Australian oil spill threatens ocean as driller faces multimillion bill

Josh Gordon, The Age 23 Aug 09;

THE operator of an oil rig responsible for a massive oil leak off the West Australian coast will be forced to pay millions of dollars to clean up the spill, which authorities warn poses a serious threat to the environment.
The Australian Maritime Safety Authority yesterday launched a major clean-up operation as oil and gas continued to seep from a 1200-metre-deep well drilled by the West Atlas - an oil rig located 690 kilometres west of Darwin, 250 kilometres off the far north Kimberley coast and 150 kilometres south-east of Ashmore Reef.

The spill, which is eight nautical miles long and 30 metres wide, began early on Friday, forcing the evacuation of 69 workers to Darwin.

The company responsible for the rig, PTTEP Australasia, said the leak had not yet been brought under control.

PTTEP director Jose Martins said the leak was mainly gas, with a much lower oil content than when the spill began, but the related fire risk meant it was impossible to get back on to the platform.

''So that option for bringing the leak under control is ruled out for now,'' he said.

He said early reports that poisonous hydrogen sulphide gas had been released were wrong.

The company has called in gas and oil spill experts to help with the clean-up.

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority was put in charge of the operation after the size of the spill became apparent. It warned that the remote location of the rig would make the clean-up difficult.

Authority chief executive Graham Peachey said it was too early to determine the environmental impact, cost, or when the leak would be stopped.

''It hasn't been contained but the slick hasn't grown overnight, and indications are it is either breaking down or evaporating as quickly as it is leaking out of the ocean floor, but all of that has to be confirmed by the science,'' Mr Peachey said.

While the slick remained a long way offshore and had not moved closer to the coastline, Mr Peachey said the environmental threat remained serious.

''Oil on the water is not good for the environment. What we are trying to do is mitigate the risks to the environment and to do so as quickly as we can.''

The authority has chartered a Hercules aircraft from Singapore to spray the slick with about 50 tonnes of chemicals to help disperse the oil. Two more aircraft are on standby for support.

Mr Peachey said the clean-up would be expensive but he would not speculate on the final bill.

He said only that the authority had insisted that PTTEP agree to meet the cost.

''I'd be speculating, but you can imagine, we've got two aircraft on the spot, we've got personnel all round the north, we've got a Hercules chartered from Singapore, and we've got a lot of stockpile of dispersant moved up there, so this is going to cost a lot,'' he said.

One of the evacuated rig workers told ABC Radio his colleagues had detected a gas leak and observed bubbling around one of the platform's 1200-metre-deep drilling holes.

He said the rig had been evacuated after concerns that hydrogen sulphide was leaking from the area.

Australian Marine Conservation Society director Darren Kindleysides said there was huge potential for damage to unique marine biodiversity.

''With the west continuing to grow as a frontier for oil and gas exploration, this could become more regular,'' Mr Kindleysides said.

WA Greens senator and the party's marine spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert, accused the company of withholding information and said the clean-up plan was taking too long.

''We should be putting out emergency response equipment much closer to those sites so that we don't have to wait 24 hours,'' Senator Siewert said.

Green group urges oil spill action
ABC Net 23 Aug 09;

An environmental action group says the delay in cleaning up an oil spill off Australia's north-west coast shows the shortcomings in the Federal Government's emergency planning for oil spills at sea.

But the Government say the spill, at the West Atlas mobile offshore drilling unit in the Timor sea, is smaller than first thought.

The incident occurred early Friday morning and 69 workers were evacuated from the site when oil and gas began leaking from the rig.

The slick is 14 kilometres long and 30 metres wide and is about 100 kilometres off the Western Australia coast.

Authorities on Saturday declared a 37-kilometre exclusion zone around the rig, which is owned by Norwegian company Seadrill and operated by Thai-based PTTEP Australasia.

John Dee from the environmental action group Do Something says urgent steps need to be taken.

"This is a particularly pristine marine environment and that's what makes this spill so concerning," he said.

"It's teeming with baby turtles at this time of year, it's a migratory whale route, and of course we need to make sure that this spill is contained because the Ashmore Reef is just 150 kilometres away.

"That's why the Government needs to make sure all efforts are made to ensure it's cleaned up as soon as possible."

Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson says the slick is beginning to evaporate naturally and chemical dispersants will be used to speed up that process.

He has told Channel 10 that it poses no threat to the Australian coastline.

"The oil spill is not as big as first thought. It's in the Montara [oil] field," he said.

"The Australian Maritime Safety Authority is on the job. They're in charge of the clean-up and the company itself has flown in the necessary technical advice to work out how they cap the developed well as quickly as possible."

Size assessment

The Australian Maritime Safety Authority says a search and rescue aircraft has just left Darwin to assess whether an oil slick off the Western Australian coast has grown overnight.

The Authority's Tracey Jiggins says a plane was sent out this morning to assess the situation, but it is expected the spill has stayed the same size.

