Asian nations 'face greatest natural disaster risk'

Mark Kinver BBC News 15 Aug 12;

Emerging economies in Asia, including India and the Philippines, face the greatest financial risk from natural disasters, an analysis suggests.

The authors based their rankings on nations' economic activity and exposure to natural hazards, such as floods, droughts, earthquakes and cyclones.

The nations' limited ability to recover from disasters left them exposed to severe disruption, they added.

Risk analysis firm Maplecroft compiled the Natural Hazards Risk Atlas.

Last year was deemed to be the most costly 12 months on record for natural disasters, costing US $380bn (£242bn).

The main reason for the spike was the earthquake and tsunami that struck Japan in March 2011, which was estimated to have cost US$210bn.

'Heavily exposed'

The authors said that the world's key growth economies were among those most exposed to risks related to natural hazards.

"China, Mexico, India, Philippines, South Korea, Indonesia, Turkey, Bangladesh and Iran are each heavily exposed to major destructive natural hazards, such as earthquakes, flooding and tropical cyclones," they wrote.

"Businesses operating in, investing in or sourcing from emerging economies are therefore particularly exposed... and need to build their resilience to mitigate the disruption and impact of an event."

Lead author Helen Hodge, an associate director at Maplecroft, said Asian economies - particularly those located in the south-east of the continent - faced a variety of potentially devastating hazards.

"The Pacific Ring of Fire is a belt of seismic risk that draws in Indonesia, Philippines, Japan and Taiwan etc," she told BBC News.

"So that exposes these nations to seismic risk, and high risk from earthquakes, but also - as we saw in Japan - the secondary risk of tsunamis.

"This combined with the hydro-meteorological risks. For example, along the Mekong Delta, we do see very high flood risks.

"There are the drought risks as well when we see Monsoons failing or arriving late.

"It is not really one risk in particular but it is the combination of multiple risks that are prominent in the areas."

Night lights

Ms Hodge explained that in order to create the atlas's maps and rankings, the authors assessed the underlying risk from 12 natural hazards and then compared this with economic output.

"In order to look at economic output, we use a technique where we look at night-time lights, and then distribute economic exposure according to night-time lights," she added.

"This is based on research that shows you tend to get concentrations of economic exposure coinciding with bright lights.

"We then used [Geographic Information System] techniques to effectively map the different data across each other, so where does the seismic risk lie? Where does the tropical cyclone risk lie?"

Although the report identified Japan, the US, China, Taiwan and Mexico as the nations having the highest economic exposure to natural hazards in absolute terms, the authors said the huge economies had the capacity to recover relatively quickly.

This was a result of a high degree of resilience, such as established infrastructure, disaster preparedness and tight building regulations.

"A way to explain how this might differ is by looking at somewhere like the US, where clearly down the west coast and alongside the east coast, you have got major concentrations of economic output hazards - earthquakes on the west, and hurricanes on the east," observed Ms Hodge.

"That alone is going to drive the US into high rankings for absolute economic exposure.

"However, if you look at that as the wider relative economic output - because there are concentrations of economic exposure in places like the mid-west that are not as heavily exposed to this risks - this has a balancing effect."

"[But] when you consider that the Haitian earthquake in 2010, if you look at the proportion of the Haitian economy that was exposed to that earthquake, some of the upper estimates was close to the nation's annual GDP."

Shanghai 'most vulnerable to flood risk'
Mark Kinver BBC News 21 Aug 12;

Shanghai is the most vulnerable major city in the world to serious flooding, a study suggests.

Despite its economic wealth, the Chinese city is considered to be more exposed to the risk of flooding than much poorer cities such as Dhaka.

As well as evaluating a city's physical attributes, the study also considers social and economic factors when rating an area's vulnerability.

Details of the research appear in the journal Natural Hazards.

A team of scientists from the UK and the Netherlands has developed a Coastal City Flood Vulnerability Index (CCFVI) based on exposure, susceptibility and resilience to coastal flooding.

Co-author Nigel Wright, from the University of Leeds' School of Civil Engineering, said that current methods tended to be two dimensional.

"Very often we look at these sorts of things in a very deterministic way," he explained.

"We look at physical exposure, so if you live by a river you are exposed to the risk of flooding."

Prof Wright said that the CCFVI used a range of data, consisting of 19 components.

