New research questions hydroelectric emissions

Yahoo News 11 Oct 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – Scientists have found that some reservoirs formed by hydroelectric dams emit more greenhouse gases than expected, potentially upsetting the climate-friendly balance of hydroelectric power.

A scientific study of Lake Wohlen in central Switzerland found "unexpectedly high" emissions of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, the Swiss Federal Institute of Acquatic Science and Technology (EAWAG) said on Monday.

The 150,000 tonnes of methane bubbling up from sediment in the retention lake on the river Aare over a year are the equivalent of emissions from 2,000 cows, or 25 million kilometres (15.5 million miles) travelled by cars, EAWAG added in a statement.

"So hydropower isn't quite as climate-neutral as people have assumed in the past," said one of the scientists involved, Tonya Del Sontro.

"In the summer, the water in Lake Wohlen sometimes looks like champagne with masses of gas bubbles rising to the surface," she added.

The peer-reviewed research by scientists at Swiss, German and Israeli institutes was published in the US journal Environmental Science and Technology.

Joint author Bernhard Wehrli, a professor of aquatic sciences at Zurich's Federal Institute of Technology (ETHZ), said the study mirrored initial findings in research on tropical reservoirs, notably at the Kariba dam in Zambia.

Preliminary studies there had found "very high" inflows of carbon-rich material, forming sediment in the reservoir that released greenhouse gases, Wehrli told AFP.

However, he underlined that the complex process was highly dependent on temperature, depth and the amount of carbon rich organic material -- such as vegetation -- that accumulated in the sediment on the reservoir floor.

"We have done a study of high Alpine reservoirs that are in a better state in terms of methane emissions," he added. High altitude mountain reservoirs are generally in colder, more rocky and sparsely vegetated surroundings.

In the shallow Lake Wohlen, on the populated 500-metre (1,640 foot) high plateau near the Swiss capital Berne, the reservoir captures large amounts of organic material that would flow along the rive Aare.

"It's not the fault of the reservoir builders that there are emissions, but because the flow of the river is slowed down," Wehrli explained.

That allows the organic material to ferment and produce gas that bubbles up to the surface.

Read more!

La Nina strengthens: WMO

Yahoo News 11 Oct 10;

GENEVA (AFP) – The disruptive La Nina weather pattern in the Pacific basin should strengthen over the next four to six months, heralding stronger monsoons and more hurricanes, the UN weather agency said on Monday.

World Meteorological Organisation climate services chief Rupa Kumar Kolli said a "moderate to strong" La Nina, which appeared in July, was now well estabished.

Kumar Kolli told journalists that forecasts showed "rather a strengthening of this La Nina episode for the next four to six months."

La Nina is the opposition condition of the El Nino weather pattern which subsided in June after being blamed for an exceptionally snowbound winter in North America and Europe.

La Nina is characterised by unusually cool ocean temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific and has been associated with strong rainfall in Asia and Australia, bitter cold snaps in North America, as well as drought in South America.

The WMO expert warned regions typically affected by La Nina to expect "enhanced climate change" into the first quarter of 2011, predicting a "more active than normal" monsoon.

He also associated it with a more active Atlantic hurricane season.

Nonetheless, the WMO said that despite the similarity so far with previous La Nina episodes, notably with major flooding in South Asia since July, the impact of the latest one on local climates may differ from the past.

El Nino and La Nina, the complex interaction between shifting ocean currents and the atmosphere, and the broader impact beyond the Pacific remain ill understood by WMO scientists, who are also reluctant to establish clear links with climate change.

Ghassem Asrar, head of research at the WMO, noted that the number of monsoons with more intense rainfall had increased over the past 50 years.

Read more!

Asia's water scarcity poses economic, political test

Alan Wheatley Reuters AlertNet 11 Oct 10;

JINGHONG, China, Oct 11 (Reuters) - Framed by banana and eucalyptus trees, the caramel-coloured Mekong river rolls through this lush corner of Yunnan province in southwestern China with an unerring rhythm that is reassuring in its seeming timelessness.

Yet as recently as April, a fearsome drought had shrivelled the Mekong to its narrowest in 50 years. Water levels were so low that at Guanlei, a river town not far from here, dozens of boats were laid up for more than three months.

Alarmed at the drying up of the world's largest inland fishery, the four members of the Mekong River Commission -- Thailand, Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam -- called a special summit.

