Oil spill aftermath at Tanah Merah: signs of oil?
from wild shores of singapore and signs of life?
"Pulau Ubin, Singapore's Nature Reserve"
from wild shores of singapore
Wet Day At Cyrene Reef
from colourful clouds and Patch Reef Hopping
More bleaching at Terumbu Semakau
from wonderful creation
Eye movements of the Brown-throated Sunbird
from Bird Ecology Study Group
A Pay Model for Ecosystems
from Green NYT blog
PUB chief says it was caught off guard, pledges action to prevent recurrence
Grace Chua Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
THE national water agency, PUB, said yesterday that it was caught off guard by Wednesday's Orchard Road floods, and that the resulting impact on people, traffic and business was 'not acceptable'.
In his first comments since the flash flood, which is estimated to have caused millions in losses and damage, PUB CEO Khoo Teng Chye admitted: 'We were, frankly, a little bit caught off guard by what happened in Stamford Canal.'
He said the agency was monitoring the Bukit Timah area, a known flood hot spot, during Wednesday's heavy downpour, and did not realise there was a problem downtown.
Mr Khoo added that PUB takes a 'very serious' view of the incident.
And he said: 'We would like to assure everyone that we are doing our utmost to review what has happened and we will take the necessary measures to prevent a recurrence.'
Among those measures is designating Orchard Road as a flood hot spot, which means it will be monitored closely during heavy rain.
His comments came as the Orchard Road Business Association and Liat Towers management called for a meeting with PUB to help prevent a similar incident in future, and as Liat Towers surveyed its insurance options.
Asked if there would be compensation for retailers, the PUB's 3P (Public, Private, People) Network director Yap Kheng Guan had said on Thursday that the first priority was to help them get back on their feet.
Insurers, meanwhile, said they would settle all claims before deciding on their next course of action.
General Insurance Association of Singapore president Derek Teo said insurers may have the option of taking PUB or others to court for negligence and seeking reimbursement.
But he said: 'They can only do so if they can prove beyond a doubt that PUB or the contractor were negligent in their duties.'
At yesterday's press conference, PUB also responded to questions about whether a lack of maintenance added to the problem on Wednesday.
The flooding on Orchard Road occurred after a culvert there became blocked by debris during the rainstorm.
The culvert, near Orchard Parade Hotel, was meant to have allowed water to drain into two parallel channels flowing under Orchard Road.
But because it was partly blocked, water was directed mainly to just one of the channels, overwhelming it and causing the flooding.
Yesterday, PUB said the culvert was last cleaned three months ago, but that this was not an issue.
Mr Khoo explained: 'Even if those drains were perfectly cleaned and perfectly maintained, there was a huge amount of water that washed stuff in from catchment areas.'
About 101 mm of rain fell in just three hours on Wednesday, an amount equivalent to about 60 Olympic swimming pools.
Mr Khoo added that over the last 30 years, the agency has spent $2 billion on upgrading drainage infrastructure, including building the Marina Barrage to prevent high-tide waters from rushing in.
It spends $150m a year on drainage improvement works, and $23m a year on maintaining around 7,000km of drains and canals, a figure that has doubled since 2007.
These measures have cut flood-prone areas from more than 3,000ha in the 1970s to 66ha today.
Still, some suggested that more could be done.
Upper Thomson resident C.Y. Liew, 61, said he has observed street cleaners sweeping leaves and other litter into drains, or using leaf-blowers, which redistribute leaves and debris instead of gathering them for easy cleaning.
'It's a bit of a circus,' the director of an arts management company said.
In response, PUB said it will add more gratings to drains to trap leaves and carry out maintenance inspections every month, instead of every three months.
It will also coordinate cleaning with the National Environment Agency, which is in charge of cleaning public roads and pavements, except in housing estates, where the task falls to town councils.
For its part, the NEA said leaves and litter that are swept up from roads and pavements must be removed right away and incinerated.
The environment agency said it checked whether leaves and litter swept up are left behind, or swept into drains, and found that this was uncommon.
Contractors can be penalised if their workers do this, it added.
The PUB's cleaning contractor, Lian Shing Construction, which is in charge of cleaning drains in the central catchment district, including Orchard Road, could not be contacted yesterday.
Meanwhile, civil engineers contacted suggested other ways of preventing flooding or lessening its effects.
One, who did not want to be named, suggested that water could slow as it moved from a narrower culvert into a wider canal, depositing its payload of debris there. Such trouble spots, he said, could be monitored more often.
Professor Chiew Yee Meng, head of the Environmental and Water Resources Engineering division at NTU's engineering school, pointed out that buildings in Taipei, which faces a flooding problem every year during typhoon season, are built with this in mind.
They typically have 'crests' at ground level, to prevent floodwater from running into basements. That means people have to climb a few stairs before they can walk down into a building.
The PUB's Mr Khoo said newer buildings had to have humps at basement-carpark entrances to block water, and that the agency had been working with older buildings 'over the years' on such measures.
Experts suggest using green strategies to prevent floods
Satish Cheney, Zhi Ying Lim Channel NewsAsia 18 Jun 10;
SINGAPORE : Experts that MediaCorp spoke to on Friday said Singapore has good facilities to prevent flooding, but they suggested taking a holistic approach such as having more green buildings.
The rooftops of buildings and the space between buildings are some areas that can be used to help prevent floods and save water, said Dr Ole Larsen from the Dansk Hydraulisk Institut-Nanyang Technological University Research Centre and Education Hub.
Dr Larsen, Centre Director, DHI-NTU Research Centre and Education Hub, said: "When it rains heavily, it might be an advantage to store some of the water on the rooftops - for instance in a roof garden, etc. That requires, of course, that the buildings are constructed appropriately.
"The shopping centre could capture the water in a tank and basically have a separate piping system for flushing toilets."
Experts said cities like Singapore rely heavily on storm water systems to prevent floods. They noted that Singapore has done well in this aspect, but there is room for improvement.
As the effects of climate change could spell more unpredictable weather, experts said countries like Singapore need to brace for more freak storms.
Dr Michael Butts, head of Innovation, Dansk Hydraulisk Institut, said the most important consideration for Singapore is the rising sea level. "We are in a low-lying country and an island and if the sea level rises a metre or so, it's going to have a dramatic affect.
"There will be an increase in rainfall - exactly how they will occur, we are not sure. It could be there will be more tropical storms, more intense rainfall," he added.
The effort to turn existing buildings into green structures is costly for owners. One way to get around this is to incorporate green strategies into future building plans.
- CNA/al
Flood damage hits building's water supply
Delfi Orchard's water pumps are damaged, limiting fresh supplies
Hoe Pei Shan Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
THE Orchard Road flood has claimed another victim: the Delfi Orchard building in Orchard Road.
Wednesday's massive flood damaged the building's water pumps, resulting in the management of the 13-storey shopping-cum-apartment complex limiting water usage.
A decreasing water supply is just one of the many problems tenants and residents have had to face over the past few days.
The flood, which caused extensive damage to businesses at Liat Towers and Lucky Plaza, resulted in water filling the building's entire basement three level, which housed the water pumps.
Telephone service was also disrupted on Wednesday, followed by the air-conditioning system shutting down on Thursday morning, according to tenants.
Music school Magic Fiddler was forced to cancel all Thursday classes.
On Thursday afternoon, the building management announced that the property's water pumps had been hit by the flooding. The management distributed notices informing tenants and residents that the building 'will run out of water very soon'.
The news has occupants of the building - housing mostly speciality shops and fashion boutiques - worried.
