Best of our wild blogs: 14 Sep 14

Bats in my porch: 14. When is the bat’s head pointing up?
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Lacy Encounters
from Butterflies of Singapore

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More options for nature lovers even as Bukit Timah Nature Reserve closes

Leong Wai Kit Channel NewsAsia 13 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: Bukit Timah Nature Reserve will be closed from Monday (Sep 15) for restoration works, and will reopen partially during weekends in April next year. Repairs will only be completed at the end of 2016, but nature lovers can still visit the adjacent park.

The reserve will undergo repair and restoration works to its slopes, trails and forests. NParks will also upgrade its visitor centre - which is more than 20 years old - during this period.

The closure of Bukit Timah Nature Reserve from Monday does not mean it is the end of the road for nature lovers, hikers, runners and bikers. The adjacent Hindhede Nature Park and the mountain bike trail will still be open to members of public.

Visitors may also choose to explore routes less travelled. The three-kilometre Kampong Trail and the Rail Corridor - which ends at the old Tanjong Pagar Railway Station - are nearby.

NParks has started holding tours for the public twice a month on Saturday mornings. The tours explore Kampong Trail - where squirrels, monkeys and rambutan and durian trees are among the highlights. Another highlight of the trail is the Singapore Quarry.

The free tours can be booked on NParks' website.

- CNA/xq

Nature reserve closing? Try other trails
Jalelah Abu Baker The Straits Times AsiaOne 14 Sep 14;

From elderly joggers to young nature lovers, they came yesterday to bid a temporary goodbye to the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve, which will be closed for a two-year renovation starting tomorrow.

But lesser-known sites around the reserve will still be accessible during the makeover to firm up the soil on trails, plant more trees and install more toilets.

The Hindhede Nature Park, Kampong Trail, Rail Corridor and mountain bike trail will remain open to the public till works end in 2016.

The 164m-high summit of Bukit Timah Hill will be accessible through the reserve's tarmac road on weekends from April next year.

Explaining the need for the repair works, Ms Sharon Chan, deputy director of the Central Nature Reserve, told The Sunday Times: "Slope failures and landslips are happening all the time. If we don't do anything, in the end, visitors won't even have the main road to walk on."

She explained that the works will take two years because they need to be done in stages so as not to disturb the ecological balance in the area and drive the animals out.

Mr Wong Tuan Wah, director of conservation at the National Parks Board, said visitorship has increased from 80,000 a year in 1992 to 400,000 now. The changes will help the reserve cope with a rise in human traffic.

In the meantime, visitors will get the chance to discover three walking trails they may otherwise have ignored. Along the way to the nature reserve along Hindhede Drive is a dirt slope that leads to the scenic 24km Rail Corridor.

Further up is the Kampong Trail, which is still rife with fruit trees. There will be guided tours for this trail on the second and fourth Saturdays of the month till November.

Retired public relations veteran Goh Shih Yong has turned up at the reserve for his hike at 11am every Saturday for the past eight years with a group of seven to 10 friends.

He is excited at the possibility of starting his hike at the Kampong Trail, which leads to MacRitchie Reservoir Park.

"We will try it out first. We have to see if the trail suits our age. We are all in our 60s," he said.

It's time for a big facelift
Darishini Thiyagarajan The Straits Times AsiaOne 14 Sep 14;

He last visited the Bukit Timah Nature Reserve 10 years ago..

When he learnt it would be closed for about two years to undergo major renovation works, he decided to visit it one last time.

The 163ha reserve will be closed from Monday, the first time in its 22-year history.

Heavy rainfall and the increase in the number of visitors over the years have taken its toll on the reserve.

Half of its 9km trail will be repaired.

A visitor who wanted to be known only as Johnny, 73, said he last visited it a decade ago with his friends.

He went yesterday with a neighbour.

He said: "We both wanted to see this place before they close it down. Two years is a very long time to wait, and we didn't want to wait."

When The New Paper visited the nature reserve yesterday morning, nature enthusiasts had flocked there to spend time at the only hill dipterocarp (a family of hardwood trees) forest in Singapore.

A group of women aged between 50 and 65 were practising yoga as early as 7am at the Kruing Hut, which faces the Hindhede quarry.

They said they were sad about the closure.

