Solar sleuths tackle mystery of quiet sun

Kelly Beatty, SkyandTelescope.com, New Scientist 19 Jun 09;

For the past couple of years, our sun has been at the minimum of its 11-year activity cycle. Its face has been virtually spotless for months on end, and there've been no dire alerts of titanic solar storms about to slam into Earth.

The problem is that this "quiet sun" has continued far too long – two years ago, a special task force predicted that the transition from the just-ended Cycle 23 to the upcoming Cycle 24 would come around March 2008. It didn't. (To be fair, there was sharp disagreement within the group at that time.)

Much fanfare accompanied the appearance of a tiny high-latitude sunspot in early 2008, supposedly heralding Cycle 24's arrival. Yet for months and months afterward the sun's face remained spotless.

Knowing when the upturn in solar activity begins and, more importantly, how strong it will get at maximum has grown in importance over the years. When the sun gets agitated, it buffets our planet with huge "storms" of high-speed plasma (ionised gas), punctuated by threatening flares of relativistic protons (see Space storm alert: 90 seconds from catastropheMovie Camera).
Rhythmic pulsations

But despite centuries-long records of sunspot counts and 50 years of mapping the sun's magnetic fields, scientists still don't understand what makes one cycle strong and another weak. The same task force that was bullish on Cycle 24 two years ago now believes the forthcoming activity could be the weakest in a century.

This week, two groups of researchers offered hope that we're finally understanding the sun's complex workings a little better.

The first comes from Rachel Howe and Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory, who now believe that sunspots are linked to slow, eastward-moving "jet streams" about 7000 kilometres below the sun's visible surface, or photosphere. They've analysed 15 years of observations made using helioseismology, which monitors rhythmic pulsations at the surface created by pressure waves bouncing around the solar interior.

"Think of the sun as a musical instrument," Hill explains. "A piano has 88 keys, but the sun has five million 'notes' or modes of oscillation."
Deep-seated currents

Howe and Hill find that a pair of deep-seated currents migrate from the solar poles toward the equator during each cycle, and that the migration has been unusually sluggish of late.

They took three years to shift 10° towards the equator, and only now have they reached a solar latitude of 22°, the point at which activity perks up and sunspots start to appear. They can't yet tell whether the flow somehow causes sunspots, only that the two phenomena appear to be related.

"Had this analysis been available two years ago, we'd have seen the delayed onset of Cycle 24 coming," notes solar physicist Dean Pernell of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland.

The new findings were presented this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society's Solar Physics Division, which had a special session on Cycle 24.
Sunspot model

The second announcement concerns sunspots themselves and the arrangement of the intense magnetic tangles within them. Writing in Science Express, Matthias Rempel of the National Center for Atmospheric Research and three colleagues used a supercomputer grinding out 76 trillion calculations per second to create the first comprehensive, 3D model of these mysterious dark patches' inner workings.

The simulations reveal in detail how superheated gas streams along magnetic filaments from a spot's dark, central umbra to the lighter penumbra surrounding it.

Solar physicists first recognised this outward flow about 100 years ago. But, as Rempel's team notes, "The onset of these flows is closely related to the magnetic field inclination" and that outflows occur whenever the magnetic field is inclined more than 45° from vertical.

The hope is that a better understanding of sunspots will allow scientists to predict their behaviour more accurately and, in particular, to identify the ones most likely to trigger dangerous solar flares.

Courtesy of Sky and Telescope magazine

Sunspot Delay Due to Sluggish Solar "Jet Stream"?
Anne Minard, National Geographic News 19 Jun 09;

A sluggish, jet stream-like flow deep inside the sun could be to blame for the delay in increased solar activity that has been stumping astronomers.

The jet stream, which is actually a plasma current called a torsional oscillation, has been migrating more slowly than usual through the star's interior, according to a team led by Frank Hill of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, Arizona.

Every 11 years the sun generates new jet streams near its poles. These streams slowly shift from east to west toward the solar equator over a period of 17 years.

When the stream reaches a certain latitude, the sun starts producing new sunspots—relatively cool, dark regions on the sun that mark areas of magnetic disturbance.

But the stream associated with the current cycle of solar activity has been moving even slower than normal, Hill said.

Obvious in Hindsight?

Based on new data from sun-tracking instruments known as the Global Oscillation Network Group (GONG) and the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO), Hill and colleagues saw that it took an extra year for the stream to cross a distance of 10 degrees latitude, compared with previous solar cycles.

The new measurements also show that the stream has finally reached the critical latitude linked to sunspot production, which could explain why solar activity finally seems to be picking up.

"It's not clear whether this [slower jet stream] is a cause or a consequence" of the mysterious solar quiet, Hill said. "But the fact that we see it a couple of years in advance [of the sun's extended quiet] makes me think it's a cause."

Jesper Schou, an astrophysicist at Stanford University who works on SOHO, said that, since the stream's sluggish motion had shown up in previous data, in hindsight the solar quiet might have been predicted.

But both GONG and SOHO, right now the best instruments for monitoring the sun's interior, have been in operation for only 14 years. That's a relatively short period for scientists to get comfortable with the type of data being returned. By contrast, sunspots have been tracked as a measure of solar activity for hundreds of years.

