Invasion of the orchid snatchers

Ella Davies BBC 19 May 11;

Ruthless hunters track their prey around the globe, snatching stunning individuals from their homes before they can even be named.

The beauties only surface in the shadiest of nurseries and high prices for their lives are agreed under the counter by hungry-eyed collectors.

This is not the plot from a harrowing tale of people smuggling but the fate of rare and highly prized orchids.

The plants have inspired frenzied collection since the 18th century with their lustrous blooms and incredible variety.

Now, scientists say the illegal collection of orchids is pushing species to the edge of extinction, with dire consequences for biodiversity.
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To a dedicated collector of wild-sourced orchids, price has no bearing”

Dr Richard Thomas TRAFFIC International

With some vulnerable species available on the black market before they can even be formally named, biologists and customs officers alike are battling to preserve the captivating plants.
Sex appeal

Admired for their beauty, orchids make up the largest family of flowering plants (Orchidaceae) with over 26,000 species.

The plants vary enormously from tiny 3-4mm Bulbophyllum minutissimum to 20m long vanillas: lianas that grow high up in rainforest.

What unites them is the unique way they germinate from seeds, developing a tuberous mass of cells to form a seedling plant.

For orchid admirers however it is the sensual differences between the plants that inspire such admiration and many are driven wild by the unique shape, scent and sight of new species.

Victorian Britons referred to the condition as "orchidelerium", an insatiable lust for collecting the plants.

From delicate ghost orchids to the beautifully coloured petals of Cattleya, the aesthetic appeal of orchids is obvious.

Throughout history the plants have been considered "overtly sexual" with voluptuous blooms sporting enlarged lips (labellum): pouting platforms to entice insect pollinators.

But the individuality and appeal of orchids also makes them vulnerable.

"Orchids are naturally rare with many species only being known from a handful of populations," says orchid expert Dr David Roberts from the Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology at the University of Kent, UK.

"Smuggling only effects the groups that are specifically in demand which isn't all orchids. However for the groups that are sought after, such as slipper orchids, it is a big problem."
High price

Rare species can fetch a pretty penny; a single stem of the Rotchschild's Orchid (Paphiopedilum rothschildianum), known as the Gold of Kinabalu, is reported to command prices of around $5000.

After its discovery in 1987 this slipper orchid, remarkable for its imposing horizontal petals, was stripped from the wild by orchid smugglers bringing it close to extinction.

Despite reintroduction of the plant from cultivated seedlings, it is still described as endangered and its few known wild locations in Kinabalu National Park in Sabah, Malaysia are kept a closely guarded secret.

However, not all species are afforded the same protection.

Last year, Asian orchid expert Dr Jaap J Vermeulen studied an orchid collected by conservationists in a national park in Sarawak, Malaysia.

But before he could describe the new species to science, it had been introduced to the black market.

"Bulbophyllum kubahense is a particularly beautiful species with a dense [cluster] of fairly large, white, heavily purple spotted flowers. That makes it desirable to orchid growers," Dr Vermeulen explains.

"Traders found the species in a conservation area, and first thought that is was a particularly luxuriant form of another, similar looking species... Plants appeared in nurseries in Sarawak, Singapore and Thailand."

Through his analysis, published in the journal Plant Systematics and Evolution, Dr Vermeulen confirmed that the plant was a "true novelty".

"It is beautiful, and it is rare: only known from a single locality near Kuching, Sarawak. That will put the price up, and with it the collecting pressure on the natural population," he warns.
Populations stripped

This is not the first time an orchid has been endangered before it has even been formally described.

Such is the demand from collectors, smugglers scour the globe for new species of orchid, sometimes removing whole populations of plants before anyone else knows of their existence.

Dr Vermeulen cites examples from peninsular Malaysia and Vietnam but the most famous example comes from Peru.

Phragmipedium kovachii was first found in 2001 and is referred to as one of the most important natural history discoveries of the last decade.

A foot tall with striking purple blooms, it is a distinctive member of the lady's slipper family, named for their slipper-shaped petal pouches.

Orchid dealer James Kovach bought the orchid from a roadside vendor in Peru and travelled back to his native US with it.

Within days, the Peruvian authorities asked the US Fish and Wildlife Service to investigate the plant, as all Phragmipedium are banned from export under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES).

After its initial description, illegally plucked specimens of P. kovachii were reportedly changing hands amongst frenzied growers for as much as $10,000.

Kovach received two years probation and was made to pay a fine of $1000 for violating the endangered species act.

The orchid still bears the name kovachii but is now limited to a few authorised growers in Peru.

Although conservationists acknowledge the prosecution, they say the fines are not high enough to deter smugglers from their billion dollar enterprise.

"To a dedicated collector of wild-sourced orchids, price has no bearing," says Dr Richard Thomas, from the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic International.

Dr Thomas says it is "notoriously difficult" to estimate the value of illicit trade.
Ruthless collection

According to Traffic's figures, the legal trade in live orchids in Europe alone involves more than 370 million plants.

These orchids adhere to the CITES regulations: they come from licensed nurseries that hold the appropriate permits for international trade.

In these nurseries, single specimens are duplicated through micropropagation: creating thousands of cloned plants for the consumer market.

Despite advances, this process is costly and time-consuming.

The cloned plants are also considered inferior by collectors that value the variety in wild orchids' blooms.

