Malaysia: Green turtles found laying eggs at midday

RUBEN SARIO The Star 2 Jun 16;

KOTA KINABALU: The unusual event of green turtles coming ashore to lay their eggs in broad daylight was likely due to environmental disturbances.

Universiti Malaysia Sabah’s Borneo Marine Research Institute senior lecturer Dr Pushpa Palaniappan said green turtles usually came ashore to lay their eggs from dusk to dawn.

For these creatures to land during the day was definitely unusual, said Dr Pushpa, a marine reptile specialist.

She said there were various possible reasons why two green turtles were spotted laying their eggs just before noon at Pulau Libaran off Sandakan for two days from May 24.

Noting that green turtles were sensitive to movement and light while nesting, she said that the creatures would return to the sea immediately if they were disturbed.

As it needs to release its eggs, a female turtle may be forced to go ashore during the daytime to lay them, Dr Pushpa told The Star.

She said there were occasions when the egg laying process took too long because sand conditions were unsuitable.

During the extremely dry weather between March and May, the turtles faced difficulty nesting at Pulau Selingan, Gulisan and Bakungan Kecil, which make up the Turtle Islands Park off Sandakan, Dr Pushpa said.

The turtles were found to have dug many egg chambers only to have them collapse, as the sand particles were too dry to stay in place, she said, forcing the turtles to dig body pits and egg chambers repeatedly until they finally manage to lay their eggs safely.

Turtles tend to go ashore with the high tide to avoid having to make a long crawl to the beach during low tide, Dr Pushpa said.

If the high tide occurs during the early morning, and a turtle is unable to complete nesting by dawn, then she may still be found on the beach during daylight hours.

Also, if the turtle is unable to lay her eggs on the first night, she may return to the beach during the next night to finish nesting.

If the turtle fails to deposit its eggs in its nest on the beach, she may release them on the surface of the sand or at the water’s edge, Dr Pushpa added.

She said an adult female turtle would carry between 500 and 800 unshelled eggs in its body at the start of its breeding cycle.

After the mating process, where the female is able to store sperm from more than one male to fertilise her eggs, about 100 eggs then form shells in about 10 to 14 days.

The female then goes ashore to deposit its eggs in a clutch and this process is repeated until all the eggs are laid and the turtle returns to her foraging area, Dr Pushpa explained.

Pulau Libaran honorary wildlife warden Harun Willam said he was taken aback at seeing a green turtle laying up to 80 eggs at the island at about 11am on May 24.

It then came ashore at about 11am the following day and laid 61 more eggs, he said.

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Malaysia: Harvesting of crocodiles and eggs in Sarawak proposed

YU JI and SIM LEOI LEOI The Star 2 Jun 16;

PETALING JAYA: Malaysia is proposing to harvest around 500 saltwater crocodiles and some 2,500 of their eggs from the wild in Sarawak every year.

Malaysia wants the crocodile species –Crocodylus porosus – to be moved from Appen­­­dix 1 to Appendix II under the Con­vention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

If the proposal – to be discussed during CITES 17th Conference of the Parties in September – is successful, international trade of the species in the wild, including its parts and products, will no longer be illegal and the animal can be legally harvested.

The proposal, however, only applies to Sarawak. Crocodiles in Sabah and peninsular Malay­­sia are still endangered and remain protected.

Sarawak Forest Department biodiversity conservation unit researcher Engkamat Lading said the wild population had increased dramatically over the past 40 years.

“Surveys on 48 rivers in Sarawak over a distance of about 12,000km recently have enabled us to come up with an estimate of between 12,000 and 13,000 crocodiles,” he said in an interview with The Star.

The state, which is already carrying out a cull of the animal’s population, has been calling for a relaxation on international trade restrictions following a series of widely reported attacks on humans.

In 2014, there were seven incidents with three fatalities while last year, there were 12 attacks, with eight deaths. Culling, said Engkamat, was carried out on certain crocodiles considered a nuisance to the public.

“It is only confined to adult animals (2.75m to 4.57m long) and a permit only allows for the capture of not more than three to four animals,” he said.

Permits must also be obtained from the Controller of Wild Life, without which culling would be illegal.

Traffic Southeast Asia regional director Dr Chris Shepherd expressed fear that allowing harvesting in Sarawak could eventually affect the crocodiles in other locations.