"We still use the physical ones but also economic and social ones, such as how much attention is given by local or national governments to protect citizens and citizens' property through investing in various forms of resilience," he told BBC News.

These included the percentage of a city's population living close to the coastline; the amount of time needed for a city to recover from flooding; the amount of uncontrolled development along the coastline, as well as the volume of measures to physically prevent floodwater entering a city.
Same but different

"What this index tries to do is to widen this out and look at social indicators too," Prof Wright added.

"You can have people who live in the same area but their vulnerability is actually different.

"Age is one of those things; if you are over 65 or under 18 then you are more vulnerable than an adult because you are not able to take the actions necessary to protect yourself or evacuate."

He explained that past experiences played a role in a region's attitude towards the risk of flooding.

"Economies that are developing rapidly have not had to implement resilience in the past because there has not been the economic output to protect.

"At the other end of the scale, somewhere like the Netherlands, where there have been serious floods in the past that have had an impact so they know they need to do it."

While flooding has a local, physical impact, the economic consequences can be felt globally.

Prof Wright observed: "After the Japanese tsunami a lot of hard disk manufacturing was moved to Bangkok, then there were the floods in Bangkok and the price of hard disks went up dramatically because the factories had to close down and there was a shortage of hard disks."

The team's paper focused on nine coastal cities built on river deltas, including Shanghai, Dhaka (Bangladesh), Casablanca (Morocco), Buenos Aires (Argentina), Calcutta (India) and Rotterdam (the Netherlands).

Read more!

Melting of Greenland Ice Sheet Breaks 30-Year Record

Jeanna Bryner LiveScience.com Yahoo News 15 Aug 12;

On Aug. 8, the Greenland ice sheet shattered a seasonal record, with more cumulative melting since record-keeping began more than three decades ago, new research finds.

Greenland's melting season usually begins in June, when the first puddles of meltwater emerge, and lasts through early September, when temperatures begin to cool. This year, a full four weeks before the end of the melt season, the ice sheet had shed more water than the record reached during the full season in 2010.

"With more yet to come in August, this year's overall melting will fall way above the old records. That's a Goliath year — the greatest melt since satellite recording began in 1979," said study researcher Marco Tedesco, assistant professor of Earth and atmospheric sciences at The City College of New York.

To calculate Greenland ice-sheet melting, Tedesco and his colleagues used data collected by microwave satellite sensors, as part of the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program, across the Greenland ice sheet. [Giant Ice: Photos of Greenland's Glaciers]

The results showed extreme melting in nearly every region of Greenland, including the west, northwest and northeast. Particularly, melting occurred at high elevations, where, in most years, the snow and ice melt for a few days, at most. This year, that melting has already continued for two months, Tedesco found.

"Part of the meltwater will refreeze and part of the meltwater will run off to create streams and eventually take off into the sea and contribute to sea-level rise or the hydrological cycle," Tedesco told LiveScience during an interview.

The meltwater that puddles up on the surface of Greenland can also percolate through the snow and into the ice, lubricating that ice and possibly speeding its journey into the sea.

This meltwater record is different from one announced in mid-July, when NASA satellite images showed that over just a few days, nearly all of the veneer of surface ice atop Greenland's massive ice sheet had thawed, breaking a more than 30-year record.

Most of that ice, however, refroze rather than running off into the ocean or creating streams within or on top of the ice sheet, Tedesco said.

"The melting in terms of how much water was produced is relatively small," Tedesco said of the July event.

As for the cause of the new meltwater record, Tedesco points to warming temperatures. He added that scientists are looking into whether or not this warming is part of a larger pattern of global warming.

"We have to be careful because we are only talking about a couple of years and the history of Greenland happened over millennia," Tedesco noted in a statement.

He added to LiveScience, "It's no doubt that the warming of the Arctic and whatever is related to that is responsible at least for triggering the melting mechanism at the beginning of the season and providing enough gas to keep it going."

Tedesco is referring to a feedback that occurs when snow melts away, leaving bare ice, which is darker and absorbs more heat (called a high albedo) than the brighter snow.

Overall, southern Greenland is going through changes, with the ice sheet thinning at its edges and steams and lakes growing atop its glaciers.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 15 Aug 12

Angry about litter on our shores? Learn more, DO something!
from wild shores of singapore

The Serangoon stork
from Lazy Lizard's Tales

wbse re-fishing @ marina bay-Aug2012
from sgbeachbum

Read more!

