Mekong dolphins on the brink of extinction

WWF 18 Jun 09;

Pollution in the Mekong River has pushed the local population of Irrawaddy dolphins to the brink of extinction, a new report by WWF has revealed.
The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin (Orcaella brevirostris) population inhabits a 190km stretch of the Mekong River between Cambodia and Lao PDR. Since 2003, the population has suffered 88 deaths of which over 60 percent were calves under two weeks old. The latest population is estimated between 64 and 76 members.

“Necropsy analysis identified a bacterial disease as the cause of the calf deaths. This disease would not be fatal unless the dolphin’s immune systems were suppressed, as they were in these cases, by environmental contaminants,” said Dr Verné Dove, report author and veterinarian with WWF Cambodia.

Researchers found toxic levels of pesticides such as DDT and environmental contaminants such as PCBs during analysis of the dead dolphin calves. These pollutants may also pose a health risk to human populations living along the Mekong that consume the same fish and water as the dolphins.

“These pollutants are widely distributed in the environment and so the source of this pollution may involve several countries through which the Mekong River flows. WWF Cambodia is currently investigating the source of the environmental contaminants,” said Dr Dove.

High levels of mercury were also found in some of the dead dolphins. Mercury, suspected to be from gold mining activities, directly affects the immune system making the animals more susceptible to infectious disease.

“A trans-boundary preventative health programme is urgently needed to manage the disease affected animals in order to reduce the number of deaths each year,” said Seng Teak, Country Director of WWF Cambodia.

Limited genetic diversity due to inbreeding was another factor in the dolphin deaths.

“The Mekong River dolphins are isolated from other members of their species and they need our help. Science has shown that if the habitat of cetaceans is protected then populations can show remarkable resilience,” said Mr Teak.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin has been listed as critically endangered on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species since 2004.

Mekong river dolphin 'nearly extinct'
Patrick Falby Yahoo News 18 Jun 09;

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Pollution in southeast Asia's Mekong River has pushed freshwater dolphins in Cambodia and Laos to the brink of extinction, a conservation report said Thursday, sparking a furious government denial.

The WWF said only 64 to 76 Irrawaddy dolphins remain in the Mekong after toxic levels of pesticides, mercury and other pollutants were found in more than 50 calves who have died since 2003.

"These pollutants are widely distributed in the environment and so the source of this pollution may involve several countries through which the Mekong River flows," said WWF veterinary surgeon Verne Dove in a press statement.

The organisation said it was investigating how environmental contaminants got into the Mekong, which flows through Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam and the southern Chinese province of Yunnan.

However, the Cambodian government official tasked with caring for the country's Irrawaddy dolphins said there remained "about 150 to 160" of them in the Mekong, and alleged the WWF's report used flawed research methodology.

"It's big trouble -- they (the WWF) should resign. They should leave Cambodia," Touch Seang Tana, chairman of Cambodia's Commission to Conserve Mekong River Dolphins and Develop Eco-tourism, told AFP.

"They published this without consulting me, and I'm the authority here," he said, adding he did not believe the river contained the pollutants listed in the WWF's report.

The WWF said it suspected that high levels of mercury found in some dead dolphins came from gold mining activities.

It added that Irrawaddy dolphins in Cambodia and Laos urgently needed a health programme to counter the effects of pollution on their immune systems.

Inbreeding among the small population could have also contributed to weakened immune systems in the dead young dolphins, all of whom were under two weeks old.

"The Mekong River dolphins are isolated from other members of their species and they need our help," said WWF Cambodia country director Seng Teak, adding the mammals "can show remarkable resilience" if their habitat is protected.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin, which inhabits a 190-kilometre (118-mile) stretch in Cambodia and Laos, has been listed as critically endangered since 2004, the WWF said.

Thousands of Irrawaddy dolphins once swam in the Mekong. Although regarded as sacred in Cambodia and Laos, their numbers were cut by the use of illegal fishing nets and Cambodia's drawn-out civil conflict, in which dolphin blubber was used to lubricate machine parts and fuel lamps.

The Cambodian government, however, has been promoting dolphin-watching to attract eco-tourism and cracked down on the use of illegal nets which entangled them.

It hopes such measures and establishing protected areas will raise their numbers over the next few years.

The Mekong is one of only five freshwater habitats in the world for the Irrawaddy dolphin, and Cambodia is thought to support its largest remaining population.

With their pale grey skin and blunt beaks, Irrawaddy dolphins resemble porpoises more than their sea-going cousins, and congregate in a handful of the Mekong's natural deep-water pools.

The river is the world's largest inland fishery, producing some 2.5 million tonnes of fish per year valued at more than 2 billion dollars.

The Mekong also provides 80 percent of the animal protein for 60 million people who live along its lower basin.

Mekong dolphins 'almost extinct'
BBC News 18 Jun 09;

Pollution in the Mekong river has pushed freshwater dolphins in Cambodia and Laos to the brink of extinction, the conservation group WWF has said.

Only 64 to 76 Irrawaddy dolphins remain in the Mekong, it says, and calls for a cross-border plan to help the dolphins.

Toxic levels of pesticides, mercury and other pollutants have been found in more than 50 calves that have died since 2003.

The Mekong flows from China through Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam.

"These pollutants are widely distributed in the environment and so the source of this pollution may involve several countries through which the Mekong river flows," said WWF veterinary surgeon Verne Dove in a press statement.

Critically endangered

The group said it was investigating how contamination had entered the Mekong river.

Since 2003, the dolphin population has suffered 88 deaths, of which more than 60% were calves under two weeks old, it said.

"Necropsy analysis identified a bacterial disease as the cause of the calf deaths," Dr Dove said in the WWF report.

"This disease would not be fatal unless the dolphin's immune systems were suppressed, as they were in these cases, by environmental contaminants," he said.

