Why China holds 'rare' cards in the race to go green

Tom Heap, BBC News 19 May 10;

From electric cars to wind turbines, environmentally-friendly technology around the world needs rare earth metals. But China - where over 90% of these minerals are mined - is saying it now wants to keep more for its own industry.

The leafy banks of the Birmingham and Worcester canal may be an unlikely place to discuss a looming industrial crisis but it was here that Professor Rex Harris of Birmingham University took me on his hydrogen-powered electric barge.

The super efficient motor, like most electric vehicle motors, uses rare earth magnets.

Rex gave me two matchbox sized neodymium-boron magnets, offering me £50 to push them together.

His money was safe, the magnetic field was too strong. Such power is vital to green technology, so much of which is based on the efficient generation, use and storage of electricity.

So we need to be sure of good supply of rare earth magnets.

"We worry about peak oil," he says, "we should worry about peak magnets as well."

Dangers of dependence

Rare earth metals are relatively abundant in the Earth's crust, but they are difficult to extract.

Most came form the United States in the 1960s but tightening environmental regulations and a price war closed the last Californian mine, handing China a virtual monopoly.

American strategic metal consultant, Jack Lifton has been warning the US government of the dangers of dependence.

"Last year the Chinese announced their regular five year plan, looking ahead to 2010 to 2015.

"They said they would continue to reduce the export of these materials to the West and that they were considering stopping the export of certain of them."

The Chinese motives are pretty clear. They want Western users to do their manufacturing in China and they need supplies for their own ambitious wind energy programme.

They plan to build 120 GW of wind generated electricity by 2020, more than Britain's entire electricity production.

That alone demands a full year's supply of rare earth metals.

The former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping once remarked "There is oil in the Middle East, there is rare earth in China."

Environmental concerns

Japan has already woken up to the implications of this by building up stockpiles.

Toyota, who make the rare earth guzzling Prius hybrid car, is considering opening its own mine in Vietnam.

The United States is worried about supplies for the military while the UK government has examined the risks for our own plans for more electric cars.

The search is now on for alternative sources of rare earths, with mines planned for California, Australia, Arctic Canada and even Greenland.

But they are delayed by environmental concerns stoked by the Chinese experience.

Their principal source is Baotou in Chinese Inner Mongolia where enormous open-cast mines scar the landscape whilst refineries leak vast quantities of polluted water into the landscape.

Independent expert, Jack Lifton says we can't demand zero impact. If we want green technology then we need to mine, he says. "The green road always starts with black earth."

Cleaner alternative

However, Professor Animesh Jha at Leeds University thinks he may have a cleaner alternative.

He has discovered that titanium dioxide ore could be an important source.

The purification of this chemical, commonly used in paints, leaves a residue of rare earths. He believes this could by-pass the Chinese and the environmental problems of mining.

"There are very nice deposits of titanium oxide all over the world... Norway, India, Brazil, US. They all have rare earths in them."

Combine Professor Jha's technique with the fruits of new mines and the careful recycling of rare earth metals currently in use in our laptops and mobile phones and we may be able to provide sufficient supplies in the future.

But new processes take time to perfect and new mines take years to come on-stream.

That still leaves a long gap when the green revolution will rely on the economic and political judgement of China's exporters.

Costing the Earth can be heard on BBC Radio 4 at 9pm on Wednesday 19th May 2010 and at 1.30pm on Thursday 20th May and after on BBC iPlayer

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Malaysia Has Most CDM Projects In Region To Cut Greenhouse Gas

Bernama 19 May 10;

KUALA LUMPUR, May 19 (Bernama) -- Malaysia has 81 Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects to date to help cut greenhouse gases, the highest number in Southeast Asia, Deputy Natural Resources and Environment Minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup said today.

The CDM mechanism under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, would allow net global greenhouse gas emissions to be reduced at a much lower global cost with industralised countries financing emission reduction projects in developing countries where the cost was lower, he said.

"It will benefit us in terms of technology transfer," Joseph said in opening the Waste Management Conference and Exhibition 2010, here Wednesday.

The ministry is the designated national authority for CDM in Malaysia which aimed to enable developing countries to leapfrog outdated technologies and achieve sustainable development cost effectively.

The two-day conference themed "1Green Malaysia" is organised by the non-government organisation, Environmental Management and Research Association of Malaysia (Ensearch).

