Steep rise in African elephants killed for their ivory

'Slaughter' fear over poaching rise
Andrew Luck-Baker, BBC News 6 Aug 09;

The number of African elephants killed illegally for their ivory is rising steeply.

A poaching surge in the past five years is raising fears of a re-run of the catastrophic slaughter of elephants in the 1970s and 1980s.

During that period, referred to by some as the "ivory holocaust", Africa's elephant population plunged from an estimated 1.3 million animals to 500,000.

One team of scientists argues that, today, about 38,000 elephants across sub-Saharan Africa are dying annually at the hands of poachers to feed the growing demand for ivory carvings and trinkets in eastern Asia.

If that poaching rate is correct and is sustained, the elephant would become extinct across most of sub-Saharan Africa in fifteen years.

The calculation on which this figure is based is questioned by a number of other experts on the illegal ivory trade. They believe the overall slaughter rate is considerably lower.

Rocketing prices

Nonetheless, 20 years after the international trade in ivory was made illegal, there is widespread concern over the escalating problem.

According to Tom Milliken of the wildlife trade monitoring organisation, TRAFFIC: "Since 2004 there's been a rapidly increasing trend in the illegal ivory trade. And this is very worrying because it follows on from a progressive decline in the ivory trade."

In the last five years, the price of ivory has sky-rocketed.

There are reports of Asian dealers paying well in excess of US$1,000 per kilo - such is the demand from the burgeoning population of consumers in China, for example, who can now afford ivory products.

A combination of the soaring value and the fact that wildlife crime is a low priority for most law enforcement agencies means that ivory poaching and trafficking has attracted the interest of international criminal syndicates.

According to Sam Wasser of the Centre for Conservation Biology at the University of Washington, Seattle: "This has created a situation where organised crime has gotten very heavily involved in the illegal trade. In fact, if you look at all wildlife crime - not just ivory - there are tens of billions of dollars being made annually."

The slaughter of elephants is at its most rampant in the forests and bush of Central Africa, in countries such as the Democratic Republic of Congo where civil war, corruption and poor standards of governance make the animals particularly vulnerable. However, poaching rates are also rising in southern and East African countries.

Patrick Omondi, who is head of species conservation at the Kenya Wildlife Service, said that the number of elephants killed for their tusks in his country more than doubled between 2007 and 2008. The latest figures for 2009 suggest it may double again by the close of this year.

2009 has also seen a string of spectacular seizures of contraband ivory made by authorities in eastern Asia. In March, Vietnamese customs discovered a shipping container with 6.3 tonnes of tusks in Hanoi.

Within six weeks, another 3.5 tonnes was seized in Manila in the Philippines and another illegal shipment of one tonne was picked up in Bangkok, Thailand. The combined weight of just these consignments represents about 2,000 dead elephants.

Speaking on the BBC Radio 4 programme Last Chance for Africa's Elephants?, Peter Younger of the wildlife crime unit at the global police agency, Interpol, said: "These three seizures over that short a period of time are the largest seizures I've seen since I've been in this business."

They had been shipped out of Africa from Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania, though the East African country is not necessarily the country where the elephants were poached.

Once ivory has been trafficked out of the continent, it is often impossible to identify where the tusks were originally poached.

According to Sam Wasser, the lack of this information has kept the criminals several steps ahead of law enforcement and allowed intense elephant killing to go unchallenged in areas where anti-poaching measures are not adequately enforced.

In a bid to fight back against the illegal trade, Professor Wasser has led the development of a DNA forensic technique which pinpoints the origin of seized ivory.

Over the last decade, hundreds of elephant dung samples have been collected and sent to his lab from all over sub-Saharan Africa.

DNA from each has been analysed. The team have focussed on 16 specific genes from the elephant genome and plotted how the specific genetic code of each one varies from location to location. This gives them a map of elephant genetic variation across the sub-continent.

Being an overgrown tooth, an elephant tusk also harbours the animal's DNA. So when Sam Wasser's team receives a piece of seized ivory - either raw or carved - they pulverise it to a powder and then chemically extract the DNA within. The make-up of the 16 genes is then compared to the dung DNA database.

'Organised crime'

Because populations of elephants living near each other are more genetically similar than populations further apart, a statistical analysis allows the Seattle lab to say where the poached ivory originated - sometimes to within several tens of kilometres.

According to Professor Wasser, this method is much less cumbersome than other ivory genetic marker techniques.

He also said that his DNA tests on impounded ivory shipments have revealed new information on the way the criminal syndicates of poachers and illegal dealers are operating.

The findings are contrary to a widely-held belief of law enforcement agencies, he told the BBC.

"They thought that the dealers who were shipping them were cherry-picking across Africa: taking bits of ivory from here and there, putting together a big consignment together and sending it out. We find that's not happening at all," said Sam Wasser.

"In fact they (the dealers) get a purchase order - we need so many tusks at such a time - and they go and hammer these populations over and over again - the same population. So they are doing major, major devastation."

For example, analysis of samples from two large illegal shipments in 2006 suggested that the Selous Game Reserve in southern Tanzania had become a hotspot of intense poaching. These seizures were 5.2 tonnes of ivory in Taiwan and 2.6 tonnes caught in Hong Kong.

Another Hong Kong seizure in 2006 contained 3.5 tonnes of tusks, hidden behind a false wall in a shipping container. It had left Africa from the port city of Douala in Cameroon.

Follow-up investigations revealed a second and third container with similar secret compartments. Both had chips of ivory on their floors. All three were owned by a Taiwanese national living in Cameroon.

