Nature Ramble

Nature never seems unable to provide more surprises.

This week we look at a new species of shark discovered in Indonesia.

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‘Walking shark’ discovered in Indonesia

Previously unknown fish, Hemiscyllium halmahera, uses its fins to move along the sea bed in search of crustaceans

Hemiscyllium halmahera, a newly discovered species of ‘walking shark’.

A species of shark that uses its fins to “walk” along the bottom of the ocean floor has been discovered off the coast of Indonesia. The shark, Hemiscyllium halmahera, uses its fins to wiggle along the seabed and forage for small fish and crustaceans, scientists from Conservation International said on Friday.

The shark, which has wide horizontal stripes, grows to a maximum length of just 30in and is harmless to humans.

It was found off the remote eastern island of Halmahera, one of the Maluku islands.

The conservation group said it hoped the discovery would once again demonstrate that most sharks pose no threat to humans.

The find also highlights the extraordinary marine diversity in Indonesia whose chain of islands is home to at least 218 species of sharks and rays, and the country’s recent efforts to protect species under threat of extinction, Conservation International said.

 

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How Green are your Easter Eggs?

Easter is almost upon us.

There’s a fact that people who are concerned with the environment don’t know.

Many Easter eggs contain palm oil.

Some comes from sustainable suppliers, some eggs don’t have it; but there are disreputable brands available on the market.

Easter eggs rated by palm oil use

Lindt, Thorntons and Guylian come bottom of a league table of chocolate Easter eggs scored on use of unsustainable palm oil

Chocolate Easter eggs on sale in a supermarket. Photograph: Kevin Britland/Alamy

Lindt, Thorntons and Guylian have come bottom of a green ranking of Easter eggs based on their use of palm oil. Divine Chocolate came top, with the Co-operative and Sainsbury’s close behind in the survey of more than 70 brands by Ethical Consumer magazine and charity Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK).

The organisations are launching a campaign in response to the increasing threat that unsustainable palm oil is posing to the world’s rainforests, their indigenous wildlife, and the people whose livelihoods depend on the forests. Having destroyed vast areas of forest in countries such as Indonesia, palm oil companies are now planning to expand in the rainforests of the Congo Basin in Africa.

Consumers are unaware of palm oil content, the campaign says, because of current labelling laws. Palm oil is a key ingredient in many food products – including chocolate and biscuits – but companies are not required by EU law to label products containing it until December 2014.

The aim of the campaign is to encourage consumers to buy the best-rated products, forcing those companies that are not taking their environmental responsibilities seriously to use more sustainably sourced palm oil.

Divine and Booja-Booja were deemed to have the best overall credentials, with neither using any palm oil in their chocolate products. Traidcraft, Co-operative Food and Sainsbury’s also scored very highly.

The bottom three chocolate companies were deemed to be Lindt, Thorntons and Guylian. Lindt reportedly supplied inaccurate figures to Ethical Consumer, while Thorntons and Guylian failed to submit any documentation to the organisations that set international sustainable palm oil standards.

Cadbury – now owned by US company Kraft – had poor scores while stablemate Green & Black’s, well-known for its organic range, did much better.

 

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Are you planning on a green Easter?

Give an orangutan a present this Easter…

Nature Ramble

Off today to have a look at an unusual creature.

The Pangolin

The physical appearance of a pangolin is marked by large, hardened, plate-like scales. The scales, which are soft on newborn pangolins but harden as the animal matures, are made of keratin, the same material of which human fingernails and tetrapod claws are made. The pangolin’s scaled body is comparable to a pine cone or globe artichoke. It can curl up into a ball when threatened, with its overlapping scales acting as armour and its face tucked under its tail. The scales are sharp, providing extra defense. The front claws are so long they are unsuited for walking, so the animal walks with its fore paws curled over to protect them. Pangolins can also emit a noxious-smelling acid from glands near the anus, similar to the spray of a skunk. Pangolins, though, are not able to spray this acid like skunks. They have short legs, with sharp claws which they use for burrowing into termite and ant mounds, as well as climbing. – Wikipedia

Indian pangolin (Manis crassicaudata) – image: Project Pangolin

 

Pangolins under threat as black market trade grows

The scaly anteater is less well-known compared with other illegally hunted species, but it is highly prized by traffickers

Endangered … the plight of the pangolin is not helped by its low profile compared with threatened species such as elephants, lions and tigers. Photograph: How Hwee Young/EPA

Last year tens of thousands of elephants and hundreds of rhinos were slaughtered to meet the growing demands of illegal trade in wild animals. Largely centred on eastern Asia, this black market is also devouring hundreds of tigers, sharks, tortoises, snakes and other rare beasts. It’s a flourishing trade, worth an estimated $19bn a year. But little attention is paid to the pangolin, or scaly anteater, one of the mammals that suffers most from such poaching.

