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Host City for Olympics 2008 facing environmental problems
Beijing’s Meteorological Department warned children and the elderly to stay indoors on Friday the 26th October as heavy fog blanketed the host city of the 2008 Olympics and accentuated its chronic air pollution. People were cautioned of the severe respiratory problems they could have if they moved out of their homes. They were advised to wear a mask to prevent any kind of damage.
Beijing is committed to improving air quality for the August 2008 Olympics, but the United Nations Environment Programme report is of the view that it will remain a problem. According to the Olympics chief Jacques Rogge, some endurance events at the Games will have to be rescheduled if poor air quality persists.

GE to cut mercury in CFLs
Residents and businesses are buying CFLs because they reduce bills as well as CO2 emissions, the main contributor to global warming. CFLs use only one-fourth to one-fifth the energy of incandescent bulbs producing the same light and can last 10 years. CFLs contain about 5 milligrams of mercury according to the Environmental Protection Agency.
But with the sale of CFLs going up tremendously every year, some scientists and environmentalists are worried that most bulbs are ending up in landfills rather than being recycled.
Ms Lorraine Bolsinger, vice president of GE’s green unit called ecomagination said that GE is trying to raise investments to get mercury down to 1 milligram. Mercury is a poison that can hurt the nervous system and damage the kidneys and liver. The bulbs that are not recycled can break before they reach landfills and may contaminate them. But some of the mercury emitted from landfills is in the form of vapor that can reach ecosystems more readily than mercury released directly form coal-fired power plants.
China is also keeping pace with the green movement and has agreed to do away with incandescent bulbs, a transition that could be made in the next 10 years. This move could mitigate 500 tonnes of greenhouse gas carbon dioxide annually. The government of Canada, Australia and California has also decided to move in the same direction.

Polar bears threatened as Arctic melts
Time may be running out for polar bears as global warming melts their only house- the ice. Bans on hunting recently have helped protect many bears but many experts opine that the long-term outlook is bleak.
An estimated 20,000 to 25,000 bears live around the Arctic – in Canada, Russia, Alaska, Greenland and Norway – and countries are finding ways to protect them amid forecasts of an accelerating thaw. There will be massive reductions in numbers if the ice melts.
Many scientific studies have forecast that warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, could melt the polar ice cap in summer.

Biofuels…a boon for the environment
It is predicted that India will produce 2 million tonnes of biodiesel by 2012 as it is aggressively planting wild jatropha oilseed to meet the increasing demand for energy. It has identified 64 million hectares of wasteland where jatropha, a non-edible oilseed can be planted and which grows even on arid land in most warm climates and needs little care.
Looking forward to the rapidly evolving biofuels market, dozens of private firms are contracting villagers to grow this plant in their mostly barren plots of land. According to Mr Rajiv Gulati, vice president of Biodiesel Association of India, some state governments have already started giving land to interested parties, but it comes with conditions." Some of the conditions include growing jatropha plantations within a set time frame."
India plans to replace around five percent of its current 40 million tonnes of annual diesel consumption with jatropha biodiesel within about five years.
Jatropha is seen as a good deal for India if it wants to cut back on oil imports that account for 70 percent of its needs.
Mr Gulati said India has planted jatropha on some 2 million hectares in the last three years but oil production will only start by 2012.
Cultivated on a small scale, jatropha can provide oil to power a generator, to pump irrigation water and it has an advantage over other energy crops like palm or soyoil as it is not edible and so using the oilseed as fuel does not compete with food uses.

Aviation industry – bane for environment
Environmentalists point out that the industry is becoming the fastest growing contributor to global warming. Airline manufacturers however refute the charge.
"Last year people took more than two billion journeys on scheduled airlines worldwide, up four percent over 2005, according to the International Civil Aviation Organisation. IATA, the International Air Transport Association, predicts another 500 million passengers will take to the skies by 2010. According to the Eurorail group in a release, jet aircraft emit 23 kilograms of CO₂ per 100 passenger-kilometers which is a lot. Environmentalists argue that since the airplanes travel at very high altitudes, the impact on global warming is more.
The average plane releases virtually one tonne of carbon dioxide for each passenger it carries from London to New York. Scientists say that high-altitude emissions are more damaging to the environment. In Europe it is estimated that emissions from air travel increased by 73 percent between 1990 and 2003 and are going upwards.

Coir based biofilters for wastewater treatment
On-site wastewater disposal is increasingly adopted for discharging the effluents from all the residential buildings and in most small-scale commercial operations due to large amount involved in installation of conventional treatment systems. This is leading to not only posing a serious threat to the health of the soil but also causing deterioration of our fresh water sources. Thus to ensure the good environmental health, there is the need for cost-effective waste load reduction methods. Coir-geotextiles are widely used for a number of applications in the fields related to soil engineering, geotechnical engineering and water resource management.

Government to use waste plastic in road construction
With plastic waste available in plenty in Delhi, Delhi government and the CPCB (Central Pollution Control Board) have proposed the use of waste plastic in road construction. Experiments in mixing molten plastic with concrete to construct roads has already been done in several South Indian cities such as Chennai, Trichy, Salem, Madruai, Ooty, and Kochi by some private companies. But this is the first time the Union Surface Transport Ministry and bodies like the Indian Road Congress have authenticated and documented the process. Potholes and cracks that are a regular feature on roads will have an impermeable layer of plastic to control the damage.

Utilizing rainwater-harvesting technologies: a success story
Mr K J Kaduthodil Mathachan is a progressive farmer in Kasaragod district of Kerala who has made use of rainwater harvesting technologies from the Central Plantation Crops Research Institute (CPCRI) to make his farming enterprise a success.
According to Mr Manoj P Samuel, Technical Officer of the CPCRI, Kasaragod, there is an acute water shortage during the summer even though Kasaragod region receives copious rainfall during the monsoon, because groundwater evaporation is rapid. Mr Kaduthodil understands the importance of rainwater harvesting. He considers it a more effective method for managing water scarcity for his farms in these areas where the groundwater is in adequate. He would rather not depend on rivers, springs or tube wells to meet irrigation requirements during the summer like other farmers do.

Judiciary takes initiative on saving lakes
With the civic authorities having failed to preserve and protect the water bodies in and around Bangalore, it was left to the judiciary to save the tanks and lakes around Bangalore and its suburbs.
The judiciary wishes to ensure that the lakes and tanks that dot the seven city municipal councils (CMCs) and one taluk municipal council under the ambit of a single corporation are protected.
The Karnataka State Legal Services Authority, which functions under the Karnataka High Court, has taken up the task of saving the water bodies and tackling the problem of contaminated water supply around the four valleys in Bangalore, including Bellandur, Hebbal, Koramangala, and Chalaghatta. The Authority has been holding regular meetings with the chiefs of the Bangalore Water Supply and Sewerage Board (BWSSB), Karnataka State Pollution Control Board (KSPCB), Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) and the Bruhut Bangalore Mahanagara Palike on ways and means to protect the water bodies around Bangalore.

Brazil setting an example of environmental stewardship
The Amazon, the world's largest tropical rainforest, is the planet's most diverse terrestrial ecosystem and is thought to hold a quarter of all species. In Brazil, the Amazon covers an area larger than India and huge pieces of land have already been cleared. Para, an eastern Amazon state, has suffered particular damage because it lies along the southern and eastern borders of the Amazon and is more easily accessible than areas further inland.
Brazil created the world's largest tropical rainforest preserve recently in a section of the Amazon deeply affected by illegal logging and decades of violence between loggers, ranchers, conservationists and land rights activists.
The preserve covers more than 15 million hectares – an area larger than England – across seven parks in Para, an eastern Amazon state heavily exploited by illegal loggers and land traders. Unfortunately, an American nun was gunned down there last year by ranchers who wanted her to stop helping locals fight for land rights.
Para State Governor Simao Jatene said he created the new parks to stop land speculators from selling fake titles. "In Brazil, maintaining something can be as challenging as doing it in the first place," he said.
The preserve expands a key wildlife corridor for jaguars, monkeys and birds in northern Para and also protects areas in conflict-ridden central Para.

Plastic bags to vanish soon
How one wishes if such things happen every part of the world.
In Vijaywada, use of wafer-thin plastic bags will soon become history. With a ban on the manufacture, distribution, sale and use of plastic bags with a thickness less than 20 microns, these bags will disappear from the markets soon.
Vijayawada Municipal Corporation has already launched a campaign against use of plastic bags. The VMC Commissioner, Vijaywada has issued orders specifying details of the fine to be collected from violators of the rule.
Interestingly, as per market estimates, residents of the city use over three lakh plastic bags everyday. But these bags are not manufactured in the city.
Of the eight plastic industries in Krishna district, only two make these bags on a small scale because most of the bags come from Hyderabad.
Each bag weighs one gram. Altogether, some 300 kg of plastic bags are dumped everyday. Though solid waste generated in the city is used for generating power, plastic bags are segregated and thrown out. Excessive use of plastic is posing a threat to environment. "Many residents are throwing plastic covers into drains, which is resulting in stagnation of sewage water. Bags made of recycled paper cost Re 1 each, ten times more than the price of a plastic bag. This is because of lack of demand. If there is a demand, we can supply recycled paper bags at a price of 10 paise each," says a proprietor of Maa Shakti Craft House, which makes eco-friendly products.

Mitigating air pollution would boost India’s rice harvests
According to a recent air US study, air pollution has reduced India’s rice harvests. California State University researchers have postulated that India’s rice harvests during the 1990s would have been 20 to 25 percent more had it not been for the climatic effect of green house gases and polluting aerosols such as soot. Greenhouse gases and aerosols in brown clouds are known to be competing factors in global warming. The research showed that “ brown cloud” pollution has cost India millions of tonnes of food production. The Asian Brown Cloud is a layer of air pollution covering parts of Northern Indian Ocean, India, Pakistan and parts of South Asia, Southeast Asia and China. In proper humidity conditions, it forms a haze. It is created by a range of airborne particles and pollutants, characteristic of biomass burning and industrial emissions due to incomplete burning.
Exterminating the brown cloud will enhance rainfall, and lower levels of greenhouse gases which will benefit rice plants by lowering overnight temperatures.
The brown cloud exists throughout Asia’s main rice producing countries many of which have experienced decreasing growth rates in harvests.

Future fuel of India
High crude oil prices have led to an urgency to India’s search for alternative and renewable fuels and biofuels, especially bio-diesel using the Jatropha plant. Jatropha, a tree originating in the Western hemisphere, produces fruit which, though inedible, contains a nut with a very high oil content, which when extracted, can be used as a fuel. It is useful for restoring oil, fighting desertification and providing fertilizer. It requires minimal inputs of water and grows in extremely poor soil.
Economic development in India has led to huge increases in energy demand, which in turn has encouraged the development of Jatropha cultivation. Indian government has identified 400,000 square kilometers of land where Jatropha can be grown hoping it will replace 20% of diesel consumption by 2011.
The Indian Railways has begun to use the Jatropha oil very fruitfully to power its diesel engines. The president of India is a strong advocate of Jatropha cultivation for the production of bio-diesel. States like Chattisgarh, Tamil Nadu, Rajasthan and Maharashtra are aggressively promoting the plantation of this plant to help farmers overcome the loss due to irregular rains in the last few years.

Turning on gas in Ghana
More than 90 percent of Ghanaians still rely on fuel wood or charcoal as their main source of energy. According to government estimates, every person in Ghana uses around 1,400 pounds of fuel wood annually—the bulk of it for cooking. Along with logging, agricultural practices and mining, reliance on fuel wood contributes to the depletion of two percent of Ghana’s forest annually. In an effort to curb this rapid decline, the United Nations, in partnership with the government and local groups, is promoting the use of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) — butane or propane—as an alternative to wood fuel.

IIM Kozhikode runs on rainwater
This B-school's 96-acre campus occupies two steep hillocks. There is no independent water source for the entire institute and the average daily water consumption exceeds one-lakh litres. The absence of pre-monsoon showers in mid-Kerala is causing worry elsewhere, but IIM-Kozhikode shows no signs of anxiety. The reason: they have been successfully harvesting rain in a big way since the beginning of the institute three years ago.

A final solution to waste?
Changing World Technologies (CWT), a company in New York has perfected a process to transform all manner of modern waste into crude oil and other useful products. The process, thermal depolymerization, (TDP) is nearly self-sufficient in energy, has no polluting by-products, and is highly scalable. The most appealing feature is the wide variety of waste it can handle: tyres, plastics, paper, sludge, municipal waste, and abattoir wastes. The products that come out are crude oil (which can flow into the refineries directly), fuel gas, absorbent carbon, and fertilizer intermediates.
TDP has been known since 1960 but in a more inefficient and inconsistent version. Basically, the process is about accelerating nature’s way of recycling by means of heat and pressure. While nature takes millions of years, TDP does it in hours. CWT’s patented process has been endorsed by many US authorities and academics. Now ConAgra is building a $ 20 million plant to process 200 tonnes per day of turkey carcasses into fuel oil.

Wring plastics into fuel oil
Prof. Alka Zadgaonkar is Head of the Department of Applied Chemistry at the GH Raisoni College of Engineering, Nagpur. She is the patent-holder of a process that has the potential to clear our environment of plastic waste, create a million jobs in waste management , add useful, profitable products to our economy and make India a technology leader in taming plastics.
This is not a pie in the sky. Alka and her husband, Umesh are buying in 5 tonnes of plastic waste everyday in Nagpur at prices attractive to ragpickers. They are wringing fuel oil out of that unsightly pile and selling it to industries in the Butibori Industrial Estate on Wardha Road out of Nagpur Production from their plant.
They are doing quite well and are about to scale up and buy in 25 tonnes of plastic waste a day. That production too, is booked. As Nagpur generates only 35 TPD of plastic waste, they will shortly run out of raw material to grow bigger.
The process invented and patented by Alka Zadgaonkar is capable of accepting all tribes and castes of plastic waste as input: carry bags, broken buckets and chairs, PVC pipes, CDs, computer keyboards and other e-waste material. No preparatory cleaning is necessary either, except shredding that helps economical transport of bulky waste. All solid and metal fines settle down in the melting process or are converted to ash.
Chlorinated plastics like PVC are particularly hazardous to burn because they emit dioxins. In the Alka Zadgaonkar process, the entire shredded mixture is melted at a low temperature and led to a de-gasification stage. Here chlorine is led away to harmlessly bubble through water, producing hydrochlorous acid.

