Mekong countries should delay dam projects for decade: study

Yahoo News 15 Oct 10;

PHNOM PENH (AFP) – Countries in the lower Mekong River region should delay any decisions about building hydropower dams for 10 years, an influential new study said Friday, warning of the many risks involved.

The recommendation was made in a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) report commissioned by the Mekong River Commission (MRC), an inter-governmental advisory body that deals with all Mekong River-related activities.

The MRC -- which represents Cambodia, Laos, Thailand and Vietnam -- is studying the possible construction of 11 hydropower projects on southeast Asia's longest river.

"The recommendation to defer dam construction for a 10-year period is very significant," said Tiffany Hacker, an interim communication advisor for the MRC.

Environmental groups have long objected to damming the river, arguing that it would damage fragile ecosystems.

The assessment, led by consultants with the help of the MRC, government agencies and civil society representatives, said more time was needed to study the risks that come with building dams in such a complex environment.

"The mainstream projects are likely to result in serious and irreversible environmental damage and... losses in biological diversity and ecological integrity," the report said.

It also warned that the dams would have a negative impact on fisheries and could "lead to increasing food insecurity for millions of people".

The MRC stressed that it was under no obligation to follow the report's recommendations, but Hacker told AFP that member countries were "likely to take the findings seriously".

The four countries will now study the findings "for at least six months" before deciding on how to proceed, Hacker said.

More than 60 million people rely in some way on the river, which is the world's largest inland fishery, according to the MRC.

The wildlife group WWF has warned that the Mekong giant catfish -- one of the world's biggest freshwater fish -- could be driven to extinction if plans to build hydropower dams on the river go ahead, blocking spawning grounds.

Delay building of dams: Report
Official study advises pushing back plans by 10 years, citing risk of ecological damage
Nirmal Ghosh, Straits Times 20 Oct 10;

BANGKOK: An official report has called for plans to build dams on the Mekong river to be deferred, citing concerns that they would disrupt the ecology of the river system.

The report, commissioned by the Vientiane- based Mekong River Commission (MRC), recommends that plans for 11 mainstream hydropower dams be pushed back by 10 years.

Coming amid a rush by regional governments to tap the 4,500km-long river for electricity and water, it is the first real test for both governments and corporations involved, which will find it difficult to ignore the report.

Set up in 1995 by Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia and Thailand, the commission is an advisory body dealing with Mekong river-related activities. It has been criticised as a tool of its member governments, but its Strategic Environmental Assessment report, which was submitted this month and conflicts with official plans, could change that view.

The report warned that damming the Mekong could damage ecosystems along the river, disrupt other uses, and reduce productivity in fisheries and agriculture.

'The proposed developments when under construction and operating have the potential to create... international tensions within the Lower Mekong Basin,' the report warned.

Starting in China and meandering through Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam, the Mekong is one of the most productive rivers in the world and the lifeblood of some 60 million people.

The latest report adds to a growing pile of cautionary notes on damming the Mekong. Environmentalists have long opposed plans for the dams, and some have blamed dams already built upstream in China for the Mekong's falling water levels.

Numerous studies have shown that dams will disrupt the flow of water, triggering changes in the river's course and flood patterns, and interrupting biological connectivity - in turn altering the subsistence livelihood base especially of those living downstream in the lower Mekong nations of Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam.

'The social and environmental damage likely (from) any one of the mainstream dams is of a scale that cannot be ignored,' said Vientiane-based Marc Goichot, senior adviser for the World Wide Fund for Nature's Greater Mekong programme.

'We need this 10-year deferral so innovative technology... can be developed to allow energy production without high risk to the river and the people dependent on its resources.'

The latest report gives critics of the dams - as well as the MRC - some ammunition in their opposition to the dams. A Vientiane-based expert on water governance, who asked not to be named, said the report showed the commission was trying to ensure that all issues were being assessed in a transparent manner.

'The MRC has known for months that (the report) was heading in this direction,' the expert told The Straits Times.

The report will figure in a process requiring the commission's member countries to notify and consult one another on planned hydropower dam projects. Next week, a critical meeting in this process will take place, providing the first signal of whether governments will take the report seriously.

