Thailand totters towards waste crisis

Aidan Jones AFP Yahoo News 1 Sep 14;

Bangkok (AFP) - A blaze at a vast rubbish dump home to six million tonnes of putrefying trash and toxic effluent has kindled fears that poor planning and lax law enforcement are tipping Thailand towards a waste crisis.

Locals had long pressed for the closure of the foul-smelling Praeksa landfill site, which is wedged between a cluster of industrial estates on the fringes of Bangkok.

But a ferocious eight-day fire that cloaked the eastern suburbs of the capital in poisonous smoke earlier this year thrust Praeksa to the heart of a national debate over rubbish.

Bangkok -- a sprawling city of 12 million and counting -- produces around 10,000 tonnes of waste a day, a substantial portion of the 27 million tonnes generated each year across the kingdom.

The ruling junta has put waste disposal high on its to-do list, recognising that poorly regulated pits are fast filling up and prone to disaster.

But Thailand is not alone in struggling to tame its trash.

From Jakarta's Bantar Gebang dump to Manila's 'smokey mountain', open landfills blight Southeast Asia's booming megacities, as urban planners labour to keep pace with rapid urbanisation and industrial growth.

Experts warn those dumps are a timebomb for the environment and the increasing number of communities forced to live cheek-by-jowl with them.

Open dumping "offers a quick and easy solution in the short run," the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and Pacific says in a study, warning of severe environmental problems and long-term health issues caused by contaminated water and land.

- 'Close the dump' -

Of Thailand's 2,500 open rubbish pits, just a fifth are properly managed, according to the kingdom's Pollution Control Department.

The rest are at the mercy of illegal dumping -- including of hazardous waste -- fires and seepage into nearby land and water systems.

The department says the mid-March blaze at Praeksa, which has caught fire several times since, was just one of 10 raging every month at dumps across a kingdom.

A lack of enforcement is to blame, says Nicha Rakpanichmanee of Ecological Alert and Recovery Thailand (EARTH), explaining the whole waste disposal chain is skewed towards "anyone who can pay".

She says that 1.9 million tonnes of toxic waste goes unaccounted for after leaving factory gates every year, with many factory owners flouting laws to save on the costs of safe disposal and tip operators willing to turn a blind eye to the illegal dumping of toxic run-off.

"The people who will remain with the problems are the poorest who cannot move," she says of the communities forced to live with contaminated water and land.

For residents near Praeska, in Samut Prakan province neighbouring Bangkok, the intensity of the blaze has left them in little doubt that inflammable chemicals swash around the fetid mounds of trash.

The tip is meant for household waste only.

"I want it closed," said 85-year-old local resident Jad Pimsorn. "I have lived with it but I don't want my children and grandchildren to live with it too."

The dump operator denied he had allowed chemicals to be illegally stashed at his site.

"But there were several companies operating the pit before me," Krompol Samutsakorn told AFP.

- Trash talk -

Until the Praeksa blaze, talking about trash was a conversation few wanted to have.

Currently Thai households pay less than half a dollar a month to get rid of their waste.

Local authorities say that leaves them short of cash to invest in modern, environmentally friendly incinerators or recycling plants, but they are reluctant to raise rates on would-be voters in already poor neighbourhoods.

That could be about to change, with military ruler General Prayut Chan-O-Cha vowing to tackle the kingdom's garbage problems.

"Can people throw away garbage in outer space?" he asked in a typically enigmatic weekly television address to the nation on August 8.

"They cannot... they have to throw it away in Thailand."

The comments from the can-do junta chief have raised hopes of a policy revival towards waste after years of short-term planning -- abetted by short-lived governments -- in the politically turbulent kingdom.

Fearing landfills are incubating massive health issues down the line, the Pollution Control Department wants to see collection rates raised locally and laws tightened to encourage recycling.

One solution is better facilities to compost organic waste -- especially in places such as Thailand where nearly half of the daily 1.1 kilograms of household waste produced per person is bio-degradable.

As they heave a wheelie-bin full of rotting food and broken beer bottles into the back of a rubbish truck, a group of Bangkok binmen say Thais must change their habits or live with the consequences.

"It is hard to solve the problem," said Wutthichai Namuangrak, seemingly inured to the sickly-sweet stench rising from the back of the truck.

"We can help by collecting the trash, but people cannot just rely on us."

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Pacific fisheries chief warns tuna stocks dangerously low

AFP Yahoo News 2 Sep 14;

The outgoing head of the fisheries management body for the western and central Pacific has warned that some tuna stocks were now so low they should not be fished.

Glenn Hurry, executive director of the Western and Central Pacific Fisheries Commission (WCPFC), said the situation was not yet unrecoverable, but it was at a dangerous level and worsening.

"The Pacific bluefin is I would have thought at the biggest risk, it's at about 3.0 percent of its original spawning biomass, so the amount of adult fish in the water that can spawn ... it's at a pretty dangerous level," Hurry told AFP late Tuesday.

Hurry said other species were also depleted, with bigeye tuna below the critical level of about 20 percent of its original spawning biomass, and fishing this species should stop to allow it to recover.

"Of the big ones -- bigeye and skipjack tuna -- bigeye is about 16 percent of its original spawning biomass, so it's below the limit," he said.