Scientists say Arctic was once tropical
In the middle of the Arctic, scientists have found an ideal hotspot where temperatures might have been 740 F. It could have been home for alligator ancestors and palm trees! Samples dug up from deep beneath the Arctic Ocean floor have shown that 55 million years ago an area near the North Pole was practically a subtropical paradise that was heated by greenhouse gases that came about naturally. These greenhouse gases were perhaps massive releases of methane from the ocean, the continent-sized burning of trees, or lots of volcanic eruptions. But whatever may be the reason millions of years ago, the Earth experienced an extended period of natural global warming with a sudden increase of carbon dioxide that accelerated the greenhouse effect. Then how did the Arctic cool?
Scientists believe that with so much of heat all around and freshwater lakes forming in the Arctic, a fern called Azolla started growing in abundance. This fern grew so deep and wide that eventually it started sucking up carbon dioxide which helped put the cool back in the Arctic. But this natural solution to global warming was not exactly quick – it took about a million years.

Turtle die-off linked to "Red Tide"
A lethal algal bloom dubbed "Red Tide" by scientists caused a mysterious mass die-off of sea turtles on the Pacific shores of El Salvador. At least 200 sea turtles died late last year due to this “Red Tide” event.
The cause of death was revealed by tests on tissue samples from the dead reptiles, which were mostly Olive Ridley turtles but also included green and hawksbill turtles. These are all considered to be endangered species.
The tests showed traces of a chemical, saxitoxin, which is produced by the species of algae and sea plankton that cause the phenomenon known as 'Red Tide'."
The deaths were reported in January and had initially baffled scientists.
"Red Tide events have become increasingly common around the world, causing significant impacts on wild marine animal populations, massive economic losses to shellfish producers, and occasionally human deaths.
Although the algal blooms are natural occurrences, human wastes such as run-off containing fertilizers and sewage from urban areas have been postulated as triggers for these events."

Scientists discover interplay between genes and viruses in tiny ocean plankton
New evidence from open-sea experiments shows there’s a constant shuffling of genetic material going on among the ocean’s tiny plankton, which happens via ocean-dwelling viruses.
Evidence shows a new facet of evolution and helping scientists see how microbes exploit changing conditions, such as altered light, temperature and nutrients. All this explains that even the smallest organisms show genetic variation related to the environment in which they exist.
These tiny planktons are no longer thought to be made up of species that have a fixed genetic make-up but rather as a collection of genes, some of which are shared by all microbes and contain the information that drives their core metabolism, and others that are more mobile, which can be found in unique combinations in different microbes.
The massive numbers of viruses known to exist in seawater are the carriers of new genes. Some of them are adept at infecting ocean microbes like Prochlorococcus, the sea’s most abundant plankton species. The ocean viruses, which carry their own genes as well as transport others, provide a way of transferring genes from old cells into new ones.

Dark chocolate is good for smokers' hearts
A report from ANI (Washington) states that according to a study dark chocolate may prevent the hardening of arteries in smokers, and a few squares every day could potentially cut the risk of serious heart disease. Researchers compared the effects of dark 74 percent cocoa solids and white chocolate on the smoothness of arterial blood flow in 20 male smokers. In smokers the activity of both endothelial cells, which line the artery walls, and platelets, which are involved in the formation of blood clots, are continuously disrupted, making the arteries susceptible to the narrowing and hardening characteristic of coronary artery disease. Before eating 40 g of chocolate (about 2 oz), smokers were first asked to abstain from other foods rich in antioxidants, such as onions, apples, cabbage, and cocoa products for 24 hours. After two hours, ultrasound scans revealed that dark chocolate significantly improved the smoothness of arterial flow, an effect that lasted for eight hours. Blood sample analysis also showed that dark chocolate almost halved platelet activity. Antioxidant levels rose sharply after two hours. Dark chocolate has more antioxidants per gram than other foods laden with the substances, such as red wine, green tea, and berry fruits, say the authors, who suggest that the beneficial effects of dark chocolate lie in its antioxidant content.
"Only a small daily treat of dark chocolate may substantially increase the amount of antioxidant intake and beneficially affect vascular health," conclude the authors of the study.

Cars Cause Climate Change
World Carfree Network, an international association of organizations has said that cars produce more greenhouse emissions than any other single source. They have urged the delegates at the Montreal Summit on Climate Change to focus on cars, both as one of the most threatening causes of climate change and as an indicator of one relatively painless solution to the crisis. It is estimated that globally, road transport (cars and trucks) accounted for as much as 40 percent of the gases that contributed to Climate Change, and emissions from private cars were increasing faster than those from any other source.
Simply by limiting car use in city centres to service vehicles and deliveries, redirecting funds for road construction to rail line construction and cycling roads could result in an almost immediate reduction in climate-damaging emissions of up to 20 percent. The European Union, which is one of the most active in combating Climate Change is keener on a change to bio-fuels rather than in the reduction of use of private cars. The use of biofuels would reduce emissions but much less than would a shift to public transport would. The shift to public transport would threaten the huge automobile industry but in the long run it would boost the local economy.

Seaweed to breathe new life into fight against global warming
When the world was young, it was the little blue-green algae and other seaweeds that, over the years, converted much of the carbon dioxide in the air into oxygen and eventually pushed it up to the levels it is at today. Now that the balance is being thrown off, it’s time for the seaweed to come and help again. The Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry mentioned carbon dioxide absorption by seaweed in its Technology Roadmap for 2005. Masahiro Notoya, a world expert on seaweed from the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, leads the project. Dr Notoya believes that Sostera marina and sargassum, herded to the right parts of the ocean, will grow up to 40 ft every year, absorbing about 36 tonnes of carbon dioxide in the process. These seaweeds are also popular fare for a variety of fish whose stocks have dwindled. These quick growing seaweeds put in vast nets in the sea, will absorb prodigious quantities of greenhouse gases and convert them to oxygen before being harvested 12 months later as a rich source of biomass energy. The only obstacle in the way of these vast seaweed farms is finding empty sea because there are only certain parts of the ocean where seaweed grows well. The most critical part of the project is to convert the seaweed into useful energy, a process that draws on technology produced by the Mitsubishi Research Institute. When blasted with superheated steam, seaweed discharges hydrogen and carbon monoxide gases that can be used to create a biofuel, which, in turn, discharges no extra carbon dioxide when burnt. This is not the first time that seaweed has been identified as mankind’s potential saviour. In the 1970s the United States-led Giant Kelp Project failed because it was unclear what to do with all that seaweed once it was hauled back to shore. Now that seaweed can be converted to energy without expensive fermentation, the idea is back on course.

Water to help power Windsor Castle
Queen Elizabeth II recently decided to take the lead in the use of green electricity to help tackle global warming with plans to use water from the River Thames to help power Windsor Castle - the largest occupied castle in the world. This is the royal family's latest environmental project. The palace authorities are constantly on the lookout for ways of saving energy and have been using energy efficient light bulbs for long.
Queen Elizabeth, Prince Charles and other members of the royal household have long embraced environmental causes and projects. The Queen's husband, Prince Phillip, uses a taxi powered by natural gas when he is driven around London. Previously he used an electrically driven minibus.
The one million pound project, to be completed by the end of 2006, will power nearly one-third of Windsor Castle for which approval has already been granted to power the residence. The project will generate 200 kilowatts of electricity from four turbines that will be submerged in an existing weir, or dam system, near the castle. According to the palace, the underwater turbines will be virtually invisible and silent.
This project is an effort by the British government to produce 10 percent of the country's power from renewable sources by 2010 and 15 percent by 2015. The targets are part of an effort to help combat global warming. Environmental groups say that small scale electricity production, using solar, wind or water systems could help Britain meet those targets.

Children's world summit for the environment convened in Japan
Around 600 children in the age group of 10 to 14 and from 65 countries gathered in the last week of July in Aichi Prefecture, Japan for the first ever Children's World Summit for the Environment. They will share their experiences and voice their concerns on the importance of the environment in achieving the Millennium Development Goals. These 600 children were selected from over 2,000 applicants based on the environmental projects of their schools and organizations.
From 26 to 29 July, each day focussed on a different theme – energy, biodiversity, water, and recycling – and the participants made commitments relevant to each of these themes. The Children’s Summit unfolded essentially in the cities of Toyohashi and Toyota City. Its programme included workshops, presentations and field trips, including an entire day spent at Expo 2005, which is currently taking place in Aichi Prefecture, with the theme "Nature's Wisdom."
The Governor of Aichi Prefecture, Mr. Masaaki Kanda, said participation in the environment-oriented EXPO exposed the children to different ways of living on Earth, such as living in harmony with nature and using cutting-edge technology to conserve the environment.
The Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP), Klaus Toepfer, said the Children's World Summit was an important follow-up event to earlier adult gatherings in Rio de Janeiro and Johannesburg. He said world leaders gathering at the World Summit in New York in September are expected to reshape the agenda of the United Nations. So it is crucial that issues concerning the future of the environment and the future of children guide their discussions.
The two daughters of His Imperial Highness Prince Akishino, Princess Mako and Princess Kako, who are, respectively, 14 and 11 years old, were also delegates at the Summit.

Teacher awarded for work in environmental education
A Philadelphia schoolteacher, Patricia Whack, head teacher of service learning at Shaw Middle School who engages her students in the world around them through environmental education and civic action was recently awarded for her efforts.
She received the 2005 Educator 500 Award from the 3E Institute at West Chester University. The Educator 500 program identifies, rewards and supports entrepreneurial educators and teams who are proactively developing and implementing innovative programs that meet the unique needs of students by incorporating collaborative solutions, business partnerships and parent and community involvement.
Whack, serves as the school’s Green Flag Program coordinator and was recognized for her work on the project. The Green Flag Program is a project that encourages environmental leadership in schools and is designed to help communities make their schools healthier places to learn while also educating students about environmental issues. The program involves students and adults in investigating issues, identifying problems, finding solutions and promoting positive environmental programs in schools. The project areas of the program are Reuse, Recycle; Indoor Air Quality; Toxic Products; and Integrated Pest Management. Ms. Whack took up all four project areas of the Green Flag Program.
Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is a kid-safe, economical, and scientific approach to managing pests. IPM integrates knowledge of pest identity and biology with pest monitoring so that action, if needed, can be taken at just the right time. In addition, IPM uses a combination of management tactics that are more likely to be safe and effective. The Green Flag Program helps schools switch to non-toxic methods of pest management where students learn about the benefits of using IPM in their school to manage cockroaches, flies and mice indoors. ‘No outside food’ is the rule of the IPM service learning program. Announcements at morning assemblies stressing personal responsibility for keeping the school clean and free of trash have resulted in the involvement of the entire school family in a community approach to pest management. Students have the opportunity to use their new skills in homes and communities — skills they learned while practicing IPM in the school environment. According to Whack, students are utilizing surveys, audio-visual displays, and after-school programs as well as newsletters at health fairs and community outreach events to bring home their effort at environment management.

Irrawady dolphins threatened with extinction
The rare Irrawaddy dolphins at Asia's largest saltwater lake, Chilika in Orissa are threatened with extinction due to unregulated fishing and high-speed tourist boats, conservationists have warned. The Irrawaddy dolphin has a very low rate of breeding, producing only one baby after every three years with a gestation period of nine months.
Chilika supports a population of about 130 Irrawaddy dolphins (Orcealla brevirostris). With the death of about a dozen dolphins every year, the Chilika population is not expected to last beyond a decade. These dolphins were first recorded in Chilika in 1915. But their population, movements between coastal and lagoon waters and mortality rates have remained undocumented.
Apart from Chilika, which has a unique combination of marine, brackish and fresh water ecosystem, Irrawaddy dolphins are also found in Songkhla Lake in Thailand. While it is difficult to spot them in Thailand, they can be easily sighted at Chilika.
In India very little is known about the whales, dolphins and porpoises that inhabit coastal waters, said an official of the Chilika Development Authority. The Wildlife Society of Orissa has suggested that the state government allow only low noise boats with modern engines for touring of tourists at the lake and stop the use of the newer varieties of fishing nets, which are almost invisible in the water.

Punjab bans Diclofenac drug to save vultures
The Punjab government recently banned the use of anti-inflammatory drug Diclofenac for cattle following growing concern that vultures, which eat dead cattle, were dying, leading to ecological disorder. This decision was taken following concern expressed by the Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and other ecologists that Diclofenac use was leading to the death of vultures on a mass scale due to the poisonous nature of the drug. The drug was being administered to animals - especially cattle - to lessen pain. Vultures eat up the carcasses of dead cattle and other animals dumped in open spaces.
These scavengers could earlier be seen in hordes in Punjab and Haryana, but their population had depleted in the last two decades leading to pollution due to the rotting carcasses. The main reason for their depletion was attributed to Diclofenac after blood samples of dead vultures pointed to the drug's presence.
BNHS reports said the depleting population of vultures could lead to an ecological disorder. BNHS and the Haryana government has set up a vulture-breeding centre at Pinjore last year with the help of experts from Britain and the US.

