Predators starve as we plunder oceans

Marine giants go hungry as fleets scoop up their prey for our fish suppers. Geoffrey Lean reports

The Independent 19 Apr 09;

Starving sea life – from whales to puffins, tuna to seals – is being found all over the world's oceans, as the food on which it depends is being fished out, startling new evidence shows. And much of the depletion, ironically, is caused by raising captive fish – for the table.

New figures from the Food and Agriculture Organisation show that the small fish on which birds and marine mammals feed have become the main target of fishing fleets since stocks of bigger fish have become exhausted. Four times as much of these "prey fish" are now brought to shore as half a century ago, and seven of the world's largest 10 fisheries now go after them.

More than four-fifths of this catch does not go directly to feed people, but is ground up into fish oil and fish meal and increasingly used to raise carnivorous species such as salmon in fish farms. A captive fish needs up to 11b of food to put on a single pound in weight. And, as a result, there is less and less left for its natural predators.

"We have caught most of the big fish and are now going after their food," says Margot Stiles, a marine scientist for Oceana, the leading international sea protection pressure group.

A new report by the group, Hungry Oceans, describes how "scrawny predators – dolphins, sea bass and even whales – have turned up on coastlines all over the world", adding that scientists are finding them and seabirds "emaciated from lack of food, vulnerable to disease and without enough energy to reproduce".

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Interview: David Attenborough on population

The naturalist is frightened by the number of people in the world and says the human race needs to be reduced
Camilla Long, Times Online 19 Apr 09;

Bending gingerly over a deep, green pond in the garden of his home in Richmond, southwest London, Sir David Attenborough and I are inspecting a great crested newt. “Triturus!” he says, pointing. “Look. Looook . . . ” – the bosky voice creeps past gas mark 4 – “he is waaafting his hormones at her. And in a minute . . . ” The animal (unfortunately I had been looking at a reed) flicks in the water. “She’s off! Whuuuhnderful!”

It is the first proper day of spring, and after a short scuffle with the double doors we have come outside “the posh way” – ie, not through the kitchen – cantered briskly onto the lawn, past a large mossy patch on the patio (“Don’t step on that or you’ll end up in a sewer”) and straight up to the pond to see his new toys.

At 82, Attenborough is a vision in taupe, with talcum-powder features, a surprisingly firm handshake and a manner that is occasionally brusque, shading to sarcastic (“Yes, it’s a bird”). His daughter Susan offers me a drink of water, before disappearing into an office. “She lives three-quarters of an hour away,” he says, alighting on a small garden seat. “My wife died 12 years ago, so she comes here and restocks the fridge and, as she puts it elegantly, mucks me out.”

I had been hoping his house would be something like the set of the film Jumanji – parting aspidistras and parakeets going “eek, eek” – but it is in fact a spartan dwelling, with African pots, gently crisping books, Danish furniture and the cool, desiccated hush of a fossil room at the Natural History Museum. He has lived here for 55 years, “although there’s not much wildlife”.

Nevertheless, we are constantly being distracted by robins (“Hello, darling”), butterflies (“Oh gosh, look at that! A blue butterfly. The first of the season”) and blackbirds.

“Turdus merula,” I say. “Well done,” he says, thrilled. You can see how he nearly became a teacher.

Attenborough is not here to discuss wild-life. He is here to discuss humans, and how there are far too many of them. Earlier last week, when it was announced that he had become a patron of the Optimum Population Trust (OPT), he explained that “there are three times as many people in the world as when I started making television programmes 56 years ago. It is frightening. We can’t go on as we have been. We are seeing the consequences in terms of eco-logy, atmospheric pollution and in terms of space and food production”.

He is the first to admit the problem is a thorny one. “Indeed; indeed it is,” he says, “but we can make sure women have the choice as to whether they have children. If you spread literacy, education, a decent standard of living, the population increase drops. That’s why the notion, the ability, to restrict population growth should be around. I don’t believe women want to have 12 children where eight of them die, as they did in this country 150 years ago. Now they have a choice, and that is the reason we have an almost static population here – if you discount immigration.” But isn’t it a bit too late for all this, now that the global population is nearly 7 billion and rising fast? “Oh yes, yes,” he says.

Besides, what’s the ideal figure for human life on Earth? Attenborough is a little soft-focus on details. “I don’t know how you’d calculate . . . optimum-ness, but certainly, the mere fact of what we’re doing to the natural world makes it perfectly clear we’re way past it. Half the world’s starving.”

He has seen this for himself countless times in “African slums, South American slums. Little kids playing with open sewers, rats, filth, disease, poverty, terrible”. The best number of children is “obviously two and a half”, he adds, laughing. “I don’t know about the right number.” He wouldn’t put a limit on the number of children a woman may have, as they do in China, but “obviously, having a large number of children is putting a strain on things”.

So what’s a large number? Attenborough has two: Susan, who is unmarried, and Robert, an anthropologist, who has two children. The great naturalist pauses to think. “Five. The fact is,” he sighs, “the human race ought to be reduced.”

You can’t just get rid of people, though. “No, no,” he says. “Well, you say that, but you do get rid of people – there are famines, and people are very good at getting rid of each other. I’m not for a micro-second suggesting that’s a good thing, but there are all sorts of diseases and disasters that can happen to humanity.”

