Indonesia launches Indofire system to monitor forest fire hotspots

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 29 Oct 09;

Indonesia installed a new system to monitor hotspots across the country’s forests to help avert rampant land and forest fires as efforts to combat the climate change.

Under the so-called Indofire system, hotspot data could be transferred directly to forest fighters in less than one hour to allow them to take action to stop the fires.

The system, which uses satellite-based fire detection of the US’ latest environmental sensor MODIS (Moderate resolution imaging spectroradiometer), has the capability to capture images in more detail with a resolution of 250 kilometers.

The existing fire detection satellite of the National Ocean Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) could only cover hotspots with a resolution of one kilometer.

Data from the MODIS would be processed at receiving stations in Rumpin in West Java and Pare Pare in Sulawesi before being transferred it to web servers at the Forestry Ministry and National Aeronautics and Space Agency (Lapan).

“With the system, we could get more accurate data of the hotspots in almost real time,” said Noor Hidayat, director for forest fire control at the forestry ministry, on Thursday.

He said that the hotspot data would be published in the Indofire website jointly launched by Indonesian and Australian governments on Thursday.

“It would also allow our forest fighters to respond it as fast as possible to minimize the spread of the fires,” he said.

The A$1.5 million project is part of the Indonesia-Australia Forest Carbon Partnership signed by President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd in Jakarta in 2008.

Under the partnership, the Australian government has promised to provide A$40 million in grants to prepare mechanisms in implementing the emissions reductions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD).

Regional Director of the Western Australian Government Martin Newbery said that data of hotspots would immediately be available for fighting fires.

“It could be accessed freely by the government, industry and public.”

Data of the daily fire hotspots could be accessed at www.lapan.go.id/indofire and http://indofire.dephut.go.id.

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Indonesia wants funds for environment enforcement

Sunanda Creagh, Reuters 29 Oct 09;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia's new environment minister said on Thursday he needs more funds for law enforcement to stop illegal logging and pollution, in a bid to curb emissions by one of the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases.

As the world's third-biggest contributor to climate change, behind the United States and China, Indonesia is seen as a key player when it comes to putting a brake on deforestation and reaching an agreement on fighting climate change.

However, Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta warned that the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen in December would probably fail to reach a broader global pact to fight climate change, largely because the various parties would not compromise.

"It seems to me that Copenhagen will not be a success. Each party is maintaining their position very strongly," Hatta, an academic who founded a forestry research center in Kalimantan on Borneo island, told Reuters in an interview.

Curbing deforestation -- which accounts for nearly a fifth of greenhouse gas pollution -- by Indonesia, Brazil and tropical Africa is seen as an important step in soaking up carbon dioxide emissions.

Indonesia's president, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, last month told the Group of 20 (G20) nations that Indonesia would cut its emissions by 26 percent by 2020, or as much as 41 percent with international funding and transfer of technology.

But to achieve that kind of reduction requires funding for effective law enforcement, Hatta said.

"Enforcement of the law -- that is what we need to reach this 26 percent," said Hatta, 57.

"We have civil guards that can directly arrest people found breaching the law and bring them to court but we have only 220 in the whole country. We want a total of 1,000 but we obviously can't do that on our current budget."

Hatta said he would ask for his ministry's budget to be doubled to 800 billion rupiah ($83 million) to pay for enforcement of laws against illegal logging and pollution.

He said that to cut emissions by as much as 41 percent would require transfer of technology and international funding for programs such as the reduced emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD) scheme, which involves paying developing countries not to chop down forests.

Hatta said he intended to enforce a new environment law that allows the government to cancel the operating permit of any company found to be breaching the terms of its environmental impact assessment.

"I am very serious about this. We have already briefed regional leaders so they can brief the people in their own areas. We plan to write the regulations needed to implement this law within one year," he said.

Hatta, an academic with a PhD in forestry from Wageningen University in the Netherlands, was considered a surprise choice for the post of environment minister and has drawn a mixed response from conservation groups.

However, he could easily run into problems with the powerful business interests in the timber and palm oil sectors, as well as with other ministers.

The environment ministry is relatively powerless compared to the forestry, agriculture, and energy ministries but Hatta said he would lobby the relevant ministers to stop environmentally damaging practices such as allowing mining in protected forests or planting of oil palm in peat lands, and would commission a new review of mining to identify areas that are over-mined.

"In some areas, for instance, they are only supposed to mine 5 percent but they mine 10 percent. Later, with this review, I will be able to recommend new limits on mining to the relevant ministry," he said.

(Editing by Sara Webb)

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Philippines aiming to join China's resource boom

Cecil Morella Yahoo News 29 Oct 09;

MANILA (AFP) – The Philippines is aiming to be one of the next nations to cash in on China's insatiable appetite for resources, with the Asian neighbours working to build closer mining ties, officials from both sides say.

The Southeast Asian country has vast amounts of gold, nickel, copper and other valuable minerals, but for years its mining industry has underperformed due to bad governance, foreign ownership restrictions and domestic opposition.

Now, with the Philippines trying to nearly triple annual investment in the sector to two billion dollars, China is being seen as a crucial buyer and source of funds to develop some of Manila's largest mining prospects.

"It's all very fortunate for us because we have the advantage of geography... they can practically buy everything we produce here," the Philippine Mines and Geosciences Bureau chief, Horacio Ramos, told AFP.

The economic counsellor of the Chinese embassy in Manila, Wu Zhengping, also told a mining conference here last month that Beijing was looking at a "long-term strategic cooperation" with Manila in the mining sector.

"It's a win-win arrangement," Wu said.

However, he said the Philippines must address some key Chinese concerns, particularly continued restrictions on foreign ownership and inadequate infrastructure.

"The first thing you have to do is improve your investment environment," Wu said, calling for a relaxation on rules limiting foreign ownership of assets.

Nevertheless, China has shown it is willing to deal in the current environment.

Zijin Mining Group, China's largest gold miner, and another Chinese firm this month signed a memorandum of understanding with the Philippine government that could lead to one billion dollars in mining investments over five years.

Chinese Foreign Minister Yang Jiechi on Wednesday also began a two-day trip to Manila, and resources was expected to be on the agenda during talks with President Gloria Arroyo on Thursday.

"Mining will be among the issues to be discussed," Ramos said.

