Birdwatching at Bukit Brown with Dr Ho Hua Chew
from Rojak Librarian
Questionable patterns
from The annotated budak
111212 Tanah Merah
from Singapore Nature
Red crab spiders prey on dipteran larvae in slender pitchers Trina’s honours research published in the Journal of Tropical Ecology from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
WSA 2012 Seagrass Calendar
from World Seagrass Association
Reuters 13 Dec 11;
Abu Dhabi (united Arab Emirates) / Nairobi — How many mangroves does it take to offset a transatlantic flight? What consumer actions can we take to reduce damage to rainforests?
Answers to these questions and many more are provided by a new iPhone application launched by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) at the Eye on Earth summit in Abu Dhabi today.
The UNEP application draws attention to the critical role played by ecosystems such as salt marshes, mangroves, tropical forests and seagrasses in tackling climate change.
Users of the application can calculate their personal carbon footprint for journeys taken by air, train or road. They will then be shown the equivalent area of a particular ecosystem (such as a tropical forest) that can store this amount of carbon dioxide.
The free iPhone application, named Blue and REDD Carbon, is already available online in English, Arabic, Chinese, French, Japanese, Russian and Spanish.
Blue and REDD Carbon
The iPhone application provides users with in-depth information on the vital role of coastal and terrestrial ecosystems in both storing and sequestering carbon.
The Blue Carbon concept aims to promote better management of coastal ecosystems such as mangrove forests, seagrass meadows, saltwater marshlands, which serve as vital 'carbon sinks', and can store, in the case of mangrove forests, up to 1,900 tons of carbon dioxide per hectare.
Information on other key climate initiatives, such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) is provided.
The UNEP application also highlights the valuable natural services provided by ecosystems, such as the protection of shorelines from storms, support for fisheries and provision of materials such as timber and medicine.
According to UNEP's Forests in a Green Economy report, released earlier this year, forest ecosystems provide more than a billion people with incomes and employment and contribute approximately US$ 468 billion to the global economy. Equatorial rainforests also contain around half of all plant and animal species known on Earth.
Yet many of these vital ecosystems are disappearing at an alarming rate, due to deforestation, pollution from agricultural run-off, water diversion and other factors.
The Blue and REDD Carbon application provides a variety of suggestions and guidelines to show how individual actions (such as buying sustainably-sourced fish) can help limit the environmental degradation of coastal and terrestrial ecosystems.
One UN Pavilion at Eye on Earth
The application was launched during the official opening of the One UN Pavillion at the Eye on Earth Summit in Abu Dhabi. The four-day event, organized by the Abu Dhabi Global Environmental Data Initiative (AGEDI) and hosted by the Abu Dhabi Environment Agency in partnership with UNEP, brings together experts from the worlds of philanthropy, business, government, data engineering and technology to address issues around access to environmental data and knowledge.
The summit is set to deliver a declaration towards the United Nations Conference on Sutainable Development (Rio+20), which will be held in Brazil in June 2012.
The One UN Pavillion at Eye on Earth will display information illustrating the work of the United Nations in the area of environmental data and its application in a wide variety of settings, such as environmental assessment work, humanitarian responses and peace building. Interactive exhibits will present visitors with a wide variety of scientific data on climate change, hazardous wastes and substances, ecosystems management and other topics.
The Global Pulse, the UN Secretary-General's technology for development initiative, will also be highlighted. Global Pulse functions as an innovation laboratory, bringing together expertise from UN agencies, governments, academia, and the private sector to research, develop, test and share tools and approaches for harnessing real-time data for more effective and efficient policy action.
Elly Burhaini Faizal, The Jakarta Post 14 Dec 11;
Aceh may soon lose part of its forests with the granting of a concession for commercial use to a private company by Aceh Governor Irwandi Yusuf, a decision that jeopardizes the moratorium on forest clearing, a watchdog says.
The permit issued to PT Kallista Alam to convert the protected peatland forest for use as a palm oil plantation had been legalized, thanks to the first revision of the indicative map set out in the moratorium, Elfian Effendi, the executive director of Greenomics Indonesia, said on Tuesday.
The revision, adopted in a Forestry Minister Decree that was issued on Nov. 22, allows for the issuance of permits to log and convert primary forests and peatland areas, he said.