Customs documents suggested at least 11 shipments to ports in East Asia. Although all the illegal exports came out of Cameroon, the Seattle DNA tests showed that most of the ivory originated from the south-east of neighbouring Gabon. According to Sam Wasser: "There wasn't a lot of indication of heavy poaching in Gabon so this exposed Gabon as a very significant poaching area."

Forensic techniques such as the geographic DNA test can help to reveal regions where anti-poaching measures need to be beefed up. They can also aid the investigations of how the big time ivory traffickers are operating.

However, many of the interviewees who spoke to BBC Radio 4 are daunted by the scale and international nature of the criminality involved. At Interpol, Peter Younger argues that much more concerted co-operation among African and Asian countries is necessary.

"In this particular area of crime, we're losing because the people we are tasked to deal with are much more co-ordinated than we are. We have a mechanism to co-operate. Interpol is the only international police agency, but there are other platforms. We are just not using them enough."

"Last Chance for Africa's Elephants?" is available on the BBC iPlayer. It was originally broadcast on BBC Radio 4. Andrew Luck-Baker will also be presenting two editions of "Discovery" on BBC World Service on the crisis facing the African Elephant on Wednesday 19th and 26th August

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Rangers v rebels: fight to save rare gorillas

A bloody battle is raging in Eastern Congo over the illegal charcoal trade that is killing the region's great apes
Daniel Howden, The Independent 6 Aug 09;

For the past week a remarkable battle has been raging in the mountain forests of Eastern Congo. Park rangers entrusted with protecting some of the world's most endangered gorillas have launched an offensive against the rebel armies in the area and the charcoal industry that helps to support them.

Specially trained wildlife officers, backed by UN troops, have attacked and destroyed hundreds of illegal charcoal kilns deep in the forests of Virunga National Park, in a bid to disrupt the environmentally devastating industry.

The $30m (£17.7m) trade helps fund the myriad armed groups who destabilise this region of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and its perpetrators are unlikely to accept the counterattack. Speaking from his mountain base in Rumangabo, the park's director, Emmanuel de Merode, said his men were "braced for a violent reaction" to their strike.

Virunga, Africa's oldest national park, lies across the mountain chain that straddles the border between DRC, Rwanda and Uganda. It is home to the most important remaining population of mountain gorillas.

But the 7,800 sq km reserve is also surrounded by as many as one million people, who have been displaced by the nearly continual civil war that has ravaged North Kivu in the last two decades. The tremendous local demand for cheap fuel for heating and cooking has been exploited by armed groups, and in many cases rogue elements from the Congolese national army, who have profited from a protection racket that has shielded illegal loggers and charcoal kilns from the law.

The lucrative trade has pitted armed rebels against the 200 gorillas and their protectors in a battle for the forest, with often murderous consequences. In June and July of 2007, seven gorillas were slaughtered and the shocking pictures of a dead 500-pound silverback, named Senkwekwe, being carried on poles by grieving villagers sparked a global outcry.

The killings were traced back to the corrupt circle protecting the charcoal trade, which produces 120,000 sacks of charred forest wood every month. Investigators found that rangers and their associates in the armed militias murdered the animals as a warning to their protectors not to interfere.

In addition to the great ape killings, more than 150 rangers have been murdered in the last 10 years in the five parks of Eastern DRC. The park authorities had been expelled from much of their own reserve for 18 months by one rebel army, the CNDP, until November last year.

Mr de Merode, a former anthropologist, said that it shouldn't be up to park authorities to fight armed militia but the destructive threat of the charcoal trade had left them with little choice. "It's not our job to fight the rebels, that's the army's job," he said. "Our job is to protect the park, but they are in the park and they are destroying it."

The Congolese national army is among the most dysfunctional institution in an already notoriously corrupt country. Last year its weakness was exposed by the rogue general Laurent Nkunda who routed a much larger national army force and briefly threatened to overrun Goma, the most important city in the region. Nkunda's CNDP forces held back and were eventually driven away, but only after assistance from the army in neighbouring Rwanda. Eastern Congo is overrun by dozens of armed groups which the army and Monuc, the UN mission, has failed to neutralise. The rebel groups include the FDLR, made up of remnants of the Rwandan Hutu soldiers who carried out the genocide across the border before fleeing into Congo's vast forests.

The FDLR has been one of the main factions profiting from the charcoal trade and is also blamed for many of the recent atrocities in Eastern Congo. "The illegal exploitation of resources is one of the main factors behind 15 years of civil war and the five million deaths that it has caused," said Mr de Merode.

He said that his rangers' efforts to disrupt the charcoal trade could only play a small part in addressing these problems but that the issue "goes to the heart of instability" in Eastern Congo. However, the Belgian conservationist admitted that to take out a few hundred kilns was only a "drop in the ocean" and further action would be needed.

The offensive comes as efforts to provide alternatives to the seriously impoverished communities that surround the park and live on the fringe of the city of Goma have been accelerated. An EU-backed scheme to set up small-scale village factories producing sustainable briquettes has so far employed 1,800 people in the area.

The programme, run by the Congolese Wildlife Authority (ICCN), has been training locals to use the kit to produce briquettes out of grass, leaves or dung. Officials plan to pull in 1,200 new producers each month, with the aim of getting 18,000 people employed in a new alternative fuel industry by 2011.