She says a Hercules aircraft carrying chemicals to start dispersing the oil spill has also just left Darwin.

"What they'll do is they'll go out and assess the situation all the safety measurements and things will be put in place to make sure it's safe to go," she said.

"Our information is that the slick has remained quite constant. It appears to be evaporating at the same rate as it's leaking.

"We don't expect that will have changed overnight but we'll have to wait until those aircraft get on scene and feed back information about how it's going this morning."

She says a decision will then be made on how much chemical will be sprayed, with the aircraft allowed to fly within two nautical miles of the rig.

Jose Martins from PTTEP Australasia says any environmental impact will be minimal.

"The oil is dispersing very quickly, so the rate of dispersement [sic] is quite quick," he said.

"Therefore there's no visible endangerment to any wildlife at this stage, and it's quite far from any land. It is a remote location."

Fix 'could take days'

He says a group of experts is trying to work out how to fix the leak.

"Until we can get a proper report ... only then we can tell you what the next stage is and how long this will take to repair," he said.

Mr Martins says the leaking gas poses a major fire risk, making it difficult for anyone to access the site.

"We have engaged international experts and they will be given whatever resources they need to bring the situation under control," he said.

Australian oil well to gush for nearly two months
Reuters 23 Aug 09;

SYDNEY, Aug 23 (Reuters) - A leaking Australian oil well is likely to pour oil into the Timor Sea for nearly two months before it can be stopped, the operator said on Sunday, as environmentalists expressed grave fears for rare wildlife.

Rig operator PTTEP Australasia said it planned to drill a relief well and pour mud to stop the leak, which began on Friday with a blow-out more than three kilometres (two miles) deep.

It would take 20 days to bring a new offshore drilling rig by barge from Singapore, plus four weeks to drill, the company said in a statement.

Asked if this meant the well would flow for nearly two months, a company spokesman told Reuters: "That is pretty much the estimation."

Environmentalists have expressed concern about the giant slick, saying the entire area is ecologically significant and part of an "ocean super highway" for migrating animals between the Indian and Pacific Oceans.

Many breathe air and could surface in the oil, an official of WWF Australia said.

Earlier on Sunday the Australian Maritime Safety Authority used C-130 Hercules aircraft to spray dispersant chemicals on the slick, which was in excess of 8 nautical miles (15 kilometres) in length.

Spokeswoman Tracey Jiggins said the results were encouraging but the agency was prepared for a long operation.

PTTEP Australasia, a unit of Thailand's PTT Exploration and Production PCL PTTE.BK, said a team of international experts recommended drilling a relief well, to intersect the existing well and stop its flow.

Company spokesman Ian Williams gave no estimate of the amount of oil that would be released, but said the company believed it would be possible to prevent the slick spreading.

"There is a blow-out of some kind. It is very deep," Williams told Reuters, putting the depth at around 3,500 metres.

An air exclusion zone had been set up and ships advised to stay more than 20 nautical miles away from the rig, considered too dangerous to board.

WWF Australia called for changes to ensure better preparations for such disasters, noting it took three days for the first dispersant to be sprayed.

"From a global scale this is one of the most important places on the planet for ocean wildlife," Gilly Llewelyn, WWF Australia's director of conservation, told Reuters.

Among the animals affected were three endangered species of turtles, plus sea snakes, she said. Even a pygmy blue whale has been monitored there.

"It seems to be one of these critical migration routes -- an oceanic super highway," she said.

The spill occurred at the Montara development, a project due to come on stream later this year. The West Atlas drilling unit is owned by Norway's SeaDrill Ltd (SDRL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research, Stock Buzz), but operated by PTTEP Australasia.

The location has been given as about 250 km (155 miles) off the far north Kimberley coast of Western Australia state.

Australia's official overseer for the petroleum industry, the National Offshore Petroleum Safety Authority, was investigating the incident. (Editing by Jerry Norton) (Sydney Newsroom +612 6273 2730)

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El Nino threatens Indonesian farmers’ livelihood

The Jakarta Post 22 Aug 09;

The El Nino heat wave, predicted to strike in September, will potentially reduce the country’s rice production by at least 750,000 tons, a discussion heard on Saturday.

“The Agricultural Ministry even predicted recently that the decline in rice production could reach 1.6 million tons due to El Nino,” said Darmayanto, a member of the House of Representatives Commission IV on agriculture.

“That means around 300,000 farmers and their families will face a serious economic problem.”

The Central Statistics Agency (BPS) has predicted that rice production this year would reach 60.93 million tons, slightly higher from last year’s 60.25 million tons.

State Logistics Agency (Bulog) chief Mustafa Abubakar expressed his confidence the national rice stock would remain adequate despite the El Nino weather anomaly.

“We plan to increase our rice reserves to five million tons from currently 2.5 million tons to anticipate prolonged drought as a result of El Nino,” he said.

The country currently has about 12.4 million hectares of rice fields, 4 million of which are irrigated.

