Best of our wild blogs: 27 Oct 08

Butterfly Photography at Butterfly Hill, Pulau Ubin
on the Butterflies of Singapore blog

The other side of St John's Island
on the wonderful creations blog

A handicapped Blue-winged Leafbird
on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

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Jurong Lake will be developed sensitively

Straits Times Forum 27 Oct 08;

WE REFER to the letter, 'Will new Jurong Lake be eco-friendly?' (Oct 14).

We would like to assure Ms Charlotte Leong that, in realising our vision for Jurong Lake District as a unique lakeside destination for business and leisure, we are working to ensure that any new developments around Jurong Lake will not seriously affect the natural ecosystem and water quality.

As part of the Active, Beautiful, Clean Waters (ABC Waters) project for Jurong Lake, PUB is carrying out dredging works to deepen the lake. The dredging works have stirred up sediment and caused the water to turn muddy. This is temporary and we will remain sensitive to the environmental impact of such works. A silt curtain has also been installed around the area being dredged, to minimise the amount of silt polluting the surrounding water.

Under the ABC Waters programme, a waterfront promenade, water feature deck and boardwalks will allow people to get closer to water. A geyser in the main water body of Jurong Lake will help to aerate and circulate the water. This will not disturb or affect the natural habitats in the area. Wetlands will be introduced along certain stretches of the banks to soften the shoreline, as well as create a conducive habitat for birds and other aquatic life to thrive. There will also be storyboards to showcase the development of Jurong Lake.

When completed, the ABC Waters project will not only enhance the aesthetics of Jurong lake, but also allow water-based activities such as kayaking to be conducted in the main water body.

As the Jurong Lake plan is still conceptual, we will continue to work closely with other government agencies such as the National Parks Board and the private sector to ensure that Jurong Lake will be developed in a sensitive and sustainable manner. We will also consider the necessary mitigating measures to minimise any potential impact to the ecosystem when the final plan is implemented.

Tan Nguan Sen
Director, Catchment and Waterways
PUB

Lim Eng Hwee
Assistant Chief Planner & Director (Physical Planning)
Urban Redevelopment Authority

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Australia's wetlands are drying up

ScienceAlert 27 Oct 08;
Charles Sturt University

Australia has failed to deliver on its obligation under the international Ramsar Convention to protect its wetlands, according to a senior wetland ecologist and environmental scientist at Charles Sturt University (CSU).

Professor of Ecology and Biodiversity and Director of CSU’s Institute for Land, Water and Society, Max Finlayson, declared that since the Australian Government signed the convention in 1975, the condition of the nation’s wetlands have continued to decline while some have vanished.

“Australia played a big role in developing Ramsar. By signing the Convention it agreed to look after all its wetlands, not just those listed as internationally important under the Convention. Australia’s governments have failed dismally,” Professor Finlayson said.

The Wetlands for Our Future report, published on 22 October by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Inland Rivers Network, highlights the pallous state of wetlands around Australia, particularly in the Murray Darling Basin.

“According to the report, nearly 90 per cent of wetlands in the Basin have disappeared since Australia signed up to Ramsar, while the remainder are in poor or critical condition, including some Ramsar sites,” he said.

“We need to look again at how we manage our wetlands, including the ecosystem services that wetlands provide to people, those surrounding the wetland and further afield.

“Wetland managers have tried and at times succeeded in maintaining the biodiversity of some wetlands, but to maintain the ecological character of a wetland, we must also maintain the ecosystem services, whether it is providing food or timber for local people, regulating storm water and floods or recharging groundwater.”

Professor Finlayson has called for more consultation and involvement of wetland users and those who benefit from them.

“We will still need to make major trade-offs – make some real decisions about wetland use, benefits and values. For example, many river regulation and flood plain levees have been built without conscious and open consultation with those that are negatively affected. Just ask graziers downstream of the Queensland water harvesters of the need for consultation and the need to consider their needs and livelihoods!”

The call by the ‘Wetlands for our Future’ report for a National Wetland Initiative echoes demands by scientists to establish a national authority that cuts across state boundaries, that can rapidly improve wetland management, support private wetland managers, advise on policy and legislative changes to support these actions and to make effective use of the best available knowledge and expertise.

“And we should also add the need to identify ecosystem services and its wider values to Australian society to the initiative, which means better information to enable us to make the hard decisions about the values and trade-offs needed in working with landholders and community groups,” the professor said.