Sighting of swamp deer in Uttaranchal
Swamp deer (Cervus duvauceli duvauceli) are listed as endangered by the IUCNs Cervid Specialist Group. The species has dwindled in number from the last century to populations that are fragmented. One of the main reasons is the degradation of their habitat. Dudhwa Tiger Reserve is the stronghold of the Swamp deer with population of 1250+ (2004), which also includes the population in Kishanpur Sanctuary.
On 1 February 2005 at Jhilmil Taal situated on the right bank of the river Ganges in Chidiyapur forest range in Haridwar district in Uttaranchal, traces of hoof marks of swamp deer were observed. These hoof marks led to an open patch of grassland along a water channel where 34 Swamp deer were seen to be grazing. Nine fully grown stags along with does and a first year fawn were also seen.
On 6 February 2005, the Uttaranchal Minister of Forests, Shri Nav Prabhat visited the area and is now considering declaring the area a Swamp deer Conservation Reserve. Although the local villagers around Jhilmil Taal are vegetarians, they have been asked to move out of the area and resettle elsewhere to which they have all agreed. The proposal of relocation of the villagers of Jhilmil Taal is under consideration by the government. After declaring the area a Swamp deer Conservation Reserve it will be the stronghold of swamp deer in Uttaranchal.

Migratory birds in Delhi
For bird lovers thirsting to get a glimpse of migratory birds in sanctuaries such as Bharatpur, there is a glimmer of hope. Birds from European as well as other Asian countries have descended in large numbers on Sanjay lake in east Delhi’s Mayur Vihar area.
Ornithologists are pleasantly surprised by the visit of rare birds such as shovellers, ferruginous ducks, tufted pochards, common teals, mallards, and pintails to this lake but they also fear that the sewer water which is being discharged into the lake by neighbouring colonies is becoming hazardous for these species. The organic content in the household drainage water is responsible for the growth of weeds such as the water hyacinth. The growth is generally so rapid that it can cover the entire water body in a very short time and deoxygenate the water. This can pose a severe threat to the micro-organisms, thereby impeding the food supply of the migratory birds.
Its time we created awareness among people about this. Problems like throwing of non-biodegradable garbage like plastic bags, burning of wood, noise pollution caused by vehicles and defecation by slum dwellers could turn these beautiful migratory birds away from the lake.

Great Barrier Reef in danger
It could take less than 20 years for rising sea temperatures to kill Australia’s Great Barrier Reef. The Reef will lose most of its coral cover by 2050 and could collapse by 2100 because of global warming, according to a study by Queensland University's Centre for Marine Studies. There may be a complete devastation of coral communities on the reef.
The 2,000 kilometre (1,400 mile) long reef off the east coast of northern Australia is a major tourist destination attracting of thousands of international tourists each year.
The report warned that the destruction of coral on the Great Barrier Reef was inevitable, regardless of action taken now. Coral has a narrow comfort zone and is highly stressed by a temperature rise of less than 1°C. Scientists project water temperatures to rise this century by between 2 and 6°C. Coral bleaching (when colourful reefs turn white) occurs when the water temperature gets so high that it kills the algae that populate and build the corals. It can occur if the water temperature rises by as little as 1 degree Celsius above the monthly summer average.
Over-fishing and pollution from coastal farms was also contributing to the destruction of the reef.

Extreme creatures
Recently, scientisits have discovered hardy microbes called Extremophiles in the depths of the Mediterranean Sea thriving in the extremely hostile environments at nearly four kilometers below sea level, with salt concentrations ten times higher than seawater, pressure 400 times greater than atmospheric pressure, and a lack of oxygen. These conditions in which these microbes thrive are some of the most hostile environments on Earth.
Scientists find these Extremophiles very interesting because they suggest the potential for life on other planets and can be used for medical research. They can be found in some of the most hostile environments imaginable, like swimming in near-boiling water, eating rocks, lounging in sub-zero temperatures, and hanging out in the wastes from nuclear reactors. They can help in cleaning oil spills also as they can eat oil.
Extremophiles that live inside rocks or between the mineral grains are known as Endoliths and Hypoliths. Endoliths are found over two miles below the Earth’s surface and Hypoliths are commonly found in extreme deserts in cold climates, such as on Cornwallis Island and Antarctica.

The Midwife Toad's tale
This tiny one-inch Midwife Toad was previously known from fossils and was presumed extinct for thousands of years, because humans had introduced predatory snakes and rats that loved to eat it. But then, live specimens of the Midwife Toad were found living in damp, isolated crevices and waterfall pools high in Mallorca’s Sierra de Traumuntana Mountains in Spain. In 1985, captive-breeding programmes were initiated to preserve the few animals that remained.
Besides being one of the few “extinct” animals to be rediscovered, the Midwife Toad is unusual because of the way it reproduces. Native only to Mallorca, the toad spawns in the water, but once the female has produced her string of pearl-like eggs, the male carries them like a sash around his hind legs, keeping them moist until they hatch (hence the name midwife). When they are ready to hatch, he releases the larvae into a pool where they remain as tadpoles for a year.
Due to captive-breeding programmes, today, the population of this species is estimated at approximately 500 to 1,500 adult pairs. But it is still listed as vulnerable because predators abound, and its habitat is under constant pressure from development.

Smoke in dust poses health risk
Parents who smoke are exposing their children to worrying levels of nicotine through household dust. A team at San Diego State University found that tobacco trapped in household dust could expose children to the equivalent of several hours of smoking. The study reveals that smoke particles can cause a range of smoke-related illnesses such as asthma and sudden infant death. Facts reveal that infants can be exposed to contaminants months after smoking has occurred. The report said children are more vulnerable to inhaling this type of second hand smoke because they spend more time indoors, are in close physical contact with the smoker, have higher breathing rates than adults and may swallow contaminated items.
Studies were conducted in a number of homes from where they took samples of dust, from surfaces, the child's hair and urine, and placed nicotine monitors in the child's bedroom and the main living room. It was found that in homes where the parents smoked outside levels of tobacco contaminants were up to eight times higher than in houses where neither parent smoked.
In homes where adults smoked inside, tobacco toxicity levels were also up to eight times higher than homes where parents smoked outside. Thus it shows that smoking outdoors does not protect children from secondhand smoke exposure. Secondhand smoke consists of very small particles stored in carpets, furniture, ceiling tiles, dust, curtains, and clothes. These small particles can enter the deep lung where they can cause havoc just because of their small size.
Tobacco smoke is a complex mixture of some 4,000 chemical compounds, including eye and respiratory irritants, systemic toxicants, mutagens, carcinogens and reproductive toxicants. Thus to stop passive smoking illnesses and protect children the answer is to simply not smoke.

Half of Brazil's Amazon jungle occupied
il's original Amazon rainforest that is home to ten percent of the world's fresh water and 30 percent of plant and animal species has been occupied by man, deforested or used for industry like logging. A study using satellite photos shows that land occupation and deforestation covers some 47 percent of the world's largest jungle, an area bigger than the continental United States. This was said by the Brazilian non-government organization Imazon. While Brazil's government says only 16 percent of Brazil's Amazon has been deforested, the Imazon study indicates a much larger area is threatened or being destroyed by man. Deforestation of the Amazon hit its second-highest level ever last year as ranchers, farmers and loggers cleared an area larger than the U.S. state of New Jersey. Environmentalists criticize that political people are more interested in building roads and dams to drive Brazil's farm export-led economy than slow Amazon destruction. The study shows reserves must be created deep within the forest, as well as on the frontier of Brazil's portion of the Amazon - about two thirds of the rainforest so as to protect the destruction of the Amazon. The Amazon will go the same way as Brazil's tropical savannah, if agriculture, business and government use it as a resource to fuel economic growth. According to environmentalists some 70 percent of Brazil's tropical savannah - once the size of the Amazon - has been deforested to create the world's biggest grain-growing area.

Delacour langurs going extinct: majority likely to die by 2014
The Delacour langur (Trachypithecus delacouri), is distinguished from other largely black-coloured Asian langurs by its white cheek bands, large white saddle on its outer thighs, and thickly furred tail. This charismatic monkey found only in a tiny area of northern Vietnam, is close to extinction, and scientists at the International Primatological Society suggest that as many as 200 of the remaining 300 individuals are likely to disappear within the next decade. Scientists have estimated that 281 to 317 individuals still exist in 19 distinct populations or groups but fourteen of the groups are likely to disappear within the next decade, since they either lack a breeding pair or have unsustainably tiny populations. The Delacour langur is threatened mostly from hunting. Poachers kill the animal not only for meat, but also for bones, organs and tissues that are used in the preparation of traditional medicines. Habitat destruction, development and the increase of agricultural lands also threaten the species.

Bird rediscovered
The Cozumel Thrasher, an endemic bird found only on the island of Cozumel off the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico, is a medium-sized (23 cm long) bird, similar to a mockingbird. It is brown and white with a long, curved bill. Its upper parts are a rich chestnut-brown with two white wing-bars. It has a gray face, black bill and legs, and white under parts heavily streaked in black. Its song is described as a complex scratchy warbling. The bird, not seen or recorded by scientists for close to a decade, was thought by some to have become extinct. But the sighting of a single species a few months back by a team of field biologists in Mexico proved there was still hope the bird had not become extinct. The birds became endangered not only because of the two hurricanes that tore through the island in 1988 but also because of the introduction of the predatory boa in 1971. The team will now try to determine the size and range of the population represented by this single bird in January when they are known to sing more frequently, to attempt further surveys. To protect this and potentially other birds from disturbance, the exact location of the discovery is not being disclosed to the public.

Plankton blooms could provide scientists with clues to climate change
A research team from Southampton will study the interaction between the atmosphere and plankton – tiny floating marine organisms. The team will monitor these organisms and the effect of changing climate on their growth. These organisms either act as a source of carbon dioxide, or a ‘sink’ in which the carbon is contained.
There are large plankton populations called blooms along the coast of Africa. Dust, laden with nutrients that are blown across the Sahara and nutrient rich water rising to the surface provide food for the blooms. These areas act as natural chimneys for gases that contribute to global warming.

Towards mitigating natural disasters
Natural calamities such as earthquakes, floods, drought, storms, volcanic eruptions and landslides have caused greater economic and social disruption in recent years. This is because the world's population has become more concentrated in urban areas. Last year, more than 50,000 people were killed in 700 natural catastrophes around the world, causing losses of more than 60 billion dollars.
We all are aware of the terrible impact of disasters throughout the world but we do not realize that this is a problem that we can do something about. Successful strategies have been adopted in different countries to reduce the effect of these disasters. The government in earthquake-prone Japan has taken initiatives to upgrade and enforce building codes. These codes lay down guidelines for constructing or renovating buildings to meet design standards that will help them resist major earthquakes. A privately funded campaign in Cameroon taught farmers what crops best prevented soil erosion and other flood damage during the rainy season. In Central America, a radio soap opera developed by local civic groups focuses on helping communities better prepare for hurricanes as the storm season approaches.
The UN’s goal is to improve planning and encourage development and methods of environmental protection that will help policy-makers determine where and why disasters are likely to occur and take steps to lessen the risk. The U N campaign on disaster management will culminate in a World Conference on Disaster Reduction in Kobe, Japan, in January 2005.

Toxic chemicals in consumer products
Many common household products contain toxic chemicals that are not shown on package labels. The National Environmental Trust, a non-profit, non-partisan organization in Washington tested 40 products, including hair colours, lipsticks, all-purpose cleaners, and paints. The group said 34 of those products contained glycols, organic solvents, or phthalates not shown on the labels. These chemicals can affect the nervous system and the reproductive system and cause other health problems if exposed at certain levels. Leading toxic chemicals that are likely to be inhaled from household items include chlorine, toluene, xylene, methyl ethyl ketone, and n-hexane. According to the Environmental Trust, the cause could be the lack of official attention to consumer products as a source of chemical exposure. Cosmetics also contained a variety of industrial chemicals, including phthalates (reproductive toxins) and glycol ethers (neurotoxins). Consumers are exposed to these toxins by absorbing them through their skin (for example hand lotion), or oral exposure (by ingesting lipstick while eating).

Pesticide pest
There are more than 50,000 tonnes of banned, contaminated or expired pesticides in Africa which kill about 1 million people a year. The African Stockpiles Program, an independent initiative being overseen by the World Bank aims to destroy them all within 15 years. It has secured an initial 50 million dollars in donations to start its first phase of clean-up in Ethiopia, Mali, Morocco, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, and Tunisia. Pesticides including DDT, chlordane, and hexachlorobenzene are used to fight all insects from the locusts that affect northern Africa's crops to malaria-carrying mosquitoes. The chemicals are stockpiled in preparation for the next pest invasion but can expire or become contaminated through poor storage and management. The Africa Stockpiles Program plans to ship the chemicals to countries that have proper disposal units including specialized incinerators since the facilities do not exist in Africa and would be too costly to build. The program is focusing on Africa because of the continent's pressing need and because it does not have its own pesticide production industry. Organizers hope to move on to other regions after refining their methods in Africa.

Changing lives and lifestyles
The Inuit living in the Arctic region are feeling the impact of climate change as it takes its toll on the area and threatens their existence. There are about 155 000 Inuit in the Arctic regions of Canada, Russia, Greenland, and the United States.
Increase in the thawing of permafrost (the permanent frozen layer of the earth), heavier snowfalls and melting ice in the seas and oceans are some visible effects of climate change in this region. Inuit are known for their hunting skills but with human activities and global change impacts affecting animals such as the seal, whale, walrus and polar bears their hunting areas are also reducing. In addition, new species such as barnyard owls are moving to these areas from the south.

Threatened bamboo
Deforestation is endangering about a third of the world's 1200 bamboo species and also rare animals that depend on the plants for food and protection.
Asia's giant pandas, which eat only bamboo, Africa's mountain gorillas, Madagascar's golden lemurs and the mountain tapir in South America as well as other animal and bird species are linked to bamboo for food or shelter.
A joint report released by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) and the International Network for Bamboo and Rattan (INBAR) warns that it would also harm the bamboo industry and the millions of people who use the plants for food, housing, furniture and handicrafts.

