Earthquake escalation?

The 6.4-magnitude Taiwan earthquake that hit on Thursday – on the heels of quakes in Haiti and Chile – raised concern of an accelerating trend. But the statistics say otherwise.

Christian Science Monitor, March 4, 2010

Taipei, Taiwan -- The 6.4-magnitude Taiwan earthquake that hit Thursday on the heels of massive quakes in Haiti and Chile, has some worrying about a spike in seismic activity.

But there's no geological connection between those quakes, and nothing unusual in the number of recent big quakes, says Kuo Kai-wen, director of the Seismology Center of Taiwan's Central Weather Bureau.

"Because Haiti just happened, everyone's paying more attention to earthquakes," says Mr. Kuo. "But the activity is normal – it's not so scary."

IN PICTURES: Images from the Taiwan earthquake

About 64 injuries have been reported from Taiwan's quake, which hit about 250 miles south of Taipei at 8:18 am local time and was followed by several aftershocks. But it triggered power outages, halted high-speed rail service, and caused panic as people ran out of schools and homes.

Kuo says the Taiwan, Chile, and Haiti quakes involved different tectonic plates. Globally, he says, there's an average of one magnitude 8 or higher earthquake per year, some 17 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, and 170 to 180 of magnitude 6 or larger.

So far this year there's only been one quake higher than 8 – Chile's fearsome, 8.8 magnitude temblor. Last year there were 16 magnitude 7 or higher quakes, right at the average. And so far this year there have been three magnitude 7 or higher quakes, including Haiti's.

"From a global view, that's not especially a lot," says Kuo.

Taiwan is frequently rocked by quakes, experiencing one of magnitude 7 or higher every five years and a quake of magnitude 6 or higher every 100 days. "We've only had one like this so far this year, so that's still normal," says Kuo.

Kuo's numbers were from the Richter or "local" magnitude scale, which is slightly different from the "moment magnitude" scale used by the US Geological Survey.

Original site

Welcome to nuclear beach

Pack your swimsuit, sunblock and a Geiger counter

Global Post, August 16, 2009

KENTING, Taiwan — Here on Nanwan Beach, smoke-belching tractors haul jet-skis across the sand. College girls scream in terror at the approach of knee-high wavelets. And the favorite sport of young Taiwanese men? Wet sand fights.

But perhaps the most jarring sight, at least for foreign eyes, here at one of Taiwan's most popular beaches: the twin reactors of the island's Third Nuclear Power Plant.

They loom on the north side of the beach, perched on the edge of this earthquake-prone island, discharging reactor cooling water into an inlet that's popular with coral-peeping snorkelers.

Aren't locals concerned? Hardly.

Or to be more specific, "Bu pa!" (we're not afraid), said scornfully a 50-something woman hawking jet-ski rides at $30 for a half-hour spin.

"Rich people worry about that. Poor people don't," she said. "We're poor." Then, cutting our time-wasting interview short, she added: "So do you want to ride a jet ski or not?"

A 52-year-old parking lot attendant laughed when asked if the plant worries locals. "We're used to it. Anyway, it's already been built, so what can we do?"

The plant went online in 1984. "Back then, we didn't know it can be dangerous," he said. "Now we know." To date, Taiwan has a near spotless nuclear safety record. That means few here fear having their beach time ruined by a meltdown. "Maybe we've just been lucky," the lot attendant added with a laugh.

But he said the beach has changed dramatically since he was a child. Then, coral covered the shallow sea floor. "Now, they're all dead," he said. "I don't know if it's because of global warming or the nuclear plant."

I went up to Taipower's visitor center to get their side of the story. Taipower is the state-run utility that operates the island's three nuclear plants. Nuclear power accounts for about 20 percent of the island's energy generation.

Two Taipower officials rattled off a lengthy list of safety precautions. Scores of monitoring stations keep an eye on radiation levels in a 3-mile radius of the plant; during my visit the level in Kenting was 0.048 Sieverts, a standard measure of radiation ("warning" levels are 0.2 to 20 Sieverts, with anything above 20 considered an "emergency").

Fish and food are inspected regularly, and the plant reports all its data to the government. Moreover, a system installed in 2007 will automatically shut down the plant if a strong earthquake strikes (the system is triggered at 0.2 g — a measure of acceleration force — the plant itself is built to withstand forces of up to 0.4 g).

If there is a major accident, the military will help evacuate the public out of the area by bus from six evacuation points. So far, that hasn't been necessary.

"We have a good safety record," said Paul Shen, deputy director for safety at the plant, citing performance measures from WANO (World Association of Nuclear Operators).

Shen gave a few reasons. With only three plants, Taiwan simply has far fewer facilities to worry about than the U.S., which has more than 60. Additionally, an official from Taiwan's nuclear regulatory agency lives on site, meaning there's constant monitoring of the plant's safety.

The plant keeps its nuclear waste on site — both highly radioactive spent fuel rods and some 7,000 barrels of low-level radioactive waste. The barrels are due to be relocated to a more permanent site, perhaps nearby on the east coast.

Taipower officials admit that discharged reactor cooling water damaged the area's coral in the plant's early years. But they say they fixed that problem years ago by diluting the discharge with cool seawater.

Monitors now ensure the water temperature near the discharge area stays within 4 degrees Celsius of normal, and underwater cameras keep a 24-7 eye on coral near the seawater intake facility.

Instead, visitors' center manager Wu Jue-hua said current damage to the area's coral is more likely caused by hotel discharge, sediment washed down by storms, and snorkelers. Higher water temperatures due to global warming are also to blame, Wu says.

Still, Taipower officials admit that they have an image problem. That's why they opened the visitors' center in 2005. It includes hands-on exhibits that explain how nuclear power works, the plant's safety precautions, and how nuclear waste is handled. Kids come on field trips, and teachers attend seminars.

I saw kids cranking a model nuclear "centrifuge" to see how fast they could whirl it around; others were trying to pick up toy, yellow nuclear waste barrels with a mechanical pincer (a nuclear version of the grab-a-stuffed-animal night market game known here as a "wawa ji.").

Can such games convince Taiwanese kids that nuclear power's safe?

"Actually, the students who come here aren't very worried," said Shen. "Maybe they don't understand."

Original site

Meet Taiwan's whale shark

It's the star attraction of the island's national aquarium, and a symbol of Taiwan's growing eco-consciousness.

Global Post, August 4, 2009

HOUWAN VILLAGE, Taiwan — Standing on a metal platform, Alger Liu, 26, scoops up a pile of krill, lowers it to the tank below him, and into the gaping maw of a whale shark — the largest fish on the planet.

Liu calls the 13-ft, 1,500-pound juvenile whale shark "Ah", in honor of his huge mouth (officially, the beast is nameless). After his ladel's been emptied, Liu uses it to "pet" Ah's head ("Like a dog," Liu said. "I think he likes this.")

Taiwan's only captive whale shark has it pretty good. It gets 25 pounds of krill a day. It has a doting caretaker. More to the point, it hasn't been chopped up into little pieces, stir-fried and scarfed down at a seafood restaurant.

And in two to three years' time, when Ah grows too big for his tank — say, when it's 19 to 20 feet long — the seaside National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium will set it free in the Taiwan Strait, Liu said.

