Best of our wild blogs: 27 Jan 10

URA Concept Plan 2011 - take the survey, submit your feedback
from habitatnews

Shopping centres versus sea shores: time to do the URA survey!
from wild shores of singapore

Have a say in shaping our home
from Midnight Monkey Monitor

Life Between the Tides
from The Leafmonkey Workshop

Fly by night and day
from The annotated budak

Re-introduction of a male Rhinoceros Hornbill: An update
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Personal safety when going on nature trips
from Singapore Nature

Cost of trashing our parks: $1.4m a year
from wild shores of singapore

West Coast Mangroves Is Now Half a Desert!!
from Nature Is Awesome

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Fish prices set to soar over Lunar New Year period

Maggie Chong & Cheryl Lim, Channel NewsAsia 26 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE: Fishes are traditional Chinese symbols of wealth and prosperity. But be prepared to shell out more dollars for them during this festive Lunar New Year period.

Fish mongers say prices of grouper and pomfret have more than doubled to about S$30 a kilo. However, they are quick to deny any speculations of price-fixing.

Fish mongers say the sharp hike is due to greater demand over the festive period, coupled with a smaller supply of seafood.

Some fish mongers are reporting a drop of up to 30 per cent in their fish stocks, saying rough seas are to blame.

"When there are big waves, they overwhelm the smaller fishing boats so their catch is smaller," explained Woo Chee Meng, a fish monger. "And the bigger boats avoid going out to sea altogether because of the rough waters."

- CNA/yb

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Singapore farm raises sea bass on land

Its use of recirculated seawater to cultivate fish in tanks may be the solution to algal-bloom losses
Grace Chua, Straits Times 27 Jan 10;

FISH stocks of Pasir Ris and Pulau Ubin farms were decimated late last year when they were hit by a sudden and deadly plankton bloom. But one farm here has a solution to avoid future aquatic losses.

SIF Agrotechnology Asia in Lim Chu Kang is using recirculated seawater to cultivate sea bass in tanks, from eggs to full-grown fish.

The experimental set-up, with its eight cylindrical tanks with each holding half a tonne of water, is a venture by local water-treatment company SIF Technologies.

Its chief executive Matthew Tan, 45, said: 'Sea-cage farming is a sunset industry; farming fish on land would be a quantum leap.'

The farm is the first of its kind here to raise marine fish in land-based tanks.

It uses a process called hydrocavitation, which uses water-pressure changes to create vapour bubbles. When the bubbles collapse, they break down waste in the water.

This waste collects as sludge, broken down naturally by bacteria and then used as fertiliser.

To ensure the fish are healthy, factors like the pH (a measure of the acidity or alkalinity of a solution), temperature and amount of dissolved oxygen and nitrites in the water are measured daily.

According to Mr Tan, the fish grow to table size - 30cm - in 4 1/2 months, compared to six months at a traditional fish farm.

The tank farm, which is set to harvest its first batch of about 280 sea bass this week, has several advantages over traditional sea-cage farming.

Where traditional fish farms must get their eggs or fry from countries such as Malaysia and Indonesia, tank farms do not, providing a measure of food security and controlled supply.

And because the tanks are enclosed, the fish are not vulnerable to algal-bloom outbreaks.

Such farms are also environmentally friendly, producing less waste. Stanford researchers last year found that waste from floating fish farms may stay concentrated around the farms and be carried close to shore, rather than being diluted and carried away with the current.

Land-based aquatic farms can also be run by a single person and require less manpower than traditional fish farms.

But start-up costs are high, noted Mr Tan. A larger SIF hatchery, planned to open by June in Pasir Ris and raise about a million fingerlings, will cost about $1 million in start-up and operating costs.

He suggested that support could come from a $5 million Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) fund for local agricultural research. The AVA fund was set up to help farmers produce 30 per cent of eggs, 15 per cent of fish and a tenth of leafy vegetables consumed here.

Currently, Singapore produces about 5 per cent of the fish it consumes.

Former AVA chief executive Ngiam Tong Tau said SIF Technologies' recirculation system was an additional aquaculture technology that could take root here. 'If the farm is scaled up, it will help Singapore to produce fish significantly and will help sustain the local aquaculture industry.'

Instead of viewing the farm as competition, other local fish farmers are looking to follow suit.

