Five west African countries to take Nile carp

Yahoo News 17 Mar 09;

ABIDJAN (AFP) – Experts from five west African countries gathered Tuesday in Ivory Coast to discuss a plan to introduce tilapia, or the Nile carp, into waters of the Volta basin for fish farming.

"We need to take precautions before undertaking such a large enterprise," Ivory Coast's Minister of Animal Production and Fisheries Alphonse Douati told AFP on the sidelines of the meeting.

Douati said that if successfully managed in line with a fish farming scheme drawn up by the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the "TIVO project" could deliver a fivefold increase in freshwater fish supplies in the region.

The nations involved in the project are Benin, Burkina Faso, Ghana, Mali and Togo. The three-day Abidjan meeting was to assess studies of the environmental and biodiversity risks of introducing the carp into the Volta.

Spain has offered a million euros (1.3 million dollars) in funding for the TIVO project.

"The interest is economic and will give breeders stocks that grow faster to put a more interesting product on to the market," Christopher Nugent, the FAO official responsible for the TIVO scheme, said.

Aquaculture accounts for 50 percent of fish food production in the world but Douati pointed out that the majority comes from Asia.

"Africa has been slow to take off in spite of its rich potential," he added.

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Wheat experts warn of worldwide disease threat

Yahoo News 17 Mar 09;

MEXICO CITY (AFP) – A virulent strain of an old plant disease is threatening wheat production worldwide, experts warned in Mexico Tuesday, but they also reported progress in developing new varieties to try to beat it.

The dangerous new form of stem rust -- known as Ug99 for its discovery in Uganda 10 years ago -- has already spread across East Africa and the Middle East toward South Asia, according to research presented at the start of a four-day international meeting in Ciudad Obregon.

Ninety percent of the varieties planted around the world lack resistance to the reddish, wind-borne fungus that is already well established in Kenya, where it has decimated 80 percent of wheat in some areas, the experts said.

"That's the level you can expect," said Ravi Singh, a wheat geneticist and pathologist from the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center.

Scientists led by Singh announced a breakthrough in their efforts to develop new varieties of wheat that are not only resistant to Ug99, but also produce more grain than today's most popular varieties.

Averting a crisis will require farmers to replace their existing varieties with resistant ones, even though they may not face an immediate threat, the experts said, pointing to a campaign underway in India to persuade farmers to switch.

"It's important to get something done before it hits," Singh told AFP.

Stem rust has plagued wheat farmers for thousands of years, but for the last 50 years it was largely under control thanks to resistant varieties developed by scientists led by pioneering US agronomist Norman Borlaug.

Their work, undertaken in Mexico, is credited with launching a "green revolution" that saved billions from starvation across the world and won Borlaug a Nobel Peace Prize.

"Our scientists are making incredibly rapid progress, but we should have no illusions: a global food crisis is still a distinct possibility if governments and international institutions fail to support this rescue mission," Borlaug said in a statement Tuesday.

Scientists gain in struggle against wheat rust
Yahoo News 17 Mar 09;

MEXICO CITY – Researchers are deploying new wheat varieties with an array of resistant genes they hope will baffle and defeat Ug99, a highly dangerous fungus leapfrogging through wheat fields in Africa and Asia.

"Significant progress has been made," plant geneticist Ravi Singh and collaborators said in a paper presented Tuesday to leading international wheat experts at a four-day conference on combating the re-emerged, mutant form of stem rust, an old plant disease.

Scientists still spoke of a potential agricultural disaster.

"A global food crisis is still a distinct possibility if governments and international institutions fail to support this rescue mission," Norman Borlaug, 94, the Nobel Prize-winning American agronomist, said in a statement.

The Borlaug Global Rust Initiative, an alliance of research institutions, organized the conference in Ciudad Obregon, northwest Mexico, where Borlaug did much of his research leading to the "Green Revolution" in farm productivity worldwide, including work that helped suppress stem rust a half-century ago.

More than 200 crop scientists from around the world were attending the workshop sessions, where three dozen papers were to be presented discussing the effort to crossbreed wheat varieties resistant to the new, virulent type of rust fungus.

It emerged in Uganda in 1999 — hence Ug99 — and has since spread east and northeast through Africa, and into southwest Asia, as far north as Iran. Global wind models indicate the crop disease may next spread into Pakistan, Afghanistan and India.

In some areas of Kenya, the reddish, wind-borne fungus has destroyed 80 percent of the wheat in farmers' fields, the Borlaug initiative's office said.

