Volunteers needed for Earth Hour (Singapore) 2009
Positions are now open on the earth hour in singapore blog
Seeking Sentosa's natural treasures
priceless and for free, our natural shore on the wonderful creations blog
Golden Babbler catching stick insect
from Bird Ecology Study Group blog
AVA's biggest Responsible Pet Ownership Roadshow
7th - 9th Nov 2008 on the habitatnews blog
What happened to those values?
Today Online 12 Jul 08;
WHAT are our values as a nation? Do we even have shared values?
Others do.
Some countries turn to God to tell them how to feel about each other and everything. Others look to values grown over time.
We Singaporeans have no shared God, no shared political ideology, no long-shared traditions, unless you count the military parade and fireworks on National Day. Even National Service is served by only a fraction of the country, men above 18.
But while it’s safe to say no country has a set of values everybody cherishes, it’s still fair to think we could share some common beliefs and principles after about 200 years of living together. What could they be?
Many people point to the colour of our grass, which is greener.
Our antecedents came here looking for a living, so it’s quite easy to think their children would be focused on the material world. They say, no wonder we so easily describe ourselves as “Singapore Inc”.
But for about 40 years now, we have had National Service. Every family sends its sons to combat training, where they risk their lives for something more than Hotel Singapore — there seems to be something worth fighting for, even worth killing for. What is it?
For many other countries that something is a way of life or just the nostrum: My motherland.
But here, when we think roots, do we think Singapore?
When people abroad ask me where I’m from, more than half the time they accept it when I say, “I’m from Singapore.”
In my motherland though, 100 per cent of the time they still want to know, “Where are you from originally?” (Itell them, Kandang Kerbau Maternity Hospital.)
If our shared values are hard to pin down, it’s not for lack of trying.
On Jan 15, 1991, the world was told what Singapore’s “Shared Values” were, as the five statements of values were described after they were debated and adopted by Parliament.
How deep have they sunk in? Why not have a look at the five values, listed here in bold type?
“Nation before community and society before self.”
Well, a simple MRT or bus ride will be enough to show you how deeply we have embraced that one, with pregnant women, children and the old having to stand while even our boys in green sit, our youth pretend to sleep — what is it in the MRT aircon that makes so many people close their eyes for even a few stops? — and that’s not to mention the person in front of you at any building letting the door slam on you.
As for “Nation before community” — a phrasing that some say was added with the realisation that the original “community before self” could spell disaster in a multi-racial and multi-religious society — if we really believed in “nation before community”, why is there still a need for race-based self-help groups?
And so it goes with three of the other official “Shared Values”.
Community support for the individual. Who knows what this means, and how it doesn’t contradict “Nation before community and society before self”?
Family as the basic unit of society? What sounds so good and wholesome and very anodyne somehow found a downside in Singapore where people were actually punished for not forming a family — with a man at the head of the household.
This kind of thinking led the Housing Board to deny our singles better grades of flats for the longest time.
And for officialdom to deny medical benefits to children of female civil servants until more recent times – on the grounds that only a man could be considered the head of the home.
Consensus, not conflict? Sure, on a daily basis, we avoid conflict but that’s more out of apathy and fear of trouble than a sense of consensus, which requires engagement, something we’re not renowned for.
Just look at the amount of conflict we pay to consume in pop culture. We enjoy every Die Hard and superhero Hollywood throws at us, and then generate swordfights and fistfights aplenty in homegrown shows.
As they stand, it is hard to say we live by the official “Shared Values” or that society would accept laws that impose them, except for the one that says, “Racial and religious harmony” — we have even sent racist bloggers to jail to uphold it. (But we don’t discuss the terms on which we achieve harmony — acceptance or tolerance?)
So then, what are our shared values? You could come up with limitless questions to help define values. How do the strong treat the weak? Where do we find joy? What moves our hearts? How do we feel about freedoms? Responsibilities? What will we fight for?
A lot to think about. If you think talking about it has any value.
The writer is a media consultant who likes to share his views, if not values.
Commonwealth Secondary lauded for recycling water from sinks
Liaw Wy-Cin, Straits Times 12 Jul 08;
A WASTEWATER treatment centre - albeit a modest one - has found its way into a school here, and is helping to recycle dirty water from its sinks.
But instead of huge machines at the new West Coast campus of Commonwealth Secondary School, a number of outdoor ponds use plants like lotuses and cattails, along with micro-organisms and activated carbon, to do the job.
Together, they can make water clean enough to be used for watering plants and washing various parts of the school.
Opening the new campus yesterday evening, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim commended the school's project, adding that it was a good way to teach students about conservation in water-scarce Singapore.
He also named the school the first centre of excellence for environmental education in Singapore.
Schools are named centres for excellence if they show outstanding achievements in specific areas, such as language and information technology.
Commonwealth Secondary will conduct training sessions in environmental education for both teachers and students from schools in the west. This year, its focus will be on air quality.
The part that schools can play in the national environmental effort is important, Dr Yaacob noted.
'We are moving very fast, we're developing very fast... I think it's important for the younger generation to understand what the challenges are, embrace them, and help us to find solutions,' he told reporters.
