'Algae-eating fish' used to clean up Chinese lake

Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

SHANGHAI (AFP) – Chinese authorities have again turned to algae-eating fish in a bid to clean up a pollution-linked blue green bloom on one of the country's most scenic lakes, state media reported Friday.

Taihu Lake in eastern China has seen a re-emergence of algae growth that forced authorities to cut water supplies to 2.3 million residents of the nearby city of Wuxi in 2007, the official Xinhua news agency reported.

About 10 million fish, including green carp and silver carp, will be released into the lake as part of a 7.4 million-yuan (1.1 million-dollar) effort, Lin Jianhua, head of the Taihu Lake Fishing Administration was quoted as saying.

However, it would take 10 times that amount of fish to clean up the entire 2,400 square-kilometre (900 square mile) lake, he was quoted as saying,

A silver carp could consume 50 kilogrammes (110 pounds) of algae and other plankton while gaining only one kilogramme (2.2 pounds) in weight, Lin said.

The lake in Jiangsu province, long celebrated through Chinese history as one of the country's most scenic bodies of water, has been massively polluted by the dumping of sewage and industrial and agricultural waste.

Although authorities have invested five billion yuan in pipes to prevent sewage from being dumped into the lake, the degradation of the water remains a major problem, Lin was quoted as saying.

Millions of algae-eating fish have been used to clean up Taihu and other lakes before, with previous efforts hailed as a bonanza for the local fishing industry despite the suspicions of eating fish that feasted on toxins.

The 2007 water crisis made Taihu a symbol of China's nationwide problem of deteriorating water quality, with even Premier Wen Jiabao publicly calling for the lake to be cleaned up.

Algae blooms are common on many Chinese freshwater lakes and are chiefly caused by untreated sewage containing high concentrations of nitrogen, a main ingredient in detergents and fertilisers.

Like much of China's environment, water quality has suffered severely amid the nation's breakneck economic growth over the past two decades.

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Most wars hit world's rich wildlife areas

Deborah Zabarenko, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Most wars in the last half-century occurred in places that shelter some of the most biologically diverse and environmentally threatened wildlife on Earth, a new study reported on Friday.

These include the Vietnam war, when the use of the defoliant Agent Orange destroyed forest cover, and timber harvesting that funded wars in Liberia, Cambodia and the Democratic Republic of Congo, according to the study in the scientific journal Conservation Biology.

Eighty-one percent of major armed conflicts from 1950 to 2000 happened in 34 regions known as biodiversity hot spots, which contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, the study said.

A total of 23 of the 34 hot spots saw warfare in the second half of the 20th century, the study found.

More than 90 percent of major wars -- those resulting in more than 1,000 deaths -- occurred in countries that contain one of the 34 identified hot spots, the study found.

These centers of endangered wildlife often are located in poor countries with dense human populations, which put pressure on the natural and political environment in normal times, study author Russell Mittermeier said in a telephone interview.

"You're looking at a very fragile platform on which human and other life depends," Mittermeier said. "And any slight perturbation for political reasons, or whatever, results in stress within the human populations. And very often that erupts into violent conflict."

WAR REFUGEES BECOME HUNTERS

Refugees from wars in and around biodiversity hot spots can add to the problem by hunting for food, cutting trees for firewood and building camps in these endangered environments.

Mittermeier, president of the environmental organization Conservation International, pointed to Madagascar as an example where immediate violent conflict threatens biodiversity.

"We have to be ready to respond and to persist during times of political turmoil, because it's not always going to be stable," said Michael Hoffmann, a conservation biologist with Conservation International and a co-author of the study.

"When you're in the middle of a war zone, obviously your number one priority is to stay alive," Hoffmann said by telephone. "But that's why one of the key things that we emphasize (is) to be there in times of conflict and not just pack your bags and say, oh, it's too difficult."

The study did not specify what caused the extraordinary correlation between wars and regions of endangered biodiversity, but said this needed further investigation.

The study's authors urged conservation groups and the broader international community to work with military, reconstruction and humanitarian programs in conflict zones.

More information on the 34 biodiversity hot spots is available online at www.biodiversityhotspots.org. (Editing by Vicki Allen)

8 in 10 conflicts in environmental 'hotspots': study
Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – Most conflicts fought in the second half of the last century were waged in biologically diverse, fragile places, with many negative consequences and a few surprising positive ones, a study said Friday.

A team of international conservation scientists found that 81 percent of conflicts fought between 1950 and 2000 in which at least 1,000 people died played out in "biodiversity hotspots" from the Himalayas in Asia to the coastal forests of east Africa.

The hotspots contain the entire populations of more than half of all plant species and at least 42 percent of all vertebrates, and are highly threatened, said the study, which was published in Conservation Biology magazine.

Of the 34 such hotspots around the globe, only 11 escaped armed conflict during the 50-year period, the authors said.

Conflicts often play out in the hotspots because fighters take advantage of the cover provided by deep forests and high mountains.

And the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons has increased conflict's impact on the world's fragile zones.

During the Vietnam War, for example, the United States used herbicides to exfoliate 14 percent of the southeast Asian country's forests and more than half of its coastal mangroves in a bid to deprive the enemy of shelter and sustenance, according to the study.

The impact on the key areas extends "far beyond the actual fighting," said Thor Hanson of the University of Idaho, the lead author of the study.

"War preparations and lingering post-conflict activities also have important implications for biodiversity hotspots and the people who live there," he said.

