Malaysia: Johor starts month-long water rationing on Aug 16

ZAZALI MUSA The Star 7 Aug 15;

JOHOR BARU: SAJ Holdings Sdn Bhd will start scheduled water rationing to 641,495 domestic and industrial consumers in three districts from Aug 16 to Sept 15.

The one-month exercise is implemented following the water levels at the Sungai Layang dam in Masai, Pasir Gudang and Sungai Lebam dam in Kota Tinggi had reached critical levels.

"The main objective of the exercise is to ensure that we are able to sustain the water level at the two dams from dropping further," SAJ corporate communications head Jamaluddin Jamil said in a press statement here released on Friday.

The Sungai Layang dam supplies water to 575,000 users in Pasir Gudang and Masai mostly industrial users and parts of Johor Baru.

The Sungai Lebam dam channels water to about 66,495 users in Mukim Tanjung Surat, Mukim Pantai Timur and parts of Kota Tinggi.

Jamaluddin said the water level at the Sungai Layang dam had dropped to 19.10m (critical level) from 23.50m, and Sungai Lebam dam from 14m to 9.63m.

"The present dry spell is causing the water levels in Sungai Johor and Sungai Layang to fall, the two rivers act like the feeders for the two dams," said Jamaluddin.

He said although heavy rains were recorded in several parts of southern Johor in the last few days, they did not help to fill the two dams.

Jamaluddin said the scheduled water rationing would be stopped if the water levels at the two dams return to the normal readings.

Affected consumers are advised to use water wisely and avoid wastage in view of the current situation at the two dams.

For more information please contact SAJ Info Center at 1 800 88 7474 or SMS at 019-772 7474 or e-mail at
customer.care.saj.com.my.

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Indonesia: Riau now haze free

thejakartapost.com 7 Aug 15;

Most of Riau is now clear from haze caused by forest fires thanks to a recent spike in rainfall.

"The visibility in several cities and regencies in Riau is quite good this morning; between 3 and 5 kilometers. No more haze is around," said Pekanbaru Meteorology, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) analyst Ardhitama as quoted by Antara news agency on Friday.

He added that there are no more hotspots in Riau and that the potential of forest fires in Pekanbaru is much lower now due to the medium to high intensity of rain that has been falling relatively frequently.

“Most areas of Riau is in dry season. The transition season will be in the middle of August, while the peak of the rainy season will be at the end of August,” he said.

Most of the Riau region, including its capital city Pekanbaru, was hit by a harsh dry season that delivered almost no rain for the last three months causing forest fires and a thick haze that disrupted residents' daily activities. (edn/kes)(+++)

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Myanmar flood death toll climbs to 88

The death toll has risen to 88 from 74, according to Phyu Lei Lei Tun of the social welfare ministry, although this could climb again as relief teams reach isolated areas, some of which remain cut off more than a week after the disaster struck.
Channel NewsAsia 7 Aug 15;

NYAUNG DON: The death toll from severe flooding across Myanmar has risen to 88, officials said on Friday (Aug 7), as rising waters swallowed more homes in low-lying regions in some of the poorest parts of the country.

More than 330,000 people have been affected by torrential monsoon rains that triggered flash floods and landslides, cutting off communications as the deluge engulfed roads and destroyed bridges.

Residents have raced to bolster sand-bag defences along the Irrawaddy river in the southwest as floodwaters swell the mighty waterway, swamping dozens of villages as the waters drain from further north.

"Nothing like this has happened before, but I am not the only one suffering," said Soe Min Paing, a fisherman from Kyauk Taing village in Nyaung Don township, whose home has been inundated.

The death toll has risen to 88 from 74 on Thursday, according to Phyu Lei Lei Tun of the social welfare ministry, although this could climb again as relief teams reach isolated areas, some of which remain cut off more than a week after the disaster struck.

Impoverished western Rakhine state has suffered the highest number of fatalities so far, the state-run Global New Light of Myanmar reported, with at least 55 killed after Cyclone Komen tore across the Bay of Bengal last week.

