Eagle ray at oil-slicked Tanah Merah!
from wild shores of singapore
Face to Face with a Stick Mantis
from Macro Photography in Singapore
Along Old Upper Thomson Road Part 1
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature
Butterfly enthusiasts saved an injured White-bellied Sea Eagle
from Bird Ecology Study Group
Antara 6 May 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono plans to sign a presidential decree on a moratorium on forest exploitation this month, Cabinet Secretary Dipo Alam said here on Friday.
"The decree will be signed soon by the President. Yes, after the ASEAN summit," he said after attending the moving of an African Baobab tree to the yard of state University of Indonesia.
He declined to disclose the exact date of the signing of the moratorium on primary forest and peat land forest exploitation, saying only it was the implementation of the Letter of Intent between Indonesia and Norway (Oslo agreement).
"For the details just ask the minister of forestry. They are all the same including size, REDD Plus mechanism, date of signing," he said about points in the decree which were reported to be different in wording from that in the proposal of the forestry ministry and the UN Task Force on REDD.
On the same occasion Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said the signing of the decree would give legal certainty with regard to the implementation of the Oslo agreement.
The forestry ministry, he said, is the party that is intensively preparing the decree according to use of forestry sectors.
He admitted that the preparation had been done since September although the LoI was only made as of January 1, 2011 and would only be effective in the next two years.
"It will indeed be signed in May. Although without a presidential decree the forestry ministry however has already stopped issuing any kind of new license for primary natural forests," he said.
He admitted that under the presidential decree 40 to 50 hectares of primary forests and 12 million peat land forests may not be touched.
"The size has been agreed upon by the UN Task Force for REDD and the presidential decree will ease its implementation in the regions," he said.
The minister said although the LOI would be implemented it would not hinder government efforts in developing industrial forest (HTI) development as part of the country`s economic corridor development and efforts to meet national food needs.
"The HTI must go on. There are still 30 million hectare forest areas that have no forests and 12 million hectares of neglected areas. In principles the development of cane plantations and other efforts to assure food security will continue," he said.
He said the signing of the presidential decree will also be followed by the readiness of financial and funding institutions to implement more than US$1 billion in grant from Norway.
Besides financial institutions there will also be monitoring, reporting and evaluating institutions that would measure the results of efforts in reducing emissions and sustainable forest management in all regions. (*)
Editor: B Kunto Wibisono
WALHI hails planned moratorium on forest clearing
Antara 9 May 11;
Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The Indonesian Environmental Forum (WALHI) has hailed the government`s plan to sign the presidential regulation (Perpres) on forest moratorium this May.
"WALHI supports the moratorium efforts with measurable and clear stages to improve the condition of forests and the environment in Indonesia by prioritizing the people`s safety," Deddy Ratih, executive forest campaign manager of WALHI, said here Monday.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono is expected to sign the presidential regulation on forest moratorium this May as part of the implementation of the Letter of Intent (LOI) between Indonesia and Norway.
Since the government announced the moratorium plan in May 2010, there have been promises and media statement only, while forest clearing has continued massively, he said.
The delay in the implementation of moratorium is caused among other things by conflicts of interests among different sectors and lack of coordination among technical institutions.
The moratorium delay has also indicated that there is no serious will to protect the environment and forests in Indonesia.
WALHI hoped that the planned moratorium could become a starting point to recover the country`s environment for the sake of sustainable development for the future generation.
The planned moratorium should emphasize on banning new forest clearing for major-scale plantation industries and distributing land for farmers as well as developing community forest areas, according to WALHI.
The government should also revoke licenses of forest concession holders which have violated environmental regulations and should turn down carbon offset and carbon market offers which could reduce the country`s sovereignty.
The government is supposed to impose a moratorium on deforestation starting January 2011, but it has been delayed for the last four months.
Immediate implementation of moratorium has been called for especially by environmental NGO activists to protect Indonesia`s remaining 130-million-hectare forest, which is the world`s third largest after Brazil and Congo.
(SYS/F001)
Editor: Suryanto
Brandon Keim Wired Science 6 May 11;
Of all the inadequacies revealed by the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, maybe none is as fundamental as the failure of companies, markets and government to put a price tag on natural assets.
From deep-sea fishing grounds to shallow-water nurseries to hurricane-blunting wetlands, multiple Gulf ecosystems have demonstrable utilitarian and economic value. Yet except for one think tank, nobody has tried to calculate that value.
As a result, the full economic costs and benefits of oil drilling were omitted — and still are — from consideration. Were that value considered, it would change the equations of business. The public might ask oil companies to cover their own risks, just as building contractors post bonds before starting renovations.