Also present were Environment Department director-general Datuk Rosnani Ibarahim (repeat Ibarahim) and Ensearch president Peter Ho Yueh Chuen.

Ministry deputy under secretary for environment conservation Dr Gary W.Theseira, in his presentation at the conference, said the government aimed to increase energy efficiency by three percent and step up renewable energy and waste management to meet the goal of cutting carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by 40 per cent by 2020.

The improvement in Energy Efficiency (EE) was expected to remove nine million tonnes of CO2 while renewable energy was anticipated to reduce 11 million tonnes and the waste management sector would cut 10 million tonnes.

Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak announced Malaysia was adopting a voluntary reduction of up to 40 per cent of emission from 2005 levels at the Climate Change Conference in Cophenhagen last year subject to assistance from developed countries.

-- BERNAMA

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Study: Ocean Warmed Significantly Over Past 16 Years

Brett Israel, livescience.com Yahoo News 19 May 10;

The ocean has warmed significantly over the past decade and a half, a new study based on different sources of ocean warming data suggests.

The new study, detailed in the May 20 issue of the journal Nature, revealed that the top 2,300 feet (700 meters) of the world's oceans warmed 0.64 watts per square meter from 1993 to 2008. That's equal to adding the energy from 100 million atomic bombs to the ocean each year during the 16-year period, said John Lyman of the University of Hawaii.

Water takes longer to heat up and cool down than does the air or land, so ocean warming is considered to be a better indicator of global warming than measurements of global atmospheric temperatures at the Earth's surface.

But until now, scientists were not sure how the heat energy in the upper ocean had changed in recent decades or what ocean warming meant for the Earth's energy balance.

Lyman and colleagues combined different ocean monitoring groups' data sets, taking into account different sources of bias and uncertainty - due to researchers using different instruments, the lack of instrument coverage in the ocean, and different ways of analyzing data used among research groups - and put forth a warming rate estimate for the upper ocean that it is more useful in climate models.

Ocean heat content is a useful measurement for studying the Earth's warming, because the upper ocean acts as a giant heat sink and absorbs 90 percent of the heat energy that is added to the Earth's atmosphere from the warming caused by the accumulation of greenhouse gases, Lyman said.

While the ocean warmed from 1993 to 2008, the data suggest that warming has stalled since 2003. However, researchers are not certain what pattern ocean warming will follow, and the stall could be attributed to natural variability in the data, Lyman told LiveScience.

"The key thing for studying climate is what the long-term trends are doing," said climate scientist Gavin Schmidt of NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies, who was not involved in the study. "However you cut it, those long-term trends are still there."

Despite the variability, the long-term increase in ocean heat content is real and cannot be dismissed as an artifact of measurement error, said climate scientist Michael Mann of Penn State. Climate models based on increases in man-made greenhouse gases predict an increase in ocean warming that is similar to the new model's estimate.

"The study is a sobering reminder that human-caused climate change is very real, and by many measures actually proceeding faster than the models have projected," Mann said.

World's Water Steadily Warming Up
Daniel Fineren, PlanetArk 21 May 10;

The top layer of the world's ocean has warmed steadily since 1993, a strong sign of global warming and a key driver of sea level rise, according to a study by an international team of scientists.

"The ocean is the biggest reservoir for heat in the climate system, so as the planet warms, we're finding that 80 to 90 percent of the increased heat ends up in the ocean," said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

Scientists from NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Britain's Met Office, the University of Hamburg in Germany and the Meteorological Research Institute in Japan analyzed different estimates of heat content in the upper ocean from 1993 to 2008 to assess the size and certainty of growing heat storage in the ocean.

They estimated that the heat content of the ocean has increased over the last 16 years and the energy stored is now enough to light nearly 500 100-watt light bulbs for every person on the planet.

Warmer oceans cause sea levels to rise as seawater expands as it heats up, accounting for about one-third to one-half of global sea level rise, scientists say.

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2010 on track to be hottest ever: U.S. climate data

Michael Szabo, PlanetArk 20 May 10;

This year is on track to be the hottest ever after data published by America's climate agency this week showed record global temperatures in April and the first four months of 2010.

'The combined April global land and ocean average surface temperature was the warmest on record at 58.1 degrees Fahrenheit (14.5 degrees Celsius), which is 1.37 degrees F (0.76 degrees C) above the 20th century average of 56.7 F (13.7 C),' the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said in a report on its website dated Monday, May 17.

