Report: Toxins found in whales bode ill for humans

Arthur Max Associated Press Yahoo News 25 Jun 10;

AGADIR, Morocco – Sperm whales feeding even in the most remote reaches of Earth's oceans have built up stunningly high levels of toxic and heavy metals, according to American scientists who say the findings spell danger not only for marine life but for the millions of humans who depend on seafood.

A report released Thursday noted high levels of cadmium, aluminum, chromium, lead, silver, mercury and titanium in tissue samples taken by dart gun from nearly 1,000 whales over five years. From polar areas to equatorial waters, the whales ingested pollutants that may have been produced by humans thousands of miles away, the researchers said.

"These contaminants, I think, are threatening the human food supply. They certainly are threatening the whales and the other animals that live in the ocean," said biologist Roger Payne, founder and president of Ocean Alliance, the research and conservation group that produced the report.

The researchers found mercury as high as 16 parts per million in the whales. Fish high in mercury such as shark and swordfish — the types health experts warn children and pregnant women to avoid — typically have levels of about 1 part per million.

The whales studied averaged 2.4 parts of mercury per million, but the report's authors said their internal organs probably had much higher levels than the skin samples contained.

"The entire ocean life is just loaded with a series of contaminants, most of which have been released by human beings," Payne said in an interview on the sidelines of the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting.

Payne said sperm whales, which occupy the top of the food chain, absorb the contaminants and pass them on to the next generation when a female nurses her calf. "What she's actually doing is dumping her lifetime accumulation of that fat-soluble stuff into her baby," he said, and each generation passes on more to the next.

Ultimately, he said, the contaminants could jeopardize seafood, a primary source of animal protein for 1 billion people.

"You could make a fairly tight argument to say that it is the single greatest health threat that has ever faced the human species. I suspect this will shorten lives, if it turns out that this is what's going on," he said.

Payne called his group's $5 million project the most comprehensive report ever done on ocean pollutants.

U.S. Whaling Commissioner Monica Medina informed the 88 member nations of the whaling commission of the report and urged the commission to conduct further research.

The report "is right on target" for raising issues critical to humans as well as whales, Medina told The Associated Press. "We need to know much more about these problems."

Payne, 75, is best known for his 1968 discovery and recordings of songs by humpback whales, and for finding that some whale species can communicate with each other over thousands of miles.

The 93-foot Odyssey, a sail-and-motor ketch, set out in March 2000 from San Diego to document the oceans' health, collecting pencil-eraser-sized samples using a dart gun that barely made the whales flinch.

After more than five years and 87,000 miles, samples had been taken from 955 whales. The samples were sent for analysis to marine toxicologist John Wise at the University of Southern Maine. DNA was compared to ensure the animals were not tested more than once.

Payne said the original objective of the voyage was to measure chemicals known as persistent organic pollutants, and the study of metals was an afterthought.

The researchers were stunned with the results. "That's where the shocking, sort of jaw-dropping concentrations exist," Payne said.

Though it was impossible to know where the whales had been, Payne said the contamination was embedded in the blubber of males formed in the frigid polar regions, indicating that the animals had ingested the metals far from where they were emitted.

"When you're working with a synthetic chemical which never existed in nature before and you find it in a whale which came from the Arctic or Antarctic, it tells you that was made by people and it got into the whale," he said.

How that happened is unclear, but the contaminants likely were carried by wind or ocean currents, or were eaten by the sperm whales' prey.

Sperm whales are toothed whales that eat all kinds of fish, even sharks. Dozens have been taken by whaling ships in the past decade. Most of the whales hunted by the whaling countries of Japan, Norway and Iceland are minke whales, which are baleen whales that feed largely on tiny krill.

Chromium, an industrial pollutant that causes cancer in humans, was found in all but two of the 361 sperm whale samples that were tested for it. Those findings were published last year in the scientific journal Chemosphere.

"The biggest surprise was chromium," Payne said. "That's an absolute shocker. Nobody was even looking for it."

The corrosion-resistant metal is used in stainless steel, paints, dyes and the tanning of leather. It can cause lung cancer in people who work in industries where it is commonly used, and was the focus of the California environmental lawsuit that gained fame in the movie "Erin Brockovich."

It was impossible to say from the samples whether any of the whales suffered diseases, but Wise found that the concentration of chromium found in whales was several times higher than the level required to kill healthy cells in a Petri dish, Payne said.

He said another surprise was the high concentrations of aluminum, which is used in packaging, cooking pots and water treatment. Its effects are unknown.

The consequences of the metals could be horrific for both whale and man, he said.

"I don't see any future for whale species except extinction," Payne said. "This is not on anybody's radar, no government's radar anywhere, and I think it should be."