Such treatment reflects a budding spirit of conservation among Taiwanese. Once seen as prime seafood, whale sharks are now viewed as a vulnerable species, research subject and ecotourism draw. It's a sign, too, of how younger, better-off generations have embraced environmentalism.

Whale sharks, the largest fish in the ocean (blue whales are the largest mammal), can grow up to 40 feet in length. In the wild they feed mostly on plankton, and are harmless to humans (Liu said Ah will even take him for circular "rides" around the tank).

By early this decade, Taiwanese fishermen had noted whale sharks' dwindling numbers in waters near the island, from a catch of about 270 in 1996 to just 100 in 2001, according to Joung Shoou-jeng, a whale shark expert at National Taiwan Ocean University.

A 2002 conference brought fishermen together with activists and experts for a lively debate on the way forward.

Then the government acted, instituting a fishing quota for several years before a total ban in 2008 on the fishing, sale and consumption of whale shark.

Now, flouting that ban can get earn you stiff fines and up to three years in prison. The Fisheries Agency says there's only one such case so far, in which a chopped-up whale shark was found on a fishing boat (the case is still working its way through the courts).

"At first, there were some voices of protest [against the law] among fishermen," Joung said. "But now, they accept it."

Taiwan's ban was especially important for whale shark conservation. As recently as five years ago the island was the top market for whale shark meat, called "tofu shark" by local diners for its soft, chewy consistency.

Now, experts say the ban has worked — the meat has vanished from seafood markets and is off the menu at restaurants. "It's been pretty effective," said Joyce Wu of TRAFFIC East Asia.

One reason for success: Fishermen who accidentally snare a whale shark in their nets are paid NT$30,000 (about $915) to set it free.

According to Taiwan's Fisheries Agency, 165 whale sharks were caught and released last year after the fishing ban took effect; 79 have been set free so far this year.

Researchers use the opportunity to tag the whale sharks for tracking. Professor Joung says they're now studying the shark's migratory patterns. Taiwan could soon offer whale shark eco-tours to waters where the sharks congregate, as is done already at Australia's Ningaloo Reef.

Still, the picture for whale sharks isn't entirely rosy. In Taiwan, the NT$30,000 per-shark subsidy will be phased out by the end of this year. That could swell a "black market" for whale shark meat here, Joung said.

And activists say that a global ban is what's really needed. "If we really want to have effective conservation, I think the only way to do it is to ban [whale shark fishing] everywhere," said Allen Chen, a marine biologist at Academia Sinica. Finally, some activists go farther, saying whale sharks shouldn't be kept in captivity at all. Aquariums retort that their whale shark exhibits help educate the public, which is essential to gaining support for global conservation.

In Dubai last year, a luxury hotel released its whale shark, dubbed "Sammy" by the local press, after a "Free Sammy" campaign (complete with Facebook page) drew too much negative attention.

There's no "Free Ah" movement in Taiwan; the debate is somewhat moot here, since "Ah" is the island's last captive specimen, and he's due to be released in the next few years anyway.

The U.S. boasts four whale sharks at the Georgia Aquarium. Two others, the ill-fated Ralph and Norton, died in 2007 at the same aquarium (all six were flown from Taiwan by jumbo jet). Japan has several more, and a South Korean aquarium is shopping for a specimen.

For now, Ah is the star attraction at Taiwan's aquarium, drawing "oohs" and (yes) "ahhs" from excited Taiwanese tykes every time he circles into view.

Back in his office after feeding time, Ah's keeper, Liu, admits to some second thoughts about cramping the whale shark's style.

"Whale sharks are so big, and they swim such long distances," he said. "So to put one in a little tank it's like it's doing time."

"I think it [Ah] is smart. It knows me and swims to me," Liu said affectionately. "So it's hard to make the decision — to let it go or have it stay here. I still think about it sometimes."

Original site

Rebound reef

A coral reef endures against the odds

By Jonathan Adams

International Herald Tribune
October 6, 2008

KENTING NATIONAL PARK, Taiwan: At this seaside resort on Taiwan's southern tip, annual typhoons blast sludge and sediment onto fragile, shallow-water coral reefs. Hotels and villages sprinkle the reefs with sewage. A nuclear power plant boils them with discharged reactor-cooling water. Snorkelers and scuba divers trample on the reefs, sometimes breaking off chunks of coral as souvenirs.

And in 2001 a huge cargo ship sank off Kenting, destroying the coral it landed on and spewing more than 1,000 tons of fuel oil down the coastline.

As if all that were not enough, rising sea temperatures have increased the frequency of "coral bleaching," which can be fatal if it lasts much more than two to three weeks.

Yet in an age when such environmental stresses are killing off coral reefs worldwide, Kenting's reefs are doing surprisingly well. One scientist here said Taiwan might even turn out to be a "Noah's Ark" for corals.

"This is the era of global temperature change and ocean warming is a big problem for coral reefs," said Fan Tung-yung, a coral expert at Taiwan's National Museum of Marine Biology and Aquarium, in a telephone interview. "But Kenting is a refuge."

A research paper by John Bruno and Elizabeth Selig, published last year in the scientific journal PLoS One, comparing reefs throughout the Pacific and Indian oceans found that average coral cover (the amount of sea floor covered by live coral) was about 22 percent, whereas Fan said coverage off Kenting was 40 percent. Last year, when a coral bleaching spell wiped out many other reefs in the Asia-Pacific region, Kenting's survived - and bounced back quickly.

The reefs' relative stamina has drawn interest from marine biologists worldwide. Now, American and Taiwan scientists hope to make Kenting part of a U.S.-led global "early warning system" for coral reef monitoring.

Such a system would help Taiwan's scientists and officials better protect their reefs. It would also allow scientists to gather data to explain why some reefs - like Kenting's - are so robust, while others are languishing.

"The reefs of Kenting are very impressive in terms of their overall coral cover and coral diversity," Peter Edmunds, a coral expert at California State University at Northridge who has inspected Taiwan's reefs, wrote in an e-mail. "They offer a unique and very important opportunity to understand the reasons why some reefs seem to be surviving better than others throughout the world."

Scientists already have several hypotheses. Kenting's reefs are fortunate to be replenished by a steady supply of what scientists call "recruits" - new coral, in this case brought north from waters near the Philippines. That means that even when some coral is destroyed, new coral rushes in to take its place.

More important, though, are the tide-driven currents that regularly push up deeper, colder water to the shallow waters off Taiwan's southern tip. This type of "upwelling," says Fan, is very rare.

Edmunds and Fan believe the Kenting reefs' tenacity is related to their natural exposure to sharp variations in seawater temperature (as much as 9 degrees Celsius, or 16 Fahrenheit, over a single day) caused by these tidal patterns.

"It's possible that such thermal stresses somehow provide the corals with the ability to resist subsequent stress," said Edmunds. Toughened by the daily battering of such temperature swings, Kenting's reefs may simply shrug off hotter ocean waters that are so damaging to other reefs.

Oddly, the nuclear power plant may have also helped toughen the reefs, says Fan. The coral reefs in the area have had 30 years to adapt to higher temperatures (2 to 4 degrees Celsius higher) close to the outflow of cooling water from Taiwan's Third Nuclear Power Plant on Nanwan Bay - which also happens to be the site of a popular recreational beach.

