East Kalimantan Has March Deadline on Trawling Regulations

Jakarta Globe 11 Jan 09;

The East Kalimantan provincial government has until March to issue regulations related to the central government’s controversial decision to lift a ban on trawling by commercial fishing vessels, said Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi on Friday.

“If we don’t see any progress by March, the decision to allow trawling will automatically become void,” Numberi in an interview with the Jakarta Globe.

A total of 1,299 vessels weighing as much as 30 gross tons each will be able to legally start trawling the waters off East Kalimantan Province as soon as the provincial government issues regulations.

A regulatory framework is key to ensuring that the provincial government effectively mitigates the social and environmental impacts of trawling, Numberi said.

Critics fear that trawling could lead to overfishing and hurt the livelihoods of thousands of traditional, small-scale fishermen struggling to make a living off the sea. Trawl nets have also come under fire from environmentalists due to the damage they can cause to the sea floor and the fact that they often snare both marketable and non-marketable fish, with the latter being dumped.

The provincial government needs to convince the ministry that it is legally prepared to protect the environment and safeguard the interests of small-scale fishermen.

The government is concerned that commercial fishing operations in Malaysia will use fishermen in East Kalimantan to secretly trawl in Indonesian waters on their behalf.

“There have been fears that trawling will only benefit vessels based in Malaysia, so we need to see regulations at the regional level to help allay these concerns,” Numberi said.

Numberi said in April that a licensing system was needed to prevent illegal fishing by large Malaysian vessels in Indonesian waters.

“Malaysian vessels have an advantage in fishing our waters because they are equipped with trawl nets for deep-sea fishing, which our vessels lack,” he said.

Suhana, a marine biologist at the Bogor Institute of Agriculture, or IPB, said small-scale fishermen cannot use trawl nets because their boats — which typically weigh a maximum of five gross tons in size — are too small to trawl. Usually, trawling vessels must be at 10 gross tons in size.

This is why the government needs to offer another justification for the lifting of the trawling ban, because trawling will not benefit small-scale fishermen, Suhana said.

“It’s impossible for small fishermen to trawl,” Suhana said. “An individual fishermen would need to spend at least Rp 100 million ($9,200) on average to obtain trawling equipment, which is well beyond the means of traditional fishermen.”

Maritime patrols are also necessary to monitor trawling in East Kalimantan. Aji Sularso, the ministry’s general director on the supervision of maritime resources, said the government provided the ministry with only Rp 73 billion from the 2008 state budget for patrols.

This was only enough to patrol coastal waters for 100 days last year, Aji said, leading to illegal fishing in the Natuna and Maluku regions.

“Ideally, we should be monitoring those waters at least 200 days a year,” he said.

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Cat eradication on remote Macquarie Island causes fails to help native species say scientists

A programme to eradicate cats in order to save birds on the remote Macquarie Island in the Southern Ocean has resulted in an explosion in rabbit numbers and destruction of native plantlife, scientists have warned.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 11 Jan 09;

Cats were removed by conservationists from the sub-Antarctic island from the 1980s in order to save native burrowing birds.

But a new report has found the resulting problem with rabbits has caused damage to plantlife that will cost £11 million to repair.

The scientists are now warning that measures to control invasive species, such as the programmes to control hedgehogs, rats and grey squirrels in the UK, must carefully consider the effect on other species.

Finch Creek on sub-Antartic Macquarie Island. Rabbits have stripped 40% of the island bare of vegetation, scientists say. Photograph: /Australian Antarctic Division

Cats were brought to Macquarie Island by sailors in the 19th Century, where they lived off rabbits that were also introduced.

But after the virus myxomatosis wiped out the rabbit population in the 1970s, the cats turned to killing native burrowing birds on the island.

Conservationists intervened with a cat eradication programme in the late 1980s to save the endangered bird species on the World Heritage Island.

However a new study by the University of Tasmania and Stellenbosch University found this has led to an explosion in the rabbit population, which is killing native plantlife and will cost more than £11 (A$24) million to repair.

A report in the British Ecological Society's Journal of Applied Ecology warns conservation agencies worldwide must learn important lessons from what happened on Macquarie Island, which lies around halfway between Australia and the Antarctic continent.

Dr Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division, one of the authors of the study, said conservation agencies must learn from the experiences on the island to balance the affects of removing alien species.

She said: "Our study shows that between 2000 and 2007 there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised. The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs."

Macquarie Island faces 'ecosystem meltdown' after conservation efforts backfire
Attempts by conservationists to eradicate cats in order to save birds on the sub-Antarctic island has caused an explosion in the rabbit population and damage to plantlife that will cost £11m to repair, scientists say

David Adam, guardian.co.uk 12 Jan 09;

It is a cautionary tale of recklessness, good intentions and the ecological mayhem that can result when people interfere with the delicate balance of Mother Nature: scientists today catalogued the unfortunate series of biological events caused by human meddling and alien species that has devastated the once pristine sub-Antarctic Macquarie Island.

Lessons must be learnt on all sides, the scientists say, because well-intentioned attempts by conservation experts to fix the island have so far made the situation worse. Life across almost half the island, a World Heritage site, has been affected, and experts are now weighing up a £11m rescue plan.

Dana Bergstrom, of the Australian Antarctic Division said: "The big lesson is to question all assumptions made in managing and removing alien species from special areas, because there could be unintended consequences."

Things began to go wrong on Macquarie Island, halfway between Australia and Antarctica, soon after it was discovered in 1810. The island's fur seals, elephant seals and penguins were killed for fur and blubber, but it was the rats and mice that jumped from the sealing ships that started the problem. Cats were quickly introduced to keep the rodents from precious food stores. Rabbits followed some 60 years later, as part of a tradition to leave the animals on islands to give shipwrecked sailors something to eat.

