2008 confirmed rise in weather disasters: Red Cross

Patrick Worsnip, Reuters 16 Jun 09;

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - A global trend toward increasing weather-related disasters was confirmed in 2008, the second deadliest year in the past decade for natural catastrophes, an annual Red Cross report said on Tuesday.

The number of people reported killed by natural disasters last year -- a total of 235,736 -- was surpassed only in 2004, the year of the Indian Ocean tsunami, said the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies (IFRC).

The 2008 toll was accounted for mainly by two events in Asia -- Cyclone Nargis, which left over 138,000 people dead or missing in Myanmar, and the Sichuan earthquake, which killed more than 87,000 people in China.

Damage from natural disasters cost more than $181 billion last year, according to the report.

More than three quarters of the disasters struck developing countries, which suffered 99 percent of the deaths, Maarten van Aalst, an author of the report, told a news conference.

"We also see a confirmation of the trend that we've seen in the past decade of a rise in weather-related disasters, which is concerning us and putting an additional strain on our operations," van Aalst said.

"In the 1990s, we saw an average of about 200 natural weather-related disasters per year. In the past decade that's been on average about 350. Last year we had 297, which is ... still well above what we've been used to in the past."

Some experts have blamed the perceived rise in freak weather events on climate change caused by pollution. It is a controversial subject ahead of a conference in Copenhagen in December that is meant to impose tougher targets for greenhouse gas emissions.

"It is now highly likely that that extreme-weather events -- floods, droughts and storms -- will become more frequent and more severe. And we cannot say we have not been warned," IFRC Secretary General Bekele Geleta said in a commentary.

"The disasters which climate change will trigger potentially threaten more lives and livelihoods than any before," Geleta said, adding that the world's response to the warning had so far been "piecemeal."

Trygve Nordby, a deputy to Geleta, told the news conference he believed the Red Cross was succeeding in getting references to the humanitarian effects of climate change and the need for early action into the Copenhagen document.

"The hope is that the new climate change adaptation mechanism ... also will include mechanisms whereby this perspective of early warning, early action, disaster risk reduction preparedness also gets its fair share of those ... hopefully new resources," he said.

(Editing by Will Dunham)

Read more!

UN warns of 'megadisasters' linked to climate change

Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

GENEVA (AFP) – The United Nations on Tuesday raised the prospect of "megadisasters" affecting millions of people in some of the world's biggest cities unless more is done to heed the threat of climate change.

"We are going to see more disasters and more intense disasters as a result of climate change," UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs John Holmes said at the opening of a four-day conference on reducing disaster risks.

The Red Cross joined the UN in urging more investment to ensure that cities, villages and small communities were better prepared for natural disasters that are being amplified by global warming.

Natural and man-made disasters killed nearly a quarter of a million people in 2008 and warnings about looming disasters, particularly climate change, are not being heeded, the Red Cross said.

At 242,662 people worldwide, this was the second biggest annual toll of the past decade, according to a report by the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies.

Nine in 10 of those disasters were weather-related and they caused up to 200 billion dollars (145 billion euros) worth of damage, Holmes said, calling it an "enormous concern".

"The effects of climate change are being felt now, they're not simply some future threat."

Holmes said some of the world's biggest cities, housing more than 10 million people each, were highly exposed, since they were located in coastal areas that would be threatened by rising sea levels or in earthquake zones.

"The risks of megadisasters in some of these megacities are rising all the time," the UN relief chief warned, predicting a soaring death toll from future natural catastrophes.

The Red Cross cautioned that only piecemeal progress had been made on prevention and measures to make communities more resilient to floods, drought, storms and earthquakes, despite the warnings about more extreme weather events.

The federation's annual "World Disasters Report" published Tuesday highlighted climate change as "offering us the ultimate early warning."

"The rising dangers of climate change require a response from governments equivalent to the one made to address the global financial crisis," said Bekele Geleta, Secretary General of the federation.

But he warned in the report that there was "much resistance to change", with the focus still on emergency aid after the event rather than preparing for the worst.