“There are precedents in other fields. In the construction industry and mining operations, assurance bonds are frequently used,” said economist Robert Costanza, director of the Institute for Sustainable Solutions at Portland State University. “What it does is force people to think about the liability that’s out there. Once they recognize that, they’ll say, ‘Whoah, the oil companies are externalizing all that risk, and not paying for it.”
Costanza’s specialty is so-called ecosystem services: quantifying the value of natural resources that, unlike mineral deposits or oil fields or timber harvests, are usually taken for granted. It’s a rich academic field, and countries like Costa Rica have used it to guide policy and balance the competing claims of farming and tourism. The European Union has even pledged to turn ecosystem service valuations into policy.
Ecosystem services were not, however, considered by anyone involved in Deepwater Horizon: not corrupt regulators who fast-tracked BP’s experimental deepwater drilling proposals, not negligent wellhead operators, not company officials, not the public. The cost of disaster was both uncalculated and deferred. Even as Deepwater Horizon became one of the nation’s greatest single environmental catastrophes, nobody could put a price tag on it.
A year later, the value of damaged natural assets is being calculated retrospectively and messily — the standard operating procedure for oil spills. People who can demonstrate immediate economic loss, such as fishermen or tour boat operators, can file claims or lawsuits. Environmental damage is determined by the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (.pdf), a sprawling, federally-run process established after the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Under NRDA, spill-caused ecological change is measured and oil companies required to pay for restoration.
NRDA has its strengths and weaknesses, say conservationists. It has a certain you-break-it, you-buy-it fairness, but the science is messy. In the Gulf, it will be hard if not impossible to measure deep-sea and long-term impacts. The process is also susceptible to political influence, and the government may agree to a settlement rather than pressing BP for full compensation.
Even if NRDA is done right, however, it’s not intended to be an ecosystem-valuation tool. It can name the price for restoring an acre of wetlands, but it can’t say how much those wetlands are worth. “You may find studies for particular resources, for particular functions, but I’m not aware of any model that tells you about the Gulf’s services and translates that into values,” said Tony Penn, an economist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Damage Assessment Center.
According to Penn, NOAA doesn’t have the resources to support ecosystem service valuation. Without it, the public is left with a paradox: Gulf residents benefit economically from their ecology, but that ecology is exempt from official and corporate consideration. As pressure in Congress — which has completely ignored the National Oil Spill Commission’s post-Deepwater recommendations — mounts to expand deepwater drilling and make it even harder to regulate, the public again stands to inherit the risk by default.
“In many other parts of society, we require private interests to buy insurance to deal with the risks they impose on the public,” wrote Costanza and a group of economists and ecologists in a June 2010 article in Solutions. “The Deepwater Horizon incident, like the banking crisis, resulted from inadequate attention to the risks that the public was left to bear. Precautionary measures were known but not taken. Investments in safety devices, like the acoustic blowout-preventer, were not made. Corners were cut. Short-term private profits motivated taking high risks with public assets.”
That article was a followup to the researchers’ attempt to put a value on Mississippi Delta ecology. They pegged the annual worth of its services — fresh water, waste treatment, storm mitigation, carbon sequestration, fish and animal habitat — at between $12 billion and $47 billion. An acre of brackish wetland is worth at least $2,700 per year; an acre of forested wetland is worth at least $3200 per year; and so on.
Were the Mississippi Delta considered as a revenue-generating company, it would be valued at between $339 billion and $1.3 trillion. Most of that value was concentrated in wetlands areas near the Mississippi’s mouth, not far from where the Deepwater Horizon blowout occurred.
Costanza’s group recommended formal ecosystem service valuations for the Gulf. From this, the cost of worst-case-disasters could be calculated, and companies required to post “assurance bonds” large enough to cover those damages. The bond would be used to pay whatever damages did occur, and the remainder returned after a project’s completion. Environmental costs would be part of the original market equation, not an afterthought.
“If oil companies that want to drill have to post a bond large enough to cover the costs of their actions, it would provide the right incentives for them to do things differently,” said Costanza. “They would have to find a way to drill safely and convince us to lower the bond.”
Valuing ecosystem services would have another beneficial effect: forcing attention to important but generally low-profile issues, such as the Gulf of Mexico’s dead zone, which is caused by farm waste draining into the Mississippi watershed. Attempts to fix it are invariably met with opposition from the agriculture industry, which cites the financial costs of reform. The dead zone also has costs, but those aren’t calculated now, said Cynthia Sartou, executive director of the Gulf Restoration Network.
“It’s one of the biggest dead zones in the world, yet it doesn’t get a lot of attention,” said Sartou. “I’ve worked on marine issues for 15 years. If you can’t see it, if you can’t put an economic value on it, then politically it’s difficult to push an issue against any sort of controversy.”
“Make the market tell the truth,” said Costanza. “It’s not right now. The market is lying to us.”
Yahoo News 6 May 11;
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Climate change has stunted the worldwide increase in corn and wheat yields since 1980 by 3.8 and 5.5 percent respectively, according to a new study in the journal Science.