Commonwealth Secondary launches small wastewater treatment centre
Chan Eu Imm, Channel NewsAsia 12 Jul 08
SINGAPORE : Commonwealth Secondary School has been designated as a Centre of Excellence for Environmental Education.
Environment and Water Resources Minister Dr Yaacob Ibrahim launched its Green Hub on Friday.
A constructed treatment wetland is part of the school's efforts to teach students about water conservation in an authentic setting.
It is a series of ponds containing aquatic plants that treat non-industrial waste-water - like sink water - and turns it into usable water for washing and watering.
The wetland was developed in collaboration with national water agency PUB, Vision Network, and Ngee Ann Polytechnic.
The Green Hub is also used by other schools in the West Zone - for research and training workshops.
Dr Yaacob said, "Water is a scarce resource and if young Singaporeans can appreciate water the way we appreciate water, then I think our efforts in conserving water and ensuring we have a sufficient supply of water will be met.
"The environmental challenges are upon us, and I think it's important for the younger generation to understand what the challenges are, embrace them and help us to find solutions, because they'll be part of the future generation." - CNA/ms
Bag it up
Today Online 12 Jul 08;
PLASTIC isn’t fantastic.
That is why Kiehl’s is launching its “You Can Change The World” charity project, which has eight local personalities designing a tote bag each.
These comprise pop artiste JJ Lin, celebrity hairstylist David Gan, multi-hyphenate Eunice Olsen, comedian Hossan Leong and Fly Entertainment artistes Irene Ang, Wong Li Lin, Mindee Ong and Nadya Hutagalong.
Priced at $18 each and available from next Friday, the all-natural cotton tote bags will make a more environmentally friendly alternative to plastic bags.
The skin, hair and body care chain will also donate 100 per cent of the nett proceeds from the sale of these bags to benefit the Singapore Environment Council (SEC).
Which means, you can shop for your favourite beauty products, bag them in an eco-friendly tote and do your part for the SEC all at once.
David Gan
An eagle-eyed colleague spotted a couple of grammatical discrepancies in this wordy design but there’s something childlike and heartwarming in how David Gan pens a letter on behalf of Mother Nature.
So, now we know why every A-list star calls him “Mother”.
Hossan Leong
In case you aren’t cultured, our resident arts critic likens Hossan Leong’s art technique to Pointillism — a style of painting using small coloured dots to create a landscape or portrait. Now, that’s a nugget of information which will come in useful when you carry this tote to a gathering of art aficionados.
Eunice Olsen
Eunice is a politician, a TV host, a former beauty queen, an active volunteer ... the list goes on. But she’s really a girl-next-door, as her pretty depiction of a happy tree-hugger shows.
Irene Ang
While Hossan prefers the style of Pointillism, Irene Ang simply gets to the point. The slogan on her design is so bold that even your granny will see the point in not asking for plastic bags at the supermarket.
JJ Lin
We’ll leave the psychologists to figure out why JJ Lin left half of his Super Boy persona uncoloured and why the latter is wearing what looks like old-fashioned clogs or why he’s in his undies. But fans of the pop sensation won’t mind and we bet they will be first in line to snap up this design.
Wong Li Lin
She’s a mother of two. So, maybe that’s the reason behind the naggy reminders on this design. But hey, at least you have something else to read on the MRT train besides stealing glances at your fellow commuters’ copies of Today.
Straits Times 12 Jul 08;
PUPILS from 130 primary schools could soon be scouring the island for plastic bottles and tin cans in a bid to save the planet and raise money for less fortunate classmates.
The pupils will receive $2 for every kg of recyclables under a new scheme funded by the charitable arm of property giant CapitaLand.
In all, the CapitaLand Hope Foundation is looking to give out $1.75 million by June 30 next year in return for 875,000kg of paper, metal and plastic - the equivalent of saving 13,500 trees and enough energy to run 400 television sets for a year.
The money will go towards school uniforms, textbooks and breakfasts for thousands of needy pupils. The top three schools with the largest haul will bag an additional $5,000, $3,000 and $2,000 respectively.
Senior Minister of State for Education and National Development Grace Fu praised the programme, called Green for Hope, at its official launch on Thursday.
'To a generation that is growing up in prosperity, it is important that we teach the values of empathy and compassion,' she said.
EISEN TEO
Channel NewsAsia 12 Jul 08;
PARIS : Eastern Sumatra, the Irrawaddy delta in Myanmar and Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake are among areas in Southeast Asia facing a high risk of arsenic contamination in the water, according to a study published on Friday.
The researchers use innovative digitalised techniques, drawing on geology, geography and soil chemistry, to compile a "probability map" of naturally-occurring arsenic concentrations in five Southeast Asian countries and Bangladesh.
The map is intended as a useful pointer for health watchdogs, urban planners and water engineers worried about concentrations of this poison in groundwater supplies but lacking the funds to carry out wide-scale analysis of water samples.
Published online in the journal Nature Neuroscience, the Swiss-led study combined several methods to compile its probability model.