"There are a small number of hard core 'collectors' for whom only a wild-sourced orchid will do, and they can be ruthless in their pursuit of this goal," says Dr Thomas.

"This can have a devastating impact on newly discovered species, where there is likely to be a demand created for the plant almost overnight."
Protecting the future

The UK's rarest orchid, Cypripedium calceolus, receives round-the-clock police surveillance where it grows on a Lancashire golf course.

But this level of protection is not globally consistent.

In the rainforests of South America and Asia, protecting individual species is an epic task.

Beyond the practical difficulties of surveying entire rainforests with limited resources, conservationists also have to contend with the pressures of developing nations.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature's orchid specialist group, tropical orchid habitat is vanishing as timber is removed, minerals mined and land cleared for roads and housing.

Some collectors insist that, by removing orchids from areas under threat from human development, they are protecting the future of species.

For some orchids, their only hope lies in ex-situ conservation: cultivation in nurseries is the only thing keeping species like Paphiopedilum vietnamenese from extinction.

In the interests of biodiversity however, conservationists maintain that orchids must be protected in their natural environment.

"For species with highly restricted ranges and severely threatened habitat, any removal of wild specimens poses a significant threat," says Dr Thomas.

"The loss of any one species is a tragedy - the world needs rich biological diversity to survive. Species have taken millennia to evolve, but can be lost in days."

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US publishes white-nose bat killer action plan

Mark Kinver BBC News 18 May 11;

US experts have published an action plan that aims to halt the spread of white-nose syndrome (WNS), which has killed more than a million bats. The document offers guidance on a range of issues, including how to identify the disease and improving bio-security.

WNS has spread rapidly since it was first found in 2006, and now affects 18 states and four Canadian provinces.

The action plan was unveiled at the fourth annual WNS conference in Arkansas, which runs until Thursday.

'Swift effort'

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, which led the formulation of the plan, said that the mobility of bats, the rapid spread of WNS, the potential for human-assisted transmission and the severity of the disease for infected animals meant that it was necessary for a "swift national effort to avoid irreversible losses to bat populations".

Jeremy Coleman, national white-nose syndrome co-ordinator for the US Fish and Wildlife Service, said it was vital to bring all the relevant groups - from government agencies to research institutions - together.

"Without a formal structure, it is very difficult for a lot of the agencies to be able to engage in a meaningful way," he told BBC News.

"It gives us all a common language, allowing us to compare information and come up with strategies that can be implemented throughout the continent, such as surveillance, monitoring bat populations and the collection of data."

While acknowledging that it was still early in the process, Dr Coleman said that such a structure was essential if there was any hope to tackle such a virrilent disease that had spread so rapidly.

He also said that it was hoped that the plan would become an international blueprint in the not-too-distant future by including groups from Canada and Mexico.

Recent studies have painted a bleak picture for at least half of US bat species, which rely on hibernation for winter survival and are therefore potentially susceptible to the disease.

Writing in the journal Science in August 2010, a team of researchers warned some species' populations could become locally extinct within two decades.

And in April, another team estimated the loss of bat species, which help control pest populations, would cost US agriculture more than $3.7bn a year.

WNS has been described by some biologists as the worst wildlife health crisis in the US in living memory, is named after a white fungus that appears on the muzzle and/or wings of infected animals.

However, bats with WNS do not always have the characteristic visual symptoms, but may display abnormal behaviour around their hibernacula (caves and mines where bats hibernate during winter months).

These behaviours include flying outside during the day (when their insect prey is not available) in sub-zero temperatures, or clustering near the entrance to the hibernaculum.

Researchers say the fungus associated with the disease, Geomyces destructans, thrives in the dark, damp conditions - such as caves and mines.

It is believed that the fungus associated with WNS arrived in the US after it was somehow transported (probably via humans) from Europe or possibly Asia.

A team of European researchers followed up unconfirmed reports in Europe that bats had white fungal growths appearing to match the symptoms of WNS.

In a paper in the Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, they suggested that the Geomyces destructans fungus was present throughout Europe.

However, they added, it seemed as if species of bats in Europe were possibly more immunologically or behaviourally resistant to the fungus than North American species, as it did not increase mortality.

More than 150 of the world's leading bat experts are currently attending the fourth annual white-nose syndrome symposium, being held in Little Rock, Arkansas, until 19 May.

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Restoring the world's forests while feeding the poor

Trees are being cut down for farming, but a new study shows that a lot of land already cleared could be used instead
Nigel Sizer and Lars Laestadius guardian.co.uk 18 May 11;

"We are one shock away from a full-blown crisis," stated Robert Zoellick, the president of the World Bank, at a recent meeting of the bank and the IMF. He was referring to a critical increase in poverty, resulting from the escalating cost of food. The UN's food price index has risen 37% since March 2010. Basic cereal prices are up 60% over this period. Wheat is up 63%, and maize 83%.

Roughly 1 million people slide into extreme poverty for each 1% rise in global food prices, the bank's analysts calculate.

Availability of land for farming is a key factor in long-term food supply and prices. As the human population expands, the remaining forests, wetlands and other fragile ecosystems will come under greater threat as farmers push further into the frontiers of the Amazon, Borneo and the Congo, as well as intensifying production in North America, Europe and beyond. Feeding billions more and feeding the poor properly will be possible only if better use is made of available land.