Without global warming, total harvests of both crops would have been significantly larger than they were, the statistical analysis found.
The shortfall equals the annual yield of corn in Mexico, some 23 metric tonnes, and wheat in France, about 33 metric tonnes.
One of the country's with the largest crop loss was Russia, where wheat production fell some 15 percent.
The study estimates that the global drop-off in production may have caused a six percent hike in consumer food prices since 1980, some $60 billion per year.
Net impact on rice and soybean was insignificant, with gains in some countries balancing losses in others, according to the study.
The researchers, led by David Lobell of Stanford University, noted one "startling exception": the United States isn't getting hotter, nor are its crop yields less than they might have been without climate change.
"The results are a reminder that while the relationship between crop production and climate change is obvious on a global scale, models that zoom in... on a country-by-country basis won't necessarily see the same effects," the researchers said in a press release.
To carry out the study, Lobell and colleagues compared two mathematical models, one tracking actual increases in temperatures and the other projecting 1980 temperatures over the next three decades.
Cereal Killer: Climate Change Stunts Growth of Global Crop Yields
A crop-yield analysis reveals that warming temperatures have already diminished the rate of production growth for major cereal crop harvests during the past three decades
David Biello Scientific American 5 May 11;
The people of the world get 75 percent of their sustenance—either directly, or indirectly as meat—from four crops: maize (corn), wheat, rice and soybeans. The world's rising population—now predicted by the United Nations to reach 10.1 billion by century's end—has been fed thanks to rising yields of all four of these crops during the past century. Humanity's predilection for burning fossil fuels, however, is now contributing to the slowing of such rising yields, cutting harvests of wheat 5.5 percent and maize 3.8 percent from what they could have been since 1980, according to a new analysis of yields.
"On a global scale, we can see pretty clearly significant changes in the weather for most places where we grow crops," explains agricultural scientist David Lobell of Stanford University's Woods Institute for the Environment, who led the analysis published in the May 6 issue of Science. "Those changes are big enough to sum up to pretty big losses for wheat and corn."
Using U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization data going back to 1980 for crop yields in all major crop-growing regions of the world, and pairing that with temperature and precipitation data for their growing seasons, Lobell and his colleagues found that warming temperatures were reducing yields—although changes in precipitation did not appear to be having an effect, yet.
Those temperature changes are the result of increasing concentrations of atmospheric greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide (CO2), largely as a result of burning fossil fuels and agricultural practices. But CO2 also helps rice, soybeans and wheat grow. In fact, the researchers suggest the extra CO2 boosted yields for these crops by roughly 3 percent during the period studied. Unfortunately, in the case of wheat, that wasn't enough to overcome the loss in yields resulting from warming temperatures. "Temperature effects are already overriding CO2 effects," Lobell notes.
Of course, this loss of yield translates directly into food prices, which have been rocketing upward in recent months and years. The new analysis suggests that the climate-related yield loss has contributed as much as 18.9 percent to the average price of a given crop during the period of the study. Climate change "is not disastrous but it's a multibillion-dollar-per-year effect already," Lobell says.
More troubling, further climate change is already locked in: Current CO2 levels imply warming of at least another degree Celsius by 2100. That means areas that have not been affected to date, such as the "corn belt" of the U.S., may soon see the same or worse impacts. "No climate change [in the U.S. corn belt] meant productivity improvements all went to increased yields. By contrast, in Europe the improvements [in yield] went to counteracting the effects of higher temperature," says agricultural economist Gerald Nelson of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), who was not involved in the study but found it convincing. "We need to think seriously about breeding crops for dealing with higher temperatures."
Already, agricultural companies such as Monsanto are investing in developing such strains for maize and soybeans, but that leaves less profitable wheat and rice at the mercy of shrinking public sector agricultural research budgets. "Working on a trait like drought resistance is more complex than introducing a trait like insect resistance," says plant breeder Robert Reiter, vice president of biotechnology at Monsanto. "We don't have a lot of genes [to work with] that help produce more grain under water stress."
Nevertheless, Monsanto plans to begin field trials of such a hybrid corn next year, and hopes to introduce it for sale as early as 2013. "Our first gene close to commercialization—what it seems to be doing is helping the plant basically maintain more normal metabolic levels as opposed to trying to shut those processes down under stress," Reiter explains. "We may be taking [genetic] leads from corn and putting them into wheat to help it be drought tolerant and high-yielding."
But IFPRI's Nelson also noted that extreme weather at "fragile points" in a crop's growing cycle, such as high temperatures during the few weeks of flowering in maize and rice plants, could have big impacts. "There are these narrow windows where a small spike in temperature can have a big effect…. Agronomists know these sensitivities but they haven't been looking at them in the context of future climate change."
