Scientist and Nobel Peace Prize winner Norman Borlaug rose from his childhood on an Iowa farm to develop a type of wheat that helped feed the world, fostering a movement that is credited with saving up to 1 billion people from starvation.
Borlaug, 95, died last week from complications of cancer at his Dallas home, said Kathleen Phillips, a spokesman for Texas A&M University where Borlaug was a distinguished professor.
"Norman E. Borlaug saved more lives than any man in human history," said Josette Sheeran, executive director of the UN World Food Programme."His heart was as big as his brilliant mind, but it was his passion and compassion that moved the world."
He was known as the father of the "green revolution", which transformed agriculture through high-yield crop varieties and other innovations,helping to more than double world food production between 1960 and 1990.Many experts credit the green revolution with averting global famine during the second half of the 20th century and saving perhaps 1 billion lives.
"He has probably done more and is known by fewer people than anybody that has done that much," said Dr Ed Runge, retired head of Texas A&M University's Department of Soil and Crop Sciences and a close friend who persuaded Borlaug teach at the school."He made the world a better place - a much better place."
Borlaug began the work that led to his Nobel in Mexico at the end of World War II. There he developed diseaseresistant varieties of wheat that produced much more grain than traditional strains.
He and others later took those varieties and similarly improved strains of rice and corn to Asia, the Middle East, South America and Africa. In Pakistan and India,two of the nations that benefited most from the new crop varieties, grain yields more than quadrupled.
His successes in the 1960s came just as experts warned that mass starvation was inevitable as the world's population boomed.
"More than any other single person of his age, he has helped to provide bread for a hungry world," Nobel Peace Prize committee chairman Aase Lionaes said in presenting the award to Borlaug in 1970."We have made this choice in the hope that providing bread will also give the world peace."
But Borlaug and the Green Revolution were also criticised in later decades for promoting practices that used fertiliser and pesticides, and focusing on a few high-yield crops that benefited large landowners.
Borlaug often said wheat was only a vehicle for his real interest, which was to improve people's lives.
"We must recognise the fact that adequate food is only the first requisite for life," he said in his Nobel acceptance speech."For a decent and humane life we must also provide an opportunity for good education, remunerative employment, comfortable housing, good clothing and effective and compassionate medical care."
Borlaug also pressed governments for farmer-friendly economic policies and improved infrastructure to make markets accessible. A 2006 book about Borlaug
is titled The Man Who Fed the World .Norman Ernest Borlaug was born March 25,1914, on a farm near Cresco, Iowa, and educated through the eighth grade in a one-room schoolhouse.
He left home during the Great Depression to study forestry at the University of Minnesota.While there he earned himself a place in the university's wrestling hall of fame and met his future wife, whom he married in 1937. Margaret Borlaug died in 2007 at the age of 95.
After a brief stint with the US Forest Service, Norman Borlaug returned to the University of Minnesota for a doctoral degree in plant pathology. He then worked as a microbiologist for DuPont, but soon left for a job with the Rockefeller Foundation. Between 1944 and 1960,Borlaug dedicated himself to increasing Mexico's wheat production.
In 1963, Borlaug was named head of the newly formed International Maize and Wheat Improvement Centre in Mexico, where he trained thousands of young scientists.
Borlaug retired as head of the centre in 1979 and turned to university teaching,first at Cornell University and then at Texas A&M, which presented him with an honorary doctorate in December 2007.
He remained active well into his nineties, campaigning for the use of biotechnology to fight hunger. He also helped found and served as president of the Sasakawa Africa Foundation, an organisation funded by Japanese billionaire Ryoichi Sasakawa to introduce the green revolution to sub-Saharan Africa.
In 1986, Borlaug established the Des Moines, Iowa-based World Food Prize,a $250,000 award given each year to a person whose work improves the world's food supply.
He received the Congressional Gold Medal, the highest civilian honour given by Congress, in 2007.
He is survived by daughter Jeanie Borlaug Laube and her husband Rex; son William Gibson Borlaug and his wife Barbie; five grandchildren and six greatgrandchildren.
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
Wetlands once more
Project temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore declining shorebird habitat and boost crops
The request struck Dave Hedlin,a farmer in Washington's fertile Skagit Valley, as particularly odd - conservationists wanted him to voluntarily flood his fields.
Most of us have spent our entire lifetimes trying to keep water off the land,said Hedlin, whose farmlands are nestled among inlets, bays and estuaries in the shadow of the snow-capped Mount Baker Volcano.
But he decided to take part in a pilot project run by the Nature Conservancy,which temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore shorebird habitat.
The flooding would be part of his farms regular crop rotation, and in theory would pay for itself by filling the fields with natural fertiliser, drowning diseasecausing bacteria in soil and boosting crop yields.
In turn, the wetlands would again become a rest and refuelling station for migratory shorebirds between their Arctic breeding grounds and southern winter retreats.
Of the 53 shorebirds that breed in North America, more than half are at grave risk, according to the US Shorebird Conservation Plan, a programme run by a coalition of public and private organisations.
After three years, early results suggest that the project is working: fifteen shorebird species have returned to the restored wetlands.
So far, three participating farmers have been happy with the experiment,including Hedlin, who said that he has not suffered financially.
Before the valley was converted to agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century, its wetlands had teemed with crustaceans, fish and bugs.
But since the wetlands became farmlands, most of the 50,000-some birds that visit each year feed in the nearby estuaries instead.
"We've totally changed this landscape," said Julie Morse, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Mount Vernon, also in the Skagit Valley.
"It used to be tidally influenced, but now it is very much a dyked system."
The Skagit Valley project is modelled after a 10-year-old walking wetlands concept in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California, where farmland within a wildlife refuge is placed on a wetland rotation.
Laura Payne, a wildlife ecologist based at the University of Washington in Seattle,called the project an innovative collaboration between farmers and conservationists.
"This idea has the potential for wide application, and I think it is absolutely relevant," Payne said.
If the project is successful, the Nature Conservancy plans to replicate the walking wetlands concept on farms throughout migratory-shorebird flyways, which extend from the Arctic to Central and South America.
"Loss of wetlands in coastal areas for farming has happened all around the world, so it could be implemented anywhere," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The three Skagit Valley farmers,including Hedlin, who signed up to participate in the project have also helped shape it.
"They asked for advice first off, instead of telling us what they wanted to do,"Hedlin said.
The team hatched a plan to flood select fields with a thin sheet of water no more than 4in.(10cm) deep - an ideal level for shorebirds for three years.The plots stayed flooded for the entire experiment.
Doing so required the farmers to build berms to prevent water from flooding their neighbours land.
Preliminary results of the first three years suggest a partial success.
In the first year,15 species of shorebirds used the flooded fields, and only two shorebird species used the grazed and green-chop fields pointing to a possible ecological benefit of the flooded parcels.
"The Nature Conservancy team has no data on how many shorebird species historically visited the wetlands, and only about three species had been spotted after the conversion to agriculture. So the team was pleased to see 15 species return," Morse said.
But by the second year, cat's tail in the flooded fields were more than 15 feet (5m) tall, which proved too difficult for the shorebirds to navigate. That year only eight shorebird species visited the fields.
"It is pretty amazing that you let nature go and it [returns to a native state] that quickly," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The conservationists are now considering plans to actively manage the flooded fields to keep them primed for shorebirds.
Farmers also saw a financial benefit:Nitrogen levels in the flooded fields increased on average by 50 pounds (23kg)per acre (0.4 hectare), which means that farmers may have spent less money on fertiliser.
Hedlin, the farmer, said he used the three-year flood to transition his field to organic, as fields have to sit fallow for three years for organic certification.
"We had a positive experience and didn't go backward financially," Hedlin said. The Nature Conservancy's Morse is now comparing how much money is gained on a grazed field versus a green chop field versus a flooded field.
"The big thing that we are doing that they haven't done in the Klamath is really trying to quantify how much value it provides to the farmers and how much [shorebird] habitat it provides," Morse said.
"And were comparing the ecological benefits of those three habitats as well,"she added.
Mark Colwell, a wildlife biologist at Humboldt State University in Arcata,California, praised the projects innovation.
"But helping migratory shorebirds bounce back is not easy," Colwell said.
Habitats such as the Skagit Valley and the Klamath Basin can be thought of as links in a chain along the migratoryshorebird flyway.
You can do stuff at a series of links in the chain up and down the flyway, but if at one site there's a serious problem there, well, the whole population could plummet.
Nevertheless, Colwell added, enough of these projects spread out along the flyway could help birds find enough food over the courses of their annual migrations.
The University of Washington's Payne noted that migratory shorebirds are opportunistic, particularly along inland flyways where wetland conditions are unpredictable.
"They know a good habitat when they see one, such as a normally dry area that floods in a particularly wet year,"Payne said.
Alternative habitats such as temporarily flooded fields, she said, suits this group of species.
The request struck Dave Hedlin,a farmer in Washington's fertile Skagit Valley, as particularly odd - conservationists wanted him to voluntarily flood his fields.
Most of us have spent our entire lifetimes trying to keep water off the land,said Hedlin, whose farmlands are nestled among inlets, bays and estuaries in the shadow of the snow-capped Mount Baker Volcano.
But he decided to take part in a pilot project run by the Nature Conservancy,which temporarily floods agricultural fields to restore shorebird habitat.
The flooding would be part of his farms regular crop rotation, and in theory would pay for itself by filling the fields with natural fertiliser, drowning diseasecausing bacteria in soil and boosting crop yields.
In turn, the wetlands would again become a rest and refuelling station for migratory shorebirds between their Arctic breeding grounds and southern winter retreats.
Of the 53 shorebirds that breed in North America, more than half are at grave risk, according to the US Shorebird Conservation Plan, a programme run by a coalition of public and private organisations.
After three years, early results suggest that the project is working: fifteen shorebird species have returned to the restored wetlands.
So far, three participating farmers have been happy with the experiment,including Hedlin, who said that he has not suffered financially.
Before the valley was converted to agriculture at the beginning of the 20th century, its wetlands had teemed with crustaceans, fish and bugs.
But since the wetlands became farmlands, most of the 50,000-some birds that visit each year feed in the nearby estuaries instead.
"We've totally changed this landscape," said Julie Morse, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy in Mount Vernon, also in the Skagit Valley.
"It used to be tidally influenced, but now it is very much a dyked system."
The Skagit Valley project is modelled after a 10-year-old walking wetlands concept in the Klamath Basin of southern Oregon and northern California, where farmland within a wildlife refuge is placed on a wetland rotation.
Laura Payne, a wildlife ecologist based at the University of Washington in Seattle,called the project an innovative collaboration between farmers and conservationists.
"This idea has the potential for wide application, and I think it is absolutely relevant," Payne said.
If the project is successful, the Nature Conservancy plans to replicate the walking wetlands concept on farms throughout migratory-shorebird flyways, which extend from the Arctic to Central and South America.
"Loss of wetlands in coastal areas for farming has happened all around the world, so it could be implemented anywhere," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The three Skagit Valley farmers,including Hedlin, who signed up to participate in the project have also helped shape it.
"They asked for advice first off, instead of telling us what they wanted to do,"Hedlin said.
The team hatched a plan to flood select fields with a thin sheet of water no more than 4in.(10cm) deep - an ideal level for shorebirds for three years.The plots stayed flooded for the entire experiment.
Doing so required the farmers to build berms to prevent water from flooding their neighbours land.
Preliminary results of the first three years suggest a partial success.
In the first year,15 species of shorebirds used the flooded fields, and only two shorebird species used the grazed and green-chop fields pointing to a possible ecological benefit of the flooded parcels.
"The Nature Conservancy team has no data on how many shorebird species historically visited the wetlands, and only about three species had been spotted after the conversion to agriculture. So the team was pleased to see 15 species return," Morse said.
But by the second year, cat's tail in the flooded fields were more than 15 feet (5m) tall, which proved too difficult for the shorebirds to navigate. That year only eight shorebird species visited the fields.
"It is pretty amazing that you let nature go and it [returns to a native state] that quickly," the Nature Conservancy's Morse said.
The conservationists are now considering plans to actively manage the flooded fields to keep them primed for shorebirds.
Farmers also saw a financial benefit:Nitrogen levels in the flooded fields increased on average by 50 pounds (23kg)per acre (0.4 hectare), which means that farmers may have spent less money on fertiliser.
Hedlin, the farmer, said he used the three-year flood to transition his field to organic, as fields have to sit fallow for three years for organic certification.
"We had a positive experience and didn't go backward financially," Hedlin said. The Nature Conservancy's Morse is now comparing how much money is gained on a grazed field versus a green chop field versus a flooded field.
"The big thing that we are doing that they haven't done in the Klamath is really trying to quantify how much value it provides to the farmers and how much [shorebird] habitat it provides," Morse said.
"And were comparing the ecological benefits of those three habitats as well,"she added.
Mark Colwell, a wildlife biologist at Humboldt State University in Arcata,California, praised the projects innovation.
"But helping migratory shorebirds bounce back is not easy," Colwell said.
Habitats such as the Skagit Valley and the Klamath Basin can be thought of as links in a chain along the migratoryshorebird flyway.
You can do stuff at a series of links in the chain up and down the flyway, but if at one site there's a serious problem there, well, the whole population could plummet.
Nevertheless, Colwell added, enough of these projects spread out along the flyway could help birds find enough food over the courses of their annual migrations.
The University of Washington's Payne noted that migratory shorebirds are opportunistic, particularly along inland flyways where wetland conditions are unpredictable.
"They know a good habitat when they see one, such as a normally dry area that floods in a particularly wet year,"Payne said.
Alternative habitats such as temporarily flooded fields, she said, suits this group of species.
Sound familiar?
Your TOT crossed its heart and hoped to die if it fails to have actual third-generation mobile phone service in a little corner of Bangkok before New Year's Eve; Vichien Narkseenuan, the firm's senior executive president for vice, said he expects to sign a deal Real Soon Now with a socalled mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) that will carry the TOT service,although no names, please; Mr Vichien promised "about" 500,000 numbers would be available; real yuppiephone networks scoffed at the TOT offer to let them in on the deal, because they fear that if they rent a network now, the National Telecommunications Commission won't let them bid for a licence to run their own 3G services.