“A crocodile could be illegally killed over here and brought to Sarawak,” he said, adding that a scientifically sound monitoring system should first be put into place to allow for a quota to be adjusted.

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Leaked figures show spike in palm oil use for biodiesel in Europe

Steep rise between 2010 and 2014 shows link between EU’s renewable energy mandate and deforestation in south-east Asia, say campaigners
Arthur Neslen The Guardian 1 Jun 16;

Leaked trade industry figures show a five-fold increase in the use of palm oil for biodiesel in Europe between 2010 and 2014, providing new evidence of links between deforestation in southeast Asia and the EU’s renewable energy mandate.

The leaked figures, which the Guardian has seen, show that 45% of palm oil used in Europe in 2014 went to biodiesel, up from 8% in 2010.

Greenhouse gas emissions from biodiesel are more than three times higher than those from conventional diesel engines when indirect effects are considered, according to recent research by the European commission.

Campaigners say the leaked figures from the Fediol trade association provide further evidence that an EU target for sourcing 10% of Europe’s transport to renewables by 2020 is fuelling global warming.

Jos Dings, the director of green campaign group Transport & Environment (T&E), which published the leak, said: “We now know why the industry is withholding these numbers. They show the ugly truth of Europe’s biofuel policy. It drives tropical deforestation, increases transport emissions, does nothing to help European farmers and does not improve our energy security.”

T&E calculates that 3.5bn litres of palm oil are now arriving in Europe annually because of a 34% spike in imports for biodiesel since 2010. This would be enough to fill Wembley stadium with biodiesel three times over every day.

“As if Dieselgate [VW cheating at emissions tests] was not bad enough, we now have a Biodieselgate on top,” Dings said.

The vast majority of the world’s palm oil comes from Malaysia and Indonesia. Clearances for palm oil plantations there are thought to be responsible for many of the fires which incinerated an estimated 18.5m hectares of Indonesia’s rainforest between 2001 and 2014.

In 2015, the devastation reached record levels, releasing 1.62bn metric tonnes of CO2 and nudging Indonesia above Russia, as the world’s fourth largest emitter of greenhouse gases.

If the peatland forests were allowed to regrow, they would resequester much of the released carbon. But conversion of the land for palm oil plantations requires drainage and clearances that release massive amounts of carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.

Fediol did not immediately respond to requests for comment but the European Biodiesel Board (EBB) said that the leaked numbers differed from their internal count.

Raffaello Garofalo, the board’s secretary-general told the Guardian: “The figures we have are substantially lower than that. We would put between 10-15% [of palm oil] globally for biodiesel consumption, based on agricultural sources.”

The EBB declined to share its figures for Europe based on palm oil sources, although Garofalo said that biodiesel manufactured that way “can be a little bit more problematic”.

An apparent anomaly in the statistics showing a rise in the palm oil composition of Europe’s biodiesel from the lesser figures of 6% to 31% over the same period illustrated that “T&E get their figures from the basket, not from science,” Garofalo said.

The use of domestic rapeseed in Europe’s biodiesel blends, general expansion of the biodiesel market, and larger relative volume of biodiesel explain the difference between the two figures, T&E says.

Tim Searchinger, a Princeton University scholar, argued that the leaked numbers were likely too conservative, as palm oil is widely used to displace vegetable oil for use in biodiesel production.

“The new data confirms the warnings of those who were critical of the EU’s biofuels mandate,” he told the Guardian. “Any pretence that the main consequence of the EU biofuels policy had not been the peat drainage and deforestation of south-east Asia is now unmasked.”

A European commission spokeswoman declined to comment on the leak. She said: “The commission will present proposals to revise the post-2020 bioenergy framework later this year.”

The EU currently has a cap of 7% for first generation biofuels in its 10% mandate. Most of this comes from biodiesel.

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Coral bleaching spreads to Maldives, devastating spectacular reefs

Exclusive: Images from the Indian Ocean archipelago reveal the extent of the longest global coral bleaching event in history
Michael Slezak The Guardian 1 Jun 16;

The longest global coral bleaching event in history is now devastating reefs in the crystal clear waters of the Maldives, with images released exclusively to the Guardian powerfully illustrating the extent of the damage there.

Photographed by the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, the images captured the event in May as it moved beyond the now devastated Great Barrier Reef and into waters further west.

