Ice cap thaw may awaken Icelandic volcanoes

Alister Doyle, Reuters 16 Apr 10;

OSLO (Reuters) - A thaw of Iceland's ice caps in coming decades caused by climate change may trigger more volcanic eruptions by removing a vast weight and freeing magma from deep below ground, scientists said on Friday.

They said there was no sign that the current eruption from below the Eyjafjallajokull glacier that has paralysed flights over northern Europe was linked to global warming. The glacier is too small and light to affect local geology.

"Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades," said Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland.

"Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems," he told Reuters. The end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago coincided with a surge in volcanic activity in Iceland, apparently because huge ice caps thinned and the land rose.

"We believe the reduction of ice has not been important in triggering this latest eruption," he said of Eyjafjallajokull. "The eruption is happening under a relatively small ice cap."

Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, said there were risks that climate change could also trigger volcanic eruptions or earthquakes in places such as Mount Erebus in Antarctica, the Aleutian islands of Alaska or Patagonia in South America.

MAGMA

"The effects would be biggest with ice-capped volcanoes," she said. "If you remove a load that is big enough you will also have an effect at depths on magma production."

She and Sigmundsson wrote a 2008 paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters about possible links between global warming and Icelandic volcanoes.

That report said that about 10 percent of Iceland's biggest ice cap, Vatnajokull, has melted since 1890 and the land nearby was rising about 25 millimetres (0.98 inch) a year, bringing shifts in geological stresses.

They estimated that the thaw had led to the formation of 1.4 cubic km (0.3 cubic mile) of magma deep below ground over the past century.

At high pressures such as under an ice cap, they reckon that rocks cannot expand to turn into liquid magma even if they are hot enough. "As the ice melts the rock can melt because the pressure decreases," she said.

Sigmundsson said that monitoring of the Vatnajokull volcano since 2008 suggested that the 2008 estimate for magma generation was "probably a minimum estimate. It can be somewhat larger."

He said that melting ice seemed the main way in which climate change, blamed mainly on use of fossil fuels, could have knock-on effects on geology. The U.N. climate panel says that global warming will cause more floods, droughts and rising seas.

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Best of our wild blogs: 16 Apr 10

Lots MORE new posts
from Ecological observations in Singapore

Job offer: Education Officer at the Raffles Museum (deadline 7th May 2010) from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

Getting There
from Ubin.sgkopi

Saving a living dinosaur in Singapore
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Jungle myna feeding on maggots from a dead snake
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Letting it all go to waste: food waste in Singapore

Choosy Singaporeans mean less-than-perfect produce is thrown out
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 16 Apr 10;

SINGAPORE - Some people press and squeeze fruits when choosing what to buy, while some food retailers keep food solely for display, and throw them out at closing time.

These are some practices that result in good food going to waste in Singapore, according to an eight-month investigative study by a group of Nanyang Technological University (NTU) students.

And in a country that imports more than 95 per cent of its food, the conclusion is that more can be done to minimise such wastage.

The students, who focussed on business practices, discovered that supermarkets and vegetable sellers at Pasir Panjang Wholesale Market, for example, practice "cosmetic filtering". This means that less than perfect-looking produce is culled or thrown away. Customers also contribute to the amount of spoilt produce by handling fruits, and by expecting only the best fresh produce.

In response to MediaCorp's queries, supermarkets said that their practices are in accordance with consumer behaviour.

Cold Storage said it is "the usual practice for produce sellers to ensure that they sell only fresh fruits and vegetables as this is expected by the consumers" and its staff try to minimise wastage when they cull defective produce.

NTUC FairPrice, which complies with international food safety and management standards, said the measures taken "may result in a small proportion of products being discarded".

Added its food safety and quality director, Ms Chong Nyet Chin, said: "We strive as far as possible to minimise this amount through proper shipping, storage and handling, without compromising the interests of our customers, whose safety will always come first."

Mr Samuel Tan, course manager of retail management at Temasek Polytechnic, agreed that the logistics process was an important area to look at to minimise wastage.

Supermarkets also put defective fruits to good use. At Carrefour, apples and oranges are used to make juice, while bananas are used to make in-store cakes. Other supermarkets, such as Sheng Siong and Giant, clear the fruits by selling them at reduced prices.

The NTU students also reported that food and beverage businesses waste food when staff do not maximise the use of ingredients and over-produce because they want to ensure there is a good variety for selection near closing time.

They observed that the display shelves of most bakeries and cafes are still fully stocked an hour before closing time and that the unsold food is thrown away after closing.