About half the world's forest has been cleared for farming or seriously damaged by logging, fires, drainage, pollution and other ills. But where forests once grew they can grow again.

A new analysis, carried out by the World Resources Institute, South Dakota State University, the International Union for Conservation of Nature and the Global Partnership on Forest Landscape Restoration, found that more than 1bn hectares of land where forest once stood is now degraded, and could be put to more productive uses. This is an area larger than the entire United States.

Some of this degraded and underused land could be used for food and tree crop production without cutting down another square inch of standing forest. In order to make this possible, governments and development agencies need to invest in more careful planning, incentives, investment and controls. Special care is needed to ensure that local communities that may be using parts of the land are respected and fully involved in decisions to intensify use or to restore forest.

The remainder of the 1bn hectares could be restored to forest and woodland. Once restored, it will also play a greater role in supporting nutrient cycling, reducing erosion, sequestering carbon,managing water and further supporting food production across the wider landscape downstream.

In Indonesia, the World Resources Institute, together with a local partner, Sekala, is putting these ideas to the test by working with the Indonesian government, communities and industry to shift new oil palm estates on to already cleared and burnt land instead of cutting species-rich rainforest. Indonesia has rapidly become the world's largest producer of palm oil. The government plans to expand oil palm plantations by about a million hectares a year to meet surging global demand for vegetable oil and biofuel. Until now, it was assumed that most of this expansion would result in the clearing and burning of precious rainforest. With more careful mapping and analysis, a new vision has emerged. Top officials are proposing new plans to use degraded land for the expansion of plantations. Mapping has shown that there is more than enough such land potentially available to meet demand.

Brazilian groups are looking to the Indonesian experience as they struggle to find space for that country's expanding beef, soya and sugar cane enterprises. Through a careful process of defining degraded land, mapping it, and consulting with existing landowners and local communities, plans and policies encourage a shift in future investment to this kind of land and away from the forests of the Amazon.

Development agencies, charities, national governments and business should transfer some of their attention to the opportunity of restoring already cleared and degraded land to more productive use. This needs to be done equitably and should be driven by the local communities, who have the most to gain from the long-term potential of these efforts to contribute to enhanced food production, ecosystem services and poverty reduction.

• Nigel Sizer is director of the World Resources Institute's Global Forests Initiative, and Lars Laestadius is a senior associate of the WRI, both in Washington, DC.

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Amazon deforestation increases six-fold

Yahoo News 19 May 11;

BRASILIA (AFP) – A sharp increase in forest destruction in March and April in the Amazon has led Brazil to announce the creation of an emergency task force to fight against deforestation.

The two-month total of 593 square kilometers (368 square miles) deforested represents a six-fold increase compared to the same period last year, according to official statistics.

The office will be comprised of government experts and representatives of states badly impacted by recent deforestation, according to Environment Minister Izabella Teixeira, who announced the office at a press conference.

"Our goal is to stifle deforestation," Teixeira said. "And we are going to do it by July."

In the Amazon state of Mato Grosso alone, 480 square kilometers (298 square miles) of forest were destroyed in two months, according to official statistics based on satellite images. The land is used for cattle and soybean farming.

Teixeira said those responsible for illegal deforesting will have their cattle seized.

Officials in Mato Grosso are investigating how so much land was destroyed in their central-western state, Teixeira added.

Brazil, the world's fifth largest country by area, has 5.3 million square kilometers of jungle and forests -- mostly in the Amazon river basin -- of which only 1.7 million are under state protection. The rest is in private hands, or its ownership is undefined.

Massive deforestation has made Brazil one of the world's top greenhouse gas emitters.

But the pace of deforestation peaked in 2004 at 27,000 square kilometers a year, and in 2010 it dropped to 6,500 square kilometers.

The announcement comes as Brazil's Congress debates a bill that has sparked clashes between environmentalists and supporters of farmers and ranchers over how to regulate the country's vast but vulnerable wilderness.

At issue is a reform of the 1965 law regulating forestry. The current law forces land owners that have forest on their property to keep part of it intact.

A reform is being pushed by Brazil's powerful agribusiness sector, which is chafing under the country's strict environmental rules.

Brazil is a major world exporter of grains -- including wheat, rice and corn -- as well as soybeans, coffee and beef, and posted record exports worth $80 billion over the past 12 months, according to recent government figures.

The government hopes the proposed reform would force private owners to re-forest land they have already destroyed.

Debate has created splits across the political spectrum, and President Dilma Rousseff's control over her party on the issue appears in question.

Rousseff pledged during her campaign to make no concessions that would result in further deforestation or threaten Brazil's international environmental commitments.

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China Acknowledges Downside To Three Gorges Dam

Michael Martina PlanetArk 19 May 11;

China's landmark Three Gorges Dam project provides benefits to the Chinese people, but has created a myriad of urgent problems from the relocation of more than a million residents to risks of geological disasters, the Chinese government said on Thursday.

The statement from China's State Council, or cabinet, marked a rare acknowledgment of the issues that have shadowed the world's largest dam, an engineering feat designed to tame the Yangtze River that snakes from the Tibetan plateau to Shanghai.

"At the same time that the Three Gorges project provides huge comprehensive benefits, urgent problems must be resolved regarding the smooth relocation of residents, ecological protection, and geological disaster prevention," the statement said, which appeared on the government's website (www.gov.cn).