Adapting agriculture to face a hotter—and potentially drier—future has become a necessity. "We're not saying the sky is falling and food is becoming scarcer and scarcer," Lobell adds. "But there's a real drag on food production from climate change already."
Spider hunters
from The annotated budak
Chinese Pond Herons - breeding plumage, feeding and panting
from Bird Ecology Study Group
plantain squirrel @ SBWR 30Apr2011
from sgbeachbum
Sea Fans! In Singapore?
from Biodiversity Singapore
Fishy again at oil-slicked Tanah Merah
from wild shores of singapore
Reuters 5 May 11;
HANOI May 5 (Reuters) - Communist Laos called on Thursday for trust on a controversial dam across the lower Mekong river that has sparked strong opposition from its neighbours and environmental groups.
In a rare direct comment from the secretive country, Khempheng Pholsena, chairwoman of the Laos National Mekong Committee and a government minister, said the Xayaburi Dam would be "socially and environmentally sustainable".
"Trust Laos," she told reporters in Hanoi on the sidelines of an annual meeting of the Asian Development Bank.
"We take the concern seriously. Please give us time," she added. Plans for the dam have put Laos on a collision course with its neighbours and environmentalists who fear livelihoods, fish species and farmland could be destroyed, potentially sparking a food crisis.
Last month the four countries that share the lower stretches of the 4,900 km (3,044 mile) Mekong -- Laos, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam -- failed at a meeting to reach agreement on construction of the 1.285-megawatt (MW) dam, the first of 11 planned in the lower Mekong that are expected to generate 8 percent of Southeast Asia's power by 2025.
Vietnam, which has long been the closest ally Laos has, last month asked it to delay the $3.5 million project by 10 years.
The Lao government has hailed Xayaburi as a model for clean, green energy that will stimulate its tiny $6 billion economy and improve the lives of its 5.9 million people, over a quarter of whom live below the poverty line, many without electricity.
Its energy-hungry neighbour, Thailand, will buy about 95 percent of the power generated by the dam and three Thai firms have a stake in the project, according to an announcement on Thailand's stock exchange last month.
Pholsena said Laos had faced opposition to another dam project, the Nam Theun hydropower plant, but had laid concerns to rest, and would do the same again.
Laos needed to be "strong and stand on its own feet", she said. (Reporting by Tran Le Thuy; Editing by John Ruwitch and Robert Birsel)
Bruce Gale Straits Times 6 May 11;
INDONESIA'S Minister for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries Fadel Muhammad has big plans. He wants to create a 'blue revolution' in Indonesia that will make the country the world's largest fish producer by 2014. That's a tall order. According to the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation, China produced 47.5 million tonnes of fish in 2008, while India produced about 7.6 million tonnes. The comparative figure for Indonesia was just 6.7 million tonnes.
The term 'blue revolution' refers to an anticipated leap in aquatic productivity that many hope will rival the green revolution. The latter involved a surge in grain yields across Asia in the 1950s and 1960s that supported the rising populations of that era. Higher fish production in Indonesia now would certainly help boost food supplies at a time when climate change has contributed to shortages. But is the surge in productivity Mr Fadel is planning really possible?
The minister's optimism is based at least partly on the fact that Indonesia is a sprawling archipelago. 'Wherever you have water, you have fish, and two-thirds of our country is water,' he told the Wall Street Journal last month.
But there is little consensus on just how much potential remains to be exploited. According to Mr Fadel's own ministry, of the 11 fishing regions in the country, only the Arafura Sea (between Australia and New Guinea) remains underexploited. The most overfished areas include the North Java Sea, the Malacca Strait and the East Kalimantan Sea. Inevitably, this has had an impact on fishermen's incomes.
Late last year, the minister admitted as much, noting that fishermen along the north coast of Java earn an average of only 800,000 rupiah (S$115) a month. This is only half what their counterparts in Gorontalo province on Sulawesi island get.
Even so, there are those who believe that, with the right infrastructure in place, higher production levels are possible. According to Mr Purwito Martosubroto, the chairman of Indonesia's Tuna Commission, Indonesia's ability to become one of the world's leading tuna producers has been hampered by insufficient investment.
He points out that not only do the country's waters provide an ideal habitat for tuna due to their high salinity levels, but Indonesia is also close to Japan - the world's main tuna market. But 'tuna products cannot be shipped directly to Japan because of transportation problems'.
Illegal fishing by foreign fishing fleets is yet another longstanding issue limiting Indonesian fish production. Unfortunately, it is not something the fisheries ministry can do very much about. Officials in Jakarta estimate that the country loses around 30 trillion rupiah a year as a result of fish poaching. But despite efforts by the Indonesian navy, the problem remains.