Disappearing coral reefs
Scientists believe that the Indian Ocean could lose most of its coral islands in the next 50 years if sea temperatures continue to rise.
It is said that global warming has resulted in the death of between 50 to 98 percent of coral reefs in a region stretching from northern Mozambique to Eritrea to Indonesia in 1998 and although there has been some recovery, scientists remain worried.
Coral reefs are found in the warm, clear, shallow waters of tropical oceans worldwide, and have functions ranging from providing food and shelter to fish and other life forms to preventing erosion. Coral reefs are among the most diverse and productive areas on earth.
Many coral reef organisms can only tolerate a narrow range of environmental conditions and are very sensitive to damage from environmental changes such as rising temperature, which can cause bleaching and eventual death.

Hummingbirds in the Old World
A 30-million-year-old hummingbird fossil discovered in Germany is not only the oldest example of the family of tiny, hovering birds but also the first found in Europe.
Nowadays this bird is found in North and South America, but they apparently lived in a much wider range when they evolved, said a zoologist from a natural history museum in Frankfurt, Germany. "The findings demonstrate that early hummingbird evolution was not restricted to the New World." The pair of inch-and-a-half-long skeletons have shoulders that would have allowed the wings to rotate, a key feature that gives hummingbirds their ability to hover and even fly backward.
These are the oldest fossils of modern-type hummingbirds, which had not previously been reported from the Old World. Until this find the oldest, modern hummingbird fossils were from South America and only about 1 million years old. The existence of hummingbirds so long ago may help explain why certain flowers were able to evolve in Europe and Asia that have no landing pad for pollinators such as short-tongued bees.

Moth attack in Australia
No one really knows if the millions of giant moths that swoop down on Australian cities each spring, around October, are suicidal or just sloppy aviators. They travel at night and are attracted to urban lights specially the type used for big sporting events, fluttering into high-rise offices, drown in bowls of soup, even freeze to death in refrigerators. During the 2000 Olympic games in Sydney, bogongs up to two inches in size were such a nuisance that organizers needed to dim stadium lights, while athletes and spectators were forced to swat the swoopers each night in the Olympic park. Bogongs stick around for a few weeks until summer starts in the Southern hemisphere then return to inland caves some 300 miles away to spend the hottest months asleep in the shade.

Thanking Varuna, the Wind God
On the southern tip of India, the once-impoverished people of Muppandal village are thanking Varuna, the Hindu God of the Wind, for blowing unexpected good fortune their way. In the decade since the first giant power-producing windmill, towering above the palm trees, their lives have changed dramatically. Incomes have risen and thousands of new jobs have been created as dozens of wind energy producers swarmed the village, the world's fifth-largest producer of wind energy. Wind farms have sprung up all along the 19-mile road from Muppandal to Kanyakumari. These areas in Tamil Nadu generate about half of India's 2,000 megawatts of wind energy, about 2 percent of India's total power output.

The government expects the sector to expand rapidly and pass its target of adding 5,000 megawatts of wind energy by 2012. The Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources estimates a 200-kilowatt wind turbine replacing a thermal power plant will save 120 to 200 tonnes of coal.

Scrap to the UK
The first of 13 U S ships due to be scrapped in Britain sailed into port, but protesting environmentalists have managed to stop their dismantling. They say the ships, built with asbestos and possibly containing traces of other chemicals, are toxic and poisonous. The decrepit former U S Navy oil tanker Caloosahatchee was the first of the so-called ‘ghost ships’, a fleet of ancient vessels dating back as far as World War Two, to arrive in the northern English port of Hartlepool. As the rusty grey tanker pulled into dock on the Tees river - in the shadow of a nuclear power plant and towering smokestacks at chemical plants billowing white smoke - some locals said the fuss was over nothing. Local people felt that they were living in one of the biggest chemical complexes in Europe and this won't make any difference. The empty ships are due be scrapped by a British firm under a contract worth 10 million pounds. Three more ships are already on their way, while another nine are waiting in the United States for permission to sail.

Climate change and the extinction of horses
Climate change, rather than hunting, may have triggered the extinction of Alaska's native horses about 12 500 years ago, say researchers.
Some think hunting contributed to their disappearance but R Dale Guthrie, of the University of Alaska in Fairbanks, said climate change and a shift in vegetation from grasslands to tundra was probably to blame.
‘Horses underwent a rapid decline in body size before extinction and I propose that the size decline and subsequent regional extinction...are best attributed to a coincident climate/vegetation shift,’ he said in a report in the science journal Nature. Horses, which evolved in Asia, crossed into North America via the Bering Land Bridge that once linked Alaska and Siberia. After their extinction, they were reintroduced into the Americas by the Spanish in the 1500s. The shift in vegetation, which would have diminished their food supply, could account for the decrease in the horses' size and their eventual extinction.

Wildlife in socks
Wildlife smuggling is on the rise, say authorities in Singapore, whose ports are increasingly used as transit points in the shuttling of endangered animals between the United States and tropical Asian countries such as Indonesia and Vietnam. The animals mainly come from the U S, India, and Indonesia. The traffickers use hidden compartments in suitcases. Small animals are sometimes rolled up in socks and laundry. In Vietnam, 12 species–including the elephant and the wild water buffalo–have become virtually extinct in the last 40 years due to hunting and wildlife trade. In northern Myanmar, tigers have been systematically hunted to near-extinction. Tiger body parts, particularly tiger bones, are prized ingredients in traditional Chinese medicine to cure ailments such as epilepsy.
Smuggled animals are often stuffed into boxes and suffer from stress, dehydration or starvation. Some are crushed to death.

Joining hands for a cause
South Africa, New Zealand, Ecuador, and Spain have signed a global treaty to protect some of the world's rarest sea birds - the majestic albatrosses and giant petrels - from extinction. Australia has led a campaign to conserve Southern Hemisphere albatrosses and petrels, whose numbers have fallen in recent years due to several threats, with South Africa joining the battle in recent years. The birds were at risk from pollution, over-fishing of their prey and the increasing practice of longline fishing in southern oceans. There are only about 150 breeding populations of albatross around the globe and two species of giant petrels, both of which are in decline, although specific figures are unavailable.

A purple frog!!
A new species of frog has been discovered in the Western Ghats of southern India in one of the world’s eight biodiversity hotspots. The purple, small-headed creature with tiny eyes, protruding snout and a bloated appearance belongs to a new family of frogs that scientists thought had either never existed or had disappeared without trace millions of years ago. Only 29 families of frogs are known and most were identified and described in the mid-1800s and the last in 1926. This will be the 30th one.
Scientists had estimated that the family tree of frogs diverged about 230 million years ago. The discovery of the new species, which is reported in the science journal Nature, shows there was a lineage 130 million years ago on a fragment of the ancient super-continent of Gondwana, that included South America, Africa, India, Madagascar and the Seychelles, Australia and Antarctica.

Seagrass the meadows in the sea
This group of about 60 flowering plants that live exclusively under water, is being destroyed by ignorance and inaction, threatening millions of people and many species of marine animals, according to a recently published report.
The vast seagrass meadows that grow on shallow shelves around the continents are in their own way as important to coastal waters as trees are to the above ground environment, says the report from the United Nations Environment Program World Conservation Monitoring Center. They purify the water, protect the soil and provide breeding and feeding grounds for many species, stabilize the sandy soils in which they grow and filter the water.
Sea grass has shrunk 15 percent in the past 10 years. They are sensitive to eutrophication - nutrient pollution from the land from farming, industry and housing - which cause algae to bloom and effectively suffocate the seagrass beds.
The seas around Denmark have been virtually denuded of seagrass meadows over the past 40 years through pollution and land reclamation, the Mediterranean off the southern coast of France has likewise suffered badly as has the eastern seaboard of the United States.

Coral reef in a sunken ship
Divers turned the Venezuelan tug boat Gran Roque anchored off the Caribbean harbour of Puerto Cabello, but moved to the sea off Aragua state, about 110 miles west of Caracas, into Venezuela's first man-made reef.
The man responsible for converting Gran Roque from a heap of scrap metal into a marine experiment said that in a few years the boat will become a haven for sea life and coral formations and an amusement park for divers.
‘In three years it will be teeming with fish and coral’ said Cesar Navas, a scuba diving instructor. ‘Such artificial reefs are very interesting things to study from an environmental point of view, to watch how are they colonized, how they turn from bare pieces of metal into complex ecosystems.’

Damming Iceland’s rivers
Iceland's largest-ever industrial project by the national power company Landsvirkjun has whipped up a row about its impact on the environment. The Karahnjukar dam, will have a capacity of 690 MW and an annual output of 4,460 million GWh, it will be 190 metres (625 feet) high, 730 metres (2,395 feet) wide and 600 metres (1,990 feet) thick. To feed it, two of the three main rivers flowing from Europe's biggest glacier, Vatnajokull are to be harnessed. The project will increase the North Atlantic island's energy output by 60 percent.
Opponents of the project say it would drown the highland vegetation, alter the groundwater balance and collect so much mud that it would form a dust bowl in dry conditions. Organizations such as the Icelandic Nature Conservation Association say the reservoir would disturb the area's reindeer, freshwater fish and harbour seal population and ruin approximately 500 nesting spots of the pink-footed goose.

Dead Sea dying
The Dead Sea, the world's saltiest body of water has fallen from 1,280 feet to 1,368 feet below sea level in the last 50 years. The drop has accelerated to three feet a year recently, erasing a third of its ancient 366-square-mile size. Modern economics are to blame - Jordan River water that feed the Dead Sea is being diverted to farmlands. ‘We fear that by 2050 there will be just a small spot of water that will be a disaster economically and ecologically, if nothing is done,’ said Zafer Alem, secretary general of the Jordan Valley Water Authority. Israel and Jordan face formidable economic and ecological challenges in pondering how to save a unique natural wonder of the world. They have begun to consider a ‘Red-Dead’ solution - a canal to pump water from the Red Sea to the Dead Sea.

Smoking Mount Fuji
Four patches were discovered on the sides of Japan's volcanic Mount Fuji last week, one with steam rising from it, but scientists said there was no sign of volcanic activity and the venerable peak was quiet. The largest of the affected areas at Mt Fuji was about halfway up the 12 390-foot peak, which is located just south of Tokyo, and measured 49 by 33 feet. The area had subsided by about 9 inches, a Meteorological Agency official said. ‘There were a few puffs of steam from a hole in the centre of this,’ he said, ‘but no volcanic gases were detected, so it is not a sign of any kind of eruptive activity.’ Mt Fuji, an inspiration in Japanese art for centuries, erupted last in 1707 but is still considered active.

Fresh grass attracts thousands
In a phenomenal annual migration, hundreds of thousands of wildebeest - huge, bearded antelopes with long black faces - in search of pasture migrate into Kenya's Masai Mara game park from Serengeti in Tanzania. A wonder of the natural world, the yearly migration sees more than 500,000 wildebeest or gnus, accompanied by zebras, gazelles, elands and a host of predators like lions and leopards cross the borders. Attracted by the scent of fresh grass following seasonal rains across the plains, the animals follow their noses into Kenya. The migration to Kenya usually starts in July and ends with the beasts returning in October.
Before the 1970s, migration numbers were not so large - some 80,000 animals on average - because rinderpest, a highly infectious viral disease that also affects cattle would wipe out whole herds. After the disease was brought under control, the wildebeest population began to rise, peaking at 900,000 beasts migrating into Kenya in 1979 from 80,000 a decade earlier.

Hole in the ozone layer
The gaping, man-made hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica has hit record proportions for this time of year and could get bigger. Jonathan Shanklin, one of the scientists who first discovered the ozone hole in 1985, said he and his colleagues were still at a loss to explain exactly why it had got so big in August.
In 2002 the hole suddenly shrank, raising hopes that it was starting to close. But Shanklin said scientists now believed this was an abnormality due to atmospheric conditions, and that the 2003 expansion was back to more normal activity.
The stratospheric ozone layer protects the earth's surface from damaging ultraviolet rays that can cause skin cancer. The discovery of the ozone hole proved that human activities could change the atmosphere easily.
The 1985 discovery led to a change in many industries that were belching ozone-depleting chemicals into the atmosphere. Shanklin said it was vital for countries to stick to the Montreal Protocol curbing the emission of ozone depleting chemicals. Most major polluting nations have signed the Kyoto Protocol curbing carbon dioxide emissions.

Food for garbage
Under the 'Big Swap' programme organized by authorities in Caracas' Libertador district in Venezuela, residents can exchange 55 pounds of scrap metal for 2.2 pounds of rice, 4.4 pounds of aluminum for a can of powdered milk, and 44 pounds of glass for a can of tuna. Organizers said the food-for-garbage programme had more than one benefit. Besides providing food for the poor, it also helped to clear refuse-choked ravines that overflow in the rainy season, threatening homes with deadly floods and mudslides and cleans up neighbourhoods. The food-for-rubbish programme was expected to reduce the level of refuse by up to 40 percent.
The collected rubbish is given to local cooperatives which sell the material to recycling companies. This covers some 30 percent of the cost of the programme.
Authorities are hoping to extend the initiative to the rest of the country. The idea of exchanging recyclable garbage for food originated in the Brazilian city of Curitiba. It had also been applied in the western Venezuelan states of Lara and Merida.
The programme worked on a system of points, calculated from the market cost of the recyclable refuse and the cost of food to be handed over in exchange.

