Flood risk rampant across Asia's factory zones

David Fogarty and Clare Baldwin Reuters 22 Jul 12;
* Industrial parks still being built in Asia flood zones
* Extreme flood risk in China worries Swiss Re
* China flood insurance sold as part of property package, without claims limit
* Competition pushing down China property insurance rates - broker

BANGKOK/HONG KONG July 23 (Reuters) - Global insurance companies are struggling to get a grip on their flood exposure in Asia nearly a year after one of the world's costliest disasters hit Thailand, with ex e cutives fearing an even worse event looms in the region.

Some firms learnt from the Thai floods, with new defences built to protect multi-billion dollar industrial estates in the country. Insurance premiums have also gone up, but factory construction in flood-prone areas remains rampant across Asia.

Insurance executives say the industry is vulnerable to another major flood, with scientists identifying the coastal plains of southern China as one area at greatest risk.

"When I go and look at these industrial parks and ports in some of the low-lying coastal areas, I just have to stand back and think: Who's insuring these things? Who's done the risk assessment?" said Adam Switzer, a coastal scientist at the Earth Observatory in Singapore.

"What I consistently see on the coasts throughout Asia is that we're still making the same sorts of mistakes."

The Thai floods hit nearly 1,000 factories feeding global supply chains - particularly in the auto sector - costing insurers an estimated $20 billion.

In the rush for development that has lifted millions out of poverty in Asia, many factories have been built along coasts, especially in river deltas. According to insurance industry executives, most construction was done without long-term historical data on floods and storms.

On top of that, rising sea levels, increasing rainfall and more intense s torms - together with more people and infrastructure - mean the risks have multiplied.

"We should be identifying these pockets of exposure earlier," said Scott Ryrie, Asia-Pacific vice chairman for Guy Carpenter, a global insurance industry services firm.

The goal, insurance executives say, is to break the cycle of paying for the same losses over and over again.

After the Thai floods, global reinsurer Swiss Re reassessed flood risk in emerging markets. The report's No. 1 risk was China, whose vast industrial estates are at the heart of global manufacturing, making everything from iPads to brake pads.

Among other Asian countries listed, Malaysia was 5, Indonesia 7 and India 10. Thailand was ninth.

Munich Re and Guy Carpenter have also reviewed flood risk models, particularly for industrial parks in Asia.

"A new risk awareness has to set in along the entire value chain," said Tobias Farny, Munich Re's Asia-Pacific chief executive. "The exposures present need to be defined, described and ring-fenced in order to become insurable."

Ryrie said insurers in many countries have contained risks by imposing tighter payout limits and pushing for better historical data to improve risk models.

WHERE NEXT?

At an industrial estate on the flat plains north of Bangkok, where Japan's Toshiba makes lighting and home appliances, workers rush to finish a 9.5-km (6-mile) concrete and earth dike that is 1.5 metres (5 ft) higher than the old one.

Behind them, a brown stain runs along the factory buildings where floodwaters lingered for two months, knocking out major foreign-owned manufacturing operations and triggering a flurry of business interruption claims around the world.

Many in the insurance sector agree that an even bigger loss is likely i n China, the motor of global manufacturing, where large areas of factory estates are vulnerable to flooding and storms.

Fierce competition among Chinese insurers, low premium prices and a lack of long-term disaster risk assessment mean insurance companies are potentially exposed to big losses.

"If we have a really extreme event in China, I am quite certain there would be some surprises for the insurance industry," said Jens Mehlhorn, head of Swiss Re's flood group. "The flooding we see currently in China is just average flooding. We haven't seen a 50- or 100-year flood event in the past 5 to 10 years."

The Pearl River Delta is one of China's biggest industrial zones. The western side of the delta, constructed on sediment-filled fish ponds and rice paddies, is flat for up to 100 km (60 miles) inland, and 40 percent is less than 2 metres (6.5 ft) above sea level.

The government has not published detailed maps showing China's most critical flood zones.

Meanwhile, competition in one of the world's biggest insurance markets has driven the cost of property cover 20 to 30 percent below what it is in other Asian markets, said Alex Yip, China chairman and general manager of insurance broker and corporate advisor JLT Lixin.

