Five elephants crushed under speeding train in Odisha

BERHAMPUR/BHUBANESWAR: A herd of five elephants and a foetus were mowed down after being hit by a speeding train near Subalaya in Ganjam district, about 50 km from Berhampur, on Saturday night. A 40-year-old man, engaged by a private contractor as a bed-roll assistant in the train, also died in the accident.

The elephants — three females, a tusker and a calf besides a foetus — were killed after being hit by the Chennai-bound Coromondal superfast express at around 1 am, official sources said. A female elephant was in the advanced stages of pregnancy and the impact of the hit forced the foetus to come out. Ranjit Jena, a bed-roll assistant working with a Chennai-based private contractor, was also found dead, though it was still unclear as to how he died during the mishap, railway officers said.

Divisional forest officer, Berhampur, S S Mishra said the elephants were crossing the tracks when the train hit them one after the other, killing them on the spot. Prior to the mishap, forest staff had driven out the herd from Dumanagiri jungle, he added. The DFO said around 20 elephants from Chandaka elephant sanctuary near Bhubaneswar had migrated to the area a few months ago. They were roaming in the Chilika wildlife division area and Khallikote range of Berhampur forest division after splitting into two to three groups. A herd comprising 12 elephants had crossed the railway track before the accident, he said.

The accident, which marked the most number of pachyderm deaths in a railway mishap in Odisha, took place between Humma and Rambha railway stations (between Khurda Road and Berhampur) under the Khurda Road railway division of East Coast Railway (ECoR), possibly due to poor visibility caused by foggy conditions, official sources said.

Train services between Berhampur and Bhubaneswar were disrupted on the fateful track for about seven hours after the accident as some portions of the line were damaged. "Railway services were restored at about 7.45 am after the track was repaired and the carcasses removed," said a railway officer. The Howrah-Chennai Coromondal Express also left the place and proceeded towards its destination after a halt at Berhampur station, where the partially damaged engine was replaced.

Forest and environment minister Bijayshree Routray expressed shock over the mishap and said: "I have information that 10 days ago the range officer, Khallikote, had informed railway authorities that an elephant herd is likely to cross over the track anytime in the night. A month back the state government had also provided fluorescent signages reading 'elephant crossing zone', which railway officers had put up between the 10-km stretch connecting Rambha and Ganjam stations. Despite all this, such a tragedy took place." He said he has convened a meeting with railway officers on Monday and if required would urge chief minister Naveen Patnaik to take up the matter with the Centre.

On May 18, a female elephant had died near the same spot after being hit by a goods train. Other animals, including a wild boar, have also been killed in train accidents in the area in recent times, sources said.

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More birds sighted this year at Odisha park

BHUBANESWAR: As many as 81,000 migratory and resident birds were sighted in Odisha's Bhitarkanika National Park this season, an official said Monday.

This was up against last year's 52,242 birds.

At least 111 bird species were seen in the park, divisional forest officer Manoj Kumar Mohapatra told IANS.

The annual bird census in the park in Kendrapada, about 170 km from the state capital Bhubaneswar, was conducted by 11 teams Dec 26.

The major highlight of the exercise was that as many as 36,000 black-tailed godwits were spotted. The enumerators also saw a rare group of birds they have not identified.

The other prominent species that have made the park their winter home include Brahmini duck and bar-headed geese, Mohapatra said.

The Bhitarkanika park, also a wildlife sanctuary, is home to over 200 species of birds, including 98 varieties of migratory birds.

The sanctuary is widely known as the world's largest rookery of Olive Ridley sea turtles.

Every year, more than a million migratory birds from places as far as Siberia and Iraq flock to various sites in Odisha in October, spending the winter here before returning in March.

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Leopard found dead in Songadh

SURAT: A female leopard was found dead in forest area near Rampur Kothar village of Sadadvela range in Tapi district on Friday. Its eyes and limbs were missing. It is believed that the leopard may have been killed by poachers for body parts. However, the cause of death is yet to be ascertained.

A senior official of the forest department in Vyara received a call from an unidentified caller that a leopard carcass was discovered in the forest area. A team of forest officials rushed to the spot and carried out spot analysis.

Sources said the limbs had been chopped off with a sharp-edged weapon and its eyes had been gorged out. It is believed that the limbs had been removed for extracting claws. "Normally poachers don't leave the skin behind and try to keep it intact. The teeth of the leopard are intact," in-charge assistant conservator of forest (ACF), Songadh, C M Solanki said.

He said the postmortem report is awaited. No major external injury was visible on its body. He said that while there is a possibility of the animal having died of illness, it is also likely that it was poisoned. The wild cat was one-and-a-half years old.

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Biodiversity panel to balance conservation with development

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: The challenge before the proposed National Innovation Council (NIC) on biodiversity is to ensure a balance between conservation and economic development, National Biodiversity Authority (NBA) chairman Balakrishna Pisupati said here Sunday.

Pisupati was speaking to the media on the concluding day of the first National Biodiversity Congress (NBC) that started Dec 21.

"Sam Pitroda, chairman, Prime Minister's Innovation Council, said that an NIC on biodiversity would be set up. This would make India the first country to have an NIC, which will bring a sea-change in how we deal with biodiversity and ecosystem," said Pisupati.

R. Chidambaram, principal science advisor to the prime minister, said that a National Biodiversity Grid would be set up to facilitate and support the work of the NBA in collating, analysing and synthesis of biodiversity data and information for conservation and sustainable management of biodiversity.

"The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing will provide software to link all biodiversity data across the country to create a National Biodiversity Information facility," added Pisupati.

"The second and third NBC would be in West Bengal next year and in Chhattisgarh in 2014," added Pisupati.

A record 40,000 people visited the biodiversity expo.

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Need corridor so that tigers don't fight to death

JAIPUR: Even as the Wildlife Conservation Society recently reported a 50 percent increase in the population of tigers in the wild in India with their population now estimated at 3,200 after years of dangerously dwindling numbers, there is fresh cause for worry for tigers in sanctuaries.

As tiger-numbers increase in reserve areas, territorial fights are becoming frequent. In Rajasthan's Ranthambore National Park, the large number of tigers dying because of such fights has led to the state government planning for a corridor connecting this sanctuary with the adjoining Keladevi Sanctuary, an official said Friday.

The new corridor will come up at an estimated cost of Rs.200 crore.

About 45 villagers will need to be relocated to create the corridor, an official said.

The decision to create such a corridor was taken following the mysterious death of a yet-to-identified tiger in Ranthambore recently. Senior forest department officials said preliminary investigation hints at the possibility of the majestic cat being killed in a territorial fight.

"The state government has sought Rs.200 crore from the central government for developing the corridor. We are hopeful of receiving the money in the near future," a senior forest department officer told IANS.

Four tigers were killed in territorial fights over the past four years in Ranthambore National Park, leaving environmentalists worried that as the tiger population increases, there is also need to create a habitat in which they can thrive.

The tigers are overlapping each other's territory. To get their share of space, the big cats are fighting each other to death in the reserve in Sawai Madhopur district, some 150 km from Jaipur, wildlife experts said.

A tigress died in the reserve area Dec 23, and the death was attributed to a territorial fight with another cat. The mutilated, maggot-ridden carcass of the tigress was recovered from the reserve's Gilai Saga-Khadar area early Sunday morning, officials said.

A senior forest department officer told IANS that a probe has been launched into the animal's death.

"Prima facie, injuries suggest the death occurred in a territorial fight with another tiger. However, we are awaiting the post-mortem report to ascertain the cause, and rule out poaching," a wildlife officer said.

The number of such fights had been increasing in the recent past, the officer said.

A tiger named T-36 died of serious head injuries during a territorial fight with T-42 Aug 22, 2010. The body of tigress T-4 was found April 4, 2009. Officials had concluded that she was attacked by another tiger in a territorial fight.

Similarly, tigress T-15 was killed Sep 1, 2008.

According to a census conducted by the state forest department in 2009, there were 40 tigers in and around Ranthambore National Park and Sawai Madhopur wildlife sanctuary. The census conducted in the core division from April 30 to May 10, 2009 revealed that there were 14 males, 16 females and 10 cubs.

However, a recent survey found that the number of tigers has increased to 52, including 26 cubs.

"The core area of the reserve is spread over 1,113.36 sq km. Besides, the buffer zone earmarked by the state government around the reserve is 297.9 sq km. The area is inadequate for housing 52 tigers," a wildlife expert said.

He added that a tigress may require a 20-sq km territory, while the individual territories of males are much larger, covering 40-80 sq km or more.

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Wildlife management hits a low in Assam in 2012

GUWAHATI: Assam, famed for its national parks and wildlife sanctuaries, faced one of its worst years in wildlife management as it lost an estimated 800 animals, including one-horned rhinos, during 2012.

Among the positives in the wildlife sector was a healthy population of Royal Bengal Tiger in Kaziranga National Park with 114 animals captured by the camera trapping method.

Another major achievement was the successful shifting of 18 rhinos to Manas National Park, including one which strayed out of the Park, along with others from Kaziranga and Pobitora Wildlife Sanctuary in April.

Kaziranga, home to the famous rhinos, bore the brunt of both nature and poachers with more than 670 animals left dead due to flood fury and poachers.

Seventy rhinos died in the Park -- 25 killed by poachers, 22 dying due to natural causes and 23 drowned in floods.

The Park, which boasts of a 2,290 strong rhino population as per the census conducted this year, was in the headlines as poachers continued to kill the pachyderms with impunity.

The scourge of annual floods, poaching threat by both illegal Bangladeshi migrants and militants and lack of adequate staff and equipment with forest department threatened the existence of the rhinos and raised the hackles of environmental conservationists and political parties.

Stung by criticism on rhino killings, chief minister Tarun Gogoi announced setting up of a State Wildlife Crime Bureau to deal with poaching, smuggling of animal products and related issues and also recommended a CBI inquiry into the killings.

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Hawaii mountains may flatten some day

IANS Dec 27, 2012, 04.27PM IST

LONDON: The mountain's on Hawaii's largest island are dissolving from the inside and will one day be reduced to nothing, a study claims.

Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains will one day be reduced to nothing by groundwater drawing minerals away from within, according to the study from Utah's Brigham Young University.

Geologist Steve Nelson said: "We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and what the influence of climate is on that rate. More material is dissolving from those islands than what is being carried off through erosion."

Ground and surface water estimates from the US Geological Survey helped them calculate the total mass disappearing from the island each year, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

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Poachers make 2012 a deadly year for Africa's rhinos, elephants

JOHANNESBURG: Africa's biggest animals were poached in near record numbers in 2012, with surging demand for horn and ivory from Asia driving the slaughter of rhinos and elephants.

By mid-December, poachers had killed 633 rhinos in South Africa, according to environment ministry figures.

That marks a new annual peak in the country that is home to most of the continent's rhinos, and a sharp rise from the record 448 poached last year and the mere handful of deaths recorded a decade ago.

Elsewhere in Africa, the slaughter of elephants continued unabated, with mass killings reported in Cameroon and Democratic Republic of Congo.

According to conservation group TRAFFIC, which monitors global trade in animals and plants, the amount of ivory seized will likely drop from 2011, when a record number of big hauls were made globally. But the trend remains grim.

"It looks like 2012 is another bumper year for trade in illegal ivory though it is unlikely to top 2011," said Tom Milliken, who manages TRAFFIC's Elephant Trade Information System.

In 2011, an estimated 40 tonnes of illegal ivory was seized worldwide, representing thousands of dead elephants. So far this year about 28 tonnes has reportedly been seized but the number is expected to climb as more data comes in.

"The last four years since 2009 are four of our five highest volume years in illegal ivory trade," said Milliken.

Demand for ivory as ornamental items is rising fast in Asia, in tandem with growing Chinese influence and investment in Africa, which has opened the door wider for illicit trade in elephants and other animals.

Rhino horn has been used for centuries in Chinese medicine, where it was ground into powder to treat a range of maladies including rheumatism, gout and even possession by devils.

War and organized crime

Ivory smuggling has also been linked to conflict, and last week the United Nations Security Council called for an investigation into the alleged involvement in the trade of the Lord's Resistance Army (LRA) in Uganda.

Led by warlord Joseph Kony, who is being hunted by an African Union and US-backed military force, the LRA is accused of terrorising the country's north for over 20 years through the abduction of children to use as fighters and sex slaves.

"The illegal killings of large number of elephants for their ivory are increasingly involving organized crime and in some cases well armed rebel militias," the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) said in a statement this week.

"In Bouba N'Djida National Park, in northern Cameroon, up to 450 elephants were allegedly killed by groups from Chad and the Sudan early this year," said CITES, which is an international agreement that oversees trade in wildlife.

In the case of rhino horn, demand has also been growing in Vietnam, where a newly affluent class has been buying it to treat ailments ranging from hangovers to cancer.

The claims have no basis in science but demand has pushed the price of the horn up to $65,000 a kilogramme on the streets of Hanoi, making it more expensive than gold.

Most of the rhino killings take place in South Africa's Kruger National Park.

Gangs armed with firearms and night-vision goggles enter from neighbouring Mozambique, from where observers say the horn is often smuggled out through the same routes used to bring illegal drugs from Southeast Asia into Africa.

"Kruger is a national park the size of Israel and it is incredibly difficult to police," said Julian Rademeyer, author of 'Killing for Profit', a book published this year that examines the international rhino horn trade.

"You have very advanced international syndicates run like business operations that are very good at getting horn out of here," he told Reuters. Rademeyer expects the number of rhino killings to rise even higher next year, pushing the population closer to a tipping point that leads to its decline.

South Africa has deployed its military to patrol Kruger while its tax agency SARS and police have stepped up the fight.

But it also lost ground in 2012 due to a two-month strike by National Park workers and corruption within the ranks of the park service that undermined its anti-poaching efforts.

South Africa hosts virtually the entire population of white rhino - 18,800 head or 93 percent - and about 40 percent of Africa's much rarer black rhino.

Africa's elephant population varies. Estimates for the numbers in Botswana are as high as 150,000 but in parts of central and west Africa the animal is highly endangered.

"Central Africa has been bleeding ivory but for the last few years there has also been an upsurge in poaching in Kenya, Tanzania and Mozambique," said Milliken.

Trade in rhino horn is strictly prohibited under CITES while that for ivory is mostly illegal.

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Agartala to be a green city soon

IANS Dec 26, 2012, 07.09PM IST

(Agartala, a city of about…)

AGARTALA: Plans are afoot to turn Tripura's capital into a green city by fitting, within two years, thousands of vehicles running on petrol or diesel with CNG kits and providing city households with piped natural gas connections, a senior official said Wednesday.

"While issuing vehicle permits, priority is given to those running on CNG (compressed natural gas). This is not only cheaper but also very environment-friendly. Our target is to make the capital Agartala a green city," Tripura Industrial Development Corporation (TIDC) Chairman Pabitra Kar told IANS.

Agartala, a city of about 400,000 people, has little over 200,000 of various types of vehicles and the authorities would 'convert within the next two years over 100,000 vehicles into CNG ones'.

Kar said about 4,500 auto-rickshaws and over 1,000 of various other types of vehicles have already been fitted with CNG technology.

Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd (TNGCL), a joint venture of the GAIL (India) Limited and the Tripura and Assam governments, has been supplying piped natural gas (PNG) to around 10,000 households in Tripura.

"Within the next four months, PNG connections would be given to additional 10,000 households. Three CNG stations have been set up in Agartala and two more would come up in other parts of Tripura," Kar said.

PNG is also supplied to 225 commercial establishments and industrial units in Agartala and its outskirts besides hospitals, educational institutions and crematoria.

"Gradually all the households in the Agartala city would be given PNG connections," Kar added.

However, he admitted that "due to lack of experienced contractors and equipment, the progress in expanding the PNG connections has been slow".

"The Supreme Court and various high courts forced the authorities to introduce CNG-run vehicles to make state capitals pollution free. But Tripura has taken this initiative on its own," Kar said.

To develop necessary infrastructure for this green initiative, Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd is all set to execute a Rs.57-crore business plan within the next five years, a TNGCL official said.

"Agartala is the only city among 415 cities and small towns in the eight northeastern states where CNG and PNG are being used in a big way," the official added.

TNGCL supplies, sells and distributes natural gas as PNG and CNG through a underground pipeline network in Agartala and its outskirts.

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Hawaii mountains may flatten some day

LONDON: The mountain's on Hawaii's largest island are dissolving from the inside and will one day be reduced to nothing, a study claims.

Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains will one day be reduced to nothing by groundwater drawing minerals away from within, according to the study from Utah's Brigham Young University.

Geologist Steve Nelson said: "We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and what the influence of climate is on that rate. More material is dissolving from those islands than what is being carried off through erosion."

Ground and surface water estimates from the US Geological Survey helped them calculate the total mass disappearing from the island each year, the Daily Mail reported Tuesday.

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Social network seeks to reduce pollution in Beijing

BEIJING: Three young Americans have launched in China's capital a "green" initiative to combat pollution and excessive traffic with an online and iPhone service whereby people can share their vehicles at no cost with others, a daily reported.

The service, called " wodache" ("I take a car" in Mandarin), offers a technological platform connecting drivers with potential passengers, with the former posting the route they intend to follow and the latter indicating whether or not they want to ride along, thus reducing traffic in the capital, South China Morning Post reported.

The service only provides the information, and it's up to users to select which vehicle they want to ride in or whether they are willing to transport more passengers, and the driver retains the right to choose whether to accept a certain passenger or not.

The platform also offers the possibility to rate the "quality" of drivers and passengers and to downgrade those who are late.

The trio behind the initiative consists of three young Americans of Chinese ancestry - Eric Wang, James Hu and Jeff Hsu - and they said that their main aim is to help reduce traffic problems and pollution, although they hope that over time, as the service gains users, they will be able to glean a profit from it.

"Wodache" will also offer long-distance services, for instance around the Chinese New Year when many people return to their homes in other provinces.

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Agartala to be a green city soon

AGARTALA: Plans are afoot to turn Tripura's capital into a green city by fitting, within two years, thousands of vehicles running on petrol or diesel with CNG kits and providing city households with piped natural gas connections, a senior official said Wednesday.

"While issuing vehicle permits, priority is given to those running on CNG (compressed natural gas). This is not only cheaper but also very environment-friendly. Our target is to make the capital Agartala a green city," Tripura Industrial Development Corporation (TIDC) Chairman Pabitra Kar told IANS.

Agartala, a city of about 400,000 people, has little over 200,000 of various types of vehicles and the authorities would 'convert within the next two years over 100,000 vehicles into CNG ones'.

Kar said about 4,500 auto-rickshaws and over 1,000 of various other types of vehicles have already been fitted with CNG technology.

Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd (TNGCL), a joint venture of the GAIL (India) Limited and the Tripura and Assam governments, has been supplying piped natural gas (PNG) to around 10,000 households in Tripura.

"Within the next four months, PNG connections would be given to additional 10,000 households. Three CNG stations have been set up in Agartala and two more would come up in other parts of Tripura," Kar said.

PNG is also supplied to 225 commercial establishments and industrial units in Agartala and its outskirts besides hospitals, educational institutions and crematoria.

"Gradually all the households in the Agartala city would be given PNG connections," Kar added.

However, he admitted that "due to lack of experienced contractors and equipment, the progress in expanding the PNG connections has been slow".

"The Supreme Court and various high courts forced the authorities to introduce CNG-run vehicles to make state capitals pollution free. But Tripura has taken this initiative on its own," Kar said.

To develop necessary infrastructure for this green initiative, Tripura Natural Gas Company Ltd is all set to execute a Rs.57-crore business plan within the next five years, a TNGCL official said.

"Agartala is the only city among 415 cities and small towns in the eight northeastern states where CNG and PNG are being used in a big way," the official added.

TNGCL supplies, sells and distributes natural gas as PNG and CNG through a underground pipeline network in Agartala and its outskirts.