Given easy prey, cats feasted on the hapless rabbits and feline numbers quickly grew. The island then lost two endemic flightless birds, a rail and a parakeet. Meanwhile, the rabbits bred rapidly and nibbled the island's precious vegetation.

By the 1970s, some 130,000 rabbits were causing so much damage that the notorious disease myxomatosis was the latest foreign body introduced to Macquarie, which took the rabbit population down to under 20,000 within a decade.

"The island's vegetation then began to recover," Bergstrom says.

But what was good for the vegetation proved bad for the island's wildlife. With fewer rabbits around, the established cats turned instead to local burrowing birds. By 1985, conservationists deemed it necessary to shoot the cats.

The last cat was killed in 2000, but the conservationists were horrified to see rabbit populations soar. Myxomatosis failed to keep numbers down, and the newly strong rabbit population quickly reversed decades of vegetation recovery. In 2006, the resurgent rabbits were even blamed for a massive landslip that wiped out much of an important penguin colony.

Writing in the Journal of Applied Ecology, Bergstrom's team describes how the rabbits have now stripped some 40% of the island bare. "When rabbits first move into coastal areas, the lush slopes are often turned into bare earth," she says. "Often a weed grass called Poa annua establishes, and the bare areas then turn into what looks like nicely mowed golf courses, mowed by rabbits."

The scientists say the chain of events at Macquarie is a rare example of a "trophic cascade", the knock-on effects of changes in one species abundance. The next stage could be an "ecosystem meltdown".

The Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service intends to fix the island once and for all, and has drawn up plans to eradicate all 130,000 rabbits, along with the estimated 36,000 rats and 103,000 mice that live there.

The move could yet provoke more unexpected side effects, Bergstrom says. "This is the largest island on which this type of eradication program will have been attempted."

Removing species from sub-Antarctic island 'caused disaster'
Yahoo News 12 Jan 09;

PARIS (AFP) – Efforts to remove an invasive species from a sub-Antarctic island that has been named a World Heritage site accidentally triggered an environmental catastrophe, a study to be published on Tuesday says.

The eradication programme on Macquarie Island, lying halfway between Australia and Antarctica, is a cautionary tale about the complex web of ecosystems, its authors say.

In the early 19th century, cats were introduced to Macquarie Island, where they swiftly became feral.

In 1878, rabbits were brought in by seal hunters, according to the paper, which appears on Tuesday in the Journal of Applied Ecology, published by the British Ecological Society.

By the late 1960s, the rabbit population had become so large, and so destructive of vegetation, that the Australian authorities used the Myxoma virus -- which causes the disease myxamotosis among rabbits -- to control their numbers.

As a result, the rabbits dwindled, from a peak of 130,000 in 1978 to 20,000 in the 1980s, and the vegetation recovered.

The downside: the cats, which had been tucking into the rabbits for food, turned to Macquarie's native burrowing birds for sustenance.

Fearing that the birds would get wiped out, the authorities returned to the island in 1985 to launch a cat eradication programme.

The cats were all killed in 2000, but myxamotosis had failed to do the same to the rabbits. Without their feline predators, the rabbit population surged anew and in just half a dozen years has inflicted enormous damage, in some places stripping the ground bare.

In ecologists' terms, this is an example of "trophic cascades" -- when a species' abundance is significantly reduced or increased, the change resonates along the food chain.

"Between 2000 and 2007 there has been widespread ecosystem devastation and decades of conservation effort compromised," said lead author Dana Bergstrom of the Australian Antarctic Division.

"The lessons for conservation agencies globally is that interventions should be comprehensive, and include risk assessments to explicitly consider and plan for indirect effects, or face substantial subsequent costs."

To fix the problems on Macquarie Island will cost around 24 million Australian dollars (17 million dollars, 12.6 million euros), the authors estimate.

Macquarie is a long, narrow island 34 kilometres (21.25 miles) long by five kms (3.1 miles) wide with tundra-like vegetation that grows in its cool, maritime climate, as well as large numbers of birds, seals and penguins. The island was declared a wildlife sanctuary in 1933.

It was named a World Heritage Site in 1997 because it is geologically unique: it is the only place where rocks from Earth's mantle, some six kilometers (3.75 miles) below the ocean floor, are directly exposed above sea level.

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Rainforest loss may have been overstated, scientists

Evidence rainforests regenerate after logging is causing a row in the scientific world with some experts claiming fewer species will go extinct.

Louise Gray, The Telegraph 11 Jan 09;

Satellite data to be debated by top scientists show huge tracts of abandoned tropical forests that were once logged or farmed are regrowing.

Some researchers contend that this process has been inadequately factored into estimates of future species loss – but others maintain that only 50 to 80 per cent of plant species may return to logged or altered forests.

Scientists meeting at the National Museum of Natural History in Washington are debating extinction rates in the tropics.

Conservationists argue that the loss of the rainforests due to logging, climate change and other factors, is fuelling catastrophic rates of extinction – despite the evidence of rainforest regrowth in many places.

However Joseph Wright of the Panama-based Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute has pointed out that the tropics now have more protected land than North America, Europe or Japan.

In a 2006 study he asserted that "large areas of tropical forest cover will remain in 2030 and beyond.... We believe that the area covered by tropical forest will never fall to the exceedingly low levels that are often predicted and that extinction will threaten a smaller proportion of tropical forest species than previously predicted."

Cristian Samper, director of the National Museum of Natural History, who will preside at the event, said: "By bringing together the world's foremost authorities on different aspects of rainforest science, we hope to achieve new insights into a situation with potentially profound implications for all species, ours included."

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Amazon Deforestation: Earth's Heart and Lungs Dismembered

Matthew Cimitile, Michigan State University
LiveScience.com 10 Jan 09;

This Behind the Scenes article was provided to LiveScience in partnership with the National Science Foundation.