Price competition last year was so brutal that China's No. 2 insurer by market capitalisation, Ping An , recorded a nearly 200 million yuan ($31 million) loss on its corporate property and casualty underwriting, despite no major flood loss claims.

Ping An said in an email it cares more about the big picture than the profitability of individual policies. In 2011, Ping An's property and casualty division overall made a net profit of just under 5 billion yuan ($785 million).

Flood insurance in China is typically sold as part of a general property policy and does not have an upper claims limit, industry experts said. Rapid development and high levels of foreign investment mean the amount insurers are on the hook for in the next major flood has gone up.

"For floods and for earthquakes, to be honest, for international standards, the price is inadequate," said Zhang Qing, the Beijing-based general manager for State-owned PICC Property & Casualty Co's reinsurance business.

A recent study by Texas A&M University and Yale University shows the amount of developed land in low-elevation coastal areas in China is skyrocketing. In 2000, 13,500 sq km (5,200 sq miles) of low-elevation coastal land had been built up. By 2030, that is set to nearly quintuple to 63,600 sq km (24,500 sq m), an area nearly as large as the Netherlands and Belgium combined.

Another study, in the journal Irrigation and Drainage in 2010, said one third of China's farmland, two-thirds of its people, more than 60 percent of its cities and 80 percent of its GDP were threatened by floods.

Maryam Golnaraghi, chief of the World Meteorological Organization's disaster risk reduction division, said Chinese data is often not detailed enough to be useful - and that some government agencies feel information on water flows is too sensitive to share.

LESSONS LEARNED

Thailand is Asia's most developed auto parts market and a hub for the likes of Toyota, Honda and Mercedes-Benz, making cars and car parts the country's No. 1 export this year. The floods disrupted more than 100 components makers.

Over the past year, property insurance rates in Thailand have doubled or tripled and flood cover greatly reduced or even refused in some cases, said Jiraphant Asvantanakul, president of The General Insurance Association of Thailand.

Manufacturers such as Toshiba are moving machinery to the second storey, setting up sister operations in other countries and finding back-up warehouses and suppliers, though the bulk of operations remain in Thailand.

"I think the factories will stick with Thailand because the supply chain network is still very strong ... it is not that easy to move," said Kobkarn Watanavarangkul, executive chairwoman of Toshiba's Thai unit.

Toshiba's factories are in the Bangkadi industrial estate, one of seven parks built on former rice paddies on floodplains north of Bangkok that were inundated last year, affecting companies such as Sony, Canon and Honda.

Close to where workers were toiling to build new flood defences to protect the complex was a bronze statue of an elderly couple standing on sandbags.

They are the estate's founders and the statue commemorates a flood in 1995 in which 1 million sandbags were used to fend off high waters, a reminder that this is not the first time the estate has been threatened.

Insurers and reinsurers are also worried about dense concentrations of factories in other parts of Asia, particularly in and around the Indonesian capital Jakarta, where floods in 2005 and 2007 hit large areas.

The low-lying coastal city has 13 rivers flowing through it, is subsiding in parts and faces rising sea levels. It is the nation's manufacturing base with U.S., European and Japanese firms operating factories.

In Cikarang, east of Jakarta, five industrial estates with more than 3,000 plants employ over 1 million people.

Farny of Munich Re said natural catastrophe awareness was growing only slowly among insured firms and governments.

"But it is growing," he said. ($1 = 6.3735 Chinese yuan) (Additional reporting by Khettiya Jittapong and Orathai Sriring in BANGKOK, Tian Chen in HONG KONG, Andjarsari Paramaditha in JAKARTA, Chang-Ran Kim, Yoko Kubota and Taiga Uranaka in TOKYO, Kevin Lim in SINGAPORE and Norihiko Shirouzu in BEIJING; Editing by Michael Flaherty and Alex Richardson)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 22 Jul 12

High five on Terumbu Pempang Tengah
from wild shores of singapore

Life History of the Bifid Plushblue
from Butterflies of Singapore

Finally! Decent shots
from Life's Indulgences

Mangrove Boardwalk Tour at Pasir Ris, 23rd June 2012 a great success! from Mangrove Action Squad

Read more!

