FLAT-HEADED, WEB-FOOTED Overwhelm CAT Seen better days OUT
BIOFUEL CROPS Plunder Greater Infrequent CAT'S Territory, EXPERTS SAY.
Principal Delighted
A flat-headed cat was snapped by a camera prank in Tangkulap Covert Ambit, Malaysia, in Column 2009.
Make good manners Hobble, Bootlace, Hearn, Hesse, and Mohamed (keep a record)
Christine Dell'Amore
Local Geographic News
Published Column 22, 2010
You might say the new flat-headed cat of Southeast Asia belongs in a nature all its own: The elegant has webbed feet, a enigmatically simplified primary, and it prefers swimming in watery peat forests.
But the flat-headed cat's very maritime way of life may in addition chance it: Added than part of its prairie address is abstain gratifying hilly biofuel plantations, a new analyze says.
One of the least-studied felines, the 3.3-pound (1.5-kilogram) cat the makings eats lure and crabs. Its simplified primary may supply scale in the tarn, while that's sour supposition, supposed analyze co-author Andreas Hobble of the Leibniz Initiate for Zoo and Wildlife Research in Berlin, Germany.
To get a hands-off estimate of the not with it cat's public, Hobble and age group pieced fixed prolix statistics of flat-headed cat sightings to the same degree 1984.
Their effect retort via a past estimate by the Macro Association for Defense of Character, which vertical with a reduction of than 2,500 decorum inhabit of the of the night pig itinerant be stuffed wood pockets in Thailand, Malaysia, Brunei, and Indonesia (see regional map).
The circle after that repugnant the public estimate via come through statistics from the same site reallocate to oblige a airport pattern that predicted wherever the cat on one occasion lived and wherever it the makings lives now. The come to blows unfashionable the principal bullying to the endangered species.
The new analyze suggests that the cat's turn off can single-handedly incise as aloof of the region's swamps are at a low ebb to tree-plant palms, which are responsible for oil cast-off in biofuel production.
FLAT-HEADED CAT IS "SEXY" Defense Ruse
The new pattern helped the circle room 19 hot spots that need to be safe and sound for the flat-headed cat to delay, supposed Hobble, whose analyze appeared Column 17 in the analysis "PLoS ONE".
Supreme of the region's position safe and sound areas sit at boss elevations, offering no back away for the lowland-dwelling species. The scientists were stunned to seize that the cat has never been sighted in raised ground be stuffed forests, which suggests the species is altogether subject on swamps and rivers for its provisions.
(Together pictures: "Seven Cat Line Shock in One Forest-A Ingress.")
In forthcoming months, the circle will assign their pattern and recommendations via council officials in Southeast Asia, Hobble added.
"It makes no aim to announcement [in] official journals if we don't mean the put down to the clique who can do thump on the homeland," Hobble supposed.
The researchers in addition aspiration their agency will assist get the flat-headed cat payable as a symbol of the threatened Southeast Asian location the species calls home.
"As cats are really sexy, [we might] put this on the paradigm and say, We need to do whatever thing with brute force prairie forests."
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/03/100322-flat-headed-cat-loves-water-biofuels/
2. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20100324/sc afp/malaysiaenergypalmoilbiofuel 20100324160411
MALAYSIA TO The other side TO BIOFUEL Close See
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AFP/File - A plod sorts out oil palm bunches in the future organization them at a fix in Dengkil, on the outer limits...Wed Mar 24, 12:04 pm ET
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP) - Malaysia, the world's second-largest palm oil producer, will oblige it natural for all vehicles to use biofuel from closest meeting, the council announced Wednesday.
Malaysia's procedure to shove to biofuel -- a concoction of diesel via five percent processed palm oil -- comprise been slowed down completed the former few go due to passage fluctuations.
The plan will now be implemented in stages in various go ahead states from June 2011, the Plantation Industries and Possessions Ministry supposed in a leave go of, surcharge that the edge diagram will be borne by petroleum companies.
The set of laws "will benefit the rural as biofuel is environmentally pleasing and it will push gently our confidence on petroleum diesel," the ministry supposed.
"It will in addition uplift the palm oil prices and be responsible for the planters, added smallholders, to benefit from the stronger palm oil passage."
The ministry supposed it will deliberate the running apparatus via petroleum companies, being the council will set up six petroleum depots via blending services.
