Europe's green city: Freiburg

Straits Times 27 Mar 10;

Germany's Freiburg city is world-famous for its green energy policies, and Singapore is hoping to learn from it during the World Cities Summit here in June. Freiburg Mayor Dieter Solomon talks to Melissa Kok about how it implemented sustainable urban solutions

# Q: How successful have Freiburg's energy policies been in reducing carbon emissions?

A: Freiburg is one of the few major German cities where carbon dioxide emissions have actually been on the decrease for years. This is a direct result of our policy which promotes renewable energy such as solar power, and the expansion of the public transit system. Today, 70 per cent of all trips in the city are carried out with environmentally friendly means of transportation such as riding a bicycle instead of driving a car.

# Q: What other benefits has environmental technology brought?

A: No other branch of economy is growing as fast as the environmental economy, with new jobs and economic advantages for the entire city. More than 15,000 people in the greater Freiburg area are employed in the industry; more than 2,000 of them in the research, development and production of solar technology.

# Q: Where can we see solar panels in Freiburg?

A: They can be found on residential buildings, factories, sport stadiums, hotels, trade fair halls, schools and universities. Even the correctional facility has a solar roof. A total surface area of 15,000 sq m - the size of three football fields - is used for the collection of solar heat, to produce heating and warm water.

# Q: Is it costly?

A: Solar power generation is more expensive than other types of energy. Therefore, a national energy Act guarantees that solar energy can be fed into the main power grid at a fixed price. This feed-in tariff provides a good return for home owners with solar roofs and re-finances the investment. The price difference is passed on to all energy customers.

# Q: How did you convince people to get on board?

A: Ecological projects are always successful when they create a win-win situation for all partners involved, namely the economy, citizens, schools, research and development, industries such as building and construction, the energy supplier, and even tourism. Herein lies the most important task of urban policies: We have to create advantages for all players and support their engagement of solar energy. The city itself sets the example. Freiburg is an internationally renowned example of sustainable urban development. Every year hundreds of experts, politicians and journalists come to the city in order to learn from our experiences. This is also the reason why Freiburg has been selected to present itself as a best-practice example of sustainability to the 2010 Shanghai World Expo.

# Q: What do you hope to gain from the upcoming World Cities Summit in Singapore?

A: We would like to share our experiences with other cities, but we are also eager to learn from others. Some cities are successfully working on zero-carbon concepts such as, for example, the new administrative city in Sejong which lies to the south of Seoul. Because this city will be newly built from the ground up and in line with the most modern standards, much greater successes are possible than in a historically grown city like Freiburg.

About the city

FREIBURG, known as Europe's most prominent 'solar city', is located in south-west Germany's wine-growing area, and has a population of 220,000.

In 1986, it became one of the first German cities to tap sustainable energy to protect the climate.

It has cut back on carbon emissions by 13.5 per cent since 1992. The city's energy policy has three objectives: reducing energy consumption, implementing the use of renewable sources such as solar power instead of fossil fuels, and promoting efficient energy use.

In 2007, the city council resolved to cut greenhouse emissions by 40 per cent by the year 2030.

For this reason, Freiburg's heat insulation standards are stricter than those in other German cities.

Every private household there is supplied with electricity from regenerative sources, with solar energy and other renewables contributing 4.2 per cent of the power that Freiburg needs.

The city generates 50 per cent of its electricity from natural gas plants.

The remaining 45 per cent comes from imported electricity from renewable energy and nuclear power.

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From Pyramids to Paris, landmarks to go dark for Earth Hour

Amy Coopes Yahoo News 26 Mar 10;

SYDNEY (AFP) – World-famous landmarks including the Pyramids, the Eiffel Tower and Beijing's Forbidden City will go dark Saturday as millions turn out the lights for "Earth Hour", a rolling grassroots movement aimed at fighting climate change.

Now in its fourth year, the event looks set to be the biggest yet with thousands of cities and towns in 125 countries -- 37 more than last year -- pledging to take part in the aftermath of a failed climate summit last year.

Despite December's fractious Copenhagen summit and recent controversy over climate science, public opinion still hopes for meaningful action to avert catastrophic global warming, according to Earth Hour founder Andy Ridley.

"There appears to be some fatigue to the politics around it... But people are far more motivated this year than they were last year," he told AFP in Sydney.

Now run by the WWF, Earth Hour began in Sydney in 2007 when 2.2 million people switched off the lights in their homes, offices and businesses for 60 minutes to make a point about electricity consumption and carbon pollution.