Mustafa said that without securing extra reserves the country would not run out of rice stock for at least in the next three or four months.

“If we manage to increase the reserves, we hope to provide a sufficient back-up of rice supply for the next five or six months.” (hdt)

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Rainforest dies for your cattle feed, NZ farmers warned

Kim Knight, Sunday Star Times, Stuff.co.nz 23 Aug 09;

Dairy farmers have been implicated in a new palm oil scandal after revelations that last year the national herd ate one-quarter of the world's palm kernel stock food supply.

More than one million tonnes of palm kernel expeller (PKE) was imported last year, mostly from Indonesia and Malaysia, where environmental groups are concerned at the palm industry's role in the loss of tropical rainforest and destruction of tiger and orang-utan habitat.

An international body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil, has been set up to ensure sustainable supply of palm product, but secretary-general Dr Vengeta Rao said last week that "very little" of what entered New Zealand would have been certified.

His comment follows Cadbury's decision to back down on plans to introduce palm oil to its Dairy Milk chocolate, after a public outcry.

PKE is created when palm fruit is crushed and processed to produce palm kernel oil. Based on figures provided by the roundtable, a maximum 330,000 tonnes of PKE on the global market since last August could be considered certified. This country imported 1,104,387 tonnes, putting our consumption rates second only to the combined 27 countries of the European Union.

Two weeks ago, the Sunday Star-Times travelled to Indonesia with Greenpeace communications manager Suzette Jackson and Waitakaruru farmer Max Purnell to see, first hand, the impact of this trade that the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry says has increased one thousand-fold since 2000.

We spoke to community leaders who said they had been jailed in their fight to keep land from palm companies, and conservationists who feared for the future of animals such as the Sumatran orang-utan.

"Not only is this trade damaging to the environment on the ground here, it's also really damaging to how we are trying to portray ourselves internationally, as a country that does care, that does give a damn, and wants to live up to what we trade on our clean, green identity," said Jackson.

Farmers argue the spike in imports was due to last year's devastating drought and the need to provide supplementary feed. But, says Jackson, "the figures have climbed really steadily over the past 10 years. Drought has a little bit to do with it, but the major reason this increase has come about is through the intensification and corporatisation of New Zealand's dairy sector."

Purnell said he had witnessed the "systematic, deliberate, studied rape and desecration of land and the local people's ability to have a future with it". He believed that if dairy farmers knew the potential impact of the PKE trade, they would find alternatives.
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Hew Dalrymple, Federated Farmers' grain and seed section vice-chairman, said there were serious biosecurity concerns about PKE. "There are threats from imported insects, risk from soil contamination and foot and mouth disease and food safety issues... with that amount of product coming into the country, shipload after shipload, it is a real biosecurity issue for us."

Lachlan McKenzie, Federated Farmers' dairy chairman, said farmers needed supplementary feed during last year's drought, and PKE was just a by-product. "The palm is grown for oil, not its by-product. This is the husk that is left after the oil is taken out... palm oil is the prime driver of this."

He said it was up to importers, not farmers, to ensure the product was being sustainably produced.

Biosecurity and Agriculture Minister David Carter said the government recognised the importance of New Zealand's reputation and image in world markets, and the dairy industry was aware of the need to improve sustainability.

"It has made significant progress on sustainability in recent years, for example the Dairying and Clean Streams Accord and recent work on greenhouse gas footprinting."

The emergence of the palm kernel issue, Carter said, "reinforces the importance of the dairy industry continuing to work on its sustainability".

Fed Farmers fight off palm kernel criticism
tvnz.co.nz 24 Aug 09;

Federated Farmers is rejecting claims that the importation of palm kernel extract for dairy feed is contributing to the destruction of rainforests.

Dairy giant Fonterra is being accused of buying cheap cow feed at the expense of the environment.

Greenpeace says Fonterra imported a quarter of the world's palm kernel based animal feed for New Zealand cows last year.

Greenpeace says rainforests in Indonesia and Malaysia are cleared to produce cheap palm oil.

But Federated Farmers says the kernel is a waste product and the real cause of deforestation is consumer demand for palm oil based products.

Federated Farmers says it is more concerned by the biosecurity risks of the huge amount of uncertified palm kernel entering New Zealand.

Meanwhile, the Green Party is calling on the government and Fonterra to reduce the importation of palm kernel feed.

Palm kernel imports went from 0.4 tonnes in 1999 to 455,000 tonnes in 2007 and then to 1.1 million tonnes in 2008.

Green Party co-leader Russel Norman Norman says this was a quarter of all global palm kernel production which threatened not only the local grain industry but New Zealand's environmental reputation.

He says the government and Fonterra, which part owns rural supply chain RD1, had to do something to stop the "addiction" to the cheap but unsustainable palm kernel, which was being used to prop up unsustainable dairy farming.

Greenpeace NZ climate campaigner Simon Boxer also said it was a "scandal" that Fonterra was feeding its dairy cows a product that was directly contributing to the destruction of the world's remaining rainforests - and climate change.

