Fishing at Serangoon reservoir (legally)!
from Nature rambles
Hanging on
from The annotated budak and Left hanging
Return of the Whip Spider
from Macro Photography in Singapore
Local biodiversity and dinosaurs goes to Geylang East Public Library! from Toddycats!
Shibu Thomas Times of India 16 Dec 11;
MUMBAI: Six years after the Bombay High Court ordered a stop to the destruction of mangroves, Mumbai and its neighbouring areas now boast of more than 5,800 hectares of mangrove land designated as protected forests.
According to environmental activists , even by conservative estimates, the move has ensured more than 2,500 hectares of open green space in the city and its suburbs. The state forest department recently set up a special mangrove cell to oversee their protection on Maharashtra's coasts.
This was not the situation at the start of the decade when mangroves were indiscriminately hacked to make way for multi-storey apartments. There was also rampant dumping of debris and garbage on such plots. A sustained campaign by environmental groups, finally leading to the high court order, ensured that the city's remaining mangroves were brought under the umbrella of the forest department.
"To a large extent, land-grabbing in mangrove areas by unscrupulous builders in the city has stopped. This was the biggest threat to mangroves in urban areas," said Debi Goenka of the Bombay Environmental Action Group, which had filed the public interest litigation in the high court to protect mangroves.
Besides calling an end to the destruction of mangroves, the high court had also directed the state to conduct satellite mapping of the coast to identify mangrove land and then designate each as protected forests.
Around 5,800 hectares of land in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai and Thane with mangrove cover was notified as protected forests and handed over to the forest department. The state is now in the process of designating more than 26,000 hectares of coastal land in the rest of Maharashtra as forests.
"Earlier, though mangroves were under the purview of the Coastal Regulation Zone, the authorities were hardly bothered about protecting them. But the tag of forests has made it difficult for developers to obtain permission," said Goenka.
However, Goenka hastened to add that it still does not mean mangroves in the city are safe. "Day-to-day problems such as dumping of debris still exist," Goenka said. Vigilant local citizen groups have so far ensured that offenders are brought to book.
The most recent case include that of builder Jayesh Shah who was ordered by the Supreme Court to open the bunds he had constructed and remove debris that would have led to the extinction of more than 400 acres of mangroves in Dahisar.
AP Yahoo News 16 Dec 11;
PORT ANGELES, Wash. (AP) — Some debris from the March tsunami in Japan has reached the West Coast.
A black float about the size of a 55-gallon drum was found two weeks ago by a crew cleaning a beach a few miles east of Neah Bay at the northwest tip of Washington, the Peninsula Daily News reported (http://is.gd/9jSz9q) Wednesday.
The float was displayed at a Tuesday night presentation at Peninsula College by Seattle oceanographers Curtis Ebbesmeyer and Jim Ingraham, consultants who produce the "Beachcombers Alert" newsletter.
Tons of debris from Japan will likely begin washing ashore in about a year, from California to southern Alaska, they said. Items that wash up may include portions of houses, boats, ships, furniture, portions of cars and just about anything else that floats, he said.
That could include parts of human bodies, Ebbesmeyer said. Athletic shoes act as floats.
Flotsam in a current travels an average of 7 mph, but it can move as much as 20 mph if it has a large area exposed to the wind, Ebbesmeyer said. The latest float sits well atop the water, has a shallow draft and is lightweight. Similar floats have been found on Vancouver Island in British Columbia.
Models show currents could pull some Japanese tsunami debris into the Strait of Juan de Fuca as far as Port Townsend.
"All debris should be treated with a great reverence and respect," Ebbesmeyer said.
If the debris has any kind of identifiable marking, such as numbers or Japanese writing, it may be traceable, Ebbesmeyer said. Families in Japan are waiting to hear of any items that may have been associated with their loved ones.
Ebbesmeyer is retired from a career that included tracking icebergs, the 1989 Exxon Valdes oil spill and Puget Sound currents that affect sewage outflows. He wrote the 2009 book, "Flotsametrics and the Floating World: How a Man's Obsession with runaway Sneakers and Rubber Ducks Revolutionized Ocean Science."