Mr Fadel's main hope for an increase in fish production probably lies in aquaculture. Speaking to the media in January, the minister said that the government intended to focus its attention on 41 'minapolitan' (fish cities) across the country, 24 of which would concentrate on fish farming. One of these is in the Kampar district on the western island of Sumatra. The district's Koto Panjang Lake already has more than 2,000 floating fish cages where farmers raise millions of tilapia, carp, and catfish.
In an attempt to double national output, the ministry says it intends to send thousands of fishing experts to train local fish farmers across the country in how to get their products to market and deal with various diseases. The latter is particularly important. Industry sources say that many fish produced on Asian farms contain dangerous toxins and antibiotics, the result of treating fish kept in dirty water in overcrowded conditions. In Kampar, fisheries officials have responded by setting up a testing facility with new equipment from Europe to diagnose fish illnesses and evaluate water quality.
But not all problems can be handled by the fisheries ministry. One example is the traffic jams along the edge of the Koto Panjang Lake as trucks arrive to pick up the fish.
The ministry is also trying to promote the fish processing industry. Last August, Mr Fadel designated the fishing port of Tual in Maluku as an 'integrated fishery city', with the expectation of it developing cold storage facilities and related industries.
The waters around Maluku are considered promising for fishing, with large populations of squid, lobster, shrimp and other fish. As in Kampar, however, infrastructure remains an important constraint. As Deputy Industry Minister Alex Retraubun has pointed out: 'If power blackouts happen repeatedly in Ambon (the provincial capital), how can the fish-processing industry develop?'
It was a good point. The success of Mr Fadel's programme is heavily dependent upon the ability of other ministries and government departments to resolve a wide range of longstanding national weaknesses. The blue revolution may just have to wait.
James Painter BBC News 5 May 11
Several months ago, parts of the Amazon rainforest were in the grip of one of the most severe droughts on record.
River levels were at historic lows and the impact on wildlife was severe.
The number of pink river dolphins in a remote part of the Peruvian Amazon dropped by nearly half in October compared with 2009, as the level of the Samiria River, a major tributary of the Amazon, fell.
Along a 20km (12 mile) stretch of the river, a population of 250 declined to about 140.
But now a team of conservation experts working in the region has found that many species have recovered more quickly than expected.
This includes the pink dolphins, which, according to surveys conducted in March, have seen their numbers increased by nearly 10%, compared to the same period last year, prior to the drought.
The number of grey dolphins is also up from March 2010 - by 30%.
"This is a very good sign and suggests that the Samiria River is recovering from the drought of 2010," says Dr Richard Bodmer from the University of Kent, who has published extensively on the area for the last 25 years.
The research is being carried out in the Pacaya Samiria national reserve in the upper reaches of the Amazon, an area covering more than 20,000 sq km (700 sq miles).
It falls within one of the three regions worst affected by the 2010 drought, when parts of the Amazon and its tributaries reached their lowest levels for half a century.
"This reserve is a flooded forest, where we get high levels and low levels in the rivers every year," says Dr Bodmer.
"But the 2010 drought and the record floods the previous year were much worse."
Now the water levels are extremely high again and local officials have declared a state of emergency.
"We are being hit on both sides - extremely high levels of water or droughts," says Dr Bodmer.
Dr Bodmer and his team of Peruvian researchers, backed up by volunteers from the conservation organisation Earthwatch, are monitoring the effect of these weather extremes on the pink dolphins and other wildlife.
Smoker's cough
Conservationists regard pink dolphins as a remarkable species - partly for their colour, which no-one can explain for sure.
But they are also the only species of dolphin able to move their neck horizontally as well as vertically. This enables them to find their way underwater between tree roots.
Several of them played around the boat when we visited a favourite spot of theirs on the River Samiria in late March.
You could glimpse sudden movements of pink, but it was easier to hear them than see them. They expel air loudly like old men with a smoker's cough.
They are apparently curious and intelligent, like their distant cousins the sea dolphins. Between 10 million and 20 million years ago, their ancestors were trapped when this region of the Amazon formed part of a large inland sea area.
Other species appear to have recovered well, too, but the picture is not entirely positive.
Chestnut-fronted macaws had apparently left the reserve or died in significant numbers during the 2010 drought. The latest figures suggest their numbers have recovered strongly now that the rivers are back to high levels.
However, the spectacled caiman, a smaller relation of the crocodile, continues to be a cause for concern. Its numbers in the first three months of 2011 were still 60% lower than in 2010.
Several communities of Cocama Indians live on the river banks of the Samiria within the reserve. They are still talking about last year's drought, and fear it may be repeated in the future.
Tedy Yuyarima, a 42-year-old shaman from San Martin de Tipishca, says the drought was the worst he has ever known.
"Our community depends on fish like the piranha both to eat and sell," he says.
"During the drought it was very difficult to travel for several months because the river was so low. We had to push our boats through less than 20cm of water."