These temperatures surpassed the previous record set in 1998, NOAA added.

The agency said April's global land surface temperatures were the third warmest according to its records, which date back to 1880.

It noted warmer-than-normal conditions in Canada, Alaska, eastern U.S., Australia, South Asia, northern Africa and northern Russia.

'Cooler-than-normal places included Mongolia, Argentina, far eastern Russia, the western contiguous United States and most of China,' NOAA said, adding global snow cover was the fourth-lowest on record.

China had its coolest April since 1961, but wettest since 1974, it said.

April was the largest since 2001, they were still below average for the 11th consecutive April as a result of warmer-than-average ocean surface temperatures.

NOAA said Arctic ice covered around 5.7 million square miles {14.7 million square kilometers), 2.1 percent below the 1979-2000 average extent.

The El Nino weather pattern warming the Pacific Ocean weakened in April and is expected to continue through June, NOAA said, echoing a March report by the World Meteorological Organization (WMO).

Scientists said El Nino was partly responsible for 2009 being the fifth warmest year on record.

(Reporting by Michael Szabo; editing by James Jukwey)

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Best of our wild blogs: 19 May 10

Fig for You!
from Psychedelic Nature

Windy on Beting Bemban Besar
from wild shores of singapore and knobblies galore and Singapore Nature

NIE fieldtrip to Labrador rocky shore
from wonderful creation

Documenting bird calls and songs
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Upper and Lower Peirce
from Crystal and Bryan in Singapore

Pencil me in
from The annotated budak

Raffles Museum Treasures: Johnson's freshwater crab
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Coral bleaching May 2010
from Compressed air junkie

Diving in Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park (1)
from Chai's Marine Life Blog

The Beauty of Diversity, and Sea Slugs
from New York Times Blogs by Terry Gosliner

Children prioritize TV, video games over saving the environment
from Mongabay.com news

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Bridge across BKE to link nature reserves

Besides humans, it will allow animals, plants to cross the expressway
Grace Chua StraitS Times 19 May 10;

BUILDERS wanted: to design and construct an eco-link bridge between two nature reserves that will be accessible to both humans and animals.

The bridge would allow animals and plants to move between Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and the Central Catchment area around the reservoirs.

To be planted with grass and native trees and shrubs for creatures from both sides to colonise, the area should become a habitat for wildlife when animals and insects move in.

The movement of species was cut short when the Bukit Timah Expressway (BKE) was completed in 1986. Animals could not cross the busy road, and were often turned into roadkill while trying to do so in search of food and mates.

Since then, conservationists have bemoaned the potential loss of genetic diversity, as species like the rare banded leaf monkey were cut off from their counterparts on the other side of the BKE.

That loss of diversity could affect the survival of the two fragmented forests.

Now, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) is calling for tenders to design and build the 50m-wide green bridge to span the BKE, at about 600m north of Rifle Range Road between the Pan-Island Expressway and Dairy Farm exits.

The LTA and National Parks Board, which are jointly behind the project, have not decided on the precise location yet.

NParks said the general location was picked as being the least damaging on the nature reserves at either end.

The LTA tender opened last month and will close early next month.

The contractor must come up with a final design within six months of the award and complete the whole project in two years and nine months. Construction should start in the middle of next year.

The tender requires that the contractor take pains to protect the sensitive nature areas around the bridge - down to preserving specific trees. One of the tender drawings stipulates which trees cannot be chopped down.

They include species like Senegal mahogany, meranti tembaga, and fruit trees like the jambu and durian.

'Eco-passages' have been used successfully in other countries. In 2006, an 800m-long 'eco-duct' for deer, foxes and other animals was opened in Holland. The US$19 million (S$26.3 million) bridge spans a highway and a railway.

'The eco-passage is long overdue,' said Mr Veera Sekaran of landscaping company Greenology, who is a botanist by training. 'For the animals, it is like bridging the North and South Korea divide.'

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Green study disregards Singapore's circumstances

Straits Times Forum 19 May 10;

THE study by the National University of Singapore and the University of Adelaide reported in Friday's article ('Is Singapore the worst environmental offender?') ranked Singapore, with Japan, Denmark, New Zealand and Iceland, among the 20 worst-ranked countries on proportional environmental impact.