“The bleaching we just witnessed in the Maldives was truly haunting,” said Richard Vevers, founder of the Ocean Agency.

“It’s rare to see reefs bleach quite so spectacularly. These were healthy reefs in crystal clear water at the height of an intense bleaching event. The flesh of the corals had turned clear and we were seeing the skeletons of the animals glowing white for as far as the eye could see – it was a beautiful, yet deeply disturbing sight.”

The Maldives is series of coral atolls, built from the remains of coral. The livelihoods of people there depend on the reefs through tourism, fisheries and as a wave-break that helps prevent inundation on low-lying islands.

The photographs were part of an ongoing project, in partnership with Google, the University of Queensland and the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Agency to capture the global bleaching event as it moves around the world.

“We’ve been following this third global bleaching event since the start nearly two years ago and just when you think you’ve seen the saddest sight you’ll ever see, you see something even worse,” Vevers said.

The event started in mid 2014 in the Pacific Ocean around Hawaii, which then got hit again in 2015. In early 2016 it spread to the Great Barrier Reef where 93% of its nearly 3,000 reefs were hit by bleaching.

Western Australia’s reefs in the Indian Ocean have also experienced severe bleaching.

When Noaa declared the event was a global bleaching event in October 2015, Mark Eakin, Noaa’s Coral Reef Watch coordinator, said it could last well into 2016. That prediction appears to be proving correct.

“The current global bleaching event is already lasted longer than any previous bleaching event and is likely to last until at least the end of the year,” he said.

The bleaching event started with an El Niño that appeared to be developing in Pacific Ocean, in 2014, warming the waters there, but which failed to eventuate. It was then combined with a large patch of unusually warm water, nicknamed “the blob”, that lurked around the Pacific, as well as an extreme El Niño that eventually did develop in 2015.

Extreme El Niños, which spread warm water across the Pacific and warm the globe, were not seen before 1982 and have occurred three times since. Extreme El Niños are expected to increase in frequency as a result of climate change.

Those El Niños were also occurring in an ocean where the surface has already warmed by 1C, putting corals near their thermal limits.

When coral sits in water that is too warm for too long, it gets stressed and expels the algae that provides it with about 90% of its energy. If it stays stressed for more than a couple of weeks it starts to starve, become diseased, and dies.

A new study has found the conditions that led to the devastating bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef were made 175 times more likely by climate change, and on the current trajectory, would become the average conditions by the 2030s.

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Australia pays price for being a laggard on climate change

ROGER COHEN Today Online 2 Jun 16;

Mr Tim Flannery, a scientist and environmentalist who was named Australian of the Year in 2007, lost his job in 2013. The right-wing government of then-Prime Minister Tony Abbott shut down the Climate Commission that Professor Flannery headed, in a peremptory move designed to demonstrate its contempt for climate change. The commission had been established two years earlier to provide “authoritative information” to the Australian public.

Mr Abbott, of the conservative Liberal Party, had no time for such information. Climate change, he argued in his autobiography, was bunk. It had been “happening since the earth’s beginning”. Therefore, it made no sense to “impose certain and substantial costs on the economy now in order to avoid unknown and perhaps even benign changes in the future”.

“To Abbott, I was the devil incarnate,” Prof Flannery told me. Throughout the developed world — from the “Drill, baby, drill!” crowd in the United States to Mr Abbott’s “axe-the-tax” attack on clean-energy legislation in Australia — denial of climate change has become a tribal, almost masonic badge of the coal- and fossil-fuel-loving right. In today’s culture wars, it is as much of a wedge issue as any.

‘Like watching my father die’

Through crowdfunding, Prof Flannery raised enough money in short order to turn the state-funded commission into the Climate Council, an independent non-profit organisation with the same role. Earlier last month, he headed for the Great Barrier Reef to see what “benign changes”, as Mr Abbott would have it, global warming has produced in the world’s largest coral reef. He found what he saw north-east of Port Douglas on the outer rim of the reef devastating.

The reef, one of the largest living things on earth, has started to fail. Whether it can recover is unclear. An organism roughly the size of Germany is bleaching to death. More than 90 per cent of the reef that Prof Flannery saw had suffered. Bleaching occurs when excessive heat and sunlight cause the algae that give coral reefs their shimmering colours to create toxins.