Premier Wen Jiabao presided over the meeting that produced the statement, which also said problems existed for down-river transport, irrigation and water supplies.

Problems emerged at various stages of project planning and construction but could not be solved immediately, and some arose because of "increased demands brought on by economic and social development," the statement said.

The government said it would continue to address the problems caused by the dam, and vowed to set-up disaster alert systems and increased funding for environmental protection.

Enormously expensive and disruptive, the dam has cost over 254 billion yuan ($37.47 billion) and forced the relocation of 1.3 million people to make way for the reservoir.

Towns, fields and historical and archaeological sites have been submerged, just as pollution and geological threats have risen around the slopes around the 660-km (410-mile) reservoir.

Last year, China's media began fretting about whether the dam could meet one if its long-term objectives of flood control and officials have since been toning down claims of its flood-taming abilities.

Dai Qing, an environmental activist who has opposed the Three Gorges project said the damage caused by the dam is in some cases irreversible, and in other cases would require vast sums of money to resolve.

"The most serious threat is that of geological disasters. Now that the dam is in place, no amount of money can fix the problem. It fundamentally cannot be resolved," she said.

Dai said that Wen and President Hu Jintao, trained in geological and hydraulic engineering respectively, did not appear at a celebration ceremony for the opening of the dam because as industry insiders they were aware of the risks of the project.

"There is no question that the problems with the dam are extremely serious, but this statement is likely just an attempt to shirk responsibility," she said.

(Editing by Alex Richardson)

China admits Three Gorges Dam caused 'host of ills'
Yahoo News 19 May 11;

BEIJING (AFP) – China's Three Gorges Dam has caused a host of ills that must be "urgently" addressed, the government has said, in a rare admission of problems in a project it has long praised as a world wonder.

The State Council, or cabinet, acknowledged the environmental, social and geological problems in a statement issued late Wednesday after a meeting on the hydroelectric project's future presided over by Premier Wen Jiabao.

"While the Three Gorges project has brought great and comprehensive benefits, there are problems that must be urgently resolved in the smooth relocation of residents, ecological protection and preventing geological disasters," it said.

The dam also had "impacted" downstream shipping, irrigation and water supplies, the statement said.

Construction began in 1993 on the $22.5 billion dam on the Yangtze River -- the world's largest hydroelectric dam -- and the project in central China began generating power in 2008.

Authorities have hailed it as a major new clean energy source and a way to tame the notoriously flood-prone Yangtze, China's longest river.

But critics have long warned of its environmental, social and other costs.

About 1.4 million people were displaced to make way for the dam and its huge reservoir, which has put several cultural heritage sites deep underwater.

Chinese experts and officials have warned of the potential for seismic disturbances -- including landslides and mudflows -- caused by the massive weight of the reservoir's water on the region's geology.

Environmentalists have cautioned the reservoir would serve as a giant catchment for China's notorious pollution, ruining water quality.

The government said last August that billions of dollars would be needed to address environmental damage along the river, including sewage treatment.

The statement from the State Council said the government would step up efforts to ensure prosperous new lives for the displaced and address water pollution and geological risks, but gave no specifics of any new policies.

Torrential rains and resulting flooding in the summer of 2010 washed huge quantities of trash and other debris into the river, sparking a major clean-up effort.

State media reports said the garbage was so thick in places that it could be walked on and threatened to clog the dam.

China is relying on hydroelectric power as a major component in its energy mix as it seeks to meet soaring power needs. It has dozens of dams either under construction or on the drawing board, according to state media reports.

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U.S. Weather Extremes Show "New Normal" Climate

Deborah Zabarenko PlanetArk 19 May 11;

Heavy rains, deep snowfalls, monster floods and killing droughts are signs of a "new normal" of extreme U.S. weather events fueled by climate change, scientists and government planners said on Wednesday.

"It's a new normal and I really do think that global weirding is the best way to describe what we're seeing," climate scientist Katharine Hayhoe of Texas Tech University told reporters.

"We are used to certain conditions and there's a lot going on these days that is not what we're used to, that is outside our current frame of reference," Hayhoe said on a conference call with other experts, organized by the non-profit Union of Concerned Scientists.

An upsurge in heavy rainstorms in the United States has coincided with prolonged drought, sometimes in the same location, she said, noting that west Texas has seen a record-length dry period over the last five years, even as there have been two 100-year rain events.

Hayhoe, other scientists, civic planners and a manager at the giant Swiss Re reinsurance firm all cited human-caused climate change as an factor pushing this shift toward more extreme weather.

While none would blame climate change for any specific weather event, Hayhoe said a background of climate change had an impact on every rainstorm, heat wave or cold snap.

"What we're seeing is the new normal is constantly evolving," said Nikhil da Victoria Lobo of Swiss Re's Global Partnerships team. "Globally what we're seeing is more volatility ... there's certainly a lot more integrated risk exposure."

CHICAGO'S SEWERS

In addition to more extreme local weather events, he said, changes in demographics and how materials are supplied make them more vulnerable.

"In a more integrated economic system, a single shock to an isolated area can actually end up having broad-based and material implications," da Victoria Lobo said. For example, if a local storm knocks out transport and communications systems, "someone 1,000 miles away is not receiving their iPad or their car."

Aaron Durnbaugh, deputy commissioner for natural resources and water quality for Chicago, said adapting to climate change is a daunting task.

