Malaysia: Injured pygmy elephant nursed back to health

The Star 3 Jun 19;

KOTA KINABALU: An injured juvenile male pygmy elephant, which villagers thought was dead, is being nursed back to health.

The elephant was found by Perdana Estate workers in Sabah’s central Telupid district on May 22, after which they alerted wildlife rangers.

Sabah Wildlife Department director Augustine Tuuga said rangers went to the site and were surprised to find that the elephant was still alive.

“It turned out that the elephant had a wound on its back that was infested with maggots.

“Our rangers and vets immediately treated the wound as the elephant could not even stand,” he said when contacted.

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Malaysia: Perhilitan rescues female elephant stuck in mud pool

hanis zainal The Star 29 May 19;

PETALING JAYA: A short clip of Department of Wildlife and National Parks Peninsular Malaysia (Perhilitan) personnel freeing a female elephant stuck in a pool of mud has gone viral.

The 1-minute, 29-second clip, posted by Perhilitan on its Facebook page, was viewed more than 23,000 times in just six hours of it being posted.

The video shows a time lapse of the rescue operation, where an excavator is used to remove some mud around the animal and to dig a ramp out to solid ground.

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63-year-old man dies from dengue in 4th death this year

Channel NewsAsia 31 May 19;

SINGAPORE: A 63-year-old man has become the fourth person to die from dengue this year, the Ministry of Health (MOH) and the National Environment Agency (NEA) said on Friday (May 31).

The man died on Wednesday, MOH and NEA added.

“The patient’s residence at Hougang Ave 1 is not an active dengue cluster. Nonetheless, vector control operations to kill adult mosquitoes and destroy any potential breeding habitats are ongoing,” MOH said.

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How Under Threat Singapore Is Taking Action to Battle Climate Change

Revathi Valluvar Bloomberg 31 May 19;

With almost one-third of Singapore just five meters above sea level, land reclamation isn’t only a way to create more space, it’s an environmental imperative. And while politicians elsewhere dither over climate change, the city-state is taking a decisive stance, rolling out a range of initiatives aimed at limiting the effects of global warming.

“It’s an existential threat,” Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong said in an interview Thursday.

Singapore, one of the world’s smallest nations, makes up for its lack of space by careful planning. A draft master plan released in March outlined a strategy to rejuvenate the island’s central area so that more people can live closer to work. It also proposed creating another 1,000 hectares of parks and park connectors so that in future, more than 90% of households will be within walking distance of a green space.

Wong said Thursday that Singapore has been successfully using polders, or dykes, to reclaim land. It’s a Dutch concept that’s cheaper than using sand to fill in the sea and better for low-lying areas.

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Malaysia: Environment and wildlife protection key to Sabah's economic growth

Olivia Miwil New Straits Times 31 May 19;

KOTA KINABALU: Sabah can sustain its positive tourism sector performance and growth by continuously protecting of its environment and wildlife, said economist Dr Rafiq Idris.

The Universiti Malaysia Sabah Business, Economics and Accountancy faculty senior lecturer said Sabah’s natural environment had contributed towards its big tourist numbers.

“People continuously visit Sabah because of its ‘nature’. The beautiful beaches, islands, mountain, waterfalls, jungles and wildlife among others are among the main reasons tourists come.

“Good environment and wildlife protection would attract tourists from around the globe to visit Sabah which has potential to further contribute to the state’s tourism sector significantly," he said in a statement.

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Thailand: Coral bleaching off Koh Phi Phi

Kritsada Mueanhawong The Thaiger 31 May 19;

Corals at Koh Phi Phi near a famous driving point has started to bleach.

Paranya Pantajit, a scuba expert in Krabi says, “Corals near a famous diving point at Koh Phi Phi is beaching. There are many marine lives living around this coral.”

“The temperature at 8 metres deep in the sea is about 31 degree Celsius. Corals in in other islands in Krabi have started to bleach as well.”