Ingram has retired from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, where he created computer models of ocean currents.
Katherine Tweed LiveScience.com Yahoo News 15 Dec 11;
The Australian Outback is hot, dry and desolate. But just under the surface it is teeming with life.
A team of researchers in Australia has been looking for invertebrates in small underground cavities beneath the desert. So far the team, including scientists from the University of Adelaide, the South Australian Museum in Adelaide and the Western Australian Museum in Perth, has found more than 1,000 new species. They estimate there are another 3,500 beneath the arid topsoil.
"When the discovery was first made, we didn't really believe it,"said team leader Andy Austin, professor of biology at the Australian Centre for Evolutionary Biology & Biodiversity at the University of Adelaide. "We thought maybe it was unique to just three or four locations."
Instead, they have found the tiny creatures, including small crustaceans, spiders, beetles and worms, in nearly every bore hole they've looked down. [Images: Underground Creatures]
Hiding under the desert
Years ago, it was obvious that stygofauna—small animals that live within groundwater systems —were typical in European countries, which are wetter and more temperate.
Australia was once a wetter, lusher environment—nearly like a rainforest —before it began drying out around 15 million years ago. Some of the small invertebrates that were in aquatic environments many years ago took refuge in subterranean environments, whereas today, "what you get on the surface is an array of vertebrates of more recent origin,"Austin told OurAmazingPlanet.
Team member Bill Humphries, a researcher from the Western Australia Museum, speculated years ago that maybe, just maybe, stygofauna like the ones in Europe were hiding in the Australian desert too. Humphries'discovery of these critters beneath the Australian desert about 15 years ago was the catalyst forthe ongoing project.
The advent of DNA barcoding in the past few years has helped speed the discoveries.
DNA barcodes
In earlier times, biologists would use physical traits like size, shape and color to try to identify species out in the field. But with advancements in DNA sequencing, now it is much cheaper and easier to look at genetic material to tell species apart.
For all fauna, DNA barcoding looks at the same short genetic sequence in each species. That area is known to be unique between each species, helping to distinguish different species that might appear similar to the human eye.
The purpose of discovering the species is to better understand the biodiversity under the desert and maybe understand its origins, but also to protect them. Australia has a very active mining industry, and in Western Australia, mining companies have to show that their work won't cause the extinction of any species. Austin said that many mining companies work actively with the researchers so that they understand the environment they're drilling into.
The benefit of quickly and accurately identifying species using DNA barcoding also goes far beyond the Australian red center. DNA barcoding is being used for everything from identifying timber species to cut off illegal logging distribution chains, to identifying fish that are being sold as another species.
"There's a range of applications we're just starting to see,"Austin said. "It's great for when you rapidly need to understand what something is."
Undiscovered species
In the Australian Outback, there are still likely thousands more invertebrates to be discovered.
The Outback is not alone, either. Austin said that other continents, like Africa and South America, likely have thousands of undiscovered stygofauna.
"If you start multiplying this on a global basis,"he said, "there's likely to be massive diversity that will be uncovered in coming decades."
ScienceDaily 15 Dec 11;
In 2011, researchers at the California Academy of Sciences added 140 new relatives to our family tree. The new species include 72 arthropods, 31 sea slugs, 13 fishes, 11 plants, nine sponges, three corals, and one reptile. They were described by more than a dozen Academy scientists along with several dozen international collaborators.
Proving that there are still plenty of places to explore and things to discover on Earth, the scientists made their finds over six continents (all except Antarctica) and three oceans (Atlantic, Pacific, and Indian), climbed to the tops of mountains and descended to the bottom of the sea, looked in their owns backyards (California) and on the other side of the world (Cameroon).
Their results, published in 33 different scientific papers, add to the record of life on Earth and help advance the Academy's research into two of the most important scientific questions of our time: "How did life evolve?" and "How will it persist?"