The researchers led by Singh, of the Mexico-based International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center, have engaged in "shuttle" crossbreeding of wheat varieties in the search for Ug99-resistant properties, developing varieties in test fields in Mexico and Syria, exposing them to Ug99 in Africa, returning them for refinement, then exposing them again in Africa.

Singh said they have produced new types that are not only resistant, but higher-yielding than today's most popular varieties.

The resistance comes not from one or two genes that convey immunity, but from an array of "multiple minor genes" that together achieve "near-immunity," the paper said.

Because Ug-99 mutated and overcame one and then another major resistance gene in Kenya, researchers hope a greater number of minor blockers — though each alone not a major defense — would prove a more complex challenge to the fungus.

Borlaug said Ug-99's ability to mutate quickly meant crossbreeding research must continue unabated, while governments and international institutions support stepped-up production and distribution of resistant wheat varieties.

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Fungus devastates 'chicken' frog

Richard Black, BBC News 17 Mar 09;

"If this was killing mammals or birds in the same way it's killing amphibians, millions and millions would have been spent on it."

Montserrat's "mountain chicken" frog has become the latest victim of the killer fungal disease that is devastating amphibians worldwide.

UK researchers say that only two small pockets of the animals on the tiny Caribbean island remain disease-free.

The mountain chicken (Leptodactylus fallax) is one of the world's largest frogs, and appears on the coat of arms of neighbouring Dominica.

Conservationists plan to take surviving frogs into captive breeding programmes.

They suspect the chytrid fungus entered Montserrat on small frogs stowing away in consignments of produce from Dominica.

"We've always been afraid that frogs coming in banana consignments from Dominica would bring chytrid and that it would then spread into the centre of the island," said John Fa, director of conservation science at Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust.

"The northern populations are closer to the port, and the disease appears to have spread southward along the river systems.

"Essentially, all populations to the north and north-west of the centre hills have been decimated, and there are just two remaining populations of seemingly healthy animals in the south-eastern corner."

An expedition in 2005 found no sign of fungal infection.

Clean sweep

The frogs are so called because their meat tastes like chicken. In both Caribbean islands - the only places where they naturally occur now - hunting was already impacting populations before the arrival of chytrid.

Most of the Montserrat populations were also affected by the volcanic eruptions that began in 1995, although the creation of an "exclusion zone" around the volcano's slopes has provided some help to wildlife by freeing it from human pressures.

Events on Montserrat now appear to be mimicking what happened on Dominica in 2002.

Within 15 months of the fungus arriving, about 80% of the island's mountain chicken had been wiped out.

First identified just over a decade ago, the fungus (Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis) has spread through hundreds of amphibian species on different continents.

It sweeps some to extinction in a matter of months, while others are apparently immune.

"We still don't know how chytrid kills frogs, and there's some very basic stuff about the biology of the fungus that we need to understand," observed Andrew Cunningham from the Zoological Society of London (ZSL).

"We've known about it for 10 years, but so little money has been spent on it.

"If this was killing mammals or birds in the same way it's killing amphibians, millions and millions would have been spent on it."

In captivity, chemicals can be used to rid amphibians of the fungus, but as yet there is no way to cure them in the wild, or to cleanse infected water bodies.

As a result, many conservation groups are focusing their energies on establishing captive populations.

Durrell and other conservation organisations already have mountain chicken in captivity, and will be taking more from the apparently healthy Montserrat populations in the coming weeks.

In contrast to some other operations, though, it plans to treat and return some frogs to the wild within a couple of years, placing them in areas that appear to be free of chytrid.

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Five myths about pandemic panic

Philip Alcabes, Business Times 18 Mar 09;

THE northern winter is almost over, and it appears that the world is going to make it through another flu season without a global disaster. That may seem like a miracle after the hysteria generated in recent years by Sars, avian flu and the World Health Organization's (WHO) standing warning that it's 'a matter of time' before the next influenza pandemic strikes.

But the truth is that the threat is being hyped.

# Infectious diseases are spreading faster than ever.

The WHO made this claim in a 2007 report. But even before the advent of commercial air travel, diseases had no trouble moving from place to place. In the 1490s, syphilis rode Spanish ships across the Atlantic (whether from the New World to the Old or vice versa is subject to debate) in a matter of weeks, then made its way through Europe and Asia. In the 1820s, military and merchant ships carried cholera from India to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. At the end of World War I, the 'Spanish flu' virus crossed the ocean on troop ships, ravaged the forces fighting in Europe and then spread around the world to produce the 1918 pandemic. The death toll topped 40 million.

