Association of Banks in Singapore releases guidelines on responsible financing

The guidelines comprise three main elements - disclosure of senior management's commitment, internal controls that support responsible financing, and raising staff awareness on environmental, social and governance issues.
Nicole Tan Channel NewsAsia 8 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE: Companies with poor environmental practices will find it harder to get financing in future, as banks in Singapore will soon incorporate environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria in their lending and risk assessment.

Amid the recent backdrop of hazy skies, there have been calls for banks to play their part by making sure the companies they lend to behave responsibly.

The latest set of guidelines released by the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) on Thursday (Oct 8) comprise three main elements - disclosure of senior management's commitment, internal controls that support responsible financing and raising staff awareness on ESG issues.

Said the director of ABS Ong Ai Boon: "This set of guidelines is not a silver bullet. We cannot guarantee that in the short term, it will solve this haze problem. Nevertheless, over the long term, with all these ESG criteria in the lending policies of banks, it will moderate and it must transform the operating procedures of the customers of banks. Hence, we hope that in the near future, these issues can be resolved with the concerted effort of all the stakeholders."

The ESG standards cover not just environmental practices, but also include labour standards, health and safety as well as corporate ethics and integrity.

As Singapore is a major Asian financial centre, the new governance criteria will have an effect on companies across the region. Observers have said that some banks already have sustainable lending practices in place and these standards can help formalise them. Overall, they said that it can help encourage more sustainable development, as banks have a central role in shaping responsible actions from their clients.

Ms Jeanne Stampe, Asia Finance and Commodities Specialist at WWF International, said: "If the cost of and access to capital is tied to sustainability performance, and you have banks that have sector policies in place, it effectively starves the fire of the fuel, because operators will find that they are locked out of certain pools of capital.

“All banks typically look to syndicate part of their loans especially the larger loans. If you have some of the larger banks not wishing to lend to a particular operator who is refusing to accept ESG covenants in the loan agreement, then the smaller banks may decide that they do not have such policies and take on the client, (but) will find themselves saddled with the entire loan, they can't syndicate it out."

In response to queries, the three local banks said they are strengthening policies to comply with the new standards. Some said they will reassess or even refuse financing to companies that are in breach of standards.

Going forward, banks in Singapore will be expected to disclose the senior management's commitment to responsible financing in their 2015 Annual Report. ABS said it hopes to see the banks fully comply with the guidelines by 2017.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore said in a statement that it welcomes the guidelines, and it will work with ABS to monitor the adoption and implementation of the guidelines.

- CNA/ms


Banks roped in to fight against haze with new financing guidelines
ANGELA TENG Today Online 8 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE — The Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS) today (Oct 8) issued guidelines on responsible financing, roping in lenders here in the fight against the haze as well as other environmental and social challenges.

To help Singapore’s banking sector support sustainable development, the guidelines incorporate environment, social and governance (ESG) criteria into the banks’ risk assessment and lending decision-making process, as well as drive greater transparency and accountability on ESG issues, the ABS said.

The guidelines call on the banks to provide disclosure of senior management’s commitment to responsible financing, integrate governance and build capacity on responsible lending among banking staff through training and seminars.

Banks will share their vision on responsible financing in their annual reports and publish their ESG policy framework in 12 to 18 months’ time. They will also implement robust governance systems by 2017.

Eight banks have expressed their commitment to the efforts, including Singapore’s three local lenders — DBS, UOB and OCBC — and HSBC, Standard Chartered, Citibank, ABN Amro and Deutsche Bank.

The guidelines follow the Transboundary Haze Pollution Act 2014, which came into effect last month. Early this year, the ABS formed a task force together with several banks to develop a set of industry guidelines on responsible financing.

“It is a social issue, a responsible financing issue. And as financiers, we want to be seen to be responsible to the environment, to society and to have good governance,” said ABS director Ong-Ang Ai Boon.

While the guidelines have no legal teeth, she said peer pressure will keep the lenders in line as “no bank would want a reputational risk. Banks are very sensitive to negative reputation”.

On the haze crisis, she said: “There are many stakeholders involved, and banks are important stakeholders as financiers… This set of guidelines is not a silver bullet to solve the haze problem. Many people may think that banks should stop financing companies (that contribute to the haze), but it is not a guarantee for a short-term solution.”

“It is more important for banks to keep on engaging with the agricultural and forestry industries, all these stakeholders on their financing, talk to the management, give them road maps in order to cause them to change their operating patterns,” she added.

Both UOB and DBS said they would reassess banking relationships with clients who do not meet the ESG standards.

“As part of UOB’s credit and risk assessment practice, the bank expects companies to meet prevailing regulatory standards. The companies should ensure that their operations meet key ESG guidelines and standards,” said Mr Frankie Phua, UOB’s managing director of Country and Credit Risk Management.

“If a company is found to have breached the standards, we will reassess the relationship with the client.”

The Monetary Authority of Singapore welcomed the move by ABS.

“The guidelines are a step forward to enhance responsible financing by financial institutions (FIs). FIs have a role to play in supporting efforts to promote sustainable development. MAS will work with ABS to monitor the adoption and implementation of the guidelines,” said an MAS spokesperson.

The Singapore Institute of International Affairs (SIIA) called the ABS move a timely one. “The haze pollution that Singaporeans and many in our neighbouring countries are suffering now is in part due to the availability of easy financing options for plantation groups. The environmental impact of their business practices, for a long time, is rarely a determining factor in the credit approval process.

“Singapore is a major financial hub and our three local banks have high exposure to the palm oil, and pulp and paper sectors. Unchecked expansion in these two sectors has contributed much to the haze problem… Hence, while Singapore is a victim of haze, it is also a key financier of haze. Business cannot remain as usual and we are heartened that ABS is sending the right signal,” SIIA said.