"You need some amount of confidence" with the data before recognizing any discrepancies, Schou said. "After a while it's like, Oh, it looks very obvious."

Findings presented this week at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society Solar Physics Division in Boulder, Colorado.

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Best of our wild blogs: 19 Jun 09

The Trials & Tribulations of Binjai Stream
from You run, we GEOG

Fauna Show @ USR Part 1 (Butterfly Species)
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

Burnt out at Punggol
from Urban Forest

Oh deer, I need to poo
from The annotated budak

Black-naped Tern’s unsuccessful attempt at copulation
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Reclamation at Tuas, extended until Dec 09
from wild shores of singapore

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Curbing the haze

The Jakarta Post 19 Jun 09;

It’s easy to forget the annual haze during this month of presidential campaigning. The noxious haze is back in our country, affecting the region and polluting our skies.

Schools in Riau province, Sumatra, had to close for several days in recent weeks, and its Pekanbaru airport had to be temporarily closed due to poor visibility. Dozens of hotspots, or large fires sparked by illegal fires to clear land, have been spotted in the province.

In the nearby province of Jambi, 200 hotspots have been detected in the last six months. The Jambi case is a worrying sign, since forest fires usually occur during the dry season from June to October.

The line between the dry and rainy season has blurred and forest fires are now occurring throughout the year.

The haze has caused great losses to Indonesia and also to Southeast Asia, ever since the big forest fires of 1982. Yet it seems easier for the three presidential candidates to attack a rival candidate than to attack a scourge that has called for a redress for nearly 30 years.

In the 1997-1998 fires, the region suffered US$9 billion in lost business and other costs, according to the Singapore Institute of International Affairs. Almost 10 million hectares of forest in Sumatra, Kalimantan, Java, Sulawesi and Papua went up in smoke, affecting the health and economy of 70 million people across Southeast Asia.

Malaysian authorities have reported a fall in air quality in recent days. Its Environment Ministry says more than 1,100 hotspots have been detected in Sumatra and Kalimantan, two of the islands most vulnerable to forest fires.

In recent years, Indonesia’s forest fires have expanded to also affect islands in the Pacific, as well as Singapore, Malaysia, Brunei and Thailand. It is not without reason the haze has been dubbed Indonesia’s biggest export to the region.

Halfway into the presidential campaign, not a single candidate has touched on this issue, nor has anyone put it in their working program. Their rhetoric so far has been full of promises but lacking in substance. Otherwise, they compete in crediting themselves for having done big things in the past, a sign of political infantilism.

If they want to talk about the economy, here is a drain of a trillion rupiah a year in health and environment costs and for losses accrued from disruptions to shipping and aviation. Indonesia has earned a bad reputation for its failure to put its house in order.

Its efforts to stem forest fires have been inadequate. The 1994 ban on the burning of forests and grasslands needs stronger enforcement. Education of smallholders needs to be continued and expanded. Big plantation companies should equip themselves with forest fire management.

The government should also ensure cooperation between all stakeholders, including farmers, plantation companies and NGOs.

And it is time for the government to ratify the ASEAN agreement to eradicate trans-border fire haze and smoke pollution. This will force the government, the only one in ASEAN that has not signed the treaty, to be proactive in tackling haze pollution from land and forest fires across the country.

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Coral Triangle: Act now to prevent disaster

Straits Times Forum 19 Jun 09;

WE AT WWF (World Wide Fund for Nature) would like to thank Miss Lau Ying Shan for her letter, 'Walk the talk and consume ethically' (June 10). We are grateful that she raised the environmental challenges the Coral Triangle is facing.

The recent WWF-University of Queensland report, The Coral Triangle And Climate Change: Ecosystems, People And Societies At Risk, highlights the impact of climate change on marine ecosystems in that geographical region, and is a call for action to everyone to take concrete steps to avoid the most disastrous consequences.

If the world does not take effective action on climate change, coral reefs will disappear from the Coral Triangle by the end of the century, the ability of the region's coastal environments to feed people will decline by 80 per cent, and the livelihoods of around 100 million people will have been lost or severely impacted.

However, the report also shows there is an opportunity to avoid a worst-case scenario in the region and instead build a resilient and robust Coral Triangle in which economic growth, food security and the natural environment are maintained. This is if significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions are backed up by international investment in strengthening the region's natural environments.

Over-exploitation of the reefs is also driving endangered species to the brink of extinction. It is not just a biodiversity problem but also a human and social problem for the 120 million people who depend on the Coral Triangle for their livelihoods and the millions of other who are sourcing their fish protein from the Coral Triangle region - including us in Singapore.

Sustainable consumption of seafood will safeguard the fish resources of this magnificent region and food security. Early next year, WWF will launch a seafood guide to address the issue of sustainable seafood consumption. The guide will inform consumers and retailers about the sustainability of seafood types in the wild, so they can make better choices in the seafood they buy and the seafood they offer for sale. Indirectly, their decisions will have a positive influence on protecting biodiversity in the Coral Triangle.

Amy Ho (Ms)
Managing Director
WWF Singapore

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Turning on the taps at Newater facility

Victoria Vaughan, Straits Times 19 Jun 09;

ONE of the world's largest water-reclaiming facilities will begin providing Singapore with water from next month.

