Sumatra's sun bear threatened with extinction

Six of the world's eight species of bear are threatened with extinction, according to a report from the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Only two bears - the brown bear and the American black bear - were listed as being of "least concern".

The IUCN, which has updated the status of the seven species of terrestrial bear on its Red List of Threatened Species, said despite claims that panda populations were on the rise due to a ban on logging, the creation of panda reserves and reforestation programmes, it still considered the bear to be endangered.

The sun bear, the smallest species of bear, has been included on the list for the first time, and is classed as vulnerable. It was previously listed as "data deficient" because not enough was known about the species.

The IUCN bear specialist group, which announced its findings after a meeting in Mexico over the weekend, estimates that sun bears have declined by at least 30% over the past 30 years and would "continue to decline at this rate".

"Although we still have a lot to learn about the biology and ecology of this species, we are quite certain that it is in trouble," said Rob Steinmetz, the co-chairman of the IUCN bear specialist group's sun bear expert team.

"Deforestation has reduced both the area and quality of their habitat. Where habitat is now protected, commercial poaching remains a significant threat."

Steinmetz said the IUCN was working with government, protected area managers, conservation groups and local people "to prevent extinctions of the many small, isolated sun bear populations that remain in many parts of south-east Asia."

Bears in Asia and South America are the most in need of urgent conservation action, the IUCN said, with Asiatic black bears, Andean bears (formerly called spectacled bears), and sloth bears all listed as vulnerable.

The main threat to bears across south-east Asia comes from poaching. Although illegal, poachers are prepared to risk the small chance of being caught against the lucrative gains they can make from sales on the black market.

Prized bear body parts include the gall bladder, which is used in traditional Chinese medicine, and their paws, which are considered to be a delicacy.

Another threat to bear populations comes from living in close proximity to human settlements. Bears are often killed when they prey on livestock or raid crops, or killed when the roam too close to a village because they are seen as a threat to human safety.

"Although the bear population estimates for Asia are not as reliable as we would like, we estimate that bears in south-east Asia are declining at a particularly rapid rate due to extensive loss of forest habitat combined with rampant poaching," said Garshelis.

Bruce McLellan, another co-chairman of the bear specialist group, said: "An enormous amount of effort and funding for conservation and management continues to be directed at bears in North America where their status is relatively favorable.

"It is unfortunate that so little is directed at bears in Asia and South America where the need is extreme. We are trying to change this situation, but success is slow."

The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species - the conservation status of the world's bears.

Giant Panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) - Endangered
Sun bear (Helarctos malayanus) - Vulnerable
Asiatic black bear (Ursus thibetanus) - Vulnerable
Sloth bear (Melursus ursinus) - Vulnerable
Andean bear (Tremarctos ornatus) - Vulnerable
Polar bear (Ursus maritimus) - Vulnerable
Brown bear (Ursus arctos) - Least Concern
American black bear (Ursus americanus) - Least Concern

(The polar bear, which has recently become a symbol for climate change and its effect on animals, is listed as vulnerable, but as it is technically a marine mammal it is distinct from the other seven terrestrial bears and has a different specialist group.)

(Adapted from article in the Guardian)

NB. Once Hotel Rimbo is fully operational, visitors may have an opportunity to see a Sumatran sun bear in the forest.

Big food companies accused of risking climate

The rush to palm oil and biofuels threatens to release 14 billion tonnes of carbon from Indonesia's peatlands

John Vidal, environment editor o The Guardian

Many of the largest food and fuel companies risk climate change disaster by driving the demand for palm oil and biofuels grown on the world's greatest peat deposits, says a report, Cruel Oil (.pdf), issued today by Greenpeace.

Unilever, Cargill, Nestlé, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, as well as all leading UK supermarkets, are large users of Indonesian palm oil, much of which comes from the province of Riau in Sumatra, where an estimated 14.6bn tonnes of carbon - equivalent to nearly one year's entire global carbon emissions - is locked up in the world's deepest peat beds.

More than 1.4m hectares of virgin forest in Riau has already been converted to plantations to provide cooking oil, but a further 3m hectares is planned to be turned to biofuels, says the report .

Carbon is released when virgin forests are felled and the swampy peatlands are drained to provide plantation land. The peat decomposes and is broken down by bacteria and the land becomes vulnerable to fires which often smoulder and release greenhouse gases for decades.

If the peatlands continue to be destroyed to make way for palm oil plantations, this will significantly add to global climate change emissions, the report says. Nearly half of Indonesia's 22m hectares of peatland has already been cleared and drained, resulting in it having the third-highest man-made carbon emissions, after the US and China. Destruction of its peatlands already accounts for nearly 4% of all global greenhouse gas emissions.

The peat soils of Riau, which are eight metres deep in areas, have the highest concentration of carbon stored per hectare anywhere in the world. "This huge store is at risk from drainage, clearance and fire," the report says. "The area of peatland is relatively small, but destroying it would be the equivalent of releasing five years' emissions from all the world's coal and gas power stations."