In 2003, Sars showed that although air travel can introduce a disease to a new location, it won't necessarily cause the illness to spiral out of control. Because public officials quickly contained the few Sars outbreaks caused by infected people on planes, the 774 deaths were concentrated in China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and Canada.

Tuberculosis is another airborne illness that can be controlled.

Studies show that it's extremely unlikely for the disease to be transmitted in aeroplane cabins. (Remember the passenger with drug-resistant TB who travelled from Atlanta to Paris in 2007? No one else came down with it.) So germs do fly, but outbreaks don't go global that much more readily than they did before. And we can handle most of them by monitoring infectious people and distributing medicine quickly - precautions that have been in place for years and even centuries.

# To learn how to prevent a pandemic, look to the past.

We always seem to be preparing for the last war. But the worst calamities erupt precisely because they are unprecedented and unimaginable. When the Black Death arrived in Europe in the 1340s, wiping out at least a quarter of the population, the region had been plague-free for six centuries. In the 1830s and 1840s, cholera, never before seen in the West, killed up to one per cent of the populations of several British and American cities in a few weeks. The influenza of 1918 was unlike any before or since (see Myth No. 3). Then came yet another unheard-of illness: Aids. Like those before it, the next killer will be one that we've never imagined - or prepared for.

# We should brace ourselves for another Spanish flu.

Fortunately, we'll never see another flu outbreak of that sort.

During World War I, the movement of troops and refugees - many of whom were too young to have acquired flu immunities during the epidemics of the 19th century - created a unique breeding ground for the virus and probably allowed more virulent strains to develop. New research also suggests that most of the deaths in 1918 and 1919 were caused by bacterial infections that roared through weakened respiratory systems.

So if the disease came back today, antibiotics would save many of the infected. More probable than a reprise of the 1918 scenario are further outbreaks such as today's avian flu - which is far less dangerous because the virus spreads from animals to humans, not from person to person. Avian flu has killed millions of birds but has sickened only 411 people since 2003. Public health officials should spend more time preparing for the possible fallout from a widespread outbreak among animals rather than stoking panic about a new Spanish flu.

# The annual flu season is nothing compared to a pandemic.

Preparedness warriors try to frighten people by using the word 'pandemic'. But such strains of the influenza virus - new ones to which humans have not developed resistance - aren't necessarily more virulent than the ordinary ones we see each winter. Only two flu pandemics have occurred since 1918, one in 1957 and the other in 1968.

In both cases, global mortality was a fraction of what it was in 1918.

And in the United States, as a recent study showed, the number of deaths directly attributable to influenza during the two pandemics was no higher than during typical flu seasons.

# There's no such thing as being too prepared.

Actually, we run the risk of doing more harm than good by overreacting to the threat of a pandemic. In 1976, swine flu, a strain of influenza similar to the one from 1918, was diagnosed in a small number of soldiers at Fort Dix in New Jersey one of whom died. That prompted medical experts to warn that the US faced a crisis reminiscent of the Spanish flu. President Gerald Ford authorised a mass inoculation programme, and 45 million Americans - more than 20 per cent of the population - were vaccinated.

But the plan crashed. A disorder called Guillain-Barre syndrome, which causes the immune system to attack the body's nerves, began appearing in patients who had received the flu shots. About 500 cases were linked to the vaccine; 32 of those people died. The federal government ended up settling wrongful death and damage claims for millions of dollars. But there was no swine flu epidemic, just a handful of cases.

Philip Alcabes is a professor of urban public health at Hunter College of the City University of New York and the author of the forthcoming book, 'Dread: How Fear and Fantasy Have Fueled Epidemics from the Black Death to Avian Flu'

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Scheme to Curb Global Warming Could Backfire

Andrea Thompson, livescience.com Yahoo News 17 Mar 09;

One proposed plan to save the planet from global warming - by injecting particles to intercept the sun's light - would have the unintended, and ironic, effect of making a key alternative energy source, solar power, less effective, a new study points out.

Several "geoengineering" schemes have been proposed to curb the warming effect of greenhouse gases accumulating in the atmosphere. One of these takes its cue from observations of the effects of huge volcanic eruptions on global climate.

For example, when the Philippines' Mt. Pinatubo erupted in 1991, it rocketed volcanic ash and gases up into the atmosphere. Some of this volcanic confetti hovered in the stratosphere, circulating around the world, and caused the global surface temperature to drop by almost 1 degree Fahrenheit (0.5 degree Celsius) for two years afterward.