Fuelling the conflict: The charcoal trade

Few things illustrate the poverty in which millions of Africans continue to live as clearly as the fact that they cannot afford basic fossil fuels such as kerosene or natural gas for heating and cooking. In the absence of affordable alternatives many countries are locked into a cycle of expanding illegal charcoal use, increased deforestation and collapsing natural resources. The industry, both legal and illegal, is estimated to be worth more than $2bn (£1.2bn) per year across the 26 countries of sub-Saharan Africa. In energy terms charcoal use outstrips electricity, which remains unaffordable to many.*SUDAN Conflict and drought in the arid region of Darfur has seen more and more displaced people chasing fewer natural resources. The competition for scarce trees and the huge unregulated demand for charcoal has contributed seriously to the tensions that underpin clashes in Eastern Sudan.

Chad

The threat of desertification prompted the government to try a charcoal ban earlier this year, which prompted angry protests. The action was taken after 60 per cent of the country's trees were lost to the kilns.

Somalia

One of the neglected causes of the ongoing anarchy is the rampant deforestation in the acacia groves in the south. A highly organised illegal charcoal operation has destroyed the ecosystem in order to feed lucrative fuel exports to the Gulf States.

Democratic Republic of Congo

Profits from the charcoal trade have fuelled instability and funded rebel armies in North and South Kivu. With more than one million people displaced by the fighting authorities cannot afford to stop the trade until a viable alternative fuel can be found.

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India's 'drought-resistant rice'

Geeta Pandey, BBC News 5 Aug 09;

A new variety of rice being tested in the fields of India's eastern Jharkhand state has the potential to change the face of Indian agriculture.

Sahbhagi dhan is drought-tolerant and can survive even if there are no rains for 12 days.

Rice is known to be a "thirsty crop" and a "water guzzler" and scientists have been working for years to develop a strain which will withstand a dry spell.

"A drought can occur anytime between 15 June and 15 September - the season in which rice is cultivated. Sometimes there can be gaps of five to 15 days between spells of rain," says Mukund Variar, agricultural scientist.

"If there's a dry spell when the seed is sown, or the flower is just emerging, even a five-day drought can be very dangerous for most varieties of rice. But Sahbhagi can tolerate a dry spell of 10 to 12 days."

'Positive'

Sahbhagi Dhan, which means rice developed through collaboration, is the result of 15 years of joint effort by scientists at the Manila-based International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) and Central Rainfed Upland Rice Research Station (CRURRS) in Hazaribag town.

Upland is a term used to define areas which are rain-deficient and nearly six million hectares of land in India falls in this category.

Agriculturists say the field trials of Sahbhagi, which began in 2006, have given positive results.

"We have already given it for testing to farmers in their fields. It's being tested in several villages and is proposed for release in the states of Jharkhand and Orissa. Hopefully it will be released in a couple of months," Mr Variar says.

In Singrawan village, farmer Bijay Kumar Singh shows me the patch of land where he is growing Sahbhagi. The seeds were planted a fortnight ago and little green shoots have sprung up everywhere.

"In this region, the most popular variety of rice so far has been Sadabahar. But last year I tried out Sahbhagi in a small patch of land. The yield was the best. The stem was the strongest. and it was good to eat too. It isn't the best, but it's better than the average in taste," he says.

Sadabahar gives excellent yield when the monsoon is good, but a dry spell results in total crop failure.

This year, on Mr Singh's recommendation seven farmers in his village are trying out the new variety.

'Little rain'

"I planted the seeds about a fortnight ago. The crop was good last year, the produce was good too. I've heard it's tasty as well. Next year, we'll grow it in a much larger area," farmer Baldev Kumar says.

But poor rainfall is making him worried: "The plant has not been able to come up to its full length because there has been little rain this year."

Farmers here grow maize, corn, lentils and mustard. But rice is the main staple in the state and almost all farmers grow paddy.

Monsoons are at best erratic in Jharkhand, and the scanty rainfall this year has given rise to a drought-like situation in many parts of the state which is bad news for rice growers.

"It's a very challenging year. We're dependent on the monsoon completely. We've already lost 60 percent of our crop because of poor rainfall. If the rains come now, we would be able to take 30-35 percent of our paddy crop," says Mr Singh.

For farmers like him, Sahbhagi could be the answer to prayers.

Dr VD Shukla of CRURRS says Sahbhagi Dhan has "the capacity to take moisture from the deeper levels of soil. It is also tolerant to diseases and pests. Moreover, its stem is much more sturdy and doesn't bend, which means the farmer gets a better yield".

Adds Mr Variar: "Last year, the crop season was good with well distributed rainfall. But this year there are drought-like conditions so the farmer will be able to differentiate between the Sahbhagi and other varieties and find out which one is better."

The farmers agree.

Says Gulab Mahato of Lupung village, "There's no water even in the village pond this year. So how do we sow our crops? But with Sahbhagi, we can wait for another 15 days. Even if it rains a little bit, we will be able to get some rice."

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Organic vs. Local: Which Food Is Best?

Christopher Wanjek, livescience.com 4 Aug 09;

Last week the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition published a report stating that organic food is not nutritionally superior to conventional food, and now the "insert-the-crass-word-for-a-common-organic-fertilizer" has hit the fan.

The research, led by public health nutritionist Alan Dangour of London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, analyzed 162 peer-reviewed studies from the past 50 years comparing organic and conventional foods. After winnowing this to 55 studies meeting a certain quality threshold, the researchers found no statistical difference in levels of most nutrients.

The reaction in the news media and on blogs was swift, reflecting a divide sowed long ago. The pro-organic movement, naturally, calls the analysis flawed if not rigged by agribusiness. Others see this as proof that paying premium prices for organic products is a waste of money.