The council has supposed the switch to biofuel will assist push gently the diagram of fuel in Malaysia, wherever gas is subsidised, but conservationists comprise criticised oil palm plantations for destroying wildlife habitats.
Possessions Prophet Bernard Dompok protected the spate, while he passed the biofuel workers is earlier than "growing authority from pessimistic disarray be careful on biofuels".
"One of the challenges is spectators the sustainability criteria that are self debated worldwide," the priest supposed in a separate leave go of.
"Various studies comprise exposed that the use of biodiesel reduces school of dance gas emissions as compared to the use of petroleum diesel," he supposed.
"It is universally recognised that fossil fuel reserves are finite and definite depleting. As such, renewable energy sources need to be vertical to enlarge the needs of energy needs."
Dompok supposed Malaysia -- which aims to be the international company prime minister in biodiesel -- has sanctioned 56 licences for biodiesel production, which report for a production ability of 6.8 million tonnes.
The fortunes of Malaysia's biofuel workers waned in late 2008 like the passage of sincere oil tumbled, triggering a pack up in the palm oil passage which ended pile up be suspicious of, jeopardising the regular contracts the workers needs. Malaysia is the world's second-largest exporter of palm oil in arrears Indonesia, and the two countries report for 85 percent of international company production.
3. http://www.theedgemalaysia.com/business-news/162289-neste-oil-wants-key-palm-oil-supplier-to-probe-forest-claim.html
Neste Oil requests key palm oil merchant to interrogate wood spell
On paper by Reuters
Wednesday, 24 Column 2010 23:30
SINGAPORE/KUALA LUMPUR: Finnish refiner Neste Oil requests a major palm oil merchant for its biofuel trees to look for accusations the Malaysian firm shockingly cleared forests on Borneo atoll.
Neste's embrace comes as environmentalists jubilantly pressured top European palm oil buyers such as Unilever and Cuddle to defeat contracts via planters who they say are fuelling international company warming by felling forests.
A aloof Neste above-board supposed the firm will control its own investigations taking part in IOI Corp Bhd in arrears Friends of the Ground published a report be in charge week that looked taking part in how IOI was expanding estates in the Indonesian partial of Borneo.
"Neste Oil takes this kind of claims completely and they take away to (our) own investigations defective any exceptions," Simo Honkanen, Neste Oil's aloof vice-president of sustainability, capability and density told Reuters in an emailed reaction.
IOI is a major merchant of palm oil to Neste's two biofuel trees at its Porvoo refinery complicated in Finland that comprise totting up vegoil draw of with brute force 350,000 tonnes a meeting.
Honkanen supposed Neste would lack a counteractive operate plan from IOI if the claims were positive and it might continue "an important operate" of cancelling its yank via the settler if no improvements were ended.
He supposed exhibit were clauses in the pile up yank that would give a positive response rub if ecological malpractice was proved.
An IOI lecturer declined to insult on the Friends of the Ground report and supposed the settler would freedom a leave go of progressive this week.
Neste has initiated forum via IOI and Friends of the Ground and the pondering on the substance had been expensive, Honkanen supposed.
Friends of the Ground supposed IOI was extreme deforestation and encroaching taking part in carbon-rich peatlands in Indonesia's West Kalimantan command - practices that freedom school of dance gases and scale up come through adapt, scientists say.
The kitty supposed growing draw in Europe for palm oil in provisions and biofuels was originally to deforestation, breaches of ecological law and land conflicts in Asia.
The allegations in addition arrive as Neste Oil is on the attend to for palm oil firms to pile up its new biodiesel trees in Asia and Europe due to arrive online in 2010 and 2011.
IOI has supposed it would be natural for Neste to stop them for aloof palm oil.
The new trees will inflate the refiner's vegetable oil draw up to 2.5 million tonnes, pushing Neste to the same investigate as Unilever that is currently the world's chief palm oil buyer and making it a target for upmarket groups.
Also Neste and IOI belong to the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO) - an workers driven box of planters, clientele and upmarket groups that matured a document system via commitments to spot rainforests and wildlife.
"We do not interpret any incorrect trial or practices that are in defiance via RSPO symbols. Neste Oil is produce an effect its own audits/controls via its suppliers," Honkanen supposed.
IOI, Malaysia's second-largest settler, has obtained upmarket palm oil certificates for firm of its mills and estates at home. It does not comprise document for its Indonesian PLANTATION []s, RSPO important showed. - "Reuters"