The toxins repel the tiny animals called polyps essential to the ecosystem of the corals. As my colleague Michelle Innis put it: “When heat stress continues, they starve to death.” Because the coral reefs support vast fish stocks, the livelihoods — sometimes the very survival — of countless people depend on them.

The causes of this disaster are clear enough. The impact of rising water temperatures caused by climate change was compounded by the El Nino cycle and by an underwater heatwave. This year, in a survey of 520 reefs that form the northern section of the Great Barrier Reef, scientists found only four free of bleaching. Almost 1,000km of previously pristine reef had been affected.

“I knew there was bleaching but not to this degree,” Prof Flannery told me. “For me, it was almost like watching my father die, seeing his organism slowly shut down.”

Besides having the world’s largest coral reef, Australia is also the world’s fourth-largest coal producer. Coal-fired power plants provide about a third of the nation’s energy, and coal exports to China, Japan, South Korea and India bring in billions of dollars annually. The country has been described as “Asia’s quarry”. But, of course, the coal plants, some old, are spewing carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Great coral vs coal

So it is coral versus coal, the earth’s health against a big industry, and science versus the Abbott-inspired denial gang. As if to illustrate Australia’s divisions, Queensland’s Environment Minister, alluding to climate change, warned recently of the need to “reduce as many pressures” as possible on the Great Barrier Reef just after the state approved leases for what would be Australia’s largest coal mine.

Mr Malcolm Turnbull, the Liberal Party Prime Minister who replaced Mr Abbott and faces a tight election in early July, knows exactly what is at stake.

In 2010, he called for moving to a situation “where all or almost all of our energy comes from zero or very near zero emissions sources”. He described forecasts of the devastating effects of climate change as likely to err “on the conservative side”. He called for “expenditures today so as to safeguard our children”. He advocated concentrated solar thermal power, calling it “a more proven technology than clean coal”. Global warming, he declared, would lead, if unchecked, to “truly catastrophic consequences”.

The state of the Great Barrier Reef is one such consequence. Yet, Mr Turnbull, beholden to Mr Abbott’s right wing of the Liberal Party, has, as leader, done his best to forget what he said six years ago. Climate change? What climate change? “I’ve known Turnbull for 30 years. I know what he believes, but he’s fallen victim to his tribe,” Prof Flannery told me.

That is a great pity. The reef is as irreplaceable as this planet. Australia has overcapacity in electricity generation. It should close several of its old coal-fired plants. Rich in renewable and clean-energy sources, Australia should be a leader, not a laggard, on climate change. Reputations, like the reef, are easily bleached.

THE NEW YORK TIMES

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Roger Cohen is a columnist at The New York Times, where he was previously foreign editor.

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Thailand: Dead tiger cubs found in temple amid trafficking fears

Thai wildlife authorities found 40 tiger cub carcasses in a freezer in Thailand's infamous Tiger Temple on Wednesday as they removed live animals in response to international pressure over suspected trafficking and abuse.
Channel NewsAsia 1 Jun 16;

BANGKOK: Thai wildlife authorities found 40 tiger cub carcasses in a freezer in Thailand's infamous Tiger Temple on Wednesday as they removed live animals in response to international pressure over suspected trafficking and abuse.

The Buddhist temple in Kanchanaburi province west of Bangkok had become a tourist destination where visitors snapped selfies with bottle-fed cubs.

But the temple has been investigated for suspected links to wildlife trafficking and abuse. A raid that began on Monday is the latest move in a tug-of-war since 2001 to bring the tigers under state control.

Tiger parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

The 40 dead tiger cubs were found in a freezer in a kitchen area, said Adisorn Nuchdamrong, deputy director-general of the Department of National Parks.

"Foreign volunteers at the temple today told us about it and showed us the freezer. Perhaps they felt what the temple is doing isn't right," Adisorn said.

"They must be of some value for the temple to keep them," he said. "But for what is beyond me."

Officials wearing protective masks displayed the bodies of the cubs to media at the temple. Also on display was the body of a Binturong, a protected species commonly known as a bearcat, which the authorities found with the cub carcasses.

The temple said in a comment on its Facebook page that wildlife authorities had already been aware that the carcasses were in the freezer. The carcasses of cubs that had died had been kept, rather than cremated, since 2010 on the instructions of a former vet, it said.