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Singaporeans deliver 25,000 masks to haze-hit Kalimantan

Relief.sg and Let’s Help Kalimantan volunteers are now looking to educate residents on the importance of masks.
Kane Cunico Channel NewsAsia 9 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE: Two Singaporean volunteer relief groups have returned from Indonesia's Central Kalimantan after seeing through the delivery of more than 25,000 N95 masks to at-risk residents affected by hazardous levels of haze there.

Relief.sg (RSG) CEO, Jonathan How and Let’s Help Kalimantan (LHK) co-founder Hafizhah Jamel called the trip a "success", but said the masks, though crucial, serve merely as a short-term solution.

While in Kalimantan, Mr How and another co-founder of LHK found out that a majority of the residents did not wear masks and those who did assumed the common surgical mask was sufficient. Many were also unaware of how to put on N95 masks correctly.

The two groups are now in the midst of working with organisations in Kalimantan to implement long-term solutions such as health education and are looking for Singaporeans and organisations willing to help.

BEYOND THE MASKS

LHK founder Ms Cheryl Lie, distributing masks to passing motorists along a main road in Palangka Raya as thick haze descends on the city. (Photo: Edwin Koo)

Mr How, who spent three days with local volunteers coordinating the distribution to more vulnerable residents such as children, pregnant women and the elderly, said: “In the grand scheme of things, giving masks is like a Band-Aid approach.

“We would now like to focus on the medium- and long-term solutions. We don’t have the solutions yet, but we really want to explore how we can be part of that solution.

“Before we arrived in Palangka Raya, we talked about the possibility of helping local entrepreneurs to start businesses to sell N95 masks because there was only one shop selling N95 masks. But it is expensive and they had run out of masks for more than a month. So there needs to be local markets.

“And after the mission, we learnt that in the first place, people first need to realise that they need those masks.”

Ms Hafizhah said that LHK, which solicits only N95 mask donations and does not accept money, will continue to work with RSG for long-term solutions and take on a new approach while still delivering masks to residents.

SPURRED TO ACTION BY THE NEWS

The two groups started the mask collection campaign on their own on Sept 22 after reading reports from Channel NewsAsia’s Get Real production team who were filming the documentary, Heart Of The Haze, in Central Kalimantan’s capital of Palangka Raya. The news reports highlighted prolonged air pollution levels reaching 1,500 API in Central Kalimantan’s capital city of Palangka Raya due to forest fires. Some residents said it is the worst haze episode they have ever experienced.

Mr How and Ms Hafizhah, who are both parents, said were moved when they saw videos showing children running around without masks.

Said Ms Hafizhah: “It is very important that they know how to wear the masks. Many of them are so used to wearing the surgical masks, which is useless in PSI levels of 2,000.”

As part of a long-term educational effort, the group is putting up instructional posters that teaches residents how to wear N95 masks. The poster was designed and paid for by the LHK founders.

The group used crowd-funding site Indiegogo to raise funds for shipping costs for the masks and has received some criticism, Ms Hafizhah admitted.

“We have received generous support from Singaporeans but there are some that say, ‘Hey, why aren’t you doing this for local Singaporeans? Why Kalimantan? You should do this for the locals here. You’re doing the wrong thing.’

“We thought that there are so many good initiatives in Singapore doing that. So why not do something for our Indonesian neighbour?”

LOCALS GIVE THE THUMBS UP

Palangka Raya resident, 22-year-old Emmanuela Dewi Shinta, who coordinated the mask distribution for the two Singaporean groups, told Channel NewsAsia that Kalimantan residents are grateful for Singapore’s efforts and that initiatives from groups like LHK and RSG make an impact both socially and politically.

Said the college student who volunteers by distributing food to firefighters battling the raging fires in the fields: “Firstly, we only have surgical masks here. By distributing these masks, people can feel the difference and it changes their perception about the dangers of the haze.

“Secondly, when residents notice that these masks come not from the government but from people from other countries, they start to ask: ‘Non-Indonesians brought 25,000 N95 masks on their own, why can’t my government even send me one?’”

Ms Shinta, who has lived in Central Kalimantan all her life, remembers the fires in 1997, which were the worst in the country’s record, and said this year’s fires are worse.

“I have never seen my city so dark yellow and brown, where all the people are starving for oxygen.

“This year, I’ve experienced it and we cannot let it continue. We have to fight.”

- CNA

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International law 'helps protect S'pore's interests'

Walter Sim, Straits Times AsiaOne 9 Oct 15;

Singapore has sought to use international law as both a sword to advance its interests, and a shield to defend its interests, veteran diplomat Tommy Koh said yesterday.

It therefore adopts a principled approach in always abiding by international law, he told 200 members and guests of the Law Society of Singapore at a lecture titled Singapore And International Law: A 50-Year Retrospective.

This approach guided founding prime minister Lee Kuan Yew, added Professor Koh, who recounted how when Mr Lee was told that something he suggested was not consistent with international law, he would drop the idea altogether.

However, Singapore's belief in international law is "not based on blind faith", Prof Koh said.

"We know that the international rule of law is weak and cannot deter a determined aggressive power, such as Russia, from using military force to secure its strategic objectives," said Prof Koh, who chairs the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore and is also an Ambassador- at-Large.

"We accept the reality that when there is a collision between law and military power, military power usually prevails, at least for the short term," he said.

The first principle of Singapore's foreign policy, Prof Koh said, has always been to be strong economically and militarily so it can defend its independence and territorial integrity.

Singapore, he added, should also work assiduously with other like-minded countries to strengthen the international rule of law because "as a small country, we want to live in a world which is ruled by law rather than by force".

Prof Koh cited several cases in which Singapore has relied on international law to protect its interests.

In 1961 and 1962, Singapore had entered into Water Agreements with Johor which, as a constituent state of Malaysia, does not have the legal status to enter into an international treaty. To protect its vital interests, Singapore inserted a "water clause" in the Independence of Singapore agreement with Malaysia that was eventually registered with the United Nations, Prof Koh noted.

