Indonesia Releases Orangutans Into the Wild

Jakarta Globe, February 29, 2012

A handout photo taken in Palangkaraya, Central Kalimantan on
 Feb. 15, 2012 shows Tantri, an orangutan who was released in Bukit
Batikap Conservation forest on Tuesday. Four orangutans were released
 into the wild on Indonesia's Borneo island on Tuesday. (AFP Photo/Borneo
Orangutan Survival Foundation) 

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Good job, may this set out a good precedence. "Born to be Wild" seems like a great movie, not my kind of movie but it looks great from watching the trailer.

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Four orangutans were released into the wild on Indonesia’s Borneo island on Tuesday, an official said, as the country ramps up efforts to protect the animals from extinction.

They were the first among 40 orangutans planned to be released by the end of the year, Mega Hariyanto, the forestry ministry’s conservation chief for Central Kalimantan province, told AFP.

“The orangutans were flown from the rehabilitation center to a town near the Bukit Batikap forest on Monday. A team of vets took them to the forest this morning by helicopter,” he said.

The release was a collaborative effort between the Forestry Ministry and non-profit organization Borneo Orangutan Survival (BOS) Foundation, Hariyanto said.

“There are still more than 600 individual orangutans at the Central Kalimantan Orangutan Reintroduction Project who are waiting to be released back to their natural habitat,” the organization said in a press statement.

A dozen more orangutans are expected to be set free by end of next month, it added.

Experts say there are about 50,000 to 60,000 orangutans left in the wild, 80 percent of them in Indonesia and the rest in Malaysia.

They are faced with extinction from poaching and the rapid destruction of their forest habitat, driven largely by palm oil and paper plantations.

Conservationists in the region have been raising awareness about the plight of the endangered primates in various ways.

“Born to be Wild,” a documentary by Warner Bros and IMAX which has been screening worldwide since last year, shows primate expert and Orangutan Foundation International founder Birute Mary Galdikas rescue, rehabilitate and return orphaned orangutans into the wild.

The film’s producers last week screened the film in the jungle where, according to the crew, at least four orangutans watched themselves on screen.

“Their reaction was great. Orangutans have short attention span and it is incredible to have them sit 10 to 15 minutes to watch the movie,” crew member Frederick Galdikas said.

Agence France-Presse

Australia Insists Cattle Safeguards Work After New Indonesia Cattle Cruelty Claims

Jakarta Globe, February 29, 2012

Australian cattle being unloaded in Jakarta. (AFP Photo/File)   

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very proud with Australian government who have concern with their commodity, they didn't just sell their product but also make sure that process of their product maintain well

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Sydney. Australia insisted Wednesday that livestock safeguards introduced after an animal cruelty row with Indonesia were working, despite new footage showing cattle mistreatment in the Southeast Asian nation.

Agriculture Minister Joe Ludwig said he was “shocked” by the latest video, shot by activist group Animals Australia last month in Indonesian slaughterhouses, showing distressed cows being hosed, prodded and in pain.

One cow is shown still bellowing more than one minute after its throat is cut as workers begin cutting flesh from its neck.

Animals Australia spokeswoman Lyn White said the footage showed Indonesian workers “cannot even be relied upon not to start cutting up Australian animals before they are dead.”

Canberra halted all live cattle exports to Indonesia for a month last year after a strong public backlash to similar footage aired in a television documentary.

It only resumed the trade after Indonesia agreed to a strict new licensing system designed to protect animal welfare.

Ludwig said “many in the community would be horrified” by the latest footage, which shows forms of mistreatment the new system was designed to stamp out, but he insisted the safeguards were working.

“If this industry does want a bright future it has to put animal welfare at the heart of the system. What we now have is a system that allows that to happen,” Ludwig told ABC radio.

“Many exporters manage the supply chain, do all the right things, but I said right at the beginning when I put this system in place that we would see instances like this, we would see slips, we would see mistakes.”

Ludwig said he had referred the video to the livestock export regulator and efforts were underway to trace the animals to their Australian origin and to determine the slaughterhouses shown in the video.

“The regulator is now investigating the footage with Animals Australia and the RSPCA to identify which abattoirs and which supply chains are involved,” he said.

“If they are Australian cattle and if we can identify the exporter then we can take appropriate action against that exporter.”

In instances where cruelty to exported livestock was “beyond the pale” he added that the new system allowed for “very strong” remedial action.

Agence France-Presse

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RI needs 30 years to become green again

Antara News, Fri, February 24 2012

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Wonosobo, Central Java  (ANTARA News) - Indonesia will be green again in 30 years if all parties work hard in terms of greening efforts, Forestry Minister Zulkifli Hasan said here Friday.