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Millions in Colorado basin to face water shortage: Study

IANS Dec 24, 2012, 05.56PM IST

WASHINGTON: Warmer weather and a growing population may in a few decades cause a water shortage for 40 million people who depend on the Colorado river in the US, researchers say.

Climate modellers at the Columbia university's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory predict a 10 percent drop in the Colorado river's flow over the next few decades.

The drop, they say, is enough to disrupt long time water-sharing agreements between farms and cities in the American Southwest - from Denver to Los Angeles to Tucson, and through California's Imperial Valley.

"It may not sound like a phenomenally large amount except the water and the river is already over-allocated," said Richard Seager, climate scientist at the Columbia Earth Observatory, who led the study, the journal Nature Climate Change reports.

The study expands on findings published in 2007 in the journal Science that the American Southwest is becoming more arid as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift from human-caused climate change, according to a Columbia statement.

It also comes on the heels of a major study of the Colorado river basin by the US department of interior that projected longer and more severe droughts by 2060, and a nine percent decline in the Colorado's flows.

"The projections are spot on," said Bradley Udall, expert on hydrology and policy of the American West, at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"Everyone wondered what the next generation of models would say. Now we have a study that suggests we better take seriously the drying projections ahead."

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Loss of microbes in deforestation harming Amazon

WASHINGTON: Researchers have sounded alarm bells over the loss of microbes helping preserve the Amazon ecosystem following its systematic deforestation.

"We found that after rainforest conversion to agricultural pastures, bacterial communities were significantly different from those of forest soils," said Klaus Nusslein from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, an expert in tropical rain forest microbial soil communities, who led the microbiologists.

Nusslein and colleagues studied a large farm site over the past four years at the frontier where farmers drive agriculture into pristine rainforest in Rondonia, Brazil, to convert rainforest to agricultural use, the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reports.

As Nusslein and colleagues point out, the Amazon represents half of the world's rainforest and is home to one-third of earth's species, yet the Amazon has one of the highest rates of deforestation, according to a Massachusetts statement.

"Agriculture is one of the largest and most dynamic parts of Brazil's economy. So dealing with standing rainforests in the tropics will be tricky, but nevertheless, it is vital that the issue is tackled," they add.

The findings in part validated previous research showing that soil bugs became more diverse after conversion to pasture.

However, in its fourth year, their study overcame limitations of earlier investigations to show that changes in microbial diversity occurred over larger geographic scales.

Biologist and first study author Jorge Rodrigues of the University of Texas in Arlington adds: "We have known for a long time that conversion of rainforest land in the Amazon for agriculture results in a loss of biodiversity in plants and animals. Now we know that microbial communities which are so important to the ecosystem also suffer significant losses."

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Antarctic ice sheet warming faster than thought: Study

WASHINGTON: The West Antarctic Ice Sheet, whose melt currently contributes substantially to sea level rise each year, is warming twice as quickly as previously thought, a new study has found.

The temperature record from Byrd Station, a scientific outpost in the center of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet (WAIS), demonstrates a marked increase of 2.4 degrees Celsius in average annual temperature since 1958 - three times faster than the average temperature rise around the globe.

This temperature increase is nearly double what previous research has suggested, and reveals - for the first time - warming trends during the summer months of the Southern Hemisphere, said David Bromwich, professor of geography at Ohio State University.

"Our record suggests that continued summer warming in West Antarctica could upset the surface mass balance of the ice sheet, so that the region could make an even bigger contribution to sea level rise than it already does," said Bromwich.

"Even without generating significant mass loss directly, surface melting on the WAIS could contribute to sea level indirectly, by weakening the West Antarctic ice shelves that restrain the region's natural ice flow into the ocean, he said in a statement.

Andrew Monaghan, study co-author, said that these findings place West Antarctica among the fastest-warming regions on Earth.

"We've already seen enhanced surface melting contribute to the breakup of the Antarctic's Larsen B Ice Shelf, where glaciers at the edge discharged massive sections of ice into the ocean that contributed to sea level rise," Monaghan said.

"The stakes would be much higher if a similar event occurred to an ice shelf restraining one of the enormous WAIS glaciers," said Monaghan.

Since the base of the ice sheet rests below sea level, it is vulnerable to direct contact with warm ocean water.

Its melting currently contributes 0.3 mm to sea level rise each year - second to Greenland, whose contribution to sea level rise has been estimated as high as 0.7 mm per year.

The study suggests that if this warming trend continues, melting will become more extensive in the region in the future, Bromwich said.

The study was published in the journal Nature Geoscience.

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Millions in Colorado basin to face water shortage: Study

WASHINGTON: Warmer weather and a growing population may in a few decades cause a water shortage for 40 million people who depend on the Colorado river in the US, researchers say.

Climate modellers at the Columbia university's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory predict a 10 percent drop in the Colorado river's flow over the next few decades.

The drop, they say, is enough to disrupt long time water-sharing agreements between farms and cities in the American Southwest - from Denver to Los Angeles to Tucson, and through California's Imperial Valley.

"It may not sound like a phenomenally large amount except the water and the river is already over-allocated," said Richard Seager, climate scientist at the Columbia Earth Observatory, who led the study, the journal Nature Climate Change reports.

The study expands on findings published in 2007 in the journal Science that the American Southwest is becoming more arid as temperatures rise and rainfall patterns shift from human-caused climate change, according to a Columbia statement.

It also comes on the heels of a major study of the Colorado river basin by the US department of interior that projected longer and more severe droughts by 2060, and a nine percent decline in the Colorado's flows.

"The projections are spot on," said Bradley Udall, expert on hydrology and policy of the American West, at the University of Colorado, Boulder.

"Everyone wondered what the next generation of models would say. Now we have a study that suggests we better take seriously the drying projections ahead."

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Save Ganga activist arrested while on a fast

PTI Dec 22, 2012, 07.14PM IST

(Swami Poornanand Saraswati…)

DEHRADUN: 'Save Ganga' activist Swami Poornanand Saraswati, on a fast in Haridwar for the last 12 days, was on Saturday arrested after district authorities could not persuade him to end his stir to protest quarrying and stone crushing in the ecologically sensitive areas along the river.

Saraswati was arrested as he refused to end his fast despite his deteriorating health, Haridwar District Magistrate Sachin Kurve said.

The activist was later produced in the court of CJM Varun Kumar who sent him to 14 days' judicial custody, the official said, adding that he has been lodged in Roshnabad jail.

"We had taken medical opinion on his health and doctors had advised him to end his fast immediately," he said.

However, the activist's fast continues as he is taking nothing but lime water thrice a day, the District Magistrate said.

The 'Save Ganga activist had been on a fast unto death since December 10 at Haridwar's Matrisadan Ashram to protest resumption of quarrying and stone crushing in the ecologically sensitive areas along the river in alleged violation of the Ministry of Environment and Forest norms.

"As he declined to break his fast till the government withdraws its December 1 order allowing resumption of these activities despite repeated pleas by us, we had no choice but to arrest him," Kurve said.

A team of officials led by Haridwar SDM Arvind Pandey had made an infructuous attempt to persuade Sarawati to end his fast yesterday.

Saraswati had shut himself in a room on Thursday to foil any attempt by officials to forcibly shift him to a hospital.

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Hawaii mountains withering away

WASHINGTON: In the future, Oahu's Koolau and Waianae mountains in the volcanic island chain of Hawaii may be reduced to a flat, low-lying land. The rocks that comprise these mountains are dissolving from within, say scientists.

"We tried to figure out how fast the island is going away and what the influence of climate is on that rate," says Brigham Young University (BYU) geologist Steve Nelsonm, who led the study. "More material is dissolving from those islands than what is being carried off through erosion."

The research pitted groundwater against stream water to see which removed more mineral material. Nelson and his BYU colleagues spent two months sampling both types of sources, the journal Geochimica et Cosmochimica Acta reports.
Besides ground and surface water estimates from the US, the Geological Survey helped calculate the total quantity of mass that disappeared from the island each year.

"All of the Hawaiian Islands are made of just one kind of rock. The weathering rates are variable, because rainfall is so variable, so it's a great natural laboratory," says Nelson.

Forecasting the island's future also needs to account for plate tectonics.

As Oahu is pushed northwest, the island actually rises in elevation at a slow but steady rate. You've heard of mountain climbing; this is a mountain that climbs, according to a Brigham statement.

According to the researchers' estimates, the net effect is that Oahu will continue to grow for as long as 1.5 million years. Beyond that, the force of groundwater will eventually triumph and the island will begin its descent to a low-lying topography.

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Thirty-three new spider species discovered

WASHINGTON: Scientists have discovered 33 new trapdoor spider species in Southwest America belonging to the genus that includes a notable species named after US President Barack Obama.

These newly described species belong to the genus Aptostichus that now contains 40 famous species including Aptostichus barackobamai, named after Obama.

Jason Bond, who is a trapdoor spider expert and director of the Auburn University Museum of Natural History was excited at the prospect of such a remarkable and large find of new species in the US.

"California is known as what is characterised as a biodiversity hotspot. Although this designation is primarily based on plant diversity, the region is clearly very rich in its animal diversity as well.

"While it is absolutely remarkable that a large number of species from such a heavily populated area have gone unnoticed, it clearly speaks volumes to how little we know of the biodiversity around us and that many more species on the planet await discovery " Bond said in a statement.

Like other trapdoor spider species, individuals are rarely seen because they live their lives in below-ground burrows that are covered by trapdoors, made by the spider using mixtures of soil, sand, or plant material, and silk.

The trapdoor serves to hide the spider when it forages for meals at the burrow entrance, usually at night.

Aptostichus species are found in an amazing number of Californian habitats to include coastal sand dunes, chaparral, desert, oak woodland forests, and at high altitudes in the alpine habitats of the Sierra Nevada mountain range.

Bond said, "this particular group of trapdoor spiders are among some of the most beautiful with which I have worked, species often have gorgeous tiger-striping on their abdomens".

He noted that while a number of the species have rather fanciful names, his favourite is the one named for his daughter Elisabeth.

