Biodiversity is disappearing largely due to the destruction of forests. Pilihan

The latest of the Ecosystem Assessment reports is bad news.


Biodiversity is disappearing faster than ever, according to a report
backed by the United Nations. Without action to curb the rate of
ecosystem damage, its authors argue, the health and livelihoods of
people around the world could be under threat.


Humans have done more damage to the world's stock of biological
diversity in the past 50 years than at any other time in history, say
the researchers behind the study, titled Ecosystems and Human
Well-being: The Biodiversity Synthesis Report. Over the past century,
species extinctions have reached about 1,000 times their natural rate,
because of human actions.


Unless this trend is halted, people will lose vital benefits from the
natural world, dubbed 'ecosystem services', said Kaveh Zahedi at the
report's launch in London on 19 May. "Everyone depends on nature for a
secure livelihood," said Zahedi, who is head of the UN Environment
Programme's World Conservation Monitoring Centre in Cambridge, UK.


Some 3.5 billion people around the world depend on the oceans for
food, added Jim Knight, the recently appointed British government
minister with responsibility for biodiversity issues. But since the
advent of commercial fishing, global fish stocks have plunged by up to
90%. Around 70% of the world's population still rely on nature for
traditional medicines, he added.


Millennium plan


The report is the latest in a series arising from the Millennium
Ecosystem Assessment, a four-year project to catalogue data on the
world's natural resources that involves more than 1,300 scientists. It
reveals that 12% of bird species, almost a quarter of mammals and
around a third of the world's amphibians are facing extinction.


"We know biodiversity has value, but we've been bad at assessing what
that value is."


Georgina Mace
Institute of Zoology, London


This is largely due to destruction of natural ecosystems such as
grasslands and forests, says Georgina Mace, one of the report's
authors and director of science at the Institute of Zoology in London.
She adds that 10-20% of the remaining resources are due to be
converted to other land uses, such as agriculture, by 2050.


But there have been some successes, Mace says. In Europe, for example,
financial incentives to encourage farmers to set land aside as a
refuge for natural plants, birds and insects, have allowed
biodiversity in farmland to bounce back.


This shows that economics is the key to achieving similar feats across
the world, she argues. "We know biodiversity has value, but [in the
past] we've been bad at assessing what that value is."


The report's authors have put a price tag on the environment to
support their argument. They calculate, for example, that an intact
hectare of mangrove forest is worth more than US$1,000 to a country
such as Thailand, and only $200 when farmed intensively.


Disputed goal


However, the report has raised fears that efforts to protect
biodiversity may be at odds with the UN Millennium Development Goals,
first among which is to stamp out world poverty and hunger. Some
economic analysts argue that this cannot be achieved without an
increase in intensive farming.


"There are trade-offs to be worked through," admits Mace. "The issue
is recognizing that there are no win-wins."


Zahedi points out that another of the Millennium Development Goals
calls for environmental sustainability, arguing that, in cases such as
fisheries, efforts to preserve biodiversity are not in conflict with
the need to ensure a continuing food supply.

Climate Change and Biodiversity in Europe Pilihan

http://dlc.dlib.indiana.edu/archive/00002476/01/reid.pdf


An interesting, transdisciplinary, globally-oriented, 18 pages article on
the relation between climate change and biodiversity in Europe, starting
with an overview of the climate change situation. It follows with an account
of how human intervention in nature affects biodiversity and lists the
challenges we'll be facing soon.


Here is an excerpt:


"Shifts in ecosystem boundaries could mean that protected areas, such as the
Swiss National Park, no longer contain the species and habitats they were es-
tablished to protect. The Pasterze Glacier has also retreated several hundred
metres since the 1970s, thus affecting the Hohe Tauern National Park in Aus-
tria (Dudley 2003). Under existing static conservation paradigms, little em-
phasis is placed on changing patterns of biodiversity. And few protected area
systems have been formulated with reference to climate change, even in coun-
tries where effects will probably be large (Hannah et al. 2002). The World
Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) argues that protected areas offer limited de-
fence against problems posed by rapid environmental change, and that pro-
tected areas themselves will need to adapt to meet the challenges posed by
global warming (Dudley 2003)."


Note: WWF is the World Wildlife Foundation, not a "World Wide Fund for Nature"

PM mahu tindakan tegas -- Kecewa kerakusan pembangunan rosakkan Taman Pertanian Pilihan

KUALA LUMPUR 22 Feb. - Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi yang cukup kecewa dengan kerakusan pembangunan tanah di sempadan Taman Pertanian Malaysia Bukit Cahaya Seri Alam mengarahkan kerajaan Selangor mengambil tindakan tegas berhubung kemelut itu.

Perdana Menteri mahu tindakan itu diambil segera sebelum berlaku lagi masalah besar terutama kerosakan di kawasan itu sehingga tidak terkawal.

``Saya telah sebut mengenai perkara ini dalam mesyuarat tadi dan dengan memberi penjelasan bahawa kejadian seperti ini diharap tidak lagi berlaku di Selangor atau negeri-negeri lain,'' katanya pada sidang akhbar selepas mempengerusikan mesyuarat Majlis Tertinggi (MT) UMNO di Pusat Dagangan Dunia Putra (PWTC) petang ini.

