Rhino horn smugglers shift to jewellery: report

AFP Yahoo News 18 Sep 17;

Johannesburg (AFP) - Rhino horn smugglers in South Africa are increasingly supplying the jewellery trade, marking a shift away from sales to traditional medicine makers, according to a new report published Monday.

Conservation group TRAFFIC said Chinese gangs were processing horns into beads, bracelets and bangles to supply Asia's booming luxury goods market while also helping traffickers evade detection at airports.

Julian Rademeyer, a project director at TRAFFIC, said that the market for horn from the endangered species had been transformed in recent years.

"These products are exported and sold as they are, not necessarily to be ground down" as before, he told AFP.
"The rhino market has evolved over the years. The syndicates no longer want to export whole horn."

Rhino horn is mostly keratin, the same material as human nails, and is believed to cure cancer and other conditions -- as well being marketed as an aphrodisiac in Vietnam and China.

"Prior to that, a lot of the demand was for medicinal purposes, and in Vietnam demand for whole horn as a status symbol," said Rademeyer.

The report, titled "Pendants, Power and Pathways", revealed that smugglers are disguising rhino horn products as toys, artefacts and even hidden in bags of cashew nuts to avoid security detection.

They also wrap them in aluminium foil and smear them with toothpaste and shampoo to hide the tell-tale smell of decay.

The report revealed that countries including Ethiopia and Kenya played a "pivotal role as transit countries in Africa as they have direct links to Asian countries".

South Africa's OR Tambo International Airport in Johannesburg was also identified as a "key hub" for shipments destined for Asian countries.

South Africa, which is home to about 80 percent of the world rhino population, has been hit hardest by poachers. More than 7,100 animals have been killed over the past decade.

Rhino horns are highly coveted in Asia, where they have fetched up to $60,000 (50,000 euros) per kilogram.

Last month, South Africa hosted its first online auction of rhino horn, following the lifting of the ban on domestic trade. The auction attracted fewer bidders than anticipated.

Activists had opposed the controversial sale, fearing it would fuel trafficking and undermine a 40-year global ban on the trade of rhino horn.

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Guess What's Showing Up In Our Shellfish? One Word: Plastics

KEN CHRISTENSEN NPR 19 Sep 17;

But sit down with her and a plate of oysters on the half-shell or a bucket of steamed Manila clams, and she'll probably point out a bivalve's gonads or remark on its fertility.

"These are comments I make at dinner parties," she said. "I've spent too much time doing dissections. I've done too many spawnings."

And lately, the shellfish biologist is making other unappetizing comments to her dinner party guests — about plastics in those shellfish.

In 2016, she and her students at Vancouver Island University planted thousands of clams and oysters across coastal British Columbia and let them soak in the sand and saltwater of the Strait of Georgia. Three months later, they dissolved hundreds of them with chemicals, filtered out the biodegradable matter and looked at the remaining material under a microscope. Inside this Pacific Northwest culinary staple, they found a rainbow of little plastic particles.

"So when you eat clams and oysters, you're eating plastics as well," Dudas says.

Funded by the Canadian government and British Columbia's shellfish trade association, the project aimed to learn whether the shellfish aquaculture industry may be contaminating its own crop by using plastic infrastructure like nets, buoys and ropes. The experiment was a response to those claims by local environmental groups.

But tracking the origins of tiny plastic particles in a big ocean is new territory. So Dudas turned to Peter Ross, who has studied the effects of ocean pollution on sea life for 30 years.

"We've long known that plastic and debris can be a problem for ocean life," says Ross, director of the Vancouver Aquarium's Ocean Pollution Research Program.

In 2013, he began sampling the coast of British Columbia for microplastics. The researchers found up to 9,200 particles of microplastic per cubic meter of seawater — about the equivalent of emptying a salt shaker into a large moving box.

"So, large numbers," Ross says. "Rather shocking numbers."

They found plastics that were made small, like the polystyrene beads sold as bean bag filler and fake snow, and nurdles, the hard resin pellets used as a raw material for other plastic products. Microbeads, common in toothpaste and face wash, were also present.

But the majority of microplastics in Ross' samples resembled those showing up in Dudas' shellfish. They're showing up by the thousands along Puget Sound's shorelines, too. They're microfibers.

"It's overwhelmingly fibers," Ross says. "And they're being readily consumed at the bottom of the food chain, in zooplankton."

The research is adding to the evidence of a problem that touches every corner of the planet: from the depths of the ocean abyss to the surface waters of the Arctic to an area in the middle of the Pacific Ocean now known as the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. Scientists think plastic pollution in the ocean could outweigh the fish there by 2050.

Ross believes that locating the source of microfibers will help slow that trend. So lately, his science lab is looking more like a crime lab.

The detective work begins under a microscope. Researchers study a petri dish that looks like an I Spy book — a white background strewn with small colorful items. They note each particle's size, shape and color and zoom in to study its appearance: the way a fiber drapes across the dish or frays at its tip.

