news20100301gdn1

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > Science > Biodiversity]
Weight of bugs in Britain's soil has nearly doubled in just 10 years

> Number of invertebrates in soil has increased by 47%
> Study shows decrease in diversity underground
Juliette Jowit
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 February 2010 23.24 GMT Article history

Unnoticed by the people of Britain, a transformation has been happening beneath our feet. In the first study of its kind, scientists have analysed the soil the country depends on.

In just the top 8cm (3in) of dirt, soil scientists estimate there are 12.8 quadrillion (12,800 million million) living organisms, weighing 10m tonnes, and, incredibly, that the number of these invertebrates – some just a hair's breadth across – which in effect make the soil has increased by nearly 50% in a decade. At the same time, however, the diversity of life in the earth appears to have reduced.

The most likely reason for both the increase in numbers and the decrease in types is the rise of annual temperatures and rainfall over the decade of the study, leading to warmer, wetter summers, said Professor Bridget Emmett, of the UK's Centre for Ecology and Hydrology (CEH), who led the study. The scientists' theory is that the warmer, wetter soil encourages most of the bugs to breed faster or for longer, but that more marginal species have been unable to adapt to the new conditions.

They are less certain, however, about whether the changes are a threat or a boon: soil has a relatively high "species redundancy", so there are many species that can do the same job, but all creatures are facing an onslaught of changes such as global warming, pollution and habitat destruction.

"If you look at the soil, most of it comes out of the back end of the animals," said Emmett. She added: "The question is whether we have lost resilience in the soil. Is diversity important for the soil to bounce back after multiple pressures?"

CEH's biggest ever study of Britain's soil is part of the much wider Countryside Survey, funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs approximately every decade.

The survey in 2007, whose results have only just been released after two years of analysis, took more than 2,600 samples from different geological and climatic areas across England, Scotland and Wales, and measured them for invertebrates, nutrients, pollutants, acidity and carbon.

In what is thought to be the first national analysis of change in soil bug numbers and types, Emmett's team extrapolated that there were 1.28 x 10 to the power of 16 individual invertebrates, mainly made up of Oligochaetes (small worms), Collembola (springtails) and Acari (mites).

They then made the same calculation as for the previous survey in 1998 and estimated that the number and mass of bugs had increased by 47%, and that the biggest increases by far were in the numbers of mites. The concentration of living things was particularly high in woodland, but the phenomenon appeared in every type of landscape sampled except arable land, probably because of the regular tilling and disruption of their habitat.

Although the study looked at only the top 8cm of soil, the results were likely to cover most active life underground, said Emmett: "In fairness, it's where most of them are: they know where all the carbon and nutrients are concentrated."

The decrease in the variety of species found was much smaller – 11% – and the scientists warn that further research is needed to be sure of the trends, because too little is known about whether climate, pollution and land management affect soil bugs and, if so, how.

Biodiversity helps the soil to cope with future threats from pollution and climate change, and is a "pool from which future novel applications and products can be derived", notes the report.


[News > World news > Animal welfare]
Opposition mounts to 'factory farm' plans that will house 8,100 cows

Planned complex will farm cows in 'battery conditions' and match the carbon emissions of 3,000 homes, rights group says
Martin Wainwright
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 February 2010 19.54 GMT Article history

Opposition is mounting over a plan to farm 8,100 cows in "battery conditions" at Britain's largest dairy – a complex of indoor hangars that protesters say will match the carbon emissions of 3,000 homes.

Everything from pollution worries to possible damage to Roman remains is being thrown into the fight to stop the 22-acre development in Lincolnshire, which is set to revolutionise milk production methods.

The consortium of dairy farmers behind the idea, linking herds in Lancashire, Devon and Lincolnshire, says the unit will be a "flagship for the industry" as well as set new standards in animal welfare.

But groups led by Viva, the Vegetarians International Voice for Animals, call the proposal "an environmental disaster, condemning animals to dark sheds for most of their lives".

Protesters have until Wednesday to submit views to North Kesteven district council, which has received a detailed application from the consortium, Nocton Dairies. The group proposes bedding the cows on sand, continuously cleaned and recycled, and feeding them on locally grown lucerne and maize.