The campaign went global the following year, and this Saturday, more than 1,200 of the world's best-known sites will kill their lights at 8:30 pm local time in what organisers describe as a "24-hour wave of hope and action".

A raft of multinational companies including Google, Coca-Cola, Hilton, McDonalds, Canon, HSBC and IKEA have endorsed Earth Hour 2010 and pledged to darken their offices worldwide in support.

Sydney's iconic Harbour Bridge and Opera House will help kick off the energy-saving marathon, with Egypt's Pyramids and Sphinx, the Trevi Fountain and Tower of Pisa in Italy and all major landmarks in Paris to take part, led by a five-minute blackout of the Eiffel Tower.

In London, Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, St. Paul's Cathedral and the London Eye ferris wheel were among the tourist hotspots set to plunge into darkness, along with Manchester United's Old Trafford football ground.

Some 30 US states and municipalities were to mark Earth Hour with darkness falling on sites including Mount Rushmore, the Empire State Building, the Golden Gate Bridge and Seattle's Space Needle.

The lights illuminating the massive statue of Christ the Redeemer which overlooks Rio de Janeiro will be switched off while in Mexico key buildings in the capital will also take part.

In Dubai the world's tallest skyscraper, the Burj Khalifa tower, will dim its lights as will the high-priced office towers and five-star hotels strung along Hong Kong's famed harbour-front.

The Forbidden City in rapidly developing China, which was blamed by many activists for Copenhagen's failure, will go dark, along with the "Bird's Nest" Olympic stadium.

Elsewhere in Asia, where 3.3 million people have registered to take part, the world's biggest observation wheel, the Singapore Flyer, will extinguish its main lights, while official buildings will be blacked out in Seoul and Jakarta.

Scores of cities in India were expected to take part, including the massive urban centres of Delhi and Mumbai, while the country's thriving Bollywood film studios were to shut down for the hour.

Japan's heritage-listed Hiroshima Peace Memorial, one of few buildings to survive America's 1945 atomic bomb attack, will take part, while major companies including Sony, Sharp and Asahi were to switch off across Tokyo.

But in Bangkok, city authorities said they were under military orders to halt their Earth Hour campaign for security reasons, as tens of thousands of anti-government protesters planned another major rally on Saturday.

Residents of Norway's Longyearbyen, the world's northernmost town, are set to brave an influx of curious polar bears normally deterred by lights after voting -- for the first time -- that participating was worth the risk.

"Earth Hour is meant to cross geographic, economic, country boundaries," said Ridley, admitting that it was mostly a symbolic act.

"It's one hour, one day, one year. We're not saving the planet by turning the lights off for one hour."

But he added: "What you are doing is adding your voice to a global call for action."

Saturday: Lights Off Worldwide for Earth Hour
livescience.com Yahoo News 27 Mar 10;

Cities in 92 countries around the world prepare to shut off their lights for one hour tomorrow in observance of Earth Hour, an annual event geared at showing support for taking action on climate change issues.

During Earth Hour, people around the world are asked to turn off their lights for an hour at 8:30 p.m. local time on March 27. This year the event has topped its participation figure from last year, which was 88 countries.

Countries and regions involved for the first time include: the world's newest country Kosovo, the remote island nation of Madagascar, Nepal, Saudi Arabia, Mongolia, Cambodia, Czech Republic, Paraguay, Ecuador and the U.S. Commonwealth of the Northern Marina Islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Earth Hour global organizers confirm there are currently more than 1,100 cities and towns signed up to switch their lights off on Sunday evening, 100 more than last year. Among the iconic landmarks in cities taking place are the Tokyo Tower in Tokyo and Berlin's Brandenburg Gate.

"Earth Hour demonstrates the determination of the world's citizens for a better, healthier world," said Earth Hour Executive Director, Andy Ridley. "It brings together cities, communities, businesses and individuals on the journey to positive action on climate change."

Earth Hour is an initiative by the non-profit environmental group WWF. The event began in Sydney in 2007, when 2 million people switched off their lights.

In 2008, more than 50 million people around the globe participated. In 2009, hundreds of millions of people in more than 4,000 cities and towns switched off their lights for one hour.

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Worst Ice Year Kills Canadian Seals Before Hunters Can

Environment News Service 26 Mar 10;

CHARLOTTETOWN, Prince Edward Island, Canada, March 26, 2010 (ENS) - Thousands of harp seal pups are presumed dead in Canada's Gulf of St. Lawrence and starving pups are being found abandoned on the beaches of Prince Edward Island, victims of the worst ice conditions ever recorded in the region.