These included knowledge about sediments whose textures and chemical or bacterial properties could release arsenic from the local ore, thus contaminating aquifers.
Also factored in were areas with flat, low-lying topography. Arsenic contamination is rarely found in places with slopes.
The benchmark for risk was the World Health Organisation (WHO) guideline of 0.01 milligrams of arsenic per litre in drinking water.
The study predicted that in Bangladesh -- which has the worst arsenic contamination in the world -- the risk of water breaching this guideline was highest in the south-centre of the country and in the northeastern Sylhet basin.
This prediction concurred with water samples previously taken and analysed from tube wells in Bangladesh.
High probabilities of arsenic contamination were also seen for the deltas of the Irrawaddy in Myanmar and the Red River in Bangladesh, for the Chao Praya basin in central Thailand and for the organic-rich sediments of the flood plain of Cambodia's Tonle Sap lake.
The computer model said an area of about 100,000 square kilometres (38,600 square miles) on the east coast of Indonesia's main island, Sumatra, was likewise "prone to high risk" of contamination above the WHO benchmark.
This prediction was then borne out by samples taken from a zone in Sumatra deemed to have high-risk and low-risk aquifers.
However, many wells in this area are deep and draw water from below the water-bearing sediments which have the arsenic problem, the study says.
"The prediction map is a useful tool for identification of areas at risk of arsenic contamination, but... understanding the local geology as a function of depth is of vital importance for specific areas," it cautions.
In Bangladesh, tens of millions of people are potentially exposed to arsenic-tainted water, boosting the danger of skin lesions, respiratory illness and cancer.
The risk comes from so-called shallow tube wells which were drilled in the 1970s and 1980s, ironically in a bid to provide rural Bangladeshis with safe water. Millions of these pipes were installed.
The new study is lead-authored by Michael Berg of the Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology in Duebendorf.
- AFP /ls
Bangkok Post 12 Jul 08;
Local efforts to reverse effects of coastal erosion, by growing mangrove forests to overcome flooding, show signs of success, writes Chaiwat Satyaem in Samut Sakhon
Local efforts to save the natural environment and fight coastal erosion in Ban Khok Kham of Samut Sakhon's Muang district are showing signs of success. Until recently, villages were picking up the pieces from severe coastal erosion after greedy businesses invaded the mangrove forests which are natural buffers along the shore.
Local communities hope the experimental Phan Tai Norasingh learning park will help reverse the erosion problem.
Prasarn Iamwijarn, a teacher at Phan Tai Norasingh Witthaya school, is in charge of the learning park project financed by a 10-million-baht budget from the Khok Kham tambon administration organisation.
He said environmental destruction in Muang district was too severe to ignore. Until 1991, shrimp farms were common.
The farms gradually went out of business and the ground was left hard and barren. Poorly-managed farms polluted the water and no measures were put in place to save the environment.
The school was hard hit as it sits on land which was formerly a salt farm.
The school is flooded every year and remains submerged for up to four months at a time.
At the peak of shrimp farming, the area near the school was covered with salty water and no trees could grow.
Mr Prasarn said that in 1996 he found ways to solve the problem by drawing on lessons from royal projects initiated by His Majesty the King.
He launched a project to plant mangrove trees on deserted shrimp farms around the school.
Students collected mangrove pods for cultivation and planted the young trees around the school.
More than 40% of green areas around the school were restored, which Mr Prasarn regards as a big advance.
Mr Prasarn convinced shrimp farmers to recognise the merits of growing mangroves around their farms.
Maintaining a balance in the environment by growing mangrove trees was crucial for the survival of marine life, he said.
"I thought up a model and borrowed unused land near the coastlines for experiments.
"Now we have grown about 400 rai of mangroves in those areas. As a result, marine life is returning to the area where the mangrove forest has grown.
"The forests also trap mud sediment which will help slow coastal erosion," Mr Prasarn said.
The mangroves have slowed the erosion which led to land subsidence and worsened flooding for the school.
His hard work has now paid off with cooperation from local people.
Residents began by building three rows of experimental bamboo walls along the shorelines as a barrier to protect the area against the force of the waves.
The three-month experiment, a joint effort between Chulalongkorn University and local people, showed that the bamboo walls helped trap sediment, allowing soft ground to build up behind them.
The cost of the bamboo wall is 2.5 million baht per kilometre, which is cheaper than most other wave breakers.
Mr Prasarn said he expected the sediment build-up would allow mangrove planting areas to expand in the next three to five years.
Narin Bunruam, 71, said the project was useful, so he decided to pitch in.
"I think it is important to plant more mangrove forests, which can act as a home to various forms of marine life.
"Most importantly, I believe mangrove forests can help reduce global warming," Mr Narin said.
He said the community has also launched a separate project to breed crabs.
Breeding pens for crabs are put up about one kilometre from shore, using bamboo sticks planted in the sea.
When crabs with eggs are caught, they are not sold straight away, but are kept in the pens until the eggs hatch.
The crabs, without the eggs, are then sold.
The project has caught on with local fishermen and has become a success as crabs in the wild in Khok Kham village are increasing in number.