The firm says that when in milk the animals would be kept indoors, "free to roam in open-sided, airy, sheds", but when dry would be allowed outside to pasture.

Nocton spent two years looking for a site before choosing Nocton Heath, five miles south of Lincoln, where the £40m indoor complex would be surrounded by 21,500 acres to grow the feed and recycle manure from the cattle.

Nocton said: "The dairy has been designed to a level beyond the highest environmental and animal welfare standards ever seen in the UK. The cow's health is the single most important factor in this or any other dairy. The Nocton Dairy has been designed with the health and welfare of the cow to be unparalleled in any dairy probably in the world."

The animals' diet would be supplemented with by-products from a sugar beet factory at Newark and an ethanol and biofuel plant planned for Immingham. Nocton says that slurry would be fed into an anaerobic digester, producing 2MW of power for the plant and 2,000 local homes. They also propose a visitor centre and facilities for schools.

Robert Howard, a local farmer and part of the consortium, said: "Nothing this ambitious has been attempted in western Europe – let alone this part of Lincolnshire. It provides all of the neighbouring farms with an opportunity to work together and represents a massive investment into the local economy."

The application promises 80 jobs and production of close to half a million pints every 24 hours.

Justin Kerswell, campaigns manager for Viva, said: "Can dairy farming in the UK sink any lower? This blows out of the water the supposedly bucolic, pastoral image the industry likes to portray.

He accused Nocton of moving towards "American-style zero grazing" and said that approval by North Kesteven would prove the thin end of that wedge.

"We have already imprisoned chickens, ducks and turkeys in massive concrete sheds. Can we really be so stupid and reckless that we are forcing dairy cows to join the factory farmed millions?"

news20100301gdn2

[News] from [guardian.co.uk]

[News > UK news > Weather]
Severe weather alert as tail end of continental storm hits UK

Emergency services braced as grim weather, which left up to 27 dead across Europe, sweeps across counties
Martin Wainwright and Lizzy Davies
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 February 2010 19.47 GMT Article history

Emergency services across the UK remain on alert last night as the coldest February on record came to a close with a deluge of rain.

The grim weather continued as the tail end of a major continental storm flicked across southern and eastern counties. The UK missed the full force of the front, which last night was reported to have killed up to 50 people in France as it also battered France, Spain, Portugal and Germany. Three people were killed in Spain, two in Germany and one in Portugal. More than a million homes were left without power in France after 100mph winds struck.

British emergency teams, meanwhile, were focusing on rapidly rising rivers, after a woman drowned when her Land Rover was swept away by a normally innocuous stream at Hartoft on the North York moors on Friday.

Last night the Environment Agency closed the Thames Barrier for the second time in under 24 hours, as all England and Wales was put on flood watch. Other serious flood warnings were issued for parts of the Anglian and southern regions and the north-east, but a severe flood warning for parts of Cambridgeshire was removed.

An agency spokesman said current weather patterns show a substantial surge event in the North Sea, with large waves a possibility in exposed coastal areas today and tomorrow.

The Thames barrier was due to reopen early this morning after high tide.

The Meteorological Office also warned that the weather was likely to turn colder by the end of the week, after a sunny respite today and part of tomorrow.

The flood risk was exacerbated by February's exceptional rainfall. The month saw levels 20% higher than average, at 99mm in England and Wales and 72mm in Scotland. The soggiest spot was Okehampton in Devon, which reached 157mm.

There was also concern that downpours would be concentrated by winds of up to 50mph, but fears that speeds would reach the 90mph recorded at the heart of the storm in France were not realised.

Vanessa Robson, 53, from Beverleyin east Yorkshire, died after her Land Rover Freelander was wedged between tree stumps and other debris beneath Muffles Bridge, which carries a remote farm road across Hartoft Beck on the edge of the North York Moors national park.

The Environment Agency warned of the unexpected strength, as well as speed of flow, of small rivers swollen by floodwater. A spokesman, David Bedlington, said: "Even a few inches of flowing water can knock people off their feet."