Mourning the loss of the rural soul

Linda Collins Straits Times 22 Jul 12;

I staggered from the time-travel capsule known as an airplane into the self-contained city known as Changi Airport into a bubble on wheels called a taxi.

It whisked me along the highway past a sea-city of container ships on one side and a shimmering city of office towers and hotels on the other. The highway of this super city unfurled seamlessly like a ribbon of welcome. (It was after rush hour).

Newly returned from the boondocks of a remote rural area of New Zealand, I was a slack-jawed yokel, craning my neck this way and that as the bubble/taxi sped along.

I marvelled at downtown Singapore's utopian reality of shiny homages to mammon and pleasure. I marvelled at the people toiling diligently in their offices, so close to me as I passed them, above it all on the unfurling ribbon of welcome.

And I recoiled from who I was at that moment - an outsider from farmsville, easily impressed by Bright Lights, Big City.

This person was a slacker self, an open-faced, chatty, easy-going self, useless for life in the fast-paced metropolis, a self to be sloughed off once I was not above it all but in the fray and earning a buck.

But that was the future. For this bubble moment, I was seeing Singapore through the eyes of a hickster, not a hipster.

By the year 2050, tens of millions of other people will have experienced such a bubble moment, of a rural self suspended at the moment before that self must change and adapt to survive.

It is estimated that by then, 70 per cent of the world's population will live in cities. Already, 60 million people worldwide move into cities each year in search of jobs.

The figures of rapid urbanisation and massive migration emerged at the recent World Cities Summit held in - where else? - that city where the future has arrived, Singapore. In fact, in the three-day summit, Singapore was named the Asian city best prepared for the future by a magazine published by Britain's Financial Times Ltd.

Experts discussed issues such as infrastructure, water and environmental matters.

But what of that intangible thing - the loss of the rural soul? It is a soul of ancient seasonal rhythms, that puts the being into human. It seems there is no place for it now.

No wonder I felt a stranger in a place that has given me a job and a home for well over a decade.

I was in a fug of dislocation. Some might say, what do you expect, after being in a backwater with 31 million sheep? Singapore's founding father Lee Kuan Yew says of New Zealand in the book Hard Truths: 'I think it's not an exciting, happening economy. Yes, they grow the world's best grasses, good for horses and cows and sheep. But a dull life.'

It was a dullness without stress, however. A dullness where life's simplicity was not an inferior way of being, but gave the chance to enjoy nature and one's fellow man.

The South Island farming village where I stayed (population: 443) certainly lacked infrastructure - the wooden bridge to access it was built in 1896; there is only one shop.

In winter, when I visited, life revolved around fire and food, in an elemental survivalist way.

The main task of the day was lighting a fire in our woodburner stove and feeding the flames to keep warm. It involved sorting wet wood from dry wood, of kindling sticks from logs, of sparky pine from solid-burning cedar. Of the precise way to rip a newspaper to best generate flame to start the fire.

Then, there was visiting a blood- splattered chamber of horrors to choose the parts of a beast that a few days ago was munching grass in a nearby field. Answering the butcher's charmingly unhurried inquiries took another hour.

At first, this activity was a novelty, punctuated by the relief of darting to a laptop or smartphone.

But as the days passed, the pared-down life took over. I weaned myself off the addiction of the status update. The winter-shortened days of rural existence exerted their own rhythms of connection. I awoke at daybreak to crowing roosters and a paralysing cold that defied double-glazed windows.

Night came swiftly. At 5pm, I would huddle on the balcony and watch wild ducks slip across the sky under the cover of the dying light.

But here I am now, back in the city, needing to earn money to pay for two weeks of rural escape. I'll don the face of the 21st century city dweller in a keyboard-fixated hurry, and re-enter Singapore's happening economy alongside the five million others competing for a slice of the pie. And feel a little less of a human being, in the process.

Read more!

Malaysia: Sabah protection for sharks hailed

Avila Geraldine New Straits Times 22 Jul 12;

WIN-WIN: Positive outcome for all parties concerned

KOTA KINABALU: A HOLISTIC approach must be taken to protect sharks, whose population in Sabah has dropped significantly in the last 20 years, a forum was told.

Local residents and fishermen said fish stock had also declined.

They voiced their concerns at an open forum on shark fishing and conservation held in Semporna last Sunday.