Citing the down-to-earth example of Chicago's 4,400 miles of sewer mains, which were installed over the last 150 years and will take decades to replace, Durnbaugh said accurate forecasting of future storms and floods is essential.

The city of Chicago's cost of dealing with extreme weather events through the end of this century has been conservatively estimated in a range from $690 million to $2.5 billion, Durnbaugh said, with the cost to homeowners and local businesses expected to be far higher.

Globally, da Victoria Lobo said the annual average economic losses from natural disasters have escalated from $25 billion in the 1980s to $130 billion in the first decade of the 21st century.

(Editing by Eric Walsh)

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Best of our wild blogs: 18 May 11

Butterfly Portraits - Grass Demon
from Butterflies of Singapore

First visit to Terumbu Pempang Tengah
from wonderful creation and colourful clouds and wild shores of singapore

Procreation of Crab Spiders
from Macro Photography in Singapore

Down to 50, conservationists fight to save Javan Rhino from extinction from mongabay.com by Jeremy Hance

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Stalls still selling animals for release

Straits Times 18 May 11;

THE belief that freeing captive animals on Vesak Day brings good karma is still held in some quarters, despite the pleas of the authorities and animal rights groups.

Two stalls in Chinatown were still selling live animals for release yesterday.

Mr Louis Ng, executive director of animal rights group, Animal Concerns Research and Education Society (Acres), said stallholders admitted they had sold about 20 red-eared slider turtles yesterday, and that their customers had ordered them ahead of Vesak Day.

Acting on a tip-off, the group sent an undercover team to Smith Street, where Chinese soft-shell turtles were also being sold.

Organisations like Acres and the National Parks Board have warned that releasing animals into the wild can harm both the animal and the native ecosystem.

Mr Henry Baey, who heads the Buddhist Fellowship, said: 'Many such animals, especially those bred in captivity or imported, are known to be unable to adapt to the new surroundings and do not survive long after their release. They will also upset the existing ecosystem and may be harmful to the native wildlife. It is therefore not necessarily a kind act.'

Buddhists celebrate Vesak Day
Seet Sok Hwee and Sabrina Chan Today Online 18 May 11;

SINGAPORE - Thousands of Buddhists around the world celebrated Vesak Day yesterday, a festival that commemorates the birth and enlightenment of Buddha and his entry into Nirvana.

Devotees thronged the temples, which held special ceremonies to mark the occasion.

In Thailand, Buddhist monks attended a ceremony at Wat Dharmmakaya in Pathum Thani, on the outskirts of Bangkok.

The Fo Guang Shan Association here had a novel way to celebrate Vesak Day: It held a series of environmental activities together with its usual spiritual programmes.

The association said it is trying to raise awareness on environmental conservation - which resonates with Buddhist teachings.

The festivities include a pledge-taking by Buddhists to make Singapore a more environmentally-friendly home. There will also be an exhibition of objects made out of recycled items.

It is believed that by performing good deeds on Vesak Day, the merit earned will be multiplied many times over.

In Sri Lanka, for instance, prison authorities released 858 prisoners serving time for minor offences.

In Singapore, a group of 70 people set free over 2,000 fish into the ocean.

The group had gone to a kelong off Changi and bought over 400kg of fish - for about S$6,000 - which were meant to be sold to restaurants for consumption.

The National Parks Board had warned earlier against releasing animals on Vesak Day, so as to not disrupt the ecological balance as well as threaten the survival of the released animals. According to animal rights activists, as long as the animals are returned to their natural environment, they will be all right.

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Cultivating Singapore's green landscape

Annabelle Yip and Rosabel Ng Business Times 18 May 11;

A BLUEPRINT for Singapore's sustainable development was unveiled in April 2009 by the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Sustainable Development. Titled 'A Lively and Liveable Singapore - Strategies for Sustainable Growth', it set out the key goals and initiatives covering the next 10 to 20 years.

Shortly after, the government and regulatory bodies launched various initiatives to encourage individuals and business sectors in Singapore to go green. Among the initiatives was the $100 million Green Mark incentive scheme for existing buildings by the Building and Construction Authority to incentivise commercial building owners to retrofit their buildings to improve energy efficiency.

There have been other initiatives by the Singapore authorities to promote sustainable development, and this article summarises some of the more recent regulatory developments across Singapore's green landscape.

On March 4, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim announced in Parliament that the Green Vehicle Rebate (GVR) scheme, which was introduced in 2001, will be extended by another year for electric and petrol-electric hybrid vehicles. Accordingly, such vehicles will continue to enjoy rebates ranging from 10-40 per cent of their open market value until end-2012.

Electric and petrol-electric hybrid vehicles will also continue to be eligible to road tax pegged to that for petrol equivalents, which is 20 per cent lower than their diesel equivalents. However, the GVR scheme will cease to apply to compressed natural gas (CNG) and bi-fuel vehicles after 2011.

The government will also undertake a comprehensive review of the measures to promote the use of green vehicles in Singapore.

The Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) then launched the Maritime Singapore Green Initiative on April 12. This comprises three different programmes. The Green Ship Programme aims to incentivise shipowners to provide energy-efficient ship designs that reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions in excess of the requirements of the International Maritime Organisation's Energy Efficiency Design Index, which is a widely-used indicator of greenhouse gas emissions of ships.

