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News articles on asia

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Mongabay.com news articles on asia in blog format. Updated regularly.

China to push for sustainable logging overseas

(04/25/2007) In a surprising move, China has developed guidelines for the establishment of sustainable forest plantations abroad by Chinese firms, according to the International Tropical Timber Organization's (ITTO) April 1 Tropical Timber Market Report. The move comes as China faces increasing criticism from environmental groups for pillaging the world's forests to feed its rapidly growing economy.


Indonesia urges rich countries to ban illegally logged wood products

(04/25/2007) Indonesia has urged rich countries not to buy products made from illegally logged timber, echoing a similar call from Malaysia last month, according to the International Tropical Timber Organization's (ITTO) April 1 Tropical Timber Market Report.


Illegal logging in Malaysia due to gangsters

(04/25/2007) The Malaysian government has blamed "gangsters" for illegal logging syndicates in the country. Malaysia's deforestation rate has leapt by 86 percent since the close of the 1990s, according to data from the U.N.


Incandescent light bulb ban would cut India's GHG emissions 4%

(04/17/2007) A ban on incandescent light bulbs would cut India's greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 4 percent said environmental group Greenpeace at a press conference Monday. Greenpeace argues that adopting compact florescent bulbs and other more efficient lighting technologies would help India fight global warming. India is already the world's fifth largest GHG polluter, accounting for around 3 percent of global emissions.


China's demand for hardwood drives illegal logging says Greenpeace

(04/17/2007) Environmental group Greenpeace said on Tuesday China should take responsibility for illegal hardwood logging in Southeast Asia which supplied the raw materials for Chinese exports to the West.


Damage to Yangtze 'irreversible' says China

(04/16/2007) Pollution, dams and excessive boat traffic have caused an 'largely irreversible' decline in the aquatic ecology of the Yangtze says a report issued by China's official State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA).


Tsunami-producing quake caused mass coral death in Indonesia

(04/11/2007) Researchers say 300 kilometers of sea floor heaved more than a meter upwards, exposing -- and killing -- corals in unprecedented numbers. Scientists have reported what is thought to be one of the world's greatest mass death of corals ever recorded as a result of the earthquake in Aceh, Indonesia on 28 March 2005.


Indonesia and Australia sign deforestation pact

(04/09/2007) Indonesia and Australia have agreed to reduce deforestation in southeast Asia according to Malcolm Turnbull, the Australian Minister for the Environment and Water Resources. Turnbull was in Jakarta meeting with the Indonesian Minister for Forestry, M. S. Kaban, and the Minister for the Environment, Rachmat Witoelar.


Indonesia seeks to increase deforestation rate, already world's highest

(04/09/2007) Already having the highest deforestation rate in the world, Indonesia's Minister of Forestry announced the country would increase its harvest quota for natural timber for 2007 by 12 percent to 9.1 million cubic meters according to the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). ITTO said the target quota may actually be 12.4 million cubic meters (53 percent higher than 2006) for the year.


Photos of world's largest, rarest Easter bunny found in Sumatra

(04/04/2007) Scientists from the Wildlife conservation Society working in the rainforests of Sumatra have captured the world's largest rabbit on film using remote camera traps.


Palm oil doesn't have to be bad for the environment

(04/04/2007) As traditionally practiced in southeast Asia, oil palm cultivation is responsible for widespread deforestation that reduces biodiversity, degrades important ecological services, worsens climate change, and traps workers in inequitable conditions sometimes analogous to slavery. This doesn't have to be the case. Following examples set forth by the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil and firms like Golden Hope Plantations Berhad, a Malaysian palm oil producer, oil palm can be cultivated in a manner that helps mitigate climate change, preserves biodiversity, and brings economic opportunities to desperately poor rural populations.


Eco-friendly palm oil could help alleviate poverty in Indonesia

(04/03/2007) The Associated Press (AP) recently quoted Marcel Silvius, a climate expert at Wetlands International in the Netherlands, as saying palm oil is a failure as a biofuel. This would be a misleading statement and one that doesn't help efforts to devise a workable solution to the multiplicity of issues surrounding the use of palm oil.


The news of extinction: western media's response to the demise of the Baiji

(04/01/2007) The news came and went with an alacrity that I found alarming, almost jolting. I waited for weeks, faithfully; I could not believe that the initial announcement would be followed by nothing but silence on the issue, no rationalizations, no opinions, no discussions, no outpourings of grief. Just silence.


Malaysia to use certification to crack down on illegal logging

(03/27/2007) Malaysia will ask its timber suppliers in other countries to provide certification on the origin of wood according to a report from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO). The move will help Malaysia fight allegations that its timber processors are complicit in the illegal logging industry.


Logging reduces abundance of rare mammals in Borneo

(03/27/2007) Selective logging profoundly reduces the abundance of rare forest species according to surveys of logged and unlogged rainforests on the island of Borneo, one of the most biodiverse parts of southeast Asia. The results, published in a trio of papers, have implications for biodiversity and forest conservation efforts in one of the world's most threatened ecosystems.