But factors influencing nutritional composition of food in the journey from field to fork are so extensive - such as plant variety, seasonal differences due to weather, crop handling, processing, storage and cooking - that organic farming can only hope to make nominal contributions to nutrition.

One of the most potent factors affecting nutrition is freshness. Here, you are best served by foods grown locally, regardless of whether they are organic.

The study indeed has opened up a can of worms, but worms are good for the soil.

Data harvest

The strength of this study, undertaken at the request of the UK's Food Standards Agency (FSA), was that this is the first broad, systematic review investigating differences in nutrient content of organically and conventionally produced foodstuffs. Its weakness, stated clearly in the article's introduction, was that this work didn't look at pesticide residue or long-term effects of conventional farming.

So the FSA study is unlikely to change many eating habits. Many people who buy organic do so because of a perceived danger of synthetic pesticides and the effect of synthetic fertilizers on soil and water quality.

One criticism has been that the analysis excluded a four-year study funded by the European Union, led in part by Carlo Leifert, professor of ecological agriculture at Newcastle University in Newcastle, England. Leifert found that organic milk could contain 60 percent more antioxidants and healthy fatty acids compared to conventional milk. This study, however, was published last April and missed the FSA study's criterion of papers published between 1958 and February 2008.

A cutoff is a cutoff. Had Dangour included all of 2008 and 2009, he would have found four recently published papers in high-quality journals, such as the British Journal of Nutrition, showing no nutritional differences between organic and conventional potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli and carrots.

Nevertheless, the EU-funded study, which ended in April 2009, was conducted by the QualityLowInputFood project, whose participants are organic advocates. Perhaps great potential lies in the data this project has gathered, but so far studies have been sparse and sample sizes in those studies sparser.

Buy local, eat better

The FSA analysis doesn't champion conventional farming, which is infested with troubles. Pesticide and nutrient runoff pose perplexing questions about the sustainability of such farming practices. Sickness and death among field workers exposed to synthetic pesticides are well documented. Less is certain about food we consume with pesticide residue.

Organic farming, too, faces challenges. Low yields continue to dog the community. Lower yield means more land needed for farming. Many organic farmers are reluctant to accept genetically modified crops, which could otherwise boost yield and produce crops with built-in pest management.

Conventional farming doesn't always mean the wanton application of death chemicals. Most small, local farmers apply a practice called integrated pest management (IPM). The goal is to minimize and often eliminate pesticide use through intensive monitoring, biological controls, insect traps and other methods, relegating chemical pesticide application to a last resort. Emphasis is on control, not elimination, of pests and weeds.

Getting Americans to eat more fresh vegetables would reduce many of the cases of obesity, diabetes, heart disease and cancer plaguing this country. Most Americans consume more calories from soft drinks than from vegetables.

So from a public health stance, it doesn't matter much if those potato chips are organic. The goal is to make available more fresh and inexpensive vegetables. The local food movement, some of it organic and most of it IPM, is attempting to meet that goal.

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On the Fairway, New Lessons in Saving Water

Leslie Kaufman, The New York Times 5 Aug 09;

ATLANTA — Six years ago, when Georgia’s state government rewrote its rules for water use during droughts, it cut no slack for an obvious culprit: golf courses.

With emerald fairways that glistened even in the most blistering conditions, they were a tempting target.

Yet golf course managers were indignant. They argued that they were reining in water use in dozens of ways, like planting native grasses and auditing sprinkler spray patterns. Instead of being penalized, they said, they should be emulated.

It took a while, but from the South to the arid West, their wish is coming true. Mindful that global warming could provoke more and longer dry spells, state governments are increasingly consulting golf courses on water strategies.

In Georgia, golf course managers have emerged as go-to gurus on water conservation for both industries and nonprofit groups.

Marriott International is applying lessons learned at its golf course here to its resort properties in other states. Habitat for Humanity is landscaping front yards with drought-tolerant plants recommended by golf superintendents.

“Look, if you want to learn how to irrigate, these are the guys to ask,” said Garith Grinnell, who recently retired from the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

Such accolades are a turnabout for a business that is often faulted for harming the environment through excess use of water and pesticides.

In Georgia, the shift in perspective came about largely because of a crippling drought that peaked in 2007. By that year, 97 percent of the clubs that belonged to the Georgia Golf Course Superintendents Association had voluntarily adopted what are viewed as best-management practices for water use, reducing consumption, they estimated, by 25 percent in just three years.

Lake Lanier, Atlanta’s main source of water, had meanwhile dropped to record low levels, exposing muddy bottom not seen in half a century. It dawned on state and local water managers that golf courses might have some useful know-how.

Golfing grounds managers “are great technical assistance to me,” said Kathy Nguyen, president of the Georgia Water Wise Council, a state association of water professionals that encourages conservation. “I can call them up and talk to them about different technologies.” (Georgia’s drought eased significantly this year.)

Ms. Nguyen has relied on golf superintendents in drafting guidelines for homeowners like letting grass grow longer, fixing leaks in hoses as promptly as possible and keeping lawn mower blades razor sharp. (Grass cut by duller blades is more frayed and requires more water to stay healthy.)

The golf industry still draws strong criticism from environmentalists. Turf is, after all, the thirstiest of plants. The average American golf course drinks up some 50 million gallons of water a year — comparable to the yearly usage of 1,400 people. In the West, the figures are higher.

Yet that reality, coupled with rising water prices, is what led to strides like irrigating golf courses with “gray water,” or nonindustrial wastewater that is recycled for other purposes.