So if we don’t take control of the problem ourselves, then nature or self-interest will. None of this is really applicable to Britain, of course. Here the problem is not overpopulation, but the ageing population.

“Yes, it presents great economic problems,” says Attenborough. “It’s a question of the lesser of two evils.” He will be 83 next month: presumably he wouldn’t like it if there was no one to look after him? “Of course you wouldn’t, because you’re selfish . . . It’s that blue butterfly again!” He pauses. “What was I saying?”

Keeping the population down. Getting old. Closing our borders? “We have to keep our borders open: it’s a worldwide problem,” he says. “You want a free movement of people round the world because that’s the only way you’re going to stop wars. Because if you put walls around yourself, you tend to think you’re the only people who are important, and that people on the other side of the wall are the enemy. And you only realise they aren’t the enemy if you travel among them.”

The most charming people he has met, he says, are “the Cambodians”, although he doesn’t like going back to places, because “it’s not as it was. I went to Bali in the Fifties and there was only one hotel on the whole island. I slept on the beach, with turtles coming up and nesting, and now on that beach there are a dozen 30-storey hotels. So going back is not much . . .” He looks sad.

How the world has changed since his youth. The son of a university principal, he says his childhood in Leicester was “idyllic, a time in the Thirties when you could just get on your bicycle and be out in the country in half an hour, go youth-hostelling for three weeks at 14 and nobody saw any problems”. These days, he adds, “you have to go a long way to get rid of human beings and see the natural world as it is”. He knows he’s been lucky.

Even getting into television was pure chance. “I was a trainee at Alexandra Palace. There were two studios and everyone did everything. They were short of an interviewer one day – ‘Would you do it?’ ‘Sure’.” The rest is natural history.

“However, I happened to discover 40 years later that they had concluded, ‘He could be a perfectly pleasant chap, might be a perfectly good producer, but he shoul-dn’t be used again as an interviewer on camera because his teeth are too big’.”

Attenborough says he is not bothered about his looks – “You’d like to think people are impressed by what you said, not what you look like” – but I think he just comes from that sort of background: long on heroic achievement, short on emotion. I can see from some of the pictures in his autobiography, Life on Air, that he was very handsome when he was younger, I say.

“Is the tense right?” he titters quietly.

Generally, he is extremely modest, refusing to acknowledge his status as a beloved icon at all. A few years back he was voted “the most trusted celebrity” by a magazine.

“Did you see the criteria?” he explodes. “The people they considered were rather bogus, with reputations because of the mass media.” People only really watch his programmes for the animals, he says. “If I didn’t have king penguins, birds of paradise, gibbons or gorillas . . . ”

At first, he tells me he’s not bothered about getting old – “I ignore it,” he says, stiffly – but later he admits the only thing he would change about his life would be to shed some years. He certainly doesn’t like the idea of not working. He’ll go on “until the voice goes. Voices do go. You get croaky. Teeth are quite important: if you lose your teeth, you sound funny”.

So he’s doing some radio scripts for the summer, and working on the natural history series The Frozen Planet. Next month he is off to the Antarctic – “and after that, the Arctic”, he says gleefully. It’ll all be wonderful, “provided nothing goes wrong. In the Arctic, if it goes wrong, you’re not just in mild trouble. In the jungle you can get lost and all sorts of silly things and walk out the other side, but in the Antarctic . . . Dropping a glove can mean losing your fingers”. Besides, he says, “I’m not doing that Captain Scott stuff – you have to be posh to a degree.”

He doesn’t strike me as the sort to demand first class – but how does he keep his carbon footprint down with all that travel-ling? “Well, I don’t see what . . . I don’t think . . . You have to be realistic about this. Being sensible with energy means only use it when you need to. You can’t suddenly suggest we’re going to stop moving around.”

Does he worry about infirmity? “Oh yes, of course. Losing your marbles. It’s happening to my contemporaries. I can think of all kinds of inadequacies, like not being able to put down a coherent sentence. I’ve had that all my life, but I now tell myself that it’s because I’m old.”

Also, “My knees are rubbish,” he says. “I can’t climb trees and look for birds’ nests as much as I used to” – I’m impressed that’s still on the menu at all – “but there you go. If you’re sitting here in your eighties, you can’t very well say that everyone should be snuffed out in their seventies.”

What is his position on euthanasia? “Gosh . . . I think it is desperate that people with terminal illness and in extreme pain shouldn’t be able to control their future. There should be legal clauses sufficient for it not to be abused, however.”

Would he consider it for himself? “It seems dreadful even to speculate,” he says.

His older brother, Richard – Lord Attenborough, the film-maker – is recovering from a coma after a fall at home. “Oh, he’s getting on reasonably but it’s a long job,” he says. “We’re very” – he corrects himself – “prettyclose; I go and see him in hospital fairly regularly. Three times in the past five days.”

I’ve always been slightly astonished that Dickie and David are even related. “We’ve enjoyed one another’s careers,” he says, “but neither of us would wish to have the other one’s. I wouldn’t be in a feature film for all the tea in China. But then he wouldn’t want to go travelling in the Borneo rainforest.”

The younger Attenborough lives alone, with no pets. When the children were young the family kept “snakes, monkeys, lemurs, chameleons, monkfish . . . all sorts. Now, if you live by yourself, you can’t properly deal with them”.

