Malaysia: Government goes after waste importers

Dawn Chan New Straits Times 29 May 19;

PORT KLANG: Malaysia is putting a stop to the practice of dumping foreign garbage on its soil.

For a start, 60 containers filled with 3,000 tonnes of garbage will be shipped off to their countries of origin in the near future.

The first phase of the operation began by getting rid of 10 containers, filled to the brim with 450 tonnes of contaminated plastic waste. They originated from the United States, Japan, Canada, Australia, China, Saudi Arabia and Bangladesh.

The containers have been stuck at Westports Malaysia in Pulau Indah here since April last year. In addition, five containers have been sent back to Spain on April 29, while 50 other containers that have been brought in illegally are being inspected.

The Environmental Quality Act 1974 was enforced against the importers, made up of local players, beginning yesterday. A notice would be served on them with the instruction to start the process of shipping the containers back to the countries of origin (exporters).

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Malaysia: Xavier Jayakumar instructs Perhilitan to look into monkey shooting case

martin carvalho The Star 27 May 19;

KUALA LUMPUR: The Wildlife and National Park Protection Department (Perhilitan) has been directed to investigate the case where an 18-year-old man allegedly shot and killed a caged monkey in Sitiawan.

"Investigations by the police have been completed and they have submitted their papers to the Attorney-General.

"I have also instructed Perhilitan to look at the case and see what enactments they can take action under," said

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Sumatran rhinoceros: Indonesia can help save species

Olivia Miwil New Straits Times 29 May 19;

KOTA KINABALU: Hopes for the survival of the Sumatran rhinoceros lie in the cooperation between Malaysia and Indonesia for a breeding programme.

Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Christina Liew said the Sabah government still had one remaining female Sumatran rhinoceros, Iman, which is being kept at Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Tabin here.

Liew, who is also state tourism, culture and environment minister, said the 25-year-old rhino was found to have massive uterine fibroids when it was captured in 2014.

“Despite the tumours in its uterus, Iman is still producing eggs which can be harvested.

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Vietnam seizes 5 tonnes of pangolin scales from Nigeria

AFP 24 May 19;

Vietnam police have seized more than five tonnes of pangolin scales stashed in a cashew shipment from Nigeria, the government said Friday.

Communist Vietnam is a hotbed for the illegal wildlife trade, where animal products from elephant ivory to rhino horn and tiger bones are consumed domestically and also smuggled abroad.

Police on Thursday found 5.3 tonnes of pangolins scales hidden in a shipment from Nigeria at a port in southern Ba Ria Vung Tau province, according to Hai Quan, the official mouthpiece of Vietnam Customs.

"The scales were stuffed into 151 sacks inside a container... (and) bags of raw cashew nuts were used as a disguise in order to avoid detection from authorities," the online news website said Friday.

The government confirmed Thursday's haul and also announced a separate seizure of 8.3 tonnes of pangolin scales from "an African country" in the northern Haiphong port earlier this month.

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Africa's elephant poaching is in decline, analysis suggests

Researchers still fearful as approximately 10,000 to 15,000 are killed every year
Press Association The Guardian 28 May 19;

Elephant poaching rates in Africa are declining, according to a study published in the journal Nature Communications.

The annual poaching mortality rate fell from a high of more than 10% in 2011 to less than 4% in 2017, but the researchers warned that current levels were still unsustainable and could spell trouble for the future of the animals on the continent.

An estimated 350,000 elephants remain in Africa, but 10,000 to 15,000 are killed by poachers every year.

The team, from the University of York, University of Freiburg and the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, analysed data from 53 protected sites across 29 countries between 2002 and 2017.

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Best of our wild blogs: 28 May 19

1-2 June: Make a difference for Chek Jawa!
wild shores of singapore

Biggest turnout ever at our Pasir Ris Mangroves tour
Adventures with the Naked Hermit Crabs

Reef Walker
Hantu Blog

Singapore Bird Report – April 2019
Singapore Bird Group

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New S$40m waste-treatment facility could play key role in nation's green efforts

NAVENE ELANGOVAN Today Online 17 May 19;

SINGAPORE — The Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) launched a new research facility on Monday (May 27) that could play a key role in reducing overall waste in Singapore.