“To do this, I believe we need to move out of our environment or agricultural or water resource ‘boxes’. We need to consider land, people and biodiversity together – we need to consider conservation issues in agricultural management and agricultural issues in conservation management.

“We must not only halt the loss of our wetlands, but we need to support our land, our agriculture and our people in the process,” he concluded.

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Longlines kill endangered loggerhead sea turtles, report confirms

Terry Tomalin, St Petersburg Times 26 Oct 08;

ST. PETERSBURG — Commercial fishermen in the Gulf of Mexico are catching endangered loggerhead sea turtles at an alarming rate, according to a new federal report.

Protected by federal law, the turtles are drowning when they get hooked on longlines, sometimes extending a mile or more along the ocean floor.

"The numbers are pretty alarming," said Tom Wheatley of the Marine Fish Conservation Network. "This is definitely an issue that will require action."

Most of the grouper landed in Florida are caught by boats that lay miles of monofilament fishing line, baited with thousands of hooks, across the sea bottom. This fishing method is effective but controversial.

Recreational anglers and conservationists charge that bottom longlines kill indiscriminately, catching everything from undersized grouper to protected species such as loggerhead sea turtles.

Until now, there was little data to support those charges, typically disputed by longliners.

But beginning in 2006, the National Marine Fisheries Service began placing official observers aboard longline vessels used in fishing for sharks and grouper.

During the study, which lasted a year and a half, federal observers went along on 34 fishing trips and documented 18 hooked sea turtles. Some of the turtles were dead, some comatose and some alive but injured.

Based on these numbers, federal officials estimate that each year, about 974 sea turtles are caught on longlines. Of those, 433 were released alive, 325 were released dead or unresponsive, and the remaining 216, were listed as unknown.

The results of this report, compiled by the fisheries service's Southeast Fisheries Science Center in Miami, will be presented to the Gulf of Mexico Fishery Management Council when it meets this week in Mobile, Ala.

"This is a serious issue," said Dr. Roy Crabtree, administrator for the service's Southeast Region. "We will have to determine if this is going to have an impact on the continued existence of the loggerhead sea turtle."

David L. Allison, as senior campaign director for the environmental group Oceana, has asked Thomas McIlwain, the gulf council's chairman, to take immediate action.

"The newly available observer data from the fleet reveals that virtually one out of every two longline sets has at least one loggerhead sea turtle take, and furthermore, the mortality level of these takes may be equal to or greater than 50 percent," Allison wrote in a letter dated Oct. 13. "The estimated longline takes are nearly 8 times the level authorized."

The federal report comes at a particularly sensitive time for loggerhead sea turtle populations. The species suffered greatly in the 1980s, when more than 10,000 sea turtles were killed each year in shrimp trawls. The federal government eventually required the shrimp industry to begin using "turtle excluder devices" that eventually cut down on mortality.

About 90 percent of the world's loggerhead sea turtles nest on Florida's beaches. But in recent years, the number of documented sea turtle nests has steadily declined.

The final numbers for the 2008 nesting season will not be ready until December, said Blair Witherington, a biologist with Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. But preliminary data shows the number of nests may have increased from 2007, one of the worst years in more than a decade.

Witherington bases this on reports from 33 beach sites, which account for 72 percent of the state's nesting sea turtles.

Last year, those sites reported 28,073 nests, compared with 38,643 this year.

"The numbers zig and zag a little, but in general, they have been going down" since 1998's peak of 59,918, Witherington said.

Conservationists blame many factors, including development and Red Tide, for the downward trend. But now, many believe longlines may be contributing to this decline.

"Longlines are adding to the problem," Witherington added. "The number of loggerhead sea turtles killed in fisheries is significant enough to affect population trends, and lo and behold, we are seeing declining numbers of sea turtle nests. It is a smoking gun, and we have a dead body."

Bob Spaeth, a commercial fishing boat owner who often represents his industry in dealings with the federal government, said he was surprised by the extent of the problem.

"We don't know why all of a sudden we are seeing all of these sea turtles on our lines," he said. "But we need to find a solution. Nobody wants to be out there killing sea turtles."

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Funding Becoming Harder To Get For Green Startups

Nichola Groom PlanetArk 27 Oct 08;

LOS ANGELES - Saving the planet is looking a lot less profitable than it was a few months ago, and investors once enamoured with finding the next high-flying alternative energy startup are retrenching.

Venture capitalists poured a record number of dollars into alternative energy companies as oil prices peaked at $147 in the third quarter, but some say that investment has trailed off substantially as crude prices declined and the global economy has slipped toward recession.