To be sure, Kenting's reefs are faring well only in comparison with others around the world.

Dai Chang-feng, a coral expert at National Taiwan University's Institute of Oceanography, said in an interview that three decades ago, Kenting's coral reef coverage was as high as 75 percent to 80 percent, almost twice what it is now.

Models predict that by 2050, "most of the coral species in Kenting will disappear," Dai said. Specifically, his models predict that fewer than 50 of Kenting's 300 species will survive by 2050, with few or none left alive by 2100.

To help them avoid that fate, scientists and government officials first need better data on what exactly kills off corals and why some like Kenting's are hardier.

Enter the U.S.-led Integrated Coral Observing Network. Scientists in Taiwan and officials of Kenting National Park (which has jurisdiction over the reefs) have been meeting with U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientists to discuss Taiwan's inclusion in the network. Kenting could be incorporated next year, said Fan and others involved in the project.

The ambitious network aims to provide a global picture of the health of coral reefs, both for research purposes and as an "early warning system" when coral reefs are threatened. Already active in the Bahamas, it uses underwater sensors that gather water temperature and other data and beam it to satellites. That data is then linked to a network that allows for real-time monitoring of reefs worldwide.

"The purpose of the sensors is to study how global warming affects corals and to know what to watch for," said Keryea Soong, a coral expert at National Sun Yat-sen University's Institute of Marine Biology in the southern port city of Kaohsiung. "We can design experiments to better understand 'bleaching.' Satellites can give you a picture of a wider area, but with the sensors, we can know the temperatures on a much smaller scale, such as in Kenting."

Bleaching, one of the key threats to coral reefs, occurs when coral loses its symbiotic algae due to stresses such as high water temperatures. That removes reefs' coloration and their main source of nutrients.

When the monitoring network's sensors show a reef under threat, scientists and Kenting National Park officials will be able to take immediate steps - for example, temporarily banning water activities such as snorkeling or boating in the area.

"The whole world is worried about the health of coral reefs," said Shih Chin-fang, former director of Kenting National Park, in an interview. "So a group of experts is working very hard all over the world to link up this monitoring system to the Internet."

Ultimately, those are stopgap measures, which do not address the long-term threat to Earth's coral reefs posed by global warming. Edmunds worries that Kenting's reefs, while appearing tough, may just be "lagging" deteriorating reefs elsewhere - and that their decline is "just around the corner."

Said Edmunds: "I've seen similar effects in the Caribbean - one reef that was doing great for 20 years, while others around it were declining, in 2005 suddenly started to die off at an alarming rate."

For now, he and other scientists are hoping that Kenting's reefs really are exceptional. And soon they hope to know why.

Original site

Market backs Ma to win

Big test for Taiwan prediction market

By Jonathan Adams

Asia Times Online, March 14, 2008

TAIPEI - When the first "prediction market" for a Taiwan election was set up in 2000, the result was disappointing.

The market correctly called the election result, but by other measures it was a dud.

"There were only three or four guys who were really doing the trading, and they had really strong biases - one guy favored one party, one was in favor of the other," said Forrest Nelson, a co-founder of the Iowa Electronics Markets, which helped run the Taiwan market. "The fact that it worked at all was a major surprise."

Eight years on, such markets have boomed in popularity. Once the preserve of a few oddball US enthusiasts, they've gone mainstream - and global. They're now used as high-tech crystal balls to help predict everything from soccer scores in Europe to the severity of the flu season in Iowa to the likelihood of Pakistan's President Pervez Musharraf stepping down.

Such markets' growing global appeal is evident in Taiwan, which boasts a new, online Chinese-language prediction market. In contrast to the lonely market Nelson observed, some 2,000 politics fans from Taiwan, mainland China, Hong Kong and elsewhere have already crowded into the new market to trade contracts on who will win the closely watched March 22 presidential vote in Taiwan.

Whether it guesses correctly will be one of the market's first big trials. The election will also test two still-debated points: Do "funny money" markets such as Taiwan's perform as well as ones using real money, and how susceptible are such markets to trader bias?

Taiwan's Center for Prediction Markets, set up in mid-2006, is one of a small but growing crop of Asia-based markets. In Japan, the first political prediction market was set up in 2005; the market Shuugi.in now has some 500 registered traders predicting the coming Lower House election. Taiwan also boasts the smaller Taiwan Political Exchange, which correctly called the island's hotly contested 2004 presidential vote.

Like those other prediction markets, The Center for Prediction Markets' works on the model of a futures market, aggregating collective sentiment into one market "price". Except instead of guessing, say, the price of corn three months from now, participants guess the likelihood of a specific outcome (such as a certain candidate winning). Traders start with 100,000 virtual points, which they use to buy and sell contracts. The better their predictions, the more points they rack up.

In the US, such markets have often outperformed public polls, experts say. But they're still struggling to explain exactly why.

One reason is that such markets ask people who they think will win rather than who should win. Another often-cited point is financial incentive. Traders have to put their money where their mouth is, which gives them a stake in making good predictions.

But Taiwan's new market, like most in the US, can't use real money because of anti-gambling laws. That should put it at a disadvantage, right?

Not necessarily. Experts say the jury is still out on whether real money prediction markets outperform "funny money" ones. A 2004 study comparing real and virtual money markets for the US National Football League season found little difference in their predictive powers (both markets' predictions were better than the vast majority of individual predictions).

"People in play money markets act surprisingly similar to people in real money markets because they get some kind of psychic reward for doing well," said Justin Wolfers, a professor at the Wharton School and one of the study's co-authors. Turns out bragging rights can be as strong a motivator as cold cash.

Skeptics have another criticism of Taiwan's market. Its traders include many from mainland China and Hong Kong, who are likely to have a strong bias against Taiwan's pro-independence party. Won't that skew the results in favor of its rival, the China-friendly Kuomintang (KMT)?

Nope again. Traders with extreme and opposing biases can be expected to cancel each other out, experts say, as happened in the 2000 Taiwan prediction market. And traders who are in the game to win (instead of to prove a point or back a party) will rush in to any market thought to be out of whack, whether by manipulation or home-team bias.

"When traders suspect that such manipulation might exist, they will bet on the other side," said Robin Hanson, an expert on prediction markets at George Mason University. "The net effect is that the existence of people who might want to manipulate [the market] usually increases the accuracy of market prices."

Still, no one claims prediction markets get it right every time - they don't. The point, according to what academics call a persuasive body of evidence, is that such markets generally do a better job than predictions by any individual experts or forecasts from public polls.

Outperforming Taiwan's polls shouldn't be hard. They're notoriously bad as a forecast of election outcomes. In late 2006, for example, many media polls underrated the pro-independence party's support - a recurring problem. Taiwan's prediction markets did a much better job of estimating vote shares (the island's two markets both called the Kaohsiung mayoral election wrong, but that contest was a statistical dead heat).

"Most opinion polls usually have 20 to 30% 'no answer'," said Lin Jih-wen, director of the Center for Prediction Markets. "We don't have missing data or a sampling bias, that's our strength."

The market has now picked the strong likelihood of victory by the China-friendly candidate Ma Ying-jeou. Time will tell if it's got the right guy.