The proliferation of small arms -- the weapon of choice in most conflicts -- leads to "increased hunting for bushmeat, wildlife products and sport, often by the soldiers themselves," the study says.

In Democratic Republic of Congo, which has been wracked by conflict on and off since 1960, hippopotamus herds in Virunga National Park have been nearly wiped out by poachers, and the huge central African country's rich mineral resources have been plundered by fighters to fund the conflicts.

The humanitarian crises that inevitably accompany conflicts also impact the environment.

"During the civil war in Rwanda in the mid-1990s, over two million refugees flooded camps in neighboring countries, and the demand for fuelwood led to the deforestation of more than 300 square kilometers (116 square miles) -- or 74,000 acres (30,000 hectares) -- of land in Virunga National Park," the study says.

"Delays in repatriation and the persistence of unexploded ordnance can last for decades, perpetuating the environmental impacts of the conflict," it says.

But amid the destruction of war, the study highlights a silver lining for the environment: altered human activity in conflict areas "sometimes creates tangible conservation opportunities," it says.

The demilitarized zone separating North and South Korea is a good example of how conflict can be a friend to the environment.

The four-kilometer (2.4-mile) wide stretch of no man's land between the two neighbors has been uninhabited for decades and become a "de facto nature reserve harboring numerous threatened species," the study says.

But its authors stress that although there are a few conservation opportunities associated with conflict, "this does not mean warfare is good."

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How TB Jumps From Humans to Wildlife -- Vet Seeks Clues

Helen Fields, National Geographic magazine 20 Feb 09;

In ordinary circumstances, Kathleen Alexander would gladly have let her two kids run around the front yard on their own. But during her stint as senior wildlife veterinary officer for Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks from 1995 to 2001, things were not exactly normal. Their front yard was Chobe National Park, a 4,000-square-mile (10,360 square-kilometer) park in northern Botswana with lots of free-ranging wildlife. Alexander always went outside with her children, so they wouldn't get "smushed by an elephant."

But one sunny day in June 2000, she encountered a different problem: two banded mongooses, so thin their ribs stuck out, wandering around the sand pit where the children liked to play. These groundhog-sized animals are common through sub-Saharan Africa, but they run away from humans. Alarmingly, these mongooses weren't afraid of her. "It was clear they were sick," she recalled.

Alexander trapped one of the animals and tested it. Her tests revealed it was sick with tuberculosis—the human version. For the first time, free-range wild animals were confirmed to have contracted a human disease.

(For more on non-human strains of tuberculosis read "Lions in South Africa Pressured by TB Outbreak, Hunters.")

It's well known that diseases can—and do—move from animals to people. Avian influenza, which comes from birds, was first confirmed in humans in 1997. But the opposite had never been proven for wild animals, although animals in captivity were sometimes known to get human illnesses.

Tracking TB in Mongooses

Tuberculosis (TB), a highly contagious disease that spreads when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or spits, is a serious problem across southern Africa. Most people in Botswana are infected by the time they are adults. Tuberculosis and HIV often go together; many people with AIDS actually die of TB. The towns of Kasane and Kazungula, next to Chobe National Park, are no exception. Those towns are also infused with wildlife. Warthogs wander the streets and mongooses are common.

Alexander believes mongooses probably pick up the bacteria that cause tuberculosis by nosing around human waste. They like to investigate possible food sources by sticking their noses straight into garbage piles, septic tanks, and sputum. Alexander thinks bacteria get into tiny cuts on their noses, then spread through their bodies. Unlike humans, who can be infected with tuberculosis for years, mongooses appear to sicken and die immediately.

Since that first discovery in 2000, Alexander, who now teaches at Virginia Tech, has been tracking tuberculosis in Chobe National Park's mongooses with support from the National Geographic Society's Committee for Research and Exploration. She hopes to learn more about how the mongooses get infected with tuberculosis and how they fit into the park ecosystem. (National Geographic News is owned by the National Geographic Society.)

Most of the mongooses in the park now sport GPS collars that record their movements. "Following them on foot is just not possible because of all the elephants and lions," Alexander said. She hopes to figure out what they do all day and who their major predators are. Maybe domestic dogs hang out with mongooses in the wild, which would mean they could carry deadly bacteria back to their owners. Or perhaps scavengers like hyenas are getting tuberculosis from mongoose carcasses.

In the meantime, tuberculosis outbreaks among mongooses continue. Alexander has documented five since 2000, and dozens of animals have died. One troop that hangs around a tourist lodge had more than 20 healthy animals eight years ago; after a 2008 outbreak, only seven remain. In 1996, scabies, a parasitic skin disease, was found in rare mountain gorillas that live along the border of the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda. The gorillas are a popular ecotourism attraction and get a lot of visits from researchers and rangers, too. Veterinarians who studied the outbreak concluded that the gorillas probably caught the parasites from humans (although they couldn't rule out the possibility that other animals were the source). One baby gorilla died. A more deadly human disease could wipe out an entire family of gorillas.

Animal diseases in humans have been well documented. Avian flu is a constant worry. Severe acute respiratory syndrome, or SARS, which in 2003 made people around the world flinch at every cough, probably originated in bats. HIV started as a primate virus and, according to the most commonly accepted theory, probably jumped to hunters when they killed, butchered, and ate infected chimpanzees.