Not only are venture firms demanding lower valuations for what they call "cleantech" companies, they are also shying away from those with riskier technologies and startups whose business plans will require large amounts of capital.

"Our standard of investment has always been high, but it's even higher now," said Bryant Tong, managing director with San Francisco-based Nth Power, a venture capital firm that invests in energy technology startups. "Investors are hesitant to make investments... so it is harder across the board to raise capital for these companies."

Alternative energy in the last few years has become a major focus for venture capitalists, who saw there was money to be made from investing in technology to create cheaper solar panels, clean transportation fuels and green building products at a time of increased concerns about global warming and soaring fossil fuel prices.

Venture investments in alternative energy companies reached a record $2.6 billion in North America, Europe, China and India in the third quarter, according to industry research firm The Cleantech Group, which expects a much different picture in the current economic climate.

"We expect fourth-quarter venture investment numbers to be down significantly from the third quarter," said Brian Fan, senior director of research with The Cleantech Group, who estimated that fourth-quarter venture investment in the sector would be somewhere between $1 billion and $1.5 billion.

"And we expect that to continue into next year as well," Fan added.


THE VAULT IS CLOSED

The most visible recent sign of venture capitalists' new found caution toward cleantech was Tesla Motors announcement last week that it would delay the launch of its battery-powered sedan and cut jobs because of a lack of funds.

The electric car startup had been on the cusp of securing another round of venture funding when that was scuttled by the financial market turmoil, Tesla Senior Director John Thomas said on Wednesday.

"The vault was closed to us," Thomas said.

Tesla is now waiting until it can secure low-cost taxpayer backed loans before re-starting work on the "Model S."

For many investors in early-stage companies, the 50 percent drop in oil prices in three months has been a big deterrent to making new investments in alternative energy.

"The biggest question on people's minds has to do with the price of crude oil, which is now hovering at $70 a barrel," said Glen Schwaber, general partner at Israeli venture capital firm Israel Cleantech Ventures. "From that perspective it can be a concerning time to be a clean tech investor."

Cleantech investment in early stage companies should fall off at the end of the current quarter, Schwaber added.

In the near term, companies seeking their first round of venture funding will have the toughest time because a frozen market for initial public offerings has made it virtually impossible for venture capital firms to take public their later-stage companies, according to US trade group the National Venture Capital Association.

"If you can't get companies out through the IPO market, you have less time and less money to devote to new investments," said NVCA Vice President of Strategic Affairs Emily Mendell, who added that she expected cleantech to keep rising as a percentage of overall venture capital investment.

"I would be surprised if investment fell sharply in this area," she said.

The good news, according to many venture capitalists, is that with fewer dollars chasing the next big solar company or energy efficiency technology, there are good deals to be had.

"With the dollars that you put in now, you will own a greater percentage of the company," said Nth Power's Tong. "It's really a buying opportunity right now."

Once the downturn is over, many noted, the fundamental reasons for investing in clean energy will not have changed.

"There is an increase in urbanization, a population explosion, and a reliance on fossil fuels which are warming the planet," Schwaber said. "None of these have changed because of the subprime meltdown."

Indeed, The Cleantech Group's Fan said venture firms that committed to the sector before it was hot, such as Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, Khosla Ventures and VantagePoint Venture Partners, were unlikely to pull back now, though they may focus on less capital-intensive businesses.

"It's the second-tier VC firms, the fringe players, the newcomers that are getting scared off," Fan said.

(Additional reporting by Tova Cohen in Tel Aviv and Kevin Krolicki in Detroit; Editing by Carol Bishopric)

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Future of green is not so black, say some

Richard Ingham Yahoo News 26 Oct 08;

PARIS (AFP) – The deepening economic crisis may appear to be the perfect storm for environmentalism, but many in and around the green movement contend the opposite, seeing in it a time of opportunity.

The conventional view is this: willingness to protect the environment is wedded to prosperity.

When times get tough, people tighten their belts -- so their eagerness to switch to renewable energy, buy a more fuel-efficient car or promote forest conservation melts faster than organic ice cream in the Sahara.

Environmentalists and observers of green issues are not deaf to this argument. Indeed, many fear backtracking on a colossal scale at the upcoming UN talks on global warming, unfolding in Poznan, Poland, in December.

But these voices also say that conventional wisdom is flawed in many ways, sometimes unexpectedly so.