The forum was attended by representatives from the Federal Government, Fisheries Department, District Office, tourism stakeholders, restaurants associations, shark experts, fisheries association and the local fishing community.

Dr James Alin of the School of Business and Economics at University Malaysia Sabah said sharks brought in RM192.5 million a year to Sabah against RM5 million from the import and export of sharks.

He said a holistic approach such as the Semporna Shark Sanctuary proposed by Borneo Conservancy was needed as it would encourage collaborative management among the community and stakeholders to ensure the co-existence of various stakeholders and marine life.

A statement by the Borneo Conservancy said the establishment of a shark sanctuary would create a "win-win" solution and positive outcome for all.

Its director, Daniel Doughty, stressed that the shark sanctuary would provide green job opportunities for the local community as well as a partnership with the local university, government departments and stakeholders in its implementation.

"The shark sanctuary will be the first in Southeast Asia and will demonstrate areas where sharks can thrive and be protected, so the marine ecosytem can be restored.

"A partnership with the dive industry will enable a robust sustainable financing mechanism to be created, hence encourage ownership and sustainable funding to manage, protect and achieve such vision."

During the forum in Semporna, Doughty presented the government with a petition booklet that had over 38,000 signatures of support from non-governmental organisations, tourists, and government ministers around the world.

Read more!

Malaysia: Entangled reef shark dies in marine park

Koi Kye Lee New Straits Times 22 Jul 12;

PUTRAJAYA: A BLACKTIP reef shark which was found dead, entangled in a fishing net at a marine park in Terengganu, has irked divers and environmentalists.

The 1.2m-long adult shark was trapped in a fisherman's net at the Black Coral Garden diving site, off Pulau Lima, Redang.

A diver, who only wanted to be known as T.C. Lim, said he came across the disturbing sight while diving on Friday.

"It is the desire of all divers to see sharks on a dive, but that particular experience was definitely one to forget.

"More importantly, how can there be commercial fishing going on at a marine park?

"This is rather widespread as we have seen evidence of nets underwater at several other diving sites, too," he told the New Sunday Times yesterday.

Lim said, as a result of the nets, many large pelagic fish were now either fewer or missing.

"I have been diving in Redang since 2001, and I no longer see fish such as the barramundi, cods, giant groupers, large snappers and rays.

"Fishing boats are also often sighted and this shows that there is a lack of enforcement by the ministry and marine parks unit."

It is important, said Lim, for all the main stakeholders -- especially the tourism and environment and natural resources ministries, marine parks units and resort operators -- to ensure that there was effective enforcement.

Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) communications head Andrew Sebastian said the society was concerned with the discovery of the netting within the country's marine parks.

"MNS is calling on all the relevant authorities, especially the Fisheries Department and marine parks unit, to take immediate action to monitor and enforce the protection of our marine parks.

"If the agencies in question do not have the capacity and resources to undertake this exercise, we call upon the Federal Government to provide assistance immediately."

Sebastian added that local resort operators and stakeholders on all marine park islands should cooperate and collaborate with the authorities and media to submit or provide information and be vigilant on all illegal activities carried out within the marine parks.

A blacktip reef shark can grow to a maximum length of about 1.8m.

Such sharks are shy creatures. They prefer to avoid humans and are not considered dangerous as they feed on small fish.

Read more!

Indonesia: Can Heavily Deforested Sebangau National Park Be Saved?

Liberty Jemadu Jakarta Globe 21 Jul 12;

Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan. Rosdy Abaza is under no illusions about the task before him as the person in charge of restoring the sprawling Sebangau National Park in Central Kalimantan to pristine condition.

“We’re attempting to restore a forest that has been comprehensively destroyed, so you could say this is a mission impossible,” he tells the Jakarta Globe at one of the observation posts scattered across the 568,700-hectare park.

The park, between the Katingan and Kahayan rivers, was only formally established in 2004. Between 1980 and 1995, it was the site of 13 massive logging concessions that left the formerly dense and pristine peat forest stripped bare and dried out.

In the unregulated years between being a logging forest and a national park, the Sebangau area was the target of massive illegal logging that was estimated to have cleared some 66,000 hectares of forest.