Zulkifli Hasan. (ANTARA)

"According to observers, Indonesia will need 165 years to become green again if the treatment is just normal. But with the whole community taking part in greening activity, God willing, it will only take about 30 years," he said when inaugurating a nursery school at SMP Negeri I Mojotengah, Wonosobo district, Central Java province.

Also present at the function were Wonosobo District Chief Abdul Kholiq Arif and the Chief of the Diponegoro Military Command, Major General Mulhim Asyrof.

The minister invited all members of the community to develop a sense of love for the environment which meant not allowing land to go to waste.

"God gave the Indonesian people land that is so fertile, there is year-round sunshine hence do not let land go to miserable waste. If let the land go to waste God will be angry, floods will occur in the rainy season and drought in the dry season," the minister said.

He said every inch of fallow land must be planted with trees or vegetables depending on the conditions of the land.

Meanwhile, Wonosobo District Chief Kholiq Arif said Wonosobo district was a water catchment area buffering approximately 13 districts/cities in Central Java, namely Semarang, Kendal, Batang, Pekalongan, Wonosobo, Banjarnegara, Purbalingga, Banyumas, Cilacap, Temanggung, Kebumen, and Purworejo.

"If the water availability in Wonosobo is good then the same condition will apply in the other regions but if Wonosobo is damaged floods will occur and water supply in some districts/cities will be threatened," Kholiq Arif said.

He said most people still lacked a proper understanding of the importance of environmental sustainability . This was characterized by the function transfer of forests which are not well-patterned, as well as the agricultural patterns that are not in favor of nature conservation. As a result, a various kinds of environmental damage occur such as critical land, habitat loss and a decrease in water discharge.

Kholiq Arif said the school nursery group programs (KBS) or the go green scouting movement and the army-environmental units are aligned with one of the pillars in saving the environment of Dieng (Central Java) areas.

Editor: Priyambodo RH

It’s Not a Fairytale: Seattle to Build Nation’s First Food Forest

Forget meadows. The city’s new park will be filled with edible plants, and everything from pears to herbs will be free for the taking. 

Take Part, by Clare Leschin-Hoar, February 21, 2012

Hungry? Just head over to the park. Seattle's new food forest aims to be
an edible wilderness. (Photo: Buena Vista Images/Getty Images)

Seattle’s vision of an urban food oasis is going forward. A seven-acre plot of land in the city’s Beacon Hill neighborhood will be planted with hundreds of different kinds of edibles: walnut and chestnut trees; blueberry and raspberry bushes; fruit trees, including apples and pears; exotics like pineapple, yuzu citrus, guava, persimmons, honeyberries, and lingonberries; herbs; and more. All will be available for public plucking to anyone who wanders into the city’s first food forest.

“This is totally innovative, and has never been done before in a public park,” Margarett Harrison, lead landscape architect for the Beacon Food Forest project, tells TakePart. Harrison is working on construction and permit drawings now and expects to break ground this summer.

The concept of a food forest certainly pushes the envelope on urban agriculture and is grounded in the concept of permaculture, which means it will be perennial and self-sustaining, like a forest is in the wild. Not only is this forest Seattle’s first large-scale permaculture project, but it’s also believed to be the first of its kind in the nation.

“The concept means we consider the soils, companion plants, insects, bugs—everything will be mutually beneficial to each other,” says Harrison.

That the plan came together at all is remarkable on its own. What started as a group project for a permaculture design course ended up as a textbook example of community outreach gone right.

“Friends of the Food Forest undertook heroic outreach efforts to secure neighborhood support. The team mailed over 6,000 postcards in five different languages, tabled at events and fairs, and posted fliers,” writes Robert Mellinger for Crosscut.

Neighborhood input was so valued by the organizers, they even used translators to help Chinese residents have a voice in the planning.

So just who gets to harvest all that low-hanging fruit when the time comes?

“Anyone and everyone,” says Harrison. “There was major discussion about it. People worried, ‘What if someone comes and takes all the blueberries?’ That could very well happen, but maybe someone needed those blueberries. We look at it this way—if we have none at the end of blueberry season, then it means we’re successful.”

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Sea of Biological Wealth in Indonesia, but No Database

Jakarta Globe, Fidelis E. Satriastanti, February 19, 2012

A 3-day-old Javan Surili sipping milk from a zoo keeper at Tamansari Zoo
 in Bandung, West Java, on Monday. The Presbytis comatas primates are
listed on the International Union Conservation of Nature’s endangered species
list and live in Java’s tropical forests. (JG Photo/Rezza Estily)   

       

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Indonesia might lay claim to being the country with the second-highest level of biodiversity in the world after Brazil, but the government has no database to catalogue that wealth, an official says.