Riau's plantations already provide 40% of all Indonesia's palm oil, and half the province is expected to be covered in plantations within a few years.

The Indonesian plantations, which Greenpeace says provide oil used in global brands like Flora margarine, Pringles, KitKat, Cadbury's Flake and Philadelphia cream cheese, feed a rising global demand for cheap vegetable oil used in producing food, cosmetics and, increasingly, vehicle fuel. "Demand [for palm oil as a cooking oil] is predicted to double within 25 years and triple by 2050. Further expansion in Indonesia is expected to be on the wet peatlands, because most of the dry forests have already been converted", the report says.

The report accepts that retail companies and food manufacturers have virtually no way of tracing where the palm oil they use comes from. Oils from different regions, and even countries, are blended, stored and shipped in shared vessels. "Due to the logistics of this commodity market, real traceability is simply not possible at this time," a major food retailer, who asked not to be named, told Greenpeace.

But the environment group said yesterday that the companies could not be exonerated from blame. "Faced with impending climate catastrophe, the palm oil industry is grabbing available cheap land like Indonesia's carbon-rich peatlands. The big food giants are supporting the rapid growth of CO2 emissions that may render halting dangerous climate change impractical, if not impossible," said John Sauven, director of Greenpeace UK.

Meeting European demand for palm oil alone would require nearly 60,000 square miles of plantations, says the report. Europe expects biofuels to make up 10% of all its transport fuel by 2010, China 20% by 2012, India 20% by 2012, and the US 10% by 2020.

"Substituting even 10% of the world demand for diesel fuel for road transport would require more than 75% of the world's total current demand for soya, palm oil and rapeseed oil," said Greenpeace.

As well as Indonesian provinces such as Riau, Asian entrepreneurs are already looking to Papua on the Indonesian island of New Guinea, one of the last great expanses of rainforest in south-east Asia. "There is already evidence of large scale land grabbing in the name of biofuel, with one company alone laying claim to nearly 3m hectares of forest," the Greenpeace report says. "Feeding the growing demand is likely to take place through expanding palm oil productions in Indonesia. It will feed off forest destruction and fuel not only cars, but climate change."

The food companies deny direct involvement in the creation of palm plantations, but accept that there is a problem sourcing sustainable oil. In a letter to Greenpeace, Nestlé, which uses 170,000 tonnes of palm oil from Malaysia and Indonesia, said it sourced its supplies from "responsible" suppliers. "At present there is no palm oil that is certified as sustainable. As soon as the principles are adopted, Nestlé will do its part in promoting their adoption."

Unilever, which uses 1.2 m tonnes of palm oil a year, said it had invested a lot of time and money in ensuring that its palm oil supplies were grown in an environmentally responsible way: "Our work ... has recently been made harder by the rush into biofuels. We have lobbied hard with governments to alert them to the unintended consequences of this policy on global food supply and deforestation."

Cargill, which imports 535,000 tonnes of palm oil a year to Britain, said: "We already make impact assessments for new developments and do not develop in areas of high conservation value."

Indonesia will next month host the UN climate change conference in Bali, where countries will begin to negotiate a worldwide deal to combat global warming. At the moment, developing countries such as China and Indonesia are not required to limit emissions.

In numbers:
11m The number of hectares of Indonesian peatlands already cleared and drained.
(1 hectare is 10,000 square metres. Therefore peatlands cleared = c.110,000 sq kilometres = c.69,000 sq. miles = about the size of Texas and the amount of land recently granted by the government of Canada to the indigenous people of its Arctic region.)
4% Current share of global greenhouse gas emissions from peatland destruction.
25 Years from now the demand for palm oil for cooking will be double today's rate.

Green Gleanings - November 07

This is, I hope, the first in a series of monthly jottings I have gleaned from various sources. If you have an event or issue you think could be usefully jotted here, please email me. This is how I learned about items 1 & 2.

1. Grain Blog reports that the push to plant hybrid rice seeds is more hype than hope.

Both the government and the seed industry are well aware of the susceptibility of hybrid rice to diseases and pests. In the decrees authorising the 31 hybrid rice varieties approved for commercialisation in the country, all are listed as having, to various degrees, susceptibility to brown planthopper, tungro, and bacterial leaf blight.

2. Report (.pdf) on a field monitoring trip by Riza Tjahjadi of Biotani Indonesia Foundation giving details of item 1 in greater depth.

3. Today Greenpeace launched the Forest Defenders Camp Satellite Station (FDCSS) at Monas Park in Jakarta.

The event will disseminate information compiled by Greenpeace's Forest Defenders Camp in Riau, stationed near a peatland forest cleared for palm oil plantations, and support the organization's campaign to include deforestation talks in the next phase of the Kyoto agreement.

