Malaysia: Orang utan back at Bukit Piton

The Star 21 Aug 15;

LAHAD DATU: The northern portion of the Ulu Segama-Malua fo­rest, once ravaged by logging and fires in the 1980s and 1990s, is now beco­ming more habitable for its prized inhabitants – the orang utan.

Today, some seven years after a 10-year project was started in 2008 to reforest and rehabilitate the orang utan habitats in North Ulu Segama Forest Reserve (now known as Bukit Piton Forest Reserve), a 50-minute drive from here, its success is evident.

As Sabah Forestry Department director Datuk Sam Mannan said: “It is probably one of the few examples in the world where a very bad story has been turned into something that we can be proud of!”

The credit mainly goes to the state government, which works in collaboration with Yayasan Sime Darby (YSD) – Sime Darby Bhd’s philanthropic arm – on the project, as well as World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF).

Sam said WWF had documented the primates frolicking in the rehabilitated forest close to the department’s base camps.

“They are even coming near the base camps. We’ve given them a sense of security.

“I’ll tell you this – if the orang utan is going to survive as a species in this world, chances are you’ll find most of them in Sabah because we know how to rehabilitate their ha­­bitats,” Sam told a press conference at the department’s headquarters in Sandakan recently, following a media visit organised by YSD to Bukit Piton Forest Reserve.

YSD’s reforestation and orang utan habitat rehabilitation project there, costing RM25mil, is aimed at restoring 5,400ha of heavily degra­ded forest, as well as to enhance biodiversity conservation and re­store the area’s flora and fauna.

According to YSD, the project has facilitated the reclassification of the area into a Class 1 Forest Reserve in 2012, thus protecting it from future logging activities or development.

In the mid-1980s, there were some 20,000 orang utan thriving in their five main natural habitats in Sabah, according to WWF statistics. By 2004, their numbers had dropped 40% to 11,000, no thanks to defores­tation and logging.

In 2007, WWF reported that the Ulu Segama-Malua forest was home to a large number of orang utan. Unfortunately, the very existence of its estimated 3,500 orang utan was being threatened by their logged forest environment, as well as the limited sources of food and shelter.

The department had also acknow­ledged two habitats in Ulu Segama – one in Malua with 700 orang utan and the other in Bukit Piton with 350 – were at a “very critical stage”.

Besides the depleting sources of food, the fact that both Malua and Bukit Piton have rivers separating them from the rest of the forest also contributed to the severity of the situation as the orang utan could not swim across the rivers to “migrate” to other parts of the forest in search of fruit trees.

“This raised the potential of them being stranded there and starving as well,” Sam explained.

He believed that the YSD-Sabah government project had succeeded in creating some kind of bond between the primates and the human beings.

“They are becoming more fami­liar with us,” he added.

The project also focused on the planting of tree species which bore fruits favoured by the orang utan.

Some 95 species, including seraya punai, binuang, bayur, petai, telisai, sengkuang, durian, rambutan and sepat, will be planted during the duration of the project. In fact, some of the trees are already fruiting.

Ulu Segama-Malua district forest officer Indra Purwandita Henry Sunjoto said the replanting process there was different from conventional planting catering to logging.

“We have to be very careful in terms of the species that we choose as they have to suit the specific locations where they are being planted.

“Not every point (in the forest) needs to be replanted. Points that already have natural plants provi­ding fruits for the orang utan are kept intact,” he said, adding that it cost RM5,000 to execute and replant each hectare. — Bernama

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Malaysia: Sumatran Rhino vanishes from Malaysian jungles

PATRICK LEE The Star 21 Aug 15;

PETALING JAYA: The Sumatran rhino is now extinct from Malaysia's jungles, a group of scientists has found.

In a report under the international-based journal Oryx, they wrote that other than two rhinos caught in 2011 and 2014, there had been no more signs of the animal in the wild here - even after years of searching.

"As of June 2015, no further signs of the species have been found in Sabah, and it is safe to consider the species extinct in the wild in Malaysia," the report, co-authored by 11 experts worldwide read.

There are only three Sumatran rhinos in captivity in Malaysia, all in the state of Sabah. The last sighting of the rhino in the Peninsular was in 2007.

Less than 100 animals exist in Indonesia's Kalimantan and Sumatra.

Borneo Rhino Alliance head Datuk Dr Junaidi Payne told The Star that the Sumatran rhino was doomed by a lack of breeding and that it was hunted by poachers.