The 10 best-ranked countries were Cape Verde, Central African Republic, Swaziland, Antigua and Barbuda, Niger, Grenada, Samoa, Tonga, Djibouti and Tajikistan.

However, the study compares cities like Singapore with large countries such as Australia, Britain and Japan. A more realistic comparison would be with cities like Sydney, London or Tokyo.

It is surprising that many of the findings are not borne out by facts.

For example, Singapore is ranked fourth worst in its water pollution index. It ignores our investing in a comprehensive used-water network to ensure that all used water is collected and treated prior to discharge into the watercourse.

Our treated used water meets even more stringent standards than the European Union's.

The study grossly inflates Singapore's emissions by including emissions from bunker fuels sold to ships and aircraft transiting Singapore.

This deviates from internationally accepted norms and unfairly penalises Singapore, which is a major international maritime and aviation hub. Under the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention for Climate Change, emissions from international bunker sales are excluded because the emissions take place outside of Singapore.

In fact, Singapore reduced its carbon intensity by 40 per cent from 1990 to 2007.

One author (Navjot Sodhi) claimed that Singapore lost 90 per cent of its forests due to rapid development in the last 30 years. This is untrue. Much original forest cover was lost prior to Singapore's independence in 1965. To preserve what remained, we have by law conserved nature reserves and implemented species recovery programmes.

This, together with an islandwide network of parks and streetscape, enabled Singapore's green cover to grow to almost 50 per cent of the island. Despite rapid development, we have retained a diversity of flora and fauna, including more than 2,000 native plant species and 350 bird species. We continue to discover new species and re-discover species previously thought extinct.

We recognise the need for a scientifically credible and robust evaluation tool to measure biodiversity conservation efforts in cities. That is why Singapore is developing a City Biodiversity Index, in partnership with the United Nations' Convention on Biological Diversity, as a tool for cities to evaluate their progress in reducing the rate of biodiversity loss.

The index will be a more appropriate index to evaluate biodiversity and good governance in cities.

Mr Philip Ong
Director (Strategic Policy)
Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources

Mr Lim Chee Hwee
Director (Infrastructure)
Ministry of National Development

Related post
Singapore No. 1 global eco-destroyer? on wild shores of singapore.

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InVivos to set up animal breeding facility in Singapore

Rats! Singapore to get a steady supply
InVivos to set up animal breeding facility in Lim Chu Kang to support research activities here
Ong Dai Lin, Today Online 19 May 10;

SINGAPORE - For years, life science researchers here have been predominantly using imported research animals for their laboratory work. Soon, a national breeding facility to provide a steady supply of animals for research will aid their work, MediaCorp has learnt.

InVivos, a company established in 2008 by the National University of Singapore (NUS) and the Agency for Science, Technology and Research's Biomedical Sciences Institutes to set up an animal breeding facility to support research activities, has teamed up with American company Taconic to develop the project.

Taconic is one of the largest laboratory rodent providers in the world.

The facility, which is expected to be completed by the end of next year, will produce 300,000 rodents annually when it starts operations. It aims to produce about 600,000 rodents (80 per cent mice and 20 per cent rats) per year at full capacity. It will then employ 50 to 60 people.

It will be built on land designated for agri-biotechnological use in Lim Chu Kang, adjacent to the current NUS' Centre for Animal Resources, a smaller rodent breeding facility.

Taconic senior vice-president of client relations Kevin Leak said of the partnership: "It's testimony to our position of leadership in mouse and rat genetics, as well as our half century of expertise in breeding and worldwide delivery, that we've been selected as trainers, consultants and suppliers to InVivos."

About 30,000 small mammals such as hamsters, rats and guinea pigs were imported last year as pets and also for research, according to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority.

Researchers told MediaCorp the new facility should be helpful in their work.

Dr Patrick Casey, senior vice-dean of research at Duke-National University of Singapore Graduate Medical School, said it is "critical to have a consistent and reliant supply of animals in research".

"We import many animals from Australia, and they're expensive and take quite a while to get here ... Now the costs can be lower and it will be faster to get the animals," he said.

While animals are usually used in laboratory work when there are no other research options, a centralised breeding facility is not uncommon overseas. In India, a National Centre for Laboratory Animal Sciences was set up with the aim of producing quality laboratory animals such as guinea pigs for research.