If particles pass the eye test, they advance to a machine called the Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy.

"This is a fancy forensic machine used at police stations," Ross says.

The machine scans individual particles with infrared light and generates a line graph on a nearby computer. Then the program cross-references that graph with a global database of other squiggly lines. One piece of fabric pulls up a list of probable matches — fibers with names like Zeftron 500 and Wonder Thread. They're types of nylon. Other fibers bring up generic and commercial names for olefin and polyester.

The data can't pinpoint a fiber's exact source, but taken in aggregate can point to larger trends about the presence of microplastic pollution in the ocean.

In many cases, the research is underlining the fact that many of the fibers ending up in the ocean are starting their journey much closer to home — probably in your home laundry machine.

Outdoor gear manufacturer Patagonia found that the average synthetic jacket releases 1.7 grams of microfibers per load of laundry. Each load may generate hundreds of thousands of fibers, which can slip through filters on washing machines and wastewater treatment plants and eventually make their way into ocean waters.

"The fabrics are degrading over time and getting flushed out into the water system," says Jeff Crook, chief product officer at Mountain Equipment Co-op, one of Canada's biggest outdoor retailers. The Vancouver-based co-op paid $50,000 to support Ross' effort.

Improved filters may be one way to stop ocean-bound microfibers, Crook says, but he's looking to Ross' data for other information, like whether some types of fibers are ending up in the ocean more than others. The data could help start a conversation about creating industry-wide standards around fiber shedding, he says.

"The more information we have, the more we can go back and tinker and improve the materials," Crook says.

Others note that the world consumes hundreds of millions of tons of plastic annually — like food packaging and straws. Dudas said that, while she is finding that farmed shellfish don't contain any more plastic than nonfarmed shellfish, she has no doubt that nets and ropes from shellfish aquaculture sites also shed fibers into the ocean.

"My fear is that we have a latent reservoir of these products that could become our future supply of microplastics," Ross says. "And they'll in turn be ingested by zooplankton and move up into the food chain."

Should we be concerned that we're part of that food chain?

That research is ongoing, Dudas says, but the answer likely will depend on how much we consume. The clams and oysters in Dudas' study contained an average of eight microplastic particles each, preliminary results show.

There are some indications that those plastics can act as vectors for chemical pollutants and pathogens, and other researchers are studying whether plastics leave the human body after being eaten.

When in doubt, ask a shellfish biologist.

"I wouldn't be overly concerned about eating shellfish specifically," Dudas said. "Microplastics are everywhere."

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Paris climate aim 'still achievable'

Paul Rincon BBC News 19 Sep 17;

The 2015 Paris agreement's ambitious goal of limiting global warming to 1.5C remains within reach, a study suggests.

The study is one of several to address the "carbon budget", which - among other things - determines how much CO2 the planet can emit and still reach a given limit for global warming.

It indicates the 2015 target, perceived by some as tough, could be met with very stringent emissions cuts.
It used computer models that project climate behaviour into the future.

The aim of the Paris deal was "holding the increase in global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit temperature increase to 1.5C."

But scientists admit they were taken by surprise by the ambition of the 1.5C figure.

The results of the work with computer models have been published in Nature Geoscience. This type of work necessarily contains uncertainties regarding the way the Earth's climate will respond in future and how quickly societies can move away from fossil fuel use.

But the study authors say: "Pursuing 'efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C' is not chasing a geophysical impossibility".

Co-author Michael Grubb, from University College London, said: "This paper shows that the Paris goals are within reach, but clarifies what the commitment to 'pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5C' really implies."

Those commitments would require strengthening the nationally determined contributions (NDCs) - the pledges to cut emissions contained in the Paris agreement.

Previous estimates of the remaining 1.5C carbon budget, based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's (IPCC) Fifth Assessment of the climate, were around four times lower.

But unlike those figures, which relied on one line of evidence, the new study uses multiple approaches to examine the same question, arriving at a rather different result.

Co-author Prof Pierre Friedlingstein, from the University of Exeter, said: "This is very good news for the achievability of the Paris targets."

Prof Myles Allen, another author, from the University of Oxford, told BBC News: "In the main body of the IPCC assessment, what it would take to meet a 1.5C goal wasn't assessed in any detail. To be honest, it wasn't thought to be the policy priority at the time.

"Perhaps it should have been, but that was the view of the academic community then. But the ambition of Paris caught a lot of people by surprise."

Analysis by David Shukman, BBC Science Editor:

The climate models are exaggerating. The predictions are too alarmist. The Tuvaluans and other islanders are safer than we thought. These are among the conclusions that some might reach from this latest work. In reality, nothing is quite that straightforward. The models are simulated approximations of possible futures. Inevitably they are going to be at least slightly adrift of reality, either in the amount of warming or its timing.

They come with caveats and margins of error. In many ways, it's remarkable that these computer constructs are even roughly on track. And models designed to come up with very broad potential outcomes for the end of the century may not be fine-tuned enough to give more detailed forecasts year-by-year.