The government of Laos, in particular, which has ambitious plans to become the 'battery of South-east Asia' through hydropower dams, is unlikely to be happy. Neither are investors in the 11 dams, which include companies from China, Thailand, Malaysia and Vietnam.

One immediate test case will be a 1,280 megawatt hydropower dam being proposed for the Kaeng Luang rapids in Xayaboury province in Laos. A Thai corporation is involved in the construction, and most of the electricity will be bought by Thailand.

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Moths behind Mumbai mangrove browning

Anil Singh, The Times of India 15 Oct 10;

MUMBAI: Those worried about large swathes of mangroves drying up as soon as the monsoon receded can rest easy. Botanists and entomologists say there is no link between the recent oil spill and the browning of mangroves in the creeks of Mumbai and Thane.

"It is a moth attack but there is nothing to worry as the mangroves will turn green in a month," said Deepak Apte, assistant director of Bombay Natural History Society, who studied the effect of the recent oil spill on the mangroves. The moth attack, he said, has almost become an annual feature now.

According to entomologists, the moth in question is the Hyblaea puera, better known as the teak defoliator. Native to South-East Asia, its caterpillar feeds on teak and 45 other plant species, including several kinds of mangroves. A flush of new, tender leaves are necessary to elicit egg laying.

According to Avinash Kubal, deputy director of the Maharashtra Nature Park, the moth breeds when rains have been delayed or sporadic. Up to 1,000 eggs can be laid by one female on the undersurface of the leaf and the larvae hatch in two days. The caterpillars devour the mangrove leaves, cocoon themselves in the shriveled remains and emerge a week later in brown wings.

The adult moths are relatively small, with a wing span of 3-4 cm, and have a characteristic resting posture that conceals the black and orange-yellow hind wings under the grayish-brown fore-wings.

These moths hover around street lights and at railway stations in September and early October. They normally fly at night using moonlight for direction, but get confused by artificial lights.

Although, these moths have been appearing in Mumbai's mangroves since the past 15 years, no serious study has been done on them. In 1995, a massive moth population caused such defoliation in mangroves that the navy was called in to aerially survey the damage. Navratri mandals faced the nuisance of thousands of moths swarming around their floodlights.

According to Apte, a rapid assessment two months after the spill has revealed out that the mangroves are now showing signs of regeneration, especially the ones at Uran. Elephanta is the worst affected area with no signs of regeneration.

"In Uran, there are stunted mangroves which are three to four feet tall and it is an open canopy but in Vashi the mangroves are 10 feet high and it's a dense, closed canopy. So Vashi might take time to recoup," said Apte. According to him, the washing away of the oil with the tide and rain is the best way to deal with the problem.

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Nepal: Himalayas Unsettled by Melting Glaciers, More Avalanches

Bhuwan Sharma Inter Press Service Reuters AlertNet 4 Oct 10;

KATHMANDU, Oct 4 (IPS) - For the last two climbing seasons, Dawa Sherpa has missed scaling the summit of Mt Everest. But the climate ambassador for the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and two-time Everest summiteer may not be relishing the thought of bearing witness once more to the impact of rising temperatures on the world’s highest peak. Indeed, he says that even making one's way just up to Base Camp, which lies at an altitude of 5,380 metres, can already give one the dismal view of the devastation climate change is wreaking.

"Snow cover in the mountains is decreasing, crevasses are opening up in the glaciers," says Dawa. "Avalanches (have been) occurring frequently (in) the past two years."

In 2010, one of his Sherpa staff lost his life to an avalanche. Dawa also recalls Appa Sherpa, the 20-time Everest summiteer who has been climbing Everest since 1990, as saying last year that he has seen small puddles of water even at an altitude of 8,000 metres.

Snow and glaciers cover about 10 percent of the area of Nepal, where about 10 percent of the stream flows can be traced back to the glaciers.

Melting glaciers and receding snowlines, however, are just among the many manifestations of climate change in this tiny Himalayan nation.

Ministry of Forests and Soil Conservation Joint Secretary Dr Jagadish Chandra Baral shares with IPS a striking example of how climate change has been affecting Nepal's horticulture sector.