"This seems to be a lesson that individuals, donors, countries and some of the 'humanitarian community' have yet to learn," Geleta said.

The measures advocated at the conference include adequate community flood or weather alerts, shelters, better building standards to resist bad weather or quakes, and avoiding settlements in high risk areas.

Holmes estimated that about three billion dollars a year could be mobilised by setting aside one percent of development assistance and 10 percent of global humanitarian aid for precautionary projects.

The 585 natural or man-made catastrophes that occurred in 2008 represented the lowest annual total the past decade.

The overwhelming majority of the deaths occurred in the Sichuan earthquake in China where more than 87,000 people died, and cyclone Nargis, which claimed more than 138,000 lives when it swept through coastal areas of Myanmar.

The Red Cross report likened forecasting the impact of global warming to rolling a dice: "We never know when a particular number will appear, but at some point every number comes up."

"Confronted with global warming and growing vulnerability, we also know the dice is loaded."

World "sleepwalking" into disasters: U.N. aid chief
Jonathan Lynn, Reuters 16 Jun 09;

GENEVA (Reuters) - The world is 'sleepwalking' toward preventable natural disasters whose effects could be cut significantly with a modest increase in spending on risk reduction, the United Nations aid chief said on Tuesday.

"The trends in disasters, particularly from climate change, are of enormous concern," said John Holmes, U.N. undersecretary-general for humanitarian affairs.

"We can only expect that this kind of trend is going to continue," he told a news conference.

Holmes was speaking at the start of a four-day Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction which gathers over 1,800 participants from 169 governments and around 140 international and non-governmental organizations.

Risk reduction efforts had improved since the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami, which killed more than 250,000 people, but much more was needed, Holmes said.

"We're still to some extent sleepwalking our way into disasters for the future which we know are going to happen, and not enough is being done to mitigate the damage," he said.

Holmes hoped the Global Platform would agree to spend around $3 billion a year on disaster risk reduction, representing about 10 percent of the $8 billion spent each year on disaster relief, plus 1 percent of the $239 billion development aid budget.

By comparison, disasters in 2008 caused approximately $200 billion in damage, Holmes said. While the cost two years earlier was a quarter of that, the trend was clearly rising.

"The most damaging disasters in developing countries can seem to cause the least damage because the property being damaged is less expensive ... but the real damage done to lives and livelihoods is much greater," Holmes said.

It was important global efforts to deal with climate change include disaster risk reduction and look at adapting behavior as well as mitigating the effects of disasters, he said.

About 90 percent of disasters are climate-related, said Holmes, who noted cyclones in Brazil in 2004 and Oman in 2007 had been of an intensity never before seen in those regions.

The massive earthquake in Sichuan, China, last year, and another earthquake in Italy this year had shown both the need for tough building codes and the importance of enforcing them.

PREVENTATIVE MEASURES

Priorities for the Global Platform meeting include plans to disaster-proof schools and hospitals, build up early-warning systems, reduce human settlement in disaster-prone areas and restore and safeguard ecosystems.

Bangladesh, where many people live in a coastal area prone to flooding and cyclone-driven sea swells, has cut the death toll from disasters dramatically through early-warning systems.

But the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization estimates 60 of its members do not have adequate systems, Holmes said.

Most of the 10 biggest "megacities" of 25-35 million people are in dangerous coastal areas or earthquake zones. Nearly one billion people live in "informal settlements" or city slums, with the number growing by 25 million a year, as urbanization exposes more people to the risk of disaster, he said.

(Editing by Stephanie Nebehay and Sophie Hares)

Read more!