Splintered, charred wood litters the outskirts of an expansive ranch that lies on recently cleared land in the Brazilian Amazon. On the newly planted pasture, cattle leisurely graze, occasionally lifting their heads to gaze past heaps of dead trees towards an island of dense vegetation that has thus far been spared. But it too may soon be cut down.

Such scenes are becoming increasingly common as large swaths of the Brazilian Amazon are being bulldozed and burned to accommodate expanding cattle ranches. Deforestation, which is dismembering the Earth's functional heart and lungs, is largely resulting from cattle ranching driven by economic incentives and demand for Brazilian beef, according to the Center for International Forestry Research.

"Probably 80 to 90 percent of all cleared land in the region (the Brazilian Amazon) is attributable to some form of pasture or ranching," said Robert Walker, a geography professor at Michigan State University and an expert on land-use change in the Brazilian Amazon.

Deforestation is accelerating

Brazil has historically had the distinction of serving as the world's leader of deforestation. According to Walker, during the last three decades, an annual average of 6,500 square miles of the Brazilian Amazon - an area that is greater than the size of Connecticut - has been deforested.

Satellite data indicates that the rate of Amazonian deforestation is accelerating; in some areas, the rate increased by 50 percent since last year. And with over 20 million people and 70 million cattle now inhabiting the Amazon, about a 600 percent increase in the last 60 years, more trees are being razed to make room for cattle ranches, said Walker.

Small-scale ranchers - including poor, subsistence farmers - encroach on forests gradually, felling trees and creating modestly sized pastures in a piecemeal fashion. By contrast, larger land owners use tractors and bulldozers to quickly mow down vast tracts of forest, and then burn remaining vegetation to establish huge ranches. Either way, the landscape ends up fragmented and ecologically devastated.

Ground zero for global extinction

As the world's largest tropical rainforest, the Amazon houses the world's largest collection of living species of plants and animals. It also plays a significant role in stabilizing local climate and may provide the raw materials to cures for some of the world's deadliest diseases.

But deforestation has transformed the Amazon into ground zero for global extinction. In addition, burning and rotting trees release carbon dioxide, which contributes greatly to climate change.

"Brazil overall is the fifth or sixth largest emitter of carbon dioxide and by far the most important source is deforestation," said Eugenio Arima, an assistant professor of environmental studies at Hobart and William Smith Colleges and a former conservation and development researcher at the Brazilian nonprofit institute Imazon.

The cattle economy

With support from the National Science Foundation, Walker and Arima are currently researching Brazil's dynamic cattle economy; their research is exposing links between globalization and deforestation.

According to Walker and Arima's research, reduced transportation costs from the construction of highways in the Amazon, together with the rise in beef prices, provided economic incentives to increase cattle grazing in the region. In addition, the devaluation of the Brazilian real decreased the costs of importing beef from Brazil, and efforts to reduce foot-and-mouth disease - a devastating, contagious virus in cattle - helped open new worldwide markets.

"It was like the perfect storm for demand," said Walker. Responding to resulting increases in demand for beef, slaughterhouses proliferated throughout the Brazilian Amazon. These establishments acquire cattle from ranches, process the meat, and in some cases, export the produce directly to international consumers.

Today, Brazil is the world's biggest beef exporter, said Arima. While only 10 percent of Brazil's beef exports were supplied by the Amazon in 2005, that figure doubled by 2006 and is continuing to increase. Major markets for Brazilian beef currently include Latin America, the European Union, Russia, the Middle East and China. (The United States does not import Brazilian beef because it has its own large domestic cattle herds and because it prohibits the importation of beef from countries where foot-and-mouth disease has not been certified free in all sections, said Walker.)

Like the U.S.'s westward expansion

Cattle ranches will continue to replace forests in Brazil's Amazon as long as global demand for Brazilian beef and the profitability of cattle ranching persist. What's more, ongoing increases in global demand for soy and biofuels may convert former pastures to agriculture, pushing ranchers farther into the forest, explained Arima.

The population and cattle migration into the Brazilian Amazon resembles the westward expansion across the United States in the 19th century; "Brazil's Manifest Destiny," said Walker. The Brazilian government has promoted the development of the Amazon by sponsoring economic development programs, population relocation programs and the construction of dams, highways and a natural gas pipeline in the Brazilian Amazon.

Nevertheless, the Brazilian government is also heeding some of the lessons made apparent by America's destruction of its own forests. During the last ten years, the Brazilian government has pursued aggressive policies on the designation of protected areas and on curbing encroachment in the Brazilian Amazon.

These policies have helped protect vast tracts of land that were previously up for grabs to whoever claimed them. In addition, enforcement of protections, particularly in indigenous reserves, has improved, said Arima.

Domestic and global forces will continue to drive both development and conservation in the Brazilian Amazon. Its now a question of how much of each will occur. "It's a two edge sword in that there is this tremendous ecosystem that is largely intact but underneath that ecosystem and within it there are riches that could be of great benefit to individuals and larger groups," explained Walker. "If you are in Brazil long enough you will see it both ways."

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Massive Greenland meltdown? Not so fast, say scientists

Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 11 Jan 09;

PARIS (AFP) – The recent acceleration of glacier melt-off in Greenland, which some scientists fear could dramatically raise sea levels, may only be a temporary phenomenon, according to a study published Sunday.

Researchers in Britain and the United States devised computer models to test three scenarios that could account for rapid -- by the standards applied to glaciers -- loss of mass from the Helheim Glacier, one of Greenland's largest.

Two were based on changes caused directly by global warming: an increase in the amount of water that greases the underbelly of the glacier as it slides toward the sea, and a general thinning due to melting.

If confirmed, either of these explanations would point to a sustained increase in runoff over the coming decades, fueling speculation that sea level could rise faster and higher than once thought.

The stakes are enormous: the rate at which the global ocean water mark rises could have a devastating impact on hundreds of millions of people living in low-lying areas around the world.