The heavy monsoon downpours have caused devastation across large parts of South and Southeast Asia in recent weeks, claiming hundreds of lives and displacing millions.

In Myanmar, where 12 out of 14 states and regions have suffered flooding, international aid has stepped up in recent days following an official government request for help.

Myanmar's previous junta government was accused of indifference in its sluggish response to Cyclone Nargis in May 2008, a crisis which left nearly 140,000 people dead or missing.

The quasi-civilian government which replaced outright military rule in 2011 has been eager to show it is mobilising.

But many of those affected by the flooding appear not to be relying on government help, either trying to cope alone or turning to local monasteries or community groups.

Authorities have insisted that crucial elections set for November 8 will go ahead despite the disruption caused by the floods even as they try to assess the scale of the damage.

More than 200,000 acres of farmland have been ruined and large numbers of animals killed as well as the thousands of homes lost, according to state media.

Fears are also growing over malnutrition as some of the worst-hit areas are among the country's poorest, according to the UN's World Food Programme.

"Thousands of people have lost homes, livelihoods, crops and existing food and seed stocks. Food security will be seriously affected," WFP Country Director Dom Scalpelli said in a statement.

In a statement released Friday the European Union announced the EU and its Member States would donate an extra €4.5 million (US$5 million) in emergency aid to Myanmar in response to the government's appeal for international assistance.

- AFP/ec

In flooded Myanmar, government clears path for aid workers
ALISA TANG Reuters 7 Aug 15;

BANGKOK (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Myanmar's government has smoothed travel for aid workers to flood-hit areas of the country, even giving them lifts by helicopter, boat and plane - in sharp contrast to the restricted humanitarian access after a massive cyclone in 2008.

After Cyclone Nargis, which ploughed across Myanmar's southern delta region in May 2008, killing nearly 140,000 people, it took three weeks for the then-military government to grant access to international aid workers, and even then under tight restrictions.

The current monsoon floods, that began in late June, have prompted an urgent response from Myanmar's reformist government which appealed for international help on Monday, days after the crisis escalated with lashing rains.

"The fact that the government has made a call for international assistance is an indication that they're more receptive to support from the international community," Patrick Fuller, regional spokesman for the International Federation of Red Cross (IFRC), told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

The floods, which have killed 88 people and affected 330,000 across the country, are the first big test of the ability of the reformist government – which came to power in 2011 - to coordinate humanitarian assistance.

Mike Bruce, spokesman for Plan International, said there had been no reports of the government hindering access for international aid agencies or their staff.

Under normal circumstances, international staff of aid agencies working in Myanmar need travel authorizations to go to various parts of the country, and that process can take days, if not weeks, said Pierre Peron, spokesman for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"They (government officials) have understood that in a crisis like this, you need to be able to get staff to the affected areas as quickly as possible, and humanitarian staff may be coming from other countries, in surge," Peron said.

"They are facilitating those travel authorizations (to allow) staff to get on planes and travel to locations that they need to go to... it is much easier and much quicker."

PRACTICE AND PREPAREDNESS

Peron attributed the faster response to a new emergency operations center set up last year, and recent drills with U.N. agencies, non-governmental organizations and the government.

The operations center - set up with support from the United States and Japan - has helped with travel authorizations and has played a critical role in managing the vast amounts of flood data, Peron said.

"It can often be quite chaotic when you get lots of information from different sources and different parts of country," he said.

"Being able to prioritize and collate that information to be able to use that to respond most effectively and be sure you're coordinating the most important humanitarian needs - that is an important role the EOC is playing."

Peron said the practice exercises, with earthquake and cyclone scenarios, put in place contingency plans and identified relevant contacts at government ministries.

"If you need a helicopter to get to a certain place, do you know who to speak to to get that to happen? Thanks to the simulation exercises, we do," Peron said.

Aid workers were bracing for secondary flooding in the low-lying southern delta region as flood waters flowed into the area, swelling rivers to dangerously high levels. Authorities on Thursday urged people to leave the delta.

