Environment news October 2007

 

 

 

 

Item 01:Sandstorms Devouring Great Wall in NW China

(Xinhua News Agency August 30, 2007) Sand storms in northwest China's Gansu Province are reducing sections of the Great Wall to mounds of dirt and may cause them to disappear in about 20 years, archaeological experts say.

Zhou Shengrui, former curator of the Minqin County museum, said a national survey in the 1980s recorded more than 60 kilometers of Great Wall in the county, but they were rapidly disappearing.

The part of Great Wall, built in the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.- 220 A.D.) and extended in the Ming Dynasty (1368-1644), is on the main trunk of the Wall, which runs from the Shanhaiguan Pass in north China's Hebei Province westward to Gansu's Jiayuguan Pass, about 500 kilometers west of Minqin.

"This section of Great Wall was made of mud rather than brick and stone and is more prone to erosion. Over time, the wall has become brittle and the mud has been sanded down and blown away," Zhou said. "Similar erosion happened to the Great Wall in other places, but the situation is much more worse here," he added.

Extensive farming since the 1950s sapped underground water in Minqin and destroyed the local ecology. The 400-sq-km, 60-meter-deep Qingtu Lake dried up in the 30 years since the 1960s, and by the early 1990s, the lake had been smothered by creeping yellow sand and become part of the Badain Jaran Desert, which spans more than 40,000 square kilometers. v Minqin has since then become a major source of sand storms in northwestern China.

"Frequent storms not only eroded the mud, but also cracked the Wall and caused it to collapse or break down," Zhou said.

More than 40 kilometers of the Wall have disappeared in the past 20 years, and only about ten kilometers remain.

Its height has been reduced from five meters to less than two meters. Square lookout towers have disappeared completely.

Wei Zhaobai, 61, a resident in Chengxi Village, Daba Township of Minqin, said, "The Great Wall gets shorter every year.

"When I was seven or eight years old, the section of Great Wall about 1,000 meters west of my village was still as new. We used to walk on it like the ancient soldiers," Wei said.

"As a relics protector, it saddens me to see the Great Wall being blown away, but we hope it can be a warning of what we have done to ourselves and our environment," Zhou said.

He said unless the local vegetation recovered and the sand storms contained, the damage was irreversible.

Local workers were covering the wall remains with more sand and dirt. ?"If sand storms strike again, it will take some time to blow the top-dirt away, and that'll give us time to build barriers and plant trees," Zhou said, adding that there is no other way for the time being.

 

 

Item 02:Japan: Paper Firms Keen to Buy Forests

(Kenya Hirose, Yomiuri Shimbun, 01 September, 2007) To ensure sufficient wood chip supplies for making paper, major Japanese paper-manufacturing companies are keen to secure forested land and tracts of land suitable for afforestation in other countries.

This trend comes amid sharp increases in global demand for wood chips and pulp fueled mainly by the rapid economic growth of newly industrializing countries. Some forecasts say that serious worldwide shortages of timber resources for making wood chips and pulp will emerge in the not-too-distant future.

As things stand, Japanese paper manufacturers are expected to have a tough time competing for timber resources with U.S. investment funds that have intensified their moves to acquire wood plantations on the strength of their financial muscle.

Amid a vast expanse of forests and pastures in southwestern Canada, one of the largest wood pulp factories in North America can be found just a two-hour bus ride to the north of Edmonton, the provincial capital of Alberta.

Japanese venture in Canada

The factory belongs to Alberta-Pacific Forest Industries Inc. (Al-Pac), a wood pulp producing company jointly established in 1993 by Mitsubishi Corp. and Oji Paper Co.

In the year the Mitsubishi-Oji joint venture was established, it obtained permission from the provincial government to fell trees in the forest area, which is about the same size as South Korea.

Wood pulp, a major raw material for making paper, along with recycled waste paper, is produced by soaking chips of broad-leaved and coniferous trees in a solvent.

The chips are typically made by grinding timber from trees such as poplars and eucalyptus. Fibers are extracted from the ground fragments by soaking them in a chemical solution. The fibers are then turned into pulp for paper production. A liquid chemical is produced in the process called lignin, and this can be used as a fuel for electric power generation.

The compounds of the Al-Pac factory are full of mountainous piles of wood chips due to the plant's expanding production, which has reached 630,000 tons of pulp per year, compared with an annual output of 550,000 tons in the initial years of operation.

However, the case of a Japanese paper manufacturer obtaining materials for paper production from forests it actually owns is the exception rather than the norm.

Of about 11 million tons of broad-leaved tree chips supplied to Japan each year, the proportion accounted for by Japanese papermakers themselves remains only about 15 percent.

Rising prices, short supplies

Raw material prices for paper, meanwhile, have been rising in recent years along with those for other supplies such as energy and precious metals.

Demand for wood chips, in particular, has been surging because of China's economic expansion and increases in electric power demand in Europe among other reasons.

The yearly average of prices of broad-leaved tree chips from Australia, Japan's biggest supplier of chips, jumped to 18.6 yen per kilogram in 2006, up from 14.2 yen in 2002.

Major paper-manufacturing companies, including Oji Paper, Japan's largest in terms of sales, and Nippon Paper Group, the second largest, registered their second consecutive declines in yearly profits in their consolidated settlement of accounts for the year to March 2007. The drop in profits was attributed primarily to the soaring prices of materials and fuels such as wood chips and heavy oil.

Noteworthy in this regard is China's decision to raise the rate of its export tax on lumber in June, which it hopes will help boost supplies of domestic pulp production for the domestic market.

Russia, for its part, is poised to make a similar move reflecting the prioritization of meeting domestic demand by strengthening its export regulations on lumber.

Boosting forest ownership

But one forecast suggests that by 2015 the annual worldwide shortfall in wood chips will be equivalent to the quantity of chips produced by 5 million hectares of forests.

A senior official at a major trading company noted that "the task of securing timber resources is surely going to become more and more difficult." The official stressed the need to expand Japan's own direct sources to ensure the stability of supplies as part of the nation's "resource security" program.

To achieve this goal, Japanese paper producers say they must increase their ownership of forests in countries in which trees grow quickly, such as Australia and Brazil.

Nippon Paper and Marubeni Corp., a major trading firm, teamed up toward the end of 2006 and successfully purchased a wood plantation in northern Brazil that is nearly twice the size of the area encompassed by Tokyo's 23 wards.

The purchase meant the two companies' goal of expanding their forest ownership overseas to 100,000 hectares by 2008 has been achieved two years earlier than expected. Nippon Paper and Marubeni have set a new goal of obtaining an additional 200,000 hectares of forests abroad by 2015.

Oji Paper, for its part, plans to boost its forest ownership overseas to 300,000 hectares by the end of fiscal 2010 from about 170,000 hectares in fiscal 2006.

However, investment funds, mainly those from the United States, have been accelerating their investment in forested land in various parts of the world since 2000 in light of the soaring prices of forested land and the envisaged future shortages of wood chip supplies.

Competing with U.S. funds

The investment funds have been taking over companies operating forest plantations, while also establishing similar operations of their own.

Competition among the funds and Japanese firms has become especially fierce when it comes to the acquisition of forests that are conveniently located, such as those in areas with railway networks or in the vicinity of ports.

As a result, forested tracts in Australia, the prices of which stood at about 3,000 dollars per hectare until around 2000, have now climbed close to 10,000 dollars.

Industry sources say the competition for high-quality forests among Japanese companies and U.S. investment funds will most likely continue to intensify, helping to jack up prices even more.

Motoaki Shimamura, deputy chief director of Oji Paper's Strategic Resource Management Division, pointed to the need not only to compete with the funds but also to find out ways to coexist with them, saying, "Although investment funds are our rivals, we'll also have to deal with them among our lumber suppliers as well."

 

 

Item 03:Japan: Saving Energy Costs via Foliage: 'Green curtains' helping to keep buildings cool

(Ayumi Kawaguchi, Japan Times, 29 August, 2007) TOKUSHIMA (Kyodo) An elementary school in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo, is taking part in an experiment to grow plants covering its outer walls as a way to beat the heat.

Sixth-graders tend the plant bed during breaks from class, checking the progress of cucumbers and dishcloth gourds whose stems extend over a net stretching from the ground to the third floor.

The students at Takashima No. 5 Elementary School have been keeping an eye on the garden plants since the school year started in April.

Itabashi Ward is regarded as an "advanced" locality in a growing "green curtain" movement aimed at setting up nets outside school buildings, public facilities and homes to grow plants. The idea is to block the sun in the summer and keep rooms cool, holding down the use of air conditioners to save energy.

The movement is proving its worth this summer, with Japan seeing a stretch of record-breaking heat.

About 50 schools and a smattering of public facilities in Itabashi Ward are taking part in the movement championed by Takashima schoolteacher Ruriko Kikumoto, 49, which she initiated while teaching at another school in 2002. She got the idea from growing morning glories at home.

"I spent the summer (growing the flowers for shade) almost without using air conditioning," she said.

Kikumoto describes the savings on her electricity bill as "friendly to my wallet."

She also points out that green curtains do not impose a burden on the environment.

Such efforts are spreading. More than 130 elementary and junior high schools in Kyoto are taking part in the green curtain movement.

Yuji Suzuki, head of the nonprofit organization Midori no Kaaten Oendan (Green Curtain Support Group), said the drive can really take off once children "bring it back home." Suzuki's group is striving to popularize the movement centering on schools.

To cut air conditioning bills, officials in Kamiita, Tokushima Prefecture, covered the exterior of the ground floor of City Hall last year with a 45-meter-wide net bearing "goya" vegetables, akin to bitter cucumbers, which are part of Okinawan cuisine.

"It looked cool in its appearance," said Toshiyo Tamura, 57, of the town's general affairs division. Supporters in the prefecture launched a network this year to promote the green curtain drive.

Meanwhile, Minami Ward in Yokohama plans to hold a photo contest on green curtains covering homes.

Green curtains are not only refreshing and cool because they block the sun but also because the water that collects on the leaves reduces the surrounding heat as it evaporates.

Kenichi Narita, a professor of environmental engineering at Nippon Institute of Technology, studied the difference in room temperature caused by the presence or absence of green curtains in a Tokyo elementary school room last year.

He found a temperature difference of 1 degree when the windows of the room were open but found a maximum disparity of 4 degrees when the windows were closed. He also learned that the difference in "reasonable temperatures" rose to a maximum of 6 degrees because the sun warmed the room's floor and walls and prevented the heat from being discharged.

 

 

Item 04:Korea: Pressroom Closure Bulldozed

(Yoon Won-sup, Korea Times, 31 August, 2007) Cheong Wa Dae Friday strongly rebutted calls by chief news editors of the 47 newspaper companies, broadcasters and news agencies nationwide to scrap the government's plan to close pressrooms.

``The outcome of the meeting (by chief editors) is very regrettable even though they met together 48 years after their previous meeting,'' Cheon Ho-seon, presidential spokesman, told reporters.

The Korea News Editors' Association (KNEA), which convened Thursday for the first time since 1959 when the Kyunghang Daily was ordered to cease publication, defined President Roh Moo-hyun's recent media policy as ``repression against the Constitution.''

Cheon indicated that nowadays reporters oppress the government while the government oppressed reporters in the past, saying that no chief editors showed up during the open debate with the government on the media policy.

``I'd like to ask if the chief editors are really fighting for their private benefit or the nation,'' Cheon said. ``I can't accept their demand.''

The spokesman further criticized journalists for their ``double standards'' when they cover the weak and the powerful.

``I'd like to ask if there are any reporters who risk fighting (for the truth) in relations with press owners and socially weak people,'' he said, fuming that there are few reporters who fit into to this category.

Asked about a protest letter against Roh's media plan by the International Press Institute (IPI), Chen said that Roh considers sending a letter of refutation to the institute.

The IPI Monday said in a letter to Roh that the government's plan seriously damages the freedom of the press in Korea by restricting reporters' entry to government offices and preventing public servants from talking with journalists freely, thus also limiting the public's right to know.

Meanwhile, the Government Information Agency Friday urged again the press corps of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade to move out of the ministry pressroom.

The request came right after the Taliban released all the remaining Korean hostages in Afghanistan on Thursday as the corps were very busy covering the kidnapping. The corps will have a meeting to discuss the movement on Monday.

 

 

Item 05:Korea: Environment Minister Resigns to Campaign for Lee Hae-chan

(Dong-A, 01 September, 2007) Environment Minister Lee Chi-beom abruptly offered to resign on Aug. 31 to join the election campaign camp for former Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan, a contender for the United New Democratic Party primary race.

“Minister Lee has recently expressed his intention to stand down and President Roh Moo-hyun accepted his resignation,” presidential spokesman Cheon Ho-seon said. Lee is expected to assume the position of the general director of the former Prime Minister's election campaign team.

With only a half year term left for the incumbent administration, Lee Chi-beom tendered his resignation to participate in campaigning for a politician intending to run for December`s presidential election. Some criticized Lee for his unparalleled behavior, which they say neglects his basic mission as a public official.

Many in political circle are wondering if Roh intends to favor a certain candidate ahead of the UNDP primary election.

There is a growing suspicion that Roh wants to meddle in the presidential election since a number of former high-ranking government officials from the administration have joined the Lee Hae-chan camp, such as Heo Seong-gwan, former minister for government affairs and home administration, Chu Byeong-jik, former minister of construction and transportation, Jo Yeong-taek, former director of The Office for Government Policy Coordination, and Lee Gi-u, former deputy minister of education. An official from the Lee camp said, “The minister and the former prime minister have been close for more than three decades as they worked together for the environment.”

 

 

Item 06:China: A Country With No Big Trees

(Yongfeng Feng and Yingling Liu, Worldwatch, 21 August, 2007) One of the biggest priorities in China today, according to the central government, is to “save energy and reduce emissions.” But a narrow focus on how much carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, or other pollution needs to be eliminated from the atmosphere will not be enough to remedy the country's worsening environmental condition. Another important indicator of environmental health is the quantity and quality of big trees the country harbors.

Today, large trees are rare in China. The country will need to take efforts to nurture them in the years ahead. Only when the landscape is covered with thick, lush forests and exuberant ecosystems can we say it has really survived its most dire environmental woes.

The exploitation of trees in China dates back thousands of years. Before the 20th century, the major destructive force was the elite ruling class of a highly centralized society, including emperors and their families, officials, and rich businesspeople. They constructed luxurious palaces and houses, and extravagant tombs. Those structures required huge quantities of timber. Places that served as political and economic centers were the first to be denuded.

One example is the area in and around Beijing, which has served as China's political capital for nearly 800 years. To meet the construction demands of palaces and mansions, residents cut down trees along the city's Yong Ding River valley. Intensive felling deteriorated the ecosystem, and the river saw increased flooding. During the Qing Dynasty, 200 years ago, a major flood occurred every three years. This trend has only slowed since 1954, when a reservoir was built on the river. Today, only low and thin trees line the waterway, and it will take hundreds of years to see them grow into huge ones.

Guan Zhong Region is another example. Covering Xi'an, Xianyang, Tongchuan, and Weinan cities in Shaanxi Province, the area served as the political and cultural center during the more than 1,000 years between the Qin and Tang Dynasties. It suffered from continuous intensive agricultural exploitation and ecological disaster. Every inch of the land was exploited, leaving little room for ecosystem regeneration. While trees remain today, they comprise only a few varieties and are small in height. Most of this vegetation is in the form of greenbelts between farm plots, along roadsides, or dispersed intermittently around villages. They are mostly poplar trees planted by local residents, to be felled once they mature.

Cutting down large trees and replacing them with saplings is a common phenomenon in Chinese cities. Residents have built houses and roads on sites where big trees used to stand, and they continue to cut down more of them to make room for the nation's urban expansion.

In the past, the Chinese forestry authority targeted its efforts mainly at developing the timber economy. It was not until 2002 that it began considering its role in ecosystem protection. Yet it continues to hold as its major mandate the tasks of planting trees, developing fast-growing and high-yielding plantations, and nurturing the timber and forest products industry.

It is not uncommon for forestry officials to term mountain areas with natural-growing vegetation “mountain wastelands,” or large areas of healthy natural forest “low-yielding” or “inferior” forests, and to mobilize social forces to cut down these trees and replace them with conifer, pine, or eucalyptus plantations that have high economic value. The Chinese people have been felling and planting trees for decades—and the country's afforestation rate is in fact increasing—but the ecological benefits may actually be decreasing. The more forest clearing, the fewer big trees there are left.

Forests are especially vulnerable when large machinery is available, and when an entire population is galvanized by the desire to become better off through all possible means. The Xing'anling Mountains in northeastern China, which were once covered with thick natural forests, have been denuded as a result of several decades of mechanized cutting. What remains are mostly small trees and bushes, and it will take thousands of years for the region to recover its former look.

In southwestern China, forests at the head of several major river arteries would have met the same fate if the historic Yangtze River flooding in 1998 had not alarmed the government and forced it to adopt prompt conservation measures. And forests on the Qinling Mountains in central China's Shaanxi Province have receded by at least 150 meters, causing surface water shortages and declines in groundwater.

About half of China's population is rural villagers who rely heavily on trees for their daily lives. When cultivation of their meager plots cannot provide sufficient income, they naturally turn their attention to trees. With great enthusiasm, they cut down natural forests and plant economically valuable trees and other vegetation, including orchids, firs, herbs, bamboos, and eucalyptus. They then sell their harvests to timber-processing companies.

Meanwhile, special interest groups, including the logging and paper industries, are also encroaching on China's remaining forests. They lease thousands of hectares of mountains using whatever means possible, fell and burn down all the natural vegetation, and plant monoculture plantations of economically valuable trees. They use chemically intensive fertilizers, herbicides, and insecticides to ensure the growth of the plantations. The trees are then logged according to their growth cycles, in anywhere from five years to two decades.

This trend to grow trees like grass and treat mountains like arable land has engulfed the entire country. The direct consequence is that natural forests are disappearing quickly, and China is becoming a nation with no big trees. The very few remaining large tree stands can only be found in nature conservation areas.

In 1998, the Chinese government enacted its widely hailed “natural forest protection” policy, which likely represents the nation's first major corrective measure in thousands of years of rampant logging. But it takes patience to nurture trees, and this is exactly what is lacking in today's China. People's eyes glimmer with greed and an eagerness to get rich, and to many of them, natural forests provide an easy resource to exploit.

Yongfeng Feng is an acclaimed journalist at China Guangming Daily who reports and writes on science and technology issues. Yingling Liu is the director of the China Program at the Worldwatch Institute. Outside contributions to China Watch reflect the views of the authors and are not necessarily the views of the Worldwatch Institute.

 

 

Item 07:Hydrogen Fuel Station Coming to Town

(Ryu Jin, Korea Times, 02 September, 2007) Fill it up, please _ with hydrogen!'' A driver in a fuel cell car tells a man at a filling station. It is a scene one might have seen at the country's sole hydrogen fuel station set up in Daejeon, August last year.

But, from this month, this will become a familiar sight in the heart of the capital as a hydrogen fuel station is scheduled to open at Yonsei University, Seoul, in mid-September.

Several others are also likely to be put into operation in Seoul on a trial basis by the year's end, though South Korea is in it's nascent stage compared with other advanced countries such as the United States, Japan and the European Union.

Experts and industry sources hope that the new filling stations will provide a new momentum for leading local carmakers including Hyundai Motor and researchers that are developing cars designed to run on hydrogen fuel cells.

New Chapter

According to the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy (MOCIE) last week, GS Caltex has been building a hydrogen fuel station with a total floor space of 522 square meters at Yonsei University's Shinchon Campus since March.

Located beside the main road in the direction of Yeonhi-dong, the station is currently being tested ahead of the completion of construction, which officials say is in the final stage.

A fuel cell is an electrochemical energy conversion device, producing electricity from external supplies of fuel and oxidant. Many combinations of fuel and oxidant are possible. A hydrogen cell, for example, uses hydrogen as fuel and oxygen as oxidant.

At the refueling station, hydrogen is produced from naphtha and stored in a high-pressure chamber that could dispense it into fuel cell motor vehicles. This process is seen as a possible way to cut the quantity of global greenhouse gas emissions dramatically.

Water is the only emission from the exhaust pipe of a hydrogen-powered car _ there are no carbon dioxide, particulate or sulphur emissions. It is the clean-burn nature of the process that is drawing interest of a growing number of carmakers and energy companies.

SK Energy and GS Caltex, the country's major refiners, are also engaged in the hydrogen project, managed by the National RD&D Organization for Hydrogen & Fuel Cell and supported by the MOCIE and the Korea Energy Management Corporation.

South Korea's first hydrogen fueling station opened in August last year at the Korea Institute of Energy Research in Daejeon. But the one now under construction at Yonsei University will be the first such station in the urban center of Seoul.

Hyundai Motor's research institutes, which have been developing fuel cell cars, have so far conducted test-drives of the company's hydrogen motor vehicles only in Yongin, Gyeonggi Province, due to the lack of refilling stations in Seoul.

``We are very proud to be leading the van of the hydrogen station project,'' a GS Caltex spokesman said. ``We hope that we can open up a new chapter for the development of fuel cell cars with the No. 1 hydrogen fuel station in Seoul.''

In addition to those in Daejeon and Seoul, two more hydrogen stations will open by the end of this year _ one in the LNG base of the Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) in Songdo, Incheon, and the other in the SK Research Center in Daejeon.

Global Competition

The ``hydrogen economy'' is no longer a strange term only heard of in science-fiction (SF) films. Hydrogen stations are an essential part of infrastructure for the commercialization of fuel cell cars, which form the core part of the hydrogen economy.

However, South Korea still lags behind in the global competition for the hydrogen economy behind other advanced nations including the United States, Japan, Canada and a number of European countries such as Germany, Iceland and Norway.

Since 1999, when Ford and Air Products set up the first hydrogen station in North America in Michigan, filling stations offering hydrogen have been opening worldwide. As of 2006, the number of hydrogen stations is estimated at around 150.

``South Korea falls behind its rivals in North America and Europe in the race,'' said Yoo Young-sik, a researcher at the institute in Daejeon. ``Now relevant laws and regulations should also be prepared for the development of hydrogen technologies.''

 

 

Item 08:South Korea's Trade Dependence on the United States and Japan Is Steadily Decreasing

(Sa Eun-young, Korea Times, 02 September, 2007) South Korea's trade dependence on the United States and Japan is steadily decreasing, according to the country's customs office.

Korea's exports to the U.S. during the first seven months of this year amounted to $26.9 billion, accounting for 12.9 percent of the country's total exports of $208.1 billion, the Korea Customs Service said Sunday. This represents a fall of 0.7 percentage points from the same period last year.

The percentage of exports to Japan also fell by 1.1 percentage points from the same period in 2006. Korea exported $14.9 billion to the world's second-largest economy, which is 7.2 percent of the country's total exports.

The downhill trend in exports to the U.S. and Japan moves in line with a fall in imports from the two countries.

The U.S. accounted for 10.8 percent of Korea's total imports of $199.1 billion in the seven-month period, down 0.2 percentage points from a year earlier. The U.S. took up 17.3 percent of Korea's imports in 2000.

Imports from Japan have been constantly slipping as well, falling to 16.1 percent in the Jan.-July period. Japan accounted for more than 25 percent of the country's total imports in 1991.

Such changes have developed as more countries gain weight in Korea's trade than in the past.

``Recently, China's influence on trade has grown greater than that of the U.S. or Japan," a trade watcher said.

China has surpassed the U.S. and Japan to become Korea's largest trading partner.

Korea's exports to China accounted for 21.5 percent of total exports this year, doubling the figure of 10.7 percent in 2000. Imports also surged, taking up 17.6 percent of total imports so far this year, a giant leap from the 8 percent in 2000.

 

 

Item 09:Asia to Discuss Eco-Friendly Growth Initiative

(Ahn Hyo-lim, Korea Herald, 03 September, 2007) The United Nations and Asia-Pacific nations will discuss a Seoul-proposed framework for an environment-friendly growth for the region, this week in Thailand.

The 2nd Policy Consultation Forum of the Seoul Initiative on Green Growth will be held from today till Wednesday in Bangkok, the Environment Ministry said.

Jointly organized by South Korea and the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific, the forum will review various types of economic instruments for eco-friendly and sustainable growth, and explore practical guidance for policymakers, especially in developing countries.

The multilateral cooperation program was launched during the 2005 meeting of the UNESCAP Ministerial Conference on Environment and Development for the purpose of addressing major environmental policy issues in regional economies.

About 70 representatives from 21 countries in the region, and international organizations including the U.N. Development Program and the Asian Development Bank, will attend the event, the ministry said.

 

 

Item 10:Japanese (Collectors') Appetite for Turkish Stag Beetle Poses Extinction Threat

(Kyodo, 02 September, 2007) A rare subspecies of stag beetle found only in the Amanos Mountains of southern Turkey is now threatened with extinction as it is being exploited for sale to beetle enthusiasts in countries like Japan, a local conservationist has warned.

Nazim Sonmez, of the Amanos Environmental Protection Association, said the beetle is being over-harvested owing in part to the popularity among Japanese children of "Mushiking: The King of Beetles," an arcade game in which players engage in virtual battles between beetles from all over the world.

Sonmez said some Japanese passing themselves off as researchers have come to the Amanos area of Hatay Province to catch or otherwise acquire the rare and distinct beetle, which goes by the scientific name Lucanus cervus akbesianus.

Locals are also involved in exploiting them to sell to foreigners, especially Japanese, at exorbitant prices amounting to as much as 1,450 lira (some 13,000 yen).

They sell for as much as 40,000 yen on Japanese Internet auction sites.

According to Sonmez, the popularity of the Mushiking interactive card game, which has spawned offshoots like cartoon films and novels, has increased the demand for stag beetles in Japan

"At this rate, this beetle will go extinct," he lamented, while calling for urgent measures to protect the subspecies.

The beetles are known as "stag beetles" because males possess enlarged mandibles that resemble the horns of male deer.

 

 

Item 11:Japan: Global Eel Population Slip-Sliding Away

(Tetsuji Ida, Kyodo News, 01 September, 2007) Japan, Europe, the United States and Canada are experiencing a sharp decline in eel populations due chiefly to overfishing, pollution and destruction of habitats because of river projects

In the face of this, the European Union endorsed a proposal in June for a 60 percent cut in the catch of European eel fry by 2013. Its proposal to restrict their export was also approved by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora.

The EU decision is expected to cause a steep drop in Japan's eel supply. European eel fry are raised on farms in China for export to Japan, where eels are a longtime delicacy.

The Japanese eat three species of eels — Japanese eels, found in East Asia and around Japan, European eels and American eels. They remain a precious foodstuff in Spain and other European countries.

Willem Dekker of the Institute for Marine Resources and Ecosystem Studies of the Netherlands said the population drop of each of the three species is serious, and especially serious is a decline in the number of European eels.

According to industry sources in Europe, the drop in the population of European eels became serious in and after 1990, when the catch of fry for export to China began to increase.

Kenichi Tatsukawa of the General Study Group for River Areas, said: "European measures about European eels should be considered in working to protect Japanese eels. Like European eels, the Japanese eel population is decreasing seriously."

He said the drop in the Japanese eel population became conspicuous in the 1970s as their habitats began to deteriorate with the destruction of damp areas on coasts and river mouths covered over with concrete.

It has been noted in the U.S. that the turbine engines at hydraulic plants catch and kill parent eels going downriver to lay eggs. Some scientists are concerned that changes in currents and salt concentration due to global warming are confusing the mechanism that allows eels to migrate thousands of kilometers.

"The sighting of many egrets around fish farms is a sign of deterioration of the quality of water," said Hung Chi-Feng, president of an eel farm in Tainan County, Taiwan. He is trying to raise eels without drugs for the first time. "You can raise eels with no drugs if you keep a sharp eye on changes in water and the environment."

He said shrimp and small fish, which are sensitive to deteriorating water quality, come close to waterfronts, and egrets gather there to eat them. Birds and shrimp are an important indicator of pollution there.

"Drugs for eels kill even shrimp, which are important to preserve the quality of water," Hung said.

The National Research Institute of Aquaculture under the Fishery Research Agency successfully raised eels from eggs to fry in 2003 for the first time.

One of the reasons for a decline in eel resources is the failure to commercialize technology to artificially pick eggs to raise into adult eels. All eels for global consumption, including those raised artificially, depend on natural eel fry, but the wholesale catch of fry going up rivers is liable to lead to overfishing.

This problem will be resolved if fry can be raised artificially.

"The rate of success is still low, and many obstacles remain before such raising can be commercialized," said Hideki Tanaka, an official at the research institute. "To raise a large amount of eels, it is necessary to make them eat floating bait, but this is very difficult."

Izumi Washitani, a professor at the University of Tokyo's department of ecosystem studies, said, "For eels that live in lakes and around paddy fields after going up rivers via coastal areas from distant seas, it is necessary to maintain a healthy environment in river basins and networks. To recover the natural environment across the country, we have to review our own lifestyle."

 

 

Item 12:Japan Halts Nuclear Research Units on Safety Worries

(Reuters, 31 August, 2007) TOKYO- Japan has halted work at three nuclear research units run by its Atomic Energy Agency due to concerns over the handling of fuel material and other problems, Kyodo news agency said on Friday in the latest in a string of nuclear safety mishaps.

The Science and Technology Ministry suspended activities at the units in Tokaimura, Ibaraki prefecture, after the agency reported 46 problems including procedural flaws, Kyodo news agency said.

The ministry had ordered the agency to investigate after an anonymous whistle-blower revealed in June that a shared duct at its Nuclear Science Research Institute in Tokaimura was contaminated with radioactive material.

Kyodo said the ministry did not believe the reported problems were threatening the safety of the facilities concerned, but told the agency to examine them in greater detail and report back.

One of the units is a critical testing facility for the fast breeder reactor, and safety rods there had not been checked and approved by the government, Kyodo quoted the ministry as saying.

At the other two units, nuclear fuel material has been stored for about a decade in containers for temporary storage, it said.

Japan's nuclear industry has been shaken up by a series of scandals and safety incidents. Its biggest reactor was shut down in July due to a leak after it was hit by an earthquake.

 

 

Item 13:Sea to “Engulf” Tract of China's Pearl River Delta

(Reuters, 31 August, 2007) BEIJING - A huge swathe of China's booming Pearl River Delta will be "engulfed" by rising sea water by the middle of the century because of global warming, state media said on Thursday, quoting weather officials.

Some 1,153 square km (445 square miles) of coastal land would be flooded by 2050, with the bustling cities of Guangzhou, capital of Guangdong province, Zhuhai and Foshan the worst affected, the China Daily said, quoting the provincial water authority.

Hotter average global temperatures fuelled by greenhouse gases meant the sea level along the coast of Guangdong was forecast to rise by at least 30 cm (one foot) by 2050.