The fish were left stranded in packed, rotting piles. The cormorants and other birds just picked out the best flesh and left the rest.
"We couldn't eat the fish as they had infected abscesses," says Mr Yuyarima.
Multiple threats
The community is still worried the fish stocks may not build up again in 2011. But the early signs from Dr Bodmer's team suggest that fish numbers are recovering.
The Cocama Indians are involved in projects to manage the forest in a sustainable way, but extreme weather makes this more difficult, says Mr Yuyarima.
A team of British and Brazilian researchers recently confirmed that the 2010 Amazon drought was more widespread than the one in 2005, which was regarded as "a once in a century event".
The two droughts have been associated with warmer waters in the North Atlantic off the Brazilian coast, caused by warmer global temperatures.
Some computer models suggest that the Amazon could suffer more droughts as the planet warms.
"We cannot ignore these larger global events, which are impacting the local ecosystems and people here, and testing the resilience of the wildlife," says Dr Bodmer.
"At the moment, these impacts worry me, but they are not as dramatic as they could be. But if these weather extremes continue in the future, this will change."
Yahoo News 6 May 11;
TOKYO (AFP) – Fishermen in Japan's dolphin-hunting town of Taiji have extended their catch season by one month and this week caught some 60 long-finned pilot whales, according to a local official.
Every year the town's fishermen corral about 2,000 dolphins into a secluded bay, select a few dozen for sale to aquariums and slaughter the rest for meat, a practice long deplored by animal rights campaigners.
The picturesque town in Wakayama prefecture, western Japan, drew global attention after "The Cove", a hard-hitting film about the annual hunts, won the Academy Award for best documentary in 2010.
This catch season began in September and was due to end in April.
"But we resumed the hunt after the Wakayama government extended its permission by one month until the end of May following a poor catch this year," a Taiji Fisheries Cooperative official told AFP by telephone on Friday.
Some 60 long-finned pilot whales, an oceanic dolphin species, were caught on Wednesday and auctioned off Thursday, said the official.
Animal rights activist Scott West of the group Sea Shepherd Conservation Society reported on the catch in a blog post.
"The pilot whales in the Cove did not quietly go to their deaths," he wrote, describing how more than 20 of the animals were killed. "They fought as best they could, churning up the water and dashing on the rocks."
Meanwhile, Taiji fishermen gave up whale hunts in nearby waters this year and instead sent their whaling vessel to Kushiro, Hokkaido, replacing a whaling ship from another port that was destroyed in the March 11 tsunami.
Japan hunts whales under a loophole to a global moratorium that allows killing the sea mammals for what it calls "scientific research", although the meat is later sold openly in shops and restaurants.
In late April, Japanese whalers launched their annual coastal hunt in Kushiro with five crew from the tsunami-devastated whaling town of Ayukawa joining their first voyage since the massive quake and tsunami struck.
BBC News 5 May 11;
Consumers are not being given enough information on labels to allow them to make the choice to buy sustainable fish, according to conservationists.
The Marine Conservation Society (MCS) said it is still "virtually impossible to tell precisely where most fish and fish products have been caught".
But the British Retail Consortium said retailers do "give consumers as much information as possible".
The MCS's views come amid the launch of its new website aimed at consumers.
Where labelling by retailers is concerned, the MCS said information that is more detailed than the species, the ocean it comes from and the fishing method is needed to help people discriminate between sustainable and unsustainable seafood.
The MCS has published comprehensive updated advice on buying fish caught from sustainably managed stocks.
The latest advice issued by the conservationists shows improvements in the management and status of stocks in some fisheries, including cod from the eastern and western Baltic and the north-east Arctic, and anchovies from the Bay of Biscay.
However, the situation has worsened where other fish are concerned.
Dover sole caught by the destructive method of beam trawling in the western English Channel, the Irish Sea and south-west and west Ireland has been listed as a fish to avoid.
And consumers have also been urged to avoid yellowfin tuna caught using purse seine nets or long lines in the Indian Ocean.
But eating skipjack tuna caught using poles and lines in the Western Atlantic has the green light thanks to improvements in data on the stocks.
Dr Peter Duncan, of the MCS, said: "If supermarkets could get their produce from well-managed fisheries and label it as such, it opens up new opportunities for the public and fishermen. It's a win-win."
He added: "The use of a traffic light system to indicate the nutritional value of supermarket produce is now well-established. However the labelling of fish and fish products sold in supermarkets has not kept up.
Sutainable fish 'importance'
"It is still virtually impossible to tell precisely where most fish and fish products have been caught."
But Andrew Opie, the British Retail Consortium's food director, said retailers know the importance of sustainable fish to their customers.
"They're doing everything they can to source sustainable produce and give consumers as much information as possible," he said.