Researchers found toxic levels of pesticides such as DDT and environmental contaminants such as PCBs during analysis of the dead dolphin calves.

These pollutants may also pose a health risk to human populations living along the Mekong - who consume the same fish and water as the dolphins - the group suggested.

High levels of mercury were also found in some of the dead dolphins, which directly affects the immune system making the animals more susceptible to infectious disease.

"A trans-boundary preventative health programme is urgently needed to manage the disease affected animals in order to reduce the number of deaths each year," said Seng Teak, Country Director of WWF Cambodia.

The Mekong River Irrawaddy dolphin, which inhabits a 190 km (118 mile) stretch in Cambodia and Laos, has been listed as critically endangered since 2004, the WWF said.

The Irrawaddy dolphin is also seen in parts of South Asia.

There too it has dwindled in numbers, although last year thousands of Irrawaddy dolphins were found in Bangladeshi waters when they were previously thought to be extinct in the area.

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Dingoes 'could help rare species'

Richard Black, BBC News 17 Jun 09;

Re-introducing dingoes across tracts of Australia could have benefits for wildlife and possibly cattle farmers.

Researchers found that dingoes suppress populations of kangaroos and red foxes, which are big consumers of vegetation and small mammals respectively.
Writing in the Royal Society's journal Proceedings B, they say the benefits of dingoes outweigh concerns over their presence as an "alien predator".

The wild dogs were brought to Australia about 5,000 years ago.

Their appetite for sheep means they have been expelled from large swathes of the country, notably the productive farmlands of New South Wales and Victoria, where a "dingo fence" more than 5,000km long has been erected to keep the predators out.



But this may have contributed to the demise of some native animals and the endangerment of many more.

"There is a lot of pressure to get rid of dingoes, and they can do damage," said Michael Letnic from the University of Sydney.

"The prevailing view that they're introduced and must be removed.

"But dingoes suppress fox and kangaroo numbers, and when you don't have dingoes in the system, kangaroos basically eat all the herbiage and foxes take all of the prey."

Settled argument

Dr Letnic's team surveyed pairs of sites located close together but on opposite sides of the dingo fence, looking at the abundances of different species.

Where dingoes were absent, kangaroos and foxes flourished, while native rodents, marsupials and grasses were all diminished.

Dingoes hunt kangaroos, and will banish foxes from land they occupy.

"You basically have two ecological universes - a system with dingoes and a system without dingoes - they are completely different places," Dr Letnic told BBC News.

There was no discernible impact on cats - another introduced predator blamed for the decline of smaller native animals.

Using Australian government data on endangered species, the researchers calculated that 16 threatened mammals would benefit from the presence of dingoes, while the wild dogs would only be detrimental to three species.

The dingo came to Australia with settlers from what is now Indonesia.

The introduction almost certainly brought about the demise of the thylacine or Tasmanian tiger, the top indigenous predator - probably because the dog was a more efficient hunter.

The dingo may have taken up the thylacine's ecological role of controlling kangaroos.

Michael Letnic's team is not the first to suggest that dingoes benefit local species; but in quantifying the likely impact, he may have produced an effective argument for their re-introduction.

Even more effective in a country where farming is hugely important may be his contention that dingoes probably increase the profitability of cattle farming, by removing kangaroos that otherwise eat vegetation.

"The chances are that [cattle farmers] lose more by what kangaroos do than by what dingoes do," he said.

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Banning Certain Fishing Gear Can Help Save Reefs From Climate Change

ScienceDaily 17 Jun 09;

Banning or restricting the use of certain types of fishing gear could help the world's coral reefs and their fish populations survive the onslaughts of climate change according to a study by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University, the Wildlife Conservation Society, and other groups.

The international team of scientists has proposed that bans on fishing gear - like spear guns, fish traps, and beach seine nets – could aid in the recovery of reefs and fish populations hard hit by coral bleaching events.

Around the world corals have been dying at alarming rates, due to unusually warm water events resulting from global warming.

Research carried out in Kenya and Papua New Guinea has shown that certain types of gear are more damaging to corals, to coral-dependent fish and to the key species of fish that are needed to help reefs recover from bleaching or storm damage.

"This is creating a double jeopardy for both the corals and certain types of reef fish. They are already on the edge because of overfishing– and the additional impact caused by a bleaching can push them over" Dr Cinner explains. The result can be an accelerated decline of the reef, its fish populations – and their ability to sustain local people.

"From an ecological perspective, the best response to bleaching is to close reefs to fishing entirely. But that is not feasible everywhere and is a particularly hard sell among the impoverished fishers in developing countries" says co-author Dr. Tim McClanahan of the Wildlife Conservation Society. "In areas where fishery closures are impractical, managers don't have many options and haven't been able to do much but watch the reef die and often not recover."

"Selective gear restrictions offer reef managers and fishers alike some middle ground, reducing pressure on the reef and its fish while it is in the recovery phase, while also providing fishers with some options for their livelihood" Dr Cinner says. This middle way is also more likely to be taken up by fishers. "In other research we've found that fishers themselves prefer gear restrictions to total closures, because most fishers use several types of gear so they can still earn a living when the use of one sort of gear is banned. They are more likely to comply."

The team investigated the effects of five main types of gear on different types of fish: spear guns, traps, hook and line, beach seine nets and gill nets.

They found that spear guns were the most damaging of all – to corals themselves, to susceptible fish species and to the fish needed to help reefs recover, such as parrot, surgeon and trigger fish, which keep seaweeds and urchins in check while the coral re-grows.

"Spear guns target a high proportion of species that help maintain the resilience of coral reefs, but also can result in a surprising amount of damage to the corals themselves. When a fish is shot with a spear gun, it often hides in the reef, so some fishermen break the corals in their attempts to get it." Dr Cinner says.