Discovering new species, formally describing them, and determining their evolutionary relationships to other organisms provide the crucial foundation for making informed conservation decisions at a national level. For example, earlier this year, Academy scientists embarked on the largest expedition in the institution's recent history -- a 42-day journey to the Philippines to survey the shallow water, deep sea, and mountain habitats of Luzon Island. Early estimates indicate that they may have discovered as many as 500 new species. While it takes months and even years to formally describe and publish a new species in a peer-reviewed scientific journal (the reason they are not included in the 2011 total), Academy scientists had enough initial data to provide a formal recommendation to Conservation International and the Philippine government outlining the most important locations for establishing or expanding marine protected areas. Formal species descriptions in the coming years should help the scientists bolster and refine their initial recommendations.
Below are a few highlights among the 140 species described by the Academy this year. For a full list of species, including geographic information, visit www.calacademy.org/newsroom/releases/2011/new_species_list.php.
Four New Sharks
Academy research associate David Ebert and his colleagues described four new species of deep-sea sharks this year. The African dwarf sawshark (Pristiophorus nancyae) was collected via a bottom trawl at a depth of 1,600 feet, off the coast of Mozambique. It is notable for its elongated blade-like snout, or "rostrum," which is studded with sharp teeth and used as a weapon. The sawshark will swim through a school of fish swinging its rostrum back and forth, stunning and injuring prey, and then swim back to consume the casualties. Ebert and his colleagues also described two species of lanternshark: Etmopterus joungi from a fish market in Taiwan, and Etmopterus sculptus from trawling at depths of 1,500 -- 3,000 feet off the coast of southern Africa. Like their name suggests, lanternsharks emit light on various parts of their body -- probably a strategy to camouflage themselves from upward-looking predators and also to interact with others of their own species. Finally, a new species of angel shark (Squatina caillieti) was described from a single specimen collected in 1,200 feet of water off the Philippine island of Luzon. Angel sharks have flattened bodies and large pectoral fins resembling wings.
A Bounty of Arthropods
There are more species of arthropods -- insects, spiders, crustaceans, and other joint-legged creatures -- than any other group of animals on Earth, and more are being discovered every day. So it's no surprise that over half of the new species on this year's list consists of arthropods: 43 ants, 20 goblin spiders, six barnacles, and three beetles. In addition, Academy scientists took it to the next level -- literally -- by describing six new genera ("genus" being one classification level higher than "species"). These include three new genera of goblin spiders from Africa (Malagiella, Dalmasula, Molotra) and three new genera of barnacles (Minyaspis, Pycnaspis, and the fossil Archoxynaspis).
Gorgeous Sea Slugs
Despite the common name of "sea slug," nudibranchs are breathtaking in their beauty and diversity. Every color of the rainbow is represented among nudibranchs, in a wide variety of patterns, making them a favorite for underwater photographers. These animals use color as a warning sign -- predators learn to associate their vivid colors with their toxic or unpalatable nature, and so they avoid eating them.
More than 3,000 nudibranch species have been discovered and described to date, and scientists estimate that another 3,000 species are yet to be named. Academy Dean of Science Terry Gosliner and his colleagues did their part to increase our knowledge of nudibranch diversity by describing 31 new species this year, from places as close as Florida to faraway countries like Papua New Guinea.
A Tale of Two Tortoises
In a ZooKeys article published this year, Academy curator emeritus Alan Leviton and colleagues, collaborating with Dr. Robert Murphy of the Royal Ontario Museum, solved the identity crisis of the desert tortoise Gopherus agassizii -- a saga almost as old as the Academy itself. First, by sifting through the original species description in The Proceedings of the California Academy of Natural Sciences (as the Academy used to be called), they determined that the species was first described in 1861, not 1863 as had long been thought. Next, they deduced that one of the three original specimens used to describe the species was likely lost during the most devastating event in the Academy's history -- the 1906 earthquake and fire. (A second specimen is currently housed at the Smithsonian, while the whereabouts of the third remain unknown.) Third, they reviewed the tumultuous taxonomic history of the species, which has changed its genus name five times in the past 150 years. Finally, using DNA analysis, they concluded that G. agassizii is not one, but at least two distinct species -- one that lives to the northwest of the Colorado River in California and Nevada (G. agassizii), and one that lives to the southeast of the river in Arizona and Mexico (a new species, which they named Gopherus morafkai).