"Without good and careful management of the Mekong river as well as its natural resources, this great river will not survive," Thai Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva warned.

The commission's political leaders suspected that China was hoarding water behind the dams it has built on the Mekong, exacerbating the impact of the drought.

China presented data to allay these fears. Finally, the rains returned and the tensions dissipated.

But the incident highlighted the strains that are being generated as Asia's unslakeable thirst for water collides with the reality of a supply that is limited and, if climate change projections are borne out, may shrink sharply.

The Asian Development Bank speaks of a looming crisis that threatens access to water and sanitation needs for millions of households and industries.

The bank is holding a high-level conference at its headquarters in Manila this week to chart solutions and canvass greater regional cooperation.

"In the next five to 10 years, if the initiatives to secure greater efficiencies in water are not put in place, you really are at risk," said Arjun Thapan, the ADB's special senior adviser for infrastructure and water, told Reuters. [ID:nSGE699014]

MIND THE GAP

Projections last year by the Water Resources Group (WRG), a consortium of private-sector companies formed to tackle water scarcity, point to a global gap of 40 percent between the supply and demand for water by 2030 under a business-as-usual scenario.

The imbalance is particularly daunting in India, where the trend towards a middle-class diet will increase demand for meat, sugar and wheat, which require a lot of water to produce.

Agriculture uses almost 90 percent of India's water.

By 2030, demand will grow to almost 1.5 trillion cubic metres, compared with today's supply of about 740 billion cubic metres, according to a report for the WRG by consultants McKinsey.

As a result, in the absence of concerted action, most of India's river basins could face a severe water deficit by 2030.

China's likely water deficit is more manageable on paper -- a shortfall of 200 billion cubic metres -- but 21 percent of the country's surface water resources are unfit even for farming, which consumes about 70 percent of the country's water.

What makes such forecasts even more daunting is evidence that global warming is already eroding the Himalayan glaciers covering the Tibetan plateau, which feed neighbours including India and Pakistan as well as China itself.

More than 80 percent of glaciers in western China are now in retreat, according to a study by a group of mainly Chinese climate-change scientists in the September issue of 'Nature'.

Overall, 5 percent to 27 percent of China's glacial area is forecast to disappear by 2050, the study said.

"Even though the exact timing and magnitude of the 'tipping point' of each glacier is still uncertain, the projected long-term exhaustion of glacial water supply should have a considerable impact on the availability of water for both agricultural and human consumption," the scientists wrote.

Because 60 percent of the run-off from China's glaciers flows out of the country, this can spell only trouble.

China's plans for more dams on the Mekong and on other major rivers that tumble down from the Tibetan plateau already have its southern neighbours on edge.

"As far as transboundary management of water is concerned, I think certainly the Himalayas are likely to be a flashpoint," said the ADB's Thapan.

THE NEW OIL

The risk of conflict over water rights is magnified because China and India are home to over a third of the world's population yet have to make do with less than 10 percent of its water.

"Although both nations are seeking to become the superpowers of the 21st century, their weak point is water," according to Yoichi Funabashi, a prominent foreign-affairs commentator and editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun, a Japanese newspaper.

India and Pakistan are another potential point of friction.

The Indus Waters Treaty, which parcelled out river use rights after India's partition in 1947, has survived three wars between the two neighbours since it was signed in 1960. But the pact is under strain from Indian plans for more upstream dams and water diversion schemes.

So what is to be done? Given that agriculture accounts for almost 70 percent of global water use, it will be critical to increase "crop per drop" via improved irrigation techniques and growing food that needs less water.

In the words of the Water Resources Group, "While the gap between supply and demand WILL be closed, the question is HOW."

As Funabashi puts it, oil can ultimately be replaced by other resources, but the same is not true for water. Water is also closely tied to food, energy and climate change.

"In that sense, water is a key component of national security. If the 20th century witnessed the rise and fall of nations over oil, the 21st century could be one in which the rise and fall of nations is determined by water," he wrote last month. (Additional reporting by John Mair in Manila; Editing by Richard Pullin)

Read more!

Population Growth Demographics Spur Climate Change

Deborah Zabarenko PlanetArk 12 Oct 10;

The world is probably going to be a more crowded place by 2100 and demographic changes in this growing population -- how many more people there are, how old they are and where they live -- will affect climate-warming emissions, researchers reported on Monday.

Slowing down population growth could have a profound effect on the level of carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuel use, the researchers found, but this alone will not be enough to prevent the most severe impact from climate change.