The U.N. children's agency UNICEF appealed for $9.2 million to fund humanitarian assistance for children affected by the floods, many of them already poor and vulnerable.

The World Food Programme, the U.N. agency that provides food assistance, said the delta region would experience flooding in three to five days.

"We are still in the midst of this disaster," Fuller of IFRC said, adding that the number of people affected was likely to rise.

(Reporting by Alisa Tang, Editing by Ros Russell.; Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women’s rights, corruption and climate change. Visit www.trust.org)

Myanmar president urges people to leave delta as floods rise
HNIN YADANA ZAW AND AUNG HLA TUN Reuters 6 Aug 15;

Myanmar's president urged people to leave a low-lying southern delta region on Thursday with rain water that has inundated much of the country flowing into the area threatening further flooding as rivers reached dangerously high levels.

The widespread floods that were triggered last week by heavy monsoon rains have killed 81 people, according to Ministry of Social Welfare, Relief and Resettlement.

President Thein Sein told people living in the Ayeyarwady delta region to seek shelter as swollen rivers rose higher.

"It's best to evacuate to a safe place in advance since natural disasters can't be stopped once they start," he said in a speech broadcast on state television.

About 6.2 million people, 12 percent of Myanmar's population, live in the region, a southwest area where the Ayeyarwady and other rivers branch out into a delta leading to the sea.

Yangon, Myanmar's largest city, despite being near the delta has not experienced flooding.

A Reuters witness in Nyaungdon, a town in Ayeyarwady Region, said some villages were flooded on Thursday with only roofs visible above the water and residents feared waters would rise.

The delta is the country's major rice producing hub, but Soe Tun, Secretary of the Myanmar Rice Federation, said much of the paddy in the area had been spared from flooding.

According to the Ministry of Agriculture and Irrigation, 101,000 acres (409 sq km) of paddy in the Ayeyarwady Region have been flooded, but just 180 acres were destroyed.

Country-wide, the impact on a agriculture has been far greater. According to the ministry 1.17 million acres of paddy field have been flooded, with 152,500 acres destroyed.

The government appealed for international assistance on Monday and supplies had started to arrive from abroad.

The call for help marked a change from 2008 when the then-military government shunned most outside aid after a cyclone killed 130,000 people, most in the same delta region.

Opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi, who earlier in the week toured flood hit areas, said international aid and donations needed to be organized to increase effectiveness.

"Generous donations which are uncoordinated tend to go astray or to prove less effective than they might be if they were part of a well laid plan," she said in a video on Facebook.

Kyaw Moe Oo, a deputy director from the Department of Meteorology and Hydrology, said Yangon was not at risk from floods, but the department was monitoring water levels at reservoirs and dams around the city.

(Writing by Timothy Mclaughlin; Editing by Robert Birsel)

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Malaysia: Floods won’t be as bad as last year

The Star 8 Aug 15;

BESUT: Floods remain in the year-end forecast for several states, in­­cluding those in the east coast.

However, it would not be as bad as last year, said Malaysian Meteo­ro­logical Department director-general Datuk Che Gayah Ismail.

She said the department would provide the latest wea­ther forecast to enable the pu­blic to prepare.

“From October, the department will hold a briefing with state au­thorities on the weather situation,” she told reporters at the Besut community level disaster management programme at the SMK Kuala Besut here yesterday. — Bernama

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Sea defences not enough to protect delta cities from rising flood risk – study

‘Eco-based’ engineering systems may be key to protecting cities that face up to eight times more risk from rising tides, storm surges and floods, says study
Tim Radford The Guardian 6 Aug 15;

Rich nations spend huge sums to keep the seas at bay but wealth may not save them indefinitely.

New research suggests that the probability of flooding in cities and megacities built on river deltas is on the increase and over time, the Mississippi and the Rhine may become up to eight times more at hazard from rising tides, storm surges or catastrophic downstream floods.

The study, published in the journal Science, calculates the challenges ahead for 48 major coastal deltas in the Americas, Europe and Asia, right now home to populations of more than 340 million people.

