Best of our wild blogs: 7 May 19

25 May (Sat) - Free guided walk at Pasir Ris Mangroves
Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs

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PUB's Johor River Waterworks temporarily shut down in 7 pollution incidents since 2017: Masagos

Channel NewsAsia 6 May 19;

SINGAPORE: There have been seven pollution incidents along the Johor River since 2017 that caused PUB's Johor River Waterworks to be temporarily shut down, said Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Masagos Zulkifli on Monday (May 6).

Mr Masagos said this in a written response to parliamentary questions by Member of Parliament Seah Kian Peng on the impact that prolonged stoppage of the water treatment plant's operations had on Singapore, as well as Singapore's obligations to provide treated water to Johor under such a scenario.

"PUB will shut down its Johor River Waterworks when the Johor River is affected by pollution upstream of our waterworks," said Mr Masagos.

"Johor also has water treatment plants along the Johor River, upstream of the Johor River Waterworks, and will shut down the plants when pollution occurs upstream of them."

The seven pollution incidents were traced to illegal discharge from places like palm oil mills and chicken farms within the catchment area. So far there have been two pollution incidents in 2019, both involving high ammonia levels in the Johor River.

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Indonesia: Endangered Green and Hawksbill Turtles Released Back Into the Sea

NUR YASMIN Jakarta Globe 6 May 19;

Jakarta. Thirty endangered sea turtles that were discovered when they were about to be smuggled out of Indonesia were released back into their natural habitat in Riau's Natuna Sea on Sunday, the Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Ministry announced in a statement.

The turtles were seized from their smugglers by Polair Kepri (Riau Water Police), the ministry said.

Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Minister Susi Pudjiastuti and high-ranking officials from her ministry, including acting director general of maritime and fisheries resource monitoring Agus Suherman, and Riau government officials attended the official ceremony to release the endangered turtles back into the sea on Sunday.

"The 25 green turtles and five Hawksbill turtles were discovered in Batam by Riau Water Police," Agus said in the statement,

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Best of our wild blogs: 6 May 19

Butterfly of the Month - May 2019
Butterflies of Singapore

JOB OPPORTUNITY: Scientific Officer (Outreach and Education Unit)
Lee Kong Chian Natural History Museum

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2 new spots for Nee Soon residents to share reusable bags

Lim Min Zhang Straits Times 6 May 19;

While Singapore has not imposed a charge for single-use plastic bags, Nee Soon South constituency yesterday took another step towards encouraging the use of reusable bags.

It launched two more reusable bag-sharing stations, placed at the Sheng Siong and NTUC supermarkets in Khatib Central.

Anyone who requires the bags can take one, and they are encouraged to return them for the next user.

Since April last year, reusable bag-sharing stations have been set up at the eight residents' committees in the district and at Nee Soon South Community Club.

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Indonesia: BMKG issues extreme weather warning over next three days

Antara 6 May 19;

Jakarta (ANTARA) - The Meteorology, Climatology, and Geophysics Agency (BMKG) has forecast extreme weather in the subsequent three days in different parts of Indonesia.

Extreme weather conditions will arise due to low-pressure concentration in the Pacific Ocean, north of Papua, and in the Banda Sea, the agency noted in a written statement released on Monday.

Bengkulu, South Sumatra, Lampung, Banten, Jakarta, Java Sea, South Kalimantan, Southeast Sulawesi, Maluku, and Papua will experience wind shears, while East Kalimantan will bear witness to convergence.

The agency remarked that Jambi, Lampung, West Java, Yogyakarta, Central Kalimantan, North Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, and Papua were among the regions that could potentially be lashed by heavy downpours on Monday (May 5).

In the meantime, Aceh, North Sumatra, Bangka Belitung Islands, Jakarta and its surrounding areas (Jabodetabek), East Java, West Kalimantan, and Maluku were among the areas that may potentially receive high-intensity rainfall along with strong winds and flashes or lightening.

Torrential rains can potentially hit Jambi, Lampung, West Java, Yogyakarta, North Kalimantan, Central Sulawesi, Southeast Sulawesi, and Papua on Tuesday (May 7)

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A million species risk extinction, are we one of them?

Marlowe HOOD, AFP Yahoo News 6 May 19;

Paris (AFP) - Humanity is rapidly destroying the natural world upon which our prosperity -- and ultimately our survival -- depends, according to a landmark UN assessment of the state of Nature released Monday.

