Terumbu Pempang Tengah is back to life
Offshore Singapore
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BlueSG will open charging stations to privately owned electric vehicles from next year
Zhaki Abdullah Straits Times 11 Dec 18;
SINGAPORE - Electric car-sharing operator BlueSG will begin opening its charging stations to third-party electric vehicles from the first quarter of next year.
The firm, a subsidiary of French conglomerate Bollore Group, made the announcement on Tuesday (Dec 11) to mark the first anniversary of its operations here.
Charging stations at Housing Board and private carparks, as well as those operated by the Urban Redevelopment Authority and JTC, will be made available to private users.
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Global climate conference important for S’pore, countries must decisively resolve differences: Masagos
NEO CHAI CHIN Today Online 11 Dec 18;
SINGAPORE — Arriving in Poland for high-level climate talks, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli said on Tuesday (Dec 11) that the critical meeting will determine how the world comes together to address climate change.
Mr Masagos said in a Facebook post that the Katowice climate conference — called the 24th Conference of the Parties to the United Nations (UN) Framework Convention on Climate Change — is important for Singapore for many reasons. They include Singapore’s vulnerability to rising sea levels as a low-lying city state, as well as the far-reaching impact of climate change on the global economy, food supply and Singapore’s way of life.
He is expected to deliver Singapore’s national statement at the summit on Wednesday, between 5pm and 8pm (Singapore time).
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Malaysia: Act-ing on climate change
sim leoi leoi The Star 12 Dec 18;
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia will start drafting a Climate Change Act, which is expected to take 24 to 30 months.
Once ready, it will be tabled in Parliament.
It will include a list of scenarios the country will face should global temperature rise by 2°C.
Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister, Yeo Bee Yin said they also aimed to complete and announce a national climate change adaptation and mitigation plan by the end of next year.
She said a climate change centre would also be set up by next year.
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Indonesia: Batam drafts plastic use restriction regulation
Antara 11 Dec 18;
Batam, Riau Islands (ANTARA News) - The regional government of Batam City, Riau Islands Province, is now drafting a regulation on the restriction of plastic use in various internal official ceremonies.
"We are programming a regulation at the regional level. It is not impossible for us to introduce a regulation at the municipal level to restrict the use of plastic," Deputy Mayor of Batam City, Amsakar Achmad said here on Tuesday.
The (regional) government is still drafting plans to replace the use of plastics with other materials during official and community events.
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Best of our wild blogs: 11 Dec 18
16 Dec (Sun): Talk on "Otters, turtles, hornbills - Hidden Treasures of East Coast Park"
Celebrating Singapore Shores
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Celebrating Singapore Shores!
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A*Star, Singapore firm develop system that turns food waste into odourless fertiliser in 24 hours
NAVENE ELANGOVAN Today Online 10 Dec 18;
SINGAPORE — Entrepreneur David Tan set up a company to reduce and recycle waste in 2016, and imported 10 machines from Japan to convert food waste into fertiliser.
But the micro-organisms from Japan could not effectively decompose curry, leftover food items from hotpot meals, and other dishes in Singapore that tended to be higher in oil and salt than Japanese food.
Mr Tan, the chief executive officer of Westcom Solutions, turned to the Singapore Institute of Technology and was put in touch with the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*Star).
Four A*Star researchers from its Institute of Chemical and Engineering Sciences were seconded to Westcom from last year under the agency’s Technology for Enterprise Capability Upgrading (T-Up) scheme.
After some trial and error with various microbes in A*Star’s collection, the researchers came up with one that could digest one tonne of food waste into 100kg of organic fertiliser in 24 hours — much faster than the seven days or more provided by most other solutions.
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Malaysia linked to wildlife trafficking network
sim leoi leoi The Star 10 Dec 18;
PETALING JAYA: Malaysia’s connection to a multimillion-dollar trafficking network of endangered freshwater turtles and tortoises has been uncovered by a wildlife investigation group.
Codenamed Operation Dragon and launched in 2016, the two-year investigation and 44-page report by the Wildlife Justice Commission crippled eight major networks working in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia.
It resulted in the arrest of 30 people and the jailing of five others in Malaysia, while a suspect was subjected to the Interpol’s Red Notice after he absconded, believed to be the first for wildlife crime in the country. Some 200 potential “persons of interest” were also identified, while three more cases are ongoing in Malaysia.
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Tackle climate or face financial crash, say world's biggest investors
UN summit urged to end all coal burning and introduce substantial taxes on emissions
Damian Carrington The Guardian 10 Dec 18;
Global investors managing $32tn issued a stark warning to governments at the UN climate summit on Monday, demanding urgent cuts in carbon emissions and the phasing out of all coal burning. Without these, the world faces a financial crash several times worse than the 2008 crisis, they said.
The investors include some of the world’s biggest pension funds, insurers and asset managers and marks the largest such intervention to date. They say fossil fuel subsidies must end and substantial taxes on carbon be introduced.
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Otter alert at Gardens by the Bay during Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon
Goh Yan Han Straits Times 10 Dec 18;
SINGAPORE - As Sunday's (Dec 9) Standard Chartered Singapore Marathon was underway, several unusual guests joined in - a group of 16 otters.
Ten adult otters and six babies were seen around 7.25am at a section of the marathon route that went through Gardens by the Bay.
According to otter enthusiasts, the animals had slept at Gardens by the Bay overnight. The adults woke up around 6am and headed for breakfast, before returning at 7.25am to collect the babies to forage for food together.
Close to an hour later, the otters moved to another part of Gardens by the Bay and were spotted rolling around on the ground to dry themselves, to the delight of event participants who whipped out their phones to snap photos of the animals.
Mr Bernard Seah, 49, a wildlife photographer and volunteer with the Otter Working Group, was at Gardens by the Bay with four others to help facilitate the movement of the otters across the busy race route.
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Singapore has vested interest in strong result at climate talks, says Masagos
Masagos says Republic faces disproportionate risks from negative impacts of climate change
Audrey Tan Straits Times 10 Dec 18;
Singapore's emissions make up just 0.11 per cent of the global total, but as a small island city-state, it faces disproportionate risks from the negative impacts of climate change, such as rising sea levels.
That is why Singapore has a "deep and vested interest to see a strong outcome at COP24", said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli, referring to the ongoing United Nations climate change talks in Poland.
Added Mr Masagos, who arrives in Katowice today for the second week of the conference: "At a time when multilateralism is being challenged, a strong outcome in Katowice will show that the global community is united in its support for a multilateral, rules-based approach to addressing climate change."
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Indonesia concerns about live reef fish trade
Antara 9 Dec 18;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - Indonesian Minister of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Susi Pudjiastuti has expressed concern about the issue of consumed live reef fish which was very popular in the international market.
"The demand for consumed live reef fish continues to increase because of its huge economic value. It has even been demanded in a very large-scale industry. The reef fish is very vulnerable because it is easily overexploited," Minister Susi said in a press statement received by ANTARA here on Sunday.
Reef fish has long been a food commodity in great demand in various countries, especially Hong Kong and China.
However, the high interest and prices of reef fish have been creating an alarming trend of trade.
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