The yoga instructor, Madam Joo Nguee, 50, said: "We met through yoga, and we've been coming here four times a week for four years now.

"But with the closing of the reserve, we might have to meet somewhere else."

On the other hand, Mr Mike Rehu, who was walking up the trek with two of his children, said the closure would not be affecting him as much.

Having made it a point to visit the reserve thrice a week for the past four years, Mr Rehu, in his 50s, said: "I will still be able to walk the dogs around the reserve, and my kids like going to the West Coast Park.

"Maybe we'll spend more time there before it (the reserve) reopens."

Three main areas will be repaired - from Simpang Hut to Police Repeater Station; from Quarry Road to TAS Station; and the main road between Kruing Hut and Simpang Hut.

VISITOR CENTRE UPGRADE

In addition to the upgrading of the visitor centre, a 1.3 km-long raised boardwalk at Dairy Farm Loop and Summit Path will be built for visitors.

At the summit, many nature lovers were seen taking a rest with their loved ones before heading down.

Mr Alan Chan, 56, was greeting everyone with a smile. The retiree has been visiting the nature reserve every Monday for the past two years, and would like the restoration works to be finished as soon as possible.

He will be going to Jurong Lake for walks in the meantime.

The trails will be open to the public during the weekends after six months.

Mr Chan said: "It gets too crowded on weekends, and I would like some peace after I reach the top of the hill.

"But I can't wait to see the reserve after its restoration works."

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50 ways to the Rail Corridor

Melody Zaccheus The Straits Times AsiaOne 13 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE - Cyclists here could one day start their ride along the scenic 24km Rail Corridor from 50 different entry points.

This would involve building pavements, staircases and bridges that connect to nearby office compounds, housing estates and train and bus stations along the Tanjong Pagar to Woodlands corridor.

According to the Urban Redevelopment Authority, there are four access points today. These are the southern end of Rail Mall; the slope near Hindhede Road; the slope near Rifle Range Road and from the railway bridge on Bukit Timah Road. It is one of several ideas to "enhance liveability in Singapore" which are now on show at the URA Centre's Singapore City Gallery.

The exhibition called Re:Imagining Cities - Urban Design Research in Singapore features ideas from the Singapore University of Technology and Design's (SUTD) City Form Lab and Singapore-ETH Centre's Future Cities Laboratory.

Some of the proposed access points by the SUTD team include the intersections between Henderson Road and the Ayer Rajah Expressway; Commonwealth Avenue West and North Buona Vista Road; and Upper Bukit Timah Road and Petir Road.

These nodes were selected based on the number of residents and office workers they can serve, said Dr Andres Sevtsuk, the director of City Form Lab.

Said Dr Sevtsuk: "There are around 8,000 businesses found within a 1km buffer around the Rail Corridor. Their employees could benefit from the Rail Corridor by biking or walking to work."

The URA has been seeking ideas and suggestions from the public and interest groups since 2012 on how the former Keretapi Tanah Melayu railway land can be best used.

Other ideas on show at the exhibition, which will run till Oct 8, include plans to rejuvenate Singapore's historic districts, such as the densely packed Rochor district.

One suggestion is to replace the individual air-conditioning units along the backlanes of shophouses between Serangoon Road and Lembu Road in Little India with a central system.

This could help free up space for commercial activities such as alfresco dining while being more energy efficient, said Professor Kees Christiaanse of the Future Cities Laboratory.

Another idea is to build a community centre in Farrer Park that can serve as a space for the area's two "intersecting populations" - the thousands of foreign workers who are there on weekends and the expected influx of medical tourists who are set to throng Connexion, an upcoming hospital and hotel complex.

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End of the road for Tampines Bike Park

Danson Cheong The Straits Times AsiaOne 14 Sep 14;

SINAGPORE - Marbles, Raptor, Tree Hugger - these are pet names of parts of the Tampines Bike Park that cyclists have grown to love.

But, by Monday, they will be just memories.

After more than a decade, the much-loved park will close to make way for the new Tampines North housing estate.

"It's a real loss," said Tampines resident Azman Omar, 45. "All of us are sad to see it go."

The avid cyclist has been a regular rider there since 1999, when it was an unofficial bike park consisting of 60ha of open space with a rough dirt track which cyclists maintained in their free time.