Believed to be second in size only to Kuwait's Sulaibiya facility, the factory will double the supply of reclaimed water -

Newater - providing 30 per cent of the country's water needs by next year.

Built by Sembcorp at a cost of $180 million, the Newater factory will sell the water to Singapore's water authority PUB at 30 cents per cu m for a year.

Newater is one of the nation's 'four taps' for its water supply, with rain water capture, importation of raw water from Malaysia and desalination being the other three.

Sembcorp's executive vice-president of group business development Tan Cheng Guan explained that producing Newater is more energy-efficient than desalination, as a lot more goes into the sourcing of seawater than waste water.

The new factory sits atop the Changi Water Reclamation Plant (CWRP), which makes waste water readily available.

Mr Tan explained that developing countries such as China and those in the Middle East which are short of fresh water are realising that their costs of sourcing for fresh water sources will shoot up if they use their water only once.

'The market for recycled water is definitely booming,' he said, adding, 'Using a single drop of water multiple times is key.'

From next month, the plant will be working at 30 per cent capacity. When the factory is completed and goes into full flow, it will produce 228,000 cu m a day - enough to fill 91 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Although the factory is scheduled to be completed by the end of next May, Mr Gerry O'Toole, the regional director of Black & Veatch Water Asia Pacific, the firm which designed the factory, predicts it will be ready by Christmas.

The CWRP treats waste water to the point where it is clean enough to be pumped out to sea. Some of the water will then be piped to the Newater factory.

It then goes through three processes to filter out impurities and is also zapped with ultraviolet rays to kill any remaining contaminates. The Newater is then pumped into five storage tanks for PUB to use.

This is the fifth Newater plant in Singapore. The others - in Bedok, Kranji, Seletar and Ulu Pandan - can provide 15 per cent of Singapore's water.

Sembcorp Changi NEWater Plant to start operations in July
Vincent Wee, Business Times 18 Jun 09;

SEMBCORP'S showcase $180 million Sembcorp Changi NEWater Plant (SCNP) is about to come onstream with an initial capacity of 15 million gallons (69,000 cu m) of reclaimed water per day, ramping up to designed capacity of 50 million gallons (228,000 cu m) per day by June 2010.

Singapore's fifth and biggest NEWater project will start delivering its first flow of NEWater to PUB, Singapore's national water agency, by next month.

The four existing NEWater plants together meet about 15 per cent of Singapore's water needs. The new SCNP will add another 15 per cent, doubling this to 30 per cent when it reaches full capacity in 2010.

The 25-year design, build, own and operate (DBOO) project was won in 2008 with Sembcorp's competitive bid to deliver NEWater at 30 cents per cu m in the first year. The price is subject to adjustment in subsequent years under a formula.

It is believed SCNP's production cost is about 22 to 23 cents per cu m. However, the quantity of NEWater that PUB will require SCNP to produce is determined by PUB.

While unable to disclose specific details, sources said SCNP has an agreed formula with PUB that will ensure its production costs do not rise above the sale price.

SCNP's main operating costs are energy costs, making up just under a third of overall running costs. The plant is designed to reduce these energy costs as much as possible.

For example, its reverse osmosis process has an energy recovery system that helps to save about 10 per cent in energy.

This was a 'fairly expensive plant because PUB obviously wants to have high standards', said Sembcorp executive vice-president Tan Cheng Guan.

But some building costs were saved because certain components like the foundation for the plant was provided by PUB, since it was planned from the beginning that the plant would be put on the roof of PUB's Changi Water Reclamation Plant. Foundation costs typically make up 15 to 20 per cent of building costs.

However, Sembcorp is using the plant as a showcase for its waste water recycling expertise where it hopes to achieve 50 per cent growth in five years to managing water and waste water facilities capable of producing and treating six million cu m of water a day, from the four million cu m a day it handles now.

'We are further deepening our core competencies in the water business through strategic projects such as the Sembcorp Changi NEWater Plant and aim to replicate our track record in key target markets,' said group president and CEO Tang Kin Fei.

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Water technology R&D centre to open next week

GE partners NUS to develop safe drinking water systems across Asia
Lee U-Wen, Business Times 19 Jun 09;

A $150 million research and development centre that aims to develop safe drinking water systems across Asia will open here next Monday.

The opening of NUS-GE Singapore Water Technology Centre - within the school of engineering at the National University of Singapore - coincides with the start of the second annual Singapore International Water Week, on June 22-26.

Already, the first scientists, engineers and researchers have started work at the centre, with all equipment and facilities expected to be in place by the first quarter of next year.

GE has hired 37 people and there are plans to ramp up manpower to about 100, Kevin Cassidy, general manager (Asia-Pacific) of GE Water & Process Technologies, said yesterday.

Mr Cassidy and other senior GE Water and NUS staff were speaking to reporters during a tour of the 2,700 square metre centre, which occupies a building at the engineering faculty and some space in the Temasek Engineering Building.

The centre will be officially opened by National Research Foundation chairman Tony Tan, NUS president Tan Chorh Chuan and GE Water & Process Technologies chief executive and president Heiner Markhoff.

GE's partnership with NUS is its first with a university in the Asia-Pacific.

Michael Saunders, director of the NUS Environmental Research Institute, said that the centre would go a long way towards supporting Singapore's strategy of becoming a global water technology hub.