Culling of Lower Peirce wild pigs 'necessary in the short term'

Neo Chai Chin Today Online 15 Aug 12;

SINGAPORE - Even as it recommended that the wild pig population at Lower Peirce needed to be "substantially reduced immediately", the Nature Society has suggested longer-term measures to minimise future culling.

These include fencing off the oil palm forest at the south-east section of the Lower Peirce forest to deny the pigs access to this food source, the removal of oil palm and a study to determine optimum wild pig populations for the Central Catchment Nature Reserve.

In the short term, culling is necessary to stop the forest from being denuded and to allow for regeneration.

It would also ensure sufficient resources for other wildlife such as mousedeer, stop native species like insects and the Malayan box terrapin from being preyed on by the pigs, and improve public safety, the society said in its position paper issued last week.

It identified a 0.3-sq-km area in the Lower Peirce forest - close to Upper Thomson Road - as being severely damaged by two families of between 30 and 40 wild pigs, with a new batch of 10 piglets observed last month.

This means a density of 266 pigs a sq km at the site or over seven times the density of Malaysia's Pasoh forest, where large wild pig populations adversely impact small animals and flora.

Sterilisation will not solve the problem of overpopulation, while erecting barriers to keep the pigs within the forest is impractical and would not address forest degeneration, the society said.

Translocation would only transfer the problem to another area.

The society is involved in a survey to determine if high wild pig densities are correlated to the presence of oil palm in the area.

As a conservation group, it is not qualified to recommend how culling should be carried out, it added.

Debate on the culling of wild pigs started in June, with animal welfare activists against it and the National Parks Board defending its decision.

On June 22, two wild boars wandered into the Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park and one attacked a security guard and a five-year-old boy.

Read more!

Malaysia: Netizens upset over photo of tourists posing with turtle

Isabelle Lai The Star 15 Aug 12;

PETALING JAYA: Netizens are upset over a photo of tourists posing with a turtle which was uploaded by wildlife conservation group Rimba.

The photo shows three people with their hands placed on the turtle’s shell while they pose in the water, allegedly in the Perhentian Islands.

A 34-second video of the incident was also uploaded.

Rimba, which describes itself as a “group of conservation biologists”, criticised their actions.

“Harassing a turtle for your own enjoyment is not eco-tourism, folks!,” it wrote.

The photo was shared over 120 times on Facebook.

Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) communications head Andrew Sebastian said they had lodged a report with the Marine Parks Department.

“This goes against all principles of eco-tourism and conservation. Wildlife should be observed and viewed from a distance,” he said, adding that the department had pro­mised to launch an investigation.

WWF-Malaysia said in a statement that the marine creature was a “distressed turtle being brought up to the surface, manhandled, restrained and rode upon for the snorkellers’ delight”.

Section 27 (1) of the Fisheries Act 1985, states that no person shall fish for, disturb, harass, catch or take any aquatic mammal or turtle which is found beyond the jurisdiction of any state in Malaysia.

It states that anyone who contravenes this is guilty of an offence and liable to a fine not exceeding RM5,000.

Turtle harassed by tourists at Perhentian Island
Evangeline Majawat New Straits Times 15 Aug 12;

KUALA LUMPUR: Conservationists are up in arms against a local tour operator whom they believed promoted irresponsible behavior towards marine life.

A series of holiday snapshots featuring a group of snorkellers harassing a green turtle was widely circulated on the social media late last night. The photographs were initially posted by Perhentian Setia Travel & Tours Sdn Bhd on their Facebook page but quickly taken down following massive outcry.

A 33-second clip of the video was also removed. The photographs and videos clearly showed the snorkellers touching, manhandling and riding the turtle. A young boy in white rash guard top is believed to be the guide.

Turtles along with other marine life are protected under the Fisheries Act which states that no fishing, disturbing, harassing or catching is allowed. Failure to comply could result in a penalty not exceeding RM5,000.

Green groups such as Malaysian Nature Society and World Wife Fund for Nature-Malaysia (WWF) have contacted the enforcement agencies to look into the incident.

[Video clip is posted on the New Straits Time article online]

Read more!

