More Butterflies at Ubin
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Night Walk At Bukit Timah Nature Reserve (06 Feb 2015)
from Beetles@SG BLOG
A closer look at Cave Nectar Bats visiting banana flowers
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Butterfly of the Month - February 2015
from Butterflies of Singapore
Giant clam = giant impact: study compiles how mega-clams impact seas
from Mongabay.com news by Rhett Butler
New Straits Times 7 Feb 15;
KUALA LUMPUR: Strong winds and rough seas in the waters of Samui, Tioman, Bunguran, Reef South and Kuching are expected to continue until Tuesday.
In a statement today, the Malaysian Meteorological Department said the strong Northeasterly winds of between 50 and 60 km per hour with waves up to 4.5 metres were dangerous to all shipping and coastal activities including fishing and ferry services.
The department also gave warnings of similar strong winds and rough seas over the waters off Kelantan, Terengganu, Pahang, East Johor and Sarawak, which were expected to continue until Tuesday.
In addition, the coastal areas of the four peninsula states are also vulnerable to sea level rise.
The department also said that Northeasterly winds of between 40 and 50 km per hour and waves as high as 3.5 metres can be expected in the waters off Sabah (Interior, West Coast and Kudat districts) and Labuan up to next Tuesday. The strong winds and rough seas are dangerous for sea sports and recreational activities and to small crafts. – BERNAMA
Navin Singh Khadka BBC News 7 Feb 15;
Front-line transport workers largely lack awareness on how criminal networks disguise illegal wildlife products, it emerged at a summit in Bangkok.
Customs officials and wildlife trade experts say that educating freight forwarders and handlers of air, ship and land cargoes could help the fight against trafficking.
Their recent meeting with transport operators was the first of its kind.
"There was a genuine shock (among participants from the transport industry in the meeting) as to the magnitude of wildlife trade and the methods of disguise used by traffickers to transport these commodities," said Martin Palmer, an expert in global trade compliance requirements and international transport.
"For example, when a rhino horn is ground down to powder, it's almost impossible to identify the difference between a box of grey chalk and a box of rhino horn powder, from a visual check.
"Facts like these came as a big surprise to participants from the transport industry."
Wildlife organisations say around 35,000 elephants are killed for their tusks every year, mainly in Africa.
The South African government has said poaching of its rhinos reached a record of 1,215 last year.
Only around 3,000 tigers are now left across the globe, which is only 5% of what the population was a century ago.
Experts say despite international efforts against wildlife trafficking, criminal networks have been adopting new tactics in transporting the illegal goods - which are estimated to be worth up to $23bn annually, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.
"And a lot of these people (from the transport industry) said over and over again that a lot of freight handlers lacked awareness," said Tom Milliken, an elephant and rhino trafficking expert with Traffic, an international wildlife trade monitoring network.
In the meeting, Mr Milliken had presented a case study in which a major international courier company in 2011 suddenly found in its Europe depot that one of the parcels it was transporting had ivory bangles that were going from Nigeria to China.
"Within the next two weeks, three more similar seizures were made which was a red flag for larger international courier companies and so they immediately started screening at source," Mr Milliken said.
"Now, there is evidence of ivory processing taking place by Asian carvers in Africa. There is increasing evidence of Chinese processing in particular shifting all the way to Africa."
Wildlife trade experts say that this shift is a new challenge for transport operators.
"You could at least identify raw elephant tusks - but if they are processed into bangles, they could resemble resin bangles," said Mr Palmer.
Wildlife trafficking experts say such information needs to be tailored for transport industry so that they can better assess the risks.
"These freight handlers could become valuable eyes and ears in the trade, because they are the ones who actually handle these consignments in different ways," Mr Palmer added.
Trafficking experts say they are seeking the transport industry's help particularly because most of the customs and security authorities at ports and airports across the globe are "overwhelmed" by security, drugs and human trafficking issues.
"Certainly one cannot expect that customs could inspect every shipment crossing international borders, given the volume of the cargoes. And you don't necessarily want to inspect all the shipments because of trade facilitation," said an official with World Customs Organisations (WCO), which counts 197 countries among its members.
"Also, very few customs authorities around the world have specialised teams that know which species of wildlife are prohibited from international trade," the official added.
"The port of Hong Kong has 19 million containers going through it and if they are going to scan and open even one or two percent of that, it's just a huge number of containers," said Mr Milliken.