Best of our wild blogs: 16 Jun 09

ButterflyCircle Announces Upgraded OnLine Checklist
from Butterflies of Singapore

Just a litter mess
from the annotated budak

Noordin mangroves and the elusive Sea Durian
from Half a Bunny and the Salmon of Doubt

Cost but no effect, the Bat Lily
from Urban Forest

Cicada rain
from isn't it a wonder, how life came to be

Nesting of the Mangrove Pitta
from Bird Ecology Study Group

House Crow fell off its nest
from Urban Forest

Monkey heads in our Mangroves: amazing ant plants
from wild shores of singapore

Wild snakes eating in nature: new flickr group
from wild shores of singapore

Venue Change for
“Darwin, Wallace, and Evolution: Celebrating a major paradigm shift in science” from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS

How research saved the Large Blue butterfly
from Not Exactly Rocket Science

Read more!

Blaze and haze in nation's forests must be stamped out for good

Jonathan Wootliff, Jakarta Post 16 Jun 09;

We've arrived at that worrying time of the year when asphyxiating haze rears its ugly head in Sumatra and Kalimantan. As the dry season arrives, fires are again starting to spread, threatening to cause untold damage to people's health and to the environment.

Despite efforts by Indonesia to curb the use of slash-and-burn methods to clear land for planting, that awful acrid smoke has come back to wreak it annual havoc.

Over the past few weeks, there's been a sharp increase in the number of patients visiting hospitals complaining of haze-related ailments such as respiratory problems and sore eyes.

There have been reports of visibility dropping to as low as 30 meters in parts of the province of Riau and some of the schools have been temporarily shut.

And this perennial problem is causing alarm in nearby Malaysia and Singapore where residents have to endure choking smoke that's spread by the wind. It's become something of a sick joke on the streets, where Singaporeans say that haze is Indonesia's biggest export.

While both neighboring countries offer valuable help to extinguish out-of-control fires, it is surely the primary responsibility of Indonesia to fix this perennial problem. As helpful as firefighting may be, measures are urgently needed to prevent the blazes from starting in the first place.

A wide range of factors drive these fires and the resulting haze. But the solutions are not so easy. Care has to be taken to avoid harming the societies and economies in Sumatra and other islands for the 20 million Indonesians who depend on forests for their livelihoods.

The prestigious Center for International Forestry (CIFOR) says that one of the causes is the large areas of forest land that have been allocated for conversion to other uses, without ensuring adequate support mechanisms for environmentally sound land-clearing practices are properly in place.

Law enforcement efforts have been compromised by confusion over which government agencies are responsible for fire-related crimes, and incentives for compliance undermined by weak law enforcement, the organization attests.

CIFOR points to the decentralization of government authority leading to more stakeholders involved in forestry decision-making process than was the case in the 1990s, rendering obsolete top-down implementation of national-level forest polices.

It also explains that fire is commonly perceived by local farmers as a necessary tool; with fire management efforts often focused more on suppression rather than prevention.

Experts at the Bogor-based institution say that money is all-too-often used for ineffective firefighting technologies at the expense of attention to tacking the underlying causes.

The region has been hit by haze almost every year since 1997. That year, fires set to clear land burned catastrophically out of control, fuelled by the El Nino weather phenomenon. The ensuing smoke blanketed much of Southeast Asia in a choking haze.

Some experts are voicing concern that a similar problem could arise this year. Although the Indonesian Forestry Ministry believes this risk to be overstated, the US-based Climate Prediction Center has said that another El Nino pattern, which can produce chaotic conditions that result in droughts and floods, could develop.

But there has been some encouraging news on the fire prevention front in Sumatra over the past few years. Since as early as 1994, one of the largest commercial forestry managers on the island has been committed to a "Zero-Burn" policy. Asia Pacific Resources International Limited (APRIL) is a leading developer of fiber plantations with one of the world's largest pulp and paper mills located near Pangkalan Kerinci in Riau Province in Central Sumatra.

Having developed in excess of 270,000 hectares of plantations, the company strictly ensures that fire is never used for any land clearance. Instead, APRIL minimizes wood waste from tree harvesting by ensuring high wood utilization for pulp and paper production, using manual and mechanical equipment to prepare land for planting.

APRIL's fire protection program is based on constant preparedness, early detection, rapid response and effective containment and control procedures.