They also quoted a waiter from an outlet of The Coffee Club as saying that his manager told him that the cake fridge cannot look "empty" as presentation is important.

While some bakeries donate their leftover bread to the needy, others, such as Breadtalk, do not. It prefers to bake fresh bread for the needy, according to the report. Breadtalk and The Coffee Club did not reply to MediaCorp's queries.

While the students felt that food was wasted when F&B staff are not allowed to take leftovers home, a spokeswoman for Crystal Jade My Bread said this was meant to prevent pilfering and bad habits, such as selling the leftovers elsewhere or keeping the best food products to take home. She said that a staff member had once set aside a cake to bring home after the restaurant closed, for his son's birthday.

And Singaporeans are not recycling as fast as they are producing food waste. An NEA spokeswoman told MediaCorp that about 606 million kg of food waste was generated in Singapore last year - about7 per cent more than 2008. But only 13 per cent of the waste was recycled, compared to 12 per cent in 2008.

Mr Tan suggested companies can set a minimal wastage level in their sales target to motivate staff.

Food Waste Republic http://foodwasterepublic.com/

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A second garbage patch: Plastic soup seen in Atlantic

Mike Melia, Associated Press Yahoo News 15 Apr 10;

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Researchers are warning of a new blight at sea: a swirl of confetti-like plastic debris stretching over a remote expanse of the Atlantic Ocean.

The floating garbage — hard to spot from the surface and spun together by a vortex of currents — was documented by two groups of scientists who trawled the sea between scenic Bermuda and Portugal's mid-Atlantic Azores islands.

The studies describe a soup of micro-particles similar to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a phenomenon discovered a decade ago between Hawaii and California that researchers say is likely to exist in other places around the globe.

"We found the great Atlantic garbage patch," said Anna Cummins, who collected plastic samples on a sailing voyage in February.

The debris is harmful for fish, sea mammals — and at the top of the food chain, potentially humans — even though much of the plastic has broken into such tiny pieces they are nearly invisible.

Since there is no realistic way of cleaning the oceans, advocates say the key is to keep more plastic out by raising awareness and, wherever possible, challenging a throwaway culture that uses non-biodegradable materials for disposable products.

"Our job now is to let people know that plastic ocean pollution is a global problem — it unfortunately is not confined to a single patch," Cummins said.

The research teams presented their findings in February at the 2010 Oceans Sciences Meeting in Portland, Oregon. While scientists have reported finding plastic in parts of the Atlantic since the 1970s, the researchers say they have taken important steps toward mapping the extent of the pollution.

Cummins and her husband, Marcus Eriksen, of Santa Monica, California, sailed across the Atlantic for their research project. They plan similar studies in the South Atlantic in November and the South Pacific next spring.

On the voyage from Bermuda to the Azores, they crossed the Sargasso Sea, an area bounded by ocean currents including the Gulf Stream. They took samples every 100 miles (160 kilometers) with one interruption caused by a major storm. Each time they pulled up the trawl, it was full of plastic.

A separate study by undergraduates with the Woods Hole, Massachusetts-based Sea Education Association collected more than 6,000 samples on trips between Canada and the Caribbean over two decades. The lead investigator, Kara Lavendar Law, said they found the highest concentrations of plastics between 22 and 38 degrees north latitude, an offshore patch equivalent to the area between roughly Cuba and Washington, D.C.

Long trails of seaweed, mixed with bottles, crates and other flotsam, drift in the still waters of the area, known as the North Atlantic Subtropical Convergence Zone. Cummins' team even netted a Trigger fish trapped alive inside a plastic bucket.

But the most nettlesome trash is nearly invisible: countless specks of plastic, often smaller than pencil erasers, suspended near the surface of the deep blue Atlantic.

"It's shocking to see it firsthand," Cummins said. "Nothing compares to being out there. We've managed to leave our footprint really everywhere."

Still more data are needed to assess the dimensions of the North Atlantic patch.

Charles Moore, an ocean researcher credited with discovering the Pacific garbage patch in 1997, said the Atlantic undoubtedly has comparable amounts of plastic. The east coast of the United States has more people and more rivers to funnel garbage into the sea. But since the Atlantic is stormier, debris there likely is more diffuse, he said.

Whatever the difference between the two regions, plastics are devastating the environment across the world, said Moore, whose Algalita Marine Research Foundation based in Long Beach, California, was among the sponsors for Cummins and Eriksen.