Mr Lee Van Voon, a Pasir Ris fish farm owner whose stocks were affected by the fish die-offs, said he had been looking into recirculation technology since last year. 'Open-sea farming here is totally uncontrollable - it's exposed to farm runoffs and oil spills from passing ships,' he said. '(Recirculation) would make farming more predictable, so we can go for different, higher-value species.'

The technological solution would boost dissolved oxygen and help ward off further plankton-bloom die-offs, said Singapore Polytechnic lecturer Kwok Chen Ko, who specialises in water-quality monitoring. But he added that naturally occurring ecological processes would be more sustainable for providing dissolved oxygen in the long term.

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NEA launches new Environment Champions scheme with Panasonic

Wang Eng Eng, Channel NewsAsia 26 Jan 10;

SINGAPORE: Students from 20 schools will soon get a first-hand look at eco-friendly manufacturing processes.

Some 3,000 tonnes of cast iron chips are recycled every year at Panasonic Refrigeration Devices Singapore and parts are re-engineered to consume less raw materials.

These are some eco ideas that will be highlighted to students during factory tours, through a collaboration with the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The scheme is a new module under the National Environment Agency's Environment Champions scheme and the first time the NEA is working with an industry partner to roll out an experiential environment education module.

The scheme will start in March 2010. Six sessions will be held yearly, with up to 80 students attending each session, and the primary and secondary students will submit proposals on environmental protection to Panasonic.

The chosen idea will be given seed funding for implementation. Panasonic has set aside S$150,000 for this programme.

Senior Parliamentary Secretary for Environment & Water Resources, Dr Amy Khor, said: "I think what it does really is to give the students hands-on experience at the factory itself and we hope that it will help them better understand environment issues especially related to the industry and in future really champion the green message." - CNA/vm

Students can try their hand at 'eco-module'
Straits Times 27 Jan 10;

SCHOOL students who care about the environment can take part in an outreach programme from Panasonic Asia Pacific in collaboration with the National Environment Agency (NEA).

The Environment Champions Industry Module (ECIM) is a half-day course which involves a tour of the NEA's gallery, presenting national strategies to help make Singapore green and a tour of Panasonic's 'Eco Ideas' Refrigeration Factory in Bedok. About 80 students will attend each session during the school holidays in March, June and September.

Students from 17 schools, including Raffles Institution and Woodgrove Secondary, took part in a trial of the module this month.

The ECIM is open to all 3,500 existing Environmental Champions - a programme established by NEA in 2004 - in primary and secondary schools and junior colleges.

Participants are eligible for a competition to come up with a project based on the three Rs - reduce, reuse and recycle. There will be 20 shortlisted proposals, divided between primary and secondary schools, and each will receive $1,000 from Panasonic to help implement the ideas.

The grand prize is a trip to Panasonic in Japan.

The guest of honour at the launch, Dr Amy Khor, Senior Parliamentary Secretary, Ministry of the Environment and Water Resources, said: 'I am certain that the module will leave a lasting impression on the young participants, and equip them with the skills and knowledge to fulfil future environmental leadership roles.'

Panasonic's Bedok factory, which was set up in 1972 and makes compressors for fridges, recycles scrap iron to be reused for new compressors. It also uses energy-saving light bulbs along with other measures to reduce CO2 emissions.

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Economic growth cannot buy the planet more time

Andrew Simms, BBC Green Room 26 Jan 10;

Global economic growth - in its current form - cannot continue if nations are serious about curbing climate change, says Andrew Simms. In this week's Green Room, he warns that the consumer society cannot "have its planet and eat it".

From birth until it reaches sexual maturity at about six weeks, a hamster doubles its weight each week.

If, instead of levelling-off in maturity, it carried on growing - continuing to double its weight each week - we would be facing a nine-billion-tonne hamster on its first birthday.

If it kept eating at the same ratio of food to bodyweight, the hamster's daily intake would be greater than the total, annual amount of maize produced worldwide.

In nature, there is a reason why things do not grow indefinitely.

Yet the entire canon of mainstream contemporary economics seems to believe that economics exists independent of the laws of biology, chemistry and physics.

It assumes, without exception, that infinite economic growth on a finite planet is both desirable and possible.