[Environment > Hacked climate science emails]
Climate scientist at centre of email row to face questions from MPs

Scientists Phil Jones and John Beddington and sceptics Nigel Lawson and Benny Peiser among those giving evidence
Tweet this
David Adam, environment correspondent
The Guardian, Monday 1 March 2010 Article history

The climate scientist at the centre of a media storm over private emails released on to the internet will face his first public questions on the affair today when he appears before a parliamentary committee.

The science and technology select committee is expected to ask Phil Jones, head of the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, to explain emails that critics claim show he manipulated data and censored research.

It will be the first time Jones has appeared in public since the emails were released in November. He will also be asked about correspondence that appears to show a reluctance to share data with critics under Freedom of Information requests.

Jones is among several witnesses called to give evidence today on the affair. Others include Bob Watson, chief scientist at the environment department Defra, John Beddington, chief scientist to the government, and Julia Slingo, chief scientist at the Met Office.

Prominent climate sceptics Nigel Lawson and Benny Peiser, of the Global Warming Policy Foundation, will also appear, alongside Richard Thomas, the former Information Commissioner, and Sir Muir Russell, who heads a separate inquiry into the emails that was set up by the university.

The university's submission to the inquiry said it "strongly rejected" accusations that it had manipulated or selected figures to exaggerate global warming. And it denied suggestions that it had breached Freedom of Information rules by refusing to release raw data.

According to the submission, allegations that scientists hid flaws and research findings were the result of misunderstandings of technical jargon or statistical analysis. It said the often-cited email that refers to a "trick" to "hide the decline" in a discussion of temperature measurements had been "richly misinterpreted and quoted out of context".


[Environment > Water]
Do fence me in: 250-mile barrier helps protect Kenyan water sources

Structure originally intended to save endangered black rhino succeeds in protecting forest and river sources
John Vidal, environment editor
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 28 February 2010 14.02 GMT Article history

After just over two decades, 250 miles (402km) and $9m (£5.9m) later, the last post on one of the longest fences ever built in Africa has been hammered in.

The electrified barrier, which rings the Aberdare mountain range, in west central Kenya, was initially intended to keep people out in order to save the few endangered black rhino within, but has become a model for countries struggling to protect scarce water resources.

Colin Church, the chair of the Kenya-based Rhino Ark conservation group and a leading expert on African leading wildlife, said the fence, which took 21 years for local communities to complete, had failed to save the rhino in the uplands it surrounds.

However, it had succeeded in protecting a large forest area and the sources of four of seven of Kenya's largest rivers, all of which rise in the Aberdares and provide electricity and water to major cities including Nairobi.

"In the early days, the motivation was to protect the black rhino, but then we all woke up to the fact that the farmers [who lived near the fence] were celebrating, and the reality is that this forested mountain area was the lifeblood for millions of people. We realised the whole ecosystem was at stake," he said.

"Our thinking had to change.The Aberdares are now the most secure mountain ecosystem in the whole of Kenya and maybe Africa."

Kenya's wildlife service is now studying whether to put electric fences around Mount Kenya, the Mau forest, Mount Elgon and the Cherangani Hills, most of which have been invaded by thousands of poor people who threaten the country's water supplies, Julius Kipng'etich, the director of the wildlife service, said.

The fence, which has 8,000 miles of wire, was built largely from recycled plastic stakes made from the waste of dozens of flower farms at nearby Lake Naivasha.

Local people are allowed through it to collect wood and water.

news20100301nn1

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 28 February 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.94
News
Ancient impact hammered Northern Hemisphere

Extinctions were less severe in southern oceans after catastrophe of 65 million years ago
By Janet Fang

{{The crash at the end of the Cretaceous period doomed important planktonic plants}
.POWER AND SYRED / SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY}

The extraterrestrial body that slammed into Earth 65 million years ago is best known for killing off the dinosaurs. But it also snuffed out more than 90% of the tiny plankton species that made up the base of the food web in the oceans. By sifting through geological records of ancient sediments from around the globe, palaeoceanographers have culled clues about how the impact caused so much havoc.

The researchers report in Nature Geoscience1 today that the most severe extinctions of nannoplankton happened in the northern oceans and that the ecosystems there took 300,000 years to recover, much longer than in the south. Given that pattern, the researchers speculate that the direction of the impact caused long-lasting darkness in the Northern Hemisphere and metal-poisoning in the northern oceans.