The company, which sets aside vast sections of forest deemed to be of high conservation value, has invested millions of dollars in specialized firefighting equipment to protect the areas under its management.

All of its estates maintain a high level of preparedness by conducting fire patrols, using high-pressure water pumps for extinguishing fires, and cooperating with its contractors to use heavy equipment to construct fire control lines where needed. Aerial firefighting resources are used to support ground-based efforts.

The company also engages with the local community and educates farmers in "no burn" farming techniques, actively discouraging the dangerous practice of "slash and burn".

It is certainly encouraging to learn that one of Indonesia's largest managers of conservation forests is so proactive in stopping Sumatra's much unwanted blaze and haze.

Let's hope that this company's actions provide inspiration to others and can galvanize the authorities in escalating their efforts to eliminate the scourge of forest fires throughout Indonesia.

Jonathan Wootliff is an independent sustainable development con-sultant specializing in the building of productive relationships between companies and NGOs. He can be contacted at jonathan@wootliff.com

Read more!

Damaged River Basins Almost Doubled From Last Year, Indonesian Forestry Ministry Says

Jakarta Post 16 Jun 09;

The number of river basins in the country that need rehabilitation has almost doubled since last year due to degradation of land quality, according to the Ministry of Forestry.

Indriastuti, the ministry’s director general for land rehabilitation and social forestry, said on Monday that a number of problems have caused damage to river basin areas, including arid land, the degradation of land fertility, an increase in erosion and poor water management.

However, she said the main factors causing damage to the basin areas were rapid population growth and lack of coordination in managing the areas.

Many government agencies manage river basin areas within their jurisdiction but fail to coordinate with one other. For example, one part of the Ciliwung river basin is managed by the Ministry of Forestry but the farming areas are managed by the Ministry of Agriculture.

“Plus, the Ministry of Public Works is also managing the dam, as is the local administration,” Indriastuti said.

According to Forestry Ministry data, the number of basins at risk rose from 60 in 2008 to 108 in 2009. There are about 3,245 river basins across the country.

“We need to consolidate river basin management with related agencies or ministries,” Indriastuti said. “Hopefully we can do so this year, depending on the budget.”

Revitalizing one river basin area, she said, requires centralized management and a large budget. For example, it would cost Rp 600 billion ($60 million) to revitalize the Solo river basin areas and Rp 800 billion to revitalize all river basin areas located in Jakarta, Bogor, Puncak and Cianjur.

Aside from leading to environmental disaster, damaged river basins can also increase the amounts of sediment in some dams, causing problems for nearby residents, Indriastuti said.

Some of the river basin areas in need of rehabilitation are Peusangan, Jambu Aye, Peureulak Tamiang in Aceh; Citarum, Ciliwung and Cisadane in West Java, Jakarta and Banten; Solo and Serayu in Central Java and Yogyakarta; and Remu, Arui and Prafi in West Papua.

Read more!

Oceans to feature in UN climate talks, Indonesia announces

Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 16 Jun 09;

The Indonesian government said Monday that international delegates attending recent climate talks in Bonn have agreed to place ocean issues on the official agenda for the upcoming UN climate conferences in Copenhagen.

A member of the Indonesian delegation that attended the Bonn discussions, Indroyono Soesilo, said now the link between ocean environments and climate change, as outlined in the Indonesian-sponsored Manado Ocean Declaration (MOD), had become part of the global agenda.

“The role of oceans in relation to climate change has been included in an official UN document. For Indonesia, which initiated the World Ocean Conference (WOC), it is a big achievement toward tackling climate issues,” Indroyono, an expert with the office of the Coordinating Minister of the People’s Welfare, told The Jakarta Post on Monday.

He said the five points of the MOD were listed in a document authored by the Ad Hoc Working Group on Long-Term Cooperative Actions (AWG-LCA), a body under the UN Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The document will be addressed at the Copenhagen meeting in December.

The five issues include the need for adaptation funds, technology, scientific monitoring on the climate effects on oceans and the development of an integrated ocean observation system.

