Elephants kill Riau villager trying to drive them away with firecrackers

Antara 3 Jun 10;
Bengkalis, Riau Province (ANTARA News) - Suwanto (32), a plantation guard at Petani village, Mandau sub district, Bengkalis District, Riau Province, died after being attacked by a herd of elephants Wednesday evening.

Suwanto`s body was crushed under the feet of the giant animals, according to witnesses Thursday.

Earlier, he and tens of other villagers had tried to drive away around 18 elephants from a rubber plantation using fire-crackers.

"At the time, we did not at all expect the elephants to become angry by our actions to drive them away," Junaidi (40), a neighbor of Suwanto, said.

The villagers were panic stricken when the elephants turned back and attacked them.
"We all just ran to save ourselves," he said.

One hour after the incident, they found Suwanto`s body near a bush in horrible condition. They took the body to a nearby hospital and later buried him.

The Sumatran elephant, the smallest of the Asian elephants, is facing serious pressures arising from illegal logging and associated habitat loss and fragmentation in Indonesia.

The island`s elephant population has come under increasing threat from rapid forest conversion to plantations.

As forests shrink, elephants are increasingly closer to fields and cultivated land, generating conflict with humans that often result in the death of the elephants by poisoning or capture, as well as economic losses to humans.(*)

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Poverty an obstacle to saving Liberia's rainforest

Fran Blandy Yahoo News 3 Jun 10;

JALAY TOWN, Liberia (AFP) – Six months pregnant and with two toddlers to feed, saving the rainforest isn't top of Marita Worjiloh's list of priorities right now.

A log lies smoking amid burned, jagged tree stumps as Marita tosses seeds into the fertile soil gouged out of Liberia's jungle.

She knows this traditional method of slash-and-burn farming is decimating woodlands, but "if I had something to do to make money I won't cut the forest down, because I know it is important."

"Without a forest we would not live a good life."

So while conservationists worry about preserving rainforests -- a powerful aid against climate change -- and the biodiversity they offer, it is poverty that drives this 23-year-old.

Liberia's forest makes up 42 percent of what is left of the Upper Guinean Rainforest -- just part of a fragmented system that once covered most of West Africa but has been reduced to 12 percent of its original reach.

The people of this west African nation have relied on the forest for food, medicine and even as a refuge during two successive civil conflicts from 1989 to 2003.

Villagers also have been razing large patches for farmland and hunting the wildlife for meat.

The threat of deforestation is real with about 70 percent of the population involved in slash-and-burn farming, said Johansen Voker, the acting executive director of Liberia's Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

A traditional method used worldwide, slash-and-burn involves felling trees, burning their remains for nutrient-rich ash, and planting fast-growing crops such as rice and cassava.

The land should then be allowed to regenerate but pressure from burgeoning populations often decreases this fallow period and can lead to permanent loss of forest cover.

Despite efforts to introduce more sustainable ways to live off the forest, poverty is the biggest threat to biodiversity, said Voker, leading to illegal logging, mining and burning charcoal as fuel.

"It is poverty that drives people into burning charcoal as a source of fuel and it is poverty that drives people into the kind of unsustainable farming we are talking about," he said.

"What they think about is how they can cut down a tree to produce charcoal and that charcoal will put a bowl of rice on their table."

According to a 2010 report on deforestation by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, Africa lost 3.4 million hectares of forest over the last decade, the second largest net loss after South America which includes the Amazon.

Africa's forest cover is concentrated in its western and central parts, but often in countries ravaged by war that has damaged their fragile environment through abuse of natural resources and massive population displacement.

In West Africa, wars in Liberia and Sierra Leone sent more than a million refugees fleeing across their borders into forested regions of Guinea and the Ivory Coast, one of the planet's most diverse biological regions.

For Richard Sambolah, technical adviser for the British-based organisation Fauna and Flora International, Liberia's conflict led to further exploitation of the forest.

"It just intensified poverty in the country," he added, "there are no jobs and so almost 80-90 percent of the population depends on the forest."

According to Voker, Liberia's agriculture ministry is trying to aid farmers to adapt to sustainable methods such as lowland or swamp farming which can be more profitable and increase yield.

"But the farmers have to make drastic changes... to adapt to this so-called new technology," he cautioned, and might be reluctant to ditch the familiarity of traditional upland farming.

Voker said Liberia was losing up to two percent of its forest cover every year. "If it is not checked you can imagine what happens 20 years from now... the forest will be gone."

As part of the persuasion process, in a nearby village Fiona Pamplin from Fauna and Flora International has trained a troupe to dance and act out a play explaining the devastating effects of cutting down the forests.

The message is clear, if not attractive.

"I am actually quite relieved to see that people do actually understand my message but they are always asking the question: So what are we supposed to do instead?" says Pamplin.

