Best of our wild blogs: 17 Oct 13

Sunday 20 Oct Morning Heritage Walk
from a.t.Bukit Brown. Heritage. Habitat. History.

2 Nov (Sat): Biography of E. J. H. Corner by his son
from wild shores of singapore

Bidadari, a sampler - 15Oct2013
from sgbeachbum

Cloudless at sea
from The annotated budak

Juvenile Malaysian Hawk-cuckoo Eating Flower
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Butterflies Galore! : Spotted Black Crow
from Butterflies of Singapore and Butterflies Galore! : Darky Plushblue

Dyera costulata – the Jelutong
from lekowala!

June fires concentrated in peatlands, burned 1,500 sq km in Sumatra
from Mongabay.com news by Rhett Butler

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Thailand: Phuket hosts workshop on understanding and strengthening resilience to coral bleaching events

The Phuket News 16 Oct 13;

PHUKET: The Department of Marine and Coastal Resources, Prince Songkla University, WWF – Thailand and SEEK are jointly organizing a series of coral workshops on the ecological, social and economic impacts of coral bleaching on the local reefs, and options for responding to bleaching events.

The two workshops in Thailand will be held in Pattaya and Phuket on 14 and 16 October 2013 respectively. These workshops are part of a regional initiative that includes Malaysia and Indonesia, and are funded through grants from the Asia-Pacific Network and the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA).

Dubbed the “worst coral die-off since 1998,” the mass coral bleaching events in 2010 were unprecedented and resulted in very high mortality rates to many reefs. Post-bleaching survey shows that the bleaching impact have not been uniform and differ both at regional and local scales. Management interventions were imposed and effectiveness needed to be assessed.

From data analysis carried out in 2010, it was determined that the diving industry in Thailand is estimated to bring in $US 600 million a year to the Thailand economy, and generate a further US$ 2 billion a year in non-market benefits. And the costs of bleaching in 2010 were estimated to be US$ 50-75 million for three countries.

Dr. Sean Pascoe, Dr. Heidi Schuttenberg and Dr. Scott Heron, experts from the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) in Australia and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in United States, respectively, and several local coral researchers will be sharing the results of the surveys and interviews carried out in 2010 as well as facilitating the workshops. Ecological impacts of coral bleaching as well as the socio-economic aspects of the local dive operators will be presented.

“These workshops, particularly the discussion sessions, are an important avenue to raise awareness on the coral bleaching phenomenon as well as in strengthening the interactions among stakeholders to facilitate decision-making at the local and national levels,” says Dr. Heidi Schuttenberg, the Principal Investigator, who also oversees the planning and the executing of the project in Malaysia and Indonesia.

Invited stakeholders include coral reef researchers from Universities, NGOs and dive operators in both Andaman and the Gulf of Thailand.

“Through the workshops, we hope to instill greater awareness among the stakeholders about the impacts of coral bleaching as well as to collaboratively develop sound methodologies to guide work and proper management actions during future bleaching events,” adds Pinsak Surasvadi, director at DMCR who hosts the workshop.

For further information, please contact Petch Manopawitr at 0891811444 or email pmanopawitr@gmail.com

- See more at: http://www.thephuketnews.com/phuket-hosts-workshop-on-understanding-and-strengthening-resilience-to-coral-bleaching-events-42387.php#sthash.YvTlEG6B.dpuf

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Australian scientists plan to relocate wildlife threatened by climate change

Endangered species vulnerable to rising temperatures to be shifted in contentious move considered ‘last resort’ by scientists
Oliver Milman theguardian.com 17 Oct 13;

Australian researchers have developed the “first rigorous framework” on how to relocate animals displaced due to climate change.

The study, conducted by academics from four Australian universities and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), devised a formula on how to decide whether to relocate a species, which species to prioritise for reintroduction and where and how to move them.

The work follows a request by the International Union for Conservation of Nature for a new process to assess species relocation.

Rising temperatures are expected to have a significant impact on Australian species, with the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report warning that a 2C-4C rise in average temperatures will wipe out 21%-36% of Australia's butterflies, while the loss of nearly half of appropriate habitat in Queensland will spell doom for 7%-14% of reptiles, 8%-18% of frogs, one in 10 birds and 10%-15% of mammals.

Tracy Rout, of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Queensland and co-author of the relocation study, told Guardian Australia that moving species was a contentious one among scientists.

“There’s lots of debate in science whether it is a good idea at all,” she said. “This is the most quantitative study on the most important judgments we need to know.”

The key values fed into the formula are the status of the animals to be moved, the prospects of the animals at a new site and their impact on existing species in the new area.

“We’ve ended up with an equation that basically looks at the benefits versus the cost, ecologically speaking,” said Rout. “This should be very helpful in making the judgment whether to move a species, but there also needs to be value judgments taken by the decision-maker.”

Rout said that the process of relocating threatened species is already underway, with plans to move the western swamp tortoise from its rapidly drying habitat on the fringes of Perth. There are also proposals to move the endangered mountain pygmy possum, which is considered vulnerable to warmer temperatures.

“Climate change will have a huge impact on a lot of species in Australia and where there is no other solution to mitigate the situation, relocation will be a last resort,” said Rout. “I don’t see it being used very widely, but there needs to be a proper formula to it.”

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Four out of five UK children 'not connected to nature'

Research from the RSPB measures the extent to which children are in touch with the natural world

Adam Vaughan theguardian.com 16 Oct 13;

Two young boys are putting the finishing touches to their twig-lined den, next to a welly-clad girl who has discovered a toad hiding by a tree. Several children are busy fishing for worms, while others are scooping up bird feathers as part of their treasure hunt.