Jane, his wife of more than 40 years, died suddenly in 1997 from a brain haemor-rhage. He doesn’t talk about this, and he certainly doesn’t want to write about it. “I don’t think I’m very good at it; I find it quite hard, being mawkish,” he says. “And why would you want other people to know about it?”In his autobiography, he covers his marriage in minimal space. Does he miss her? “Oh come on. Forty years.” He looks at me like an angry koala. “What else do you want while I’m at it?”

A photographer appears, just in time, to take his picture. “Hate it,” he says, springing up. “Don’t you?”

If tonight is an ordinary night, he’ll be at home – perhaps watching Porridge or Yes Minister, playing the piano or thinking about the next development in the garden.

There’s something stoic about his existence. Take his attitude to money: he is “hopeless”, he says. “But I have my spending money.” He pauses. “I am very like the Queen, from many points of view.”

Life on Air (revised and updated edition) by David Attenborough is published by BBC Books on 7 May, priced £20. Copies can be ordered for £18 including postage from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0845 271 2135

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Just £4bn will save a generation from starvation, says UN

G8 agriculture ministers try to halt 'spiral of hunger' created by drought, falling prices and credit crunch
Geoffrey Lean, The Independent 19 Apr 09;

Agriculture ministers from the world's richest countries are holding an unprecedented meeting this weekend as the United Nations warns that hunger threatens to "spiral out of control" in the wake of the financial crisis.

The three-day meeting, which opened in Italy yesterday, will address a growing food crisis as harvests threaten to slump at a time when record numbers of people are already hungry. Crops are being hit by a combination of bad weather, falling food prices and farmers' being refused credit to buy seeds and fertilisers.

It is the first time that the agriculture ministers of the G8 leading economies have held such a meeting, and they have invited their counterparts from China, India, Brazil, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, Argentina and Egypt to join them in Treviso "to work out a common route to lead us out of the crisis and respond to the world food emergency".

The UN's World Food Programme warned: "As the global financial crisis deepens, hunger and malnutrition are likely to increase as incomes fall and unemployment rises. The world is at a critical juncture where we risk watching hunger spiral out of control. We cannot afford to lose the next generation."

The crisis began even before the start of the credit crunch, at a time of record harvests. About two years ago food prices started to rise abruptly, despite the bumper crops, mainly because of the increased use of corn to make biofuel, particularly in the US, and increasing meat consumption – which mops up grain supplies to feed livestock – by the rising middle classes in developing countries such as India and China. Prices of wheat and corn doubled in a year – and rice more than trebled – leading to the first steep and sustained rise in hunger in decades.

A record crop last year did not help much. It brought the cost of grain down in rich countries, which saw most of the increased production, but not in developing ones where the poor live, partly because their currencies fell against the dollar in which international prices are set.

Yet it led to farmers in Europe and the US planting less this year because they can expect lower returns at a time when it is harder than ever to get loans. The US Department of Agriculture reported this month that 7 per cent less land is being used to grow wheat, in a country that helps to supply 100 nations around the world.

China – which feeds a fifth of the world's people off just a 10th of its cropland – did increase sowing but, in another cruel twist of fate, was then hit by its worst drought in nearly 70 years, cutting yields by up to 40 per cent. And drought has also led to a similar slump in another of the world's great grain-growing regions, Argentina, Paraguay and southern Brazil.

All this means, says the Food and Agriculture Organisation, that harvests are set to fall his year "in most of the world's major producers". The UN adds that it would cost $6bn (£4bn) to stave off the resulting hunger, which would be "relatively inexpensive compared to the trillion-dollar rescue packages designed to save financial institutions".

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Climate refugees flee from rising sea in Pacific

Kristina Stefanova, The Washington Times 19 Apr 09;

MELBOURNE, Australia | Rising sea levels blamed on climate change are taking a toll on island nations in the South Pacific, with the world's first climate refugees beginning a migration that is likely to continue for decades to come.

Inhabitants of parts of New Guinea and Tuvalu have already been forced to moved from low-lying areas.

New Zealand has agreed to accept migrants from Tuvalu, which experts think will be completely submerged by the middle of the century. Canada is funding the relocation of residents from parts of Vanuatu affected by global warming.

Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization warned in a recent report that the Pacific region is particularly vulnerable.

It warned of coastal communities already being inundated by rising seas, the loss of wetlands and coral bleaching, as well as an increase in disease and heat-related mortality resulting from climate change.

"Communities all over the Pacific are alarmed at coastal erosion and the advancing sea levels," said Diane McFadzien, the South Pacifics regional climate change coordinator with the World Wildlife Fund. "We are already seeing signs of whole villages having to relocate ... or important cultural sites such as burial grounds in Fiji being eroded."

The Pacific islands comprise 22 nations with 7 million residents.

The rising sea and eroding beaches caused the recent forced displacement of the people of the Carteret Islands, about 70 miles northeast of Papua New Guinea. The islands' 2,500 residents are moving to one of Papua New Guineas larger towns, Bougainville.

Extreme weather has increased in frequency and ferocity in recent years in Papua New Guinea. A flood in Oro Province in November 2007 killed 70 people and destroyed nearly all roads and bridges.

In the Indian Ocean, the Maldives, a chain of 1,200 islands and coral atolls that sits about 6 feet above sea level, has long been a favorite honeymoon destination. Estimates released at the Copenhagen International Climate Congress in February say the sea could swallow most or all of the islands by the year 2100.