He said every rhino still living today had to be closely managed, with a combined effort of regional nations.

"We should certainly be thinking of boosting Sumatran rhino numbers through a single programme that is not based on nationalistic thinking," he said.

Dr Payne, who is one of the report's 11 co-authors, is currently working with the Sabah government to make the state's female rhinos pregnant artificially.

He had previously implied that if no rhino embryos could be made by mid-2017, it might become extinct here.

The Sumatran rhino is Malaysia's last surviving rhino species. Its cousin, the Javan rhino, went extinct here after the last of its kind in Malaya was shot in 1932.

The Natural Resources and Environment Ministry could not be reached for comment.

Sumatran Rhino Goes Extinct in the Wild in Malaysia
Ashley P. Taylor LiveScience.com Yahoo News 31 Aug 15;

The Sumatran rhino is now considered extinct in the wild in the Southeast Asian country of Malaysia, according to a new study.

No wild Sumatran rhinos (Dicerorhinus sumatrensis) have been found on the Malaysian peninsula since 2007, and what are thought to be the last two female rhinos in Malaysian Borneo were caught and placed in captive breeding programs in 2011 and 2014.

Now, fewer than 100 of the species remain in the wild, researchers estimate, distributed among three wild populations on the Indonesian island of Sumatra.

In order to save the Sumatran rhino from extinction, it will be necessary to designate the regions where rhinos breed as protected areas, called intensive management zones (IMZs), and to consolidate other, isolated rhinos into these zones to maximize their chances of reproducing, the researchers said. While Asian governments approved the IMZ strategy (along with several others) in 2013, they have yet to be implemented, the scientists wrote in the study.

"We've reached a point of no return," said study lead author Rasmus Havmøller, a graduate student at the Center for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the Natural History Museum of Denmark (affiliated with the University of Copenhagen)."[Sumatran rhino] densities are so low. What we need to do is go out, find out where the rhinos are, firstly, bring them together, secondly, … and then ensure their protection within these areas."

Sumatran rhinos once ranged across most of Southeast Asia, but now Indonesia is the only nation where they breed in the wild.

The rhino's major decline, from both poachingand logging, took place in the 1980s, Havmøller said. Now, the problem is that so few rhinos live in the wild that males and females rarely meet in their native habitats.

"Thus they just spiral into extinction by themselves," Havmøller told Live Science. "After being heavily poached and getting into low numbers, it's been the lack of breeding that's the primary cause for their extinction."

A compounding problem is that when female rhinos go for too long without being pregnant, they tend to develop cysts and tumors in their ovaries that may prevent them from carrying a pregnancy if and when they do mate, the researchers said.

In April 2013, at the Sumatran Rhino Crisis Summit in Singapore, rhino experts outlined four strategies for protecting the region's remaining rhinos, which the governments of Indonesia, Malaysia, Bhutan, India, and Nepal agreed upon in the Bandar Lampung Declaration that same year. The new study reviews these strategies, which, the authors argue, must be put into practice to prevent the Sumatran rhino's total extinction.

The first strategy is to manage the remaining Sumatran rhinos not as three separate populations but as one "meta-population." A related goal is to create intensive management zones, the researchers said. Key to the success of these protected areas, Havmøller said, is the ability to capture wild rhinos outside the IMZs, bring them in, move animals from one area to another — to prevent inbreeding, for example — and perhaps, as assisted reproductive technologies in rhinos become more feasible, transport eggs and sperm from one region to another. The animals also need to be able to cross international borders, the researchers added.

The summit attendees also recommended establishing Rhino Protection Units — teams of people, usually including armed park rangers, charged with monitoring the animals, looking for signs of rhinos, and scouting for and arresting poachers — at rhino breeding sites. These units have been established already, but they need to be fortified, by adding more people, running more frequent patrols, and better training unit members, Havmøller said.

The last strategy is to improve captive breeding programs, which currently include nine rhinos. Attempts to breed rhinos in captivity began in 1985; from then until 2001, 45 rhinos in captivity at different breeding sites produced no offspring. Since 2001, four Sumatran rhinos have been born in captivity from two breeding pairs through traditional mating. Scientists are working to add assisted reproductive technologies, such as artificial insemination and in vitro fertilization, to their toolkit in hopes of increasing captive breeding success, the researchers said.