Yet these children, playing at a "forest school" in a south-east London park, are an endangered species, according to the first ever national measurement of the extent to which children are in touch with the natural world. The three-year research project by the RSPB, published on Wednesday, shows that according to the conservation group's scoring system, four out of five children in the UK are not adequately "connected to nature".

The study, which saw 1,200 children aged 8-12 years questioned on how strongly they agreed or disagreed with 16 statements such as "I enjoy touching animals and plants", "being outdoors makes me happy" and "humans are part of the natural world", suggests that girls have a better connection with nature than boys. It also found children in London had a stronger connection than those in Wales.

The study follows a major stock-take of the state of Britain's nature, published in May, which found that the majority of UK species are declining, and one in three have halved in number in the past five decades. Conservationists linked the decline in wildlife to the disconnect between children and the natural world. "Nature is in trouble, and children's connection to nature is closely linked to this," said Dr Mike Clarke, the RSPB's chief executive.

He added: "This report is groundbreaking stuff. Millions of people are increasingly worried that today's children have less contact with nature than ever before, but until now there has been no robust scientific attempt to measure and track connection to nature among children in the UK, which means the problem hasn't been given the attention it deserves."

Hugh Dames, who runs the forest school in Mayow park in Lewisham, was not too surprised by the findings. "I've had children who hated to get their hands dirty, who are frightened by wood lice. But by the end of just one session, they're happily playing in the mud, looking for worms and creepy crawlies."

Dames said he had been inspired by his previous work with schools and thinking about what he wanted to teach his daughter upon becoming a father 18 months ago. "If they [children] understand nature, they will value it and will take more care of it when they get older. If you're not engaged with it, you're not going to feel any need to safeguard it. I think outdoor learning is the only way to do that," he said.

The RSPB team worked with researchers at the University of Essex to devise a meaningful way of defining a connection to nature, concluding in the report that it was "enjoyment of nature; having empathy for creatures; having a sense of oneness with nature; and having a sense of responsibility for the environment."

Based on the polling, they then ranked a child's connection to nature on a scale of the lowest, -2, to the highest, +2, and considered 1.5 a "realistic and achievable" target based on children who visit RSPB nature reserves. The percentage of UK children over the 1.5 score was 21%, while girls were at 27% compared to boys at 16%. Scotland had the highest percentage over 1.5, at 27%, falling to 25% in Northern Ireland, 24% in London, 21% in England and 13% in Wales.

Suzanne Welch, education manager at the RSPB, said she could only speculate on the reasons behind the surprising finding that Welsh children were less connected than those in London. "Might it be that there are lot of accessible green spaces in London? Children in the countryside can be quite isolated with small local roads and no pavements. Access might be quite difficult in rural areas." She said that more work was needed to find out why, but she said it showed "just being in the countryside doesn't make you connected to nature."

The issue will be back in the spotlight next week, with the premiere of Project Wild Thing, a film exploring why children spend less time playing outdoors and interacting with nature. David Bond, the film's director, and a father of a six-year-old girl and four-year-old boy, said the RSPB report's findings sounded "absolutely spot on" from his work making the film, which included a visit to Eltham school, in London, where most of the children he spoke to had "other priorities" than the outdoors.

"What's important about that study to me is not the percentage but that finally it's being measured, and according to this measurement system we have a problem," he told the Guardian. "And I've got a bad feeling in a year's time it will get worse." He cited what he called well-founded fears from parents over traffic and misplaced fears over "stranger danger" as two of the culprits. Children were spending too much time on screens, such as TVs and iPads, he said, but cautioned "technology is not really a problem in itself. It's a much more fundamental commercialisation of childhood."

The RSPB said its polling created a baseline which it hopes to use to measure how children's connection to nature changes in the future. The polling was done face-to-face by TNS for 1,088 British children aged 8-12 years old, and by Ipsos Mori for 112 children of the same age in Northern Ireland.

Just one in five children connected to nature, says study
Matt McGrath BBC News 16 Oct 13;

Large numbers of children in Britain are missing out on the natural world, a study from the RSPB suggests.

The three-year project found that only 21% of children aged 8-12 were "connected to nature".

Girls were much more likely than boys to be exposed to the great outdoors, while children in Wales had the lowest score across the UK.

The RSPB says that a perception among some adults that nature is dangerous or dirty could be holding children back.

There has been an increasing amount of research in recent years underlining the lack of contact and experience with nature among modern children.

Continue reading the main story
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In some cases it is perceived as a dirty or unsafe thing, and that's an attitude that won't help a young person climb a tree”

Sue Armstrong-Brown
RSPB
Some have argued that this is having a negative impact on their health, education and behaviour.

In 2012, the National Trust published a report on the phenomenon of "nature deficit disorder", though it is not recognised as a medical condition.

Gender difference
The RSPB says its new study is the first to quantify the scale of British children's exposure, or lack of it, to the natural world.

They came up with a definition of what "connected to nature" actually means and then developed a questionnaire with 16 statements designed to assess the level of connection among children.

Some 1,200 children from across the UK were asked to agree or disagree with these statements. Only 21% of children in the UK had a level of connection with wildlife and the natural world that the RSPB believes should be realistic and achievable for all youngsters.

This "realistic and achievable" value is based on the average scores of children visiting RSPB sites or who are junior members of the organisation.