Mr Cassidy said that the centre would actively engage government agencies as part of an inclusive working relationship. 'The Public Utilities Board is a customer of ours, and what we can offer is a place for them to test some new technologies.'

On the reason for basing the centre here, he said that Singapore was 'one of the most progressive countries in addressing water issues'.

The opening of the centre could not have come at a more opportune time.

Worldwide demand for water last year came to 313 billion cubic metres - a figure that is expected to surge to 870 billion cubic metres by 2030.

Today, the World Health Organization estimates that about 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water.

And by 2025, some 2.8 billion people will be living in water scarce areas.

Recent studies have shown that about 95 per cent of the world's cities still dump raw sewage into their water, underscoring the need for more modern treatment systems in industrialised and developing countries.

NUS, GE set up water research facility
$150m centre will study ways to make potable water that is economical to produce
Amresh Gunasingham, Straits Times 19 Jun 09;

WATER-TECHNOLOGY developer GE Water has twinned itself with the National University of Singapore (NUS) to come up with ways to make water safe to drink and economical to produce.

The two sides will do research in a new $150 million centre located in NUS' engineering faculty. The NUS-GE Singapore Water Technology Centre, to be officially opened next Monday, is GE Water's first collaboration with an Asia-Pacific university.

This puts the 2,700 sq m facility smack within a region where up to 90 per cent of countries do not have adequate technology to provide safe, drinkable water, according to Professor Michael Saunders, the director of the NUS Environmental Research Institute.

The water technology resulting from the research has 'exceptional' market potential regionally, he said.

Parts of China for example, have access only to extremely contaminated water, he noted. 'That's a market, that's a critical need. But we have to look at making these systems much cheaper.'

The pool of 37 scientists and engineers of the centre will eventually be expanded to about 100.

Researchers will seek up to $70 million in government funding for their work, said Professor Barry Halliwell, deputy president (Research and Technology) NUS.

Research will focus on designing seawater desalination systems that do not need large amounts of energy to run or which use solar or other sources of power; they will also research methods of purifying and reusing water.

GE Water's general manager for the Asia-Pacific, Mr Kevin Cassidy, said state-of-the-art desalination systems require a relatively large amount of energy to run - roughly 3 kilowatt-hour for each cubic metre - which many countries can ill afford.

He offered this as an indication of the level of efficiency being sought after: 'If we put 100 litres of water through a high-pressure system, currently, we may get 95 litres of clean water. We want to find ways to get 98 or even 99 litres of clean water.'

Prof Saunders said having an industry-university partnership was critical for universities to be successful in the next decade or two.

It allows universities to do more and gives their students research opportunities that put them 'closer to the real world', he added.

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Biodegradable plastic bags carry more ecological harm than good

Decomposing bags sound environmentally friendly but they require a lot of energy to make, won't degrade in landfills and may leave toxic leftovers
Fred Pearce, guardian.co.uk 18 Jun 09;

Biodegradable plastic bags – as handed out by Tesco, the Co-op and even the Soil Association – must be good, surely? They have a magic ingredient that means they self-destruct after a few months, breaking up into tiny pieces made of simple molecules that bugs and fungi can happily munch up. Dozens of major corporations use them, including Pizza Hut, KFC, News international, Walmart and Marriott hotels.

But last week, the European Plastics Recyclers Association warned that they "have the potential to do more harm to the environment than good."

Technically what we are talking about here is "oxo-degradable" plastics. These are plastics made to degrade in the presence of oxygen and sunlight, thanks to the addition of tiny amounts of metals like cobalt, iron or manganese.

British manufacturers – headed by Symphony Technologies of Borehamwood – are at the sharp end of a revolution that could banish bag-strewn beauty spots and back alleys alike.

But the criticisms are twofold. First, some research suggests that the bags don't degrade as well as claimed. And second, priming plastic bags for destruction is itself an ecological crime.

So, do they really biodegrade away to nothing? Symphony, which supplies the Co-op and Tesco, says its bags are "able to degrade completely within about three years, compared to standard bags which take 100 years or longer". Tesco reckons they all decompose within 18 months "without leaving anything that could harm the environment".

But whether it actually happens seems to depend a lot on where the "biodegradable" plastic ends up. If it gets buried in a landfill it probably won't degrade at all because there is no light or oxygen. But what about elsewhere?

Studies of one brand in the US, commissioned by the Biodegradable Products Institute, found that breakdown is very dependent on temperature and humidity. It goes slow in cold weather. And high humidity virtually stops the process, making long, wet winters sound like bad news.

You might think a compost heap full of biodegrading bugs would be ideal. But a recent Swedish study found that polyethylene containing manganese additive stops breaking down when put in compost, probably due to the influence of ammonia or other gases generated by microorganisms in the compost.

And, while most manufacturers say that to put only tiny amounts of metals into the plastic, the US study found that one brand contained "very high levels of lead and cobalt", raising questions about the toxicity of the leftovers. Neither of these studies relates specifically to Symphony's products. But they raise questions.

The European Plastics Recyclers Association last week argued that biodegradable bags are not the right environmental option anyway. Plastic bags take a lot of energy and oil to make so why waste them by creating bags that self-destruct? "It is an economic and environmental nonsense to destroy this value," the recyclers' trade association concluded.