The authors themselves are anxious that their research is not misunderstood. The need for urgent action to reduce emissions is unchanged, they say. It's just that the most ambitious of the Paris Agreement targets is not as unachievable as many once thought, that there is time to act, though the task remains a monumental one.

Myles Allen added: "For a two in three chance of keeping temperatures within 1.5C, we'd have to reduce emissions in a straight line to zero from where we are now over the next 40 years.

"It's possible, but extremely challenging. So if people are saying: can we now relax? That's not the right message to take at all."

Different take

Scientists agree urgent action will be needed to tackle the effects of rapid temperature increase over the next century.

But a study earlier this year in the journal Nature Climate Change suggested the allowable carbon budget had probably been overestimated.

It said the "pre-industrial baseline" used to benchmark present day warming was probably older than the IPCC had assumed.

Therefore, the degree of warming since that baseline was probably greater than had been believed.

On Twitter, one of the authors of that report, Prof Michael Mann, said the latest research in Nature Geoscience, "doesn't account for [the] pre-industrial baseline issue we examined".

He added: "There is some debate about [the] precise amount of committed warming if we cease emitting carbon immediately. We're probably very close to 1.5C."

Meanwhile, another paper in Nature Geoscience, by Gunnar Myhre, from the Center for International Climate and Environmental Research, in Oslo, and colleagues, suggests the greenhouse effect caused by human-induced CO2 emissions is now half-way to doubling compared with pre-industrial conditions.

Although the concentrations themselves have not yet reached the halfway mark, this is being described as an iconic watermark.

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Malaysia: RM60 million needed to operate Malaysia's largest marine park for first five years

KRISTY INUS New Straits Times 18 Sep 17;

KOTA KINABALU: A total of RM60 million is needed to operate the Tun Mustapha Park (TMP), Malaysia’s largest marine park, for its first five years (2017-2021).

WWF-Malaysia, announcing this during a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signing with Sabah Parks today, will assist the latter in developing a financial plan which could cover income generation or fundraising strategies, as well as sustainable financing.

The 10-year agreement solidifies the existing cooperation between the non-governmental organisation (NGO) and the conservation-based government body in taking care of the 898,762-hectare TMP.

The TMP, gazetted last year, spans three districts (Kudat, Kota Marudu and Pitas).

WWF-Malaysia chief executive officer Datuk Dr Dionysius S.K. Sharma and Sabah Parks director Dr Jamili Nais signed the MoU, witnessed by State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun.

Dionysius said WWF-Malaysia is committed to co-funding the TMP management and operation office, the TMP regulations development, sustainable financing mechanism and conservation, led by the state government.

“TMP is a global symbol of how we can collectively commit to protecting the environment while local communities continue to live in a sustainable manner.

“People must understand that the gazetting measure is just the first step in a long journey.

“Right now, there are over 80,000 coastal and island folk living in the area. We don’t know how many there will be in the future but the goal is for them to have better life in a sustainable manner,” he said.

WWF-Malaysia Marine Programme’s People and Biodiversity manager Monique Sumampouw said that 85 per cent of locals surveyed indicated that the gazetting measure had a positive impact.

She said the MoU will focus on the protection and restoration of coral reefs, sea grass and mangroves as well as key species like sea turtles, dugong, sharks and commercially-valuable fish.

Meanwhile, Masidi said the gazetting of such parks require political will. Its impact, she said, may not be seen in the short term but will benefit the people in the future.

“I would like to give an example where a few days ago, a massive cleanup was conducted at the Kudat coastline, where many plastic bottles were collected. Surprisingly, some of the bottles came from other parts of the world, even as far as Saudi Arabia.

“So do not think that what we do in TMP only benefits only Kudat and Sabah; it affects people all over the world.

“We should not opt for shortcuts and short-term benefits but make decisions that allow people to prosper, generation after generation.

“I hope that leaders, wherever they are, will do more of what is right instead of what is popular. I hope what we did will encourage others to follow suit,” said the minister.

He also stressed on the importance of being realistic when it comes to gazetting more marine parks.

“I believe the shortest time frame for the next one (to be gazetted) is maybe ten years. I am saying this to keep expectations within limits. There is a lot of work to be done and there are various technicalities involved,” he said.

Masidi had earlier this month said that the government had identified Mantanani Island off Kota Belud and its surrounding areas as the next potential marine park.

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Malaysia: Sabah seeks to ban shark hunting

The Star 19 Sep 17;

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah is looking to put in place a total ban on shark hunting and finning in all six of its marine parks by the end of the year.

State Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun said amendments to the Sabah Parks Enactment to allow the ban will be tabled at the state assembly budget sitting, which is scheduled for November.

“Once in place, we can act against those who are hunting or finning within the park,” he said after meeting with the Sabah Shark Protection Association, which will be organising its second Alternatives to Shark Fin Soup Exhibition here on Nov 11.