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'The Cove": The truth will arrive; better late than never

Oscar-winning "The Cove," about the slaughter of dolphins, will not open this weekend as scheduled, but you will see it soon
Kaori Shoji Japan Times 25 Jun 10;

A Japanese diver who signed up to travel and work aboard a Sea Shepherd (the renowned, independent ocean conservation society) boat told a local magazine that, initially, she was apprehensive because of her nationality. Coming from a nation that does continuous battle with ocean conservationists, she was afraid that whatever contribution she made would be viewed with skepticism by the rest of the crew. (It turned out that she had nothing to fear.)

Since time immemorial the Japanese have taken much from the sea and given precious little in return. The traditional, unspoken attitude is that we're an island nation with few natural resources — the ocean is there to serve and feed us and that pretty much describes its raison d'e^tre.

A case in point are the blowfish restaurants scattered throughout major cities in Japan. These restaurants often display barely alive blowfish crammed in glass tanks of full of gray water.

Putting live fish on display before gutting them, and carrying them to the table isn't uniquely Japanese — the practice is common all over East Asia. Not that this makes the practice any more palatable.

The Japanese Sea Shepherd member is right: Our genes get in the way of trying to do right by the ocean, and the weight of the guilt is almost too much to bear.

"The Cove" (which won an Oscar for Best Documentary last year) raises a giant mirror to the Japanese and invites them to take a good, long look at their reflections. "The Cove" exposes the Japanese mind-set in relation to the sea; a mind-set that has everything to do with profit and economy and so-called cultural traditions, and nothing to do with altruism.

Twenty three thousand dolphins are slaughtered each year in a little town called Taiji in Wakayama Prefecture — a region renowned for its beautiful coastline, warm climate and . . . great seafood.

Dolphins are drawn to the calm waters surrounding the area — and for several generations the fishermen have trapped them in a cove tucked away in a national park, harpooned them, and, as the film has exposed, sold their mercury-infested meat to supermarkets and the companies that supply elementary school lunches.

Speaking from a Japanese point of view, it was rash-inducingly uncomfortable to sit through the 92-minute duration of this film, even if I've never eaten a cetacean in my life. Hidden cameras planted by the film team (including world-class divers and technicians from Industrial Light and Magic) expose the full horror of what actually goes on in the cove, and there are aerial shots of the thick, bloodied water immediately after the killing. "The Cove" reveals Taiji as a veritable Auschwitz for dolphins, and there's no comfort in knowing that elsewhere in the world similar atrocities occur but have not yet been taken to task in film. Dolphin slaughter (though on a much smaller scale than in Taiji) has been a common practice in the Solomon Islands for the last four centuries. Nearly 4,000 seals are clubbed or shot to death in Canada every year. But such facts cannot cancel out the wrenching violence and gaping hypocrisy involved in capturing the dolphins, selling the best-looking ones to buyers or trainers from dolphinariums (the sale process is open to public viewing) and then surreptitiously killing off the rest of them in a nearby cove. Particularly nauseating is the smiling dolphin statue erected just outside the town, letting visitors know they have come to a nice sea resort friendly to marine animals.

Historically speaking, railing against acts of cruelty is something the Japanese have never really been good at. The general belief (especially among the older generation) is that life for the Japanese was always hard and cruel, so there was no reason why it should be different for any other living thing. That belief has been trotted out by some to explain a lot of things (like the atrocities committed in World War II, for example). But at this point in time, that whole rigmarole has worn thin, as "The Cove" so eloquently points out.

There's really no need to consume dolphins for food, or to maintain 50 dolphinariums in this country (which outnumbers the total in the whole of the EU). So why does the capture/slaughter continue? As the film crew helmed by Louis Psihoyos points out, the Japanese market for dolphins is huge — whether it's to make them perform for the benefit of tourists into kawaii (cute) culture, or pack off their meat in white plastic trays labeled "whale kind."

Watching "The Cove," it's plain to see that as long as that market exists, any changes will come at the pace of hungover snails. Hopefully, some of the film's imagery will serve as mega shots of adrenaline. Like the fishermen (their faces mosaic-ed by the Japanese distributors only add to their shiftiness), horrible and terrifying as they close in on the dolphins like a gang of rapists, and in the aftermath, extinguishing the bonfire they've made on the beach with bloodied seawater.

"The Cove" is not a diatribe against the Japanese but having said that it's almost impossible, as a collective populace — not to take this personally. The man-behind- the-project, Ric O'Barry (who used to train dolphins for the hit TV series "Flipper" before dedicating his life to freeing captive dolphins), stresses repeatedly in the film that most Japanese under 60 have never eaten dolphin meat or are aware that any slaughtering is going on, and hopes the movie will jolt the viewers, if not into immediate activity then certainly into awareness.

Until three days ago even that wish was about to be denied — initially slated to open in Tokyo on June 26, screenings of "The Cove" had been canceled after threatening demonstrations by rightwing activists outside the promotion company's offices. The rightwingers claim the film is an attack on Japanese culture by foreigners.

At one point it looked as though a theater release would be postponed indefinitely. But after Herculean efforts on the part of the distributors and publicized protests from Japanese filmmakers including Yoichi Sai, the film opens in Tokyo, Yokohama and Osaka on July 3 before going nationwide. It may burn your eyes and tear at your nerve tendons but a the risk of sounding trite, bearing witness is the very least we can do.