Vidya S. Nalang, the head of the Environment Ministry’s Genetic Resources Management Program, said over the weekend that all the government had was a clearing house with limited information on resources such as plant and animal species.

“We used to have a database with the full data from 2005-10 on the medicinal properties [of plants],” she said. “But we had to take it down pending negotiations for the Nagoya Protocol.”

The protocol, part of the Convention on Biological Diversity, which Indonesia has ratified, aims to regulate the use of genes from plants or animals that originate in other countries and ensure that all nations are compensated fairly for discoveries that are derived from their native species.

Vidya said that in the absence of a government agency to compile a database of the country’s biodiversity, the state had assigned the Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) to take over the task, given that it already had its own database and research.

Indonesia is ranked in the top 5 worldwide for its plant biodiversity, with 55 percent of that diversity endemic to Indonesia, according to the CBD.

In addition, the archipelago is home to 12 percent of the world’s mammals, 17 percent of its birds and 16 percent of reptiles, while its waters are home to 450 of the 700 coral species in the world.

The LIPI previously said that as of 2010, it had identified and catalogued at least 2.5 million specimens of fauna and 2 million specimens of plants but that efforts to build up a comprehensive database were held back by a lack of government attention and old, crashing computers.

“Because we have limited technology but plenty to upload, the computer crashed a few years ago,” Siti Nuramaliati Prijono, director of LIPI’s Center for Biology, said last March. “The scientists then got upset because when they tried to upload their data, it all disappeared. Now we have the system up and running, but not all the data can be accessed at the same time. Some of the data is hosted on the old system and the rest on the new one.”

Siti said another problem was that after all the trouble involved in uploading the data, the information was mostly left unused, even by experts in the country.

The government’s response at the time was that it would set up a working database prior to a key meeting on the Nagoya Protocol in New York last May. However, the site meant to host the data, www.biology.lipi.go.id, has been blank since last year.

Arief Yuwono, the deputy head for environmental damage control and climate change at the Environment Ministry, said last year that part of the problem was that biodiversity issues were being shunted aside in favor of more popular issues such as climate change.

Court finds Monsanto guilty of poisoning

Deutsche Welle, 13 February 2012

A French court finds biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning. This groundbreaking verdict could influence future claims.

A French court on Monday declared US biotech giant Monsanto guilty of the chemical poisoning of a French farmer. This is the first such claim to reach a French court and could lend weight to other health claims against pesticide producers.

"Monsanto is responsible for Paul Francois' suffering after he inhaled the Lasso product ... and must entirely compensate him," said the judgment from the court in the southeastern city of Lyon.

Francois Lafforgue, lawyer for the plaintiff, labeled the verdict an "historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning."

Grain farmer Paul Francois, 47, says he suffered neurological problems including memory loss, headaches and stammering after inhaling Monsanto's Lasso weed killer in 2004.

He blames the agri-business giant for not providing adequate warnings on the product label.

The court ordered an expert opinion of the effects on the farmer to establish an amount for damages.

Monsanto said Monday that it was disappointed with the ruling and would look into a possible appeal.

"Monsanto always considered that there were not sufficient elements to establish a causal relationship between Paul Francois's symptoms and a potential poisoning," the company's lawyer, Jean-Philippe Delsart, said.

Fewer chemicals used today

Previous health claims from farmers have suffered in their ability to establish clear links between illnesses and exposure to pesticides. 

Monsanto is among the world's largest
agricultural biotech company's

In the Francois case, it was easier to pinpoint a specific incident - his inhalation of the Lasso when cleaning the tank of his crop sprayer - whereas other farmers are trying to argue the effects of accumulated exposures to various products.

This case harks back to a time when crop-protection chemicals were more heavily used in Europe. The EU has since banned a large number of substances considered dangerous.

Monsanto's Lasso, for example, was banned in France in 2007 following an EU directive after the product had already been withdrawn in some other countries.

Effects on others considered

The French association of crop protection companies, UIPP, said tests are done regularly to weigh cancer risks in humans.

"I think if we had a major health problem with pesticides, we would have already known about it," Jean-Charles Bocquet, UIPP's managing director, said.

Francois, meanwhile, is convinced he is just one of many to suffer effects from the pesticide. "I am alive today, but part of the farming population is going to be sacrificed and is going to die because of this," Francois said.