He also cited two separate disputes with Malaysia, over land reclamation off Pulau Tekong and Tuas, and over Pedra Branca.

In 2002, Malaysia had accused Singapore of encroaching into its territorial waters with reclamation works in Tuas. Malaysia referred the dispute to arbitration, and Prof Koh noted that the eventual report by an arbitral tribunal largely exonerated Singapore. But it required Singapore to modify the contours of reclamation in Pulau Tekong and pay some compensation.

Both countries had also referred their dispute over Pedra Branca to the International Court of Justice (ICJ). While Singapore was relieved that the ICJ awarded Pedra Branca to Singapore in 2008, it was "rather disappointed" that it granted Middle Rocks to Malaysia.

Both governments accepted the judgment, and Pedra Branca is "no longer a divisive issue, no longer an irritant, in our bilateral relations".

This outcome, he added, was justification for being willing to acknowledge the dispute and to take the risk of losing the case in the ICJ.


International law is 'sword and shield' to advance and protect Singapore's interests: Tommy Koh
Walter Sim Straits Times 9 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE - Singapore has sought to use international law as both a sword to advance aggressive interests, and a shield to protect defensive interests, veteran diplomat Tommy Koh said on Thursday (Oct 8).

Even then, its belief in international law is "not based on blind faith", he added.

"We know that the International Rule of Law is weak and cannot deter an aggressive big power, such as Russia, from using its superior military force to secure its strategic objectives," said Professor Koh, who chairs the Centre for International Law at the National University of Singapore.

"We accept the reality that when there is a collision between law and military power, the latter usually prevails. At least, in the short-term," he added.

This is why, in spite of Singapore's attachment to international law within those limits, the "first principle" of its foreign policy has always been to be strong economically and militarily, so that it can defend its independence and territorial integrity, he said.

Prof Koh, who is also an Ambassador-at-Large at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, was giving a lecture titled "Singapore & International Law: A 50-Year Retrospective" to members of the Law Society of Singapore.

Singapore, he said, should also work assiduously to strengthen the International Rule of Law because "we want to live in a world which is ruled by law rather than by force".

Prof Koh used history to illustrate his point, citing five cases in which Singapore has relied on international law to protect its interests.

- In 1961 and 1962, Singapore had entered into Water Agreements with Johor. As Johor is a constituent state of Malaysia, it does not have the legal status to enter into an international treaty.

To protect its vital interests, Singapore inserted a "water clause" in the Independence of Singapore agreement with Malaysia, that required the Malaysian Government to guarantee that the Johor Government would abide by the terms of the water agreements. Singapore also registered the independence agreement with the United Nations as an international treaty.

- In 1994, when Malaysia imposed a protectionist trade measure to protect a Malaysian company against competition from Singapore, Singapore tried to resolve the dispute through consultations and negotiations. When these proved fruitless, it decided to invoke a dispute settlement mechanism with the World Trade Organisation. The policy was eventually rescinded.

- In 2004, Indonesia alleged that a consignment of compost sent to Batam and meant for use as soil conditioner and fertilizer contained heavy metals and was "hazardous waste" under Indonesian law. Indonesia notified the secretariat of the Basel Convention, which regulates the movement of such waste across borders, and an expert found that the material was not hazardous. Still, Singapore "generously offered to take the material back", said Prof Koh.

This showed that Singapore should abide scrupulously by international law and defend its good reputation and legal rights, but could also "give face to our neighbours", he added.

He also cited two separate disputes with Malaysia: the first, over land reclamation off Pulau Tekong and Tuas, and the second, over Pedra Branca.

The fact that amicable settlements could be reached following rulings by the respective international tribunals means these will no longer be divisive issues in bilateral relations, he said.

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Indonesia ready to take control of FIR from Singapore

Fadli, The Jakarta Post 8 Oct 15;

Air Force commander Air Marshal Agus Supriatna has assured members of the Riau Islands Legislative Council (DPRD Riau) that Indonesia is ready to take control of the flight information region (FIR) over the province from Singapore.

The secretary of the council’s Commission III on legal and security affairs, Surya Makmur Nasution said Supriatna told the DPRD members that the country was ready to handle the FIR when councilors arrive to visit the Air Force headquarters in Jakarta on Wednesday.

“Our equipment is ready to manage the civil flights. The Air Force commander told us that Indonesia is ready to take over and we would take control of it from Singapore in 2019,” Surya told The Jakarta Post on the sidelines of the meeting.

A FIR is a specified region of airspace in which flight information and alert services (ALRS) are provided. Singapore has been managing the FIR over the Riau Islands area since 1946. Indonesia has been trying since 1993 to take over the airspace without success.

Singapore controls the airspace that reaches 110 nautical miles from its position, covering Batam, Dumai and Natuna islands. The Singapore-controlled airspace is divided into three sectors: Sector A covers Batam airspace, Sector B covers Tanjung Pinang and Karimun and Sector C covers Natuna.

According to Surya, if the airspace control was fully returned to Indonesia, it would generate additional revenue for the Riau Islands from planes flying over the province before they landed in Singapore’s Changi Airport.

“We saw the potential revenue for the province. But, firstly, we are pushing that the airspace be fully controlled by Indonesia,” he said.

Earlier, Batam’s Hang Nadim International Airport general affairs head Suwarso said local authorities had followed up an instruction from President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo who requested that Indonesia take over the FIR.

“It’s now in process. The discussion [of the takeover] could be conducted as early as 2020, according to the schedule decided by ICAO [International Civil Aviation Organization],” Suwarso said.

As another step toward the FIR takeover, Indonesia had established special air navigation (AirNav) that managed airspace in the country, Suwarso added.

Since Jan. 1 this year, he said, Hang Nadim airport had collected flight service fees from Singapore worth an average Rp 3 billion (US$214,285) per month and handed over the money to AirNav.