For instance, a worsening economy causes less greenhouse-gas emissions in the short term, as it lowers consumption of dirty coal, oil and gas by factories, homes, planes and cars.

"In one month, the crisis has done more for the environment than all the environmental summits in the world," is the ironic conclusion of Marc Fiorentino, president of EuroLand Finance, a French finance company that specialises in investment for small companies.

Others argue that tighter budgets and a lower oil price will not wipe out solar, wind and other clean sources that have enjoyed a surge in investment in recent years.

In the 1980s, a fall in the price of crude ended the first dawn of green energy, as the big economies, led by the United States, returned to their dependence on oil.

Bjorn Stigson, president of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development in Geneva, said corporations today believed that oil prices, while volatile, "will jump up and down at a high level," with demand sustained by a burgeoning world population and limited supplies of crude.

This leads to a happy conjunction of interests, he said. High prices encourage less use of energy and thus lead to less greenhouse-gas emissions.

"The measures that you need to tackle energy efficiency are the same that you will need to tackle climate change," said Stigson. "About 40 percent of the action needed to reduce CO2 [carbon dioxide] levels in the world will come from energy efficiency."

Another long-term factor to buoy the green cause is geopolitics, he said.

The United States was branded by memories of a dollar price for oil that zoomed into the triple figures. This trauma would be an enduring boost to locally-produced energy, including renewables and "clean" coal technology, said Stigson.

"The same issues that you have to address if you want to reduce dependence on imported oil, and create a higher degree of energy security, are the same issues that you must address from a climate perspective," he argued.

Other voices suggest that September-October 2008 may be remembered as a watershed in economic doctrine.

The frenzied worship of the lightly-regulated market place could be replaced by a humbler, wiser approach, of linking economic growth to natural resources, social needs and smarter technology, they hope.

Tim Jackson, a professor of sustainable development at Britain's University of Surrey, said the obsession with short-term profits and consumer-driven growth was now proven to be unstable as well as environmentally destructive.

"The old way of thinking about economy is up for negotiation, and the opportunities to build economies that incorporate both financial and environmental prudence are there to be taken," he said.

"What's needed is political leadership that understands this link and is prepared to act on it."

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Best of our wild blogs: 26 Oct 08

Dialogue Session on Sustainable Singapore
upcoming session on the AsiaIsGreen and wild shores of singapore blog

Eurasian Curlew at Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
and how it uses its massive bill on the Bird Ecology Study Group blog

Upcoming Singapore Energy Conference
on AsiaIsGreen

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Singaporean filmmaker showcases Lim Chu Kang in documentaries

Lynda Hong, Channel NewsAsia 26 Oct 08;

SINGAPORE: Singaporean filmmaker Eng Yee Peng has spent nearly a hundred thousand dollars on a documentary close to her heart.

Eng, who used to stay in Lim Chu Kang, felt compelled to preserve the rural landscape's history by making not one, but two documentaries, aptly titled "Diminishing Memories".

"For Part One of the film, I felt that I have something to improve. But Part Two of the film, there's nothing else better I can do already, based on my limited time, resources and budget," said Eng.

Audiences, especially the last surviving farmers from Lim Chu Kang, were moved to tears when the film was screened in Singapore recently.

Tickets for the initial six screenings at The Arts House were snapped up within a week. Due to the overwhelming response, another 10 more screenings of the film have been scheduled.

Part One of the documentaries has been shown at international festivals and on television in Australia and South Korea.

Part Two was later made but went 200 per cent above budget at US$60,000 – all from the director's savings. She also took a year, working 15 hours each day to complete the 49-minute film.

Eng said: "I need to stop filmmaking for a few years. I am not sure if I can continue. If you want to continue this journey in the long run, do not exploit yourself. Get enough funding and do not be afraid to justify enough funding for your project."

The director, who is a former MediaCorp producer for current affairs programmes, said she is taking on video-editing jobs for now before deciding on her next big project.

Related links

Diminishing memories website http://diminishingmemories.spaces.live.com/ with details of screening dates.

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Chemical regulations 'a turning point' for Barrier Reef

ABC News 25 Oct 08;

The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) says the Queensland Government's plan to introduce mandatory regulations on the use of chemicals in agriculture is a turning point for the Great Barrier Reef.

At the Reef Water Quality Summit in Brisbane yesterday, Premier Anna Bligh admitted a voluntary approach to saving the reef had failed.

WWF spokesperson Nick Heath says the Government's decision to get tough on chemical run-off could be the key to the reef's survival.

