Rare bird's breeding ground found in Afghanistan

Michael Casey, Associated Press Yahoo News 18 Jan 10;

BANGKOK – The first known breeding area of one of the world's rarest birds has been found in the remote and rugged Pamir Mountains in war-torn Afghanistan, a New York-based conservation group said Monday.

A researcher with the Wildlife Conservation Society stumbled upon the small, olive-brown large-billed reed warbler in 2008 and taped its distinctive song — a recording experts now say is probably the first ever. He and colleagues later caught and released 20 of the birds, the largest number ever recorded, the group says.

At the time, however, Robert Timmins, who conducting a survey of aviary communities along the Wakhan and Pamir rivers, thought he was observing a more common warbler species.

But after a visit to a Natural History Museum in Tring in England to examine bird skins, Timmins realized he had something else on his hands.

Lars Svensson, a Swedish expert on the family of reed warblers and familiar with their songs, was the first to suggest that Timmins' tape was likely the first recording of the large-billed reed warbler.

"Practically nothing is known about this species, so this discovery of the breeding area represents a flood of new information on the large-billed reed warbler," said Colin Poole, executive director of group's Asia Program. "This new knowledge of the bird also indicates that the Wakhan Corridor still holds biological secrets and is critically important for future conservation efforts in Afghanistan."

Researchers returned to the site of Timmins' first survey in 2009, armed with mist nets used to catch birds for examination. The research team broadcast the recording of the song, which brought in large-billed reed warblers from all directions, allowing the team to catch 20 of them for examination and to collect feathers for DNA.

Lab work comparing museum specimens with measurements, field images, and DNA confirmed the find: the first-known breeding population of large-billed reed warblers.

"This is great news from a little-known species from a remote part of the world and suggests that there may be more discoveries to be made here," said Mike Evans, an expert on birds in the region for BirdLife. He did not take part in the discovery.

Researchers are hoping the discovery sheds light on the bird, which U.K-based Birdlife International in 2007 called one of the world's rarest. The first specimen was discovered in India in 1867, with more than a century elapsing before a single bird was found in Thailand in 2006.

But the announcement of the discovery of a home to the large-billed reed warbler came the same day Taliban militants launched an assault the Afghan capital, underscoring the challenges of doing conservation work in the country.

The bird was discovered in the Pamir Mountains, a sparsely populated region near China that has been relatively peaceful. It is, however, difficult to access — part of the reason the breeding site is only now being discovered.

WCS is the only conservation group doing scientific studies in Afghanistan. It has been involved in helping set up the first national park, Band-e-Amir, in central Afghanistan as well as working with the government to create the first-ever list of protected species.

A preliminary paper on the finding appears in the most recent edition of BirdingASIA, the magazine of the Oriental Bird Club.

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Haiti's Environment Needs Long-Term Help: Experts

Alister Doyle, PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

OSLO - Long-term efforts to help Haiti recover from the earthquake will have to reverse environmental damage such as near-total deforestation that threatens food and water supplies for the Caribbean nation, experts say.

The focus is now on emergency aid -- Haitian officials estimate that between 100,000 and 200,000 people died in the January 12 quake. But President Rene Preval urged donors on Monday also to remember the country's long-term needs.

Experts say deforestation in Haiti stretching back to the Duvalier dictatorships -- leaving the nation with less than 2 percent forest cover -- contributes to erosion that undermines food output by the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.

"We need to work...to create mechanisms that reinforce better use of natural resources," said Asif Zaidi, Operations Manager of the post-conflict and disaster management branch of the U.N. Environment Programme (UNEP).

Before the quake, UNEP had decided on a two-year project from 2010 to bolster Haiti's environment, from forests to coral reefs, spokesman Nick Nuttall said.

Among quick measures for donors could be to provide propane to encourage a shift from charcoal-burning stoves. That could be backed in the longer-term by reforestation and investments in renewable energies such as solar or wind power, Zaidi said.

"If you have forest cover, when heavy rain takes place it doesn't erode the land. It doesn't result in flash floods," he said. Hurricanes are more damaging in Haiti than in neighboring Dominican Republic, largely because of Haiti's lack of forests.

LAND RIGHTS

Another big problem is that Haiti has failed to develop strong governance, such as clear laws on land rights, after misrule under dictatorship from 1957 to 1986 by Francois "Papa Doc" Duvalier and his son, Jean-Claude "Baby Doc."

"It is crucial that the priority of boosting agricultural production in the country is not forgotten in the rubble and chaos," the U.N.'s Food and Agricultural Organization said in a statement. Most Haitians live in rural areas.

British-based risk consultancy Maplecroft lists Haiti as number two of 166 nations by their vulnerability to climate change, behind only Somalia and ahead of Afghanistan and Sierra Leone.