"Humanity's plastic footprint is probably more dangerous than its carbon footprint," he said.

Plastics have entangled birds and turned up in the bellies of fish: A paper cited by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says as many as 100,000 marine mammals could die trash-related deaths each year.

The plastic bits, which can be impossible for fish to distinguish from plankton, are dangerous in part because they sponge up potentially harmful chemicals that are also circulating in the ocean, said Jacqueline Savitz, a marine scientist at Oceana, an ocean conservation group based in Washington.

As much as 80 percent of marine debris comes from land, according to the United Nations Environmental Program.

The U.S. government is concerned the pollution could hurt its vital interests.

"That plastic has the potential to impact our resources and impact our economy," said Lisa DiPinto, acting director of NOAA's marine debris program. "It's great to raise awareness so the public can see the plastics we use can eventually land in the ocean."

DiPinto said the federal agency is co-sponsoring a new voyage this summer by the Sea Education Association to measure plastic pollution southeast of Bermuda. NOAA is also involved in research on the Pacific patch.

"Unfortunately, the kinds of things we use plastic for are the kinds of things we don't dispose of carefully," Savitz said. "We've got to use less of it, and if we're going to use it, we have to make sure we dispose of it well."

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Snake poaching in Johor on the rise

Sim Bak Heng, New Straits Times 16 Apr 10;

JOHOR BARU: The increasing demand for snake skins by Thailand's leather industry and live snakes in China's exotic food sector have led to a flourishing trade of a different kind in Malaysian jungles.

For years, thousands of snakes, including pythons, have been trapped by poachers, who included Thais, who came and camped in the jungles.

After they had caught enough snakes, the reptiles are sent back through illegal means and sold to agents. Pythons are hunted for their skins to make, among others, handbags, wallets and belts.

Other types of snakes, such as cobras and kraits, are hunted for their gall bladders which are dried and used as an ingredient in traditional medicinal preparations.

Live snakes are usually exported to China as some people there believe that consuming the reptiles' blood could clean their own blood and that snake gall bladder has detoxification properties.

Malaysia Nature Society (Johor branch) adviser Vincent Chow said snakes were reducing in numbers due to poaching.

"With the increasing use of snakes for the leather industry and exotic food sector, the reptile is now very much sought after in the jungle."

Checks show that snake skins are sold for between RM15 and RM20 for a quarter metre while the meat is sold at about RM25 per kg.

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Village fishpond saves forest wildlife

WWF 15 Apr 10;

Mario Malomo is excited and anxious as he joins more than a dozen of his committee members who have taken up positions around the Tembe Piste community fishpond.

As head of the local committee that manages the newly created fishpond, his arrival signals the beginning of business. This is going to be the first harvest, and a crowd of about 100 villagers has gathered, some with baskets, ready to buy.

How many fish will be found beneath the murky water? Is the quantity going to be worth the trouble? Excitement reaches a fever pitch as five women open the pond outlet to let the water flow.

The first catch of the day is a 2kg tilapia. Two hours later, about 350kg of fish have been caught. This is the first time such a massive quantity of fresh fish is available for the roughly 300 people of the forest dependent village. Many agree the next harvest will be even more fruitful.

More than 50 people involved in the fish pond project went home with part of the harvest, while the rest was sold for about $400 and the money set aside for future investments in their village infrastructure, such as for a corn mill, a well for drinking water, and a first aid center.

The Tembe village fishpond is part of a WWF initiative that gives local communities and the indigenous Baka people that live around three national parks in Southeast Cameroon a new source of protein and revenue.

The project will produce at least 10 tons of fish per year by creating several new ponds, similar to the one in Tembe.

WWF hopes the new fishponds also will help quell the poaching crisis that is rampant in most of the Congo Basin to supply the bushmeat trade. Attempts have been made to deal with the issue at the source –anti-poaching patrols around protected areas and logging concessions, for example – and at the consumer level through education and awareness campaigns. But additional strategies are needed.

“Experience shows that improved law enforcement can drive the hunting and trade further underground if local people have no available alternative sources of protein,” says Louis Ngono, WWF Community Officer for the Jengi Programme. “Similarly, if no alternative is found, awareness campaigns may have limited impact, especially when targeting the rural poor,” he adds.

Hunters kill at least 36 species of animals around the Lobeke National Park alone, which is one of the three parks that encompass the WWF pond initiative. WWF is working to put in place longer-term, sustainable and innovative solutions that will reduce the consumption and trade in meat from wild species without compromising the health and livelihoods of forest communities.