Deltas are natural sites for cities: they offer direct access to the sea and upriver to the hinterland; their wetlands provided good hunting and, when drained, became fertile farmland, ever renewed by fresh deposits of silt from frequent flooding. So civilisation got a head start in the Nile delta, the Indus, the Ganges and the Brahmaputra, the Yangtze, and elsewhere.

But dams upriver to conserve water or generate electricity stopped the downstream flow of silt. The draining of the wetlands allowed the soils to compact. The abstraction of water for industry and for huge numbers of new citizens meant that soils compacted even more. The reclamation of wetlands meant that the highest tides had nowhere to go but on to the streets and into city basements. And the sea began to encroach, which meant more investment in sea defences.

In the Mississippi delta, according to another study in the same journal, the citizens of Louisiana and New Orleans have bade goodbye to up to 100 sq km of land washed away every year since 1900, and in the Netherlands, after centuries of soil drainage and subsidence, 9 million people live below sea level, behind costly sea dikes.

By 2100, according to recent research, as sea levels rise in line with global warming, coastal flooding could be costing nations $100,000bn a year.

Zachary Tessler of City University in New York – a city taken calamitously by surprise by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 – and colleagues report in Science that they looked at relative risks and how these might be altered over time, not just by sea level rise and climate change and a greater frequency of extreme events, but by the things humans continue to do to lower the level of the land at the same time as sea levels continue to rise.

They found that while 340 million were directly at risk in their 48 major coastal deltas, there were also an estimated 140 million people living within a 25km radius of the vulnerable regions.

And they found that although the poorer nations were inevitably more vulnerable, relative risk continued to grow – from four to eightfold in some cases – for the wealthiest delta regions as well. These included not just the Mississippi, the Rhine, the Han, Chao Praya and Yangtze, but also the Parana, Rhône and Pearl deltas. Not surprisingly, they conclude that deltas are “highly sensitive” to the balance between sediment supply and wave energy.

“Our study demonstrates that economic ability and decisions to deploy engineering solutions will be key factors in determining how sustainable deltas become in the long term,” they warn.

In the Ganges Brahmaputra delta in Bangladesh and India, home to 170 million people, the surviving wetlands are up to 1.5 metres above the embanked and reclaimed land. When the wetlands are disconnected from the rivers the land no longer naturally builds up with sea level rise.

So Stijn Temmerman of the University of Antwerp and Matthew Kirwan of the College of William and Mary at Gloucester Point in Virginia, in the US, spell it out: the answer may lie in “eco-based” engineering systems to put sediment-laden water back on to the delta plains. In the Mississippi, that would prevent the loss of 500,000 hectares of wetlands and reduce annual flood damage to New Orleans and the Louisiana coast by between $5.3bn (£3.4bn) and $18bn in 50 years.

And by judiciously letting the river do the job, instead of transporting settlement by barge, or by pipeline, the costs could be reduced.

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Vietnam: Don't let sand miners destroy our heritage

Tran Le Tra Viet Nam News 6 Aug 15;

My generation grew up realising that Viet Nam, according to the geography textbooks, is ceaselessly and naturally expanding outwards to the sea, particularly in the south.

Some even estimate that if the cape of Ca Mau keeps on growing steadily southward at the pace of 500 metres a year, then within less than 800 years the southern-most point of the country will be connected with the peninsula of Malaysia.

However, in the past few decades, Vietnamese geography textbooks remain unchanged. The shape of Ca Mau and the pattern of its replenishment by sediment, however, have changed dramatically.

In the Mekong River Delta, one can still observe just how much sediment is being carried downstream, to be deposited around the mouth of the great river.

This contrasts with other coastal areas where Viet Nam is e losing land due to coastal erosion at an unprecedented pace, due to some extent to climate change.

Up to 256 cases of serious erosion covering a total length of 450km along the coast line have been recorded. Thousands of hectares of land collapses into the sea each year. In Ca Mau province alone, coastal erosion swallows up to 927ha of land a year. Consequently, the "nose" of Ca Mau is now no longer the furthest southern point of the country and Mekong Delta provinces are losing a medium-size commune each year.