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Amazon up in smoke, even when deforestation slows

Alister Doyle Reuters 3 Jun 10;

OSLO (Reuters) - Brazilian farmers are setting more fires in parts of the Amazon where deforestation has slowed, according to a study on Thursday that shows weaknesses in a U.N. plan for slowing climate change.

Big fires, set by farmers to clear land for agriculture, are the main cause of deforestation but they continue to set smaller fires to maintain their plots -- and the damage is often hidden from satellite imaging because they burn under the tree canopy.

"This was a big surprise," Luiz Aragao, lead author of the study at the University of Exeter in England, told Reuters. "We thought that fires would decrease with less deforestation."

The extra blazes, used to clear regrowing trees and undergrowth and add nutrients to the soil, release large amounts of greenhouse gases stored in vegetation and so partly negate the climate benefits of a drive to brake deforestation.

"Fire occurrence has increased in 59 percent of the area that has experienced reduced deforestation rates," according to the scientists writing in the journal Science, based mainly on satellite images.

Aragao said that a pattern of more fires might also be true in other tropical forests, such as the Congo basin or parts of Asia which are seeking to slow forest loss under U.N. schemes.

In Brazil, extra fires often burned undergrowth in forests alongside farmland but the damage went unnoticed by satellites if the big trees were mostly intact.

CANOPY TRICKERY

"Farmers plant pasture under the large trees and you can't see it from a satellite. It still counts as a forest because of the canopy cover," Aragao said.

U.N. estimates are that deforestation accounts for up to a fifth of all greenhouse gases released by human activities, led by the burning of fossil fuels. Plants soak up heat-trapping carbon as they grow and release it when they rot or are burned.

Climate negotiators from 185 nations are meeting in Bonn from May 31-June 11 to work on a U.N. deal to slow global warming. The talks include a project known as REDD -- Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degradation.

Aragao said any U.N. deal should take account of the risks of more fires -- especially since most models of climate change predict a drying of the Amazon region in coming decades. Most Amazon fires are set by people, rather than by lightning.

He said any U.N. REDD programmes should encourage farmers to drop traditional reliance on fires. "That would increase the costs of REDD," he said, since farmers would need training and access to machinery such as tractors.

Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon has meant a loss of 19,000 sq km (7,300 sq mile) of forest a year from 1998-2007, releasing 280 million tonnes of carbon a year, the study said.

In recent years of drought, extra fires probably emitted as much carbon as deliberate clearing of trees, the study said. That total was in turn comparable to an estimated 450 million tonnes of carbon soaked up by the forest every year.

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Best of our wild blogs: 3 Jun 10

How's Tanah Merah doing after the oil spill?
from wild shores of singapore

Life less at Tanah Merah
from The annotated budak

Chek Jawa, 2 June 2010: Timeless Embrace
from Flying Fish Friends

5 Jun is World Environment Day!
from Celebrating Singapore's BioDiversity!

Beetles in the bush
from The annotated budak

Singapore Botanic Gardens
from Singapore Nature

Crustaceans in Acropora
from Singapore Nature

Malaysian Railway land is a ready-made green corridor
from Habitatnews

Raffles Museum Treasures: Great bittern
from Lazy Lizard's Tales

‘Can Recycle?’ Shows Items that are Acceptable for Recycling
from Zero Waste Singapore

Sustainability: Choices, choices, choices
from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black

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Oil spill off Changi East: Malaysian reports

Environmentalist Calls For Special Team To Tackle Oil Spill
Bernama 2 Jun 10;

KOTA TINGGI, June 2 (Bernama) -- An environmental activist here has called for the setting up of a special team in Pengerang, here, comprising professionals who can be swiftly mobilised to tackle oil spills should the need arise.

Malaysian Nature Society Johor advisor Vincent Chow said the special team was necessary in view of Pengerang's location which overlooks the busy shipping lanes, exposing the area to the risk of oil spills either due to accidents at sea or desludging by ships.

Speaking to Bernama here, he said, oil spill clean up should not be left to fishermen or villagers as they had no expertise or equipment to do so.

Chow said the oil spill caused by the collision between MT Bunga Kelana and MV Waily vessels in Pengerang water recently necessitated the setting up of such team.

He said that unlike the authorities in Singapore, which had moved in swiftly to contain the spill from reaching the republic's shores, "the response here is quite slow."

Meanwhile the Department of Environment said the work to clean up the oil spill was still ongoing in the affected beach between Tanjung Pengelih and Tanjung Punggai.

So far, volunteers had cleaned up 17.5km of the beach, with only 500 metres remaining.

"A total of 10,400 bags containing sand and oil slick and 19,991 litres of oil have been collected," he said, adding that 239 local residents, contractors, volunteers, members of fishermen associations and Rela personnel were involved in the operation.

They continued their work today in Sungai Musoh, Sungai Ahmad and Tanjung Kapal, it added.

It said that the Marine Department was still monitoring the oil spill and that there were no new spills reported.