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Save Ganga activist arrested while on a fast

DEHRADUN: 'Save Ganga' activist Swami Poornanand Saraswati, on a fast in Haridwar for the last 12 days, was on Saturday arrested after district authorities could not persuade him to end his stir to protest quarrying and stone crushing in the ecologically sensitive areas along the river.

Saraswati was arrested as he refused to end his fast despite his deteriorating health, Haridwar District Magistrate Sachin Kurve said.

The activist was later produced in the court of CJM Varun Kumar who sent him to 14 days' judicial custody, the official said, adding that he has been lodged in Roshnabad jail.

"We had taken medical opinion on his health and doctors had advised him to end his fast immediately," he said.

However, the activist's fast continues as he is taking nothing but lime water thrice a day, the District Magistrate said.

The 'Save Ganga activist had been on a fast unto death since December 10 at Haridwar's Matrisadan Ashram to protest resumption of quarrying and stone crushing in the ecologically sensitive areas along the river in alleged violation of the Ministry of Environment and Forest norms.

"As he declined to break his fast till the government withdraws its December 1 order allowing resumption of these activities despite repeated pleas by us, we had no choice but to arrest him," Kurve said.

A team of officials led by Haridwar SDM Arvind Pandey had made an infructuous attempt to persuade Sarawati to end his fast yesterday.

Saraswati had shut himself in a room on Thursday to foil any attempt by officials to forcibly shift him to a hospital.

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Forest panel to hold meeting flouting CIC orders

NEW DELHI: The Forest Advisory Committee (FAC), under the ministry of forests and environment, has scheduled yet another meeting on Friday for clearing projects in violation of the Central Information Commission (CIC) orders. Earlier, the commission had pulled up environment minister Jayanthi Natarajan for a similar transgression.

In February, the CIC had demanded that the ministry must share with public the details of projects to be cleared ahead of the Forest Advisory Committee's (FAC) consideration. The FAC is the statutory body that advises the ministry on handing over forestlands to project developers. The Commission had ordered that all details of the project proposals be put out in public domain at least 10 days before the FAC considers the cases.

In the past, Natarajan had intervened to cancel a FAC meeting after TOI reported that it was being held in violation of the CIC orders.

Partial data for the 28 proposals to be considered in Friday's meeting were put out on the ministry website on Wednesday. And, the lack of details in public domain on the proposals that are to be decided upon by FAC obviates the chances of any aggrieved party to counter the proposals put forth by state government for clearing forests on behalf of project developers.

The meeting — to be held on Friday and Saturday — is slated to consider some big-ticket projects such as the controversial 320mw Stage-1 and 530mw Stage-II Kotlibhel projects on river Alaknanda in Uttarakhand, the 520mw Teesta Stage IV hydel project in Sikkim and opening up of another 1,400 hectares of forestland by Mahanadi Coal Fields in Odisha's Jharsuguda mines.

FAC consists of senior forest officials and three independent experts. Currently, one of the non-official slots on the panel is vacant.

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Planet's biodiversity map updated after 136 years

LONDON: A biodiversity map drawn up by British naturalist Russel Wallace in 1876 depicting how life evolved on our continents has been updated after 136 years.

Technological advances and data on more than 20,000 species have allowed a team of 15 international researchers 20 years to map biodiversity in greater detail.

The map shows the division of nature into 11 large biogeographic realms and how they relate to each other, the journal Science reports.

Wallace was the the co-discoverer of the theory of natural selection, along with Charles Darwin.

Ben Holt from the Centre for Macroecology, Evolution and Climate at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark, who led the study said: "Our study is a long overdue update of one of the most fundamental maps in natural sciences."

"For the first time since Wallace's attempt, we are finally able to provide a broad description of the natural world based on incredibly detailed information for thousands of vertebrate species," Holt added.

Study co-author Jean-Philippe Lessard, from McGill University, Canada, said: "The map provides important baseline information for future ecological and evolutionary research. It also has major conservation significance in light of the on-going biodiversity crisis and global environmental change."

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Female elephant deployed to tame violent wild tusker in Nepal

PTI Dec 19, 2012, 06.56PM IST

(After failing in their efforts…)

KATHMANDU: After failing in their efforts to tame a violent wild tusker which has so far killed six persons, Nepalese forest authorities hope a female elephant would do the job for them.

The Chitwan National Park authorities said they have released a female elephant around the protected area with the help of signal shown by radio collar to mate with the wild elephant called Dhruve which has already killed six local villagers.

The female elephant was released at the western part of the Park as the radio collar signal indicated that the wild elephant was in the area, said Bishnu Thapaliya, a ranger.

Earlier, hundreds of security personnel and game scouts were mobilised to control the wild elephant.

Local people and the political activists of Chitwan distrct, situated some 200-km south of Kathmandu, have launched protests saying the park management failed to take the wild elephant under control neglecting the demand of locals of Madi area of the district.

The UCPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, Rastriya Janamorcha, among others have participated in the protests that took place today against the havoc created by the wild animal.

Normal life in Chitwan district has been affected for the past four days due to agitation launched by locals, demanding that wild elephant be killed.

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Apex wildlife panel to have say only over parks, tiger reserves

NEW DELHI: Wildlife experts on board the apex National Board of Wildlife (NBWL) will clear development projects only over those forestlands which explicitly enjoy a higher level of protection under the Wildlife (Protection) Act, 1972 or are mandated for greater safety by the Supreme Court.

Projects in forest patches, such as elephant reserves and green zones that conservationists refer to as "wildlife corridors" but are not designated as special legal entities under the law, will not come under the purview of the wildlife board, the environment ministry has decided.

The NBWL is the apex wildlife body headed by the PM. Under various provisions and Supreme Court orders, development projects falling in designated wildlife zones and areas around these are required to be cleared by the standing committee of the board. The standing committee comprises several wildlife experts from outside the government besides officials.

Some non-government experts had demanded that any area suggested as a wildlife corridor — an area that wildlife animals use frequently but do not reside in — as well as other wildlife patches regardless of legal status also come under their scrutiny.

However, the environment ministry has decided that clearance from the NBWL standing committee shall be required only for national parks, sanctuaries, tiger reserves and corridors for tigers - all specially protected zones under the wildlife Act.

Elephant reserves alone are spread over more than 58,000 sq km and cover not only forest-bearing lands but also agricultural lands, villages and other land under revenue control. Elephant reserves are demarcated as an area over which states can spend the funds received from Project Elephant but do not enjoy any special protection cover under law.

Wildlife corridors have been defined by conservation scientists for various animals and are listed for levels of significance but the term remains controversial in the legal domain as in several cases, the use of different criteria ends up providing varying identification of these patches.

In an ongoing case before the Supreme Court, the definition of an elephant corridor has ended up in huge controversy with many villagers and others standing to be impacted by how the corridor is demarcated and then treated for protection of wildlife.

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Pollution control body for ban on diesel vehicles in Delhi

PTI Dec 18, 2012, 05.55PM IST

(As per the studies, the ambient…)

NEW DELHI: Government today informed the Lok Sabha that Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) has recommended that there is need to ban diesel vehicles in Delhi to prevent emission of high smoke particles.

"The EPCA in a report in 2012 has stated that benefits of CNG transition are not visible due to growth in diesel vehicles, because diesel vehicles are known to emit higher smoke particles and Nitrogen Oxides than petrol cars," Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said during Question Hour.

Earlier in 2007, the EPCA had expressed this concern in a detailed report filed by it in the Supreme Court titled "Controlling Pollution from the growing number of diesel cars in Delhi".

"In the report, EPCA had recommended to the Court that there is a need to ban the use of diesel in cars in Delhi," the minister said.

The Central Pollution Control Board had carried out a study in 2007 in six cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Mumbai and Pune.

"As per the studies, the ambient air quality data of these cities in respect of Particulate Matter revealed that contribution due to all vehicles is ranging from 2 per cent to 48 per cent," Natarajan said.

Government is taking several steps to control pollution caused by vehicles.

These include implementation of Bharat Stage-IV emission standards for all category vehicles, reducing sulphur content in petrol and diesel, implementing pollution under control norms, promoting use of alternative fuels like CNG, electric vehicles, bio-diesel; building more by-passes to avoid unnecessary entry into the city, and strengthening mass transport system.

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Female elephant deployed to tame violent wild tusker in Nepal

KATHMANDU: After failing in their efforts to tame a violent wild tusker which has so far killed six persons, Nepalese forest authorities hope a female elephant would do the job for them.

The Chitwan National Park authorities said they have released a female elephant around the protected area with the help of signal shown by radio collar to mate with the wild elephant called Dhruve which has already killed six local villagers.

The female elephant was released at the western part of the Park as the radio collar signal indicated that the wild elephant was in the area, said Bishnu Thapaliya, a ranger.

Earlier, hundreds of security personnel and game scouts were mobilised to control the wild elephant.

Local people and the political activists of Chitwan distrct, situated some 200-km south of Kathmandu, have launched protests saying the park management failed to take the wild elephant under control neglecting the demand of locals of Madi area of the district.

The UCPN-Maoist, Nepali Congress, CPN-UML, CPN-Maoist, Rastriya Prajatantra Party-Nepal, Rastriya Janamorcha, among others have participated in the protests that took place today against the havoc created by the wild animal.

Normal life in Chitwan district has been affected for the past four days due to agitation launched by locals, demanding that wild elephant be killed.

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Bhedaghat may make it to UNESCO list soon

JABALPUR: Bhedaghat, the majestic waterfall among marble rocks here, could soon find itself in the coveted list of UNESCO's world heritage sites (WHS). Superlatives used to describe it's grandeur in the organization's "revised tentative list of WHS in India and its recommendations" have raised hopes of the state government, which is preparing to hard sell its one of the biggest tourist draw as the fittest case under the natural site category.

Bhedaghat is one among the only three sites in this slot that made it to the pan India nomination this time.

The tentative list, compiled by the advisory committee on the world heritage matters (ACWHM), had named Bhedaghat, along with Kanger valley Bastar and the Aravali hill range, said R K Sharma, state convener of INTACH.

