Time to save Asean's forests

Lee Poh Onn, For The Straits Times 3 Nov 11;

THE recent declaration of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve as an Asean Heritage Park may seem consequential - or is it?

Are there any tangible benefits derived from the conservation of a forested area?

To be sure, there is a certain 'feel good' factor felt by segments of the population who care that a nature reserve is conserved.

Beyond this, the protected forested area will serve as an important source of storing carbon, an increasingly significant function to mitigate the emission of greenhouse gases, especially in the light of increasing temperatures and climate change in the years to come. Biodiversity and natural ecosystems sustain the livelihoods of human populations, animals and plant species.

To ardent conservationists in Singapore, this piece of news marks a milestone in protecting biodiversity and promoting nature conservation. This is especially so in a country where land is so expensive and scarce. Bukit Timah Nature Reserve is said to hold about 40 per cent of Singapore's native flora and fauna: a diverse 840 species of flowering flora and 500 species of fauna are in this 1.64 sq km nature reserve.

Importantly, the declaration of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve as a protected area sets a precedent among Asean member countries, some of which have ample forested areas and land areas but have yet to allocate more of their forested areas to nature conservation and the protection of biodiversity.

The Asean Heritage Parks form part of the Protected Area coverage among the Asean member countries. Such protected areas reflect efforts by Asean countries to contribute to the 2010 Convention of Biological Diversity target to protect at least 10 per cent of the world's forested areas. Incidentally, Asean also has four of the world's 34 biodiversity hot spots, which are areas which have exceptional levels of endemic species facing serious loss of habitat.

Protecting biodiversity has many ramifications. One, as pointed out earlier, is to mitigate climate change, as forested areas serve as important carbon sinks. With about 43 per cent of forest cover, compared with the world average of 30 per cent, Asean has more forested areas than countries in other parts of the world. In Asean, Brunei has the highest forest to land ratio as at 2007 (76 per cent), while Malaysia has 62.4 per cent and Cambodia 55.3 per cent.

However, Asean faces a worryingly fast rate of deforestation, averaging about 1.11 per cent a year between 2000 and 2007. This appears minimal but, if compared with the global average of 0.16 per cent, translates to an annual decrease of 23,144 sq km or the equivalent land area of 14,112 Bukit Timah Nature Reserves destroyed every year. Indonesia, Cambodia, the Philippines and Myanmar had rates of deforestation above 1.6 per cent between 2000 and 2007, higher than the Asean average of 1.11 per cent.

Deforestation in the region has been caused by logging, illegal mining, farming, commercial agricultural development and the expansion of the palm oil industry.

The main driver of tropical peatlands deforestation is the development of oil palm and pulp wood plantations. Indonesia and Malaysia currently account for 85 per cent of the world's supply of crude oil. It is no surprise then that oil palm plantations are favoured above just leaving forested areas standing for carbon. Planting oil palm has been estimated to yield net present values of between US$3,835 and US$9,630 (S$4,870 and S$12,200) per hectare compared to leaving forests standing for carbon credits of between US$614 and US$994 per hectare.

One common practice - of clearing peat swamp forests for planting oil palm trees - may seem harmless and helpful for reducing greenhouse emissions. This is especially so when climate-friendly bio-diesel can be produced from processed palm oil mixed with petro-diesel.

However, peatlands contain twice the carbon stock compared with other types of forest land. Carbon emissions also continue to take place long after the conversion of such areas for other purposes. Clearing peat swamp areas for oil palm plantations and the production of bio-fuels releases about eight times more carbon when compared to emissions generated from the use of fossil fuels. Planting in other forested areas, farther away from the coast and river systems where peatlands are found, may be better options than clearing peatlands.

Deforestation and the clearing of forested areas for oil palm plantations are likely to be a major driver of greenhouse gas emissions in the years to come, especially when oil palm is planted on drained peatlands. In addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions and causing temperature variation, climate change is likely to become the dominant driver of biodiversity loss by the end of the century.

This recent move by Singapore shows that where there is political will by a government, difficult and important decisions can be achieved that have far-reaching benefits to future generations, not only in Singapore but also in countries in the region. With this year being the United Nations International Year of Forests, it would be timely for the protection of forested areas and conservation of biodiversity around the region to begin in earnest, especially from countries which are better endowed with forested and land areas.