Yellowfin tuna was below 40 percent of its original biomass.

Hurry, an Australian, welcomed Japan's plans to propose a 50 percent cut on catches of young bluefin tuna in the western and central Pacific in a historic shift aimed at safeguarding the at-risk species.

But he said fish stocks in the Pacific had slowly worsened in the four years he had spent in the job, which he expects to leave this month, and more tough decisions needed to be made.

Pacific island nations have complained that there are too many fishing boats catching too few fish.

"We started with one of the best stocks of fish in the world, and we've fished them down," Hurry said.

"And when it comes to the crunch and you've got to make hard decisions about reducing the catch on the stock, it gets really difficult.

"Take a little country like Tuvalu; 50 percent of the income of Tuvalu is the income they get from fishing. If you're going to reduce (its catch) it's going to hurt."

Hurry said fishing stocks could recover, but the more valuable fish became, the harder it would be for small countries dependant on the fishing industry to pull back on their hauls.

"They will bounce back so long as you restrict the fishing pressure on them and we're just increasing it," he said. "It's not looking particularly positive if you keep doing that."

With too many boats catching too few fish, Pacific island nations in June said they were ratcheting up the fees they charge tuna fishing boats to enter their waters by a hefty 33 percent.

The eight countries involved are from the Parties to the Nauru Agreement (PNA), which control waters covering more than half the world's skipjack tuna, the most commonly canned variety.

From January 1, 2015, the PNA will raise the fishing day fee for so-called "distant water" fleets from as far afield as Europe, China, South Korea, Japan and Taiwan, from US$6,000 to US$8,000.

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Nearly two dozen fish species off U.S. West Coast deemed sustainable

Reuters Yahoo News 3 Sep 14;

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Nearly two dozen species of fish have been deemed sustainable seafood options once again after rampant overfishing left areas off the U.S. West Coast devastated, a marine watchdog group said on Tuesday.

The Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch program upgraded the status of 21 species of bottom-dwelling fish, including varieties of sole, rockfish and sablefish, to "best choice" or "good alternative" from the group's "avoid" classification.

The designations allow consumers, restaurants and seafood retailers to be confident in the sustainability of the once over-harvested species.

The change comes after fishing grounds off the coast of California, Oregon and Washington state were declared an economic disaster by the federal government in 2000. Overfishing in those areas brought some species to dangerously low levels and caused fishing income to drop sharply.

"The turnaround in such a short time is unprecedented," said Jennifer Kemmerly, director of the Seafood Watch program.

"Fishermen, federal agencies and our environmental colleagues have put so much effort into groundfish recovery, and now we're seeing the results of their work," she added.

The group attributed the region's revitalization to government-imposed fishing quotas, the creation of marine protected areas, and the use of better monitoring and control of catches.

Now, 84 percent of commercial groundfish caught off the West Coast are sustainable options, according to the Seafood Watch program.

"This recognition highlights the success of the West Coast groundfish catch share program," said Frank Lockhart, who heads the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's West Coast recovery efforts.

"Not only has it reduced impacts on the species we need to protect, but it has allowed fishermen increased flexibility to fish more effectively for the species they want," he said.

The West Coast's recovery mirrors improvements seen elsewhere in the United States following updates to the federal fishery law passed by Congress in 2006, the Seafood Watch program said.

(Reporting by Curtis Skinner)

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Reserves and parks not enough to protect nature – David Attenborough

Broadcaster calls for radical new approach to conservation, urging people to use all spaces from gardens to roadside verges to help wildlife
John Vidal theguardian.com 3 Sep 14;

Nature reserves and national parks are not enough to prevent a catastrophic decline in nature, David Attenborough has told politicians, business leaders and conservationists, saying that every space in Britain from suburban gardens to road verges must be used to help wildlife.

Britain’s leading commentator on wildlife called for a radical new approach to conservation which did not bemoan the past but embraced the changes brought by climate change and a rapidly growing human population.

“Where in 1945 it was thought that the way to solve the problem was to create wildlife parks and nature reserves, that is no longer an option. They are not enough now. The whole countryside should be available for wildlife. The suburban garden, roadside verges ... all must be used”.

Attenborough, speaking at the RSPB’s Conference for Nature in London, said it was now understood that British wildlife was in grave peril of disappearing. “50% of the hedgehog population has gone in 25 years, 90% of the wildlife meadows have disappeared in 100 years; 60% of all wildlife is diminishing and in danger, with 10% doomed to disappear in the next decades. Nowhere in Britain is unsullied, is unaffected by human action. We now have a huge population living cheek by jowl with nature”.

But rather than lament the changes, he urged everyone to act. “We know climate change is happening. It is regretted by some but it is also to be embraced. It is causing great changes in the distribution of animnals and birds in the countryside. We must take advantage of that. It is very important that we accept there are things coming in ... We must recognise that new animals and plants are coming in. Others are moving north. We ought to be giving thought to wildlife corridors ... and not think that every new arrival is to be repelled.

“Because of the complex relationship society has with nature, it is obvious that our response to saving it must extend from every possible quarter too. With an increasing global footprint, mankind is intensifying the crisis for wildlife, but as individuals we can all be part of the solution for saving it too.’’