Environment Canada said March 16 that ice conditions in the Gulf were the lowest in the 41 years it has kept records.

Off Newfoundland, Canada's other seal hunting ground, ice has formed only off the Northern Peninsula when, by now, it has usually extended along the island's northeast coast.

Observers from the International Fund for Animal Welfare report that the Gulf of St. Lawrence, the annual birthing ground of hundreds of thousands of harp seals, is "essentially devoid of both ice and seals."

"The conditions this year are disastrous for seal pups. I've surveyed this region for nine years and have never seen anything like this," said Sheryl Fink, a senior researcher with IFAW.

"There is wide open water instead of the usual ice floes, and rather than the hundreds of thousands of seal pups that we normally encounter, only a handful of baby harp and hooded seals, animals that are normally found on ice, remain on the beaches," she said.

Other observers report that the lack of ice has left seal mothers with few places to bear their young or to feed their pups. Many people have seen the newly born pups stranded on beaches instead of being born out on the ice-covered Gulf where they have entered the world for hundreds of years.

Yet the federal government increased the quota for this year's seal hunt just a few days after federal Fisheries Minister Gail Shea told the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation March 10 that poor ice conditions could cause the cancellation of this year's Gulf of St. Lawrence seal hunt. It usually begins at the end of March.

On March 15, Shea increased the total allowable catch of harp seals by 50,000, to 330,000 animals. She said the current estimate of the harp seal population is approximately 6.9 million animals, or more than triple what it was in the 1970s.

The minister's announcement was criticized by animal welfare organizations, conservationists, and sealers, in what Fink calls "a rare moment of agreement."

"Our government recognizes the importance of the sealing industry to the people and the economies of Canadian coastal communities," said Shea. "Ongoing efforts are made to ensure our management decisions include the perspective of our scientists, as well as the input of Canadians in Atlantic Canada, Quebec and the North who work and depend on the industry for their livelihood."

The one year total for the harp seal TAC includes a developmental allocation of 20,000 seals to support three value-added projects proposed by the sealing industry in Atlantic Canada, Shea said.

The Canadian Sealers Association says, "Improved handling and processing of fur and leather have occurred and a significant market breakthrough has occurred in China. Oil is rich in Omega-3 fatty acid and amino acids and the refining of oil is continuing and offers some real possibilities in the health industry."

But extremely high pup mortality is happening again this year. In 2007, 99 percent of harp seal pups born in the Southern Gulf of St Lawrence are thought to have died due to lack of ice.

"It is reckless and irresponsible for the government to allow the hunt to proceed this year, given the high pup mortality that is expected," she said.

"Under a precautionary approach, we should be protecting the few pups that might escape the devastating lack of ice this year," said Fink. "Given the almost complete lack of demand for seal skins, allowing the commercial slaughter of these survivors to proceed is simply adding insult to injury."

Scientists with IFAW are concerned that the cumulative effects of high pup mortality due to the poor ice conditions, and high numbers of pups killed during Canada's commercial seal hunt could be devastating to the species.

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Fishing countries targeted over endangered southern tuna

David Brooks Yahoo News 26 Mar 10;

WELLINGTON (AFP) – A week after a UN conference failed to ban trade in the critically endangered Atlantic bluefin tuna, environmentalists are warning of the possible extinction of its southern hemisphere cousin.

The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) conference that ended Thursday voted heavily against a plan by the United States and European Union to ban trade in Atlantic bluefin tuna, the population of which has fallen by about three-quarters in the last 40 years.

But southern bluefin tuna appear in even worse trouble, and environmentalists blame Australia, Japan, New Zealand and other nations for pushing the species closer to extinction and are calling for the fishery to be closed.

Most southern bluefin, which reach up to 200 kilograms in weight, are caught in southern Australian waters, around New Zealand and off South Africa.

While prices in Tokyo's fish market about a third lower than for northern hemisphere bluefins, each southern bluefin can sell for thousands of dollars.

Japan and New Zealand voted against the CITES ban on trade in Atlantic tuna and Australia announced it would not vote in favour.

Both Australia and New Zealand argue that fishing restrictions are more effective than a trade ban.

But Greenpeace New Zealand oceans campaigner Karli Thomas said their decisions partly reflected a desire to avoid pressure to close the southern bluefin fishery.

Numbers of the southern bluefin have shrunk to less than five percent of stocks before commercial fishing began, according to the Commission for the Conservation of Southern Bluefin Tuna (CCSBT), a quota-setting body comprising Australia, Indonesia, Japan, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan.