Aravali seems to have lost out as the committee felt that due to its location spanning Gujarat, Rajasthan, Haryana, Delhi and even Pakistani provinces of Punjab and Sindh it could present several protection and management issues. Bhedaghat, he feels, has a much stronger case and the words used to describe it in UNESCO's status of existing properties and recommendations for new additions makes it all too clear.

"The site offers a unique view, offering one of the greatest breathtaking views of mighty Narmada River falling from the height of 105ft and rushing with full fury through magnificent white marble rock hills creating a deep dent and huge gorge resulting in the formation of a natural and geographical phenomenon seen nowhere else in the world. Bhedaghat is also known internationally for its archaeological wealth that dates since pre-historic times," said Sharma.

"We are in the midst of compiling additional facts to strengthen the case," Jabalpur divisional commissioner Deepak Khandekar told TOI on Monday. The government, he said, has already approached ASI and Geological Survey of India (GSI) to dispatch their respective teams to sort out a few issues even though 40 slides shown to UNESCO team had made a deep impact. Not even famous Colorado river, which flows through the American desert of Arizona, can compete with the splendour of Bhedaghat and this is what we are highlighting, he added.

MP has only three WPS namely Sanchi stupas, Bheem Baithika and Khajuraho and all are man made and as UNESCO revises its list only once in 10 years now, said Khandekar, is our big chance.

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Pollution control body for ban on diesel vehicles in Delhi

NEW DELHI: Government today informed the Lok Sabha that Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority (EPCA) has recommended that there is need to ban diesel vehicles in Delhi to prevent emission of high smoke particles.

"The EPCA in a report in 2012 has stated that benefits of CNG transition are not visible due to growth in diesel vehicles, because diesel vehicles are known to emit higher smoke particles and Nitrogen Oxides than petrol cars," Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan said during Question Hour.

Earlier in 2007, the EPCA had expressed this concern in a detailed report filed by it in the Supreme Court titled "Controlling Pollution from the growing number of diesel cars in Delhi".

"In the report, EPCA had recommended to the Court that there is a need to ban the use of diesel in cars in Delhi," the minister said.

The Central Pollution Control Board had carried out a study in 2007 in six cities - Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi, Kanpur, Mumbai and Pune.

"As per the studies, the ambient air quality data of these cities in respect of Particulate Matter revealed that contribution due to all vehicles is ranging from 2 per cent to 48 per cent," Natarajan said.

Government is taking several steps to control pollution caused by vehicles.

These include implementation of Bharat Stage-IV emission standards for all category vehicles, reducing sulphur content in petrol and diesel, implementing pollution under control norms, promoting use of alternative fuels like CNG, electric vehicles, bio-diesel; building more by-passes to avoid unnecessary entry into the city, and strengthening mass transport system.

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Rhino killed in Kaziranga, horn removed

PTI Dec 16, 2012, 07.14PM IST

JORHAT (ASSAM): A rhino was killed today and its horn removed by suspected poachers in Kaziranga National Park, forest officials said.

The full-grown female rhino was found dead at Borbhog camp in Burapahar range this afternoon with its horn removed, they said.

Empty cartridges of AK-47 and .303 rifles along with ammunition of double barrel gun were also found at the spot by the forest guards.

The horn can fetch a price between Rs 85 lakh and Rs one crore in the international market.

This is the third incident of a rhino being killed in the Burapahar range within the last one and a half months.

A massive combing operation has been launched in the area to nab the poachers, the sources said.

Altogether 25 rhinos have been killed by poachers in the national park this year while 70 rhinos have died, which include 23 deaths in flood and the rest due to natural causes.

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65 % of the air pollution deaths occur in Asia and close to quarter of this in India

INDORE: According to Global Burden of Disease (GBD) count, a global initiative involving the World Health Organisation, in South Asia, air pollution is ranked as the sixth most dangerous killer. Around 65 per cent of the air pollution deaths occur in Asia and close to quarter of this in India.

Reacting to the findings Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) says air pollution has become one of the top 10 killers in the world.

Anumita Roychowdhury, CSE's executive director-research and advocacy and head of its air pollution unit said, "This GBD count on air pollution and its health risks must trigger urgent, aggressive and most stringent action in India to curb air pollution to protect public health. India cannot afford to enhance health risk at a time when much of its economic growth and motorization are yet to happen."

The latest GBD results have been produced by a rigorous scientific process involving over 450 global experts and partner institutions including the Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation, the World Health Organization, the University of Queensland, Australia, Johns Hopkins University, Harvard University and the Health Effects Institute.

Elaborating about the findings she said death due to outdoor air pollution has increased significantly. According to the latest tally, air pollution causes 3.2 million deaths worldwide. This has increased from 800,000, last estimated by GBD in the year 2000 - a whopping 300 per cent increase. In the year 2000, GBD assessments had reported a much smaller air pollution-related burden of disease. The new estimates of particulate air pollution are based on ground-level measurements, satellite remote sensing and global chemical transport models to capture population exposure.

In South Asia, air pollution has been ranked just below blood pressure, tobacco smoking, indoor air pollution, poor intake of fruits and diabetes. This is scary as outdoor air pollution is a leveler that makes everyone - rich and the poor -- vulnerable.

Two-thirds of the death burden from outdoor air pollution occurs in developing Asia including India: The new GBD estimates over 2.1 million premature deaths and 52 million years of healthy life lost in 2010 due to fine particle air pollution in Asia, which is two-thirds of the burden worldwide. Killer outdoor air contributes to 1.2 million deaths in East Asia which is in throes of high level of economic growth and motorization and 712,000 deaths in South Asia (including India) which is at the take-off stage. This is much higher than the combined toll of 400,000 in EU 27, Eastern Europe, and Russia.

Roychowdhury said, "Days of doubts and complacency are over. There is hard enough evidence now to act urgently to reduce the public health risks to all, particularly the children, elderly, and poor. No one can escape toxic air. India will have to take aggressive action to reverse the trend of short term respiratory and cardiac effects as well as the long term cancer and other metabolic and cellular effects. Remember - toxic effects like cancer surface after a long latency period. Therefore, exposure to air pollution will have to be reduced today to reduce the burden of dieses."

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Railway police rescue around 115 turtles stuffed in jute bag from Doon Express

ANI Dec 15, 2012, 05.25PM IST

(Turtles are put under the…)

HOOGLY: The railway police in West Bengal has rescued nearly 115 turtles stuffed in five bags that were being allegedly smuggled on Friday at Hoogly station.

The turtles were being smuggled from Varanasi to Kolkata on Doon Express.

Officer in charge in Central Railway Police Force (CRPF), Amalendu Biswas said that the person carrying the turtles was detained.

"We had received information that some turtles were being brought in a train. So, we rescued them and detained the person carrying them. Once the procedures are over, we will hand over the turtles to the forest officials," said Biswas.

Turtles are put under the Wildlife Protection Act and are considered endangered. They feed on frogs, shrimps, snails, aquatic vegetation and plants.

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Rhino killed in Kaziranga, horn removed

JORHAT (ASSAM): A rhino was killed today and its horn removed by suspected poachers in Kaziranga National Park, forest officials said.

The full-grown female rhino was found dead at Borbhog camp in Burapahar range this afternoon with its horn removed, they said.

Empty cartridges of AK-47 and .303 rifles along with ammunition of double barrel gun were also found at the spot by the forest guards.

The horn can fetch a price between Rs 85 lakh and Rs one crore in the international market.

This is the third incident of a rhino being killed in the Burapahar range within the last one and a half months.

A massive combing operation has been launched in the area to nab the poachers, the sources said.

Altogether 25 rhinos have been killed by poachers in the national park this year while 70 rhinos have died, which include 23 deaths in flood and the rest due to natural causes.

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70 Beagles will be freed soon: Centre informs PETA

CHENNAI: An animal rights advocacy group today said it has been informed by the Centre that 70 Beagles imported from China as pets but lodged in an animal quarantine centre here "will be freed soon."

PETA India said it has received notice from Committee for the Purpose of Control and Supervision on Experimentation on Animals (CPCSEA) under the Union Ministry of Environment and Forests, that the 70 Beagles which were imported by Advinus Therapeutics Limited, a pharmaceutical laboratory in Bangalore, "will be freed soon."

"The rescue was approved after PETA notified the Ministry of Environment and Forests that the dogs were wrongly described as "pets", in an Animal Quarantine and Certification Service (AQCS) document rather than their actual intended purpose, to be experimented on," Dr Chaitanya Koduri, Science Policy Adviser, People for Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) India said in a statement.

"PETA India had also learned that Cathay Pacific Airways, which has a strict policy against transporting animals to laboratories, was misinformed by the supplier, Beijing Marshall Biotechnology Co, Ltd, that the dogs would not be used by or killed in a laboratory," he said.

He recalled that Environment Minister Jayanthi Natarajan had inspected the Beagles and said PETA thanks her for "giving the serious attention to this case that it deserves".

Dogs, beagles in particular, are used for various tests because of their friendly and docile nature, Koduri said.

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Railway police rescue around 115 turtles stuffed in jute bag from Doon Express

HOOGLY: The railway police in West Bengal has rescued nearly 115 turtles stuffed in five bags that were being allegedly smuggled on Friday at Hoogly station.

The turtles were being smuggled from Varanasi to Kolkata on Doon Express.

Officer in charge in Central Railway Police Force (CRPF), Amalendu Biswas said that the person carrying the turtles was detained.

"We had received information that some turtles were being brought in a train. So, we rescued them and detained the person carrying them. Once the procedures are over, we will hand over the turtles to the forest officials," said Biswas.

Turtles are put under the Wildlife Protection Act and are considered endangered. They feed on frogs, shrimps, snails, aquatic vegetation and plants.

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Despite poaching cases, Madhya Pradesh hopes to become 'tiger state' again

BHOPAL: Notwithstanding the recent death of four tigers in Madhya Pradesh due to electrocution and poaching, the state government is hopeful of winning back the 'tiger state' status from Karnataka after the next census of the big cats.

Four tigers died recently in the state-- three due to electrocution and another one succumbed to its injuries after it was allegedly trapped by poachers.