The government estimates the Philippines has 83 billion tonnes of mineral ore deposits.

The country's estimated gold ore reserves of four billion tonnes is the world's third largest, its 7.9 billion tonnes of copper the fourth largest and the 815 million tonnes of nickel ore the fifth biggest in the world, it says.

However the Philippines has largely missed out on the economic windfalls the likes of Australia and countries in Africa have seen in recent years as they sold resources to power China's surging economy.

"The Chinese are going global, but I just don't see any substantial investments here in the Philippines," the executive vice president of industry association Chamber of Mines of the Philippines, Nelia Halcon, told AFP.

"The market is there. We just need to develop our resources... They (China) have a potentially crucial role to play in developing the industry."

The Philippines mining industry went into near-hibernation after the collapse of metals prices in the 1970s, then a high-profile tailings spill in the 1990s galvanised environmentalists into a strong anti-mining force.

The mining industry began to recover after parliament passed a law in the mid-1990s that lifted foreign ownership restrictions on major discoveries.

This drove fresh investments that reached annual levels of about 700 million dollars, before dipping slightly to 650 million dollars last year due to the global financial crisis.

The government expects investments worth two billion dollars this year as metals demand improves.

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Reef balls to help reduce turtle deaths in Sarawak

New Straits Times 29 Oct 09;

KUCHING: Reef balls are synonymous with marine conservation and artificial fish habitat but Sarawak has found a new use for them -- in turtle protection and conservation.

In studies made in the years since 2,590 reef balls were sunk in the seabed in 1998 to create fish habitats near the Talang-Satang National Park, Santubong, Buntal, Tatau and Awat-Awat in Lawas, conservationists at the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) found a marked reduction in the number of dead turtles in areas where these totally protected marine wildlife are normally found.

"Around 20 dead turtles were found compared with 70 to 100 before 1998," said Wilfred Landong, SFC chief wildlife warden.

He also said the number of turtles that had returned to nest on the turtle islands rose from 737 in 2004 to 1,104 last year.

The number of turtles tagged also rose from 639 in 2004 to 1,028 last year.

Buoyed by these findings, SFC plans to lay 100,000 reef balls using technology patented from the US at the turtle migration route off its coast (which conservationists had called "the turtle highway"), their feeding grounds and sanctuaries in the next five years to realise its marine environment conservation programme.

The five-year plan was estimated to cost RM12.5 million.

The turtle migration route runs from the beaches of western Kalimantan to southern Philippines. Off Sarawak, the route follows the sea grass bed, which the turtles feed on their migration, from Santubong all the way to Sabah.

"The use of reef balls in the protection and conservation of turtles is totally new," said Datuk Len Talif Salleh, the state Controller of Wildlife, at a ceremony to lay 150 reef balls in the seabed around the so-called "turtles islands" of Talang Talang and Satang recently.

He said Malaysia could probably be the only country in the world to use reef balls in turtle conservation.

SFC found the reef balls capable of ripping trawler nets, one of the greatest threats to turtles.

The thought of destruction to their nets would help keep trawlers away from these turtle-frequented areas.

Talif said SFC was only given RM910,000 under the Ninth Malaysia Plan for the conservation programme and it had been used to seed reef balls in the northern sea off the turtle islands -- Pulau Talang Talang Besar, Pulau Talang Talang Kecil and Pulau Satang.

The waters off these islands are favourite spots for illegal trawlers.

But with plans to sink some 1,000 reef balls near Similajau national park in Bintulu and another 1,000 in Kuala Lawas to ensure feeding grounds of the dugongs and sea turtles are protected, more money was needed.


This year, the state Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment had allocated RM275,000 to SFC for the programme.

The reef balls, designed to last 150 years, cost RM1,000 each and another RM300 to RM500 to transport and deploy.

Talif said Malaysia would again seek the cooperation of Indonesia, Brunei and the Philippines in the conservation of turtles.

He said the move would be made through such forums as the Sosek-Malindo and BIMP-EAGA.

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PNG imposes three-year ban on sea cucumber harvesting

A depleting delicacy
The National 30 Oct 09;

The National Fisheries Authority has imposed a three-year blanket ban on the harvesting of beche-de-mer to ensure it is not fished out, reports SHARON E. BARNABAS

THE sea cucumber or beche-de-mer fishery sector is a silent achiever that has contributed to the livelihoods of thousands of people along Papua New Guinea’s pristine coastline.

“Beche-de-mer fishery has touched nearly all the lives of every coastal community that’s probably 300,000 fishermen alone, plus buyers and exporters,” said Mrs Koren-Yaman.

Luanah Koren-Yaman works with the National Fisheries Authority and is responsible for sedentary fisheries.

She explains that the sea cucumber market is big in east and Southeast Asia and until recently locals tapped into the industry and are now making a living from it. Most cultures in the east and Southeast Asian region regard the sea cucumber as a delicacy. There are a number of dishes made with sea cucumber as this ingredient is expected to have a strong cultural emphasis on health.

Sea cucumbers are marine animals that are used in fresh or dried form in various cuisines. The creature and the food product are commonly known as beche-de-mer.
There are about 650 species of sea cucumbers.

The Asian market for sea cucumber is estimated to be US$60 million (K163m).
The dried form account for 95% of the sea cucumber traded annually in China, Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Korea, and Japan and are typically used in Chinese cuisines. The biggest re-exporter in the trade is China, Hong Kong, and Singapore.

NFA was not at ease to release current export figures for PNG but a 2005 study had showed PNG was the third largest supplier of beche-de-mer to the Hong Kong market.
In 2005 PNG exported 577 tonnes of sea cucumber with a gross value of K28 million.
According to Mr Koren-Yaman, the beche-de-mer is a vital means of income for most coastal communities and has contributed slightly over a percent to the gross domestic products via export earnings.

“Although the price is very much dependent on the species, dried beche-de-mer can fetch a price of K10- K300 per kilo,” she said.

Sand fish (high value species) if processed and dried properly earns up to K250-K300 per kilo. The lolly fish (low species) can fetch K10-K15 per kilo.

Sadly, for the next three years, the people whose livelihoods depend on the sea cucumber will have to look for other means of income.

NFA has imposed a three-year blanket ban on the harvesting of all commercially viable species of the beche-de-mer.