Indonesia is 3rd largest greenhouse gas producer due to deforestation

(03/26/2007) Indonesia trails only the United States and China in greenhouse gas emissions, reports a study released Friday by the World Bank and the British government.


20 species of grouper fish are endangered

(03/21/2007) 20 of the world's 162 known species of grouper are threatened with extinction according to a survey by conservation groups. Grouper are popular food fish throughout the world, but due to their slow reproductive rates they are particularly vulnerable to overharvesting.


Fires burn across Burma; pollution levels rise in Thailand

(03/20/2007) Fires are raging across Myanmar (Burma) causing 'haze' pollution in neighboring Thailand, Laos, and southern China according to new satellite images release by NASA. The fires are set annually during the dry season for clearing brush and scrub for agriculture. In especially dry years the fires often spread into adjacent forest areas.


Fruit-eating birds at particular risk from Indonesian deforestation

(03/20/2007) A new study on the island of Sulawesi in Indonesia confirms the critical importance of fig trees to the rainforest ecosystem. The research has implications for wildlife conservation in an area of high rates of forest loss from agricultural conversion and logging.


Asian pollution contributes to California warming

(03/14/2007) Pollution from Asia may cause warmer spring temperatures on the West Coast of the United States according to a new study led by scientists at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, at the University of California San Diego.


Air pollution can reduce rainfall

(03/08/2007) Air pollution can reduce rainfall in mountainous areas according to research published in Friday's issue of the journal Science. 50 years of measurements at Mt. Hua near Xi'an, in central China, show that precipitation levels can be decreased by 30 to 50 percent during hazy conditions. The researchers say this is the result of high concentrations of particulates in the air which cause cloud droplets to be smaller and less likely to become raindrops.


Bird species rediscovered after 139 years

(03/06/2007) A wetland bird that has been 'lost' for nearly 140 years was rediscovered at a wastewater treatment plant in Thailand according to bird conservation group BirdLife International.


Farming in the rainforest can preserve biodiversity, ecological services

(03/05/2007) While conversion of tropical forest for agriculture results in significant declines in biodiversity and carbon storage, an analysis of Indonesian rainforests shows that farming cacao under the partial shade of high canopy trees can provide a way to balance economic gain with environmental considerations.


Asian pollution causes stronger thunderstorms, may worsen global warming

(03/05/2007) Growing levels of pollution in Asia are altering the chemistry of the atmosphere and causing a change in Pacific storm patterns according to researchers writing in the online early edition of PNAS


2006 Indonesian forest fires worst since 1998

(03/01/2007) NASA has linked el Nino to the worst fires in Indonesia since the 1997-1998 conflagration that burned nearly 25 million acres (10 million hectares) of land across the country.


Biologists record call of rare Sumatran ground cuckoo for first time

(02/26/2007) A team of biologists with the New York-based Wildlife conservation Society (WCS) have recorded for the first time the call of the extremely rare Sumatran ground cuckoo, found only on the island of Sumatra in Indonesia.


Global warming could cause Canadian forests to absorb more carbon

(02/18/2007) Researchers say they have found links between seasonal temperature changes and the uptake and loss of carbon dioxide.


China misses pollution targets

(02/13/2007) China's environmental protection agency said that the country failed to meet any of its 2006 pollution control goals according to its web site. The State Environmental Protection (SEPA) admitted that economic growth actually caused the country to fall well behind its environmental targets.


Rare vulture colony found in Cambodia

(02/06/2007) Working in the remote forests of Cambodia, conservationists from the Wildlife conservation Society (WCS) have just discovered Southeast Asia's only known breeding colony of slender-billed vultures, one of the world's most threatened bird species.


98% of orangutan habitat in Borneo, Sumatra gone by 2022

(02/06/2007) A report from the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) today warns that illegal logging is rapidly destroying the last remaining habitat for orangutans in Borneo and Sumatra. The report says that up to 98 percent may be destroyed by 2022 without urgent action.


Just how bad is the biodiversity extinction crisis?

(02/06/2007) In recent years, scientists have warned of a looming biodiversity extinction crisis, one that will rival or exceed the five historic mass extinctions that occurred millions of years ago. Unlike these past extinctions, which were variously the result of catastrophic climate change, extraterrestrial collisions, atmospheric poisoning, and hyperactive volcanism, the current extinction event is one of our own making, fueled mainly by habitat destruction and, to a lesser extent, over-exploitation of certain species. While few scientists doubt species extinction is occurring, the degree to which it will occur in the future has long been subject of debate in conservation literature. Looking solely at species loss resulting from tropical deforestation, some researchers have forecast extinction rates as high as 75 percent. Now a new paper, published in Biotropica, argues that the most dire of these projections may be overstated. Using models that show lower rates of forest loss based on slowing population growth and other factors, Joseph Wright from the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama and Helene Muller-Landau from the University of Minnesota say that species loss may be more moderate than the commonly cited figures. While some scientists have criticized their work as "overly optimistic," prominent biologists say that their research has ignited an important discussion and raises fundamental questions about future conservation priorities and research efforts. This could ultimately result in more effective strategies for conserving biological diversity, they say.