Vichien Narkseenuan, the senior executive president of vice for your TOT ,said that the state monopoly plans to open a third-generation (3G) phone service with 100,000 numbers, and serving the entire country; TOT has no intention of building its own base stations,though, and will rent them from real phone companies; Mr Vichien forgot to mention when this nationwide 3G service might start for the lucky 100,000.
The National Telecommunications Commission announced it will open public hearings on third generation phones next Monday; Prasert Aphipunya, secretary in charge of vice for the NTC, said you should bring along a large truck load of money if you want to start the bidding for licences, say,oh, somewhere around 10 billion-witha-"b" baht; after next weeks' hearing,there will be a notice in the Royal Gazette ,and actual bidding for four (and only four) available licences may open as early as December; rules on all of this should be up on the NTC's website by now at www.ntc.co.th.
For the third time in a row, the strug-gling TT&T company won a multibillion-baht lawsuit against your TOT and for the third time in a row your TOT told them to pound sand; this time,an agree-upon arbitrator decided that TOT owed the up-country phone provider 2.3 billion baht in misguided revenue sharing for long distance calls;but TOT president Varut Suvakorn rejected the arbitration and told TT&T,"See ya in court, boys"; in case the Administrative Court rules against TOT yet again, Mr Varut said he was pretty sure the state firm didn't have that kind of money to pay off anyhow; TT&T explained that lawsuit number four is about to be filed.
No 2 yuppiephone firm DTAC of Norway opened its new headquarters in new Chamchuri Square , bragging that it spent one billion baht on the 19-floor (!) digs; all 3,200 DTAC employees relocated from the Chai Building to the new location at the Sam Yan intersection,overlooking Chulalongkorn University;CEO Tore Johnsen signed a 10-year lease for the 61,160-square-metre office,which includes the firm's main call centre; Mr Johnsen said new staff will work harder to pay the extra rent money; the kicker is that DTAC is asking the following price for the Chai Building one billion baht; Mr Johnsen said that DTAC was pressing ahead aggressively on its 3G trials and so on and etc and zzzzzzz.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul, apparently unaware that you can't spell "Thaksin" without "hub", said that Asean should become the energy exporting hub of the world; no, really,his reasoning is that Southeast Asia has so much food that it can make biofuels galore and sell it to the world at Arabesque profits; not only does Southeast Asia (sic) have a lot of extra food to feed the world's cars, it's, well, better "higher yields and more commercially viable for biofuel than corn and beetroot" from the US and Europe; to coin a phrase, in the klongs there are fish and in the fields there are biofuels.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul called in state firms and phuyai of the private sector for a heart-to-heart joint statement that everyone would cooperate on saving energy; this year's spin is that the programme will "save"100 billion baht, and Mr Wannarat got away unchallenged with a claim that a similar project last year saved 30 billion baht; the deal is that the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) and so on - 30,000 firms altogether - will work on conservation, purchase green technology and so on, and in return they will get some tax breaks and subsidies on loans taken through the energy services company fund (Esco); the minister is looking for one billion baht to fund Esco this year.
Vichien Narkseenuan, the senior executive president of vice for your TOT ,said that the state monopoly plans to open a third-generation (3G) phone service with 100,000 numbers, and serving the entire country; TOT has no intention of building its own base stations,though, and will rent them from real phone companies; Mr Vichien forgot to mention when this nationwide 3G service might start for the lucky 100,000.
The National Telecommunications Commission announced it will open public hearings on third generation phones next Monday; Prasert Aphipunya, secretary in charge of vice for the NTC, said you should bring along a large truck load of money if you want to start the bidding for licences, say,oh, somewhere around 10 billion-witha-"b" baht; after next weeks' hearing,there will be a notice in the Royal Gazette ,and actual bidding for four (and only four) available licences may open as early as December; rules on all of this should be up on the NTC's website by now at www.ntc.co.th.
For the third time in a row, the strug-gling TT&T company won a multibillion-baht lawsuit against your TOT and for the third time in a row your TOT told them to pound sand; this time,an agree-upon arbitrator decided that TOT owed the up-country phone provider 2.3 billion baht in misguided revenue sharing for long distance calls;but TOT president Varut Suvakorn rejected the arbitration and told TT&T,"See ya in court, boys"; in case the Administrative Court rules against TOT yet again, Mr Varut said he was pretty sure the state firm didn't have that kind of money to pay off anyhow; TT&T explained that lawsuit number four is about to be filed.
No 2 yuppiephone firm DTAC of Norway opened its new headquarters in new Chamchuri Square , bragging that it spent one billion baht on the 19-floor (!) digs; all 3,200 DTAC employees relocated from the Chai Building to the new location at the Sam Yan intersection,overlooking Chulalongkorn University;CEO Tore Johnsen signed a 10-year lease for the 61,160-square-metre office,which includes the firm's main call centre; Mr Johnsen said new staff will work harder to pay the extra rent money; the kicker is that DTAC is asking the following price for the Chai Building one billion baht; Mr Johnsen said that DTAC was pressing ahead aggressively on its 3G trials and so on and etc and zzzzzzz.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul, apparently unaware that you can't spell "Thaksin" without "hub", said that Asean should become the energy exporting hub of the world; no, really,his reasoning is that Southeast Asia has so much food that it can make biofuels galore and sell it to the world at Arabesque profits; not only does Southeast Asia (sic) have a lot of extra food to feed the world's cars, it's, well, better "higher yields and more commercially viable for biofuel than corn and beetroot" from the US and Europe; to coin a phrase, in the klongs there are fish and in the fields there are biofuels.
Energy Minister Wannarat Channukul called in state firms and phuyai of the private sector for a heart-to-heart joint statement that everyone would cooperate on saving energy; this year's spin is that the programme will "save"100 billion baht, and Mr Wannarat got away unchallenged with a claim that a similar project last year saved 30 billion baht; the deal is that the Federation of Thai Industries (FTI) and the Thai Chamber of Commerce (TCC) and so on - 30,000 firms altogether - will work on conservation, purchase green technology and so on, and in return they will get some tax breaks and subsidies on loans taken through the energy services company fund (Esco); the minister is looking for one billion baht to fund Esco this year.
Egat sells off three decommissioned Mae Moh generators
The Electricity Generating Authority of Thailand has sold three decommissioned generators from its Mae Moh power station for 297 million baht.
Egat sold the 25-year-old generators so it could mine lignite coal located under the units, the assistant director for production at Mae Moh, Polrit Setthakamnerd, said.
The generators were taken out of service between nine and 10 years ago.
Thepprathanporn Construction and Recycle Co of Bangkok bought the three generators for 297 million baht on Sept 9 in an electronic auction. Eight other companies meeting Egat's selection criteria participated in the auction.
Thepprathanporn will remove the plants fromMae Moh compound in 18 months. An Egat source said the com-pany was expected to use the generators at its power plants in Indonesia.
Egat started building the three generators at the Mae Moh lignite mine in 1975. They began generating and distributing electricity in 1978,1979 and 1981, respectively, Mr Polrit said.
The first plant was decommissioned on Oct 1,1999, and the other two followed on March 1,2000.
The three units must be removed by 2011, Mr Polrit said. Mae Moh now has another 10 generating units in operation.
The power station has been at the heart of an environmental controversy for years.
Greenpeace in 2004 said the power station released 1.6 million tonnes of sulphur gas into the air every day, making it the largest source of sulphur dioxide in Thailand.
Egat sold the 25-year-old generators so it could mine lignite coal located under the units, the assistant director for production at Mae Moh, Polrit Setthakamnerd, said.
The generators were taken out of service between nine and 10 years ago.
Thepprathanporn Construction and Recycle Co of Bangkok bought the three generators for 297 million baht on Sept 9 in an electronic auction. Eight other companies meeting Egat's selection criteria participated in the auction.
Thepprathanporn will remove the plants fromMae Moh compound in 18 months. An Egat source said the com-pany was expected to use the generators at its power plants in Indonesia.
Egat started building the three generators at the Mae Moh lignite mine in 1975. They began generating and distributing electricity in 1978,1979 and 1981, respectively, Mr Polrit said.
The first plant was decommissioned on Oct 1,1999, and the other two followed on March 1,2000.
The three units must be removed by 2011, Mr Polrit said. Mae Moh now has another 10 generating units in operation.
The power station has been at the heart of an environmental controversy for years.
Greenpeace in 2004 said the power station released 1.6 million tonnes of sulphur gas into the air every day, making it the largest source of sulphur dioxide in Thailand.
Edge back from the abyss - it's time to deliver
...the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets.If we don't sort this out, it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
Climate change is happening faster than we believed only two years ago. Continuing with business as usual almost certainly means dangerous, perhaps catastrophic, climate change during the course of this century. This is the most important challenge for this generation of politicians.
I am now very concerned about the prospects for Copenhagen. The negotiations are dangerously close to deadlock at the moment - and such a deadlock may go far beyond a simple negotiating stand-off that we can fix next year. It risks being an acrimonious collapse, perhaps on the basis of a deep split between the developed and developing countries. The world right now cannot afford such a disastrous outcome.
So I hope that as world leaders peer over the edge of the abyss in New York and Pittsburgh this week, we will collectively conclude that we have to play an active part in driving the negotiations forward.
Now is not the time for poker playing.Now is the time for putting offers on the table, offers at the outer limits of our political constraints. That is exactly what Europe has done, and will continue to do.
Part of the answer lies in identifying the heart of the potential bargain that might yet bring us to a successful result, and here I think that the world leaders gathering in New York can make a real difference.
The first part of the bargain is that all developed countries need to clarify their plans on mid-term emissions reductions,and show the necessary leadership, not least in line with our responsibilities for past emissions. If we want to achieve at least an 80% reduction by 2050, developed countries must strive to achieve the necessary collective 25-40% reductions by 2020. The EU is ready to go from 20% to 30% if others make comparable efforts.
Second, developed countries must now explicitly recognise that we will all have to play a significant part in helping to finance mitigation and adaptation action by developing countries.
Our estimate is that by 2020, developing countries will need roughly an additional 100 billion euros (US$150 billion) a year to tackle climate change. Part of it will be financed from economically advanced developing countries themselves. The biggest share should come from the carbon market,if we have the courage to set up an ambitious global scheme.
But some will need to come in flows of public finance from developed to developing countries, perhaps from 22 billion to 50 billion euros ($30- $70 billion) a year by 2020. Almost half of this amount will be required to support adaptation action giving priority to the most vulnerable and poor developing countries.
Depending on the outcome of internation-al burden-sharing discussions, the EU's share of that could be anything from 10% to 30%,i.e. up to 15 billion euros ($22 billion) a year.
We will need to be ready, in other words,to make a significant contribution in the medium term, and also to look at shortterm "start up funding" for developing countries in the next year or so. I look forward to discussing this with EU leaders when we meet at the end of October.
So we need to signal our readiness to talk finance this week. The counterpart is that developing countries, at least the economically advanced amongst them, have to be much clearer on what they are ready to do to mitigate carbon emissions as part of an international agreement.
They are already putting in place domestic measures to limit carbon emissions but they clearly need to step up such efforts - particularly the most advanced developing countries. They understandably stress that the availability of carbon finance from the rich world is a pre-requisite to mitigation action on their part, as indeed agreed in Bali.
But the developed world will have nothing to finance if there is no commitment to such action.
We have less than 80 calendar days to go till Copenhagen. As of the Bonn meeting last month, the draft text contains some 250 pages: a feast of alternative options, a forest of square brackets. If we don't sort this out,it risks becoming the longest and most global suicide note in history.
This week in New York and Pittsburgh promises to be a pivotal one, if only as it will reveal how much global leaders are ready to invest in these negotiations, to push for a successful outcome. The choice is simple:no money, no deal. But no actions, no money!
Copenhagen is a critical occasion to shift,collectively, onto an emissions trajectory that keeps global warming below 2 degrees Celsius (3,6 Fahrenheit]. So the fight-back has to begin this week in New York and continue in Bangkok on Sept 28,2009.
Jose Manuel Barroso is President of the European Commission.
TOGETHER WE CAN MEET THE CLIMATE-CHANGE CHALLENGE
US President Barack Obama will speak to world leaders on climate change during a special UN summit in New York on the eve of the 64th session of the UN General Assembly.
The nations of the world are working hard right now to negotiate a new international agreement to combat climate change.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our world today. Already its impacts are apparent and consequences severe. Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than expected. Sea levels threaten to rise higher than previously anticipated. And water supplies are increasingly at risk from both melting glaciers and extreme climate events, such as droughts and floods. These changes threaten not only the environment, but also security and stability.
The science sends a simple and stark message: All countries must work together to combat climate change, and the time for action is now.
President Obama recognises that the United States must be a leader in the global effort to combat climate change. We have a responsibility as the world's largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that without US emissions reductions, no solution to climate change is possible, so the US will take the lead in building a 21 st-century clean energy economy.
When it comes to climate change, President Obama is taking the US in a new direction. The President called on the US Congress to develop comprehensive clean energy legislation to cut emissions 14 per cent from 2005 levels and 83 per cent in 2050. A bill has passed the House of Representatives and is making its way through Congress. The President's economic stimulus package includes over US$80 billion for clean energy. And recently instituted vehicle standards will increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
But action by the US and other developed nations is not enough. To preserve a safe and liveable planet, all major emitting nations have to join together to take strong action. There is no other way to contain climate change - the International Energy Agency estimates 97 per cent of future emissions growth will come from the developing world.
The US is pursuing a global strategy to combat climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating process, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and key bilateral relationships. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other high-level US officials have travelled to several major developing nations to deepen the climate dialogue and explore opportunities for progress. Many of these countries have already taken steps to address climate change; yet they will need to do much more.
To achieve a strong international agreement and meet the climate challenge, all countries must be fully engaged. Developed countries need to reduce their emissions substantially by 2020 on an absolute basis, compared to a 2005 or 1990 baseline. Major developing nations must take actions that will substantially reduce their emissions by 2020 on a relative basis, compared to their so-called "business as usual" path. Other developing countries should focus on preparing low-carbon growth plans - with financial and technical assistance where needed - to guide their longer-term development path.