But a team led by Andreas Vieli and Faezeh Nick of Durham University in Britain found that neither of these scenarios matched the data.

"They simply don't fit what we have observed," said Vieli in an interview.

By contrast, the third computer model -- which hypothesised that melt-off was triggered by changing conditions in the confined area where the glacier meets the sea -- fit like a glove, he said.

"Whatever happens at the terminus provokes a strong and rapid reaction in the rest of the glacier. The result has been a significant loss of mass" as huge chunks of ice drop into the ocean, a process known as calving, Vieli explained.

These changes are also set in motion by global warming, but are not likely to last, he said.

"You cannot maintain these very high rates of peak mass loss for very long. The glaciers start to retreat and settle into a new an relatively stable state," he said.

The Helheim Glacier, along with several others in Greenland, started to slow down in 2007.

Vieli also noted that the data alarming the scientific community only covers a span of a few years. It may be ill-advised, he suggested, to project a trend on the basis of what may turn out to be a short-term phenomenon.

The UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicted in 2007 that sea levels could creep up by 18 to 59 centimetres (7.2 to 23.2 inches) by 2100 due to thermal expansion driven by global warming.

Such an increase would be enough to wipe out several small island nations and seriously disrupt mega-deltas home in Asia and Africa.

But IPCC failed to take into account recent studies on the observed and potential impact of the melting ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, prompting the Nobel-winning body to later remove the upward bracket from its end-of-century forecast.

A new consensus has formed among experts that levels could rise by a metre or more by 2100, according to Mark Serreze of the National Now and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorodo.

"What has puzzled us is that the changes are even faster than we would have though possible," he said in a recent interview.

Vieli cautioned that his findings, published in Nature Geoscience, are narrowly focused on one glacier, and that sea levels could still rise higher than the IPCC's original projections.

Other Greenland glaciers behave differently, and the dynamics of the Antarctic ice sheet are still poorly understood, he noted.

Nor should the new study "be taken out of context to suggest that climate change is not a serious threat -- it is," he added.

The ice sitting atop Greenland could lift oceans by seven metres, though even the gloomiest of climate change projections do not include such a scenario.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 11 Jan 09

Last Centurion of Ubin passes away
on the Pulau Ubin Stories blog

Job opening at the new NUS Office of Environmental Sustainability
on the Midnight Monkey Monitor blog

Chek Jawa with TeamSeagrass
on the teamseagrass blog and a review of how Chek Jawa is doing the cj project blog with special sea star on the wonderful creations blog and a tiny anemone spotted on the colourful clouds blog and video clip of a humungous mud crab on the sgbeachbum blog and more on the wild shores of singapore blog.

I'm a Team Seagrass Noobie!
on the Psychedelic Nature blog

Discover Camouflage @ Semakau
on the discovery blog

Life History of the Common Mime
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog

Disappearing fish and prawns in Malaysia
on the wild shores of singapore blog

Read more!

We are landing fewer fish: Malaysian fishermen

The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

Fishermen are warning that how you would like your fish cooked might soon be the least of your concerns, but whether you can have any at all, write ELIZABETH JOHN, AHMAD FAIRUZ OTHMAN and MELISSA DARLYNE CHOW

KUALA LUMPUR: Hundreds of coastal fishermen struggling to fill their nets have this stark warning to the government: address pollution, mangrove loss and destructive fishing methods or coastal fisheries that supplies over half the fish sold in markets today will end.

Two major groups of fishermen sent a memorandum to the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry in November, along with a list of fish that they say are becoming scarce. It includes several varieties of shark, rays, groupers and popular threadfins like senangin and kurau.

Their woes mirror worrying trends that researchers and fisheries experts have been highlighting in recent years.

An Asia-wide study by the World Fish Centre and Fisheries Research Institutes of Malaysia among others, found that over a 20-year period since 1971, the total biomass of fish at shallow depths along the west coast of Peninsular Malaysia has plunged by about 90 per cent.

When scientists calculate biomass, they are estimating the abundance of fish at a place and time in terms of weight. Large declines were also recorded in the east coast and Sarawak.

According to the study published in the journal Fisheries Research in 2006, the most affected species in Malaysia are those that dwell close to the seabed like red snapper, grouper and shrimp.

Another study by fisheries consultants Sea Resources Management, based on the Fisheries Department's data between 2000 and 2006, also showed noticeable declines in fish catches in the east coast.

The yellowtail scad or ikan pelata was an example of a potential crash in a fish population.

In Kelantan, for instance, the pelata catch in 2000 stood at 1,621 tonnes. In 2005 and 2006, it nosedived to just one tonne, said the study.

The pelata bulat, pelata bali and pelata sela are also on the list sent to the ministry and memorandum were jointly prepared by Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (PIFWA), the Malaysian Inshore Fishermen Action Network (Jaring) and Sahabat Alam Malaysia.

The groups call for an end to policies that push inshore fishermen towards deep-sea fishing and aquaculture.

Instead, the groups ask the government to focus on halting the destruction of mangrove ecosystems, which fishermen depend on for their livelihood, for development and aquaculture projects.

The memo cites Penaga, Pulau Pinang and Bagan Datoh in Perak as instances where fishermen's incomes dropped after vast tracts of mangroves were cleared for aquaculture and pollution from pond waste found its way into the sea.

Their concerns about the environment were backed by the 2006 study which highlighted siltation from land development as one of several serious issues in the coastal zone. The study also noted excessive heavy metal pollution in the areas studied in Malaysia.

Fishermen also want the government to look into their welfare, including the difficulty older fishermen faced in getting loans or making payments.

Other issues they raised included destructive and illegal fishing methods, red tape and political interference in the issuance of fishing licences.

Many have given up on the sea
The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

ASK any fisherman in Kampung Serkat, Pontian and he will tell you how hard it is to get by these days.

