Shocking report details massive illegal turtle trade network

A series of recent sting operations has led to dozens of arrests, thousands of reptiles seized
DINA FINE MARON National Geographic 6 Dec 18;

IN A POSH hotel room in Kuala Lumpur, a 35-year-old man wearing a dark button-down shirt smiled. He had two suitcases crammed with 55 live turtles, and he was hoping to make a sale.

He watched as his customer, a man wearing shorts and sneakers, carefully examined the reptiles crawling across the hotel rug.

Bakrudin Ali Ahamed Habeeb, had posted on Facebook some seven months earlier that he had reptiles to sell, triggering a flurry of text messages and price negotiations. Now, Habeeb just needed to prove that his animals were in good health so he could pass them off into the exotic pet trade.

It was May 2017, and he was anticipating a big payday.

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Sea levels may rise more rapidly due to Greenland ice melt

Run-off from vast ice sheet is increasing due to manmade global warming, says study
Jonathan Watts The Guardian 5 Dec 18;

Rising sea levels could become overwhelming sooner than previously believed, according to the authors of the most comprehensive study yet of the accelerating ice melt in Greenland.

Run-off from this vast northern ice sheet – currently the biggest single source of meltwater adding to the volume of the world’s oceans – is 50% higher than pre-industrial levels and increasing exponentially as a result of manmade global warming, says the paper, published in Nature on Wednesday.

Almost all of the increase has occurred in the past two decades – a jolt upwards after several centuries of relative stability. This suggests the ice sheet becomes more sensitive as temperatures go up.

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Best of our wild blogs: 6 Dec 18

Volunteer manager wanted for Pulau Hantu dives
Celebrating Singapore Shores!

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Malaysia: Pulau Kukup may lose its protected status

mohd farhaan shah and venesa devi The Star 5 Dec 18;

JOHOR BARU: Pulau Kukup, one of the few remaining pristine wetlands in South-East Asia, may stop being a fully protected national park as the state government is said to be de-gazetting a law that gives it the status.

Concerns were sparked by a gazette dated Oct 25 that has gone viral on social media notifying that the state authorities will cancel the whole area as a national park under subsection 3(3) of the National Park Environment Enactment (Johor) 1989.

According to sources, the decision was made by the state government in October to de-gazette Pulau Kukup National Park.

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Save millions of lives by tackling climate change, says WHO

Global warming and fossil fuel pollution already killing many, UN climate summit told
Damian Carrington The Guardian 5 Dec 18;

Tackling climate change would save at least a million lives a year, the World Health Organization has told the UN climate summit in Poland, making it a moral imperative.

Cutting fossil fuel burning not only slows global warming but slashes air pollution, which causes millions of early deaths a year, the WHO says. In a report requested by UN climate summit leaders, the WHO says the economic benefits of improved health are more than double the costs of cutting emissions, and even higher in India and China, which are plagued by toxic air.

“The global public health community is getting very impatient,” said María Neira, WHO director of public and environmental health. “If you don’t think you need to take action for the sake of climate change, make sure when you think about the planet you incorporate a couple of lungs, a brain and a heart. It is not just about saving the planet in the future, it is about protecting the health of the people right now.”

The damage caused by coal, oil and gas pollution is “outrageous”, she said. “There are words not included in the documents at [the climate summit]: asthma, lung cancer, stroke, heart disease – they need to be incorporated in all the decision-making processes.”

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Cars and coal help drive 'strong' CO2 rise in 2018

Matt McGrath BBC 6 Dec 18;

A booming global market for cars has helped drive CO2 emissions to an all-time high in 2018, say researchers.

The main factor in the near 3% rise has been coal use in China, driven by government efforts to boost a flagging economy.

But emissions from cars, truck and planes using fossil fuels continue to rise in all parts of the world

Renewables have also grown this year, but are not keeping pace with the CO2 rise.

The research, carried out by the Global Carbon Project (GCP), says that this year's "strong" rise is projected to be 2.7%.