Nannoplankton with calcium-based shells were the primary photosynthetic producers in the oceans until 65 million years ago, at the boundary between the Cretaceous and Palaeogene periods. But 93% of those species went extinct — along with ammonites, large marine reptiles such as the plesiosaurs, and all the dinosaurs. The extinctions have been linked to the Chicxulub impact crater, which is buried beneath the Yucatán peninsula in Mexico.

To trace the geographical distribution of the extinctions, Timothy Bralower from Pennsylvania State University in University Park and his colleagues examined published records that analysed fossil nannoplankton at 17 sites spread across the globe. They found that up to 98% of species went extinct in the northern oceans, whereas rates in the southern ocean were lower; the most southerly site at the time lost 73% of its nannoplankton species. "There's an incredibly strong correlation between extinction rate and latitude," says Bralower.

The Southern and Indian oceans fared better in other ways as well. Species diversity was less affected, and the normal species assemblages returned almost immediately. But it took up to 300,000 years after the impact for species diversity to recover in the northern oceans, according to the researchers.

Phytoplankton probably influenced the restoration of the entire marine ecosystem, says Bralower. Their slow recovery in the north would have impeded the resurgence of the whole northern oceanic food web.

Other researchers have previously detected latitudinal differences in the catastrophe. North American land plants were particularly hard hit compared with species on southern continents. Geological evidence suggests that the body that hit Earth was travelling from the southeast to the northwest. That kind of collision, along with the planet's rotation, would have thrown up more debris over the Northern Hemisphere and blocked out the sun for an extended period.

"Suppression of photosynthesis and darkness would explain the extinctions and the diversity drop," Bralower says.

Poisoned seas

But the delayed recovery in the north was a mystery. "You'd expect that once it got light again, they would start flourishing again. Why would it take up to 300,000 years to come to normal diversity in the Northern Hemisphere?" comments Bralower.

The team tested several hypotheses, such as ocean cooling and acidification, but decided that metal poisoning is the only mechanism that could have caused that delay. They surmise that the impact spewed heavy metals into the sky and that these landed mostly in the northern oceans. High concentrations of metals can be toxic to living organisms and inhibit reproduction. And the suppression of photosynthesis in the north would have prevented plankton from taking up the toxic metals and clearing them out of the surface ocean.

"Until this study, you could imagine no environmental mechanism to inhibit the recovery of plankton after light conditions were restored. So what we've done is put numbers on how long it took for critical parts of the food chain to recover," Bralower says. "It was staggeringly long."

Although several geoscientists are impressed by the latitudinal differences reported in the new paper, they are sceptical about the metal hypothesis.

"The reality is, the ocean is one big ocean," says Steven D'Hondt, an oceanographer at the University of Rhode Island in Narragansett. He says the ocean would mix in a thousand years and spread any heavy metals around. To explain the different rates of recovery, he says, he would "poke around in evolutionary ecology to find possible explanations".

James Zachos, a palaeoceanographer from the University of California, Santa Cruz, agrees. "I suspect these findings might be telling us more about the ecosystem recovery process from severe extinction, rather than about the extinction process," he says.

Previous studies of marine molluscs have shown that widespread lineages survived the extinction better than ones with fewer species and more restricted ranges, according to David Jablonski, a palaeontologist at the University of Chicago in Illinois. The mollusc data² suggest that extinction intensity was fairly uniform across the globe, says Jablonski. But he adds: "If you squint your eyes a little at my data, high southern-latitude mollusc extinction is a little milder than elsewhere."

According to Bralower, species that lived in the high southern latitudes were adapted to low light and high metal concentrations and this allowed them to survive the immediate effects of the impact. "Adaptation is a critical factor in survivorship and the effect of the impact is built on top of that," he says.

Even if nannoplankton in the south suffered less than those in the north, it was "still a hell of a hit", says Jablonski. "No matter what, it was a bad time to be phytoplankton at the end of the Cretaceous period anywhere in the world."