Rosdy says the park area previously covered by peat swamp — a meters-deep layer of hundreds of years’ worth of decaying vegetation — makes up 85 percent of the total area, and to restore it back to its pre-logged state would take another several centuries.

One of the first things the loggers did when they came in was to carve out a network of more than 1,000 canals, two to four meters wide, to drain the peat swamp to make it easy to transport the logs downstream. That left the exposed peat layer, in some places up to 12 meters deep, highly vulnerable to forest fires.

Also to blame was the government’s misguided Mega Rice Project of 1996, a scheme to clear-cut the centuries-old peat forests in Kalimantan, drain the soil and set up a million hectares of rice paddies.

Part of the land for the MRP was a wide swath between the Sebangau and Kahayan rivers. When the MRP was abandoned, there was no attempt to restore the peat forest and the affected area on the eastern third of the Sebangau National Park remains severely degraded.

The key to restoring the condition of the peat forest is to get the water back into the ground, which Rosdy acknowledges is a daunting task.

The park management’s two main conservation programs deal with blocking the former logging canals and reforesting the denuded land. The success of the latter is contingent on that of the former, but the canal-blocking program has stumbled on funding issues.

Of the 428 dams built since the start of 2011 to block up the canals, only one was funded by the park. The rest were funded by the World Wide Fund for Nature.

“Ideally we should be building 100 dams a year,” Rosdy says, adding that the cost for each dam is about Rp 80 million ($8,500).

Like the canal-blocking program, the reforestation program has also been slow to take off.

Just 4,868 hectares — less than 1 percent of Sebangau’s total area — have been reforested. Of that figure, less than half was funded by the state, with the rest coming from conservation groups and corporate social responsibility programs.

But against the overwhelming odds, Rosdy says there is reason to be hopeful about the future of the park.

Thanks to the damming program, the water level in the peat layer in some areas has begun rising since 2005, leading to the return of native tree species, including the critically endangered red balau, the hardwood jelutong and the softwood pulai.

The recovering water levels have also meant less frequent forest fires. “We haven’t had any major forest fires in this area since 2009,” Rosdy says.

As the forest slowly recovers, there is also hope for the survival of the various wildlife species native to the area. These include Bornean orangutans, proboscis monkeys and Bornean gibbons, all of which are endangered species.

Sebangau is home to an estimated 6,000 orangutans, the largest wild population of the ape anywhere in the world.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 20 Jul 12

What a Good Outing to USR !
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

Common Tailorbird Gathering Nesting Material
from G33k5p34k's Blog

Scarlet-backed Flowerpecker feeding on Myrmecodia fruits
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Read more!

Indonesia: Activists Urge a Boycott of Circus Shows That Use Dolphins

Nandra Galang Anissa Jakarta Globe 20 Jul 12;

After urging Garuda Indonesia to rethink its transport of dolphins for traveling circuses, activists from the Jakarta Animal Aid Network are calling on other companies to end their support for circuses.

“We strongly urge companies such as Hero [supermarkets] to no longer provide their parking lot for the traveling shows,” Coki, the guitarist with the band Netral, said in a petition released on Thursday on behalf of the JAAN.

The petition had received more than 470 signatures as of Thursday evening.

Coki said he was moved to join the movement after witnessing the condition of the dolphins.

“They were in containers that exactly fit the width of their body, and rubbed with Vaseline to keep them moist,” he said.

Pramudya Hazani from JAAN said that the circus performances put the animals’ health at risk. After enduring stress from the long hours in cramped containers and then being placed into heavily-chlorinated pools, the dolphins have to put on at least five shows a night.

“Sometimes they run until 9 or 11 o’clock in the evening,” Pramudya said.

“These dolphins are treated as a cash machine to cover this circus’s costs.”

Other companies urged to pull their support for the circuses are supermarket chains LotteMart and Carrefour, as well as bottled tea producer Sosro.

Carrefour has already responded.

“From now on, we will not lease the parking lots of our stores to these circuses,” said Joko Arif, Carrefour’s sustainable-development manager.

Coki welcomed the statement, saying “We really hope other corporations will follow Carrefour’s steps.”

Garuda, which until recently transported dolphins, was threatened with a boycott and said it would review its policy on transporting live animals.

Read more!