The industry is worth about 900 million US dollars a year, with the vast majority of fish ending up in Japan.

Annual southern bluefin catches reached 80,000 tonnes in the 1960s and the commission was set up in 1994 as numbers continued to fall following the introduction of voluntary quotas in the 1980s.

Conservationists say the fishery has reached such desperate straits that there is no alternative to closure if stocks are to rebuild.

"We've looked at the (CCSBT) scientific report that came out last year and from that it's clear that the only option that's going to bring about even a modest recovery of the stock is a zero catch," Thomas told AFP.

The commission aims to restore the fishery to 20 percent of pre-fishing levels in the next 20 years but admits that won't happen unless catches are cut drastically.

The CCSBT has agreed to reduce fishing of southern bluefin by an average of 20 percent this year and in 2011 from 11,810 tonnes to an average of 9,449 tonnes.

But that is not enough to ensure the future for southern bluefin, Greenpeace says.

"What they (the commission) prioritise time and time again is not just the interests of the fishing industry but the short-term interests of the fishing industry," said Thomas.

Australia accounts for around 4,000 tonnes of the catch, Japan for nearly 2,300 tonnes, with the bulk of the rest divided between South Korea, Taiwan, New Zealand and Indonesia.

But as part of the reduced global catch, New Zealand has been allowed to increase its quota, a move that has incensed environmentalists.

New Zealand Fisheries Ministry chief executive Wayne McNee confirmed Thursday the catch limit in New Zealand waters would rise from 420 tonnes to 532 tonnes this year.

But he said New Zealand had been a leading voice in reducing the global catch, and the rise in its own limit reflected the fact that its share was too low in the past.

Brian Jeffriess, chief executive of the Australian Southern Bluefin Tuna Industry Association, argues the gloomy predictions are wrong and that bluefin numbers are starting to rise again.

He blamed the poor state of the fishery on Japan, which had admitted overfishing its quotas up to 2006. Since then Japan has accepted a slashing of its quota and increased monitoring.

Jeffriess said aerial surveys by Australian scientists and reported catch rates by Japanese vessels had shown rising numbers of fish since 2008.

"We are very confident the fishery is on the right track for recovery," he told AFP, adding he believed fishing quotas should start rising again from 2014.

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Save the pollinators, save our luxury foods

Marcelo Aizen & Lawrence Harder, Straits Times 27 Mar 10;

IN THE past five years, as the phenomenon known as colony collapse disorder spread across the United States and Europe, causing the disappearance of whole colonies of domesticated honeybees, many people have come to fear that our food supply is in peril. The news on Wednesday that a US Department of Agriculture survey found American honeybees had died in great numbers this winter can only add to such fears.

The truth, fortunately, is not nearly so dire. But it is more complicated.

There is good news: While some areas are seeing a shortage of bees, globally the number of domesticated honeybee colonies is increasing. The bad news is that this increase can't keep up with our growing appetite for luxury foods that depend heavily on bee pollination. The domesticated honeybee isn't the only pollinator that agriculture relies on - wild bees also play a significant role, and we seem intent on destroying their habitats.

To understand the problem, we need to understand the extent of the honeybee's role in agriculture. Humans certainly benefit from the way bees - and to a lesser extent, other pollinators like flies, beetles and butterflies - help plants produce fruits and seeds. Agriculture, however, is not as dependent on pollinators as one might think. It's true that some crops like raspberries, cashews, cranberries and mangoes cannot reproduce without pollinators. But crops like sugar cane and potatoes, grown for their stems or tubers, can be propagated without pollination. And the crops that provide our staple carbohydrates - wheat, rice and corn - are either wind-pollinated or self-pollinated. These don't need bees at all.

Overall, about one-third of our worldwide agricultural production depends to some extent on bee pollination, but less than 10 per cent of the 100 most productive crop species depend entirely on it. If pollinators were to vanish, it would reduce total food production by only about 6 per cent.

This wouldn't mean the end of human existence, but if we want to continue eating foods like apples and avocados, we need to understand that bees and other pollinators can't keep up with the current growth in production of these foods.

The reason is that fruit and seed crops that are most dependent on pollinators yield relatively little food per acre, and therefore take up an inordinate, and increasing, amount of land. The fraction of agriculture dependent on pollination has increased by 300 per cent in half a century.