Ultimately, a climate change agreement must be about not only limiting carbon emissions but also about providing a safe pathway for sustainable development. Clean energy development is the only sustainable way forward. To facilitate this path, countries with advanced capabilities must stand ready to develop and disseminate technologies to countries in need.
If we work together, the effort to build a clean energy global economy can provide significant economic opportunity, driving investment, economic growth and job creation around the world. And it can be a means to bring energy services to hundreds of millions of the world's poor. With the right support, developing countries can leapfrog dirty phases of development directly to low-carbon technologies and clean energy opportunities.
We are mindful that Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations are among the most at risk from the effects of climate change. For Thailand, rising sea levels threaten Bangkok with inundation, while coastal populations face the danger of more severe natural disasters, such as tsunamis. As the world's number-one rice exporter, Thailand is a key nation for the region's food security, and projected increases in the severity of droughts and floods are a major risk. Advances in agricultural technology are one answer to such threats to food production. We are pleased to see that Thailand has taken the threat seriously, establishing a well-staffed office within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment devoted to climate change.
Though not a major emitter of greenhouse gases, Thailand is playing an important role as a regional leader in promoting clean and alternative energy technologies and practices that can help reduce emissions in other countries. While the US has supported Thailand with sustained assistance in the past, today the US and Thailand are working increasingly in partnership to meet climate change and related challenges to the environment.
Secretary of State Clinton announced in July an important engagement with the countries of the lower Mekong River, where addressing climate change impacts will be key for maintaining food security. Other US agencies, such as the US Agency for International Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are actively collaborating with Thailand and other partners in the region on climate change-related issues. An exciting new programme between the US Geological Survey and the Mekong nations to establish a network for sharing scientific data on river systems will better inform decision-making relating to the Mekong River and its associated agricultural resources.
The US is clear in its intent to secure a strong international agreement, and I am confident that together we can meet the climate change challenge.
Eric G John is the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.
The nations of the world are working hard right now to negotiate a new international agreement to combat climate change.
Climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing our world today. Already its impacts are apparent and consequences severe. Arctic sea ice is disappearing faster than expected. Sea levels threaten to rise higher than previously anticipated. And water supplies are increasingly at risk from both melting glaciers and extreme climate events, such as droughts and floods. These changes threaten not only the environment, but also security and stability.
The science sends a simple and stark message: All countries must work together to combat climate change, and the time for action is now.
President Obama recognises that the United States must be a leader in the global effort to combat climate change. We have a responsibility as the world's largest historic emitter of greenhouse gases. We know that without US emissions reductions, no solution to climate change is possible, so the US will take the lead in building a 21 st-century clean energy economy.
When it comes to climate change, President Obama is taking the US in a new direction. The President called on the US Congress to develop comprehensive clean energy legislation to cut emissions 14 per cent from 2005 levels and 83 per cent in 2050. A bill has passed the House of Representatives and is making its way through Congress. The President's economic stimulus package includes over US$80 billion for clean energy. And recently instituted vehicle standards will increase fuel economy and reduce emissions.
But action by the US and other developed nations is not enough. To preserve a safe and liveable planet, all major emitting nations have to join together to take strong action. There is no other way to contain climate change - the International Energy Agency estimates 97 per cent of future emissions growth will come from the developing world.
The US is pursuing a global strategy to combat climate change through the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) negotiating process, the Major Economies Forum on Energy and Climate and key bilateral relationships. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other high-level US officials have travelled to several major developing nations to deepen the climate dialogue and explore opportunities for progress. Many of these countries have already taken steps to address climate change; yet they will need to do much more.
To achieve a strong international agreement and meet the climate challenge, all countries must be fully engaged. Developed countries need to reduce their emissions substantially by 2020 on an absolute basis, compared to a 2005 or 1990 baseline. Major developing nations must take actions that will substantially reduce their emissions by 2020 on a relative basis, compared to their so-called "business as usual" path. Other developing countries should focus on preparing low-carbon growth plans - with financial and technical assistance where needed - to guide their longer-term development path.
Ultimately, a climate change agreement must be about not only limiting carbon emissions but also about providing a safe pathway for sustainable development. Clean energy development is the only sustainable way forward. To facilitate this path, countries with advanced capabilities must stand ready to develop and disseminate technologies to countries in need.
If we work together, the effort to build a clean energy global economy can provide significant economic opportunity, driving investment, economic growth and job creation around the world. And it can be a means to bring energy services to hundreds of millions of the world's poor. With the right support, developing countries can leapfrog dirty phases of development directly to low-carbon technologies and clean energy opportunities.
We are mindful that Thailand and other Southeast Asian nations are among the most at risk from the effects of climate change. For Thailand, rising sea levels threaten Bangkok with inundation, while coastal populations face the danger of more severe natural disasters, such as tsunamis. As the world's number-one rice exporter, Thailand is a key nation for the region's food security, and projected increases in the severity of droughts and floods are a major risk. Advances in agricultural technology are one answer to such threats to food production. We are pleased to see that Thailand has taken the threat seriously, establishing a well-staffed office within the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment devoted to climate change.
Though not a major emitter of greenhouse gases, Thailand is playing an important role as a regional leader in promoting clean and alternative energy technologies and practices that can help reduce emissions in other countries. While the US has supported Thailand with sustained assistance in the past, today the US and Thailand are working increasingly in partnership to meet climate change and related challenges to the environment.
Secretary of State Clinton announced in July an important engagement with the countries of the lower Mekong River, where addressing climate change impacts will be key for maintaining food security. Other US agencies, such as the US Agency for International Development, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency, are actively collaborating with Thailand and other partners in the region on climate change-related issues. An exciting new programme between the US Geological Survey and the Mekong nations to establish a network for sharing scientific data on river systems will better inform decision-making relating to the Mekong River and its associated agricultural resources.
The US is clear in its intent to secure a strong international agreement, and I am confident that together we can meet the climate change challenge.
Eric G John is the US Ambassador to the Kingdom of Thailand.
World deltas erode as land sinks, seas rise
Two-thirds of the world's major deltas, home to nearly half a billion people, are caught in the scissors of sinking land and rising seas, according to a study published on Sunday.
The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 855 of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres.
Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50% this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.
Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
Human activities, including diversion of water and the creation of dams for hydroelectric power or to create reservoirs can radically alter delta ecosystems. Dams block sedimentation which can cause the delta to erode away. The use of water upstream can greatly increase salinity levels as less fresh water flows to meet the salty ocean water.
On a five-tier scale, three of the 11 deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.
Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas,including the Ganges in Bangladesh,the Irrawaddy in Burma, the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience .On the one side, a range of human activity - especially over the last halfcentury -has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land. But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.
Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem,notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
The Chao Phraya delta, for example,has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal,while a 3.7-metre subsidence of the Po delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.
Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction"in many of the most vulnerable deltas,according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.
The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted oceans would rise by 18-59cm by 2100.
More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre by century's end.
The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.
In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the study said."It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."
The new findings, based on satellite images, show that 855 of the 33 largest delta regions experienced severe flooding over the past decade, affecting 260,000 square kilometres.
Delta land vulnerable to serious flooding could expand by 50% this century if ocean levels increase as expected under moderate climate change scenarios, the study projects.
Worst hit will be Asia, but heavily populated and farmed deltas on every continent except Australia and Antarctica are in peril, it says.
Human activities, including diversion of water and the creation of dams for hydroelectric power or to create reservoirs can radically alter delta ecosystems. Dams block sedimentation which can cause the delta to erode away. The use of water upstream can greatly increase salinity levels as less fresh water flows to meet the salty ocean water.
On a five-tier scale, three of the 11 deltas in the highest-risk category are in China: the Yellow River delta in the north, the Yangtze River delta near Shanghai, and the Pearl River delta next to Guangzhou.
The Nile in Egypt, the Chao Phraya in Thailand and the Rhone River delta in France are also in the top tier of danger.
Just below these in vulnerability are seven other highly-populated deltas,including the Ganges in Bangladesh,the Irrawaddy in Burma, the Mekong in Vietnam and the Mississippi in the United States.
These flood plains and others all face a double-barrelled threat, reports the study, published in the journal Nature Geoscience .On the one side, a range of human activity - especially over the last halfcentury -has caused many delta regions to subside.
Without human interference, deltas naturally accumulate sediment as rivers swell and spread over vast areas of land. But upstream damming and river diversions have held back the layers that would normally build up.
Intensive subsurface mining has also contributed mightily to the problem,notes the study, led by James Syvitski of the Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research at the University of Colorado.
The Chao Phraya delta, for example,has sunk 50 to 150 millimetres per year as a result of groundwater withdrawal,while a 3.7-metre subsidence of the Po delta in Italy during the 20th century was due to methane mining.
Indeed, oil and gas mining contribute to so-called "accelerated compaction"in many of the most vulnerable deltas,according to the study, the first to analyse a decade's worth of global daily satellite images.
The other major threat is rising sea levels driven by global warming.
In a landmark report in 2007, the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicted oceans would rise by 18-59cm by 2100.
More recent studies that take into account the impact of melting icesheets in Greenland and Antarctica have revised that estimate upwards to at least a metre by century's end.
The already devastating impact of such increases will be amplified by more intense storms and hurricanes, along with the loss of natural barriers such as mangroves.
In the Irrawaddy delta the coastal surge caused by Cyclone Nargis last year flooded an area up to six metres above sea level, leaving 138,000 people dead or missing.
"All trends point to ever-increasing areas of deltas sinking below mean sea level," the study said."It remains alarming how often deltas flood, whether from land or from sea, and the trends seems to be worsening."
Climate cloud hangs over Bang Pakong
People living in the Bang Pakong river basin need to come up with means to adapt to the inevitable effects of climate change, says Greenpeace.
Climate change would lead to a 3 to 3.5 Celsius increase in temperature and heavy rainfall in the eastern community 90 years from now, a Greenpeace study released yesterday said.
Greenpeace has selected Bang Pakong river basin in Chachoengsao province as a study site to determine the impact of climate change. The study uses a mathematical model and 30 years of statistics on rainfall and temperature to predict the effects.
Ply Pirom, Greenpeace's coordinator,said as well as rising temperatures, climate change would trigger a 15% increase in annual rainfall at today's levels.
"Bang Pakong residents will be in trouble if there is no adaptation plan to respond to global warming," Mr Ply said.
Greenpeace yesterday discussed its climate change study with villagers in the Bang Pakong river basin to educate them about global warming and encourage them to think about adapting to the changing environment.
The activity was part of Greenpeace's campaign in the lead up to the Bangkok climate change talks from Sept 28 to Oct 9.
Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace's campaign manager, called on government agencies to assist people, especially those in the agricultural sector, to adapt to climate change. The farm sector would be hardest hit by climate change effects,which range from rising temperatures and changing rainfall volume to natural disasters.
The Bang Pakong river basin supports around 1.25 million people who rely heavily on the region's fertile soil to grow rice, fruits and other crops. Villagers also depend on fish stocks from the Bang Pakong River, which are now under threat from water pollution and seawater intrusion, he said.
Climate change would lead to a 3 to 3.5 Celsius increase in temperature and heavy rainfall in the eastern community 90 years from now, a Greenpeace study released yesterday said.
Greenpeace has selected Bang Pakong river basin in Chachoengsao province as a study site to determine the impact of climate change. The study uses a mathematical model and 30 years of statistics on rainfall and temperature to predict the effects.
Ply Pirom, Greenpeace's coordinator,said as well as rising temperatures, climate change would trigger a 15% increase in annual rainfall at today's levels.
"Bang Pakong residents will be in trouble if there is no adaptation plan to respond to global warming," Mr Ply said.
Greenpeace yesterday discussed its climate change study with villagers in the Bang Pakong river basin to educate them about global warming and encourage them to think about adapting to the changing environment.
The activity was part of Greenpeace's campaign in the lead up to the Bangkok climate change talks from Sept 28 to Oct 9.
Tara Buakamsri, Greenpeace's campaign manager, called on government agencies to assist people, especially those in the agricultural sector, to adapt to climate change. The farm sector would be hardest hit by climate change effects,which range from rising temperatures and changing rainfall volume to natural disasters.
The Bang Pakong river basin supports around 1.25 million people who rely heavily on the region's fertile soil to grow rice, fruits and other crops. Villagers also depend on fish stocks from the Bang Pakong River, which are now under threat from water pollution and seawater intrusion, he said.
Carbon Fund likely to be set up by Q1
Thailand's Carbon Fund is expected to be operational by the first quarter of 2010, structured as a high net worth trust as recommended by the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The SEC is in the process of imposing regulations to facilitate establishing the Carbon Fund.
MFC Asset Management is ready to play a key role in setting up, said Sopida Luveeraphan, the company's first executive vice-president for private equity and financial advisory business.
"The SEC expects to complete the work by the first quarter of 2010 but with the clear mandate from the government, the process could be completed by the end of this year," she said yesterday at a conference hosted by the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation (TGO).
MFC, majority-owned by the Finance Ministry, conducted a study of the Carbon Fund for the TGO.
The plan is subjected to a final endorsement by the National Climate Change Committee chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Similar to a mutual fund, the high net worth trust will mainly raise funds from institutional or high-profile investors interested in the carbon business.
The SEC earlier this year announced that active or passive trusts may be established to facilitate investment in real estate, manage exchange-traded funds or issue Sukuk securities.
The Carbon Fund will be able to invest in the equity of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, buy carbon credits in the form of certified emission reduction (CER), or acquire the projects under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)concept, Mrs Sopida said.
The CDM allows developed countries that have obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to make emission reductions overseas in non-Kyoto nations and count those reductions against their own legal commitments.
"The private sector, including those with obligations to cut emissions, and companies which want to buy credits to support their corporate social responsibility policies, will be major investors in the Carbon Fund. The government will also have a minor role in fund raising,"Mrs Sopida said.
The size of the fund will vary from 500 million baht to one billion baht with fewer limitations in terms of the ownerships in each project, she said.
To date, several foreign investors from Japan, including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, and Europe have expressed keen interest in taking part in Thailand's Carbon Fund.
"Local investors have limited understanding in the carbon trading business with the Export-Import Bank of Thailand the only active player to date," she said.
The TGO is hopeful the Carbon Fund could be set up this year so that Thailand can cash in on the expected greater CDM opportunities after December's climate change talks in Copenhagen, in Denmark,said deputy executive director Prasertsuk Charmornmarn.