The project is a joint effort with Cameroon’s Ministry of Livestock, Fisheries and Animal Husbandry and other local organizations. Not only will this initiative meet the protein needs of local residents, but sales are expected to generate income that will fulfill key social needs for the communities.

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Flushing Our Forests Down the Toilet

Julia Tier, World Watch Institute 15 Apr 10;

Washington, D.C.-Worldwide, the equivalent of almost 270,000 trees is either flushed or dumped in landfills every day and roughly 10 percent of that total is attributable to toilet paper. Meanwhile, growing populations, adoption of Western lifestyles, and sanitation improvements in developing countries are driving the increased use of toilet paper. According to the latest issue of World Watch magazine, the result is that forests in both the global North and South are under assault by paper companies competing to fill consumer demand.

"Steadily increasing demand for toilet paper in developing countries is a critical factor in the impact that toilet paper manufacturer have on forests around the world," says author Noelle Robbins. "And with the increasing pressure to reduce and discontinue the use of old growth forests, the move is on to tree plantations."

But according to Robbins, this cure could be worse than the disease. While the paper industry often touts plantations as the solution to creating an ongoing supply of virgin pulp and fiber, these monocultures often displace indigenous plant and animal life, require tremendous amounts of chemical pesticides and fertilizers, and soak up large quantities of water.

While some toilet paper manufacturers rely on forests, others turn to trash cans for their raw materials. Advocates of recycled toilet paper point out that converting virgin pulp to toilet paper requires more water than recycled paper and makes use of the tons of already used paper that fills landfills. Various estimates place the quantity of waste paper tossed into U.S. dumps and landfills at 35-40 percent of total landfilled mass.

"Toilet tissue, whether manufactured from virgin pulp or recycled paper, will continue to be an important part of daily life in Western countries and in developing countries emphasizing improved sanitation to mitigate health concerns," says Robbins. "Education of consumers; improvements in quality, pricing, and marketing recycled products; and willingness to consider toilet paper alternatives such as water for cleansing must be pursued to meet the needs of a growing global population."

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Give orangutans a break, palm oil protestors tell Nestle

Yahoo News 15 Apr 10;

LAUSANNE, Switzerland (AFP) – Greenpeace campaigners abseiled into Nestle's annual shareholders meeting on Thursday to urge the food giant to stop using palm oil harvested from rainforest destruction.

An AFP photographer saw the two activists break through the roof and abseil into the hall with mountaineering gear.

They hung a banner with the slogan "Nestle, Give the orangutans a break!" -- in a play on a Nestle marketing slogan -- and remained dangling about 20 metres (66 feet) above the shareholders' heads as the meeting continued.

More activists dressed as orangutans handed out leaflets outside the assembly hall in the western city of Lausanne.

The environmental group claims Nestle is still using palm oil harvested by clearing swathes of Asian rainforests in some of the chocolate bars it makes.

"We are here today to tell Nestle to change its KitKatastrophic policies," said Greenpeace?s International Head of Forest Campaigns, Pat Venditti, in a statement.

"We are urging shareholders to use their influence to ensure Nestle?s products are completely free from Sinar Mas palm oil and paper products," said Venditti.

Nestle announced last month that it was dropping the Indonesian firm, the world's largest palm oil producer, as a supplier following protests, three months after Anglo-Dutch multinational Unilever severed ties.

However, Greenpeace said Thursday that the Swiss food group was now buying indirectly from Sinar Mas through suppliers such as US agricultural commodities giant Cargill.

Nestle chairman Peter Brabeck-Letmathe retorted during the meeting that the food group was cutting palm oils, and called for a moratorium on tropical deforestation.

"Your know very well that it's not Nestle's 350,000 tonnes of palm oil that brought about deforestation in Indonesia but a political decision to use food as a source for biofuels," he said, addressing the protestors.

Brabeck compared that amount to "500,000 tonnes of palmoil" he said was used in Britain and Germany alone for lower emissions biofuels for cars.

Brabeck explained in an open letter to Greenpeace dated April 13 that all purchasing through Sinar Mas was halted "as long as there is verifiable evidence of rainforest destruction by that company."

"We have made it clear in writing to our suppliers of blended palm oil, including Cargill, that we will not tolerate the presence of oil from non-sustainable sources in what they sell us," he added.

Cargill has in turn demanded that Sinar Mas respond to claims it is devastating forests rich in carbon and wildlife and sought an investigation by an industry body, the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO).

Cargill said it expected answers from the company by the end of April.

