No anomalies in Singapore's air and water quality, say authorities amid methane poisoning in Pasir Gudang

Channel NewsAsia 14 Mar 19;

SINGAPORE: No anomalies have been detected in Singapore's air and water quality, the authorities said on Thursday (Mar 14) after illegal toxic waste dumping in Pasir Gudang, Johor left hundreds of people ill.

In a joint statement, the National Environment Agency (NEA), Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority of Singapore (AVA), Singapore's water agency PUB and the Singapore Civil Defence Force (SCDF) said that they are closely monitoring the situation in Pasir Gudang.

​​​​​​​"We understand that the clean-up operation by the Malaysian authorities is in progress. The affected area is outside of the Johor River catchment, and there is no impact on Singapore’s water supply," said the statement.

"SCDF, NEA and PUB have not detected any anomalies in our local air and water quality. The Agri-Food & Veterinary Authority has been working with our farmers to monitor the situation and no anomalies or fish mortality have been observed at our fish farms."

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New S$20 million lab to develop less toxic e-waste recycling methods

Aqil Haziq Mahmud Channel NewsAsia 13 Mar 19;

SINGAPORE: A S$20-million research centre which aims to develop greener ways of recycling electrical and electronic waste (e-waste) was launched on Wednesday (Mar 13) by the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) and French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA).

The centre focusing solely on e-waste recycling is believed to be a world-first.

Among its goals: To extract substantially more valuable metals from lithium-ion batteries and to recycle silicon from solar panels.

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New heritage trail on Singapore's maritime history to be launched

Zhaki Abdullah Straits Times 13 Mar 19;

SINGAPORE - A new heritage trail on Singapore's maritime history will be launched later this month, said Senior Minister of State for Transport Janil Puthucheary on Wednesday (March 13).

He announced this at the inaugural World Congress on Maritime Heritage, which runs until Friday (March 15) at Resorts World Sentosa's Equarius Hotel.

Dr Janil noted that the congress - organised by the Consortium for International Maritime Heritage - coincides with Singapore's bicentennial year even though Singapore's "long and rich maritime heritage" predates 1819 to as early as the 14th century.

The new Singapore Maritime Trail will offer participants "a glimpse into maritime trade and activities in the past, and how these have shaped Singapore's culture, language and identity", he said.

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Malaysia jails two Vietnamese nationals for illegal possession of tigers, leopards, and bears

TRAFFIC 13 Mar 19;

Petaling Jaya, Malaysia, 13th March 2019 – two Vietnamese nationals have been jailed and fined for illegal possession of several parts of threatened wildlife, including tiger, leopard, and Sun Bear parts, in two separate court cases in Malaysia this week.

Today, the Kuala Kangsar Sessions Court sentenced Tran Van Sang to a total of 19 years in prison on 10 charges under the Wildlife Conservation Act 2010, with Judge Rohaida Binti Ishak ordering these to run concurrently from the date of his arrest. The longest sentence for an individual charge was 30 months.

Tran was caught on the 26th August 2017 near an indigenous people’s settlement in the town of Sungai Siput in northern Peninsular Malaysia in possession of 273 wildlife parts. The parts included those of tiger Panthera tigris, leopard Panthera pardus, Clouded Leopard Neofelis nebulosa, Sun Bear Helarctos malayanus and Sambar Deer Cervus unicolor. All except the Sambar deer are classified as Totally Protected Species under national legislation.

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Malaysia: All schools in Pasir Gudang ordered to close immediately

Azura Abas New Straits Times 13 Mar 19;

PUTRAJAYA: The Education Ministry has decided to immediately close all 111 schools in the Pasir Gudang district until further notice.

Its minister Dr Maszlee Malek said the decision was made after getting input from the Johor Disaster Management Committee that had assessed the situation following the recent chemical waste dumping incident in Sungai Kim Kim.

The incident has so far led to 506 people, mostly students, being hospitalised after inhaling toxic fumes emanating from the waste.

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Indonesia: Baby orangutan dies of hunger after mother shot and badly injured

Apriadi Gunawan The Jakarta Post 13 Mar 19;

The Medan-based environmental organization Yayasan Ekosistem Lestari (Sustainable Ecosystem Foundation) in North Sumatra has said it will take care of the badly injured Sumatran orangutan whose baby recently died from malnutrition, allegedly after attacks by workers from a plantation near a protected forest in Aceh.

The foundation's veterinarian Yenny Saraswati, said her organization planned to take the 30-year-old orangutan to its Orangutan Haven, a project developed by the group along with the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme (SOCP) and PanEco Foundation.