About 90% of the items traded around the world are shipped internationally, according to the UN's International Maritime Organisation.
In most cases, sea containers are not X-rayed - unlike air cargoes.
Therefore, experts say, customs officials work on the basis of a very reasoned risk assessment to choose containers that have a higher probability of containing illegal wildlife products.
"The transport industry people know the customer, they know all the trade routes and then they handle the goods," said another senior WCO official, who did not want to be named.
"If they are interested and if they are aware of that kind of threat, then they can tip off the customs authority, which can then improve its performance."
The International Air Transport Association said that a number of airlines had instigated training programmes for staff to identify suspect bags or behaviours.
The IATA recently accepted an invitation to join the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge's United for Wildlife Taskforce, which will look at a whole range of issues and actions to help stamp out this illegal trade, said Michael Gill, its aviation environment director.
There was no comment from the International Chamber of Shipping.
A representative with a shipping company, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the industry was unaware of the tactics used by wildlife traffickers but there was a general awareness that such crimes could take place.
"We mainly rely on declarations from our customers about their goods and if that is false, we cannot do anything about it. It then becomes a customs issue," the representative said.
Channel NewsAsia 6 Feb 15;
KATHMANDU: Thirteen countries which are home to the world's dwindling population of wild tigers on Friday (Feb 6) agreed to establish an intelligence-sharing network to fight traffickers, concluding an anti-poaching conference in Kathmandu.
Around 100 experts, government and law enforcement officials attended the five-day summit, co-hosted by Nepal and conservation group WWF to hammer out a regional plan to fight poaching in Asia.
"We cannot allow wildlife crime to continue to wrap its tentacles deeper into the region," said Tikaram Adhikari, director general of Nepal's department of national parks and wildlife conservation. "Our individual efforts may win us a few battles, but we can only win the war only if Asia presents a united front to stop the poaching, end the trafficking and wipe out demand," Adhikari said in a press statement.
Nepal has twice been recognised for going a full year with no poaching incidents involving tigers, while the population of the endangered cats rose almost two thirds between 2009 and 2013.
David Lawson of WWF's Tigers Alive Initiative said the network of national liaison officers would "help countries communicate better with each other, build trust and deepen cooperation which is essential to win the fight against poachers". "Asian governments need to recognise that we are in the midst of a poaching crisis and that this theft of natural resources must be stopped," Lawson told AFP.
Graphic on the world tiger population. (Photo: AFP/Adrian Leung/John Saeki)
Decades of trafficking and habitat destruction have slashed the global tiger population from 100,000 a century ago to approximately 3,000, according to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature.
Poachers hunt the animal for its bones, which used to be an ingredient of traditional Chinese medicine, its pelt, which can fetch up to US$16,000 on the black market, and its penis, believed to increase male sexual performance.
Countries with tiger populations - Bangladesh, Bhutan, China, Cambodia, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam - in 2010 launched a plan to double their numbers by 2022.
- AFP/al
Asia unites against poaching
TRAFFIC 6 Feb 15;
Kathmandu, Nepal 6th February 2015—Representatives from 13 Asian countries committed to comprehensive action to stamp out poaching at the conclusion of a four-day symposium hosted by the Government of Nepal.
The Symposium Towards Zero Poaching in Asia adopted five recommendations:
• Swift and decisive action to elevate the importance and effectiveness of anti-poaching initiatives and co-operation among all relevant ministries, departments and agencies within their borders, while at the same time strengthening international cooperation in the face of this serious criminal activity;
• Adoption of the Zero Poaching Tool Kit and assessment of current anti-poaching responses to determine improvements and close serious gaps;
• Increase and improve collaboration as a successful anti-poaching response is critically dependant on effectively engaging a diverse number of law enforcement agencies, including efforts to break trafficking syndicates and combat organized crime;
• Improve standards, training and support for rangers, other frontline staff, police and prosecutors to promote best practices from landscape-based protection up to effective case preparation for offenders.
• Commit to identifying a Zero Poaching national contact point to co-ordinate transboundary efforts to stop poaching effectively.
Nepal’s hosting of this landmark event was significant for the country’s efforts to stamp out poaching and associated illegal activity threatening its natural wealth – including tigers, rhinos and elephants.