"Climate change will negatively affect the economic development of Guangdong, which is currently one of the biggest consumers of energy and producers of greenhouse gases," Du Raodong, an expert at the Guangdong weather centre, was quoted as saying.

The rising sea level would lead to a salt tide, posing a huge threat to drinking water supply.

"Moreover, red tides (caused by high concentrations of algae) will occur along coastal areas, affecting agricultural production," said Du.

Yu Yong, director of the Guangdong bureau, warned that global warming would bring about more drought and floods, causing huge economic losses.

"More energy-saving industrial facilities should be introduced in a bid to reduce greenhouse gas emissions," Du said.

Torrential rain has inundated large swathes of China's east, south and southwest since June while a prolonged heatwave and drought have afflicted several eastern provinces. More than 1,000 people have been killed in floods, mudslides and collapsed houses so far this year.

"The climate has been abnormal," Vice Minister of Water Resources E Jingping told a news conference this week.

 

 

Item 14: Keeping Australia Safe for Global Warming: “Australia Greenpeace Arrests on Eve of Sydney APEC”

(Michael Perry, Reuters, 03 September, 2007) SYDNEY - Australian police arrested 12 Greenpeace activists on Sunday after an APEC protest at Newcastle, the world's biggest coal export port, as authorities again warned protesters against violence at Sydney's APEC summit.

New South Wales state premier Morris Iemma said the full force of the law would be used against violent protesters at this week's Asia Pacific Economic Co-Operation (APEC) gathering.

Australian authorities are staging the nation's biggest ever security operation for APEC, which is to be attended by 21 leaders including US President George W. Bush.

"I accept the commentary that is being made from a number of groups who have said they want to incite violence," said Iemma told reporters on Sunday.

"My message to them is, don't. But if you do the police will be out in force and they'll enforce the law and they'll do so with strength and authority," said Iemma.

Thousands of protesters plan to rally in Sydney during the APEC meetings to demonstrate against the Iraq war and global warming. APEC officials began the first meeting on Sunday.

Authorities have erected a 5-km (3-mile) security fence across the central business district to isolate the leaders in the Sydney Opera House and nearby hotels.

Environmental group Greenpeace staged an APEC protest on Sunday on a coal ship in the port of Newcastle, north of Sydney. Greenpeace unfurled a banner written in Chinese urging Beijing to be aware of efforts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol by Australia and the United States.

Both Australia and the United States are opposed to Kyoto, arguing its effort to cut greenhouse gas emissions is flawed as it excludes some of the world's biggest polluters, like India.

UNDERMINING KYOTO

"Greenpeace is calling on APEC countries to reject (Australian Prime Minister) John Howard's efforts to undermine the Kyoto Protocol through his calls for "aspirational targets'," said Greenpeace campaigner Ben Pearson.

Howard is opposed to setting targets for greenhouse gas reduction, arguing it would damage the Australian economy which is heavily reliant on coal-fired power. He prefers to talk of "aspirational targets" for individual nations.

"Australia's climate policy is to push export coal and to hell with the consequences for the planet," said Pearson.

"Real action on climate change means moving away from coal and shifting to clean, renewable energy and we don't have the luxury of time for expensive talkfests that have no concrete outcomes," said Pearson.

Malaysian Trade Minister Rafidah Aziz, who will attend APEC, said last week that the absence of Australia and the United States from Kyoto meant they lacked the credentials to lead climate change talks at this week's Sydney meetings.

Australian security officials say they have received no intelligence of a terrorist threat to APEC and the nation's counter-terrorism alert remains unchanged at medium, which means a terrorist attack could occur. Australia, a staunch US ally, has never suffered a major peace-time attack on home soil.

But authorities unveiled an emergency public communications system on Sunday in case of a major incident. Flashing message boards have been erected at 14 locations across the city and loud speakers at 49 sites.

Fighter aircraft and police helicopters are enforcing a 45-nautical-mile restricted air space over Sydney and will intercept any unauthorised aircraft. A total of 5,000 police and troops are patrolling the city centre.

 

 

Item 15:Russia Fisheries: Poachers Face Crackdown

(RussiaToday, 31 August, 2007) The Russian President has personally taken the lead in tackling the crisis facing Russia's fishing industry. On Friday he met officials in the port of Astrakhan. An estimated 90% of the market is supplied by poachers.

The President says that illegal fishing in Russia's waters is one of the most serious problems facing the industry .

“Why do we need this economic zone then? We've announced that these waters are our economic zone – is it ours? whose is it? We don't have any systems of accountability and control over the volume of fishing there or the export of our fish. This export doesn't go through any customs procedures. We do not even have international agreements with the majority of countries who are consumers of our fish. There are no legal mechanisms of monitoring the fishing vessels in this zone. The fishing business in our economic zone is a source of a great number of illegal financial operations and the government willl do its best to impose order in this zone,” Vladimir Putin said.

The President visited Russia's sturgeon breeding fishery to inspect new technology. The centre, which was opened in 1994, plays a major role in the fight against the shrinking sturgeon population in the Caspian Sea. Over the last 13 years it has bred over 120 tonnes of fish, which were released into the sea. However, the number of industrially reared fish has not been enough to repair the damage caused by poaching, and specialists are cautious about whether the new regulations will be effective.

Illegal caviar farming is blamed for the decreasing fish stock. Russia's Interior Ministry says a recent crackdown saw 100 kilos of poached caviar seized in Moscow alone.

Black caviar is often called 'black gold'. To buy just a hundred grams on the international market you'll have to pay $US 800. Despite being the source of much of the world's caviar, it costs around $US 200 in Russia. Further price increases are expected as sturgeon products are becoming increasingly limited on the domestic market.

In the last four years, the Russian authorities have not allowed any industrial sturgeon fishing. Therefore, the only caviar allowed for sale must have come from confiscated stock.

Nevertheless, the Agriculture Ministry believes that as much as 90% of the available caviar is from poachers with false documents. In an attempt to eliminate this illegal trade, new regulations introduced in August mean that all confiscated sturgeon products should be destroyed and not sold on. The intent of the legislation is to remove the major economic incentives for poaching in the Caspian and Azov seas, where most of world's caviar originates.

 

 

Item 16: Russia: More Fishing: “It is Possible to Double the Fish Catching in the Far East, the Plenipotentiary Iskhakov Considers: The fishing industry is the main branch for the region”

(Vladivostok Times, 30 August 2007) VLADIVOSTOK, August 30, vladivostoktimes.com Kamil ISKHAKOV, the President's Plenipotentiary in the Far East Federal District, considers that it is possible to double the fish catching in the Far East.

He stated that at the session of the Presidium of the State Commission on Social and Economic Development of the Far East, the Republic of Buryatia, the Irkutsk and Chita Areas, which was held in Moscow on Tuesday, Natalia BOGLEVSKAYA, the press-secretary of the Plenipotentiary informed RIA PrimaMedia. The Presidium considered the issue of realizing the assignments for development the fishing and processing of water biological resources in the Far East Federal District.

The Plenipotentiary informed that more than 150 thousand people are employed in the fishing industry, and there are over 2400 companies there. This is one of the main industries in the district economy and it is 14% of the total amount of industrial production.

"Taking into consideration the previous experience these figures can be doubled, so it can be almost the third part of the total amount of industrial production," the Plenipotentiary stressed.

ISKHAKOV considers that it is possible to raise the efficiency of the industry on a due level if this problem is solved in complex.

 

 

Item 17:Re: Russia Wants to Double Fish Catch: “Seafood could collapse by 2050, experts warn: Overfishing, pollution, warming are destroying stocks, study finds”

(MSNBC, 03 November, 2006) WASHINGTON - Clambakes, crabcakes, swordfish steaks and even humble fish sticks could be little more than a fond memory in a few decades.

If current trends of overfishing and pollution continue, by 2050 the populations of just about all seafood face collapse, defined as 90 percent depletion, a team of ecologists and economists warns in a study published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.

“Whether we looked at tide pools or studies over the entire world's ocean, we saw the same picture emerging. In losing species we lose the productivity and stability of entire ecosystems,” said lead author Boris Worm of Dalhousie University in Halifax, Canada.

“I was shocked and disturbed by how consistent these trends are — beyond anything we suspected,” Worm said.

When ocean species collapse, it makes the ocean itself weaker and less able to recover from shocks like global climate change, Worm said.

“This research shows we'll have few viable fisheries by 2050,” Andrew Sugden, international managing editor of Science, told reporters at a telephone news briefing. “This work also shows that it's not too late to act.”

Added co-author Steve Palumbi of Stanford University: “Unless we fundamentally change the way we manage all the oceans species together, as working ecosystems, then this century is the last century of wild seafood.”

What was studied

The international team spent four years analyzing 32 controlled experiments, other studies from 48 marine protected areas and global catch data from the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization's database of all fish and invertebrates worldwide from 1950 to 2003.

The scientists also looked at a 1,000-year time series for 12 coastal regions, drawing on data from archives, fishery records, sediment cores and archaeological data.

“At this point 29 percent of fish and seafood species have collapsed — that is, their catch has declined by 90 percent. It is a very clear trend, and it is accelerating,” Worm said. “If the long-term trend continues, all fish and seafood species are projected to collapse within my lifetime — by 2048.”

He likened a diverse ocean environment to a diversified investment portfolio.

With lots of different species in the oceans, just as with lots of different kinds of investments, “You spread the risk around,” Worm said. “In the ocean ecosystem, we're losing a lot of the species in our stock portfolio, and by that we're losing productivity and stability. By losing stability, we're losing the ability of the system to self-repair.”

“It looks grim and the projection of the trend into the future looks even grimmer,” he added. “But it's not too late to turn this around. It can be done, but it must be done soon. We need a shift from single species management to ecosystem management. It just requires a big chunk of political will to do it.”

The researchers called for new marine reserves, better management to prevent overfishing by large trawling fleets and tighter controls on pollution.

In the 48 areas worldwide that have been protected to improve marine biodiversity, they found, “diversity of species recovered dramatically, and with it the ecosystem's productivity and stability.”

While seafood forms a crucial concern in their study, the researchers were analyzing overall biodiversity of the oceans. The more species in the oceans, the better each can handle exploitation.

“Even bugs and weeds make clear, measurable contributions to ecosystems,” said co-author J. Emmett Duffy of the Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences.

Industry doesn't see a problem

The National Fisheries Institute, a trade association for the seafood industry, does not share the researchers alarm.

“Fish stocks naturally fluctuate in population,” the institute said in a statement. “By developing new technologies that capture target species more efficiently and result in less impact on other species or the environment, we are helping to ensure our industry does not adversely affect surrounding ecosystems or damage native species.

Seafood has become a growing part of Americans' diet in recent years. Consumption totaled 16.6 pounds per person in 2004, the most recent data available, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. That compares with 15.2 pounds in 2000.

Joshua Reichert, head of the private Pew Charitable Trusts' environment program, pointed out that worldwide fishing provides $80 billion in revenue and 200 million people depend on it for their livelihoods. For more than 1 billion people, many of whom are poor, fish is their main source of protein, he said. The research was funded by the National Science Foundation's National Center for Ecological Synthesis and Analysis.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

 

 

Item 18:Sergey Ivanov: “It is Necessary to Create the System of Guaranteed Quotas for Fish Catching and Processing”. In the opinion of the First Vice-Premier, granting the fish quotas to the ship owners will offer them favorable conditions to build new ships.

(Vladivostok Times 30 August 2007) VLADIVOSTOK, Sergey IVANOV, The First Vice-Premier of the Russian Federation, proposed to create the system of guaranteed quotas for the fish catching and processing companies of the Russian fishing industry.

He made such a proposal at the session of the State Commission on Social and Economic Development of the Far East and Zabaikalye which was held on August, 28.

Sergey IVANOV reminded that nowadays the time of operating of 80% of fishing vessels in the Russian Federation has expired. "We all need one condition - it should be favorable for the ship owners to begin shipbuilding, so they should be sure that a vessel will go fishing for some period of time after it was built," he told.

In his opinion, the quotas for catching water biological resources for the period of 5 years during which it would be possible "to pay back the money invested in the shipbuilding" can give the ship owners such a confidence. "There are no guarantees in the law that the ship owner will receive a quota. And these guarantees are not expected," S. IVANOV told.

Besides, the First Vice-Premier noted that fish processing companies "also are not sure that fish will be brought to the coast." Therefore, as he considers, the businessmen doubt if it is worth investing money in the development of production.

At the same time, according to Sergey IVANOV, the foreign companies are not only catch the Russian water bio resources, but also go into the processing complex, and purchase large Russian companies. "I confirm, that the Chinese capital has the leading position here," the First Vice-Premier of the Russian Federation stressed.

 

 

Item 19:S. Korea-U.S. Free Trade Agreement Goes to the Assembly: With political parties voicing doubt, ratification of trade pact in current parlimentary session could be delayed

(Hankyoreh, 08 September, 2007) The prospects for parliamentary approval of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement still look foggy. Volatile election politics and differences among political parties make the situation difficult to predict, however, it is almost certain that the free trade deal will be passed by South Korea's National Assembly by the end of this year.

South Korea and the United States signed the free trade agreement on June 30, among strong opposition from the South Korean general public and the Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress. The trade pact must still be ratified by the legislatures of both nations, but if approved, would be the largest such deal for South Korea.

Though the government called for speedy approval on the deal after sending it to the National Assembly for ratification, political parties have paid little attention to the request.

Internal affairs are complex at the ruling United New Democratic Party, which was recently formed by liberal factions in order to field a presidential candidate in upcoming election. After holding a meeting before the National Assembly's regular session, the UNDP decided to “determine a position after full review of the situations regarding the United States, public opinion and the presidential election.”

However, the party's position is ambiguous and there seems to be no prevailing view. If the South Korea-U.S. free trade deal emerges as a hot potato ahead of the presidential election, the UNDP worries, it could widen the rift within the party's ranks, making it likely that the UNDP may have wanted to avert the matter during the presidential election.

UNDP leaders were also pessimistic over the deal's possible parliamentary approval by the end of this year. Oh Choong-il, a UNDP leader, said, “The deal was struck by the push from the government, without a nationwide consensus. It is difficult to proceed without the agreement of the people.”

In a telephone interview with The Hankyoreh on Sept. 7, Kim Hyo-seok, the UNDP's floor leader, said, “There is no need to hurry and we should thoroughly review countermeasures,” perhaps referring to a need for strong economic policies that could compensate for the impact of the deal on domestic businesses. “The process won't be finished during this National Assembly session,” he said.

Meanwhile, the presidential hopefuls were split. Sohn Hak-kyu, a former Gyeonggi provincial governor, said, “It should be approved by the end of this year.” Contenders Lee Hae-chan, Rhyu Si-min and Han Myeong-sook said that the deal should be passed by this year. However, Chung Dong-young, a former unification minister, said, “I support parliamentary approval of the deal, but the approval process is not an urgent matter. Countermeasures must be reviewed first.”

Though the main opposition Grand National Party reiterated that the National Assembly should approve the deal by the end of this year, the GNP seemed to be shy to act. With the presidential election less than four months away, the GNP is likely to be careful about votes in rural regions. Kim Jeong-hoon, a spokesman at GNP, said “We don't say okay without conditions.”

Lee Myung-bak, the GNP's presidential candidate, is in line with the party's opinion. “We should sufficiently review problems and countermeasures. In certain circumstances, the ratification could be delayed to the next session,” Lee was quoted as saying by Park Hyeong-joon, who served as a spokesman for Lee during the party's primary.

A group of 80 lawmakers, who are members of a parliamentary group protesting against the South Korea-U.S. FTA, said they would submit a motion next week, calling for the National Assembly to launch a parliamentary investigation into the pact. The lawmakers say that until the investigation is over, the National Assembly should not take steps to ratify the deal.

In a press conference on Sept. 7, the leftist Democratic Labor Party said that it “won't sit idle over the process of ratification.”

The tiny opposition Millennium Democratic Party also urged the National Assembly to delay the process of ratification until after the presidential election, citing a lack of countermeasures.

Currently, everything is in a state of confusion. The UNDP has a negative view of ratifying the deal by the end of this year, while the GNP's response is lukewarm. Other minor political parties have strongly opposed approving the deal by year's end. If the moves are coupled, the ratification of the South Korea-U.S. free trade agreement may be postponed to early next year or to the 18th National Assembly session, which is scheduled to be held beginning on Sep. 20.

 

 

Item 20:Cross-border Pollution in Focus / Smog Caused by Pollutants Coming from China Choking Japan

(Kiyohiko Yoneyama, Yomiuri Shimbun, 07 September, 2007) Photochemical smog--a type of air pollution considered by many to be a thing of the past--has recently returned stronger than ever.

Experts say this is primarily due to the effects of cross-border pollution coming from China.

The total number of warnings over high-level photochemical smog issued by prefectural and municipal governments in many parts of the country this year had hit 28 as of the end of August--a record high since the smog warning system was launched in 1971.

The hazardous smog is called "photochemical" because it is created when such air pollutants as nitrogen oxides (NOx) and hydrocarbons deriving from motor vehicle exhaust, factory smoke and other sources react with sunlight.

The smog is made up of photochemical oxidant particles such as ozone that cause people who are outdoors to suffer stinging eyes and burning throats. The particles can even cause breathing difficulties and headaches.

Many of the photochemical smog warnings issued so far this year were in Kyushu.

When markedly high levels of photochemical smog were recorded in Kitakyushu toward the end of May, all 85 primary, middle and high schools in the city had to call off athletic meets for the season.

The regions where the smog warnings have been issued include Oita and Niigata prefectures, where no such alerts had been put out previously.

Key cause of smog warnings

The incidence of photochemical oxidant-caused smog in Japan rose steadily in the 1970s.

Because of the enforcement of regulations governing emissions, the number of days on which photochemical smog warnings were issued declined sharply in the 1980s, when the incidence accounted for about 30 percent of that in the 1970s. Smog was little talked about subsequently.

The situation, however, was reversed around 2000, when the number of smog warnings beginning to rise anew.

Why have smog warnings risen despite the fact that public awareness of the need for environmental conservation is said to have heightened in light of global warming and reports of acid rain?

According to experts, a major reason for the rise in warnings is cross-border pollution from China, whose economy has been expanding rapidly.

About half the oxidant emissions in Japan are believed to originate here, while the remaining half of the emissions originate in China before being blown to this country across the sea on westerly winds, the experts say.

Emissions of NOx in China and other Asian countries, except Japan, almost doubled during the 10 years from 1985, according to Hajime Akimoto, program director at the Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMEST).

NOx emissions have kept increasing since the latter half of the 1990s.

Even if countermeasures are hereafter adopted in the countries concerned, NOx discharged into the air in Asia in 2020 is projected at 1.4 times the 2000 level, Akimoto said.

Much the same can be said of the concentration of ozone, a main constituent of oxidants.

Measures to combat oxidants, if taken effectively, will help curb the growth rate of oxidant emissions, but the growth itself will be difficult to arrest, Akimoto said.

As a result, the concentration of oxidants in the atmosphere most likely will continue rising in various parts of this country, from the Chugoku area to Kyushu as well as the Kanto region for at least 10 years to come, Akimoto said.

The Environment Ministry set up in August a study panel tasked with discussing the relationship between rises in ozone concentrations in Japan and cross-border pollution, since officials said the relationships are highly complicated and require years of detailed research.

The ministry also decided to promote international cooperation to measure ozone concentrations in tandem with the Acid Deposition Monitoring Network in East Asia (EANET), an organization in which 13 East Asian countries participate.

After ascertaining the performance and reliability of low-priced equipment to analyze ozone by the end of the current fiscal year, the ministry plans to call on China and other Asian countries that do not have any comprehensive ozone-measurement systems yet to adopt the equipment in fiscal 2008.

Collecting data about ozone concentrations, however, will not necessarily lead to the adoption of measures for reducing them.

In an effort to combat the problem of acid rain, European countries have concluded the Convention on Long-Range Transboundary Air Pollution, making it obligatory for signatory countries to take measures to prevent cross-border pollution.

EANET, by contrast, is a framework designed simply to record ozone concentrations and has no binding power to curb emissions of pollutants.

Awareness on rise in China

The ministry officials said Japan should take the lead in encouraging Asian countries to boost efforts to reduce pollution reduction, since they said those hardest hit by the pollution are the people of the countries that are the sources of hazardous emissions.

Noteworthy is the fact that awareness of the seriousness of air contamination has been steadily on the rise among academics in China, according to Prof. Kazuhiko Sakamoto of Saitama University.

With the 2008 Beijing Olympics drawing near, restrictions on motor vehicle traffic were experimentally put into force recently in the Chinese capital.

These efforts in China, however, may not be enough to cut emissions, Sakamoto said, pointing out that increases in the number of motor vehicles in China have been extremely sharp amid that country's rapid economic expansion.

The Olympic committees of Britain and Australia said they have decided to keep their Olympic athletes out of Beijing until just before the start of the Games due to fears over the city's air pollution.

It has also been reported that the U.S. track and field team has decided to put off its arrival in Beijing until the last moment before the opening of the Games.

Given that pollutants originating in China have caused such anxieties in these countries and that pollutants from China have been constantly flowing into Japan, this country should take more specific, active steps to cope with the problem.

As Program Director Akimoto of JAMEST put it, "Some of the air pollutants in Japan, though a relatively small amount--at less than 10 percent of the total--are from Europe, indicating the need to formulate a wider framework to address the problem with not only Asian nations, but also people of the Northern Hemisphere as a whole taking part."

The government has set numerical goals for cutting back on domestic emissions of such pollutants as hydrocarbons that are discharged from paint and other substances. Domestic emissions as a whole are targeted to be cut 30 percent by fiscal 2010 compared with fiscal 2000.

On top of these domestic measures, the government should knuckle down to the task of working more aggressively on other countries in pursuit of international arrangements to alleviate border pollution.

 

 

Item 21:Energy-Saving Tech Japan's Trump Card

(Takashi Kikuchi, Yomiuri Shimbun, 07 September, 2007) The plan to establish an East Asia economic zone has begun to take shape. The envisaged zone encompasses Japan, China, South Korea plus the 10 members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations and Australia, New Zealand and India. The 16 countries account for 25 percent of the world's gross domestic product. Japan has suggested concluding an East Asia economic partnership agreement (EPA) among the 16 countries in a bid to seize the initiative in this huge economic zone.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will visit Sydney this week to attend a summit meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum. The Bulga Coal Mine, which is a lifeline for Japan's energy supply, is located in rolling hills 150 kilometers north of Sydney. The mine has an annual output of 11 million tons of coal through open-pit and tunnel-pit mining. Of this, more than 80 percent is exported to Japan. But the mine is suffering a serious shortage of human resources, materials and transportation means amid an Australian resources bubble caused by spikes in coal and uranium ore prices.

The mine is hotly competing with other mines to headhunt engineers. A three-meter-diameter tire for a truck to transport coal and gravel is priced at a whopping 10 million yen. The price has more than doubled in just a few months. More than 70 ships stand by at port for up to a month waiting to take on their cargoes of coal.

In 2006, Japan imported 179.16 million tons of coal, 59 percent of which was from Australia. Japan relies on Australia for 18.7 percent of its primary energy consumption, including uranium ore and natural gas. Thus, Australia is Japan's biggest energy supplier, surpassing Saudi Arabia, which accounts for 14.7 percent of this country's primary energy consumption.

The EPA was originally aimed at promoting trade and investment. But given the tight supply-and-demand situation in the energy sector, the EPA has become a powerful tool to push Japan's resources strategy. The EPA that Abe signed on Aug. 20 with Indonesia included a clause on the stable supply of mineral resources. The clause calls for issuing a prior notice if exports are to be restricted--a measure considered as a warning against cutting back on liquefied natural gas exports to Japan.

In EPA negotiations with Australia that started in April, Japan aims to include a similar clause in the agreement.

The price Japan must pay to assure a stable energy supply is not small. When Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono signed the EPA with Japan, he said he strongly hoped to see an expansion of direct investment from Japan. In negotiations with Australia, Japan most likely will be asked to open its market for agricultural products. In return for putting assurance of stable energy supply on the table in EPA negotiations, Japan is likely to be asked to make concessions in other sectors.

As a trump card to be used in return for the guarantee of a stable energy supply, Japan can offer its energy-saving technology, which is the most advanced in the world. The energy consumption of the 16 countries of the envisioned East Asia economic zone, which has been growing steadily, accounts for one-third of the world's total. The 15 nations except Japan have much room for energy-saving. Japan will be able to import the portion of energy resources to be saved by these countries through energy-conservation technologies it offers.

The first East Asia Summit Energy Ministers Meeting held in Singapore on Aug. 23 agreed that the 16 nations would formulate energy-saving targets and action plans by 2009, as proposed by Japan. Economy, Trade and Industry Minister Akira Amari welcomed the positive response to the Japanese proposal, saying, "I was a bit worried, but things went better than expected."

As a next step, Japan seeks to incorporate the East Asia economic zone into the international framework to prevent global warming. The Kyoto Protocol does not require China and India to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions, while Australia has not ratified the pact. If the East Asia economic zone is incorporated into the post-Kyoto Protocol antiglobal warming framework, Japan's energy-saving technology will become an even more important trump card.

"Environmental protection and economic growth are not contradictions in terms if we take advantage of technological progress," Abe said during a lecture meeting in Indonesia on Aug. 20. He stressed the importance for saving energy and cooperation with Japan in this regard.

But an energy clause in the EPA is only a nonbinding target. Even if Japan provides energy-saving technology, there is no guarantee that Japan will be able to obtain energy resources in return. Japan, which has made investments and provided technologies in Asia, should display flexibility and toughness in conducting its resources diplomacy.

 

 

Item 22:China Proposes Setting Up Asia-Pacific Forest Rehabilitation Network

(Xinhua, September 08, 2007) Chinese President Hu Jintao on Saturday proposed setting up an Asia-Pacific Network on Forest Rehabilitation and Sustainable Management in order to better tackle climate change.

Hu put forward the initiative at the Economic Leaders Meeting of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum which opened earlier in the day at Sydney Opera House.

The meeting, with the theme of "strengthening our community, building a sustainable future," is focusing on climate change and other issues at the first-day session.

Citing China's work and experience in forestation between 1980 and 2005, Hu said forest protection has an important role to play in addressing climate change.

He proposed the setting up of the Asia-Pacific Network on Forest Rehabilitation and Sustainable Management.

The network will provide a platform for APEC members to share best practices, conduct policy dialogue and carry out personnel training on forest rehabilitation and management, he said.

The Chinese president invited APEC members to join the proposed network to promote forest rehabilitation and expansion, so as to increase carbon sink and mitigate climate change in the Asia Pacific region.

The Chinese president arrived in Sydney from Canberra on Wednesday to attend the annual APEC Economic Leaders Meeting. He has also paid a state visit to Australia.

The two-day gathering is the culmination of this year's annual APEC meetings, which also include the Ministerial Meeting, Senior Officials' Meeting and a business summit.

Since its inception in 1989 in response to the growing interdependence among Asia-Pacific economies, APEC has played a vital role in making the Asia-Pacific region a driving force for world economic growth.

APEC currently has 21 members: Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, China's Hong Kong, Chinese Taipei, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Korea, Thailand, the United States and Vietnam. The chairmanship rotates among its members.

 

 

Item 23:Climate Change: APEC Leaders Get Off With 'Aspirational Goals'

(Neena Bhandari, IPS, 08 September, 2007) SYDNEY, Sep 8 (IPS) - An agreement by 21 Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum leaders on Saturday to adopt ‘'aspirational goals'' to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions has been criticised by voluntary agencies as grossly inadequate for saving the world from the effects of climate change.

Australian Prime Minister John Howard, in a statement read to camera at the end of the first session of the APEC leaders' summit, said there was agreement on the ‘'need for a long-term aspirational, global emissions reduction goal.''

"Aspirational targets are vague and unenforceable. An estimated 35 million people are involved in ‘Clean Up the World'' and they are all demonstrating their commitment to reducing GHGs through activities in their communities. APEC leaders have let them all down," said Ian Kiernan, chairman of the voluntary agency ‘Clean Up Australia'.

Greenpeace energy campaigner Catherine Fitzpatrick told newspersons that the "Sydney Declaration's non-binding aspirational goal of reducing energy intensity by at least 25 percent by 2030 would mean business as usual. The failure of this APEC to produce meaningful progress on climate change confirms that the place to do this is at the Kyoto negotiations in Bali in December."

APEC ‘member economies', including the United States, Australia, Russia, Canada, Japan, China and Indonesia, are responsible for around half the world's GHG emissions.

The declaration was signed on Saturday, the first day of the two-day summit, to accommodate U.S. President George W. Bush and allow him to fly back to Washington early and attend to a crucial report on the war in Iraq.

But Bush, who had arrived on Tuesday, took the opportunity to hold meetings with such top leaders as China's President Hu Jintao, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.

Saturday's declaration prepares the ground for talks in New York and Washington later this month and a United Nations meeting in Bali, Indonesia, and it does commit major polluters, including the U.S., to reducing GHGs, een if they are voluntary and non-binding. "APEC leaders have expressed strong support for Indonesia as host of the U.N. climate change meetings in Bali in December, and for the U.S. in hosting a meeting of major economies on climate change later this month,'' Howard said.

The 1997 Kyoto Protocol on Climate Change awarded 35 developed countries legally binding reduction targets, but developing countries were only required to pledge compliance at a later date.

Australia and the U.S., the two largest emitters of GHGs, have not ratified the Kyoto Protocol. They refused to accept a reduction target, insisting that the protocol was faulty because developing countries were not obliged to bear any of the burden.

Howard had been pushing for a Sydney Declaration on climate change, energy security and clean development, which does not fix targets or prescribe any punishment for those who fail to reach their target.

The key feature of the Sydney Declaration talks about a ''long-term aspirational goal for reducing global GHG emissions, to guide an effective post-2012 international arrangement on climate change; all economies should contribute to achieving that goal, taking into account national circumstances and allowing for a range of market-based policy measures."

"APEC will adopt regional goals to reduce energy intensity and increase forest cover, highlighting policies that support economic growth whilst reducing GHG emissions; new technologies, particularly in zero and low emissions energy sources and production, will be crucial to achieving real and lasting GHG emissions reductions,'' the declaration said.

The declaration affirms the primary importance of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a point Hu Jintao indicated was critical to any agreement on the statement. Like China, Malaysia and the Philippines also take the Kyoto Protocol as the base position.

Climate campaigners from leading voluntary organisations like GetUp! and Avaaz have welcomed the Sydney Declaration's support for the U.N.-led climate negotiations, even as they denounced its failure to commit to binding global targets.