But in developing countries, spear guns can be the fishing tool most used by the poorest fishers because they are cheap to make and the yield can be high, so they are an important source of income for poor fishers.

"You can't simply impose an arbitrary ban on their use – you need to consider issues like compensation, other fishing options, or alternative livelihoods for the affected fishers," says co-author Dr. Shaun Wilson of the Western Australian Department of Environment and Conservation. "One key issue may be educating fishers about the importance of reef habitat and the species that help to maintain reef quality – and the need to be selective in what they shoot. This would mean fishers could still use this cheap and effective fishing tool without necessarily damaging habitat and reef resilience."

Fish traps also targeted both the most susceptible reef fish and the ones most involved in reef recovery. Beach seine nets didn't target as many key fish species as gill nets, traps, or spear guns, but were damaging both to corals directly and took large amounts of juvenile fish.

"Where people really depend on reef resources, it may not be possible to permanently ban all of these types of gear. By creating temporary bans for specific types of gear following a coral bleaching event, reef managers could ease pressure on the reef and its fish population for a time when corals ecosystems are most sensitive without causing undue hardship to the human populations that depend on it." Dr Cinner says

"Of course, where the conditions are right, managers and fishers don't have to wait for a bleaching event- preventative gear bans are a good idea, particularly in areas that are highly susceptible to the impacts of bleaching," says co-author Dr Nick Graham. "And our new research provides managers with some ideas about the trade-offs involved in banning certain gear."

Dr Cinner says that temporary bans or imposing permanent restrictions on the use of various types of gear can apply to virtually any coral reef management – whether in the developing world or in developed countries such as on Australia's Great Barrier Reef.

"In principle, it can be used anywhere. It offers both communities and reef managers much greater flexibility. Around the world, communities are increasingly making their own decisions about how to protect their reefs and they could impose voluntary bans on certain gears.

Journal reference:

1. Cinner et al. Gear-based fisheries management as a potential adaptive response to climate change and coral mortality. Journal of Applied Ecology, 2009; 46 (3): 724 DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2664.2009.01648.x

Adapted from materials provided by Wildlife Conservation Society, via EurekAlert!, a service of AAAS.

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Subsidies contribute to harming Baltic Sea instead of saving it

WWF 17 Jun 09;

The majority of subsidies given to Baltic Sea fisheries and agriculture have a negative impact on the health of the sea, a new WWF report says.

The majority of subsidies given to Baltic Sea fisheries and agriculture have a negative impact on the health of the sea, a new WWF report says.

Some 14 billion euros of taxpayers’ money is distributed to these sectors in the region every year. But according to WWF at least 84 percent of this cash pile is being used in an environmentally harmful way or instead of serving the public good is supporting purely profit related activities.

A previous Swedish Environment Protection Agency showed that the minimum cost to reach the environmental targets for eutrophication and fisheries in the HELCOM Baltic Sea Action Plan is calculated to be approximately €2.6 billion per year.

“This shows that we have enough money to save the Baltic Sea,” says Lasse Gustavsson, the CEO of WWF Sweden. “Just the money provided to the agriculture and fisheries sectors in the form of misdirected subsidies equals four times the amount of money needed to save the Baltic Sea.”

Parallel to the report on subsidies, WWF released its vision statements for the future of European agricultural policy and the European fisheries policy.

Both of these documents state that public funding should only be used to pay for those goods and services that benefit us all, but are not paid for by the market; services like the sustainable management of common resources, biodiversity protection or the maintenance of cultural values.

“The distribution of subsidies today reflects the outcome of political negotiations rather than an objective assessment of the needs of these sectors, the appropriate use of public funding in response to these needs, or a consideration of the amount of funding required”, says Lasse Gustavsson.

”Delivering public goods should be the primary purpose of public funding, and this is likely to require substantial investments in the Baltic Sea region also in the future”.

According to WWF the most urgent measure to solve the fisheries crisis is to bring down fishing over-capacity to a sustainable level. Today subsidies are used both to scrap vessels and to support increased fishing. The report shows that the cost to bring down over-capacity would be less than zero – it would be a net gain for society.

In order to put agriculture policy on a more sustainable track the WWF vision states the importance of working in partnership with environmental NGOs, farmers’ representatives and others to develop a new Common Environment and Rural Policy for implementation in 2019.

The full report and the vision papers are available at www.panda.org/baltic

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Why Japan's whaling activities are not research

Nichola Raihani and Tim Clutton-Brock, New Scientist 17 Jun 09;

IN 1986, the International Whaling Commission (IWC) imposed a moratorium on commercial whaling to allow stocks to replenish. However, this ongoing ban allows member nations to grant themselves special permits to kill whales for scientific research, with the proviso that the whale meat is utilised following data collection.

Only Japan holds a special permit. Its current research programme, which started in 2000 and is run by the Japanese Institute of Cetacean Research (ICR), proposes to kill more than 1000 whales a year in the Antarctic and the western north Pacific. The stated objectives are to determine the population structure and feeding habits of several whale species, including endangered fin and sei whales, in order to "manage" stocks.

Japan has already been widely criticised for its whaling, which is generally seen as a thinly disguised hunting operation. But with the 2009 IWC meeting looming, it is worth rehearsing the arguments against scientific whaling.

Although Japan's early results produced useful information, recent advances in non-lethal techniques such as biopsies mean that data can now be obtained without killing whales. Similarly, it is no longer necessary to kill whales to work out what they have been eating, as this can be determined from DNA in samples of faeces.

The scientific impact of the research is also limited. Relatively little research is published in international peer-reviewed journals, compared with research programmes on other marine mammals such as dolphins. According to the ICR, scientific whaling has produced 152 publications in peer-reviewed journals since 1994. However, just 58 of these papers were published in international journals. The rest were IWC reports or articles published in domestic journals, largely in Japanese. Most of the findings are not circulated among the wider scientific community, and the failure to subject papers to impartial review renders the value of much of this literature questionable.