The SEC is in the process of imposing regulations to facilitate establishing the Carbon Fund.
MFC Asset Management is ready to play a key role in setting up, said Sopida Luveeraphan, the company's first executive vice-president for private equity and financial advisory business.
"The SEC expects to complete the work by the first quarter of 2010 but with the clear mandate from the government, the process could be completed by the end of this year," she said yesterday at a conference hosted by the Thailand Greenhouse Gas Management Organisation (TGO).
MFC, majority-owned by the Finance Ministry, conducted a study of the Carbon Fund for the TGO.
The plan is subjected to a final endorsement by the National Climate Change Committee chaired by Prime Minister Abhisit Vejjajiva.
Similar to a mutual fund, the high net worth trust will mainly raise funds from institutional or high-profile investors interested in the carbon business.
The SEC earlier this year announced that active or passive trusts may be established to facilitate investment in real estate, manage exchange-traded funds or issue Sukuk securities.
The Carbon Fund will be able to invest in the equity of Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) projects, buy carbon credits in the form of certified emission reduction (CER), or acquire the projects under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT)concept, Mrs Sopida said.
The CDM allows developed countries that have obligations under the Kyoto Protocol to make emission reductions overseas in non-Kyoto nations and count those reductions against their own legal commitments.
"The private sector, including those with obligations to cut emissions, and companies which want to buy credits to support their corporate social responsibility policies, will be major investors in the Carbon Fund. The government will also have a minor role in fund raising,"Mrs Sopida said.
The size of the fund will vary from 500 million baht to one billion baht with fewer limitations in terms of the ownerships in each project, she said.
To date, several foreign investors from Japan, including the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, and Europe have expressed keen interest in taking part in Thailand's Carbon Fund.
"Local investors have limited understanding in the carbon trading business with the Export-Import Bank of Thailand the only active player to date," she said.
The TGO is hopeful the Carbon Fund could be set up this year so that Thailand can cash in on the expected greater CDM opportunities after December's climate change talks in Copenhagen, in Denmark,said deputy executive director Prasertsuk Charmornmarn.
Why the Copenhagen talks offer us one last chance
Two weeks ago, I visited the Arctic. I saw the remains of a glacier that just a few years ago was a majestic mass of ice. It had collapsed. Not slowly melted - collapsed. I travelled nine hours by ship from the world's northernmost settlement to reach the Polar ice rim. In just a few years, the same ship may be able to sail unimpeded all the way to the North Pole. The Arctic could be virtually ice-free by 2030.
Scientists told me their sobering findings. The Arctic is our canary in the coal mine for climate impacts that will affect us all. I was alarmed by the rapid pace of change there. Worse still, changes in the Arctic are now accelerating global warming. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.Melting ice in Greenland threatens to raise sea levels.
Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
I am therefore all the more convinced we must act - now.
To that end, on Sept 22 I am convening a special summit on climate change at the United Nations for some 100 world leaders - history's largest-ever such gathering of heads of state and government. Their collective challenge: transforming the climate crisis into an opportunity for safer, cleaner, sustainable green growth for all.
The key is Copenhagen, where governments will gather to negotiate a new global climate agreement in December.I will have a simple message to convey to leaders: the world needs you to actively push for a fair, effective and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Fail to act, and we will count the cost for generations to come.
Climate change is the pre-eminent geopolitical issue of our time. It rewrites the global equation for development,peace and prosperity. It threatens markets, economies and development gains. It can deplete food and water supplies, provoke conflict and migration,destabilise fragile societies and even topple governments.
Hyperbole? Not according to the world's best scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within 10 years if we are to avoid unleashing powerful, natural forces that are now slipping out of our control.
Ten years is within the political lifetime of many attending the summit. The climate crisis is occurring on their watch.
There is an alternative: sustainable growth based on green technologies and policies that favour low emissions over current carbon-intensive models. Many national stimulus packages devised in the wake of the global economic downturn feature a strong green component that creates jobs and positions countries to excel in the clean energy economy of the 21st century.
Change is in the air. The key lies in a global climate deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to a scientifically safe level. A deal to catalyse clean energy growth.Most urgently, an agreement must protect and assist those who are most vulnerable from inevitable climate impacts.
What is needed is political will at the highest levels - presidents, premiers and prime ministers - that translates into rapid progress in the negotiating room. It requires more trust among nations, more imagination, ambition and cooperation.
I expect leaders to roll up their sleeves and speak with - not past - each other.I expect them to intensify efforts to resolve the key political issues that have so far slowed global negotiations to a glacial pace. Ironically, that expression - until recently - connoted slowness. But the glaciers I saw a few weeks ago in the Arctic are melting faster than human progress to preserve them.
We must place the planet's long-term interests ahead of short-term political expediency. National leaders need to be global leaders who take the long view.Today's threats transcend borders. So,too, must our thinking.
Copenhagen need not resolve all the details. But a successful global climate deal must involve all countries, consistent with their capabilities, working toward a common, long-term goal. Here are my benchmarks for success.
First, every country must do its utmost to reduce emissions from all major sources. Industrialised countries have to strengthen their mitigation targets,which are currently nowhere close to what the IPCC says is needed. Developing countries, too, must slow the rise in their emissions and accelerate green growth as part of their strategies to reduce poverty.
Second, a successful deal must help the most vulnerable to adapt to the in-evitable impacts of climate change. This is an ethical imperative as well as a smart investment in a more stable, secure world.
Third, developing countries need funding and technology so they can move more quickly toward low-emissions growth. A deal must also unlock private investment, including through carbon markets.
Fourth, resources must be equitably managed and deployed in a way that all countries have a voice.
This year at Copenhagen, we have a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history. It's an opportunity not only to avert disaster, but to launch a fundamental transformation of the global economy.
Strong new political winds now fill our sails. Millions of citizens are mobilised. Savvy businesses are charting a cleaner energy course. We must seize this moment to act boldly on climate change. It may not come again anytime soon.
Change is in the air. Let's seal the deal on a better future for us all.
This article by United National SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon originally appeared in the "International Herald Tribune" on Sept 18.
Scientists told me their sobering findings. The Arctic is our canary in the coal mine for climate impacts that will affect us all. I was alarmed by the rapid pace of change there. Worse still, changes in the Arctic are now accelerating global warming. Thawing permafrost is releasing methane, a greenhouse gas 20 times more powerful than carbon dioxide.Melting ice in Greenland threatens to raise sea levels.
Meanwhile, global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise.
I am therefore all the more convinced we must act - now.
To that end, on Sept 22 I am convening a special summit on climate change at the United Nations for some 100 world leaders - history's largest-ever such gathering of heads of state and government. Their collective challenge: transforming the climate crisis into an opportunity for safer, cleaner, sustainable green growth for all.
The key is Copenhagen, where governments will gather to negotiate a new global climate agreement in December.I will have a simple message to convey to leaders: the world needs you to actively push for a fair, effective and ambitious deal in Copenhagen. Fail to act, and we will count the cost for generations to come.
Climate change is the pre-eminent geopolitical issue of our time. It rewrites the global equation for development,peace and prosperity. It threatens markets, economies and development gains. It can deplete food and water supplies, provoke conflict and migration,destabilise fragile societies and even topple governments.
Hyperbole? Not according to the world's best scientists.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak within 10 years if we are to avoid unleashing powerful, natural forces that are now slipping out of our control.
Ten years is within the political lifetime of many attending the summit. The climate crisis is occurring on their watch.
There is an alternative: sustainable growth based on green technologies and policies that favour low emissions over current carbon-intensive models. Many national stimulus packages devised in the wake of the global economic downturn feature a strong green component that creates jobs and positions countries to excel in the clean energy economy of the 21st century.
Change is in the air. The key lies in a global climate deal to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and limit global temperature rise to a scientifically safe level. A deal to catalyse clean energy growth.Most urgently, an agreement must protect and assist those who are most vulnerable from inevitable climate impacts.
What is needed is political will at the highest levels - presidents, premiers and prime ministers - that translates into rapid progress in the negotiating room. It requires more trust among nations, more imagination, ambition and cooperation.
I expect leaders to roll up their sleeves and speak with - not past - each other.I expect them to intensify efforts to resolve the key political issues that have so far slowed global negotiations to a glacial pace. Ironically, that expression - until recently - connoted slowness. But the glaciers I saw a few weeks ago in the Arctic are melting faster than human progress to preserve them.
We must place the planet's long-term interests ahead of short-term political expediency. National leaders need to be global leaders who take the long view.Today's threats transcend borders. So,too, must our thinking.
Copenhagen need not resolve all the details. But a successful global climate deal must involve all countries, consistent with their capabilities, working toward a common, long-term goal. Here are my benchmarks for success.
First, every country must do its utmost to reduce emissions from all major sources. Industrialised countries have to strengthen their mitigation targets,which are currently nowhere close to what the IPCC says is needed. Developing countries, too, must slow the rise in their emissions and accelerate green growth as part of their strategies to reduce poverty.
Second, a successful deal must help the most vulnerable to adapt to the in-evitable impacts of climate change. This is an ethical imperative as well as a smart investment in a more stable, secure world.
Third, developing countries need funding and technology so they can move more quickly toward low-emissions growth. A deal must also unlock private investment, including through carbon markets.
Fourth, resources must be equitably managed and deployed in a way that all countries have a voice.
This year at Copenhagen, we have a powerful opportunity to get on the right side of history. It's an opportunity not only to avert disaster, but to launch a fundamental transformation of the global economy.
Strong new political winds now fill our sails. Millions of citizens are mobilised. Savvy businesses are charting a cleaner energy course. We must seize this moment to act boldly on climate change. It may not come again anytime soon.
Change is in the air. Let's seal the deal on a better future for us all.
This article by United National SecretaryGeneral Ban Ki-moon originally appeared in the "International Herald Tribune" on Sept 18.
Stakes are high in climate talks
World leaders converge on New York and Pittsburgh this week for pivotal talks in the two-year effort to remake global climate rules,with success far from assured.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is opening a top-level "Climate Summit" today, kicking off a week filled with policy debates, meetings and the informal chatter of diplomats attempting to close in on a deal.
Climate negotiators have spent the last two years working toward a makeor-break summit in Copenhagen this December, which is expected to ink new targets for global emissions beyond 2012,when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Mr Ban has called on leaders attending this week's meetings to "publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen", amid concerns that time is running out.
Despite months of extensive talks,sharp differences still exist between rich and poor countries over a future climate change treaty, with funding for reform emerging as one the key sticking points.
Climate negotiators from the world's 17 largest developing and developed economies met in Washington last week for talks.
"I think there was some narrowing of differences," Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, said after the two-day talks.
But he acknowledged "there are plenty of differences that remain".
A series of meetings this autumn,beginning with those at the United Nations and the G20 next week, aims "fundamentally to narrow differences in an effort to get us toward a successful outcome in Copenhagen", he said.
Environment expert Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations warned against a "very dangerous" temptation to use the UN summit to crank up pressure for a final deal in Copenhagen.
"It will be a much better outcome if the heads of state set a realistic agenda for their negotiators," he said.
The UN negotiations are still only in their formative stages, Mr Levi added.
At the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh of the world's biggest industrialised and developing nations, which account for 80% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, leaders are expected to discuss the contentious question of who will pay for reform.
Clarification, Mr Stern said, is needed on where the money will come from,through which institutions it is channelled and how financing decisions will be determined.
On Friday, European Union leaders called on rich countries to provide at least $7.3 billion next year to help poor nations tackle climate change.
"The G20 should recognise the need to [address] urgent climate financing needs in developing countries," the EU leaders said in a statement.
In New York, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon is opening a top-level "Climate Summit" today, kicking off a week filled with policy debates, meetings and the informal chatter of diplomats attempting to close in on a deal.
Climate negotiators have spent the last two years working toward a makeor-break summit in Copenhagen this December, which is expected to ink new targets for global emissions beyond 2012,when the Kyoto Protocol expires.
Mr Ban has called on leaders attending this week's meetings to "publicly commit to sealing a deal in Copenhagen", amid concerns that time is running out.
Despite months of extensive talks,sharp differences still exist between rich and poor countries over a future climate change treaty, with funding for reform emerging as one the key sticking points.
Climate negotiators from the world's 17 largest developing and developed economies met in Washington last week for talks.
"I think there was some narrowing of differences," Todd Stern, the US special envoy for climate change, said after the two-day talks.
But he acknowledged "there are plenty of differences that remain".
A series of meetings this autumn,beginning with those at the United Nations and the G20 next week, aims "fundamentally to narrow differences in an effort to get us toward a successful outcome in Copenhagen", he said.
Environment expert Michael Levi of the Council on Foreign Relations warned against a "very dangerous" temptation to use the UN summit to crank up pressure for a final deal in Copenhagen.
"It will be a much better outcome if the heads of state set a realistic agenda for their negotiators," he said.
The UN negotiations are still only in their formative stages, Mr Levi added.
At the G20 meeting in Pittsburgh of the world's biggest industrialised and developing nations, which account for 80% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions, leaders are expected to discuss the contentious question of who will pay for reform.
Clarification, Mr Stern said, is needed on where the money will come from,through which institutions it is channelled and how financing decisions will be determined.
On Friday, European Union leaders called on rich countries to provide at least $7.3 billion next year to help poor nations tackle climate change.
"The G20 should recognise the need to [address] urgent climate financing needs in developing countries," the EU leaders said in a statement.
Giant jellyfish invasion may be imminent in Japan
Giant jellyfish seem poised to invade Japan, and experts are warning local fishers to brace themselves for an inundation that could wreak havoc on their industry.
Nomura's jellyfish is one of the largest jellyfish species in the world,growing up to 198cm wide and weighing as much as 200kg. The giant jellyfish last swarmed western Japan in vast numbers in 2005. Their huge bodies damaged fishing nets, and their toxic stings poisoned the catch and even injured some fishers.
Now the jellyfish could be gearing up for a similar assault, say experts who recently conducted some of the first surveys of the giants' spawning grounds.
"We have reports of massive bloomings of young jellyfish near the Chinese coast, where the ecosystems of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are favourable for breeding," said Shin-ichi Uye, a biological oceanographer at Hiroshima University.