"Because of this place, I've not moved out of Tampines since 1994. I told my wife, I don't want to go anywhere, this is my playground," said Mr Azman, who works in logistics.

The Tampines Avenue 9 park has the only BMX track in Singapore and a 13km-long mountain bike trail.

Managed by Sport Singapore (SportSG), it is used by about 2,600 riders a month - a healthy number for a park of this size, according to the Singapore Cycling Federation (SCF).

Its BMX track was built specially for the Youth Olympic Games in 2010, when it was officially opened, and is the only one in South-east Asia certified by the International Cycling Union.

The park was supposed to close last year. The Government agreed to postpone the closure so that SportSG could find a new venue.

When The Straits Times visited on Wednesday morning, there was a sign put up by SportSG announcing the impending closure.

Coaches told The Straits Times they have already stopped holding cycling classes there.

"Tampines was great, it was very accessible and you could teach all levels of riders," said mountain bike skills instructor Wilson Low, 31. But while he holds his classes at three other mountain bike trails, BMX riders will have nowhere to go.

"The future of BMX depends largely on whether a new track is built," said Mr Kenneth Wee, 43, founder of Singapore Bike School. "The closest BMX track to us is in Malacca."

SportSG issued a tender to design and build a new BMX track in June but withdrew it soon after, without explanation.

SCF's vice-president for BMX Abdul Rahman Ibrahim said he had contacted SportSG three times since then, but has not received an answer. "It's very frustrating. Without a BMX track we cannot take the sport forward."

SportSG told The Straits Times it has been working with various agencies to find a possible site for a new BMX track. "We will give an update in due course," said the spokesman, who declined to comment on the tender's cancellation.

Meanwhile, Tampines MP and SCF patron Irene Ng said her GRC is organising a bike carnival tomorrowto mark the park's last hurrah. "We encourage those who haven't done so to come and enjoy (the park) one last time," she said. The carnival will host game booths, cycling clinics and the venue's last race.

Ms Ng added: "I expect a lot of photo-taking to capture the final days of the (venue) and to preserve memories of Singapore's first world-class bike park."

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2013 dengue outbreaks in Malaysia, S'pore associated with serotype switch

Channel NewsAsia 13 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: The dengue virus surveillance joint effort between Malaysia and Singapore under the UNITEDengue (UNited In Tackling Epidemic Dengue) has shown that the 2013 outbreaks in Malaysia and Singapore were associated with a switch in the predominant virus serotypes.

A joint statement by the Singapore's National Environment Agency and Malaysia's Health Ministry said in Singapore on Saturday (Sep 13) that the predominantly circulating virus serotype switched from DENV-2 to DENV-1 at the beginning of 2013. Malaysia, however, saw an increase in the dominance of DENV-2 in its dengue cases.

In 2013, Malaysia recorded over 43,000 cases with 92 deaths, while Singapore reported over 22,000 cases with seven deaths. In Singapore, the DENV-1 remains the predominant dengue virus.

But the number of dengue cases carrying the second most common strain DENV-2 in Singapore has been on the rise since July 2014. The statement said the authorities are watching this development closely, as the spread of the DENV-2 virus may result in a serotype switch here. This could potentially lead to a new wave of infections.

The DENV-2 virus strain is predominant in Malaysia especially in the southern states of Johor and Malacca. It has also been associated with higher reported fatality cases in the two states.

- CNA/al

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MediaCorp staff take part in International Coastal Cleanup

Olivia Siong Channel NewsAsia 13 Sep 14;

SINGAPORE: Close to 40 MediaCorp staff rolled up their sleeves on Saturday morning to take part in this year's International Coastal Cleanup. It is an annual event conducted in about 100 countries around the world, coordinated by US-based non-profit organisation The Ocean Conservancy.

This is the first time MediaCorp is supporting the programme as part of its Saving Gaia Initiative - a month-long campaign promoting environmental awareness and going green.

Volunteers picked up around 330 kilogrammes of trash - including items like glassware, plastic bags, styrofoam and food wrappers - from Selimang Beach in Sembawang on Saturday.

The trash was itemised and weighed, with the information submitted to governmental and international organisations. It is hoped that the information will help the organisations educate the public on marine debris issues.