“We cannot allow wildlife crime to continue to wrap its tentacles deeper into the region. Our individual efforts may win us a few battles, but we can only win the war only if Asia presents a united front to stop the poaching, end the trafficking and wipe out demand,” said Mr Tika Ram Adhikari, Director General of Nepal’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife Conservation.
Nepal’s efforts have set a high standard for other countries to emulate, having achieved ‘zero poaching’ of its ‘big three’ – rhinos, tigers and elephants – in two of the past four years. Representatives from local Nepalese communities, protected area teams as well as law enforcement agencies shared their lessons learned at the symposium.
The value of intelligence-led investigations was made very clear by many presentations from law enforcement agencies – both national and inter-governmental perspectives. A key example of this was the recent apprehension last week in Malaysia of a notorious Nepali rhino poacher and smuggler as a result of collaboration between investigators in both Nepal and Malaysia, working with INTERPOL.
“Stopping poaching and illegal trade is a complex exercise involving work to break trafficking chains and address persistent consumer demand,” said James Compton, TRAFFIC’s Senior Director for Asia. “Effective exchange of relevant information between government agencies and their partners has been proven to break trafficking syndicates – and help prevent poaching from happening in the first place.”
Representatives from the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) emphasised the need for collaboration between inter-governmental agencies with national partners. This included inviting countries to engage with the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime, and the roll-out of national assessments under the Wildlife and Forest Crime Analytic Toolkit.
At the closing ceremony, Nepal’s legendary Chitwan National Park also became the first global site to be accredited as Conservation Assured Tiger Standard (CA|TS).Despite the threats that the Chitwan landscape faces, the protected area has seen an increasingly effective management and protection regime, which is a bedrock of Nepal’s efforts towards zero poaching.
“This is the beginning of the end for poaching across Asia,” said Mike Baltzer, Leader, WWF Tigers Alive Initiative. “WWF is proud to have supported this landmark meeting and is committed to be part of the new determined movement for Zero Poaching in Asia, launched this week in Kathmandu.”
Thirteen Asian countries participated in the symposium: Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Lao PDR, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand, and Viet Nam. Partner organizations included CITES, INTERPOL, UNODC, IUCN, TRAFFIC, US Department of Justice, SMART Partnership and Southern African Wildlife College.
WWF co-hosted the symposium with Global Tiger Forum, National Trust for Nature Conservation and the South Asian Wildlife Enforcement Network (SAWEN).
NOTES:
CA|TS Conservation Assured Tigers Standards – excellence in tiger site conservation & protection. Developed by the Global Tiger Forum (GTF), WWF Tigers Alive Initiative, IUCN and WCPA, CA|TS consists of 17 standards by which all Tiger sites can be managed and measured. Sites taking part will initially be ‘registered’ (standards not yet attained) then, when all required standards are met, ‘approved’ (standards achieved). Sites are evaluated through an assessment and independent review process.
ICCWC – the International Consortium on Combating Wildlife Crime, brings together the expertise and mandates of the CITES Secretariat, INTERPOL, UNODC, World Bank and the World Customs Organization. The mission of ICCWC is to usher in a new era where perpetrators of serious wildlife and forest crime will face a formidable and co-ordinated response, rather than the present situation where the risk of detection and punishment is all too low.
Channel NewsAsia 5 Feb 15;
SINGAPORE: The Public Accounts Committee has responded to a report by the Auditor-General flagging irregularities in the use of public funds for the financial year 2013/14.
In a report submitted to Parliament on Wednesday (Feb 4), the committee – comprising eight Members of Parliament, and chaired by Mr Cedric Foo – urged government agencies to “exercise greater diligence in managing public resources and to review their usage regularly so as to optimise their use and minimise wastage”.
Released in July 2014, the Auditor-General’s report highlighted lapses in the administration of grants, schemes and programmes, as well as instances of weak management of resources which resulted in wastage.
LAPSES IN LICENSING OF LAND
Among the ministries and statutory boards cited in the report was the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF), which entered into an agreement with its contractor in 1995 to sublet land at a nominal rate of S$45 a year to provide services solely to MINDEF. However, the ministry did not raise the rent even after the contractor was privatised in 2000 and used the land for commercial activities.
MINDEF clarified that the contractor was a wholly Government-owned company prior to 2000, and there was no clause in the 1995 agreement to state that the land leased was not to be used for commercial activities. MINDEF told the committee that it has since entered into a new agreement with the contractor and would be charging it annual rental for the land used for commercial activities.