Relatively little is known about Nomura's jellyfish, so Uye and colleagues across Japan have been studying the jellyfish in the lab to learn more about its habits and reproductive strategies.
Based on captive breeding, Uye's team has found that the jellyfish are extremely efficient at filtering tiny creatures called zooplankton out of the water. As long as a jellyfish is healthy,it devotes all its energy to eating. Even during the spawning season, its re-productive system remains immature.
But if the jellyfish is injured or weakened, it quickly switches to producing offspring, Uye said.
The scientists are still not sure why thousands of the creatures float across the Sea of Japan in some years but not others.
"It is possible that they have a 'rest stage' or hibernation period in their development over several years, but then their numbers shoot up given certain environmental stimuli," Uye said.
Researchers also don't know why the giant jellyfish are becoming more regular visitors to Japan's shores. In the early 1900s large numbers of the giants were reported only every 40 years or so. But in recent years the jellyfish have been appearing with alarming frequency: Japan experienced unusually large outbreaks almost every year between 2002 and 2007.
One contributing factor may be a decline in the number of jellyfish predators, including sea turtles and certain species of fish known to eat young jellyfish.
According to Uye, right now giant jellyfish outbreaks are like typhoons - they can't be controlled, but they can be predicted. He and his colleagues are currently working on a system for creating accurate jellyfish forecasts, so fishers will hopefully be able to better prepare themselves.
Nomura's jellyfish is one of the largest jellyfish species in the world,growing up to 198cm wide and weighing as much as 200kg. The giant jellyfish last swarmed western Japan in vast numbers in 2005. Their huge bodies damaged fishing nets, and their toxic stings poisoned the catch and even injured some fishers.
Now the jellyfish could be gearing up for a similar assault, say experts who recently conducted some of the first surveys of the giants' spawning grounds.
"We have reports of massive bloomings of young jellyfish near the Chinese coast, where the ecosystems of the Yellow Sea and the East China Sea are favourable for breeding," said Shin-ichi Uye, a biological oceanographer at Hiroshima University.
Relatively little is known about Nomura's jellyfish, so Uye and colleagues across Japan have been studying the jellyfish in the lab to learn more about its habits and reproductive strategies.
Based on captive breeding, Uye's team has found that the jellyfish are extremely efficient at filtering tiny creatures called zooplankton out of the water. As long as a jellyfish is healthy,it devotes all its energy to eating. Even during the spawning season, its re-productive system remains immature.
But if the jellyfish is injured or weakened, it quickly switches to producing offspring, Uye said.
The scientists are still not sure why thousands of the creatures float across the Sea of Japan in some years but not others.
"It is possible that they have a 'rest stage' or hibernation period in their development over several years, but then their numbers shoot up given certain environmental stimuli," Uye said.
Researchers also don't know why the giant jellyfish are becoming more regular visitors to Japan's shores. In the early 1900s large numbers of the giants were reported only every 40 years or so. But in recent years the jellyfish have been appearing with alarming frequency: Japan experienced unusually large outbreaks almost every year between 2002 and 2007.
One contributing factor may be a decline in the number of jellyfish predators, including sea turtles and certain species of fish known to eat young jellyfish.
According to Uye, right now giant jellyfish outbreaks are like typhoons - they can't be controlled, but they can be predicted. He and his colleagues are currently working on a system for creating accurate jellyfish forecasts, so fishers will hopefully be able to better prepare themselves.
Walruses congregate on Alaska shore
Thousands of walruses are congregating on Alaska's northwest coast,a sign that their Arctic sea ice environment has been altered by climate change.
Chad Jay, a US Geological Survey walrus researcher, said that about 3,500 walruses were near Icy Cape on the Chukchi Sea, some 225km southwest of Barrow. Animals the agency tagged with satellite transmitters also were detected on shore at Cape Lisburne about 241km farther down the coast.
Walruses for years came ashore intermittently during their fall southward migration but not so early and not in such numbers."This is actually all new,"Jay said."They did this in 2007, and it's a result of the sea ice retreating off the continental shelf."
Federal managers and researchers say walruses hauling out on shore could lead to deadly stampedes and too much pressure on prey within swimming range.Projections of continued sea ice loss means the phenomenon likely is not going away.
"It's more of the same," Jay said."What we've been seeing over the past few years with reduced sea ice conditions,we might be seeing this more and more often, and it's probably not good for the walruses," he said.
Unlike many seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely and must rest periodically between feeding forays. They rely on sea ice as a platform for foraging for clams in the shallow waters of the outer continental shelf. They can dive up to 192m for clams and other sea floor creatures but mostly feed in waters of less than 100m, Jay said. Beyond the continental shelf, water can reach depths of 3,048m or more.
An estimated 6,000 or more walruses congregated on Alaska's shore in the fall of 2007, taking scientists by surprise.
Herds were in the tens of thousands at some locations on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea, with an estimated 40,000 animals at Point Shmidt. Russian biologists reported 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, mostly young animals crushed in stampedes.
Alaska herds did not experience that sort of mortality but scientists acknowledge a concern when the marine mammals are concentrated on a rocky shore rather than hundreds of miles of sea ice edge.
"They may have a much higher predation pressure on those near-shore areas when they're using those land haul-outs than when they're using sea ice," Jay said.
The Centre for Biological Diversity has petitioned to list the Pacific walrus as an endangered or threatened because of habitat loss due to warming. The US Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to begin a detailed status review. A 60-day public comment period will precede an agency listing decision by October 2010. A final decision would be made by the Interior secretary by October 2011.
The agency is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to warn away pilots, who can cause stampedes, said walrus researcher Joel Garlich-Miller.So can polar bears or human hunters.There is no legal mechanism to keep hunters away, he said, but people have been letting the animals rest.
USGS researchers plan to head to the Chukchi coast next week to place satellite tags on up to 30 animals so their foraging habits can be studied, Jay said.
The 2007 herds prompted researchers to gear up for studies of the animals'new habits last year. However, remnant ice floating apart from the main pack ice kept walruses off shore, Jay said.Their reappearance put the research plans into motion.
"We're trying to get more information on how the walruses are responding to the loss of sea ice over the continental shelf, where do they go when they do come to shore like this, how far offshore are they foraging," he said.
On land, walruses have to swim out and return rather than diving vertically.That could lead to nutritional stress.
"We suspect that it's going to cost them more energy to do that than if they were able to stay on the sea ice," he said. Jay has not heard reports of walrus congregating on Russian shores. One animal tagged on the US side has hauled out there and herds likely are gathering,he said.
Chad Jay, a US Geological Survey walrus researcher, said that about 3,500 walruses were near Icy Cape on the Chukchi Sea, some 225km southwest of Barrow. Animals the agency tagged with satellite transmitters also were detected on shore at Cape Lisburne about 241km farther down the coast.
Walruses for years came ashore intermittently during their fall southward migration but not so early and not in such numbers."This is actually all new,"Jay said."They did this in 2007, and it's a result of the sea ice retreating off the continental shelf."
Federal managers and researchers say walruses hauling out on shore could lead to deadly stampedes and too much pressure on prey within swimming range.Projections of continued sea ice loss means the phenomenon likely is not going away.
"It's more of the same," Jay said."What we've been seeing over the past few years with reduced sea ice conditions,we might be seeing this more and more often, and it's probably not good for the walruses," he said.
Unlike many seals, walruses cannot swim indefinitely and must rest periodically between feeding forays. They rely on sea ice as a platform for foraging for clams in the shallow waters of the outer continental shelf. They can dive up to 192m for clams and other sea floor creatures but mostly feed in waters of less than 100m, Jay said. Beyond the continental shelf, water can reach depths of 3,048m or more.
An estimated 6,000 or more walruses congregated on Alaska's shore in the fall of 2007, taking scientists by surprise.
Herds were in the tens of thousands at some locations on the Russian side of the Chukchi Sea, with an estimated 40,000 animals at Point Shmidt. Russian biologists reported 3,000 to 4,000 walruses out of population of perhaps 200,000 died, mostly young animals crushed in stampedes.
Alaska herds did not experience that sort of mortality but scientists acknowledge a concern when the marine mammals are concentrated on a rocky shore rather than hundreds of miles of sea ice edge.
"They may have a much higher predation pressure on those near-shore areas when they're using those land haul-outs than when they're using sea ice," Jay said.
The Centre for Biological Diversity has petitioned to list the Pacific walrus as an endangered or threatened because of habitat loss due to warming. The US Fish and Wildlife Service agreed to begin a detailed status review. A 60-day public comment period will precede an agency listing decision by October 2010. A final decision would be made by the Interior secretary by October 2011.
The agency is working with the Federal Aviation Administration to warn away pilots, who can cause stampedes, said walrus researcher Joel Garlich-Miller.So can polar bears or human hunters.There is no legal mechanism to keep hunters away, he said, but people have been letting the animals rest.
USGS researchers plan to head to the Chukchi coast next week to place satellite tags on up to 30 animals so their foraging habits can be studied, Jay said.
The 2007 herds prompted researchers to gear up for studies of the animals'new habits last year. However, remnant ice floating apart from the main pack ice kept walruses off shore, Jay said.Their reappearance put the research plans into motion.
"We're trying to get more information on how the walruses are responding to the loss of sea ice over the continental shelf, where do they go when they do come to shore like this, how far offshore are they foraging," he said.
On land, walruses have to swim out and return rather than diving vertically.That could lead to nutritional stress.
"We suspect that it's going to cost them more energy to do that than if they were able to stay on the sea ice," he said. Jay has not heard reports of walrus congregating on Russian shores. One animal tagged on the US side has hauled out there and herds likely are gathering,he said.
Coral algae have "eyes"
The single-celled algae that set up house inside hard corals and give reefs their vibrant colours may be able to see, a new study says.
The algae - called zooxanthellae have mysterious crystal-like deposits,which are made of uric acid, a common element in light-reflecting structures in insect and animal eyes. The substance in the algae had been previously misidentified as calcium oxalate, which is often found in plants, the researchers say.
The algae's crystal clusters strongly reflected light in lab experiments, suggesting that "this is really a functional eye", study co-author Kazuhiko Koike,of Japan's Hiroshima University, said in an email.
Each of the single-celled organisms also contains a photoreceptor molecule,which creates an "eyespot". Eyespots are light-sensitive patches that allow simple organisms, such as jellyfish and some other algae, to sense their environments.
Other types of dinoflagellates - onecelled aquatic organisms that include zooxanthellae -have at least four variations of eyespots, Koike said. But he believes the newfound type of eyespot is unique to the coral-dwelling life-forms.
In shallow tropical waters of the world's oceans, zooxanthellae and reefbuilding coral polyps have evolved to be dependent on one another. The corals'reefs give the algae natural havens and ingredients for photosynthesis. The algae,in turn, create oxygen for the coral animals, remove waste and provide nutrients necessary for survival.
Considering how crucial this partnership is, it may be that roving zooxanthellae use their eyespots to scope out the most desirable digs - a possibility "we think is quite interesting", Koike said. Young corals, in turn, may be using unknown "attraction mechanisms" to entice zooxanthellae to inhabit the reefs.What's more, coral-dwelling algae have eyes only when they are seeking their reef homes, Koike added.
The organisms lose their sight once they are living inside their hosts. By contrast, other types of algae that live inside giant clams keep their eye-like structures while inside their hosts.
Koike speculates this could be because the clam-dwelling algae want to escape the grip of the clam, which "farms" the algae and eats some of them each night.
Overall, Koike added, the more scientists know about how corals and their resident algae pair up, the better the chances of preventing corals' ongoing decline due to climate change.
Warmer seawater often causes corals to eject their colourful zooxanthellae roommates,"bleaching" the reefs and leaving the nutrient-deprived corals to die slowly.
"We must understand how this relationship is initiated ... as soon as possible," Koike said.
The algae - called zooxanthellae have mysterious crystal-like deposits,which are made of uric acid, a common element in light-reflecting structures in insect and animal eyes. The substance in the algae had been previously misidentified as calcium oxalate, which is often found in plants, the researchers say.
The algae's crystal clusters strongly reflected light in lab experiments, suggesting that "this is really a functional eye", study co-author Kazuhiko Koike,of Japan's Hiroshima University, said in an email.
Each of the single-celled organisms also contains a photoreceptor molecule,which creates an "eyespot". Eyespots are light-sensitive patches that allow simple organisms, such as jellyfish and some other algae, to sense their environments.
Other types of dinoflagellates - onecelled aquatic organisms that include zooxanthellae -have at least four variations of eyespots, Koike said. But he believes the newfound type of eyespot is unique to the coral-dwelling life-forms.
In shallow tropical waters of the world's oceans, zooxanthellae and reefbuilding coral polyps have evolved to be dependent on one another. The corals'reefs give the algae natural havens and ingredients for photosynthesis. The algae,in turn, create oxygen for the coral animals, remove waste and provide nutrients necessary for survival.
Considering how crucial this partnership is, it may be that roving zooxanthellae use their eyespots to scope out the most desirable digs - a possibility "we think is quite interesting", Koike said. Young corals, in turn, may be using unknown "attraction mechanisms" to entice zooxanthellae to inhabit the reefs.What's more, coral-dwelling algae have eyes only when they are seeking their reef homes, Koike added.
The organisms lose their sight once they are living inside their hosts. By contrast, other types of algae that live inside giant clams keep their eye-like structures while inside their hosts.
Koike speculates this could be because the clam-dwelling algae want to escape the grip of the clam, which "farms" the algae and eats some of them each night.
Overall, Koike added, the more scientists know about how corals and their resident algae pair up, the better the chances of preventing corals' ongoing decline due to climate change.
Warmer seawater often causes corals to eject their colourful zooxanthellae roommates,"bleaching" the reefs and leaving the nutrient-deprived corals to die slowly.
"We must understand how this relationship is initiated ... as soon as possible," Koike said.
"SENTINELS OF CHANGE" WHISPER DANGER
While the world has focused on the destruction mankind has brought to coral reefs,the massive loss of an equally important ecosystem has been widely ignored.
Now the first comprehensive assessment of the state of seagrass meadows around the world has revealed the damage that human activities have wrought on these economically and biologically essential areas.