Even though a crab can lay up to 500,000 eggs, only 10% of them survive.
Mr Narin urged people to stop eating crab eggs so more crabs will be available for consumption in the long term
Live & learn
Louisa Lim, The Star 12 Jul 08;
Responsible tourism is the latest catchphrase in this era of global-warming concerns. But just how easy is it to stick to the moral high road?
Everything moves very slowly in Langkawi. Even the cars, although there are only a handful, amble by at barely 40kph, while the animals languish in the sun, seemingly immobilised by the stunning scenery of padi fields in a patchwork of glittering green marked by rows of coconut trees.
As the only inhabited island in an archipelago of 99, Langkawi has a rustic sense of time.
The island never really loses its serenity, even on weekends when day-trippers from the city hop off ferries and planes to spend the day combing the beach and sightseeing. The number of tourist arrivals has been increasing, and in 2007 alone, more than three million visitors came.
According to Mahendra Dev, 45, co-founder of Dev’s Adventure Tours, the growing numbers have affected the island for both good and bad as development spreads in tandem.
“The last thing we want is to turn Langkawi into Penang,” says Mahendra.
“The ecology of this tourism-driven island is still intact, but not for long, especially if we keep up with this complacency. But if we prep Langkawi for the future by stressing on responsible tourism, it has the potential to be one of the best destinations in the world.”
For my three-day vacation, I decided to see if it was possible to leave as little a footprint as possible of my visit whilst having a good time.
Day One
Unfortunately, I was off to a shaky start. Due to time constraints, I flew instead of taking a bus or train.
Lesson 1: Take public transport, preferably train. And don’t fly.
I comforted myself by staying at the Frangipani Langkawi, reputedly one of the greenest resorts on the island. The Frangipani bowled me over. The resort is made up of a string of roomy chalets, with possibly one of the best beachside views in Langkawi.
However, what is truly amazing is how committed owner Anthony Wong is in making the resort a model of eco-friendly practice. Apparently, Wong has incorporated over 100 “green” practices into his establishment to help minimise the impact on the environment, including regular environmental walks and an extraordinary waste management system.
Recycling is the name of the game here, as everything from food to water is collected, sorted and reused. There are recycling bins everywhere.
Lesson 2: Look up www.wildasia.net and www.responsibletravel.com for a list of socially responsible hotels and tour operators.
Upon closer inspection, however, I learnt that it wasn’t perfect. The chalet, though nice, didn’t have windows. There was a fan in the room, but Langkawi’s scorching weather made it impossible to rely on that alone. I had to turn on the air-conditioner, hence contributing to the greenhouse effect.
Evening came and I found myself snacking by the beach. Within minutes, a few birds surrounded me, eyeing my food with their beady eyes.
There were signs everywhere telling me not to feed the birds. Yet all it took was a scene from Alfred Hitchcock’s gory film, The Birds, to flash across my mind for me to aim some fries at these persistent creatures as peace offering.
Mahendra tells me later that this is a big no-no because people-food is not formulated for animal consumption. Also, these animals may become dependent on humans.
Lesson 3: Feeding wild animals can do more harm than good.
Day Two
Like many other tourists to Langkawi, I rented a car to take me around, as there weren’t any public rides. My first stop was a themed outdoor attraction boasting non-stop fun for kids and adults alike.
Upon entering, I spotted a distressed falcon chained by its claws, a large, noisy crowd gathered around it.
Its owner was a young man who made RM3 each time an overexcited tourist took a photograph with his prized pet.
I was horrified, and even more so later on when I came across a newly established elephant park that offers rides.
Lesson 4: Do not participate in activities that exploit animals, especially if it is lacking in proper management.
Often, such animals are stressed by regular human contact. Some are badly treated, malnourished or even drugged to keep them docile.
Further around the corner, I came across a souvenir shop selling handicraft. I wanted to do a good deed by supporting the local crafts-people, but was told that most of the handiwork were from Thailand.
Mahendra tells me that this has hampered cultural development in Langkawi, as more and more skilled local craftsmen are discouraged by the influx of cheap souvenirs.
Another example of why it is necessary to know what you buy or consume is the detrimental effects the gamat industry has had on Langkawi’s sea.
This purported medicinal oil may be the driving force behind many small to medium-scale businesses in Langkawi, but it has led to an over-harvesting of sea cucumbers.
Lesson 5: Do your homework before your trip, so that you’re able to make better choices.
After my less-than-pleasant encounter with distressed animals and dubious knick-knacks, I decided to soothe my nerves at Ishan Spa.
Perched high on the cliffs overlooking the Andaman Sea, it was the perfect place to hole up for a few hours, away from everything. Besides earning kudos for its breathtaking view, Ishan uses only locally grown ingredients like pandan leaves, ginger, lemongrass and turmeric.
There’s also a small organic herb garden there to educate guests on local herbs and spices.
Lesson 6: Support and buy local.
Back at the hotel, I uncovered yet another blunder. Housekeeping had exchanged my day-old towel with fresh, new ones, despite their “green” towel-replacing policy. It’s the classic example of hotels that have the right policies, but are poor in implementing them.