He said the Small Island Development States (SIDS), ASEAN countries, the Coral Triangle Initiative (CTI), the United States and Australia pushed for the inclusion of the MOD terms at the upcoming meeting.

“We need to promote it [oceans] until the Copenhagen meeting. We will lobby African nations and European countries to submit their papers on oceans,” he said.

There will be another three meetings of the AWG-LCA before the Copenhagen meet in December.

The Bonn climate meeting was held between June 1 and June 12 to discuss a new regime of emission reduction schemes to substitute the Kyoto Protocol, which will end in 2012.

The MOD, which was the official outcome of the WOC in Manado in May, requires countries to promote sustainable ocean management and ocean conservation.

The 74 countries that attended the WOC requested that the National Climate Change Council (DNPI) incorporate oceans into climate change talks at the UNFCCC.

Rachmat Witoelar, executive chairman of the DNPI and State Minister for the Environment, has said that once ocean issues are adopted as part of the UNFCCC agenda, the opportunity for nations with large ocean territories to profit from adaptation programs and technology will be significantly increased.

Indonesia has about 5.8 million square kilometers of marine territory.

Read more!

Do something about parking problem at Bukit Timah Nature Reserve

Straits Times Forum 16 Jun 09;

BUKIT Timah Nature Reserve is a gem in urban Singapore and is popular with casual walkers and serious trekkers.

The trails simulate conditions on walking holidays in Nepal and Mount Kinabalu, and both the young and old (the oldest I met was aged 76) enjoy the place.

There are calls of 'good morning' between absolute strangers, all sharing the pleasures of the quiet trails, despite the sweat and strain.

There is an euphoric rush on reaching the carpark and the finish, but the happiness is immediately destroyed by the sight of parking tickets.

My family and friends train for four hours every weekend for our climb up Mount Kinabalu.

We try to park in the small carpark but usually have to settle for roadside parking, at times fighting for space with long rows of illegally parked cars along Hindhede Walk.

Every weekend, several hundred cars descend on Bukit Timah, and Sundays are worst with churchgoers competing with walkers.

There is usually no problem with illegal parking most weekends, but on June 6, I came back to see a notice of parking offence on my windscreen.

Yes, I admit that I parked on a continuous white line, which was illegal, as did several others who were similarly penalised.

But as Bukit Timah is so popular and there are only two small roads leading to a few small condominiums, can we not have some special allowance for weekend parking?

Charles Lee

Read more!

Colombia taps biodiversity to export exotic creatures

Cesar Sabogal Yahoo News 16 Jun 09;

BOGOTA (AFP) – Colombia, one of the world's most biologically diverse countries, has begun to cash in on this natural resource by selling rare species of animals to other countries, a "biocommerce" viewed with unease by environmentalists.

The fledgling exports of exotic local fauna -- especially butterflies, beetles, fish and frogs -- to countries like the United States, Canada, Japan and the United Arab Emirates is being undertaken by 1,250 small Colombian companies, according to figures kept by the state-run Export Promotion Fund.

But they have competition from illegal traffickers.

"Tinny," a trumpet beetle born in a nursery in the central province of Boyaca, has been a denizen of Kairakuen park in the Japanese city of Mito for the past two months. Its owner, Keiko Sato, traveled last week to a farm in rural Tunja, Colombia to find it a mate.

"These scarabs are very beautiful and symbolic. We have bought more than a dozen here in recent years to give to our friends' children in Japan, who turn them into pets that bring good luck," she told AFP.

She said she paid no more than four dollars apiece for the beetles.

Tierra Viva, a company whose name means "live earth," raises beetles and sells them alive or dead. German Viasus, its manager, said that after going through lots of red tape he can now profit from the trade in these creatures.

"After decades in which Colombia lost unique species to illegal trafficking, and in which they were exposed to mistreatment due to the clandestine nature of the trade, companies like ours began to think about raising them and exporting them legally, which has turned out to be a good business," he said.