But even if it doesn't, the markets' enthusiastic reception shows how Asia - like the US and Europe - has embraced such markets as a powerful fortune-telling tool.

Original site

Mammals of mass destruction

Without humans, black rats might still be an obscure species endemic to forests in Asia. Now scientists are trying to understand the global pests we're responsible for creating.

By Jonathan Adams
Newsweek Web Exclusive, Feb. 7, 2008

The Chinese Year of the Rat began Thursday, and the folks at People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals want us to treat the critters better.

In a news release the rat-huggers claim that the vermin have gotten a bad rap. Black rats may have carried the plague that wiped out a third of Europe's population in the 14th century, and they have been a health hazard and overall nuisance as long as humans have walked the earth, but PETA insists that rattus rattus, as the species is known, has many redeeming qualities. They like to wrestle. They respond when called by name. They even make "chirping sounds that are strikingly similar to human laughter."

An international team of scientists has now found another bright side to the black rat. A new study is shedding light on how rat-borne diseases such as plague and typhus spread, potentially helping identify ways of heading off human illness. And the study of rats is providing intriguing clues about patterns of human migration from East and Southeast Asia. Rats are believed to have hitched rides on the ships of early colonizers and traders. Where humans went, rats scampered after.

The eight-year study, the first of its kind for black rats, has identified six distinct lineages—doubling the number previously known—and traces their migration. It turns out that disease-ridden black rats were one of Asia's early exports, riding an early wave of globalization to conquer new markets in the Middle East, Africa, and Europe. The plague-bearing lineage fanned out from southern India to the Middle East, and from there to Europe and Africa. Another major lineage hopped from its homeland in Southeast Asia and the southern Chinese hills to Java, and via Taiwan to Japan and the Philippines.

Indeed, if dog is man's best friend, man must be rat's. Originally adapted to forest habitats in Southeast Asia tens of thousands of years ago, when they were relatively rare, black rats began to boom in numbers when humans discovered agriculture. Rats feasted on spilled grain and, later, urban refuse. Rat populations always thrived after environmental disturbances like landslides or treefalls, says Ken Aplin of Australia's national science agency, the lead author of the study. Human encroachment was a disturbance on a grand scale, and the rats exploited it.

The global spread of rats followed patterns of human trade and colonization, first within Asia and then to the world. The new study is painting a clearer picture of when and where that migration occurred, says Aplin. For example, it suggests that merchants or colonizers likely came to Madagascar from the Middle East and India 1,000 to 2,000 years ago, rather than a few hundred years ago, as previously thought. And each of their rat-infested vessels carried a bonus cargo of diseases that are harmless to their rat hosts but can be deadly to humans.

In parts of the developing world, such as rural Bangladesh and Laos, black rats are more than a nuisance; they amount to a security threat, says Aplin. (He should know: since 2000 he has personally schlepped suitcases full of rat carcasses from vermin hot spots throughout Asia back Down Under for study, which made for some interesting moments at customs.)

In poor rural areas, says Aplin, rats chronically destroy up to 20 percent of food crops in the field and another 20 percent of stored grain and other foodstuffs. They also gnaw through property; cause spontaneous abortion, low fertility and sickness in cattle and pigs; and make people too sick to work in the fields. "Rats probably consume, contaminate or destroy five or 10 percent of everything humans produce worldwide," says Aplin. "It's quite amazing how successful they've been at becoming parasites on human culture."

The study, Aplin says, will help boost preparedness against rat-borne disease by enabling doctors to quickly determine which type of black rat was the likely culprit behind an outbreak. "Prompt diagnosis is often the key to effective treatment," he says. And if large-scale rat eradication ever becomes feasible, the study will help rat-zappers target specific vermin.

Despite the destruction they cause, black rats aren't uniformly reviled in Asia. Some Hindus revere them as messengers of the elephant god Ganesh; one temple in Rajasthan reportedly lets thousands of pampered, priest-fed rats run amok. And they're considered a tasty treat by some in Vietnam (where they're served up roasted and spiced at wedding banquets), southern China, and elsewhere. Restaurants in the rural south of Taiwan still prepare specialties like "three cups" rat with basil and chili peppers—a vestige of a poorer time when many islanders couldn't afford chicken or beef.

That's probably not the kind of rat appreciation PETA officials had in mind.

Original site

Goop 1, China 0

Environmental activist Zhang Zhengxiang points at toxic algae on China's Lake Dianchi

The goop that's swallowing the world

Across the globe, toxic algae outbreaks are getting bigger, nastier and more frequent. Can anything stop the rising tide of poisonous muck?

By Jonathan Adams

Newsweek International, September 24, 2007 (original draft)

Beside a lake outside Kunming, China, environmental activist Zhang Zhengxiang jabs his finger angrily over the water. The surface shimmers a bright, fluorescent green from the toxic algae that now clogs large swathes of the high-altitude, freshwater Lake Dianchi for most of the year.

The day-glo water may be pretty from a distance. But it's the tell-tale sign of a lake that's profoundly sick. Before the early 1980s, says Zhang, this was a swimming area, and shrimp from the lake was a prized delicacy at high-end restaurants in Shanghai and Beijing. Now, the lake's shrimp are inedible, and the toxins in the algae make swimming a decidedly unpleasant experience.

Zhang yanks up his trouser leg to show the rash left on his ankles from a recent wade into the once-pristine waters. "If you go in, your skin will turn red immediately," said a disgusted Zhang.

China's breakneck economic development has resulted in the world's fastest-growing toxic algae problem. But it's hardly alone.

Red tides of algae

Across the globe, scientists and officials are scrambling to contain a rising tide of poisonous green, brown and red goop. Monster algae blooms and toxic strains are laying waste to coastal fisheries, poisoning shellfish, sickening beachgoers, driving away tourists and fouling freshwater lakes and reservoirs -- some of which are critical sources of drinking water for nearby communities. Economic losses from toxic algae have been estimated at 830 million to 1.3 billion euros per year in Europe alone.

Pollution is the primary culprit. But now, scientists say a "perfect storm" of that and other causes -- overfishing, the transport of toxic algae species in the ballasts of ocean-going vessels, freak storms and global warming -- is raising the problem to unprecedented levels.

"We have more toxic algae species out there, more fisheries resources affected and higher economic costs," said Don Anderson, a top algae expert at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts. "Globally, things are getting worse."

Growth in coastal algae blooms from 1970 to 2006

From Friend to Foe

Of course, most algae is harmless. In fact, it produces much of the oxygen necessary for animal life on earth, absorbs carbon dioxide, decomposes into critical fossil fuels, and is the base of marine food chains.

"If there's no algae, there's no ocean life," explained Wang Zong-ling, an algae expert at the First Institute of Oceanography in Qingdao, China.

Some algae is naturally toxic to humans and other animals, possibly to ward off predators, guess scientists, or else as a chemical fluke.

But rapid economic growth in advanced countries in the 20th century -- and now, in booming Asian economies like China's -- have increasingly turned algae from friend to foe.

Rising human exploitation of coastal areas has led to more run-ins with naturally occurring toxic algae. Meanwhile, pollutants have greatly increased the size and frequency of high-density "blooms" in oceans and lakes. In a reversal of algae's usual role, such blooms actually suck oxygen out of the water as they're dying, killing or driving away nearby aquatic life. And as such algae blooms increase in frequency, the amount of toxic blooms -- about a quarter of the total -- soars in proportion.