He said the state government’s move would harmonise with the federal Fisheries Depart­ment to ban certain types of shark hunting and trading.

“It is important to conserve and preserve sharks, which among other reasons, will also bring in more in tourism revenue.

“Since the campaign began, awareness of the issue has increased among Sabahans.

“I am happy to note that shark’s fin soup for many has become a taboo and they avoid it and seek other options,” he said.


Amendments proposed to turn Sabah marine parks into shark sanctuaries
AVILA GERALDINE New Straits Times 18 Sep 17;

KOTA KINABALU: The Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Ministry’s legal department is in the midst of preparing amendments to the Sabah Parks Enactment 1984 in a move to turn all six marine parks in the state into shark sanctuaries.

Its minister, Datuk Seri Masidi Manjun, said amendments to the enactment would be tabled at the state assembly once the review was finalised.

The marine parks are Tunku Abdul Rahman Park, Tun Sakaran Marine Park, Tun Mustapha Park, Pulau Tiga Park, Turtle Islands Park and Sipadan Island Park.

“There are certain requirements to amend certain provisions of the law, which we hope to table in this coming assembly session. We have had some positive achievements in trying to get our sharks fully protected.

“Even the federal authorities are now more engaging in (Sabah’s) request for amendments to the Fisheries Act 1985 that would allow total banning of shark fishing for certain category of species.

“Sabah has a lot of sharks and we are trying to protect all species. This, of course, requires a bit of adjustment to the Fisheries Act so we can harmonise the law relating to the protection of sharks in both federal and state laws,” he said.

Masidi was speaking at a press conference on the Alternative To Shark Fin Soup Exhibition, which will be held on Nov 11 at Imago Mall, here.

Present were Sabah Shark Protection Association (SSPA) president Aderick Chong, Imago acting marketing manager Rustam Ahmad, Go Seafood Sdn Bhd chief executive officer and executive director, Mikhail Razak Harris and Chua Hua Beng.

Masidi said he had held informal discussions with leaders from Kuala Lumpur and noted that they had begun to understand the situation Sabah was facing and pursuing with regards to shark conservation.

“I am also happy to note that the public are now quick to respond when they see photos of slaughtered sharks in the market. This shows Sabahans are now aware of the need to protect marine species.

“Sometimes, this issue crops up and I get a message on Facebook, saying ‘Masidi, where are you?’. Well, I’m still in KK and I’m still the minister but (jokes aside) there is no law that gives authority to the minister to take action against this.

“There is no law to allow us to stop shark fishing. So, I hope the people understand this and if indeed there is a law (banning shark fishing), I will be in the forefront to ensure it does not happen,” he said.

Currently, the Sabah Fisheries Department has listed whale sharks and sawfish (ray species) as protected and threatened under the Fisheries (Control of Endangered Species of Fish) Regulations 1999 and Fisheries Act 1985.

The department has proposed another four shark and two ray species, which have been listed under the Convention on the International Trade in Endangered Species 2008, to be categorised as threatened under the Fisheries Act.

The sharks are Sphyrna mokarran (great hammerhead shark), Sphyrna zygaena (smooth hammerhead shark), Eusphyra blochii (winghead shark) and the Carcharhinus longimanus (oceanic whitetip shark). The rays are Manta birostris (oceanic manta) and Manta alfredi (reef manta).

As the diving industry is one of Sabah’s active segments in spurring the state’s economy, Masidi said shark conservation must be emphasised to prevent species extinction such as what has befallen the Sumatran rhinoceros.

“I’m personally happy that SSPA is continuously educating the public. Ensuring total protection (of sharks) lies in our attitude. The laws can only be effective if there is strict enforcement, but our attitude determines whether our sharks survive.”

Meanwhile, Chong said the upcoming Alternative To Shark Fin Soup Exhibition focused on creating awareness and introducing substitutes for the dish to the public.

He said a similar event was organised in 2012 when many restaurants and hotels were still serving shark fin soup.

“However, this time around some (restaurants and hotels) have given

up, or rather struck off their menus, and this year we are stepping up our event with the support of Go Seafood, which produces Royal Empura products.

“The Empura fish is a sustainable resource, prestigious and expensive compared to shark fins. So we have a good alternative this year, together with birds nest.

“We have put up a really good fight against shark fin soup and now we have a ‘contender’. Hopefully, there will be more restaurants participating in the exhibition,” he said.

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Malaysia: Sarawak Forestry Department sending out strong message to timber thieves

Goh Pei Pei New Straits Times 18 Sep 17;

KUCHING: The Sarawak Forestry Department has defended its latest move in destroying on-the-spot, illegal logs seized during operations against timber thieves.

Its director Sapuan Ahmad said the department wanted to send a strong message against timber thieves that Sarawak was serious about putting an end to illegal logging.

The move, he said, was aimed at addressing allegations that the department had its hand in the auction of the illegal logs.

“Previously, all logs seized during our operations would be auctioned off.

“However, there were quarters accusing our officers of working together with potential buyers of the logs (for quick money).