Scientists have long drawn a connection between population growth and increased greenhouse gas emissions, but previous research has not focused on demographic shifts that are likely to go along with the increase in the number of people.

World population is expected to be generally older and more urban by century's end, and more people are likely to live in smaller households rather than in extended families, U.S., German and Austrian researchers reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

But how many people might there be? The researchers considered three scenarios: a continuation of current trends, which would yield a 2-billion-person increase by 2050; a slower growth path which could mean about 1 billion more people; and a faster growth path, which could see a population rise of as much as 3 billion by 2050.

That would mean about 9 billion people living on Earth, compared to more than 6 billion now.

A slower-growth path could cut emissions by 16 to 29 percent of the amount needed to keep global temperatures from causing serious effects, the researchers said. And an aging population with lower participation in the workforce could cut emissions by as much as 20 percent in some industrialized countries.

POSSIBLE RISE IN ASIAN ENERGY DEMAND

Generally speaking, the more people there are, the more fossil fuel they use, causing more greenhouse gas emissions. But those who live in rural areas, particularly in developing countries, use more biomass as fuel instead of fossil fuels like coal and oil, said Brian O'Neill of the U.S. National Center for Atmospheric Research, one of the study's authors.

Therefore, a big move from country to city living is likely to mean greater fossil fuel use, especially in the developing world. Even if city-dwellers have relatively smaller carbon footprints -- living in smaller spaces, using public transit and less fossil fuel per person -- an influx of country people into cities is likely to make greenhouse emissions rise.

Another effect of urbanization is that urban workers tend to contribute more to economic growth than rural workers do.

"That's not because they work harder or longer hours," O'Neill said by telephone from Boulder, Colorado.

"It's because they're in sectors of the economy that drive economic growth more."

As a result, he said, the whole economy of the country grows faster and overall demand for energy rises, driving emissions up, as much as 25 percent in some developing countries.

The trend toward urbanization could have a noticeable impact on energy demand, especially in Asia, O'Neill said.

"I think it's possible ... that we're underestimating potential growth rates in energy demand in regions of the world that may urbanize very quickly over the next 20 to 30 years," he said.

(Editing by Todd Eastham)


Urbanization, Aging Will Affect Greenhouse Gas Emissions
LiveScience.com Yahoo News 13 Oct 10;

As the number of humans already on Earth has resources bursting at the seams, researchers are now finding it's not just population size that impacts the planet's health. The composition of that population and where they live also play huge roles in the release of greenhouse gases.

Aging and urbanization, in particular, could significantly affect global emissions of carbon dioxide over the next 40 years, according to new research published this week in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"By examining the relationship between population dynamics and greenhouse gas emissions, this groundbreaking research increases our understanding of how human behaviors, decisions and lifestyles will determine the path of future climate change," said Sarah Ruth, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF), which funded the study, along with a European Young Investigator's Award, and the Hewlett Foundation.

By mid-century it is estimated that the global population could rise by more than 3 billion people, with most of that increase occurring in urban areas, the researchers say.

To figure out how these changing demographics might impact climate change, the researchers developed scenarios for energy use, emissions and economic growth using a computer model (Population- Environment-Technology model, or PET).

They also analyzed data from national surveys covering 34 countries and representative of 61 percent of the global population to estimate key economic characteristics of household types over time, including labor supply and demand for consumer goods.

Overall, they found that if population follows one of the slower growth paths foreseen by demographers at the United Nations, by 2050 it could account for 16 to 29 percent of the emission reductions thought necessary to keep global temperatures from causing serious impacts, the researchers found.

"If global population growth slows down, it is not going to solve the climate problem, but it can make a contribution, especially in the long term," said study researcher Brian O'Neill, of the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.

The team found that growth in urban populations could lead to as much as a 25-percent rise in projected carbon dioxide emissions in some developing countries. The increased economic growth associated with city-dwellers was directly correlated with increased emissions, largely due to the higher productivity and consumption preferences of an urban population.

On the other hand, aging could reduce emissions levels by up to 20 percent in some industrialized countries, a finding that also had to do with productivity - older people are less likely to participate in the labor force or have lower labor productivity, and are associated with slower economic growth, the researchers say.

"Demography will matter to greenhouse gas emissions over the next 40 years," O'Neill said. "Urbanization will be particularly important in many developing countries, especially China and India, and aging will be important in industrialized countries."