At the Forum on Natural Conservation and Culture for Sustainable Development of Mekong Delta, two core reasons for erosion were identified. One is the irresponsible constructions of dams and reservoirs for irrigation and hydropower and the other is over exploitation of sand and gravel in river bed of the Mekong. These two factors will soon be aggravated by the increasing agressivity of the wave pattern, which will be modified by climate change, and a rise in sea level.

The Mekong River Commission research shows that the suspended sediment load in the river declined from 160 million tonnes in 1992 to 75 million tonnes in 2014 due mainly to the construction of hydropower dams and reservoirs on the mainstream and tributaries of Mekong River.

Sand and gravel mining is taking place in all four Lower Mekong countries, but the largest extractions are happening in Cambodia and Viet Nam. In the Vietnamese part of the delta alone, more than 150 sand mines covering a total area of 8,041ha of water surface in 13 Mekong Delta provinces have been licensed by the provincial governments.

While the total reserve of sand in Mekong River is estimated at 816 million cubic metres, the total amount of sand mined from the lower Mekong main stem (in Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Viet Nam) has been estimated by WWF at 35 million cubic metres per year.

A more recent sand mining estimate in the Viet Nam part of the delta by the Southern Institute for Water Resources Research is as high as 28 million cubic metres.

We are well aware that the loss of land in the Mekong Delta is no longer a myth. It is happening, and human actions,not nature, are responsible for it. "Management of sedimentation in Mekong Delta is now an issue of great concern," said Dao Anh Dung, vice-chairman of Can Tho People's Committee.

"The management of resources in a river that bring nutrition to 13 provinces in Mekong Delta requires close and effective co-operation at all levels, including international." said Van Ngoc Thinh, Country Director of the World Wild Fund for Nature (WWF) in Viet Nam.

We are very close to the point of an irreversible process. And without appropriate and strong intervention, then within several decades all the land that has been created by nature for thousands of years will be gone.

The culture of the region, which is closely related to agriculture and fishery, and strongly dependent on the resources provided by Mekong River, would be affected. Our pride would suffer, geography textbooks would have to be rewritten - and our generation would have to answer why it had failed to protect one of our most sacred heritages.

To avoid this, it is of utmost importance that the sand mining industry in Mekong Delta as the whole is reviewed and replanned on the bases of careful assessments and scientific evidence. This may be started with the development of an effective coordination mechanism among provinces in the region.

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Malaysia: Horseshoe crab population in Sabah down sharply

Daily Express 6 Aug 15;

Kota Kinabalu: The horseshoe crab population in Sabah is down sharply due to the loss of mangrove habitats.

It could be due unequal sex ratio – males outnumber the females, thus disrupting mating behaviour.

Field researcher Rolando Robert from Universiti Malaysia Sabah's Borneo Marine Research Institute links the imbalance ratio to human- related activities. He says decades of mangrove clearing and extensive beach reclamation in Kota Kinabalu have brought about these losses.

The Carcinoscorpius rotundicauda species is the focus of his research though Malaysia has two other horseshoe crab species ( out of four in the world), the Tachypleus gigas and Tachypleus tridentatus. He says previous assessments failed to provide an estimate of the population of the horseshoe crabs.

"We have tried locating their foraging and spawning habitats but with no luck. We have also tried the capture-recapture method but found it very difficult to re- capture them. They are elusive and information on their population dynamics is lacking at the moment," Robert says in an e- mail interview.

He is certain of one thing though: their occurrence at two study sites have declined dramatically, as supported by interviews conducted with local residents.

The first study site is Menggatal River where clams and other shellfish are harvested by local communities. The second site, the Kota Kinabalu Wetlands, is a research, education, and conservation centre for mangroves and fisheries is not allowed there.

"Both are breeding sites for horseshoe crabs. Fishermen and wetland authorities informed us that there are mating individuals and juveniles there, indicating that spawning activities have taken place," explains Robert.

He says monitoring work was conducted over four months – two nights during the full moon and new moon of each month, as that is the time when the horseshoe crabs venture into mangrove areas to spawn.