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Philippines ships dumped trash back to Canada

AFP 31 May 19;

Tonnes of garbage sent to the Philippines years ago was shipped back to Canada on Friday after a festering diplomatic row, as Asian nations increasingly reject serving as dumping grounds for international trash.

After a long campaign to urge Canada to take back the rotting waste, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte lashed out at Ottawa last week and ordered the refuse returned immediately.

The 69 shipping containers of garbage were loaded onto a cargo vessel at Subic Bay, a former US naval base and shipping port northwest of Manila, and began the lengthy trip to Canada.

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U.S. biologists probe deaths of 70 emaciated gray whales

Yereth Rosen, Reuters Yahoo News 1 Jun 19;

ANCHORAGE, Alaska (Reuters) - U.S. government biologists have launched a special investigation into the deaths of at least 70 gray whales washed ashore in recent months along the U.S. West Coast, from California to Alaska, many of them emaciated, officials said on Friday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) declared the whale die-off an "unusual mortality event," a designation that triggers greater scrutiny and allocation of more resources to determine the cause.

So far this year, 37 dead gray whales have turned up in California waters, three in Oregon, 25 in Washington state and five in Alaska, say officials of NOAA’s National Marine Fisheries Service. Five more were found in British Columbia.

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Best of our wild blogs: 31 May 19

Three insights from the forest – Love MacRitchie x BFF walk (11 May 2019)
Love our MacRitchie Forest

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Otters spotted in Bukit Timah; group fled from Singapore River home due to Bishan otters

Goh Yan Han Straits Times 30 May 19;

SINGAPORE - A group of otters were spotted at a Bukit Timah bus stop on Thursday morning (May 30).

The group of six was also seen near Stevens MRT station on the same day, as well as near Adam Road Food Centre the evening before, according to posts by netizens to the OtterWatch Facebook page.

A Straits Times reader noticed the otters along Bukit Timah Road at around 7am when she was taking her children to school.

"They were chilling at the roadside at first, then they were trying to cross the road," said the 37-year-old, who wanted to be known only as Ms Lim.

"It was a bit scary. They tried a few times before managing to cross safely."

She added that it was an unexpected and unusual sight in the morning, and that the otters were "very cute".

Otter enthusiast Bernard Seah, 50, identified the group as the Zouk otters, which were so named when they were spotted near the former Zouk site in Jiak Kim Street in the second half of 2018.

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From sky farms to lab-grown shrimp, Singapore eyes food future

John Geddie, Edgar Su Reuters 30 May 19;

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore, the tiny Southeast Asian city-state, is an unlikely place for a farming revolution.

With tiered fish farms, vegetable plots atop office buildings and lab-grown shrimp, the island aims to beef up its own food production and rely less on imports to feed its 5.6 million people.

Singapore produces about 10% of its food but as climate change and population growth threatens global food supplies, it aims to raise that to 30% by 2030 under a plan known as ‘30-by-30’.

The challenge is space.

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Ending coal financing, and jump-starting sustainability

SIMON TAY and LAU XIN YI Business Times 31 May 19;

ALL major Singapore banks recently announced that they will stop financing new coal-fired power plants. This is significant in aligning Singapore as a financial hub with the position of many Western financial institutions. But it opens up more questions about next steps and how sustainability can be jump-started in our rapidly growing region.

Coal has been singled out as burning coal is the single largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions worldwide. Western moves against this source of energy have had an impact. Last year, there was a 39 per cent worldwide drop in new coal-fired plant construction as compared to 2017.

Coal-fired plant construction in Asia is led by energy-hungry India and China, even as they also ramp up solar, wind and other renewables. Asean countries especially Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam are not far behind.

While many Western financial institutions shun coal, others do not hesitate. China is now a major financing source for coal plants, even outside the country. According to the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA), Chinese institutions are financing or have committed to finance more than one-quarter of the 399 gigawatts of coal plants currently under development abroad.

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