The authors suggest that developers of future emissions scenarios give greater consideration to the implications of urbanization and aging, particularly in the United States, European Union, China and India.

"Further analysis of these trends would improve our understanding of the potential range of future energy demand and emissions," O'Neill said.

The research was conducted by scientists at NCAR, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Read more!

Adapting to rising sea levels: a new book

CSIRO Science Alert 12 Oct 10;

“The good news is that a recent concentration of science resources is improving our insight into ocean and ice dynamics, and scientific measurement of the rate of sea-level rise,” says the book’s lead editor, CSIRO Fellow and oceanographer Dr John Church.

“The way the world responds to climate change will become increasingly reliant on a sophisticated integrated atmosphere, ocean and ice observing network generating data on future climates and from which global and regional sea-level rise can be projected.

“The key question is where and how sea-level rise and associated extreme events will have their impact,” Dr Church says.

The 420-page book: Understanding Sea-level Rise and Variability, is the work of more than 90 scientists from 13 nations, led by Dr Church, Dr Philip Woodworth from the Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory UK, Dr Thorkild Aarup from the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission (IOC), and Dr Stan Wilson from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

It provides a comprehensive overview of current knowledge on the science of sea-level rise, identifies the major impacts, assesses past sea-level change and the factors contributing to sea-level rise, and assesses how extreme events at the coast will change.

The book will be detailed this week at the Australia-New Zealand Climate Forum, being held in Hobart from October 13-15.

Dr Church says coastal development has accelerated over the past 50 years. Many of the world’s megacities are situated at the coast and new infrastructure worth billions of dollars is being constructed. These developments assume that the stable sea levels of the past several millennia will continue. This assumption is no longer true.

“Populations in low lying islands and deltaic regions are particularly at risk.

“Our knowledge has improved significantly since satellites were launched to observe the ocean and the ice sheets and robots deployed to explore the oceans. However, there are critical gaps in observations of the deep ocean, glaciers and ice sheets.

“Paralleling this, the development of computer simulations projecting ocean and ice sheet dynamics will be the tools that science needs, governments will rely on and coastal communities from the Pacific islands to the river deltas of Asia will be demanding.

“We cannot ignore sea-level change because it has the potential to change forever the crowded coastal fringes of our continents,” Dr Church says.

The book was initiated by the World Climate Research Programme and IOC shortly after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, but before cyclones Sidr and Nargis in 2007 and 2008. All claimed thousands of lives.

More on the CSIRO website.

Read more!

U.N. climate panel head aims to lead "overdue" reforms

Reuters 11 Oct 10;

(Reuters) - The head of the U.N. panel of climate scientists said on Monday he aimed to stay on and lead "overdue" reforms after errors in a 2007 report, including an exaggeration of the thaw of the Himalayan glaciers.

India's Rajendra Pachauri, opening an October 11-14 meeting of 300 delegates from 130 nations in Busan, South Korea, admitted "shortfalls and mistakes" in the 2007 overview of climate science but has resisted suggestions that he should quit.

"I am committed to carry reform forward," he told the first talks of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) since an August 30 report by the InterAcademy Council, grouping science academies, urged fundamental reform of IPCC management.

"Change and improvement in an organization as important and complex as the IPCC is inevitable and overdue, but it must build on the demonstrated strengths of the system," he told delegates.

Among the council recommendations were that the chair of the IPCC, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with U.S. climate campaigner Al Gore, should serve only one six-year term. Pachauri, elected in 2002, is well into his second.

Pachauri has said in the past that he will fulfill his existing mandate to present a new IPCC review of global warming science in 2013-14, unless governments decide otherwise.

He noted that the InterAcademy Council said the IPCC could "claim many important accomplishments." It also called for more rigorous checks on information.

HIMALAYAS

In the 2007 report, the most glaring error was a projection that glaciers in the Himalayas could melt by 2035 -- far earlier than the worst projections. It also over-stated the amount of the Netherlands that is below sea level and the number of people in Africa at risk of disruptions to water supplies by 2020.

But scientific reviews have backed up the core IPCC conclusion that it is "very likely" that global warming is man-made, caused mainly by rising concentrations of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels.

At Monday's session, no nations called for Pachauri to quit.

Diplomats say that forcing out Pachauri, who collected the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the IPCC, could help a fresh start but skeptics might seize on his departure as an admission that the report was badly flawed.