A synthesis of quantitative data from 215 sites suggests that the world has lost more than a quarter of its meadows in the past 130 years, since records began, and that the rate of that decline has grown from less than 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990.
"Seagrass loss rates are comparable to those reported for mangroves, coral reefs and tropical rainforests, and place seagrass meadows among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth," write the authors of the synthesis, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ."Our report of mounting seagrass losses reveals a major global environmental crisis in coastal ecosystems, for which seagrasses are sentinels of change."
As well as supporting unique wildlife such as green turtles (Chelonia mydas )and dugong (Dugong dugon ), seagrass meadows also serve as a vital nursery for fish, supporting populations for coral reefs and commercial fisheries.They also serve to stabilise sediment and provide coastal protection, as well as trapping carbon and helping in nutrient transportation.
For the global survey, the researchers compiled a database of all data on changes in the extent of seagrass cover spanning at least two years.They included published studies, online databases and unpublished but audited research.
Their synthesis shows that since 1980 seagrasses have been destroyed at the rate of 110km2 per year. While 25 percent of sites increased in size and 17 percent showed no detectable change,58 percent declined.
Overall, the measured area of loss between 1879 and 2006 was 3,370km2 from the total of 11,592km2 for which suitable records were available - a loss of 29 percent. Extrapolating this to a global scale suggests 51,000km2 of seagrass meadows have been lost since records began.
Study author Frederick Short, a researcher at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, admits that there is "not that much data" available on seagrass, so the total loss is difficult to pin down exactly. Still, he says,"It is looking quite bleak for many parts....We are abusing our coastal systems."
The vast majority of this decline,say Short and other experts, is attributable to human activity. Nutrient and sediment pollution from nearby human activities and the introduction of invasive species are both contributing to their decline.
Seagrasses - flowering plants that evolved from terrestrial plants - are also likely to be affected by climate change, the authors note. And while the world focuses on photogenic coral,seagrass loss is just as worrying, perhaps more so as it is more widely distributed.
"The seagrass ecosystem in general is quite unacknowledged," says Short.
Giuseppe DiCarlo, marine climate change manager at Conservation International and a member of the steering committee of the World Seagrass Association, says that even where sea-grass meadows have been lost there is the opportunity for recovery if protection via the designation of Marine Protected Areas can be brought in.
"It's nice to finally have some global numbers that can be used when advocating for the protection of seagrass," he says."If you look at a regional scale, like in the Caribbean, we're going to lose the seagrass beds altogether [if something isn't done]."
Susanne Livingstone, programme officer on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Marine Species Assessment, says experts wouldn't be surprised to hear a 30 percent figure for losses, but despite these losses seagrass rarely makes it into the public consciousness."It's probably because they're not as sexy [as corals], they're not as attractive,"she says."They're just as ecologically important if not more so."
Now the first comprehensive assessment of the state of seagrass meadows around the world has revealed the damage that human activities have wrought on these economically and biologically essential areas.
A synthesis of quantitative data from 215 sites suggests that the world has lost more than a quarter of its meadows in the past 130 years, since records began, and that the rate of that decline has grown from less than 1 percent per year before 1940 to 7 percent per year since 1990.
"Seagrass loss rates are comparable to those reported for mangroves, coral reefs and tropical rainforests, and place seagrass meadows among the most threatened ecosystems on Earth," write the authors of the synthesis, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ."Our report of mounting seagrass losses reveals a major global environmental crisis in coastal ecosystems, for which seagrasses are sentinels of change."
As well as supporting unique wildlife such as green turtles (Chelonia mydas )and dugong (Dugong dugon ), seagrass meadows also serve as a vital nursery for fish, supporting populations for coral reefs and commercial fisheries.They also serve to stabilise sediment and provide coastal protection, as well as trapping carbon and helping in nutrient transportation.
For the global survey, the researchers compiled a database of all data on changes in the extent of seagrass cover spanning at least two years.They included published studies, online databases and unpublished but audited research.
Their synthesis shows that since 1980 seagrasses have been destroyed at the rate of 110km2 per year. While 25 percent of sites increased in size and 17 percent showed no detectable change,58 percent declined.
Overall, the measured area of loss between 1879 and 2006 was 3,370km2 from the total of 11,592km2 for which suitable records were available - a loss of 29 percent. Extrapolating this to a global scale suggests 51,000km2 of seagrass meadows have been lost since records began.
Study author Frederick Short, a researcher at the University of New Hampshire, Durham, admits that there is "not that much data" available on seagrass, so the total loss is difficult to pin down exactly. Still, he says,"It is looking quite bleak for many parts....We are abusing our coastal systems."
The vast majority of this decline,say Short and other experts, is attributable to human activity. Nutrient and sediment pollution from nearby human activities and the introduction of invasive species are both contributing to their decline.
Seagrasses - flowering plants that evolved from terrestrial plants - are also likely to be affected by climate change, the authors note. And while the world focuses on photogenic coral,seagrass loss is just as worrying, perhaps more so as it is more widely distributed.
"The seagrass ecosystem in general is quite unacknowledged," says Short.
Giuseppe DiCarlo, marine climate change manager at Conservation International and a member of the steering committee of the World Seagrass Association, says that even where sea-grass meadows have been lost there is the opportunity for recovery if protection via the designation of Marine Protected Areas can be brought in.
"It's nice to finally have some global numbers that can be used when advocating for the protection of seagrass," he says."If you look at a regional scale, like in the Caribbean, we're going to lose the seagrass beds altogether [if something isn't done]."
Susanne Livingstone, programme officer on the International Union for Conservation of Nature Global Marine Species Assessment, says experts wouldn't be surprised to hear a 30 percent figure for losses, but despite these losses seagrass rarely makes it into the public consciousness."It's probably because they're not as sexy [as corals], they're not as attractive,"she says."They're just as ecologically important if not more so."
Green Days are coming again
To encourage the public to be aware of the target of 20 percent emissions reduction by 2020, the EU is organising activities during EU Green Days at different venues around Bangkok from October 1 to 10.
The activities include exhibitions,concerts, workshops and talks. Artists such as Tata Young, Tattoo Colour,Richman Toy and Yarinda Bunnag will perform in "What on Earth!" concerts, held at Club Culture on October 2 and Zen CentralWorld on October 3.Children's workshops on how to tackle climate change will be held at TK Park on October 3.
A talk on "Towards Copenhagen:View on the Global Climate Negotiations' will be held on October 6 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and "Climate Change and Disasters: How to reduce risk?" will be held on October 7 at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand."Green Business and Effects in Supply Chains" for business entrepreneurs will be held on October 8 at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel.
Climate change exhibitions will be held at CentralWorld throughout the event.
Most of the activities are free of charge,but some talks are by invitation only.Visit www.eugreendays.com.
The activities include exhibitions,concerts, workshops and talks. Artists such as Tata Young, Tattoo Colour,Richman Toy and Yarinda Bunnag will perform in "What on Earth!" concerts, held at Club Culture on October 2 and Zen CentralWorld on October 3.Children's workshops on how to tackle climate change will be held at TK Park on October 3.
A talk on "Towards Copenhagen:View on the Global Climate Negotiations' will be held on October 6 at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and "Climate Change and Disasters: How to reduce risk?" will be held on October 7 at the Foreign Correspondents' Club of Thailand."Green Business and Effects in Supply Chains" for business entrepreneurs will be held on October 8 at the Grand Hyatt Erawan Hotel.
Climate change exhibitions will be held at CentralWorld throughout the event.
Most of the activities are free of charge,but some talks are by invitation only.Visit www.eugreendays.com.
Flooded homes get relief
Foundations under royal patronage have been handing out emergency relief bags to victims of floods in downtown Chaiyaphum.
The bags were given to 2,000 families most affected by the floods in the northeastern province.
The bags were donated by the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation under His Majesty the King's patronage and the Princess Pa Foundation under Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha.
The floods were caused by run-off from the Lam Pathao reservoir in Kaeng Khro district, and are now receding after inundating downtown areas for the past few days.
Chaiyaphum's city mayor, Banyong Kiatkongchoochai, yesterday handed out the bags on behalf of the foundations.
The council worked pumps around the clock to drain water from the city centre. Council staff are on the lookout for crocodiles which escaped from flooded farms.
In the eastern province of Rayong,persistent heavy rain at the weekend has triggered a mudslide which damaged communities around Wat Nong Wa in tambon Makhamkoo of Nikhom Phatthana district. Residents said the mudslide appeared to have weakened the foundations of the temple wall, which they feared could collapse on to nearby homes.
The bags were given to 2,000 families most affected by the floods in the northeastern province.
The bags were donated by the Rajaprajanugroh Foundation under His Majesty the King's patronage and the Princess Pa Foundation under Her Royal Highness Princess Bajrakitiyabha.
The floods were caused by run-off from the Lam Pathao reservoir in Kaeng Khro district, and are now receding after inundating downtown areas for the past few days.
Chaiyaphum's city mayor, Banyong Kiatkongchoochai, yesterday handed out the bags on behalf of the foundations.
The council worked pumps around the clock to drain water from the city centre. Council staff are on the lookout for crocodiles which escaped from flooded farms.
In the eastern province of Rayong,persistent heavy rain at the weekend has triggered a mudslide which damaged communities around Wat Nong Wa in tambon Makhamkoo of Nikhom Phatthana district. Residents said the mudslide appeared to have weakened the foundations of the temple wall, which they feared could collapse on to nearby homes.
IN PURSUIT OF HAPPY ECONOMICS
What is your idea of economics? What good is this branch of social science for the ordinary, non-business people?For many, economics evokes the notion of opportunity, employment and financial security. For others, it's a discipline that suggests Darwinian competition, greed,and simply the egotistical pursuit of self-interests at all costs.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
But to Helena Norberg-Hodge, director of the International Society for Ecology and Culture (Isec), economics can bring happiness, and without having to produce a huge sum of monetary profit, or the stresses and strains that are typical of a large-scale economy.
Norberg-Hodge received the 1986 Right Livelihood Award,aka the alternative Nobel Prize, for her dedication in promoting more peaceful, just and sustainable communities worldwide.
It all started from a small project the Swedish woman runs in Ladakh, initially a backwater region in northern India. Norberg-Hodge launched the Ladakh Project in 1978 in a bid to reverse the damaging trends of mass tourism and consumerism through promoting development based on Ladakhi cultural values. The innovative programme soon grew into Isec, where Norberg-Hodge and her colleagues had been initiating campaigns around the world to encourage ways of living that are more de-centralised and land-based.
A globetrotting and extremely busy Norberg-Hodge recently visited Thailand and delivered lectures in Bangkok and Khon Kaen on the theme of "Economics of Happiness".Norberg-Hodge took some time off from her hectic schedule to talk with 'Outlook'.
Could you please tell us what exactly this 'Economics of Happiness' is? It now seems the economics has been a tool for making money and a tool for making disasters,considering the recession we are now facing ...
Well, the 'Economics of Happiness' is essentially an economics of strengthening the local economy. It's a systemic shift away from the current direction of economy,which is going more and more global. At the fundamental level, what I'm arguing is that as economic policies support the globalising path, they support a bigger and bigger distance between production and consumption. And with this distance, structurally, it means pushing business to become bigger and bigger and bigger.with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
With the scale of business and the distance, we are getting enormous problems both environmentally, socially and psychologically.
Again, structurally, this globalising path is leading to monoculture. These large businesses inevitably have to impose monoculture; it's not possible to adapt to diversity.It's directly linked to using media and advertisement to foster a human monoculture where children worldwide are made to feel inferior to the standards that are fundamentally Western. But it's also anti-Western, in the sense that there is this image of perfection that the young children feel they cannot live up to. By establishing an unrealistic role model - a global consumer identity this is responsible for massive increases in self-rejection,and even self-hatred.
By subsiding global trade and global businesses, a government is simultaneously subsidising a path that's encouraging businesses to use more fossil fuel and technology and fewer people. So the next result is job insecurity, and very, very intense competitions for scarce jobs. This combination of creating an unrealistic role model, the role model of consumer identity, and at the same time, the job scarcity, the unemployment and the competition is increasing worldwide friction and unhappiness.
What I'm suggesting is that we must shift away from these bigger and more global business activities, and toward supporting local businesses worldwide that spend less fossil, and adapted to the natural-biological-cultural diversity and identities. We need to bring the economy closer to home worldwide. Localising as an economics of happiness at the fundamental level is about reducing the competition for jobs, by establishing cultural and community role models that are realistic. This might sound utopian, or unrealistic, but the fact is that the unrealistic is to go further and further as we have done up until now.
Related to the economics of happiness is an economics of survival. Because subsidising more and more global trade, it literally leads to the import and export of the same products - water, milk, chicken, pigs, live animals. The US imports just as much as it exports. The UK exports as much butter and milk as it imports. This is utter madness on a planet dying from global warming. Oil is scarce and polluting. We want to minimise the use of oil, obviously.So ending a trade in identical products is the most logical and commonsensical way, which is not depriving anybody.But the profits of the giants would decrease, whereas the profits of millions of local businesses would increase. And this is the way of reducing the gap between the rich and the poor while reducing global warming.
The alternative, localisation movement seems to look good, but having witnessed the past economic recession,after the crisis is over, we tend to go back through the same process again and again. Humankind seems to hardly change, why?
I'd argue that it isn't humankind that is deciding what kind of economy that they need. It's a very small number of increasingly powerful people. If you look at who is actively promoting the deregulation of trade and finance,it's maybe point zero one of the human population ...maybe even less than that. I'd estimate that about 10,000 people worldwide. Most people wouldn't even understand the mechanisms. They think it's free trade that allows freedom. I think the main reason that this is happening is ignorance from the top and ignorance from the bottom.
But shall we be able to counter the trend in time,considering the urgency of the situation?
I think we do have enough time right now. I feel too many people in the environmental movement would say,'Oh it's all going to break down,[so] we don't need to worry about the system'. I believe if more people would focus on education for action, awareness, what I call 'economic literacy'. Spread the awareness. If we can't write for the newspaper, then we can write for newsletters.If we can't speak on television, then let's speak on radio programmes. Let's encourage everybody with the idea that there is a solution.
I believe that in theory, in two or three years, there could be enough of a movement to change policies. But I think this economic literacy needs to be understood from a global point of view. We need to have a lot more information shared between the North and the South. I believe in the localisation in the small states.