“The project will take care of those orangutans unable to be returned to the wild for whatever reason,” Yenni told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday.

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Indonesia NGO appeals ruling on China-funded dam in endangered orangutan habitat

Agustinus Beo Da Costa Reuters 13 Mar 19;

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesia’s biggest non-government environmental group on Wednesday launched a fresh legal bid to stop the construction of a controversial China-funded dam that some experts warn will destroy the habitat of a unique species of orangutans.

The $1.5 billion hydro dam is being built by a Chinese-Indonesian consortium in the heart of the Batang Toru rainforest in Sumatra, which is home to the Tapanuli orangutans, a species of the endangered great apes that was only discovered in 2017.

The Indonesian Forum for the Environment (Walhi) has fought for months in court to stop construction of the dam led by Chinese state-owned company Sinohydro. The project is due to be finished by 2022 after being approved by the local government.

On March 4, the state administrative court in Medan dismissed a lawsuit claiming that the approval process had ignored the environmental significance of the site and did not get input from residents.

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Best of our wild blogs: 13 Mar 19

Pollution in Pasir Gudang river north of Pulau Ubin
wild shores of singapore

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'Almost certain extinction': 1,200 species under severe threat across world

Scientists map out threats faced by thousands of species of birds, mammals and amphibians
Lisa Cox The Guardian 12 Mar 19;

More than 1,200 species globally face threats to their survival in more than 90% of their habitat and “will almost certainly face extinction” without conservation intervention, according to new research.

Scientists working with Australia’s University of Queensland and the Wildlife Conservation Society have mapped threats faced by 5,457 species of birds, mammals and amphibians to determine which parts of a species’ habitat range are most affected by known drivers of biodiversity loss.

The project is from the same team of researchers that found just five countries are responsible for 70% of the world’s remaining wilderness.

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When Your Land Is Stolen From Beneath Your Feet

A Disappearing World: Singapore Is Harvesting Land from Cambodia
Kalyanee Mam The Atlantic 11 Mar 19;

From 1975 to 1999, millions of Cambodian families were murdered, starved, or displaced by the Khmer Rouge regime. The filmmaker Kalyanee Mam’s family was among those uprooted from their homeland. Recently, Mam traveled back to the country from which her family fled. “What I found there shocked me completely,” she told me.

Nearly two decades following the dissolution of the regime, thousands of Cambodian families are experiencing a new wave of displacement. By talking with locals on the island of Koh Sralau, Mam found out that since 2007, the government of Cambodia has granted several private companies concessions to mine the country’s coastal mangrove forests. Each year, millions of metric tons of Cambodian sand are shipped to Singapore to expand that island nation’s landmass; Singapore has imported more than 80 million tons of sand so far. According to Mam, “The people and all the living creatures that depend on these forests for their livelihood are forced to cope with this massive loss.” In addition to displacing those who live and work on that land, Cambodia is also destroying its only natural barrier against erosion, rising sea levels, tsunamis, and hurricanes.

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Malaysia: In Kota Tinggi, water rationing to affect 15,000 residents

Malay Mail 12 Mar 19;

JOHOR BARU, March 12 — Some 15,000 residents in the Felda Gugusan Lok Heng, Felda Waha and Bukit Easter areas in Kota Tinggi, will be affected by a water rationing exercise which could be as early as this weekend, as the water level at the Lok Heng Dam is low.

State International Trade, Investment and Utilities Committee Chairman Jimmy Puah Wee Tse said the reading at the dam was now at 1.43 metres, below the rationing level of 1.5 metres. The “normal” water level is 2.75 metres.

“We cannot avoid this, we have to ration and I hope the people understand because of the extraordinary weather factors.

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Malaysia: Sungai Kim Kim Illegal dumping turns into a big disaster

The Star 13 Mar 19;

PASIR GUDANG: What started as a convenient dumping of chemicals beneath a bridge in Kota Masai has turned into a disaster with almost 500 people, mainly children, treated for respiratory ailments.

The chemicals, believed to contain heavy metal used to dissolve metal at a scrapyard and a chemical factory in Kulai, were discharged into Sungai Kim Kim about a week ago.

Since then, there have been three waves of air pollution as the chemicals got washed downstream towards the Straits of Johor.

It is learnt that there are at least seven schools located along the river.

Three people were arrested on Sunday and Monday in connection with the case.

Fishermen in the area are claiming that the thick sludge in the water is causing their boat engines to fail and they have to row their boats out to sea.

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