Adisorn told Reuters the department had not previously known about the cubs.

"The temple has notified us when grown tigers die, but never the cubs," he said.

Officials have moved 61 live tigers from the temple since Monday, Adisorn said, leaving 76 still there.

Thailand has long been a hub for the illicit trafficking of wildlife and forest products, including ivory. Exotic birds, mammals and reptiles, some of them endangered species, can often be found on sale in markets.

"It's clear that the welfare of the tigers is not a priority and their lives are full of abuse and commercial exploitation for the entertainment of tourists," said Jan Schmidt, Asia-Pacific Wildlife Adviser at World Animal Protection, in a statement.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Simon Webb and Nick Macfie)

- Reuters


Thai police charge 22 with wildlife trafficking at Tiger Temple
Thai police have charged 22 people, including three Buddhist monks, with wildlife trafficking and removed more dead animals including a bear and a leopard from the infamous Tiger Temple, authorities said on Friday.
Channel NewsAsia 3 Jun 16;

KANCHANABURI, Thailand: Thai police have charged 22 people, including three Buddhist monks, with wildlife trafficking and removed more dead animals including a bear and a leopard from the infamous Tiger Temple, authorities said on Friday.

The temple in Kanchanaburi province, west of the capital, Bangkok, has been a major tourist attraction for more than two decades, with visitors paying 600 baht (US$17) admission to pose for photographs with the tigers.

Wildlife activists have accused the temple of illegally breeding the tigers while some visitors on online forums complained that the tigers appeared sedated.

The temple denies the accusations.

Adisorn Nuchdamrong, from Thailand's Department of National Parks, said 22 people had been charged with wildlife possession and trafficking, including 17 members of the temple's foundation and three monks trying to flee with a truckload of tiger skins.

It followed the grim discovery on Wednesday of the bodies of 40 tigers cubs inside a freezer.

It remains unclear why the dead tiger cubs were being stored, though tiger bones and body parts are used in traditional Chinese medicine.

"We've confiscated all the hard disks of closed circuit cameras in this temple for police to find evidence of wrongdoing," Adisorn said.

The temple officially opened in 1994 close to a wild tiger habitat. It received its first tiger cub, which had been found by villagers, in 1999.

The cub died soon after but villagers kept bringing cubs to the temple, usually when the mothers had been killed by poachers, the temple said.

Repeated efforts to shut down the temple have been blocked by the monks.

Thailand is a well-known trafficking hub of illicit wildlife products, including ivory.

Thailand's wildlife department began raiding the temple on Monday. There were 137 tigers inside the temple and 119 have been removed.

The World Wildlife Fund said in April that the number of wild tigers in the world stands at around 3,890, with more than 100 wild tigers in Thailand.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Writing by Amy Sawitta Lefevre; Editing by Nick Macfie)

- Reuters

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Fickle rains torture Madagascar's drought-stricken south

Channel NewsAsia 1 Jun 16;

TSIHOMBE, Madagascar (Thomson Reuters Foundation) - Like many people in Madagascar's parched south, Ranotongae had been hoping for the heavens to open up and ease the country's poorest rainy season in 35 years.

So when a few showers fell last month in Androy, one of the hardest-hit areas, the 44-year-old ran outside to plant cowpeas and sweet potatoes, scattering seeds and pushing vines into the moistened earth.

But the rains did not return - and the food has run out.

For the last three months, Ranotongae and her eight children have relied on one meal a day of maize and beans provided by a group of nuns. The sisters started the feeding programme in February, after hearing that villagers were dying of starvation.

"I come here every day. This is the only thing we get to eat," Ranotongae said as she waited patiently with scores of other women and children to be called forward to receive the rations.

A third consecutive year of drought in one of the world's poorest countries has left more than 1.1 million people unable to feed themselves in the semi-arid south of Madagascar, where cacti, sisal plantations and scrubland dominate the landscape.

The drought has all but dried up rivers. During a rare downpour, villagers driving carts drawn by zebu cattle emerged on the region's main road to fill jerrycans and drums with rainwater collected from the highway's crater-sized potholes.

One old woman, who had neither a cart nor a jerrycan, sat on the road, legs stretched out, dipping a collection of plastic water bottles into the puddles that had formed.