The paradox is that our demand for these foods endangers the wild bees that help make their cultivation possible. The expansion of farmland destroys wild bees' nesting sites and also wipes out the wildflowers that the bees depend on when food crops aren't in blossom. Researchers in Britain and the Netherlands have found that the diversity of wild bee species in most regions in those countries has declined since 1980. This decrease was mostly due to the loss of bees that require very particular habitats - bees that couldn't adapt after losing their homes and food sources to cultivation. Similarly, between 1940 and 1960, as land increasingly came under cultivation in the American Midwest, several bumblebee species disappeared from the area. It is difficult to count and keep track of wild bee populations globally, but their numbers are probably declining overall as a result of such human activity.

Even if the number of wild pollinators remained stable, it would not be sufficient to meet the increasing demand for agricultural pollination. Could domesticated bees take up the slack? By looking at data from the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, we found that the number of managed honeybee hives increased by 45 per cent during the past five decades.

Unfortunately, this increase cannot counteract the growing demand for pollination or the shortage of wild pollinators. Domesticated bees mainly produce honey; any contribution they make to crop pollination is usually a secondary benefit. In most parts of the world, they provide pollination only locally and not necessarily where it is needed most.

Thus a vicious circle: Fewer pollinating bees reduce yield per acre - and lower yield requires cultivation of more land to produce the same amount of food.

Eventually, a growing shortage of pollinators will limit what foods farmers can produce. If we want to continue to enjoy almonds, apples and avocados, we have to cultivate fewer of them, more sustainably, and protect the wild bees that help make their production possible.

Marcelo Aizen is a researcher at the National Scientific and Technical Research Council of Argentina. Lawrence Harder is a professor of pollination ecology at the University of Calgary.

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Sabah starts independent monitoring of logging

The Star 26 Mar 10;

SANDAKAN: Sabah is embarking on an independent monitoring effort of its forest logging operations, said to be the single such exercise in the country, as part of a full implementation of sustainable forest management in the state.

The state government, through the Sabah Forestry Department, signed a deal Friday with Global Forestry Services (M) Sdn Bhd to conduct independent third party auditing and monitoring in all Natural Forest Management harvesting areas under the Reduced Impact Logging (RIL) approach.

“This statewide independent auditing is arguably the largest such undertaking in the country on logging monitoring, if not South East Asia, which Sabah is proud of," said department director Datuk Sam Mannan after the signing of the agreement.

He said the agreement fell in line neatly with the mandatory directive to all long term licensees to be certified under any credible internationally recognised certification system by 2014.

Mannan said the RIL compliance would be implemented on a progressive scale in its assessment whereby, it is planned for 90% of the compliance standard in 2010 with 100% compliance from 2011 onwards, with training and on the spot improvement continuously.

“As statewide RIL application needs close monitoring and training and many operators and workers are new to the concept, the Forestry Department is nevertheless confident that, competence at a high level, is achievable within the first year of implementation,” he added.

The agreement which covers a period of five years (2010-2014), is equally financed on a 50:50 basis by the State Government and the Yayasan Sabah Group, being the biggest forest licensee in the State, with an area approximately 1mil ha, under its management.

This agreement was an extension of the auditing and monitoring programme over Malua Forest Reserve, also under the Yayasan Sabah Group, which successfully demonstrated and proved the feasibility and viability of RIL in a tropical forest.

The Malua agreement, also concluded with Global Forestry Services (M) Sdn Bhd, covered the period 2006-2007 and all harvesting has since ceased and the area set for conservation.

Malua arguably is the largest model of full RIL Compliance in the tropics.

Building up on this success, the department has now made it mandatory for RIL to be practiced in all Natural Forest Management areas of Forest Reserves in Sabah effective 1 January 2010.

Mannan was the signatory for the State Forestry Department while Global Forestry Services (M) Sdn Bhd was represented by its director Dr Kevin Grace.

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‘Mosaic system’ proposed for Indonesia's plantations

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 26 Mar 10;

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has asked oil palm plantation companies to adopt mosaic systems to help maintain biodiversity in plantations, and to address mounting criticism of the industry over environmental concerns.

Minister Zulkilfli sent a letter to Agriculture Minister Suswono in February asking for the development of the mosaic system, requiring companies to maintain areas of original vegetation of high conservation value.

Forestry Ministry Forest Production Director General Hadi Daryanto said the ideal percentage of plantation on plots of land was around 70 percent.

“The remaining area should be set aside for, among others, the protection of biodiversity. We want both [the forestry and agriculture] ministers to have one voice in responding to protests on environmental issues from the international community,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Zulkilfli said the mosaic pattern system, which had been adopted in industrial forest plantations, could also minimize diseases that thrive in monoculture plantations.

