Green Drinks Singapore turns 6 today!
from Green Drinks Singapore
Fri, 29 Nov 2013, 1.00am @ CR1: Kimberly Carlson on “Oil palm plantations alter stream ecosystem function in Borneo” from The Biodiversity crew @ NUS
Butterflies Galore! : Great Eggfly
from Butterflies of Singapore
Liew Kai Khiun Today Online 28 Nov 13;
The Prime Minister’s Facebook post about a surprise visit by a barn owl has attracted significant public interest, with 27,100 “likes” and 1,790 “shares” of the post.
This is perhaps a hearty response to his remarks: “The Istana grounds are a green refuge for many species of birds and animals. We should preserve and create many such green spaces all over our island, so that in our urban environment, we can enjoy the natural flora and fauna of Singapore.”
Originally a nutmeg plantation before it was converted into Government House in 1867, the Istana possesses both the built and natural heritage of Singapore.
The lush 43ha Istana premises are like an oasis in the heart of the dense city centre. It has tropical and heritage trees as well fruit plants, which were home to 75 bird species, including the endangered hornbills, 25 butterfly species and 23 dragonfly species, according to the 2006 wildlife census.
As natural vegetation is expected to shrink after the redevelopment of military training grounds and other forested areas such as Bukit Brown and Bidadari, it is perhaps timely to consider expanding the Istana’s natural landscape to mitigate the loss.
Like the appropriation of several golf courses in the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s draft Master Plan 2013, the Government could convert the Istana’s nine-hole golf course into a mini-forest that could serve as a bigger green lung within the city centre.
A golf course is associated with exclusivity and extravagance in land-scarce Singapore. A lusher Istana, with a larger wildlife sanctuary and botanical repository, would reflect a more progressive and environmentally conscious vision of Singapore as a liveable, loveable place for man and nature.
PM's visitor a real hoot
Audrey Tan The Straits Times AsiaOne 24 Nov 13;
SINGAPORE - A stray barn owl paid a surprise visit to the Prime Minister's office in the Istana on Wednesday morning.
The bird had most probably flown into the building during the night and was found perched "comfortably high up out of reach" when he went to his office in the morning, said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong in a Facebook post on Wednesday.
Personnel from the Agri-Food and Veterinary Authority (AVA) and Jurong Bird Park were called in to help, he added.
The 30cm-tall bird was caught and released safely into the grounds behind the Prime Minister's official residence at the Istana, Sri Temasek.
"The Istana grounds are a green refuge for many species of birds and animals," PM Lee said in his post, which has attracted more than 24,000 likes and some 1,500 shares.
"We should preserve and create many such green spaces all over our island, so that in our urban environment, we can enjoy the natural flora and fauna of Singapore."
The AVA said it received a call from an Istana staff member at around 11am on Wednesday.
Together with staff from Jurong Bird Park and the Istana, the owl was caught "using nets, scissor lift and poles".
"The bird was checked when caught and was found to be uninjured and in good health," the AVA said in a statement.
The barn owl, which has a heart-shaped face and a speckled chest, is one of nine species of owls that have been recorded here.
An urban dweller that feeds on rodents like rats, it can be seen in places such as those under bridges and in buildings.
"The Istana is a good place for a barn owl as it is a green lung in the city," said wildlife consultant and nature guide Subaraj Rajathurai, 50.
"The bird was probably out hunting when it flew into an open window."
Thomas Lee Chee Chee Today Online 28 Nov 13;
On the issue of the monkey menace, especially in landed housing estates, animal welfare groups feel that one of the problems lies with these residents leaving leftover food exposed.
It is not uncommon, however, to see groups of monkeys rummaging through rubbish bins provided by the waste collector. My uncle who lives near a nature reserve has to keep watch over his papaya and banana trees whenever his dogs bark at approaching monkeys.
Perhaps a possible solution is for animal welfare groups to work with relevant agencies to plant and maintain more fruit trees in the forest. Until these mature and bear fruits, there could be a designated part in nature reserves where fruits are provided to the monkeys.
For the immediate future, culling is necessary to control the monkey population. Sterilisation could also be helpful. No amount of change in human behaviour would lessen the problem.
DENR to allot P347M for Visayas mangrove rehab
Ellalyn De Vera Manila Bulletin 27 Nov 13;
The Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) will be allocating P347 million for the rehabilitation of mangroves and natural beach forests in Eastern Visayas as it will serve as the first line of defense against storm surge in the future.