"The apple-growing belt in the Mustang district is gradually shifting to higher altitudes," says Baral, who writes frequently on climate change, because warming temperatures have resulted in their fruits getting worms. "People there claim that while they could easily produce healthy apples as low as Lete (2,480 metres) until a few years ago, the apples now tend to catch worms even in higher altitudes like Larjung (2,550 metres), Kobang (2,640 metres) and Marpha (2,670 metres)."

Mustang is located near the Tibet border. Recently, a village there was dubbed as Nepal's first ‘climate refugee village'.

Efforts are now underway to resettle the entire village of Dhe to a lower area of Mustang. Among other things, the sources of water there are drying up, while the flora in and around the area have been vanishing fast, leaving the

villagers' cattle herds and other grazing animals with little to eat.

According to the English-language national daily ‘Republica', which broke the news about Dhe in June, "(a)

total of 150 people (23 households) …are being shifted due to the adverse impact of climate change on the livelihoods of the poor in the village".

"Dhe village has been facing an acute shortage of water for irrigation over the last six to seven years," it added. "The irrigated land over the period has also been reduced to less than 50 percent and animal husbandry (particularly goat keeping) has declined by 40 to 45 percent.

The irony is that Nepal itself is said to contribute next to nothing to climate change, which is traced by experts to greenhouse gas emissions of countries around the world.

China and India, which sandwich Nepal, in fact happen to be two of the world's fastest industrialising and highest carbon dioxide-emitting countries.

Earlier in 2010, though, those who have expressed doubt that climate change is real had a field day when the United Nation's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) announced it had made a mistake in saying the Himalayan glaciers may be gone by 2035. The climate-change sceptics took this as yet another piece of evidence that much of what had been said of the global phenomenon had been nothing but hysterical hype.

But IPCC has clarified that while it had made an error on the date, it did not make a mistake about the melting away of the Himalayan glaciers.

Madan Shrestha of the Nepal Academy of Science and Technology also remarks, "We have ample scientific evidence to prove that climate change is causing the Himalayan glaciers to retreat."

Shrestha has been studying Nepal's glaciers since 1974, when he was a part of the Glaciological Expedition to Nepal (a joint effort of Japan and Nepal).

He says that he was shocked beyond belief to see a picture taken in October 2009 of the Yala glacier (5,100 metres to 5,700 metres) in Lamtang area in central Nepal. Comments Shrestha: "The photograph was evidence of the fact

that the glacier's mass had decreased and there was a significant terminus retreat."

A comparative analysis of photographs taken during different time periods clearly reveals that the fate of other glaciers such as AX010 (4,950 metres to 5,390 metres) glacier in Shorong mountain in East Nepal is no different, he adds.

Shrestha says, though, that since Nepal's contribution to

global climate change is minimal, there is not much it needs to do in terms of mitigation. "As a token response to international efforts we should voice our willingness to be a part of mitigation efforts," he says, "but our focus has to be on adaptation".

By that, he means introducing heat-resistant crop varieties and working to strengthen the dam structures so

that they can withstand increased water pressure, among other thing. He says that Nepal can take a cue from Bangladesh, which has already introduced a flood-resistant variety of rice.

"It is high time we factored in climate change in our development discourse," says Shrestha. "This has simply been not happening."

*This IPS story is part of a series supported by the Climate and Development Knowledge Network http://www.cdkn.org

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Nature and humans leaving mark on rivers and streams, affecting aquatic food webs

A river ran through it
National Science Foundation EurekAlert 15 Oct 10;

Rivers and streams supply the lifeblood to ecosystems across the globe, providing water for drinking and irrigation for humans as well as a wide array of life forms from single-celled organisms up to the fish humans eat.

But humans and nature itself are making it tough on rivers to continue in their central role to support fish species, according to new research by a team of scientists including John Sabo, a biologist at Arizona State University.

Globally, rivers and streams are being drained due to human use and climate change. These and other human impacts alter the natural variability of river flows.

Some affected rivers have dried and no longer run, while others have seen increases in the variability of flows due to storm floods.