Deputy prime minister Nick Clegg, who will speak at the conference on Wednesday, pledged to keep funding the Royal Botanic Gardens at last year’s levels for a further nine months. The gardens, which are a major tiourist attraction, face a shortfall of around £5m and had their budget cut by £1.5m earlier this year.

Government funding for Kew will now be maintained at the same level as it was for 2013-14, until at least the end of the 2014/15 financial year, said Clegg. “Kew is one of the most important scientific and environmental institutions in the world. That is why I am so pleased to announce that I have secured £1.5m for Kew Gardens until at least April 2015 so its vital work can continue,” he said.

“This is something that I know a lot of people have been campaigning for and is a significant step towards protecting the future of our environment.”

Richard Deverell, director at Kew, said: “We welcome this government recognition of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew’s importance and the value of our work. In recent months we have been actively articulating this. This funding will go some way to assist us in achieving the transition to a sustainable future for Kew. However, it will not fully resolve the original £5m gap we identified in our budget for 2014/15 that we have been managing.”

Clegg also announced that the coalition planned to speed up the building of a 2,795 mile national coastal path round England, bringing completion of the project forward from 2030 to 2020.

The move was welcomed by the National Trust, the Ramblers and other countryside groups who had lobbied strongly for the trail for many years but who feared that the project was stalling. Only two short sections have been completed, with work starting recently on several other lengths. Until now, no indication had been given by government about when work might start on many long stretches.

“I’ve been pushing for this process to be speeded up. It hasn’t been easy, but I’m pleased to announce today that the government will be ensuring that the path is completed by 2020 by allocating extra funding,” said Clegg.

“Investing in the coast path is not just good news for walkers, but will help to breathe new life into our coastal towns and villages, boosting tourism and the local economy and reconnecting people with their stretch of coast, helping to promote health and wellbeing,” said Benedict Southworth, chief executive at the Ramblers.

The conference, which attracted politicians from all parties, heard shadow minister for natural environment and fisheries, Barry Gardiner, pledge to protect and enhance the public role of the Forestry Commission and to hold landowners who received large subsidies more accountable by insisting that they worked more for the public good.

He said landowners had worked for their own rather than society’s betterment in the past. “Progress has been opposed by big landowners since 1945. Public access has not led to the destruction of landscape. Increasing access is perfectly compatible with sound management of the environment.”

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Food crime occurring on 'unprecedented' scale - report

Claire Marshall BBC News 4 Sep 14;

"Food crime" has reached unprecedented levels, a new report to be published on Thursday is expected to say.

Commissioned by the UK environment agency and health department, the report is understood to recommend the creation of a "food crime unit".

It draws on evidence from international police bodies Interpol and Europol.

They say that international gangs are diversifying - shifting from drug trafficking and armed robbery to illegal and fraudulent food trading.

The review of Britain's food supply chains was announced in response to the horsemeat fraud in 2013.

Michael Ellis, assistant director of Interpol, told BBC News: "This has changed the scope of investigations. Criminals have realised that they can make the same amount of money by dealing with counterfeit food. Invariably the sentences are much lighter.

"In my experience, the patterns used by criminals involved in counterfeiting are very similar to those used in the dealing of drugs. They operate front companies, they employ front bank accounts, they will have false declarations for the movement of their goods, they will mis-declare their shipments."

Operation Opson III in December 2013 and January 2014 involved co-ordinated raids across 33 countries in the Americas, Asia and Europe.

More than 131,000 litres of oil and vinegar, 20 tonnes of spices and condiments, nearly 430,000 litres of counterfeit drink and 45 tonnes of dairy products were seized. In addition, 96 people were arrested.

Food crime can have fatal consequences. In China in 2008, an industrial chemical, melamine, was added to increase the protein content of baby milk. Six babies died of severe kidney damage as a result.

In the Czech Republic in 2012, more than 40 people were killed by vodka and rum that had been laced with methanol.

Mr Ellis said: "Counterfeiting impacts on everyone. The criminals have no care at all for the hygiene or bacterial content in the end product. They just want the brand name in order to get their money."

Huw Watkins from the Intellectual Property Office explained that it was a difficult issue to tackle.

"The problem with fake and illicit food is that not many people understand how complex the issue is. The initial response is that it doesn't happen; that it happens elsewhere. We enjoy a very good standard of food safety in the UK, and we want that to continue," he said.

The methanol poisoning deaths in the Czech Republic changed the mindset of the organisations in charge of food safety. Mr Watkins said: "People were actually shocked at the sheer numbers, not just killed but seriously injured."

In the UK, the system to ensure the safety of the food chain is complicated. Different elements are dealt with by different departments.

For example, food labelling is dealt with by the Food Standards Agency, the Department of Health, Defra, and also Trading Standards officers who are employed by local authorities. There are also Environmental Health Officers who deal with complaints about food quality, hygiene and safety issues.

Novel technology created in a laboratory could help in the fight against the food fraudsters.

Pulsar, developed by Oxford Instruments in the wake of the horsemeat scandal, can identify meat in a matter of seconds rather than days.

Rather than isolating DNA, it looks at the so-called "fat fingerprint": each animal has a different amount of fat in its meat. However, the machine cannot yet identify the different meats in processed foods, so could only be used to screen meat before it gets into the factory.