Fertilizer runoff from farms, factory waste, and untreated sewage are the key ingredients for many runaway algae blooms. Nutrients in such pollution fatten blooms to previously unseen sizes. Red algae feast on nitrogen, causing massive coastal "red tides", freshwater blue-green algae munch on phosphorous. Both types can also feed on nutrients from the atmosphere, for example in dirty rain.

Perhaps the most striking proof of the link between pollution and monster algae was the dramatic decline of such blooms' size and frequency in the northwest Black Sea in the early 1990s. That happened just after the former Soviet Union halted subsidies to the area, which greatly reduced fertilizer usage.

China: goop central

Today, the link between pollution and monster blooms is most apparent in China. Rogue algae is just one symptom of the environmental price China is paying for its roaring economy. Rapid growth has meant a surge in nitrogen and phosphorous pumped into the nation's waterways, which has fed both ocean and freshwater blooms.

Major red tide events, China, last 20 years

So-called "red tides" off the Chinese coast have become larger and more frequent in recent years, particularly in the East China Sea off Shanghai. There were 22 red tides on the Chinese coast in 1998, according to government statistics. By 2005 there were 82 -- including 38 toxic blooms --covering more than 27,000 square kilometers and causing economic losses to the tune of $9 million.

"I wouldn't be surprised if more red tide events are reported along Chinese coasts in the near future," said Zhou Mingjiang, a red algae expert at the Institute of Oceanography in Qingdao. "The problem is getting worse."

Toxic blooms on China's freshwater lakes and reservoirs are even more worrisome, since they can impact critical tapwater supplies. This summer, the worst-ever such blooms were a media focus in China, as one lake or reservoir after another fell victim to poisonous goop. In May, a blue-green algae bloom on Lake Tai caused mass panic when it contaminated the water supply of 2 million residents of the city of Wuxi, in Jiangsu Province. Huge blooms were also reported on Lake Chao, further inland. And in late July, 100,000 residents in the northeast city of Changchun went waterless when a toxic bloom appeared on a key reservoir.

But the Ground Zero of China's toxic algae problem may be Lake Dianchi, in southwest Yunnan province. The situation's so bad that the nearby city of Kunming is now forced to gets its drinking water from upstream reservoirs instead of the lake. For at least five years running Dianchi's water has rated "5" or more on a key water quality index, meaning it's completely useless.

One reason: unlike with lakes further downstream in the Yangtze river system, officials can't divert river water into Lake Dianchi to help flush out toxic algae blooms. That's because it's too high -- nearly two kilometers above sea level – and fed by small mountain springs, or rivers that are themselves polluted. Nitrogen and phosphorous pours in from all sides and accumulates, turning the lake into the equivalent of a 200-square-kilometer clogged toilet bowl.

Lake Dianchi, outside Kunming, China

Other causes: overfishing and global transport

Such pollution isn't the only cause of monster blooms. In the Baltic Sea, the overfishing of cod has thrown the food chain out of whack in a way that leaves algae -- including the toxic kind -- the big winner. Fewer cod has meant more herring and less tiny critters called copepods, which are algae's natural predator.

Add plentiful nutrients from decades of fertilizer use and untreated runoff from countries surrounding the sea, and the result is goop gone wild: The largest-ever algae blooms were recorded in July 2005 and 2006, covering almost 150,000 square kilometers. (This year wasn't as bad due to heavy rains).

In Sweden, tourism has suffered, and swimming is a no-no in many areas because the toxins in the algae burn the skin. Unlucky dogs have slurped up algae-filled Baltic seawater containing hallucinogenic neurotoxins that give them the equivalent of a canine acid trip before killing them. And the blooms have become a massive eyesore on what was once an idyllic sea view.

"It's this huge brownish thing floating on the surface," said Edna Graneli, an algae expert at the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Kalmar in Sweden. "If Jesus walked on water, it must have been on one of these blooms."

Algae blooms, Baltic Sea

Meanwhile, toxic algae is being shuttled around the globe by weird weather and ocean-going ships, whose numbers have soared along with globalization. The recent red tides off the northeast US coast, for example, are blamed primarily on a massive 1972 storm that introduced a foreign strain of algae to the region. This year for the third summer running, those tides led to a ban on shellfish harvesting, because mussels and clams mop up toxins in algae that can sicken and even kill humans if consumed in high enough concentrations.

And scientists suspect that a strain of toxic algae only recently seen in the Mediterranean may have hitched a ride on a ship from Brazil, where a genetically identical type has also been found. That toxic algae first grabbed headlines in July 2005 in Italy. Swimming was banned along a 15 kilometer stretch of the Italian Riviera near Genoa (including the elite, yacht-packed Portofino) after 200 people sought hospital treatment for nausea, diarrhea, stomach cramps, breathing difficulties, irritated eyes and vomiting. Such was the impact that local officials initially feared a bioterrorist attack.

What's most caught scientists attention is that this algae can spread toxins in airborne water droplets over large areas. Climate change may abetting the troublesome strain through warmer, more algae-friendly temperatures in the Mediterranean.

"We are facing a new kind of problem," said Naples-based algae expert Adriana Zingone. "But we're doing our best not to spread alarm about the situation."


Mission impossible

Battling toxic algae isn't easy -- and requires expensive and in many cases coordinated, multinational efforts. For low-density toxic algae like the one now plaguing Italy, there's very little that can be done. Strict new rules on the ballast discharge of ocean-vessels will hopefully reduce the further global spread of such species, and other "bioinvaders."

But where such strains have already set up shop, avoidance may be the only option. Experts cite the US state of Florida -- where red tides have long plagued Gulf of Mexico coastal waters -- as a model in creating monitoring and warning systems to keep humans out of harm's way during toxic algae attacks. And Japan has become adept at simply moving its aquaculture when it's under threat.

South Korea has successfully protected small aquaculture sites by dumping clay pellets in the sea; algae sticks to the pellets and then sinks to the ocean floor. But that technique is controversial in the west, where environmentalists worry about the unknown long-term effects. It's only feasible for small, targeted areas -- not for battling blooms like the Baltic's that spread over thousands of square kilometers, or for larger-area industries like Chile's salmon farms. And it deals with the effects of blooms, rather than their cause.

"Algae problems aren't something you can get rid of easily," said Ma Jun, an environmental activist at the Beijing-based Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs. "There's no silver bullet."

China's learning that the hard way. For its lakes -- and places with similar high-density blooms like the Baltic Sea -- the only real solution is to tackle the problem at its root. That means curbing the amount of nitrogen-and phosphorous rich pollutants that enter the water.

View of Lake Dianchi from Xishan

But at Lake Dianchi, the challenge of doing that is evident. Some $660 million has been spent on the problem in the last decade, with measures such as curbing industrial pollutants, building sewage treatment plants, intercepting polluted water and banning detergents containing phosphorous. But the situation remains dire. One reason, say environmentalists, is that the government hasn't been willing to crack down on fertilizer use.