The reason is because the stock of this delicacy is nearing depletion.

Despite the impact on livelihoods, NFA is insisting that the move be undertaken to ensure the Beche-de-mer fishery sector is not entirely fished out.

“To save beche-de-mer fishery from completely collapsing and impacting everyone concerned, the Fisheries Board has opted for a 3 year total closure in order to maintain sustainability,” Mrs Yaman said.

An NFA study had confirmed that the beche-de-mer stock was nearing exhaustion and if nothing is done, the possibility of dying out is probable.

The study said “large parts of fishing area for certain species have been fully over fished, and sizes of sea cucumber have shown a serious downward trend”.

It also showed a drop in population size by 80% for nearly all of the species harvested over the last five years.

“This could have a serious impact on the successful completion of the reproductive cycle on all beche-de-mer species including their interactive ecological systems making it in dire need for rescue,” Mrs Yaman said.

There had been collapses in beche-de-mer fisheries in numerous countries prompting concerns about the sustainability of the 40 species involved in international trade.
The collapse led to the introduction of a range of management measures such as area and seasonal closures, minimum size limits, catch quota...in the beche-de-mer fishery.

Anyone of these options could have been imposed in PNG however; NFA opted for a total closure.

Total closure was opted due to high depletion of all species and in a large area of the fishing parts of the Maritime Provinces.

Conservation International’s Adaptation Strategy Specialist, David Mitchell shared similar sentiments that proper management measures must be set to ensure there is sustainability of the sector in future.

He said if PNG is going to generate income from its natural resources it needs to ensure that resources are harvested at a sustainable rate.

This will ensure the ecological sustainability of these resources.

“Only when we establish a sustainable rate of utilising these resources then we can plan our economic sustainability of what we take and make money from,” he said.

Mr Mitchell said all coastal provinces are affected to a certain degree, but Western Province is the most affected with a high percent of under size catch.

“Over fishing, use of illegal fishing techniques and harvesting of under sized stock are all contributing factors to the depletion,” said Mr Mitchell.

He said there is a high demand for beche-de-mer in the Asian market, making the exporters ignore the under sized stocks that are sold by the fishermen.

He said overexploitation of natural resources such as beche-de-mer can detrimentally affect income generating opportunities.

This economic consequence however is due to the collective and cumulative overexploitation of the fishermen in the short term.

In agreeing to the 3 year total closure imposed by NFA, Mr Mitchell said, it will affect the local communities, buyers and sellers but this is for their own good in the long term.

Mr Mitchell reiterated that the closure will allow for the stocks to recover and management of the fishery reviewed.

To save the fishery, all parties involved in the fishery should be cooperative and heed the regulations in place.

The pinch may be hard on the local fishermen who heavily depend on beche-de-mer fishery as their main source of income but it is for their own good.

Local fishermen must seriously heed the ban and source other income generating and concerned provincial authorities can assist by assisting locals seek alternatives ways of making a living.

* Sharon Barnabas is a business reporter with The National in Port Moresby. She holds an Agricultural Science degree from the University of Technology.

Ban on bech-de-mer harvest
The National 7 Oct 09;

THE National Fisheries Authority (NFA) has imposed a three-year blanket ban on the gathering of bech-de-mer, or sea cucumber, because it has been over-fished and its stock could face exhaustion if nothing is done.

This three-year ban, which took effect last Thursday, is likely to impact more than 300,000 fishermen nationwide.

The sea cucumber market is big in Asia and locals are making a living from it, sedentary fisheries manager Luanah Koren-Yaman said.

“Bech-de-mer fishery has touched nearly all the lives of every coastal community … that’s probably 300,000 fishermen alone, plus buyers and exporters,” Mrs Koren-Yaman added.

Despite the impact on livelihoods, NFA is insisting that the move has to be undertaken to ensure the beche-de-mer fishery sector is not entirely fished out.

To save the beche-de-mer fishery from being exhausted completely, the NFA had opted for a three-year total closure to maintain sustainability, Mrs Koren-Yaman said.

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Hong Kong's ghostly seas warn of looming tragedy

Lawrence Bartlett Yahoo News 29 Oct 09;

HONG KONG (AFP) – The live fish facing death in the glass tanks in Hong Kong's famous seafood restaurants tell a strange and haunting tale of a looming global tragedy.

At the heart of their story is the bizarre fact that there are more fine fish swimming in the tiny tanks than there are in the surrounding sea.

Having overfished and polluted its own waters to the point where they are home mainly to great ghosts of the past, Hong Kong now imports up to 90 percent of its seafood.

The problem with that, scientists say, is that Hong Kong is a microcosm of a marine disaster in which wild fish are being eaten out of existence worldwide. Related Article: Scientific Study

"It is a sign of what is happening in most of the fisheries in the world," says Guillermo Moreno, head of global environment group WWF's marine programme in Hong Kong. "It's a scary panorama."

In scenes replayed throughout Hong Kong's archipelago, the seafood for the restaurants in Yung Shue Wan arrives in the dull light of a hazy dawn, while most of the village is still asleep.

Through the rough streets, wiry men in singlets trundle trolleys laden with sloshing buckets full of struggling fish nearing the end of their lives far from their usual habitat on distant, colourful coral reefs.

They are tipped into crowded tanks outside restaurants lining the harbour to await the pointing finger of a diner which will flag the last leg of their long journey, to the kitchen.

At weekends, the open air restaurant tables under spinning fans host large family gatherings where cheerful children tuck in to food that researchers say could disappear in their lifetimes.

"Unless the current situation improves, stocks of all species currently fished for food are predicted to collapse by 2048," the WWF reports, quoting a controversial scientific survey.

Restaurateur Ben Chan Kin-Keung acknowledges that Hong Kong's waters no longer provide what his seafood-loving customers want, but says that is not a problem -- at the moment.

"It's very fast and convenient to import seafood around the globe either by plane or ship," he says.

But he knows the feast cannot last and says it is already becoming difficult to find fish in the quantities he requires.

"It's like people just want to eat the fish when they are not (even) born. I'm afraid that I may have to change my job in 10 years time."

Offshore from the restaurants, a lone trawler dredges the jade sea -- but bleak records show it is unlikely to bring up table-worthy fish.