Whether the results from scientific whaling are useful for stock management has also been questioned. The Scientific Committee of the IWC has explicitly stated that the results generated by the Japanese Whale Research Program in the Antarctic (JARPA) "were not required for management". Independent research shows that the data may overestimate whale abundance by up to 80 per cent (Marine Ecology Progress Series, vol 242, p 295).

Finally, given that there is considerable variation in the capacity of different whale populations to recover from stock depletion (Marine Mammal Science, vol 24, p 183), the value of the research for understanding populations outside the Antarctic and western north Pacific - which may one day be reconsidered for commercial whaling - is limited. This fundamentally undermines the justification for scientific whaling.

Nichola Raihani is at the Institute of Zoology in London

Tim Clutton-Brock is Prince Philip Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Cambridge

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ADB says it will double clean energy investment by 2013

Yahoo News 17 Jun 09;

MANILA (AFP) – The Asian Development Bank (ADB) will boost its investments in "clean energy" to two billion dollars a year by 2013, doubling its current contribution, the bank's president said Wednesday.

Haruhiko Kuroda said he hoped the target could even be achieved before 2013 and noted the multilateral institution had provided a billion dollars last year.

Speaking on the sidelines of an environment conference at the ADB headquarters in Manila, Kuroda said the two billion dollars was "a fraction of the region's financing needs" to fight climate change and cut greenhouse gases.

But he expressed hope the bank's contribution would have a "catalysing" effect and leverage additional resources from the private sector.

Kuroda warned that many Asia-Pacific countries, particularly in Southeast Asia, would be the most affected if sea levels rose as a result of global warming.

At the same forum, Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said such a problem meant Asia-Pacific nations should be ahead of other regions in alleviating climate change.

The officials cited the Maldives, Thailand, the Philippines and Malaysia as countries that could suffer seriously.

Also at the forum, Yvo de Boer, the Executive Secretary of UN's Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), said in a statement that climate change was threatening the economic growth achieved by Asia in recent decades.

"Climate change impacts will be overwhelmingly severe for Asia. They will exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and they have the potential to throw countries back into the poverty trap," he said.

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Agriculture more resilient to global crisis than other sectors

OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2009-2018 published
FAO 17 Jun 09;

17 June 2009, Paris/Rome - Because food is a basic necessity, the agriculture sector is showing more resilience to the global economic crisis than other industries. But the risks could increase if the economic downturn deepens, according to a new report by the OECD and FAO released today.

Falls in agricultural prices and in the production and consumption of farm goods are likely to be moderate as long as the economic recovery begins within two to three years, says the OECD-FAO Agricultural Outlook 2009-2018. As the downturn lowers food prices, pressure is eased on recession-hit consumers who have less money to spend, it says.

Food prices have come down from the record peaks of early 2008 but they remain high in many poor countries. Over the coming decade prices for all farm commodities except beef and pigmeat - even when adjusted for inflation - are unlikely to fall back to their average levels before the 2007-08 peaks.

Average crop prices are projected to be 10-20 percent higher in real terms (adjusted for inflation) for the next 10 years compared with the average for the period 1997-2006. Prices for vegetable oils are expected to be more than 30 percent higher.

An expected economic recovery, renewed food demand growth from developing countries and the emerging biofuel markets are the key drivers underpinning agricultural commodity prices and markets over the medium term.

The report warns that episodes of extreme price volatility similar to the hike in 2008 cannot be ruled out in coming years, particularly as commodity prices have become increasingly linked to oil and energy costs and environmental experts warn of more erratic weather conditions.

Although agricultural production, consumption and trade are expected to increase in developing countries, food insecurity and hunger is a growing problem for the world's poor.

The report argues that the longer term problem is access to food rather than food availability, with poverty reduction and economic growth a big part of the solution. Agriculture growth is key for sustainable development and poverty reduction since 75 percent of the poor in developing countries live in rural areas.

The report says that, in addition to more effective international aid, governments can best support domestic agricultural development through targeted policies such as infrastructure investment, establishing effective research and development systems and providing incentives for sustainable use of soil and water.

It also emphasises the need for greater opening of agricultural markets and broadening economic development beyond farming in poor rural regions.

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Warming may outstrip Africa's ability to feed itself: study

Marlowe Hood Yahoo News 17 Jun 09;

PARIS (AFP) – By mid-century, climate change may have outrun the ability of Africa's farmers to adapt to rising temperatures, threatening the continent's precarious food security, warns a new study.

Growing seasons throughout nearly all of Africa in 2050 will likely be "hotter than any year in historical experience," reports the study, published in the current issue of the British-based journal Global Environmental Change.

Six nations -- Senegal, Chad, Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger and Sierra Leone -- are especially at risk because they will face conditions that are today unknown anywhere in Africa.

As a result, even the hardiest varieties of the continent's three main crops -- maize, millet and sorghum -- currently under cultivation would probably not tolerate the conditions forecast for these countries in four decades.

A trio of researchers led by Marshall Burke, a professor at Stanford University's Program on Food Security and the Environment, said urgent measures must be taken to stock seed banks and develop new varieties to stay a step ahead of Africa's shifting agricultural map.

"When we looked at where temperatures are headed, we found that for the majority of Africa's farmers, global warming will rapidly change conditions beyond the range of what occurs anywhere in their country," he said.

The study is based on a mid-range projection from the UN Intergovernmental Panel for Climate Change (IPCC) that forecasts an increase in average global temperatures by 2100 of 2.8 degrees Celsius (5.0 degrees Fahrenheit) over pre-industrial levels.

More recent research, however, suggests that the impact of global warming could be even worse.