Arsenic in the water
Wells dug decades ago in Bangladesh to ensure clean drinking water have instead put millions at risk from one of the world's most deadly poisons - arsenic. The reality of Bangladesh's dangerous water is apparent in the village of Koyla, southwest of Dhaka, where headmaster Abdur Rouf says about 100 of his 400 pupils are suffering from some degree of arsenic poisoning.
Millions of tubewells have been sunk across the country, as surface water sources carried water-borne diseases such as diarrhoea and dysentery.
But unfortunately for Bangladesh, due to complicated geological reasons, much of its sediment contains unusually high concentrations of naturally-occurring arsenic. The problem only became apparent early in the 1990s. Today, officials say arsenic contamination is found in 59 of the country's 64 districts. It causes black spots on the body, hardens skin into nodules, often on the palms of the hands and soles of the feet, which can lead to gangrene, cancer, and death.
Kits to purify and filter water have been distributed but they are not fully effective, health officials say. Surface water can be boiled and made safe for drinking but few poor people can afford cooking fuel and firewood is scarce.

Fungi can cause increase in global warming?
Scientists have found a winter wonderland of fungal species, including many new to science, under the snow of a high-altitude Colorado meadow beneath the Rocky Mountain snowpack.
Unlike most life, which hibernates or slows down in the winter, these fungi grow in abundance creating measurable amounts of nitrogen and carbon dioxide, the researchers said. This could affect global warming - caused to a large degree by both natural and human-made carbon dioxide.
This could have implications for the global climate, because about 40 percent of Earth's land surface is covered by snow during the winter.

Drying lake in Europe
Lake Balaton, central Europe's biggest fresh water lake and one of Hungary's main tourist attractions, is shrinking, prompting warnings of a potential ecological and economic catastrophe. For the first time since records began in 1865, four consecutive hot summers and low annual rainfall have dried the lake to a large extent. Scientists blame the falling water levels on global warming.
Summer temperatures have been some 4 ºC above the 100-year average. The lake is fed by rainfall and the Zala River in the south. When full, it is drained through the Sio-Canal further north. For the past 3 years these sluice gates have been closed.
Miklos Zagoni, science historian at Budapest University, said Balaton, as a shallow lake with an average depth of little more than 10 feet, is an accurate gauge of climate change. He said that Balaton's stability over the years shows the stability of climate change, but the last four years shows a big turn. This is the fourth year Balaton has had more evaporation than precipitation - a typical case of climate change. Statistically, this is a very significant trend change, and believed to be a direct cause of global warming.

Marie Antoinette's favorite oak tree
The heatwave in France has killed hundreds of thousands of trees including a high-profile casualty - Marie Antoinette's favorite oak tree at the Palace of Versailles outside Paris, which is said to have provided shade for Marie Antoinette, the wife of King Louis XVI, of the French Revolution. It was 30 yards high, with a trunk circumference of 6 yards, and considered one of 16 outstanding trees in the imposing garden, one of France's top tourist attractions.

Discovery of a 'punk' fish
- Scientists studying an unspoiled jungle river the 700-km long Caura River, one of the tributaries of the mighty Orinoco, in Bolivar state Venezuela announced the discovery of 10 new fish species. The unclassified species found included a variety of tentacled armored catfish, whose tangle of spiky protrusions on its mouth and forehead - looking like a punk rocker's hairstyle - has earned it the name of "punk" fish.
Also discovered was a new piranha, different in size and shape from other known varieties of the South American flesh-eater. It supplemented its meat diet by eating fruit from submerged trees, Machado said.

Agent Orange still at large
Agent Orange, a defoliant chemical sprayed over Vietnam by USA during the Vietnam War-era continues to contaminate livestock and fish eaten by Vietnamese decades after it was used. The dioxin-containing Agent Orange, which has not been sprayed since 1971, got its name because of the coloured stripes on its containers.
A 2002 study in Bien Hoa city, about 20 miles north of Ho Chi Minh City (formerly Saigon), showed that residents and food had high levels of dioxin, says a study in the August issue of The Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine .
Although the spraying ended over three decades ago, in certain areas of Vietnam food is clearly contaminated. More than one million people in Vietnam have been exposed to Agent Orange, used from 1962 to 1971 to strip trees and plants of foliage and deny communist fighters cover and food.

Hot problems
About 80 percent of France's electricity needs are met by 19 nuclear power stations and 58 reactors. The on-going heat wave has led to overheating at nuclear power plants.
Temperatures have risen to more than 41 degrees Celsius, causing problems for France's nuclear reactors, many of which are cooled by river water. The plants pour water back into the rivers but only once it has been cooled to a certain temperature to protect the environment. With river levels falling and the mercury rising, authorities face the choice of spewing out hotter water, risking ecological damage, or cutting output, potentially leading to blackouts.
The Bugey power station near Lyon on the Rhone river has already requested a special exemption to pour hotter water back into the river.
Other countries face similar dilemmas. Germany has cut power output while Italy is trying to avoid further blackouts.

Dying eels
Rising temperatures have led to the death of around 30,000 eels in Europe's busiest waterway, the river Rhine, authorities said.
A spokesman for the Environment Ministry said 15,000 of the eels had died in the state, with another 15,000 deaths recorded in the remaining stretch of the river. Temperatures around the Rhine have been nearing 40 Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), with water temperatures measured at 26.6 degrees.

Locust attack
A swarm of locusts has forced residents of an Inner Mongolia town into taking drastic measures to stop the insects from settling on surrounding pastures and grasslands. Residents of the Chinese border town of Erenhot are maintaining a blackout at night as electric lighting tends to attract the insects. The Yangcheng Evening News reported Tuesday that the locusts - which arrived in the region in June - were 'like snow falling from the sky.'
Locusts like well-lit places and people turned off their lights so the bugs won't fly into their homes.
The affected area is almost all grassland. The locusts have hit about 10 percent of Inner Mongolia's grassland but the situation is under control.

The skimmer's secret
So that's how they do it. If you have ever wondered how insects like water striders walk on water or skim across the surface of ponds, rivers and oceans, scientists in the United States have the answer. Rather than move by creating waves, as some researchers had thought, the insects use one of their three sets of hairy legs like oars to create vortices or spirals in the water that propel them forward at speeds of up to 60 inches per second.
Professor John Bush of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and his colleagues who uncovered the secret said that although tiny waves were created, they were not the main driving force. The researchers used sophisticated tracking and a high-speed video camera that showed the patterns they made. They also created a mechanical water strider, called Robostrider, based on the real thing. It is made out of a drinks can, with stainless steel wire legs and an elastic band and pulley as its middle legs.
Water striders, also known as skimmers, come in hundreds of different species ranging in size from one centimetre (about half an inch) to the giant Vietnamese variety - 20 times bigger and still able to walk on water.

Keeping them cool
Penguins at the London Zoo savoured fish-flavored ice lollies hung from trees tied with a rope, as humans and animals alike tried to keep cool in a heatwave predicted to bring record temperatures to Britain.
Buckets of frozen water mixed with fish, fruits or herbs were given to tigers, bears, and monkeys at London Zoo while children's sunscreen lotion was lathered on pigs at Newquay Zoo as temperatures topped 93 degrees.
In Whipsnade Wild Animal Park near London, elephants were bathed several times during the day and rhinos wallowed in mud to find some cooling relief.

Snow-like foam covers this city!
A river polluted with waste from Brazil's biggest city of Sao Paulo covered the streets of a small town, Pirapora do Bom Jesus, with a thick layer of snow-like foam that emitted harmful acidic gas. The foam had been building up for about a month, but a clogged water channel made the foam levels rise especially high, blocking bridges across the river Tiete which runs through the town and nearby streets. The problem apparently began from interaction between Tiete water, polluted with human and industrial waste, and the water from the local reservoir.
Local television showed footage of cars being unable to cross the bridges early in the morning, and a bus forcing its way through the white foam that practically covered its body. The foam lay in private courtyards and was blowing in the wind like snow, sticking to the roofs and television antennas.

In pursuit of diamonds — from South Africa to Canada
De Beers, the African powerhouse synonymous with diamonds for more than a century, has set up a base on the frozen table-flat tundra in Canada's barren rocky northern lands on the shores of Snap Lake, below the Arctic Circle. Once the symbol of colonial prestige and dominance, founder Cecil Rhodes raised a private army to protect his African interests. It is new territory for De Beers, whose African model for mining and operating is entirely different with the way things are done in Canada's near Arctic. They have set up huge fuel storage tanks, generators. Buildings where diamonds will be extracted are connected by a network of insulated piping. Piles of crumbled green kimberlite rock that contain the precious gems can be seen all around the area.

Coming with the wind!
Britain is starting a huge expansion of offshore wind farms that could supply green power to more than three million households. Companies have been invited to bid to build new farms, some of which are likely to be ten times the size of the first scheme under construction in Wales.
The first wind farm has 30 turbines. Developers are saying they want to build much, much larger offshore wind farms, with up to 300 turbines. The programme could add 6,000 megawatts of generation capacity. Three coastal areas: the Wash off the east coast of England, the Thames Estuary east of London and the north-west coast of England and Wales are the areas that have been identified. The government sees encouraging offshore wind as key to meeting its target of providing 10 percent of Britain's power from green sources by 2010, up from three percent at present.

Fashionable horses on the beach
Fashionable people can be seen in Mexico's beaches, but this summer, horses are making a fashion splash on the Pacific coast. Beachside entrepreneurs who rent horses for jaunts on Rosarito beach in the Pacific state of Baja California are dressing the animals in diapers as part of a countrywide effort to cut down on pollution along Mexico's nearly 7,000 miles of coastline. The horse diapers were invented by Martha Nevarez, a Rosarito resident when her daughter developed a rash after an afternoon in the beach littered with clumps of horse manure. After months of trial and error, Nevarez came up with a fabric and leather sack that wraps around the horse's chest and rear end. There is a hole for the tail and a heavy bag that collects the manure.

Fish-sniffing cat!
After bomb-sniffing dogs, we now have Rusik, the fish-sniffing cat!
Russian police fighting against fish smugglers have deployed a cat to sniff out contraband, including the Caspian Sea sturgeon, which is the source of Russia's world-famous caviar. A police control post in the southern Stavropol region adopted Rusik one year ago and it now helps officers conduct spot checks on vehicles. The cat had distinguished itself with an outstanding nose for fish. Several species of fish in the Caspian Sea, on Russia's southern border, have become endangered since the collapse of Soviet rule led to a sharp rise in fish smuggling.

Canadian firm prints Potter on green pages
Fans of the Harry Potter books probably do not associate the little wizard with rainforests or recycling, but that will change for at least 935,000 readers of Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. The Canadian edition of the eagerly anticipated book - all 935,000 copies - has been printed by the Canadian publisher Raincoast Books on 100 percent recycled, endangered forest free paper, a move that many believe represents a landmark event for environmentally friendly publishing.

Predicament of national parks in U S
The Bush administration is failing to look after the national parks and its policies are putting further stress on the understaffed and under funded National Park Service, conservationists say. In a detailed analysis released today, the National Parks Conservation Association gives the Bush administration a 'D' in a report card that measures its performance in protecting and managing the nation's 388 national parks!

Protection of thousand-year old cold water reefs
Norway has announced that it will protect one of its cold water reefs before they are further damaged by trawling vessels. Discovered and mapped only last summer, Norway's 1,000 year old Tisler reef lies along the Norway-Sweden border at a depth of 74 to 155 metres (243 to 508 feet). The Tisler Reef is recognized as a Gift to the Earth, the highest award for a globally significant conservation achievement offered by WWF, the international conservation organization.

Cracks emerge as Three Gorges reservoir fills
Some 80 cracks have been found in the enormous new Three Gorges Dam on the Yangtze River, and the cracks could leak if they are not fixed. The statement was made by one of the dam's designers, Pan Jiazheng, who is head of the construction committee inspection group.
The reservoir of the Three Gorges project, the world's largest water control project, has stored 10 billion cubic meters of water since storage began on June 1. The dam is needed, the Chinese say, for flood control and power generation.

Monsoon rains displace 400,000 people in India
Monsoon rains have dislodged some 400,000 people in the northeastern Indian state of Assam, causing them to flee their homes along rivers that are flowing above the danger level. The Indian Army has detailed troops to serve as rescue workers for those left homeless in 450 villages along the Brahmaptura and Barak rivers. Railway tracks and roads are under water across Assam, and Assam's Lokapriya Gopinath Borodolai International Airport soon could be under water if a mud dyke on the edge of Guwahati is flooded over.

Wolf remains on Swiss Endangered Species List
The Swiss National Council has rejected a move to remove the wolf from the Swiss list of endangered species, according to the Large Carnivore Initiative for Europe. The opponents of wolf protection contended that Switzerland is too densely populated and the country is too dependent on tourism to allow wolves to run wild, even though livestock owners were protected from their predation. The supporters said wolves might be viewed as a tourist attraction.

Remains of fishing gear among broken corals on a Norwegian reef
Scientists fear that 30 to 50 percent of these corals have already been lost from the impacts of bottom trawling, marine pollution and oil and gas exploration. WWF is asking ministers at this month's Convention for the Protection of the Marine Environment (OSPAR) in Bremen, Germany to ban trawling on certain cold water coral reefs in the Northeast Atlantic, and for an exclusion of oil and gas prospecting and development in the vicinity of reefs designated for protection. Although coral reefs are normally associated with the tropics, they exist in cold water too. The Darwin Mounds, a collection of hundreds of sand and cold water coral mounds north of Scotland, were discovered in 1998, and are already damaged by deep water fishing.
More species exist on the mounds than in the surrounding ocean bottom, but these species are being destroyed by fishing vessels. High frequency sonar surveys of the mounds show seabed scars, areas of smashed and fragmented coral, that are the result of trawling.
After this initial research in 2000, fishing activity has continued in the region, which may have resulted in further damage to these fragile deep water corals.