The writer is a fellow at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies.

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Indonesia: Is There Any Space Left for Our Apes?

Jakarta Globe 2 Nov 11;

Around 70 percent of orangutan habitats are vulnerable to logging and other human activities because they fall outside conservation areas, a fact that could threaten efforts to protect the apes, a study has found.

Niel Makinuddin, the East Kalimantan program manager for the Nature Conservancy, said on Tuesday that only 30 percent of the endangered species’ habitat was protected because it fell within conservation areas.

As for the orangutans outside these areas, he said during the launch of the executive summary of the Kalimantan Orangutan Portrait, they are prone to getting killed or trapped by villagers after encroaching onto farmland, villages and other human habitations.

“Many local people consider orangutans as a sort of pest because they eat their crops,” he said. Niel also said that in some areas, locals were known to hunt and kill orangutans for their meat.

“A lot of them claim that orangutan meat is very nutritious. There are also those who kill the apes out of mystical beliefs or simply out of desperation for a source of protein,” he said.

“All this,” he added, “makes orangutans in unprotected areas highly vulnerable.”

Niel said that since 2007, an estimated 750 to 1,800 orangutans had been killed across Kalimantan. Local villages are believed to be responsible for up to two deaths each a year, with the rest attributed to illegal loggers and operators clearing forests for palm oil plantations.

“A lot of the people we’ve spoken to actually say they’d be proud if they could kill more orangutans,” he said.

A study on orangutans carried out by 17 nongovernmental organizations in 725 villages across East Kalimantan, Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan showed that conflicts between humans and the apes were the most serious threat to the preservation of the endangered species.

The study also indicated that Kalimantan had the highest rate of conflict, with 18 percent of the villages in the study reporting regular conflicts with encroaching orangutans, according to Sri Suci Atmoko, from the Indonesian Association of Primate Experts and Observers.

She said many of the conflicts occurred in villages on the peripheries of palm oil plantations, rice paddies and logging concessions, indicating the apes were being chased out of their habitats by those commercial activities.

Between 2000 and 2008, about 4 percent of the region’s total forest cover was cleared, or 2.3 million hectares, according to official estimates. Independent estimates put the loss at 5.4 million hectares during this period, or 9.2 percent of forest cover.

Agus Sutito, head of species conservation at the Forestry Ministry’s Directorate General of Forest Conservation, said the issue of human-orangutan conflict needed to be addressed by regional-level teams overseen by district heads and governors.

“There need to be better coordinated efforts at the regional level to quell these conflicts, especially in regions with a lot of wildlife,” he said.

He added that there were no such coordination teams for Kalimantan yet, although teams had already been set up to address human-tiger conflicts in the Sumatran provinces of Aceh and Jambi.

Antara

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Rhino horn demand leads to record poaching

WWF 3 Nov 11;

South Africa – More rhinos have been killed in South Africa in the past 10 months than were killed in all of 2010, new poaching numbers reveal. Statistics from South Africa National Parks show that 341 animals have been lost to poaching so far in 2011, compared to a record total of 333 last year.

South Africa’s grim milestone comes on the heels of an announcement by WWF last week that rhinos have gone extinct in Vietnam. The carcass of Vietnam’s last Javan rhino was found with a gunshot wound and without its horn.

At a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) last year, the international community concluded that the increase in rhino poaching has been caused largely by demand for horn products in Vietnam. Law enforcement efforts, while increasing, are not yet sufficient to protect rhinos from poachers or stop the smuggling and sale of their horns by organized crime rings.

“It's hardly surprising the horn was missing from the last rhino as Vietnam is the preeminent market destination for illegally sourced rhino horns," says Tom Milliken, TRAFFIC rhino programme coordinator.
In addition to being the biggest consumer of rhino horn, Vietnam is also a major market for tiger parts and other products derived from endangered species. Populations of tigers in the country are alarmingly low and could soon follow the Vietnamese Javan rhino into extinction.

“The unfounded rumour that rhino horn can cure cancer most likely sealed the fate of the last Javan rhino in Vietnam,” says Dr. A. Christy Williams, WWF’s Asian rhino expert, “This same problem is now threatening other rhino populations across Africa and South Asia.”