References
1. Jiang, S., Bralower, T. J., Patzkowsky, M. E., Kump, L. R. & Schueth, J. D. Nature Geosci. online publication doi:10.1038/ngeo775 (2010).
2. Raup, D. M. & Jablonski, D., Science 260, 971-973 (1993).

news20100301nn2

[naturenews] from [nature.com]

[naturenews]
Published online 28 February 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.95
News
Why the body isn't thirsty at night

Body clock is a hormonal dimmer switch that controls water loss.
By Andrew Bennett Hellman

{{Brain cells collude to keep animals hydrated while they sleep.}
V. Balantsev/iStockphoto}

The body's internal clock helps to regulate a water-storing hormone so that nightly dehydration or trips to the toilet are not the norm, research suggests.

In an article published in Nature Neuroscience today, neurophysiologists Eric Trudel and Charles Bourque at the Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre in Montreal, Canada, propose a mechanism by which the body's circadian system, or internal clock, controls water regulation¹. By allowing cells that sense water levels to activate cells that release vasopressin, a hormone that instructs the body to store water, the circadian system keeps the body hydrated during sleep.

"We've known for years that there's a rhythm of vasopressin that gets high when you're sleeping. But no one knew how that occurred. And this group identified a very concrete physiological mechanism of how it occurs," says Christopher Colwell, a neuroscientist who studies sleep and circadian rhythms at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

The body regulates its water content mainly by balancing water intake through thirst with water loss through urine production. People don't drink during sleep, so the body has to minimize water loss to remain sufficiently hydrated. Scientists knew that low water levels excite a group of cells called osmosensory neurons, which direct another set of neurons to release vasopressin into the bloodstream. Vasopressin levels increase during sleep; clock neurons, meanwhile, get quieter.

Thirst alert

Trudel and Bourque tested the idea that lower clock-neuron activity might allow osmosensory neurons to more easily activate vasopressin-releasing neurons, which would mean more water retention and less urine production during sleep.

To do this, they isolated thin slices of rat brain containing intact sensory, vasopressin-releasing and clock neurons. Even when removed from the brain, clock neurons continue to mark time.

The duo then stimulated the sensory neurons and recorded any electrical activity in the vasopressin-releasing neurons to monitor communication between the two cell groups. The researchers then moved on to look at the effect of the clock cells on this pathway. When they did not activate the clock cells during the 'sleep' part of their cycle, it was easier for the sensory cells to communicate with vasopressin-releasing cells. Conversely, when they activated the clock cells, this communication decreased markedly.

The results suggest that clock cells function as a dimmer switch for water control. When their activity is high, they prevent sensory cells from instructing secretory cells to release vasopressin. Then, when clock cells are less active, sensory cells can easily instruct secretory cells to release vasopressin, ensuring that the body holds on to its water reserves.

Colwell points out that the study was done in rats, which are nocturnal. Although the vasopressin cycle and clock-neuron activity are similar in rats and humans, the question of whether the same mechanism occurs in animals that sleep at night remains to be answered.

"We show this for this one circuit, but it's possible that clock neurons regulate other circuits in a similar manner and this remains to be studied," says Bourque. He speculates that future studies might reveal whether the same mechanism regulates hunger, sleepiness and other aspects of physiology related to circadian rhythms.

References
1. Trudel, E. & Bourque, C. W. Nature Neurosci. doi:10.1038/nn.2503 (2010).


[naturenews]
Published online 1 March 2010 | Nature | doi:10.1038/news.2010.100
News: Briefing
Why Chile fared better than Haiti

Building codes and earthquake origins help explain levels of destruction.
By Richard A. Lovett

On 27 February, at 3:34 in the morning, Chile was rocked by a magnitude-8.8 earthquake. It was the fifth-largest earthquake since 1900, releasing about 500 times the energy of the magnitude-7.0 quake that hit Haiti on 12 January. Although both countries were devastated, the destruction was worse in Haiti, where an estimated 230,000 people were killed. In Chile the death toll reported on 28 February was 708, although that figure is expected to increase. Nature examines what happened in Chile and why the outcomes were so different.

Why was the Chilean earthquake so big?

The earthquake occurred along a 500-kilometre segment of the Peru–Chile subduction zone, where part Nazca Plate in the Pacific Ocean plunges beneath the South American Plate.