MIT climate modelers, averaging 400 possible scenarios, have calculated that Earth's surface temperatures will jump 5.2 C (9.4 F) by century's end in the absence of rapid and massive measures to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

"This is not a situation like the failure of the banking system where we can move in after the fact and provide something akin to a bailout," said co-author Cary Fowler, head of the Global Crop Diversity Trust.

"If we wait until it?s too hot to grow maize in Chad and Mali, then it will be too late to avoid a disaster that could easily destabilize an entire region and beyond."

Over 40 percent of Africa's population lives on less than a dollar a day, and 70 percent of these poor are located in rural areas and thus largely dependent on agriculture for survival.

The authors note that "adverse shifts in climate can cause devastating declines in human welfare, and have been implicated in everything from famine to slow economic growth to heightened risk of civil conflict."

Burke and colleagues found that while most African nations will face unprecedented climates by 2050, they could anticipate future needs by stockpiling seeds from neighbouring countries with similar conditions today.

By mid-century, for example, local varieties of the staple maize in Lesotho -- which has one of Africa's coolest climates -- will be wilting in the heat.

Varieties that thrive in hotter climes grown in Mali today may well be adapted to Lesotho's future needs, and so should be set aside.

But that still leaves the six most vulnerable countries without any apparent solution.

"For these nations, there is a much smaller potential pool of foreign genetic resources in which to seek heat tolerance, at least within Africa," the authors caution.

African farms becoming too hot to handle
Bob Holmes, New Scientist 17 Jun 09;

African farmers will soon face growing seasons hotter than any in their experience. To cope with this rapid climate change, they – and the plant breeders who supply their crops – will need to make big changes, and soon.

Agricultural experts have predicted for some time that farmers are likely to face problems as climates become hotter and drier than they are today. Indeed, some farmers in South Africa are already reporting difficulties (pdf).

To see how fast, and how broadly, this will strike, Marshall Burke, an agricultural economist at Stanford University, and colleagues, averaged the results from 18 global climate models to forecast likely temperature and rainfall conditions in 2025, 2050 and 2075 in regions of Africa where maize, millet and sorghum are grown today. Then, assuming that year-to-year variability would remain the same as today – perhaps a conservative assumption – they asked how much these future climates would overlap with existing climates.

They found that farmers in Africa will face average temperatures outside the current range of experience in their locality in 42% of years by 2025 – and 97% by 2075. Since temperature strongly affects crop yields, farmers will need to find new varieties adapted to these higher temperatures, Burke says. Future rainfall showed more overlap with current conditions, largely because rainfall already varies more from year to year.
Maize trap

The researchers then looked to see whether the warmer temperatures forecast for 2050 can be found anywhere in Africa today. If so, they reasoned, these analogous conditions might yield crop varieties already adapted for the future conditions. A few lucky countries, such as Tanzania, Ethiopia and South Africa, have diverse enough climates today that they can find climates analogous to the potential conditions of 2050 within their own borders today, Burke's team found.

At the opposite extreme, Sahelian countries such as Chad, Mali and Niger may have nowhere to turn. "By 2050, they're going to be hotter than any current growing season in any maize country in the world," says Burke. Most countries, however, will be able to find analogous climates in other countries today.

That would be good news, except that plant breeders have done very little collecting of locally adapted varieties from some of the most likely analog countries, such as Cameroon, Sudan and Nigeria, Burke's team found. To cope with future climates, genetic prospectors must sample much more of the genetic diversity of crops in these countries – and those nations must then do a better job of sharing these genetic resources, says Burke.

"We've got to do something serious about agriculture and we've got to start now," agrees Gerald Nelson, an agricultural economist who heads research on agriculture and climate change at the International Food Policy Research Institute in Washington DC.

Journal reference: Global Environmental Change, DOI: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2009.04.003

Related article
Climate change could devastate South Asia, Africa crops: study Mira Oberman Yahoo News 31 Jan 08;

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Australia's carbon farmers in quiet revolution

Michael Perry, Reuters 17 Jun 09;

WINONA, Australia (Reuters) - On the rolling hills of Winona, a fine merino sheep stud, a quiet revolution is taking place which Australian farmers hope will eventually see them selling soil carbon credits in the fight against climate change.

Winona's Colin Seis is one of the country's leading "carbon farmers" and has for the past 10 years been encouraging the extraction of greenhouse gas CO2 from the atmosphere and increasing the carbon content of his soil to improve pastures.

Seis estimates he has sequestered a total of 73,786 tons of CO2 equivalent, or 7,386 tons each year. As he only emits 2,200 tons farming, he has a credit of 5,186 tons of carbon.

Under Australia's planned carbon emissions trading scheme, if Seis continues sequesting carbon and maintains his credit, he could sell 5,186 tons for A$51,860-A$129,650 ($40,706 -$102,086), depending if the price is A$10 a ton or A$25 a ton.

Australia wants a formal carbon trading scheme running by 2011, with agriculture possibly included in 2015.

Australia's planned Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) will have a fixed A$10 a ton price in the first year, followed by an open market with an expected price of A$25 a ton. But it is unclear what type of credit farmers would be allocated in a future ETS.

"Soil is the largest carbon sink we have control of. It's a major answer (to climate change) yet it's been overlooked," said Seis. "It's so obvious because plants are the only thing taking CO2 out of the atmosphere."

The Chicago Climate Exchange in the United States has been trading soil carbon since 2005 but it is not an official offset under the Kyoto Protocol. The United Nations food and agriculture organization and conservation farmers are pushing for the rules to be changed at the Copenhagen climate conference in December.

The Chicago Climate Exchange traded contracts worth 18.1 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent in the year to end April 2009, with prices ranging from US$1.55 to US$2.05 per metric ton.

QUIET REVOLUTION

Fifth generation farmer Seis said there are about 2,000 "carbon farmers" now in Australia.