“In the future, when the airspace is taken over, Indonesia will collect the service fee from planes flying over our airspace. The amount could be bigger [than Rp 3 billion],” he added.

Suwarso also said that state airport operators PT Angkasa Pura I and II had rejuvenated their air navigation equipment, giving training to officers who would control the airspace.

“Batam will become a base for the FIR control room,” he added.

The planned takeover was in accordance with Law No. 1/2009 on aviation, which stipulates that airspace above Indonesia must be controlled by the Indonesian government and that the country must take back airspace controlled by foreign parties within 15 years from the law being enacted.

Indonesia has reportedly held meetings with Singapore dozens of times, asking the city state to return control of the airspace. But the meetings had been fruitless as Indonesia had not been capable of lobbying the neighboring country, sources in Hang Nadim airports said.

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Singapore needs to diversify food sources, raise local food production: Desmond Lee

Singapore must diversify its food sources and raise local food production, "to buffer against the uncertainty of overseas sources" where it imports most of its food from, says Senior Minister of State for National Development and Home Affairs Desmond Lee.
Liyana Othman Channel NewsAsia 9 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE: The Republic must diversify its food sources and raise local food production, "to buffer against the uncertainty of overseas sources" where it imports most of its food from, said Senior Minister of State for National Development and Home Affairs Desmond Lee.

Speaking at the inaugural Institution of Aquaculture Singapore Conference on Thursday (Oct 8), Mr Lee said: "For example, every now and then, Malaysia, which provides around a quarter of our fish supply, bans the export of certain fish for various reasons. So it is always good to have at least some level of self-sufficiency in certain food items."

There are plans to raise the number of locally produced fish from 8 per cent to 15 per cent.

To do so, Mr Lee said the aquaculture industry needs to leverage in innovation and technology to boost productivity in fish farms. By doing so, farmers and their produce can also be better protected from environmental risks such as the plankton bloom that wiped out 600 tonnes of fish in local waters in March this year.

The incident has prompted Temasek Polytechnic's School of Applied Science and the Agri-food and Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) to come up with workshops to help farmers develop contingency plans against another possible plankton bloom.

The conference will also touch on other issues impacting the aquaculture industry - the fastest growing food production sector in the world.

- CNA/dl

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New 3D map of the island for better maintenance of public greenery

LAURA ELIZABETH PHILOMIN Today Online 8 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE — The Municipal Services Office (MSO) has worked with several government agencies to create a first-ever consolidated map of public green spaces to improve centralised maintenance of these areas by the National Parks Board (NParks).

The map was created by the Singapore Land Authority (SLA) with NParks, PUB and the Housing and Development Board (HDB), using geospatial technology.

By capturing, storing and presenting geographical spatial information through Geospatial Information Science and Technology, the SLA has been able create terrain models, photo maps and three-dimensional (3D) models among others, including data on public green spaces.

The overview of greenery areas provided in this map will help to identify gaps or overlaps in maintenance, and improve maintenance schedules. For example, NParks will be able to estimate the number and location of trees that it will need to maintain.

Speaking to reporters on the sidelines of a visit to SLA today (Oct 8), Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who oversees MSO, said this information will provide the public with quicker agency response as well as better harmonisation of maintenance operations.

MSO also hopes to share geotagging technology with other agencies, breaking down silos in operations, information sharing and capability building, to bring about higher productivity and more responsive customer service, said Ms Fu.

“Having this mapping of data, with the different layers - there’s a layer of greenery, a layer of building, a layer of footpaths, a layer of bus stops and taxi stands - actually allow us to understand more holistically the living environment we’re maintaining,” she added.


SLA provides 'green map' for NParks
Nur Asyiqin Mohamad Salleh, Straits Times AsiaOne 10 oct 15;

No green patch in developed areas of the island will be left untended, thanks to technology.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) is lending its high-tech mapping know-how to help agencies here better maintain public greenery, the National Development Ministry said yesterday.

This comes just months after the National Parks Board (NParks), which the ministry oversees, became the central agency for the maintenance of public greenery - a task previously handled by different agencies, depending on which one owns the land.

The move to centralise the maintenance of greenery here in June was part of a push to better coordinate government responses to problems on the ground. It is led by the Municipal Services Office (MSO), which was formed last year.

Since then, MSO has worked with NParks, SLA, national water agency PUB and the Housing Board to create a tool to clearly mark out green areas on a map of Singapore. It will help identify gaps or overlaps in maintenance routines and allow NParks to better plan maintenance schedules. NParks will also be able to tap on a 3D map developed by SLA to estimate the number and locations of trees.

Minister for Culture, Community and Youth Grace Fu, who oversees the MSO, told reporters during a visit to SLA yesterday that greater use of technology in managing municipal issues will help the Government boost productivity and the delivery of services.

And with one agency providing the "backbone of mapping", Ms Fu hopes to see other agencies come on board so this technology can be shared. "In the future we're going to face more demand on social services, but with fewer people. So, having that productivity improvement, (and making) a quantum leap, is what the public service is striving for," she said.

Ms Fu is also keen on having more people make use of MSO's OneService mobile app, which has received more than 15,000 submissions from its launch in January up to the end of August. Residents can use it to report municipal issues, from pests to dirty footpaths, and geo-tag or pinpoint the issue's location.

Said SLA chief executive Tan Boon Khai: "With all this data out there, residents will be able to give us precise locations so we can allocate the resources efficiently and quickly to deal with their needs."

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Activists say AVA not doing enough in case of chained dog

KELLY NG Today Online 9 Oct 15;

SINGAPORE — A chained pet dog at Paya Ubi Industrial Park has sparked off yet another conflict between animal welfare groups and the authorities here, with activists saying the Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA) has “failed to protect the (dog’s) rights”.