Because instructions don’t always filter well from top to bottom, WildAsia founder Dr Reza Azmi says, it is crucial for customers to take matters up with the organisations involved, as well as relevant agencies like Lada and Tourism Malaysia.
Lesson 7: Be pro-active in giving constructive feedback, in order to stimulate change.
Day Three
I decided my trip wouldn’t be complete without going on a half-day tour in the great outdoors. After all, this island wasn’t awarded the Geopark status by Unesco in 2007 for nothing.
However, when my personal guide, Abu, raced me around the island in a little speedboat and rushed past majestic mangroves and oddly-shaped islands without saying a single word, I started feeling annoyed.
For starters, this was becoming more of a joyride than anything else. Secondly, Abu’s idea of fun was pushing me to feed the eagles and pat the monitor lizards.
Azmi tells me later that this is exactly the type of tour operator I should avoid while holidaying.
“Travelling is all about opting for activities that are educational. This includes learning all about the local customs or indigenous tribes, or going on eco-based tours, which not only emphasise ‘show’, but also ‘tell’,” says Azmi.
“For example, did you know that mangroves are highly sensitive ecological areas? The boat-ride would have been especially harmful if the vessel utilises a two-stroke engine. So always choose boats with four-stroke engines because they combust petrol much more efficiently, leaving less petro-chemical wastes in the water.”
Azmi then reminded me to write an official letter of complaint about what had happened. But because time is an issue, the half-written letter is still sitting on my desk.
Oh, and did I mention the eight plastic water bottles I used throughout the entire duration of my trip?
I had taken it for granted that Frangipani would deal with it appropriately, like they would with my towels. But even if they did, there was still Azmi’s advice to heed — that all inorganic materials eventually end up in a landfill, because it degrades even as it is being recycled.
Lesson 8: Recycling can be tricky, so cut down instead of recycling.
On my way home, I wistfully wondered how much my ignorance had affected this little island that many people call home. What will Langkawi be like in another 10 years? Will tourists contribute to its ruin?
The line between helping and hurting isn’t always clear, and this can test even the strongest of wills. However, it was rewarding to do the right thing even if I failed. I emerged from the whole journey a little battered, but not the least bit dispirited.
Moreover, didn’t French author Marcel Proust write: “The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes”?
Lesson 9: Try to come away from a trip as enlightened as possible.
Brian Unwin, The Telegraph 11 Jul 08;
Mass nesting failure year after year is threatening the future of world famous spectacular seabird colonies - and climate change could be the cause.
The warning signs may not be apparent to the tourists enjoying views of kittiwakes, guillemots and puffins on the cliffs of Sumburgh Head at the southern tip of Scotland's Shetland Isles or at remote Fair Isle, 25 miles out to sea.
"Wildlife is a major reason why people take holidays on Shetland and during a short visit there's so much to see at Sumburgh that many possibly don't realise there's a serious problem as they enjoy the sights", said Martin Heubeck an Aberdeen University seabird specialist based on the islands.
"But anyone spending all afternoon observing the sea birds closely through a telescope soon realises something is wrong - the birds aren't actually doing anything other than, in effect, hanging around and being photographed.
"They aren't repeatedly flying in from the sea with fish, nor are they busy feeding or giving other care to their chicks. Most likely they don't have any youngsters - and probably any that do won't be feeding them because they're struggling to find fish.
"Clearly this cannot continue indefinitely. Repeated breeding failure means an increasing proportion of older birds in populations - and with no young birds coming through to replace them when they die, the future survival of their colonies is threatened."
This crisis has been taking shape since the mid-1980s with the disappearance of the immense sand-eel shoals that used to sustain the birds through the breeding season.
Commercial overfishing was initially blamed but stocks didn't recover after it was banned. This led to new suspicion that climate change could be responsible; perhaps sea temperature changes were causing the fish to move to new waters, or affecting their own survival, leaving the birds without their staple diet.
Mr Heubeck is "depressed" about the impact on the colonies on which his whole working life has been focused. While the birds keep returning each spring to follow their instinct to nest, he detects signs of decline in their commitment level.
"Nesting success depends to a great extent on being in a good condition", he explained. "If they return to the colonies and there is insufficient fish around, they are liable to concentrate on finding food rather than breeding or attending their nest sites.
"The stress on them in the pre-breeding period is such that they are not socialising and forming proper colonies as in the past. They need to establish their nest sites and get to know their neighbours on the cliff ledges.
"But all that is breaking down now. Increasingly we see birds returning to the colonies in spring then deciding not to breed - putting their own survival first. The situation is leading to irreversible declines - the results of the next Northern Isles seabird census will be dramatically different to those of the last one during 1998-2001."
It's hard to work out the full effect of the sand-eel famine on seabirds throughout Shetland, which is made up of more than 100 islands spread over almost 600 square miles. However, a grim impression has emerged from detailed studies on Fair Isle, Britain's most isolated inhabitated spot 25 miles south of Sumburgh.