Said one of Magic Fiddler's music teachers, who declined to be named: 'It's been very inconvenient, not only affecting our business but also our daily routines.
'We're so afraid of using up the water supply that we run to the next building when we have to use the toilet.'
PUB, the national water agency, has been roped in since Thursday to ensure a continuous supply of potable water but occupants were told to use it sparingly.
It has deployed a high-pressure booster pump and officers to channel water into the building.
A PUB spokesman confirmed that the basement's electric pump, which brings potable water up to the water tank on the top floor, where it is then distributed to the rest of the building, had been damaged in Wednesday's flooding incident.
As such, the water tank on the roof cannot be replenished, thereby decreasing the water supply.
Building experts The Straits Times spoke to suspect that the basement pumps may have been short-circuited by the flood water, which was still ankle-deep when The Straits Times visited yesterday morning.
Delfi Orchard's management declined to comment on how long it would take to replace the water pumps and how many tenants and residents had been affected.
Amid speculation that the water shortage has affected the coolants and hence the air-conditioning, another tenant, jeweller Vincent Ng complained: 'I had to close early on Thursday because my customers would not want to walk around in a stuffy store.'
One of the building's residents, Mr John Ting, former president of the Singapore Institute of Architects, said that repairs will probably have to be put off until all the water has been cleared from basement three.
But he said the disruption was unlikely to trouble him much: 'We have just got to be more cautious in water usage and live with some inconveniences for a while - having shorter showers instead of full baths.'
Lucky Plaza shops not so lucky with insurance
Ng Kai Ling, Alexis Cai & Lim Wei Chean Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
OPERATORS of most of the waterlogged shops at Lucky Plaza will be digging into their own pockets to pay for the damage caused by Wednesday's flash flood.
This is because they are either not covered for flood damage or because they are not insured in the first place.
Others who do have insurance coverage are choosing not to make claims for fear of increased premiums.
Several shop owners who spoke to The Straits Times said getting insurance policies was not worth it, as premiums are high and their stores are small.
An electronics store owner who wished to be known only as Mr Lee had not bought insurance as he did not expect his shop to get hit by floods so badly.
He claims his losses could go up to $30,000 including the value of the damaged goods and the cost of replacing shelves and flooring.
'I will try to find a way to foot the bill but if I really cannot find the money, I may have to close the shop,' said the 35-year-old.
But even for those with insurance policies, coverage is not so cut and dry.
Mr Derek Teo, president of the General Insurance Association of Singapore (GIA), said for businesses to get full protection against the type of damage wrought by Wednesday's unexpected deluge, they need to have bought more than one type of insurance.
For instance, fire insurance will usually come with an option for extraneous perils, which covers events such as floods and other natural disasters.
To cover for damage of goods and loss of business income, business owners need to have policies covering 'all risks' and 'loss of profits', said insurers.
However, such policies do not come cheap.
Mr Sunny Ng, who runs All Watches at the mall, pays more than $10,000 a year for a package policy that includes coverage for the contents of his shop, loss of any cash from the shop, and fire and flood damage.
The coverage will come in handy for the luxury watch dealer as he is looking at replacing the parquet flooring in the 1,300 sq ft basement unit.
He has already submitted a claim and is waiting for a reply from his insurer.
But Mr Elton Chow is footing the $1,000 bill to replace the carpet in his shop, despite being insured for up to $1.2 million.
'We will just forget about it and pay because we don't want our premiums to go up,' said Mr Chow, who runs a tailoring shop. He currently pays $2,000 a year in insurance premiums.
Insurance experts say premiums can increase if the loss ratio in a location goes up. Loss ratio is the ratio of the annual claims paid by an insurance company to the premiums received.
They said that, in the case of Lucky Plaza, the loss ratio is relatively higher than in other places because of floods there in recent years, the last major one being in November 2007.
For one shop owner, he cannot claim insurance even if he tried.
Mr Albert Lee, who runs a shoe shop in the basement of the mall, was told yesterday by his insurance agent that he will not be able to make a claim for his estimated $7,000 to $8,000 damage.
'My current insurance doesn't cover flood damage. I claimed from my previous insurer for water damage three times. After that, my agent said the insurer did not want to cover floods any more so I bought another plan which does not cover water damage,' said the 63-year-old in Mandarin.
He added that Wednesday's flood was a wake-up call and he will be looking at changing his policy again.
A spokesman for insurance group AXA said certain areas carry a higher risk, and it may decline coverage for flood damage in certain cases.
NTUC Income's senior vice-president and general manager for general insurance Pui Phusangmook said his company will provide cover for flood-related damage for properties in low-lying or flood-prone areas.
But, he said, it may impose deductibles or conditions on individual policies, such as being able to claim for damages only above a certain amount.
GIA's Mr Teo said insurance companies will generally not refuse coverage for floods even in flood-prone areas.
'If he (Mr Lee) hunts around, he should be able to find an insurance company willing to insure him against floods. But it is a matter of whether the owner is willing to pay more or not,' he said.
PUB will require Orchard Road buildings to be flood-proofed
Older buildings that do not have a raised platform to stop floodwater were worst hit in Wednesday's deluge
Uma Shankari Business Times 19 Jun 10;
WATER agency PUB will make it mandatory for buildings in the Orchard Road area to be flood-proofed to stop rainwater from flowing into their basements.
The move comes after heavy rain on Wednesday caused a flash flood around the junction of Orchard and Scotts roads. Water poured into many buildings and stores, but older buildings that do not have a raised platform to stop floodwater - such as Lucky Plaza, Liat Towers, Tong Building and Delfi Orchard - were worst hit.
PUB, which is responsible for Singapore's drainage system, deployed 10 tankers and seven pumps to suck out floodwater from the four buildings on Wednesday.
PUB chief executive Khoo Teng Chye said newer buildings and MRT stations, for example, were not as badly affected because regulations required them to be flood-resistant when they were built. A flight of stairs leading up, for example, can prevent rainwater from overflowing into MRT stations underground.
Older buildings, which went up before current regulations came into effect, do not have the same preventive features. PUB is talking to building owners to see how they can take steps to prevent a recurrence of Wednesday's flooding, Mr Khoo said.
PUB takes a serious view of the Orchard Road flooding, he said: 'The impact and disruption to people, traffic and business are not acceptable. We would like to assure everyone that we are doing our utmost to review what happened and take the necessary measures to minimise the chances of recurrence.'
Wednesday's flood came about as 100mm of rain fell in two hours between 9am and 11am.
A huge amount of water - equivalent to 60 Olympic-size pools - carried vegetation and other debris which then partly blocked an enclosed drain, or culvert, across Orchard Road. This resulted in rainwater overflowing into Stamford Canal under Orchard Road and Orchard Road itself.
PUB said on Thursday it will install more litter traps in the open sections of drains from the Singapore Botanic Gardens all the way down to Tanglin to trap debris carried into the drains during a downpour. More water level sensors will also be installed along Stamford Canal for closer monitoring of unusual water levels.
Mr Khoo stressed that the capacity of Stamford Canal is adequate.
The last major flood at the intersection of Orchard and Scotts roads was in 1984, so the area was not classified as a 'hot spot'. PUB will now consider Orchard Road a 'hot spot' and deploy contractors to the area once the water level in Stamford Canal hits 50 per cent.
PUB has spent about $2 billion over the past 30 years to upgrade drainage systems across the island and reduce flood-prone land from 3,200 hectares in the 1970s to 66 ha now.