Sinar Mas rejects claims of environmental vandalism but has been hit hard by the image conscious withdrawals by top clients.

Clearing for palm oil plantations is contributing to the rapid destruction of vast tracts of Indonesian jungle, making the country one of the biggest emitters of greenhouse gases in the world.

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Indonesian palm oil firms brainstorm greener PR

The Jakarta Post 15 Apr 10;

Mounting market pressure on Indonesia’s palm oil industry has forced producers to unite and consolidate efforts to combat what they deem an incomplete assessment by environmentalists.

Government representatives, members of the Association of Indonesian Palm Oil Producers (Gapki) and company CEOs gathered in Jakarta on Wednesday to draft guidelines on how to convince global consumers of the sustainability of palm oil development in Indonesia.

Swiss food and beverage company Nestle SA announced last month of it would drop an Indonesian palm oil supplier, PT Sinar Mas Agro Resources and Technology (SMART), over concerns about the company’s environmental record.

Previously Unilever and Kraft had stopped buying palm oil from Sinar Mas for the same reason.

In a report widely publicized in 2008, Greenpeace states that CPO producers had converted peat lands, natural forests and habitats of Indonesia’s indigenous orangutan into oil palm plantations. The report was later supported by field investigations and satellite data.

After the Wednesday meeting Gapki secretary-general Joko Supriyono said a joint endeavor had been established between the association, the Agriculture Ministry and the Malaysian Palm Oil Board (MPOB) to provide “a more accurate analysis” of the palm oil industry, particularly in terms of carbon emissions generated compared to other commodities used for biofuel such as cassava and corn.

Musdhalifah Machmud, assistant to the deputy coordinating economic minister for plantation and horticulture, admitted there were plantation companies that abused their permits and carried out illegal logging.

However, she said, plantation firms currently operated on 7.2 million hectares of land or 5.5 percent of the 188 million hectares of forests available in Indonesia.

Most of the forest destruction was carried out by other parties, she said.

Musdhalifah said the government had made a significant improvement in fighting illegal logging, imprisoning many company officials, several regents and governors involved with the crime.

She also said palm oil was among the strategic commodities chosen by the government for its export value and ability to provide jobs.

“The negative campaign waged by the NGO is no longer attacking us producers but the state and its people,” Joko said.

Indonesia is the biggest producer of palm oil, contributing 44.5 percent to the world’s total output of 42.9 million tons in 2008.

Also present at the meeting was Alan Oxley, the chairman and founder of World Growth, an NGO focusing on sustainable development in developing countries.

Several foreign NGOs including Greenpeace and WWF had strong connections with the European Commission, he said, claiming that up to 60 percent of WWF’s revenue came from the commission.

“It suited these NGOs to maintain the European perspective on developing countries ... Europe can prioritize environmental issues over economic growth because they are already wealthy,” Oxley said.

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Indonesia To Revise Forest CO2 Revenue Rules: Official

Sunanda Creagh, PlanetArk 16 Apr 10;

Indonesia will rewrite rules on how developers of forest preservation projects that earn valuable carbon credits must share their profits with the government and local communities, a finance ministry official said on Thursday.

Under a U.N.-backed scheme called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD), developing countries can be paid not to chop down trees, which absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide as they grow.

Large-scale efforts to curb or halt deforestation have the potential to slow the pace of climate change.

A REDD market could eventually be worth billions of dollars a year to developing nations, particularly for major forest nations such as Indonesia and Brazil, which have large tracts of tropical forests.

Indonesia has several pilot REDD projects that aim to demonstrate how REDD would work if the scheme and trading of forest carbon credits is formally agreed as part of a broader U.N. climate pact to expand or replace the Kyoto Protocol.

Indonesia's Forestry Ministry released a decree last year under which REDD project developers would have to share between 20 and 70 percent of profits with local communities, depending on the type of forest, while between 10 and 50 percent of profits would be shared with the government.

"We have asked for this decree to be revised because some articles in it should be discussed more intensively between the Minister of Finance and the Minister of Forestry," said Noeroso L. Wahyudi, a senior Finance Ministry official. "We need to justify this formula so it can be implemented properly."

Analysts and industry players expressed surprise when the Forestry Ministry released the decree last year as many had expected revenue sharing to fall under the purview of the Finance Ministry.

Wahyudi said it was possible the percentages in the formula could change but could not say how.

"At the latest, the review should be finished by the end of the year," he said.