The result is that humans and nature are conspiring to shorten food chains, particularly by eliminating top predators like many large-bodied fish.

"Floods and droughts shorten the food chain, but they do it in different ways," said Sabo.

Sabo is the lead author of a paper reporting results of a study of 36 rivers in this week's issue of the journal Science.

"The length of food chains is a crucial determinate of the functioning of ecosystems," says Alan Tessier, program director in the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

"Ecologists have long sought to explain why food chain length varies among different ecosystems. This study provides a quantitative answer to that question for stream ecosystems, and provides critical evidence for the importance of flow variation."

High flows "take out the middle men in the food web, making fish [the top predator] feed lower in the food chain," said Sabo. "Droughts completely knock out the top predator."

"The result is a simpler food web, but the effects we see for low flows are more catastrophic for fish--and are long-lasting."

Sabo and co-authors--Jacques Finlay, University of Minnesota, St. Paul; Theodore Kennedy, U.S. Geological Survey, Southwest Biological Science Center, Flagstaff, Ariz.; and David Post, Yale University, New Haven, Conn.--suggest that the fate of large-bodied fishes should be more carefully factored into the management of water use, especially as growing human populations and climate change affect water availability.

The researchers studied rivers and streams in the U.S. ranging in size from the Mississippi and Colorado Rivers, down to small tributaries.

The rivers provide water to large cities like New York City, Minneapolis, Phoenix, Las Vegas and Los Angeles.

The study employed naturally occurring stable isotopes of the element nitrogen to measure how top-predators were faring in the food chain.

Nitrogen provides an indicator as it bioaccumulates, increasing by 3.4 parts per million with each link in the food chain.

"Floods simplify the food web by taking out some of the intermediate players so the big fish begin to eat lower on the chain," Sabo said.

"With droughts, it's completely different: droughts eliminate the top predator altogether because many fish can't tolerate the low oxygen and high temperatures that result when a stream starts drying out."

He added that climate change will play a growing role in coming years.

"Climate is giving us a new set of operating terms to work with," Sabo said. "We will experience overall drying and greater weather variability, both of which will shorten river food chains.

There will be drying in some regions, particularly along the equator, and increased flow in some rivers, primarily at higher latitudes, scientists believe.

"We will see more variability because there will be change in the seasonality of storms," said Sabo. "Ocean currents are changing, and the way the ocean blows storms our way is going to be different."

The human effect on rivers and streams, and the food chain they support, is closely tied to land-use change, such as water diversion and regulation of flows due to dams.

Sabo outlined a classic scenario that humans face during drought years.

As drought takes hold, the need for water for irrigation and agriculture increases and leads to a draw-down of natural river flows.

The effects downstream can be devastating.

"We would not have guessed that the infrequent drought that results would have a big effect on a stream, but our results show that it does," Sabo said.

"Some streams affected by drying five to ten years ago are still missing large-bodied fishes, compared with same-sized streams that never dried.

"Food webs can recover sooner after a flood, in roughly a year, but it takes far longer to recover in the case of drying or drought."

The study hints that competing users of a river's water--for agricultural production and recreational uses like fishing--need to work out amenable uses of rivers and streams that not only look to the immediate future, but also project long-term effects.

"The question becomes: can you have fish and tomatoes on the same table?" Sabo asked.

"They compete for the same resources, and society depends on both: agriculture for grain, fruits, vegetables, and fish for protein, particularly in the developing world.

"Humans may need to make hard decisions about how to allocate water so that we grow the right food, but still leave enough in rivers to sustain fish populations."

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Engineering a Water Crisis in Rivers

Stephen Leahy Inter Press Service Reuters AlertNet 5 Oct 10;

BROOKLIN, Canada, Oct 5 (IPS) - Failure to protect and invest in nature has left the world’s rivers in crisis, threatening the water supply of more than five billion people according to a new study. Pollution, dam building, agricultural runoff, conversion of wetlands, and water-works engineering have severely impacting global river systems, the first- ever health assessment of the planet’s riverine ecosystems reported in Nature last week. "What made our jaws drop is that some of the highest threat levels in the world are in the United States and Europe," says Peter McIntyre, a co-author of the report who is a zoologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the U.S.