Tom Bancroft, chief scientist with the National Audubon Society, says that for all the progress golf has made, it remains a deeply problematic industry. Many courses “use fertilizers that can run off into fresh water, and many use pesticides in lawn and grass,” Mr. Bancroft said. (Audubon International, a separate group, works with golf courses to encourage wildlife preservation.)

Mark Esoda, superintendent of the Atlanta Country Club in suburban Marietta, where initiation fees are $85,000, acknowledges that practices among the nation’s courses range from indifferent to conscientious. But Mr. Esoda maintains that he and other superintendents have a lot to teach municipalities about watering their ball fields and homeowners about tending to their yards.

Zipping around the course on pine-shaded paths, Mr. Esoda stopped abruptly near the seventh hole. He gestured toward a patch of newly laid turf of zoysia, a warm-weather shade grass native to Southeast Asia and Australia. On shady parts of the course it is replacing fescue, a genus of cold-weather shade grass that can live through the winter and thus requires five months’ more watering and mowing.

Mr. Esoda said he had also installed affordable monitors that prevent automatic sprinklers from activating during or right after a rain.

And when isolated dry spots appear on the greens, he said, he sends staff members out with watering cans rather than turning on the sprinkler system.

Finally, Mr. Esoda has made an aesthetic adjustment after years of savoring the green glow of a perfect lawn. “Crispy around the edges is O.K.,” he confided.

Water is just one area where golf courses and environmentalists may find a rapprochement, said Anthony L. Williams, director of grounds at Marriott’s Stone Mountain public courses just outside Atlanta.

As metropolitan areas sprawl outward, golf courses may be the only large-scale green space for miles around, offering crucial potential habitat for migrating birds and other wildlife.

Mr. Williams, who has a degree in local horticulture, has been letting native grasses take over his lawns. Off the fairways he does not even bother to mow, and on the greens he is maintaining grass at one-sixteenth of an inch higher than typical courses. It makes playing slow, he allows, but “consistent.” He has also replaced all the flowering annuals with perennials, which generally require less water, choosing those that are attractive to native wildlife.

Since he took charge of the two courses in 2005, Mr. Williams has cut water consumption by 45 percent, he said, and witnessed the return of some wildlife species like the red-tailed hawk.

The changes have come with a price, like the occasional large brown spot on the fairway. But Mr. Williams says the golfers do not mind.

“I just stand out there on the greens and explain, ‘We are doing this so your grandchildren can come out here and play,’ ” he said. “People understand that.”

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Japan electric car makers, utility plan battery-charge stations

Yahoo News 5 Aug 09;

TOKYO (AFP) - Three Japanese electric car makers teamed up with the country's largest power company Wednesday to study ways to building a grid of battery charging stations for zero-emission vehicles.

Nissan Motors, Mitsubishi Motors and Subaru-maker Fuji Heavy Industries said they would set up a committee with Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) to discuss ways to standardise and promote their battery-charging technology.

The four companies said they were "aiming to standardise the power charge method and to popularise fast-speed charge stations, which are absolutely essential in promoting electric vehicles in Japan."

The three automakers have separately developed lithium-ion batteries together with TEPCO, the largest utility in Asia, for their plug-in electric vehicles, which started hitting the market this year.

"We believe it is important that the industry becomes united, cooperates and collaborates," said Nissan's senior vice president Minoru Shinohara.

"I think it's important that all parties concerned go beyond the boundaries of their industries and work together," he told a joint news conference.

The three automakers have led efforts to commercialise electric vehicles.

Mitsubishi in June launched its i-MiEV, with a annual global sales target of 6,000 units in the year to March 2011.

Fuji Heavy introduced its own Subaru Plug-in Stella in June and has said it expects to sell an initial 170 units by next March.

Nissan, meanwhile, last weekend showed off its first electric car, the "Leaf" hatchback, and said it expects to market the model in late 2010 in Japan, Europe and the United States.

TEPCO, a major nuclear power provider, has said it is gradually replacing its corporate fleet by buying or leasing as many as 3,000 in total of the Mitsubishi and Subaru electric vehicles.

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Obama announces $2.4 bln grant for electric vehicles

Yahoo News 5 Aug 09;

WAKARUSA, Indiana (AFP) – President Barack Obama Wednesday unveiled a 2.4-billion-dollar funding boost for the development of new generation electric vehicles and slammed critics of his economic rescue plans.

The president traveled to a jobs crisis blackspot in the economically-struggling midwestern state of Indiana to announce a plan he said would create tens of thousands of new jobs.

"For far too long we've failed to invest in this kind of innovative work, even as countries like China and Japan were racing ahead," Obama said.

"That's why this announcement's so important. This represents the largest investment in this kind of technology in American history."

"This is an investment in our capacity to develop new technologies tomorrow. This is about creating the infrastructure of innovation."

Obama spoke in a plant that formerly made recreational vehicles (RVs) but which closed down as the recession hit. The factory has since been reopened and is now making RVs and electric hybrid vehicles.

The initiative, funded from the administration's 787-billion-dollar economic crisis bailout, came against a backdrop of shifting political fortunes with Obama's high opinion ratings eroding and Republican opposition resurgent.

It also came ahead of government jobs data due out on Friday which some analysts believe could see the unemployment rate growing to 9.6 percent, just short of the politically perilous 10-percent mark.

Obama's tactic of appearing outside Washington is designed to place him metaphorically on the side of the people who sent him to power last November, rather than squabbling politicians in the US capital.

"You know, too often there are those in Washington who focus on the ups and downs of politics. But my concern is the ups and downs in the lives of the American people," Obama said.

He also hit out at critics peddling "misinformation" on his economic recovery plans, which he said were starting to work and transition the US economy out of free-fall into a new, more sustainable era.