It plans to spend another $150 million a year for the next five years to continue to improve upgrading works. It has also doubled its maintenance expenditure to $23 million.
PUB chief executive says water agency caught off guard in Orchard Rd flood
Claire Huang Channel NewsAsia 18 Jun 10;
SINGAPORE : The Chief Executive of Singapore's national water agency, PUB, has acknowledged that his agency was caught off guard by the Orchard Road flood on Wednesday.
Khoo Teng Chye told a media conference on Friday that PUB takes a "serious view" of the incident.
During the downpour on June 16, one of the hotspots PUB was monitoring closely was the Bukit Timah area, which experienced massive flooding in November last year.
But PUB did not realise there were problems at Stamford Canal.
A culvert that was heavily blocked by debris then triggered the flooding of Orchard Road.
It has now declared the area a new flood hotspot.
PUB said it takes a serious view of the floods, especially in the Orchard Road area.
"The impact on people, businesses and traffic is something that we view as not acceptable. We've done our initial investigations; it was due to a combination of very unusually intense double-peaked rainstorms that were aggravated by the flow of debris that partially obstructed the culvert," said Khoo.
Asked if a lack of maintenance could have contributed to the clogged drains, Khoo believes there was a combination of factors.
"Even if we have very well-maintained drains... given the amount of rain that fell on that day - as I said, it's 60 Olympic-sized pools - I think it would have washed down into the culverts huge amounts of debris," said Khoo.
PUB said over the last 30 years, it has invested S$2 billion to upgrade Singapore's drainage infrastructure. This has helped to reduce the country's flood-prone areas from 3,200 hectares to some 66 hectares currently.
It added that it will invest S$150 million each year for the next five years on upgrading works.
Khoo said: "On the maintenance front, we've doubled our expenditure in the last three years to S$23 million a year. We put our contractors on a performance-based system. We extended their contract from three years to five years, encouraging them to invest in new technology.
"In fact, everyday, we have about 400 staff from the contractors and from PUB making sure that all our drains are well-maintained."
PUB said it will continue to investigate and improve the current system to prevent similar flooding. And it's doing its best to review what had happened. - CNA /ls
PUB: We were caught off-guard
CEO says measures will be taken to prevent recurrence
Leong Wee Keat Today Online 19 Jun 10;
SINGAPORE - A day after PUB blamed a blocked drain for the Orchard Road flood, its chief executive admitted on Friday that the national water agency was "caught off-guard" by what happened at Stamford Canal, the main drainage artery in the area.
When the downpour began on Wednesday morning, PUB staff kept a close watch on Bukit Timah, given the major flood that occurred there last November, said Mr Khoo Teng Chye. They subsequently decided to lift the flood gates to prevent that part of Bukit Timah from being flooded - not realising that Stamford Canal was in trouble.
"Of course, what they did not realise was that the Stamford Canal was also having some problems, because we were, frankly, a little bit caught off-guard by what happened at Stamford Canal. But, of course, now that becomes a new hot spot," Mr Khoo told a press conference, the national water agency's third in as many days.
But Mr Khoo stopped short of issuing an apology on behalf of PUB over the unexpected flash flood in Singapore's iconic shopping belt, which has led to millions of dollars in losses for affected businesses, especially near the junction of Scotts Road/Orchard Road.
He said: "We are responsible for the drainage system so it's our job to make sure that the drainage system functions well.
"When there are problems like these, I think we have the responsibility to make sure that we try and manage it, learn from it and take the necessary steps to prevent a recurrence."
According to Mr Khoo, water equivalent to 60 Olympic-size pools carried vegetation and other debris down the Stamford Canal on Wednesday morning, partially obstructing an underground drain across Orchard Road. This led to rainwater being diverted into another drain and led to almost 20 Olympic-size pools of water overflowing onto the area.
Trotting out a series of figures on Friday, Mr Khoo assured the public that a comprehensive system comprising litter traps, regular inspections and maintenance of drainage system is already in place.
More than $2 billion has been poured into improving drainage infrastructure over the past three decades. PUB will also invest $150 million annually over the next five years on drainage improvement works.
The agency's maintenance expenditure has also been doubled to $23 million. Each day, 360 contractor staff members are deployed island-wide to carry out maintenance of drainage systems and they are audited by PUB.
But since PUB had said that the Stamford Canal was last checked only in March, how sure was it that the debris was brought down by Wednesday's rainwater, and had not been there before the downpour?
Mr Khoo said the canal's catchment area was about 220 hectares - equivalent to the size of Marina Reservoir - and Wednesday's rain brought a huge amount of water into the underground drain.
Pressed again on when the canal was last cleaned of debris, Mr Khoo explained drainage systems are meant to be "self-cleansing" and covered drains are less likely to collect litter. Instead, PUB and its contractors were more worried about silt building up in these drains.
"The last time they went in to check was probably in March. It is not something they need to do on a very regular basis for some of these smaller drains," Mr Khoo added.
PUB will now inspect the canal once a month. It will also be working with older buildings in the area - such as Lucky Plaza and Liat Towers - on flood prevention measures.
Additional flood sensors along Stamford Canal will also be installed. Contractors will be deployed when water levels reach 50 per cent, while the Traffic Police will be alerted when it reaches 75 per cent.
Mr Khoo said one of the difficulties of managing the drain systems is the unpredictable tropical weather.
"Although initial investigations showed that the drainage system capacity is sufficient and this flood resulted from an unusually intense storm .... we will continue to thoroughly investigate and take the necessary measures to prevent a recurrence."
Orchard-type deluge: How prepared?
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
ASIDE from widespread and prolonged power blackouts during business hours, floods that partially knock out commerce in the central district inevitably cause Singaporeans to ask: How could that have happened? Next, inhabitants who expect a thoroughly engineered city to be free of service disruptions common to overwhelmed conurbations in parts of Asia and South America will feel a blush of embarrassment. They would be justified to an extent. Singapore is renowned for having most urban solutions down to an art. The flash flood on Wednesday morning that was reported widely in the region for its Orchard Road connection shut down businesses in malls known to visitors from all over. Last November, the Bukit Timah-Dunearn area suffered severe flooding which required evacuations. In common with many parts of the world, flooding appears to be more frequent.
Torrential tropical downpours require drainage systems with ample margin to make up for operational lapses caused by damage and blockages. This is to prevent the disruptions that are difficult to stave off once flash floods strike. On Wednesday, the rainfall recorded in three hours was equivalent to 60 per cent of the benchmark volume for all of June. The initial finding of the PUB water agency implicated a single culvert that could not discharge water fast enough. As the culvert was choked with debris carried by the rising waters the discharge into the Stamford Canal was reduced. A spillover was the result.
If a single culvert made inoperative by accumulated rubbish could paralyse Orchard Road traffic and damage merchandise and fixtures in so many shops, a question arises: Is the Orchard area under-served by culverts and associated channels? The PUB surprised many people when it said maintenance checks on the discharge network were done about every three months. We are not experts in the matter, but this looks infrequent for a location on the equatorial belt with known copious rainfall. While Orchard's weak spots are being probed because of the street's economic importance, the PUB could as well undertake a systemic study of the island's entire drainage network. Flooding of mild to moderate intensity happens in different locations every so often.
Underground MRT stations are a worry. They are secured by having entrances set at least 1m above the highest recorded flood levels in those locations. This is safe enough - but who knows what will happen in the event of a record-busting deluge. As global warming is known to be causing changes to climate systems, designing for the unknowable could be wise.
Were there lapses?