'Limits to growth'

To suggest that growth might ultimately be bounded by physical constraints, of course, is not new on the very margins of economics or in other disciplines.

For example, a group of researchers in 1972 used an early computer model to compare available natural resources with rates of human consumption. Their "world model" was published as the famous Limits to Growth report.

Back then, much less data and processing power were available. As a result, for some it acted as a wake-up call, but many others mocked it and used the report to brand the wider environmental movement as alarmist.

In 2008, a physicist called Graham Turner decided to look again at the controversial report. He compared its original projections with 30 years' worth of subsequent observed trends.

Amazingly, given the available technology and data, he concluded that they "compared favourably". The authors of Limits to Growth had been broadly right all along.

We shouldn't be surprised. At what point, and on what basis, did consumer society ever truly believe that it could have its planet and eat it?

Jared Diamond's book Collapse tells the history of societies throughout history that fell by overshooting their environmental life support systems.

He charts how wealth too often comes at the expense of liquidating natural capital and how, in environmental terms, "an impressive-looking bank account may conceal a negative cash flow".

Now, standing in the shadow of the banking crisis, we have less excuse than usual to blissfully ignore how our impressive looking growth economies hide a negative ecological cash flow.

Take just one example. A new report from our team at Nef (the New Economics Foundation) looks in detail at the relationship between economic growth and the need to avert runaway climate change.

Based on the leading models for climate change and the global economy's use of fossil fuels, the report - called Growth Isn't Possible - comes to a seemingly inescapable and self-explanatory conclusion.

It asks whether global economic growth can be maintained, while keeping a good likelihood of limiting global temperature rise to 2C (3.6F) - the agreed political objective of the European Union, and widely considered the maximum rise to which humanity can adapt without serious difficulty.

'Ecological bankruptcy'

Some nations, of course, face difficulty at much lower rises, such as small island states.

None of the models studied, including the most optimistic variations of low-carbon energy and efficiency, could square the circle of endless global economic growth with climate safety.

Over the last decade, carbon intensity has not gone down, it has generally flat-lined and, in some years, even gone up.

Professor Kevin Anderson of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at Manchester University, UK, concluded in another study that: "Economic growth in [industrialised nations] cannot be reconciled with a 2, 3 or even 4C characterisation of dangerous climate change."

There is also a growing appreciation that it has not all to do with climate change.

The latest set of accounts for humanity's ecological footprint reveal that, conservatively, it takes the Earth nearly 18 months to produce the ecological services that humanity uses in one year.

The negative cash flow is getting worse.

In a unique study, published in the science journal Nature in September 2009, a group of 29 leading international scientists identified nine processes in the biosphere for which they considered it necessary to "define planetary boundaries".

Of the nine, three boundaries had already been transgressed: climate change, interference in the nitrogen cycle, and biodiversity loss.

Assuming that humanity does not deliberately wish to destroy its own foundations, and with so much science and sophisticated monitoring available, why is this happening?

For all the promise of magic bullet technologies, continual growth drowns out energy and natural resource efficiency gains.

Even efficiency gains themselves do not necessarily reduce consumption. Counter-intuitively, greater energy efficiency tends to reduce costs and drive up overall consumption.

There is a growing awareness too that, at least where rich countries are concerned, the downside of growth comes with very little or no upside.

For most of these nations, the link between rising GDP and higher life satisfaction broke down decades ago.

Lord Adair Turner, chairman of both the UK Financial Services Authority and the UK Climate Change Committee, recently described the pursuit of endless rich country growth a "false god".

Dr Rajendra Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), said GDP growth was "proving to be an extremely harmful way of measuring economic progress".

The reason is that in economic commentary, growth is always assumed to be good. But you can also have "uneconomic growth", when it is jobless, socially divisive or environmentally destructive. A parallel in nature might be growth like that in cancer.

Burden of proof

Are alternative measures of success available? Yes, many. But politicians and the business press remain uncritically spellbound by the equation "all GDP growth is good".

Here is an irony: the hard science of climate change is subjected continually to the most extraordinary degree of critical scrutiny in the media.

Given their actual number, informed sceptics are given disproportionate airtime and column inches.

But where the "dismal science" of economics is concerned, the daily reporting of its central tenet - growth is good - passes unchallenged.