One interesting finding was the gender difference. While 27% of girls were at or above the "realistic and achievable" target, only 16% of boys were at the same level.

"We need to understand these differences," Sue Armstrong-Brown, head of conservation at the charity, told BBC News.

"Whether boys and girls are scoring differently on different questions, are girls more empathetic to nature than boys for instance? We need to analyse the data to find that out."

The report also highlighted significant regional differences. Only 13% of children in Wales achieved the basic level of exposure, compared with almost twice this number in Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Urban beats rural
The average score for London was higher than the rest of England. Overall urban children had a slightly higher connection than those living in rural areas.

According to Sue Armstrong-Brown, the attitudes of adults may be having a significant effect on children.

"There is definitely an attitude out there, in some cases, that nature is not perceived as interesting or engaging. In some cases it is perceived as a dirty or unsafe thing, and that's an attitude that won't help a young person climb a tree."

The RSPB hopes that its study will be taken up by government as one of the indicators on the state of children's wellbeing.

Sue Armstrong-Brown believes that improving the natural connection for children is not only good for the youngsters, it is crucial for the future of nature conservation in this country.

"If we can grow a generation of children that have a connection to nature and do feel a sense of oneness with it, we then have the force for the future that can save nature and stop us living in a world where nature is declining," she said.

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Business urged to do more to save oceans: World Bank study

Alister Doyle PlanetArk 17 Oct 13;

Businesses should play a bigger role in helping to save depleted fish stocks as part of efforts to prevent irreversible damage to the oceans, a World-Bank backed report said on Wednesday.

The study, by 21 experts including government ministers, academics, conservationists and company leaders, said policies for protecting the oceans from over-fishing, pollution and climate change were often ineffective and fragmented.

It recommended more public-private partnerships involving companies, governments, local communities and others to protect ecosystems that are the main source of protein for a billion people, mainly in the developing world.

"A paradigm shift is needed in how we use and conserve ocean resources to address current inadequacies," the report said.

The panel, set up by the World Bank, is one of several groups trying to find ways to deal with threats to the oceans. A separate Global 0cean Commission, for instance, is looking at how to safeguard the high seas, outside national jurisdictions.

There have been many failures despite past calls for action; a U.N. summit in Johannesburg in 2002, for instance, set a goal, set to be missed, of restoring world fisheries to health by 2015.

The 29-page report provides an outline for action for a group of 140 nations who have signed up to seek solutions to the problems.

"It is vital to have the CEOs of major seafood companies around the table," Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, chair of the panel and director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland in Australia, told Reuters by telephone.

He said that better management would make it easier to apply lessons from one part of the world elsewhere.

"The same problems that are occurring for coral reefs in Thailand are occurring in Tanzania," he said. "This is about creating that platform where you could swap ideas and develop technologies as a global community."

IRREVERSIBLE CHANGE

Chris Lischewski, President and CEO of Bumble Bee Foods, North America's biggest branded seafood company, said businesses were often wrongly seen as "the bad guys" in ocean management.

"Sustainable fisheries is key to our future," Lischewski, who is also a member of Wednesday's panel, told Reuters in a telephone interview.

He said Bumble Bee Foods, which has a turnover of about $1 billion, worked with conservationists, for instance, to ensure that the tuna it sells is only caught from sustainable sources.

And he said the company was working with countries including Fiji, Mauritius and Colombia and would soon announce a new partnership with "a group of coastal countries".

Last week, an international report by a group of scientists also warned the oceans were suffering a "deadly trio" of threats from global warming, declining oxygen levels and acidificiation.

And a report by the U.N.'s panel on climate change said last month that land and ocean surface temperatures had warmed by about 0.9 degree Celsius (1.6 F) since the late 19th century, almost half way to a 2 C (3.6 F) ceiling set by almost 200 governments to prevent dangerous change.

Wednesday's report did not look at costs of implementing recommendations. "Regardless of what we do, fish is going to cost more in the future," Lischewski said, saying the world population was rising and many fish stocks were at maximum yields.

(Reporting by Alister Doyle; editing by Patrick Graham)

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Best of our wild blogs: 16 Oct 13

18-29 Nov: Workshop on Climate change challenges in cities
from wild shores of singapore

A Venomous Snake at Upper Seletar Reservoir Park
from Beauty of Fauna and Flora in Nature

Rose-ringed Parakeet Feasting On Peacock Flower
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Environmental journalism: rich with stories but 'extremely under-resourced'
from Mongabay.com news by Rhett Butler

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Student on a mission to save Singapore's monkeys

Jeanette Tan Yahoo Newsroom 16 Oct 13;

Meet 26-year-old Amanda Tan, the only Singaporean and also the only person currently pursuing a PhD in primatology — the study of monkeys — in Singapore.

The postgraduate student at Nanyang Technological University also happens to be on a quest to change the public's behaviour and attitude toward wild monkeys in Singapore, and to stop the animals from being killed.

Since she started observing the long-tailed macaques in Singapore's Bukit Timah Nature Reserve some years ago, Tan has become a familiar face to people in the area. She goes door-to-door and attends resident committee meetings to spread her message.

The complaints residents have against monkeys are numerous and seemingly unceasing, with a 24-hour hotline for monkey-related issues even set up to hear them.

The grousing has driven government agencies like the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) to hire animal control agencies as contractors to capture and kill the macaques that stray out of territory overseen by NParks, or the National Parks Board.