“So, we decided to address this allegation by burning all logs found illegally felled on the spot at the scene of the raid.

“This is regardless of the value of the logs,” he told reporters here today.

The New Straits Times recently reported that the department had destroyed 300 logs, which were left abandoned in Batang Belawai, Sarikei near here.

Chief Minister Datuk Patinggi Abang Abdul Rahman Zohari Abang Openg had also consented to the move.

“It was the first time we had destroyed the logs and we will continue to do so, especially in the remote areas which could hardly be reached by road.

“We are serious about this. We will also not hesitate to destroy machinery and vehicles used for illegal logging.

“This is our fight against illegal logging. We should always remember the late Tan Sri Adenan Satem's words, whereby enough is enough,” he said.

Earlier, Sapuan attended the launching of the GEODRONE Initiative at the Sarawak Forestry Corporation (SFC) office here.

During the launching ceremony, Abdul Rahman Zohari, in his speech, said Sarawak can no longer depend on the conventional way of patrolling and manual effort in forest management.

Sarawak Forestry Department, he said, should make good use of technology to combat illegal logging, and to manage and to preserve the forest resources.

“The timber industry is an important sector, which contributes to the state's economy. Thus, we need to have effective forest management to ensure sustainability in the industry,” he said.

The chief minister had also proposed for SFC to conduct research and development for the establishment of an Industrial Forest, to look for tree species that can harvested within a few short years.

“With this, we don't have to rely on our primary forest,” he said.

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Lessons for Singapore from Houston floods

Geh Min For The Straits Times 18 Sep 17;

The fallout for a city state would be far more serious as people have no hinterland to move to and could become environmental refugees.

Floods, like other disasters, make headline news but recede just as quickly from the public's attention - unless you happen to be a victim. But Houston's flooding, though geographically more remote, seems to strike closer to home than the far more frequent and more fatal floods in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, China and even our Asean neighbours because Houston, in the US state of Texas, is a wealthy, First World global metropolis, an important port and petrochemical hub, a top medical centre and home to many Fortune 500 multinational companies. It is also flat and low lying.

So can what happened to Houston also happen to Singapore?

Mother Nature has been kind to Singapore. Although we often bemoan our lack of natural resources, we actually have a very rich biodiversity. We are also free of natural disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, typhoons, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

Singapore has also been extremely fortunate to have a far-sighted government which has made good urban planning and water management a priority from the start.

Most of the damage to Houston was from water and not strong winds. Houston's floods appear to be largely a result of poor urban planning and unregulated building. This article, however, is not intended to be a paean of self-congratulation but a sober look at what lessons Singapore can learn.

Although we do not rank high among cities at risk of flooding, unlike Shanghai, Bangkok or New York, we are not risk-free as climate change has resulted in increasingly frequent and more severe episodes of extreme weather and rising sea levels.

If Singapore were to suffer serious flooding, the social, economic and political consequences would be far more serious than Houston's. First, because of land scarcity, much of our key infrastructure is on low-lying coastal land or even underground. Second, our hard-earned reputation as a First World city that attracts global talent and investments (and is even exporting our urban planning and building model overseas), will be seriously damaged.

But most devastating of all is the question of where we could go. People from Shanghai, Bangkok or Houston and Florida can relocate inland either temporarily or even permanently, as has happened in New Orleans. This already traumatic social dislocation would, in our case, take on a national dimension and we might become environmental refugees like the citizens of Kiribati and Tuvalu.

So here are three lessons we should remember.

1 DON'T OVERBUILD

We should never underestimate the ability of the human species to think short term, both regarding our past and future. The deadliest hurricane in American history was one that hit Galveston in 1900, effectively wiping it out. It seems to have also been wiped out of Houston's memory, which is surprising because many of the refugees moved inland and settled in Houston, then a one-horse town which then grew to become the fourth-largest city in the US. Such rapid growth in slightly more than a century might seem a success story but "what made Houston so vulnerable to flooding was rampant, unregulated growth", economist Paul Krugman wrote in the New York Times on Sept 7. Singapore's growth as a city has also been phenomenal but matched by strict regulation and long-term urban planning and water management.

But we too have had our episodes of excessive complacency like the series of flash floods from 2010-2013 after 35 years of being flood-free. The first was initially dismissed as a one-in-a-hundred year freak event till the second flood less than two weeks later. That prompted the setting up of a commission to investigate the causes and to recommend corrective measures to our outdated drainage system.

Flooding can also be caused by roads, paved areas, carparks and other impermeable surfaces. While government planners have generally been vigilant about preserving sufficient porous land cover such as parks and nature reserves, it is obvious that these are gradually being eroded by built surfaces, Bukit Brown and Bidadari being two recent examples of green spaces being replaced by roads and housing developments.

Land use planners and developers should not only replace the equivalent area of permeable surfaces but should increase it to cater for more extreme weather conditions. This simple precautionary measure would save the state and taxpayers a fortune in downstream flood-control infrastructure and damage.