Responsibility for checking food sellers, restaurants or processing plants, is principally down to Trading Standards officers. However, according to the Trading Standards Institute, budgets for this in England and Wales have been cut by an average of 40% since 2010.

In Worcestershire, for example, reports suggest there may just be six Trading Standards officers for the whole of the county next year as opposed to 25 in 2013/14. There has also been a cut in the number of public analyst laboratories, which is where food samples are sent to be tested.

Data on the number of official food samples taken shows that for the year 2012-2013, dozens of district councils including Swindon, Brent and Cheltenham carried out zero or minimal tests for food contamination and composition.

Rebecca Kaya, from Buckinghamshire Trading Standards, explained: "We have about 20 officers left in Buckinghamshire and we have got to cover the entire county so that's actually quite a long distance. It's a lot of area to cover, a lot of businesses, we've got in Bucks around 2,500 farms, and all the businesses associated with selling food and retailing meat."

They are no longer able to routinely visit premises. "We are somewhat diminished, but what we are finding is new ways of working, much more intelligence led ways of working, using the slightly more limited resources that we have got now," she added.

The consumer organisation Which? recently tested 60 lamb takeaways and found that 24 of them contained other meats such as beef or chicken. The meat in five samples couldn't be identified at all.

The Food Standards Agency response has been to order 300 samples to be taken from restaurants across the country.

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Sustainable development of Small Island Developing States a global litmus test

"We want more than just survival. We strive for sustainable development." - FAO Director General at SIDS Summit in Samoa
FAO 3 Sep 14;

3 September 2014, Apia, Samoa/Rome - Coping with climate change should be seen as more than just a question of survival for small island countries - the international community should view it as a challenge to take unified action and notch up efforts to shift to a sustainable model of development, FAO Director-General José Graziano da Silva said today.

"Climate change is happening before our eyes. Rising sea levels, higher air and sea surface temperatures, and changing rainfall patterns are affecting countries worldwide. But there is no doubt that Small Island Developing States (SIDS) are more vulnerable," the FAO chief said during remarks delivered at the 3rd International UN Conference on SIDS in Apia, Samoa (1-4 September).

Climate change has particularly profound implications for the development of SIDS, affecting their food security, livelihoods, and economies, he noted.

Long-term thinking and a more holistic approach are necessary, said Graziano da Silva, explaining: "To ensure food security you cannot simply give a person bread. You need to help him produce food; you need to adapt to climate change; you need to ensure him access, including by social protection; you need to ensure a diversified diet that guarantees adequate nutrition."

SIDS are a group of island countries, mostly from the Pacific, Caribbean, Atlantic and Indian Ocean regions that, while diverse, face similar development challenges. These include small populations, limited resources, susceptibility to natural disasters, vulnerability to external shocks and a high level of dependence on international trade.

The growth and development of SIDS is often further hampered by high transportation and communications costs, expensive public administration and infrastructure, and limited opportunities to create economies of scale. (Learn more)

SIDS also struggle with a spectrum of malnutrition-related challenges, ranging from undernourishment to obesity, Graziano da Silva added, noting that according to the World Health Organization (WHO), nine out of the 10 countries with the highest female obesity rates are Small Island Developing States.

Tackling nutrition issues in the developing world will feature front and center during discussions this coming November at the 2nd International Conference on Nutrition (ICN2), being convened by FAO and WHO in Rome (19th-21st).

Areas for action

Graziano da Silva highlighted three key fronts where action is needed to promote greater resilience and sustainable development in SIDS:

=Helping them improve their management and use of natural resources:
=Boosting local food production and building local and regional consumption circuits
=Strengthening the resilience of communities in the face of natural disasters and emerging climate-related challenges

FAO's contribution

FAO is working with governments and other partners to promote resilience and sustainable development in SIDS on a number of fronts.

Over the past two years, the Organization has invested over $40 million to support SIDS in their efforts to tackle issues related to food and nutrition security, agriculture, fisheries, forestry and natural resources management.

In the Caribbean, the Organization is supporting the development and implementation of resilience-building and disaster risk reduction plans.

In the Pacific, FAO is actively support the Food Security and Sustainable Livelihoods Program being developed by countries of the region.

And through its new Blue Growth Initiative, FAO is helping Small Island Developing States around the planet sustainably use their aquatic resources to advance food security, better nutrition, and poverty reduction.

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Best of our wild blogs: 3 Sep 14

Our Avian Visitors, the August Stars
from Singapore Bird Group

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One individual, 2 institutes receive President’s Award for the Environment

Channel NewsAsia 2 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: One individual and two institutes have received the President's Award for the Environment, the highest environmental accolade in Singapore. They received the awards from President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the Istana on Tuesday evening (Sep 2).

The award was given to Mr Eugene Heng, chairman of the Waterways Watch Society, a volunteer group he founded in 1998 to help keep Singapore's waterways clean. This is the first time since 2011 that an individual has won the award.

The award also went to the Institute of Technical Education (ITE). The Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources said ITE is dedicated to environmental education, even infusing it into its curriculum.

Ngee Ann Polytechnic received the award for being a pioneer in environmental advocacy and influencing many students to continue contributing even after they graduate.