A source in the REDD development industry, who asked not to be named, said the government should also clarify whether carbon rights should be taxed as a commodity or a service and who exactly holds the rights to carbon stored in a forest.

"The benefit sharing has to be equitable for everyone," said the source, adding he could accept keeping only 60 percent of profits. "What we are looking for is certainty."

The Forestry Ministry announced in March it was reviewing three REDD decrees in an attempt to remove overlapping rules.

(Editing by David Fogarty)

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Indonesian government regulation to allow businesses in peatlands

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 15 Apr 10;

The government is drafting a regulation on peatland protection that would allow businesses to utilize the areas despite mounting calls for a moratorium to conserve the areas to prevent the release of emissions.

Article 16 of the draft regulation stipulates peatland areas could be used for at least 10 purposes including, pastures, plantations, fisheries, residential, mining and transmigration areas.

It says any people operating businesses in peatland areas should manage a minimum water level to prevent fires that would lead to the huge release of emissions into the atmosphere.

“The regulation aims to minimize damage to peatland ecosystems,” Masnellyarti Hilman, deputy minister for environmental damage control at the Environment Ministry told reporters on Wednesday.

“It would be wrong if we were prohibited to utilize peatland.”

The draft, which has been submitted to the ministry’s legal and human rights affairs, says peat domes with thickness of more than 3 meters would be categorized as protected areas and would be restricted.

It also stipulates that businesspeople should set aside 30 percent of its peatland area to be restored.

Currently, the government has no specific regulation on peatlands, which are believed to contain huge stocks of greenhouse gas.

The ministry predicted Indonesia has 30 million hectares of peatland mostly in Sumatra, Papua and Kalimantan.
A number of plantations currently operate on peatland.

A study by the the National Development Planning Agency (Bappenas) last year recommended a moratorium on peatland conversion to meet pledged emissions cuts to tackle climate change.

Bappenas predicted damaged peatlands contributed to about 1 billion tons of the carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions per year, half of the country’s total emissions.

Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions by 26 percent by 2020 to help slow the effects of climate change.
Activists said opening peatlands risked the release of huge amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere.

Wetlands International asked the government to review the draft on fears it would only encourage people to open business on peatland.

“It is not in line with the government’s commitment to cut emissions,” I Nyoman Suriyadiputra from Wetlands International said.

A study from Wetlands said that Kalimantan, with 5.8 million hectares of peatland could store some 40 gigatons of CO2.

It said that Central Kalimantan alone, with 3 million hectares of peatland in Kapuas, Ketingan and Kahayan Hilir regencies, has the capacity to store 22 gigatons of emissions.

“One effective way to reduce emissions in Central Kalimantan is by blocking canals to prevent fires,” he said.
The Greenpeace earlier protested the destruction of peatlands in Riau, which they say stored around 2
gigatons of carbon, with peat layers of more than 15 meters.

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U.S. leads bid to phase out whale hunting: report

Reuters 14 Apr 10;

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States is leading an effort that could result in an agreement in coming weeks to limit and ultimately end whale hunting by Japan, Norway and Iceland, The New York Times reported on Wednesday.

Citing people involved with the negotiations, the newspaper said the compromise deal -- which has sparked controversy within the 88-nation International Whaling Commission -- would allow the three countries to keep hunting whales for the next 10 years in reduced numbers.

In exchange, the whaling nations would agree to stricter monitoring of their operations, including tracking devices and international monitors on all whaling ships and participation in a whale DNA registry to track global trade in whale products.

The newspaper said officials involved in the talks were hopeful they could reach agreement in coming weeks, although ratification by the overall group is uncertain.

"This is one of the toughest negotiations I've been involved in 38 years," The Times quoted Cristian Maquieira, the Chilean chairman of the commission, as saying. "If this initiative fails now, it means going back to years of acrimony."

Last month, diplomats involved in the talks said during a meeting in Florida that they were in the middle of a "diplomatic crisis" over differences in the commission regarding whaling.

Japan, Norway and Iceland are the only countries that now hunt whales.

Australia, New Zealand and other countries want to ban all whaling. The compromise of reduced hunting for 10 more years is a hard one to get the commission members to agree on.

Anti-whaling activists have called for a ban on all whaling within a short amount of time and have urged an end to the hunting of threatened whale species.

The commission's annual meeting is scheduled for June in Morocco.

The Times said representatives to the whaling commission from more than a dozen countries including the three whaling countries and others backing a compromise deal are in Washington this week to negotiate terms of the agreement.

(Writing by Deborah Charles; Editing by Peter Cooney)

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