-- BERNAMA

Oil spill: NGOs urged to help fishermen
New Straits Times 3 Jun 10;

PENGERANG: Concerned with the fate of fishermen following an oil spill incident, Raja Zarith Sofiah Sultan Idris, the wife of the Johor Sultan, yesterday visited several affected beaches while distributing hygiene care products to them.

Expressing sadness over the destructive nature of spillage and its impact on local fishermen, Raja Zarith Sofiah urged non-governmental organisations to render assistance to fishermen who had lost their livelihood following the incident.

She spent hours visiting stretches of the polluted Pengerang coast after a briefing from the relevant government agencies.


For a start, she said she would direct the Red Crescent Society to help out.

"The fishermen's association should also chip in as I was told that many of its members have not gone out to sea for the past few days.

"This has severely affected their livelihoods as they have families to support," she said.


Some 121 fishermen received hygiene care products from her.

They represented a total of 634 fishermen from 12 villages affected by the oil spill.

Present were Tunku Temenggong Johor Tunku Idris Sultan Ibrahim, Pengerang MP Datuk Seri Azalina Othman Said, Kota Tinggi district officer Ismail Karim and Johor Department of Environment director Dr Zulkifli Abdul Rahman.


Raja Zarith Sofiah said responsible parties should formulate long-term measures to prevent a recurrence.

"I have personally asked Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM) to carry out a study on the affected areas. We need to find a solution which may involve the enforcement agencies.

"Never have I seen so many vessels docking in international waters off our coastline. At night, they discard waste into the water.

"I am glad that the cleaning work is going on smoothly, with volunteers, fishermen and the authorities collectively doing their respective jobs," she said.

Meanwhile, Dr Zulkifli said the remaining 500-metre stretch from a total of 18km polluted stretch had been cleaned up yesterday.

Clearing sludge near Sungai Musuh was difficult because of the rocky coastline.

"The 239 people involved in the work have collected 10,400 bags of sand, with oil weighing about 20 tonnes."

About 2,000 tonnes of crude oil spilled into the water after MT Bunga Kelana 3, laden with about 61,800 tonnes of crude oil, collided with cargo vessel MV Waily on May 25.

Royal concern over spill
The Star 3 Jun 10;

KOTA TINGGI: The plight of the 1,400 fishermen affected by the oil spill in Pengerang has attracted the attention of the Johor Ruler’s consort.

Raja Zarith Sofiah Almarhum Sultan Idris Shah expressed regret over the catastrophe, which threatened the livelihoods of fishermen here.

“There have been cases of ship wastes and illegal dumping here over the last 15 years, but this oil spill has severely affected the area,” she said during her visit to Pengerang yesterday.

Raja Zarith said she was saddened by how much the area has suffered since the oil spill occurred nine days ago.

“Many of these fishermen have to work hard to support their families, and the pollution has threatened their way of life as they cannot go out to sea,” she added.

She said she would work closely with the Malaysian Red Crescent Society (MRCS) and NGOs to help the fishermen here.

Raja Zarith later handed hygiene packs donated by the MRCS to 120 fishermen from the area during her visit here.

During a briefing for the royal visitor, State Department of Environment (DOE) director Dr Zulkifli Abdul Rahman said clean-up efforts of the coastline near Sg Musoh, Sg Ahmad and Tanjung Kapal here would be completed by today.

“Since the oil spill occurred on May 24, a total of 18km of coastline here was affected by the pollution.

“We have already cleaned 17.5km over the past nine days,” he said, adding that a total of 10,490 bags of oil-polluted sand as well as 19,991 litres of oil had been collected.

He said the Southern Region Marine Department would monitor the situation daily to ensure the spots of oil at sea did not reach the coastline.

On May 24, two vessels collided about 13km southeast of Changi East, Singapore causing some 2,000 tonnes of crude oil to spill into the sea.

In Petaling Jaya, the Department of Environment (DOE) said the clean-up operation in Pengerang was nearing completion.

The operation was focused in affected areas between Tanjung Pengelih and Tanjung Punggai and about 17.5km or 97% of the polluted coastline had been cleared since late Tuesday, the department said in a statement yesterday,

The Southern Region Marine Department was monitoring the movement of the oil slick by air and sea. Up till late Tuesday, there were no new oil patches sighted.

Members of the public have been urged to contact the DOE hotline at 1-800-88-2727 if they came across any new oil slick.

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Oil spill off Changi East: Singapore reports

Beaches affected by oil spill expected to open this weekend
By Lynda Hong Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE : Beaches affected by last week's oil spill is expected to open by this weekend, according to the Environment and Water Resources Minister.

But Dr Yaacob Ibrahim told reporters on the sidelines of a community event that officers will monitor the waters for any deterioration.

"We will continue to conduct tests and investigate if there are any forms of deterioration. But at the moment, based on what we have seen and what experts have said, there is no discernible indication that there have been deterioration," said Dr Yaacob. - CNA /ls

Fish farms install warning system to track water quality
Jessica Yeo and Ng Lian Cheong Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE : The recent oil spill off the coast of Singapore has drawn attention to possible contamination of the water in fish farms around the affected site.