"The political will to actually make this happen is definitely what's the greatest barrier," to putting these strategies into practice, Havmøller said. Managing the remaining Sumatran rhinos as a meta-population would require countries to establish policies for rhino capture and transport among management zones and across international borders he added. Funding is another limitation, the researchers said.

But saving the Sumatran rhino will require governments and other parties involved to make changes quickly because, as the researchers wrote in the study,"the current conservation actions for the Sumatran rhinoceros may not be adequate to prevent the species' extinction."

The research was published online Aug. 3 in Oryx, the International Journal of Conservation.

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Malaysia: Endangered turtle saved and released back into the wild

The Star 21 Aug 15;

KOTA KINABALU: An endangered Asian giant softshell turtle rescued from a market here has been released into the wild at Danau Girang in the Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary.

A member of the public, Serene Voo Nyuk Wei, saved the 15kg turtle by buying it for RM700 from a tamu (local market) in Donggongon-Penampang in July and giving it to the Wildlife Rescue Unit for conservation.

“I love and respect all living creatures. I knew that buying that animal would encourage the trade, but I could not face up to the fact that this poor turtle was going to end up in someone’s soup,” said Voo, who lives in Kota Kinabalu.

Dr Diana Ramirez, an assistant manager with WRU, said they conducted a full medical check-up on the turtle.

“It had a slight malformation on the carapace but after a few days of observation and receiving vitamin supplements, we decided that it was a good candidate to be released back into the wild,” Dr Ramirez said.

The turtle is listed as an endangered species on the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources’ Red List and listed on Appendix II of Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. However, it is not listed on Schedule 1 or 2 of the Sabah Wildlife Enactment 1997.

“Like many other freshwater turtles in the region, the greatest threat to this species of turtle is hunting for trade, followed by habitat destruction due to deforestation, logging, forest fires and conversion of land for agriculture, settlements and transmigration,” Danau Girang Field Centre director Dr Benoit Goossens said.

He said the turtle usually measured between 70 and 100cm, and could weigh up to 100kg.

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Indonesian police fire tear gas, water cannon at Jakarta protesters

Reuters 20 Aug 15;

Residents facing eviction from a flood-prone part of Indonesia's capital of Jakarta clashed with police on Thursday, prompting security forces to fire tear gas and water cannon.

Land disputes are common in Indonesia, where efforts by government and business to acquire and clear property are frequently held back by overlapping permits and a legacy of unclear land titles, often resulting in violence.

At least two police officers and three residents were injured in Thursday's clashes, according to police, adding there were 27 arrests.

The latest clash centres around efforts by Jakarta Governor Basuki "Ahok" Tjahaja Purnama to remove squatters and demolish housing along the banks of Jakarta's Ciliwung River in Kampung Pulo, which frequently floods during the monsoon season.

According to Jakarta Police chief Tito Karnavian, the government hoped to relocate residents from some 546 dwellings in Kampung Pulo, but many had asked for compensation instead of the alternative housing on offer.

(Reporting by Djohan Widjaya and Tommy Ardiansyah; Writing by Fergus Jensen; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

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Myanmar: Land Vanishes Under Monsoon Floods in New Satellite Image

Elizabeth Goldbaum LiveScience.com Yahoo News 21 Aug 15;

A river in Myanmar appears swollen with monsoon rain in a new photo taken from space.


The Irrawaddy River flooding in a false-color satellite image taken Aug. 3, 2015. NASA Earth Observatory image using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The Irrawaddy River flooding in a false-color satellite image taken Aug. 29, 2013. NASA Earth Observatory image using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey.

The overflowing Irrawaddy River — the longest river in the country — is emblematic of the worst floods to hit the Southeast Asian nation in decades. The torrential rains have displaced thousands of people and caused over 70 deaths, according to local coverage in The Star Online.

In May, just a few months prior to the floods, Myanmar farmers faced hot, arid weather that threatened to destroy their crops, as it did last year. Aerial images of the same spot on the river from two years ago, in August 2013, show a much thinner line of water that weaves between little islands. But now, intense monsoon rains have submerged the little islands and are damaging crops in the region.

Although flooding is not unusual in Myanmar, the current flood is bigger than any seen in the last several decades, according to NASA. Cyclone Komen, a tropical storm that made landfall on July 30 and spun through the country, likely boosted the ferocity of the floods, NASA officials said.

The rains have caused many rivers throughout Myanmar to overflow, including the Irrawaddy River, which extends more than 1,300 miles (2,000 kilometers).