UNDER-UTILISATION OF ASSETS
The Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) was cited for the under-utilisation of land, buildings and facilities at two of its sites, as well as assets being under-utilised or left unused.
In response, the Ministry of National Development (MND), which oversees the AVA, said that the AVA will conduct a comprehensive review on the usage of all its land, buildings and facilities by early 2015. It has since completed a review of its Sembawang site and submitted a land return proposal to the Singapore Land Authority, MND said.
The AVA has also identified under-utilised equipment and machinery, and reminded departments to dispose of those no longer required. In addition, its finance department plans to carry out annual independent checks on the assets, MND said.
ERRONEOUS MEDISAVE CLAIMS
The Central Provident Fund Board (CPFB) was rapped for erroneous Medisave claims by medical institutions, and has since taken several remedy actions: Formalising and documenting procedures on the follow-up of erroneous claims, improving the tracking system, and sending reminders to all restructured hospitals to improve their medical classification of claim cases and to make the appropriate refunds to the claimants’ Medisave accounts.
As of January 2015, 90 per cent of erroneous claims have been settled, the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) said.
CPFB has also been working with the Ministry of Health (MOH) since 2011 to explore various deterrent measures against medical institutions that made erroneous claims, such as the possibility of imposing administrative or penalty fees.
According to MOM, the majority of the erroneous claims arose from misinterpretation of the surgical procedures and guidelines. MOH has since stepped up efforts to educate clinical practitioners and providers, and will update the list of surgical procedures claimable under Medisave or MediShield more regularly, MOM said.
ADMINISTRATION OF SCHEMES
The Health Sciences Authority (HSA) was cited for “lax controls” over the approval of applications for the import of medicinal products. Of 1,479 import applications checked, 386 contained errors.
The committee was told that HSA has since conducted checks on the 386 applications and verified that the products had been licensed or approved for importation. MOH added that HSA would be enhancing the current trade declaration system to ensure that information in the application forms are verified electronically.
PROCUREMENT
The HSA was also rapped for awarding contracts to five incumbent contractors even though their tender proposals did not fully meet tender requirements. The agency has since tightened its procurement process and amended its procurement guidelines, MOH said.
The Public Accounts Committee said it was concerned that the instruction manual on procurement did not specify if agencies should invite a fresh tender if variation works exceeded a certain percentage of the approved original procurement value.
In response, the Ministry of Finance (MOF) said there are “complex and multi-dimensional considerations” in determining whether a contract variation is justifiable. Setting a threshold may drive agencies towards calling contract variations as long as it is within the threshold and not considering calling fresh tenders, even when it may be more appropriate to do so, it said.
However, MOF said it has recently enhanced its guidelines on contract variations. Where additional works are necessary, and especially if the additional works are substantial, calling fresh tenders remains the default option, it said.
BACKDATED AUDIT DOCUMENTS
During the audit of the National Parks Board's (NParks) development of the Gardens by the Bay, certain documents were found to have been created and backdated to give the impression that they existed when the transactions took place.
An internal inquiry by the Ministry of National Development (MND) confirmed that an NParks officer had created and backdated 16 letters, purportedly issued by NParks to its suppliers, to satisfy audit queries. The same officer also arranged for the suppliers to issue a further 11 backdated letters – five of which were created by the officer on their behalf.
According to MND, Gardens by the Bay has taken disciplinary actions against the officer for misconduct. It will also tighten its internal procurement, project management and contract management processes to prevent future recurrence, MND told the committee.
- CNA/cy
MPs flag ministries' underuse of land resources
Charissa Yong The Straits Times AsiaOne 6 Feb 15;
The weak management of land resources by two ministries has been pinpointed by Parliament's watchdog of public-sector accounts.
The panel of MPs was particularly concerned with the underuse of land, buildings and equipment, such as at the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA).
The AVA, a statutory board under the Ministry of National Development (MND), had vacant buildings and underused laboratories in Sembawang as well as research equipment bought in the 1970s that had not been used recently.
But the matter is being resolved, the AVA has informed the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).
The issue of resource management is one of four areas the PAC noted in its latest annual report submitted to Parliament on Wednesday and released yesterday.
The other lapses are in the administration of schemes and programmes, procurement, and the backdating of documents.