"What stands out most for Haiti is resource security -- food security and water security," said Fiona Place, risk analyst at Maplecroft of the ranking that rates countries according to their vulnerability to natural hazards, from droughts to floods.

Years of weak government were also a shortcoming.

Donors have long sought to help Haiti. But a project to plant trees worldwide, for instance, has largely bypassed Haiti.

A U.N.-backed campaign registers 7.8 billion planted trees -- more than one for every person on the planet. But it lists just 140,000 in Haiti which has a population of 10 million.

And Haiti, like many poor nations, has missed out on projects for promoting carbon-cutting technologies in developing nations that have channeled big investments to China and India as part of the fight against global warming.

(Editing by Charles Dick)

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When our economic interests are at stake, the war on nature resumes

All this badger cull will prove is that our relations with the natural world have scarcely altered since the dark ages
George Monbiot, guardian.co.uk 18 Jan 10;

There's a story that almost all of us believe: that beyond a certain state of development, we relearn a respect for nature. It is true that some of the excesses of the early modern age – attempts by gamekeepers to kill all competing species, mass slaughter by white hunters in the colonies, the grubbing up of hedgerows and ancient woodlands – have lessened, though we still eat endangered fish and buy timber from clear-cut rainforest. It is also true that we give more money to conservation projects and spend more time watching wildlife films than we have ever done before. But as soon as we perceive that our economic interests are threatened, our war against nature resumes.

2010 is the International Year of ­Biodiversity. The Welsh assembly is celebrating the occasion by launching a project to exterminate the badger.

I won't pretend that this story ranks alongside the catastrophe in Haiti or the meltdown in Afghanistan, but it casts an interesting light on humanity's continuing impulse to conquer nature, and shows how, even when cloaked in the language of science, our relations with the natural world are still governed by irrationality and superstition.

Last week the Welsh rural affairs minister, Elin Jones, announced what her government calls "a proactive non-selective badger cull" in west Wales. What this means is the elimination of the species, beginning when the cubs emerge from their burrows in May. Badgers carry the bacterium which causes bovine tuberculosis. The purpose of the experiment is to discover whether the number of cows with the disease is reduced when the badger is exterminated. It it works, the method might be applied elsewhere. But even before the experiment begins, I can tell you that it's a waste of time and money.

In 2007, after nine years of research, the Independent Scientific Group on Cattle TB sent its final report to the UK government. It discovered that "badger culling cannot meaningfully contribute to the future control of cattle TB in Britain". Rather than suppressing the disease, killing badgers appears to spread it.

The researchers had killed badgers across 30 areas, each of 100 square kilometres. They found that when the badgers were culled in response to local outbreaks of TB, the slaughter "increased, rather than reduced" the incidence of the disease in cattle: the level of infection rose by some 20%. When badgers were killed proactively (culled annually, regardless of whether cattle were infected), the incidence of TB inside the killing zone was reduced by 23% – but the incidence outside increased by 25%. The reason is that the killing changes the behaviour of the badgers: they travel more and mix more, either to escape the slaughter or to investigate the ecological space it opens up. The economic costs of proactive culling, the study found, were 40 times greater than the benefits.

But the old reflex dies hard. As the scientific group pointed out, "agricultural and veterinary leaders continue to believe, in spite of overwhelming ­scientific evidence to the contrary, that the main approach to cattle TB control must involve some form of badger population control". It noted "considerable reluctance to accept and embrace ­scientific findings". The Welsh government shares this reluctance. In announcing her extermination policy last week, Elin Jones claimed that the cull would be conducted according to "the requirements outlined by the ­Independent Scientific Group". But the ISG couldn't have made itself clearer: badger culling of any kind won't work. Instead, governments should do more to control the way that cattle are kept, tested and moved. This was a message that farmers and the Welsh government didn't want to hear.

The policy Elin Jones announced last week is even worse than this suggests. Her culling experiment is actually testing two variables: exterminating badgers and better management of cattle. Yet there are no experimental controls (study areas in which one or both methods are not being tried), so there is no means of telling which of the two measures is working, or whether changes in the incidence of the disease have anything to do with the experiment. There's a scientific term for a study that simultaneously tests two variables while using no controls: worthless. The Welsh experiment has nothing to do with science and everything to do with appeasing farmers.

The Farmers' Union of Wales has been furiously demanding that time and money should be wasted in this fashion. It has lobbied the assembly government for a scheme that will damage its members' interests and alienate the people who buy their milk and butter and cheese. It appears to be impervious to evidence or reason: last week it announced that "badger culling works. Any talk about farming practices being a significant factor are unfounded."

But even if extermination did work, the effect could be sustained only by killing any badgers that re-entered the area: in other words, rendering the species extinct there. Were the same approach to be rolled out across a wider area (the policy the experiment is designed to test), the badger would have to become extinct not only across that zone, but also in all neighbouring zones. Because badgers will move into areas from which the species has been erased, the only logical outcome of this approach is to exterminate the badger throughout the United Kingdom. As this is politically unacceptable, the Welsh experiment is pointless as well as worthless.