The much vaunted journalistic balance is abandoned. Why? Perhaps it is because this type of economics is not science at all, but doctrine. To question doctrine makes you a heretic, and heretics get excommunicated.

The time has come to question. Now, the burden of proof lies on those who promise endless growth to demonstrate how it will be possible.

In the meantime, the pressing task for everyone else is to work out how all of us on the planet can have good lives while living within its means.

Andrew Simms is policy director of the New Economics Foundation (Nef) and co-author with Dr Victoria Johnson of Growth Isn't Possible: Why We Need a New Economic Direction, published by Nef and Schumacher College

The Green Room is a series of opinion articles on environmental topics running weekly on the BBC News website

World economic growth at odds with climate targets
As the UK is expected to emerge from recession, the New Economics Foundation says endless growth is pushing the planet's biosphere 'beyond its safe limits'
Kathryn Hopkins The Guardian 25 Jan 10;

Economic growth is not compatible with climate change targets for rich countries, according to a new report out today.

The New Economics Foundation (NEF) warns that global economic expansion is not possible if the world is to restrict the temperature rise to 2C – the EU's agreed political objective.

The NEF found that this would require unprecedented – and probably impossible – reductions in the carbon intensity of a growing economy. None of the models or variations it looked at could square the circle of global economic growth with climate safety.

Andrew Simms, policy director at the NEF, said: "Endless growth is pushing the planet's biosphere beyond its safe limits. The price is seen in compromised world food security, climatic upheaval, economic instability and threats to social welfare. We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget. There is no global, environmental central bank to bail us out if we become ecologically bankrupt."

As economists and politicians expect the UK to emerge from recession tomorrow after a year and a half, Roger Bootle, Deloitte's economic adviser, warns today that fiscal policy will be a greater drag on growth than elsewhere. He expects Britain's economy to grow by just 1% in 2010, compared to growth of 1.5% in the eurozone, 3% in the US and Japan and 3.5% globally.

"The constraints on the strength of the global recovery over the next couple of years look set to bite particularly hard in the UK," he says. However, he added that after a difficult period over the next couple of years, he sees no reason why the UK cannot return to being a "relative outperformer".

Meanwhile, Ernst & Young said that despite profit warnings from British companies tailing off during 2009, UK plc still faces a "bumpy ride".

Andrew Wollaston, restructuring partner at Ernst & Young, said: "Given the depth of the slump, recovery has certainly come quicker than we might have anticipated. This rapid economic recuperation, along with previously depressed earnings forecasts, is helping companies beat expectations and keep profit warnings low. Good news for UK plc, but this is not the end of the story. Rapid recovery costs and 2010 is when we start paying. Brace yourselves for a bumpy recovery."

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Managing ecosystems in a changing climate

Ecologists outline necessary actions for mitigating and adapting to a changing climate
Ecological Society of America, EurekAlert 26 Jan 10;

Global warming may impair the ability of ecosystems to perform vital services—such as providing food, clean water and carbon sequestration—says the nation's largest organization of ecological scientists. In a statement released today, the Ecological Society of America (ESA) outlines strategies that focus on restoring and maintaining natural ecosystem functions to mitigate and adapt to climate change.

"Decision-makers cannot overlook the critical services ecosystems provide," says ESA President Mary Power. "If we are going to reduce the possibility of irreversible damage to the environment under climate change, we need to take swift but measured action to protect and manage our ecosystems."

ESA recommends four approaches to limiting adverse effects of climate change through ecosystem management:

Prioritize low-alteration strategies. Many ecosystems sequester a sizable amount of carbon—simply allowing them to function naturally can significantly help mitigation efforts. Deforestation, for example, has a two-fold impact: removing agents of carbon sequestration—trees in this instance—while simultaneously releasing stored carbon. Therefore, preserving forests is a straightforward way to both reduce and offset emissions.

Critically evaluate management-intensive strategies. Management strategies that seek to increase carbon sequestration above natural levels should undergo thorough life-cycle analysis and evaluation prior to implementation. For example, increasing carbon uptake on agricultural lands—one approach to enhancing the sequestration potential of ecosystems—typically requires more fertilizer than standard processes; the tradeoff, therefore, is higher emissions and pollution associated with fertilizer production.