- CNA/al

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Checking up on oceans' health - at a bargain price

Audrey Tan The Straits Times AsiaOne 13 Sep 14;

A research team led by scientists from Singapore is embarking on an ambitious project to find out more about the Earth's oceans - on the cheap.

Instead of sending out scientific vessels on expensive voyages, the team of 23 is hoping to collect oceanographic data by tapping a network of travellers who are already plying the more than 15 major sailing routes worldwide.

The aim of the project is to find out more about the health of the oceans, said Nanyang Technological University (NTU) Associate Professor Federico Lauro, who is leading the effort.

"Some of the things we can do include assessing the environmental impact of ships in the shipping lanes, how climate change affects the ocean, and how bacteria and viruses get transported from one part of the world to another," added Prof Lauro, a microbiologist from the Singapore Centre on Environmental Life Sciences Engineering.

He and his team estimate that compared to the US$300 million (S$378 million) cost of sending out 20 scientific vessels, it will cost them only about US$200,000 by using crowd-sourcing to get information such as water temperature and dissolved oxygen levels, and to collect seawater samples containing microorganisms.

With the data already collected for them, scientists can devote more time to data analysis, said Prof Lauro.

Researchers and funds are also freed up to send scientific vessels out to less popular parts of the ocean - typically near the poles, where waters are choppier and colder.

The project, which was outlined in international scientific journal Public Library of Science Biology on Tuesday, is still at a preliminary stage.

For instance, researchers are in the midst of developing a prototype device equipped with sensors that can be installed on the decks of vessels such as sailboats and yachts to collect samples and data. This is expected to be ready by mid-2015.

Prof Lauro said he hopes the project will be an ongoing one, with the potential to tap the 5,000 yachts that sail annually on popular routes.

Data collected will be uploaded onto an online platform and will be freely accessible.
- See more at: http://news.asiaone.com/news/singapore/checking-oceans-health-bargain-price#sthash.n8VpuSAS.dpuf

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Best of our wild blogs: 13 Sep 14

3,500 International Coastal Cleanup volunteers hit the beach in Singapore today!
from News from the International Coastal Cleanup Singapore

The fast fading ghosts of Ghost Island
from The Long and Winding Road

Morning Dew
from Bugs & Insects of Singapore

Carpenter Bee Sunbathing
from Bird Ecology Study Group

Nature Calls!
from Stir-fried Science

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Indonesia: Four factors destroy forests - Activist

Antara 12 Sep 14;

Jakarta (ANTARA News) - The non-governmental environmental organization Wahana Lingkungan Hidup (WALHI) stated that four factors cause destruction to forests in Indonesia.

"The four factors are industrial plantations, oil palm plantations, mining, and forest concessions," manager of WALHIs Forests and Plantations, Zenzi Suhadi, stated here on Friday.

He noted that the four factors are the major causes for destroying forests since the reform era (1998) to the present.

However, according to the recent review by the government, the cause of destruction of forests during the 1966-1998 period was illegal logging.

"The government should work hard to conserve forests in Indonesia, and if concrete action is not taken our forests will be lost and disasters will emerge," Zenzi pointed out.

He said that since the reform era (1998) until 2011, 56 million hectares of forest has been destroyed and has continued to increase every year.

"Data from the last two years have revealed that forest destruction in all the islands in Indonesia has increased up to almost 1 million hectares, caused by illegal plantations," Zenzi said.

Therefore, the government must be more assertive in taking legal action against the perpetrators--individuals or companies--who endanger the forest through plantations, mining, or logging.

The administrations must thoroughly review and observe the field conditions on areas where the companies operate.

"We hope the government will be serious in forest conservation and will take firm action against any company that has been found to be destroying forests," Zenzi added.
(T.KR-LWA/INE/KR-BSR/A014)

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Malaysia: Brace for haze, says Meteorological Dept

patrick lee The Star 12 Sep 14;

PETALING JAYA: Smoke from Sumatran fires in Indonesia are expected to cross over into Malaysia soon, the Meteorological Department said on Friday.

Spokesman Dr Hisham Mohd Anip said drier-than-usual weather was in the region, and that winds would carry haze from Indonesian fire hotspots over Malaysia.

"Expect the weather to be a bit drier starting from tomorrow, and also the possibility of haze," he told The Star on Friday.