GetUp! executive director Brett Solomon said, "Howard's undermining of Kyoto has not only made APEC a failure, but risks his political future as well. Any agreement that does not unequivocally commit to national and international binding targets dramatically fails our region and the globe."

Global civic advocacy group Avaaz campaign director Ben Wikler said, "APEC has missed an opportunity to commit to binding climate targets for developed nations. In failing to move the world economy away from fossil fuels, APEC leaders are turning into fossils themselves."

This week Avaaz and GetUp members in more than 100 countries held events calling for climate change targets, including unfurling a 144 sq m banner at Bondi beach and over the Great Barrier Reef. The organisations delivered a 500,000-signature mammoth petition to all 21 APEC leaders on Thursday.

Oxfam, the British charity, is concerned that climate change is increasing poverty and vulnerability among the world's poorest people who are least responsible for the problem and least able to bear its effects.

More than 4 billion people -- over 60 percent of the world's population -- live in Asia and half of those live near coasts. Asia is also home to 87 percent of the world's 400 million small farms, many of which need help to cope with changing weather patterns that affect food production and livelihoods.

Oxfam policy director James Ensor commented: "If the rich country members of APEC remain wedded to voluntary reductions only, it sends a pessimistic message. The EU has already offered a 20 percent reduction by 2020, which is a good start that can yet be improved. APEC must signal the need to go there too."

About 5,000 people participated in an anti-APEC rally in central Sydney on Saturday. Organiser and spokesman of the 'Stop Bush Coalition' Alex Bainbridge said: "I think the erosion of civil liberties as demonstrated through the APEC week is yet another example of that so-called war on terror. The war on terror was never about spreading democracy."

Unprecedented security for the summit has transformed the city into a ghost town with movement limited to police, helicopters, motorcades, snipers, protestors and the 1,500-odd international and national reporters.

Australia, Brunei, Canada, Chile, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Papua New Guinea, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Singapore, Taiwan, Thailand, the U.S. and Vietnam comprise APEC, which represents half the world's trade, a third of its population and 60 percent of the output of its goods and services.

 

 

Item 24:Bar-tailed Godwit E7 Returns After a Marathon Flight

(Shorebird Network, 10 September, 2007) E7 – a female Bar-tailed Godwit fitted with a satellite transmitter at Miranda, Firth of Thames in New Zealand on 6th February returned to the place of tagging on the evening of Friday 7 September (local time) after a logged flight of 29,181 km (about 500 hours of flying). During that time she flew to the Yellow Sea, where she stayed for five weeks before flying to Alaska to breed, then flew 11,570 km back to her regular non-breeding site in New Zealand in about 8 days 12 hours.

After disappointing results with satellite tracking in previous years (due mainly to battery failures) researchers are excited about the latest results. The improvement in technology now paves the way for studies of other migratory shorebirds for which we know very little about their migration routes and staging areas.

E7's travel details:

After being fitted with her satellite transmitter at Miranda E7 spent time between 6 February and 17 March around mouth of the Piako River. She departed from Piako at about 8 a.m. on 17 March and flew non-stop to Yalu Jiang, China, (near the North Korean border) flying north across the Yellow Sea (ignoring tidal flats she passed over in Korea). This was a total distance of 10,219 km, arriving at Yalu Jiang at about 5pm local time (9pm New Zealand time) on 24 March. The flight took 7 days 13 hours or 181 hours thus averaging 56.5kph.

After fattening up again for the next leg of her migration E7 departed from Yalu Jiang in an easterly direction at about 6pm on 1st May. She flew well south of the Aleutian Islands, picking up good wind assistance before heading northeast to briefly land at Nelson Lagoon on the Alaska Peninsula, arriving on 5 May having travelled 6,459 km from Yalu Jiang. She then moved to Port Heiden also on the Peninsula before turning north to the Yukon-Kuskokwim Delta (YKD) where she landed near Chefornak on 12 May but she quickly moved to her final destination at Manokinak, (no more than a name on an occasional map) arriving there on 15 May, having travelled a total of 17,456 km from Piako in New Zealand. E7 stayed at the breeding grounds at Manokinak from 15 May to 17 July.

E7 left Manokinak on 18 July and flew the 155 km to Cape Avinof and the Kuskokwim Shoals on the south east coast of the YKD, a major godwit ‘refuelling' site. She then left the Kuskokwim shoals at about 10:00 local time on 29 August (06:00 on 30 August NZ Time) and headed south towards the Peninsula and on out over the Pacific, missing Hawaii she swung south west and continued on close to Fiji and eventually to the North Cape area of NZ before swinging south to Miranda and Piako arriving probably Friday night, 7 September, after about 8 days 12 hours (204 hrs) flying at least 11,570 km not stop.

 

 

Item 25:Godwit Makes Huge Pacific Flight: It's official - the godwit makes the longest non-stop migratory flight in the world.

(Kim Griggs, BBC, 11 September, 2007) A bird has been tracked from its Southern Hemisphere summertime home in New Zealand to its breeding ground in Alaska - and back again.

The bar-tailed godwit, a female known as E7, landed this past weekend after taking just over eight days to fly 11,500km from Alaska to New Zealand.

Unlike seabirds, which feed and rest on long journeys, godwits just keep going.

The migrant champion was one of 13 satellite-tagged bar-tails (Limosa lapponica baueri) that left New Zealand at the beginning of the year.

Tag bonus

E7 set her first record on the way north, when she flew non-stop for 10,200km (6,340 miles) to Yalu Jiang in China. She then flew a further 5,000km (3,000 miles) to the godwit breeding grounds in Alaska. And on the way back to New Zealand, her tag still working, E7 set another record (7,150 miles).

"We were pretty impressed when she did 10,200km on the way north," says Massey University ecologist Phil Battley. "And the fact that she can now do 11,500km... it's just so far up from what we used to believe 10 years ago when we were thinking a five or 6,000km flight was extremely long. Here we've doubled it," adds the New Zealand coordinator of what is an international study.

For researchers, tracking the second leg of E7's journey was a bonus - her implanted satellite tag kept working well past its expected cut-off date.

"If you're trying to confirm how far birds fly and whether they are making stop-offs, it's only now with the technology being small enough, you can do this remotely. Otherwise we'd still be using educated guess work," Dr Battley says.

And that means the researchers now know that the godwits really are the champions of avian migration. Unlike seabirds, which feed and rest on their long journeys or swifts which feed in flight, the godwits make their long journeys without feeding or drinking.

Plump up

Next year, Dr Battley hopes to implant satellite tags into larger male godwits (this year the males had external satellite tags attached) to check that the male birds follow the same path as the females.

Meantime any chicks E7 would have produced during her two months in Alaska will be getting ready to leave the Yukon Delta in a few weeks as the first young godwits usually arrive in New Zealand early next month.

"Some might fly down in flocks with adults but other ones will fly down without any adults involved at all which is pretty amazing," says Dr Battley. "They're only two months old and here they are about to fly from Alaska to New Zealand."

And their mum? "She'll be eating lots at the moment and probably resting up; and she'll go back to her main routines. Then, come about February next year or January, she'll start moulting into her breeding plumage and getting fat again.

"Then it will all start again."

The New Zealand godwit tracking effort is part of the broader Pacific Shorebird Migration Program, a joint initiative between the US Geological Survey and PRBO Conservation Science.

 

 

Item 26:Korea: Expert Says Climate Change Will Spread Global Disease

(AFP, 11 September, 2007) JEJU ISLAND, South Korea:- Climate change will have an overwhelmingly negative impact on health with possibly one billion more people at risk from dengue fever within 80 years, an expert said Tuesday.

While there would be some positive effects, "the balance of health effects is on the negative side," Alistair Woodward, a professor at the University of Auckland, told a regional meeting of the World Health Organisation.

Woodward was a lead writer for the fourth assessment report of the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change.

Giving examples in a speech, he said that in China's Jiangsu province the winter freezing zone has moved northwards. The water snail that transmits schistosomiasis had also shifted northwards, putting perhaps 20 million people at risk of the parasitic disease also known as bilharziasis.

In France extreme heat in August 2003 led to about 25,000 deaths. In the WHO's Western Pacific region, a heat wave in summer 1998 increased mortality in Shanghai threefold.

Globally, said Woodward, the largest effect would be under-nutrition. "There will be some winners and losers, but overall, climate change is expected to have a negative effect on food production."

In the Western Pacific, changes in temperature and rainfall would make it far harder to control dengue fever, he said.

"Empirical modelling suggests the climate that is likely to apply in 2085 will put an extra billion people at risk of dengue worldwide, and perhaps half that number will be in this region."

Water supplies would be an increasingly serious concern, with the percentage of the world's land area suffering drought increasing perhaps tenfold by the end of the century.

Small Pacific island states would be especially vulnerable to rising sea levels and changes in rainfall patterns.

Woodward said the health sector must be at the forefront on climate change.

He called for studies on water management in low-lying Pacific islands, community-based disaster preparedness, and on efforts to reduce the impact of rural drought.

"The most difficult change of all is a change of will. We should not be daunted by the size of the task," Woodward said.

WHO director general Margaret Chan, in a speech Monday afternoon, said that even if greenhouse gas emissions were to stop immediately the changes already being seen would go on throughout this century.

"Climate changes will affect, in profoundly adverse ways, some of the most fundamental determinants of health: food, air, water," she said.

"Developing countries will be the first and hardest hit. Subsistence agriculture will suffer the most. Areas with weak health infrastructures will be the least able to cope."

 

 

Item 27:World's Worst Polluted Sites in Russia, China, India

(Timothy Gardner, Reuters, 13 September, 2007) NEW YORK - Four of the world's 10 most polluted places are in Russia and two former Soviet republics, an independent environmental group said in a report released on Wednesday.

Encompassing seven countries, the top 10 sites may cause some 12 million people to suffer health problems ranging from asthma and other respiratory ailments to birth defects and premature death, the New York-based Blacksmith Institute said.

"These places are sapping the strength of the populations around them, and it's not rocket science to fix them," Richard Fuller, the nonprofit group's founder and director told reporters on a conference call.

He said simple engineering projects could make many of the places safe, but that funds, political will, and technical ability were often lacking.

Concern about polluted places is growing as the world's population swells and people in developing countries like China and India buy more cars and electronics -- habits that had been limited mainly to rich countries like the United States.

The polluted sites in Russia and the former Soviet republics include Dzerzhinsk, Russia, which until the end of the Cold War was one of the country's major chemical weapons centers, and Chernobyl, Ukraine, where the world's worst nuclear accident occurred in 1986, Blacksmith said its second annual report.

China and India each has two sites in the top 10. Linfen, China, is in Shanxi Province, the heart of country's expanding coal industry, while Tianjin is one of the country's largest lead production bases. In Tianjin, residents, particularly children, suffer lead poisoning symptoms such as learning disabilities, brain damage and kidney malfunction.

REMOTE LOCATIONS

In La Oroya, Peru, another top 10 site, heavy metal mining has left 99 percent of children with higher than acceptable levels of lead in their blood, the report said.

In Kabwe, Zambia, children who play in the soil near heavy metal mining operations and young men who scavenge the metal, have lead poisoning levels close to those regarded as potentially fatal, Blacksmith said.

The institute, which worked on the report with Green Cross Switzerland, did not rank the top sites because the quality of health information from each country varies.

The polluted sites are often in remote mountain areas, especially those linked to mining, which can complicate the gathering of health data, the report said.

Blacksmith has amassed data over the last seven years on 400 sites to come up with the list that can be seen at www.worstpolluted.com. This year, the institute also listed the "Dirty 30," which includes the top 10 sites. In the expanded list, Russia and former Soviet republics have 10 sites, and China six.

No US sites were in the group's top 10 because pollution laws there have led to the cleanup of heavily polluted areas since the 1970s.

Consumers in rich countries could be indirectly responsible for some of the pollution, however. "Much of the nickel in US cars and lead in car batteries may have come from these places," Fuller said.

The annual list was compiled with help from specialists at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Hunter College in New York, India's ITT, the University of Idaho, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and others.

 

 

Item 28:GNP Steps Up Ad Blitz for Canal Project: Lee Myung-bak prods GNP lawmakers to publicize benefits over Chuseok holidays

(Hankyoreh,, 13 September, 2007) The main opposition Grand National Party (GNP) and its presidential candidate Lee Myung-bak are stepping up their efforts to trumpet one of Lee's campaign pledges: a project to build a "Korean Peninsula Grand Canal" that would link Seoul with the port city of Busan. Ahead of the Chuseok harvest holiday in late September, the GNP is trying to turn those pessimistic about the project into supporters via an aggressive ad blitz.

About 10 lawmakers at the GNP are scheduled to form a task force for the canal project as early as September 12, GNP officials said on September 11. Led by Rep. Park Seung-hwan, who served as a chief of the "Korean Peninsula Grand Canal Team" in Lee's camp, the task force will consist of lawmakers from various parliamentary committees, including construction and transportation, environment and labor, culture and tourism, and administrative affairs.

Rep. Park said on September 11 at GNP headquarters, "The Grand Canal task force will play the role of both offense and defense in upcoming television and parliamentary debates."

In addition, the GNP has had a change of timing for a meeting with lawmakers and other party officials to explain the canal project. The meeting is now scheduled to occur on or around September 21, just two days away from the Chuseok holidays; the GNP had originally planned to hold the meeting last month at Mount Jiri in the south of the peninsula. The change of the meeting time is allegedly aimed at letting party officials publicize the canal project during the holidays.

"Still, many people in the GNP have little knowledge about the canal project," said a lawmaker close to Lee, apparently referring to recent remarks by some party members, who called for Lee to amend sections of his plans.

Since September 6, the GNP has been educating its party members in Seoul and its neighboring areas on the canal project. Lecturers include Chang Seok-hyo, a former deputy mayor of Seoul, and Kim Young-woo, a former spokesman for Lee during the primary election.

In addition, prior to such moves, a three-member team visited canal facilities in Germany, the Netherlands, and Belgium for eight days from August 31. After the visit, the team, consisting of Rep. Park, Chu Bu-gil, a former deputy chief for the Korean Peninsula Grand Canal Team at Lee's camp, and Cheong Dong-yang, a professor at Korea National University of Education, drafted a report and submitted it to Lee and the GNP.

"Lee is confident of the project for the grand canal," said one of Lee's close aides. "We plan to publicize benefits from the canal project with visual materials and explain the project to the general public via 'canal missionary workers.' " Lee's camp said it plans to aggressively promote the canal project by writing articles to be publicized via Internet media sources.

In a press conference on September 9, Lee said, "If we begin full-fledged ad campaigns regarding specific benefits of the canal project, more people will support it."

 

 

Item 29:Japan: Govt Aims to Boost Output of Biofuel in S.E. Asia

(Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 September, 2007) The government decided on the launch Tuesday of a plan to assist Southeast Asian countries with measures to increase the output of agricultural products that can be used to make biofuel materials, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

Rice, palms and other crops cultivated as foodstuffs in Southeast Asian countries can be used to make biofuel materials that can help prevent global warming.

The plan, named Green Cool Asia, aims to prevent the shortage of food supplies in developing countries when advanced countries procure more biofuel materials from those countries, sources said. The government will make a report about this plan at the summit meeting of the Group of Eight major nations to be held at the Lake Toya resort in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, next July.

According to the government's plan, experts from the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry will advise local people on ways to enhance the cultivation of agricultural products used to make bioethanol for gasoline-fueled cars and biodiesel for diesel cars.

The government will provide these countries with plant strains developed in Japan to improve harvests and measures to enhance irrigation systems.

The government also will give those countries technical and financial assistance to build facilities to produce biofuels and ask for cooperation from Japanese manufacturers with biofuel production technology and major trading companies whose distribution networks include these countries.

The government intends to send a research team consisting of officials from the public and private sectors to Southeast Asia sometime in October to select appropriate countries. Candidates include Vietnam, which harvests rice three times a year; Thailand, which cultivates sugar cane, rice and cassava; and Malaysia and Indonesia, which plant palms.

Governmental organizations and companies in Europe have started arrangements to procure biofuel materials from Asian and African countries with cheap costs including cheap labor.

An official at the ministry is concerned that local people might put priority on agricultural products used for biofuels and then suffer from food shortages. The expansion of agricultural products is indispensable in those developing countries, the official said.

 

 

Item 30:China to Learn From Japan's Energy-Saving, Environmental Protection

(Xinhua, 14 September, 2007) ) TOKYO -- China's top political advisor Jia Qinglin said Thursday that China will learn the advanced technologies and successful experiences from Japan in the fields of energy-saving and environmental protection.

Jia, chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference (CPPCC), made the remarks at a meeting with some Japanese cabinet members.

Jia said both sides should further expand exchanges and cooperation so as to push forward bilateral strategic relations for mutual benefit.

He said he hoped that the first meeting of Sino-Japanese high- level economic dialogue scheduled for this year will make achievements.

He also expressed hope that the two countries will strengthen non-governmental exchanges so as to consolidate the social basis for bilateral relations.

Japanese Foreign Minister Nobutaka Machimura, who was present at the meeting, said that no matter what changes take place in Japan and the world, the basis for bilateral friendship will not waver and the Japanese government's policy on developing bilateral relations will not change.

He said Japan appreciates China's peaceful development which cherishes opportunities for Japan.

He said the Japanese side hopes to expand cooperation with China in such fields as economy, trade, energy, environmental protection, communication and transportation.

The Japanese side also hopes to expand bilateral cultural exchanges, and continue to keep sound communication and cooperation on major international and regional issues such as the six-party talks on the Korean Peninsular nuclear issue, he said.

Jia started an official goodwill visit to Japan on Wednesday as guest of the Japanese government.

 

 

Item 31:N.K. Metals, Minerals to Be Sold Directly to South: Deal would see such shipments cross the DMZ for the first time

(Hankyoreh, 14 September, 2007) For the first time in the more than 50 years since the Korean War, minerals produced jointly by the two Koreas will be sold in South Korea. The two countries will also start to work on developing new mine projects and will launch drilling as early as next month, Lee Han-ho, head of the Korea Resources Corp. (KORES) told the Hankyoreh in a recent exclusive interview.

Lee is one of the group of business leaders and government officials that will accompany President Roh Moo-hyun during the second-ever inter-Korean summit slated for Oct. 2-4.

"On September 5, I met with Chung Un-up, North Korean head of the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Association in Pyongyang, and signed a deal to sell black lead products that two Koreas jointly produced at a mine in Hwanghae Province," Lee said. "We also agreed to work together in developing a limestone mine in Shinwon of the same province and start drilling for black lead in the Pungcheon region."

So far, minerals produced in the North have been sold in South Korea through a third country, such as China. Every year, US$10 million to $100 million worth of originally North Korean-produced non-metals were shipped to the South. This new project will be the first time such materials produced by the two Koreas will directly cross the line that has divided the peninsula since the 1950-53 Korean War.

The cross-border shipments would also come at a time when China is working on joint ventures with the North to develop resources in the communist country. Experts see the first-ever joint production and shipment of minerals as providing a boost for inter-Korean cooperation in the resources field.

Lee was invited to the North by the Inter-Korean Economic Cooperation Association. The first shipment, amounting to 200 tons will be on the South Korean market earlier next month, with 800-1,000 tons of black lead to follow. Wonjin Co. will be responsible for the sale of the black lead, which will be used in making fire-resistant materials and carbonized steel. Eight hundred tons of black lead would be priced at around $150,000.

KORES opened a 50-50 joint venture with a North Korean firm in April last year, but its full-blown operation has been delayed until recently due to electricity shortages in the North.

 

 

Item 32:Press Says Changes Are Not Enough

(Cho Ji-hyun, The Korea Herald, 15 September, 2007) As the fight intensified between the media and the government over controversial press reform measures, the government yesterday said they will delete or revise some clauses deemed unacceptable by the press and its related organizations.

Kim Chang-ho, head of the Government Information Agency, said one-on-one contact with government officials will be allowed upon appointment. Furthermore, an additional briefing center that can accommodate up to 100 reporters will be constructed in an accessible area in central Seoul.

The government also decided to scrap the clause in the controversial plan that requires reporters to contact public relations officials before meeting with government officials.

Reporters and government branches will together agree on embargos, or the dates of articles' publication, and press passes will be issued by government branches to registered reporters.

The plan to consolidate 16 press rooms into one location, however, will remain intact, he said.

"We will fully take in the media groups' request, and we will revise the plans because the initial purpose of the plans was to advise public officials on how to more effectively cooperate with reporters," Kim said. "We will work to avoid any inconvenience when reporters are only trying to meet public officials in order to do their job."

However, many reporters said the revision was unsatisfactory and remained skeptical of the government's intentions.

Park Sang-beum, a representative from the Journalists' Association of Korea, said the organization plans to hold a meeting, with the participation of reporters, on Monday in central Seoul to come up with follow-up measures.

Yesterday, reporters who cover the Ministry of Planning and Budget announced they plan to boycott the government's briefing on budget use for 2008 this Thursday, to protest the government's media reforms. The ministry is located in Seocho, southern Seoul, but as part of the new measures, reporters were instructed to attend press briefings at the government complex in Gwacheon, Gyeonggi Province, which they claimed "wastes time and money."

Reporters have opposed the consolidation of the press rooms, which they believe is an example of the government's attempt to gag the media. Reporters at the Foreign Ministry were the first to boycott their move to a new briefing area. Construction for remodeling, however, began this week despite their boycott.

Kim acknowledged that what the government has offered at this point was not much different from the current system, except for the integration of the press rooms.

"Having different press rooms for all government branches can become an obstacle when trying to maintain constructive tension between the media and the government. This is why we will operate a consolidated press room for all."

Adding that what was publicized in the past was only a draft plan designed to be used in discussions, Kim said the revision was not a withdrawal of the Roh administration's press reform plans.

"Let's start fresh from the start and move on since the portions in the plans that were likely to cause misunderstandings are now taken care of," he said.

Reporters, however, continued with their criticism.

"The so-called revision is nothing but an attempt to cover up the conflict," Park with the JAK said. "It fails to fully eradicate the fundamental problem of the measures that could restrict freedom of press."

A group of conservative Grand National Party lawmakers, in the meantime, visited the Foreign Ministry building and surveyed the old briefing room, which has now been gutted. They also talked with the reporters there, who have refused to move out of the press rooms adjoined to the old briefing area.

 

 

Item 33:Korea: Oil Prices Soar on U.S. Storm

(Ko Kyoung-tae, The Korea Herald, 15 September, 2007) Crude oil prices hit another record high on Thursday as a hurricane hit several U.S. refineries, increasing worries over supply.

Daily output of nearly a million barrels was eliminated as U.S. refineries off the Gulf of Mexico were shut down due to the storm.

The limited supply of crude pushed the price of Dubai oil, Korea's mainstay oil import, to $73.79 a barrel in New York, up $0.45 from the previous day.

The U.S. benchmark West Texas Intermediate futures also jumped $0.18 to $80.09 a barrel, although Brent crude futures slightly declined to $77.40.

Ongoing international concerns that oil demand will further outstrip supply this winter also continue to weigh on the market.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, an oil cartel which pumps around 40 percent of global oil output, warned that the world will continue to suffer from a shortage of oil refining facilities for several years.

Local experts and government officials also forecast that petroleum prices will hover above $70 for a while due to the lingering supply concerns.

They said during a meeting of the Special Commission on Oil Prices that the unbridled growth in oil demand from emerging economies will push up the price.

The influx of speculative hot money is another cause for the current price hike, they said.

But the commission cautiously estimated that the oil price may cool down in the fourth quarter as OPEC decided to raise production by half a million barrels a day.

"The market is likely to gain some stability in the fourth quarter," they said in a statement.

Rising fuel costs weigh heavily on the Korean economy because the country imports all of its oil.

Vice Finance Minister Lim Young-rok said on Thursday the government is closely monitoring the crude oil market because of its potential impact on the economy.

He added that the ministry has no specific plan to tackle the growing burden on the domestic economy. Korea is the world's fifth-largest crude oil importer.

 

 

Item 34:China Building Ban for Wetlands' Sake: No Permanent Buildings Near Qinghai Lake

(Xinhua News Agency, 10 September, 2007) The northwestern province of Qinghai will take tough measures to prevent the environment around the Qinghai Lake, China's largest inland salt water lake, from deteriorating.

"Not only the projects under construction, but also existing hotels and restaurants will all be demolished," said Jetik Majil, vice governor of Qinghai, where the lake is located.

Under a new plan for tourism development around the lake which is expected to be enacted next year, permanent buildings including hotels, restaurants and tourism service facilities will be relocated to an "accommodation zone" at least three kilometers away from the southern bank of the lake, Jetik said.

"Grassland will be restored after the buildings were put down. In the future, tourists can only tour around the lake riding horse or bike, or by electric bus, or walking on plank road," said the vice governor.

More than 3,200 meters above the sea level, the 4,300-square-km Qinghai Lake, held a "Holy Lake" by Tibetans, is home to 189 species of birds and a crucial barrier against the invasion of desert from the west.

Beautiful scenery has attracted more and more tourists to the lake in recent years. According to Dong Lizhi, deputy manager-general of the Qinghai Lake Tourism Development Co., Ltd., more than 890,000 people visited the lake in 2006 and by July this year, the lake had received more than 500,000 tourists and the figure was expected to hit one million by the end of this year.

However, pollution comes with booming tourism as hotels and restaurants have been found to discharge wastes directly into the lake, and tourists are often found to leave snack package and drink bottles around the lake.

More over, rising temperature and declining rainfall have caused the lake to keep shrinking over the past decades.

Statistics from the provincial environment protection administration show the lake shrank by more than 380 sq km between1959 and 2006, and the average water level dropped three meters to the present 18 meters.

More than 111,800 hectares of land around the lake has been under the threat of desertification brought about by overgrazing and global warming, according to the provincial forestry department.

To curb the ecological degeneration near the lake, the Chinese government has invested 470 million yuan to recover vegetation around the lake and to deal with desertification. The government has also banned finishing in the lake since 1982.

"However, we have to say the situation is still worrying and we don't want to see the environment around the lake further worsening as tourism booms," said Jetik. "That is why we will launch the new program."

Jetik said, the garbage in the new accommodation zone will be collected and disposed at a nearby waste treatment factory, and more garbage bins will be put around the lake.

 

 

Item 35:Global Warming Threat to China's Food Supply

(Xinhua News Agency, 24 August, 2007) China's food supplies will be greatly challenged in 30 years if global warming continues unabated, Xinhua News Agency reported today.

The country's population may hit 1.5 billion by 2030, which means China will have to produce an additional 100 million tons of food to feed the extra 200 million people, Zheng Guoguang, director general of the China Meteorological Administration, said today in Hohhot, capital city of Inner Mongolia.

In reality, he noted, about 130 million to 150 million tons more food will be needed due to supply reductions caused by bad weathers.

Annual output is expected to drop by five to 10 percent, Zheng said.

Global warming will bring more natural disasters to China, and these disasters may become large and do more damage over time, he said.

Sea levels in China's coastal areas are rising by an average of 2.5 millimeters every year, slightly faster than the global average.

In the past 100 years, China's climate has seen great changes, with most of the changes taking place in the last 50 years, Zheng said.

The average temperature in the first half of this year was 8.3 degree Celsius, 1.3 degrees higher than the average during the same period last year.

Last year was the warmest in China since 1951, with an average temperature of 10.2 degrees.

Temperatures in 2020 are expected to be 0.5 to 0.7 degrees higher than average temperatures 1980 and 1999.

By 2030, the increase is expected to be between 0.6 degrees and by 2050, they will be 1.2 degrees to two degrees higher, Zheng said.

Hotter weather may post great threat to the safety of drinking water.

When the global average temperature increases by 1.5 degrees to 2.5 degrees, about 20 percent to 30 percent of animals and plants around the world will die.

 

 

Item 36:Yellow River Basin in Gansu Drying Up

(China Daily September 13, 2007) Global warming and overdevelopment have decreased the water storage capacity of the Yellow River in Maqu, Gansu Province, local weather authorities have said.

The flow of the country's second-longest river in Maqu has slowed by 64 percent, compared with the 1980s, while grassland and wetland areas have shrunk by 45 percent, according to the Gansu Provincial Meteorological Bureau.

The Yellow River originates in Qinghai Province, which neighbors Gansu. Maqu functions as a basin for the river because of its substantial grasslands and wetlands.

The length of the Yellow River in Maqu exceeds 430 km.

Research by the meteorological bureau and local authority suggests global warming has adversely affected the permafrost layer, which decreased from 120 cm in the 1970s to less than 70 cm.

Thinning of the permafrost layer decreases the soil's water storage capacity as water evaporates or filters underground.

Slowing of the river is also a factor. In the 1980s the river flow was calculated at around 3.85 billion tons annually, but in 2006 the figure was 1.38 billion tons.

Development of the area has also caused deterioration of the wetlands and grasslands habitats in Maqu.

Experts believe that if the wetlands continue to shrink and water sources dry up, it will endanger the ecology of the entire Yellow River Basin.

"The region's function as a reservoir for the Yellow River has decreased significantly," deputy director of the meteorological bureau Zhang Qiang said.

As a result local government officers in Maqu drew up plans early last month to protect the area's environment.

Gansu has earmarked 6.6 billion yuan ($877 million), until 2020, on wetland protection in Maqu, according to Yang Yong, deputy director of the Regional Sector of Gansu Provincial Development and Reform Committee.

The project has two phases, with the focus on grassland recovery and wetland protection from 2007 to 2010; water conservation and replenishment from 2010 to 2020.

"With the completion of the project the environment is expected to improve greatly," Zhang said.

 

 

Item 37:Birth Defects on the Rise in Polluted China – Media

(Reuters, 14 September, 2007) BEIJING - Growing numbers of Chinese children are being born with deformities due to pollution, later pregnancies and unhealthy lifestyles, state media said on Thursday quoting a medical expert.

About 1 million Chinese children were born each year with congenital heart problems, cleft palettes, nerve defects, limb abnormalities and other physical defects, director of China's National Centre for Maternity and Infant Health, Li Zhu, told the China Daily.

The number of such congenital deformities was rising and the current occurrence rate of 60 out of every 1,000 births was three times that of developed countries, Li said.

Chinese parents, especially urban couples, were having children later in life, making defects more likely, said the report, which also blamed "exposure to hazardous pollutants and long-term unhealthy lifestyles".

About a third of the babies born with such problems died shortly after birth, the paper said, citing experts.

Birth defects affected a tenth of Chinese households and created an annual financial strain of 1 billion yuan (US$133 million), the Ministry of Health has estimated.

The Financial Times reported in July that China had asked the World Bank not to publish estimates of the number of premature Chinese deaths each year from polluted air and water.

The bank study said about 460,000 Chinese died prematurely each year from water and air pollution and about 300,000 more died from indoor toxins.