It makes perfect sense that diseases would also go the other way, said University of Georgia epidemiologist David Stallknecht: "Humans are really putting a lot of infectious material on the ground, so it's just a no-brainer" that wild animals would sometimes get human illnesses. And not just in Africa—it could happen anywhere animals and people come into contact.

So why had it never been confirmed before Alexander encountered two sick mongooses in Botswana? Probably, Stallknecht said, because no one was looking.

In fact, there are plenty of examples of animals in captivity getting diseases from the humans they spend their days with. Zookeepers who work with primates know to stay home—or wear a face mask—when they have a cold, so their charges don't catch the sniffles.

Contagious diseases are a problem with less closely related animals, too. In 1996, three circus elephants from an Illinois farm died of tuberculosis; the bacteria that infected them was identical to that in the sputum of one of their human handlers who had the disease. Now elephant farmers in the U.S. are required to test the animals every year, checking for tuberculosis bacteria with a procedure called a "trunk wash."

Could Risks Boomerang Back to Humans?

As humans keep moving into wildlife territory for tourism or because of population pressures, they'll probably bring more disease to wild animals, warns Kristine Smith, a wildlife veterinarian who works on global health at the Wildlife Conservation Society. "More and more, some of the last wild places in the planet are heavily bordered by dense communities," she said—in many cases, desperately poor communities with little access to health care, and often no running water or sewers.

Researchers are also concerned that a human disease in wildlife might provide bacteria or viruses with another haven in which to evolve and combine with other pathogens, which could make them more dangerous later. For example, said Alexander, it's possible that tuberculosis could evolve to be more virulent when it enters a new host.

Human disease transmission to wildlife could come back around to hurt humans, too, Smith said. "If they're contracting diseases that we can get, they're going to be spreaders. Someone can give an animal a disease, and someone else can get it."

At this point, no infectious diseases have been shown to jump from humans to wild animals and back again; it may not happen often. Some of the diseases that jump may be relatively harmless to animals, or may not get back to humans at all—but scientists just don't know enough yet about how diseases move around.

Alexander hopes new genetic tests that can detect a long list of pathogens at once will give her and other scientists a an easy way to find human diseases in wildlife and determine their prevalence, leading to a clearer picture. "It seems improbable that every other animal is linked up in terms of pathogen transmission, but we don't give [diseases] to anybody else," she said. She hopes her work will help other wildlife experts and epidemiologists understand how to better protect free-ranging animals from human disease—and ultimately stop them from bringing it into our front yards.

Conservation Concerns

Banded mongooses aren't in danger of going extinct. They live across southern Africa in large numbers. But if a disease can jump from humans to one wild animal, it could do the same with others. A new human disease could be disastrous for an endangered species. That includes a lot of primates. Since they're so closely related to humans, it's not hard for them to get our diseases.

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New Butterfly Discovered with Mustache Disguise

LiveScience.com Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

A mustache on a butterfly has tipped off curators at the Natural History Museum in London that a specimen in their collection for 90 years actually belongs to a new species.

A curator found the disguised insect, initially collected from the dry Magdalena valleys of Colombia, among the 3 million butterfly specimens at the museum where it had lain undiscovered.

Blanca Huertas compared the mustachioed specimen with a recently found wild specimen, allowing her to identify the older specimen as Splendeuptychia ackeryi, or Magdalena valley ringlet, whose distinguishing feature is unusually hairy mouthparts. (The name ackeryi is dedicated to Phil Ackery, the former collection manager of the butterfly collections at the museum.)

"We have almost 9 million butterflies and moths in our collections, a comprehensive example of the Earth's diversity," Huertas said. "But there are many new species still waiting to be discovered, both in museum collections and in the field."

Huertas discovered the new species in the wild when she travelled, with two colleagues, on an expedition to a remote mountain in Colombia in 2005. The entomologists did not realize, however, that the butterfly they had seen in Colombia had not been named and described until they returned to the England and studied the specimens in the Museum's collections, dating from 1920.

Butterflies are a diverse group of insects with almost 20,000 known species, 40 percent of which are in South America, Huertas said.

The description of the new butterfly is published in the latest issue of the journal Zootaxa. The expedition to Colombia was supported by the BP Conservation Programme, BirdLife International, Conservation International, Flora & Fauna International, Wildlife Conservation Society, Rio Tinto plc, Duke of Edinburgh, the Royal Geographical Society, Fundación ProAves and many other Colombian institutions.

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Recycling: we could all save cash and the planet by improving rubbish system

Councils and communities are already reaping the beneift of a scheme to change behaviour and reduce environmental impact

Trewin Restorick, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09

This week we learned from the Local Government Association (LGA) that supermarkets are still producing excessive food packaging. Landfill sites across the globe are overflowing with our rubbish, and local councils and their residents are paying the price in landfill tax. The LGA argues that supermarkets should pay towards the collection of their packaging as an incentive to cut back. Yet, with such a sharp focus on supermarkets, it's easy to overlook what else can be done.

Every year UK households throw away the equivalent of three million double-decker buses – almost 30m tonnes – of rubbish. If lined one in front of the other, the queue would stretch from London to Sydney and back. While supermarkets have a lot to answer for, individuals also have the power to make decisions that will reduce their household waste. Local authorities need to look closer to home and ensure there are practical measures in place to help residents reduce, reuse and recycle as much as possible.

Crucial though recycling bins and collections are, it's also vital that local authorities inform and support their residents to make sure they are doing all they can at an individual level.

Research has shown that people are more likely to recycle if they see people, and organisations, around them doing it. We need to take advantage of the way in which individuals can inspire and encourage one another.