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Why Are Asian Carp So Fearsome?

Karen Rowan LiveScience.com Yahoo News 24 Jun 10;

Invasive Asian carp are inching their way closer to the Great Lakes. Now, one has been found just 6 miles (10 kilometers) from Lake Michigan, according to news reports, and experts worry that they could devastate the ecosystem and fishing industry of the region.

Asian carp wreak havoc with their ravenous appetites, high reproduction rates and their ability to survive predators.

Two species of Asian carp, the bighead and the silver carp, eat plankton voraciously. A fish will eat 5 to10 percent of its body weight a day in plankton - and they can weigh up to 100 pounds (45 kg), said Michael Hoff, a fisheries biologist with the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS). This is far more than what native fish species eat.

Another species, the grass carp, can eat up to 40 percent of its body weight a day, mostly eating aquatic plants.

Eating constantly

Asian carp have poorly developed stomachs, which are inefficient at breaking down food and obtaining nutrients - and thus the necessary gluttony.

"They have a really primitive digestive system, so they need to eat constantly, Hoff told Life's Little Mysteries.

Because they consume such massive amounts of plankton (a group of tiny free-floating plants and animals) and other organisms, which are the base of the food chain in lakes and rivers, the fish can disrupt the natural flow of nutrients through the ecosystem.

And they have few natural predators. So the fact that they consume so much plankton means much of the sun's energy that those plankton captured during photosynthesis never becomes available to the other organisms in the food chain, Hoff said.

"They are like energy sponges, they consume foods that other species would eat, but nothing eats them. They are energy dead-ends," Hoff said.

The Asian carp's high growth rate and large size keep most enemies away.

By the time any fish reaches a size of around 12 inches (30 cm), it is too big to be eaten by some of the important predator species in rivers and lakes. Because Asian carp reach this size faster than native fish, their young have a better chance of escaping predation than the young of other species, Hoff said.

And predators such as walleye and catfish spend their time near the river bottom, while Asian carp tend to stay near the surface, further reducing the opportunities for predators to feed on them, Hoff said.

The reproductive rate of the carp also sets them ahead of the native species. A single female bighead carp can lay up to 1.9 million eggs in a single year, according to one estimate, Hoff said. Although it is likely that only about 1 percent to 3 percent of these eggs will grow to become adult fish, the numbers are still higher than they are for native species.

How they got here

There are now four species of Asian carp - grass, bighead, silver and black - found in the United States, and they likely first entered the waterways by escaping from fish farms beginning in the early 1960s, said Duane Chapman, research biologist with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS).

Asian grass carp were probably in the waters in the 1960s, and silver carp were caught from the wild throughout the 1970s. In 1981, the first catch of a bighead carp was reported, Chapman said.

The fish were used on fish farms because they are effective at removing algae and other suspended particles from fish ponds.

Large floods struck near the Mississippi in the early 1990s, and many of the catfish farm ponds overflowed, unleashing more Asian carp into the Mississippi. Although this flooding event is often reported as the entrance of carp into the Mississippi, the fish were there long before this, and it isn't likely that these floods contributed to the population signficantly, Chapman said.

By outcompeting other fish for food, the carp have become the most abundant species in some areas of the Mississippi, and have steadily made their way north, according to the EPA. Densities of Asian carp in parts of the Mississippi River are thought to be among the highest in the world, according to the FWS.

The fish are now found in the Mississippi River from Louisiana to Minnesota. They've spread from the Mississippi River into both the Missouri and Ohio Rivers, as far west as South Dakota and as far east as Ohio. They are also found throughout the Illinois River Basin.

The giant fish have the potential to injure boaters - silver carp are startled by motors and react by leaping out of the water, occasionally landing in boats. These leaps could cause human fatalities, according to the FWS.

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African livestock offers 'untapped genetic resource'

Mark Kinver, BBC News 24 Jun 10;

The genetic diversity of Africa's indigenous livestock needs to be tapped before it is lost forever, researchers have warned.

They said native breeds had adapted to tolerate parasites or produce "robust" milk yields in harsh conditions.

Writing in the journal science, they added that these traits had yet to be unlocked by the scientific community.

But indigenous breeds were dying out as farmers switched to "exotic" cattle from developed nations, they observed.

"African cattle are just another species of ruminants in a landscape already full of ruminants, and they have adapted to this environment," explained co-author Olivier Hanotte from the University of Nottingham's Institute of Genetics.

"But rather than unlocking the genetic secrets of these breeds and using what is already there, there is a tendency within sub-Saharan Africa to move across to the highly developed breeds from Europe."

However, the vast majority of "exotic" breeds from Europe were ill-suited to cope with the conditions found in Africa, he added.

Professor Hanotte said one reason was that they were bred to maximise productivity.