Haze in Malaysia and Indonesia

Haze shrouds Riau Islands, Sumatra as wildfires expand
Rizal Harahap and Apriadi Gunawan Jakarta Post 14 Aug 12;

Riau Islands province and its surrounding areas were shrouded in a haze that reportedly originated from fires in a number of plantations on Sumatra over the last few days.

The National Disaster Mitigation Agency (BNPB) on Monday opened a Haze Disaster Emergency Field Post at Sultan Syarif Kasim II Airport in Pekanbaru, Riau Islands, as haze in the province worsened.

The BNPB Emergency Response director Tri Budiarto said the post was focused on aerial fire fighting operations, adding that it was designed to help forest and peatland fire fighting operations in Jambi and South
Sumatra.

“A similar post has also been opened in Palangkaraya [Central Kalimantan] to cover Central Kalimantan and West Kalimantan, which are also prone to forest and peatland fires,” Tri told The Jakarta Post after the inauguration of haze disaster mitigation operations in
Pekanbaru.

The BNPB, together with the Applied Technology and Research Agency (BPPT), has also opened a Weather Modification Technology (TMC) command post in an effort to mitigate haze, forest and peatland fires.

“The cloud seeding operation with the BPPT will be conducted for 40 days from now. The cost to setting up the TMCs in Sumatra amount Rp 10 billion (US$1.1 million), derived from the state budget,” said Tri.

He acknowledged that haze mitigation posts were aimed at making the National Games (PON), held in Riau from Sept. 9 to 20, a success.

“We are referring to the haze threat index. There is a tendency that in the next month the haze will further intensify. This is part of anticipatory measures. The BNPB does not want to be in a position where actions are taken only after conditions are at their worst,” Tri added.

Based on satellite images gathered by the Forestry Ministry’s Conservation Directorate General, the number of hot spots reached 15,392 as of Aug. 9 this year, concentrated in Sumatra and Kalimantan.

Most of the hot spots are found in Riau (3,486 points), followed by South Sumatra (2,359), West Kalimantan (2,105), Jambi (1,341) and Central Kalimantan (978).

In Medan, the haze covering the city and surrounding areas in North Sumatra over the last three days was believed to have been caused by forest
burning.

The Data and Information section head at the Medan Polonia Meteorology Station Mega Sirait said the thick haze blanketing Medan and surrounding areas since Aug. 10 had not yet disappeared.

“The haze is caused by forest fires. As long as forest burning activities continue and there is a lack of rainfall, the haze will cover Medan city,” said Mega.

Mega said the haze in Medan originated from several provinces in Sumatra. Mega added that in the province, forest burning activities were detected in Padang Lawas, Deli Serdang, Asahan and Labuhan Batu regencies.

According to Mega, the haze in Medan and surrounding areas had currently restricted visibility at Polonia Airport to between 2,000 and 3,000 meters. He added that although it had yet to impact on flights, residents, especially motorists, had been advised to be aware of limited visibility.

Malaysia: Peat soil fires contained
Nicholas Cheng The Star 15 Aug 12;

KUALA SELANGOR: Peat soil fires in a 42 hectare land reserve owned by the Selangor Agriculture Development Corporation (PKPS) have been contained.

Bestari Jaya Fire and Rescue Department deputy operations director Ayub Hasan said fires in over half of the landmass affected have been quelled after a gruelling two-week fire fight.

“This has been one of the worst peat soil fire incidences the department has seen since 2006. A crew of 40 from the various fire departments, Civil Defence Ministry (JPAM), Department of Environment and the Selangor Forestry Department have been working round the clock to quell the flames,” he said.

Though fires had previously been reported to be spreading into nearby forest areas, Ayub said the situation was contained after a total flooding operation by the Irrigation and Drainage Department (JPS) last week.

He said, however, that there are three hotspots within 3km from the land reserve that are still ablaze.

“It will be difficult for us to reach these areas without the proper equipment.

“The dry weather and strong winds also pose as a challenge to prevent the fires from starting again,” said Ayub, who added that the operation would take another two weeks to completely extinguish the peat soil fires.

The peat soil fires which began on July 31 is the biggest of four active wildfire situations in the state.

Malaysia Fire and Rescue Department information officer Azmi Majid said early investigations revealed that open burning caused the fire in Bestari Jaya. He advised the public to refrain from such activities.