Straits Times Forum 19 Jun 10;
ON WEDNESDAY, Orchard Road turned into Orchard Canal. And it was a case of deja vu. I am sure many Singaporeans would have vivid recollections of Bukit Timah Road becoming Bukit Timah River last November.
Commenting on the Bukit Timah flood then, Minister for the Environment and Water Resources Yaacob Ibrahim said it was a 'freak' event that occurs 'once in 50 years' ('Deluge a 'once in 50 years' event'; Nov 21, 2009). However, it has hardly been a year before we have witnessed flooding again on a similar scale.
The PUB's revelation that a drain clogged with debris likely caused the Orchard Road flood is most disappointing. In this context, it is reasonable to question whether - and to what extent - lapses in the maintenance of the drainage system could have contributed to the flash flood.
Proponents of global warming and climate change have projected that the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, such as heavy precipitation events, may increase over most areas, and may not be 'once in 50 years' events.
According to meteorologists, higher temperatures trap moisture in the atmosphere, resulting in more intense rain and a higher likelihood of floods.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's Fourth Assessment Report noted that 'generally, numbers of heavy daily precipitation events that lead to flooding have increased'.
I would like to inquire whether the recently reorganised Inter-Ministerial Committee on Climate Change intends to study the future effects of climate change on Singapore, if any, and formulate mitigation measures to alleviate any undesirable consequences, such as reviewing the capability of our infrastructure to cope with extreme weather events.
Sin Wei Xiang
Straits Times Forum 19 Jun 10;
Recurring floods
'It is high time for a thorough review of the nation's drainage system.'
MR LIEW YENG CHEE: 'Last November, it was in Bukit Timah. Now the waters have flooded Orchard Road. With the change in weather patterns due to global warming, we must expect such floods to happen more frequently. Have the authorities drawn up contingency plans for such an eventuality? It is high time for a thorough review of the nation's drainage system.'
A case of litter?
'I wonder how much of the debris that choked the drain had been litter.'
MISS SOPHIA TAN: 'The damage caused by the flood could amount to millions. I wonder how much of the debris that choked the critical drain had been made up of tissue paper, plastic wrappers and other litter carelessly tossed by pedestrians, who assumed our regular army of cleaners would clean them up. Let us take it as a timely reminder that our littering habit has finally caught up with us. If the flash flood had taken place during the Youth Olympic Games, it would have been a great embarrassment for all.'
Learning experience
'Thanks Straits Times, for the extensive coverage of an extraordinary occurrence. We need to be more prepared next time.'
MR JOHN TING, an affected resident of Delfi Orchard: 'Thanks Straits Times, for the extensive coverage of an extraordinary occurrence. We need to be more prepared the next time something like this happens. Let this be a good learning experience for all of us. My sincere thanks to the police and civil defence personnel, the PUB and other agencies that sprang into action after the flash flood and spent long hours trying to bring the situation back to normal.'
Knee-jerk solutions won't do
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
I REFER to the PUB report on the causes leading to the massive flooding in Orchard Road.
Singapore's iconic attraction was so helplessly and embarrassingly submerged, yet PUB's reply came across as indifferent and the recommendations to use sensors and inspections - at best, knee-jerk solutions.
There should be more effective solutions to ensure that Orchard Road and other low-lying areas are well drained, even during ultra-heavy downpours.
Steve Ng
Lester Kok speaks to two clean energy experts who sit on the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
PROFESSOR Ashok Gadgil from the University of California, Berkeley, who is also on the seven-member advisory committee at the Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University (ERI@N), holds great expertise in both environmental engineering and in water technology.
He has won several awards for his efforts in innovations such as a low-cost way of disinfecting water in developing nations, and a fire stove which is three times more efficient than normal fire stoves.
# Why is there a need for energy research?
I think it's a really exciting development that Singapore has decided to set up the energy research centre. We have, globally, seriously under-invested in future-looking energy technologies. Climate change represents the greatest threat to modern human society that we have ever faced and most of the modern society is still not aware of the urgency of the threat. I think, globally, we are unprepared for the scale of change and also the speed of change in energy technologies that is essential to stabilise the climate.
# How will energy research and development affect the world?
It should shape how billions of people use energy on a large scale in the world. The potential for ERI@N will be the engine for industrial advancement for energy development and use in other parts of the world. In some sense, if ERI@N takes the leadership in super efficient buildings, electric vehicles and integration of renewable energy into the power grid... (research in these areas will be) research drivers for entire sectors of society.
# How does water research tie in with energy?
We expect more and more people to need to use energy to obtain their water. Rapidly, we have grown in world population and are beginning to rely more on ground water, which we need to use energy to pump. We are using a lot of energy in fact to transport water... There is the use of energy for extracting water, processing water, transporting, and also desalination of water. On the other hand, we need water for producing electricity. Shortage of water for cooling (power plants) is already a concern. Energy and water are really two related problems and they're coming closer and closer to each other in terms of how the solution of one impacts the availability of the other.
# Many of your inventions look simple and low-tech in nature. Why is this so?
It looks low-tech, but making anything complicated is always easy. Making something simple is much, much harder. It takes a lot of good creative engineering science to come up with something simple, low- maintenance and robust.
Science and technology has fantastic opportunities for solving problems, even for poor people, to make solutions affordable to them... If lots of bright people work hard, then some of us will succeed... that's the point!
A bright future for renewable energy sources in Singapore
Lester Kok speaks to two clean energy experts who sit on the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute
Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
PROFESSOR Michael Gratzel is the chairman of the advisory board of the new Energy Research Institute at Nanyang Technological University. He is the winner of this year's Millennium Technology Prize from Finland - an honour equivalent to the Nobel Prize in this field.
The Swiss scientist is the inventor of dye-sensitised solar cells, a cheap and good alternative to conventional silicon solar cells, which are costly and not as efficient.
# What is the aim of energy research?
This is the name of the game: get consumption down and save energy. Save energy in buildings. It is very sad that people are used to wasting energy in buildings, like leaving the air-conditioning on when there is nobody around.
We have to change also the culture of people to be more aware that a kilowatt hour (the energy consumed when 1,000 watts are used for one hour) is something that is very valuable. It can drive your electric car up to 10km.
# What changes do you foresee for the future?
A key thing for the future is electric cars. I think this city needs electric cars or hybrid cars, and the power can come from solar energy.
A very promising activity that I see is to integrate electric cars with a renewable energy source like solar power.
# How can your research and expertise help Singapore in its quest for clean power?
It's particularly applicable for Singapore because you don't have many roofs to mount solar panels. The dye-sensitised solar cells can be made transparent... so you can use it on vertical surfaces like windows. These cells are also ideally suited for indoor use, as with fluorescent light, we can get 20 per cent efficiency from it, much better than silicon cells.
# What about other sources of energy such as nuclear power?
Nuclear energy is an option... We have nuclear reactors in Switzerland, but we have problems and so do other countries. Nobody wants the waste as the radioactivity will last for a very long time.
The issue is how to control and safeguard the waste over thousands of years, and what cost and obligation this presents for future generations. It's 100,000 years of radioactive waste you have to take care of - that's almost as long as mankind has existed on this earth. That is a very long-term issue there.
Let's try to do it with renewable energy as much as we can. In the end, there will be only renewables, so we might as well invest in it appropriately now.
Andy Ho, Straits Times 19 Jun 10;
IN THE past half year, scientists have determined that inhaling fine air pollutant particles can actually kill people with heart conditions.