“This revision of the indicative moratorium map has deleted one block of peatland that was already included within the palm plantation concessions of PT Kallista Alam,” Elfian told The Jakarta Post.
The permit, allowing PT Kallista Alam to develop oil palm plantations on a 1,605-hectare plot of protected peatland forest in the Nagan Raya district, which is part of the Leuser ecosystem, was signed by Irwandi on Aug. 25.
The forest was initially included in the indicative moratorium map issued on June 17. However, sheet 0519 of the first revision of the indicative moratorium map (officially published on the ministry’s website on Dec. 8) shows the areas are no longer protected.
“It has been deleted from the revised moratorium map,” Elfian said.
Greenomics Indonesia has urged Kuntoro Mangkusubroto as the chairman of the Reducing Emissions for Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD) scheme to tell the public about the irregularities.
“It shows that the implementation of the moratorium has not been well organized. It lacks synergy and coordination. This is quite an embarrassment,” he said.
The issuance of the permit also drew strong criticism from other environmental organizations both in Indonesia and abroad.
Kuntoro, who is also the head of the Presidential Work Unit for Development Monitoring and Control (UKP4), a body which monitors the implementation of the moratorium, criticized Irwandi’s decision to issue the concession to PT Kallista Alam.
“I spent four years in Aceh during the tsunami reconstruction. Opening up the Kuala Tripa — an area with high conservation value and home to many animals endemic to Indonesia — is a grave mistake,” Kuntoro said last week as quoted by Reuters. He also urged the Aceh provincial administration to reexamine the decision and seek an alternative location.
Eivind Homme, Norway’s ambassador to Indonesia, has called on the government to investigate the case.
During a recent interview, Forestry Ministry secretary-general Hadi Daryanto told the Post that the government would impose sanctions on those responsible for illegally approving the land conversion project.
“It breaches of Presidential Instruction No. 10/2011, issued in May this year, which bans new permits on the clearing of primary forests and peatlands,” he said.
Greenomics, meanwhile, pointed to an inconsistency in this statement.
“It seems they said it just for the sake of having something to say. They don’t have enough data to back up their claim. We are now watching quite a huge gap on the moratorium-related information between the policymakers and those who work at the operational level. And this is very misleading information,” Elfian said.
To protect against environmental damage, Greenomics Indonesia urges the government to return the peatland area into the indicative moratorium map.
With the next revision due in six months time, the forestry minister should immediately issue a letter to overrule the permit issued by Irwandi, he said.
The Tripa Peat Swamp in Nagan Raya regency is part of a 4.8 million-hectare area of peatland that was removed from the indicative moratorium map of primary forests and peatlands. Initially, the moratorium map covered 10.7 million hectares of peatlands that were protected against any new permits.
Bambang Soepijanto, the director general of Forestry Planology at the ministry, said the indicative moratorium plan was not permanent.
“If we have new proof showing that the land does not fit the protected peat swamp zoning, we may remove the land from the [moratorium] map,” he said, adding that the ministry was still investigating the case.
Niluksi Koswanage Reuters 14 Dec 11;
KUALA LUMPUR (Reuters) - A surge in mega-hydropower projects across the world in the coming decade will only be affected marginally by last week's decision to delay building a large dam across the Mekong, Southeast Asia's longest river.
Hydropower remains a proven way to produce electricity on a large scale, and some governments are extremely reluctant to opt for alternatives such as nuclear. But last week's decision could mean there will be increased focus on minimizing environmental and social costs of new hydro projects, analysts say.
Laos suspended the $3.5 billion Xayaburi dam project on the lower Mekong, awaiting a study into the environmental impact of the river, the world's largest inland fishery.
The 1,260-megawatt project has been hugely controversial and underlined growing global concerns that mega-dams were a damaging and outdated way of generating power. Protests from India to Brazil and Malaysia to China have called for a halt to massive building programs.
"The decision is certainly a game changer in the lower Mekong," said Marc Goichot, who works for environmental group WWF's Greater Mekong program on sustainable hydropower.
"We hope this decision will have influence in the rest of Asia," he told Reuters in an e-mail from the Lao capital Vientiane.
But he added it was hard to pinpoint whether the decision was related to environmental concerns or something else. In September, Myanmar scrapped a $3.6 billion Chinese-led mega-dam across the Irrawaddy River also after environmental worries, but the decision was additionally seen as an attempt by its government to distance itself from Beijing.