Haze persists, air quality dips further
The Star 15 Aug 12;

PETALING JAYA: Haze continues to loom over parts of the country as the air quality took a further dip.

According to the Department of Environment (DOE), air quality in Tan- jung Malim reached an unhealthy level with an Air Pollutant Index (API) reading of 102.

It also showed that as at 5pm yesterday, 67% or 33 areas were experiencing moderate air quality, which is between the API reading of 51 to 100. On Monday, moderate air quality was recorded in 58% or 30 areas.

Yesterday, Banting in Selangor was dangerously close to reaching an unhealthy level with an API of 90.

However, air quality in Penang had improved over the past 24 hours with the API in Seberang Jaya 2 dropping to 83 from 86 while that for Universiti Sains Malaysia was lower at 67 as at 11am.

The air quality for Alor Setar and Kangar was also better, recording 79 and 60 respectively.

Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas had said that although more DOE enforcement officers would be deployed to check for open burning and excessive smoke from motor vehicles, the main issue was still transboundary haze blown in by the southwest monsoon wind from fires in Sumatra, Indonesia.

The Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre recorded 310 hotspots in Sumatra and 27 here.

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 14 Aug 12

Independent Volunteers – registration is now open for coastal cleanups on Sat 29 Sep 2012! from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

Registration for the ICCS Briefing is now open!
from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

Jettisoned
from The annotated budak

Singapore marine life in PictoLife marine guidebook
from wild shores of singapore

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Singapore Planning Authorities
from Green Future Solutions

Burning forests in Southeast Asia increases mortality rates in the region from Mongabay.com news by Jeremy Hance

Read more!

Malaysia: Injured tapir wanders into fish pond

Michael Murty New Straits Times 14 Aug 12;

A SURPRISE: Fish breeder helps send animal to zoo

Workers at Malacca Zoo providing the tapir with care and medication after it was rescued from the fish pond.

SEREMBAN: A TAPIR, believed to have lost its way, fell into a fish pond belonging to Azli Md Mokhtar, 42, here, yesterday.

Azli said at first, he thought it was a pig in the pond struggling to get out.

"Only when I approached the animal, did I realise it was a tapir," said the fish pond owner.

Azli said he discovered the 100kg female tapir at 10.40am when he went to feed the fish in the pond as part of his daily routine.

The five-year-old animal was struggling in the pond located at Kampung Kapal, Lenggeng, that was 3m deep.

Azli said he couldn't see the animal clearly at first, which was why he thought it was a pig.

"My father was the one who corrected me and told me what it was."

Azli said he was saddened to see that one of the legs had been badly wounded by what he believed to be an animal trap.

"Some villagers tried to bring the animal out of the water but failed because the animal was in such a weak state."

He then reported the incident to the Department of Civil Defence which later brought the animal back to Labu before sending it to the Malacca Zoo -- where it is receiving treatment.

Read more!

Malaysia's second largest freshwater lake, Tasik Chini is ‘dying’

Ong Han Sean The Star 14 Aug 12;

PEKAN: The lotus flowers of Tasik Chini should be blooming this month but except for a few stalks, none can be seen on the waters of the lake.

Orang asli community leader Tok Batin Awang Alok blamed the demise of the once beautiful attraction of Malaysia's second largest freshwater lake on unchecked development around the area.

“The lake used to be so beautiful. Then, they put up a dam over 10 years ago and now the entire ecosystem is affected. Not to mention the iron mine which just opened nearby recently and the rampant logging all over the hills,” he said in an interview at Kampung Gumum near the lake here yesterday.

Sediment from the mine flowing into the lake could not be drained out because of the dam at Chini River, claimed Awang.

“The lake was so clear in my grandparents' days that we could even see the bottom.

“Now, it is so muddy and filled with ekor kucing (a type of water weed). We cannot find several species of fish any longer,” he said.

The 71-year-old said tourists would not return to Tasik Chini since there was now nothing to see after the lotus flowers stopped growing two years ago.

There are five orang asli villages comprising some 500 Jakun and Semelai people around the 12 lakes that make up Tasik Chini.

They recently set up an action committee to demand that the Government restore the lake and gazette the land around it as orang asli territory.

Read more!