This exercise in wilful stupidity betrays an ­approach to the natural world that has scarcely altered since the dark ages. We still act as if we have been granted dominion over it. Those with an economic interest seem to ­regard any species that might compete or conflict with them as a threat not only to their income but also to their power. They still treat the natural world as ­fungible: nothing is too precious, too great a source of wonder and delight to liquidate. There appears to be no point of regret beyond which we won't ­venture, no lesson in ecological collapse that we are prepared to learn. The ­Christian worldview, which places humankind at the apex of creation, is hard to shake, even in the most secular nation on earth.

All industries strive not only towards monopoly but also towards mono­culture: domination of the natural or cultural landscape. This is what George Orwell meant when he remarked that "the logical end of mechanical progress is to reduce the human being to ­something resembling a brain in a bottle". Industry, if left unchecked, tolerates no deviance. It seeks to shrink both the range of human experience and the wonders of the natural world until they fit into the container it has made for them.

We could lose badgers and – except for those of us who spend summer evenings watching them as they shuffle out of their setts – suffer few tangible losses. But the urge to destroy them springs from the same pathological instinct for power which would deprive us of almost everything.

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Fight to save one of the rarest plant species in the world

Simon Hancock, BBC News 19 Jan 10;

A botanist from Kew Gardens is fighting to save one of the rarest plant species in the world, the Bastard Gumwood tree.

The last tree of this species is found on the tiny South Atlantic island of St Helena, and it is dying.

To keep the Bastard Gumwood in existence, it needs to be pollinated so it will produce a fertile seed from which to grow new seedlings. Obtaining a pure seed from the tree is no easy task.

The tree ( Commidendrum rotundifolium ) is enclosed in netting to prevent insects cross-pollinating with its near neighbour, the False Gumwood.



But even then because there are no other individuals in existence, the tree must self-pollinate, which it stubbornly resists.

And so it needs some help.

Every day, botanist Phil Lambdon visits the site along with local conservationists. The team delicately uses small paint brushes to collect pollen grains, which they spread from one flower to another.

But the odds are still against the Bastard Gumwood.

"The tree just doesn't want to pollinate itself," said Dr Lambdon, the botanist visiting from Kew Gardens who is in charge of the effort.

"Only around 1 in 10,000 pollen grains have the small genetic mutation which will allow self-pollination to take place.

"It's like a needle in a haystack. The work is painstaking and very slow."

The only way of knowing whether the seeds produced are fertile is to plant them.

"99.99% will be infertile and not grow, but it's the only way of finding out," said Dr Lambdon.

"It's not called the Bastard Gumwood because of this, incidentally," he added.

In fact there are a number of species beginning with the word on the island - the Bastard Cabbage tree, the Bastard Bell flower and the Small Bastard Cabbage tree.

They were named in by botanist John Burchell who was on St Helena between 1806 and1810.

Some think he may have been simply reporting the names given to the species by the locals.

Whatever the truth behind the tree's name, the island hopes these efforts will be more successful than with the St Helena Olive, which was also only found here, but which died out in 2003.

"Many of the tourists who come to the island want to see the island's unique wildlife. Another extinction would be very bad publicity," said St Helena National Trust Director Jamie Roberts.

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WWF says China's wild tigers face extinction

Yahoo News 19 Jan 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – The World Wildlife Fund warned on Tuesday that the wild tiger faced extinction in China after having been decimated by poaching and the destruction of its natural habitat.

"If there are no urgent measures taken, there is a high risk that the wild tiger will go extinct," Zhu Chunquan, conservation director of biodiversity at WWF China, said ahead of the start of the Year of the Tiger on February 14.

Zhu said that China's State Forestry Administration (SFA) estimated there were only around 50 tigers left in the nation's wilderness.

"Globally, WWF estimates that if poaching and other threats continue, there are around 30 years left until tigers go extinct," he told AFP.

Loss and degradation of the tigers' habitat in China and poaching of the animals as well as their prey -- or source of food -- were behind the rapid disappearance of the animal, he added.

The SFA says around 20 Siberian tigers remain in China's northeast, 20 Bengal tigers in Tibet, and 10 Indochinese tigers in the southwest of the nation.

"As for the South China tiger, after the late 1970s, there has been no concrete evidence to show that there are any left," Zhu said.

In the 1950, about 4,000 of the South China variety roamed China, he said.

The WWF says on its website that the tiger is one of the top 10 species to watch in 2010, pointing out that there may be just 3,200 of the animals left globally in the wild.

China banned international trade in tiger bones and related products in 1993, Zhu said, but preventing all poaching and illegal trade remains a challenge.