Three out of five rhinos are critically endangered

Of the five species of rhinoceros, three are critically endangered. With the loss of the Vietnamese Javan rhino, there are now fewer than 50 Javan rhinos remaining, all in one national park in Indonesia.

"It's tragic that the Javan rhino has been wiped out in Vietnam by the same forces that are driving rhino poaching in Africa. This is the ultimate wake-up call for the Vietnamese government to turn aggressively on its internal rhino horn market," Milliken added.

South Africa has been the focal point of poaching because it has the largest population of rhinos in the world. Law enforcement efforts there have been scaled up resulting in more arrests, and some of those convicted are being sentenced to lengthy prison terms.

However, demand for medicinal products containing rhino horn continues to increase in Vietnam and other parts of Asia. Rhino horn has no proven ability to treat cancer and is no longer a part of the official Chinese traditional medicine pharmacopeia.

Governments must scale up their efforts

Despite an international ban on commercial trade under CITES, rhino horn continues to be smuggled illegally from Africa to Asia. Additionally, legal loopholes allowing for the export of rhino hunting trophies are being exploited in some South African provinces. Improvements are needed in the regulation of hunting permits and the management of rhino horn stock piles in the country.

“Since armed protection for rhinos in South African national parks is strong, poaching syndicates are likely to shift to countries with weaker enforcement power, including possibly Asian countries that may be caught off-guard” said Dr. Carlos Drews, Global Species Programme Director at WWF. “To break the illegal trade chain, governments in source, transit and consumer countries must all scale up their efforts.”

In September a delegation of Vietnamese officials visited South Africa to discuss enhancing law enforcement cooperation between the two countries. Last year TRAFFIC facilitated a similar visit to Vietnam for South African authorities.

“Vietnam should follow South Africa’s example and start sending poachers, traders, smugglers and sellers to jail,” says Dr. Joseph Okori, WWF’s African rhino programme coordinator. “In order to save rhinos from extinction, the criminal syndicates operating between South Africa and Vietnam must be uncovered and shut down for good.”

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New study reveals coral reefs may support much more biodiversity than previously thought

Physorg 2 Nov 11;

Smithsonian scientists and colleagues conducted the first DNA barcoding survey of crustaceans living on samples of dead coral taken from the Indian, Pacific and Caribbean oceans. The results suggest that the diversity of organisms living on the world's coral reefs is seriously underestimated. The team's research "The Diversity of Coral Reefs: What Are We Missing?" was published in October in the journal PLoS ONE.

At depths of 26 to 39 feet, the scientists collected dead coral from five different locations. At two sites where removing coral is prohibited, the scientists collected man-made sampling devices that had been left in the water for one year. Combined, the coral and devices had a surface area of just 6.3 square meters (20.6 square feet), yet 525 different species of crustaceans were found living on them.

"So much diversity in such a small, limited sample area shows that the diversity of crustaceans in the world's coral reefs -- and by implication the diversity of reefs overall -- is seriously under-detected and underestimated," said Nancy Knowlton, the Sant Chair for Ocean Science at the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and co-author of the survey. "We found almost as many crabs in 6.3-square meters of coral as can be found in all of the seas of Europe. Compared to the results of much longer and labor-intensive surveys, we found a surprisingly large percentage of species with a fraction of the effort."

The world's coral reefs are some of the most endangered habitats on Earth. Given coral's rapid decline and global range, DNA barcoding offered the scientists a quick and efficient method for their survey. "DNA barcoding provides a standardized, cost-effective method of coming to grips with the staggering diversity of the world's oceans," Knowlton said. "It has enormous potential for use in broad global surveys, allowing us to find out what is living in the ocean now, and to keep track of it in the future."

Crustaceans collected for the survey were only those the scientists could see, and ranged from 0.2 to 1.9 inches long. All animals from which DNA was sequenced were preserved so they could be examined later by taxonomists.

"We collected dead corals because live corals defend themselves from being inhabited by other invertebrates," said Laetitia Plaisance of the Smithsonian's National Museum of Natural History and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and lead author of the survey.

Once a coral dies its structure becomes covered with algae, sponges, crustaceans, worms, mollusks and other creatures.