The aerial views of the Irrawaddy River, captured by the Landsat 8 satellite, are composites of natural- and false-color images. Land areas maintain natural colors, and look brown and green in the satellite photos. Areas covered by water are highlighted with false color to look bright blue, according to NASA.

Without the added blue colors, the floodwaters would be difficult to distinguish from land, since water picks up loose brownish sediments, agency officials added.

Floods and other natural disasters are expected to become more common as the Earth warms, according to the International Disaster Database.Texas and Oklahoma felt the effects of devastating floods linked to El Niño in May, and floods are more frequent now in the central United States, according to a study published in February in the journal Nature Climate Change.

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July was hottest month recorded worldwide: U.S. scientists

Valerie Volcovici and Susan Heavey PlanetArk 21 Aug 15;

July was the warmest month ever on record worldwide and 2015 has been so far the hottest year, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said on Thursday, just over three months to go before world leaders seek to reach a climate agreement in Paris.

In its monthly global climate report released online on Thursday, NOAA said many countries and the world's oceans experienced heatwaves, with the Earth's oceans temperature also hitting record highs last month.

This July was the all-time highest monthly temperature in the records that date back to 1880, at 61.86 degrees Fahrenheit (16.61 degree Celsius), according to NOAA.

The first seven months of 2015 comprised the warmest such period on record globally, at 1.53 F (0.85 C) above the 20th century average, and surpassing the previous record set in 2010 by 0.16 F (0.09 C), it said.

The record comes after NOAA and the U.S. space agency NASA said in January that 2014 was the Earth's hottest on record, a fact used by the White House and the United Nations to make the case for immediate action to combat climate change.

One of the goals of the UN climate talks is to stop global temperatures from rising more than 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is the limit beyond which the world will suffer ever worsening floods, droughts, storms and rising seas.

Earlier this month, the Obama administration unveiled the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of its broader climate change strategy that aims to slash carbon emissions from the country's power plants.

The U.S. agency says that the rapid rise is mainly attributable to humans burning fossil fuels.

The United States wants to play a leading role to secure a global climate change deal in Paris this December.

(Editing by Mohammad Zargham and Marguerita Choy)

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Humans are 'unique super-predator'

Jonathan Amos BBC 21 Aug 15;

Humans should focus on the "interest", not the "capital" in the system - say the authors

Humans' status as a unique super-predator is laid bare in a new study published in Science magazine.

The analysis of global data details the ruthlessness of our hunting practices and the impacts we have on prey.

It shows how humans typically take out adult fish populations at 14 times the rate that marine animals do themselves.

And on land, we kill top carnivores, such as bears, wolves and lions, at nine times their own self-predation rate.

But perhaps the most striking observation, say authors Chris Darimont and colleagues, is the way human beings focus so heavily on taking down adult prey.

This is quite different from the rest of the animal kingdom, for which the juveniles of a species tend to be the most exploited.

Part of this is explained by the tools that human hunters exclusively can deploy.

We can tackle adult prey at minimal cost, and so gain maximum, short-term reward, explained Prof Darimont from the University of Victoria (UoV), Canada.

"Advanced killing technology mostly excuses humans from the formerly dangerous act of predation," he told reporters.

"Hunters 'capture' mammals with bullets, and fishes with hooks and nets. They assume minimal risk compared with non-human predators, especially terrestrial carnivores, which are often injured while living what amounts to a dangerous lifestyle."

Predator 'financials'

This concentration on large adult prey is triggering extinctions, as well as driving an evolutionary shift towards smaller fish sizes and disrupting global food chains, say the authors.

Prof Tom Reimchen, a UoV co-author on the study, uses a financial analogy to explain the damaging consequences of hitting adult populations hardest.

He calls the adults the system's "reproductive capital" - the equivalent of the capital held in a bank account or a pension fund. And he says we are eating into this capital when we should really be living off the interest - the juveniles, which many species will produce in colossal numbers, expecting a good fraction to be doomed from the moment they are born via predation, starvation, disease, accidents and more.

The heavily biased preference for adults was not a sustainable strategy long-term, which ought to be clear from fundamental biology, argued Prof Darimont: "In the overwhelming number of cases as fishes age, they become more fecund. That is to say, they produce more eggs, have more babies, and, in fact, in many cases, many of those babies are more likely to survive and reproduce themselves.

"So when a predator targets that reproductive age class and especially the larger more fecund animals in those populations, we are dialling back the reproductive capacity of populations."