Though there was an increase in the number of tigers in Madhya Pradesh by 43 in the last tiger census, the total number of the big cats found in the state was 257, whereas Karnataka was ahead in the count as nearly 300 tigers were spotted in the state. This resulted in Madhya Pradesh losing the 'tiger state' title to Karnataka, which the former had carried for several years.

However, Madhya Pradesh Forest Minister Sartaj Singh says he is hopeful that the state would get back the coveted 'tiger state' from Karnataka in the next census.

"I have been saying that in the last tiger census, those responsible for counting tigers have done so in a wrong manner, which we will rectify next time and get back the coveted 'tiger state' status," Sartaj told PTI here today.

"We are hopeful that this time the tiger count would cross the 300-mark," he said.

Referring to the recent incidents of electrocution of tigers, the minister said that members of a particular tribe indulged in poaching for their livelihood.

In June this year, a full grown male tiger died due to electrocution in Kathoutia range in Sehore district about 32 km away from the state capital.

In September, a sub-adult male tiger lost its life after getting trapped. The hind limbs of the tiger were paralysed in the process, following which, it died.

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425-million-year old tiny shrimp-like creature discovered

WASHINGTON: Well preserved remains of a tiny animal trapped for 425 million years in rocks in the UK have been discovered, with limbs, eyes, gills and gut intact.

The creature - related to crabs, lobsters and shrimp - is an ostracod, or a type of crustacean sometimes known as seed shrimp.

It has been named 'Pauline avibella', in memory of the late wife of David Siveter from the University of Leicester, who led the research, the 'Discovery News' reported.

The 0.4-inch-long animal was found, not only with its shell, but also with its soft parts - body, limbs, eyes, gills and digestive system. Such well-preserved remains from that ultra prehistoric period are near unheard of in the fossil record.

"The two ostracod specimens discovered represent a genus and species new to science, named Pauline avibella," Siveter said.

"The genus is named in honour of a special person and avibella means 'beautiful bird', so-named because of the fancied resemblance of a prominent feature of the shell to the wing of a bird," he said.

The discovery of the tiny shelled animal was made in Herefordshire, Welsh Borderland. The rocks at the site date to a time when southern Britain was a sea area on a small continent situated in warm, southerly subtropical latitudes.

The ostracods and associated marine animals living there were covered by a fall of volcanic ash that preserved them frozen in time.

"Ostracods are the most abundant fossil arthropods, occurring ubiquitously as bivalved shells in rocks of the last 490 million years, and are common in most water environments today," Siveter said.

"The find is important because it is one of only a handful preserving the fossilized soft-tissues of ostracods," he said.

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Scientist suggests refreezing the Arctic to stop global warming

PTI Dec 12, 2012, 07.10PM IST

LONDON: A US scientist has offered a radical solution to global warming by suggesting that we could refreeze the Arctic using a few modified jets.

David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, used climate models to suggest that injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, engineering a regional effect that could bring ice back to the Arctic.

He claims that reducing the penetration of sunlight by just 0.5 per cent could be possible to restore the sea-ice around the North Pole back to pre-industrial era levels, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

"Decisions involving (solar radiation management) do not need to be reduced to a single "global thermostat", the study said.

Keith's research suggests the whole operation could be accomplished with just a few modified Gulfstream jets, costing around USD 8 billion a year.

His studies explore the possibility that a technological solution could be found to the problem of global warming melting the ice caps on the North Pole.

Keith claims that "any significant nation" could find the resources to carry out the operation.

The amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean has shrunk to an all time low in September, with the total area covered now half what it was in the 1980s, the report said.

"The really hard questions here aren't mostly technical. They're questions about what kind of planet we want and who we are," he told Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star.

However, while Keith believes action must be taken to tackle the amount of pollution spewed into the Earth's atmosphere, he doesn't yet advocate the kind of action his study suggest.

Open-air and large-scale geo-engineering of the kind Keith has suggested has been ruled out by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Keith suggested such drastic geo-engineering could have disastrous unintended effects but could be a viable response to a "climate emergency" such as the sudden collapse of ice sheets or a killing drought.

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Coast Guard to conduct major pollution response exercise in Kochi

KOCHI: The Coast Guard will conduct a major national level pollution response exercise here tomorrow to test the preparation and coordination between various agencies in response to a marine oil spill.

Coast Guard Pollution Control Vessel- Indian Coast Guard Ship Samudra Prahari and six other ships of the force, several Coast Guard aircraft, a naval vessel, a tanker from Shipping Corporation of India and vessels from BPCL and Cochin Port Trust will participate in the exercise NATPOLREX-IV.

Vice Admiral M P Muralidharan, Director General Indian Coast Guard, will be present to review the conduct of the exercise.

The Coast Guard is responsible for marine environment protection in maritime zones of India and is the coordinating authority for response to oil spills in Indian waters.

The Force has drawn up a National Oil Spill Disaster Contingency Plan (NOSDCP) and has established three pollution response centers at Mumbai, Chennai and Port Blair. A robust national system for oil spill response is critical in as 75 per cent of our oil imports are through the sea.

Representatives of the National Institute of Oceanography, Oil Industry Safety Directorate, Central and Kerala Pollution Control Boards and petroleum companies will also witness the exercise.

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Coast Guard to intercept illegal trawlers to save Olive Ridley sea turtles

KENDRAPARA: The coast guard has launched " Operation Oliver" to intercept illegal trawlers as part of its annual mission to ensure safe mid-sea sojourn of breeding Olive Ridley sea turtles on Odisha coast near Kendrapara district.

The state government agencies had sought our services in the turtle conservation programme, coast guard commandant Ashutosh Behera said.

As the turtles have begun arriving enmasse for the mating season, an aircraft is being pressed into service for easy interception of illegal trawlers along the marine sanctuary water zone.

The coast guard has also mobilised an improvised ship for the purpose, he said.

"We do it every year for the safety of these rare marine animals. The patrol to keep a watch on trespassing sea-worthy trawlers is in full swing as turtles perish in large numbers after getting hit by propellers," commandant Behera said.

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Scientist suggests refreezing the Arctic to stop global warming

LONDON: A US scientist has offered a radical solution to global warming by suggesting that we could refreeze the Arctic using a few modified jets.

David Keith, professor of applied physics at Harvard University, used climate models to suggest that injecting reflective particles into the atmosphere could reduce the amount of sunlight reaching the Earth, engineering a regional effect that could bring ice back to the Arctic.

He claims that reducing the penetration of sunlight by just 0.5 per cent could be possible to restore the sea-ice around the North Pole back to pre-industrial era levels, the 'Daily Mail' reported.

"Decisions involving (solar radiation management) do not need to be reduced to a single "global thermostat", the study said.

Keith's research suggests the whole operation could be accomplished with just a few modified Gulfstream jets, costing around USD 8 billion a year.

His studies explore the possibility that a technological solution could be found to the problem of global warming melting the ice caps on the North Pole.

Keith claims that "any significant nation" could find the resources to carry out the operation.

The amount of ice in the Arctic Ocean has shrunk to an all time low in September, with the total area covered now half what it was in the 1980s, the report said.

"The really hard questions here aren't mostly technical. They're questions about what kind of planet we want and who we are," he told Canadian newspaper The Windsor Star.

However, while Keith believes action must be taken to tackle the amount of pollution spewed into the Earth's atmosphere, he doesn't yet advocate the kind of action his study suggest.

Open-air and large-scale geo-engineering of the kind Keith has suggested has been ruled out by the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity.

Keith suggested such drastic geo-engineering could have disastrous unintended effects but could be a viable response to a "climate emergency" such as the sudden collapse of ice sheets or a killing drought.

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Winged guests start arriving at Hirakud reservoir

SAMBALPUR (ODISHA): With the winter setting in, migratory birds from far-flung areas have started arriving at the Hirakud Dam Reservoir in Odisha's Sambalpur district.

"The migratory birds have just started arriving. The number will increase in eight to ten days. We have already spotted nine varieties of migratory birds in the reservoir area," divisional forest officer of Hirakud wildlife division, Manoj V Nair said.

The number of the migratory birds at the Hirakud dam reservoir was 60,806 in the last season. Around 52 kinds of species had arrived last year, a senior official said.

The soothing climate and the clean water of the reservoir attract the birds to the Hirkud reservoir spread over 746 sq km and Debrigarh sanctuary area every year.

The birds start arriving from November mainly from Caspian Sea, Baikal Lake, Aral Sea, Mongolia, Central and South East Asia and Himalaya region.

The birds are spotted in the areas along the Hirakud Reservoir, Lakhanpur, Kamgaon, Rengali, Govindpur and Debrigarh sanctuary area.

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J&K's Nowshera belt to get environment park soon: Minister

JAMMU: An environment park will be set up soon in Nowshera belt of Jammu and Kashmir's Rajouri district, minister Mian Altaf said here today.

"An environment park will be developed in Nowshera belt. This will serve as a potential tourist attraction and further economic activities," he said.

Detailed discussions were held on various aspects of the project at a meeting presided over by Altaf, the forests and environment minister said.

The minister directed the officers to start work for the project at the earliest.

The meeting also reviewed the progress of construction work of Manigam Park in Kangan constituency, officials said.

The park offers a beautiful view to visitors including the Amarnath pilgrims.

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Polar bears could be extinct in 25 years: Experts

NEW DELHI: For a millennium, the majestic, lily-white polar bear has lorded over the frozen wastes of the Arctic. But if two Russian experts are to be believed, the enigmatic "monarch of the ice" could be extinct in 25 years due to global warming and human incursions into their traditional habitat.

"If current policies are not changed, we can lose polar bears, which currently number 20,000-25,000 globally, within one (human) generation," Nikita Ovsyanikov, member of the polar bear specialist group of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), told IANS.

Ovsyanikov and his compatriot, Masha Vorontsova, director of the International Fund for Animal Welfare in Russia, were here for the 21st International Conference on Bear Research and Management organised by the environment and forests ministry and many wildlife NGOs.

The polar bear (or Ursinus Maritimus), the largest member of the Ursidae (bear) family, is also the largest terrestrial land carnivore and is found largely within the Arctic Circle encompassing the Arctic Ocean, its surrounding seas and land masses.