The particles cause the cooling by absorbing, reflecting and scattering incoming solar rays back to space.

Since then, some scientists have proposed that sulfur particles could be artificially injected into the atmosphere to cause a cooling that would help offset the warming caused by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.

Several problems with this proposal have been identified, including the need to continuously inject the particles and the potential for acid rain, caused by the sulfur aerosols (tiny particles), being sucked up by water in the atmosphere.

The new study, conducted by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and detailed online on March 11 in the journal Environmental Science & Technology, found another hiccup in the plan: the amount of sunlight available for use by solar plants would be reduced.

Direct and diffuse

Study author Daniel Murphy found that particles in the stratosphere did indeed reduce the amount and change the nature of the sunlight that strikes the Earth. Though a fraction of the incoming sunlight bounces back to space (which causes the cooling effect), a much larger amount becomes diffuse, or scattered, light.

On average, for every watt of sunlight the particles reflect away from the Earth, another three watts of direct sunlight are converted to diffuse sunlight. Large power-generating solar plants, part of the effort to reduce fossil fuel use, that concentrate sunlight for maximum efficiency depend solely on direct sunlight and cannot use diffuse light.

The plants use curved mirrors or other methods to concentrate the light, which allows them to generate energy at a lower cost. Flat photovoltaic and hot water panels, commonly seen on household roofs, use both diffuse and direct sunlight. Their energy output would decline much less than that from concentrating systems.

Murphy saw this change in the type of light before and after the Pinatubo eruption: After the eruption of Mt. Pinatubo, peak power output of Solar Electric Generating Stations in California, the largest collective of solar power plants in the world, fell by up to 20 percent, even though the stratospheric particles from the eruption reduced total sunlight that year by less than 3 percent.

"The sensitivity of concentrating solar systems to stratospheric particles may seem surprising," Murphy said. "But because these systems use only direct sunlight, increasing stratospheric particles has a disproportionately large effect on them."

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Sentiment Toward Nuclear Power Improving: Study

Eileen O'Grady, PlanetArk 18 Mar 09;

HOUSTON - Consumers around the world, worried about reliable energy supplies and pollution, said their countries should use less oil, natural gas and coal to make electricity and use more nuclear and renewable power, according to a 20-country survey by Accenture.

In Accenture's Multinational Nuclear Power Survey, 88 percent of the more than 10,500 respondents said reducing reliance on fossil-fueled power generation was "important" or "very important" to improve energy security and trim emissions of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas blamed for climate change.

Electricity from wind, solar and other renewable sources was seen as one way to pare the need for fossil-fueled electricity. More than a third of respondents said more power from nuclear plants will also be needed.

"U.S. and global aspirations for lower-carbon, or zero-carbon electricity, are unattainable without nuclear in the mix," said Daniel Krueger, an Accenture managing director for the global generation and energy markets group.

New York-based Accenture, a global management consulting and technology firm, works with nuclear industry clients, primarily in information technology.

Nearly three-fourths of those surveyed said nuclear power will play an important role in meeting future electric demand, including 93 percent of Indians, 80 percent of Americans, dropping to 62 percent of Canadians and 51 percent of Germans.

In the United States, 73 percent of the respondents said it would be acceptable to build a new reactor within 100 miles of their home, but only 47 percent said construction of a new reactor within 25 miles would be acceptable.

Krueger said while U.S. consumers were most willing for new reactors to built at existing sites, opposition to nuclear power remained strong in densely populated Northeastern states.

Overall, men endorsed the use of more nuclear while women raised the most concern about nuclear safety issues, waste disposal and potential terrorism, according to the survey.

In many countries public sentiment toward nuclear power has softened over the past three years, Accenture said.

People surveyed in China and South Africa were the most supportive of adding nuclear capacity while, surprisingly, consumers in France, Japan and Germany were more negative.

In a warning to the industry, Krueger attributed the erosion in support on public reaction to recent nuclear plant operating problems in Japan and France.

"An incident anywhere in your country can quickly erode support for nuclear and a major incident anywhere in the world -- if not handled in a forthright manner -- could undermine the entire global industry," Krueger said.

(Editing by David Gregorio)

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Shell Goes Cold On Wind, Solar, Hydrogen Energy

Tom Bergin, PlaneArk 18 Mar 09;

LONDON - Oil Major Royal Dutch Shell Plc doesn't plan to make any more large investments in wind and solar energy in the future and does not expect hydrogen to play an important role in energy supply for some time.