Deryk Shaw, warden of the bird observatory on the 3.5 miles by 1.5 miles isle that has been home to up to 250,000 seabirds of 18 species, has just produced a report about the unfolding cataclysm. It includes two graphs tracing the decline of two common species since the 1980s.
In the case of the shag, nesting numbers have risen just six times in 25 years; mostly progress has been downwards and now it's at a new low point. With kittiwakes, it's even worse - an almost continuous slide from around 23,000 nests to under 3,000.
Summaries of performances this summer produce no signs of hope for the long-term strugglers:
• Shag: Nest numbers on monitoring plots have fallen by 58 per cent since last year to an all-time low and the vast majority of these were abandoned at an early stage. In a "normal year" up to 400 chicks are fitted with leg rings to help trace future movements - this summer only five have been ringed.
• Arctic skua: After several poor breeding seasons the number of territories has plummeted to just 37 (the lowest since the colony's establishment in the 1950s - apart from equally disastrous year 2004 when there were only 33). No young have been produced.
• Kittiwake: The number of nests is only half of that counted as recently as 2005 (2,688 compared to 5,433) with many birds just standing on bare ledges.
• Guillemot: The number of eggs on monitored plots was 57 per cent down on last year. Of 92 eggs there, just two chicks were produced and both were predated. "It was a similar story on trips into colonies around the isle with hardly any chicks to be found and those that were present being small and weak, unlikely to fledge."
• Razorbill: Many eggs and chicks were produced but they have been dying steadily. None is expected to fledge from the entire island.
• Puffin: Many eggs laid but results are expected to be poor. Food is scarce - adults returning mostly with rockling (a tiny silvery fish) and gadoids (mainly whiting fry) with a very few small sand-eels.
Significantly his reports don't mention Arctic terns. That's because they arrived in the spring only to depart due to failure to find fish - a particularly tragic end to their journey from their winter territory in the southern oceans to nest in this far north location.
The picture was similar last year - after their return only a few eggs hatched and all the chicks died. In 2006, 300 chicks fledged, a notable exception after five consecutive years of total failure, with the number of nesting birds declining annually.
Mr Shaw told how visiting colonies has become a gloomy operation. "A normal descent into a big guillemot colony armed with hundreds of rings and measuring gear is a highlight of our season and the noise has to be experienced to be believed.
"Recent years have been met with an eerie silence - the only sounds have been the plaintive cries of a few weak and dying chicks. Normally the first visit into one of these colonies alone would see us ring up to 500 chicks but this year, not one was ringed from the entire island. The only rings fitted were to the few adults we managed to catch."
The significance of the sand-eel in this disaster is underlined by the fact two of Fair Isle's breeding seabirds - gannet and the internationally rare great skua - that don't depend on them are doing well.
Apparently occupied great skua territories have increased from 224 in 2007 to 294 this summer, a rise of 31 per cent. The world population is only about 17,000 pairs and 40 per cent are on the Shetland Isles so this rise represents a big plus.
This species is bucking the trend through being a predator and a scavenger - with rabbits and other seabirds included in its diet. Rising gannet numbers are linked to their widespread foraging and ability to catch larger fish like mackerel and herring.
Mr Shaw stresses research into what is happening to the food chain is "desperately needed" because there were crucial questions in need of answers.
"Why can't birds find enough food? Are sand-eels just not there any more and why? Is it due to 'climate change' and/or is it over fishing or something else entirely? Are the sand-eels simply not breeding or has their breeding season shifted such that their presence no longer coincides with the seabird breeding season?"
There is a further question that emphasises his and Mr Heubeck's growing concern that the declining colonies may be heading towards total collapse. It is: "Are we too late to save our seabirds?"
Seabird colonies on the Orkney Isles, 50 miles south of Shetland, are similarly in dire straits.
The picture there is also of nests abandoned and empty cliffs, says the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds while urging the Scottish government to put the environment at the heart of planned new marine legislation.
RSPB Scotland ecologist Doug Gilbert said: "Regrettably the poor breeding performance of our internationally important seabird colonies is now an annual theme. When you look at the evidence over the last 15 years it is quite startling and cause for serious concern.
"At our Copinsay reserve on Orkney the kittiwake population has plummeted drastically since the mid 1980s, when there were at least 10,000 birds on the cliffs, but today there are just under 2,000, a pattern repeated in many areas of Scotland and the UK.
"This decline is a major conservation problem, as Scotland supports 45 per cent of the nesting seabirds in the EU, and the colonies attract many visitors to marvel at the sight of the massed colonies."
As on Shetland, the lack of sand-eels and other small fish such as sprats, is the problem.
"Adult birds are having to spend more time away from their eggs and chicks to find food and many are just giving up their breeding attempts this year. “These changes are almost certainly being driven by changes in the sea environment about which we still know little. Seabirds are indicators of the health of the marine environment - and, like the canary in the coalmine, the decline in their fortunes should be a wake-up call to which we must all pay attention."
Reuters 11 Jul 08;
PARIS (Reuters) - Young oysters in most French breeding regions are dying at much higher rates than normal and scientists have yet to understand the causes, marine environmental experts said on Friday.