Authorities in the Asian nation have in the past meted out heavy punishment to those found guilty of killing the endangered species.

In December, a man who shot dead an Indochinese tiger was sentenced to 12 years in prison and fined 580,000 yuan (85,000 dollars).

Zhu urged the Chinese government to raise awareness of the issue, by pushing people not to hunt the tiger's typical prey, which include wild boar and deer.

He added that local communities should be encouraged to find alternatives to livelihoods such as timber harvesting, as these activities contributed to the degradation and loss of the tiger's habitat.

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Giant, leaping Asian carp threaten US Great Lakes

Mira Oberman Yahoo News 20 Jan 10;

CHICAGO (AFP) – Huge Asian carp, which act like "aquatic vacuum cleaners" and leap into the air when spooked by motorboats, may have invaded the US Great Lakes despite a massive effort to block them, officials said Tuesday.

Researchers analyzing water samples have discovered fragments of Asian carp DNA in Lake Michigan, although there is still no evidence that that fast-breeding fish have breached electric barriers set up along Chicago-area waterways.

"Clearly this is not good news," said Major General John Peabody, commanding general of the US Army Corps of Engineers' Great Lakes and Ohio River division.

The Corps is one of a host of state and federal agencies working to stop the spread of the voracious carp which can grow up to seven feet long (2.1 meters) and weigh 150 pounds (68 kilos).

Federal officials have warned that Asian carp - which have no natural predators - could have a "devastating effect on the Great Lakes ecosystem and a significant economic impact" on the seven-billion-dollar sport and commercial fishing industry.

"From what we have seen in other parts of the country, Asian carp could out-compete our native, sport and commercial fish in southern Lake Michigan," Charlie Wooley, deputy regional director of the US Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS), said in a statement.

"We call them an aquatic vacuum cleaner because they filter important food resources out of the water and turn it into carp biomass."

It's possible that the DNA discovered in two different samples could come from a decomposed carp which was carried through the electric barriers, officials said.

Or it could come from eggs that were transported on the belly of a bird. Another possibility is that flooding may have allowed the carp may to swim around the barriers.

"The short answer is we just don't know," said FWS spokeswoman Ashley Spratt.

"We have not actually seen live carp above the barrier," she told AFP. "The information we currently have does not suggest they're there in sustainable populations."

Teams will set out on boats as soon as weather allows to search the lake for signs of live carp, and the regional coordinating committee will accelerate its efforts to block their spread, she said.

Officials are considering a number of options including another mass kill through poisoning, sterilizing males to slow breeding, building new electrical barriers and researching other "biological controls."

The test results were released hours after the fight to block the carp was dealt a blow by the US Supreme Court, which refused to force the closure of the Chicago shipping canal system as an emergency measure to stop the invasion.

"The motion of Michigan for preliminary injunction is denied," the Supreme Court wrote in a single line ruling.

Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox called upon President Barack Obama to use his executive powers to close the locks and said he hoped the Supreme Court would consider the issue more carefully in another pending case.

"I am extremely disappointed the Supreme Court did not push the pause button on this crisis until an effective plan is in place," Cox said in a statement.

"While the injunction would have been an extraordinary step by the court, Michigan and the other Great Lakes states are facing an extraordinary crisis that could forever alter the lakes, permanently killing thousands of jobs at a time when families can least afford it.

Asian carp were originally imported to the southern United States in the 1970s to help keep retention ponds clean at fish farms and waste water treatment plants.

Heavy flooding helped them escape into the Mississippi in the 1990's and they have since migrated into the Missouri and Illinois rivers.

Should they make it into Lake Michigan in large numbers it would be extremely difficult to stop their spread throughout the five interconnected Great Lakes and up into the St. Lawrence Seaway.

Michigan Locks Bid Denied In Great Lakes Carp Case
James Vicini and Andrew Stern, PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

WASHINGTON/CHICAGO - The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday rejected a request by the state of Michigan for an injunction to force the closing of two Chicago-area waterway locks to keep Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

The voracious Bighead and Silver carp are considered a dire threat to the lakes' $7 billion fisheries.

Michigan last month took the unusual step of asking the high court for an order that would close the two locks and would require authorities to take all other action necessary to keep the carp from entering the lakes.

Michigan asked that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the state of Illinois and Chicago's sewer authority take more steps to block the carp during flooding and ultimately to separate the Great Lakes from the Mississippi River watershed.

The invasive carp may have already reached Lake Michigan, with authorities saying on Tuesday that water samples recently taken in an Indiana harbor contained carp DNA.

However, sampling for environmental DNA is a new technique and authorities are seeking proof that actual Asian carp are swimming in the lake.

"We would like the confirmation of a physical specimen," said Major General John Peabody of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. Netting and electro-fishing are being conducted.