Figures from the AVA show that the number of complaints received about monkeys have more than doubled in the past two years: in 2011, the AVA recorded about 730 instances of feedback, while in the first nine months of this year alone, the number jumped to about 1,560.

According to the AVA, the nature of complaints involved monkeys snatching belongings and chasing pedestrians or cyclists, and in some cases biting, scratching or injuring children, the elderly or pets. In January this year, there was a report of a monkey in a school chapel that repeatedly dislodged glass window panes, while another incident last month involved a monkey reportedly entering a condominium and injuring an infant.

"I think macaques in general are just very, very misunderstood, which makes me feel very sad for them and at the same time I want to do something about it to tell people about macaques and how they're not really this evil creature that everyone thinks they are," she told Yahoo Singapore in a sit-down interview recently.

Tan says she likes bringing residents out to see macaques in nature reserve areas as well, in order to help them better understand how they behave in their natural habitats — instead of simply seeing them raiding dustbins and stealing fruit off the trees in their garden, for instance.

"You can see that once people start to be around macaques more and observe them more, they realise that they're actually not that terrible and that they're actually quite enjoyable to watch and you can live peacefully with them," she added.

Behaviour conditioned by humans

Tan said people's perceptions of macaques has mostly been shaped by negative portrayals of them in the media, apart from years of human behaviour that has conditioned the monkeys into thinking that people are sources of food.

When she was growing up, she always saw people feeding macaques alongside the turtles at Macritchie Reservoir Park on weekends, describing it as "a Sunday activity", even.

Since this was before the no-feeding rule was implemented by the authorities, however, she said she can understand why monkeys have over the years learned to approach people, vehicles, houses and dustbins for food instead of relying on the abundance that the forest offers.

"And now we have to sort of try to reverse that behavior, which is possible. Everyone just really needs to stop feeding them and exclude them from any food sources, but it's been years so it will probably take years to reverse the behaviour as well."

"In fact, monkeys can eat insects, leaves, fruits off the trees, even some types of bark," Tan added while leading us around Bukit Timah Nature Reserve and showing us the usual places the group of macaques she follows appears. "So the forest has no shortage of food for the macaques, and they certainly don't need to look outside for more."

What can people do?

So what can people do to help reverse macaque behaviour without driving them to extinction in Singapore?

"People have to start doing things like not planting fruit trees in their gardens if they don't want macaques, and keeping their windows closed if no one's in the room to supervise," she said for example.

"It's quite hard to ask people to do things to their houses because they feel like they have the right to live how they want and shouldn't have to change because of monkeys, but I guess people have to understand that in areas where they live very close to nature reserves… they need to understand what it really means to live with nature," she added.

And what can government agencies do? Tan said she understands the need for them to attend to people's concerns about public safety and to immediately address the macaques' aggressive behaviour where it is manifested, but at the same time, to her, culling is but a "band-aid solution" that will not help residents in the long-term.

"Most of the time, it's the babies who get caught in traps, not the adults who are smarter and who tend to exhibit the aggressive behaviour where it happens," said Tan. "That's not solving the problem because the adults will just have more babies, and it's also not dealing with the root cause of the issue, which is human behaviour."

The agencies should also make it a priority to assist residents living near nature reserve areas with structural improvements such as the provision of monkey-proof bins, and teach them to quickly harvest fruits that grow on their fruit trees and allow them to ripen off them instead of where monkeys can reach them, for instance. Central rubbish disposal areas should also be monkey-proofed as well, she added.

Tan says Singapore can also be liked other countries that are moving away from culling and going toward longer-term solutions like training and deploying manpower to respond to macaque complaints on the ground and assist and educate people being harassed by monkeys.

"If agencies see the need to manage the macaques properly as wildlife, and maybe allotted more funding to hiring more staff to train people to work with macaques and manage them better, it would definitely help," she said.

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Eastern parts of Singapore hit by flash floods

Sumita Sreedharan Today Online 16 Oct 13;

SINGAPORE — Several areas in the eastern parts of Singapore were yesterday hit by flash floods after the pre-dawn thundery showers, which also caused some damage to Pasir Ris Polyclinic.

According to the PUB, the “intense storms” flooded lanes on the Pan Island Expressway Tampines Avenue 5 exit, Upper Paya Lebar Road (near Lim Teck Boo Road), and Tampines Road (near Jalan Teliti) although the roads remained passable to traffic. There were no major traffic incidents reported.

Parts of the second floor of the Pasir Ris Polyclinic — which was closed for the Hari Raya Haji public holiday — were flooded. Two ceiling boards collapsed on the ground floor of the polyclinic. The management was alerted to the damage at 6am after the security alarms went off.

Dr Peter Moey, the clinic’s Director, said: “We are investigating the cause and also assessing the damage severity and doing some maintenance work to assess that the building is safe for operations. At the moment, from what we see, the equipment and building look okay, but we need a more comprehensive assessment.”

Mr Kelvin Tan, who lives along Tampines Road, said the area is prone to flooding and that he has seen floods there two to three times a year over the last three years.

“Athough the flood subsided in about 20 minutes this time round, this has happened before and I hope the authorities will resolve the issue soon,” said Mr Tan, who is in his 30s.

The PUB said the drains there will be upgraded from the second half of next year. In the interim, it will also install an additional water level sensor in the drain at the affected stretch so that it can better monitor the water levels during heavy storms and send alerts should flash floods occur. It noted that a water level sensor has already been installed in the drain further downstream at Hougang Avenue 7.