But some farm operators in the areas of Pulau Ubin and Pasir Ris already have warning systems in place to avert business collapse if the unexpected hits.

Three farms told Channel NewsAsia they have been using a multi-layer system to monitor oxygen levels in the water.

An oxygen pump is automatically triggered if a drop in oxygen level is detected.

The Norwegian system costs $150,000 and will be fully installed by July.

It comes with eight CCTV cameras, which will also help enhance security on the farm. - CNA /ls

Waters in Singapore port and beaches clear of oil patches, says MPA
Channel NewsAsia 2 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE : The Maritime and Port Authority (MPA) said on Wednesday that waters in Singapore's port, including the anchorages around Pulau Tekong and Pulau Ubin, are clear of any oil patches.

There was also no report of oil patches in the Singapore Strait south of Changi.

Waters from Changi Naval Base to Changi Beach and East Coast Park remain clear as well.

MPA said it will continue to monitor the waters closely and carry out necessary clean-up efforts.

It will also continue to work with the Indonesian and Malaysian authorities.

Members of the public can contact MPA's 24-hour Marine Safety Control Centre at 6325-2489 to report any sighting of oil slick in Singapore waters or coastlines.

- CNA/al

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Probe into illegal sale of bear parts at expo

Vendor investigated for allegedly selling gall bladders for $700 each
Victoria Vaughan Straits Times 3 Jun 10;

A TRADER is being probed for allegedly selling bear gall bladders at the Singapore Food Expo, which ended on Tuesday.

The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) has sent a sample of the suspected product for testing.

Trading in bear parts is illegal because Singapore has signed an agreement banning trade in endangered animals and plants.

No arrests have been made, and the results of the tests will be out in two weeks.

It all began when a member of the public tipped off animal welfare group Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) on Tuesday.

Acres officers, at the scene in 30 minutes, went undercover and found out from the vendor, Jilin Senke Trading, that bear gall bladders were allegedly being sold at the expo for $700 each.

The vendor reportedly said he had only one left and offered to order more from China, where bear farming is legal, said Acres executive director Louis Ng.

Under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (Cites), bears are protected and all commercial trade in them or their body parts is banned.

The outcome of the AVA's lab test is immaterial. Under the Endangered Species (Import and Export) Act, anyone who sells, offers for sale or displays to the public bear parts and products has broken the law - even if the product is fake.

Upon conviction, the person may be fined $50,000 per species, up to a total of $500,000, and/or jailed two years.

The most recent case involving bear products was in February last year, when a Chinese national was caught importing 40 vials of bear bile powder from China. He was fined $2,500.

Ms Anbarasi Boopal, the director of Acres' Wildlife Crime Unit, said: 'This continued trade creates a demand for bear products and fuels the exploitation of bears held in bear farms.'

She was referring to the inhumane practice across Asia of keeping Asiatic black bears and sun bears in tiny cages and milking them for their bile, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine (TCM).

The bears suffer pain when milked through catheters which are rarely, if ever, removed. Many die or develop tumours and infections. When they die, their gall bladders are removed, also for TCM.

An AVA spokesman has urged members of the public who bought bear gall bladders at the expo to call 6227-0670 to surrender the items and provide AVA with information.

She said: 'No action will be taken against the buyer in this instance, and all information provided to AVA would be kept strictly confidential.'

The organisers of the Singapore Food Expo and the Singapore Food Manufacturers Organisation did not respond to queries; the AVA declined comment on its ongoing investigation.

A previous undercover investigation by Acres in 2006 found one in five TCM shops here selling suspected bear products. This was down from a 2001 study, which found three-quarters of such shops selling them.

AVA seizes alleged bear gall bladder, seller at Expo caught on video
Mustafa Shafawi Today Online 3 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE - A gall bladder, allegedly from a bear in China, was seized by the authorities from a food exhibition on Tuesday.

Investigators from the Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres) received a tip-off from a member of the public.

They visited the vendor at the Singapore Food Expo and were told by the seller that the gall bladder that he was selling for $700 was from a bear and had been brought in from China.

He had only one gall bladder left as he had already sold the rest. The seller said he could order more and have them delivered to Singapore.

The incident was recorded on video.

Acres passed the information to the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) whose officers responded immediately and seized the product.

Bear products have been banned by the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora, which Singapore is a party to.

AVA is investigating the case.

Previous Acres undercover investigations in 2001 and 2006 revealed the presence of an illegal trade in alleged bear products in Singapore.

About 20 per cent of traditional chinese medicine shops surveyed in 2006 sold alleged bear products.

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Helping Singapore households go green

Straits Times 3 Jun 10;

ELECTRICAL appliances and saving the environment do not often go hand in hand.