"We do not expect material amounts of investment in those areas going forward," Linda Cook, head of Shell's gas and power unit told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.

"They continue to struggle to compete with the other investment opportunities we have in our portfolio," Cook said of solar and wind.

Shell's future involvement in renewables will be principally limited to biofuels, which the world's second-largest non- government-controlled oil company by market value believes is a better fit with its core oil and gas operations.

In the past year, the company said it was refocusing its wind business on the U.S. as it pulled out of European projects.

Shell has around 550 megawatts of wind power capacity but does not break out figures for investment in each renewable energy source.

From 1999-2006 Shell invested around $1.25 billion in green energy, according to Reuters analysis of Shell's statements. Wind played a large part of that.

One renewables analyst said the decision could reflect the $100/bbl drop in oil prices since July which has eased concerns about energy supply and the economic crisis which has pushed environmental concerns down the agenda.

"There may not be any political pressure on them to invest in renewables at this particular stage," the analyst, who asked not to be named, said.

The decision may anger environmental groups who, in recent years, have put pressure on Shell over its major investments in Canada's oil sands, an energy and water intensive business which involves squeezing crude from bitumen-soaked soil.

While Shell's advertising focuses on its involvement in renewable energy, only around 1 percent of its investments go to these energy sources.

(Editing by Rupert Winchester)

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U.N. Climate Chief Hustles On Global Warming Deal

Gerard Wynn, PlanetArk 18 Mar 09;

COPENHAGEN - Big gaps remain in a new U.N. deal on global warming meant to be agreed in December and time is running worryingly short with just 265 days left, the U.N. climate chief said on Tuesday.

Yvo de Boer criticized a meeting of European Union finance ministers last week, which he said put conditions on financial help for climate action in developing countries, contrary to promises at the launch of the two-year climate talks in Bali in 2007.

The talks are meant to conclude in Copenhagen in December with a new climate treaty to replace the Kyoto Protocol after 2012. One battleground is between industrialized and developing countries on how to split the cost of curbing greenhouse gas emissions.

"How are things looking in terms of that agreement? Worrying," he told reporters on the sidelines of a carbon trading conference in Copenhagen.

"Countries have not come forward with specific proposals on how aspects of the Copenhagen agreement can work in practice," he told Reuters, referring to "gaps" in a document meant to form the basis of a legal text.

Before the final session in Copenhagen senior officials from about 190 countries will negotiate that text at a series of meetings, the first held later this month in Bonn.

"I'm not concerned by the mood, about willingness to get the job done, I'm concerned by the amount of time that's left to get the work done," de Boer said, adding that recession had made it more difficult to ask finance ministers for help.

Industrialized countries are meant to agree to specific targets to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. Japan, Ukraine, Switzerland and Russia still had not made offers.

"(A Copenhagen deal) has to include 2020 targets," said de Boer. "Those numbers need to be ambitious otherwise we're not close to what science tells us needs to be done.

De Boer said that U.S. President Barack Obama's goal to bring U.S. greenhouse gases back to 1990 levels by 2020 was a "first good offer." He declined to comment on what he thought would be a suitable U.S. goal.

Major emerging economies such as China and India were not expected to agree to concrete targets but rich countries want them to agree specific actions.

"We also need clarity on what major developing countries are willing to do to limit the growth of their emissions, and to get that I think finance is essential," he told Reuters.

De Boer criticized EU finance ministers who appeared to lay conditions on financial help to the South -- depending on what specific climate actions developing countries first proposed.

"This is not helpful in moving the world forwards to an agreement in Copenhagen," he said, and urged EU leaders meeting in Brussels later this week to be more decisive.

"I think without clarity on finance from industrialized countries there will be no commitment from developing countries."

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Act now on floods, drought, says forum

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 17 Mar 09;

ISTANBUL (AFP) – Nations should throw themselves into building defences against floods and drought, which may already be multiplying due to climate change, the World Water Forum here heard on Tuesday.

The biggest-ever gathering on tackling the world's water crisis was warned that water-related catastrophes are more frequent and more brutal, inflicting a rising toll in lives and damage, and greenhouse gases are fingered as a cause.

"Global warming is intensifying these disasters," said Avinash Tyagi, director of the climate and water department at the World Meteorological Organisation (WMO).

Over the last century, temperatures had risen by 0.74 degrees Celsius (1.3 degrees Fahrenheit) but have accelerated sharply in the last 50 years, he said.

This has coincided with changes in rainfall and snowfall, leading in turn to the now sadly familiar images of parched fields and flooded streets.