Sweet energy source
Belle Vue power plant in Mauritius uses the latest technology to turn one of this island's most prized assets, sugarcane, into electricity. The Belle Vue power plant opened in 2000. The plant uses bagasse for part of the year to produce 46 mega watts or 21 percent of the country's electricity. The bagasse comes from the Belle Vue sugar mill next to the power station. The island's peak electricity consumption is about 300 MW. The generation of fuel from bagasse takes place from June to December, the harvest season for the sugarcane, and for the remaining months the plant uses coal. The government hopes to increase its generation of electricity from bagasse in the coming years.

Birds fall prey
Until a decade ago, vultures were almost as common as sparrows in India but a mystery virus has changed that and, has brought the birds to the brink of extinction. In ten years, India has lost more than 95 percent of its vulture population. Ornithologists and environmentalists say the dramatic drop in their numbers has enormous implications for ecosystems. The crisis began about 15 years ago when a large number of birds died - they were not victims of pesticide poisoning or a loss of habitat but fell to a completely new strain of virus.

Oil spill avoided
An Indonesian ship ran aground in the Bay of Bengal in May and had to be abandoned but there was no reported leakage. The 5,000-tonne Sigitika Biru, stuck on a sand bar last week about 200 km (125 miles) south of Calcutta, was carrying 5,327 tonnes of soda ash and 150 tonnes of high-speed diesel. The authorities in India are planning to put 'booms' around the ship to prevent pollution if the soda ash or diesel starts to spill but at the same time, work is on to unload the ship's cargo.

Dwindling dolphins
A rare freshwater dolphin called the baiji, found only in China's huge Yangtze River could die out within the next ten years unless fishing methods there change. To save it the dolphin should be protected from snag-line and electric fishing. Other marine species facing extinction are the vaquita porpoise of Mexico's Gulf of California, New Zealand's Hector's dolphin, and several populations of whales, the World Conservation Union (IUCN) has said..

The tiniest seahorse
Scientists said they have discovered the world's smallest seahorse, after realizing it was not simply the offspring of a species they already knew about. The pygmy orange seahorse averages 16 mm (.64 inch) in size, smaller than a fingernail, and lives in coral in the tropical waters of the western Pacific, according Sara Lourie, a McGill University biologist who led the identification project. The new species is a master of camouflage and that may have protected it from the over-exploitation threatening other types of seahorses. Before this discovery there were 32 known species of seahorses.

Environment-friendly beetles
The tiny West African country of Benin has saved millions of dollars by enlisting the help of beetles that devoured a weed choking its lakes, killing fish, and disrupting transport. 'Two species of beetle are credited with saving the economy of Benin in West Africa $260 million over 20 years,' New Scientist magazine said this week.
The insects proved to be the most effective weapon against the water hyacinth, a fast-growing weed that has turned into a major problem in many African lakes and waterways, and succeeded where expensive chemicals and harvesting methods had failed.

Endangered water turtle
The Arrau is South America's largest fresh water turtle, and reaches about a metre (three feet) in length, but when the green-lacquered amphibian is young, it fits into the palm of a hand and looks like the ideal aquarium pet. The Arrau turtle is threatened with extinction, and the population has declined dramatically over the last century mainly due to extensive hunting by native Indians living along the banks of Venezuela's mighty Orinoco river. Every year conservationists in Venezuela collect thousands of the hatchlings, raise them in captivity and then release them into the wild mainly into the Orinoco, one of the key spawning areas.

Babies with mercury
The Evandro Chagas Research Institute, in Brazil has found high levels of mercury contamination among 60 percent of the newborns at three hospitals in the city of Itaituba, in the Brazilian Amazon. The institute tested the blood of all the 1,666 babies born during 2002 in the three hospitals of the city and found 1,000 of them to be contaminated. Some of the children had 80 parts per million (ppm) of mercury in the blood. The highest acceptable level, according to the World Health Organization, is 30 ppm. The contamination is due to gold mining activities that took place in the rivers of the region during the 1980s. The National Department for Mineral Production estimates that around 600 tonnes of mercury was thrown into the Tapajós River, one of the biggest tributaries of the Amazon River, over a ten-year period. This mercury enters the food chain, through small species such as algae and vegetarian fishes.

Bhitarkanika is Orissa's second Ramsar site
Bhitarkanika is the second wetland of Orissa after Chilika to become a Ramsar site. In its latest list, released on 12 November 2002, the Ramsar bureau has Bhitarkanika Sanctuary enlisted as a wetland of international importance. This sanctuary is known for its diverse mangrove vegetation and is considered second only to Papua New Guinea. Bhitarkanika sanctuary is the largest hatching ground of endangered Olive Ridley turtles and also a major breeding site for estuarine crocodiles.

Buzzing away
In Great Britain the National Trust and the government's wildlife advisors, English Nature, said some bee species are on the verge of extinction and the overall population has declined by 60 percent since 1970. The increase in commercial farming and urbanization has destroyed the bumblebee's natural habitats. Many gardeners believe that all flowers are beneficial for bees when in fact, many modern hybrids lack the pollen and nectar, which is the bees' main source of food.
As bumblebees see ultraviolet colours, the best options are flowers that are white, blue, purple, or yellow. An appeal has been launched for Britain's gardeners to plant more bee-friendly flowers.

Dolphins clear mines the natural way
Dolphins trained by the US Navy are helping to clear mines from the waters around the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. The dolphins will help to make the port safe for vessels. The Navy says they are well cared for, and face little danger. The dolphins are from the US Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three (Eodmu 3), based in Coronado, California. Nine have been flown to the Gulf, with a number of trained sea lions from the Navy's Mammal Maritime Unit in San Diego.
This is the first time any of Eodmu 3's animals have been used for mine clearance. They are trained not to touch any mines they find, but to mark them with floats. Dolphins are used because their biological sonar is far superior to human systems for detecting objects in the water and on the sea bed. Sea lions are chosen for their very sensitive underwater hearing, and their ability to see in low light. The dolphins are basically like underwater sniffer dogs. The Navy has about 40 animals altogether, some trained to find mines, some to detect objects like test torpedoes.

Cloning of animals
A pair of banteng calves born in April was cloned from an animal that died more than 20 years ago. The two bantengs were cloned from the San Diego Zoo's 'frozen zoo' a project launched before anyone knew whether cloning would work. Bantengs, found in Asia, are a species of wild cattle.
The bantengs were cloned by transferring the DNA from these cells into empty eggs from ordinary domestic cows. Cells frozen under modern conditions might offer a way to preserve animals that have more recently become endangered.

Toxics in the water
Toxic spill from a factory in Minas Gerais state in Brazil flowed down the two rivers, the Pompa and Paraiba do Sul, causing extensive environmental damage. Water supplies to thousands of households in Rio de Janeiro was cut off. More than one billion litres of toxic waste from the pulp bleaching process in the paper industry, mainly caustic soda, spilled into the rivers. Dead fish floated in the rivers, and people in the affected areas lined up for water from trucks. Fishing and irrigation have been banned. Ecologists said it could take the ecosystem up to 15 years to recover.

Mites cut down honey supply
Killer mites are causing extensive damage to Germany's colonies of bees and honey production is expected to fall sharply. The microscopic varroa mite is the killer bug responsible for wiping out 40 percent of Germany's one million bee colonies and honey production this year is expected to fall to 15,000 tonnes from 25,000 tonnes in 2002.
Fears are also growing that there might not be enough bees to help pollinate the country's fruit trees and bushes. A survey is being carried out among bee keepers in Germany, neighbouring Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg to find out how widespread the problem might be, the newspaper said.

Fluoride in the ground
Excess fluoride has turned the ground water in Nalgonda district, Andhra Pradesh, into slow poison, crippling at least 10,000 people and affecting hundreds of thousands of others.
In the dust-filled villages hardly 100 kilometres from the state capital Hyderabad there are many living examples of the havoc caused by fluoride. People with paralysing bone diseases, stooped backs, crooked hands and legs, deformed teeth, blindness, and other handicaps are a common sight.

Migration of the majestic Monarch butterflies
Monarch butterflies, beautiful black and orange in colour, are famous for a mysterious annual migration from Canada to Mexico. Large communities of this butterfly travel several thousand miles from Canada and the northern United States to Mexico every year, arriving in October and November They are believed to be guided by the sun or the earth's magnetic field.
Monarchs spend winter in the pine-clad mountains of Mexico and fly to Canada in the spring. The migration fascinates scientists, who did not realize where the insects went every year until the mid-1970s. It is the only insect capable of making such a long journey, that's why it is called the Monarch. 2002 was a significant year - an estimated 65 million are said to have died when temperatures fell unexpectedly in January. In spite of this they showed remarkable tenacity by recovering. Butterflies die during migration but also mate, making it possible for their descendants to complete the journey.
Floating like leaves amid the Oyamel fir trees, the butterflies engage in a final ritual before leaving Mexico: an airborne mating dance. By the end of March, the forest will be virtually empty of them as they head north.

How insensitive we are
The war in Iraq has bird lovers and ornithologists worried as millions of birds make their way across the country on their annual spring migration to northern breeding grounds. From the point of view of wildlife, this is the worst possible time of the year to have a war in this part of the world.
"At this time of the year, March-April, you have the greatest number of birds in Iraq," said Phil Hockey, a migration specialist with the Percy FitzPatrick Institute of African Ornithology in Cape Town.
Iraq lies on a key migration route for many bird species that spend winter in Africa and breed in Europe and western Russia in the summer.
Iraq's two major rivers, the Tigris and Euphrates, are an important part of the route for many migratory birds, including pelicans and storks, and for shore birds that breed along the Caspian Sea and in central Asia. Flocks of birds fly back from the middle of March to the end of April.
Long-distance migrants can't make it from their non-breeding grounds to their breeding grounds in a single flight. They have to stop along the way to feed in sites that are traditional. If they are prevented from doing so because of a disturbance they could abort their migration or even starve to death.
Even if the birds push ahead with their migration, war-related disruptions could see them arriving too late in their northern nesting sites to complete their breeding cycle. This is especially critical for birds that nest far in the north where the breeding season is quite brief.
Southern Iraq has been identified as a globally important hot spot for bird biodiversity, one of only three in the Middle East. The marshes there are among the most important wintering grounds for water birds in western Eurasia.

The chill sets in!
Three of North America's Great Lakes - Lake Huron, Lake Superior and Lake Erie - have frozen over for the first time in nearly a decade after icy weather lasting more than a month. A month of temperatures below minus 20 Celsius (minus 4 Fahrenheit) has caused an ice blanket averaging as much as 60 cm (24 inches) on the lakes, creating problems for shipping companies and ferries.
The three lakes are part of the five Great Lakes, including Lake Michigan and Lake Ontario, that account for 95 percent of the United States' water supply. Lake Superior is the largest of the five.

Fire, fire burning bright!
BRASILIA, Brazil - The largest forest fire in Amazon in Brazil in two decades has been put out after it had destroyed 90 square miles (240 sq km) of tropical jungle.
The fire was probably caused by fishermen or logger's and by extremely dry conditions. There were no known human casualties.
A major reason for the destruction of forests in the Amazon is fires which tend to burn along the "arc of deforestation," or the Amazon's outer edges. There, fires used in slash-and-burn farming often get out of control.
Scientists warn that the rate of destruction - about 6,000 square miles (16,000 sq km) a year - poses serious threats not just through lost species but also by reducing the production of oxygen. The consequences for regional weather patterns are unpredictable.
Up to 30 percent of the world's animal and plant species are found in the Amazon, a 1.54 million square miles (4.1 million sq km) area - larger than Western Europe.

Protect at all costs
Berliners in Germany are annoyed - there is not enough money for building swimming pools, kindergartens or for other public services, but wildlife protection officials are spending 430,000 euros to build a network of walls and tunnels to protect frogs crossing a busy road.
The scheme has angered taxpayers because Berlin is building 15 tunnels to give frogs safe passage on their way to a nearby lake, despite its debt of 46 billion euros in 2002.

Hydrogen filling stations
The Norwegian industrial conglomerate Norsk Hydro said that it had shipped the world's first commercial hydrogen filling station for cars and buses to Iceland under a European Union-sponsored environmental project.
A Norsk Hydro spokesman said that hydrogen filling stations already exist for restricted and private use elsewhere in the world, but that the filling station for the Icelandic capital Reykjavik will be the first to be open to the public.
The station to be opened on April 24 will initially serve three Daimler Chrysler hydrogen-powered buses that will run on regular routes in the city.
It said that the project was in line with Iceland's aim to base all its energy production on renewable resources by 2030. The only emission from hydrogen used as fuel is water.

Climate change and the reindeer
Reindeers, caribou and elks could be the latest victims of climate change.
Increased rainfall on snow-covered pastures is causing ice crusts to form over the soil, which make it difficult for animals living in permafrost areas such as Scandinavia, Siberia and Alaska to feed. The animals can't break the ice to get to food.
A weather pattern known as the North Atlantic Oscillation increases the likelihood of rain falling on snow. Strong winds and storms and warm air from the south combine to produce rain instead of snow.
By 2080, this rainfall is likely to affect 40 percent more land than it does at present, squeezing the reindeer into an ever smaller area.

Fox hunting with a difference
On the vast steppes of the once nomadic Kazakhstan, the age-old sport of fox hunting is being revived with pride in a country whose wealth these days comes from its giant oil fields. Falcons, harriers and golden eagles are used as the predator. Before a hunt their first exercise is to chase down hares that are released one by one into the middle of a barren snow-covered landscape. The foxes prove tougher prey and are the main target.
In ancient times the Khans who ruled in these steppes largely did eagle hunting. This sport was almost forgotten during Soviet rule. Kazakhstan, which gained independence after the Soviet Union's collapse in late 1991, has been trying to bring back some of its lost past. The revered golden eagle is its national symbol and is also on the country's sky-blue flag.