En bloc sales and the high price of land lead private developers to maximise their built-up space to the extent that any recently built private condominium is likely to have far less open space than Housing Board blocks. All this increases our risk of flooding and adds to its potential severity.

Building is essential but we should distinguish between necessity and vanity projects and build with humility, not hubris.

2 AVOID OVERPOPULATION

The larger and wealthier a city, the more complex, diverse and potentially conflicting its needs and demands. Predicting and juggling the intricate interactions between people and their environment goes far beyond simple arithmetic.

In the aftermath of the Fukushima tragedy in Japan, it seems highly irresponsible to the point of insanity to have sited a nuclear reactor in a tsunami-prone area, however well protected by sea walls and levees. But a crowded country needs energy, and nuclear reactors are usually sited in the least-populated part which typically is that way for a reason, in this case, tsunamis.

Singapore's planners have a Herculean task fitting our multifarious requirements on such a small island with no real hinterland. Our international airport, financial district, petrochemical and other major industries, many reservoirs and waste-disposal facilities are sited on low-lying, reclaimed land. We have little choice. But do we want to narrow our options further? People, unlike buildings, cannot be abandoned in an emergency.

The Government's 2010 White Paper on population projected for an artificial population growth to 6.9 million based largely on economic growth, the desired labour force and the changing dependency ratio of an ageing population. Factoring in social cohesion accurately turned out to be more challenging, but our ecological carrying capacity seems to have been missed out completely - except for a brief mention on green recreational spaces. Worryingly, in the subsequent furious debate, some well-respected planners said that we could actually comfortably grow to a population of 11 million or 12 million.

The more our population grows, the more ecologically vulnerable we make ourselves; and the faster we grow, the less time we have to correct our mistakes. How would we know we have reached or even exceeded the tipping point if we don't have time for checks and balances?

3 DEVELOPING EQ (ECOLOGICAL QUOTIENT)

Like much of the developed, urbanised world, Singaporeans generally have a narrow anthropocentric view of nature which we regard as recreational or ornamental rather than providing essential ecosystem services. We fail to realise that nature is often not the problem but the solution.

After the tragic Asian tsunami in 2004, it was found that coastal villages with intact mangroves and coral were relatively unscathed but those nearby that had destroyed these natural barriers were severely damaged.

But most coastal cities like Miami, New Orleans and Singapore have removed these natural barriers in the course of development. Singapore has projects to regenerate our mangroves and corals but it will take a long time to do so.

Massive engineering projects like sea walls and pumps may afford temporary protection but are hugely expensive to build and maintain and when they fail, as happened in Fukushima and New Orleans, they can do so disastrously.

The Dutch, past masters of flood control (60 per cent of Holland is below sea level) depend heavily on technology and man-made barriers but they also integrate nature-based solutions and adaptations to flooding, following Francis Bacon's dictum that nature to be commanded must be obeyed. Wetlands and floodplains provide additional layers of protection to sea-level rises and storm surges and, if required, a well-managed, controlled retreat. Their safety margins are gargantuan; equivalent to a once-in-10,000-year flood for the most populous areas - something that engineering alone could not achieve.

They have been advising us on water and flood control but other than different geographical conditions, the Dutch have a nationwide awareness of their risks and an inclusive stakeholder approach to solutions whereas we Singaporeans leave the problem to the Government.

Our leaders are always reminding us of our many social and economic vulnerabilities and how every Singaporean must play a part. The same should go for our environmental fragility. If we could have the same checks and balances for our environmental resources as for our fiscal reserves and social fabric, we would be far more sustainable.

Don't forget that past perfor- mance is not a reliable predictor of the future in environmental as much as economic crises. The once-in-a-hundred-year flood is as likely statistically to happen tomorrow as in a hundred years.

• The writer, an environmentalist and former Nominated MP, is the immediate past president of Nature Society (Singapore).

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Local firm develops meat alternative from plants

NEO CHAI CHIN Today Online 17 Sep 17;

SINGAPORE — With a protein-rich offering derived from plants, but which tastes like chicken, a local start-up has set its sights on pleasing meat eaters while incurring a smaller environmental footprint.

Mr Ricky Lin, 35, founder of food technology start-up Life3 Biotech, is looking to attract about S$1.5 million in funding to set up a production facility for his plant-based protein.

Tentatively called Veego, it is possibly the closest made-in-Singapore product to “clean meat”, which has generated excitement abroad among high-profile investors.

“Clean meat”, or cultured meat, is grown from animal cells without the farming and slaughtering of animals. Its close cousin is plant-based protein that tastes like real chicken or beef.

Last month, it was reported that Singapore investment fund Temasek led a US$75 million (S$101 million) investment in American company Impossible Foods, which produces plant-based protein that tastes and looks like beef. The company genetically modifies yeast and uses fermentation to produce an iron-containing molecule called heme, which gives the patty its red colour.