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Male leatherback turtles facing extinction

The Star 18 Apr 09;

KERTIH: The threat of leatherback turtles becoming extinct is getting more serious with no male turtle to incubate some 200 leatherback turtle eggs buried for hatching at the Rantau Abang Turtle Sanctuary.

Terengganu Fisheries director Munir Mohd Nawi said the leatherback turtle eggs could not hatch because they needed to be incubated by the male turtles first.

This was despite the landings by leatherback turtles at Rantau Abang, Dungun, on June 12 and 23 last year, he told reporters at a gotong-royong function at the Ma'Daerah Sanctuary Center here Saturday.

The programme, conducted with the cooperation of the BP Petronas Acetyls and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF), involved the participation of 800 local residents and students.

On turtle landings recorded during the first three months of this year, Munir said there was an increase of five to 10 per cent from the corresponding period last year.

He said between 36,000 and 40,000 turtle eggs were laid in the state late year and most of them were laid by the green turtles.

Meanwhile, head of the WWF Terengganu Turtle programme, Rahayu Zulkifli, said WWF would launch a "Don't Eat Turtle Eggs" campaign to save the turtles from extinction. - Bernama

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Protecting Indonesia's ecosystems

Sudibyo M. Wiradji, Jakarta Post 18 Apr 09;

Environmental disasters that have hit Indonesia recently, especially in urban and forest areas, can in many cases be attributed to imbalanced ecosystems. The question to be addressed is whether it is possible to protect ecosystems.

Protecting urban and forest ecosystems is a real challenge for Indonesia amid the growing focus on economic rather than environmental issues. Protecting ecosystems entails two big jobs: First, repairing existing environmental damage; and second preventing future environmental damage.

Flooding caused by the collapse of the Situ Gintung sluice gate and, separately, the sudden appearance of critically endangered Sumatran tigers in Jambi and Riau provinces, both serve to illustrate how little attention authorities, officials, politicians and the general public pay to environmental issues in Indonesia.

As we have seen, placing too much emphasis on short-term economic gains will eventually be costly and jeopardize sustainability. Despite differences in location, extent of losses and the numbers of victims, these issues are essentially similar.

They were both the result of imbalances in ecosystems that were brought about by changes made to the environment. These tragedies were not caused by nature alone, but can be blamed in part on human interference in natural systems.

When it was first constructed by the Dutch colonial authorities in 1933, the 31-hectare Situ Gintung dam was surrounded by farms and its upstream area was dense with trees and served as a conservation area (part of Jakarta’s green belt) that prevented land erosion. Several decades later, however, these farms and forest areas have disappeared, replaced by human settlements, with many luxury houses built on the waterfront.

Similarly, large areas of forest ecosystems that tigers live in have been cleared uncontrollably over the years. Massive areas of forests in Sumatra, Kalimantan and Sulawesi have been cleared to make way for fiber plantations for pulp and paper industries, and since the biofuels boom have been cleared extensively for use as oil palm plantations.

Predictably, the scarcity of prey brought about by damage to their natural environment has led tigers to roam further to seek food before finally straying into human settlements.

Human and tiger conflicts in Muarojambi village, Jambi, left eight residents dead, and three tigers were found dead in another similar conflict in Riau, also in Sumatra – and there were possibly other casualties that were not reported.

Damage to tiger habitats threatens to lead tigers to extinction thus affecting the entire biodiversity of Indonesia’s tropical forests. Aside from the Sumatran tigers, the Javan rhinoceros and Borneo pygmy elephants are also on the brink of extinction due to destruction of habitat and poaching.

Through understanding why these problems are occurring, we can conclude without doubt that human interference with natural systems needs to be taken into consideration in formulating measures to prevent similar occurrences in future.

Imbalanced urban and forest ecosystems are the result of a range of complex and underlying causes involving many different parties.

A series of factors reflecting weak institutional and poor governance practices can be held partly to blame. Weak law enforcement coupled with corrupt officials has provided property developers and certain individuals with access to property in restricted water catchment areas surrounding Situ Gintung lake. Correspondingly, a lack of legal sanctions against illegal loggers with military backing has led Indonesia to become fertile ground for illegal logging.

To a certain extent, the prevalence of disasters, people’s lack of respect toward nature and deliberate violation of environmental laws is suggests we are sitting on a time bomb. At this point, those who deliberately violate the environmental regulations or law are indirectly paving the way for disasters and therefore, they should be held responsible for their wrongdoings.

It is high time we intensified our environmental campaigns, not only among students but all stake holders including those who are directly involved in any decision making processes. In this way, hopefully, the nature we have abused won’t strike back – or perhaps we can minimize the number of its strikes!

Can we do that?

The writer is a journalist at The Jakarta Post.

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 Apr 09

Works continue near Cyrene Reef: buoyancy tank removal operations on the wild shores of singapore blog

Seahuskying
on talfryn.net

Blue-naped Parrot eating sea almond fruits and flowers
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Mystery shore plant solved: Buas-buas!
on the wild shores of singapore blog

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Lamalera, subsistence whaling, and barter

J.B. Blikololong, The Jakarta Post 18 Apr 09;

The declaration of the Savu Sea as a national conservation area on the sidelines of the World Ocean Conference in Manado next month has sent the traditional whale hunting community of Lamalera in Lembata, East Nusa Tenggara, into great anxiety, as the plan was thought to imply a prohibition on whaling.