Perfumes for animals!
Female cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo in New York just love Calvin Klein's Obsession for Men perfume. They enjoy rubbing up against tree stumps sprayed with the scent. This is a part of a programme of the Wildlife Conservation Society to keep animals healthy and happy.
The scents provide a way to stimulate the animals. The cheetahs come out and start sniffing. It gets them active; it gives them something different.
Under the Wildlife Enrichment Program, the animals also get to play with interactive toys and puzzles, learning to manipulate boxes to find a hidden toy or food treat. Research has shown that animals would rather work for their food than just be given it.

Is your ice cream bad for elephants?
Palm oil is a versatile product. You might not realize this, but it's present in a wide range of goods - cosmetics, detergents, food products including confectionery, chocolate, ice cream, and margarine.
This crop is grown extensively in tropical areas around the world and produces far more oil per hectare than any other oilseed. But it is associated with loss of natural forest as the demand for the crop is growing.
Indonesia is a good example. The farmers set fire to natural forests after having removed all the valuable timber, and then convert the cleared land to plantations. The extent and speed of forest loss due to fire in Indonesia is alarming. The shrinking forest area threatens thousands of animal and plant species, many of them endemic and already endangered.
As their natural habitat disappears, the Sumatra's elephants have begun raiding oil palm plantations for food. Angry farmers coat the palm fronds with pesticide or lay out poisoned bait. Earlier this year, 17 elephant corpses were found in the vicinity of a plantation.
Our cooking oil, ice cream, soap, and lipstick should not come at the expense of forests in Indonesia or other parts of the world.

A treasure trove
Madagascar has been completely isolated from other landmasses for 88 million years and is considered a treasure trove of information for evolutionary biologists. There are 100 or so known species of terrestrial mammals native to this region. There are few fossil records of Madagascar's land mammals determining where they came from and this has been one of the great-unsolved mysteries of natural history.
One theory was that the carnivorous mammals that include dogs, cats, bears and pandas, were already on Madagascar when it separated from the African continent 165 million years ago. Another theory suggested that mammals travelled over a land bridge from Africa about 45 million to 26 million years ago.
But new DNA research by scientists from Yale University in Connecticut and The Field Museum in Illinois suggests neither theory is correct.
According to the research, the carnivorous mammals are not old enough to have been present on Madagascar before the split with Africa and if there were a land bridge other species probably would have also crossed it.
"That leaves us with this alternative hypothesis of being swept out to sea and managing to survive this rather extraordinary voyage."
John Flynn, of the Field Museum, said all the species of Madagascar's carnivorous mammals represent a unique evolutionary branch formed by a significant one-time event. "The kinds of mammals that can make it across those open ocean crossings might have been species that had that adaptation," Flynn explained.

Green use of waste coal and methane
The government-funded Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia will be marketing hybrid coal and gas turbines designed to generate electricity from waste coal and methane, to mining companies and power producers in India. The introduction of this intervention is expected to slash greenhouse emissions. India is one of the world's largest coal producers and is heavily coal dependent. There are more than 500 coal mines in India and coal accounts for nearly 70 percent of the country's power generation.
This new intervention will help generate cheaper and greener power.
The turbine system burns methane and waste coal in a kiln to produce hot air that is then passed through a specially adapted heat exchange unit to drive a gas turbine which generates power.
Waste coal that is not suitable for normal power generation and methane gas is considered 21 times more dangerous than carbon dioxide as a greenhouse gas.

Watch out — there's a snake flying!
This is not hallucination but a fact. Along the western coast of India and in parts of Southeast Asia and Sri Lanka, some snakes glide from tree to tree.
There are five species of 'flying snakes', belonging to the genus Chrysopelea. The adults are about three feet long, and though they are not lethal they do have small fangs in the back of their mouth and inject a small amount of venom when they eat, but they're harmless to humans.
Flying snakes are not actually able to fly upward but can glide considerable distances from the high branches of trees. A snake begins its takeoff by hanging from a branch with the front of its body forming a J-shaped loop. It then accelerates up and away from the branch, straightening its body and flattening it from head to tail end, so that the body width nearly doubles. As the snake gains speed, it lifts its head and tail end toward the middle and undulates from side to side in a wide S-shape.
Jake Socha, a biologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois, USA, created a three-dimensional reconstruction of the snakes' flight using digital video cameras and computer software normally used to analyze aerial and satellite photos.
Socha said his research shows that the snakes flatten and undulate their bodies to glide through the air. Undulation is key to their ability to stay aloft, he said. The undulation is not like flapping a wing but more like putting a whip on a large table and then moving the whip from side to side, with waves moving down the whip. No ecological studies have been conducted to determine why these snakes take to the air.

The two-headed myth
Two-headed snakes are rare but not unheard of: in fact one has recently been found in Spain, giving scientists an opportunity to study how the anomaly affects their ability to hunt and mate. The snake in Spain, discovered near the village of Pinoso, is a two-month-old non-venomous ladder snake, Elaphe scalaris. It is about eight inches (20 centimetres) long.
Two-headed snakes typically occur in the same way that Siamese twins do. A developing embryo begins to split into identical twins but then stops part way, leaving the twins joined. Having two heads could be a hindrance in the wild. Even in captivity, there are problems. Snakes operate a good deal by smell, and if one head catches the scent of prey on the other's head, it will attack and try to swallow the second head. It would be much harder to catch prey. They also have a great deal of difficulty deciding in which direction to go, and if they had to respond to an attack quickly they would just not be capable of it. Just watching them feed, often fighting over which head will swallow the prey, shows that feeding takes a good deal of time, during which they would be highly vulnerable to predators. Thelma and Louise, a two-headed corn snake at the San Diego Zoo and now deceased, had 15 normal babies.

Celebrity travels to US
Giant panda Gaogao (meaning lofty), a television star in China, has left for a US zoo to mate with a female called Baiyun, or White Cloud, the official Xinhua news agency reported. The 11-year-old male panda travelled with several trunkloads of food including lots of its favourite fresh bamboo. He is expected to have his first mating session with Baiyun at the San Diego zoo in March.
Only about 1,000 of the endangered black-and-white bears survive in the wild, mostly in the bamboo-forested mountains of western China. Chinese zoos have several hundred pandas but the animals are difficult to breed in captivity.

Galapagos revisited
The unique wildlife of the Galapagos Islands in the southern Pacific, helped Charles Darwin more than 150 years ago (during his five-week voyage around the islands in 1835 on the British survey ship, The Beagle) to shape the principle of evolution through natural selection that today is the basis of scientific thought on the origins of life. Some 95 percent of the species found on the island by Darwin survive, in contrast to the ecological collapse on similar archipelagos like Hawaii when human settlements moved in.
This is one part of the world where flora and fauna have adapted well to the environment. Across the islands birds, reptiles and marine animals showing no fear of man move around as if to drive home the message that here things are different. The day-owl is one of many quirks of nature on these volcanic islands.
On Isabela, the largest island in the archipelago, goats brought in by 19th century fishermen to provide food have adapted their diet to include turtle eggs. On Wolf Island to the northwest, a 'Dracula' finch has emerged since Darwin discovered 13 species of the bird, marked by varying beak shapes. Abandoning the seed diet maintained by its cousins on other islands, the local ground finch now feeds on the blood of larger birds, pecking with a sharp beak perfectly adapted for the purpose.
Herons and gulls hunt by day and even on the Galapagos most do but some have adapted over generations to the heavy competition This group have evolved larger eyes that help them to catch their fish at night.
Just 40 years ago, only around 2,000 people lived on the Galapagos, but today, the permanent population is officially restricted to about 19,000 living on the three percent of the land not assigned to the National Park.

Impact of Exxon Valdez spill continues
Small oil patches left from the 1989 Exxon Valdez spill off the coast of Alaska are still releasing toxins that harm sea life, government scientists said.
Studies by the National Marine Fisheries Service found toxins continuing to flow from lingering crude oil lodged in beaches long after the Exxon tanker released about 42 million litres) of oil, causing the worst tanker spill in US waters. The Exxon Valdez spill spread oil over 1,200 shoreline miles (1920 km).
Sea otters and harlequin ducks in waters near the oil patches still struggle with high death rates and poor reproduction.
The findings were presented at a conference hosted by the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Trustee Council, a federal-state panel overseeing restoration of the region.
The Fisheries Service study used data from a 2001 survey that concluded about 28 beach acres remained contaminated Last summer, scientists placed monitoring devices around known oil patches. Plastic strips collected hydrocarbon elements washed up by waves.

Large haven for animals
Three African countries have got together to launch Africa's largest national park due to open early in 2003. This vast stretch of savannah land now named the Great Limpopo Trans-frontier Park is approximately the size of Belgium (covering an area of 35, 000 sq km) and spreads over parts of South Africa, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe. It will combine Mozambique's Limpopo Park, Zimbabwe's Gonarezhuo Park, and South Africa's Kruger National Park. The three countries have launched a drive to spread the animal population more evenly over the area. Large groups of animals have been transferred from South Africa to Mozambique where the civil war has taken a heavy toll on the animal population. The countries will remove visa restrictions for tourists to ensure visits by larger groups.

The black smog remembered
Fifty years back in December 1952, a black fog enveloped London for five long days leading to the death of thousands of people. Theatre performances were cancelled, trains and buses did not ply in the evenings and people could not move out due to the dense fog. This is now considered to be Britain's worst air pollution disaster. It prompted the government to pass the first Clean Air Act in 1956 introducing smokeless zones and cleaner fuels to reduce pollution.
Air pollution continues to be a problem though the source is different. Back then it was coal burning that generated the pollution in factories and households but now the cause is traffic. The air around London, like cities all over the world, is highly polluted. Things have begun improving with improved engine technology and cleaner fuels but we still have far to go.

The spewing volcano
Mount Etna in Sicily is Europe's highest active volcano and has been erupting for over a month. Lava flowing over has set fire to pine trees that are hundreds of years old, forcing birds and animals to flee. More than 80 types of birds including rare owls and royal eagles along with a large number of animals, mainly foxes, porcupines, and wild cats are found in these forests. All have fled and taken shelter in the neighbouring forests. Clouds of volcanic ash have destroyed the year's olive crop and plants. It has rained ash on Sicily's second largest city Catania, and destroyed a number of buildings.
In the past 10 years Mount Etna has erupted three times with lava flowing out. It has been spewing small amounts of ash and smoke at all times.
Yet there is a positive side to all volcanic eruptions according to some scientists. When the fertile lava solidifies, primitive forms of life such as lichens soon develop. In fact Etna has patches of vegetation at every stage of development from very young to very old, making it a natural laboratory.

Fire in the Bush
Bush fires in Australia are a common occurrence and have ravaged the continent for thousands of years. These have been attributed to the direction of the wind and the dryness of the area. Fires raging over large areas in the outback cause damage but go unnoticed. Fires in the vicinity of urban areas cause destruction and are noticed by all as they cause damage to human life and property. A huge fire raged around Sydney, the largest city in the continent, in November 2002, damaging property. This was one of the larger fires to have occurred in the last few years. Listed below are some of the worst fires that have ravaged Australia:
2001 Christmas - fires raged around Sydney, burning 770,000 hectares of land and destroying more than a hundred homes
January 1994 - raging fire burnt around Sydney for 14 days destroying almost 300 properties and taking 4 lives.
16 February 1983 - also known as Ash Wednesday. Strong winds and high temperatures fanned raging fires through much of South Australia leading to extensive loss of property and lives; as many as 76 persons are said to have lost their lives.

COP 8 outcome
Some of you were proud participants at the recently concluded COP 8 Summit. You must be really curious to know what the output of this much talked-about event was.
The four thousand or so delegates who attended the meeting from 23rd October to 1st November at Vigyan Bhavan agreed upon the following:
Since GHGs are primarily responsible for climate change, a transparency in the maintenance and review of GHG emission data by the developed countries was discussed.
Economic backing for the least developed countries
Institutionalization of the Climate Change Fund after COP 9
A global programme for sensitizing people through education and training
The urgent need for action was universally felt because Climate Change is not a problem that affects one nation only in isolation. It is closely linked to factors that govern the well being of any nation. The magnitude of the problem was summed up by our Prime Minister Mr Vajpayee's remark during the High Level Meet of the Summit. He said, "Food and nutritional well being are priority issues for all. Agricultural sustainability is one of the key areas related to adaptation. Water conservation is another. Weather related economic losses and deaths have grown significantly over the last few decades. There is a need for strengthening the capacity of developing countries in coping with extreme weather events, which are increasing in frequency and severity due to climate change."

What a spill!
An oil tanker, the 'Prestige' capsized off northwest Spain near the coast of Galicia, causing a huge oil slick that has closed down fishing and devastated wildlife. The tanker was carrying over 70,000 tonnes of oil. This area is also called the 'Coast of Death' because many shipwrecks have occurred here.
Ecologists are fighting to save hundreds of oil-coated seabirds. The spill has hit a corner of Spain with a specially rich wildlife. Lagoons in Galicia are an important habitat for migrating birds and the rocky coastline teems with gannets, cormorants and guillemots. Oil-soaked birds can be seen all along the coastline. A large number of birds have been found covered in fuel oil, and many have died. When a bird is covered in oil, its feathers lose the ability to repel water. It loses body heat, becomes weak, dehydrated and ends up suffering from hypothermia. Many oil-soaked birds have been brought to the sanctuary near La Coruna and are being looked after.
The World Wildlife Fund and other environmental groups have said that if all the oil had leaked, it would have been one of the largest spills ever, about twice the size of the Exxon Valdez spill off Alaska in 1989.
Regional authorities suspended all fishing along the coast. The spill will adversely affect the fishing community that depends on the sea for its livelihood.