Acknowledge the ecological implications of geoengineering. Understand the potential risks associated with engineering the environment, called geoengineering, and the unintended negative impacts that could emerge from long-term or widespread use. For example, injecting sulfur particles into the atmosphere to reflect solar rays would have a cooling effect but could also increase acid rain and destabilize weather patterns.

Address long-term risks. Assess the far-reaching consequences of ecosystem alterations. Monitor carbon stores sequestered under given management practices and develop or apply models to forecast ecosystem responses several decades into the future.

In addition to mitigating climate change, steps should be taken to prepare ecosystems to withstand climate change impacts. Human activity has impaired the natural resilience of many ecosystems. ESA outlines four adaptation strategies to safeguard ecosystem services in the face of climate change:

Take additional steps to protect water quality and quantity. Freshwater resources are at particular risk from the interaction of climate change and intensification of human use. Rising temperatures have already lowered river flows, warmed surface waters and dried out wetlands. Sustaining freshwater resources is critical to both environmental and public health.

Enable natural species migration across human dominated landscapes. Create and maintain wildlife corridors across jurisdictions and private lands to help species relocate and adapt as habitats shift with climate change. Steps should be taken to restore the ability of native species to migrate across landscapes severely fragmented by human land use.

Improve capacity to predict extreme events. Monitoring and modeling natural disturbance and recovery processes at regional scales will help state and federal agencies understand and respond to novel rates and intensities of environmental change.

Manage collaboratively at the ecosystem level. Many natural resources and services, such as fresh water, clean air and crop pollination, are not contained within jurisdictional boundaries; resource management should reflect this and operate at the ecosystem level.

"Even conservative warming projections show that natural systems will experience unprecedented stresses, including shifting habitats and ecological processes and more frequent and severe natural disturbances, such as fires, floods and droughts," ESA says in the statement. "These unavoidable changes will require management that addresses ecological thresholds, tipping points and other sources of uncertainty."

According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, global temperatures could rise 1-6 degrees C by the end of the 21st Century.

"The sooner such strategies are deployed, the more effective they will be in mitigating the extent of change and helping us to adapt to inevitable changes." ESA says in its statement.

###

The Ecological Society of America's statement is available at http://www.esa.org/pao/policyStatements/pdfDocuments/Ecosystem%20Management%20in%20a%20Changing%20Climate.pdf in a Changing Climate.pdf.

The Ecological Society of America is the world's largest professional organization of ecologists, representing 10,000 scientists in the United States and around the globe. Since its founding in 1915, ESA has promoted the responsible application of ecological principles to the solution of environmental problems through ESA reports, journals, research, and expert testimony to Congress. ESA publishes four journals and convenes an annual scientific conference. Visit the ESA website at http://www.esa.org.

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China calls for increased Tiger conservation efforts

TRAFFIC 27 Jan 10;

Beijing, China, 27 January 2010—The State Forestry Administration (SFA) of China has issued a Directive calling for increased protection of wild Tigers through natural habitat management, stronger law enforcement action against illegal trade in Tiger parts and products, stricter regulation of captive breeding regulations and enhanced public awareness campaigns.

The Directive was issued earlier this month, ahead of a key meeting currently underway in Thailand between environment ministers from 13 Asian countries where senior government representatives from Bangladesh, Bhutan, Cambodia, China, India, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Nepal, Russia, Thailand and Vietnam are exploring ways to double the number of wild Tigers within a decade.

The SFA Directive includes a mandate to crackdown on illegal smuggling and trade in Tiger parts and products, specifically asking local forestry bureaus in China to collaborate with other law enforcement agencies to increase monitoring and undertake enforcement measures against such trade.

Poaching of Tigers across Asia coupled with habitat loss has led to a dramatic decline in global Tiger numbers in the wild—from around 100,000 animals a Century ago to approximately 3,200 today. Currently, China has only around 20 wild Amur Tigers.

Although domestic trade in Tiger parts has been illegal in China since 1993, demand for parts, such as Tiger bone for tonic wines and skins for clothing and display, still exists.

In 2008, TRAFFIC’s market surveys in Gansu and Ningxia provinces found the illicit trade in Tiger products had decreased, but had not been eliminated.