The facility will convert waste produced at the NTU into electricity and potentially useful metal alloys and other substances.

Located in Tuas South, the S$40 million facility produces lighter and less ash — only 3 per cent of NTU's waste will end up as ash — than conventional mass burn incinerators.

It also makes NTU the only educational institution in Singapore to treat all of its solid waste using its own facilities.

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Tam, Malaysia's only male Sumatran rhino dies

Avila Geraldine New Straits Times 27 May 19;

KOTA KINABALU: Malaysia's last remaining male Sumatran rhinoceros, affectionately called Tam, has died today.

Tam died at about noon at Borneo Rhino Sanctuary in Tabin Wildlife Reserve, Lahad Datu.

Sabah Deputy Chief Minister cum Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Christina Liew said the exact cause of death would be known after the autopsy.

"Invariably, everything that could have possibly been done, was done, and executed with great love and dedication.

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Malaysia: Plastic dumped here to be shipped back today - MInister Yeo

AHMAD FAIRUZ OTHMAN AND SYED UMAR ARIFF New Straits Times 28 May 19;

PUTRAJAYA: More than 400 tonnes of imported, contaminated plastic waste in Port Klang, Selangor, will be shipped back to their countries of origin today, signalling Malaysia’s effort to take the lead in the global crusade against unscrupulous export of scrap.

The move to send back the gargantuan amount of imported waste also conveys an official stand against irresponsible acts of dumping plastic waste on foreign soil, which took place after last year’s import ban by China when the country decided to quit its role as the world’s major plastic waste processor.

Malaysia was emboldened in its approach to regulating trans-boundary plastic waste movement after it successfully negotiated the Basel Convention to amend certain annexes, which saw government permission being required for the import of plastic waste from other countries.

Energy, Science, Technology, Environment and Climate Change Minister Yeo Bee Yin told the New Straits Times the war against imported plastic waste was about upholding Malaysia’s dignity among developed countries, which have been practising a kind of “recycling myth”.

She was tight-lipped on the details of the outgoing waste as most of it would be revealed in a press conference to be held in Port Klang today.

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Treated like trash: south-east Asia vows to return mountains of rubbish from west

Region begins push back against deluge of plastic and electronic waste from UK, US and Australia
Hannah Ellis-Petersen The Guardian 28 May 19;

For the past year, the waste of the world has been gathering on the shores of south-east Asia. Crates of unwanted rubbish from the west have accumulated in the ports of the Philippines, Indonesia and Vietnam while vast toxic wastelands of plastics imported from Europe and the US have built up across Malaysia.

But not for much longer it seems. A pushback is beginning, as nations across south-east Asia vow to send the garbage back to where it came from.

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Indonesia: Six crossing paths for elephants built along Pekanbaru-Dumai toll road

Antara 27 May 19;

Pekanbaru, Riau (ANTARA) - Six special crossing paths for elephants are to be built along the Pekanbaru-Dumai toll road project, in a bid to protect the elephants’ habitat.

"There will be six crossing paths. One in Tekuana River, and five others in section 4 near the Balai Raja Wildlife Reserve," an official of PT Hutama Karya (Persero) for the Pekanbaru-Dumai project section 3-4 Dinny Suryakencana said here on Monday.

The 131.48-kilometer long toll road is part of the Trans Sumatra Toll project, which has been designated as one of the national strategic programs.

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Right whale population decline linked to ocean warming, research says

Amanda Holpuch, The Guardian Yahoo News 28 May 19;

The endangered North Atlantic right whale faces increased odds because its main food supply has shifted due to ocean warming, according to new research.

Scientists have been searching for an explanation for a precipitous decline in the North Atlantic right whale population, which has dropped from 482 in 2010 to about 411 today.

A paper by 17 authors from the US, Canada and Norway, published this month in the journal Oceanography, links an influx of warm water in 2010 to a reduction in the whales’ key food supply, Calanus finmarchicus, a small crustacean, in the Gulf of Maine, the area off the US coast in which the whales spend their summers.

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