- CNA/ms

Individual, education institutions awarded President's Award for the Environment
Carolyn Khew Straits Times 2 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE - He has spent the past 16 years monitoring Singapore's waterways and picking up litter in rivers and reservoirs with his volunteers.

During the other days of the week, the founder and chairman of environmental group Waterways Watch Society (WWS) Eugene Heng spends time planning programmes and running activities to educate students about the island's waterways.

For such efforts and more, Mr Heng, a 65-year-old retiree, was awarded the country's highest environmental accolade on Tuesday.

The other two recipients of the award were the Institute of Technical Education (ITE) and Ngee Ann Polytechnic (NP), both of which actively promote environmental awareness among its students and include environment-related courses in their curriculum.

Organised by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, the annual award, which recognises individuals and organisations for their contributions towards the environment, received 26 nominations this year.

The three winners each received a trophy and certificate from President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the Istana.

To encourage its students to learn more about the environment, environment-related topics are incorporated in about 70 per cent of ITE's courses.

All three of ITE's campuses - ITE College East, ITE College West and ITE College Central, have also been Green Mark certified. Their green features include installing solar panels on roofs to generate electrical power for the building's use and having ceiling boards made of recycled materials.

Three win S'pore's top award for green efforts
Carolyn Khew The Straits Times AsiaOne 5 Sep 14;

When it comes to promoting awareness of the environment among the young, Ngee Ann Polytechnic could be considered one of the pioneers - it started doing so more than 20 years ago.

Today, topics on the environment are taught at the polytechnic. Its Clementi Road campus is also home to technology centres that come up with projects to improve sustainability efforts.

Yesterday, the institution received the President's Award for the Environment - Singapore's highest environmental accolade - from President Tony Tan Keng Yam at the Istana.

The other two recipients of the award this year are the Institute of Technical Education and Mr Eugene Heng, chairman of environmental group Waterways Watch Society (WWS). The three winners each received a trophy and a certificate.

Organised by the Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, the annual award recognises individuals and organisations for their contributions towards the environment. There were 26 nominations this year.

For Mr Heng and his volunteers, at least two hours are spent every weekend picking up flotsam along waterways.

Plastic bags are the most common trash item. They also pick up styrofoam boxes, cans, shopping trolleys and television sets.

The group makes its rounds on boats and bicycles to monitor the waterways and alert the authorities on areas that need attention, like those polluted by oil spills.

WWS, which has 370 volunteers, also conducts workshops for students to better understand how drains, canals and rivers are connected to reservoirs. While every drop of water can be treated to drinking water standards, it is vital for people to stop littering because litter is transported from the catchment areas and waterways to reservoirs when it rains.

"We have a nation that runs things very well and supplies water so efficiently. People tend to forget it's a gift. They tend to abuse it and take it for granted," said Mr Heng.

While he feels that enforcement officers need to be more visible and be at the "right place, at the right time", he says educating the public on the consequences of littering is still more important.

"The Government can only do so much," he added.

At Ngee Ann Poly, a major part of its green efforts involves teaching the right values on protecting the environment. All students are required to take a module where they learn about climate change and environmental degradation. The school also has four diploma courses related to the environment, including the diploma in environmental and water technology, and the diploma in clean energy management.

As part of the school's push for clean, sustainable technology, the Environmental and Water Technology Centre of Innovation was set up to help small and medium-sized enterprises grow their business in a green way.

Said Ngee Ann Poly principal Clarence Ti: "As parents and educators, we want our students to not only have good values and learn a trade but also be meaningful contributors to society."

Rooftop gardens, solar panels at ITE campuses

Classroom ceiling boards made of recycled materials, rooftop gardens and offices designed to maximise the usage of natural light - these are some of the green features at the Institute of Technical Education's (ITE) three campuses.

For those efforts, and more, the ITE was given the President's Award for the Environment - Singapore's highest environmental accolade - at the Istana yesterday. It is among three recipients of the prestigious award this year.

The ITE's three campuses had also received the BCA Green Mark Award by the Building and Construction Authority.

At ITE College East, located in Simei, open staircases and circulation spaces help to cool the interiors and minimise energy use. The ceiling boards in laboratories, classrooms and toilets are also made with 40 per cent recycled materials.

Meanwhile, the ITE College West in Choa Chu Kang has a green roof and rooftop gardens that cover 40 per cent of the total roof area. This helps to absorb heat and reduce the energy used for cooling the building.

Over at ITE College Central in Ang Mo Kio, solar panels installed on the roofs generate electrical power.

The ITE has also incorporated environment-related topics in about 70 per cent of its courses, such as those on course-relevant environmental regulation and waste handling.
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/three-win-spores-top-award-green-efforts#sthash.6MoDpHOK.dpuf

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Singapore opens S$950m underground rock cavern at Jurong

Linette Lim Channel NewsAsia 2 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: The Jurong Rock Caverns (JRC), the first commercial underground rock cavern storage facility for liquid hydrocarbons in Southeast Asia, was officially opened on Tuesday (Sep 2). It will be a key support for Singapore's petrochemical industry.

Speaking at the opening, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong says that with this experience, the Government is considering more subterranean projects. This includes building an underground science city, an underground warehousing and logistics facility, and potential underground caverns near CleanTech Park in Jurong.