France's health and environment safety agency (ANSES), meanwhile, is conducting a study on farmers' health, with results expected next year.

tm/dfm (Reuters, AFP)

The French farmer Paul Francois, who says he suffers memory

 loss and stammering after inhaling a Monsanto pesticide. 

(Photograph: Jean-Philippe Ksiazek/AFP/Getty Images)

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Experts Said it Wouldn’t Work, But Rescue Dog and Dying 4-yr-old Proved Them Wrong

The 2012 Scenario, BZ Riger, February 11, 2012

Michelle Leifer, Vetstreet.com Wednesday, February 01, 2012

Experts Said it Wouldn’t Work, But Rescue Dog and Dying 4-yr-old Proved Them Wrong 

As nearly anyone who has adopted a pet from a shelter can attest, there’s something special about a rescued animal; it’s as if they can sense they’ve been given a second chance at life. That’s certainly the case with Juno, a Belgian Malinois who was adopted just days before she was to be euthanized. But since coming to live with her family in Alcoa, Tenn., she now has taken on the role of rescuer to a dying boy whom experts believed was not suited for any service dog.

Four-year-old Lucas Hembree suffers from Sanfilippo syndrome, an inherited, metabolic disease that causes children to lose the ability to speak, walk and eat. The disease also causes severe neurological damage that leads to aggressive behavior, hyperactivity and seizures.

With no cure or treatment currently available, Lucas isn’t expected to live past the age of 15 and may be in a vegetative state by the time he is eight. Realizing that every moment is extra precious, Chester and his wife, Jennifer, wanted their son to experience as much as he could while still having the capacity to enjoy life.

A Faith-filled Shelter Visit

When the disease started to take a toll on Lucas’ joints, Chester looked into getting a service dog to keep Lucas steady when he walked.

“I was told that a service dog would cost at least $15,000, and that Lucas wasn’t a good candidate because of his deteriorating abilities and his behavior,” Chester says. “I refused to accept this answer.”

A combination of prayer and persistence led Chester to Juno. “I came across a posting about her on a rescue group’s website,” he says. “I had the feeling in my gut that I had to go see this dog.”

The whole family made the two-hour trip to meet Juno, who was being held at an east Tennessee shelter. “She was emaciated, and was days away from being euthanized,” Chester says. “She had been surrendered to the shelter because her previous owners didn’t understand the breed.”

Fortunately, Chester did. He’d gotten to know and love the Belgian Malinois while working as a law enforcement officer years earlier.

“I used to help with the training of police K-9s, and our dogs were Belgian Malinoises,” he says. “I loved their desire to work and their ‘never quit’ attitude.”  In addition to being a popular choice for police dogs, the breed is often used in combat. In fact, it’s believed that the dog which helped Navy SEALs take down Osama bin Laden was a Belgian Malinois.

Juno Proved a Winner

But while the breed has proven its prowess on patrol and in combat, Chester needed to be sure Juno would be a suitable service dog for his little boy. “I put her on a loose leash and she walked with me and never pulled,” Chester says. “Next came the Lucas test. They took to each other immediately, like kindred spirits.”

The Hembrees brought Juno home and showered her with love and affection.

“I wanted to make sure she had plenty of time to adjust to the family before I started the formal training,” Chester says. Yet, from the beginning there seemed to be something instinctive about their relationship. One day, Chester noticed Juno circling Lucas while he was in his wheelchair. “She was whining and nudging him with her nose,” Chester says. “I checked his oxygen levels and they were very low.” After giving him oxygen, Lucas returned to normal and Juno greeted him with licks and affection.

“That’s when I knew she had the ability to pick up on his neurological changes,” Chester says. “Now she alerts us when Lucas is about to have a seizure or if his oxygen levels drop really low. She has saved him several times.”

Juno has become a literal shoulder for Lucas to lean on when walking, and a calming influence when he became agitated. And while Chester makes sure that Juno gets time off, he says that it’s hard to get Juno to leave Lucas’ side. “You don’t see one without the other close by,” he says. “It really feels like it was meant to be.”

To learn more about Lucas you can go to the Facebook page his dad writes about Lucas.

Vetstreet.com is a pet website written by top veterinarians, pet health experts and professional journalists dedicated to giving you the most accurate information possible, so you can keep your dogs and cats healthy. The key is a well-informed owner and an expert veterinary care team.

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Australian Abattoir Shut Down Over Animal Abuse

Jakarta Globe, February 10, 2012

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Sydney. An Australian abattoir has been shut down after footage emerged showing "gross mistreatment" of animals, less than a year after Canberra suspended its live cattle trade to Indonesia due to cruelty concerns.