Last December, a US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) review of the best studies found this relationship to be established beyond reasonable doubt. Last month, the American Heart Association (AHA) issued a statement reiterating this 'causal relationship', saying in regard to all available data: 'At present, no credible alternative explanation exists.'
Particulate matter is a mixture of tiny particles and liquid droplets. While larger particles are coughed or sneezed out, tinier particles penetrate the lungs, where serious damage ensues. The tiniest particles also pass through lung tissue into blood and thence circulate throughout the body. In the blood, they can cause harm to the inner lining of small blood arteries. This then triggers off various cellular processes that eventuate in heart damage.
The AHA concluded that short-term exposure of 'over a few hours to weeks' to PM2.5 can trigger fatal heart attacks, heart failure and heart rhythm problems. PM2.5 are particulate matter with diameters of under 2.5 micrometres. Also, 'longer-term exposure (eg, a few years)' to PM2.5 'reduces life expectancy... by several months to a few years'.
Notice that although they are inhaled into the lungs first, the novel finding is that PM2.5 cause heart problems. Found in car emissions, among other things, PM2.5 are 30 times tinier than a human hair. So they penetrate the lungs deeper than PM10 can. The latter, particles under 10 micrometres in diameter, are referred to in the daily air quality report posted on the National Environment Agency's (NEA) website. Coming from dusty roads and dusty industrial sites, among other sources, PM10 are about seven times smaller than a human hair.
Although PM2.5 levels are already being monitored daily throughout Singapore, they are not divulged publicly. Only the annual average PM2.5 level is offered in the NEA yearly report. The agency says there is 'no internationally harmonised protocol' for reporting air quality.
Many developing countries cannot afford the very expensive equipment to monitor PM2.5 levels but the 11 air monitoing stations in Singapore are already equipped to do so. The NEA points out that Britain and France report only PM10. But Taiwan already reports PM2.5.
In 2008 and last year, the annual average PM2.5 levels here exceeded the safe thresholds set by both the EPA and the World Health Organisation. This is a matter of concern since the AHA has opined that there is, in fact, no 'discernible 'safe' threshold' for both short- and long-term PM2.5 exposure. For this reason, it recommended public efforts to lower PM2.5 'below even' official safe levels.
Compared to PM10, the smaller PM2.5 can not only penetrate deeper into the lungs but also carry more concentrated toxic substances, including transition metals and endotoxins. The reason is that the smaller a sphere's diameter, the larger its surface area-to-volume ratio. This means that a higher concentration of toxic substances is absorbed on PM2.5 surfaces than PM10. So the former carry more toxic substances into our bodies than the latter.
A particular class of chemicals that PM2.5 carry is called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). Formed when fossil fuels and other biomass are burnt, PAHs are known to cause genetic damage. Studies the EPA also reviewed suggest that PAHs probably can cause lung cancer.
Diesel and petrol engines are major sources of PM2.5, with forest fires yet another. (The Indonesian forest fires usually occur from July to September.) A third source is photochemical reactions that occur among gaseous pollutants emitted by power plants and factories.
The AHA said PM2.5 exposure was a 'modifiable factor'. Since traffic is a main source of PM2.5, one should avoid non-mandatory trips, rush hour travel and also roads with traffic jams. One should stay indoors, close the windows and run some air filtering system. One should refrain, too, from strenuous outdoor exertion during high PM2.5 periods. Finally, try to live as far away from traffic as possible.
In many cities, PM2.5 levels tend to peak twice a day, once during the morning rush hour and the other during the evening commute home. The latter peak lasts longer as PM2.5 is a pollutant with the longest lifespan in the air. Thus PM2.5 levels can build up in a neighbourhood over the work-week.
It is not only adults with pre-existing heart problems who should avoid situations when they are likely to absorb high PM2.5 levels. Children, too, should take care, for they tend to spend more time outdoors. Because they are smaller in size, their exposure means higher doses of PM2.5 per kilogram of body weight. But without timely information about daily PM2.5 levels here, at-risk groups cannot know when to modify their behaviour accordingly.
As to whether Singaporeans should be concerned about PM2.5, the Health Ministry said: 'The PSI (which uses PM10 rather than PM2.5) cut-offs are internationally accepted standards... Individuals may choose to avoid vigorous outdoor activities at PSI levels less than 100 if... still concerned.'
Better still, perhaps daily PM2.5 levels should be provided to the public.
U.S. flooding kills more than any other single weather hazard
Remy Melina and Karen Rowan MSNBC 11 Jun 10;
The flash floods that swept through Arkansas today, taking the lives of at least 16 people and leaving others missing, are a reminder of a little-known fact: Flash floods are the No. 1 cause of weather-related deaths in the United States, according to the National Weather Service.
Two key factors that lead to flash flooding are the intensity of the rainfall and its duration. For this reason, most flash flooding is caused by slow-moving thunderstorms, thunderstorms that move repeatedly over the same area, or heavy rains from hurricanes and tropical storms, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).
Intense rainfall led to the Arkansas flash flooding, causing the Caddo and Little Missouri rivers to rise quickly overnight, sometimes faster than 8 feet (2.4 meters) per hour, according to news reports.
The water doesn’t always come from rain. A dam or levee failure, or a sudden release of water held by an ice jam can also unleash a flash flood. The topography of the region, the soil conditions, and ground cover also play significant roles.
The force of a flash flood can roll boulders, rip trees out of the ground, and destroy buildings and bridges.
True to their name, these floods occur suddenly – within a few minutes or hours. Rapidly rising water can reach heights of 30 feet or more, and to make matters worse, the same rains that produce flash floods can also trigger catastrophic mud slides.
Most flood-related deaths occur in automobiles, so NOAA advises that people do not attempt to cross water-covered bridges and avoid dips in the road or low-water crossings. Trying to cross even a small stream can be dangerous, because waters can rise rapidly.
On average, U.S. flooding kills about 150 people a year — more than any other single weather hazard, including tornadoes and hurricanes, according to the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR). Most flood deaths are from flash floods, however, and about half of those are because people try to cross swollen streams or flooded roads.
Victims often underestimate the power of water when driving into flooded areas, UCAR scientists note, adding that it takes only 18 inches (46 centimeters) of water to float a typical vehicle. It only takes 2 feet (60 cm) of flowing water to sweep most vehicles downstream, and nearly half of all flood fatalities are auto-related, according to NOAA.
Flooding deaths have risen in recent decades, and the U.S. Congress's Office of Technology Assessment says that "despite recent efforts, vulnerability to flood damages is likely to continue to grow" as populations in flood-prone regions steadily increase.
Flash floods can occur along rivers, on coastlines, in urban areas and dry creek beds. River floods generally happen when river basins fill too quickly and water pours over the banks. Coastal flooding is common when tropical storms or hurricanes drive ocean water inland, or when tsunamis send water surging onto shore.
The pavement that covers urban areas prevents the natural soil from absorbing rainfall – in fact, urbanization increases runoff by two to six times over what would naturally occur, according to NOAA. Streets lined with tall buildings can be transformed into fast-moving rivers.
A flash flood moves quickly and can travel for miles beyond the original site of the storm, catching unwary hikers and motorists by surprise. Because flash floods can occur at any time of the year, it is important to always be aware of local weather reports, as the National Weather Service issues a flash flood warning whenever one is occurring or is imminent in specified areas.
Putri Prameshwari & AP
Jakarta Globe 17 Jun 10;
Meteorologists on Thursday warned that extreme weather would likely continue across parts of the country over the next three days, as a landslide triggered by torrential rains killed eight people in Maluku — seven from the same family.