{{The earthquake that hit Chile on 27 February was stronger than the 12 January Haiti quake but caused less damage.}
AP Photo}

Subduction zones are noted for producing some of the biggest earthquakes — the 2004 Indian Ocean quake also arose from a subduction zone. But Chile is particularly prone to tremors because the plates there are converging at high speed – about 80 millimetres a year compared to 25–70 millimetres a year for most other plates, says Roger Bilham, a seismologist at the University of Colorado in Boulder.

This means that strain builds up quickly, and the long, straight plate boundary, which follows the coastline, enables big blocks of the fault to slip simultaneously, releasing a lot of energy in a single lurch. The biggest earthquake ever recorded — magnitude 9.5 — occurred along the same subduction zone in 1960. The 27 February quake happened on a section of the fault between the site of the magnitude-9.5 quake and a magnitude-7.8 quake that occurred in 1985. Thus, says Emile Okal, a geophysicist at Northwestern University in Evanston, Illinois, it was to be expected that the central section would eventually rupture.

Why didn't the earthquake do 500 times more damage than in Haiti?

Big earthquakes affect larger areas than smaller ones, but don't necessarily knock down more buildings. That is partly because subduction-zone earthquakes occur offshore, and the strength of the shaking diminishes quickly with distance. So, says Seth Stein, a geophysicist at Northwestern University, "a 'large' earthquake close by does more damage than a 'huge' one a little further away".

And the Haiti earthquake was relatively shallow, whereas the Chilean one was deep. Just as damage reduces with horizontal distance from the fault, it also attenuates with vertical distance, says Scott Ashford, head of the School of Civil and Construction Engineering at Oregon State University in Corvallis.

Another factor is the speed of ground shaking. Giant earthquakes, says Okal, tend to put much of their extra energy into slower, long-period vibrations, rather than adding to the strength of the 1-hertz-frequency vibrations most effective at knocking down walls. "You get a kind of saturation," he says. "A larger area is affected, but the intensity does not necessarily grow."

To what extent did better building codes minimize the death toll?

In Haiti, non-existent or badly enforced building codes turned many buildings into "weapons of mass destruction," Bilham wrote last month in an Opinion in Nature (see 'Lessons from the Haiti earthquake').

But although nothing could make Chile invulnerable to earthquakes, its building codes are comparable to California's, says Ashford. "If you look at earthquake risk there are two components," he says. "One is the hazard – what Earth can do to you. The other is how vulnerable your buildings are. In Chile, they have frequent earthquakes, but they've implemented seismic design into their building code, have inspections, and well-engineered structures."

But the South American nation did still take an enormous hit from the earthquake. "As we start looking at the infrastructure, it's going to take a long time to rebuild," Ashford says.

What is the next step?

Although Chile has plenty of seismologists of its own, scientists in many fields will undoubtedly be heading there to see what they can learn from the region's biggest earthquake in 50 years.

In doing so, they will be following in the footsteps of Charles Darwin, who was in Chile during an earthquake in 1835, estimated to have been around magnitude 8.5.

Darwin noted, says Ashford, that earthquake waves are amplified by certain geological features, most notably mountain tops and cliff tops. Something similar was seen in California's 1994 magnitude-6.7 quake in Northridge, Los Angeles, he adds. "Homes along the edge of the cliff in Pacific Palisades suffered significant damage," he says, "where 100 yards inland they barely felt the earthquake."

Ashford hopes to visit Chile by mid-March. "What we're trying to do," he says, "is learn as much as we can and collect the kind of perishable data that help us validate our models, save lives, and protect from future earthquakes."

news20100301reut1

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
Muklis Ali
JAKARTA
Mon Mar 1, 2010 8:34am EST
Indonesia allows mining, other projects in forests

JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has signed a decree to allow projects including mining, power plants, transport and renewable energy deemed strategically important to take place in protected forests.

Yudhoyono has pledged to do more to cut through red tape and prevent overlapping regulations slowing down projects ranging from mining to toll roads in the resource-rich developing nation in his second term in office.

Increasing exploitation of mineral resources and speeding up infrastructure development is seen as key for boosting growth and creating jobs in Southeast Asia's biggest economy.