"We export beetles mainly to Japan, where they are admired and treated with respect and devotion, but we've begun to receive orders from the United Arab Emirates where one of the sheikhs is a fanatic about these marvellous exemplars and made an initial order for 1,000," he said.

Another sought-after product are butterfly cocoons packed in attractive transparent urns, that are supposed to be given to a lover or someone special with photographs of the species and a symbolic manual.

"The language of love is universal and we find that people in love in any country are fascinated by colorful butterflies," said Vanesa Wilches, the manager of Alas de Colombia, or Wings of Colombia.

"So, we offer the cocoon so that the lovers can watch the larva grow and then they can free the butterfly as a symbol that seals their love," she said.

Over the past five years, this company has exported butterflies both live and preserved to countries like the Netherlands, Britain, the United States and France with annual sales close to 75,000 dollars.

Collectors and entrepreneurs from countries of the Far East, like Singapore, South Korea and China, meanwhile, buy fish from the eastern plains of Colombia through a fisherman's cooperative, Coopesca, whose manager is Jose Arturo Gomez.

For every manta ray they catch in the Orotoy River, local fishermen get no more than 50 US cents, but in Singapore, Malaysia or Japan it will command a price of more than 80 dollars, according to Gomez.

Parallel to the above ground commerce in exotic animals is an illegal trade, which Maria Sanchez, the coordinator of the Environmental Police, said is managed by a powerful international network.

In 2008 alone, Colombian authorities confiscated 54,000 exotic animals intended for sale both inside and outside the country.

"Despite campaigns to raise awareness, rural populations continue to sell species without regard for climate, which results in many of them dying in captivity," she said.

"They are bought and sold in popular markets without any kind of restraint or control."

Read more!

Meet the amphibian only its mother could love

Catherine Brahic, New Scientist 16 Jun 09;

A bug-eyed salamander that looks like ET and a see-through frog are among the weirder species that were discovered by conservation biologists in a far-flung corner of Ecuador.
They were discovered in the Cordillera del Cóndor, an outlier of the main Andean chain which rises to a maximum elevation of about 2900 metres and marks part of the international border between Ecuador and Peru. Because of its geographical seclusion from the rest of the Andes, the Cordillera is thought to be home to many unique species that have evolved in isolation.

Peru and Ecuador fought over the region for more than 160 years and only agreed on the exact location of their border in 1998.

Hoping to encourage the Ecuadorian government to increase the protection of flora and fauna in the area, Conservation International, Fundación Arcoiris and the Catholic University of Ecuador sent teams of biologists to the cordillera to survey its wildlife.

They discovered a number of species which they believe are new to science, including a bug-eyed salamander, a tiny, endangered poison arrow frog, a colourful, polka-dotted lizard and a number of bizarre-looking crickets (More photos on the New Scientist website).
They also found a number of endangered species including Hyalinobatrachium pellucidum, a glass or crystal frog that has translucent skin.

Read more!

World's Fastest Flyer Is a Hummingbird?

Matt Kaplan, National Geographic News 12 Jun 09;

Clocking in at a maximum of 229 feet (70 meters) a second, the peregrine falcon has long reigned supreme as the fastest flying bird in the world.
But if size matters, that title actually belongs to the tiny Anna's hummingbird, new research reveals.

Intrigued by the elaborate, fast-moving courtship dives of male Anna's hummingbirds, Christopher Clark at the University of California, Berkeley, set up high-speed video recorders to get a better look at the action.

"The birds nearly always dive toward the sun, and they have brilliantly iridescent magenta heads," Clark said.

"Because they line themselves up with the light, this maximizes the reflectance off of their heads, and they look like little magenta fireballs falling from the sky."

Those fireballs move at 90 feet (27.3 meters) a second, technically slower than a peregrine falcon, Clark and colleagues report.

But in terms of body size, the hummingbird moves at an average of 385 times his own body length a second—blowing away the falcon's 200 body lengths a second.

As they pull up from their dives, Clark found, the hummingbirds also experience almost ten times the force of gravity, or ten Gs.