"Our study reveals, that on average, the richer the country the greater the threat to river systems," McIntyre told IPS.

Expensive water-works engineering to control freshwater quality and quantity in rich countries decimate rivers' natural abilities to control and clean water the Nature study found. River systems provide an estimated six to seven trillion dollars in services to humanity every year, but the hundreds of billions of dollars spent on engineering systems impairs those services for short-term gain, says co-author Charles Vörösmarty of the City University of New York, an expert on global water resources.

"We need to take another approach, to join hands with nature and work together," Vörösmarty said in an interview. "If we do humanity will get a far better payback in the future."

Rivers are the arteries of the planet, linking continents through coastal zones to the ocean. More than 120,000 species of plants and animals make up the world's riverine ecosystems that provide the multi-trillion dollar services humanity relies upon - however up to 20,000 are at risk of extinction

Vörösmarty says.

An international team examined data sets on 23 factors that impact rivers around the world and created state-of-the-art computer models to integrate all of the information to paint the first ever global picture of the health of river systems. More than 65 percent of the world's rivers are in trouble and this finding is very "conservative" since there was not enough data to assess impacts of climate change, pharmaceutical compounds, mining wastes and massive inter-basin water transfers like the Colorado River in the western U.S.

Where rivers are least at risk are where human populations are smallest. Rivers in arctic regions and relatively inaccessible areas of the tropics appear to be in the best health, according to the findings.

In an unrelated study more than 80 percent of male bass fish exhibited female traits such as egg production because of a "toxic stew" of pollutants in the Potomac River that flows through Washington, DC scientists reported last week. Similar findings have been made in many U.S. rivers.

"In the industrialised world, we tend to compromise our surface waters and then try to fix problems by throwing trillions of dollars at the issues. We can afford to do that in rich countries, but poor countries can't afford to do it," says Vörösmarty.

In Vörösmarty's study the bitter pill for the developed world is that their huge investments in engineering water systems is in reality a kind of mismanagement. "It's a maladaptive approach that creates vulnerabilities," he says.

Protecting watersheds, for example, can reduce the costs of drinking water treatment, preserve floodplains for flood protection, and enhance rural livelihoods. In the 1980s New York City determined it was far cheaper to protect and restore the source of its water supply - the Catskill/Delaware forests and wetlands - than spend six to eight billion dollars on a water treatment plant. "The benefits were very clear and the City saved billions of dollars," says Vörösmarty.

However this well-documented and highly successful strategy has not been emulated by many other cities including those in China or India where engineering expertise is highly prized and huge engineering works are a matter of national pride. Water management costs will skyrocket if developing countries emulate the approach of developed nations, Vörösmarty says. One of China's major waterways, the Yellow River, no longer reaches the sea many days of the year and five percent of China's rivers can no longer support fish.

It is better to invest in sustaining existing ecosystems than destroying them and attempting to engineer solutions, says Vörösmarty. "There needs to be a dialogue in China about the implications of engineering the water supply. It can work in the short term but takes a lot of energy and stresses river ecosystems that will eventually collapse."

According to McIntyre, Latin American cities are doing better, and are protecting the water catchment areas. "Much of this is sparked by local brewery companies that have a vested interest in protecting clean, natural water."

The study stresses prevention of problems and the long-term benefits of prevention and protection. Restoration of natural systems after they are destroyed or damaged is expensive and difficult. Of some 37,000 river and stream restoration projects in the U.S., few have in fact been restored despite a billion-dollar investment, says Vörösmarty. "We don't realise what we're doing when we screw up river systems, nor do we know how to fix them."

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Asia: Cities key to disaster risk reduction

IRIN Reuters AlertNet 15 Oct 10;

BANGKOK, 12 October 2010 (IRIN) - Improving the resiliency of cities is critical to disaster mitigation in Asia, according to specialists.