The frustration on fishermen's faces say all there is to say about the empty nets and their struggle to get by on less in Johor's south western coast.

Fisherman Johari Hamid, of Kampung Serkat Laut caught barely 2kg of prawns and ikan tebal pipi (common javelin fish) after six hours at sea.

"The waters used to teem with the fish, now we are lucky to return with 500g of fish."

It's giving them sleepless nights, says Jamaluddin Mohamad, a fishermen and president of Malaysian Inshore Fishermen Action Network (Jaring), a national inshore fishermen's action group.

Previously kurau, tenggiri and parang were plentiful along the coast of Pontian, he said, but not anymore. Inshore fishermen are catching only a fifth of what they used to catch a decade ago.

They blame the declining catch on development and trawlers that encroach into their fishing zone, netting all the fish and leaving them little.

They are also unhappy about the conversion of coastal mangrove forests and the impact of effluents from the port and the petrochemical plant in nearby Tanjung Bin on marine life.

Pontian fishermen also share their crowded waterway with giant cargo ships.

Ships plying the Straits of Malacca navigate through Pontian waters before reaching the Port of Tanjung Pelepas -- Johor's busiest cargo port.

"The sea around here is getting busier.

"I get scared when I bump into the ships when I go out to sea," said Adam Mohamad, another fisherman in this sleepy hamlet.

This has forced some to venture further out for a better haul and others into uncharted territory -- inland.

Some of Jamaluddin and Adam's compatriots have taken second jobs or have just given up fishing.

Mohd Tahir Hamid, 36, traded the RM300 his net could bring for a job in an independent power plant in Tanjung Bin, near Gelang Patah that pays RM2,000 a month.

Abdul Rahim Saman, 43, juggles fishing with carpentry and farming to supplement a RM600 monthly income.

For most who don't have this option, morale has plummeted along with the catch.

The situation drove Jaring's 1,000 members to help put together the memorandum to government in November.

The nine-point memorandum highlights how existing policies and practices have adversely affected inshore fishermen.

They also feel that the problem is compounded by a general lack of respect for their community.

Jamaluddin claimed Fisheries Department officials seldom meet inshore fishermen and were often in the dark over their plight.

"I would like to suggest the district Fisheries Department send officials to the Penghulu fishermen's jetty here.

"They should check the situation from one dock to the other. They should look into our licensing problems.

"Unfortunately it is the fishermen who have to approach the officials."

Jamaluddin recalled his surprise during the submission of the memorandum recently that there was a RM25,000 fund for fishermen to buy new boats.

The fund under the Fisheries Development Authority does not carry any interest, but Jamaluddin said most inshore fishermen had no idea it existed.

'Some days, fishermen don't have fish to eat'
The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

THE weathered fisherman is holding on, but only just.

Spending more and more time in his 23-foot sampan with less to show, Illias Shafie is getting worried.

The catch was substantial decades ago, said the 56-year-old fisherman, but it has dwindled to almost nothing now.

"It has reached a point where sometimes, even fishermen do not have fish to eat."

A stark contrast with the past when 100kg catches were common, he said.
Fishermen now have to cope with spiralling maintenance and transport costs while feeding their families with a catch of just 30kg.

"Previously we were able to catch more types of fish like pedukang, selama, sembilang, siakap and senangin. Now we are only able to catch sembilang, siakap and senangin."

Ilias, chairman of the Penang Inshore Fishermen Welfare Association (PIFWA), said they helped to draw up the memorandum to the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry because inshore fishermen faced many problems that no one was helping to solve.

He said trawlers using Appolo seines were encroaching into the fishing zone that traditional fishermen like him depended on.

This fishing equipment is supposed to be used further out at sea, not close to the coast.

"This hampers the inshore fishermen as trawls and Appolo seines are meant to make big catches.

Coupled with the pollution and unpredictable weather, inshore fishermen have been hit hard.

"Mangrove forests, corals and artificial reefs in the sea have also gone down," he said.

"Fishermen must be taught that they cannot destroy these reefs and mangroves.

"Agencies, on their part, must be firm in enforcement."

Illias said the ministry and other agencies had promised to help.

"The government has good plans and policies, but what we do not like is that when implemented, the plan does not work.

"The help does not reach fishermen."

Ilias said from the monitoring PIFWA had been carrying out, there were fishermen who had no licence and those who did not receive fuel subsidies.

"Politicking needs to stop, so that these fishermen can get the help that they need so that they can feed their families."

We are on top of things, says ministry
The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

WE are aware of the problem and are taking action, says the Agriculture and Agro-Based Industry Ministry.

In a written response to the New Sunday Times, minister Datuk Mustapa Mohamed said there were signs of depleting fish stocks in coastal waters, particularly in the Straits of Malacca.

"This trend has been observed by scientific investigations and monitoring programmes carried out by the Fisheries Department and through evaluation of commercial fishing.

"The recommendation is to sustain the annual catch from coastal fisheries to 900,000 tonnes."

An estimated 70,000 fishermen depend on coastal waters for their livelihood. Their annual catch of about a million tonnes contributes more than 80 per cent of the total fish production of Malaysia.
The ministry said it had started a scheme to invite small trawlers to voluntarily surrender their licences and opt for deep sea fishing or more environment-friendly methods.

This scheme has so far attracted 80 small trawlers in Kedah.

More artificial reefs were also being constructed to protect and rehabilitate coastal fisheries.

Read more!

Prawn catch and mangroves link in Malaysia

The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

IN a paper presented at the National Fisheries Symposium in 2006, Universiti Malaya's Professor Dr Chong Ving Ching drew a link between mangrove loss and falling prawn catches.

Between 1980 and 2004, he noted that Malaysia lost about 23 per cent of its mangrove forest reserves

Then he compared it with landings of Penaeid prawns and Acetes shrimp over the last 30 years.