Oysters are a popular Christmas treat in France which produces 130,000 tonnes annually, making France the fourth biggest producer after China, Japan and South Korea.
A national committee of shellfish farmers held a meeting in Paris to look into findings by marine biologists which shows that between 40 and 100 percent of young oysters were dying, depending on the areas.
"What we seem to have is a conjunction of multiple factors concerning the oyster itself and the environment it's in, and there could also be pathogens," Michel Ropert, an environmental scientist at a marine lab in Normandy, told French television.
France's main marine research body, the Ifremer, said the oysters affected by the unusual mortality rate are those aged 12 to 18 months, which should have reached maturity in time for Christmas 2009.
All main oyster-breeding areas in France are affected by the mortality problem, except one specific area at Arcachon on the west coast. Scientists do not know why Arcachon is spared.
"Even within the affected oceanic basins, certain zones are hit and others are not," an Ifremer spokesman said.
French media reported oyster producers were worried about a possible virus like the one that decimated oyster beds in the 1970s. Other possible causes of the problem could be a toxic seaweed, pollution or a change in water temperature.
(Reporting by Elizabeth Pineau, Claude Canellas and Swaha Pattanaik, writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Bate Felix)
Crisis in French oyster industry
Yahoo News 12 Jul 08;
France's shellfish industry is facing its worst crisis in 40 years after stocks of young oysters have been decimated by a mystery ailment.
French oyster farmers have seen between 40 and 100 percent of their oysters aged one to two years wiped out in recent weeks, far higher than the normal mortality rate in the summer months, a top industry expert said.
The phenomenon is affecting all the oyster-producing regions of France, although the worst hit is the Thau saltwater lake, near the southwest city of Montpellier.
"I bought around 200,000 spat (oyster larvae). They can all be thrown away," Olivier Gonzalez, an oyster farmer at Bouzigues, bordering Thau, told AFP.
"We are facing a major problem, with 40 to 100 percent of young oysters dying, depending on the beds. We will know with the coming high tides if the adults are also affected," Martial Monnier, director general of the national shellfish industry board said.
"We always have a higher mortality rate of young oysters in the summer, but only up to a maximum 30 percent. We haven't seen anything like this since the crisis in the 1970s" which decimated the native flat oysters, now largely replaced by the Pacific oysters, originally from Japan.
Agriculture and Fisheries Minister Michel Barner on Friday urged research scientists at France's marine research institute to mobilise all its resources to try to establish why the oysters are dying off in such high numbers.
Rising water temperatures because of climate change since 1995 are believed to have rendered oysters more vulnerable, but experts do not believe that sea temperatures are dangerously high.
It is possible the oysters have been killed by temporary stress because of the sudden changes in temperature in June and oyster farmers will be able to replenish their stocks, although this will involve new investment, Monnier explained.
But in the worst case scenario, the oysters have been affected by a mystery pathogen as in the crisis in the 1970s. The virus could take one or two years to identify, he said.
For now, the mature ready-to-eat specimens that will go on sale at the end of the year are not affected. The problem will essentially affect the coming seasons in 2009, 2010 and 2011.
France is the biggest oyster producer in Europe and fourth in the world after China, Japan and South Korea. Its 15,000 to 20,000 oyster farmers produce around 130,000 tons of oysters per year.
Michael McCarthy, The Independent 12 Jul 08;
The world trade in ivory, banned 19 years ago to save the African elephant from extinction, is about to take off again, with the emergence of China as a major ivory buyer.
Alarmed conservationists are warning of a new wave of elephant killing across both Africa and Asia if China is allowed to become a legal importer, as looks likely at a meeting in Geneva next week.
The unleashing of a massive Chinese demand for ivory, in the form of trinkets, name seals, expensive carvings and polished ivory tusks, is likely to give an enormous boost to the illegal trade, which is entirely poaching-based, conservationists say.
"This is going to mean a return to the bad old days where elephants are being shot into extinction," said Allan Thornton, of the Environmental Investigation Agency (EIA), the group which provided much of the evidence on which the original ivory ban was based in 1989.
The ban succeeded in halting a headlong decline of African elephants at the hands of poachers, especially in east African countries such as Kenya. Elephant numbers across the continent were estimated to have crashed from 1.3 million in 1980 to 625,000 in 1989.
It was intended to be complete and worldwide but in 1997 four southern Africa countries: South Africa, Namibia, Botswana and Zimbabwe, persuaded other Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) member states to let them opt out, on the basis that their elephant populations were stable or increasing, and they would only sell tusks of elephants that had died naturally or been shot as rogues. Their campaign was led by Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe.
As a result, Cites sanctioned an auction of just under 50 tonnes of ivory from the four countries in 1999, but opened it only to "approved buyers" – countries whose enforcement provisions against illegal trading were deemed sufficiently rigorous. Japan was the only country approved.
Now, however, a second auction of 108 tonnes from the same four countries is being planned, and the Chinese, who were excluded from the first sale, are seeking "approved buyer" status, claiming they are much more active now in combating illegal trading activities.