The financial incentives under this programme comprise a 50 per cent reduction in the initial registration fees and a 20 per cent rebate on the annual tonnage tax payable.

The Green Port Programme seeks to encourage ships calling at the Port of Singapore to reduce emissions of pollutants. Qualifying ships must show that they are either using type-approved abatement or scrubber technology, or clean fuels with a low sulphur content exceeding the requirements of the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships (Marpol), which stipulates that any ship operating within an emission control area must use fuel oil with a sulphur content not exceeding one per cent.

Under this programme, qualifying ships will receive a 15 per cent reduction of port dues payable.

The Green Technology Programme was set up to encourage local maritime companies to adopt green technologies. The MPA will be setting aside $25 million for the Maritime Innovation and Technology Fund, which will co-fund up to half the qualifying costs under this programme. The MPA will increase funding by an additional $25 million if this programme receives a favourable response.

In tandem with the other efforts to promote sustainable development in the public and private sectors here, the introduction of sustainability reporting and communications in the financial sector is also likely to take place soon to raise awareness among listed corporations (and those preparing for listing) and their stakeholders.

Public image

The Singapore Exchange (SGX) issued in August last year a consultation paper on a proposed policy statement and guide to sustainability reporting for listed companies. The draft policy statement sets out broad principles to guide issuers in formulating their sustainability reporting frameworks. The draft guide, which supplements the policy statement, sets out answers to frequently asked questions from listed companies on sustainability.

The consultation paper reflects a global trend of increasing importance. Increasingly, regulators, investors and the general public are scrutinising the extent to which broader sustainability concerns are addressed by companies in their day-to-day operational and investment decisions. In turn, companies are realising that it makes commercial sense to adopt responsible sustainability practices, especially since the investment community is placing greater value on such practices.

Apart from the public image boost, implementing sustainable practices can also help corporate bottom lines.

The pressure for corporate accountability of sustainable and environment-friendly practices is on the rise from various sources. Banks have incorporated potential environmental liabilities as part of lending risks when determining borrowers' requests for credit. Suppliers of goods and services are also being queried about their environmental and sustainability practices.

In turn, consumer perception of a company's environmental performance has become ever more important in maintaining market share. In this connection, various accreditation agencies and reporting guidelines have been established, such as ISO 26000 and the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI).

SGX, in its consultation paper, encourages companies to adopt the GRI framework in disclosing their sustainability performance.

With all this in mind, corporations should start considering what they need to do to monitor and improve their sustainability performance and how they report it.

Annabelle Yip is Joint Head - Corporate Governance and Compliance Practice, and Rosabel Ng is Joint Head - Environmental & Green Economy Practice; WongPartnership

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Drug Ban May Save India’s Vultures From Extinction

Brandon Keim Wired Science 17 May 11;

The worst seems to be over for South Asia’s vultures, which just a decade ago appeared to be headed straight for extinction.

Hundreds of thousands were dying every year. Scientists had no idea why. Only a last-minute stroke of luck revealed how the majestic creatures were being accidentally poisoned by medicine given to cows.

The medicine was banned in animals in 2006. Its use hasn’t ceased completely, but it’s diminished enough to slow the vulture die-off. Their survival is far from assured, but at least they have a chance.

“There used to be millions, right in the heart of all the big cities. They’d breed in gardens, in the trees along city streets,” said University of Cambridge zoologist Rhys Green. “Those are all gone now. There are no colonies anymore. Will they get back to that? I don’t think so, but they could get back to having safe populations.”

Green, the lead author of a vulture assessment published May 11 in Public Library of Science One, started working with the birds in 2004. Just months earlier, researchers led by the late Washington State University microbiologist J. Lindsay Oaks had discovered that diclofenac, an anti-inflammatory drug commonly given to livestock, was killing the Indian subcontinent’s three species of vulture.

His discovery was a mix of scientific detective work and old-fashioned good luck: Oaks happened to be interested in Middle Eastern falconry, and heard of fatal cases of diclofenac poisoning. On a hunch he decided to test for the drug in India’s vultures, populations of which had declined by 95 percent in the preceding decade.

The birds had been dying inexplicably from renal failure and gout, with researchers searching in vain for evidence of heavy metals or pesticides or disease. Side effects from veterinary medicine hadn’t even been considered: Until then, they’d never caused a mass wildlife die-off. If Oaks had discovered the drug in the vultures just a couple years later, it would have been too late.

Linking diclofenac to the deaths gave researchers an immediate insight into what Green called a “perfect storm” of circumstances. Until the early 1990s, diclofenac was the intellectual property of pharmaceutical giant Novartis. When its patent expired, India’s sophisticated generic drug industry ramped up production, flooding the country with cheap, highly-potent diclofenac. Farmers bought millions of doses. Cattle are sacred in many parts of South Asia, and diclofenac helped ease the pains of elderly beasts of burden.

Because they are sacred, however, the bodies of dead cattle were not eaten or rendered. Instead they were left in fields to be eaten by vultures. In 2004, carcass surveys found one in 10 to be contaminated with diclofenac, and researchers calculated that each vulture had a 1 in 100 chance of dying every time it ate a meal. By 2006, India, Nepal and Pakistan had banned the veterinary use of diclofenac.