Separately, billionaires Richard Branson and Bill Gates were among the investors who pumped US$17 million into “clean meat” company Memphis Meats in August.

Mr Lin has been working on Veego since June last year with a small team, zeroing in on the ingredients and processes that would deliver the taste, texture and nutritional content he wanted.

Working out of the food science and technology lab at the National University of Singapore (NUS) and advised by NUS senior lecturer Leong Lai Peng, Mr Lin believes he has a product that consumers will enjoy.

Unlike tofu, which disintegrates more easily, Veego can be sliced like real meat. It can be braised, steamed, stir-fried, deep-fried, and cooked in curry or teriyaki-style. After rounds of experimentation, it has gone from “yucky to tasty”, said Mr Lin.

While the exact blend of ingredients is a trade secret, he said they include legumes, grains and soya beans.

“The product can go even further … to Version 2.0. Right now, it’s about Version 1.5,” said Mr Lin, who goes meat-free on Wednesdays.

“We’ve had a panel of analysts and business owners who have tested our product and they were happy, so we decided to launch with this first.”

Even in a less evolved state last November, Veego (then called Veyotein) won two awards — the first runner-up and Most Functional awards — at the Food Innovation Product Award, organised by the Singapore Food Manufacturers’ Association and supported by various government agencies.

Mr Lin, who will be speaking at a food innovation panel session at the TechInnovation industry event on Wednesday, said it could be fortified with more iron in future. TechInnovation is organised by the Ministry of Trade and Industry’s Intellectual Property Intermediary.

According to him, Veego contains at least 18 grams of protein per 100g (tofu has about 8g while chicken breast has about 26g) and is high in fibre and low in saturated fats. It contains Vitamins A, B and C, and magnesium. Unlike mock meat, which is often made of soya bean skin and wheat gluten, Veego is gluten-free. Mr Lin has approached catering companies, restaurants and social enterprise NTUC Foodfare to taste his product.

Executive Chinese chef Brian Wong of Wan Hao restaurant at Singapore Marriott Tang Plaza Hotel has tried Veego a few times and said the product is versatile. Its nutritional content is a selling point, he said.

“I would not compare it to meat because if we compare it to chicken or pork, people would taste it with certain expectations,” said Mr Wong in Mandarin.

“If it were up to me, I would (introduce it at the restaurant) because we have customers who are vegetarian, but who do not want mock (meat) because of the starch and chemicals.”

Veego has garnered interest from food and beverage firms as well as institutional caterers that supply to nursing homes and athletes, and Mr Lin is hopeful that investors will come on board by end of next month.

He reckoned that with a 3,000 sq ft to 5,000 sq ft production facility, Life3 Biotech would be able to produce 25 tonnes a month for a start.

There is currently no government-funded research on “clean meat”. Asked if it sees research and development potential, Dr Benjamin Seet, executive director of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research’s (A*Star) biomedical research council, did not comment specifically on “clean meat”.

A*Star is looking at how biotechnology can safely meet consumer demand for “clean labels” and natural ingredients in food, said Dr Seet.

Meanwhile, in a sign that consumer demand for meat alternatives may be growing, NTUC FairPrice outlets and RedMart recently began selling products from British brand Quorn.

The meat substitute is made from fermentation using a nutritious fungus. FairPrice’s director (fresh products) Peter Teo said Quorn is the first plant-based protein available at the supermarket chain and has a “very similar texture to meat”.

Consumers are more environmentally conscious, and FairPrice saw potential for Quorn products as they generate 90 per cent less greenhouse gas emissions and use 10 times less water than beef, he said. Four products began retailing last month at S$5 for a 300g pack and more will be available soon, said Mr Teo.

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Malaysia: ‘Bush meat a health risk and can lead to extinction’

The Star 18 Sep 17;

KOTA KINABALU: There is no need for urban dwellers to consume bush meat even if they came from farms because protein can be sourced from livestock, says Sabah-based conservationist Dr Benoit Goossens.

Eating bush meat also poses a health risk, he added.

Dr Goossens, who heads the Danau Girang Field Centre in Kinabatangan, said that bush meat are sources of protein for certain forest communities.

“But for most people today, protein can be obtained by consuming chicken, lamb or beef,” he said.

Dr Goossens was commenting on a Facebook post over a recipe to cook porcupine meat, which has alarmed conservationists.

He said porcupines were being farmed and sold in peninsular Malaysia, but the question is whether animals like porcupines were really sourced from the farms.

“It is easy to tell the customer the meat came from a farm. How can you prove it? It can easily be taken from the wild,” he said, adding that there is also the risk of transmission of diseases from wild animals.

Dr Goossens said people should avoid wild meat because it would lead to the extinction of various animal species.

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The Everglades have always been hit by hurricanes. Thanks to climate change, Irma could be a different matter.

Chelsea Harvey The Washington Post 16 Sep 17;

As residents of the Southeast are returning home and assessing the damage left by Hurricane Irma, Florida scientists are anxiously waiting to evaluate the storm’s impact on one of the state’s most valuable — and vulnerable — ecosystems: the Everglades.