He also said that the project shows Singapore's determination to build a petrochemical industry, despite land constraints and the potential impact of an impending United Nations agreement on carbon emissions, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change.

HOW THE JURONG CAVERNS WERE CONSTRUCTED

The S$950-million dollar Jurong Rock Caverns took six years of planning, and another eight years of construction. It will be used to store liquid hydrocarbons such as crude oil and condensate.

The rock cavern was excavated using explosives, and it takes about one and a half to two years to excavate each rock cavern. The water pressure outside the cavern keeps the contents of the cavern in their place.

The caverns are the deepest known public works in Singapore to date - deeper than underpasses, the deep tunnel sewerage system, and four times deeper than Bras Brasah, the deepest station in the train network. Tunnels measuring 9km provide access to the caverns, and there are five of them, with a total capacity of 1.47 million cubic metres - a storage capacity equivalent to 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools..

Building this infrastructure underground was challenging, but worthwhile, said Mr Lee: "It costs more than doing it above ground, about 30 per cent more, in order to build the infrastructure to store oil and condensate underground, compared to reclaiming land, on a per unit of crude or condensate basis. This endeavour also involved immense challenges and significant risks. But we pursued it because it was worthwhile."

The caverns freed up 60 hectares of surface land for higher-value facilities, he noted, "and 60 hectares is enough to house up to six petrochemical plants. But more importantly, it opened up, for us, further possibilities for development, with the expertise and the confidence that we gained building these Caverns."

Mr Lee highlighted the importance of the petrochemical industry to Singapore: "We will develop the petrochemical industry, because the industry provides good jobs for Singaporeans, because it contributes significantly to our economy. In fact, the chemicals industry is one-third of our manufacturing output. And also, because we are determined to find all ways to make a living for ourselves in the world."

STILL BUILDING

Two of the caverns were completed this March and are already being used by Jurong Aromatics Corporation to store feedstock for its aromatics plant, which is currently being developed. The three remaining caverns are expected to be ready by end 2016.

Said Mr Loo Choon Yong, Chairman of JTC Corporation: "We also had to consider the commercial viability of the project. We worked with various stakeholders at the onset, to ensure that the JRC would match manufacturers' requirements so that we could market it successfully."

JTC says an extension, or a second phase, could be developed if there is industry demand. JTC also says that the 3.5 million cubic metres of rock excavated for this project will be used in land reclamation, and for paving roads.

- CNA/xk/xy


PM Lee opens S$950 million Jurong Rock Caverns
LEE YEN NEE Today Online 2 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE — South-east Asia’s first commercial underground liquid hydrocarbon storage facility was officially opened by Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong today (Sept 2).

Located 150m beneath Jurong Island, the Jurong Rock Caverns were conceptualised to overcome land constraints in Singapore. This follows years of providing industrial land and space through reclaiming land and building high-rise infrastructure.

JTC Corporation, the developer of the S$950 million project, said the building of the five caverns translates to a saving of 60 hectares of land that can be used for higher value-added activities such as petrochemicals manufacturing. This underground facility also ensures security of the products in storage.

JTC chairman Loo Choon Yong said: “As a small city state, we are constantly pushing boundaries in our quest to overcome our scarce land resource. The Jurong Rock Caverns required us to venture into unfamiliar grounds and surmount engineering challenges never encountered before. Its success attests to our resolve to persevere and diligently deliver innovative and sustainable infrastructure solutions for Singapore.”


Image: JTC Corporation

Construction of the five caverns started in 2007. Their combined capacity of 1.47 million cubic metres is equivalent to 600 Olympic-sized swimming pools. Two of them, completed in March, have been leased to Jurong Aromatics Corporation who will store condensate, a feedstock for its aromatics plant.

The remaining three caverns are scheduled for completion by end 2016.

Singapore digs deep to realise oil storage dream
Chia Yan Min The Straits Times AsiaOne 3 Sep 14;


SINGAPORE yesterday unveiled its latest engineering feat to overcome the constraints of land - an underground commercial storage facility for oil products.

The ambitious Jurong Rock Caverns took six years of planning and a further eight of construction at a cost of $950 million, with about 1,700 workers employed.

Declaring it officially open, Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong told a ceremony on Jurong Island that the endeavour was challenging, risky and expensive, but will ultimately prove rewarding.

Mr Lee noted that the Jurong Rock Caverns was "born out of this same spirit of innovation and determination" behind Jurong Island, another ambitious project that involved amalgamating seven southern islands.

He cited the benefits the caverns bring - they free up 60ha of land, or 70 football fields, above ground - but noted also that they demonstrate how Singapore can "create new space for (itself) both physically and metaphorically".

The facility also signals Singapore's determination to develop its petrochemical industry, which makes up about a third of the country's manufacturing output and provides "good jobs for Singaporeans", he added.

Mr Lee noted that Singapore has become a world-class petrochemical hub despite its land constraints and the fact that it produces no crude oil or feedstock.

The caverns, which are also a first in South-east Asia, sit 150m below the Jurong Island energy and chemicals hub - or four times further underground than Singapore's deepest MRT station. They are Singapore's deepest underground public works endeavour to date.