"Today, this area belongs to five nations: Denmark (which administers Greenland), Norway (which administers the Svalbard archipelago), Canada, the United States (of which Alaska is a part) and Russia," said Ovsyanikov.

So, why is the polar bear in grave danger? "It mainly faces threats such as habitat loss due to global warming and continuing human incursions into the Arctic, pollution, hunting for sport and subsistence as well as trade in body parts," he added.

Both scientists feel that hunting and the trade in body parts are the most serious threat facing the polar bear.

The bear has been hunted since times immemorial by indigenous Arctic people, including the Inuit and Eskimos in Alaska and Canada and Yupiks, Nenets, Chukchis and Pomors in Russia. But they never hunted the species in excess of their requirements.

Trouble started with white European expansion and colonisation of the Arctic. The Europeans brought modern hunting practices and the notion of supply and demand of bear parts dictated by market forces. Everything has gone downhill after that.

In the later part of the twentieth century, the five nations finally woke up to the threat.

"The Soviet Union banned all hunting in 1956," Vorontsova told IANS.

Canada began imposing hunting quotas in 1968.

"Norway passed a series of increasingly strict regulations from 1965 to 1973 and has completely banned hunting since then. They only shoot some bears in conflict situations," said Ovsyanikov.

"The United States began regulating hunting in 1971 and adopted the Marine Mammal Protection Act in 1972. In 1973, the International Agreement on the Conservation of Polar Bears was signed by all five nations," said Vorontsova.

The treaty was a landmark in polar bear conservation, but loopholes remain and have morphed into big threats.

"The treaty allows hunting by local people using traditional methods. And that is the most tricky part. Because the aboriginals, mostly in Canada and Alaska, lease out their hunting quotas to foreign hunters, who in turn indulge in overharvesting polar bears for trading their body parts in foreign markets," said Vorontsova.

According to some estimates, each year, approximately 600 polar bears are hunted in Canada and the parts of 441 are internationally traded.

"There is a growing market for bear pelts in Russia and China. What adds to the problem is that the polar bear is listed in Appendix 2 of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species), rather than Appendix 1 which would have guaranteed that there was no commercial trade in its parts," said Vorontsova.

The other threat facing polar bears is global warming.

"It is impacting populations in the Russian Arctic," said Ovsyanikov.

"A high percentage of cubs are lost. Females can't breed. Individuals become famished. They have to survive on land as coastal refugees, instead of pack ice lost to warming. Also, there is pollution, oil drilling and increased susceptibility to diseases."

Still, global warming would not make the polar bear extinct.

"These bears have survived six global warmings since they first appeared on earth. They won't disappear by global warming alone but by a combination of factors," said Ovsyanikov.

What is needed is more lobbying for the endangered animals, said Ovsyanikov.

"We need a broad international lobbying and consensus to save the bear. If we don't do that, we will have only ourselves to blame."

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Poachers shoot elephant in Assam, hack it to pieces

JORHAT: An adult male elephant was shot dead and its flesh cut away in Dulung reserve forest in Assam's Lakhimpur district after it was shot dead by poachers late on Thursday. Poachers also beheaded the elephant and took away its trunk, tusks, and limbs before escaping from the forest. Forest officials said efforts were on to nab the culprits.

"We're looking for the poachers, but no one has been arrested so far," an official said. "A preliminary probe suggests that three people sneaked into Dulung forest to kill the reserve's only elephant on Thursday. They shot it dead and cut it into pieces at night. Although we got the information about the gang's operation, they managed to escape."

Locals said that forest officers arrived 10 hours after the incident. "The incident happened only because of the forest department's failure. We condemn both the incident and official negligence," a villager said, adding that they were saddened there was no elephant left in the forest.

Several regional organizations, like AASU and KMSS, too, condemned the incident and demanded a high-power inquiry. AJYCP's Lakhimpur general secretary Saurav Das said, "We strongly condemn this inhuman act and demand a high level probe in to the matter. This happened due to the failure of forest minister Rockybul Hussain and his forest officials. "

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He compensates farmers to save the tiger

HASSANUR (SATHYAMANGALAM): B Govindan, a small scale farmer from Itarai has lost 22 cows in the last three years to tigers straying out of Sathyamangalam forest in search of prey. Despite a loss of Rs 15,000 for each cow killed, Govindan never thought of poisoning the big cat. Neither did he approach the government for help to gun down the tiger. After each loss, he simply took the bus to Hassanur where he informed B Krishnakumar, an entrepreneur and conservation activist, about the loss. After verifying the incident, Krishnakumar gives him some money from his own pocket which at least partially compensates for Govindan's loss.

"While forest laws limit compensation only to human death caused by wild animal, the privilege has not yet been extended to domestic animals owned by farmers living in forest fringes. Krishnakumar is a rare example of conservation, as he spends his own money for the environment. So far, he has given Rs 70,000 to my brothers, sister, uncles and me," said Govindan.

Now in his late fifties, Krishnakumar has paid a total of Rs 10 lakh so far as compensation for the deaths of 350 cattle attacked by tigers in the 30 km radius of Hassanur. He initiated this mission five years ago. To support the poor farmers in the region, he runs a small resort and a drive-in restaurant. Hailing from Thudiyalur in Coimbatore, Krishnakumar also has a plantation in Hassanur which brings him some money. To Krishnakumar, who earlier ran a textile mill in Coimbatore and a granite quarry in Thalavadi, his interest in conservation began five years ago. He pays enough compensation that keeps farmers and tribal people from poisoning tigers. Consequently, Sathyamangalam has become a safe haven for tigers.

"It is a simple model which can be replicated in places like Wayanad, Kerala, where a tiger that had killed several cattle, was gunned down last week. Farmers have no aversion to tigers. They just want to protect their livelihood. If the government is interested in conserving the tiger, all it has to do is pay farmers adequate compensation. India's tiger conservation effort has failed to take farmers and forest dwellers in confidence. This is why tiger reserve projects across the country are facing resistance,'' points out Krishnakumar.

Hearing about Krishnakumar, a group of youths in Coimbatore under ACME Round Table 133 have recently developed a corpus to support his initiative. They have also paid compensation worth Rs 2.5 lakh based on recommendation made by Krishnakumar. "With the compensation, farmers can replace their losses. In this way, farmers indirectly aid conservation efforts," said K S Sundararaman, president of the Round Table.

Krishnakumar pays the owner of a buffalo killed by a tiger Rs 4,500 while the compensation would be Rs 3,500 for a cow. Compensation for a calf is Rs 2,500. "We ensure the compensation reaches the farmer within 20 days of the incident. The forest department was earlier apprehensive about the project but now they feel it offers some resolution to the man-animal conflict. If similar organizations taking this up in other forest areas, the tiger population can be enhanced while protecting the livelihood of farmers," says Krishnakumar.

According to forest department estimate, Sathyamangalam has 25 tigers now. Ironically, it was Veerappan who helped increase the tiger population here. As his focus was just on elephants and sandalwood, other animals were safe. Fearing him, no other poacher went inside the forests,'' he said.

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Doha talks on climate change to overshoot Friday deadline

DOHA: The ongoing UN negotiations on climate change are all set to stretch beyond the scheduled deadline of Friday, thanks to the developed world, which has refused to deliver on finance, equity, adaptation and even extending the Kyoto Protocol's shelf life beyond 2013—a pledged that was made last year.

And the bid to evolve a consensus looks at least 48 hours away.

Here, the prickly negotiations stretched in more than half a dozen meeting rooms through Thursday evening, with developing countries pushing hard to extract commitments from the developed world. But the US and European Union (EU) kept singing the same tune that there was nothing else that could be done on financing the developing nations, or helping them adapt to the issue of equity in reducing emissions that had not been done already and the process should be summarily junked.

The frustration peaked when the Philippines' lead negotiator Naderev Sano broke down in his speech on Thursday evening before the gathered 194 countries.

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Troubled UN climate talks enter final day

DOHA: UN talks seeking to halt the march of global warming entered their final day in Doha on Friday with key points outstanding: extending the greenhouse gas-curbing Kyoto Protocol and funding for poor countries.

Delegates are preparing for a long day and night of final haggling to find consensus on interim ways to rein in climate change and smooth the way to a new deal that must enter into force in 2020.

"We woke up today and found ourselves no closer to addressing climate change, and possibly considerably farther from this imperative than when we started here" 11 days ago, said Kieren Keke, chairman of the Alliance of Small Island States.

Funding to help poor countries deal with the fallout from global warming and convert to planet-friendlier energy sources remains a key sticking point between negotiators from nearly 200 countries gathered in the Qatari capital.

Developed countries are being pressed to show how they intend to keep a promise to raise climate funding for poor countries to $100 billion (76 billion euros) per year by 2020 -- up from a total of $30 billion in 2010-2012.

Developing countries say they need at least another $60 billion between now and 2015 to deal with increased droughts, floods, rising sea levels and storms.

But the United States and European Union have refused to put concrete figures on the table in Doha for 2013-2020 funding, citing tough financial times.

NGOs and delegates have expressed frustration at the pace of negotiations that coincided with a slew of fresh scientific warnings that Earth faces a calamitous future of more frequent extreme weather events.

"Political negotiators need to realise urgently that the climate does not negotiate," Greenpeace chief executive Kumi Naidoo told AFP in the final hours of the talks.

"Negotiations are out of touch with scientific reality. This is about human survival."

Another point of contention was "hot air," the name given to Earth-warming greenhouse gas emission quotas that countries were given under the first leg of the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and did not use -- some 13 billion tonnes in total.

The credits can be sold to nations battling to meet their own quotas, meaning greenhouse gas levels decrease on paper but not in the atmosphere.

Poland and Russia emitted much less than their lenient limits, and insisted in Doha on being allowed to bank the difference beyond 2012 -- a move vehemently opposed by most other parties.

Agreement on hot air is key to the Doha delegates extending the life of the Kyoto pact, whose first leg expires on December 31.

The protocol is the world's only binding pact on curbing greenhouse gases, but locks in only developed nations and excludes major developing polluters such as China and India, as well as the United States, which refused to ratify it.