Of course, we consumers can reuse or recycle biodegradable bags as easily as any other kind. Symphony and other manufacturers stress making bags biodegradable is just an insurance policy for those that don't get recycled or reused. But surely we are less likely to bother if we are told the bags are eco-bags that biodegrade.

This European backlash against oxo-biodegradable plastics follows similar rumblings in the US. In March, the New York Times announced it would not be wrapping its paper in bags made of the stuff because claims that the plastic was "100% biodegradable" did not stand up. This followed a ruling last December by an advertising industry watchdog, part of the US Council of Better Business Bureaus, that makers should stop calling the bags "eco-friendly".

(In marked contrast, the UK Periodical Publishers Association two years ago recommended that all its members use oxo-biodegradable film to wrap their magazines)

Industry websites, including Symphony's, do proudly proclaim one green endorsement – that the organic trade body the Soil Association buys their bags. But Clio Turton at the Soil Association told me: "We've had problems with people making these claims. We have asked for them to be removed. It's very frustrating."

Plastic bags are not the biggest environmental issue on the planet, as George Monbiot explained in a blog here recently.

But most of us probably make "bag choices" several times a day. Brits get through 8bn plastic bags a year. For that reason, they are one of the choices that tend to show if we care about the environment or not. And we should be clear. Re-using bags is best. Recycling is second best. Throwing them away in the hope that a magic formula will guarantee their rapid disappearance is laziness, not environmental care. And anybody who tries to persuade us otherwise is guilty of Greenwash.

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Leafing Las Vegas: Health dangers of city plants revealed

Kate Ravilious, New Scientist 18 Jun 09;

Tree-lined avenues and flower-filled central reservations are pretty, but they could be damaging your health. A new study shows that some plants can increase the rate of ozone production by up to 50 times.

Certain plants, such as rosemary, juniper and pine trees, emit chemical compounds known as terpenes, thought to help deter insect predators, or protect the plant from other stresses like high temperatures.

However, when terpenes mix with pollutants (particularly nitrogen oxides from industry and traffic) they react to produce ozone – a key ingredient of photochemical smogs, and a health hazard that can cause breathing difficulties and may cause cancer.

Scientists have long known that terpenes from forests can cause a significant rise in ozone levels when they mix with air pollution. But could smaller clusters of plants in urban environments be damaging too?

Mark Potosnak, from DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois, and his colleagues measured terpene emissions from plants lining the sidewalks of Las Vegas. They also studied air quality – including levels of nitrogen oxides and ozone – in a number of central and suburban regions.
Planted perils

In all cases, ozone levels exceeded the US Environmental Protection Agency safe standard (an average of 75 parts per billion over an eight-hour period) and in the worst case reached 107ppb.

Modelling the data revealed that the mix of terpenes and pollutants was responsible for a significant rise in ozone levels – boosting production rates by up to 50 times – particularly downwind of the plants, in suburban neighbourhoods. "It's surprising because Las Vegas has relatively little urban vegetation," says Potosnak.

All over the world hot cities are likely to have similar problems, Potosnak thinks. But the situation can be easily remedied by choosing plants carefully. "Some plant species are very low emitters. Shoestring acacia is a great plant: low water use and low terpene emissions," says Potosnak.

Journal reference: Atmospheric Environment (in press)

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Borneo project aims to yield lessons on saving forests

David Fogarty, Reuters 19 Jun 09;
* Local community backing key to saving forests
* Australia backs deforestation project in Borneo
* Peat forests contain vast amount of carbons

SINGAPORE, June 19 (Reuters) - Within a vast deforested area on Borneo island, Australia and Indonesia hope to turn an ecological disaster into a global lesson on how to help local communities save tropical forests and fight climate change.

Borneo, like the Amazon, is at the centre of efforts to fight deforestation that is a major contributor to global warming and many governments are trying to build on a U.N.-backed scheme that aims to reward developing nations for preserving their forests.

Billion of dollars in annual revenues are potentially in the offing but getting the support of local communities is crucial if forests are to remain standing and the scheme is to succeed.

"The major challenge is to change the behaviour of the community. That's the main problem," said Ben Tular of CARE Indonesia.

The NGO is among a number of groups helping Australia and Indonesia develop the Kalimantan Forests and Climate Partnership (KFCP) which aims to preserve and rehabilitate 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of carbon-rich peat land in Central Kalimantan.

Half the area has been cleared and half is still forested but under threat unless alternative livelihoods are found for the 20,000 people living in and around the project area. Australia has pledged A$30 million to fund the project until 2012 and a full field team will be on the ground from July.

Tular, CARE's programme manager for the project, said there had been an sharp increase in deforestation in the KFCP area because revenues from rubber, the main source of income for many villagers, had plunged because of the global financial crisis.

"Most of them have tried to developing farming there," he said of the cleared area of 50,000 ha.

"But maybe about 90 percent of activities have failed because the land is very acid. Most of the crops are dead."

WIDER PROBLEM

KFCP, though, is part of a much wider problem. It represents a fraction of an area of forest cleared in the 1990s on the orders of former president Suharto on the mistaken hopes of growing vast crops of rice.

About one million hectares of forest were cleared, much of it sitting on carbon-rich peat swamps, and more than 4,000 kilometres (2,500 miles) of drainage canals were dug.