Tyagi said scientists were striving to fill gaps in their knowledge, but feared worse is to come when climate change shifts up a gear.

"The projections point to the 21st century as the century of floods or the century of droughts," said Tyagi. "But it could be a century of floods and drought, a mixture of extremes."

"Floods are on the rise. The damage is increasing by five percent per year, while the number of big floods is also increasing," said Chris Zevenbergen, a Dutch expert who is a professor at the UN's Institute for Water Education.

Ministers from Central America and the Caribbean said that they were in the firing line.

"Central America is very vulnerable to the impact of climate change," said Tomas Vaquero, the Honduran minister of natural resources and the environment.

"There is every likelihood of droughts on the Pacific side (of Central America) and floods on the Caribbean side. There are also likely to be changes in the large marine current and salination of our coastal areas" from rising seas.

Experts said strategies for tackling the threat include dams and dikes to collect precious water for parched times; levees to protect cities in river basins; more efficient irrigation; rainwater harvesting; and "climate alert systems" to alert the public of impending weather events.

Authorities should also map vulnerable terrain, develop models of local water drainage, outlaw building in areas at risk and enforce "flood-resilient" building design.

Zevenbergen said only five percent of development in the world's expanding cities was planned. The rest amounted to building in a piecemeal or anarchic fashion.

When the rains come, slum dwellers and homes on flood plains are exposed to inundation and land slips.

Toshio Okazumi, a senior official for water management at Japan's ministry of land, infrastructure, transport and tourism, said his country was already drawing up plans for climate-related water disasters.

From 1901 to 1930, Japan averaged 3.5 days per year in which a day's rainfall was more than 200mm (eight inches), he said. From 1978, though, this rose to 5.1 days per year, a 150 percent increase in frequency.

A century from now, rainfall in Japan will increase by between 10 and 30 percent, especially in the north, increasing the risk of floods, according to Japanese simulations.

Han Seung-soo, prime minister of South Korea, whose country has been hit by two major typhoons and a drought since 2002, took part in a panel that recommended six priorities for reducing the toll of such catastrophes through civil preparedness, emergency water supplies and sanitation.

Loic Fauchon, president of the World Water Council, suggested the creation of a cadre of hydrologists, which he called "water blue helmets" in deference to the UN.

These experts could be rushed to a flood-stricken country to provide valuable skills, he argued.

The World Water Forum, held every three years, has drawn registrations from more than 27,000 policymakers, experts, corporate executives and activists. The seven-day conference winds up in Istanbul on Sunday.

Reducing future water conflict should be priority for ministers and forum
WWF 17 Mar 09;

A global ministerial statement on water management in a time of increasing water shortages and stress should squarely address the need to reduce more and more likely future conflict over water.

“There are several ways to reduce the likelihood of future water conflict but the most urgent and significant is to bring into effect a global agreement for managing the rivers that form or cross international boundaries,” said Dr Lifeng Li, Freshwater director for WWF International.

“We understand the ministers are still wrangling about including a reference to UN Watercourses Convention in their statement but avoiding all reference to it would be very strange. The Convention is the only global agreement focusing on water security and reducing political tension between nations. In a world of climate change it’s more important than ever that it is brought into force.”

The convention received overwhelming support from nearly all countries in a UN General Assembly vote but has languished in limbo for more than a decade with too few countries ratifying the treaty to bring it into force.

If brought into force it would provide the basis for avoiding conflict over the rivers, lakes, wetlands, and aquifers draining almost half the world’s land area, accounting for 60 per cent of global freshwater flows and vital to providing water to 40 percent of the world’s population.

Dr Li said he would be looking for governments to acknowledge the role of the Convention in the ministerial declaration emerging from the 5th World Water Forum, now going on in Istanbul, Turkey. The Forum, criticised for paying insufficient heed to the water needs of the poor and the environment, has the overall theme of Bridging Divides on Water and concludes on World Water Day, also with a theme of shared transboundary waters.

WWF is also looking to both the ministers and the Forum for strong statements on the human rights to adequate water and sanitation and the need to include all stakeholders in decision making on water infrastructure and management.

Water management also needs to be sustainable and protective of the natural systems providing the bulk of humanity’s water, Dr Li said.

Dr Li noted that the ministers appeared to be committing themselves to assessing the impacts of climate change when what was needed was action to drastically reduce emissions and deforestation and adapt to impacts already occurring and reliably anticipated.


WWF also is calling for engineering solutions to be properly assessed in the light of other less destructive alternatives in accordance with existing and emerging international standards for consultation and environmental sustainability.