Unknown mollusks and crustaceans discovered in the Philippines

(02/05/2007) A French-led marine expedition team may have discovered hundreds of previously unknown species of mollusks and crustaceans around Panglao, an island in the Philippines, according to a report from the Associated Press.


Live fish trade causing massive depletion of coral reef species

(01/24/2007) According to a new study conducted by Cambridge University researchers off the northern coast of Borneo, the live reef fish trade is having a major impact on marine populations.


China invests in $5.5B biofuels project in Borneo, New Guinea

(01/18/2007) China has agreed to invest in a $5.5 billion biofuels project on the islands of New Guinea and Borneo. The plan promises to be controversial among environmentalists who say that it will destroy some of the world's most biodiverse -- and threatened -- ecosystems on the planet.


Impact of new forest law in India unknown

(12/21/2006) A new law giving land rights to millions of poor Indian forest dwellers is stirring debate in the conservation community according to a report from Reuters.


China launches green buying policy

(12/19/2006) China's Ministry of Finance and the State Environmental Protection Administration (SEPA) announced that starting in 2007, the country's central and provincial governments will prioritize their purchasing of environmentally friendly products and services.


Papua New Guinea log exports to China surge

(12/19/2006) Papua New Guinea (PNG) log exports surged in October according to the International Tropical Timber Organization's (ITTO) Tropical Timber Market Report.


New Zealand implements 'green timber' policy

(12/19/2006) New Zealand's government will only buy timber and wood products only from legally and sustainably managed forests according to a new policy paper put out Monday by the minstry of forestry.


Pictures of species discovered in Borneo rainforest

(12/19/2006) Yesterday's announcement by WWF that 52 previously unknown species were discovered in the fast-disappearing rainforests of Borneo brings the total number of 'new' species found on the island to more than 400 since 1994.


52 species discovered in Borneo rainforest

(12/19/2006) In 2006 scientists discovered 52 species in the highly threatened rainforests of Borneo according to a new report from WWF, an environmental group working to preserve the biodiverse 'Heart of Borneo' from further destruction.


China will continue search for 'extinct' baiji river dolphin

(12/18/2006) Chinese state media reports that scientists will continue to search for the baiji dolphin even after a 38-day search failed to produce any evidence of its existence in the Yangtze River.


Unknown species of lizard discovered in Borneo

(12/11/2006) A previously unknown species of lizard was discovered in Borneo by Chris Austin, assistant curator of herpetology at Louisiana State University's Museum of Natural Science. Photos and the scientific name of the lizard, which was discovered while Austin was conducting field research in Sarawak, will be unveiled in the March 2007 edition of Journal of Herpetology.


Chinese river dolphin nearly extinct says official

(12/03/2006) Xinhua, China's state news agency, reported that a 26-day search for the Baiji, or the Yangtze dolphin, found no dolphins. The Baiji is highly threatened by pollution, overfishing, and obstructions like dams.


Groundwater supplies polluted in 90% of cities in China

(12/03/2006) Groundwater water supplies are polluted or overexploited in about 9 out of every 10 Chinese cities according to official state media.


'Bushmeat' link to SARS outbreak confirmed

(11/23/2006) Chinese scientists say they have found a genetic link between SARS in civet cats, a racoon-like animal eaten as a delicacy in China, and humans.


China to build world's largest solar power plant

(11/21/2006) China plans to build the world's largest solar power station in the northwestern province of Gansu according to a report from Xinhua, China's state news agency. Construction of the 100 megawatt facility will take five years and cost 6.03 billion yuan ($766 million).


Indonesia may seek rainforest conservation compensation to fight global warming

(11/16/2006) Indonesia may soon join the Coalition of Rainforest Nations in seeking compensation for rainforest conservation, according to a report from the International Tropical Timber Organization (ITTO), a timber industry group.


Southeast Asian nations propose haze fund, but fail to address root cause

(11/13/2006) Southeast Asian nations agreed to create to a fund to help fight forest fires in Indonesian according to a report from Retuers. The pledge however stops short of addressing the root cause of the choking haze: deforestation.


Philippines announces new nature conservation plan

(11/08/2006) Philippine president Gloria Arroyo has enacted a new national conservation policy according to conservation International (CI). Arroyo signed an Executive Order at a Nov. 8 ceremony that stated "It is the policy of the state to protect, conserve and sustainably use biological diversity to ensure and secure the well-being of present and future generations of Filipinos."


China may surpass U.S. in carbon dioxide emissions by 2009

(11/07/2006) China's output of carbon dioxide, a gas linked to global warming, may surprass that of the United States by 2009, about a decade earlier than previous estimates according to a report released Tuesday by the International Energy Agency. China currently ranks second behind the United States in carbon dioxide emissions, but rapid economic growth, fueled heavily by coal, is spurring a dramatic rise in greenhouse gas pollution. China's emissions growth is one of the big reasons why the United States and Australia have refused to sign the Kyoto Protocol which calls for emissions limits for industrialized countries but none for developing economies including China, India, and Brazil.



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