Malaysia: WWF to help Kedah govt gazette state park

Elan Perumal The Star 21 Jul 12;

PETALING JAYA: WWF Malaysia is working closely with the Kedah Government to gazette parts of the Pedu forest reserve as a state park.

An official said no logging activities would be allowed in the area once it was gazetted as a state park.

The state government, she said, had expressed interest to gazette parts of the Pedu forest reserve and the Ulu Muda forest reserve as state parks.

“We are working with the state government to protect the Greater Ulu Muda forest,” she said.

The official said once an area was gazetted as a state park, the forest within it would be managed mainly for the purpose of biodiversity conservation and recreational activities.

“No logging would be allowed in a state park,” she added.

The Star had on Tuesday reported on logging activities being carried out at the Pedu forest reserve and Gunung Inas in Kedah, supposedly to clear the land for the state’s Ladang Rakyat rubber plantation scheme.

The official explained that an area gazetted as a permanent forest reserve (PFR) could either be categorised as a production forest or a protected forest.

“A production forest may be selectively logged according to sustainable forest management guidelines while protected forests cannot be logged.

“If the state decides to do so, the PFR status must be degazetted or reclassified,” she added.

She said degazetted PFRs would normally be clear-felled and converted to other land use such as agriculture.

“Unfortunately, the National Forestry Policy and the National Forestry Act 1984 do not prohibit the clearing of natural forests within PRFs for the establishment of plantation,” she said.

She said the classification of a forest or an area as a high conservation value forest (HCVF) also did not protect it against logging.

“The classification is only meant to encourage better forest management to promote the conservation of important, unique or endangered flora, fauna and ecosystem which the area hosts.

“However, only 2ha of the 15,299ha Pedu forest reserve has been identified as HCVF,” she said.

Kedah given deadline to correct weaknesses in Ladang Rakyat project
Embun Majid The Star 21 Jul 12;

ALOR SETAR: The Kedah state government has been given three months to correct weaknesses in the Ladang Rakyat project which involved the felling of timber at Gunung Inas forest reserve.

Kedah Mentri Besar Incorporated (PMBKed) chief executive officer Datuk Shahbudin Shafie said the agency has received a letter from the Forestry Department stating that the logging activities had been halted.

“We were told to correct any weaknesses in the Ladang Rakyat project. We have met with the Department of Environment and have prepared a report on the project,” he said when contacted yesterday.

PMBKed is an agency with the Mentri Besar’s office and has been tasked to carry out the project.

Yesterday, The Star reported that logging activities for Kedah’s Ladang Rakyat rubber plantation scheme at the Gunung Inas forest reserve near Baling has stopped and that no more felling of trees would be allowed until a detailed environmental impact assessment (EIA) was submitted.

Shahbudin said he had taken officers from the Kedah DOE to visit the project.

“During the visit we showed them the area where we planted the rubber trees and rivers allegedly polluted by the project,” he said.

Shahbudin stressed that the project did not pollute rivers in the area as claimed.

He said the Ladang Rakyat project was carried out on 400ha land, below the requirement for an EIA report which is compulsory for projects of more than 500ha.

“PMBKed only handles the Ladang Rakyat project and not the logging activity. So we prepared the EIA based on the project,” he said.

Kedah Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Azizan Abdul Razak when contacted declined to elaborate on the issue.

He reiterated that logging projects in Gunung Inas was being carried out according to rules and regulations.

Read more!

Indonesia: Sulawesi Biodiversity Haven Yields Up New Species

Hayat Indriyatno Jakarta Globe 20 Jul 12;

Meet Margaretamys christinae. Like her three sisters, she lives in the wilds of Sulawesi, but is distinguishable by her home high in the Mekongga mountains, her smaller build and her white-tipped tail.

While she may be a rat, she is not just any rodent. She is one of the newest species to be discovered in Indonesia, and the latest in the biodiversity haven of the Mekongga region in Southeast Sulawesi.

The discovery of M. christinae, the fourth species in the genus Margaretamys, all of which are endemic to Sulawesi, has “important zoogeographical and conservation implications,” says Dr. Alessio Mortelliti, the Sapienza University of Rome researcher who found her during an expedition from December 2010 to March 2011.