The AVA, on the other hand, said it is necessary for pet dogs to be restrained for their own safety as well as that of the public.

A group petitioning for a ban on tethering dogs first brought up the case of Brutus — a name the group has given to the dog housed at Super Modern Car Accessories at Paya Ubi Industrial Park — to the AVA’s attention in July, raising concerns that it was “restrained on a five-foot leash all day and night”.

“Chaining Brutus in a deplorable and dangerous environment should constitute animal cruelty,” said Ms Anita Chew, who also started an online petition to legislate against chaining dogs. It has since received more than 2,500 supporters.

Ms Chew, whose offer to care for the dog was declined by its owner, said the dog was tied up outside the workshop within an area filled with metal scrap before AVA officers visited the workshop on Sept 28.

“We doubt the dog is exercised properly, he is slow and wobbly in his walk, which can be due to the lack of exercise from the years being tied up,” she added.

Following the AVA’s visit, its owner, who wanted to be known only as Mr Teo, had moved the dog into the workshop, and tied it with a two-metre leash to a small flight of stairs behind a desk.

Mr Teo told TODAY he had adopted the dog from a friend seven years ago as a newborn puppy, and had been caring for it in the workshop since.

Due to its “aggressive personality”, the dog needs to be chained up to prevent it from attacking customers and dirtying the industrial area.

“Several years ago, the management (of the industrial park) complained that he was pooping all over. He also got into fights with other dogs. One time, he was injured so badly I thought he was going to die ... we later chained him up,” Mr Teo said in Mandarin.

He added that the dog is fed roasted pork and taken out for walks twice daily.

In response to queries, the AVA said Mr Teo had, under the authority’s advice, relocated the dog to ensure that it has “sufficient room to move around”. It is now tethered with a leash “long enough such that the dog is able to lie down, stretch and move around the desk area”.

The AVA said: “Straying dogs may pose a threat to public safety. Pet owners who choose to tie or tether their pet dogs … should ensure that the area where the dog is tethered is safe and comfortable, and sufficiently sheltered and ventilated. (It) should also be clean and have adequate space for the dog to lie down, stretch and move unimpeded within the confines of the restraint.”

However, Ms Chew and fellow activists felt that the AVA was not doing enough in Brutus’ case. “AVA had an opportunity to send out a deterrent message to dog owners who do not provide adequate care for their dogs but failed to do so in this case,” the activists said in an email to TODAY.

While acknowledging the “different and difficult” role that AVA plays in ensuring public safety, several animal welfare groups believe that education and further dialogue among stakeholders are key in reaching a middle ground.

SOSD president Siew Tuck Wah noted that the authorities have been working more closely with activists over the past four years, citing the Animal Welfare Legislation Review in 2012 which involved consultation with various stakeholders.

“Animal lovers uphold very high standards of animal welfare ...The authorities have a more difficult role … they not only answer to the animals, but are more concerned with public safety. Hence, the authorities’ standards may sometimes be the minimum, which animal welfare groups may not think is enough,” he said.

The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals’ (SPCA) executive director Corinne Fong said animal welfare groups are continually engaging with the authorities to “arrive at more humane practices over time”.

Ms Fong felt that the AVA should review the issue of chaining dogs, but noted that owners also have the responsibility for training their dogs to ensure the animals’ safety.

Action for Singapore Dogs founder Ricky Yeo also found the AVA slow to educate communities in industrial areas on sterilisation and care for stray dogs.

“They prefer to work on a knee-jerk reaction of responding only to complaints by trapping and then culling,” he said.

Animal Concerns Research & Education Society president Louis Ng, however, felt that legislation may not be feasible if enforcement is a challenge.

“If we have a law against chaining dogs, who will police it? It is important for education and awareness to build up so we don’t need to legislate these things ... I don’t think there is that big a gap (between the authorities and activists), they have different ways of getting to the same place,” he said.

According to Ms Fong, the SPCA came across 768 alleged abuse and alleged neglect cases involving animals in 2014. Between January and August this year, it encountered 561 alleged abuse and alleged neglect cases.

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Malaysia: “Illegal” beetle destroys RM6m worth of local plantation

FAZLEENA New Straits Times 8 Oct 15;

PUTRAJAYA: A total of 294 hectares of coconut plantation have been destroyed in Terengganu and Kelantan with losses amounting to RM6 million incurred caused by the Red Palm Weevil (RPW) beetle.

The RPW beetle according to Agriculture Department director-general Datuk Ahmad Zakaria Mohamed Sidek began emerging in the country after illegal date palm trees have been planted for landscape purposes since 2009 particularly in Perlis, Terengganu, Kelantan, Penang, Kedah, Malacca and Negri Sembilan.

Date palm trees are the main host for RPWs and promote the rapid breeding of the insect.

He said date palm trees are not suitable for the wet Malaysian climate especially for producing dates as it is more suited for the desert with its dry and hot weather.

“Planting these illegal date palm trees have led to the breeding of the RPW, and the beetles pose a threat if it continues to breed in the country.

“We are afraid if the RPW population increases, they will be moving on to our palm oil plantation for food and destroying them, as the (palm oil) trees are from the same palmae family similar to the date palm trees.

“We need to contain the situation before it spreads to other state especially in the south of Peninsula,” he said, adding the RPW eats the core and kills the tree within like cancer.

When asked how the date palm trees were brought into the country illegally, Zakaria said the trees were mostly probably smuggled via road crossing the northern borders into the country.

He added the department has never issued a permit for the date palm trees and no one is allowed to plant them in the country under Plant Quarantine Regulations 1981.

Locally, the RPW has been gazette as a Harmful Insects on July 19, 2011.

Those found violating the regulations could be fined RM1,000 or sentenced to one year prison or both under Section 14 (1) (e).

The department is urging those with the date palm trees and RPW to notify their nearest offices to allow the process of destroying the insects and trees immediately, Zakaria said.