India has affirmed backing for Pachauri, making it hard for others to object to one of the few high-level climate posts held by a developing nation. And Pachauri himself has in the past sought to bolster the IPCC Secretariat in Geneva.

In a video message, Christiana Figueres, the head of the U.N. Climate Change Secretariat, urged governments to carry out pledges to cut greenhouse gas emissions and praised the IPCC for alerting the world to risks of climate change.

"But confusion that has arisen recently has dampened the willingness of the public in some countries to support the tough decisions that governments need to make now in order to respond to the full challenge of climate change," she said.

Last year, most governments agreed at the U.N. summit in Copenhagen to limit temperature rises to below 2 Celsius (3.6 F) above pre-industrial times to avoid more droughts, mudslides, sandstorms, floods and rising sea levels.

"It is the job of governments to make sure that we avoid a future where climate disasters become the normal experience of humanity," she said.

(Writing by Alister Doyle in Oslo, editing by Janet Lawrence)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 11 Oct 10

First visit to South Cyrene
from wild shores of singapore

The eyes of the Red-breasted Parakeet
from Bird Ecology Study Group

back to chek jawa
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be

And then there were four hornbills
from Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs

Monday Morgue: 11th October 2010
from The Lazy Lizard's Tales

Read more!

Better e-waste management in Singapore, please

Lynda Hong Ee Lyn Today Online 11 Oct 10;

SINGAPORE - Recyclers are calling for greater regulation to ensure unwanted electronic appliances, including used computer peripherals, are disposed properly.

Such junk - also known as electronic waste, or e-waste - could release toxic chemicals when incinerated or dumped into landfills, they pointed out.

Given the lack of collection points for e-waste in housing estates, recycling companies such as Cimelia rely on karung guni men to collect e-waste from households. But this forms only five to 10 per cent of e-waste collected every month. On average, Cimelia collects between 500 and 700 tons of e-waste each month, mainly from factories and companies.

Cimelia's director, Mr Venkatesha Murthy, said karung guni men would first try to refurbish all re-usable electronics and electrical appliances for resale in Singapore or export to other countries. They would then sell what they could not salvage to Cimelia.

Public waste collectors Veolia and SembWaste told MediaCorp that e-waste forms a small portion of recyclables collected from households, with SembWaste putting the proportion of e-waste figure at about one to two per cent. So, given Singaporeans' penchant for electronics products, where does the Republic's e-waste go?

According to the National Environment Agency (NEA), the economic value in the materials recoverable from e-waste meant that there was "minimal" amount of such junk ending up at the incinerator or landfill.

But Mr Venkatesha pointed out that e-waste could be easily exported to other countries like China and Africa, as Singapore did not have a tracking system to trace where electronic products were disposed.

Recycling Point Dot Com founder Joseph Tan suggested a governing body such as NEA administer the funds to ensure the proper disposal of an electronics products.

Several countries, including Switzerland, Netherlands, Japan and Korea, have introduced Extended Producer Responsibility laws, which are based on the principle that producers should bear responsibility for all the environmental impacts of their products.

In Japan, consumers are required to return unwanted electronic appliances to the retailers and pay a national recycling fee and an additional fee to cover the retailers' transport costs to the collection point.

When asked if consumers would be charged for the collection and disposal of unwanted appliances, the NEA said it encouraged e-waste recovery efforts through second-hand dealers, voluntary take-back and recycling schemes implemented by several large IT and mobile phone companies.

The NEA's first nationwide e-waste take-back initiative on Sept 11 - which was held over one week - collected 3,600 kg of e-waste and small household appliances, which will be reused or dismantled for recycling.

Read more!

A must that turned many into volunteers in Singapore

SMU students required to do community work, but a 'majority' continue even after graduation
Judith Tan Straits Times 11 Oct 10;

THE Singapore Management University (SMU) compels its students to serve 80 hours of community service as a condition for graduating.

True, some cynical or selfish ones see the stint as 'a necessary evil', but the school's administration is heartened that the 'majority' are sufficiently bitten by the community service bug after this to carry on volunteering even after they launch their careers.

The school did not cite figures on the proportion who keep up the volunteering post-graduation - be it by becoming volunteer teachers or by taking on pro-environment projects here and abroad.

But as of July, it has counted more than 9,100 students who have clocked more than a million hours in community service.

To mark the 10th year of this scheme, it is holding a photo exhibition to show how its students have given their time, talents and energy to various causes.