"I think if we can cut these pesticides, cut these fertilisers, save farmers money we'll save the reef," he said.

"It'll be more resilient before climate change comes through. But then I'm an optimist and I'll be working very hard with the farmers and with WWF and the scientists to try and make that happen."

Mr Heath says although the restrictions are a good start, the Government must follow it through with adequate funding.

"We still need the details to come out. We like what we're hearing but we want to see some money," he said.

"If these regulations are going to work, we need a very strong and long, significant financial commitment to implementing these regulations."

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Researchers: Seven orcas missing from Puget Sound

Phuong Le, Associated Press Yahoo News 25 Oct 08;

SEATTLE – Seven Puget Sound killer whales are missing and presumed dead in what could be the biggest decline among the sound's orcas in nearly a decade, say scientists who carefully track the endangered animals.

"This is a disaster," Ken Balcomb, a senior scientist at the Center for Whale Research on San Juan Island, said Friday. "The population drop is worse than the stock market."

While the official census won't be completed until December, the total number of live "southern resident" orcas now stands at 83.

Among those missing since last year's count are the nearly century-old leader of one of the three southern resident pods, and two young females who recently bore calves. The loss of the seven whales, Balcomb said, would be the biggest decline among the Puget Sound orcas since 1999, when the center also tracked a decline of seven whales.

Low numbers of chinook salmon, a prime food for these whales, may be a factor in the unusual number of deaths this year, Balcomb said.

"It was a bad salmon year and that's not good for the whales," he said. "Everybody considers these wonderful creatures, but we really have to pay attention to the food supply."

The three pods, or families, that frequent western Washington's inland marine waters — the J, K, and L pods — are genetically and behaviorally distinct from other killer whales. The sounds they make are considered a unique dialect, they mate only among themselves, eat salmon rather than marine mammals and show a unique attachment to the region.

The population reached 140 or more in the last century, but their numbers have fluctuated in recent decades. They were listed as endangered in 2005.

"We may be in the beginning of another decline in the population," said Howard Garrett, director of the Orca Network, a nonprofit education and advocacy group.

He said the whales seem to be having a harder time finding chinook salmon.

The whales recently have been traveling over greater distances than usual, suggesting they may be ranging farther for food, said Brad Hanson, a wildlife biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service.

Lack of food may be a concern, but it's too early to know the reason for the unusual number of presumed deaths, he said.

Pollution and a decline in prey are believed to be the whales' biggest threats, although stress from whale-watching tour boats and underwater sonar tests by the Navy also have been concerns. In the late 1960s and early '70s, the population fell as dozens were captured for marine parks.

The whales were making an apparentg comeback in recent years, reaching 90 in number in 2005, "but it's been a downhill trend now for three years," Balcomb said.

Among those missing are two female whales of reproductive age, both of which recently produced calves. One of those calves, L-111, is missing, while the other, J-39, is not.

It's not unusual to lose older or younger whales, but losing two females in reproductive prime is "a bit of a concern" since they typically have a high survival rate, Hanson said.

One female whale, known to scientists as L-67, had the potential for two or three more calves, Hanson said.

She was the mother of "Luna," a juvenile killer whale from Washington waters that made headlines in 2001 when he became separated from his pod and turned up in Nootka Sound, off the west coast of Canada's Vancouver Island. A killer whale believed to be Luna died in Nootka Sound in 2006 when it was hit by the propeller of a large tugboat.

L-67 showed clear signs of emaciation — a depression behind her blow hole — before she disappeared in September, Hanson said.

"It definitely shows that she was not eating," he said, but it's unclear why. Researchers are performing tests on samples they collected from her weeks before she disappeared.

Others missing, according to the center, include K-7, the 98-year-old matriarch of K-pod, and L-101, a 6-year-old male who is a brother of "Luna."

The count also includes a calf, J-43, that was born in November but is believed to have not survived the winter.

The whale census may increase if baby orcas are born this fall. And there's a slim chance the whales may reappear elsewhere, as "Luna" did, Hanson said.

But Balcomb said: "We've been monitoring. They're just gone."

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Marianas leaders oppose Bush plans for huge marine reserve

Yahoo News 24 Oct 08;

SAIPAN, Northern Mariana Islands (AFP) – Political leaders in the US-administered Northern Mariana Islands have publicly rebuffed attempts by Washington to persuade them to support a huge marine sanctuary in their waters.