In another case, the Ministry of Defence (Mindef) had wrongly rented out a plot of land to a contractor at a nominal rate, the panel noted. This has since been rectified, as Mindef has drawn up a new agreement with the contractor and will charge it rental according to its revenue.
The PAC, made up of eight MPs who scrutinise how public funds are spent, tracks what government agencies have done to correct irregularities in the use of public funds.
It studied the latest Auditor-General's report, which found lapses in five ministries and 13 statutory boards for the financial year 2013/2014.
It then asked the ministries to account for how they had addressed the gaps.
The AVA said it would dispose of old equipment to free up storage space. It is also exploring the possibility of returning its unused land to the Singapore Land Authority.
The Auditor-General had found that several of the AVA's buildings and laboratories in Sembawang were vacant or underused. One even had termites, while others contained condemned furniture.
The Auditor-General had also highlighted some underused equipment, such as a tractor and a water filter, and research tools bought in the 1970s and 1980s that had gone unused in recent years.
The AVA told the panel that it has since completed a review of how all its land, buildings and facilities are used.It has also looked at whether it can relocate some of its offices and laboratory testing facilities from its Sembawang site to its Lim Chu Kang premises.
Mr Cedric Foo, the MP for Pioneer and chair of the PAC, said: "Singapore is land-scarce. Government agencies, as stewards of the land, ought to use land in the most efficient way. Otherwise, they are wasting resources."
Turning to other areas, the PAC found that where schemes and programmes had been improperly administered, the ministries and statutory boards had acted to redress their lapses.
For example, the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board has settled 90 per cent of the Medisave claims that had been wrongly given out, and the Ministry of Health is working with it to recover the rest, said the report.
To prevent future wrong claims, the CPF Board has improved how it tracks and follows up on Medisave claims.
Also of concern was how an MND officer had created and backdated documents during the audit of the Gardens by the Bay development project.
The officer, who is still employed, has been disciplined, the MND told the panel.
It added that internal procurement, project management and contract management processes will be tightened to stop such misconduct from happening again.
Unlike in past years, the panel's report this year does not focus heavily on procurement lapses.
The reason is that the Auditor-General has shifted attention from procurement to other lapses "to give other agencies time to fix their procurement processes", said Mr Foo.
But the PAC will revisit the issue in future reviews, he said. "We will give the agencies time to fix it. But we will surely want to come back to procurement."
The Star 6 Feb 15;
KOTA BARU: The thousands of tonnes of waste and debris from the recent flood that affected 10 of 11 districts in Kelantan will be cleared by the end of the month.
The authorities in the state are working hard to reach the target with the help of local councils from other states.
State Local Government, Health, Housing and Environment Committee chairman Datuk Abdul Fattah Mahmood said so far almost 100,000 tonnes of flood debris and mud had been cleared.
Kota Baru, he said, topped the areas with the most debris collected with over 40,300 tonnes already cleared.
The waste and debris collected, he said, had been sent to a temporary landfill in Sabak.
He said workers have also completed cleaning up Pasir Mas and Tanah Merah districts.
“Between Jan 4 when the clean-up works started until last week, 1,558 tonnes have been collected in Pasir Mas and 23,302 tonnes from Tanah Merah,” he said yesterday.
He thanked local councils from outside the state which had sent hundreds of workers to help in the clean-up.
“Without their help, it would have taken much longer for the towns to return to normal,” he added.
Kelantan was the worst hit during the recent floods, which also hit several other states including Terengganu, Pahang and Perak.
Almost 200,000 people in Kelantan were displaced during the flood, the worst in the country in recent memory.
The state and federal governments have formed a joint post-flood recovery/operations committee, jointly-chaired by Mentri Besar Datuk Ahmad Yakob and International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamad to solve the many problems caused by the flood that destroyed more than 2,500 homes in Gua Musang, Kuala Krai and Tanah Merah districts.
WWF 5 Feb 15;
Jakarta, Indonesia – Two years after Asia Pulp & Paper (APP) announced a new “forest conservation” policy, APP’s pledge to halt forest clearing has held, but its forests are still disappearing.
A Rainforest Alliance audit released today confirmed the findings by WWF and local NGOs that APP is failing to stop deforestation and illegal activities in its concessions by other parties, even in areas already identified by the company as containing high conservation values and carbon stocks.