Sementara itu, Utusan Malaysia diberitahu, Abdullah di dalam mesyuarat itu `berleter' dengan sikap pihak-pihak yang mengakibatkan berlaku situasi seperti itu.

Beliau yang dikatakan cukup kecewa turut menyebut ``apa sudah jadi sampai gondol... kalau macam ini lama-lama kawasan tadahan air pun tak ada lagi.''

Beliau dalam pada masa itu turut mencari-cari Menteri Besar Selangor, Datuk Seri Dr. Mohamad Khir Toyo bagi mendapatkan penjelasannya mengenai kejadian pembahagian tanah yang tidak terkawal di sempadan kawasan taman pertanian itu.

Bagaimanapun Mohamad Khir tiada. Beliau kini berada di Switzerland dan Amerika Syarikat untuk satu misi perdagangan.

Utusan Malaysia dalam laporan siasatannya Khamis lalu mendedahkan mengenai kegiatan pembangunan tidak terancang di sekeliling sempadan Taman Pertanian itu sehingga mengancam sistem ekologi dan biodiversiti di dalamnya.

Menurut laporan itu, Taman Pertanian seluas 800 hektar (2,000 ekar) kendalian Kementerian Pertanian dan Industri Asas Tani itu, hampir menjadi pulau kerana rata-rata sempadannya sedang dibangunkan sebagai kawasan penempatan manusia.

Apa yang menyedihkan, menurut laporan eksklusif itu, taman itu yang telah diluluskan oleh Kabinet untuk dijadikan Taman Botani Negara, taman agro-perhutanan terbesar di dunia menjelang 2007, kini menghadapi kesan alam sekitar yang dahsyat.

Siasatan itu juga mendapati sebuah kawasan baru seluas 1,200 hektar di Seksyen U10 bersempadan utara taman pertanian itu telah dipecah-pecahkan kepada 35 pemaju. Sementara di sebelah selatan pula kawasan seluas kira-kira 200 hektar diberi kepada sebuah syarikat pemaju (Bukit Bandaraya).

Akibat pembangunan inilah, siasatan itu mendapati berlakunya kemusnahan ekosistem yang teruk di dalam taman itu, selain pokok-pokok ditebang dan bukit-bukit digondolkan sewenang-wenangnya di kawasan pembangunan tersebut.

Berikutan laporan itu timbul pelbagai persoalan bagaimana kerajaan negeri boleh membahagi-bahagikan tanah itu kepada begitu banyak syarikat.

Semalam kerajaan negeri mengakui kelemahannya dalam menguat kuasa peraturan pembanguan di kawasan berkenaan yang disifatkan sebagai longgar.

Persoalan timbul lagi mengapa kerajaan negeri tidak sedar mengenainya sedangkan kawasan-kawasan projek itu terletak kurang 10 kilometer daripada Pejabat Menteri Besar.

Turut mendapat liputan media apabila arahan Mohamad Khir yang mahukan kerja-kerja di kawasan berkenaan dihentikan berikutan laporan Utusan Malaysia itu, turut tidak diendahkan pemaju terbabit.

Lebih mengusutkan keadaan apabila Kementerian Sumber Asli dan Alam Sekitar pula mendedahkan bahawa pemaju-pemaju di situ tidak mempunyai kelulusan Penilaian Kesan Alam Sekitar (EIA) untuk menjalankan projek berkenaan.

Hari ini kesemua pemaju berkenaan akur untuk menghentikan projek masing-masing sehingga laporan daripada Institut Kerja Raya Malaysia (Ikram) dan Jabatan Mineral dan Geo Sains diperoleh bagi memastikan sama ada kawasan pembinaan di situ selamat atau tidak.

Sarawak to increase pitcher plant exports

KUCHING: Sarawak, home to more than one-quarter of the 90 nepenthes or pitcher plants found in the world, is increasing exports of the plant.

Chief Minister Tan Sri Abdul Taib Mahmud said the state exported 22,000 units of tissue-cultured nepenthes to 35 countries last year, up from 15,000 in 2005 and 11,000 in 2004.

"Twenty-one of the 25 species of the pitcher plants which are native to Sarawak are offered for sale," he said in a speech to open a four-day nepenthes summit at the Sarawak Tourism Complex on Saturday.

Seven of the 90 recognised nepenthes species are only found in Sarawak.

Taib's text of speech was read by his deputy Tan Sri Dr George Chan Hong Nam, also state Minister for Modernisation of Agriculture.

Twenty-one papers are being discussed at the event, which features an exhibition and a workshop on nepenthes cultivation.

Taib said the state started the propagation of nepenthes when a private tissue culture laboratory was set up 11 years ago.

"In Borneo, the nepenthes has been the focus of biological research and discovery for more than 150 years.

"The plant has also been an important part of the state's traditional culture since before recorded history, being used for folk medicine and cooking."

Taib said as Sarawak was one of the 12 "mega biodiversity hotspots" in the world, the government wanted the state to be recognised as a centre of excellence for research, especially on biodiversity conservation.

He said the state had over the years enacted several laws to protect and conserve its rich biological resources.