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Indonesian Govt Prepares to Take Control of Carbon-Stock Calculation

Fidelis E. Satriastanti Jakarta Globe 26 Mar 10;

The government wants to calculate for itself how much carbon is contained in the nation’s forests instead of relying on foreign data and methods.

“All this time, we have been depending on developed countries to count how much our carbon stock is. This is not good, because how will we learn to rely on our own resources?” said Hadi Daryanto, director general of forest production at the Ministry of Forestry.

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization, carbon stock is the quantity of carbon contained in a “pool,” meaning a reservoir or system that has the capacity to accumulate or release carbon. Greenfacts.org says it is to the amount of carbon stored in the forest ecosystem, mainly in living biomass and soil, but to a lesser extent also in dead wood and litter.

Hadi said the ministry was preparing to issue a regulation detailing a carbon-counting methodology — covering measurement, reporting and verification — for the forestry sector based on research by Indonesian scientists.

The methodology would be applied to peatlands, people’s plantations ( h utan t anaman r akyat ), production forests, and other land. It would count carbon stock in vegetation above and below ground.

“One of the ways to store carbon is to plant trees, and that’s why it’s important that we control our carbon stock” from planting activities, Hadi said. “This will also help concessionaires predict how much investment they can get in the carbon market.”

He said the proposed methodology was less complicated than that of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.

The regulation stipulates that concessionaires are expected to submit their reports based on the methodology, referred to as MRV, from Thursday until the end of October. Verification can be done through an independent accreditation organization.

“They will have to submit their MRVs to the ministry every year and they will be delivered to the MRV national coordinator at the Environment Ministry as forestry’s voluntary contribution on reducing emissions under the UNFCCC,” Hadi said.

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Indonesia Minister Says Nestle Has ‘Right’ to Cut Off Sinar Mas

Achmad Sukarsono, Business Week 25 Mar 10;

March 26 (Bloomberg) -- Nestle SA’s decision to stop buying from Indonesian palm-oil producer Sinar Mas Group over deforestation concerns is “perfectly normal,” the country’s environment minister said, suggesting the government doesn’t plan to protest.

“That’s their right as a consumer,” Gusti M. Hatta said in an interview in Jakarta yesterday, speaking of Nestle’s decision. “If there’s a clear violation, then I would cut them off without mercy,” he said, adding an investigation into the country’s biggest maker of palm oil is ongoing.

Nestle’s dropping of Sinar Mas sparked calls for the government to speak out on behalf of the palm-oil industry, which produces the country’s biggest agricultural export by sales. The Indonesian Palm Oil Association last week said the Vevey, Switzerland-based company’s decision was “unfair.”

“We need intervention from the government because the impact could reach other palm oil companies,” Libria Sefita Dewi, a palm oil analyst at PT Mega Capital Indonesia, said in a phone interview. “The image of Indonesian palm oil producers could become so bad that a defense is necessary.”

Nestle’s action came after a Greenpeace report said Sinar Mas illegally destroyed rainforest areas that are a key habitat for orangutans.

Unilever NA suspended deliveries from Sinar Mas in December and U.S. food provider Cargill Inc. may stop doing business with Sinar Mas if a global trade body validates the Greenpeace report, the company said yesterday on its Web site.

‘Responsible Land Clearing’

PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology, Sinar Mas’s palm-oil unit, is “committed to applying responsible land clearing and the best practice of farming management in all of our plantations,” President Director Jo Daud Dharsono said by phone on March 17.

“It’s not fair if major companies such as Nestle and Unilever dropped supplies from Indonesian producers just based on one report,” Fadhil Hasan, executive director at the Indonesian Palm Oil Association told reporters in Jakarta on March 18.

The country’s palm-oil exports may rise to 18 million tons this year from 15.5 million tons in 2009, the Indonesian Palm Oil Association said Jan. 26. Sales reached $10 billion last year, the association said.

Coal Mines

Legislation that takes effect next month will give Indonesia’s Environment Ministry power to revoke business licenses and permits without having to go through police. The ministry will first use the new law to crack down on coal producers in Borneo “because there are companies that have built mines in forested areas without approval,” Hatta said, without naming them.

“Almost half” of more than 1,500 mines appearing in Indonesian Borneo in the past decade are illegal, he said.

Larger producers such as PT Bumi Resources and PT Adaro Energy “tend to be good” in managing the environment, Hatta said. Some businesses have “misinterpreted” the government’s intent to enforce the new law, Hatta said.

“We’ll give time” to the companies to deal with their environmental issues “although we’ll strictly monitor the progress,” he said.