This approach is already having an impact in local authorities that are part of Global Action Plan's EcoTeams programme, which works to change behaviour and reduce environmental impact at community level through education, training and support. Small groups of households, or EcoTeams, meet regularly over a six-month period to reduce their impact on the environment. During these meetings the teams receive guidance on waste and shopping as well as energy use, transport and water. They set themselves achievable targets, and support each other in meeting them.

The results speak for themselves. Independent academic research shows that households who participate in EcoTeams programmes reduce their waste by an average of 20%. They are more likely to buy products that can be recycled over products that cannot, and try to buy products with minimal or no packaging. Local councils only need to do the maths to see that they could make themselves huge savings on recycling and landfill costs if all households in their area were doing the same.

And it's not just local councils that could be saving money. EcoTeams households make a saving of around £150 a year on their energy and water bills by reducing their gas and electricity consumption – a considerable sum in these difficult economic times.

So what is it that makes the EcoTeams programme work so well? We all know that we should be doing more to reduce our impact on the environment, but for most of us this remains a good intention which never becomes a reality. For EcoTeams members, the secret of the programme's success is being part of a group, where they will receive both support and pressure to change their behaviour.

Evidence shows that EcoTeams participants continue to carry out the pro-environmental actions for months and years after finishing the programme, and it's the focus on small but significant changes to existing lifestyles that makes these changes more likely to be sustained long term.

Rather than simply telling people what to do, we need to motivate, engage and involve them. What better way to do this than bringing people together to support and encourage one another? The Local Government Association should be commended for highlighting the need to reduce waste in the UK – but it is overlooking the unlocked potential of our local communities in helping to achieve this.

Trewin Restorick is chief executive of Global Action Plan, an independent environmental charity that encourages consumers to behave in a more environmentally responsible way.

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Environment ministers to tackle mercury pollution

Daniel Wallis, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

NAIROBI (Reuters) - More than 140 nations agreed on Friday to negotiate a legally binding global treaty to phase out the use of deadly mercury, a toxic heavy metal that threatens the health of hundreds of millions of people worldwide.

The deal came at a major U.N. meeting of environment ministers in Kenya after President Barack Obama's new administration said on Monday the United States had reversed its stance on the issue and was now in favor of a legal ban.

"This is truly good news and I hope that citizens across the world will embrace this decision," U.N. Environment Program (UNEP) head Achim Steiner told a news conference.

"Today the world's environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over but the time for action on this pollution is now."

About 6,000 tons of mercury -- which has been known for more than a century to damage the human nervous system -- enter the environment every year. Mercury's other effects include liver damage, memory loss or disturbances to vision.

Of the total, 2,000 tons is from coal burned in power stations and homes. Increased coal use in Asia means emissions may be rising, UNEP experts fear.

Western countries have slashed their usage of mercury, but activists say poorer nations are increasingly relying on it for processes including small-scale gold mining.

The new agreement covers a package of measures aimed at reducing demand in industrial products and processes, while also seeking to cut emissions to the atmosphere and clean up contaminated sites.

The European Union had already called for an international treaty, and hopes were high ahead of this week's meeting that the new U.S. government would reverse its predecessor's stance and support that. Some states favor a voluntary approach.

Preparations for negotiations on the treaty will start later this year, officials said, with discussions beginning in earnest in 2010 and aiming to wrap up by 2013.

Anti-mercury campaigners hailed Friday's unanimous agreement, saying the U.S. U-turn had encouraged other countries, notably India and China, to back the proposal.

"This was made possible by President Obama's global view and the inspiration and momentum generated by it," said Michael Bender, director of the U.S. Mercury Policy Project and the Zero Mercury Working Group.

Breakthrough deal to end global mercury pollution
• Treaty to reduce supply of mercury and its use in products
• Deal seen as first success of new Obama administration

Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09;

Environment ministers overcame seven years of obstacles today and committed to reducing the world's mercury pollution.

In a sign of America's return to a global leadership role, United Nations environment ministers meeting in Nairobi agreed to take immediate steps to limit exposure to mercury.

The White House said it would press hard for a legally binding treaty when negotiations get under way later this year.

"The United States will play a leading role in working with other nations to craft a global, legally binding agreement that will prevent the spread of mercury into the environment," said Nancy Sutley, chair of the White House council on environmental quality.

The Bush administration had blocked international efforts to limit mercury - although such protections are in place in America.

Mercury, which can travel thousands of miles from its original source, damages the central nervous system, and is especially dangerous to pregnant women and babies.

The treaty will include measures to reduce the supply of mercury and its use in products, such as thermomenters, and processes, like paper making. It will also seek to cut back on mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants, which are responsible for about half of the world's mercury pollution.

The new-found consensus in Nairobi, which saw the US, India and China lifting their resistance to a binding global mercury treaty, raised hopes for progress later this year at the crucial UN meeting in Copenhagen on an international climate change deal.

"There was a seismic shift from the American government from its previous position," said Nick Nuttall, the spokesman for the UN environment programme. "It was clear from the beginning of this week that the US negotiators had been given a clear line from Washington, and indeed the White House, to come together with the rest of the world and do something."

"The US has taken a leadership role that will chart a new course on mercury protections around the world. We have set a strong example that is already influencing others to do the same," said Susan Egan Keane, an analyst at the US National Resources Defence Council.