Trade in the pangolin was banned worldwide in 2000, but the meat and supposed medicinal qualities of this unobtrusive animal – the only mammal to sport scales – have made it one of the most highly prized targets for traffickers in Asia. The meat is considered a great delicacy and many believe the scales can cure various diseases, including asthma and certain cancers, as well as boosting virility. Pangolins have become so rare that they may fetch as much as $1,000 a piece on the black market.

As a result, two out of four of the Asian species — the Sunda, or Malayan, pangolin, and its Chinese counterpart (respectively Manis javanica and Manis pentadactyla) — are endangered and the other two are near threatened, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Two of the four African species are near threatened too. There are no figures for the number of specimens in existence worldwide, but the experts warn that their disappearance would alter the ecosystem of tropical forests, due to the rise in the number of ants and termites.

Despite the scaly anteater being protected, poaching is on the rise. In January four Chinese nationals were arrested in Jakarta with 189 pangolin skins in their luggage. In April, October and November of last year French customs officers at Roissy-CDG airport seized several tens of kilos of scales. In May 2011 a record haul of 7.5 tonnes of pangolin meat was discovered at Tanjung Priok port in north Jakarta, concealed under a layer of frozen fish in crates on their way to Vietnam. Other seizures have been reported in Thailand, Cambodia, India, Malaysia, Burma and Vietnam.

“Since 2000, tens of thousands of animals have been traded in each year internationally, from countries ranging from Pakistan to Indonesia in Asia and from Zimbabwe to Guinea in Africa,” says Dan Challender, co-Chair of the new IUCN Pangolin specialist group, quoted by the Mongabay website. In 2010 the wildlife trade monitoring network Traffic published a report alleging that a Malaysian crime syndicate had captured 22,000 pangolins aged over 18 months. In 2011 between 40,000 and 60,000 were netted in Vietnam alone.

Many are transported live to ensure meat is fresh, but a large number die of hunger or thirst during transport. In addition traffickers often inject them with water to increase their body weight.

Much as with elephants, rhinos and tigers, existing laws and penalties are too feeble to really discourage the traffic. The anteater’s low profile merely makes matters worse. “Unfortunately,” says Traffic’s Kanitha Krishnasamy, “pangolins do not attract as much attention from the public, and by extension from the authorities.”

Nature Ramble

We don’t know everything.

So this week we’re off across the globe to Indonesia.

New species are being found, other species are extinct or on that road.

There’s just so much we don’t know about our own planet.

A new owl species from Indonesia is formally described

New owl species Otus jolande, found in Lombok, Indonesia

A new species of owl discovered in Lombok, Indonesia, has been formally described by scientists.

The Rinjani Scops owl (Otus jolandae) was discovered by two separate researchers just days apart in September 2003.

The “common” owl is the first endemic bird species recorded on the island of Lombok.

“I found the new owl on 3 September 2003, and Ben King found it independently at a different location on 7 September 2003.”

“I was on Lombok to collect sound recordings of the local population of a species of nightjar. On the first night I arrived on Lombok, we heard the vocalisations of an owl that [I was] not familiar with.”

Coincidentally researcher Ben King, from the Ornithology Department, American Museum of Natural History in New York, USA, was in Lombok at the same time, recording the same nightjar species even though the researchers had never met.

Mr King commented, “My experience was similar to George’s. While I was tape-recording the nightjar, I heard a song that sounded like an owl, but unlike any I’d heard in years of field work in Indonesia.”

Initially Mr Sangster was not certain whether it was a previously known species from Java and Bali that for some reason had been overlooked on Lombok.

This explanation was quickly ruled out when he played back the sound recordings of the owl.

“When we first heard them, the owls were very vocal, and either involved in a duet (of male and female) or a duel (between two males).

Because we were not sure which species this was, we made recordings and played it back.

Owls are territorial, so when their sound is played back in their territory, the owl usually comes to investigates the ‘intruder’.”

The owls responded strongly to the recordings and approached the researchers, meaning they had a clear view of the owls.