It seems, though, that the level of the 'immune system'of people in the South has already been drastically eroded ...
I believe in the so-called 'less developed countries' that the structures are much stronger for localisation. The structure of this crucial identity with one another, with the land, with animals, with the sense of belonging to a place,a language, a history and a group - that identity is still here. The sense of identity is what localisation can rebuild.
More importantly, or just as importantly, you have skills, both social and practical skills that we have lost.More people here know how to grow foods, know how to build houses out of natural, local materials. In the West,these skills and the communities are much more destroyed.However, in the West, there is more awareness of the problems with the global consumer culture. Here, people are still not experiencing it as much. Even when they see Bangkok - it's polluted, crowded, they believe if they just get more education, more Western schooling, learn English,get more development, then they will be like this paradise - the paradise of America or Europe. So lack of awareness here is the big problem of this dominant model of progress/development. So this is where I believe a deep dialogue between the North and the South is needed.
How have you seen yourself change over the years since you first set foot in Ladakh in the mid-'70s?
My views of everything [have] changed. I have studied psychology and I thought that cultural differences were not so significant. I thought it had more to do with hereditary [factors]. But what I experienced in Ladakh, a pre-industrial,pre-developed culture, I realised there were huge differences between that and all the industrialised countries that were very similar.
With industrial development, the most important thing that developed was the breakdown of identity through[out]communities, to realise the differences between old and young, male and female, and this role model for the children and sense of belonging.
I believe that community is essential for mental health.It's essential for learning how to be loving and tolerant.And breaking that down is like breaking down the sense of interdependence, which is the teaching of all spiritual traditions. I'd say it is a spiritual and psychological need that is just as important as breathing air is for your lungs.To feel spiritually and psychologically connected, it's something that modernity has destroyed, and that creates self-hatred, self-rejection, which leads to intolerance,violence, unhappiness. That may be the most important thing I have learned from Ladakh.
Having understood that, I also see in the West therapies that are fundamentally about rebuilding communities and the sense of interdependence and spiritual connection with nature. And those therapies are successful. Even prisoners, juvenile delinquents or violent men can be changed if you help them to connect to people with similar situations and to really share and help them to [re]connect with nature.
But how do you feel when you go back to Ladakh and see that it, too,changes year after year to be ... er,just like any other place on Earth?
There have been times when it becomes very depressing and upsetting.The worst was in 1989 when Buddhists and Muslims were killing each other.And year after year, the change has been quite difficult. But each year, with the breakdown of communities and ecological conditions, there were more and more Ladakhis who became interested in looking for alternatives,in assisting our work, particularly in the last 10 or so years. This interest has been going on at the same time as the destruction. So that has given me the strength and the hope to continue.
It seems young children nowadays have been groomed to think that they have to be No.1, and the interdependence has been thus cut off ...
Yes, absolutely. Even explicitly. In Ladakh they have now been taught:'You've got to be more ambitious; you've got to literally be more greedy; you've got to look up to [be] number one'.These are the terrible values that are being taught in the schools. In many journals, they'll talk about community identity as tribalism, and they identify tribalism with friction, with warfare.And the picture is painted that in the past, all of these diverse war-like tribes were fighting each other, and that modernity and homogenising has created peace. Well, let's look at how peaceful America is - look at the teenagers who go to school and kill each other, look at the violent crimes.You don't have group violence in the same way, but you have a complete breakdown. A lot of violence.
When you centralise power and you push people into the big cities, and they have to have a job for survival,then the people in power will give jobs to people of their own kind. If they're Buddhists, then they give the jobs to Buddhists. And if they're Muslims, then to Muslims. And this leads to ethnic friction and violence.
Centralisation is part of globalisation.Decentralisation is what can allow more people to have jobs, and to have interdependence with different groups.
I think another very major point is that by destroying communities and then creating job scarcity, these are crimes against humanity. However many people we are, there is more work to be done. Unemployment is a modern product of this economy. It never existed for thousands of years in any society.The artificial constriction of job opportunities is a crime against humanity that must be written about,explaining how and why it could happen.With more people, we need more care,because we have more work. First of all, every plant, every fish, every thing that lives right now is threatened, so we need more people caring for everything that's living. With global warming, we have drought and floods.
We need to protect everything against floods, fire and drought. So that means more people caring for every bit of water,and every little tree, so there's more work than ever. However many people we are, we need proportionate teachers,nurses, doctors ... there is no limit of work. But through this globalising path we are artificially constricting, and we're partly doing it through taxes and subsidies. So we must expose them.
And there's also this artificial scarcity of time ...
The scarcity of time is directly linked to the scarcity of jobs. Because we support businesses when they use technology and fossil fuel, they benefit from scientific research, subsidies and tax breaks. And the more fossil fuel they use, the less they pay. It's more the small businesses that use very little that will be punished because they pay more. This is crazy.
At the same time, if you employ a person, you pay heavy taxes. This should be shifted toward reducing the taxes on employment and increasing the taxes on technology and fossil fuel. The technology is part of speeding everything up. So the few people who have the jobs now in computers, you have to answer with more posts. Whereas when it was by post, in a day, you might have to answer how many letters. And now with emails, you have to answer much more.
It's because we've chosen subsidising technology and subsidising speed, which is linked to unemployment.
What project is your organisation working on right now?
We are working on a film called,"Economics of Happiness", which should be ready in about two months.I've worked on it for more than four years, and I've tried to get people from every continent -Africa, South America, North America, Europe, China,India, Thailand - to basically spell out that the globalisation of consumer culture is creating too much unhappiness in the world, and that localising would solve most of these problems. Localising needs to be pursued with an international and collaborative mindset. It's not about isolation. It's not about no travel, no trade. We actually need more deep,deep dialogue between the North and the South. And we need it now more than ever before.
Monday, September 21, 2009
An inconvenient truth from the plains of Isan
Some people don't believe global warming is real and many are not so sure it is happening now. To these people Vichein Kerdsuk, a researcher at the Research and Development Institute (RDI) of Khon Kaen University, would like to say that climate change is definitely already taking a toll on the Thung Kula Ronghai (the plain of crying nomads), the heartland of the world famous Thai hom mali jasmine rice.
CHANGING TIMES: An old farmer surveys his rice farm in the northeast. Climate experts have warned of drastic declines in crop yields due to climate change.
A paper presented to the RDI symposium 2009 by academics and his team provides evidence that the northeastern plain is already experiencing the impacts of global warming, including a higher mean temperature, change in the rain pattern and more frequent natural disasters.
Farmers in the plain, which is the largest area of jasmine rice cultivation in the country, have suffered on average a 45% reduction in production of hom mali rice in recent years, according to the research.
The study also showed extreme weather swings - drought and floods are an increasing threat to farmers in the plain.
"Climate change is shaking up the 'Kitchen of the World'," Mr Vichein said, referring to the slogan coined by Dhanin Chearavanont, chairman of the Charoen Pokphand Group, and taken up by the Thaksin Shinawatra government to promote Thailand's position as a major global agricultural player.
Thai jasmine rice has long been popular around the world because of its taste and its good price, but the market has become highly competitive, with many countries now producing the rice variety. The "Kitchen of the World" campaign has sought to differentiate Thai hom mali grains from the competition and add value to the product.
While the campaign has not been a priority of the present government, there is no question of hom mali's continuing importance to the country's export portfolio. According to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, in the first five months of 2009 Thailand shipped 1.17 million tonnes of Thai hom mali rice, worth 28.5 billion baht.
PRIDE OF THAILAND: A farmer with hom mali shoots in his hand.
Thung Kula Ronghai covers 2.1 million rai (3,360 square kilometres), an area five times the size of Singapore, spread throughout the five northeastern provinces of Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Surin, Si Sa Ket and Yasothon.
Northeastern farmers have an intimate relationship with the cycles of nature and have always had to deal with climate variations, but the changes in recent years - hotter weather and more frequent natural disasters - have been harder to adapt to.
Buasi Srikhampha, 51, who has two rai of paddy field in Rasi Salai district of Si Sa Ket province, said her once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream. "Everything has changed so quickly and life has become very hard," she said. "My crops are losing out to both drought and flood.
"We are used to annual drought and know how to coexist with it, but we are not used to extreme weather coming on so swiftly and lasting so long," said the farmer.
To get out from under the burden of the family's accumulated debts, her husband and her two teenage daughters have migrated to Bangkok to work, leaving her alone to take care of the farm.
GREEN FEAST: Buasi Srikhampha gathers grass to feed her two cows.
In this uncertain climate some farmers are reluctant to even sow their crops. Mrs Buasi said several of her neighbours who had been hurt by the unusually severe floods of last year are leaving their fields fallow for now, adopting a wait and see attitude.
"The weather fluctuations are scaring them," said Mrs Buasi.
SEASONS OFF KEEL
The air in the plain feels somehow more tense than before, as if nature can no longer be trusted. Dong Noonto, standing under a tree as he looked over his field, lamented that the seasons have gone haywire.
"When I was a boy, the rains would come and last a certain period of time," said the farmer, who has a nine-rai farm in Si Sa Ket province. "Now it is unpredictable."
The 59-year-old, who had never heard of global warming, said that many are turning to the supernatural for an explanation. A strong belief in mysterious supernatural powers is still found in the villages of the plains, a mixture of Phi (ancestral ghosts), Buddha and Brahman, as well as many local gods who reside in the ancient plain. Many blame unexplained occurrences such as severe droughts, fierce thunderstorms and unrelenting rains as the work of supernatural powers.
FARMER’S CONCERN: Dong Noonto watches over his young hom mali rice plants, above. He is worried his fields might be swallowed by flash floods.
But some devout Buddhists like Mr Dong see it otherwise.
"Some people who have lived in the plain for a long time believe this calamity is the work of Chao Phor [an ancestral ghost], because he is angry," said Mr Dong. He believes, however, that he and the other farmers in the plain are victims of their own karma.
"When you talk about global warming to farmers there aren't many who really understand what you are talking about," said Mr Vichein. Authorities should educate local communities about climate change and its impacts, he said, adding that such information is of vital importance to farmers in certain parts of the country which are prone to extreme weather conditions.
Mr Vichien hastened to add that he was not saying that the farmers are ignorant. During his study he witnessed many locals adjusting their farming schedules and methods in light of the changing conditions.
In some instances farmers have actually benefitted from the change. For example, some whose fields are on higher ground have taken advantage of increasing volumes of rainfall to initiate a second yearly crop, as is done by farmers in the Central Plain.
GROWING SEASON: Verdant rice fields under cultivation.
But Mr Vichein said that overall global warming is driving wild climate swings that are punishing the northeastern provinces with increasing frequency.
One clear consequence is the shifting of seasonal patterns. He said harvesting was typically being done much earlier - from late November to early October - due to a change in the rain pattern. In order to come up with suitable and timely measures to deal with and mitigate the effects of climate change, Mr Vichein is embarking on a wider and more in-depth research project to determine the impact of global warming in the Chi and Moon river basins. The research will cover up to 19 provinces in the Northeast.
Of his work in the Thung Kula Ronghai, he said: "Hopefully, the changes observed here can provide an early warning system for the rest of the country." He hopes his work will help to develop a sound scientific model for farming in a more threatening environment.
While a definitive answer will take years of careful study, the climatologist said the country should expect more extreme weather in the years ahead as rising ocean temperatures and diminishing rainforests cause shifts in global climate patterns.
CHANGING TIMES: An old farmer surveys his rice farm in the northeast. Climate experts have warned of drastic declines in crop yields due to climate change.
A paper presented to the RDI symposium 2009 by academics and his team provides evidence that the northeastern plain is already experiencing the impacts of global warming, including a higher mean temperature, change in the rain pattern and more frequent natural disasters.
Farmers in the plain, which is the largest area of jasmine rice cultivation in the country, have suffered on average a 45% reduction in production of hom mali rice in recent years, according to the research.
The study also showed extreme weather swings - drought and floods are an increasing threat to farmers in the plain.
"Climate change is shaking up the 'Kitchen of the World'," Mr Vichein said, referring to the slogan coined by Dhanin Chearavanont, chairman of the Charoen Pokphand Group, and taken up by the Thaksin Shinawatra government to promote Thailand's position as a major global agricultural player.
Thai jasmine rice has long been popular around the world because of its taste and its good price, but the market has become highly competitive, with many countries now producing the rice variety. The "Kitchen of the World" campaign has sought to differentiate Thai hom mali grains from the competition and add value to the product.
While the campaign has not been a priority of the present government, there is no question of hom mali's continuing importance to the country's export portfolio. According to the Thai Rice Exporters Association, in the first five months of 2009 Thailand shipped 1.17 million tonnes of Thai hom mali rice, worth 28.5 billion baht.
PRIDE OF THAILAND: A farmer with hom mali shoots in his hand.
Thung Kula Ronghai covers 2.1 million rai (3,360 square kilometres), an area five times the size of Singapore, spread throughout the five northeastern provinces of Roi Et, Maha Sarakham, Surin, Si Sa Ket and Yasothon.
Northeastern farmers have an intimate relationship with the cycles of nature and have always had to deal with climate variations, but the changes in recent years - hotter weather and more frequent natural disasters - have been harder to adapt to.
Buasi Srikhampha, 51, who has two rai of paddy field in Rasi Salai district of Si Sa Ket province, said her once-idyllic existence had turned into a kind of bad dream. "Everything has changed so quickly and life has become very hard," she said. "My crops are losing out to both drought and flood.
"We are used to annual drought and know how to coexist with it, but we are not used to extreme weather coming on so swiftly and lasting so long," said the farmer.
To get out from under the burden of the family's accumulated debts, her husband and her two teenage daughters have migrated to Bangkok to work, leaving her alone to take care of the farm.
GREEN FEAST: Buasi Srikhampha gathers grass to feed her two cows.
In this uncertain climate some farmers are reluctant to even sow their crops. Mrs Buasi said several of her neighbours who had been hurt by the unusually severe floods of last year are leaving their fields fallow for now, adopting a wait and see attitude.
"The weather fluctuations are scaring them," said Mrs Buasi.
SEASONS OFF KEEL
The air in the plain feels somehow more tense than before, as if nature can no longer be trusted. Dong Noonto, standing under a tree as he looked over his field, lamented that the seasons have gone haywire.