"We've been using too much fertilizer in agriculture," said Liu Hongliang, a retired environmental engineering expert. "[Lake algae] will become more and more serious in the coming years."

By one estimate, 40% of pollutants that continue to pour into the lake come from agricultural runoff that continues unabated. The farms on the lake's eastern shore produce massive crops of roses and other popular flowers for markets in Asia and beyond. Farmers douse fields with fertilizer to increase yield.

One elderly couple wrapping bundles of flowers at a lakeside farm told NEWSWEEK that lakewater was pumped up the lake banks to irrigate the flower fields, and then drained -- untreated -- back into the lake. Bright green algae floated in the drainage ditches dug between fields lined with plastic hutches. Such farms provide livelihoods and critical growth for the local economy -- even as they dump noxious chemicals into the nearby lake.

No easy fix

Even countries that have successful curbed pollutants haven't solved their algae problems. With the most advanced water treatment plants on earth, Sweden is a model in this area. But it can't fight the Baltic's megablooms without help from neighboring countries whose water treatment is far less stringent. Japan spent massive amounts to successfully reduce high-density blooms on the inland Seto Sea, only to see lower-density toxic algae actually become more frequent.

And stopping the flow of new pollutants into waterways doesn't clean up the accumulated gunk of decades that's already fouled many lakes and coastal areas. Experts say removing such existing nutrients from lakes is possible but exorbitant -- and removing them from coastal waters may be impossible.

"How do you empty huge ecosystems of nutrients? There's no easy answer to what can be done," said Henrik Enevoldsen, coordinator a the IOC Science and Communication Centre on Harmful Algae in Copenhagen.

In many places, there's also little urgency in tackling the algae problem -- until it affects drinking supplies, as in China. Though its impact on marine species is at times dramatic, such species usually rebound nearby: Witness the rock lobsters periodically decimated by dying red tides that suck oxygen out of water off South Africa.

Shellfish poisoning due to toxic algae strains can be life-threatening, and contaminated drinking water is linked to liver and other cancers. Still, as a health problem, toxic algae pales next to greater global threats.

Its major impacts are economic and social. Developing countries like China are increasingly dependent on freshwater lakes and reservoirs to supply drinking water to swelling populations, and on coasts for food, tourism and livelihoods.

"If coastal zones are constantly impacted by massive blooms or toxic species, then we can't exploit these resources," said Enevoldsen. "That's very problematic."

Humans are turning critical waters to goop through unchecked economic activity. Unless that's curbed, more and more will suffer the toxic fate of China's Lake Dianchi.

With Wang Zhenru in Beijing

Newsweek edit

Canary in a coalmine

A dolphin's demise: another alarm bell for China's blighted environment

Jonathan Adams, Newsweek 'Why It Matters' blog, August 10, 2007

For the last few years, scientists have feared that the baiji -- a freshwater dolphin unique to China's Yangtze River -- was critically endangered. Late last year, an international team spent six weeks scouring the river for any remaining baiji. On Wednesday, they published their results: they didn't find squat, despite twice covering the dolphin's range along a 1,669-kilometer channel of the Yangtze. That means that -- barring an errant baiji here or there -- the species is, for all intents and purposes, extinct. It now represents the first global extinction of any creature exceeding 100 kilograms for more than half a century.

That fact alone is enough to depress animal-lovers. But the baiji's fate has a far larger significance. It's the latest warning sign that China’s paying an increasingly high price for its breakneck economic development. The baiji's demise was caused in part by overfishing and an increase in ship traffic on the Yangtze -- many of the dolphins got fatally entangled in nets or sliced to ribbons by ship propellers. But another cause was the pollution dumped in ever-larger quantities into the Yangtze, by factories, farms and communities.

That pollution is exacting a high toll, and not just for the baiji. In a report last month, the OECD said that up to 300 million people are drinking contaminated water in China each day, with 190 million suffering from water-related illnesses each year, and 30,000 children dying annually from diarrhea caused by befouled water. One third of China's rivers and three-quarters of its major lakes are "highly polluted."

China's government appears to be taking notice. The nation's environmental agency last month announced strict new rules on lake pollution, which include banning all projects discharging ammonia and phosphorous, the removal of all fish farms by the end of 2008 and a ban on fish ponds, vegetable fields and flower farms that use fertilizers within one kilometer of a lake.

Yet recently I’ve talked with Chinese environmental activists, and the picture they paint is far from optimistic. Government crackdowns, new regulations and promises are usually only lip service, backed up by weak enforcement, they say. Nor are courts immune to the pressures of politics and cronyism. Central government diktats are often enforced only temporarily, until Beijing's attention turns elsewhere. Then, things go back to business as usual: powerful bosses, in collusion with local government officials, keep the factories and farms churning away.

Those officials are at times out-and-out corrupt. But they also have a strong incentive to avoid measures that would slow development: GDP growth is a key yardstick by which their performance -- and so, their promotions and salary -- is measured.

Public activism could pressure local governments, but that's rare due to a culture of fear. Those who speak out publicly against local business bosses or officials are often intimidated and beaten, and are quickly abandoned by friends and family afraid of trouble.

Take Zhang Zhengxiang, 58, an environmental gadfly I met recently in Kunming. For decades now, Zhang has fought to protect his beloved Lake Dianchi from illegal logging, pollutants and mismanagement. He says his land was taken away, his wife and daughter left him, and he had to sell his house. He's been roughed up many times by thugs he says were hired by local village officials or factory owners; in May they beat him and smashed his camera when he was taking pictures of the lake.

He pulled up his shirt to show me one nasty scar on his lower back. Now, he says he's heard that local officials plan to throw him in prison next month. He's agitated, angry, and more than a little eccentric -- living proof that some of the only Chinese brave (and crazy) enough to stand up to powerful local interests are those with little left to lose.

What Zhang says openly and defiantly, other environmental activists say off the record: China's environmental crisis is rooted in a rotten culture of corruption. Local officials incentives just aren't aligned with the public interest. Grassroots authorities and courts need to be more accountable to their communities, rather than to Communist party bosses who can make or break their careers. Only a more responsive political and legal system is likely to force such officials to better protect China's blighted waters.

Original site

Tigers under threat (again)

Some in China want to reverse a ban on the tiger parts trade -- and conservationists are alarmed

By Jonathan Adams
Newsweek International, July 30, 2007

Under the blazing sun outside Harbin, in northeast China, Tiger No. 31 trots alongside a van packed with Chinese and foreign tourists. The van stops. The driver chucks a live chicken out the window. The 250-kilogram Siberian tiger pounces. Cameras snap away in morbid fascination.

It wasn't a pretty end for the chicken, to be sure.

But if a proposed lifting of a Chinese ban on the sale of tiger parts goes through, the fate of Tiger No. 31, currently a resident of this tiger park and breeding farm, may not be much better.

After he dies, his bones will be crushed up into potions for treating rheumatism. His skin will be turned into a jacket. And his penis and testicles—the original Viagra, according to some Chinese—will be slurped up in soup by an aging believer looking to give his sex life some oomph.

By some accounts, the market in tiger-driven medicine brought in more than $12 million a year before China banned the sale of tiger parts in 1993, helping to stabilize wild-tiger populations that were perilously close to extinction.