In Taiwan, a National Laboratory Animal Centre was set up in 1994 to supply rodents for research.

The US' National Institutes of Health's National Centre for Research Resources has bred government-owned chimpanzees for research since 1995. The programme was stopped in 2007 for financial reasons.

Uniquely Singapore lab mice and micro-pigs
Goh Chin Lian Straits Times 23 May 10;

They are the made-in-Singapore 'guinea pigs'. Miniature pigs 10 times smaller than a normal pig will soon be bred here for scientific research.

PWG Genetics, a biomedical research company with its headquarters in South Korea, plans to breed about 200 of these pigs from this year at its new facility in Tuas.

Over at Lim Chu Kang, a facility will be built to produce up to 600,000 mice and rats annually.

The project belongs to InVivos, a company set up by the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star) and the National University of Singapore (NUS). The facilities aim to meet the demand for animals as Singapore pushes for biomedical sciences to be a pillar of growth. The animals are used to test drugs, vaccines and surgical methods.

Singapore is home to 25 facilities licensed by the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) for animal research. They include laboratories run by A*Star, NUS, health-care group SingHealth and companies like PWG.

While NUS and A*Star run their own facilities to breed rodents, researchers still need to import more of these and other animals like monkeys and pigs.

About 30,000 small mammals such as mice and rabbits were imported last year for research and as pets, the AVA said.

The demand here for miniature pigs alone is about 1,000 a year, a PWG spokesman said. Normal pigs, which grow to weigh more than 100kg within a year, are difficult to handle. If used for drug tests, they will need huge dosages, which can be expensive.

Miniature pigs from Europe and the United States used by researchers are usually half the size. PWG said its pigs are smaller. One type weighs 10kg to 15kg, at one year old to 15 months old. These animals, called micro-pigs, originate from crosses of pot-bellied Vietnamese pigs, pygmy pigs and a range of other pig types.

PWG said it has been importing micro-pigs from South Korea for researchers at the Defence Science Organisation, National University Hospital and National Dental Centre. Breeding them here will ensure they are readily available and reduce their exposure to diseases, which is a risk if they were to be shipped from overseas, the spokesman said.

InVivos' facility, expected to be built by the end of next year, will breed mice and rats under clean-room conditions. The 3,000 sq m facility will be built at Perahu Road, next to a smaller breeding facility run by NUS. InVivos will eventually combine both facilities.

A*Star's current breeding facility at Biopolis in Buona Vista will cease operations once InVivos' facilities become fully operational.

Guidelines on the humane treatment of animals in research were drawn up by the National Advisory Committee for Laboratory Animal Research (Naclar) in 2003.

Naclar's chairman, Professor Bernard Tan, said the use of animals for research rests on three principles. They are: replacing the use of animals with other means whenever possible; using as few as necessary; and doing one's best to ensure they do not suffer.

ANIMALS FOR TESTS

Mice and rats

Used in cancer, genetic and stem cell research. InVivos will build a facility in Lim Chu Kang by the end of next year with the capacity to breed 600,000 mice and rats a year.

Pigs

Used to test drugs and medical devices, such as artificial knee joints and dental implants. PWG Genetics will breed 200 micro-pigs in its Tuas facility from this year.

Monkeys

Used in vaccine, Alzheimer's studies and research on healing processes. Researchers began using long-tailed macaques on a larger scale three years ago. The animals come from Singapore, Vietnam and Indonesia. SingHealth Experimental Medicine Centre maintains a macaque colony here. Singapore-based company Maccine has a subsidiary which runs a breeding facility on Bintan, Indonesia.

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'Lehe' way to sustainable living

Goh Sui Noi, Straits Times 19 May 10;

THE first time I came across the term Lohas was on a magazine cover in a Taipei bookstore two years ago.

Lohas, or lifestyles of health and sustainability, is a term coined in the West. And the Chinese-language magazine had adopted the acronym as part of its name - My Lohas. In the articles the magazine carried, Lohas was translated as lehuo, 'happy life'.

The magazine, which was printed on recycled, uncoated paper with soya-based ink, was clearly pitched at the middle class. Articles included interviews with a psychologist who made lamps out of driftwood in his spare time, a former newscaster and her husband who made documentaries on the environment, two women who cycled round Taiwan; tips on how to reduce your carbon footprint; and suggestions of where to go for an eco-holiday.