The analysis showed that the catches of both increased steadily during the early years and reached their potential yield by the late 1980s.

But after the 1990s, Penaeid prawn yields plunged to 65 per cent of its potential yield by 2003. Similarly, Acetes catches fell by 50 per cent.

There was little change in fishing effort at that time, he said.

The figure above illustrates this. The vertical bars at the bottom indicate trawl units while the numbers show the total number of licensed boats.

Chong has also been been monitoring nursery areas in the Matang mangrove forest, one of the major nursery areas for fish and prawns.

In less than a decade researchers had found that the biomass of fish in that area had decreased, Chong said.

'Trash', but it's also nice
The New Straits Times 11 Jan 09;

A FALLING catch doesn't necessarily spell the end of seafood dinners, just a different kind of menu that's not as appealing or star-studded.

The reason: more and more of the one million tonnes of seafood fishermen net every year is made up of trash fish rather than high value food fish.

High grade fish -- grade one and two -- comprise less than five per cent of total landings today, says Maritime Institute of Malaysia researcher Siti Nazatul Izura Ishak.

The causes are manifold and complex, she explains, ranging from environmental to enforcement. But of greatest concern, says her colleague Tan Kim Hooi, is mangrove loss.

Between the 1970s and 2005, the country lost about 20 per cent of its coastal mangroves.
Senangin, promfret, kurau and prawns depend on these coastal ecosystems.

While government policy discourages conversion of mangroves, the wetlands are still making way for aquaculture, housing and oil palm plantations, says Tan.

Coastal fishermen depend on the catch from Zone A and B that stretch up to 12 nautical miles from shore.

This is the area mangroves, coral reefs and seagrass beds thrive and where fish and prawns breed or seek refuge.

"If it's overexploited and degraded then there's little chance for marine life to replenish."

In a paper the duo presented at a marine fisheries and aquaculture management conference in August, they laid part of the blame on destructive fishing methods like modern trawlers, mechanised push nets and traditional bagnets or pompang.

Over the years foreign fishermen have grown bold and encroached into Malaysian waters, even into marine parks.

Local trawlers also encroached into traditional fishing zones and marine parks during the monsoon season.

Excessive coastal and island development have also worsened pollution.

Tan says components to better manage fisheries do exist but there are problems.

He cites the following example: "We have a zoning system but there are just too many fishermen in some zones, 70 per cent of coastal fishermen are in the 0- to 12-nautical mile zone."

Tan and Siti say solutions will have to tackle all, not just a few problems.

"We need practicable solutions that cover ecosystem protection, enforcement, pollution and illegal gear control. We must implement special species recovery plans and protect broodstocks," said Tan.

"Agencies, states and fishermen need to speak the same language and shoulder equal responsibility to make it work."

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Not rich, but they spend thousands on strays

Shree Ann Mathavan, The New Paper 11 Jan 09;

UNLIKE many other stray cats, this group of 30 strays in Ang Mo Kio live a rather cushy life. They are found in nine HDB blocks across Avenue 3 to 6.

Apart from being fed, sterilised and having their medical bills taken care of, they are loved, thanks to a group of eight cat lovers in the neighbourhood.

These residents claim to have spent almost $10,000 - or more than $1,000 each, to take care of the strays over the past five years. They have no plans to stop.

Said Madam Shoba R, 44, who works in the healthcare industry: 'I do feel we spend a lot of money, but we can't help it. It's a lifetime involvement because we love the cats very much.'

Medical bills for various ailments and consultations at the vet ran up to $5,000 last year.

The group estimates they have spent another $3,000 on sterilising cats and $1,200 on food.

The money for these expenses don't come easily to the group who all live in three-room HDB flats. Most of them earn $1,500 a month or less.

Madam Tan Peck Noy, 73, a retiree who gets a monthly allowance of $1,200 from her son, 50 and her daughter, 48, spends half of that on the cats.

Caring for stray cats has its challenges.

For instance, when a black female cat from Block 156, Ang Mo Kio Avenue 4 went missing late last month, the group became worried.

Afraid that the cat had been culled by the Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang Town Council or the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA), they rushed to the town council last Tuesday .

But the town council and the AVA both told The New Paper that they have not received any cat from that area.

Nevertheless, Madam Tan is still grief-stricken over the loss of the cat she dubbed 'Ou Kia' (Hokkien for black child).

Besides worrying about missing cats, the residents are concerned about abuse. Said Madam Elizabeth Pinto, 57, a coffee shop cleaner: 'Sometimes you see children chasing a cat with a big stick. I tell them not to do that, but luckily, this doesn't happen often.'

Madam Shoba pointed out that these issues could be addressed if HDB changes its ruling of not allowing cats in HDB flats.

'(The cats) can't be kept inside the flats, and when they are left outside, they are exposed to being abused or culled. There just doesn't seem to be any place for them,' she sighed.

According to the HDB website, cats are not allowed in HDB flats because of their nomadic nature.

But do the strays bother other residents in the area?

Resident Pearly Lee, 30 doesn't think so.

Said the financial consultant, who lives at Ang Mo Kio Avenue 3: 'These cats have not caused any problems as far as I know. I think it's a good thing that someone cares for them. They may be stray animals, but it doesn't mean they should be left to rot.'

'Culling, sterilisation are both necessary'

BOTH AVA and the Ang Mo Kio-Yio Chu Kang Town Council said they did not remove any cat from Block156 last month.

When a stray cat poses problems in an HDB estate, the town council typically engages a private company to remove it. It will then be sent to the AVA to be euthanised.

However, Mr Madhavan Kannan, head of AVA's Centre for Animal Welfare and Control, said it takes a balanced approach, when it comes to controlling the population of stray cats.

'We see both culling and sterilisation as necessary components of an effective stray cat population management strategy,' he said.