"(Last week's) decision also raises the risk profile of these projects for investors, which will undoubtedly scare some investors away or make them more hesitant to fund mainstream dams in the future," said Aviva Imhof, campaigns director at International Rivers, an NGO which opposes large hydropower dams.
"Unfortunately, it's unlikely that the decision will affect dams (now) being built in other parts of Asia or even on tributaries of the Mekong river," she said.
The World Bank, a major hydropower investor, says the social and environmental costs of such projects have to be addressed and resolved at the planning stage -- a failure to do so can sharply increase the impact.
Laos, Thailand, Vietnam and Cambodia share the lower reaches of the Mekong.
Concern has grown after China completed a series of dams on the upper reaches, with more planned, causing lower flows during the wet season and greater flows during droughts, Imhof said.
The Chinese dams also block sediment flowing downstream, causing massive erosion and affecting productivity of floodplain agriculture and in the Mekong Delta, she told Reuters in an e-mail.
The Three Gorges Dam, the world's largest hydropower plant at 22.5 gigawatts when it reaches full capacity, is a symbol of China's quest for energy and is also a taste of what is to come.
A total of 1.25 million people were displaced over 16 years for the Three Gorges dam, leading to widespread criticism and protests. Many blamed the project for widespread drought earlier this year in downstream areas of the Yangtze River.
COAL UNFASHIONABLE, NUCLEAR A WORRY
With countries trying to limit greenhouse gas emissions from coal and other fossil-fuel based power plants, and questions over nuclear power, China and the world's other energy-hungry nations are turning to hydro in a big way.
China wants to raise installed power capacity by 470 gigawatts (GW) to 1,437 GW by 2015 -- the largest in the world. At least 110 gigawatts of the new capacity will be from hydro power -- equivalent to five Three Gorges hydropower projects. Current hydropower capacity is 216 GW, also the world's largest.
Earlier this year, the country said it has committed 400 billion yuan ($62 billion) to build four hydropower stations that would contribute 43 GW by 2015, to be built by China Three Gorges Corp.
Longer-term plans call for China to reach 450 GW of hydropower capacity by 2030. That will involve tapping the largely untouched Tibetan plateau, the source of major rivers that feed nations downstream.
This has triggered distrust at home and in Southeast Asia and a test case will be if China gives the go-ahead in the coming weeks to a series of dams on the Nu, or Salween, river that flows through China's Yunnan province and then Myanmar and Thailand.
India, which generates 18 percent of its electricity from hydropower, is implementing a large-hydro plan totaling 50 GW, or roughly Australia's total generating capacity. Government data shows that India has potential hydropower capacity of 148.7 GW, with 33.9 GW developed and a further 14.6 GW on the way.
But India's hydropower program has also been dogged by protests, especially a decades-long project along the Narmada river in central India. The scheme proposes 30 dams, with two large dams built and a third under construction for power and large-scale irrigation.
In the northeast state of Arunachal Pradesh, a planned 11 GW dam on the Siang river has run into environmental problems and objections from neighboring China. The government is looking to build it further downstream and, if completed, it would be India's largest hydropower dam.
"Hydropower has issues of resettlement, which is the most serious, it has issues of biodiversity conservation," said Pradipto Ghosh, former top civil servant in the environment ministry, and member of the prime minister's panel on climate change.
"But the point is that hydropower is very much part of the energy mix and it will continue to remain part of the energy mix," he told Reuters.
"We have to address these issues," he said. "The way that hydropower projects are now designed and implemented is a far cry from how they were back in the 1950s."
MALAYSIAN PROTESTS
Malaysia, which generates most of its power with fossil fuels, is pushing ahead with a huge hydropower program in Sarawak state on Borneo island that is displacing indigenous communities, disrupting river flows and triggering deep anger.
The 2.4 GW Bakun dam, which started generating power this year, is by far the nation's most controversial project with more than 100 cases still pending in Malaysia's courts. The dam was first proposed in 1960s and shelved twice.
It is the second highest concrete faced rockfill dam in the world at 207 meters high (680 feet), with a reservoir roughly the size of Singapore.
Much of the power will feed an industrial zone with another 12 dams to be built to feed industries such as smelters and solar panel manufacturers.