In the new paper, Green and colleagues studied the bans’ effect, analyzing data from surveys of carcasses collected across India between 2004 and 2008. They found that contamination had dropped from 10.1 percent to 5.6 percent by 2008 — a sign that the ban is working, though not as fast as they’d hoped. Annual death rates dropped from an astronomical 80 percent before the ban to 18 percent.

“If we can get that down to 5 percent, then there’s a chance” that the vultures will survive, said Green. “That’s still a decline, but we could counteract it by putting out food for the birds and protecting their nest sites. We could compensate for that level of decline.”

There were other encouraging signs in the data. In 2008, the number of carcasses contaminated with meloxicam — an alternative, vulture-friendly anti-inflammatory — outnumbered those tainted by diclofenac. This has occurred in spite of the fact that the ban has been unevenly enforced. According to Green, the success represents outreach efforts to veterinarians and farmers, many of whom hold vultures in high esteem.

In Hindu mythology, vultures have a god, Jatayu. Among Parsi communities, for whom religious tradition forbids burial and cremation, corpses have historically been left on platforms for vultures to consume. In the birds’ absence, Parsis have turned to other methods of dealing with their dead, including solar accelerators designed to hasten decomposition, though none have proved as efficient or hygienic as vultures. Their highly acidic stomachs are lethal to bacteria, and flocks could strip a body in minutes.

The loss of vultures is also felt among people who collected leftover cattle bones and ground them into fertilizer. Now the corpses of cattle are buried — as sacred animals, they often can’t be eaten — or dragged away by an exploding population of feral dogs, which have become a reservoir of rabies.

“There’s no longer a symbiosis between vultures and people. Now, instead of vultures, there are lots and lots of semi-wild dogs,” said Green, who thinks that the dogs’ rise to ecological prominence will prevent the vultures from ever recovering their original role. Still, that the vultures could have any sort of future was almost inconceivable a decade ago. Even though 99 percent have died, the remaining one percent may be enough.

“They breed slowly, only rearing a maximum of one chick per year,” said Green. “They can increase at a rate of 3 to 5 percent per year. It’s never going to be really rapid, but over time it builds up.”

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France In Crisis As Drought Deepens - Minister

Gerard Bon, Marie Maitre and Sybille de La Hamaide PlanetArk 17 May 11;

France has imposed limits on water consumption in 28 of its 96 administrative departments, the environment ministry said Monday, amid signs that a prolonged dry spell that has hit grain crops would continue.

"We are already in a situation of crisis. The situation is like what we would expect in July for groundwater levels, river flows and snow melting," Environment Minister Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet told a press conference.

The government had previously put 27 departments under water consumption limits, and Kosciusko-Morizet said Monday that similar measures could be extended to three more -- effectively affecting a third of the country.

One of the hottest and driest Aprils on record in France has parched farmland and cut water reserves, stoking worries of a drought similar to that experienced in 1976 and fuelling concern harvests will suffer in the European Union's top grain producer.

No substantial rainfall is expected in the next two weeks, weather expert Michele Blanchard told Monday's press conference.

In an interview with Reuters Insider, Meteo France forecaster Michel Daloz said that temperatures would also rise sharply in the next week, boosting groundwater evaporation.

"It would really need a miracle, which is three weeks of heavy rain after the coming 8-10 days (of a dry spell), to hope to make up for some of the deficit," Daloz said.

Total rainfall in April amounted to barely 29 percent of the average established over the 1971-2000 period, the ministry said in a report, adding that soils in the northern part of the country were experiencing the driest conditions in 50 years.

"Rainfalls in coming weeks will be crucial," Kosciusko-Morizet said, adding that a wet month of July alone would not be enough to turn the situation around.

"From a weather point of view the month of June is the last chance of rain. After that, it's summertime and all of France is dry, even the showers that fall in July and August don't bring much water," Daloz said.

Two thirds of French groundwater reserves were down year on year in April, while the remaining 34 percent were stable or up.

France has lost any prospect of a very good wheat crop this year as the lack of water hit plants at an advanced development stage, but the French farm office said last week it was too early to translate drought-related worries into yield loss numbers.

Last week, French Agriculture Minister Bruno Le Maire called on the European Union to ease some environmental requirements in light of measures the French government wants to take to help animal breeders, hurt by surging grain prices.

Drought concerns in several countries in Europe, including Germany and Poland, combined with weather worries in other key producing regions such as the United States, have lent support to grain markets, helping them soften the blow of a recent global commodity sell-off sparked by economic growth concerns.

(Editing by Anthony Barker)

Little Rain For Europe's Farmers Before June
Daniel Fineren PlanetArk 18 May 11;

Drought in much of Europe looks set to continue with little relief for parched farmland until June at the earliest, forecasters say.

Parts of central Europe saw less than 40 percent of their long-term average rainfall from February to April, with even the wettest seeing less than 80 percent of the mean for 1951-2000, according to the Global Precipitation Climatology Center.

At the start of May, some weather watchers saw some rainfall relief by the end of the month from the long, dry spell that has desiccated large parts of Europe since January.

Patchy rain has moistened bits of northern Britain, France and Germany over the last few days, raising Rhine river levels and allowing some increase in trade.

But dry high pressure systems have not made way for wetter lows as had been expected, preventing sustained rain from soaking dusty fields in the three biggest wheat growing areas of the EU, and prompting France to impose limits on water use on fears the drought will continue

"Most of the really dry conditions are expected to be across southern France and Germany, with near or slightly below normal rainfall in northern sections, where most of the wheat is," Todd Crawford, chief meteorologist at U.S.-based Weather Services International, said Monday.