This newfound clarity has important implications for conservation, because the geographic range of G. agassizii is now only 30% of its former range. Having significantly declined in numbers over the past three decades, it may warrant a higher level of protection than its current "threatened" status. And now that G. morafkai has a distinct name and its own identity, its conservation status can be evaluated as well.
IUCN 15 Dec 11;
As the business community begins to embrace ecosystems and biodiversity as key components of commercial success, a ground-breaking report from the major study of The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (TEEB) is being published by Earthscan today.
The TEEB study is a project hosted by the United Nations Environment Programme and led by Pavan Sukhdev. This new volume entitled ‘The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise’ provides important evidence of growing corporate concern about biodiversity loss and offers examples of how leading companies are taking action to conserve biodiversity and restore ecosystems as part of their day-to-day business activity.
The volume has been edited by Joshua Bishop, TEEB for Business coordinator, former chief economist at IUCN and recently appointed National Manager for Markets, Sustainability and Business Partnerships at WWF Australia.
Julia Marton-Lefèvre, Director General of IUCN sees the economics of ecosystems and biodiversity as crucial for the business community to grasp in order to develop strategies for long term business sustainability:
“This volume is a ‘must read’ for the business community," she says. "The current economic climate reminds us that business needs to assess all kinds of risks, including environmental ones. The TEEB study provides clear guidance for the private sector to understand and manage the income we derive from ‘Natural Capital’, an asset on which all businesses and economies depend. By understanding the value of these services and the ecosystems that provide them, companies can minimize environmental risks and realize new market opportunities.”
“It is encouraging to see new initiatives since the launch of the initial TEEB for Business report last year", says TEEB Study leader, Pavan Sukhdev. "But clearly, to survive in the 21st Century, business can and should do much more to account for their impacts on nature, both on their own and in partnership with governments and civil society,”
To take forward work, an umbrella grouping, the TEEB Business coalition, has been formed under the leadership of Pavan Sukhdev. Coordinated by ICAEW (the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) together with The Prince’s Accounting for Sustainability Project, WWF-UK, the GRI, UNEP and a number of companies, will advance the TEEB for Business work-stream by catalysing research and action on corporate externalities. Among other things this includes implementation and standardisation of measurement and disclosure as well as engagement on public policy reforms. The Coalition has received formal support by the UK government in the recent Natural Environment White Paper.
The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity in Business and Enterprise, is published on 15 December by Earthscan. A discount price of GBP 31.99 can be gained by using the order form available at http://www.teebweb.org
Birdwatching at Bukit Brown with Dr Ho Hua Chew
from Rojak Librarian
Questionable patterns
from The annotated budak
111212 Tanah Merah
from Singapore Nature
Red crab spiders prey on dipteran larvae in slender pitchers Trina’s honours research published in the Journal of Tropical Ecology from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
WSA 2012 Seagrass Calendar
from World Seagrass Association
Reuters 13 Dec 11;
Abu Dhabi (united Arab Emirates) / Nairobi — How many mangroves does it take to offset a transatlantic flight? What consumer actions can we take to reduce damage to rainforests?
Answers to these questions and many more are provided by a new iPhone application launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the Eye on Earth summit in Abu Dhabi today.
The UNEP application draws attention to the critical role played by ecosystems such as salt marshes, mangroves, tropical forests and seagrasses in tackling climate change.
Users of the application can calculate their personal carbon footprint for journeys taken by air, train or road. They will then be shown the equivalent area of a particular ecosystem (such as a tropical forest) that can store this amount of carbon dioxide.
The free iPhone application, named Blue and REDD Carbon, is already available online in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.
Blue and REDD Carbon
The iPhone application provides users with in-depth information on the vital role of coastal and terrestrial ecosystems in both storing and sequestering carbon.
The Blue Carbon concept aims to promote better management of coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, saltwater marshlands, which serve as vital 'carbon sinks', and can store, in the case of mangrove forests, up to 1,900 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare.
Information on other key climate initiatives, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is provided.