"The building of these monuments of corruption will be a key issue that we will bring up in the upcoming elections. I believe the unhappiness among the local tribal communities is growing," said Baru Bian, a land rights lawyer in Sarawak.
"I think if the people of Sarawak can appreciate how international pressure has forced Laos to delay the Mekong dam project ... there is a possibility of stopping these projects," Bian, who is also an opposition politician with Anwar Ibrahim's People's Justice Party, told Reuters.
FULL CAPACITY
But a senior government official with knowledge of the Sarawak's hydropower plans denied the concerns of local communities have been ignored.
"We would not proceed if there is a big risk and so far there has not been any major risk," the official said. "We expect the opposition to use the Laos issue to campaign for stopping the dams. But it is a completely different scenario in Laos."
The International Energy Agency says the technical potential for hydropower globally is five times current production based on 2008 data.
It said China had developed 24 percent of its potential, the United States 16 percent and Brazil 25 percent and that by 2050, global hydropower generation could nearly double.
For China, India, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of Congo and others, that means more dam developments in a world where nations are under pressure to cut fossil fuel emissions. Brazil approved the 11.2 GW Belo Monte dam, the world's third largest, in June, while the DRC and South Africa last month signed a deal for a multi-billion dollar project.
"I think eventually there will be real problems. The whole hydropower sector is now in full gear and at full capacity to expand as fast as it can," said Ma Jun, director of the Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs, which monitors China's water supplies.
"We are pressing to the very corners of our territory. If they continue at this speed, quite soon they are going to finish the damming of all our major rivers and at that time, the whole industry will hit a wall," he said.
(Additional reporting by David Stanway in Beijing, Frank Jack Daniel in New Delhi, Biswajyoti Das in Guwahati and David Fogarty in Singapore; Writing by David Fogarty; Editing by Raju Gopalakrishnan)
Mark Kinver and Victoria Gill Science reporters BBC News 14 Dec 11;
The erosion of traditional cultural taboos in Madagascar has led to an unsustainable number of lemurs being killed for bushmeat, a study suggests.
Locals revered the primates, believing that the animals were family ancestors, but the influx of outside influences has seen a breakdown in these views.
Some species do not reach maturity for up to nine years and produce offspring once every two or three years.
The findings appear in the Public Library of Science (PLoS) One journal.
A survey of locals' eating habits by researchers from Bangor University in Wales, and the Malagasy NGO Madagasikara Voakajy showed that hunting of protected species in eastern Madagascar was increasing.
They suggested the rise in illegal hunting was the result of rapid social change, an increase in demand for meat and a decline in traditional taboos.
"When you have globalisation and outside influences, traditional cultures break down and change faster," explained co-author Julia Jones from Bangor University.
"What seems to be happening in some of the remote areas around the nation's eastern rainforests is that a lot of legal gold mining is springing up, so people from outside are moving into the area."
Taboos play an important part in Malagasy culture, she added.
Lemurs, especially indris, have been associated with very strong taboos that traditionally ensured that the primates were not hunted.
For example, one story tells of a man who was looking for honey in the forest when he fell from a tree. Before he hit the ground, he was caught by an indri.
He was so grateful that he went back to the village and said from that moment on, no lemur was to be harmed.
Another belief is that the creatures are ancestors that became lost in the rainforests and turned themselves into lemurs in order to survive.
However, Dr Jones said that although people did not prefer to eat bushmeat, it was often the only meat available.
"If they want meat to eat, there is very poor availability of domestic meat in these rural areas," she told BBC News.
"Chickens suffer terribly from disease in rainforest areas, so do not survive that well - so there is not much protein from domestic animals around."
Dr Jones explained that the influx of people, attracted by job opportunities at the mines, had led to an increase in demand for meat and because people had wages from the mines, small bars that sold bushmeat were opening.
'Shocking' figures
The survey of 1,154 households showed that the majority of meals eaten over a three-day period did not contain any meat at all.
Among the meals that did contain meat, the preference was for fish or domestic animals rather than bushmeat.
Just under 10% of meals consisted of wild-caught animals, and just 0.5% contained meat from protected species.
However, when respondents were asked if they had ever eaten a protected species, 95% said that they had.
And when the team monitored villages to see how much bushmeat was being brought in, they recorded 233 carcasses of Endangered indri, the largest species of lemur.
Dr Jones called the figures "shocking", adding that this level of hunting was a major concern for conservation efforts.