Observers who've seen the failed site from the air, say the former mega rice project area looks like a giant scar on the land, and during the dry season it is vulnerable to burning.

But where many see disaster, others see opportunity in the vast amount of carbon locked away in the peat soils.

The sale of carbon credits from stopping the peat land from burning and replanting the denuded areas could provide the incentive to slow the rate of deforestation, particularly in Borneo, which has already lost about half its forests.

Tropical rainforests and particularly peatland forests, soak up vast amounts of carbon-dioxide, locking away carbon in the wood and soil. Peat forests can release more than 2,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide per ha when drained and burned as well as large amounts of methane, a far more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2.

"Degradation of peat is one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions in Indonesia," said Sam Zappia, AusAID's Acting Senior Representative in Indonesia.

AusAID, the Australian government's aid arm, and the Department of Climate Change in Canberra are helping develop the KFCP programme along with the Indonesian government and the Central Kalimantan provincial administration.

REWARDS

The programme is one of the first large-scale demonstration projects under the U.N.-backed forest carbon scheme. Called reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), the project aims to use carbon credits from saving forests to reward developing nations.

The United Nations hopes REDD will become part of a broader climate pact to be negotiated at the end of the year and be ready by 2013 once issues such as ensuring protected forests remain standing are worked out.

Zappia said field teams were now collecting socio-economic details in local communities, such as wealth, sources of income, while a panel of experts were developing a way to estimate greenhouse gas emissions from peat in the KFCP site.

"This work will be scaled up from July, leading towards the damming of a network of drainage canals that is driving the process of degradation. Measures to prevent fire will also be put in place," he told Reuters from Jakarta.

He said the team will trial a system of incentive payments for activities at the site that support REDD, such as sustainable land use and forest protection.

"Payments would be funded through KFCP funds (grant aid), not through the sale of carbon credits," he said, since the programme was meant as a learning exercise at this stage.

Payments could, for example, initially be tied to indicators such as a reduced incidence of fire, and later could be tied to measured reductions in greenhouse gas emissions to model market-based approaches to REDD, he said.

Both governments hope to take the lessons learned to help design future REDD projects elsewhere and have already agreed to develop a second site involving a different soil type in Indonesia but have not yet decided on the location.

In the meantime, the Kalimantan partnership aims to tackle the very causes of deforestation.

"There's no point going in to do rehabilitation work if you're not looking at the broad drivers of deforestation," said Clare Walsh of the Department of Climate Change in Canberra.

These drivers included subsistence farming, logging or other uses of the forests and it was crucial to focus on economic development opportunities to tackle them.

Alternative schemes could include fish farming, growing alternative cash crops, such as fruit, as well as sustainable forestry by planting valuable timber species for harvesting. CARE has already introduced some of these into communities elsewhere in the mega-rice area.

Walsh said it was also crucial to help countries build up technical expertise on REDD, with the Australian government funding a separate programme to help Indonesia develop a national carbon accounting system.

"What you to do is get countries to the level that is required to participate in the compliance arrangements, whether it be a market or a fund," said Walsh, Assistant Secretary of the International Negotiations (Forest and Adaptation) Branch.

For now, Zappia and Tular said communities in the KFCP site welcomed the programme.

"Villagers are very enthusiastic," said Tular, adding that building dams across the canals and replanting cleared areas are among the projects that could provide employment.

But a crucial step was to try to get locals to understand the implications of their farming practices and how these might be in conflict with the conservation principles of the programme. (Editing by Megan Goldin)

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Norway, Japan prop up whaling industry with taxpayer money

WWF 19 Jun 09;

Gland, Switzerland: The governments of Norway and Japan are using taxpayer money to subsidize their unprofitable whaling industries, according to a first-time analysis of the economics of whaling.

Economics and Subsidies to Whaling found that Norway and Japan provide commercial whalers with huge government subsidies—even though killing whales is unlikely to ever be profitable without taxpayer support.

“In this time of global economic crisis, the use of valuable tax dollars to prop up what is basically an economically unviable industry, is neither strategic, sustainable, nor an appropriate use of limited government funds,” said Dr Susan Lieberman, Species Programme Director, WWF International.

The analysis considers a range of direct and indirect costs associated with whaling and the processing and marketing of whale products, such as whale meat. Researchers conclude that these costs, combined with declining demand for whale meat and the risk of negative impacts such as trade or tourism boycotts, make commercial whaling unlikely to produce benefits for either country’s economies or taxpayers.

In Norway, for example, the government since 1992 has spent more than US$4.9 million on public information, public relations, and lobbying campaigns to garner support for its whaling and seal hunting industries, according to the report. In addition, government subsidies for the whaling industry have equalled almost half of the gross value of all whale meat landings made through the Rafisklaget, the Norwegian Fishermen’s Sales Organisation.

The report notes similar use of taxpayer funds by Japan. During the 2008-09 season, the Japanese whaling industry, for example, needed US$12 million in taxpayer money just to break even. Overall, Japanese subsidies for whaling amount to US$164 million since 1988.

Other major findings in the report include:

• Wholesale prices of whale meat per kg in Japan have been falling since 1994, starting at just over $30/kg in 1994, and declining to $16.40 in 2006.
• Norway has spent an additional US$10.5 million covering the costs of an inspection programme from 1993 until 2006, when it was scrapped due to the losses it was causing the country’s whalers.