Wilmar International, the company supplying kernel to RD1 to sell, was the world's largest trader of palm oils and kernel and had a bad reputation for rainforest destruction, he said.

But Fonterra sustainability manager John Hutchings told Radio New Zealand Wilmar International was a reputable company.

"They've been working very hard to ensure that all of their mills and plantations are RSPO - Round Table on Sustainable Palm Oil - certified, and they have almost completed that task."

Hutchings said palm kernel was an important feed supplement when grass was in short supply.

Last week chocolate maker Cadbury bowed to public pressure and removed palm oil from its chocolate recipe.

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Asia-Pacific quakes herald a disaster? Experts say no

Arlina Arshad Yahoo News 23 Aug 09;

JAKARTA (AFP) – Powerful earthquakes that have jolted Asia recently do not presage a disaster, although it is only a matter of time before the next catastrophe befalls the quake-prone region, seismologists say.

From India to Japan, Indonesia and as far south as New Zealand, the region has been rattled by what appear to be a connected spate of strong quakes in the past few weeks.

Luckily they have caused little damage and few casualties, but for people living in countries straddling the so-called "Pacific Ring of Fire" of major fault-lines, each new tremor raises the question: when will the "big one" hit?

The bottom line is that earthquakes are impossible to predict and, while catastrophic quakes are inevitable, no one can say when they will strike.

Japan in particular has been bracing itself for an expected magnitude-eight quake believed most likely to strike in the Tokai region near Tokyo. People even have a name for the anticipated disaster: the Tokai Quake.

"Series of earthquakes can often be monitored, but last week's earthquake does not appear to be a sign pointing to the 'big one'," Tokyo University honorary professor of seismology Ryohei Morimoto told AFP, referring to a 6.6-magnitude quake that struck Japan on August 17.

Around 20 percent of the world's most powerful earthquakes strike Japan. The megacity of Tokyo in particular sits on the intersection of three continental plates -- the Eurasian, Pacific and Philippine Sea plates.

The last time a "big one" struck Tokyo was in 1923, when the Great Kanto Earthquake claimed more than 140,000 lives, many of them in fires. Previously, in 1855, the Ansei Edo quake also devastated the city.

Experts say quakes in particular areas may be related, but they see no link between quakes on different boundaries of tectonic plates, such as the huge 7.5-magnitude tremor that shook the Andaman Islands in the Indian Ocean and the 6.4-magnitude quake that hit Japan almost simultaneously on August 11.

D. Srinageswar, a senior seismologist with India's National Geophysical Research Institute based in the southern city of Hyderabad, said scientists simply did not know enough about the movements of the earth's crust to be able to predict when and where the next cataclysmic event would take place.

"Prediction of a quake in time is not possible. The process will need data going back hundreds or even thousands of years," he explained.

"It was only in 1960 that instruments came up that helped understand at what depths the quakes occur, the magnitude of the quakes.... Spatially we know where it is going to happen, but in time we can't say."

Indonesian Meteorology and Geophysics Agency technical chief Suharjono likened the tectonic shifts of the earth's surface to a speeding car.

"There was a big 6.9-magnitude quake in Sumatra recently, followed by aftershocks. The aftershocks aren't unusual... they happen so that a new stability can be achieved," he said.

"Just like putting a brake on a speeding vehicle, it will wobble a little as it tries to stabilise itself. It's the same with earthquakes."

Suharjono said it might look like there had been a lot of quakes recently but the numbers from year to year were stable.

"About 5,000 to 6,000 quakes over a magnitude of 4.5 take place in the Indonesian region every year, this number hasn't changed," he said.

"If the concern is because of what's been happening recently, I'd say there's no need to worry."

The apparent spate of quakes is nothing unusual, but they have fuelled debate over whether seismic activity can be considered a precursor to a bigger one in the same region, or whether it reduces the risk by releasing tectonic pressure.

"When there is a large earthquake, it will release stress on that part of the system but it might transfer some of that stress to another part which might bring forward another earthquake," said Ken Gledhill, a government seismologist in New Zealand where a giant 7.8-magnitude quake hit on July 15.

"This will happen every now and again where there appear to be a group of earthquakes near in time if not in space. That's bound to happen -- these earthquakes happen all the time."

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NASA Heads Out to Sea: focus on seagrasses

Red Orbit 22 Aug 09;

NASA scientists Maury Estes and Mohammad Al-Hamdan have been seafaring in the Gulf of Mexico, and one of them grew a bit green around the gills. It's not surprising that a space agency scientist might have trouble getting his sea legs, but what was he doing out there in the surf to begin with?

"We were gathering water samples," explains Estes.

That doesn't sound much like rocket science, but consider the following:

At this moment, a fleet of NASA Earth-observing satellites is silently passing overhead, gathering vital information about our planet. Estes and Al-Hamdan are combining that heavenly data with local water samples to help the Mobile Bay National Estuary Program, or NEP, check the health of the coast.