Their application will be heard at the Geneva meeting next week of the Cites Standing Committee, which will also consider allowing the second ivory auction. Both proposals are likely to get the green light as the Cites secretariat is making a favourable recommendation in each case.
John Sellar, Cites' senior anti-smuggling and fraud official, said yesterday that China had made considerable improvements to its enforcement regime against illicit trading, and the country's score out of 100 for efficiency on the organisation's complex Elephant Trade Information System had risen from 5.6 in 2002 to 63 today. The recommendation would be that they should become an official ivory trading partner, said Mr Sellar.
Environmentalists fiercely dispute the effectiveness of China's crackdown and raise the larger issue of the huge ivory demand that is about to be unleashed from an increasingly affluent country with 10 times the population of Japan.
"In a country of 1.3 billion people, demand for ivory from just a fraction of one per cent of the population is colossal," said Allan Thornton of the EIA. "If these new legal imports go ahead, they will provide a gigantic cover for illegal ivory to be sucked in."
He went on: "Right now across central Africa, elephant populations are being destroyed in countries like Chad, the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to satisfy illegal demand in countries such as China. The current estimate is that 23,000 African elephants are killed a year by poachers – which is totally unsustainable. If China becomes an approved trading partner, these figures will skyrocket."
Last year the EIA produced a detailed report on what it said was China's failure to address its illegal ivory trade. Mr Thornton said last night: "There is no evidence that the Chinese government has broken up or taken effective action against criminal syndicates behind the illegal flow of ivory into the country."
The EIA released an internal Chinese government document yesterday which, it said, showed that, over 12 years, officials had lost track of 121 tonnes of ivory from the country's official stockpile – equivalent to the tusks of 11,000 elephants. "We have not been able to account for the shortfall through the sale of legal ivory by the selected selling sites," Chinese officials reported in the document to Cites in 2003. "This suggests a large amount of illegal sale of the ivory stockpile has taken place."
Asked about the document, officials from China's Foreign Ministry said they had no information on the subject.
The question of China's trading partner status comes up at the standing committee meeting on Tuesday afternoon. Britain has a representative on the committee, Trevor Salmon, a senior civil servant who is head of the Cites policy unit at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra). Asked how Britain would vote on the sale and on the Chinese application, a Defra spokeswoman said: "The UK will only support this limited sale if all internationally agreed conditions – including that the proceeds of the sale are used exclusively for elephant and community conservation and development programmes within or adjacent to the elephant range – have been met.
"Before allowing China to become a trading partner in a one-off sale of stockpiled ivory, the Cites Standing Committee will consider all evidence on measures China has in place to prevent this sale from having a negative impact on the illegal killing of elephants.
"Decisions are taken based on information about the sustainability of elephant populations in the countries and the security of their existing stockpiles of legally acquired ivory."
US shoppers get a share of harvest in return for taking stakes in farms
Straits Times 12 Jul 08;
CAMPTON TOWNSHIP (ILLINOIS) - IN AN environmentally conscious tweak on the typical way of getting food to the table, more people are skipping out on grocery stores and farmers markets, opting instead to go right to the source and buying shares of farms.
On one of the farms here, about 56km west of Chicago, Mr Steve Trisko was weeding beets and cutting back a shade tree so that baby tomatoes could get sunlight. Mr Trisko is a retired computer consultant who owns shares in the 1.6ha Erehwon Farm.
'We decided that it's in our interest to have a small farm succeed, and have them be able to have a sustainable farm producing good food,' Mr Trisko said.
Part of a loose but growing network mostly mobilised on the Internet, Erehwon is participating in what is known as community-supported agriculture and has about 150 people who have bought shares in it.
The concept was imported from Europe and Asia in the 1980s as an alternative marketing and financing arrangement to help combat the often prohibitive costs of small-scale farming.
But until recently, it was slow to take root. There were fewer than 100 such farms in the early 1990s, but in the last several years the numbers have grown to close to 1,500, according to academic experts who have followed the trend.
'I think people are becoming more local-minded, and this fits right into that,' said Mr Nichole Nazelrod, programme coordinator at the Fulton Centre for Sustainable Living at Wilson College in Pennslyvania, a national clearinghouse for community-supported farms.
The shareholders of Erehwon Farm have open access to the land and a guaranteed percentage of the season's harvest of fruit and vegetables for packages that range from about US$300-US$900 (S$400 to S$1,200).
Shareholders are not required to work the fields, but they can if they want, and many do.
Mr Trisko said his family knows that without his volunteer labour and agreement to share in the financial risk of raising crops, the small organic farm might not survive.
'It's very hard for them to make ends meet, so I decided to go out and help. We harvest, water, pull weeds, whatever they need doing,' he said.
Under the sponsored system, farmers are paid an agreed-upon fee in advance of the growing season, making their survival less dependent on the vicissitudes of the market and the cooperation of the elements.
At least 24 vegetable farmers serve an estimated 6,500 members throughout the five boroughs of New York City, said Ms Paula Lukats of Just Food, which connects farmers with residents there.
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