The Directive calls for promoting public awareness to reduce consumption of Tiger parts and a public rejection of illegal trade, and suggests encouraging and motivating people to report wildlife crime to the authorities. At the same time, officials who repeatedly ignore public complaints about illegal trade will be held responsible.

The Directive also calls for increased monitoring and management of Tiger captive breeding facilities through creation of a database to track all Tigers births and deaths in such facilities and the secure storage of stockpiles of Tiger bodies and parts. Those facilities without storage capabilities will have to destroy their stockpiles under the supervision of local authorities, and each operation will be required to demonstrate it has met the appropriate conditions before it will be issued with a permit to open up for public viewing.

Another measure called for includes improved protection of Tigers and their prey in the wild, achieved through a combination of research, monitoring, anti-poaching and alleviating human-tiger conflict.

The Directive was published on 4 January 2010 on the SFA website and circulated by official media outlets including Xinhua News Agency and China.org.

The Chinese Year of the Tiger, which begins on 14 February, is widely viewed as a critical one for securing the future of Asia’s flagship mammal species.

“TRAFFIC welcomes the measures proposed by the State Forestry Administration ahead of the Year of the Tiger, which is make or break time for wild Tigers,” said Professor Xu Hongfa, Head of TRAFFIC’s China team.

“2010 will determine if the Tiger’s future burns bright or continues to fade away.” 

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Fishing restrictions aid turtles' recovery in Australia

ABC News 26 Jan 10;

Queensland marine researchers say restrictions imposed on the fishing industry have triggered a landmark nesting season for Bundaberg's endangered sea turtles.

About 400 loggerhead turtles have laid eggs at Mon Repos, near Bundaberg, since November last year.

Dr Col Limpus, from the state Department of Environment and Resource Management, says more turtles are reaching the breeding age of about 30 years.

"It wasn't until 2000 that we had the fisheries regulations requiring the use of turtle exclusion devices, or TEDS, so that turtles didn't drown in the prawn trawl," Dr Limpus said.

"Now, eight years after the legislation became effective, we're seeing our population no longer declining but actually in a recovery mode."

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RM40m swiftlet farm for Sarawak coastal town

Desmond Davidson, New Straits Times 26 Jan 10;

KUCHING: The State Economic Development Corporation and Borneo Resource Synergy Sdn Bhd will jointly develop Sarawak's first swiftlet eco-park in the coastal town of Balingian in Mukah division.

Yesterday, SEDC and BRS inked a RM40 million joint- venture agreement to develop the park at a site 15km from Balingian. They are hoping to start operations by next year.

SEDC will hold 20 per cent of the equity with the remainder held by BRS.

The project would involve the construction of 40 three-storey terrace houses, measuring 20ft by 80ft, and 15 three-storey bungalow units, measuring 35ft by 63ft on an 8-ha site exclusively for the swiftlets.

"This (eco-park) will be the start of an orderly, large and systematic development of the bird's nest industry in Sarawak," SEDC chairman Datuk Talip Zulpilip, who witnessed the signing, said.

Talip, who is also the state's assistant minister of tourism and heritage, said SEDC would also be on the lookout for other partners to open more such parks in other parts of the state.

Bird's nest farming is a lucrative investment. One kilogramme of unprocessed bird's nest currently fetches between RM4,000 and RM5,000.

This lucrative return is the reason why many entrepreneurs in the state wanted to invest in bird's nest farming, Talip said.

However, many started their swiftlet farms by converting empty shoplots in urban and residential areas into birdhouses which contravened the Wildlife Protection (Edible Bird's Nest) Rules 2006.

This had resulted in a crackdown by the authorities that saw swiftlet farms in urban and residential areas either had to be moved out or shut down.

In a statement released at the signing, SEDC said it had been tasked by the government to spearhead a "well-planned, sustainable and eco-friendly swiftlet farming industry in the state".

It added that JV projects, like the one with BRS, would provide alternative venues to swiftlet farmers who were affected by the government's directive to shift their operation to approved sites.

BRS is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a peninsula-based company, Masmeyer Holdings Sdn Bhd.

Masmeyer's principal businesses are property development and investment holding.

The services of Golden Swift Resources Sdn Bhd, a swiftlet farming expert, will be sought for their technical know-how.


SEDC also disclosed that it had been given approval to turn eight lots of 27.93ha in Mukah division into a swiftlet farm.