"The average size of fish now caught in these bottom trawls is about 10 grammes" -- about one third of an ounce or the weight of a small coin -- Professor Yvonne Sadovy of Hong Kong University told AFP.

"To put this into some kind of context, Hong Kong was a famous fishing centre in the past and we had incredibly productive and species-rich ground fisheries."

WWF says that "Hong Kong waters were incredibly rich just decades ago with manta rays, hammerhead sharks, giant grouper and croakers taller than a man. In less than a lifetime Hong Kong has lost them all."

Sadovy, a marine scientist who has made a special study of Hong Kong's seas, says there are several reasons the local fisheries are in such a bad state.

High demand for seafood in the crowded city and a lack of regulation fuelled overfishing which combined with pollution and loss of habitat to push fish populations "well beyond their capacity to regenerate themselves," she said.

The scale of the pollution can be gauged a short boat ride away from the harbour-side diners enjoying their seafood, where a few pale-pink backs can be seen breaking the surface of the grey-green sea of the Pearl River Delta.

These are Hong Kong's famed pink dolphins, but the most surprising thing about the beautiful creatures is not their colour -- it's the fact that they are alive at all.

Flush the toilet in any of the high-rise apartments or offices housing Hong Kong's population of seven million people and it will likely go almost directly into the "Fragrant Harbour" -- Hong Kong's name in Cantonese.

Add to that the chemical effluent oozing down the Pearl River from thousands of frantically busy factories in mainland China and you have a "horrendous cocktail," says Sadovy.

A keen diver, Sadovy says she has seen fish deformed by the pollutants in Hong Kong's waters, and points out that many of them -- such as the heavy metals -- will poison the seas for years to come.

Eco-tourism group Hong Kong Dolphinwatch says that 450,000 cubic metres of raw, semi-processed sewage is dumped into the harbour every day -- enough to fill 200 Olympic-size swimming pools.

The water quality is "disgusting," says guide Janet Walker as the Dolphinwatch boat carries a group of Japanese and Western tourists away from a jagged skyline of tower blocks and into the delta.

There, the traditional curves of sampans threading their way past gigantic cargo ships, high-speed ferries and lumbering barges offer a glimpse of a richer -- and cleaner -- fishing past.

"I certainly wouldn't eat anything from this water. There's not much fish left here but what there is will be seriously contaminated -- mercury levels are very high, cadmium, various other heavy metals...," Walker told AFP.

First-born dolphin offspring tend to have a high mortality rate because they receive about a decade's-worth of accumulated toxins through their mother's milk, she said.

The poisons settle in fatty tissues as the mothers grow to sexual maturity and the first-born get the full dose, while later offspring from the same female will have much higher survival rates.

But WWF's Moreno points out that pollution of the oceans is a worldwide menace: "Catch a bluefin tuna out in the middle of the ocean and it will contain mercury," he says.

So overfishing must take most of the blame for the pitiful state of Hong Kong's fisheries -- just as it does for the collapse of cod fisheries in Europe and Canada and the threat to popular species globally.

"You see these fabulous big fish, colourful fish, plenty of them, in the seafood restaurants," said Sadovy.

"But most of those fish, in fact almost all of the fish you see in those tanks come from overseas."

They come from around the world -- the Pacific Ocean, the Indian Ocean, Southeast Asia's coral reefs.

"In the end we could view Hong Kong as a very good example of the direction we cannot risk taking if we want to be sure to have wild seafood available to us in the future," Sadovy said.

Having told their tale, the fish in the tanks in the Hong Kong restaurants pose a question for ecologically aware diners: Is it no longer acceptable to eat fish?

Moreno and Sadovy, both passionate about their subject, say they don't eat shrimp because of the destructive methods used to catch it in the wild and shrimp farming's devastation of environmentally important mangroves on Southeast Asian shores.

But they do eat fish -- provided they are species that are caught or farmed in a sustainable way.

WWF's websites provide regional guides to dining with a clear conscience that can be downloaded and taken to the restaurant.

The Hong Kong government admitted in response to questions from AFP that its waters have been overfished and are badly polluted by sewage, and says it is working on plans to correct both problems.

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Activists Say Fish Deal Hostage To WTO Deadlock

Jonathan Lynn, PlanetArk 30 Oct 09;

GENEVA - Proposals to rescue collapsing fish stocks by restricting fisheries subsidies are under threat because of the lack of progress in global trade talks, environmental campaigners said on Thursday.

The talks on fisheries subsidies are part of the World Trade Organization's Doha round to reform global commerce rules, which is showing few signs of movement despite an intensive work program agreed by negotiators for the final months of 2009.

"We're very concerned," said Michael Hirshfield, chief scientist at Oceana, a U.S.-based group that campaigns to protect the world's oceans.

"We're in a sense hostage to the broader negotiation," he told Reuters while in Geneva to lobby trade negotiators whose talks this week have been focused on fisheries subsidies.

According to the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization, more than 80 percent of the world's fisheries are overexploited, fully exploited, depleted or recovering.

Oceana says that 63 percent of fish stocks worldwide require rebuilding, while more than 1 billion people depend on fish as a key source of protein.

OVERCAPACITY, OVERFISHING

A 2006 study by the University of British Colombia found that global fisheries subsidies amount to $30-34 billion a year.

Of that total, about $20 billion increases the capacity of fleets to fish longer, harder and further away.

The WTO fisheries negotiations aim to restrict such subsidies. But countries with large industrial fishing fleets -- such as China, Japan and South Korea -- are reluctant to cut their supports. Many developing nations with subsistence fishermen such as India and African states are also wary.

Hirshfield said it was important to distinguish between different types of fishing. Helping someone in an un-motorized craft fishing in coastal waters for himself or for sale locally by providing ice or docks would not add to overfishing.

But providing cheap fuel to industrial fleets to go around the world for fish as an economic commodity was more dangerous.

Geneva negotiators told Oceana the overall Doha talks would not move until the United States got more involved, he said.

"The question is whether it's sufficient for the United States to re-engage or whether other countries or other obstacles will magically appear once the U.S. is eliminated as an excuse," he said.

"We just think that it's critical for the WTO to include real reductions in global fishery subsides in any deal that is reached," he said.

Julie Packard, head of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, said growing consumer awareness of overfishing was leading food processors and retailers, like Wal-Mart Stores Inc and Aramark Inc, to commit to source food from sustainable fisheries.