Already threatened by the continuous progression of sea-level rise — which pumps damaging salt water into the habitat, jeopardizing groundwater resources, contributing to erosion and threatening wildlife and vegetation — some scientists worry that the weakened Everglades are becoming less resilient to disruptive events like hurricanes. The issue is a prime example of the way climate change can render ecosystems more vulnerable to even natural disturbances.

Indeed, it’s an issue that President Barack Obama chose to highlight two years ago during his last term. On a visit to Everglades National Park in April 2015, timed to coincide with Earth Day, Obama emphasized the growing threat of climate change and pointed to the impact of the rising seas in Florida as an example.

“Climate change is threatening this treasure and the communities that depend on it, which includes almost all of South Florida,” he said in a speech delivered at the entrance of Everglades National Park. “And if we don’t act, there may not be an Everglades as we know it.”

Everglades National Park consists of about 1.5 million acres, or more than 2,300 square miles, of wetland area, containing pine woodlands, saw grass marshes and extensive mangrove forests, which help to naturally build up the land and buffer the coast against the rising seas. It’s home to a diverse variety of wildlife — including crocodiles and alligators, as Obama pointed out in his speech — and it’s part of the freshwater system that feeds South Florida’s Biscayne Aquifer, a source of drinking water for millions of people.

Hurricanes, in and of themselves, are not necessarily devastating events for the Everglades, according to Harold Wanless, an expert on coastal geology at the University of Miami. They have long been a natural and common occurrence in South Florida. They can even sometimes benefit the landscape by throwing mud onto the coast and helping to build up the land.

“From my point of view, they’re part of the system,” Wanless told The Washington Post.

Over the last century, however, sea-level rise — accelerated by human-induced global warming — has begun to degrade the Everglades by allowing salt water to seep into the system. This is bad news for the freshwater plants and animals that live there, but it’s also a major threat to South Florida’s drinking water supplies. And some scientists believe that salt water intrusion may be contributing to the erosion and collapse of certain parts of the landscape.

“Plants are not as productive as they have been, and soils in places are disappearing,” said Evelyn Gaiser, an Everglades expert and executive director of the School of Environment, Arts and Society at Florida International University. Particularly concerning is a process known by scientists as “peat collapse,” in which the rich, organic soil beneath the marshes is starting to collapse and be overtaken by open water.

“We’re trying to understand through a lot of ongoing science why that’s happening, but what we do know is it is occurring in areas that are receiving more salt than they have in the past, as a result of chronic salt water encroachment,” Gaiser said.


These soil losses are also making it increasingly difficult for the mangrove forests — some of the Everglades’ greatest natural defenses against sea level rise — to maintain themselves at the edges of the ecosystem, Wanless noted.

Now, scientists are growing increasingly concerned that the impact of hurricanes could exacerbate some of the climate-related challenges already facing the Everglades, by driving more salty water into the system or destroying more mangroves.

Researchers are awaiting clearance to enter the national park and begin assessing the impact of Hurricane Irma, but there are a few disturbances they’ll be looking out for, according to Len Berry, former head of the Florida Center for Environmental Studies at Florida Atlantic University and now a professor emeritus and independent consultant. A major priority will be “looking for the extent inland that the surge went, bringing salt water,” he told The Post.

“What’s expected to happen is that you get short-term contamination of the aquifer, but what’s more important perhaps is you get a longer-term degradation of the vegetation,” he added. While there’s some hope that the mangrove forests may continue to gradually shift inland in advance of the rising seas, a violent storm surge can overwhelm them, he said.


Indeed, previous hurricanes have destroyed thousands of mangrove trees as they passed through — Hurricane Wilma in 2005 was one of them. That said, Gaiser noted that the destroyed mangroves were regrowing within a matter of months, and had reached their previous levels of productivity within a few years.

The question now, she said, is how 12 more years of sea-level rise and degradation have affected the Everglades’ resiliency.

“Is this kind of recovery that we saw 12 years ago still possible?” she asked. “Because we know that we are on a different trajectory in this ecosystem than even we knew about 12 years ago at the timing of Hurricane Wilma.”

For now, scientists are continuing to collect data and improve the models they use to make long-term forecasts for the future of the Everglades, Gaiser said.

Scientists say there are still important improvements that could made to the region’s ongoing recovery efforts. Wanless has suggested more resources devoted to the recovery of mangroves, especially after large disturbances like hurricanes, and to the recycling and storage of much-needed fresh water to bolster the Everglades’ water levels.

That said, the greatest ongoing challenge for the Everglades remains the progression of climate change and the relentless rising of the seas. The Everglades’ response to Hurricane Irma may hold important clues about how the ecosystem is continuing to change, at a time when the its future remains deeply uncertain.

“When things are changing outside the range of anything that you’ve seen in the past it’s very hard to be very sure about what might happen in the future,” Gaiser said.

Chris Mooney contributed to this report.

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