The community reportedly protested the presence of any NGOs presumed to be behind the issue of the whaling ban.

"The prohibition on whaling will lead to the death of the community," says Apol Korohama, head of Lika Telo Adat institution.

Earlier, East Nusa Tenggara Governor Frans Lebu Raya said the conservation of the Savu Sea should not wipe out the whale hunting tradition conducted for hundreds of years and fully laden with values of brotherhood and justice.

Lamalera, a fishing community with a population of 1,688 (comprising 483 families, 279 of them classified as poor), has extreme geographical conditions (with no productive farmland), forcing its people to depend wholly on marine resources. Sperm whales, the favorite catch among other big sea mammals, was their main catch.

Outsiders are mostly attracted by the traditional whaling, whereas it is only half of Lamalera's soul. The ignorance on the part of outsiders, even the government itself, could certainly make any efforts to help these whale hunters fruitless, even endangering their very existence. The outsiders do not know that kotekelema (sperm whale in their native language) and the barter system cannot be separated, both being the entire soul of Lamalera. Should whaling be stopped, the barter system would instantly disappear, thus bringing the whole village to misery.

From the sociological perspective, the "bravery" of the Lamalera whale hunters in subduing these sea leviathans using very primitive technology is as unimaginable as the resilience of the barter institution in the age of globalization. Lamalera, even Lembata Island, is a unique example of a dualistic society where barter (a pre-capitalistic element) and money (a capitalistic element) coexist in harmony.

One of my important findings in my doctoral field survey about bartering in Lamalera (2007-2008) was that sperm whales and other cetaceans are the main factor that allows bartering to survive amid today's "money mania". This is in connection with the peledang (whaling boat) institution collectively owned by the suku (clan) and the traditional pattern of whale redistribution.

The whales captured are enjoyed by all clan members, then through a traditional reciprocity pattern (bfene and lamma) are distributed to the whole village, and through a barter network finally distributed all over Lembata Island, even to Adonara and the eastern tip of Flores Island. The Lamalera people believe that whales and other big fish are "sent" by their forefathers to support the life of kide-knuke (poor people) and widows in Lamalera and all the people living around Labalekang Mountain. Bartering thus has a social character, in contrast with the calculating character of the money economy.

Small fish caught by means of modern instruments such as nets do not support the barter optimally because they are identical with money, as this kind of activity is more individualistic in nature (based on capital/cash credit). The saying "without whales, Lamalera will perish" should be understood in relation to the barter institution and peledang (whaling boats): without whales, the Lamalera people lack the best commodity to barter with foodstuffs from the hinterland with the implication that they will suffer immensely and could possibly "perish".

My field research in Posiwatu, Imulolo, Puor, and Boto (the nearest barter partners in the hinterlands) showed sperm whales could not be replaced by any other kind of fish. As fish from Lewoleba or Wulandoni are sold for cash, mountain people are more interested in bartering their food staples with sperm whale or other big fish from Lamalera. Moreover, they feel that bartering with Lamalera people is their traditional way of helping each other since ancestral times. So in Lembata, even in the entire Lamaholot community, bartering is not an economic system, but primarily part of the custom of reciprocity.

Whaling in Lamalera cannot be questioned because of three legal foundations: first, ILO Convention 169, the Brundtland Report (1992), the Rio Declaration (1992), and Agenda 21, which acknowledge the rights of aboriginal people to pursue and develop their way of life; second, Indonesia is not a member state of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), meaning it need not adhere to its rulings; third, the 1986 whaling moratorium is aimed at commercial whaling. Whaling in Lamalera is aboriginal subsistence whaling to meet local nutritional, subsistence and cultural needs.

Lamalera whaling is part of an effort to utilize the ecological richness to prosper. The Savu Sea with its rich biodiversity, such as big mammals, support the life of the Lamalera people in the same way as rich soil in the hinterlands supports that of farmers. In principle, the conservation of the Savu Sea should be hailed as benefiting the coastal communities, including Lamalera. The numbers of manta rays, sharks and turtles have decreased sharply for the past 10 years because of the use of explosives and poison by outsiders.

Traditional whaling in Lamalera is part of local wisdom to preserve the environment. The local taboo to hunt blue whales (an endangered species) is an expression of local wisdom to preserve big marine mammals. Traditional whaling in Lamalera waters is really the act of conservation itself. So the way the Lamalera people catch whales nowadays should be conserved too, which in turn conserves the barter system.

The writer is a PhD candidate in sociology from the University of Indonesia, conducting his doctoral research on the barter system in Lamalera between 2007 and 2008.

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Southeast Asian governments urged to address root causes of social unrest

Augustine Anthuvan, Channel NewsAsia 18 Apr 09;

SINGAPORE : UN Under-Secretary-General Dr Noeleen Heyzer has said that unless Southeast Asian governments make a concerted effort to address root causes of social unrest in places like Thailand, these tensions could have dire knock-on effects.

She was speaking at the ASEAN and Asia forum in Singapore on Friday.

The "red shirt" protests in Thailand may have subsided for now, but Dr Heyzer said that their underlying concerns should not be swept under the carpet.

