to help developing countries
By Wong Siew Ying, Channel NewsAsia 18 Dec 08;

SINGAPORE : Singapore and the World Bank have joined hands to provide development assistance to emerging economies.

The World Bank has set aside a few million dollars to fund programmes under the Urban Hub, to be set up in Singapore.

Across the world, hundreds of millions of people are moving from rural areas to the cities, and this will put stress on resources. The World Bank said governments have to find sensible solutions to manage demand for land, water and jobs.

From February, the team will embark on civil service development project with the government in Laos.

Singapore, through the Singapore Cooperation Enterprise (SCE), has embarked on a public finance modernisation and governance programme in Laos, while Temasek Foundation and the World Bank Laos Office will jointly fund a capacity building programme involving the national tax, treasury and customs departments of Laos' Ministry of Finance.

"Whether the issue be public administration, whether it be water policy or transportation, or green areas and ecological dimensions, there is a tremendous amount we can draw from the Singapore experience," said World Bank's President Robert Zoellick.

Singapore's Foreign Affairs Minister George Yeo said: "What we do here cannot be applicable to larger nations... But for municipal management, urban planning and design, traffic control, pollution control, greenery, there are some things which we do here which we are quite happy to share with others."

Other areas of cooperation include environment, education, governance and training projects in the East Asia and Pacific region.

After signing the agreement with the city-state to expand cooperation on urban management on Thursday, Mr Zoellick called on Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong. While at the Istana, he also called on Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong and Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew.

During the meetings, the leaders discussed the impact of the financial crisis, the responses of different governments and the World Bank's role in Asia.

They also discussed how the World Bank can leverage on Singapore's developmental experience to produce joint capacity-building initiatives for the region and beyond. - CNA /ls

Read more!

Shrimp farms hurt mangroves, fishermen in Indonesia

The Jakarta Post 19 Dec 08;

The rapid expansion of traditional shrimp farms in Lampung has not only damaged mangrove swamps but forced local fishermen to seek their catch in the open sea due to the scarcity of fish along the coastline.

"Since the coast is now teeming with shrimp farms, it is difficult to find fish because they have migrated to the open ocean. Lampung Bay is also full of chemical waste dumped by the traditional shrimp farmers. We have to sail out to the Indian Ocean and face large waves," said Sukarja, 50, a fisherman from Punduh Pidada, South Lampung.

Another problem facing fishermen is an increasing need for fuel due to the greater distances they must travel.

"Diesel is costly. Many fishermen have shifted professions and become laborers and pedicab drivers. If we force ourselves to find fish, we incur losses because our earnings cannot match operational costs. Hundreds of fishermen have stopped going out to sea and shifted jobs," said Sukarja.

Besides the growing number of shrimp farms along the coast, the Lampung Bay area has been reclaimed in the past five years to make way for a city development project on the waterfront.

"The reclamation project has also affected us because we can no longer seek fish along the coast. Many traditional shrimp farmers have also converted mangrove swamps into ponds. To make matters worse, they dump chemical waste into the sea," said Sukarja.

Herza Yulianto, director of the Mitra Bentala environmental group, said the use of chemicals to maintain the acidity level of sea water was to blame for the damage to marine life, such as coral reefs and fish.

The damage to the marine environment has threatened the existence of established resources in Lampung Bay, known for its ideal snorkeling and diving.

"Mangrove logging has not only taken place in the Lampung Bay area, but virtually every coastal area in Lampung, thus receding the coastline at an average of 500 meters," said Herza.

Lampung is home to 69 large and smaller islands, and its coastline stretches 1,105 kilometers, making it the longest in Sumatra.

Traditional shrimp farms have been expanding along Lampung's coastline at an alarming rate over the past five years. The impact has not only depleted mangrove forests but farmers have also converted their farmland areas into shrimp ponds.

Consequently, farmers in a number of districts in South Lampung often experience harvest failure due to leeching from nearby damaged mangrove swamps.

Suparno, 50, a resident from Bandaragung village, South Lampung, said mangrove swamps once spanned more than three kilometers along the coast about a decade ago.

"Mangrove areas have become sparse in the past five years because they have been cleared by outsiders. As a result, seawater seeps into our farms," said Suparno.

"We are forced to convert our farms into shrimp ponds. Now, 90 percent of the farmland here has been converted," he said.

Data from the Lampung branch of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) indicates that 70 percent of mangrove forests in Lampung have been damaged as a result of shrimp farming. Of the total 160,000 hectares of mangroves, 136,000 are considered damaged.

The worst-hit areas are in the traditional shrimp farming regions in the South and East Lampung regencies, where mangrove trees have been unnecessarily cleared to open shrimp farms and build squatter accommodation.

The mangrove forests in Ketapang and Sragi districts in South Lampung, and Pasir Sakti and Kuala Penet in East Lampung, which once spanned 100 and 300 meters from the coastline a year ago, are now virtually barren, ranging less than 10 meters.

In South Lampung's coastal areas, remnants of mangrove stubs can still be seen. The area has now overrun by shrimp farmers from Banten, West Java, and Central Java.

Data from the Lampung Fisheries and Maritime Affairs Office shows there are 1.9 million hectares of mangrove forests along the Lampung coast. Data from the Fishery Office suggests as much as 736,000 ha, or 60 percent, have been severely damaged.