He added that AVA has an understanding with town councils that sterilised stray cats would not be removed unless they cause problems, or are found in or near food establishments.

Mr Kannan added: 'Town councils need to balance the interests of cat lovers and residents who are aggrieved by the large number of stray cats, regardless of whether the cats are sterilised or not.'

A spokesman for the town council added that when residents' complain about stray animals, only those which are unsterilised will be removed.

She said: 'For sterilised stray cats, the town council will work with the respective cat welfare volunteer groups in the vicinity. We will inform them about the feedback on cat nuisance and seek their assistance and cooperation.'

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Tests show algae toxin in some sick pelicans

Denise Petski, Associated Press Yahoo News 10 Jan 09;

LOS ANGELES – A toxic chemical produced by algae has been detected in some sick California brown pelicans that are being found in record numbers along the West Coast, though researchers don't believe it's the primary cause of their widespread illness, wildlife experts said Friday.

Three of six blood samples taken from sick pelicans tested positive for domoic acid, according to preliminary laboratory results from the University of Southern California. Five of 14 water samples taken from waters off the Southern California coast also indicated low concentrations of domoic acid in the phytoplankton.

"We believe these results are significant but do not explain all the signs we are seeing in the pelicans," said Dr. Heather Nevill, a veterinarian at the International Bird Rescue Research Center, which provided the samples. "We are seeing a number of conditions that are not typical of domoic acid toxicity or a domoic acid event."

Most of the hundreds of ailing pelicans are thin, but birds poisoned by domoic acid are typically of good body weight. That leads researchers to believe that domoic acid is likely playing a secondary role to a larger problem.

Domoic acid, a neurotoxin, is produced by microscopic algae. Birds and sea mammals ingest the acid by eating fish and shellfish that consume the algae. Jay Holcomb, executive director of the Fairfield-based center, said two of the pelican samples showed relatively high levels of domoic acid and one was relatively mild.

The center said additional blood and tissue samples are being tested and more information is anticipated within the next two weeks.

Sick, disoriented pelicans have been found in unusual places far from their homes on roads, farm fields, alleys and backyards.

In the last week, the birds have been reported staggering across Culver Boulevard in Playa del Rey and on a Los Angeles International Airport runway. One bird was reported to have struck a vehicle.

The center said it has recorded 265 reports of dead or ailing pelicans from Baja California, Mexico, to Washington state. More than 100 pelicans are being nursed back to health at the center's two facilities in Fairfield and San Pedro, with a combination of intravenous fluids, medications and a diet of smelt and squid.

The California brown pelican is a subspecies of the common brown pelican. Its habitat stretches from the Sinaloa and Nayarit coast of Mexico to the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast.

Brown pelicans nearly became extinct in the 1960s and 1970s because the pesticide DDT infiltrated their food in nesting grounds such as Southern California's Anacapa Island. The species started to recover in 1972 when DDT was banned in the U.S.

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Greenpeace hands out green grades to electronics makers

Yahoo News 9 Jan 09;

LAS VEGAS (AFP) - Consumer electronics manufacturers are making greener products than a year ago but more progress needs to be made before they can claim a truly environmentally friendly product, Greenpeace said Friday.

In its second greener products survey, "Green Electronics: The Search Continues," the environmental activist group assessed the progress made by consumer electronic companies in greening their products over the past year.

The Greenpeace survey was released at the annual Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, where manufacturers have been seeking to outdo one another this year in touting how green their products are.

The CES organizers have dedicated a special area in the convention hall to Greener Tech and among the products unveiled here was a mobile phone made of recycled plastic water bottles from Motorola.

For the survey, Greenpeace said 15 companies submitted 50 new products they considered their greenest for evaluation: mobile and smart phones, televisions, computer monitors, notebook and desktop computers, and game consoles.

The products were graded on use of hazardous chemicals, energy efficiency, innovation, promotion of environmental friendliness and lifecycle -- whether they can be recycled and upgraded.

"Progress is being made," said Casey Harrell, Greenpeace International toxics campaigner. "We're no longer having to cajole people about the need for green.

"These companies understand both what green is and the need for it," he said. "We're moving in the right direction."

The Greenpeace survey found that fewer products contain harmful PVC plastic and hazardous chemicals and more post-consumer recycled plastic is being used in televisions and monitors.

Electronics manufacturers are also taking back more used products and engaging in more recycling, Greenpeace said.

But the "race for the green winner is still on," Harrell said.

"We're on the hunt for a truly green product that is free from toxic chemicals and excels in energy efficiency and durability," he said.

"The electronics industry has taken encouraging strides towards increasing the green features on some gadgets over the past year but none stand out in all environmental categories."

Greenpeace said the Lenovo L2440x wide computer monitor scored highest in the monitor category with 6.9 points on a 10 point scale.

Other category leaders were the Sharp LC-52GX5 television (5.92), the Samsung F268 mobile phone (5.45), the Nokia 6210 Smart phone (5.2) the HP Elitebook 2530P laptop (5.48) and the Lenovo ThinkCentre M58 Desktop (5.88).

Submitting products for the survey were Acer, Dell, Fujitsu Siemens, Hewlett Packard, Lenovo, LG Electronics, Motorola, Nokia, Panasonic, RIM/Blackberry, Sharp, Samsung, Sony, Sony Ericsson and Toshiba.

Greenpeace said the following companies refused to take part: Apple, Asus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Palm and Philips.

Among the green initiatives announced at this year's CES was a joint program by Panasonic, Sharp and Toshiba to recycle televisions and other gadgets they sell in the United States.

The global firms on January 15 will begin using an Electronic Manufacturers Recycling Management network of 280 locations as collection centers for their products.

The network will have at least one recycling center in each US state and intends to expand to at least 800 drop-off points.