"Given the complexity and extent of the world's coral reefs, the survey covered only a very limited depth and habitat range," said Plaisance. "And yet we have so many more species than we ever expected."

Present estimates of species diversity in reefs are 600,000 to more than 9 million species worldwide. "We cannot give a new estimate today, but we may be able to in a few years," Plaisance said. Using man-made sampling structures at some 50 sites around the world, Plaisance is now working with the Smithsonian and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration on another survey that will include all of the many organisms that live on coral reefs.

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Pollution makes powerful cyclones more likely, claim scientists

A thick layer of pollution over the Indian Ocean may be creating atmospheric conditions that promote fierce cyclones
Nic Fleming guardian.co.uk 2 Nov 11;

Powerful tropical cyclones that cause large numbers of deaths and massive property damage around the Arabian Sea are becoming increasingly common as a result of pollution, scientists say.

Analysis of the intensity of storms between 1979 and 2010 suggests that thick layers of haze have created atmospheric conditions that intensify cyclones and increase the chances they will reach land.

There has been a sixfold increase in fine aerosol emissions locally since the 1930s from forest fires, domestic heating and diesel use, creating a layer of pollution 3km thick over the Indian Ocean.

It has long been known that high wind shear – a large difference between the speed of winds near the sea surface and those higher up in the atmosphere – can prevent storms from forming or prevent existing ones from intensifying. Dr Amato Evan of the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, US, and his colleagues suggest that the giant pollution cloud reduces the surface temperature of the Arabian Sea, which in turn reduces wind shear and triggers the formation of more powerful cyclones.

"We have found a clear connection between human activity and changes in atmospheric conditions that create favourable conditions for the formation of large tropical cyclones," said Evan. "In my mind that's a big step forward. Every analysis we did pointed in the same direction. We only have 30 years of data, but we have used data from multiple different sources, so I'm confident our results are robust."

Evan's team used three sets of data on the maximum wind speed of the 10 tropical cyclones that occurred in the region between 1979 and 1996 and the 10 that developed between 1997 and 2010. The median maximum speed increased from 23 metres per second in the first period to 41 mps in the second. They used numerical modelling to develop their theory and unpick the underlying causes.

The study found wind sheer had dropped from an average of 11 mps in the period 1979-96 to eight mps in 1997-2010.

All the five strongest storms, which exceeded 50 mps, have occurred since 1998. In that year a major cyclone resulted in thousands of deaths and the inundation of numerous salt mines in India.

Other large cyclones since then have made landfall and caused loss of life and billions of pounds' worth of property damage in Pakistan, Iran and Oman.

"Storms that are more intense have a longer lifespan, so the probability that they are going to make landfall goes up," said Evan.

Dr Ryan Sriver of Pennsylvania State University, US, said that while the research shed "much-needed light" on the topic, the findings should be interpreted with caution. In an article published alongside the new research in the journal Nature, Sriver said: "This is a very small number of events to use as a basis for estimating climate trends."

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Development under threat from environmental damage and social inequity

WWF 2 Nov 11;

Gland, Switzerland: WWF has welcomed a major new UN report warning that the trend to rising living standards is coming under threat from accumulating environmental damage and rising social inequity.

According to the UN Development Program 2011 Human Development Report "Sustainability and Equity: A better future for all", sustainability is “not exclusively or even primarily an environmental issue” in a world where global population has just passed seven billion.

"This report is a salutary reminder that the economic issues currently in the headlines and topping the international agenda are the symptom, not the problem," said WWF International Conservation Director Lasse Gustavsson.

“WWF’s footprint measures indicate we are currently consuming the resources of one and a half planets, and this is the factor underlying the competition for and increasing costs of resources and our current economic instability. Behind the economic debts is a growing ecological debt.”

The 2011 Human Development Report notes that the main impacts of faltering development will fall on the world’s poorest people and countries, those most dependent on a healthy environment and also those already facing the most catastrophic climate change impacts.

“Our remarkable progress in human development cannot continue without bold steps to reduce both environmental risks and inequality,” the report says.

“WWF agrees with the report’s assessment that there are alternatives to inequality and unsustainability,” Gustavsson said. “Green and renewable development provides the pathway to greater access to essential services such as food, energy, water and sanitation.