DENR Secretary Ramon Paje said the P347 million will finance the restoration of mangrove and natural beach forests in the coastal areas of Eastern Visayas region, particularly Leyte province, which was devastated by typhoon “Yolanda” last November 8.
“Tacloban City (in Leyte) is a major concern given its being a major population center, but the undertaking will cover practically the entire eastern seaboard of Eastern Visayas,” Paje said.
Other areas covered by the coastal rehabilitation plan are Dulag town in Leyte; municipalities of Guiuan, Llorente and Balangiga in Eastern Samar; and the town of Basey in Samar.
He said the main objective is to restore the region’s degraded coastal forests to make its coastlines less vulnerable to extreme weather events, such as storm surge.
“It is clear in the law that we cannot allow people to build houses in areas for mangroves and beach forest,” Paje said, as he referred to Presidential Decree No. 1067, also known as the Philippine Water Code.
Article 51 of said water code states that “banks of rivers and streams and the shores of the seas and lakes throughout their entire length and within a zone of three meters in urban areas, 20 meters in agricultural areas and 40 meters in forest areas, along their margins are subject to the easement of public use in the interest of recreation, navigation, floatage, fishing and salvage.”
Citing a study by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST), Paje said the “strength of an eight-meter storm surge is concentrated within the lower six meters with the upper two meters as only having tidal currents.”
“The surge can only destroy the leaves, but it cannot uproot the mangroves because they are so deep- rooted and strong that they will regrow in time,” Paje said.
He also stressed that mangroves are natural barriers against tsunamis, storm surge and other wave action, and therefore, should not be destroyed.
“Had the mangroves in Leyte and Eastern Samar not been decimated, the storm surge in those areas would have been dissipated by 70 to 80 percent of its strength,” he explained.
Under the DENR plan, some 19 million seedlings and propagules from mangrove trees and beach forest species like Talisay will be planted over 1,900 hectares of coastline under the National Greening Program.
Paje said that about 80 percent of the allocation will be used for the government’s cash-for-work program for typhoon survivors, who will take part in seedling production, planting site preparation, actual planting and maintenance of mangrove and beach forest areas.
“Restoring the coastal forests in Eastern Visayas will set the foundation for the reconstruction and recovery of both coastal communities and urban areas in the province,” Paje explained.
“We will design it properly and have it approved by concerned local government units,” he added.
He also said that the establishment of “coastal green belts” will be done in clusters to allow fisher folk access to the shorelines, as well as other sustainable activities like ecotourism and coastal management
He said the budget proposal is awaiting approval by the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA).
Stephanie Lee The Star 28 Nov 13;
KOTA KINABALU: Sabah’s exotic wildlife species are treasures sought by international collectors and smugglers, going by the millions of ringgit of seizures over the years.
These animals, many being endangered and protected species, are also being smuggled for their meat, among other purposes.
Sabah Tourism, Culture and Environment Minister Datuk Masidi Manjun, however, said the Government was doing its best to prevent smuggling and illegal hunting of endangered species in the state.
“Our efforts have led to the capture of poachers and smugglers over the years, as well as seizure of protected animals and meat, including pangolin meat, worth millions of ringgit,” he said when launching the Wild Animal Rescue Network (WARN) conference here.
“This is an indication we are being targeted for our animals,” he added.
Masidi said there were many private collectors and exotic food lovers who would pay hefty sums of money to get their hands on these animals, be it for their meat or for other uses.
“Looking at our biodiversity, I’m sure that Sabah is a fertile ground for the smugglers,” he added.
Masidi said that WARN, a non-governmental organisation that aims to reduce and prevent the smuggling of endangered and protected animals, had commended Sabah for its animal protection and smuggling prevention efforts.
“In fact, Sabah is said to be among the best in Asia in this field ” he added.
Disposable packaging is breaking down into tiny particles, posing a danger to marine and human life, shows research
Oliver Milman theguardian.com 27 Nov 13;
The waters around Australia are riddled with more than 4,000 tiny pieces of plastic per square kilometre, posing a threat to marine life and humans, new research has found.
The study, conducted by the University of Western Australia and CSIRO, found the vast majority of plastic particles were polyethylene and polypropylene, used to create disposable packaging, such as water bottles, and fishing equipment.