Photos of Inspirat10n, as the exhibition has been called, will be launched at the campus at 7pm today.

Ms Ruth Chiang, the university's director for career services, said SMU made the programme part of its curriculum to infuse its students - future leaders - with ethics.

She said: 'Many of our students grew up in abundance, and there's a segment of society that they've not been in touch with - the poor and needy. We want them to see first-hand the people who need help getting out of the vicious circle.'

Mr Theodore Teo, SMU's assistant director for career services, cited the example of a student from China, an only child who 'used to believe community work was something idiots do as there's no material gain'. But having to serve 28 days in a Beijing old folk's home changed her thinking. She volunteers there to this day, he said.

SMU is the only university here and in the region to impose this 80-hour community service requirement on its undergraduates; neither the National University of Singapore nor Nanyang Technological University (NTU) has an equivalent programme.

Associate Professor Lok Tat Seng, NTU's dean of students, said that for charitable acts to be meaningful, the desire to serve must come from the heart, rather than be imposed from outside.

SMU's Mr Teo said its students are briefed and told about the 'why' behind the programme.

The school has noticed that most students, after getting their feet wet, do become convinced of the good that can come out of what they do, and carry on volunteering after graduation.

Mr Teo added: 'They develop confidence and passion in the different areas - society, humanity, education and the environment. It's all part and parcel of becoming a responsible adult.'

College mates team up to 'give back'
Straits Times 11 Oct 10;

FOUR Singapore Management University (SMU) alumni have set up aidha, a non-profit body, to impart principles of entrepreneurship and money management to foreign maids.

Separately, an SMU alumna who is now a senior associate in human resources at the Singapore Exchange spends a good part of her annual leave volunteering as an English teacher in Timor Leste.

All five say their commitment to giving back to society started at SMU, which requires its students to log 80 hours of community service before graduating.

Fund manager Harsh Saxena, 25, a founding member of aidha, said: 'We want to help these maids by teaching them how to manage their money and making them aware of the ways of today's technological world.'

Teacher Angad Singh, 26, fund manager Amrt Sagar and marketing executive Sujeet Kulkarni, both 24, feel the same way.

In Sanskrit, aidha means 'that to which we aspire', and indeed, the organisation has helped put some maids on the road to financial independence.

By extending micro credit, aidha has enabled some of them to launch small businesses in their home countries.

An Indonesian maid who learnt from aidha about Skype-to-Skype calls has since started an Internet cafe in her village, collecting fees from those who want to make Skype calls.

Mr Kulkarni said: 'Helping someone get back on his feet gives us a sense of satisfaction. It's different from material returns.'

The four friends have also set up Moksh, which works with volunteer groups to rebuild lives in Third World countries.

Moksh, another Sanskrit word, means 'liberation from worldly intents'.

This Chinese New Year, they were in Chiang Mai, rebuilding homes.

'We were knee-high in mud and digging, but it was still a great feeling,' Mr Saxena said.

Ms Jessene Lim, 28, also knows what it feels like to forgo creature comforts in her quest to help others.

It is hot, humid and filled with mosquitoes where she teaches English in Timor Leste, but she said: 'It is a young country and has needs we take for granted. As long as I know why I'm there, I'll continue going.'

In 2005, after the Indian Ocean tsunami the year before, the diving enthusiast went with some SMU friends to Surin Island near Phuket to document the damage to marine life there. The data they gathered on sea creatures at varying depths was handed over to researchers at Thailand's Chulalongkorn University.

The group has since extended the project and collected data from waters off Surin, Timor Leste, Cambodia and Sabah.

Ms Lim said: 'I feel proud when my work yields results that lead to better things.'

JUDITH TAN

Read more!

Field testing in Malaysia approved for GM mosquitoes

The Star 11 Oct 10;

KUALA LUMPUR: The National Biosafety Board has approved the release of genetically-modified Aedes mosquitoes for field testing, Health Minister Datuk Seri Liow Tiong Lai said.

However, the decision would still need Cabinet approval, he said.

“Clinical trial at the laboratory level was successful and the biosafety committee has approved it for testing in a controlled environment,” he said.

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry would present it to the Cabinet for approval, he told a media conference at the 61st session of the WHO Regional Committee for the Western Pacific here yesterday.

The board had assessed the field experiment proposal from the Institute of Medical Research to release the mosquitoes in Bentong, Pahang, and Alor Gajah, Malacca, in early October.