Barack Obama had earlier taken a number of steps at home to break with the George Bush legacy on the environment - most notably restoring the power of government agencies to regulate carbon dioxide from power plants.

The strong push from the US side in Nairobi this week evidently helped wear down resistance from governments such as China and India. China is heavily dependent on coal-fired power plants, while Indian manufacturers still use many processes that depend on the metal.

The eight-point plan agreed on Friday calls for reduction in mercury emissions from power plants, and in its use in thermometers and other household products, as well as in plastics production and paper-making. It would cut down on the use of mercury in gold panning, a process that results in huge quantities of the heavy metal being washed into streams.

Mercury is a naturally occurring element, but pollution has caused levels to rise sharply in many fish species, increasing the danger to humans that eat them.

"Today the world's environment ministers, armed with the full facts and full choices, decided the time for talking was over - the time for action on this pollution is now," said Unep's director, Achim Steiner.

Formal treaty negotiations will get underway later this year, with a view to reaching a final agreement in 2013.


(Editing by David Clarke and Richard Hubbard)
States agree to mercury treaty talks
Yahoo News 20 Feb 09;

NAIROBI (AFP) – More than 140 countries agreed Friday to launch negotiations establishing a treaty on mercury to limit pollution affecting millions of people across the world, the UN environment body said.

They also agreed an interim plan to curb pollution while awaiting the treaty because "the risk to human health was so significant that accelerated action... is needed," the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) said in a statement.

"Today we are united on the need for a legally binding instrument and immediate action towards a transition to a low-mercury world," UNEP chief Achim Steiner said at the end of the body's governing council meeting in Nairobi.

He added that world ministers who attended the week-long meeting "decided the time for talking was over. The time for action on this pollution is now."

The interim plan includes boosting countries' efforts on safe stockpiling of mercury, reducing supply and use among artisanal miners as well as reducing mercury in products such as thermometers.

Mercury is a heavy metal whose highly toxic compounds -- propagated notably by the production of coal, certain kinds of plastics and improper disposal of fluorescent light bulbs -- poison millions of people worldwide.

Fish-eating is the prime source of exposure among humans. The effects of mercury ingestion include damage to the brain, kidney and lungs.

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Carbon offset pricing may confuse tourists

Nina Chestney, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

LONDON (Reuters) - Air travelers are paying vastly differing prices to offset their contribution to climate change, in some cases three times market levels, despite efforts to increase transparency in an unregulated market.

Under a regulated carbon market, countries and companies buy offsets to help them meet binding international climate targets.

Prices have halved in recent weeks as recession reduces industrial output and expected emissions.

But prices which consumers pay in an unofficial market have lagged behind those falls.

Carbon offsetting is offered to tourists and business travelers by many airlines and offset developers so as to allow people to justify flying by funding a carbon reduction project elsewhere.

"If the market for CERs (offsets) is at 10 euros and you are charging around 30 to offset you have to ask what is happening there," said International Carbon Reduction and Offset Alliance spokesman Edward Hanrahan.

Prices differed partly due to the quality of the offset credit, he added.

Prices vary from 9-30 euros per ton of avoided carbon dioxide, a survey of 12 providers showed.

Carbon offsets traded on regulated exchanges at 9 euros on Friday, while unregulated prices can be much lower.

Buyers pay per ton of their expected carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, for example for taking a flight.

The money helps fund projects which reduce emissions elsewhere, such as planting trees or trapping methane emissions from waste dumps in developing countries.

Offset developer Tricorona charges around 30 euros a ton on its website for "high quality" offsets, including tax.

"We are currently reviewing our pricing, in the wake of current market conditions," business development manager Conor Foley told Reuters, adding that the company would launch new prices on Monday.

"We will not have a mark-up of more than 25 percent. For 2007, it was 15 percent," he said explaining that the mark-up is defined as the profit after deducting administration costs. "The rest goes to project activities."

British Airways charges around 19 euros per ton to offset a London to Bangkok flight. The company website says that is based on market prices in November.

"We don't make any money from this. We buy a set amount of CERs at a fixed price depending on the time of purchase. We use them until they run out and then we buy more," a company spokeswoman said.

For additional news and analysis on the global carbon markets, go to here

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Peter Blackburn)

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Rich nations failing to meet climate aid pledges

World's richest countries have pledged nearly $18bn to help poorer countries adapt to climate change, but less than $1bn has been disbursed

John Vidal, guardian.co.uk 20 Feb 09;

Developing countries have received less than 10% of the money promised by rich countries to help them adapt to global warming, an analysis by the Guardian has found.

The failure is fostering deep distrust between rich and poor nations and is seriously undermining key negotiations on a global climate deal.

The world's richest countries have together pledged nearly $18bn (£12.5bn) in the last seven years, but despite world leaders' rhetoric that the finance is vital, less than $0.9bn has been disbursed and long delays are plaguing many funds.

The lack of action is causing growing concern among diplomats and UN climate talks negotiators who have warned that a global agreement on climate change to succeed the Kyoto treaty is at risk if rich countries do not make the money available.

"It's a scandal. The amount the developed countries have provided is peanuts. It is poisoning the UN negotiations. What [the rich countries] offer to the poorest is derisory, the equivalent of one banker's bonus. It's an insult to people who are already experiencing increasingextreme events," said Bernarditas Muller of the Phillippines, the chief negotiator for the G77 and China group of developing countries.