But at the Energy Challenge Fair 2010 at Suntec convention centre, those looking to buy a household appliance or two can do so without feeling guilty about damaging the earth.

The exhibition - a one-stop shop for the latest energy efficient technology - is jointly organised by Singapore Press Holdings and the National Environment Agency (NEA).

Visitors will be able to purchase appliances such as air-conditioners, refrigerators, washing machines and LCD television sets from more than 16 brands including Bosch, Samsung, Miele and Mitsubishi Electric.

One thing in common among the companies is that they are all signatories to the Voluntary Agreement On Energy Efficient Appliances.

The pledge is an initiative led by the NEA, in partnership with the Housing Board and Energy Market Authority - in which signatories selling appliances abide by NEA-set environmentally friendly targets such as retiring stocks of energy inefficient products.

For the technologically savvy, devices that help monitor and reduce electricity wastage at home, like wall-mounted motion-sensing light switches - which turn the light on when people are present, and off when they leave - are also available.

Said the chief executive officer of the NEA, Mr Andrew Tan: 'We are heartened to see the positive achievements of the signatories and the voluntary agreement. They will help increase energy efficiency in households and help us achieve our national energy efficiency goals.'

Customers at the fair are entitled to free gifts with selected purchases, and those who cut out and complete coupons from selected newspapers also stand to win mystery prizes.

The fair, which is open from 11am to 10pm, will run daily until Sunday. Admission is free.

LINUS LIN

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Singapore fast running out of flu vaccines

Shortage here due to high demand worldwide, say clinics
Salma Khalik, Straits Times 3 Jun 10;

POLYCLINICS are out of flu vaccines and GP clinics are low on stock even as many families want to be protected while they travel during the school holidays, especially to the Southern Hemisphere, where it is now flu season.

One public hospital with a travel clinic, Tan Tock Seng Hospital (TTSH), has run out, while the other, Changi General Hospital (CGH), says the earliest appointment it can give for a flu jab is June 16.

Stocks are also low at private clinics, with the Raffles Medical chain of more than 40 clinics having run out of its 1,000 doses by the end of last week.

Healthway Medical, which has more than 60 clinics islandwide, said it has used up most of the 3,000 shots it brought in five weeks ago, and has only a few hundred left.

Clinics say the lack of vaccines is due to a global shortage from high demand in many countries. Stocks have also run out in Australia, according to media reports.

People here are heeding the Health Promotion Board's recent series of advertisements encouraging them to get vaccinated against the flu.

A spokesman for SingHealth polyclinics, which has vaccinated more than 1,600 people since the end of April, suggested that those who cannot get this year's flu shot can opt instead for the single-strain H1N1 vaccine brought in last year, as that virus is still the main strain circulating.

Her counterpart at the National Healthcare Group polyclinics said they were also out of shots, and it was not clear if new stocks would be available. Its clinics dispensed more than 1,700 shots in just five weeks.

In the past two months, Singapore has seen high numbers of people with influenza and other upper respiratory tract infections seeking treatment.

The numbers have topped epidemic levels, with polyclinics seeing 16,000 to 18,000 such patients a week.

This fell slightly last week to 14,318, but is still about 10 per cent above the norm for this time of the year.

Doctors say they are seeing many more seriously ill flu patients than normal. Healthway's deputy medical director Vincent Chia said patients are swabbed, and those with Influenza A, which tends to cause more serious illness, are given the antiviral medicine Tamiflu.

He said he had seen patients take a turn for the worse very quickly.

Clinics that still have stocks of this year's flu shot include Parkway, which has more than 40 clinics.

The Health Ministry said the current vaccine should protect against about 80 per cent of the flu viruses circulating in Singapore right now.

The combination in flu vaccines is changed twice a year and is determined by the World Health Organisation, based on the strains expected to be most active.

The new Southern Hemisphere vaccine protects against three of the most common circulating strains, including the H1N1 pandemic that surfaced last year.

Symptoms of the flu include high fever, severe aches and pains in the joints and muscles, headache, sore throat, general weakness, runny nose and watery eyes. Complications include pneumonia, especially for the elderly. Those with existing medical problems could see their illness become more severe or suffer from multiple organ failure. About 600 people here die as a result of the flu each year.

It takes about two weeks for the vaccine, priced between $20 and $30, to start protecting against flu viruses.

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Indonesia Says Won't Revoke Existing Forestry Licenses

Niluksi Koswanage PlanetArk 3 Jun 10;
(Editing by Michael Urquhart)

Indonesia won't revoke existing forestry licenses for palm oil firms as part of a deal with Norway to preserve rain forests, a government minister and industry official said on Wednesday.

Chief Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa told reporters that the government had no intention of limiting the expansion of the $15-billion Indonesian palm oil industry, although it was committed to slowing deforestation.

"We want to keep to our targets of 40 million tonnes of crude palm oil," he said on the sidelines of an industry conference in Java. "We will not take away the existing licenses."

The country plans to produce 21-23 million tonnes of palm oil this year.