 

 

Item 38:China: Haze of Confusion Over Most-Polluted City List

(Reuters, 14 September, 2007) BEIJING - A US group's report naming the Chinese city of Tianjin as one of the world's most polluted places apparently confused the large northern port with a notorious lead-processing town in the country's east.

Tianjin, with more than 10 million people, gained unwelcome global attention on Wednesday when the Blacksmith Institute in New York named it as one of the world's most heavily polluted places for its outpouring of toxins from scrap lead processing.

"Tianjin has China's leading lead production bases, contributing to lead poisoning and various disorders and illnesses in children," said a photo caption on the institute's Web site (www.blacksmithinstitute.org) showing the city's port and rising skyline.

The Blacksmith announcement itself also referred to "Tianjin in Anhui province" and noted that 140,000 people were affected by the pollution.

The Blacksmith Institute issued an official correction on Thursday saying Tianying in impoverished Anhui province, 750 km (460 miles) south of Tianjin, is one of the world's top 10 most polluted sites, not Tianjin. Not that Tianjin was leaping to its own defense on Thursday. Repeated phone calls to the city spokesman's office went unanswered.

Despite the mixup, there is no doubt that toxic pollution from China's industrial boom is taking a heavy toll on citizens' health and lives.

About 460,000 Chinese die prematurely each year from breathing dirty air and drinking polluted water, the World Bank estimates.

Beset by public alarm about acrid air and toxic water, China has promised to cut industrial pollutants by 10 percent between 2006 and 2010. Last year it failed to meet the annual target.

Tianjin certainly has its share of noxious emissions, and Linfen in Shanxi province, which is also on the institute's list, certainly boasts some of the nastiest air on the planet.

But Tianjin has very little lead processing, which remains common in smaller sites across poorer, inland China.

Tianying, the smaller eastern town, claims to have cleaned up its act and is promoting an environmentally clean industrial park.

But a 2006 report by the official Xinhua news agency said that Jieshou, the city that encompasses Tianying, continues to process 160,000 tonnes of lead, mostly from used batteries, every year -- half of total national production. (Additional reporting by Timothy Gardner in New York)

 

 

Item 39:Many of Earth's ‘Vital Signs' in Bad Shape

(Ed Stoddard, Reuters, 14 September, 2007) DALLAS - More wood was removed from forests in 2005 than ever before, one of many troubling environmental signs highlighted on Thursday in the Worldwatch Institute's annual check of the planet's health.

The Washington-based think tank's "Vital Signs 2007-2008" report points to global patterns ranging from rising meat consumption to Asian economic growth it says are linked to the broader problem of climate change.

"I think climate change is the most urgent challenge we have ever faced," said Erik Assadourian, director of the Vital Signs project.

"You see many trends in climate change, whether we are talking about grain production which is affected by droughts and flooding. Or meat production as livestock production makes up about 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions," he told Reuters in a telephone interview before the report's release.

Assadourian said the key message of the report was that unsustainable consumption patterns were responsible for climate change linked to carbon emissions and other ecological woes.

He said of the 44 trends tracked by the report, 28 were "pronouncedly bad" and only six were positive.

The trends range from the spread of avian flu to the rise of carbon emissions to the number of violent conflicts. The growing use of wind power is among the few trends seen as positive.

Some of the points highlighted in the report include:

- Meat production hit a record 276 million tonnes (43 kilograms or 95 pounds per person) in 2006.

- Meat consumption is one of several factors driving rising soybean demand. Rapid expansion of soybean plantations in South America could displace 22 million hectares (54 million acres) of tropical forest and savanna in the next 20 years.

- The rise in global seafood consumption comes as many fish species become scarcer. In 2004, people ate 156 million tonnes of seafood, the equivalent of three times as much seafood per person than in 1950. - While US carbon emissions continue to grow, the fastest rise is occurring in Asia, particularly China and India.

Other analysts and think tanks have focused on different trends they say mean less cause for alarm. For example, they point out that while wood is being removed from forests on a global scale, many parts of Europe and North America have experienced reforestation in recent decades.

 

 

Item 40:Corrected: World's 10 Most Polluted Places

(Reuters, 14 September, 2007) Official correction to show that Blacksmith Institute said it incorrectly identified one of the Chinese sites. The correct site is Tianying

Russia and two former Soviet republics have four of the world's top 10 most polluted places, according to the Blacksmith Institute, a New York-based nonprofit group.

Blacksmith did not rank the top 10 because complete health records from some developing countries were unavailable. For each site the group included the number of potentially affected people, who could face problems ranging from asthma to premature death.

The annual list was compiled with help from specialists at Harvard University, Johns Hopkins University, Hunter College in New York, India's ITT, University of Idaho, Mt. Sinai Hospital in New York and others. The full report can be found at www.worstpolluted.com.

Below are the worst polluted places listed alphabetically.

Sumgayit, Azerbaijan - Potentially affected people: 275,000 - Pollutants: Heavy metals, organic chemicals - Sources: Petrochemical and industrial complexes

Linfen, China - Potentially affected people: 3,000,000 - Pollutants: Fly-ash, volatile organic compounds, lead - Sources: Car and industrial emissions from coal industry

Tianying, China - Potentially affected people: 140,000 - Pollutants: Lead and heavy metals - Sources: Mining and processing

Sukinda, India - Potentially affected people: 2,600,000 - Pollutants: Hexavalent chromium - Sources: Chromite mines

Vapi, India - Potentially affected people: 71,000 - Pollutants: Chemicals and heavy metals - Sources: Industrial estates

La Oroya, Peru - Potentially affected people: 35,000 - Pollutants: Lead, copper, zinc - Sources: Heavy metal mining

Dzerzhinsk, Russia - Potentially affected people: 300,000 - Pollutants: Sarin, lead, phenols - Sources: Cold War-era chemical weapons, manufacturing

Norilsk, Russia - Potentially Affected People: 134,000 - Pollutants: Heavy metals, phenols - Sources: Nickel mining

Chernobyl, Ukraine - Potentially affected people: 5.5 million - Pollutants: Radioactive dust including uranium, other metals - Sources: Nuclear meltdown of reactor core in 1986

Kabwe, Zambia - Potentially affected people: 255,000 - Pollutants: Lead, cadmium - Sources: Lead mining and processing

 

 

Item 41:Seoul Gets Hydrogen Fueling Station

(Chosun Ilbo, 14 September, 2007) The Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy and GS Caltex on Thursday christened a hydrogen fueling station in the presence of about 150 officials including Commerce Minister Kim Young-joo, GS Caltex chairman Hur Dong-soo and Yonsei University President Jung Chang-young. It is the second hydrogen fueling station in Korea after one at the Korea Institute of Energy Research in Daejeon completed in August 2006, but the first in Seoul

It will dispense hydrogen for fuel-cell vehicles, a hotly tipped future technology, which will run on trial across downtown Seoul. Hyundai Motor and other firms have conducted trials of fuel-cell vehicles in some limited areas including Gyeonggi Province.

The government plans to operate 14 fuel-cell vehicles -- 12 sedans and two buses -- by the end of the year, and will increase their number to 34 by the end of 2008.

 

 

Item 42:China to Crack Down on Rich Flouting One-Child Rule

(Reuters, 15 September, 2007) BEIJING:- Rich Chinese people who flout the country's family planning policies, which usually limit couples to one child, will face higher fines under tougher new enforcement guidelines, state media said on Saturday.

The China Daily said the move to assess fines in line with the violator's income came in response to widespread concern that current fines did not serve as enough of a deterrent to the well-off, essentially allowing them to treat the fines as a fee for having more than one child.

 

 

Item 43:Japan: Govt Aims to Boost Output of Biofuel in S.E. Asia

(Yomiuri Shimbun, 12 September, 2007) The government decided on the launch Tuesday of a plan to assist Southeast Asian countries with measures to increase the output of agricultural products that can be used to make biofuel materials, The Yomiuri Shimbun has learned.

Rice, palms and other crops cultivated as foodstuffs in Southeast Asian countries can be used to make biofuel materials that can help prevent global warming.

The plan, named Green Cool Asia, aims to prevent the shortage of food supplies in developing countries when advanced countries procure more biofuel materials from those countries, sources said. The government will make a report about this plan at the summit meeting of the Group of Eight major nations to be held at the Lake Toya resort in Toyakocho, Hokkaido, next July.

According to the government's plan, experts from the Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Ministry will advise local people on ways to enhance the cultivation of agricultural products used to make bioethanol for gasoline-fueled cars and biodiesel for diesel cars.

The government will provide these countries with plant strains developed in Japan to improve harvests and measures to enhance irrigation systems.

The government also will give those countries technical and financial assistance to build facilities to produce biofuels and ask for cooperation from Japanese manufacturers with biofuel production technology and major trading companies whose distribution networks include these countries.

The government intends to send a research team consisting of officials from the public and private sectors to Southeast Asia sometime in October to select appropriate countries. Candidates include Vietnam, which harvests rice three times a year; Thailand, which cultivates sugar cane, rice and cassava; and Malaysia and Indonesia, which plant palms.

Governmental organizations and companies in Europe have started arrangements to procure biofuel materials from Asian and African countries with cheap costs including cheap labor.

An official at the ministry is concerned that local people might put priority on agricultural products used for biofuels and then suffer from food shortages. The expansion of agricultural products is indispensable in those developing countries, the official said.

 

 

Item 44:Roh Envisions South Korea as Global Leader in Nuclear Fusion Energy

(Hankyoreh, 14 September, 2007) President Roh Moo-hyun said Friday that South Korea will grow into one of the world's top five countries in nuclear fusion energy technology by 2021 and start commercial generation of electricity from nuclear fusion by 2040.

Roh made the remarks during a dedication ceremony for the Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research (KSTAR), a research facility for the development of nuclear fusion energy, at the Daedok Science Town in Daejeon, about 150 kilometers south of Seoul.

The Ministry of Science and Technology said the KSTAR reactor, developed over 12 years at a cost of 309 billion won (US$332 million), will make South Korea a world leader in nuclear fusion field.

The ministry explained the KSTAR reactor will be a pilot device for the planned International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), a joint project of seven advanced countries, including South Korea.

"South Korea has to overcome its weakness as a resources-poor nation with advanced technologies. The KSTAR reactor independently designed and built by South Korean scientists demonstrates the nation's status as a technology power," said Roh in his congratulatory address.

"We have to bet heavily on the development of clean, safe and limitless energy sources, like nuclear fusion. Our experiences and technologies acquired from the KSTAR will be greatly helpful to the implementation of the ITER," the president said.

 

 

Item 45:Korea Seeks FTA With L. America

(Lee Hyo-sik, Korea Times, 17 September, 2007) South Korea seeks a free trade agreement (FTA) with Mexico and other Latin American countries.

Finance and Economy Minister Kwon Oh-kyu said at a forum that the two regions can strengthen collaboration in developing the abundant resources of Latin America.

``We stand ready to accelerate FTA negotiations with Mexico. Also, having completed the joint research, Korea and (Latin American nations) will soon begin FTA talks based on the research outcomes,'' Kwon said at the Korea-Latin America and the Caribbean Trade and Investment forum Monday.

South Korea and Mercosur (South American Common Market), composed of Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Uruguay and Venezuela, began their joint research on the feasibility and benefits of the trade pact in mid-2005 and completed it in 2006.

South Korea's exports to Mercosur, the world's third-largest trade bloc, reached $1.4 billion in 2003, accounting for 0.7 percent of its total export volume.

Foreign direct investment from Korea's IT and infrastructure sectors into the Latin American region exceeded 1.9 and 1.6 billion dollars, respectively, in 2007 alone.

``The two regions can step up collaboration in developing abundant resources of Latin America. Korea depends heavily on imports of agricultural and dairy products as well as petroleum and minerals, which are major export items of Latin America,'' Kwon said.

Moreover, LAC region has increasing demand for manufacturing expertise which is an area Korea has a competitive edge, he said, adding that hence, reaching higher levels of cooperation in these areas will provide both regions with great business opportunities.

In early August, South Korea also agreed with Mexico to resume free trade talks that were stalled over the level of tariff elimination on merchandise.

In 2006, South Korea exported $6.3 billion worth of goods to Mexico and imported $790 million worth, according to the ministry.

The free trade pact with Chile was signed in early 2003 and put it into effect a year later. Following the conclusion of the Korea-Chile FTA in 2004, bilateral trade between these two economies has doubled. The total bilateral trade has since more than tripled to over $5.38 billion in 2006 from some $1.56 billion in 2003, according to government data.

 

 

Item 46:Malaysia Looks at Tougher Rules to Save Coastal Birds

(Reuters, 11 September, 2007) KUALA LUMPUR - Malaysia vowed on Tuesday to toughen environmental rules for coastal development projects after a study showed a drop in bird numbers following reclamation that destroyed their homes in mangroves and wetlands.

Farms, homes and industry have sprung up along Malaysia's coasts, depriving migratory birds of key winter homes, leading to a 22 percent fall in the number of shorebirds recorded in the two decades to 2006, conservation group Wetlands International said.

Malaysia will tighten environmental regulations to avoid similar future mistakes, Environment Minister Azmi Khalid said.

"Of course, wetlands, people have turned that into prawn farms, fish farms, without regard," he said at a function in the Malaysian capital.

"But today we are aware, my god, we have done the wrong thing. So now governments are very aware of this. All approvals are now being looked at very seriously by all state governments."

The state of Malaysia's vanishing wetlands mirrored the situation with its 189 river basins, just half of which were still intact, while another five percent were too polluted for even a fish to survive, Azmi said.

"In the process of development we have overlooked these issues," he added.

The move for closer scrutiny was part of a growing government consensus that environmental policy needed to be overhauled, Azmi said. He also said there were concerns the environment ministry did not have enough say in projects from highways to town planning.

"I'm told that inputs from the environment ministry are minimal, up to only the environmental impact assessments (EIAs), which is not enough. We don't have enough enforcement powers."

The format of Malaysia's environmental impact assessments dated to the 1970s and the ministry would consider revising it if necessary, Azmi added.

Environmentalists welcomed the move for closer scrutiny, but said that unless Malaysia identified and protected critical biodiversity areas in its development plans, wetlands would still be at risk from property developers who saw them as a bargain.

"Some people doing development like to go and grab the cheap areas which may be state land, or where they drain wetlands, because they feel they can get them for free or cheaply," Faizal Parish of the Global Environment Centre, a Malaysian non-profit group, told Reuters.

Wetlands International said Malaysian coasts were key wintering grounds for endangered species such as the Nordmann's Greenshank, which numbers between 500 and 1,000 birds, and the Chinese egret, whose population ranges from 2,600 to 3,400.

The group's two-year survey, ending in 2006, studied 134 sites in Malaysia, recording more than 105,000 birds.

The worst-hit region was the coast of the northern state of Perak, which saw an 86 percent decline from a similar survey in the 1980s. There were also dramatic falls on the west coast of Johor and in Selangor, the area around the Malaysian capital.

 

 

Item 47:Alarming Figures on Coastal Waterbirds in Southeast Asia

(Wetlands International, 05 September, 2007) Wetlands International presents today its publication about South-east Asian shorebirds. The outcomes demonstrate the importance of peninsular Malaysia for many migratory species, but also show an alarming trend.

Wetlands International presents today its publication about South-east Asian shorebirds, based on years of field monitoring in Malaysia.

Shorebird numbers showed an overall decline of 22% in Malaysia between 1983–1986 and 2004–2006. The reclamation and conversion of mangrove forest and mudflats for aquaculture, agriculture, industry, housing and recreational purposes has been identified as the major threat to waterbird areas.

In the season that migratory waterbirds start return to the shore of southeast Asia after another breeding season in Siberia, northeast China and Japan, Wetlands International pleased to present the latest status of waterbirds in Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar.

The surveys confirmed the Peninsular Malaysian coast as one of the most important wintering grounds for the Endangered Nordmann's Greenshank, supports up to 25% (1%=8) of the most rare shorebird species along the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. The surveys also confirmed the significance of the east Malaysian coast for the wintering Vulnerable Chinese Egret, with up to 33% (1%=30) using of the east Malaysian coast for wintering.

However, shorebird numbers showed an overall decline of 22% in Malaysia between 1983–1986 and 2004–2006. The most significant decline (86%) occurred on the Perak coast, while the west coast of Johor and the coast of Selangor showed a 40% and 26% decline, respectively. The reclamation and conversion of mangrove forest and mudflats for aquaculture, agriculture, industry, housing and recreational purposes has been identified as the major threat to waterbird habitat.

The entire Inner Gulf of Thailand is at risk from urbanisation and non-zoned development for industry and housing. Further threats include the construction of sea walls, coastal erosion and the unregulated planting of mangroves on mudflats. A further threat is now posed by the conversion of traditional prawn ponds and salt pans to deep, steep-sided ponds for rearing crabs and prawns combined. In other areas, hunting waterbirds is now becoming a real threat.

Wetlands International calls the government agencies in these countries to protect the internationally important sites identified in the study to prevent the further decline of the migratory waterbirds in the region.

The latest Wetlands International publication entitled “The Status of Coastal Waterbirds and Wetlands in Southeast Asia: Results of Waterbird Surveys in Malaysia (2004–2006) and Thailand and Myanmar (2006)” presents a comprehensive update of the status of waterbird populations and wetlands along the coasts of Malaysia, Thailand and Myanmar based on surveys undertaken between 2004 and 2006. The surveys in Malaysia were jointed conducted by Malaysian Nature Society, Sarawak Forest Corporation and Wetlands International –Malaysia Office. The surveys in Thailand and Myanmar was carried out by Bird Conservation Society of Thailand and Myanmar Bird and Nature Society, respectively. The field work was mostly done by volunteers in these countries.

A total of 134 wetland sites were covered in Malaysia, including 15 sites on the southwest coast of Sarawak – the first comprehensive update of the status of waterbird populations and wetlands on this coast since 1985. Peak counts for all sites between 2004 and 2006 recorded over 105,000 waterbirds. Selangor and Sarawak were the most important states, with more than 30,000 waterbirds recorded along the coasts of both states. A total of 16 sites meet the criterion for international importance (>1% of the population), and a further 39 sites are potentially of international importance in having recorded large numbers of unidentified waterbirds or at least one globally threatened species.

Sixteen sites surveyed in Central and Southern Thailand recorded a total of over 76,000 waterbirds in January 2006. A total of three sites of the 16 surveyed in January 2006 met the 1% criterion for international importance, and seven sites were identified as being potentially of international importance.

The critically important Inner Gulf of Thailand wetlands, recorded over 52,000 waterbirds with a total of 10 species recorded in internationally important concentrations (>1% population). Globally threatened species recorded in the area including the Endangered Black-faced Spoonbill, Nordmann's Greenshank (up to 9% of the population) and Spoon-billed Sandpiper.

Eleven sites in the Ayeyarwaddy (Irrawaddy) Delta and mouth of the Yangon River in Myanmar recorded a total of over 38,000 waterbirds in December 2005 – March 2006. This represents the first comprehensive ornithological survey of the Ayeyarwaddy Delta. A total of 8 species recorded in internationally important concentrations including more than 3% of the Endangered Nordmann's Greenshank. Four of the total 11 sites surveyed met the 1% criterion for sites of international importance (more than 1 % of the population relies on the site). Hunting and catching waterbirds by using of mist-net were identified as the major threats to the waterbirds in this area.

 

 

Item 48:Korean Migratory Shorebird: Godwit Continues to Rack Up Air-Miles:

"...every country has a responsibility to afford these amazing species safe passage within their borders." —Dr Vicky Jones, BirdLife's Global Flyways Officer

(Birdlife, 17 September, 2007) E7, the Bar-tailed Godwit made famous for setting a record for long-distance non-stop flight, has broken its own record on the return flight from Alaska to New Zealand, satellite tracking studies have confirmed.

Over a seven-month-long period the single bird clocked up over 18,000-miles (29,000 km), flying from New Zealand, to China, then over to Alaska to breed, then back to New Zealand.

The record-breaking last leg of E7's journey involved a non-stop flight over the Pacific of more than eight days and covering a distance of 11,600 kilometres.

By way of comparison with humans, Guinness World Records earlier this year announced the record for running around the world: it took 2,062 days.

“Godwits do not become adults until their 3rd or 4th year and many live beyond 20 years of age. If 18,000 miles is an average annual flight distance, then an adult godwit would fly some 300,000 miles in a lifetime,” said the US Geological Survey in a statement.

The study is showing conservationists the value of satellite tracking studies, and also highlights how vulnerable these migratory species are to global-scale threats.

“The Bar-tailed Godwit is one example among hundreds of migratory bird species which undertake awe-inspiring journeys every year,” said Dr Vicky Jones, BirdLife's Global Flyways Officer. “Migrant birds rely on chains of traditional stop-over sites at which they can re-fuel and rest before embarking on the next leg of their journey.”

“Globally, these sites are being lost or degraded at an alarming rate, destroying vital links in the chain and causing populations of many migratory bird species to decline,”

Bar-tailed Godwit alone have been linked to 20 possible countries during north and south migrations. Since 2006 the satellite-tagged Godwits in this study have stopped in 11 countries.

“While every country has a responsibility to afford these amazing species safe passage within their borders, we now recognise that the future of these global voyagers can only be secured by effective action throughout their flyways,” said Dr Jones.

“Trans-boundary cooperation is key.”

E7 received a rapturous response on returning to New Zealand:

"Media coverage of the arrival of E7 in New Zealand has helped bring the magic of bird migration to people around the world," commented Michael Szabo of Forest & Bird (BirdLife in New Zealand).

The Bar-tailed Godwit tracking study is being undertaken as part of the Pacific Shorebird Migration Project; involving biologists from PRBO Conservation Science, the US Geological Survey (USGS) Alaska Science Centre, Massey University and The University of Auckland (both New Zealand). The work was funded by the USGS, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the US Fish and Wildlife Service.

 

 

Item 49:Fears for Biodiversity in China's Yangtze River

(AFP, 17 September, 2007) BEIJING— Rat infestations, dying fish and algae outbreaks signal a severe deterioration in the biological habitat of the Yangtze, China's longest river, state press said Tuesday.

"The Yangtze river is a gene bank for biodiversity," Xinhua news agency quoted vice agriculture minister Niu Dun as saying at a forum in Shanghai.

"But as the economy has developed at a fast pace, the aquatic resources of the Yangtze river have severely fallen into decline and many species are facing extinction."

Severe pollution from factories and cities along the Yangtze had decimated the river's fisheries, while heavy transport was destroying fish habitats, he said.

Niu cited the white-fin dolphin, which has lived in the river for millions of years, and the Yangtze river sturgeon as two species driven to the brink of extinction.

"Warning signs that the river's ecology is deteriorating are the blue algae outbreak in Taihu Lake and the rat infestation in Dongting Lake this year," Niu said of the plagues that have attacked two of the river's major lakes.

Niu urged greater cooperation on curbing pollution between environmental, agricultural, industrial and water resource departments in the 11 provinces and regions that the river flows through.

A lack of clear responsibility between the provinces and regions and government departments was one reason that the government had been unable to efficiently protect the river, he added.

The Yangtze is the world's third largest river and the surrounding areas are home to up to one third of China's 1.3 billion people.

China's unabated economic boom has damaged the environment with the government reporting that more than 70 percent of the nation's waterways and 90 percent of its underground water is contaminated by pollution.

 

 

Item 50:Swift Action Needed to Save Yangtze

(China Daily, 18 September, 2007) The Yangtze River habitat is deteriorating severely, officials at a forum in Shanghai said over the weekend.

Fish are dying, there are algae outbreaks, and mice infestations plague its banks, the agriculture, water resources, transportation and environmental protection officials said.

Particpants at the forum, which was held to address the health problems facing the river, endorsed the Yangtze River Biological Resources Protection Declaration.

Vice-Minister of Agriculture Niu Dun said rodent infestations in Dongting Lake and blue algae in Taihu Lake were warning signals of worsening conditions, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

"Breeding and protecting biological species in the Yangtze River is extremely urgent," Niu said.

Noted as a gene bank for aquatic flora and fauna, the Yangtze has seen a decline in its fish stocks, both in terms of species and number.

The white-fin dolphin has been living in the Yangtze River for the past 20 million years, but has practically died out due to over fishing, pollution and ferry traffic, Niu said.

The number of Chinese sturgeon, dubbed the "live water fossil", has dropped dramatically over recent decades and its survival could depend on artificial breeding.

Niu urged the establishment of a protection mechanism organized by the relevant departments of the 11 provinces through which the river flows.

He said the responsibilities of the various agencies are unclear and this is one of the reasons for inefficient water protection work.

More significant, Niu said, is pollution by factories along the river.

Forum experts suggested there should be an emergency warning and response system to protect rare species in the river.

Chen Yiyu, director of the National Natural Science Foundation Committee, said preserving the ecological balance of the Yangtze River deserves "maximum effort".

The Yangtze is the third largest river in the world and home to 1,100 aquatic species. One-third of all Chinese live along its banks.

 

 

Item 51:Cambodia Sets Up Sanctuary for Rare Crane

(Reuters, 17 September, 2007) PHNOM PENH - Cambodia has established an 8,000 hectare (20,000 acre) sanctuary in flood plains near the Mekong Delta to protect the rare Eastern Sarus Crane, Environment Minister Mok Mareth said on Friday.

Nearly 300 of the red-headed, 1.3 metre (4 feet) tall birds have been found in two districts of Takeo province near the border with Vietnam. Conservationists said in 1999 there may be fewer than 1,000 of the birds left in the wild.

"We need to protect these beautiful creatures," Mok Mareth said, adding that wildlife officials had been dispatched to tell local fishermen and farmers not to hunt the cranes for food.

The cranes have also been found in the northwestern province of Banteay Meanchey province, 300 km (185 miles) northwest of Phnom Penh, in an old Khmer Rouge reservoir.

Thanks to a similar government protection and sanctuary scheme introduced in 1999, that population had grown from 220 to 495 this year, officials said.

 

 

Item 52:Japan Nuclear Woes Deepen With Another Shutdown

(Reuters, 20 September, 2007) TOKYO - A further Japanese power producer shut a nuclear unit on Wednesday, adding to strains on electricity supply a month after the closure of the world's largest nuclear plant, which supplies Tokyo.

Hokkaido Electric Power Co., one of the smallest utilities in Japan, said it had begun to shut the 579 megawatt Tomari No.1 nuclear power generation unit on Wednesday evening after unspecified problems were found which resulted in its breaking operational rules.

The company is investigating the cause of the problem, a spokesman said. It did not know when the unit would be restarted.

It was not clear if the company will boost fuel purchases to make up for the nuclear unit closure.

Japan relies on nuclear energy for about a third of its energy needs. The operating safety and credibility of the industry has been in the spotlight in recent years.

After a government-led investigation earlier this year, many of Japan's 10 nuclear power plant operators admitted they had modified safety data in the past, including covering up unintended start-ups of reactors.

In July Tokyo Electric Power Co. was forced to close all units at its Kashiwazaki-Kariwa plant after an earthquake.

The largest nuclear power plant on the earth is closed indefinitely for safety reasons. Tokyo Electric has boosted consumption of oil as a result.

 

 

Item 53:China Faltering on Support for Solar Power

(Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters, 20 September, 2007) BEIJING - Solar panels could generate over 10 percent of China's power by the middle of the century, but only if Beijing steps up support for pioneering generating plants and sets more ambitious targets, a report said on Wednesday.

Although it is the world's No. 3 producer of photovoltaic (PV) cells that convert sunlight into electricity, China sends 90 percent of its output abroad because it is too expensive for domestic use, according to the report launched by Greenpeace, the Chinese Renewable Energy Industry Association (CREIA) and WWF.

High PV cell prices and low power tariffs mean the cells that do stay in China are mainly used for rural areas, communications, and in industry, rather than for large generating plants linked into national grids -- the main users in other countries and the key to large-scale solar generation.

Beijing aims to boost the portion of its power that comes from renewable energy, and has set out what it says are ambitious targets for the next two decades, aiming for 15 percent of energy to come from non-fossil fuel sources by 2020.

But the report says government solar energy targets are not very challenging, and supportive policies that look good on paper are not being properly implemented, the report added.

With strong government support, China could be generating an estimated 1,300 terawatt hours of solar power a year by 2050, of a total 10,000 TWh used nationwide, it added.

But currently around a dozen pilot plants with capacity of up 1 MW, which should be getting preferential prices, are not even able to link up with transmission networks.

"In no case has a feed-in tariff, calculated according to reasonable costs plus reasonable profits, been implemented, and no PV power system has as yet been permitted by grid companies to connect," the report said.

The report predicts that solar power prices will match conventional power prices by 2030, when installed capacity could be up to 100 GW with strong government support -- or one-sixth of the country's total generating ability at present. But without support through the years when it cannot compete on price alone, solar will be just one-tenth that potential level, a still impressive 10 GW but far from enough to make a dent in China's energy-related pollution problems or to contribute to its energy security.

"Market supportive mechanisms create incentives to technological innovation and industry development," Li Junfeng, CREIA General Secretary, said at the report's launch.

"The lack of a strong domestic market could limit the potential of the Chinese solar PV industry in the long term."

China at least does not lack the raw material for solar power. About 96 percent of the country gets "abundant" sunlight, the report said, with more light potential than industry leaders Japan and Europe.

Many of the sunniest areas are also sparsely populated, lowering the prospects for potential disputes over land use.

 

 

Item 54:Climate Change Could Decrease Rice Yields 40%

(Japan Times, 20 September, 2007) LONDON (Kyodo) Rising temperatures and extreme weather conditions brought on by climate change could reduce rice yields by as much as 40 percent by the end of the 21st century in much of central and southern Japan, according to research data released by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

The official public launch of the full IPCC assessment — "Climate Change 2007: Impacts, Adaptation and Vulnerability" — identifies world regions most likely to be affected by climate change and highlights crops and agriculture under threat in Asia as a whole.

Evidence included in the report that was gathered by the International Rice Research Institute suggests that rice yields "decrease by 10 percent for every 1 degree increase in growing-season minimum temperature," leading to a decline in potentially good agricultural land.

Even the irrigated lowlands in many prefectures in central and southern Japan are thought likely to suffer from the projected doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide and the resultant occurrence of "heat-induced floret sterility."

Research into the climate-related biodiversity loss in Asia also revealed that besides changes in the flowering date of Japanese cherry trees, there has been a "decrease in alpine flora in Hokkaido and other high mountains and the expansion of the distribution of southern broad-leaved evergreen trees."

Forest ecosystems in Japan are listed as being under threat, with approximately 90 percent of the suitable habitat for a dominant forest species of the beech tree, Fagus crenata, in the country thought likely to "disappear" by the end of this century.