Ita Sabrina, a medical worker, said the bodies of the eight victims were found beneath mud and rocks in the village of Batugantung Dalam.
The landslide occurred in the middle of the night, killing seven members of the same family, including five children. Their neighbor, an elderly woman, also died. Several other people were hospitalized with injuries.
Kukuh Ribudianto, head of the division overseeing extreme weather forecasting at the national Meteorological, Climatology and Geophysics Agency (BMKG), said areas south of the equator, which includes Jakarta, should be prepared for extreme weather that could arrive unexpectedly and disappear just as quickly.
“This is an unusual condition for areas located south of the equator,” he said.
Kukuh said that although the country should be entering the dry season, rain would continue to fall in many provinces as a result of rising sea-surface temperatures.
In addition, with air masses concentrated over eastern Indonesia, air is flowing from east to west, he said.
“This will create heavy cloud cover above Indonesia,” he said.
Kukuh said the cloud cover would be concentrated over southern Sumatra, most of Java, West Papua and northern parts of Maluku and Sulawesi, bringing rain and thunderstorms.
“Our forecast says this will last until June 21,” he said, “but it could be longer.”
Extreme weather has soaked and confused the country over the last week, with rain and thunderstorms alternating with clear skies and sunshine in the same day.
Heavy rain on Tuesday forced seven flights bound for Jakarta’s Soekarno-Hatta International Airport to be diverted to the city’s air base, Halim Perdanakusuma, and Palembang’s Sultan Mahmud Badaruddin II Airport.
As massive amounts of soil and gravel disappear from Indonesia’s many islands, an odd new form of piracy presents an interesting security challenge
Jody Ray Bennett for ISN Security Watch 18 Jun 10;
Indonesia has over 17,000 islands in a constant state of evolution thanks to water levels, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes and other natural occurrences. Indeed, just three years ago, an 8.1 scale earthquake created a cluster of six new islands off the coast of Sumatra. And at least 900 of these islands are permanently inhabited.
But natural occurrences are not the only thing affecting the evolution of these islands: Soil piracy is now causing some of these islands to disappear. The heightened demand from surrounding states for land - specifically for the development of soil and gravel - has created a new form of black market for Indonesia’s valuable type of top soil and rocks, hauled off by the boatload and sold to buyers throughout Southeast Asia.
Indonesia’s “gravel bandits,” as the Times of London reported, are the result of the fact that “sea reclamation projects in China, Thailand, Hong Kong and Singapore are driving [the] black market in Indonesia’s abundant supplies of soil, sand and gravel.”
Managing the soil smugglers
According to The Times, “Since 2005 at least 24 small islands have disappeared as a result of erosion caused by sand mining. Even where they remain above the waves, the mining process clouds and muddies the sea, devastating fish populations and destroying livelihoods.”
Regional NGOs and local environmentalists have also noticed the phenomenon, in one case reporting that on the island of Krakatoa, “[…] a huge barge, the kind [used] to carry coal […] was pumping up the sand through pipes [in what is] a national park and a UNESCO World Heritage site […]. The local people rely on the fishing and the income from tourism, and here they were taking Krakatoa away.”
In 2007, the government of Indonesia banned the export of its island soil and threatened “a shoot on sight policy against foreign sand pirates and gravel bandits.” But as The Times notes, “corrupt local officials [continue to] sign off on permits and turn a blind eye to where the material ends up, [so] the smugglers are winning.”
Neighboring Singapore, which recognized Indonesia's island borders through a maritime boundary agreement signed in 1973, announced that it was “disappointed with Indonesia's decision, but the [Singapore] government believes the ban is unlikely to slow the construction sector” and is “prepared to work with Indonesia to address [the] concerns [by] conduct[ing] regular checks to ensure the sand imported is supplied by licensed firms, which have environmental control measures in place, according to Indonesia's laws.” Before the ban, Singapore legally imported $120-160 million tons of soil per year from Indonesia.
While the ban on soil, sand and gravel exports have helped to circumvent some of the illicit trade, a December 2009 Human Rights Watch report found that illegal logging and shipping of timber from many of these islands was on the rise, resulting in adverse impacts on the natural environment, forestry industry, public health and human rights.
“If such threats disturb the security of shipping lines, it is going to influence sea-borne trade activities. [Regional governments] seem to find it complicated or difficult to manage this issue, especially because it is a transnational and trans-border issue that requires coordination between state non-state actors to work together,” doctoral researcher at the Graduate Institute of European Studies Taiwan, Supamijoto Paramitaningrum, told ISN Security Watch.
A new security market
In 2007, Indonesia requested maritime security assistance from Japan, China and Korea, but little materialized. To fill in the gap, private maritime security companies are now attempting to secure contracts from the Indonesian state and other private sources to patrol through the islands to prevent further exploitation of Indonesia’s natural resources.
“This market has emerged primarily because of previous maritime security problems that occurred in the Malacca Strait. Singapore, Indonesia and Malaysia (the littoral states) already had a joint patrol program, but that cooperation has not been enough to tackle maritime piracy problems, due to technical issues, such as human resources and funding,” Paramitaningrum explained.
“At the same time, international user states, like the US, Japan and Australia, are willing to help - but with their own mechanisms plus human resources and funding - which is responded to reluctantly by Indonesia and Malaysia,” she said.
Jody Ray Bennett is a freelance writer and academic researcher. His areas of analysis include the private military and security industry, the materialization of non-state forces and the transformation of modern warfare
Adianto P. Simamora, Jakarta Post 19 Jun 10;
Local people involved in efforts to protect forests may not receive money in cash since the government's ongoing forest carbon scheme pilot projects did not use a cash handout system.
Forestry Ministry director for environmental services Tony Suhartono said the government had not settled the financial mechanism of the reducing emissions from deforestation and forest degradation (REDD) scheme.
"We may prevent directly providing cash to local people to promote sustainable REDD projects," he said Tuesday.
Tony said previous projects in West Kutai, East Kalimantan, when the government gave concessions to local people showed the risk of handing out cash.
"The local people cut trees in their concession areas and sell it to get money. It renders the project unsustainable," he said.
Millions of Indonesian rely on forests for their livelihoods.
The government has said the high poverty of people living near forests was the main driver of deforestation, leading to illegal logging.
Data from the ministry showed the deforestation rate breached 1 million hectares per year.
The government said REDD could be effective in Indonesia if the main instruments of deforestation, especially illegal logging and forest conversion, were properly addressed.
The REDD scheme was expected to be an alternative to cutting emissions to deal with climate change.
Deforestation contributes some 20 percent of global emissions.
Under the scheme, forest nations would receive financial incentives from rich nations to stop converting their forests to prevent the release of carbon into the atmosphere.
The government is developing REDD pilot projects in the forests of Central Kalimantan, East Kalimantan, East Java and West Nusa Tenggara provinces.
The governments of Australia, Germany and Korea have developed REDD pilot projects in Indonesia.
The projects would assess, among others, the drivers of deforestation, institutional and legal frameworks and the establishment of REDD incentive mechanisms.
The Environment Ministry said money from REDD schemes should be used to empower local people to encourage them to protect forests.
"The money could be used to improve education, health and infrastructure in the local area," Masnellyarti Hilman, the deputy minister for environmental damage control at the Environment Ministry, said.
Indonesia has signed a new agreement with the Norwegian government to reduce deforestation in Indonesia's forests and peatland.
In turn, Norway pledged to provide US$1 billion that would be disbursed based on emission reductions in the forest sector. It is unclear how much would be allotted to local people.