Malaysia: 4,500 illegally felled mangrove logs seized

Stuart Michael The Star 14 Aug 12;

KLANG: About 4,500 mangrove logs, a 10-tonne lorry and a boat were seized during a raid on a storage shed in Kampung Pendamar, Pandamaran here.

The raid was carried out by the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency (MMEA) and Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) yesterday.

Four workers ecaped by jumping into sea after MMEA officers seized the boat.

An MMEA officer, who did not want to be named, said the site had been under surveillance for the past two weeks.

“The act of stealing mangrove logs is rampant in the islands near Port Klang. There are many operators involved in felling the mangrove logs illegally.

“We are going on a major operation to catch the main operators and not just the workers,'' he said.

Each mangrove log sells for RM17 and is mainly used in the construction industry.

A state forestry department officer who was present at the site was also questioned by the raiding team.

An MACC officer, who requested anonymity, said it would send a letter to the department seeking an explanation on why mangrove logs were still being sold in the area despite a statewide ban since 2010.

“This operator was caught in 2010 and is still operating.

“We also want an explanation on why the state forestry officer was in the area,'' he said.

Selangor Forestry director Yusoff Muda said his officers had seized the logs and placed yellow tape over them and the vehicle.

MACC queries ranger over illegal logging
G. Surach New Straits Times 14 Aug 12;

DERELICTION OF DUTY: 2 men allowed to harvest mangroves without permit

KLANG: A RANGER with the Selangor Forestry Department was quizzed by the Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission (MACC) for failing to discharge his duties during a sting operation in which two locals were detained at an illegal jetty in Kampung Nelayan Pendamar, here, yesterday.

'It is believed the ranger, in his 40s, had not prevented the two, aged 51 and 33, from loading mangrove logs onto a lorry when MACC officers arrived at the scene. The locals were detained later by other Forestry Department officials.

MACC senior assistant enforcement chief Mhd Yussof Zakaria, said the graft-busting body acted after receiving a tip-off by officials from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency following their operation on Sunday, when they seized several boats and discovered the illegal jetty.

During Sunday's operation, three men, believed to be Indonesians, jumped off the boats that were carrying the logs and escaped.

"We have been monitoring the illegal jetty since Friday, and investigations with our counterparts at MMEA revealed that the mangrove smuggling syndicate had been operating for at least three months.

"It is learnt the ranger had been posted to patrol the area for several months, and we questioned him why he did not report the syndicate to his superiors much sooner," he said at the scene.

Yussof said the mangrove trees were estimated to be worth more than RM100,000.

During yesterday's operation, Forestry Department officials, who arrived later, seized some 4,500 freshly felled mangrove logs worth up RM27,000. Each mangrove log is worth between RM3 and RM6. If sold on black market they could fetch up to RM10 per piece.

Yussof said MACC would obtain further details from the state Forestry Department director on why the ranger did not act.

"They say justice delayed is justice denied. So is delayed enforcement, as it can lead to rampant smuggling and all enforcement agencies must be strict when discharging their duties. Forestry officials must be more vigilant," he said.

According to sources from the MMEA, the suspected mastermind behind the illegal logging syndicate was believed to have been caught for trying to bribe a Forestry Department officer recently.

Meanwhile, a Forestry Department officer said the two suspects claimed they had permits to harvest the mangrove logs for exmport.

However, checks revealed they had no permit as the Selangor Forestry Department had stopped issuing permits to harvest mangroves since July, 2010.

Read more!

Malaysia: Keeping haze in check

Yuen Meikeng The Star 14 Aug 12;

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is taking pro-active steps to stop the haze from worsening with the increase in the number of hotspots in the region, especially Sumatra in Indonesia.

With the southwest monsoon wind blowing smoke into the country, the authorities are determined to prevent the situation from deteriorating with our own open burning.

The Department of Environment (DOE) is deploying more enforcement officers to check open burning and look out for motor vehicles emitting excessive smoke.

The officers will be “busy” in cities like Kuala Lumpur, Ipoh and Johor, said Natural Resources and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Douglas Uggah Embas.

“But the main issue here is transboundary haze, which is why I will make a strong appeal to Indonesia to reduce the number of its hotspots when I attend the meeting (of the Sub-Regional Ministerial Steering Committee on Transboundary Haze Pollution) next month,” he told The Star yesterday.