Closing a lock and dam and the other measures could help keep the carp from entering the lakes, but it also court hurt shippers, who transport 15 million tons of commodities through the connecting waterways each year.

Nearby Midwestern states such as Minnesota and Ohio supported Michigan's request while Illinois and the federal government opposed it.

U.S. Solicitor General Elena Kagan told the court that Michigan failed to show likely irreparable harm, that the state cannot prevail on the merits of its theory and Michigan cannot justify the mandatory relief it demands.

If the Army Corps makes a final decision to reject the steps Michigan wants, then the state can ask a federal judge to decide if the agency acted lawfully, Kagan said.

While the court denied the preliminary injunction, it took no action on Michigan's separate request to reopen cases dating back to the 1920s that control how much water Chicago can withdraw from Lake Michigan. Environmentalists said they remained optimistic the court would act on the other request.

A huge engineering project a century ago reversed the direction of the Chicago River and diverts lake water into a canal that connects Lake Michigan to the Mississippi River watershed. The goal was to stop sewage releases into the lake.

Kagan said Michigan was trying to use old cases about water flows and allotments to litigate an entirely different environmental protection issue involving the carp.

After the court denied the injunction, the governors of Michigan and Wisconsin sent a letter to the White House asking the administration to set up a meeting of governors from Great Lakes states to discuss the Asian carp threat.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Whale row prompts Japan-Australia defence rethink

Yahoo News 19 Jan 10;

TOKYO (AFP) – Japanese ruling party lawmakers have questioned a plan to sign a defence logistics accord with Australia as the two countries are at loggerheads over Japan's annual whale hunts, an official said Tuesday.

The move comes as anti-whaling activists of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society have been harassing a Japanese whaling fleet on its annual hunt for hundreds of the sea mammals in Antarctic waters.

Australia opposes the hunts, carried out despite a 1986 international moratorium on commercial whaling under a loophole that allows "lethal research" whaling, and has threatened international legal action against Japan.

Japan's government is considering submitting a bill to parliament on a defence pact that would allow the two countries' militaries to share food, fuel and other supplies and services in their operations overseas.

But some lawmakers of the ruling centre-left coalition called on the government to "cautiously" handle the accord when the vice defence minister, Kazuya Shimba, explained the bill to them, a defence ministry spokeswoman said.

The lawmakers argued that signing a so-called Acquisition and Cross-servicing Agreement should be reconsidered in light of the recent harassment of Japan's whaling fleet.

"According to our vice minister, one of the lawmakers said he wants the government to insist on Japan's current position," defending its right to hunt whales as part of its national heritage, the ministry spokeswoman said.

The vice minister had replied to the group of lawmakers that, although any two countries face their own particular bilateral issues, it was important "to maintain military relations of trust," she told AFP.

In the latest showdown between Japanese whalers and the activists, the environmentalists' high-tech superboat, the New Zealand-registered Ady Gil, sank in Antarctic seas in early January after a collision with the whaling fleet's security ship.

New Zealand and Australian authorities are investigating the incident, while Japan has lodged a strong protest with the Wellington government.

Both the whalers and the protesters blame each other for the crash.

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Putin under fire over world's deepest fresh water lake

Alissa De Carbonnel Yahoo News 19 Jan 10;

MOSCOW (AFP) – Environmentalists on Tuesday condemned Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin for allowing a controversial paper plant on Siberia's pristine Lake Baikal to reopen, calling it a "crime."

Putin's decree, signed on January 13 but made public on Monday, reverses an earlier ban on the production of cellulose paper and storage of waste around Lake Baikal, the world's deepest freshwater lake.

It is expected to allow operations to restart at the Baikal paper plant, owned by Russian billionaire Oleg Deripaska, which has been closed since October 2008.

"This decree is a crime because to protect the interests of one particular oligarch, Putin is casting aside Russia's entire net of ecological laws," Roman Vazhenkov, head of Greenpeace's Lake Baikal campaign, told AFP.

"To allow chemical wastes to be dumped there: What else can you call it but a crime?" he added.

Lake Baikal, which is on UNESCO's World Heritage list, contains 20 percent of the world's fresh water supply and has been hailed as the "Galapagos of Russia" for its endemic flora and fauna.

Generations of environmental activists have fought to shut the Soviet-era paper mill, founded in 1966, which they say endangers Baikal's fragile ecosystem by spewing waste into the lake.

But the plant is also an economic boon to the region, and 16,000 employees were cut loose when it was forced to shut in October 2008, driven bankrupt by fines for polluting and difficulties amid the global economic crisis.

Activists had worried the aged plant would be reopened in August when Putin, in a surprise stunt, plumbed the lake's depths aboard a mini-submarine and emerged to declare it "ecologically clean."

Putin's decree is a "mistake" for economic as well as ecological reasons, said Igor Chestin, head of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Russia.