Established in 1988 by two U.N. organizations, the World Meteorological Organization and the U.N. Environment Program, the IPCC attempts to evaluate the risk of climate change brought on by humans based on contributions from governments and scientific experts from more than 100 countries around the world.

Speaking at the launch of the research in London, British Trade and Development Minister Gareth Thomas said, "Climate change is inherently a developmental challenge — failing to tackle it will lead to floods, droughts and natural disasters which can destroy people's lives as well as their livelihoods."

The report urges countries to employ decisive and collective action to prevent and prepare for the impacts of climate change in both the developed and developing worlds.

In particular, the so-called megacities in Asia that are located in coastal zones are advised to "ensure that future constructions are done at elevated levels" and that the Integrated Coastal Zone Management employed in Japan and elsewhere is adhered to in response to sea-level rises.

The report says that even under the most conservative scenario, sea levels in Asia will be about 40 cm higher at the end of the 21st century than at present and the potential impacts of a 1-meter sea-level rise include the inundation of 2,339 sq. km of land occupied largely by big cities in Japan.

With many coastal parts of Tokyo, Osaka and Nagoya located below high water levels, projections suggest that a 1-meter rise in sea level could put up to 4.1 million people at risk.

In addition to rising sea levels, indicators in the report compounded by Japan's Meteorological Agency point toward an increase in annual precipitation in most of Asia this century, with Japan likely to experience more extreme rainfalls and serious floods attributed to typhoons and an "increase in atmospheric moisture availability."

 

 

Item 55:Shanghai: 1.6m Flee Shanghai Typhoon

( Richard Spencer, The Telegraph, U.K., 20 September, 2007) More than a million and a half people in and around Shanghai last night fled the advance of one of the most powerful typhoons to hit the country in a decade.

Typhoon Wipha was recording gusts of 180 miles an hour yesterday evening, a few hours before it was expected to hit the coast to the south of China's business capital.

Throughout the day, residents on the coast and parts of the city itself fled the area as the government announced the closure of all primary and middle schools in Shanghai and the neighbouring city of Suzhou.

The central meteorological administration declared a first-level emergency, while the deputy chief of Shanghai's flood control centre said the city's defences were facing their "most severe test in decades".

Officials said 1.63 million people had been evacuated from Shanghai, Zhejiang and neighbouring Fujian province, while all fishing boats were recalled to port and an oil rig was cleared of all its staff.

The typhoon was said to be nearly the strength of Saomai, which hit the Fujian coast last year and killed 400 people.

It was described as the worst typhoon to hit the region in 50 years.

September marks the peak of the South China Sea typhoon season.

But this year, the Chinese government has warned of an increased number of typhoons, blaming changing weather patterns due to global warming.

 

 

Item 56:Sea Level Change Cramps Shorebirds: ‘Tropical Birds Face Extinction as Sea Rises: Study'

(Anne Barker, ABC, 18 September, 2007) There are bleak predictions today about the impact of climate change on the future of Australia's tropical birds.

Scientists are warning that sea levels in northern Australia are already rising by around eight millimetres a year, so fast that salt water could flood thousands of kilometres of pristine wetland.

That would destroy vast areas of tropical bird habitat, putting 66 species at risk of extinction.

Every evening across the tropical skies of the Top End, flocks of magpie geese pass overhead in their familiar 'V' formation. Their characteristic honk can be heard for miles.

A study by Professor Stephen Garnett has found magpie geese are among a wide range of birds at risk of serious decline, even extinction, as climate change sets in.

"The biggest threat is probably rises in sea level, salt water coming in to the freshwater wetlands, and really those wetlands are the most productive system we've got in Northern Australia for birds," he said.

Professor Garnett is studying the impact of climate change on 387 bird species in northern Australia.

In this month's Journal of Ornithology, he has warned of a potential catastrophe as global warming raises temperatures and sea levels and floods important wetland habitats.

At greatest risk are birds with the smallest range that have nowhere left to go, as well as water birds from magpie geese, to ducks, herons, ibis and egrets.

"Within sort of three generations of the bird you could see a 50, 70 per cent decline," he said.

"We really don't know how fast it's going to happen, but it's so flat, and you could imagine that a few big tides could kill off large areas of suitable habitat and the birds simply wouldn't find food."

Within 30 years, up to 66 species could be threatened in wetlands, rainforests and grassland savannas.

Salty wasteland

Already in the Top End, saltwater incursion is destroying wetland areas near Kakadu National Park. Rising salinity will only destroy more trees and mangroves, leaving a wasteland of salt and mud.

Professor Eric Valentine at Charles Darwin University predicts sea levels in Northern Australia could rise by 70 centimetres in the next century, wreaking devastation further and further inland.

"As the sea level rise occurs, the tidal wedge - that's the amount of water that actually moves upstream driven by the tide - will get further and further inland, and the proportion of salt that it's mixing into the freshwater from the river will become greater and greater, so the salt levels will rise," he said.

Australia's National Tidal Facility has measured water movements for decades. Its research shows sea levels across northern Australia are rising four times faster than the global average.

Professor Valentine says scientists do not know why northern Australia is seeing a faster sea level rise.

"From the gauge in Darwin, it looks like it's suggesting about eight millimetres a year, which is two to three times as much as is happening in the south," he said.

He says it is a complex phenomenon.

"It may have something to do with the way the tidal wave moves around the shallow seas in the north of Australia, and it becomes a problem of trying to understand whether it's a symmetrical wave or an asymmetrical wave," he said.

Goodbye magpie geese

Man-made barrages are now installed in one river system to keep salt water out of the surrounding wetlands.

But unless climate change is reversed within a few generations, Professor Garnett believes these huge flocks of magpie geese could be lost forever.

"I think one of the things we've got up in the north is spectacles of birds, and that's something that's disappeared the world over, as humans use up the resources," he said.

"But we've still got those with the geese and with the other waterfowl and so forth, and that's what we'll lose."

 

 

Item 57:China to Hold First-Ever 'No Car Day' on Saturday

(AFP, 17 September, 2007) BEIJING,- China will initiate its first-ever nationwide "no car day" this weekend in an effort to promote environmental health and alleviate increasingly gridlocked urban roads, state press said Monday.

Residents in 108 cities will be urged to take public transport, ride bikes or walk on the nation's first "no car day" on Saturday, the China Daily reported.

"The move is an attempt to raise residents' awareness on energy saving and environmental protection because the country's cities are plagued by traffic congestion and pollution," the paper said.

It did not say why the Ministry of Construction, the sponsor of the activity, chose a Saturday to hold the event.

Government officials and state-run enterprise employees in some cities would be encouraged not to drive, while other urban centres would ban government-owned cars from taking to the roads altogether, it added.

A week-long campaign to publicise the government's goal of getting 50 percent of the nation's urban residents to use public transport instead of private cars would also be initiated, it said.

China's auto industry has been a key component of the nation's booming economy with vehicle production rising by 32.7 percent in July compared to the same period last year.

 

 

Item 58:China to Tap Global Uranium for Nuclear Expansion

(Jim Bai, Reuters, 21 September, 2007) BEIJING - China plans to tap the global uranium market to feed the rapid expansion of its nuclear power sector, a top economic planner said on Thursday, although strong demand for the metal has pushed prices above historical levels.

Zhang Guobao, a deputy chief of the National Development and Reform Commission (NDRC), said the country's plans to add one plant a year through 2020 were focused along the booming coast, although inland provinces have been clamouring for investment.

The country aims to spend US$50 billion to quadruple its installed generating capacity at nuclear power plants by 2020 to 40 gigawatts (GW), or 4 percent of China's total power generating capacity.

At present it has around 9 GW of nuclear power online, and only limited domestic uranium supplies, so is looking for fuel abroad for the expansion.

Another commission official said in April that China, the world's second-biggest energy consumer, was finding it difficult to secure uranium for the planned plants, but its firms have since done a deal with Australia and was looking at other mine opportunities, including one in Niger.

"Based on our forecast, there is no supply problem in the global market even if China's mid- and long-term demand is included," Zhang told Reuters on the sidelines of a nuclear standards meeting.

Spot U3O8-prices for uranium ore concentrate, or yellow cake, are strong on the back of renewed interest in nuclear energy, seen by proponents as countering high oil prices and aiding in global efforts to cut carbon dioxide emissions.

They hit a record high of US$136 a pound at the end of June, up from just US$7 in 2000, but has since recoiled to US$90.

"The trading of uranium resources are no different from other energy products," he added.

NO INLAND PLANTS APPROVED

Zhang said many inland Chinese provinces had proposed to the central government to build nuclear power plants, but none of them had received the go-ahead.

"The focus now is to build plants in the coastal regions that are close to major power demand markets and can easily tap sea water to cool the generators," said Zhang.

"We do not rule out the possibility to consider plants in inland regions in the future, as it has been done in some other countries such as France and the United States," he added.

Zhang declined to comment on a Reuters report that China had cancelled plans to build two Areva reactors at Yangjiang in southern Guangdong province.

"That is a matter between those companies," he said.

Sources said China was in talks with Areva to relocate the plant to Taishan, also in Guangdong, and the country would press ahead with four reactors in Yangjiang using domestic technology.

 

 

Item 59:Korea: No Information on Beef Ban Lift: civic group calls for more information disclosure, saying it's a confidential matter of national interest

(Hankyoreh, 21 September, 2007) The South Korean government has rejected a civic group's request to disclose information about how it decided to lift a suspension of quarantine inspections on U.S. beef.

The Ministry of Finance and Economy and the Ministry of Agriculture said on September 20 that they had informed Lawyers for a Democratic Society, a progressive civic group known as Minbyon in Korean, of the decision. The group had asked last month that the two ministries make the information public.

The civic group asked the ministries to disclose the minutes of a ministers' meeting before the government announced the resumption of quarantine inspections for American beef on August 27.

In response to the request, the Finance Ministry said, “Under No. 2, Clause 1, Article 9, of the Information Disclosure Law, it can't be disclosed.”

The Agriculture Ministry also said it could not disclose a U.S. government document because it was confidential. The document contains the U.S. government's explanation and countermeasures regarding banned parts of U.S. beef that were shipped to South Korea over the summer. The ministry also notified the civic group that it could not disclose other documents written by the South Korean government because it would seriously damage negotiations if made public.

However, a controversy is brewing over the government's non-disclosure stance. The Finance Ministry rejected the civic group's request, citing a clause that requires the government to turn down a call to disclose information about national security, unification, defense, foreign affairs and other matters of concern that could potentially undermine the national interest.

Song Ki-ho, a lawyer who is affiliated with Lawyers for a Democratic Society, said, “The Finance Ministry's argument, which cites the regulation on information disclosure about beef quarantine inspections as causing significant harm to the national interest, is groundless.”

Sales of U.S. beef in South Korea have faced a rocky history. South Korea banned shipments of U.S. beef in 2003, following an outbreak of mad cow disease. The ban was lifted in January 2006, when the Korean government began to allow boneless beef from cattle under 30 months old. On August 1 of this year, the government again halted quarantine inspections on U.S. beef, after two shipments of beef were found to contain ribs and a partial spinal column, both of which are prohibited and are known to contain higher risk for the disease. The ban was lifted on August 27, after Seoul requested and reviewed an explanation from Washington on the matter and found it to be sufficient enough to lift the ban.

 

 

Item 60:Korea – EU trade: This Is the Way Some Agreements Should End

(David Cronin, IPS, 21 September, 2007) BRUSSELS, Sep 21 (IPS) - Elaborate funeral rituals were performed in central Brussels over the past week to show how a planned free trade accord between the European Union and the Korean government should, in the view of anti-poverty campaigners, be buried.

While officials from the EU and South Korea ensconced themselves in the five-star Sheraton hotel, protesters outside undertook traditional marches of the kind used to mourn the recently deceased.

The EU's executive, the European Commission, has predicted that the free trade accord (FTA) it wishes to conclude with Korea by the end of this year will bring an immense windfall for business. A study that the Commission requested from the consultancy Copenhagen Economics forecasts that the Union's exports to Korea would rise by 48 percent and Korea's exports to the EU by 36 percent once the deal is implemented.

Yet those with less faith in free trade point out that any such increase in commercial transactions could be at expense of jobs, labour standards and public revenue.

"The death of the FTA would symbolise birth for people, farmers and workers as it would give them strength," said Cheehyung Kim from the Korean Alliance Against the Korea-EU FTA.

"The main objective of the FTA is to eliminate tariffs," he told IPS. "Tariffs are essential not only to protect farmers and workers but also public services like transport, education, gas, electricity and water. By eliminating these tariffs, you are putting farmers and workers in competition with each other in terms of who offers the lowest wage and lowest price, while eliminating financial resources for public services."

The Commission has identified Korea -- along with India and Brazil -- as one of the key markets that it wishes to prise open for European firms. Korea is currently the Union's second largest trading partner after China. With EU business in Korea worth 40 billion dollars at the end of last year, the Union is also the largest foreign investor in the so-called Asian tiger.

EU officials have made plain that they want the trade accord to be at least as far-reaching as the one reached between Korea and the U.S. in April. The Commission has said that it is willing to completely eliminate tariffs on Korean imports, provided that Seoul reciprocates with similar market openings for EU products.

The Copenhagen Economics study predicted that the largest beneficiaries from increased EU exports to Korea would be companies dealing with business services, machinery and processed foods.

The question of what trade taxes should apply to agricultural goods is likely to prove tricky in the negotiations. The EU is eager to expand on its agricultural exports to Korea, now worth over 1 billion euros (1.4 billion) per year, especially through rising sales of meat and wine.

However, there is much concern in Korea about the impact this would have on traditional farming. Korea has managed to keep its pork sector largely intact despite the rapid industrialisation the country has undergone since the 1960s.

But Korean negotiator Kim Han-soo this week conceded that it will not be able to shield that sector indefinitely. "Blocking imports of pork is tantamount to opposing the FTA," he said.

Despite its bourgeoning economy, Korea's richest and poorest citizens have become increasingly polarised over the past decade.

Earlier this year, the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a group of 30 wealthy nations, published a study about the levels of inequality in industrialised countries. The OECD examined the income gap between the highest and lowest 10 percent of wage earners in 20 countries for which it could gather data. Only the U.S. and Hungary were found to have a wider gap between rich and poor than South Korea.

The OECD highlighted, too, how Korea spent less than five percent of ordinary tax revenues on social protection, compared to an average of 43 percent in industrialised states.

The EU's thinking on business with Korea is guided by a 2006 strategy document called Global Europe. In it, the Commission laid out an objective of removing virtually all obstacles that European firms encounter when trying to do business abroad.

"The Global Europe doctrine outlines the very aggressive interests of the EU," said Alexandra Strickner from the Institute for Agriculture and Trade Policy (AITP) in Austria. "It clearly formulates that the main intention is to increase the competitiveness of European industry, and any kind of internal regulation in Europe will need to be a function of that goal. There is a huge democratic deficit in Europe. The Global Europe strategy hasn't undergone any public discussion in Europe."

Meanwhile, the humanitarian organisation Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) has expressed unease about efforts by the EU to have stringent rules on intellectual property inserted into the planned agreement with Korea.

New proposals put forward by the Commission would make Korean drug regulators legally obliged to respect the so-called data exclusivity enjoyed by pharmaceutical firms for long periods. Data exclusivity covers the length of time which information used to make a medicine under patent cannot be used by manufacturers of generic drugs.

Alexandra Heumber, an MSF campaigner in Brussels, said that including such provisions in free trade accords could make the price of medicines prohibitive for the poor.

"Data exclusivity undermines access to affordable medicines," she told IPS.

Huember argued that it is vital that members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are aware of the Commission's latest moves. The assembly is currently seeking assurances from EU governments and the Commission that they will not support the inclusion of measures that could restrict access to affordable medicines in any of the free trade agreements under negotiation. MEPs are set to hold a debate on patented medicines in October.

"I hope that the European Parliament will take this seriously," Heumber added. "Until now, the Commission has not been playing a good role." (END/2007)

 

 

Item 61:What Will Rising Seas Mean for Some of America's Favorite Places?

(The Associated Press, 22 September, 2007) How would some of the United States' best known cities look if seas rise by slightly more than three feet? It's a disturbing picture.

The projections are based on coastal maps created by scientists at the University of Arizona, who relied on data from the U.S. Geological Survey. Many scientists say sea rise of one meter is likely to happen within 100 years. Here is a look at what that might do:

BOSTON

Fourth of July celebrations won't be the same. The Esplanade, where fireworks watchers gather, would be submerged by a rising Charles River, along with the Hatch Shell where the Boston Pops stages its annual concert. Some runways at Logan International Airport will be partially covered, and the neighborhoods tourists know best would be smaller.

Planned waterfront development in South Boston would be old by 2100, but a lot of the land there would be underwater, along with parts of existing landmarks, such as the Boston Fish Pier. The restaurants and pastry shops in the Italian North End would be spared, but parks and condos on the waterfront would be in trouble.

"The areas that would be affected are not only industrial sites and attractions, but places people live," said Patrick Moscaritolo of the Greater Boston's Convention & Visitors Bureau. "It has ramifications that are pretty drastic and pretty frightful."

NEW YORK

At the southern tip of Manhattan, sea water would inundate Battery Park City, now home to 9,000 people. Waves would lap near the base of the new Freedom Tower. Beachfront homes from the blue collar Rockaways to the mansions of the Hamptons, could be swamped by advancing surf. Much of Hoboken, N.J. -- Frank Sinatra's hometown -- would become an island.

New Yorkers seeking a change of scene would find it tougher to get out of town, since both runways at LaGuardia Airport would be partly underwater. But all that would pale compared to what would happen during a bad storm. If giant storm walls were built across key waterways, that might protect parts of the city, "but that doesn't help anyone outside the gates," said Malcolm Bowman, who leads a storm surge research group at Stony Brook University.

"This is no joke," he added. With a three-foot headstart, even a medium-sized storm surge could wipe out tens of thousands of homes in low-lying parts of Brooklyn and Long Island.

MIAMI

You can kiss goodbye the things that make South Florida read like an Elmore Leonard novel: the glitz of South Beach, the gator-infested Everglades, and some of the bustling terminals of Miami International Airport.

Many of the beachside places where tourists flock and the rich and famous luxuriate would be under water. Spits of land would be left in fashionable South Beach and celebrity-studded Fisher Island

While the booming downtown would be mostly spared, inland areas near the airport and out to the low-lying Everglades would be submerged. Miami would resemble a cookie nibbled on from the south and east.

Stephen Sawitz, whose family has run Joe's Stone Crab in Miami Beach for four generations -- surviving hurricanes and floods -- looks at the maps and sees little hope for his restaurant or his home several decades from now: "I'm going to be thinking about it now for the rest of my life. And the generations after me, I'm going to be telling them about it."

NEW ORLEANS

If the levees break again and the nation gives up the fight to save the lowest parts of New Orleans, the Big Easy would be reduced to a sliver of land along the Mississippi River, leaving the French Quarter and the oldest neighborhoods as the only places on dry ground.

Gone would be the Dixie brewery, museums, countless neighborhood restaurants and bars, Louis Armstrong landmarks and Congo Square, the spot where jazz got its birth. Water would even cover the first few blocks of Bourbon Street. A trip to the tomb of voodoo priestess Marie Laveau would require a boat, or at least rubber hip boots. Maybe the Fair Grounds Race Course, the nation's third-oldest track, could obtain a second lease on life as an open-air aquarium.

"It would be to a large extent the city of the mid-19th Century," said Robert Tannen, an urban planner. "The original marsh and cypress groves of the city would perhaps prevail again."

GALVESTON, Texas

Galveston Island has been the home base for pirate Jean Lafitte and mobsters in its colorful past. Now it offers nothing more terrifying than beachgoers looking to escape Houston's brutal summers. It survived the 1900 hurricane, which killed 6,000 people and stands as the worst natural disaster in U.S. history. But a sea level rise of three feet could bring a new form of fear to this sturdy little beach city of 57,000.

Water would cut Galveston off from the Texas mainland by submerging Interstate 45, the only direct route, and it would cover large portions of the bay side. In addition to flooding tourist shops and restaurants, water also would make a mess of the University of Texas Medical Branch, future home of a U.S. lab for some of the world's most dangerous germs. At the historic Hotel Galvez, built in 1911 as proof of the city's resilience, staffer Renee Adami said the city has an inherent strength that would help it survive.

"We feel like there is no obstacle that can't be overcome," she said.

SAN FRANCISCO BAY

Rising waters would submerge some of the best of San Francisco Bay: Fisherman's Wharf, baseball, software companies, even parts of the wine country.

The southern bay, Silicon Valley and the fertile San Joaquin-Sacramento River Delta would be hardest-hit. Also under water would be San Francisco's famed Embarcadero waterfront, runways at both the San Francisco and Oakland airports, and even the Oakland A's planned new stadium in Fremont.

The Redwood Shores campus of business software maker Oracle Inc., which now has an ornamental pond, would be sitting in one.

Standing in Baylands, one of the last remaining wetlands in the area, Stanford University climatologist Stephen Schneider said, "this is a critical ecosystem and it'll be gone." His wife, biologist Terry Root, noted that the endangered bird, the California clapper rail, hiding in the wetlands is "going to be extinct ... because of sea level rise."

This report was written by Associated Press writers Jay Lindsay in Boston, David Caruso in New York, Seth Borenstein in Miami, Cain Burdeau in New Orleans, Monica Rhor in Houston and Terry Chea in San Francisco.

 

 

Item 62:Siberia Feels the Heat - and That's Bad News

(Russia Today, 25 September, 2007) While the melting of the Arctic ice cap may create opportunities to exploit its oil, gas and mineral deposits, the consequences for nearby Siberia could be disastrous.

In the Siberian Republic of Yakutia, melting ice means solid land is turning to mud. And this softer ground is causing trees to topple and roads to sink.

“This is a catastrophe for Northern Siberia," says Sergei Zimov, who's been studying Siberian frost for more than 25 years. He says this changing landscape will have disastrous effects: "All the towns and roads will be destroyed here. It will also lead to further warming of the globe which will be impossible to stop.”

But the biggest problem may lie below the surface. The thawing of frozen soil, known as permafrost, could trigger the release of billions of tonnes of greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide and methane.

Researchers say this could have a serious effect on the climate and increase the rate of global warming.

Some of the effects are already plain to see. In just ten years a main road in a remote Siberian town has collapsed to become a bumpy canyon, seven metres deep in places. Many houses have been demolished or abandoned after the ancient ice under their foundations melted. Locals are also complaining that the thaw is disturbing their food supply due to swelling rivers.

And these sorts of problems aren't unique to Siberia. If temperatures continue to rise, it will have implications for the whole planet.

 

 

Item 63:Three Gorges: China Admits Miracle Could Become Disaster(as if it weren't already…?)

(Mary-Anne Toy, Sydney Morning Herald, 27 September, 2007) CHINESE officials who previously defended the giant Three Gorges Dam as an engineering and economic miracle have admitted that the world's biggest hydropower project is at risk of environmental disaster if accumulating threats are not dealt with promptly.

A forum organised by State Council, China's cabinet, on Tuesday to discuss the dam's accelerating environmental problems concluded that "if no preventive measures are taken, the project could lead to catastrophe", the official Xinhua news agency reported, quoting senior officials at the meeting in Wuhan.

Wang Xiaofeng, the director of the Government's Three Gorges construction body, said that while China had largely overcome many challenges - including funding, technology and the huge displacement of people - it now had to face up to the increasing ecological threats.

These included erosion and landslides around the dam, pollution and "ecological deterioration" caused by "irrational development" along the river, he said.

"We absolutely cannot relax our guard against ecological and environmental security problems created by the Three Gorges project," Mr Wang told the meeting. "We cannot sacrifice our environment for short-term economic prosperity."

Since building of the $US25 billion ($29 billion) dam began almost 20 years ago, officials have promoted it as a spectacular engineering feat that would provide clean energy, create jobs and development and mitigate floods along the Yangtze River.

Critics of the dam, which is due to be completed next year, have said that the giant concrete barrier retains huge amounts of sediment and nutrients, reducing fish stocks and viability of farmland downstream as well as creating greater instability in an already geologically unstable region.

An engineer at the forum also expressed concerns about landslides threatening the densely populated hills along the river. Huang Xuebin described landslides into the dam waters creating waves dozens of metres high that then crashed into surrounding shores, creating more damage several kilometres either side of the initial landslide.

Curiously, Xinhua also released a separate and positive report on the forum headlined "Three Gorges environment and construction progressing well".

 

 

Item 64:China's Hydropower May Be Global Warming Time-Bomb

(Emma Graham-Harrison, Reuters, 27 September, 2007) BEIJING - China is scrambling to build massive hydropower dams to curb pollution and slake its thirst for energy, but scientists warn that reservoirs can also worsen global warming by emitting a powerful greenhouse gas.

Methane, which traps heat much more efficiently than carbon dioxide, is produced by plants and animals rotting underwater and released when that water rushes through hydropower turbines.

In a country that is already the world's top hydropower generator and aims to more than double capacity, dams could raise methane emissions by around 8 percent, recent research shows.

The flammable gas could also be trapped and used for power generation if dam designs were adapted, providing Beijing with cheap and clean energy instead of a global warming burden.

But the data is so new that even United Nations rules on calculating national emissions do not require dams to be included, dimming the chances of fast action.

China is set to overtake the United States as top producer of carbon dioxide this year and is the leading emitter of acid-rain causing sulphur dioxide. As part of a bid to constrain emissions growth, it is promoting renewable energy.

A string of hydropower reservoirs are the centrepiece of this plan, and their methane emissions may offset many benefits.

Worldwide, dams could generate the equivalent of one-fifth of methane from all other sources, a study by Ivan Lima from Brazil's National Institute for Space Research showed.

Shallow tropical reservoirs pose the biggest problem, with the worst producing more methane per unit of power than some fossil-fuel burning options, scientists and activists say.

China's dams are mostly quite deep and in temperate zones, both emissions-mitigating factors. But Beijing's vast network and ambitious expansion plans mean it is still a serious concern.

"China has around half of all the world's large dams, so the chances are there are a lot of reservoirs in conditions to be high emitters," said Patrick McCully, executive director of International Rivers Network (IRN).

"If you have very polluted reservoirs, particularly with a lot of sewage entering reservoirs, you have the situation to create a lot of methane and obviously China has some very bad water quality problems," McCully added.

FIZZY RELEASE

In natural lakes much of the gas is broken down to less-insulating carbon dioxide as it drifts to the surface.

But when the methane-rich water from the bottom of reservoirs is fed into power-generating turbines, the pressure drops, so the gas fizzes out like the bubbles when a soft drink can is opened.

But Brazil's Lima said there is already a solid body of research, and a link with significant methane emissions is borne out by a levelling off of emissions around the turn of the century, after a slowdown in dam construction.

"If hydroelectric dams are really important to this, then the atmospheric methane would respond to the dams," he told Reuters in a telephone interview.

Other scientists say the levelling off in emissions may have been a result of the destruction of wetlands -- which are major methane emitters -- offsetting a rise in emissions from natural gas fields.

China can at least rest easy that no one will be pointing a finger directly at its prestige project, the world's single-largest hydropower project, centred around a massive dam that flooded one of the country's most famous natural sites and threatens to cause erosions and landslides. [ID:nPEK73224]

"With the Three Gorges, the amount of power produced means compared to coal it looks good," said IRN's McCully, adding it is still not an ideal answer to climate change concerns.

"Because it is still very large, there could be quite sizeable emissions," McCully added. "At the top end, where the reservoir is shallower, the problems are exacerbated."

NEW SOURCE OF GAS?

Lima said his research was not intended to demonise dams, and instead he would like to see governments change reservoir design to minimise emissions and trap the rest for power. The technology exists to do both, he says.

A question mark hangs over how willing Beijing or its power firms will be to invest time, money and expertise in tackling a problem so new it is not even really on the UN agenda.

But Beijing is concerned about the growing financial and diplomatic burden generated by its reliance on overseas oil and gas, currently meeting around half the country's needs.

Methane is the main component of natural gas and he estimates that in China alone around 2.6 million tonnes could be collected from dams for additional power generation, or the equivalent of over seven months of natural gas imports.

"We are wasting an important source of energy -- we might be able to extract it and produce power, and it is renewable," Lima said.

 

 

Item 65:In Korea, U.S. Beef Sales Soar: Imports jumped 10 times over two months, with American meat flying off shelves at 18 discount stores

(Hankyoreh, 28 September, 2007) South Korea's imports of U.S. beef have jumped nearly 10 times over the past two months, compared with the volume in April when South Korea began resuming imports of the American meat after a three-year ban.

According to data by the Ministry of Agriculture and the National Veterinary Research & Quarantine Service released on September 26, South Korea had imported 13,376 tons of U.S. beef since late April, when Seoul resumed imports of the American meat for the first time in three years and five months. Of this amount, 11,879 tons had been imported from July 16 to September 19 as big U.S. meat producers such as Cargill Inc. and Swift & Co. started sending beef to South Korea by ship. Plants operated by Cargill and Swift had their licenses revoked in late August and early September, respectively, due to the fact that bone fragments were discovered in certain shipments.

The number of big retail outlets that sell U.S. beef is also on the rise. According to statistics by the U.S. Meat Export Federation, 18 discount stores and department stores in South Korea are selling the American meat. Only two months ago, big retail outlets canceled their plans for a joint launch of U.S. beef sales in early August because the South Korean government found spine chips in the American meat, a material that could cause mad cow disease.

U.S. beef exporters are expected to further grab the South Korean market as the South Korean government is likely to allow the United States to sell bone-in beef, following negotiations to amend quarantine regulations between the two governments.

In 2003, before South Korea banned imports of U.S. beef due to an outbreak of mad cow disease, South Korea had imported 200,000 tons of American meat. And 60 percent of the meat was bone-in beef, including “L.A. ribs.”

Currently, South Korea and the United States are negotiating to revise the quarantine regulations, with the negotiations in stage five. The two countries must go through a total of eight stages in assessing the risk of amending such conditions.

The South Korean government is expected to hold a meeting early next month to gather opinions before another round of negotiations, or stage six, with the U.S. government. People close to the situation say the South Korean government is considering importing bone-in beef from the United States, while keeping restrictions against so-called specified risk material, such as brain matter and spine fragments.

 

 

Item 66:Beneath Booming Cities, China's Future Is Drying Up

(Jim Yardley, NYT, 27 September, 2007) SHIJIAZHUANG, China - Hundreds of feet below ground, the water supply for this provincial capital of more than two million people is steadily running out. Municipal wells have already drained two-thirds of the local groundwater, and the water table is sinking fast.

Above ground, this city in the North China Plain is having a party. Economic growth topped 11 percent last year. Population is rising. One new upscale housing development is advertising waterfront property on lakes filled with pumped groundwater. Another half-built complex, the Arc de Royal, is rising above one of the lowest points in the city's water table.