"Cities are more vulnerable because there are a higher concentration of people at risk; at the same time they are the economic engine so the impact of the damage is greater," N.M.S.I Arambepola, director of Urban Disaster Risk Management with the Asian Disaster Preparedness Centre, told IRIN on the eve of the International Day for Disaster Reduction, 13 October.

The UN's 2010-2011 campaign theme, Making Cities Resilient: My City is Getting Ready, seeks to convince city leaders and local governments around the world to work with grassroots networks and national authorities to boost their cities' resilience, including providing homeowners with incentives to reduce their exposure to disasters, improve school and hospital safety and invest in flood drainage.

Experts say this is important for the Asian region where many fast-growing, high-density settlements exist in low-lying, flood-prone areas or on earthquake fault-lines.

"If you don't keep up the administration, for example, if you have land codes but don't enforce them, the risk of destruction and human and economic exposure is that much higher," Jerry Velasquez, senior regional coordinator with the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (UNISDR) told IRIN.

Seven of the 10 most populous cities in the world are in Asia and the region's urban population is expected to double from 1.36 billion to 2.64 billion by 2030, according to the UN Population Fund.

Until now, 60 cities in the Asia-Pacific region, out of 118 worldwide, have signed up to the campaign, pledging to invest in infrastructure, better land-planning and awareness-raising.

The biggest priority should be land-use planning and better construction of buildings, Arambepola said.

"Because of poor land-use planning, many countries in Asia have a problem of informal settlements. With so many people migrating to the cities, many of the most vulnerable urban populations settle in the more disaster-prone areas where no one else wants to live."

On 13 October, representatives from cities across Thailand will come together to pledge their commitment to making the country's cities safer.

Bangkok and Patong will be named role-model cities, to be used as benchmarks for participating cities around the world to evaluate their own efforts.

Patong, in the tourist-popular Phuket province in southern Thailand, which was badly affected by the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, has invested US$18 million in implementing early-warning radars, re-zoning the beach and training response teams.

"Every city needs to be safe," said Chairat Sukban, Patong's deputy mayor.

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Malaysia: Green Lifestyle Essential To Drive Economic Growth

Bernama 15 Oct 10;

KUALA LUMPUR, Oct 15 (Bernama) -- Malaysia's strive to adopt a green lifestyle is essential not only to drive economic growth and improve quality of life but also to preserve the environment for future generations.

Against this backdrop, it is important for all Malaysians to assume their role to ensure the success of the green technology development which is aimed at reducing carbon emission and protecting the environment.

Malaysia voluntarily made a commitment to reduce up to 40 per cent of carbon emission intensity to Gross Domestic Product by 2020 and had decided to conserve depletion of natural resources and reduce pollution.

According to the Treasury in its 2010/2011 Economic Report released Friday, Malaysia is serious in promoting green technology in the country to ensure sustainable development as well as to reverse climate change effect by reducing global warming.

Moving in this direction, it established a Green Technology Financing Scheme (GTFS) of RM1.5 billion to provide soft loans to producers and users of GT, provided buyers of buildings awarded the Green Building Index certificate stamp duty exemption on instruments of transfer of ownership and embarked on developing Cyberjaya and Putrajaya as green technology pioneer townships.

The treasury also says the government has introduced the Awareness, Faculty, Finance, Infrastructure, Research and Marketing framework in the Tenth Malaysia Plan to develop a comprehensive ecosystem for environmental sustainability.

At the ministries level, the Ministry of Energy, Green Technology and Water will work hand-in-hand with the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Higher Education to promote and foster awareness among students.

The Ministry of Human Resource, Ministry of Youth and Sports and the Ministry of Tourism will also include green courses in their skills training programmes.

On the other hand, the Ministry of Transport and the International Trade and Industry Ministry will also develop an infrastructure roadmap for the use of electric vehicles beginning with a pilot project in Putrajaya.