That's much bigger than 2017's 1.6%. This will worry scientists as they had seen CO2 emissions relatively flat for the three years before.

So what's caused the rise?

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Singapore protests as Malaysia expands port limits, vessels intrude territorial waters off Tuas

FARIS MOKHTAR Today Online 4 Dec 18;

SINGAPORE — The Singapore Government is strongly protesting Malaysia’s purported move to expand its port boundaries, which violates sovereignty and international laws, and it will not hesitate to “take firm action against intrusions and unauthorised activities”.

This is after ships and vessels from Malaysia have been repeatedly intruding into Singapore’s territorial waters off Tuas over the past two weeks, including vessels from the Malaysian Maritime Enforcement Agency and Marine Department Malaysia.

These details were disclosed on Tuesday (Dec 4) by Singapore's Ministry of Transport (MOT), hours after Malaysia's Transport Minister Anthony Loke said that his country will “immediately” issue a protest note over Singapore's plan to use the southern Johor Baru airspace for flight operations at Seletar Airport.

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Best of our wild blogs: 4 Dec 18

FREE Talks and Tour on Ocean Plastic Pollution (7 Dec 2018, Friday at 7pm)
Celebrating Singapore Shores!

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Indonesia: Flood emergency status declared in West Aceh

Antara 3 Dec 18;

A resident takes out chair from his flooded home at Cot Amun Village, West Aceh District, Aceh Province, in October 2018). Floods that hit 10 sub-districts in West Aceh have affected 4.653 families or 15,309 people.(ANTARA FOTO/Syifa Yulinnas/wsj).

Banda Aceh, Aceh Province, (ANTARA News) - West Aceh District Head H. Ramli MS confirmed that the district was classified as a flood emergency area, as hundreds of villages were frequently flooded from September to December 2018.

"A flood emergency status is now declared in West Aceh District, so we are in dire need of support from the Aceh provincial government and central government," Ramli remarked while visiting flood victims in West Woyla on Sunday.

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World's strangest sharks and rays 'on brink of extinction'

Helen Briggs BBC News 4 Dec 18;

Some of the world's most unusual sharks and rays are on the brink of extinction because of threats such as commercial fishing, scientists have said.

A shark that uses its tail to stun prey and a ray half the length of a bus are on the list of 50 species.

The scientists say sharks have a bad image and people do not understand how important and threatened they are.

And losing even one of these "living fossils" would wipe out millions of years of evolutionary history.

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World Bank to invest $200bn to combat climate change

Sum available for 2021-25 represents doubling of current five-year plan
Fiona Harvey The Guardian 3 Dec 18;

The World Bank is to make about $200bn (£157bn) available to fund action on climate change from 2021-25, helping countries adapt to the effects of warming and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

The sum represents a doubling of the five-year investment plan put in place after the landmark Paris agreement of 2015.

Governments will meet in Poland this week and next to thrash out an implementation plan for the Paris accord, which binds countries to hold global warming to no more than 2C above pre-industrial levels, with an aspiration of a 1.5C limit.

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Act now or risk disaster, nations told at UN climate summit

Patrick GALEY, AFP Yahoo News 3 Dec 18;

Katowice (Poland) (AFP) - After the starkest warnings yet of the catastrophic threat posed by climate change, nations gathered in Poland on Sunday to chart a way for mankind to avert runaway global warming.

The COP24 climate summit comes at a crucial juncture in the battle to rein in the effects of our heating planet.

The smaller, poorer nations that will bare the devastating brunt of climate change are pushing for richer states to make good on the promises they made in the 2015 Paris agreement.

Three years ago countries committed to limit global temperature rises to well below two degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), and to the safer cap of 1.5C if at all possible.

But with only a single degree Celsius of warming so far, the world has already seen a crescendo of deadly wildfires, heatwaves and hurricanes made more destructive by rising seas.

UN General Assembly president Maria Espinosa told AFP that mankind was "in danger of disappearing" if climate change was allowed to progress at its current rate.

"We need to act urgently, and with audacity. Be ambitious, but also responsible for the future generations," she added.

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