Aid officials say the hungry are now often eating their seeds, rather than planting them. Families with acutely malnourished children sometimes share supplements designed to help them, blunting the effectiveness of the treatment.

"What I see here is what we often call a silent emergency," said Dina Esposito, a senior official at the U.S. Agency for International Development and former director of USAID's food assistance programme, Food for Peace.

"It's not on the front pages of the paper. It's not always immediately visible," she said during a tour of USAID-funded projects in Madagascar.

EL NINO'S BITE

El Nino, a warming of sea surface temperatures in the Pacific, has aggravated dry conditions and a worsening food crisis not only in Madagascar, an island 400 km (250 miles) off the coast of mainland Africa, but also across the wider southern African region.

More than 31 million people are affected by food shortages, from Angola to Zimbabwe.

Delayed planting and shrivelled crops are expected to lead to a grain deficit of at least 8 million tonnes in the region. Even South Africa, usually a net exporter of grains to its neighbours, has been forced to import maize, its staple food.

Malawi and Zimbabwe, among others, have declared the drought a national disaster.

Aid officials said it would help Madagascar to issue an appeal for international assistance. The country is still recovering from a political crisis sparked by a 2009 coup that drove away donors.

"It would definitely help in drawing attention and bringing in resources," Esposito said, speaking days after USAID announced it would provide US$8 million to help the drought response.

Harrison Randriarimanana, a special adviser to Madagascar's president, said it was possible the Southern African Development Community (SADC), of which Madagascar is a member, may issue an appeal for the region as a whole.

In Madagascar, the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP) and other aid agencies already are helping with food distributions, projects to help farmers cultivate what they can, and efforts to provide food in exchange for clearing land or fixing roads.

Southern Madagascar's people are said to have a reputation for toughness, befitting a population that usually survives with little rain. But one ruined harvest after another has weakened the ability of many to recover, while pushing others to extremes to acquire food.

"People have already lost a lot of their capacity to cope," said WFP Country Director Willem van Milink.

"They lost a lot of their goods and assets, and sold a lot of them, so it has become increasingly difficult for them to face the drought," he told the Thomson Reuters Foundation.

As the nuns' feeding programme got underway, a young girl was rushed forward, bleeding and silent.

Her grandmother said the child had accidentally tipped over herself a pot of cassava bubbling over a fire. The girl had been left behind while her mother went to a nearby market, where she was later found offering sex in exchange for money to buy food.

WIDESPREAD STUNTING

Even in relatively normal times, many Malagasy struggle to eat enough food - and the right kind.

Nine in 10 people live on less than US$3.10 a day, and the country has one of the highest rates of chronic malnutrition in the world. Virtually one in two children are stunted, and little progress has been made over the past 20 years in reducing that.

Even parts of the more well-off Central Highlands report stunting rates of 60 percent, baffling aid workers and development experts who suspect cultural practices may be responsible.

They wonder if mothers stop breastfeeding too soon or if people are contracting - and passing on - diseases from open defecation.

Malagasy pay a heavy price for malnourishment. It costs the economy an estimated US$1.5 billion, or 14.5 percent of its GDP, every year in terms of additional burdens on the health system and schools and losses of workforce productivity, a study led by the African Union Commission shows.

For almost 20 years, Ankilimafaitsy primary school in Ambovombe district has run a feeding programme, offering students a daily meal of maize and beans. The school's director Seraphine Sasara says her pupils are noticeably thinner after the summer break.

"They put on weight when they come back to school. It takes about a month before they are ready to study," she said.

Pointing to a small vegetable patch tended by teachers and students, Sasara said: "We try to provide for ourselves. We can't rely on WFP forever."

But it is hard for the south to shake off its aid dependence - not least because it lies far from the help of the capital, Antananarivo, more than 1,000 kms (620 miles) away.

Largely cut off by poor roads, the region has long been neglected as a result of its remoteness, aid officials say.

The south needs not just international aid to help battle the drought, but more attention from the capital, said World Bank Country Manager Coralie Gevers.

"The government also has a role to play," she told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. "There is a long tradition in this country of spending most of the budget on the capital and surrounding areas."

Spending in Madagascar's south on healthcare is just a third of that in the capital, per capita, she said.

"The health centres can't deal with a crisis when it comes because they have very little to start with. This has to change too," she added.