Packard said it was not all bad news in the oceans and some stocks were recovering with the right treatment.

"The oceans are resilient. If we just lay off fishing for a while they're going to recover," she said.

(Editing by Erik Kirschbaum)

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Scientists 'back bluefin tuna trade ban'

Yahoo News 29 Oct 09;

MADRID (AFP) – Scientists who advise fisheries regulators support a ban on trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, a sushi staple, to protect the species from over-fishing, environmental groups WWF and Greenpeace said Thursday.

International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas scientists concluded that the species' "current spawning biomass is less than 15 percent of what it once was before fishing began, meaning Atlantic bluefin tuna meets the criteria for a CITES Appendix I listing," they said in a statement.

An Appendix I listing by CITES, the United Nations agency against illegal wildlife trade, would mean a total ban on international trade in bluefin tuna.

"Further the scientists' analyses confirmed that a suspension of commercial fishing is the only measure with a substantial chance of ensuring that the stock no longer meets the criteria for CITES Appendix I by 2019," the statement added.

Contacted by AFP, the ICCAT, whose headquarters is in Spain, was not immediately available to confirm the report.

ICCAT scientists met in Madrid last week to discuss their findings, which will be taken into account by national governments and environmental protection agencies to base their restrictions on capturing bluefin tuna.

Last week the European Union gave its provisional backing for a worldwide ban on bluefin tuna fishing, which would throw the huge market for Japanese sushi into turmoil.

Atlantic bluefin tuna are mainly caught from countries around the Mediterranean Sea, but most of the meat is consumed in Asia, particularly Japan.

Some 80 percent of Atlantic bluefin tuna fished out of the Mediterranean ends up in the Japanese market.

The next ICCAT meeting is scheduled for November in Recife in Brazil.

Tuna ban 'justified' by science
Richard Black, BBC News 29 Oct 09;

Banning trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna is justified by the extent of their decline, an analysis by scientists advising fisheries regulators suggests.

The International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tunas' (ICCAT) advisers said stocks are probably less than 15% of their original size.

The analysis has delighted conservation groups, which have warned that over-fishing risks the species' survival.

ICCAT meets to consider the report in 10 days' time.

The analysis was triggered by Monaco's recent proposal to ban international trade in the Atlantic bluefin under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) - a proposal that has gathered support from several other European countries.

"What's needed to save the stocks is a suspension of fishing activity and a suspension of international commercial trade," said Sergi Tudela, head of fisheries with the environmental group WWF for the Mediterranean region.

"We must stop mercilessly exploiting this fragile natural resource until stocks show clear signs of rebound and until sustainable management and control measures are firmly put in place."

The body charged with regulating catches of the southern bluefin, a closely related species, has just approved 20% quota cuts across the board.

Quota excesses

For a number of years, ICCAT has set quotas higher than scientists' recommendations.

The pressure this puts on stocks has been compounded by illegal fishing for this valuable species, which according to some estimates adds 30% to the official quota.

Last year, an independent report concluded that ICCAT's management of tuna was a "disgrace", blaming member countries for not accepting scientific advice and for turning a blind eye to their fleets' illegal activities.

The report recommended interim closure of the Mediterranean fishery, where most bluefin are caught - a measure that won backing from the US.

Frustrated by what it saw as ICCAT's inability to control the problem, Monaco's government - supported by conservation groups - submitted its CITES proposal.

The proposal will be heard at the CITES meeting in March. If enacted and enforced, it would severely hamper the trade.

Atlantic bluefin tuna are mainly caught from countries around the Mediterranean Sea, but most of the meat is consumed in Asia, particularly Japan.

Japan has previously argued that commercial fish species should be controlled by bodies like ICCAT rather than CITES.

"The right thing would be to impose a zero quota," said Sue Lieberman, director of international policy for the Pew Environment Group.

"It wouldn't be forever - stocks will recover, but not at current rates of catch."

ICCAT's scientific committee considered different ways of analysing the decline - whether to start from estimates of how many bluefin there were before industrial fishing began, or from the largest stocks reliably recorded, and according to different rates of reproduction.

They concluded that whichever way the data is cut, it is 96% likely that numbers in the east Atlantic and Mediterranean are now less than 15% of their pre-industrial-fishing size.

CITES guidance suggests this would trigger a trade ban for a slow-reproducing fish species.

For the western Atlantic stock, subject to much smaller catches, the figure is 93% likely.

At its forthcoming meeting in Brazil, ICCAT delegates will decide whether to place new restrictions on catches.

"ICCAT's track record isn't too good," commented Dr Lieberman, "but they could surprise us."

Usually, ICCAT makes reports such as this one publically available.

But because of its "controversial and politically-charged nature", the commission asked members to "consider refraining from distributing this report" before the Brazil meeting, and it is not clear if and when it will be posted on the organisation's website.

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Timeline: The secret history of swine flu

Debora MacKenzie and Michael Marshall, New Scientist 29 Oct 09;

Six months ago, swine flu emerged as a massive threat to global health. It seemed to come out of nowhere, but our timeline explains how the origins of the H1N1 pandemic go back more than a century
1889

Prior to 1889, the main flu virus circulating in humans has been from the H1 family. But this year, a new strain of H2 flu emerges in Russia and spreads around the world, killing about 1 million people. Afterwards, H2 replaces H1 in humans. Such replacements seem to be a regular feature of flu pandemics.

People born before 1889, who have been exposed to H1 flu, have some immunity to it. This affords them some protection in the deadly H1N1 epidemic of 1918. Those born after 1889 do not have any immunity to H1.
1918

The "Spanish flu" epidemic of 1918 kills at least 50 million people worldwide. It is caused by an H1N1 virus which evolves directly from a bird flu into a human flu.

After a mild wave of infections in the summer, the epidemic goes global: one-third of the population eventually get sick. Although most cases are mild, many sufferers develop a rapidly fatal infection deep in their lungs. People born before 1889 are less susceptible, thanks to their previous exposure to H1N1.

Most deaths are caused by bacterial lung infections that move in after the virus. Modern antibiotics might mean that a re-run of the 1918 pandemic would be less dangerous.