"Even if things are being eaten very rarely, if they are very slow-reproducing animals that can be having a huge impact," she said.
"Species like the indri, for example, mature at seven to nine years and then only have one young once every two or three years.
"Primates, in general, are known to be extremely vulnerable to overexploitation."
Christopher Golden, from the Harvard Center for the Environment, US, said the island nation had a rich natural heritage.
"If you look at the mammals especially, which are the main group of animals affected by the bushmeat trade, all the primates - 100% of them - are unique to the island.
Such was the nation's biodiversity, he said, new species were being found all the time.
"I first came to Madagascar in 1990 and there were 34 known species of primates. Now, there are over 100 identified primate species."
However, Dr Golden - who was not involved in the study - added: "We know from our previous studies show hunting is not sustainable in the long run here."
Dr Jones said improving the availability of alternative meat sources would be one way to overcome the lack of non-bushmeat supplies.
"The fact that people are not eating lemurs as a delicacy means that it is easier to reduce demand through substitutes, such as chickens."
However, she added, this would have to be supported by other projects, including improved veterinary vaccination programmes in order to ensure poultry or livestock did not get wiped out by viruses.
She also said improving the enforcement of existing wildlife laws could also play a role.
"It may not seem to be the most pressing issue facing the country, but wildlife is such an important source of income for Madagascar that tackling this issue should be a priority," Dr Jones observed.
"If the indri and other lemurs disappear from the forests then you are going to get fewer tourists and much less international interest.
"It would be a really positive step and would be worth some investment from the government, given the importance of wildlife to Madagascar's economy."
Butterflyfishes on oil-slicked Tanah Merah
from wild shores of singapore
黄胸织布鸟baya weaver outside SBWR
from PurpleMangrove
Extreme Makeover – RMBR style
from Raffles Museum News
NGOs say not enough done to protect world from irreversible change
Grace Chua Straits Times 14 Dec 11;
IT HAS been hailed by some as ground-breaking for getting all countries to agree to work together.
But environmental NGOs, or non-governmental organisations, in Singapore are not enamoured with the outcome of the recently concluded United Nations climate talks in Durban, South Africa.
On top of harbouring little hope that the annual conference would yield a legally binding agreement for all nations, they say the deal to work towards such an agreement is hardly ambitious enough to protect the world from irreversible climate change.
'The agreement is fundamentally a plan to make a plan, and it can only be hailed as a success once a legally binding deal has been officially adopted,' said a sceptical Jose Raymond, executive director of the Singapore Environment Council.
More than 190 countries at the talks agreed on Sunday to a road map towards a global, legally binding accord for countries to cut their greenhouse-gas emissions.
If the pact gets the go-ahead as scheduled in 2015, it will take effect from 2020.
Conservation International Singapore senior adviser Michael Totten was slightly more optimistic.
'The good news about the Durban climate negotiations is they didn't break down; the bad news is that action was delayed for years,' he said.
Singapore Institute of International Affairs researcher Henrick Tseng commented that the deal, achieved only after talks stretched into some 30 hours of overtime and ended on Sunday morning at 6am (noon Singapore time), was 'not particularly ambitious'.
Prior to the talks, Mr Tseng had expressed pessimism in view of developed nations' reluctance to commit to a second round of emissions cuts.
Now, again, he was concerned that developed nations might reject further commitments en masse.
'A crisis of confidence in the Durban road map could erupt and the US, China and India will find less incentive to cooperate in forging and binding themselves to a global treaty,' he said.
The three countries are the world's biggest emitters, accounting for nearly half of total emissions. They have been reluctant to commit to cuts: China and India because they feel they need room to develop, and the US because it wants all countries to commit before it will do so.
Environmental consultant Eugene Tay agreed, explaining that there is also the risk that countries may pass an agreement but not ratify it, he said, much like what the United States did with the Kyoto Protocol.
The US signed the Protocol in 1998 but has never ratified it, meaning it is not bound by the legal agreement.
Yet, current science indicates the world is on track for at least a 3.5 degC temperature rise, more than the goal of capping global warming at 2 degC to stave off the impact of climate change.
To address that, Mr Tay said, individual governments should do more. For instance, South Korea is about to pass a law requiring 'cap and trade', the capping of emissions and then trading of emissions allowances.