Wolf and salmon

However, much of the standard conservation management today is based on the notion that it is the "tiddlers" that should be let go, to ensure robust numbers for the next generation. Trawl nets are often designed specifically to support this approach.

Doing it the other way would be challenging, but the technical solutions were available, said Prof Reimchen.

"There are traps that can define the entrance to a net, which then very easily allows you to exclude fish above a certain size - in other words, the reproductive capital. Once the motivation is in place, clever people will work out how this transition from the reproductive capital to the interest could be brought about."

As for quotas, these should more closely align with the numbers taken out by natural predators, the team suggests.

Human population

Dr Chris Carbone studies predator-prey relationships for the Zoological Society of London, UK.

He described the research as an interesting study that aimed to put some actual numbers on phenomena that many in the field would recognize.

But he cautioned that as broad as the investigation was, the data was still sparse, especially in the marine environment.

And as for refocusing the age class to take more juveniles, Dr Carbone argued that it would very much depend on the species in question. Not all species would react in the same way. But he said there was perhaps an even more fundamental problem, which was the density of human predators versus their prey.

"We exist at vastly higher densities than natural predators," he told BBC News.

"It might be that 100 zebras could support a lion, but in the case of humans we can outnumber our prey in many instances, and that throws the system. So even if we didn't have the efficient hunting technology, we'd still have problems with sustainability."

Human 'super-predators' should change hunting, fishing habits
Kerry Sheridan AFP Yahoo News 21 Aug 15;

Miami (AFP) - Humans are super-predators that upset the natural balance on Earth by killing far too many adult animals and fish, scientists said Thursday, urging a focus on catching fewer and smaller creatures.

People tend to kill adult fish at 14 times the rate of marine predators, said the findings in the journal Science.

And humans slaughter large land carnivores such as bears and lions at nine times the rate of predatory animals in the wild.

Based on a survey of 2,125 predators around the world on both land and in the water, scientists found that people cause "extreme outcomes that non-human predators seldom impose," said co-author Chris Darimont, professor of geography at the University of Victoria in British Columbia, Canada.

These include extinctions, shrinking numbers of fish, smaller sized fish, and disruptions to global food chains.

These impacts are made possible by humans' unique approach to hunting -- using weapons and external energy sources like fuel to power our hunts, searching for the biggest catch possible and acting as suppliers for other hungry mouths in faraway places, he said.

This is in sharp contrast to the way the marine world operates, with most predators focusing on juvenile prey taking only about one percent of adults.

"Our impacts are as extreme as our behavior and the planet bears the burden of our predatory dominance," said Darimont.

- New approach -

If humans want to continue to see large beasts like rhinos, elephants and lions in the wild, as well as ensure the health of ocean life, scientists said big changes are needed.

"We're suggesting a new and perhaps transformative way to consider what sustainable exploitation could be," said Darimont.

He said the recent outrage over the killing of Cecil the Lion may be an indicator that societies are ready to at least cut back, if not stop all together trophy hunting of large beasts.

"If future generations of people are to see these magnificent animals, then this requires cultivating new tolerance for living with them," he told reporters.

"This might include increasing revenues to local communities derived not from hunting, but from non-consumptive uses such as eco-tourism, shooting carnivores with cameras, not guns."

- Smaller fish -

When it comes to fishing, Darimont and co-author Tom Reimchen urged a focus on younger, smaller fish.

Currently, humans tend to focus on catching the biggest fish, because they provide more food and they are easier to process than smaller fish, which are often thrown back.

But these adult fish are valuable when it comes to reproduction, and should be spared so that they can release more eggs over their adult lifespan, the authors argued.

Reimchen's research showed that predatory fish and diving birds overwhelmingly kill juvenile forms of freshwater fish and generally take no more than two percent of the adult fish.

Salmon fisheries run by people harvest about half of all adult fish.

"It is not simply the issue of shifting the extraction rate to juveniles," said Reimchen, a biology professor, adding that humans would have to drastically cut their fishing quotas in order to better resemble the behavior of other predators.

"If you use natural predator-prey quotas as some type of sustainable guide, we would be talking perhaps close to an 80 or 90 percent reduction in our global take," said Reimchen.

Such sweeping changes may be hard to make, but an accompanying editorial by Boris Worm of Dalhousie University argued that humans may be unique in that regard, too.

"We have the unusual ability to analyze and consciously adjust our behavior to minimize deleterious consequences," Worm wrote.