Now some Chinese officials—under fierce lobbying from tiger farmers and would-be parts peddlers—want to lift the injunction to regain that lost market.

That's alarmed conservationists, who fear that scrapping the ban could undo the progress of the last 14 years. Eric Dinerstein, chief scientist at the World Wildlife Fund, says flatly: "Lifting the ban on the tiger trade would spell the end for a number of wild-tiger populations across Asia."

On its surface, the idea of creating a regulated market for tiger parts has a certain appeal—and not just for the farmers.

Chinese officials and others note that demand for such parts persists regardless of the ban.

"It will be a waste if the resources of dead tigers aren't used for traditional medicine," said wildlife-conservation official Wang Wei.

Legalizing the trade, they argue, could actually help protect wild tigers by reducing the incentive for illegal poaching.

Free-market proponents point to the case of wild crocodiles. For the past few decades, many countries have allowed a regulated trade in captive-bred crocodile skins and other parts from farms or ranches. Even many conservationists agree this has helped save some (though not all) wild-crocodile populations from poachers.

But, they say, comparisons between crocs and tigers don't hold, in part because tigers are far more expensive to raise than crocodiles, upping the incentive to poach instead of farm.

"In India you can poison a tiger for less than a dollar," says Belinda Wright, founder of the Wildlife Protection Society of India. "Raising one in captivity will cost $3,500 to $10,000."

What's more, say conservationists (who almost unanimously supported a U.N. resolution last month against lifting the ban), tiger parts from places like India—which has the world's largest wild-tiger population—could be trafficked to China. There, buyers would have no way to distinguish illegal parts from legal ones, which means poached tigers and parts could be "laundered" as farmed ones.

"Law-enforcement controls are not in place in China to police the tiger-farm trade," says the WWF's Dinerstein.

Some inside and outside China raise another question: should the Chinese government be giving official sanction to a trade that skeptics say is based on pseudoscience?

"Tiger parts have no proven effect as drugs or medicine—they're useless," says Zu Shuxian, a retired professor of epidemiology at Anhui Medical University and an outspoken critic of traditional Chinese medicine. Zu and others argue that lifting the ban could jeopardize wild tigers in order to supply a market that's fundamentally fraudulent.

Others say the Chinese should note Russia's strategy in preserving its wild Siberian, or Amur, tigers. Only a few dozen strong 50 years ago, the population is now some 500 in the wild, thanks to huge nature reserves that were created for the tigers, a well-enforced hunting ban and "buffer areas" to separate tiger and human populations.

Conserving wild tigers "is really about proper landscape-use management and getting people to change their behavior," says Xie Yan, the Beijing-based director of the Wildlife Conservation Society's China program.

Such efforts are more likely to help wild tigers than a risky experiment in selling organs and parts whose medical benefits are questionable. Conservationists and diplomats are now appealing to the Chinese government to keep the ban in place.

The fate of Tiger No. 31—and his wild cousins—will hang on Beijing's decision.

With Jason Overdorf in New Delhi

Original site

That sinking feeling

For small Pacific island nations, rising sea levels look set to worsen long-standing problems

Jonathan Adams
International Herald Tribune, May 3, 2007

Dire climate change predictions may seem like science fiction in many parts of the world. But in the tiny, sea-swept Pacific nation of Tuvalu, the crisis has already arrived.

Tuvalu consists of nine low-lying atolls totaling just 26 square kilometers, or 10 square miles, and in the past few years the "king tides" that peak in February have been rising higher than ever. Waves have washed over the island's main roads; coconut trees stand partly submerged; and small patches of cropland have been rendered unusable because of encroaching saltwater.

The government and many experts already assume the worst: Sometime in the next 50 years, if rising sea-level predictions prove accurate, the entire 11,800-strong population will have to be evacuated.

The ocean could swallow Tuvalu whole, making it the first country to be wiped off the map by global warming.

But in one respect, the Tuvaluans may actually be the lucky ones - at least compared with some of their Pacific island neighbors. The New Zealand government already takes in a quota of Tuvaluans every year, many of whom have found jobs in the strawberry fields and packing plants around Auckland. And it has assured Tuvalu that it will absorb the entire population if the worst comes to pass.

That is a lifeline that many similarly threatened island nations - including Kiribati, Vanuatu, the Marshall Islands, the Cook Islands, Fiji and the Solomon Islands - do not yet have.

While their stories may not be as compelling as Tuvalu's, such nations include atolls that may also vanish. And they depend on vulnerable, low-lying coastal areas for living space, cropland and tourism. For them, even conservative estimates of rising waters look set to make life on once-idyllic islands increasingly nasty, crowded and very, very wet.

"Entire Pacific islands disappearing from inundation is indeed dramatic," said Asterio Takesy, director of the Pacific Regional Environment Program, an intergovernmental organization based in Apia, Samoa. "But a complete loss of livelihoods from decreased fisheries, damaged coral reefs, tourism affected by dengue epidemics, and agriculture destroyed because of changing rain patterns - surely these are just as worthy of our attention."

The region already faces a witches' brew of problems that environmentalists say are being worsened by climate change: coastal erosion, saltwater intrusion onto taro cropland and tourist sites, shortages of potable water, anemic economies propped up by foreign aid, disease, dependence on sugar-packed, processed food imports.

And there are health problems like obesity and diabetes exacerbated by such food imports. A recent World Health Organization survey found that the South Pacific was the world's most overweight region.

"We're not dealing with climate change on its own, because we have an expanding population and so greater stress on resources anyway," said Ashvini Fernando, regional climate change coordinator for the World Wildlife Fund South Pacific Program, based in Fiji. "Climate change makes those stresses so much greater."

Some experts warn that, ultimately, these issues will combine to power a wave of emigrants fleeing the Pacific islands. Indeed, there are already signs of flight: according to a study by the Australian government, applications for New Zealand residency from eligible Pacific island nations shot up sharply in 2005 and 2006, compared with 2003.

Some countries' economies already depend on remittances from islanders who have gone abroad to find jobs, and climate change could swell those numbers. Meanwhile, villages have already been evacuated from low-lying areas in Vanuatu and the Carteret Islands of Papua New Guinea.

Ben Namakin, an environmentalist and native of Kiribati, says that, in his homeland, saltwater intrusion is already ruining taro patches and spoiling well water, houses are being flooded, coastlines are receding, and a causeway whose beauty he had appreciated since he was a child collapsed last October.

And, as in many such Pacific island nations, there is little higher, habitable land for people to move to.

"I really don't know where they will go," Namakin said in an e-mail interview. "They may move further inland, but the more they do that, they will end up on somebody else's land or reach the ocean on the other side, as the islands are too narrow."

The result could be a resource grab that pushes governments to the breaking point, and a clamor to relocate to developed countries on the Pacific Rim or elsewhere.

"There's going to be an increased demand for migration, as people look for economic opportunities," said Benjamin Preston, an Australian government scientist in marine and atmospheric research. "And as the impact of climate change becomes more severe, that's going to add urgency into the equation."

If there is a mass exodus, countries like Tuvalu - which have contingency plans and close relations with a developed country partner like New Zealand - will have an advantage. The Marshall Islands and the Federated States of Micronesia, for example, could benefit from closer historical ties with the United States (both are former U.S.-administered trust territories). The biggest losers will be unskilled, poor islanders who cannot easily emigrate - especially in politically turbulent states like the Solomon Islands.