After 1919, the descendants of the H1N1 virus continue to circulate and cause seasonal flu outbreaks in humans – and pigs.
1931

Swine flu is first isolated from a pig in Iowa.
1933

The first human flu virus is isolated at Mill Hill in London. When given to ferrets, it produces a disease whose symptoms are all but identical to the Iowan pig virus. But ferrets that have had the human virus are not fully immune to the pig virus, showing that the two viruses have already started to evolve apart.
1957

An H2N2 virus causes the "Asian" flu pandemic, completely displacing the H1N1 viruses that have been circulating in humans since 1918. The pandemic is fairly mild, killing 1 to 1.5 million people worldwide.

The virus is produced by a reassortment, in which human-adapted H1N1 swaps genes with an H2N2 bird flu. The new H and N surface proteins mean most people do not have antibodies to the virus, allowing it to go pandemic. However, its human-adapted genes mean it is not as lethal to humans as the 1918 virus, which came, with few changes, from birds.

People tend to mount the best immune response to the first kind of flu virus they experience. Because of this, people born before 1957, whose first experience of flu would have been the H1N1 viruses then in circulation, have some immunity to the 2009 H1N1 strain causing the current pandemic. People born after the 1957 pandemic do not have this immunity.
1968

An H3N2 virus causes the "Hong Kong" flu pandemic, which is even milder than the Asian flu, killing an estimated 0.75 million to 1 million people worldwide.

The virus only differs from H2N2 in one of its surface proteins, the H; since many people still have antibodies to the unchanged N2 protein, its effects are less severe. But because H3N2 completely replaces H2N2 in people, no one born since 1968 has any immunity to H2.
1972

Researchers Graham Laver and Robert Webster discover that waterfowl are the natural hosts of influenza viruses. The birds harbour strains unknown in humans that could reassort with human strains and give rise to new human pandemics.
1976

An H1N1 virus jumps from pigs to humans and kills a US army recruit. However the virus does not spread beyond the army base and fizzles out without triggering a pandemic.

Nevertheless, fears of a replay of the 1918 pandemic lead to 48 million people being hastily vaccinated against the swine flu virus. The vaccine is associated with an unusual number of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome: 532 people get it, and 25 die.
1977

An H1N1 virus appears in north-east China and starts circulating in humans. It causes seasonal flu in every subsequent year. No one knows where it came from, though it looks like an H1N1 that circulated in the Soviet Union in 1950 and some suspect it escaped in a laboratory accident.

The virus causes a mild flu pandemic, which mainly affects people born after H1N1 flu disappeared in 1957. However, the real surprise is that it does not displace the previous, and more virulent, seasonal flu, H3N2. Instead, it continues circulating alongside it.

The antibodies people produce after being infected by this new seasonal H1N1 do not protect against 2009 H1N1. However, infections also trigger another reaction called cell-mediated immunity, in which certain white blood cells target and destroy infected cells. Tests of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic vaccine show that, unlike antibodies, cell-mediated immunity to seasonal H1N1 may help protect against the pandemic virus. This does not prevent disease altogether, but can reduce its severity
1998

The predecessor of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu virus emerges in the USMovie Camera. It is a hybrid of human, bird and swine flu viruses, and by 1999 it is the dominant flu strain in US pigs.

US pig farms try to control it with vaccines, but these attempts are largely ineffective because the virus evolves too rapidly, changing the surface proteins targeted by the vaccine while keeping its internal genes unchanged. The 2009 pandemic virus is a variant on this 1998 flu, and behaves the same way.
2004-2006

H5N1 flu, first identified as a threat to humans in Hong Kong in 1997, spreads from Asia around the world, apparently carried by wild birds. While this "bird flu" proves deadly to humans, killing more than half of its victims, it is kept in check by its inability to spread readily from human to human. H5N1 is also found in pigs in Indonesia, raising fears that it might reassort with other human flu viruses that pigs can harbour.

The threat posed by bird flu leads to the first real efforts to be made at pandemic planning: governments start to stockpile antiviral drugs, and the world's drug companies start doing serious research on pandemic vaccines. These plans are made with the highly lethal H5N1 in mind, meaning that they are not always appropriate for the 2009 pandemic.

2007-2008

Pandemic fears boost spending on flu research. European scientists start organising to track flu in wild birds, Vietnamese scientists find that antibodies from bird flu victims can cure other cases of the virus (a technique used in Hong Kong in 2009), the risk of dying of flu is found to be partly genetic, and it turns out that your mother was right to warn you about catching the flu when it's cold out.

However, Indonesia, where most H5N1 outbreaks are happening, refuses to share samples of the virus, arguing that it will not benefit in return from any vaccines developed as a result. This means scientists cannot monitor the virus's evolution.

But worries about H5N1 subside as it fails to become contagious in people – although virologists continue to warn that it is not the only threatening flu virus out there. Viruses from the H9, H7 and H2 families all give cause for concern.
March 2009

The first cases of a new type of swine flu are reported in California and Texas in late March. Subsequent genetic analysis suggests that it may have started circulating in humans in January.
April 2009

On 27 April, with 900 cases of suspected swine flu reported in Mexico, the World Health Organization (WHO) upgrades the pandemic warning level from 3 to 4 on a six-point scale. Intensive efforts to understand the virus and develop a vaccine begin immediately.

The US government advises against travel to Mexico, although research suggests that travel bans will not stop the virus spreading.
May 2009

Although swine flu seems to be spreading slowly, it is still progressing quickly enough to justify preparing for a pandemic. However, the WHO delays declaring a pandemic, partly because there is not enough evidence that the virus is spreading in the general population outside the Americas, where it originated.

New Scientist reveals that Europe is not testing people with flu symptoms unless they have recently travelled to an affected area in the Americas, or have had close contact with someone who did. As a result, Europe cannot detect spread in the general population. These restrictions may be making the pandemic "invisible" to the monitoring authorities.

As concerns mount, it transpires that many countries are poorly prepared for this scenario and that supplies of H1N1 vaccine cannot be prepared in time to catch the second wave.
June 2009

The UK and other countries change their rules and start testing people who have flu but no North American contacts. Cases of swine flu are soon detected.