"The only way they can survive is if you completely change the production system as well and mimic the systems used in Europe," he told BBC News.

One of the consequences of switching to a European style of farming was that it increased the likelihood of diverting valuable food crops away from human consumption in order to feed the novel livestock.

"In my opinion, this is probably the worst thing that you could do," he warned.
Adapt and survive

Professor Hanotte suggested that some of the adaptations found in sub-Saharan Africa livestock could be of interest to the global agricultural sector.

"This is a very important point," he said. "We have lost, for example, many adaptation traits in European livestock, but it may still be present in Africa.

"A typical example is resistance to gastro-intestinal parasites in small ruminants. This is a world-wide issue that has an economic impact in sheep farming.

"There are a number of ways that you can tackle this, one of which is to use drugs, but some African breeds are actually resistant to these parasites."

He said that indigenous cattle had also adapted over the centuries to cope with a hot, dry climate.

"What we should actually be doing is acknowledging that the (indigenous) animals are living, producing and reproducing.

"And they can provide the genetic material, if we are willing to invest in the genomic tools, to improve the breeds in a sustainable way."

However, genomic research in agriculture was concentrated in the developed world, he observed.

"So this - combined with lack of technical capability and funding in Africa - has led to the lack of research into the continent's indigenous livestock.

"Yet in Europe, we have lost a great majority of livestock's genetic source.

"So the reason why we should tap African livestock genomes is not only for Africa, it is for everyone."

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Offshore wind farms – green energy or biodiversity threat?

IUCN 24 Jun 10;

In the rush to find new sources of energy and reduce our dependency on fossil fuels, offshore wind farms are increasingly seen as an attractive solution, but their potential impact on marine biodiversity should not be overlooked.

Greening blue energy, written in collaboration with E.ON and the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency, is the most comprehensive guide to date for assessing the impact of offshore wind energy installations on marine ecosystems and biodiversity. It gives governments, policy makers and industry the tools to enhance the environmental performance of offshore renewable energy.

“Moving away from oil, gas and coal is vital to avoid the worse impacts of climate change, in this context on marine ecosystems,” says Dan Wilhelmsson, Scientific Coordinator at IUCN's Global Marine Programme and first author of the report. “At the same time, we need to make sure that what we call blue energy, which includes the offshore renewable sources, is also green and doesn’t exacerbate existing stresses on the marine environment.”

Offshore wind energy development in the European Union is accelerating and could potentially supply between 12 and 16 percent of the EU’s electricity by 2030, the equivalent of 25,000 wind turbines. Other countries and regions, such as the US, Japan, India and Eastern Africa are also exploring the possibility of adding offshore renewable energy to their energy mix.

Electricity produced from wind farms helps combat climate change by avoiding greenhouse gas emissions and toxic pollutants associated with fossil fuels. Offshore wind farms can also provide advantages for local wildlife through the establishment of 'no fishing zones' and the creation of artificial reefs where marine species can thrive.

But if not properly planned and managed, the installations can adversely affect marine biodiversity. The report highlights issues such as habitat loss for birds and sea creatures, potential collisions with wind turbines, deviation of the migratory routes of birds and whales, noise and electromagnetic disturbance and navigational hazards for ships.

The report reviewed over a thousand scientific sources to provide the most up-to-date knowledge on the possible impacts of offshore wind farms on the marine environment and animals, from the planning phase through to the construction, operation and decommissioning of the farm.

Avoiding sensitive sites, integrating the development of wind farms in marine management decisions, using clever designs and offsetting residual impacts will minimize adverse impacts and maximize the benefits for biodiversity, the report says. It will also help reduce the time spent on consenting processes for wind farm development, which currently takes around five years.

“Continued careful monitoring of offshore wind energy developments and their actual impacts on marine wildlife will be vital to generate reliable data and help ensure that offshore wind energy fulfils its sustainable potential”, says Nadine McCormick, IUCN’s Energy Network Coordinator.

Download the report at http://data.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/2010-014.pdf

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New York exhibit imagines utopian, green cities in 2030

Karen Matthews, Associated Press Yahoo News 24 Jun 10;

NEW YORK – Imagine no cars — or fewer, anyway.

In New York, a two-mile stretch of the FDR Drive parkway is torn down to open lower Manhattan for parks and plazas, and bicyclists are given their own lane on the Brooklyn Bridge.

An elevated highway in Guangzhou, China, is transformed into a pedestrian promenade, and rooftops are linked by raised walkways and bikeways.

In Jakarta, Indonesia, traditional bike taxis called becaks are re-engineered to be lighter and easier to steer.

The three cities and seven others are featured in an exhibit on environmentally friendly transportation of the future opening Thursday in New York. The exhibit, titled "Our Cities Ourselves," will be at the Center for Architecture in Greenwich Village through Sept. 11 before traveling to the other cities, which include Buenos Aires, Argentina; Budapest, Hungary, and Johannesburg, organizers said.