"There are a lot of people out there who are looking to defend the status quo," Obama said, touting political reforms to on energy, healthcare and economic policy.

"There are those who want to seek political advantage. They want to oppose these efforts -- some of them caused the problems that we've got now in the first place, and then suddenly they're blaming other folks for it."

The 2.4 billion dollars in grants for electric vehicles includes 1.5 billion dollars to US manufacturers to make batteries and components and to expand recycling, officials said.

A further 500 million dollars will go to US firms which produce components for vehicles including electric motors, electronics and other drive train items.

The grants gel with a wider Obama administration effort to wean the United States off foreign oil from volatile regions of the world and drive to slice into US greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

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World Bank to buy carbon credit from Congo project

Reuters 4 Aug 09;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The World Bank said on Tuesday it will buy 500,000 tons of carbon credits from a forest project replanting about 4,120 hectares destroyed by deforestation in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Replanting forests, which have been cut or burned, is central to the reduction in global greenhouse case emissions because they soak up vast amounts of carbon dioxide.

The World Bank said it had signed an Emission Reductions Purchase Agreement with Congolese firm Novacel, the first of its kind in the West African country.

It is part of efforts by the Washington-based poverty-fighting institution to address climate change caused by deforestation by compensating developing countries for greenhouse gas emission reductions.

The Bank said French carbon buyer Orbeo, a unit of French conglomerate Societe Generale, would also buy "a similar amount" of carbon credits from the Ibi Bateke Sink Plantation project, some 150 kilometers from the Congolese capital Kinshasa.

The World bank said replanting the land will trap an estimated 2.4 million tons of carbon dioxide over the next 30 years.

Revenues from the sale of the carbon credits will go toward developing health, education and agricultural projects in the local Bateke community.

It is the first project in DRC to benefit from global trade in emission reductions under the U.N.'s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) scheme, which allows firms in industrial countries to invest in clean energy projects in developing countries and in return receive carbon offsets as a cheap way to meet their climate change targets.

"We hope that this first initiative will lead to many more such projects, thus establishing a mechanism to finance sustainable development in DRC," said Marie Francoise Marie-Nelly, World Bank country director for DRC.

(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Will Tree Plantations Spur the Release of Carbon Locked in Soil?

New analysis warns that pine plantations can deplete soil of nutrients and carbon, reducing the carbon-mitigating benefits.

Brendan Borrell, Scientific American 5 Aug 09;

ALBUQUERQUE—Because forests can lock away carbon in their woody trunks, planting vast swaths of trees on barren land could provide a means for countries to mitigate their carbon emissions. But a comprehensive new analysis warns that pine plantations can rapidly deplete the soil of its nutrients—and carbon—thereby reducing the benefits.

"It's a tough balancing act," says ecologist Sean Berthrong of Duke University. "Plantations are a usable but imperfect tool for carbon sequestration."

Since 2005 140 million hectares of land have been converted to forest globally, and an average of two million new hectares of forests are added each year. Such afforested areas account for only 4 percent of Earth's forests, but they already supply 35 percent of the world's wood products, according to the United Nations's Food and Agriculture Organization.

Berthrong's team analyzed data from 153 tree plantations—mostly eucalyptus and pine—to understand how they influenced soil nutrients and carbon. On average, new forests reduced soil carbon by 6.7 percent and nitrogen by 15 percent. Pine plantations, which are the most common, are the worst, causing a 15 percent reduction in soil carbon and a 20 percent reduction in nitrogen. Tree plantations can also cause other problems in soils, such as making them more acidic.

To minimize carbon and nutrient loss, Berthrong recommends foresters leave woody debris on the site after harvest as well as reduce plowing, which increases erosion and decomposition of buried organic matter. He also says that any program that provides carbon credits for afforestation projects take soil carbon into account.

Berthrong presented the research here at the Ecological Society of America Meeting, and it will be published in the journal Ecological Applications.

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Australia: Negotiating the national e-waste mountain

ScienceAlert 5 Aug 09;

Australians are generating electronic waste – discarded computers, TVs, mobile phones, DVDs, printers, keyboards, cameras, iPods and game consoles – at an unprecedented rate.

In 2006, we threw out around 1.6 million computers alone, and the volume has risen since. Over the past decade, we’ve committed an estimated 37 million computers and 17 million TV sets to landfill, as a result of our constant demand for new electronic products.

Yet, while Australia is among the top 10 consumers of electronic technology in the world, we are behind many OECD countries in our recycling rates: 1.5 per cent for computers, less than 1 per cent for TVs and less than 4 per cent for mobile phones.

One reason is that e-waste is a complex waste stream for councils, recyclers and regulatory authorities to deal with, because it not only contains mixed materials such as plastics, metals and glass, but also toxic substances like mercury, lead, arsenic and flame retardants. This mix of commodity and toxic materials means the cost of processing and recycling e-waste is higher than that of other waste streams, relative to the value of recovered materials.

The question is: if landfill is not an option for e-waste, who will bear the cost of recycling? Would it be manufacturers and importers, or councils who would ultimately bill ratepayers or consumers through increased rates?

Interestingly, many of Australia’s major brand-name computer and TV manufacturers say they are ready and willing to factor the cost of recycling their e-waste into product prices, if national regulation is introduced that would make it compulsory for all manufacturers to take responsibility for the goods they produce.

In late May, at the time of writing, these manufacturers – along with environment groups and councils – were keenly awaiting an announcement from an Environmental Protection and Heritage Council meeting of state and federal environment ministers about whether or not the government would go ahead with national regulation to mandate producer responsibility for the collection and recycling of e-waste.