He added that a tropical cyclone in The Philippines's east was also drawing winds southwest of it, namely from Indonesia and Malaysia.

This, Dr Hisham said, meant that winds from the region would likely push haze clouds over Malaysia.

"These are southwest winds moving northeast. Maybe it will last until the end of next week," he said.

According to a Jakarta Post report, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) satellite detected 225 hotspots across Sumatra on Thursday.

This was an increase of 49 hotspots from the day before, which seemed to be present on the island's Riau, North Sumatra, Jambi and South Sumatra provinces.

Meanwhile, most Malaysian cities on the Peninsular's West Coast appeared to show a mixture of moderate and good air quality readings.

According to the Department of Environment website, the most unhealthy readings in the country were recorded in Malacca's Bukit Rambai.
It had an Air Pollutant Index (API) reading of 72. Meanwhile, most areas in Selangor and Kuala Lumpur had moderate API readings of between 51 and 60.

More hotspots detected across Sumatra
The Jakarta Post 12 Sep 14;

The NOAA satellite detected 225 hotspots across Sumatra on Thursday, up significantly from 176 hotspots a day earlier, according to data from Riau's Disaster Mitigation Agency received by Antara news agency on Friday.

The hotspots were found in the provinces of Riau, North Sumatra, Jambi and South Sumatra, the data showed.

Most hotspots are allegedly the result of forest fires caused by deliberate slash-and-burn activities by local people to make way for new plantation areas.

Forest fires in Riau frequently cause thick haze to blanket the province and its neighboring areas, including Singapore and Malaysia.

Forest and land fires occurring in Riau between February and April 2014 caused economic losses worth more than Rp 20 trillion, according to data released by the National Disaster Mitigation Board (BNPB).

"It should be kept in mind that once a forest fire breaks out, it will be difficult to extinguish and can cause huge losses," BNPB chief Sutopo Purwo Nugroho said.

The largest loss caused by forest and land fires in Indonesia was in 1997, when fires wiped out millions of hectares of forest and plantation areas with losses estimated at US$2.45 billion. (hhr)

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Historic day as sharks and manta rays receive UN protection

TRAFFIC 12 Sep 14;

On Sunday 14th September, five species of sharks and two manta ray species will receive protection under the United Nation’s Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) when formal measures to regulate their international trade come into effect.

The five sharks and two manta rays species include Scalloped Hammerhead Shark Sphyrna lewini, Great Hammerhead Shark Sphyrna mokarran, Smooth Hammerhead Shark Sphyrna zygaena, Oceanic Whitetip Shark Carcharinus longimanus, Porbeagle Shark Lamna nasus and manta rays Manta spp.

All the sharks except Porbeagle are caught for their fins, which are exported to East Asia, especially Hong Kong, where they are the key ingredient in sharks-fin soup, an expensive, but popular delicacy.

The Porbeagle Shark is mainly caught for consumption of its meat within the European Union, while the gill plates of manta rays are highly valued as a health tonic in southern China.

All the species are commercially valuable and threatened through over-harvesting.

Under the newly introduced CITES measures, their commercial trade must be strictly regulated and the species can only be exported or taken from national and international waters when the exporting / fishing country certifies they were legally sourced and that the overall level of exports does not threaten the survival of the species.

In March last year, representatives from the 178 government Parties to CITES voted to include the shark and ray species within Appendix II of the Convention.

There are a number of technical issues associated with this listing, such as enforcement agencies learning how to identify products in trade, especially the fins that are usually traded in dried form and the Parties were given an 18 month period to prepare for the introduction of CITES requirements.

Many organizations, including the CITES Secretariat, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), plus non-governmental organizations including TRAFFIC and WWF have therefore worked to improve capacity on managing shark fisheries to bring them in line with CITES rules before today’s deadline.

Supported by the German government, TRAFFIC developed guidelines for countries who will need to make informed decisions—so-called “non-detriment findings” or NDFs—about the levels of trade shark populations can sustain, before CITES permits can be issued. The NDF guidelines are being widely distributed to fisheries management authorities.

In parallel, as part of a UK government supported project, TRAFFIC has developed M-risk, a novel method to quantify the risk of over-exploitation of shark stocks as a result of poor or inadequate management.