And Singapore has said it will cut emissions by 7to 11 per cent by 2020, if no global binding deal is reached, and by 16 per cent if one is.
Mr Totten feels business could play a significant role. For example, electronics giant ST Microelectronics announced its plans in 1998 to emit zero net greenhouse gases by last year, and accomplished this through energy efficiency, renewable energy use and carbon offsets.
This is something Singapore is beginning to do as well. A proposed Energy Conservation Act will require heavy industrial users of energy to improve their efficiency and appoint energy managers.
Mr Billet Hoontrakul, director of youth energy-issues group Energy Carta, said: 'We can't afford to wait for governments to come to an agreement. We have to demand it from the ground level.'
The group is trying to make sustainable business attractive to young people as a career, added the 20-year-old, a second-year engineering student at the National University of Singapore.
It is also working on a board game to help young people understand the complexities of climate negotiations and motivate them to act and to call for their governments to do the same.
2-step selection process for operator of country's first underground hydrocarbon storage site
Esther Teo Straits Times 14 Dec 11;
THE landmark Jurong Rock Caverns project, one of Singapore's biggest infrastructure developments, is taking another step towards completion.
Industrial player JTC Corporation wants proposals from firms keen to operate the first phase of the project on Jurong Island.
JTC will launch a two-stage selection process on Friday to engage an operator for Phase One of Singapore's first underground hydrocarbon storage facility.
It hopes to have the operator in place by the second half of next year.
Applicants will be evaluated on financial stability, experience, capability and track record in the first cut.
Those who make the shortlist will be invited to submit business proposals within two months.
These will be evaluated based on individual merits, with emphasis placed on factors such as fees, technical propositions and proposed commercial activities, JTC added in a statement.
Chief executive Manohar Khiatani said: 'The two-stage request... is to ensure rigour in our selection process so that a capable and qualified operator is engaged to operate and manage the caverns.'
Phase One of the caverns will be completed in stages between 2013 and 2014. The contract for the operator is scheduled to commence in 2013 and will be for a period of 15 years.
JTC's search for an operator began in 2007 when it pre-qualified some players, including terminal operators like Vopak and Horizon Terminals, in preparation for a qualifying tender at the end of that year.
But the global financial crisis in 2008 and 2009 forced JTC to call off the search.
The Jurong Rock Caverns project was conceived in 2001 and construction started in 2007.
At a cost of about $890 million, the first phase will offer storage for 1.47 million cubic m, or about nine million barrels, of liquid hydrocarbons such as crude oil, condensate, and products like naphtha.
The development has already found its first customer in Jurong Aromatics Corporation, which is building a US$2.4 billion (S$3.1 billion) petrochemical complex on the island.
The caverns are made up of storage galleries, each with average dimensions of 20m in width, 27m in height - equivalent to a nine-storey building - and 340m in length.
Underground caverns were pioneered about 40 to 50 years ago, and more than 200 are in use around the world today.
JTC's other projects include wafer fabrication parks, business parks, Biopolis and Fusionopolis at one-north, a chemicals hub on Jurong Island, biomedical parks and logistics hubs for various industries.
Applications for the operator's contract must be in by Jan 13. Further details are available on the Singapore Government's e-procurement portal www.gebiz.gov.sg
JTC to launch 2-stage tender for Jurong Rock Caverns
Channel NewsAsia 13 Dec 11;
SINGAPORE : JTC Corporation is launching a two-stage tender this Friday to engage an operator for Jurong Rock Caverns, Singapore's first underground hydrocarbon storage facility.
The tender is for an operator to manage and operate the first phase of the Caverns.
Located at Jurong Island, Phase One of the Caverns will be completed in stages between 2013 and 2014. The operatorship contract is scheduled to commence in 2013, and will be for a period of 15 years.
Shortlisted participants from the first stage will be invited to submit their business proposals within two months.
Chief executive officer of JTC, Manohar Khiatani, said the two-stage request for proposal is to ensure rigour in the selection process so that a capable and qualified operator is engaged to operate and manage the Caverns.
He said the target was to get an operator on board by the second half of next year.
The Caverns project is the first underground rock cavern for hydrocarbon storage in Singapore and Southeast Asia.
Located at a depth of 130 metres beneath Selat Banyan at Jurong Island, it is expected to provide infrastructural support to manufacturers on Jurong Island, and meet the storage needs for liquid hydrocarbons such as crude oil, condensate, naphtha and gas oil.