A US official said during a visit to the western Pacific territory this week that President George Bush wanted to establish the Mariana Trench Marine National Monument before he leaves office in January.

Supporters of the 115,000 square mile (297,850 square kilometre) reserve said it would be an important part of Bush's legacy as he leaves office.

"To be as blunt as possible, we do not feel... that stealing our birthright to curry favour with posterity is appropriate," Northern Mariana leaders said in a joint letter published Thursday.

Northern Marianas Governor Benigno R. Fitial, the Senate president and the House of Representatives speaker wrote to Bush's senior advisor on environment and energy James Connaughton, who led a trip to the territory earlier this week to promote the sanctuary.

Local leaders oppose the reserve because they say it would remove resources from local control, banning fishing and any future mining in the area.

The sanctuary would surround the territory's uninhabited northern islands of Maug, Asuncion and Uracus, and include parts of the Mariana Trench, the deepest ocean waters in the world.

Connaughton told legislators on Monday the waters around the three islands were chosen because they have the "greatest marine diversity on the face of the earth and all (the) corals are intact."

But local politicians said they felt they were being railroaded into supporting the plan.

"We certainly do not appreciate the rush to judgment that necessarily must take place, and possibly has already taken place, to secure the designation prior to January 2009," the letter added.

"Even though this was ostensibly the beginning of discussions, many present were left with the feeling that the result was pre-ordained and the discussion was more pretence than substance."

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China's threatened elephants turn into killers

Local people believe the animals are getting angry as the country's runaway development destroys ever more of their habitat

Dinah Gardner, The Independent 26 Oct 08;

There are fewer than 300 wild elephants left in China, so when Jeremy McGill, an American tourist, stumbled across a group of adults earlier this year in a nature reserve in Yunnan province, near the border with Laos, he whipped out his camera and started taking pictures. It almost cost him his life.

"I was alone when I came across the four elephants," he said. "One scooped me up into his mouth and bit me. My body was folded in half, my head between my knees, and then the elephant spat me out and stomped on me. Suddenly they stopped and walked away. I was found about an hour later, just lying there with my intestines hanging out of my body."

A few weeks later, a Chinese migrant worker returning to his home village was stamped to death by an elephant. In Wild Elephant Valley, the same reserve where Mr McGill was attacked, a woman selling food was killed in June. Elephants will get aggressive if they feel threatened, but so many attacks in the space of six months is unusual, according to Grace Gabriel, Asia regional director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), who has worked on elephant conservation projects in China for a decade.

Humans and elephants are coming into contact increasingly frequently as Yunnan's development sees forests cut down to make way for rubber and paper plantations, new highways, dam projects and factories. China's elephant population is split into nine groups in isolated pockets of jungle that are becoming ever smaller, but Ms Gabriel thinks this is not the only cause of fatal encounters. Like local people, she believes the elephants are angry.

In recent years, she points out, several baby elephants have been caught in traps set by poachers for other animals. But when they are rescued by the local nature conservation authority, they are not released back into the wild, and she says at least two have died in captivity. Jin Yanfei, an ecology student from Beijing Normal University who studies the elephants in Wild Elephant Valley, said local officials wanted to breed elephants to perform tricks for tourists and to sell on to zoos.

Two young elephants are being kept at Wild Elephant Valley's "propagation centre". The youngest, Yongyong, was rescued last year when he was a few months old – in the wild, elephants normally stay with their mothers until they are least eight years old. We found him alone in a bare concrete yard, pacing agitatedly as far as the chain on his front leg would allow. I was told that Yongyong was kept like this 24 hours a day; after a few minutes, an official from the centre ushered us away.

Zhang Jun, a taxi driver in nearby Jinghong, the regional capital, spelled out the local view. "The park took in an injured elephant a few years ago, and the family came looking for her," he said. "That's why they've been attacking people. Everyone knows the elephants are angry."

Local farmers are also angry about loss of their crops to marauding elephants. Over the past three years the provincial government has paid out an average of about 5m yuan (£460,000) a year in compensation, but this covers only 30 per cent of the damage at most. Although poaching for ivory is a problem in Laos and Vietnam, Chinese farmers have not so far tried to harm or kill the elephants. Apart from the fact that guns are illegal, killing elephants, which are a protected species, carries a possible death penalty.

Ms Gabriel is campaigning for forest corridors to join up the patches of jungle where China's remaining elephants live. "These elephants have nowhere to go," she said. "If these habitats are not linked, if corridors are not built, China may not have wild elephants 100 years from now."

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