"We're most interested in sea grass and marine vegetation," says Al-Hamdan. "A region's plant health tells you a lot about the health of the area itself."

"It's fair to say that if seagrass is in trouble, so is everything else in the area," explains Dr. Ken Heck of the Dauphin Island Sea Lab in Mobile. "Sea grass beds provide shelter and food for many ecologically and economically important fish and shellfish, and even for the manatee -- an endangered gentle giant that regularly visits Mobile Bay. These beds also stabilize the shoreline, prevent erosion, and even help filter and cleanse the water that enters our estuaries from the watershed."

According to Estes and Al-Hamdan, the way the land is used throughout the watershed influences how much fresh water flows into the salt water areas and what that fresh water contains. Homes, farms, forests, small towns, big cities, etc., all affect the water in distinctive ways. "For instance, sediments cloud the fresh water flow," explains Estes. "And fertilizers can boost invasive species and algae that choke out the 'good' plants like sea grass."

"So we knew we'd get environmentally valuable information by looking at how the land was used in the past and how it's used now," says Al-Hamdan. "Historical NASA satellite data told us what we wanted to know."

That "heavenly" data, along with local water samples, revealed land use-related trends in water flow quality and properties like salinity, temperature, and clarity. These factors have both a literal and figurative trickle-down effect on marine plant life and therefore overall habitat health.

"This research helps us model, or predict, how different types of land use might affect the coastal environment in the future, not only in the Mobile Bay area but also in other coastal areas," says Al-Hamdan.

"The work NASA's doing will help coastal resource managers direct the limited resources available for habitat conservation and restoration," says Mobile Bay NEP Director Roberta Swann. "It will help us focus restoration efforts where they're most needed and most likely to succeed."

When Estes and Al-Hamdan aren't in the office pouring over satellite images to help foresee the coastal future, they're heading out to sea, where they collect water samples to analyze for "ground truth" to validate their model. The ocean voyages also give them a first-hand view of what they're studying and why.

"You do science in the real world – not in the office," explains Estes. "Going out there gives you a good perspective on the research data. If you don't physically know the area you're studying, it limits your understanding."

"From the boat, we got to see the coastal areas we're targeting. Turns out that the northern third of the Mobile Bay environment is natural shore, but the southern two thirds is primarily sea walls, rip raps [man-made piles of big rocks], and revetments [sea wall /rip raps combination]. Plant and animal life can't flourish in rocks and concrete."

Estes sees the modification of natural coastline as a self-perpetuating problem.

"Development feeds on itself," says Estes. "If your neighbor builds a sea wall to help protect his own shore from eroding, your shore starts eroding, so you put up a sea wall too. And it's much more difficult to get a permit to restore a natural beach or marsh area on one's property than to get permission to build a sea wall. Plus there are all kinds of docks and boat launches along the coast."

The scientists spent an entire day, recently, on the open ocean gathering water samples and mentally cataloging the coast line. They're quite serious about their work but will take a few moments for fun.

"I got a nice tan out in the boat," jokes Al-Hamdan. "It sure beats green."

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Rare Madagascar ducks 'on brink of extinction'

The Madagascar Pochard, the world's rarest duck, is on the brink of becoming extinct, wildlife experts have warned.

The Telegraph 23 Aug 09;

There are thought to be just 19 of the diving ducks left in the world - only six of which are female - living on a small remote lake on the Indean Ocean island.

The lake was visited last month by staff from the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT), Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust (Durrell) and The Peregrine Fund.

The charities planned to set up a breeding programme for the ducks, but were alarmed to find dwindling numbers because none of the 11 birds born last year had survived.

They are now trying to take emergency action before the species dies out.

Nigel Jarrett, WWT's aviculture manager was one of the staff who made the trip. He said: "With possibly only six females, the total population of Madagascar Pochard might well number just six pairs, and with no successful fledglings from the 2008 season the need to establish a captive breeding facility has become even more urgent.

"The plan is to develop a conservation breeding centre in collaboration with the government of Madagascar in 2010. However, following the expedition, discussions are underway to see if temporary measures can be taken to secure the population in the interim. If so, the team will return to the lake in October this year.

"Once we have secured eggs from the wild, WWT's and Durrell's extensive experience of rearing endangered wildfowl at Slimbridge and Jersey will be used to breed the birds at a purpose-built facility in Madagascar. This will act as a safety net, greatly reducing the immediate risk of extinction.

"Within three years, we hope to at least double the total numbers of pochards. In time, these will be released into the wild at suitable sites."

The species is classed as critically endangered by the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List. During the 1990s it was thought Madagascar Pochards were already extinct, but biologists rediscovered the birds in 2006.

WWT has blamed their declining numbers on degraded wetlands following agricultural conversion, deforestation and the introduction of non-native fish. The charity's long-term goal is to restore the wetlands and their endemic wildlife, and work with local communities to make sure they are used sustainably.