"We hired 10 architects from cities all over the world to help us imagine what their cities might look like in 2030 if we made the cities more human scale, more environmentally sustainable," said Walter Hook, the executive director of the Institute for Transportation and Development Policy, which organized the exhibit with funding from the San Francisco-based ClimateWorks Foundation.

Hook cradled his bike helmet in one arm as he provided a tour of the exhibit.

"We're essentially trying to send the message that if cities don't move in this direction we're going to be faced with cataclysmic climate change, because in the developing world the use of private automobiles is escalating at double-digit rates," Hook said.

The cities were chosen because Hook and the New York-based ITDP have relationships with them, having helped design bus systems in Jakarta; Mexico City; Ahmedabad, India, and other locales.

The exhibit includes images and 3D models of urban neighborhoods as they are envisioned in 2030 alongside current photos of the same neighborhoods.

In the township of Soweto, in Johannesburg, current photos show low-rise housing and not much else. But the Soweto of 2030 is bustling with markets and public spaces.

"You weren't allowed to open shops, traditionally, under apartheid," Hook said. "So what we've done is we've sort of reimagined it as a kind of new town ... where people could actually work and shop in downtown Soweto."

The model of Guangzhou, also known as Canton, shows a network of rooftop footpaths evoking Dr. Seuss.

"In China, anything's possible," Hook said.

The Utopian vision of lower Manhattan shows pedestrians, bicycles and very few cars. Architect Michael Sorkin, who designed the New York piece of the exhibit, said he thinks it's "completely feasible."

"The streets were laid out by the Dutch in a fundamentally medieval pattern," he said. "They're not made for cars."

In the New York of the 2000s, Mayor Michael Bloomberg has won plaudits from alternative transportation advocates for putting pedestrian plazas in the middle of Times Square, near Broadway theaters, and in Herald Square, where the Macy's flagship department store is located.

Sorkin said his own ideas such as tearing down the lower part of the FDR Drive, which runs along the east side of Manhattan, are equally plausible.

"A year ago nobody thought you could close Broadway," he said. "But suddenly it's closed, and everyone loves it."

"Our Cities Ourselves" travels to Guangzhou after New York. The other cities in the exhibit are Ahmedabad; Budapest; Buenos Aires; Dar es Salaam, Tanzania; Jakarta; Johannesburg; Mexico City and Rio de Janeiro.

___

Online:

http://www.ourcitiesourselves.org/

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Overconsumption is costing us the earth and human happiness

Story of Stuff creator Annie Leonard's new book examines the high price of the western world's obession with all things material
Celia Cole guardian.co.uk 21 Jun 10;

If you really want to understand a country, a society, or even a civilization, don't turn to its national museums or government archives. Head to the tip.

According to Annie Leonard – former Greenpeace activist, unwavering optimist and waste obsessive – the tip is akin to society's secret journal. "Stuff" became a fascination for Leonard in her teens, choosing field trips to landfills while at university when she began to question how we came to build an economy based purely on resources.

That was 20 years ago, and a lot has changed. Waste and recycling are now burning policy issues. Forty countries, hundreds of factories and still more landfills later, Leonard worries we have not grasped the fundamental problem with our materials economy. "It is a linear system and we live on a finite planet. You cannot run a linear system on a finite planet indefinitely. Too often the environment is seen as one small piece of the economy. But it's not just one little thing, it's what every single thing in our life depends upon."

In 2007, Leonard tried a novel medium – a YouTube video – to convey the message. The Story of Stuff was a frank and cleverly animated short film telling the story of the American love affair with stuff and how it is quite literally trashing the planet. Three years on and it's a viral online phenomenon; seen by 10 million people in homes and classrooms all over the world. Now she has followed up the video with a book of the same name.

Leonard has surprised many, though, by not actually being against stuff. She isn't even anti-consumption. In fact, she feels lots of people should be consuming more. Just not most of us in the western world who often over-consume.

Consumption can be good, she says. "I don't want to be callous to the people who really do need more stuff".

But consumerism is always bad, adding little to our wellbeing as well as being disastrous for the planet. "[It's] a particular strand of overconsumption, where we purchase things, not to fulfil our basic needs, but to fill some voids about our lives and make social statements about ourselves," she explains.

"It turns out our stuff isn't making us any happier," she argues. Our obsessive relationship with material things is actually jeopardising our relationships, "Which are proven over and over to be the biggest determining factor in our happiness [once our basic needs are met]."

Leonard calls upon wider research to argue the sociological and psychological consequences of our all-consuming epidemic, including that of Tim Kasser and Robert Putman. Kasser identified a connection between an excessively materialistic outlook and increased levels of anxiety and depression, while Putman argues we're paying the ultimate price for our consumeristic tendencies with the loss of friendships, neighbourly support and robust communities. Together they suggest we are witnessing nothing short of the collapse of social fabric across society.