(Reporting by Katie Nguyen; editing by Laurie Goering. Please credit the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the charitable arm of Thomson Reuters, that covers humanitarian news, women's rights, trafficking, property rights and climate change. Visit http://news.trust.org to see more stories)

- Reuters

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Best of our wild blogs: 1 Jun 16

5 Jun (Sun): Balik Chek Jawa with the Chek Jawa community
wild shores of singapore

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IDA to test solar-powered outdoor Wi-Fi on Sentosa

TOH EE MING Today Online 31 May 16;

SINGAPORE — Sentosa is testing out a more eco-friendly way of providing free Wi-Fi — by tapping the power of the sun.

Currently, most Wireless@SG hot spots are located indoors, as it is more difficult and time-consuming to set up outdoor ones, such as having to dig up trenches to install fibre optic cables and power lines, and get approvals.

Such solar-powered services would be more environmentally friendly and save on costs, said the Infocomm Development Authority’s assistant chief executive Mr Khoong Hock Yun on Tuesday (May 31).

Slated to run till September next year, the new “green” Wireless@SG services will be accessible along Merlion Walk and will be overseen by IDA partners such as Aruba, M1, Sentosa Development Corporation and Skylab.

“If this pilot is successful, we could potentially expand Wireless@SG to reach more outdoor areas in a sustainable manner and bring public Wi-Fi coverage in Singapore to the next level,” said Minister for Communications and Information Yaacob Ibrahim.

Sentosa currently has more than 200 hot spots across various outdoor locations. It is one of the two main outdoor locations in Singapore with Wireless@SG, other than Gardens By The Bay, said the IDA.

Earlier this year, Minister of State (Communications and Information and Education) Janil Puthucheary had said the number of hot spots would be doubled to 20,000 across the island by 2018.

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Malaysia: La Nina -- Get set for 12 months of rainfall

ALIZA SHAH New Straits Times 31 May 16;

KUALA LUMPUR: Malaysians can expect more rainy days in the next few months as the La Nina phenomenon is expected to hit the country early November.

Science, Technology and Innovation Minister Datuk Wilfred Madius Tangau said the phenomenon, which would start after October, would go on for up to 12 months.

"The La Nina phenomenon (with 75 per cent probability) is expected to occur after October. It typically extends for up to nine and 12 months.

"However, it is still early to predict its intensity as this can only be confirmed after October," he told the New Straits Times.

Madius said the strong La Nina effect could also shorten the period of the Northeast monsoon and cause the mean temperature to drop by between 0.5 degrees Celcius and 2 degrees Celcius.

"Generally, the La Nina phenomenon will cause the rainfall to be increased over Sabah and the eastern part of Sarawak, especially during the Northeast monsoon.

"During a strong La Nina, the mean temperature for the country can also be decreased between 0.5°C and 2°C and the period of the Northeast monsoon will be shortened," he added.

Madius added Malaysia was experiencing the Southwest Monsoon (SWM) which was expected to last until mid-September 2016 "Malaysia is currently experiencing the Southwest Monsoon (SWM) since the third week of May and is expected to last until mid-September 2016.

"During this season, weather conditions are relatively drier as compared to other seasons," he said.

Malaysia was enveloped in a sweltering heatwave which was first detected from March last year before it intensified last December.

The dry and hot spell which was expected to prolong until September due to the changing of the Southwest monsoon winds, had also resulted in schools in several states to be temporarily closed.

The El Nino phenomenon also caused water reserves in several states to deplete, and led to an increase in the number of peat and bush fires and also the return of the haze.

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Floods, political change hamper Myanmar growth: World Bank

Myanmar's growth rate, once one of the world's most impressive, has dipped following heavy floods and an investment slowdown sparked by uncertainty over its political transition, the World Bank said on Tuesday (May 31).
Channel NewsAsia 31 May 16;

YANGON: Myanmar's growth rate, once one of the world's most impressive, has dipped following heavy floods and an investment slowdown sparked by uncertainty over its political transition, the World Bank said on Tuesday (May 31).

A civilian government led by veteran democracy campaigner Aung San Suu Kyi took power in March after clinching a clear majority in elections late last year, ending five decades of outright military rule.

It was a transformative moment for a nation and its economy, which withered under the former military government.

But the election - and the long transition period between the two governments - has dragged on growth in the past year, the World Bank said, leaving investors wary as they waited for the dust to settle.