Protecting this horse
The UN Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) at its meeting in Chile, has decided to protect all 32 species of sea horse. These sea creatures come in various sizes ranging from a few millimeters to about 30 cm long.
They are threatened as the demand for them is increasing all over the world. They are either used for traditional medicines mainly in Asia or as aquarium pets.
The biggest live fish exporters are Indonesia, Philippines and Brazil.
Dried sea horse required to treat various ailments are supplied mainly by India, China, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Mexico.

The elephant and its tusks
Just imagine the majestic elephant with its great tusks - the very tusks that have led poachers and hunters to kill this grand animal. In fact, by the time the ivory trade was banned in 1989, the African elephant population had halved to about 6,00,000. Since then the number has grown though there is some illegal poaching.
The United Nations has now decided to allow some southern African countries to sell their stockpile of ivory after 13 years.Ivory has always been a coveted item for ornamental purposes and has been seen since the Egyptian civilization around 500 BC. In the 19th century, Europeans were drawn to ivory as strongly as they were to slaves and gold. It was then mainly used to make billiard balls, piano keys, and boxes.

No polluting exhaust from this car
You just have to wait till 2010 to be the proud owner of the world's first environment- friendly car. General Motors Corporation has designed the "Hy-wire concept car" that combines hydrogen fuel cell power with electronic hi-tech drive power. Your car will emit only water vapour from its exhaust pipe. It will not have a noisy engine, a gear stick or a brake pedal. The icing on this car-cake will be the sliding steering unit that can be moved both ways allowing you to choose between left and right hand drive! But what you will miss is the bonnet, because both the front and the back will be glass panelled.

Invasion by ice
When was the last time you heard of extraterrestrial invasions by ice? According to a Spanish scientist in Madrid, it is a global warming phenomenon which makes giant blocks of ice fall from clear skies and rip gaping holes in cars and houses. These blocks of ice, also called megacryometeors, are meteors of ice weighing more than 10 kg, and leave 1.5 metre-wide (five feet) holes in houses. Over the last decade more than 50 such incidents have been recorded. The formation of blocks of ice is an abnormal phenomenon and evidence of a global level change in the environment. As a result of global warming, one level of the atmosphere is getting colder while another is getting hotter, and so some ice clouds now remain longer in the atmosphere. The tiny ice crystals then fall through the atmosphere, bouncing and gathering mass, to end up smashing through a car's windscreen or, more usually, landing softly in a field.

Ring before you throw
The next time you hear that someone is discarding his/her mobile phone, just tell them about this news byte. Britain has many landfill sites where garbage is thrown. Discarded mobile phones are now posing a major environmental threat and British mobile phone operators have understood the gravity of the situation. Retailers have launched a programme to encourage the reuse and recycling of handsets. This programme will attempt to keep the 15 million handsets replaced every year, out of Britain's landfills. Experts warn that just one phone battery can pollute hundreds of thousands of litres of ground water.

Under this scheme, potential buyers will be provided prepaid postage so that they can send their old phones to Fonebak, saving the earth from another dumped mobile set. The companies taking part in Fonebak include Britain's five mobile phone operators - Vodafone, Orange, T-Mobile, mmO2 and Virgin-and retail group, Dixons, including its mobile phone boutique chain, The Link.

The longest recorded flight
A baby honey buzzard took off into the sky from the Scottish Highlands on its long journey to Africa for the winter on September 15th. But the adventurous soul had a strong mind of its own. After having strayed from its flock it veered off over the Atlantic Ocean instead of travelling over France and Spain. The 5 000 km journey it has completed so far is thought to be a record, said Roy Dennis, Director of the Highland Foundation for Wildlife charity, which fitted the transmitter in an attempt to learn more about the bird's migration patterns. Its transmitter is still sending signals, and the ornithologists are praying for its safety. Signals received over the last couple of days makes them sure that it's on something, floating in the water. We pray that it reaches home safely.

Winds of change?
Tapping wind energy is just within our reach now - India is the fifth biggest wind power market in the world and already business arrangements are being drawn to capture this potential market. The world's leading wind turbine makers Danish Vestas and NEG Micon, are planning to set up operations in India in a major way.

Foster mother - a lioness!
Ever heard of a lioness becoming foster mother to a new-born oryx? Well, this is happening in Kenya's Samburu National Park. Kamuniak (meaning the blessed one), the lioness, adopted her fifth new-born oryx this year. The foster mother not only takes care of the oryx but also protects it from other predators. The natural mother is also allowed to come and nurse it's offspring. This is a wonderful example of the association between the strong and the weak.

Breathe easy
Sit back, relax, listen to soothing music, pay and breathe pure, flavoured oxygen. This is Kolkata's first oxygen bar - a change from the polluted air outside. The bar is becoming very popular in spite of the high price that a customer has to pay for the intake of fresh air. The owner has also begun a membership scheme in which members get concessions and facilities.

A beak job — Cosmetic surgery in birds !
A Canadian dentist has made a plastic replacement for an eagle which had its beak shot off! Dr Brian Andrews of Vancouver Island took an impression from the beak of a healthy bald eagle for the yellow plastic replacement. Staff at the wildlife sanctuary where the eagle is staying have named it Brian after the dentist. Lucky Brian is now recovering and successfully using the beak to eat. The four-and-a-half-year-old eagle is expected to return to the wild once the beak has been perfected.

Willy, free at last
The star whale of the 'Free Willy' movies, 24-year old Keiko, was released from his pen in Iceland in July and has found his way to the coast of Norway, where his keepers are hoping he will find a home and some companions of his own breed. Though a killer whale, he is very docile, preferring human company to that of whales and even allows children to ride on his back. The coast of Norway has plenty of herrings and killers are known to feast on this fish. It is ironic that Keiko found his way to one of the only countries to defy the ban on whaling - whales are hunted here for commercial purposes.

Flightless parrots
New Zealand has a large number of flightless birds - the kiwi is the most famous - but have you heard of flightless parrots? Well, the kakapo is one, a fat New Zealand parrot and an endangered species. They are docile birds and tend to freeze when a predator approaches, so you could call them sitting ducks, quite literally! Unfortunately, this makes them easy to kill and their biggest predators are cats and dogs that the Europeans brought with them to New Zealand many years ago.
The good news is that a very successful breeding programme has led to a steady increase in the population of these birds. They are being bred on islands that are predator free - free, that is, from cats, dogs, and so on.

Honouring the aged
A zoo in Japan held a celebration for the aged animals in the zoo on the occasion of the national holiday for "Respect for the Aged Day". Among the animals that were honoured were a 37-year old rhinoceros, a 57-year old female orangutan, and a 44-year old female flamingo. The orangutan was fed cake!

Modern-day Noah's Ark
Angola has been torn by wars for the last few years which have affected the population of animals in its parks and sanctuaries. South Africa's Kissama Foundation is trying to revive the parks by transferring animals from other national parks to Angola's Quicama National Park. The project is called Operation Noah's Ark because the animals will be transported by ship. A group of 200 elephants, a few cheetahs, antelopes and others will be included. The animals will be taken mainly from Botswana's Tuli Game Reserve and South Africa's Madikwe Game Reserve to Quicama National Park. The relocation of animals has been going on for two years now, and more than 80 animals have been sent to Quicama.

Turtles come visiting
La Repubblica newspaper in Rome reported that a group of about 50 little baby turtles hatched on a moonless night, lost their bearings, took a wrong turn and instead of heading for the sea were attracted by the lights and walked straight into a house near the beach. The owner of the house collected them in a bucket and took them back to sea. Turtles lay eggs on a number of Mediterranean islands.

Locust attack in Afghanistan
A locust plague of a magnitude that has not been seen in the past 30 years hit Northern Afghanistan early this year. People in these parts had not even recovered from the war and the oppression of the past few years when they had to face this strike from nature. This Morroccan locust infestation occurs every year in Afghanistan but the intensity varies from year to year. If the weather is suitable they breed faster than is expected. This year they bred in very large numbers. Locusts are a part of a group of insects called Orthoptera, better known as grasshoppers. An adult locust can eat roughly its own body weight in food (about 2 grams).
In March 2002 the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organisation) launched a huge campaign with assistance from USA and the UK and have succeeded in keeping crop damage to a minimum by bringing the pests under control.

'Kashmina' to save the antelope
The Wildlife Trust of India (WTI) and the International Fund for Animal Welfare undertook a 14 month study of the manufacture and trade of shahtoosh shawls, a banned item. They also studied possible alternatives for traders who continue to make these shawls.
The manufacture of shahtoosh was banned in 1979. The wool is derived from the underwool of the 'chiru' or Tibetian antelope for which the animal has to be killed. According to an estimate in China, about 20 000 animals are killed every year for this purpose. Inspite of the ban most shawl makers are still involved in its production.
The preliminary report was released during the Lakme Fashion Week held in August in Delhi. it stated found that the manufacturers supported the idea of a generic branding of Kashmir's luxurious goat wool Pashmina, as an alternative for workers making shahtoosh. The original Pashmina shawl is made of very fine wool and is intricately handwoven. The shawl would be branded Kashmina, to distinguish it from the machine woven mixed fibre pashmina that is readily available in the market.

Call to kill tigers!!
The tiger has been declared an endangered species and is protected under various schemes in different countries. In an unusual case where it is the reverse - the army has been called out in the north eastern province of Kelantan in Malaysia to kill tigers as three villagers have been mauled to death in the last few months. The Chief Minister of the state said that the animals should be killed, as capturing them would not solve the problem.
The WWF (Worldwide Fund for Nature) estimates that there are only 500 - 600 tigers left in the wild in Malaysia. They have got into action to try and stop the killing of these animals and are approaching the government.

Nets to save baby storks
The Greater adjutant storks build their nests high on the branches of the tall silk cotton trees in the forests of the north eastern state of Assam in India. A large number of hatchlings fall off the nests to the ground and are prey for animals and birds. In some cases the weight of growing chicks along and their parents can break the branches making them crash down to the ground.
The overall decline in tree cover has made the nests more vulnerable to storms and high winds. Some local NGOs and wildlife enthusiasts took the initiative of saving the birds and came up with an innovative idea. They tied safety nets around the trunks of the tree to soften the fall and protecting the birds. Some chicks are restored to the nests but when the nest cannot be identified people have raised the chicks. It is interesting to note that 80% of the world's estimated population of 1,000 greater adjutant storks are found in Assam.

Brown haze over parts of Asia
There is a brown haze hovering over parts of south and south east Asia that is worrying governments and environmentalists. It can also be seen hovering over the majestic Himalayas. The haze has been caused by pollution and is affecting the intensity of incoming solar rays, and also possibly rainfall and climate patterns. It is affecting the health and lives of thousands of people. The haze is said to have resulted from forest fires, use of fossil fuels, burning of agricultural waste, cowdung, fire wood, etc.

Pollution in High Places
United Nation Environment Programme (UNEP) sponsored a study team, which came out with a finding that the landscape of Mount Everest has changed significantly since its first conquest by man in 1953. This has been attributed to two causes, global warming and tourism.
Global warming has caused the glaciers to retreat about 5 Km. A group of ponds close to the peak have now merged into a long lake.
Thousands of tourist climbers have littered the mountains with trash, human waste, oxygen cylinders, etc. and have depleted the forest areas for fuel wood.
The team members spoke to local people and experts at Sagarmatha (Everest) National Park and Thyangboche Monastery. They were told that there had been many changes in the environmental conditions in the area for the last few decades.
Some steps have been taken now to restore the environment around the mountain. Natural forest regeneration in lower altitudes have brought back the area's forest cover.

BT COTTON
The government of India has given a go ahead to the commercial marketing of 3 genetically modified cotton hybrids. This is the first time that genetically engineered hybrids are being allowed for commercial sowing by the Government. Field trials of the BT seed (bacillus thuringiensic) began in 1996-97. This BT cotton contains a gene that is resistant to the cotton bollworm, which causes extensive damage to the crop. The go ahead has been given to the Maharashtra Hybrid Seeds Company (MAHYCO), a partner of the U.S. biotechnological giant Monsanto.
India is the world's third largest producer of cotton. Indian cotton yield is said to be just 300kg per hectare, the global average being about 650kg.
This present move is expected to benefit lakhs of small farmers who will now be able to tackle the bollworm menace and increase their crop yield and thereby increase their income.

Winged miracle
The loo, a warm local wind in Delhi that blows during the scorching heat of May and June causes people to suffer from heat stroke and other heat related illnesses. Here is a case of a big bird falling victim to the heat. A Kite flying over Vasant Kunj suddenly fell off the sky! A good Samaritan saw the bird falling, picked it up and rushed it to the zoo where it was tended and brought back to health by the vets.

Sealed death
There is a very large seal population around the coast of Denmark and Sweden. But in the last month or so (May and June) a deadly virus has struck and killed more than 600 seals. Earlier in 1998 a seal plague had wiped out more than half the seal population in Western Europe. There was extensive media support and public sympathy for the seals. In fact this plague was responsible for the success of the Green Party in the autumn election, winning 20 seats in the parliament.

Ice breaker
An ice shelf in the Antarctic, Larsen B, a total of 3250 sq km, on the northern side of the continent collapsed and broke into the sea in March this year. It is believed to have existed for more than 12,000 years. This collapse of the shelf has been attributed to rising temperature.
Ice shelves are thick plates of ice that are fed by glaciers. They are formed when large glaciers called ice streams flow through the ice sheets on the continent to the sea. When this stream reaches the coast it pushes out the ice into the ocean, anchoring on to the rocks on the coast. This projection continues to grow outwards into the water. This eventually results in the formation of a large floating shelf of ice affixed to the continent.
These ice shelves cover more than 50% of the Antarctic coast. The largest individual shelf is the Ross Ice Shelf (also known as the Great Ice Barrier) in Western Antarctic, which is as big as France.

             © TERI 2006
For comments and suggestions, write to us at webgroup@teri.res.in

             © TERI 2005
For comments and suggestions, write to us at webgroup@teri.res.in