The UNEP application also highlights the valuable natural services provided by ecosystems, such as the protection of shorelines from storms, support for fisheries and provision of materials such as timber and medicine.
According to UNEP's Forests in a Green Economy report, released earlier this year, forest ecosystems provide more than a billion people with incomes and employment and contribute approximately US$ 468 billion to the global economy. Equatorial rainforests also contain around half of all plant and animal species known on Earth.
Yet many of these vital ecosystems are disappearing at an alarming rate, due to deforestation, pollution from agricultural run-off, water diversion and other factors.
The Blue and REDD Carbon application provides a variety of suggestions and guidelines to show how individual actions (such as buying sustainably-sourced fish) can help limit the environmental degradation of coastal and terrestrial ecosystems.
One UN Pavilion at Eye on Earth
The application was launched during the official opening of the One UN Pavillion at the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi. The four-day event, organized by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and hosted by the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency in partnership with UNEP, brings together experts from the worlds of philanthropy, business, government, data engineering and technology to address issues around access to environmental data and knowledge.
The summit is set to deliver a declaration towards the United Nations Conference on Sutainable Development (Rio+20), which will be held in Brazil in June 2012.
The One UN Pavillion at Eye on Earth will display information illustrating the work of the United Nations in the area of environmental data and its application in a wide variety of settings, such as environmental assessment work, humanitarian responses and peace building. Interactive exhibits will present visitors with a wide variety of scientific data on climate change, hazardous wastes and substances, ecosystems management and other topics.
The Global Pulse, the UN Secretary-General's technology for development initiative, will also be highlighted. Global Pulse functions as an innovation laboratory, bringing together expertise from UN agencies, governments, academia, and the private sector to research, develop, test and share tools and approaches for harnessing real-time data for more effective and efficient policy action.
Elly Burhaini Faizal, The Jakarta Post 14 Dec 11;
Aceh may soon lose part of its forests with the granting of a concession for commercial use to a private company by Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf, a decision that jeopardizes the moratorium on forest clearing, a watchdog says.
The permit issued to PT Kallista Alam to convert the protected peatland forest for use as a palm oil plantation had been legalized, thanks to the first revision of the indicative map set out in the moratorium, Elfian Effendi, the executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, said on Tuesday.
The revision, adopted in a Forestry Minister Decree that was issued on Nov. 22, allows for the issuance of permits to log and convert primary forests and peatland areas, he said.
“This revision of the indicative moratorium map has deleted one block of peatland that was already included within the palm plantation concessions of PT Kallista Alam,” Elfian told The Jakarta Post.
The permit, allowing PT Kallista Alam to develop oil palm plantations on a 1,605-hectare plot of protected peatland forest in the Nagan Raya district, which is part of the Leuser ecosystem, was signed by Irwandi on Aug. 25.
The forest was initially included in the indicative moratorium map issued on June 17. However, sheet 0519 of the first revision of the indicative moratorium map (officially published on the ministry’s website on Dec. 8) shows the areas are no longer protected.
“It has been deleted from the revised moratorium map,” Elfian said.
Greenomics Indonesia has urged Kuntoro Mangkusubroto as the chairman of the Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme to tell the public about the irregularities.
“It shows that the implementation of the moratorium has not been well organized. It lacks synergy and coordination. This is quite an embarrassment,” he said.
The issuance of the permit also drew strong criticism from other environmental organizations both in Indonesia and abroad.
Kuntoro, who is also the head of the Presidential Work Unit for Development Monitoring and Control (UKP4), a body which monitors the implementation of the moratorium, criticized Irwandi’s decision to issue the concession to PT Kallista Alam.
“I spent four years in Aceh during the tsunami reconstruction. Opening up the Kuala Tripa — an area with high conservation value and home to many animals endemic to Indonesia — is a grave mistake,” Kuntoro said last week as quoted by Reuters. He also urged the Aceh provincial administration to reexamine the decision and seek an alternative location.
Eivind Homme, Norway’s ambassador to Indonesia, has called on the government to investigate the case.
During a recent interview, Forestry Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto told the Post that the government would impose sanctions on those responsible for illegally approving the land conversion project.