This meant that the volcalisations were indeed the song,a crucial piece of information according to researchers.

Researchers attracted the owls by playing back sound recordings

The Rinjani Scops owls initially looked very similar to the Moluccan Scops owl, a species of owl that was reported to occur on Lombok.

However, their whistles sounded completely different from the “raven-like croak” of the Moluccan Scops Owl.

The researchers only realised that they had in fact discovered a new species when they checked the taxonomic literature and examined their recordings more closely.

Previously no endemic species of birds from the island of Lombok were known.

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Nature Ramble

I am continually amazed. I mean, I am no slug when it comes to nature and her many and varied species, but this week I was introduced to a beautiful animal that I had no idea existed.

Sunda Clouded Leopard

Existing in mainland Asia, Indonesia and Borneo, it is rarely filmed. A BBC Nature story drew my attention and I followed up.

Credit: Suzies Den

The rare Sunda Clouded Leopard has two subspecies; for Borneo and Indonesia. The species was only discovered in 2007 and this recent news means zoos and wildlife researchers must be careful with any breeding programmes. It’s thought the different species evolved after being separated by rising sea levels after the last Ice Age. The big cat remains on the endangered list as they need large hunting areas which are currently threatened by logging and plantations. – Suzies Den

From YouTube:

A video I made using a bunch of random video clips and photos of clouded leopards. The song is The Glade by Joel McNeely and is off of the Last Of The Mohicans soundtrack.

Grunge Rock… Green???

Navicula to campaign for orangutan, tropical rainforest in Canada

Navicula – Grunge Rock band from Indonesia

The orangutan (Pongo pygmaeus), one of Indonesia’s most endangered species, deserves and requires attention from all parties in the country as they are facing a variety of threats that could lead to their extinction.

Navicula is one of the most concerned groups of young musicians in the country. The grunge rock band is actively launching campaigns to protect and preserve the rare animal through their musical endeavors.

“The orangutan’s habitat in Sumatra and Kalimantan has been gradually destroyed by the expansion of palm oil plantations,” the band’s guitarist, Gede Robi Supriyanto, said.

The massive development of palm oil plantations has also degraded tropical rainforests on both islands.

“Forest destruction is the most crucial environmental issue we are now facing,” he said.

To launch their campaign internationally, the band will perform a song entitled “Orangutan” at the international music festival Envol et Macadam, one of the most prominent annual alternative rock, punk, grunge and metal music festivals in the world, in Quebec, Canada, on Sept. 7 and 8.

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Warning: Some of the images in this video clip are a little disturbing.

Now grunge rock is not entirely my ‘thing.’ In fact, it is about as far removed from being my ‘thing’ as is possible.

But the band is to be applauded for its conscious awareness on this issue.

Good luck at the music festival!

Good luck di musik festival yang!

Nature Ramble

Usually the news is bad, especially for those facing extinction. But, sometimes there is a ray of light that illuminates the future.

This weeks Nature Ramble is about one of those faint rays of hope.

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With a face that only a mother could love…

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Endangered Sumatran rhinoceros born in captivity

Ratu’s pregnancy lasted about 16 months

A Sumatran rhinoceros – one of the world’s most endangered species – has given birth at a sanctuary in Indonesia.

Conservationists at the Sumatran Rhino Sanctuary in Way Kambas National Park said the mother, Ratu, and her male calf were both “very well”.

It is only the fourth recorded case of a Sumatran rhino being born in captivity in a century.

There are thought to be fewer than 200 alive in Indonesia and Malaysia.

Their numbers have dropped by 50% over the past 20 years, largely due to poaching and loss of habitat.

‘Big present’

A spokesman for Indonesia’s forest ministry, Masyhud, told the AFP news agency that Ratu’s labour had gone “smoothly and naturally”.

“It’s really a big present for the Sumatran rhino breeding efforts as we know that this is a very rare species which have some difficulties in their reproduction,” he added.

“This is the first birth of a Sumatran rhino at a sanctuary in Indonesia.”

It was Ratu’s third pregnancy. The previous two ended in miscarriages.

The father of the baby rhino, Andalas, was born at Cincinnati Zoo in the US in 2001 – the first Sumatran rhino to be delivered in captivity in 112 years.

Source: BBC News Read more

Monday Moaning

‘Palmed Off’: Is Your Dinner Killing Orangutans?