From the sampling, Robert and his research colleague Muhammad Ali Syed Hussein found the imbalance sex ratio. At Kota Kinabalu Wetlands, males outnumber the females by 2.58 to one, while at Menggatal River, the ratio is 5.5 males to one female.

The low number of females is a result of them being trapped in fishing nets since they have larger body sizes than the males.

Tests were also conducted in a controlled environment to determine mating behaviour: between one and four males were put into three separate tanks, with one female. Within a 30- day period, it was observed that mating occur most successfully in the tank which contained an equal number of males and females.

With fewer females, there is less chance of mating, and subsequently loss of new generation.

"The decline or disappearance of horseshoe crabs is almost always linked to habitat loss. In the natural environment, they lack predators and are generalists in terms of feeding preference, relying mostly on shelled animals, polychaete worms, and even detritus for sustenance. Hypothetically, if you take human intervention out of the equation, they will most certainly flourish," says Robert.

Muhammad Ali says what compounds the problem is renewed interest in horseshoe crabs as a delicacy. "While they have always been collected for their eggs, the crabs are now collected commercially ( especially in Peninsular Malaysia) for restaurants and for export to Thailand. Horseshoe crabs take a long time to reach maturity. The loss of breeding adults is highly detrimental to the population."

Robert says the spawning population of horseshoe crabs remains unknown as there are no published records in Sabah so far.

The males can only be identified when they reach sexual maturity ( roughly 10 years). The sexual organs in females develop much earlier but identifying it will require powerful microscopes. "This explains the difficulty in determining the gender ratios of juveniles," says Robert.

He says the presence or absence of horseshoe crabs indicates the health of the habitat, be it the beach, estuary or mangroves.

Horseshoe crabs are valued for a compound in their blood that can be used to detect the presence of bacterial contaminants in drugs and medical apparatus. Two years ago, the Sabah Government provided funds to a university to conduct a population assessment of horseshoe crabs and assess the feasibility of setting up an endotoxin detection kit manufacturing industry.

Muhammad Ali adds that horseshoe crab eggs are an important form of nourishment for shorebirds which arrive in Sabah's coastlines after long- distance migration.

At present, horseshoe crabs are not protected locally or regionally. A global network of horseshoe crab specialists is collecting more data to determine the status of the species in the Indo- Pacific region.

"I believe the best way to conserve horseshoe crabs in Sabah is by protecting of their spawning and feeding habitats. It is important that they are able to reproduce continuously because affected populations may take decades to rebound to their undisturbed state. Captive breeding will not be effective as wild- caught horseshoe crabs do not fare well in a man- made setting," he says.

Robert says despite their menacing appearance, horseshoe crabs are harmless towards humans, and have a lineage that goes back over 400 million years ago, appearing before dinosaurs did, and outliving them.

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El Nino has emerged and expected to strengthen: Australian weather bureau

COLIN PACKHAM Reuters 4 Aug 15;

An El Nino is now well established and continues to strengthen, the Australian Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) said, with models indicating that sea-surface temperature anomalies in the central Pacific Ocean are set to climb to the highest in 19 years.

The El Nino, marked by a warming of sea-surface temperatures in the Pacific, can lead to scorching weather across Asia and east Africa but heavy rains and floods in South America.

"This past week the central tropical Pacific is 1.6 degree Celsius above normal, and slowly warming still - and forecast by models to continue warming," Andrew Watkins, supervisor, Climate Prediction Services at the BOM, said on Tuesday.

"Remember, peak values typically occur late in the year so we have a three to seven months to go before we may peak in the current event. The 1987 (event) peaked in August – all other events peaked between November and February," said Watkins.

Further warming is likely, according to models monitored by the BOM, with an average peak reading of +2.7 degree Celsius above normal by December expected.

Should that forecast be realized, it would be the biggest anomaly since 1997, surpassing the top recordings associated with the El Ninos of 2002 and 2009, data from the BOM shows.