Though long the largest employer in the thickly forested region, the paper mill has now become less crucial and ecotourism has developed as a competing source of jobs, Chestin said.

"In the year and three months since the factory closed the situation has changed. People have already begun to find work in other spheres, specifically in tourism and hospitality," Chestin told AFP.

"This is a mistake not only because it relaxes the law but because it allows for the comeback of a manufacturer whose importance is waning."

Both Chestin and Vazhenov vowed to appeal to UNESCO to add Lake Baikal to its list of World Heritage site in danger.

"This not on some secret site but Lake Baikal -- a UNESCO site and a place the whole country should be proud of," Vazhenkov added. "This will be a huge blow to Russia's prestige."

The Russian government has taken numerous measures to shore up its struggling Soviet-era industry and halt mass job losses, amid fears that social unrest could spread in economically hard-hit regions.

Metals tycoon Deripaska had been Russia's richest man before the financial crisis but saw his fortune decimated by the slowdown.

Federal regulators in 2001 required the Baikal paper factory to install a closed-water system to mitigate waste leakage into the lake, but the huge cost of the requirements led to the plant's financial insolvency.

Activists said it was unclear whether the new decree would allow the plant to function without the closed-water system.

Putin Allows Lake Baikal Paper Mill To Reopen
Guy Faulconbridge, PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has decreed that a paper mill on the shores of Siberia's Lake Baikal can restart production despite years of complaints about pollution of the world's largest freshwater lake.

Putin, in a decree published on the government's website, allowed the plant to resume making pulp, paper and cardboard in the area surrounding the lake, about 5,000 km (3,100 miles) east of Moscow.

Controlled by indebted Russian tycoon Oleg Deripaska, the Soviet-era plant on the southern tip of Baikal was mothballed in 2008 amid a row over pollution of the lake.

Environmental groups have long attacked the mill, saying it threatens the lake which harbors 1,500 species of animals and plants, including a unique type of freshwater seal.

Greenpeace said it was deeply concerned by the plans and that it would ask President Dmitry Medvedev to overturn Putin's decision.

"The Baikal Pulp and Paper plant is an ecologically dangerous enterprise," Greenpeace said in a statement. "It simply has no place on the shores of the sacred lake."

Putin, after personally inspecting the bed of Baikal last year, said that scientists had told him the mill does not harm the lake, which holds one fifth of the world's total surface fresh water and is revered as sacred by Siberian tribes.

The mill employs about 2,000 people and is the main employer in the town of Baikalsk, which has a population of 17,000. It also runs the only heating station in Baikalsk, where temperatures plunge to minus 30 Celsius in the winter.

"The plant does not pose a threat to the ecology of Lake Baikal so we warmly welcome ... (Putin's) decision," Oksana Gorlova, a spokeswoman for the paper plant, said by telephone.

"Almost every family in the town was connected to this enterprise so this decision was taken for the people of Baikalsk," said Gorlova. "Production will start this year."

The plant, built in the 1960s, is controlled by LPK Continental Management, part of Deripaska's Basic Element industrial group. The other 49 percent is owned by the state.

Situated in southeast Siberia, Baikal is the world's oldest and deepest lake, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO).

(Editing by David Stamp)

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Carbon-neutral city being planned by Malaysia

New Straits Times 19 Jan 10;

MALAYSIA is mulling the building of its first carbon-neutral city as one of the projects to be undertaken by a joint venture between Abu Dhabi's Masdar and 1Malaysia Development Bhd (1MDB).

Masdar, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Abu Dhabi's Mubadala Development Company, and 1MDB signed a cooperation agreement in Abu Dhabi on Sunday to jointly explore clean technology projects and investments.

Both companies will also cooperate and invest in carbon reduction projects and clean technology venture capital.

If fully implemented, the cooperation agreement will lead to the development of new catalytic projects worth about US$100 million (RM338 million).

The agreement was signed by Masdar chief executive officer Dr Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber and his 1MDB counterpart, Shahrol Halmi, and witnessed by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak and Abu Dhabi's Crown Prince Gen Sheikh Mohammad bin Zayed Al Nahyan.

Najib is here on an official visit and to attend the World Future Energy Summit where he delivered a keynote address.

"We value this partnership with Malaysia and applaud its move to actively pursue and invest in new green technologies," Sultan Ahmed said.

Incorporated in 2006, Masdar is a company focusing on renewable energy and sustainability.

"It is our intention to explore business opportunities relating to the development of an environmentally friendly carbon-neutral city in Malaysia," Shahrol said.

1MDB is a strategic development company owned by the Malaysian government. It serves as a catalyst for long-term sustainable economic development through a new economic model based on innovation, creativity and high-value creation.

It has a planned initial funding of RM11 billion and the first tranche of RM5 billion was raised through the issuance of Islamic bonds guaranteed by the government.