“Our techniques using chemical poison, pheromone traps and culture control have helped in reducing the number of the insect’s attacks.

“We are monitoring the coconut plantation in Terengannu, Kelantan, Kedah, Penang, Perak, Selangor and Johor to contain and eliminate the problem.

“Date palm trees importers are urged to destroy them as soon as possible,” he said, adding they are looking at the matter seriously.

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Twenty nations vulnerable to climate change seek more action

Reuters Yahoo News 8 Oct 15;

LIMA (Reuters) - Twenty of the countries most vulnerable to climate change, from the Himalayan kingdom of Bhutan to the Pacific island nation of Tuvalu, will form a new group on Thursday to press for tougher action to curb warming.

Draft documents for a meeting of finance ministers in Lima, Peru and seen by Reuters, said the 20 represented 700 million people in low- and middle-income nations that were arid, landlocked, mountainous or vulnerable to rising sea levels.

The Vulnerable 20 (V20) group's draft action plan will seek to "strengthen economic and financial cooperation and action to address climate change risks and opportunities" and promote a shift to a low-carbon global economy.

Goals would include "improved access to international climate change finance" to help cope with droughts, floods, melting glaciers and rising sea levels. They said one possibility was a tax on financial transactions.

The 20 said they accounted for just two percent of world greenhouse gas emissions but had suffered an average of more than 50,000 deaths a year since 2010 from impacts they linked to rising temperatures.

They estimated that they faced "escalating losses of at least 2.5 percent of our GDP potential per year, estimated at $45 billion since 2010."

Members will be Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Barbados, Bhutan, Costa Rica, Ethiopia, Ghana, Kenya, Kiribati, Madagascar, Maldives, Nepal, Philippines, Rwanda, Saint Lucia, Tanzania, East Timor, Tuvalu, Vanuatu and Vietnam.

They said they would also share experiences and work for a sovereign V20 Climate Risk Pooling Mechanism, an insurance facility to spread risks and help recovery after extreme weather events and disasters.

Ministers from the 20 nations are due to approve the documents before meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank in Lima starting on Friday.

Renato Constantino, executive director of the Institute for Climate and Sustainable Cities non-governmental group, welcomed the formation of the V20.

He did not expect it to detract from existing groups, for instance of Least Developed Countries of the Alliance of Small Island States. "I don't think it complicates the work. I think it clarifies the agenda for developing countries," he said.

(Writing by Alister Doyle in Oslo; Editing by Tom Heneghan)

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EFSA report considers risks of eating insects

Mark Kinver BBC News 8 Oct 15;

The European Food Safety Authority has published its initial risk assessment of using insects as a source of protein for human consumption and animal feed.

It concluded that risks to human and animal health depended on how the insects were reared and processed.

The UN suggests that "edible insects" could provide a sustainable source of nutrition for a growing population.

The findings have been sent to the European Commission, which requested the EFSA risk assessment.

The report produced by a working group convened by the EFSA scientific committee, compiled a report that assessed "potential biological and chemical hazards, as well as allergenicity and environmental hazards, associated with farmed insects used in food and feed taking into account the entire chain, from farming to the final product".

It concluded that for biological and chemical hazards of using farmed insects for human consumption and in animal feed, the risks were dependent upon the form of husbandry being employed.

It observed: "The specific production methods, the substrate used, the stage of harvest, the insect species, as well as the methods used for further processing will all have an impact on the possible presence of biological and chemical contaminants in insect food and feed products."

As for the environmental risk posed by large-scale insect farming, the authors said it was expected to be comparable with other animal production systems.
They wrote: "The adoption of existing waste management strategies should be applicable for managing waste from insect production.

"Assessment of the individual production systems will determine the precise strategy to be adopted on a case by case basis."

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) has been investigating the role "edible insects" can play in terms of increasing food and nutrition security in people's diet.

It observed: "Trends towards 2050 predict a steady population increase to nine billion, forcing an increased food/feed output from available agro-ecosystems resulting in an even greater pressure on the environment.

1,900 species eaten

"Scarcities of agricultural land, water, forest, fisheries and biodiversity resources, as well as nutrients and non-renewable energy are foreseen.

The FAO identified insects as a source of "high quality protein" and other nutrients, and had a "food conversion rate", meaning yields from harvesting insects required lower levels of inputs, such as feed and water.

It estimated that more than 1,900 species of insects are consumed on a regular basis by people around the world.

However, it is expected that the demand for mini-livestock within the EU will be limited to relatively few species, such as flies, moths, mealworms and crickets/locusts.

In its request to the EFSA, the Commission's Health and Consumers Directorate acknowledged that insects only accounted for a very small niche market in the EU but was aware that interest was growing.

EFSA scientific officer Tilemachos Goumperis said the initial assessment focused on identifying potential risks and hazards posed by insect farming and did not consider the issue of food and nutrition security.

He told BBC News that the working group identified a number of gaps in available data in a number of areas, such as human consumption, animal and pet consumption, viruses and allergens.

The report recommended: "Further research for better assessment of microbiological and chemical risks from insects and feed including studies on the occurrence of hazards when using particular substrates, like food waste and manure, is recommended."

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Best of our wild blogs: 8 Oct 15

Grey-rumped Treeswift: Just before fledging
Bird Ecology Study Group

NASA photo shows New Guinea going up in flames
Mongabay Environmental News

Greenpeace releases dramatic drone video of Indonesia’s fires
Mongabay Environmental News

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World's oceans facing biggest coral die-off in history, scientists warn

A third global bleaching of coral reefs is underway following a massive and persistent underwater heatwave
A strong El Niño is set to worsen the plight of coral in 2016.
Karl Mathiesen The Guardian 8 Oct 15;

Scientists have confirmed the third-ever global bleaching of coral reefs is under way and warned it could see the biggest coral die-off in history.