“APP has halted its own forest clearing and embarked on a wide array of assessments in its concessions,” said Aditya Bayunanda, Forest Commodity Leader WWF-Indonesia. “But not much has changed on the ground - forests continue to disappear, peat soils continue to be drained and social conflicts remain unresolved. The company has even failed to protect forests they are legally required to conserve.”
"No concrete plans on where forests will be restored or conserved, and with what financing"
Progress is lacking on action to reduce the climate impacts of APP’s vast concessions on peat. The Rainforest Alliance audit confirmed that other than stopping new canal development APP has taken no action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the draining of over a million hectares of peatland under company control.
WWF is also very concerned with the lack of progress by the company to resolve hundreds of social conflicts. The findings of local NGOs were confirmed in the Rainforest Alliance audit and should send high alerts through APP headquarters.
WWF had welcomed APP’s 2014 announcement to restore and conserve 1 million hectares of tropical ecosystems beyond legal requirements as the right measure to address the company legacy of deforestation of an estimated 2 million hectares of tropical forest.
“WWF has participated in numerous stakeholder meetings and task force activities since the announcement,” said Bayunanda. “These discussions have resulted in very little progress. There are no concrete plans on where forests will be restored or conserved, and with what financing. Even in APP’s priority landscape, Bukit Tigapuluh, the company has yet to take promised steps to provide wildlife corridors and stop illegal loggers, poachers and encroachers from accessing the forest through its logging road.”
WWF commends APP for having invited Rainforest Alliance to audit its progress, and urges APP to act quickly and decisively to address the audit findings. WWF will also carefully study the audit findings and advise APP customers accordingly.
“After two years of assessments and planning, APP needs to shift its focus to action. Today, APP promised change and WWF will monitor its next steps to see how serious it is about saving forests,” said Rod Taylor, Director, Forest Programme at WWF International. “APP customers should be alert to the risk of doing business with a company that has not yet eliminated deforestation and peat carbon emissions from its wood supply areas.”
For more information, visit the WWF APP/APRIL webpages
Tunggadewa Mattangkilang Jakarta Globe 5 Feb 15;
The governor of East Kalimantan has said he will no longer issue permits for mining or plantations. (Antara Photo)
Samarinda. The governor of East Kalimantan has announced a plan to stop issuing land-use permits for mining and plantation concessions in the province’s forests.
“Starting from this year, there will be no more permits for land lend-use for coal mining and forestry activities,” East Kalimantan governor Awang Farouk Ishak said on Thursday.
Awang said he was confident banning the awarding of concessions for mining and logging would not hamper the province’s economic growth. He said the measure was necessary to protect the environment for the longer term.
A land permit, known as a IPPKH, is required for companies wanting to carry out economic activity in forestry areas.
Awang said the government would still issue licenses for infrastructure projects, such as power plants or roads. But he emphasized that the government would tighten the monitoring of the permits it does decide to issue.
“After the permit is issued the progress of the development would be tightly monitored because we don’t want the permit to be misused,” he said. “Excessive land conversion is very concerning and will affect the effort to achieve food security status.”
Kaweewit Kaewjinda, Pracha Hariraksapitak and Panarat Thepgumpanat PlanetArk 6 Feb 15;
Thailand will experience its worst drought in more than a decade this year, the irrigation department said on Thursday, damaging crops in one of the world's biggest rice-exporting nations.
Thailand was currently battling drought in eight of 76 provinces, but 31 other provinces remained at risk, the Interior Ministry said, adding that it had allocated around 6.8 billion baht ($208.65 million) to alleviate drought, up from 430 million baht ($13.19 million) last year.
The funds would be used to install water pumps and provide mobile water tanks in affected areas, it said.
"This year's water levels are the worst in 15 years but we have managed our water supply so people can be confident that there will be no problems regarding water shortages," said Lertwiroj Kowattana, director-general of the Royal Irrigation Department.
Drought will cut major rice exporter Thailand's 2015 off-season crop by over 30 percent, according to the latest report from the Office of Agricultural Economics.
Thailand's off-season rice is grown between November and April after the main crop is harvested. The second crop needs irrigation as there is little rain during that period.
The government had announced that it would not provide water for second-crop rice farming. On Thursday, it said it had persuaded farmers to halve second-crop production in 2015.