Researchers took seven voyages along Australia’s coastline, finding plastic concentrations were heaviest near Sydney and Brisbane, although the remote region of south-west Tasmania was also inundated with plastic, potentially swept in by the Antarctic current.
Overall, Australia is judged to have a plastic contamination level similar to the Caribbean Sea, but lower than the Mediterranean Sea. Australia, the research notes, uses nearly 1.5m tonnes of plastic a year, with only 20% of it recycled.
The study warns that plastics, if ingested by fish, “can affect the health of food webs, which include humans as an apex predator”.
Julia Reisser, lead author of the report, told Guardian Australia she was surprised to see such large quantities of plastics in Australian waters.
“Since the 1970s, we’ve been aware of the issue of plastic pollution when it comes to large vertebrae animals such as turtles and seabirds, but these particles are also affecting the little fish and plankton,” she said.
“We know that plastic is ingested by a broad range of organisms. What concerns me most is that these plastics are loaded with pollutants, such as fertilisers, because the plastic acts as a sponge for other things.
“This can be transferred via small fish to bigger fish and then us. It impacts the whole food chain. There has been research that shows toxins from plastics are causing tumours on the livers of some fish.”
Reisser said the true number of plastic particles is likely to be far higher than 4,000 pieces per square kilometre, due to the difficulty in counting extremely small pieces. Most of the particles found by Reisser measured less than 5mm across.
“The long-term solution is to decrease plastic waste, which involves the decrease in production of throwaway packaging,” she said. “Clean-up ideas are also welcome, although it won’t be a solution. There are lots of complex things that need to happen, including the Australian government helping create international laws to stop the dumping of plastics in the oceans.”
The issue of rubbish being dumped into the ocean was highlighted in October by an Australian sailor, who described parts of the Pacific Ocean as “dead” as he dodged debris for thousands of kilometres on a journey to Japan.
Julia Roberson LiveScience.com Yahoo News 28 Nov 13;
Julia Roberson directs Ocean Conservancy's ocean acidification program. She contributed this article to LiveScience's Expert Voices: Op-Ed & Insights.
Numerous studies have revealed the effects of changing ocean chemistry on marine life, and many of the findings are disturbing. However, as Katherine Gammon reported in her Oct. 2012 LiveScience article "Oysters' Future Imperiled as Oceans Acidify," the harmful effects of acidification on bivalve species such as oysters, clams and mussels are happening now, and have been happening for a while.
A few years ago, oyster growers operating in waters off the U.S. West Coast began experiencing devastating losses of juvenile oysters — up to 80 percent of their typical harvest — due to increasingly corrosive seawater. These oysters were not able to extract enough calcium carbonate to build their shells. Cold water is naturally low in calcium carbonate, so the effects of more acidic seawater have been documented first in the Pacific Ocean. The effects of acidification have also recently been felt by Maine clammers on the U.S. East Coast, who are reporting weaker shells, due, in part, to more acidic waters.
The good news is states are beginning to take action to help people who earn their living in the shellfish business. When West Coast growers suffered a devastating harvest loss, funding was made available to develop monitoring systems that enabled these businesses to tackle acidification. In late August 2013, California announced a West Coast science panel that builds on the efforts of Washington State to respond to ocean acidification. In June 2013, the Maine legislature passed a resolution identifying acidification as a major threat to Maine's economy and culture.
And last month, the XPRIZE Foundation announced its next major competition, the Wendy Schmidt Global Ocean Health XPRIZE competition for the best ideas for better, cheaper, more accessible sensors to monitor ocean acidification. Once developed, these sensors will bolster existing efforts by U.S. states and the shellfish industry to monitor what's changing in seawater, as well as how fast it's changing.
Shellfish growers are now seeking support from national policy makers. Representatives of the Pacific and East Coast shellfish growers associations, Margaret Pilaro Barrette and Bob Rheault, together with other growers, met recently with members of the U.S. Congress and officials from President Barack Obama's administration. Barrette and Rheault described the escalating threat to shellfish and requested that Congress fully fund much-needed research under the Federal Ocean Acidification Research and Monitoring Act.
For more on the damaging effects of ocean acidification on shellfish, watch the video.