Japan and Norway, in defiance of the International Whaling Commission’s moratorium on commercial whaling, kill up to 2,000 whales a year, exploiting loopholes in the IWC’s founding treaty that allow whaling under ‘objection’ to management decisions (Norway) and “scientific” whaling for research purposes (Japan).

Ahead of the 61st IWC meeting next week, researchers point out that killing more whales likely would hurt whale-watching and tourism, trade, and the international image of Norway and Japan – impacts which would far outweigh any economic benefits of whaling.

“It is clear that whaling is heavily subsidised at present,” the report states. “In both Japan and Norway, substantial funds are made available to prop up an operation which would otherwise be commercially marginal at best, and most likely loss making.”

“Norway and Japan are hurting tourism, a potential growth industry in both countries in order to spend millions of dollars obtaining whale meat, the sale of which makes no profit,” said Sue Fisher, WDCS US Policy Director. “How much longer are they going to keep wasting their taxpayer’s money?”

The analysis was conducted by independent economists eftec and commissioned by WWF and the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society.

IWC 61 is being held in Madeira, Portugal, from 22-26 June.

Japan, Norway subsidizing unprofitable whaling: WWF
Shrikesh Laxmidas, Reuters 18 Jun 09;

LISBON (Reuters) - Japan and Norway are giving large subsidies to their whaling industries, which have become unprofitable due to rising costs and declining demand for whale meat, the WWF said Friday.

Conservation group the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) said a report it commissioned on the economics of whaling shows Japan has spent $164 million supporting its whaling industry since 1988 and Norway's subsidies add up to more than $15 million since 1992.

"In this time of global economic crisis, the use of valuable tax dollars to prop up what is basically an economically unviable industry is neither strategic, sustainable, nor an appropriate use of limited government funds," said Susan Lieberman, WWF's Species Director Program.

Lieberman's comments come just days ahead of the International Whaling Commission's (IWC) annual meeting in Madeira next week, where Japan and Norway are likely to come under pressure from anti-whaling nations including Britain and the United States to end their hunts.

Japan officially observes a 1986 global moratorium on whaling -- unlike Norway and Iceland, which ignore it and carry out commercial whaling -- but still catches about 900 whales a year in Antarctic waters for what it calls research purposes.

Most of the meat from the scientific catches ends up on the dinner table, angering animal welfare groups around the world who argue that many species face extinction and that explosive harpoons used by whalers can cause horrific suffering.

The report commissioned by the WWF said the Japanese whaling industry needed $12 million to break even in the 2009-season and that whale meat vendors have had to cut their margins due to waning demand.

Margins are also tight in the Norwegian whaling industry with low fixed prices and falling meat demand, a situation illustrated by the fact that the country has only taken around 70 percent of its self-assigned 885-whale quota in recent years.

The Norwegian government supports its whaling sector through fuel, transport and storage cost subsidies, as well as financing information campaigns, it added.

(Editing by Axel Bugge and Jon Hemming)

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Awareness of sea turtles through God

New Straits Times 19 Jun 09;

Reaching out to the people through God is such a winning formula in Terengganu that WWF is planning to introduce it in Kelantan.

THE sea of faithful Muslims from Ma'Daerah listened keenly as a small wiry ulama with wispy grey beard preached about saving turtles.
Across the South China Sea, an Anglican pastor in Kota Kinabalu urged followers to be more respectful of nature and its resources.

These two men are just some of the holy leaders who are spreading environmental awareness through God's words.

While celebrities have always fronted environment campaigns, lately, it seems religion has found its role in the green movement worldwide.

For British scientist Dr Bernard d'Abrera, "faith is the evidence for things unseen".
"As custodians of the Earth, we have the moral obligation to take care of it in its original form for as long as possible.

"God didn't create Earth as a trap, but a home for us."

Even English environmentalist Sir David Attenborough declared recently that "there should be a morality about living".

Environmentalism has always relied on science, but d'Abrera stressed that "science must be subjected to morality".

"Spirituality is a force for moral good to rule good behaviour."

Langkawi-based conservationist Irshad Mobarak agreed, saying all religions taught respect for nature.

"All religions have many good things to say about man's relationship with his Creator and His creations ... and our position as stewards of nature.

"We must treat Earth with deference."

Irshad described Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF) Malaysia's move to highlight the endangered turtles' plight through sermons in Terengganu as a "good approach" to make people understand that everything was finite.

"You tell them 'hey listen. You're accountable for how you treat the planet. You can escape men's law but not God's punishment'."

Editor of the Herald, a Roman Catholic publication, Father Lawrence Andrew, said that every life needed to be protected.

"The Christian principle of loving thy neighbour also includes animals and plants."

Roman Catholic Churches in Malaysia, he said, include green topics from time to time in the sermons, especially when the occasion calls for it, such as Earth Hour.

"And now with the haze, we encourage people not to conduct open burning," he said.

Reaching out to the people through the new medium is such a winning formula in Terengganu that WWF is planning to introduce it in Kelantan.

"We have tried other ways from education to holding public talks.

"The religion approach is new but it seems to be working," WWF Species Conservation Programme (Peninsular Malaysia) communications officer Sara Sukor said.