Farmers are turning their backs on centuries-old practices brought from England, where paddocks were continually cropped and plowed and drenched with fertilizer and weed killer, and are adopting eco-friendly farming to repair damaged soils.

Carbon farmers are adopting zero or minimum tillage, which does not plough the soil, increasing stock rotation to allow land to rest, sometimes for years, and avoiding bare earth with year-round cover with crops, native grasses and weeds.

All these measures increase the biomass in the soil, making it more fertile, and in turn increase the carbon in the soil.

Seis "pasture crops" his 840 hectare (2,100 acre) farm near Gulgong in eastern Australia, planting cereals amongst native grasses to ensure paddocks are covered all year round to allow plants to constantly absorb carbon and limit erosion.

"We do not kill the grasslands, we sow the crop when the grass is in its winter dormant phase. When we harvest, the grass comes back," said Seis. "What I have done is encourage nature to function as designed -- to work with nature not against it."

Seis has also reduced the size of his paddocks and rotates his 4,000 sheep regularly, what is called high-density short-duration grazing or pulse grazing, ensuring paddocks are given long periods of rest from grazing in order to revive.

Despite a long running drought, Seis has enough ground cover to last the dry winter and no need to buy in feed. He can also run two sheep per acre, double his neighbor's stocking rate.

SOIL CARBON FIGHTS DROUGHT

Increasing soil carbon allows paddocks to retain more moisture for crops -- a vital advantage for Australian farmers who have been battling decades of drought.

A one percent increase in soil carbon means an extra 144,000 liters per hectare water capacity, says Seis, who has increased his soil carbon from 2.5 to 4 percent, giving him an average of 300,000 liter extra water per hectare.

"It's like putting your farm under a different rain zone. Carbon farming means your farm comes into drought later and comes out of drought sooner," said Louisa Kiely, a fellow sheep farmer and founder of the lobby group Carbon Coalition.

Across the valley from Kiely's homestead stand three tombstones marking the graves of the property's original owners, the Lahys from Tipperary, Ireland. Michael Lahy died in 1859.

But those tombstones, surrounded by rotting, dead weeds, are the only remnants of the old farming ways on Uamby. The Kiely's have turned their property into a pure carbon farm.

"We have turned the farm over to native vegetation and grazing and we can get carbon credits for it. There is a whole new economy developing," said Michael Kiely, surveying his farm from the top of a hill.

CARBON AUDITING

Seis and other Australian farmers are being hindered from selling carbon credits due to a lack of a formal protocol for measuring the increase in carbon in their soils and a formal market. Australia has only a small voluntary carbon market.

Australia's annual greenhouse emissions currently total 553 million tons of CO2-equivalent, but it would require only a 0.5 percent increase in soil carbon in two percent of farmland to sequester all the annual CO2 emissions, said Christine Jones, founder of Australian Soil Carbon Accreditation Scheme.

"Australia's single greatest comparative advantage in the battle to reduce CO2 emissions is our enormous land mass -- over seven million square kilometers (770 million hectares)," said opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull, who's Liberal Party supports a policy of biosequestration.

"The opportunities for CO2 abatement here are gigantic."

Australia's carbon farmers argue that the country's depleted soils can be repaired to once again store more carbon.

Since white settlement in Australia in 1788 more than 70 percent of farm land has been seriously degraded, with a loss of 50 to 80 percent of organic carbon from surface soil, says Jones.

Broker Prime Carbon currently lists carbon credit units on Australia's National Environment Registry and aims to convert 1 million hectares into sustainable farming by 2013 and provide wholesale carbon credits for national and international markets.

Prime Carbon has registered 200,000 tons of CO2 in the past 18 months but sold only 10 percent, said founder Bellamy.

Measuring soil carbon gains is difficult as carbon levels vary between different soils and different rainfall areas. Soil carbon can differ from one end of a paddock to the other.

"It is dynamic and always cycling and fluxing and cannot be measured like house bricks," said Michael Kiely.

Another sticking point is how to ensure the carbon credit stays in the ground, as farming emits carbon. Agriculture accounts for 16 percent of Australia's emissions. Farmers argue that if they remain in credit then they are storing carbon.

($1=1.274 Australian Dollar)

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

FACTBOX: Carbon farming on rise in Australia
Reuters 16 Jun 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian "carbon farmers" hope to sell their soil carbon credits in the fight against climate change. Australia plans to have an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) running by 2011, with agriculture possibly included in 2015.

Here are some facts about soil carbon, carbon sequestration, carbon farming:

SOIL CARBON SEQUESTRATION

The uptake and storage of carbon. Trees and plants, for example, absorb carbon dioxide, release the oxygen and store the carbon. Fossil fuels were at one time biomass and continue to store the carbon until burned.

By 2030 an estimated 5.5-6 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent a year could be mitigated by agriculture, with about 89 percent achieved by soil carbon sequestration through cropland and grazing management and restoration of organic soils, said a U.N. climate change paper on agriculture in November 2008.

HOW IS SOIL CARBON PRODUCED

Soil carbon is created when CO2 is absorbed by vegetation, oxygen is released and carbon is used to make living tissue, such as vegetation.

It is also produced by microbes and fungi, stimulated by plant roots as they push down through soil, retreating when the foliage above ground is grazed or harvested, then pushing down through the soil again as the foliage regrows.

Much of the carbon taken in by plants enters the top layer of the soil and is held there as humus. Some of it is carried further down to deeper layers of the soil where it can be held for hundreds of years.

Some carbon returns to the atmosphere as CO2 from respiration of plants and some as methane from the rotting of vegetation.

WHAT IS CARBON FARMING

Carbon farming is a new way to describe a collection of eco-friendly farming techniques which increase soil organic carbon in agricultural land.