The 1997 El Nino was the last "very strong" event recorded, though the BOM concluded the overall impact to be weak, with major crops withstanding much of the dry weather associated with the system.

The outlook reinforces the BOM's view that the developing El Nino could be a "significant event", threatening Australian production of staple crops such as wheat and sugar, and providing further pressure on the country's cattle farmers.

With the El Nino event still developing, the BOM said the weather event will likely persist until early 2016.

(Reporting by Colin Packham; Editing by Himani Sarkar)

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Inspiring Asean youth on climate change

Young people may be the most powerful force yet to be mobilised in the international climate movement
Jessica Cheam Straits Times 4 Aug 15;

Two hundred young people from 10 Asean countries met to discuss campaigns for climate change action last month. The first meeting of the "Asean Power Shift" took place at United World College of South East Asia in Tampines.

It was organised by a group of young people from 350 Singapore, the local chapter of a global youth-led non-profit organisation called 350.org.

The name has its origins in the United States, where the first so-called Power Shift was held in 2007 and gathered 6,000 youth for climate change activism. A Global Power Shift took place in 2013 in Turkey and, from there, 86 national Power Shifts have been held across the world. These meetings bring together millennials (also known as Gen Y) to discuss climate change issues and equip them with skills to organise similar campaigns in their home countries.

The idea is to empower them to lead local climate action groups which will, in turn, help educate the people in their countries on the realities of and solutions to climate change, multiplying the effect.

The movement views climate change as an ethical issue involving equality, human rights, collective rights and historical responsibility. It recognises the fact that those who are least responsible for climate change generally bear the brunt of its impact.

Given the grassroots, ground-up nature of the event, I was surprised that the first Asean Power Shift was entirely led by a group of young people from Singapore - where the country's historical wariness of civil society and advocacy efforts has meant that activists are few and far between.

In many ways, the meeting - supported by Young NTUC and environmental NGO Eco Singapore - reflects recent, growing civic activism among Singaporeans, especially the young, and the growing appeal of climate change advocacy for this particular generation. A survey of 8,000 young adults from 20 countries in 2011, led by the United Nations Environment Programme, found that young people increasingly want to be a force for change in creating a more sustainable planet.

The young adults surveyed, aged 18 to 35, consider poverty and environmental degradation to be the world's two biggest challenges, and they want more information on what they can do to be part of the solution.

Speaking to many of the region's youth at the event, I was struck by their energy and sharp questions.

Mr Vannchai Rot, 23, a social worker from Cambodia, volunteers for a youth non-governmental organisation called the Youth Resource Development Programme (YRDP).

He said that in developing Asean countries such as Cambodia, Myanmar, Laos and Vietnam, climate change awareness is still very low. People can see its effects. They feel it is getting hotter and crop yields in these heavily agricultural countries have become erratic, due to increased incidents of droughts and floods. But people still generally do not understand climate change, its cause, or how to respond to it.

YRDP, which is part of the Cambodia Climate Change Network, seeks to address this by training and educating young people in the country, equipping them with the understanding and skills to, in turn, educate their friends and family. It organises a youth forum on climate change annually and conducts dialogues with the Cambodian government on how to address climate issues.

The progress is slow, however, said Mr Vannchai, because of a lack of resources.

Then there is Ms Pui Cuifen, a 33-year-old environmental scientist who represented Singapore at the event. She faces a different set of challenges. Her interest in climate issues was triggered by a university course she attended some five years ago and she has since been participating in and volunteering at climate change-related events.

In Singapore, awareness of climate change issues is generally high, she said, but this does not mean that people are doing something about it.

"Many say they feel powerless, or that the problem is too big for them, so this meeting - the Asean Power Shift - reinforces the idea that we can make things happen," she said. She feels the connection between climate change and how it impacts the daily lives of citizens in Singapore is missing at the moment. Climate change effects, such as higher temperatures, rising sea levels, increased risk of drought and floods, and extreme weather events, might be well reported, but for the man in the street to care about these issues, a personal connection has to be made.