"Supermarket customers are already told the species of fish they're buying, how it was caught and the region it came from - much more information than is provided by most of the catering industry, for example.
Mr Opie also scrutinised the term "sustainable".
He said: "What is meant by 'sustainable' fish changes all the time, depending on stocks, the environment, and which pressure group you listen to.
"A raft of different interpretations among environmentalists lies behind much of the confusion, not the labelling provided by supermarkets."
The conservation group is also urging people to vary the type of fish they buy, as the majority of sales focus on just five species - tuna, cod, salmon, prawns and haddock.
The MCS said fish such as pollack, gurnard, coley, dab, sprats were all tasty alternatives.
And consumers are being urged to avoid some fish altogether, such as eels and bluefin tuna.
The conservation group has launched a Good Fish Guide website to make it easier for people to shop for sustainable seafood in supermarkets and restaurants.
The more comprehensive Fish Online website used by the public, chefs and industry, has also been updated.
Scientists warn that farming practices must be adapted to a warmer world and rises in global population
Damian Carrington guardian.co.uk 5 May 11;
Global warming has already harmed the world's food production and has driven up food prices by as much as 20% over recent decades, new research has revealed.
The drop in the productivity of crop plants around the world was not caused by changes in rainfall but was because higher temperatures can cause dehydration, prevent pollination and lead to slowed photosynthesis.
Lester Brown, president of the Earth Policy Institute, Washington DC, said the findings indicate a turning point: "Agriculture as it exists today evolved over 11,000 years of reasonably stable climate, but that climate system is no more." Adaptation is difficult because our knowledge of the future is not strong enough to drive new investments, he said, "so we just keep going, hoping for the best."
The scientists say their work shows how crucial it is to find ways to adapt farming to a warmer world, to ensure that rises in global population are matched by rising food production. "It is vital," said Wolfram Schlenker, at Columbia University in New York and one of the research team. "If we continue to have the same seed varieties and temperatures continue to rise, then food prices will rise further. [Addressing] that is the big question."
The new research joins a small number of studies in which the fingerprint of climate change has been separated from natural variations in weather and other factors, demonstrating that the effects of warming have already been felt in the world. Scientists have shown that the chance of the severe heatwave that killed thousands in Europe in 2003 was made twice as likely by global warming, while other work showed that the floods that caused £3.5bn of damage in England in 2000 were made two to three times more likely.
Food prices have reached new record highs this year, and have been implicated as a trigger for unrest in the Middle East and Africa. A rising appetite for meat is a critical factor, said Wolfram. "We actually have enough calories to feed the world quite comfortably, the problem is meat is really inefficient," as many kilogrammes of grain are needed to produce one kilogramme of meat, he said. "As countries get richer and have a preference for meat, which is more expensive, they price people in poorer countries out of the market."
"The research provides evidence of big shifts in wheat and maize production," commented Prof Tim Wheeler at the Walker Institute for Climate System Research, Reading University, UK, who added it had involved "heroic" statistical analysis. But he said that, while long-term climate change impacts were another pressure on food prices, short-term price spikes were linked to extreme weather events, such as the Russian heatwaves and wildfires in 2010.
The study, published in the journal Science, examined how rising temperatures affected the annual crop yields of all major producer nations between 1980 and 2008. Computer models were used to show how much grain would have been harvested in the absence of warming. Overall, yields have been rising over the last decades and the models took this into account. The scientists found that global wheat production was 33m tonnes (5.5%) lower than it would have been without warming and maize production was 23m tonnes (3.8%) lower. Specific countries fared worse than the average, with Russia losing 15% of its potential wheat crop, and Brazil, Mexico and Italy suffering above average losses. Some countries experienced lower production of rice and soybeans, although these drops were offset by gains in other countries.
The losses drove up food prices by as much as 18.9%, the team calculated, although the rise could be as low as 6.4% if the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere strongly boosts plant growth and yields - a factor that is not well understood by scientists.
Global food prices have risen by about 200% in recent years, says Schlenker. Other causes of the rise are the increased demand for meat and the diversion of food into biofuels. Nonetheless, the researchers conclude that the negative impact on crops overall is "likely to be incurring large economic and health costs".
The US, which has the world's largest share of overall production, stood out in the analysis because it appears to have lost no production to climate change as yet. Schlenker said this was because the rise in temperature there was very small compared to other parts of the world. This was perhaps due simply to luck with the weather, or the cooling influence of aerosol particles, such as soot, that blocks warming.
"US farmers are having a good time in the sense that their yields have not been impacted much and prices have been pretty high, so for them it has been pretty profitable," he said. "But most climate models predict that eventually the US will warm."
Adapting farming to climate change could involved moving to cooler areas as existing areas warm, said Schlenker, but often soils are poorer in the new locations. He highlighted the potential of biotechnology - genetic engineering - to develop new crop varieties that are more resistant to heat, but said the potential remains unproven. "What happens over the next 20 years depends on how optimistic you are about finding those extra ways of adapting."