Dr Heyzer, who is also Executive Secretary, Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, said: "...the root causes of the unrest are based very much in terms of disparities, not just in Thailand, that is within the country, but also among the ASEAN nations, and unless we address disparities - economic, social, political disparities - and issues of governance, there will be all these tensions that from time to time, will break out into social unrest, and will affect the politics of our nations as well.

"I think this is what ASEAN, especially in terms of its new charter, tries to do. It tries to give the vision of a people-centred regional community. It tries to bring in regional partnerships, it tries to ensure the voices of the marginalised, the common people, are heard, and one understands that we can be...citizens of not just our own nations, but that of ASEAN as well.

"But so far, all this is at the level of vision, of words of commitment; it is time to implement these values, and also these very good perspectives, pathways and directions. And unless they are seriously implemented, there will unfortunately be a question of trust."

Speaking at the public forum organised by the Singapore Institute of International Affairs, Dr Heyzer reiterated her call for Asian government leaders to look at development initiatives in a post-crisis world as an integrated whole.

She said: "So far, we have been looking at development sector by sector. It is time to look at it as a more inclusive sustainability. That brings back what I call 'the balances'. It has to balance the economic imbalances, the social and the ecological imbalances, and we can't look at it as separate items anymore. Because there is no way that we can do the economic growth agenda in a way that we have always done, without taking into account the effects of inequalities on the social population.

"And there is no way we can do both without looking at the ecological consequences of development. And so we need to look at it in terms of both short-term development strategies, as well as long-term sustainability, and this I think is what I will be pushing for."

Malaysia's Deputy Prime Minister Muhyiddin Yassin echoed similar sentiments at the ASEAN and Asia forum.

He said: "A people who are materially well-off but morally, ethically and environmentally bankrupt can have no greater ability to claim to being developed in any way."

Meanwhile, participants said the private sector is in a position to provide much of the lift needed.

Ambassador Michael Tay, executive director, APEC Secretariat, said: "The biggest employers in any economy are the private sector, and so the issue of confidence is quite critical.

"On the one hand, you have a bread and butter issue, people need to work in order to spend, so that you can create demand for manufactured goods or services. But to unlock that confidence is key, and I think the confidence goes beyond just financial institutions. It is actually leadership."

And the Ambassador said that this is where economic giants like the US, China and Japan can step up to the plate. - CNA/ms

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Singapore, Malaysia stress need to further improve water quality in Straits of Johor

Timothy Ouyang & Lau Joon-Nie, Channel NewsAsia 17 Apr 09;

SINGAPORE : Singapore and Malaysia have stressed the need to further improve water quality in the Straits of Johor.

The subject was raised at the 22nd Annual Exchange of Visits between the Environment Ministries of both countries.

Singapore's Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, Dr Yaacob Ibrahim, led the host delegation, which comprised of Dr Amy Khor and other senior officials from the Ministry of Environment and Water Resources, National Environment Agency and PUB.

The visiting delegation comprised officials from Malaysia's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the International Trade, Industry, Energy, Water, Communication and Environment Committee for State of Johor, and other government agencies.

The ministers from the two countries and their delegations reviewed the progress of work carried out by the Malaysia-Singapore Joint Committee on the Environment.

The ministers on Friday also discussed the emergency response plan for chemical spills at the Malaysia-Singapore Second Crossing and in the East Johor Straits.

Both countries plan to conduct their first joint field exercise on managing a chemical spill in the East Johor Straits in 2010.

This follows the success of the Sixth Joint Emergency Chemical Spill Exercise at the Tuas Second Link in April 2008. The next emergency response exercise at the Second Crossing will be organised by Malaysia and could be held later this year. - CNA/ms/ls

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URA to spread wings

It will take expertise overseas while bringing places alive at home
Kalpana Rashiwala, Business Times 18 Apr 09;

AFTER 35 years of planning and shaping Singapore's physical landscape, Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) is ready for a bigger canvas. It has set set up a URA Consulting Group (URACG) to provide its planning expertise for projects overseas. Meanwhile, at home, it will make new places in Singapore come alive. After Marina Bay, the Singapore River could be the next to feel its energising touch.

At the URA Corporate Plan Seminar yesterday, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan spoke of how the master planner would step up its 'place management' role. This meant combining the resources of the public and private sectors to create places, districts and areas that are more vibrant economically and socially, he said.

In addition to URA's role as master planner and infrastructure provider, the stat board will also work with stakeholders on 'softer' initiatives such as branding, marketing and events programming, he said.

Mr Mah noted that URA is already undertaking the place management of Marina Bay. It will expand its portfolio to include the Singapore River. In addition, it will chair a coordinating forum to 'synergise the place management efforts of partner agencies at Orchard Road and also the Civic District-Bras Basah/Bugis areas', he added.

The formation of URACG would help URA playing a bigger role outside Singapore's shores.

'Our planning expertise is very much sought after outside of Singapore. In fact, it has played a leading role in the master planning of projects like the Tianjin Eco-City, which is now being built, which has drawn on Singapore's experience in integrated planning and urban management,' Mr Mah said.

Elaborating, a URA spokeswoman said URACG's priority will be to support the Singapore government in government-to-government level projects overseas which require master planning expertise. In addition, URA can partner local private companies, where suitable, to carry out consultancy work for big projects. URACG's scope of services will generally include concept and master planning, urban design and development control processes.