But the decree, which was obtained by Reuters and came into effect on February 1, will anger green groups given Indonesia already has one of the fastest rates of deforestation in the world.

"The use of forest areas for development activities can be done for unavoidable strategic purposes," said the decree, which cited key development projects as including power plants, renewable energy, toll roads and train lines.

The decree said open-pit and underground mining could take place in production forests, which is a forest area that is considered neglected or abandoned after trees have been cut.

"In a protected forest, mining can be done through underground mining," the decree said.

The decree defined mining activities as including oil and gas, minerals, coal and geothermal.

Indonesia's state oil firm Pertamina has previously urged the forestry ministry to allow geothermal activities in protected forest as most of geothermal reserves are located in these areas.

There has frequently been confusion over whether companies can exploit resources in forest areas, with various ministries requiring permits.

Indonesia's forestry ministry recently asked Freeport McMoRan Copper & Gold Inc to submit a request to use land in a protected forest area, a ministry official said on Tuesday.

Freeport operates the huge Grasberg copper and gold mine in Papua province. Grasberg has the world's largest recoverable reserves of copper and the largest gold reserves.

In 2004, Indonesia allowed 13 mining firms, including Freeport, to continue mining operations in Indonesia after the introduction of a law in 1999 which banned open-pit mining in forested areas.

Last month, Indonesian police temporarily shut the Jorong coal mine in Kalimantan operated by a unit of Thailand's top coal miner Banpu PCL over a land permitting problem.

Banpu said the closure would only have a slight impact on production at its Indonesian unit Indo Tambangraya Mega Tbk.

Indonesia has struggled to attract fresh investment into mining, as well as for developing new oil and gas fields, partly due to uncertain regulations and red tape.

Indonesia has previously said it expected mining investment to hit $2.5 billion this year, up from $1.81 billion in 2009, supported by greater certainty after the introduction of new mining regulations.

(Editing by Ed Davies)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Sun Feb 28, 2010 7:58pm EST
M&S aims to be most sustainable retailer by 2015

LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's Marks & Spencer is to step up its plans to go "green" by opting for more sustainable ingredients and agreeing a living wage for suppliers in its bid to become the world's most sustainable retailer by 2015.

M&S said in a statement Monday its new plan would extend its original green targets that were introduced in 2007 and would make the company more efficient, develop new markets and build customer loyalty.

"It's therefore not just the right thing to do morally but also makes strong commercial sense," Chairman Stuart Rose said.

"Since we launched our eco plan, Plan A, in 2007 we've reduced our environmental impact, developed new sustainable products and services, helped improve the lives of people in our local communities and saved around 50 million pounds by being more efficient."

"Our extended Plan A will reach further and move us faster - covering every part of our business and reaching out to forests, farms, factories, lorries, warehouses and into our customers' and employees' homes."

M&S said its new commitments would include making sure all 2.7 billion food, clothing and home items carried at least one sustainable or ethical quality such as being fair-trade or free range.

It will also seek to determine and agree a fair, living wage for workers in such markets as Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India, and provide training and education programs.

(Reporting by Kate Holton; Editing by Louise Heavens)


[Green Business]
LONDON
Mon Mar 1, 2010 8:37am EST
UK consumers driven by price, not saving CO2: survey

LONDON (Reuters) - British consumers are still thinking about the price of the electronic goods they buy, rather than saving energy, according to a survey commissioned by energy-saving technology manufacturer Energenie on Monday.

Only 16 percent of British consumers said energy efficiency influences their purchasing decisions, whereas 60 percent said price was the main factor, according to research conducted by consultancy Vanson Bourne.

Out of the families surveyed, 73 percent of thought they were doing enough to be considered environmentally friendly and most claimed to have energy efficient devices in their homes.

But out of those, 81 percent had energy-saving light bulbs but much fewer had adopted other energy-saving measures such as double glazing, cavity wall insulation or energy-saving dishwashers or washing machines.

"Using energy-saving light bulbs is a great start, but it is a very passive way of reducing household energy consumption. What this proves is that for people to do something, it has to be simple and easy," Alan J. Tadd, managing director of Energenie, said in a statement.