"So, no drought-busting rains expected for most of the rest of May."

Telvent DTN, a U.S.-based energy and commodities weather forecaster, said it expected only a few scattered light rain showers in the grain producing heartland of the EU, which it warned would not compensate for months of dry weather.

"More rain is needed to support developing wheat in much of France and Germany," Telvent said Monday.

Benchmark European wheat futures have risen about 11.5 percent since May 5, bouncing back from a cross-commodity sell off in late April on the dry weather.

The stubborn high pressure systems that tend to bring dry weather to continental Europe show little sign of being pushed aside by typically-wetter lows, except in northern areas where grain production is low, according to the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF - see link below).

"Looking at southern Britain as the main grain area I think rainfall amounts are really uncertain," a spokesman for Britain's official forecaster, the Met Office, said.

"There is more rain in the forecast. However, I think the bulk of that rain is likely to be in more northern parts... It remains stubbornly dry in eastern and south eastern parts."

The Met Office sees potential thunder storms in southern England next week but because the earth is so dry, heavy rain could race off the rock-hard agricultural land into rivers.

RUSSIA RAINS

The unusually dry spring in top EU wheat producers France, Germany and Britain has revived drought fears after a dry summer in 2010 ravaged Russian and Ukrainian wheat harvests -- driving a surge in food prices around the world.

Recent rains should help cereal growth in western Ukraine and southern Russia. But drier weather over the next 7-10 days still appears likely for crop areas from the eastern Central and Volga regions into the Newlands region, Telvent said in its World Commodities Weather Spotlight.

"This favors spring wheat planting but will reduce soil moisture for winter crops," the outlook said.

"This is the same area that was hit by severe drought last season and thus this drying trend will bear watching."

ENERGY MARKET PRESSURE

Unless low pressure in the North Atlantic can push aside high pressure systems, the drought could also put more bullish pressure on European energy markets.

"Recent high temperatures and low rainfall across Europe have resulted in low hydro-electric reservoir levels across the continent," Mark Lewis, director of commodities research at Deutsche Bank said.

Switzerland's reservoir levels dropped again in early May, further delaying the usual spring turning point when levels start going up as snow melts.

Swiss reserves are usually a key summer source of clean electricity. But with German nuclear power production hobbled by Berlin's reaction to Japan's nuclear crisis, a continued drought could also drive up EU carbon emissions prices as generators are forced to burn more coal.

A long heatwave forced several German and French nuclear plants to shut in summer 2003 because of river water cooling problems, and while temperatures so far have not been as extreme, low river levels are a growing concern.

Spain, which also relies on hydro power, has seen its reserves shrink about 3 percent from a year ago but rainfall on western parts of the Iberian Peninsula has not been as badly affected.

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Britain eyes 50-percent carbon emissions cut target

Sam Reeves Yahoo News 17 May 11;

LONDON (AFP) – Britain on Tuesday unveiled plans to cut its greenhouse gas emissions by 50 percent from 1990 levels by 2025, ramping up pressure on the European Union to increase its target.

The new target is a big jump forward for Britain in its carbon-cutting ambitions and puts it far head of the EU as a whole, which has committed to a 20-percent cut in carbon emissions by 2020 compared to 1990 levels.

Britain is among the members of the 27-nation bloc, along with France and Germany, which have been pushing for the target to be hiked to 30 percent.

Prime Minister David Cameron had vowed to lead the "greenest government ever" when he came to power last May and Energy Minister Chris Huhne said the new target showed the coalition was determined to make good on its pledge.

Unveiling Britain's fourth "carbon budget", which governs the country's carbon emissions between 2023 and 2027, Huhne told the House of Commons: "It puts Britain at the leading edge of a new global industrial transformation as well as making good our determination that this will be the greenest government ever."

He added: "We are also sending a clear signal to the international community: that the UK is committed to the low carbon economy.

"This will help us reach agreement in Europe on moving to a 30-percent emissions reduction target -- and build momentum toward a legally binding global climate change deal."

The European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union which has also been pushing for the bloc to increase its target to 30 percent, praised Britain's ambitious target.

"I welcome the ambitious goal announced by the United Kingdom's government today," said EU Climate Commissioner Connie Hedegaard.

"This is an outstanding example of strong willingness to act despite difficult economic times."

Huhne said the proposals would be reviewed in 2014 to ensure they were in line with the rest of the EU's plans for cutting greenhouse gases, which are blamed for rising temperatures. Lawmakers still have to approve the proposals.

It is a big shift forward from Britain's third "carbon budget", which covers the period 2018 to 2022 and commits the country to making 35-percent cuts in its greenhouse gases compared to 1990 levels.

Commentators in Britain saw the announcement as a victory for Huhne over other members of the Cabinet who had opposed the proposals, arguing that it could damage the economy.

The EU committed to a 20-percent cut in carbon emissions in 2008 and offered to go to 30 percent if other industrialised powers followed suit.

But offers from other major industrialised countries are still below the 20-percent mark and critics say that further carbon curbs will hit Europe's fragile economies.

World powers are also seeking to hammer out a new global deal on cutting greenhouse gases at a series of UN talks to replace the landmark Kyoto Protocol which expires at the end of 2012.

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