Another role of URACG is to provide professional development training on urban planning and related matters for both local and international participants under the Urban Leadership Programme. URA recently conducted a four-day training programme on integrated land use planning for participants from Brunei, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, China and Singapore.

Remaking goes on in good times and bad

New round of reviews begins this year on blueprint for Singapore's long-term physical development
Kalpana Rashiwala, Business Times 18 Apr 09;

THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) will begin this year a new round of reviews for Concept Plan 2011, a blueprint that maps out the long-term vision for Singapore's physical development.

URA's review, which will be done with various ministries and government agencies, will examine Singapore's land use and infrastructure needs to cater to an increased population and also the changing profile of its resident population and economy.

The Concept Plan review's 'ultimate aim must be to ensure that we will continue to have a good quality living environment in Singapore, one that will take into account the needs of not just the young, but also of the old, and a growing population which will consist of people from many, many different parts of the world', said National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan.

As part of Concept Plan 2011, URA will also actively seek views from the public, Mr Mah said in his keynote speech at the URA Corporate Plan Seminar yesterday.

He also highlighted that one of Singapore's key strengths is its long-term integrated planning approach. 'Few cities in the world have a holistic planning framework like ours . . . ,' Mr Mah said. He cited a case in point. Despite the dismal economic climate when URA started planning the development and infrastructure for Marina Bay, just before the start of the last downturn in 2000, the government remained focused on building up Marina Bay. 'And because we planned ahead, we were able to attract foreign investments into the Bay when the economy started to pick up and then when it boomed,' Mr Mah said.

He also also stressed that efforts to remake Singapore must continue in both good and bad times if the island is to be a key node in the network of global cities. It was as a result of forward planning, and effective and consistent implementation that a new Singapore city is taking shape fast. He painted a picture of the 'new iconic signature skyline' emerging at Marina Bay. The double helix bridge, Art Park, Gardens by the Bay and new waterfront promenade will be progressively completed by 2011. Then, there are the Marina Bay Sands Integrated Resort and the first phase of Marina Bay Financial Centre which will be operational by 2010. The government has invested nearly $5.7 billion in infrastructure works in Marina Bay so far and will continue to pump in more money to support its future growth and boost connectivity with the existing city, Mr Mah added.

The prime Orchard Road shopping belt is also being rejuvenated with new malls. Singapore will have a new generation of regional commercial districts, such as Jurong Lake District. And the island will become an even more exciting playground with a wider range of leisure and recreational options. Singapore's park connector network will be tripled to 300 km over the next five to 10 years, joining up into a continuous loop around the island. URA is also developing scenic walks along Singapore's coastline.

The Ministry of National Development and URA will be launching a programme called 'My New Singapore' to encourage Singaporeans to rediscover Singapore.

'The programme will comprise a series of events and activities which will reach out to Singaporeans. We invite everybody to see the new developments and visit new leisure destinations. We will show Singaporeans the plans that we have for their neighbourhoods, bring them to see the new Marina Bay, let them enjoy the parks and park connectors. And I hope that when Singaporeans rediscover Singapore, they will realise what a special little city we have, and perhaps, we will love our city even more,' Mr Mah said.

He even suggested Singaporeans may want to shop, eat and sightsee in Singapore. 'Perhaps during this downturn, it is timely for Singaporeans to take time to get to know our city better. Enjoy what we have to offer here in Singapore, and maybe save a little bit of money at the same time.'

URA will hold the 'My Endearing Home' roving exhibition at major malls between May and August this year to present Singaporeans a chance to learn about plans for their immediate neighbourhoods and for the city, and 'discover that there is much to treasure on our island'.

A Marina Bay Festival will be held in the later part of 2010 that will showcase the waterfront promenade and new developments to both locals and foreign visitors.

NParks will also press on with its efforts to green Singapore and conserve the island's natural heritage.

Getting to know Singapore's urban heritage
Business Times 18 Apr 09;

URA engages students with a workshop and competition to raise awareness

A BOHEMIAN artists' enclave in Tanjong Pagar, 'secret gardens' in Chinatown and skate parks at Duxton Hill Park. These are some of the winning ideas generated by the inaugural Challenge for the Urban and Built Environment or CUBE.

The event, organised by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), is aimed at raising awareness of the built environment and the dynamics of land use and urban planning among junior college and polytechnic students, and getting them familiar with Singapore's urban heritage.

The three-day workshop and competition is part of URA's Architecture and Urban Design Excellence Programme, an initiative to promote quality architecture and urban design. URA said yesterday that 10 teams, comprising about 100 students and teachers from seven junior colleges and three polytechnics, took part in the event.

The winning teams were Hwa Chong Institution, which clinched first prize, followed by Temasek Polytechnic and Serangoon Junior College.

URA chief executive officer Cheong Koon Hean said: 'URA turns 35 this year. Marking this milestone with an urban planning competition for students creates more awareness of Singapore's built environment and stirs interest among our bright young students in becoming the planners and architects of the future.'

During the three-day workshop, students aged 16-25 were introduced to the basics of architecture, urban planning and design. Interviews and observations were also conducted on the human and traffic patterns of parts of Chinatown. And a panel of judges from URA and industry provided critiques.

The teams were judged on sensitivity and relevance to site context and environment, creativity, clarity of ideas, execution of ideas, visual and verbal presentation skills and level of teamwork and cooperation displayed.