E-waste is one of the few issues where environmental groups and industry are supporting each other in a joint effort to lobby for national product stewardship regulation. A few weeks prior to the May meeting, the Total Environment Centre (TEC) and the Australian Information Industry Association (AIIA) signed an ‘End-of-life Computer Equipment Compact’, alsosupported by Environment Victoria, Clean Up Australia and Choice.

The TEC said the compact sets out the principles required for an effective regulatory regime that would cover the entire industry and provide a ‘safety net’ so that those who complied were not ‘outpriced’ by non-compliant manufacturers, ensuring a level playing field in terms of competitive product pricing.

Jane Castle, the TEC’s e-waste campaign manager, believes a regulated national computer and television recycling scheme could lead to much higher recycling rates – perhaps as high as 75 per cent for computers. According to Castle, the ‘patchy’ nature of current e-waste schemes around Australia has helped contribute to the country’s low recycling rates. ‘Some councils have set up e-waste collection days, but ratepayers have borne the cost. Other councils are not acting, but waiting for a push from state and federal environment agencies.’

Among the local e-waste schemes already in place around the country, one of the most well-known is Byteback, a collaboration between AIIA, numerous major brand owners, local government, Officeworks and Sustainability Victoria. The voluntary computer-product takeback program – involving 11 of Australia’s top-name computer companies – targets computer waste from Victorian households and small businesses.

Computer waste from collection points at eight locations throughout Victoria – six municipal drop-off points and two Officeworks stores – is sent to participating recyclers, SIMS, TIC and MRI. These companies disassemble and process the items for materials recycling in Australia or export the toxic components, under licence, to certified processing facilities overseas.

Jan van de Graaff from Sustainability Victoria points out that Byteback – now in its fourth year of operation – is really a pilot scheme established to identify how a broader voluntary e-waste program might operate.

‘One of the aims has been to gather data to show what percentage of waste products can be assigned to each different brand,’ he says. ‘It is conceivable that once companies take responsibility for their waste, they will design products to last longer, to be more easily disassembled and to include less toxic materials.’

The Byteback experience has proven the need for participation of all manufacturers and importers in a national scheme. ‘Only 45 per cent of the products recycled belong to the 11 participating brands,’ said van de Graaff. ‘The other 55 per cent belongs to nonparticipating big-name brands and smaller “white box” importers. Sustainability Victoria has covered the cost of recycling the waste from these non-participant manufacturers.’

How does Australia compare with other countries when it comes to e-waste? Product Stewardship Australia’s John Gertsakis says our international performance is under par. The European Union has a Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) directive that provides for free e-waste collection schemes for consumers in member countries. Fourteen US states have e-waste recycling legislation in place, as do Canada, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and some South American countries.

Gertsakis says Product Stewardship Australia (PSA) has developed a comprehensive product stewardship plan for managing a national TV recycling service for consumers that covers product recovery and disassembly, community education, program financing, and robust collection and recycling targets.

PSA’s 12 members supply 80 per cent of televisions sold in Australia. According to Gertsakis, they were keenly anticipating a ‘clear announcement’ from the federal environment minister in late May about a timeline for the introduction of a national regulatory scheme. ‘If we get that, PSA and its member companies could be in a position within six months to be able to operate a scheme,’ he said. Given the tiny fraction of e-waste that is collected for recycling, the e-waste recycling industry has faced a real challenge in maximising returns from its infrastructure investments.

SIMS Recycling Solutions has five operations in Australia, including a recently built facility in Sydney with specialised equipment for separating and shredding tens of thousands of tonnes of e-waste annually.

According to SIMS’ Kumar Radhakrishnan, this facility, in tandem with metal, glass and plastics recycling operations of SIMS elsewhere in Australia and the world, produces high-quality commodity materials that ultimately help reduce the emissions and environmental damage caused by mining and manufacture of virgin materials. ‘Proper recycling costs money,’ he says, adding that some recyclers ‘just take the good bits’ and export the remaining waste, which can contain hazardous materials.

Another recycling company, MRI, also rehabilitates used products for a second or third life. MRI’s Will Le Messurier says most of the reused product is collected from corporate and government sectors, with the tested and registered second-hand product being sold to domestic and small business markets, including education.

CRT Recycling in Adelaide specialises in handling cathode ray tube (CRT) waste – the glass-screen units in older TVs and computer monitors that can contain up to 4 kg of lead per unit, largely encapsulated in the back-end ‘funnel’ glass.

Managing Director Michelle Morton says CRT’s automated recycling system is the only one in Australia specialising in recycling CRT glass. It uses purpose designed processes and machinery that cleans, separates and removes contamination from the CRT glass to prepare it for recycling to manufacturers of new CRTs.

TES-AMM, another Australian recycler, recently issued a call for more public awareness of the practice of developed countries dumping e-waste into developing countries where it is manually broken down to recover minute amounts of precious metals and other by-products, exposing low-paid labourers in these countries to dangerous toxins.

However, Michelle Morton feels that without uniform national legislation to promote diversion of e-waste from landfill, Australia is effectively exposing its own citizens to the same hazardous substances, which can find their way from landfill to people via contaminated groundwater or land redevelopment.

‘When you consider that making one desktop computer and monitor uses the same amount of chemicals (22 kg), water (1500 kg) and fossil fuels (240 kg) as a midsize car,’ she points out, ‘it makes no sense to bury them when we have finished with them.’
A story provided by ECOS Magazine - Australia´s most authoritative magazine on sustainability in the environment, industry and community. This article is under copyright; permission must be sought from ECOS to reproduce it. Visit ECOS to sign-up for a print subscription.