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Dog meat could come off Chinese menus

Yahoo News 26 Jan 10;

BEIJING (AFP) – Dog and cat meat -- age-old delicacies in China -- could be off the menu in the food-loving nation under its first law against animal abuse, state press said Tuesday.

People gather to watch workers slaughter dogs at a shop selling meat from the creatures.

People who eat either animal, both of which are viewed as promoting bodily warmth, would face fines of up to 5,000 yuan (730 dollars) and up to 15 days in jail if the law is passed, the Chongqing Evening News said.

It said "organisations" involved in the practice would be fined from 10,000 to 500,000 yuan. The report gave no other details.

The law has been at the drafting stage over the past year and the report did not make clear when the legislation was expected to become law.

China's rubber-stamp legislature meets in March but draft legislation can often take years to be approved.

Cruelty to animals and the raising of cat and dog meat for dinner tables remains widespread in China, despite growing consciousness over animal welfare.

Restaurants touting "fragrant meat," a euphemism for dog, can be seen in cities throughout the country, where the fondness for dogs as pets co-exists with a taste for canine meat.

Cat meat is most popular in parts of southern China and there are regular reports of animal lovers attempting to block trucks carrying hundreds or even thousands of cats to meat markets and eventually dinner tables there.

Chinese legal experts call for ban on eating cats and dogs
Widespread and ancient practice of eating dog meat increasingly distasteful for China's growing affluent, pet-loving middle class
Jonathan Watts, guardian.co.uk 26 Jan 10;

Chinese legal experts are proposing a ban on eating dogs and cats in a contentious move to end a culinary tradition dating back thousands of years.

The recommendation will be submitted to higher authorities in April as part of a draft bill to tackle animal abuse.

In ancient times, dog meat was considered a medicinal tonic. Today, it is commonly available throughout the country, but particularly in the north where dog stew is popular for its supposed warming qualities.

In recent years, however, such traditions are increasingly criticised by an affluent, pet-loving, urban middle class. Online petitions against dog and cat consumption have attracted tens of thousands of signatures. Videos showing the maltreatment of farmed dogs have spurred protests at markets where the animals are bought and sold.

But the drafters of the new proposal want far more drastic measures, which would oblige law enforcement authorities to close down thousands of dog restaurants and butchers which supply the meat.

According to the draft, illegal sale or consumption of pets would incur a maximum penalty of 15 days in prison for individuals or a 500,000 yuan fine for businesses. Public security bureaus would be obliged to respond to hotline calls from the public about violations.

"We are proposing that all dog and cat eating should be banned because it is causing many social problems," said Chang Jiwen, a law professor at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences who heads the drafting team.

He said recent murders and thefts related to the dog meat trade showed that it had become a source of tension, while the economic impact of a ban would be small because an increasingly affluent population was less dependent on dog and cat meat.

The proposal reflects changing public opinion and international input. Drafters at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences have been consulting for more than a year with Britain's Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the US-based International Fund for Animal Welfare.

But the plan for a dog meat ban has stirred up fierce debate between animal welfare groups and defenders of traditional values.

"I support this proposal. Whether you judge this as a question of food security or emotions, there is absolutely no necessity in China for people to eat dogs and cats," said Zeng Li, the founder of the Lucky Cats shelter in Beijing. "We need something more than moral pressure. Beijing's dog restaurants get their meat mainly from vagrant and stolen dogs. In the suburbs, dogs are hung and slaughtered in front of buyers."

Online critics said it was hypocritical to protect only dogs and cats, and that the government should focus on human welfare before protecting animals.

"This is absurd. Why only dogs and cats? How about pigs, cows and sheep," wrote a poster going by the name Mummy on the Xhinua news agency website.

"I hope the experts went to see what laid-off workers and people in rural areas have to eat. They should pay more concern to problems that people really care about," said another contributor under the name Starfish.

Even before the pet meat ban, the draft bill had already provoked controversy. Initial plans for a comprehensive animal welfare law had to be dropped in the face of criticism that human living conditions ought to be the priority at this stage in China's development.

The focus has now been narrowed to prevention of animal abuse, which is defined as inflicting unnecessary pain and brutality. Even so, it is far from certain that the draft will be adopted by the government or the National People's Congress.