Yahoo News 5 May 11;
ROME (AFP) – World food prices remained almost stable in April, though tension surrounded cereal prices and climate conditions in coming months will be decisive, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation said Thursday.
After a drop in March following a run of higher prices for eight months, the FAO Food Price Index "averaged 232 points in April, little changed from March, (but) it was still 36 percent above April 2010 and only two percent below its peak in February 2011," the Rome-based body said in a report.
In April, the prices of rice, sugar and dairy products declined, while those of meat and oil and fatty products were "mostly unchanged," but the price of most cereals went up, particularly wheat and maize.
Overall, the FAO cereal price index was 5.5 percent higher than in March, drawn upwards because maize prices rose 11 percent and wheat increased by four percent "as a result of unfavourable weather and planting delays. But large export supplies kept rice prices under downward pressure," the report said.
"A sliding dollar and increased oil prices are contributing to high food commodity prices, particularly grains," said David Hallam, the director of the FAO's trade and marketing division.
"With demand continuing strong, prospects for a return to more normal prices depend largely on how much production will increase in 2011 and how much grain reserves are replenished in the new season."
Any prospect of rising food prices leads to fears of renewed food riots of the kind that affected several African countries in 2008 and which have also taken place in Haiti and the Philippines.
The FAO warned that "world cereal stocks for the crop seasons ending in 2011 are forecast to decline to their lowest level since 2008, mostly due to depleting coarse grain inventories." However, "the wheat stock-to-use radio will remain relatively comfortable, while rice inventories are even expected to rise."
"Although the early outlook for cereal production in 2011 is good, weather in the coming months will be critical," said FAO grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian. "Production prospects for 2010 were extremely favourable at this time last year but unfavourable weather conditions between July and October changed that outlook drastically."
"Among all the cereals, maize is the most worrisome," Abbassian noted. "This year we would need above-average, if not record, yields in the United States for the maize situation to improve, but maize plantings so far have been delayed considerably due to cool and wet conditions on the ground."
Global food prices hold steady
But cereals markets remain tight
FAO 5 May 11;
5 May 2011, Rome - Food prices remained virtually steady in April after falling in March following eight months of successive increases, FAO announced today.
However, while the FAO Food Price Index averaged 232 points in April, little changed from March, it was still 36 percent above April 2010 and only two percent below its peak in February 2011.
A fall in sugar prices and a decline in rice helped stabilize the index, but international prices of nearly all other food commodities remained firm.
"A sliding dollar and increased oil prices are contributing to high food commodity prices, particularly grains," said David Hallam Director of FAO's Trade and Market Division. "With demand continuing strong, prospects for a return to more normal prices hinge largely on how much production will increase in 2011 and how much grain reserves are replenished in the new season."
Wheat and maize prices rise
There was little change in the index because although international grain prices increased sharply in April, the rise was more than offset by declines in dairy, sugar, and rice, while oils and meat prices were mostly unchanged.
The FAO Cereal Price Index averaged 265 points, up 5.5 percent from March and 71 percent from April 2010. Maize prices rose 11 percent and wheat increased four percent in April 2011 as a result of unfavourable weather and planting delays. But large export supplies kept rice prices under downward pressure.
The FAO Oils/Fats Price Index, which had fallen by seven percent in March, was nearly unchanged in April.
The FAO Sugar Price Index averaged nearly 348 points, down seven percent from March and 17 percent below its January record.
The FAO Dairy Price Index averaged 229 points, down 2.4 percent from March. A good start of the northern hemisphere season has kept prices from rising after seven months of steady growth.
The FAO Meat Price Index, although at a record level, remained stable as compared to a revised estimate of 172 points in March.
Cereal market to remain tight
Latest indications point to a recovery in world cereal production in 2011 in response to high prices providing more normal weather conditions prevail. World wheat production is expected to increase by 3.5 percent and rice by three percent.
But world cereal stocks for the crop seasons ending in 2011 are forecast to decline to their lowest level since 2008, mostly due to depleting coarse grain inventories. Global wheat inventories are forecast to decrease too, but the wheat stock-to-use ratio will remain relatively comfortable, while rice inventories are even expected to rise.
"Although the early outlook for cereal production in 2011 is good, weather in the coming months will be critical," said FAO grain analyst Abdolreza Abbassian. "Production prospects for 2010 were extremely favourable at this time last year but unfavourable weather conditions between July and October changed that outlook drastically.
"Among all the cereals, maize is the most worrisome," Abbassian noted. "This year we would need above-average, if not record, yields in the United States for the maize situation to improve but maize plantings so far have been delayed considerably due to cool and wet conditions on the ground."
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