On 11 June the WHO officially declares swine flu to be a pandemic. This is the signal for the vaccine industry to start making pandemic vaccine (paid for by governments), rather than conventional flu vaccine (paid for by ordinary health services).
July 2009

Treatment plans are shaken by the discovery of swine flu that is resistant to the antiviral drug Tamiflu and the realisation that the H1N1 vaccine is growing only half as fast as the ordinary flu vaccine.

The US decides to use its standard formulation for flu vaccine, so no new regulatory tests will be needed. This will allow it to authorise pandemic vaccine before September, when a renewed wave of the pandemic is expected. But this formulation uses a lot of virus, and so reduces the number of doses that can be made.

Researchers discover that the swine flu virus binds far deeper in the lungs than ordinary flu, possibly explaining why it is sometimes fatal. However, the majority of cases are still mild, and it appears that many of the people with severe cases have an underlying health problem – although some of these "problems" are no more remarkable than being overweight, pregnant or unborn.

In the southern hemisphere, where it is winter, swine flu apparently replaces the usual seasonal flu. This suggests that the pandemic virus will displace the two previous seasonal flu strains, as previous pandemics have done. However, after the experience of 1977, when this did not happen, scientists do not rule out the return of H3N2 after the autumn wave of swine flu.
August 2009

A New Scientist poll reveals widespread concern about swine flu among public health officials and epidemiologists, many of whom have obtained supplies of antiviral drugs for their own families.
September 2009

Four major vaccine manufacturers report that their swine flu vaccines work with only one shot. This is good news, given that vaccine is in short supply despite researchers' success in finding faster-growing strains. The vaccine's effectiveness suggests there must be pre-existing cell-mediated immunity, possibly because of similarities between the surface proteins on swine flu and the seasonal H1N1 flu that emerged in 1977.

As autumn arrives in the northern hemisphere, experts are on tenterhooks: a particular worry is that swine flu will hybridise with bird flu to create a readily contagious human flu armed with a lethal H5 surface protein. At time of writing, the virus had not become more severe, causing mild disease in most sufferers but making a small number – probably less than 1 per cent – extremely ill.
October 2009

Vaccination programmes begin in the US and Europe, but many healthcare workers are reluctant to have the vaccine, even though it is virtually identical to the seasonal vaccines used in previous years, which have a good safety record.

Production delays also continue to plague the deployment of vaccine. By 22 October, the US has only 27 million doses available, compared with the expected 45 million. Researchers show that this much vaccine will reduce the number of cases in the second wave by less than 6 per cent – but that is still enough to save 2000 lives.

Six months after swine flu first shot to world attention, US President Barack Obama declares the virus a national emergency.

Read more: Swine flu: The pandemic of 2009

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Multiyear Arctic Ice Is Effectively Gone: Expert

David Ljunggren, PlanetArk 30 Oct 09;

OTTAWA - The multiyear ice covering the Arctic Ocean has effectively vanished, a startling development that will make it easier to open up polar shipping routes, an Arctic expert said on Thursday.

Vast sheets of impenetrable multiyear ice, which can reach up to 80 meters (260 feet) thick, have for centuries blocked the path of ships seeking a quick short cut through the fabled Northwest Passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. They also ruled out the idea of sailing across the top of the world.

But David Barber, Canada's Research Chair in Arctic System Science at the University of Manitoba, said the ice was melting at an extraordinarily fast rate.

"We are almost out of multiyear sea ice in the northern hemisphere," he said in a presentation in Parliament. The little that remains is jammed up against Canada's Arctic archipelago, far from potential shipping routes.

Scientists link higher Arctic temperatures and melting sea ice to the greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming.

Barber spoke shortly after returning from an expedition that sought -- and largely failed to find -- a huge multiyear ice pack that should have been in the Beaufort Sea off the Canadian coastal town of Tuktoyaktuk.

Instead, his ice breaker found hundreds of miles of what he called "rotten ice" -- 50-cm (20-inch) thin layers of fresh ice covering small chunks of older ice.

"I've never seen anything like this in my 30 years of working in the high Arctic ... it was very dramatic," he said.

"From a practical perspective, if you want to ship across the pole, you're concerned about multiyear sea ice. You're not concerned about this rotten stuff we were doing 13 knots through. It's easy to navigate through."

Scientists have fretted for decades about the pace at which the Arctic ice sheets are shrinking. U.S. data shows the 2009 ice cover was the third-lowest on record, after 2007 and 2008.

An increasing number of experts feel the North Pole will be ice free in summer by 2030 at the latest, for the first time in a million years.

"I would argue that, from a practical perspective, we almost have a seasonally ice-free Arctic now, because multiyear sea ice is the barrier to the use and development of the Arctic," said Barber.

Fresh first-year ice always forms in the Arctic in the winter, when temperatures plunge far below freezing and the North Pole is not exposed to the sun.

Shipping companies are already looking to benefit from warming waters. This year two German cargo ships successfully navigated from South Korea along Russia's northern Siberia coast without the help of icebreakers.

The Arctic is warming up three times more quickly than the rest of the Earth, in part because of the reflectivity, or the albedo feedback effect, of ice.

As more and more ice melts, larger expanses of darker sea water are exposed. These absorb more sunlight than the ice and cause the water to heat up more quickly, thereby melting more ice.

Barber said the ice was now being melted both by rays from the sun as well as from below by the warmer water.

Scientists are also seeing more cyclones, which pick up force as they absorb heat from the warmer water. The cyclones help generate waves that break up ice sheets and also dump large amounts of snow, which has an insulating effect and prevents the ice sheets from thickening.

After a long search, Barber's ice breaker finally found a 16-km (10-mile) wide floe of multiyear ice that was around 6 to 8 meters (20-26 feet) thick. But as the crew watched, the floe was hit by a series of waves, and disintegrated in five minutes.

"The Arctic is an early indicator of what we can expect at the global scale as we move through the next few decades ... So we should be paying attention to this very carefully," Barber said.

(Editing by Rob Wilson)

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U.N. Needs More Muscle In Environment Fight: Study

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 30 Oct 09;

OSLO - The United Nations needs to beef up and better coordinate efforts to help fight threats such as climate change, deforestation or over-fishing, two experts said on Thursday.

The world's system of green agencies and treaties is "bewildering" and while the international body's efforts are considerable they are diffused by having many organizations overseeing one aspect or another, the experts said.