“It breaches of Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011, issued in May this year, which bans new permits on the clearing of primary forests and peatlands,” he said.
Greenomics, meanwhile, pointed to an inconsistency in this statement.
“It seems they said it just for the sake of having something to say. They don’t have enough data to back up their claim. We are now watching quite a huge gap on the moratorium-related information between the policymakers and those who work at the operational level. And this is very misleading information,” Elfian said.
To protect against environmental damage, Greenomics Indonesia urges the government to return the peatland area into the indicative moratorium map.
With the next revision due in six months time, the forestry minister should immediately issue a letter to overrule the permit issued by Irwandi, he said.
The Tripa Peat Swamp in Nagan Raya regency is part of a 4.8 million-hectare area of peatland that was removed from the indicative moratorium map of primary forests and peatlands. Initially, the moratorium map covered 10.7 million hectares of peatlands that were protected against any new permits.
Bambang Soepijanto, the director general of Forestry Planology at the ministry, said the indicative moratorium plan was not permanent.
“If we have new proof showing that the land does not fit the protected peat swamp zoning, we may remove the land from the [moratorium] map,” he said, adding that the ministry was still investigating the case.
Niluksi Koswanage Reuters 14 Dec 11;
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A surge in mega-hydropower projects across the world in the coming decade will only be affected marginally by last week's decision to delay building a large dam across the Mekong, Southeast Asia's longest river.
Hydropower remains a proven way to produce electricity on a large scale, and some governments are extremely reluctant to opt for alternatives such as nuclear. But last week's decision could mean there will be increased focus on minimizing environmental and social costs of new hydro projects, analysts say.
Laos suspended the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam project on the lower Mekong, awaiting a study into the environmental impact of the river, the world's largest inland fishery.
The 1,260-megawatt project has been hugely controversial and underlined growing global concerns that mega-dams were a damaging and outdated way of generating power. Protests from India to Brazil and Malaysia to China have called for a halt to massive building programs.
"The decision is certainly a game changer in the lower Mekong," said Marc Goichot, who works for environmental group WWF's Greater Mekong program on sustainable hydropower.
"We hope this decision will have influence in the rest of Asia," he told Reuters in an e-mail from the Lao capital Vientiane.
But he added it was hard to pinpoint whether the decision was related to environmental concerns or something else. In September, Myanmar scrapped a $3.6 billion Chinese-led mega-dam across the Irrawaddy River also after environmental worries, but the decision was additionally seen as an attempt by its government to distance itself from Beijing.
"(Last week's) decision also raises the risk profile of these projects for investors, which will undoubtedly scare some investors away or make them more hesitant to fund mainstream dams in the future," said Aviva Imhof, campaigns director at International Rivers, an NGO which opposes large hydropower dams.
"Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the decision will affect dams (now) being built in other parts of Asia or even on tributaries of the Mekong river," she said.
The World Bank, a major hydropower investor, says the social and environmental costs of such projects have to be addressed and resolved at the planning stage -- a failure to do so can sharply increase the impact.
Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia share the lower reaches of the Mekong.
Concern has grown after China completed a series of dams on the upper reaches, with more planned, causing lower flows during the wet season and greater flows during droughts, Imhof said.
The Chinese dams also block sediment flowing downstream, causing massive erosion and affecting productivity of floodplain agriculture and in the Mekong Delta, she told Reuters in an e-mail.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower plant at 22.5 gigawatts when it reaches full capacity, is a symbol of China's quest for energy and is also a taste of what is to come.
A total of 1.25 million people were displaced over 16 years for the Three Gorges dam, leading to widespread criticism and protests. Many blamed the project for widespread drought earlier this year in downstream areas of the Yangtze River.
COAL UNFASHIONABLE, NUCLEAR A WORRY
With countries trying to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and other fossil-fuel based power plants, and questions over nuclear power, China and the world's other energy-hungry nations are turning to hydro in a big way.
China wants to raise installed power capacity by 470 gigawatts (GW) to 1,437 GW by 2015 -- the largest in the world. At least 110 gigawatts of the new capacity will be from hydro power -- equivalent to five Three Gorges hydropower projects. Current hydropower capacity is 216 GW, also the world's largest.