This could involve something as simple as, say, driving home the message that the local dishes Singaporeans love - such as a bowl of fishball noodles, or a plate of chicken rice - could be very expensive or unavailable in the coming years as food production declines because of more droughts or floods.

Very often, it comes down to small, personal actions, said Ms Pui, who started a community garden a couple of years ago in Choa Chu Kang with her neighbours to grow their own food. This is her way of "doing things that are sustainable and bringing people together".

She is part of a group of young people from the 10 participating nations at the Asean Power Shift tasked to write a position paper outlining the perspective of Asean youth on climate change issues, and what they expect from the UN climate change negotiations.

Due to take place in Paris in December, the meeting is when governments are meant to ink a legally binding deal to address climate change and its impact.

Mr Wilson Ang, founder of Eco Singapore, who mentored the young people running the event, said that Asean youth are under-represented at the UN negotiations, and the document formally gives them a voice. Their views will be submitted to both the Asean secretariat and the French presidency for consideration in the lead-up to the Paris meeting.

Mr Ang hopes the Asean Power Shift will do three things. First, increase capacity building in the region to help young people at the grassroots level be passionate about climate change. Second, help Asean youth attend the climate change meetings by providing financial support via sponsors. And third, consolidate regional efforts on climate change activism so that impact is maximised.

He added that some sponsors have committed to providing US$1,000 (S$1,370) grants to the youth for selected local initiatives as a way of extending the event's impact. Better still, the Asean secretariat could also consider formally giving such support to the local projects.

Mr Ang said that the Asean Power Shift will now be held annually, driven entirely by youth volunteers. This effort is timely, given young people's growing interest in social and environmental issues.

Climate change potentially represents a major threat to the health and socio-economic stability of youth - particularly in developing countries, where 80 per cent of young people live.

As a group, they hold tremendous voting and purchasing power that could pressure governments and businesses to make the right decisions. They could be the most potent force for the international climate movement, yet to be unleashed.

They are also right to be concerned, for they will be the ones who will be around in 2050 and beyond, when scientists predict climate change effects will significantly worsen if no global action is taken.

This was aptly summed up by Dr AKP Mochtan, Deputy Secretary-General of Asean for Community and Corporate Affairs, who spoke at the event.

He said: "The youth have much at stake, because the youth have much future to live."

• This is a fortnightly column by Jessica Cheam, the editor of Eco-Business, an Asia-Pacific sustainable business online publication. She was formerly a political and environment correspondent at The Straits Times.

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Otter trio spotted at Kallang River

AsiaOne 4 Aug 15;

SINGAPORE - Reports of wild otter sightings in Singapore have become a lot more common ever since a pair of otters were spotted at a breakwater along East Coast Park.

Recently, a female otter and her pups were filmed in Kallang River enjoying a meal of freshly caught catfish.

Facebook user, Fast Snail, uploaded a video of the otter pups coming out of their hiding space in a drain to meet their mother as she brings back her catch. The video was apparently filmed in May this year.

The threatened marine mammals have become more common around Singapore in the past decade. In 2000, only four sightings were reported.

By 2011, the number of sightings had increased to 39, according to a Straits Times report two years ago.

In 2014, a pair of otters, one male and one female were seen at Gardens by the Bay. They were bold enough to enter the park's Supertree grove during the day and fed on fish in its lakes.

See also: Otter mum and babies gambol at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park

An otter family consisting of two adults and three babies were seen at Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park. Their presence there was made public by the National Parks Board on their Facebook page in April this year.

Other otter sightings were reported at Botanic Gardens and Pasir Ris.

But not all recent otter sightings were welcome.

The wild creatures were thought to be responsible for hunting ornamental koi in multi-million dollar bungalows, and even a hotel on Sentosa.

80 of the 200 koi kept by the hotel were preyed on by a pair of otters, with losses estimated to be $20,000 suffered by the hotel.

Another Sentosa resident was similarly affected and estimated her losses to be $64,000.

Experts said the animals typically thrive around mangroves, river mouths and natural shorelines, but they may appear more frequently as they are adapting to the urban environment here.

The public are also advised to keep their distance.

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