"This final point, I believe, will prove critical for our continued coexistence with viable wildlife population on land and in the sea."

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Best of our wild blogs: 20 Aug 15

The Singapore’s Women Weekly – Great Women of Our Time 2015 – Nomination for the “Sports, Health and Wellness” category
Neo Mei Lin

Red-whiskered Bulbul and Singapore Rhododendron
Bird Ecology Study Group

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These crawlies are stars of a new book

More than 200 species of water bugs detailed in book launched by natural history museum
Audrey Tan Straits Times 20 Aug 15;

Water bugs may be neither cuddly nor rare, but they play a vital role in their aquatic habitats.

These commonly overlooked creepy crawlies are now the stars of a new guidebook. Titled Water Bugs Of Singapore And Peninsular Malaysia, it was launched on Aug 5 by the National University of Singapore's (NUS) Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum.

The book has information on the more than 200 species of water bugs found in the region, and includes data on general biology, diversity and distribution. It also has 755 illustrations to help readers identify the bugs easily.

Co-author Lanna Cheng, 74, a marine biologist, said the 334-page book is the most comprehensive scientific guide on water bugs in the region and updates a 1963 guide written by water bug expert Herbert Fernando and herself for students at the former University of Singapore (now NUS). The old guide, typewritten on foolscap paper, was only 33 pages long. It was never formally published, but was the only one available in the region until now.

The new guide sheds light on the ecological functions of these bugs.

Some species of water stick insects and backswimmers, for example, feed on mosquito larvae or pupae, and are good pest-control agents. Others, like most species of water striders, live on the water's surface. As they are greatly affected by surface pollution such as oil spills, and can be found only in clean waters, they are good indicators of ecosystem health.

Water bugs can be found in almost every water body on earth, whether marine, freshwater, or man-made. In Singapore, they are present in places such as the Central Catchment Nature Reserve, the mangroves in Sungei Buloh, reservoirs, shores, and the ponds in the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

While the new guidebook is a scientific work, those interested in learning more about water bugs and how to identify them can also refer to it, said Dr Cheng who is from the United States-based Scripps Institution of Oceanography.

"We avoided dull, scientific writing, wrote it in a way that is easily understandable and standardised the book so each chapter has the same arrangement," she added. "There is also a glossary that explains all the scientific terms."

The other authors are Dr Tran Anh Duc, a 36-year-old Vietnamese who earned his PhD on water insects at NUS, and Mrs Yang Chang Man, 71, custodian of the Zoological Reference Collection, which formed the core of the former Raffles Museum of Biodiversity Research. In April, the museum became the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum. The water bugs guide is the first natural history book published by the museum under its new name. The museum had earlier published a book on its history and an e-book on Hokkien names for animals.

Said Professor Peter Ng, the museum's head: "The book is a consequence of the bloodline of passion and a shared love for a group of animals that is illogical to anyone else.

"It is one that spans the better part of three generations - and the connecting passion is a love for studying water bugs."

• Water Bugs Of Singapore And Peninsular Malaysia ($22) can be bought at the Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum shop, Kinokuniya and Select Books.

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Slight haze due to smoke from fires in Sumatra: NEA

"Occasional hazy conditions may persist overnight and tomorrow," the National Environment Agency says in an advisory issued on Wednesday evening.
Channel NewsAsia 19 Aug 15;

SINGAPORE: The slightly hazy situation in Singapore on Wednesday afternoon (Aug 19) is due to "smoke haze from fires in Sumatra being blown in by the prevailing south-southwesterly winds," said the National Environment Agency (NEA) in an advisory.

Members of the public reported hazy skies in areas such as Jurong, Buona Vista and Beach Road.

At 7pm, the 24-hour Pollutant Standards Index or PSI, was 62-68 - within the Moderate Range, NEA added.

Similar hazy situation in Beach Road.

According to NEA, smoke plumes from hotspots in central and southern Sumatra have been observed in the past few days, with 116 and 42 hotspots detected in Sumatra on Monday and Tuesday respectively.

Just 12 hotspots were observed on Wednesday, but NEA said this is due to the "partial satellite pass".

"Occasional hazy conditions may persist overnight and tomorrow," NEA stated, adding that "everyone can continue with normal activities".