"People who are buying apartments aren't thinking about whether there will be water in the future," said Zhang Zhongmin, who has tried for the past 20 years to raise public awareness about the city's dire water situation.

For three decades, water has been indispensable in sustaining the rollicking economic expansion that has made China a world power. Now, China's galloping, often wasteful style of economic growth is pushing the country toward a water crisis. Water pollution is rampant nationwide, while water scarcity has worsened severely in north China - even as demand keeps rising everywhere.

China is scouring the world for oil, natural gas and minerals to keep its economic machine humming. But trade deals cannot solve water problems. Water usage in China has quintupled since 1949, and leaders will increasingly face tough political choices as cities, industry and farming compete for a finite and unbalanced water supply.

One example is grain. The Communist Party, leery of depending on imports to feed the country, has long insisted on grain self-sufficiency. But growing so much grain consumes huge amounts of underground water in the North China Plain, which produces half the country's wheat. Some scientists say farming in the rapidly urbanizing region should be restricted to protect endangered aquifers. Yet doing so could threaten the livelihoods of millions of farmers and cause a spike in international grain prices.

For the Communist Party, the immediate challenge is the prosaic task of forcing the world's most dynamic economy to conserve and protect clean water. Water pollution is so widespread that regulators say a major incident occurs every other day. Municipal and industrial dumping has left broad sections of many rivers "unfit for human contact."

Cities like Beijing and Tianjin have shown progress on water conservation, but China's economy continues to emphasize growth. Industry in China uses 3 to 10 times more water, depending on the product, than industries in developed nations.

"We have to now focus on conservation," said Ma Jun, a prominent environmentalist and author of "China's Water Crisis." "We don't have much extra water resources. We have the same resources and much bigger pressures from growth."

In the past, the Communist Party has reflexively turned to engineering projects to address water problems, and now it is reaching back to one of Mao's unrealized schemes: the $62 billion South- to-North Water Transfer Project to funnel 45 billion cubic meters, or 12 trillion gallons, northward every year along three routes from the Yangtze River basin, where water is more abundant. The project, if fully built, would be completed in 2050. The eastern and central lines are already under construction; the western line, the most controversial because of environmental concerns, remains in the planning stages.

The North China Plain undoubtedly needs any water it can get. An economic powerhouse with more than 200 million residents, the region has limited rainfall and depends on groundwater for 60 percent of its water supply. Other countries have aquifers that are being drained to dangerously low levels, like Yemen, India, Mexico and the United States. But scientists say the aquifers below the North China Plain may be drained within 30 years.

"There's no uncertainty," said Richard Evans, a hydrologist who has worked in China for two decades and has served as a consultant to the World Bank and China's Ministry of Water Resources. "The rate of decline is very clear, very well documented. They will run out of groundwater if the current rate continues."

Outside Shijiazhuang, construction crews are working on the transfer project's central line, which will provide the city with infusions of water on the way to the final destination, Beijing. For many of the engineers and workers, the job carries a patriotic gloss.

Yet while many scientists agree that the project will provide an important influx of water, they also say it will not be a cure-all. No one knows how much clean water the project will deliver; pollution problems are already arising on the eastern line. Cities and industry will be the beneficiaries of the new water, but the impact on farming is limited. Water deficits are expected to remain.

"Many people are asking the question: What can they do?" said Zheng Chunmiao, a leading international groundwater expert. "They just cannot continue with current practices. They have to find a way to bring the problem under control."

An Ecological Fall

On a drizzly, polluted morning last April, Wang Baosheng steered his Chinese-made sport utility vehicle out of a shopping center on the west side of Beijing for a three-hour southbound commute that became a tour of the water crisis pressing down on the North China Plain.

Wang travels several times a month to Shijiazhuang, where he is chief engineer overseeing construction of five kilometers, or three miles, of the central line of the water transfer project. A light rain splattered the windshield, and Wang recited a Chinese proverb about the preciousness of spring showers for farmers. He also noticed one dead river after another as his SUV glided over dusty, barren riverbeds: the Yongding, the Yishui, the Xia and, finally, the Hutuo.

"You see all these streams with bridges, but there is no water," Wang said.

A century or so ago, the North China Plain was a healthy ecosystem, scientists say. Farmers digging wells could strike water within two and a half meters, or eight feet. Streams and creeks meandered through the region. Swamps, natural springs and wetlands were common.

Today, the region, comparable in size to New Mexico, is parched. Roughly five-sixths of the wetlands have dried up, according to one study. Scientists say that most natural streams or creeks have disappeared. Several rivers that once were navigable are now mostly dust and brush. The largest natural freshwater lake in northern China, Lake Baiyangdian, is steadily contracting and besieged with pollution.

What happened?

The list includes misguided policies, unintended consequences, a population explosion, climate change and, most of all, relentless economic growth. In 1963, a flood paralyzed the region, prompting Mao to construct a flood control system of dams, reservoirs and concrete spillways. Flood control improved but the ecological balance was altered as the dams began choking off rivers that once flowed eastward into the North China Plain.

The new reservoirs gradually became major water suppliers for growing cities like Shijiazhuang. Farmers, the region's biggest water users, began depending almost exclusively on wells. Rainfall steadily declined in what some scientists now believe is a consequence of climate change.

Before, farmers had compensated for the region's limited annual rainfall by planting only three crops every two years. But underground water seemed limitless and government policies pushed for higher production, so farmers began planting a second annual crop, usually winter wheat, which requires a lot of water.

By the 1970s, studies show, the water table was already falling. Then Mao's death and the introduction of market- driven economic reforms spurred a farming renaissance. Production soared, and rural incomes rose. The water table kept falling, further drying out wetlands and rivers.

Around 1900, Shijiazhuang was a collection of farming villages. By 1950, the population had reached 335,000. This year, the city has roughly 2.3 million people with a metropolitan population of nine million.

More people meant more demand for water, and the city now heavily pumps groundwater. The water table is falling more than a meter a year. Today, some city wells must descend 200 meters to get clean water. In the deepest drilling areas, steep downward funnels have formed in the water table that are known as "cones of depression."

Groundwater quality also has worsened. Wastewater, often untreated, is now routinely dumped into rivers and open channels. Zheng, the water specialist, said studies showed that roughly three-quarters of the region's entire aquifer system is now suffering some level of contamination.

"There will be no sustainable development in the future if there is no groundwater supply," said Liu Changming, a leading Chinese hydrology expert and a senior scholar at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Seeking a Water Miracle

Three decades ago, when Deng Xiaoping shifted China from Maoist ideology and fixated the country on economic growth, a generation of technocrats gradually took power and began rebuilding a country that ideology had almost destroyed. Today, the entire top leadership of the Communist Party - including Hu Jiintao, China's president and party chief - were trained as engineers.

Though not members of the political elite, Wang Baosheng, the engineer on the water transfer project, and his colleague Yang Guangjie are of the same background. This spring, at the construction site outside Shijiazhuang, bulldozers clawed at a V-shaped cut in the dirt while teams of workers in blue jumpsuits and orange hard hats smoothed wet concrete over a channel that will be almost as wide as a football field.

Yang, the project manager. compares the transfer project to the damming of the Colorado River in the western United States and the water diversion system devised for Southern California early in the 20th century.

"I've been to the Hoover Dam, and I really admire the people who built that," Yang said. "At the time, they were making a huge contribution to the development of their country."

"Maybe we are like America in the 1920s and 1930s," Yang added. "We're building the country."

China's disadvantage, compared with the United States, is that it has a smaller water supply yet almost five times as many people. China has about 7 percent of the world's water resources and roughly 20 percent of its population. It also has a severe regional water imbalance, with about four-fifths of the water supply in the south.

Mao's vision of borrowing water from the Yangtze for the north had an almost profound simplicity, but engineers and scientists spent decades debating the project before the government approved it, partly out of desperation, in 2002. Today, demand is far greater in the north, and water quality has badly deteriorated in the south. Roughly 41 percent of China's wastewater is now dumped in the Yangtze, raising concerns that siphoning away clean water northward will exacerbate pollution problems in the south.

The upper reaches of the central line are expected to be finished in time to provide water to Beijing for the Olympic Games next year. Evans, the World Bank consultant, called the complete project "essential" but added that success would depend on avoiding waste and efficiently distributing the water.

Liu, the scholar and hydrologist, said that farming would get none of the new water and that cities and industry must quickly improve wastewater treatment. Otherwise, he said, cities will use the new water to dump more polluted wastewater. Currently, Shijiazhuang dumps untreated wastewater into a canal that local farmers use to irrigate fields.

For years, Chinese officials thought irrigation efficiency was the answer for reversing groundwater declines. Eloise Kendy, a hydrology expert with The Nature Conservancy who has studied the North China Plain, said that farmers had made improvements but that the water table had kept sinking. Kendy said the spilled water previously considered "wasted" had actually soaked into the soil and recharged the aquifer. Efficiency erased that recharge. Farmers also used efficiency gains to irrigate more land. Kendy said scientists had discovered that the water table was dropping because of water lost by evaporation and transpiration from the soil, plants and leaves. The sum of this lost water, combined with low annual rainfall, is not enough to meet demand.

Farmers have no choice. They drill deeper.

What now?

For many people living in the North China Plain, the notion of a water crisis seems distant. No one is crawling across a parched desert in search of an oasis. But every year, the water table keeps dropping. Nationally, groundwater usage has almost doubled since 1970 and now accounts for one-fifth of the country's total water usage, according to the China Geological Survey Bureau.

The Communist Party is fully aware of the problems. A new water pollution law is under consideration that would sharply increase fines against polluters. Different coastal cities are building desalination plants. Multinational waste treatment companies are being recruited to help tackle the enormous wastewater problem.

Many scientists believe that huge gains can still be reaped by better efficiency and conservation. In north China, pilot projects are under way to try to reduce water loss from winter wheat crops. Some cities have raised the price of water to promote conservation, but it remains subsidized in most places. Already, some cities along the route of the transfer project are recoiling because of the planned higher prices. Some say they may just continue pumping.

Tough political choices, though, seem unavoidable. Studies by different scientists have concluded that the rising water demands in the North China Plain make it unfeasible for farmers to continue planting a winter crop. The international ramifications would be significant if China became a bigger and bigger customer on world grain markets. Some analysts have long warned that grain prices could steadily rise, contributing to inflation and making it harder for other developing countries to buy food.

The social implications would also be significant inside China. Near Shijiazhuang, Wang Jingyan's farming village depends on wells that are 200 meters deep. Not planting winter wheat would amount to economic suicide.

"We would lose 60 percent or 70 percent of our income if we didn't plant winter wheat," Wang said. "Everyone here plants winter wheat."

Another water proposal is also radical: huge, rapid urbanization. Scientists say converting farmland into urban areas would save enough water to stop the drop in the water table, if not reverse it, because widespread farming still uses more water than urban areas. Of course, large-scale urbanization, already under way, could worsen air quality; Shijiazhuang's air already ranks among the worst in China because of heavy industrial pollution.

For now, Shijiazhuang's priority, like that of other major Chinese cities, is to grow as quickly as possible. The city's gross domestic product has risen by an average of 10 percent every year since 1980, even as the city's per capita rate of available water is now only one-33rd of the world average.

"We have a water shortage, but we have to develop," said Wang Yongli, a senior engineer with the city's water conservation bureau. "And development is going to be put first."

Wang has spent four decades charting the steady extinction of the North China Plain's aquifer. He said Shijiazhuang had more than 800 illegal wells and resembled Israel in terms of water scarcity. "In Israel, people regard water as more important than life itself," he said. "In Shijiazhuang, it's not that way. People are focused on the economy."

 

 

Item 67:Sushi Craze Threatens Mediterranean's Giant Tuna

(Reuters, 01 October, 2007) BARBATE, Spain - Fishermen like Diego Crespo have trapped the giant tuna swarming into the warm Mediterranean for over 3,000 years, but he says this year may be one of his last.

Japanese demand for its fatty flesh to make sushi has sparked a fishing frenzy for the Atlantic bluefin tuna -- a torpedo-shaped brute weighing up to half a tonne that can accelerate faster than a Porsche 911.

Now a system of corralling the fish into "tuna ranches" has combined with a growing tuna fishing fleet to bring stocks dangerously close to collapse, warn scientists from ICCAT -- the body established by bluefin fishing countries to monitor the stock.

"There are plenty of signs that we might be seeing the start of the collapse," said Susana Sainz, a fisheries officer with campaign group WWF.

The environmental impact would be catastrophic, she said: "The bluefin is a top predator so the whole ecology of the Mediterranean would be destabilized."

Tuna has become a big business throughout the Mediterranean, and the lure of up to $15,000 for the best and biggest fish attracts dozens of new boats to the industry every year -- many controlled by Asian and Italian mafias, sources say.

That in turn depresses prices and compels fishermen to break catch limits.

"IT'S OVER"

Over-exploitation, pollution and climate change have devastated many of the world's commercial fish stocks and campaigners say a U.N. agreement to restore them by 2015 fails to set strong enough targets.

Some campaigners say it may already be too late to save the bluefin after high-tech fleets -- many guided by illegal spotter planes -- this season converged on an area near Libya that had been considered one of its last refuges.

"It's over, that's my gut feeling from both a stock point of view and a business point of view," said Roberto Mielgo Bregazzi, a fisheries consultant who set up the first 'tuna ranches' 10 years ago.

The ranches -- giant underwater cages where freshly caught tuna are fattened on squid and sardines -- have revolutionized the industry.

The innovation allows fishermen to scoop up shoals of spawning tuna, transfer them to the 50-metre-wide cages and return to fish until the last is caught.

Deep-frozen and shipped to Asia, the bulbous carcasses are sold in auction rooms like Tokyo's Tsukiji market before the red meat is sold for up to $75 per 100 grams when served in the city's best restaurants.

Crespo said he soon felt the impact of tuna ranching on his and other fixed trap nets known as 'Almadrabas' -- a labyrinth of nets that fishermen have anchored in the shallows of Spain's south Atlantic coast since pre-Roman times.

"For the last seven or eight years we've seen a drought in the catch," Crespo said as he walked between mountains of net and cable spread about his warehouse in the fishing town of Barbate, on the Costa de la Luz, south of Cadiz.

His employees spend two months setting up the complex system, then wait for the tuna to arrive in April. Every few days fishermen corral the net and hoist it to the surface, while others jump into the thrashing mass of silvery fish to hook and haul them aboard.

Although tourism is developing fast along the coast, Spain's four Almadrabas remain the key employer in towns like Zahara de los Atunes -- or 'Zahara of the Tunas'.

Similar to those in Morocco across the Straits, Spain's Almadrabas once caught up to 2,500 tonnes a year but took just 1,300 tonnes of fish in an abnormally short season this year.

"Hardly any fish over 200 kg showed up this year," he said.

Last year's 1,000-tonne catch plunged Crespo's firm to an 800,000 euro ($1.13 million) loss and he said some firms may go under.

"It's not right that a resource that has sustained thousands of families for 3,000 years should be finished off by a new technology in 10 years," said Crespo.

DISPUTE

Gerald Scott, the American chairman of ICCAT's scientific committee, said he estimated just 6 percent of the original stock of Mediterranean bluefin remained.

"When you are down at very low biomass levels all it takes is one or two bad years to start the downward spiral from which it would difficult to return," he said.

"We haven't necessarily seen a rapid and drastic decline yet. The point is once you have, it is probably too late."

For almost a decade, fishermen in the Mediterranean have smashed quotas, taking around 50,000 tonnes a year, says Scott.

What worries Roberto Mielgo, who has visited ranches from Croatia to Spain in recent months, is that the industry could barely fill this year's quota and the fish are smaller.

"The Japanese traders are telling me most of the Libyan tuna are less than 100 kg. When I first ranched there 10 years ago, we were pulling out 500 kg monsters," he said.

But there are conflicting views about both the gravity and causes of the problem. David Martinez, a director at the Mediterranean's biggest tuna rancher, Ricardo Fuentes & Sons, said bad weather was the main factor in the smaller catch.

"Everyone has to stick to their quotas, but if they do that there won't be a problem with for the bluefin tuna," he said.

Critics, including the United States, say European countries that control ICCAT (the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna), should take much responsibility for setting quotas at twice the level their own scientists recommend and failing to enforce them.

The Commission did take action last month, banning bluefin fishing for the rest of 2007 and threatening Greece, Malta, Portugal, Spain, Italy, France and Cyprus with court action if they could not prove they were not over-fishing.

But if the crackdown proves too late, Scott says American fishermen could also be hit: wiping out the Mediterranean stock would end a western migration and put a huge strain on much smaller western Atlantic stocks where the two populations currently mix.

 

 

Item 68:Asian Research and Appetites Takes toll on Macaques: Malaysia's long-tailed macaques are inching towards extinction because of tourism, development and world demand for biofuels.

(Marc Llewellyn, Sydney Morning Herald, 03 October, 2007) Prominent notices in the rooms at the Club Med Cherating Beach on Malaysia's east coast warn guests to keep their doors and windows closed at all times. If you fail to take heed of the warnings, you may find the contents of your suitcase thrown around the room and banana skins hanging from lampshades.

Zippers, clip-locks and screw-top containers are no obstacle for the nimble fingers of the local long-tailed macaques as they search for food.

This monkey business takes on a more sinister note at another well-known east coast resort, where macaques are not so evident. The reason? The resort manager admits shooting the dominant male if a particular troop gets too bothersome. This, he says, frightens the others away. They'll only return when a new male has taken over the leadership role.

This conflict between man and monkeys is behind a recent decision by the Malaysian Government to lift a 23-year ban on the capture and export of wild long-tailed macaques from peninsular Malaysia. The animals are destined for countries such as China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan, where most will end up in research laboratories, or on the dinner plate. ,

Long-tailed macaques, also known as crab-eating macaques, are native to most of South-East Asia. They are considered opportunistic feeders, and adapt well to urban environments. In Malaysia they are increasingly blamed for attacking humans, damaging crops, and raiding homes for food.

According to a Malaysian environment ministry study, there are 258,406 long-tailed macaques living either in urban areas, or on the fringes of towns and cities in peninsular Malaysia. Another 483,747 live in the wild.

How such exact figures were obtained has not been revealed, neither has the Government announced how the monkeys will be caught, how many will be exported, or how it will ensure that forest-dwelling macaques are not targeted.

'We are talking about keeping a figure [of macaques] that is sustainable … that will not cause problems to the people," Malaysia's Natural Resources and Environment Minister, Azmi Khalid, said recently. He noted that human-monkey contact became more frequent after the animal's natural habitat was cleared to make way for development, including creating new residential areas.

The Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Flora and Fauna, of which Malaysia is a signatory, lists the long-tailed macaque in an appendix. This recommends that over-exploitation should be avoided, particularly in areas where their populations are fragmented, or their natural environment is noticeably in decline.

The World Conservation Union, the world's biggest and most important conservation network, lists the long-tailed macaque as close to qualifying as a vulnerable species, with a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.

Long-tailed macaques naturally live in rainforests, but these are increasingly subject to sanctioned and illegal logging. Much of Malaysia's forest is also threatened by the growing worldwide demand for biofuel, promoted as a form of renewable energy that cuts net carbon dioxide emissions.

Malaysia, with Indonesia, produces about 85 per cent of the world's palm oil. This is increasingly being grown for its biofuel potential, rather than its traditional use in soaps, cosmetics and as a cooking oil.

In March, European Union leaders agreed to set a binding climate-change target to make biofuel account for 10 per cent of all Europe's transport fuels by 2020. However, the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, has since admitted that the objective may have the unintended consequence of speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests in South-East Asia, resulting in actually increasing, not reducing, global warming.

Research by Friends of the Earth shows up to 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia is a result of new oil-palm plantations. Vast swathes of rainforest are also burnt annually on Borneo (part of both Malaysia and Indonesia), and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, releasing millions of tones of carbon dioxide in the process.

"Destruction of forests, and hence species such as the macaque, is often put down as being essentially a local issue," a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, Cam Walker, said. "Yet, as the massive destruction of low-land rainforest in recent years for palm oil shows, there is often a link back to consumer nations like Australia."

Consumers should demand an end to forest clearance and more sustainable production patterns, Mr Walker said.

The World Conservation Union, the world's biggest and most important conservation network, lists the long-tailed macaque as close to qualifying as a vulnerable species, with a very high risk of extinction in the wild in the near future.

Long-tailed macaques naturally live in rainforests, but these are increasingly subject to sanctioned and illegal logging. Much of Malaysia's forest is also threatened by the growing worldwide demand for biofuel, promoted as a form of renewable energy that cuts net carbon dioxide emissions.

Malaysia, with Indonesia, produces about 85 per cent of the world's palm oil. This is increasingly being grown for its biofuel potential, rather than its traditional use in soaps, cosmetics and as a cooking oil.

In March, European Union leaders agreed to set a binding climate-change target to make biofuel account for 10 per cent of all Europe's transport fuels by 2020. However, the executive branch of the European Union, the European Commission, has since admitted that the objective may have the unintended consequence of speeding up the destruction of tropical rainforests in South-East Asia, resulting in actually increasing, not reducing, global warming.

Research by Friends of the Earth shows up to 87 per cent of deforestation in Malaysia is a result of new oil-palm plantations. Vast swathes of rainforest are also burnt annually on Borneo (part of both Malaysia and Indonesia), and on the Indonesian island of Sumatra, releasing millions of tones of carbon dioxide in the process.

"Destruction of forests, and hence species such as the macaque, is often put down as being essentially a local issue," a spokesman for Friends of the Earth, Cam Walker, said. "Yet, as the massive destruction of low-land rainforest in recent years for palm oil shows, there is often a link back to consumer nations like Australia."

Consumers should demand an end to forest clearance and more sustainable production patterns, Mr Walker said.

 

 

Item 69:24 Foreigners Detained for Poaching Falcons in NW China

(Xinhua News Agency 30 September, 2007) Chinese police have detained 24 foreigners, mostly from India and Pakistan, on the charge of poaching falcons in a northwestern region of the country, a police officer said on Saturday.

The group of suspects, a few of whom had no passport, were detained on September 17 in Hanjiaoshui Township near Zhongwei City in Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, after police had been tipped off by local villagers, said Zhu Yangming, head of Zhongwei's Public Security Bureau.

Police confiscated nine falcons, two motorbikes, 26 pigeons used as baits for catching the falcons and some tools which police said they were unable to identify.

Initial investigations showed that the group of suspects entered China in August but officials were unsure how and where they managed to cross the border.

Zhu said they had broken China's wildlife protection law. In China, the falcon is under state-level protection.

He said that the embassies of relevant countries where the suspects come from have been informed.

"A falcon can be sold for US$300,000 to 700,000 in some central Asian countries, as the bird can be used to find oil and carry drugs," said Zhu.

 

 

Item 70:In Japan, Going Solar Costly Despite Market Surge

(David Kestenbaum, NPR, 01 October, 2007) It's hard not to like the idea of solar power. Put some panels on your roof and there you have it — free electricity from sunlight running your TV and appliances. No greenhouse gases, no pollution and no guilt.

The catch: Solar power has always been expensive. But costs have come down. And over the last few years, solar companies are finding themselves in unfamiliar territory: They are making a profit.

Solar Panel Street

Houses with solar panels are still unusual in Japan, but you can get a glimpse of where things are headed in Kobe. In one new development there, the houses come with solar panels pre-installed.

It's row after row of plain box houses. You have to tilt your head back to see the solar panels on the roofs.

A neighborhood boy wearing a "Dinosaur Power" T-shirt sets off to find his mother, Rika Suzuki.

She says she doesn't consider herself an environmentalist. What she likes is not paying electric bills.

"It depends on sunlight," Suzuki says. "But on a nice sunny day. Even though we use all the electronic devices, I feel like we are receiving energy from the sun."

The houses have indoor electronic displays which show how much electricity the panels are generating and how much is being used. Extra electricity gets sold back to the power company. Suzuki says some months, they pay basically nothing.

Suzuki says she feels lucky.

The Philosophy of Energy

So how did all this happen? The solar panels were manufactured by a company called Kyocera, with offices in Kyoto.

Kyocera has $11 billion in annual sales, mostly from sales of high-tech ceramic parts. That's a good thing, because for three decades their solar business was not profitable.

"Last 32 years, we couldn't make money at all, but were spending money a lot," says Isao Yukawa who has been at Kyocera all of those 32 years. He got involved with its solar efforts six years ago.

"Last two to three years we're making money," Yukawa says.

Some start-up businesses expect a couple of years of not making a profit. But 30 years? Yukawa says the company's founder is a very visionary guy.

"At the same time he's a philosopher," Yukawa says. "He talks about work for the people and the society."

Kyocera was founded by Kazuo Inamori in 1959, who is a kind of management guru in Japan.

Do the right thing, Inamori says, profits come later.

Yukawa shows a photo of their solar panels mounted on a camel in Tunisia. The panels ran a portable refrigerator with medical supplies.

"I was told that 1.6 million people still do not have light!" Yukawa says. "Our mission is so much to support these people."

The company's motto: "Respect the divine and love people."

Creating a Market

But if Kyocera's success is a story of perseverance and maybe spirituality, it's also one of government subsidies.

Because the reality was that around 1994, if you wanted to put solar panels on your house — enough to cover most electrical needs — it would cost about $60,000.

Ryutaro Yatsu is a counselor for global environment in Japan's Ministry of the Environment. He says the industry needed the subsidies to create a market, so the costs could decrease.

"In order to bridge the so-called 'Death Valley,'" Yatsu says.

In 1994, the Japanese government paid half the cost of new solar installations. And people took advantage. Sales went up and costs came down by about a third. The government phased the subsidies out gradually and ended them in 2005.

Today, Yatsu says Japan is counting on solar panels to help combat global warming.

"We expect each household to have their own solar panel," Yatsu says.

Germany wants half of its energy generated by renewable sources by the year 2050.

And companies are cranking out solar panels.

In a Kyocera factory panels the size of compact disc cases get passed from one machine to another in an elaborate dance. The company can now produce enough panels to cover 300 football fields a year.

However, things are a bit more complicated.

Retaining the Interest

Solar is on its feet, but it's not exactly off and running. Today's solar boom still depends on government assistance. Solar panels are at the point of making economic sense on their own, but just barely.

If a salesman came to your door and said "I have a way you won't have to pay electric bills," you'd say "great."

But how much are the solar panels? About $20,000 dollars.

How long would it take to make that money back? In Japan, maybe 20 years.

Yukawa says the sales pitch is still awkward.

"Solar business looks so easy," Yukawa explains. "But we have direct door to door guys that have to explain this and that kind of stuff."

The houses in Kobe with the solar panels were built by a division of Panasonic, which is trying out a line of energy-efficient houses.

But Yukawa says the price of solar panels still needs to come down by half before homeowners and builders really take the plunge to buy.

The industry is growing quickly — maybe too quickly. Solar companies now consume about as much silicon as the entire electronics industry, temporarily causing the price of silicon to double, pushing costs up, not down.

 

 

Item 71:China: Committee Sets up to Perform Convention on Wetlands

(Xinhua News Agency, 02 October, 2007) China has set up a state committee to perform the Convention of Wetlands, according to sources from the State Forestry Administration (SFA).

A spokesman for the SFA said that the committee comprises 16 government departments including the SFA and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The committee will coordinate and guide relevant departments to perform the Convention on Wetlands, study and formulate relevant principles and policies, and coordination international cooperation.

He said China has 38.48 million hectares of wetlands, topping Asian countries and ranking the fourth in the world, and it has all the wetlands species classified in the Convention on Wetlands.

China joined the Convention on Wetlands in 1992. In 2001, China launched a drive to build nature reserves for wild animals and plants, of which the protection of wetlands is an important part.

In 2006, China listed the wetland protection project into its 11th Five-Year Plan (2006-2010).

 

 

Item 72:Study: Growing More Rice with Less Water

(WWF, 03 October, 2007) Tripura, India – A new method to grow rice could save hundreds of billions of cubic metres of water while increasing food security, according to a study by WWF published today.

With a focus on India – a country which faces a major water crisis, yet has the world's largest rice cultivated area – the study found that the system of rice intensification (SRI) method has helped increase yields by over 30% — four to five tonnes per hectare instead of three tonnes per hectare, while using 40% less water than conventional methods.

The system is based on eight principles which are different to conventional rice cultivation. They include developing nutrient-rich and un-flooded nurseries instead of flooded ones; ensuring wider spacing between rice seedlings; preferring composts or manure to synthetic fertilizers; and managing water carefully to avoid that the plants' roots are not saturated.

The method was initially developed in the 1980s in Madagascar and has been demonstrated to be effective in 28 countries.

“Although the system of rice intensification has shown its advantages, the scale of its use leaves much to be desired,” said Dr Biksham Gujja, Senior Policy Adviser at WWF International.

"It is time to start large-scale programmes to support a method that could make a lasting global impact with far-reaching benefits to people and nature.”

The report suggests that major rice-producing countries — such as India, China and Indonesia — convert at least 25% of their current rice cultivation to the new system by 2025. This would not only massively reduce the use of water but also help ensure food security. In addition, this will reduce significant amount of methane emissions. SRI fields do not emit methane as is the case with the more conventional system of growing rice.

For example, if the SRI method was applied to 20 million hectares of land under rice cultivation in India, the country could meet its food grain objectives of 220 million tonnes of grain by 2012 instead of 2050.

Authorities in the Indian state of Tripura have already committed to move in that direction.

“Our farmers proved that the system of rice intensification improves productivity and we will convert at least 40% of our rice cultivation using this method over the next five years,” said Manik Sarkar, Chief Minister of Tripura State.

“We urge this as a model for rice cultivation elsewhere as it represents one hope for the water crisis affecting so many billions of people.”

Demand for a water-intensive crop such as rice is expected to increase by 38% by 2040, deepening the water crisis during the same time. However, less than 6% of rice is traded internationally and savings in water have potential for mitigating domestic water conflicts, especially in poor, rural areas where water is scarce.

Already 1.2 billion people have no access to adequate water for drinking and hygiene.

WWF is focusing on sustainable agriculture efforts for cotton, sugar and rice, some of the most consuming crops for which alternative techniques can result in a strong yield and water savings.

END NOTES

• The report More Rice with Less Water was released today at a conference held 3-5 October in Tripura. The conference is being jointly organized by the Department of Agriculture of the Government of Tripura, the Directorate of Rice Research (DRR), the Central Rice Research Institute (CRRI), the Directorate of Rice Development (DRD), the Acharya NG Ranga Agriculture University (ANGRAU), the National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD), Sir Dorabji Tata Trust (SDTT) Mumbai and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF)-ICRISAT Dialogue Project based at ICRISAT, Patancheru.