The analysis has found that the poorest countries have received the least help from the rich. The UN's Least developed countries fund has disbursed only $47m in seven years. The analysis, based on data collected by the independent Overseas Development Institute in London and confirmed by the UN, has also found:

• Britain has pledged nearly $1.5bn but has so far deposited under $0.3bn

• Africa, the poorest continent, has received less than 12% of all the climate fund money spent in the last four years

• It can take poor countries more than three years to access money

• Most of the money promised for climate change comes out of official aid budgets, leaving less for health, education and poverty action

According to the UN, $50-70bn a year needs to be invested immediately to help the poor countries adapt to extreme floods, droughts and heatwaves, with much more needed later. "I recognise the frustration. Contributions to funds have been disappointingly low and the least developed countries have received very little. Without significant finance you will not get developing country engagement [in negotiations]. Funding is key to unlocking an outcome for the talks," said Yvo de Boer, head of UN Framework Convention on Climate change (UNFCC), which oversees the talks.

Rich countries have accepted their moral responsibility for global warming, and are legally obliged by the Kyoto protocol to provide finance to poor countries to tackle climate change - but there is no enforcement or targets. "The situation is becoming very serious. The sums are ridiculously small and whole system has broken down. The financial commitments are weak and there is a great gap between the promises and the reality. It is very risky for the UN negotiations and for mankind," said the Juan Lozano Ramirez, the Colombian environment minister.

So far 12 rich countries, led by the UK, Germany, Japan and the US, have pledged $6.1bn to two climate investment funds administered by the World Bank. But no money has been deposited in them and any money available will be in the form of loans, not grants, with stringent conditions on how the money is spent. A pilot project for eight countries has been announced but no money is likely to be disbursed for nearly a year.

The bank has set up four other climate funds but no money has been deposited in them. In the current economic crisis, analysts believe rich countries are likely to use delaying tactics and it could be several years before deposits are made. Poor countries do not want the World bank to administer money pledged for them, as they perceive it to be run in the interests of rich nations.

The second major source of funds is the UN, which through its financial arm - the Global Environment Facility (GEF) - distributes nearly $250m a year to poor countries for climate change projects. Nearly one-third of the $760m distributed in the last three years, has gone to China, India and Brazil. Less than $100m of this has gone to projects in the world's 49 poorest countries.

Criticism centres on the GEF-administered Least-Developed Countries Fund (LCDF). In seven years, rich countries have deposited $172m for this but only $47m has been disbursed, mostly in very small grants. A seperate climate adaptation fund for the poorest countries set up in 2002 has only financed 22 projects, together worth $50m.

Bonizella Biagini, a spokesman for the GEF said: "The LCDF was set up in 2001 but the UNFCCC only decided how to operationalise it in 2005. We expect at least 12 projects to be endorsed in 2009, on top of the three that have already reached that stage. To implement a project requires time to sharpen the problem statement, negotiate partnerships and prepare on the ground implementation. Clearly there is insufficient money to cover the needs for adaptation in the least developed countries."

A third source of climate funds are "bilateral agreements", between individual countries. Japan has pledged more than $10bn of official aid over five years but has so far deposited nothing. Spain has promised $528m but released only $85m. Norway, Germany, Australia and others have also pledged but released very little.

A spokesman for CSRL, a coalition of 70 Bangladeshi environment groups, expressed concerns on hard it is to release the funds: "Climate change financing is inadequate and complex. Of 15 projects that Bangladesh designed in 2005, only one has been approved by the GEF but this will only receive a US$3.1m. A co-financer will have to be found to finance the rest."

Alison Doig, a climate spokesperson for Christian Aid, said: "The money available for the poor is a fraction of the annual cost of climate change already happening in developing countries and less than 1% of the $2.8 trillion committed by rich countries to rescuing banks and stimulating economic growth. Diverting funds from development assistance to fight climate change means that the poor suffer twice. The funds are too small and not directed to the most vulnerable. So the poor are left to suffer, and there is less in the pot for poverty reduction actions."

Britain has pledged more than any other country except Japan. It has promised £800m in loans for the World Bank's environmental transformation fund, £50m to protect the Congo basin forests and £75m to help Bangladesh adapt. But no payments are believed to have have reached recipients yet. In addition it has paid $250m for climate change funds for 2006-10.

A spokesman for the UK Department for International Development said: "It is the world's poorest who suffer most and we expect the UK's first contribution to global climate change funds to take place imminently.Progress to date has been ahead of plan - at the end of January, Mexico, Egypt and Turkey were given the green light to apply for funding for clean technology projects and a further eight developing countries were offered funding for adaptation."

"People are feeling the effects of climate change now. We are very willing to do more, but it needs the rich to show more willing", said Muller.

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Wheat gene found to overcome fungal disease: study

Yahoo News 21 Feb 09;

WASHINGTON (AFP) – An international research team has discovered a gene to make wheat resistance to a fungal disease responsible for millions of (acres) hectares of lost crops worldwide, according to a study published Thursday.

"This is the first step to achieving more durable resistance to a devastating disease in wheat," said Cristobal Uauy, co-author of the report, which was lead by researchers in Great Britain, United States and Israel.

Researchers had previously engineered wheat strains to be resistant against "stripe rust" disease, but it has enjoyed limited durability in practice because the fungus Puccinia striiformis had always "mutated to overcome them," according to the study authors.

But the new gene found in wild wheat overcomes this problem, said researchers, whose work is published in the US journal Science.