Yesterday’s incidents follow severe flash floods last month that forced the closure of the Ayer Rajah Expressway, uprooted trees and caused massive traffic snarls.

In the aftermath of the Sept 5 floods, the agency acknowledged that it could take some time for the improvement works that are in progress and in the pipeline to bear fruit.

Sumita Sreedharan

Parts of Pasir Ris Polyclinic damaged by morning downpour
Sara Grosse Channel NewsAsia 15 Oct 13;

A heavy downpour early Tuesday morning caused some damage to Pasir Ris Polyclinic. The damage has since been repaired, and the polyclinic will resume operations on Wednesday.

PHOTOSVIDEOS
A staff member wiping down the counter at Pasir Ris Polyclinic after it was hit by a downpour on Tuesday morning. (Photo: Sara Grosse)
ENLARGECAPTION
SINGAPORE: A heavy downpour early Tuesday morning caused some damage at Pasir Ris Polyclinic.

The damage has since been repaired, and the polyclinic will resume operations on Wednesday.

A section of the ceiling on the first level of the clinic had collapsed, while puddles of water were found at all three levels of the polyclinic.

SingHealth Polyclinics said initial investigations show that the incident was likely due to the heavy downpour.

At 6am, the clinic's director was alerted that the security alarm had gone off.

Dr Peter Moey, Family Physician & Clinic Director at SingHealth Polycinics (Pasir Ris), said: "We are investigating the cause and also assessing the damage severity and doing some maintenance work to assess that the building is safe for operations.

"At the moment, from what we see, the equipment and building looks okay but we need a more comprehensive assessment."

With parts of the ceiling still leaking, staff quickly took preventive measures. Fortunately, the polyclinic was closed on Tuesday as it was a public holiday, so no patients were affected.

SingHealth Polyclinics said it has assessed the clinic situation and done thorough checks on its systems and facilities to ensure that the clinic is safe and ready for operation.

It also said the polyclinic has been cleaned up, and the damaged ceiling boards replaced.

The polyclinic is situated within the Pasir Ris East Community Building. It is working with the building's managing agent to investigate the cause of this incident.

Due to the heavy rain, national water agency PUB said flash floods occurred in the eastern parts of Singapore, including Tampines.

- CNA/xq/gn

Early morning thunderstorm causes flash floods
Melissa Lin Straits Times 16 Oct 13;

HEAVY rain caused flash floods across Singapore after a thunderstorm early yesterday morning, though most areas escaped major damage.

Worst hit was Pasir Ris Polyclinic, where two ceiling boards collapsed after a build-up of water. No one was injured in the incident, which happened at around 6am. Water puddles also formed on three levels.

The clinic, run by SingHealth Polyclinics, was closed yesterday for the Hari Raya Haji public holiday but is expected to re-open as normal today.

When The Straits Times visited the place in Pasir Ris Drive 4 yesterday afternoon, workers were assessing the damage.

The clinic director, Dr Peter Moey Kirm Seng, said the company has conducted "thorough checks" to ensure that the clinic is safe and ready for operation.

"The polyclinic has been cleaned up and damaged ceiling boards have been replaced," he said.

"In the meantime, we are working closely with the managing agent of Pasir Ris East Community Building to investigate the cause of this incident".

Yesterday's thunderstorm started at around 5am and lasted for close to five hours. Flash floods were reported at several locations. At 5.40am, intense rain caused flooding on the Pan Island Expressway towards Changi near the Tampines Avenue 5 exit.

The flood waters subsided after four minutes, according to national water agency PUB's Facebook and Twitter updates.

Three hours later, flash floods were reported at Upper Paya Lebar Road.

At Changi Airport, soaked carpets were spotted at the skytrain station of Terminal 2's transit area after rainwater leaked in. A Changi Airport spokesman said it was investigating how the water got in.

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Space crunch? More roads may be built underground

LTA studying plan to expand subterranean road network
Christopher Tan Straits Times 16 Oct 13;

SINGAPORE'S Central Business District, new Marina Bay Downtown and its future southern waterfront district may be linked by an extensive underground road network beyond 2030.

The plan being studied by the Land Transport Authority (LTA) will see traffic zipping about unobtrusively beneath the surface in a series of subterranean ring roads.

Such roads, which free up surface space and improve the liveability of urban areas, are found in cities such as Brussels, Stockholm, Madrid, Paris, Hamburg and Boston.

Singapore's plan is seen as part of a larger one to accommodate a growing population, and it dates back to the 1980s.

Then in 1996, the LTA envisioned 30km of two- to four-lane roads forming a pair of concentric rings under the city centre.

It revisited the idea in the recently released 2013 Land Transport Masterplan, but added that the so-called Singapore Underground Road System (Surs) will now be more extensive.

"We are now studying how Surs can serve new developments in the Marina Bay area and the new southern waterfront city that will extend from Keppel Channel to Pasir Panjang Terminal," a spokesman said.

But until exact development plans for these two districts are clearer, he said, the scale and alignment of the underground roads remain conceptual.

Experts said going underground is inevitable.

Dr Park Byung Joon, head of the urban transport management programme at SIM University, said intense development is expected for the new downtown areas. Thus, building roads on the surface "may not be desirable due to the limited supply of land".

Elevated roads may also mar the visual appeal and perceived prestige of a district, he said. Noise is another consideration.

"The only option left is an underground road network," he said.

He noted that it will be very expensive to build, but the benefits may be justifiable.