• Rice is the main source of directly consumed calories for about half the world's population and 90 per cent of it is produced and consumed in Asia.

• Contrary to popular belief, rice is not an aquatic plant and the main reason it is submerged in water is for controlling weeds.

• Conventional method of rice cultivation uses 60-70 kilos of seeds per hectare, SRI requires just five kilos per hectare.

 

 

Item 73:Energy Efficiency: Russia Beginning To Feel the Heat

(Rebeccah Billing, Moscow News Weekly, 27 September, 2007) Sustaining economic growth in Russia cannot be achieved through oil and gas export revenues alone; Russia is currently three to five times less efficient in its energy usage than Western European neighbors, with increasing economic implications.

As a land swamped with natural oil and gas resources it is understandable why energy efficiency has not been high on the agenda for Russia. But it seems that the country's complacency in this area could soon come back to bite it. Russia's domestic fuel consumption is steadily increasing in step with the rise in GDP. Thus, in order to meet both its domestic needs and its export obligations, urgent action must be taken in the Russian heat and power sectors.

But although the need for change is great, the incentives remain low; competition between companies involved in energy generation, distribution and consumption is weak and the government strictly regulates pricing. One company trying to make headway on the challenging issue of energy efficiency in Russia is Lighthouse Energy Investments (LEI).

The Moscow News talks to its director Jeroen Ketting.

MN: What made you set up this Dutch-Russian joint venture? What business potential did you recognize in Russia?

Ketting: I looked around at the situation in Russia and I saw that Russia uses three to four times more energy per produced dollar of GDP than other industrialized countries, and industrial production and thus energy consumption is increasing. But 50 percent of industrial equipment installed is old and inefficient and the energy infrastructure (generation and distribution) is deteriorating. Moreover, Russia has a lot of gas and oil reserves but its capacity to produce and to transport oil and gas are limited. With increasing domestic and international demand and with existing export commitments Russia's energy household is stretched to its very limits. Plus tariffs are increasing. This means that there is an increasing margin and need for energy efficiency in Russia; increasing demand, stagnating supply, rising tariffs and inefficient generation, distribution and consumption. When you combine that with the rising tariffs the financial argument to save energy becomes stronger and stronger.

MN: Russia has copious energy resources and enjoys the status of a major global supplier of fuel and energy, but does it recognize the necessity to devote more attention to enhancing energy efficiency?

Ketting: Energy efficiency is a political issue of minor priority. This means that formally the government recognizes the need for enhancing energy efficiency but in practice very little effective action is undertaken.

Also among big business the need for energy efficiency is not sufficiently recognized. In a country where money is easily made selling off national assets on the cheap the understanding that a ruble saved is a ruble earned is still far away.

MN: What do you think about the efficiency of Russia's home utility services (ZhKH), particularly in the heat consumption segment? There is definitely a lot of room for improvement in this area. What concrete steps do you think should be taken to optimize it?

Ketting: The efficiency in the heat segment of Russia's ZhKH can be improved considerably. About 80 percent of all gas fired boiler-houses, producing heat, operate at between 60 percent and 80 percent of their capacity. Due to poorly maintained heat transportation and distribution networks, another estimated 30 percent of generated heat is lost during transportation to the end user. But also on the side of consumption there are great inefficiencies. Just consider in how many apartments people still open or close their windows in wintertime to regulate the temperature.

In this area there are a number of concrete steps that could be taken: on the side of consumption: individual metering, thermostatic radiator valves, insulation of apartments and control and regulation of heat within apartment blocks. On the side of Distribution we need to replace all substations, reduce water leakages, insulate distribution piping and introduce variable flow pumping.

In terms of generation: boilers need rebuilding along with other measures. Regulations also need to be radically revised so that consumers pay on the basis of actual consumption, tariffs are improved and there is liberalization of the market. There also needs to be a creation of fiscal incentives at the consumer level and of legislative framework favoring energy efficiency and energy saving in the entire energy value chain.

MN: Tell us a few words about the major projects you have executed for ZhKH.

Ketting: Lighthouse Energy Investments initiates, funds and manages medium-sized energy efficiency investment projects in Russia. We capitalize on the considerable potential for energy savings and resulting financial gains in Russia.

In the area of ZhKH Lighthouse initiates, operates and finances decentralized heat and power generation projects for industrial end users of heat and Municipal District heating companies. Recently, LEI built a privately owned 2.2 Megawatt boiler house in a municipality of the Moscow region. With this boiler house LEI generates heat that it sells to the local district heating company.

LEI is also involved in energy efficiency projects and energy performance contracting. The main aim of energy performance contracting is the implementation of the whole spectrum of energy-saving measures on a long-term contractual basis between the client and LEI whereby the latter's profit is an agreed percentage from the total amount of the saved energy resources.

Lighthouse also works with large Russian gas distribution companies to reduce natural gas leakage from the gas distribution stations in the gas distribution network.

MN: How economical and mindful of energy-saving policies are Russia's heat generation companies? Have you been approached for advice or assistance by some of them in order to optimize their operations?

Ketting: As I explained, the heat generators in Russia do not operate in the most economical way imaginable. Most of the district heating companies (DHC) depend to a large extent on municipal budgets and cannot operate independently financially. Top management of these DHCs are often political appointees with little understanding of the specific business they are in. Interests are short-term or at best limited to the moment of the next elections. But occasionally we are approached by the DHCs for assistance.

MN: You conducted a major survey for International Finance Corporation to identify investment opportunities in energy efficiency in Russia. What were the main conclusions you arrived at after studying the market?

Ketting: Energy efficiency saves money and resources, increases living standards and reduces environmental harm. More importantly, it is relatively cheap, creates immediate results and does not offend any high level business or political interests. The need and potential for energy efficiency has been recognized by as well the EBRD as the IFC. Both IFIs have earmarked considerable resources that can be invested in energy efficiency.

The IFC aims to encourage investment by providing financial institutions with roughly $100 millions for loans to companies investing in energy efficiency. The EBRD directly invests in large scale energy efficiency projects.

MN: You have also been active in the Joint Implementation project as part of fulfillment of Russia's obligations under the Kyoto Protocol. Could you brief our readers on the project and your company's role in it?

Ketting: The Kyoto Protocol is an agreement under which industrialized countries will reduce their collective emissions of greenhouse gases by 5.2 percent compared to the year 1990. This may not sound like a lot, but remember that, compared to the emissions levels that would be expected by 2010 without the Protocol, this limitation represents a 29-percent cut. The goal is to lower overall emissions of six greenhouse gases: carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, sulfur hexafluoride, HFCs, and PFCs - calculated as an average over the five-year period of 2008-2012. National limitations range from 8 percent reductions for the European Union and some others to 7 percent for the United States, 6 percent for Japan, 0 percent for Russia, and permitted increases of 8 percent for Australia and 10 percent for Iceland.

One of the projects we are involved in concerns a DHC that after investing in the improvements listed above can sell Emission Reduction Units within the system of the Kyoto Protocol. Another project aims to reduce the leakage of methane from a large gas distribution network.

However, in Russia the legislative and institutional framework necessary for the proper implementation of projects under the Kyoto protocol is not yet in place.

 

 

Item 74:China: Fire Plays Vital Role in Maintaining Ecosystems: Expert

(China Daily, September 24, 2007) As images of devastation and people running to flee wildfires in Greece have filled newspapers in recent weeks, it is hard to regard fire as anything but an enemy of the forest. But with the onset of autumn - the season during which Beijing is on highest alert for fire prevention - reserve managers of the Songshan National Nature Reserve in northwestern Beijing are learning to treat fire as a natural and useful tool for biodiversity conservation.

"Fire plays a vital role in maintaining many ecosystems and the communities that depend on them," says Ron Myers, of the Global Fire Initiative from The Nature Conservancy (TNC), a US-based environmental organization that has been working in China for nearly a decade. Myers and his colleagues are helping Chinese forestry workers keep pace with internationally accepted ideas in the field of fire management.

Integrated fire management is not exactly a new concept. In fact, large swaths of forests in countries such as Indonesia, Brazil and the United States have been ravished by flames, and subsequently, these areas' biodiversity has completely recovered.

Ever since inhabitants of the savannahs of Africa used fire to manipulate vegetation and wildlife millions of years ago, the fate of fire and humankind has been inextricably linked.

It wasn't until the 20th century that fire was widely viewed as a major threat to natural resources. During this time, the natural roles fire plays in ecosystems were forgotten. So, today, there's a great gap in common understanding when it comes to this natural process.

Throughout China's recent history, prevention and suppression were taught as the predominant modes of "fire management" in forestry academy courses.

Concepts of using forest fires to ensure biodiversity conservation have been largely absent in Chinese forestry.

At a meeting with Chinese forestry officials, fire experts presented a world map used in forest fire research on which regions of the world are classified according their specific fire regimes. China appears on the map as one of only a handful of blank patches.

Myers is director of a TNC fire management project that annually ignites more than 700 planned fires in the United States, using fire to rejuvenate about 40,000 hectares of forest a year.

"Actually, a great number of species and ecosystems rely on a cycle of fires as an essential process for conserving biodiversity," says Myers. These can be referred to as "fire-dependent" ecosystems. "The services fire provides to these ecosystems include clearing space for vegetation succession, enriching soils, cleaning water and even fertilizing seeds, comprising a key component in ecological processes."

Some species require the high temperatures generated by fire to germinate; in conditions where fire is restricted, these species can very easily disappear. According to Myers, half of the ecosystems in the world are dependent on fire to maintain native species, habitats and landscapes.

There are also ecosystems sensitive to fires, such as many tropical forests, where vegetation lacks the ability to survive fire, and the impacts of fire in these forests can be severe. In this way, fire is said to have "two faces" - fire that benefits ecosystems or fire that harms them, depending on circumstances.

Increasingly, fires are being found to be useful, and the number of such case studies is growing.

After decades of a strict fire-suppression policy, the United States began allowing some carefully controlled forest fires to burn in the 1960s. Many semi-arid grazing lands in the United States are now burned annually in order to control invasive grass species. Regular controlled fires also keep vegetation from growing too dense, which prevents the devastating large-scale, intense and uncontrollable fires that result from long periods of fire suppression.

But the use of controlled fires is far from simple. In planning controlled burns, experts must control both the type and duration of the fire, in addition to spacing, intensity, wind impact, impact on soils, flame direction and emergency-suppression capabilities, among other concerns.

A typical pine forest fire regime, for example, involves frequent ground fires that clear underbrush without reaching the tree canopy, allowing for seed germination. A controlled burn in this type of system must suit such conditions. Otherwise, a canopy fire could result in great losses to the forest.

Post-fire actions are also important in the process. Another fire management specialist with the team, Darren Johnson, says that a "scientific, post-fire recovery design is needed to effectively achieve controlled burning conservation goals".

"Such a plan considers the ecology of the burned area, including species' recovery potential and a careful analysis of habitat changes," he says.

While at Songshan, the TNC team carried out an initial survey of Chinese pine forests. They noticed a lack of natural regeneration and considered which factors were inhibiting this regeneration.

Most pine forests around the world are dependent on fire for propagation, while some pine forest ecosystems have also been shown to require other forms of disturbance for propagation, such as logging, rock and mud slides, and other forms of clearing by humans. As in most nature reserves in China, forest fires are strictly suppressed at Songshan.

Through consultations with Songshan staff and community members, the team gained a better understanding of the relationship between the current distribution of Chinese pines and of the historic cases of fire in the forest.

During the discussions, Johnson asked the forestry officials if they had ever considered using fire as a means of improving conditions where pines were regenerating poorly. Zhou Junliang, an official with the State Forestry Administration (SFA), explains that China currently does not use forest fire as a means of biodiversity conservation.

He recalls a few nature reserves in the past applying for permission to use fire in opening up habitat and food sources for wildlife.

But he emphasizes that nature reserves in China are under strict management, especially in the control of forest fires. The SFA once issued regulations allowing for planned burns around the fringes of forests to prevent fires from entering, but because of fears that these fires would burn out of control, the regulations were never acted upon.

"Even though this type of problem exists throughout China, there is a lack of regulations that correspond to these changing mindsets, leaving officials incapable of implementing some key measures," Zhou says.

The authors work for the TNC Beijing Office.

 

 

Item 75:China Growth Seen as Risng Threat to Tigers

(Alister Doyle and Gerard Wynn, Reuters, 03 October, 2007) LONDON - China's economic boom is fuelling demand for endangered species ranging from tigers to African timbers even though Beijing imposes the death penalty for wildlife crimes, the head of a UN watchdog said on Tuesday.

Growing affluence means that more and more Chinese are able to afford exotic foods such as snakes, reptiles and frogs or buy traditional medicines like tiger bone wine believed by many in China to help lower blood pressure.

In China "more and more people get access to these expensive food stuffs," Willem Wijnstekers, head of the Secretariat of the Convention on International Trade in Endangerered Species (CITES), told a Reuters environment summit.

"Both within China and in neighbouring countries there is a lot disappearing," he said.

"Africa is full of Chinese wood buyers and the forests are rapidly disappearing in the direction of China as well," he said. Timber is used both in China and for exports including furniture sold to nations from Europe to North America.

But he said that China had stringent penalties. "They have the death penalty for wildlife crime and they have used it," he said. "I'm not going to promote the death penalty for CITES but they really take it seriously."

"They've got hundreds of people involved at borders. But (China's) so huge," he said, adding that trying to stop wildlife smuggling into China was like trying to mop up water from the floor with the tap running.

Elsewhere, he also said that economic growth was stoking demand for endangered species, such as demand for caviar in Russia. "Caviar is a quarter the price in Russia as in the rest of the world," he said.

CLIMATE CHANGE

Wijnstekers also said that worries about global warming were distracting the world from other environmental problems such as smuggling, pollution or habitat destruction.

"Climate change is getting too much of the attention, compared to other environmental problems," he said.

Wijnstekers also criticised China's tiger farms, which have about 5,000 of the cats against just 30 in the wild. Farmed tigers, he said, were unsuitable for China's stated plan of helping bolster depleted wild stocks.

And many environmentalists fear the farms stoke an illegal domestic market.

Wijnstekers said that CITES, which originally focused on protecting creatures such as pandas or elephants, was likely to keep widening its efforts to protect commercial species in a billion-dollar market.

He said that more South American and Asian timber species and more species of sharks might be candidates for trade restrictions when CITES' 176 member nations next meet in 2010.

Despite worries about smuggling, he said he was likely to recommend that China be accepted next year as an ivory importer alongside Japan, which is currently the sole legal destination for a planned sale of African ivory stocks.

A vote on whether to let China import ivory will be made in July 2008. "If the Chinese this time were able to bid against the Japanese then the countries allowed to sell could make more money out of ivory," he said.

 

 

Item 76:USA: Republicans Grow Skeptical On Free Trade

(John Harwood, WSJ, 04 October, 2007) WASHINGTON -- By a nearly two-to-one margin, Republican voters believe free trade is bad for the U.S. economy, a shift in opinion that mirrors Democratic views and suggests trade deals could face high hurdles under a new president.

The sign of broadening resistance to globalization came in a new Wall Street Journal – NBC News Poll that showed a fraying of Republican Party orthodoxy on the economy. While 60% of respondents said they want the next president and Congress to continue cutting taxes, 32% said it's time for some tax increases on the wealthiest Americans to reduce the budget deficit and pay for health care.

Six in 10 Republicans in the poll agreed with a statement that free trade has been bad for the U.S. and said they would agree with a Republican candidate who favored tougher regulations to limit foreign imports. That represents a challenge for Republican candidates who generally echo Mr. Bush's calls for continued trade expansion, and reflects a substantial shift in sentiment from eight years ago.

"It's a lot harder to sell the free-trade message to Republicans," said Republican pollster Neil Newhouse, who conducts the Journal/NBC poll with Democratic counterpart Peter Hart. The poll comes ahead of the Oct. 9 Republican presidential debate in Michigan sponsored by the Journal and the CNBC and MSNBC television networks.

The leading Republican candidates are still trying to promote free trade. "Our philosophy has to be not how many protectionist measures can we put in place, but how do we invent new things to sell" abroad, former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani said in a recent interview. "That's the view of the future. What [protectionists] are trying to do is lock in the inadequacies of the past."

Such a stance is sure to face a challenge in the 2008 general election. Though President Bill Clinton famously steered the Democratic Party toward a less-protectionist bent and promoted the North American Free Trade Agreement, his wife and the current Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton, has adopted more skeptical rhetoric. Mrs. Clinton has come out against a U.S. trade deal with South Korea.

Other leading Democrats have been harshly critical of trade expansion, pleasing their party's labor-union backers. In a March 2007 WSJ/NBC poll, before recent scandals involving tainted imports, 54% of Democratic voters said free-trade agreements have hurt the U.S., compared with 21% who said they have helped.

While rank-and-file Democrats have long blasted the impact of trade on American jobs, slipping support among Republicans represents a fresh warning sign for free-market conservatives and American companies such as manufacturers and financial firms that benefit from markets opening abroad.

One fresh indication of the party's ideological crosswinds: Presidential candidate Ron Paul of Texas, who opposes the Iraq war and calls free-trade deals "a threat to our independence as a nation," announced yesterday that he raised $5 million in third-quarter donations. That nearly matches what one-time front-runner John McCain is expected to report.

In a December 1999 Wall Street Journal-NBC poll, 37% of Republicans said trade deals had helped the U.S. and 31% said they had hurt, while 26% said they made no difference.

The new poll asked a broader but similar question. It posed two statements to voters. The first was, "Foreign trade has been good for the U.S. economy, because demand for U.S. products abroad has resulted in economic growth and jobs for Americans here at home and provided more choices for consumers."

The second was, "Foreign trade has been bad for the U.S. economy, because imports from abroad have reduced demand for American-made goods, cost jobs here at home, and produced potentially unsafe products."

Asked which statement came closer to their own view, 59% of Republicans named the second statement, while 32% pointed to the first.

Rocky Outlook

Such sentiment suggests a rocky outlook for trade expansion. Early in his term, Mr. Bush successfully promoted a number of new free-trade pacts, but the efforts have stalled, particularly after Democrats took control of Congress last November.

Even relatively small deals are facing resistance. While trade pacts with Peru and Panama have a strong chance of passing in the current congressional term, deals with South Korea and Colombia are in serious jeopardy. Some legislators believe South Korea isn't opening its market wide enough to American beef and autos.

'Fast Track'

Presidential "fast track" trade negotiating authority has lapsed. Without such authority, which requires Congress to take a single up-or-down vote on trade deals, the next president would have trouble pursuing large trade agreements, particularly the stalled global Doha Round.

Julie Kowal, 40 years old, who works in a medical lab and is raising five children in Omaha, Neb., said she worries that Midwestern producers face obstacles selling beef and autos abroad. "We give a lot more than we get," she said. "There's got to be a point where we say, 'Wait a minute.'"

Beyond trade, Republicans appear to be seeking a move away from the president. Asked in general terms, a 48% plurality of Republicans said the next president should "take a different approach" from Mr. Bush, while 38% wanted to continue on his path.

In the poll, Mr. Giuliani maintained his lead in the Republican field with support from 30% of respondents. Former Sen. Fred Thompson drew 23% in the survey, to 15% for Sen. John McCain, 10% for Mr. Romney and 4% for former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee. The telephone survey of 606 Republican voters, conducted Sept. 28-30, has a margin of error of four percentage points.

A clear majority of Republicans want more tax cuts, but among Republicans who identify themselves as moderate or liberal -- about one-third of the party's primary voters -- a 48% plurality favored some tax increase to fund health care and other priorities.

In part, the concern about trade reflected in the survey reflects the changing composition of the Republican electorate as social conservatives have grown in influence. In questions about a series of candidate stances, the only one drawing strong agreement from a majority of Republicans was opposition to abortion rights.

Post-9/11 security concerns have also displaced some of the traditional economic concerns of the Republican Party that Ronald Reagan reshaped a generation ago. Asked which issues will be most important in determining their vote, a 32% plurality cited national defense, while 25% cited domestic issues such as education and health care, and 23% cited moral issues. Ranking last, identified by just 17%, were economic issues such as taxes and trade.

John Pirtle, a 40-year-old Defense Department employee in Grand Rapids, Mich., said he drifted toward the Republican Party in large part because of his opposition to abortion, but doesn't agree with the free-trade views of leading candidates.

"We're seeing a lot of jobs farmed out," said Mr. Pirtle, whose father works for General Motors Corp. Rankled by reports of safety problems with Chinese imports, he added, "The stuff we are getting, looking at all the recalls, to be quite honest, it's junk."

Bush's Veto

Mr. Bush lately has sought to elevate the importance of economic issues. Yesterday he vetoed a bill passed by Congress that would expand funding for a children's-health program by $35 billion over five years. He slammed what he described as the Democrats' tax-and-spend approach during a speech in Lancaster, Pa.

Economic advisers to Republican presidential hopefuls acknowledge the safety scandals have made defending free trade more difficult. "Americans are right to be angered at companies that take shortcuts" in importing goods, said Larry Lindsey, once the top economic aide in the Bush White House and now an adviser to Mr. Thompson's presidential bid. "The next president has to promote free trade by playing hardball, and to be seen doing so."

In the Republican campaign so far, elevating populist trade concerns has been left to the long shots. "The most important thing a president needs to do is to make it clear that we're not going to continue to see jobs shipped overseas....and then watch as a CEO takes a $100 million bonus," Mr. Huckabee said at a debate earlier this year. "If Republicans don't stop it, we don't deserve to win in 2008."

 

 

Item 77:S. Korea, Germany Bio-Engineers to Cooperate in Improved Rice Development

(Yonhap, 04 October, 2007) South Korean and Germany bio-engineers have agreed to work together to develop an improved rice plant that has better yield and will be more resilient to pests and disease, the government said Thursday.

The Ministry of Science and Technology said the joint project aims to transplant positive characteristics found in locally grown rice into a new, genetically modified organism (GMO).

State-supported Crop Functional Genomics Center (CFGC) and Germany's CropDesign / BASF Plant Sciences are to take part in the endeavor, with the two companies sharing development costs for the next three-and-a-half years.

"Participation of the German lab is important because it owns the automated 'TraitMill' test system that can objectively and effectively determine the safety of new GMOs," said CFGC director Choi Yang-do, He said solely with local testing technology it would be hard to quickly sell any new GMO rice in the global market.

Choi said the Germany partner will be responsible for the production phase of any new rice developed. Most governments require scientific proof that GMOs are harmless to humans and the environment. Seoul is seeking to export high quality rice abroad to help farmers cope with a growing influx of cheap imports. Locally grown rice is three-four times more expensive than foreign rice.

 

 

Item 78:S. Korea Halts Inspection of U.S. Beef Imports After Bone Discovery

(Yonhap, 05 October, 2007) South Korea has suspended quarantine inspection of all U.S. beef imports following the discovery of banned backbones in a shipment, the government said Friday. The Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry said a 30.3-kilogram box containing backbones was found in the 18.5 ton shipment that arrived in the country last month. This is the second time that backbones have been discovered.

The latest discovery is expected to effectively halt imports of American beef.

Seoul had temporarily banned all quarantine inspections of American beef from August 1-27 after finding a backbone in a shipment. The government had warned that if it found more backbones among imports, it would again suspend all import quarantine inspections.

Backbones are classified as specified risk materials (SRMs) under an agreement reached between Seoul and Washington in January 2006. SRMs, which include head bones, brains, spinal cord and certain organs are blacklisted because they pose the greatest risk of transmitting mad cow disease to humans.

In addition to backbones, Seoul currently only allows bone-less beef from animals under 30 months old. South Korea banned American beef outright after a mad cow cases was confirmed in December 2003.

Ministry sources, meanwhile, said that the discovery would not derail moves to hold impending talks with Washington on rewriting the country's import rule for American beef.

The Agriculture Ministry convened a meeting of the country's livestock quarantine consultation committee earlier in the day with members expected to give their "final" views on how future negotiations should be carried out with the United States.

The committee has met twice since July, but progress has been slow due to the discovery of backbones and beef ribs.

Government officials hinted that Seoul may lift the ban on ribs and other bone-in-beef products, but hold onto its restriction on SRMs.

The United States has asked Seoul to rewrite its import rules after it received mad cow "controlled risk" status from the world animal health organization in late May.

This classification by the World Organization for Animal Health technically allows the U.S. to export most non-SRM meat parts.

 

 

Item 79:Dong-A: The Carbon Market

(Chung Sung-hee, Editorial Writer, Dong-A, 06 October, 2007) A recent news report went as follows: “Today's transaction price closed at 28 euros. It peaked at 30 euros, but stabilized as the futures option neared maturity.” It wasn't a news report on oil prices or stock markets. It was a report on the price for the right to emit a ton of carbon dioxide, the culprit of global warming.

You can hear such reports frequently in Europe, where the carbon market was first created in 2002. Last year alone, carbon credits for 450 million tons of carbon dioxide were bought and sold in European Climate Exchange (ECX) opened in 2005 in Amsterdam. The transaction amount has exceeded 9 billion euros.

According to the Kyoto Treaty signed in 1997, advanced countries, including the EU and Japan, must reduce their CO2 emissions 5.2 percent from their 1990 levels during the first commitment period that runs from 2008 to 2012. Countries that cut emissions by more than their quota can sell their remaining carbon credits to companies in other countries. Conversely, countries that fail to meet their reduction targets must buy carbon credits or face fines (40 euros per ton in Germany). As such, the emissions trading system is a market mechanism that helps reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

As next year is the first year of the commitment period, carbon credit prices are rising. The United Nations Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change said that the carbon credit price should reach at least $100 per ton to cut 20 percent of greenhouse gas emissions by 2030. This means that carbon credits translate into money in an economy dealing with climate change.

As part of their strategies to dominate the carbon market, DuPont and Shell are reducing their greenhouse gas emission and increasing their investment in developing new and renewable energy sources. SK Energy is planning to register its reduction of greenhouse gas emissions from its Seongam landfill in Ulsan with the UN to secure carbon credits for Korea. SK Energy, POSCO, and KEPCO are moving to invest in Korea's first carbon fund introduced in August. The world is moving quickly to tackle climate change. It can be either a crisis or an opportunity for companies, depending on how they respond.

 

 

Item 80:Korea to Develop Untapped Mineral Deposits to Cope with Surging Global Prices

(The Korea Herald, 05 October, 2007) The government said Friday it plans to develop untapped local mineral deposits in a bid to deal with surging natural resource prices, according to Yonhap News Agency.

The plan, announced at a symposium in southern Seoul, calls for the effective development of local resources through an eco-friendly approach to future mining that can both boost the overall economy and ensure sustainable growth for the industry.

"Along with efforts to win mining rights to overseas resources, it is imperative for the country to take full advantage of existing domestic mineral deposits that were overlooked in the past," said Koh Jung-sik, a senior policymaker at the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Energy.

Koh, who serves as deputy minister for energy and resource policy, also stressed the importance of making efforts to develop resources without disrupting the environment. This approach, he said, is needed for mining to survive in a country where ecological concerns influence economic policies.

This view was supported by the state-run Korea Resources Corp., which predicted wider applications for minerals and a subsequent growth in demand, making it imperative for South Korea to fully use its domestic resources.

 

 

Item 81:New Depths to Bottled Water Trend: “ CJ Corp Selling Deep Sea Water “

(The Korea Herald, 05 October, 2007) CJ Corp. said yesterday it has launched bottled deep-sea drinking water, signaling a new trend in the drinking water market.

The company said the desalinized water product, called Mine Water, is extracted from 650 meters below the ocean near Ulleung Island.

Positioned to compete in the premium-water market, deep-sea water is believed to be naturally free of chemicals, pollutants and pathogens, and rich in minerals and nutrients.

CJ hopes to lead the new trend in the country's bottled water market, with sales next year targeted at 3.5 billion won ($3.8 million). It plans to expand sales to 10 billion won by 2010.

Lotte Chilsung is expected to release its deep-sea water product in November.

 

 

Item 82:In U.K: Farmland Yields to Major Wetland

(Jeremy Cooke, BBC, 07 October 2007) Looking at Wallasea Island, it's hard to imagine that this flat, featureless landscape is about to become one of Britain's most important wildlife sanctuaries.

But 500 years ago - before this corner of coastal Essex was drained to make way for crop production - this was salt marsh. It was a thriving natural environment teeming with life.

Now, in its most ambitious project in this country, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) is about to spend £12m recreating the salt marsh, turning the clock back by hundreds of years.

The plan is simple: the ancient sea walls which have held back the tides for so long will be carefully breached, and the waters will once again flood the land which has been used for wheat production for centuries.

The project manager, Mark Dixon, says: "We will have a landscape of marshes, islands, lagoons and creeks little more than 20 inches deep at high tide.

"Wallasea is one island now but was once five separate pieces of land. We will restore these ancient divisions and each new island will have its own tidal control."

There is good reason for the high hopes for this massive project.

Last year a similar, smaller-scale development was funded by the government.

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) put up £7.5m and the newly-recreated salt marsh is already attracting a wide variety of coastal birds, marine flora and other wildlife.

Once work begins on creating another 730 hectares (1,800 acres) of salt marsh in this latest RSPB project, it seems certain that we will see wading birds, ducks and geese in huge numbers. And the hopes go beyond that.

Place for people

Conservationists hope that we may see a return of the Kentish plover, which has been absent for some 50 years. We could also see spoonbills, which have not successfully nested here for more than 400 years.

Otters are also likely to be attracted to what will be a rich and diverse habitat.

If things go really well, we may also see black-winged stilts, which have never bred in Britain.

The RSPB's chief executive, Graham Wynne, says: ''Wallasea will become a wonderful coastal wetland full of wildlife in a unique and special landscape.

"It will be a true wilderness experience, attracting huge numbers of birds to feed, shelter and breed."

But this project is not just about wildlife. It's about people too.

Mr Wynne says: "It will be a place for people to visit, savour and enjoy, with several miles of new coastal walks, and it will make a major contribution to efforts to help wildlife adjust to the serious impacts of climate change." RELATED BACKGROUND: Huge Marine Wetland Starts Life (BBC, 04 July 2006) A 300m section of a sea wall has been breached to begin the creation of the UK's largest man-made marine wetland.

Almost 115 hectares has been flooded at Wallasea Island, Essex, to create wetland, mudflats, saline lagoons and seven artificial islands.

The £7.5m government-funded project aims to replace bird habitats lost to development, improve flood defences, and create leisure opportunities.

Excavators were used to breach the sea wall on Tuesday to allow the sea in.

Mark Dixon, who is managing the Wallasea Wetlands Creation project, said the tide spread across land that was once wheat fields and it began the slow process of creating new salt marsh and mudflats.

He said: "It's eventually going to be a new sea defence, so you're going to have brand new mudflats, brand new salt marshes and they'll absorb the tide's energy.