"This gene makes wheat more resistant to all stripe rust fungus races tested so far," said Uauy, who works at the John Innes Centre in Norwich, England.

Common wheat provides some 20 percent of the calories eaten by all of humanity, said the study authors.

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EU prepares for battle over growing GM maize crops

Jeremy Smith, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - European Union biotech experts will discuss next week whether to allow more cultivation of genetically modified crops but little progress is expected to break years of EU deadlock on biotechnology.

Two GM maize types are to be considered at the Wednesday meeting. If the experts fail to agree, which officials and diplomats say is the most likely outcome, both applications will be escalated to EU ministers for a decision.

The crops are Bt-11 maize, engineered by Swiss agrochemicals company Syngenta, and 1507 maize -- jointly developed by Pioneer Hi-Bred International, a unit of DuPont Co and Dow AgroSciences unit Mycogen Seeds.

"It's almost certain to be a non-opinion," said one official at the European Commission, the EU's executive arm, meaning that there was unlikely to be enough majority under the EU's weighted voting system to approve or reject the applications: stalemate.

The European Union has long been split on GMO policy and its 27 member countries consistently clash over whether to approve new varieties for import but without ever reaching a conclusion. GM crop cultivation is the "big one," diplomats say, in that no new modified crops have been approved for growing since 1998. There has been a string of GM approvals since 2004, however, but only as imported products for use in food and feed.

While diplomats say approving a new GM crop for growing is nigh on impossible in the EU's current climate, if next week's GM applications get sent to ministers and then there is a second voting stalemate, they would then return to the Commission.

If that happens, the Commission would -- probably -- end up issuing standard 10-year licenses. But that may take some time.

Even now, more than 10 years later, only one GM crop has won EU approval for commercial cultivation: a gene-altered maize made by U.S. biotech company Monsanto, known as MON 810.

Other companies want to change that situation and have filed lawsuits against the Commission for what they say is too much delay in getting their products approved and into EU markets. Pioneer is one of those complainants and filed its case in 2007.

"The fact is: the 1507 maize cultivation application has been unduly delayed since it was submitted nearly eight years ago, has been imported into the EU since 2006 and has been approved for cultivation in seven countries already," said Mike Hall, Pioneer's communications manager for Europe.

(Editing by Keiron Henderson)

Another German minister calls for GMO maize ban
Reuters 21 Feb 09;

HAMBURG (Reuters) - Germany should reconsider its policy of permitting farmers to grow maize with genetically modified organisms (GMOs) and consider banning biotech crops, Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said on Friday.

Gabriel is the second minister to raise a change of GMO policy this week, following Farm Minister Ilse Aigner's statement she may review permission to grow MON 810 GMO maize, developed by U.S. biotech group Monsanto Co..

Germany should consider following countries like France, which had imposed a unilateral bans on GMO maize cultivation, Gabriel said in a statement.

"We should also follow this prudent course taken by our neighbors," Gabriel said.

MON 810 maize has been approved as safe to cultivate by the European Union and all farmers in the bloc are theoretically free to grow and sell it. The maize is resistant to the corn borer, whose caterpillars damage plantings.

France and Greece have imposed unilateral bans which are controversial in the face of the EU wide approval and are claimed by some to break EU regulations.

Moves are under way to force both countries to lift their bans, although EU biotech experts on Monday failed to agree on issuing an order to both countries to allow GMO crop cultivation.

Gabriel said Germany should review its policy of permitting GMO cultivation before this season's crops are sown in the spring.

"The top priority in the use of genetic technology in agriculture must be placed much more on the precautionary protection of people and the environment," Gabriel said.

In early February, German farmers registered intentions to plant 3,567 hectares of GMO maize for the 2009 harvest, up slightly from the 3,207 hectares cultivated in 2008.

But the total is an insignificant part of the German annual maize cultivation of around 1.8 to 2.0 million hectares.

Earlier this week Monsanto hit back at German government criticism, saying its MON 810 GMO maize had been approved as safe by Germany's own Federal Office for Consumer Protection and Food Safety along with the European Food Safety Authority, the EU's key food safety agency.

(Reporting by Michael Hogan; Editing by James Jukwey)

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California farms lose main water source to drought

Steve Gorman, Reuters 20 Feb 09;

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - The main irrigation system for California farmers, the Central Valley Project, expects to halt water deliveries to most of its growers this year due to one of the worst droughts in state history, federal managers said on Friday.

The zero-water allocation for most CVP users was declared by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation as California water officials repeated their plans to cut amounts supplied from a separate state-run water project to 15 percent of normal allotments.

The cutbacks are a huge blow to farmers in the Central Valley, which produces over half of the fruit, vegetables and nuts grown in the United States, and will undoubtedly lead to higher prices for a wide variety of crops.

A recent University of California forecast projected that a scenario like the one announced on Friday would cause a loss of 60,000 to 80,000 jobs and over $2 billion in lost revenue.

The state already is coping with an unemployment rate well above the national average.

A spokeswoman for the Reclamation Bureau, Lynnette Wirth, described circumstances as "grim."

"It doesn't get any worse than zero," California Farm Bureau Federation President Doug Mosebar said in a statement. "Our water reliability has hit rock bottom."

He called on state authorities to take any steps possible to ease the situation, including ensuring that "voluntary, short-term water sales and transfers proceed quickly."

The Central Valley, a fertile but arid region stretching some 500 miles from Bakersfield to Redding, is the agricultural heartland of California, which ranks as the nation's No. 1 farm state in terms of the value of crops produced -- more than $36 billion a year.