The agreement came close after 1MDB set up a joint US$2.5 billion investment fund with Saudi Arabia's PetroSaudi, which would also target renewable energy sources and long-term sustainable economic development projects in Malaysia and abroad.

Najib arrived in Abu Dhabi late on Saturday in his Middle East swing that also included an official visit to Saudi Arabia. He is scheduled to visit India, on his way home.

Earlier, Najib visited several key projects undertaken by Malaysian companies in Abu Dhabi, including the Sheikh Zayed Sport City development being built by a joint venture company involving Malaysia's Sunway Group.

He toured the almost-completed Yas Island Formula One race track which was built by a joint venture involving Bahrain-based Cebarco and Malaysia's WCT Engineering Bhd.


He also toured the Al Reem mixed-development project undertaken by a consortium of four Malaysian companies comprising IJM Bhd, Sunway Construction Sdn Bhd, Zelan Holdings Bhd and LFE Engineering Sdn Bhd.

Malaysia to depend less on fossil fuel, says Najib
New Straits Times 19 Jan 10;

MALAYSIA is mapping out a plan to reduce its dependence on fossil fuel, by such methods as increasing usage of energy from renewable resources to 2,000 MW by 2020 from 50 MW now.
The plan, which forms part of Malaysia's role in the global effort to cut carbon emission and improve global energy security, was highlighted by Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak in a keynote address at the World Future Energy Summit which started in Abu Dhabi yesterday.

Najib's address, which painted a gloomy picture if the world continued to ignore the negative impact excessive carbon emission was having on global climate change, could not have come at a better time since the world had been experiencing some of the most extreme weather patterns ever recorded.

The northern hemisphere is facing one of its harshest winters in history.

He said Malaysia had introduced several incentives to promote renewable energy, including the Small Renewable Energy Programme which provided for a higher purchasing price for electricity generated through renewable energy resources by the grid operator.

"We are in the process of instituting a renewable energy law and one of the mechanisms we are looking into is feed-in tariffs to promote usage of this type of energy."

Feed-in tariffs is a mechanism which guarantees that energy generated through renewable resources is purchased by the national grid operator. It has worked successfully in Europe and is being practised in more than 60 countries.

He also spoke of Malaysia's plan to increase the use of solar power through the "Suria 1000 Programme".

Reminding the developing economies to make their energy industries more efficient amid increasing energy prices and harmful emissions, Najib said Malaysia had commissioned a study to restructure and realign its energy sector.

Malaysia established the Energy, Green Technology and Water Ministry early last year, essentially to transform the country into a green nation.

"We will be looking at four main sectors to implement green technologies, namely energy, transport, buildings and water."

To benefit from a green economy while reducing carbon footprint, Malaysia has launched the National Biotechnology Policy and the National Biofuel Policy in 2005. The policies seek to leverage on the natural strengths of Malaysia where at least 50 per cent of land area remains forested.

"Our embracing of green technology is not only to conserve our resources, but also to act as a new economic impetus for Malaysia."

He said the international community failed to seize the opportunity at the last summit on climate change in Copenhagen as they did not manage to face the issue decisively.

Najib, here on a working visit, was scheduled to visit Dubai, an emirate in the United Arab Emirates. He was scheduled to meet UAE Vice-President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai Sheikh Mohammad bin Rashid Al-Maktoum and tour the world's tallest building, the Burj Khalifa.

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India Unveils Rules To Boost Green Power Investment

PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

NEW DELHI - India has crafted rules for trading of certificates aimed at rewarding producers of clean energy, a move expected to boost the share of electricity from renewable sources in one of the world's top carbon polluters.

India's power regulator has laid out regulations on renewable energy certificates (RECs), which can be bought by companies to meet statutory obligations to purchase a minimum level of renewable energy, the government said in a statement.

"This concept seeks to address the mismatch between availability of renewable energy sources and the requirement of the obligated entities to meet their renewable purchase obligation," it said.

Renewable energy accounts for barely 8 percent of India's total capacity of about 150,000 megawatts but the government aims to double green power generation to 25,000 megawatts in four years.

The rules stipulate clean energy producers either sell their electricity at a preferential tariff fixed by provincial power regulators or sell the electricity generation and environmental attributes associated with renewable power separately.

A central agency would also administer the certificates trading among renewable power generators. The value of a certificate would be equivalent to one megawatt hour of electricity.

"It is also expected to encourage renewable energy capacity addition ... as the REC framework seeks to create a national level market for such generators to recover their cost," it said.

BOOST TO INVESTMENT

Carbon business analysts agreed.

"What it does is it gives government a tool to enforce its regulation. Those states which don't have enough natural resources to generate power could buy renewable certificates from others and meet their quota," CLSA analyst Rajesh Panjwani said.