The bank estimated Myanmar's GDP growth during the 2015/16 financial year at seven percent - still in the top tier of the world's fastest growing economies but a significant dip from the previous year's 8.5 percent.

The bank had previously estimated that Myanmar would grow 8.2 percent for the 2015/16 period. Myanmar authorities do not release official economic data.

But it added that the country's overall economic prospects remained strong.

"While Myanmar's economic growth has eased in this past year, it still remains a powerful engine of change and development for the people of Myanmar," said Abdoulaye Seck, the World Bank's country manager.

The World Bank said heavy monsoon rains that caused widespread inundations throughout western and central Myanmar last summer, hit productivity and exports.

Ongoing structural constraints, short-term exchange rate pressures and rising inflation also weighed on growth.

Since the military ceded power to a quasi-civilian reformist government in 2011, Myanmar's economy has charged ahead with most Western sanctions lifted and foreign investors flooding in.

The peaceful transfer of power to a civilian-led elected government has sent hopes for a better future sky high.

But the government faces a daunting task. Myanmar, one of Asia's poorest nations, is hampered by decrepit infrastructure, conflicts in resource-rich borderlands and the continued influence of the military, who still dominate business.

Her hands are also partially tied by Myanmar's complex political system where the military still retains control of the key security ministries and are guaranteed a quarter of parliamentary seats.

- AFP/mn

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Renewable energy surges to record levels around the world

Spending on renewable sources like wind has overtaken coal and natural gas according to this study
Matt McGrath BBC 31 May 16;

New solar, wind and hydropower sources were added in 2015 at the fastest rate the world has yet seen, a study says.

Investments in renewables during the year were more than double the amount spent on new coal and gas-fired power plants, the Renewables Global Status Report found.

For the first time, emerging economies spent more than the rich on renewable power and fuels.

Over 8 million people are now working in renewable energy worldwide.

For a number of years, the global spend on renewables has been increasing and 2015 saw that arrive at a new peak according to the report.

Falling costs key

About 147 gigawatts (GW) of capacity was added in 2015, roughly equivalent to Africa's generating capacity from all sources.

China, the US, Japan, UK and India were the countries adding on the largest share of green power, despite the fact that fossil fuel prices have fallen significantly. The costs of renewables have also fallen, say the authors.

"The fact that we had 147GW of capacity, mainly of wind and solar is a clear indication that these technologies are cost competitive (with fossil fuels)," said Christine Lins, who is executive secretary of REN21, an international body made up of energy experts, government representatives and NGOs, who produced the report.

"They are the preference for many countries and more and more utilities and investors and that is a very positive signal."
Investment in renewables reached $286bn worldwide in 2015.

With China accounting for more than one-third of the global total, the developing countries outspent the richer nations on renewables for the first time.

When measured against a country's GDP, the biggest investors were small countries like Mauritania, Honduras, Uruguay and Jamaica.
"It clearly shows that the costs have come down so much that the emerging economies are now really focussing on renewables," said Christine Lins.

"They are the ones with the biggest increases in energy demand, and the fact that we had this turning point really shows the business case - and that is really a remarkable development."

The UK's high position in the global renewables table may come as a surprise to some as there have been a series of substantial cuts to green subsidies over the past year. The UK's solar industry saw tariff support tumble by over 60% last December.

Despite a significant fall off in European investment in renewables, down around 21%, green power is now the leading source of electricity, providing 44% of total EU capacity in 2015.

The authors say that while the Paris Climate Agreement came after this report was compiled, the fact that countries were getting serious about rising temperatures has already been reflected, to some degree, in their investments. As of early 2016, 173 nations had renewable energy targets in place.

It's not just nations that are taking big steps towards a greener future. In the US, some 154 companies employing 11 million people have committed to 100% renewable energy.

Traffic jam

However there are still some areas that are proving resistant to green energy such as transport and heating and cooling. The low price of oil has contributed to the lack of uptake for renewables in these sectors.

Despite these holdups, the authors are in no doubt as to the direction of travel.

"I've been working in this sector for 20 years and the economic case is now fully there," said Christine Lins.

"The renewables industry is not just dependant on a couple of markets but it has turned into a truly global one with markets everywhere and that is really encouraging."

"The best is yet to come," she told BBC News.

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