Part of the problem, according to Leonard, is our confused sense of self. We've allowed our citizen self to be dwarfed by a relatively new reflex action – consume, consume, consume. "Our consumer self is so overdeveloped that we spend most of our time there. You see it walking around – we usually interact with others from our consumer self and are most spoken to as our consumer self. The problem is that we are so comfortable there that when we're faced with really big problems [like climate change], we think about what to do as individuals and consumers: 'I should buy this instead of this.'

"If you're going to vote with your dollar that's fine," Leonard says. "But you need to remember that Exxon has a lot more dollars than you. We need to vote with our votes; re-engage with the political process and change the balance of power so that those who are looking out for the wellbeing of the planet dominate, instead of those who are just looking our for the bottom line."

Like George Monbiot, Leonard doesn't think so-called ethical consumption, or greensumption is going to get us out of the problem either. "The real solution is not perfecting your ability to choose the best option, it's getting that product off the shelf," she says. "It's increasingly looking like buying green delays people engaging with the political process."

Leonard's film has its critics. Fox News branded it "full of misleading numbers". And the free market and climate sceptic think tank The Competitive Enterprise Institute, called the project "community college Marxism in a ponytail." But many have found it hard to argue Leonard doesn't live up to her values. At her home in California she and another five families have chosen community over stuff, tearing down the fences between their homes. "Its not a big deal", she says. "We don't have matching clothes and its not like a commune of anything. We are all just regular families in these six houses [who] share things. And we just have so much fun."

The Story of Stuff is about America, but how is the UK faring? Leonard does note some positive differences: the NHS, our liberal political discourse – allowing us to utter the words capitalism and unsustainable in the same large breath, and she likes the fact that washing lines are not a threatened species. One thing that does bug Leonard about this country, though, is our pyromania. Specifically, she's worried about our leaders' love affair with waste incinerators. "It's just so depressing. Incinerators are such a regressive way of dealing with waste materials. We need to promote zero waste as an alternative."

Zero waste is a term that gets thrown around a lot, most recently this week by environment secretary Caroline Spelman. For Leonard, a complete overhaul in our approach involves a real cradle-to-cradle revolution; marrying intelligent design upstream and consumer incentivised recycling and composting downstream.

This may well be one of the answers, and the book provides a few more. But Leonard doesn't pretend to have them all, and she's reluctant to commit to a new economic paradigm, either, because "we haven't invented it yet."

She is sure of one thing though: "Change is inevitable. You can't keep using one and a half planet's worth of resources indefinitely."

Many have argued against the minor details of the book, but few have questioned the fundamental premise that our current use of resources is unsustainable. Even fewer have doubted her optimism. "Environmentalists need to figure out a way of talking about this stuff in a more engaging and inviting way, and that is what I hope I'm doing with this book."

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Best of our wild blogs: 24 Jun 10

Pink spotted sea cucumber identified!
from wonderful creation and wild shores of singapore and urban forest

Butterfly of the Month - June 2010
from Butterflies of Singapore

Carpenter blue
from The annotated budak

A stretch of wild grass
from talfryn.net

23/06/2010 – STAMPED!
from Black Dillenia

Raffles Museum Treasures: Tokay gecko
from Lazy Lizard's Tales

The many faces of birding: I and the Bird #128
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Whale deal falls: but who wins?
from BBC NEWS blog by Richard Black

Kanyakumari: The Plastic Bag Free District in India
from EcoWalkthetalk

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NParks seminar to focus on biodiversity conservation and management

Mustafa Shafawi Channel NewsAsia 24 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE: Emerging trends, issues and practical solutions on biodiversity conservation and management will take centre stage in a seminar next week, organised by the National Parks Board (NParks).

With 'Urban Biodiversity & Ecology for Sustainable Cities' as its theme, the June 28-July 1 seminar is one of the six Expert Panel Sessions under the World Cities Summit taking place from Monday.

The seminar brings together people from seven cities and countries who play a role in shaping cities of the future.

It is expected to be attended by over 200 local and overseas participants from the government, academia, research, and landscape practitioners.

One of the speakers, NParks CEO Ng Lang, said more than half the world's population live in cities.

And the figure ise expected to go up to 70 per cent by 2050.

Mr Ng said in order to be highly liveable, cities will need to plan for ecological sustainability so that residents can enjoy nature and biodiversity even as urbanisation intensifies.

The seminar will also highlight the City Biodiversity Index, also known as the Singapore Index on Cities' Biodiversity.

It's a self-assessment tool to monitor and measure biodiversity conservation efforts in cities.

The User's Manual on the City Biodiversity Index will be presented during the session, marking the launch of the official test-bedding phase for the index.

NParks, together with experts from various countries, is assisting the Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity to finalise the City Biodiversity Index.

Currently, 28 cities around the world, including Singapore, have tested or are in various stages of test-bedding the index.

The City Biodiversity Index is currently part of the Draft Plan of Action on Cities, Local Authorities and Biodiversity.