Male Aedes Aegypti would be genetically-modified and when mated with female Aedes mosquitoes in the environment, it is hoped the killer genes would cause the larvae to die. (The Aedes Aegypti mosquito can spread the dengue fever, Chikungunya and yellow fever viruses).

“We see it as the most efficient and fastest way in eradicating Aedes mosquitoes from our local environment,” Liow said, adding that Aedes is not a species endemic to Malaysia.

However, he said, dengue posed a major concern in Malaysia because the number of cases has increased by more than 25% this year.

Liow said his ministry was taking the disease seriously because it was not only a health issue but also an environmental hazard.

WHO Western Pacific regional director Dr Shin Young-soo said Malaysia is leading in the research in this area but cautioned that care be taken in introducing a new species to the environment.

He said global experts on tropical diseases research would discuss the issue soon and decide on what they would do with the new development.

Mosquitoes v mosquitoes to fight dengue
Australia, Malaysia to release infected insects to stop spread of disease
Ben Nadarajan Straits Times 12 Oct 10;

RESEARCHERS in Australia and Malaysia will be bucking convention in the fight against dengue by releasing mosquitoes into the wild rather than preventing them from breeding.

The number of dengue cases has doubled over the last 10 years and the situation this year is significantly worse than last year, said World Health Organisation regional director Shin Young Soo.

Dengue infects 50 million people worldwide every year and is the fastest-growing mosquito-borne disease.

Malaysia plans to introduce 2,000 to 3,000 dengue-spreading Aedes mosquitoes into two states by the year end. They are engineered such that their offspring will have shorter lifespans.

The Australian tests involve mosquitoes infected with bacteria which stop the transmission of dengue, apart from shortening the already short life of the mosquito.

The infected females produce fewer eggs and older mosquitoes have weaker mouth parts, which make them less able to bite humans and transmit the disease.

Known as wolbachia, these bacteria are found naturally in many insects like fruit flies and butterflies, although not in the Aedes aegypti mosquito, which is the main carrier of dengue. It does not infect vertebrates, including humans.

University of Queensland scientists have received the green light from the federal government to conduct field tests and release the insects into the wild in January.

Project leader Scott O'Neill told The Straits Times that only a small number of mosquitoes will be released into two suburbs in Cairns to mate with wild mosquitoes. The bacteria will pass on to their offspring, 'invading' the mosquito population over a number of generations.

'It Is like a vaccine, but instead of giving it to people, we give it to mosquitoes, and it will spread in the mosquito population,' Professor O'Neill said.

The group plans to conduct similar field tests next year in Vietnam, where dengue is a much bigger problem.

'If it works, it could be a sustainable low-cost approach to dengue control, which will be more environmentally friendly than spraying lots of insecticides,' said Prof O'Neill.

The scientists are also looking at using the same method on other mosquito-borne diseases such as malaria.

International dengue expert Duane Gubler, programme director of emerging infectious diseases at the Duke-NUS Graduate Medical School in Singapore, does not see any downsides to the new method.

'Most insects, including Aedes albopictus, the secondary dengue vector in Singapore, are infected with this bacterium naturally. I see no adverse effects of adding Aedes aegypti to the list,' he said.

He added that several ways of curbing dengue are emerging. For example, a group in Britain and California has developed a 'sterile mosquito' which cannot fly.

But is it not easier just to kill the pests?

Prof O'Neill said: 'We have been trying to kill mosquitoes for the last century with little success. If we could do it easily, that would be great.'

Singapore's National Environment Agency said the trials in Australia are important because they would establish if the strategy works.

'We need to assess the effectiveness of these techniques and their possible impact on the environment, taking into account Singapore's unique circumstances,' its spokesman said.

Malaysia to use lab mosquitoes to fight dengue
Yahoo News 11 Oct 10;

PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia – Malaysia could be the first country in Asia to use genetically modified mosquitoes to battle a rise in dengue fever, government authorities said Monday.

The program calls for genetically engineered male mosquitoes to be released into the wild that would mate with females and produce offspring that live shorter lives, thus curbing the population.

Malaysian scientists say laboratory test trials have made them optimistic.

"It is a pilot project, and hopefully it will work," Prime Minister Najib Razak told reporters on the sidelines of a World Health Organization conference in Malaysia.