"We have food security interests and our export earnings to protect but expansion will be at a sustainable pace for our future generations," Rajasa added.

A two-year commitment to halt new concessions to the industry for the conversion of rainforests and peatlands will go on as planned under the Norwegian deal signed last week, Indonesian Palm Oil Board Vice Chairman Derom Bangun said.

"The government has assured us that the expansion of oil palm estates will continue within reasonable limits," Bangun told Reuters.

A government official had previously said Indonesia could revoke licenses, and would provide compensation and degraded land in exchange, prompting planters to say that such a move would put their investments in jeopardy.

Leaving existing licenses untouched would allow top planters like Singapore-listed Wilmar and Malaysia's Sime Darby to continue developing concessions and keep up with global demand for the vegetable oil used in chocolates, cooking oil and biofuels.

FOOD, REVENUES AND ENVIRONMENT

Indonesia has vast tracts of rainforests and peatlands that have been rapidly converted into oil palm estates, pushing the Southeast Asian country ahead of Malaysia as the world's top palm oil producer.

Green groups and governments contend that climate change can be slowed if Indonesia's forests, which soak up global warming gases like carbon dioxide, are preserved.

Indonesia has pledged to cut emissions by 41 percent by 2020 if it gets foreign funding and other assistance or by 26 percent if it does not.

Norway's $1-billion contribution to forest conservation projects in Indonesia is contingent on the Southeast Asian country proving that it can curb the rate of deforestation and therefore reduce the amount of greenhouse gas emissions.

Most of the funds will be spent on preparing for and implementing pilot projects under a U.N.-backed forest preservation scheme called reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD).

REDD allows developing nations to earn money by not chopping down their forests or through replanting cleared or degraded forests.

On Tuesday, an Indonesian government official said the palm oil industry could still grow via acquisitions of six million hectares of degraded land across the archipelago.

Indonesia`s emission cutting program not to affect timber estates
Andi Abdussalam Antara 5 Jun 10;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Forest concession holders (HPH) and timber estate businesses (HTI) should not worry about the government`s commitment to halt deforestation and reduce emissions made in a Letter of Intent (LoI) signed with Norway recently.

Based on the agreement, the governments of the two countries agreed that Indonesia would stop deforestation through the imposition of a moratorium on the conversion of peat land and natural forests.

According to Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan, the agreement between Indonesia and Norway on emission reduction would not affect industrial timber estate (HTI) and forest concession (HPH) development programs.

"The LoI only calls for a moratorium on forest conversion for plantations or non-forestry activities on peat land throughout Indonesia. HTI and HPH programs can continue," the minister said on the sidelines of the popularization of LoI to forestry businesses here on Friday.

What the ministry of forestry would be doing was to put in order forest concessions already covered by permits. So, the forestry development programs already approved by the government would go on.

The forestry development programs are among others the annual Societal Forest Development (KHm) and Village Forest Development covering 500,000 hectares, Forest and Land Rehabilitation (RHL) in river basin areas (DAS) covering 300,000 hectares, HTI and Small-holders Timber Estate (HTR) covering 540,000 hectares, HPH Restoration (300,000 hectares) and Partnership Forest Development program.

He said that the development of HTI and HPH would not be affected by activities the forestry ministry would carry out based on the LoI.

The minister said that the government had set its forestry development priorities as stipulated in its Medium-Term Development program (RPJM). The RPJM would serve as the basis for the actions to be taken to follow up the LoI.

"Our efforts to manage our forests are linked to climate change, among others with regard to the Reducing Emission from Deforestation and Forest Degradation - Plus (REDD-Plus) scheme. So, I will stress here once again that the LoI will not pressure us because it is in line with the RPJM plan," the minister added.

It was mentioned in the LoI that the moratorium would start in January 2011 and last two years on all peat land and natural forest conversions. "During the period there will be no licenses for conversions or any licenses for opening of peat land and natural forests," Zulkfli Hasan said.

The governments of Indonesia and Norway signed in Oslo last month a Letter of Intent (LoI) on forest conservation worth US$1 billion as part of their joint commitment to overcoming climate change.

The letter was signed by Foreign Affairs Minister Marty Natalegawa and Norwegian Minister of Environmental and International Development Erik Solheim at the guest house of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The LoI is part of the REDD-Plus scheme in which Norway will provide up to US$1 billion in grants to Indonesia to protect its forests.

Based on the LoI, the Norwegian government will provide the US$1 billion if the Indonesian government is able to fulfill the three stage requirement as contained in the LoI.

The first stage is capacity building which among others is carried out through the formation of a body with the authority to implement the program. The second stage is the implementation of a pilot project. The two governments will agree on a certain location for the pioneer project in Indonesia.

The third stage is the implementation of the scheme comprehensively on the national scale. During this stage payments will be made based on the performance. The funds will be provided if Indonesia is able to prove its success in preventing deforestation and forest degradation.