“But the report notes that the investment to ensure access to modern energy is less than an eighth of the annual subsidies for fossil fuels and that spending on low carbon energy sources is less than two percent of the lowest estimates of what is needed.”

WWF also endorsed the report’s clear call for measurements of progress that transcend a narrow focus on income.

“The health of the environment is a key development issue, so we need national and international accounting that places environmental health at centre stage,” Gustavsson said.

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Best of our wild blogs: 2 Nov 11

Clive Briffett, RIP
from Otterman speaks and Compressed air junkie

Undergraduate part-time field/lab assistants wanted
from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

Water quality monitoring (WQM) workshop for Sengkang Floating Wetland
from Water Quality in Singapore

'Pen'-house living at Changi
from wild shores of singapore

111030 Sekudu
from Singapore Nature

Pacific Golden Plover guarding turf
from Bird Ecology Study Group

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Are we ready with flood precautions?

Straits Times Forum 2 Nov 11;

SUNDAY'S article ('Malaysia prepares to brave monsoon') mentioned the Malaysian authorities ramping up preparations for the north-east monsoon. The country's Meteorological Department is expecting five to six heavy rainfall episodes with 40 per cent above-normal rainfall.

The article also mentioned the Indonesian authorities forecasting heavy rain and strong winds.

The current flooding in Thailand is a clear reminder that we cannot take things for granted. We are surrounded by water, and any major flooding will greatly affect our economy, infrastructure and livelihood.

Since Singapore has already been hit by flash floods this year, I hope the authorities and relevant agencies have made the necessary preparations and would update the public as to what measures have been taken, as well as inform us about the monitoring and alert systems, including evacuation procedures.

Information on the precautions and measures that residents, and those on the ground floor and basement of shops, buildings or factories, can take should also be included.

Hopefully, all the relevant agencies, such as the Singapore Civil Defence Force and national water agency PUB, are ready and prepared.

Are the MRT operators preparing for flood prevention of their tunnels and underground stations? There are drills in the event of train breakdowns and fire, but what about flooding?

As for strong winds, is the National Parks Board going to conduct another round of checks on trees, and is the HDB checking on potted plants and hanging items in high-rise flats?

We need to draw lessons from our past flooding experiences and the current situation in Thailand, while hoping that it would not happen here.

Wo Kay Liang

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Sustainability, the alternative to happiness

Letter from Mona Chew Poh Gek Today Online 2 Nov 11;

THERE has been recent interest generated by the debate in Parliament on using a possible happiness index to gauge Singapore's development and guide the formulation of public policies, with various letters to Today and online joustings, too.

While the commentators have provided the merits of indicators such as Net National Product, Human Development Index, Graciousness Index, etc, all these measures focus narrowly on certain aspects of socio-economic development.

None of them adequately deal with the long-term sustainability of nations. And history has shown how economies have risen, peaked and declined. For nations that have declined, the lack of economic sustainability can be ascribed to many socio-economic factors.

With the emergence of many fast developing nations in the last 100 years, there is now the added concern of environmental sustainability, arising from the strains placed on Mother Earth by both developed and developing nations.

Greenhouse gas emission, global warming, climate change, dwindling food supplies, depletion of energy sources and general destruction of the environment are some of the issues threatening global environmental sustainability.

Ultimately, the economic sustainability of nations is at risk.

Singapore should be concerned with its long-term economic sustainability, and public policies should be aimed at this goal, which may not be adequately guided by any single socio-economic indicator, including GDP, or environmental indicators such as Water Poverty Index.

In 1991, Singapore's own economic guru Emeritus Professor Lim Chong Yah espoused the theory that a nation's development depends on its five interacting production ecosystems: Entrepreneurship, government, ordinary labour, investment and natural resources.

The health and balance of these five ecosystems are critical to the long-term economic sustainability of any nation and would depend on many factors.

These include business environment, technology R&D, freedom from corruption, strong civil institutions, the healthcare system, population/immigration issues, social capital, domestic savings, water and energy supplies and climate change challenges.

A comprehensive Index for Economic Sustainability is now being developed to compare and rank various nations.

Preliminary studies show that Singapore is doing fairly well. They also suggest various areas where it should fine-tune its policies to improve sustainability, for example, in energy resilience.