“We are looking for a clear statement that balances all competing interests and doesn’t disproportionately favour those of the construction industry and utilities,” Dr Li said.

“Water is the most basic of commodities and needs to be kept available for all. Ensuring that natural ecosystems keep providing us with water is fundamental. The ministerial and forum declarations should both emphasise this and reflect it in their proposals.

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UN report highlights growing water stress but could put more stress on protecting ecosystems

WWF 17 Mar 09;

A UN water report issued today gives a useful overview of a world growing increasingly short of water but puts far too little emphasis on the need to protect the natural environmental assets that supply and purify water, global conservation organization WWF said today.

Water in a changing world, the third UN Water Development Report issued by UNESCO at the World Water Forum in Istanbul, said water demand would increase due to population growth, rising living standards and changed food consumption patterns and the demands of biofuel production while water supplies were already near their limits in many countries.

WWF welcomed the report’s call for better governance and management of water and its observation that while the water sector is often taking more responsible approach to management “the key decisions about water are taken outside the water sector”.

“The report is relatively sympathetic to solutions that involve pouring concrete, without giving due recognition to the problems caused by the concrete pouring of the past,” said Dr Lifeng Li, Director of Freshwater at WWF International.

“We would have liked to see more emphasis on the importance of providing enough water for natural systems to keep functioning in order to keep providing water.

“One key contribution to water supplies running short in many areas is that the natural environmental assets that protect and purify water and help us cope with floods and droughts have been degraded through over-use and pollution.

The report notes that climate change will worsen the water situation in many already short countries but offers few pointers for adapting to this challenge.

“The key lesson of WWF’s on the ground work is that what best protects and improves the functioning of freshwater systems now is what will best protect them from climate change impacts in the future,”
The report also raises the likelihood of conflict over water between countries, regions and urban and rural users.

“We also find it puzzling that a report predicting more water conflict between countries fails to mention for the ratification and implementation of an existing UN treaty that would provide a basis for countries to share and jointly manage waters on their borders.”

The UN Watercourses Convention, approved by an overwhelming majority of countries in 1997, still lacks enough signatories to come into effect. The 263 water basins shared between two or more countries drain half the world’s land surface, account for nearly two thirds of global freshwater flows and are vital to the water supplies of 40 percent of the world’s population.

“Indeed, the convention fails to even gain a specific mention in UN Water’s brochure for World Water Day this coming Sunday, which is on the theme of transboundary waters,” Dr Li said.

New UN report warns of increasing pressures on water
UNEP 16 Mar 09;

Istanbul, 16 March 2009 - Population growth, climate change, widespread mismanagement and increasing demand for energy could lead to a major global water crisis, according to the UN World Water Development Report.

The report was released on 16 March in Istanbul (Turkey) as part of the World Water Forum, which goes on until 22 March. On the theme of 'Bridging divides for water', this year's Forum seeks to enable multi-stakeholder participation and dialogue to make water policy more sustainable at a global level.

Representing the UN Environment Programme in this key gathering is a specialized team headed by UNEP Deputy Executive Director Angela Cropper.

The UN World Water Development Report (WWDR), released every three years in conjunction with the World Water Forum, is the UN's flagship report on water and is a comprehensive review of the state of the world's freshwater resources.

The report is a joint effort of the 26 UN agencies and entities which make up UN-Water, working in partnership with governments, international organizations, non-governmental organizations and other stakeholders. It aims to provide decision-makers with the tools to implement sustainable use of our water.

UNEP contributed to 'Drivers of Change' section of the Third World Water Report and will also launch two publications on 18 March as part of the Forum: 'Water Security and ecosystem services: The critical connection', and 'Integrated Water Resources Management in Action'

The main issues UNEP is promoting at the Forum are water and ecosystem services, adaptation to climate change and freshwater and coastal interlinkages.

The World Water Development Report provides a mechanism for monitoring changes in water resources and their management and for tracking progress towards achieving targets, particularly those of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) and the World Summit on Sustainable Development.

The Report also offers best practices and in-depth theoretical analyses to help stimulate ideas and actions for better stewardship in the water sector.

Urgent action is needed, as illustrated by the 2009 UNEP Year Book. The expected shifts in precipitation patterns and water availability due to our changing climate are complex and have been documented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. In many regions of the world, water is already scarce and likely to become more so as global climate change advances.

Areas expected to be affected by persistent drought and water scarcity in coming years include the southern and northern tiers of Africa, much of the Middle East, a broad band in Central Asia and the Indian subcontinent, southern and eastern Australia, northern Mexico, and the southwestern United States.