“TRAFFIC is fully committed to ensuring successful implementation of CITES measures for these shark and ray species, both in terms of demonstrating the value of the Convention for regulating trade in commercially important marine species and also that there is ultimately conservation benefit in doing so,” said Glenn Sant, TRAFFIC’s Fisheries Trade Programme Leader.

Many of the sharks are caught as a secondary catch by vessels targeting tuna.

“International co-operation to implement the new CITES measures will be essential, and the member governments of those organizations who manage tuna fisheries in the world’s oceans have a key role to play in ensuring their success,” said Sant.

“There are no insurmountable technical obstacles to overcome in implementing CITES requirements, and the NGO community, including TRAFFIC is standing by ready to assist, if required.

“There is a lot at stake here: restoring the world’s shark stocks is crucial to maintaining the health of our oceans.”

TRAFFIC and WWF have created Sharks: Restoring the Balance, a joint global initiative to promote responsible shark fishing, improve the regulation of international trade in shark products and reduce consumer demand for unsustainably sourced shark and ray products.

First ban on shark and manta ray trade comes into force
Matt McGrath BBC News 14 Sep 14;

All trade in five named species of sharks is to be regulated from now on, in a significant step forward for conservation.

Without a permit confirming that these sharks have been harvested legally and sustainably, the sale of their meat or fins will be banned.

The regulation was agreed last year at a meeting of the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (Cites) in Thailand.

The rules also apply to manta rays.

Shark numbers have been under severe pressure in recent years as the numbers killed for their fins soared.

Scientific estimates put the number at about 100m a year, with demand driven by the fin soup trade in Hong Kong and China.

Campaigners have been seeking to stop the unregulated trade in sharks since the 1990s but it was only at the Cites meeting in Bangkok last year that they finally managed to achieve sufficient votes to drive through the ban.

From Sunday, the oceanic whitetip, the porbeagle and three varieties of hammerhead will be elevated to Appendix II of the Cites code, which means that traders must have permits and certificates.

Manta rays, valued for their gills which are used in Chinese medicine, will also be protected.

The survival of all these species has been threatened by over fishing.
Tangible protection

The move is seen as the most significant move in the 40 year history of Cites to protect these species.

"Regulating international trade in these shark and manta ray species is critical to their survival and is a very tangible way of helping to protect the biodiversity of our oceans," said Cites Secretary General John Scanlon.

"The practical implementation of these listings will involve issues such as determining sustainable export levels, verifying legality, and identifying the fins, gills and meat that are in trade. This may seem challenging, but by working together we can do it and we will do it."

Under the regulations, all trade in these sharks and rays across 180 countries will not be allowed unless they have been authorised by the designated national authorities.

Trade in shark fins has already declined significantly as a result of campaigns to raise awareness. Recently it's been reported that sales have gone down by 70%.

Earlier this year the hotel chain, Hilton Worldwide stopped serving shark fin at its 96 owned and managed Asia-Pacific properties.

However several countries have entered reservations to the Cites regulations on some of these species.

Denmark (on behalf of Greenland), Canada, Guyana, Japan, Iceland and Yemen have all said they will not be bound by the new rules and will continue to fish for some or all of these species.

Under the regulations though, they are only able to trade with other countries that have also registered a reservation.

Officials from Cites point out that for such a controversial issue, the number of countries registering reservations is small. The point to the fact that China, the main consumer market, has not done so.

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Majority of consumer products may be tainted by illegal deforestation - report

Carey L. Biron, Inter Press Service Reuters 11 Sep 14;

Any views expressed in this article are those of the author and not of Thomson Reuters Foundation.

WASHINGTON, Sep 11 2014 (IPS) - At least half of global deforestation is taking place illegally and in support of commercial agriculture, particularly to supply overseas markets, new analysis released Thursday finds.

Over the past decade, a majority of the illegal clearing of forests has been in response to foreign demand for common commodities such as paper, beef, soy and palm oil. Yet governments in major markets such as the United States and European Union are taking almost no steps to urge corporations or consumers to reject such products.

Indeed, doing so would be incredibly difficult given the incredibly widespread availability of potentially "dirty" products, the new analysis, published by Forest Trends, a Washington-based watchdog group, suggests. In many countries, consumers are likely using such products on a regular basis.