City in a Reef: my feedback on the Draft Master Plan 2013
from wild shores of singapore and on Singapore's artificial shores: Reefs! and Mangroves! and Seagrasses!
Javan Myna caught by a Plantain Squirrel
from Bird Ecology Study Group
cuckoo @ east coast parkway, singapore 24Nov2013
from sgbeachbum
Butterflies Galore! : Malay Lacewing
from Butterflies of Singapore
The Raffles Bulletin of Zoology Supplement No. 28 - Methods for detecting and surveying tropical carnivores from Raffles Museum News
Mangrove ecosystems being obliterated in Myanmar
from Mongabay.com news by Rhett Butler
Not all mangroves are created equal: new map reveals carbon storage hot-spots from Mongabay.com news by Tiffany Roufs
Consumer report uncovers why people buy rhino horn
Mongabay.com news by Tiffany Roufs
Reports of dramatic declines in shark fin soup consumption may be too good to be true
David Shiffman Scientific American 26 Nov 13;
“In China victory for wildlife conservation as citizens persuaded to give up shark fin soup.” This October 19 headline in the Washington Post was one that marine conservationists had been waiting decades to read—and the story inside delivered, reporting a 50 to 70 percent decrease in consumption of the delicacy over the last two years in China. Demand for shark fin soup is one of the largest drivers of the global shark overfishing crisis that has resulted in one in six species of sharks, skates, and rays being evaluated as Threatened by the IUCN Red List. Given that demand for shark fin soup comes overwhelmingly from China, the reported decrease in consumption there would mean a major reprieve for sharks. But a closer look at the situation suggests that all is not as it seems.
Shark fin dealers attribute the reported steep decline in demand to conservationist’s campaigns in Asia aimed at educating consumers and distributors about the environmental cost of the prized dish. Indeed, many conservation nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have been educating the public in China about the environmental cost of shark fin soup: San Francisco-based NGO WildAid utilizes Chinese celebrities such as basketball star Yao Ming to educate people about the inhumane and unsustainable fishing methods that support shark fin soup; SharkSavers, a New York City–based organization, has a “Finished with Fins” campaign that aims to get hotels and restaurants to voluntarily remove the soup from their menus. Another environmental campaign, led by Hong Kong–based activist and photographer Alex Hofford, is working to get airlines to refuse to carry shark fins into Hong Kong. Shark fin dealers have blamed this operation—which so far has led to full bans in transporting shark fin from Emirates, Asiana Airlines, Korean Airlines, Qantas and Air New Zealand—for decreased sales. “We want to put a stranglehold on the supply chain of shark fin imports to Hong Kong. And create noise,” Hofford says. “And it’s working.”
Cultural changes among young people are often cited as a reason for declining consumption. A survey of Hong Kong residents run by the Hong Kong–based Bloom Association, a conservation NGO, found that “66 percent said they were uncomfortable with the idea of eating an endangered species, and more than three quarters said they would not mind if it was removed from [wedding] banquet menus.”
Some conservationists attribute the reported declines in shark fin soup consumption to government attempts to curb public perception of luxury usage among government officials. The Hong Kong government’s own, more recent policy, motivated both by conservation and similar efforts to not appear extravagant, has yet to make an impact.
But could any of these factors really account for such a rapid decrease in shark fin soup consumption in China? Many experts interviewed for this piece were skeptical. For every hotel or restaurant that has taken the “I’m Finished with Fins” pledge, hundreds have not. Hofford reported that his campaign has yet to hear back from 21 airlines. Moreover, the overwhelming majority of shark fins are transported into China by sea, not air (although Hofford did note that the shipping company Evergreen Line is no longer transporting shark fin. Government officials make up only a small portion of the soup-eaters, so a change in their dining habits cannot explain such a decline either. And the same Bloom survey that found that many citizens would not mind if shark fin soup were removed from banquet menus also found that 89 percent of Hong Kong citizens had eaten the soup in the last year. Additionally, shark fin trade expert Shelley Clarke of Sasama Consulting said, “a China-led antismuggling campaign from October 2011 to March 2012 that was said to have effectively shut down the international trade,” probably only temporarily curbed consumption.