The NGO is currently working with the Islamic Understanding Institute of Malaysia to publish a book on spirituality and environmental stewardship.

The compilation of Quranic verses, hadith (collections of sayings and acts of Muhammad and the first Muslims) and sirah (stories of prophets) is expected to be out by December.

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Elephant-size loopholes sustain Thai ivory trade

EurekAlert 18 Jun 09; and WWF 18 Jun 09;

Bangkok, Thailand— Legal loopholes and insufficient law enforcement mean that Thailand continues to harbour the largest illegal ivory market in Asia, says a new report from the wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC.

The report also raises concerns that legal provisions governing trade in domesticated elephants are providing cover for illegal trade in wild-caught, highly-endangered Asian elephants from both Thailand and neighbouring Myanmar.

TRAFFIC's survey documented over 26,000 worked ivory products for sale in local markets, with many more retail outlets dealing in ivory products than were observed during market surveys carried out in 2001.

Market surveys found 50 more retail outlets offering ivory items in Bangkok and Chiang Mai in 2008 than the previous year. However, overall there was less worked ivory openly on sale than in 2001.

"Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world's top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues," said Tom Milliken, of TRAFFIC, which oversees a global monitoring programme, the Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS), for the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

"Thailand needs to reassess its policy for controlling its local ivory markets as currently it is not implementing international requirements to the ongoing detriment of both African and Asian Elephant populations," said Milliken.

"Since 2004, the Thai government has only reported two ivory seizure cases totaling 1.2 tonnes of raw ivory."

Thailand's capital, Bangkok, a major tourist destination, has emerged as the main hub for illegal ivory activities, accounting for over 70 percent of the retail outlets in Thailand offering ivory items for sale.

The report includes new information on ivory workshops—eight in Uthai Thani, one each in Chai Nat and Payuha Kiri, and three in Bangkok—between them employing dozens of carvers in the production of ivory jewelry, belt buckles and knife-handles. Much of the ivory being worked is illegally imported from Africa.

Some workshop owners boasted close ties with European knife makers, while others reported sending ivory, steel and silver items to the US for sale in gun shops.

"The Thai Government needs to crack down on this serious illegal activity and stop allowing people to abuse the law," said Dr Colman O'Criodain, WWF International's analyst on wildlife trade issues.

"A good first step would be to put in place a comprehensive registration system for all ivory in trade and for live elephants".

The study also uncovered reports of traders buying wild-caught elephant calves for use in Bangkok as "beggars" on the streets in major tourist centres, or selling them to elephant camps and entertainment parks.

Hundreds of live elephants are known to have been illegally imported from Myanmar in recent years, to be sold to elephant trekking companies catering to adventure tourism in Thailand. The capture of wild elephants has been banned in Thailand since the 1970s, but such trade usually goes undetected because domesticated elephants do not have to be registered legally until they are eight years of age.

The study also found that over a quarter of all live elephant exports from Thailand between 1980 and 2005 could have been illegal due to incomplete and inaccurate declarations made on the documentation required under CITES.

"There must be greater scrutiny of the live elephant trade if enforcement efforts are to have any impact at all," said Chris R. Shepherd, TRAFFIC Southeast Asia's Acting Director.

"Thailand and Myanmar should work together, and with urgency, to address cross-border trade problems," he added.

Thailand said Asia's biggest illegal ivory market
Reuters 19 Jun 09;

* Big Thai ivory trade despite promises to crack down

* "Elephant-sized loopholes" in laws - Traffic

OSLO, June 19 (Reuters) - Thailand still has Asia's biggest illegal elephant ivory market despite promises to crack down, the wildlife trade monitoring group Traffic said on Friday.

The report said Bangkok should close "elephant-sized loopholes" in its wildlife protection laws that enable sellers to pass off illegal ivory as coming from a legal source of domesticated animals.

"The illegal trade in live elephants and ivory still flourishes in Thailand," according to Traffic's 73-page study.

It said the number of worked ivory pieces seen on sale during its latest survey had fallen substantially but was still high at 26,000 pieces compared to 88,000 noted in a previous report in 2001.

But it said there were more retail outlets dealing in ivory products than counted in 2001. "Thailand's capital, Bangkok, a major tourist destination, has emerged as the main hub for illegal ivory activities," it said.

"Thailand has consistently been identified as one of the world's top five countries most heavily implicated in the illicit ivory trade, but shows little sign of addressing outstanding issues," said Tom Milliken of Traffic.

The latest data was based on surveys in 2006/07 and a follow-up in 2008. Traffic is run by the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the WWF conservation group. The IUCN groups governments, scientists and environmental organisations.

Traffic urged Bangkok to tighten law enforcement. It also questioned exports, saying that nine elephants had been sent to Australia and five to Germany since a 2006 proclamation prohibited such sales.

And it said Thailand illegally imported elephants for tourism from Myanmar.

Traffic urged Thailand to set up a computer database, using genetic material, to track ivory from domesticated elephants to try to shut illegal ivory out of the market.

Under a 1939 law, possession and sale of ivory from domesticated Thai elephants is legal -- the law treats them as working animals such as cows or water buffalo. But a 1992 law bans trade in wild Thai elephants and products, and elephants from abroad.

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