Earlier this year, the country said it has committed 400 billion yuan ($62 billion) to build four hydropower stations that would contribute 43 GW by 2015, to be built by China Three Gorges Corp.
Longer-term plans call for China to reach 450 GW of hydropower capacity by 2030. That will involve tapping the largely untouched Tibetan plateau, the source of major rivers that feed nations downstream.
This has triggered distrust at home and in Southeast Asia and a test case will be if China gives the go-ahead in the coming weeks to a series of dams on the Nu, or Salween, river that flows through China's Yunnan province and then Myanmar and Thailand.
India, which generates 18 percent of its electricity from hydropower, is implementing a large-hydro plan totaling 50 GW, or roughly Australia's total generating capacity. Government data shows that India has potential hydropower capacity of 148.7 GW, with 33.9 GW developed and a further 14.6 GW on the way.
But India's hydropower program has also been dogged by protests, especially a decades-long project along the Narmada river in central India. The scheme proposes 30 dams, with two large dams built and a third under construction for power and large-scale irrigation.
In the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh, a planned 11 GW dam on the Siang river has run into environmental problems and objections from neighboring China. The government is looking to build it further downstream and, if completed, it would be India's largest hydropower dam.
"Hydropower has issues of resettlement, which is the most serious, it has issues of biodiversity conservation," said Pradipto Ghosh, former top civil servant in the environment ministry, and member of the prime minister's panel on climate change.
"But the point is that hydropower is very much part of the energy mix and it will continue to remain part of the energy mix," he told Reuters.
"We have to address these issues," he said. "The way that hydropower projects are now designed and implemented is a far cry from how they were back in the 1950s."
MALAYSIAN PROTESTS
Malaysia, which generates most of its power with fossil fuels, is pushing ahead with a huge hydropower program in Sarawak state on Borneo island that is displacing indigenous communities, disrupting river flows and triggering deep anger.
The 2.4 GW Bakun dam, which started generating power this year, is by far the nation's most controversial project with more than 100 cases still pending in Malaysia's courts. The dam was first proposed in 1960s and shelved twice.
It is the second highest concrete faced rockfill dam in the world at 207 meters high (680 feet), with a reservoir roughly the size of Singapore.
Much of the power will feed an industrial zone with another 12 dams to be built to feed industries such as smelters and solar panel manufacturers.
"The building of these monuments of corruption will be a key issue that we will bring up in the upcoming elections. I believe the unhappiness among the local tribal communities is growing," said Baru Bian, a land rights lawyer in Sarawak.
"I think if the people of Sarawak can appreciate how international pressure has forced Laos to delay the Mekong dam project ... there is a possibility of stopping these projects," Bian, who is also an opposition politician with Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party, told Reuters.
FULL CAPACITY
But a senior government official with knowledge of the Sarawak's hydropower plans denied the concerns of local communities have been ignored.
"We would not proceed if there is a big risk and so far there has not been any major risk," the official said. "We expect the opposition to use the Laos issue to campaign for stopping the dams. But it is a completely different scenario in Laos."
The International Energy Agency says the technical potential for hydropower globally is five times current production based on 2008 data.
It said China had developed 24 percent of its potential, the United States 16 percent and Brazil 25 percent and that by 2050, global hydropower generation could nearly double.
For China, India, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others, that means more dam developments in a world where nations are under pressure to cut fossil fuel emissions. Brazil approved the 11.2 GW Belo Monte dam, the world's third largest, in June, while the DRC and South Africa last month signed a deal for a multi-billion dollar project.
"I think eventually there will be real problems. The whole hydropower sector is now in full gear and at full capacity to expand as fast as it can," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which monitors China's water supplies.
"We are pressing to the very corners of our territory. If they continue at this speed, quite soon they are going to finish the damming of all our major rivers and at that time, the whole industry will hit a wall," he said.
(Additional reporting by David Stanway in Beijing, Frank Jack Daniel in New Delhi, Biswajyoti Das in Guwahati and David Fogarty in Singapore; Writing by David Fogarty; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Mark Kinver and Victoria Gill Science reporters BBC News 14 Dec 11;
The erosion of traditional cultural taboos in Madagascar has led to an unsustainable number of lemurs being killed for bushmeat, a study suggests.