Australia abruptly froze all cattle exports

 to Indonesia last June over animal welfare

issues (AFP/Illustration, Adek Berry)

Regulators late on Thursday said they had stopped the slaughter of animals at the Sydney plant after viewing images of sheep, cattle, goats and pigs being killed, including pigs being smashed on the head with a metal bar.

"There is no denying that the footage is disturbing. I'm shocked. I think it is the worst case I've seen in an abattoir in terms of animal welfare breaches," the New South Wales state Food Authority's Peter Day told reporters.

The incident comes after Australia abruptly froze all cattle exports to Indonesia last June over animal welfare issues, when state broadcaster ABC showed images of animals being kicked and mistreated in Indonesian abattoirs ahead of slaughter.

Trade was reinstated several weeks later after Jakarta agreed to a strict new permit system requiring exporters and slaughterhouses to guarantee animal welfare standards, but the Australian cattle industry was badly impacted.

In the latest incident, footage shown on the ABC showed a worker repeatedly hitting a pig on the head with a metal bar, while another pig was beaten several times because it had not been stunned adequately beforehand.

Day said the footage was not representative of the industry as a whole, describing the incident as a "rogue" action which was in no way compliant with what was expected of abattoirs.

The abattoir, Hawkesbury Valley Meat Processors, said the casual staff involved had been sacked or given other duties, adding it would cooperate with an ongoing investigation into the allegations.

But the issue has again highlighted the treatment of animals in slaughterhouses, with animal advocates calling for closed circuit television cameras in Australian abattoirs to prevent any mistreatment.

"One of the problems is that unlike export abattoirs, domestic abattoirs don't have an inspector or government officer on site most of the time," Animals Australia's Lyn White said. "Only the presence of cameras will actively discourage workers from engaging in such wanton acts of gross cruelty."

Australian law requires that "animals are slaughtered in a way that prevents unnecessary injury, pain and suffering to them and causes them the least practical disturbance". Fines of up to Aus$110,000 (US$118,280) or jail sentences of two years apply for acts of aggravated cruelty to animals.

Agence France-Presse

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Yes you were right Charles: Plants really can communicate with one another

Daily Mail, by Tamara Cohen, 4th February 2012

All quiet in the garden? Take another look because it seems there might be an awful lot of chatter going on in the flower beds.

In news to gladden the heart of Prince Charles, who was once much mocked for having conversations with cabbages and the like, it appears science has caught up with what many gardeners have long held true – plants can communicate.

Researchers revealed how plants talk by modifying a cabbage gene which triggers the production of a gas emitted when a plant’s surface is cut or pierced.

Close study: Charles uses magnifying glass to
inspect cacti plants in 1993

By adding the protein luciferase – which makes fireflies glow in the dark – to the DNA the plants’ emissions could be monitored on camera.

One cabbage plant had a leaf cut off with scissors and started emitting a gas – methyl jasmonate – thereby ‘telling’ its neighbours there may be trouble ahead.

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Two nearby cabbage plants, which had not been touched, received the message they should protect themselves. They did this by producing toxic chemicals on the leaves to fend off predators such as caterpillars.

It is the first time such a process has been caught on camera. Scientists say it raises the possibility that plants are all communicating with each other in a complex ‘invisible language’ which we know nothing about.

The footage will be shown as part of a three-part series called How to Grow a Planet, starting on Tuesday on BBC2 and presented by Professor Iain Stewart.

From little saplings: The Queen's oak tree which she planted is the
first of 4,000 trees that will make up Sandringham's Jubilee Wood

Professor Stewart, who saw the experiment at Exeter University, said: ‘The gas triggered a change in the biological activity in the two neighbouring plants. They detected the message warning them to protect themselves.

‘It’s fascinating to realise that there could be a constant chatter going on between  different plants, that they can in some way sense chemically what is happening to others, like a  hidden language which could be going on all around us.

‘Most people assume that plants lead a rather passive life, but in reality they move and sense and communicate. It’s almost like they show a kind of intelligence.’

The work was led by Professor Nick Smirnoff, who said it does not mean plants feel pain because they have no nerves.

Professor Smirnoff, a biochemist, said: ‘We have managed to show in a visual way that the gas emitted by plants when they have been wounded affects their neighbours.

‘But at this stage we don’t know why. They could have been trying to alert the plant’s other leaves to the damage and their neighbours have just picked it up, or they for some reason evolved to alert other plants.

‘It is not clear why that would be beneficial as you would think plants would be in competition with each other. So there’s a lot more work to be done.’

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