Dengue fever, spread by the Aedes aegypti mosquito, is common in Asia and Latin America. Symptoms include high fever, joint pains and nausea, but in severe cases, it can lead to internal bleeding, liver enlargement, circulatory shutdown and death. There is no known cure or vaccine.

Efforts to urge Malaysians to keep neighborhoods clean and destroy stagnant sources of water — which are mosquito breeding grounds — have failed, and "innovative ways" are needed to combat dengue, Najib said.

In Malaysia, the number of dengue-linked deaths totaled 117 between January and early October — a 65 percent surge from last year, according to Health Ministry statistics. Dengue infections overall increased 17 percent from last year to more than 37,000 cases.

Malaysian authorities plan to release between 2,000 and 3,000 genetically modified mosquitoes in two areas, said Lim Chua Leng, a Health Ministry official. The plan, which cannot be undertaken without Cabinet approval, would be the first such release of genetically modified mosquitoes in Asia to combat dengue.

WHO Western Pacific regional director Shin Young-soo on Sunday said he welcomed Malaysia's efforts to step up the fight against dengue, but also reportedly cautioned that care must be taken in introducing a new species to the environment, The Star newspaper reported.

Some Malaysian environmentalists say releasing such mosquitoes could have unintended consequences.

Read more!

Indonesian environmentalist: Sumatran tigers getting closer to extinction

Antara 11 Oct 10;

Medan (ANTARA News) - Sumatran tigers are getting closer to extinction as evidence showed that their habitats are rapidly decreasing, an environmentalist said.

"Forest encroachments by irresponsible people have been on the rise in Sumatra in recent years in addition to illegal forest clearings making way for plantations," Rasyid Assaf Dongoran, director of the Sumatra Rainforests Institute (SRI) said on Sunday.

Sumatran tigers, Dongoran added, would not survive more years if their habitats continued to reduce making them increasingly difficult find food. He said only around 400 tigers were left in Sumatran forests.

"These rare animal species in Sumatra are sure to become extinct sooner or later, as the result of continued illegal forest encroachments in the name of economic development," Dongoran pointed out.

Dongoran added that reports on forest destruction and the tree felling had become daily consumption to the public in provinces of Sumatra, from Aceh to Lampung.
This dismaying fact adds to the previous announcement by the local administrations on the legal clearance of forested land making way for oil palm plantations.

"If the forest degradation rate increased unchecked because the lack of serious attention of the government and the society, the extinction would sure to come," Dongoran said. (*)

Read more!

Some Selangor residents unhappy that group is feeding primates

Fazleena Aziz The Star 11 Oct 10;

THE Selangor Department of Wildlife and National Parks (Perhilitan) has been in talks with residents of Taman TAR and Taman TAR Committee Care for the Environment and Wildlife in Ampang on the problem of monkeys and wild boars in the area.

StarMetro had featured the wildlife-friendly group, which has been feeding the monkeys and wildboars in nearby jungle for about three years.

Some residents are unhappy with the group’s activities as there is a signboard by the Federal Territory Perhilitan forbidding the feeding of monkeys and animals.

Selangor Perhilitan director Rahmat Topani said a committee would evaluate all the concerns by both the residents and group before taking action following a meeting held on Sept 29 with both parties.

“We have heard views from both parties and need to do a bit of research in the area.

“It was not advisable to feed the monkeys because they become dependent and their generation will face problems in finding food later,” he said, adding the animals might venture further in search of food from their habitat.

He said there are about 40 wild boars and 200 monkeys in the jungle.

Rahmat also spoke about the neutering programme by Perhilitan to curb the increasing monkey population in the Klang Valley.

The programme, at the pilot stage now, is conducted by the Biodiversity Conservation Department. It involves chemical castration and vasectomy done in a laboratory.

He said for Selangor, they would start with Bukit Gasing.

“It is not a simple task because we have to train our officers to do the job.

“We also have to look at the number of monkeys before and after the programme,” he said.

The number of complaints involving monkeys has reduced over the years.

Some of the action taken involved relocating the monkeys to other jungles and killing the aggressive ones.

When asked about monkey behaving aggressively especially with the recent case in Seremban involving a new-born baby which was fatally bitten, Rahmat said it was possible for the animals to become aggressive but was not able to comment on the tragic incident.

“Generally, if they become aggressive, it must have been provocated. This is why it is dangerous to feed the animals because they are used to it and will try to grab the food or even a woman’s purse,” he said.

Read more!