Glyn Young, Durrell's project leader, said: "The window of opportunity to save the species from extinction is incredibly small, and we must all muster the energy and resources necessary to stop another species from becoming extinct."

Lily-Arison Rene de Roland, national director of The Peregrine Fund's Madagascar project, said: "Since the 2006 rediscovery, the birds have successfully raised only 11 young. This low productivity is a great concern and warrants a captive breeding programme and conservation of the site."

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EU 'considering bluefin tuna protection'

Yahoo News 22 Aug 09;

BRUSSELS (AFP) – The European Union will decide in the autumn whether to add bluefin tuna to a list of threatened species, a move that would mean a temporary ban on its sale on world markets, a spokeswoman said Saturday.

"An EU position will be established this autumn, in line with the normal process for the preparation of the Cites (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species) meeting," said the European Commission spokeswoman, Katharina von Schnurbein.

She confirmed the existence of an internal document prepared by the commission which recommends putting bluefin tuna on the list of threatened species. The draft document, which will form the basis of discussions between the 27 EU member nations, was revealed Saturday by the Financial Times.

"From a scientific and technical point of view, the criteria for the listing of Atlantic bluefin tuna (as an endangered species) appear to be met," the newspaper cited the document as saying.

"There is no doubt about the link between international trade and over-exploitation of the species."

However, the commission -- which oversees fisheries policy in the 27-nation European Union -- stipulated that any decision on a ban would not be made before the end of the 2010 fishing season.

A common position will nevertheless be difficult to find with some fishing nations such as Spain, Italy and Malta remaining lukewarm to the idea of a ban, the newspaper said.

"The commission has taken note of the individual positions expressed by some member states supporting the listing of bluefin tuna under the Cites convention," Von Schnurbein said.

"However it is clear that internal coordination is still to come on this issue."

She said the European Commission would be working with all member states "towards the establishment of a common EU position" before the Cites meeting in March 2010.

At the moment bluefin tuna has no protection under Cites, the only global body with the power to limit or ban international trade in endangered species.

If bluefin tuna are given protected status at the meeting in Qatar next March the sale of the fish on international markets would be banned although it could still be sold locally.

Such a measure would eliminate the main cause of over-fishing: the strong demand for the delicacy as sushi and sashimi in countries such as Japan and the United States.

France, Germany, Britain and the Netherlands have said they would support a ban.

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To save lives, an Indian doctor rethinks the toilet

Sebastien Buffet Yahoo News 23 Aug 09;

STOCKHOLM (AFP) – By rethinking the humble toilet, Indian sanitation expert Bindeshwar Pathak has found a way that can save water -- and lives -- in developing countries.

For four decades, His Sulabh Sanitation Movement has equipped more than 1.2 million households with eco-friendly toilets and installed 7,500 public lavatories across India.

Yet almost three out of four Indians, or around 700 million people, still have no access to basic sanitation.

This leads to up to half a million deaths each year, Pathak, 66, told AFP at the World Water Week conference in Stockholm, where he was awarded this year's Stockholm Water Prize for his groundbreaking work.

To lower the risk to human health, Pathak developed a twin-pit, pour-flush toilet known as the Sulabh, that uses a pair of tanks to store waste matter with no smell or soil pollution, pending recycling as fertiliser.

It uses significantly less water than a standard toilet, Pathak said.

"It requires only 1.0 to 1.5 liters to flush instead of 10 liters," he said. "It saves trillions of litres of water each year."

The idea is to discourage both open-air defecation and the use of bucket toilets -- options that ramp up the risk of the spread of disease and diarrhoea.

"People have died of cholera cleaning the bucket toilets," Pathak explained.

When a Sulabh is sold to households, its price is adjusted according to a family's ability to pay. The poorest families pay 15 dollars (10 euros) whereas richer families can be asked to pay up to 1,000 dollars.

The Sulabh Sanitation Movement's campaign to raise awareness of health issues has also seen more and more Indians prepared to pay user charges for its 7,500 public toilets.

Staffed 24 hours a day, they cost one dollar a month to use them by subscription -- with an exemption for slum dwellers, women and children.

"For the whole month, you can go to the toilet, you can have a bath, you can drink water," Pathak said.

The Sulabh has been exported to Afghanistan and Bhutan, and there are also plans to ship some to 15 other countries, most of them in Africa.

"I feel very happy because what we have been doing for the last 40 years, now it feels that we are going in the right direction," Pathak told AFP.

As the winner of the Stockholm Water Prize, Pathak receives a cheque for 150,000 dollars (104,700 euros) in recognition of his work to conserve water and improve public health.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 22 Aug 09

25 Aug (Tue): Screening of "The Cove"
an ACRES exclusive preview from wild shores of singapore

28 Aug (Fri): Debate and Public Forum on Sharks and Shark's Fin from wild shores of singapore

Smooth-coated otters at Sungei Buloh Wetlands Reserve
from Otterman speaks

Exploring Changi with new friends
from wild shores of singapore

Tanah Merah - Suicidal
from Singapore Nature and wonderful creations with more on the coral reefs and sandy shores.