The preparation to tackle the haze followed the poor air quality in several areas in the country, especially Port Klang, Alor Setar, Langkawi and Kangar which all recorded unhealthy levels on Sunday.

The situation improved only slightly yesterday.

In Port Klang, for example, the Air Pollutant Index (API) was 106 at 7am, 117 at 11am and 115 at 5pm on Sunday, compared to 84, 78 and 76 respectively yesterday, according to the DOE website.

DOE director-general Halimah Hassan said the unhealthy API level in Selangor was partly due to open burning in Cyberjaya and Klang as well as peat soil fires in Bestari Jaya.

“The dry spell compounds the problem,” she added.

She reminded the public that the ban on open burning imposed in June for Selangor, Kuala Lumpur, Putrajaya and parts of Miri was still in force.

She urged anyone coming across open burning to contact the Fire and Rescue Department at 999 or call the DOE hotline 1-800-88-2727.

Hot spell to go on until October
New Straits Times 14 Aug 12;

KUALA LUMPUR: The Meteorological Department expects the hot and dry spell in the region to prolong until October and urges the public to avoid open burning so that the air quality can be maintained at a healthy level.

The Department of Environment yesterday said several small fires in the country had caused the air quality to deteriorate, including that at the Selangor Science Park in Cyberjaya, Jalan Kebun and Johan Setia in Klang, and near the Kesas highway.

The department stated that a prohibition on open burning was still in force for Selangor, Federal Territory and Putrajaya as well as Tudan, Permai Jaya and Kuala Baram in Miri, Sarawak.

It said air quality at 51 monitoring stations nationwide recorded healthy levels until 11am yesterday.

The department has also mobilised and activated the National Haze Action Plan and the Open Burning Prevention Action Plan nationwide to monitor the status of air quality.

The public is urged to report any cases of open burning to the Fire and Rescue Department at 999 or the DOE at 1-800-88-2727. Bernama

Air quality over Penang at moderate level
Christopher Tan The Star 14 Aug 12;

GEORGE TOWN: After touching the unhealthy level, the air quality in Penang has improved and is now hovering just below the mark in one area and lower in other parts.

According to the Asean Specialised Meteorological Centre's website, 310 hotspots were detected in Sumatra at 3.55pm yesterday, almost double the 163 spotted on Sunday.

At 7am yesterday, the Air Pollutant Index (API) in Seberang Jaya 2 was 101, the only area out of the 51 stations to record an unhealthy API.

However, it dropped to 100 at 11am and 98 at 5pm. It had risen from Sunday when it was a steady 96.

The API at Universiti Sains Malaysia was 84 at 7am and 11am yesterday before going down to 81 at 5pm. In Prai, it was 84 at 7am and 11am before dropping to 83 at 5pm.

Moderate API readings with slight improvements in air quality were recorded in other areas in the northern states, including Alor Setar in Kedah and Kangar in Perlis, which recorded unhealthy levels yesterday.

Alor Setar recorded API of 82 at 7am, 76 at 11am and 74 at 5pm yesterday compared to 104, 108 and 98 respectively on Sunday.

In Kangar, the API was 82 at 7am, 73 at 11am and not recorded at 5pm yesterday, compared to 97, 103 and 101 on Sunday.

A good API reading is 0-50, moderate 51-100, unhealthy 101-200, very unhealthy 201-299, and hazardous 300 and above.

According to the Meteorological Department, visibility in Bayan Lepas was 3.5km at 8am and 9am before improving to 4km at 10am.

The department's weather forecast centre director Muhammad Helmi Abdullah said the weak El Nino phenomenon over the Pacific Ocean, expected between now and September, would have minimal impact on rainfall.

Penang Health, Welfare, Caring Society and Environment Committee chairman Phee Boon Poh cautioned against open burning and advised the public to drink more water to keep themselves hydrated.

Read more!

El Nino emerges, raising fears over food prices

Risa Maeda PlanetArk 13 Aug 12;

An El Nino weather pattern is underway and will last until winter, Japan said on Friday, foreshadowing disruptive conditions that could harm crops from Australia to India at a time of rising fears about global food supplies.

Corn prices have surged more than 60 percent in the past two months as the United States reels from the worst drought in more than 50 years, while global soy supplies are also tight after drought in South America.