"When I was a boy, the rains would come and last a certain period of time," said the farmer, who has a nine-rai farm in Si Sa Ket province. "Now it is unpredictable."
The 59-year-old, who had never heard of global warming, said that many are turning to the supernatural for an explanation. A strong belief in mysterious supernatural powers is still found in the villages of the plains, a mixture of Phi (ancestral ghosts), Buddha and Brahman, as well as many local gods who reside in the ancient plain. Many blame unexplained occurrences such as severe droughts, fierce thunderstorms and unrelenting rains as the work of supernatural powers.
FARMER’S CONCERN: Dong Noonto watches over his young hom mali rice plants, above. He is worried his fields might be swallowed by flash floods.
But some devout Buddhists like Mr Dong see it otherwise.
"Some people who have lived in the plain for a long time believe this calamity is the work of Chao Phor [an ancestral ghost], because he is angry," said Mr Dong. He believes, however, that he and the other farmers in the plain are victims of their own karma.
"When you talk about global warming to farmers there aren't many who really understand what you are talking about," said Mr Vichein. Authorities should educate local communities about climate change and its impacts, he said, adding that such information is of vital importance to farmers in certain parts of the country which are prone to extreme weather conditions.
Mr Vichien hastened to add that he was not saying that the farmers are ignorant. During his study he witnessed many locals adjusting their farming schedules and methods in light of the changing conditions.
In some instances farmers have actually benefitted from the change. For example, some whose fields are on higher ground have taken advantage of increasing volumes of rainfall to initiate a second yearly crop, as is done by farmers in the Central Plain.
GROWING SEASON: Verdant rice fields under cultivation.
But Mr Vichein said that overall global warming is driving wild climate swings that are punishing the northeastern provinces with increasing frequency.
One clear consequence is the shifting of seasonal patterns. He said harvesting was typically being done much earlier - from late November to early October - due to a change in the rain pattern. In order to come up with suitable and timely measures to deal with and mitigate the effects of climate change, Mr Vichein is embarking on a wider and more in-depth research project to determine the impact of global warming in the Chi and Moon river basins. The research will cover up to 19 provinces in the Northeast.
Of his work in the Thung Kula Ronghai, he said: "Hopefully, the changes observed here can provide an early warning system for the rest of the country." He hopes his work will help to develop a sound scientific model for farming in a more threatening environment.
While a definitive answer will take years of careful study, the climatologist said the country should expect more extreme weather in the years ahead as rising ocean temperatures and diminishing rainforests cause shifts in global climate patterns.
A mammoth find in Serbia
Wading through the swamps that hundreds of thousands of years later would become eastern Serbia, "Vika" became stuck, never managing to pull herself ree, and eventually died.
Now Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched postion, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despitr disputes over her age, species and even sex.
In the millennia since the animal's death, 27 metres of earth were deposited on her until in May when a digger in the Kosolac mine pit, 60 kilometres east of Belgrade, exposed her skeleton.
Fortunately, no damage was done during the surprise discovery and now vika's remains, preserved at the site by a climatised tent, have been made accessible to scientific visitors.
"Our geologists dated Vika's age at 4.8 million years, based on the age of the surrounding stratum," says the director of the Belgrade Natural Museum, Zoran Markovic.
If Serbian experts are correct, Markovic says, Vika's remains are the oldest ever found in Europe.
Serbian scientists say that Vika was a sounthern mammoth Mammuthus Meridionalis, standing four metres tall and weighing seven tonnes, with 2.5-metre-long tusks.
For now, Serbian scientists have decided to leave Vika exactly where she (or he) was and in the crouched position in which she was found. This was due to one last posthumous event. Shortly after she died in the mud of Kostolac, Serbian experts say, her stomach literally exploded, breaking her spine and scattering a few ribs.
Leaving the ancient skeleton as it was found allows scientists to continue arguing over her age, species and gender, while also allowing tourists to created their own picture of Vika's final days long ago.
Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched position, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despite disputes over her age, species and even ses.
Now Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched postion, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despitr disputes over her age, species and even sex.
In the millennia since the animal's death, 27 metres of earth were deposited on her until in May when a digger in the Kosolac mine pit, 60 kilometres east of Belgrade, exposed her skeleton.
Fortunately, no damage was done during the surprise discovery and now vika's remains, preserved at the site by a climatised tent, have been made accessible to scientific visitors.
"Our geologists dated Vika's age at 4.8 million years, based on the age of the surrounding stratum," says the director of the Belgrade Natural Museum, Zoran Markovic.
If Serbian experts are correct, Markovic says, Vika's remains are the oldest ever found in Europe.
Serbian scientists say that Vika was a sounthern mammoth Mammuthus Meridionalis, standing four metres tall and weighing seven tonnes, with 2.5-metre-long tusks.
For now, Serbian scientists have decided to leave Vika exactly where she (or he) was and in the crouched position in which she was found. This was due to one last posthumous event. Shortly after she died in the mud of Kostolac, Serbian experts say, her stomach literally exploded, breaking her spine and scattering a few ribs.
Leaving the ancient skeleton as it was found allows scientists to continue arguing over her age, species and gender, while also allowing tourists to created their own picture of Vika's final days long ago.
Vika, a mammoth whose skeleton was found perfectly preserved in a crouched position, has been hailed as a "sensational" find despite disputes over her age, species and even ses.
THE HORSE WHISPERER
During her high school years, Siraya Chunekamrai - the county's first female horse veterinarian - pursued the typical teenage hobby of taking care of horses. Yet it was rather atypical too.
"Let's say that I have known how to give a horse an injection since I was at Triam Udom Suksa [the country's famous high school]," said the 51-year-old veterinarian, who opened the country's first hospital for horses and is the founder of the Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation, the country's first non-profit organisation to advocate the welfare of horses.
Siraya fell in love with horses when she was a young girl.
Growing up on Witthayu Road, Bangkok, near the state's cavalry horse stable and the famous horse riding school of German Lee Rhodes - Thailand's first horse riding teacher - located on Soi Sanam Klee (known as Soi Polo), she witnessed police bringing horses back to the barn every evening. In the past, Bangkok police used horses to patrol the city, especially Lumphini Park at night.
Finding the broncos ultra-cute, young Siraya prodded her mother to take up horse riding classes. It turned out she found vetting horses more fun than riding them.
"I have always loved taking care of horses more than riding. I was not that good at it and often fell from the horses' back," she said.
Rhodes, the horse-riding teacher, noticed the girl's passion for vetting and fetched her for practise whenever professional veterinarians visited.
So, young Siraya grew up playing animal doctor. She also loved playing "Superman", the only difference being that her superhero derivative protected animals instead of humans.
"I knew right from the start. I announced that I wanted to become a veterinarian when I was three years old," said Siraya, who grew up in a home full of dogs, mostly strays.
Siraya received a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kasetsart University, and a doctoral degree from Cornell University in the US, where she wrote her thesis on horse disease in Thailand.
For Siraya, while riding horses is dream-like, working in horse competitions - a shady world where doping is rampant - is an entirely different issue. As the first female horse veterinarian in the country, Siraya has met many obstacles in her work.
"It was like knocking on a door and having it slammed right in your face. When I walked into the veterinarian room, other male veterinarians gradually walked out," she said, recounting her first day at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club as their veterinarian.
Working in the racing field, Siraya has witnessed animal abuse - mostly unintentional - in the name of sport and competition.
She recounted sad tales of beautiful mustangs - drug-stimulated race horses - falling and rising again to sprint albeit on three legs, of old decommissioned horses being run at desolate race tracks in Chiang Mai province if they were lucky enough to survive. Time and time again, she ordered other veterinarians to ''terminate'' (mercy euthanasia) seriously injured horses. She was once sued by a horse owner _ an esteemed politician _ after she had ordered his highly doped horse to be terminated.
Siraya also introduced change in the racing field by using neutral and independent laboratories to conduct dope testing.
Siraya lobbied other veterinarians and opened Suan Sard Hospital, a veterinarian clinic in Onnuj, Bangkok. In 1997, she opened ''Horsepital'' in Nakhon Ratchasima province, the first hospital for horses in Thailand. Five years ago, she opened the Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation, which offers medical services at a very low rate and sometimes free of charge, gives professional knowledge workshops and recently launched a campaign to preserve local pony species.
Watching the foundation's veterinarian team is like watching Vets on Animal Planet, a famous cable television programme. The foundation's team often visits horses on remote farms in Lampang province. Siraya travels there, when time permits, to assist and train the team.
Last week she demonstrated neutering a male horse.
Unlike the sterile operating room at the Horsepital, this time Siraya had to operate on a plastic sheet in a tent.
She started the operation, as she does every time, by gently patting the patient on its nose and neck, whispering in its pointy ears. The horse looked surprisingly calm and relaxed, as if it was under a spell.
''The most important aspect of the operation is neither the surgical knife, the blood nor the stitches. It is the whispering in the ears,''said Siraya, after the operation.
What does she tell these horses?
Mostly soothing murmurs, she answered placidly. What she is whispering about does not matter, as horses cannot understand human languages.
''Horses can read us like a book. They observe our body language, our voice and movements.''
''Yes ... I am a horse whisperer,'' said Siriya, flashing a smile as she talked about the movie The Horse Whisperer (1998), in which Robert Redford plays a cowboy who can read horses' minds and treat them if they have suffered a mental breakdown by whispering in their ears.
Despite the human love affair with horses beginning in the ancient period, people are yet to fully comprehend these creatures.
''Horses are perhaps the most misunderstood creature of all, which leads to mistreatment,'' she said.
Horses maintain an alluring myth _ wild and adventurous. But in reality, horses are insecure, sensitive, panicky and submissive, she said.
Siraya's love affair with horses was and always will be atypical _ she's a new kind of horse whisperer or guardian. But wild horses couldn't drag her away from her mission.
"Let's say that I have known how to give a horse an injection since I was at Triam Udom Suksa [the country's famous high school]," said the 51-year-old veterinarian, who opened the country's first hospital for horses and is the founder of the Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation, the country's first non-profit organisation to advocate the welfare of horses.
Siraya fell in love with horses when she was a young girl.
Growing up on Witthayu Road, Bangkok, near the state's cavalry horse stable and the famous horse riding school of German Lee Rhodes - Thailand's first horse riding teacher - located on Soi Sanam Klee (known as Soi Polo), she witnessed police bringing horses back to the barn every evening. In the past, Bangkok police used horses to patrol the city, especially Lumphini Park at night.
Finding the broncos ultra-cute, young Siraya prodded her mother to take up horse riding classes. It turned out she found vetting horses more fun than riding them.
"I have always loved taking care of horses more than riding. I was not that good at it and often fell from the horses' back," she said.
Rhodes, the horse-riding teacher, noticed the girl's passion for vetting and fetched her for practise whenever professional veterinarians visited.
So, young Siraya grew up playing animal doctor. She also loved playing "Superman", the only difference being that her superhero derivative protected animals instead of humans.
"I knew right from the start. I announced that I wanted to become a veterinarian when I was three years old," said Siraya, who grew up in a home full of dogs, mostly strays.
Siraya received a bachelor's degree from the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Kasetsart University, and a doctoral degree from Cornell University in the US, where she wrote her thesis on horse disease in Thailand.
For Siraya, while riding horses is dream-like, working in horse competitions - a shady world where doping is rampant - is an entirely different issue. As the first female horse veterinarian in the country, Siraya has met many obstacles in her work.
"It was like knocking on a door and having it slammed right in your face. When I walked into the veterinarian room, other male veterinarians gradually walked out," she said, recounting her first day at the Royal Bangkok Sports Club as their veterinarian.
Working in the racing field, Siraya has witnessed animal abuse - mostly unintentional - in the name of sport and competition.
She recounted sad tales of beautiful mustangs - drug-stimulated race horses - falling and rising again to sprint albeit on three legs, of old decommissioned horses being run at desolate race tracks in Chiang Mai province if they were lucky enough to survive. Time and time again, she ordered other veterinarians to ''terminate'' (mercy euthanasia) seriously injured horses. She was once sued by a horse owner _ an esteemed politician _ after she had ordered his highly doped horse to be terminated.
Siraya also introduced change in the racing field by using neutral and independent laboratories to conduct dope testing.
Siraya lobbied other veterinarians and opened Suan Sard Hospital, a veterinarian clinic in Onnuj, Bangkok. In 1997, she opened ''Horsepital'' in Nakhon Ratchasima province, the first hospital for horses in Thailand. Five years ago, she opened the Lampang Pony Welfare Foundation, which offers medical services at a very low rate and sometimes free of charge, gives professional knowledge workshops and recently launched a campaign to preserve local pony species.
Watching the foundation's veterinarian team is like watching Vets on Animal Planet, a famous cable television programme. The foundation's team often visits horses on remote farms in Lampang province. Siraya travels there, when time permits, to assist and train the team.
Last week she demonstrated neutering a male horse.
Unlike the sterile operating room at the Horsepital, this time Siraya had to operate on a plastic sheet in a tent.
She started the operation, as she does every time, by gently patting the patient on its nose and neck, whispering in its pointy ears. The horse looked surprisingly calm and relaxed, as if it was under a spell.
''The most important aspect of the operation is neither the surgical knife, the blood nor the stitches. It is the whispering in the ears,''said Siraya, after the operation.
What does she tell these horses?
Mostly soothing murmurs, she answered placidly. What she is whispering about does not matter, as horses cannot understand human languages.
''Horses can read us like a book. They observe our body language, our voice and movements.''
''Yes ... I am a horse whisperer,'' said Siriya, flashing a smile as she talked about the movie The Horse Whisperer (1998), in which Robert Redford plays a cowboy who can read horses' minds and treat them if they have suffered a mental breakdown by whispering in their ears.
Despite the human love affair with horses beginning in the ancient period, people are yet to fully comprehend these creatures.
''Horses are perhaps the most misunderstood creature of all, which leads to mistreatment,'' she said.
Horses maintain an alluring myth _ wild and adventurous. But in reality, horses are insecure, sensitive, panicky and submissive, she said.
Siraya's love affair with horses was and always will be atypical _ she's a new kind of horse whisperer or guardian. But wild horses couldn't drag her away from her mission.
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