Since 2014, a massive underwater heatwave, driven by climate change, has caused corals to lose their brilliance and die in every ocean. By the end of this year 38% of the world’s reefs will have been affected. About 5% will have died forever.

But with a very strong El Niño driving record global temperatures and a huge patch of hot water, known as “the Blob”, hanging obstinately in the north-western Pacific, things look far worse again for 2016.

For coral scientists such as Dr Mark Eakin, the coordinator of the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Coral Reef Watch programme, this is the cataclysm that has been feared since the first global bleaching occurred in 1998 .

“The fact that 2016’s bleaching will be added on top of the bleaching that has occurred since June 2014 makes me really worried about what the cumulative impact may be. It very well may be the worst period of coral bleaching we’ve seen,” he told the Guardian.

The only two previous such global events were in 1998 and 2010, when every major ocean basin experienced bleaching.

Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, Australia, said the ocean was now primed for “the worst coral bleaching event in history”.

“The development of conditions in the Pacific looks exactly like what happened in 1997. And of course following 1997 we had this extremely warm year, with damage occurring in 50 countries at least and 16% of corals dying by the end of it,” he said. “Many of us think this will exceed the damage that was done in 1998.”

After widespread devastation was confirmed in the Caribbean this month, a worldwide consortium of coral scientists joined on Thursday to sombrely announce the third-ever global bleaching event – and warn of a tenuous future for the precious habitat unless sharp cuts were made to carbon emissions.

Since the early 1980s the world has lost roughly half of its coral reefs. Hoegh-Guldberg said the current event was directly in line with predictions he made in 1999 that continued global temperature rise would lead to the complete loss of coral reefs by the middle of this century.

“It’s certainly on that road to a point about 2030 when every year is a bleaching year … So unfortunately I got it right,” he said.

Hoegh-Guldberg said he had personally observed the first signs of bleaching on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef in the past fortnight, months before the warm season begins. He said the warming pattern indicated bleaching this summer would likely affect 50% of the reef, leaving 5-10% of corals dead. Eakin said seeing bleaching on the reef at this time of year was “disturbing”.

“We are going to have to double our efforts to reduce the other threats to the reef,” said Hoegh-Guldberg of the icon that Unesco has considered listing as World Heritage in Danger, due to the threats of a mooted coal port expansion, agricultural run-off and climate change. “It’s like a hospital patient. If you’ve got a chronic disease then you are more sensitive to a lot of other things and if you want a recovery then you need to take all those other stresses off.”

The difference between this bleaching event and others before it is not just the extremity of sea temperatures, but how long they have persisted for. Corals can recover from bleaching if the temperature relents. But after a month or more the organisms that build these brilliantly coloured underwater cities die.

“This is not only a big event, but it’s more persistent than any of our past ones, including 1998,” said Eakin. In many areas the bleaching has now lasted far longer than the threshold month and in Hawaii, Guam, Kiribati and Florida there has been back-to-back bleaching events across the past two years.

Like rainforests on land, coral reefs are home to a riot of biodiversity. On just 0.1% of the ocean’s floor they nurture 25% of the world’s marine species. The impact of losing this would be devastating for the 500 million people who rely on coral ecosystems for their food and livelihood. These effects would not be felt immediately, but over the coming years as fish species move on or die off.

“It really does affect things like tourism and fishing,” said Hoegh-Guldberg. However, he said there was still hope, if governments acted immediately to relieve both global and local pressures on reefs.

“If we were to take strong action on the emission issue and we were to take strong action on the non-climate issues such as overfishing and pollution, reefs would rebound by mid to late century,” he said.


NOAA declares third ever global coral bleaching event
Bleaching intensifies in Hawaii, high ocean temperatures threaten Caribbean corals
NOAA HEADQUARTERS EurekAlert 8 Oct 15;

As record ocean temperatures cause widespread coral bleaching across Hawaii, NOAA scientists confirm the same stressful conditions are expanding to the Caribbean and may last into the new year, prompting the declaration of the third global coral bleaching event ever on record.

Waters are warming in the Caribbean, threatening coral in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands, NOAA scientists said. Coral bleaching began in the Florida Keys and South Florida in August, but now scientists expect bleaching conditions there to diminish.

"The coral bleaching and disease, brought on by climate change and coupled with events like the current El Niño, are the largest and most pervasive threats to coral reefs around the world," said Mark Eakin, NOAA's Coral Reef Watch coordinator. "As a result, we are losing huge areas of coral across the U.S., as well as internationally. What really has us concerned is this event has been going on for more than a year and our preliminary model projections indicate it's likely to last well into 2016."

While corals can recover from mild bleaching, severe or long-term bleaching is often lethal. After corals die, reefs quickly degrade and the structures corals build erode. This provides less shoreline protection from storms and fewer habitats for fish and other marine life, including ecologically and economically important species.

This bleaching event, which began in the north Pacific in summer 2014 and expanded to the south Pacific and Indian oceans in 2015, is hitting U.S. coral reefs disproportionately hard. NOAA estimates that by the end of 2015, almost 95 percent of U.S. coral reefs will have been exposed to ocean conditions that can cause corals to bleach.

The biggest risk right now is to the Hawaiian Islands, where bleaching is intensifying and is expected to continue for at least another month. Areas at risk in the Caribbean in coming weeks include Haiti, the Dominican Republic and Puerto Rico, and from the U.S. Virgin Islands south into the Leeward and Windward islands.

The next concern is the further impact of the strong El Niño, which climate models indicates will cause bleaching in the Indian and southeastern Pacific Oceans after the new year. This may cause bleaching to spread globally again in 2016.

"We need to act locally and think globally to address these bleaching events. Locally produced threats to coral, such as pollution from the land and unsustainable fishing practices, stress the health of corals and decrease the likelihood that corals can either resist bleaching, or recover from it," said Jennifer Koss, NOAA Coral Reef Conservation Program acting program manager. "To solve the long-term, global problem, however, we need to better understand how to reduce the unnatural carbon dioxide levels that are the major driver of the warming."