The plan is due to be tabled for adoption in October at the Tenth Conference of Parties to the Convention of Biological Diversity. - CNA/jy

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Sand pirates: Millions floated out of the country via Sungai Johor

Elan Perumal and Stuart Michael, The Star 24 Jun 10;

JOHOR BARU: Sand worth millions of ringgit is being illegally “floated” out of the country daily via Sungai Johor here. And this has been going on for the past three years.

A Starprobe team investigating this lucrative trade found that the sand ends up in Singapore, despite a ban on sand export imposed by the Malaysian Government.

Sand extraction is a common sight along the river as mining syndicates illegally transport millions of tonnes of sand, even on weekends and public holidays, via Danga Bay and Port of Tanjung Pelepas.

The culprits use barges to pass through the international waters from Kota Tinggi and Ulu Tiram before arriving at local ports for shipment to Singapore.

The probe revealed that the barges are directed towards a private jetty or landing point at Pulau Punggol Timur in Singapore where the sand is unloaded.

A Singaporean company, which obtains the sand from a Malaysian partner, supplies it to the Housing Development Board of Singapore to cater for construction projects in the island republic.

The Starprobe team’s visit to the landing point revealed that the sand from the barges was loaded onto trucks before being taken to the private storage area.

The Pulau Punggol Timur jetty is believed to be used to solely stock up sand.

The private jetty is filled with sand mounds, mostly from Malaysia, and some from neighbouring countries.

To circumvent the Malaysian ban on sand export, the syndicates are believed to be exporting this highly sought-after material as processed or “packed” silica sand, an item that can be exported.

By obtaining sand from its Malaysian partner, the Singaporean company is making huge profits as it only pays S$30 per cubic metre compared with S$40 for the same amount of sand from Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia.

It is estimated that since August 2007, more than three million cubic metres of sand has been smuggled out through Sungai Johor.

Starprobe’s findings also revealed that more than 90% of the sand was extracted from Sungai Johor while the rest was from sand mines from the Kota Tinggi and Johor Baru districts.

Further investigation revealed that the illegal business started after a contract worth RM62.4 mil was awarded by the Malaysian Drainage and Irrigation Department to a private company to carry out redesigning and rectification works of Sungai Johor.

This involved deepening and widening a 12km stretch of the river mouth from Kota Tinggi towards Singapore.

Checks revealed that since the project also involved sand extraction from the river, a total of three million cubic metres of sand had been mined from the river.

Based on the calculation that the sand is being sold at S$30 per cubic metre, the syndicates could have raked in RM207mil over the two-year period of the project.

After the project’s completion, the syndicates continued to extract sand from the river, purportedly for local use but instead “exported” it to Singapore.

It is also learnt that an average of three sand-laden barges are transported out of Sungai Johor daily. A total of 326 barges of sand are believed to have been smuggled into Singapore over the past four months.

The syndicates have made an estimated RM44.9mil from the sale of 652,000 cubic metres of sand over the four months, which means they have pocketed a total of RM251.9mil from the illegal sale of sand to Singapore over the past three years.

The Government has also sustained heavy losses due to the fact that the sand is freely smuggled out.

The Government should have collected not less than RM37.5mil in taxes from the transaction based on RM12.50 for exporting per cubic metre of silica sand.

A Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission source confirmed that it had received a tip-off on the involvement of government officials related to the sand stealing activity.

The source also revealed that the commission had tipped off the relevant government authorities on its findings.

On Feb 9, The Star reported that several government officials were charged with accepting bribes for allowing the smuggling of sand into Singapore.

Sand mining unchecked
The Star 24 Jun 10;

PETALING JAYA: Sand extraction activities and movement of barges have been a common sight in Sungai Johor for the past three years.

The rampant sand stealing is something that most villagers in Kota Tinggi and Ulu Tiram, especially those living along the river bank, are aware of.

The activity takes place on land that stretches more than 10km along Jalan Kota Tinggi leading to Ulu Tiram.

A Starprobe team check revealed that barges were parked along the river at Kampung Ayer Puteh, 15km off the main road.

At the time of our visit, a tugboat was seen anchored at the jetty, near a signboard which indicated that sand extracting was going on in the river.

From a distance of 2km, we spotted several barges laden with sand along the river bank.

The team came face to face with five barges parked along the river bank during a 20-minute ride on a hired boat from the jetty.

It was then that we noticed the busy movement of excavators and cranes on the barges. The barges were fully loaded with sand.

We saw tugboats next to the barges. The boats are used to tow the barges to their destination.

The presence of our boat caught the attention of the tugboats’ crew who spotted us taking photographs.

The crew reacted by honking at our boat and shouting at us.

For a while, we thought that we were in hot water.

However, our boatman told us that he knew the crew and got us out of trouble by giving them a friendly wave.

“Don’t worry. They are all my friends,” said the boatman who thought we were sand contractors trying to bid for sand extracting projects.

On our way back to the jetty, we also spotted a few machines carrying out dredging work in the middle of the river.

We also visited a sand mining area at Bukit Wahab in Kota Tinggi, about 1.5km from the main road.