Locals revered the primates, believing that the animals were family ancestors, but the influx of outside influences has seen a breakdown in these views.
Some species do not reach maturity for up to nine years and produce offspring once every two or three years.
The findings appear in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One journal.
A survey of locals' eating habits by researchers from Bangor University in Wales, and the Malagasy NGO Madagasikara Voakajy showed that hunting of protected species in eastern Madagascar was increasing.
They suggested the rise in illegal hunting was the result of rapid social change, an increase in demand for meat and a decline in traditional taboos.
"When you have globalisation and outside influences, traditional cultures break down and change faster," explained co-author Julia Jones from Bangor University.
"What seems to be happening in some of the remote areas around the nation's eastern rainforests is that a lot of legal gold mining is springing up, so people from outside are moving into the area."
Taboos play an important part in Malagasy culture, she added.
Lemurs, especially indris, have been associated with very strong taboos that traditionally ensured that the primates were not hunted.
For example, one story tells of a man who was looking for honey in the forest when he fell from a tree. Before he hit the ground, he was caught by an indri.
He was so grateful that he went back to the village and said from that moment on, no lemur was to be harmed.
Another belief is that the creatures are ancestors that became lost in the rainforests and turned themselves into lemurs in order to survive.
However, Dr Jones said that although people did not prefer to eat bushmeat, it was often the only meat available.
"If they want meat to eat, there is very poor availability of domestic meat in these rural areas," she told BBC News.
"Chickens suffer terribly from disease in rainforest areas, so do not survive that well - so there is not much protein from domestic animals around."
Dr Jones explained that the influx of people, attracted by job opportunities at the mines, had led to an increase in demand for meat and because people had wages from the mines, small bars that sold bushmeat were opening.
'Shocking' figures
The survey of 1,154 households showed that the majority of meals eaten over a three-day period did not contain any meat at all.
Among the meals that did contain meat, the preference was for fish or domestic animals rather than bushmeat.
Just under 10% of meals consisted of wild-caught animals, and just 0.5% contained meat from protected species.
However, when respondents were asked if they had ever eaten a protected species, 95% said that they had.
And when the team monitored villages to see how much bushmeat was being brought in, they recorded 233 carcasses of Endangered indri, the largest species of lemur.
Dr Jones called the figures "shocking", adding that this level of hunting was a major concern for conservation efforts.
"Even if things are being eaten very rarely, if they are very slow-reproducing animals that can be having a huge impact," she said.
"Species like the indri, for example, mature at seven to nine years and then only have one young once every two or three years.
"Primates, in general, are known to be extremely vulnerable to overexploitation."
Christopher Golden, from the Harvard Center for the Environment, US, said the island nation had a rich natural heritage.
"If you look at the mammals especially, which are the main group of animals affected by the bushmeat trade, all the primates - 100% of them - are unique to the island.
Such was the nation's biodiversity, he said, new species were being found all the time.
"I first came to Madagascar in 1990 and there were 34 known species of primates. Now, there are over 100 identified primate species."
However, Dr Golden - who was not involved in the study - added: "We know from our previous studies show hunting is not sustainable in the long run here."
Dr Jones said improving the availability of alternative meat sources would be one way to overcome the lack of non-bushmeat supplies.
"The fact that people are not eating lemurs as a delicacy means that it is easier to reduce demand through substitutes, such as chickens."
However, she added, this would have to be supported by other projects, including improved veterinary vaccination programmes in order to ensure poultry or livestock did not get wiped out by viruses.
She also said improving the enforcement of existing wildlife laws could also play a role.
"It may not seem to be the most pressing issue facing the country, but wildlife is such an important source of income for Madagascar that tackling this issue should be a priority," Dr Jones observed.
"If the indri and other lemurs disappear from the forests then you are going to get fewer tourists and much less international interest.
"It would be a really positive step and would be worth some investment from the government, given the importance of wildlife to Madagascar's economy."
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