Palm Oil: The Other Kind of Oil Spill

Although it is difficult to draw a direct relationship between the growth of palm oil and the conversion of forests, roughly 66 percent of Indonesia’s palm oil plantations and 87 percent of Malaysia’s plantations have involved documented forest conversion.

Palm oil plantations are used to harvest and process palm oil, an edible plant oil derived from the fleshy middle layer of the fruit of the oil palm. Not unlike other vegetable oils, palm oil acts as a cooking ingredient in both tropical cooking and the larger commercial food industry, and may be prevalent in products purchased by up to 75 percent of everyday Western consumers.

As of 2010, it was the most widely used and consumed edible oil in the world, holding approximately 32 percent of the oil market.

Often listed discreetly as “vegetable oil”, palm oil is found in some 200 international brands, including McDonald’s, Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, Girl Scout cookies, Kentucky Fried Chicken and KFC packaging, Avon personal care products, Clinique cosmetics and skincare, Tim Tams, Mars Incorporated chocolate and confectionary, and in Mary Kay, Covergirl, Lancôme, Sephora and Urban Decay cosmetics and face washes—just to name a few.

Because of trapping, hunting, and deforestation, wild orangutan populations have fallen 70 percent over the last 60 years.

Is your Big Mac really worth the lives of this parent and child? (Photo: Anup Shah)

When I found Max, he couldn’t walk. He was disorientated and terrified, and the burns to his feet and body were severe. He was one of several hundred orangutans displaced by forest clearing outside Indonesia’s Tanjung Puting National Park in 2006. He had become separated from his family after plantation workers cruelly herded escaping orangutans back to the burning jungle—and away from precious plantation land.

No more than one year old, Max had fought successfully against the trapping, hunting and forest clearing industries that endangered his short life. But with one last breath, he finally lost his battle, becoming one of several thousand orangutans killed annually by a barbaric agricultural farming process, and becoming a victim of a different kind of oil spill: the trade in palm oil.

Palm oil monoculture is “palming” off orangutans in giant numbers, pushing the once abundant species closer than ever to extinction. Today, less than 60,000 orangutans exist in the wild and scientists and biologists conclude that the species’ numbers have disappeared by more than 70 percent over the last 60 years as a combined result of trapping, hunting, and deforestation.

These same scientists predict the species could be extinct by 2023.

Deforestation forest fires—used as a method of land clearing for the construction or expansion of palm oil plantations—run a high risk of unmanageability and typically burn out of control in the often dry and dense conditions of Indonesia and Malaysia, irreversibly degrading the important habitats of tigers, elephants and endangered orangutans like Max.

Do the Green Thing for Orangutans: “Palm Off” Your Palm Oil

Turning the cheap and popular commodity into a commercial liability is the surest way to safeguard the future for orangutans and other species affected by commercial palm oil production—and it’s easy!

1) Look out for palm oil by keeping an eye on the label: Ice cream, pet food, cosmetics, chocolate, chips, and personal and household items with the highest percentage of saturated and transfats or containing stearic, isopropyl or elais guineensis acids are products that may contain significant amounts of palm oil. Researching and eliminating items guilty of endangering orangutans—and choosing sustainable alternatives—will contribute greatly to the lessening in the supply and demand of palm oil products and safeguarding orangutan habitats and populations.

2) Raise your political voice: Lobbying and petitioning Indonesian, Malaysian, and Papuan New Guinean governments to enforce environmental and wildlife protection law is a quick and simple way of applying political pressure on the worldwide need for palm oil regulation. Your signature on active petitions will call for the fruition of strict regulations on existing palm oil plantations in both Western and developing countries, forcing owners and workers to comply with standards of sustainability and animal welfare.

3) Get active for orangutans: Existing in abundance, orangutan conservation organisations—including the World Wildlife Fund, the Australian Orangutan Project, the Sumatran Orangutan Conservation Programme, Orangutan Foundation International, DeFORESTaction, the Kinabatangan Orangutan Conservation Project, and the Orangutan Conservancy—need volunteers, symbolic adoptive parents and generous donors to support important initiatives seeking to care for orphaned, displaced and wild orangutans. Learn more about becoming an activist for orangutans and volunteering.

Will you stop using products that contain palm oil?

Source: Take Part

Opinion:

Another case of First World consumer needs taking advantage of Third World nations.

The First World is insatiable, it is raping the planet without regard or remorse.

Consumerism is the worst form of pollution.