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Singapore-JB MRT study tender soon

Architectural and engineering analysis likely to take 2 years
Christopher Tan Straits Times 2 Nov 11;

COMPANIES on both sides of the Causeway will this month be invited to bid for the right to undertake an architectural and engineering study of the proposed Singapore-JB MRT link.

The feasibility study is expected to take a little over two years to complete, and will cover details such as the alignment of the line, the size of the stations, whether it should be a surface or an undersea connection, construction methods and cost.

A notice inviting firms to take part in the tender appeared in Malaysian newspapers yesterday. But Singapore's Land Transport Authority (LTA) said yesterday that the notice was a little too early, as the tender is not yet open.

Singapore Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew said during a visit to Putrajaya early last month that both countries would put out a tender at the same time, inviting firms to bid.

The Straits Times understands that the tender will open this month. And engineering consultancy firms are looking forward to it.

Mr Rajan Krishnan, senior vice-president (Asia) of Parsons Brinckerhoff, which has conducted several infrastructural feasibility studies here, said: 'There will be interest among consultants doing these kinds of studies. We look forward to the tender documents to see the exact terms.'

Mr John Davies, director of infrastructure at engineering group Arup, said: 'Of course we're interested. We've done a number of cross-border studies of this kind in Hong Kong, and we're quite familiar with them.'

Talks of an MRT extension to Johor Baru date back as far as 1989, soon after the first MRT trains started rolling here.

But it was not until May last year that the plans were made concrete, following a land swop deal between Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong and his Malaysian counterpart Najib Razak.

It was then announced that there would be a metro link between the two countries by 2018. During his visit to Malaysia last month, Mr Lui said the project was 'on time and on track'.

The link is expected to be an extension of the Thomson MRT Line, which is also scheduled for completion by 2018.

It is expected to run from a station near JB Sentral in Johor Baru to one near Republic Polytechnic in Woodlands - the Thomson Line's northernmost stop.

The cross-border link will feature combined customs, immigration and quarantine facilities in both Singapore and Johor Baru. This means commuters will need to clear immigration only once per trip.

Engineering studies for the underground Thomson Line are under way. The line will run along the north-south corridor from Woodlands to Marina Bay.

While the LTA said the line would have four-carriage trains, it said the length, the number of stations and the location of stations are still not confirmed.

However, it has been confirmed that the Thomson Line will interchange with the North-South Line at the Woodlands station.

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Floods in Thailand - nature can help

IUCN 31 Oct 11;

As the floods in Thailand have reached record levels, they leave behind a trail of destruction to people, infrastructure and the environment.

The flooding has caused around 400 deaths so far and has affected about 8.2 million people in 60 of Thailand’s 77 provinces. Some 200,000 hectares of farmland have been submerged and 1,000 factories have been inundated. The economic losses are estimated to be above US$ 3 billion. But nature itself can help control the destruction caused by such disasters.

Ecosystems, such as floodplains, wetlands and mangroves, provide the natural infrastructure needed to help control destruction and heavy erosion caused by flooding.

Natural floodplains can be maintained through sound land planning and management, as they are important in storing water during floods and recharging groundwater reserves. Healthy wetlands and natural river channels can buffer the impact of large floods, by slowing the flow of water and storing water to lower flood peaks.

Cities concentrate the effects of flooding as they contain paved surfaces and narrow streets that channel water and restrict drainage into the ground. And often it is the most vulnerable who face the challenges of escaping floods and rebuilding their lives following destruction.

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Thai Flood Frustration Grows

Robert Birsel PlanetArk 2 Nov 11;

Thai authorities tried to stem growing anger among flood victims on Tuesday as water swamped new neighborhoods and the government began mapping out a plan costing billions of dollars to prevent a repeat disaster and secure investor confidence.

The floods began in July and have devastated large parts of the central Chao Phraya river basin, killed nearly 400 people and disrupted the lives of more than two million.

Inner Bangkok, protected by a network of dikes and sandbag walls, survived peak tides on the weekend and remains mostly dry.

But large volumes of water are sliding across the land to the north, east and west of the city, trying to reach the sea and being diverted by the city centre's defenses into new suburbs as they recede in others.