CUBE extends URA's efforts to engage the younger generation. Urban planning workshops - the Young Urbanist Programme and Design My Place - have previously been conducted with primary and secondary school students.

These activities are aimed at helping a growing number of students better appreciate Singapore's built environment and learn more about architecture and urban planning.

URA plans to get Singaporeans acquainted with new developments
By Hoe Yeen Nie, Channel NewsAsia 17 Apr 09;

SINGAPORE: The landscape of Singapore will soon look quite different as new developments spring up in the city centre and in the heartlands over the next few years.

By 2011 for instance, residents of Jurong will have more opportunities to live by the waterfront. Southern coastal areas like the Labrador Park and Bukit Chermin will also be made more accessible to the public.

These are on top of new projects coming up in the Marina Bay and Orchard Road areas.

Many of these plans were announced in recent years, but the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) wants to get more Singaporeans acquainted with them.

To do that, it is holding a series of activities and public exhibitions called "My New Singapore" from May this year.

Speaking at the URA Corporate Plan Seminar on Friday, National Development Minister Mah Bow Tan said: "We will show Singaporeans the plans for their neighbourhoods, bring them to see the new Marina Bay, and let them enjoy the parks and park connectors.

"I hope that when Singaporeans rediscover Singapore, we will realise what a special little city we have and perhaps, we will love our city even more."

Other activities include the Marina Bay Festival in the later part of 2010, which will comprise a series of activities and events to showcase developments in the area.

Next year, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) will also conduct a series of roving exhibitions from March till July to show how HDB neighbourhoods have evolved and improved over the years.

There will also be new plans for public housing in the future.- CNA/so

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Turn off your lights every day of the year to make a difference

No hour of power
Richard Hartung, Today Online 18 Apr 09;

EARTH Hour in Singapore last month energised thousands of people to take action and do their part to reduce the perils of global warming. But despite the mass participation, focusing on turning off the lights for just one hour may actually have been counter-productive. If Earth Hour made it seem like only a single hour of change is all that’s needed, it may also have sent a message that the other 8,759 hours of the year aren’t really so important.

The publicity for Earth Hour certainly did encourage action. Television commercials, signs at bus stops, advertisements, postcards and newspaper reports pushed people to do their part. The “60” logo — symbolising 60 minutes of darkness — seemed ubiquitous. Broadcasters picked up on the buzz, so listeners constantly heard about the need to turn off their lights. Many conversations the week before Earth Hour touched on “what will you be doing for Earth Hour?”

Hundreds of corporations and thousands of individuals chose to turn off the power for that one hour. Some schools and companies even turned off their lights for the entire weekend. At 8.30pm on March 28, lights were switched off in buildings around town, and thousands turned up for a celebration at Esplanade Park.

The actual impact, though, turned out to be limited. Power usage during the period dropped by less than 0.1 per cent, according to some estimates, though that figure could be higher if one counts the electricity not consumed for the entire weekend. While a walk around the CBD showed the lights were off in some buildings, lights remained on in so many restaurants, flats and offices it was a little hard to tell it was Earth Hour.

After all the hoopla, at 9.31pm, it was all over. And it’s when the lights came back on that the ideal behind Earth Hour started to show its cracks.

It was time to turn the lights back on for the rest of the next year. Unless participants understood that they need to do what they did during Earth Hour all year long, they could well feel they’ve already done their part for the entire year. And scheduling the hour conveniently on a weekend may have sent out the signal that all we need to do is lay off the lights once a year at a convenient time.

Earth Hour risks becoming a short-term annual fad rather than the first step of a longer-term solution to reduce global warming.

Not a fun run

It’s sort of like your doctor telling you to start exercising by signing up for a 10km charity fun run, then neglecting to say that you need to practice beforehand and continue afterwards. Running just once a year isn’t enough. Only by starting to exercise before the event and continuing to exercise afterwards are you likely to stay healthy. Similarly, only with continued efforts to reduce energy usage is the earth likely to become healthy again.

As conservation advocates like Nobel Laureate Al Gore have said, saving the planet requires changes to your daily routine. Every day!

More than 2,500 scientists gathered in Copenhagen in early March called for “sustained and effective mitigation” to avoid “dangerous climate change”. Saving the world is about reducing power usage and sustained action all year long.

Earth Hour organisers might contend, of course, that the event was a small but important step. As Carine Seror of World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) said in response to one inquiry: “The larger objective of the Earth Hour campaign just might help us make a start” on saving the earth, and the event highlighted “a growing momentum all over the world to make change a reality”.

More than focusing on just the one hour, however, the clear message needs to be that continual action throughout the year is critical for reducing climate change. One solution could be to promote Earth Hour as a start and then show what to do every day — even after Earth Hour is over — to make a difference. Another could be publicising lessons like the Nature Conservancy’s “What You Can Do”, which shows what we can do every day — not for just one hour, but all year long — to make a real difference.

While money and resources to promote change are understandably scarce, re-examining the premise behind Earth Hour and using the event to promote long-term change could make sure that the actual message gets across.

Just like a 10km run, Earth Hour has the benefit of prompting some people to do something. To make a real difference, though, the message that change needs to happen throughout the year needs to sink in. While the intent of Earth Hour is good, it’s only a start, and the message should be that we all need to take action every hour of every day to save our planet. WEEKENDVTRA

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