Around 160,000 hectares, or around 1.3 percent of Thailand's total rice farm land, will be affected by drought, the Agriculture Ministry estimates.
Palm oil production has also been hit by ongoing drought prompting the government to import around 50,000 tonnes of crude palm oil due to a domestic shortage.
Thailand's military government has said it plans to invest $7.5 billion in urgent water management projects over the next two years.
The projects are part of a 10-year water management plan across the country after the military government scrapped a 350-billion baht water plan initiated by the previous administration.
(Editing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre and Nick Macfie)
Chris Prentice PlanetArk 6 Feb 15;
The U.S. weather forecaster on Thursday maintained its forecast for a 50 percent to 60 percent chance of El Nino during the Northern Hemisphere winter and early spring, with neutral conditions thereafter.
The Climate Prediction Center, an agency of the national Weather Service, in its monthly report kept its outlook unchanged for the possibility of a weak El Nino if the conditions emerge.
El Nino, the warming of Pacific sea-surface temperatures, can trigger drought in some parts of the world and cause flooding in others, adding to uncertainty in commodities and energy markets.
The CPC's outlook comes after Australia's weather forecaster reduced the likelihood El Nino due to easing indicators in recent weeks.
The CPC has dialed back its outlook for El Nino after going on alert for the conditions about a year ago for the first time since 2012.
To read the full CPC report: http://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/analysis_monitoring/enso_advisory/ensodisc.html
(Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Lisa Von Ahn)
Norway’s giant fund removes investments made risky by climate change and other environmental concerns, including coal, oil sands, cement and gold mining
Damian Carrington The Guardian 5 Feb 15;
The world’s richest sovereign wealth fund removed 40 coal mining companies from its portfolio in 2014, citing the risk they face from regulatory action on climate change.
Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global (GPFG), worth $850bn (£556bn) and founded on the nation’s oil and gas wealth, revealed a total of 114 companies had been dumped on environmental and climate grounds in its first report on responsible investing, released on Thursday. The companies divested also include tar sands producers, cement makers and gold miners.
As part of a fast-growing campaign, over $50bn in fossil fuel company stocks have been divested by 180 organisations on the basis that their business models are incompatible with the pledge by the world’s governments to tackle global warming. But the GPFG is the highest profile institution to divest to date.
A series of analyses have shown that only a quarter of known and exploitable fossil fuels can be burned if temperatures are to be kept below 2C, the internationally agreed danger limit. Bank of England governor Mark Carney, World Bank president Jim Yong Kim and others have warned investors that action on climate change would leave many current fossil fuel assets worthless.
“Our risk-based approach means that we exit sectors and areas where we see elevated levels of risk to our investments in the long term,” said Marthe Skaar, spokeswoman for GPFG, which has $40bn invested in fossil fuel companies. “Companies with particularly high greenhouse gas emissions may be exposed to risk from regulatory or other changes leading to a fall in demand.”
She said GPFG had divested from 22 companies because of their high carbon emissions: 14 coal miners, five tar sand producers, two cement companies and one coal-based electricity generator. In addition, 16 coal miners linked to deforestation in Indonesia and India were dumped, as were two US coal companies involved in mountain-top removal. The GPFG did not reveal the names of the companies or the value of the divestments.
“One of the largest global investment institutions is winding down its coal interests, as it is clear the business model for coal no longer works with western markets already in a death spiral, and signs of Chinese demand peaking,” said James Leaton, research director at the Carbon Tracker Initiative, which analyses the risk of fossil fuel assets being stranded.
A report by Goldman Sachs in January also called time on the use of coal for electricity generation: “Just as a worker celebrating their 65th birthday can settle into a more sedate lifestyle while they look back on past achievements, we argue that thermal coal has reached its retirement age.” Goldman Sachs downgraded its long term price forecast for coal by 18%.
On Wednesday, a group of medical organisations called for the health sector to divest from fossil fuels as it had from tobacco. The £18bn Wellcome Trust, one of the world’s biggest funders of medical research , said “climate change is one of the greatest challenges to global health” but rejected the call to divest or reveal its total fossil fuel holdings.
In January, Axa Investment Managers warned the reputation of fossil fuel companies were at immediate risk from the divestment campaign and Shell unexpectedly backed a shareholder demand to assess whether the company’s business model is compatible with global goals to tackle climate change.
Posts
visitors since Nov 07