The FDCSS will showcase the beauty and destruction of the pristine rain forests of Indonesia, highlighting their impacts on biodiversity and climate in an exhibit of photos, cultural performances, lectures and short films. With support from the Jakarta administration, the event will feature local artists and musicians from Nov. 3 to 11.

I hope visitors can find a gate open so they can enter the park. Hint: it's near Gambir train station and nowhere near the Busway stop.

4. This coming Thursday (8th November), KEHATI, the Indonesian Biodiversity Foundation founded by the eminent Prof. Dr. Emil Salim, is holding a seminar on Business and Biodiversity, also in Jakarta.

Many plants and microbes in the forests, on high lands and in the bed of the oceans of Indonesia are hiding magical cure for deadly deceases such as cancer, HIV/Aids, cardiovascular, not to mention plants for food security, cosmetics, natural coloring and preservation etc. This is not a wishful thinking. It's already a fact to be commercially and sustainably utilized. Come and listen to the facts disclosed by senior researchers and practitioners.

If you are in pharmaceutical, food or beauty business, or you want to try a new core, then biodiversity is your fortune in waiting.

As much as I am not a believer in the accumulation of personal wealth, because the oceans and forests surely belong to us all and thereby represent our communal wealth, this seminar could be another way forward. Hopefully it's a wedge keeping a door open into a new way of thinking for humanity, albeit an ancient way.

Tiger, tiger burning dim

There's much ado about Indonesia hosting the next, the thirteenth, United Nations Climate Change Conference on the island of Bali from December 3rd -14th.

A week ago, SBY hosted a two day informal meeting in Bogor of ministers and senior officials from about 40 countries aimed at building a foundation for the conference.

He called for developed countries to continue to take the lead in significantly reducing carbon emissions.

"Developed countries are also called upon to provide resources, environmentally-sound technologies and the necessary financial support for developing countries, many of which have scant resources for coping with and adapting to the impact of climate change."

But developing nations should also try to reduce their national greenhouse gas emissions and step up their efforts to do more, he said.

"They would be well advised to formulate and carry out innovative and forward-looking national strategies by way of mitigation and adaptation."

Obviously, Indonesia must do more to control deforestation and the conversion of peat lands.

There is no question that deforestation in Indonesia is having a serious impact at international as well as at national and local levels. Destructive logging, out-of-control fires, forest clearance for plantations, mining, fossil fuel extraction, transmigration sites, aquaculture, and road-building have long been linked with negative social and economic impacts for local indigenous and forest-dependent communities, and enormous financial losses for communities and the state.

A recent study (in Indonesian) has now highlighted the global picture, which shows Indonesia both as a major contributor to climate change, as well as highly vulnerable to its impacts. Forest destruction, peatland degradation and forest fires are mostly to blame for Indonesia's ranking as third biggest emitter of greenhouse gases after the USA and China.

Not only must Indonesia do more; the government now has opportunity to demonstrate a clear commitment and leadership; politicians and law enforcement agencies must cease mouthing platitudes and act, and not just in Bali (where for the duration of the conference SBY will have his seat of government).

A report has been issued this week by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) which states that some unprotected areas of Sumatran forests are safe havens for a variety of threatened species, including tigers, elephants, sun bears, tapirs, golden cats and clouded leopards.

Sumatran Tiger *

The Indonesian Government is currently allocating the degraded, logged and partially settled forest areas to oil palm, timber plantations and other concessions, all of which have damaging impacts on the environment. If this strategy is not changed, it will result in loss of habitat that is vital to the future of the Sumatran tiger and many other species.

Degraded land is land that has already been stripped of its largest trees, making it unsuitable for animals that live in forest canopies, but it is still useful for ground-based animals as it can serve as useful corridors between different populations of a species.

So, it is clear that not only primary but also secondary forest areas are key to Indonesia's biodiversity. They must be brought under legal conservation control. A commitment to do so at the Bali Conference from the Indonesian government, together with the necessary regulatory framework, would go some way to demonstrating that the Conference has a validity beyond the beaches.

* Note from Richard Ness: "The picture was taken by a camera trap. All you do is set a digital camera along the trail and it takes a picture of any animal or human that walks by. We had requested the Tiger Foundation to assist in base line studies on wild life in an area in Sumatra. This photo was taken by a camera trap set by Dr. Neil Franklin from the Tiger Foundation (NB. No longer active). We had a separate group for Orangutans. We did find is a very unique area where the Aceh biodiversity overlapped with the North/Central Sumatra biodiversity. Ended up working with US AID and conservation international to try and have it protected. This work is still on going. What I also learned is that tigers are very interesting. I am not sure the cutting of primary forest for logging or plantations is a real issue for them. They may do just as well in secondary growth."

(A year ago, Richard Ness was on trial accused of allowing his gold mining company, Newmont Minahasa Raya, to pollute Bulat Bay in Sulawesi. He was acquitted in May this year.)

Essential reading: 'Avoided Deforestation' and Indonesia