Adding to the complexity was the challenge of having to construct the caverns 130m beneath the seabed. Industrial landlord JTC also had to build 9km of tunnels.

The five nine-storey-high caverns will be used to store 1.47 million cubic metres of liquid hydrocarbons such as crude oil and condensate - equivalent to 600 Olympic- sized swimming pools. Liquid hydrocarbons are usually stored in large tanks above ground.

Two of the five caverns have already been leased to Jurong Aromatics Corporation to store feedstock for its upcoming aromatics plant on Jurong Island. The other three are expected to be operational by 2016.

Dr Loo Choon Yong, chairman of JTC, told the ceremony that the project planning process, which included numerous study missions abroad and extensive soil and rock investigations, was "rigorous and intense".

The project was riskier and more complex than above-ground facilities, he added.

It was also expensive: It costs about 30 per cent more to build storage infrastructure underground than to reclaim land, but the space above ground can be used for higher value-added activities such as petrochemical plants.

With Jurong Rock Caverns behind it, JTC is now exploring other subterranean projects, said Dr Loo, adding: "Land will always be scarce in Singapore, but with human creativity and ingenuity, we continue to find ways to do more with less."

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Punggol jetty comes back to life

The Straits Times AsiaOne 2 Sep 14;

Ponggol Hock Kee Seafood restaurant, next to the Punggol Jetty, used to be a hot dining spot in the 1970s.

Now, the restaurant is back, 50m from its former location, in a new two-storey building called The Punggol Settlement.

The original restaurant moved out in 1994 after the land was acquired by the Government.

But after property developer Fragrance Group bought the site following a public tender in 2012, it invited Ponggol Hock Kee to move in again. The iconic seafood restaurant returned two months ago.

Tenants, including bistros, a bicycle rental store, an ice-cream parlour and other seafood restaurants, have also moved in since the building's completion in April this year. Only one of the 28 units is not occupied.

It was their fond memories of the place that brought the family behind Ponggol Hock Kee back.

The restaurant was started by Mr Ting Choon Teng, a former taxi driver who often drove past the area and thought it would make a good location for a seafood restaurant.

Mr Ting, 84, is now retired and the business is managed by four of his eight children - sons Anthony, 54, and Cheng Ping, 51, and daughters Cecilia, 55, and Teresa, 53.

Recalls Mr Anthony Ting: "The original restaurant had a kampung feel. It had a zinc roof and was next to a sandy beach."

On weekends, more than 600 customers would turn up for dinner and tables had to be set up by the roadside to accommodate them.

Adds his brother, Mr Ting Cheng Ping: "When the buses No. 82 and 83 - they no longer come here - did a three-point turn at the end of Punggol Road, they'd come within 1m of the tables.

"But our customers didn't mind. They just wanted to enjoy their meal under the stars."

After the land was acquired by the Government in 1994, the restaurant moved out and set up shop in various locations. Last year, it was operating at the Marina Country Club when Fragrance's marketing agents invited it to move back.

The Ting family agreed to move - lock, stock and barrel.

Says Mr Anthony Ting: "This place has so many memories for us. Coming back also lets us reconnect with many long-time customers."

Indeed, clerk Lily Meow, 52, who patronised the restaurant once every few months in the 1980s, quickly showed up as soon as she heard that it was back at Punggol.

She says: "I love their classic dishes such as chilli crab and mee goreng, and also their new dishes such as salted egg prawns.

Mrs Meow, who has taken her 20-year-old daughter to try the food, adds: "I hope she can experience the simple joys I had when I was her age."

Indeed, when SundayLife! was there last week, a number of the patrons said they used to be regulars.

Says engineer Daniel Ng, 53: "Coming back reminds me of old times, with delicious food and a pleasant atmosphere by the sea.

"This area was dead after the Government acquired it. It's great to finally see it come alive again."

Fragrance declined to reveal the building's construction cost. According to previous reports, it paid $11.4 million for the 11,606 sq m site last year.

But the nostalgia is not confined to just the Ting family and their customers. Almost all the new business owners at The Punggol Settlement have a personal connection to the place.

For example, the director of Jing Long Seafood, Mr Loh Siong Way, used to fish at the jetty twice a week when he was a teenager.

Recalls the 47-year-old: "I was then a kitchen hand at a coffee shop zi char stall. I'd come with a colleague in a taxi at 10pm and stay until 6am, when the first bus came.

"It was peaceful and quiet. I'd fish for catfish, grouper and flower crabs, all the while chatting with my colleague."

Mr Francis Ng, 42, chief executive of House Of Seafood, remembers eating at the seafood restaurants there with his family in the 1980s when he was a child.

"My cousins and I would run up and down the jetty while the adults ate. After peeling the prawns, we'd throw the empty shells into the sea to feed the fishes."

Adds Mr Francis Tan, 40, owner of Thai restaurant Trunk At Bay: "We'd come in my dad's pick-up truck. The ride was long and bumpy, but it was worth it for the fantastic seafood amid the salty sea air.

"There used to be rubbish floating in the sea. The area is so much cleaner now."

Some tenants - such as the owners of European bistro Just The Place, Mr Kenneth Sia, 29, and Madam Teresa Tay, 26 - are just starting to build their own memories of the place.