Observers said the long gestation of such a network - at least 50 years from concept to implementation - held a high cost, as many areas in the city had to be "safeguarded". The term refers to reserving space for a major infrastructure project to avoid conflicting demands in the future.

But retired traffic engineer Joseph Yee, 68, who was involved in early Surs studies, said: "The cost of not safeguarding is higher."

Safeguarding ensures that property acquisition is kept to a minimum, for instance.

Going underground is not entirely new to Singapore. The 12km Kallang-Paya Lebar Expressway, which opened in 2008, is largely underground. The Marina Coastal Expressway, slated to open by the year end, is the first to have a stretch going under the seabed.

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Increased rainfall in region leaves Singapore skies clear

Khoo Fang Xuan Channel NewsAsia 15 Oct 13;

SINGAPORE: Singapore is typically affected by Indonesia's slash-and-burn activities in September and October every year.

But the skies have remained relatively clear, and haze-free, so far.

Experts said the number of hotspots in Sumatra has gone down compared to the same period last year.

Dr Liew Soo Chin, Principal Research Scientist for National University of Singapore’s Research Centre for Remote Imaging, Sensing and Processing, said this could be due to this year's El-Nino condition being different from previous years.

He explained: "This year, the El Nino condition tends to be neutral, and slightly towards the La Nina. That's the opposite of El Nino, so it tends to have more rainfall, the weather tends to be wetter. So that's why we don't see many hotspots in this time of the year."

Meteorological Service Singapore also said any change in wind direction brought about by the latest Typhoon Nari is not likely to result in transboundary haze.

This is because increasing showers in the region are expected to help put out fires in Sumatra.

The meteorological service added that Singapore is located in the equatorial region, where prevailing winds are generally weak, variable and difficult to predict at times.

The presence of typhoons in the region could influence the direction of prevailing winds, but the occurrence of transboundary haze depends not only on wind direction.

A combination of other factors such as the location of fires in Sumatra and rainfall in the surrounding region also play a part.

Experts said the transboundary haze that Singapore experienced in June was largely due to two tropical storms over the Philippines.

Dr Liew added: "In order for the haze to come to Singapore, the wind directions must blow in the general direction from west to east, and usually it doesn't happen. But this year in June, the wind pattern of the typhoon interfered with the local wind patterns and the effect is that it changed the wind directions, and that brings the haze to Singapore."

- CNA/gn

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Malaysia: Malacca revives straits bridge project

R.S.N. Murali The Star 16 Oct 13;

MALACCA: The Malacca Government has revived the controversial 48.69km-long Malacca-Dumai, Indonesia, bridge project across the Straits of Malacca, after a seven-year lull.

Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron said finer details of the project linking Teluk Gong in Malacca in the peninsula to the port of Dumai, in Sumatra, would be revealed when all mechanisms were in place.

If implemented, the bridge straddling the busiest international shipping waterway would be the world’s longest, even without including a 71.2km-long highway to be built between Dumai and Pulau Rupat, the closest connecting point.

“The project was discussed during the 10th Chief Ministers and Governors’ Forum (CMGF) of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) convened in Koh Samui, Thailand, on Sept 12.

“The forum took note of the economic potential and strategic positioning of the IMT-GT with the construction of the Malacca-Dumai Bridge,” Idris said yesterday.

Insights on a feasibility study on the bridge undertaken by Strait of Malacca Partners Sdn Bhd were given during the meeting.

The company had earlier appointed the Hunan Provincial Communi-cations Planning, Survey & Design Institute of China to prepare documents pertaining to the study.

The idea of the bridge was first mooted in 1995 to foster new economic opportunities, especially in trade and tourism, between the two countries but died down during the Asian financial crisis in 1997.

In 2006, then Chief Minister Datuk Seri Mohd Ali Rustam restored interest in the project by saying that the groundwork for it had started and that studies showed that the bridge was technically feasible.

He also announced that the Export-Import (Exim) Bank of China had agreed to finance 85% of the link’s total cost, then estimated at RM44.3bil.

The proposal was submitted to the Economic Planning Unit with details on how the bridge would stimulate economic activities between the peninsula and Sumatra.

However, the plan came under strong objection from various quarters, including environmentalists.

Works Minister Datuk Fadillah Yusof, when contacted, said he was yet to be briefed on plans to revive the project.

Concern over straits bridge plan
The Star 17 Oct 13;

PETALING JAYA: While a bridge between Malacca and Dumai, Indonesia, could be a catalyst for economic growth, the Maritime Institute of Malaysia is concerned about its effects to shipping, safety and the environment.

According to maritime analyst Nazery Khalid, there are grounds to be concerned over how the bridge will affect the smooth passage of ships through the Straits of Malacca, which is one of the world’s busiest sea lanes.

“Ships would have to slow down when sailing through the construction site and traversing under the bridge to avoid collision with the structures.

“This may also affect their sailing schedules, to the detriment of the supply chains and the interests of stakeholders such as ports, businesses, industries and consumers,” said Nazery, who was among a team of experts from the institute who conducted a study on the subject four years ago.

Nazery was responding to the plan to revive the project, which was first mooted in 1995, and then again in 2006.

On Tuesday, Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron raised the idea again, which he claimed was discussed during the 10th Chief Ministers and Governors’ Forum (CMGF) of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle (IMT-GT) at Koh Samui, Thailand, on Sept 12.