Looking for gravid females
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

Greater Flameback ‘kissing’
from Bird Ecology Study Group

A Quick Walk Around School
from Creatures in the Wild

Striped-tit Babblers Having A Bath
from Life's Indulgences

Insect stings
from Ubin.sgkopi

Extreme Global Warming: Assisted Species Migration or Preserving Genetic Samples? from The Daily Galaxy: News from Planet Earth & Beyond

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Natural history, a common heritage for Singapore

Exhibition at Botanic Gardens showcases the region's rich biodiversity
Chin See Chung, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;

THE profusion and diversity of life forms, geological features and the human cultures that they encountered in their travels were the keys that stimulated the intellectual processes of both Charles Darwin and his Victorian compatriot, Alfred Russel Wallace. They both searched for a mechanism to explain long-term organic change.

Darwin spent almost five years circumnavigating the globe, observing, documenting and thinking about his ideas on evolution. He explored coastal areas of both sides of South America, visited the Galapagos and crossed the Pacific landing at Tahiti, New Zealand and Australia before returning via the Indian and Atlantic oceans.

Wallace, on the other hand, spent four years in the Amazon, exploring, collecting and documenting. He unfortunately lost almost everything he collected in a fire while sailing back. He then spent eight years on a great number of islands in the Malay Archipelago, where he amassed a treasure trove of more than 125,000 natural history specimens.

Wallace and Darwin were greatly influenced by the intellectuals of the time and the growing momentum of scientific thought, seeking alternatives to the Church's thinking on the origin of life.

French biologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck, as early as 1809 in his Philosophie Zoologique, proposed a theory to explain natural change. Central to his thesis is that traits acquired during an individual's lifetime could be passed on to its offspring. Though since discredited, this was part of the growing body of thinking on the subject.

By 1840, a clear picture of the fossil record had emerged. There was indisputable evidence that there is a progression from the primitive invertebrates to the fish, reptiles and finally mammals, with many going extinct and others appearing. Creation in a single period, 'in the beginning', did not seem tenable.

Charles Lyell's three-volume book, Principles Of Geology (1830-1833), one of the most important scientific books of the 19th century, outlined the geological forces that shaped the Earth over vast periods of time. It challenged prevailing thinking that the Earth was shaped by supernatural events, such as Noah's flood.

In the anonymously published 1844 book, Vestiges Of The Natural History Of Creation, (actually by Robert Chambers), was the audacious suggestion that humans had emerged from lowly animals, albeit by divine design. While this book offended, it did not offer a biological mechanism for change.

Another influential book was An Essay On The Principle Of Population, by Reverend Thomas Malthus, first published anonymously in 1798. Malthus had postulated that population growth would always exceed the growth of food supply, leading to hunger, disease and a struggle for survival resulting in a situation that would limit population growth. Malthus' idea of 'struggle for survival' directly influenced both Wallace and Darwin. While it appeared to have directed Darwin's thinking towards the theory of natural selection, it was the trigger that crystallised Wallace's thoughts.

In February 1858, after four years of exploring the Malay Archipelago, Wallace was sick with malaria in the Maluku islands, east of Sulawesi, and was thinking about the ideas of Malthus. He suddenly linked this to a mechanism that would ensure long-term organic change.

This was the concept of 'variation and the survival of the fittest'. Individuals that are better adapted would have a better chance of surviving. This is the process of 'natural selection'. It was the fundamental process leading to the origin of new species.

Wallace immediately drafted a paper and wrote to Darwin with his ideas. Darwin had explored the same theories for 20 years and was writing a book on this subject but had not publicly presented his thoughts. He was advised to present Wallace's paper together with his own at the next meeting of the Linnaean Society, the world's oldest biological society, in London on July 1, 1858.

He was also forced to prepare his book for publication. This book that changed the world, On The Origin Of Species, was published in November 1859, 150 years ago.

The theory of natural selection remained controversial throughout the rest of the 19th century. It was only in the early 20th century, when Mendelian genetics was able to explain the inheritance of specific traits that rendered certain organisms 'fitter' and thus 'selected' to replace the unfit, that acceptance became widespread.

In 1869, Wallace published his book, The Malay Archipelago, one of the greatest natural history travel books of the 19th century. His travels gave birth to his ideas on the theory of evolution. And he made significant contributions to biogeography when he linked the geographical distribution of animals and plants to the regions' geological history.

While in Singapore, Wallace explored Bukit Timah and, in two months, caught 700 species of beetles. The incredible productivity of Bukit Timah is an illustration that we live in a region with one of the richest biodiversities in the world.

It is a diversity that the Botanic Gardens was designed to celebrate in all its manifestations.

This year we are holding special events to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Gardens, which shares the same anniversary with the publication of On The Origin Of Species, Darwin's 200th birth anniversary and the 140th anniversary of Wallace's book, The Malay Archipelago.