- CNA/hs

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Malaysia: El Nino weather phenomenon likely to cause dry spell but also lessen flood woes

RAZAK AHMAD AND DESIREE TRESA GASPER The Star 20 Aug 15;

PETALING JAYA: This year’s El Nino weather phenomenon could be the strongest in over half a century but it may turn out to be a mixed blessing for Malaysia.

Climate expert Prof Datuk Dr Azizan Abu Samah said less rainfall due to El Nino could affect the Klang Valley’s water woes and padi planting in Kedah.

However, it may also lessen the chances of severe year-end floods in states such as Kelantan and Pahang.

“In some ways the effect could be positive for us,” said Azizan, who is the director of the University of Malaya’s National Antarctic Research Centre.

Last week, the United States National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said this year’s El Nino, which began in March and is forecast to last for about a year, could be the worst in 65 years.

El Nino is an irregular weather phenomenon which causes sea temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean to rise, leading to unusually heavy rains in some parts of the world and drought elsewhere.

The last extreme El Nino took place in 1997-98, causing the hottest year on record as well as floods, cyclones, droughts and huge damage to food production.

Azizan said lower rainfall had decreased water levels at rivers such as Sungai Johor, causing a month-long scheduled water distribution exercise in some areas in Johor Baru and Kota Tinggi.

On whether El Nino could lead to dry taps in the Klang Valley, Azizan said the current water woes in the area was due to a low reserve margin for treated water, not a looming shortage of raw water supply.

A strong El Nino could cause water levels in Selangor rivers to drop, which could aggravate ­serious reserve margin problems but the earliest this might happen was during the dry season in February next year, he said.

In Kedah, very low rainfall early next year could affect the planting season in March, but Malaysia will not be the only country at risk.

A drought in northern Australia, for example, may affect soybean and wheat harvests.

The potential effects of a strong El Nino on Malaysia are not all negative, though.

The risk of massive flooding in north-eastern peninsular Malaysia could be lower with less than usual rainfall during the year-end period.

“In the event that soybean harvests in countries such as Australia are hit, Malaysian palm oil, which is an alternative product, could stand to gain,” said Azizan.

Meteorological Department National Weather Centre senior meteorologist Dr Hisham Mohd Anip said there were already signs of significantly reduced rainfall in the past few months.

He said the people of Sabah and Sarawak would be the first to feel the impact of the El Nino as the states were located closer to the Pacific Ocean.

“The rainfall in Kudat, Kota Kinabalu, Tawau and several areas in Sarawak has dropped by more than 50%,” he said.

Hisham said the department was providing regular El Nino updates to state-level officials to help them prepare in the event that the situation worsened.

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Malaysia: Fish bombings near oil rigs

STEPHANIE LEE The Star 20 Aug 15;

KOTA KINABALU: Cases of illegal fish bombing near the national oil company’s oil rigs off Sabah is triggering alarm bells as it could lead to serious losses and environmental damage.

Petronas Sabah and Labuan chairman Mohamed Firouz Asnan said fishermen carrying out the illegal activity preferred to let off bombs close to the oil rigs as there was an abundance of fish in the area.

“According to our records, the number of such cases are quite big and it is an alarming situation for us,” he said during a media briefing on the Sahabat Maritim Programme here yesterday.

He said such acts not only pose a danger to the fishermen themselves but also disrupt operations, damage Petronas assets and endanger the lives of their divers carrying out their duties.

Firouz said Petronas also recorded a high occurrence encroachment by vessels coming within the 500m safety radius of its rigs.

Some 9,000 encroachment incidents occurred over the last three years, with Sabah making up the most of it, he said, adding that encroachment was an everyday incident.

In a bid to reduce fish bombing and encroachment activities, Petronas is working with the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency to curb the problem through various awareness programmes.

The Sahabat Maritim Outreach programme will be held at Pulau Mantanani off Kota Belud district on Saturday and it will involve everyone in the area.

MMEA’s Sabah and Labuan Maritime operations director Laksamana Pertama Adam Aziz, however, said they were able to act against the illegal fisher bombers and the number of cases had steadily decreased since 2012.

“This is due to the ongoing operations conducted by enforcement agencies at sea,” he said, adding that it was not an easy task preventing fishermen from going near oil rigs as the fish near the area were grade A.

Apart from the abundance of fish there, fishermen were also attracted by the types of fish that can be found there, such as red snapper and Kerapu, Adam said.

“It is also difficult for us to bring the cases down to zero because many of those who tend to bend the law are non-registered fishermen and illegal immigrants,” he added.

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