Changes wrought by decades of pillaging and poisoning forests, oceans, soil and air threaten society "at least as much as climate change," said Robert Watson, who chaired the 132-nation meeting that validated a Summary for Policymakers forged by 450 experts.

One million animal and plant species face extinction, many within decades, they reported.

Alarmingly, the accelerating pace at which unique life-forms are disappearing -- already tens to hundreds of times faster than during the last ten million years -- could tip Earth into the first mass extinction since non-avian dinosaurs died out 66 million years ago.

In the short term, humans are not at risk, said Josef Settele, a professor at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Germany and co-chair of the UN Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES).

"In the longer term, it is hard to say," he told AFP. "If humans do go extinct, Nature will find its way, it always does."

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Australia's capital cities face water restrictions as dams near 50%

Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane have seen water levels hit near-decade lows after a hot summer and dry autumn
Naaman Zhou The Guardian 6 May 19;

Sydney, Darwin, Brisbane and Melbourne are all facing the prospect of dams below 50% capacity after low rainfall and high temperatures across the country.

In Sydney, inflows are at their lowest since 1940. Greater Sydney’s 11 dams were at a combined 55% capacity on Sunday – compared to 73% at the same time last year.

Sydney activated its desalination plant in January, when dam levels dropped below 60%, but levels continue to drop 0.4% a week. Stricter water restrictions will come into effect if the level drops below 50%. The last time Sydney’s dam levels neared 50% was in 2011.

In the Northern Territory, the Darwin river dam received its lowest-ever rainfall in March, as the territory recorded its driest wet season in 27 years. On Sunday, Darwin’s dam was at 76% capacity, compared with 98% last year.

In Melbourne, dam levels were at 51% on Monday, compared with 59% last year and 61% the year before.

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Best of our wild blogs: 5 May 19

International Coastal Cleanup Singapore (Sat 21 Sep 2019): Registration for Organisers is open!
News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

Call for Toddycats Volunteer Festival of Biodiversity 2019 – signups are still open!
Toddycats!

A Walk At Pasir Ris Park (26 Apr 2019)
Beetles@SG BLOG

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Why doesn’t recycling rope in the karang guni?

Singapore’s National Recycling Programme could be boosted if our rag-a-bone men were given a new lease of life as employed ambassadors, says Kavickumar Muruganathan.
Kavickumar Muruganathan Channel NewsAsia 5 May 19;

SINGAPORE: On Saturday (Apr 27), Nee Soon East, led by Member of Parliament Louis Ng, pledged to eliminate the use of plastic disposables from meetings and events over the next two years.

The community also announced a range of efforts to curb waste as part of its newly launched zero-waste masterplan, including innovative ways for residents to communicate with each other when they have excess food to give away through the use of Telegram.

Such local efforts to reduce waste ought to be commended. Unfortunately, recycling woes continue to plague Singapore in its designated year of climate change action.

Despite efforts to improve awareness, our overall recycling rate dipped slightly from 61 per cent in 2017 to 60 per cent in 2018, according to statistics from the National Environment Agency (NEA).

While the household recycling rate increased marginally from 21 per cent in 2017 to 22 per cent in 2018, these numbers need to show a significant improvement for Singapore to meet its 30 per cent recycling rate target by 2030.

WHAT HAPPENED TO THE NATIONAL RECYCLING PROGRAMME?

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HDB unveils plans for new park in Bidadari estate

Channel NewsAsia 5 May 19;

SINGAPORE: A new park will be developed to form a “green lung” in the upcoming Bidadari estate, the Housing and Development Board (HDB) announced on Sunday (May 5).

The 10-hectare Bidadari Park will feature a lake, a heritage walk, experiential trails and a play area for children.

In designing the park, the team drew inspiration from the fictional Hundred Acre Wood in the Winnie-the-Pooh children’s series, said HDB.

“The team behind the planning and design of the park saw the opportunity to retain the wooded and rustic nature of Bidadari and to create a unique park experience for visitors,” it added.

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Malaysia: ‘Brace for heatwave’

clarissa chung The Star 5 May 19;

PETALING JAYA: Thunderstorms are likely now especially in the evenings, but Malaysians should brace themselves for dry and hot weather with the onset of the southwest monsoon.

The Malaysian Meteorological Depart­ment (MetMalaysia) said the southwest monsoon is due now and expected to last till September.

The winds during the southwest monsoon period would lead to a drier climate and less rain cloud formation, its director-general Datuk Alui Bahari said.

As such, heatwaves and dry spells are forecast to take place in many parts of the country.

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