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Economic Crisis Sets Back Water Utilities: World Bank

Osman Orsal, PlanetArk 18 Mar 09;

ISTANBUL - The global financial crisis could set back development in water utilities by a decade or more as investment falters and people become increasingly unable to afford water bills, the World Bank warned Tuesday.

As funding dries up a vicious circle could reemerge of poor services, low willingness to pay and low investment, said Jamal Saghir, Director of Energy, Water and Transport at the World Bank.

Speaking in Istanbul at the World Water Forum he said water utilities worldwide would have to boost efficiency to convince cash-strapped governments they were a sound investment.

In the meantime, new ventures were likely to be canceled and existing water infrastructure projects come under cost pressure, he said.

More than 20,000 environmentalists, scientists, aid and utilities experts are discussing issues surrounding water, climate change and development with government ministers from around 120 countries at the forum.

The conference has come under fire from some action groups for not stressing enough the basic human right to clean water.

The United Nations Millennium Development Goals pledged at the start of this decade to halve, by 2015, the proportion of the population without access to safe drinking water.

Almost 1 billion people have no access to safe water and 2.6 billion people have no access to sanitation.

Angel Gurria, Secretary General of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), told the conference national governments must revise how they fund water services -- typically a mix of tarifs paid by users, tax revenues and in some countries aid transfers.

If the financial crisis makes it harder for developing countries to borrow they must find ways of gradually moving to more tariff-based systems which also protect those least able to pay, he said.

In a report unveiled at the forum, the OECD said the financial crisis represented an opportunity to make water infrastructure more efficient thereby attracting new investment.

(Editing by Janet Lawrence)

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How turtle eggs ended up as dinner is food for thought

The Star 18 Mar 09;

SAHABAT Alam Malaysia (SAM) is disheartened to read that dinner guests were served with turtle eggs at a weekend police dinner function in Kuching “SFC to probe turtle eggs on menu” (The Star, March 4).

These were not ordinary guests but senior government officials who are entrusted to upkeep and uphold the law but had no qualms when consuming the eggs.

Marine turtles are listed as totally protected under Sarawak’s Wildlife Protection Ordinance. As such, SAM fails to understand how these eggs ended up on a dinner table.

There should be respect for the rule of law particularly when Malaysia is a signatory to the Memorandum of Understanding on Asean Sea Turtle Conservation and Protection. A country which has respect for the rule of law cannot give excuses or justification for consuming this culinary delights under whatever circumstances.

The incident can best be described as a stigma in Sarawak’s past good record of turtle conservation efforts.

The Sarawak Forestry Corporation, for instance, has played a major role in initiating a turtle adoption programme to create turtle habitats, heighten awareness of the importance of conservation. But all this has come to naught with the recent dinner.

It should serve as a wake-up call to the corporation that it must not be complacent and need to improve their performance in deterring and eradicating the sale of turtle eggs.

Inaction on its part in enforcing the existing laws had emboldened certain quarters to take advantage of the situation.

This is an issue of grave concern and SAM would like to see the law forcefully enforced on the guilty parties. Those responsible for the distribution and supplying of the turtle eggs should be brought to book.

SAM urges the Sarawak Forestry Department and the police to conduct an in-depth investigation into the matter, without fear or favour and the results made known to the public.

Those in violation of the law should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Otherwise, it is feared that the consumption of turtle eggs will carry on and turtle conservation efforts become futile.

S.M.MOHD IDRIS,
President,
Sahabat Alam Malaysia,
Penang.

SFC to probe turtle eggs on menu
The Star 4 Mar 09;

KUCHING: The Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) is investigating reports that turtle eggs were served at a function recently despite a ban on their consumption.

SFC enforcement officers are believed to be investigating the matter after photographs of the eggs on dinner tables appeared in the local media yesterday.

SFC also reminded the public that it

was illegal to sell or eat turtle eggs in Sarawak.

The ban on turtle egg trade and consumption is one of the conservation measures put in place to protect the reptiles.

The survival rate of turtle hatchlings is very low, with only one in every 1,000 surviving into adulthood.

In addition, all marine turtles are listed as totally protected animals under Sarawak’s Wildlife Protection Ordinance.

Under the ordinance, it is an offence to hunt, kill, capture or sell any totally protected animal or to possess any of their parts.

The offence carries penalties ranging from fines of RM25,000 to RM50,000 and two to five years’ imprisonment.

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