Rules governing the oil industry will be clarified within a year, he said, and “tolerance” will be given to mature oil fields.

The energy ministry is seeking a three-year delay on enforcing existing environmental rules. Applying them immediately could lead to a 40 percent drop in oil and gas output, energy ministry official Evita Legowo said Feb. 24.

Southeast Asia’s biggest economy expects to produce 965,000 barrels of oil per day this year, compared with 949,000 barrels a day last year, according to energy-ministry data.

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Awash in Awareness: Knowing a Product's "Water Footprint" May Help Consumers Conserve H2O

Environmentalists think food products should be labeled according to how much water is used to produce them

Alyson Kenward, Scientific American 26 Mar 10;

If you think your morning cup of joe only has 12 ounces (35 centiliters) of water in it, you're sorely mistaken—it has closer to 40 gallons (150 liters). Conservation scientists say it's time consumers become aware of the quantity and source of water that goes into growing, manufacturing and shipping food.

Concerns over greenhouse gas emissions have vaulted the term "carbon footprint" into mainstream vernacular. Now, by promoting the concept of a "water footprint" with the goal of including it on product labels, researchers are hoping to draw similar attention to how drastically we're draining our most precious resource. As the use of a footprint to gauge water use gains popularity, however, researchers are struggling to reach a consensus on how best to measure that footprint so the public understands its full impact.

As currently defined, a product's water footprint is an inventory of the total amount of water that goes into its manufacture. For that cup of coffee, for instance, most of the 40 gallons flow either into watering coffee plants or cooling the roasters during processing.

"Most people have no idea how much fresh water they're consuming," says Brad Ridoutt, a water conservation specialist from Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization. According to Ridoutt, food and energy production account for nearly 90 percent of the world's fresh water consumption.

The water footprint is designed to help consumers and businesses understand just how much water is required to make products like a cotton T-shirt or a can of corn. But according to Ridoutt, just counting gallons is not enough, because consumers also value where that water came from. Corn grown in Minnesota, for example, depends on rainwater, which is abundant and not otherwise used by people. But in Arizona corn crops depend on scarce reservoir water also used for drinking, hygiene and other consumer needs. The current definition of the water footprint doesn't address these discrepancies.

In a study published in the February issue of the journal Global Environmental Change, Ridoutt proposed a strategy that takes the original location of the water into account in evaluating the environmental impact of its use in product manufacturing.

To illustrate his ideas, Ridoutt chose two common household food items: an 18-ounce (53-centiliter) jar of Dolmio pasta sauce and a small bag of peanut M&M's. For the pasta sauce, the volume of water needed to grow the tomatoes, sugar, garlic and onions added up to 52 gallons (197 liters). For the M&M's, the total volume going into all the ingredients was a whopping 300 gallons (1,135 liters).

Comparing these conventional water footprint values would lead one to think the bag of M&M's takes a far worse toll on freshwater resources. But that isn't the complete picture, Ridoutt says.

Because tomato plants are typically grown in hot, dry climates, they are watered using irrigation systems that draw from the same locations as human drinking water. On the other hand, the cocoa and peanuts in M&M's are grown in more temperate regions, where the crops absorb rainwater directly from the ground. Taking location into account, Ridoutt says, drastically changes how you think about the water going into your food. According to his calculations, the pasta sauce is about 10 times more likely than the M&M's to contribute to water scarcity.

Ridoutt is not the only one trying to redefine the water footprint. Conservationists around the world are trying to figure out how to best include environmental impact in the footprints so they can be incorporated into food labels. The International Organization for Standardization now has a project underway to tackle this problem using methods similar to Ridoutt's.

Although many researchers support Ridoutt's work, others say we don't yet know enough about global water cycles to accurately measure environmental impact. Organizations such as the Water Footprint Network and the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) still believe that simply reporting the total volume of water is currently the best and clearest way to communicate a water footprint.

"The paper Brad has written has quite a high value, but there is a long way to go," says the WWF's Ashok Chapagain, who has been studying water footprint methods for over five years. Without an agreed-on standard, reporting water footprints simply as volumes is the easiest for consumers and businesses to understand, he says.

Ridoutt, on the other hand, believes his method will turn out to be more useful for consumers, and he hopes that when footprints are applied to food products in the future, they won't be just a sum of all the water they have used. "If you want to communicate something to the public in a simple way," he says, "you have to express it in a way that gives the [environmental] impact."

This article is provided by Scienceline, a project of New York University's Science, Health and Environmental Reporting Program.