A new 2020 deal, due to be finalised by 2015, will include commitments for all the nations of the world.

Draft conference texts drawn up so far "fail to meet the basic requirements of the countries facing an existential threat" from climate change, said Keke, but stressed "the day isn't over yet".

The Philippines urged bickering climate negotiators Thursday to take heed from the deadly typhoon that struck the archipelago this week and wake up to the realities of global warming.

"As we sit here, every single hour, even as we vacillate and procrastinate here, the death toll is rising," climate envoy Naderev Sano told delegates.

German environment minister Peter Altmaier has predicted that the talks, notorious for running way over schedule, "will be on the knife's edge up to the last moment".

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South Africa enlists surveillance aircraft to combat poaching

KRUGER NATIONAL PARK (SOUTH AFRICA): Faced with a dizzying spike in the rate of rhino killings, South Africa announced on Tuesday it was deploying a reconnaissance aircraft to combat poaching.

The military aircraft to be initially deployed to the internationally-famed Kruger National Park, is equipped with highly sophisticated surveillance technology — including thermal imaging — to detect poachers looking for rhino horn.

The aircraft was donated to South African National Parks (SANParks) by the Ichikowitz Family Foundation, whose chairman also runs a defence company.

"You have to fight fire with fire," said Ivor Ichikowitz, chairman of the foundation and also chair of Paramount Group, Africa's largest privately held defence and aerospace outfit.

Poaching has reached epidemic levels this year, with a record 598 rhinos killed so far, largely to meet booming demand for rhino horn in Asian.

In countries like Vietnam the fingernail-like substance is falsely believed to be an aphrodisiac or a cure for cancer and is literally worth its weight in gold.

Park rangers have struggled to keep pace.

Some 364 rhino have been slaughtered in the Kruger National Park this year, a vast reserve that is around two million hectares, four times the size of Yellow Stone park in Wyoming.

The park accounts for 40 percent of the world rhino population.

With their new tool, the authorities will be able to gather intelligence and pass it on in real time to rapid response ground patrols.

The blue-and-black camouflage painted craft can fly for up to seven hours and at slow speeds with a 270 degree visibility, to allow it to gather robust intelligence. It will be manned by a pilot and spotter.

SANparks chief David Mabunda said instead of "fishing in the dark" as his rangers previously did against a "well-oiled machinery", the new aerial policing craft will help with "early warning."

"We are in a state of war, low intensity war," he said. More than 80 percent of the world's last rhinos are in Africa.

The government is also mulling the introduction of drones and is to deploy in coming days.

"We have already tested the efficacy of unmanned aerial vehicles with the state-owned Denel Dynamics company and in this first week of December we will be deploying that capability... to complement what we have already," Mabubnda told AFP.

"Warfare has become sophisticated and advanced, therefore we needed to scale up," he said.

On an average day rangers chase after around 20 groups of poachers with the most culprits entering through the 400 kilometres long park's border with neighbouring Mozambique where rhino poaching is en vogue.

"It's fashionable in that country. People aspire to be poachers" making the villages there a fertile recruiting ground for runners, said Abe Sibiya, Kruger Park managing executive.

"The benefits are visible" in the poverty-stricken villages which can suddenly acquire truckloads of cash and cars.

At the same time the South African authorities are also working to weaken demand from the east Asia.

Next week South Africa's environment minister is expected to sign a memorandum of understanding in Hanoi, aimed at improving cooperation with Vietnam against rhino poaching.

"To effectively deal with the current scourge of poaching, and with illegal hunting largely driven by international demand for the rhino horn, these international engagements and agreements are crucial," the ministry said in a statement on Tuesday.

A Thai national was this year jailed for 40 years for running bogus rhino hunts as cover to sell horns on the black market, in the stiffest ever sentence handed down by the South African courts.

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Principle of equity threatened at Doha climate talks

DOHA: The endgame of climate negotiations here began on Wednesday with India and China yet again getting sucked into the vortex of the fight. The small island nations and least developed countries (LDCs) began to target equity as the obstacle to a better climate deal even as they lowered their pitch for finances from developed countries.

Equity remains a non-negotiable issue for larger developing economies, including China and India, who would be expected to take greater action to reduce emissions in the next round. Both Beijing and New Delhi are worried about the burden being shifted unequally from those who have emitted greenhouse gases historically to those who may in the future.

Till the early part of the second week the small island nations and LDCs had publicly aligned closer to the other developing country partners in the G77+China group to make the developed countries spell out how they would ramp up finance from now to 2020 when they need to deliver $100 billion every year.

But on Wednesday, these countries, who had formed an alliance with the European Union (EU) at the Durban meet last December, seemed to shift their focus away from finance, claiming even a fuzzy notion of funds would make them happy. But they warned that equity could not be used to distract from increased emission reduction targets for all the countries between now and 2020.

The small island countries and LDCs tried to sell the idea that equity in burden sharing came in the way of increasing countries' commitments and should be put aside for now. Decoded, countries should not bother about comparing who was required to act and who actually was undertaking more emission reduction.

Countering the move, India and China both warned that a deal without equity and the principle of common but differentiated responsibility (CBDR) for any future arrangements would not be acceptable. Both pointed out that studies showed the developing world had already committed greater reductions between 2012 and 2020 than the rich countries.

"When we talk of equity, it is often perceived as something opposed to ambition. Future arrangements must be built on this principle. How can we advance an ambitious global regime in the post 2020 period if it is not anchored in Equity and does not have assurance of access to financial resources and technologies?" asked Mira Mehrishi, who is leading the Indian delegation here.

Joint secretary R R Rashmi explained, "The idea of equity finds its place in two tracks of the negotiations but we have to make sure it is articulated in a manner that it gets operationalized and does not remain just as an ideal."

The Chinese head of delegation, Xie Zhenhua, too, reiterated that under future arrangements now under discussion the two principles were non-negotiable for his country.

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Doha climate talks: India not to enhance its pledge of reducing emissions

Nitin Sethi, TNN Dec 4, 2012, 05.01PM IST

(The government has ordered…)

DOHA: The Union environment and forests minister Jayanthi Natarajan may not come to the climate talks but the Indian delegation here led by special secretary M Mehrishi has got the nod from the cabinet to draw its strong redlines at the Doha round of UN negotiations.

The government has ordered the Indian delegation at Doha to not enhance its pledge of reducing emissions intensity at Doha and reiterated that the three critical issues of equity, intellectual property and unilateral actions by governments remain steadfast on the table.

It has approved the note which criticized EU for shifting the goal post yet again and resell the commitment to operationalise the Kyoto Protocol's second commitment period. The delegates are now empowered to negotiate an un-conditional approval of the protocol's second phase starting 2013.

The formal approval from the government comes at a time that the Doha talks have got log-jammed with the developed countries refusing to even discuss issues of value to the developing world, such as a timeline for delivering finance, adaptation, equity and unilateral actions under what is called the Long Term Cooperation Action (LCA) track. The track is to shut down this year and the developing countries want to move the unresolved issues from the track to the future talks which the rich nations have blocked so far.

The cabinet orders, unlike previous years come with no caveat or space for flexibility for the Indian delegation at Doha. They have commanded the delegation to ensure the pending issues find homes in future negotiations.

The orders prohibit the delegation from agreeing to any new obligations in the guise of supplementary actions unless they are taken in keeping with the provisions of the convention and only when the means of implementing such actions - finance and technology - are made available.

All commitments for future, the cabinet order requires, must be made realizing the historical responsibility and the principle of equity.

The Cabinet has also decided that any new obligation to reduce emissions through 'supplementary actions' should only be undertaken in adherence to the existing UN climate conventions and on availability of funds and technologies.

The cabinet has asked the delegation to work closely with the G77 plus China group, the BASIC formation and the new configuration called the Like Minded Developing Countries.

On the Durban Platform negotiations, the cabinet has approved that the Indian team secure a plan of work guided by the fifth IPCC review, the review of the convention itself, international consultation and analysis, international consultations, the biennial reports and updates and the national communications.

With the minister missing in action as the government fighting off the challenge from the opposition in the Parliament on the issue of foreign direct investment in the retail sector, the firm and unconditional orders from the cabinet are expected to steer the Indian position at Doha.

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Forest staff, villagers will be immunized against monkey fever

Mysore/ Chamarajanagar: Bandipur Tiger Reserve (BTR) director Kumar Pushakar, who has confirmed monkey fever at Maddur forest range of BRT, said there is no need to panic.

"No fresh deaths of primates have been reported after the back-to-back death of eight bonnet macaques and two common langurs in a span of seven days in November. Also, forest watchers working at Alegowdanakatte anti-poaching camp are keeping well, so there is nothing to worry about," Pushkar said.

Forest department employees will be vaccinated against the monkey fever (aka Kyasanur forest disease-KFD) as a precaution, the director stated.

Vaccination on Dec 6

Chamarajanagar health officials will immunize the forest staff and nearly 800 villagers in Maddur Colony in BTR against KFD on December 6.

Only those in 6-65 age group will be vaccinated, as it will cause health problems to children below 6 years and adults above 65 years. Even pregnant women and lactating mothers will be spared.

Gundlupet General Hospital chief medical officer R Srinivas said that a team, led by a taluk medical officer, visited Maddur Colony and examined the villagers. They are hale and hearty.

"The colony has a population of about 700, and we have asked Virus Diagnostic Laboratory (Shimoga) to provide 800 dosage of vaccination," he added. An expert team from Kyasanur forest of Shimoga (where KFD was first reported in 1957) will arrive in Chamarajanagar to assist the team in the vaccination drive.

Precautions

Health officials have suggested the forest authorities to take precautions before entering the forest. CMO Dr Srinivas stated: "We have asked them to apply ticks-repellent oil available with veterinary department before visiting the forest area. This will prevent the infected ticks, which carry KFD, from biting them. Foresters have also been asked to take bathing regularly after returning home in the evening."

"KFD, which is a viral disease, is still in the primary stage in Bandipur. We require three more weeks to know its virulence. Common symptoms are bleeding in nose and mouth, fluctuation in blood pressure and repeated fever," Dr Srinivas explained.

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