"You've got a big new sea wall at the back, protecting land and property, and then in front of it a series of lagoons and islands and creeks, which birds and people can enjoy."

Biodiversity Minister Barry Gardiner said: "Salt marsh is more rare than rainforest, and is important to people, particularly as a flood and storm defence, and to wildlife.

"Hundreds of thousands of wetland birds rely entirely on the Essex salt marsh for their food each winter.

"Wallasea Wetlands will be a wonderful feeding and roosting habitat for birds like oystercatchers, avocets and little terns, which have been gradually displaced from the area during the last 50 years, as well as creating a haven for other rare wildlife."

It is hoped the wetland will also provide for better fish nurseries.

John Hesp, of Wallasea Farms, said the flooding would help improve the area's flood defences.

He said: "What we're doing here by setting the seawalls back - we call the process managed re-alignment, is that the existing seawalls were in such poor condition, they were simply not sustainable in their present location.

"We've built a new seawall landward and now that we've breached, we've breached at the points where we have the maximum pressure on the estuary.

"So, we've relieved that pressure, enabled the estuary to breathe and we've created more space for water."

 

 

Item 83:Siberian Boom Threatens Traditions

(Tom Esslemont, BBC, 08 October, 2007) Russia is forging ahead with ambitious energy projects in eastern Siberia, but the indigenous Evenk people are complaining that their age-old way of life is in danger.

Work has begun on a 4,130km (2,560-mile) oil pipeline - the longest pipeline in the world's largest country. The plan is to feed the growing demand for oil in China and Russia's other energy-hungry East Asian neighbours.

The government of Russia's Sakha Republic - better known as Yakutia - backs the pipeline, arguing that the whole region will benefit economically. The collapse of the Soviet Union left many Siberians struggling to make a living.

At first Nikolai Martynov, an ethnic Evenk, thought Russia's natural resources would bring his people wealth.

But he says thousands of reindeer have been "driven away by the building work for the pipeline and other projects and we have fewer and fewer".

"Selling the meat and fur is no longer profitable," says Mr Martynov, who has been a deer herder for 45 years.

He lives in Khotustir, a community near the pipeline, which is home to 2,000 people.

The Evenk live in villages scattered across an expanse of Siberian forest known as taiga. They have an unreliable income and depend on the nature around them - or on a small amount of manual labour offered to them by the energy companies.

Densely forested hills stretch as far as the eye can see, but the region also boasts a gold mine and there are plans to exploit uranium too.

Railway workers are busy constructing a new track linking the capital Yakutsk with the main southern Siberian network.

Hydroelectric power

The River Aldan - the main water supply for Khotustir and many other villages - is also being exploited as an energy source.

One firm, RAO-ESS, plans to construct no less than five hydroelectric power plants. It promises jobs. But Mr Martynov is not convinced.

"The last time the company employed people from my village, our salaries dried up. We are still owed four months' wages," he says.

"There has been very little discussion. I think every member of this community should be allowed a share of the profits from the hydroelectric stations."

The company building the oil pipeline, Transneft, forecasts that oil consumption in China and its East Asian neighbours will grow by more than 50% by 2010 and more than double by 2020.

Transneft recently announced there would be jobs for more than 1,000 Chinese construction workers, but only 200 for indigenous people.

Pavel Anisimov, leader of the Khotustir community, says he is disappointed the work has started on the pipeline, even though the final agreement between Transneft and the government of Yakutia has yet to be signed.

"We have a different lifestyle. We can provide tree fellers but we do not have the specialists required by the companies. At the same time we are losing the territory where we herd and hunt animals," he says.

"Most workers are not provided with contracts," explains Mr Anisimov.

“There is a complicated structure of companies working on top of one another. It may be that that structure is illegal, but it is hard to know who to sue."

Transneft officials were not available for comment.

According to a Yakutia government spokesman, "a contract will be signed, compensation to the indigenous people will be granted".

"The whole republic is set to gain from the revenue."

Putin intervenes

Originally, the pipeline would have run just 800m (2,600ft) from the shores of Lake Baikal, the world's deepest body of fresh water and a unique home for many rare species.

But after protests from environmentalists President Vladimir Putin announced that the pipeline would be rerouted well away from the lake.

Viktor Kuznetsov, executive director of the Association of Minority Peoples, has studied the impact of energy projects on the Evenk people.

He says that since 2001, the number of reindeer in the Irkutsk region - on which the Evenk economy depends - has diminished by 10%.

He accuses energy companies of commissioning reports to boost their own credibility.

One report by the Irkutsk-based Institute of Geography suggested that the Evenk community need only be compensated for a loss of nine US dollars (225 roubles; £4.50) per year - a sum Mr Kuznetsov says is laughably small compared with their actual losses.

He says the Evenk are losing thousands of hectares of hunting grounds - home to numerous squirrels, elk and sable.

 

 

Item 84:World Moves Into the Ecological Red

(Jeremy Lovell, Reuters. 05 October, 2007) LONDON - The world moved into 'ecological overdraft' on Saturday, the point at which human consumption exceeds the ability of the earth to sustain it in any year and goes into the red, the New Economics Foundation think-tank said.

Ecological Debt Day this year is three days earlier than in 2006 which itself was three days earlier than in 2005. NEF said the date had moved steadily backwards every year since humanity began living beyond its environmental means in the 1980s.

"As the world creeps closer to irreversible global warming and goes deeper into ecological debt, why on earth, say, would the UK export 20 tonnes of mineral water to Australia and then re-import 21 tonnes," said NEF director Andrew Simms.

"And why would that wasteful trade be more the rule than the exception," he added.

Not only was there a massive gulf between rich and poor but there were deep variations in environmental profligacy between the rich countries, NEF said.

If everyone in the world had the same consumption rates as in the United States it would take 5.3 planet earths to support them, NEF said, noting that the figure was 3.1 for France and Britain, 3.0 for Spain, 2.5 for Germany and 2.4 for Japan.

But if everyone emulated China, which is building a coal-fired power station every five days to feed its booming economy, it would take only 0.9 of a planet.

The NEF report comes as diplomatic momentum builds for UN environment ministers meeting in December on the Indonesian island of Bali to agree to start talks on a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change that expires in 2012.

Governments have started to sit up and take heed as global public opinion begins calling for urgent action to tackle what has been described as the biggest threat facing humanity.

But there is still no meeting of minds between the world's biggest carbon polluter, the United States, and booming emitters like China and India; both sides insisting that the other make the first move.

But the NEF report "Chinadependence" noted that Britain among others was understating its carbon emissions because it in effect exported its smokestack industries to China in the 1990s and was now importing products it would have been making itself.

"As China is increasingly attacked because of its rising pollution levels, people overlook two important issues," said Simms. "First, per person, China's greenhouse gas emissions are a fraction of those in Europe and the United States."

"Second, a closer look at trade flows reveals that a large share of China's rising emissions is due to the dependence of the rest of the world on exports from China.

"Because of the way that data on carbon emissions gets collected at the international level, this has the effect of 'carbon laundering' economies like those of Britain and the US," he added.

 

 

Item 85:China's Coming Shift to Regional Trade

(David DuByne, Language Matters, 07October, 2007) The government understands that companies will reduce their orders for products from far-away lands during times of painfully high oil prices, and that the global economy will constrict as a result. So policy-makers are doing everything they can to implement an energy production system independent of forces outside China.

China realizes how vulnerable its export-driven economy has become, and is setting itself up as the powerhouse in a post-peak oil regional economy.

The government understands that companies will reduce their orders for products from far-away lands during times of painfully high oil prices, and that the global economy will constrict as a result. So policy-makers are doing everything they can to implement an energy production system independent of forces outside China.

In the media, tag words such as “Conservation” and “Environmental Protection” are now spoken as frequently as “Harmonious Society”. But that's mostly talk. If you read China's business news each day, which I do, you will find a breath-taking development in the area of energy. The business press suggests a concerted effort to break away from procurement of insecure energy resources outside China's control. Instead, the country is building energy self-reliance, with environmental protection getting the dirty end of the stick.

China isn't building great walls to keep away the barbarians anymore. Outside the country, its oil companies are focused on buying up petroleum resources to give the Middle Kingdom a resource advantage as scarcity becomes more apparent. Inside China, industry is revving up oil infrastructure capacity and refining production to develop domestic self-reliance. Much of China's IPO (initial public offering) frenzy is aimed at gobbling up investment cash worldwide to buy access to commodities now, while it is still relatively cheap and freely available on global markets.

A Flattened Economy: Imagine a world in which energy prices are in the stratosphere, and the West's addiction to oil helps flatten the global economy. Western countries are in a tailspin. The world economy is shrinking as high oil prices eat into disposable income once spent on items imported from China. Those same oil prices have screwed up the economics of international shipping. Sound unrealistic? Read this. In China, unemployment would reach stratospheric levels if there were greatly reduced factory orders from the rest of the world. Today, perhaps 100 million factory workers churn out products in China. What if 10% were without jobs? You would need energy to provide public works projects to keep those workers employed. You don't want ten million out-of-work, hungry factory workers showing up at your front door asking for change.

A partial solution to this nightmare is to strengthen regional ties, since regional economies consume less energy than global trade. Can China exist in a regional framework while continuing to expand its domestic economy under an energy program focused on self-reliance? If you buy the notion of peak oil, it seems like the best bet. After all, most of the world's consumers live in China's neighbourhood. The Chinese economy is based on exporting manufactured goods. The buying must not stop.

Propping up the Greenback: Until recently, part of Chinese strategy was to hold Treasury Bonds issued by the US in the Chinese treasury as a financial tool. Purchases of these bonds helped the central government maintain a favourable exchange rate vis-à-vis the greenback for the yuan. Then came the made-in-America subprime fiasco, which led to crisis in the world's capital markets and the partial collapse of the US dollar. It cannot have been lost on China's central bankers that propping up the buck is an unsustainable long-term strategy.

As in the matter of self-reliance in hydrocarbon liquids, China will use its great energy to mitigate the problems it is facing. Expensive, scarce fuel means you need shorter trade routes, so China will certainly develop a land link through Myanmar (Burma) to the Bay of Bengal. This will greatly strengthen its hand in the regional economy. It's a hop through Yunnan Province by rail, a skip to the coast in Myanmar, and a three day jump across the Bay of Bengal to Calcutta or Madras. Consider the amount of fuel saved by going through Myanmar to India rather than skirting all of Southeast Asia and travelling up the Straits of Malacca to India.

How will the investments of Western corporations fare as China focuses increasingly on a regional economy? Well, joint venture plants and factories will not be disassembled and repatriated to the investing nation. They will be utilized within China for China's people.

The Great 100 Year Plan: The Chinese Government must be seeing parallels between the astonishing growth of its economy and the creation of Hong Kong. You build it, we keep it. You have set up our economy with your generous investments, built factories for us, given us your technology and knowhow to produce goods, and tutored us on oil refining and coal technologies plus solar and wind-power generation. You can go now. Thanks for coming, but we will keep the factories.

The post-peak oil global economy will have a new set of ground rules.

David DuByne teaches business English in Chongqing, China while keeping an eye on energy, commodities and bio-fuel production in Asia

 

 

Item 86:Wetlands Moderate Global Warming: ‘Can this muck save the planet?”Power company money could help build Shore wetlands, combat global warming

(Tom Pelton, Baltimore Sun, 09 October, 2007) USA - Digging through the muck of a marshy island, Brian Needelman is hunting for an antidote to global warming.

• The University of Maryland scientist is measuring how much carbon dioxide has been trapped in the soil of wetlands planted four years ago. Needelman hopes to prove that creating salt marshes is better than planting trees for removing global warming gases from the atmosphere.

If he's right, power companies in search of pollution credits might be willing to invest millions of dollars to build more wetlands here, which could mean a corporate-financed reconstruction of the Chesapeake Bay's largest breeding ground for birds, fish and crabs.

"Tidal marshes have the highest rates of sequestering carbon of any kind of land," said Needelman, as reeds hissed around him in a stiff wind. "And captured carbon is a commodity worth a certain amount of money."

That's because Maryland and nine other Eastern states have agreed to start a pollution credit trading system in 2009. The system would allow companies to exceed government limits for carbon dioxide emissions if they paid for pollution-control projects. Congress is debating a similar national system.

The idea - which has many critics as well as fans - could make a big difference to a place such as Blackwater. The 28,000- acre refuge on the Eastern Shore is losing about 400 acres of marsh grasses a year to rising sea level and erosion.

Over the past two decades, the staff has worked with others to build about 20 acres of wetlands, using bales of hay, dirt pumped from the bottom of rivers and plantings of spartina grass. They have found that the manmade wetlands last.

The price is high, about $3.6 million per 100 acres. Enter Constellation Energy, the state's biggest owner of power plants.

John Quinn, chief engineer for Constellation, said he thinks it would be "a great idea" for his company to help pay for restoring Blackwater wetlands through pollution credits.

"The scientists say we are going to need huge, huge reductions in greenhouse gases ... so we are going to have to have every tool available," he said.

Constellation is contributing $100,000 to Needelman's state-funded research as part of a penalty for air-pollution violations at its coal-fired power plants near Baltimore.

For years, scientists have known that wetlands are important as pollution filters. But as it turns out, Needelman said, salt marshes are better at capturing carbon dioxide than are forests, farms or grasslands.

Most plants are good at absorbing the gases that cause global warming, in that they take in carbon dioxide during photosynthesis. But marsh grasses grow especially rapidly, meaning that they absorb more carbon.

And unlike most areas, where leaves that fall to the ground release carbon dioxide into the air as they decompose, the water in marshes slows decay, which traps the carbon in the mud.

Needelman is calculating exactly how much carbon is trapped.

On a windy morning, he slogs through spartina grass in hip-length waders, carrying what looks like a two-handed sword. He plunges the tool, called a peat auger, into the mud and then examines cakelike layers captured in a V-shaped groove.

Using a knife, he carves a black slice from the top. He explains that this is what is left of carbon dioxide absorbed by the marsh grasses over the past year. He will take the soil sample back to the lab to burn it and measure the amount of carbon dioxide released.

The lump in his hand looks about as valuable as, well, dirt. But state and federal environmental policies could transform it into a precious commodity, a form of captured carbon that power companies would buy and sell like stock.

In "cap and trade" systems, the government imposes limits on the amount of carbon dioxide or other pollutants a company can emit, then allows the company to pollute beyond those limits if it pays for projects such as planting trees. Alternatively, companies that exceed their limits can buy credits from cleaner companies that have emitted less than their pollution limits.

Last year, Maryland's General Assembly passed the Healthy Air Act, a law that compels the state to join New York, Massachusetts and seven other Northeastern states in a pollution-credit trading system. It's designed to cut carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by 10 percent.

In Europe, power companies profited handsomely from pollution credit trading after the European Union adopted carbon dioxide limits in 1997's Kyoto Protocol, said Josh Dorner, spokesman for the Sierra Club.

"It was a huge profit scheme," Dorner said. "The power companies passed the cost on to their customers and made a huge windfall. ... They are looking at who they can pay for pollution credits instead of actually reducing emissions. That's the game."

Whether restoring wetlands at Blackwater would help stop global warming might be beside the point, said John Sherwell, manager of the power plant program at the state Department of Natural Resources, which is providing $200,000 for Needelman's research.

Persuading power companies to plant marsh grasses would help birds and fish in the region's most important wildlife refuge and create a cushion to help protect nearby Cambridge from hurricanes, he said.

"There are a lot of collateral benefits that could come from restoring wetlands in the Blackwater," Sherwell said.

Needelman's measurements are important, he said, because Maryland needs to convince the other states in the regional greenhouse gas coalition that planting wetlands is worth granting pollution credits.

Squishing back to the water's edge, Needelman climbs into an airboat driven by a federal wildlife officer. A large fan at the back roars to life, and the boat pounds off across choppy waters.

Its driver, Bill Giese, a wildlife manager at the refuge, stops and points to an eagle's nest high in a loblolly pine. Around it is a skeletal forest of white tree trunks rising from the water. Thirty-five years ago, this was a forest, he said, but the trees and the wetlands have been swallowed by a growing lake.

As the marsh grass has disappeared, Giese said, so have the ducks, which need the grasses for food and shelter. Fish and crabs also rely on the wetlands.

Giese likes the idea of having the power company pay to restore damage caused in part by global warming, which causes water levels to rise.

"Nobody likes to see higher electricity prices, but we also want to have crabs and fish," he said, as a buzzard wheeled overhead. "And you've got to have marsh areas that provide these natural resources."

 

 

Item 87:Seoul to Improve Tariff Offer in Free Trade Talks with EU

(Yonhap, 10 October, 2007) In an effort to give new impetus to free trade negotiations with the European Union (EU), South Korea plans to improve its tariff concessions, the commerce ministry said Wednesday.

South Korea and the 27-nation EU have held three rounds of free trade talks since May aimed at reaching a deal to lower tariffs and open their markets wider.

The first three rounds made slow progress, however, because of differences in such sensitive areas as automobiles and pharmaceuticals, casting a dark cloud on their goal of forging a deal this year.

The two sides are scheduled to hold their fourth round of negotiations in Seoul next week.

"In order to keep the momentum of talks flowing we are trying to see if further concessions can be made," said Hong Suk-woo, deputy minister for trade and investment. South Korea's Trade Minister Kim Jong-hoon also held a one-hour meeting with the EU's trade commissioner, Peter Mandelson, in Brussels on Wednesday to exchange views on the trade talks.

During the meeting, Kim and Mandelson shared the view that the trade talks should be completed as soon as possible, according to officials. However, the EU side continued to demand that Seoul's offer to Brussels match tariff concessions Seoul granted to the United States, the officials said.

The EU has offered to eliminate or phase out all of its import tariffs on South Korean goods within seven years, and remove tariffs on 80 percent of the goods within three years of the free trade pact going into effect.

South Korea offered to eliminate tariffs on most industrial goods within three years, and eliminate duties on roughly 68 percent of all EU goods as measured in value at the same time.

This is an improvement on the liberalization rate of 63 percent proposed in the initial offer. But the EU expressed disappointment with South Korea's offer, saying it falls short of a similar accord signed with the United States in June.

One of the thorniest issues in the negotiations is car trade.

Brussels wants South Korea to reduce regulations for European carmakers by applying international standards instead of different domestic rules. South Korea held out for an improvement in Europe's offer to eliminate a 10 percent tariff on imported autos in seven years.

South Korea sold 74,000 autos worth $9.1 billion in Europe last year while buying only 15,000 vehicles worth $1.6 billion. The country's tariff rate on cars is 8 percent, compared to 10 percent for the EU.

The EU is South Korea's second-largest trading partner after China, with bilateral trade reaching US$79 billion in 2006. Some unofficial studies suggest a free trade agreement would boost that figure by as much as 40 percent in the long run.

The EU is also the largest foreign investor in South Korea, with $40.4 billion invested as of the end of 2006. Currently, South Korea has free trade agreements with Chile, Singapore, the European Free Trade Association and a partial pact with the Association of Southeast Asian Nations. Seoul is also seeking similar trade deals with Canada, India and Mexico.

 

 

Item 88:Seoul: Gov't and Journalists Locked in Debate Over Press Room Closures: Reporters refuse to vacate five ministries and take action in defiance of gov't plan.

(Hankyoreh, 11 October, 2007) The Government Information Agency announced that the existing press rooms of the ministries will close on October 11 and reporters covering the Office of the Prime Minister and the ministries of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Construction and Transportation, Information and Communication, and Maritime Affairs and Fisheries said on October 10 they will continue to work in the press rooms in defiance of the GIA's plan.

Reporters covering five government agencies held a meeting on October 10 and agreed to continue to work in the press rooms without moving to a joint briefing center prepared by the government. In August, two other consolidated briefing rooms began operating in Seoul and Gwacheon. However, the new press briefing formula dis not work well due to strong resistence from the journalists who refused to attend the briefings.

The controversy over press room closures began earlier this year, when the government announced a new media policy. One of the main tenets of the policy involves consolidating the press rooms of about 20 government ministries into three central locations. The other, a policy barring reporters from meeting with government officials without prior approval, was shot down in the midst of the controversy. The government has continued to insist that the new policy will increase the efficiency of the media. Reporters claim that limits their ability to gather information, thereby restricting the freedom of the press.

In addition to deciding not to pack up their belongings as requested by the GIA, the reporters will take other actions against the press room closures. Reporters accredited by the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries issued a statement opposing the transfer of the press room. They have decided to write related news stories, and will not attend briefings conducted at the new joint briefing center. Reporters covering the Foreign Ministry have also decided not to take part in briefings and reporters covering the Ministry of Construction and Transportation have formed a committee against the government's suppression of the press. Those accredited to the Office of the Prime Minister will continue to report to the press room. If they are obstructed from entering the press room, they will gather to discuss countermeasures.

The GIA, however, reiterated its decision to close the press rooms on October 11 according to schedule, raising speculation on clashes between GIA officials and members of the press.

 

 

Item 89:Korea: Unique Spoon-Billed Bird Facing Extinction

(BirdLife, 12 October, 2007) Populations of one of the world's strangest birds have crashed over the last decade, and surveys this summer of its breeding grounds in the remote Russian province of Chukotka suggest that the situation is now critical. The charismatic, and rather aptly named, Spoon-billed Sandpiper Eurynorhynchus pygmeus, is now worryingly close to becoming extinct. With only 200-300 pairs left, conservationists are calling for urgent help to tackle the decline.

“We've seen a 70% drop in the number of breeding pairs at some sites over the last couple of years. If this decline continues, these amazing birds won't be around for much longer,” says Evgeny Syroechkovskiy, Vice President of the Russian Bird Conservation Union (BirdLife in Russia).

The reasons for these losses are complex, involving changes to habitat during migration and loss of breeding areas. What is clear is that nest predation by foxes and disturbance by people and dogs could prove to be the final nail in the coffin for the few birds left.

“Action to safeguard the remaining breeding pairs needs to be taken now for there to be any chance of saving them. We are planning to put wardens in place at these critical sites. Once they are protected and the birds are successfully fledging young, we can get on with the task of trying to save areas that they use whilst on migration,” Evgeny adds.

Spoon-billed Sandpipers' spoon-shaped bill is still something of a mystery, the exact use for which is still unknown. They breed during June–July in a small strip of coastal Arctic tundra in Chukotka, NE Russia. They then migrate thousands of kilometres to winter along coasts in South and South-East Asia. Spoon-billed Sandpipers are one of several species to depend on the rich tidal coasts of the Yellow Sea in east Asia, where they stop to refuel on their way to and from their breeding grounds.

“Coastal reclamation in South Korea is currently destroying over 40,000 ha of habitat; coastal habitats are being converted into saltpans and shrimp farms in Bangladesh and Chinese coasts have been rapidly developed in recent years,” says Christoph Zöckler, international coordinator of the Spoon-billed Sandpiper Action Plan, “They are just running out of places to stop and feed on migration.”

What seems certain is that if these changes continue there will soon be no place left for Spoon-billed Sandpipers.

“The recent declines have shocked those concerned about the species, but with investment and the dedication of those involved we can still save the Spoon-billed Sandpiper.” says Richard Grimmett, BirdLife's Global Conservation Manager.

BirdLife International has launched the Preventing Extinctions initiative to try and turn the tide for Spoon-billed Sandpiper and species like it, and is looking for companies, institutions and individuals to step up and provide funding by becoming BirdLife Species Champions.

With the right conservation action plan in place it is possible to save a species. It has been done before, but it takes hard work and hard cash but aren't we all the better for knowing that a bird with a spoon for a bill exists out there, somewhere?

The Spoon-billed Sandpiper Recovery Team comprises the Russian Bird Conservation Union, Russian Academy of Sciences, Japan Wetlands Action Network (JAWAN), Birds Korea, Hong Kong Birdwatching Society, BirdLife Vietnam, Bird Conservation Society of Thailand, Biodiversity and Nature Conservation in Myanmar (BANCA), Birdclub Bangladesh, Bombay Natural History Society and ArcCona Consulting. Spoon-billed Sandpiper - BirdLife Species Factsheet 2007 IUCN Red List Category (as evaluated by BirdLife International - the official Red List Authority for birds for IUCN): Endangered

Justification This sandpiper has been uplisted to Endangered because recent surveys indicate that its population is now very small and declining as a result of habitat loss in its breeding, passage and wintering grounds, compounded by disturbance and hunting.

Identification 14-16 cm. Small stint with spatulate bill. Breeding adult has red-brown head, neck and breast with dark brown streaks. Blackish upperparts with buff and pale rufous fringing. Non-breeding adult lacks reddish coloration, but has pale brownish-grey upperparts with whitish fringing to wing-coverts. White underparts. Similar spp. Red-necked Stint C. ruficollis and Little Stint C. minuta lack spatualte bill. Non-breeders of both species have less white on forehead, appear smaller-headed and have narrower supercilia. Breeding C. ruficollis has less uniformly fringed rufous-brick-red fringes to scapulars. Voice Quiet, rolling preep and shrill wheet, usually in flight.

Population estimate 1,000-2,499

Population trend decreasing

Range estimate (breeding/resident) 345,000 km2

Range & population Eurynorhynchus pygmeus has a naturally fragmented breeding range on the Chukotsk peninsula and southwards along the isthmus of the Kamchatka peninsula, in north-eastern Russia. It migrates down the western Pacific coast through Russia, Japan, North Korea, South Korea, mainland China, Hong Kong (China) and Taiwan (China), to its main wintering grounds in South and South-East Asia, where it has been recorded from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Vietnam, the Philippines, Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. It occurs regularly at only a few sites within this wintering range. Its population has recently been estimated as <2,500 individuals1

Ecology It breeds on sea coasts and adjacent hinterland where there are sandy ridges, sparsely vegetated with mosses, dwarf willows, and grasses, and also lakes and marshes in nearby depressions. Winters on tidal mudflats and saltpans.

Threats It is vulnerable to habitat loss on its breeding grounds because of its specific habitat requirements, high level of site fidelity, small population and patchy distribution. Throughout its migratory and wintering ranges, tidal flats are being reclaimed for industry, infrastructure and aquaculture and are becoming increasingly polluted. Climate change and associated habitat shifts are expected to impact negatively on this species and others dependent on tundra habitat for breeding. Modelling indicates that 57% of the habitat for this species could be lost by 20702. The important staging area at Saemangeum, South Korea, including the Mangyeung and Tongjin estuaries, has already been partially reclaimed and the remaining wetlands are under serious threat of reclamation in the near future. In the breeding grounds, nests are sometimes destroyed by reindeer herds and herders' dogs. Other threats including human disturbance on tidal flats and hunting of shorebirds.

Conservation measures underway CMS Appendix II. Protected areas in its breeding, staging and wintering areas include Moroshechnaya and several local wildlife refuges on the Chukotsk peninsula (Russia), Yancheng and Chongming Dongtan (China), Mai Po (Hong Kong), Lanyang estuary (Taiwan), Point Calimere and Chilka lake (India), and Xuan Thuy Nature Reserve (Vietnam).

Conservation measures proposed Survey existing and potential wintering sites in Myanmar, Bangladesh and India. Ensure protection of newly discovered sites and existing sites, especially in South Korea. Campaign to stop shorebird hunting in Asian countries. Legally protect it in all range states.

 

 

Item 90:Seoul Seeks Talks with Pyongyang on Proposed Joint Fishing Zone

(Yonhap, 15 October, 2007) South Korea seeks talks with North Korea in December on establishing a joint fishing zone near their disputed western sea border to follow up on their agreement at the second-ever inter-Korean summit earlier this month, Seoul officials said Monday.

The plan comes amid a renewed dispute over the Northern Limit Line (NLL), which was drawn unilaterally at the end of the three-year Korean War in 1953 by the U.S.-led U.N. command to prevent South Korean and U.N. naval forces from violating the line.

President Roh Moo-hyun last week claimed it is "misleading" to call the western NLL a border, sparking heated debates in the country.

Critics note the line has served as the de facto border and that Pyongyang has acknowledged it is a maritime border, though the North recently started to demand it be redrawn.

Conservatives have slammed Roh for his remarks, noting dozens of South Korean soldiers were killed in two bloody naval skirmishes in 1999 and 2002 while trying to block North Korean warships from breaching the NLL.

The decision for the follow-up talks was made at the first meeting of a government task force on implementing the agreements at the 2007 inter-Korean summit, a Unification Ministry official said Monday.

"The government plans to propose establishing a joint committee for establishment of the so-called 'special economic cooperation zone in the West Sea' at the upcoming talks between the prime ministers of the two Koreas" that could be held as early as next month, the official said, asking not to be identified.

After the prime ministerial meeting early next month, South Korea is seeking talks between the defense ministers of the two countries followed by a meeting of an already-established joint committee on economic cooperation before the end of next month.

"The government hopes to start getting some tangible results from as early as December," an official said.

 

 

Item 91:South Korea, EU on Fourth Round of Trade Talks

(Hankyoreh, 16 October, 2007) South Korea and the European Union opened their 4th round of negotiations on a mutual free trade agreement in Seoul on October 15. During the five-day talks, the two sides will carry out negotiations on tariff concessions on goods, the service sector, electronic commerce and country of origin. In relation to market opening, in particular, the South Korean delegation plans to seek broad understanding and plans to discuss making improvements to the agreement based on comparisons with the South Korea-U.S. trade deal, which was signed on June 30.

On the first day of talks, the EU complained that Korean goods slated for tariff removal three years after the agreement goes into effect account for 80 percent of its total trade volume but that the figure is 68 percent for Korea, much lower than the 94 percent agreed upon by Seoul and Washington. In response, South Korean negotiators explained that the trade volume, structure and sensitivity of the South Korea-EU agreement differ from those of the Korea-U.S. agreement. In connection with agricultural products in particular, South Korea stated that the agricultural subsidies negotiated for the Korea-U.S. FTA cannot be used as criteria for negotiations between Korean and the EU due to differences in their agricultural structures.

In the service sector, the EU demanded the opening of legal market, while Korea suggested mutual recognition of professional qualifications. Regarding the country of origin, the two parties discussed designating products manufactured in the Gaeseong Industrial Complex as having been made in South Korea. Goods made in the inter-Korean complex are manufactured with North Korean labor and South Korean financing, making them difficult to classify as the EU does not have diplomatic ties with North Korea.

Meanwhile, trade negotiators working on the South Korea-U.S. trade pact met in Seoul yesterday. Wendy Cutler, the chief U.S. trade negotiator, and her South Korean counterpart, Kim Jong-hoon discussed the possibility of the KOR-US FTA bill's passage in the National Assembly, where it was submitted for approval on September 7. Cutler also met with Kim Won-woong, head of the National Assembly's unification, foreign affairs and trade committee, and they exchanged viewpoints on Assembly ratification of the FTA bill.