Applications must be submitted by January 13 next year.
- CNA/ms
Record-breaking feat for vessel arrivals hailed as 'new chapter' for port
Jonathan Kwok Straits Times 14 Dec 11;
THE MV APL Washington may look like any other large container ship, but the Hong Kong-registered vessel yesterday made maritime history for Singapore.
The arrival of the ship of 75,582 gross tons at PSA's Pasir Panjang Terminal marked the first time 2 billion gross tons of vessels have called here in a year.
That would be a significant landmark at any time, but is especially striking amid a slowing global economy.
Transport Minister Lui Tuck Yew hailed a 'new chapter' for Singapore's port and praised its 'strong growth'.
Singapore has maintained its position as the world's busiest port by vessel arrival tonnage, he noted.
He also expressed confidence that the sector would overcome the challenges in the economy and shipping markets, especially with the strong partnership between the industry and the Government.
'Besides growing capacity, our port must also continue to enhance productivity and meet new demands on safety, security and environmental sustainability, and above all, to deliver value and quality service to our customers,' said Mr Lui.
Vessel arrivals have grown steadily since 2004, when Singapore first received 1 billion gross tonnage of vessels in a single year.
Last year, about 127,000 vessels called at Singapore's ports - which include facilities run by PSA and Jurong Port. They made up a total of about 1.92 billion gross tons.
Around 117,000 ships, making up 1.93 billion gross tons, called here from January to last month, setting the stage for yesterday's record-breaking arrival.
Gross tonnage is a way of measuring the size of ships and is the internal measurement of a ship's open spaces. It is commonly used by the industry to measure the traffic of vessels calling at a port.
Singapore is tops worldwide in terms of vessel arrival tonnage, and is also the world's top hub for sales of bunker fuel.
But regional ports have been on the rise as well and Shanghai, boosted by China's trade boom, overtook Singapore last year as the world's busiest port in terms of number of containers handled.
Mr Bill Smart, managing director of Bengal Tiger Line, a shipping line registered here, said yesterday's record reflects the success of the Maritime and Port Authority of Singapore (MPA) in growing the sector and putting in place infrastructure to attract industry players.
The MPA, a statutory board, is the regulator and planner for Singapore's port and maritime industry.
'It's a good success story,' said Mr Smart. 'Rather than just getting vessels coming, calling and then leaving, they got ship brokers to come here, and the banks and financiers of ships as well. That brought other related businesses here.'
He added that there has been a slowdown in shipping volumes to the West, with a lot of the growth being in Asia, South America and Africa.
Singapore has benefited from the 'hub and spoke' system, with a lot of big shipping lines stopping here, before other lines transfer cargo to other parts of the region, he said.
Aaron Ngui The Sun Daily 14 Dec 11;
GEORGE TOWN (Dec 13, 2011): The Malaysian Nature Society (MNS) does not agree with suggestions that the Gurney Drive shoreline be reclaimed, to overcome the siltation and mud build-up at the area.
Its Penang branch advisor D. Kanda Kumar told theSun that planting mangrove trees was a simple and low-tech way to tackle the matter, emphasising that mud build-up along the shoreline was a natural occurrence.
He said the area could be turned into a mangrove forest reserve which could become a tourist attraction.
"The forest will be a natural shelter for birds and other wildlife as well as attracting fish back into the area," he said when asked to comment on the statement by the Penang Drainage and Irrigation Department (DID) that reclamation was the solution to stop the build-up of mud along the shoreline of the popular tourist attraction.
"Reclamation is not the solution," he said, adding that any future reclamation should be put on hold until a proper master plan on reclamation in Penang is conducted.
Kanda also called on the authorities to gazette the area as a reserve once the mangrove trees were planted to protect the area for the future.
State DID deputy director Mohd Abu Bakar Othman told a forum on Tuesday that reclamation would allow currents to go smoothly along the curvature of the reclaimed beach.
If the proposal is carried out, an area estimated to be as big as 97ha may be reclaimed along the popular coastal stretch.
Mohd Abu Bakar said the build-up of mud and silt at the Gurney Drive shoreline was due to weak sea currents caused by major reclamation at the nearby Seri Tanjung Pinang residential and commercial project, and pollution due to the 2004 tsunami.