Apart from setting up shop in Punggol, the married couple bought a four-room HDB flat in the estate earlier this year.

Madam Tay says: "We came here because it looks like a good place for a business. But from all the nice things people have said about Punggol, it sounds like a good place to settle down - for our business and our personal lives."
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/soshiok/punggol-jetty-comes-back-life#sthash.3yIiT19H.dpuf

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Malaysia: Tighter tourism rules at wildlife sanctuary

The Star 3 Sep 14;

KOTA KINABALU: Tourism activities will be more regulated at the renowned Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary starting next year.

For a start, tour operators and their guides will be required to obtain special permits from the State Wildlife Department to operate in the area.

Department director Datuk Dr Laurentius Ambu said action would be taken against those found breaching the regulations.

He said tour operators wanting to operate in the sanctuary must apply for a Wildlife Tourism Operator permit.

“Offenders will be liable to a fine of RM20,000 or two years imprisonment or both,” he said after opening a seminar on Eco-Tourism Operational Procedures in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary in Sandakan yesterday.

Tourism activities have boomed in recent years at the Lower Kinabatangan, where wildlife such as orang utan, proboscis monkeys and Bornean elephants can be spotted along the nation’s second longest waterway and its tributaries.

However, its popularity had also resulted in problems such as overcrowding at certain spots along the Sungai Kinabatangan or smaller rivers.

“There have also been reports of guides allowing visitors to alight from tour boats to take pictures of wildlife such as elephants along the river banks,” he said.

He said there was no excuse for guides to allow tourists out of the boats and risk their lives while causing stress to the elephants.

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Ebola response lethally inadequate, says MSF

James Gallagher BBC News website 1 Sep 14;

A global military intervention is needed to curb the largest ever Ebola outbreak, according to the medical charity Medecins Sans Frontieres.

In a damning criticism of world leaders, it says the global response has so far been "lethally inadequate".

The charity said countries were turning their back on West Africa and merely reducing the risk of Ebola arriving on their shores.

More than 1,550 people have died in the outbreak which started in Guinea.

At least 3,000 people have been infected with the virus, but the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned that more than 20,000 people are likely to be infected.

'Coalition of inaction'

In a speech to the United Nations, the international president of MSF, Dr Joanne Liu, said repeated calls for help had been ignored.

She said: "Six months into the worst Ebola epidemic in history, the world is losing the battle to contain it.

"Leaders are failing to come to grips with this transnational threat.

"The WHO announcement on August 8 that the epidemic constituted a 'public health emergency of international concern' has not led to decisive action, and states have essentially joined a global coalition of inaction."

MSF said military and civilian teams capable of dealing with a biological disaster were needed immediately as the spread of Ebola "will not be prevented without a massive deployment".

It is calling for more field hospitals with isolation wards to be set up, trained healthcare workers to be sent to the region and air support to move patients and medics across West Africa.

Dr Liu added: "States with the required capacity have a political and humanitarian responsibility to come forward and offer a desperately needed, concrete response to the disaster unfolding in front of the world's eyes.

"Rather than limit their response to the potential arrival of an infected patient in their countries, they should take the unique opportunity to actually save lives where immediately needed, in West Africa."

The charity said that at one site in Monrovia, in Liberia, it had been able to set up an isolation facility with 160 beds, but said they were "overwhelmed" with growing queues and needed an additional 800 beds.

In other developments:
=31 people have now died from a separate Ebola outbreak in the Democratic Republic of Congo, says the World Health Organization (WHO)
=The UN's Food and Agriculture Organization has warned outbreak is putting food harvests in West Africa "at serious risk".
=Nurses in Liberia's largest hospital are on strike, refusing to return to work until they are issued with protective equipment
=After a Guinean student with Ebola escaped from a clinic in his homeland and took Ebola to Dakar, Senegal's president said if the student were not sick "he would be before the courts"
=Ivory Coast's government allows Sierra Leone's football team to play an Africa Nations Cup qualifier in Abidjan despite the travel ban imposed over the Ebola outbreak

The MSF criticism echoes earlier remarks from the president of the World Bank, Jim Yong Kim.

In a newspaper column he said the outbreak would have been easily contained if it had hit a major Western city.

He said the crisis in West Africa was down to a "disastrously inadequate response" from countries with the resources to help.

"We need international organisations and wealthy countries that possess the required resources and knowledge to step forward and partner with West African governments to mount a serious, co-ordinated response," he said.

Also speaking the the United Nations, the director-general of the World Health Organisation Dr Margaret Chan said: "Ebola has become a global threat which requires urgent global efforts in solidarity with the affected countries.

"The outbreak will get worse before it gets better and it requires a well-coordinated big surge and huge scale-up of outbreak response urgently."
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Ebola virus disease (EVD)
=Symptoms include high fever, bleeding and central nervous system damage
=Spread by body fluids, such as blood and saliva
=Fatality rate can reach 90% - but current outbreak has mortality rate of about 55%
=Incubation period is two to 21 days
=There is no vaccine or cure
=Supportive care such as rehydrating patients who have diarrhoea and vomiting can help recovery
=Fruit bats, a delicacy for some West Africans, are considered to be virus's natural host

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