With the agreement, Indonesia now has a chance to gain US$123.75 million from its efforts to preserve its forests and reduce gas emission from deforestation next year, a senior official said.

Director General for Forest Production Development Hadi Daryanto said here on Friday the funds constituted payment for Indonesia`s efforts to reduce its gas emission (C02e) by 123.75 million tons.

He said the US$123.75 million could be claimed from Norway based on the Letter of Intent (LoI) signed by the two countries recently.

"We have calculated that we will be able to reduce our gas emission by 123.75 million tons next year. If the price of CO2e is US$1 per ton, we can claim US$123.75 million. If in 2013, the price of the gas emission increases, we will get more," he said.

He said that of the country`s 130 million hectares of forest, about 1,175 millions hectares were deforested every year. Thus, the country`s average deforestation pace is 1.175 million hectares per annum.

According to the forestry official, Indonesia next year is expected to reduce the pace of its deforestation by 225,000 hectares to about 950,000 hectares only.

The volume of biomass carbon of non-peat land forest is about 550 tons per hectare. So, with its success to stop the pace of its deforestation (by 225,000 ha x 550 tons CO2e), Indonesia will get a payment of US$123.75 million.(*)

Moratorium not to affect licensed forestry firms
The Jakarta Post 6 Jun 10;

The director general of forestry production at the Forestry Ministry said on Sunday that companies with licenses can do their logging works as usual despite the two-year moratorium on forest and peatland clearance.

Director General Hadi Daryanto told Tempointeraktif.com that the moratorium means that the government would not issue new licenses on forest and peatland clearance for the next two years.

Hadi explained that forestry companies that are already in operational should be allowed to continue with their works because it affects their investment and employment.

"There is an element of investment and employment there. If everything is under moratorium, how about the fate of the labors," Hadi said.

Norway recently agreed to provide US$1 billion grant to Indonesia to protect its forests. One day before the deal, President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono announced that the government would impose a two-year moratorium on forest and peatland clearance.

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One Question Remains For Oslo Forestry Deal: How Will It Work?

Fidelis E Satriastanti & Arti Ekawati Jakarta Globe 2 Jun 10;

The two-year moratorium on the conversion of natural forests and peatland announced last week appears to be the much-needed action activists have been demanding for decades, but as with most other things, its ultimate success will lie in its implementation.

The moratorium is part of an agreement signed by Jakarta and Oslo last week. Under the terms of the deal, Norway will grant Indonesia $1 billion in exchange for preserving its forests through the Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation Plus mechanism. The mechanism not only covers deforestation and forest degradation but includes conservation, sustainable forest management and enhancement of forest carbon stocks.

The two-year moratorium, which is set to begin in January 2011, is designed to strengthen Indonesia’s voluntary pledge to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 26 percent by 2020. In 2014, Norway will verify whether the moratorium has managed to reduce emissions, and if so, the bulk of the grant will be released.

However, there are a lot of details left to be worked out. For example, it is still not clear whether the moratorium will be implemented nationwide or only in certain areas, pending the issuance of a presidential decree or regulation making the commitment into a law.

Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan has said that only five areas would be proposed as pilot projects under the agreement — the Kampar Peninsula in Riau province, Papua, East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and Bengkulu, in Sumatra.

“Those five regions will be forwarded to Oslo to determine which areas are suitable as pilot projects for REDD-Plus,” Zulkifli said. “I prefer Kampar because it has a very large peatland area of 700,000 hectares.”

But it is still unclear even what areas qualify under the deal. The agreement so far does not distinguish between different qualities of peatland.

Existing regulations classify peatland as “high quality” if it is more than three meters deep, but an official from the State Ministry for the Environment said peatland less than one meter deep could still be converted.

In addition, the question of what the government will do with existing permits that have yet to take effect has not been fully addressed.

Agus Purnomo, the president’s special adviser on the environment, said companies with existing licenses on high-quality forests and peatland that had already initiated work on their concessions could continue, while those that had not yet started work must relocate, but would be compensated with permits for other sites.

Yuyun Indradi, a political campaigner for Greenpeace Southeast Asia, said the government would need to practice caution while carrying out that plan.

“The government needs to be careful because it could end up compensating companies that are violating their permits,” he said. “Don’t just look at the quality of peatland, for instance, but also at how [the company] managed to secure its permit.”

Meanwhile, the 1.2-millionhectare Merauke food estate in Papua, meant to shore up Indonesia’s food supply, calls for the conversion of huge swaths of land, though it is meant to benefit the public. Agus said previously that the government would avoid allocating peatland to the estate, but where the massive project will get the land it requires is still unclear.

Agustinus Rumansara, a Papuan native and expert on low-carbon development, said the province welcomed the moratorium and would support it. But with regard to Merauke, he said “it’s the central government’s program, not provincial, and we haven’t heard details on where they want to do the project, considering the spatial planning is still not clear.”