-- BERNAMA

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Best of our wild blogs: 15 Oc t 10

Seahorses suprise at Changi
from wonderful creation

Pangaea Young Explorers clear 359kg of marine trash in 40 trash bags from Lim Chu Kang beach from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

Blog Action Day – The Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Blog Action Day - Coral Reefs of Pulau Hantu
from Pulau Hantu

Lost in the Clouds - Blog Action Day 2010 "Water"
from The Biology Refugia

Blog Action Day: Wild Water
from wild shores of singapore

Low Cost Methods of Water Purification
from EcoWalkthetalk

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Plan for Singapore floating oil terminal off Pulau Sebarok makes headway

Its construction looks set to begin early next year
Ronnie Lim Business Times 14 Oct 10;

CONSTRUCTION of Singapore's first floating oil terminal off Pulau Sebarok, very near Shell's Bukom refinery, looks set to start early next year.

And final preparations for the project's engineering, procurement and construction (EPC), as well as business model, are about to get underway.

JTC Corporation is looking to award the tender next month for a consultant to carry out the project's front-end engineering design as well as manage its EPC, BT understands. About five groups are vying for the job, 'expressions of interest' for which were first called in May.

Sources said that at the same time, JTC is reviewing the business model for the Sebarok oil storage - its pioneer project for very large floating structures (VLFS) to help alleviate the shortage of industrial land here, especially those with waterfront sites.

This suggests options such as a joint JTC-private enterprise operation, or JTC appointing a third party to manage the terminal, with the latter a more likely scenario.

That will be more along the lines of the $890 million Jurong Rock Cavern (JRC) currently being built - with terminal operators here such as Vopak and Emirates National Oil Company earlier reported to be interested in operating the underground oil storage. The first caverns of the first-phase 1.47 million cubic metres JRC will be ready in the first half of 2013.

JTC had earlier called off the tender for the JRC's operatorship in 2009 due to the financial crisis, and said that it will call the tender again nearer the cavern's completion.

Meanwhile, 'everything's on schedule for the very large floating structure project', a source said.

The preparations of the EPC and business model marks the project's final stage. It follows phase one, completed in late-2007, which showed the VLFS to be technically feasible and comparable in cost to land-based storage. Phase two, completed in March this year, covered environmental impact, engineering design, business model and security aspects.

The JTC studies showed that to be economical, the minimum storage capacity of a VLFS should be 300,000 cubic metres, or equal to that of a very large crude carrier. VLFS would comprise two rectangular modules, each measuring 180m by 80m by 15m and with 150,000 cubic metres capacity.

Under a four-stage plan, the appointed consultant will now first review the VLFS design, such that it will have the flexibility of being constructed from steel or concrete.

Next will be preparation of the EPC tender, followed by calling and evaluation of the tender. Finally, it covers the VLFS construction and completion.

Pulau Sebarok is currently used by Vopak and PetroChina-owned Singapore Petroleum Company, and industry sources said that Vopak, with the advantage of being on-site, will most likely be keen to operate the VLFS.

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URA wins global prize for Southern Ridges parks project

Amresh Gunasingham Straits Times 15 Oct 10;

THE Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) has scooped a prestigious global prize in recognition of its design of a 9km stretch of parks around Telok Blangah.

Known as the Southern Ridges, it links Mount Faber Park, Telok Blangah Hill Park and Kent Ridge Park to West Coast Park.

The Urban Land Institute (ULI) Global Award for Excellence comes just four months after the authority won the same prize for the Asia-Pacific region.

First established in 1979, the ULI award recognises projects that not only stand out for their design, but also represent the best examples of land use.

The award recognises the entire development process of a project, from construction and cost considerations to marketing, management and design.

The URA had previously won the global award in 2006 for its conservation programme and the Asia-Pacific award in 2008 for its master planning of the Bras Basah and Bugis areas.

The idea to link up the hilltop parks was first mooted in 2002, with the aim of dotting the area with trails and bridges and bringing the public closer to nature.

Since its opening in May 2008, the Southern Ridges has managed to draw an additional 50,000 visitors a month to the area.

The national planner was picked from 19 other nominations spanning Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa.

In the citation, the award's jury, which was made up of real estate professionals, planners and architects, said the project stood out as it 'creates a rare contiguous recreational space in densely populated Singapore'.

Commenting on the win, Minister for National Development Mah Bow Tan said it was a stamp of approval for urban planners here who have overcome the challenge of land scarcity.