It is therefore apt that the Gardens has staged an exhibition on Wallace and Darwin. 'Two Minds One Theory' illustrates the region's rich biodiversity and the beauty of natural life, and tells the story of the theory of evolution, to generate awareness and interest in biodiversity and inspire an ethos for conservation.

Natural history unlocked the door to the evolutionary theory. In Singapore, the Raffles Museum, built in 1887, was the repository of some of these records. It was an institution of magnificent displays on zoology and ethnography and a centre of scholarship, especially before the World War II years.

The Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research houses one of the world's largest collections of South-east Asian species. The museum is located on the National University of Singapore campus. -- ST PHOTO: JOYCE FANG

It was one of the few institutions in Singapore protected when so much was destroyed during the war. The museum's collections were dismantled in 1969 and its collections dispersed. The single most outstanding exhibit was the skeleton of a blue whale which, if I remember correctly as a child, hung over the grand main staircase.

Exhibited since 1903, this national icon etched itself into the memories of generations of Singaporeans. Ms Lee Chor Lin, the director of the National Museum, wrote in 2007 that the memory of the whale lived on even for people born after the whale's departure from the museum.

Today, what remains is largely hidden in storage vaults awaiting permanent public airing.

Natural history, the organisms from the different evolutionary stages and the evolutionary processes are our common heritage. It is a heritage that children, with their imagination unfettered by cultural norms and artefacts, instinctively identify with. They would love to be let loose in such a museum in all its glory.

The writer is the director of Singapore Botanic Gardens

More about the exhibition at the Singapore Botanic Gardens;
and about the Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research.

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'Cities should look to past strengths to leap forward'

Melissa Tan, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;

URBAN sociologist Saskia Sassen of New York's Columbia University has praised Singapore's efforts at environmental sustainability but says even more radical efforts are needed.

In a lecture yesterday, she also said cities should look to past strengths to differentiate themselves, including traditional methods of sustainable development.

'In this global era, the specialised differences of cities, of urban economies, matter much more than they did 20 years ago. That means that cities compete less with each other,' she told The Straits Times after giving a lecture entitled Global Cities At A Time Of Crisis at the MND penthouse.

'It is to the advantage of cities to understand what are the different economic histories they have had, how they can use their past - rather than thinking they all have to be like London, New York, Paris,' she said.

Cities should make use of their historical or traditional expertise, she added, citing the example of Chicago.

That US city used to be a 'material economy...they had huge steel mills; they grew millions of pigs, tonnes of corn...They know how to run a global steel mill; New York doesn't,' she said.

As for Singapore, 'it needs not to think that it's competing with all other global cities. It isn't. It's only competing with some, and then only a bit...There is no perfect global city', she said.

Professor Sassen suggested that Singapore use its traditional expertise in entrepot trade - noting that it 'manages ports in South America, even in Europe'. 'It's a very broad range of potential economic activities that you can derive from your past.'

She commended the Republic's approach to environmental sustainability.

'Singapore is in the lead in terms of not just inventing in the laboratory, but also applying and implementing sustainable measures' such as road pricing policies.

But she cautioned: 'We have entered a whole new era where we need it at a much deeper level. Singapore is in a trajectory towards environmental sustainability. It is way ahead of New York, for instance. But we are discovering...in recent years how much more radical we have to be in order to address the question of global warming.'

The lecture was organised by the Centre for Liveable Cities - a policy-oriented think-tank established by the Ministry of National Development and the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources.

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Group to help companies explore 'green' business

Smita Krishnaswamy, Straits Times 22 Aug 09;

BUSINESSES are being encouraged to embrace sustainable development in a new campaign launched by the Singapore Business Federation (SBF).

Sustainable development, which aims to produce while preserving the environment, encompasses everything from the use of clean energy and efficient manufacturing practices to eco-city development.

The SBF has created a specific body called the Sustainable Development Business Group to help businesses find opportunities in this area.

The group will coordinate training workshops, business missions and networking sessions with the help of the Sustainable Energy Association of Singapore.

The SBF is also collaborating with Temasek Polytechnic's Fuel Cell Community to establish a clean energy test-bedding facility.

SBF chief executive Teng Theng Dar said it is the perfect time to invest in green technology as many countries, including those in Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation region, are committed to infrastructure investments.

He said it is in the interest of businesses to respond to the environmental movement because its benefits are obvious in reducing critical costs like utility expenses. 'We are not just talking about sustainable development for fashion's sake - there is really business value in it.'

The federation also launched a sustainability award which will be presented, in collaboration with Local Global Exhibition and Trade, at ECO World 2010, a trade conference here next April.

The award recognises innovative products and technologies that enable sustainable development.

Next month, the SBF will lead a delegation of 20 companies to the Tianjin eco city and China's New Energy Expo in Wuxi to explore opportunities in sustainable development in the country.

Also in the pipeline are business and study missions to Canada, Israel and Japan.

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