"It will also encourage states to invest in companies or renewable capacities in states where there are renewable resources."

Ashutosh Pandey, chief executive of Emergent Ventures' carbon advisory business, said: "I feel RECs will definitely bring market-based innovations in the market to propel renewable energy development in the country."

India is one of the world's top producers of wind energy, and also generates solar energy and power from biomass. It hopes to attract about $21 billion worth of investments in renewable energy by 2012.

The country laid out in September new tariff rules for electricity from renewable energy sources, promising to provide about 19 percent pre-tax return on investment for renewable energy plants for an initial period of 10 years.

Benefits from thermal power plants, which account for about 60 percent of India's total generation, work out to about 18.4 percent, according to Indian power officials.

India offers subsidized loans to companies building alternative energy power plants and provides tax breaks and tariff subsidies to encourage development of the renewables industry.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

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Masdar's First Carbon Capture In Abu Dhabi In 2012

Stanley Carvalho, PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

ABU DHABI - Abu Dhabi state-owned Masdar said on Tuesday its first carbon capture and storage (CCS) project would be cutting greenhouse gas emissions in the United Arab Emirates by the end of 2012.

The UAE is one of the world's largest emitters of greenhouse gas per capita. Abu Dhabi has pumped billions into clean energy initiative Masdar as it looks to both cut emissions and prepare the world's third-largest crude exporter for a future less dependent on supply of oil.

The first CCS project would capture emissions from a new UAE steel plant, said Sam Nader, director of Masdar's carbon management unit told reporters.

"The first capture is 800,000 tonnes from the Emirates Steel plant in 2012," Nader said. "A contract will be awarded this year for the first capture."

By 2014, Masdar would have captured a total of five million tonnes of CO2, he added.

Masdar aims to set up a network of pipelines in the UAE to pump carbon from emitting sites to oilfields, where it would be injected into reservoirs to maintain pressure and increase oil recovery. The network should be completed by 2015, he said.

The first phase of the plan is to capture CO2 from industrial units such as the Emirates Steel plant and from power plants.

Masdar is working closely with state-run Abu Dhabi Company for Onshore Oil Operations (ADCO) to transport and inject CO2 into its oil reservoirs. ADCO runs the onshore crude fields for the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC).

Other emitters that Masdar is targeting for carbon capture are the Emirates Aluminum plant, a gas-fired power station run by the Abu Dhabi Water and Electricity Authority and also a planned hydrogen power plant it is building with BP.

Carbon captured would back carbon credits sold under the UN's clean development mechanism, which allows developing countries to sell emissions reductions from energy intensive industry to help rich countries offset their own contribution to climate change.

The UAE embarked on a CO2 emission reduction programme in 2007. Abu Dhabi aims to slash the emirate's CO2 output by about one-third by 2020 and in doing so to free up more oil for exports.

(Editing by Simon Webb and Keiron Henderson)

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Brazil Opens World's First Ethanol-Fired Power Plant

Denise Luna, PlanetArk 20 Jan 10;

JUIZ DE FORA - Brazil on Tuesday opened the world's first ethanol-fueled power plant in an effort by the South American biofuels giant to increase the global use of ethanol and boost its clean power generation.

State-run oil giant Petrobras and General Electric Co, which helped design the plant, are betting that increased use of ethanol generation by green-conscious countries will boost demand for the product.

Brazil, the top global ethanol exporter, is already in talks with Japan to develop biofuels power generation there.

"We have great expectations to show the viability and economy of generating electricity from ... an alternative feedstock to fossil fuels," Maria das Gracas Foster, head of Petrobras' natural gas division, said.

Petrobras with the help of GE upgraded the 87-megawatt power plant to switch between running on natural gas or ethanol instantaneously. Brazil primarily relies on hydroelectric power but needs backup thermoelectric generation during the dry season.

John Ingham, Latin America Products Director for GE, said tests showed switching the plant to ethanol reduced carbon dioxide emissions without lowering energy output.

GE has around 770 turbines like those used in the Juiz de Fora plant, including many in Japan, that could be converted to run on ethanol, he said.

"A plant like that consumes a lot of ethanol, so it has to be in a place that makes sense (such as) places that have no access to gas, like Japan, some islands, or places that depend heavily on diesel like the Amazon region," he said.

Brazil is expected to produce a record 27.8 billion liters of ethanol in the 2009/2010 season. It began its biofuels program 30 years ago and now mandates a minimum 20 percent of ethanol in gasoline.

Petrobras itself is only starting to enter the ethanol market. Brazil's ethanol production comes from sugar cane milled by companies such as Cosan or commodities giants including Cargill Inc, Bunge and ADM Co..

Domestic demand for ethanol is being driven by the popularity of the flex-fuel car technology that was launched in 2003 and now makes up around 90 percent of new vehicle sales.

(Editing by Marguerita Choy)

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