CES 2009: Greenpeace says gadgets could be greener
Consumer electronics getting greener but there’s room for improvement, says Greenpeace
Claudine Beaumont, The Telegraph 10 Jan 09;

Gadget makers have a long way to go before their products can be considered truly eco-friendly, according to a new report from Greenpeace.

The environmental campaign group called on the industry to “put its foot on the accelerator” and move towards a truly green manufacturing process.

Greenpeace tested 50 gadgets put forward by 15 of the exhibitors at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas to test how eco-friendly their new product ranges really were.

The devices were measured on three criteria, including the use of dangerous chemicals, power consumption and recyclability.

A 24in widescreen monitor made by Lenovo was named most eco-friendly gadget, scoring 6.9 out of 10, while Acer’s Veriton computer scored lowest, with 3.3 out of 10. Among the other products, Samsung scored 5.45 out of 10 for its F268 mobile phone, while Sharp’s 52in LC-52GX5 television scored 5.92 out of 10.

Six companies – Asus, Microsoft, Nintendo, Apple, Palm and Philips – refused to take part in the survey.

“We're pleased to say that the electronics industry has taken encouraging strides towards increasing the green features on some gadgets over the past year, but none stand out in all environmental categories,” said Casey Harrell, a Greenpeace campaigner. “The race for the green winner is still on.”

Greenpeace said that fewer electronic products contained PVC, and that hazardous chemicals were being used less often in the manufacturing process. It also noted that the flat-screen LED displays used in most modern televisions used less energy than non-LED televisions, and did not have mercury in their backlights.

It said that many manufacturers had introduced comprehensive “take-back schemes” and recycling plans in order to help consumers correctly dispose of unwanted gadgets.

"The electronics industry is heading in the right direction,” said Harrell. “To stay in the race, each company needs to put its foot on the accelerator, applying any progress it has made across all of its product lines and adopting each other's best practices.

“We're confident that, as part of the most innovative industry on the planet, these companies can step up to this green challenge."

All of the large manufacturers attending CES have emphasised the eco-friendly nature of their new product ranges, highlighting the use of recyclable materials and responsible disposal programmes for unwanted gizmos.

Many are promoting the energy efficiency of their televisions, home audio systems and computers, saying that reduced power consumption is good for the environment, and also leads to lower household bills.

A steady stream of attendees at the show have been looking at the wares on offer in a special section of the conference set aside for green products, such as portable fuel cells and backpacks with built-in solar panels for quick charging of mobile phones, laptops and music players.

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How "green" are your gadgets?

Anupreeta Das, Reuters 10 Jan 09;

LAS VEGAS (Reuters) - Green is in like never before at this year's Consumer Electronics Show, with 3,000 square feet of dedicated floor space and companies touting the energy-saving, earth-friendly attributes of their gadgets.

On display are "eco-buttons" that reduce your computer's power consumption, e-lanterns that produce an hour's worth of light if you crank them for a minute, luminous TV screens that use far less energy than standard TVs and even mercury-free batteries that are 94 percent recyclable.

But in the absence of a uniform global standard that certifies a product as "green," are environment-conscious consumers buying more green hype than green engineering?

Not necessarily, said Jeff Omelchuck, director of the Green Electronics Council, which provides an Electronic Product Environmental Assessment Tool (EPEAT) certification for computers. The EPEAT provides manufacturers with a set of criteria against which to measure their products' environmental impact.

"Electronics are in fact much more environmentally friendly today than even five years ago," Omelchuck, an engineer, told Reuters.

But that does not mean gadgets are "sustainable" -- leaving no adverse impact on the environment as they make their way from the factory to a recycling unit -- which would make them truly green, Omelchuck added.

"Companies are making products greener because the market expects them to," he added.

GREEN DOLLARS

This year, manufacturers are also touting the energy efficiency of their products to draw consumers who are spending fewer dollars on discretionary products due to the recession.

While that is a start, environmental activists and analysts say any energy savings from a so-called green device will be offset if it uses highly toxic batteries or cannot be recycled.

Gadgets will be truly green when companies employ more eco-friendly manufacturing processes, packaging, design and recycling programs as part of a holistic approach to sustainability, they added.

"Consumers shouldn't have to choose between products that are incredibly green in one area, but grey in another," said Casey Harrell, a toxics campaigner for Greenpeace International.

On Friday, the pro-environment group held a news conference at CES to share highlights from a December green electronics survey.

Harrell said at the conference the electronics industry has taken "encouraging strides" toward improving green features on some gadgets in the past year. But the absence of an international standard makes it tough for consumers to decide which gadgets are greenest.

Greenpeace's assessment of about 50 electronics products found Lenovo Group Ltd's L2440x wide computer monitor, Sharp Corp's LC-52GX5 television, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd 's F268 mobile phone, Nokia's 6210 smartphone and Toshiba Machine Co Ltd's Portege R600 laptop were the greenest in their categories.

SCREEN TECHNOLOGY

Earlier this week, Samsung Electronics introduced a flat- screen TV that uses 40 percent less energy because it uses light-emitting diode technology rather than the traditional cathode lamps.

"The advantage of LED TVs is that they are environmentally friendly, can save a lot of power, use no mercury or lead and have a high picture quality," said Jongwoo Park, Samsung's president of digital media.

LG Electronics Inc devoted part of its CES display to showcasing green products, including a Bluetooth solar car kit and recyclable packaging materials. Toshiba showcased an ion battery designed for bicycle maker Schwinn's electronic bike, which gives up to 30 miles on a single charge.

Parker Brugge, vice president of environmental affairs at the Consumer Electronics Association, said companies have an inherent incentive to go green because it produces better gadgets. Making a television more energy efficient also makes it last longer and heat up less, he said.

What is more, the show host, has itself gotten greener by reducing brochures and paper usage, and offering booths made of recyclable parts.

"Everyone has to do their part," he added.

(Editing by Tiffany Wu and Andre Grenon)

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