The 2009 Mima study entitled “A Bridge Too Far? An Analysis of the Proposed Bridge Across the Straits of Malacca From a Maritime Perspective” stated that the shipping community was not comfortable with the increase of transit time through the straits, while the slower speed could increase the risk of being attacked by pirates.

The report also stated that such a massive project would adversely affect coastal ecosystems on both ends of the bridge.

Vital nesting areas for hawksbill turtles on the Malaysian side near Padang Kemunting (near Tanjung Bidara) could also be affected, along with other marine life, as well as the coastal tourism industry.

The report also stated the 2004 earthquake that hit Sumatra, triggering the massive tsunami, served as warning about the safety of the bridge.

“One shudders to think of the effects of a bridge collapse on the marine environment and also the economy of the region,” said Nazery, who was speaking in his personal capacity.

Idris said the details of 48.69km-long bridge linking Teluk Gong in Malacca to Dumai, Sumatra, would be revealed when all mechanisms were in place.

The bridge would be the world’s longest, even without including a 71.2km-long highway to be built between Dumai and Pulau Rupat on the Indonesian side.

Malacca businessmen want say in bridge project discussions
The Star 17 Oct 13;

MALACCA: The Malacca business community has urged the state government to include it in discussions on the proposed Malacca-Dumai Bridge project.

Malacca Chinese Chamber of Commerce and Industry chairman Tan Poh Seng said the government should convene a round-table discussion with local business leaders from all communities before reviving the multi-billion-ringgit pro­ject.

Tan said under current economic conditions, many locals were employed under minimal salaries and matters would worsen with an influx of foreigners via the bridge into the already saturated local job market.

“It would be easier for Indo­nesians to cross over here where some employers might prefer hiring them on lower pay scales.

“Both the federal and state governments should iron out adverse impacts of the project first,” he said.

Tan said the government must be transparent on how the funding from the Exim Bank of China was to be repaid, the period of repayment, the interest rate imposed and the commitment of the Indonesian counterpart on the repayment.

“We have to evaluate whether the local business community will benefit or suffer from the project.

“Local tourists could also frequent the other side more often in search of cheaper products due to the exchange rate between the ringgit and the rupiah.

“The findings should be tabled prior to the construction of the project apart from details like border controls to safeguard the interest of locals,” he added.

Tan said the government should also consider the security aspects of the project as the bridge would make it easier for foreigners to commit crime and escape in just hours.

It's back: Malacca Strait bridge plan
China's Exim Bank to 'fund most of the project' linking Malaysia and Indonesia
Yong Yen Nie Malaysia Correspondent In Kuala Lumpur And Wahyudi Soeriaatmadja Indonesia Correspondent In Jakarta Straits Times 17 Oct 13;

A CONTROVERSIAL proposal for an almost 50km-long bridge from Malacca in Malaysia to Dumai in Indonesia is back on the table, with funding lined up from China's Export-Import Bank.

Feasibility studies are starting again for the bridge over one of the world's busiest shipping routes, the Strait of Malacca. The project was previously thwarted by the regional economic crisis and then by environmental concerns.

Now the Malacca state government has re-appointed Strait of Malacca Partners to be the master planner and builder of the bridge, estimated to cost RM44.3 billion (S$17.3 billion).

"The project is definitely on, but it will take time as we are still at the feasibility stage," Datuk Lim Sue Beng, the private firm's managing director, told The Straits Times yesterday. He said approval from the federal government is still needed.

The bridge is to span 48.7 km, with an additional 71.2 km-long expressway from Pulau Rupat, where the bridge ends, to Dumai in Riau province, which is known for its oil palm plantations, including some owned by Malaysian companies.

The bridge will make it easier to transport raw materials from Indonesia's Sumatra island to Malaysia while opening new markets for businesses in both countries.

Datuk Lim said the Exim Bank, an equity partner in the project, has agreed to loan 85 per cent of the bridge's cost. The rest will come from regional sovereign funds and private investors.

The partners, he said, plan to charge motorists US$80 (S$99) each way.

China's Exim Bank could not be reached for comment. Officials at Malaysia's Economic Planning Unit, which oversees national projects, did not respond to The Straits Times' queries.

However, Dr Mohd Hazmi Mohd Rusli, a researcher from Universiti Sains Islam Malaysia who has done studies on the bridge proposal, said planners will have to figure out the impact on the environment and on shipping.

Also, he said, economic benefits beyond palm oil are limited. "Unlike Malacca's proximity to Kuala Lumpur or even Singapore, Dumai is not near any of Indonesia's major cities... The bridge is still not viable enough yet."

The idea of a bridge between the two countries was first mooted in 1996 by then Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad when he met Indonesia's President Suharto in Kuala Lumpur. Then came the 1997 Asian financial crisis. Over the years, the Malacca government has tried but failed to revive it.

Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron said the project was discussed at a chief ministers and governors' forum for Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand recently.

Some Indonesian counterparts fear this bridge might rival another29-km bridge linking Java and Sumatra, called the Sunda Strait Bridge. Currently, most goods are manufactured in Java and shipped to Sumatra by sea via the Sunda Strait.

Dumai's mayor Khairul Anwar said a bridge across the Malacca Strait will benefit Malaysia at the expense of Indonesia. He has urged the Indonesian government to hasten the construction of the Sunda Strait bridge.

"We must have that bridge first or at least the same time"


'Bridge project needs careful study'
New Straits Times 20 Oct 13;

JAKARTA: Indonesia is in no hurry to revive the Malacca-Dumai Bridge project across the Straits of Malacca although Malaysia is keen.