The farming practices include:

1. One hundred percent groundcover to prevent soil being blown or washed away: Cooler soil is more attractive to microbes. Farmers avoid overgrazing and burning grasses.

2. Grazing management: Stock are concentrated in small paddocks for short periods (days) so they graze evenly and also till the soil with their hooves, stomping old grass and manures into the soil. When plants are lightly grazed the plants roots go deeper into the soil helping to create more carbon.

3. No till cropping/conservation tillage: Farmers abandon plowing and plant seeds by dropping them into ruts which barely disturb the soil. Not disturbing the soil avoids releasing soil carbon.

4. Pasture cropping: Planting and growing crops amongst native grasses and weeds, taking advantage of the native vegetations dormant period to grow and harvest crops. This ensures all-year ground cover of soil and more microbes.

5. Biological farming: Zero chemical fertilizers.

6. Mulching" Covering bare paddocks with hay or dead vegetation. This protects soil from the sun and allows the soil to hold more water and be more attractive to microbes.

(Sources: Carbon Farmers of Australia, www.carbonfarmersofaustralia.com.au; Prime Carbon, www.primecarbon.com.au)

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

FACTBOX: Global carbon market 2009
Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

SYDNEY (Reuters) - Australian "carbon farmers" hope to sell their soil carbon credits in the fight against climate change. Australia plans to have an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) running by 2011, with agriculture possibly included in 2015.

Here are some facts about the global carbon market: 2009

CARBON MARKET

The global voluntary carbon market doubled in 2008 to 123 million tons of carbon traded, at a value of US$705 million, said the State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2009 report in May.

But biomass (soil) credits accounted for only three percent of the transactions by volume, said the report.

The average price for voluntary carbon credits traded "over the counter" rose by 20 percent in 2008 to about US$7.34 per ton of CO2 equivalent, says the report by Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance, which surveyed 190 voluntary carbon credit retailers, brokers, exchanges and registries.

Carbon credits are traded through exchanges like that in the Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) and "over the counter" (OTC) between suppliers and buyers.

The Chicago Climate Exchange set a new record trading day in May with 3,864,300 million metric tons of CO2 equivalent traded through 38,643 carbon financial instruments.

The United States is the largest single source of carbon credits, providing 28 percent of volume on the OTC market. The United States is also the biggest consumer, accounting for 39 percent.

WHAT IS CO2 EQUIVALENT

To convert soil carbon into tradeable carbon credits or the equivalent of CO2, the carbon weight is multiplied by 3.6.

A CO2 equivalent is a metric measure used to compare the emissions from various greenhouse gases based upon their global warming potential (GWP). Carbon dioxide equivalents are commonly expressed as million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalents. The CO2 equivalent for a gas is derived by multiplying the tons of the gas by the associated global warming potential (GWP).

CARBON SOIL OFFSETS

The Chicago Climate Exchange says tradeable soil carbon offsets are projects involving sequestration of carbon in soil resulting from the adoption of conservation tillage.

The CXX does not measure actual carbon credits but allocates soil carbon offsets on a per acre per year basis depending on the region in which the farming takes place. It does this to reflect the different rates of carbon sequestration of different soils. For example, Illinois farmers may be issued offsets at a rate of 0.6 metric tons of CO2 per acre per year and producers in Kansas may have a rate of 0.4 metric tons of CO2 per acre.

CCX rules require farmers to sign contracts committing them to five years of continuous conservation tillage on the enrolled plots. To address the possibility of reversal of carbon storage, CCX requires 20 percent of all earned offsets to be placed into an insurance-like reserve. That provides a tool to facilitate an immediate accounting that would be needed to remediate any carbon loss. To date, reversals have not been material.

(Sources: Chicago Climate Exchange, www.chicagoclimatex.com; Ecosystem Marketplace and New Carbon Finance, www.newcarbonfinance.com)

(Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Drylands sustain livelihoods

IUCN 17 Jun 09;

As the global community marks the world day to combat desertification, IUCN urges governments to recognize the role drylands play in offering livelihood opportunities for the poor.

Drylands cover more than one third of the global land area and are home to some of the most unique biological and cultural diversity on the planet. Two and a half billion people live in these arid areas and are directly dependent on the natural resources they provide.

If managed sustainably drylands provide food, fuel wood, shelter material, and medicinal plants. Commodities such as meat, milk and hides from livestock production, as well as Gum Arabic, Henna, Aloe, and Frankincense are important sources of revenue. More than 30% of the world’s cultivated plants originate in drylands, and in times of economic hardship, crop failure and climate shocks such as droughts and floods, drylands help in ensuring food security.

Drylands also ensure extremely important local climate-regulating services. Vegetation helps reduce temperatures and mitigate the effects of heavy rainfall. Drylands provide opportunities for carbon management and land restoration.

IUCN is developing ecosystem-based adaptation strategies to ensure that drylands and the goods and services they provide, are properly managed. Globally, there is evidence that 10-20% of the world’s drylands are degraded. Inappropriate policies at national and local level are the main driving force behind land degradation, leading to increased poverty

In Sudan, IUCN partners with the Sudanese Forest National Corporation (FNC) to restore traditional Gum Arabic gardens. Gum Arabic is an international commodity used in the confectionary and beverage industries and is also an important ingredient for the pharmaceutical and print industries.

The Balochistan Province is one of the drier regions in Pakistan and faces problems of depleting aquifers, degraded watersheds, inefficient water use, and lack of access to potable water. IUCN is launching a demonstration project in the Balozai Village. Together IUCN and the community of Balozai have improved the artificial recharge system; the access of women to potable water; the provision of washing points; and efficient water use for agriculture.

IUCN is working to support the UN Convention to Combat Desertification and is currently finalizing a strategy for its work at local, national and regional level to ensure dryland ecosystems are sustainably managed for people and nature.

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Climate change will have "severe" impact on Asia: U.N.