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Outraged Brazil ships rubbish back to Britain

Peter Murphy, Reuters 5 Aug 09;

SANTOS, Brazil (Reuters) - A ship loaded with 1,600 tonnes of rubbish set sail on Wednesday to return the rotting cargo to Britain from Brazil, where it had been shipped falsely declared as plastic for recycling.

Eighty-nine containers packed with trash that includes dirty diapers, used syringes, food waste and computer parts were hoisted on to the freighter MSC Oriane in the early morning hours at Santos, South America's largest port.

The incident outraged many Brazilians and prompted President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva to criticize Britain and developed nations for urging higher environmental standards while using developing nations as garbage dumps.

Brazilian environment minister Carlos Minc has said he would raise the issue with Britain's climate change minister, Ed Miliband, who is currently on an official visit to Brazil.

"It never really became a danger to health because it never left the port," said Ingrid Oberg, head of the Brazilian environment enforcement agency Ibama in Santos, watching as the containers of garbage were hoisted onto the ship.

"The danger was if it was thrown away. There was a really bad smell and larvae and material decomposing," she said.

Criminal investigations are under way in Britain and Brazil to discover how the waste came to be shipped this year and last to Santos and another port further south.

Brazil has fined firms that imported or handled the waste.

The importing firms said they had been expecting shipments of recyclable plastic. But even the company that alerted the authorities to the trash was fined because it had no license to recycle, Oberg said.

Brazilian law prohibits the import of household waste for any purpose, including recycling.

British police arrested three men in late July but no formal charges have been brought against them and they have been released on bail after surrendering their passports.

(Editing by Stuart Grudgings and Eric Walsh)

Waste shipped back from Brazil
Yahoo News 5 Aug 09;

SAO PAULO (AFP) – A cargo ship carrying 1,477 tons of waste, including used condoms, syringes and diapers, left Brazil on Wednesday to return the illegal trash to Britain, Brazilian officials said.

The MSC Oriane steamed out of the southern port of Santos bound for the port of Felixstowe with 81 containers of the waste that had piled up on Brazilian docks since the end of 2008, improperly labeled as plastic for recycling.

Brazilian police discovered the domestic waste, some of it hazardous, in June.

Another 150 tons still remain in the port of Rio Grande do Sul awaiting transport, Brazil's environmental agency Ibama said.

The containers also held batteries, food remains, cloth, used packages of cleaning products and other matter banned for transport under a 1991 Basel Convention.

Brazil has handed out 225,000-dollar fines to the shippers and importers involved.

Britain, embarrassed by the find, arrested three people in Swindon, southeast England, where the shipments originated. They have been bailed pending legal action.

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Climate change deal crucial for Pacific: Rudd

David Brooks Yahoo News 5 Aug 09;

CAIRNS, Australia (AFP) – Striking a new global deal to reduce the impact of climate change is crucial to the future of vulnerable Pacific island nations, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said Wednesday.

Rudd was speaking in the northeastern Australian city of Cairns at the opening of the Pacific Islands Forum summit of regional leaders, where climate change has emerged as a key issue.

Leaders from Australia, New Zealand and 13 Pacific Island nations will also tackle the impact of the global economic crisis and Fiji over two days of talks.

Forum countries are among the most vulnerable in the world to the impact of climate change, especially atoll archipelagos such as Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Marshall Islands where the highest ground is only a few metres above sea level.

Major talks in Copenhagen in December will attempt to strike a new global deal to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and reduce the rate of climate change.

"Pacific island countries are among the least responsible for the causes of climate change," Rudd told the forum opening ceremony.

"They will bear the brunt of its impact the most -- we must all act together to meet this challenge.

"We must use every opportunity to recommit ourselves as a region and as an international community to deliver a strong outcome in Copenhagen necessary for the planet, necessary for the Pacific, necessary for all our peoples."

Rudd pledged Australian assistance to keep the interests of Pacific countries on the table in global climate change talks.

"Our first responsibility is to get a good outcome in Copenhagen because those in the front line of the impact of climate change are within our own region and we have a responsibility to act," he said.

Leaders of the seven smallest forum members called Tuesday for Australia and New Zealand and other developed countries to slash their greenhouse gas emissions by 45 percent by 2020.

Australia has offered to cut its emissions by 25 percent by 2020 if other developed countries agree to ambitious cuts at Copenhagen.

Kiribati foreign affairs official Tessie Lambourne said her country -- made up of 33 coral atolls straddling the equator -- rose no more on average than two metres above sea level.

"The storm surges we have experienced over the years have become more intense and more frequent and have destroyed lots of our homes, our livelihoods in terms of our crops and critical infrastructure."

"This is a very emotional issue for us."

Yvo de Boer, the head of the UN climate change office, said the Pacific was the face of climate change.

"A strong call from Pacific leaders will I think be an important signal on the road to Copenhagen, a signal which I think we are in dire need of at the moment," said De Boer, executive director of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The other main focus of the two-day summit is formulating a regional response to the global financial crisis.

"We need to do this to make a real difference to the 2.7 million people living across the Pacific who still today live in poverty," Rudd said.

Australia had hoped to launch negotiations for a new free trade and economic relations deal at the summit, but outgoing forum chairman Toke Talagi of Niue said Tuesday that island nations were not ready to begin talks.

Rudd described the agreement, known as PACER Plus, as critical for driving closer economic integration in the region and advancing towards the UN's Millennium Development Goals.

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