Customs data do show a significant decline in unprocessed shark fin imports into Hong Kong in recent years. Historically, most fins were imported into Hong Kong before being shipped to mainland China for processing and distribution. If this were still the case, then reduced imports into that port would in fact be indicative of overall reduced consumption. Changing economic conditions in China, however, are likely to have altered this supply chain (pdf). Clarke says, "the historical pattern of shark fins being imported by Hong Kong traders and then shipped over the border for processing has been shifting gradually toward direct import into the mainland since the early 2000s.” If many more fins than usual are simply being imported directly into China, then reduced imports into Hong Kong do not necessarily mean reduced consumption.
In 2012, in accordance with the Brussels-based World Customs Organization guidelines, Hong Kong changed their customs codes for shark fins. A report in the South China Morning Post mentioned that in 2012 “a large quantity of fins were recorded against a previously rarely used code and omitted from the total figure reported.” This reclassification could easily be at least part of the reason for a reported drastic reduction in reported shark fin imports.
The best available evidence, then, fails to support the claim that shark fin soup consumption in China has declined 50 to 70 percent in the last two years. But even if demand for the soup does eventually fade away, that shift will not assure the survival of sharks. The shark overfishing crisis is multifaceted and has arisen from a lack of management for many shark fisheries, inconsistent and incomplete regulations between fishing nations, and too many sharks of many species being killed for a variety of reasons including meat, cartilage and liver oil as well as incidental bycatch. Many scientists, conservation activists and fisheries managers continue to work on the larger, more complex problems facing sharks and, despite encouraging progress, they are not yet ready to declare “mission accomplished.”
Ecologist says Australia has a 'dreadful' track record in planning, monitoring and responding to threats to endangered species
Oliver Milman theguardian.com 26 Nov 13;
Australia is failing to protect its endangered species due a “dreadful” track record in planning, monitoring and responding to threats, a group of leading conservationists has warned.
A paper published in the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment states that monitoring is a “critical part” of effective species conservation, but that “many species are being monitored until they go extinct”.
“Management intervention should be triggered when it becomes apparent that a monitored species is in decline,” the paper said. “Most conservation monitoring programs lack pre-planned interventions and a clear statement about how the information derived from monitoring will help to conserve the species.”
Professor David Lindenmayer, an ecologist at the Australian National University and one of the paper’s authors, told Guardian Australia that the conservation situation in Australia was “dreadful” when compared to other countries.
“In the vast majority of cases, we don’t even do the monitoring,” he said. “We roll out billion dollar environmental programs and don’t even measure whether they are successful or not.
“Both sides of politics have been completely derelict in this area. There isn’t enough monitoring as it’s the last thing to get funding and the first thing to get cut. When it is done, it’s done unbelievably badly and there are no trigger points to intervene.”
According to Lindenmayer’s study, of 122 recovery plans for 191 Australian species, only five made reference to monitoring programs with defined interventions to prevent an animal becoming extinct.
The failure to properly deploy these trigger points – for when population or habitat shrinks, or if disease is introduced – has led to the extinction of the Christmas Island bat, as well as the virtual wiping out of the quokka, greater glider and several species of Queensland-dwelling frogs.
Elsewhere in the world, a failure of monitoring and intervention has placed severe threats upon the Sumatran rhino and Iberian lynx, as well as the extinction of the west African black rhino.
“We need to take action and do it early, otherwise these animals end up in captive breeding programs which are often a colossal waste of money,” said Lindenmayer.
“In the case of the Leadbeater’s possum in Victoria, there are maybe 2,000 left and the trajectory has been distinctly downwards for some time. Around five years ago was the time to log the forests less as it was a severe threat that was robustly shown with science. But nothing has been done.
“People think monitoring is expensive, but it only need be 5% to 10% of the conservation budget. We don’t have to monitor everything – we can do it smartly, in a well-targeted way.”
Australia has one of the worst extinction rates for mammals in the industrialised world, with the Department of Environment currently listing 188 species as endangered or critically endangered.
The Coalition government has said it wants a more “business-like” approach to species conservation, pledging to introduce a threatened species commissioner to stem the flow of losses.
A spokesman for Greg Hunt, the environment minister, told Guardian Australia there was a “lack of focus on outcomes around threatened species” under the previous Labor government.
“It has been frustrating to see numerous plans on threatened species that have sat on the shelf to gather dust,” he said.
“The ultimate goal of implementing a threatened species commissioner is to reduce the number of species on the threatened species list by targeting areas where we can make a difference.”