By comparison, race cars that accelerate from zero to a hundred miles (160 kilometers) an hour in less than a second subject their drivers to a mere five Gs.

Clark was not expecting such extreme performances from the tiny birds.

"I was surprised, and double checked my methods several times after I got the first measurements, because they seemed really high."

Findings reported this week in the journal Proceedings of the Royal Society B.

Read more!

Birth control to combat malaria

Bethany Bell, BBC News 15 Jun 09;

Mosquito bites can be deadly.

Anopheles mosquitoes carry the parasite that causes malaria, a disease which kills around a million people every year.

Traditionally mosquito populations have been controlled by pesticides.

But scientists at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are working on another method - using radiation to sterilize male mosquitoes.

The sterile insect technique (SIT) has worked well in reducing tsetse flies and some other insect pests, such as fruit flies.

The IAEA scientists are now trying to adapt the technique to the anopheles mosquito.

Birth control

Mark Benedict, a medical entomologist at the IAEA, says SIT is "birth control" for insects.

"The idea is to produce large numbers of male mosquitoes that are sexually sterile," he said.

"Those males will be released into the wild and find virgin female mosquitoes and they will mate with them."

A female usually only mates once in her life so if her partner has been sterilized none of the hundreds of eggs she lays will hatch.

Sterilization takes just a couple of minutes.

Mosquito pupae are gathered into a metal pot and are lowered into a machine, where they are exposed to radiation.

When they come out they are sexually sterile.

In the hot and humid laboratories at the IAEA, the team is trying to develop methods of raising male mosquitoes that are strong enough to survive the irradiation - and sexy enough to attract females out in the wild.

They are also working on ways to transport and release them in the wild.

Field project

Preparations for a pilot field project in Northern Sudan are underway to test the feasibility of SIT for mosquitoes.

The area is marked by extreme desert, but humans, livestock and wild mosquitoes live along the edge of the Nile River.

Despite a relatively small number of mosquitoes, there are high levels of malaria transmission there.

Mark Benedict says the sterilized pupae will be released along the river banks where the wild mosquitoes breed.

"That will give us a good idea of over what area we can release and what population densities we can see controlled" he says.

It is early days but Mark Benedict is optimistic about the prospects of SIT.

It is hoped that along with other tactics such as insecticide treated bed-nets, the technique can work as a tool in the fight against malaria.

The technique is "very well suited to elimination and eradication programmes."

"What we need to do now is get one or two projects off the ground, measure the potential and see where we can take it from there," he said.

Read more!

Sharks and shark fin soup

What will it take for the food to be outlawed?
David Canavan, The Bangkok Post 16 Jun 09;

A letter was published recently in the Bangkok Post's Postbag about shark fin soup and how the writer was disgusted with the fact that the Bangkok Post had previously mentioned that shark fin soup was available at various restaurants throughout Bangkok.

The writer thought that the Bangkok Post was advocating the sale of shark fin soup and was horrified that it would do such a thing. I confess I never read the article, but I do have very strong feelings on the matter.

Simply put, finning - the act of cutting off a shark's fins for the shark fin soup trade - is appalling. Not only is it barbaric, it is an eco-catastrophe of humongous proportions.

Finning for soup

There are around 50 million sharks killed by humans each year, but that may be a conservative estimate, given the existence of the illegal fishing trade. There may well be many more millions killed, especially for their fins.

When a shark is caught for its fins, it is hauled onto a boat, where its dorsal, pectoral and tail fins are removed. Then it is thrown back into the ocean, often alive, and left to bleed to death, drown or be eaten alive by other fishes. This is wanton brutality.

The worst thing about shark fin soup is that it is happening because of a status issue. Many Chinese eat shark fin soup as a sign of elitism, and it is often served at special occasions like weddings, birthday parties and business dinners. And the irony of it all is that it has no real taste!

The fin is cooked until it breaks down into its cartilaginous threads, a little like transparent noodles. It has flavour only because it is cooked in beef or vegetable stock.