This announcement stems from the latest NOAA Coral Reef Watch satellite coral bleaching monitoring products, and was confirmed through reports from partner organizations with divers working on affected reefs, especially the XL Catlin Seaview Survey and ReefCheck. NOAA Coral Reef Watch's outlook, which forecasts the potential for coral bleaching worldwide several months in the future, predicted this global event in July 2015.

The current high ocean temperatures in Hawaii come on the heels of bleaching in the Main Hawaiian Islands in 2014?only the second bleaching occurrence in the region's history?and devastating bleaching and coral death in parts of the remote and well-protected Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument in the Northwestern Hawaiian Islands.

"Last year's bleaching at Lisianski Atoll was the worst our scientists have seen," said Randy Kosaki, NOAA's deputy superintendent for the monument. "Almost one and a half square miles of reef bleached last year and are now completely dead."

Coral bleaching occurs when corals are exposed to stressful environmental conditions such as high temperature. Corals expel the symbiotic algae living in their tissues, causing corals to turn white or pale. Without the algae, the coral loses its major source of food and is more susceptible to disease.

The first global bleaching event was in 1998, during a strong El Niño that was followed by an equally very strong La Niña. A second one occurred in 2010.

Satellite data from NOAA's Coral Reef Watch program provides current reef environmental conditions to quickly identify areas at risk for coral bleaching, while its climate model-based outlooks provide managers with information on potential bleaching months in advance.

The outlooks were developed jointly by NOAA's Satellite and Information Service and the National Centers for Environmental Prediction through funding from the Coral Reef Conservation Program and the Climate Program Office.

For more information on coral bleaching and these products, visit: http://www.coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/satellite/index.php.

NOAA Press Release dated 8 Oct 15http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2015/100815-noaa-declares-third-ever-global-coral-bleaching-event.html

Corals worldwide hit by bleaching
Warm ocean waters combine with El Niño to turn reefs a stark white.
Alexandra Witze Nature 8 Oct 15;

From Hawaii to Papua New Guinea to the Maldives, coral reefs are bleaching — in so many regions that the US National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) officially declared a global bleaching event on 8 October. The event, the third in recorded history, is expected to grow worse in coming months.

Warm ocean temperatures, linked to climate change and a strengthening El Niño weather pattern, have triggered reefs to expel the algae that colour them. Reefs in parts of the Pacific, the Indian and the Atlantic oceans have now turned white. By the end of the year, the bleaching could affect more than a third of the world’s coral reefs and kill more than 12,000 square kilometres of them, NOAA estimates.

“We’re in shock and awe of what’s happening,” says Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, a marine scientist at the University of Queensland in Brisbane, Australia. “It’s a doozy of an event.”

Bleached corals are more vulnerable to stressors such as disease that can kill them. In 1998, the biggest bleaching event in history led to the death of 16% of the world’s coral reefs.

Poor prognosis

The current event began in 2014 in parts of the Pacific — including the Hawaiian Islands, which experienced mass coral bleaching around multiple islands. Global ocean temperatures last year were nearly 0.6 degrees Celsius higher than the twentieth-century average, a record high. “We came into 2015 with very warm oceans, and now we have a full-formed El Niño coming,” says Mark Eakin, coordinator of NOAA’s Coral Reef Watch programme, run out of Washington DC.


Source: NOAA
This map shows areas at highest risk of bleaching from now until January 2016.

To top it all off, a warm mass of water dubbed 'the blob' has been shuttling back and forth across the northern Pacific for the past several months, also helping to keep temperatures high. (It is unclear whether the blob is linked to climate change or other large-scale atmospheric patterns.)

“The temperatures we’re seeing are anomalies, and have the potential to dramatically impact the integrity of reefs around the world,” says Ruth Gates, a marine biologist at the Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology in Kaneohe.

NOAA models suggest that by mid-2016, the bleaching will have spread even further through most of the world’s coral-bearing regions, extending across nearly all of the Indian Ocean and the South Pacific.

NOAA uses data on sea-surface temperature, gathered by its Polar-orbiting Operational Environmental Satellites, to produce global maps depicting where waters are warm enough to trigger bleaching. Local marine scientists, volunteers and others — under the umbrella of monitoring groups such as Reef Check in Marina del Rey, California — then go out to inspect the conditions where bleaching may be happening.

Private eyes

A privately funded venture, the XL Catlin Seaview Survey, has been mapping reefs in 26 countries since 2012. Among other technologies, it uses a high-resolution camera attached to an underwater scooter to quickly compile 360-degree images of reefs.

This effort should help scientists to document mass bleaching during the present event better than during the last one, which happened in 2010. The Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network, an international government-based initiative, was reorganized in 2008 and shifted from gathering data on reefs to preparing reports on the basis of data from others. As a result, there was not a full network in place during 2010 to monitor coral status, Eakin says. “We’re not going to let this one slip by,” he adds.

Marine scientists need to document long-term changes to corals in many regions to understand how reefs might survive bleachings, says Gates. In a bay off the island of Oahu in Hawaii, some corals that experienced bleaching in 2014 surprisingly managed to reproduce this year, even with back-to-back bleachings. And earlier this year, a Nature paper1 reported that 12 out of 21 reefs studied in the Seychelles managed to mostly recover after the devastating bleaching of 1998.

But Hoegh-Guldberg notes that bleaching events may now be coming too quickly, giving corals no time to recover between them. “Reefs, like rainforests, take time,” he says. And other factors, such as ocean acidification, are also stressing corals to the point that decades from now, reef communities will look and function much differently than they do today, says Cheryl Logan, a marine biologist at California State University, Monterey Bay, in Seaside.

Nature doi:10.1038/nature.2015.18527

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