The principal source of water for farms and ranches in the valley is the federally built and managed CVP, a vast network of dams, pumping stations and canals that collects runoff from the Sierra Nevada mountain range and delivers it to irrigation districts throughout the region.

The largest of those -- and biggest in the nation -- the Westlands Water District, encompasses just over 700 farmers on 600,000 acres of land, two-thirds of which will be idled by the cutoff in water supplies, spokeswoman Sarah Woolf said.

She said layoffs already have begun in anticipation of the cutbacks. Some growers will do their best to get by with unused water supplies left over from last year and local groundwater.

The CVP as a whole typically supplies irrigation water for about 3 million acres of farmland. This year, that will drop by 1 million acres or less, Wirth said.

Federal officials say allocations might be increased later in the year to 10 percent of contracted amounts, but only if the drought unexpectedly eases considerably.

Despite a recent flurry of winter storms, California is in the third year of a drought shaping up to be the state's worst ever. The snowpack in the Sierras remains far below normal, and reservoirs fed by mountain runoff are badly depleted as well.

Complicating matters are federal court restrictions on water that can be pumped from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta in Northern California, which furnishes much of the state's irrigation and drinking supplies, in order to protect endangered fish species.

(Editing by Dan Whitcomb and Christian Wiessner)

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Natural Resource Management Critical to Peacebuilding

Over Forty Per cent of Intrastate Conflicts Linked to Natural Resources, Says UNEP Report
UNEP Press Release 20 Feb 09;

Nairobi, 20 February 2009 - Intrastate conflicts are likely to drag on and escalate without a greater focus on environment and natural resources in the peacebuilding process, according to a new report launched today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). In addition, conflicts with a link to natural resources are twice as likely to relapse within the first five years, as shown by data collected by Uppsala University and the International Peace Research Institute in Oslo.

Even so, fewer that 25 per cent of peace agreements for resource-linked conflicts have addressed those linkages, leaving many post-conflict countries vulnerable to conflict relapse.

A stronger role for environment in post-conflict planning, along with greater capacity for early warning, are required to address environmental risks and capitalize on opportunities, the report says. This includes a more robust and comprehensive inclusion of environmental issues in UN peacebuilding activities, and a more careful harnessing of natural resources for economic recovery, essential services and sustainable livelihoods.

A timely input from UNEP as a fragile peace prevails in the Middle East and conflict rages on in Darfur and the Northern provinces of DR Congo, the paper analyses the links between environment, conflict and peacebuilding through fourteen case studies, including Afghanistan, Darfur, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

The often devastating direct impacts of conflict on the environment have been established by UNEP through some 15 post-conflict environmental assessments, which have documented environmental damage from armed conflict around the world since 1999. But the indirect consequences of post-conflict coping mechanisms and the damage inflicted to the capacity of government institutions are also key problems.

Even after an initial cessation of violence, natural resources can contribute to conflict relapse in the post-conflict period, and help finance a continued insurgency. No less that 18 violent conflicts have been fuelled by the exploitation of natural resources since 1990.

As the global population continues to rise, and demand for resources continues to grow, there is significant potential for conflicts over natural resources to intensify in the coming decades. In addition, new conflicts could be generated by the possible consequences of climate change for water availability and food security, for example.

UNEP's new report, however, suggests that there are also considerable opportunities for environment to contribute to peace consolidation rather than conflict.

Naming sustainable livelihoods, dialogue and confidence-building as potential keys to peacebuilding, the report also emphasizes the important role that carefully managed resources can play to jump-start economic activity in post-conflict countries. By providing a platform for cooperation, common environmental needs and resource-related goals can be a significant impetus for peace.

The report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP, was co-authored by the Expert Advisory Group on Environment, Conflict and Peacebuilding established by UNEP in 2008, which is composed of senior experts from academic institutions, non-governmental organizations and think tanks that have demonstrated leadership in environment and conflict issues.

With continued support from the Government of Finland, a collection of 60 case studies on best practices of natural resource management for peacebuilding will be published by UNEP as a follow up to this report in 2010. In addition, UNEP is joining forces with the European Commission, the UN Development Programme, the UN Department of Political Affairs, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the UN Peacebuilding Support Office and UN-Habitat to develop guidance and training to address resource-based conflicts at the field level.

Notes To Editors:

About this report

This report, which inaugurates a new policy series by UNEP on the environmental dimensions of disasters and conflicts, aims to summarize the latest knowledge and field experience on the linkages between environment, conflict and peacebuilding, and to demonstrate the need for those linkages to be addressed in a more coherent and systematic way by the UN, Member States and other stakeholders. As such, it is linked to a wider cooperation on conflict and natural resource management started between the European Commission and the United Nations system in 2008, which has resulted in a new project funded by the European Commission under the Instrument for Stability on "Strengthening Capacities for Consensual and Sustainable Management of Land and Natural Resources."

A joint product of UNEP and the Expert Advisory Group, this paper was co-authored by Richard Matthew of the University of California, Irvine, Oli Brown of the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD) and David Jensen of UNEP's Post-Conflict and Disaster Management Branch (PCDMB). It was open for peer review to all UN agencies, programmes and funds working on conflict and peacebuilding, as well as to the Member States and observers of the Peacebuilding Commission. It was also released as a consultation draft at four international meetings during 2008, involving over 250 environment, security, peacebuilding and development practitioners.

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