Lindenmayer said it was “too early to judge” whether the Coalition would improve matters, but added that the threatened species commissioner role needed clout for it to succeed.
“If you’re the threatened species commissioner, you’re going to have to tell the Victorian government to log the central highlands far less and not put cattle in alpine grazing areas,” he said. “You’ll also have to tell the Tasmanian government to control sugar gliders, because they are chewing their way through swift parrots.
“You will need to be able to say these things as that’s what the science tells us. The role will need to be endowed with the balls to take on whatever state and territory and ensure that changes are made.”
Experts: do more to save species
CEED Science Alert 27 Nov 13;
Three leading Australian environmental scientists have called for a substantial change to the way the world responds to wildlife that is going extinct.
In a paper provocatively entitled “Counting the books while the library burns”, the researchers produce evidence that many wildlife programs round the world are monitoring species to the point of extinction – often without taking the necessary action to save them.
Professor David Lindenmayer and Dr Maxine Piggott of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions (CEED) and the Australian National University, and Assoc. Professor Brendan Wintle of CEED and the University of Melbourne warn in the journal Frontiers of Ecology that some conservation programs are standing by and watching species die out.
Their work, funded through Australia’s National Environmental Research program (NERP), highlights the growing challenge of saving almost 20,000 endangered animals, birds and reptiles from extinction – and proposes a new action plan.
“Of the 63,837 species assessed worldwide using the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List criteria, 865 are extinct or extinct in the wild and 19,817 are listed as critically endangered, endangered, or vulnerable to extinction,” the researchers say. “Since the start of the 21st century alone, at least 10 species of vertebrates are known to have gone extinct, although this is likely to be a substantial underestimate.”
Prof. Lindenmayer says that monitoring is vital to effective conservation, to understand the ecology as well as the numbers of a species – but monitoring alone is not enough, especially if it shows the species is in decline.
The team’s study cites 34 cases – mainly mammals and amphibians – from all around the world where the species became locally or totally extinct while it was being monitored. Examples include the Channel Island Fox, the Vancouver Island Marmot, the West African Black Rhino and the Christmas Island Pipistrelle bat.
They also used the case of Booderee National Park, in NSW, where the greater glider – which was originally quite common, underwent a disastrous decline and disappeared totally in 2007. This followed the local extinction of the yellow-bellied glider in the same park in the 1980s.
“The original monitoring plan for Booderee did not include trigger points for action – maybe because of lack or resources or uncertainty over why these animals were becoming extinct. But on the basis of this experience we feel it is possible to include triggers in many future conservation monitoring programs,” Prof. Lindenmayer says.
The team is now recommending a new approach be adopted globally:
• All conservation monitoring programs should contain well-defined trigger points for pre-planned action
• Management intervention should occur when it becomes clear that a monitored species is in decline
• Conservation science should document and learn from cases where there was a failure to save a species.
“We have drawn attention to some cases where a species was monitored passively until it suffered local, regional, or global extinction due to the absence of a pre-planned intervention program,” the team say.
“This is not meant as a criticism of ecological or conservation monitoring, since these are critical for understanding the ecology of a species, determining its threat status, and evaluating conservation options. However, our analysis indicates that many existing conservation monitoring programs are not as effective as they could be at collecting information and prompting relevant actions.”
In future, they recommend, all monitoring programs should be designed to trigger specific management action designed to save the species at risk.
The Environmental Decisions Hub is funded by the Australian Government’s National Environmental Research Program (NERP). The Hub’s research aims to assist Australian governments in their environmental management and decision making.
Fifty heads of state invited to London summit, which will aim to halt surging demand for elephant and rhino products
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Damian Carrington theguardian.com 26 Nov 13;
David Cameron will host the highest level global summit to date on combating the illegal wildlife trade in London.
The summit next February, to which 50 heads of state have been invited, aims to tackle the $19bn-a-year illegal trade in endangered animals, such as elephants and rhinos, by delivering an unprecedented political commitment along with an action plan and the mobilisation of resources.
The Prince of Wales and his son the Duke of Cambridge, who will both attend the summit, have previously highlighted the strong links between wildlife poaching, international criminal syndicates and terrorism and threats to national security. "We face one of the most serious threats to wildlife ever, and we must treat it as a battle – because it is precisely that," said Prince Charles in May.