My Lohas reflects the movement that began in the United States to provide goods and services focused on health, the environment, social justice, personal development and sustainable living, aimed largely at the middle-class consumer who is relatively health conscious and socially and environmentally aware.

Thus there are (more expensive) fair trade coffee, hybrid cars, organic food - products calculated to make the consumer feel good about having done his or her bit for society and the environment.

The second time I encountered the term Lohas, or rather the Chinese version of it, was last week in a news feature of the Beijing News, a daily tabloid. It was about a green project in an old part of Beijing, in the Dongsi area where old low-rises and courtyard houses are progressively being replaced by office towers and high-rise residential blocks.

This project of the environmental non-governmental organisation (NGO) Global Village of Beijing has brought the concept of Lohas to the grassroots level, and given it a new twist. Instead of lehuo, the Chinese have chosen to use the term lehe. It is shorthand for ledaoshanghe, roughly, 'enjoy the way of nature and esteem harmony'. This term is derived from the Dao De Jing, the Daoist classic.

As explained by Ms Sheri Liao, founder of Global Village, lehe goes beyond the concept of green living of lehuo or Lohas, to emphasise that man and nature are one. Put simply, it is about deriving happiness and good health from living in harmony with nature, a traditional Daoist concept which is now coming back into vogue in China.

One could argue that lehe is a reaction to China's rapid development in the past 30 years, which has led to serious pollution and resource depletion. This has led to the Chinese government looking for more sustainable ways of growth, and some segments of society for less profligate consumption and more healthy lifestyles.

In practical terms, lehe is about sustainable ways of living. Individual projects in the eight mainly lower-middle income neighbourhoods range from walking exercises to water-saving measures, to waste reduction and recycling, to improving air quality of the neighbourhoods through cultivation of herbs and vegetables.

The project in Dongsi began last September with funding of one million yuan (S$205,000) from a foundation and cooperation of the Dongsi street committee (much like our residents' committees). It is expected to run for two years, with some projects expected to be self-sustaining and even money-making, such as using reusable waste to make products such as bags, coasters, hats and souvenirs.

Organisers admitted that the project was slow to start because the residents, many of them middle-aged folk or retirees, found it difficult to take to. They had to rope in friends and Communist Party cadres to begin with. But more people are coming forward to take part of their own volition. For example, membership of the easy-e daily taiji, a simple exercise regime incorporating some taiji moves, has grown from 50 to over 300.

Some have taken so much to urban farming that they are going beyond just growing vegetables and herbs. Madam Liu Lanhui, 67, has applied for permission to cultivate worms, to which she expects to feed kitchen waste. She will then harvest worm waste as organic fertiliser. As for Madam Hao Yufang, 77, and her husband, there was nothing like the joy of eating the celery they planted themselves. They had their first harvest recently, after switching from growing ornamental plants to vegetables.

Then there is Madam Li Shiping, 68, who started exercising with a walking group last October. She now advocates vegetarianism, makes fresh fruit juices for her family, and grinds five kinds of grains to make into a healthy porridge. She collects spent batteries from her neighbours for recycling.

The project targets mainly women because they hold the household purse strings, said Ms Li Junling of Global Village, who works full time at the Dongsi project. They reduce household expenses through low-carbon strategies like waste reduction, recycling, as well as organising flea markets.

Change is slow to come, noted Ms Li. 'It is hard for people to change habits of a lifetime in just six months,' she told The Straits Times. But it is happening as people see the benefits of the activities they take part in. The challenge now is getting younger, working people to participate.

What is noteworthy is that Global Village is taking an essentially middle-class lifestyle movement - and of a small segment of the middle class at that - and trying to universalise it by taking it to the grassroots. It is also taking the movement into the countryside, to an area of Sichuan hit by the 2008 earthquake, with a focus on organic farming. After all, any sustainable living movement must encompass all segments of society if it is to be successful.

Here in Singapore, there are many green community activities, but nothing concerted enough to broaden awareness of what low-carbon living entails to everyone. There is not enough information and facilitation of green living.

For example, Singaporeans are great consumers of IT products, but there is not enough ready information on the disposal of e-waste or collection points for such waste.

For example, I don't know how I can dispose of spent batteries if I don't want to just chuck them in the waste-bin. If I have used clothing that is not fit for the Salvation Army, there is no recycle bin I can put it in. And if one wants to grow herbs in the kitchen of an HDB flat, where does one go for help?