"There is an urgent need for an environmental organization within the U.N. system with the influence to realize change and to stand side by side with strong organizations such as the World Trade Organization and World Health Organization," Italy's Stefania Prestigiacomo and Kenya's John Michuki said.

They are the environment ministers of Italy and Kenya, respectively, and co-chairs of a group considering U.N. environmental reform.

"Global environmental crises, from vanishing biodiversity and degrading forests to collapsing fish stocks and climate change, will not be solved without some tough thinking about international governance," they wrote in an opinion article.

They did not propose any specific agency for the role, but in the U.N. system, the Nairobi-based U.N. Environment Program is now the main authority, although its budget is low by U.N. standards at about $200 million a year.

Efforts to combat global warming, meanwhile, are overseen by the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat in Bonn. Among others, the secretariat for safeguarding biological diversity is based in Montreal and another for wildlife trade is in Geneva.

CUT COSTS

"A recent independent study has estimated the costs of separate secretariats are four times more compared to organizations that have all their related treaties under one roof," the ministers wrote. UNEP gave the article to Reuters.

Prestigiacomo and Michuki's group is meeting in Rome this week to review options. They are due to report back to UNEP in early 2010.

In September, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Nicolas Sarkozy also wrote a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon urging an overhaul in the wake of a U.N. climate conference in Denmark in December.

"We must make use of the momentum provided by Copenhagen to make further progress toward the creation of a World Environmental Organization," they wrote. The December 7-18 meeting is meant to agree a new U.N. pact to fight global warming.

Some past reform efforts have floundered, partly because some fear that overhauling the system could distract from action to address environmental problems.

In 2007, former French President Jacques Chirac won support from 49 nations for a new U.N. environment organization. But the United States, China and Russia did not sign up.

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Canada sets aside its boreal forest as giant carbon vault

By banning logging, mining and oil drilling in an area twice the size of California, Canada is ensuring its boreal forests continue to soak up carbon
Suzanne Goldenberg, guardian.co.uk 29 Oct 09;

In the far north latitudes, buried within a seemingly endless expanse of evergreen forests, the authorities in Canada are building up one of the world's best natural defences against global warming.

In a series of initiatives, Canadian provincial governments and aboriginal leaders have set aside vast tracts of coniferous woods, wetlands, and peat. The conservation drive bans logging, mining, and oil drilling on some 250m acres – an area more than twice the size of California.

The sheer scale of the forest conservation drive is somewhat of an anomaly for Canada, whose government has been accused of sabotaging the global climate change talks by its development of the Alberta tar sands and its refusal to make deep cuts in its greenhouse gas emissions.

Last week, a former adviser to Barack Obama urged Canada to do more to keep up with America's moves towards a cleaner energy economy.

In the latest addition to the carbon storehouse, the provincial premier of Manitoba, Gary Doer, this month announced a $10m (£5.6m) Canadian fund to protect a 10.8m acre expanse of boreal or evergreen forest. It was one of Doer's last acts as premier; he took over as Canada's ambassador to Washington this month.

The $10m will go towards efforts by indigenous leaders to designate boreal forest lands in eastern Manitoba as a Unesco world heritage site. The Pimachiowin Aki world heritage project, which straddles the Manitoba-Ontario border, extends efforts by Canadian provincial leaders to protect the wide swaths of pristine forests in the north. It also ensures the survival of one of the best natural defences against global warming after the world's oceans, environmentalists say.

A report by the International Boreal Conservation Campaign said the forests, with their rich mix of trees, wetlands, peat and tundra, were a far bigger carbon store than scientists had realised, soaking up 22% of the total carbon stored on the earth's land surface.

"If you look across Canada one of [the boreal forest's] great values to us globally is its carbon storage value," said Steve Kallick, director of the Pew Environment Group's International Boreal Conservation Campaign. "There is so much carbon sequestered in it already that if it escaped it would pose a whole new, very grave threat."

Canada's cold temperatures slow decomposition, allowing the build-up of organic soil and peat. The forest floors beneath its evergreens hold twice as much carbon per acre as tropical forests, such as the Amazon.

It is unclear how long Canada's forests can continue to serve as carbon vaults. "As the climate warms, the place is going to dry up. There will be a problem with insect infestation. There is going to be increased natural carbon release due to fire or wetlands drying up," said Sue Libenson, a spokeswoman for the International Boreal Conservation Campaign.

But she added: "The general premise is that there is still a hell of a lot of carbon in there." Its release would be a climate catastrophe.

Canada's 1.3bn acres of boreal forest store the equivalent of 27 years' worth of current global greenhouse gas emissions, a Greenpeace study found. The destruction of those forests, scientists warn, would be like setting off a massive "carbon bomb" because of the sudden release of emissions.

That threat appears to have concentrated the official mindset in Canada, which otherwise has a poor record on action on climate change. On a per capita basis, the country is one of the worst polluters on the planet, producing about 2% of the world's emissions even though it has just 33m people. It holds one of the worst track records among industrialised states for living up to its commitment under the Kyoto accords. By 2007, greenhouse gas emissions were 34% above the target Canada agreed at Kyoto.

Canada's prime minister, Stephen Harper, is resisting doing much more, committing to just a 6% cut over 1990 levels of greenhouse gas emissions by 2020. "I see Harper's policy as a continuation of the Bush agenda," said David Martin, climate director for Greenpeace Canada.

A key advisor to Obama made a similar point last week, comparing Canada's current climate change policy to the inaction in America under George Bush. "The Canadians would be well served by keeping up with what's going on in the United States with respect to this push towards clean technology," John Podesta, who oversaw Obama's transition team, told a conference in Ottawa.

Environmentalists also fear that Harper intends to exclude the Alberta tar sands – the heavy crude deposits that have fuelled the rise in emissions – from any future greenhouse gas emissions regime.

But the Harper government did relent on forest protection, working with the Sahtu and Deh Cho First Nations to set aside 40m acres in the Northwest Territories.

Canadian provincial leaders have moved even more aggressively in recent years, with Ontario committed to protecting 55m acres, or about half of its forest, and Quebec committed to protecting 150m acres. "Canada is torn between wanting to promote the tar sands and make money off it now, and wanting to live up to its promises under the Kyoto accord. But as far as protecting carbon rich ecosystems, particularly the boreal forest, Canada is a world leader," said Kallick.

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