The research also found that 43 percent of people do not switch electrical appliances off at the mains and one fifth of men admitting they were too lazy to do so.

(Reporting by Nina Chestney; Editing by Amanda Cooper)


[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Sun Feb 28, 2010 10:26pm EST
USDA to boost wildlife habitat, trim cropland

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The federal government will maximize enrollment in the land-idling Conservation Reserve, said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, a policy that would reduce U.S. cropland by 1.5 percent if successful.

The amount of land involved, around 5 million acres, could produce more than 150 million bushels of wheat, 200 million bushels of soybeans or 700 million bushels of corn, based on recent abandonment rates and the Agriculture Department's projected yields for the three crops this year.

Growers planted 320 million acres to the principal U.S. crops of grains, cotton, oilseeds, hay, tobacco, potatoes and sugarcane in 2009, says USDA.

Some 31.2 million acres are enrolled in the reserve at present with contracts for 4.5 million acres to expire on September 30. With the expirations, enrollment would be more than 5 million acres below the 32 million-acre ceiling set by the 2008 farm law.

Over the weekend, Vilsack announced the Agriculture Department would try to add 300,000 acres to the reserve for wildlife habitat and would give all landowners a chance to enroll land. Dates and other details of the "general signup" will be announced after an environmental impact statement is completed, he said.

"It is my goal to ensure that we maximize enrollment -- and holding a general signup is an additional step we can take to enroll acres in this program," said Vilsack on Saturday to a sportsmen's convention in Iowa.

Created in 1985, the reserve pays an annual rent to owners who agree to idle fragile cropland for 10 years or longer. Offers are examined for benefits in reduced erosion and improved air quality, water purity and wildlife habitat and the cost. Average rental payment is $53 an acre.

The Agriculture Department faces potentially large turnover in Conservation Reserve. Besides the 4.5 million acres in contracts that expire on September 30, contracts on 4.4 million acres expire on September 30, 2011, and 6.5 million acres on September 30, 2013.

(Reporting by Charles Abbott; Editing by Leslie Adler)

news20100301reut2

[Top News] from [REUTERS]

[Green Business]
WASHINGTON
Mon Mar 1, 2010 8:16am EST
Al Gore takes aim at climate change skeptics

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Former Vice President Al Gore took aim at skeptics who doubt the reality of human-caused climate change, saying he wished it were an illusion but that the problem is real and urgent.

Gore, who has made the fight against climate change his signature issue since leaving the White House in 2001, specifically addressed challenges to the accuracy of findings by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

"I, for one, genuinely wish that the climate crisis were an illusion," Gore wrote in an op-ed piece in The New York Times.

"But unfortunately, the reality of the danger we are courting has not been changed by the discovery of at least two mistakes" in reports by the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Climate change skeptics have pointed to errors in the panel's landmark 2007 report -- an overestimate of how fast Himalayan glaciers would melt in a warming world and incorrect information on how much of the Netherlands is below sea level -- as signs that the report's basic conclusions are flawed.

The panel's report said that climate change is "unequivocal" and that human activities contribute to it.

Gore's defense of the panel's findings came two days after the United Nations announced that an independent scientific board would review the panel's work in light of the errors.

The intergovernmental panel shared a 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with Gore and has driven political momentum to agree on a global climate treaty to replace the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol.

A December meeting in Copenhagen that aimed to bring about a global agreement failed to reach this goal, and Gore blamed inaction in the U.S. Senate.

"Because the world still relies on leadership from the United States, the failure by the Senate to pass legislation intended to cap American emissions before the Copenhagen meeting guaranteed that the outcome would fall far short of even the minimum needed to build momentum toward a meaningful solution," Gore wrote.

Three U.S. senators -- Democrat John Kerry, Republican Lindsey Graham and Independent Joe Lieberman -- have proposed to restart the process by dumping across-the-board cap-and-trade provisions in favor of sectoral approaches to cutting greenhouse gas provisions.

The new bipartisan bill could target individual sectors and move away from a system used in Europe in which companies would buy and sell the right to pollute, a process that caps and eventually reduces emissions blamed for heating the Earth.