The project has been put on hold since the Asian financial crisis in 1998.
Indonesian Public Works Ministry's director-general for highways, Djoko Murjanto, said the ministry, together with other relevant ministries and departments such as the foreign ministry and the National Counter-terrorism Agency, would need to study how Indonesia could benefit from the project.

"We know the project's importance in strengthening connectivity across Asean, particularly between Indonesia and Malaysia.

"But we have to be prepared in terms of infrastructure, safety and security before the bridge can be constructed, as it will not only connect our country to Malaysia but the whole of Asia," Djoko said yesterday in The Jakarta Post.

He said Indonesia was not rushing the project as there was no urgency for it.

The idea of building a bridge between Malaysia and Indonesia was mooted in 1996 by former prime minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad when he met then Indonesia president Suharto in Kuala Lumpur.
The idea, however, was thwarted by the regional economic crisis and environmental concerns.
The project was discussed again during the 10th Chief Ministers and Governors' Forum of the Indonesia-Malaysia-Thailand Growth Triangle convention in Koh Samui, Thailand, on Sept 12.
The project will involve the construction of a 48.7km bridge from Teluk Gong in Malacca to Indonesia's Rupat Island, with an additional 71.2km-long expressway running from Rupat to Dumai.

It was reported recently that the Malacca government had re-appointed Strait of Malacca Partners to be the master planner and builder of the bridge, estimated to cost RM44.3 billion, with financial backing from China's Export-Import Bank.
Malacca Chief Minister Datuk Seri Idris Haron had said the project's details concerning the linking of Teluk Gong and Dumai Port would be revealed when all relevant mechanisms were in place. Bernama

With additional reporting by Kor Kian Beng in China

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2013 Ocean Health Index Shows Food Provision Remains an Area of Great Concern

Science Daily 15 Oct 13;

In the 2013 Ocean Health Index (OHI) -- an annual assessment of ocean health led by Ben Halpern, a research associate at UC Santa Barbara's National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) and professor at the Bren School of Environmental Science & Management -- scientists point to food provision as the factor that continues to require serious attention.

The OHI defines a healthy ocean as one that sustainably delivers a range of benefits to people now and in the future based on 10 diverse public goals. The 2013 score of 65 out of 100 demonstrates the ongoing need for more effective management of this precious resource.
"I'm encouraged because people, organizations and governments are paying attention to the Ocean Health Index and what they can learn from it," Halpern said. "Not only has the OHI been adopted as an indicator to gauge how well countries are meeting their biodiversity conservation targets, but it is beginning to inform the United Nations World Ocean Assessment and was named by the World Economic Forum as one of two endorsed tools for helping achieve sustainable oceans."

Goal scores out of a possible 100 for categories that make up the OHI ranged from a low of 31 for natural products to a high of 95 for artisanal fishing opportunities. Other categories include food provision (33), carbon storage (74), coastal protection (69), coastal livelihoods and economies (82), tourism and recreation (39), sense of place (60), clean waters (78) and biodiversity (85).

With a score of only 33 out of 100, food production from wild harvest and mariculture (cultivation of marine organisms in the open ocean) was the second-lowest-scoring goal and one of the most important resources from the sea for people around the world. A score of 100 is given for wild-caught fisheries if the biomass of landed stocks at sea is within ±5 percent of a buffered amount below the biomass that can deliver maximum sustainable yield. For mariculture, the number of tonnes of product per coastal inhabitant living within 31 miles of the coast is calculated for each country, and all countries above the 95th percentile receive scores of 100. Countries that have never had mariculture are not scored.

"Seafood is a major source of protein for one-third of the world's population, and it is estimated we will need 70 percent more food by 2050 to feed the growing population," said Daniel Pauly, principal investigator of the Sea Around Us project and leader of the University of British Columbia team of science contributors to OHI. "The score of 33 out of 100 for food provision indicates we are not ready to meet that challenge."

The 2013 OHI also assessed coastal protection, giving it a score of 69 out of 100 and indicating that further declines are likely. Coastal habitats -- including mangrove forests, sea-grass beds and salt marshes, coral reefs and sea ice -- protect coastlines from storm surges and coastal flooding. Forty-five countries that sit in the annual path of tropical cyclones had an average score of 52 out of 100. A score below 100 indicates a decline in area and condition of key natural habitats that protect shorelines from storms.
Among those cyclone-prone countries with a population exceeding 10 million people, the average coastal protection score is only 51 compared to the global average score of 69. The score was down slightly (-0.2 percent) from 2012 and the OHI calculates that the likely future status will decrease by 1 percent in the coming five years.

"Restoring natural protective habitats in storm-prone regions, in combination with sensible coastal planning and creative civil engineering, is essential," said Greg Stone, a leading authority on marine conservation policy and ocean health issues and executive vice president at Conservation International's Betty and Gordon Moore Center for Science and Oceans.
Wealthy countries have the greatest impact on industry and policy so their performance on the OHI is important to ocean health, but there was little correlation between their economic performance as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) and their OHI scores. The average score of countries with the 15 highest GDPs was 65 -- higher than the global average, but still not optimal.

"In its second year now, the OHI demonstrates that the areas with the least human impact have healthier oceans, but it also shows that nations who manage their resources better achieve higher OHI scores," Halpern said. "We depend on the health of the ocean for many benefits, such as food, livelihood and tourism, and the OHI indicates that the condition of these benefits needs to be improved in order to provide a healthy thriving ocean for our children and their children."

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