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Rare Kenya rhinos de-horned to frustrate poachers

Yahoo News 26 Jan 10;

NAIROBI (AFP) – Four extremely rare Northern White rhinos recently transferred to Kenya from a Czech zoo have been dehorned to protect them from poachers, a conservation group said Tuesday.

"With the increase of poaching in Kenya, we are simply not taking any chances," Elodie Sampere from the Ol Pejeta Conservancy, which is overseeing the animals' acclimatisation told AFP.

"Without a horn, these rhinos are of no value to poachers," she said.

The rhinos, two males and two females, are among only eight members of a very rare sub-species of white rhinos known to be alive worldwide and were transferred back to Kenya with the hope they would reproduce.

Kenyan wildlife rangers earlier this month arrested 12 men from an illicit game trade syndicate suspected of killing a 10-year-old white rhino and hacking off its horns.

The east African country, which has the world's third largest rhino population -- around 600 black and 300 white rhinos -- suffered its worst year for rhino poaching in 2009, when 12 black and six white rhinos were killed.

The illegal trade is driven by Asian and Middle Eastern demand for ivory used in traditional medicines for fevers, convulsions and as an aphrodisiac.

Sampere said that sawing off the four Northern White rhinos' horns would also allow them to grow back straight.

"All the rhinos had horns that didn?t grow upright. This is a result of them being in the zoo and not having trees to rub against," she said.

The conservationist also said that a radio-transmitter the size of a matchbox was screwed into the base of the hacked off horn to enable the tracking of the animals as they are released back into the wild.

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Indonesia launches SMS system for public to report environmental violations

Report environmental violations to 0811 932 932
Adianto P. Simamora, The Jakarta Post 26 Jan 10;

The government has launched an online system allowing the public to report environmental violations via short message service (SMS).

People can send reports of violations to 0811 932 932 or lodge them online via the State Environment Ministry website: penegakanhukum.menlh.go.id.

“We invite the public to monitor the progress of their complaints. We hope it will force the government or local administrations to do something to improve the environment,” State Environment Ministry compliance deputy Illyas Asaad said in Jakarta on Tuesday .

The ministry would, for example, receive reports on declining air quality, river pollution, or companies damaging the environment, Illyas said.

Illyas promised that his office would follow up on reports within two weeks from the time they were sent.

“We will send our auditors to the field to verify reports. Of course, we will also make it a priority to follow up on bigger cases,” he said.

The office will forward the reports it receives directly to related institutions across the country, and order them to act accordingly.

Green Whistle-Blowing: Now by Text
Jakarta Globe 26 Jan 10;

Did you catch someone in the act of dumping buckets full of trash or toxic material into a river near you? Do you have a burning desire to tell off the government for doing little to halt the destruction of forests? If you want these matters heard and addressed directly by the government, just pick up your mobile phone.

The State Ministry of the Environment on Tuesday invited members of the public to text their environment-related complaints to a new hotline – 0811-932-932. The launch of the number coincides with a new Ministry Web site, penegakanhukum.menlh.go.id, dedicated to news, views, and existing regulations on the environment.

“We received so many complaints, mostly through letters, fax or e-mail, but the methods were ineffective and took a long time. It is simpler for villagers or anybody else to text, rather than find access to the Internet and type out their complaints,” said Ilyas Asaad, deputy minister for environmental compliance. He added that on average the Ministry received 190 complaints a year.

“With the new system, the Ministry is hoping that we can also monitor environmental conditions in Papua. One of the difficulties for monitoring environmental conditions is the relationship between locals and the district or subdistrict administrations,” Ilyas said.

He said administrators across the nation were still finding it a challenge to incorporate environmental issues in their local regulations.

“Ideally, all complaints should be taken into account. But because we still lack resources and the necessary funding, we need to set priorities and will, for example, go after larger companies instead of smaller ones,” Ilyas said.

Berry Nahdian Furqon, executive director of the Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi), said the biggest challenge for the ministry was the steps the government would take once it received the complaints.

“The operational action counts. The relationship between the central government and regional administrations has been quite loose. The Ministry needs all the help they can receive from local administrations,” Berry said.

Furthermore, he said that green groups could use the system to address their complaints but they would still maintain their own independent methods to express their opinions.

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