Environmentalists have asked whether the government would let the moratorium stand in for further conservation efforts, or use it as a jumping-off point for more action.

“It’s great,” Yuyun said, “but to us, it’s still not enough. It should also be about fixing the dysfunctional components of the forestry sector, from the system of governance to spatial planning, permits, procedures and interdepartmental relations.”

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Pacific islands growing, not sinking

Philippa McDonald ABC News 3 Jun 10;

Climate scientists have expressed surprise at findings that many low-lying Pacific islands are growing, not sinking.

Islands in Tuvalu, Kiribati and the Federated States of Micronesia are among those which have grown, largely due to coral debris, land reclamation and sediment.

The findings, published in the magazine New Scientist, were gathered by comparing changes to 27 Pacific islands over the last 20 to 60 years using historical aerial photos and satellite images.

Auckland University's Associate Professor Paul Kench, a member of the team of scientists, says the results challenge the view that Pacific islands are sinking due to rising sea levels associated with climate change.

"Eighty per cent of the islands we've looked at have either remained about the same or, in fact, gotten larger," he said.

"Some of those islands have gotten dramatically larger, by 20 or 30 per cent.

"We've now got evidence the physical foundations of these islands will still be there in 100 years."

Dr Kench says the growth of the islands can keep pace with rising sea levels.

"The reason for this is these islands are so low lying that in extreme events waves crash straight over the top of them," he said.

"In doing that they transport sediment from the beach or adjacent reef platform and they throw it onto the top of the island."

But Dr Kench says this does not mean climate change does not pose dangers.

"The land may still be there but will they still be able to support human habitation?" he asked.

Adelaide University climate scientist Professor Barry Brook says he is surprised by the findings.

"Sea levels are obviously rising - I think in the short term [the study] suggests that there's maybe more time to do something about the problem than we'd first anticipated," he said.

"But the key problem is that sea level rise is likely to accelerate much beyond what we've seen in the 20th century."

Naomi Thirobaux, from Kiribati, has studied the shape of Pacific islands for her PhD and says no-one should be lulled into thinking erosion and inundation is not taking its toll and displacing people from their land.

"In a populated area what would happen was that if it's eroding, a few metres would actually displace people," she said.

"In a populated place people can't move back or inland because there's hardly any place to move into, so that's quite dramatic."

Both Dr Kench and Dr Brook and scientists agree further rises in sea levels pose a significant danger to the livelihoods of people living in Tuvalu, Kirabati and the Federated States of Micronesia.

Pacific islands adapt to climate change
David Brooks (AFP) Google News 3 Jun 10;

WELLINGTON — New research has cast doubt on warnings that rising sea levels caused by climate change are slowly inundating low-lying Pacific islands.

Scientists have studied 27 low-lying Pacific islands, comparing aerial photos from 60 years ago with modern satellite images, according to an article published Wednesday in The New Scientist.

Paul Kench of the University of Auckland in New Zealand and Arthur Webb at the South Pacific Applied Geoscience Commission in Fiji found only four of those 27 islands had declined in size despite an average rise in sea level of 12 centimetres (4.7 inches) during the 60-year period.

Half of the rest had remained the same size and the other half had increased in size.

Kench told AFP Thursday the study shows that islands respond in different ways to climate change and rising seas.

"One thing our results tell us there is no one model fits all kind of scenario," Kench said.

It was important to have a sensible debate over the impact of climate change, "rather than just saying the sea level's going up and the islands must all disappear".

The study says some islands are growing because waves, currents and winds are pushing coral debris from the surrounding reefs onto the shore.

Although this study only involved studying the land area, Kench said his previous research had shown cyclones and storms -- which are predicted to become more frequent with climate change -- also often played an important role in increasing the height of islands.

"I've been in Tuvalu and know when cyclones hit Tuvalu, the waves go right across the island and in doing so, they are ripping up coral from the reef and beach and depositing them on the island surface.

"So there's a natural mechanism of how these islands can rise vertically and in many cases can keep pace with sea level rise projected over the next century."

Low-lying Pacific island nations such as Kiribati and Tuvalu have said they are suffering increasing problems due to rising sea levels -- including crop destruction and water contamination.

They say their citizens face the prospect of having to resettle in other countries as their islands are slowly submerged.

The study by Kench and Webb found that seven islands in one of Tuvalu's nine atolls have grown in area by more than three percent on average since the 1950s, with one island expanding nearly 30 percent.

A lot more research needed to be done to see how low-lying Pacific atolls would be affected by climate change, Kench said.

"We've looked at 27 islands out of around 20,000, so it's a very small sample, but it's given us some clues and I think we've got to expand that sample."

He said more research could lead to better identifying which islands in a Pacific country would best adapt to rising sea levels and villages could possibly be relocated to those islands.

More work also needed to be done to see how water tables and crops adapted to climate change.

"An important question is -- if islands still exist, will they still be able to carry human communities?"

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