The government would set up a special agency to manage the money.
Indonesia was the first country to issue a regulation on REDD allowing indigenous people, local authorities, private organizations and businesspeople - both local and foreign - to operate REDD projects.
Huo Weiya China Dialogue 18 Jun 10;
In China, campaigns to protect the fish and stop the practice of finning face an uphill struggle. Views are old and fixed, and there is a lot of money to be made, writes Huo Weiya.
A three-metre, 200-kilogramme nurse shark lay half dead in a tank in a Guangzhou restaurant. The restaurant owners spent 20,000 yuan (US$3,000) to buy it from a seafood market, then advertised in a local newspaper in a bid to attract customers.
When the Chinese animal protection NGO Green Eyes spotted one of the advertisements, it sent several of its employees to pose as restaurant customers – and found that more than 70 people had already made reservations to dine there.
The Green Eyes group petitioned the restaurant to let the shark go, while volunteers protested outside with placards and talked with the restaurant boss. This occasion, in March 2009, marked the first time the group had done anything to protect sharks. Zheng Yuanying, Green Eyes’ project manager, said the restaurant closed its doors when the protest started. Through a slit in the door, the protesters pushed in their petition and a waiter kicked it back out – an exchange that occurred several times.
The case got plenty of news media attention, making the headlines in some papers for three days running. Public opinion forced Guangdong’s fishery authorities to get involved, and a home for the shark was found in the Guangzhou Ocean Park.
While that was one of Green Eyes’ best results last year, shark conservation is not the group’s main focus. So far there is no native Chinese organisation specialising in the cause. Of the international NGOs working in China, US-based WildAid does the most work in shark conservation. In 2004, WildAid opened a Beijing office, working via advertising and public-relations people to advocate protection of sharks. Their slogan – “When the buying stops, the killing can, too” -- is well-known. Many Chinese personalities have acted as spokespeople, and WildAid hopes this will make more people aware of the facts behind shark-fin consumption.
Basketball star Yao Ming filmed a shark-protection advertisement last year, but the first time he acted as a spokesman for WildAid – in 2006 -- he ran into criticism after saying: “I pledge to stop eating shark-fin soup and will not do so under all circumstances.” Several marine-products merchants objected to his comment, complaining that it would impact negatively on the shark-fin market. Companies from China, Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore added their signatures to a joint letter of protest.
Although the consumption of shark fin has long been criticised by animal-protection organisations, high-end restaurants in China all offer shark-fin dishes. It is seen as a simple luxury, popular at weddings, and scarcely anyone asks about shark protection.
Yet the American marine environmental group Oceana published a report in March stating that up to 73 million sharks are killed every year, mainly for their fins – and that many of these are then sold to China. The report from Oceana -- the world’s largest conservation organisation focused solely on marine issues -- was released in Doha, Qatar, during the 15th meeting of signatories to the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).
WildAid director Steve Trent told chinadialogue that “sharks are in trouble”, adding: “Research shows that among the over 400 species of shark that exist at present, the numbers of many species are in the process of declining at a rapid pace; in some cases, this decline is out of control. Records show that the rate of decline among some shark populations is as high as 99%”
At the CITES meeting, a shark-conservation proposal was rejected on March 16. China voted against it, with the country’s delegation asserting that there was no scientific evidence that the fish are endangered and that CITES was not the appropriate platform for discussing the issue. (Indeed, every proposal at Doha to protect marine species – be they sharks, bluefin tuna or corals -- was voted down.) According to Elizabeth Griffin, a marine scientist with Oceana, China opposes shark conservation in part because of the hallowed place that shark-fin soup holds in the country’s culinary tradition.
Fang Minghe, secretary-general of Green Eyes, said that China presently sees the issue from the perspective of the economic value of the shark – and most species are only regarded as ordinary seafood products.
In January, China Central Television’s financial channel broadcast a report on the three-decades-long journey to riches of shark-fin merchants in Puqi, a town in the eastern coastal province of Zhejiang. The single town has dozens of shark-fin processing plants, but the programme focused on that owned by one trader, Wang Xingbiao. His plant can handle 6,000 to 7,000 tonnes of shark fins annually – worth 40 million to 50 million yuan (roughly US$6 million to $7.3 million). This was conservatively estimated as meaning the death of 10,000 sharks.
The report began with an image of a five-meter-long whale shark, weighing one tonne. Wang said it had been caught accidentally in fishing nets, rather than deliberately trapped. But the whale shark is the largest of all sharks and products made from its fin are seen as being of the best quality – so his words should perhaps not be taken at face value.
After the broadcast, the programme set off fierce debate in the online forum FreeOZ. The originator of the topic pointed out that while the world was attempting to save sharks, CCTV was singing the praises of the processing plants and promoting it as an “enriching experience”. Asked the originator: “How could a national TV station be so stupid? I’m speechless.”
(In November of last year, another CCTV channel broadcast “The Men Who Make Money from Sharks” – which also recounted how the shark-fin traders were getting rich.)
Wang explained in the January programme that local coastal fisherman initially caught sharks to eat the meat; there was no market for the fins. But in the 1980s, the market expanded in line with the Chinese economy and the number of people making a living from the trade increased. As business grew, 95% of China-caught sharks were brought to Puqi for processing.
But WildAid’s Trent points out that China also has long been a major importer of shark fin. According to Oceana’s report, nearly 10,000,000 kilogrammes -- 10,000 tonnes -- of shark fins were imported into Hong Kong, the world’s largest single market for the product.
There are big profits to be made in the trade, which is supported by the Chinese people’s attitude to shark fin; it has long been seen as a symbol of riches and status, or as highly nutritious.
Not all Chinese can afford to eat shark fin, of course. Since the first records of its consumption in the Ming dynasty, it has been a delicacy for the rich and powerful. Today it is still the choice of those groups – and is sometimes associated with the corrupt use of public money for wining and dining.
Compared with the fins, there is little value today in the actual shark meat. So, to save room on their boats, fishermen slice off the fins and dump the rest of the shark back into the sea, where the animal dies, either because it can no longer swim or from loss of blood.
This practice is widely denounced, but as the shark products that are consumed in China come mainly from elsewhere, few Chinese people are concerned. A survey carried out across 16 Chinese cities by WildAid and the China Wildlife Conservation Association found that most people who were interviewed were not aware that fish-fin products were made with shark fin. Meanwhile, some believed shark fin has medicinal properties, despite a lack of scientific evidence for this belief. In fact some research shows that shark fin has high levels of harmful substances such as methylmercury, DDT and arsenic.
Views are old and fixed, and there is a lot of money to be made, so it will not be easy to reduce shark-fin consumption in China. Wang Song, a retired researcher with the Chinese Academy of Sciences Institute of Zoology, has worked on animal conservation all his life and has often seen Chinese people eating wild animals, not just shark. He says that contact with the outside world since reform and opening up has changed a lot of attitudes but it will take more than a couple of generations for change to be complete.
A lack of systemic support for changes is another obstacle. Fang Minghe explains that during the Green Eyes campaign to save the nurse shark, he was uncertain about what would happen. The nurse shark has no legal protection in China and all the group could do was make a moral appeal. If the restaurant in Guangzhou had not cooperated, the authorities would have been powerless to act.
Trent says it’s not just China – there is no law anywhere in the world preventing unsustainable shark consumption. He suggests taxing shark fin as a luxury product, thereby reducing consumption and providing funds for government oversight. But the main problem is that there is not enough supervision of shark-fin import and export, as well as consumption, data in many countries, including China.