Perhaps our NGOs could take a leaf from China's Global Village of Beijing and universalise the concept of low-carbon, healthy living here by taking it to the heartland.

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Taiwan orders citizens to take environmental lessons

Yahoo News 18 May 10;

TAIPEI (AFP) – Taiwan has become one of the world's first societies to impose mandatory environmental education in its bid to protect its fragile environment, authorities said Tuesday.

Under the new law passed Tuesday, all companies, non-profit organisations and schools should offer at least four hours of environmental lessons each year, said the Environmental Protection Administration.

Violators will risk being shut down, it said in a statement, adding the law would "usher in a new era for Taiwan's environmental protection".

Environmentally conscious Taiwan is keen to promote green technologies and architecture as it seeks to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

The island's parliament last year passed a major renewable energy bill aimed at adding between 6,500 and 10,000 megawatts of installed energy from renewable sources over the next 20 years.

Currently, Taiwan has only 2,278 megawatts from renewable sources, according to state-run Taiwan Power Co.

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Up close with wild elephants at Endau-Rompin, Malaysia

Austin Camoens, The Star 19 May 10;

ENDAU: Visitors to the Endau-Rompin (Peta) National Park can observe elephants in the wild through observation towers set up throughout the park.

Johor National Parks Corporation (PTNJ) director Abu Bakar Mohamed Salleh said 10 towers had been built near the Orang Asli fruit groves in the park.

“These towers were erected two months ago to prevent large animals from destroying the fruit groves,” he said.

Abu Bakar said that the towers could also draw tourists, especially those who were keen on seeing elephants in the wild.

“We have studied various samples of elephant dung and estimate that we have more than 120 elephants in the park.”

He added that most of the towers were located near bamboo plants - the elephants preferred food.

Abu Bakar said that besides elephants, the park had 50 species of mammals, 230 types of birds, 43 different fish, 26 frog species, 179 varieties of butterflies, and 14 species of snakes.

“We also have three male and eight female tigers,” he said, adding that studies showed a male tiger needs about 30,000 hectares of forest territory while females need about 10,000 hectares.

The Endau-Rompin National Park (comprising the Peta and Selai parks) is spread over 80,000 hectares.

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Work On Kuraman Marine Park Centre, Malaysia To Start In 2011

Bernama 18 May 10;

LABUAN, May 18 (Bernama) -- The Department of Marine Park Malaysia will begin construction of the Kuraman Marine Park Centre next year with a RM10 million allocation under the Tenth Malaysia Plan. The department's director-general Abdul Jamal Mydin said the centre would be used for the marine park's more effective management, educational programmes, and research and monitoring activities.

"All these efforts will be beneficial for all parties concerned in promoting the Kuraman Island Marine Park as a new destination for Labuan's eco-tourism programme," he said at the handing-over of the Karuman Island jetty and RM1.99 million Marine Park Recreational Centre to his department by Labuan Corporation Tuesday.

The Kuraman group of islands which had been gazetted as a marine park, comprises Pulau Kuraman, Pulau Rusukan Besar and Pulau Rusukan Kecil, located south-west of Labuan and 14km from Labuan's Victoria Harbour.

Natural Resource and Environment Deputy Minister Tan Sri Joseph Kurup witnessed the handing-over, with Jamal representing his department while Labuan Corporation was represented by its chief executive officer, Datuk Basiran Saban.

The jetty, on the western side of Kuraman Island in the South China Sea, is about 500 metres from the Kuraman Island Resort.

Jamal said in intensifying conservation of the Kuraman marine park's ecosystem, the department last year placed artificial reefs worth RM200,000 for lobsters to breed there.

He said the department had also placed buoys to mark the zone for snorkelling and other recreational activities at the marine park for the visitors' own safety.

At the handing-over ceremony, Kurup also launched the Environ Reef project for the marine park with the articifical reefs contributed by Dorken Reef Resources to enhance biodiversity conservation there.

Besides Kuraman, the department has five other marine park centres, namely in Pulau Redang and Pulau Perhentian in Terengganu, Pulau Tinggi in Johor, Pulau Payar in Kedah and Pulau Tioman in Pahang, all in Peninsular Malaysia.

-- BERNAMA

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