Meanwhile, the state government is mulling over proposals by companies interested in collecting mud from Gurney Drive and other areas like Kuala Muda in Seberang Perai, for the purpose of making bricks for the construction industry.
State Environment committee chairman Phee Boon Poh said local companies, as well as Japanese and Chinese companies, have expressed their interest.
Although he conceded that collecting the mud would be a temporary solution, Phee said that the mud would have to be removed anyway if reclamation was approved for Gurney Drive.
He, however, added any decision to reclaim land in the area would only be made when a comprehensive hydro-flow plan for the state was completed.
"With the plan, we will know where to reclaim and where not to reclaim," he said when contacted.
theSun reported in September that the state is formulating a comprehensive hydro-flow plan as a reference for future reclamation works.
AFP Yahoo News 13 Dec 11;
Malaysia has seized elephant tusks and ivory handicrafts worth an estimated four million ringgit ($1.3 million) en route from Kenya to Cambodia, a customs official said Tuesday.
The haul is the latest to indicate Malaysia has become an Asian transit hub in the illicit ivory trade, and follows the seizure of hundreds of African elephants' tusks in several busts by Malaysian authorities in recent months.
Customs inspectors seized the container last Thursday in Klang, Malaysia's biggest port, after it was unloaded from a cargo ship.
"The cargo manifest said the container contained handicrafts (soapstone) and it was loaded in Mombasa port in Kenya," Azis Yacub, state customs director of the state of Selangor, where the port is located, said in a statement.
Officials also found carved elephant and rhinoceros ivory.
Azis said the container's final destination was the port of Sihanoukville in Cambodia.
In August, Hong Kong authorities seized nearly two tonnes of elephant ivory worth about $1.7 million in a shipment from Malaysia, which wildlife trade monitoring network TRAFFIC has described as a major hub for illicit wildlife products.
TRAFFIC says that the illegal ivory trade has been rising globally since 2004 largely due to increasing demand in China, where ivory is often ground up and used in traditional medicine.
International trade in elephant ivory was banned in 1990, but since then several auctions of tusks from elephants that died naturally or were seized from poachers have been permitted in Namibia, Botswana and South Africa.
(AFP) Google News 13 Dec 11;
KUALA LUMPUR — Environmental groups and activists from Malaysia, Europe and Australia have called on Malaysian authorities to arrest a powerful state governor and 13 relatives accused of massive graft.
Signatories including Greenpeace and the Swiss-based Bruno Manser Fund released a letter sent to the Malaysian government that urges the immediate arrest of Abdul Taib Mahmud, chief minister of Sarawak state since 1981.
Taib opponents have long alleged systematic corruption and plundering of the rich natural resources of Sarawak, located on the northern portion of Borneo island, by Taib, 75, and his family.
The letter signed by 17 non-governmental organisations and activists, alleged crimes including illegal appropriation of public funds and land, abuse of office, fraud, money-laundering "and conspiracy to form a criminal organisation."
The Bruno Manser Fund, which spearheaded the effort, has said public records in several countries show Taib and his family members have stakes in 332 Malaysian and 85 foreign companies worth several billion dollars.
The letter added that Taib family stakes in 14 large Malaysian companies alone exceed $1.46 billion.
"We allege that only the systematic breach of the law and the use of illegal methods has enabled Mr. Taib and his family members to acquire such massive corporate assets," it said.
The appeal was sent to Malaysia's attorney general, anti-corruption agency, and inspector-general of police.
The Malaysian Anti-Corruption Commission said earlier this year it was investigating Taib but its director of investigations, Mustafar Ali, declined comment to AFP on the probe and Tuesday's arrest appeal.
An official in Taib's office also declined to comment. Taib has previously denied such allegations.
The NGOs said immediate arrests were needed to prevent the accused destroying evidence.
Sarawak officials have said the underdeveloped state needs to spur economic growth.
But Taib opponents allege massive graft in awarding Sarawak timber concessions and other contracts, and rapacious development that has seen rainforests felled, questionable dams built, and tribal groups uprooted.
They also accuse the central government of failing to act against Taib because his tight control of Sarawak has kept it a political stronghold of Malaysia's long-ruling Barisan Nasional coalition.
Other signatories to the letter included Europe-based forest advocate group FERN, the Borneo Resources Institute, and the Japan Tropical Forest Action Network.
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