Elephant ivory and rhino horn are worth more than illegal diamonds or gold, and the proceeds have used by rebel groups in African countries, such as al-Shabaab in
Somalia and the Lords resistance army in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Heads of state from many African countries are expected to attend and the countries where the products are sold, including China and Vietnam, will be represented, though the level of representation is not yet finalised.
The summit will be chaired by foreign secretary William Hague and environment secretary Owen Paterson. In September, Hague called the illegal trade "absolutely shocking" and said it was an "issue that affects us all." Paterson visited Kenya this month and saw elephants killed by poachers. He will visit China with Cameron next month.
The level of wildlife crime has soared in recent years, driven by demand form the rapidly expanding middle classes in Asia who value tiger, elephant and rhino products as status symbols.
In South Africa 13 rhinos were killed in 2007, but the tally to date in 2013 is 860. 2012 was the worst year for ivory seizures, with the equivalent of the tusks of 30,000 elephants confiscated.
There have also been efforts to tackle the popularity of shark fin soup in Asia, which is one of the reasons that around 100m sharks are killed annually.
Wildaid, a group that uses donated advertising to change public attitudes, has run a campaign on state TV in China featuring movie star Jackie Chan and basketball legend Yao Ming. against shark fin soup.
Prince Charles and William also visited London Zoo on Tuesday for a meeting with the conservation alliance United for Wildlife, whose seven member organsiations include the zoo, WWF and the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The royals discussed how new technology, such as drones, is being used to fight poaching, and toured the zoo's new tiger enclosure.
Martin Fowlie BirdLife International 26 Nov 13;
The number of bird species listed as Critically Endangered has reached an all-time high with the release of this year’s Red List for birds by BirdLife International.
White-winged Flufftail Sarothrura ayresi, a secretive and unobtrusive sub-Saharan bird, is the latest species to join the growing list of those on the very edge of extinction. Destruction and degradation of its high altitude wet grassland habitat, including wetland drainage, conversion for agriculture, water abstraction, overgrazing by livestock and cutting of marsh vegetation, have driven it to this precarious state. Urgent action is now needed in both Ethiopia and South Africa to better understand the species’ ecology and to address these threats and save it from extinction.
“Almost 200 species of bird are now in real danger of being lost forever”, said Dr Leon Bennun, BirdLife’s Director of Science, Policy and Information. “They are being hit on multiple fronts. Habitat loss, agricultural changes, invasive species and climate change are the principle threats. Without these problems being addressed the list will continue to grow.”
Critically Endangered is the highest risk category of the IUCN Red List of threatened species, comprising those that are facing an extremely high risk of extinction in the wild.
Yellow-breasted Bunting Emberiza aureola has declined catastrophically over recent years due to uncontrolled trapping in its wintering grounds in southern China and South-East Asia. This once-common species, which was listed as Least Concern as recently as 2000, has been uplisted three times in the past decade alone, and is now considered Endangered – just one step away from becoming the next addition to the Critically Endangered list.
However, there is also good news and real signs that conservation action works.
Two species of albatross - one of the most threatened of the planet’s bird families – are now considered to be at a lower risk of extinction after increases in their populations.
“Black-browed and Black-footed Albatrosses have both been downlisted to lower Red List categories”, said Andy Symes, BirdLife’s Global Species Officer. “There is still some way to go, but this gives us great hope for turning around the fortunes of other albatrosses.”
“Bycatch in fisheries is the main threat, and efforts are underway in many longline and trawl fleets worldwide to reduce the numbers killed. If we can keep this up, there is real hope that the Black-browed and Black-footed Albatross will set a trend for the future.”
On the Indian Ocean island of Rodrigues, two species – Rodrigues Fody Foudia flavicans and Rodrigues Warbler Acrocephalus rodericanus – have also been downlisted as a result of conservation action. Habitat protection and reforestation, spurred by the need for watershed protection, have been key to the recovery of these species, aided by the recent absence of catastrophic cyclones. Although much reforestation has involved exotic trees, native ecosystem rehabilitation has been started at some sites. These are fenced to exclude grazing animals and woodcutters, exotic plants removed and native species replanted, and there has been an accompanying public awareness campaign.
“This year’s Red List is a mix of good and bad news, but once again it shows that conservation groups around the globe are succeeding in saving species and preventing extinction – and these committed efforts now need to be greatly scaled up”, concluded Dr Bennun.
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