A signboard at the entrance to the site stated that sand mining activity was ongoing inside.

The site was busy with the movement of excavators and trucks.

Our vehicle was stopped by a motorcyclist who told us to leave, saying that it was private land.

The probe team spotted a jetty near the site which is located at the riverside.

It was discovered that the jetty was being used to load sand onto the barges for transportation down the river.

Easy to get approval from district offices to move sand
The Star 24 Jun 10;

PETALING JAYA: By merely producing a purchasing order, the syndicates are able to obtain approval from the relevant district offices to transport sand out of Kota Tinggi or Johor Baru.

However, nobody is allowed to export sand out of the country.

For example, they will declare that 2,000 cubic metres of sand will be transported from Kota Tinggi or Ulu Tiram to Danga Bay, Port of Tanjung Pelepas or Pasir Gudang.

To give the permit, the respective district land office will charge RM1 per cubic metre of sand, amounting to about RM2,000 per barge.

The syndicates are required to submit the Customs’ Borang K3 which is the permit application form.

The same procedure applies to exporting silica sand, except that the exporter will be required to pay RM12.50 per cubic metre of sand which can go up to about RM25,000 per shipment.

Upon obtaining the K3 permits, they will have to go through the Customs checkpoint near Pulau Tekong.

Borang 4C is then used to get clearance, which appears to be more of a formality in view of the fact that the barge is leaving Malaysian waters.

In Singaporean waters, the barge will go through the republic’s immigration checkpoint at Pulau Tekong with clearance for the sand being obtained from its Customs Department.

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New online initiative in support of going green, every day of the year

Today Online 24 Jun 10;

A new initiative to promote environmental consciousness will be launched soon. The 364 Movement aims to take environmental issues a step beyond just campaigns and events.

The Waterways Watch Society, a volunteer group which helps clean up Singapore's canal and reservoir network, hopes to start the online movement in a few months' time.

Its founder Eugene Heng says the society wants to encourage civic-mindedness beyond just events and campaigns.

"We've got great parties, the one-day clean, the healthy day, the family day and all that. I think everybody acknowledges the fact that what you do after attending the event is the most important thing. It's not coming here cutting the ribbon and then that's it. So what do you do after that? What do you do for the rest of the 364 days that really matters."

Mr Heng hopes with this movement, people will start to practise better social behaviour everyday. He said the authorities have limited resources and the public needs to give feedback regularly.

The society is prepared to follow-through with any reports given by the public.

Saifulbahri Ismail

Waterways Watch on Facebook

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URA wins international award for transformation of Southern Ridges

Surekha A Yadav Channel NewsAsia 23 Jun 10;

SINGAPORE: The Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has won a prestigious international award for the transformation of the Southern Ridges.

It was conferred the Urban Land Institute (ULI) Awards for Excellence 2010: Asia Pacific.

The Southern Ridges is a nine-kilometre chain of green and open spaces spanning Mount Faber Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park, Kent Ridge Park and West Coast Park.

The areas are connected by bridges and walkways including Henderson Waves, Singapore's highest walkway.

The seamless connectivity of all the hill parks transforms the Southern Ridges into a soothing sanctuary of greenery.

The connections comprise the two pedestrian bridges and an elevated walkway - the Henderson Waves, which is Singapore's highest pedestrian bridge, Alexandra Arch and the Forest Walk.

Areas within the Southern Ridges that were previously not accessible are now open to the public as a result of these linkages.

The Southern Ridges was opened in May 2008 and has since attracted an additional million visitors over and above the usual number of visitors to the hill parks.

The URA mooted the idea after noting that the hill top parks, which are rich in flora and fauna, were not easily accessible as they were separated by major roads and dense vegetation.

Established in 1979, the ULI Awards for Excellence are acknowledged as one of the most prestigious recognition programme for best practices in land use.

The jury for the ULI awards, comprising renowned real estate professionals, planners and architects, was impressed with the concept of the Southern Ridges.

It cited that "the innovative concept, visited by more than a million people since its opening, creates a rare contiguous recreational space in the densely populated city state and has moved the concept of green links and neighbourhood parks to a new level".

The chief executive officer of URA, Cheong Koon Hean, said: "This area was already a nature's gem with lush vegetation. We were very mindful to maintain the intrinsic character of the area as a secondary forest, to enable visitors to escape into the serenity of the hills and enjoy a seamless lush green experience as they walk through the Southern Ridges. Today, it has become a popular venue even for wedding photos and fashion shoots!

"We are overwhelmed by the tremendous popularity of the Southern Ridges, and very pleased that it is so well received by all members of the community."

This is the third time URA has received an award from the ULI, an international non-profit research and education organisation.

Singapore's conservation programme was conferred the ULI Awards for Excellence 2006: Asia Pacific and subsequently the ULI Global Awards for Excellence 2006.

URA's masterplanning efforts for the Bras Basah/Bugis district was also conferred the ULI Awards for Excellence 2008: Asia Pacific.

- CNA/ir

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