“Mine was one of the few mammalogical expeditions in the Mekongga mountains since 1932,” he told the Jakarta Globe in an e-mail.

The expedition, funded by the Mohamed bin Zayed Species Conservation Fund, was mounted to gather data on species first described 80 years ago by German explorer Gerd Heinrich. Although not all the species being sought were sighted, Mortelliti did manage to find the new rat species at an altitude of 1,537 meters.

He says there are several differences between M. christinae and the three previously known Margaretamys species — M. beccarii, M. elegans and M. parvus.

“The final segment of the tail is white, it differs [in terms of] several craniometrical and dental characteristics, [and has a] small body size,” he says.

And as for the name? “The species is dedicated to Christina, my girlfriend, who shared with me the experience of the Sulawesi expedition,” Mortelliti says.

His paper on the discovery will be published in the upcoming volume of the peer-reviewed journal “Tropical Zoology.”

Mortelliti notes that the discovery of a new mammal species is very uncommon.

“Scientists estimate that something like eight to 10 million species are yet to be discovered,” he says. “Even if the discovery of invertebrates is a relatively frequent event … the discovery of a new mammal species is quite a rare event.”

Still, he believes the Mekongga mountains could hold even more surprises.

“I strongly believe that it is very likely that several other undiscovered species may be present in the area, including other Margaretamys species,” he says.

“These are all forest species, so are threatened by habitat loss and fragmentation. The Mekongga mountain range is threatened by logging and by expansion of cocoa plantations. The establishment of a protected area will surely help to conserve these rare endemic species,” he adds.

During his expedition, Mortelliti was also able to confirm the existence of Prosciurillus abstrusus, aptly known as the secretive dwarf squirrel and one of the many species endemic to the Mekongga region.

He also found a specimen of Maxomys dollmani, or Dollman’s spiny rat, one of the four rodent species that the expedition had initially set out to study.

“The other three species may either have been undetected or could be extinct. Further research is mandatory,” he says.

M. christinae is the latest new species to be discovered in the Mekongga area. In March, US and Indonesian scientists published a paper describing a massive new wasp species named Megalara garuda.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 20 Jul 12

How are Sentosa's seagrasses doing?
from wild shores of singapore

Learning about Australia's marine biodiversity at the first Wallace Lecture from wild shores of singapore

Brown-throated Sunbird feeding in the evening
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Read more!

Public engagement to save Pasir Ris green belt

From Jeremy Ang Today Online 20 Jul 12;

I refer to the reports "Save our green lung, say Pasir Ris residents" (July 9) and "How to give residents a bigger say" (July 14).

As highlighted in the latter, I, too, believe that Singaporeans would like to be engaged in the planning developments that affect their estate.

With the recent plans to raze a lush woodland in Pasir Ris - a sanctuary for many scarce bird species - it is timely if the relevant authorities were to gain the confidence of nature lovers and residents by involving them in the plans and seeking their buy-in.

Regardless of the outcome, it would be a robust, thought-out process that takes the people's voice into consideration.

On this note, I applaud Pasir Ris Town Council for its dialogue session on preserving our green, to be held Aug 5, in line with the recent Saving Gaia campaign for generating green awareness.

How to give residents a bigger say
Forget NIMBYism, time for a consultation SOP when development plans affect estates
Tan Weizhen Today Online 14 Jul 12;

SINGAPORE - As Singaporeans increasingly demand to be heard on planning developments that affect their neighbourhoods and estates, it may be time to formalise channels - like setting up local planning councils or holding public hearings - that will give residents more say in such municipal-level affairs.

Members of Parliament (MPs), political analysts and sociologists told TODAY that they see an urgent need to regularise the rules of engagement, following a slew of petitions by groups in the past year against (or for) various developments in their estates.

Those that have made headlines include groups rallying over proposed eldercare centres; apartment residents unhappy with MRT construction works; households upset with a condominium developer's positioning of the refuse bin centre; and a Pasir Ris group seeking to save a forest belt.

HEARINGS AND TOWN HALLS

In the United States, for instance, there are local councils that engage in consultation with the authorities on new developments that could impact the town or neighbourhood.

Joo Chiat MP Charles Chong is all for moving towards a system of public hearings, where the authorities seek the views of residents and other stakeholders on major municipal issues or key legislation. Experts and interest groups may also be brought in.