“No one needs to eat shark fin,” says Trent. “It is a luxury. Even if we do want to eat it, unless we control consumption and make it sustainable, then soon there will be no sharks or shark-fin soup.”
Huo Weiya is operations and development manager for chinadialogue in Beijing.
Yahoo News 18 Jun 10;
PARIS (AFP) – Environmental activists from the Sea Shepherd group said Friday they had "liberated" some 800 bluefin tuna that had been caught by what they described as poachers and were being towed by two fishing vessels off the coast of Libya.
Five scuba divers on Thursday afternoon cut open a circular holding net filled with fish below legal weight and caught after the fishing season closed, Sea Shepherd said in a press release.
The operation was carried out 42 miles (68 kilometres) off the coast of north Africa in waters claimed by Libya, according to the release.
The net was being towed by two boats, the Italian vessel Cesare Rustico and the Libyan vessel Tagreft, it said.
"Sea Shepherd is convinced that this catch was caught after June 14 and they hold the position that this operation by these two vessels was illegal," the statement said.
Activists on the Sea Shepherd vessel Steve Irwin rejected claims by the captain of the Libyan vessel that the fish had been caught three days earlier.
The divers took pictures of their action and posted them on the organisation's website (www.seashepherd.org/news-and-media/news-100617-1.html).
Bluefin tuna have become a major source of controversy. Highly prized in Japan for consumption in sushi, their numbers have fallen dangerously low in the Mediterranean and east Atlantic, say green groups.
Business Times 19 Jun 10;
Without active intervention by government and society, the majesty and fearful symmetry of this magnificent beast may disappear from Indian forests forever. By Prakash Pillai
THE plight of the Indian tiger has never received the sort of publicity that it is currently receiving any time in recent memory. The telecommunications conglomerate Aircel flashes, on a daily basis, an advertisement on the main television channels in India about the dwindling tiger population.
It has employed India's cricket captain M S Dhoni as its ambassador, exhorting the Indian public to save the struggling tiger. There are a variety of daily news items on the state of tiger populations, each day focusing on one of India's 39 tiger reserves, with scoops on recent tiger deaths, corruption and incompetence of forest officials, and interviews with experts and politicians, discussing and analysing solutions to what has become a nightmarish prospect - the extinction of the Indian tiger.
There is no doubt that India's national animal is in deep trouble. According to a 2008 census, there are only 1,411 tigers left in the wild in India, compared with 3,600 tigers a decade ago and over 40,000 a century ago.
In some national parks such as Panna and Sariska, which once had thriving tiger populations, tigers are now officially extinct. Some experts believe that even the figure of 1,411 is exaggerated and that numbers have now dipped below 1,000. Bearing in mind that India is home to over half of the world's tiger population, this does not bode well for the species as a whole.
But India has been in this situation before. In its first ever census conducted in 1972, shocking news emerged that the tiger count was only 1,827. This was largely attributed to widespread poaching - India started banning tiger poaching only in 1970.
The crisis precipitated a government sponsored project known as "Project Tiger", which resulted in the creation of a number of tiger reserves dedicated to the protection of the tiger, as well as core buffer areas: contiguous areas which were freed from human activities to allow for tiger corridors. This lead to significant recovery over time of tiger numbers, the apex period being in 1989, when India's tiger population rose to an impressive 4,334.
Poachers
However, this time, the crisis comes with an even greater bite. The dwindling of tiger numbers has two primary causes. The first primary cause is the old enemy, the poacher. Poachers in India generally belong to impoverished nomadic hunting tribes who traverse the country to hunt tigers and supply tiger parts to traders and smugglers, primarily to satisfy demand in the Chinese market.
A poacher may get up to US$5,000 for a dead tiger, big money in his circumstances. Multiply this 10 times for the trader - the skin of a tiger alone can fetch up to US$35,000 in the Chinese market. Virtually every part of the tiger has commercial value, primarily for the perceived medicinal properties. Some of these claims are manifestly absurd - the brain of a tiger, worth US$2,000, is used to treat laziness, its whiskers, worth US$100 per strand, used to treat toothaches.
The second primary cause is the loss of habitat, resulting in the diminution of prey species and territory for tigers to operate. India produces 20 million new citizens a year, most of this population growth occurring in rural areas, which exist side by side with India's forests, thereby causing lateral expansion of human habitat and consequently deforestation.
The almost weekly reports in the Indian media of human-tiger conflict in rural areas is testimony to this growing problem, as tigers are forced to move closer to humans in search of territory and food. This invariably has tragic consequences as villagers often kill tigers out of self-defence or to protect their livestock.
In addition, the Indian industry's drive to acquire real estate and natural resources, which fuel India's spectacular economic growth, also puts pressure on tiger habitat. Recently, the Indian prime minister personally intervened on this issue by writing to the state government of Maharashtra to request that crucial buffer areas be notified around the Tadoba Reserve to protect a tiger corridor from intrusion by India's coal mining industry.
Does this mark the end of the Indian tiger? There is reason to be optimistic about its future, in view of the currently huge and ever-growing awareness among the Indian public of the need for action to save its beloved national animal.
But reforms still have to take place. One fundamental tenet, mirroring the African approach, is to ensure that there is economic value placed on the tiger's survival. Some experts estimate that an adult tiger can rake in over US$100 million worth of eco-tourism revenue in its lifetime.
Eco-tourism also supports the livelihoods of local communities who then in turn have a stake in the tiger's survival. In this regard, it is difficult to agree with the recent decision by India's National Tiger Authority to phase out tourism in its tiger reserves. Apart from disregarding the obvious economic value, this decision also overlooks the importance of eco-tourism in curtailing poaching, with each vehicle operating as a sort of security unit against such activity.
Other reforms should necessarily include proper forest management and involvement of local communities in anti-poaching activities, use of intelligence and technology to track poachers and monitor tiger populations and protection of forests and buffer areas against urban development.
In terms of curbing the trade in tiger parts, some progress has been made through India's efforts on the diplomatic front, resulting in the recent directive by the Chinese State Forestry Administration to step up action against illegal trade in tiger parts and products.
The fate of the Indian tiger is in the balance. Without active intervention by government and society to save it, we may never see the majesty and fearful symmetry of this magnificent beast in the Indian forests again.
# The writer is a partner in the law firm Rajah & Tann LLP and coordinates the firm's South Asia Practice. He has just returned from a visit to Bandhavgarh National Park, a tiger reserve in Madhya Pradesh
Yahoo News 18 Jun 10;
KATHMANDU (AFP) – Nepal has banned people from cutting down trees for two months after reports of massive deforestation in its lawless southern plains, a government spokesman said Friday.
The government made the ruling after receiving reports that more than 100,000 hectares (250,000 acres) of forest had been razed in the past few months alone, he told AFP.
"We have received reports of tree-felling on a massive scale and illegal trading in forest wood," Information Minister Shankar Pokharel said.
Nepal already has strict laws on the felling of trees, but enforcement is weak -- particularly in the southern belt known as the Terai, where the United Nations says security is deteriorating rapidly.
Pokharel said four officials had been suspended on suspicion of involvement with the illegal timber trade, and the government would now form a committee to investigate the problem.
Nepal relies on wood for around two-thirds of its energy needs, and in the 1970s the government launched a community forest scheme to give people more control over their local woodlands.
The scheme has been successful in preserving tree cover in the central hills, but there are reports of widespread illegal logging in the community forests of the Terai.
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