"In the average supermarket today, the majority of products are at risk of containing commodities that come from illegally deforested lands," Sam Lawson, the report's author and director of Earthsight, a British group that investigates environmental crime, told IPS.

"That's true for any product encased in paper or cardboard, any beef, and any chicken or pork given that these [latter] animals are often raised on soy. And, of course, palm oil is now in almost everything, from lipstick to ice cream."

In the absence of legislation to prevent such products from being imported and sold, Lawson says, "There's always this risk."

Overall, some 40 percent of all globally traded palm oil and 14 percent of all beef likely comes from illegally cleared lands, the paper estimates. The same can be said of a fifth of all soy and a third of all tropical timber, widely used to make paper products.

Meanwhile, some three-quarters of Brazilian soy and Indonesian palm oil are exported. Such trends are growing in countries such as Papua New Guinea and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

While many case studies on these issues have previously been published on particular countries, sectors or companies, the new report is the first to try to extrapolate that data to the global level.

"Consumer demand in overseas markets resulted in the illegal clearance of more than 200,000 square kilometers of tropical forest during the first 12 years of the new millennium," the report estimates, noting this adds up to "an average of five football fields every minute".

While much this illegal clearing is being facilitated by corruption and lack of capacity in developing countries, Lawson places the culpability elsewhere.

"It's companies that are carrying out these acts and they bear ultimate responsibility," he says. "Big consumer countries also need to stop undermining the efforts of developing countries by allowing these products unfettered access to their markets.

Logging lessons

The ramifications of degraded forestlands, of course, are both local – impacting on livelihoods, ecosystems and human health – and global. Standing, mature forests not only hold massive amounts of carbon but also continually suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere.

Between 2000 and 2012, the emissions associated with illegal deforestation for commercial agriculture each year was roughly the same as a quarter of the annual fossil fuel emissions in the European Union.

The new findings come just ahead of two major global climate summits. Later this month, U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will host international leaders in New York to discuss the issue, and in December the next round of global climate negotiations will take place in Peru, ahead of intended global agreement next year.

The Lima talks are being referred to as the "forest" round. Some observers have suggested that forestry could offer the most significant potential for global emissions cuts.

This rising global consensus around the importance of maintaining forest cover in the face of global climate change has led to significant international efforts to tackle illegal logging. And these have met with some important success.

Yet Earthsight's Lawson says that some of the companies that were previously involved in illegally cutting tropical hardwoods are now engaging in the illegal clearing of forests to make way for large-scale agriculture.

"The biggest threat to forests is gradually changing, and that threat is today from commercial agriculture," he says. "What we need now is to repeat some of the efforts that have been made in relation to illegal logging and apply those to agricultural commodities."

The European Union, for instance, is currently in the process of implementing a bilateral system of licensing, in order to allow for legally harvested timber to be traced back to its source. Similar bilateral arrangements, Lawson suggests, could be introduced around key commodities.

Proven legality

Such a process would charge governments and multinational companies with ensuring that globally traded commodities do not originate from illegally cleared forestlands. In essence, this would create a situation in which the base requirement for entry into major markets would be proven legality.

Today, of course, the choice of whether or not to purchase a product made with ingredients potentially sourced from illegally deforested lands is up to the consumer – if that information is available at all. Yet such a new arrangement would turn that responsibility around entirely.

"All of this onus on the consumer bothers me – it really shouldn't have to be so difficult to make these choices," Danielle Nierenberg, the president of Food Tank, a Washington think tank focused on sustainability issues, told IPS.

"The fact is, consumers are still blind to these issues – despite the growth of the local food movement in Western countries, there remains significant demand for a range of inexpensive products. That's why the real action has to come from the corporate side, and governments need to take a bigger interest."

The United States has landmark legislation in place that bans the use of illegally sourced wood products in the country. By many accounts, that legal regime has been notably effective in cutting off the country's massive market to those products.

Yet for now, Nierenberg says that there is no political appetite in Washington to do something similar regarding agricultural commodities.

"Instead, the real opportunity for government initiative comes from the developing world," she says. "They need to invest more in small- and medium-scale farmers, protect their lands from land grabs, and invest in simple agricultural technologies that actually work. That's where the real change could happen."

Edited by Kitty Stapp

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