"Over there (in the US), they have all sorts of consultations, even if it is to build a church or mosque in the area.

"In Singapore, the Government should consult on issues as long as it is not about national survival. For instance, the building of facilities that will affect the district," said Mr Chong.

Explaining why this is important as citizens get louder, he said: "Not everyone will get their way but at least the process is there and it is transparent. For now, it appears like it is everyone against the Government, who appear to be forcing changes upon the people.

"But with a system like in the US, everyone has their say and it is less emotive, with more facts and figures to support various points of view."

Such dialogue, as a start, could take the form of regular town-hall meetings, suggested Mr Chong, whose own Joo Chiat residents have been a textbook case of activism. (Efforts of the Save Joo Chiat Work Group in 2004 to combat sleaze in their district and promote its Peranakan heritage led to a freeze in new licences for pubs and KTV lounges in the area. Today, the area is known for trendy eateries and furniture shops.)

NO ONE-SIZE-FITS-ALL

Others feel that Singapore is not ready for local planning councils. Several, like Sembawang GRC MP Ellen Lee and grassroots leader David Sim, 47, are more for expanding the role of Residents' Committees - which promote neighbourliness, racial harmony and community bonding - to include a consultative role on estate developments.

They pointed out that RC members typically have experience and knowledge of the ground, and they know other residents well and seek out their views. Town councils, on the other hand, deal mainly with implementation and are not suited for a consultative role, the MPs felt.

"We can't have a one-size-fits-all approach when it comes to public consultation. But a formal process should be started if more negative reactions for a particular project are anticipated," said Tanjong Pagar GRC MP Indranee Rajah, who has been liaising with a group of Emerald Hill residents who have petitioned against an upcoming condominium development's construction of a rubbish-collection access gate on Saunders Road.

Nominated MP and Assistant Professor of Law Eugene Tan thinks the manner of consultation with residents should evolve; guidelines can be tweaked with each new situation that arises, until a set of protocols coalesces over time.

But the need for engagement is urgent, he feels. "Sometimes gathering feedback on the ground will enable the Government to make even better policies," he said. "An agency may know what is needed at the national level but, in terms of implementing it, that is where intimate local knowledge becomes important."

IS AN ISSUE BIG ENOUGH?

That does not mean that every minor decision or change in estate affairs should be put up for discussion.

Ms Lee, who dealt with a petition from residents against the building of an eldercare centre on Woodlands St 83, thinks formal consultation should be set in motion only for larger developments that affect many.

"Projects could be derailed and the whole process becomes tedious and prolonged if residents are to be consulted for everything," said Ms Lee, echoing a common view.

Bishan-Toa Payoh GRC MP Hri Kumar said MPs should decide what is major enough. He is carrying out a couple of simple consultation exercises: Sending out letters before building a park in the Shunfu area and gathering feedback before allowing a REACH family service centre to set up an office at a void deck.

WOULD RESIDENTS CARE?

Emerald Hill resident and petition-leader Tan Tiang Yeow says that whether he would be willing to sit on a neighbourhood council would depend on how effective it is.

"We can give feedback 24 hours a day but what does it register as - a complaint, or something taken into account that will effect a rethink?"

Mr Tan, 46, said that there is sometimes a "disconnect" between how residents and the authorities see an issue.

To address this, he suggested that every neighbourhood could have a website detailing plans for any future development, repair work or upgrading and an explanation of how land-use decisions are made, as well as channels to foster discussion.

Regulations could also be put in place to make it necessary for developers or the authorities to inform residents before a decision is made, as well as a time-frame for it to be done in.

Clementi resident Lester Yeong said he would be happy to sit on a residents' council and represent his community's views on town planning and development.

The lab manager, 35, who backed the case of a group of Clementi Ave 4 residents who were farming illegally on State land, said: "It's my community and my responsibility for the well-being of the area I live in."

Asst Prof Tan believes that this is the crux of the issue facing Singapore - that resident activism should not be equated with NIMBYism (not in my backyard).

"You short-circuit the whole dialogue process if the Government is convinced it is just a NIMBY issue. They are not going to be interested in feedback," he said.

Read more!