Some people argue that a shark fin has medicinal value, but no scientist would ever confirm this. As is always the case with barbaric wildlife abuses, when the buying stops, the killing can too.

Evolutionary peak

Sharks and rays represent evolution at its finest. They are a branch of fish known as cartilaginous fish, as their support system is composed of cartilage, not bones, unlike the bony fish you may be familiar with.

There are over 360 known species of shark and they have been around in their modern form for about 100 million years. Based on fossil evidence, sharks and their ancestors have been on earth for around 420 million years.

All sharks are carnivorous, with most being streamlined and sleek for quick swimming when hunting. Although many people have a fear of sharks, arguably due to the Jaws movies, the vast majority of sharks are not harmful to humans.

The largest shark species is the whale shark, measuring up to an incredible 12m in length, making it the largest fish in the ocean. Yet despite its size, it eats tiny krill and other small invertebrates. The second-largest shark, the basking shark, is also harmless and is a filter feeder like the whale shark.

The largest predatory shark is the great white shark. It can grow to over 6m and has been known to kill people, but surprisingly, the number of deaths is much less than you would imagine. Other sharks that have been known to prey on humans include the oceanic whitetip shark, the tiger shark and the bull shark.

Despite these apparently ferocious animals living in our seas, oceans and, in the case of bull sharks, even rivers, there are only about four to five human deaths per year. Compare that to the over 50 million shark deaths caused by humans, and then ask yourselves who the real predators are.

Odd adaptations

With over 360 species, there is still a lot to be discovered about sharks. Some strange shark species include the dwarf lanternshark, which is the smallest known species, with adults rarely exceeding 20cm in length!

There is also the very odd-looking wobbegong shark, which lies motionless on the bottom of the sea, waiting for any passing fish to strike at. Although this doesn't quite fit the streamlined approach common to many sharks, it is still an efficient predator.

The 7m Greenland shark is a huge deep-ocean monster. Although not harmful to humans and very sluggish, it does feed on large mammals. Strangely, in all the Greenland shark adults, there is a parasitic copepod, a small crustacean, which attaches itself to the cornea of the eyes of the shark and feeds on the eye tissue! This makes the sharks nearly blind, yet they all have them!

A strange adaptation of sharks is that they don't have a swim bladder. This means that if they stop swimming they will sink! Many also have to constantly swim in order to obtain oxygen through their gills. Many beaches have shark nets to prevent sharks from getting to swimmers, and sharks that get caught in them often drown. It seems odd that you can drown a fish, but, sadly, it is true.

The skin of sharks is covered with teeth-like structures. If you rub a shark from head to tail, it will feel smooth, but if you stroke its skin in the opposite direction the skin will feel very rough and can even cut your hand! These dermal denticles reduce water resistance while the shark is swimming.

Shark's teeth constantly replace themselves throughout the life of the animal. They have many layers of teeth that rotate to the edge of their mouth, kind of like a conveyor belt. When the teeth get old or become worn out, the new rows of teeth behind simply roll forward and take their place. Therefore, sharks can have thousands of teeth in their lifetime, all of which are shaped and adapted to the kinds of food the shark eats.

Sharks have a sixth sense and are sensitive to electrical impulses. They have electroreceptor organs in their heads, allowing them to detect the movements of fish.

The most stunning example of an adaptation in the animal kingdom is arguably the hammerhead shark. It is the most sensitive animal in the world to electrical impulses. Its sensors are located all across the front of its oddly shaped head. It uses them to sense the impulses given off by a struggling fish.

The most bizarre feature of sharks is that if you turn them upside down, they go into a state of torpor, a kind of sleep!

Shark researchers often catch sharks and turn them upside down so that they can record information relating to the creatures without having to drug them. There are even people who try to do this with great whites, but it is not an easy task!

Dave Canavan has an MSc in Behavioural Ecology and is the Head of Secondary at Garden International School. Dave is fascinated by science and loves animals, especially the dangerous kind! You may contact Dave at davidc@gardenbangkok.com .

Read more!