In the northeastern city neighborhood of Sam Wa, angry residents demanded the opening of a sluice gate to let water out of their community. Residents jostled with police on Monday and Prime Minister Yingluck Shinawatra ordered that the gate be opened by a meter (three feet).

But city authorities warned that the flow through the gate could move via a major canal into large parts of the city which are now dry.

"We are opposed to it but the government has ordered the BMA to open the gate, so more water will come," said Bangkok Metropolitan Authority (BMA) spokesman Jate Sopitpongstorn.

"It could reach the Bang Chan industrial estate. We have to see the consequences," he told Reuters, adding that residents of the area had been told to be on alert.

Yingluck's government and the Bangkok authority represent opposing factions in Thailand's strife-plagued politics.

An expert from the government flood management team played down the danger to inner Bangkok of opening the sluice gate, saying the flow was relatively small compared with the amount coming in through leaks in the city's dikes.

"Inner Bangkok is not so much an issue," said academic Anon Sanitiwong Na Ayutthaya. "At least we know what to do, it's just a matter of time to fix the leaks."

The disaster has been the first big test for the government of Yingluck, the younger sister of former premier Thaksin Shinawatra, who was ousted in a 2006 coup.

Yingluck, a political novice, took over this year after an election that many Thais hoped would heal divisions that triggered street violence last year.

Saving central Bangkok from a ruinous flood would be an important victory. The city's 12 million people account for 41 percent of Thailand's gross domestic product.

But prolonged misery in outlying areas and heavily flooded provinces to the north would take the gloss off any victory for Yingluck, especially given a perception that those areas have been sacrificed to save the capital.

To the north of Bangkok, Pathum Thani and Ayutthaya provinces have been largely inundated for weeks, along with seven industrial estates that have sprung up over the last two decades on what used to be the central plain's rice fields.

"BE PREPARED"

People eked out a living in the flooded provinces on Tuesday with women cooking over gas stoves in the shade of plastic sheets strung up over pick-up trucks while men in their underwear cast fishing nets into water covering roads.

Cars, trucks and taxis were bumper to bumper for about 20 km (12 miles) on an elevated road out of Bangkok, parked and abandoned safely above the murky tide.

The cabinet met to work out a recovery plan that one cabinet minister said this week could cost up to $30 billion, including an overhaul of the water-management system and rehabilitation of industrial estates.

Deputy Prime Minister and Commerce Minister Kittirat Na Ranong said the government would need to borrow "hundreds of billions of baht" to recover and prevent a repeat of disaster during the annual rainy season.

"Any investor, ambassador, I talk to, they never ask how high the floodwaters are but what will Thailand actually do to prevent this from happening again," Kittirat told reporters.

The government would invite experts from inside and outside the country to help draw up the plan and he would approach the Asian Development Bank to discuss financing.

"We have to be prepared for the future," Kittirat said. "Preparation and the prevention of floods and drought is something we must start to do now."

Yingluck said on Monday she had assured Japanese investors there would be no repeat of the disaster. The government expects it will take three months to get the flooded industrial estates back on their feet.

Thailand is the second-largest exporter of computer hard drives and global prices are rising because of a flood-related shortage of major components used in personal computers.

Thailand is also Southeast Asia's main auto-parts maker and Japan's Honda Motor Co said car production could be difficult in the second half of its business year ending in March. Its Ayutthaya plant has suspended work indefinitely.

The Bank of Thailand has nearly halved its projection of economic growth this year to 2.6 percent from July's 4.1 percent estimate, and said the economy -- Southeast Asia's second largest -- would shrink by 1.9 percent in the December quarter from the previous three months due to the floods.

Headline inflation rose to 4.19 percent in October from 4.03 percent the previous month as the flooding pushed up some prices but the central bank said the rises were temporary and it would focus on longer-term factors in setting policy.

The floods submerged four million acres (1.6 million ha), an area roughly the size of Kuwait, and destroyed 25 percent of the main rice crop in the world's largest rice exporter.

The deluge was caused in part by unusually heavy monsoon rain but the weather has been mostly clear for the past week. The BMA said 2,245 mm (more than seven feet) of rain had fallen this year to the end of October, 40.8 percent above average. ($1=30.75 baht)

(Editing by Sanjeev Miglani)

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