Lampung Walhi director Hendrawan said the destruction of the mangroves had not exclusively been caused by the expansion of shrimp farms, but was also due to the lack of willingness on the part of the provincial administration to maintain their existence.

"The central government has distributed tens of billions of rupiah to the cause, but nothing has come of it. Environment groups and the local community have however expressed interest in regenerating the area," said Hendrawan.

-- JP/Oyos Saroso H.N.

Read more!

A Corner of Indonesia, Sinking in a Sea of Mud

Seth Mydans, The New York Times 18 Dec 08;

RENOKENONGO, Indonesia — Her children insist, so every week or two Lilik Kamina takes them back to their abandoned village to look at the mud.

“Hey, Mom, there’s our house, there’s the mango tree,” she said they shout. But there is nothing to see, only an ocean of mud that has buried this village and a dozen more over the past two-and-a-half years.

The mud erupted here during exploratory drilling for natural gas, and it has grown to be one of the largest mud volcanoes ever to have affected a populated area. Unlike other disasters that torment Indonesia — earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis — this one continues with no end in sight, and experts say the flow of mud could go on for many years or decades.

The steaming mud keeps bubbling up, spreading across the countryside, driving people from their homes, burying fields and factories. It has forced the relocation of roads, bridges, a railway line and a major gas pipeline.

As the earth disgorges the mud and the lake of mud grows, the land is sinking by as much as 40 feet a year and could subside to depths of more than 460 feet just one hour’s drive from Indonesia’s second city, Surabaya, according to Richard Davies, a geologist at Durham University in Britain who is an expert on mud volcanoes.

Siti Maimunah, an environmental advocate, said people who lived nearby had begun getting sick, with about 46,000 visiting clinics with respiratory problems since the mud eruption.

Ms. Siti, who is national coordinator for the Mining Advocacy Network of Indonesia, said the gas that emerged with the mud was toxic and possibly carcinogenic. “We worry that in the next 5 to 10 years people will face a second disaster with health problems,” she said.

Attempts to stem the flow have failed.

These have included a scheme to drop hundreds of giant concrete balls into the mouth of the eruption; the concrete balls simply disappeared without effect. A project to divert some of the mud into the nearby Porong River has raised fears that the buildup of silt on the riverbed could cause severe flooding, possibly in Surabaya itself.

The disaster has become an embarrassment to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who faces a new election next year, with groups of displaced people demonstrating in the distant capital, Jakarta.

The drilling company that critics say caused the disaster, Lapindo Brantas, is indirectly owned by the family of one of Indonesia’s richest and most influential men, Aburizal Bakrie, who is a major financial backer of President Yudhoyono and serves in his cabinet as coordinating minister for the people’s welfare.

The victims say compensation has been slow, with only a portion of promised funds delivered to them. Sixty-thousand people have fled their homes and many, like Ms. Lilik, now live in nearby shelters and in a marketplace.

This is a particularly forlorn class of displaced people who mostly fend for themselves because, as victims of what is being called a man-made disaster, they receive little assistance from the government or from international aid agencies.

“So we live without hope,” said Ali Mursjid, 25, who was in college studying to be a teacher before the mud volcano made him destitute. “Nobody is willing to help us.”

His village, Besuki, was only partly buried in mud, and it is now a ghost town of empty houses and hard, cracked mud where children fly kites and shout to hear their voices echo.

The steaming mud erupted from the ground on May 29, 2006, as Lapindo Brantas was drilling near the industrial district of Sidoarjo. Its tunnel pierced a pressurized aquifer 9,000 feet underground.

Experts on mud volcanoes say the drilling and inadequate safeguards in the borehole set off the eruption of water, gas and mud that continues to flow, at about 100,000 cubic meters a day.

Lapindo says that it was itself a victim, blaming vibrations from a major earthquake that struck two days earlier with an epicenter 186 miles away.

After listening to new evidence about the eruption, 74 petroleum geologists attending an October conference in Cape Town concluded that the drilling had been the cause.

“There is no question, the pressures in the well went way beyond what it could tolerate — and it triggered the mud volcano,” said Susila Lusiaga, a drilling engineer who was part of the Indonesian investigation team, according to a report on the conference by Durham University.

The debate over responsibility has severely limited the payments, said Elfian Effendi, executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, an environmental advocacy group.

After paying out 20 percent of a promised compensation package, Lapindo agreed this month to begin monthly payments equal to $2,500 to 8,000 families it said were eligible. But as part of the Bakrie family holdings, Lapindo has been severely affected by the current economic downturn and some experts question whether the full amount will ever be paid.

Since the first eruption in May 2006, there have been more than 90 others, most of them small but some explosive, said Jim Schiller, a political scientist at Flinders University in Adelaide, Australia, who has published a study of the disaster.

He described what he called the horror-movie progress of the mud, which continues to burst from the ground at unexpected times and places. “I’ve got pictures of them popping up in people’s living rooms,” he said.

The village of Renokenongo was buried during the biggest of these eruptions, in November 2007, when the weight of sinking earth burst a major natural-gas pipeline, killing 13 workers and sending a fireball into the sky.

Ms. Lilik, 30, who teaches kindergarten, said the visits to the levee by her former village calm her children, Icha Noviyanti, 11, and Fiqhi Izzudin, 5.

“People say it’s not a good idea to take the children there, but I think the opposite,” she said. “I think it’s very important for them to see their home and express their anger. They throw rocks at the mud and shout, ‘Lapindo!’ ”

Read more!