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Indonesia insists on bid to chair UN climate body

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 26 Mar 10;

Indonesia will announce its candidate to contest the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) top post next week, but three of four names tipped to chair the position at the international body refused to be nominated.

The deadline to submit candidate nominees to the UN office will close on March 31. Indonesian nominees will compete with nominations from Costa Rica, India and South Africa to replace Yvo de Boer.

Special assistant to President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono on climate change issues, Agus Purnomo, said that Indonesia would go ahead to race the climate top post with recruitment of the candidate conducted by the Foreign Ministry.

“There will be a meeting with President Yudhoyono to approve a candidate to represent Indonesia to bid for the executive secretary post at the UNFCCC,” he told The Jakarta Post on Thursday.

Purnomo is among potential candidates along with former foreign minister Hassan Wirajuda, former environment minister Rachmat Witoelar and expert to environment minister on international cooperation Liana Bratasida.

The last three candidates — Hassan, Rachmat and Liana — have refused to be nominated.

“I have talked with Environment Minister Pak Gusti Muhammad Hatta and told him I was not ready for the post,” Liana said Thursday.

She said that Minister Gusti had asked her to compete the post.

Liana was former member of the UN Clean Development Mechanism executive board that was tasked to determine whether the carbon projects were approved.

At the Bonn climate meeting last year, Liana was named the Subsidiary Body for Implementation chairwoman to discuss crucial issues including the emission cut target, financing, mitigation and technology transfer.

Rachmat, chairman of the National Council on Climate Change, said that he was not interested in the post and wanted to focus on strengthening the country’s position in global climate talks.

Rachmat was former president of the Conference of Parties to the UNFCCC during the Bali climate talks in 2007, which produced the much-hailed Bali road map.

De Boer, who announced his resignation in February, will leave the UN office in July, just months before negotiators from 190 countries will gather again to hammer out a long-delayed binding treaty on emission cut targets.

As of March, Costa Rica, India and South Africa are among countries that have announced their
interest in racing the climate-change post.

Indian environment secretary Vijay Sharma and South African tourism minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk first made the public announcement to race the post. Costa Rica planned to nominate its lead climate negotiator Christiana

Figueres, who has had a long career in the UNFCCC and has been a Costa Rica negotiating team member since 1995.

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Indonesian government climate talk success questioned

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 26 Mar 10;

Activists have voiced doubts on government claims that Indonesia was one of the key players in international climate talks that managed to break deadlocks during many difficult negotiations.

They also questioned the role played by Indonesian negotiators in climate change talks, including at the Copenhagen climate conference last year.

“These are all unfounded claims that ignore the contribution of other countries. The Indonesian delegation has always seen itself as a major player in the talks with a strong role, but this is not backed up by documented records,” climate expert Daniel Murdyarso told the workshop on climate change organized by the WWF on Thursday.

“Indonesia is often not ready for the ‘war’. We bring ‘guns’, while other countries bring ‘bombs’ to the negotiations.”

He said that the billions pledged by developed nations in the Copenhagen Accord was only lip service.
“Indonesia should not be satisfied with a pledge,” he said.

Developed nations have pledged some US$30 billion from 2010 to 2012, with another $100 billion per year from 2020. The accord also stipulates the establishment of a Copenhagen Green climate fund.

“With no binding treaty issued, the future of the Kyoto Protocol and the Clean Development Mechanism [CDM] becomes unclear,” said Daniel, who is also researcher at the Bogor-based Center for International Forestry Research (Cifor).

He said that the government should allocate funds for adapting to climate change as Indonesia should not rely on external aid.

“There must be a budget for adaptation. It is not fair if the government focuses purely on funding mitigation programs,” he said.

The Copenhagen talks, which were attended by heads of state including President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, resulted in only a political statement of the accord, with no binding deal for developed nations to cut emissions.

In recent climate change talks, delegates from Brazil, India, South Africa and China (referred to as the Basic Group) have been very prominent, with Indonesia eyeing a similar footing.

WWF Indonesia climate and energy director Fitrian Ardiansyah warned that Indonesia needed to focus on its own climate talk agenda rather than acting as a mediator.

“Indonesia still promotes itself as a mediator bridging divides at climate change talks, but it has yet to formulate a clear position,” he said.

He said the country’s agenda should be discussed with all stakeholders before talks even began.
The government has vowed to slash emissions by 26 percent by 2020 using its own budget. Fitrian said the government should translate the pledged 26 percent into a national and regional level development agenda.

“It is important, for example, to set integrated spatial planning for forestry, agriculture and mineral resources sectors to meet emission cut targets,” he said.

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