Preston and others say that, aside from New Zealand, there are few signs that developed nations are taking an active approach to dealing with rising emigration from the region.

That may be in part because the predicated climate change scenarios still seem too alarmist and far away to accept. Even in Tuvalu, many islanders do not see inundation as an urgent problem, said Lono Leneuoti, a Tuvaluan tourism official.

"You don't really notice that much of a difference, except during the king tide months," he said. "It's hard to believe that 50 years from now the place is going to be under water."

Environmentalists like Namakin are focused on fight over flight, drawing up adaptation plans and continuing to urge countries like the United States and Australia to take the lead in cutting emissions.

Such action "would give us more hope for the future, instead of starting to pack and leave," he said.

The Pacific Regional Environment Program has joined other groups in the region to start a $34 million adaptation effort that includes preparing roads for flooding in the Federated States of Micronesia; improving sea walls and drainage systems in the Cook Islands; and relocating gardens, planting salt-resistant crops and reviving the fishing industry in Solomon Islands atolls.

But even Takesy, the program's director, says such efforts may be akin to "rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic" unless strong measures are taken by developing countries to curb emissions.

"I do not believe that the world should sit idly by while entire countries are slowly but surely annihilated," Takesy said. "And do you really want five million angry Pacific Islanders to come knocking on your door? Have you seen our rugby players?"

Original site

Kingdom of Butterflies

Taiwan: A butterfly-lover's paradise
Jonathan Adams
Newsweek Japan, August 9, 2006
(unedited and untranslated version)

Two times a month, Wang Hui-wu, a government employee from Taipei County, brings his wife and two sons—Bin-yun, 8 and Bin-hsiang, 3, to see the butterflies at the Taipei Zoo’s Insect House. The two boys like to stand as still as they can in the butterfly greenhouse until a “leaf butterfly”—which disguises itself from would-be-predators by looking exactly like a tree leaf—alights on their head or shoulder.

For Wang, 38, the regular pilgrimages to see the zoo’s butterflies are the continuation of a life-long passion. As a teenager, he used to head into the mountains ringing Taipei with his friends from a high-school club, in search of the delicate insects. “Before, I used to catch butterflies with a net,” he says. "Now I catch them with my digital camera.” He’s making a digital album of photos of butterflies from the zoo that he’s posted to the web. And there are plenty of subjects willing to strike a pose. “They have a lot of species here that you can observe,” said Wang. “If you go to the mountains, they can be hard to find—you have to get lucky.”

Butterfly lovers in Taiwan are lucky to have one of the world’s best collections of the beautiful insects on display year-round, right in their backyard. The Taipei Zoo’s butterfly hall has been around for 20 years, but last April it moved into a state-of-the-art new facility: the two-story, more than 3,000 square meter Insect House. There’s an attached butterfly greenhouse filled with butterflies gorging on nectar plants.

Most innovative, the Insect House is tucked into a valley that’s a natural habitat for butterflies. Behind the building a short trail threads through the valley, providing an open-air natural zoo for butterfly-viewing. The zoo’s staff has planted plenty of nectar plants and is researching other ways to best lure free-ranging butterflies to the valley. “The butterfly valley is very special, and not only for butterfly watching, but for watching birds, wild animals and plants endemic to Taiwan,” said Yang Ping-shih, a butterfly expert at National Taiwan University in Taipei.

Taiwan is an ideal place for such a “natural zoo,” because of its rich variety of butterflies. Although it’s only about one-tenth the size of Japan, Taiwan boasts around 400 species (30 to 40 of which are endemic to the island), more than can be found in Japan. The reason is the island’s sharply varied climate, which ranges from tropical forest in the south to temperate climates in Taiwan’s towering central mountain range. “Taiwan’s butterflies are very diverse,” said Chen Chien-chih, a butterfly expert at the Taipei Municipal Teachers College. “There are some from mainland China, the Philippines, Japan, and even some from as far away as the Himalayas.”

That diversity—and sheer numbers—of butterflies once earned the island the nickname the “Butterfly Kingdom.” In the 1960s and 1970s the export of butterfly specimens and products to the US and Japan was a huge business—particularly in the region near Puli, which was called “Butterfly Town.”(The town now hosts the Muh Sheng Museum of Entomology, http://www.insect.com.tw/, one of the largest insect museums in Asia). But the island’s rapid development stripped away many of the natural habitats for the creatures. That, combined with the depletion of the population to feed the butterfly trade, greatly reduced the butterfly population and even threatened some species with extinction.

Now, butterflies are recognized as one of the island’s precious resources, and some species are protected by law. Butterfly viewing is encouraged, instead of butterfly collecting. In late May or early June, sightseers flock to the mountains north of Taipei for the Yangmingshan Butterfly Festival, whose highlight is viewing the milkweed butterflies. Some types of milkweed are known to migrate to and from Japan from Taiwan, but the reasons and patterns of migration are still poorly understood. From November through January, butterfly lovers can view the purple milkweed butterfly in the south, in Kaohsiung, Pingtung and Taitung Counties. These butterflies overwinter in valleys in those areas, blanketing pockets of the region.

Those are the major butterfly-watching events of the year, but Taiwan has something for butterfly lovers in every month. “In Japan, butterfly-watching is seasonal, taking place in the summer and autumn, but in Taipei we can go butterfly-watching all year round,” said NTU’s Yang. For those who don’t have time to head into the mountains searching for a glimpse of a rare butterfly, the Taipei Zoo’s Insect House is an ideal stop. Of its 150-some butterfly species, it displays at least 20 at any time indoors, in addition to additional species that might drop in as guest performers in the outdoor butterfly valley.

On a recent trip to the zoo, Insect House curator Wu I-hsin showed off some of the highlights of the zoo’s butterfly collection as they flitted between nectar plants in the steamy butterfly greenhouse. In addition to the “leaf” butterfly beloved by the Wang children, there’s the black and white tree nymph, which is nicknamed the “stupid butterfly” because of its naïve friendliness: “It will fly right up to you, it’s so easy to capture,” said Wu. Other star attractions are the black swallowtail or “spangle” butterfly and the “Paris peacock,” another type of swallowtail butterfly found in northern Taiwan.

The Insect House also boasts 50 other insect species on display—including a diving beetle, a water scorpion that breathes through its tail, which it sticks up through the water’s surface, protected insects unique to Taiwan’s Orchid Island, and huge walking stick insects from Malaysia. All of which means insect-lovers—especially butterfly fans—will find plenty to enjoy on a trip to Taiwan. “We have many insect species here you can’t find in Japan,” said Wu. “You can come to our zoo and in a short time see many of Taiwan’s insects and see what’s special about Taiwan’s habitats.”

Taipei Zoo Insect House
Open 9am to 5pm every day, 9am to 9pm on weekends in the summer. Closed every fourth Monday of the month for cleaning.
Admission: NT$60 for visitors over 12 years old, NT$30 for children over 6 or students with an ID, free for children under 6 and seniors over 65.
How to get there: Take the MRT Muzha line to the Taipei Zoo stop, the last stop on the line.
http://www.zoo.gov.tw/
886-2-2938-2300