Data suggested the El Nino phenomenon had emerged, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, referring to conditions in the equatorial Pacific.

"The chances are high that the El Nino phenomenon will be maintained until the winter," the agency said in a statement.

Adding to worries, the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization said on Thursday the world was closer to a repeat of a 2008 food crisis because of a spike in food costs.

The big unknown is how intense and how long the developing El Nino phenomenon will be. An intense El Nino can cause widespread drought in Australia, parts of Africa, Southeast Asia and India, but also bring rains to other parts of the globe.

While it can boost corn and soy crops in South America, wheat harvests can be devastated in Australia. Coffee, cocoa, rice and sugar output in Southeast Asia can also be hit.

Officials said El Nino could kick in at the end of the Indian monsoon in September, hurting winter wheat, rapeseed and chickpea crops.

Drier weather would be good for China's autumn grain growing period, mostly corn and soybean, which accounts for more than 70 percent of the country's total grain output, a senior Chinese meteorological official said.

El Nino is a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the equatorial Pacific that occurs every four to 12 years. It is the opposite of the very closely related La Nina pattern, which often triggers floods in Australia and parts of Asia. Intense back-to-back La Nina episodes occurred during 2010-12.

The U.S. Climate Prediction Center, part of the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), also warned on Thursday that an El Nino was almost certain to occur over the next two months.

The last severe El Nino in 1998 caused drought in Australia and Southeast Asia, withering crops and triggering forest fires.

El Nino can also bring warmer, wetter winters in Japan and parts of North America, but any rains might be too late for the parched U.S. corn crop.

Concepcion Calpe, senior economist at the FAO, said she expected a mild El Nino to develop but it could bring "some bad weather which could jeopardize crops in the coming months".

"We expect more rain in the United States in the coming months, but it will be too late for the maize crop. It is impossible now (for it) to recover," Calpe said.

"But there is still time for the rains to boost soy yields. We are looking forward to having rain in August and September, that would be great for the soya crop."

WORRIES IN INDIA; CHINA UNFAZED

Indonesia's weather bureau said on Friday any El Nino would have limited impact on the country.

"A weak El Nino will reduce rainfall in eastern and central Indonesia, but not significantly," weather bureau head Sri Woro B. Harijono told reporters.

But in India, one of the world's largest food producers and consumers, with a population of 1.2 billion, El Nino will likely mean a drop in rainfall from September after an erratic monsoon.

Lower than average rains have threatened cereal and lentils production, although rainfall has picked up in the past week.

El Nino typically causes drier weather over much of the country during the northern hemisphere summer, forecasters say.

"El Nino is likely to reduce rainfall during the last month of the monsoon season," said D.S. Pai, lead forecaster of the Indian weather office, referring to September. That could cut winter crop production.

Three years ago, an El Nino slowed monsoon rains, sparking a rally in sugar prices to 30-year highs as India, the world's second biggest producer, harvested a poor cane crop.

In China, little impact was expected.

"The influence of El Nino on Chinese crops will help postpone frost in northern China at the later part of the autumn months, which will be beneficial for crops," said Tu Xuan, an analyst at Shanghai JC Intelligence Co. Ltd.

Elsewhere, the phenomenon raises the chances of favorable planting conditions in South America for corn and soy.

"There may be areas that are adversely affected, but no two El Nino are the same. It is certainly a risk but it doesn't mean that we are going to have a disaster," said Luke Mathews, a commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

He said the bank was expecting good crops in South America over the next six months and there was enough soil moisture in eastern Australian cropping zones to buffer against a drought.

El Nino also generally leads to a decrease in storms in the Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico, potentially good news for the oil industry whose installations are vulnerable to hurricanes.

The U.S. government forecaster said on Thursday El Nino would bring near-normal to above-normal storm activity. The hurricane season runs to November 30.

El Nino means "little boy" in Spanish and was first used by anchovy fishermen in Ecuador and Peru in the 19th century to refer to the arrival of unusually warm ocean waters around Christmas.

(Additional reporting by Naveen Thukral in Singapore, Ratnajyoti Dutta in New Delhi, Tracy Zheng and Sabrina Mao in Beijing,; Yayat Supriatna in Jakarta and Catherine Hornby in Rome; Editing by David Fogarty, Robert Birsel, Clarence Fernandez and Giles Elgood)

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