Manolo Serapio Jr., Reuters 17 Jun 09;

MANILA (Reuters) - Climate change impacts such as lower crop production will have severe effects on Asia and a broader climate pact being negotiated this year is crucial to minimizing the effects, a U.N. official said on Wednesday.

Developed nations are under intense pressure to agree to deep 2020 cuts in greenhouse gas emissions to try to seal an agreement at the end of this year that will replace the Kyoto Protocol.

"Climate change impacts will be overwhelmingly severe for Asia," Eric Hall, spokesman for the United Nations Climate Change Secretariat, told a forum at the Asian Development Bank in Manila.

"They will exacerbate existing vulnerabilities and they have the potential to throw countries back into the poverty trap."

Asia's rapidly growing population is already home to more than half of humanity and a large portion of the world's poorest people.

Hall said climate change had started threatening development in the region and could continue to put agricultural production and food security at risk by the 2020s.

"Coastal cities, including Bangkok, Jakarta, Manila and Shanghai will be increasingly vulnerable to sea-level rise, as well as flooding and storm surges due to unpredictable weather patterns," he said.

An ADB study released in April showed that Southeast Asian economies could lose as much as 6.7 percent of combined gross domestic product yearly by 2100, more than twice the global average loss, due to global warming.

Some countries say developed nations are using the global financial crisis as an excuse to cut back on their emissions reduction commitments.

"But the money spent on junk food can reforest the entire equatorial belt," said Rachmat Witoelar, the minister of state for environment in Indonesia.

Other participants at the ADB forum on climate change at its headquarters think nations cannot afford to set aside climate concerns.

"One might say, we can sequence this first, get the financial crisis under control and then turn to other issues regarding climate," said Vinod Thomas from the World Bank.

"But that luxury doesn't exist anymore. The big question in financing would be whether in addition to the funds that we're talking about, all the money that is going into fiscal expansion would have salutary effects on the climate crisis."

Financial and technological resources needed to aid developing countries in adopting climate mitigation measures are estimated to reach $250 billion a year in 2020, according to United Nations.

But it is far from certain if nations will agree on funding mechanisms that will raise and managed such large annual sums.

(Additional reporting by Divya Sharan; Editing by David Fogarty)

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Climate change slowing China's drive to end poverty

Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters 17 Jun 09;

BEIJING (Reuters) - Climate change is making some of the poorest people in China even more destitute and undermining the development that has been a cornerstone of Communist rule, academics and campaigners said on Wednesday.

The most poverty-stricken parts of the country are often also the most vulnerable to changing weather patterns, and farmers in these places are already feeling the pinch from floods and drought, a report from Greenpeace and aid group Oxfam said.

"The distribution of poor communities correlates very strongly to that of ecologically fragile areas," prominent economist Hu Angang said in an introduction to the report which looks in detail at three communities which are already badly hit.

One county in southwestern Sichuan is grappling with an increase in torrential rains which have destroyed homes by undermining their foundations and damaged fields.

A second case study looks at a poor corner of southeastern Guangdong province that is troubled by a rise in droughts and flooding -- because when rain does come it is much heavier -- causing crop failure, damage to roads and other problems.

In northwestern Gansu, a third county is suffering from intensified drought that has forced some 34,000 people to leave their homes and left thousands more with limited drinking water.

"The impact of climate change on poor communities is a new phenomenon, a new challenge, in man's fight against poverty," economist Hu said.

The impact on people in areas like these, already grappling with problems like remote location and limited resources, may make it harder for Beijing to continue lifting ordinary Chinese citizens out of poverty, the report said.

"Environmental degradation, drought and increased disaster risk and incidence mean that in the future we will have to deal with more and more people falling back into poverty," it said.

And the government will need to accelerate a shift away from the energy and resource-intensive development that powered much of the poverty reduction of the last three decades, but creates large amounts of the emissions that are perpetuating poverty.

Increased spending on cutting emissions and adapting to global warming could be at least partially offset in savings on disaster relief and reconstruction after events like flooding.

"The whole country's economic development has felt the impact of rising disaster-related costs, which have become the main cause for certain groups becoming trapped by long-term recurring poverty," the report said.

Climate change hits China's 'poor hardest'
Yahoo News 17 Jun 09;

BEIJING (AFP) – Climate change hits China's poor the hardest and also forces some of those lifted out of hardship back into it, activist groups Greenpeace and Oxfam said Wednesday.

The two urged the Chinese government to review its existing poverty alleviation policy to take climate change into account, in a report compiled with experts from the nation's Academy of Agricultural Sciences.

"Climate change is making poverty alleviation work harder... because as soon as there is a disaster in those places where the environment is very fragile, these return to poverty," Xu Yinlong of the academy told reporters.

According to Hu Angang, an economist at Beijing's Tsinghua University who wrote a preface to the report, China is one of the countries in the world most prone to natural disasters.

"More than 70 per cent of Chinese cities and over 50 percent of the population are located in areas susceptible to serious meteorological, seismic or oceanic disasters," he wrote.

And 95 per cent of those living in absolute poverty in China are living in ecologically fragile areas in the interior of the country, the report added, highlighting the correlation between hardship and a weak environment.

These places are now showing signs of climate change, including glacial retreat, an increase in droughts, enhanced soil erosion and frequent extreme weather events.

The report took three areas in China as case studies, including Yangshan county in the generally wealthy southern province of Guangdong.

In Yangshan, rain is falling with increased intensity but in fewer bursts, reducing the availability of water as a resource and leading to floods.

"Yangshan's agricultural production, livelihood and living conditions could further deteriorate," the report said.

Greenpeace and Oxfam urged China to take the lead in adopting a climate rescue treaty at a key meeting on climate change in December, and introduce measures such as elevating bridges and roads in flood-prone areas.

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