'Singapore may be highly urbanised but through innovative land use strategies, we can preserve the liveability of the city,' he said.

Each winner receives a jewel-quality 30cm polished stainless steel cube engraved with the jury's official statement about the winning project.

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Guarding against energy policy fallacies: Lim Hng Kiang

Lee Jia Xin Straits Times 14 Oct 10;

MINISTER for Trade and Industry Lim Hng Kiang urged students to be on guard against popular fallacies in economic policies.

He made this statement at the annual MTI Economic Dialogue held at the Nanyang Technological University on Thursday.

In his speech to a 200-strong audience from NTU, the National University of Singapore and the Singapore Management University, Mr Lim stressed that economics can be a powerful tool to clarify complex issues in public policy.

He cited Singapore's energy policies as an example, elaborating on the energy trilemma - cost competitiveness, energy secuity and environmental sustainability - that Singapore faces, and went on to elaborate on how popular fallacies in energy policy can be shattered with careful economic thinking.

Mr Lim also presented the MTI (Economist Service) Book Prize and the MTI (Economist Service) Best Thesis Prize to the top Economics students and the best Economics thesis from each of the three universities.

The MTI Economic Dialogue, into its third year, gives undergraduates from the three local universities the opportunity to engage economic experts from the public and private sectors in a panel discussion.



Energy policy fallacies.

Fallacy No. 1: The best way to achieve a reduction in carbon emissions is to set regulatory standards.

In fact, regulation imposes a 'shadow price', so is the cost of implementing regulation worth the benefit of improved energy efficiency?

Mr Lim also warned: "If we force through regulatory measures without properly accounting for the underlying economics, the high resultant costs will sap the public will for carbon abatement over time."

Fallacy No. 2: Regulations give certainty over the amount of carbon reduced.

Mr Lim said that there is a need to put a price on carbon so that the consumer knows the marginal cost of his carbon emission and adjust his behaviour accordingly

He added: 'Unlike regulations or subsidies, a uniform price will let each individual, firm, or industry work out the most efficient response.'

But the minister was quick to clarify that not all regulations are undesirable.

Fallacy No. 3: Tiered pricing.

Setting a lower price for the first block of electricity will only encourage all households, rich and poor, to consume more energy, said Mr Lim.

'A more efficient way to help lower income households is to have a single higher price for electricity or carbon, and to give them direct cash transfers to partially or fully offset the impact of the higher price,' he suggested.

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Protesters stage world anti-dolphin slaughter rally

Yahoo News 14 Oct 10;

MIAMI, Florida (AFP) – About 100 demonstrators, including Oscar-winning documentary maker Ric O'Barry, gathered Thursday outside the Japanese consulate in Miami in one of a series of rallies around the world to protest Japan's annual dolphin slaughter.

O'Barry, an American activist who won an Oscar for his documentary "The Cove" about the traditional dolphin round-up in Taiji, Japan, said the chain of protests would catch Tokyo's attention.

"I'm optimistic because if enough people protest around the world the Japanese government will be forced to stop issuing permits to do this," O'Barry told AFP.

"The problem is in Taiji, but the solution is in Tokyo, where the permitting process is. They are issuing permits to kill dolphins to sell the food to the Japanese people."

Similar rallies outside Japanese consulates and embassies were planned across Asia, Europe and the United States. Protestors displayed gruesome photos of the Taiji slaughter, where mortally wounded dolphins writhe in a sea of blood.

"All animals have their own emotions. Dolphins we know to be one of the most intelligent in the world, next to elephants and chimpanzees," said animal rights activist Claudia Emerson, demonstrating with three others outside the Japanese consulate on New York's Park Avenue.

Edda Ness, a lawyer, said the Japanese dolphin slaughter might be a tradition, but that didn't make it right. "Stoning people to death -- you could say that's an old tradition," she said. "That argument doesn't hold any moral weight."

The activists carried placards that read "Stop Killing" and "Japan. Don't let the dolphins disappear."

Every year, fishermen in Taiji herd about 2,000 dolphins into a shallow bay, select several dozen for sale to aquariums and marine parks and harpoon the rest for meat.

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